Container for all companies
Buckling under blistering criticism from the Author’s Guild, Amazon has made it possible for their controversial text-to-speech feature to be disabled on its new Kindle eBook reader.
The online book-shifting behemoths have now promised to modify the Kindle 2 so that authors, publishers or any holders to a novel’s rights can decide whether the feature will be available for their work.
New figures for the operating systems used to access the web show Microsoft registering a rise while Apple’s share takes a bit of a downward shimmy.
The second phone based on Google’s operating system Android has been pulled out of the bag by Vodafone as the Mobile World Congress in Barcelona continues to pepper the landscape with new handsets galore.
Big news for Skype and Nokia … and in turn mobile phone operators.
It’s just announced that Skype will be integrated into Nokia handsets, starting in the 3rd quarter of 2009 with the N97.
As well as allowing Skype calls via 3G and WiFi, Skype to Skype calls will be free (excluding any data charges), we’re also told that “low-cost Skype calls to landlines and mobile devices” will be allowed.
The surprise is that Skype contact details will be integrated into the handsets address book, showing the presence of the Skype user and enabling instant messaging.
Skype has previously had some success getting on to mobile phones, the most significant of which was the deal with 3, but this deal with Nokia is far more significant.
Good for mobile service providers?
As to how the mobile service providers will react to it is quite another matter.
If their subscribers are using data bundles, the operators aren’t going to make any money from calls that are made over their networks, reducing them to providing the plumbing to enable it.
With a deft tug on the velvet rope, Sony Ericsson’s curtains have swished to one side to reveal their new Walkman W995 smartphone, promising punters nothing less than a “complete on-the-move entertainment experience”.
Project Kangaroo, which was to offer video from a number of UK broadcasters, delivered over the Internet, has been blocked by the UK Competition Commission (CC).
Kangaroo was a joint venture with the BBC through BBC Worldwide, ITV plc and Channel Four Television Corporation.
January has proved to be a good start for Apple, with around 10 percent of Web users running the operating system, according to Web metrics company Net Applications.
Microsoft’s new Windows 7 OS – currently in its first public beta – also enjoyed a surge of popularity. The company first made the beta available for download on January 10, although it suffered an inauspicious debut, with servers crumbling under the demand.
As soon as Google fixed their misreporting “This Site May Harm Your Computer” search problem, we had reports of another problem with a Google service. This time GMail.
Google has was broken in a major way. (UPDATE it’s fixed now, phew)
If you search for anything on Google search, the warning message “This Site May Harm Your Computer” appears underneath each of the results.
This may be down to every server on the Internet becoming infected – highly unlikely – Or Google and its security messaging having a major melt down – far more plausible.
Thanks to Daniel Harris for alerted us to this, just before we saw a flood of comment appearing on Twitter. It will be worth watching the hashtag #googlemayharm to watch the growth on knowledge on this.
The Blackberry Bold has been around for a while (having been released during summer last year) and it’s already been superseded by the Storm (which is probably in a tea-cup) though they are designed for different markets.
The Bold is a business phone, it has a nice screen and a keyboard that is usable – as usable as the earlier Curve and better than the dual key bodge of the Pearl.
The Storm is RIM’s attempt at a consumer phone to compete with the iPhone and public opinion says it pretty well fails at all counts, especially the software which is buggy.