RIM stock plunges after $518M loss and BlackBerry 10 delay
Research in Motion's stock price plunged 19% early Friday following RIM's announcement late yesterday of a $518 million first quarter loss and that its BlackBerry 10 smartphone has been further delayed.
At 11 a.m. EDT today, RIM's share price had dropped to $7.39 as investors reacted to Thursday's financial results that showed sharply lower revenue and a $518 million loss in the quarter ending in May.
Meanwhile, Reuters reported overnight that RIM may be considering a switch from its proprietary mobile operating system to the Windows Phone OS for future smartphones. Read more...
Website predicts your next tweet … kinda
There's a website that claims to predict your future tweets based on past ones. Unfortunately, it doesn't always produce the most coherent results. What it does consistently do is spit out hilarious combinations of your favorite phrases and words. Read more...
Google+ adds support for pseudonyms — sort of
Google has relaxed somewhat its strict real-names policy on Google+, by letting existing members attach an alternate moniker to their profile name and by letting new members sign up with just a pseudonym, provided it is an "established" identity online or offline.
Google is stopping short, however, of letting people use a brand-new pseudonym as their Google+ member name, although this real-names policy could be further revised in the future, the company said on Monday.
Until now, Google has required that Google+ members use their real, common name to identify themselves on the social networking site, a policy criticized by some who argue that users should have the option to use a pseudonym that masks their real identity for security reasons, as in the case of political dissidents or victims of spousal abuse.
Google will roll out the new feature over the next week, so that current Google+ members will be able to add a pseudonym or a maiden name to their account. If they choose to enter an alternate name, it will be added to their common, real name that's already registered with the account. Read more...
Mozilla slows pace of Firefox 9 upgrades
Mozilla dramatically slowed the update pace of Firefox 9, the browser it shipped late last month.
The company also said it may repeat the slow-down in the future.
Firefox 9, which Mozilla released Dec. 20, has yet to be completely "unthrottled," or offered as an update to all users, according to notes from a company meeting last week.
Like other software vendors, including Microsoft and Apple, Mozilla can offer upgrades to a fraction of its users rather than to everyone at once. The practice is designed to ensure that download servers aren't overwhelmed, and to prevent bugs -- if there are any in the update -- from reaching all users.
Firefox 8, the edition that launched Nov. 8, 2011, accounted for 40% of all versions of Mozilla's browser five days after its release, and broke the 50% mark 18 days after it shipped, according to usage statistics from Irish metrics firm StatCounter. Meanwhile, Firefox 9 accounted for just 7% of all editions of Firefox five days after its debut and required 24 days to reach 50%. Read more...
‘Tis the season for ‘ambient hangouts’
In the future, widely distributed consumer technology will enable your family and friends to be right there with you during the holidays, even if they're on the other side of the world.
Technology will open a virtual window from your living room directly into the homes of your loved ones. Everyone will be able to open and close this window whenever they like. Families celebrating Christmas at the same time but in different homes will be able to unite and celebrate together.
Grandparents will watch their grandchildren open presents. Your New Year's Eve Party in San Francisco will feature a virtual window to parties in Chicago and New York as well. Holiday dinners will be shared across continents. People in the military will be able to open a window directly into the homes of their families back home.
When I say "in the future," I mean over the next few days. The technology is here. It's free. In fact, you've already got it. Read more...
IBM predicts five big technologies of the future
IBM has issued its sixth annual look at what Big Blue thinks will be the five biggest technologies for the next five years. In past prediction packages the company has had some success in predicting the future of telemedicine and nanotechnology.
This year IBM thinks very soon people will never need passwords; mind reading will happen; the so-called digital divide will cease to exist; and junk mail will become important.
On IBM's Building a Smarter Planet Blog, Steve Hamm writes: "Making this kind of prediction is difficult. So, every year, IBM researchers stick out their necks. Which is risky."
"A lot of people wait for things to happen. It's rare than an organization says: this is a big change, and it's coming," says IBM Fellow Bernard Meyerson. Read more...
Why Google+ will become Google’s only product
I finally understand Google's überstrategy for dominating the future of online everything.
Here it is: Coalesce all of its best products into a single super product that marginalizes smaller rivals to the point of irrelevance and clobbers Facebook with total superiority.
That single super product is Google+.
Why features beat products
The most important distinction in Silicon Valley is this: Is it a product or a feature?
Venture capitalists have to be experts in this distinction, because an IT tool that can't stand on its own as a viable, marketable product usually isn't worth investing in.
Digital cameras were among the hottest categories of consumer electronics gadgets from the late 90s until fairly recently. A point-and-shoot, pocket-size digital camera was a hot product. Read more...
Obama wants feds to digitize all records
President Obama this week gave government agencies four months to come up with a plan to improve records management by moving to electronic records management systems "where feasible."
In a memorandum, Obama said one aim of the plan is to improve public access to government records by moving them to the National Archives and Records Administration (NARA), which will "provide the prism through which future generations will understand and learn from our actions and decisions."
Paul Wester, chief records officer for the U.S. Government, said in an interview with Computerworld that the president's directive is really about driving a more open government where citizens can access information in a more "Web 2.0" format. Read more...
Future for next gen iPhones: Evolution or revolution?
You can read the tea leaves. Or you can tell the future for iPhone based on accessories spotted in stores.
On Tuesday, Tim Cook, the new Apple CEO, presenting a program entitled “Let’s talk iPhones” to the media, analysts and others in the Cupertino, Calif. company’s HQ.
But iPhone-ologists think they have already spotted in the future, observing the shape of accessories for iPhones to come.
Let’s talk iPhone accessories based on Case-Mate sleeves spotted in an AT&T store.
There is a debate over whether the iPhone 5 will be an evolution of the old shape and design of the iPhone 4 or whether it will be revolution with a brand-new design. Could it be both with two phones? Read more...
Apple eggs Intel into making better mobile CPUs
With the speed of a limping slug, Intel is slowing coming 'round to accepting that fact the future of end-user computing lies in lightweight mobility -- and hey, it might be a good idea to come up with a low-power, high-performance chip that can compete with the incredibly successful ARM processors.
All it took for Intel to reach this revelation was recent threats of losing business with the world's most valuable IT company, Apple, even though user preferences have pretty clearly been shifting toward smaller, lighter, wireless-only, battery-driven devices from some time. The fact that ARM chips have become all but synonymous with mobile processors should have been a sufficient hint. Read more...
Is Firefox doomed?
Ed Bott's March 22nd ZDNET post "Why Internet Explorer will survive and Firefox won't" answers the question yes. "So long, Firefox. It was nice to know you," he writes about the browser's future. Well, I don't agree with that. But Bott makes another prediction that rings right. If so, the new browser wars will make the 1990s skirmish between Microsoft and Netscape look like kids fighting with sticks.
Bott puts Firefox's future in context of a new platform war, as the computing market transitions from the PC era to the cloud connected device era. I riled some Betanews readers regading this transition with February 9th post: "The PC era is over." Read more...