Carriers continue to absorb the lion’s share of the fast growing $15 billion smartphone sector in Australia, according to a new study. In competitive terms it is the pricing strategies of Android vendors that will have the most impact on market share, while the mooted Facebook phone is just one potential disrupter in the medium term.
Last year a gang of half smart Russian developers built an App called Girls Around Me, which got them cyber smashed by just about everyone in the tech and the mainstream media from The New York Times and Wall Street down.
BRW released its ‘Best Places to Work’ edition yesterday, and once again tech companies dominate the list. In fact, nine of the top 10 companies where IT businesses, with only biotech Amgen upsetting the Apple cart. It was a similar story last year.
We've researched Nielsen Web data, ABC circulation figures and digital subscription claims from Fairfax and News Limited to investigate how the new and revised paywalls at The Australian and The Australian Financial Review are actually faring after six months.
As platforms proliferate and staff and consumers become more demanding about their choice of personal device, IT departments are looking for ways to make Web design more responsive to this. This is especially so as Web products have to span across multiple screens and devices — everything from widescreen TVs to desktops, tablets and smartphones.
As flagged in tail of Monday’s Grok, Microsoft this week took the wraps off its all new Windows 8 tablet, called Microsoft Surface. The company played its cards very close to its chest prior to this announcement to such an extent that Grok’s chum inside Microsoft had only learned of the product in recent days.
Microsoft has apparently kicked in $1.2 billion to buy business focused social networking outfit Yammer.
Web measurement company comScore held its annual Internet Report for the US yesterday. Technically, it was a private briefing which the rest of us only get to see in a week or so. So of course it’s already been extensively leaked.
One of the great joys (and frustrations) of the internet is the sheer lawlessness of it all. On the one hand, you can find a first-hand account by the physician who attended to Abraham Lincoln in the moments after he was shot. Or, quicker than you can say Google you can immerse yourself one man’s misspent youth over at emotioneric.com.
The bubble burst before we could even agree it was there. There’s been commentary emerging about how the Facebook IPO marked the very point when the latest tech bubble started to deflate. If that’s true, then it’s a very contained and unusual bubble. Facebook has lost a third of its value, and Groupon more than half.
The fortunes of the world’s two largest and most successful social networks have headlined the debate over the weekend.
Kleiner Perkin’s partner and internet star, Mary Meeker, has presented the latest annual internet trends report, which has come a little earlier than usual — last year’s annual internet trends report was released in October. This latest chapter was delivered at the All Thing's D conference. It's worth locking yourself away in the office for a few hours to breathe it all in.
Viruses. Worms. Spooks. Super villains. Cyber threats. Auric Goldfinger. Fear and loathing. Security stories — Grok tends to stay away from them because he doesn't really understand them and can’t decide if the often inflammatory coverage is warranted or just Google bait for Web publishers. (Like the first 14 words of this blog, for instance.)
Numbers are lazy. Bigger numbers are even lazier. Or perhaps it’s just that people like me who quote them all the time are lazy about how we use them. That’s probably because after a while you pass so many noughts before you trip over a decimal point that their impact is lost in the interference.
Here’s an idea. Let’s tweak Windows so it only works properly with Internet Explorer. Is Microsoft up to its old tricks again? Manipulating software markets? Monopolising outcomes? More importantly, does anyone care anymore? Its moment passed, long ago. And the dead rise not yet.