When it comes to alternative payment methods, PayPal is pretty much the leader right now, but when NFC comes to fruition will it be overshadowed? The company says no.

Over the last several years, Paypal has built up an incredible brand in a market where it has almost zero competition – an alternative way to pay for products and services that doesn’t involve using a credit card.The alternative payment provider has even dabbled in the world of retail stores, offering dedicated terminals at select pilot locations. It perhaps has the most to lose if an advancing technology like NFC takes over.Paypal has actually developed its own NFC app that allows users to tap two phones together to transfer money to and from their respective Paypal accounts, but the company says this is not where the evolution of payments lies.The whole point of NFC is that you can use your phone instead of a credit card at retail point-of-sale locations.

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Overview

A very cool physics platformer crept into the market last week in the form of Tongue Tied! from Mojo Bones. Tongue Tied is the story of two dogs named Mick & Ralph that have to travel around tied at the tongue. The title says it all with this one as you’ll quickly find out when you flick Mike by his tongue…

Tongue Tied! has a very interesting gameplay mechanic; your dogs are tied together at the tongue and you’ll have to kind of fling on (or the other) towards bones scattered about the level. The levels constantly move/scroll so you’ll need to react quickly to get your rewards scattered throughout the levels. There are quite a few moves you can pull off with the pups, and theres a quick tutorial that gives you the basics. Tongue Tied! has 60 levels while The Doghouse section has 33 unique challenges and some cool unlockables as well.

Verdict

Tongue Tied! is abou

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The Department of Energy and Climate Change (DECC) has refused to rule out further legal action if it fails to win an appeal tomorrow over its plans to rush through deep cuts to solar subsidies, potentially prolonging uncertainty over the future of the feed-in tariff scheme.

Court of Appeal judges will tomorrow morning decide if DECC can appeal against a High Court ruling, which last month declared that plans to effectively halve feed-in tariff incentives for installations completed after 12 December 2011 were unlawful.

Climate minister Greg Barker has consistently argued that an accelerated timetable for cutting solar incentives was necessary to prevent the feed-in tariff scheme exceeding its budget, even if that meant changes to the scheme would come into effect before the official consultation on the proposed reforms closed on 23 December.

According to Friends of the Earth, one of the parties leading the legal action against the government, the court will tomorrow decide whether to allow DECC to appeal against the original court decision. If it does, it will also pass judgment on the appeal.

However, it remains unclear whether tomorrow’s ruling will provide the solar industry with the clarity it is seeking over the future of feed-in tariff levels.

Barker confirmed last week that if DECC wins the appeal it will reinstate the 12 December effective cut-off date for the higher incentive rate, subject to the results of the consultation.

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I finally got to get some hands-on time with the new Fuji X-Pro1 at CES 2012.  After handing out Camera of the Year honors in 2011 to the Fuji X100, Ive been itching to see what Fuji had coming for the oft-rumored interchangeable lens lineup.  Based on what Ive seen so far, the Fuji X-Pro1 looks like it wont disappoint and should easily be in the running for the 2012 Camera of the Year.

The X-Pro1 has all the class and build-quality that weve come to expect from the X-series.  As was the case with the X100, the smart aperture ring and shutter dial makes manual and auto operation a breeze.

At 16MP, the X-Pro1 appears to offer solid (if not class-leading) image quality and high ISO performance for an APS-C format camera.  The form-factor is gorgeous and feels great in the hand.  It has all the deliciousness of the X100s body and adds a world of potential with interchangeable lenses.

The only downside that I see thus far (as compared to the X100) is the focal plane shutter, which offers sync speeds of 1/125s.  The X100 synced at 1/4000s thanks to its leaf shutter. My gu

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Envision Solar, a San Diego-based renewable energy company, has installed its trademark ‘solar trees’ at General Motors’ Tech Facility in Warren, Michigan. And they look fantastic. The solar tree is an innovative concept that takes advantage of idle space (parking lots, rooftops) to generate energy. Each of those trees pictured above will charge 6 electric cars, as wells as feeding power into the GM facility.

Here’s a brief video about the Solar Trees, from a New York Times report a year back:

Envision released the following announcement in the wake of the ribbon-cutting ceremony last week: “The deployment includes Solar Tree structures which incorporate Envision’s CleanChargeT CIT, “column-integrated” electric vehicle charging stations. The Solar Tree structures also incorporate Envision’s EnvisionTrakT multi-axis solar tracking technology which should increase the efficiency of the installation by as much as 25%.”

You can see the innovative tracking mechanism at work in the video above.

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 T-Mobile’s latest Windows Phone will arrive next year. The carrier has just unveiled its newest Nokia smartphone at the joint press event that was announced last week. 

Interested consumers can purchase the T-Mobile Nokia Lumia 710 starting on Jan. 11 for $49.99 after a $50 mail-in-rebate card, with a two-year service agreement.

This international version of this phone has already been announced before this event. However, a recap of the specs and features wouldn’t hurt. Here are the details for this upcoming smartphone for 2012:

• 3.7 inch 800 x 480 WVGA TFT screen with ClearBlack technology
• Windows Phone 7.5 (Mango) operating system
• 1.4GHz Snapdragon (Qualcomm MSM8255)
• removable/rechargeable 1300mAH Li-Ion battery
• 5-megapixel auto-focus camera with LED flash, 4x digital zoom, and 720p video recording at 30 fps
• 4G capable. The

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