The Cloud will be major job creator (for India and China) says study
In the United States, unemployment and the scarcity of new jobs is continually a hot-button issue, especially now in the Presidential primary season. But job creation is a topic of special importance all over the world and residents of countries like Nigeria, South Africa, Canada, Ireland, and Singapore are all doing far more searches on "job creation" than U.S. residents.
So is a global shift to the cloud a good thing for job creation? Market intelligence company IDC on Monday released the results of a four-year, Microsoft-commisssioned study (.pdf here,) that says it is. The study predicts the number of jobs that will be created by a widespread shift to cloud computing, and where those jobs will be created.
Should the government be able to shut down mobile networks in an emergency?
That is the big question the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) is asking right now in its latest call for public comment.
If there was an emergency situation, such as a mobile-triggered explosive device, or phone-organized "violent flash mob," could and should authorities be allowed to bring down all of the mobile communications networks?
This little ninja could control the world
There are ups and downs to trying out new software and apps and web services every day. On the up side, you discover lots of things that simplify your life. On the down side, they often only simplify one thing, and don't integrate with the rest of the things in your life. This is why services like If This Then That (IFTTT) feel essential; they force these disparate services to play nicely with one another to simplify your life even further.
Ninja Blocks serves a similar purpose, but jumps an even bigger gap.
Tiny, sugary sweet Linux PCs get eaten up
Make it small, make it cheap, and people will buy it.
Two tiny, single-board Linux computers with sweet names that debuted at nearly the same time have attracted disproportionately large attention from PC consumers this week: the Raspberry Pi, and the FXI Cotton Candy. The Raspberry Pi is a bare, uncased board that costs $35, and the Cotton Candy is a finished, ready to run PC-in-a-USB stick that costs $199. Both sport ARM processors, both will run Linux variants.
Windows Server 8 Beta now available for download
In addition to the Consumer Preview of Windows 8, and the betas of Visual Studio 11 and the .NET 4.5 framework, Microsoft on Wednesday also released the beta of Windows Server 8.
With this version of its popular server software, Microsoft is concentrating on a few key areas: multitenant virtualization, simplified multi-server architecture, cloud management of sites and applications, and simplified, cross-platform access providing "the full Windows experience anywhere"
Can Droid be the new BlackBerry?
Motorola Mobility on Tuesday announced new initiatives for Android in the enterprise space, asking users to "make the switch."
This initiative focuses on the Motorola Business Ready smartphone line which consists most of Motorola's devices with the "Droid" label, and others including the Atrix and Photon 4G models.
Sony's dual-screen Tablet P finally coming to U.S. via AT&T next week
Sony's foldable, dual-screen Android tablet, known simply as Sony Tablet P will finally be available in the United States beginning on March 4, for $399 with a two-year contract with AT&T or $549 off contract.
Sony first revealed the uniquely designed clamshell tablet almost one year ago along with the wedge-shaped Tablet S, which has been available in the U.S. since last August.
Broadcom addresses the 90% that nobody's talking about
Some companies are capable of delivering big, splashy announcements at trade shows by shattering whatever industry performance standard they can, like Nokia did early this morning with its 808 PureView smartphone with an astonishing 41 megapixel image sensor.
Other companies "go big" but don't go splashy. Marvell, for example, is targeting the biggest single mobile market on the planet with its new modems, and Microsoft is targeting the big mainstream consumer market with a low-power optimized version of Windows Phone.
New Windows Phones from ZTE, Nokia strive for low cost, high value
ZTE, the world's number four smartphone maker, announced another new mid-range Windows Phone at Mobile World Congress on Monday called the ZTE Orbit.
Looking almost exactly like the ZTE Tania which was launched in select global markets in January, the ZTE Orbit has a 4-inch (800 x 480) screen, a single-core 1GHz Qualcomm processor, 512 MB of RAM and 4GB of onboard storage, and a 5 megapixel camera. The ZTE Orbit will be available in the second quarter of this year, and will likely carry the mass market price that ZTE devices have grown to be associated with.
China is 'ground zero of efficiency,' says chipmaker Marvell
On Friday, I talked about ZTE's "China First" strategy and how it paid off with big revenue gains at the end of 2011. Monday, chipmaker Marvell revealed the new products in its own "China First" strategy in the mobile data modem space: new Time Division data modems for the bleeding edge Chinese network protocols: TD-HSPA+ and TD-LTE
The products include the PXA1202, which Marvell bills as the world’s first Release 8 TD-HSPA+ modem, capable of 8.2 Mbps downlink speeds; and the PXA1802, a multimode TD-LTE modem chipset for TD-SCDMA and LTE markets capable of downlink speeds up to 150 Mbps.
Intel deals a preemptive strike on Android-on-x86 battery optimization
Chipmaker Intel is still on the cusp of making its big entry into the consumer smartphone business, but at the Mobile World Congress in Barcelona today, the company is providing a look at some of its advancements in the field, including the first real-time graphics performance and power analysis tool suite for Medfield that will be spotlighted at the Game Developers Conference in a little more than one week's time.
The Intel GPA System Analyzer is a developer tool that can capture real-time metrics of Android games and apps running on the Medfield processor, with the ability to switch between different rendering scenarios in the app (wire frame only, no alpha, textures only, rendering distance, different resolutions, etc.) to optimally tune it for best performance.
'China first' strategy pays off for ZTE
According to a report from International Data Corporation (IDC) earlier this month, the top five mobile phone vendors, in order, are Nokia, Samsung, Apple, LG, and ZTE, with Nokia and LG gradually ceding their positions to the other three.
ZTE was actually almost tied for fourth place with LG, with fewer than a million units separating their shipment numbers. Now, market consulting firm Frost and Sullivan has said ZTE not only significantly grew in consumer device market share, but it exploded its sales revenues in network equipment as well.
WIMM's Android 'wrist computer' app store launches in Beta
Back in July, we were among the first people to get our hands on the 1" wearable Android module from WIMM labs that later launched to developers as the WIMM One developer platform.
Now, after just about six months in the hands of developers, the Wimm Micro App Store has launched in beta.
ARM optimization pack speeds Globalfoundries' Cortex A9s up to 2GHz
Thursday, ARM announced the release of its Cortex A9 MPCore Processor Optimization Pack for Globalfoundries 28nm-SLP High-K Metal Gate process technology. This will let System-on-Chip designers optimize performance for Cortex A9 and provide typical working performance of up to 2GHz.
This is a significant announcement because Globalfoundries makes chips for many of the leading mobile companies, including Qualcomm's Snapdragon SoC, and most prominently -in terms of market share and promises of 2GHz smartphones in early 2012- Samsung's Exynos.
Microsoft Visual Studio 11, .NET 4.5 betas launch on Feb. 29, too
Microsoft on Thursday announced three major betas will be rolling out on February 29: The first beta of Visual Studio 11, the beta of the .NET framework 4.5, and the beta of Visual Studio 11 Team Foundation Server.
Microsoft is expected to roll out the consumer preview of Windows 8 at the same time, and today the Corporate VP of Microsoft's developer division, Soma Somasegar said many of the milestones of Visual Studio are synched with the milestone releases of Windows 8, so as we progress through beta stages, all the products will mature simultaneously.
Tim's Bio
Tim Conneally was born into dumpster tech. His father was an ARPANET research pioneer and equipped his kids with discarded tech gear, second-hand musical instruments, and government issue foreign language instruction tapes. After years of building Frankenstein computers from rubbish and playing raucous music in clubs across the country (and briefly on MTV) Tim grew into an adult with deep, twisted roots and an eye on the future. He most passionately covers mobile technology, user interfaces and applications, the science and policy of the wireless world, and watching different technologies shrink and converge.
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