Monday 30 January 2012

30/01/2012

MegaUpload fall out continues as everyone's eyes start turning.
   MegaUpload are still in trouble and it looks like later this week everyones files, legitimate or not, on MegaUpload's servers are going to cease to exist, which will be a hugely unpopular move which will completely destroy the MegaUpload brand and maybe even create a backlash against the FBI and DOJ.
   Rapidshare, on the other hand has started to come under scrutiny because of the size and infamy of the company as a similar site to MegaUpload. Unlike, it's counterpart Rapidshare decided to employ a Lobbying firm in the USA to support their cause in 2010 instead of spending their money on fast cars and life's luxuries as Kim Dotcom chose to.

Nokia announce Belle update for last years Symbian line-up.
 
   That picture just above, is some relatively solid confirmation that the Nokia E6, E7, N8, C6-01 and X7 will receive a nice dose of Symbian Belle on February 8th, so not too long to wait if you've been craving that update for the last couple of months since Anna dropped.
   This update brings a more Android style interface; with a pull down notification area, more pretty icons and general improvements. It looks like a solid update overall and it's good to see Nokia still offering some Symbian love even thought they're ploughing on with Windows Phone.

Sky adds iPlayer and ITV Player streaming to Anytime.
   Today BSkyB you have made me believe you are trying to make things better for your subscribers. Today's announcement is one of the bigger ones in Sky's recent history and is genuinely useful. It's along the lines of US tech firms Hulu and Netflix offer and as such it might be a direct retaliation to Netflix launching their brand on this side of the pond and if that is the case it would seem to have been a wise decision.

Samsung launches the Galaxy S Advance.
   Just when we thought Samsung was finished with original Galaxy S varients, up pops another one. Although, this time it is an appealing phone and it does have a noticeable spec bump over the original Galaxy S and indeed the Plus varient too.
   The 'advance[d]' version features a dual core 1Ghz processor twinned with 768MB's of RAM and up to 16GB of internal storage. To begin with this pretty little 4 incher will be pushing Android 2.3 Gingerbread onto that SuperAmoled screen and the pixel count comes in at 480x800 so pretty standard stuff here, but this will fit very nicely into the middle range price point and looks good to turn a few heads away from the decidedly outdated iPhone 3GS and maybe even the iPhone 4.
   [edit] 3UK has announced it will be carrying the Galaxy S Advance.

Saturday 28 January 2012

Editorial: The Future of Phones!


Nokia's Morph: A wearable dream of the future!

   The image above gives you Nokia's vision of the future of smartphones and undoubtedly it looks cool! Samsung share a similar vision and are also aiming for the bendy, unbreakable screens for tomorrows world. But, I'm not sure that is where the future lies. I think that's just the future for PDA's or maybe smartphone accessories.

   Let me explain; things like watch attachments for your phone, which give you a snapshot of what's going on on your phone, without you actually physically taking it out and having to look at it, would be insanely useful. Imagine a touchscreen watch which is essentially a notifications area that will let you control music playback, reply to emails and texts in a fun, bendy and interactive way that you can attach around your wrist, like the Nokia Morph concept above.
Dockable devices like Asus' Padfones will be the future.

   This is where I think companies have a big part to play in the future of phones; they will want to keep the device divide like this; Smartphones-Tablets-PC, each one of them in a market of their own. It makes sense, they earn money from three separate devices.

   I have a different plan for the future and in my head I merge the ideas of Asus, with their Padfone and Motorola with their Laptop Docks and then I take it even further! In my future the phone is the brain of all of the operations, the phone will have the specs and processing prowess of the computers of today or maybe even more (they're getting close already). They can be any size you want, depending on the amount of hard-drive memory you want, the size of the screen you want, the quality of the camera and any other feature you can think of, so in that regard they remain similar to today's.

   This is where the laptop dock, tablet dock, watch notification area/remote control display and ultimately a desktop PC dock all come in. Whatever accessory you want to view your 'phone' on is only a connection, physical or wireless, away. An example would be, if want to do some browsing all you have to do is dock your phone and hey presto you have your phones display on a tablet screen, laptop screen or desktop computer screen and your work can begin.

   Your phone becomes your digital world, you work, relax, play and do your other 'habits' with your phone and if you don't want to do it on the phone itself you have a full set of accessories to use with it. This completely eliminates any need for multiple devices. Think of it another way, you don't need an iPhone, iPad and a Mac. Instead you need an iPhone, an iPad dock and a Mac dock.

   At all times your information is exactly where you left it, there is no need for syncing because it really all is in one place, this is truly post PC, because your PC is with you in your pocket and it handles everything.

   The implications in my mind are endless. A good example to explain exactly what I'm on about is that you have a movie on your phone. If you're in bed and you want to start watching it then you place your phone into your tablet dock and can easily hold it and watch it in your hand, held above your head, if that's your preference. You fall asleep watching the film. The next day you're sitting on a train, you're bored but your laptop doesn't have the film synced to it, in today's world. That's not a problem when your phone is your computer. You whip out your laptop dock and watch it on the table on your laptop with your phone docked in it. Then you arrive at work, your boss isn't in yet and you have ten minutes of the film left, but at the moment your work PC doesn't have the film on it either. No problem, in the future you can just dock your phone and finish of the last ten minutes before he turns up late at 9:05, he's the boss no one shouts at him and he can't tell you off for cheekily finishing off your film.

   Ok, that was a silly little story but I think it conveys the point, phones can be so much more and I think they should be. The future's coming and at the moment Motorola and Asus have the vision but they don't quite have it in them to fully commit to a full tech revolution. I really hope this could be the future and for some reason, if this were to come true, my money would be on Apple to deliver it.


Friday 27 January 2012

27/01/2012

Jon Rubenstein leaves HP.
   After being the biggest advocate of WebOS first at Palm and then secondly at HP, Jon Rubenstein has left the company. There was no official reason for him leaving just after the WebOS open source announcement, although there have been rumblings from within HP that Rubenstein himself is in some small way responsible for the perceived failings of WebOS. 
   Although, the reality may well be somewhat simpler; the original plan for Rubenstein was that he would 'stay with HP for 12-24 months' and he has done exactly that, so maybe it's simply that his time has come. HP has thanked 'Jon for fulfilling his commitment and [they] wish him well'. Jon has announced he has no 'immediate plans' but he has definitely earned a good break after an eventful few years.

RIM's new CEO blasts Android.
   The suggestions from earlier in the week that Torsten Heins, the new RIM CEO, would consider using alternative platforms in Blackberry devices has well and truly been put to bed today. 
   Heins held an interview with Crackberry on his plans for the future and took to opportunity to condemn Android phones as 'all the same', he chose to add that there is 'no room for differentiation'. That may be something Sony [Ericsson], Samsung, Motorola and any other manufacturer you can think of that rocks Android, may well disagree with. But, if that's he's firm belief then maybe he has something up his sleeve to prove his claims and keep RIM going. He also took the opportunity to explain how he was misunderstood, he was not debating the use of another operating system he was simply discussing what he was going to do with RIM as a whole; 'I was talking about drastic or seismic changes', but there was no reference to using other operating systems. 
   So it's just a simple case of people making inferences that weren't there but he took the opportunity to bash the competition very well indeed.

North Korea makes using a phone a war crime?
North Korea
   Ok so we already knew they were nutters, but during the 100 day mourning period after the Great Leaders death (their words not mine). So if you're busted having a cheeky text under the table or anywhere in fact in North Korea you will either be chucked in a labour camp or killed... Got that kids?!?! 
   But, in all seriousness, it is appropriate to point out that the reality in North Korea is that the average income is somewhere around $1 a month, so there are very few people in the country who can afford a phone. But, if they do have one and they're sneaky they have a nice unclogged and relatively freshly installed 3G network to browse away on.

Another day, another earnings report.
   Today it's the turn of the (South) Korean giants, Samsung, to announce their earnings for Q4 2011 and boy have they done well! They have officially announce a $4.7 billion operating profit for the quarter, yes the quarter! 
   Over the year as a whole they have managed to ship 300 million phones, which added up to about 40% of revenue and contributed half of Samsung's overall operating profit.
   Samsung predicts that in the year ahead the mobile division will continue to provide strong growth with continued adoption of LTE and with the exploitations of new markets segments, by which they mean things like the Galaxy Note (Half tablet, half phone things). And with the serious hype building online around the forthcoming Galaxy S3 (maybe known as GT-i9300 which has been spotted in their inventory lists) 2012 is looking like a good year for Samsung.


Thursday 26 January 2012

26/01/2012

HTC returns to 'Hero' devices next year.
   HTC has decided, having ended 2011 on a bit of a downer, to refocus itself on simply a 'hero' set of devices. Instead of catering to everyone's needs as they did this year with the Sensation, Sensation XE and Sensation XL. They're hoping that just having a couple of devices will ease the confusion their Q4 2011 portfolio seemed to create amongst consumers and return to that sensational (get it!) growth they've seen over the last couple of years. Given the success Apple and Samsung have seen with a single iPhone and a single Galaxy S device a year this sounds like a good move from HTC.

Apple and Market Shares.
    Everyone knows Apple is on a route march at the moment; they're now the world's most valuable company, they're gaining marketshare left, right and centre and they briefly had more money in the bank then the US treasury last year.
   And it looks like things are getting EVEN better! And this time it looks to be at the expensive of pretty much everyone. The only piece of slightly negative news is that over the holidays the booming tablet market saw Android take 39.1% of the tablet market, but Apple still holds a huge 57.6% so there's still a long way to go to challenge Apple's superiority in that market.
   There's also been some researched conducted by Forrester and they have found that 81% of business are interested in supporting the iPad and 55% are eyeing the iPhone (intentional tongue twister there). But, it doesn't end there; it's not just the i devices which are in demand, it's the Macs as well. 63%  of companies surveyed either already support Macs or are considering it within the next year and them numbers are going to come almost wholly at the expense of Microsoft's Windows Operating System.
   One of the more intriguing stats here is that amongst older workers PC is the clear preference but amongst younger workers Apple's devices are almost twice as popular. Looks like Apple has consumer and business appeal, Steve Jobs looks to have left one behemoth of a legacy.

Nokia: Earnings reports and WP's love in.
   So after yesterday's announcement of 1.5billion S40 phones being sold, Nokia has some more stats from their latest earnings report. On the profit side things really aren't looking healthy, actually that's being really kind; they were in the red to the tune of about $1.25 billion or about a billion euros if you live this side of the pond. But, always one to remain positive Nokia has announced that they've sold over 1million Lumia devices up to today which is a respectable start.
   Although, the problems with Symbian sales diving off a cliff in all markets has damaged these figures because Nokia expected to be able to keep sales of Symbian high in emerging markets, but it seems even these markets are turning to cheap alternatives from other countries at the moment too. The company has stopped short of making any predictions for the forthcoming year because of 'instability in current markets', so essentially they have no idea how things will go this year, but fingers crossed for the Finns.
   Nokia did announce in its earnings report exactly how much Microsoft's agreement on Windows Phone has contributed to the coffers. It seems Nokia got $250 million to start with just to adopt the platform, it remains to be seen whether this was a good investment for both Microsoft and Nokia, but there's always talk of a need for a third ecosystem and it's hard to deny the appeal to some of us of a none Android/iPhone world.

WebOS' future.
   There is still hold for HP's beautiful little WebOS operating system as it will live on as an open source project and yesterday saw HP announce the timeline for this conversion plan.
   The first part of the plan is to convert the WebOS kernel to the standard Linux kernel which will give the platform access to more drivers and ultimately the opportunity to support more devices. After that progression the timeline will look like this:

  • January: Enyo 2.0 and Enyo source code; Apache License, Version 2.0
  • February: Intended project governance model; QT WebKit extensions; JavaScript core; UI Enyo widgets
  • March:  Linux standard kernel; Graphics extensions EGL; LevelDB; USB extensions
  • April: Ares 2.0; Enyo 2.1; Node services
  • July: System manager (”Luna”); System manager bus; Core applications; Enyo 2.2
  • August: Build release model; Open webOS Beta
  • September: Open webOS 1.0


   So by September fingers crossed we may well see the possibility of dual booting Android/WebOS tablets coming to the market which could in theory give WebOS some marketshare, or alternatively it could still remain dead in the water, but all the publicity WebOS has received over the last year will have created more than a few sparks of intrigue amongst Android developers.



Wednesday 25 January 2012

25/01/2012

O2 sends out your number?
   Ohhh dear, here's another telecommunications blunder, just incase Carrier IQ wasn't already a bad enough start to the year. It seems like O2 UK has a bit of an issue; every phone page you visit has been sent your mobile phone number, yes your mobile phone number so they could in theory have handed out your telephone number hundreds or thousands of times during your contract. 
   [edit] O2 has issued some statements and said that the problem has only been around since the 10th of January and was caused by routine maintenance, but apparently the hole is now patched and O2 has kindly reported itself to OFCOM, before anyone else got the chance I suspect.

Nokia S40 sells 1.5billion phones.
   So amid all the doom and gloom surrounding Nokia at the moment, they don't seem to be doing all that badly with their S40 series of mobile phones. Granted these aren't the hugely expensive profit making phones but since 1999 that is an incredible amount of sales nonetheless. If only Nokia could start shifting their Lumia series at that rate they'd be laughing.

ZTE V9A Light Tab 2 tablet announced.
   ZTE is trying to get into the tablet game like every other android manufacturer and this incredibly awkwardly named creation is their latest offering. The Light Tab features a solid 7" screen twinned with a huge 3400MaH battery. The thing is powered by a 1.4Ghz single core processor and disappointingly runs android 2.3. But, on the plus sides there's two cameras; one a 3.2MP shooter and the other a 0.3MP snapper presumably just for video calls and the whole thing is 12.6mm thick.
   The whole package will be available from Clove at the end of February and will set you back £234.99, which given the incoming Asus MeMO maybe doesn't look like such a great deal. Hopefully next time ZTE can come up with something a teeny bit more inspiring.

Tuesday 24 January 2012

24/01/2012

Uh-uh RIM shares down 8% today.
   It seems that RIM investors weren't too impressed with yesterdays appointment of Thorsten Heins with the shares starting 8% lower this morning. It's not nice to see a big company like RIM in this kind of predicament, but they need to do something quickly. Maybe rekindle some rumours of a buyout by a big company? Last time Samsung were rumoured to be considering a take over RIM's shares spiked by 10%. Come on Thorsten work some of your German industrial magic!


The MegaUpload effect.
   There's been a lot of goings on today as the impact of the MegaUpload shut down reverberates around the interwebs a bit. Yesterday evening FileSonic stopped downloads from it's site unless you uploaded that file, Fileserve has done the same as Filesonic and Uploaded.to has decided it best to block Americans from downloading from it's site. Well it does appear that maybe these three have something to hide? Well they obviously know they do, but at least they're playing it safe until the heat dissipates a bit which sounds like a good plan. Hopefully Zshare, Mediafire and the like will keep their services up and running. 
   Slashgear has also been running an interesting story today suggesting that the American government was pushed into action by Universal because Megaupload was planning to announce its on DIY record label. IF there's any truth in that then that does raise some serious concerns over the power of music labels especially if they were threatened by the potential of MegaBox (search it it's an interesting concept).

Nokia: Good stats and a new phone.
Nokia Lumia 900
   Nokia might finally have a small amount to smile about the word on the web today is that Nokia has a 47% share of windows phones second generation devices. So that probable works out to being half of half of 1% of phone sales (1/2 windows phone sales, but only second gen ones and windows phone has ~1% marketshare) so by my very sketchy maths that works out to be 0.25% of all smartphone sales. Not amazing but it's a start.
   The other big news is that The Carphone Warehouse may have jumped the gun a bit on the announcement of the Nokai Lumia 900, that we saw go to AT&T in the states equipped with LTE. They've posted it up as arriving in June, so a bit of a wait and there may well be some more competition arriving at MWC at the end of February but at least Nokia is announcing phones and trying to go somewhere.

iOS 5 Jailbreaks and Apple vs Samsung.
   Apple fans of the world unite, your developers have allowed you to lose your chains. Ok rubbish reworked Marxist quotes aside, the iPhone dev team have announced some pretty huge numbers for their first three days online:
  • 491,325 new iPhone4,1 devices
  • 308,967 new iPad2 devices
  • 152,940 previously jailbroken (at 4.x) iPad2 devices
   Nearly a million jailbreaks in 3 days, pretty good going something makes me think there were a few people waiting on that.
   While we're on the subject of Apple, there's been a result announced in this on going you copied us, no you copied us mess. The Dutch court in the Hague has made it's decision that The Samsung Galaxy Tab is not too much like the iPad and is free to be sold. Huraah! The reason the court added for saying there was no infringement was because Hp Compaq's tc1000 and the 1994 Knightriders concept rendered Apple's patent on tablets very narrow indeed. So there we have it Apple you did not invent the tablet.

Monday 23 January 2012

23/01/2012

There has been some big stories the last few days;

RIM's new CEO.
The first of which is something to keep your eyes on if you're a currently rocking or are thinking about buying a shiny new Blackberry. Because today Thorsten Heins took the CEO title off of the CEO-sharing duo of Mike Lazaridis and Jim Balsillie, both of whom have taken up other roles within RIM and both remain on the Board of Directors, so maybe this isn't the wholesale change some RIM investors were calling for.
Thorsten himself has been at RIM since 2007 and has had several positions in the Hardware and Software sides of the business, so hopefully he can give everyone a kick up the proverbial behind so that RIM can turn out some of the attractive looking new Blackberry devices with BB10 that have been leaking lately.
[edit] AND he said in his press conference earlier today that he would be open to licensing BB10 should there be any potential suitors forthcoming.

More Sony phone leaks?
So we've already had the Nozomi leak which turned out to be the Sony (Read: Ericsson less) Xperia S and now we have another new leak thanks to the Xperia Blog and this appears to be the a cheaper phone with a lower quality screen. The guys at Engadget have suggested the larger icons are on the screen to avoid pixelation. But, you have to hand it to Sony it's another handsome looking device and by the time it ships it might even lose the Ericsson branding from the top too.

iBooks 2 starts off very well.
iBooks has reportedly sold over 350,000 textbooks within three days of it launching! Now these aren't official Apple numbers but they are from Global Equities Research so we hope they shouldn't be too far off of the mark, but if they have got it right then Apple has done a mighty fine job of reinventing iBooks.

Youtube hits 4 billions views per day.
Some more insane statistics coming out of the Googleplex after their slightly below expected earnings report, but this time it seems like all good news. Youtube is up 25% on it's daily views compared to 8months ago which is pretty impressive. Reuter's suggests that Youtube receives an additional 60hours of video every minute, so it looks like there's a lot more for us to kill our time watching!

Sunday 22 January 2012

Hi Guys (and Girls),
This is my first ever post(!) and I just wanted to tell you all what this blog is about....


It's basically your one stop shop for all of each days Tech news.... But, there is only one post per day!
Yep, you will only have to read one post and therefore only one click.
So much easier then clicking backwards and forwards through other blogs and websites, when all you really want to do is read what's happened after you've been at school or working at a computer all day anyway. 


So my first post will be tomorrow and we'll see how it goes.


Thank you for your time reading this and I hope you like the blog!


Best,
James

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