GLOBAL TECH WRAP: Adobe cuts Aussie, NZ pricing after summons to Canberra
PLUS: Apple tests watch-like device with smartphone-style features | Telstra throttles file sharing services.
Apple is experimenting with designs for a watch-like device that would perform some functions of a smartphone, says the Wall Street Journal, quoting "people briefed on the effort." And ... that's it in terms of hard detail, or any detail.
I presume that if Apple makes a "smart watch", that my existing watch which can only tell the time will become a "feature watch".
— Sam Morgan (@samfromwgtn) February 11, 2013
Adobe has cut its NZ and Australian prices after receiving a summons to a parliamentary pricing inquiry in Canberra (along with Apple and Microsoft), the AFR reports. The price cuts apply to the American software company's cloud-based suite (including Photoshop), which has been trimmed from $62.99 to $49.99 a month (the same price applies across Australia and New Zealand, with charging in Australian dollars).
Apple, Microsoft and Adobe were first criticised over their pricing in May last year by Australian federal government ICT minister Senator Stephen Conroy. All refused to voluntarily attend an inquiry. They have now been summoned to Canberra for a hearing on March 22.
Senator Conroy and other Australian politicians and consumer groups have complained local pricing for Apple, Adobe, Microsoft and other US tech companies products has not fallen as the dollar has risen. And some say while people in Australasia have historically had to pay more, the weightless-export cloud computing world should equalise pricing.
Google has updated its Street Views to include hundreds more tourist locations around the world, including the Grand Canyon here.
Multinational security firm Raytheon has secretly developed software capable of tracking people's movements and predicting future behaviour by mining data from social networks and GPS data from mobile location-based services such as Foursquare, reports the Guardian.
Consumer groups fear a trial by Telstra that will slow the speed of peer-to-peer (P2P) file sharing services could be the start of a trend that sees ISPs "interfering in people's online activities", says the Sydney Morning Herald.
NBR Staff
Tue, 12 Feb 2013
Tue, 12 Feb 2013
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GLOBAL TECH WRAP: Adobe cuts Aussie, NZ pricing after summons to Canberra
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