Posts Tagged ‘San Francisco’
Written by admin on 27 January 2012
San Francisco, Jan 27 (IANS) Global tablet shipments reached nearly 27 million units in the fourth quarter of 2011 with Android jumping to a record share of 39 percent, said a new research released Thursday.
According to the research by consulting firm Strategy Analytics, global tablet shipments reached a record high of 26.8 million units in the last quarter of 2011, surging 250 percent from 10.7 million units in the same period a year earlier.
Android captured a record 39 percent share of global tablet shipments, rising from 29 percent in the year-ago quarter, reported Xinhua.
Global Android tablet shipments tripled annually to 10.5 million units in the last three months of 2011 and the platform so far is relatively popular with tablet manufacturers, said the research.
However, Apple shipped 15.4 million iPads worldwide and maintained its market leadership with 58 percent share during the fourth quarter last year.
“Apple shrugged off the much-hyped threat from entry-level Android models this quarter,” Peter King, director at Strategy Analytics, said in a statement.
The research found Microsoft captured a mere 1.5 percent global tablet share in the quarter, noting that “the upcoming release of Windows 8 this year cannot come quickly enough for Microsoft, so its hardware partners can start competing more effectively in the tablet space”.
In the full year of 2011, global tablet shipments hit 66.9 million units, increasing by 260 percent from 18.6 million units in 2010. Consumers are increasingly buying tablets in preference to netbooks and even entry-level notebooks or desktops, said the research.
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Written by admin on 27 January 2012
San Francisco, Jan 27 (IANS) A patent application published by the US Patent and Trademark Office Thursday showed that Apple is working on a universal touchscreen remote capable of controlling multiple devices, shedding lights on the company’s much-anticipated plan on a smart TV product.
The patent, titled “Apparatus and Method to Facilitate Universal Remote Control” was filed Sep 30, 2011, said that the remote will be capable of controlling multiple devices including “a television, a video tape player, a video disk player, stereo, a home control system or a computer system”, reported Xinhua.
“Manufacturers have created so-called universal remote controls, which can be trained to mimic several remote controls, and can then control each appliance for which they have been trained. While universal remote controls attempt to address the problem of multiple remote controls, these devices are even more complex to operate, further confusing the user,” said the filing.
According to the filing, Apple’s universal remote control will include a touchscreen which functions as the display screen and the user input mechanism and a discovery mechanism that would discover available appliances to control.
AppleInsider, a technology news site focusing on Apple, first discovered the filing. It said that the application is particularly noteworthy as rumours of a full-fledged Apple TV set have gained considerable steam since the release of Walter Isaacson’s biography of Steve Jobs late last year.
In the book, the late Apple co-founder told his biographer that he had “cracked” the concept for a TV set with “the simplest user interface you could imagine”.
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Written by admin on 26 January 2012
San Francisco, Jan 26 (IANS) Apple overtook Google’s Android to become the leading smartphone platform in the US in the fourth quarter of 2011, thanks to strong demand for its latest iPhone model, a study said Wednesday.
In October-December quarter last year, Apple’s share of the US smartphone market doubled from a year earlier to 44.9 percent, while Android’s share fell from 50 percent to 44.8 percent in the same period, according to market research firm Kantar Worldpanel.
While Android retains global smartphone crown, Apple is now growing at a faster rate, driven by the launch of its latest iPhone 4S model in October last year, Kantar Worldpanel noted.
“Overall, Apple sales are now growing at a faster rate than Android across the nine countries we cover,” Xinhua reported quoting Dominic Sunnebo, global consumer insight director at the research firm.
Apple posted better-than-expected quarterly results Tuesday, saying it sold a record-breaking 37.04 million units of iPhone in total in the fourth quarter last year, an increase of 128 percent over the year-ago period.
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Written by admin on 18 January 2012
San Francisco / London, Jan 19 (IANS) Yahoo’s co-founder Jerry Yang stepped down from its board along with all other positions he held in the company, it was announced Tuesday.
The 43-year-old Yang also resigned from the Boards of Yahoo! Japan and Alibaba Group Holding limited, Xinhua quoted the company as stating in a press release.
Having founded the online company in 1995 with David Filo, Yang served as Yahoo’s chief executive from June 2007 until January 2009.
Yang’s resignation comes two weeks after the company hired former PayPal executive Scott Thomson to be its new chief executive, BBC reported.
Yang had annoyed some shareholders by turning down a $47.5bn takeover offer from Microsoft in 2008. The company’s current market value is about $20bn.
‘The time has come for me to pursue other interests outside of Yahoo!’, said Yang in a statement while expressing his support for the company’s current management.
‘I am enthusiastic about the appointment of Scott Thompson as Chief Executive Officer and his ability, along with the entire Yahoo! leadership team, to guide Yahoo! into an exciting and successful future,’ he said.
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Written by admin on 18 January 2012
San Francisco, Jan 19 (IANS) Yahoo’s co-founder Jerry Yang has resigned from its Board of Directors and all other positions with the company, it was announced Tuesday.
The 43-year-old Yang also resigned from the Boards of Yahoo! Japan and Alibaba Group Holding limited, Xinhua quoted the company as stating in a press release.
Having founded the online company in 1995 with David Filo, Yang was Yahoo’s chief executive from June 2007 until January 2009.
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Written by admin on 13 January 2012
San Francisco, Jan 13 (IANS) Microsoft Thursday announced a patent licensing agreement with LG Electronics covering tablets, smartphones and other consumer devices running Google’s Android or Chrome operating system.
Microsoft said it marks the 11th deal with a device manufacturer leveraging Google’s operating system platform.
“More than 70 percent of all Android smartphones in the US are now receiving coverage under Microsoft’s patent portfolio,” Xinhua quoted a press release from the Microsoft as saying.
Terms of the deal were not disclosed. So far, Microsoft has struck major cross-licensing patent agreements with HTC, Samsung and Acer, among others.
Last September, Microsoft announced a broad patent deal with Samsung. US media reports cited South Korean media as saying that Microsoft had wanted Samsung to pay $10-15 for each Android device.
The booming mobile market has been harassed by acrimonious legal battles over patent infringement. Being an open source operating system, Google’s Android has become a major target of patent suits.
Microsoft has been going after companies that make phones and tablets running Android, rather than directly against Google.
But the two tech giants are still engaged in public spats over the issue after Google’s top legal officer posted a scathing blog last August accusing Microsoft and other companies of waging “a hostile, organized campaign against Android”.
Motorola Mobility, which Google announced to acquire in a $12.5 billion deal last August, currently is the last major Android device vendor that refuses to take a license from Microsoft.
Frank Shaw, Microsoft’s head of communications, used Twitter to taunt Google Thursday, twitting “Hey Google — we are the 70 percent” with a link to their press release.
Brad Smith, Microsoft’s executive vice president and general counsel, also tweeted “it’s time to recognize that in patent world, lawsuits are the 1 percent; license agreements are the 99 percent”.
Google so far has made no comments on the Microsoft-LG patent deal.
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