Tuesday, October 4, 2011
Apple introduces Siri for iOS, aims to reinvent how we interact with computers
As rumored, Apple just took the wraps off the fruits of its acquisition of Siri and it's called… "Siri." The feature enables you to interact with your device much as you would with a human assistant. You can naturally speak to your phone and it will perform as a personal information assistant. Apple is demoing different voice tasks like asking what the weather is like today, or do I need a raincoat today? More voice tasks? Wake me up at 6AM tomorrow and Siri will set your phone alarm. What's the time in Paris? How's the stock market doing today? Find me an italian restaurant in New York, give me directions to a location, and Siri will ever read your messages to you. Some more use cases? Asking Siri if you have any appointments in your calendar today, replying with voice to Siri which will then send a text reply back to a message for you, and even create a new calendar appointment for you.
Developing…
Apple iPhone 4S unveiled
It's official: Apple's brand new flagship handset, the iPhone 4S, is here. While confusion was sprinkled throughout the industry on exactly what Apple would announce, most seemed to agree that the iPhone 4S would be the smartphone that Apple ultimately would unveil. The iPhone 4S features an upgraded Apple A5 dual-core processor, it's twice as fast for CPU tasks, and up to 7x higher than the previous iPhone especially with graphics. Even with the increased performance of the new A5 chip, Apple is stating battery life has increased to 8 hours. In addition, Apple is touting a brand new antenna system where the phone will "intelligently switch between two antennas" to offer up even better call quality. Data speeds are increased by almost 2x, now capable of upwards of 14Mbps.
Developing…
Jimmy Kimmel says the new iPhone 5 will have a boomerang and light saber feature
A couple unexpected features the new iPhone has are its boomerang capabilities and that it has a built-in light saber. Very cool, once again changes everything. Hope they took the time to protect the patents. Check out the above video of this in action on Jimmy Kimmel last night.
Source: Mashable
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Monday, October 3, 2011
HP finalizes Autonomy acquisition
HP announced on Monday that it has followed through with its intentions to acquire Autonomy and has purchased the enterprise information technology firm for £25.50 per share in cash. HP will allow Autonomy to operate as an entirely separate arm; Autonomy will continue to be led by its founder and CEO Dr. Mike Lynch, who will report to HP's newly appointed CEO Meg Whitman. "We are committed to helping our customers solve their toughest IT challenges," HP president and chief executive officer Meg Whitman said. "The exploding growth of unstructured and structured data and unlocking its value is the single largest opportunity for consumers, businesses and governments. Autonomy significantly increases our capabilities to manage and extract meaning from that data to drive insight, foresight and better decision making." Read on for the full press release.
HP Acquires Control of Autonomy Corporation
Positions HP as a leader in fast-growing enterprise information management and data market
HP today announced that it has acquired control of Autonomy Corporation.
Holders of 213,421,299 Autonomy shares have accepted HP's previously announced offer to purchase the entire share capital of Autonomy at a price of £25.50 per share in cash, representing approximately 87.34 percent of the current issued share capital of Autonomy. As such, all conditions relating to the offer have now been satisfied, allowing HP to acquire control of Autonomy.
The acquisition positions HP as a leader in the large and growing enterprise information management space. Autonomy's software offerings power more than 25,000 customer accounts worldwide and, as part of HP, will provide high-value business solutions to help customers manage the explosion of unstructured and structured information. Autonomy offers solutions that are complementary across HP's enterprise offerings and strengthens the company's data analytics, cloud, industry and workflow management capabilities.
"We are committed to helping our customers solve their toughest IT challenges. The exploding growth of unstructured and structured data and unlocking its value is the single largest opportunity for consumers, businesses and governments," said Meg Whitman, HP president and chief executive officer. "Autonomy significantly increases our capabilities to manage and extract meaning from that data to drive insight, foresight and better decision making."
As previously announced, Autonomy will operate as a separate business unit. Dr. Mike Lynch, the founder and chief executive officer of Autonomy, will continue to lead the Autonomy business and will report to Whitman.
"This is a historic day for Autonomy, our employees and the customers we serve, as we combine HP's phenomenal assets and Autonomy's specialized skills to produce systems that handle all the information in the enterprise, regardless of the format it is in," said Lynch. "We are at the dawn of a new era when it is the 'I' in IT that is changing, not just the 'T.'"
HP's offer to purchase the remaining Autonomy shares remains open. Further information is available at www.hp.com/investor/offerdocuments.
“Rogers Phone Finder” helps you find your phone
The "Rogers Phone Finder" is available to all Rogers customers who have a wireless account (phone only, no data sticks). Honestly, I'm not sure how long this has been active but we've reached out to Rogers for further insight. Rogers states on the dedicated site that the "Rogers Phone Finder service is a network-based service that helps you locate a lost Rogers phone by logging in to a web portal".
There is no app, but you'll to need to opt in to use the service. The service is location based and the terms and conditions find print states that "You expressly agree that you have no expectation of privacy when using the Service as it relates to your location. You authorize Rogers and any third party that provides the Service to you on our behalf to collect, use, and disclose geographic location and other personal information (including your name, address, telephone number, account number, equipment identifiers, and Internet Protocol addresses) necessary to enable delivery of the Service". However, it does note that only "the last look up is recorded and available for viewing when you log in to your account. Only you have access to the look up via logging in to your account".
As for the charges, customers will get 5 free "look ups" every month, with each additional look up costing $0.20 (billed to your Rogers account). In addition, the Phone Finder will only work in Canada where Rogers has coverage… so if you travel outside the country you're out of luck. Once you log in to locate your phone – via a PC, tablet or smartphone – it'll show up "instantly on an interactive map". Rogers says the response times for location requests can vary from 5 to 60 seconds.
So there you go, possibly another Rogers first.
Let us know what you think… and if you've used this before.
We'll have more info soon. More here at Rogers
(Thanks tipster!)
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Sunday, October 2, 2011
Humour: Dunder Mifflin ready to unleash the Pyramid tablet
You want to know the tablet that will compete with all the Android tablets and takeover top spot from Apple's iPad… it's the Pyramid. This tablet will soon be "unleashed" by Dunder Mifflin-Sabre and is awkward looking, heavy, has low memory and a poor battery life.
Source: AllThingsD
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