Device Arena

Google is entering the shared drive market and will be competing with Dropbox and others. You will get 5GB for free and an option to extend your drive for 20, 50 and more GB.

Google Drive is everywhere you are—on the web, in your home, at the office and on the go. So wherever you are, your stuff is just…there. Ready to go, ready to share.

Google Drive is available for:
*PC and Mac
*iPhone and iPad (coming soon)
*Android devices

There is a huge possibility that Google will attract the majority of android users comparing to the Dropbox.

drive.google.com

Now things are really getting interesting. China Telecom and Nokia just unveiled the Nokia 800C, the first CDMA Windows Phone in China and the first Windows Phone on a major carrier there.

The phone—a China-tuned version of Nokia’s popular Lumia 800—hits stores in April and comes in black and cyan. And Nokia is just getting started: A CDMA version of the Lumia 610 is also headed to China Telecom sometime in the second quarter of 2012.

The companies are a great match. Nokia has been building and selling phones in China, the world’s biggest mobile market, for 26 years. Some 250 million people there already use a Nokia phone.

China Telecom, meanwhile, operates the world’s largest CDMA cell network.

As a result, Nokia 800C owners will have access to popular Chinese media and social networking services including Sina, SOHU, Tencent and Renren. The phone also comes with Lumia-exclusive apps. Nokia Maps provides 3D maps of China and 190 more countries, plus content from popular Chinese travel, food, and real estate sites. Nokia Drive is a voice-guided, turn-by-turn navigation app. And Nokia Music offers unlimited free music for 12 months in mainland China.

To celebrate the first Lumia in the country, Nokia plans to offer 100,000 free downloads of the hit games Fruit Ninja and Plants vs Zombies via the new Chinese-language Windows Phone Marketplace.

windowsteamblog.com

Public schools from Alabama, Arizona, Florida, New Jersey, and New York to each receive $100,000 of technology at an event with John Legend in Washington, D.C.
RIDGEFIELD PARK, N.J., March 15, 2012 – Samsung announced today the five grand prize winners in its nationwide Solve for Tomorrow contest, a competition to raise enthusiasm for science, technology, engineering and math (STEM) education among U.S. public school students. The five grand prize winners were chosen from the 12 finalists selected in February to receive technology from Samsung, Microsoft, the Adobe Foundation, and DIRECTV. The winners are:

Lawrence County High School, Moulton, AL
Desert Wind Middle School, Maricopa, AZ
Davenport School of the Arts, Davenport, FL
Jefferson Township Middle School, Oak Ridge, NJ
Schoharie High School, Schoharie, NY

The 12 finalist videos can be seen at http://www.samsung.com/solvefortomorrow

Schoharie High School won the Community Choice Award through public online voting and will receive an assistance dog for their school in addition to the $100,000 of technology. All five schools will choose from a range of technology prizes such as smart boards, LED TVs, printers, laptops and software.

All five winners will be honored in a special Washington, D.C. ceremony in April with John Legend, the Grammy Award-winning recording artist and education advocate.

The contest is part of Samsung Hope for Children, the company’s philanthropic initiative focused on helping children lead healthier, smarter, and more sustainable lives.

“The passion this contest engendered was amazing to see,” said David Steel, Executive Vice President of Corporate Strategy of Samsung Electronics North America. “Schoharie High School received more than 100,000 votes as our Community Choice winner. That kind of public support is fantastic. Congratulations to all the winning schools as well as the other seven finalists. We hope that the challenge of this contest, together with the technology for winning schools, will help spark students’ passion to become the innovators of tomorrow through STEM education.”

More than 1,500 schools from all 50 states entered the contest that kicked off in August with an essay submission on how STEM can help the environment in their community. Twenty-five were picked to receive a video production kit containing $1,000 of technology – a Samsung laptop, camcorder, and Adobe software – to compete as semi-finalists and in the video phase of the contest.

samsung.com

Sony Corporation (“Sony”) and Samsung Electronics Co., Ltd. (“Samsung”) today announced that the two companies have signed agreements to transition the current business relationship with respect to LCD panels.

Under the agreement, Samsung will acquire all of Sony’s shares of S-LCD Corporation (“S-LCD”), the two companies’ LCD panel manufacturing joint venture, making S-LCD a wholly owned subsidiary of Samsung. In consideration for the share transfer, cash consideration of approximately KRW 1.08 trillion* will be paid to Sony by Samsung. Concurrently, the two companies have entered into a new strategic agreement for the supply and purchase of LCD panels with a goal of enhancing the competitiveness of both companies. The agreement also allows Sony and Samsung to continue cooperative engineering efforts focused on LCD panel technology.

For Sony, this transaction will enable it to monetize its shares in S-LCD and aims to secure a flexible and steady supply of LCD panels from Samsung, based on market prices and without the responsibility and costs of operating a manufacturing facility. With whole ownership of S-LCD, Samsung anticipates heightened flexibility, speed and efficiency in both panel production and business operations.

Established in April 2004, S-LCD has continued to deliver advanced and cost-competitive LCD panels to both of its parent companies, contributing to the expansion of the respective parties’ TV businesses, and the large-sized LCD TV market overall. However, LCD panel and TV market conditions have now changed. In order to respond to such challenging conditions and to strengthen their respective market competitiveness, the two companies have agreed to shift to a new LCD panel business alliance.

The share transfer and payment are targeted to close by the end of January 2012, subject to necessary approvals from regulatory authorities.

As a result of this transaction, a non-cash impairment loss of approximately JPY 66 billion is expected to be incurred by Sony in the third quarter of the fiscal year ending March 31, 2012, due to the reevaluation of its S-LCD shares. This loss includes an impact from the fluctuation of exchange rate. Despite this one-time loss, Sony estimates that the transaction will result in substantial savings on and after January 1, 2012 in respect of costs associated with its procurement of LCD panels. The current estimate of the yearly savings in respect of such costs is approximately JPY 50 billion, compared to LCD panel procurement costs estimated for the fiscal year ending March 31, 2012. Neither the one-time loss nor the estimated cost savings were included in Sony’s forecast of consolidated financial results for the current fiscal year ending March 31, 2012, announced on November 2, 2011. Sony is currently reevaluating this forecast, taking into account this transaction and other factors that might affect its full year FY2011 consolidated financial results forecast.

Facts about S-LCD
Established
:April 26, 2004
Capital
:KRW 3.3 Trillion
(Samsung Electronics: 50% plus 1 share, Sony: 50% minus 1 share)

Representative
:Donggun Park, CEO
Location
:Tangjeong, Chung Cheong Nam-Do, South Korea
Production Items
:7th and 8th generation Amorphous TFT LCD
*Note: The final amount of such payment will be determined based on S-LCD’s financial statements as of the end of December 2011.

sony.net

HP Enterprise Services and Microsoft Corp. today announced a global, four-year initiative to deliver Microsoft’s leading communications and collaboration applications via global private and public cloud services.

Under the agreement, HP and Microsoft will offer private and public cloud solutions designed to help organizations rapidly scale new users, shift IT resources from maintenance to innovation and change IT from a capital to operating expense. The solutions include the following:

•
Private cloud: HP Enterprise Cloud Services – Messaging, HP Enterprise Cloud Services – Collaboration and HP Enterprise Cloud Services – Real-Time Collaboration deliver Microsoft Exchange Server 2010, Microsoft SharePoint Server 2010 and Microsoft Lync Server 2010 productivity applications as a service from HP datacenters around the world.
•
Public cloud: Microsoft Office 365, Microsoft’s Office collaboration and productivity tools, will be delivered by Microsoft through the cloud.
•
Hybrid solution: HP will resell Microsoft Office 365 with HP Enterprise Cloud Services – Messaging, HP Enterprise Cloud Services – Collaboration and HP Enterprise Cloud Services – Real-Time Collaboration.1
HP and Microsoft engineering resources will collaborate to deploy, support and enhance the new solutions. The solutions will launch globally, with initial availability this month in Australia, Canada, the United Kingdom and the United States.

“Large organizations, particularly those in regulated industries like financial services and public sector, have demanding functionality and service level requirements,” said Brandt Faatz, vice president, Workplace Services, HP Enterprise Services. “HP and Microsoft help meet these needs with a flexible range of global, cost-efficient, cloud-based productivity solutions running on the latest technology.”

“Microsoft is committed to putting the unique and ever-evolving needs of customers at the core of cloud innovation,” said Mark Hill, vice president, Enterprise Partner Group, Microsoft. “This alliance with HP not only broadens Microsoft’s geographic reach, it gives customers maximum flexibility to choose a cloud computing solution that meets their organization’s specialized messaging and collaboration needs.”

HP and Microsoft have delivered technical innovation together for more than 25 years. They offer joint solutions that help organizations around the world improve services through the use of innovative technologies.

www.microsoft.com