Archive for: News
As I write this post my tweet is still trying its hardest to do just that – tweet. No I haven’t gone crazy but Twitter is down and wounded. I look down through the other tweets of the people I’m following and their all saying the same thing – barely getting tweets through.One of my followers commented “that was a fun little time without Twitter”, not knowing that it was all still going on. One blogger at AwakenedVoice.com had foreseen this and reckons it’s down to the amount of third party apps relying on the system. “I think it is very likely that the future will yield a Twitter crash. This crash could be caused by any number of factors.
The Twitter infrastructure may become increasingly unreliable due to the volume of third party requests on the system. The crash could end up being a result of an altered Twitter API due to a change in architecture. Twitter might end up altering their terms of service, possibly in an attempt to make some money, thereby making some of these services unauthorized users. Twitter might be purchased by an entity that makes wholesale changes to all of the above. Or Twitter might end up failing and close down.” This may well hold water as another one of my followers, Emmzy_138 mentioned that TwitPic is also acting up.
The Twitter blog today recognized the problem and gave us a reason : Twitter is under attack. Here is what they said in what was a very short but tense post. “On this otherwise happy Thursday morning, Twitter is the target of a denial of service attack. Attacks such as this are malicious efforts orchestrated to disrupt and make unavailable services such as online banks, credit card payment gateways, and in this case, Twitter for intended customers or users. We are defending against this attack now and will continue to update our status blog as we continue to defend and later investigate.” I will update this post as I get more information. Subscribe to Crenk here to stay informed.
Google have just announced that they have acquired a new technology company that will serve YouTube very well indeed.
That have just invested shares worth over $106 million dollars in On2 Technologies which are a video compression company. This new venture could change YouTube forever giving it faster download speeds and less buffering as a result.
This may also help to cut Google’s massive bandwidth bill of over $300 million per year that is necessary to keep YouTube up and running. By compressing the size of the videos (some of which are as big of 2GB since HD was introduced) this would make the site smaller and easier to manage while attracting more because of a better user experience.
“Because we spend a lot of time working to make the overall web experience better for users, we think that video compression technology should be a part of the web platform.
“To that end, we’re happy to announce today that we’ve signed a deal to acquire On2 Technologies, a leading creator of high-quality video compression technology.”
Last week, here at Crenk we reported that Microsoft and Yahoo! are entering into a deal to combine search technology and the revenue from their engines in a bid to strike Google who has a share of around 65% of the global market. Yahoo! and Microsoft barely have 28% – combined.
It has emerged that the companies’ lack of market holding has led to Yahoo! putting a clause in the agreement which states that Yahoo! can back out of the deal at any time before the scheduled five year renewal if their revenue share falls too low.
Yahoo! and Microsoft failed to specify what exactly the number was that would entitle Yahoo! to pull out should revenue fall below it however it is expected that the danger zone will be in the first eighteen months.
This is because any new service, whether continuing on from an old one or starting from scratch will experience growing pains. A few other details have emerged since the deal was officially filed with the US Securities and Exchange Commission.
For example, Microsoft must hire 400 Yahoo! engineers and pay them “market-competitive” wages. Furthermore, a full deal must be struck by October 27th otherwise the debates will be brought to a arbitration panel. Time is money.
I guess now we all have to play the waiting game. I wonder in two years time will be caught saying “I Binged myself and I’m 5th in the search results!”.
Even though there is a global recession closing businesses, putting people out of work and somehow still giving top bankers big bonuses, companies still have bills to pay. The most widely used way to pay bills is via the tried and tested paper way. A bill comes in, it’s circulated and approved by all those necessary before being shipped down to accounting where it can sit for weeks before it is paid.
That’s assuming that it makes it that far. Anyone who ever worked in a big company will tell you that invoices and bills seem to grow their own legs and go walkies quite a lot, often unnoticed until an angry supplier calls up.
Bill.com looks to change all that. The company, which has just raised 17 million dollars, takes the whole thing digital. When a paper bill comes into a company, they fax it to a special number and when an e-mail bill comes in they e-mail it to a special address. Then, when they log into Bill.com they will all be there in digitised form. Then all the managers who need to sign off on the bill can simply click ‘Approve’. The bill is then set to a status where by accounting will take control. They can then pay the bill via transfer and all is done and dusted.
Many companies report that Bill.com has halved the amount of man time it used to take in paying bills. This is because everything is all in one place where everyone can approve or pay the bill at a time that suites them. This way, a bill doesn’t become stuck at a managers desk for days because he/she is busy, leaving others waiting around to sign. It also dramatically reduced the chances of the bill getting lost or misconstrued.
This is a great web tool for any medium or large business where bills seem to eat up too much company time.
Right next to downloading, music streaming is the next big thing in terms of entertainment on the net. It’s really starting to pick up with many people launching their own private radio stations. While the vast majority are in too small a niche to actually make money, the big companies will.
Spotify are the biggest at the moment. They are the ones to go to for video and music streaming. Recently however, Microsoft announced that it would launch its own music streaming service. This was originally intended for July but has become delayed.
Several other companies are now catching up quickly with streaming services already launched or in the works.
TechCrunch.com contacted Microsoft and this is what they had to say for themselves:
We don’t have much detail to disclose on this subject but what we can share is that, in the coming months, MSN is planning a new music service in Beta via its Music channel in the UK.
“At this stage we won’t be confirming the details behind this but more information will be available soon and will be communicated in due course.”
At any rate, Microsoft had better hop to it if they want to succeed in what it becoming a crowded market. If they let users get too comfortable with one source (as we have see happen in the past with iTunes) then they will not want to move onto any future service provided by Microsoft.
Apple have today announced that Eric Schmidt who is the CEO of Google and a member of the board of directors at Apple has stepped down from his position at the company. Schmidt has held the prestigious position since August 2006 and says that he is leaving the job because conflicts of interest arose.
These “conflicts of interest” arose around 15 months ago when Google started making their way into Apples territory such as announcing their upcoming Chrome OS and the recent debacle over Google Voice being denied into Apple’s App Store.
An official statement from Apple read:
“Eric has been an excellent Board member for Apple, investing his valuable time, talent, passion and wisdom to help make Apple successful,” said Steve Jobs, Apple’s CEO. “Unfortunately, as Google enters more of Apple’s core businesses, with Android and now Chrome OS, Eric’s effectiveness as an Apple Board member will be significantly diminished, since he will have to recuse himself from even larger portions of our meetings due to potential conflicts of interest. Therefore, we have mutually decided that now is the right time for Eric to resign his position on Apple’s Board.”
To be honest readers, I don’t find this too surprising. Schmidt was being asked to leave certain meetings at Apple when they were discussing plans that could be used by Google. This is no kind of behaviour to be going on in one of the world’s biggest companies. He will be replaced by a more effective person who will not have conflicts in other businesses with Apple.
Since 3D filming was created the only way to marvel at the spectacle was to go to the cinema and pay extra for the pleasure. At the moment, Ice Age 3D is about as close as you’ll get to the 3D experience. However, recently huge advancements have been made such as Fujifilm announcing the world first consumer 3D digital camera. Now, Sky TV in the UK say that they will be offering Europe’s first ever 3D TV service by next year.
“In the next step in the Sky+HD journey, Sky today announced that it will launch the UK’s first 3D channel next year,” said Sky in a press release
“The service will be broadcast across Sky’s existing HD infrastructure and be available via the current generation of Sky+HD set-top boxes.” This is good news as the UK has just undergone a massive nationwide digital switchover and people having to change their set-top boxes all over again would anger some.
However, those wanting to enjoy 3D films, entertainment and sport will have to change their TV for a 3D ready TV. These are expected from large companies such as Panasonic and will be on sale in 2010 to coincide with the launch of the 3D service.
“3D is a genuinely ’seeing is believing’ experience, making TV come to life as never before. Just like the launch of digital, Sky+ and HD, this is latest step in our commitment to innovating for customers.” said Sky.
I’m liking where this new trend of watered-down smart phones is going. Let’s face it. Not all of us want to or indeed can spend a week’s pay on a new smart phone such as the new Nokia N97. Yet many of us still want the cool features such as the touch-screen, 3G and entertainment. Now, many phone makers are slimming down their flagship models to make more affordable compromises for the average Joe.
Samsung did a great job slimming the Tocco down to the Tocco Lite. Now, there are rumours buzzing around the Nokia may have done the same with their new N97 Smartphone.
Pictures, which were nabbed by Engadget show what is being called the N97 Mini. The Picture shows a smaller N97(perhaps around 20-25% smaller) next to its bigger brother. It appears as through the D-Pad has been moved, along with smaller keys grouped closer together.
I’d much prefer to have the Mini rather than the original as long as it still had 3G. Sure I’d be making a cut back in performance and screen size but hey, it’s a recession out there!
Nokia haven’t said much except for just hmm and ahh at these pictures. These rumours were reportedly first uttered by a Vodafone employee on a forum earlier this week. If they are true, we’re in for one heck of a cool phone. But then, this could just be some cheap Chinese knock-off that looks like the N97.
Pirate Bay, a site that “helps users commit copyright infringement’ is now under more heavy fire than ever with ruling made by a Dutch court ordering all access to the site be shut off in the Netherlands within the next ten days.
The case was made against the sites three founders who were not even present, nor aware of the proceedings. When they found they sent a letter to have the ruling dismissed as they are currently seeking to make an appeal.
As it stands, if they do not comply with the ruling and remove all access to the site in Holland
within the next ten days then the company will be fined three million Euros. They will also be fined 30,000 Euro for
every day that the site remains up and running in the Netherlands.
In April, the three owners, Fredrik Neij, Peter Sunde, and Gottfrid Svartholm Warg along with a financer in Sweden were ordered to pay around 3 million in damages to various production companies and were to serve a year behind bars. Currently, a company called Global Gaming Factory has plans to buy Pirate Bay, which is only adding to the pandemonium.
Yahoo has been getting a lot bad press lately, but with their recent new home page launch they seem to be slowly getting on the right track. Other positive news coming out of Yahoo is their Microsoft search marketing deal, acquisition of Xoopit, and more. Today we wanted to show you a quick video about what Yahoo! engineers think about their new home page.
Skype is the most popular method of making online voice calls across the globe. It’s free, fast and effective. Recently they have brought out numerous updates and upgrades that only improved the service making for better video calls and streamlining the call process. However, a recent surprise concerning Skype came not from the company, but the Kremlin.
In Russia, an activist group called the Union of Industrialists and Entrepreneurs are lobbying to have the service removed or at least hindered in Russia. They argue that the service is not giving Russian services a fighting chance as Skype dominates the market. Other VoIP providers on the hit list were Google Voice which operates a service similar to that of Skype.
“Most I.P. telephony market brands, such as Skype and ICQ, are foreign, and that is why we have to protect the domestic producer.” These domestic producers such as MegaFon would indeed do better if there was no Skype in Russia but it would have disastrous consequences.
For one thing, may Russians rely on Skype as a lo-cost business tool. If it were to be taken away the only way to communicate with other devout Skype users across the globe would be regular phone or a less popular Russian service that would undoubtedly have compatibility issues with foreign VoIP services.
Another is that this would represent a step backwards for the Kremlin towards 1988. I don’t know what I would do if my Skype suddenly vanished – business costs would increase a ton!
Google’s mobile platform Android is taking off very quickly. Multiple phone makers are picking up on the OS because of is functionality and features. Now, HTC have come out of the OD closet and stated that by 2010 over half of their phones will use the popular OS. This follows the Android success of their previous phones the G1 Magic and the Hero.
They have also announced that a new phone coming out in a couple of month’s time in either September or October which will be based on the Qualcommis platform from Brew mobile. While they may be stepping away from the Android OS for a little while I’m sure that they are busy as beavers behind the scenes working closely with Google and their Android platform.
The developers of mobile phones actually quite like the Android platform as it’s extremely easy to work with. Because Android takes care of the look and feel of the phone developers just have to give it their own little twist instead of starting from scratch with themes, user functions and then get on to the programs.
