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Tag: windows

  • Apple introduces iCloud Drive

    Apple introduces iCloud Drive

    icloud-drive

    At the WWDC 2014 Apple has introduced iCloud Drive that will be available this fall with the newly announced iOS 8 and OS X 10.10 Yosemite.

    What does iCloud Drive bring to the table?

    There are a lot of features and benefits that comes with the drive, but one that is really dominant is the freedom. With iCloud Drive you can access, edit, and safely store your data across all your devices. You can also edit one of your documents and the changes reflect on all other devices, including iOS devices, Mac and Windows.

    iCloud Drive brings with it a next generation level of cooperation and collaboration between apps, enhancing the ability to work, edit, and access the same file across multiple apps and devices.

    How to Store

    The storage process of any file/document is as easy as promised. To upload, you just have to drag your item/s to your drive on your Mac, PC or any iOS powered device. You can also start a new document on any of the iCloud-enabled apps and they will be stored on your drive.

    With iCloud Drive, you can also open/start working on a document on one app and finish it on another. For instance, if you are creating a picture, you can start it on a sketching app and move it for painting on a paint app and so on.

  • Nokia to Launch Windows Phone 8 Smartphone

    Nokia used to be dominant in the smartphone market share, but the arrival of iPhone has dropped their sales significantly. The company seems to insist in releasing Windows Phone handsets and that is why they are about to release Windows Phone 8 smartphone.

    Nokia realized that Symbian cannot compete with iOS and Android, so they decided to cooperate with Microsoft and launch Windows Phone handsets. Lumia 900 was quite a success, selling 4 million units during the Q2. Many customers turned to Nokia one more time, finding an alternative to iPhone, at a much lower price. However, the upcoming release of Windows 8 and Windows Phone 8 from Microsoft has become a problem for Nokia. They decided to drop the price of Lumia 900 by 50$, but the fact that those who bought it were informed that they wouldn't be able to upgrade to Windows Phone 8, was rather disappointing. Hence, they seem to be preparing for the release of new smartphones, coming along with Windows Phone 8 and trying to save the game.

    Windows Phone 7, which became Windows Phone 7.5, has received good reviews and although it is still a new operating system, it has the potential to be competitive the next few years. Nokia believes that they can boost their sales with the support of Microsoft and they stick to Windows Phone handsets. During September we are expecting the announcement of the new smartphones and by the end of the year they will be available in the market.

    However, with the release of the highly anticipated new iPhone, is this a good time for a new smartphone? Actually, it might be. Not everyone can afford an iPhone and if Nokia can provide them with another good smartphone, why not buy it?

  • Rebtel Competes With Skype in the Windows Phone Market

    Rebtel is the largest VoIP service in the world after Skype, and has been working hard to close that gap in recent months. This week they took another large step towards further industry dominance, with the launch of a Rebtel app specifically for the Windows Phone. It will be free for all users when downloaded through the Windows Marketplace.

    Rebtel has a massive network of local phone numbers, available in upwards of fifty countries. Their app allows customers to make VoIP calls internationally at an incredibly affordable rate. Rebtel already had apps available for all iOS devices, as well as tablets and smartphones running Android technology, and the release of a dedicated Windows app now means nearly all American customers can take advantage of their cutting edge service.

    VoIP-List.com: extensive catalog of voip providers, available software and hardware resources.

    Andreas Cernstrom, Rebtel’s CEO, announced the new product offering in a press release. He feels they have the most comprehensive group of mobile computing VoIP apps in the world. According to their studies, international calls can be made for 98% off standard phone service, while working through customers wireless phone plans, and not by utilizing data plans. That’s a huge distinction, as customers on many networks have a huge amount of traditional minutes, but limited data plans that made heavy VoIP usage immensely expensive.

    The Rebtel app for Windows phone not only allows inexpensive calls to any phone in the world, regardless if the receiver is running a Rebtel app, but it integrates the phone’s address book as well. International text messaging is available, for roughly 60% off standard rates, and the quality of the calls is elevated by the reliance on cell phone minutes, not data connections. The company expects Windows phone to gather larger and larger shares of the market as Microsoft unveils their latest operating system, built with the mobile app market firmly in mind.

  • Skype Working Out Instant Messaging Bug

    Skype has long set the standard for both video conferencing and VoIP communications, as their products were one of the first to cross operating systems, and is now the VoIP option integrated with social networking giant Facebook. But many consumers have run into issues in recent weeks, as instant messages sent over Skype have been accidentally sent to the incorrect contact, creating a host of awkward situations. Luckily, Skype is moving quickly to address the problem, so their millions of customers can rest easy that things should soon go back to normal.

    Skype first became aware of the glitch on a user forum. The misdirected IM’s became an issue any time Skype crashed in the midst of an instant message session. The last IM sent would accidentally go to a different contact once the user logged back into his account. Although Skype was incredibly apologetic about the bug, they announced they didn’t feel it has affected a large number of users, and shouldn’t dissuade anyone from trusting their VoIP needs to the service.

    VoIP-List.com: extensive catalog of voip providers, available software and hardware resources.

    Not only is the situation rather unique, but it also only impacted particular iterations of Skype. The versions in question seem to be Skype 5.8 for Mac, Skype 4.0 for Linux, Skype 5.10 for Windows, and Skype 1.2 running on Windows mobile devices. Customers were asked to upgrade to the latest version, which should solve the issue. Skype also took the opportunity to fix the File Sending option on their desktop software, so that users with a FAT32 hard drive can now save files consistently.

    Skype has risen swiftly in the VoIP world, further buffered by their purchase by Microsoft last year. Skype will come built-in on Microsoft’s newest Windows release, Windows 8, and will integrate seamlessly with Microsoft Office 2013 when it heads to market next year.

  • No Windows Phone 8 Upgrade for Current Nokia Lumnia Phones

    One of the significant hits given yesterday by Microsoft refers to the lack of possibility to upgrade to the new OS – Windows Phone 8 – for the owners of Lumia smartphones, even for the owners of high-end models such as Nokia Lumia 900.

    Although Windows Phone 7.8 will be a significant sample of the functionality of WP8, the guys at The Verge consulted Kevin Shields from Nokia to hear an official opinion regarding the company’s trust or distrust in the Lumia.

    "I definitely think it's more than enough. I think that ultimately your typical customer probably isn't all that aware of this upgrade thing," said Shields. When asked about the upgrade prospects for Lumia 900, the same Kevin Shields said that he definitely thinks that with “products like the Lumia 900, where a consumer walks in and buys that product they're getting great value and they're getting a great offering that's going to have a long lifetime of innovation”.

    Although there will exist new applications that would take advantage of the functions implemented exclusively in WP8, Nokia representative was keen to ensure that users will constantly get new features through updates and applications made in house by the company. Applications like Camera Extras, which will reach on all the Lumia terminals until the end of July, represent a clear proof of these statements. Camera Extras will allow users to capture intelligent panoramic and group pictures.

    As a subjective note, we think that Nokia undermines users’ intelligence with such statements and, although Lumia 900 is a sensational terminal, in the world we live increasingly more people think about the future and put in balance the free upgrade options and the extended support. Since these elements are missing from all Lumia terminals on the market, we believe that Nokia has received a new hit in this period.

  • Almost Half of the U.S. Adults Have a Smartphone

    Smartphones are now more popular than conventional mobile phones among the U.S. adults, according to a study released on Thursday, confirming a trend of aggressive spread of these “pocket minicomputers”. 

    According to the study conducted by Pew Research Center University, nearly half ( 46%) Americans of at least 18 years old had a multifunction phone in February, compared with 41% who owned a normal mobile phone and 12% who never used one of the two.

    A study conducted in May last year concluded that only 35% of American adults had a smartphone, compared with 48% who used a traditional phone.

    Devices running the operating system developed by Google, Android, are the most numerous, being in the hands of 20% of the owners of this type of device, from 15% in May 2011. Apple’s iPhone is ranked second with 19% of users compared to 10% in May, clearly outpacing Blackberry produced by Research in Motion, which is in a deep fall (10% in May 2011 to 6% in February this year). Only 2% of the rest have a phone running the Windows Phone operating system, developed by Microsoft, a report unchanged compared to May 2011.

    The survey conducted by Pew Research Center showed that all demographic categories, men and women, young and middle-aged or third-aged, urban and rural, wealthy and less wealthy, they all participated at the smartphone phenomenon.

    The study was conducted between January 20 and February 19 on a sample of 2253 adults and has an error margin of plus or minus 2.7 points.

  • iPhone Is Shattered In China: Apple Fails To Win The Chinese Market

    Apple’s strategy of aligning the iPhone to a single mobile operator seems to have failed in China, where Samsung has achieved impressive market share. According to Bloomberg, iPhone has a 7.5% share of smartphones sales in China, while Samsung has 24.3% market share.

    This percentage makes Apple the fifth smartphone seller in the country, while Samsung ranks first. Samsung has sold phones through the three largest mobile operators even since 2009: China Unicom (about 200 million subscribers), China Telecom (129 million subscribers) and China Mobile (655 million subscribers).

    Apple, on the other hand, has sold exclusively through China Unicom, but two weeks ago began to sell its iPhone through China Telecom as well, which should increase the company’s market share. But China Telecom, although huge considering the Western standards, is the smallest of the three Chinese mobile operators.

    The “Father” of mobile communications in China, China Mobile, expects to start selling Apple’s iPhone only after the Cupertino company will release the LTE version, expected by the Chinese company later this year. About 15 million “decoded” iPhones are already in use in China Mobile’s network, without the operator to sell one.

    The reason why the market share is so important is that the smartphones have become a marketing platform, on which developers are building applications running on different operating systems. As for Windows, if a platform reaches a dominant market share, developers tend to “gravitate” around it. Thus, a risk for Apple in China (and worldwide as well) is that Android could become the dominant platform for application development.

    The operating system developed by Google, which supports the smartphones produced by Samsung, is the market leader in China with a share of almost 50%, even though Apple has regained an important part in the previous quarter thanks to the sales of iPhone 4S.

    It is likely that Apple’s sales through China Telecom to help reduce the difference between the Cupertino company and Samsung in China, but until will sell the smartphone through China Mobile, Samsung will remain the leading smartphone manufacturer in China.

  • Windows Phone 8, Detailed in a Massive Leak

    Pocketnow.com managed to take a look at a video presentation of the future Windows Phone 8, in which Joe Belfiore, Windows Phone Senior Vice President at Microsoft, speaks to Nokia partners and from which results major changes that will affect the platform in the fall.

    Along with the leak from pocketnow.com, Paul Thurott hurried up to partially confirm the information he had in a blog post (probably under NDA).

    Basically, Windows Phone 8 – which will be called Apollo as it has been speculated for a long time – will be an important step from the current Windows Phone 7.5 from, actually, all points of view.

    DataSmart: Optimizing Data Connection
    Those who own a Windows Phone definitely know that the management module for data connection is not very intelligent and that sometimes the user has to insist until the phone connects/reconnects to a Wi-Fi. This is why in Windows Phone 8 will appear an option called DataSmart that will make order on how data connections are used. First of all it will focus on optimizing and prioritizing connections via Wi-Fi when available instead of 3G. In the Local Scout channel in Bing Maps will be provided detailed information about hotspots.

    Even more interesting is that Internet Explorer 10 will be able to use a proxy server feature through which data will come optimized, similar to the current option in Opera mobile.

    Support for the Business Section
    It was expected that at some point the BitLocker feature will reach the mobile platform too. It seems that Windows Phone 8 will have that and it will use the same 128-bit encryption technology seen on the PC version.

    Detailed information is very important and shows an interesting direction towards which Microsoft wants to go with Windows Phone, but what is not said yet is: Would the current Windows Phone devices have any chance to upgrade to Windows Phone 8 in the upcoming fall?

  • Microsoft to Acquire Skype for $8.5 Billion

    Microsoft and Skype have just announced that they have entered into a definitive agreement under which Microsoft will acquire Skype for $8.5 billion in cash from the investor group led by Silver Lake.

    With 170 million connected users and over 207 billion minutes of voice and video conversations in 2010, Skype has been a pioneer in creating connections among friends, families and business colleagues globally. Microsoft has a long-standing focus and investment in real-time communications across its various platforms, including Lync (which saw 30 percent revenue growth in Q3), Outlook, Messenger, Hotmail and Xbox LIVE.

    The companies informed that Skype will support Microsoft devices like Xbox and Kinect, Windows Phone and a wide array of Windows devices, and Microsoft will connect Skype users with Lync, Outlook, Xbox Live and other communities. Microsoft will continue to invest in and support Skype clients on non-Microsoft platforms.

    "Skype is a phenomenal service that is loved by millions of people around the world," said Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer. "Together we will create the future of real-time communications so people can easily stay connected to family, friends, clients and colleagues anywhere in the world."

    Skype will become a new business division within Microsoft, and Skype CEO Tony Bates will assume the title of president of the Microsoft Skype Division, reporting directly to Ballmer.

    "Microsoft and Skype share the vision of bringing software innovation and products to our customers," said Tony Bates. "Together, we will be able to accelerate Skype’s plans to extend our global community and introduce new ways for everyone to communicate and collaborate," Bates said.

    According to the companies, the acquisition will increase the accessibility of real-time video and voice communications, bringing benefits to both consumers and enterprise users and "generating significant new business and revenue opportunities." The combination will extend Skype’s world-class brand and the reach of its networked platform, while enhancing Microsoft’s existing portfolio of real-time communications products and services.

    "Tony Bates has a great track record as a leader and will strengthen the Microsoft management team. I’m looking forward to Skype’s talented global workforce bringing its insights, ideas and experience to Microsoft," Ballmer said.

    Founded in 2003, Skype was acquired by eBay in September 2005, and then acquired by an investment group led by Silver Lake in November 2009. Skype has made impressive progress over the past 18 months under Silver Lake’s leadership, increasing monthly calling minutes by 150 percent, developing new revenue streams and strategic partnerships, acquiring the intellectual property powering its peer-to-peer network, and recruiting an outstanding senior management team.

    Other members of the selling investor group led by Silver Lake include eBay International AG, CPP Investment Board, Joltid Limited in partnership with Europlay Capital Advisors; and Andreessen Horowitz.

  • Boxee Extends to all Windows Users, Adds Apps


    Boxee is extending its media center access to Windows and will shortly change its "alpha" status to "beta".

    The open source media site has also announced four major new app partnerships that will be available to everyone downloading its software.

    While Boxee has been available for Linux computers and Macs, it was only possible to get it for Windows as an invite-only alpha.

    Despite this it has gained enthusiastic following for its support of almost any major file type and Internet apps.

    Boxee has promised to keep the three platforms in sync as the service undergoes updates and upgrades.

    With around 120 apps in the Boxee App Box, users can now chose from the likes of MLB.tv, Current, Digg, and Tumblr.

    Among the new partnerships announced at its App Developer Challenge in San Francisco, the Major League Baseball one is the most interesting.

    The MLB arrangement marks Boxee’s first live streaming deal. MLB.tv Premium subs can now stream games through Boxee’s system in full HD from anywhere in the country on their TV.