@CNN — GigaOM

@CNN

If you wanted to play Minecraft and ran into this instead, you'd be very disappointed and out $1.

Browsing recent App Store releases, I came across Minecraft – Pocket Edition, with a version 1.0 update. Thinking it might be a major update to Mojang’s smash hit, I clicked through — only to find a completely different app trying to lure customers who aren’t paying… Read More »

MasterCard is rolling out the first trial of its QkR mobile application, which allows people to interact and initiate payments via QR codes, NFC tags and other technologies. It is allowing Australian movie goers to order and pay for food from their seat. Read More »

 
 

The continued decline of DSL

Don't expect to ditch that copper yet.

From 1990s through 2011, DSL, a broadband technology, had a strong run at large phone companies in America. Now it is falling behind cable broadband and fiber. The latest data from Verizon, AT&T and Time Warner Cable points to its declining fortunes. Read More »

Some good news and bad news for the beleaguered battery maker Ener1. On Thursday, the company announced it’s filing for Chapter 11 in New York, but has done so under a pre-arranged restructuring plan that includes commitments for up to $81 million from investors. Read More »

Nokia’s smartphone sales were down 31 percent in the final quarter of 2011 as the company’s switch to Microsoft’s Windows Phone continues. But one million Lumia’s sold to date is a good start, and Nokia is delivering on its transition plans, which gives it a chance. Read More »

Davos does data

Big data has gotten very, very big if the elite talking heads at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, are talking about it. And they are talking about it. Sessions include “Decoding the data deluge” and “Personal data: the ‘new oil’ of the 21st century.” Read More »

Is the rise in independent work contributing to the rise in inequality? We asked this question last week. One expert who responded feels he has an answer, based on his firm’s research on the question and a reminder that correlation does not equal causation. Read More »

Airbnb has topped 4 million total bookings over the past year, showing huge growth for a startup that’s just about five years old. it also shows the idea of apartment sharing and collaborative consumption in general is catching on, as the company expands internationally. Read More »

AT&T posted its fourth quarter results for 2011 on Thursday, highlighting smartphone sales in particular, which reached a record high of 9.4 million devices, beating the standing record by 50 percent. Apple should be pleased: Of those smartphones, 7.6 million were iPhones. Read More »

The AT&T-Mo saga wasted countless dollars and resources, dominating the attention of regulators and the wireless industry for a year, but AT&T’s failure more than made up for those losses. We now have more fearsome regulation and a greater awareness of the mobile market’s precarious competitive… Read More »

Music subscription service Rhapsody is going to Europe, but not under its own name. The company will use the Napster brand in the U.K. and Germany to compete with Spotify. The company announced the acquisition of Napster’s foreign assets three months after it bought Napster USA. Read More »

Netflix now has close to twice as many streaming subscribers than DVD subscribers, according to its most recent financial statement. And with DVDs declining rapidly, the company has to look elsewhere to finance any further international expansion. Plans to go abroad are completely nixed for 2012. Read More »

More Must Reads

iTunes may be great for syncing your iOS devices, or buying songs, movies, apps and books, but it’s not exactly the most nimble music player anymore. Here are five great Mac-compatible alternatives that focus on the music, without the bloat that iTunes brings. Read More »

Here in the U.S., we’re lagging behind nations where HD Voice has been implemented. Thanks to Bria for Android, and its support for wideband audio codecs, I’m now starting to get a taste of this higher voice quality and recorded a demo for you to hear. Read More »

According to Facebook, reporters have been especially receptive to the Subscribe button feature launched in Sept. 2011. The number of journalists who have enabled the subscribe button is now in the thousands, and the average journalist has seen a 320-percent boost in subscribers since November. Read More »

Video of President Obama’s State of the Union speech has already been translated into seven languages, and additional translation efforts are underway online. The multi-lingual captioning efforts are the result of an election year partnership between PBS Newshour, Universal Subtitles and Mozilla. Read More »

In what is probably not a shocker, new research shows more companies are turning to SaaS-based business intelligence over traditional on-premises BI. About a third of IT managers surveyed said they plan to use at least some SaaS-based BI in the next year. Read More »

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