Facing Facebook opposition, Yandex presses pause on Wonder
Facebook’s decision to block Yandex’s app for being a ‘search engine’ – something Yandex disputes – is final, so the Russian outfit has pulled back for now. Read more »
Why is OpenStack adoption slower in Europe?
photo: David Meyer
We all know Europe’s a bit behind the curve on cloud, but that’s not the only reason the fast-growing IaaS platform is finding the going tougher there than elsewhere. Read more »
OpenNebula open-sources service management layer with enterprise in mind
photo: JULIADEBOER PHOTOGRAPHY
Partly to differentiate itself from the likes of OpenStack and Eucalyptus, and partly to boost enterprise adoption, OpenNebula is moving beyond its traditional business of infrastructure management. Read more »
With 1M contributors, OpenStreetMap claims most detailed maps in some countries
The crowdsourced mapping project has now chalked up more than a million contributors, although fewer than 20,000 are active on a monthly basis. Read more »
Want to run Windows through an HTML5 browser? Mikogo has you covered
The screen-sharing operation just released Mikogo Cloud Desktop, which lets businesses access full-fat Windows desktops on tablets, smartphones and other desktops. And yes, that can mean Windows 8 on an iPad. Read more »
The Samsung juggernaut widens its lead over Apple
The Korean manufacturer’s supremacy in the smartphone business is now entrenched, while the demand it’s seeing in other lines provides a timely reminder of a wider shift from the desktop to mobile. Read more »
Russia’s Yandex releases Wonder app in the US, but don’t call it a market entry
The Google rival is offering an experimental iPhone app that lets users verbally ask questions about their friends’ activities on Facebook and Foursquare, but it’s doing it in the U.S. as a data play only. Read more »
The race to harness graphene heats up, as UK opens new research center
Graphene is a strong candidate for silicon’s successor, but making it reliably is still problematic. To solve that, the University of Cambridge is opening a new center with backing from Nokia and others. Read more »
Is this the turnaround? What you need to know about Nokia’s results
photo: GigaOM
Nokia lost more than $3 billion last year, but there are signs that we’ve seen the worst. Here are the numbers and key points that came out of today’s results. Read more »
Why Opera’s lightweight Mini browser is more popular than ever
Six years after Norway’s Opera put out its compression-happy Mini browser for internet-capable phones, growth continues to accelerate. This should serve as a barometer for those designing services aimed at emerging markets. Read more »
Futureful’s smart content discovery app hits the iPad in the U.S.
The Janus Friis-backed serendipitous browsing tool is now available and, based on a pre-launch play-around, there really is something new and interesting in there. Read more »
Hosted continuous integration platform Wercker picks up $1M in seed funding
The company, which picked up top honors at our Structure: Europe Launchpad contest last year, has now also taken in seed funding from Shamrock Ventures and Greylock Partners. Read more »
Better late than never, as bidding begins in UK 4G spectrum auction
The much-delayed UK spectrum auction is underway. It remains to be seen how EE’s decision to cut its premium 4G pricing yesterday, just months after launching the service, affects the outcome. Read more »
Big in India, Swedish phone directory service Truecaller hits 10M user milestone
Do phone directories still have a place in the age of the smartphone? It appears they might do when you’re trying to combat phone spam. Read more »
Firefox OS dev phones appear, with Telefonica as the driving force
An obscure Spanish manufacturer has revealed two test devices for Mozilla’s mobile operating system. Telefonica, which is pushing hard on Firefox OS, will be showing them off at a Sao Paolo event later this month. Read more »
Applying search engine techniques to physics data, Yandex partners up with CERN
Russia’s answer to Google hopes to validate its core MatrixNet machine learning technology – until now best-known for improving Yandex’s search ranking – by handing it over to nuclear physicists at CERN. Read more »
Do you always need real devices to test Android apps in the cloud? TestObject thinks not
The German outfit, which has raised $1.47 million in funding, offers Android testing on virtualized devices. In some ways it’s a stopgap measure, but TestObject intends to keep it up as a low-cost testing option. Read more »
Google should be ashamed for paying carriers to handle its traffic
It turns out that Google, the great proponent of net neutrality, is paying Orange to handle its traffic on the carrier’s mobile networks. That’s an unwelcome development, and here’s why. Read more »
Why Nokia’s 3D-printing move embraces the future
Nokia has made one of its smartest moves in ages, by giving 3D-printing enthusiasts a ’3DK’ toolkit so they can make new shells for the manufacturer’s Lumia 820 smartphones. Read more »
Nokia cuts take out up to 1,120 IT jobs
Most of the affected Nokians are based in Finland, although the company is being vague about the precise proportion. The majority of the posts are being outsourced, but 300 jobs are being cut outright. Read more »
Orange wants to help make international HD voice calls more common
The carrier group, which has been a pioneer when it comes to high-definition voice in mobile communications, is offering other operators a wholesale service where Orange would handle the international routing of HD voice calls for both mobile and wireline. Read more »
Not RIM’s fault this time: Router error downs BlackBerry services for Vodafone EMEA users
photo: RIM
Vodafone has fessed up to responsibility for the outage, which affected an unspecified number of BlackBerry users across Europe, the Middle East and Africa on Friday. Read more »
SAP marries transaction processing with analytics by putting Business Suite on Hana
SAP’s customers, used to running its enterprise software on the likes of Oracle, now have an in-house in-memory alternative. It’s a bid for relevance on SAP’s part and, according to chairman Hasso Plattner, mobile is the big driver. Read more »
T-Systems talks up ‘cloud’, predicting $1.3B in revenues during 2015
What do telcos stand to gain from the cloud? Deutsche Telekom’s IT services wing is spelling it out, forecasting that a seventh of its revenues will come from cloud services in a couple years’ time. However, it’s worth examining what T-Systems actually means by ‘cloud’. Read more »
Nokia: Yes, we decrypt your HTTPS data, but don’t worry about it
The company has confirmed that the Xpress Browser used on its Asha and Lumia handsets does route HTTPS traffic via its servers, temporarily decrypting it as it does so. However, Nokia maintains that it wouldn’t access complete unencrypted information. Read more »
You’d better sit down for this: Nokia is actually doing reasonably well
The Finnish firm’s preliminary results for the fourth quarter of last year show a surprise return to profitability for its Devices & Services division, partly thanks to unexpectedly high Lumia sales. Read more »
Alcatel-Lucent’s Optism mobile ad platform finally gets location-savvy
Optism already offered carriers a handy way to get into the mobile advertising game, but the addition of network-derived location data through a tie-in with French firm Intersec makes the platform significantly smarter. Read more »
Tableau guns for European growth, claiming economic woes favor cheaper analytics
Tableau’s new European VP James Eiloart reckons that Europe’s current belt-tightening phase should provide ample opportunities for his company’s analytics products, in spite of established local rivals. Read more »
French government slaps down Free’s anti-Google ad-blocking
The French ISP has been told by French digital economy minister Fleur Pellerin to stop blocking online ads, because she is ‘very attached’ to the open internet. However, she also hinted that she may not be entirely in favor of net neutrality. Read more »
Context is king in mobile advertising, as InMobi snaps up Overlay Media
The takeover will not stop Overlay’s hush-hush work with handset manufacturers, which should see exciting new context-awareness features added to smartphones soon. Meanwhile, the choice of new CEO at rival Madvertise also highlights the important of tech innovation in the mobile advertising arms race. Read more »
Patent troll sues Apple, Google and everyone else, but BT denies involvement
A U.S. non-practising entity is using an old BT patent to attack Apple, Google, Motorola, HTC, Verizon, AT&T, T-Mobile and others. However, BT denies any connection with the suit, saying it sold away all rights around the broad patent. Read more »
Rocket brings in $13M for Stripe clone Paymill amid IPO rumors
The Berlin clone factory’s simple payments service, Paymill, has picked up €10 million from Holtzbrinck and Sunstone. With Rocket’s many operations pulling in tens of millions in investment each month, the flotation rumor comes as no surprise. Read more »
French ISP blocks online ads by default – just a beta feature glitch?
The latest firmware update for Free’s set-top box adds a beta ad-blocking feature, which turns on by default when the user resets the device. If this was deliberate, it’s an interesting development for an ISP already embroiled in a net neutrality investigation. Read more »
Austrian mobile operators consolidate, but a new player is on the horizon
The country’s smallest operator, 3, just grew significantly through the acquisition of number-three player Orange. However, regulatory approval was conditional on a new entrant taking hold later this year, and number-two player T-Mobile is also deeply unhappy about aspects of the takeover. Read more »
Where’s the money for telcos? Mobile broadband and cloud, says Ovum
photo: Sergey Mironov
The analyst house certainly doesn’t want to overinflate expectations for overall telecoms revenues – growth there will be tiny at best over the next few years – but it does have high hopes for certain specific areas. Read more »
Another blow for handset subsidies as UK regulator mulls price hike controls
Ofcom wants to make it possible for consumers to pull out of their mobile contracts without paying a penalty, if the carrier raises the agreed contract price. But, as operators have warned, this may mean drastically reducing upfront hardware subsidies. Read more »
Vodafone makes play for UK pre-pay market with Nearly New scheme
The Nearly New program offers barely-used smartphones at cut-rate prices. It’s available to contract users, but pre-pay customers are the main focus – post-Nexus 4, is this the new battleground? Read more »
Google’s legal and privacy chiefs have sentences overturned by Italian court
photo: Flickr / davekellam
David Drummond and Peter Fleischer, as well as former CFO George Reyes, had all been convicted over privacy offences relating to a bullying video. Their convictions have now been overturned on appeal. Read more »
Deutsche Telekom CEO Obermann to step down, CFO to take over
Given his recent remarks suggesting frustration at the strictures of working in a large telco, it is not surprising to see Obermann go. His successor has wide knowledge of the German giant, though, and is apparently keen to emulate Obermann’s entrepreneurial streak. Read more »
UK copyright reform affects fair use, format-shifting and big data
It will soon become legal in the UK to copy music from a CD to an iPod, show copyrighted texts on an interactive whiteboard and use copyrighted works in a parody. In other words, this reform was sorely needed. Read more »
