Apr 24, 2012 | Uncategorized
Yesterday Microsoft and Facebook announced an agreement in which Microsoft will assign to Facebook the rights to purchase a part of the patent portfolio that they acquired from AOL. It looks like Facebook will be purchasing the portion of patents for $550 million in cash. There are about 925 US patents and patent applications and also a license to AOL?s patent portfolio. From the sounds the agreement Facebook will obtain ownership of about 650 AOL patents and patent applications, also a license to the AOL patents and applications that Microsoft has purchased and owns. With all that being said Microsoft will still retain ownership of 275 AOL patents and applications. This is a big purchase for Facebook especially right before the IPO in May. It looks like Facebook is gearing up a for a big day in May.
Apr 23, 2012 | Uncategorized
Adobe has announced its new Creative Suite and along with this they are offering a Creative Cloud online offerings. You can still buy the CS6 Suite but the subscription service is the biggest thing. So $49/month with an annual subscription, so basically a contract or $79/month for a non-committal month to month membership. So for the monthly fee you get access to any CS6 tool, which includes Photoshop, InDesign, Illustrator, Premiere Pro and AfterEffects. They are also including the new HTML5 and development tools, Muse and Edge. The subscription also give you the ability to install these programs on two machines. There will also be a standalone addition for Photoshop which will be $19.99 a month with an annual subscription or $29.99 without a subscription. Although there is still no launch date for this, it is nice to see to unique set up for Adobe as they are really trying to make it affordable for people to use their products.
Apr 22, 2012 | Uncategorized
Many Mac users are going to have to expect that there will be more OS X botnets, mass malware and drive by downloads in the computer feature. Kaspersky Lab researchers stated this in a press conference on Thursday morning. They stated that anit-malware software is not a need for Mac users and that Mac invulnerability is not a myth. Due to the rapid increase of the Mac?s market share that there is more and more malware being created for Macs. “Market share brings attacker motivation,” the firm told members of the press in its presentation. “Expect more drive-by downloads, more Mac OS X mass-malware. Expect cross-platform exploit kits with Mac-specific exploits.” Although this summer Mac is going into Mountain Lion OS X 10.8. using the GateKeeper in 10.8 you can control which sources apps can be installed from and making the OS safer from malware attacks for the less experienced type of users. So Mac is at least taking the attacks seriously.
Apr 21, 2012 | Uncategorized
So whatever Apple may call the next iPhone, whether it be the new iPhone or the iPhone 5, there is some speculation that the iPhone will have in-cell touch panels which could make the phone thinner. It looks like Sharp and Toshiba are developing these parts and if it does it could put some strain on the current touch panel suppliers which are TPK Holdings and Wintek. However TPK is developing what is a calling a touch on lens technology which is known as TOL. This is a single glass touch technology that will be more suitable for the production of a higher end device that can accommodate more than just one technology. This means it could be introduced into all different types of touch technology and would not be set to just phones but we know for sure that Apple has the pick of the litter.
Apr 20, 2012 | Uncategorized
Yesterday Microsoft reported revenue of $17.41 billion for the quarter ending on March 31st, 2012. This is a 6% increase from last year?s pay period and the operating income was at a staggering $6.37 billion which is up by 12% from the prior year. The net income was around $5.11 billion and the diluted earnings per share was $0.60 per share. With the economy in the shape it is in, it is amazing to see such revenue hikes from Microsoft. Although Microsoft has its hand in so many things it is no wonder they are making money. It seems the only thing that is really struggling for them right now is the phone industry in which they are stilling trying to entrench themselves firmly against Android and Apple. Have you seen the campaign for the newest Windows Phone the Nokia Lumina? They basically say that all the smartphones we owned in the past was the beta test for the Windows Phone. Smart marketing but heck if the smartphones in the past were just a beta test why can?t developers code on their phones to make apps like Angry Birds Space?
Apr 19, 2012 | Uncategorized
Many sources are saying that Facebook is looking to have their IPO out on May 17th and depending on if the SEC agrees then all we are looking for is some paper work to be put in order. This does follow reports that said the company was going to have its IPO on NASDAQ in the third week of May and this was also reported on CNBC about the company going public between the 17th or the 24th. Facebook is going to be valued at around $100 billion dollars which is currently reflecting the levels of trading in the secondary markets. Some reports are even saying that they want to raise $10 billion at a $100 billion valuation. So will Facebook get what they want or will they fall short of the evaluation expectations or will the billion dollar baby shine? We should hopefully find out on May 17th.
Apr 18, 2012 | Uncategorized
The Google Drive is coming next week believe it or not. A while back I did talk about the Google Drive coming possibly in April. Well the reports are it is coming next week. Well we have some details on what the Google Drive will bring. First of all we are looking at 5GB of space and it is all free. Now that is a big step up since Dropbox has only 2GB of free space. We should be seeing the Google Drive by Tuesday or Wednesday of next week but one has to wonder how many people will take the time to move from Dropbox to Google Drive?
Apr 17, 2012 | Uncategorized
The Galaxy Nexus has been officially announced to come a Sprint near you on April 22nd. Along with that comes a pretty nice price tag of $199.99 but what is interesting outside of that is you get a $40 Google Wallet credit with purchase, of course with a two year contract. You will need to activate the Google Wallet before May 22nd to get the credit so make sure to set that up as soon as you get the phone. The release of this phone comes with some competition as the LG Viper will also be launching on that date. There will be no major changes to the Sprint model of this phone. The specs are as follows a 1.2Ghz dual core processor and 32 GB of storage space on board. It is going to be interesting to see how this phone stacks up in the coverage areas as it supports LTE and is sure to challenge Sprints biggest LTE seller the HTC EVO 4G LTE. Although for now Sprint has very limited 4G LTE coverage so if you get this phone you will most likely be stuck with a 3G signal.
Apr 16, 2012 | Uncategorized
Comcast has made a new enemy it would seem and that enemy would be named Netflix. It looks the CEO of Netfilx Reed Hastings need to vent to all of his Facebook. Saying that Comcast is breaking net neutrality and caps and he is sounding off to the people. This comes directly from his facebook post. ?omcast no longer following net neutrality principles.
“Comcast should apply caps equally, or not at all.
I spent the weekend enjoying four good internet video apps on my Xbox: Netflix, HBO GO, Xfinity, and Hulu.
When I watch video on my Xbox from three of these four apps, it counts against my Comcast internet cap. When I watch through Comcast?s Xfinity app, however, it does not count against my Comcast internet cap.
For example, if I watch last night?s SNL episode on my Xbox through the Hulu app, it eats up about one gigabyte of my cap, but if I watch that same episode through the Xfinity Xbox app, it doesn?t use up my cap at all.
The same device, the same IP address, the same wifi, the same internet connection, but totally different cap treatment.
In what way is this neutral??
So the idea here is if you watch Netflix, HBO Go, or even Hulu on your Xbox 360 it will count against the Comcast broadband cap for its customers. The interesting thing to note here is that if you use the Comcast Xfinity app it will not use the cap. Which means if you are worried about your broadband limits you would just need to use the streaming service of the Xfinity app which gives it a major advantage over the services such as Hulu and Netflix. This is interesting because if you watch let?s say Game of Thrones thru HBO Go, it will count against your cap if you watch Game of Thrones thru the Xfinity service then we have no cap usage. What are your thoughts? Do you think this is fair? Should this be regulated?
Apr 15, 2012 | Uncategorized
Amazon states that the prime services has more than 17,000 movie and tv shows streaming. However that number is well inflated. People pay $79 a year for this service but upon closer look we see that only 1,745 movies and around 150 TV series. So that 17,000 is not only extremely misleading and is really a false indication of the actually streaming library?s strength vs. Netflix and Hulu. From the looks of it what Amazon is actually doing is counting each episode of a TV series as an Individual TV show. So for example a show like 24, has 24 episodes per season and it had 8 seasons so the math of 24 x 8 is 192. So you can watch all 192 episodes of this series but Amazon sees all 192 as individual shows and not just one show with 192 episodes under it. A bit misleading if you are just an average Joe looking to expand your viewing pleasures. So do you think Amazon should just count each show as one or do you think it is right for them to count individual episodes in one series?
