IBM on Monday demonstrated its first Racetrack Memory chip, which could offer as much data storage capacity as a hard drive but with the read/write speeds of DRAM and durability of NAND flash.
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Apple just announced that it sold four million iPhone 4S handsets over the last weekend. The phone hit stores on October 14th and it took just three days to move the massive lot. Incredible.
Philip Schiller, Apple’s senior VP of Worlwide Product Markteting notes, “iPhone 4S is off to a great start with more than four million sold in its first weekend—the most ever for a phone and more than double the iPhone 4 launch during its first three days.”
Moreover, Apple just announced that 25 million are already using iOS 5 and over 20 million have signed up for iCloud.
The iPhone 4s will hit even more countries in the coming weeks. It will be available in more than 22 countries after October 28 and more than 70 by the end of the year. Apple previously noted that it was prepared for a massive launch and it seems as if the company delivered. After the busy first weekend, the phone is still on backorder at most carriers and retailers with the Apple Store indicating a 1-2 week shipping delay.
[image credit: Kirsty Wigglesworth, AP]
Started by Steve Jobs, Steve Wozniak, and Ronald Wayne, Apple has expanded from computers to consumer electronics over the last 30 years, officially changing their name from Apple Computer, Inc. to Apple, Inc. in January 2007.
Among the key offerings from Apple’s product line are: Pro line laptops (MacBook Pro) and desktops (Mac Pro), consumer line laptops (MacBook) and desktops (iMac), servers (Xserve), Apple TV, the Mac OS X and Mac OS X Server operating systems, the iPod (offered with…
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The launch of Sony’s new handheld console Vita in Japan is just one month away (December 17), so it’s about time big S made some official announcements regarding software prices. In a nut shell, the first batch of titles will not be sold for cheap.
To be more concrete, the prices for a total of four launch games are now fixed, namely:
*Ridge Racer’s download version will, between December 17 and March 31 next year, cost just 2,980 Yen/US$39. Katamari’s downloaded version will be discounted to 3,980 Yen/US$52 in the same time frame.
Prices for games to be sold outside Japan are not yet fixed, but keep in mind the retail prices listed up above are usually undercut by 10-15% (especially by big Japanese electronics discounters) once the games are actually ready to hit stores. Another thing worth mentioning is that the dollar amounts appear to be high partly because of the crazy exchange rate between the dollar and the yen currently (1US$=76.73 yen).
The console itself will be sold in Japan for 25,000 Yen/US$326 (its price will be US$250 in the US).
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It’s been a long while since we had a formal Gadgets/Mobile meet-up and I’m proud to say that this one, sponsored by Samsung, was a roaring success. We had people who drank far too much, people who ate far too many Cheez-Its (there were, sadly, no hors d’oeuvres so we made do with Hackathon grub), and people who won excellent prizes including Samsung Galaxy S II phones, Samsung tablets, and other goodies.
We hope to have more of these things in the future where you guys can meet and greet TC G/M writers in your own home town and in your own special way. Thanks for making this one a roaring success, San Francisco, and we’ll see you soon.
Here are a few highlights from the shots we took; we’ll update this post with Samsung’s own photos as soon as we hear back from them. The full-size pictures can be found in this set at the TechCrunch Flickr page.
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Today at the TechCrunch Hackathon, Ford, the second largest automaker in the U.S., teamed with Spotify, the fast-growing Swedish music service that recently arrived in the states, to demonstrate the current opportunities for in-car app innovation as well as the new voice-activated Ford SYNC system. Just to clarify: This isn’t an “official partnership”, it’s just a cool hack meant to demonstrate how easy it is to integrate with SYNC. For those unfamiliar, Ford SYNC is the in-vehicle communications and entertainment system that allows drivers to make hands-free phone calls, as well as control music and other in-car entertainment with their very own vocal chords. SYNC recently added integration with AppLink (in 2011 Ford Fiestas for now) to allow hands-free use of smartphone apps in the car.
At Hackathon today, Ford offered developers the opportunity to learn more about SYNC’s API and demonstrate how to integrate apps like Spotify into SYNC. This is Spotify’s first in-car integration, and it’s still an initial hack, but it’s a pretty good start. We’re hoping this becomes a long-term Ford/Spotify strategy.
The tremendous growth of smartphone apps has created the need and the opportunity to provide the same voice-controlled solution for apps that drivers are now using in the car — but it also has to stay safe. “Look ma no hands!” is never something you want to hear while in a car with someone. SYNC provides users, through voice assistance, with the ability to easily control their car’s multimedia and app functions, and at at the Hackathon today Spotify is on board in the passenger seat.
According to Julius Marchwicki, the SYNC AppLink program manager, TC Hackathon was the perfect place to launch to give developers the information they need on Ford’s new API and SDK to get developers hacking on in-car entertainment and app goodness.
So just what’s possible for developers with SYNC AppLink at this point in its development? When working with SYNC-enabled smartphone apps, developers are able to create a voice user interface using SYNC’s in-vehicle speech recognition system, write information to the radio head display or in-vehicle touch screen, using the text-to-speech engine, the in-vehicle meny system to provide commands for their mobile app, and vehicle data, like speed, GPS location, and fuel economy. All good stuff to know, and it’s nice to see Ford, a company that didn’t look so hot a few years ago, getting in on the innovation train.
SYNC AppLink will be available in 10 models (of Ford vehicles) beginning in 2012, including Ford Fusion, the Fusion Hybrid, Mustang, Shelby, Fiesta, F-150, and more.
Spotify has created a lightweight software application that allows instant listening to specific tracks or albums with virtually no buffering delay. It was launched in the fall of 2008 and had approximately 10 million users by September 2010.
Spotify offers streaming music from major and independent record labels including Sony, EMI, Warner Music Group, and Universal. Users download Spotify and then log onto their service enabling the on-demand streaming of music. Music can be browsed by artist, album, record…
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A leaked photo purportedly showing Nokia’s first smartphone using Mango, the latest version of the Windows Phone operating system, depicts the handset as a full touchscreen device with no physical buttons on the front.
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Two days ago, Toshiba-Fujtsu in Japan took the wraps of the IS12T, the world’s first world’s first phone running Windows Phone 7.5 (aka Mango). We were quick in giving you the first specs, but we now have a video that shows the 1 Ghz Qualcomm CPU-powered device in action – plus some more detailed specs.
First, here are the main specs (in more detail), as announced [JP] by the provider of the IS12T in Japan, local mobile carrier KDDI:
Second, our friends at Diginfonews in Tokyo have shot this professional video (in English) that shows the IS12T in action:
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As the sun just starts to set here on the West Coast, we’ve got a bit of news straight from the other side of the globe: Fujitsu and KDDI (Japan’s second largest wireless operator) have just confirmed that they will launch the world’s first phone running Windows Phone 7.5 (Mango) sometime in September.
Word of the new handset comes from a Tokyo press gathering which just began moments ago. Exact details surrounding the handset are still developing, but all signs are pointing to it being the Toshiba-Fujitsu IS12T (Update: this is now confirmed) device that Microsoft gave a very brief sneak peak of at their Worldwide Partner Conference just a few weeks back.
The handful of images in this post are pulled from a video of that fleeting glimpse; we’ll update with better photos as soon as they’re available.
Here’s what we know about the device:
Windows Phone 7.5 (otherwise known as “Mango”, since all the cool kids give their updates fun nicknames now) is the first major update to the platform. I’ve spent a good amount of time with it on a pre-release device, and to sum up my experience: call it what you will, but this is version 1.0. This is the first version of Windows Phone 7 that feels competitive thrown up against the likes of Android and iOS and, while it’s still lacking a trick or two, is the first version that feels complete.
For those of you who don’t gobble up every bit of Mango news, a quick recap of the bigger new stuff:
Alas, chances are pretty slim that this thing will ever come stateside. Don’t fret though, Windows Phone fans (hey, they exist!): there should be plenty of Mango to go around by years end, with the likes of Samsung, Acer, and plenty of others throwing their goods into the ring.
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Verizon Wireless Tuesday showed off dozens of early-stage LTE wireless products at its new Verizon Innovation Center in Watham, Mass.
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After a long and winding path that has seen stops at both the iPhone and the iPad, developer Silvio Rizzi has finally released his newsreader app on Apple’s longest running platform, in the form of the aptly named Reeder for the Mac.
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