Technology & Business
Vizio entering computer business
We learned that Vizio will be releasing 5 computer in June 2012. For those that don't know, Vision hit the US market a couple of years ago with high quality but affordable TVs. Their executives said they will do for PCs what they did for TVs with unbelievable pricing.
iPad 3 rumor roundup
Anything you hear or read about the iPad 3 is pure speculation so take it with a grain of salt but..... in case you were wondering what the interwebs are thinking, here is a roundup. Most expect the iPad 3 to include: Retina Display - Likely Most would be surprised if the iPad 3 didn't include a Retina display. A Retina display is any screen that has a pixel density above 300dpi. The current rumor is that the iPad 3 will have double the resolution (2,048-by-1,536) of the iPad 2 plus a 326dpi Retina display.
Users send less SMS messages during Christmas Eve 2011
With the popularity of iMessage and the tight integration between newer smartphones and twitter/facebook, most of us expected to see a drop in traditional SMS message volumes. Tero Kuittinen from MGI Research wrote an interesting article in Forbes confirming our suspicions. SMS messages sent in Finland through Sonera droped by 2.4 million messages (this year over last) on Christmas eve. Numbers from the Hong Kong carriers also show a 14% drop. This fact becomes very interesting when you consider that up to 20% of carrier revenues currently come from SMS message charges.
Google acquired another 217 patents from IBM.
Engadget is reporting that Google recently acquired 217 patents from their big blue brother( aka IBM). The transaction was posted in the USPO assignment database on Tuesday. Some analysts have looked at the patents in question and have said they include techniques related to email administration, Instant messaging, video conferencing, presentation software and the like. Just a reminder that they also acquired another 1000 patents from Big Blue in July of 2011, 1023 in September of 2011 and bought Motorola Mobility which also had a vast patent portfolio.
RIM Secretly looking for a new CEO
2011 was a difficult year for Research in Motion (aka RIM) and it’s 2 CO-CEOs: Mike Lazaridis and Jim Blasillie. Now Canada’s Financial post is reporting that the firm may be searching for a new replacement CEO. The paper’s unnamed source believes Barbara Stymiest may be the frontrunner for the new job. She is a member of the RIM board, former head of the TSX Group Inc and the former Chief Operating Officer of Royal Bank of Canada. The market seemed to like the rumor since RIM stock edged up slightly after the news hit the market.
Internet Explorer 6 is dead. Long live IE.
Many of us thought IE 6 was already dead but it seems we were wrong. As its share of the web browser market fell to below 1%, Redmond finally gave it a one-two sucker punch. IE6 is now officially down for the count. Roger Capriotti , the Microsoft director in charge of IE marketing said : “IE6 has been the punch line of browser jokes for a while, and we’ve been as eager as anyone to see it go away.
Features I want to see in Evernote
I love the power and simplicity of Evernote. Having used it for a little while, I have some suggestions I wanted to share with you (hopefully someone from Evernote sees this, because improvement recommendations sent to their support box seem to get nowhere). You can email notes into Evernote and they get saved into your default notebook. I would love for my Evernote account to have multiple email addresses, each saving a note to a different notebook with particular tags (like a predefined filter).
US Credit Rating to be downgraded by Fitch Ratings?
When S&P downgraded the US Credit, everyone argued that it was just one misguided company. Now we learn that Fitch Ratings has given the US government until 2013 (aka after the US elections) to clean up its act and come to the market with a concrete plan to address their deficit problems. The agency said "The negative outlook reflects Fitch's declining confidence that timely fiscal measures necessary to place U.S. public finances on a sustainable path and secure the U.
Blackberry Playbook fire sale at $99
In Canada, our major retailers have been selling the Playbooks for up to $300 MSRP for the last 2 weeks and some of them are now sold out (Best Buy and FutureShop). In addition to this promo, Research In Motion (RIM) is also giving away a free 16GB Playbook with the upgrade of an enterprise BES server to v5 until December 31. Rim seems to be in a very festive mood because The Verge is reporting that Blackberry is hawking its 16GB tablet for $99 on its employee only portal.
US thanksgiving black friday sales record set
Although the final numbers arent in yet, many analysts are already predicting a record year for Black Friday sales. IBM is predicting a 24.3% increase sales over last year for black friday sales. ComScore says online sales grew 26% (compared to 2010) totalling $816 million. ShopperTrak said : “This is the largest year-over-year gain in ShopperTrak’s National Retail Sales Estimate for Black Friday since the 8.3 percent increase we saw between 2007 and 2006. Still, it’s just one day. It remains to be seen whether consumers will sustain this behavior through the holiday shopping season.