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Growing Apple

The Editor — Fri, 03 Feb 2012 02:36:06 +0000

Apple has surged into third place among mobile phone vendors thanks to its Iphone being sold in 90 countries.Figures compiled by analyst outfit IDC reported that Apple overtook LG and became the third largest shipper of mobile phones behind Samsung and Nokia. Apple’s 37 million shipments in the fourth quarter of 2011 brought its annual total to 93.2 million, a 96.2 per cent rise from 2010.According to IDC, Apple’s third place showing was fueled by widespread availability and particularly strong sales in the US and Japan. On the other hand LG saw its shipment volume decrease by 24.5 per cent over the course of 2011, significantly worse than the usual sales whipping boy, Nokia.However, Nokia still remains in first place even after enduring yet another quarter of decreased shipments. The Finnish phone maker shipped a total of 113.5 million units in the fourth quarter, an 8.2 per cent drop from a year previously despite shipping almost 16 million more devices than second placed Samsung.Although Apple’s year on year growth was outstanding, ZTE and Samsung both posted impressive 30.9 per cent and 17.6 per cent growth, respectively. So while Apple is in third place with six per cent ofthemarket, it had a significantly lower share than Nokia and Samsung in 2011, with the two leading firms holding 27 per cent and 21.3 per cent market share, respectively.While Apple is a distant third the firm managed to grab six per cent of the global mobile phone market with only three smartphones. tv kantine . christian louboutin . nike air max . And if IDC’s past market share trends continue to hold, by the end of the year Samsung could depose Nokia as the top mobile phone manufacturer.

OSX 10.7.3

The Editor — Fri, 03 Feb 2012 02:34:21 +0000

Apple’s Mac OS X 10.7.3 updatewas released for both client and server versions of the operating system with Apple packing in a gigabyte worth of fixes and security updates. The update brings greater language support and compatibility improvements to graphics performance with older ATI GPUs, Windows file sharing and WiFi, however the majority of the changes are in the security department.Apple has finally revoked white-listing for two compromised certificate authorities including Digicert Malaysia and Diginotar. Car Valet in Beverly Hills . Green Jobs . orange county auto broker . Multiple vulnerabilities in Apache, PHP and Quicktime were also patched in the update, but there weren’t just third party applications that needed tending to.Apple’s address book has been hardened against remote attack, and Colorsync had a vulnerability patched where a specially crafted image could lead to remote code execution. Apple has also patched the Mac OS X implementation of OpenGL to fix multiple memory corruption problems.Although Apple is trying to push users onto Mac OS X 10.7, the firm released the same batch of security updates for its older Snow Leopard 10.6 client and server operating systems.

Firefox 9 Is Here

The Editor — Mon, 02 Jan 2012 18:35:09 +0000

Mozillahas released Firefox 9, which improves performance and adds enhancements for tablets.The non-profit organisation is continuing with its quick fire releases and the most recent is now available with Javascript improvements. In some benchmarks, such as Kraken, thebrowseris up to 30 per cent faster than Firefox 8.Mozilla said, “The latest update to Firefox includes Type Inference which boosts JavaScript performance and allow rich websites and Web apps with lots of pictures, videos, games and 3D graphics to load and run much faster.”Type Interface is part of the Spidermonkey Javascript engine that generates more efficient code and this in turn speeds things up. blr . massachusetts family law legal advice . For Mac users the firm has added two finger swipe navigation and theme integration with OS X Lion.Firefox for Android has had a redesign to optimise the interface and experience for tablets. The feature known as Awesome Screen integrates Firefox Sync so you can access the history, tabs and bookmarks more easily across PCs and mobile devices and with less typing. A new Action Bar has been added for quick access to controls like back, forward and bookmark.Tabs appear in a thumbnail view in a panel on the left that can be hidden, while thewebbrowserhas been optimised for both landscape and portrait orientations. robbins . Mozilla has also added some HTML 5 tools for developers such as Input Tag for Camera Access for better interactivity.Mozilla said, “Firefox for Android introduces a completely redesigned experience that is optimized for tablets and makes mobile browsing more intuitive. New tools in Firefox enable developers to create interactive mobile Web experiences.”

Controversial Transformer Prime

The Editor — Mon, 02 Jan 2012 18:33:10 +0000

Asusis being sued by Hasbro over the Transformer Prime because of its name.The toymaking company has filed a lawsuit in Los Angeles asking for an injunction banning the device as well as payment of damages. storage unit . Hasbro markets the Transformer action toys, one of which is called Optimus Prime. It claims that Asus is violating its trademark.Hasbro toldPaid Content, “Hasbro continues to aggressively protect its brands and products and the specific actions we are taking today against Asus underscores yet again Hasbro’s willingness to pursue companies who misappropriate our intellectual property for their own financial gain.”The Transformer Prime is a follow-up device to the Transformer, which Asus launched in May. georgia state . breast plastic surgery . Hasbro never bothered to take any action over thattabletso we’re surprised that it has taken it this long.There’s a chance that Hasbro will lose the lawsuit because the products are so different and therefore it’s hard for a consumer to get confused between them.The Transformer Prime isn’t available in the UK yet. If Asus is forced to withdraw the device from the market this will no doubt disappoint large numbers of customers who have pre-orderedthetabletor are planning to splash out on one next year.

700k Android Activations Per Day?

The Editor — Mon, 02 Jan 2012 18:30:04 +0000

Google has boasted that it now activates 700,000 Android devices per day.The numbers were revealed by Andy Rubin in a Google Plus post as a brief note. “There are nowover 700,000 Android devices activated every day,” wrote the Android operating system chief.Later he clarified the statement and explained that each activation is a new one, as opposed to an old handset making its way into new hands.”…and for those wondering, we count each device only once (ie, we don’t count re-sold devices),” he said, adding, “and ‘activations’ means you go into a store, buy a device, put it on the network by subscribing to a wireless service”.This means that there might be uncounted handsets out there, but it’s perhaps unlikely that there are many that have not connected to wireless services. Some might be lurking in Christmas stockings though, so perhaps the new year will see an updated post from Rubin.

16th Urban Wheel Awards

The Editor — Sat, 05 Nov 2011 14:35:20 +0000

This year, the Urban Wheel Awards is celebrating 16 years of “Embracing Multicultural Consumer and Diversity Inclusion” in the automotive industry. The annual event, held during the North American International Auto Show, brings together celebrities, executives, international media, government representatives, and the multicultural community to celebrate diversity and inclusion in the automotive industry. Consumers in the multicultural market buy one-quarter of new vehicles annually. The Urban Wheel Awards promotes awareness of their contributions to the industry as well as those of companies and individuals who have made progress toward embracing this reality.

Japanese Supercomputer Breaking Records

The Editor — Sat, 05 Nov 2011 02:34:23 +0000

A Japanese supercomputer has broken the record as thefastestcomputerin the world, performing a whopping 10 quadrillion calculations per second.The supercomputer dubbed the K Computer is made up of over 88,000 SPARC64 VIIIfx central processing units, considerably more than the quad-, hexa-, or octa-core processors used in high-end gaming machines.It is also occupies 864 server racks.The K Computer previously held the world record when it was able to reach eight quadrillion calculations per second, but now it has passed the 10 quadrillion mark, which is equivalent to 10.51 petaflops, or floating-point operations per second, the standard measure of a computer’s scientific calculationperformancethat is traditionally employed for supercomputers.The K Computer, named after the Japanese word for 10 quadrillion, ‘kei’, was a joint effort by Riken and Fujitsu.NEC and Hitachi had originally intended to help build the supercomputer, but the massive earthquake and tsunami that hit the country earlier this year caused them to withdraw.Thetotalcostof the computer is not known, but in June when it hit 1 quadrillion calculations per second, or one petaflop, it consumed 9.89 megawatts of power, with an annual cost of $9.89m (6.18m),according to Wired, which means it likely costs significantly more than that to run now.

Google Updates Search Results

The Editor — Sat, 05 Nov 2011 02:32:38 +0000

Google has updated its internet search algorithm and now claims to link search results with real world events.Google’s search algorithm is still the firm’s core money making product andGoogle claims its latest refinements to the algorithm now take into account real world events. Amit Singhal, a Google Fellow said the changes will affect 35 per cent of searches carried out on Google.Singhal said Google’s searches will not only take into account current events but when terms such as ‘olympics’ are searched for, results for the London 2012 games will take precedence over previousolympicgames. Atlanta Driveway repair . casino online . According to Singhal, all of this will make Google’s results fresher.The interesting aspect of Google’s latest modifications is that the firm discriminates what types of search queries should favour up-to-the-minute content. Time Warner Cable Deals . Singhal used the example of recipes as not needing Google’s latest tweaks but mentioned users searching for scores insportingeventsand financial results as searches where the latest articles should be shown first.

Windows 8 Feature Update

The Editor — Sun, 16 Oct 2011 16:06:53 +0000

Microsoft will include a heat map in the Windows 8 task manager in a bid to highlight potential problem applications.Microsoftclaims its upcomingWindows 8 task manager has something for both power users and those who want basic informationabout unresponsive programs. Denver Heating . User interface tweaks aside, the task manager in Windows 8 will have a heat map to help diagnose what the firm calls “performance issues”.Surprisingly Microsoft’s internal usage figures show that task manager is a very popularapplication, but unsurprisingly, the most common use for it is to kill processes. best weight loss pills . ADT Security in Valencia, CA . The default interface for Windows 8 task manager has been cleaned up to present just application names and the ability to end tasks, not particular processes.Microsoft’s biggest visual change to task manager is a heat map that will help users find the processes that use the biggest percentages of particular system resources such as processing cycles or memory. Although it might sound like something of a gimmick, for those who don’t understand terms like VM size it is a relatively easy way of identifying processes that are hogging resources.Microsoft also deserves some credit for working Bing into the task manager by giving users the ability to search for definitions of obscure processes.Ultimately however, having users fiddle around with a task manager is exactly what competing firms like Apple and other operating systems such as *cough* Linux try to avoid in order to deliver a consistently excellent user experience.

Big Numbers for iPhone

The Editor — Sun, 16 Oct 2011 16:03:30 +0000

Apple could sell as many as four million of its latest Iphone 4S smartphones this weekend.Thecappuccinocompany is poised to shift over twice as many Iphone 4S phones as it did Iphone 4 devices in their first months on sale,according to Bloombergand an analyst roundup.The four million figure comes from Yankee Group analyst Carl Howe, who told the INQUIRER, “I’ve heard figures that Apple built more than 4M units for launch; All carriers currently show sold out.”Charlie Wolf from analysts Needham & Co pitched the numbers lower but added, “It’s going to easily outpace any previous launch,” in his interview with Bloomberg.Lower estimates put sales at two or three million, but again both of these are higher than the number ofIphone 4 devices sold in the relevant financial quarter.In that fiscal quarter,Apple’sthird quarter of last year, the firm sold 8.4 million handsets. If Apple does sell half as many as that this weekend it will prove that there is some real cash, and not just people, in the lines outside its stores.