Digital Sky Technologies, the Russian investment group founded by Yuri Milner and Gregory Finger, has increased its stake in social networking leader Facebook to more than 5% of the American company, Russia’s leading business newspaper Kommersant reports.
Furthermore, DST is looking to increase its stake in Facebook even more, according to Yakov Sadchikov from Quintura, who picked up on the news this morning.
Digital Sky Technologies, the Russian investment group founded by Yuri Milner and Gregory Finger, has increased its stake in social networking leader Facebook to more than 5% of the American company, Russia’s leading business newspaper Kommersant reports.
Furthermore, DST is looking to increase its stake in Facebook even more, according to Yakov Sadchikov from Quintura, who picked up on the news this morning.
There are plenty of ways to measure smartphone marketshare. IDC measures units shipped from manufacturers whereas Gartner measures units sold to consumers. Then there’s comScore, the research firm that conducts monthly surveys in the US to measure the total number of devices (and thus operating systems) currently in use. Its latest data is summarized above for the three-month period ending in October. See those yellow lines? If our kindergarten skills haven’t failed us, then this data shows iPhone usage surpassing the once mighty Windows Mobile OS for the very first time. Unfortunately for Microsoft, Google’s Android OS is set to accelerate significantly by the time the February 2010 data rolls in as is WebOS just as soon as Palm can bring its fledgling OS to Verizon’s subscriber base. What’s most troubling to Redmond about this report though, is where we found it: on FierceDeveloper, a site for mobile software developers who will presumably use the data to help determine which platforms they will focus their time. Oh Windows Mobile 7, where are you?
New ways to monitor your home energy usage over the Internet are springing up. Google offers Powermeter and Microsoft has Hohm. Just last week we wrote about Wattvision. Now you can add Earth Aid to the list.
But Earth Aid doesn’t just show you charts of how much energy and water your household goes through. It offers a rewards program to encourage you to save energy. Earth Aid monitors how much electricity, water, and natural gas you use and how much you spend on these utilities. It grabs the data directly from the utilities (with your permission), and compares how much energy and water you consume to the same month a year ago. As you consume less energy and water, you get reward points which are redeemable at local businesses.
Earlier this year, one of our dear readers wrote in asking the collective audience which wireless keyboard was the best out there for their living room. We’ve since seen all variations of that very inquiry, but the most common one was this: “what’s the best wireless keyboard for travel?” As more and more users resort to netbooks for getting things done on the go, more and more users are pulling their hair out as they attempt to bang out this month’s sales report on an 85 percent full-size keyboard. A few months back, Microsoft let loose a new Bluetooth ‘board that seemed perfect for the weary-eyed jetsetter, and we’ve been toying with it for the last little while. It’s easily one of the thinnest and lightest keyboards we’ve seen, and the carry-along-or-don’t numeric pad is certainly a nice touch. But is this slab of circuitry really what your digits need when typing on the go? Hop on past the break for a few of our impressions.
Gallery: Microsoft Bluetooth Mobile Keyboard 6000: possibly the perfect travel keyboard
We’re not sure what Sony is getting at, but it certainly seems to be planning on charging somebody for something at some point in the future. Kaz Hirai mentioned a new premium level subscription plan for PlayStation Network last month, though we were told that the current level of PSN service was to remain free. Now SCE’s Masayuki Chatani has chimed in, saying that Sony would face difficulties if it just leans on the “sell-and-forget model.” Unfortunately, we’re still not sure what the sell-and-remember alternative might be. Masayuki adds: “We can also accept payment in a growing number of ways. In addition to single-payment packaged software there are also schemes like monthly fees or per-item charges.” The thing is, if we’re not going to pay for basic PSN online play, what will we be paying for? We’ve clearly entered the era of being nickeled-and-dimed by DLC, and Microsoft has been making a tidy sum off our Gold subscriptions for some time now, much to Sony’s ridicule, but if it takes charging us some amount of cash a month to make match-making in Uncharted 2 a bit more bearable, maybe we’ll hold our tongues when Sony has to go against everything PSN has stood for to do it.
Search is really getting interesting these days. Microsoft late last night released Bing [iTunes link] for the iPhone — a full featured free app offering search, movies, maps, and directions, all with voice control.
It’s notable that Microsoft is going after iPhone mind-share after Steve Ballmer famously dissed the iPhone more than 2 years ago. He’s had to sit back and watch the iPhone eclipse Windows Mobile phones in the marketplace, which can’t be pleasant, but business is business, and Microsoft is pushing the Bing search suite of tools hard.
Momentous moment alert — the EU has just closed the book on its lengthy investigation into potential Microsoft antitrust violations. Lasting through nearly the entire noughties, The European Commission’s dissatisfaction with what it perceived as monopolistic practices from Redmond has resulted in some hefty fines over the years, but the conclusion to hostilities has been pleasingly amicable. In exchange for Microsoft’s legally binding promise to offer up to 12 other browsers alongside its own, the European executive will give the company a clean bill of competition-friendly health. All this means is that the ballot screen will be around on Windows operating systems for at least the next five years (starting in mid-March 2010), which should give the EU plenty of time to think up the next batch of allegations to throw Microsoft’s way.
The EU said this morning that it is dropping antitrust charges against Microsoft after the software giant agreed to give Windows OS users a choice of up to 12 other Web browsers, including Mozilla Firefox, Google Chrome, Apple’s Safari and Opera.
Under the terms of the settlement agreement, Microsoft will need to implement a ballot screen that lets users in Europe replace Internet Explorer with another browser, starting March 2010. The deal also means computer manufacturers will now be able to ship PCs in Europe that do not come pre-installed with IE.
Poetically enough announced via a tweet, the Zune team has given word that the long-awaited Twitter app is coming to Microsoft’s little media player that could. Coupled with November’s release of 3D games, by our count that leaves only Facebook left as the promised Zune app officially registering M.I.A. More details for tomorrow’s release in the morning, and with so many Twitter apps available on other platforms as case studies, we’ll be expecting some good things here, mkay Redmond?
[Thanks to everyone who sent this in]