Xpertfeed

Mobile news aggregator Circa closes as media disruption continues Summary: Even news organizations without reporters are finding it hard to continue. Circa, a news aggregation service for smartphone users has closed, a further casualty in the ongoing disruption in the media industry. News app Circa, once a media darling for its mobile-first approach, has announced that it is going on an "indefinite hiatus" after it was unable to find someone to buy the company. In a Medium post entitled "Farewell to Circa News," CEO Matt Galligan admitted that while they had succeeded in their goals of making a high-quality mobile news platform, Circa had failed to become a viable business. Foremski's Take: Producing a "high-quality news platform" is hard, as Circa CEO Matt Galligan says it is but Circa had it easy, it didn't have any reporters writing original stories, it pulled together stories from several major news sites which had journalists on...

Pantech potentially saved from bankruptcy with last-minute buyer Summary: South Korea's third-largest smartphone maker may make an unlikely comeback from facing bankruptcy after a potential buyer finally showed interest before a deadline. Pantech, which has been in court receivership since August last year, has signed a memorandum of understanding with the Seoul Central District Court's approval for a possible merger and acquisition with a consortium led by South Korean optical disc drive (ODD) manufacturer Optis on June 16. The two will begin a month-long cross-inspection, and will officially sign off on the acquisition on July 17, if no obstacle to the deal is found. Pantech was facing liquidation by the court after three separate talks with potential buyers failed this year. The handset maker nearly gave up, and last month filed documents to the court stating that it wished to end the court receivership, which is similar to Chapter 11 in the US, and go throug...

BlackBerry considering a move to Android after 2014 FY Summary: The former Canadian handset behemoth is reportedly weighing up its options concerning a move to Google's mobile operating system. BlackBerry is reportedly pondering putting Android on a slider phone with a physical keyboard,  according to Reuters . Sources told the wire service that the company is using Android on a handset to demonstrate the shift from its historic hardware business to one based on software and mobile device management (MDM). In recent years, BlackBerry has opened its device management and messaging services to rival platforms. "MDM has become table stakes; it is no longer a meaningful point of differentiation. The differentiation for BlackBerry in the future will be our ability to enable secure, productive mobile communications, collaboration, and other applications," BlackBerry enterprise chief John Sims said at the time. As well as handsets, the company has been loo...

Intel buys Altera for $16.7 billion Summary: Intel says it plans to integrate Alteras field-programmable gate array chips with its own Xeon processors, resulting in more flexible computing and server products. Consolidation in the semiconductor industry continues to heat up, with Intel announcing Monday that it plans to acquire Altera for $16.7 billion. Under terms of the deal, Intel will pay $54 a share in cash for the San Jose, Calif.-based Altera, which is known for making programmable logic devices and related development software. News of the acquisition comes after months of  rumored talks between the two tech companies . However in April it appeared a  deal was off the table  when Altera rejected Intel's original offer, speculated to be in the $50 per share range. With an agreement now finalized, Intel is hoping to use Altera to expand its portfolio beyond personal computing. Intel says it plans to integrate Alteras field-programmable gate arr...

Online re-seller leaks on-sale dates for Windows 10  Summary: A major software reseller in the U.S. has begun taking preorders for Windows 10 OEM software, in the process leaking prices and the apparent availability date of the software. Surprisingly, Microsoft is actually raising OEM prices in this cycle. It happens every product cycle. Despite Microsoft's best efforts to keep details of its launch plans under wraps, an online retailer has leaked pricing for OEM copies of Windows 10 and Windows 10 Pro and is even accepting pre-orders. The details appear at Newegg.com, where a  search for Windows 10  turns up two OEM System Builder packages for sale. This is familiar turf for Newegg, which also jumped the gun with preorders for Windows 8 in 2012. Assuming the on-sale dates listed here are accurate, small system builders will have access to Windows 10 before Labor Day. But if you were looking forward to a price break, think again. These ...

Do you qualify for the free  Windows 10 upgrades ? Summary: Microsoft's free upgrade offer for Windows 10 comes with an asterisk and some fine print. Most modern PCs qualify, but beware if you build or buy custom PCs or you want to run Windows 10 in a virtual machine. We've got the details. One question We've been asked more often than any other lately is this: "If I'm running the Windows 10 Preview, do I get a free license when the Preview is over?" Is this a physical device or a virtual machine? With extremely rare exceptions, virtual machines don't include a Windows license. Skip ahead to the next section for details on how to acquire a qualifying license. If this is a physical device, such as a desktop PC, laptop, or tablet, it needs to have a proper underlying license to be eligible for the free upgrade. Most PCs sold through the commercial and retail channel come with a home or business edition of Windows already installed. All M...

Google News & Weather now works on Apple Watch Summary: Although the company has its own Android Wear watches to support, Google is starting to bring its apps to the Apple Watch. Last month, We asked when Google's apps would support the Apple Watch. Looks like we have an answer: Today. The  Google News & Weather app for iOS  was updated on Tuesday both with "performance enhancements and stability improvements" and support for Apple Watch. I haven't seen any other Google apps ready for the watch, so this appears to be the first. Like most other watch apps for Apple's wearable device, Google News & Weather for the watch is essentially an extension for the iOS app. You can't have the watch app without installing the software on your iPhone, that is. Google included the ability to add News & Weather to your Apple Watch glances for quick access. That's because the watch requests data on demand from your iPhone over a B...

Linksys brings fastest Wi-Fi router ever to market Summary: Wave 2, the next generation of 802.11ac Wi-Fi, is here and Linksys is the first to bring it to us with its latest router: The EA8500. The Linksys EA8500 is the fastest Wi-Fi router of them all. Who doesn't love fast Wi-Fi? Thanks to   802.11ac , real-world   speeds are finally cracking the 1 Gigabit per second (Gbps) barrier . With the new   802.11ac multi-user multiple-input and multiple-output  ( MU-MIMO) Wave 2   finally arriving in chipsets, Gbps speeds may finally become commonplace rather than exceptional. Leading the way is   Linksys   with the first Wave 2 router to market: The   Linksys Max-Stream AC2600 MU-MIMO Gigabit Router (EA8500) . In theory, 802.11ac Wave 2 devices, when working with other Wave 2 enabled gear, can crack 7Gbps. Linksys, wisely, doesn't make any such claim. In the real world, Wi-Fi never runs as fast it does in a pristine lab envir...

HERE's the good news: Maps a bright spot for Nokia as networks profit slides Summary: While sales are up across the board at Nokia, profit has taken a tumble in its Networks division. Nokia's sales are on the up, with all three of its units showing revenue growth during the first quarter of the year. Nokia published its   first quarter results   on Thursday, showing revenue increasing 20 percent year on year to €3.2bn, up from €2.7bn a year ago. However, operating profit took a tumble, falling from €305m a year ago to €265m for the most recent quarter. The biggest reduction in profit came from Nokia's Networks division, falling 61 percent to €85m, despite a 15 percent rise in revenue to €2.7bn. The company said that it is seeing growth in Networks' global services business, particularly around network implementation, but attributed a drop in profit from its mobile broadband business to climbing operating costs, a decrease in income from its core network...

Amazon, Microsoft, IBM and the cloud gang Summary: Comparing the largest cloud players on the block gets a bit convoluted the way tech vendors are compiling their financials. Here's a crack at playing the cloud revenue face-off game. Amazon's disclosure of its Amazon Web Services financials fills in a big piece of the cloud financial picture that revolves around a bevy of tech giants all claiming to be the biggest as-a-service kid on the block. Unfortunately, it's difficult to declare a winner since every cloud player has its own math. So much for standards kids. But given I can't really resist an apples and oranges cloud face-off I'm going to give this a shot. For our purposes, we'll look at the four biggest hyperscale cloud providers. Amazon, Google, Microsoft and IBM. We'll toss in some over-the-top cloud players such as Salesforce, which is a bit hard to ignore, with Oracle, which also breaks out its various as-a-service cloud efforts nicely...