HP unveils the best looking Chromebox yet
A couple days ago, Asus unveiled its Chromebox. At the time, I called it sexy. While it is still attractive, it has already been upstaged.
Yes, today, Hewlett Packard releases a sexier, rounder device that arguably makes Acer's look plain and tired. Sadly, price and full specs are not yet known.
LinkedIn to spend $120 million on job-seeking site Bright
The social network for professionals, LinkedIn, is to acquire Bright, a job-search site that matches employers with potential employees. This is a purchase that makes a lot of sense for LinkedIn, the Facebook of the working world, helping to make it even easier for people to connect across industries. While LinkedIn has around 11 years of experience under its belt, Bright is more a newcomer, having only launched three years ago.
It seems like a perfect pairing. LinkedIn members have their resumes online as part of their profiles. Bright makes use of resumes to link people to jobs. It just seems to make sense. The three year old site is being purchased for what LinkedIn describes as "approximately $120 million, subject to adjustment". This total comprises 73 percent stock and 27 percent cash. The deal is expected to conclude by the end of Q1 2014.
Apple succeeds where Sony couldn't
There are OMG events, and Sony's selling its PC business surely is one of them.
"It's an historic moment", Roger Kay, Endpoint president, says. "The company Steve Jobs looked up to as the paragon of style leaves the industry he helped found, driven off, at least in part, by him".
Google launches Chromebox for Meetings -- Hangouts on steroids for businesses
Actual, real-life meetings are just so passé! In fact I have hardly met up with any of the people I work with in person -- we are living in the digital age, man! But the likes of Skype and FaceTime show that there is still an interest, even a need, for virtual face-to-face time, and this is particularly true for businesses. Conference calls are easy to set up on the phone, but there are times when it really does help to see what’s going on at the other end. Today Google takes the wraps off its solution: Chromebox for meetings.
As you would expect from Google, and probably guess from the name, this is a box running ChromeOS. Powered by a 4th generation Intel Core i7 processor, there are four USB 3.0 ports as well as HDMI and DisplayPort++ connections, and network connectivity is provided by an Ethernet port as well as an 802.11 a/b/g/n WiFi adaptor. Also provided is an HD camera, a mic and speaker combo, and a remote control.
Twitter takes a stand, says new transparency rules are not enough
It's been a scant few days since US Justice Department relented, somewhat, on the restrictions placed upon companies in regards to the secret court order to hand over the data of customers. The ruling opened things up a bit, but in the opinion of some, it failed to go far enough.
Now Twitter is standing up to the powers that be and speaking its mind. "[...] we think it is essential for companies to be able to disclose numbers of national security requests of all kinds -- including national security letters and different types of FISA court orders -- separately from reporting on all other requests", says Jeremy Kesel, the manager of Global Legal Policy for the social network.
Vodafone hooks up with Canonical for Ubuntu Linux for mobile
For someone looking to begin a Linux journey, quite often, the first leg of it involves Ubuntu. Sure, there are many other distributions, but none can match it in popularity or ease of use. While my personal preference is Fedora, I concede that Ubuntu is probably more suitable for the majority of desktop users.
Last year, despite its failed crowd funding campaign, Canonical managed to make waves by introducing the concept for an Ubuntu smartphone. Of course, no matter how great the device is on paper, if carriers don't support it, it is pretty much dead in the water. Today, the Ubuntu phone project gains an important ally in Vodafone.
DriveInfo: not your average desktop gadget
At first glance DriveInfo looks like another very ordinary system monitoring gadget, this time listing every drive on your system, with its free and total space. Not exactly impressive, especially as it didn’t even get all these figures right for us (a 3TB network drive was reported as -1346.80GB).
It seems the developer has realized that users need more from their gadgets, though, and in response he’s equipped DriveInfo with a host of additional features and tools.
Microsoft says modern.IE has saved developers 1 million hours of testing time
Unbelievably it’s been a year since Microsoft launched modern.IE, a collection of free tools designed to help reduce the amount of time web developers spend on testing their creations. modern.IE offers over 90 virtual machines, a code scanner, three months of BrowserStack, tech teardowns of Microsoft’s Rethink experiences (including NORAD Tracks Santa, Hover, Contre Jour) and more.
To coincide with its first anniversary, Microsoft announces that it has saved developers over a million hours. In case you’re wondering how the tech giant arrived at this rather massive figure, Jason McConnell, Senior Product Marketing Manager at Microsoft, explains:
Logitech unveils patriotic mice with the Global Fan Collection
While some people simply live in a country, others actually love it too. Love of one's country is a noble thing and there are many ways to express it -- waving flags, singing songs and so on. The impending Olympics will likely produce an increase in patriotic gestures, as people root for their country in the games.
Logitech announces a new way to express patriotism -- with a mouse. No, the company doesn't want you to dress up a furry critter to look like Ben Franklin -- we are talking computer mice. The manufacturer unveils some flag-designed input devices that allow you to represent your country.
Firefox Beta and Aurora channels updated, Australis UI makes first appearance
Hot on the heels of the underwhelming appearance of Firefox 27.0 FINAL, Mozilla has released Firefox 28.0 Beta 1 and Firefox Aurora 29.0a2, both of which come with the promise of significant new features and changes.
First up is the debut of Firefox for Windows 8 touch, which has migrated across to the beta channel for the first time, while Aurora ships with a brand new user interface (Australis) and revamped tool for syncing settings between multiple computers and devices.
Xamarin and built.io get together to aid end to end mobile development
Mobile development specialist raw engineering saw its built.io backend as a service product come out of beta in November.
It's now announced a partnership with front end developer tool Xamarin to give users a complete development solution whilst making built.io’s functions available to existing Xamarin clients.
Pandora enters the music promotion business with Open Music Submission service
The struggling musician is an almost iconic figure in today's culture. For every one that makes it, thousands sadly fail. Having talent is obviously the biggest key to success, but even that sometimes isn't enough. It needs to be combined with a bit of luck to get noticed.
Pandora wants to try and help open doors for these folks by getting their music out into the world and into the ears of potential fans. Today the streaming service unveils its new Open Music Submission Process. "Our goal is to enable every talented artist to reach the audience they deserve, without regard to the style of their music or their popularity", says Pandora founder Tim Westegren.
Newegg launches Premier subscription, available for $49.99 per year
In tech, subscriptions are all the rage today. This business practice allows companies to have a steadier flow of revenue, as opposed to the traditional (in this field, anyway) one-time payment model. At the same time, consumers can pay less at once in exchange for upscale services and products. Just take a look at Microsoft Office 365. It costs $99.99 per year for a suite that consumers would have to pay at least twice as much to buy outright (not to mention that the former can be installed on four more devices, and it offers exceedingly more features).
US retailer Newegg has decided that it too wants a piece of the subscription revenue pie, as it just launched Premier. The $49.99 per year service is similar to Amazon Prime, albeit cheaper compared to the $79 charged by its rival. It is also currently in beta, most likely for Newegg to gauge customer feedback and adoption before labeling it as ready for prime time (or, maybe, pulling the plug).
BT unveils Android smartphone -- but it's not a mobile
BT has introduced a 3.5-inch touchscreen smartphone that runs on the Android 4.2 Jelly Bean operating system, but it's designed to be used in the home.
The Home SmartPhone S comes with 2GB expandable memory for storing music and photos, a front-facing camera and Wi-Fi connectivity. Facebook and Twitter are pre-installed and you can download further apps via Google Play and Opera mobile store.
The top drivers and barriers for BYOD
Many businesses are still unsure of the benefits of allowing BYOD despite the fact that it's reckoned 59 percent of people using BYOD get more work done on their own device. So what are the main factors involved?
BYOD implementation expert Moka5 has put together an infographic showing the top three drivers and barriers to companies investing in the technology.
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