Can iPhone do better? Android activations are 31.5M per quarter
This afternoon, Google announced first quarter results, ending March 31. The search and information giant reported $8.58 billion in revenue, up 27 percent year of year. Operating income was $2.8 billion and net income $2.3 billion, or $7.04 a share. Google missed analysts projections -- consensus was $8.11 per share -- but Android could just overshadow the Street's and shareholders' disappointment. Say, Apple, watch your back.
It seems like whenever some Google executive opens his or her mouth to talk about Android activations, the number goes up yet again. During today's earnings: 350,000 activations per day, which works out to about 31.5 million over 90 days. Now compare to Apple. Analyst consensus is 16.64 million iPhones shipped during first calendar quarter, which for Apple was 90 days long. That works out to 188,889 activations per day.
Ahead of global launch, more companies pick up Memjet's super fast printer design
Memjet, the super high speed inkjet printer design company announced a manufacturing partnership with Lomond for the Russian and Eastern European markets at the Consumer Electronics and Photo Expo in Moscow on Thursday.
When we last saw Memjet and its impressive 70 page per minute inkjet printer in January, the company had just three partners who had committed to producing Memjet printers in China, Taiwan, and India (Lenovo, Kpowerscience, WEP.)
Is web browser development moving too fast?
The entrance ramp to what was once called the Information Superhighway is lined with new web browsers. No sooner than a major new version is announced, out pops an alpha or beta of its successors. Google set the pace, releasing 10 Chrome versions since December 2008. Now Microsoft and Mozilla are ramping up development cycles. But is that really a good thing?
Let me put it another way: Is your Web experience all that much better today on your primary browser than it was two years ago? Three? What about upgrades? Do you like the frequency of them? Do they shatter your plugins? Please answer in comments, with some specifics.
Two new Internet privacy bills enter Congress: How they differ
Over the course of the last two days, two new privacy bills were introduced to Congress: one on Tuesday to the Senate, and one on Wednesday to the House. Though they both seek to establish some standard of privacy for consumers, they have some chief differences between them.
Senators John Kerry (D-Mass.) and John McCain (R-Ariz.) introduced The Kerry-McCain Commercial Privacy Bill of Rights Act of 2011 to the Senate on Tuesday of this week. This bill lists a number of "rights" that the private citizen has, and splits responsibilities between the federal government and state authorities and provides a "safe harbor" clause for companies participating in the collection of data.
Feds take down Coreflood botnet, infected two million computers
The Justice Department said Wednesday that with the help of Microsoft, it and the FBI were able to take down a botnet that had infected nearly two million computers. Controlled by a program called "Coreflood," the virus was stealing personal information including financial data from infected users, and had been operating for close to a decade.
Five control servers and 29 domain names were seized in raids, and charges have been filed against 13 "John Doe" defendants for wire fraud, bank fraud and illegal interception of electronic communications. "John Doe" suits are filed when the plaintiff has not yet identified the defendant in the case, but in this case the defendants are believed to be foreign nationals.
Solve IE8, IE9 problems with Internet Explorer 10 troubleshooting tool
Even by the standards of alpha browsers, Internet Explorer 10's Platform Preview is rather lacking in features. There's no toolbar, no sidebar, no security, no real configuration options, and it's little more than a window for browsing Microsoft's latest HTML5 demos.
Of course it's a brand new project, so that's no real surprise. If you look beyond the basics, it turns out that IE10 does have one very practical feature in its diagnostics tool, a handy stand-alone troubleshooting tool that you can use to diagnose IE 8 and IE9 issues on any Windows 7 PC.
Mozilla releases public Firefox Aurora beta
The Mozilla Foundation has released a new alpha build of its open-source browser. Firefox Aurora, currently at version 5.0a2, is designed to represent the first public glimpse of future versions of Firefox in an early, unstable form.
The release of Aurora coincides with Mozilla's announcement of its new rapid release development cycle, which brings it into line with rival browsers like Google's Chrome. Having taken two years to deliver Firefox 4, Mozilla aims to release versions 5, 6 and 7 by the end of the year.
iPad kills first quarter 2011 PC growth
Can we now finally agree that iPad is in fact cannibalizing PC sales? Seriously so? There is plenty of debate, not a lot of consensus and a whole lot of resistance from Betanews readers. It's time to end the denial, and preliminary Q1 2011 PC shipments from Gartner and IDC are reason enough.
Globally, PC shipments fell 3.2 percent year over year during first quarter, according to IDC, while Gartner put the decline at a less anemic 1.1 percent. Gartner had predicted 3 percent growth, while IDC expected 1.5 percent growth. Manufacturers shipped 84.3 million PCs in the quarter, according to Gartner, and 80.6 million by IDC's estimate.
These guys are crazy to say Microsoft is tablet DOA through 2015
The strangest thing happened today. Not one, not two, but three stories showed up in my RSS feeds making the same cockeyed assertion -- that Gartner's recent media tablet forecast shows the analyst firm doesn't see Microsoft releasing a tablet/tablet OS anytime soon and certainly not by 2015. Someone is seriously confused.
The first of these stories posted on April 11. It's a report by Larry Dignan at ZDNet's Between the Lines blog: "Gartner: Microsoft will still be a tablet no-show in 2015." As it happens, I don't subscribe to the blog's feed, which is major reason I didn't see the post sooner. The story showed up in a news alert for keyword "Microsoft" overnight.
T-Mobile's 'new' unlimited plan, now with more throttling
Despite being in the midst of a $39 billion merger with AT&T, T-Mobile is still moving forward with business as usual. The carrier announced Thursday a new cheaper unlimited plan, however with some important caveats, including throttling for heavy data users.
The plan will cost $79.99 per month, and included unlimited voice, data, and text and picture messaging. On average, the carrier says subscribers will save up to $350 yearly when compared to competitors' plans. Customers will only have a limited time to to sign up for the new plan, although an end date was not provided. Both new and existing customers will be eligible.
Android's roots deepen in China with Zoom, Qualcomm agreement
China is the next great frontier for Android's expansion. Chinese telecommunications makers Huawei and ZTE have been incrementally expanding their global 3G Android smartphone portfolios, and Tuesday, Zoom Technologies said it will be joining the market next.
Qualcomm on Wednesday announced it had signed a WCDMA and TD-SCDMA licensing agreement with Chinese holding company Zoom Technologies. The two wireless standards are the most common 3G standards in China, and by licensing Qualcomm's technology, Zoom and its subsidiary Nollec Wireless will be able to create 3G subscriber equipment for China.
Never lose another game (file or settings) again
If you're an avid or occasional gamer, how many hours -- days, even -- of hard work and effort are locked up in your game save files? All those monsters defeated, puzzles solved and bonus levels attained are stored in a handful of files or Registry settings, which are as vulnerable as any other file or setting on your PC.
Most backup tools can, with a bit of research and hard work, be configured to back up the folders and settings of your favourite games, but a far easier solution is to use a dedicated free tool called GameSave Manager. It supports nearly 800 games, with more added regularly in the form of database updates. It's simply an essential download for any gamer.
OSFMount turns most any disc image into a virtual drive
There are many tools around that will mount disc images as virtual drives, allowing you to browse them in Explorer without having to burn the image to a blank disc first. So news that PassMark Software has produced yet another may not, at first, appear too interesting. OSFMount isn't just another "me too" utility, though--it's an extremely useful tool with features that you won't find in most of the competition.
The good news starts with the program's wide support for many image standards. As well as mounting the usual ISO and BIN images, it can also work with IMG, DD, 00n, NRG, SDI, AFF, AFM, AFD, and even VMWare VMDK images, reportedly (although the latter didn't always work in our tests).
Twitter app developer may be creating rival microblogging service
A developer spurned by Twitter's new stance on third-party applications is developing a competitor to the trendy microblogging service, CNN reported on Wednesday. Ubermedia, creator of the popular UberSocial, Echofon and Twidroyd applications, hopes to address common criticisms of Twitter with the planned offering.
In March, Twitter told its developers that it would rather have developers present user's tweets in unique ways rather than just acting as another way to display their feeds. It also cut access to several applications -- Twidroyd and UberSocial among them -- for various terms of service violations, although UberMedia later corrected the problems and was granted access once again.
Is Windows out and Macintosh in among Silicon Valley's elite?
Microsoft is showing off pieces of the next version of Windows (we're all calling it Windows 8) but I'm wondering if anyone cares anymore about Windows in the tech enthusiast space.
Why do I say that?
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