When large corporations can shrug off financial penalties and seem indifferent to reputational damage because they’ve captured the consumers, you might wonder about the true cost of broken promises in…
Companies want you in their “ecosystem” – make no mistake – so should governments offer more protection?
TF28 ❘ tfaltings.de
The business model of many modern technology companies is to lure people into digital monopolies (or what are sometimes called “ecosystems”) from whence ridiculous profits can be gouged.
You see, the…
Samsung has spent more on marketing than Apple, HP, Dell, Microsoft and Cocoa Cola combined. But it hopes to replicate the tendency of people to buy products from their own country when it moves production to the US.
AAP
It would be easy to simply attribute the massive rise in Samsung’s popularity to its equally massive spend on marketing. It has been estimated that Samsung spent around $11.5 billion in 2012 on advertising…
No-one knows what the iWatch will look like … or if it even exists.
Yrving Torrealba
If rumours are true about its forthcoming product release – the iWatch – Apple is inadvertently paying homage to the comic strip legend Dick Tracy.
The fictional 1940s police detective with the ridiculously…
Research in Motion has reinvented itself as BlackBerry — and has released two new phones to boot — but its smartphone market share will be far from peachy.
AAP
Research In Motion (RIM), who as of this week officially changed its name to BlackBerry, has come a long way since its beginnings in Waterloo, Canada in 1984. Started by two engineering students, Mike…
Apple share price has been punished after unveilling disappointing first quarter earnings, but its “cool” status has taken a bigger hit.
The stockmarket was hoping for great things from Apple’s earnings announcement for the December quarter. Most of all, they were hoping for something that would turn around a four month slide in Apple’s…
Music stores are shutting down across the world as shoppers choose to buy music in a digital format.
AAP
For some, the recent collapse of UK music and DVD retailer HMV is another sign of a music industry undergoing an increasingly rapid and radical transformation to digital. Although this is partly true…
When it comes to IT products, Australian consumers pay more than their American counterparts.
AAP
Apple Inc. has often portrayed itself as the champion of consumers, with its advertising campaigns on “1984”, “Think Different”, and “Rip, Mix, Burn”. However, this reputation has been called into question…
Many people are willing to queue for hours for the next iDevice, instead of simply waiting a few days.
EPA/Susanna Bates
Earlier today (AEST), Apple announced a range of new products, among them the iPad 4 (just six months after its predecessor) and the new baby in the family: the iPad mini.
Pre-orders begin later this…
Ropey for writing on … but still easy to fall in love with.
ebayink
The onward march of digital tablets looks incontestable. Tablets are now threatening sales of personal computers in K-12 education in the USA. And the forthcoming launch of a new kiddie-tablet called Tabeo…
Replacing Google Maps with Apple Maps has not been without its hiccups.
Bert Kaufmann
Mapping and navigation is at the heart of how we use smartphones today. By extension, the Apple Maps app is at the heart of iOS 6. And so Apple’s decision to swap Google Maps for Apple Maps in its new…
Will Apple’s Passbook succeed where so many other digital wallet ventures have failed?
Image from www.shutterstock.com
You might not realise it, but there is a virtual queue of organisations snaking around you just waiting to make you more valuable than you actually are. Your spending patterns, loyalty program memberships…
The new iPhone is longer, thinner and lighter than previous versions.
EPA/Yonhap
As had long been predicted, Apple today (AEST) announced the launch of the iPhone 5. The famously secretive Apple had sprung many leaks over the past few months, despite claiming it would be doubling down…
Samsung is a major player in technologies that will deliver future telecommunications services.
Robert Schlesinger/EPA
In light of the much-publicised dispute over handset design patents between Apple and Samsung, many commentators have cast Samsung as the “fast-follower”, while Apple is pushing at the frontier of innovation…
Features patented by Apple were reproduced by Samsung, costing the latter US$1.5 billion.
EPA/Andreas Gebert
Last Friday, a US jury delivered its verdict in one US front of the ongoing patent war between Apple and Samsung. The bottom line? The jury ordered Samsung to pay Apple roughly US$1.5 billion for patent…
Should we learn to expect more from our personal robot assistants?
Warner Bros.
The idea of a personal robot assistant, able to effortlessly understand spoken (and unspoken) human intents and efficiently act on them while delivering a breezy quip, has been a staple of science fiction…
Google Drive has been launched in an already clouded marketplace.
kilokon.tw
In late April, Google announced, in a relatively low-key post on the official company blog, the existence of Google Drive.
The service, which has been the subject of rumours and enthusiastic chatter…
Fetishes come in many forms, and often in small packages.
MildlyDiverting
If you’re reading this, Apple thanks you. So does the Air Aroma scent marketing company and the Australian artist collective Greatest Hits.
They’re thanking you for the free advertising supplied by this…
Hackers with a commercial eye seem intent on destroying Apple’s reputation as a “malware-free” PC alternative.
Mike Poresky
By Philip Branch, Swinburne University of Technology
For a long time Mac users would look at all the malware (malicious software) that infects Windows PCs and think how fortunate they were that such attacks did not happen to MAcs.
But now, it would seem…
After success in Europe and the US, subscription-based music streaming service, Spotify is launching in Australia. Could it be a musical saviour?
Flickr/capsun
International music provider Spotify is preparing for its launch into the Australian market later this year.
As a subscription-based streaming service, the success of the Stockholm-based Spotify across…
Apple will pay a dividend to shareholders for the first time since 1995, as it considers how to spend its amassed warchest.
AAP
Apple today announced it would pay its first shareholder dividends in almost 20 years, marking a distinct break from the late Steve Jobs’ “no dividends” policy.
The world’s biggest corporation by market…
Some of Mike Daisey’s claims about what he saw at Foxconn were fabricated.
EPA/YM Yik
On Friday, internationally-popular US radio show This American Life retracted its “Mr Daisey and the Apple Factory” episode upon the discovery its narrator and author Mike Daisey had fabricated some of…
It’s got new cameras, a new screen and it generated plenty of old-fashioned launch hype.
Apple
Ever since the death of Steve Jobs, interested onlookers have been watching for the first missteps in Apple’s seemingly faultless journey to becoming the world’s most valued and valuable company.
Because…
You might not be getting enough shut-eye (and you may not even know it).
orangeacid
Sleep matters – and yet many of us know how difficult it can be to get enough unbroken slumber.
Research has shown that getting less than seven to eight hours' sleep daily is associated with increased…
Should legislation be used to tame the search engine’s appetite?
COG LOG LAB
We all know Google has a history of privacy-related misdemeanors but a report in the Wall Street Journal last week
suggests the search giant hasn’t learn from its mistakes.
The report, about the findings…
Apple has been the target of protests over working conditions in China.
AAP
Over the last few weeks, what was the juiciest development for those that cannot get enough of gossip about tech giant Apple? Was it “when will the iPad 3 debut and will it have a retina display?“ Or…
The days of bulky textbooks could soon be behind us.
Apple
Late last week, Apple announced the launch of a new piece of software, iBooks Author, and a new version of its eBook reader, iBooks 2. It’s a development that promises to accelerate the move to interactive…
Smartphones are changing the way we take (and share) photos.
Apple
According to the Wall Street Journal, camera manufacturer Kodak is preparing to file for Chapter 11 bankruptcy, following a long struggle to maintain any sort of viable business.
The announcement has…
What’s coming up? Where will we find it? What does it mean?
h.koppdelaney
Around this time of year you see plenty of articles (such as this one) reflecting on notable technologies and events of the year now gone. Such pieces will also attempt to predict the events of the year…
Siri’s become a useful assistant, but there are things she could do better.
Apple
In less than two months, Siri, Apple’s virtual assistant, has insinuated herself into western culture. This has been less because of Apple’s marketing and more due to the public’s general interest in the…
Left to right: Steve Jobs, John McCarthy and Dennis Ritchie.
AAP/Yonhap News Agency, pepihasenfuss, hyoga (composite image)
Last month saw the passing of three pioneers of the information age – an age we more or less take for granted now. These luminaries were John McCarthy, Dennis Ritchie and, of course, Steve Jobs.
Of the…
Steve Jobs' desire for an enduring memory of his work led him to engage a biographer. The book has become his obituary.
EPA/Britta Pedersen
Steve Jobs' “official” biography was always going to be a bestseller, with its promise of a candid examination of the inner workings of the world’s most successful salesman and the company he twice built…
Believe the hype … Siri will transform the way we use our phones.
Michael Nagle/Getty Images/AFP
The recent release of the Apple iPhone 4S was met with some disappointment because it wasn’t the iPhone 5.
Curiously, people seemed to be most disappointed that the shape of the phone hadn’t changed…
Steve Jobs discussed iOS5 in one of his final public appearances.
AFP/Kimihiro Hoshino
Apple has made a series of releases today, including an upgrade to its iPhone and iPad operating system iOS 5, the introduction of iCloud, its cloud storage service and, in the US, its new music matching…
Apple co-founder Steve Jobs, who died on Thursday, played a major role in romanticising middle-class occupations.
AAP
In a commencement address delivered at Stanford University in 2005, a speech that many are reading again this week, Steve Jobs told assembled graduates he was lucky to have found what he loved to do early…
Jobs’s influence on the “iGeneration” has been profound.
Kimiro Hoshino/AFP
More than one commentator has noted the poignant irony of learning today of the death of Steve Jobs on a product the founder and former CEO of Apple created.
Millions of people around the world, writing…
Apple’s “visionary and creative genius” has died at the age of 56.
Apple
Apple founder Steve Jobs, one of the technology industry’s most influential figures, has died after a battle with cancer, at 56.
In a brief statement, the company announced his death without giving a…
Stepping into the shoes of Steve Jobs was never going to be easy.
EPA
If Steve Jobs’ illness wasn’t so apparent, one could be forgiven for thinking he had deliberately left Apple when he did to avoid making the “Let’s Talk iPhone” announcements.
Instead, it was left to…
Grindr is an app that allows gay men to meet up for … fun and friendship.
flickr/nathaninsandiego
The second Stephen Fry mentioned Grindr on Top Gear of course its popularity surged. Not only did the app – designed to help homosexual blokes hook up with those geographically convenient – surge in popularity…
Patent acquisition is a delicate game of balance and counterbalance.
Rolf Vennenbernd/EPA
The patent wars took a bizarre turn this week.
Samsung, currently defending itself against a legal move by Apple to have four Samsung smartphones and tablets banned from America due to alleged patent…
Apple chief steve Jobs exits, but his grip on the company is likely to remain.
“God dammit, Gil,” shouted Bill Gates. “Why are you spending $400 million on this junk? Steve knows nothing about technology. He’s just a kind of super salesman. Virtually everything he thinks and says…
Newly annointed Apple chief Tim Cook with Steve Jobs: just how well will the succession pan out?
AAP
For the second time in its history, Steve Jobs will move away from running the company.
If history is any judge, this won’t go well for Apple. But there are lots of reasons to think why history will be…
It can be hard to know where the next bit of hypercharged rhetoric will come from.
fotoforlizzie
If you believe the hype, the “patent wars” are well and truly underway.
Google announced last week it will buy Motorola Mobility to get access to 15,000 of the handset manufacturer’s patents and HTC…
The proposed buyout of Motorola Mobile is Google’s largest acquisition.
Google surprised the entire tech industry last night by announcing it is acquiring Motorola Mobility, the maker of Droid smartphones and Xoom tablets, for US$12.5 billion in cash.
This move, the largest…
The battles currently being waged raise serious questions about patent law.
Yonhap/AAPIMAGE
The mobile patent wars, it seems, have reached Australian shores.
On Monday, representatives of Apple and Samsung were in the Australian Federal Court, fighting it out over Samsung’s Galaxy Tab tablet…
If you’re concerned about the data on your phone, there are a few things you can do.
Daniel Barry/EPA
The Apple iPhone feature of logging and storing users' location information has attracted worldwide attention.
But discussions about location privacy aside, a more basic question needs to be asked: how…
If you download shanties illegally, the iCloud may not float your boat.
sean cumiskey
Some people, including on this site, have suggested there’s a loophole in Apple’s new iCloud that will allow people who illegally download music to somehow “launder” their dirty music files, getting a…
Observers are making a song and dance about potential misuses of the iCloud.
Kimihiro Hoshino/AFP
Was Steve Jobs'announcement of the Apple iCloud yesterday music to your ears?
It certainly takes cloud computing a significant distance further along the path of integration.
All your devices – PC, iPad…
Steve Jobs is banking on cloud computing having a silver lining.
EPA/Monica M. Davey
Apple CEO Steve Jobs emerged briefly from medical leave to introduce iCloud at Apple’s World Wide Developer Conference (WWDC) in San Francisco yesterday (2am Australian EST).
So how was it?
In previous…
Knowing me, knowing you: there is nothing we can’t view.
tonechootero/Flickr
Advanced surveillance and social media might seem like strange bedfellows. Until you look a bit closer, that is.
Technologies developed for surveillance applications are typically designed with robustness…
Apple might not use location information for its own benefit, so why collect it?
AAP
Steve Jobs, Apple CEO, hit back at reports yesterday that the company’s iPhones track the movements of its 100 million users.
The charge was that Apple was storing a database of this information, to which…
