Technology & Business
Pictures of some entry level iPhone parts
With the increased competition from low cost Android devices, most Wall Street analysts & tech pundits agree that Apple will have to eventually release a more affordable iPhone. Something Apple can sell in developing markets to fight off Google. Until now, this has been all speculation but Japanese Apple blog Macotakara has published pictures of a vibration motor not used in any iPhone. iLab Factory (the source of the photos) believes it is part of the upcoming cheaper iphone.
Samsung Galaxy SIV International faster than US version
We have seen a steady stream of Samsung Galaxy SIV performance benchmarks since it was released. All of the performance benchmarks have been performed with the US version. The US/Canadian version of the Samsung Galaxy SIV will come equipped with a Qualcomm Snapdragon 600 processor. The global version will come with the gargantuan Samsung Exynos 5 Octa (8 core) processor. We have been wondering how this Samsung processor would compare to the Qualcomm and now we know. SamMobile has performed the benchmark we have all been waiting for and it seems the Exynos 5 is significantly faster.
What is Metal As A Service (MaaS)
Just when you thought companies could create another blah blah as a service acronym, Canonical has thrown a couple of new letters at us: MaaS. MaaS stand for Metal As A Service and is a metal to server management service created by Canonical (the team behind Ubuntu). In the old days (aka last couple of years) companies went crazy buying the biggest meanest servers they could buy to do all they number crunching and big data analysis. The bigger the company the bigger and more expensive the servers they bought.
Desktop As A Service is cheaper and easier to implement
Having worked in the IT field for close to 20 years now, I am constantly surprised that the biggest pain points for most organizations are still the most basic IT components. One such pain point for companies large and small is desktop management. What should be a commodity easy to manage system is still proving to be a big challenge for most organization. I believe over the next 3-5 years, we will see a huge uptake in Desktop As A Service (DAAS).
Google may buy WhatsApp
Digital Trends is reporting that Google is in talks with WhatsApp about a potential acquisition. It seems WhatsApp is pushing for a $1 billion valuation. WhatsApp is a private company and doesn’t share subscriber information but the industry believes they should have about 300 million active users. December 31 2012, they processed 18 billion messages. WhatsApp is one of the most popular platform agnostic messaging systems with deep penetration in Europe and Latin America. Why would WhatsApp consider selling? No one knows for sure but I believe it may be because of strong competition from Asian providers such as WeChat (China) and Kakao Talk (Korea).
Free app to clean junk files from your Android device
I am an iPhone user playing with Android and was surprised when I learned I have to “maintain” my Android devices. One of the main maintenance tasks I do on Windows machines that I also have to do on my Android tablet is “getting rid of junk files”. These files consume precious storage space you definitely want to reclaim. After testing over 20 different apps, I have finally settles on a free software called Clean Master. This app cleans application cache files, orphaned files after uninstalling apps and deletes app histories.
Gunnar Optiks computer glasses Review
Knowledge workers and serious gamers will tell you starring at a bright screen for hours at a time takes its toll (eye strain, headaches, etc.) If you work in an office environment will little natural light and lots of white artificial light then the situation becomes even worse. About 2 months ago, I noticed that my eyes were dry, I was getting more frequent head aches and generally felt worse from wear after spending most of the day starring at a screen.
Outlook coming to Surface RT
Like it or hate it, the Microsoft Surface RT tablet is an original creation forcing us to think differently about the tablet market. As good as some think it is, most users agree it is missing one main tool, Microsoft Outlook. It seems Microsoft may have heard your complaints and may be preparing to release Outlook for Surface RT (according to the Supersite for Windows). The article says a bug in the ARM chipset (the tablets brain) may have caused the delay in the release.
Apple gaining momentum against Android
comScore has published it’s smartphone Subscriber Market Share statistics and it looks like Apple my be heading higher while Android takes a little dip. Google’s dark night (aka Android) dropped 2% in the latest period (51.7%) while Apple’s IOS gained 3.9% (38.9%). Microsoft and Blackberry both lost ground and it’s not even worth mentioning. I think the big test for Apple will be the summer release of IOS 7 and the next iPhone (the iPhone 5s?). If they manage to deliver a compelling product then I think they may manage to win back a big chunk of the market.
Chrome to start using Blink soon
I previously wrote that Google will be using its own rendering engine called Blink "soon". Now we learn that this wi be part of the stable Chrome release of version 28 (gracing us in about 10 weeks). Can't wait to test drive it and see how it performs.