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Apple is increasing the price of apps in the UK by 25% because of Brexit

January 17, 2017 Dianne Jacobs

Apple is raising prices on its UK App Store by almost 25% to reflect the sharp depreciation of the pound following June’s vote to leave the European Union The Guardian Reports. The new prices enshrine parity between the dollar and the pound, at least for apps on the iOS and Mac app stores. An app that costs $0.99 in the US, and used to cost £0.79, will now cost £0.99. According to the Business Insider, It’s not the first time Apple has increased its prices in the UK to adjust for…

Russia Requires Apple and Google to Remove LinkedIn from Local App Stores

January 9, 2017

Russian authorities have required Apple and Google to remove the LinkedIn app from the App Store and Google Play in Russia, reports The New York Times. The move comes a couple weeks after Russia blocked LinkedIn’s website. When LinkedIn’s website was blocked, the apps stopped functioning properly. Removing them from the Google Play store and Apple’s App Store may not have cut off access to content, but it sent a signal that countries can push the tech giants to remove the apps. The New York Time Reports that Direct blocking of websites has been done by…

Study: Retailers Ignore Over 80% of Customers’ Requests via Social Media

November 6, 2015February 11, 2016 Staff Writer

Sprout Social has found most that merchants fail to respond to consumer questions on Facebook and Twitter, a problem compounded during the holiday shopping season when the volume of requests increases. The stats from the Spout Social’s Q4 2015 Index are damning. Retailers failed to respond to more than 80 percent of consumer questions and requests on social media in the last year. And the cold shoulder from merchants was coldest when you’d think they could least afford it, during the holiday shopping season. During the fourth quarter of 2014,…

How 5 most valuable internet companies have changed over the past 2 decades

June 5, 2015February 16, 2016 Staff Writer

It’s mind-boggling how the 5 most valuable internet companies have changed over the past 20 years In 1995, the internet was just about to get started. It was only a year after big internet companies like Yahoo and Netscape were founded. Fast forward 20 years later, and the web business landscape looks a lot different from back then. In fact, only 1 out of the 5 most valuable public internet companies from 1995 are still in the top 5 list, according to Mary Meeker’s “Internet Trends” report. Check out the…

Website not mobile friendly? Google is making major Algorithmic change to rank you lower

April 20, 2015February 16, 2016 Staff Writer

On Tuesday, April 21, Google is making a major update to its mobile search algorithm that will change the order in which websites are ranked when users search for something from their phone or tablet, making it mobile friendly. The algorithm will start favoring mobile-friendly websites (ones with large text, easy-to-click links, and that resize to fit whatever screen they’re viewed on) and ranking them higher in search. Websites that aren’t mobile-friendly will get demoted. About 60% of online traffic now comes from mobile and Google wants users to have a good…

Xiaomi: China’s big Apple rival isn’t worth getting excited about (yet)

February 13, 2015February 16, 2016 Staff Writer

Xiaomi, the third-largest smartphone maker in the world, is coming stateside, but not in the way pundits expected. The company announced at a conference Thursday that its e-commerce website, Mi.com, could start selling products to U.S. customers in five months. Surprisingly, smartphones will not be among them — at least, at first. Instead, Hugo Barra, Xiaomi’s Global VP, suggested the company might start with items such as a recently-launched pair of headphones and its popular external battery pack, the latter of which sold 15 million units in 2014. The company has…

The creators of Google Inbox explain why it’s the future of Gmail

October 31, 2014February 17, 2016 Staff Writer

Google’s on a mission to reinvent email. Its weapon: Inbox, a standalone app that launched last week. Inbox aims to make email more useful with several new tools. It surfaces relevant content (photos, for example) and information from within individual messages so you don’t have to open anything to get at what you really want. Bundles sort your messages for you, letting you find important messages faster. Plus you can add your own reminders that work with Google Now. But there’s something important that Inbox isn’t: Gmail. Although the whole…