Breaking News… From the Tech World

Sony Ericsson has announced today that it has appointed integrated marketing agency iris to handle its global activation strategy, following a competitive pitch. As its global activation agency, iris will be responsible for implementing integrated campaigns across all of Sony Ericsson’s sports marketing properties, retail business and sales promotion work.The appointment is part of Sony Ericsson’s move to increase integration across all of its marketing activity as well as drive efficiency and greater consumer engagement. With this is mind, iris will also provide strategic and creative leadership for Sony Ericsson’s $88m global title sponsorship of the Sony Ericsson Women’s Tennis Association (WTA) Tour.

Apple today updated its popular MacBook and MacBook Pro notebook lines with the latest Intel Core 2 Duo processors, larger hard drives and 2GB of memory standard in most models. In addition, MacBook Pro includes the latest NVIDIA graphics processors, now with up to 512MB of video memory, and Apple’s innovative Multi-Touch trackpad, first introduced in MacBook Air. All Mac notebooks include a built-in iSight video camera for video conferencing on-the-go, Apple’s MagSafe Power Adapter that safely disconnects when under strain and built-in 802.11n wireless networking for up to five times the performance and twice the range of 802.11g.

Apple today previewed its iPhone™ 2.0 software, scheduled for release this June, and announced the immediate availability of a beta release of the software to selected developers and enterprise customers. The iPhone 2.0 beta release includes both the iPhone Software Development Kit (SDK) as well as new enterprise features such as support for Microsoft Exchange ActiveSync to provide secure, over-the-air push email, contacts and calendars as well as remote wipe, and the addition of Cisco IPsec VPN for encrypted access to private corporate networks.

Singapore Telecommunications Limited (SingTel) and five other international telecommunications carriers have signed an agreement to construct a new ultra high-speed submarine cable system linking the United States to Japan.

The other carriers involved in the project include Bharti Airtel, Global Transit, Google, KDDI Corporation and Pacnet.

A study entitled “Web Commuting & the American Workforce,” commissioned by Citrix Online, a division of Citrix Systems, Inc., indicates that U.S. workers aged 18-34 prefer flexible working conditions 2:1 over other age groups. In fact, 70% of survey respondents agreed that working remotely would be a welcome opportunity. In an era where acquiring and retaining good employees is a challenge, and the workforce is becoming increasingly young and mobile, offering the ability to Web commute can serve as a competitive edge for recruiters.

Yahoo! Inc., today introduced Yahoo! Buzz, an extension to Yahoo.com that opens up the Internet’s leading starting point by uncovering the most interesting and relevant content from websites across the Internet and bringing more buzz-worthy stories to the homepage of Yahoo!. Currently in beta, Yahoo! Buzz measures consumer votes and search patterns to identify interesting and timely stories and videos from large news sources as well as niche blogs around the Web. Top stories are then given primary editorial consideration for feature placement on Yahoo.com.

Morph, a joint nanotechnology concept, developed by Nokia Research Center (NRC) and the University of Cambridge (UK) - was launched today alongside the “Design and the Elastic Mind” exhibition, on view from February 24 to May 12, 2008, at The Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) in New York. Morph features in both the exhibition catalog and on MoMA’s official website.

AOL today announced the release of Xdrive Desktop Lite (www.xdrive.com), an all-new version of the Xdrive software on Adobe® AIR™, which was also launched today.  The Xdrive Desktop Lite product features an enhanced user interface as well as desktop integration and offers consumers the opportunity to use the Xdrive software on a Mac computer for the first time.  

Gartner reported today that IBM continues to hold the number one position in worldwide server revenue. IBM captured 34.2 percent revenue share in the fourth quarter of 2007, and 31.1 percent revenue share for the full year of 2007. [1]