Logitech, Cisco join video couch calling
Video conferencing may finally be set to go mainstream with Logitech and Cisco both set to unveil HD cameras linked to internet-connected living room TV sets next Wednesday.
With Skype HD cameras already being integrated with TVs and Microsoft due to offer video conferencing in its Kinect motion controller accessory in November, TV viewers will be getting used to being watched themselves.
Facebook Assassin makes good companion
Ubisoft released a version of its hit video game Assassin ‘s Creed on Facebook on Thursday as part of a new digital strategy it calls companion gaming.
It looks a more joined-up concept than that of Electronic Arts, which was the first major publisher to bring a big franchise to Facebook with its Fifa Superstars soccer game in June.
Lex: Google’s non-search arms start to count
Though Google still makes the lion’s share of its revenues through search advertising, that may begin to change as Android, YouTube and display advertising mature, writes the FT’s Lex column.
Google is not the font of all knowledge, rather the rummage bag in which it resides. However, it has made bold predictions this week as it tries to grab the advertising industry’s attention. By 2015, the Googlers think mobile phones will be the most popular screen for web browsing, and the display advertising market will grow to $50bn.
From FT’s beyondbrics blog
The recent dust-up between China and Japan suggested how neighbours can have incompatible interests. But in business, things are often rather different. In one example, China’s emergence as a producer of sophisticated technology is helping strengthen one of the few big microchip businesses left in Japan.
Renesas, which was created in April in a merger of two loss-making chipmakers, says it expects to increase sales to China by 50 per cent by fiscal year 2012 and to double its Chinese staff in the same period.
Continue reading “Not finished yet: chipmaker’s China ambition shows Japan can still compete”
From FT’s Alphaville blog
News of a big fall in the price of Apple shares at the open (on supposedly no news except, err, this) got the Twittersphere raging about the prospect of a mini flash crash in the making Tuesday:
Continue reading “Market on edge after Apple drops like a stone”
Pairing BlackBerry PlayBook matches Galaxy
Research in Motion’s new BlackBerry PlayBook will be taking on the iPad, the Cisco Cius and a host of other tablets when it appears early next year.
But its closest rival, both in looks, specifications and marketing strategy, appears to be Samsung’s Galaxy Tab, with the two manufacturers looking to pair the devices with their existing smartphones.
Hardly a week goes by without a big technology company trumpeting its cloud computing services. Not to be left out, telecoms operators are also eyeing the burgeoning market.
Orange has just announced a tie-up with Cisco, EMC and VMware that will see the four companies offering cloud computing service for businesses.
Four years after Nintendo released the Wii and its motion controller, “Wiimote,” Microsoft prepares for the release of its rival device, Kinect.
Today’s Lex argues, “If Microsoft existed 100 years ago, it would probably be announcing an innovative new buggy whip while Henry Ford chuntered past in a Model T.”
Vibrant Media, an in-text advertising company which has grown from a $500,000 investment in 2000 to $100m revenues last year, is hiring a new chief financial officer in preparation for a possible initial public offering, writes FT Media Editor Andrew Edgecliffe-Johnson.
Jeff Babka is coming in from Sophos, an Oxford-based IT security company that had begun work on an IPO filing before its $830m sale to Apax Partners.
Scrabble makes Kindle casual games platform
The Kindle is finally being taken a little more seriously as a games platform with Electronic Arts releasing a version of Scrabble for the eReader on Friday.
To date, there had been few diversions from the act of reading on the Kindle and its capabilities as a games platform, with its grayscale screen and lack of touch control, seemed limited.
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