Archive for February, 2010

Barnes & Noble CEO: Nook boosted online sales 67%

– February 25, 2010Posted in: Gadgets, Industry News

In a conference call yesterday, Barnes & Noble CEO Steve Riggo stated that the Nook e-reader is the book retailers “single best-selling product.” According to Riggo the e-reader has boosted Barnes & Noble online sale by 67 percent.

Many of you remember how impressive the Nook e-reader was when it was first announced last year. Although the Kindle still firmly holds its position as the dominate e-reader, Barnes & Noble’s digital book device certainly garnered an impressive amount of buzz.

No sales figures were presented in the conference call, as Riggo stated “we won’t be breaking out ebook sales or sales of the Nook device.” No word yet on when any sales figures will be revealed.

Barrons

Tags: CEO Steve Riggo, Nook 67 percent, Nook Numbers, Nook sales

Twitter reaches 50 million Tweets a day

acoleman

– February 22, 2010Posted in: Industry News, Internet Trends

Today marks a milestone for Twitter. According to Twitter analytics team member Kevin Weil the Micro-blogging site has reached 50 million tweets a day, which is an average of 600 Tweets per second.
Twitter Tweet Chart
In 2007 Twitter was running 5,000 tweets per day. In 2008 they went up to 8,000. In 2009 the number shot to 2.5 million. At the end of 2009 Tweets were around 35 million, and today they are 50 million per day.

It is also worth noting that any Tweets identified as spam have been removed from the count, so only the Tweets of legitimate users have been included.

Twitter

Sony Ericsson turned down opportunity to build the Google Nexus One

acoleman

– February 19, 2010Posted in: Gadgets, Industry News

Nexus One Phone As I am sure you already know, HTC is the company behind the hardware for the Nexus One as well as a number of other Android phones. Although they are now becoming synonymous with Android phone hardware, it seems they were not the first to be approached by Google.

In a Swedish publication (Sydsvenskan) Sony Ericsson head Bert Nordberg, stated that they were approached by Google to design the Nexus One and that they turned them down. The reason was because Sony feared a brand dilution.

In hindsight Sony’s decision to turn down Google may have been a poor one. Although there are some that would disagree, as the Nexus One is seeing slow sales currently, the sheer amount of press that HTC is garnering now could have only been good for Sony.

Engadget

Tags: Google, Nexus One Sony, Somy Android, Sony, Sony Ericsson

Microsoft Debuts Browser Choice Screen for Europe

jsaliba

– February 19, 2010Posted in: Microsoft, News

The Next week, Microsoft plans to begin offering some European Windows (XP/Vista/7) users a choice of Web browsers, following the antitrust dispute between the software giant and the European Commissions. This change will remove Internet Explorer as the default Web browser.

The EU-mandated Web browser ballot will be made available through a Windows update to users who are running Internet Explorer as their default browser. The update will present a ballot screen, which, abiding by Microsoft’s agreement with the EC, will list browser choices in random order. The choice screen will include popular Web browsers, such as Chrome, Firefox, Opera, and Safari.

Next week’s external testing of the Web browser ballot will begin in the UK, Belgium, and France. Microsoft’s phased roll-out of the update across Europe is planned for March 1.

Microsoft

Tags: browser choice, eu, ie, internet explorer, Microsoft, web browser, Windows

Google Goggles prototype can translate Text Photos

acoleman

– February 17, 2010Posted in: Gadgets, Industry News

At the Mobile World Congress, Eric Schmidt demonstrated a prototype version of Google Goggles that can instantly translate text captured in photos. Using Google’s machine translation and image recognition technologies the prototype will allow any Android user to translate text from any captured photograph.

The video above demonstrates how the prototype works by translating a photograph of a dinner menu from German-to-English.

“You may wonder what’s happening in the background. On the simplest level, this prototype connects the phone’s camera to an optical character recognition (OCR) engine, recognizes the image as text and then translates that text into English with Google Translate.”

The technology can currently only translate German-to-English but Google hopes to eventually have Google Goggles translate all of the 52 languages currently supported by Google Translate.

Google

Tags: Google, Google Goggles, google prototype goggles, google translate, google translator, WMC

Microsoft unveils the Windows Phone 7 Series

acoleman

– February 15, 2010Posted in: Gadgets, Industry News

At the Mobile World Congress in Barcelona, Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer unveiled the Windows Phone 7 Series. Described as “the next generation of Windows Phones,” the 7 Series is a departure from what we know as Windows Mobile.

“In a crowded market filled with phones that look the same and do the same things, I challenged the team to deliver a different kind of mobile experience.“

Unlike the Windows Mobile of the past, the 7 Series has been rebuilt from the ground up. The OS will allow you to view your real-time updates right within the start screen using “live tiles,” which is a departure of the static tiles which only allow you to view your update once clicking.

The 7 Series will include social features, which gives you the ability to update to multiple social profiles simultaneously. The OS will also include Zune integration for music and video, as well as Xbox live features.

The first phones will be available for Holiday 2010.

Microsoft

Tags: 7series, microsoft mobile, mobile 7series, mobile world congress, windows mobile, windows phone 7, windows phone series, windows series

Twitter hires Pixar Exec as CFO

acoleman

– February 11, 2010Posted in: Industry News, Internet Trends

This years number one priority for Twitter is monetizing its site, and what is their first step to doing so? Choosing their CFO. Today Twitter has announced that the position will be taken by Pixar CFO and senior vice president of strategic planning Ali Rowghani.

Ali will be joining the Twitter staff next month. Twitter CEO Evan Williams stated “Ali will be an important member of a growing team focused on creating value for our users and capturing the financial opportunities that result from it.”

Ali should be just what Twitter needs to get its business model going. Keep in mind that the Apple backed Pixar was sold some four years ago to Disney in a very profitable deal. So far Twitter has commented on advertising and custom accounts for monetizing the site but it is unclear which initiative they will start first.

CNET

Tags: Pixar, TWitter CFO, Twitter PIxar, Twitter Pixar CFO

Google planning to make Gmail more social

acoleman

– February 8, 2010Posted in: News

Gmail logo It is being reported that Google is planning to make its next foray into social media, and this time it will be through Gmail. According to the Wall Street Journal, the webmail service will soon be updated to allow sharing and live updates.

The new features are said to be similar to that of Facebook and Twitter, in which you can view a time line of your friends updates. The WSJ is also reporting that there could possibly be YouTube and Picasa integration into the new time lines as well.

Google has not made any official statement on the new changes coming to Gmail but it is being rumored that they will be making an announcement on it Tuesday.

Mashable

Google and NSA to start security partnership

acoleman

– February 4, 2010Posted in: Internet Trends, Tech

Key Lock In the wake of the cyber-attacks that comprised Google in December, the Federal Government has decided to take steps to better defend against future attacks. It is being reported that Google and the NSA are in the final stages of an agreement to help better prevent cyber-attacks from occurring.

The NSA will be looking into the cause of the Google cyber-attack, which reportedly originated from China. The arrangement will allow the NSA to view Google’s data in a way that does not violate any privacy laws.

There are number of individuals in the tech and political community that believe another cyber-attack is imminent. The White House Director of National Intelligence, Dennis Blair stated that the Google attacks were a “wake up call,” and that more attacks were on the horizon.

There seems to be an increase in the frequency of cyber-attacks of late. With the DDOS attacks last year, and the more recent attack on Google, it will be beneficial for the Federal Government to bump up their security.

CNET

Tags: cyber attack, cyber warafre, gogle security, google NSA, NAS security, NSA cyber security, NSA deal, NSA google

Nexus One gets multi-touch update

acoleman

– February 2, 2010Posted in: Gadgets

When the Nexus One launched, one of the major complaints from fans was the lack of multi-touch for the device. That problem has thankfully been remedied, as Google has announced an update for the smartphone that includes multi-touch capabilities.

The over-the-air software update will begin rolling out today, and you will receive a message on your phone’s notification bar once it is available. The update will allow “pinch-to-zoom” capabilities that can be used within your browser, gallery, and map applications.

Although the multi-touch capabilities seem to be what people are buzzing about, there are a number of other features that are within the update. An improved Google Goggles, Google Maps, and 3G connection will all be available via the software update as well.

Nexus One Blog

Tags: google multitouch, nexus one multitouch, nexus one pinch to zoom, nexus one update, nexusone multitouch