PalmAddicts

Amazon Builds World’s Fastest Nonexistent Supercomputer

[From Peter Murphy at Peters Kitchen] The 42nd fastest supercomputer on earth doesn’t exist. This fall, Amazon built a virtual supercomputer atop its Elastic Compute Cloud — a web service that spins up virtual servers whenever you want them — and this nonexistent mega-machine outraced all but 41 of the world’s real supercomputers.

Predictions for 2012

[From Stephen Trew] At this time of year I like to pause and think a little about what the next 12 months might bring to the world of technology.  Taking stock of trends and developments in consumer technology it is possible to make some reasonable predictions.  As I like Apple most of the predictions are about their products, I do include a few others out of interest.  So here are my predictions for 2012.

Apple predictions

1.  It will be a big year for new Apple products with major refreshes in all product lines.
2. The iPod Touch 5^th generation will be released in March and will include the A5 chip, a higher quality camera, 128 GB option, Siri, and resolution will be increased to 1080x720. A new 5 inch iPod Touch with camera, Siri and retina display resolution will be released in March.
3.  A new ipod nano with a camera, microphone and wireless connectivity to other iOS devices will be released in March.  This will allow the nano to be used as an interface to the iPhone, iPad and iPod Touch for Facetime and Siri.  By doing this Apple will release the first wearable communications device.
4.  The iPod classic line with hard disks will be discontinued.
5. The iPad 3 will be released in the summer and with a 128GB option, retina display resolution, A6 processor, better camera, built-in LTE, Thunderbolt port, Siri with emotion recognition (if you are feeling down Siri will ask what’s the matter)  The iPad will be recognised as a computer and Apple will be recognised as the biggest computer retailer in the world. The iPad 1 will be discontinued and the iPad2 will drop in price by about 20%. More than 50 million iPads will be sold in 2012.
6. Macbook Pros will be remodelled along the ‘Macbook Air’ style and use only SSDs and lose their DVD drives.  The ‘Air’ name may be dropped and Apple will return to the Macbook and Macbook Pro naming convention.  Macbooks will come with built-in 3G/LTE wireless networking. Significant growth in Thunderbolt peripherals.  We may see a Macbook with a memristor chip near the end of 2012 or early 2013.
7. We will not see an Apple Television in 2012 (this is come in 2013) although there will be significant developments in the Apple TV.  The Apple TV will be updated to run apps and high quality ‘streaming on demand’ focused on apps. Apps can be anything from a television show, television channel, game or other interactive app suitable for TV screen viewing. Expect tight integration with other Apple devices through Airplay.  Gaming with an iPod/iPhone and Apple TV will begin to rival other consoles.  Facetime will become part of your TV perhaps with the launch of a wireless iSight camera.  These features will be rolled together into an Apple iTV on 2013.
8. The iPhone5 will be released in September with thinner curved glass and very thin bevel.  It will have the A6 processor, 128GB option, improved Siri with emotion detection.  Apple will sell over 100 million iPhones in the year.

Non-Apple Predictions

1. More than 50% of the population in the UK and USA will own a smart phone.
2. Microsoft will gain 8-10% market share after persuading retailers to discount its phones to near cost price. Most of this market share will be gained from other phone retailers including Blackberry who continue to lose sales. Nokia will breathe a sigh of relief as sales finally pick up. Sales of mobile phones in the UK will be dominated by Samsung, Apple, HTC, Nokia and Huawei.  Some famous names will stop producing phones altogether.
3. Microsoft will release a Windows 8 tablet which will be well received but it will be too expensive to compete with the iPad.
4. Amazon will release a 10 inch tablet for $300. Total Kindle sales of all models will top more than 100 million and Amazon will announce this figure soon after it happens.

Happy Holidays from Android

[From Hans] Happy Holidays from Android.

Free Audible download for you to take advantage of

Free Audible download from May at PalmDiscovery for you to take advantage of today. As always make the jump.

Apple iPhone prospers in Britain

[From Hans] The iPhone 4S is doing very well in the UK. "Spurred by the release of the iPhone 4S in October, Apple’s market share in Britain rose from 21.4 per cent at the end of November last year to 30.9 per cent this year, according to industry analysts Kantar Worldpanel ComTech. The iPhone had been losing ground until the new version's debut."

Open source, open issues for webOS

[From Stephen Trew] Good editorial over at the engadget website about webOS, Open source, open issues for webOS. " HP's decision to contribute webOS to the open source community represents, at the very least, a detour from the company's plans to "double down" on the operating system acquired from Palm, Inc. The good news for fans of the OS is that HP will continue to invest in the software's development, albeit probably not at the unsustainable rate at which it was going it alone. And for webOS fans, the decision is certainly more favorable than another possibility that HP considered -- ending the development of webOS software as abruptly as it ended the hardware.."

Steve Jobs given major award.

[From Stephen Trew] Steve Jobs given major award. "It's pretty difficult to argue that both Apple's iPod and -- to an even greater extent -- its contentious iTunes software haven't had a massive impact on the music industry. The Recording Academy has decided to recognize this, naming the former CEO and Apple co-founder Steve Jobs for a Trustees Award for "outstanding contributions to the industry in a non-performing capacity." "

Windows Phone, Is there News?

[From Peter Murphy] "Windows Phone as an OS, made it’s news and had it’s updates, but all has gone south may not be the direction, that users may like to think. Other than apps that update, the biggest news is, would be another major update for the OS. Supposedly codenamed Tango and Apollo, the updates would… bring what to the OS?" Read in full.

iPhone Sales: 30.3 Million This Quarter, 111.4 Million in Fiscal 2012

[From Stephen Trew] Looks like my prediction for iPhone sales is a year late! "With demand for the iPhone 4S surging and component constraints related to the flooding in Thailand subsiding, Wall Street is reassessing its iPhone sales estimates for Apple’s fiscal first quarter of 2012, and the year beyond. The latest analyst to do so, Susquehanna’s Jeffrey Fidacaro who sees another blowout quarter ahead for Apple. According to Fidacaro, Apple is on track to sell 30.3 million iPhones this quarter, quite a bit more than his previous estimate of 27.1 million. And for fiscal 2012, he figures the company will sell 111.4 million units, up from his earlier prediction of 104.4 million."

Samsungs to get Ice Cream Sandwich

Samsungs to get Ice Cream Sandwich pretty soon according to TracyandMatt Blog. "Samsung today announced that they will be updating a slew of Galaxy devices to Android 4.0/Ice Cream Sandwich early next year. The ICS update is scheduled for Q1 of 2012 for the following devices."