Samsung which happens to be the largest consumer electronics company out of Asia has reported that thanks to the Samsung Galaxy they have record breaking quarterly profits. With the mobile phone market being so competitive it was very impressive to see that the phone sales on the mobile Galaxy went over 300 million units over the last year. The biggest surprise is that the Galaxy sales actually over took Apple in the 3rd quarter to become the world’s largest smart phone seller with over 27.8 million units shipped.
On Saturday the 4th Annual merry Elfing Holiday Party will be taking place to help the American Cancer Society. Geek Choice is proud to have donated to this worthy cause and encourages all of you out there in the Boston area to donate as well. The charity event will be held tomorrow at the Clash of the Ash and we are proud to support the American Cancer Society. If you do plan to attend please make sure to dress festive and bring your holiday cheer!
This is happening people! In 2010 a group of file sharers have been trying to get their beliefs recognized as an official religion in Sweden. From what I have read they tired many times with them being stone walled. Well it took them sometime but it seems to be official, these file sharers have finally got the church they have always wanted and hope that this might take away from some of the legal problems with file sharing. The Missionary Church of Kopimism was founded by Isak Gerson and the church is filling to have their beliefs accepted by the law. This is an official church yes, but the copyright laws are still to be followed but the Gerson is hoping that this church will help change the laws in the future. The church is around 3,000 strong now and this type of news might get the church to grow even more. I will be interested to see what comes down the pike for this religion as many people have been persecuted for their beliefs in the past, is the next step being Gerson being a martyr for his own cause? We will just have to wait and see.
At the end of this month Apple is showing something or announcing something. They have planned a media event for the end of this month in New York. From the sources that I have read this will not have anything to do with the iPad 3. On an even interesting note it also will not pertain to the Apple TV, which a lot of people have been focusing on since there is a strong possibility that they have been looking into building their own TV’s for a some time now. Some think it will be just some time of new advertising or even publishing announcement at that might have been about the iTunes Store, iBookstore or even the iCloud service. So this might be something that has to do with the iBookstore in my opinion. They really haven’t really focused on the bookstore as of late honestly. So what better to kick off the new year with the introduction of something special with the book store.
First off, I want to wish everyone a Happy New Year and hope it was fun and safe. Well it looks like Sony is trying to play it safe to start this new year by cutting the prices on their Tablet S now starting at just $400. This nice tablet by Sony sports a 9.4 inch screen and has memory of 16Gb for now just $400. If that isn’t enough memory for you, well then we can get you a 32GB model for $500. It looks like price is really the only thing tablet makers outside of Apple can really do to compete with the iPad. You would have to think this price cut is due to the actual lack of sales on the tablet and price seems to be the only thing people really can answer too these days. A cheaper alternative to the iPad. The problem is, has there really been a tablet that could stand up to the iPad? I really haven’t seen anything that comes close to it yet and the sales figures would most likely back me up on this. So good luck to Sony in this new year and I hope your Tablet S sales get better!
So if you haven’t heard the stories on the internet about GoDaddy announcing that they are firmly behind the act that will put major penalties to people who download things on the internet with copyright protection well that was a mistake. Once GoDaddy announced they were behind this act people started to dump GoDaddy as a whole. The funny thing is you have to see that GoDaddy is flip flopping their stance on the SOPA. The problem I see here is that Godaddy is losing major business because they first backed the act and lost tons of business and had tons of transfers to other domains. They are now just changing their stance because of money, no matter what garbage the CEO spews from his venomous mouth, I know they are doing for greed and not because they believe that this SOPA act is a bunch of junk. GoDaddy just lost even more points with me if that was even possible. If truly believe in the act that is fine but I will tell you that if you change your stance purely because you are losing business due to your convictions then you really need to check yourself. I am disgusted and outraged that GoDaddy would change their stance just in time for Dump Godaddy day.
So we all know how innovative Japan can be right? I mean they have pods for busy people to sleep in, clothes in vending machines, I mean come on how could they take on the go busy any further. Well I just found something that rivals that of the underwear vending machine, the wi-fi dispensing vending machine. A soft drink company by the name of Asahi Soft Drinks has put Wi-Fi signals on their machines within a 50m radius. From what I have read it will be free to access this without any restrictions. So you don’t even have to buy something from the machine to use the Wi-Fi which is pretty nice. The only limitations I have read is you get a connection for about 30 minutes but you can reconnect after the 30 minutes are up. These machines will be around Japan starting in 2012 with about 1,000 going around the regions of Japan. If this is successful, they plan to roll out 10,000 within a five year span.
First I would like to say I hope everyone had a safe and fun holiday weekend. Now for a gift that keeps on giving form the people over at xda-developers, a pre-alpha version of the Android operating system I know I have been waiting for, Ice Cream Sandwich! They have it running on the Kindle Fire which is really exciting for me since well, I have a Kindle and I have been less than impressed with it so far. From reports here is what I have gathered, it does run pretty smooth on the Fire but there are some issues, there are times when the sound isn’t as consistent as it should be and there is some video glitches that tend to happen as well. As there is more developing and tested on this lovely OS I will keep you updated and once it gets better maybe I will see an Ice Cream Sandwich in my Fire. Above is a video of the Kindle Fire with the Ice Cream Sandwich OS, so please enjoy!
First off I would like to wish all my readers a safe and happy holidays. Now I would like to talk about something that I found very interesting. A comedian by the name of Louis CK has done something that in recent memory I haven’t seen anyone do before. He created his own comedy special and instead of getting it done through HBO or Comedy Central, he decided he was going to show it through the internet. Now if you don’t know much about Louis CK, he is a comedian that started right here in the home town of Geek Choice, Boston and has had decent success over the years. Now that success has gone to a new realm, an online comedy special. The comedy special is Live at the Beacon Theater which you can purchase for $5 on his website. In just 12 days of this special being put on his site he has cleared the $1M mark. Which just goes to show you that you always don’t need the brass of high power TV executives to make something happen for yourself. If you have followed anything that Louis CK has done in the past, the great thing about this is that he has a TV show on FX just called Louie. Now that might not seem like it is special, it is more or less just like anything else right? Wrong, he has total and utter creative control of the show with no say from the people at FX. So this is probably the greatest thing for artists who want to make something special for themselves. I salute you Louis CK for making such a bold move that paid off in a big way.
Gone will be the days of multiple set top boxes in a home. Verizon is working on a media server that will revolutionize how you watch TV. Apparently from what I have read you will be able to stream your cable to any device that has an internet connection. Also there will be a device that you connect to the other TV’s in your home that will get the signal from the media server so it eliminates a set top box in every room there is a TV. From the looks of it you could actually have an Xbox 360 or a PS3 connected to your TV and as long as it is connected to your FiOs internet you can get your cable. Although right now if you have FiOS and Xbox 360 Live Gold membership there are channels that are currently streaming on your XBOX 360. I have played around with it and I must say it is a pretty cool thing to have, too bad I already have a set top box on my TV. Above I have put the promotional video that Verizon has out regarding this new media server.
