Linked by Thom Holwerda on Fri 25th May 2012 19:09 UTC
Pocket-lint has a rumour up that Facebook is interested in acquiring Opera to kickstart their own move into the browser market, to compete with Mozilla, Google, and Microsoft. While it would mean much-deserved recognition for Opera, I actually hope such a deal does not go through - for entirely selfish reasons.
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RE[2]: I do not think they will buy it
by PresentIt on Sat 26th May 2012 09:47
in reply to "RE: I do not think they will buy it"
Member since:2010-02-10
Yeah, I very much doubt it too. At least I don't see Facebook being interested in the Browser/Brand considering their small market share and poor website compatibility. If anything they'd be more interested in the talent and expertise of employees working at Opera. They be put to work on a brand new Webkit-based browser.
Small market share? Opera is #1 on mobile with 20-25% market share, and it has more than 200 million active users.
Poor website compatibility? No, it's excellent, but a lot of sites are using browser sniffing so you'll have to spoof as Firefox to get them working (which means that it isn't Opera that's incompatible, but that the site is blocking Opera).
Please, educate yourself.
RE[2]: I do not think they will buy it
by zima on Sat 26th May 2012 10:32
in reply to "RE: I do not think they will buy it"
Member since:2005-07-06
The last time they gave concrete numbers, at the end of 2010, over 200 million people accessed FB from their mobile phones; a year ago it was "hundreds of millions of people" ( http://blog.facebook.com/blog.php?topic_id=185065394274 )
And it just so happens that Opera is the #1 mobile browser, Facebook a top webpage viewed by its users ( http://www.opera.com/smw/2011/11/ oh and FB works fine under Opera, that's probably all FB cares about), and the most explosive growth of new FB users (and web users in general) occurs in places where mobile phone is often the first and only way to access the web ( http://www.opera.com/smw/2012/03/ ).
I'd guess FB keeps an eye on a browser which brings a sizable portion of users to its webpage (and, most importantly, keeps many of them hooked / they're a demographic likely to be more affluent one day, and clicking on ads); though I also doubt in any buyout.
If anything they'd be more interested in the talent and expertise of employees working at Opera. They be put to work on a brand new Webkit-based browser.
Employees who aren't used to Webkit, and certainly only part of them would be interested and willing to familiarize themselves ...OTOH most would be probably put off by takeover and murder of their darling.
Easier, and most likely by far cheaper, to just "announce" perks to employees and "steal" some, than to buy whole company.
RE[3]: I do not think they will buy it
by RichterKuato on Sat 26th May 2012 18:41
in reply to "RE[2]: I do not think they will buy it"
Member since:2010-05-14
I stand corrected, that's quite a bit of research there. I can certainly see the value Facebook would see in the mobile version of Opera. I still think they'd value their expertise and talent more but now I also think they'd value their business relationships with manufacturers.
News
Linked by Thom Holwerda on 06/18/13 22:33 UTC
Official Apple statement on PRISM and privacy: "Regardless of the circumstances, our Legal team conducts an evaluation of each request and, only if appropriate, we retrieve and deliver the narrowest possible set of information to the authorities. In fact, from time to time when we see inconsistencies or inaccuracies in a request, we will refuse to fulfill it." This is basically Apple re-publishing their earlier statement in a more official manner. You either believe it, or you don't.
Linked by Anonymous on 06/18/13 22:26 UTC
The open source Contiki operating system and its commercial Thingsquare distribution are making strides towards the connected home. According to a Computerworld article, a new LED light bulb manufacturer is putting small computers into their light bulbs. Each computer runs the Contiki OS, which gives each bulb an IP address and allows them to be controlled with a smartphone application. To connect the bulbs to the application, the bulbs use both Wi-Fi and the much lower power IEEE 802.15.4 mesh technology.
Linked by Thom Holwerda on 06/18/13 22:25 UTC
"Google asked the secretive Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court on Tuesday to ease long-standing gag orders over data requests it makes, arguing that the company has a constitutional right to speak about information it's forced to give the government. The legal filing, which cites the First Amendment's guarantee of free speech, is the latest move by the California-based tech giant to protect its reputation in the aftermath of news reports about sweeping National Security Agency surveillance of Internet traffic." Draining the ditch after the cow has drowned in it.
Linked by Thom Holwerda on 06/18/13 17:45 UTC
"I can't find one person who has been using the Nexus 7 for an extended period of time, and hasn't seen a massive downgrade in performance. Just what kind of downgrade are we talking here? I cannot pick up my Nexus 7 without experiencing problems like a lag of ten seconds, or more, just to rotate the display; touches refusing to acknowledged; stuttering notification panel actions; and unresponsive apps." Fully and utterly agreed. My Nexus 7 was blazing-fast and awesome for a few months, and at some point, it just started sucking. Just like that. I've tried loads of ROMs, and nothing helps.
Linked by Thom Holwerda on 06/18/13 17:32 UTC, submitted by poundsmack
A new release of the hobby operating system MenuetOS! The release notes are a bit non-descript, but you'll have to take what you can get: "updates and improvements (picview, httpc, ehci, ...)".
Linked by Thom Holwerda on 06/17/13 17:58 UTC
"The Internet is one of the most transformative technologies of our lifetimes. But for 2 out of every 3 people on earth, a fast, affordable Internet connection is still out of reach. And this is far from being a solved problem. There are many terrestrial challenges to Internet connectivity - jungles, archipelagos, mountains. There are also major cost challenges. Right now, for example, in most of the countries in the southern hemisphere, the cost of an Internet connection is more than a month's income. Solving these problems isn't simply a question of time: it requires looking at the problem of access from new angles. So today we're unveiling our latest moonshot from Google[x]: balloon-powered Internet access." Insane.
Linked by Thom Holwerda on 06/17/13 17:52 UTC
"MineAssemble is a tiny bootable Minecraft clone written partly in x86 assembly. I made it first and foremost because a university assignment required me to implement a game in assembly for a computer systems course. Because I had never implemented anything more complex than a 'Hello World' bootloader before, I decided I wanted to learn about writing my own kernel code at the same time. Note that the goal of this project was not to write highly efficient hand-optimized assembly code, but rather to have fun and write code that balances readability and speed. This is primarily accomplished by proper commenting and consistent code structuring." Just cool.
Linked by Thom Holwerda on 06/14/13 21:03 UTC
Jon Rubinstein, former CEO of Palm: "Well, I'm not sure I would have sold the company to HP. That's for sure. Talk about a waste. Not that I had any choice because when you sell a company you don't get to decide that. Obviously, the board and shareholders decide that. If we had known they were just going to shut it down and never really give it a chance to flourish, what would have been the point of selling the company? I think the deal we had with Verizon really hurt us, but who knew that at the time? These things are all hindsight."
Linked by Thom Holwerda on 06/14/13 20:46 UTC
"And so it is with Dell's Alienware X51 R2, a small form factor gaming PC in console digs. It's shaped similar to Microsoft's Xbox 360 Slim, and though it's slightly larger than either a 360 or PlayStation 3, the X51 R2 would be right at home in a living room setting nestled next to a large screen TV. Indeed, it's adept at running Steam's Big Picture mode, and if your primary objective is to play games in the living room, go ahead and consider the X51 R2 a hybrid game console." This is obviously not the only machine like this - still, these are very valid console alternatives even for those that don't like being hunched over with a cramped WASD-claw. Also, PC gamers among us: could you get away with the $699 model for gaming?
Linked by Thom Holwerda on 06/14/13 17:32 UTC
From Bloomberg: "Microsoft, the world's largest software company, provides intelligence agencies with information about bugs in its popular software before it publicly releases a fix, according to two people familiar with the process. That information can be used to protect government computers and to access the computers of terrorists or military foes." The lid has officially been blown off.More News »
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Yeah, I very much doubt it too. At least I don't see Facebook being interested in the Browser/Brand considering their small market share and poor website compatibility. If anything they'd be more interested in the talent and expertise of employees working at Opera. They be put to work on a brand new Webkit-based browser.