Corporate

Yahoo buys Donna virtual assistant maker Incredible Labs, will shut down app

Christian Zibreg ∙ Updated January 24, 2018

Yahoo's shopping spree continues as the company announced Thursday its newest acqui-hire: San Francisco based Incredible Labs, the team behind a rather compelling virtual assistant app named Donna.

Incredible launched Donna on iOS last summer. Named after Donna Moss, the popular assistant from the TV show The West Wing, the software is basically a cross between Google Now and Siri.

The application strives to manage your day with features like smart notifications, an anticipatory calendar and in-app directions, to mention but a few. Donna would proactively tell you about upcoming appointments, dial into conference calls for you, let others know when to expect you by analyzing traffic conditions and your frequent locations - even taking into account the little things like the current parking situation.

In November, Donna got updated with Lock screen calling, smarter meeting scheduling and other features. Nothing indicated at the time that Incredible would slow the pace of Donna development, let alone sell out to Yahoo.

Unfortunately, there is some bad news for Donna fans out there: the Internet giant will be shutting down the application following the acquisition...

Apple to participate in ConnectED program to help bring high-speed Internet to U.S. schools

Christian Zibreg ∙ Updated February 6, 2017

Apple, along with other Silicon Valley titans such as Microsoft and carriers like Verizon and Sprint, is going to work with the United States government to help connect schools on America with high-speed broadband Internet. The Obama administration wants to connect as much as 99 percent of schools to high-speed Internet over the next four years and companies like Apple should help advance that effort...

Despite T-Mobile’s Un-carrier, AT&T adds 809,000 new subscribers in Christmas quarter

Christian Zibreg ∙ Updated January 26, 2016

The nation's second-largest wireless carrier, AT&T, yesterday reported its Christmas quarter earnings revealing steady growth, despite T-Mobile's taunts and its Un-carrier initiative. Although AT&T (and Verizon) stopped divulging iPhone activations, the carrier confirmed selling 7.9 million smartphones in the quarter, a decline from the 10.2 million smartphones it activated a year ago.

They added a cool 1.2 million new subscribers and upgrades by old subscribers. Of that number, 809,000 connections were new subscribers and 566,000 were postpaid wireless customers with a contract. Go past the fold for the full breakdown...

Rovio denies wrongdoing in NSA’s snooping of Angry Birds players, but…

Christian Zibreg ∙ Updated January 26, 2016

A report yesterday by The New York Times and other news organizations has provided yet another unsettling glimpse into the NSA's wide-ranging surveillance practices.

The speculation, based on information from documents provided by the NSA leaker Edward Snowden, suggests that the NSA and its British counterpart GCHQ have been collecting private user data from mobile apps, in real time, as it travels across the Internet.

Profile data being collected from popular games such as Rovio’s Angry Birds typically includes age, location and gender, the allegations go. And with games that show ads, the agencies are also able to intercept users' surprisingly detailed advertising profiles, mining it for new information...

Apple provides update on National Security Orders and account information requests

Christian Zibreg ∙ Updated June 7, 2017

Apple has posted an update to information pertaining to national security and law enforcement orders, confirming that it's been working closely with the White House, the U.S. Attorney General, congressional leaders, and the Department of Justice to "advocate for greater transparency with regard to the national security orders we receive".

Apple CEO Tim Cook briefly touched on the topic in an interview with ABC’s David Muir, saying the NSA does not have access to Apple's servers as the snooping agency would have to “cart us out in a box” for that kind of access (those are his exact words)...

Microsoft’s SkyDrive is now OneDrive

Christian Zibreg ∙ Updated January 23, 2018

Microsoft's multi-platform cloud storage service SkyDrive has just been rechristened and shall be known henceforth as OneDrive. The rebranding comes following last June's ruling in a trademark case involving Microsoft and British TV broadcaster BSkyB.

As the television broadcaster trademarked the term 'Sky,' the court ordered that Microsoft concede the 'SkyDrive' trademark to BSkyB.

One of the largest pay-TV providers in Europe, BSkyB offers video streaming and has its own online storage service called Sky Store & Share...

Google buys AI startup DeepMind for $500 million

Christian Zibreg ∙ January 27, 2014

Google is getting closer to becoming SkyNet after laying its hands on artificial intelligence startup DeepMind Technologies for a reported $400 million, with some sources claiming as much as $500 million. According to a scoop by Re/code, a new project by former AllThingsD and WSJ journalists Kara Swisher and Walt Mossberg, Google has confirmed the deal but wouldn't wouldn't specify a price...

Mac App Store highlights apps and games that ‘capture what makes Mac so extraordinary’

Christian Zibreg ∙ Updated January 27, 2019

Unless you haven't been following news today, you're by now aware that this Friday marks the Mac's 30th anniversary. Apple is celebrating the occasion by taking over its own homepage with a nice interactive timeline of all Mac models, along with a cool poll and a heartwarming video to go with it.

The company's Apple Stores are also taking part in the festivities with Mac-themed window displays.

And now, a store of another kind, the Mac App Store, has joined the celebration with a brand new 'Happy Birthday, Mac' section highlighting a cherry-picked selection of free/paid apps and games that "capture the spirit of what makes this computer so extraordinary"...

Apple celebrates 30 years of Mac innovation with gorgeous timeline, video and interactive poll

Christian Zibreg ∙ Updated November 19, 2018

On this day thirty years ago, Steve Jobs presented the new Macintosh to a roomful of Apple investors.

Apple's computer would go on to put the power of technology in everyone's hands, all the while changing the face of personal computing for decades to come, upending whole industries, challenging the status quo and eventually leading to the iPod, iPhone and iPad.

Today, the company has taken over its own homepage with a gorgeous visual timeline of the thirty years of Macintosh innovations, paying tribute to the computer with a nicely done video, an interactive poll and other goodies...

Christmas Lumia sales collapse, Nokia schedules media event to – unveil Android device?

Christian Zibreg ∙ Updated February 9, 2016

After reading a Forbes article two days ago highlighting 24 countries where Windows Phones outsells the iPhone - which disregards the fact that Microsoft is gaining traction in markets where the iPhone doesn’t compete because Windows Phone sales are most in the low-end - I wanted to write a reality check type of an article.

Today, both Nokia and Microsoft were served a reality check after the struggling Finnish handset maker reported a whopping 29 percent lower handset revenue in the Christmas quarter. Worse, sales are decelerating at an alarming clip: Nokia said it sold 8.2 million phones during the Christmas quarter versus Wall Street consensus of ten million units. And they only sold 30 million handsets during 2013.

The company has now scheduled a press conference at the upcoming Mobile World Congress in February amid persisting rumors of a budget Android phone with the Nokia logo on it, the ambitious project apparently code-named Normandy...

Icahn says Apple board is ‘working against shareholders’ then buys $500M more shares

Christian Zibreg ∙ January 22, 2014

Greedy activist investor Carl Icahn has escalated his anti-Apple rhetoric on Wednesday after recently filing a proposal to put his aggressive stock buyback proposal up for a vote. Apple responded by confirming that any changes to its own corporate stock buyback program will be discussed in the “first part of calendar 2014,” likely at the upcoming shareholder meeting in February.

Be that as it may, Icahn now feels the Apple board is "doing great disservice to shareholders" by refusing to boost the company's buyback markedly, according to a tweet today. An in-depth letter will follow soon, the shark investor ominously announced.

At the same time, Icahn announced buying an additional half a billion dollars worth of shares, pushing his stake in the iPhone maker to north of a respectable $3 billion. He called the latest investment a "no brainer"...

Apple’s iBooks Textbooks and iTunes U Course Manager expand to new markets

Christian Zibreg ∙ January 21, 2014

Today is a big day for Apple's strides in education as the company in a media release announced a significant expansion of its educational content.

iBooks Textbooks are now available in a total of 51 countries around the globe while iTunes U Course Manager is available to customers in 70 countries, Apple said.

Starting today, iBooks Textbooks and iTunes U Course Manager are rolling out to new countries in Asia, Latin America and Europe, including Russia, Thailand and Malaysia...