Tech News of the week
Feb 20: PS4 is to be announced by Sony (price tag: rumored to be 400$)
Linkedin have now more than 200 Million member.
Amazon Coins a virtual currency to be launched in May (only in U.S.), it will allow users to buy apps > our analsys: Amazon strategy would be to eventually allow in apps purchases and expand across devices as an in app payment currency.
About.me buys itself back from AOL.
Yahoo Acquires Alike Team that built a Mobile Nearby Recommendation app.
Microsoft:
New Xbox console name: Durango will come with enhanced voice recognition system a bit like Siri (Voice recognition system from Apple).
Dell trying to go private and MS helping it > Reaction: HP announces the plan to build a chromebook >> Big DELL shareholder Southeastern Asset Management Inc.(8.5% of shares) will go all the way to oppose the $24 billion deal.
Skydrive from Microsoft is now hosting 1 billion office document. > a Google Drive VS. Skydive should be done.
Russian Search Engine Yandex, surpasses Bing and becomes the 4th most used Search Engine, Bing becomes 5th, Google remain 1st with 65.2% of search volume, Chinese search engine Baidu second with 8.2% and Yahoo 3rd with 4.9%
4Afrika a project by Microsoft and Chinese telecoms giant Huawei to launch special windows Phones for Africa.
Microsoft continue Scroogle attack campaign, after Google Shopping, now Gmail.
Google:
The Wall Street Journal, in an article last week claimed that Illegal Movies Upload is reappearing on Youtube > Our Analysis: the problem is not new and definetly not reappearing! at least 30% if not 90% of youtube content is copyrighted videos, and from it there’s a good 5% of movies.
Google Agreed to pay $80 million to french publishers > Reaction: now all european publishers want the same treatment, European Publishers Council asks Google to extend it’s offer across Europe.
Google Maps Marathon in India, the best way to improve Google maps for Free, well not quite Free because Goog will be giving gadgets to the top 1000 participant > I wish i can make people work for hats and tshirts as Goog does.
Google Drive allows hosting and sharing HTML, JavaScript, and CSS files > Analysis: Google Drive might soon become a web hosting service.
Google self driving cars technology will be available in 5 years > regulations need to follow
Google Paid Apple $1 billion to be default search engine on iOS safari browser (Apple disclosed agreement to FTC).
Apple:
Envasion Jailbreak ; over 7 million devices in 4 days.
Some iPhone owners experiencing overheating and battery drain after upgrading to iOS 6.1
A study claim that almost 300 million iPhone and 800 Android phone will be Active by the end of 2013.
Apple looses iPhone trademark in Brazil to a company that registered it in 2000.
Rumors: apple in early stages of smart watch.
Apple & Samsung making 103% of the profits in Mobile handsets (Apple 69%), Motorola, Nokia , others losing.
As previously reported the 128GB retina display ipads hit the Apple store.
Big Shareholder accuse Apple of hording money and try to sue Apple > Apple CEO says company won’t waste time on it.
Apple pay $8 billion to the 775,000 apps developpers
Open Source:
Ubuntu open source OS smarthphones will be available this October, starting with Galaxy Nexus handset by samsung.
Cyber Security:
European Union proposal for new cyber rules, request firms and institution to report cyber attacks, each country would have to appoint a Computer Emergency Response Team and create an authority to whom companies would report breaches.
Cyber crime: Servers controlling 300.000 to 1 million computers though the use of malware and spyware (known as botnet), were detected and shut down by Microsoft and Symantec Corp
Anonymous Hack a Federal reserve website and access personal information on 4000 u.s. bank executives.
Facebook:
According to regulators, Facebook deleted all Facial recognisition Data for EU users.
Facebook working with Chinese chipmaker Spreadtrum, to have facebook preloaded in millions of Android based cheap smartphones.
Facebook developing a tracking app (similar to Google latitude and Apple) that will detect nearby friends > make money selling you nearby ads.
Instagram feeds now available on the web > Facebook must be happy this didn’t happen before they acquired Instagram.
Advertising :
Yahoo deal with Google to start filling unsold Ad placement with Google’s contextual ad units.
Facebook to buy Microsoft ad-serving business Atlas for less than $100 million > becoming a threat to Adsense /Adwords.
Twitter increase promoted twitter trends price: now cost $200,000 per day (previously was $150,000).
Entertainment:
Microsoft Xbox 360 might become an entertainment console with premium content production.
see previously reported Youtube and premium content.
Twitter Buys Social TV Analytics Company Bluefin Labs.