Sony’s sexy pink balls extend smartphone sound
Sony is rightly mounting a competition for a cuter name for the SRS-BTV5, first shown at the Consumer Electronics Show in January and available this month in black, white or pink for $70 (£55).
I like to roll this small audio ball of a wireless speaker in the palm of my hand and pet it like an executive toy, before tucking it away in its string bag for travelling. Read more
TuneIn radio offers stronger personalised signal
TuneIn, the leading internet radio aggregator, is launching new features making it easier for listeners to find more of what they like among its more than 70,000 radio stations.
TuneIn Live is a new tiled interface on its website and featured in an updated iPad app launched today that surfaces favourite artists and programmes based on genres chosen by listeners. Read more
Leap Motion announces pricing, launch date
Leap Motion has announced a ship date and retail price for its eagerly anticipated motion controller for PCs and Macs.
The sensor, the size of a pack of chewing gum, is shipping later than planned and at a higher price. It ships on May 13, when the previous launch date had been “early 2013”. It will cost $80 – $10 more than the previous pre-order price. Read more
HP sells webOS to LG for smart TVs
HP has sol
d its webOS operating system, developed by its Palm acquisition for smartphones and tablets, to LG Electronics, which plans to adapt it for consumer electronics devices such as smart TVs.
The move comes as little surprise – HP had abandoned development of webOS-based products and announced an Android-based tablet at the Mobile World Congress in Barcelona at the weekend. Read more
HP Envy x2 offers double function at a price
First impressions of HP’s Envy x2 when the company showed it to the media last year were that this appeared to be the best of the first wave of Windows 8 laptop/tablet convertibles.
But spending some time with this hybrid device since it was launched last month, I find the x2 highlights how convertibles do not necessarily offer the best of both worlds, but can often represent unsatisfying compromises. Read more
WD TV streamer is a Play on Apple TV, Roku
Small, square, sub-$100 black boxes dominate streaming internet-television devices in the US, in the shape of Apple TV and Roku’s LT, XS, XD and HD boxes.
There’s no shame then in Western Digital imitating this successful formula in launching today the WD TV Play - the latest variation of its WD TV lineup of content-streaming set-top boxes. Read more
Rabbit and Glide give glimpse of video chat future
Video chat is becoming more sophisticated and social, with developers working out how better to combine media streams and groups of friends in online conversation.
Rabbit, which launches in beta today on Macs, was designed by game developers and introduces more visually appealing video chatrooms and easier ways to connect with friends. Glide, which debuted at Macworld last week, offers a video group walkie-talkie service on the iPhone. Both are free to download and use. Read more
Surface Pro’s more than skin-deep differences
Microsoft’s Surface Windows 8 Pro tablet is on sale from Saturday, costing 50 per cent more than its equivalent Windows RT forerunner – from $900 rather than $600 in the US for the 64Gb versions.
At first glance, the two look identical in their size and dark titanium design, but Microsoft is providing quite a few more features for the money. Whether they are enough to justify this price for a tablet is debatable. A review after the jump. Read more
Evernote’s hello to growth, penultimate to IPO
Evernote, the service that maintains memos of your daily life, is closing on a new milestone of 50m users, but is still some way from an IPO, according to Phil Libin, chief executive.
That may have to wait until at least 2015, he told me this week, as the Silicon Valley company focuses on further growth in users and services such as Evernote Hello and Penultimate, both apps being the subject of upgrades launched today. Read more
Microsoft recently opened a store near my home in the San Francisco Bay Area, marking the occasion with a concert in the car park by Kelly Clarkson, the first American Idol talent show winner, and an appearance by a famous American football player – Jerry Rice of the San Francisco 49ers. I had not seen such a local commotion since another famous football player, George Best, opened a fish-and-chip shop in my home town near Manchester around 1970. All this fuss, just for piles of boxed copies of Windows, I thought.| 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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