Mark Bridge writes:
What a week for Facebook co-founder and CEO Mark Zuckerberg. Not content with transforming his company through its stock market flotation, he then went on to marry. What does this reveal? Well, he’s clearly capable of multi-tasking and he’d rather wear a suit for social occasions than for work.
A few days before Friday’s share sales started, Facebook acquired the technical team behind Android photo-sharing application Lightbox. There’s no mention of costs but I doubt it came close to the staggering $1 billion paid for Instagram. Lightbox’s online service will close in mid-June.
It was also a good week for mobile payments (yet again, some might say) as iZettle announced the beta release of its mobile payment service in the UK. iPhone and iPad users can attach a plug-in chip-card reader that can turns their device into a credit card terminal.
The ever-increasing versatility of mobile phones was emphasised by new research that didn’t just show an increase in the number of smartphone users (and a boost in Android’s popularity) but an increase in the number of downloaded applications as well.
Meanwhile over in the world of business, research commissioned by BT showed that over 80% of IT managers thought a Bring Your Own Device policy gave businesses a competitive advantage. Perfect timing for Cortado to combine its cloud desktop app with mobile device management, I’d say – and for HTC to promote its business-focussed HTCpro service (even if getting hold of HTC phones isn’t so easy for some people).
Is all this the honest truth? Well, it seems the easiest way to find out is to send a text message. A new study from the University of Michigan Institute for Social Research has suggested that people are inclined to be more honest when they’re texting and also tend to give answers that are more precise. Mind you, it’ll probably be a while before SMS is used in every research situation.
yor honR, im tellin you, I wz not ther
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