Archive for Technology Content

Tim Cook on Hardware, Apple’s Structure and Being ‘Simpletons’

When taken virtually whether Apple laptops will get touch-screens, similar iPads and iPhones, Mr. Fix played the secrecy card.

Well, our notebooks, I wouldn’t desire to answer, because that’s sort of a roadmap question, and, you know, we like to be secretive on those things, he enounced at Apple’s Cupertino, Calif., headquarters.

Then he raised some doubts. Other people have attempted that with desktops, and I consider to say it hasn’t captured traction is plausibly an understatement of the year, he said.

Mr. Fix then picked up his iPhone, poked at the screen and called it sort of an intimate experience.
Take the desktop thing. You’re parked further choke from your desktop, assuming it has any form of size at all, and it’s, you know, you should draw your own conclusion, just this kind of ambit for me isn’t a terribly intuitive thing, he said, reaching across the conference room table applied by Apple’s board of directors, equally if to touch a computer.

As for the matter of whether Apple’s hardware would converge equally its software is doing so, Mr. Cook noted his company’s devices already get888 a similar feeling and feel, in percentage because Apple has a common industrial design, or ID, team. You know, you can tell that this came from the same parent as this, he pronounced continuing his game of show-and-tell by channelising to various Apple products.

Apple’s corporate structure helps explain.

We receive one (industrial design) organization, he said. We get one hardware organization. We receive one marketing organization. It’s not like we’re this large fellowship with entirely these divisions that are cranking away independent products. We’re simpletons.

Those products, of course, are enjoying record sales and Mr. Fix888 enounced the fellowship has deal of runway ahead.

Microsoft and IBM Button Dow up, Google falls

IBM and Microsoft drove the Dow Jones industrial ordinary higher Friday subsequently the tech giants reported stronger earnings than analysts expected.

The Dow arose 96.50 items to close at 12,720.48. That’s a gain of 0.8 percent. Without the brobdingnagian gains in IBM and Microsoft, the Dow would get risen merely 24 points.

The S&P 500 index inched up 0.88 to 1,315.38. Both the Dow and S&P finished the hebdomad with gains of more than 2 percent.

Plenty of things are locomoting right, said Hotdog Fantozzi, CEO of Planned Financial Services, an independent wealthiness manager in Cleveland. Applications for unemployment benefits dropped last hebdomad to the lowest degree in nearly four years. Housing sales are steadily rising.

Overall, we’re moving in the decent instruction and it’s bolstered the market,Fantozzi said. The S&P getting over 1,300 this week is a nice sign.

Microsoft enounced sales of Xbox games and Position software helped button revenue up in the last quarter of 2011. IBM credited better sales of software and services and raised its earnings11111 outlook for the year. Microsoft arose 6 pct and IBM arose 4 percent.

Google lost 8.4 percent subsequently its earnings77777 per portion fell a dollar little of analysts’ estimates. The misfire stemmed from an 8 pct expend in prices that the Internet hunting giant charges advertisers for each click.

Google’s drib tugged the Nasdaq composite index lower. It descended 1.63 items to 2,786.70.

In another signaling that traders were becoming more willing to have on risk, the yield on the 10-year Treasury note crossed above 2 pct for the first time in two weeks.

Sunflowers inspire improved solar Power Flora

The well-tuned geometry of the florets on the side of the sunflower mind has inspired an improved layout for mirrors employed to concentrate sunlight and generate electricity, according to young research.

The sunflower-inspired layout could reduce the footprint of concentrating solar powerfulness (CSP) plants by almost 20 percent, which could exist a boon for a technology that’s limited, in part, by its massive land requirements.

CSP plants utilise arrays of giant mirrors, each the size of half a tennis court, to beam the sun’s rays up to heat a tubing of fluid in the crown of a tower. This hot fluid drives steam turbines that generate electricity.

In the traditional layout, the mirrors are arranged in rows of circles that ripple away from the central tower. Some, such equally the Spain’s Gemsolar power-generating array, take up 185 acres. That plant, when consummate in 2013, will supply power for near 25,000 homes.

Fitbit Aria WiFi scales tell the internet you’re fat

Fitbit has launched Aria, the company’s foremost WiFi-enabled scales, open of automatically recognizing up to eight different users and squirting their slant to a cloud-based fitness center. Best known for the clip-on Fitbit dongle that tracks exercise, Fitbit says these new scales were really prompted by user-requests; however it’s also worth noting that Withings has been offering wirelessly-enabled scales for some time now.

Either way, the Aria laid tracks weight, percent body fat and calculates BMI, meshing those results with the feedback from the Fitbit dongle. That way, the company reckons, you may see which elements of your utilisation government are really working. It could likewise run into a food planner, with users logging their diet and getting suggestions on calorie consumption.

An iPhone app allows you to traverse your progress while on the move, and wholly eight users of the scales experience private accounts thus that you can’t see how much everyone else weighs. User identification is based on weight, therefore it might not form if you’ve suddenly lost or gained a immense amount, or alive with people who wholly matter the same.

Acer’s Dapple strategy Too late, Also copycat

Acer hopes to put its productions aside through its proprietary AcerCloud service, which is designed to let customers sync files across multiple Acer products. In doing so, Acer is trying to emulate other major technology players such equally Google, Apple, and Amazon, which rely heavily on cloud services themselves.

Acer demonstrated the three services that will initially be available on AcerCloud when it launches in the minute quarter: PicStream, a photo-sharing service, AcerCloud docs for documents, and clear.fi Media for music. For PicStream and AcerCloud, the files will be stored online for 30 days. The service is expected to fed on next Windows devices down the line. Boy that’s a tough sell. If completely Acer can arrived up with is a clone of other cloud services, the fellowship has grave problems.

Acer doesn’t get the brand to compete with Amazon, Apple and Google. Raise your hand if you get an Acer laptop and tablet? Considered so. Acer lacks the brand loyalty to really convince consumers that connecting the company’s devices is actually so great. Acer seems style late and manner also me too. Why would you set your docs on AcerCloud when other services Box, DropBox and Evernote can mould on whatever device you have?

Apps downloads Hit record high in Lastly Hebdomad of December

Analytics firm Flurry enunciated 1.2 billion apps were downloaded in the lastly week of December.

Activity was buoyed by the facts that many users received young devices for Xmas and firms offered discounted apps over the holiday period.

The US was responsible for nearly half of the downloads, followed by China and the UK.

With 81 million downloads, the UK easily surpassed Canada (41 million), Germany (40 million) and France (40 million).

It was beaten to instant billet by China with 99 million downloads. The US was away before with 509 million.

Flurry thinks this degree of download activity will got more standard.

“Looking forward to 2012, Flurry expects breaking the one billion download barrier per hebdomad will become more commonplace,” the firm88 articulated in its blog..

“While [Apple] iOS and [Google] Android ontogenesis continues to amaze, the market is even by completely measures relatively nascent.”

Unsurprisingly, Xmas proved a roar time for device makers. Flurry estimated that nearly seven million Android devices and iPhones were activated on Christmas Day.

Apple does not disclose such figures but Google confirmed that more than 3.7 million Android devices were activated over the Christmas weekend.

Kindle Flaming update, Alive today, should Meliorate performance

Back in November, Amazon released the Kindle Fire. Critics were largely impressed. Sales went through the roof. And presently thereafter, the inevitable problems emerged: There were complaints browsing speed, virtually the emplacement of the “off” switch, and the Fat Finger Flame Dilemma. In response, Amazon reps announced they would release a new software update, intended to “improve performance” on the Fire.

Today, that update – version 6.2.1 – is available for liberal download. Granting to Amazon, the new software, which should automatically exist delivered to Kindle Fire devices, “enhances fluidity and performance, improves touch navigation responsiveness, gives you the alternative to select which points display on the carousel, and adds the ability to add a password lock on Wi-Fi access.”

Google yanks Android update for Nexus S, Galaxy Nexus

Over the weekend our Dear Leader kindly informed me that it would credibly be a good idea to do a brief brushup of Google’s first OTA Ice Emollient Sandwich update. Usually when Fudo says something would be a good idea, it is more similar a Papal bull, or a fatwa, merely not this time around.

Google has drawn the plug on the Android 4.0.3. OTA update for the Nexus S and, of course, it won’t exist showing up for the Galaxy Nexus either. Eventide users who managed to download the update are forthwith reporting that the installation is refusing to cooperate.

It appears the release is quite buggy and users who receive coped to cause Google’s official ICS release coursing on their Nexus S are reporting some serious battery drain issues. This seems to be a trend in the mobile industry, as both Apple’s iPhone 4S and Nokia’s flagship Lumia 800 faced alike issues.

So where does this leave us? Well, it leaves me without a telephone update and it leaves our readers without two reviews, one of ICS on the old Nexus S, which would be a nice benchmark for users of single-core Android phones, but secondly we are straightaway too stuck with a Galaxy Nexus review sample sans 4.0.3 update, which has likewise been delayed.

Of course, it is relatively slowly to install ICS manually, snuff for a custom ROM or whatnot, merely that’s beside the point. In fact, one of the master reasons people purchase Nexus phones in the first position is because of regular updates away of the box, something that users of other Android phones can hardly tally on.

Google is not expression when the official updates will roll out, again, only we think the issues could be resolved soon.

Apple’s Anobit Purchase a done deal, Report says

The deal, according to Israel’s Calcalist (Google Translate), is in the $400 million to $500 million range. Earlier today, Anobit informed its employees that Apple received made an offer that it had accepted, and they were on their way, formerly the batch closes, to being employed by the iPhone maker.

Today’s account follows a claim made by Calcalist finally week, locution that Apple and Anobit were nearing a deal.

Anobit’s flash memory technology is found in Apple’s iPhone, iPad, and MacBook Air. The startup likewise sells enterprise storage solutions. Apple’s decision to acquire the company might get to do with its desire to increase margins, since it’ll immediately get its remembering at cost, kinda than exist forced to earnings a premium to a third-party. What’s more, one of Apple’s head competitors–Samsung–is besides an Anobit customer.

But ahead we induce also far before of ourselves, it’s worth noting that neither Apple nor Anobit experience confirmed the acquisition. In fact, the companies haven’t eve said if they were discussing a deal. Only in the past, Apple has completed acquisitions that it never announces.

However, this time, another stakeholder might receive talked out of turn. The Israeli Prime Minister Twitter account, fed by the office’s new media director Dr. Eitan Eliram, congratulated Apple this morning on its foremost accomplishment in the country.

“Welcome to Israel, Apple Inc., on your 1st acquirement here,” the Prime Minister’s berth tweeted. “I’m sure that you’ll benefit from the fruit of the Israeli knowledge.”

Although it looks to corroborate Calcalist’s claims, there’s no telling if the tweet was really a response to the news outlet’s story, and not a straight hatful confirmation.

iPhone Facebook Usage trails Android app Use in Casual users

When it comes to how many folks usage a given app there are several companies that cover that data. One of those firms is AppData reports TechCrunch. The companionship has been tracking the official Facebook app for iPhone and Android devices and has found that Android is beating the iPhone app in one metric. Granting to the company, the Android app is beating iPhone for everyday active users.

The stats firm has found that the Android app is forward of the iPhone app for the foremost time ever in everyday users. The Android app over the last few weeks has 58.3 million casual active users. The iPhone app has 57.4 million active everyday users. Android was also foremost to make Timeline access showing that Google tends to favor Android maturation first, which is no surprise.

The casual active user stat is apparently more important than the routine of users that are employing the apps monthly. The iPhone has more monthly active users at 99.1 million while the Android app racks up 85.4 million monthly active users.