Taiwan: HP and Lenovo to build up own brand stores.

WorldWide Tech & Science. Francisco De Jesús.

Taiwan: HP and Lenovo to build up own brand stores.

Seeing Apple achieving success by promoting its products with its Apple Stores, Hewlett-Packard (HP) and Lenovo are both aggressively aiming to build up their own brand stores in Taiwan, according to sources from the retail channel.

Lenovo currently has about five own-brand stores in Taiwan, mainly in the two major metropolitan cities Taipei and Kaohsiung and the company is reportedly considering to greatly increase the number of its brand stores in Asia region to 1,000. Meanwhile, HP is also establishing a full-service center in Taipei, combining product maintenance service with product exhibition in one location and the center is the HP's eighth full-service center in the Asia Pacific region.

The sources also pointed out that unlike the traditional IT mall, a brand store can greatly enhance the brand image through decoration and allow the sales to have better communication opportunity with consumers.

In the fourth quarter of 2011, Apple's revenues from the Apple Store grew 42.6% on year to US$17.08 million, accounting for 13.2% of the company's total revenues.

Partnership Foxconn/Sharp to target Apple orders. Apple TV ?

WorldWide Tech & Science. Francisco De Jesús.

Partnership Foxconn/Sharp to target Apple orders. Apple TV ?

Sharp has announced a strategic alliance with Foxconn (Hon Hai). 

Through third-party allotment, four Foxconn subsidiaries will obtain an about 9.88% stake and become the largest shareholder of Sharp. Foxconn will also hold shares in Sharp Display Products (SDP), a joint venture of Sharp and Sony producing large-size panels and modules.

Sharp indicated that Foxconn will procure panels and related modules from Sharp's 10G plant in Sakai, Japan. The procurement will keep the 10G plant at high capacity utilization.

Sharp and Foxconn are suppliers of Apple. Hence this cooperation may be aimed at obtaining orders for Apple TVs. Apple may want to use Sharp's technology to produce Indium Gallium Zinc Oxide (IGZO) panels for Apple TVs.

Foxconn has been investing in Taiwan-based LCD panel maker Chimei Innolux (CMI). The market believes the cooperation between Foxconn and Sharp will not benefit CMI. Sharp has been replacing CMI as the panel supplier for Apple's iPads, hence cooperating with Sharp seems more beneficial to Foxconn.

LTE: AT&T: Nokia Lumia 900 for $99.-

WorldWide Tech & Science. Francisco De Jesús.

LTE: AT&T: Nokia Lumia 900 for $99.-

AT&T said it will offer Nokia’s Lumia 900 device, a Windows Phone smartphone with LTE connectivity, from 8 April 2012, priced at US$99 with two-year service contract. The operator will begin accepting pre-orders later this week.

Amazon Kindle Touch 3G Now for Sale to Customers in over 175 Countries.

WorldWide Tech & Science. Francisco De Jesús.

Amazon Kindle Touch 3G Now for Sale to Customers in over 175 Countries.

Kindle Touch 3G – the most full-featured Kindle e-reader – easy-to-use touch screen and free 3G wireless, no annual contracts or monthly fees and never pay for or hunt for a Wi-Fi hotspot.

Now available in multiple languages – German, French, Italian, Spanish, Brazilian Portuguese and American and British English.

Amazon.com  today announced Kindle Touch 3G – the most full-featured Kindle e-reader – with an easy-to-use touch screen and the unparalleled added convenience of free 3G wireless, is available today for pre-order from www.amazon.com to customers in over 175 countries and territories around the world. With Kindle Touch 3G, customers never have to hunt for or pay for a Wi-Fi hotspot, there are no annual contracts or monthly fees – simply download and read books anytime around the world. Kindle Touch 3G is small and light, has storage for thousands of books and an extra-long battery life.

In addition, Kindle Touch 3G is available in seven languages – German, French, Italian, Spanish, Brazilian Portuguese and American or British English – so customers can read, take notes, and navigate their Kindle in any of these languages. Kindle Touch 3G will ship to customers beginning April 27. Kindle Touch and Kindle Touch 3G are also available today for pre-order from Amazon.co.uk, Amazon.de, Amazon.fr, Amazon.es and Amazon.it.

“We’ve seen great excitement over our new line of Kindle e-readers and we’re thrilled to be able to offer Kindle Touch 3G to customers worldwide,” said Dave Limp, vice president, Amazon Kindle. “Customers love the electronic ink display that reads like paper, with no glare, even in bright daylight, the unparalleled convenience of 3G for downloading books in less than 60 seconds, and with our new touch technology and a unique combination of features you won’t find anywhere else – Text-to-Speech and our new technologies EasyReach and X-ray – we’ve made it easier than ever to read and explore Kindle with one hand.”

Both Kindle Touch and Kindle Touch 3G feature X-Ray, a feature that Amazon invented to help customers explore the “bones of the book.” With a single tap, readers can see all the passages across a book that mention ideas, fictional characters, historical figures, places or topics that interest them, as well as more detailed descriptions from Wikipedia and Shelfari, Amazon’s community-powered encyclopedia for book lovers. Amazon built X-Ray using its expertise in language processing and machine learning, access to significant storage and computing resources with Amazon S3 and EC2, and a deep library of book and character information.

Additionally, Kindle Touch and Kindle Touch 3G come with built-in speakers offering support for text-to-speech, audiobooks and mp3 support. Customers can discover, download, and listen to audiobooks – read by authors, celebrities, and world-class narrators.

The Kindle Store on Amazon.com offers the largest selection of the most popular books people want to read. Customers have access to over one million books in the Kindle Store, including international bestsellers, newspapers and magazines. In addition, over one million free books are available to read on Kindle devices.

Simple to Use Touch Screen: Kindle Touch 3G features an easy-to-use touch interface. Turn pages, search, shop books, and take notes quickly and easily.

Light and Compact: Kindle Touch 3G’s all-new sleek design sports an 11% smaller body, with the same 6” screen size, and is 8% lighter, only 7.8 ounces.

Holds 3,000 Books: Carry up to 3,000 books – keep your entire library with you wherever you go.

Two Month Battery Life: No battery anxiety – read up to two months on a single charge with wireless off and half hour of reading per day.

NEW EasyReach: Tap to turn pages – no need to swipe – so you can hold Kindle in either hand.

Books in 60 Seconds: Find a book and start reading in seconds with our fast, free wireless delivery. No computer required.

Free 3G Wireless: Kindle Touch 3G is our top of the line Kindle – no wireless set up, no hunting for Wi-Fi hotspots. Download books anywhere with no monthly fees or annual contracts. 3G works globally.

Built-In Wi-Fi: Connect to Wi-Fi hotspots at home or on the road.

Simple to Use: Ready to use right out of the box – no setup, no software install, no computer required to download content.

Adjustable Text Sizes: Read comfortably with eight different sizes and three font styles.

Fast Page Turns: Kindle Touch 3G has a powerful processor tuned for fast, seamless page turns.

PDF and Personal Documents: Email personal documents and PDFs direct to your Kindle and read and annotate on-the-go.

Massive Selection: Customers have access to over one million books in the Kindle Store, including international bestsellers, newspapers and magazines.

Free, Out-of-Copyright Books: Over one million free books are available to read on Kindle.

Free Book Samples: Download and read first chapters for free before you decide to buy.

NEW X-Ray: With the new X-Ray feature, you can explore the “bones of a book.” With a single tap, see all the passages across a book that mention ideas, fictional characters, historical figures, places or topics of interest, as well as more detailed descriptions from Wikipedia and Shelfari.

Read-to-Me: With Text-to-Speech, Kindle can read English-language content out loud to you.

Free Cloud Backup: We automatically back up your library in the cloud, so you never need to worry about losing your books. Re-download wirelessly anytime for free.

Buy Once, Read Everywhere: Kindle books can be read on your Kindle, iPhone, iPad, iPod touch, PC, Mac and Android-based devices with our free Kindle Reading Apps.

Whispersync: Our Whispersync technology synchronizes your last page read, bookmarks and annotations across your devices so you can always pick up where you left off.

Customers can discover full details and order Kindle Touch 3G at www.amazon.com/kindletouch3Gintl. In addition, Kindle Touch (Wi-Fi only) is available at www.amazon.com/kindletouchintl. For more information on Kindle and Kindle Keyboard 3G, visit www.amazon.com/kindle.

For high-resolution images of Kindle Touch 3G, visit www.amazon.com/pr/kindle.

About Amazon.com

Amazon.com, Inc. (NASDAQ:AMZN), a Fortune 500 company based in Seattle, opened on the World Wide Web in July 1995 and today offers Earth’s Biggest Selection. Amazon.com, Inc. seeks to be Earth’s most customer-centric company, where customers can find and discover anything they might want to buy online, and endeavors to offer its customers the lowest possible prices. Amazon.com and other sellers offer millions of unique new, refurbished and used items in categories such as Books; Movies, Music & Games; Digital Downloads; Electronics & Computers; Home & Garden; Toys, Kids & Baby; Grocery; Apparel, Shoes & Jewelry; Health & Beauty; Sports & Outdoors; and Tools, Auto & Industrial. Amazon Web Services provides Amazon’s developer customers with access to in-the-cloud infrastructure services based on Amazon’s own back-end technology platform, which developers can use to enable virtually any type of business. The new latest generation Kindle is the lightest, most compact Kindle ever and features the same 6-inch, most advanced electronic ink display that reads like real paper even in bright sunlight. Kindle Touch is a new addition to the Kindle family with an easy-to-use touch screen that makes it easier than ever to turn pages, search, shop, and take notes – still with all the benefits of the most advanced electronic ink display. Kindle Touch 3G is the top of the line e-reader and offers the same new design and features of Kindle Touch, with the unparalleled added convenience of free 3G. Kindle Fire is the Kindle for movies, TV shows, music, books, magazines, apps, games and web browsing with all the content, free storage in the Amazon Cloud, Whispersync, Amazon Silk (Amazon’s new revolutionary cloud-accelerated web browser), vibrant color touch screen, and powerful dual-core processor.

Amazon and its affiliates operate websites, including www.amazon.com, www.amazon.co.uk, www.amazon.de, www.amazon.co.jp, www.amazon.fr, www.amazon.ca, www.amazon.cn, www.amazon.it, and www.amazon.es. As used herein, “Amazon.com,” “we,” “our” and similar terms include Amazon.com, Inc., and its subsidiaries, unless the context indicates otherwise.

Forward-Looking Statements

This announcement contains forward-looking statements within the meaning of Section 27A of the Securities Act of 1933 and Section 21E of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934. Actual results may differ significantly from management’s expectations. These forward-looking statements involve risks and uncertainties that include, among others, risks related to competition, management of growth, new products, services and technologies, potential fluctuations in operating results, international expansion, outcomes of legal proceedings and claims, fulfillment center optimization, seasonality, commercial agreements, acquisitions and strategic transactions, foreign exchange rates, system interruption, inventory, government regulation and taxation, payments and fraud. More information about factors that potentially could affect Amazon.com’s financial results is included in Amazon.com’s filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission, including its most recent Annual Report on Form 10-K and subsequent filings.

Source: Amazon.com, Inc.

Windows Phone SDK 7.1.1 update available for download. Supports Windows 8.

WorldWide Tech & SCience. Francisco De Jesús.

Windows Phone SDK 7.1.1 update available  for download.

The following changes have been included in this Windows Phone SDK 7.1.1 update:

- Visual Studio IDE is patched to enable selection from a list of emulators, and launching it;

- Windows Phone (512 MB device) emulator image is updated to use build 8773;

- Microsoft Advertising SDK is updated to the latest version, and fixes some issues that were previously reported by developers, mostly at runtime;

- IntelliSense now supports specifying the 512 MB device requirement in the manifest file, should devs choose to opt their app out from running on the new 256 MB devices;

- Language support includes all 10 of the WPSDK 7.1 languages and in the emulator OS, Malay and Indonesian have been added.

Keep in mind that this update can be installed without having to uninstall the CTP launched last month. Windows Phone SDK 7.1.1 Update is now available for download here.

Two things make this update very important for Windows Phone developers. Firstly, it offers them the possibility to create applications that will run within the parameters on smartphones that are equipped with only 256 MB.

Secondly, once developers update to Windows Phone SDK 7.1.1 they will be able to create applications on devices running Windows 8 operating system.

The installation process of this update will take about 15 minutes, as the patch is about 300 MB in size. It contains two virtual OS images, for 256 MB and 512 MB devices, and runs on Windows 8 devices, though unofficially until the RTM release of Windows. 

Berg Insight research says: NFC phone sales to reach 100 million in 2012.

World Wide Tech & Science. Francisco De Jesús.

Berg Insight research says: NFC phone sales to reach 100 million in 2012.

Near-field Communication (NFC) technology enables data to be exchanged wirelessly over distances of a few centimeters, meaning mobile phones can be used to pay for goods, store electronic tickets, download music and swap photos and business cards.

In a research Berg Insight  said  100 million cellphones using  (NFC) will be sold this year.

Handset vendors released more than 40 NFC-enabled models in 2011, hoping to tap emerging market for mobile payments.

Berg Insight said it expects the global market for NFC phones to grow to 700 million phones in 2016 from 30 million in 2011.

NXP Semiconductor is the leading manufacturer of NFC chips, while also Inside Secure has won some deals.

What is NFC?

Near Field Communication (NFC) technology makes life easier and more convenient for consumers around the world by making it simpler to make transactions, exchange digital content, and connect electronic devices with a touch.

A standards-based connectivity technology, NFC harmonizes today's diverse contactless technologies, enabling current and future solutions in areas such as:

• Access control
• Consumer electronics
• Healthcare
• Information collection and exchange
• Loyalty and coupons
• Payments
• Transport

Developers can learn more about NFC in the section on interoperability.

Key Benefits of NFC

NFC provides a range of benefits to consumers and businesses, such as:

• Intuitive: NFC interactions require no more than a simple touch
• Versatile: NFC is ideally suited to the broadest range of industries, environments, and uses
• Open and standards-based: The underlying layers of NFC technology follow universally implemented ISO, ECMA, and ETSI standards
• Technology-enabling: NFC facilitates fast and simple setup of wireless technologies, such as Bluetooth, Wi-Fi, etc.)
• Inherently secure: NFC transmissions are short range (from a touch to a few centimeters)
• Interoperable: NFC works with existing contactless card technologies
• Security-ready: NFC has built-in capabilities to support secure applications

Windows Phone Marketplace reaches 70,000 + apps

WorldWide Tech & Science. Francisco De Jesús.

 

Windows Phone Marketplace apps reaches  70,000 + apps.

Microsoft’s Windows Phone Marketplace app catalogue has passed 70,000 apps, reportsTechCrunch.

The platform has gained impetus in recent months following the launch of the first Windows Phone-powered devices from Nokia, and also debuted in China this month.

The Marketplace had 50,000 apps in December last year, rising to 60,000 by January. The range of apps available for Windows Phone will be crucial in the OS making any headway compared to the dominant iOS and Android.

Apple’s App Store is home to more than 500,000 apps and Google Play (previously Android Marektplace) having more than 370,000 Amazon’s Appstor for Android recently reported it hosted more than 31,000 apps.

Microsoft has previously said it is more focused on the quality of the apps on its platform than the quantity.