GLOBAL TECH WRAP: Samsung surges past Apple in smartphone sales
PLUS: Unemployed teen blows dole money buying fake Twitter followers | Twitter's Vine app uploads short, sharp videos | Belkin buys Linksys from Cisco.
An unemployed UK teen has blown his dole money on fake Twitter followers.
Kieran Miller (19) spent £300 to by 300,000 followers, which he maintains was smart move to boost his social media profile and overall prospects.
There are many services that will offer bulk followers (typically fake accounts and spambots) for a small fee. Many have taken advantage to give their follower numbers an artificial, including Facebook NZ account manager Adnan Khan.
Twitter has launched a standalone video-sharing app for iPhone called Vine, the Guardian reports.
Vine enables users to share clips up to six seconds in length, which play on a loop within tweets.
iPhone and iPad owners can download Vine here.
As with Twitter's 140 character tweet restriction, the video time-limit is frustrating to you, but pleasing to your followers.
Check out the example below, posted by Vine cofounder Dom Hofmann (Twitter bought his company in October):
After a week of salad, I'm craving steak tartare at 11 in the morning. vine.co/v/bOIqn6rLeID
— Dom Hofmann (@dhof) January 23, 2013
As December quarter results are finalised, market tracker IDC says the mobile phone market grew just 1.9% during 2012 - but there was considerable shuffling in the ranks as Samsung passed Nokia in total phone sales and Apple in smartphones sales.
China's ZTE and Huawei are also up-and-comers in the cellphone market. Like Samsung, most of their handsets run on Google's Android software.
Top five smartphone vendors, fourth quarter 2012 (millions):
(Click any chart to zoom.)
Top five smartphone vendors, calendar 2012 (millions):
Top five vendors, total cellphone market fourth-quarter 2012 (millions):
Top five vendors, total cellphone market calendar 2012 (millions):
Cisco is selling its Linksys division, which makes wi-fi routers and DSL modems for the home market. Belkin is the buyer, says CNet. The US networking giant earlier sold its Flip video camera businesses as it refocuses on the corporate networking and telecommunications markets.
A French court has told Twitter to identify people who had posted anti-Semitic and racist entries, the New York Times reports. The US-based social network says it is still considering its options.
RIM, which is attempting the mother of all comebacks this year, has bought a SuperBowl ad to push its new BlackBerry 10 software and touchscreen handsets, coming soon.
NBR staff
Sat, 26 Jan 2013
Sat, 26 Jan 2013
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GLOBAL TECH WRAP: Samsung surges past Apple in smartphone sales
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