Nokia World reveals phablets and tablets in Abu Dhabi
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By: TQIT
Added: 28-07-14
- Google's been busy. Over recent weeks it's added photo auto-enhancement to its Google+ social network, launched air balloons to provide internet access from near-space, unveiled a subscription music service, teased a new smartphone and revamped its Maps product.
Results include photos and sometimes the names of other people the subject knows.
It might sound like a stalker's dream, but visitors can also use the service as a way of tracking down profiles and posts they had created and then forgotten about.
Baidu Baidu is by far China's most popular search engine, squishing Google's market share into single figures.
The firm says its strength is that it does not only provide links but, in many cases, the actual information the user wants. This can include songs and videos embedded into the results and even interactive web apps.
In fairness, most of these are issues the firm still has time to refine.
Google itself has only just rolled out alternative frames to make Glass more appealing, and the Silicon Valley giant is also providing earbuds for users who have struggled with its bone conduction solution.
Its trick is not to build new display tech from scratch, but to create a cheaper case into which you slot your existing smartphone and use its lenses to focus on the handset's suspended screen, mimicking the effect of looking at a much bigger display from a distance.
Wolfram Alpha Wolfram Alpha describes itself as a "computational knowledge engine" and strictly speaking doesn't see itself as a "search" service, even if many people use it to hunt for third-party information.
Rather than deliver links to other sites, it gathers facts and figures from primary sources and then allows the information to be structured and compared with other data sets, presenting the results in a range of tables, graphs and other illustrations.
Blippex instead orders sites according to their DwellRank - the amount of time people spend on a page once they have clicked onto it. The more seconds they linger, the more important the site is judged to be.
The service gets this information by asking volunteers to install an extension that sends it information about their activity anonymously.
Blippex launched earlier this month and early visitors might find some of its results unusual, but the developers promise that the more people use it, the better it should become.
Microsoft's newly released Surface 2 tablet will compete against Nokia's rival Windows RT computer Nokia's tablet is slightly more compact than Microsoft's version and also distinguishes itself by supporting an optional 4G Sim card.
However, bearing in mind Microsoft has already taken a $900m writedown after weak sales of its original Surface RT tablet, one analyst questioned whether the firm would want to produce two competing models.
"I don't think that having two devices in that space makes a lot of sense," said Carolina Milanesi, consumer devices analyst at Gartner.
"I believe Microsoft may keep the Nokia model on as a cheaper consumer-targeted device focused on media consumption and gaming in order to capture more market share, and also keep on the more expensive Intel-based Surface Pro - but it will phase out the Surface 2 RT model."
More Ashas Nokia also added three models to its Asha range of low-end handsets targeted at emerging markets and shoppers on a budget. They run Nokia's proprietary Series 40 OS rather than Windows Phone.
Nokia's former chief executive, Stephen Elop, has rejoined Microsoft where he will lead its handsets division The most expensive of the devices, the Asha 530, now supports 3G data in addition to 2G, allowing faster internet access.
The company accounted for 90% of UK-based desktop searches and 92% of mobile searches in June, according to net analysis provider Statcounter - the kind of figures any company would envy.
Its global figures were even higher - although its share of its home market, the US, is below average (78% share of desktop search), and the company remains an also-ran in China, Russia and South Korea.
"At one time Google was clearly a better search engine - now we can debate that point," said Greg Sterling, a tech analyst who writes for the Search Engine Land news website.
"There's definitely a chance for Nokia to gain ground, of course everyone else is interested in that space too," said Mr Garner.
"It's not a slam dunk, but Microsoft is as well placed as others - better in some respects."
First tablet The Lumia 2520 becomes the only Windows RT tablet made by a manufacturer other than Microsoft.
Dell, Asus, Lenovo, Acer and Samsung had all initially backed the platform only to later change tack.
The operating system runs on an ARM-based chip allowing it to offer superior battery life to the full Windows 8 system running on tablets powered by x86 processors, but it does not support as many programs.
The new phablets are Nokia's first handsets to offer its new Refocus app Blackberry is among the other companies to have recently launched a phablet, but one expert said doubts about the Canadian firm's future meant that its existing users might be tempted to switch.The company did not respond to BBC requests for comment.
However, one of its subsidiaries, Yontoo, told Forbes magazine: "The Best Video Downloader and Easy YouTube Downloader products have been discontinued."
The Financial Times reported that this only happened after Sambreel was alerted to Spider.io's findings.
Injected ads The security firm - founded by Imperial College London computer scientist PhD graduates - reported that some of the added advert slots had been sold on through exchanges to well-known brands including Amazon, Blackberry, Kellogg's and Toyota. These firms would be highly unlikely to have been aware of this.
For now the service requires its users to be proficient in Chinese. However it recently launched an English-language website for overseas developers wanting to use its services to sell apps to the mainland.
Yacy Yacy bases its search engine on the principle of a peer-to-peer network.
Instead of using its own servers to index the web, it relies on its users' computers to do the work via software it provides. The information gathered is then shared to a common database, fragments of which are distributed across the network.
Because the answer to any query is obtained from other volunteers' computers rather than a central portal, Yacy says it is impossible for anyone to censor its results.
However, the ranking algorithms it uses are not as advanced as many of its more traditional rivals, which may limit its appeal beyond an enthusiast audience.
StartPage StartPage describes its service as being "enhanced by Google" - a cheeky reference to the fact it depends on the larger firm for all its results.
It might sound like a bit of a gimmick, but if a report from tech blog Engadget proves true, Facebook's Oculus Rift division is working on something similar with Samsung's handset unit to bring a budget version of virtual reality to the masses.
Mr Dopfner's letter was published in Germany's Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung newspaper - which is not published by his company - in response to a column by Google's executive chairman Eric Schmidt.
Mr Schmidt's column had referred to the advertising relationship between Axel Springer and the search company. He described how the relationship had been challenging at times but how now they had "walked down the aisle" and signed a multi-year deal.
"Applications that change users' experiences in unexpected ways and provide no value to publishers are bad for users and bad for the web," said a spokeswoman
"We're continuing to look into these types of bad actors and have banned them from using Google's monetisation and marketing tools."
This is not the first time Sambreel has been accused of using programmes to change the adverts that appear on third-party websites.
While that might be a fraction of the price of other luxury watches, most buyers will be aware that the wearable tech sector is still in its early stages.
With the likelihood of new, better models at the next big tech showcases - Berlin's Ifa in September, and then CES in January - and talk of Apple, Microsoft and others getting involved, even tech savvy shoppers may want to put off wearable tech purchases at this point.
In an interview with the BBC's Click programme to be broadcast on Saturday, Apple co-founder Steve Wozniak says: "There are good things I see on Samsung phones that I wish were in my iPhone; I wish Apple would use them, and could use them, and I don't know if Samsung would stop us.
"I wish everybody just did a lot of cross-licensing and sharing the good technology; all our products would be better, we'd go further.
"I do kind of wish they were more compatible."
For example a search for "Aeroflot check-in Moscow" brings up a block allowing the user to send their details to the airline, while "optometrist city clinic 57" allows the person to book an appointment with an eye doctor from within the results page.
DuckDuckGo DuckDuckGo highlights privacy as its key feature, promising not to collect or share personal information about its users - a topical concern after revelations that Google, Microsoft and others had handed over data to the US's National Security Agency.
Android devices accounted for 81.3% of smartphone shipments in the third quarter of 2013, according to research firm Strategy Analytics, compared with 13.4% for Apple iOS and 4.1% for Windows Phone.
This week, Nokia, whose mobile devices division is being bought by Microsoft, won a patent victory over HTC that could see the Taiwanese company's HTC One smartphone being banned from import into the UK.
And earlier in October, Samsung offered to stop taking rivals to court over alleged patent infringements for a period of five years, after European Union authorities said the South Korean company's litigious actions were stifling competition.
Mr Dopfner acknowledged that he was pleased at the marketing relationship between the two companies and an admirer of Google's entrepreneurial success but went on to say that the company had little choice but to engage with Google as "we know no search engine alternative to increase our online reach".And SiMEye can also capture video in 1080p, four times the resolution of it rival.
Organisers expect 130,000 visitors to wander round Computex's packed-in stalls The firm's marketing chief Fenny Chen tells the BBC the gadget is currently being trialled by US, European and Japanese testers, and is on course to go into production later this year.
Open innovation? Google said it was working with the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) to bring the product to mainstream use.
It added that it would look for partners "who are experts in bringing products like this to market".
Google said it would work with these partners to develops apps aimed at making the measurements taken by the lens available to the wearer and their doctor.
Mr Menon said it was "commendable" that Google was willing to work with other partners even before the product was commercially ready.
ChipSip's Google Glass rival eyewear won an award at Taiwan's Computex trade show There is a good reason for the size of that nose piece - at present, the weight of the visual display and sidearm touchpad can cause the device to tilt somewhat precariously to one side.
"You have the concern about having two planes of view when you're walking.
"And as you start to see smartphones get thinner and you get smartbands, the question is: does having something you wear in front of your eyes really matter that much?"
Phone goggles One Taiwanese company taking a radically different approach to head gear is View Phone.
The PhoneStation is compatible with smartphones with screens up to 6in (15.2cm) in size Rather than try to overlay information over your field of vision, its PhoneStation kit aims to immerse its wearers in 3D movies and games.
Samsung faced a potential
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