The battle for music selling supremacy has never been tougher at the top with a number of large profile outlets all vying against one another to capture the hearts, and of course the wallets, of consumers. It wasn’t that long ago when we all happily amassed huge collections of music on physical storage mediums like CDs, but times have changed a lot, thanks to the introduction of digital downloads. In an attempt to gain some interest and boost their own music sales; Amazon has introduced a new service known as AutoRip that is an amalgamation of the physical and digital.
Amid the constant inroads made in the smartphone and tablet industries, there would appear to be a growing requirement among consumers for so-called smartwatches. Tech fiends have taken the preemptive steps of conceptualizing such products in the image of Apple and Google's respective ranges, with the former said to be teaming up with none other than Intel to bring such a product to market. As we continue to dream of the day when one of the biggest names in the business comes through with an exciting new product, one decidedly smaller firm is ahead of the game. Unless you've been living under a rock - or in this case, a pebble - you'll have caught some of the hype surrounding Pebble's Smartwatch device as it smashed records over at Kickstarter, and it has now been revealed that the device will begin shipping on 23rd of this month.
Netflix today announced two new high quality video streams, with one featuring a whole extra for those who just can't get enough. Netflix has almost singlehandedly put the video store out of business, and with DVD and Blu-ray disc sales always under pressure from online content distributors, the streaming media company is seeking to re-double its efforts to stay ahead of the competition.
Mozilla has delivered the latest of its ongoing, sixth-weekly updates to Firefox, pushing the browser up to version 18.0. As you may expect, the company has packed in a whole bunch of new features, and while most concern the overall running and general performance of the app (read: under the hood housekeeping), there are one or two which many will notice from the get-go. Details, and info on where you can grab the new Firefox, are available after the break!
For a long time, Facebook was always thought of as a web-based company that didn't put a lot of importance on users who prefer to access their services through mobile devices. The official Facebook app was built around cross-platform technologies making it notoriously slow, unpredictable and unstable, and their mobile website didn't really make things much better. That focus started to shift with the acquisition of Instagram, followed by the updating of their mobile apps into native languages as well as the release of standalone apps such as Messenger and Camera. For the first time, we can now actually get an insight into Facebook's mobile users and devices and firmware that they actually use, thanks to some meticulous data collection from Benedict Evans of Enders Analysis.
If you happen to respect and admire Steve Jobs for what he achieved during his life, then the news that the jOBS biopic is set for an April release in local theatres should definitely perk those interest levels. The official announcement of the release comes when Open Road Films and Five Star Feature Films came to a mutual agreement regarding distribution of the movie, and although it isn't the official movie of the Apple co-founder’s life, it should definitely serve to whet the appetite of those who want to learn the story behind his rise to fame.
If you are an unforgiving Instagram member who has been actively using the photo-sharing service from the beginning, then the recent well-publicized change to the company's terms of service could be the final trigger point needed to make you cut all ties with the network. If you are one of the ones who have been around from the beginning and have uploaded countless photographs to share with your followers, then all is not lost, thanks to the new Freethephotos service that allows users to easily migrate their uploaded Instagram images across to a Flickr account.
If you are an Angry Birds and Stars Wars fan, then chances are high that you were overwhelmed with excitement when Rovio signaled their intention to release an entire themed version of the smash-hit mobile game thanks to a deal with Lucas Entertainment. The Stars Wars version of the game has since landed on the iOS and Android platforms and continues where previous versions of the franchise left off, but the news is filtering through today that Rovio has brought their latest Angry Birds creation to another one billion people, with the immediate release of the game as a Facebook application.
Those who actively pay attention to the happenings within the social networking world, then you may recall Twitter's CEO Dick Costolo making some murmurings a while back regarding a new functionality that would be coming to Twitter accounts to afford users the option to download all of their tweets. It seems that the latest update to the Twitter website would suggest that the company is staying true to their CEO's word and have started offering a select bunch of users the ability to get an archive of all of their tweet history.
For those of you that like to be frugal and shop only when the deals are rolling in, the holiday season is as good a time as any to take advantage of the many price drops and savings available on the market. While many of you will undoubtedly be meeting up with friends and relatives during the course of the coming weeks, time, financial and practical constraints mean it is not always possible to arrange face-to-face meetings, but in these instances, we've long since leaned on Skype for a helping hand. Microsoft acquired the telecommunications company some time ago, and in an effort to turn occasional or would-be users into regular, paying customers, the Redmond company is running a great promotional deal.
