2)
Windows 8 hits 200m licences - at a pace putting it on a par with Vista
Microsoft
announces 200m licences for new version of OS, well behind Windows 7 - which
had sold 300m by the same time - and putting it on a similar strike rate to
unloved. Windows 8 has passed 200m licences sold - including the slow-selling
Surface tablet. Photograph: TIMOTHY A. CLARY/AFP/Getty Images. Microsoft has
sold 200m licences for Windows 8, the company announced late on
Thursday. The announcement comes 15 months after the release of the
software, and nine months since the last milestone - of 100m licences
sold. But it contrasts starkly with figures for Windows 7, which by the
same period had sold 300m licences. Instead, the comparator for Windows 8
seems to be more closely with Vista, the poorly received version released in
November 2005 which saw many people either hanging on to Windows XP, or
avoiding it and waiting for its successor, Windows 7.
3)
What’s new, pussycat? The growing economy of internet cat
videos
Grumpy Cat, Keyboard Cat and other felines
are helping cats (and their owners) build careers on and off YouTube – Videos such
as
The economy of internet cat videos? Yes, it’s
a real thing. The Internet Cat Video Festival? Another real thing. A “meme
manager” whose job is to build online brands for Keyboard Cat, Nyan Cat and
Grumpy Cat? Oh yes, he’s real too. Veteran You’ve Been Framed viewers will
attest to the fact that funny cat videos were a thing long before YouTube, but
cats of all shapes, sizes and degrees of grumpiness have become one of the
defining content categories on Google’s video service. By people uploading more
cat videos onto social networking sites such as YouTube, it has helped their
careers as they have claimed to have gotten better jobs.
4)
Google is integrating its Gmail service
and Google+ social tracking network so that people without your Gmail address
can send you emails by a name search. Google has also made the change opt-out,
so that users will have to change their settings to prevent unknown people
emailing them. The senders will not see the email address of the person they
are sending the message to unless the recipient replies.
5)
Google battles legal fallout of copyright ruling on
anti-Islamic film
•
Actor with five-second role blocks distribution online
• Court decision could have major implications, expert warns
Cindy Lee Garcia, an actor in the anti-Islam film Innocence of Muslims has been
granted copyright over her role. Photograph: Bret Hartman/Reuters
The video had flimsy production values and was just 14 minutes long, but
internet service providers fear they will pay a lasting price for Innocence of
Muslims. A court order to remove the
anti-Islamic film from YouTube has paved the way for attempts
to menace other creative visual works under cover of copyright, some legal
experts have warned.
Cindy Lee Garcia, an actor who appeared in the video, last month
convinced the ninth US
circuit court of appeals in San Francisco that she had
copyright to her role – as opposed to the filmmaker – and so could demand the
video’s removal from YouTube. Google, which owns YouTube, has tried in vain to
overturn the ruling, prompting concern that a precedent has been set.
6)
WhatsApp adding voice calls is a logical move
Facebook's
newest acquisition aims to repeat its success at texting by extending its
operations to voice calls
Adding voice to WhatsApp is
a logical move. Having taken text messaging revenues from mobile phone
operators, Facebook is now looking to do the same with voice calls. People
already use WhatsApp to send texts, pictures, video and short sound files. If
you're on a data connection, all the things you send and receive as data are
broken into packets.
The same can be done with a voice signal:
that's how Skype works, and it is available on mobile phones as well as desktop computers.
Carriers, especially those that make lots of
money from international calls, have every reason to be worried. Text
messaging, or SMS, has been the most golden of geese. It generated global
revenues of $104bn in 2013. But this represents a peak as WhatsApp and other
messaging apps such as BlackBerry Messenger and Apple's iMessage began to take
over. The research company Strategy Analytics forecasts that SMS revenues will
keep dropping, probably
by another 20% by 2017.
7)
If Nintendo makes mobile games, what can it learn from Sony
and Microsoft?
Start
with the obvious: Nintendo already makes mobile games. Nobody keeps their 3DS
tethered to a television, after all. But it doesn't makemobile games
for smartphones and tablets.That may change. The company has traditionally
knocked back questions about taking its stable of gaming brands to other
manufacturers' devices, but as Nintendo
announced its latest financial results this week, there was a marked
change of tone in president Satoru Iwata's comments.What might a winning
strategy look like for Nintendo? One place to start is by examining what its
two main rivals in the console market, Sony and Microsoft, have been doing on
smartphones and tablets, with lessons to learn about several possible
strategies.Microsoft has released Kinectimals
for iOS and Android, for example, as well as puzzle game Wordament and Ms.
Splosion Man from its Twisted Pixel studio. Windows Phone game Tentacles: Enter
the Dolphin has also been released for iOS and Android. For now, Halo
spin-off Halo: Spartan
Assault remains exclusive to
Windows-powered device.Sony has launched a smattering of games for iOS,
including free-to-play Ratchet &
Clank: Before the Nexus, and Knack's Quest –
the latter tying in to PlayStation 4 launch title Knack. The company has also
launched an umbrella app called PlayStation
All-Stars Island – a partnership with Coca-Cola that includes
mini-games based on brands like Uncharted, Gravity Rush and LittleBigPlanet.
8)
Mark Zuckerberg goes to Barcelona to make mobile friends
Facebook
founder to join phone-makers at Mobile World Congress because he knows future
lies with them
If confirmation was
needed that we live in the age of the mobile phone, then the presence of
Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg at the Mobile World Congress gathering next week should underline
the ascendancy of the handset. Zuckerberg will deliver the keynote address on
Monday, fresh from announcing a $19bn (£11.4bn) deal to buy WhatsApp, the
hottest mobile texting app in town.
The
presence of this social media superstar at one of the less glamorous trade
shows is proof that mobile is now the priority for technology giants such as
Facebook and Google. Facebook has shifted its focus from laptops and PCs as it
strives to catch up with consumers' changing technological tastes. As a result
its mobile site, also accessible via tablets, is now used by 945 million of its
1.23 billion monthly active users.
Facebook
will attend the MWC event with every big name in technology, including every
global mobile operator and handset maker. In all, 75,000 delegates descend on
Barcelona to showcase the next wave of smartphones and gadgets.
Facebook
has obviously seen mobile as the key to its future for a while. Its purchase of
WhatsApp last week, which added another 450 million monthly active users, is
the biggest in a long line of acquisitions that includes Instagram, the
mobile-based photosharing site.
Facebook
has its own home-grown mobile applications too. The standard Facebook app has
become one of the primary ways of accessing the social network for millions,
while its Facebook Messenger application has joined WhatsApp in the ranks of
text message replacement services.
9)
The article states that Hans Rosling believes that we need to
make news more interesting and we need to bring data alive to the world and
allow everyone to easily understand and enjoy it. He states that well made
videos are some of the ways of making data come more alive and become more
appealing to audiences instead of just having one person talking and staring
blankly into a single static camera, the BBC do well with animation but it's
all for branding and not enough for making data come alive. He believes that
this is where newspapers and their websites are failing.
