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Reporting from Miami, Silvina Moschini is already with us. She is our expert in technology.
Welcome, Silvina, and let's get straight to the point
Samsung is looking to get back that part of the market that could be lost with the sale of some of their products here in the United States.
That's right, Ione, If you remember the war of the roses, that seems exactly the same as what it's happening between Apple and Samsung;
a fight with outstretched hands, where last week Apple won because it finally allowed an opinion cancelling the ban on the sale of certain phones,
iPhones and some 3G iPads from AT&T. And this week it seems that the great winner is Samsung,
with the lifting of a beta on the sale of Samsung's 4S products. This is a fight that takes a long time,
when it comes to patents and intellectual property, inventions and phone functionality,
and it looks like it won't finish anytime soon since neither of them wants to lose ground, not even a little, to the other company.
And they are two giants, so we will be renting balconies to watch this fight, actually.
One of the things that really surprises me is how this goes on social networks...
how these new accesses to technology work so quickly that when people become aware of something,
it has already gained a huge amount of followers. And this is what is happening, for example, with this application called WhatsApp.
It turns that it has had an explosion of people who really like what WhatsApp offers.
Great fans, and, well, WhatsApp seems likely to reach one million friends really soon.
It already has 300 million users; active users, unlike other competitor companies like WeChat and Line that also have a great number of followers,
but not such active ones as in WhatsApp. And another new thing, beyond the huge number of people who are using it,
is that they added a function that I personally find very useful: it's "Push to talk," or push to be able to talk,
and it's a feature that allows, besides the chatting, people to push a little button to send a verbal message,
a spoken message to the list of partners or friends that they have within the application. This is very interesting,
because of course, it points to the idea that in the future the same interactions that are available on Skype may exist,
but with ease so that they can be used on the phone within easy reach.
Well, you know that sometimes it takes a lot of time if you write too much, and you often make more mistakes,
so saying something rapidly and leaving a message allows you to make fewer mistakes and to say it quicker, right?
Well, changing the subject, Blackberry could already be seeking a buyer, it seems
it was basically the pioneer of all this momentum and it turns out that it«s fallen behind.
Unbelievable, Ione! And this proves that arriving first is not getting there better.
Blackberry was the company that brought email to the palm of the hand through mobile devices, however, it's now trembling
it's a bit like walking on a tightrope. And it's apparently, according to what many analysts say,
looking for the possibility of finding a likely suitor to buy them, and/or a merger.
And this is the result of an unfortunate streak that the company has been experiencing for some time; if you remember,
a year ago it had many service shutdowns, many troubles with the service. This year,
they bet everything on the launch of two products: the Q10 and Z10, but unfortunately they couldn't take off.
They tried to sell and it hasn't worked out to their expectations, and this makes the company think again about leaving their participation
in the stock market behind and being able to potentially look for a buyer or a merger with another company to survive,
and to try to take the brand forward.
The federal government had a great contract with them and they have gradually had that pared down too,
possibly due to the budget. Wasn't that your first one, a Blackberry? The first device you had after your cell phone?
The first one was a Blackberry and was even one of those tiny radios, rectangular,
that only worked to received emails from about 1999 to 2000; so, a beloved company, but, well
Not so long ago, but by now, in terms of technology, it really is like we're talking about a memorial.
Thank you very much, Silvina Moschini. It's always a pleasure having you here for Directo USA.
And from Miami, we head to Atlanta, because there we're going Straight to Sports with Eli Perez.