According to a leaked internal Telus document, Research In Motion's BlackBerry PlayBook has hit the end of its road. A photograph on MobileSyrup shows Telus stating that "all 3 PlayBooks are End of Life" and "inventory will not accept any returns on these devices."
RIM's tablet, which Telus is currently selling for as little as $149, sold a promising 500,000 its first quarter but that number dwindled to a meagre 150,000 units in the most recent quarter. But don't assume the PlayBook as a product is over: this likely just means that a second-generation of the device should launch in the near future, fully equipped with the OS 2.0 that everyone has been waiting a year for and maybe 3G connectivity, too, among other potential upgrades.
BlackBerry (Research In Motion) is a leading designer, manufacturer and marketer of innovative wireless solutions for the worldwide mobile... [more]
For the first time in history, smartphones are outselling PCs worldwide.
Canalys released its full report on smartphone and PC shipments for the fourth quarter of 2011 and the numbers are incredible. Over 158 million smartphones were shipped globally in Q4, blowing away PC shipments—which include notebooks, netbooks, and even tablets! PCs sold a combined 120 million—58 million notebooks, 29 million desktops, 7 million netbooks, and almost 27 million tablets. Many people don't bundle tablets in with PCs, so if you take them out, smartphone shipments nearly doubled PC sales, 158.5 to 93.7. Wow.
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Sony is expanding its Vancouver visual effects and digital animation studio, less than two years after setting up shop.
The company says it will double its space in Yaletown by March, leasing a second location of 16,000 square feet, just two blocks from its current offices. Sony says more than 100 jobs will be added.
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A quarter of tweets are useless. A third are disliked. Is Twitter a time-sucking void of meaningless garbage?
Time-sucking it may be, but meaningless it is not. But the above data is indeed true, according to a new study. Conducted by a team of researchers at Carnegie Mellon University, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, and the Georgia Institute of Technology, the study reveals that roughly are quarter of all tweets are "useless" and about one-third get a thumbs down from the Twitterverse. Even so, this doesn't erode the value of Twitter, which is tremendous.
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Toronto-based telecom giant Rogers has responded to the Canadian Radio-Television and Telecommunications Commission. In reaction to pressure from the CRTC's Compliance and Enforcement division, Rogers says that it will cease throttling, the act of deliberately slowing users' internet speeds. Last year, Rogers was infamously crowned in a research report the world's worst internet throttler.
Rogers sent a letter to the CRTC that acknowledged complaints issued by the Canadian Gamers Organization and laid out a timeline for correcting its malpractice.
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We are a diversified Canadian communications and media company. We are engaged in wireless voice and data communications services through Wireless,... [more]
Albert S. Bitton of Group Buying in Canada said at the Dx3 Canada Conference last week there were some massive group deals in Canada in 2011, most notably DealFind's $375,000 Tablet Group Deal, as well as some from TeamBuy and WagJag.
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Online group buying platform that features exceptional daily deals on fun things to do and places to eat in cities across Canada. [more]
Dealfind is a branch of MenuPalace.com which started in 1999. Since May, 2010 this online group buying website has sold over 750,000 vouchers, and... [more]
TeamBuy.ca is a Canadian-based team-buying website that launched in Toronto in October 2009. The site secures impressive savings by using... [more]
Is Facebook worth $100 billion? I doubt it.
Facebook generated over $3.1 billion dollars in advertising revenue in 2011 from their display ads and 80% of additional revenue from Farmville creator Zynga (although they try to say it's 12% of overall revenue). But they write in their SEC filing:
"We believe that our rates of user and revenue growth will decline over time. For example, our annual revenue grew 154% from 2009 to 2010 and 88% from 2010 to 2011. Historically, our user growth has been a primary driver of growth in our revenue. Our user growth and revenue growth rates will inevitably slow as we achieve higher market penetration rates, as our revenue increases to higher levels, and as we experience increased competition."
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Facebook's mission is to give people the power to share and make the world more open and connected. Millions of people use Facebook everyday to... [more]
Today on Silicon Valley Watcher Tom Foremski writes about The Dirty Little Secret of Silicon Valley's Startup Boom.
Thousands of startups are being launched with dreams of making a difference in the world. Yet Angels and VCs are selling them off to the big corporations in what are essentially engineering talent acquisitions.
Foremski's article seems to have been prompted by the Amazon acquisiton of Seattle's TeachStreet earlier this week. The e-commerce giant purchased the 5-year-old online marketplace that matches students and teachers and will be shutting it down the service in less than two weeks.
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Hot off the heels of their $6 Million funding announcement, web-based practice management provider Clio is looking to rapidly expand its product development and sales & marketing team.
According to CEO and co-founder Jack Newton, the Vancouver-headquartered company expects to grow its product development team from seven members to over twenty by the end of the year.
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Completely web-based, Clio is a practice management system that is specifically designed for solo practitioners and small law firms. Your important... [more]
Research In Motion now has a new offer running to lure developers to its platform. The company is giving away a free tablet to any developer who brings their Android app to the barren BlackBerry App World.
Alec Saunders, RIM's vice president of developer relations, tweeted yesterday, "Shh.... Android Devs—submit your Android app to BB AppWorld by Feb 13 and get a free Playbook --> tools here," to get the ball rolling. Instantly, interested developers flooded his Twitter with questions on the details. He then linked to a new blog post that followed up on hes tweet.
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BlackBerry (Research In Motion) is a leading designer, manufacturer and marketer of innovative wireless solutions for the worldwide mobile... [more]
