As we all know, the general rule with open source software is that it is distributed for free. The idea being that the work the community puts into the platform will off-set money needed to pay workers. Of course, freely distributed doesn't mean it isn't a good idea to accept donations, which Canonical now does when you go to download Ubuntu.

There is now a form that will allow you to donate however much you would like when downloading Ubuntu, but the interesting part is that you are given sliders to adjust where you'd like your donation to go, much like how Humble Bundle handles its donations.

You will now be able to donate and direct your money to options like improving gaming, better variants like Kubuntu or Xubuntu, or even "phone and tablet versions of Ubuntu".

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A Michael Jackson Pepsi can 2012 was launched today for the "Bad" 25th Anniversary. PepsiCo says its Michael Jackson 2012 limited edition Pepsi soda can will be part of a marketing push globally for the beverage manufacturer.

In 1984, the Jackson World Tour was memorialized in a Pepsi Can. The can which read "Jacksons World Tour 84″ featured signature from Michael Jackson and his brothers. That can remains a collector's item to this day.

This New limited Edition Pepsi Cans is rumored to be packing an NFC badge so that MJ fans can use their NFC-capable Smartphone and hold it closer to the can to get redirected on their phone browser to a special link to download some photos and music of MJ's "Bad" Hit Album. The company didn't confirm or deny this info yet.

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The Japanese manufacturer, Sharp, has submitted a press release announcing it has started mass production of the first 5-inch Full HD 1080p display for mobiles.

The new displays will achieve an unprecedented pixel density of 443 ppi, which is over 100 ppi higher than highest currently available.

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A new infographic from Dialaphone shows the evolution of the smartphone starting with 1993's IBM Simon and working down to the Apple iPhone and the Samsung Galaxy S III. It also lists some of the newer features that smartphone users take for granted these days like 4G connection speeds, touchscreens and NFC. Below that is a clever timeline detailing the important technological advances made in music, communications and storage.

Imagine sending a text in Spanish to a non-Spanish speaking person, and the message is automatically translated to English on their device. That is the technology being tested by AT&T right now.

A customer would register their number with a preferred language, and messages that are sent in a different language are automatically translated before they are transmitted to that user's phone. That customer can then respond in their own language and the message is translated back to the recipients preferred language.

Right now, the technology is only handling translations between English and Spanish, but AT&T is already preparing to expand the project to support another six languages. The program is in a working pilot stage, being tested by AT&T employees.

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The long waited, Christopher Nolan's Batman epic The Dark Knight Rises will be released on Blu-ray combo pack, DVD, and digital download on December,4th as Warner Bros. Home Entertainment Group has just announced.

The Blu-ray combo pack is stuffed with a bunch of extras, from a documentary about the Batmobile, where all five Batmobiles are together for the first time, to Ending the Knight, an in-depth look featuring about 17 featurettes at how Nolan and his production team made The Dark Knight Rises, from Batman vs. Bane to totally demolishing a city street. There are also trailers and art galleries.

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Foxconn, the Chinese company best known for manufacturing the iPhone and iPad, has shut down one of its factories after a fight erupted among nearly 2,000 people, 40 workers were injured and some employees have been arrested.

It is not yet clear whether that particular factory was one of Foxconn's iOS device manufacturing facilities. Some analysts claim that this factory is manufacturing back covers for the iPhone 5, and others disagree saying it's likely not and is instead making Nintendo Wiis.

Also, we don't know yet what caused the brawl but Bloomberg points out that it all started between rival worker groups in Foxconn dorms. We've heard conflicting reports from the initial ones claiming fights broke out after a security guard hit an employee to another version saying it was an in-dorm clash between workers.

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As you may know, Exynos is a series of processors chips designed and manufactured by Samsung. Exynos CPU is included on all the latest Samsung GALAXY products. Users seems to be happy with the performance of this chips but CyanogenMod developers, NOT.

Responding to a query on xda-developers forum, CyanogenMod developer who goes by the forum ID "codeworkx" explained why he and other developers think that Exynos processors are bad for developers. It essentially boils down to lack of proper support from Samsung in terms of providing sources or documentation for their processors and when they do it's either outdated or incompatible.

Source (XDA)

The Aston Martin Aspire packs a 3.2-inch HVGA display and is powered by a single-core 800MHz processor. The rest of the specs include a 5MP snapper plus a VGA front facing one, 256MP RAM, 512MB ROM and a microSD slot. The connectivity package has the usual 3G, Wi-Fi, GPS and Bluetooth quartet. The Phone is poered by Android 2.3.5 Gingerbread.

There is no info of the phone's manufacturer, but it is highly possible Acer is behind this. It is available in black, white, silver, gold and rose gold colors. Aston Martin Aspire costs $1590 and use 24K gold plating, the Black version costs $1290.

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Today, AT&T's Mobile Share plan went into effect, offering customers of the nation's second largest carrier the opportunity to connect up to ten devices on one plan. Mobile share users get unlimited talk and text and can choose from various amounts of data that is shared amongst the devices on the plan.

The lowest amount of data that can be purchased is 1GB which costs $40 a month plus $45 for each smartphone that is part of the plan. The largest amount of data available with Mobile Share is 20GB which is priced at $200 plus $30 for each smartphone on the plan.

Tablets can be included by paying an additional $10 for each one on the plan and featurephones will add $30 to the cost for each unit.