2013

Facebook's Q1 by the numbers

Facebook's Q1 results are in and there's food for both bulls and bears to chew over. One bullet point in particular stands out: The number of people using the social network via smartphones and tablets soared 54 percent from a year earlier. Here's the year-over-year comparison to the same quarter in 2012. (We'll update the stats after Facebook's conference call gets underway this afternoon.)

Daily active users: 665 million, up 26 percent Monthly active users: 1.11 billion up 23 percent Mobile monthly active users: 751 million, up 54 percent Instagram: 100 million monthly active … Read more

Google releases schedule for 2013 I/O conference

Google has published the schedule for its 2013 Google I/O conference, which features more than 120 sessions on the Android and Chrome operating systems, and just one keynote, but it's a long one.

The three-day annual conference, which typically assembles more than 5,000 developers, will begin May 15 in San Francisco with a three-hour keynote, according to the agenda released Tuesday evening. There will also be a host of satellite events, allowing developers around the world to view conference sessions and connect with other developers.

Because the company uses the conference to make big announcements, the confab … Read more

After WWDC tickets vanish, Apple touts 'Tech Talks,' videos

Programmers who waited more than two minutes to try to get tickets for Apple's 2013 Worldwide Developers Conference -- and thus missed the boat -- will be happy to know they now have some other options.

In the briefest of announcements, Apple said Friday that it will be "posting videos of all our sessions during the conference" and also "hitting the road this fall with Tech Talks in a city near you."

The Next Web addresses the "city near you" vagueness by pointing to towns where Tech Talks involving iOS 5 were held … Read more

Low Latency No. 60: Down in front

Low Latency is a weekly comic on CNET's Crave blog written by CNET editor and podcast host Jeff Bakalar and illustrated by Blake Stevenson. Be sure to check Crave every Friday at 8 a.m. PT for new panels! Want more? Here's every Low Latency comic so far.… Read more

Apple giving some a second run at WWDC tickets

Apple is giving some developers a second chance at purchasing tickets to its annual developers conference, which sold out in just two minutes on Thursday.

The company has been getting in touch with what appears to be a handful of developers who attempted to make purchases when the $1,599 tickets for Apple's WWDC went on sale at 10 a.m. PT, MacRumors reports. Those developers have a ticket reserved for them, and will be able to make the purchase at a later date.

The purchasing window, which spanned about two hours last year, was brief enough that some … Read more

WWDC scholarships: There's an app for that

Prodigies, take note: if you're dying to attend Apple's upcoming Worldwide Developers Conference (WWDC) at Moscone West in San Francisco, June 10-14, but can't afford the steep $1,599 ticket price (perhaps because you liquidated your piggy bank to purchase that shiny, new MacBook Pro with Retina display), we've got some good news for you.

Yesterday, the tech giant announced that it would be awarding 150 scholarships (aka free admission to the highly-anticipated developers conference) to full- or part-time students who are 13 or over and current members of the iOS or Mac developer programs. Apple … Read more

Apple's WWDC 2013 sells out in two minutes

Well that was quick.

After just 2 minutes, tickets for Apple's upcoming annual developers conference in San Francisco are gone.

The show took 2 whole hours to sell out last year. Apple caught many developers by surprise last April when it began selling tickets immediately upon announcing the conference at 5:30 a.m. PT. This time around the company gave developers a little more than a day of advance notice. The event will be held June 10-14 at Moscone West Center.

Apple's WWDC, or "dub-dub" as it's often referred to casually, is a mecca … Read more

Windows 8 tablets hit 3 million shipped in first quarter

Microsoft and its partners have cracked the tablet market, according to a report from Strategy Analytics.

Windows 8 tablets (which include Windows RT) took 7.5 percent of the global tablet market based on operating system (OS) market share in the first quarter, Strategy Analytics said.

PC makers (including Microsoft) shipped 3.4 million units worldwide in Q1 2013, "for a niche 7.5 percent share," Neil Shah, a Strategy Analytics analyst, said in a response to an e-mail query.

But the market research firm said things could have been better.

"Very limited distribution, a shortage of … Read more

The new Xbox: Six things Microsoft needs to do

Microsoft has made it official: the next Xbox will be unveiled at a May 21 event in Redmond, Wash., just weeks before E3 opens its doors. This looks like the inevitable Xbox-PlayStation next-gen console war we've all been expecting.

What will it take for Microsoft to keep its strong foothold in the gaming industry? Here's what I'm looking for.

Be the ultimate TV-streaming (and movie-playing) box The Xbox 360 has already carved a great role for itself as a streaming-media hub, and rumors point to the next Xbox possibly being a true rival to a future Apple … Read more