Hiya guys and girls, I'm back! Hospital is all over and done and now I am back to giving you the days tech news in one easy lump of text! And to help you catch up here is all the important news from the last two days!
Instagram adds 10 million users in 10 days.
In case there was ever even a hint of doubt as to the power of the internet's biggest companies have a little look at this. 10 days ago Instagram had 30 million users on iOS and iOS alone. We knew that news travels quickly but Facebook dropped $1billion dollars on the company the other day.
Somewhere between that and launching Instagram for Android, the company has managed to amass 10 million news users in 10 days! Let me just put that into perspective; I have 330 friends on Facebook and Instagram has added 2.1 times that many users every minute for the last 10 days! you can check my maths if you have a lot of time to kill!!!
That is pretty insane in my book, so I'm pleased to see a company who previously only had 11 employees really go to the next level!
Ubuntu for phones coming!!!
The picture above is a render by Ubuntu fan Musl1m, who has produced a render of what he hopes Ubuntu's upcoming mobile OS will ultimately look like, and I don't think many people would complain if it did indeed look like that!
The story here is that a job listing has popped up in the last few days; the position being advertised by Canonical for a 'Business Development Manager' for it's Ubuntu Phone OS project. So it seems the company is planning to go one better than their Ubuntu for Android project!
This isn't the companies first attempt at mobile success; they have previously tried Ubuntu Mobile, Ubuntu for ARM and Kubuntu Mobile. So, fourth time lucky!
Ebook publishers hit back!
A couple of days back there was the rather large revelation that some ebook publishers were, to quote the DOJ, 'artificially keeping the prices of ebooks high'.
Obviously this is quite a statement, especially when they specifically called out a list of companies which involved; Apple, Macmillon, Penguin and HarperCollins to name but a few. Three of the bunch agreed to settle with the DOJ, but Apple Macmillon and Penguin all rigorously refute the suggestion they were involved in this and have labelled the DOJ's statements as 'simply not true'.
The full statement reads as follows;
"The DOJ’s accusation of collusion against Apple is simply not true. The launch of the iBookstore in 2010 fostered innovation and competition, breaking [a] monopolistic grip on the publishing industry. Since then customers have benefited from eBooks that are more interactive and engaging. Just as we’ve allowed developers to set prices on the App Store, publishers set prices on the iBookstore"
"The DOJ’s accusation of collusion against Apple is simply not true. The launch of the iBookstore in 2010 fostered innovation and competition, breaking [a] monopolistic grip on the publishing industry. Since then customers have benefited from eBooks that are more interactive and engaging. Just as we’ve allowed developers to set prices on the App Store, publishers set prices on the iBookstore"
In other news:
- Be wary of your 3rd party app stores Android users; today an app posing as Angry Birds Space was discovered as a trojan and erm well it's better to avoid them!
- Vodafone UK has unleashed ICS to Galaxy S2 owners.
- Xbox 720 rumoured to have 16core CPU?!?!
- Jim Basillie, ex-RIM bigshot, had wanted to offer BBM and other RIM services to other OS' and OEM's, which is retrospect does seem like it would've been a good idea... Imagine a world where most people had BBM added to their phone at the cost of the manufacturer! RIM would be a great software company with the occasional phone too!
- Mark Zuckerburg, Facebook owner and CEO, has an approval rating of 94% amongst people... Jealous Mr Cameron???
- Spotify has a 'special announcement' for us next week!!! Please, please, please be a price cut!
- Samsung expected to outsell Nokia for the first time in history this week and take the title of world's biggest mobile phone vender. I personally find it surprising that Nokia is still the biggest phone manufacturer, I don't think I know anyone who uses a Nokia on a regular basis!
