Google vs. Facebook by the numbers
With its still-in-limited-field-test social network Google+, Google looks poised to challenge Facebook head-on in the increasingly important social media space. Some analysts give the edge to Facebook with its large head start -- the company claims more than half a billion active users worldwide, half of whom log onto the site each day. Other pundits point to Google's large number of users across multiple products along with its engineering prowess as factors making it a formidable challenger.
How do the companies stack up head to head? Here's a look at some of the available statistics.
Users
Google has a clear edge globally, according to ComScore Data Mine: Google reached a billion unique visitors worldwide in May, while Facebook rang in at 713.6 million.
Google's lead is narrower in the U.S., where it had 155 million unique visitors from desktop and laptop computers in May compared with Facebook's 140 million, the Nielsen Company reported. The Nielsen survey does not include mobile devices.
Facebook had a huge lead in time spent per person: more than 6 hours vs. an hour and 20 minutes. Read more...
Can going on holiday get any better? Five snapshots of the future of air travel
While the experience of flying itself may not have changed much in decades - get on plane, sit down, get off somewhere new - airlines know IT can still give them more legroom in making air travel an easier and more enjoyable experience.
silicon.com got a glimpse of how technology could change how we fly at the recent Sita Air Transport IT Summit, where technologies were on show that aim to make catching a flight as easy as boarding a train and allow passengers to manage their journey using smartphones, tablets and social networks.
Here are five ways technology is expected to change our experience of air travel.
Flying becomes as simple as travelling by train
Imagine if catching a flight was simply a case of turning up at the airport and walking straight on to the plane.
In a rush? Walk-through body scanners could speed up pre-flight checks in futurePhoto: IATA
It's a scenario moving closer to reality thanks to technologies like iris recognition and walk-through body scanners, which could do away with cumbersome pre-flight checks.
"The grand vision is to be able to go into the airport and walk on to the plane without stopping," Jim Peters, CTO at air transport IT supplier Sita, told silicon.com.
"It is definitely going to happen as the technologies get cheaper but we have to get participation between lots of different groups for it to work - the airlines, airports, police, immigration and customs, federal agencies and the like." Read more...
Behind Microsoft’s $15 Samsung Android royalty claim
Microsoft is turning the screws on Google's phone and tablet partners, but what kind of win-win is Redmond really going for?
Steve Ballmer's software company was Wednesday reported to be seeking $15 for each device Samsung ships loaded with Google's Android smart-phone operating system.
Samsung is reported to be trying to lower the payment to $10.
The source for this report is the South Korean Maeil Business Newspaper, which quoted unnamed industry officials.
The Samsung story follows a week in which Microsoft named three OEMs as having agreed to license its patents for devices they make and sell running Android. Read more...
Apple denied injunction on Amazon’s use of Appstore
A California court denied Apple's motion for a preliminary injunction on Amazon.com's use of the term "Appstore" in a trademark infringement case on Wednesday.
Apple has not established that its "App Store" mark is famous, in the sense of being "prominent" and "renowned," and there is also evidence that the term "app store" is used by other companies as a descriptive term for a place to obtain software applications for mobile devices, District Judge Phyllis J. Hamilton of the U.S. District Court of the Northern District of California said in an 18-page order. Read more...
Final space shuttle launch carries modified iPhone 4s for experiment
When space shuttle Atlantis launches from Kennedy Space Center, it won't just be the 135th and final mission of the space shuttle fleet -- it'll be the first space mission for Apple's iPhone 4.
The presence of two iPhone 4 models, bound for experiments on the International Space Station (ISS), is due in large part to Odyssey Space Research, a company that's been in the space business for two decades, and Nanoracks, a company that provides hardware for the U.S. National Laboratory portion of the ISS. It's a part of a larger push to increase the participation of lower-cost, mass-produced commercial products in space missions.
According to Odyssey Space Research CEO Brian Rishikof, last summer's announcement that the iPhone 4 would include a built-in gyroscope is what set this chain of events in motion. "For the technological domain in which our company works, that [gyro] made a big difference," Rishikof said. Read more...
Starbucks begins BI trial on tablets
Starbucks has begun a trial of business intelligence software on tablet devices for potential use by its executives making storevisits to help them make view real-time, location-aware data.
Starbucks began a trial of the MicroStrategy 9.2.1 software, announced Wednesday, almost six weeks ago, said Thomas Ball, lead on BI platform development for the coffee chain. The software includes transaction services to help workers quickly initiate BI transactions from a mobile device, MicroStrategy said in a statement.
Tablet computers such as the iPad are making inroads in all types of businesses, but most often for marketing demonstrations and executive presentations. Read more...
Fox hackers exploit slow Twitter response
The recent hijacking and misuse of a Fox News Twitter account by unknown attackers highlights some of the risks enterprises face when using social networking and related services.
Over a period of five and a half hours on Monday morning someone using a hijacked Fox News Twitter account posted a series of false tweets grimly proclaiming that President barack Obama had been the assassinated.
The incident is currently under investigation by the U.S. Secret Service.
According to a source close to the matter, the network informed Twitter that its account had been hijacked as soon as false tweets were discovered on Monday morning. Read more...
Amazon courts iPad users with Cloud Player
Amazon has updated its Cloud Player service to work with the iPad, hoping to reel in users of the Apple device before Apple launches its competing iCloud service later this year.
Users can now play music stored in the Amazon Cloud Drive service from their iPad, using the Safari browser and the Amazon Cloud Player for Web, Amazon announced Wednesday. The player already worked with Android devices, Macs and PCs.
Amazon also said that, for a limited time, anyone who subscribes to a Cloud Drive storage plan for US$20 or more per year will get "unlimited" storage space for MP3 and AAC music files. Cloud Drive is free for up to 5GB of space but additional storage requires payment. Read more...
Jailbreak artists exploit unpatched Apple iPhone, iPad bugs
Developers today said they used a pair of unpatched vulnerabilities in Apple's iOS to "jailbreak" the iPhone and iPad, including the first-ever hack of the iPad 2.
Some security experts immediately said the unfixed flaw -- and the fact it's essentially been released into the wild for miscreants to exploit -- posed a danger to iPhone and iPad owners.
"If they exploited the same vulnerability in a copy-cat maneuver, cybercriminals could create booby-trapped webpages that could -- if visited by an unsuspecting iPhone, iPod Touch or iPad owner -- run code on visiting devices," warned Graham Cluley, a senior technology consultant with U.K.-based Sophos, in a blog post.
"All eyes now turn to Apple to see how quickly it can secure its users," said Cluley. "Leaving a security hole like this open is simply inviting malicious hackers to exploit it." Read more...
Facebook fires back at Google+ challenge
A little more than a week after Google unveiled its own social network, Facebook responded today with upgrades to its site, in an attempt to curb growing enthusiasm for the Google+ project.
After teasing last week that today's announcement was going to be "awesome," Facebook co-founder Mark Zuckerberg took the wraps off a partnership with Skype that brings video chat to the social network. The news was accompanied by the unveiling of a new group chat feature for the site.
The announcement seems to take a swing directly at Google+, which has a feature called "Hangouts" that supports online group conference calls. Facebook's response to that is to work with Skype for its own group call feature. Read more...