Two good pieces on Facebook today. First, this piece from Reuters on the challenge mobile messaging apps present to Facebook: Create personal profiles. Build networks of friends. Share photos, videos and music. That might sound precisely like Facebook, but hundreds of millions of tech-savvy young people have instead turned to a wave of smartphone-based messaging […]
2013
Two seemingly unrelated links, posted without commentary
Huge construction firm uses iPads and Apple TV to save millions Shortly after the global construction giant Balfour Beatty got the multibillion-dollar contract to rebuild two terminals at Dallas-Forth Worth airport, the company discovered an unpleasant surprise: the architectural and planning documents were expected to run to 60,000 pages… It was time to go digital. […]
Benchmarking Apple, Android, and Windows Tablets
Anand Lal Shimpi:1 Looking at the offscreen results, we finally get what we came here for. Intel’s HD 4000 manages to deliver 3x the performance of the PowerVR SGX 554MP4, obviously at a much higher power consumption level as well. The Ivy Bridge CPU used in Surface Pro carries a 17W TDP, and it’s likely […]
China’s Telecoms to Charge for WeChat?
WSJ: China’s state-run telecom companies are no strangers to angry customers, who complain loudly and often about poor service or hidden charges. But the companies experienced a new level of consumer rage over the weekend as rumors emerged that they’re working on a plan to charge for the use of the country’s most popular free […]
The Building is the New Server
Scott Weiss: The evolution of the modern hyper-scale datacenter reflects the hyper-scale needs of the applications that run on them. Modern web 2.0 (and increasingly SaaS) applications need to handle thousands of user requests per second, processing terabytes of information in real-time across hundreds of customers. They are by necessity massively parallel and work in […]
Apple Apologizes in China
9to5Mac: Following controversy in China with state-controlled media outlets going after Apple over its warranty policies, Apple CEO Tim Cook today addressed the issue in a letter published to the company’s website in China. Within the letter (translation below), Cook apologized to customers and announced the company would implement a number of changes to “improve […]
Blackstone to Lead Dell LBO?
This Bloomberg update is a great overview of the Dell saga to date: Dell Inc. founder Michael Dell will only consider backing a buyout by Blackstone Group LP if the private-equity firm guarantees he can remain as chief executive officer, according to a person familiar with the discussions… The challenges to the original bid, which […]
Price
Benedict Evans: From 2007 to 2012 annual handset sales grew from 1.1bn units to 1.7bn units. This was, obviously enough, driven by an expansion in the number of ‘human’ mobile phone users from 2.1bn to 3.2bn (the number of total connections was much higher). Almost all of the growth in subscribers and hence in handset […]
The Week in Review — March 25-29, 2013
This week was a relatively slow one in tech, but a big one for this blog. On Monday, March 25, 2013, stratechery.com officially launched. And what a week it was! Four full articles, 12 linked list items, and this summary. I’m still working to find the right voice and post frequency — I don’t think […]
Facebook’s Mobile Failure: A Compare/Contrast With LINE
Facebook is in the news for an imminent Android-related announcement; speculation is heavy that this is fabled Facebook phone. Techcrunch: Facebook just invited press to an event at its headquarters on April 4th to “Come See Our New Home On Android”. Sources tell us it will be a modified version of the Android operating system […]