Did you buy Nokia Lumia 900 Windows Phone?
I just have to ask, because your first impressions will matter to other possible buyers. Colleague Tim Conneally reviewed Lumia 900, but good as that is we need more. I want your review, too. AT&T started selling the 4G LTE Windows Phone on April 8 -- Easter Sunday -- when the major malls here in San Diego were closed. Heck, even my local Target shuttered for the holiday. It's Tuesday, and that's time enough for your first impressions.
I got to thinking more about Lumia 900 last night when something quite unexpected happened. My wife asked: "That new phone is only $99?" Which one? "The Nokia". She had seen a TV commercial for the handset. My wife has never asked me about an advertised phone before. Never. Never. Never. If Mrs. Non-Geek Artist is intrigued, what about enthusiasts rushing out to buy Lumia 900? Is it a bruiser or a loser?
Amazon rolls out in-app billing in Android apps, catches up to Google Play
Amazon on Tuesday launched in-app billing in its Android App Store, allowing developers to include for-pay content upgrades, subscriptions, and other purchase-driven features to their applications. The feature comes exactly one year after Google introduced in-app billing in the Android Market (now known as Google Play.)
Data from mobile app analytics company Flurry last year suggested that mobile games based on the "freemium" model earned two-thirds of all the revenue of the top 100 games. This business model is based on giving away the game, and keeping it free to play, but earning money through in-app purchases such as add-ons and content expansion packs.
HP takes on Amazon, launches public cloud
In a move aimed at unseating Amazon's dominance in the space, HP on Tuesday launched a cloud service known as HP Converged Cloud that allows companies to take advantage of the company's expansive data centers. Converged Cloud is very much like Amazon Web Services, which is by far the largest provider of public cloud access.
HP will offer on-demand instances and virtual machines, and users will pay for the resources they use starting May 10. In addition, two Infrastructure-as-a-Service offerings will launch: one a storage service that assists in moving data from one instance to another, and the other a relational database tool for MySQL.
Kaspersky tool detects and removes Flashback/Flashfake Trojan from Macs
If there’s one silver lining to the cloud cast over Mac users by the recent revelation that the Flashback/Flashfake Trojan has infected over 600,000 Macs worldwide, it’s surely the end to the myth that Macs are invulnerable to viruses and other malware. Seasoned Mac users will have never claimed anything different, but now there’s no excuse for any Mac users to run without protection of some form or other.
Of course, before you can bolt the barn door, you need to make sure no horses have escaped, which is where Kaspersky’s free Flashfake Removal Tool comes in. As the name implies, it’s designed to remove any specific Flashback/Flashfake infection from your Mac; it’ll quickly scan for infection, inform you of the result and then take steps, if necessary, to nullify the infection.
Instagram is worth $1B to Facebook
Yesterday, Facebook announced that it acquired Instagram for $1 Billion. The company is less than two years old, has no revenue, and about a dozen employees. Remember, acquisitions are about what the acquirer can do with the company in the future, not some multiple of revenues or profits today. Why is Instagram worth $1 billion?
Facebook acquired Instagram for about $30 per user, or $1B. ($30/user X 33M users = $1 billion) Facebook is valued at about $100 per user or $80 billion ($100/user X 800M users = $80 billion). Other popular social apps are valued around $20 to $50 per user. The monetization models need to work out about the same to justify the valuations.
Toshiba unveils the biggest Android tablet yet, Excite 13
Toshiba's first Android tablets, called "Thrive," were a bit thicker and boxier than their competitors; but at the Consumer Electronics Show 2012, the company revealed it had slimmed down its second generation considerably with the 10" Excite tablet.
Tuesday, Toshiba unveiled a new member of the Excite family that proves the company still has size in mind with its Android Tablets. The new Excite 13 has the largest LED touchscreen of any Android tablet yet.
Malwarebytes Anti-Malware 1.61 is an essential update for Windows 64-bit
Malwarebytes Corporation has updated its anti-malware tool, Malwarebytes Anti-Malware to version 1.61. The latest build promises 25 percent faster quick scans on Windows 64-bit, plus a number of usability enhancements, greater stability and bug fixes.
Malwarebytes Anti-Malware 1.61, which comes in both free and paid-for versions, is designed to be safely installed alongside existing anti-virus and anti-spyware software, providing a second opinion or safety net to add additional layers of protection to the user’s computer.
Bing Desktop is beautiful and annoying
Last week, Microsoft quietly released a public beta of Bing Desktop, a toolbar that brings Bing searches to your desktop (as long as it’s Windows 7, at least -- the program isn’t available for earlier versions of Windows).
And if that’s not quite enough to interest you, then the program can also double as a wallpaper changer, with its option to download and use the daily Bing image.
Tumblr for Android smokes iOS version
The official Tumblr app was a late-comer to Android, and, sigh, hasn't kept pace in the years since. That's all changed. Today's update simply puts the iOS version to shame. Surely this lead can't last.
Tumblr for Android has a spiffy new user interface, which look and feel -- including post-type icons -- is more like the social network. The revamped UI is the real deal; well close to it. The app is speedier, and that includes photo browsing as well as loading blogs and posting to them. By comparison, Tumblr for iOS looks ugly and lacking. Access to Tumblr Radar from the Android app rocks. Still there are omissions that favor Tumblr for iOS, such as audio uploads. I'm surprised this feature isn't available on the Android app (Wasn't it once?).
The misunderstood 'digital native' has a two-minute attention span
There have been quite a few studies aimed at figuring out what makes the so-called "digital native" (i.e. children of the 90's who have had Web access and mobile technology their entire lives) tick.
Most of them arrive at some disparaging conclusion or other: "Digital natives are slow to pick up nonverbal cues," "Digital natives need help understanding search," and my personal favorite, "Beware the Digital Native!" (in which Enrique Salem, president and CEO of Symantec, says digital natives don't think about identity and security "the way we do.")
Can you live a week without Google Reader?
That's the question I will answer this week, for myself, as I kiss off RSS subscriptions, press releases and the like in favor of social media and honest to goodness live interaction. The moratorium includes Google News, which I rarely look at anyway (although some of my colleagues are obsessed with it). Press releases, blog posts, etc. that I see on social networks (including blog comments), or someone refers me to, are fair game.
The objectives are simple: To see if RSS feeds are antiquated and to increase my social engagement, which too often is limited to coworkers and the stories I manage. Hey, I work at home, where the grind makes dust of real interaction unless it is pursued. Aggressively.
Need a break? Read comics with GonVisor
The PC world has so many image viewers already that downloading another probably isn’t high on your list of priorities. GonVisor is a little different, though, and just might be good enough to justify your giving it a closer look.
The program works well as a comic viewer, for instance, and is able to open all the usual CB formats (CBR, CBZ, CBA, CB7). You’ve no interest in digital comics? No problem, GonVisor can also open and view the images in folders and archives (ZIP, RAR, ACE, 7Z), as well as display individual image files.
Touchscreens are our friends
When I was in college, a housemate and I inexplicably decided to include “Friend or Foe?” in the title of every paper we wrote one semester. I’m going to one-up him here, with two Friend-or-Foe headings in a single column. Take that, Eric.
Now for the first one. “Laptop Touchscreens: Friend or Foe?” This debate, which began a couple of years ago with the rise in popularity of all-in-one desktops with touch interfaces, is percolating again now that touch is migrating onto laptops.
Facebook acquires mega-popular Instagram for a cool Billion
Just days after making its big arrival on the Android platform, popular photo-filtering social network Instagram will be acquired by leading social network Facebook.
The acquisition will give San Francisco-based Instagram approximately $1 billion in cash and shares of Facebook. The deal will close later this quarter.
Does the world really need another CPU monitor?
At first glance PTray doesn’t seem like the most interesting of tools. Does the world really need another CPU monitor? Probably not: on the rare occasions that we care about our CPU utilization, Task Manager and Performance Monitor generally tell us everything we need to know.
Take a closer look, though, and you’ll find there’s a little to more to the program than meets the eye.
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