Friday, April 04, 2014

Clearly out of touch. I would imagine hundreds of people have posted “Presidential Selfies.” Just because Samsung wasn't a large contributor to the President's campaign (like Google) is no reason to brand them as Capitalist Dogs.
White House objects to Samsung Ortiz and Obama selfie
The White House has objected to the tweeting of a selfie snapped by a member of a leading baseball team which included President Obama in the photograph.
The White House said the President's image should not be used for commercial gain.
David Ortiz denied that he was paid by Samsung to take the picture, as Alpa Patel reports.


It's war! Granted, it's polite war, but it's still war. (At $100 per user, consider the winner in this war could have 7 billion users.)
Why Facebook Should Worry About Tencent
From the moment Facebook announced in February 2014 that it had bought the mobile messaging service WhatsApp, everyone’s been talking about the price that CEO Mark Zuckenberg parted with for the acquisition. Nineteen billion dollars (albeit $4 billion in cash and the rest in Facebook shares) is one of the largest sums ever paid for a venture-capital-backed start-up that is just five years old.
What’s really significant, though, is that by buying WhatsApp, Facebook has signaled its intention of taking on Tencent, China’s biggest Internet company, which is trying to become the global leader in the instant messaging market. Tencent’s mobile messaging service, WeChat (known as Weixin in China), has over 300 million users worldwide, and standalone, it is already valued at around $30 billion compared to WhatsApp’s $19 billion price-tag.


Very early days yet, but think of them as low-level communication satellites.
Google's Project Loon balloon goes around the world in just 22 days


Perhaps a way to introduce my students to programming?
Microsoft eases development for Windows and Windows Phone with new App Studio
Microsoft’s App Studio beta test has been expanded to allow novice developers to build applications for Windows tablets and PCs, in addition to Windows Phone.
Last year Microsoft introduced a beta version of Windows Phone App Studio in an effort to increase the number of apps for its smartphone OS by letting almost anyone build an application. The company has now expanded the platform to let users build for tablets and PCs at the same time, and renamed the service Windows App Studio, it said in a blog post on Friday.
Materials for teachers
Check out the 5-hour App Studio Curriculum at App Studio Education. Get your students building apps and extending them with code today!

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