Google Duo: simpler must be better

It’s  somewhat incredible how Facetime has no clear contestant in the world of mobile video calling apps in Android. We’ve got Skype and other options, of course, but none of them has conquered Android users and here we see even much more fragmentation than on the instant messaging market. That’s what Google is trying to

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The Chromebook question

I’m currently on vacation so I’ll write less often. I’ll keep reading what’s going on thanks to Twitter and my smartphone, and yesterday I found an interesting article titled ‘Why I left my new MacBook for a $250 Chromebook‘. There are a few good arguments there to defend a platform that previously wasn’t that easy

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Apple, Microsoft, and the future of convertibles 

Paul Thurrot reflects on the convertible/detachable market: One might argue, correctly, that the iPad Pro is not exactly a full-featured productivity machine today. But the key word in that sentence is “today.” Apple will evolve the iPad Pro and improve things on the productivity side of things. But I don’t see how Microsoft or any

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#Build2016 signals the death of the Windows phone

Not a single mention. That’s what we had at the Build 2016 keynote from Microsoft a few minutes ago when we tried to get some news from the Windows 10 Mobile operating system. We’ve got lots of other news: the promising rise of the conversational bot (either with voice or with text), the transformation of

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Microsoft kills its Android porting  tool, welcomes only iOS developers

  The Windows Bridge for Android (Project Astoria) is dead. Microsoft has announced that on a new post on the Windows blog in which they explain that apparently the feedback from developers was critical to this decision We also announced the Windows Bridge for Android (project “Astoria”) at Build last year, and some of you

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The challenge for Google’s next Cardboard 

The Google Cardboard project has been incredibly succesful on its primary goal: democratize Virtual Reality and allow nearly anyone to get a glimpse of what this trend is going to allow us to do. Now that they have succeed in that, it seems Google wants to monetize that kind of market too. According to the

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Google’s Nexus tries to learn the iPhone lesson

Google wants to make its Nexus phones more like the iPhone We had heard about this previously, but now The Information confirms that Google is indeed seeking to have more and more control over its Nexus smartphones. The plan is simple: no visible partnerships in order to compete in the high end range, where the

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The absurd backdoor

China passed a controversial new anti-terrorism law on Sunday that requires technology firms to help decrypt information, but not install security “backdoors” as initially planned, and allows the military to venture overseas on counter-terror operations. Counter-terrorism efforts are beginning to be infuriating. Most countries are passing laws against encryption and privacy that for lots of

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Google and Facebook are winning the invisible battle of mobile apps

Great insight from Peter Kafka based on a new study from Nielsen. On it we found a critical comparison: mobile OS market share vs most important mobile apps (by number of unique users). The facts are there: even with Apple pretty close to Android in the US, five of the top 10 mobile apps are

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