Archive for: News
Major newspapers have been seeing major ad declines in the past several years, but now Reuters is hoping that the time is right to sell a new product designed to enhance understaffed business sections. The news wire plans to unveil its Reuters Financial Infographics initiative, which provides automated delivery of customizable, print-ready financial data layouts to U.S. papers.
The new product will be available as an addition to Reuters main news offering at an attractive price. Interested publishers can get a free trail until March 31st.
The EBook Market is hotting-up very rapidly with every man and his dog looking to make a quick buck (pun intended) on this new way of reading. Amazon revolutionised eReaders but now ASUS have announced their DR-900 EReader at CeBIT today.
ASUS, who are rapidly making a name for themselves with low-end electronics such as netbooks, may well be the perfect candidate to bring EReaders down to an affordable level. This new model will have a huge touch screen (1024 x 768 pixels), WiFi with a 3G option, 4GB of internal memory and a great interface from the screenshots I’ve seen.
It will support numerous popular file formats such as PDF, TXT, ePUB and Mp3 (there is also a 3.5mm headphone jack). I think this will be a great device. We’re still waiting to hear exact prices and launch dates from ASUS. I would be surprised if it wasn’t out by late summer.
News is spreading that the most popular netbook creator, Asus, will be launching three new Eee PC netbooks at CeBIT next week in Germany. The three new machines are said to be 10 inch screen models and have some exciting features.
For one thing, 14 hours is rumoured to be the battery life of one of the business models and will have an aluminium chassis with a brushed effect as seen above. Another model will have some premium features such as a fingerprint reader for increased security and will be the thinnest netbook Asus has ever created. USB 3.0 will also be standard on the netbooks.
Finally, matt displays and wider touchpads are the order of the day over at Asus.
I for one am becoming more and more fond of netbooks. They fill the gap between smart phone and laptop to keep us happy on the train or just act as a backup. What OS these new machines will be running is sill to be announced. More next week when we get some more information from CeBIT.
We’ve been waiting for this now for quite a while for this day to arrive. Samsung have just started shipping the first of their HD 3D TVs in the US as the world gets ready for 3D content to start going live. This is a whopping 55 inch TV that is stunning to look at, even when it’s turned off. However, all 55 inches will set you back just under $3,300. Ouch!
Plus, those shutter glasses which we talked about earlier will set you back another few bucks (between $150 and $200 probably) if you ever want to activate the TV’s 3D mode which I assume everyone who just paid an arm and a leg for the thing will.
Both Amazon and Sears are now selling the product with free delivery. So if you fancy watching World Cup 2010 in 3D, order now while stocks last. There’s sure to be a rush for these babies. Last time I checked Amazon there was only two left!
Twitter is steadily climbing to reach the 50 million tweets per day mark. This huge social network now represents a large proportion of the information shared on the web. More and more people are discovering breaking news through its trending topics (millions found out about the Haitian earthquake via Twitter).
Now Yahoo! have just signed a deal to be put on what Twitter calls it’s Firehose. This means Tweets will now be continually indexed by Yahoo!.
“Similar to the partnerships we have made with other large internet companies, Yahoo! will receive what has been dubbed “Firehose”—a full feed of public tweets sent to Twitter and our partners every second of every day from all around the world.”
Through this arrangement, you’ll be able to find tweets through Yahoo! Search amongst other Yahoo! services Mail and Sport. It is also said that Yahoo! will be building unique Twitter clients to enable people to tweet from inside the Yahoo! network.
Twitter hit the nail on the head when they discussed how Tweets are vital to the social news scene and their inclusion in other big Internet services is vital:
“Tweets may be short, but they have proven over and over again to contain valuable information. As the Twitter information network grows and expands, it becomes more valuable for everyone who participates. Our open approach helps us get closer to providing universal connectivity to a global network of immediate information.”
Evernote has been doing very well recently. It has been praised in the professional world for being the best way to make notes and store them. The iPhone and Android apps are some of the most popular downloads from their respective app stores and it appears the Evernote team knows no limits. Recently they’ve a new version (rebuilt from the ground up) and also surpassed two million users (it’s now creeping towards two and a half million).
Here’s what Evernote had to say about their new update:
“Evernote 3.5 for Windows is completely new. We rewrote it from the ground up to make it faster, more reliable, and just plain better than Evernote for Windows has ever been. Our goal was to use everything we’ve learned since our launch to make a great Evernote experience on Windows. ”
Evernote have also been busy making lots of new friends and partners in the tech world including players as big as Sony and Nokia. Every Sony laptop sold from now on will come with Evernote pre-installed and Evernote is now usable on the N900 because of a newly released plug-in! Other partnerships include:
- TimeBridge: This helps you organize better meetings. Now, you can save all your meeting notes into Evernote.
- Cliqset: Evernote and Cliqset create a permanent memory for your social streams and activity.
They ended their release on a very promising note about the iPad. Their apps have have already been a hit with iPhone users so everyone was anxious to know what they had in store for the upcoming iPad. Here’s what they said:
“We know you’re wondering. Rest assured, we have big plans for Apple’s amazing new device. Read our CEO’s blog post about Evernote’s history with tablets and plans for the iPad and other devices”
A few days ago, Apple took the extreme measure of removing almost all sex orientated apps from their app store, as we reported here. It seemed to be the case that they were selecting which apps to remove on a case-by-case basis. However, today only a few well-known apps are left such as the Playboy application. Apple have finally announced exactly why they did this.
So why did Apple decide sex apps had no place in the app store?
“It came to the point where we were getting customer complaints from women who found the content getting too degrading and objectionable, as well as parents who were upset with what their kids were able to see”
So for the issue of parental control and to not offend the iPhone’s female users, they decided to remove the applications from the store. I personally find this a little odd on two fronts.
Firstly, if women find these kinds of apps offensive then that’s fine. But they don;t have to download them. It’s not like Apple ever advertised them on the homepage. They were there in the background if anyone wanted them, that’s all. There are bigger fish to fry on that font rather than a few relatively soft-core apps.
Secondly, on the issue of parental control, I genuinely don’t see what good removing apps from the store is going to do. If a kid wants porn or anything of the sort couldn’t he or she just open up the Safari browser?
I fear this move is little more than Apple wanting to wash their hands of any objectionable material. It’s not that they’re against it.
Apple, have left in a few apps from big companies such as Playboy though, which seems to contradict the above. Wouldn’t they want to eliminate the big players? Or is the revenue loss just too much to swallow?
“The difference is this is a well-known company with previously published material available broadly in a well-accepted format,”
I don’t get it either.
Need proof that Google can simply barge into whatever industry they want to and be given the go-ahead? Take one look at how they’ve been given clearance to buy and sell energy having just put in a request to do so a little over a month ago and you’ll see what I mean..
Basically, Google can now buy and sell energy just like any other electricity company in the US. This could involve targeting the commercial market or even residential. As for now though, it appears as though they will be using their new found rights to get some cheap energy for their own use. Running huge servers and data centres uses up a lot of energy so getting it at wholesale prices wouldn’t be bad for business at any rate.
That said, it might not be too long until we have Google bills coming through our letter box as they’re currently toying around with the idea of becoming an ISP too!
There has been a lot of buzz about the Dell Mini 5 recently. Mostly after the extreme let down following the Apple iPad launch. For example, we discovered that there were prototypes on the black market before Dell wanted them released. Of course, now there are quite a few review pieces knocking around with dozens of review popping up all over the place.
T3 Mag, a tech publication based in Greece, released a video with two presenters (and a very unfunny DELLicious joke). When watching it, I recommend skipping right to the end. This is the interesting bit.
They point out that the dock, which will be available separately from the device, had a HDMI output port which presumably runs either to a TV or PC (or both). I think that Dell have made a great addition here. HDTV is new enough to the market and with 3DTV hot on it heels so it’s great that we’re starting to see some serious compatibility on mobile devices. Hopefully it will enable us to have a better mobile entertainment industry.
‘Sex Apps’, which have been available in the App Store, pretty much since its launch have their days numbered. Numerous apps with sexually explicit content such as Jon Atherton’s Wobble iBoobs have been removed from the grill.
He received this Email from the app store:
The App Store continues to evolve, and as such, we are constantly refining our guidelines. Your application, Wobble iBoobs (Premium Uncensored), contains content that we had originally believed to be suitable for distribution. However, we have recently received numerous complaints from our customers about this type of content, and have changed our guidelines appropriately.
We have decided to remove any overtly sexual content from the App Store, which includes your application.
Thank you for your understanding in this matter. If you believe you can make the necessary changes so that Wobble iBoobs (Premium Uncensored) complies with our recent changes, we encourage you to do so and resubmit for review.
Sincerely,
iPhone App Review
Numerous apps, most catering to the male audience, have been removed from the store. A simple error message appears when you try to purchase one. However, it also appears as though Apple are choosing which apps to give the bullet on a case-by-case basis. Apps such as “Sex Strip” are reportedly still available. So are Apple choosing which apps are too explicit or just haven’t gotten around to eliminating all sex related apps?
They send this statement to Tech Crunch:
“Whenever we receive customer complaints about objectionable content we review them. If we find apps that contain inappropriate material we remove them from the App Store and request the developer to make any necessary changes to their apps in order to be distributed by Apple.”
