Hot topics in the tech blogs for the week ending December 16 include the worldwide rollout of Facebook Timeline, the launch of Samsung’s Galaxy Nexus in the US, Kindle Fire software updates and sales figures, Microsoft reveals Windows SkyDrive for iPhone, and Apple’s Mac App Store reaches 100 million downloads.
Facebook makes Timeline available worldwide
Facebook made its Timeline feature available to its more than 800 million active users. Facebook’s Timeline acts like a digital diary, presenting a comprehensive and ongoing snapshot of your life on the social networking site. It showcases a chronological history of the most important moments in your life, collating (user-selected) pictures, videos, significant status updates and event "likes" that have been uploaded to Facebook. Facebook users have been given the opportunity to fill out and modify their Timeline during a seven-day period before it goes live for their friends to view.
http://www.facebook.com/about/timeline
Samsung Galaxy Nexus reviews and launch
American cellular network Verizon launched the coveted Galaxy Nexus Android smartphone, the first to run Google’s Android 4.0 Ice Cream Sandwich, at a price of $299.99 on a two-year contract. Blogs posted glowing reviews of the device, which boasts a huge 4.65-inch HD Super AMOLED display with a resolution of 720p, a fast 1.2GHz dual core processor, 4G LTE/HSPA+ technology and NFC.
http://www.google.com/nexus/
Kindle Fire software update and sales figures
Amazon announced it was readying a software update for its recently released Kindle Fire to remedy the tablet’s "laggy" touchscreen, nonexistent privacy settings, and slowness -- issues consumers are vocally complaining about on the online retailer’s website. Days later the company announced that it was selling more than 1 million units of its Kindle family of devices (including the $199 Kindle Fire) per week.
http://www.amazon.com/kindle
Windows SkyDrive for iPhone
Microsoft has been busy creating versions of its Windows and Windows Phone applications for the iOS platform. This week its Dropbox-like SkyDrive personal cloud for documents arrived in the App Store (and on the Windows Phone 7 platform) offering in-the-cloud file management and syncing.
http://itunes.apple.com/us/app/skydrive/id477537958?mt=8
Apple’s Mac App Store hits 100 million downloads
Apple’s Mac App Store for PCs reached a milestone of 100 million app downloads as Microsoft moves closer to launching its own app store for the Windows platform. With more than 100 million downloads in less than a year, the Mac App Store is the "largest and fastest growing PC software store in the world," said Philip Schiller, Apple’s senior vice president of Worldwide Marketing.
http://www.apple.com/mac/app-store/