Iran raised the issue earlier this month and heightened the rhetoric this week.

From CNN:

On state-run Press TV, the Iranian regime warns it may take legal action against Google for not labeling the Persian Gulf …

“Toying with modern technologies in political issues is among the new measures by the enemies against Iran, (and) in this regard, Google has been treated as a plaything,” Foreign Ministry spokesman Ramin Mehmanparast said Thursday, according to state-run Press TV.

He added that “omitting the name Persian Gulf is (like) playing with the feelings and realities of the Iranian nation.”

Iran went so far as to accuse Google of carrying out the objectives of Iranian enemies, according to CNN.

CNN adds that at least nine Facebook (Nasdaq: FB) pages are devoted to this Google Maps/Persian Gulf issue, including “Hey Google, put Persian Gulf back on the map” and “Boycott Google for removing Persian Gulf from the maps.”

UK to Collect Suspects’ Phone Info

The Metropolitan Police, which is the largest police service in and around London, will start collecting mobile phone data from detained suspects, according to the BBC.

The data in question includes text messages, contacts and call histories, according to the BBC.

From the BBC:

Until now, officers had to send mobiles off for forensic examination in order to gather and store data, a process which took several weeks.

Under the new system, content will be extracted using purpose built terminals in police stations.

It will allow officers to connect a suspect’s mobile and produce a printout of data from the device, as well as saving digital records of the content.

The extraction of data can only be carried out if there is “sufficient suspicion” that the suspect used the mobile phone for criminal activity. Once it is carried out, however, it will be retained whether or not the suspect is charged, according to the BBC.

Televised Twitter Disaster Goes to Police

British media outlet Sky News met with police Thursday to discuss the live broadcast of a rape victim’s name via a Twitter feed, according to The Guardian.

The error occurred during a report about Twitter users who had disclosed the identity of the woman whom professional soccer player Ched Evans was convicted of raping.

From The Guardian:

Officers from North Wales police on Thursday questioned four staff at Sky News’ Osterley headquarters in southwest London after the broadcaster inadvertently displayed a Twitter feed that named the 19-year-old victim on air last month …

Sky News said in a statement: “Yesterday we met with North Wales police to demonstrate and explain the technical error which caused the inadvertent broadcast of the victim’s name in a recent serious sexual assault case.

“The name was on screen for a fraction of a second and was visible only when viewed in slow motion. We apologized to the victim and her family as soon as we became aware of the error and are co-operating fully with the police.”

The article goes on to report that it is now up to the Crown Prosecution Service whether or not to press charges.

Evans was sentenced to five years in prison.

Anonymous Goes After India

Hacker group Anonymous attacked a slew of websites in India, according to British outlet The Register.

The DDoS blitz targeted sites of the Supreme Court, India’s two main political parties and several other government sites.

The attack was spurred by a court injunction which led to the blocking of multiple file-sharing sites.

From The Register:

While some sites, such as those of the two parties and the Supreme Court, appear to be up and running again now, the Department of Telecoms and the Ministry of IT sites were still down at the time of writing.

Also down for ‘maintenance’ was the site of Copyright Labs, the Chennai-based antipiracy firm which obtained the original John Doe Injunction (via ArsTechnica) against sites such as Vimeo, DailyMotion and The Pirate Bay to prevent illegal sharing of local films “Dammu” and “3.”

Anonymous recently hit British ISP Virgin Media after it enacted the UK’s block of The Pirate Bay.

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Japan’s Honda Motors has unveiled a new auto-balancing unicycle with hands-free controls.

The Uni-Cub is designed for indoor use and can reach speeds of up to 6km/h.

In other news, scientists in Japan have found a way to make wi-fi internet connections up to 20 times faster.

Spencer Kelly presents these and other technology news stories.

Follow the Click team on Twitter

@BBCClick.

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There are times in your life where you need to see a doctor sooner rather than later.

If you are new in town or are traveling, you may have no idea where to find a good doctor, much less one with available appointments. If you already have a doctor, you may dread having to navigate through an automated phone menu, be put on hold and struggle with a receptionist to find an appointment at the earliest convenient time.

Your solution may be ZocDoc – a free service that is designed to help you not only find a doctor, but also to schedule appointments. Similar to OpenTable, which helps you discover restaurants and make reservations, ZocDoc can help you find new physicians and make appointments with your regular provider.

ZocDoc lets you search for doctors based on:

• Distance from you
• Area of specialty
• Insurance plans accepted
• Available appointments
• Ratings from existing patients

You can access ZocDoc from its website, a participating doctor’s website or from an app on your Android, BlackBerry, iPhone, iPad or iPod Touch.

I recently spoke with Cyrus Massoumi, CEO of ZocDoc, who said that ZocDoc is available for medical appointments in 17 geographic markets, with plans to expand to the entire U.S. by the end of 2013 and later to other countries. The service covers 40 different specialties, including medical doctors, dentists, physical therapists and nutritionists. Not all specialties are available in all markets yet. ZocDoc qualifies all of its physicians, reviewing their board certifications and credentials.

Massoumi informed me that within the next 90 days they have more than 165,000 appointments available in the Philadelphia area and 7 million appointments available throughout the U.S. ZocDoc integrates with a doctor’s computerized scheduling system, but it also has tools for medical practices that use paper books for their scheduling. When an appointment is made or canceled, ZocDoc will reflect that change on its site within seconds.

Convenience

According to ZocDoc, the average wait time in the U.S. for a doctor’s appointment is more 20 days but the average wait for a patient using ZocDoc is much less: 24 to 48 hours. “There’s a certain portion of the population who always chooses doctors based on convenience,” Massoumi explained. “They want to find the right doctor at the right time at the right location.”

By using ZocDoc, you can see view when a doctor has available times and then decide which of those times fits your schedule.

Your doctor’s office probably isn’t open 24/7 but by using ZocDoc you can make appointments day and night, even when your doctor’s office is closed. You don’t have to wait for the office to be open to make an appointment.

Doctor Reviews

An additional advantage of using ZocDoc is the review system. Unlike other online review sites, ZocDoc asks actual patients to rate the doctors. The reviews on ZocDoc are only from patients who have been seen by that doctor, not from the general public.

“The reviews are community-based,” explained Massoumi. “The community rates the doctors. We don’t edit or pull reviews down. A doctor’s reputation on ZocDoc has a huge bearing on how well they do with our service.”

Background Information

You can also view additional information on a doctor, such as education, hospital affiliations and professional statements. Massoumi points out that often what matters most with a new doctor is how quickly you can be seen, but if background information is important to you, it’s available on ZocDoc.

A Doctor’s Perspective

I also spoke with Dr. Christine Stanko, a dermatologist with Bryn Mawr Dermatology, about her experiences using ZocDoc. Her practice has been using the service for about two months, and she has been very pleased at the effect the service has had on her practice. “Every day I’m getting an average of two patients scheduling with ZocDoc,” Dr. Stanko said. “It’s definitely been a positive experience.” These patients are a combination of existing patients and new patients to the practice, she said.

Dr. Stanko says her patients especially enjoy the added convenience of being able to make an appointment at any time of the day or week. “Patients like that even in the evenings and on weekends they can still schedule their appointments.”

She also pointed out other benefits that ZocDoc has had for her practice. “ZocDoc is also saving staff time because they don’t need to be on the phone so much.” Her staff is more efficient because they can spend more time with the patients in the office. They appreciate a more peaceful environment “without the phones ringing off the hook all day.”

Apps

As useful as ZocDoc is, the service is even more convenient when using the ZocDoc app. Just grab your smartphone and make an appointment without getting out of bed or off of the sofa. You can let the app figure out your location and show you the closest doctors in a list or on a map, which can be especially handy when you’re traveling.

By choosing a doctor, either on the list or the map, you can see a picture of the doctor, address, reviews, education, languages spoken and the available appointment times.

The ZocDoc app is available free for Android devices at Google Play, BlackBerry devices at App World, and for iPhone, iPad and iPod Touch at the iTunes App Store.

Carolyn Nicander Mohr is a Chester County resident and the creator of a website, the Wonder of Tech. Contact her at wonderoftech@gmail.com.

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For the Harvard dorm-born social network that reimagined how people communicate online, the stock sale means more money to operate the data centers that hold the trove of status updates, photos and videos shared by Facebook’s 900 million users. It means more money to hire the best engineers to work at its sprawling Menlo Park, Calif., headquarters, or in New York City, where it opened an engineering office last year.

And it means early investors, who took a chance seeding the young social network with start-up funds six, seven and eight years ago, can reap big rewards. Peter Thiel, the venture capitalist who sits on Facebook’s board of directors, invested $500,000 in the company back in 2004. He’s selling nearly 17 million of his shares in the IPO, which means he’ll get some $640 million.

The offering values Facebook, whose 2011 revenue was $3.7 billion, at as much as $104 billion. The sky-high valuation has its skeptics. Google Inc., whose revenue stood at $38 billion last year, has a market capitalization of $207 billion.

“There seems to be somewhat of a hype around the stock offering,” says Gartner analyst Brian Blau in somewhat of an understatement.

There are a few reasons for the exuberance. One is the IPO’s sheer size. Investor appetite for the stock will likely propel Facebook’s valuation above other well-known companies such as Kraft, Disney and even Amazon.com.

Secondly, it’s personal.

“It’s probably one of the first times there has been an IPO where everyone sort of has a stake in the outcome,” Blau says. While most Facebook users won’t see a penny from the offering, they are all intimately familiar with the company, so it resonates as something they understand.

And then there’s CEO Mark Zuckerberg, who just turned 28 on Monday. He has emerged as the latest in a lineage of Silicon Valley prodigies who are alternately hailed for pushing the world in new directions and reviled for overstepping their bounds. He’s counted the late Apple CEO Steve Jobs among his mentors and he became one of the world’s youngest billionaires — at least on paper — well before Facebook went public. A dramatized version of Facebook’s founding was the subject of a Hollywood movie that won three Academy Awards last year, propelling Zuckerberg even further into the public spotlight.

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http://www.delmarvanow.com/article/20120518/NEWS01/120518004/TECHNOLOGY-Facebook-s-Zuckerberg-rings-bell-open-Nasdaq-trading

Facebook has raised $16bn after launching its IPO on the Nasdaq (Nasdaq: ^NDX – news) , making it the
third-biggest offering ever in the US. Here is a selection of other tech
floats that have either gone on to soar or disappoint.

Apple (Xetra: 865985 – news)

In 1975, Steve Jobs and Steve Wozniak began work on what would become Apple I
computer essentially a circuit board in Jobs’ bedroom. Today
Apple (NasdaqGS: AAPL – news) is worth more than $500bn and its products are arguably the most
sought-after in the world.

No one could forsee the meteroic rise that would grace Apple – the launch
appeared on page 12 of the Wall Street Journal – especially not the
regulators in Massachusetts. Prior to the IPO, the state deemed the move “too
risky”. When Steve Jobs took his technology company public on December
12, 1980, it was behind Tandy in sales of personal computers.

At the IPO, Apple shares were offered to the general public at a price of $14
each. At the opening bell, the stock was priced $22 and sold all 4.6m shares
within minutes. In its first day of trading Apple closed at $29, giving the
company a market valuation of $1.778bn.

The company made less than $100m from selling its stock to the public – a sum
Apple now makes in eight hours in its stores.

However, Apple’s stock offering had generated more capital than any IPO since
Ford (NYSE: F – news) in 1956 and instantly created about 300 millionaires at Apple more
than any company in history at the time. Jobs, holding 7.5m shares, was
worth about $217m. He said: “I was worth over a million dollars when I was
twenty-three, and over ten million dollars when I was twenty-four, and over
a hundred million dollars when I was twenty-five… And it wasn’t that
important because I never did it for the money.”

After the initial flurry, its share price bumped along for almost of two
decades, until Jobs, who was famously ousted in the early 1990s, returned
to the business. His sharp focus on perfecting a handful of products –
notably the Mac, the iPhone and the iPad – transformed the business as well
as the share price, turning the old hierarchy with Microsoft (NasdaqGS: MSFT – news) , Apple’s
archrival, on its head.

Last month Apple recorded Q1 profits of $11.62bn. Revenues hit $39.19bn.

=
Google
=

When Google launched its IPO in August 2004, the dotcom bubble had burst and
big-money institutional investors were far from interested in tech stocks.

They then launched their IPO in a slightly odd way. Instead of letting the
underwriter dish out shares to favoured institutions, Google (NasdaqGS: GOOG – news) held a “Dutch”
auction in which everyone who wanted a share put in a bid. The lowest
successful bid became the price that everyone got their shares at, even if
they bid a higher amount. This method guarantees that the initial offering
price is set to sell all of the shares at a price that conservatively
reflects market demand.

Google’s initial price range for the stocks was between $108 and $135 per
share. However, that fell to $85, opened at $100 and closed at $100.34. The
company had raised $1.67bn, but smart Google employees had purchased shares
for as little as 30 cents a share when it was still a private company.

Founders Larry Page and Sergey Brin each made more than $40m from the float
and still retained 16pc stakes in the business.

The stock traded at 19-times forward earnings in 2004 on growth of more than
100pc. Google closed at $194 at year-end 2004, reaping the IPO investors a
healthy gain.

The tech giant then delivered higher earnings every year through 2007, albeit
also at a slower growth rate, and from the IPO until the end of 2005 the
stock movement was consistently upward.

Last month Google said Q1 profits hit $2.89bn on revenues of more than $10bn.

=
Ebay (NasdaqGS: EBAY – news)
=

The online marketplace almost tripled its share price after the first day of
trading on September 24, 1998 – the height on the dotcom bubble.

Shares in eBay jumped 163.2pc to close at $47.375, up $29.375 from its target
price of $18 a share. The stock opened at $53.5.

Floating 3.5m shares, eBay raised $63m, and boasted a market cap of around
$1.9bn.

During the first six months of 1998, the company reported profits of $348,000
on revenues of $14.9m.

In April it revealed Q1 profits of $725m on revenues of $3.3bn.

=
IBM (Euronext: IBMA.NX – news)
=

Listing in 1916, IBM (NYSE: IBM – news) is the original poster child for technology boom and
bust. After eight years on the New York Stock Exchange as Computing Tabulating
Recording Corporation, the company changed its name to International
Business Machines and ushered in a period of extraordinary growth – becoming
a kind of early 20th century equivalent of Apple.

Between 1927 and 1929, demand for its time cards and accounting machines
helped to more than quadruple its value from $54 a share to a peak of $216
shortly before the Wall Street crash.

Then, along with the rest of the market, it came a cropper. By 1932, IBM’s
share price had sunk to just $9.125.

Its (Euronext: ALITS.NX – news) then-president, Thomas Watson, declared that IBM would spend its way
through the slump, investing $1bn in research and development and keeping
its factories running at full speed even though it meant stockpiling
computers in warehouses. It was a high-risk strategy, but one that paid off
and helped propel IBM shares steadily higher until the early 1980s.

The company raised cash through a series of share splits, such that one share
in 1924 would by now have proliferated to 3,460, worth more than $500,000
and nearly $9,000 in annual dividends.

Last month, IBM posted Q1 profits of $3.1bn on revenues of $24.7bn.

=
Microsoft (EUREX: MSTF.EX – news)
=

Microsoft initially planned to offer 2.5m shares at its IPO in March 1986, but bumped
that figure up to 3m at the last minute after being inundated with requests
from investors.

“I’ve never received as many phone calls about a new offering as I have
over the last month with Microsoft,” Ron McCollum, a broker with Paine
Webber in Seattle, said at the time.

Trading opened at $21 per share and almost immediately shot up to near the
first-day closing price of $27.75.

Not surprisingly, Microsoft’s co-founders, Bill Gates and Paul Allen, became
instant millionaires – although Allen told the Seattle Post-Intelligencer ,
that while he might buy some Champagne, the riches wouldn’t change his life.

Those with equity stakes got to enjoy that day many times over, as the company
split its shares nine times, handing them a fresh windfall every few years
until the last split in 2003. Microsoft’s shares rose sharply and
steadily throughout the latter half of the 1990s.

However, Microsoft’s upswing ended in the early 2000s. After riding high
for nearly a decade, it ceded its place in the technology pecking order to
Apple, falling from a high of $58.38 a share in 1999 to around half that
figure, where it has remained pretty stagnant since.

In April Microsoft revealed Q1 profits of $5.11bn on revenues of $17.41bn.

=
Yahoo (NasdaqGS: YHOO – news) !
=

Of all the technology juggernauts whose rise has been followed by a fall,
Yahoo!’s has been the most marked.

It set a target price of $13 at its IPO in 1996 but a frenzied day of trading saw
them open at $24.50 and close at $33 — giving Yahoo! a market value of
$848m. At the time, it was the Nasdaq’s second-biggest first-day gain
(behind Secure Computing Corporation, another internet startup) and handed
Jerry Yang and David Filo, the two Stanford University graduates who
launched the company, $165m apiece.

Many early investors in the search company were individuals rather than the
traditional institutions, eager to cash in on the dotcom boom and attracted
by Yahoo!’s memorable name. All the same, some commentators hailed the
frenzy as “startling” given Yahoo! faced “a host of
competitors who have nearly identical products”. They also wrinkled
their noses at Yahoo!’s $634,000 loss on $1.4m of revenues.

Those commentators turned out to be right.

The late 1990s dotcom darling escaped a big boom and bust, and in 2008
famously turned down Microsoft’s $31-a-share bid because it thought it
could do better. Instead of doing that, however, it settled into a steady
decline as similar companies grew up around it – only ones that were smarter
and had more purpose. Since Microsoft’s offer, Yahoo! has nearly
halved in value.

In April it announced Q1 profits of $287m on revenues of $1.2bn.

=
Amazon
=

Three years after Amazon launched in 1997, it capitalized on the dotcom boom and
went public, turning its founder Jeff Bezos into America’s second-richest
man under 40.

Before the IPO, the pioneering online retailer raised its target price twice,
starting at $12 to $14 before settling on $18 a share the night before it
went public. It ended its first day of trading $54m richer as shares soared
30pc – never mind the fact that the company had never turned a profit, and
would not do so for another six years.

Inevitably, analysts were divided. “Twenty (LSE: TWE.L – news) times sales is a big market cap,”
Ragen Mackenzie at Seattle’s Ragen MacKenzie said at the time. “What
people have to wrestle with is the competitive entry of Barnes Noble (Dusseldorf: BAR.DU – news)
and Borders.”

So far those fears have proved unfounded. Amazon routinely chalked up losses
as it plowed funds into its monolithic website, but it also managed to grow
its online audience from 2,200 daily visitors in December 1995 to about
50,000 at the time of its IPO, and 282m last June — more than a fifth of
people using the internet.

Its share price has followed a similar trajectory as the company expanded into
different retail markets, and then into hardware with the launch of the
Kindle e-reader and the Kindle Fire tablet computer.

Last month Amazon announced Q1 profits of $130m on revenues of $13.18bn.

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In this video, Julia Karow, Editor of Clinical Sequencing News, interviews Saskia Biskup, CEO of the Center for Genomics and Transcriptomics, or CeGaT, at the company’s headquarters in Tübingen, Germany.

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The new Golfsmith Christiana store, located at 60 Geoffrey Drive off Churchman Road just north of Christiana Mall, is Golfsmith’s 85th store. The grand opening marks the sixth new Golfsmith location opened this year as part of Golfsmith’s aggressive expansion strategy of 10 new store openings and four store relocations. More than 20 associates were hired in the new Delaware location.

Golfsmith’s expansion is bucking a major retail trend in the golf industry. In the last decade, almost half of all golf retail stores in America closed, according to the National Golf Foundation. By the end of 2012, Golfsmith International Holdings, Inc. (Nasdaq:GOLF – News), will serve customers in 89 locations from coast to coast.

“Golfsmith’s experiential concept will make most customers’ jaws drop. Our arrival in Delaware signals a new standard in retail to help golfers play better and enjoy the game more,” said Golfsmith CEO Marty Hanaka. “We are a golfer’s paradise offering a huge product selection with the best equipment from brands like Titleist, PING, Callaway, TaylorMade, Mizuno and MacGregor. We encourage customers to ‘try before they buy,’ right in the store. And we offer a 115% Low Price Guarantee on everything we sell with a commitment to exceptional customer service by the best retail professionals in the industry.”

On Friday, May 18 and Saturday, May 19, the first 500 customers in line before the doors open at 8 AM will receive one of the following absolutely free – a $20 Golfsmith card, a free two-pack of golf balls or a round of golf at Deerfield Golf Club. Customers can also register all weekend long for a chance to win incredible prizes totaling more than $10,000 including drivers, iron sets, bags, balls, apparel and much more. Winners will be selected by random drawing at the close of business on May 20.

The new Christiana store also features the latest custom-fitting technology that will help Golfsmith certified fitting specialists identify the right clubs for a golfer’s individual abilities. A recently released study of several thousand golfers found a majority of golfers in America play with clubs that do not fit them properly (www.customfityourgame.com). Golfsmith traces its roots to making custom-fit clubs beginning in 1967 and offers free custom fitting services at all stores. In fact, they have fit more than one million golfers over the last 45 years. Every custom fit club is backed by the Golfsmith Custom-fit Play Better Guarantee. If customers do not see improvement in their game after getting custom fit they can bring back their clubs within 30 days for an in-store credit.

Golfsmith offers a comprehensive online store at www.golfsmith.com where area residents can register for special offers and updates on grand opening details by signing up for “E-mail Offers” on the company’s web site. To read the NGF report ‘The State of the Industry’, please click here: https://www.box.com/s/yc495selsybg0hbvlmq4

Attention Photo Editors:

To download high-resolution images of Golfsmith’s stores, please click this link:

https://www.box.com/s/lgptdvgqo9e7sjl1lie8

Attention Video Editors:

To download broadcast quality, HD video of Golfsmith’s stores, please click this link:

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About Golfsmith – Golfsmith International Holdings, Inc. (Nasdaq:GOLF – News), is a 45-year-old specialty retailer of golf and tennis equipment, apparel and accessories. The company operates as an integrated multi-channel retailer, offering its customers the convenience of shopping in its 85 stores across the United States, through its web site at golfsmith.com and from its assortment of catalogs. Golfsmith offers an extensive product selection that features premier branded merchandise, as well as its proprietary products, clubmaking components and pre-owned clubs. Visit www.Golfsmith.com.

The Golfsmith International Holdings, Inc. logo is available at http://www.globenewswire.com/newsroom/prs/?pkgid=9492

Cautionary Language - Certain statements made in this news release are forward-looking in nature and, accordingly, are subject to risks and uncertainties. These forward-looking statements are only predictions based on our current expectations and projections about future events. Important factors could cause our actual results, performance or achievements to differ materially from those expressed or implied by these forward-looking statements. Golfsmith (R) is a registered trademark of Golfsmith International Holdings, Inc.

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UNIVERSITY PARK, Pa., May 17 (UPI) — As communication companies merge telephone, television and Internet services, some customers may be left on the wrong side of the digital divide, a U.S. researcher says.

Telephone companies are asking government regulators to free them of their traditional role as a public utility, citing the availability of new communication technologies such as cellular phones and fiber optic cable that make copper-based telephone land lines obsolete.

However, not all these alternatives are as affordable and as ubiquitous as copper landlines, a problem that could leave many rural residents underserved, Penn State telecommunication researcher Rob Frieden says.

“Moving away from copper lines is an example of abandoning obsolete technology and embracing technology that is faster, better, cheaper and more convenient,” he said. “But the risk is that we may be creating a digital divide — not necessarily a divide between the rich and poor, but between the information rich and information poor.”

Rural customers could replace land line telephones with cellular phones, for example, but most cell phone companies charge a fee for each minute of use — metering — while most fees for land lines are unmetered and are paid through a fixed monthly charge, he said.

Frieden said there are doubts cellular service will prove to be as dependable as landlines.

“Cell phone companies have these colorful maps that show how well they cover areas,” Frieden said. “But there are lots of places — including places in rural Pennsylvania, West Virginia and New York — that do not have cell phone service, or offer limited services not suitable for broadband, Internet access.”

“There are other forms of competition now,” Frieden acknowledges, “but these alternatives are not fair or adequate everywhere.”

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