Google Flight Search Expands into Europe

Getting the cheapest flights is often a concern, especially if you’re traveling internationally. Google Flight Search is a quick and helpful tool for locating the best prices for flyers, but when the service was launched, it was available only for US-based travelers. Google just recently expanded the service to cover more countries.

google flights europe

Google has now launched the service for five additional countries in Europe, including France, Italy, the Netherlands, Spain and the UK.

The service was launched by Google in 2012 and one of its most important features is the easy-to-use visual flight pricing it offers. At a glance, you can see what it costs to fly into different airports from your home location. This allows you to figure out flexible flights that are near your intended location for less money. The Flight Explorer allows users to see when it’s less expensive to fly, by month or by the day of the week, or to a particular destination.

Hopefully, this is just a first step in a comprehensive launch to cover even more countries.

Apple, Microsoft and Adobe give reasons for higher prices in Australia, can’t guarantee you’ll like them

Apple, Microsoft and Adobe give reasons for higher prices in Australia, can't guarantee you'll like them

Talk about ants in their pants. After giving regulators the runaround and repeatedly dodging the question of why they charge Australians so much more than Americans for the same products, senior executives from Apple, Microsoft and Adobe have finally been forced to sit down in front from a parliamentary committee. They weren’t always especially helpful, mind you, but they did at least offer some justification as to why, on average, their products cost 50 percent more in that country. Read on for a quick rundown of who said what.

[Image credit: Delimiter]

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Source: Reuters, Herald Sun, The Australian, ZDNet

Huawei’s 6.1-inch Ascend Mate priced in China, turns Yu into part-time model

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Huawei is once again showing its aggressive side in the consumer space, this time by way of its 6.1-inch Ascend Mate which debuted at CES (with a little help from Huawei Device chairman Richard Yu, pictured above). What’s new is that earlier today the company announced a price for this Android 4.1 tabletphone in China: ¥2,688 (about $430) unsubsidized, which is pretty competitive given the specs. Need a quick recap? The Mate comes with a 1.5GHz quad-core HiSilicon K3V2, 2GB of RAM, IPS display (but only with 720p resolution) with Gorilla Glass 2 and glove-friendly “Magic Touch” technology, up to 64GB of microSD expansion (on top of the native 4GB available space), 8-megapixel camera and a 4,050mAh battery. Better yet, this particular model comes with WCDMA 850/900/1700/1900/2100 pentaband radio, so it’ll work nicely for frequent travelers. Interested buyers can hit the order button on Huawei’s Vmall online store on the 26th next week.

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Via: Engadget Chinese

Source: Huawei Vmall

Sony America head ‘hopes’ PlayStation 4 won’t cost $599 at launch, says specs aren’t finalized yet

Despite showing a variety of games running on the newly announced PlayStation 4, Sony PlayStation’s US head Jack Tretton says the console’s “still in development in terms of final specs and design.” He told All Things D as much in an interview this morning; the PlayStation 4’s specs were detailed in a press release by Sony last evening, which detail the internals as an 8-core 64-bit x86 “Jaguar” CPU built by AMD, a Radeon GPU comprised of 18 “compute units” which push out 1.84 TFLOPS, and 8GB of GDDR5 RAM.

Tretton also said he “hopes” that the PlayStation 4 won’t cost $599 at launch (the PlayStation 3 launched in two models, at $499 and $599). “When I think about the console, you open it up, you look at it, you certainly look at it when you insert a disc, but for most people, it’s behind a cabinet or on a shelf somewhere and you spend all your time looking at the screen,” Tretton said.

Sony’s focus last night, however, was all games. As for when we’ll see the elusive box? “There will be multiple opportunities to share the look of the console between now and launch,” he said, “We just didn’t choose this first event as the time to show it.” In speaking with Sony president of Worldwide Studios Shuhei Yoshida this morning, we confirmed that we’ll get to go hands-on with the PlayStation 4 “by E3,” which goes from June 11th to the 13th.

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Source: All Things D

Adobe preemptively cuts prices to avoid wrath of Australian lawmakers

Adobe preemptively cuts prices to avoid wrath of Australian lawmakers

Adobe has suddenly knocked 20 percent off its prices in Australia just one day after it was summoned to publicly defend those prices in front of a parliamentary committee. The monthly fee for a subscription to Adobe’s full Creative Cloud has dropped from AU$63 to AU$50, so it’s now only $1 more than the US price when you factor in currency. The no-contract monthly cost has also fallen to match how much Americans pay — from AU$95 to AU$75 — which is exactly what Australian lawmakers have been demanding since 2011. We can’t decide if this is a move of brilliant cunning on Adobe’s part, or just a blatant effort to side-step blame for how much it’s been charging up to this point. Either way, it puts Microsoft and Apple in a sticky situation, because they’ve been summoned to the same inquiry and may be left with fewer excuses to cling to.

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Via: ZDNet

Source: Australian Financial Review

Australian Parliament summons Apple, Microsoft, Adobe to justify higher prices

Australian parliament summons Apple, Microsoft, Adobe to justify higher prices

Had we been wild and spontaneous enough to buy a MacBook Air in Australia in 2011, we’d have been looking at a 15 percent premium over the US price. According to MacRumors, throwing some Adobe software into our antipodean shopping cart would have pushed that disparity even higher — to as much as to 75 percent. Which is why the Australian Parliament has been investigating the way tech giants price their goods in that country, and why it has now formally summoned Apple, Microsoft and Adobe to come over and account for themselves in Canberra on March 22nd. Whether price differences are due to higher costs of taxes and warranties, as Apple has privately suggested in the past (see More Coverage), or whether there are more dubious reasons, this pile of laundry is about to get aired.

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Via: TechCrunch

Source: MacRumors (2011), Aust. House of Representatives (PDF)

Nintendo’s Iwata acknowledges slow Wii U sales, but no price drop is coming

Nintendo's Iwata acknowledges slow Wii U sales, but no price drop is coming

Yesterday Nintendo revealed its new Wii U console was selling more slowly than it had anticipated, and today company President Satoru Iwata explained the issues to investors in more detail. What he made clear immediately, is that unlike the launch of its 3DS in 2011, Nintendo will not attempt to boost its sales by cutting the price anytime soon. So, how can the Wii U’s fortunes be turned around? According to Iwata, the problem is a software lineup that has “not yet fully communicated the value of our product.” The system updates we’ve already heard were in the works are expected to help in the short term. The plan is to earn 100 billion yen or more in the next fiscal year, with the 3DS already selling at a profit he hopes to return to a pattern of “Nintendo-like profits.”

As far as the Wii U, the plan is to strengthen its software lineup throughout the spring and summer, with more system exclusives arriving later in the year (announced last week on Nintendo Direct). The delayed Google Street View-powered Wii Street U update is expected to arrive in mid-February, and other demonstrations are planned for GDC in March as Nintendo attempts to capitalize on an internet connection rate of 74 percent. He also referenced the planned integration of its handheld and console divisions, intended to make software and apps more portable between devices.

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Source: ABC, Nintendo

Nissan drops Leaf price by 2,500 pounds in the UK

Nissan Leaf to cost 2,500 pounds less in the UK

Just a few weeks after Nissan dropped the price of the Leaf in the US, eco-minded car buyers across the pond will be able to snag theirs for a little less as well. Indeed, the popular Japanese EV is now £23,490 ($37,115), which is £2,500 less than the initial sticker price. As with the stateside version, some of the cost reduction stems from local manufacturing — Nissan hopes to start churning out the latest Leafs from its Sunderland UK factory in a few months. The company has also introduced a 6.9 percent financing rate, plus a lease option of around £239 ($375) a month to sweeten the pot. If that sounds like an enticing proposition, then check out the press release below for more details.

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Via: Green Autoblog

Source: Nissan UK

RIM lowers minimum app prices on BlackBerry World

RIM unveils lower BlackBerry World price tiers, starts with the Euro, British Pound

BlackBerry-toting penny-pinchers have cause to rejoice, as RIM is introducing lower price tiers in BlackBerry World, starting with the British Pound and Euro. New price tags have yet to take hold across the board, but the the UK will see their lowest level fall from £1.00 to £0.75 (around $1.20). When it comes to the Euro, prices will vary by country, and we spotted apps as low as €0.75 ($1) on Spain’s version of the shop. According to RIM, the tweak takes currency exchange rates and VAT requirements into account, and is an effort to gain a competitive edge and catch the eyes of consumers. It’s certainly a far cry from how things used to be.

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Via: N4BB

Source: BlackBerry Developer Blog

PSA: Windows 8 and Pro upgrades will jump to $120 and $200 on February 1st

This should come as no surprise — we reported the increase back in October — but Windows 8 upgrades will become a bit more pricey come February 1st. That means you have the better part of two weeks to take advantage of introductory online upgrade pricing of $40 (for the Pro version), before the sticker jumps to 200 bucks. Fortunately, you’ll be able to utilize current pricing for the rest of January, including a DVD Pro upgrade available at retailers for $70. After the switchover, you’ll pay $200 for a Pro upgrade, a standard edition of Windows 8 will run you $120, the Pro Pack will be available for $100 (upgrading from standard to Pro) and a Media Center Pack will cost $10. You could, of course, stick it out with Windows 7 or Vista or even XP for the indefinite future, but if a fresh OS is in the cards, now’d be as good a time as any to make the jump.

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Source: Blogging Windows