Tech News of the week

• Feb 20: PS4 is to be announced by Sony (price tag: rumored to be 400$)

• Linkedin have now more than 200 Million member.

• Amazon Coins a virtual currency to be launched in May (only in U.S.), it will allow users to buy apps > our analsys: Amazon strategy would be to eventually allow in apps purchases and expand across devices as an in app payment currency.

• About.me buys itself back from AOL.

• Yahoo Acquires Alike Team that built a Mobile Nearby Recommendation app.

Microsoft:

• New Xbox console name: Durango will come with enhanced voice recognition system a bit like Siri (Voice recognition system from Apple).

• Dell trying to go private and MS helping it > Reaction: HP announces the plan to build a chromebook >> Big DELL shareholder Southeastern Asset Management Inc.(8.5% of shares) will go all the way to oppose the $24 billion deal.

• Skydrive from Microsoft is now hosting 1 billion office document. > a Google Drive VS. Skydive should be done.

• Russian Search Engine Yandex, surpasses Bing and becomes the 4th most used Search Engine, Bing becomes 5th, Google remain 1st with 65.2% of search volume, Chinese search engine Baidu second with 8.2% and Yahoo 3rd with 4.9%

• 4Afrika a project by Microsoft and Chinese telecoms giant Huawei to launch special windows Phones for Africa.

• Microsoft continue Scroogle attack campaign, after Google Shopping, now Gmail.

Google:

• The Wall Street Journal, in an article last week claimed that Illegal Movies Upload is reappearing on Youtube > Our Analysis: the problem is not new and definetly not reappearing! at least 30% if not 90% of youtube content is copyrighted videos, and from it there’s a good 5% of movies.

• Google  Agreed to pay $80 million to french publishers > Reaction: now all european publishers want the same treatment, European Publishers Council asks Google to extend it’s offer across Europe.

• Google Maps Marathon in India, the best way to improve Google maps for Free, well not quite Free because Goog will be giving gadgets to the top 1000 participant > I wish i can make people work for hats and tshirts as Goog does.

• Google Drive allows hosting and sharing  HTML, JavaScript, and CSS files > Analysis: Google Drive might soon become a web hosting service.

• Google self driving cars technology will be available in 5 years > regulations need to follow

• Google Paid Apple $1 billion to be default search engine on iOS safari browser (Apple disclosed agreement to FTC).

Apple:

• Envasion Jailbreak ; over 7 million devices in 4 days.

• Some iPhone owners experiencing overheating and battery drain after upgrading to iOS 6.1

• A study claim that almost 300 million iPhone and 800 Android phone will be Active by the end of 2013.

• Apple looses iPhone trademark in Brazil to a company that registered it in 2000.

• Rumors: apple in early stages of smart watch.

• Apple & Samsung making 103% of the profits in Mobile handsets (Apple 69%), Motorola, Nokia , others losing.

• As previously reported the 128GB retina display ipads hit the Apple store.

• Big Shareholder accuse Apple of hording money and try to sue Apple > Apple CEO says company won’t waste time on it.

• Apple pay $8 billion to the 775,000 apps developpers

Open Source:

• Ubuntu open source OS smarthphones will be available this October, starting with Galaxy Nexus handset by samsung.

Cyber Security:

• European Union proposal for new cyber rules, request firms and institution to report cyber attacks, each country would have to appoint a Computer Emergency Response Team and create an authority to whom companies would report breaches.

• Cyber crime: Servers controlling 300.000 to 1 million computers though the use of malware and spyware (known as botnet), were detected and shut down by Microsoft and Symantec Corp

• Anonymous Hack a Federal reserve website and access personal information on 4000 u.s. bank executives.

Facebook:

• According to regulators, Facebook deleted all Facial recognisition Data for EU users.

• Facebook working with Chinese chipmaker Spreadtrum, to have facebook preloaded in millions of Android based cheap smartphones.

• Facebook developing a tracking app (similar to Google latitude and Apple) that will detect nearby friends > make money selling you nearby ads.

• Instagram feeds now available on the web > Facebook must be happy this didn’t happen before they acquired Instagram.

Advertising :

• Yahoo deal with Google to start filling unsold Ad placement with Google’s contextual ad units.

• Facebook to buy Microsoft ad-serving business Atlas for less than $100 million > becoming a threat to Adsense /Adwords.

• Twitter increase promoted twitter trends price: now cost $200,000 per day (previously was $150,000).

Entertainment:

• Microsoft Xbox 360 might become an entertainment console with premium content production.

• see previously reported Youtube and premium content.

• Twitter Buys Social TV Analytics Company Bluefin Labs.