There’s one main lesson to be learned from the events of the week just gone – the tech world is a dangerous place! Between Facebook’s plans to float on the stock market and Irish sites getting taken down by judges, it’s been a busy week.
Did any of it pass you by. If it did, don’t worry – we’ve got a roundup of the week that was in tech with our top five stories.
Web wars gathered pace
Another week, another chapter of the SOPA saga. What started life in America has now well and truly taken hold in Ireland. The Irish version of the anti-piracy legislation is still angering a lot of people, including Anonymous Sweden. The’hacktivist’ collective brought the Irish Labour Party and the Irish Aid websites to their knees on Wednesday.
The attack came the day after the junior minister responsible for the new legislation, Labour’s Seán Sherlock, said he wasn’t inclined to change the wording of the vague draft at all. Despite criticism that it was so non-descript that it would be left up to judges to decide how far reaching it would be.
On top of all that an Irish judge ordered the effective closure of ratemysolicitor.com after saying that some information on it was patently untrue and that defamation can cause suicide.
Microsoft finally gets its ass in gear for smartphones
The new version of Microsoft’s mobile phone software will share a lot of components with Windows 8. The move will streamline the work of developers who will be able to transfer apps to a mobile device much more easily now.
In a leaked video, intended for Nokia staff, it was announced that operating system will support NFC (Near Field Communication system) which allows services like contactless payments.
The handsets that run the software should come on the market late this year and could provide better competition for Apple and the iPhone. Currently Windows software smartphones only have 1.3 per cent of the market.
Netflix vs Sky in the movie streaming market
Netflix hadn’t even finished basking in the media glory this week after their launch on the Irish market than Sky walked right in and whipped the rug from under them.
Never mind Netflix, BSkyB says it will launch an on demand movie streaming service within the next six months. The move could easily see Netflix run out of the market. BSkyB was eager to point out that their entertainment and sport broadcasts could be available on the new service as well within time.
Thing’s not looking so rosy for Netflix now.
Twitter goes censor happy
Twitter went ahead with its new system of blocking tweets by location this week. The company’s boss said they put the new geographical blocking in place to deal with censorship requests from national governments.
Governments will now be able to block a tweet in one country alone. Will that mean Enda Kenny will be requesting Twitter to block tweets he doesn’t like? No, probably not, but it does seem like the move comes ahead of a further expansion by the company into markets with less free speech than we have on these shores.
Facebook floats, Bebo sinks without a trace
The tech news on everyone’s lip this week was ‘what will Facebook actually be worth?’. And that’s a bloody good question – one which few people really know. The company plans to float itself on the stock market for an Initial Public Offering (IPO) of $5 billion. But, some commentators say that the website may eventually trade for more than $100 billion.
They’re all mind-blogging numbers. But, to put it in perspective, if Facebook achieve their target it will be the biggest technology IPO ever – three times that of Google’s 2004 float. Many are worried about the pressures that will be put on the site to change into a more profit driven one, but that doesn’t look likely considering Zuckerberg will retain a 56 per cent voting right.
Elsewhere, the future is a lot less bright for Bebo – our old favourite social network. The site went offline on Tuesday, causing shock and dismay among the sites tens of users. One of the site’s founders who sold his share a couple of years back even tweeted mourning the demise of his creation. The site’s back up now, but few are sure how long it will actually last.
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