Battle for the car: will Google, Apple or Microsoft dominate?

 

The battle for the car between Apple, Google and Microsoft has ignited this year with the launch of Apple’s CarPlay and Google’s Android-based Open Automotive Alliance.
Car manufacturers are lining up behind their respective technology banners, with each one pledging allegiance to one or another. Some sit across multiple camps, but others are steadfastly pro-Apple or pro-Google, with Microsoft and the others looking like they’ve been left holding mouldy cheese.

Read More

Flipping and Recommending: Flipboard Buys Zite from CNN

The iPad was supposed to usher in a new age of journalism, publishing, and other ways to get news-like content into our grubby little hands and advertising money into the grubby little hands of the publishers. In some small ways it has succeeded, but if there is a new age it looks much like the old players are still trying to find their place. Or at least find a way that they can make the new age profitable. One of the small corners in this new publishing world that has seemed to work is Flipboard. A magazine App that allows you to curate your own content from Twitter, RSS, and increasingly from a number of sources that create magazines to be read in the App. Today Flipboard purchased Zite, another news reading App that had been purchased by CNN in 2011.

Both Apps serve a similar curation purpose, but the purchase of Zite gives Flipboard a future feature it doesn’t have. That is a recommendation engine. Zite allows you to vote a story up or down. Voting a story up means you’ll see more of that kind of story in the future. Voting it down means you’ll see less. Within Flipboard any type of recommending comes from sharing what you read instead of building a feed or feeds that contains articles that particularly interest you by voting up or down, liking or disliking.

Read More

Google updates Gmail app on iPhone: Now sign-in to Maps, YouTube etc through Gmail

Google has released an update for the Gmail app on iPhone which adds some much desired features. The update, which hits the app on iOS 7, will bring pre-fetching of emails, but more importantly acts as a single-point sign-in window to the major Google services available for iOS.

“The app now fully supports background app refresh, which means your Gmail messages will be pre-fetched and synced so they’re right there when you open the app-no more annoying pauses while you wait for your inbox to refresh,” Melissa Dominguez, Software Engineer at Google wrote on the Gmail blog. The pre-fetching feature will only work if background app refresh has been turned on along with notifications for the Gmail app.

Read More

Facebook Messenger For Windows Phone Now Available For Download

After a long wait, Facebook Messenger app is now available for Windows Phone users. Keeping up to its promised made during MWC 2014, Microsoft has launched the app with all the basic features available in Android and iOS versions. Among the various facilities provided by the FB Messenger app, the prominent ones are - Ability to send the new Facebook stickers and your photos privately, Having group conversations and Sharing your location so people know when you're nearby. Just like the online version of Facebook

Read More

Yahoo continues spending spree with data visualisation firm Vizify

0
inShare

 web customisation tool Vizify.
As part of the deal, Yahoo will shut down Vizify, so the company is no longer accepting new signups or purchases of paid plans. Vizify will issue refunds to plan holders and send instructions to those who have registered domains or created bios for how to regain that domain or get a "snapshot" of their bios that will be available until 1 September.
In a statement on its website, Vizify said its goal was to transform "information that we all consume and create every day into something more beautiful and personal" - which it has done through graphical bios, infographic cards, and videos.

Read More

Chief financial officer Oppenheimer exits Apple after 18 years

Apple chief financial officer Peter Oppenheimer will retire at the end of September as CEO Tim Cook brings on a new lieutenant to navigate slowing growth at the iPhone maker.
Luca Maestri, who joined Apple as vice-president of finance and corporate controller a year ago, will succeed Mr Oppenheimer, Apple said on Tuesday.
Oppenheimer was at Apple for 18 years, during which the firm introduced the iPod and iPhone.
He oversaw a surge in Apple’s cash pile to $158.8bn from $5.46bn in 2004, the year he was promoted to chief financial officer, reinstated dividends in 2012 and returned more than $50bn to shareholders. His departure is the biggest change to executive ranks since Mr Cook ousted mobile-software chief Scott Forstall in 2012.
"When Luca was hired a year ago, we saw the writing on the wall," said an analyst at Piper Jaffray, Gene Munster, who has the equivalent of a buy rating for Apple’s stock.
Mr Oppenheimer said in the statement that he planned to spend more time with his family, get more involved at California Polytechnic State University, travel and finish his pilot’s licence.

Read More

Getty Images goes 'free for all' with new embedding rule

World's largest photo service, Getty Images, has reportedly decided to make its content free for public use after acknowledging that its pictures were everywhere with or without the watermark.
Earlier, if users wanted to get any Getty picture without the watermark, they had to pay for it.
However, the photo service has decided to drop the watermark for the bulk of its collection, in exchange for an open-embed program that would require users to add a footer at the bottom of the image with a credit

Read More

ASI, Google unveil 360-degree online view of 30 monuments

New Delhi: The iconic Taj Mahal is among 30 Indian monuments which can now be "visited" online with a 360-degree panoramic view, thanks to a novel initiative.

 Iconic Taj Mahal is among 30 Indian monuments

Google and Archaeological Survey of India (ASI) on Thursday jointly launched 360-degree panoramic imagery of 30 out of 100 "nationally-important monuments" including Red Fort, Humayun's Tomb, Jantar Mantar and Qutub Minar among others, viewable to one-third of the world's population.
  
"This is one of the most exciting things that Google has done. Imagine the iconic Taj Mahal, now being accessible to not just over 20 crore Indians on the web but about one-third of the world population, without even having to go there," Managing Director of Google India, Rajan Anandan told reporters.
  
Union Minister of Culture Chandresh Kumari Katoch launched the project at an event organised at the historic Safdarjung Tomb.
  
"Today, we are going to bring our heritage to the doorstep of every person... This project has brought our culture, our heritage, history closer to the people of India, the partnership of Google and ASI has brought Indian heritage online," Katoch said.
  
The search engine giant and the Ministry of Culture had signed a memorandum at the Qutub Minar complex last October, following which the company created a "virtual walkthrough" application using its 'Street View Trekker' technology for the first time in India.
  
"At Google, we love cultural heritage, and this project brings these monuments literally to people's doorsteps," Anandan said.

Read More

Tesla CEO reportedly confirms meeting with Apple but declines to confirm acquisition talk

 

 

Tesla Motors Inc has had “conversations” with Apple Inc, Chief Executive Elon Musk confirmed to Bloomberg TV, but he would not comment on whether those talks revolved around acquisitions, reports Reuters.

The San Francisco Chronicle reported this week that Musk met with Apple Inc’s head of mergers and acquisitions in 2013, stoking speculation about Tesla’s future.  But speaking generally about the possibility of another company buying Tesla, Musk said in an interview with Bloomberg TV that he had concerns.

Rumors have been swirling since news broke this week of a possible meeting between Apple’s top executive for acquisitions and the CEO of electric car maker Tesla.

Citing a person familiar with the matter, The San Francisco Chronicle reported Sunday that the meeting between Adrian Perica and Elon Musk took place last spring. The companies haven’t commented on the report. With $158.8 billion in cash on its balance sheet, Apple certainly has the money to

Read More

Samsung Galaxy S5 Gold variant tipped ahead of MWC 2014 unveiling

  inShare1

inShare1

It seems like there is no end to the leaks related to Samsung's 2014 flagship smartphone, the Galaxy S5, ahead of its official announcement.A new leak tips that Samsung will also be introducing the Gold variant of its much-anticipated Galaxy S5 smartphone at the Barcelona event, scheduled on 24 February 2014.
The leak comes via GSMArena who received a purported image of Vodafone's inventory system, which shows a Samsung Galaxy S5 Gold smartphone listed alongside other devices like Apple iPhone 5s and HTC One. As of now, the alleged image of Vodafone's inventory system did not reveal many details about the rumoured Galaxy S5 Gold.
Notably, Samsung is famous for launching a number of variants of its flagship devices. The 2013 flagship smartphone, the Samsung Galaxy S4, had a number of variants, namely: Samsung Galaxy S4 Active, Galaxy S4 Zoom, and Galaxy S4 Mini. A Gold colour variant of the Galaxy S4 was also launched quite a bit after the device's global unveiling. However, it seems that the South Korean major might announce the Galaxy S5 in Gold option right at the global launch.

Read More

The Surprising Best Thing about Google Fiber Coming to Your Town

 

A Google Fiber technician gets supplies out of his truck to install Google Fiber in a residential home in Provo, Utah, January 2, 2014. Provo is one of three cities Google is currently building gigabit internet and television service for business and residential use.

Sure, Internet speeds are faster, and the base-level Google Fiber service is cheaper than typical Internet providers. But what might truly set Google Fiber apart from the pack is that the customer service doesn’t suck.
This week, Google announced that it is looking at expanding Google Fiber, its ultrafast broadband Internet service, to nine more U.S. cities. The service, which costs customers $70 per month for 1-gigabit Internet—estimated at 100 times faster than the average U.S. connection—or $0 per month (after a $300 installation fee), is already operational in Kansas City, and has been approved and is in progress in Austin, Texas, and Provo, Utah. Now Google is exploring the possibility of bringing Google Fiber to Atlanta,

Read More

Google Introduces Phone With 3-D Sensors

Google has unveiled a new phone that makes real-time, 3-D maps of its environments. Its “customized hardware and software” includes sensors that gives it the capability to make over a quarter of a million measurements every second. Its uses could include indoor mapping and navigation assistance for the visually-impaired.
“We are physical beings that live in a 3-D world,” Google says. “Yet, our mobile devices assume that physical world ends at the boundaries of the screen.”

Read More

BlackBerry shares set to jump on Facebook's WhatsApp bid

A man walks by a Blackberry sign at the Blackberry campus in Waterloo, September 23, 2013.

Credit: Reuters/Mark Blinch

(Reuters) - Facebook Inc's $19 billion bid for fast-growing mobile-messaging startup WhatsApp sent shares of BlackBerry Ltd higher before the opening bell on Thursday as investors placed bets that the smartphone maker's own messaging platform has been undervalued.
BlackBerry shares were up as much as 9 percent in trading after the bell on Wednesday as the deal boosts valuation metrics around the company's own BlackBerry Messaging service.
BlackBerry Messaging, or BBM, was a pioneering mobile-messaging service, but its user base has failed to keep pace with that of WhatsApp and other upstarts, in part because BlackBerry had long refused to open the service to users on other platforms.
WhatsApp, with a user base of about 450 million, has grown rapidly. Its service works on Apple Inc's iOS platform, Google Inc's market-dominating Android operating system and with devices powered by both the Windows and BlackBerry operating systems.

Read More

San Antonio Selected As Potential Google Fiber Network Site

Enlarge image

Mark Strama, Head of Google Fiber in Austin, stands with city leaders at the initial announcement of Fiber

Credit Joey Palacios / Texas Public Radio

Google Fiber has selected San Antonio as one of nine metro areas to potentially receive its super fast internet connection.
With the ability to download 1 gigabyte per second, it’s already 100 times faster than what’s available for most homes in San Antonio. Google and the city announced that plans to bring Google Fiber to the Alamo city are in motion.

Read More

Porsche warns 911 GT3 owners to stop driving

Fire fears prompt Porsche to ask owners of latest hardcore GT3 to stop driving and get their car inspected

Porsche in the UK has told owners of the newly launched 911 GT3 to stop driving their cars and bring them back to the dealership for a check-up as the parent company continues to investigate two cases in Europe where engine fires gutted the £100,000 car.

The VW-owned company upgraded its advice from Wednesday this week when Porsche in the UK confirmed that the German HQ had halted all new deliveries of the hardcore sportscar while engineers searched for the cause of the fires.

In the UK just over 100 GT3s are affected out of a global total of 785 cars sold since deliveries started late last year. Deliveries of a further 1,000 cars have been halted, according to Porsche.

“Safety is the top priority and owners have been advised not to use their car,” a spokesman for Porsche in the UK told The Telegraph. Porsche will offer to transport the car back to the dealership for an inspection of the engine, however the spokesman denied it was a recall. “It’s not a recall in the strict sense of the word. We’re offering customers the opportunity to bring the car back.” He said that Porsche’s investigations in Germany into the cause of the two fires had not yet been concluded.

The widely acclaimed GT3 is the latest in a long line of similarly badged 911s admired by Porsche fans for their light weight and race-car driving experience.

The new car, which costs £100,540 in the UK, includes active rear wheel steering for the first time to improve high-speed stability and low-speed manoeuvrability. The car’s 3.6-litre six-cylinder engine makes 475bhp to give a 0-62mph time of just 3.5 seconds. Top speed is 196mph.
Porsche isn’t the only maker to be cautious about fire incidents. In 2010 Ferrari recalled all models of its then newly launched 458 supercar after a spate of fires were traced back the glue used to secure the rear wheel arch lining to the car’s chassis, which was found to be liable to catch alight when the car was driven for a long time at high speed.
Last year Tesla submitted its Model S electric car for tests by the US government’s National Highway Traffic Safety Administration to look into a series of fires.

Read More

Microsoft announces a media remote for the Xbox One

Microsoft announced a Media Remote for the Xbox One on Thursday, with a worldwide release set for early March.

For those who aren't keen on waving their hands in front of their TV or barking commands at a black box, Microsoft has an alternative, a dedicated Xbox One Media Remote.
Microsoft said in a blog post on Thursday, "For Xbox One owners who want to control their TV and entertainment at the touch of a button via a familiar remote - we introduce you to the Xbox One Media Remote."

The remote will allow Xbox One owners to navigate around the console's interface and is designed for those who do more than play games on the console.
Microsoft explained, "The Xbox One Media Remote lets you control video playback for Blu-ray movies and streaming video on Xbox One.

Read More

Apple, Google clamp down on Flappy Bird clones; reject games with 'Flappy' in the name

#apple #google #flappy bird #flappy bird clones #ken carpenter #mobile gaming

00

New Delhi: In order to cash in on the popularity of the now-defunct Flappy Bird game, other developers are apparently coming up with games with the word "Flappy" in the title, but it seems that Google and Apple are cracking down on them and are preventing the clones from hitting the Play Store and App Store, respectively.
Ken Carpenter, from studio Mind Juice Media, tweeted that Apple had rejected his game "Flappy Dragon", telling him "we found your app name attempts to leverage a popular app."
Not only Apple's App Store, his game "Flappy Bird" was also removed from the Gooogle Play Store. Google told Carpenter "do not use irrelevant, misleading, or excessive keywords in apps descriptions, titles, or metadata," said The Verge.

It seems that Apple and Google intend to prevent users from getting duped by any kind of trickery.

When he submitted the game again, the app was again rejected. He could only go through the process smoothly after he changed the name of the game to Derpy Dragon, which is currently available to download, said The Verge quoting Carpenter as saying.

Read More

Kickstarter customers’ passwords taken in data breach

 Watchlist Relevance

LEARN MORE

By Andrew Dowell

Crowdfunding site Kickstarter Inc. said some customer data have been accessed in a computer attack.

The company, which has set up an exchange in which people can contribute often small amounts of money to fund projects such as the documentary “Ai Weiwei: Never Sorry” or the Pebble smartwatch, said in a blog post Saturday and emails to users that no credit-card data was compromised.

Click to Play

How to blow $1.5 million in two weeks

If you have $1.5 Million lying around and not sure what to spend it on, try a $100-plus-a-day vacation on board a private plane. (Photo: Getty Images)

The data accessed included user names, encrypted passwords, email and mailing addresses and phone numbers, Chief Executive Yancey Strickler said in the post

Read More

Windows 8 lags predecessor in sales

---

REUTERS

Windows 8 was designed as a flexible new system that would work equally well on desktops PCs and touchscreen tablets.

Related Stories

• Android leading, Windows grabs 3rd spot
• Microsoft pushing to unveil Windows 9
• Windows phone updating now

Seattle - Microsoft's Windows 8 system has racked up more than 200 million license sales since its launch 15 months ago, according to Tami Reller, its head of marketing, lagging Windows 7 which sold 240 million within its first year.

The latest Windows 8 sales figure, announced by Reller at a Goldman Sachs technology conference, is the first that Microsoft has made public for more than six months.

The relatively slow sales of Windows 8, and its latest incarnation Windows 8.1, reflect a steady two-year decline in personal computer sales, as smartphones and tablet sales explode. Sales of tablets are set to overtake PCs worldwide next year.

Read More

IBM commits $1.2bn to cloud data centre expansion

IBM chief executive Virginia Rometty wants to expand her company's cloud services business

Continue reading the main story

IBM, the global computing giant, has said it is investing more than $1.2bn (£735m) expanding its data centres and cloud storage business.

It plans to build 15 new centres around the world, bringing the total number up to 40 during 2014.
IBM bought cloud services company SoftLayer for $2bn last year, and this investment will double the subsidiary's storage capacity, the company said.
IBM believes the cloud services market could be worth $200bn by 2020.
Businesses are increasingly leasing data storage, computing power and web hosting services from a growing number of specialist cloud companies - effectively outsourcing their IT needs to cut costs and improve efficiency.
IBM says it has added 2,400 new clients since it acquired Dallas-based SoftLayer.

Read More