MWC2016: Smartphone Makers Turn to Wearable Devices (video)

From Mobile World Congress 2016:  Phone makers turn to wearable devices (video from FT.com)

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Google Samsung Divorce Coming?

Google and Samsung’s relationship continues to worsen, this time over wearables | 9to5Google: "According to a new report out of The Information, the already tense relationship between Samsung and Google has begun to worsen thanks to both of their own lines of wearables. The report claims that Google CEO Larry Page and Samsung Vice Chairman Jay Y. Lee took part in an a “tense” private meeting at the Allen & Co. conference last week in Sun Valley. The meeting reportedly centered around Page being frustrated that Samsung was investing more in its smartwatches running Tizen than the ones running Android Wear...." (read more at the link above)


Apple Insider
Google and Samsung escalate hostilities over watches, Tizen and Android's openness
Apple Insider
Back in 2010, Google similarly tried to stop Samsung from using Android 2.x to build a tablet clone of Apple's iPad, insisting that its Android licensees ...

Facebook Is Studying Your Mom, Your Makeout Buddy, and Your 9/11 Conspiracy Theories | Mother Jones: "... the mood study is far from the only example of Facebook scrutinizing its users—the company has been doing that for years, examining users' ethnicities, political views, romantic partners, and even how they talk to their children..."

Here’s why your Comcast rep is yelling at you | The Verge: "Warped employee incentives and an absence of competition make bad customer service inevitable"

Google Maps for Android update adds elevation data for cyclists, let's you talk back to Navigation
Jane McEntegart
Google is pushing out an update for Google Maps for Android that will make things a little bit easier for cyclists planning their journeys. Now, when you ...

Google To Stop Labeling Apps With In-App Purchases As 'Free'
Forbes
By the end of September, Google will no longer label apps as “free” if they allow for ...Apple has not, according to the EC, made a similar commitment.


Boston Globe
His Google Maps obsession
Boston Globe
Then my husband discovered Google Maps. Now we sit in the car while my husband hunches over his phone, tapping out our route. You'd think he ...


Cinema Blend
Microsoft Catches Ire From Advertisers Over Xbox Entertainment Studios Shutdown
Cinema Blend
There's been some recent shakeups going on at Microsoft that has caused the major enterprise ... The marketplace is stiff, however, as the programming end is occupied by the likes of Amazon's new Fire TV, Netflix, Hulu and other ...


IBNLive
Did Facebook's Slingshot Miss Its Target?
Mashable
The app briefly cracked Apple's list of top 50 free apps in the United States the ... 100,000 and 500,000 times, according to Google Play store numbers.


Hindu Business Line
Facebook to challenge Amazon soon?
Hindu Business Line
After making billions connect socially on its network, Facebook is testing a new feature designed to let users buy products directly from ads and posts ...

Google Blocking Some Downloads of uTorrent in Chrome
PC Magazine
Google, it seems, would disagree. According to a recent article from TorrentFreak, the search giant has allegedly placed the uTorrent installation ...

Google mulls transforming NYC pay phones into Wi-Fi hot spots
Chicago Tribune
NEW YORK _Google is among several technology companies considering a plan that uses pay-phone locations to give New Yorkers free wireless ...

NASA's Orion Spacecraft: 9 Facts
InformationWeek
The Orion spacecraft gives NASA a ticket to deep space. Here's how NASA is preparing the spacecraft for a mission to visit an asteroid in 2025. Previous. 1 of 10. Next. NASA has big plans to send humans to an asteroid by 2025. The mission, however, will not ..

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Who Wants A Smartwatch?

Apparently, not many people do --

Does Anyone Even Want a Smartwatch? -- NYMag: "Despite all the buzz surrounding wearables, it isn’t clear who’s supposed to be buying them. Fewer than half of the respondents to a recent Accenture survey said they would consider buying a smartwatch, and even the most optimistic experts predict only 20 million smartwatch sales this year, a pittance compared with phone and tablet sales. "

The secretive billionaire who built Silicon Valley: "How John Arrillaga Sr. [real estate developer] transformed California fruit orchards into high-priced office space for the likes of Google, Apple, Hewlett-Packard, and Cisco."

Google Directors Wanted Page, Brin to Court Facebook Employees
Wall Street Journal (blog)
Google considered having its cofounders personally recruit Facebook workers and instituted a policy to make counteroffers within an hour to workers ...

Facebook: World Cup Biggest Social Media Event Ever
Voice of America
Brazil's World Cup was the biggest social media event on record involving 350 millionFacebook Inc users worldwide, the company claimed on ...

Google, Others Push for 'Strong' Open Internet Action
PC Magazine
The Internet Association - whose members include Google, Amazon, Netflix, Twitter, and more - filed comments with the FCC today, which ask for ...

Facebook 'Friends' Its City, Pays for Officer
Wall Street Journal
Facebook has funded the salary of a Menlo Park police officer and the construction of a police substation near its headquarters. Experts say such ...

Google Glass creator heads to Amazon
CNET
Babak Parviz, who led the development of Google Glass and other ... at the Internet search-engine giant, confirms to CNET he left to Amazon.

Microsoft Azure Machine Learning: Pier 1 Digs In
InformationWeek
Microsoft formally announced on Monday that Microsoft Azure Machine Learning (Azure ML), is now available as a public beta service. And as part of ...

Microsoft CEO Nadella writes long memo to employees -- Oh my!
Computerworld (blog)
Microsoft (NASDAQ:MSFT) CEO Satya Nadella enjoys writing a good memo. His latest tome written to employees -- published online Thursday -- has ...

Yahoo: Focus on Alibaba, display business
MarketWatch
SAN FRANCISCO (MarketWatch) — Yahoo Inc. is set to report second-quarter results after the closing bell on Tuesday. This is what investors can ...

Google's 3D mapping tech flying to space station
Computerworld
Computerworld - After a successful Sunday launch, a cargo spacecraft is on its way to the International Space Station, carrying a Google 3D ...

Apple Denies Chinese Media Claim of IPhone Security Risk
Businessweek

... the microblog of the People's Daily newspaper said Apple...

Developers and Apple open up on new Swift programming language
ZDNet
Is its just-launched developer blog about the Swift programming language a sign of a new, more open Apple? Whatever the answer, the blog's information will no doubt be welcome to developers. Some are working away at adding new libraries; others are ..

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Video Games Are Mainstream, Getting Better (video)

Tretton: Video Games Are Mainstream, Getting Better: Video - Bloomberg:
(Allow video to load after clicking play)
John Vignocchi, executive producer of Disney Infinity, and Jack Tretton, former CEO of Sony Computer Entertainment, talk with Bloomberg's Jon Erlichman about trends at this years E3 conference, Disney Infinity, virtual reality and the future of gaming. (Source: Bloomberg June 12)

Google's states of play
Politico
Google is a Washington powerhouse that shapes federal law, rewards congressional allies and boasts a new 54,000-square-foot office, just down the ...

Google I/O 2014: What to expect as Google increases its focus on 'connected' tech
PCWorld (blog)
Google needs an answer to Microsoft's DirectX 12 and Apple's Metal—that is, a lower-level graphics programming language that allows more efficient ...

Facebook Hastens the Era of Open Source Hardware
Forbes
If necessity is the mother of invention, then the need for cheap, efficient, compact servers and network equipment has made Facebook an innovator of ...

Yahoo aims to be a mobile company
SFGate
Facebook is on top of the world of mobile advertising, but analysts say that Yahoo is positioned to stay competitive in this rapidly growing world.

Apple, Google, Samsung vie to bring health apps to wearables
Chicago Tribune
Apple Inc , Samsung Electronics Co and Google Inc , searching for applications that could turn nascent wearable technology like smartwatches and ...

Microsoft Previews All-Cloud Azure Disaster Recovery Service
eWeek
Microsoft is setting out to erase any lingering doubts about cloud-based disaster recovery with a preview of Azure Site Recovery (ASR) to Azure.

Facebook widens tracking for advertisers
New Zealand Herald
If you use Facebook, the specific ads you see have been based mostly on what ...Google, Facebook and Yahoo - among the largest hubs for online ...

Facebook takes a shot at picture messaging with Snapchat-like app
Columbus Dispatch
Availability: Slingshot, which Facebook officially released last week, works with Apple and Android devices. A Facebook account isn't required.

Titan sprouts 'Magic Island', say astroboffins
Register
Astroboffins monitoring Titan have spotted something new that hints at how the moon's weather works. The folks behind the discovery have named the new feature a “magic island”, because nobody knows what it is or why it appeared. The discovery is ...

Emperor penguins could survive global warming, study indicates
Haaretz
The flightless fowls don't actually breed in the same place every year, scientists found to their surprise: They will move if they have to. By Ruth Schuster | Jun. 23, 2014 | 9:23 AM. Tweet. Emperor penguin (AP). An Emperor penguin that got lost and wound up ...

European Space Agency—The Earth's Changing Fields Of Magnetism (Satellite)
SatNews Publishers
[SatNews] The first set of high-resolution results from ESA's three-satellite Swarm constellation reveals the most recent changes in the magnetic field that protects our planet. Magnetic field changes. Image courtesy of ESA. Launched in November 2013, ...

Scientists reveal secrets of Higgs Boson particle
New Zealand Herald
Scientists working at the Large Hadron Collider have discovered more information about the Higgs Boson particle. Photo / CERN. Physicists say they have learned more about the identity of the Higgs Boson, the elusive particle whose ground-breaking ...

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Mt. Gox, bitcoin fraud or hacking victim?

Questions are being asked that implicate Mt. Gox management in the bitcoin currency exchange collapse --

Hackers allege Mt. Gox CEO still controls 'stolen' Bitcoin | ZDNet: "Following the closure of Mt. Gox and the theft of Bitcoins worth millions, anonymous hackers claim to have published evidence that customer Bitcoin is not missing -- but instead is held at the heart of attempted fraud...."

Mt. Gox Seeks U.S. Court Protection During Japan Bankruptcy - Businessweek: "...“The facts known to date indicate that it was caused or related to a flaw in the software algorithm that underlies bitcoin, and ‘hacking’ attacks of one or more persons,” Mt. Gox Chief Executive Officer Mark Karpeles said in a sworn statement filed yesterday in Dallas. The Tokyo-based exchange filed for bankruptcy in a Japanese court at about the same time it was sued by an Illinois resident accusing it of misappropriation and fraud in U.S. court in Chicago. The U.S. bankruptcy case is In re MtGox Co. Ltd., 14-bk-31229, U.S. Bankruptcy Court, Northern District of Texas (Dallas). The lawsuit is Greene v. Mt. Gox Inc., 14-cv-01437, U.S. District Court, Northern District of Illinois (Chicago)...."

Google to Offer Android for Wearables
Wall Street Journal (blog)
Google executive Sundar Pichai told the South by Southwest conference Sunday that the company plans to release in two weeks a software development kit based on Android for makers of wearable devices, such as smartwatches. Google plans to release its ...

Google's Pichai touts wearables SDK, 'APIs for hardware'
CNET
When it comes to auto manufacturers implementing Android, Pichai noted that in today's world, many choose to stick to Apple's iOS. But he likened that approach to walking into a hotel and finding that an in-room stereo system only works with iOS devices.

Google Searches for an App Role
Wall Street Journal
A year later, the company said the ads had driven over 145 million app installations from the Google Play Store and Apple's App Store. The ads appear in the news feed of Facebook's popular mobile app and have proved particularly appealing to game ...

Microsoft, HP blaze business tablet trail
CNET
Hewlett-Packard and Microsoft think the tablet is more lean forward than lean back. Are they right? The PC has one (at least) distinct advantage over Apple. Windows 8.1 isn't a mobile operating system like iOS. In other words, the same 64-bit Windows 8 ...

Apple's long IRS-Irish history
ZDNet
The talk around Apple's taxes appeared to be everywhere this past weekend: from the Internet to angry jokes on the radio. There were new reports of Apple shifting billions from Australia to Ireland, and discussion around soon-to-retire CFO Peter ...

Google Reaps Tax Breaks in $1.4 Billion Clean Energy Bet: Tech
Businessweek
On a Northern California farm where silage for animal feed once grew, Google Inc. (GOOG:US) is generating power from more than 100,000 solar panels to heat nearby homes - - and double down on an area of energy many investors shun. The Galt solar ...

Apple, Android Continue to Lead Smartphone Market: comScore
eWeek
Android ranked as the top smartphone platform in January with 51.7 percent market share, followed by Apple with 41.6 percent (up 1 percentage point), BlackBerry with 3.1 percent,Microsoft with 3.2 percent and Symbian with 0.2 percent. Google Sites ...

Will Apple's CarPlay And Connected Car Technology Mean A Bumpy Ride For ...
Forbes
Apple debuted CarPlay—a rebranded “iOS in the Car” initiative–at the Geneva International Motor Show last week and like all things Apple, it was a high-profile, high-end entrance to a sector that is ripe to be remade. Its partners for its connected ...

Google faces $5B antitrust fine in India — but this time it can't settle
ZDNet
Just as Google's antitrust case in the European Union wraps up after the two agreed on a settlement package, the search giant faces similar hefty fines for alleged antitrust behavior in India. Read this. Nokia, Microsoft deal to close despite India tax ...

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