Mixed messages from Twitter, Facebook and RIM over Cameron’s riot block threat
Facebook, Twitter and BlackBerry-maker Research in Motion have made quite different responses to the prime minister’s call for them to play a greater role in preventing future riots on the British streets.
The three technology companies have been summoned before the home secretary to discuss a mooted scheme to block conspiring rioters. Read more
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Groupon has added new information to the risk section of its IPO filing, Reuters reports, telling prospective investors to ignore comments made by co-founder Eric Lefkofsky. A few days after its original IPO filing, Bloomberg News quoted Lefkofsky saying that: “Groupon was going to be wildly profitable,” the company said. In its updated filing, Groupon said:
The reported statement does not accurately or completely reflect Mr Lefkofsky’s views and should not be considered by prospective investors in isolation or at all
Instant messaging applications for mobile devices, such as BlackBerry Messenger, are becoming so popular that use of text messages by 15-24 year olds will fall by a fifth in many large markets including the UK, analysts predict.
Mobile Youth, a consultancy, forecasts that text, or SMS, volumes will drop by 20 per cent in the next two years in regions including the UK, Indonesia, South Africa and Brazil, where BBM is particularly popular among teenagers and students.
Tech news from around the web:
Tech news from around the web:
Don’t get your hopes up too high. That’s all I’m going to say. They’ve had a number of problems along the way, and the third-generation iPad is the one to make a song and a dance about.
Tech news from around the web:
Google’s momentum in smartphones is not likely to stop at just overtaking Apple’s iPhone in terms of global sales, according to analysts from Taipei-based Digitimes Research, who are predicting that Android sales will jump to number two above Research In Motion’s BlackBerry before the end of the year.
Gartner, the research group, last week said Android’s global share in smartphones had jumped from 1.8 per cent a year ago to 17.2 per cent in the second quarter of 2010. This put it ahead of Apple’s iOS operating system, which had a 14.2 per cent share, but still behind RIM’s 18.2 per cent global market share. Read more
BlackBerry Torch keeps RIM in smartphone contention
If Research in Motion had rolled out the Blackberry Torch a year ago when RIM first began serious work on the device, it would have been a showstopper.
As it was when Mike Lazaridis, RIM’s co-chief executive, unveiled the device at a New York event on Tuesday, there were few if any surprises though some eyebrows were raised by the news that AT&T which already boasts the iPhone in its smarphone portfolio, would be the exclusive network partner in the US. (AT&T’s Ralph de la Vega was on stage at the launch event to say nice things about RIM and the new device.) Read more
CTIA spawns new crop of smartphones
HTC’s Android-powered Evo 4G – the first Wimax-enabled smartphone which will be offered for sale by Sprint Nextel this summer in the US – was unquestionably the star of the telecoms industry’s CTIA show in Las Vegas this week. (See Chris Nuttall’s earlier post.) But it was not the only smartphone show in town.
Other new smartphones launched at CTIA included HTC’s HD2 which looks very similar to the Evo 4G but runs Microsoft’s Windows Mobile 6.5 and is available from T-Mobile immediately for $199 – if you can find one. Read more
No end in sight for 50-year copyright levies war
It is another change of tactics in a war that has been going on for 50 years. This week, consumer electronics companies led by Apple, HP, Sony, Panasonic and Research In Motion, broke off the latest round of talks to reform the Europe’s convoluted system of private copy levies.
The copy levies are surcharges placed on devices such as MP3 players and printers by 22 European countries, to compensate writers, artists, and musicians for small amounts of personal copying of their material. It is not to be confused with illegal filesharing; the copy levies are intended to cover handfuls of copies in the private sphere, which many countries allow. 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.
