Amazon Bribes Would-Be Kindle Fire Developers With New Virtual ‘Amazon Coins’
Oh great.
It seems odd at a time when Microsoft is rumored to be ditching their fictitious and consumer-unfriendly Points system in favor of hard currency, Amazon is ready to step on with their own surrogate payment system. The goal, like any other virtual dollar, is to get people to convert their real money into a kind of Itchy & Scratchy money that can only be used on Amazon’s Kindle Fire. Of course, they’re promising some great things for app developers.
Kik Messenger Hits 50M Users, Doesn’t Give An Eff About The Competition
It’s true!
Communication is vital for any company, particularly a startup like ours, so in our earliest days, we knew we needed a good cross-platform communication tool. Kik Messenger filled in and we’ve been using it ever since. A mere five months after adding app “cards” to their messenger to share sketches (usually of poop and butts) and videos, Kik is now reporting they’ve hit 50 million users.
A 7″ Tablet Won’t Save Microsoft’s Surface
This, but smaller.
Google has seen some success with their seven-inch tablet. Apple did the same. It’s a comfortable size just beyond the realm of a smartphone, so why not? So who, once again, is late to the party when it comes to consumer trends? Why, it’s Microsoft and the rumored seven-inch version of their Surface, a device with the common complaint that it, at over ten inches, was far too big.
Samsung’s New Galaxy Mega Phones Are Over-Sized, Under-Powered, Budget-Minded?
At 5.8 and 6.3 inches, these things are crazy big
Perhaps I’m crazy, but when a phone goes up in size, I assume that it’ll receive a spec upgrade to go along with it. Beyond Samsung’s upcoming 5-inch Galaxy S4, even beyond their 5.5-inch Note II, the company is bridging the gap to their tablets with two new phones, dubbed Galaxy Megas, that are obviously compensating for something.
Windows 8 And iPads Are Killing The PC, Quarter By Quarter
Looks like Microsoft’s Bing revenue. *ba-dum-psssh!*
Shipments of PCs slipped 13.2% last quarter, the biggest drop recorded in the nearly twenty years that IDC has been keeping track of such things. The desktop alone has seen declining shipments for years (the majority of PCs shipped are laptops) and now it’s the PC in its entirety that’s heading out the door while companies like Dell and HP scrambling to fix its consumer hardware divisions. Will this industry ever recover? Probably not.
Why Can’t Google Fiber And AT&T Fight Over My Neighborhood?
I need more lanes on my information super highway to get to cyberspace, if you know what I mean!
I’m greedy. I want exactly what I want at all times. Case in point, I want gigabit internet (that’s 1,000Mbps down and 1,000Mbps) here in Phoenix and I want it here immediately. As a CableCo subscriber and former CableCo employer, I know for a fact that Cox Cable and CenturyLink aren’t going to bother unless a newcomer arrives to disrupt the market, which may be a while.
Foxconn Revenues Are Down Because iPhone Revenues Are Down
It seems odd that Apple announcements would ever deplete in value, but…
Hon Hal Industries, known to most as Foxconn, reported that revenues were down over 18% over last year. Why? Because iPhone sales are reaching their peak.
Natalia Project Helps To Protect Human Rights Activists With Wrist-Bound Locators
The bracelet is simple and can easily be disguised.
It seems we only hear bad news in regards to human rights activists, as in the case of Natalia Estemirova, who was abducted in Chechnya on July 15, 2009 and brutally murdered. A Swedish organization, Civil Rights Defenders, went hard to work to solve the issue of protecting activists and it looks like they may have come up with some technology that will do just that. Read the rest of this article…
Tumblr App For Android Gets Upgraded, Looks So Much Sparklier
It’s definitely prettier.
If you’re like me and need yet another venue to send a bunch of miscellaneous text or info to, you’ve got Tumblr installed somewhere. I just recently got on the Tumblr train to make long and extremely personal tomes of information available to every Google bot in the universe, but the Android app was always a little, hmmm, flat. Well, no longer!
Read the rest of this article…
Verizon, HTC, Will You Please Stop Screwing Me And My Thunderbolt?
More like BLUNDERBolt
A while ago, I wrote about the Ice Cream Sandwich update Verizon finally pushed out to owners of the HTC Thunderbolt and how miserably it affected the performance of the phone. It has since gotten worse, taking long periods of time to start applications and even longer to get the phone application to work. So long, in fact, that incoming calls often roll to voice mail before the phone app starts and allows me to answer.
And it seems most Thunderbolt owners are complaining of the same problems.
