Day 2 with the Lumia 920: Screen
So, this is day 2 since I got my filthy hands on the black Nokia Lumia 920. Originally, I was unsure about the size of the thing, since it is quite a bit larger than my old Lumia 800. As it turns out, the size seems to be perfect for me, even though it takes a little getting used to. The user experience is much better with the big screen, and it seems like font and colors are just a lot crisper than on the 800. So, thumbs up on the screen quality and screen size. I find myself using my phone a lot more on the train in the morning, even reading fairly long texts is a good experience.
Last night I used my phone all evening, a time where I normally use my iPad. Now, just because I used for one evening doesn’t mean that I will retire my iPad, but the 920 seems to address some of the same casual computing needs that I normally have that time of day. I am sure my son will be happy at the prospect of taking full ownership of the iPad.
Lumia 920 in da house
So far so good. Setting up the phone to no time as usual, and Windows phone is a really nice OS. However, the PC experience is pretty bad, and I really miss the Zune software. Anyway, more posts to come as I use the phone even more.
Xbox One announced
I was watching the Xbox One announcement yesterday, and even though I missed a part of it due to my dogs needing to a walk in the rain, I thought it looked pretty interesting. Honestly, I don’t think the hardware looks that nice, but one can also hide it in a cupboard I suppose. What was very uplifting though, was the new voice and gesture controls as well as the responsiveness of the machine. I have done enough demos to know that sometimes they are not necessarily a reflection of the truth, but I will give Microsoft the benefit of the doubt here.
What will be really interesting though, will be the content that we can access on the Xbox here in Denmark. Microsoft has not really been good at launching their products in Europe (Bing and Zune for instance), so I am not holding my breath here. Of course there will always be apps for Netflix and eventually HBO Nordic, but regionalized content is most likely not in the works. Personally I would be throwing my money at the company that would allow me to stream the entire cycling on my Xbox. Just sayin’. Hopefully local Danish content will find its way to the Xbox, but considering the foolish TV licensing scheme we got going on here, I doubt it. On the other hand, with a good selection of content, we could get rid of our expensive TV subscription from TDC.
We will definitely get a new Xbox for the living room, although it has to be hidden away somewhere.
Yahoo buys Tumblr
I wonder if people are going to flee now. Hopefully Yahoo won’t let Tumblr die like they dig Flickr.
According to the WSJ, the deal could be announced as early as Monday. Tumblr will be allowed to run as an independent business unit.
Why would Yahoo, under the leadership of newly minted CEO Marissa Mayer make such a move? The WSJ speculates that it was to gain a social networking presence. Google+ is now the second most popular social network in the world. Yahoo has had no social networking sites to speak of.
Yahoo’s one previous major social networking play–the purchase of GeoCities in 1999 for approximately $3.5-billion—ended in failure in 2009.
This acquisition had been rumored for several weeks. Reports suggested Mayer would announce the deal on Monday at an event in New York City, and that both companies’ boards are in the final stages of approving the deal. It has also been said that Mayer will be announcing major changes with Yahoo’s photo-sharing site Flickr.
This buyout would easily be Mayer’s biggest move to date. She has been unsuccessful in freeing Yahoo of its search deal with Microsoft and in acquiring online video website Dailymotion.
Read more at source
Source: Steve J. Vaughan @ ZDnet
Microsoft to buy Tumblr?
Word around the campifire is that Yahoo has been looking to buy Tumblr for $1.1 billion, but that that Tumblr thought that was not enough based on their $800 million valuation.
The deal is set to be finalized by Yahoo’s board tomorrow, however, Tumblr may be getting cold feet. Executives at Tumblr now feel this offer may be too low. Microsoft and Facebook have both expressed interest in buying tumblr. Generally when large acquisitions are serious “lock-up” deals are put in place to prevent bidding wars from other companies. However, Mayer will need to act quickly once her board approves the deal.
If the deal with Yahoo falls through would it make sense for Microsoft or Facebook to buy Tumblr? For Facebook it may make sense. Facebook needs to continually fight to stay relevant in the social networking space. Facebook’s main revenue is comes from social advertising. An extra $100 million in advertising revenue may help boost Facebook’s stock price. The acquisition of Tumblr by Facebook would be a great defensive move, just as the acquisition of Instagram was. However, Facebook could try to drive up the price of Tumblr which could put Yahoo in a more vulnerable position.
Source: Microsoft News
I am not sure what Microzoft would gain from a Tumblr acquisition, outside of putting the pressure on Yahoo and perhaps Twitter and Facebook. Considering the limited succes Windows Live Spaces had, I wonder if Redmond really wants to have a social network. On the other hand, Spaces was pretty well thought out, and perhaps even aahead of its time. When lookimng at facebook today, a lot of their new features resemble functionality that Spaces offered. Perhaps I should look into my non-used Tumbl account.
Update: Turns out Yahoo bought Tumblr. And to think I just started using my Tumblr account.
Double screw you Google
Bring the pain
I’ve got a half marathon coming up in a few hours. I worry about my shins holding up, at least the view is spectacular.
Update: The shins held up. It was a really cool race, and I did a lot better than expected. The time could have been better, but we had a lot of fun doing it. The legs are a bit sore today, but all in all I am ready to spend a few days in Poland next week.
Microsoft Denmark moving
Not until 2015, but it is pretty cool that they are creating a big campus in Denmark in close proximity to DTU.
Microsoft i Danmark rykker teltpælene op og samler alle sine aktiviteter i et nybygget domicil i Lyngby nord for København.
Det nye danske hovedkvarter skal efter planen stå klar til indflytning i 2015. Det betyder samtidig, at Microsofts 900 danske medarbejdere må vinke farvel til deres to nuværende arbejdsadresser – Tuborg Havn i Hellerup, som i dag huser det danske salgskontor og udviklingscenteret i Vedbæk.
Aftalen om det nye byggeri blev i dag endeligt godkendt på et byrådsmøde i Lyngby-Taarbæk kommune, som sammen med bygherren Danica Pension og Microsoft står bag planerne.
De omfatter også byggeri af 300-400 studieboliger og et større butikscenter til en samlet pris af 1,2 milliarder kroner.
Hos Microsoft fortæller kommunikationsmedarbejder Linda Wendelboe, at man ikke har planer om organisatoriske ændringer i forbindelse med flytningen.
Source: Henrik Rasch @ Computerworld.dk
Hopefully this will put Denmark on the map in terms of software and innovation, and since we also have Google in Århus one can only hope that more tech companies decide to come to little ol’ Denmark.
Outlook.com crashing Outlook
It seems like the latest update to Outlook.com crashes Outlook on Windows 8. As soon as I remove my Outlook.com account it works fine – except for the less than stellar IMAP support implementation. Does anybody have a fix for this? I tried @outlook.com on Twitter and they suggested creating a new profile, which seems to do trick, at least for now. But it seems as if it’s the calendar update that messed with the EAS protocol.
Udate: Turns out my domain provider changed the IMAP server, so after I reconfigured the mail settings and rotted the inbox folder everyting is all good.