Facebook Places ‘boring' says Foursquare chief
Talking to The Telegraph, Crowley, said he had now had time to play around with Facebook’s new location tool, which directly rivals his own product by allowing people to share their location with their network, through checking into bars, clubs and restaurants on their mobile phone. He said: “I have now had a chance to play around with Facebook Places and it’s not that great or interesting. It’s a pretty boring service, with barely any incentives for users to keep coming back and telling their friends where they are.
AMD poaches Intel egg head
Chip contender Advanced Micro Devices (AMD) said it has employed Intel old timer Donald Newell as a chief technology officer in charge with its server division. Newell spent 16 years working for the chip giant and found himself in charge of the prestigious Intel Labs. He stores a lot of information in his egg head, we expect, of Intel's future plans but will no doubt put that knowledge completely out of his head now he works for the "competitor".
Oracle names self virtualization king
If Oracle and Sun Microsystems have anything in common - and as the poster children for Silicon Valley's IT upstarts, they have much in common - it is that they are not afraid to say they have the best technology and no one can touch them. That, in a nutshell, was what Oracle's top techies spent hours trying to convince the world in a webcast presentation going over the myriad server and desktop virtualization products that come from the merged Oracle and Sun.
Google network lord questions cloud economics
Vijay Gill — one of the brains that oversees Google's epic internal network — has questioned the economics of so-called cloud computing. Or least, the sort of cloud computing practiced by Amazon.com, whose EC2 service offers up instant access to compute power via the interwebs. If your infrastructure is in use around the clock, rather than just here and there, he argues, it may be cheaper to own and operate your own gear.
Mobile Tickets to Drive M-commerce Revenues, says Juniper
The study offers segment-level assessments of each sector, and pinpoints the key market drivers and constraints, sizing all seven mobile commerce market segments through global five-year forecasts of gross transaction values. The report forecasts that rapidly-increasing usage of mobile devices for tickets for all kinds of travel and entertainment, plus sports events, will be one of the main factors driving the growth of mobile commerce. Mobile ticketing transactions are forecast to exceed $100bn (£64bn), based on gross transaction value, as soon as 2012. This is more than double the market in 2010.
Demon Internet launches a prioritised gaming service
UK Internet service provider (ISP) Demon Internet has announced a service targeting gamers. The firm, which was best known for its 'tenner a month' dialup access in the 1990s, said that its Demon Game Pro package will offer gamers "traffic prioritisation" to help lower ping times. The service is being priced at £22 per month for a 12-month contract or £24 per month on a 3-month contract though the price will increase if purchased after October. Both contracts have a £30 setup charge.
Audiogalaxy reborn as mobile music streamer
Some of you might remember Audiogalaxy, an exceptionally effective peer-to-peer music service that I once described as one of the 10 websites that changed my life, and that Wired.co.uk editor Nate Lanxon once called "important not to forget". It got shut down in 2002, but any digital music fan worth their salt laments its loss. Well, it's back. Sort of. It's been rebooted as a service that lets you stream DRM-free music from your home computer to just about any device you can think of, as long as it's got a browser window. There are also iPhone and Android apps, for owners of either type of smartphone.
BBC Dimensions puts important events on your house
The BBC has put together a website called BBC Dimensions which allows you to get an idea of the scale of various different historic places, events and things by mapping them over a postcode. For example, you can see how the 2010 Pakistan floods compare to the size of the UK (hint: they're bigger), how the Burning Man festival would look if it were held in central London, or the flight range of a German fighter jet. All come with a default positioning, or you can input a UK postcode to see how it compares to a specific area of the country.
Nokia picks up analytics firm
Finnish handset giant Nokia said Friday that it has acquired US-based mobile analytics firm Motally for an undisclosed sum. The firm has a platform for in-application tracking and reporting, designed to enable developers and publishers to optimize the development of their mobile applications through increased understanding of how users engage. Motally is a privately held firm founded in 2008 in San Francisco and currently employs a team of eight people. Nokia’s interest lies in the firm’s patent-pending technology for accurate data collection and analytic reporting for mobile sites.
ZTE net up 12% on US, EU sales
ZTE's profit grew 12% in the first half, despite declining revenue in Asia due to India's restrictions on foreign telecom gear. The state-owned vendor reported net income of $129.1 million (€100 million) on the back of 10.9% revenue growth, almost all due to higher demand in Europe and the US - in particular for its handsets. Sales in Asia excluding China fell 19% to $770 million, due to India's informal ban on Chinese telecom equipment, which was only lifted in June.
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