Facebook Launches "Home" For Android
Nerval's Lobster writes "Facebook has announced "Home" for Android smartphones (and, eventually, tablets). It's something less than a full Facebook mobile operating system, as some expected before the company's presentation, and more like an app update. Facebook also announced the Facebook Home Program, which will work with several carriers and device makers to pre-load Home onto select devices, including ones built by Samsung, Sony, ZTE, and Lenovo. The first "Home" phone will be the HTC First, a $99.99 phone that will ship April 12 from AT&T. Facebook chief executive Mark Zuckerberg told analysts and journalists assembled for his presentation that Home was designed to reorient the phone and the Facebook mobile experience around people, not apps: "On one level, Home is the next mobile version of Facebook. On the other, it's a change in the relationship with the next generation of computing devices." Home essentially is a custom start screen for your Android phone, replacing the home screen ...
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ComScore: Russia Widens Online Lead In Europe With 61.3M Users; EU5 Smartphone Penetration Now 57%, Samsung, Android Leading
The analysts at comScore have today published their latest research detailing how Europe is progressing in areas like smartphone penetration, broadband and consumer digital services like video consumption -- part of comScore's ongoing Digital Future In Focus series of annual reports covering different geographical markets. In all, the online audience across the region, covering 18 continues, to creep up and at the end of 2012 was 408.3 million users, with Russia the biggest market at 61.3 million; and mobile users in the "EU5" -- the top-five markets of Germany, France, Italy, Spain and the UK -- are now up to 241 million, with 57% of them using smartphones.
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Latest Rumors Suggest The Galaxy S IV Will Be Unveiled On March 15
Samsung has done an excellent job of keeping us in the dark regarding the forthcoming Galaxy S IV, but the folks over at SamMobile seem to have locked in an announcement date of March 15. However, previous reports suggesting that the Galaxy S IV would be available in stores by mid-April aren't exactly dead-on. According to SamMobile's sources, Europe and Asia will get the flagship Android smartphone in the beginning of April, while America, Australia and Africa won't get their hands on the GS4 until May or June.
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Kantar: iPhones Top Seller In U.S., Japan; Android Winning Everywhere Else; Windows Phone Growing Most In Europe
Android smartphones, led by Samsung, were the overall winner in the crucial holiday sales period at the end of last year, although Apple's iPhone continues to shine in the U.S. as well as Japan, according to the latest numbers out from Kantar Worldpanel Comtech, a division of WPP that tracks handset sales in a number of key markets over a rolling, 12-week period. It also found that while handsets built on Microsoft's Windows Phone OS continue to struggle in markets like the U.S., they are showing small signs of growth in Europe -- although we're still talking about single-digit percentages in almost all cases.
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Can Motorola Win Back Europe With The Razr i, Its Speedy, New Intel-Powered Smartphone?
Motorola outted its first Intel powered smartphone today: the Razr i. The debut, strategically planned in London, raises questions of whether Motorola can claw back market share in Europe -- where it's been hammered as Android buyers opt for Samsung's Galaxy range of devices (before Sammy, it was HTC making all the running). The Razr i is also interesting because it's Intel's first smartphone from a very recognisable mobile maker -- now owned by Google.
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