Dell and Google collaborate on Chromebox designed for meetings

Google and Dell are working on a Chromebox for meetings that will include a high-definition camera, a combined microphone and speaker unit and a remote control to enable users to quickly connect to a display in a conference room, and recreate the ‘in room’ meeting experience regardless of all participants’ location.

As part of its growing relationship with Google, Dell is developing Dell Chromebox for meetings, an integrated solution designed to help geographically dispersed teams conduct meetings from a large variety of devices, from nearly anywhere, and collaborate ‘face-to-face’ in a virtual environment.

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Sony to move its Reader eBook service to Kobo

Continuing it's bid to divest itself of underperforming product lines (see post below), Sony is tossing it's Reader book store and has decided to ally itself with Kobo for content in on its eBook readers and Xperia tablets. Below what Sony announced earlier.

"Sony Electronics, together with Kobo, a global leader in eReading, today announced that Kobo will provide Sony's Readeran and Sony's Xperia tablet and smartphone users in the United States and Canada with Kobo's world-class catalogue of more than 4 million eBooks, magazines and newspapers, graphic novels, and kids content."

Sony's Reader Store customers and their current eBook libraries will transfer to the Kobo ecosystem starting in late March. Reader Store customers will be able to take advantage of Kobo's new dedicated Kids Store and magazine experience, and have full access to purchase the most popular bestsellers

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Breaking: Sony looks to sell PC business, lays off 5,000 employees in restructuring bid

Sony is looking to sell it's poorly performing VAIO PC business as well as spin off its Bravia HDTV line into a wholly owned subsidiary to adjust to their recent $ 1 billion annual loss. The company is also laying off 5,000 employees or around 3 per cent of their workforce.

Sony is currently the no. 3 TV manufacturer and is spearhead ingot he move to 4K models and content. The company has seen some recent success in its latest PlayStation 4 console. It's PC, camera and other electronic products have long been considered some of the better built, most innovative and premium products in their categories.

Source: San Jose Mercury News

Microsoft makes OneDrive available globally

Microsoft announced of global availability ofOneDrive, its free, personal cloud storage service. Formerly known as SkyDrive, OneDrive gives people one place to store important photos, videos and documents that is accessible on the devices they use every day. The new OneDrive offers a host of new features, including improved video sharing and newly updated apps for Windows Phone, iOS, Android and Xbox. To celebrate the launch of OneDrive, Microsoft is giving the first 100,000 customers who access their OneDrive account after the launch an additional 100 GB of complimentary storage for one year (customers will receive a notice if they are among the lucky 100,000). Customers can monitor https://twitter.com/OneDrive for the announcement of the start time for this promotion.

OneDrive is free for customers up to the first 7 GB of storage; customers also have the option to purchase storage in 50GB, 100GB and 200GB increments. . More information on OneDrive can be found at http://www.onedrive.com.