News and Editorials (1827)
When Microsoft bought Skype it was to deal with a couple of issues. One of the big ones was to remove a competitor in the communications market and the other was to make sure they were not going to get sued for the direction their own communications services were taking. Microsoft had been floundering in the consumer market despite the multiple changes they tried to make to their messenger product. While their enterprise messaging software was complicated and expensive to maintain and to properly integrate with other messaging services. To combat this Microsoft was already looking to make their messaging services much more like Skype than they were.
VentureBeat talks about how development of an unnamed Blizzard MMORPG, about which rumors have been whispered for years, was stopped and returned to the beginning. From “sources close to the developers’ VentureBeat learned that the project with the working title Titan was reset and we can expect it in two years with that best case scenario.
Speaking at a conference D11 of the website AllThingsD, Apple's CEO, Tim Cook, said that the company is definitely not losing its "cool" factor, and rejected suggestions that they are losing the war on the market for mobile operating systems because their number of devices sold was convincingly surpassed by Android .
AMD kicked an interesting product out the door today in the form of their Operton X-Series APU SoC. You might remember that the possibility of this APU was leaked a while ago by an inadvertent inclusion on a slide showing the Operton X logo. Everyone knew this was going to fold over into an x86 APU based SoC and the launch was just a matter of time. Now the lid is off and we can talk about the Opteron X (Kyoto) and where AMD sees this new product in their server business and in the market as a whole.
LG has finally officially confirmed that the white Nexus 4 is just around the corner. The device comes out tomorrow in Hong Kong and in the coming weeks in the territory of Asia, North America and Europe. From the published photo it is not clear whether it will have like a black model on the back a so-called holographic texture, but we can assume that it will.
G.Skill intends to enter into another market segment. The company announced at the Computex presentation their first product lines of the peripherals for gamers.
Mozilla has increasing support from device manufacturers for the upcoming operating system Firefox OS. Along with existing partners, Mozilla published 19th company that will support this OS, Taiwanese Foxconn.
During the Samsung V Apple patent trail we briefly covered some of the requirements that Apple has if you want to sell their products. These requirements include a minimum purchase order, marketing material, special cabinets and displays for Apple products and more. These tactics make it seem almost impossible that anyone would be confused about what they were buying (unless the sales person was not honest). Our coverage was more about the ridiculous claim that Samsung and other Android tablets were creating marketing confusion, but we also talked a little about how these marketing requirements were a little anti-competitive.
If Microsoft is thinking that the Xbox One is just going to fly off the shelves and take over our living rooms they might have a nasty surprise in store for them. Despite the many positive features and aspects of the Xbox One there are some concerns (and complaints) from gamers, consumers, and now even privacy groups.
Looks like Yahoo wants to invest a lot of money in its future. First they purchased Tumblr last week for 1.1 billion U.S. dollars, then for an unspecified amount obtained PlayerScale, and now Hulu is their next target. The company is reportedly ready to offer 800 million U.S. dollars for this acquisition.
Google and Samsung signed an important agreement on cooperation in future projects. Google will in the commercial version of Google Glass incorporate Samsung's OLED screens, according to Korea Times.
Lenovo intends to expand the availability of their smartphones in the international market. Due to the global trend of falling demand for personal computers, Lenovo the next opportunity for growth sees in mobile devices, with a focus on smart phones.
After having their ideas shot down by popular displeasure the Copyright lobbyists are now trying to make aggressive tactics ok. They have put together a report on the state of American Intellectual property theft and have managed to build up some of the old boogeymen like they always do. This time, they are starting to make more open suggestions about fighting fire with fire. In the past these reports have always centered on the commercial market and the state of individual piracy, product copying and other more economic concepts. These were enough to get higher mandatory fines, to criminalize certain fair use tactics and more. Now by subtly changing the report to show highlight the national security aspect the industry hopes to be given considerably more power to act.
OCZ has introduced a Vertex 450 line of SSDs, which will be available in capacities of 128, 256 and 512 GB. According to the company, Vertex 450 should offer quality, performance and reliability close to Vector series, but at a slightly lower price.
VIA under market name WonderMedia presented another mobile processor for cheap smartphones and tablets. Featured chip WM8880 is designed for mobile devices from the lower market segment and should compete with similar solutions like MediaTek and other companies.
After they unveiled their new game console, Xbox One, which will among other things be equipped with the new version of Kinect, Microsoft announced that a similar equipment for computers based on Windows will be issued next year.
Microsoft has unveiled two new wireless mouses adapted to users of Windows 8. They are larger model Sculpt Comfort Mouse and smaller Sculpt Mobile Mouse, both of which are intended for less demanding users and generally only have the basic controls and standard functionalities.
HTC is satisfied with the sales results of their flagship smartphone One. Unnamed company's manager for the Wall Street Journal said that so far they have sold about 5 million units HTC One.
Security experts from Hoax-Slayer posted a warning to Facebook Page owners about e-mails that they receive from the "Facebook Security", in which they were informed of the new system for the protection of sites called "Fan Page Verification Program."
Samsung boasted with sales results of its most powerful smartphone, Galaxy S4. The device in less than a month after the launch sold 10 million copies, setting a new record for Samsung. Galaxy S3 sold 10 million copies in 50 days, a Galaxy S2 for the same number took full five months. The popularity and acceptance of the company's most powerful smartphones is skyrocketing.
What’s this??? A US Senator, John Cornyn (R-TX), is working to introduce a patent reform law that will help to limit the number of suits created by Patent Trolls. Called the “Patent Abuse Reduction Act of 2013” the bill looks to be a step in the right direction at least when considering Patent Holding companies. The problem is that this bill does little to stop or slow down filing obvious, vague, or patents covered by prior art which many of these suits stem from.
Rob Hodson from Electronic Arts via Twitter said that FIFA 14 on PC will not be based on the recently discovered engine Ignite. Specifically, Ignite remains reserved exclusively for the Xbox and PlayStation 4 One, and PC this time remains aloof.
Innodisk nanoSSD introduced the first solid state device made according to JEDEC MO-276 SATA μSSD specification. It is a complete SSD packed into one BGA chip with a dimensions of 16x20x2 mm and weighing only 1.5 grams, available in capacities from 4 to 64 GB.
Microsoft has put up an interesting new video spot where they attack the iPad on its in ability to truly multi-task, the static display and Office. The spot is sort of clever and uses Siri to highlight the points at each step. The goal of the ad is to show Windows 8 on a tablet as a true productivity device. As you might expect truth in advertising is a little limited in the ads, but we could be seeing a change in the way that Microsoft is approaching marketing. This is a good thing considering the dreadful sales that Windows 8 and Windows RT are showing right now.
Kim Dotcom is back in the news as he is now claiming ownership of Two Factor Authentication. Although the claim might seem ludicrous to many it seems there is a kernel of truth in them as well. What is interesting is the timing of the claim and how he wants to settle things. Unlike many others that hold patents, Dotcom is not looking to make a bunch of lawyers rich trying to assert his claim. Instead he would like Google, Twitter and others that are using his patented idea to help fund his legal defense in the US.
At yesterday's hearing before the Senate committee, the head of Apple, Tim Cook, has confirmed that the company will invest $100 million into production process in the United States, specifically in Texas. Computers will also be made from components manufactured in the states of Illinois and Florida with equipment made in Kentucky and Michigan.
The main characteristics of autism are decreased or nonexistent social interaction and communication, and restricted and repetitive patterns of behavior. Although this is a really serious disorder, people with autism often achieve high scores on IQ tests, and their focus on tasks (that they want to do), has been recognized by the Board of SAP as a great resource for writing large amounts of code, or programming.
Apple is not having a good run of luck lately. They are sagging behind their rival and manufacturing partner Samsung by almost 2 to 1 in terms of unit sales which is hurting consumer confidence in their phone and tablet products. Apple is also probably going to lose their suit with the Department of Justice over eBook Price fixing which will impact the pile of cash they have an investor confidence. To further add insult to injury they are under investigation for their tax policies in the US an overseas. The Apple mythology is crumbling faster and faster while others jump in to pick up the pieces. Apple may even be delaying the launch of new products which is not doing them helping their situation considering Samsung and others have much faster refresh times than Apple can maintain.
The Era of the Ethernet began on 22nd May in 1973. when Robert Metcalfe, a researcher at the famous Xerox PARC research center in Palo Alto, California, sent a brief letter in which he proposed a medium for transmitting electromagnetic waves, and among other things drew the bottom sketch of the new emerging standards.
It is about 24 hours since Microsoft pushed the Xbox One out the door (figuratively) and already sides are being drawn up. In our coverage of the market we expected to see two sides in the coming argument with the Console Purists on one side and the Console Enthusiasts on the other. We were way off base as there are now multiple sides in the debate. One big group that we did not count on was the game renters and resellers. Due to the high price of many games a large segment of the market will now rent games before they buy them. In this manner they can save some money if the game turns out to be a dud. Many gamers also trade-in and resell their games (to get money to buy the next round). Unfortunately for these group Microsoft appears to have forgotten them (along with locking out Xbox 360 games).
