28625177
submission
gbjbaanb writes:
Online shopping giant Amazon has been accused of artificially inflating prices by banning firms that trade on its website from selling goods more cheaply elsewhere on the internet.
Amazon has ordered them to ‘maintain parity between the terms on which you offer or sell each item through Amazon’ and the amount they charge for the same product on other sites.
28518559
submission
gbjbaanb writes:
no, don't worry Windows Phone hasn't taken over the world... this is the S40 "burning platform" success story.
What surprised me:
To make S40 phones attractive to them, the software — and the hardware it runs on — now supports a wide range of apps, from the wildly popular Angry Birds game to instant messaging and apps to connect with social networks. Ms McDowell says that "a lot of work is being done to get such marquee apps" on to the S40 platform, to boost its attractiveness.
So why run a smartphone when a 'dumb' phone can do everything you want, including 3.7 million app downloads per day.
Last year, this low-margin business contributed about half of Nokia's profits.
28073802
submission
gbjbaanb writes:
Spanish banking giant BBVA is switching its 110,000 staff to use Google's range of enterprise software.
The bank told the BBC it would use Google's tools only for internal communication, but the deal can be seen as a breakthrough in corporate adoption.
The customer and bank data will still be held on internal systems, but all communication will be via Google services, mainly driven by a need to serve the bank's increasingly mobile workers.
27226546
submission
gbjbaanb writes:
TechRadar has gathered a few users and subjected the 3 main Linux desktops to some usability testing for both experienced users and some new to the whole concept.
21848332
submission
gbjbaanb writes:
Early this month, Microsoft dropped something of a bombshell on Windows developers: the new Windows 8 touch-friendly immersive style would use a developer platform not based on .NET. Cue howls of outrage from .NET developers everywhere, but here Ars Technica descibes what's more likely to have been going on and why Microsoft is finally getting its act together for developers.
21222846
submission
gbjbaanb writes:
A startup called BlueStacks has developed an Android runtime environment for the Windows operating system.
BlueStacks has overcome the performance barrier by building a native x86 Android runtime that doesn't have to rely on emulation. The company says that Android applications running on its stack will be highly responsive on Windows and won't suffer from the kind of lag that developers are accustomed to experiencing when using Google's emulator.
No product is availablefor download to the great unwashed, but partner Citrix showed a demo of the system at Citrix Synergy conference. An alpha of the runtime will be available for download in July.
21171078
submission
gbjbaanb writes:
A revolutionary UK spaceplane concept has been boosted by the conclusions of an important technical review.
Skylon is a design for a workign spaceplane that uses revolutionalry engines that work as normal jets near the ground and switch to rocket propulsion in the upper atmosphere. The concept means the plane will not have to carry as much fuel and so will not need disposable stages.
Its estimated the cost of delivering payloads to orbit will drop from $15000 per kilo to $1000 making this the best prospect for commercialisation of orbit.
16493512
submission
gbjbaanb writes:
The BBC is reporting news of project Webinos, an initiative to provide a common platform for web applications that would sidestep current operating systems and allow devs to create web-based apps that would run anywhere — PCs, TVs, cars, mobiles.
The project aims to sidestep operating systems and proprietary app stores by providing a web-based approach.
The idea would enable a given app to work, for example, on a web-ready television, in a car and on a mobile, no matter the makers of the devices... Companies can afford to have an app on two or at most three platforms — they're extremely costly to develop and ensure the user experience..
Makes sense for all, except companies that thrive on having their own, proprietary systems to 'differentiate' themselves from the other proprietary systems.
15387274
submission
gbjbaanb writes:
In a rare turn of events, a Belgian ISP has released figure for its "super users" by bandwidth usage not to demonise them, but to show how good their network and plans are! 1 User downloaded more than 2TB, 7 others hit the 1TB mark.
Its only a matter of time before there's a competition for who can clog this network up with the most traffic :)
8912918
submission
gbjbaanb writes:
The BBC has been granted provisional approval to introduce copy protection for Freeview HD after they resubmitted an amended plan.
Quote:
"In view of the fuller submission provided by the BBC, Ofcom is currently minded to approve its request for a multiplex licence amendment subject to consultation responses, on the basis that in principle, content management is a justified objective which ensures that the broadest range of HD content is made available to citizens and consumers," said Ofcom's statement.
However, its not too late yet — you can submit your comment and tell them you'd like to be able to record broadcast HD TV.
I'm sure the 'content providers' will continue to sell content to the BBC, ITV etc if this is not implemented. They'll still take our licence fee money (or advertising) and sell us the content, but refuse to let us record or copy it, hoping we'll go out and buy the DVD/BluRays as well.
8487062
submission
gbjbaanb writes:
I love stories about new smartphones, it shows the IT market is doing something different than the usual same-old desktop apps, maybe one day we'll all be using super smartphones as our primary computing platforms.
And so, here's Intel's offering: the LG GW990. Running a Moorestown CPU, which gives 'considerably' better energy efficiency than the Atom, it runs Intel's Linux distro — Moblin.
"In some respects, the GW990 — "which has an impressive high-resolution 4.8-inch touchscreen display — "seems more like a MID than a smartphone. It's possible that we won't see x86 phones with truly competitive all-day battery life until the emergence of Medfield, the Moorestown successor that is said to be coming in 2011. It is clear, however, that Intel aims to eventually compete squarely with ARM in the high-end smartphone market."
5079305
submission
gbjbaanb writes:
1. Ogg Theora
2. H.264
3. Quicktime
4. Flash
5. MPEG4
6. NealMedia(tm)
3235685
submission
gbjbaanb writes:
The BBC are reporting that new 'blokes' channel Dave has arranged to make 2 final episodes of the cult classic comedy Red Dwarf, only 21 years after the original launch.
The show has been resurrected by digital channel Dave for a two-part Easter weekend special, which sees the cast finally return to Earth.
Written and directed by Red Dwarf co-creator Doug Naylor, the new show reunites the line-up.
The new two-part series Red Dwarf: Back to Earth will be followed by a "no holds barred" episode without sets, special effects or autocue.
2886439
submission
gbjbaanb writes:
The BBC is reporting on a survey (pdf) by marketing information group TNS which asked 27,522 people aged between 18 and 55 from 16 countries to answer questions about their web use and compared respondents' faith in traditional versus online media.
The survey found that the Chinese spend the largest fraction of their leisure time online, however, UK housewives spend even more than China's average, students and the unemployed at 47%. (students spend 39%, the unemployed 32%)
So, just be careful next time you're thinking of posting that illiterate and rude response to someone on slashdot!
1144839
submission
gbjbaanb writes:
The BBC's readership does hate it when you get you're grammar incorrectly, just as much as the average /. nerd. :)
So, they asked around for grammar rules that readers thought were confusing or flouted and received a long list.
Here's the best top 20, I'm sure we can do better!
