The year 2013 may bring real disruption to the mobile industry. Upstart carriers are embracing noncellular technologies to provide cut-rate services, third-party developers are gaining traction with cheap (or free) alternatives to SMS, and a major U.S. operator is preparing to drop handset subsidies. Read more at GigaOM Pro »
A WSJ report indicates Apple, Google and Microsoft are having acquisition talks with a small home automation company. The talks may not go anywhere. But that this company is interesting to these major players shows how crucial the battle for the living room is becoming. Read more »
Path is adding its own version of search to your Path moments and check-ins on Thursday, implementing a search bar that lets you look through your posts for memories with a particular friend or restaurants that are popular nearby. Read more »
Android users of Flipboard have a tablet-optimized version of the popular newsreader now. Instead of a scaled-up version of the popular news reader, Android tablet owners get a magazine-like experience similar to that of Flipboard’s 2010 debut on the Apple iPad. Read more »
The Atlanta-based integrator will use its new funding to keep up with what it calls accelerating demand for cloud applications and to keep serving existing Salesforce.com and Google Apps customers. Read more »
Many of the biggest stories in the connected consumer space occurred mostly offstage in 2012, from Apple’s new media services to policymakers in Washington. Overall, the past 12 months have laid important groundwork for significant advances in the connected consumer space. The year 2013 should be eventful. Read more at GigaOM Pro »
Across the 12,000 apps and 12 ad networks it tracks, MoPub saw impressions from devices using iOS 6 rise 29 percent between last Tuesday and Saturday. MoPub believes that change came from people finally upgrading to iOS 6, after holding out for Google Maps. Read more »
The “mobile first” philosophy is under way today. That means a new generation of mobile-centric data centers will arise over the next three years, with chips, servers, and power architectures customized for mobile workloads. Read more at GigaOM Pro »
Wednesday’s announcement confirms what had been reported last week. The sale price will help Kodak meet its bankruptcy obligations, while 12 companies will receive licenses to Kodak’s image patents. The deal also settles outstanding patent disputes. Read more »
The efforts to sell Cisco’s Linksys business and Google’s attempts to sell Motorola’s set top business both indicate changes in the market for consumer boxes is changing. Soon we’ll see fewer of them. And maybe we’ll even lose the ISP-provided modems and routers. Read more »
With investment souring on consumer-focused companies, 2013 will be more about the social enterprise, with a different set of companies driving innovation and perhaps a little disruption. Look for the likes of Salesforce.com, Jive Software, and other enterprise players to make headlines in the new year. Read more at GigaOM Pro »
Whether they’re building big data applications or just trying to gather some insights from their mobile apps, developers have more need than ever for analytics tools. It’s a good thing so many companies are building tools designed with developers’ needs and skills in mind. Read more »
A Fox news story about the Newtown tragedy came with an ad for a bloody t-shirt while Facebook showed an ad for a shooting game. In the past, editors could have screened these ads — this is less possible online where fewer humans are involved in the ad-buying process. Read more at paidContent »
Google launched a free music match service for MP3 files in Europe in October and now brings the same service to the U.S. Apple and Amazon also provide the same, but charge for the convenience of not having to upload a music library. Read more »
Everyone’s talking about the greatness of big data, but we’re nowhere near the promised land of what’s possible when we turn data loose on our lives. Here are three things to watch that could affect how companies and everday people consume all that info. Read more »
Samsung’s Galaxy Grand looks like a large Galaxy S III, but the 5-inch display uses a low 800 x 480 resolution. Still, the Grand may be a smart strategy thanks to other decent specs and dual-SIM support which should generate interest in China, India and Africa. Read more »
The way the industry will use cloud-computing technology in 2013 will require following the existing adoption patterns and trends into the New Year. Those trends include the rise of standards, big data’s role in the cloud, industry-specific clouds, security, and more. Read more at GigaOM Pro »
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 »
