Archive for June, 2009
Just couple hours after its release and Firefox 3.5 is already crossed one million downloads. You can keep track of the number of downloads in real time here. Most of the downloads have been made in the U.S with almost 300,000 followed by Germany with almost 150,000 downloads. I mean this could very well break the 8 Million download record that Firefox 3.0 set last year?
What’s the better way for a firm to cut its cost? Lay off employees, wreck their lives or follow Adobe. The makers of Flash player that is used throw out the web to play video clips has decided to cease operations in North America to cut back on costs for a week. I am quite surprised why Adobe had to make such a move as it already powers quite a lot of desktop apps apart from Flash and by al means is profitable. This shut down is one of the three planned for the current year with the first already taking place in April.
Sense Networks, a startup founded by MIT computer scientist, Alex Pentland and Columbia computer scientist, Tony Jebara has raised a healthy $6 Million in Series B round of funding. The startup works on by collecting data on people’s location via their cell phones, GPS, cameras, etc. On the same methodology it has developed Citysense, a mobile app for the Blackberry devices which shows real time heat map of popular spots like clubs, etc and is based on the amount of people that are actually there. The round was led by Intel Capital.
There is a new Android based device set to make its way in the market and its coming from Dell as reports state. That device is however not a mobile handset and will be slightly bigger than the iPhone. And the reason why Dell is going for Android is obviously that its powerful and free. Although there has been no official word on the device from Dell, people state that the device will be available by the second half of this year. Dell has been working upon the device and had appointed exec Ain McKendrick to be in charge of its mobile Internet devices. Lets see what exactly is the device like and how it does in the market.
The Pirate Bay after all the brouhaha that had been created around it for quite some time has been acquired by Global Gaming Factory X. The Swedish Software firm acquired the file sharing service for figure close to $7.7 Million and will complete the transaction by August this year. I am sure that the acquisition is not going to create any problems for the file sharing service in any manner as it’s driving force behind the site’s success and with new people coming in the site will have the necessary muscle to continue its drive towards success.
China continues to strike the online world with its policies in the homeland. It banned access to various Web services like Google, Facebook, Twitter, etc and now it makes a move towards virtual currency as it bans people from using it to buy real goods. Virtual Currency has become quite essential in the Web-sphere from buying gifts on social networks to purchasing gaming cards and its pretty popular. However analysts in China have supported the ban stating that the growing use of virtual currency may very well have a negative impact on the ever strengthening economy of the country.
A new handset, a new charger that will only work with that particular device. Sounds an awful waste when things could have been better with one universal charger. While that has taken some time, but manufacturers of as many as ten mobile devices have agreed on the request from the European Commission to create universal battery chargers. While this presently applies to the member EU states, but does technology has boundaries, especially one that benefits almost everyone? No, obviously. The Universal charger will have a micro-USB connector, meaning that it will support all phones that support USB data transfer. This will most probably be made applicable from next year onwards on the said manufacturers.
