What Has Happened to Facebook?

Are desperation and panic starting to set in? Whatsapp $19 billion, Oculus $2 billion, and yet Facebook users are older, and getting older (see 3rd story down) --

Is Facebook Too Big to Care? - NYTimes.com
By By VINDU GOEL
In a letter posted to Facebook, Eat24 recounted all the reasons why brands are unhappy with the social network. Facebook's chief executive, Mark ...
NYT Bits

Facebook Has Become The New Yahoo, And It's Obvious Mark Zuckerberg Knows It

By Nicholas Carlson, Business Insider

One thing Silicon Valley industry insiders like to knowingly whisper to each other is that Facebook is the new Yahoo .... Read more: http://www.businessinsider.com/facebook-has-become-the-new-yahoo-2014-3#ixzz2xTcWzx7X

Facebook Users Have Old Computers - Business Insider: "Facebook product designer Julie Zhuo says Curtis has it wrong. She says the reason Facebook went with the older-looking design is that, unlike Facebook employees, Curtis, and the kinds of people who read blog posts about design, most Facebook users still have older computers with crappy monitors."

Has Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg Lost His Mind?
Barron's
Zuckerberg is a brilliant CEO, but the $2 billion acquisition of a development-stage company smacks of doing something simply because he can....

Cable’s Next Big Threat: Loss of Ad Dollars To YouTube, AOL - Digits - WSJ: "The cable versus Web video conversations actually started quietly last year. Some online video outlets said they received requests from agencies to put together potential ad packages at much larger spending levels than they were used to seeing—with the implication that the outlets were being given a shot to steal dollars that otherwise would go to cable networks. The Web video companies didn’t land many of these deals, but it meant that agencies were ready to pit the Web versus cable in negotiations. Industry insiders expect more such negotiations this year."

Apple and Samsung head to court again
USA TODAY
SAN JOSE, Calif. (AP) — The fiercest rivalry in the world of smartphones is heading back to court this week in the heart of the Silicon Valley, with Apple ...

Apple, Google, Intel And Adobe Still Headed For Trial Over Wage Collusion Pact
Forbes
Several of the big tech firms in the Valley are headed to a trial over their collusion to limit wages by agreeing not to hire each others' engineers.

Google, Facebook, Twitter eye Rs 500 crore social media poll pie
Times of India
NEW DELHI: As political parties throng social networking platforms to woo voters, internet giants like Google, Facebook and Twitter are looking for ...

Google And Facebook Hedge Against The Data Backlash
Forbes
It's fascinating to see Facebook's rapid diversification, first into fee-based services, via WhatsApp, and now into virtual reality. Google too is ...

Apple chart of the day: From 66% revenue growth to 9.2%
Fortune
FORTUNE -- Robert Paul Leitao manages a Los Angeles Catholic Church by day, but his real devotion is to Apple (AAPL). When I first met him, Leitao ...

Facebook planning to use drones to spread Internet
Atlanta Journal Constitution
FILE - This Feb. 8, 2012 file photo shows a view inside Facebook headquarters in Menlo Park, Calif. Facebook is now allowing teenagers to share ...

Google Says Government User Info Requests Jump 120 Percent Since 2009
eWeek
The latest Google transparency report shows a surge in the number of requests the company gets for user information from governments worldwide....

more technology news below ( @ web version--link below)

Follow @expricom

How Google responds to US search warrants (video)

"How Google responds to U.S. search warrants, while working hard to protect our users' privacy and security. Learn more about how we handle requests: http://google.com/transparencyreport/... Mar 27, 2014"

Take Action – Google: "Join over 3,000,000 people around the world in standing up for a free and open web." "In the course of a criminal investigation, sometimes the government requests information on Google users. We’ve put together this video (above) to illustrate how we protect users’ information from excessive requests, while also following the law. We release the number of requests we receive for user data twice a year in our Transparency Report."

China's Freedom of Search
Wall Street Journal
Free speech and the Chinese Internet aren't exactly cozy bedfellows. Yet lawyers for Baidu, China's largest search engine, proclaimed a recent court victory upholding the company's right to censor search results as a “ringing endorsement of the core values ...

Facebook May Rebrand Oculus Rift, Import Interface - Update
The Escapist
An unnamed person involved in the Facebook and Oculus deal states the social media giant is planning to re-brand the VR hardware with the Facebook interface and logo. Update: A Facebook rep has told TechCrunch the rumor is "not true and not in the ...

Microsoft Office for iPad: Five takeaways
USA TODAY
Microsoft's new Office for iPad makes a favorable first impression and it has much in common with the version of Office you are familiar with on a PC or ...

Did Microsoft diss Windows 8 when it released Office for the iPad? | Computerworld Blogs
By Preston Gralla
The release of Office for the iPad is an even bigger deal that it might seem. It means for the first time, Microsoft has released a version of its software for ...
Computerworld Blogs

Everything you need to know about Facebook's drones, lasers and satellites
Washington Post (blog)
Facebook's sci-fi take on connecting the rest of the world to broadband may sound magical. But it's all dependent on real-world, physical constraints. And now, Mark Zuckerberg has revealed more — a lot more — about how this system is going to work.

Google Wins In Amazon Cloud Price Battle
InformationWeek
Let's put this week's cloud price cuts in context. Cash-rich Google has made it harder forAmazon to profit on AWS. Whether or not Google steals a ton ...

Microsoft reverses, vows not to snoop on emails
USA TODAY
LOS ANGELES (AP) — A week after saying it was justified in snooping through a blogger's Hotmail account to track down a leaker of company ...

UPDATE 2-Apple, Google lose bid to avoid trial on tech worker lawsuit
Reuters
Apple, Google, Intel and Adobe asked for a judgment in their favor without a trial, ... to broker a "cease fire" between Google and Facebook, Koh wrote.

Apple E-Book Consumer Lawsuit Can Proceed as Group Case
Bloomberg
Apple Inc. (AAPL) lost its bid to block consumers in 23 states and territories from suing as a ... The intent was to force Amazon.com (AMZN), the No.

Facebook Drones Part of Zuckerberg's Spending Spree
Bloomberg
March 28 (Bloomberg) -- Buzzfeed's Charlie Warzel, Citizen.VC's Max Wolff and Bloomberg's Cory Johnson discuss Facebook's spending spree with ...

Amazon.com says not planning free TV service
Chicago Tribune
SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) - Amazon.com Inc has no plan to offer a free streaming TV service, a spokeswoman said on Friday following a report that ...

Google's Page, Brin stay at $1 a year
USA TODAY
Google co-founders Larry Page and Sergey Brin maintained their $1 annual salaries in 2013. Pity neither - they're each worth about $26 billion, based ...

Has Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg Lost His Mind?
Barron's
Last week, Facebook announced it would use its formidable currency—at $60.01, the shares trade at 48 times this year's expected profits—to buy a ...

Daily Roundup: virtual Facebook concept, ThinkPad X1 Carbon review and more! - Engadget
By Andy Bowen
This is what Facebook could look like on Oculus Rift (video) ... The iBeacon is a smallApple device that boosts iPhone location services through ... Microsoft changes privacy policy to ban accessing users' email · Tesla toughens up the Model S' underbody to prevent battery fires · Google mandates ...
Engadget RSS Feed

Why it's time for Google to fix Google Now — Tech News and Analysis - Gigaom
By Janko Roettgers
Google Now is supposed to anticipate our needs before we search for them, but one of its core features is terribly broken....
Gigaom

Microsoft Won't Scan Email Accounts over Stolen Property Anymore - The Next Web
By Emil Protalinski
Microsoft today announced a change to its email privacy policies that states the company will no longer scan email accounts over stolen property.
The Next Web

Microsoft will stop snooping through Hotmail to investigate security leaks | The Raw Story
By Agence France-Presse
google plus icon ... Microsoft has scrapped a policy which allowed it to peek at Hotmail messages to plug leaks or .... Facebook Twitter RSS Digg ...
The Raw Story

6 Apple Products Just Itching For An Update -- AppAdvice
By Bryan M. Wolfe
These six Apple products could receive an update later this year -- or not. ... We knowApple will launch new iPhones and iPads later this year. ... Amazon Expected To UnveilApple TV Competitor Next Week · Millennials Are Ditching ...
App Advice

Microsoft changes email privacy policy after backlash - LiveSide.net
By Kip Kniskern
Microsoft then issued a pair of statements clarifying their stance, and making ... WhileMicrosoft, under its current terms of service, did have the authority to inspect the ... http://www.facebook.com/liveside; http://www.twitter.com/liveside ...
LiveSide.net

Facebook and Internet.org announce flying internet - Gizmag
By Stu Robarts
A team at Facebook has been working on new technologies to improve and increase Internet access across the globe. Solutions include ...
Gizmag Emerging Technology Magazine

Kinect For Windows v2 Detailed By Microsoft - News - www.GameInformer.com
By Dan Ryckert
Windows PCs are going to receive their own version of the Xbox One's Kinect, and a few details were recently revealed by Microsoft. One of the most ...
News

Fake Google Apps Hit The Windows Phone Store | Ubergizmo
By Tyler Lee
In fact with the whole YouTube and Windows Phone fuss in the past, we have seen how difficult it can be for Google and Microsoft to work together, ...
Ubergizmo

more technology news below ( @ web version--link below)

Follow @expricom

BlackBerry slides, "we were once a $20 billion company"

“We were once a $20 billion company,” Mr. Chen said. “It’s not out of the question that we could go back and recapture old ground. That may sound a little funny to you right now, but you never know.”--BlackBerry CEO in NYTimes.com

BlackBerry revenue falls below a $1 billion - CBS News: "The Canadian company said it lost $423 million, or 80 cents per share, on revenue of $976 million -- down from $2.7 billion in revenue the fourth quarter last year. Analysts expected a loss of 56 cents per share on revenue of $1.1 billion. It's the first time the company has reported less than $1 billion in revenue since late in 2007."

Microsoft unveils Office for iPad, free for reading and presenting | The Verge but read the fine print

Google mandates ‘Powered by Android’ branding on new devices | Android | Geek.com  this mandate is now a part of the Google Mobile Services agreement for new Android phones. This logo placement has its own separate set of guidelines from Google, and must be present in order for manufacturers to gain access to the Google Play Store on new devices.

Microsoft finally unveils Office for the iPad
San Jose Mercury News
SAN FRANCISCO -- In his first news conference since becoming Microsoft's CEO, ... onApple's iPad, a move critics contend should have happened years ago. ... Google's Web browser Chrome has become a popular alternative to ...

Facebook looks to drones, lasers and satellites for Internet access
CNN
Facebook already has more than a billion users on its service, but before it can sign up the ... Google announced plans to tackle the issue last summer with its own ... Microsoftchairman Bill Gates dismissed some of these efforts in an ...

Amazon Considers Streaming Media Service
Wall Street Journal
Facebook; Twitter ... Amazon Considers Streaming Media Service ... like those made by Roku Inc., PCs, videogame consoles such as Microsoft Corp. ... to better compete with Roku, Google's Chromecast and Apple Inc.'s Apple TV.

Google Wins In Amazon Cloud Price Battle
InformationWeek
Let's put this week's cloud price cuts in context. Cash-rich Google has made it harder forAmazon to profit on AWS. Whether or not Google steals a ton ...

Google, Yahoo report government data demands
San Jose Mercury News
Yahoo and Google both saw a decline in demands for users' data from U.S. law ... orgoogle.com/+BrandonBaileyOnline or on Facebook at ...

Apple Transparent Texting: Faceplant Prevention?
InformationWeek
Apple filed a patent with the US Patent and Trademark Office for something called "transparent texting." First spotted by AppleInsider, the idea is quite ...

Facebook, Sony make a play for virtual reality
Fortune
With Facebook purchasing Oculus VR for $2 billion and Sony readying ... "Oculus might be the equivalent of what Glass is for Google (GOOG)," said ...

True Player Gear - Virtual Reality for everyone: Oculus competitor -- probably many more to come

MAP: Here Are the Countries That Block Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube | Mother Jones
By Dana Liebelson
The Twitter and Facebook bans took place after a peaceful protest by Uighurs, ... The block has continued through March 2014, according to Google.
MoJo Articles | Mother Jones

Apple reportedly looking to expand sapphire glass plant — Tech News and Analysis - Gigaom
By Alex Colon
Although construction on the initial plant is still not complete, Apple is already said to be looking at building an expansion.
Mobile

Microsoft Office Mobile is Now Free for iPhone and Android Phones - Lifehacker
By Eric Ravenscraft
In addition to releasing Office for the iPad, Microsoft made one more ... Google Play Music Now Allows Uploads via the Web, Has New Mini Player ...
Lifehacker

Apple To Announce WWDC April 23? -- AppAdvice
By Bryan M. Wolfe
Developers and Apple enthusiasts, take note: Cupertino is likely to announce this year's Worldwide Developers Conference (WWDC) in the coming ...
App Advice

ROKU CEO: Apple Is Losing Money On The Apple TV - Business Insider
By Jay Yarow
Apple typically makes money selling hardware. Not with the Apple TV, ...
Business Insider

Google Code-In 2013: RTEMS project report | Google Open Source Blog
By Mary Radomile
Today's post comes from RTEMS, an open source Real Time Operating System that supports a variety of open standard API's. They have participated ...
Google Open Source Blog

more technology news below ( @ web version--link below)

Follow @expricom

Facebook-Oculus deal; Marissa Mayer performance at Yahoo (video)

Active Founder and Managing Director Michael Wolf discusses Facebook’s deal to buy Oculus VR, and comments on Marissa Mayer performance at Yahoo on Bloomberg Television’s “Bloomberg Surveillance.” (March 27, 2014 - source: Bloomberg) 

Amazon Counters Google Cloud Price Cuts
InformationWeek
Amazon's announcement at AWS Summit 2014 came a day after Google made a 32% price cut across all virtual instances on its Compute Engine, ...

Facebook Debuts Web-Scale Variant Of MySQL
InformationWeek
Facebook, Google, LinkedIn, and Twitter share expertise to launch ... Commercial database vendors including IBM, Microsoft, and Oracle, meanwhile, ...

Microsoft proclaims Azure as first foreign cloud in China
ZDNet
The race for China's cloud market is on and, according to Microsoft, Azure's move to general availability in the country yesterday makes it the first ...

Amazon's Apple TV Competitor Expected to Debut at April 2 Media Event - Mac Rumors
By Eric Slivka
Following rumors of a March launch, it looks like April 2 will be the day Amazon introduces its Apple TV competitor, as Re/code notes that the company ...
MacRumors: Mac News and Rumors...

iDrive Combines Backup and Sync for Twice the Space as Google Drive - Lifehacker
By Melanie Pinola
For roughly the same price as Google Drive, you get double the storage space, split between your ... Microsoft Announces Office on iPad (Finally!) ... The Picture-Perfect,Apple App Developers' Workspace ... for Lifehacker; bHide; EShare to Kinja; jShare toFacebook · iShare to Twitter · rGo to permalink.
Lifehacker

Google Play Music for Chrome delivers browser uploads, finally - Engadget
By Billy Steele
Google has finally enabled uploading tracks to its Play Music service through a browser, but for now, you'll need to flip the switch yourself. In the.
Engadget RSS Feed

Infographic: Guide to Facebook News Feed image sizes - Inside Facebook
By Justin Lafferty
As Facebook rolls out a redesigned News Feed to more and more users, page admins are trying to stay a step ahead in planning visual content that ...
Inside Facebook

Amazon to unveil its Apple TV competitor on April 2nd | 9to5Mac
By Mark Gurman
Amazon has been developing a set-top-box product for several months, and the company appears ... The new product comes amidst work from both Apple and Google on their own new boxes. ... Microsoft announces new Office for iPad apps including Word, PowerPoint, & Excel ... 9to5mac on Facebook ...
9to5Mac

Google’s brilliant plan to get millions to adopt its e-money system: Gmail - Quartz: "In May 2013, Google soft-launched a straightforward scheme for sending money to other people. It lets you connect Gmail with a Google Wallet account and send money to a friend for free (from a linked bank account) or for a small fee (from a credit card). + While the service has been available since last summer to anyone who had a Google Wallet account or had already been sent money via Gmail, Google now seems to be starting to push it out to the broader public...."

Microsoft, Dell seal Android, Chrome royalty pact | Reuters: "...The two companies will license to each other intellectual property related to Android and Chrome devices, such as "Chromebooks" based on Google's Chrome operating system...."

Pew finds embattled newspaper industry still pulls in more than half of all news revenue | Poynter.: "Also, while earlier Pew reports have documented the dominance of giants like Google, Facebook and Yahoo in share of digital advertising, none is considered a news company for purposes of this report. Pew found that nearly 70 percent of all news revenue comes from advertising, just under a quarter from audience, 7 percent from other and only 1 percent from philanthropy and venture capital. "

Keeping Quantum Secrets In An NSA World
Science 2.0
Revelations of the extent of American government surveillance into the private lives of both the American public and foreign leaders worldwide has shone a spotlight on the lack of security in digital communications. Even today's encrypted data is vulnerable ...

more technology news below ( @ web version--link below)

Follow @expricom

Google Cloud Computing Pricing Drops

Google, Amazon, Microsoft -- let the cloud wars begin! --

Google Reinvents How Cloud Computing Is Priced | Wired Enterprise | Wired.com: " . . . Today, at an event in San Francisco, the tech giant significantly reduced the prices attached to several of its cloud computing services, seeking an edge over Amazon, the world’s dominant cloud company. “This brings you industry leading pricing without the complexity you’re used to,” said Urs Hölzle, who oversees Google’s cloud services and its entire online infrastructure...." more info: https://cloud.google.com/

Google Drops Cloud Pricing
InformationWeek
Taking aim at Amazon Web Services, Google on Tuesday slashed the ... Both Amazon and Microsoft are expected to respond with price reductions for ...

Facebook Buys Oculus VR: What's Next?
InformationWeek
Not to be left out of the wearable computing market, Facebook on Tuesday said it ...Google is imagining just that, but with Glass rather than goggles.

Google to De-Dorkify Glass in Partnership With Ray-Ban Maker Luxottica
Businessweek
About a week ago, Google (GOOG) seemed to face a tense moment in the development of its high-profile Google Glass wearable computer.

Apple engineer shares details on the iPhone's long birth — Tech News and Analysis - Gigaom
By Kevin C. Tofel
You'd might be surprised by what the Apple team used to simulate the ... Can NRG be as effective as Google, Amazon, Apple or Facebook in the ...
Gigaom

Minecraft Cancels Oculus Rift Version After Facebook Acquisition - The Next Web
By Josh Ong
Minecraft creator Markus Persson just revealed that he has canceled any possible deal with Oculus Rift now that Facebook has announced plans to ...
The Next Web

A Reddit User 'Broke' The Facebook-Oculus Deal - Business Insider
By Megan Rose Dickey
A Reddit user spotted Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg at the Oculus office about a ... Login With Facebook Login With Twitter Login With Google .... Microsoft makes source code for MS-DOS and Word for Windows available to ... How They're Used For Payments And Retail, And Why Apple's Ahead ...
Tech

Facebook Invades Virtual Reality, Plans to Buy Oculus for $2 Billion - Gawker
By Jay Hathaway
Soon, we won't even have a virtual reality without Facebook. The ubiquitous social networking/advertising firm just announced it's buying Oculus VR, ...
Gawker

Bob Peck on Facebook-Oculus | The Reformed Broker
By Joshua M Brown
Bob Peck (SunTrust) frames the discussion around Facebook's $2 billion acquisition of development-stage virtual reality company Oculus as a ...
The Reformed Broker

Notch Says He's Canceled Oculus Rift Minecraft Because Of Facebook | Kotaku Australia
By Kirk Hamilton
The people at Oculus VR are doubtless pretty psyched that Facebook just bought their company for $US2 billion . Some game developers, not so ...
Kotaku Australia

Google Takes Action Against Greek Link Networks - Search Engine Watch (#SEW)
By Jennifer Slegg
Google is continuing their fight against link networks internationally. Google's Matt Cutts recently confirmed via Twitter that Greece was the latest ...
Search Engine Watch - Latest

more technology news below ( @ web version--link below)

Follow @expricom

Google Robots Project Rejects US Military Funding

Google to US military - We don't need your money --

Google rejects military funding for its advanced humanoid robot | The Verge: "Google isn’t interested in taking money from DARPA because its ambitions are in the more lucrative consumer market, and any association with DARPA leads to headlines like, "What the heck will Google do with these scary military robots?" DARPA doesn’t want to give Google money because it wants to use its $2.7 billion budget to fund startups with scarce resources, not Goliath tech companies, and its investments are supposed to seed technology that can one day be purchased by the Pentagon for national defense, which Google is unlikely to play along with...."

Report: 97% Of Mobile Malware Is On Android. This Is The Easy Way You Stay Safe: "Let’s be clear. From a statistical viewpoint researcher and security specialist F-Secure got them right. Android does account for 97% of all mobile malware, but it comes from small, unregulated third party app stores predominantly in the Middle East and Asia. By contrast the percentage of apps carrying malware on Google’s official Play Store was found to be just 0.1% and F-Secure acknowledges rigorous checks mean “malware encountered there tends to have a short shelf life.” If you want to stay safe on Android there’s the solution: stick to buying apps on the [Google] Play Store [play.google.com]‎ and every one in 1000 apps you buy may have had malware for a brief period...."

Google Now arrives in Chrome for Windows and Mac - The Next Web: "To turn the feature on, all you need to do is sign in to Chrome with the same Google Account you’re using for Google Now on mobile. If you use Google Now on multiple devices, you will need to manage your location settings for each "

ATM operators eye Linux as alternative to Windows XP: "End support for XP is prompting them to seek out Windows alternatives...."

Xiaomi's Hugo Barra: True world phones in 2 years, Android all the way - CNET: "...Barra emphasizes to me the company's core mission to produce "aggressively priced phones focused on performance and quality." He also says Xiaomi won't be making a Firefox OS or an Ubuntu handset. "We have no plans to do anything other than Android. There's no point. Android has a phenomenal ecosystem. I'm saying this from a practical perspective. If you look at other players who have attempted to build ecosystems and failed despite having great platforms, it's because it takes a lot of work and a lot of time to build an ecosystem," he explains. "Google has done that with Android, and we're firmly behind it. We're heavily invested as well. We don't just take Android from Google -- we make a significant amount of improvements, changes, and additions to Android. We think we've made Android an even better operating system."..."

S. Koreans overwhelmingly approve scrapping of ActiveX: poll: "South Koreans overwhelmingly approve the scrapping of the ActiveX framework citing it as a hindrance to online transactions, a poll conducted by the lobbying group for the country's large conglomerates said Sunday."

AWS urges developers to scrub GitHub of secret keys - Security - Technology - News - iTnews.com.au: "....Earlier this year, AWS contacted Rich Mogull, analyst and CEO of Securosis after three days of unusual activity on his account had run up US$500 in charges. In a blog post from January, Mogull said he had mistakenly published his AWS secret key on GitHub. "I did not completely scrub my code before posting to GitHub. I did not have billing alerts enabled ... This was a real mistake ... I paid the price for complacency," he admitted in his blog...."

How an Under-Appreciated iOS 7 Feature Will Change the World | Cult of Mac: "...Think of wireless mesh networking as giving app developers the ability to create tiny, private or public Internets that are limited in time and place. It will have a somewhat similar impact as the Internet itself in how it undermines authority control over communication. Ubiquitous wireless mesh networking could erase many of the places and situations where connectivity isn’t possible, or connectivity over the Internet isn’t desirable. Kudos to Apple for building this into iOS 7. It’s the first major mainstream implementation of wireless mesh networking that I’m aware of. Thanks Apple’s Multipeer Connectivity Framework, wireless mesh networking is here. It’s peer-to-peer...."

Google looks at Ray-Ban, Oakley partnership for Glass
ZDNet
Google says it is joining forces with the frame giant behind Ray-Ban and other brands to create and sell Glass internet-linked eyewear in the US. The California-based technology titan billed the partnership with Luxottica as its "biggest step yet into the ...

Google Drops Cloud Pricing
InformationWeek
Taking aim at Amazon Web Services, Google on Tuesday slashed the ... Both Amazonand Microsoft are expected to respond with price reductions for ...

Apple, Comcast Likely to Invite Scrutiny
Wall Street Journal
Apple wants to make the service on its Apple TV as good as cable, and to do that, it's talking to Comcast, the largest cable company in the nation, ...

Facebook's Sandberg Says Declined to Limit Google Hiring
Bloomberg
Her statements spotlight controversial Silicon Valley hiring agreements that have thrust companies including Google, Apple Inc. (AAPL) and Intel Corp.

Amazon e-book customers wake up to free cash
MarketWatch
The settlement is being dispensed in the form of credits in one's Amazon ... (Appledecided to go to trial and that case continues in the U.S. District ...

Microsoft's CEO may come out swinging
Chicago Tribune
Microsoft and Apple declined comment. ... view it as a doomed defensive play to curbGoogle Inc's Android's dominance in the smartphone market.

Minyanville: Apple may go back on its word to combat sinking sales
USA TODAY
A recent report from Nielsen SoundScan shows digital album sales -- where Apple rules over Amazon, Google, and the like -- is down 13% in the US, ...

more technology news below ( @ web version--link below)

Follow @expricom

New Photowall iOS App, Chromecast interactive photo viewer

One more reason to buy Chromecast -- expect more of these kinds of fun and creative apps for Chromecast in the coming months --

Google’s Photowall for iOS turns the Chromecast into an interactive photo viewer — Tech News and Analysis: "Got an iPhone and a Chromecast? You can hold a photo viewing party with the new Photowall app from Google. The software lets multiple people share and doodle on big screen photos, creating a YouTube video of the entire session...."

Google's Bold Plan to Overthrow Amazon as King of the Cloud | Wired Enterprise | Wired.com: "Urs Hölzle oversaw the creation of the world’s largest computer. It’s a machine that spans the globe — from The Dalles, Oregon to Hamina, Finland to Quilicura, Chile — and you use it every day. It’s called Google....this past January, Hölzle sent a thunderclap of a corporate memo across the company, laying out a new direction for both his team and the entire Google empire....a major expansion of the company’s cloud computing services — services that let outside businesses or software developers run their own software atop Google’s global infrastructure. “We will spend the majority of our development efforts on this New World,” wrote Hölzle. “Every developer will want to live in this world…and it’s our job to build it.”...."
more info:
https://cloud.google.com/
https://cloud.google.com/products/compute-engine/

Apple in Talks With Comcast About Streaming-TV Service
Wall Street Journal
While devices have made some inroads in the TV industry, none offer the kind of fully formed TV service, with the guarantee of network quality, that ...

Microsoft's Nokia buy suffers delay
ZDNet
Set to go ahead for $5 billion, with roughly $2.17 billion spent on licensing Nokia patents,Microsoft will not only acquire Nokia's handset-making ...

Microsoft case shows privacy's a myth
Boston Herald
While U.S. technology giants such as Facebook, Google and Microsoft have taken pains to distance themselves from government spy efforts brought ...

Amazon set to put AWS in the spotlight
MarketWatch
SAN FRANCISCO (MarketWatch) — The average consumer knows many things aboutAmazon.com Inc., including its almost endless list of products ...

Apple Could Spur Growth By Opening Up iTunes, Mobile Payments
Forbes
Billboard reports that Apple is considering a multi-pronged strategy that may include an iTunes app for Google's Android. Google has always had apps ...

Microsoft to rebrand 'Windows Azure' as 'Microsoft Azure'
ZDNet
Microsoft will announce its rebranding of its "Windows Azure" cloud operating system to "Microsoft Azure," this week, according to a couple of tipsters ...

Google, DuckDuckGo And The Regulation Of Privacy
Forbes
This piece about DuckDuckGo rather interested me, for it speaks to the argument that is being had over the regulation of privacy in both the US and the ...

Behind Apple's Siri Lies Nuance's Speech Recognition
Forbes
Very quickly after his company was founded, Microsoft CEO Bill Gates .... Apple,Google, and Nuance are also working on language understanding.

Microsoft's Build powwow: Our wish list
ZDNet
In fact, Microsoft's enterprise business carries the team and gives the company the cash to spend to alleviate its Apple (the Nokia acquisition?!? Really ...

5 Things We Know and 5 Things We Don't About The New Moto 360
Android Headlines - Android News
The smart watch is growing fast, and Motorola has made some splashes recently. The Moto 360 is taking the world by storm as everyone wants to know more. Though we may not know everything just yet, so let's pull together what we do know, and ask the ...

Evidence Of Frost On Martian Sand Dunes
The Almagest
Mars was never though of as a resourceful planet of sorts, but all of that could change. Due to the HiRISE (High Resolution Imaging Science Experiment) technology being implemented within the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (more so known as the MRO), ...

more technology news below ( @ web version--link below)

Follow @expricom

How to keep using Microsoft Windows XP after April 8

It's not hard -- or problematic -- if you know how to use XP after April 8 --

How can I keep using XP after April 8? | The Tech Guy:
1. Stop using XP as an administrator. Use it as a limited user instead. Add an account as an administrator and then demote your existing account to limited user. This will stop over 90% of all the exploits out there.
2. Stop using Internet Explorer. Go with Google Chrome [browser]. It's free and far more secure.
3. Don't click on links in email.
4. Only get your software from original vendors.
5. Keep your anti virus software up to date.- See more at: http://techguylabs.com/episodes/1067/how-can-i-keep-using-xp-after-april-8#sthash.IgWradIJ.dpuf

Obama's move to relieve snooping fears | TheHill: "“When our engineers work tirelessly to improve security, we imagine we're protecting you against criminals, not our own government,” Zuckerberg wrote, adding that revelations about NSA spying programs had left him “confused and frustrated.”"

Intel's desktop of the future very tablet-ish, tired | ZDNet: "Intel thinks the desktop PC has legs, but the future is going to feature either large portable tablet-like devices or tiny computers that resemble bricks."

Your next corporate computer might be a Chromebook | ZDNet: "Quick, name a personal computing device that's simple and painless to operate, has a very low learning curve, is virus and malware resistant, is extremely secure, requires no extra software, and is inexpensive—less expensive than a phone, tablet, or laptop computer. Hint: It's a Chromebook. It might be hard to imagine that there's such a device available to you and your users, that is all those things, but it's true. The Chromebook comes very close to being the perfect corporate computing device.  What makes it the perfect educational computer also makes it the near perfect corporate computer...."

This is no way to buy a Windows PC | ZDNet: "There's no shortage of Windows PCs and tablets from which to choose, but there's still no good way to make the choice." -- Mary Jo Foley

Crytophones Encrypt Calls Against Surveillance | MIT Technology Review: "....Goldsmith’s company sells a $3,500 “cryptophone” that scrambles calls so they can’t be listened in on. Until recently, the high-priced smartphone was something of a James Bond–style novelty item. But news of extensive U.S. eavesdropping on people including heads of state has sent demand from wary companies and governments soaring. “We’re producing 400 a week and can’t really keep up,” says Goldsmith...."

Guardian: Apple reserves the right to read your iCloud e-mail
Fortune
FORTUNE -- Microsoft (MSFT) is not the only company that reserves the ... accept --Apple (AAPL), Google (GOOG) and Yahoo (YHOO) do as well.

Google speeds WebP image format, brings animation support to Chrome
CNET
Stephen Konig, a Google product manager, discusses the WebP image ... Google has built a new version of its WebP software into Chrome to let ... makers to support WebP, despite some urging from sites such as Facebook and Netflix. ... Microsoft revises privacy policy in wake of Hotmail search case.

Google Fights Back to Defend Google Glass Against 'Myths'
eWeek
Google tries to improve public perceptions of its Google Glass eyewear-mounted computers. Several analysts give their views on the company's ...

Facebook releases Hack programming language for HHVM
Phys.Org
(Phys.org) —Facebook this week unveiled Hack, a programming language they had in use for a year but have now released as per an official ...

Apple reportedly considering on-demand music service and iTunes for Android
tuaw.com
Apple may be considering a number of intriguing changes to its music ... an iTunes App for Android phones, the Google rival that has been growing ...

Facebook love notes keep gal's hope for missing beau alive
New York Post
Sarah Hamil Bajc and American boyfriend Philip Wood, from missing Malaysian flight MH370. Photo: Sarah Hamil Bajc and American boyfriend Philip ...

Should Apple allow 'Flappy Bird' developer to bring his game back to the app store?
VentureBeat
This post has not been edited by the GamesBeat staff. Opinions by GamesBeat community writers do not necessarily reflect those of the staff.

Most of Us Are Part Neanderthal by Steven Mithen | The New York Review of Books: "....Archaeologists and physical anthropologists have long debated the evolutionary relationship between modern humans and Neanderthals, relying on the similarities and differences between their designs of stone artifacts and the shapes of their bones, with little real understanding of how these might have arisen. Interminable academic arguments have been swept away by the revolution in studies of ancient DNA, led by Pääbo (now at the Max Planck Institute in Leipzig) and brilliantly recounted in his new book, Neanderthal Man: In Search of Lost Genomes...."

The Making of Myths, by Laurent Bossavit | Model View Culture: "...To paraphrase Jack Sparrow (or Virginia Satir, if you prefer): "the problem is not the problem; the problem is the myth that conditions our attitudes about the problem."... open your eyes to the pervasive influence of culture on all the things you deplore; to acquire and use whatever tools, from semiotics or literary criticism or whatever, seem to be handy in understanding the water of myth around you. And when you get there: write about it (or sing, or make movies). This, really, is the key thing. Not only do we need to talk more, not less, about how we develop software, we also need to talk about the things we say: we need critique...."
more technology news below ( @ web version--link below)

Follow @expricom

Microsoft Admits Reading Emails

BBC News - Microsoft admits reading Hotmail inbox of blogger: "Microsoft is caught up in a privacy storm after it admitted it read the Hotmail inbox of a blogger while pursuing a software leak investigation."

Microsoft Software Leak Inquiry Raises Privacy Issues
New York Times
SEATTLE — Technology companies have spent months denying they know anything about broad government spying on people who use their Internet ...

Microsoft Hotmail and Outlook privacy detailed following leak scandal | BGR: "Microsoft actually looked through the Hotmail email of a French blogger who was in contact with the leaker, and make available online early copies of Windows 7 and Windows 8, as well as means that allowed users to circumvent activations protection for Microsoft and Windows."

Court docs: Microsoft searched through blogger’s e-mail to track down alleged leaker: "In the course of tracking down the alleged leaker, Microsoft searched through the blogger's e-mail account -- before involving law enforcement -- according to court documents."

Microsoft explains --
Strengthening our policies for investigations - Microsoft on the Issues - Site Home - TechNet Blogs: "...As part of the investigation, we undertook a limited review of this third party’s Microsoft operated accounts. While Microsoft’s terms of service make clear our permission for this type of review, this happens only in the most exceptional circumstances...."

Google tries to NSA-proof Gmail
CNNMoney
Gmail now encrypts all data moving between you, Google's servers and the person ...Google is trying to limit the abilities of the U.S. government's secretive ... The fix won't work if a Gmail user emails someone with a Microsoft (MSFT, ... Chitika: Apple still growing in North America, Samsung less so.

BlackBerry Suffers Blow as White House Tests Samsung, LG Phones - WSJ.com: ""We can confirm that the White House Communications Agency, consistent with the rest of the Department of Defense, is piloting and using a variety of mobile devices," a Defense Department spokesman said. He declined to comment on the devices in the pilot test or in use at the White House."

Twitter Blocked in Turkey as Prime Minister Pledges to 'Eradicate' It: "Erdoğan appears to have made use of a recent and highly controversial law, passed by the Turkish Parliament, that allows the government's Telecommunications Board to "shut down" websites based on anything it judges to be "privacy violations." Two weeks ago, he also threatened to shut down Facebook and YouTube."

Pay TV subscriber losses totaled 104,000 in 2013 | BGR: "According to new data from Leichtman Research Group, pay TV providers posted a net loss of 104,000 subscribers in 2013, the first time the pay TV industry has ever lost subscribers year-over-year. The biggest losers were Time Warner Cable and Comcast, which respectively lost 825,00 and 305,000 pay TV subscribers each." 

The Trans-Pacific Partnership Will "Significantly" Restrict Online Freedoms | Motherboard: "Today, 25 tech companies, including Reddit, Automattic (WordPress.com), Imgur, and Boing Boing, sent an open letter to Sen. Ron Wyden urging him to oppose any form of a TPP fast track. After thanking Sen. Wyden for his staunch defense of "users and online rights," and congratulating him on his appointment as Chair of the Senate Finance Committee, the coalition wrote, "These highly secretive, supranational agreements are reported to include provisions that vastly expand on any reasonable definition of 'trade,' including provisions that impact patents, copyright, and privacy in ways that constrain legitimate online activity and innovation.""

This drone can steal what's on your phone - Mar. 20, 2014: ".... the drone can send back a signal pretending to be networks you've connected to in the past. Devices two feet apart could both make connections with the quadcopter, each thinking it is a different, trusted Wi-Fi network. When the phones connect to the drone, Snoopy will intercept everything they send and receive. "Your phone connects to me and then I can see all of your traffic," Wilkinson said...."

Amazon Prime price shock? Try these cheaper rivals - Business - The Boston Globe: "...if you’re annoyed and looking for alternatives, there are cheaper versions you can try. Rivals including ShopRunner, Overstock.com, and Newegg offer online shoppers free shipping on a wide range of products. Their annual fees are all less than the $99 annual price tag for Amazon Prime...."

Apple, Samsung Square Off Over Smartphones: "According to Asymco, Apple’s iPhone represents an impressive 15% of all mobile units shipped around the world. But the iPhone enjoys nearly 40% of the revenue and an astounding 60% of industry profits. Samsung, meanwhile, accounts for around 50% of units shipped, 50% of revenue, and 40% of profits. Apple and Samsung, between them, take home 100% of the mobile handset industry profits."

Netflix CEO hates paying off Comcast, Verizon due to 'weak' net neutrality
TechRadar UK
Netflix is paying the fiber optic piper, but doesn't much like it according to the first comments from its CEO since the US Federal Communications Commission's net neutrality rules were declared unenforceable. "Some big ISPs are extracting a toll because they ...

Netflix US & Canada Blog: Internet Tolls And The Case For Strong Net Neutrality: "Once Netflix agrees to pay the ISP interconnection fees, however, sufficient capacity is made available and high quality service for consumers is restored. If this kind of leverage is effective against Netflix, which is pretty large, imagine the plight of smaller services today and in the future. Roughly the same arbitrary tax is demanded from the intermediaries such as Cogent and Level 3, who supply millions of websites with connectivity, leading to a poor consumer experience."

Netflix & Level 3 Only Telling Half The Story, Won't Detail What Changes They Want To Net Neutrality - Dan Rayburn - StreamingMediaBlog.com: "....What also makes this complicated is that Netflix is only highlighting the things that benefit their argument and isn’t telling the whole story. In some cases, they are also making statements that aren’t accurate. Netflix likes to make it sound like they have no choice when it comes to sending their traffic into the ISPs networks, when in fact, they have many choices. The transit market is extremely competitive, with at least a dozen major providers who offer transit services at different price points and with different SLAs. Netflix could use multiple providers to connect to ISPs and could also use third party CDNs like Akamai, EdgeCast and Limelight, who are already connected to ISPs, to deliver their traffic. In fact, this is how Netflix delivered 100% of their traffic for many, many years, using third-party CDNs. Netflix likes to make it sound like there is only one way to deliver videos on the Internet when in fact, there are multiple ways. No one who understands how the Internet works would debate this...."

more technology news below ( @ web version--link below)

Follow @expricom

Gmail is the most secure web email service

Gmail, the best email service on the web, just got better and more secure --

Gmail now always uses an HTTPS connection and encrypts all messages moving internally on Google’s servers - The Next Web: "Google today announced it has made security improvements to Gmail to further protect users’ emails from snooping. Gmail now always uses an encrypted HTTPS connection when you check or send email, and encrypts all messages moving internally on Google’s servers...."

Also this - Tips to help you customize your Gmail experience

Alibaba Sinks $215 Million Into Messaging App Tango, Valuing It At More Than $1 Billion: "...The company is spending $215 million for a minority stake in the messaging and free-calling app Tango, the startup revealed today...."

Google Chromecast review: simple, fast internet TV | Technology | theguardian.com: "...The Chromecast does what it claims to do very well and makes streaming video from Netflix and YouTube very easy indeed using a smartphone, tablet or computer as a wireless remote. The problem is that Chromecast doesn’t do a lot more than that. It lacks a lot of the streaming services that competitors offer, but it promises to do a lot more in the future with rapid automatic updates in the background. Chromecast is certainly an experiment for Google, and has the potential to be a one-stop streaming shop controlled easily from the sofa via a myriad of devices...."

Why I'm quitting Microsoft Office forever | The Cheapskate - CNET News: "It's not just about the money. Well, okay, it's mostly about the money, but there are other reasons I'm bidding goodbye to Microsoft's not-so-sweet suite."

How Apple and Amazon Changed Retail Forever
Motley Fool
While that may not have been his initial goal in launching Amazon, his visions have always been big, and disrupting businesses from Barnes & Noble ...

Could Amazon and Google be the competition the game industry needs?
BGR
“Microsoft has already established a dominant position in the living room: the ... “Now,Amazon and Google are looking for a way of leap-frogging their big ... Between Google's acquisition of Green Throttle Games and reports of ... Here's how to give your Android phone a huge speed boost, just like Apple ...

Samsung Galaxy Tab Pro Ad Trashes Apple, Microsoft, Amazon
TechnoBuffalo
Samsung's at it again, but this time it's not only trashing Apple but Microsoft andAmazon, too. The company recently published its latest ...

Amazon easing into $1B sideline business: ad sales [The Seattle Times :: ]
Businessweek
March 20--In a little more than a decade, Google has upended the ... Amazon has another advantage over Google, Facebook , Microsoft and other ...

Acer Iconia W4 Tablet Review
TechSpot
But as Google, Apple and Amazon entered the small tablet space, and Microsoft finally optimized Windows 8.1 for the form factor, the perception of ...

Amazon Smartphone Rumors Point To Project Tango: Kindle Phone Projected For Summer ...
International Business Times
Google's Project Tango phone will utilize new cameras and sensors to map indoor spaces, whereas the rumored Amazon Smartphone will use six ...

iPad leads surge of branded tablet shipments in 2014
TabTimes
Apple, Samsung, Microsoft, Lenovo, Amazon, and others are among the big brand tablet makers expected to see an uptick in sales in 2014. Not all of ...

We've been waiting months. Where are AWS WorkSpaces and Microsoft Project Mohoro?
Brian Madden (blog)
VMware's DaaS product team must be high-fiving each other like the just landed on the Moon. Not only did they beat Amazon Web Services and ...

New dinosaur called the Chicken From Hell
Washington Post
Scientists have discovered a freakish, birdlike species of dinosaur — 11 feet long, 500 pounds, with a beak, no teeth, a bony crest atop its head, murderous claws, prize-fighter arms, spindly legs, a thin tail and feathers sprouting all over the place. Officially, it's ...

Flappy Bird to return, says creator
BBC News
Addictive mobile game Flappy Bird will return to Apple's app store, creator Dong Nguyen has confirmed - although he declined to give a specific date. On Twitter, a fan had asked if he was going to put the game back in the app store. "Yes. But not soon," Mr ...

more technology news below ( @ web version--link below)

Follow @expricom

Nexus 5 smartphone and Nexus 7 tablet market expands

The pure Google Android experience moves to international markets --

Google Nexus 5, 7 Reach More Countries
PC Magazine
Just like Google's Chromecast, the Nexus 5 smartphone and Nexus 7 tablet are getting a larger rollout. Google's international expansion continues today with the launch of its Nexus 5 and Nexus 7 ...

Google Unveils Software for Smartwatches-to-Be
New York Times (blog)
Adjusting Android — a breakaway hit as an operating system for smartphones — to work with wearable computers is a pre-emptive move for Google, which entered the smartphone and tablet markets after Apple. This time, it should have a first claim on ...

Google, Intel, Microsoft help build climate change tools
USA TODAY
Google plans to create high-resolution drought mapping for the mainland United States as part of a White House effort — to be unveiled Wednesday—to give communities more data so they can prepare for climate change. Google, one of several corporate ...

Microsoft Releases In-Memory Ready SQL Server 2014
InformationWeek
Microsoft SQL Server 2014 has been released to manufacturing, the company announced on Tuesday, promising general availability of the product on April 1. The company also announced the general availability of Hadoop 2.2 support in its Windows Azure ...

Google launches Chromecast in UK, Europe; tackles Spotify in Nordics
ZDNet
Available for £30 ($50) in the UK or €35 elsewhere, as usual the Chromecast is still more costly in Europe than in the US, where it retails for $35. However, the Google dongle will still be considerably cheaper than Apple's £99 Apple TV and, perhaps ...

Microsoft scrambles to simplify its convoluted business licensing
PCWorld
Microsoft's licensing policies and procedures are devilishly convoluted, a situation that has worsened in recent years with the popularity of virtualization, cloud computing, mobile devices and the consumerization of IT. By fracturing the conventional ...

Microsoft shares flirt with dotcom-boom levels on iPad app report
Chicago Tribune
Investors have for years urged Microsoft to adapt Office, its most profitable product, for iPhones and iPads and devices using Google Inc's Android software rather than shackling it to Windows as PC sales decline. Microsoft's productivity tools remain ...

Apple drops iPad 2, inserts 4th-gen Retina iPad into $399 price slot
Computerworld
"Slowly but surely, Apple is moving people to newer technologies," said Carolina Milanesi, strategic insight director of Kantar Worldpanel ComTech, She pointed out that unlike the iPad 2, the newer Retina iPad relies on the "Lightning" transfer and ...

Apple discounts iPhone 5C 8%-9% in five markets via storage cuts
Computerworld
Computerworld found the 8GB iPhone 5C on Apple's e-stores in just five markets: Australia, China, France, Germany and the U.K. Spot checks revealed that the model was not available in other major markets, such as Brazil, Canada, Hong Kong, Japan, ...

Google won't face email privacy class action
Reuters
(Reuters) - Google Inc won a significant legal victory as a U.S. judge decided not to combine several lawsuits that accuse the Internet search company of violating the privacy rights of hundreds of millions of email users into a single class action. In ...

Colliding solar eruptions created 'perfect storm' in space
Mother Nature Network
A new study analyzes the rare July 2012 solar superstorm to better understand extreme solar phenomena....

more technology news below ( @ web version--link below)

Follow @expricom