Wi-Fi Direct adds to wireless video options
Consumers will soon be spoilt for – and confused by – choice in the number of ways they can move video wirelessly from one device to another.
Apple, Google, Intel and a host of lesser known companies are pushing their own technologies for this, which is why the first products signalling a unified approach, announced today by the Wi-Fi Alliance with its Wi-Fi Direct, are welcome. Read more
From the FT’s beyondbrics blog
South Korea’s leading mobile operator, SK Telecom, has long deemed that domestic dominance is insufficient. It has desperately sought to expand abroad – only to see recent ventures in China and the US end ingloriously.
Now the company has a new, even loftier ambition: to develop software for mobile phones, thereby competing with Apple, Google and others. Not surprisingly, the proposal has raised doubts. Read more
SAP’s biggest challenge: Silencing Ellison
Is SAP about to take the same sort of battering in the press from Oracle that has made HP’s board quail recently? Not if it can help it.
Late on Friday, SAP asked a Californian court to put a gag order on Oracle’s legal counsel ahead of the scheduled November 1 start of the trial to decide damages in the TomorrowNow case. But even if it can silence Oracle’s lawyers, SAP probably has a bigger problem on its hands: Larry Ellison, who shows no inclination to hold back in public. Read more
Windows Phone 7 gives Microsoft new Focus
For a company rebooting its mobile phone strategy, the simple building-blocks look of the home screen on Windows Phone 7 is an apt visual metaphor for the extensive reconstruction work under way to rebuild Microsoft’s smartphone reputation.
In this week’s Personal Technology column in the FT’s Business Life section, I reviewed one of the nine launch phones sporting this refreshing new interface – the Samsung Focus. Read more
MacBook Air – my new favourite netbook
Steve Jobs says netbooks are just slow, cheap laptops with low-quality displays and are no good for anything.
He dissed them as such during the unveiling of the iPad and, judging by falling sales since then, he may have a case. Except that the new MacBook Air, launched on Wednesday, has just become my new favourite netbook. Read more
Ballmer dismisses Goldman’s ‘nutty’ idea
Microsoft’s Steve Ballmer was in fine (fighting) form on stage at the annual Gartner Symposium in Orlando today, punching his hands for emphasis and positively bristling at the suggestion that Microsoft should split its consumer and corporate businesses.
He described a recent Goldman Sachs idea to spin-out the consumer unit as “nutty” and “the second most crazy idea I have ever heard.” Unfortunately he did not tell his audience of about 5,000 senior IT executive what was the craziest. Read more
Facebook gaffe highlights risks of “leaky” platforms
Facebook’s latest privacy gaffe – allowing its users’ IDs to slip out to advertisers via third party apps – is not as unusual as you might think.
A year ago, researchers found that 11 of 12 social networks allowed user IDs to leak (only Google’s Orkut passed the test.) Linked with the behavioural information that third party ad servers collect, these IDs can become a “magic key” to unlock a user’s real identity, says Peter Eckersley of the Electronic Frontier Foundation. Read more
Apple updates MacBook Air and Mac software
Apple has unveiled a new version of its MacBook Air notebook and a “younger brother”, costing under $1,000, with a smaller 11.6-inch screen.
A new version of its Mac operating system, codenamed Lion, was also shown along with an updated version of its iLife software suite in a media event at Apple’s Silicon Valley headquarters.
Steve Jobs, Apple chief executive, who lead the presentations, said the Air was “the future of notebooks”. Read more
An online investment site sobers up
I confess to being a stick-in-the-mud when it comes to investing in the stock market. As a committed adherent of the efficient markets hypothesis (I know, I know, they haven’ t always looked that efficient recently) you can count me among those who find it hard to believe that any money manager can consistently beat the indices.
Add in the the high fees and lack of transparency that come with active managers, and it doesn’t seem that customers are well-served by this particular part of the financial services industry.
That’s what makes a site like Wealthfront interesting. If the web is the perfect medium for raising transparency and reducing distribution costs (and fees), then this is a good demonstration of how to go about it. Read more
Square doesn’t work with iPhone4 (Updated)
Square, the much-hyped mobile credit card processing system created by Twitter co-founder Jack Dorsey has a big problem: it doesn’t work with the iPhone4.
In a blog post buried deep in the support section of Square’s website, the company acknowledges that the Square card reader interferes with the already problematic iPhone4 antenna.
“This renders our card readers inactive for your iPhone4,” the company wrote on October 9. “We are working on redesigning our card readers and will be contacting our iPhone4 users as soon as they are ready for shipment.”
Update: Square has clearly been scrambling for a fix for awhile now. The day after this post was published, they emailed to say that, “As of today, we have shipped new card readers to to active users who are accessing Square via an iPhone 4.” Read more
| About this blog | Blog guide |
Richard Waters has headed the FT's San Francisco bureau since 2002 and covers Google and Microsoft, among other things. A former New York bureau chief for the FT, he is intrigued by Silicon Valley's unique financial and business culture, and is looking forward to covering his second Tech Bust.
Chris Nuttall has been online and messing around with computers for more than 20 years and since 2004 has reported from the FT's San Francisco bureau on semiconductors, video games, consumer electronics and all things interwebby.
Maija Palmer has been writing about technology for the FT since 1999 and is fascinated by cybercrime, privacy and all the other issues of the information society. Based in London, she covers European tech companies and hopes that they won't all get acquired by American rivals.
Robin Kwong is the FT's technology, media and telecoms page editor in London. Formerly he was the Taipei correspondent and wrote about the companies that manufacture the vast majority of the world's computers and gadgets. He is interested in the intricacies of the technology supply chain and how China is increasingly changing the tech landscape.
Tim Bradshaw is the FT's digital media correspondent, and has just moved from London to join our team in San Francisco. He has covered start-ups such as Twitter and Spotify, as well as the online ambitions of more established media companies, such as the BBC iPlayer. He also covers the advertising, marketing and video-game industries. Tim has been writing about technology, business and finance since 2003.
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