Here are some views on the latest news:
The Wireless Village instant messaging protocol was specifically invented to control the use of mobile IM. What operators missed was that users couldn’t care less about closed communities. They wanted access to MSN, AOL, Yahoo! etc and third party application providers fixed that via MIDlets and similar. Now we are in a completely different situation where operators don’t control this at all anymore. It’s wrong to say that mobile messaging doesn’t cost anything for operators, as they need to get revenue somehow, to recoup the very high costs for building the mobile network, whether through voice, messaging or data. It’s like taxes: Money needs to come in somehow. That SMSs don’t cost anything per item (so to speak) is really irrelevant. I’m actually a bit surprised a company like Beluga can exist, as there are so many means for communication already, even less that Facebook would acquire it, but it’s most likely the users and not the (highly trivial) technology they are after.
Post Tech – Free messaging apps threaten wireless carriers’ cash cow
Interesting that Steve Jobs admits that tablet PCs have existed, considering the supposedly objective media has completely forgotten it. He’s got a very good point though: “We sold almost 15 million iPads in 2010. And remember that’s just nine months. That’s April through September,” he said. “That’s more than every tablet PC ever sold. The tablet PC crashed and burned. The modern tablet PC is the iPad.” Microsoft should be turning in its grave. Oh sorry, it ain’t dead yet.
Apple’s Jobs- The tablet PC ‘crashed and burned’ – Nanotech – The Circuits Blog – CNET News
Comparing iPad 2 with some Android tablets. Unfortunately only listing features, not covering the ecosystem nor the UI and UE.
Apple iPad 2 get sized up alongside its competition
Interesting that Rhapsody always charges for listening. It doesn’t seem to have been a show-stopper either. I use Spotify a lot for sampling music, but I still buy a lot of CDs, maybe more then ever, as I’m now collecting special edition recordings of certain bands.
Rhapsody, Spotify headed for showdown – Denver Music – Backbeat
I’ve expected this, and it will happen to iPhone apps as well, but it’s a bit harder to do there considering you sign up as a company and they verify the apps (to a certain extent).
More than 50 Android apps found infected with rootkit malware – Technology – guardian.co.uk