Chromecast sales equal Roku; Tablet Sales Decline

Roku and Chromecast go head-to-head in streaming race, Apple TV falling behind — Tech News and Analysis: "Google sold 3.8 million Chromecast streaming sticks last year, which makes the device about as popular as Roku’s streaming devices. Roku and Chromecast were the two most successful streaming devices sold in the U.S. in 2013, according to new data from Parks Associates, which puts Apple TV on third place. Google sold an estimated 3.8 million Chromecast streaming sticks after introducing the product in mid-2013, according to Parks, which also estimates that this about equals Roku’s sales throughout 2013. Apple is trailing, and sold just a bit more than two million devices in the U.S. last year, according to data shared by Parks...."

Meanwhile Tablet sales decline, ramifications for Apple iPad and Microsoft Surface strategies?
Tablet Shipments Decline For the First Time, NPD Says - Digits - WSJ: "... Global shipments of tablet computers, after years of robust growth, declined for the first time in the first quarter of this year, according to NPD DisplaySearch. The research firm also lowered its tablet shipment forecast for 2014. The decline is in part because of weakening demand for smaller tablets – those between 7 inches and 7.9 inches – which accounted for 58% of global tablet shipments last year. In China and other emerging markets, competition from smartphones with screens larger than 5.5 inches is hurting demand for those tablets, NPD said...."

Amazon's Next Steps Toward Cloud Domination
InformationWeek
The headliner was clearly Amazon Zocalo, a file-sharing service, but the ... AmazonZocalo is a managed file-storage and sharing service aimed ... to fit somewhere between DropBox-like offerings and Microsoft SharePoint ... identity providers for logon, includingFacebook and Google, and Amazon says ...

Amazon Sued Over Billing for App Store Purchases
New York Times
Amazon's mobile store, the suit states, introduced the ability to bill ... But Ms. Rich said the F.T.C.'s goals in both the Apple and Amazon cases had ...

Amazon seeks OK for testing of 50-mph drones
USA TODAY
Amazon is apparently getting serious about using drones to make super quick, airborne deliveries like something you'd see on The Jetsons.

Amazon Shelves French Book Discounts
Wall Street Journal
The new law, which went into effect Thursday morning, essentially forbids online booksellers from applying government-regulated discounts to the ...

Microsoft gears up to open 'right to be forgotten' request form
ZDNet
With the ruling related to a complaint about results in Google, and it ... release the form because it needs to coordinate with Yahoo, whose search is powered by Bing. ...Microsoft is yet to reveal whether it will also follow Google's recent decision ... EPIC files complaint over Facebook emotion experiment.

Google Faces New Search Complaint
Wall Street Journal
An internal Yelp presentation, reviewed by The Wall Street Journal, claims that Google is showing results from its Google+ local listings ahead of links ...

Google launches $100M fund for European startups
San Jose Mercury News
MOUNTAIN VIEW -- Google has started a $100 million fund to invest in European ... The fund, which will be managed by Google Ventures, the company's ... trailing only Yahoo, which made 22 acquisitions, according to research and ...

Google's top lawyer says EU's 'right to be forgotten'...
The Verge
Google's chief legal officer has explained why the company disagrees with the EU's recent ruling that people have the "right to be forgotten" by its search engine. Writing in The Guardian, David Drummond explains the search giant's problems with the ...

Microsoft CEO signals change, defers talk on job cuts
Chicago Tribune
Since absorbing the handset business of Nokia this spring, Microsoft has 127,000 employees, far more than rivals Apple Inc AAPL.O and Google Inc ...

Chimp IQ
Chimpanzee Intelligence Depends on Genes, Human Caretakers Don't Affect It
Design & Trend
Some chimpanzees are lucky enough to be born smarter than their peers, and as with humans, a sizable amount of the variation in intelligence depends on the genes that the chimps inherit from their parents. Some chimpanzees are lucky ...

7 Dwarf Galaxies Found By Frankenscope
Science 2.0
A new type of telescope made by stitching together telephoto lenses recently discovered seven celestial surprises while probing a nearby spiral galaxy - previously undetected dwarf galaxies. Pieter van Dokkum, chair of Yale's astronomy department, ...

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