What’s going to be different in the new version then?  Why will it deserve the moniker ’3′ rather than ’2.1′ or whatever?  After all, the iPhone 4s wasn’t deemed worthy of being an iPhone 5 because the improvements weren’t deemed revolutionary enough.

Everything is a rumour of course but there are one or two things we can garner from the small amount of information available in the ether.  It’s going to look the same as the iPad 2 but those with a ruler may notice that it will be about 1mm thicker than it’s predecessor.  A bit of extra room inside is hardly surprising when you’re trying to squeeze in a load of extra tech.  The screen will be a 9.7 inch retina display; the ‘retina’ part meaning that even if you look at the screen with a microscope you won’t be able to see any individual pixels.  The newer iPhones and iPod Touch already feature this.

iPad 3 mock-up

Perhaps the least publicist thing will be the inclusion of LTE connectivity.  LTE is the acronym for Long Term Evolution and it means that the iPad 3 (or any other device) includes the capacity to use this new technology.  LTE will ultimately bring very high speed wireless to mobile devices and tablets and although we may not see it supplied in any great quantity for a couple of years, devices such as the iPad 3 will benefit by being part of the development program.  In-car hardware is thought to be one market in which LTE will prove useful (for live video traffic reports for example) and the iPad is already a prefectly adequate sat-nav device.

We’re sure the screen will be slightly bigger on the new iPad 3 with a better camera but we’re also sure there will be one big universal selling point (like Siri on the iPhone 4s) which will differentiate it from its predecessors.

Commodore 64

For the time it was a next generation colour console and the CEO Jack Tramiel (also of Tramel Technology) had requested a machine with 64kb of RAM.  RAM chips were expensive but falling in value quickly and Tramiel knew that by the date of manufacture, the price would be competitive.  Originally named the Vic-40, the computer was showcased at the 1982 Consumer Electronics Show.  Commodore’s vertically integrated business structure enabled them to produce an impressive machine which could be sold at a price acceptable to punters – $595.  The Apple II sold for $1200 while the Atari 800 cost $900.

Commodore also had the foresight to persuade retail shops to stock the new product, offering it to everyday shoppers rather than just those visiting computer hardware shops.  It was a successful seller right from the beginning, it’s price and aggressive sales strategy pushing it ahead of its rivals in the United States.  In Europe it eventually even matched the sales of the cheaper Sinclair Spectrum.

In a period which spanned an incredible 14 years of production, it is estimated that the C64 sold between 12.5 and 17 million units – the biggest selling home computer ever.  Around 10,000 different pieces of software were released for it; not just games but office applications, development tools and the like.  It was eventually only discontinued when the price of the manufacture of the integrated disk drive became unsustainable (in fact more expensive than everything else required in the manufacture).

It’s still popular now amongst hobbyists and perhaps Commodore wouldn’t have fallen into financial dire straits had it developed an equally good successor.

Facebook Timeline Kicks Off In New Zealand

Facebook originally announced it’s plan to integrate the Timeline feature into it’s social network back in September 2011.  The beta version was said to be only a few weeks away but now here we are in December, some three months down the line and at last we are about to see what it’s all about – or those in New Zealand will anyway.

Asking what Timeline is is a good question; statements from the company have included a range of excitable but vague statements;

• “the evolution of your profile”
• “a place that you are proud to call your home”
• “Timeline will revolutionize user’s profiles”
• “Timeline is wider and more visual than the existing profiles”

So that’s not really that clear then; delve a bit deeper and one can discover a few more details which add up to what could be described as a beefed up user profile.

Timeline’s kick off comes in the wake of Facebook’s acquisition of Gowalla, a location based, social app. provider in the manner of Foursquare which was it’s major rival before the takeover.  Whether Gowalla’s technology is built into the new development remains to be seen.  We predict some disappointment if all it turns out to be is some sort of calendar feature as illustrated in the screenshot below – its a nice idea but hardly groundbreaking.

Facebook Timeline beta

Facebook has had good reason recently to want to up it’s game or, to use another metaphor, keep it’s eye on the ball.  While Google+ may not be raking in millions of users from Facebook, it’s there and funded by the bottomless pockets of Google.  It’s not going to be disappearing anytime soon and this battle of the social networks will ultimately be good for consumers; innovation by both parties and the acquisition of enterprising small businesses will serve to keep both social networks on their toes.

Here in Europe we tend not to hear too much about Netflix, originally a DVD rentalservice in the United States but since 2007, an on-demand movie and TV programme streaming service.

The price for the service is nothing if not competitive – a $7.99 per month subscription gets you unlimited streamed movies and DVD’s by post for playback on a wide range of devices (not Linux though).  This is the type of competition Amazon Prime/Love Film will face if Netflix pushes into Europe.

This article though is about the network traffic generated by Netflix and how we can use that to determine it’s increasing popularity.  In Sandvine’s recent Global Internet Phenomena Report: Spring 2011, Netflix has overtaken BitTorrent as the number one source of peak time, downstream traffic.  It also ranks higher than web browsing in general.  BitTorrent still makes up the vast majority of upstream traffic but as a P2P infrastructure, that’s to be expected.

Now if we contrast this with the European chart, it quickly becomes clear how dominant Netflix is across the Atlantic and why Amazon et al should be getting their act together quickly.

Here, BitTorrent traffic still rules the roost, marginally ahead of general web browsing. In Europe the only streaming service that come close to Netflix is the BBC iPlayer with 6.6% of peak time downstream traffic.

the success of Netflix should also serve as a wake up call to those who question the all you can eat model of content provision.  If Netflix can profitably provide copyrighted, unlimited content for $7.99 per month then it may point the way forward for other providers.  Perhaps the model could also be applied to the music industry?

What these numbers ultimately demonstrate is that people will be prepared to pay what they think is a reasonable amount for content and they may be tempted away from the freely available BitTorrent provided content.  The entertainment industry surely not blame everyone else for their woes for much longer when they’ve been shown the way forward.

Now Apple is back with the excitingly named Thunderbolt, an almost unbelievably fast

Thunderbolt port

connection that promises speeds up to 20 Gbit/s, and the ability to connect and power up to six devices through a hub.  Thunderbolt, however, is also competing directly against USB 3.0, the latest incarnation of the ubiquitous connection.  It can only offer speeds of 5 Gbit/s but it does offer backward compatibility with the vast number of USB 1.0 and USB 2.0 devices already out there.

Thunderbolt also offers a sort of backwards compatibility by being designed to use the Mini DisplayPort connector which already exists on Macs.  This will mean a sort of limited compatibility with any devices which historically used that connection.

So what will the outcome be in this battle for the next generation of high speed connectivity?

USB 3.0 port

Interestingly Intel, which is also part of the USB consortium, has been part of the development process for Thunderbolt – this was not the case with Firewire vs USB.  This is almost certainly the reason why many device manufactures are researching the feasibility of adding Thunderbolt connectivity.  Intel has released a development kit for any manufacturer taking this approach.

Of course, all these devices will still use USB 3.0, which may mean we have an extra port on our PC and on our peripherals.  Perhaps the period of standardisation is coming to an end.

Internet telephony company Skype is almost eight years old now – probably older than most people imagine and it’s one of the legendary dot coms which doesn’t really have a business model. Developed by Kazaa collaborators Ahti Heinla and Jaan Tallinn, it uses the internet protocol (IP) for voice calls, video calls, file transfers and the like.  It’s phenomenally popular (660 million user accounts) but has never found a way to make proper money.  Everything is free unless you want to call a landline or mobile phone from it in which case it costs a small amount.

So back to the title and why do Microsoft want to pay $8.5 billion for it?  In October 2005 Ebay paid $2.5 billion for Skype, couldn’t find a way to integrate it into its online jumble sale or to make any money from it via any other method.  Investment group Silver Lake bought Skype from Ebay for a bit less than $2 billion and yesterday completed the deal of a lifetime by selling it onto Microsoft.

Early statements by Microsoft talk about the need to integrate Skype into existing services such as Xbox Live, Kinect, Office, and Windows Phone – fine but not really $8 billion worth.  They also reassure users of other platforms – Linux, Android, Mac OS etc – that there will continue to be support for those versions.  Here’s the odd thing though – Microsoft already has Windows Live, it can do everything Skype can do (except call landline/mobile numbers) and it has many more users.  Are they going to ditch that?  Can’t see it.

Microsoft may see a future with its Windows Phone.  If you can’t crack the telecoms market or even compete with Apple (iPhone) and Google (Android), then why not integrate Skype onto your device and offer free or very cheap calls to other users to gain a foothold.  It’s not a bad plan but the telephone networks would hate it and they are the ones which still control the networks and therefore access to VOIP services.

So we are left to wait and see what Microsoft’s plan is and to hope that they don’t ruin or restrict Skype for those of us who rely on it in various corners of the world.  Maybe they just bought a gigantic database.

Sony’s problems look like they’re going to get worse before they get better.  On the 2nd May the company closed the Station games portal, deciding that this measure was necessary because of “….an issue that warrants enough concern for us to take the service down effective immediately.”   Then, on the 3rd May Sony disclosed that an additional 25 million users had had their details possibly stolen.

These details were taken from the Sony Online Entertainment system and include names, dates of births, addresses but almost certainly not credit card details, which is at least a little piece of good news.  Encrypted passwords may have been stolen however, and if the thieves have the wherewithal to decrypt them, it may be possible to match them up to names.  Many people of course use the same passwords for all online logins.

In total this brings the total of hacked accounts to more than 100 million, which surely qualifies it as one of the biggest data breaches ever.  Sony now believes that hackers had lengthy access to the deepest levels of the databases and a rethink of security structures must now be a top priority, as well as preparations for substantial compensation.

Julian Assange Launches facebook Tirade

Wikileaks founder and victim of U.S. government harassment Julian Assange has once again stated his aversion to social media sites and Facebook in particular, saying that the U.S. intelligence community has “built-in interfaces” to be able to access users data and which gives it access to cast amounts of information including relationships, employment and travel details.

This is not the first time this type of accusation has been levelled at websites, which this time includes Google and Yahoo and since its inception Facebook has been thought by many conspiracy theorists to be either (a) invented by U.S. spooks or (b) used by U.S. spooks as an information gathering tool.

I wonder if Julian wants to “friend” me?  Probably not.

There’s one big story this week and that is the ongoing problems at Sony with regards to its Playstation Network.  We are now entering day 8 of the network outage which has forced Sony’s 70 million participating gamers offline and back to the Online Casino for some Online Roulette Spielen.

The network was disabled deliberately by Sony on Wednesday 20th April but that should be the least of gamers worries.  It soon emerged that Sony suspected there had been a huge data breach – in fact theft of all private data belonging to Sony’s network customers – including credit card details.  The suspicion that the outage had been caused by a Distributed Denial of Service (DDOS) attack was soon put to one side.

Sony has only just emerged, looking slightly embarrassed. from its legal spat with George Hotz (GeoHot), the hacker who ‘unlocked’ his PS3 and then told the rest of the world how to do it.   Various sources have suggested that Sony’s restrictive and secretive practices have forced hackers to discuss their methods openly online and that this may have helped those who have stolen the customer’s data.

Sony is now desperately trying to determine the extent of the damage caused (presumably to its reputation as well as its infrastructure) while governments and security investigators in Japan, the U.S. and the U.K. among others demand that Sony gets its act together.  The best advice anyone is giving at the moment is to check all your credit card statements for strange activity and as soon as the network is back up, change your password.

Apple To Barge Into Sat-Nav Biz

Following the recent discoveries that both Apple iPhones and Android-based smartphones track users movements in relation to the mobile phone mast it’s connected to or the wireless base station, Apple has disclosed that the purpose of this is to build a crowd sourced database of traffic flow.

With the vast number of iPhones out there, Apple has enough data to produce accurate traffic information.  Add this to the already existing ability of GPS-enabled iPhones to act as satellite navigation and you have a sophisticated rival to the current market leaders such as Tom Tom and Garmin.  Watch this traffic-free space for a Free Casino Bonus.

Followers of this type of financial news will probably be a bit surprised by the scale of the recent figures from Apple – Wall St certainly appeared to be.  However they will also say that this is a company with the constant capacity to surprise.

Even now, with the intense competition from Android-based smartphones and tablets, Apple has still managed 2nd quarter revenue of $24.67 billion – a net profit of $5.99 billion.  That’s an 83% revenue increase on the same period last year.  The company’s share price rose several percentage points on the news.  Sales of iPhones, MacBooks and iPads were all healthy, with an incredible 113% increase for iPhones.  Only iPod sales fell – but who needs an iPod if all your music is stored on your iPhone now?

Said Apple CEO Steve Jobs “We’re firing on all cylinders…..we will continue to innovate on all fronts throughout the remainder of the year,”

Blinkbox Swallowed by Tesco

We recently reported on Amazon’s purchase of Lovefilm and how they planned to be first to dominate the U.K. streaming market (ahead of a possible push by U.S. competitor Netflix).  Now it appears supermarket giant Tesco wants to join the party – it has acquired Blinkbox, the online movie downloading ans streaming service which currently has around 2 million active users per month and 9000 titles available.

Tesco almost certainly plans to join this service to its in-store DVD sales, offering a similar rent/buy service online or offline.  Of course it also gives Tesco another vast addition to its database and a link to Tesco’s Clubcard, says Blinkbox CEO Michael Cornish, can only add users to its service.

Tesco need some good news from the U.K. – flat year on year sales growth due to a struggling economy has meant this global giant is now relying on it’s overseas operations – particularly in the Far East – to maintain its massive profits.  It has diversified into many different areas in the past decade or so, surpassing every other retailer in the country.

We’ve mentioned this before but it looks like Mark Zuckerberg’s plan to have Facebook virtually integrated into smartphones will be far more wide-reaching than previously expected.

HTC has been the smartphone’s driving force behind this development and, speaking at an  HTC press event to announce the HTC Salsa and HTC ChaCha, Zuckerberg said that “…..you can expect dozens of phones with deeper integration than ever before.”  The type of integration being talked about is, for example, the instant messenger service being Facebook’s by default and news feed items appearing on the home screen.

HTC feels this may be the future of some of its product lines – phones are powered by Android and feature their Sense UI.  HTC has said it welcomes developers integrating their own third party applications into Sense and this could herald a wave of smartphones integrated with the application of your choice.

If You Hadn’t Noticed, Linux Has Taken Over The World

That is, according to Linux Foundation Executive Director Jim Zemlin anyway, Microsoft may

Jim Zemlin

argue the toss but Zemlin has a point.  It’s twenty years now since Linus Torvalds wrote the basic Linux operating system, based on UNIX, that has been tweaked, upgraded and improved into the various flavours we use today.  You can read about it here.

So why does Zemlin think he’s won the battle with Microsoft?  Because Linux dominates virtually every environment except desktop computing and Zemlin says that market is becoming less important anyway with the increasing popularity of tablets and smartphones, many using Android, based on Linux.  The others, of course, are iPhones and iPads.  The Amazon Kindle uses Linux, as does much software for televisions and camcorders.  90% of the world’s top 500 supercomputers use Linux and it is dominant in server technology.

The problem, if it is a problem, is that not many outside the world of technology know any of this.  Mostly you switch on your laptop or your desktop and Windows pops up.  If its not Windows it’s most likely an Apple OS.  Still, those of us who like safer, hassle free computing can take heart from Zemlin’s words and perhaps we’ll all be using Meego soon.

(written on a laptop running Fedora 14)