Wearables are white-hot at CES 2014. So they’re doomed, right?

Posted on January 5, 2014 by admin

A look back at past hot trends at the consumer electronics mega-event reveals an awful lot of mega-fails.

LAS VEGAS — This year’s Consumer Electronics Show will see dozens upon dozens of wearable technology products vie to become this year’s breakout device.

And most — if not all — will be forgotten in the coming months.

That’s because when all the booths are taken down, the convention lights are dimmed, and the last of the tech executives board their flights, we all finally escape the reality-distortion field that is Las Vegas and CES.

A look back at past confabs shows that the hot item at CES is a leading indicator of failure for the rest of that year. Remember how 3D televisions were supposed to be all the rage? Or when ultrabooks were a thing? Not only does garnering hype at CES not guarantee success, it’s become almost an omen of ill fortune.

Read more: http://www.cnet.com/8301-35299_1-57616550/wearables-are-white-hot-at-ces-2014-so-theyre-doomed-right/#ixzz2pWV0q9L8

Delivery drones are coming: Jeff Bezos promises half-hour shipping with Amazon Prime Air

Posted on December 2, 2013 by admin

By David Pierce

Jeff Bezos is nothing if not a showman. Amazon’s CEO loves a good reveal, and took the opportunity afforded by a 60 Minutes segment to show off his company’s latest creation: drones that can deliver packages up to five pounds, to your house in less than half an hour. They’re technically octocopters, as part of a program called “Amazon Prime Air.” A drone sits at the end of a conveyer belt, waiting to pick up a package — Bezos says 86 percent of Amazon’s packages are under five pounds — and can carry them up to ten miles from the fulfillment center. As soon as Amazon can work out the regulations and figure out how to prevent your packages from being dropped on your head from above, Bezos promised, there will be a fleet of shipping drones taking the sky.

More >>

Winamp Media Player Shutting Down After 15 Years

Posted on November 21, 2013 by admin

By Angela Moscaritolo

After 15 years on the Internet, the once-ubiquitous digital audio player Winamp will soon be just a memory.

According to a brief note on the Winamp website, the formerly uber-popular media player will no longer be available for download after Dec. 20, 2013. This includes Winamp.com and associated Web services.

You probably remember Winamp from the late 90s and early 2000’s when it was one of the most widely used Internet services for listening to music and radio streams. Winamp eventually lost popularity as services like iTunes and Windows Media Player hit the Web, but it’ll always hold a special place in the hearts of many.

Source >>

Snapchat’s Teen Appeal Is Also Its Achilles Heel

Posted on November 14, 2013 by admin

By Robert Hof

You can argue until you’re blue in the face whether or not Snapchat is worth the $3 billion Facebook FB +4.52% apparently offered to buy it. But there’s little argument over why Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg was willing to pay that much for the disappearing-photo-sharing service: It’s attracting the teens that Facebook is losing.

At least, that’s the conventional wisdom. But here’s the problem: If there’s anything more ephemeral than Snapchat snaps, it’s teen attention spans. Today, Snapchat looks unbeatable, at least for what still seems like a rather narrow slice of social activity. But there’s no reason to think that teens will stick with most any app or service for long–all the less so when it seems that there’s a new hot social networking app every month or so these days.

So I’m betting Zuckerberg is a little smarter than that. What he really wants more than just a surge of new teen blood–as he also showed with his $1 billion purchase of Instagram–is to make sure that Facebook owns the most popular and compelling kinds of social networking as they develop. Snapchat clearly appeals to those who want to exchange bits of themselves in a more ephemeral way than they do on Facebook.

Yahoo unveils new logo

Posted on September 5, 2013 by admin

Yahoo unveils new logo for first time since founding 18 years ago

SUNNYVALE, Calif. (AP) — Yahoo has adopted a new logo for the first time since shortly after the Internet company’s founding 18 years ago.

The redesigned look unveiled late Wednesday is part of a makeover that Yahoo Inc. has been undergoing since the Sunnyvale, Calif., company hired Google executive Marissa Mayer to become Yahoo’s CEO 14 months ago.

Mayer has already spruced up Yahoo’s front page, email and Flickr photo-sharing service, as well as engineered a series of acquisitions aimed at attracting more traffic on mobile devices.

The shopping spree has been highlighted by Yahoo’s $1.1 billion purchase of Tumblr, an Internet blogging service where the company rolled out its new logo.

Steve Ballmer’s Mixed Legacy

Posted on August 24, 2013 by admin

Gates’s Successor Helped Build Behemoth, but Missteps Leave Microsoft Vulnerable

By DON CLARK and SHIRA OVIDE

MSFT +7.29% Steve Ballmer tried new operating systems, new gadgets and new management structures. But the times caught up with a man who helped build one of the greatest companies of the 20th century.

Mr. Ballmer’s surprise retirement announcement Friday follows years of criticism about the waning growth and stagnant stock price of Microsoft, a force in the personal-computer era whose power was once so great that U.S. regulators sought to break up the company.

PC sales—the lifeblood of Microsoft’s business—are on a steady decline. Business and casual users alike are switching to devices and services offered by Apple Inc. AAPL -0.39% and Google Inc. GOOG -0.40%

Investors cheered the news, pushing Microsoft shares up 7%, or $2.36, to $34.75, in 4 p.m. trading Friday on the Nasdaq Stock Market.

Source >>

Read Steve Ballmer’s Retirement Announcement to Microsoft Staff

Posted on August 24, 2013 by admin

By Tim Molloy

Microsoft Corp. CEO Steve Ballmer announced his retirement Friday. Here is his email to employees:

I am writing to let you know that I will retire as CEO of Microsoft within the next 12 months, after a successor is chosen. There is never a perfect time for this type of transition, but now is the right time. My original thoughts on timing would have had my retirement happen in the middle of our transformation to a devices and services company focused on empowering customers in the activities they value most. We need a CEO who will be here longer term for this new direction. You can read the press release on Microsoft News Center.

I am proud of what we have achieved. We have grown from $7.5 million to nearly $78 billion since I joined Microsoft, and we have grown from employing just over 30 people to almost 100,000. I feel good about playing a role in that success and having committed 100 percent emotionally all the way. We have more than 1 billion users and earn a great profit for our shareholders.

Mozilla Readies Major Firefox Redesign As It Ponders What The Browser Of The Future Should Look Like

Posted on June 3, 2013 by admin

Frederic Lardinois

“Maybe we shouldn’t even call it a browser anymore,” Mozilla’s VP of Firefox engineering Jonathan Nightingale told me a few days ago. “‘Browser’ is really an antiquated word. People don’t really browse all that much anymore.” Instead, he argues, we now mostly use our browsers to access sophisticated web apps, web-based productivity tools and social networks.

For browser developers, this means they have to start to rethink what their browsers should look like now that usage patterns have changed and that the majority of users have become pretty experienced Internet (and browser) users.

Australis: Simplicity Through Curvy Tabs

The project that has been guiding Mozilla’s exploration of what a modern browser should look like is Australis (because Mozilla apparently likes to name projects after star systems) and the fruits of this project will soon find their way into the Firefox release channels, starting with Nightly once it hits version 25 soon. After that, it will make its way through the usual release channels, though Nightingale told me that the team may hold it back from the stable channel a bit longer to ensure that everything works smoothly.

If you feel really adventurous, you can already install a version of Firefox from Mozilla’s relatively obscure UX branch and test it in its current state (but don’t blame us if it crashes a lot or shreds your hard drive).

Story >>

Sony Launches World’s Fastest Personal Internet in Japan

Posted on April 17, 2013 by admin

Steven Bogos

So-net Entertainment’s ‘Nuro’ fiber service for home use will support a whopping 2gbps downstream.

We all knew Japan has some pretty awesome internet speeds, but this is just getting ridiculous. So-net Entertainment, an ISP backed by Sony, announced its ‘Nuro’ fiber service for home use, which supports download speeds of up to 2gbps. As in two gigabits. To put that into perspective, the average internet speed in the US is around 3mbps, with the fastest available internet capping out at around 150mbps. This means that So-net’s Nuro service is up to 13 times faster than the fastest internet in the US.

The service also boasts 1gbps uploads and will be available to homes, apartments, and small businesses in Tokyo and six surrounding prefectures. What should you expect to pay for this monster connection? $200 a month? More? Hardly. The service will be available for just 4,980 yen a month (around $51 USD). I used to pay that for my crappy, less-than-1mbps ADSL back when I lived in Australia…

Source >>

Internet advertisers kill text-based CAPTCHA

Posted on February 21, 2013 by admin

If you’ve submitted a comment, signed up for a newsletter, or uploaded a photo to the Internet at any point in the past five years, there’s a good chance you’re familiar with the CAPTCHA system. CAPTCHAs are the annoying little verification windows that pop up, asking you to decipher a nearly unrecognizable series of letters or words, and Web users have hated them for years.
But if these silly security systems make you want to bust your keyboard in half, you’ll be happy to hear that we may very well be seeing the last days of the obnoxious, text-based CAPTCHA system, and the next verification system you see online may make you happy to view advertisements for the first time ever.