No, the first Facebook phone, also known as the HTC First, isn’t ready for the smartphone graveyard just yet.
BGR reported Monday that AT&T would discontinue selling the HTC First and return unsold inventory back to the manufacturer once it met the contractual obligations of its in-store display arrangement with HTC.
But AT&T has not made a decision to discontinue the First, according to a person familiar with the carrier’s plans.
“I am not aware of any discussion ever taking place about sending the phones back or to stop selling the First,” said a person intimately familiar with the dealings between AT&T and HTC.
Disney/ABC Television Group will officially release the “Watch ABC” app on Tuesday, letting users stream live network content on the Apple (AAPL, Fortune 500) iPhone and iPad. The company called the announcement “a defining moment in technology and distribution.”
That may be, but the app still isn’t a total-package solution for everyone — and none will be, until someone figures out how to align the varied interests of studios, cable providers, networks and affiliate stations. They all want more eyeballs, but they can’t agree enough to pull TV completely into digital.
Read More… http://cinchinfo.com/4-reasons-online-tv-pipe-dream/
The Indian IT infrastructure market, comprising server, storage, and networking equipment, is expected to grow 9.7 percent in 2013 to reach US$2.1 billion, with revenues hitting US$2.3 billion in 2014, according to a Gartner report released on Monday.
“Despite global economic challenges, India provides strong growth opportunities across segments including infrastructure [which] alone is expected to surpass US$2.9 billion in 2017,” Naveen Mishra, research director at Gartner said in a statement.
Read More… http://cinchinfo.com/india-infrastructure-spend-reach-2-3b/
With all the excitement surrounding the May 21 reveal of thenew Xbox, it occurred to us that we’ve been neglecting the most important thing of all – the games.
A few are as good as confirmed for the new console – Call of Duty: Ghosts, Watch Dogs, Assassin’s Creed 4: Black Flag– but there are plenty of others that we’d bet a limb on seeing (but please don’t hold us to that). And so we’ve listed the top 10 titles we expect to see on Xbox in the near future.
1. Project Gotham Racing 5
2. Destiny
Earthquakes, hurricanes, tornadoes, heat, accidents — the list of factors that can knock out power goes on and on. With backup generators for electricity so prevalent after a disaster, a nonprofit tech company in Kenya is making a backup device for Internet access.
How to Make Contact in an Emergency
The Nairobi-based company Ushahidi created a backup device called BRCK that’s a Wi-Fi router as well as a 3G and 4G modem with data settings for any cellular network worldwide, Technology Review’s David Talbot reported. Just change the SIM card. BRCK has software with a documented API so anyone can write apps for it.
Read More… http://cinchinfo.com/backup-device-internet-disaster/
Rumors that Facebook is in late-stage talks to buy Waze for as much as $1 billion have many wondering if the social network’s next great ambition is to tackle the maps and navigation market. Maybe — but only because maps would be Facebook’s best way to route around Google and make money from mobile search.
Founded in 2007, Waze makes a navigation application for iPhone and Android used by roughly 45 million people. The app’s mapping service is powered by the people who use it. Waze ingests all types of location data as shared, either implicitly or explicitly, by drivers. The app also connects to Facebook and incorporates social-networking functions so drivers can see their friends’ whereabouts on the map, share their location, and even send private messages.
Read More… http://cinchinfo.com/facebook-buy-waze-fight-google-mobile-search/
BitTorrent – the service you may or may not be using to illegally download Game of Thrones – is determined to show the world it’s not a force for evil as people might think.
To do so it’s partnered up with label Ultra Music (home of David Guetta) to launch an alpha version of its new torrent-based service named Bundle.
Bundle files will work similar to traditional torrents, but instead offer some of the downloadable content for free while users will need to take additional steps to access further material – like offering an email address or a monetary ‘donation’.
Read More… http://cinchinfo.com/bittorrent-bundle-in-torrent-record-store/
Federal officials have intensified their scrutiny of the data brokerage industry by issuing a series of formal letters in recent days alerting companies that they may be violating federal restrictions on the collection and sale of personal information.
The letters to 10 companies — ranging from firms that compile consumer lists for credit offersto a Web site that helps parents screen potential nannies — amounted to warning shots at a large and fast-growing industry that gathers personal information and markets it to a variety of customers.
Read More… http://cinchinfo.com/ftc-warns-data-brokers-privacy-rules/
Microsoft may be the only company on the face of the planet where the sale of 100 million licenses is seen by some as a disappointment.
Tami Reller, the chief marketing officer and chief financial officer of the Windows division, noted Monday that Microsoft has sold more than 100 million licenses of Windows 8 since its October debut. But slowing PC sales have sparked some hand-wringing, leading to speculation about the coming update for Windows 8, codenamed Blue. The significant changes in Windowshaven’t been universally embraced, Reller acknowledged to The New York Times.
“The learning curve is real and needs to be addressed,” Reller told the Times.
Read More… http://cinchinfo.com/windows-blue/
Disney (DIS, Fortune 500) and EA (EA) forged a “multi-year” partnership, in which three EA studios — DICE (maker of the “Battlefield” game), Visceral (“Dead Space”) and BioWare (“Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic”) — will exclusively develop Star Wars titles for consoles and computers.
The deal does not extend to mobile platforms and “online” titles, and the verdict is still out on some of Lucasfilm’s quirkier titles, like the “Secret of Monkey Island” series. But the deal made clear that Star Wars video games will live on to fight another day.
The EA development studios involved in the Disney partnership are still top notch — far more suited to make games for such a valuable brand such as Star Wars than the company’s own struggling publisher had been.
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