MASH MY WEEK! Review of the outstanding Media, Technology and Social Media news for the week 5-10 March

First, the new iPad was rolled out on to the market last week. The third version of this popular device has some incredible improvements and we reveal them to you here. Secondly, Google unveiled Google Play, an online store selling apps, music, films, ebooks and games.

Lastly, the online-privacy company Abine released ‘Do Not Track Plus’, a free application that stops us from being tracked while we’re online.

Launch of the new iPad

 

Last week Apple unveiled the third generation of its iPad tablet. The device comes with a 2048 x 1536 Retina touchscreen ( a higher resolution than an HDTV), 4G LTE network connection, a 5 megapixel iSight camera with backlighting, an A5X chip with quad-core graphics, a voice dictation assistant and HD1080p video recording.

The 5.1 operative system has been updated for the new iPad. It’s worth mentioning that in spite of the new improvements the battery life is 10 hours, the same as it was in the earlier models.

As regards size, it still has the same width and length, although it is 0.6mm thicker.

The new iPad goes on sale in the United States on March 16, it will be available in black or white with a suggested price $499 for the 16GB model, $599 for the 32GB model and $699 for the 64GB model. 

Thanks to its constant technical innovations, Apple has positioned itself as a cutting-edge company within the industry and knows how to win the admiration of other businesses. During the last five years, Apple has occupied the number one position in Forbes magazine’s list of the world’s most admired companies. 

Is this a step nearer a post-PC era? During the launch of the iPad3, Tim Cook, the CEO at Apple, revealed that in the last quarter the iPad sold 15.4 million units, which means bigger sales than those of any other computer manufacturer.

According to information from Gartner, consumers are prioritizing the purchase of new tablets and smartphones ahead of new laptops or PCs.

Tell us, do you have a tablet? Are you interested in getting the new iPad?

Google Play

Google launched Play last week, a music, ebook, apps and film store. The portal is hoping to offer a huge catalogue of downloadable content.

Android
Market, Google Music and Google eBookstore will all be integrated to
form part of Google Play and thus a more varied online store. The
Android market application will also be upgraded to become Google Play
Store app.

Being entirely cloud based, Google Play content
is always available to the user who can access it from any device, be
it a computer, tablet or smartphone. The site can be entered via a
Google user account.

The
service enables you to store 200,000 songs free of charge, buy music,
download films and watch them via streaming (even in HD), it has 450,000
Android applications and the biggest ebook catalogue in the world.

Google
Play is integrated with Google+, and users will be able to share the
products offered on the site with their contacts on the social network.

For the moment, in Latin America, the site will only be available as an application and games store.

You can find more information about Google Play on Google’s official blog.


Do Not Track Plus: blocking online tracking

The compiling and analysis of visitors’ information, such as their IP address, country of origin and the length of a visit to a site, among others, is normal when trying to profile the online audience that visits a website.

Nevertheless, many Internet users aren’t happy with the quantity of private information that websites obtain about them and what they do with the data. When all is said and done, it should be up to the users to decide what is done with data regarding their personal information and the sites that they visit.

To meet this need comes ‘Do Not Track Plus’, a tool that blocks the tracking of information.

The application is available for Mac OS X and Windows; and is Internet Explorer, Mozilla, Firefox, Google Chrome and Safari compatible.

Once installed, Do Not Track Plus appears as a small browser toolbar button, where both the data compiled within the site being visited and the transfer of data to external sites, such as advertising networks and other associated companies, can be controlled by the user.

Do Not Track Plus blocks more than 600 tracking devices making browsing more secure.

I hope you have enjoyed this edition of Mash My Week!
See you next Monday!