europe

Swarm of quadrotors lights up the Austrian sky

We've seen many uses of machines in visual art, but few seem as promising as this configuration of dancing lights.

Just check out the amazing vid below, shot in Linz, Austria, at the Cloud in the Net festival.

Ars Electronica Futurelab managed to fly 50 synchronized quadrotors, effectively forming luminous pixels in the night sky. … Read more

HP loses ground in Europe -- Acer, Asus, Apple gain

Hewlett-Packard lost ground to Acer, Asus, Apple, and others in key markets in Europe, according to market researcher Gartner.

The Western Europe PC market recorded weak overall PC shipments across all countries, according to Meike Escherich, principal analyst at Gartner.

But some are doing better than others. Acer is gaining on HP in Europe and increased its market share by 2.7 percentage points. Asus was the top performer among the top five vendors and moved up to the No. 3 slot, according to Gartner.

In the U.K., which is one of the worst markets, "the real worry...… Read more

GPS data gets boost from new EU service

The European Commission has taken the wraps off a project aimed at improving the reliability of GPS data, with a new internet-based GPS augmentation service.

The European Commission Vice-President Antonio Tajani, responsible for industry and entrepreneurship, launched the new European Data Access Service (EDAS) in Brussels on Thursday.

EDAS uses information from Europe's European Geostationary Navigation Overlay Service (EGNOS). EGNOS gives precise GPS data for "safety-critical applications", and can improve the accuracy of GPS position measurements from five down to two meters, inform a user of errors in their position and warn of satellite signal disruptions within … Read more

Intel heads to court to appeal record EU antitrust fine

Intel has begun an appeal against its record antitrust fine, calling the evidence against it "profoundly inadequate."

The fine was levied by EU antitrust regulators in 2009, after Intel was found to have engaged in anticompetitive behavior in order to hinder rival Advanced Micro Devices through the use of rebates and contract conditions.

After an eight-year investigation, Intel was fined a record $1.06 billion in 2009, or more than 4.1 percent of Intel's 2008 turnover. The fine, the largest ever levied by the EU against a company, currently stands at $1.34 billion due to … Read more

Google offers to settle EU antitrust probe

Search behemoth Google today offered to settle an ongoing European antitrust investigation in a bid to prevent it from being served with huge fines and restrictions on its business practices in Europe.

Google chairman Eric Schmidt has sent a letter to E.U. Competition Commissioner Joaquin Almunia, according to a Commission spokesperson, in which Schmidt offered a deal which could prevent a fully-fledged antitrust investigation.

The letter addressed the "four areas the European Commission described" last month -- which can be found here.

The details of the letter were not open for disclosure, but a spokesperson said it &… Read more

Index Ventures raises 350M euro early-stage fund

Venture capital firm Index Ventures announced today it has closed a new 350 million euro ($442 million) fund to invest in early-stage technology companies.

The new fund, the firm's sixth that focuses on early-stage technology investments, will concentrate its resources heavily on Europe, while also making investments in Israel and the U.S.

The new fund is very similar to the firm's fifth early-stage fund, which it raised in the summer of 2009, with some small differences.

"One surprise on our last fund was that we did a much higher percentage of deals in the U.S. … Read more

Apple's iPad '4G' branding changes across Europe

The whole "iPad Wi-Fi + 4G isn't a real thing" debacle is coming to a close across Europe. Apple has finished changing the wording of the kind of service the iPad offers across all European online stores, according to The Next Web.

Now, all the old "4G" branding is "Wi-Fi + Cellular."

The melee began in March when the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission said Apple was violating the Australian Consumer Law by misleadingly labeling its new iPad as 4G-capable -- the crux being that there aren't any 4G networks compatible with the device … Read more

CoPilot Live Premium Europe for iPhone

With so many navigation apps available, many for free, it may be difficult to imagine paying for one. But ALK Technologies makes a reasonable case for its CoPilot Live Premium app. Its most compelling feature are the full set of maps it includes, making it possible to navigate without a data connection.

Most people using a smartphone for navigation will be doing 95 percent of their driving in an area with data coverage. But the most critical times for a good navigation app come out on back roads, far away from cell towers. Likewise, high data roaming charges in foreign … Read more

Google TV to jump across the pond to Europe

Despite being plagued with high prices, low sales, and difficulty with program distribution in the U.S., Google TV is expanding to Europe. Come September, Sony will sell Google TV-based products in Europe, according to GigaOM via a translation of a Les Echos article.

Slated to go on sale in France, Spain, Germany, and the U.K. are two devices: a set-top box costing 200 Euros ($266) and an integrated Blu-ray player for 300 euros ($399), according to GigaOM.

Google Chairman Eric Schmidt announced Google TV's rollout to Europe last August and Sony confirmed that two Google TV-compatible set-top … Read more

Interpol sweep nets 25 Anonymous suspects

Twenty-five suspected members of the online activist group Anonymous have been arrested in sweeps across Europe and South America, the international police agency Interpol said today.

The sweep, dubbed "Operation Unmask," was in response to coordinated cyberattacks against government, political, and corporate Web sites in Colombia and Chile, Interpol said. The suspects, whose ages range from 17 to 40, were arrested in Argentina, Chile, Colombia, and Spain.

"This operation shows that crime in the virtual world does have real consequences for those involved, and that the Internet cannot be seen as a safe haven for criminal activity, … Read more