Here’s one thing that’s interesting about Satya Nadella’s Microsoft: It’s no longer insisting that it can keep partying like it’s 1999. While Microsoft under former CEO Steve Ballmer used to point to its dominance of the desktop market as its ultimate trump card to use against anyone who said Apple and Google posed a threat to its business, the company is now acknowledging the reality that it’s actually something of an underdog.
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Is Silicon Valley deluding itself into thinking that smartwatches are going to be the next game-changing gadget? That certainly seems to be the case for the early generation of smartwathces, as New York Magazine’s Kevvin Roose tried wearing two different smartwatches at all times for a week and found them to be virtually useless.
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The smartwatch market is dominated by Samsung, followed by Sony and Pebble, according to a mid-May Strategy Analytics report, but that may change as soon as Apple’s rumored iWatch launches. Obtained by Forbes, a new research note from Morgan Stanley’s Katy Huberty reveals that Apple’s ecosystem strength and consumer loyalty are going to drive an incredible amount of sales in the first year alone.
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So now we know why Verizon decided to come out and accuse Netflix of essentially choosing to make its own traffic slow on its network — it seemingly wanted to preempt some more bad news in the most recent Netflix ISP rankings. Ars Technica notices that Netflix’s performance on Verizon’s FiOS network tanked by another 17% over the last month, which is a major embarrassment for Verizon given that it had already come to an agreement with Netflix months ago to improve the connections that Netflix used to send traffic through its network.
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When Apple acquired PrimeSense, the 3D sensing company that invented the Kinect, there was no immediate indication as to how Apple would take advantage of the team and its technology. Some analysts believed this would be yet another step toward the long-rumored iTV while other sources claimed the $360 million investment would help improve Apple’s iOS Maps app — the same one that had Alaskan tourists driving on to an airport runway last year.
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Microsoft’s next-generation Windows 8 desktop and tablet platform has been something of a mess thus far. Traction is finally picking up now that Windows XP is no longer supported and Windows 8.1 has been released along with some much-needed refinements, but Windows 8 has hardly been the boost PC vendors were hoping for. Consumers and enterprise users have a long list of common complaints, and Microsoft seems to be doing a good job of addressing them slowly but surely. Soon, one of the biggest complaints will finally be addressed.
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The OnePlus One may be a tough find for smartphone buyers, but the phone apparently performs great in the wild, with Phone Arena revealing the flagship #NeverSettle phone is capable of offering impressive battery life. In its battery tests, the OnePlus One came in second, lasting only five minutes less than Sony’s Xperia Z2, and significantly longer than other flagship devices from the competition, including the Galaxy S5, the G3 or the HTC One (M8).
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Five years ago, video game fans and analysts alike would have told you the next console generation would be the last. Many suspected the next round of consoles would fall flat, a prediction which gained some credence after the Wii U took a nosedive right out of the gate. The market was shifting to mobile and PC gaming, the generation had lasted years longer than it should have and nothing could possibly impress the skeptical enthusiasts. Then the PlayStation 4 launched.
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Apple has known for years that consumers want an iPhone with a larger display, as was revealed recently when an internal Apple document from 2012 was revealed during the Apple-Samsung patent trial. But now that iPhones with big screens finally appear to be in the works for launches later this year, a new question is raised: Is a larger display really the most desired new iPhone 6 feature among potential iPhone buyers?
According to one new survey, the answer is no.
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Robots and artificial intelligence have caused humans quite a bit of uneasiness, with even Tesla CEO Elon Musk saying there could be some scary outcomes for A.I., if it’s not used properly. Now, it looks like that nightmare may become a reality.
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