Author Archive: J. Angelo Racoma

In 2011, Google+ opened its doors to President Barack Obama, with the president advancing his causes and promoting his campaigns. This January, the White House has also officially joined Google’s social network.

Apple is gearing to expand its hold on the Chinese market with upcoming release of the iPhone 4S on a new carrier, China Telecom. Chinese regulators have recently granted the carrier license to sell the device in this huge mobile and smartphone market.

Google has been simplifying and streamlining its core services, and many of these efforts are being done toward the aim of making the user experience more social. With this, Google has announced that its Google+ social networking service has passed the 90 million user mark.

The U.S. military is known to use video games and simulators in training soldiers for combat and other missions. In a new effort to involve the public, the organization plans to crowdsource software testing initiatives through games.

Popular file locker and online download site Megaupload has been shut down, amid complaints by copyright groups for violation of their intellectual property. U.S. authorities have also requested the arrest of top-ranking officials living abroad as part of efforts to shutter content piracy online.

Microsoft’s Windows Phone 7 platform is currently lagging behind its more popular contemporaries Android and iOS. But in three years’ time, WP7 is likely to overtake iOS as the #2 smartphone platform, according to analysts.

Google wants to clean up the web, at least in terms of websites that have too many ads that tend to overpower content. In its latest update, Google’s “page layout” algorithm will reduce the ranking of sites that have too many above-the-fold advertisements.

Instagram was Apple’s 2011 application of the year, thanks in part to the popularity of the photo-sharing service among iPhone shutterbugs. With plans to expand to other platforms, Instagram might be coming soon to a Windows Phone 7 handset near you.

Intel is aware of certain users and communities hacking their computers to get the most power, given a limited  hardware capabilities. Noting the potential dangers in overclocking, Intel is offering replacements for damaged processors for a fee.

Android is the smartphone market’s fast-rising star, currently holding about half of the U.S. smartphone market. Recent figures indicate that Apple is closing in on Android in terms of recent sales, and that a big part of the U.S. mobile phone market is now using a smartphone platform.