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Turning to the private sector It’s been nearly 50 years since Star Trek first referred to space as “the final frontier,” and the passing decades have done little to diminish interest in traveling to this expansive (and very expensive) destination. The National Aeronautics and Space Administration (better known as NASA) made headlines back in 2011 with the decision to retire its space shuttle fleet, laying the groundwork for companies with
Apple Watch hands on review The Apple Watch has been ticking away on my wrist just shy of 24 hours, and while it’s no longer called the iWatch, it really is “my watch” and Apple’s most personal gadget yet. The iPhone-compatible smartwatch comes in 38 flavors, with different case materials, colors, sizes and interchangeable Apple Watch bands. None are inexpensive. Starting at $349 (£299, AU$499) and climbing all the way
I’ve screwed up my shoulder The Apple Watch has only been on my wrist for 24 hours, but already I’m missing the Garmin. And that’s after only one run. I’ve been trying to decide whether or not to write about Cupertino’s digi-timepiece in this column given it’s not a ‘proper’ running watch and could hinder my quest to become a triathlete in a ludicrously short amount of time, but given
Introduction and design A long time ago, laptop manufacturers used desktop components to keep costs down. Taiwanese manufacturer ECS, for example, shoved a desktop processor into a laptop form factor without the battery and called it a desknote (desktop and notebook). Now Lenovo has gone the other way, using laptop components in a desktop computer – and it, kind of, makes sense due to economies of scale. Using the same
Introduction Changing operating systems is a painful process: leaving what you know behind for a new and potentially fruitful land, sacrificing some things for others. The grass is, as they say, always greener on the other side; the fruits of Mac OS X look appealing on Windows and vice versa. Each major operating system has its own quirks, flaws and plus points aplenty, whether they be broad application support (Windows)
Chinese e-commerce leader Alibaba Group Holding Ltd and state-owned China Telecom Corp Ltd have tied up to sell inexpensive smartphones aimed at boosting mobile commerce in smaller cities and rural areas. The phones, dubbed “Tianyi Taobao Shopping Handsets”, will come installed with either an app for easy access to Alibaba’s flagship Taobao online shopping platform or its home-grown YunOS mobile operating system, it said in a statement late on Friday.
The chief executive of France’s telecom leader Orange said on Saturday he believed the price war in the national telecoms sector was coming to a close. Stephane Richard also argued in a radio interview for consolidation in the French telecoms sector, saying a market with three operators would function better than with four. “In France we have among the lowest prices in the world for both fixed and mobile telecoms.
German Finance Minister Wolfgang Schaeuble hinted on Saturday that Berlin was preparing for a possible Greek default, drawing a parallel with the secrecy of German reunification plans in 1989. At a briefing with reporters after a tense meeting of euro zone finance ministers on Greece on Friday, Schaeuble was asked if euro zone finance ministers were working on a “Plan B” in case negotiations on funding with cash-strapped Athens fail.
As the buses carrying European finance ministers left for a gala dinner in the Latvian capital on Friday night, one of the party hung back at the hotel and then wandered off alone into the dusk. Greece’s Yanis Varoufakis had other dinner plans, he said, after a bruising first day of meetings in Riga that underlined his isolation as he tries to avert national bankruptcy. While other ministers were feted
The collapse of the deal opens the door for other possible offers for Time Warner Cable, but also casts heightened regulatory risk on merger activity in the U.S. cable industry, which has been rapidly consolidating in the face of competition from satellite TV and Web-based services. Comcast had argued the merger would bring faster service and better video services to more Americans. Charter Communications Inc lost out on a bid
