Archive for: News
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.
It’s all about security this week in the tech world. Google are under the spotlight concerning security in their upcoming Google Chrome OS and Norton 2010 is turning heads. Now, Mozilla Firefox is to receive an update (3.0.12) which will close several major security loop holes in their popular browser.
“We strongly recommend that all Firefox 3.0.x users upgrade to this latest release,” Mozilla said on its developer blog. “If you already have Firefox 3, you will receive an automated update notification within 24 to 48 hours. This update can also be applied manually by selecting ‘Check for Updates…’ from the Help menu.”
It is recommended that users download the update so that they remain secure online. Using credit cards and even just keeping your browsing habits safe is a difficult task these days so the last thing you want is a browser that lets unsavoury programs or people peer into your bank account.
However, this will be one of the last, if not the last update for the browser. As of January 2010, no more updates will be made available to users of the 3.0.’X’ series as Mozilla try to pedal their newest browser, Firefox 3.5 to users.
So 3G is what we’re all looking for in terms of surfing the web, checking e-mails and streaming video. It’s modern, cool and new – not to mention useful. It’s only starting to take off now since the release of the first touch screen smart-phones that give you HTML browsing – not like 2007 when all you could do was see mobile web slightly faster.
Now a Japanese company by the name of NTT DoCoMo (the company that first introduced 3G back in 2001, but the world failed to adopt it for years) now say that they will introduce 4G in 2010 and that they are confident that the world will get behind them this time.
“We went first and when we looked behind us there was nobody there.” Said the company’s president when asked about the 2001 launch of 3G.
However, even though the future certainly lies with 4G, I can’t see it catching on so quickly. 3G is at its height now and
basic business strategy is that you don’t stop selling until the product does. Then you move on. I admire DoCoMo’s enthusiasm but even though it’s been over eight years since they introduced 3G, it’s only been three or four for the rest of the world.
They are really starting to push what 4G can do in the hope of winning over big companies into adopting the service. They claim that it will be able to stream movies and live TV anywhere where there is a hint of service at speeds approaching 300Mbs. In summary, I would say it will be a few years until we start seeing 4G around these parts.
Have you ever downloaded a less than scrupulous piece of software only to discover the next day that you default browser has been changed and your homepage is some rubbish search engine based in North Korea? I have. So have thousands of others who were attracted by freeware never stopping to think of the scheming companies that lurked behind them. Such as Microsoft.
At the present, when users download IE8, the newest edition of Internet Explorer they will quite obviously have to install it. Now when you’re installing any piece of software you’re given a choice.
a) Quick Install
b) Custom install
In most cases the ‘Quick Install’ is already selected for you and most of us will go right on ahead and press ’Next’. Microsoft copped onto that so that when you install IE by choosing the quick install method your default browser and homepage are changed to please Bill Gates.
Microsoft recently came under fire about these practices you would expect from a smaller more desperate company. They responded by saying on their blog that they were making an update and that by August IE8 will ask your permission to become the default browser first.
“IE will never install, or become the default browser without your explicit consent. However, we heard a lot of feedback from a lot of different people and groups and decided to make the user choice of the default browser even more explicit,” Microsoft said.
IE8 has already been in the spotlight when they released the OMGIGP advertisement which Crenk covered here.
Its official, Facebook, the social network that started out as a noting based at Harvard has now grown to have over 250 million active worldwide members. Astonishing.
The momentous figure was officially announced on the official Facebook blog by CEO Mark Zuckerberg. Just a few months ago they celebrated reaching the 200 million mark by launching the non-profit organization Facebook for Good. Now however, they are changing tactics for what should be a huge blowout party –they’re doing nothing except carrying on with their work.
Apparently, they are now trying to make the service more accessible on mobile devices as the growth of Facebook is now largely coming from international countries where people are more likely to access the social network on their mobile devices like the iPhone or Blackberry.
“Today as we celebrate our 250 millionth user, we are also continuing to develop Facebook to serve as many people in the world in the most effective way possible,” Zuckerberg wrote. “This means reaching out to everyone across the world and making products that serve all of you, wherever you are–whether through Facebook Connect, new mobile products and the other things that we are building.”
As we have seen with Twitter, failure to keep the ball rolling can lead to growth rates dropping like a rock. Facebook seem to be doing a good job. The next six months will be a challenge because as a ball gets bigger, its harder to roll.
Finally after a lot of expectation and three release candidates (all were published within less that two weeks) Mozilla announced that the the final version for Firefox 3.5 will be available to the public on the morning of Tuesday, June 30.
Seems that development team is running against the clock, considering that on June 24 they’ve released the RC3 version for Firefox 3.5 and originally the announcement about the final version stated that “end of June” will be the date. Well they sure are keeping the promise, taking the last day of the month to release it.
Since RC1, the two other versions that were public basically focused in bug fixing, so if you installed were using any of these versions you shouldn’t expect greatest differences with the final one.
Download Firefox 3.5 RC3.
