AfterDawn: Tech news

Latest news

AfterDawn: News

Galaxy S III headed to five U.S. carriers

Written by Andre Yoskowitz @ 04 Jun 2012 4:10

Galaxy S III headed to five U.S. carriers Samsung has finally revealed which American carriers will be receiving the highly-anticipated Galaxy S III smartphone.

The company says Verizon, Sprint, T-Mobile, AT&T and US Cellular will each be getting the phonje unfortunately "exact pricing and retail availability will be announced by each of the five carriers in the coming weeks."

Samsung did note that pricing will "start from $199," but we hardly believe that all carriers will bring that low price to the table, especially not Verizon. The device supports LTE and HSPA+ 42Mbps, so each carrier will be offering a "4G" smartphone.

All American models will have 2GB of RAM and will be named GS III, not a confusing variant like in the past. Outside of the radios, there does not seem to be any differences between the models each carrier is getting.

Samsung has sold over 52 million of the original Galaxy S and its sequel, the GSII, and is said to have seen 9 million pre-orders of the latest model.




AfterDawn: News

Nintendo names Wii U controller the 'GamePad'

Written by Andre Yoskowitz @ 04 Jun 2012 1:23

Nintendo names Wii U controller the 'GamePad' Nintendo has officially unveiled the final design for its Wii U tablet controller, dubbed the "GamePad."

The tablet has a 6.2-inch touchscreen, two analog sticks, built-in motion sensors and a universal remote.

Additionally, the GamePad also supports NFC, making it easier to read info from special game cards or toys placed on the screen. For example, Skylanders lets users change their character by placing different figurines on the NFC peripheral.

Finally, Nintendo president Satoru Iwata also showed off the "Miiverse," a dedicated social network that uses the customizable "Mii" characters all Wii or 3DS gamers have already created.

Nintendo will show off more details at E3 this week for the console that will be released this holiday season.




AfterDawn: News

Toshiba, Acer, Asus to unveil Windows 8 tablets

Written by Andre Yoskowitz @ 04 Jun 2012 12:26

Toshiba, Acer, Asus to unveil Windows 8 tablets According to Bloomberg, Toshiba, Acer and Asus will unveil Windows 8 tablets next week.

Asus will show off tablets with optional keyboard docks, just like its current Android devices, say the sources. Toshiba and Acer will show off tablets and notebooks.

Windows 8 is the first Microsoft operating system that will run on ARM-based chips, the processors that dominate over 90 percent of the tablet and smartphone markets.

The Asus device, for one, will run on a Tegra 3 quad-core processor and Acer's device will run on an Intel chip. Toshiba's will be powered by a yet unknown Texas Instruments processor.

Microsoft is expected to release Windows 8 in October.




AfterDawn: News

Move over iTunes, Netflix is the largest online movie service

Written by Andre Yoskowitz @ 03 Jun 2012 3:50

Move over iTunes, Netflix is the largest online movie service According to new data from IHS iSuppli, Netflix has surpassed iTunes as the largest U.S. online movie service, when ranked by revenue.

In 2010, Netflix controlled just 1 percent share of revenue, while Apple controlled 60.8 percent. By 2011, however, that number had changed dramatically, with Apple falling to 32.3 percent share to Netflix's 44 percent.

"2011 marked a sea change in the online movies business that saw the balance of consumer spending shift from a DVD-like transactional model to more TV-like subscription approach,"
adds Dan Cryan, research director for digital media at IHS. "The online movie business more than doubled in 2011 to reach $992 million and it is expected to double this year as well."

Netflix's revenue share was directly affected by the same move that alienated customers. Over the summer, the company split its DVD and streaming services, charging $7.99 for each instead of the $9.99 for both model that it had used for over two years.




AfterDawn: News

AT&T: Data-only plans coming within 2 years

Written by Andre Yoskowitz @ 03 Jun 2012 2:43

AT&T: Data-only plans coming within 2 years AT&T CEO Randall Stephenson has said this week that data-only plans are likely coming to a carrier within two years.

For such a plan, voice calls and texts will just be considered data.

Says Stephenson: "I'll be surprised if, in the next 24 months, we don't see people in the market place with data-only plans. I just think that's inevitable."

The plan makes considerable sense, given the trend for smartphones. AT&T for one, has seen a decline in the average of minutes used each month for some time now. Many consumers already use Google Voice and Skype to send texts and make calls that only require data and not actual voice/cell service.

However, carriers still make the brunt of their profits from voice plans and texting, each of which use little to no data.

In order to remove the cell plans and the small fees that carriers charge to connect numbers, a data-only plan will likely be considerably more expensive than current data plans.




AfterDawn: News

Android 4.0 grabs 7.1 percent share

Written by Andre Yoskowitz @ 03 Jun 2012 2:21

Android 4.0 grabs 7.1 percent share As they do every month, Google has released the shares for its different Android versions.

Google tracks these numbers by seeing what devices access the Google Play Store (formerly Android Market).

This month, Android 4.0 Ice Cream Sandwich has continued its slow rise, taking 7.1 percent share. Android 2.3 Gingerbread, the aging OS, has taken 65 percent share, and remains the clear leader.

Android 2.2 Froyo fell to 19.1 percent share while shockingly 6.1 percent of Android users are still on Android 1.5, 1.6 and 2.1.

More info here: Android.com




AfterDawn: News

Report: New Verizon FiOS plan pricing revealed

Written by Andre Yoskowitz @ 03 Jun 2012 1:36

Report: New Verizon FiOS plan pricing revealed TheVerge has posted the prices for the upcoming Verizon FiOS expansion plans.

Last week, the ISP noted it was boosting its speeds for FiOS plans, making most of them much faster, and adding new tiers.

The plans will go into effect on June 17th.

Verizon's "cheap" base plan of 15 Mbps down and 5 Mbps up will now cost $65 per month with a two-year contract, a far cry from the current $55 with one-year contract. That's where the bad news ends for Verizon fans, fortunately.

The current 25/25 tier is being replaced by a 50/25 plan, which will cost the same ($75) with two-year contract. The 50/20 is being replaced by a 150/65 plan that costs $95 per month.

Finally, there is a new 75/35 tier for $85 and the new lightning fast 300/65 service for $205 per month.

If you don't want a two-year contract, the plans cost $5 more than stated per month.




AfterDawn: News

Samsung reveals Galaxy line sales numbers

Written by Andre Yoskowitz @ 03 Jun 2012 12:47

Samsung reveals Galaxy line sales numbers Following the launch of the Galaxy S III abroad, Samsung has revealed some sales figures for their current and past Galaxy products.

The large 5.3-inch Galaxy Note has sold 7 million units, an impressive figure for a device which many believed was only aimed at a small niche of Android fans.

Samsung's Galaxy S line, the most popular Android smartphone line, has sold a combined 52 million units since 2010. The original SI sold 24 million while the Galaxy S II has sold 28 million units as of this week.

Although unsubstantiated so far, the company is said to have already received over 9 million pre-orders worldwide for the Galaxy S III.




AfterDawn: News

Facebook, Google looking to invest in Vevo

Written by Andre Yoskowitz @ 01 Jun 2012 10:36

Facebook, Google looking to invest in Vevo According to sources, it appears both Google and Facebook are looking to invest in the popular streaming music video service Vevo.

Vevo has hired the investment bank Allen and Co. to explore the possibility of having the service partially or fully sold to the highest bidder.

It is unclear whether the companies are serious, however, but there have been active talks, say the sources.

Vevo, owned by UMG, Sony Music and the Abu Dhabu Media Co. currently has 48 million unique users per month, and is valued at around $1 billion.

The service currently has an exclusive ad-sharing revenue deal with YouTube/Google that expires at the end of the year.




AfterDawn: News

Sony, Microsoft confirm: PS4, Xbox Next will have optical drives

Written by Andre Yoskowitz @ 01 Jun 2012 9:19

Sony, Microsoft confirm: PS4, Xbox Next will have optical drives Although there have been rumors that both Sony and Microsoft are planning to ditch optical drives for their upcoming consoles, both the console makers have decided against the thought.

Sony did consider moving to download-only, but ultimately decided against the scheme for the upcoming PS4, codenamed Orbis, reads a new WSJ report.

The PS4 will be released at the end of 2013, just like Microsoft's upcoming console, say the same sources.

As noted by critics, Sony decided against the download-only model because Internet connections are too inconsistent around the world. While downloading large games may not be an issue in Western Europe, the same download could take days if not longer in other nations, thus alienating entire fan bases.

Microsoft had a similar epiphany when it concluded that even in fast Internet regions, like the U.S. and Western Europe, users might be hit with bandwidth restrictions, like caps from certain ISPs, or throttling of speed from others.

Read more...


AfterDawn: News

Mark Zuckerberg losing $16 million an hour after failed IPO

Written by Andre Yoskowitz @ 30 May 2012 7:07

Mark Zuckerberg losing $16 million an hour after failed IPO It took just under 2 weeks for Mark Zuckerberg to fall well off the 40 richest billionaires list.

The company's shares fell to $28.18 today, down from the $38 IPO price from May 18th, easily the biggest failure for an IPO of this nature in the last decade.

Zuckerbeg, for his part, has been losing about $16 million per hour of his fortune, which now stands at $14.4 billion. Of course, Zuckerberg still remains extremely, extremely rich, and has zero complaints, but his fortune has declined in the last week by a figure that is equal to the annual GDP of more than 20 countries on earth.

Facebook, as a company, started with a value of $104 billion but has since been torpedoed to its current $61 billion valuation which many believe is a lot more reasonable for the social networking giant.




AfterDawn: News

Google launches first ChromeOS-based 'Chromebox'

Written by Andre Yoskowitz @ 30 May 2012 6:27

Google launches first ChromeOS-based 'Chromebox' Google and Samsung have announced the launch of the first desktop 'Chromebox' this week.

The Chromebox will cost just $329 and comes in a small case, familiar to past owners of Mac Minis.

Powered by Google's cloud-based ChromeOS operating system, the mini-desktop has an 1.9GHz dual-core Intel Celeron B840 (Sandy Bridge) CPU, 4GB of RAM, a 16GB SSD and WiFi a/b/g/n and Bluetooth 3.0.

With just an 8-inch footprint, the device packs a decent amount of ports including 6 USB ports, a 3.5mm combination headphone / mic jack, DVI output, gigabit Ethernet and two DisplayPort connectors.

Perhaps most notably, the device will run on ChromeOS 19, the latest version of the OS which makes it a lot more usable and Windows-like. Instead of being browser-only like in the past, the new OS update will look more like the traditional Windows systems in terms of app and window management. Finally, boot time is a remarkable 5 seconds.

Read more...


AfterDawn: News

LoveFilm signs exclusive streaming deal with Universal

Written by Andre Yoskowitz @ 30 May 2012 6:05

LoveFilm signs exclusive streaming deal with Universal Amazon's European streaming video service LoveFilm has proudly announced an exclusive multi-year licensing agreement with NBCUniversal.

Known as the "Netflix of Europe," LoveFilm has been quietly expanding its streaming library with exclusive deals, including those with Disney, Sony Pictures, Warner Bros., Entertainment One and StudioCanal.

The titles available to LoveFilm users due to the new Universal deal include hits like Kick-Ass, American Reunion, Despicable Me, Safe House, Senna and the brand new Battleship.

Furthermore, the unreleased Bourne Legacy and Snow White and The Huntsman will be available, making the selection top notch.

"LoveFilm is proud to offer its members access to the highest-quality content across multiple platforms from another of the world's most respected studios," added Jim Buckle, managing director of LoveFilm. "NBCUniversal is also LoveFilm's latest exclusive streaming deal in our quest to deliver the widest choice of content on as many platforms as possible."




AfterDawn: News

Hard drive supply is back in full force, but prices remain high

Written by Andre Yoskowitz @ 30 May 2012 9:17

Hard drive supply is back in full force, but prices remain high Last year, a historical flood in Thailand left 13 million people homeless and a significant amount of factories with over 3 feet of water.

Many of those factories were used to produce hard drives and the flood led to high demand and small supply, an unfortunate situation for consumers. In April, the research firm IDC said that although supply is coming back quickly, the HDD makers are in no rush to drop the prices back to pre-flood times. They were right.

Full supply has returned to the market, but prices have yet to come back to earth. In fact, higher prices have now become the "new normal."

Before the flood, the average 2TB HDD was selling for anywhere between $70 and $90 from top manufacturers like Seagate and Western Digital. When the flood first hit, those prices were jacked up to over $250 in most cases, before falling back to $150-170. As of today, the average price is hovering around $120, a 40-70 percent increase from pre-flood times.

For their 'troubles,' both Western Digital and Seagate are bringing in record profits and their stock prices are exploding. Seagate, for one, has seen its stock shares grow 182 percent since the flood and its profit margins grow to over 25 percent, its highest in a decade.




AfterDawn: News

Report: Facebook will buy Nokia to create 'FacePhone'

Written by Andre Yoskowitz @ 30 May 2012 8:43

Report: Facebook will buy Nokia to create 'FacePhone' Last week we reported on Facebook hiring former Apple engineers in an effort to begin creating their own smartphone.

Today, Paul Amsellem, a marketing 'expert' for the Mobile Network Group, has said he predicts Facebook will buy Nokia in the next year on route to creating the 'FacePhone.'

The phone itself will hit the market within 18 months, and will run on Windows Phone 8.

Says Amsellem: "Facebook will launch the FacePhone. And whether it has a blue color and a logo with a big F on it, it will definitely be disruptive. Even at this moment, Facebook doesn't know what it will look like, but they need to do it."

Here is where Amsellem's predictions gets a bit rougher, however. The expert says Facebook will eventually acquire Nokia for $10 billion, or if that falls through, they can acquire RIM (maker of the BlackBerry) for $6 billion. Nokia currently has a value above $10 billion and would almost certainly need to sell at a premium. RIM has a value below $6 billion and is continuing to collapse, so a $6 billion buyout could make sense, if the company could get over its Canadian pride.

Read more...



  Newer entries Older entries  

News archive