The Unit of Device Independence and Mobility of the R&D Department at Fundación CTIC (Centro Tecnológico) is preparing a distributed Device Description Repository and is asking for external collaboration.

Device Description Repository (DDR)

A DDR is a database that stores devices’ information concerning their hardware and software features. A DDR can retrieve various information, such as: the device vendor, the operating system version, the web browser installed, available sensors (e.g. compass, accelerometers, camera, microphone), the CPU model, primary and secondary memories that are installed, the available storage, the screen dimensions, the screen resolution in pixels, the Bluetooth version, audio and video codecs that are supported, and so on. Most of the information can be known beforehand, because DDRs keep the static information which does not change over time.

In order to help developing CTIC’s DDR, please access this URL, in which you will find further information about this work and the instructions to collaborate with it too.

Google’s Chrome exceeded 20% of the worldwide internet browser market during the month of June for the first time. Chrome took 20.7% of the global market, up from 2.8% in June 2009. In the same period Microsoft’s Internet Explorer has fallen from 59% to 44% globally and Firefox dropped slightly from 30% to 28%.

“It is a superb achievement by Google to go from under 3% two years ago to over 20% today,” commented Aodhan Cullen, CEO, StatCounter. “While Google has been highly effective in getting Chrome downloaded the real test is actual browser usage which our stats measure.”

Chrome has performed particularly well in South America where it overtook Firefox in April to become the number two browser. In June it reached 29.7%, ahead of Firefox’s 24.6% and behind IE at 44.1%.

In the US Chrome has risen to 16% behind market leader IE on 46.5% and Firefox on 24.7%. In the UK, Chrome at 21.1% is now neck and neck with Firefox on 21.7%. IE leads the UK market on 46.4%.

StatCounter Global Stats are based on aggregate data collected on a sample exceeding 15 billion page views per month (4 billion from the US) from the StatCounter network of more than three million websites.

This article was originally published by StatCounter, and its original version can be accessed at: http://gs.statcounter.com/press/chrome-breaks-20-perc-globally-in-june.

Digitimes Insight: 2011 global e-book reader shipments to reach 27 million units

The demand for e-book readers remained strong in first-quarter 2011, with global shipments soaring 236% on year to 4.8 million units. Digitimes Research believes global e-book reader shipments will reach 27 million units in 2011.

Among the brand-name vendors, Amazon will continue to be the market leader with an 60% share of global shipments in 2011. Barnes & Noble may hold on to second place, but its gap with third-place Sony will narrow.

North America will remain the biggest market for e-book readers, accounting for 72% of global shipments, but growth in the area is slowing down. E-book reader vendors are now aggressively expanding their presence in the Europe market, which is registering higher-than-average growths.

Monotone e-book readers will remain the mainstream in the next three years, during which no breakthrough in developing color devices can be expected. Global e-book reader shipments will reach 63 million units by 2014.

This article was published by James Wang, DIGITIMES Research, on Thursday 28 April 2011. The original version can be accessed at: http://www.digitimes.com/news/a20110428PD206.html