This week internet titans prepped for the web TV wars, as Singapore’s next-gen fiber network cranked into life.
Apple slashed the price of its Apple TV hard-drive and announced 99-cent downloads for TV shows. Rival Amazon also cut its prices, while Google plotted a pay-per-view service by year-end.
Sony entered the fray with a new VoD service in Europe and promised a new cloud music service, Music Unlimited.
Singapore’s state-funded NBN began operations, with two new ISPs joining the offering services on the new fiber network.
HP outlasted Dell in the battle for storage firm 3Par. Dell withdrew after HP upped its bid to $2.4 billion. Intel paid $1.4 billion for Infineon’s wireless chip unit, its second acquisition in a week.
After giving RIM 60 days to prove that its technical fix gives them access to encrypted BlackBerry data, Indian authorities warned Skype and Google that they too would have to open up their servers to security agencies if they wanted to keep operating in the country.
China introduced new rules requiring consumers to produce their IDs when buying a new SIM card.
Gartner cut its forecasts for PC and chip sales in the second half on weaker US and European demand.
Web use in the BRICI countries- Brazil, Russia, India, China and Indonesia – will double by 2015, said a BCG report, noting that digital consumption patterns in those markets were already very different from the developed economies.