As beta programs go, Windows 8 seemed like a smashing success. The engineers and designers putting the new operating system together hit their deadlines like a finely tuned machine, and the code was ready to release to manufacturing one year ago this week, on August 1, 2012. Hardware partners had three full months to get their new PCs ready for what some hoped would be a big holiday season.
It didn't quite work out that way. The Windows 8 launch in New York City went well enough, but it was followed within days by two damaging events: Hurricane Sandy and the abrupt departure of Windows chief Steven Sinofsky.
Over the next few months it became clear that Windows 8 had arrived at a turning point in the PC industry, with consumers turning away from conventional PCs in favor of smaller tablets and mobile devices. In theory, the new operating system had anticipated this shift. In practice, it didn't quite work out that way.
Microsoft's Bing will display warnings when users attempt to search for images of child abuse.
The notification will tell users that child abuse is illegal, and provide a link to the Stop It Now counselling service.
"If someone in the UK tries to use search terms on Bing which can only indicate they are looking for illegal child abuse content, they will activate the Bing notification platform, which will produce an on-screen notification telling them that child abuse content is illegal," a Microsoft spokesperson said.
"The notification will also contain a link to Stopitnow.org who will be able to provide them with counselling."
Yahoo, which uses Bing's technology for its own search engine, has said it will consider a similar move. According to StatCounter, Bing currently has less than a 6% share of the UK's search engine market.
Google, with around 90% of the UK search engine market, has said it won't introduce similar pop-ups. But it is also already working on its own system to make it easier to detect and wipe images of child abuse.
"We use purpose-built technology and work with child safety organisations to find, remove and report it, because we never want this material to appear in our search results. We are working with experts on effective ways to deter anyone tempted to look for this sickening material," a spokesperson told the BBC.
Continued pressure
The move comes after the government placed pressure on tech firms to take a proactive approach to tackling images of child abuse online.
The prime minister has urged search engines to display notifications to anyone looking for illegal content, warning them of dire consequences such as "losing their job, their family, even access to their children".
BT said it would take such steps last month, showing a warning page to those attempting to access images of child abuse.
But it isn't clear how useful pop-up warnings are, with the deputy head of the Child Exploitation and Online Protection Centre (CEOP) commenting that most people don't "stumble across" illegal content via search.
Web firms have until October to implement a block against certain search terms blacklisted by CEOP, or else face legislation, the prime minister has warned.
Twitter is under pressure to make it easier for users to report abuse after more than 54,000 people petitioned the company over the case of a feminist campaigner who says she was repeatedly threatened with rape.
Caroline Criado-Perez helped lobby the Bank of England to make a woman the new face on the country's £10 note, to defuse criticism that women were under-represented on the currency, with Jane Austen chosen in the end.
Criado-Perez was then "targeted repeatedly with rape threats" by ill-wishers objecting to her activity, according to the petition, which called on Twitter to urgently add a 'report abuse' button to its service.
Some users proposed a one-day boycott of Twitter on 4 August to protest against what they said was its failure to address the issue. Labour MPs also wrote to Twitter complaining of its "weak" response after the firm told Criado-Perez to take her complaints to the police.
Twitter's general manager for the UK, Tony Wang, said the company was testing ways to make it easier to report abuse from within tweets.
"We're testing ways to simplify reporting, [such as] within a tweet by using the 'Report tweet' button in our iPhone app and on mobile web," he said.
He also promised to suspend all accounts found to be in breach of its rules. "We take online abuse seriously," he wrote.
He added that victims can currently report each case of abuse through Twitter’s online forms – but others pointed out this was impractical when high-profile users receive hundreds of messages a day.
Policing the web
Twitter notes in its support documents that users may also want to contact police. "If an interaction has gone beyond the point of name calling and you feel as though you may be in danger, contact your local authorities so they can accurately assess the validity of the threat and help you resolve the issue offline."
Criado-Perez took that advice and last night a 21-year-old man from Manchester was arrested on harassment charges.
"Trolls don’t run the internet; neither do abusive men who issue rape threats to get women to shut up," Criado-Perez wrote in The Independent. "We are the majority. And if we stand firm, and shout back as one, we will win."
Based around the firm's in-house Asha platform, the Nokia Asha 501 is the newest addition to Nokia's range of handsets aimed at "emerging markets" – cheap phones intended for sale in territories such as India and South America. Unusually, the 501 is also making its way to the UK, and although there's no official pricing yet, you can safely assume it'll be cheap.
It's a far cry from the flagship handsets we're used to. There's a small, 3in, 240 x 320 display, and the sturdy plastic case fits in the palm of your hand. It's available in a range of bold colours, too – red, blue, green and DayGlo yellow – as well as black and white.
Inside, there's a replaceable 1,200mAh battery, a microSD slot and a pair of SIM slots. You can use one SIM for local calls and data and the other for roaming or international calls. To choose, simply dial the number and select your preferred SIM.
The Asha software is easy to us: after unlocking the phone with a swipe to the left, the first screen you'll see is an app grid; swiping down from the top edge brings up an Android-esque notifications list and quick settings buttons.
Swiping left or right from the app grid accesses the Fast Lane screen, which provides a historical feed of recent messages, emails, websites and apps you've used.
In terms of apps for basic smartphone tasks, there's a music player, Facebook, Twitter and email apps, a notepad and a calculator, among others. You even get an app store, although the choice of software and games is poor.
There's a web browser, too, but it feels cramped, and the low resolution means you have to zoom right in to read anything. Scrolling is horribly sluggish, and as the phone is GPRS-only, pages take an age to load. The browser failed to run the SunSpider test, too.
One advantage of the GPRS connectivity is excellent battery life. We weren't able to run our usual tests due to browser issues, but in informal testing the 501 survived three to four full days per charge with moderate use.
If it's given a suitably low price, the Asha 501 will fulfil the role of a very basic smartphone. However, given how superior Nokia's range of Windows Phone handsets is – in particular the affordable Nokia Lumia 520 – we think most people will be willing to pay the premium.
Read more: Nokia Asha 501 review | PC Prohttp://www.pcpro.co.uk/reviews/smartphones/383299/nokia-asha-501#ixzz2aQkUlYY7
In recent time the most valuable and demand able thing is iPhone .The iPhoneis a smartphones designed and marketed by Apple inc.six year ago in june 29 ,2007- was the first time that anyone other than Steve Jobs and a handful of Apple employees got their hands on an iPhone. But in 2004 when Apple started to gather a team of 1000 employees to work on the highly confidential “Project Purple”, including Sir Jonathan ive the designer behind the iPhone.Apple CEO Steve jobs steered the original focus away from a tablet, like the iPad and towards a phone.Apple created the device during a secretive collaboration with AT & Mobility Cingular Wireless at the time—at an estimated development cost of US$150 million over thirty months. The 1st generation iPhone was made available in the UK, France, and Germany in November 2007, and Ireland and Austria in the spring of 2008
There are six generations of iPhone models, each accompanied by one of the six major releases of iOS. The original 1st generation iPhone was a GSM phone, and established design precedents, such as a button placement that has persisted through all models and a screen size maintained until the launch of the iPhone5 in 2012. The iPhone 3G added 3G cellular network capabilities and . The iPhone 3GS added a faster processor and a higher-resolution camera that could record video at 480p. The IPhone 4 featured a higher-resolution 960 × 640 “retina display”, a VGA front-facing camera for video calling and other apps, and a 5-megapixel rear-facing camera with 720p video capture. The iPhone 4s upgrades to an 8-megapixel camera with 108p video recording, a dual-core processor, and a natural language voice control system called siri. iPhone 5 features the new A6 processor, increases the size of the Retina display to 4 inches, and replaces the 30-pin connector with an all-digital Lightning connector. The resounding sales of the iPhone have been credited with reshaping the smartphone industry and helping make Apple one of the world’s most valuable publicly trading companies in 2011–12.
Release date of iphone
1st gen: June 29, 2007 3G: July 11, 2008 3GS: June 19, 2009 4: June 24, 2010 4S: October 14, 2011 5: September 21, 2012
Windows tablet makers are trying different forms and styles of units
to try to make a model that will appeal to consumers. Some of them seem
to work OK while others miss the mark. Lenovo has chosen to make a
simple slate model in the ThinkPad Tablet 2, and it is by far the best
of the lot.
I was impressed with the ThinkPad Tablet 2 when I first reviewed it
at launch earlier this year. I would have purchased one except I felt
the $729 price was too high. When the price dropped recently to under
$600 I had to buy one.
I've used over a dozen Windows tablets including convertible
notebooks, hybrids, and pure tablets. Some of them have been terrible,
others just OK, and one or two nice but not compelling.
Hardware as reviewed:
Processor: Intel Atom Z2760 (2 cores, 1.8 GHz, 1MG cache)
OS: Windows 8 Pro (32-bit)
Display: 10.1-inch IPS (1366 x 768)
Pen: yes
Graphics: PowerVR SGX545 in Atom SoC
Storage: 64GB eMMC
Memory: 2GB
Cameras: 2MP front; 8MP rear (720p video capture)
Sound: stereo speakers (0.5 Watt x 2)
Wireless: Wi-Fi a/b/g/n; Bluetooth 4.0; GPS
Weight: 1.3 lbs.
Dimensions: 10.34 x 6.48 x 0.39 inches
Battery: 30 Whr
Slots/ports: 1-USB 2.0; miniHDMI; microSD; dock connector; 3.5mm audio
Where most of them have fallen short is in trying to do too much. It
seems that when OEMs try to make a tablet that is also a good laptop,
they fall short on the tablet side. For tablets to be good models, they
must be thin and light enough to be used in the hand for long periods.
The slate must also be small enough to be comfortable to handle.
Ubuntu Forums suffered a massive data breach, the company behind the Linux open-source based operating system said on Saturday.
In an announcement posted on its main forum page, Canonical confirmed there had been a security breach and that the team is working to restore normal operations.
The notice said "every user's local username, password and email
address" from their database was stolen. The company confirmed that
though the passwords are not stored in plain text, users who share
passwords across sites are encouraged to change them.
"Ubuntu One, Launchpad and other Ubuntu/Canonical services are not affected by the breach," the open-source company stated.
The forum itself is understood to be using vBulletin, a popular Web-based forum software.
The site was defaced by hackers during Saturday afternoon, according
to social media reports. The main page was altered to include an image
sporting a Twitter handle "Sputn1k_"
which directs to an account with just five tweets and double-digit
followers. The account did not follow any other user at the time of
writing.
The image also pointed out a "shoutout" to Twitter user @rootinabox, who appears to be based in the Netherlands. But the link pointed to a website that does not appears to be associated with the account holder.
The social media community appeared generally critical of the move.
"You must feel proud defacing a site by volunteers. They dedicate
time and effort to make a free distro. Worst kind of 'hacker'," said one
user directed towards the alleged hacker's Twitter account.
Others who tweeted the attacker during the past few hours simply
asked what the music was that he injected into the hacked page when it
loaded.
The next device rumoured to be joining Apple's lineup will be a supersized iPad, according to reports.
According to the Wall Street Journal, Apple and its component suppliers in Asia are now testing larger iPad and iPhone screens.
The companies are looking into a 13-inch screen for the iPad, which
is almost a quarter larger than the current largest iPad display of 9.7
inches, and around 40 percent bigger than the iPad mini's 7.9-inch
screen.
The iPhone too could be getting larger: according to the Wall Street Journal, Apple has asked for prototype screens that are "larger than four inches".
The paper doesn't say how much larger the screens could be, however,
though the flagship devices from Apple's rivals are all larger than its
current-generation iPhone: the Nokia Lumia 1020 comes with a 4.5-inch display, for example, while the Samsung Galaxy S4 nudges phablet territory with a five-inch screen. The iPhone 5 has a four-inch display.
The paper notes there's no word yet on whether the larger iPhone or iPad will make it into production.
However, reports last week suggested that the larger iPhone display in question could be 4.3 inches,
and arrive on the iPhone 5S, the expected next generation of iPhone.
According to Bloomberg, Apple has delayed the launch of the 5S in order
to include the larger display.
Other additions to the Apple stable appear to have also got the
go-ahead: as well as a refresh to the current iPhone slated to ship in
late August and go on sale at the end of the year, the company is
expected to introduce a lower-end iPhone with a smaller screen,
aluminium body and various colours of outer casing, the WSJ says.
The handset maker reveals a loss of 115 million euros and up to 440 job cuts.
Nokia sold 7.4 million Lumia phones in the second quarter of 2013. Sales of the Windows Phone devices climbed by a third, although the total number of Nokia phones sold declined, leading to an overall loss of 115 million euros ($150 million) and the possible loss of 440 jobs.
Sales of Lumia Windows Phones climbed by 32 percent over Q1, helping Nokia's device and service division earn 2.7 billion euros in the second quarter. That's a drop of 24 percent compared to this time last year, as feature phone sales continued to decline.
Nokia boss Stephen Elop highlighted the Asha 501 budget phone as contributing towards "signs of recovery" in phone sales, but admitted that the Finnish company is "planning to take actions to focus its product offering and improve product competitiveness." That includes cutting up to 440 jobs in the global mobile phones division, although some staff may be redeployed.
Discussing sales of Lumia phones, which reached a quarterly high, Elop also highlighted the wallet-friendly Lumia 520 as having had a "strong start" in various markets around the world, including the US, UK and China.
Between January and June this year, Nokia Group's total sales brought in 11.5 billion euros, a fall of 22 percent since last year. It's another round of disappointment for what was once the biggest phone manufacturer in the world: Nokia posted both a loss and a decline in overall revenue in the first three months of the year.
This time last year the Finnish company posted a $1.7 billion loss, though Lumia sales jumped.
Last week a smiling Stephen Elop unveiled the Lumia 1020, a 41-megapixel powerhouse of a camera phone that goes on sale on 26 July. Elop no doubt hopes the new phone will help keep him smiling when Nokia's accountants tally up this quarter's results.
Correction at 6 a.m. PT: The currency conversion for 115 million euros to dollars has been fixed.
Lookout Security discovered a method by which hackers could take control over Google Glass by creating a malicious QR Code.
Google has patched a security vulnerability that could have left Glass users with some major issues. Lookout Security discovered a flaw in Google Glass back in May that would allow a hacker to create a QR Code that -- once scanned by Glass -- could see all of the connections running through the glasses-mounted computer. A hacker could also deliver a payload over the Internet that would wreak havoc on Google Glass and possibly steal information. In order to connect to Google Glass, the QR Code would direct a user to an access point that gives the hacker the ability to remotely control the eyewear. In a video posted Wednesday on YouTube, Lookout Security described the vulnerability and commended Google for promptly fixing it last month. Google Glass is currently in the hands of 10,000 "Explorers." The program is designed to work out the kinks in Glass and prepare the eyewear for a public launch. It's also designed to catch security flaws like this.
It is time to enable the Google two-step authentication feature. If the website is providing you additional security feature, it is always good to use that feature. This news will help you to understand the risk of ignoring the additional security feature.
Cybercriminals hacked the Gmail account of a Dubai based Indian expatriate Anil Abraham and used the account to convince bank to transfer $15,000 from his bank account in India.
When Anil contacted the Bank, he was told by the Branch Manager that the Money was transferred at his request only via email. The cybercriminals are reportedly send a signed document with the email to trick the Bank into transfer the money.
Sponsored Links
According to Emirates247 report, the money was transferred to someone named Garry Albert Frazer to Westpac bank account in New Zealand.
Anil said whoever hacked into his email id had managed to steal fianancial information and managed to use those info to write email to Bank with forged signature.
I'm still wondering how bank allowed the cyber criminal to steal the money, they usually don't allow us to transfer money via email accounts without any personal verification. As far as i know, Bank always careful when it comes to big amount of transfer - $15,000(nearly 90,0000 Rupees).
Though it is mistake of Bank, It is always good to enable security feature on your side. Don't wait until your account get hacked, Enable the Two-step authentication :http://www.google.com/landing/2step/
Matthew Weaver, a former Cal State San Marcos student was sentenced one year of prison for stealing almost 750 students password and using 630 of those accounts to cast the ballots.
22 years old Mr. Weaver was a third year business student when he planned to win election as president of the school's student council.
A month before the election Weaver bought three keyloggers.Authorities reports that Weaver installed keyloggers on 19 school computers to steal the passwords.
It has also been reported that he had done a bit of research with computer queries such as “how to rig an election” and “jail time for keylogger.” (utsandiego news reports)
According to a report, Weaver had planned the plot in early 2012. Authorities have found a PowerPoint presentation on his computer about the stipends for the president.
The plot unveiled when in March 2012, the last day of the four voting period, when computer analysts found anomalous activity on one of the college lab computers and they also received an email from a student complaining that the system didn't allow her to vote.
It was then that the technicians called campus police, who found Weaver at the school computer. He had keyloggers with him and was arrested.
After getting caught, Weaver with one of his friend created fake facebook ids for different students and indirectly mentioned a plot against him.
“He’s on fire for this crime, and then he pours gasoline on it to try to cover it up,” the judge reportedly said during Monday’s sentencing hearing.
The school held another election and cleaned security breach at a cost of more than $40,000, which the schools want back.
Meanwhile Mr. Weaver pleaded guilty to three federal charges, including wire fraud and unauthorized access to a computer and is under one year prison sentence.
Short on friends? James Clegg can sell you a few. How about a thousand or so followers on Twitter, delivered overnight for about a penny apiece?
Clegg (not his real name) is part of a growing and extremely profitable underground that thrives on the sale of followers on Facebook, Instagram, YouTube, and other social networks. But Twitter—where your follower count can be a prized badge of honor—is where the real money is. Following my July 3 report on the growing popularity of the fake-follower sales business, Clegg emailed me to offer an inside look into the way the business works, including detailed reporting on all the money that changes hands.
Clegg’s business is simple: You visit one of his 13 websites that sell fake followers, and punch in how many you want to buy. Today, the going rate for 1000 Twitter followers is about $11.
For many people who look at this mammoth industry, the first question is "Why?" Why would anyone spend money for friends who don’t exist? “There is no one single type of buyer,” says Clegg. “I have had minor celebrities, big corporations, comedians, people buying for their friends for a practical joke, and many more. I’d say the majority are companies looking to get themselves from 20 followers to 1000 followers—and they start their real social media marketing from there.”
A business is born
Clegg is relatively new to working on the fringes of the Web. He was a chartered accountant in the United Kingdom when he got the idea for his current venture from the website Fiverr, an online marketplace where users can sell anything for $5: Folks were selling thousands of fake Twitter followers on that site for cheap.
Realizing that such services were selling for more on eBay and elsewhere online, Clegg figured he would buy the follower offers on Fiverr and then resell them on eBay for twice the price, pocketing the difference with minimal effort. Eventually eBay got saturated and prices fell to the point where it wasn’t worth Clegg’s time. The wheels were turning, however, and within five months Clegg had quit his finance job and was in the fake-follower business for himself, full-time.
Today, Clegg’s vast network sells thousands upon thousands of social media followers to those hungry for instant social media credibility.
Clegg sent a few hundred followers to one of our accounts. This is what happens.
Not your typical scam artist
Clegg is 29 and, like most entrepreneurs of his ilk, he works from home. The Cheshire, England-based businessman relies heavily on outsourcing and on the law of large numbers to turn a profit.
Google frowns on the fake-follower business, so running just a single website for such services isn’t likely to be successful. To stay ahead of the search engine, Clegg now runs 13 follower-sales websites, only a few of which have made it big, thanks to a heavy SEO investment to boost those sites to the top of search engine results. The smaller sites support the broader business by appealing to different niches.
According to Clegg, the monthly P&L for a solidly performing fake-follower site will look a little like the list below. (I’ll explain the line items afterward.)
Sales
Twitter followers: $6000
Twitter retweets: $300
Total: $6300
Expenses
Twitter followers: $600
Twitter retweets: $30
Link building: $2400
Outsourced SEO: $600
Customer service: $600
Total: $4230
Net profit: $2070
To summarize: From a single website he operates, Clegg earns about $2000 on sales of $6000 worth of Twitter followers per month. A top performer, he says, will do even better. “The sites that rank well will receive around 80 to 100 orders per day. An average order value of $29.50 gives a potential daily sales of $2500-plus.” In the past ten months, he says he has cleared £85,000, or about $128,500.
As the financials indicate, fake Twitter followers are the best sellers, but the hot emerging market is in fake retweets. Clegg says that customers often purchase them alongside followers, and that they give the buyer an extra bump in legitimacy.
One of Clegg’s faux followers. Looks legit, no?
The high cost of manufacturing faux followers
None of this comes for free, of course, and keeping all the websites up and running involves significant expense, almost all of it in the form of outsourced labor.
An Indian programming team produces and maintains the followers. It’s all bot-based, collating information from a variety of sources, which are sliced, diced, and compiled into the bio, photo, and tweets that make up a “user.”
Some of these users (see the screenshot above) look frightfully legitimate. A fake follower is often designed with a specific theme in mind: A Justin Bieber fan will tweet out only pictures that come up in a search for Bieber in Google Image Search, and will retweet messages that use the #JustinBieber hashtag. New tweets might be a combination of two old tweets from unrelated users. “All this can be controlled from a central point at any time,” says Clegg, “so creating a specific sort of follower isn’t that hard to do once you get started.”
This kind of work is surprisingly inexpensive. Much more challenging is the job of keeping the fake-follower sites out of the cellar in Google’s search results. Google is prone to penalizing such businesses as spam, but it also recognizes inbound links to a site as a form of legitimacy. So, Clegg labors on link building to combat any spam penalties. It’s a delicate dance that works most of the time, or at least for a while. “In a typical month, I will have a team of four full-time link builders (from the Philippines) working 40 hours per week, each earning around $150 per week,” says Clegg.
Complaints are natural, and they often arise when Twitter manages to find and delete a large number of fakes. (PCWorld reached out to Twitter for comment, but didn't receive a response by press time.) A customer may request a “top up”—for which Clegg is happy to oblige—but customer service requires an outsourced agent who can be present to answer questions, all day, by live chat, Skype, or email.
Still, after all of those expenses are paid, Clegg is earning about a 30 percent return.
Can the party keep going?
Clegg concedes that the fake-follower industry won’t be a gold mine forever. There isn't just Google to contend with, there’s also Twitter. “They are becoming faster and much more efficient at stopping the practice,” says Clegg. “A low-quality follower that has been created on the same IP as 50 others in the past 24 hours will be deleted within the next 24 hours, and any accounts that are related to it will be suspended pending verification. This is why we focus on uniqueness in the followers themselves, to try to stay one step ahead of Twitter security.”
Clegg is, in fact, getting out of the game. His final website—FollowersBoost—is near completion, and after it’s done he’ll be moving on to other projects. “I left finance because I fancied myself as an entrepreneur,” he says. “In a few months I will have paid off my mortgage, and I can start to invest in different products and services, some online and some offline.”
There’s also plenty of risk. A tiny policy change from Google or Twitter can destroy six months of work overnight, so it’s natural that Clegg might want to find something a bit more stable. And then there’s the social fallout: “Selling fake followers isn’t something that you tell your girlfriend’s parents about. It’s a little bit embarrassing,” he quips.
Clegg says he has some qualms about the ethics of the business, saying that he thinks it’s the wrong way to build social presence, and that, ironically, he doesn’t set up fake followers for his own social campaigns. (The real Clegg has fewer than 100 followers on Twitter.)
Explaining his position, he says, “On a personal level I find it difficult to justify, but it goes a little something like this: If I were selling a product that nobody wanted, then I wouldn’t make any money, so I pass the moral-judgment decision to the consumer. Additionally, I always offer a money-back guarantee and advice on how to remove the followers. It’s the easiest way to clear the conscience.”
Get excited, mobile gamers. As expected, Rovio and Lucasfilm on Monday morning confirmed they are gearing up to launch a sequel to the mega-popular Angry Birds Star Wars game.
Angry Birds Star Wars II, launching on Sept. 19 in app stores worldwide, will follow the story of the three prequel Star Wars movies, and introduce never-before-seen Angry Birds Star Wars characters, Rovio said. In addition, players for the first time will be able to "join the pork side" and play as one of the evil pigs.
"We are thrilled to be able to introduce the exciting next chapter in the Angry Birds Star Wars saga to our fans around the world," Jami Laes, executive vice president of games at Rovio, said in a statement. "Some of the most amazing character additions are versions of young Anakin, Mace Windu and Darth Maul."
The game also features so-called Telepods technology from Hasbro for another interactive layer of gameplay and content. The technology enables players to select which character they want to use in the app by "teleporting" a physical character into the game.
Gamers can unlock new characters and super powers by placing one of the Telepods physical characters on their phone or tablet's camera and scanning it into the app. More than 30 figures will be available for purchase at launch in September.
"Now fans can enjoy unprecedented and seamless dual play in both physical and digital Angry Birds experiences," Hasbro's chief marketing officer, John Frascotti, said in a statement.
The first Angry Birds Star Wars game, launched in November, has been a huge success for Rovio, receiving more than 100 million downloads since its release. Rovio on Friday hinted that a sequel would be coming soon.
Electronic Arts' Peter Moore hints that his company may not bring other games to the Nintendo console.
Nintendo's Wii U is in developer crosshairs after a less-than-stellar start.
Speaking to GamesIndustry.biz in an interview published on Monday, Electronic Arts COO Peter Moore confirmed that his company -- one of the largest in the gaming industry -- has no games currently in development for the Wii U.
"We were there with four games for them [at launch]," he said in the interview. "It's been a disappointment when you look at sell-through and, as a company, we have to be very judicious where we deploy our resources."
Nintendo has been loath to admit fully that the Wii U has been a "disappointment." The company has acknowledged that sales are softer than expected, but it believes that first-party titles, including new installments in The Legend of Zelda and Luigi franchises, will turn things around.
Still, it's hard to argue with Moore's sentiment. Over the last several months, Nintendo has been unable to sell 100,000 units in a single month in the U.S. Meanwhile, its elder competitors, the Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3, have been beating it in overall unit sales. And with both Sony and Microsoft preparing new consoles for later this year, even more trouble seems to be on the horizon.
A strong game library has always been the reason consoles sell well. That said, another major game publisher -- Activision -- has nothing planned for the Wii U. Activision Publishing CEO Eric Hirshberg told GamesIndustry.biz that his company has "no announcements now" about upcoming Wii U games.
Even Ubisoft, which was one of the foremost supporters of the Wii U at launch with ZombiU, is taking a wait-and-see approach. The company's CEO Yves Guillemot said that ZombiU was "not even close" to profitable, causing him to shelve any plans for a follow-up. What's worse for Nintendo, he said that his company is willing to wait and see what happens with the Wii U through December, but if things don't turn around, Ubisoft would need to "see where we are from there."
So, what does the future hold for Nintendo and its Wii U? If publishers continue to ignore the console, nothing good.
At the company's annual shareholder meeting, one investor calls the U.S. launch a "disaster." BlackBerry says it has learned its lessons from the Z10 debut.
BlackBerry investors aren't happy about its progress in the U.S., and let it be known during the company's annual shareholder meeting on Tuesday.
The company's executives fielded a number of questions -- and some not-so-veiled criticism -- about the mixed response that the new BlackBerry 10 smartphones have received in the U.S. One investor went as far as calling the U.S. launch a "disaster."
While BlackBerry CEO Thorsten Heins disagreed with that characterization, he acknowledged that the company still had a lot of work to do in the U.S.
"It's the most ferocious and competitive market in the industry," he said during the Webcast presentation.
BlackBerry's struggles are indicative of the broader challenges the company faces in introducing a wholly new mobile operating system and competing in a market dominated by Apple's iPhone and Android-powered Galaxy S phones from Samsung Electronics. It has long ceded its home market of North America, with the U.S. being particularly elusive.
Amid disappointing fiscal first-quarter results reported last month, BlackBerry posted North American sales of $761 million, well above the prior quarter, but a 4 percent decline from a year ago -- before BlackBerry 10 phones launched.
The U.S. market has been especially rough because of the control that the wireless carriers exert over the handset market. With a vast majority of smartphone sales taking place in carrier stores, giants such as Verizon Wireless and AT&T have a lot of say on the winners and losers.
BlackBerry works with the carriers on products but also competes for shelf space at their stores, Heins said. For the carriers, which have their own agenda and pressure, it's often easier to sell an iPhone or Android device than to take a risk on a new platform.
"It's hard to convince them to go where the puck is vs. where the puck will be," Heins said. "We value our relationship with the carriers, but there's some opportunistic thinking there."
A vast majority of AT&T's smartphone sales continue to go to Apple's iPhone, Heins noted.
But Heins isn't complaining to the carriers. He said that it's BlackBerry's job to convince them that BlackBerry 10 is a platform worth taking a chance on.
BlackBerry Chief Marketing Officer Frank Boulben told CNET in May that he expected a large carrier campaign to kick off in June coinciding with the launch of the BlackBerry Q10, but the carriers haven't been particularly aggressive about touting its new keyboard smartphone
Blackberry Z10 & Q10
While carrier executives tout the need for more platform choices, the sentiment appears to be different at the ground level. The same investor who called the U.S. launch a disaster also noted that retail sales representatives that he talked to were either inadequately trained or not trained to use a BlackBerry 10 device. He noted marketing materials were missing at the stores he visited.
While Heins dismissed the notion that the BlackBerry Z10 launch was a disaster, he conceded that the company learned some lessons. The company may have needed to do more training, he noted, and said the company would continue to invest in the platform and educating consumers.
Aside from the one inflammatory criticism, the shareholder meeting was generally amiable, with Heins garnering the occasional applause for his pointed answers.
He also fielded a question about the potential break-up of the company, splitting up the devices business from the enterprise service operations, with a patent-holding entity as a possible third company. Heins said he was open to anything that would create shareholder value, but would want to see the company generate some value on its own before he would entertain such a move. He added he didn't want to distract management with the prospects of such a drastic change.
Other shareholders said they preferred it if BlackBerry remained intact, eliciting some applause from the audience.
Heins on several occasions reiterated his plea for patience as BlackBerry takes a long-term view. The company is shifting toward the second phase of the company's transition, a period of investment as it sets itself up for growth for next year.
"Our transformation is ongoing and it's not going to be easy," he said.
The T440s would be the first ThinkPad equipped with Intel's fourth-generation Haswell processor.
Lenovo has outfitted its newest ThinkPad with Intel's latest processor technology.
Unveiled via a new Lenovo Web page, the T440s is touted as a 14-inch business ultrabook. The new ThinkPad is powered by Intel's fourth-generation processor, commonly known as Haswell.
The screen offers a choice of an HD+ or FHD screen with a resolution of 1,920x1,080 pixels and In-Plane Switching (IPS). The IPS technology ensures that the screen is as viewable from different angles and it is from straight on. The display also comes with multi-touch to take advantage of the included Windows 8 OS.
Near-field communications is part of the package, letting users pair the T440s with other NFC-enabled devices. The array of ports includes a mini DisplayPort, smart card reader, and three USB 3.0 connections. Lenovo also offers two 3-cell batteries, one internal and one hot swappable. A 3-cell battery promises around six hours of life on a single charge.
The T440s starts off at 3.5 pounds and is less than an inch at its thickest point, making it the lightest and thinnest ThinkPad T series unit, according to Lenovo.
No price or release date were revealed, but Lenovo says the new ThinkPad is "coming soon."
The lineup would include a new version of the 7-inch Kindle Fire and Kindle Fire HD as well as a refresh of the 8.9-inch Kindle Fire HD, says Boy Genius Report.
Amazon plans to update its fleet of Kindle tablets by launching at least three new models this year, according to blog site Boy Genius Report.
Citing "trusted sources," the folks at BGR claim that the first tablet would be a new version of the 7-inch Kindle Fire. The screen size of the tablet would remain the same as the existing model. But the resolution would be upped from 1,024x600 to 1,280x800.The 7-inch Kindle Fire HD in turn would jump to 1,920x1,200 pixels, say BGR's sources, while the 8.9-inch model would offer your eyes a resolution of 2,560x1,600.
The new tablets would go through a few small design changes, such as a repositioning of the power and volume buttons. They would also be lighter than their current counterparts.
Pricing remains a mystery, but BGR's sources say the new tablets would launch in the fall, possibly around September ahead of the holiday shopping season.
In response to a request for comment, Amazon told CNET that it doesn't comment on rumors and speculation.
In other Kindle-related news, Amazon's Kurt Kufeld confirmed to All Things Digital that the company has been quietly testing Flash support with Kindle Fire owners since February.
