Category: MOBILE

Aereo’s CEO Chet Kanojia has the TV Industry Scared To Death

Staff Writer

CBS Threatens To Cut Off Broadcast Signal If Aereo Wins Aereo, a company that lets you stream live network TV (NBC, ABC, Fox, PBS, etc.) to your computer, smartphone or tablet, is gearing up for a big Supreme Court battle this spring with those networks that could dismantle the startup. The networks claim Aereo violates copyright by allowing customers to record TV shows in a virtual DVR that lets you stream shows later to your device. Aereo charges $8 per month to use the service and it’s available in a handful…

Share this
Read More

4G-LTE Networks Set To Double In Number By 2017

Staff Writer

When 1BN Of 8BN Total Mobile Connections Will Be 4G The number of 4G-LTE networks in service globally is set to roughly double over the next four years, according to data by GSMA Intelligence, the research arm of the global mobile carrier association, the GSMA.  Some 465 LTE networks are forecast to be in service across 128 countries by 2017, which it says is roughly double the number of live LTE networks today. 4G-LTE offers a considerable speed bump over 3G mobile technologies, in the region of 10x, although theoretical peak speeds —…

Share this
Read More

Online music piracy in the UK drops by a third

Staff Writer

In the last year, us Brits downloaded a third fewer pirated music tracks than the year before. According to figures from Ofcom, the number of such songs we snaffled fell from 301 million in March 2012 to 199 million in March this year, the Guardian reports. So maybe we’re less a bunch of Fun Lovin’ Criminals than before. The music industry is said to be on the road to recovery, with total revenues increasing for the first time this year since 1999, although they only went up by 0.3 per…

Share this
Read More

Microsoft’s second biggest investment is Africa

Staff Writer

Technology giant Microsoft last week announced a partnership with the South African government’s Jobs Fund – an alliance that will provide assistance to small businesses who operate online to expand their companies and help grow the local economy. Microsoft South Africa’s Managing Director Mteto Nyati sat down with ITNewsAfrica to explain why Microsoft has invested so heavily in Africa. Nyati explained that although Microsoft is indeed heavily invested in the African continent, with projects such as the newly-announced BizSpark and Microsoft’s 4Afrika initiative, the company is actually involved in all territories where it has a…

Share this
Read More

Microsoft to acquire Nokia’s device and services division

Staff Writer

Microsoft will acquire Nokia’s devices and services unit and license the company’s mapping services in a deal worth $7.2 billion in a bid to bolster the company’s position in the smartphone market. The software giant will pay $5 billion for “substantially all” of Nokia’s phone unit and another $2.2 billion to license its patents, the companies announced late Sunday. As part of the deal, Stephen Elop will step down as Nokia chief executive to become the executive vice president of the devices and services division. Elop, a former Microsoft executive,…

Share this
Read More

Spy program gathered Americans’ Internet records

Staff Writer

WASHINGTON (AP) — The Obama administration gathered U.S. citizens’ Internet data until 2011, continuing a spying program started under President George W. Bush that revealed whom Americans exchanged emails with and the Internet Protocol address of their computer, documents disclosed Thursday show. The National Security Agency ended the program that collected email logs and timing, but not content, in 2011 because it decided it didn’t effectively stop terrorist plots, according to the NSA’s director, Gen. Keith Alexander, who also heads the U.S. Cyber Command. He said all data was purged…

Share this
Read More

Pirate Bay founder faces jail over Swedish hack attack

Staff Writer

Gottfrid Svartholm Warg, co-founder of the Pirate Bay, has been sentenced to two years in a Swedish prison for hacking into a bank’s computers. A Swedish court found Warg guilty of the hack attacks and associated charges of fraud. The attacks were carried out against the Nordea banking group and services firm Logica. Personal data about thousands of Swedes was stolen in the attacks and was subsequently published online. Warg’s accomplice in the attacks, Mathias Gustafsson, was given a suspended sentence and told to seek psychiatric counselling. Adapted from bbc.co.uk

Share this
Read More

Africa: The one place mobile technology sector cant ingore

Staff Writer

Tech investors know that it takes more than a great product to bring in great returns. Tapping the right market at the right time is almost as important as creating the most innovative product. That’s why the latest numbers from the International Telecoms Union, or ITU, are so important. The data show mobile subscriptions are on the rise, but not all markets are growing, and companies that don’t head the trends could miss out on big gains. Searching for non-saturation According to the ITU, by the end of 2014 there…

Share this
Read More

Google Earth for Android Gets Street View

Staff Writer

Google has updated its Google Earth Android app to version 7.1, bringing several important improvements, most notably the support for Street View. If you want to explore the Earth from the street level, zoom into an area and the Pegman — the little yellow guy signifying the availability of Street View — will appear in the right hand corner. Drag and drop him into a street and you’ll jump right into Street View. Adapted from mashable.com

Share this
Read More

Location information to make mobile ads more valuable

Staff Writer

NEW YORK–Hyper-targeted advertising based on your location is coming to mobile phones and could finally bring money into the mobile advertising market, say experts at the All Things D mobile conference here Monday. In two separate interviews, the CEO of the mapping app Waze and ad executives Jason Spero from Google and Mollie Spilman of Millennial Media talked up the importance of users’ GPS location information to help tailor advertising. Adapted From cnet.com

Share this
Read More