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GoDaddy To Drop SOPA Support
Giant domain name registrar GoDaddy.com has yanked its support from the controversial Stop Online Piracy Act after owners of several websites stated they would take their business elsewhere.
Negative feedback about SOPA from a number of customers forced GoDaddy to take a second look at the legislation, said Warren Adelman, Go Daddy’s newly appointed CEO. Go Daddy has concerns about the free speech and Internet security implications of the legislation, but until now, has worked with lawmakers to address those issues, he said.
“It’s clear to us the bill’s not ready in its current form,” Adelman said Friday. “Looking at this over the last 20 hours, we’re not seeing consensus in the Internet community, we’re hearing the feedback from our customers.”
On Thursday, Reddit user selfprodigy said he was pulling 51 domain names from GoDaddy because of the registrar’s support of SOPA. The same day, Ben Huh, CEO of the Cheezburger family of humor websites said said his company would move its 1,000-plus domains off Go Daddy unless it dropped its support for the bill, known as SOPA.
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Google Buys Clever Sense
December 21, 2011 by admin
Filed under Consumer Electronics
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Google has purchased Clever Sense, the developer of Alfred, a personalized restaurant and bars recommendations app, for an undisclosed amount, both companies stated.
The Internet giant has been strengthening its local offerings. It acquired in September for example a restaurant ratings publisher Zagat to boost its online maps and local business listings with trustworthy reviews and recommendations.
Alfred, which currently provides recommendations on restaurants, bars, and night life in the locality where the person is, could however down the line broaden its scope, potentially making it the Android alternative to the Siri personal assistant on Apple’s iPhone 4S.
Clever Sense’s co-founder and CEO Babak Pahlavan suggested in a notice on the company’s website that Alfred may include other information sources and services.
Discovering local information is extremely important to both users and businesses, and the acquisition of Clever Sense will benefit both, Pahlavan said. “With Google and Clever Sense working together, our entire team looks forward to building more intelligent, serendipitous and magical services!”, he added.
IBM Goes Social
December 12, 2011 by admin
Filed under Around The Net
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Responding to increased use of tablets within business settings, IBM will launch on Wednesday several mobile applications designed to let employees use IBM enterprise social collaboration software with iPads and other mobile devices.
The new applications, free to customers with active licenses of the IBM software, have been built specifically for tablet interfaces and have security, IT management and compliance features.
“The apps are very lightweight and talk directly back in a secure manner to the enterprise systems that people who don’t have these devices are using inside the company,” said Rob Ingram, senior manager of IBM’s Mobile Collaboration Strategy.
One of the applications lets employees use IBM Connections via iPads, while another one is for LotusLive Meeting users to participate in online meetings using iPhones or Android, BlackBerry or iPad tablets.
For IBM Sametime, another application lets employees engage in one-on-one or group instant messaging sessions on iPad and Android tablets. There is also one application for Lotus Symphony Viewer that lets users view ODF-based files, including documents, spreadsheets and presentations, on iPads, iPhones or Android devices.
There are also applications for managing telephony tasks within IBM Sametime from tablets and for Android device users to add widgets to home screens as shortcuts to their Lotus Notes mail and calendar.
Did Google Increase Microsoft’s Ad Rates?
September 29, 2011 by admin
Filed under Around The Net
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Google might have increased Microsoft’s ad rates 50 fold, a Bloomberg report says.
Someone familiar with the matter told Bloomberg that the US Federal Trade Commission (FTC) is looking into the rate increase.
It will also be looking into other allegations against Google about advertising as a result of complaints from Microsoft.
This is part of a larger antitrust probe into Google that began earlier this year, the source told Bloomberg.
An antitrust lawyer at Doyle Barlow & Mazard PLLC in Washington, Andre Barlow, told Bloomberg that, if true, the Microsoft allegations could be used to help the FTC build a case showing that Google has abused its power as the owner of the world’s most popular search engine, violating the Sherman Act and other antitrust laws.
He said, “A lot of this conduct, when put together with a firm with market power, could be viewed as a violation” of antitrust laws.
Will Cisco CEO Get The Boot?
September 20, 2011 by admin
Filed under Network Services
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Cisco has slashed its forecast revenue increase by more than half, while rumours circulate about the possible departure of its long-serving CEO.
Cisco previously expected to increase revenues by 12 to 17 per cent over the next three years, but it has revised this figure downwards to a much smaller five to seven per cent, according to the BBC. It expects profits, however, to be seven to nine per cent for this three year period, which is a healthy profit forecast for a company that has been struggling in the recent economic climate.
Cisco’s original optimistic outlook appears to have been founded on an overall view that the global economy would recover quickly, a view that is swiftly changing as many fear another dip into recession, particularly with the debt crisis in Europe. This negative outlook has likely had a strong impact on Cisco’s forecast, resulting in its far more modest growth expectations.
Cisco has also had some problems of its own to work out over recent months. In July it announed that it would axe as many as 15 per cent of its workforce, or 11,500 people, in addition to selling a Mexican set-top box factory to Foxconn. It also abandoned its Flip video camera business, with the loss of 550 jobs.
In April the company’s CEO, John Chambers publicly acknowledged that Cisco had lost its way, with fiscal third quarter profit down a massive 18 per cent. He called for a refocusing on areas in which the company is highly successful, such as networking, servers and cloud provisioning.
IMs To Overtake Emails In Workplace
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Many CIOs predict that real-time communication technologies, such as instant messaging, SharePoint, Chatter and Yammer will outpace traditional email in the workplace in the next five years.
That’s the conclusion of a Robert Half Technology survey of more than 1,400 CIOs at U.S. companies with more than 100 employees. The survey was published last month.
More than half (54%) of the CIOs polled said real-time workplace communication tools will surpass traditional email in popularity within five years. The prediction was a bit lukewarm, however: 13% of the respondents said real-time messages will be “much more popular” than email, while 41% said they’ll be “somewhat more popular.”
Robert Half Technology, an IT staffing firm, said a transition to real-time tools could yield workplace benefits, potentially making it easier to work as a team, solve problems, share ideas and manage documents.
Google Acquires Zagat
Google has purchased the prestigious restaurant ratings publisher, Zagat to boost its online maps and local business listings with trustworthy reviews and recommendations, which Web surfers increasingly seek and value.
“Zagat will be a cornerstone of our local offering — delighting people with their impressive array of reviews, ratings and insights, while enabling people everywhere to find extraordinary (and ordinary) experiences around the corner and around the world,” wrote Marissa Mayer, Google’s vice president of local, maps and location services, in a blog post.
Google acquired Zagat, which was founded in 1979, because of its brand, reputation and quality of its surveys and reviews, which it publishes in print guides and online. Terms of the deal were not disclosed.
Best known for its restaurant ratings, Zagat also surveys consumers about the quality of hotels, nightclubs and other leisure-themed businesses.
RIM Heads To The Cloud
August 31, 2011 by admin
Filed under Smartphones
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Canada’s Research In Motion (RIM) will take the wraps off of a new cloud-based social music sharing service called BBM Music, as companies begin to bet on entertainment delivered over the Internet that incorporates social networking features.
Research in Motion, the maker of BlackBerry phones, said select music from Universal Music Group, Sony Music Entertainment, Warner Music and EMI would be available for the users.
A closed beta trial of the BBM Music service is starting on today in Canada, the United States and the UK, the company stated.
The music service is expected to be commercially available to customers later this year for a monthly subscription of $4.99 in a number of countries, it said.
RIM To Launch Music Service
August 26, 2011 by admin
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BlackBerry maker Research In Motion is making plans to roll out its own music streaming service that will work across its mobile devices, according to people familiar with the plans.
The new service is likely part of an attempt by RIM to improve its BlackBerry Messenger service as it competes with the mobile media platform strengths of rival Apple Inc and Google Inc’s Android.
RIM is in late-stage negotiations with major labels, including Vivendi SA’s Universal Music Group, Sony Corp’s Sony Music, Warner Music Group and EMI Group. The new service is expected to be announced by Labor Day in the United States, September 5.
RIM has been enhancing its BlackBerry Messenger offering, popularly known as BBM, since announcing its “social platform” at last September’s DevCon event where it unveiled the PlayBook tablet computer.
A RIM spokeswoman declined comment on the report but said BBM is one of the largest mobile social networks in the world.
RIM’s BlackBerry smartphones have been hit by a sharply declining market share in the United States, even as the company has expanded sales in other parts of the world, partly because of BBM’s popularity.
Analyst Matthew Thornton at Avian Securities said he doubted the music service would attract new users but might help the company keep its existing BlackBerry customers interested.
“I just don’t think trying to replicate Apple is really going to change their situation near term,” he said.
“For RIM it’s going to be the new OS 7 product first and foremost … and then it’s about QNX and making that transition.”
RIM has just launched an updated operating system on three new touchscreen devices intended to catch up with the technical specifications of Android and other rivals. The company plans to launch the first BlackBerrys using the QNX software, used on its PlayBook tablet, early next year.
Nokia Had Horrible Quarter
July 27, 2011 by admin
Filed under Smartphones
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Nokia has just posted very disturbing quarterly results this morning. The European smartphone giant outlook appears to be getting worse and CEO Stephen Elop has acknowledged that things will not turn around overnight.
Elop is reporting that Nokia’s operating profit is down 44 percent since Q1 and sales of mobile devices are down 23 percent consecutively. While the overall sales of mobile phones and smartphones are down, along with average selling prices.
Elop labelled the results as “clearly disappointing” and went on to say that competitive pressures are continuing. He tried to paint a somewhat more positive outlook for the rest of the year, thanks to Nokia’s clear strategy and several major product launches.