Monday 4 June 2012

Microsoft has a new gaming handheld...and it's the iPad



--You can forget about your dreams of anXbox 360 Portable. That's so 2006. No, at this year's E3, Microsoft did something much more surprising: instead of getting proprietary, it hopped on everyone else's platform instead.
Xbox SmartGlass was the touted application, service, technology -- whatever you want to call it -- that stood for new technology at Microsoft's E3 press conference this morning in Los Angeles. It needed some jolt of new produce excitement, arguably, and SmartGlass can stand in as this year's "what is that?" buzzword, a second-screen concept for turning seemingly any smartphone ortablet into an additional display when watching movies, playing games, or browsing online.
It's very unclear what exactly SmartGlass is, or what it will do, other than what was demoed. However, it amounts to Microsoft's closest thing to a portable gaming experience. And maybe that's a wise move, as colleague Roger Cheng noted to me in an e-mail as I walked back from Microsoft's presser, wondering what to make of it all.

Apple to release a Television by 2013


Apple will release a television in 2013 for between $1,500 and $2,000, but it won't instantly revolutionize the industry, says Piper Jaffray analyst Gene Munster. You have to wonder how much time it takes to trim a hedge that big.

Full review: Apple iPad (third-generation)


With a host of improvements--faster graphics, 4G wireless options, a better camera, and a gorgeous high-res screen--the latest iPad cements its position at the head of the tablet pack. Read more

Sunday 3 June 2012

Research In Motion had identity crisis at its peak, adviser tells BlackBerry maker

TORONTO - A brand strategy adviser hired by Research In Motion at the peak of the company's success says the BlackBerry maker was locked in an identity crisis that left it struggling to map out its future.
Matthew Kelly, managing director at Toronto-based firm Level5, said in a recent interview that RIM was preparing to wage a battle against Apple's iPhone device, an effort that seemed to be distracting the company from other market challenges.
"I didn't get the sense they were taking Android as (seriously) as they needed to," he said, who was previously chief marketing officer at Yum Brands Inc., owner of the Pizza Hut, Taco Bell and KFC chains.
read more...

A 3-year-old gets kicked off plane because of ipad

A 3-year-old on an Alaska Airlines flight plane threw such severe conniptions after hisiPad was taken away before takeoff that he (and his family) were removed from the plane

It seems that the unnamed 3-year-old is the son of Washington State resident Mike Yanchak. The family was reportedly flying to St. Martin Island from Seattle. The boy was playing quietly with an iPad before takeoff. But once the iPad had been taken away, a particular kind of hell was let loose.

Wacthing detective shows help couple find stolen ipad

SAN ANTONIO - A woman's iPad was snatched from her lap while she was in the drive-thru lane at a fast food restaurant. It happened at the McDonald’s on Loop 410 near Marbach Road around seven in the evening Saturday.


But the woman and her husband got the iPad back a few days later after playing detectives.

The entire ordeal started when Jennifer Flores was in the passenger's seat with the window rolled down. It was her husband, Robert Flores, who saw the man approaching the car, but he thought the man might be asking for a handout. Instead, the man just grabbed the iPad and took off in a getaway car.

iPad video being used to spy on ex - lovers

PARENTS are using iPad video calls with their children to snoop on the lives of their estranged or former spouses.

Applications such as Apple's FaceTime and Skype, which offer free video calls on tablets and smartphones, have been cited in custody cases where family lawyers have claimed they have been misused for "intrusive purposes".
In one case a father asked his child to "give him a tour" of his former wife's new home. In another a mother walked into her living room wearing only a nightie, to find her former husband staring at her from the screen of her child's iPad.
Louise Halford, a partner at Pannone solicitors in Britain, said her firm had seen a steady stream of cases in recent months.