It's the Weekly Linkdown with Rob Walker!
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If there is one thing Google is good at, it’s finding new and exciting ways to use data. We can’t even begin to imagine what Google is working on behind closed doors at any given time, but every once in a while it releases a nifty new tool that gives the general public new ways to look at the mountains of data that pass through Google’s network every millisecond. Most recently, the company released a very cool new visualization tool tied to Google Trends that shows us popular searches happening at any given time. The tool can show global searches or regional data in any one of eleven different regions, and it is free to use on Google’s Trends site.
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Following a week of incredibly bad press, some "sources close to the situation" are claiming that Facebook and the National Security Administration are in "serious discussions" about being more transparent about the data the government requests from the social network. As of now, tech companies have a gag order on FISA requests they recieve from the government. Supposedly, Facebook and the feds are having a meeting about changing that. ...
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Apple cofounder Steve Wozniak had a quick chat with FayerWayer earlier this week, and the site asked him about a wide range of topics, including the new look of iOS 7 and the recent revelations about the NSA’s PRISM surveillance program. Wozniak’s most interesting comments, though, were about how cloud computing is slowly eroding the concept of owning content that we pay for, which in turn leaves us with less freedom than we used to have. “Nowadays in the digital world you can hardly own anything anymore,” he said. “It’s all these subscriptions… and you’ve already agreed that every right in the world belongs to them and you’ve got no rights. And if you’ve put it on the cloud, you don’t own it.
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An interview (of sorts) with comedian Megan Amram, who may or may not think she's Mark Zuckerberg
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It is no secret that Nokia is developing a Lumia smartphone with a high-end PureView camera. We have seen a number of leaks for the Lumia EOS, which is expected to debut next month. The handset is rumored to be equipped with a polycarbonate body and a 4.5-inch 720p display. Earlier reports suggested the smartphone would feature a PureView rear camera with a Carl Zeiss lens, however the actual megapixel count remained a mystery. According to the latest leak from Chinese microblogging website Weibo, however, a 41-megapixel rear shooter has apparently been confirmed. Nokia is expected to announce the Lumia EOS at a press conference in New York City on July 11th
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By Jens Hack MUNICH (Reuters) - Computers, tablets and smartphones have not yet managed to crowd out pens and pencils, says Faber-Castell, German maker of high-end writing instruments. The family-run group, famous for its forest-green pencils, says its production is still running at top speed thanks to rising levels of education in emerging markets on the one hand and demand for stylish writing tools in developed countries on the other. ...
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Google Fiber is certainly one of Google’s more audacious experiments and it’s now becoming clearer what the company’s long-term strategy is with its high-speed fiber Internet and television service. Barron’s points us to a new research note from Evercore Partners analyst Ken Sena, who just got back from seeing Google Fiber in action in Kansas City and who says that Google’s long-term goal with the service is to make television more of a web-based experience. Specifically, Sena says that Google Fiber is “migrating more TV viewing and online behavior into Google’s cloud, and paving the way for YouTube, Google Play and other Google experiences to become a bigger part of the TV home viewing experience, even outside of fiber-deployed areas.” In other
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Why was Google willing to pay what several reports claim to be $1 billion or more for Waze? According to Waze CEO Noam Bardin, the answer is simple: As important is Google’s search product is to the Internet is as important as Waze is for searching the real world. “General navigation and maps, are really the ‘search’ for mobile,” Bardin told Forbes in a previously unpublished interview from January. While his comments didn’t pertain specifically to the Google deal, of course, they relate to the value Waze has to users and, ultimately, to Google. According to Bardin’s vision, people will “use a Google search bar to scour the web today, and Waze to search the real world tomorrow.” The CEO had plenty
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By Foo Yun Chee BRUSSELS (Reuters) - European Union antitrust regulators are asking mobile telecoms operators and handset makers if their Android deals with Google block rivals in mobile telephony, a move that could lead to a second investigation into the company. Google is already seeking to settle a three-year probe into complaints it squeezed out online search rivals. The Internet search company has offered concessions including labeling its products in search results and providing links to competing sites. EU Competition Commissioner Joaquin Almunia has said he will likely ask for more. ...
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LONDON (Reuters) - Britain's BSkyB said on Friday it would give its sports channel subscribers free broadband, fighting back against rival BT which is offering customers a mirror deal of free football with an Internet connection. Sky said it would offer a year's free standard broadband from June 14 to people paying for its Sky Sports service. The offer would be available for a limited period. It also has a deal giving half-price broadband to new customers, whether or not they also subscribe to Sky TV. Subscribers still need to pay 14.50 pounds for line rental a month, Sky said. ...
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LONDON (AP) — Phone call logs, credit card records, emails, Skype chats, Facebook message, and more: The precise nature of the NSA's sweeping surveillance apparatus has yet to be confirmed.
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Microsoft apparently thinks that its Siri-mocking strategy is a winner because it’s come out with yet another ad that cleverly uses Apple’s voice-enabled personal assistant to bash the iPad. The ad takes the iPad to task for not having a zoomable home screen, for lacking an SD card slot and for not being able to multitask as efficiently as Windows RT. As 9to5Mac points out, that last claim is somewhat misleading because Apple has added more robust multitasking capabilities in iOS 7, although those won’t be widely available to iPad users until the fall. All the same, the new ad isn’t as misleading as Microsoft’s earlier effort that bashed the iPad for lacking access to Microsoft Office even though Microsoft
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The Xbox One’s $499 price tag might not just be a lot to ask of gamers eager to embrace the next generation of video game consoles, it might be flat-out “dangerous.” Microsoft has had a rough couple of weeks following the debut of the Xbox One. The console’s controversial game-sharing and used game policies have drawn a great deal of criticism from bloggers and gamers alike, and even Microsoft’s exciting new Kinect sensor is drawing fire. But everything else aside, one industry watcher believes it’s the Xbox One’s price tag that will scare away a large portion of Microsoft’s potential customers. “The Xbox One will retail at $499 when it releases in November, and that could prove a very dangerous
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The Xbox One’s $499 price tag might not just be a lot to ask of gamers eager to embrace the next generation of video game consoles, it might be flat-out “dangerous.” Microsoft has had a rough couple of weeks following the debut of the Xbox One. The console’s controversial game-sharing and used game policies have drawn a great deal of criticism from bloggers and gamers alike, and even Microsoft’s exciting new Kinect sensor is drawing fire. But everything else aside, one industry watcher believes it’s the Xbox One’s price tag that will scare away a large portion of Microsoft’s potential customers. “The Xbox One will retail at $499 when it releases in November, and that could prove a very dangerous
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We already know Apple’s next-generation iPhone 5S is getting an extensive internal overhaul following BGR’s exclusive report from last month, and now new purported components have leaked that once again show several internal design changes. Mobile accessory and component retailer TVC-Mall on Friday posted images and details surrounding two new parts it claims are included in Apple’s upcoming iPhone 5S. The first is the “dock connector charging port flex cable,” which also includes the handset’s headphone jack, and the second is listed as a “replacement ringer speaker Dock connector module.” TVC-Mall has posted parts from unannounced Apple devices in the past that were subsequently proven authentic once Apple released the associated devices. Photos of both components follow below, as do comparison photos
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MOSCOW (AP) — It was another Soviet first in space 50 years ago, putting a woman in orbit. And the 26-year old Valentina Tereshkova carried her part with grace, shouting "Take off your hat, sky, I'm coming!" as she blasted off.
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As BlackBerry and Microsoft scramble to catch up with iOS and Android’s hold on app developers’ attention, it’s become clear that Microsoft has a distinct advantage that BlackBerry simply cannot match: Lots and lots of cash. Both Bloomberg Businessweek and Business Insider report that Microsoft is paying developers up to $100,000 to bring their applications over to Windows Phone 8. While this might seem like a lot of money just to convince developers to create apps for Windows Phone, Business Insider’s Julie Bort notes that it’s a relative drop in the bucket for Microsoft, which is also paying Nokia “$1 billion a year to make Windows phones.”
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The Xbox One has been a public relations nightmare so far for Microsoft. The console’s debut was marred by unclear policies and misinformation, and gamers haven’t been shy in letting Microsoft know how they feel. But it’s not just the used game policy, game-sharing limitations and connectivity requirements that have people up in arms — some gamers are absolutely outraged at one of the Xbox One’s most innovative new features. Microsoft’s Xbox One is “an ‘always-on’ Xbox tracking you with the Kinect ‘eye,’ beaming info back to some Microsoft cloud which, as we now know, is tapped by the government,” PolicyMic’s Chris Miles wrote. He even went as far as to call the console “the future of PRISM.” Microsoft’s next-generation
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In a move as fiendishly clever as it is galling, Microsoft tells the U.S. government about bugs in its notoriously buggy software before it fixes them so that intelligence agencies can use the vulnerabilities for the purposes of cyberspying. "That information can be used to protect government computers and to access the computers of terrorists or military foes," sources tell Bloomberg's Michael Riley. ...
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Apple’s new entry-level iPhone and its next-generation iPad mini with a Retina display will reportedly begin shipping from Apple’s manufacturing partner later this summer ahead of launches this fall. Numerous earlier reports claimed Apple is diversifying its manufacturing a bit this year, and now Digitimes’ unnamed supply chain sources claim that Pegatron has indeed been tasked with building a portion of two upcoming Apple devices. iPhones and iPad tablets had previously been built by Foxconn. The report says Pegatron will begin taking delivery of components for the entry-level iPhone and Retina iPad mini next month and the devices will start shipping in August.
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MOSCOW (AP) — On the 50th anniversary of becoming the first woman in space, Valentina Tereshkova has received a prestigious award from Russian President Vladimir Putin.
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Networking company Cisco estimates that Internet traffic will grow three-fold between 2012 and 2017 to reach an annual run rate of 1.4 zettabytes, more than a trillion gigabytes per year. The firm expects traffic to reach nearly 121 exabytes per month by 2017 — equal to 30 billion DVDs, 28 trillion MP3′s or 750 quadrillion text messages — and an increase from 44 exabytes per month in 2012. Roughly 3.6 billion people worldwide are expected to access the Internet by 2017, or around 48% of the world’s projected population. In 2012, 2.3 billion people worldwide used the Internet, accounting for nearly 32% of the world’s 7.2 billion people. Cisco also estimates that the average fixed broadband speed will more than
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NEW YORK (AP) — Microsoft's Office software package is coming to the iPhone for the first time Friday, offering people the ability to read and edit their text documents, spreadsheets and slide presentations at the doctor's office or at a soccer game.
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Two big updates kick off today's apps worth downloading haul. First up is Facebook Home, which brings new customization options to its app launcher and allows greater capabilities for users who want their Facebook experience on their Android home screen. Second is Fruit Ninja, the delightful casual game about slicing flying fruit, which adds fruits, blades, and features. Finally, Celtic Tribes rounds things out with a strategic massively multiplayer online title that tasks players with creating and growing their tribe through conquest and diplomacy.
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