Apple spends $14 billion buying back its own shares

Chief executive Tim Cook says that spending cash reserves on buying back shares and boosting the price for remaining investors proves “that we are betting on Apple" 

 

Apple has spent $14 billion (£8.6 billion) buying back its own stock over the last two weeks, according to reports.

Chief executive Tim Cook said, in an interview with the Wall Street Journal: “It means that we are betting on Apple. It means that we are really confident on what we are doing and what we plan to do. We are not just saying that. We are showing that with our actions.”

The newspaper claimed that the company bought $12 billion though an accelerated share repurchase program and a further $2 billion on the open market.

New York police testing Google Glass

The New York City Police Department is testing Google Glass to see if wearable computers could be useful in law enforcement

The new Google Glass 'Thin' prescription frames in "tangerine" colour  

The New York City Police Department is testing Google Glass to see if wearable computers could be useful in law enforcement.

Samsung Galaxy Note 3 release date and news

 

 update: It's here! The Galaxy Note 3 has been officially unveiled to world at Samsung Unpacked 2013, as part of IFA 2013.
With the Samsung Galaxy S4 now out of the way the door has been thrown open for the Korean firm's other high-end smartphone to get a reboot in the form of the Samsung Galaxy Note 3.
Rumours are circulating about Samsung's next super-sized handset, suggesting it's going to get even bigger - even though the Samsung Galaxy Note 2 raised eyebrows with its larger size
 .

Microsoft buys Nokia’s phone business for $7.2 billion in an attempt to imitate Apple

If you thought that some kind of Grand Plan was afoot when Stephen Elop moved from Microsoft to Nokia in 2010, you were right: Microsoft has announced that it will acquire Nokia’s mobile phone business and a “broad intellectual property license” for Nokia’s patent portfolio, for 5.44 billion Euros (~$7.2 billion). 

PS4 and Xbox One won’t support external hard drives for now

Both the PS4 and Xbox One will ship with 500GB hard drives. The PS4′s drive is user-upgradable, but the Xbox One’s is most certainly not. Even so, both consoles sport USB 3.0 ports, so expanding the storage should be simple, right? Sadly, that’s not the case. At least at launch, neither the PS4 or Xbox One will have full support for external hard drives.

Samsung Galaxy Gear makes early showing in leaked photos

Samsung's entry into the smartwatch wars is getting shown off a little earlier than the company intended.
Venture Beat on Sunday posted photos of what it says is a prototype of Samsung's Galaxy Gear smartwatch that was sent to developers. The photos are actually stills from an "internal promotional marketing video" that was created by an independent team working with Samsung, according to Venture Beat.
The photos show off the purported smartwatch's OLED display running what appears to be a handful of different apps. 

Samsung Galaxy S4 Zoom review:

The good: The Samsung Galaxy S4 Zoom's advanced controls and preset modes are easy to use. Its top-notch image quality, optical zoom, and a tripod mount make it the most flexible smartphone camera there is. Android 4.2 helps keep the device fresh and connected.

The bad: Heavy, thick, and asymmetrical, the camera-shaped Zoom is incredibly awkward and uncomfortable to use as a phone.

New York Times hit with 'malicious attack'

The New York Times' website went down for several hours on Tuesday and some users were still having problems Wednesday after it was hit with a "malicious external attack."

A tweet from the official Times Twitter account was directing readers to an alternative website -- http://news.nytco.com -- if they were having difficulties accessing the main site at nytimes.com. Readers in Europe and Asia were reporting problems Wednesday.

Marc Frons, chief information officer at the Times, told employees Tuesday that the outage was the result of an attack on Melbourne IT, the company's domain name registrar, according to the New York Times. 

Intel: Custom Microprocessor Business Set to Expand.

As large datacenter owners start to build their own servers tailored for their specific workloads, for chip companies like Intel Corp. it becomes increasingly important to offer chips tailored for exact needs of their customers. Last year the world’s largest microprocessor maker supplied such custom chips to eighteen clients, but the number is set to grow.
"That trend is growing. In the last year we have delivered 18 custom silicon processor solutions for the full array of customers -- our direct customers, the OEMS and the end users -- in order to meet their specific needs," said Diane Bryant, senior vice president and general manager of datacenter and connected systems group, in an interview with IDG News Service.

Microsoft Starts to Release Windows 8.1 to Hardware Partners.

Microsoft Corp. said on Tuesday it had hit an important milestone for Windows 8.1 operating system. The company has started releasing Windows 8.1 and Windows RT 8.1 to its hardware partners. Microsoft partners are finalizing work on their Windows 8.1-based products, which will be available starting from October 18, 2013. Microsoft expects the family of devices to include tablets, lightweight notebooks, versatile 2-in-1s and other.

Moto X teardown: X8 tech gets marquee billing under the hood

Over the past few weeks, Motorola has made sure the media knows that the Moto X does not have a stock smartphone chip. And the company won't let you forget that even if you pop off the plastic (see photo above).

 

As Motorola explained in an interview with CNET, the main component of the X8 system is a 1.7GHz Qualcomm S4 Pro that Motorola has worked with Qualcomm to customize for its devices.
The X8 part of the system is two Motorola-designed processors: one is a "contextual computing processor" that handles gestures and the other is a natural language processor, which powers the voice-recognition technology on the device.
The goal is to deliver high performance with low power consumption. 



Which bring us to the battery. iFixit gives us a clear view of the Motorola 3.8 volt, 2200mAh Lithium ion battery, which Motorola claims delivers 24 hours of power with "mixed usage."
Notable components that iFixit found inside include a Toshiba 16GB eMMC NAND Flash, 2GB of system RAM, and a 10-megapixel rear-facing camera -- which, by the way, is 25 percent more pixels than the camera in the iPhone 5.
And how easy is it to pop off the plastic cover? The Moto X internals weren't as easy to get at as iFixit anticipated. "To our dismay, the rear panel, though clipped to the device, is also adhered," iFixit said.
But said this about the back cover. "Folks can pretty easily replace the back cover with another of their choosing, provided they peel off and transplant the flash."
iFixit gives Motorola/Google mostly kudos for an interesting internal layout. "The design choices are nothing if not unique."

Windows 8.1 is ready, gets released to manufacturers

They said they'd do it by the end of August. And as we head into the last stretch, it seems Microsoft has released to manufacturing (RTMed) Windows 8.1, its next release of Windows.
Windows SuperSite editor Paul Thurrott tweeted on August 23 that Windows 8.1 had RTM'd. Thurrott said the final RTM build number is 9600.16384.130821-1623.
I talked to another contact of mine who said the internal RTM e-mail made the rounds inside the Windows division on August 23. A third source close to the company confirmed Microsoft RTM'd Windows 8.1 on August 23, and announced internally that the quality metrics for Windows 8.1 were back in line with those of Windows 7. (The vast amount of changes in the Windows 8 code base resulted in an increased number of crashes and hangs for Windows 8, one of my contacts explained.)

DOJ wiggles on Apple e-book remedies but not oversight

The US Department of Justice is willing to wiggle a bit on the remedies proposed for Apple following an e-books trial, but one area it won't budge is having someone monitor the company.
The government, which in July won an antitrust suit against Apple, initially asked for an injunction of 10 years, but the DOJ on Friday said it's willing to cut that length to five years. It noted that it's trying to limit the possibility that changes in the industry will cause the decree to "outlive its usefulness and unnecessarily harm Apple." At the same time, the DOJ wants the ability to seek a limited number of one-year extensions. 

Bye-bye, Ballmer. But who's next as Microsoft CEO?

Microsoft is beginning its search for a successor to CEO Steve Ballmer. Here's who might be on the internal short list of possible candidates.

First Beta Of MoDaCo.SWITCH Arrives For The Galaxy S4, Currently Only For Indiegogo Backers

If you cannot make up your mind between running TouchWiz or a stock version of Jelly Bean, thanks to MoDaCo.SWITCH, that's a decision you won't have to make. This piece of software makes switching back and forth between the two versions as simple as toggling a switch. Paul O'Brien, better known as MoDaCo, has started porting it to the Galaxy S4, and the beta is now available for those who backed his Indiegogo campaign. 

 

iPhone 5S and 5C: Everything You Need to Know About the Next iPhone

 

"When is the next iPhone coming out?" "Should I wait for the next iPhone or just get one now?" "And why would I want the next iPhone to read my fingerprint?"
It happens to me every year around this time -- a deluge of questions about the next iPhone.
And the timing of the rumors and interest makes sense. For the past two years, Apple has released a new iPhone in September, which means that many are preparing for a long-anticipated upgrade. And yes, according to reports, Apple is now gearing up for its annual September iPhone event where it is expected to release the successor to the iPhone 5 -- presumably the iPhone 5S -- and another phone called the iPhone 5C.

Prices and specifications of smartphones and tablet devices this week

Blackberry Bold 9790

Microsoft to close Xbox PC Marketplace on August 22

Microsoft has officially decided to close down its PC Marketplace.
The company announced the news late Thursday, saying that on August 22, it will shutter the PC Marketplace platform. The move comes in conjunction with Microsoft's announcement earlier this year that it will ditch its virtual currency, Microsoft Points, in favor of local currency in an upcoming Xbox system update.

PS4 release date, news and features

The PlayStation 4 will go on sale later this year and it'll be cheaper than the Xbox One - $399 in the U.S., £349 in the U.K. and €399 - compared to $499 and £429.

These pricing details were revealed along - at long last - with the look of the PS4 console itself, at Sony's E3 2013 press conference.

Sony says the PS4 was designed with an overarching theme of a "frictionless and seamless" gaming experience.

Samsung Galaxy S4 Mini review

 It's hard to mention the Samsung Galaxy range of smartphones without mentioning the sheer range of devices that it covers, from the highest end powerhouses such as the Samsung Galaxy S4, all the way through to the wallet-friendly Samsung Galaxy Fame.