Business

According to one industry analyst, digital purchases from Apple's App Store should increase 61 per cent this year. It's also expected that the average iOS device owner will purchase and download 83 apps in 2011. The predictions come to us from Piper ... Jaffray analyst Gene Munster, who provided them in a letter to investors earlier this week. (Source: time.com ) "We believe this trend points to the increasing importance of an app store with a broad selection of tested apps to drive device sales," Munster noted. "Smartphone users are showing an increasing appetite to use apps to add features to ... (view more)

A recent Sears advertising mix-up has left many customers fuming with the company. In an online ad, the retail firm marketed a 16GB WiFi-only iPad 2 for just $69 -- one heck of a deal at approximately 86% off the retail price. Unfortunately, it was ... all just one heck of a mistake. Typically, this version of Apple's popular iPad 2 sells for about $499 through the parent company, meaning that the $69 deal represented an approximate savings of $490. Unfortunately, the many customers who thought they'd stumbled across a major bargain were informed that Sears would not honor the deal, with the ... (view more)

Google plans to make their search platform even faster by running new voice and image recognition programs designed to shave precious seconds off the entire search process. Although it has been rumored for some time, it now appears as if people will ... be able to conduct their searches with a verbal command or by dragging an image into their search box. Dubbed 'Instant Pages,' the feature will also predict and pre-load web pages that users are most likely to click on for faster results. Voice Command Results "Fairly Accurate" While Google has offered voice search on mobile phones for a little ... (view more)

There's a rumor floating around that Microsoft may drop the "Windows" name altogether. But few are putting much stock in it. The claim comes from a story covering this week's Worldwide Partner Conference, at which a Microsoft representative said ... that while Windows 8 is being targeted to run on desktops, notebooks, netbooks and tablets alike, the system after that may be designed to run on all types of hardware, including smartphones and even the Xbox 360 video game console. The report claims that insider sources suggest there's more to the announcement: "Microsoft is seriously considering ... (view more)

In an effort to stay ahead of the competition, a few airlines have started lending out tech hardware to those who opt to fly with them. One of the first airlines to offer such a service was American Airlines, who continue to provide free in-flight ... Android tablets to patrons aboard a select number of their domestic flights. Now, Virgin America will soon allow their passengers to use a Samsung Chromebook, free of charge. Apps the Focus of Chromebook Service The Chromebook compliments the free WiFi service already offered by the airline, and since the Chrome OS uses the Internet as its interface ... (view more)

It's not exactly been a well-kept secret, but Microsoft appears to have confirmed the next edition of its operating system (OS) will indeed be called Windows 8. The news comes as a date emerges for the first public beta of the system, as well as a ... way for users to take a look at its design right now. To date, Microsoft has not given an official name to the new system, often taking great care to avoid doing so. However, in a newly published promotional website for a hardware and software developer conference this September, the company specifically uses the term 'Windows 8', specifically in ... (view more)

Tomorrow is the second Tuesday of the month, which means it's Microsoft Patch Tuesday . This month's patches address 22 software vulnerabilities and are associated with four security updates that address flaws in Microsoft Windows and Visio 2003. ... Without applying the patches, PCs remain vulnerable to attacks. Only one of the security updates has been marked "critical." So far, this is the third-most number of fixes offered in a single month for 2011. The number of fixes this month (22) is behind 34 patches issued in June and the record-breaking 64 vulnerabilities addressed in April ... (view more)

With huge annual revenues, Google has the spare cash to try out all sort of different (often high-cost) experimental ventures. That's been demonstrated by the company's decision to dabble in health records and home energy. In both cases Google says ... the problem was a failure to scale: in other words, not getting enough users to make the fixed running costs sustainable. In Google's case, scale isn't just a financial issue though: as its search success has shown, more users means more data and thus more lessons that can be learned. (Source: blogspot.com ) Medical Records Tracked Interactions ... (view more)

Microsoft security experts are having their credentials called into question after sending out premature warnings to users urging them to protect themselves against a new form of covert malware. The Trojan was believed to be so indestructible that ... only a reinstallation of the entire Windows operating system would remove its presence. Microsoft first took notice of the Trojan (called Win32/Popureb.E.) sometime last week. After weighing its potential for harm, security officials reasoned that it contained a rootkit hiding beneath an infected machine's boot sector. Trojan Swaps Write Operation ... (view more)

Google says it's currently seeing 500,000 Android phone activations every single day, meaning that their devices actually outpace those running Apple software. The stat comes from Google's Android chief, Andy Rubin. Rubin boasted about the ... 500K-per-day plateau in a Twitter tweet, and it's not the first time he's done it. Back in December he told us all that Android had hit 300,000 activations per day, then updated us in May with news that the tally had officially reached 400,000. According to Rubin, Android's growth rate currently sits at 4.4 per cent per week. (Source: computerworld.com ) ... (view more)