Chris Sutton

IDC: PC market to decline again in 2013

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IDC: PC market to decline again in 2013According to the latest IDC report, the global PC market will decline for the second straight year.

While it forecasted slight growth for 2013 last year, the research firm was forced to reverse its original prediction due to a number of factors including slowing growth in emerging markets.

For 2013, the firm expects PC shipments to decline by 1.3 percent to 345.8 million units. Last year the market contracted by 3.7 percent. Desktops will be the biggest losers, seeing a 4.2 percent decline for the year. IDC predicts desktop sales will continue to fall at least until 2017.

Loren Loverde, VP of IDC’s Worldwide PC Trackers group, says customers have not been wowed by new models, and competition from tablets and high-end smartphones continue to crush demand.

“Growth in emerging regions has slowed considerably, and we continue to see constrained PC demand as buyers favor other devices for their mobility and convenience features,” says Loverde.

Additionally, the firm has somewhat soured on Windows 8 and its potential to boost the market.

Chris Sutton

Google Maps 1.1 for iOS brings saved addresses from contacts, local search

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DSC01444Google has released its first update to Maps for iOS, bringing some features over from Android and the web.

Users can now sync up previously-searched locations based on contact information, so if you have an address saved under Mom, searching by name will point you to the place on the map.

Similarly, Google has introduced local search into Maps for iOS: you can now search for ‘coffee’, ‘restaurants’ and others and it will populate the map around your area.

Lastly, you can now specify kilometres or miles in your designated search area, rather than have Google decide for you. This is good if you want to maintain your metric proclivities while roaming south of the border.

Download Google Maps for iOS.
Via: MacRumors

Chris Sutton

Google Play Anniversary Offers Freebies, Discounts and Self-Congratulations

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Screenshot_2013-03-06_12_34_PMGoogle Play is celebrating its first anniversary, and as with any happy occasion the company is bestowing gifts upon its guests.

While the selection will expand throughout the week, the initial crop of offers is a little…underwhelming. Some highlights include:

– Hotels.com is offering 10% off a booking
– Fancy is offering $15 off a purchase
– Kung Fu Panda is $4.99-$8.99 to purchase

There are a couple more things to download, including free books and discounted in-app purchases on a couple games.

Google is also boasting over 700,000 apps and games available for download on Google Play, and the store has broached 25 billion downloads.

Hit up the Anniversary Sale and check back throughout the week for more deals.

Chris Sutton

Facebook Messenger for Android introduces free VoIP calls to Canadians

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Canada continues to be Facebook’s guinea pig when it comes to testing out new features for its mobile apps. Our fair country got to test out VoIP calling over Facebook Messenger for iPhone back in January, which gradually got rolled out to the United States in the following weeks, and now we get to do it all over again with Facebook Messenger for Android.

The social networking behemoth envisions a day when consumers won’t necessarily need dedicated voice plans, opting to use higher-quality data-based calls to friends and family members over the ubiquitous presence of Facebook’s network. It’s a radical idea to which carriers have already responded; most cellular plans above $60/month include unlimited local calling, while some promotional plans include national calling as well. We tested the call quality from iPhone to iPhone and, while there was the occasional bout of lag, it impressed us with its wideband audio codec and lack of sibilance found on many VoIP solutions like Skype, Viber, Vonage, Fongo and others.

If you want to get a taste of the latest and greatest Facebook has to offer, and flaunt your Canadian IP address (it works so seldom in our favour, you might as well), download Facebook Messenger for Android.

Source: Google Play
Via: TechCrunch

Chris Sutton

Evernote does global password reset after hack attack

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Evernote does global password reset after hack attackEvernote, the popular multi-platform online note-taking service has announced this weekend that following an attack by hackers they have performed a global password reset for all 50 million account holders.

Reads the company’s post:

“Operations & Security team has discovered and blocked suspicious activity on the Evernote network that appears to have been a coordinated attempt to access secure areas of the Evernote Service.

As a precaution to protect your data, we have decided to implement a password reset.

In our security investigation, we have found no evidence that any of the content you store in Evernote was accessed, changed or lost. We also have no evidence that any payment information for Evernote Premium or Evernote Business customers was accessed.

The investigation has shown, however, that the individual(s) responsible were able to gain access to Evernote user information, which includes usernames, email addresses associated with Evernote accounts and encrypted passwords. Even though this information was accessed, the passwords stored by Evernote are protected by one-way encryption. (In technical terms, they are hashed and salted.)”

Next time you log in to Evernote, you will be asked to reset your password.

Chris Sutton

Facebook To Show Off Updated Web And Mobile News Feed Design On March 7th

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Facebook will be holding an event on March 7th to show off its redesigned news feed for the web and mobile, something that has been a long time coming. The last significant design change to the Facebook news feed was in mid-2012.

According to Techcrunch, the updated mobile news feed, which will likely come to iOS, Android and the mobile web, will feature larger high-definition photos overlaid by text. Think a combination of Google+ and Flipboard.

While it may not be hugely consequential to you or me, a Facebook news feed redesign affects the most-used app on the two most popular smartphone operating systems.

The event starts at 1PM EST/10am PST on Thursday, March 7th.

Via: Techcrunch

Chris Sutton

Dropbox now uploads a billion files daily across 500 million devices

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Dropbox now caters to over 1 billion uploads every day, according to CEO Drew Houston. The company, which is rumoured to go public sometime this year, has 100 million users over 500 million devices.

Recently, OEMs like HTC and Samsung have entered into partnership with Dropbox, providing up to 50GB of free storage for two years. It has also expanded its mobile focus, pushing automatic photo uploads and album creation on iOS and Android. The company also recently released a native Windows 8 app for RT users, and has been integrated into BlackBerry 10.

Dropbox has yet to release a native app for Windows Phone, but has a robust read/write API that does a decent job in filling in the spaces.

Source: CNET

Chris Sutton

LG purchases webOS from HP, will port operating system to Smart TVs

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LG purchases webOS from HP, will port operating system to Smart TVsLG has announced today that it will be purchasing webOS from HP, giving the operating system a new home, again.

The operating system will get a third shot at life in smart TVs, says LG, who will not use it as a mobile OS.

As part of the deal, LG will acquire the source code for WebOS, all related documentation and engineering talent, and any related WebOS Web sites. Additionally, LG gets all HP licenses and any patents HP received from Palm.

HP purchased Palm for over $1 billion, completely mismanaged the operating system, and never released any viable products using the operating system. HP then relegated it to open-source, pretty much leaving it for dead.

“It creates a new path for LG to offer an intuitive user experience and Internet services across a range of consumer electronics devices,” added Skott Ahn, president and chief technology officer of LG Electronics Inc.