Companies spent roughly $1.6 billion buying networking startups in 2012 with one deal being responsible for the lion’s share of that total. Yet, even if VMware hadn’t purchased Nicira for $1.26 billion, networking deals and software-defined networking deals in particular, were red hot in 2012. Read more »
It looks like AT&T’s Galaxy Note 2 will be the last to get the unique multi-window feature in the U.S. Sprint and Verizon devices already have it and T-Mobile announced that its version will see it become available starting this week, if all goes to plan. Read more »
It was clear last week it was going to be popular as it quickly shot to the top of the App Store’s download charts. But the release of the exact number helps illuminate the demand for Google’s app after Apple dropped it from iOS 6. Read more »
In the latest case of researchers using the cloud for good, Google is highlighting the six projects to which it awarded grants via its Exacycle for Visiting Faculty program. Ranging from genomic research to astronomy, the researchers received 100 million computing hours apiece. Read more »
Looks like Google is resurrecting supporting energy innovation out of its philanthropic arm Google.org. The search engine giant has hired on the former director of the Department of Energy’s ARPA-E program, which puts small grants into early stage energy breakthroughs. Read more »
In 2013 cleantech investing will move toward companies serving unsubsidized markets where software plays a role in reducing power consumption. In many ways this is a return to plays for energy efficiency, and there’s still money to be made from business models built around saving energy. Read more at GigaOM Pro »
Amazon’s Kindle Fire makes for a great tablet, so long as you don’t mind the custom user interface and lack of supported Google services. A new custom software installation turns the Kindle Fire into a fully functional Android 4.2.1 tablet and it looks great. Read more »
HTC is scrapping plans for a Windows Phone with large display due to the limited platform resolution. That could be a mistake as it’s difficult for Windows Phone handset makers to stand out from the crowd and a large screen paired with Beats Audio could appeal. Read more »
Gmail went down for 18 minutes during prime email checking hours on the West Coast thanks to a routine software update conducted Monday morning. But in an era of continuous code deployment Google’s mid morning update isn’t unusual — it’s the future. Read more »
After six months of full-time Chromebook usage, I’m hooked. But working in a browser alone would be difficult if not for some key web extensions. Here are a half-dozen that I use daily and the reasons why they make life for Chromebook users easier. Read more »
Next year, “the cloud” will finally be ready for enterprise workloads and big companies will finally start moving them there. Data centers will stop being enclosed by walls and those are just two of GigaOM’s 5 big cloud predictions. Read on for more. Read more »
Yahoo has added Max Levchin, a Silicon Valley star, to its board of directors giving it a much-needed entrepreneurial and engineering-savvy board member. The web portal will also see two of its existing directors leave, shrinking the board to 11 members. Read more »
Verizon’s flagship Android phone, the Galaxy S III, will be getting a software upgrade starting later this week. It’s Android 4.1, not 4.2, but will add a number of key features to the handset including Google Now, ISIS mobile payment support and improved notifications. Read more »
Google and Belgian news publishers announced a deal that will put an end to their copyright dispute. Google says it is not paying the papers for content — so then why is money changing hands? Read more at paidContent »
Exactly how many iPhone users downloaded the app isn’t clear — neither Google nor Apple has released any such statistics just yet. But zooming to the top of the free charts, bypassing mega-hits like YouTube, Angry Birds Star Wars and Snapchat, indicate a large volume of downloads. Read more »
Did you really mean to click that mobile web banner? Google is introducing a two-stage process to root out accidental clicks. Advertisers will have to brave a click-through dip for a quality hike. Read more »
As our compute infrastructure becomes more distributed it’s much harder to keep everything synced. But with users demanding immediate access to their files, photos and whatnot all around the world, solutions like Google’s Spanner DB and Twitters photo blobstore are a solution. Read more »
Acer just joined the Chromebook market a month ago, but already has a follow up model that addresses some shortcomings. A new $299 Chromebook doubles RAM and battery life but strangely ups the hard drive storage to 500 GB as well. Does a Chromebook need that? Read more »
First smartphones overtook traditional computer sales and now tablets are on track to outsell laptops, according to IDC, which predicts more tablets will be sold than laptops by 2015. Computer makers should be looking to where the growth is as tablets replace laptops for many. Read more »
You want to star on your Xbox 360? A new app makes it easy to view your personal photos and videos on the big screen and to manipulate them with Kinect or voice controls. Read more »
Opportunities for big data and data-analytics firms in health care are likely to expand dramatically in the coming years. Driving this are trends such as the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, the use of data to address inefficient processes, and the rapid growth of mobile health. Read more at GigaOM Pro »
Google’s Gmail service is down and up and down again, but why does that mean Chrome is getting crashy as well? Google, we really, really want to know! Read more »
Microsoft to customers; Buy some storage and get a $138K StorSimple appliance for free! This is just the latest proof point showing that big cloud purveyors see storage as the gateway to broader cloud service sales. Read more »
Employees are driving business apps selection in many small and medium businesses, according to new research. A good percentage of productivity, social and collaborative apps now sanctioned by IT in SMBs were brought in by workers without IT knowledge. Read more »
That the two would partner on a deal is somewhat surprising, given they are direct competitors in the mobile world. But, as Google’s chairman said this week, businesses who have disputes also need to “trade with each other” and not just “send bombs at each other.” Read more »
Snapseed, the hottest photo editing iOS app, arrived on Android this week; the free download is a must-try. Galaxy S III owners are about to get the ability to run two apps on one screen while the Samsung Muse MP3 player has a unique feature. Read more »
Most MP3 players share a common denominator: Unless they have a Wi-Fi radio, you have to connect them to a computer to get your music on them. Not so with the Samsung Muse a $50 pebble-shaped device that syncs music from a smartphone. Read more »
Updated: Google reportedly earned $1 billion from Google Apps for Business last year. While that pales in comparison to Microsoft Office numbers, it’s still not chump change. Read more »
Samsung’s best selling Galaxy S III is about to get even better based on what the Premium Suite software suite will bring. The multi-window feature I like on my Galaxy Note 2 is in there as are several other useful functions as shown in this video. Read more »
Storage price slashing continues as Microsoft meets cuts Google and Amazon traded last week. There’s method in this madness — lots of businesses have yet to test the cloud, and cheap storage is a way to attract those newbies. And once they’re hooked, watch out! Read more »
Now that Amazon has its own devices in the Kindle Fire lineup, downloads from the Appstore are on the rise: up 500% in the past year. It doesn’t hurt that Amazon has added a number of developer-friendly features over the past 20 months, either. Read more »
The mobile-messaging value chain is changing as OTT players upend mobile operators’ SMS business. There will be 27.7 trillion messages by 2016, and most of the growth in traffic will come from IP-based services. Successful carriers will use this new technology to extend reliability and scalability. Read more at GigaOM Pro »
Apple’s iPad app of the year in 2011 lands on Android in 2012 and if you take pictures with your Android smartphone or tablet, you’re going to want it. Snapseed uses a slick touch interface for photo edits and also integrates with Google+ for picture sharing. Read more »
The larger a smartphone screen is, the harder it becomes to use one-handed. Keyboard application Tyype for Android helps solve this problem because it adds a useful trackpad to the on-screen keyboard. However, it still needs to add more features for me to switch. Read more »
Plexxi has made a new networking box that it calls a switch, but is radically different from the switches on the market today. The switch contains software plus an optical transceiver that link to other Plexxi boxes to form a fast connection between thousands of servers. Read more »
Other improvements to the app include sending and receiving attachments within the app, the ability to archive, label, star, delete and report spam, read email as threaded conversations, see profile pictures in those conversations, and respond to Google Calendar invites and Google+ posts. Read more »
It was a frenetic week for cloud with Google touching off a storage price war on Monday. Amazon responded Wednesday and Google hit back on Thursday. Amazon Web Services announced a data warehouse and data pipeline service at its inaugural AWS: Reinvent show. Read more »
The “always new computer” is new yet again: Google is releasing Chrome OS updates for all Chromebooks and users should see the software hit in the next few days. User interface improvements are in there and some key apps are enabled for offline use by default. Read more »
The photo and video app market is a sizable one undergoing rapid changes right now. With low barriers to entry, this is a market that also consists of a large number of developers and is certainly not limited to a handful of well-financed startups. Read more at GigaOM Pro »
Just when you thought the cloud storage wars couldn’t get any hotter, they do. Google on Thursday launched its second price cut in a week, a day after Amazon Web Services lopped S3 prices by 25 percent. Microsoft are you out there? Read more »
