WhatsApp, the world's most popular messaging service that was purchased last week by Facebook to the tune of $19 billion, will add voice calls to its service later this year. The company's CEO Jan Koum confirmed the news on Monday at the Mobile World Congress in Barcelona.
WhatsApp boasts 450 million users worldwide, and according to market researcher Ovum, the service made roughly $120 billion last year from text messaging alone.
Apple on Friday confirmed its purchase of Burstly, the maker of the popular iOS beta testing platform TestFlight.
The news was first reported by TechCrunch but confirmed by Apple in a statement to Re/Code.
Amazon may launch a TV-streaming device in March that would compete with Apple TV, Roku and, to some extent, Google's Chromecast, the tech site Re/code reports. The gadget—which Amazon reportedly considered, then decided against, releasing for the just-passed holiday season—would presumably help the sprawling e-commerce giant build the audience for its online video offerings and its nascent slate of original programs.
See also: How Apple TV Can Win; Getting Started With Chromecast; How To Choose Between Apple TV, Roku and Chromecast
Everyone’s a tech company these days. From new-school video streaming services like Netflix to old-school grocery businesses and government agencies, technology increasingly drives business productivity. At the heart of this movement is Linux, resulting in exceptional, highly paid job opportunities for Linux professionals.
Software developers are the new kingmakers, according to Redmonk analyst Stephen O’Grady. Small wonder, then, that the most recent US News & World Report list of the top 100 jobs now ranks software developer at #1, with system administrator positions in the top 20.
Clearly, the economy is rebuilding around tech as every company seeks competitive advantage by making more intelligent use of their data and seeks to improve agility with cloud and open-source technologies, among other means.
What’s perhaps less clear is just how much this new tech economy depends on Linux.
This Linux dependence becomes evident in a survey of 5,000-plus Linux professionals and hiring managers the Linux Foundation recently released in partnership with Dice.com. Among other findings in the report:
All of which means demand for Linux professionals is heating up. Considerably.
In fact, 90% of hiring managers said it’s “somewhat” or “very difficult” to find experienced Linux pros—and those who have the right skills and expertise are being aggressively recruited. In fact, 75% of Linux professionals surveyed said they received at least one call from a recruiter in the last six months. Nearly 50% of those received six or more calls.
It’s a good time to be a Linux pro.
This translates into higher pay and better benefits. Because 55% of Linux pros believe it would be “very easy” or “fairly easy” to find a new, better job, 20% of them said they received incentives such as higher pay, a more flexible work schedule or additional training as part of a counteroffer from their employer after they tested the job market.
To keep them from testing the market, Linux pros enjoyed salary increases over the past year that exceeded the average for technology professionals by more than two percentage points. These professionals also received an average bonus of $10,336, up 12% from the previous year.
Ten years ago, the smart way to earn more money was to learn Linux. Today, that’s still true. Back in 2004 Linux was still new and was largely being deployed by early adopters seeking a competitive edge in their respective markets, and often financial services. Today Linux is the default operating system for cloud, Big Data and mobile, the big trends that are reshaping industries. Not confined to early adopters, Linux is simply the platform on which much of our innovation happens.
As such, I’ll give the same career advice I gave back in 2004, and which I’ll likely still be repeating in 2024: learn Linux. it’s the future.
Image by Flickr user mikecogh , CC 2.0
Google I/O is coming at the end of June. The biggest developer conference of the year for Google was announced today by the company’s head of Android and Chrome platforms Sundar Pichai in a posting to his Google+ profile.
This year Google I/O will take place at Moscone West in San Francisco from June 25-26. I/O comes about a month later this year than it did last year but at about the same time as it did in 2012.
The expectations for this year’s Google I/O are a bit up in the air. Google focused specifically on new developer features last year, eschewing the opportunity to release any new versions of Android or Chrome OS. Instead, Google’s announcements focused on Google Play Services and the Google Play developer console, design principles and updates to maps. Google did not announce any new hardware last year (though it did give all attendees a Chromebook Pixel). Google introduced the original Nexus 7 tablet at I/O 2012, the same time it announced Android 4.1 Jelly Bean.
The headmaster for Google I/O this year will be Pichai as Google focuses on getting developers on its two biggest platforms, Android and Chrome. Pichai was the head of Chrome before taking over Android when founder Andy Rubin went to Google’s special projects group to work on robotics.
Information on how to register for tickets to I/O will be announced next month. Pichai said that the registration process will be different this year to allow people that have an interest in going to be able to get tickets. I/O has sold out as soon as registration has opened in the past couple of years so Google will be making it easier for people to get tickets without having to hustle the second tickets for the event go live. The new system is akin to a lottery.
"We'll be implementing a new system, where you can submit your interest to attend Google I/O 2014. Successful applicants will then be randomly selected and notified shortly thereafter," Pichai said.
For more information on Google I/O 2014, visit the event's website here.
Soon you may be able to mirror what's on your Android smartphone or tablet to your television through Chromecast.
Google's Chromecast television streaming dongle has become a bit of a cult hit. At $35, it is one of the cheapest over-the-top media streamers on the market, can connect to virtually any television and allows you to use your smartphone or a tablet as a remote. The problem the Chromecast has had in its seven months or so of existence is lack of depth for apps that can use it.
Cyanogen developer Koushik Dutta—the developer of the popular AllCast app—has figured out how to hack the Chromecast to be able to mirror what's on your Android device to your television. He posted a short demo video on his Google+ profile on Sunday showing him playing Flappy Bird and using Twitter on his phone while also casting it to his television. There appears to be a lag in the video and Google does not officially support device screen mirroring for Chromecast at this point, but the capabilities may soon come Google's popular dongle.
In a post to his Google+ profile today, Dutta notes that Google may be working on screen mirroring for the Chromecast from Android, but it is not yet ready. Dutta wonders if Google will soon come out if there is a protocol that will be added to the Chromecast firmware in the future to allow screen mirroring, but Google has not yet released any documentation. Dutta notes that it looks like Google is not using WebRTC, can't package and stream MP4 videos without buffering, can't stream H264 or VP8 and that mirroring frame by frame is slow.
Dutta says:
Did some poking around to see how far along Google is with their Chromecast mirroring solution. There's plenty of evidence that there's some (possibly half baked) solution in the Play Services APK and it is not totally disabled. This is why people are seeing their "Cast" quick setting tile sometimes light up.
Dennis Woodside, a ten-year Google veteran who most recently served as CEO of its Motorola Mobility unit, will be moving to cloud-storage service Dropbox as its first chief operating officer. Google recently announced plans to sell Motorola to Lenovo for almost $3 billion, roughly two years after it paid more than $12 billion for the unit.
Photo by Dan Rowinski for ReadWrite