Tech Shorts

A round-up of other technology news in brief

Android has edge in US smartphones sales

Smartphones running Google’s Android software were the top seller among consumers in the United States in the second quarter, industry tracker NPD said this week. Android accounted for one-third of all smartphones purchased in the April-June period, with Research in Motion’s BlackBerry sliding to second place for the first time since 2007.

BlackBerry lost nine percentage points of market share, falling to 28 per cent. Apple’s iPhone was in third place with a 22 per cent share.

Android is available on smartphones from a number of different manufacturers. – (Reuters)

AirSpeed wins institute contract

Wireless network operator AirSpeed Telecom has been awarded a contract worth €32,000 to provide the Dublin Institute for Advanced Studies with a 500MBits/sec licensed wireless link from its Merrion Square office to Dunsink Observatory.

Large amounts of scientific data pass between the Dublin Institute for Advanced Studies and the observatory, requiring a secure and reliable connection. The institute is independently managing the new link which it has purchased.

Fruitful quarter for Strata3

Web development company Strata3 says it has won contracts worth more than €350,000 during the second quarter of 2010. Clients who have signed up for development, support, hosting and marketing contracts include the National Consumer Agency, Convention Centre Dublin, Bord Gáis and the RDS.

John Mitchell, Strata3’s managing director, said he was particularly happy that the firm had won a number of overseas contracts which coincided with the opening of its first overseas office, in Spain.

Google calls time on Wave 

Google has called an end to its ambitious Wave project, an online collaboration service that it once hailed as a potential replacement for e-mail. The company said the service, launched with great fanfare a year ago, would be closed at the end of this year, although the technology behind it could be used in future Google projects.

Wave marked an attempt to reinvent e-mail by allowing a group of users to communicate and share information simultaneously in the same workspace on the web. Wave’s most eye-catching innovation was a feature that let users see what others were writing in real time.

That real-time approach tapped into excitement about the possibilities for instant interaction online, fuelled by communication sites such as Twitter and Facebook.

However, it quickly became apparent that Wave was more akin to a collaborative working system for businesses than to social networks. The service was deemed too complicated by many users, with an explanatory video lasting more than an hour. Earlier this year Google said it planned to simplify the service, but this failed to boost uptake. – (Copyright The Financial Times Limited 2010)