Tech blog

ItsOn aims to shake up mobile

Paul Taylor — Thu, 16 May 2013 20:03:24 +0000

A new mobile service operator called ItsOn aims to shake up the US smartphone business by offering users the ability to tailor their voice, text and data plans precisely, and – perhaps most interestingly – buy data by the app.

The company’s Zact service – a play on the word ‘exact’ – operates as a cloud-based mobile virtual network operator, buying capacity on Sprint Nextel’s 4G/LTE network and reselling it to its own customers via a smartphone app or web page.

Speedo helps London startup make a splash

Bede McCarthy — Thu, 16 May 2013 06:00:14 +0000

London startup Active in Time has taken the path less traveled to financing by licensing its Splashpath swim tracking app to Speedo.

Under the four-year deal, Splashpath will take on Speedo’s branding but remain the property of Dan Morgan, who founded the company after becoming frustrated that, despite there being myriad mobile apps for runners, there wasn’t one for swimmers.

Google’s All Access is music to the industry’s ears

Financial Times — Thu, 16 May 2013 00:15:08 +0000

By Richard Waters and Andrew Edgecliffe-Johnson

By showing that it is prepared to play by the music industry’s rules with its new All Access subscription service, Google has won itself new friends among the music labels.

The main questions now: Can it overcome a patchy past track record in the music business, take advantage of its early lead in subscriptions over Apple and show that it can carve an audience of paying punters out of its massive user base?

Google I/O 2013 – as it happened

Chris Nuttall — Wed, 15 May 2013 15:46:13 +0000

Google shares rose past the $900 mark on Wednesday as it announced 900m Android activations at its annual developer conference, Google I/O, in San Francisco. Google also launched a new subscription music streaming service, Google Play All Access, and a bunch of new services for developers, including improved gaming capabilities, mapping services and voice-controlled search tools.
Here's a transcript of the liveblog by Chris Nuttall and Tim Bradshaw, who were reporting from the Moscone Center.

Is the World Press Photo of the Year a fake?

Henry Mance — Wed, 15 May 2013 15:15:39 +0000

Yes, says image analyst Neal Krawetz, who believes the photo of grieving in the Gaza Strip may be three images melded together. No, say independent analysts contracted by World Press Photo, including a nifty tech outfit called Fourandsix.

But another start-up argues that there can be no definite answer once the process of image manipulation has started. Instead Scoopshot’s app transfers photos taken by users immediately to its platform, allowing it to guarantee that the photos that editors received are actually what the camera took.

Google and Andreessen Horowitz join the commercial drone race

Richard Waters — Wed, 15 May 2013 15:01:30 +0000

The US may be moving only slowly towards opening up its airspace to commercial drones, but a market for unmanned aerial vehicles is already emerging rapidly elsewhere. Andreessen Horowitz and Google Ventures are the latest to jump in, with a $10.7m investment in drone technology company Airware.

Lumia 928 offers brighter picture for Nokia in US

Chris Nuttall — Tue, 14 May 2013 23:35:59 +0000

Things are looking up for Nokia in the US, a territory where it was unloved and unrepresented by operators not so long ago.

Now it has not one but two carriers touting its latest Windows smartphones, with Verizon launching the Lumia 928 this week and T-Mobile having its own exclusive with the 925, unveiled in London on Tuesday and available at a date to be announced in the US. Both represent advances on its signature Lumia 920 launched last year.

Nokia hopes to lure iPhone users with latest Lumia phones amid decline

Bede McCarthy — Tue, 14 May 2013 12:25:23 +0000

Nokia trained its sights on iPhone users with the launch of a new metal Lumia handset on Tuesday, as latest figures showed its share of the smartphone market had fallen by almost five percentage points.

According to the latest data from Gartner, a steep decline in sales of cheaper feature phone – still popular in emerging markets – led to a loss of mobile market share in the first quarter of this year, from 19.7 per cent in the first quarter of 2012 to 14.8 per cent this year.

Hardware startups get hardcore at Haxlr8r

Tim Bradshaw — Tue, 14 May 2013 04:02:02 +0000

This week seems to be maker week in Silicon Valley. In the run-up to Saturday’s Maker Faire in San Mateo are a string of events and conferences for hardware startups and the folk building them.

Kickstarting the week, Haxlr8r – a hardware-hacker accelerator programme that takes ten startups to Shenzhen for three months – held its demo day at the Autodesk Gallery in downtown San Francisco on Monday afternoon. Ten startups pitched their ideas, fresh from the factory floor in China, to a group of early stage investors.

Ouya looks beyond Kickstarter for more funds

Tim Bradshaw — Thu, 09 May 2013 23:56:15 +0000

Ouya, the open-source games console, has become the first Kickstarter tech project to graduate to a more traditional funding scheme – venture capital.

After getting $8m from 63,000 crowdfunders last August, Ouya on Thursday announced it has raised $15m from investors including Kleiner Perkins Caufield Byers, Mayfield Fund and Nvidia, to accelerate its plan to attack the mass market.