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According to reports, AT&T has commenced the effort to enable Apple FaceTime support and Google+ video chat for all customers on its cellular network, not just those on a capped mobile sharing plan. The move starts to fulfill a promise the company made in May to allow customers even on grandfathered unlimited internet plans to use the service.
HighPoint, an industry leading Storage HBA and solutions manufacturer, has launched a new selection of cost-effective hardware RAID HBA’s for PC and Mac Platforms -- the RocketRAID 362x series. The new line of PCI-E RAID cards are ideal for large-scale configurations of 6Gb/second SATA hard drives, and were designed specifically for I/O intensive business and media applications that require data redundancy coupled with consistent transfer rates.
Shortly after the publication of what is purported to be an "iPhone 5S" bare logic board that hadn't yet had any chips attached to it, a repair company called iHeart Repair in Florida has revealed new images of what is said to the be the display assembly of the forthcoming iPhone revision. Though the images do not reveal any huge changes, the alternation of where a pair of flex connectors is situated matches the logic board, meaning the parts would fit together correctly if mated and supporting their legitimacy. Why Apple may have made the change isn't clear.
Oculus VR, Inc., Oculus Rift VR headset developer, today announced that it has closed a deal for $16 million in funding. The round was co-led by Spark Capital and Matrix Partners. Santo Politi, Spark founder and general partner; and Antonio Rodriguez, entrepreneur and general partner at Matrix, have joined the company's board of directors. The funds will be used to accelerate the development of virtual reality hardware, software and services, ultimately creating commercially available virtual reality platform.
According to reports, US wireless carrier Verizon is investigating the purchase of Canadian cellphone carrier Wind Mobile. One source noted by The Globe says that Verizon is "definitely taking a hard look right now." AT&T, Vodafone, and the Telenor Group of Norway are all potential suitors, according to sources for the Globe. The Canadian government is stalling or blocking VimpelCom's attempt to sell its share in the company at auction, with a seeking price of more than $500 million. VimpleCom's CEO claims that it will take a billion-dollar investment in Wind to have the infrastructure to turn a profit.
An official Google blog post has noted the expansion of Chromebook sales to additional venues in the US and in Europe. Starting today, Walmart will be selling the Acer Chromebook, and starting this weekend, Staples will be carrying an assortment of makes and models from three different manufacturers.
Two more anonymous patent re-examination requests for Apple patents have been filed with the US Patent and Trade Office (USPTO). The two patents, involving Apple's visual voicemail and autocorrect features are both at stake in the ongoing legal maneuvers between the Cupertino manufacturer and Samsung.
The Department of Justice's antitrust case against Apple is entering its final four days this week, according to Fortune. The original orchestrator of Apple's publisher deals for the iBookstore, Eddy Cue, is resuming court testimony today, having last testified on Thursday afternoon. Today's topics are expected to include a dinner Cue had with Macmillan's CEO, and disputed emails written to Cue by former Apple CEO Steve Jobs.
Sprint has expanded its 4G LTE coverage in the United States. The addition of LTE to 22 more markets means that Sprint now covers a total of 110 areas, with the carrier also naming other locations that will have LTE access in the coming months, bringing it closer to its goal of covering 200 million people with its LTE network by the end of this year.
The Wikimedia Foundation has not been compromised under the PRISM spying program, and has not been asked to collect data on behalf of the National Security Agency (NSA), according to a statement released over the weekend. The foundation is also asking for feedback about what it should do about the threat to the privacy of its users and contributors.
Microsoft-owned Skype today announced that its Video Messaging feature has left the preview stage and should now be available in most of its native client apps. Desktop support includes OS X and Windows/Windows 8. Compatible mobile platforms, meanwhile, include iPhone, iPad, Android, and BlackBerry.
Ford will be reverting back to offering in-car systems with physical controls rather than touchscreens and voice recognition, according to a report. The move will remove some of the added complexity of its Sync and MyFord Touch systems, in favor of the buttons and knobs that drivers are used to adjusting while driving.
A Japanese parts company, Moumantai, says it has obtained a logic board for Apple's next-generation iPhone, commonly expected to be called the iPhone 5S. The board is similar in design to the one for the iPhone 5, but shows some significant differences in the layout of its chips, circuitry, and holes. While no chips are actually attached, the space for the main processor hints that Apple's next A-series chip will be larger than the A6, which is currently used in the iPhone 5.
A new photo shows what is claimed to be one of Logitech's upcoming MFi-certified game controllers. The image, obtained by Kotaku, depicts a gamepad with a D-pad and four action buttons; a fifth button's purpose is unknown. The hardware appears designed to fit an iPhone 5 or a fifth-generation iPod touch.
Samsung hopes to be the first smartphone manufacturer to launch a smartphone with LTE-Advanced connectivity, according to head of mobile business JK Shin. The high-speed smartphone will be another variant in the Galaxy S4 range of devices, and could be shipping to customers in South Korea before the end of this month.
Apple has issued a rare follow-up public statement on the ongoing crisis over the National Security Agency's PRISM spying program. Reports revealed that the NSA is using PRISM to collect communications data from internal servers at major technology companies such as Apple, Facebook, Google, and Microsoft. All of the companies have denied providing a government backdoor; Apple in particular was quick to claim that it had "never heard of PRISM," even though the Washington Post says the company fought against joining PRISM for five years before finally participating. Apple added that it doesn't "provide any government agency with direct access to our servers -- and any government agency requesting customer data must get a court order."
Netflix is continuing its drive for exclusive content by signing a deal with DreamWorks Animation. The multi-year agreement has the streaming video service securing the first-run rights for TV shows based on past, current, and future DreamWorks properties, and will add over 300 hours of programming to the Netflix show catalog.
If you’ve read Steve Jobs by Walter Isaacson, you will know that iOS is built off the same UNIX kernel as Mac OS X. This means that, like Mac OS X, Apple could have given the iPhone more fully featured multitasking than we have previously seen. In Mac OS X, multitasking and fast app switching in the form of Expose and Mission Control have been very popular. This has been emulated in the Android mobile OS and applied successfully. However, for reasons of battery conservation and perhaps even simplicity, Apple has avoided implementing full multitasking and fast app switching on the iPhone -- until now and the advent of iOS 7.
Samsung has signed a deal with Jay-Z to distribute his latest album to owners of select Galaxy smartphones, 72 hours before its retail release. The agreement, announced via a three-minute advertisement during Game 5 of the NBA Finals, involves 1 million albums being given away to Samsung users on July 4th, as part of a reported $20 million marketing deal.
Intel is planning to release a version of Haswell processors for enthusiasts in the second half of 2014, according to details inside a leaked presentation. The enthusiast model, dubbed Haswell-E, will launch with options for six and eight-core processors and up to 20MB of L3 cache, and with continued support for Hyper Threading, will have as many as 16 logical cores.
Details have emerged over possible updates for built-in apps in the free Windows 8.1 update. A reworked interface for Xbox Music, a redesigned Windows Store, and the reintroduction of apps seen in previous incarnations of the desktop operating system are shown in images, ahead of the update's preview release later this month.
Google is working on a way to provide Internet access around the world, using balloons. "Project Loon," the latest "moonshot" project out of Google X Labs, will use a number of balloons to create a high-altitude network, with the aim of users getting 3G-speed Internet connections in the most remote parts of the world.
In addition to a wide-ranging design overhaul of iOS in the iOS 7 beta, Apple also highlighted that iOS 7 also contains a number of feature enhancements as well. This is no mean feat. The resources required to pull off a complete UI overhaul while at the same time developing new features for the operating system to extend its functionality in the space of 8 months is impressive. One of the most significant of the functional enhancements is the new iOS Control Center, which brings with it quick access to range of most used settings and other utilities.
Samsung and Jay-Z will reveal some form of partnership on Sunday during Game 5 of the NBA Finals. The South Korean tech giant confirmed that it was linking forces with the rap mogul in an image released to media outlets on Friday. The image shows a Samsung Galaxy S4 beside what would appear to be one of the rapper's chains. The S4's screen says to tune "Tune In" and "Turn Up the Volume" and gives a time of Sunday at 9:15 E.S.T.
The Internet is responsible for a number of words that didn't exist just over a decade ago, and the Oxford English Dictionary has just added another net phrase to the official lexicon. Already a word related to bird vocalizations, "tweet" now also officially references the social networking service Twitter. The OED also added "big data," "crowdsourcing," "e-reader," "mouseover," "redirect," and "stream" to its list of words.
Already hinted at last month, Motorola's next big phone now appears to have had its specs leaked before its official unveiling. Regularly reliable Twitter account @evleaks recently tweeted what it says are specs for the Moto X. While the specs are passable, the device doesn't appear to aim for the ultra high-end market, and no new build of Android appears to be in sight.
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