Monthly Archives: June 2012

Richard Waters A Microsoft tablet? It’s all about the content (and apps)

June 18, 2012 6:19 pm by Richard Waters

Microsoft has taken a leaf out of Apple’s book by pumping up the anticipation – and speculation – ahead of its media event in Los Angeles late on Monday afternoon (local time). But even if it does launch its own hotly-anticipated tablet computer, the real issue is not hardware: it’s whether Microsoft can come up with the content and services it will need to draw buyers away from the iPad. Read more

Posted in Tech |

SEC releases pre-IPO correspondence with Facebook

June 15, 2012 7:38 pm by April Dembosky

The Securities and Exchange Commission published letters it exchanged with Facebook leading up to its IPO, revealing details of the US regulator’s concerns over the social network’s mobile business strategy, its dependence on Zynga, and how it presented its advertising model.

The correspondence was made public on Friday, a routine disclosure, and showed similarly routine questioning. Facebook responded to all questions in amended filings before the public offering on May 18.

“I know that everyone wants to paint Facebook as evil because their shares have gone down,” said Michael Pachter, a technology analyst at Wedbush. “These questions are completely reasonable questions, each of these.” Read more

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Posted in Mobile, Social, Tech |

Chris Nuttall Hard drive maker WD adds router family

June 14, 2012 1:00 pm by Chris Nuttall

The leading hard drive makers seem set on reinventing themselves – extending not just their storage capacities but their product lines as well.

Seagate announced Backup Plus, a drive that can also backup media on your social networks, on Monday and it is in the process of acquiring the premium drive maker LaCie.

Now Western Digital is taking on the likes of Linksys and Netgear with a complete lineup of routers it claims will usher in a “new era of blazing fast HD entertainment streaming”. Read more

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Posted in Personal technology |

Chris Nuttall Smart TVs with ACR are getting recognition

June 14, 2012 8:01 am by Chris Nuttall

Apple disappointed some in failing to provide any news on Apple TV at its developer conference this week, with attendees at the TV of Tomorrow (TVOT) show – a short walk from Apple’s event in San Francisco – noting this would have given a boost to the industry.

Instead, much of what was discussed at TVOT – second-screen activities, automatic content recognition (ACR), T[elevision] commerce – still represented the TV of tomorrow in terms of scaling and reaching a mass market, according to speakers. Read more

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Posted in Digital media, Internet |

Intense competition for new domain names

June 13, 2012 10:23 am by FT

The body overseeing the allocation of new web addresses has revealed intense competition for certain domain names and strong demand for non-Latin web suffixes as companies apply to own potential rivals to .com, writes Duncan Robinson.
A total of 1,930 applications for new web suffixes were made, with more than a third of these aimed at just 229 addresses, according to the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers, the organisation in charge of regulating web domains. Read more

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Posted in Internet |

Chris Nuttall Seagate launches social storage drive

June 12, 2012 5:00 am by Chris Nuttall

Seagate has launched a new line of external hard drives – the first to be able to backup photos stored on your social networks.

Its Backup Plus drives, launched on Tuesday, have the usual backup functionality of saving copies of your files from local drives, but signing into your Facebook or Flickr account, using the accompanying software, also allows automatic downloads of photos from those services. Read more

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Posted in Hardware, Personal technology, Social |

Chris Nuttall Apple unveils Retina-display MacBook, new maps, adds Facebook, improves Siri at WWDC

June 11, 2012 3:52 pm by Chris Nuttall

Apple has unveiled Facebook integration with its software as well as a new Maps app to replace Google’s service. Its annual Worldwide Developer Conference (WWDC) in San Francisco was also shown a new high-end MacBook Pro with a high-resolution Retina display.

The WWDC keynote, led by Tim Cook, chief executive, gave final details on Mountain Lion, the next version of its Mac operating system and unveiled iOS 6 – an update to the iPhone and iPad’s interface and apps.  The improvements to software and hardware – the whole MacBook range was upgraded – will help Apple better compete with Android devices and Ultrabooks that will soon feature Windows 8. The news is detailed in our live blog of the event after the jump. Read more

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Posted in Consumer Electronics, Digital media, Internet, Mobile, Software |

Chris Nuttall E3 2012 reflects “fin de cycle” video gaming

June 10, 2012 11:51 pm by Chris Nuttall

The video game industry looked to the razzle-dazzle of its annual trade show in Los Angeles this week to lift it out of depression and E3, in part, delivered.

Sales have been suffering as interest has waned in the current generation of consoles, now seven years old, but Nintendo showed more than 20 games that would feature on its innovative Wii U console, due to launch later this year. Read more

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Posted in Asia, Games, Hardware, Mobile |

Chris Nuttall Sony’s Wonderbook – the untold story

June 10, 2012 9:44 am by Chris Nuttall

Sony was the only console maker to unveil new hardware of any significance at the video game industry’s E3 trade show in Los Angeles this week.

However, the Wonderbook is the most natural looking peripheral you can imagine – it looks just like a real book but works with an Eye camera and Move controller to conjure augmented-reality 3D images from its pages. . It will go on sale later this year for $40 bundled with its first title, Book of Spells, an original work from Harry Potter author J.K. Rowling.

In an interview at E3, Andy House, president of Sony Computer Entertainment, told me how the Wonderbook came about. Highlights after the jump. Read more

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Posted in Digital media, Games, Tech |

Twitter bots are boosting brands – survey

June 8, 2012 7:00 am by FT

Could some corporate twitter feeds – shock and horror – not be as popular with real people as they appear? New research published on Friday by a professor at Milan’s IULM University suggests that may well be the case, writes Eric Sylvers in Milan.

Marco Camisani Calzolari, a professor of corporate communications and digital languages, has examined the Twitter followers of 39 companies with major consumer brands, including DellOutlet, Starbucks, and Blackberry, and tried to determine which followers are likely humans and which are likely bots, or fake accounts. Read more

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Posted in Internet, Social |
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