Tech blog

Privacy commissioners have eight questions about Google Glass

Henry Mance — Wed, 19 Jun 2013 14:02:15 +0000

(and only one is, can we play with it?)

In a letter to Google chief executive Larry Page, the officials – from the EU, Australia, New Zealand, Mexico, Israel, Switzerland and three Canadian provinces – have formally raised their concerns about Glass.

Here are their questions and our brief commentary:

Apple’s popularity not enough to keep Dutch retailer afloat

Financial Times — Wed, 19 Jun 2013 12:40:13 +0000

It may seem hard to understand how one could go bankrupt selling iPads and MacBooks in one of Europe’s richest countries, but that is what happened Tuesday to iCentre, the largest Apple reseller in the Netherlands, writes Matt Steinglass in Amsterdam.

A judge in the Dutch town of Haarlem proclaimed the 34-store chain bankrupt on Tuesday, after a week of negotiations between the company, its creditors and potential buyers failed to produce a rescue plan. And on closer inspection, iCentre’s fate is not so hard to explain. Like other Apple resellers, iCentre was coping with a long-term shift from notebook and desktop computer sales towards smartphones and tablets, which have lower profit margins.

Kindle: hot in China

Financial Times — Wed, 19 Jun 2013 11:54:22 +0000

It’s not just Apple that can generate sales buzz in China for new devices. A couple of weeks on from Amazon’s Kindle launch in China, and the new e-reading devices are becoming hot properties.

The company told beyondbrics in an email that the two Kindle tablets were sold out “almost immediately” and customers are leaving their contact information for the waiting list to be next in line for new stocks.

The Innovator: Here comes the taco drone

Tim Bradshaw — Mon, 17 Jun 2013 21:42:11 +0000

©Toby Leigh

Before he invented Pintofeed, a smartphone-enabled pet food dispenser, Carlos Herrera made drones. How far morality played a role in his decision to move out of the drone business isn’t clear but there were, at least, other factors. People spend $100bn a year on pets globally, while commercial drones – the kind that don’t spy on or kill people – remain an unproven market proposition.

MacBook Air and its battery get new life

Chris Nuttall — Fri, 14 Jun 2013 06:31:41 +0000

Apple introduced a much-needed and radical redesign for its Mac Pro desktop line this week, but its refreshing of the MacBook Air was all internal – the laptop’s look has not changed since its revamp in 2010.

Since then, many Windows laptops have tried to copy the Air’s classic wafer-thin looks and it has inspired an entire “Ultrabook” category, created by Intel. But, after trying the new Air and its most recent competition, it’s easy to see why Apple felt no need to change things externally.

#Facebook

April Dembosky — Wed, 12 Jun 2013 18:16:51 +0000

Facebook launched its own Twitter-style hashtag system in an attempt to bolster its fledgling search feature, and raise a challenge to its rival social network that pioneered the use of the # symbol in online communications.

Introducing the marker to Facebook posts will help the company organise comments around certain celebrities or real-time events, like sports games, concerts, or television shows. This way users can search for what other people are saying about the same topic, and advertisers could target ads against real-time trends.

A backlash is brewing against iOS 7’s new look

Tim Bradshaw — Tue, 11 Jun 2013 02:19:24 +0000

It was the moment designers and Apple fans alike have been waiting for since October: Sir Jonathan Ive – spiritual heir to Apple’s chief tastemaker Steve Jobs and creator of the world’s finest tech hardware – unveiled his vision for iOS on Monday in San Francisco.

After seven months of anticipation, perhaps some anticlimax was inevitable. But a lot of designers are already taking to the web to voice their dislike of iOS 7’s new look.

Apple’s annual developer event

Richard Waters — Mon, 10 Jun 2013 16:31:45 +0000

A redesigned iOS was the centrepiece of Apple’s annual World Wide Developer Conference in San Francisco on Monday, as CEO Tim Cook and other company executives sought to hit back at Google’s Android and prove that Apple has not lost its innovative edge.

Designer-in-chief Sir Jonathan Ive appeared only by video to talk about the new flatter, sleeker look that Apple called the most important redesign since the birth of the iPhone. Also as expected: new Macbook Airs and an iRadio music streaming service.

See below for our liveblog of the event as it unfolded.

Tim Berners-Lee is “deeply concerned” about PRISM

Tim Bradshaw — Fri, 07 Jun 2013 20:12:57 +0000

The inventor of the world wide web is not happy with the direction his creation is going.

For several years, Sir Tim Berners-Lee has been warning about incursions to the founding principles of the web, from the UK’s Digital Economy Act and SOPA to Facebook’s “walled gardens”.

This week’s reports about the PRISM system, through which the NSA extracts huge amounts of personal information from Google, Facebook, Apple and other internet companies, are “deeply concerning”, he says.

Palantir: Our Prism is not the NSA’s Prism

Tim Bradshaw — Fri, 07 Jun 2013 17:48:04 +0000

In trying to reconcile the tech companies’ denials of involvement in the NSA’s PRISM programme and the agency’s presentation that suggests it has “direct access” to their servers, some have looked to private Silicon Valley company Palantir as a possible bridge between the two.