John Paczkowski

News Byte

Google+ Invades Earth

John Paczkowski in News on January 26 at 1:02 pm PT

Google+ is taking over the Earth — well, Google Earth, anyway. The search giant rolled out the latest version of Google Earth today, and while it boasts much improved graphics, the big enhancement to take note of is its integration with the company’s Google+ social networking and identity service. Now users can share their virtual travels with friends and with Google as well, thanks to Google+, which slowly seems to be insinuating itself into every corner of Google’s world — literally.

News Byte

“Most People Would Be Disturbed if They Saw Where Their iPhone Comes From”

John Paczkowski in Mobile on January 26 at 7:50 am PT

This according to a former Apple executive who tells the New York Times that the working conditions at the company’s overseas manufacturing partners are still sorely lacking. And while there have been improvements since Apple began auditing factories, there’s a lot more that can be done. Said another former Apple exec, “We’ve known about labor abuses in some factories for four years, and they’re still going on. Why? Because the system works for us. Suppliers would change everything tomorrow if Apple told them they didn’t have another choice.”

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Now if Only Nokia Could Sell 1.5 Billion Windows Phones

John Paczkowski in Mobile on January 25 at 4:02 pm PT

A historic milestone for Nokia: The Finnish mobile phone maker today said that it had sold 1.5 billion of its Series 40 handsets since first introducing the device in 1999. Nokia estimates that there are currently 675 million active S40 users globally, and claims it sells about a dozen S40 devices each second.