Nokia holds 59% of global Windows Phone market, 32% in US

Trace Hagan | Business, Financial & Legal | Aug 21, 2012 3:30 PM CDT

Nokia is doing its best to hang in the smartphone market and has placed a large bet on Windows Phone. Instead of investing in Android like many of Nokia's competitor's did, they opted to stick with Microsoft's Windows Phone. And while they have the largest market share of Windows Phone phones, their overall market share is still really low.

As you can see in the graph above, total Windows Phone sales increased for nearly every manufacturer as the market grew, but Nokia managed to pull way away from the competition with their Nokia Lumia line of Windows Phone. This resulted in lower market shares for the other companies, such as Samsung dropping from 23 to 13 percent or HTC dropping from 44 to 21 percent.

However, in the US market, HTC is still the leader with 36 percent of the market. Nokia holds a close second at 32 percent and Samsung is in third with 26 percent. Nokia didn't launch a phone in the United States until January and you can see how much their sales took off between then and July. Localytics explains how Microsoft has a partner in Nokia:

Continue reading: Nokia holds 59% of global Windows Phone market, 32% in US (full post)

Skype updates iPhone and iPad app with performance increases and Photo Sharing feature

Trace Hagan | Software & Apps | Aug 21, 2012 2:34 PM CDT

Skype is a popular platform for communication among all walks of life. According to the post, "millions of people use Skype for iPhone or Skype for iPad each month." These users have requested features, and Microsoft has obliged with one of the most requested feature: Photo Sharing. They've also updated the apps for speed.

"In addition, we've made some improvements to the performance of the app, as we know many of you want to keep Skype running on your mobile devices all the time." The new feature allows users to send photos that were taken with a user's iPad or iPhone directly to friends and family via Skype. There is no file-size limit.

This means the feature can be used to avoid MMS fees or e-mail attachment size limits. Regarding the performance tweaks:

Continue reading: Skype updates iPhone and iPad app with performance increases and Photo Sharing feature (full post)

FMS 2012 - 30% of flash output reduction to have little impact on consumer SSDs

Trace Hagan | Trade Shows | Aug 21, 2012 1:30 PM CDT

Yesterday we spoke with Toshiba on several topics but for consumers looking to buy a new high performance, premium solid-state drive this nugget of information made it to the top of our list.

According to Jason Baker, Director of Marketing, Storage Product Business Unit, "The 30% reduction in Toshiba flash output will have little effect on the consumer SSD Market." Jason went on to say, "The only market we should see affected is the low cost personal carry products like USB thumb drives and other extremely low cost, commodity items."

This is important news for enthusiasts, power users and for that matter anyone looking to purchase some of the highest performing and lowest power consuming SSDs on the market today like the Plextor M5 Pro that uses Toshiba 19nm Toggle Mode flash, Corsair Neutron GTX and Corsair Force GS, both of which use Toshiba 24nm Toggle Mode flash.

Continue reading: FMS 2012 - 30% of flash output reduction to have little impact on consumer SSDs (full post)

Octane: a new JavaScript browser benchmark by Google

Trace Hagan | Internet & Websites | Aug 21, 2012 12:34 PM CDT

"The web is evolving and so should the JavaScript benchmarks that measure its performance," says the Google blog announcing Octane, a new JavaScript benchmark. Due to this, Google has ditched the traditional method of making a benchmark--artificial tests designed to test one feature at a time--and opted to use common web apps and JavaScript libraries.

Since they are based on web apps that are used everyday, this real world scenario allows the benchmark's numbers to be better. Google claims that "a high score in the new benchmarks directly translates to better and smoother performance in similar web applications" since it is based off of real applications.

Google has provided us with an overview of the tests:

Continue reading: Octane: a new JavaScript browser benchmark by Google (full post)

Toshiba increases enterprise SSD offerings with three new lines

Trace Hagan | Storage | Aug 21, 2012 11:32 AM CDT

Here's a mouthful for a business name: The Storage Products Business Unit of Toshiba America Electronic Components, Inc. Anyway, these folks have announced an expansion to their enterprise SSD offerings in the form of three new lines of varying capacity and specifications. They bill the three lines as "High Performance," "Value," and "Read-Intensive/Boot Server."

  • High-Performance: Targeted at applications requiring the highest levels of eSSD performance, the PX02SM series is Toshiba's first eSSD to utilize 24nm eMLC (enterprise multi-level cell) NAND technology, with capacities of 200/400/800GB1 and 1.6TB2, and is Toshiba's first offering with a dual-port 12Gb/sec SAS interface with a form-factor equivalent to industry-standard 2.5inch HDDs.
  • Value Line: Optimized for entry-to-mid-level server and storage applications requiring balance, reliability, capacity and endurance, the PX02AM series also features 24nm eMLC NAND flash in capacities of 100, 200 and 400GB, all with a 6Gb/s SATA (Serial ATA) interface. Featuring a slim 7mm 2.5inch industry-standard form-factor, all capacities offer power-loss protection.
  • Read-Intensive/Boot Server: Targeted at entry-level server applications, the PX03AN series is Toshiba's first eSSD family using 19nm cMLC (consumer multi-level cell) NAND flash, in capacities of 55, 120, 240 and 480 GB. Utilizing the 7mm 2.5inch form-factor, the PX03AN series drives also offer power-loss protection.

"As SSDs continue to broaden their reach into enterprise applications, from web servers to data centers, our customers are looking for a broad set of SSD solutions," said Joel Hagberg, vice president of marketing at Toshiba's Storage Products Business Unit. "Today's announcement further demonstrates how Toshiba is providing our partners with the ability to deliver the best storage solutions for every enterprise need."

Continue reading: Toshiba increases enterprise SSD offerings with three new lines (full post)

GIGABYTE shows off new P2542G gaming notebook and U2442 Ultrabook

Matthew Wu | Laptops | Aug 21, 2012 11:08 AM CDT

GIGABYTE are known for their motherboards and video cards here at TweakTown, receiving generally good reviews and awards for their range of products. It may come to you as a surprise that they have also been producing notebooks for the past five years. Today, GIGABYTE Australia announced their latest models in the Ultrabook and high performance gaming market space and I was there to cover it.

The P2542G 15.6" gaming laptop promises to 'unleash fury' on the latest PC games such as Battlefield 3 which was showcased at the media event. With a NVIDIA GeForce GTX 660M powering the punch, we saw the notebook running BF3 at an average of 38fps on the highest settings (Ultra settings/4xAA/1920x1080) and mirrored onto the 52" Sony TV at the same FHD resolution. "The notebook is only 2.6KG, so it's good for LAN parties." said Hanif Wong, Marketing Specialist for GIGABYTE Taiwan, "but it's not just a notebook for gaming, it's also a notebook for multimedia with its amazing audio."

GIGABYTE will only release the P2542G in a yellow colour only because they are targeting users who wants to stand out from the sea of black and beige notebooks, but a black colour is a possibility and will be considered if the demand is high explained Wong. The battery life of this machine is estimated to be about 3-5 hours depending on the workload. Unfortunately no gaming accessories will be bundled with the notebook when purchased.

Continue reading: GIGABYTE shows off new P2542G gaming notebook and U2442 Ultrabook (full post)

Billionaire, early Facebook investor and board member, Peter Thiel, dumps a bunch of his Facebook shares

Anthony Garreffa | Business, Financial & Legal | Aug 21, 2012 6:29 AM CDT

Peter Thiel is a lot of things, a billionaire, an early Facebook investor, and board member of the social network, and to add to that, he's a little richer thanks to dumping a tonne of his shares in Facebook. Forbes is reporting that Thiel sold the majority of the shares in Facebook under his name last week, citing a financial document filed on Monday with the Securities and Exchange Commission.

Thiel, with his venture capital firm, Founders Fund, sold close to 20.1 million shares late last week, which represent 72% of the shares voted by Thiel. Thiel is the first investor in Facebook who has dumped this amount of shares, and it should put shivers down the spines of any investors in the social network. Facebook shares have absolutely tanked since they first went public, dipping below $19, or under half their initial opening price of $38 per share.

It was rumored that Thiel would dump his shares after the expiration of a lock-up agreement ended, covering around 271 million shares that were held by early investors and employees of Facebook. Thiel still has a personal stake in Facebook, as well as maintaining voting control over the shares that are held by Founders Fund. After dumping his shares in the social network, Thiel netted around $285 million after taxes. Obviously much less than what he would've made had he gotten rid of them at the launch of the IPO, but that's what the lock-up agreement stopped.

Continue reading: Billionaire, early Facebook investor and board member, Peter Thiel, dumps a bunch of his Facebook shares (full post)

PayPal could soon make its way to your local McDonald's

Anthony Garreffa | Business, Financial & Legal | Aug 21, 2012 5:29 AM CDT

PayPal has enjoyed its side of the mobile payments deal lately, but landing a client like McDonald's would definitely be a great move. Reuters is reporting that PayPal are in the early stages of a mobile payments deal with McDonald's Corp, the world's biggest hamburger chain.

McDonald's have been testing out PayPal at 30 of their restaurants in France, and also used the service earlier this year at their franchisee conference in Orlando, Florida. A McDonalds spokeswoman has confirmed the France tests, and said that the PayPal-based demonstration at their conference was part of a booth that features "technology coming within the next 24 months or so".

McDonald's France test included being able to order food on smart devices through a McDonald's mobile application, or online, where you'd pay with PayPal. PayPal with McDonald's would make it even easier to place your order, and pick it up, as you'd be able to cut lines in the restaurant itself. Gil Luria, an analyst at Wedbush Securities has said that "if they can shave 10 seconds off wait times, same-store sales could go up a lot".

Continue reading: PayPal could soon make its way to your local McDonald's (full post)

DNA-based storage contains 700TB into 1 gram of DNA, could we soon see DNAS' on the market?

Anthony Garreffa | Storage | Aug 21, 2012 3:28 AM CDT

I hope you enjoyed the pun in the title, but seriously, I want a DNAS as soon as possible. Grab your lab coat, because we're about to do a quick science post. Harvard geneticist and bioengineers George Church and Sriram Kosuri with the help of John Hopkins Yuan Gao have stored 5.5 petabits (700TB) of data into one gram of DNA.

The accomplishment of these scientists, is grand, as it beats the previous DNA data storage record by more than 1000 times. DNA-based storage is attractive to scientists, as DNA itself is quite dense, requires absolutely no moving parts when stored, and is durable. Usually data is stored on magnetic media, versus DNA strands storing 96 bits, with each of the base pairs representing a binary number.

In this case, Adenosine and Thymine represent zero, and the Guanine and Cytosine represent one. Each strand of DNA is encoded with a 19-bit address block allowing vast quantities of DNA to be stored volumetrically to be decoded and sorted so that usable data can be extracted, 96 bits at a time. In comparison, the original human genome project, with 3 billion base pairs, took 13 years to complete (from 1990 to 2003).

Continue reading: DNA-based storage contains 700TB into 1 gram of DNA, could we soon see DNAS' on the market? (full post)

Microsoft opens the doors to Windows 8 upgrade for Windows 7 PCs, just $14.99 and available until Feb 28, 2013

Anthony Garreffa | Software & Apps | Aug 21, 2012 12:26 AM CDT

If you've only recently bought a Windows 7-based PC, and would like to upgrade to the upcoming Start menu-less Windows 8, Microsoft have opened up the registration page in order to do so. The Windows Upgrade Offer will upgrade you to Windows 8 Pro for just $14.99.

It's available to anyone who purchased, or will purchase a Windows 7 PC between June 2, 2012 and January 31, 2013. If you'd like to take part in the upgrade to Windows 8, you'll need to provide your 25-digit Windows 7 key as part of the online registration process.

Starting October 26, Microsoft will then send out promotion codes via e-mail, which can be used in the checkout within the Windows 8 Upgrade Assistant.

Continue reading: Microsoft opens the doors to Windows 8 upgrade for Windows 7 PCs, just $14.99 and available until Feb 28, 2013 (full post)