Wow, Apple's App Store tops 15B app downloads, but are they new?
For all the talk about Apple innovation, it's still old school in one respect. While Google product managers make major announcements in blog posts, usually accompanied by helpful videos, information control-freak Apple does it the old-fashion way by issuing a press release. Today it's 15 billion downloads from the App Store.
I'm more surprised by timing than anything else. Apple's App Store opened for business July 10, 2008, which makes the three-year anniversary good day for the announcement. But by old school PR thinking, that would be bad day, being Sunday. Some advice to Apple: Look at Microsoft taking over Baidu English search. The news was everywhere on Monday -- and that was on July 4th, America's national holiday!
Patent trolling with Microsoft
Sometimes I really can't figure out Microsoft. Does the left-side corporate brain not connect to the right?
Take this new business in Microsoft patents supposedly applied to Android. HTC already coughs up five bucks per handset in licensing fees and scuttlebutt is Microsoft wants $10-$15 per phone from Samsung. Had the Supreme Court sided with Microsoft in last month's i4i ruling, Samsung and other Android licensees could quite possibly have invalidated the patents in court -- putting an end to Microsoft's lucrative Android patent payment business.
Microsoft wants $15 for every Samsung Android device sold
Microsoft is demanding that Samsung pay it $15 in royalties for every Android phone it sells, Korea's Maeil Business Newspaper reported on Wednesday. While Samsung is attempting to negotiate the royalty fee lower, it does indicate that Microsoft plans to become more aggressive in pursuing Android manufacturers over use of technologies within Android that it says it has rights to.
The Redmond company is already receiving $5 for every HTC phone sold with the Android operating system, and that has made the company some $150 million, according to reports. With Microsoft asking three times that from Samsung, the potential is there for the company to make much more from this licensing deal.
Thinner iPhone with bigger camera readies for September
Rumors continue to indicate that the next version of the iPhone is getting ever closer to launch, with the Wall Street Journal saying sources have told the paper that orders have been placed for "key components." No specifics were given on a launch date, only saying it was expected during the third quarter.
Given we're currently in the third quarter now, and that will end in September, it likely means a launch of the device is probably no more than two months away. With at least one source saying it was told to ship components in August, that seems to suggest the launch will occur in September as has been rumored over the past several months.
You don't have to wait for Windows 8
It's a common human desire to keep up with the Joneses or even to play games of oneupmanship, and it's no truer when applied to PCs. While older kit and software may do the job admirably, there's no ignoring the desire for new shiny toys and the latest in cutting-edge technology.
Windows 8 isn't out yet -- the first beta isn't due to appear for another few months yet -- but that doesn't stop people from wanting it. Windows 8 UX Pack 2.0 gives you the next best thing: it makes Windows 7 look and feel just like Windows 8.
Mark Zuckerberg unveils Facebook Video Calling
Early this afternoon, Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg debuted three new personal connection service updates -- group chat, chat redesign and video calling.
Last week, Zuckerberg hinted at something "awesome" coming today. Early rumors tipped to in-browser video chat powered by Skype.
Facebook has 750 million users
CEO Mark Zuckerberg announced the number during a live event early this afternoon.
Last week, Zuckerberg hinted at something "awesome" coming today. Early rumors tipped to in-browser video chat powered by Skype. A live event is underway now.
iPhone users waste twice as much time playing games
Gee, and I thought they were hunched over texting like the rest of us.
Nielsen has a hot, mobile gaming study out today that reveals gaming apps as being the most popular category. Sixty-four percent of people downloading mobile apps got a game in the previous 30 days. But the second-place finisher is a hoot -- weather apps (60 percent).
Is Firefox hogging RAM? Memory Restart can fix that
When Mozilla released Firefox 4 (and now Firefox 5), it appeared to have finally fixed some of the performance-related gripes of earlier releases. Compared to Firefox 3.6, Firefox 5 is lightning fast, but sadly behind the scenes all is not as it should be. Firefox still suffers from a memory leak that sees its memory demands slowly spiral over an extended period of time, stealing precious system resources and affecting your PC's performance as a result.
A simple restart fixes the problem, but it's still annoying. The good news is that Mozilla developers are targeting this memory leak and think they may have found a way to fix it. If we're lucky, the fix may even make it into Firefox 7, which is due to be released as Firefox Aurora imminently. In the meantime, how you can stop Firefox's increasing memory demands from spiralling out of control? The answer lies with a tiny add-on appropriately titled Memory Restart.
Steve Ballmer headlines Consumer Electronics Show again -- but why?
File this in the "if he's still CEO" department.
Today, the Consumer Electronics Association announced that, no surprise, Microsoft's CEO would give CES' kick-off keynote next year.
Did Google hand China to Microsoft?
It's rare that a public company takes moral stances where business interests suffer. But that's the choice Google made in January 2010, after reversing its search censorship policy in China. On Monday, ironically during the 235th celebration of America's freedom, Microsoft announced an English-language search deal with Baidu, China's leading search provider. Microsoft will censor the results Bing delivers.
I don't believe that the Baidu-Microsoft deal could have been possible, if not for the courageous actions taken by Google 18 months ago. Even then, Google should be faulted, having agreed to censor search results in China for nearly four years earlier. Google's decision to stop censorinp hurt its business in China, and not just search. Chinese manufacturer HTC is one of Android's biggest hardware OEMs. Perhaps it's no coincidence that Samsung has risen above HTC as premiere Android handset manufacturer over the last 18 months.
Microsoft pays University of Nebraska $250,000 to use Office 365
If you really are in need of some high profile clients, you can always pay them. That's exactly what Microsoft has done with the University of Nebraska. The university will receive $250,000 in incentives from Microsoft to migrate its email and calendaring system to the recently announced Office365 platform.
The school had been using IBM's Lotus Notes for these services, however that system had begun to age -- having been in use since 1997. IBM had pitched its cloud-based version of Notes to the school, but could not come close to Microsoft's offer. Google was also said to be in the running but probably lost out for much of the same reason.
Are you one of the two in three Americans who still doesn't use a smartphone? What a shame
Not sure? Does your carrier not require you to get a data plan? Do your fingers go clickety-clack across just nine numeric keys? If yes, then you don't have a smartphone. But you should, and may soon if a ComScore survey of 30,000 Americans 13 and older is to be believed.
For the three months ended in May, there were 234 million cell phone users in the United States -- 76.8 million with smartphones. That works out the 32.8 percent, which ComScore graciously rounds up to one-third. But don't feel left out just yet. There are two definitions of the "in-crowd" here -- the ins who use smartphones and the ins that belong to the majority. Sixty-six percent is still a big number using, ahem, dumb phones.
Bing to power english language results for China's Baidu
Microsoft is hoping to increase its search share in China through a new deal with the country's leading search site Baidu. The tie-up partners the Redmond company with a company that holds about a 75 percent share of China's search queries.
Google pulled out of the country last year over protests of China's stringent rules on censoring search results. The google.cn website currently redirects to Google's Hong Kong-based site, and only holds about 20 percent of the market, reports China-based research firm Analysis International. Bing's search share is practically non-existant in the country.
Moving to Google+? Facebook won't let you go
Talk about juxtapositions. Last week, Google quietly unleashed the Data Liberation Front and tool Takeout for moving user data from the company's services. Would you like to switch from Gmail to Windows Live Mail? Google Takeout can help. Over at Facebook, however, matters are quite different -- as one tool for extracting friend data shows. The world's largest social network wants to keep your friends. But you knew that already, right?
Developer Mohamed Mansour's tool Facebook Friend Exporter revved to version 2.2.1 yesterday. CNET's Stephen Shankland blogged about the Chrome Extension then, and Mashable's Eric Swallow today. Perhaps the utility got a wee bit too much attention. Mansour posted to the download page today: "Facebook is trying so hard to not allow you to export your friends. They started to remove emails of your friends from your profile by today July 5th 2011. It will no longer work for many people". I can't get the extension to work, BTW.
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