J.D. Power and Associates released their 2011 Canadian Wireless Customer Satisfaction Study today and the winners for each region are Videotron, Koodo Mobile and SaskTel. J.D. Power notes the study “examines perceptions of wireless customers with their service and retail experience” in seven areas on a 1,000-point scale: cost; network quality; account management; customer service; […]
It was pretty much known about since last night, but Microsoft and Skype have now obliterated any lingering doubt in the matter: the Redmond-based software giant will acquire the internet telephony company for a cool $8.5 billion in cash. Xbox and Kinect support are explicitly mentioned in the announcement of this definitive agreement, as is Windows Phone integration — both the gaming and mobile aspects being presumably key incentives for Microsoft to acquire Skype. Importantly, this purchase shouldn’t affect Skypers outside of the Microsoft ecosystem, as Steve Ballmer’s team promises to continue “to invest in and support Skype clients on non-Microsoft platforms.” Skype was first sold for a relative bargain at $2.5b to eBay in 2005, who in turn sold most of it off to Silver Lake in 2009 at an overall valuation of $2.75b, and now Redmond is concluding proceedings by tripling those earlier prices and offering Skype a permanent home. A new Microsoft Skype Division will now be opened up to accommodate the newcomers, with current Skype CEO Tony Bates becoming president of that operation and reporting directly to Ballmer. The deal is expected to close by the end of this year and you can read Microskype’s full announcement after the break.
Update: Microsoft has just disclosed a couple more details about the deal. It was signed last night, May 9th, though the price was finalized on April 18th. You can follow a live stream of Steve Ballmer and Tony Bates’ presentation right here.
Following rumors of Facebook and Google eyeing a deal to acquire Skype, we now have a new contender who is none other than the beast from Redmond, Microsoft. According to the Wall Street Journal’s sources, Team Ballmer and the VoIP company are finalizing a negotiation that’s worth more than a whopping $7 billion, and they could be making an announcement as soon as Tuesday. Given that this figure will be a new record for Microsoft in recent years, it’s clear that Ballmer’s very keen on securing this popular voice calling service for his own amusement — perhaps Windows Phone will eventually come with integrated Skype features? Or maybe he just wants to slot in some ads between our calls? Only time will tell, and for the sake of Redmond, hopefully nothing turns sour between now and tomorrow.
Update:All Things D’s Kara Swisher has confirmed that the two companies will be announcing their deal early tomorrow morning. Stay tuned!
Google translate has nothing on the Wild Dolphin Project which is developing a two-way communication system for dolphins. Crazy as it seems, the Florida-based group hopes to create a new language derived from the sounds of the animalsn in the wild. More »
AllThingsD is reporting that Google’s long awaited Cloud Music Service will be unveiled tomorrow at Google I/O. That’s not too surprising. What’s a teensy bit surprising is that it’s expected to be pretty much what Amazon Cloud drive already is. More »
Until now, Honeycomb users looking to get their social networking fix have had to rely on blown up smartphone apps that don’t make particularly good use of the additional screen real estate. Then, the other day, an app called TweetComb arrived in the Android Market… and there was much rejoicing. Finally, Android tablets owners have a Twitter app that caters their needs and takes advantage of the OS’s unique capabilities. But is the experience improved enough to warrant the $2.99 price of entry? Well, we plunked down the cash and fired up our Xoom to find out for you.
While our federal government continues to spend its taxpayers’ money on useless things like the U.S. Senate, the Pacific island nation of Samoa is doing something awesome: Time-traveling. Into the future! More »
Android: Constantly changing your phone’s settings to match your location, save battery, or otherwise fit your current conditions can get annoying quickly. Llama automates settings changes by detecting factors like where you are, what time it is, and what your phone’s doing. More »
If you’ve run out of beef jerky and had your free Hulu Plus trial go bust, you’re certainly not alone. Don’t get bored: more bits of new hotness are coming to your console, and they’re coming soon. An internal document leaked to our good friends over at Joystiq looks to confirm that the big Xbox 360 spring update will hit on May 19th. However, it’ll come in six “separate groups” to “ensure a high quality deployment,” so you might not get it until the end of the month, and everyone will have to wait until May 27th to get Avatar Kinect. What else is new? Well, there’ll be the slightly larger disc format and support for PayPal, opening the door to a bold new world of personal finance information able to be hacked from your console.
In just a few hours, Google I/O will begin and Google have updated their blog with some details of what to expect.
Google I/O is a yearly event that Google hosts in San Francisco over 2 days. The main focus is developers, so there’s plenty of workshops and talks on how…
In the midst of a blog post welcoming us to “the future of video” head of YouTube Salar Kamangar confirms that starting today it will add around 3,000 new movie titles for rental in the US, along with reviews and behind the scenes extras. More details are promised to come in another post later today, but right now the video page appears to have the same list of flicks we’ve seen before so the question of which studios will bite is still up in the air. The rest of the post also mentions the YouTube Next program to push new original content on the site with “much more to come” — consider the week of Google I/O underway.
Update: Additional details have been posted on the YouTube Blog and are also after the break — NBC Universal, Sony Pictures and Warner Bros. are the new studios YouTube is partnering with to add the 3,000 new and catalog releases, doubling the amount previously available. The pricing is $2.99/$3.99 for movies viewable via PC or Google TV (no other device support is mentioned) and the FAQ notes that YouTube supports resolutions up to 4K but “most” of the new additions are sadly in SD, a choice which is apparently up to its partners.
Update 2: The YouTube Movies page is updated now, as seen above. There’s plenty of well known movies to be seen now replacing the catalog of older and indie movies that filled the page before. Rotten Tomatoes ratings integration is also front and center, while the Extras are on each movies individual page, but really just show a list of related videos on YouTube, while there doesn’t appear to be a way to tell if a movies is one of the few in HD before you pay.
Paul Thurrott’s Supersite for Windows
Microsoft’s PowerToys for Windows XP included a neat little utility called Image Resizer. And now it’s back, but in modern guise, and ready to address your image resizing needs. …
Been jonesing for more news about Microsoft’s upcoming Mango OS update? So have we, and now all of us, VIPs and commoners alike, can circle the 24th of May as the date when Redmond will dish the full details of its next major software release. Notably, the mango(ish)-colored invite makes no mention of Windows Phone 7 anywhere, leading us to suspect that Microsoft will likely upgrade its mobile nomenclature as well as feature set. We’ll be there whatever happens, liveblogging the full preview event and keeping an eye out for launch details for this fruity new OS.
If your calendar ends up full of many different types of events (film nights, lunch dates, and doctor appointments, for example), there’s now an easy way to categorize them using colors.
Just click on an event, then click the colored square in the top left of the pop-up bubble and pick a new color. If you don’t see this option quite yet, hang tight — it'll be there for everyone within the next day or so.
Only you and anyone else you’ve given edit access to your calendar will be able to see the colors you choose. This has been a feature request from many of you for some time, and we hope you enjoy using it as much as we do.
When you’re searching for images, sometimes it can be hard to come up with exactly the right words to describe what you have in mind. For example, when you think of London, you might picture the iconic clock tower or the big Ferris wheel. You may not always remember the names of those landmarks, but you can visualize them in your mind. To make it easier for you to find images in situations like these, you can now use Google Images with sorting.
When you search for [london], by default you’ll see image results ranked by relevance. Click on “Sort by subject” in the left-hand panel and you’ll see images organized into categories that will narrow down your search and help you find the exact image of London that you want.
Sorting by subject shows that some of the most popular images associated with London are the London Eye, Big Ben, Tower Bridge and the city at night. This organized view helps you find the images you were visualizing more quickly, so you might realize, “Ah, that big clock tower is called Big Ben, that’s what I was looking for.” You can then can click on the Big Ben group to find the best image within that subject group.
You can also use this feature to explore categories of a general topic that may be easier to learn about visually, like flower varieties or dog breeds. For example, if you want to get flowers for someone but you only know what their favorite kind looks like, not the name of it, you can sort by subject to learn different flower types and discover the name of the type you’re looking for. Watch this video to learn more about how sorting can help you find the image you’re seeking:
Sorting by subject uses algorithms that identify relationships among images found on the web and presents those images in visual groups, expanding on the technology developed for Google Similar Images and Google Image Swirl. By looking at multiple sources of similarities, such as pixel values and semantic relationships, and by mining massive amounts of data, we can make meaningful connections and groupings among images.
Sorting will be rolling out globally to nearly every domain and language over the next week. Whether you have a particular image in mind or you’re just exploring a general topic, sort by subject can help you find the image you need—even if you don’t have the exact words to describe it.
