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Articles published by guardian.co.uk Technology about: Technology blog
Wed, 22 May 2013 06:30:00 GMT
Plus fast charging for batteries, tax row grows, why solar costs aren't falling, Dropbox v Google Drive v Skydrive, and more
A burst of 9 links for you to chew over, as picked by the Technology team
Chinese hackers who breached Google gained access to sensitive data, US officials say >> The Washington Post
Chinese hackers who breached Google's servers several years ago gained access to a sensitive database with years' worth of information about US surveillance targets, according to current and former government officials.
The breach appears to have been aimed at unearthing the identities of Chinese intelligence operatives in the United States who may have been under surveillance by American law enforcement agencies.
The database contained the information about court orders ordering surveillance relating to those operatives.
Windows Phone inventory buildup: bad sign for Q2 Nokia Lumia shipments >> Tech-Thoughts
Sameer Singh:
The tech media has long been obsessed with the semantic differences between smartphone shipments and sales. In reality, all figures announced by companies, and those announced by IDC, are shipments (also known as channel sales or sell-in). Gartner is the only research house that tracks sales to end users (also known as sell-through). Comparing data from IDC and Gartner can give us good insight into channel inventory patterns across different smartphone platforms. This data suggests that Nokia & Windows Phone may be in for some trouble in the next few quarters.
Never knew that there was that difference between IDC and Gartner. But should the headline be "shipments" or "sales", then?
Hardware Roundup: Wristwatch Macintosh revealed >> The Register
We haven't mentioned MacSlash for a while, but there's a rather interesting link to a story on the iWatch - a wristwatch running MacOS on a Transmeta chip. Or is there?
If anyone has an earlier reference to the fabled "iWatch" than this sighting from September 2000, get in touch.
Tánaiste says Apple tax 'not an issue' for Ireland >> RTÉ News
The [US Senate] committee said the [Irish] Government has since the early 1990s negotiated a special tax arrangement with Apple, resulting in it paying corporation tax of less than 2%, and avoiding around $44 billion (?34bn) in US tax over the last four years.
Speaking on his way into a meeting of EU foreign ministers in Brussels, Mr Gilmore said: "They are not issues which arise from the Irish taxation system."
"They are issues which arise from other jurisdictions. That's an issue which has to be addressed, first of all in those jurisdictions and secondly ? it needs to be tackled by having robust international agreements, and Ireland very much is in favour of that," he said.
Mr Gilmore said the Irish tax system was "very transparent".
Common thread in this tax stuff: it's always someone else's fault they didn't fix their tax loopholes.
Teen's invention could charge your phone in 20 seconds >> MSN CA
Waiting hours for a cellphone to charge may become a thing of the past, thanks to an 18-year-old high-school student's invention. She won a $50,000 prize Friday at an international science fair for creating an energy storage device that can be fully juiced in 20 to 30 seconds.
The fast-charging device is a so-called supercapacitor, a gizmo that can pack a lot of energy into a tiny space, charges quickly and holds its charge for a long time.
What's more, it can last for 10,000 charge-recharge cycles, compared with 1,000 cycles for conventional rechargeable batteries, according to Eesha Khare of Saratoga, California.
Isn't the thing about recharging batteries that if you try to put too much power in, they overheat and catch fire? This sounds promising, though.
The One-Person Product >> Marco.org
Mrco Arment was the first (and for a long time the only) employee at Tumblr, working alongside founder David Karp:
Intense focus requires neglecting almost everything else. David's focus on pushing the product forward meant that he didn't want to think about boring stuff: support, scaling, paperwork, and money.
Every time we'd get close to needing more funding, I'd try to convince David to hold out a bit longer or try to become profitable, and he'd convince me that everyone was better off if we'd focus on the product instead. And every time, he was right.
It's a great post.
Solar panel cost breakdown >> SolStats
The solar panels make up around 42% of the costs ? or £4,200 of a typical £10,000 installation. The inverter adds 10% or £1,000. And the biggest cost? It's the labour, cabling, roof fixing and Installer profits making up 48% or £4,800 for a £10,000 installation.
As we reported in a recent blog, the price of the panels has dropped by half over recent years. Just don't expect that to mean your quote for a home solar installation will drop by the same amount.
My one talk with Marissa Mayer >> Dave Winer
Winer recalls a day in 2003, when Mayer was working for Google, which had bought Blogger and promised not to treat it specially:
a few weeks after the deal they broke the promise. They added a BlogThis! button to Google Toolbar. It only worked with Blogger. It would have been a simple matter to make it work with any blogging tool. But they didn't see why they should do that.
Back then Google cared a little about what I thought, so the result was a conference call between me and an exec at Google, Marissa Mayer. I was driving cross-country from California to Boston, so I stopped in Utah, in the parking lot of a 7-11 just east of Salt Lake City, and we had the call.
All I remember of it was there came a point in the conversation when Mayer had had enough. She just got up and left. I think the people remaining in the conference room were a little embarassed. Google didn't do anything to change the BlogThis! button.All this is to say that the promises execs make on acquisitions are meaningless. They own the thing, they will do what they want to with it. It doesn't matter how many nice sounds Mayer makes on the deal. At the core she cares not one bit what the users of Tumblr think. She's saying what she needs to say to make the deal happen. To avoid a PR crisis on Day One. To make the team at Tumblr feel like their work has value to the new owners. That somehow this acquisition isn't actually an acquisition.
Dropbox vs. Google Drive vs. Amazon vs. Skydrive: which one Is fastest? >> ReadWrite
As cloud computing services become ever more popular, you might begin to wonder how much you can really trust them to perform when you need them? I decided to find out - by testing the top file-transfer/file-storage/file-backup services.
In many ways, getting a file from one computer to multiple computers is the most challenging task for the cloud. And because I like to use multiple computers running multiple operating systems, including Linux, Windows and the Mac, that function is particularly important to me.
Helpful and thorough.
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Review: Pebble's smart watch doesn't try too hard - but does what you need
Tue, 21 May 2013 15:03:48 GMT
Born in a Kickstarter campaign that raised over $10m in a month, Pebble's watch is wearable computing made real. Cleverly, the designers make sure it does a few things really well
Nowadays, when my phone rings, my wrist buzzes. When someone texts me, I don't look at my phone to find out what they said; I look at my watch.
Why? I've got a Pebble - the "smartwatch" launched on Kickstarter last year which hit its $100,000 target within two hours and had raised $10.2m from nearly 69,000 backers by the time it closed in May 2012 after a month. (I was one of those backers, with my own money.) So far, according to the site, it's delivered 85,000 of its watches, each costing $150 (£98). Yes, it's this year's buzzword, wearable computing, but you don't have to genuflect to Google or splash out $1,000 to get it. Plus it's unobtrusive.
Pebble describes it as an "E-paper watch for iPhone and Android". The "e-paper" bit might get some thinking you're going to be reading books on it. You're definitely not (the screen's only 1.26in - 3.2cm - diagonally). But it is great fun.
So what do you then get for your money? It's a watch, to start with. The face is 144x168 pixels, a large black/white e-paper display. I chose the black body and strap (you can get it in black, white, cherry red or grey). Open the box, and you're instructed to go to getpebble.com. That's a neat touch - no manual at all. The whole initial setup is done through its web page and then app.
Open that page on your smartphone, and it directs you to the iPhone or Android app store, where you download a free app which connects via Bluetooth. Through that, you can send software updates (such as new watchfaces) and, more usefully, back-and-forth notifications when someone calls or texts. (You can also set it to notify you when you get an email. Don't do this unless you never get email.)
The watchface is scratch-resistant (not -proof) and has an anti-glare coat; I find it very readable in all lights, except when it's dark. Then you have the options of an automatic backlight (adjusted to light levels), or being able to flick your wrist to activate the backlight. The strap feels like rubber; it's wide (to go with the watch) but not uncomfortable.
Charging is via a USB lead terminating in a magnetic attachment to a pair of contacts on the left-hand side of the watch; I assume a micro-USB slot would have taken up too much internal space and created waterproofing problems (it is waterproof, at least for swimming). So don't lose that charger; you'll be needing it every four or five days (in my limited experience, though the makers claim up to seven.. probably if you have Bluetooth off) and it's unique.
One bad thing: the interface doesn't show the battery level (even in the phone app), which can leave you in the lurch without warning. The charge level only shows when you're charging, and even then only in the menu, as opposed to standard watch, display.
The controls are pleasingly simple. There's a large rectangular button on the left-hand side which takes you back up a level of control; press it enough times and you'll reach the time display, which is the default.
On the right are three buttons (one large, one small, one large) which function as "up, choose, down" for scrolling through menus. Pebble doesn't try to do a lot of things. You turn on the Bluetooth, connect it to your phone, and that's mostly it. You can control the music playback on your phone via the right-hand buttons (it shows the artist, album and track name, though not album art; the buttons will advance a track, play/pause, skip back). However, that's really a party piece; unless you're on the other side of the room, it's simpler just to pull out your phone or, on headphones with a mic, click the control button, than to press the two buttons required to change the music. And yes, running Bluetooth will use some phone battery - perhaps 5% over a normal day. Turn it off, and the Pebble still works as a watch.
Next you're expecting a touchscreen with icons and apps, aren't you? No such thing. Pebble's designers have wisely held back from overegging the interaction pudding. The screen isn't touch-sensitive, and you won't be squinting and trying to operate tiny physical or onscreen buttons. (Looking at you, Sony Smartwatch.)
Presently, the on-watch functions are simple: you can set alarms; choose different watchfaces (which you download via the phone app); decide how you want the phone's backlight to come on; and whether you want notifications from your phone on. (You probably do, else it's just a watch). On-watch apps haven't happened yet. But there are fortnightly software updates. It's probably coming.
Notification
It's the notifications that make this stand out. A little bit of configuration on your phone and you can get incoming calls and texts displayed (and emails - only recommended if you never get email). This is the great thing about Pebble: you can figure out whether to ignore a call by looking at the number (if it's in your address book, it'll show up; you can also reject calls from the phone) and you won't miss texts even if your phone is on silent. It's also a lot less intrusive to look at your watch during a meeting than to take out your phone.
Pebble says you can add calendar alerts, Facebook Messages, tweets, and weather alerts to the notifications; I do wonder what sort of weather alert (short of a tornado) you'd want to know about, but in principle it's putting everything just where you want it.
I find that I can read entire text messages on it without trouble, though spotting the name of a caller is harder (perhaps because it feels more urgent to decide).
But phone calls and texts are just the start. Pebble last week released an SDK that will let developers push notifications from third-party apps; think of apps that you'd like to give you updates, but which you don't want to have to keep monitoring your phone for, and you've found a use for the Pebble. It's working on apps for bicyclists, golfers (err?), runners (it syncs with Runkeeper), and whoever else they can think of. (The forums are pretty busy with people suggesting stuff.)
Do I like it? No, I really love it. My wife gives me pitying looks when I try to describe its benefits, but a couple of weeks in the fun hasn't worn off. And the idea that it could connect with more apps (train times? Concert ticket availability? Just think of things you'd like to be quietly notified about) is enticing. If it shipped with those apps and capabilities preinstalled, it would be an instant five-star product.
One galling point: HM Revenue & Customs, eager to generate tax revenue from somewhere (since it can't seem to get big companies to pay), slaps an import tax of £25.06 on each one. That brings the total price for the device to around £125. Crazy? A bit. But I'm convinced that wearable technology is the future, or at least a significant component of it. And at this price, it's worth it.
Speeds and feeds
Specifications:
? Load apps using Bluetooth
? 144 x 168 pixel display black and white e-paper
? Bluetooth 2.1+ EDR and 4.0 (Low Energy)
? Four buttons
? Vibrating motor (for alerts)
? Three-axis accelerometer with gesture detection
Compatibility: iPhone 3GS, 4, 4S, 5 or any iPod Touch with iOS 5 or iOS 6. (iOS 5 and iPhone 3GS have restricted feature sets). Android devices running OS 2.3 and up, including Android 4.0. No support at present for Blackberry, Windows Phone, or Palm phones.
Price: $150. Customs and shipping charges will apply outside the US.
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Xbox 720: Microsoft banking on entertainment services in the next generation
Tue, 21 May 2013 12:46:00 GMT
Rival to Sony's PlayStation 4 due to be revealed in Washington on Tuesday, with name of latest incarnation still a mystery
The world's gaming press is descending on Redmond, Washington, on Tuesday, as Microsoft gears up to reveal the successor to its hugely successful Xbox 360 machine. After months of speculation, and following the announcement of the PlayStation 4 in February, tech pundits are desperate to see what the latest next-generation console will look like. Although it's the entertainment services under the hood that will matter in the long run.
One thing is almost certain, judged on technical specifications alone, the next Xbox is set to be very similar to Sony's PS4, featuring an eight-core processor, 8GB of memory and a Blu-ray drive ? exactly the same set up as its rival. However, Microsoft's machine is set to boast Kinect 2.0, an updated version of the 20m-selling motion-control peripheral that's likely to be so advanced it can track up to four players at once and allow owners to sign in to their profiles using facial recognition.
The new Xbox ? whether it's called Infinity, Fusion, 720 or an as-yet unguessed monicker ? is also likely to feature the most advanced online entertainment functionality. Microsoft is expected to announce a range of video-on-demand deals with major TV channels, and may even ensure that its machine is capable of playing and recording live TV, placing it into direct competition with firms such as Sky and Virgin Media.
When official Xbox spokesman Major Nelson announced the launch event last month, he wrote, "we'll mark the beginning of a new generation of games, TV and entertainment" ? hinting that games will only be a part of the equation.
Little is known about which games will be announced during the event on Tuesday, although it's known that Activision will be showing off Call of Duty: Ghosts ? the first next-generation instalment in the hugely successful shooter series. A whole range of recognisable franchises, including Fable, Forza Horizon and Halo, are expected to be premiered, as well as promising multi-platform titles such as the cyberpunk thriller Watch Dogs from Ubisoft and Destiny, the latest sci-fi opus from Halo creator, Bungie.
Whatever Microsoft shows on Tuesday, the next-gen battle is well and truly on. Sony has already tried to "troll" the Xbox launch event by releasing a teasing YouTube video of its PlayStation 4 console, which provides blurred glimpses of the hardware. The two companies have fought savagely for the past eight years, and their consoles finished the current generation more-or-less neck and neck, with around 77m unit sales each. And with Nintendo seemingly stalling due to poor sales of its Wii U console, the market is a two-horse race once again.
Both companies realise, however, that there's huge competition from smartphone and tablet formats, which have eaten away at the gaming market. Hence, both PS4 and Xbox 720 are likely to feature integration with handsets and mobile computers, allowing players to continue their games while on the move. The message behind the next Xbox is likely to be, if you can't beat the cable providers, satellite networks, smartphone makers and tablet manufacturers, then join them.
Whatever Microsoft tells us about its machine later on Tuesday, it won't be just about games ? it wants to dominate our living rooms with a complete entertainment solution. So with Google, Apple, Sky and Virgin as potential rivals, Xbox's old nemesis PlayStation is set to be the least of its worries.
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Boot up: Intel v big data, wearable and health, Apple on tax, Google Island and more
Tue, 21 May 2013 06:30:00 GMT
Plus Dell blames Windows 8 (again), Jolla hopes with Sailfish, southeast Asia's smartphone growth, and more
A burst of 9 links for you to chew over, as picked by the Technology team
Intel's data economy initiative aims to help people capture the value of personal data >> MIT Technology Review
Intel is a $53bn-a-year company that enjoys a near monopoly on the computer chips that go into PCs. But when it comes to the data underlying big companies like Facebook and Google, it says it wants to "return power to the people."
Intel Labs, the company's R&D arm, is launching an initiative around what it calls the "data economy"?how consumers might capture more of the value of their personal information, like digital records of their their location or work history. To make this possible, Intel is funding hackathons to urge developers to explore novel uses of personal data. It has also paid for a rebellious-sounding website called We the Data, featuring raised fists and stories comparing Facebook to Exxon Mobil.
"To destabilise a company, make what it charges for into a commodity."
Credit Suisse says wearable tech "the next big thing" >> Forbes
Dan Munro:
At a health conference last year the CIO of a teaching hospital shared a provocative statistic that his organization had uncovered in their ROI [return on investment] analysis of a large iPad purchase. At the time, the hospital was debating the merits of such a large financial commitment ? so they tasked the CIO to do a crude ROI analysis to justify the sizable expense. Was the ROI six months ? or maybe a year? The (unscientific) results were jaw dropping. Using some crude calculations around workflow and time-motion analysis the CIO calculated the ROI for an iPad in their hospital would be nine days. That's right ? nine days.
But you can see that with wearables, such as internet-connected glasses, it could be even faster. Voice-operated means fewer hygiene problems. It's hard to leave behind at a bedside. It could hold and display patient notes confidentially. Hugely exciting.
Apple's Cook faces Senate grilling over company taxes on Tuesday >> WSJ.com
A day before Mr. Cook's appearance, the company revealed the testimony it submitted to Congress. Apple urged Congress to lower corporate-tax rates and reduce the tax on bringing back cash earned overseas, according to testimony that was also posted on its website Monday.
The testimony, which Apple submitted in recent days, also defends the operations of Apple's Irish subsidiaries. It says that the subsidiaries, which employ around 4,000 people, distribute dividends that aren't taxable under US law.
You can read the testimony (PDF), including the remarks that
"Apple does not move its intellectual property into offshore tax havens and use it to sell products back into the US in order to avoid US tax; it does not use revolving loans from foreign subsidiaries to fund its domestic operations; it does not hold money on a Caribbean island; and it does not have a bank account in the Cayman Islands."
Can't think which search company beginning with "G" and ending with "e" it's referring to. Some examination is surely coming of its Irish arrangements, though.
UK record labels launch unprecedented anti-Torrent campaign >> RT News
The third and biggest wave of sanctions aimed against Torrent and music file-sharing websites is sweeping the internet, with 25 online addresses set to be blocked by the British Recorded Music Industry trade body.
The websites targeted by the campaign include the biggest torrent pages and file-hosting search engines, like ExtraTorrent, Torrentz, TorrentReactor.
Welcome to Google Island >> Wired.com
Mat Honan, on his customary awesome form:
"Hello."
The soft, froggy voice startled me. I turned around to face an approaching figure. It was Larry Page, naked, save for a pair of eyeglasses.
"Welcome to Google Island. I hope my nudity doesn't bother you. We're completely committed to openness here. Search history. Health data. Your genetic blueprint. One way to express this is by removing clothes to foster experimentation. It's something I learned at Burning Man," he said. "Here, drink this. You're slightly dehydrated, and your blood sugar is low. This is a blend of water, electrolytes, and glucose."
I was taken aback. "How did you?" I began, but he was already answering me before I could finish my question.
(Thanks @ClarkeViper for the link.)
Dell replays Windows 8 blame card as PC sales slide - Computerworld
Dell last week again blamed Windows 8 for contributing to a decline in PC sales revenue during the quarter that ended 3 May.
"Windows 8 has been, from our standpoint, not necessarily the catalyst to drive accelerated growth that we had hoped it would be," said Brian Gladden, Dell's chief financial officer, in a call last week with Wall Street analysts to discuss the quarter's financials.
Those results were shocking - profit down 79% to $130m on revenues down 2% to $14bn. That's a 1% margin - the same, as it happens, as HTC in smartphones. But for very different reasons. (Thanks @modelportfolio2003 for the link.)
Jolla prices first Sailfish OS smartphone at ?399 for a 2013 launch >> The Verge
Jolla has just unveiled its first smartphone, which will go on sale this year for ?399 (roughly $510). Running the company's MeeGo-derived Sailfish OS, it features a 4.5-inch display, a dual-core processor, an 8-megapixel camera, LTE (in selected markets), removable back covers, 16GB of onboard storage, and a microSD slot. According to Jolla, the handset will be "compliant" with Android apps, although it's not sure how many apps will be supported, nor is it clear where users will download the apps from.
Nor is it clear how it will sell in any volume at that price. (Thanks @rquick for the link.)
Smartphones continue to drive mobile phone sector in southeast Asia >> Celllular News
15.8m "smartphones" sold:
smartphone take-up rates vary across the countries from 30% in Indonesia to more than twofold in Philippines (146%), Thailand (140%) and Vietnam (118%).
"Growth in this region is primarily driven by affordable smartphones which averaged in the price range of US$100-$200," said [GfK director Gerard] Tan. "However, the rise of local brands in countries such as Philippines and Indonesia has resulted in the growing market share of those in the US$50-$100 price segment - the budget price range which bridges the transition from basic mobile phones to smartphones."
Within the smartphone segment, two specific features that are increasingly popular with buyers and often the deciding factor of which model to purchase are the display sizes and operating system.
Screens 4.5in and above are 20% and rising of sales; Android is 70% of smartphone sales. (Thanks @modelportfolio2003 for the link.)
Billions: How exactly do Apple and Google count app downloads? >> The Next Web
Matthew Panzarino:
you can consider this the canonical answer to that question.
Both Apple and Google tabulate unique downloads of apps per user account. This means that they count only one download of an app no matter how many devices that you install that app on after you purchase it. Neither company counts updates in its app download numbers. These are purely single downloads from their stores.
So their app download figures are directly comparable.
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Marissa Mayer announces Yahoo Tumblr acquisition via animated GIF
Mon, 20 May 2013 15:29:06 GMT
Setting up her own Tumblr, dropping Google+ from her Twitter profile, rolling with the zeitgeist - the chief executive of Yahoo has got internet style to burn
Marissa Mayer: she's got style. First she buys Tumblr - which, OK, is one of those Big Corporate Acquisitions that gets everyone het up (if they're on Tumblr) or analysing the cash flow (if they're on Wall Street).
But Mayer? She took to Twitter, and to Tumblr, and - as was observed - may have become the first person to announce an acquisition with an animated GIF.
To wit:
We also liked the fact that she took to Twitter (where she has a mere 330,000 followers - come on, Marissa, try harder) in order to announce the acquisition of Tumblr on her own Tumblr (natch), the faintly puzzlingly titled marissamayr.tumblr.com.
The obvious question: what happened to the "e" in her surname? "Hmm - marissamayer is also me but because of Tumblr/Flickr I thought I should be marissamayr.tumblr.com", she explained. (It's true that there's a http://marissamayer.tumblr.com/, but it's empty so far.)
Oh, and the other thing? Mayer deleted the Google+ link in her Twitter bio and replaced it with a Tumblr one (natch). Oh my, it's an exodus.
And then it gets even better: she put up a second post on her Tumblr titled "great workplace dilemmas of our time" - referring neatly both to her own reputation for having instituted a "no more working from home" rule, and Tumblr's for its "the internet is for porn" approach.
Let's hope she doesn't get too distracted posting to remember to actually run the company.
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Yahoo's $1.1bn Tumblr gamble is a power bet on native advertising
Mon, 20 May 2013 14:45:00 GMT
Tumblr's acquisition by Yahoo looks like an investment not in search advertising but in content
In its latest attempt to inject some energy through acquisition, Yahoo is buying content creation platform Tumblr for $1.1bn. But what does Marissa Mayer see in Tumblr's 26-year-old founder David Karp, and what does the deal mean for the rest of us?
This is a rational deal at a good time for both parties. Clocking 17.5bn monthly page views, Tumblr brings struggling Yahoo the large audience it needs to be a content power player. Meanwhile, five years after being founded, Tumblr's reported $13m in annual revenue remained small for its scale and for the purported opportunity.
This tie-up is all about leveraging the huge audience Tumblr has amassed ? through advertising. Despite having been overtaken by Google, Yahoo remains a top-tier ad sales house, with significant clout to place ads targeted at Tumblr's youthful readers.
But don't expect this to play out in such obvious fashion because Tumblr's Karp in fact hates the kinds of advertising on which Yahoo and the internet have come to depend.
Speaking at Monaco Media Forum in November, Karp agreed that internet ads "suck": "One of the things I've found most disheartening on the internet today is it's all been defined and relegated to these little blue links. The advertising industry as a whole is an incredibly creative and capable industry? They've got these Mad Men aspirations and right now they're all being squeezed in to these hyper-optimised, hyper-targeted models where you're basically trying to deliver the little blue link at the exact right moment rather than trying to tell stories that make people want to become customers."
To that end, Tumblr has introduced its own tools to let brands tell and promote their stories in a different way ? Radar and Spotlight are how marketers can buy links to their blogs in curated sections, while Highlighted Posts and Pinned Posts let small-scale creators pay just a few dollars to gain more prominence in readers' dashboards.
These tools ride the native advertising wave ("content marketing", "branded content" or "sponsored content", depending on who you speak to) on which publishers and platforms are now helping marketers to communicate using language that is indistinct from core content, overcoming readers' increasing aversion to invasive banners and paid links. Thanks to them, Tumblr's revenue has grown fast from a low base, but the effort can now be taken to the next level.
So Tumblr's acquisition by Yahoo, whose own ad sales are declining, looks like an investment not in search advertising, not in display advertising, but in a third, new marketing category ? content. In announcing the deal, Yahoo says: "The two companies will work together to create advertising opportunities that are seamless and enhance the user experience."
That seamlessness could solve another looming problem: while Yahoo has blamed its sales dip on audiences' migration to harder-to-monetise mobile platforms, content retains its shape and essence no matter the device on which it is consumed.
Today's highly technology-driven advertising economy has been created in the image of Silicon Valley engineers at the likes of Yahoo; all data science and super-efficiency. But Tumblr ? which distinguishes its New York stomping ground as a thriving mecca for creatives instead ? could represent an energetic east-coast outpost that will help Yahoo sell to a Madison Avenue that is primed to enter the ascendancy once more.
The well-stocked Rolodex in Yahoo's ad sales office can help introduce Tumblr to tier-A brands that are crying out for new ways to reach consumers using stories. And those stories could benefit from wider delivery across Yahoo's huge existing audience network.
The idea is a fine one, but is not without its challenges. For one, content marketing is unproven at large scale, which conventional internet advertising is. That scale will have to grow significantly to make good on the $1.1bn acquisition price. And return on investment is harder to prove from this model than from the dominant cost-per-click model.
If the next couple of years' marketing accounts don't show real returns from the format, advertisers could easily pull spending back. Even with the model proved, content marketing alone won't necessarily keep the lights on at Tumblr. If Yahoo foists on it the old-style ads that Karp has opposed, users (and Karp) may feel betrayed.
Critical to the prospect's chances is the extent of Tumblr's integration in to the Yahoo mothership. Among 76 acquisitions since 1997, Yahoo is criticised for having let Flickr, Delicious, Broadcast.com and Upcoming.org wither on its vine ? innovative services all apparently starved of resources to innovate at Yahoo's Sunnyvale HQ.
Users previously became agitated when Yahoo began tinkering with GeoCities and Flickr, and recently when Facebook updated Instagram's terms and conditions. So Yahoo must give Tumblr the room it needs to go on supporting creative content on its own terms, while nevertheless leveraging enough behind-the-scenes commercial support that Tumblr can make back the money Yahoo is putting up.
Much of Tumblr's popularity rests on its indie credentials and Karp speaks passionately with a mission to serve artists such as Michael Stipe, who are using the service as a blog, scrapbook and portfolio. Tumblr must be allowed to retain this identity, and not adopt Yahoo's diminishing profile, if the deal is to work. Yahoo has promised it will be "independently operated as a separate business".
Being on the opposite coast may help Tumblr remain sufficiently distant from its new owner and close enough to its creative local kin to do exactly that.
Robert Andrews is a technology and media journalist ? follow him on Twitter @RobertAndrews.
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Why Google will crush Nielsen
Mon, 20 May 2013 09:16:00 GMT
Internet measurement techniques need a total overhaul ? new methods make it hard for incumbent players to stay in the game
The web user is the most watched consumer ever. For tracking purposes, every large site drops literally dozens of cookies in the visitor's browser. In the most comprehensive investigation on the matter, The Wall Street Journal found that each of the 50 largest websites in the United Sates, weighing 40% of the US page views, installed an average of 64 files on a user device. (See the WSJ's What They Know series and a Monday Note about tracking issues.) As for server logs, they record every page sent to the user and they tell with great accuracy which parts of a page collect most of the reader's attention.
But when it comes to measuring a digital viewer's commercial value, sites rely on old-fashioned panels, that is limited user population samples. Why?
Panels are inherited. They go back to the old days of broadcast radio when, in order to better sell advertising, dominant networks wanted to know which station listeners tuned in to during the day. In the late thirties, Nielsen Company made a clever decision: it installed a monitoring box in 1,000 American homes. Twenty years later, Nielsen did the same, on a much larger scale, with broadcast television. The advertising world was happy to be fed with plenty of data ? mostly unchallenged as Nielsen dominated the field. (For a detailed history, you can read Rating the Audience, written by two Australian media academics). As Nielsen expanded to other media (music, film, books and all sorts of polls), moving to the internet measurement sounded like a logical step. As of today, Nielsen only faces smaller competitors such as ComScore and others.
I have yet to meet a publisher who is happy with this situation. Fearing retribution, very few people talk openly about it (twisting the dials is so easy, you know?), but they all complain about inaccurate, unreliable data. In addition, the panel system is vulnerable to cheating on a massive scale. Smartypants outfits sell a vast array of measurement boosters, from fake users that will come in just once a month to be counted as "unique" (they are indeed), to more sophisticated tactics such as undetectable "pop under" sites that will rely on encrypted URLs to deceive the vigilance of panel operators. In France for instance, 20% to 30% of some audiences can be bogus ? or largely inflated. To its credit, Mediametrie ? the French Nielsen affiliate that produces the most watched measurements ? is expending vast resources to counter the cheating, and to make the whole model more reliable. It works, but progress is slow. In August 2012, Mediametrie Net Ratings (MNR), launched a Hybrid Measure taking into account site centric analytics (server logs) to rectify panel numbers, but those corrections are still erratic. And it takes more than a month to get the data, which is not acceptable for the real-time-obsessed internet.
Publishers monitor the pulse of their digital properties on a permanent basis. In most newsrooms, Chartbeat (also imperfect, sometimes) displays the performance of every piece of content, and home pages get adjusted accordingly. More broadly, site-centric measures detail all possible metrics: page views, time spent, hourly peaks, engagement levels. This is based on server logs tracking dedicated tags inserted in each served page. But the site-centric measure is also flawed: If you use, say, four different devices ? a smartphone, a PC at home, another at work, and a tablet ? you will be incorrectly counted as four different users. And if you use several browsers you could be counted even more times. This inherent site-centric flaw is the best argument for panel vendors.
But, in the era of Big Data and user profiling, panels no longer have the upper hand.
The developing field of statistical pairing technology shows great promise. It is now possible to pinpoint a single user browsing the web with different devices in a very reliable manner. Say you use the four devices mentioned earlier: a tablet in the morning and the evening; a smartphone for occasional updates on the move, and two PCs (a desktop at the office and a laptop elsewhere). Now, each time you visit a new site, an audience analytics company drops a cookie that will record every move on every site, from each of your devices. Chances are your browsing patterns will be stable (basically your favorite media diet, plus or minus some services that are better fitted for a mobile device.) Not only your browsing profile is determined from your navigation on a given site, but it is also quite easy to know which sites you have been to before the one that is currently monitored, adding further precision to the measurement.
Over time, your digital fingerprint will become more and more precise. Until then, the set of four cookies is independent from each other. But the analytics firm compiles all the patterns in single place. By data-mining them, analysts will determine the probability that a cookie dropped in a mobile application, a desktop browser or a mobile web site belongs to the same individual. That's how multiple pairing works. (To get more details on the technical and mathematical side of it, you can read this paper by the founder of Drawbridge Inc.) I recently discussed these techniques with several engineers both in France and in the US. All were quite confident that such fingerprinting is do-able and that it could be the best way to accurately measure internet usage across different platforms.
Obviously, Google is best positioned to perform this task on a large scale. First, its Google Analytics tool is deployed on more than 100 million websites. And the Google Ad Planner, even in its public version, already offers a precise view of the performance of many sites in the world. In addition, as one of the engineers pointed out, Google is already performing such pairing simply to avoid showing the same ad twice to a someone using several devices. Google is also most likely doing such ranking in order to feed the obscure "quality index" algorithmically assigned to each site. It even does such pairing on a nominative basis by using its half billion Gmail accounts (425 million in June 2012) and connecting its Chrome users. As for giving up another piece of internet knowledge to Google, it doesn't sounds like a big deal to me. The search giant knows already much more about sites than most publishers do about their own properties. The only thing that could prevent Google from entering the market of public web rankings would be the prospect of another privacy outcry. But I don't see why it won't jump on it ? eventually. When this happens, Nielsen will be in big trouble.
? frederic.filloux@mondaynote.com
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Boot up: Samsung's 10m S4s, NFC's double counts, Google's un-openness, and more
Mon, 20 May 2013 06:30:00 GMT
Plus Nokia Asha's unique selling point, the point of a Google Music service, what Apple needs at WWDC, and more
A burst of 10 links for you to chew over, as picked by the Technology team
Mac malware signed with Apple ID infects activist's laptop >> Ars Technica
Stealthy Mac OS X spyware that was digitally signed with a valid Apple Developer ID has been detected on the laptop of an Angolan activist attending a human rights conference, researchers said.
The backdoor, which is programmed to take screenshots and send them to remote servers under the control of the attackers, was spread using a spear phishing email, according to privacy activist Jacob Appelbaum. Spear phishing is a term for highly targeted emails that address the receiver by name and usually appear to come from someone the receiver knows.
Jacob Applebaum (@ioerror on Twitter) is the person who spotted all this; he says the target's life is "likely in danger" - just in case you thought this was some trivial bit of hacking.
Contactless 'charging errors' at Marks and Spencer >> BBC News
Some Marks and Spencer customers have told the BBC of cases where the chain's contactless payment terminals have taken money from cards other than the ones intended for payment.
Card are supposed to be within about 4cm of the front of the contactless terminal to work.
But some customers say payments have been taken from cards while in purses and wallets at much greater distances.
The customers can't be certain that they never brought their wallets within that required 4cm or so. But it does point to a potential business making wallets with fine wire mesh weave to stop the cards being read by accident.
Galaxy S4: 10M in 4 weeks. iPhone 5: 5M in 3 days. >> Fortune Tech
Philip Elmer DeWitt:
It's been years since Samsung reported any unit sales numbers at all for its mobile phones, so the tech press took notice Thursday when the South Korean manufacturing giant decided it had something to brag about.
Samsung Electronics co-CEO Shin Jong-kyun told reporters at an industry forum in Seoul that he is confident shipments of the Galaxy S4 will top 10m next week - four weeks after the device went on sale in 60 countries, including Korea, China, India and the US.
"That would make the mobile device the fastest-selling selling smartphone in Samsung's history," the Korea Times reported - a line echoed in the U.S. press.
That kind of coverage must drive Tim Cook crazy.
Because when Apple (AAPL) reported last September that it sold 5m iPhone 5 units in three days, analysts expressed "disappointment" and Business Insider ran this headline:
IPHONE 5 OPENING WEEKEND SALES COME IN WORSE THAN EXPECTEDAnd what was its headline Friday?
Samsung's S4 Starts Strong: 10 Million Units In Less Than A Month
Samsung responds to Galaxy S4 BBC Watchdog investigation >> Trusted Reviews
Despite advertising 16GB of internal storage, the Samsung Galaxy S4 only offers roughly 9GB of user available storage highlighted by the BBC Watchdog exposé. The Samsung flagship does offer microSD card expansion options, but early purchasers have complained about the memory discrepancy.
"We appreciate this issue being raised and we will improve our communications," said a Samsung spokesperson to CNET UK. "We are reviewing the possibility to secure more memory space through further software optimisation."
The interesting thing about this isn't that there's a difference between the stated storage and what you get, but that buyers are actually complaining about it. One wonders how much Samsung will be able to claw back through that "optimisation". And how much memory Google's "pure" S4 (sold via Google) has. (Thanks @Avro for the link.)
Google's open video proposal closes door on software freedom >> InfoWorld
Simon Phipps, president of the Open Source Initiative, on Google's VP8 licensing proposal:
You'll need to provide your personal information to Google to get this license, and section 9 makes clear the company may well use it at some point to contact you and even use your name in its publicity, according to section 15.
That restriction is probably tolerable for a corporation that can execute the agreement once for all products and staff, but for an open source project it's a big problem. Open source communities may not have a legal entity able to sign on behalf of the community, either because there's no actual legal entity or because the community of developers has too loose a relationship with any legal entity to be counted as the equivalent employees. By requiring individual, nontransferrable registration, Google is erecting a barrier that at the very least will provoke suspicion from open source projects.
Google Lock-In Lock-Out >> OUseful.Info
Open University professor Tony Hirst:
As John Naughton feels obliged to remind folk every now and again, the web is not the internet. Because we all know that for many people, Facebook apparently is. Or Google is.
And as anyone following my tweets over the last year or two will know, I've started finding Google more and more irksome.
It's not just that the one or two people I know who use Google Plus (Google+?) are now all but lost to me as sources of neat ideas because I don't do Gooplus and it doesn't do RSS?
Keep reading. It's quite a list of points with a killer endline.
Asha to Asha >> Stratechery
Ben Thompson:
Asha? has worse specifications than a cheap Android phone, and a much worse app selection. Thus it has been largely ignored by a tech press that considers little more than features and price.
However, finding a market is about finding a new axis of differentiation. In the case of low-end smartphones, are there things that matter beyond price and performance?
Consider again where Asha will be sold: India, Africa, Latin America ? all have markets where mobile phones are the primary form of computing, as well as areas without consistent electricity. In such markets, nothing matters more than battery life.
And Asha has that in spades. In fact, the Asha range has sold more phones in the past three quarters than Windows Phone. (Also, bonus point for the title of the post.)
Why did Google launch Google Play Music All Access? >> Venture Harbour
Marcus Taylor:
When I go to Google in search of music, it's fair to say that the results I'm served are exceptionally poor.
In this instance, the results that Google serve me do not match my search intent. I want to download Incubus' album ? but instead Google is pointing me in the direction of illegal download sites, music videos, and a streaming platform.
To paraphrase Google's mission statement, they want to offer me the most relevant result in as few clicks as possible ? and at the moment there are no legal and relevant results within 3-4 clicks away. Surely Google can do better?
So here is where I think we're heading. Please note that these are photo-shopped images, and not actual screenshots.
His suggestion is that Google Play Music All Access results will be pushed to the top of music search results - as happens with lots of other Google properties. One has to wonder about the antitrust implications.
London in 1927 >> Vimeo
Incredible colour footage of 1920s London shot by an early British pioneer of film named Claude Friese-Greene, who made a series of travelogues using the colour process his father William - a noted cinematographer - was experimenting with. It's like a beautifully dusty old postcard you'd find in a junk store, but moving.
.
Everything Apple needs to introduce at WWDC to appease the internet >> carpeaqua
Justin Williams:
With WWDC just a few weeks away, I thought it'd be beneficial to the Internet at large to compile a working list of everything that is expected of Apple during their Keynote and subsequent "State of the Union" addresses in order to appease the Internet.
He left off "$100 mini iPhone in five colours". What sort of appeasement is this?
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Moshi Monsters' founder: the shift to mobile caught us by surprise
Sat, 18 May 2013 09:00:00 GMT
With a dip in desktop users, Moshi is racing to keep kids entertained on tablets and mobiles. By Jemima Kiss
London-based Mind Candy was stalling five years ago, but took a punt on an idea for a social networking game site for children.
By 2013, the children's game network had become ubiquitous at every supermarket checkout and at every toy store - a runaway brand extension success.
Founder Michael Acton-Smith insists that revenues are holding up, but admits the company has struggled with the speed at which children are switching to tablets and mobiles, and has yet to release its tablet app.
On the eve of Moshi's fifth birthday, Jemima Kiss asks Acton-Smith how he plans to keep the Moshi magic alive.
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Boot up: Surface Pro reviewed, Google mapped, LulzSec's voice speaks, and more
Fri, 17 May 2013 06:30:00 GMT
Plus the messaging mess, Glass intentions, how to get hold of a Chromebook Pixel, the scammer who cost Google $500m, and more
A burst of 8 links for you to chew over, as picked by the Technology team
Microsoft Surface Pro review >> PC Pro
Sasha Muller:
Stop to consider what you're getting, however, and the Surface Pro really isn't bad value for money at all. The hardware is impeccably well constructed, the performance good, and the Wacom digitiser, stylus and Full HD display make for a great combination. The ergonomic irritations in laptop mode, together with modest battery life, mean that it won't suit everyone, but the Surface Pro is a great choice for those who want power and full Windows compatibility in such a tiny device.
Costs £799 inc VAT for the 128GB model, but the Touch cover is an extra £100 (unless you bought a Surface RT; the keyboards are interchangeable). Choose your configuration carefully, because you can't upgrade the disk or RAM. (Does that make it a tablet?)
Google Maps integrates Google Earth and Street View in completely redesigned interface >> The Verge
Google Maps on the desktop has been rebuilt from the ground up, ushering in its most significant changes since its launch eight years ago. After spending some time with the new Maps, and with its lead designer, we're struck by Google's choice to do away with most of the user interface elements and let the map reach from edge to edge in your browser. A lone search box in the upper left gives you access to Maps' features, as does clicking on elements within the map. Google has integrated Google Now's card metaphor to present information from a newly built-in version of Google Earth, reviews from Zagat and Google+, Street View, and directions. And new user interface tweaks surface locations and transit routes before you even search for them.
Former Lulzsec hacker Jake Davis on his motivations >> BBC News
Jake Davis, who went by the online alias Topiary, says he now regrets "95% of the things I've ever typed on the internet".
"It was my world, but it was a very limited world. You can see and hear it, but you can't touch the internet. It's a world devoid of empathy - and that shows on Twitter, and the mob mentality against politicians and public figures. There is no empathy.
"So it was my world, and it was a very cynical world and I became a very cynical person."
Davis was, and is, witty and insightful. He has to serve 12 months in a youth offenders' facility; let's hope it passes quickly.
Pick your poison: messaging will be fragmented, expensive, or locked-in >> The Verge
The hottest space in mobile tech right now is messaging, with all the apps that let you skip past high-priced SMS and send texts for free (or very cheap). Just this week, we've heard that BlackBerry Messenger will soon work on iPhone and Android ? and yesterday, Google Hangouts launched on those same platforms. Facebook, too, has made a big push to promote its Messenger solution with Facebook Home and Chat Heads just last month. Added together, these apps have surpassed traditional SMS in the total number of messages sent.
Yet for all that innovation in chat, there's still a problem. All these communication apps can't communicate with each other.
Exactly like instant messaging on the desktop, but now on mobile. Guess what though - there's one messaging standard that works across all mobile phones. It's called SMS.
BiTE interactive finds only one In 10 American smartphone owners would wear Google Glass regularly >> PRWeb
Despite the hype surrounding the upcoming launch of Google Glass, only one in 10 Americans who own a smartphone say they would actually wear it all the time ? even if priced within their personal budget. The findings are according to the Google Glass Adoption Forecast released today from BiTE interactive, the mobile application specialist for Fortune 1000 brands, which commissioned YouGov to poll the views of a nationally representative sample of American adults towards Google's latest innovation.
This has been wrongly reported elsewhere as "1 in 10 Americans would wear Glass". The smartphone population is smaller - about 137m, not 250m. But 13.7m people who would wear it all the time? That's a big market.
Google Chromebook Pixel in PC Laptops & Netbooks >> eBay
Anyone would think that these had been handed out willy-nilly at a conference to people who already had computers because they do development.
How a career con man led a federal sting that cost Google $500m >> Wired.com
Jake Pearson, in a fantastic piece of journalism:
Whitaker recorded a phone conversation with his California Google rep, walking them through the website in real time while explaining how the scam worked. He deliberately showed how PVD was a conduit for the rogue online pharmacies, confirming that his rep was following him every step of the way. At one point, the rep asked if the rogue sites had been approved by PharmacyChecker. Of course Whitaker admitted that they hadn't been, but it didn't matter; PVD never lost its approval, and the illegal sites were allowed to continue to operate.
The investigation, the agents decided, was now complete.
So many of the details in here are simply astonishing, especially if you've ever bought pharmaceuticals or similar online from dodgy sites - or found them through a famous search engine.
How does the iPhone 5 camera compare to previous iPhone cameras? >> Camera+
Taken with every iPhone camera, starting with the very first, to the most recent. The difference from the 3G to the 3GS is colossal. (It's an iPhone/iPad app, which is why it doesn't have reference shots from other handsets.)
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Boot up: Google I/O, Android profit share, Thorsten Heins v PCs, and more
Thu, 16 May 2013 06:30:00 GMT
Plus Taiwan's problems in consumer electronics, European PC sales slump, Google's 'pure' GS4 and more
A burst of 8 links for you to chew over, as picked by the Technology team
Google I/O: the liveblog >> Guardian Technology
Amanda Holpuch at the keyboard, with Dominic Rushe checking the audience for Jon Hamm sightings.
Samsung captures 95% share of global Android smartphone profits in Q1 2013 >> Strategy Analytics
Neil Shah, Senior Analyst at Strategy Analytics, said, "We estimate the global Android smartphone industry generated total operating profits of US$5.3bn during Q1 2013. The Android platform accounted for 43% share of the entire smartphone industry's operating profits, which reached US$12.5bn worldwide in the first quarter of this year."
94.7% of Android profits to Samsung; 2.5% to LG (equivalent to about $310m). And about the same amount shared among all the other vendors.
The Windows Phone app problem >> Hal's (Im)Perfect Vision
Hal Berenson:
Let's start with Banking and ask a very simple question. Of the Top-10 banks in the U.S. how many have apps available for Windows Phone? Three. And one of those is just for its credit cards. Want to guess how many of those banks have apps in the Apple App Store? All ten.
You might think this is just a banking problem, but it is anything in finance. Windows Phone has apps for Zero of the Top-10 Mutual Fund companies. Seven of those companies provide apps for the iPhone. How about if you just want to do research on mutual funds? Sorry, you'll need an iPhone, Android Phone, or Blackberry for that.
Moving on, how many of the Top-10 US Airlines have apps for Windows Phone? Three. For the iPhone it is eight.
Now the truth is I was going to do this for several more categories but it is too depressing for me to continue.
Like to see the stats for banks, airlines and so on in the UK.
Google to Samsung: Thanks for the cool phone, now we've fixed it >> CITEworld
Matt Rosoff:
Beginning on June 26, Google will start selling through the Google Play store a version of the Samsung Galaxy S4 that basically strips all the Samsung-specific features out of it.
Instead, it ships with the latest version of Android - 4.2.2., a recent update to Android "Jelly Bean" - and the "Nexus experience" that shipped on the Nexus 4, which was manufactured by HTC, last fall. The phone is unlocked, so users can switch carriers, and "bootloader unlocked," which means users can easily install their own software on it. And Google promises that it will push the latest updates of Android to it as they come out.
Sounds great, right?
But you'll pay for the privilege - because it's unlocked, there's no carrier subsidy, which means users have to pay the full smartphone price of $649.
In other words, this is a phone for Android fans and developers who want cutting-edge hardware combined with the latest, most Google-friendly version of Android. Not a consumer product.
Thorsten Heins: the only exec in the mobile biz that gets post-PC >> ZDNet
Matthew Baxter-Reynolds:
On the one hand, you have a CEO who seems to understand ideas around the death of the PC, relationship-centric computing, post-PC, etc., but seems keen to actively avoid pushing his vision into the tablet space. If tablets are going to be replaced by some modular computing doodad or doodads, surely [BlackBerry CEO Thorsten] Heins would like to be the one to tell everyone how it would be done?
But there isn't any leadership from Heins in this direction. I get that marketing is complex and it's not a good thing to confuse, but if Heins is talking with authority about the tablet going away, surely it would be a good idea for him and his team to set the tone of that discussion with more clarity.
Heins seems to simultaneously understand post-PC (that the desktop stops being the dominant way to do computing) and to not get it (you need more and discrete devices).
Taiwan tries to regain its lead in consumer electronics >> NYTimes.com
As notebooks and other Windows-based PCs have lost ground, first to Apple tablets and now to Android-based designs, even Microsoft has been indicating dissatisfaction with the pace of PC innovation in Taiwan. Despite a longtime aversion to hardware, Microsoft recently introduced its own Surface tablet.
"The Surface tablet is a pretty strong signal to the whole Taiwan PC ecosystem that they're not innovating enough," said Bill Whyman, a senior managing director at the ISI research firm.
One exception to Taiwan's difficulties is Asus. Its many new Android-based tablets, including one that it has branded with Google, allowed it to surpass Amazon in the first quarter of this year to become the third-largest player in the global tablet computer market, behind Apple and Samsung, according to IDC.
The self-criticism within Taiwan seems to be that "we do not pursue a perfect solution; we pursue a good enough solution."
PC market in western Europe declined 20.5% in first quarter of 2013 >> Gartner
PC shipments in Western Europe totaled 12.3m units in the first quarter of 2013, a decline of 20.5% from the corresponding period of 2012, according to Gartner.
"The first quarter of 2013 brought the worst quarterly decline in Western Europe since Gartner started tracking PC shipments in this region," said Meike Escherich, principal research analyst at Gartner. "Wide availability of Windows 8-based PCs could not boost consumer PC purchases during the quarter. Although the new Metro-style user interface suits new form factors, users wonder about its suitability for traditional PCs ? non-touchscreen desktops and notebooks."
All PC segments in Western Europe exhibited year-on-year declines in the first quarter of 2013. Mobile and desktop PC shipments fell by 24.6% and 13.8%, respectively. Shipments to the professional PC market declined by 17.2%, while those to the consumer PC market decreased by 23.7%.
So the consumer market declined more than the professional, and the mobile sector by more than the desktop. Only Lenovo and Apple grew sales in absolute terms - and barely at all even then.
As of today, every major mobile competitor... also makes apps for iOS >> iMore.com
Rene Ritchie:
every single one of Apple's major mobile competitors now makes apps for iOS. Google, who also has Android, makes many very popular apps including Gmail, Maps, Google+, etc. Microsoft, who also has Windows Phone, makes a bunch of apps and games for iOS, including OneNote and Kinnectimals. Nokia, Microsoft's primary Windows Phone partner, also makes Here Maps.
Now, BlackBerry makes BBM.
Apple, by contrast, makes precisely nothing for Android, Windows Phone, or BlackBerry. Not even iTunes.
It would be fascinating to see this as a grid. (Also perhaps "platform competitors" would be better.)
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Boot up: the Net v middle classes, missing apps on Windows, Twitter hacks, and more
Wed, 15 May 2013 06:30:00 GMT
Plus Windows Blue named and priced, Acer and Asus revenues, how to beat clickjacking, Adobe cloud priced, and more
A burst of 10 links for you to chew over, as picked by the Technology team
Windows keeps getting better >> Windows Blog
Today at the JP Morgan Technology, Media & Telecom Conference in Boston, Tami Reller shared with the audience that the update previously referred to as "Windows Blue" will be called Windows 8.1 and will be a free update to Windows 8 for consumers through the Windows Store.
During her remarks today, Tami reiterated our goal of delivering continual updates to create a richer experience for Windows customers. Windows 8.1 is part of that and continues the journey we first began with Windows 8 last fall. Windows 8.1 will help us to deliver the next generation of PCs and tablets with our OEM partners and to deliver the experiences customers ? both consumers and businesses alike ?need and will just expect moving forward.
No word on whether WinRT will get a similar update.
Jaron Lanier: The Internet destroyed the middle class >> Salon.com
This week sees the publication of "Who Owns the Future?," which digs into technology, economics and culture in unconventional ways. (How is a pirated music file like a 21st century mortgage?) Lanier argues that there is little essential difference between Facebook and a digital trading company, or Amazon and an enormous bank. ("Stanford sometimes seems like one of the Silicon Valley companies.")
Much of the book looks at the way Internet technology threatens to destroy the middle class by first eroding employment and job security, along with various "levees" that give the economic middle stability.
"Here's a current example of the challenge we face," he writes in the book's prelude: "At the height of its power, the photography company Kodak employed more than 14,000 people and was worth $28 billion. They even invented the first digital camera. But today Kodak is bankrupt, and the new face of digital photography has become Instagram. When Instagram was sold to Facebook for a billion dollars in 2012, it employed only 13 people. Where did all those jobs disappear? And what happened to the wealth that all those middle-class jobs created?"
Clickjack attack ? the hidden threat right in front of you >> Troy Hunt
A good primer on how to bust frames - used for clickjacking - given the growing arms race between framers and busters.
Acer, Asustek see large sequential decreases in April revenues >> Digitimes
Acer has reported April consolidated revenues of NT$25.772 billion (US$868 million) down on month by 31.02%, while Asustek Computer saw revenues of NT$32.594 billion, down 22.11%, according to the companies.
Acer has seen falling year-on-year sales for four consecutive months; Asus, for only one of four.
Microsoft: Don't expect a Windows 8 iTunes app soon >> CNN
Microsoft believes nearly all major apps that can be found in Apple's iTunes store will also be available on Windows 8 by the fall, but it expects one glaring hole to remain.
"You shouldn't expect an iTunes app on Windows 8 any time soon," said Tami Reller, chief financial officer of Microsoft's (MSFT, Fortune 500) Windows division. "ITunes is in high demand. The welcome mat has been laid out. It's not for lack of trying."
Only available in Desktop mode. Don't hold your breath for the Metro (or RT) version.
Microsoft YouTube app is a rule breaker; it strips ads, downloads video >> ReadWrite
Microsoft appears to be sticking a finger in Google's eye with the launch of its new YouTube app for Windows Phone. The app, ReadWrite has confirmed, strips out YouTube ads when it plays back videos and allows users to easily download video by way of a prominent "download" button.
Both behaviors violate the cardinal rules YouTube imposes on developers who use its service. To get around those restrictions, it appears that Microsoft reverse-engineered some portion of the software used to access YouTube's basic functions, which are generally known as application programming interfaces, or APIs. If so, that could mean Microsoft can do just about whatever it wants with its YouTube app.
Wonder how long this will be allowed, given that Google has somehow not got around to writing a Windows Phone version of the YouTube app in the past two and a half years?
How greedy is Adobe's Creative Cloud subscription? Not very >> CNET News
Stephen Shankland:
Plenty of people are outraged that Adobe is moving to subscription plans and scrapping perpetual licenses. But should they be?
To shed some light on the situation, CNET broke out the spreadsheet software, dug into pricing information from Adobe and retail outlets, and put together some actual comparisons to see whether that wrath is deserved.
The answer, as with all things complicated, is that it depends. But at least in some reasonable situations - not just power users but also middle-end customers who upgrade to Adobe's latest releases - the Creative Cloud isn't a bad deal at all.
"Jane you ignorant slut" >> Hal's (Im)Perfect Vision
Former Microsoft GM Hal Berenson, in October 2012:
Let's start with what is definitely not a goal for Windows 8, broad-based Enterprise adoption. By that I mean, the rollout of Windows 8 to traditional desktop and notebook computing. Keep in mind that back when Windows 8 was being planned Windows 7 had just shipped. Because of the time, cost, and complexity of enterprise-wide operating system rollouts most enterprises would either still be rolling out Windows 7 or have just completed their rollout around the time Windows 8 shipped. Indeed Windows 7 just recently passed Windows XP as the most popular version of the operating system in use. No enterprise would have the appetite to immediately start the cycle over again so quickly, and so (I believe) the prevailing wisdom inside Microsoft was that they would skip Windows 8. In other words, before Microsoft had decided on the details of a new app model, the Windows Store, the Start Screen, or removing the Start button they knew there was no point in targeting enterprise desktops as Windows 8 upgrade targets.
He explains the headline (don't worry, it's not rude). As ever, Berenson gives you something extra to think about: the real metric Microsoft wants Windows 8 to be measured by. Read on.
@Skynewsbreak Twitter Account Hacked >> Sky News Press Office
Earlier today the @skynewsbreak twitter feed was hacked and a single message sent.
Action was swiftly taken and we are working with Twitter and our in house security to ensure this cannot happen again.
Perhaps a hacker could break into Dick Costolo's Twitter account so that two-factor authentication suddenly goes to the top of the to-do list there.
Nvidia's new gaming handheld is out in June for $350 >> Kotaku
Announced in January as Project Shield, Nvidia's intriguing new handheld now has a price, a June release window, and the promise of Double Fine's Broken Age. Who's ready to spend $350 on a dedicated Android gaming device?
Filed under "questions which answer themselves and involve very small numbers".
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Boot up: AT&T kills HTC First, Apple's maps mystery, another Google shutdown, and more
Tue, 14 May 2013 06:30:00 GMT
Plus Wikipedia's Middle Earth bias, more on Windows Blue, caption glasses for deaf cinemagoers, graphene gets magnetic, and more
Note: the daily launch time for this post will in future be 0730 UK time.
A burst of 8 links for you to chew over, as picked by the Technology team
HTC First discontinued by AT&T: first 'Facebook phone' a flop >> BGR
Zach Epstein:
The HTC First, or "Facebook phone" as many prefer to call it, is officially a flop. It certainly wasn't a good sign when AT&T dropped the price of HTC's First to $0.99 just one month after its debut, and now BGR has confirmed that HTC and Facebook's little experiment is nearing its end. BGR has learned from a trusted source that sales of the HTC First have been shockingly bad. So bad, in fact, that AT&T has already decided to discontinue the phone.
The first phone to ship with Facebook Home preinstalled. Unsold inventory is going back to HTC. Bad news for both companies.
You can do too much due diligence >> A VC
Fred Wilson on what he found when looking into Feedburner in 2004:
As part of our investment process, we do a bunch of fact gathering/checking work that is called Due Diligence in the vernacular of the VC business. So my partner Brad Burnham and I put together a list of leading blogs and online publishers who had popular RSS feeds at the time. I think there were a dozen or so publications on that list. It included Weblogs (Engadget), Gawker (Gawker), NY Times, and a bunch more. We know most everyone who ran those operations so we called them.
What we heard was surprising. Not one of them was willing to hand over their RSS feed to a third party for analytics and monetization. We were very surprised to hear that and thought a bit about it. But, we decided, we could not invest in something that the big publishers would not support.
And then...
New magnetic graphene may revolutionise electronics >> Physord
The technique involves growing an ultra perfect grapheme film over a ruthenium single crystal inside an ultra high vacuum chamber whereorganic molecules of tetracyano-p-quinodimethane (TCNQ) are evaporated on the grapheme surface. TCNQ is a molecule that acts as a semiconductor at very low temperatures in certain compounds.
Don't worry, Cody Wilson's working on the downloadable make-it-at-home version right now. (Thanks @Sputnikkers for the link.)
New closed-captioning glasses help deaf go out to the movies >> NPR
Rachel Rood:
There will be a special attraction for deaf people in theaters nationwide soon. By the end of this month, Regal Cinemas plans to have distributed closed-captioning glasses to more than 6,000 theaters across the [US].
Sony Entertainment Access Glasses are sort of like 3-D glasses, but for captioning. The captions are projected onto the glasses and appear to float about 10 feet in front of the user. They also come with audio tracks that describe the action on the screen for blind people, or they can boost the audio levels of the movie for those who are hard of hearing.
This is a big moment for the deaf, many of whom haven't been to the movies in a long time. Captioned screenings are few and far between, and current personal captioning devices that fit inside a cup holder with a screen attached are bulky, display the text out of their line of vision to the screen, and distract the other patrons.
Excellent application of technology. (Thanks @HotSoup for the link.)
Google axed SMS Search thinking people wouldn't notice >> Gizmodo
Google created SMS Search as a way for users with limited or no data on their phones to access search information. You could text a search query to 466453 and receive an SMS reply containing only text, no links. It was useful to a lot of people back in the day, but it's not surprising that the service has been losing popularity.
Wouldn't it still be useful in Africa and other places where data access is limited? For those who are counting - it was killed after 1,409 days. Of 96 Google services that have been killed off, the mean lifetime is 1,459 days. Mean lifetime of 93 Google services still operating: 1,776 days. (Thanks @HotSoup for the link.)
New Coke? >> SuperSite for Windows
Paul Thurrott:
Full disclosure: I like [Microsoft head of PR] Frank Shaw quite a bit. He's got a tough job and to be fair he's doing the right thing in defending his company.
But in a recent post to the Official Microsoft Blog, Mr. Shaw called out The Financial Times and The Economist, two staid publications that made the mistake of correctly identifying the core problem with Windows these days. I can only imagine what he thinks of me right now.
In the wake of a mini-publicity tour in which Microsoft executives tried to paint its about-face with Windows 8.1 "Blue" as an example of it "listening to customer feedback," these publications have correctly suggested that this never would have happened had the Windows team simply listened to customer feedback during the six-year buildup to Windows 8 instead.
Respect the crowd >> Bitsplitting.org
Former Apple staffer Daniel Jalkut on Apple's non-updating Maps:
I used to sing the praises of my iPhone above all competitors. Now, when I am jarred from my fanboy-hypnosis, staring down at an alleged life-changer that doesn't know how to get me from point A to point B, I'm not so convinced I can defend it.
In order for Apple's customers to continue "reporting a problem" with Maps, they need to feel that their reports are having some impact. They need to feel respected. Ideally, good reports would lead to timely corrections on a mass level that would benefit all other iOS users. Anecdotally, this is not happening. So at a minimum a user's own report should be respected by the device they hold in their hands. Let the customer know their voice was heard by improving the usability of their device immediately. Customers demand confidence in map data, whether it be from Apple or fine-tuned by their own hand. If we can't count on map data, we won't use the app, we won't report problems, and we won't help Apple one iota in shoring up this massive shortcoming.
Whoever talks about Maps on stage at Apple's WWDC in June will have to have a really persuasive offering.
The problem with Wikipedia >> cartesian product
Adrian McMenamin:
Wikipedia has a real blind spot when it comes to covering to Africa ? there are more articles on "Middle Earth" than many African states and there are perhaps 10 times as many wikipedia edits (in any language) originated in the United Kingdom than in all of Africa.
And that's not the only problem ? 91% of Wikipedia editors are male and, of course, that is contributing to Wikipedia's growing reputation as the home of the same sort of maladjusted and poor socialised individuals who inhabit various parts of the "open source" software world.
That's not the rudest thing he says, either.
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Tesla's Elon Musk enjoys sweet revenge
Mon, 13 May 2013 10:22:34 GMT
His company has just scored its first profitable quarter and consumer reports put the Model S at the top of its ranking
Palo Alto is known, primarily, as the cradle of high-tech. Its birth registry stretches from pre-World War II Hewlett-Packard, to Cisco, Sun Microsystems (after Stanford University Network), Logitech, and on to Google and Facebook.
But there's an aspect of the town that's rarely remarked upon. As a happy Palo Alto resident for 25 years, as well as a half-century regular at the Café de Flore and Au Sauvignon, I can attest that Palo Alto vies with Paris's Left Bank as the cynosure of theGauche Caviar ? the Caviar Left, the Volvo Liberals as they were known eons ago. Palo Altans, like the residents of the sixth arrondissement, have money and they're willing to spend it (this isn't constipated New England, after all) ? but they only spend it in the proper way. And there's no better way to demonstrate that you're spending your money in a seemly fashion than to be seen driving the proper car.
The combination of tech culture, money, and sincere (if easily lampooned) social/ecological awareness make Palo Alto an interesting place to watch automotive fashion wax and wane.
Walking Palo Alto's leafy streets in the early 2000s, I witnessed the rise of the Prius. Rather than grafting "green" organs onto a Camry or a disinterred Tercel, Toyota's engineers had designed a hybrid from the tyres up ? and they gave the car a distinctive, sui generis look. It was a stroke of genius, and it tickled us green. What better way to flaunt our concern for the environment while showing off our discerning tech taste than to be spotted behind the wheel of a Prius? (I write "us" without irony: I owned a Gen I and a Gen II Prius, and drive a Prius V in France.) Palo Alto was Prius City years before the rest of the world caught on. (Prius is now the third best-selling car worldwide; more than a million were sold in 2012.)
The cute but artificial Volkswagen Beetle came and went. The Mini, on the other hand, has been a success. A coupling of British modesty and German engineer (the car is built by BMW), the Mini proved that Americans could fall in love with a small car.
The Smart, an even smaller car, hasn't fared well at all. There are now more older Citroëns than Smarts on our streets. I also see some tiny Fiat 500s, but too few so far to call it a durable trend.
Then there's Tesla. In 2008, when the Tesla Roadster came out, I watched it with mixed feelings: some in my neighbourhood ended up on flatbeds, but I smiled as I saw Roadsters smoothly (and silently) outrun a Porsche when the traffic light turned green.
As much as I admired Elon Musk, Tesla's founder and a serial entrepreneur of PayPal fame, I was sceptical. A thousand-pound battery and electric drive train in a Lotus frame ? it felt like a hack. This was a beta-release car, a $100,000 nano-niche vehicle. It wasn't seemly.
Musk muscled his way through, pushed his company onto firmer financial ground, and, in June 2012, Tesla began delivery of the Model S. This is a "real" car with four doors, a big trunk two, actually, front and back), and a 250-mile range.
Right away, the sales lot at Tesla's corporate store in nearby Menlo Park was packed. I started to see the elegant sedan on our streets, and within a few months there were three Model Ss in the parking garage at work. With their superior range, they rarely feed from the EV charging stations. (The Nissan Leaf, on the other hand, is a constant suckler.)
This was a big deal. The company had jumped straight from beta to Tesla 2.0. The bigwigs in the automotive press agreed: Motor Trend and Automobile Magazine named the Model S their 2012 car of the year.
Actually, not all the bigwigs agreed. The New York Times' John Broder gushed over the Model S's futuristic engineering ("The car is a technological wonder"), but published an ultimately negative story titled Stalled out on Tesla's electric highway. The battery wouldn't hold a charge, the car misreported its range, Tesla support gave him bad information ? The car ended up being hauled off on a flatbed.
Broder's review didn't evince much empathy from Elon Musk, a man who clearly doesn't believe the meek will inherit the Earth. In a detailed blogpost backed up by the data that was logged by the car, Tesla's CEO took Broder to task for shoddy and fallacious reporting:
As the State of Charge log shows, the Model S battery never ran out of energy at any time, including when Broder called the flatbed truck ?.
During the second Supercharge ? he deliberately stopped charging at 72%. On the third leg, where he claimed the car ran out of energy, he stopped charging at 28%.
More unpleasantness ensued, ending with an uneasy statement from Margaret Sullivan, The NYT's public editor: Problems with precision and judgment, but not integrity, in Tesla test, and with Musk claiming that the NYT story had cost Tesla $100m (£65m) in market cap.
Other writers, such as David Thier in Forbes, rushed to Broder's defence for no reason other than an "inclination":
"I'm inclined to trust the reporter's account of what happened, though at this point, it barely matters. The original story is so far removed that mostly what we have now is a billionaire throwing a temper tantrum about someone who said mean things about him."
In "Why the great Elon Musk needs a muzzle" (sorry, no link; the article is iPad only) Aaron Robinson of Car and Driver Magazine condemns Musk for the sin of questioning the infallibility of the New York Times:
(There's no need to pile onto this argument, but let's note that the NYT's foibles are well-documented, such as, I can't resist, its tortured justification for not using the word "torture" when dealing with "enhanced interrogation".)
None of this dampened the enthusiasm of customers living in our sunnier physical and psychological clime. I saw more and more Model Ss on the streets and freeways. Most telling, the Model S became a common sight in the car park at Alice's Restaurant up the hill in Woodside, a place where bikers and drivers of fashionable cars, vintage and cutting edge, gather to watch and be watched.
Publishing deadlines can be cruel. A few days after Robinson's story appeared in Car and Driver, Tesla released its quarterly numbers for Q1 2013 (click to enlarge):
Tesla's $555m in revenue is an astonishing 20x increase compared to the same quarter a year ago. Tesla is now profitable; shares jumped by more than 37% in two trading sessions. On Wall Street paper, the company's $8.77bn market cap makes it worth about 20% of GM's $42.93bn capitalization ? Musk got his "lost $100m" back and more.
Curiously, the numbers also show that while operations were in the red, the company recorded a net income of $11m. How is that possible? The explanation is "simple": If your car company manufactures vehicles that surpass (in a good way) California's emissions standards, the state hands you Zero Emissions Vehicle Credits for your good behaviour. You can then sell your virtue to the big car companies ? Chrysler, Ford, GM, Honda ? who must comply with ZEV regulations. For Tesla, this arrangement resulted in "higher sales of regulatory credits including $67.9m in zero emission credit sales".
Tesla is careful to note that this type of additional income is likely to disappear towards the end of 2013. (For a more detailed analysis of Tesla's numbers see this post from The Truth About Cars, a site that recommends itself for not being yet another industry mouthpiece.)
The numbers point to a future where Tesla can leave its niche and become a leading manufacturer in a too-often stodgy automotive industry. And, of course, we Silicon Valley geeks take great pleasure in a car that updates it software over the air, like a smartphone; that has a 17in touchscreen; and that's designed and built right here (the Tesla factory is across the Bay in the NUMMI plant that was previously occupied by Toyota and GM).
A last dollop of honey in Elon's revenge: Coinciding with the Car and Driver screed, consumer reports gave the Model S its top test score. After driving a friend's Model S at adequate freeway speeds, I agree, it's a wonderful car, a bit of the future available today.
Some say the Model S is still too pricy, that it's only for the very well-off who can afford a third vehicle, that it will never reach a mass audience. It's a reasonable objection, but consider Ferrari: It sold 7,318 cars in 2012 and says it will restrict output in 2013 to less than 7,000 to "keep its exclusivity" ? in other words, it must adapt to the slowing demand in Europe and, perhaps, Asia. Last year, Land Rover sold about 43,000 cars in the US. By comparison, Tesla will sell about 20,000 cars this year and expects to grow further as it opens international distribution.
One more thing: Elon Musk is also the CEO of SpaceX, a successful maker of another type of vehicles: space-launch rockets.
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New York Times v Washington Post ? a tale of two strategies
Mon, 13 May 2013 09:06:00 GMT
Both are great American newspapers, both suffer from the advertising slump and from the transition to digital. But the NYT's paywall strategy is making a huge difference
The Washington Post's financials provide a good glance at the current status of legacy media struggling with the shift to digital. Unlike others large dailies, the components of the Post's P&L clearly appear in its statements, they are not buried under layers of other activities.
Product-wise, the Post remains a great news machine, collecting Pulitzer Prizes with clockwork regularity and fighting hard for scoops. The Post also epitomises an old media under siege from specialised, more agile outlets such as Politico, ones that break down the once-unified coverage provided by traditional large media houses. In an interview to the New York Times last year, Robert G Kaiser, a former editor who had been with the paper since 1963, said this:
"When I was managing editor of the Washington Post, everything we did was better than anyone in the business," he said. "We had the best weather, the best comics, the best news report, the fullest news report. Today, there's a competitor who does every element of what we do, and many of them do it better. We've lost our edge in some very profound and fundamental ways."
The iconic newspaper has been slow to adapt to the digital era. Its transformation really started around 2008. Since then, it has checked all the required boxes: integration of print and digital productions; editors are now involved on both sides of the news production and all relentlessly push the newsroom to write more for the digital version; many blogs covering a wide array of topics have been launched; and the Post now has a good mobile application.
The "quant" culture also set in, with editors now taking into account all the usual metrics and ratios associated with digital operations, including a live update of Google's most relevant keywords prominently displayed in the newsroom. All this helped the Post collect 25.6 million unique visitors per month, v 4 to 5 million for Politico, and 35 million for the New York Times that historically enjoys a more global audience.
Overall, the Washington Post Company still relies heavily on its education business, as shown in the table below :
Revenue: $4.0bn (-3% vs. 2011)
Education: $2.2bn (-9%)
Cable TV: $0.8bn (+4%)
Newspaper: $0.6bn (-7%)
Broadcast TV: $0.4bn (+25%)
But the education business no is longer the cash cow it used to be. Not only did its revenue decrease but, last year, it lost $105m (£68m) v a $96m profit in 2011. As for the newspaper operation, it widened its losses to $53m in 2012 from $21m in 2011. And the trend worsens: for the first quarter of 2013, the newspaper division's revenue decreased by 4% compared to a year ago and it lost $34m v $21m for Q1 2011.
Now, let's move to a longer-term perspective. The chart below sums up the Post's (and others legacy media's) problem:
Translated into a table:
Q1-2007 Q1-2013 Change %
Revenue (All):....$219m.....$127m.....-42%
Print Ad:.........$125m.....$49m......-61%
Digital Ad:.......$25m......$26m......+4%
A huge depletion in print advertising, a flat line (at best) for digital advertising, the elements sum up the equation faced by traditional newspapers going from print to online.
Now, let's look at the circulation side using a comparison with the New York Times. (Note that it's not possible to extract the same figures for advertising from the NYT Co's financial statements because they aggregate too many items.) The chart below shows the evolution of the paid circulation for the Post between 2007 and 2013:
..and for the NY Times:
Call it the paywall effect: The New York Times now aggregates both print and digital circulations. The latter now amounts to 676,000 digital subscribers that have been recruited using the NYT's metered system (see previous Monday Notes under the "paywall" tag). (Altogether, digital subscribers to the NYT, the International Herald and the Boston Globe now number 708,000). It seems the NYT found the right formula: its digital subscribers portfolio grows at a 45% per year rate, thanks to a combination of sophisticated marketing, mining customer data and aggressive pricing (it even pushes special deals for Mother's Day.) All this adds to the bottom line: if each digital sub brings $12 a month, the result is about $100m that didn't exist two years ago. But it does not benefit the advertising side as it continues to suffer. For the first quarter of 2013 v the same period last year, the NYT Company lost 13% in print ads revenue and 4% for digital ads. (As usual in their earning calls, NYT officials mention the deflationary effects of ad exchanges as one cause of erosion in digital ads.)
One additional sign that digital advertising will remain in the doldrums: Politico, too, is exploring alternatives; it will be testing a paywall in a sample of six states and for its readers outside the United States. The system will be comparable to the NYT.com or the FT.com, with a fixed number of articles available for free. Says Politico's management in a memo:
It is increasingly clear that readers are more willing than we once thought to pay for content they value and enjoy. With more than 300 media companies now charging for online content in the US, the notion of paying to read expensive-to-produce journalism is no longer that exotic for sophisticated consumers.
? frederic.filloux@mondaynote.com
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Why Songkick's new paternity policy is good for women
Mon, 13 May 2013 07:30:00 GMT
Startups can 'change business norms', founders say
There's a consensus among the entrepreneurs and technologists I talk to that many of the way to encourage more women into the industry is by challenging and changing the way a business operates, and often that means relatively subtle changes that will have a long-term impact.
Leaving aside the more fundamental crisis of IT education in schools (and how that fails to inspire and engage young people, and especially young women) there's a healthy rejection of the nauseating 'brogrammer' culture in the tech industry in favour of something more inclusive that introduces parity. That's exactly what Songkick has just done by introducing an equal period of paternity leave for new fathers, which means they can take up to nine months off after their child is born.
The legal requirement is for two weeks, but Songkick offers six weeks' paid leave and up to 46 weeks on top of that, explained co-founder Michelle You. The first time the company had to (hastily) draft a paternity and maternity policy was in 2008 when they only had a team of seven. The next Songkick baby is due in July this year. Songkick has a ratio of 25 men to six women on its staff, which is actually high for a tech startup. There's a subtle but significant shift in the decision to give parity to men and women equal leave.
"There's a mental block a lot of women have about their careers before they've even got to the stage where they are ready to have children, so it is something that women think about and worry about more than men," said You. "None of my male friends worry about what will happen to their careers when they have kids, but in particular there is this expectation on women to be a mum, stay at home and shoulder the responsibility of childcare.
"That is reinforced by the unequal parental leave policy. If the mother can take nine months but the father can only take two weeks, then who is going to do it?"
Many young companies might worry about paying for this kind of policy, but You, co-founder Ian Hogarth and the rest of the Songkick team (who readily admit to be proud feminists) say they are lucky to be in a position to do this.
"It's normal, for example, for people who work at startups to have equity in the business," said Hogarth. "We are good at establishing those kind of norms around how business is done and shifting expectations of how a business should treat you. Anything about gender [imbalance] is really hard to do, and there's a real latent misogyny in the startup space. Because there's no women in startups they have no voice for what should happen."
Detour beta extended to all London Songkick users
Elsewhere at Songkick, the trial of Detour, where fans pledge money to try and attract bands to play gigs, will be extended next week. Detour is currently limited to a private beta of 1,000 of Songkick's most hardcore muso fans in London, but not for long. Next Wednesday, it will be opened to the other 300,000 Songkick users in London.
So far, 206 Songkick users have pledged money to try and bring Japanese cult noise act Boredoms over from Japan, and American cellist Zoe Keating is now playing a 300-capacity gig in London in response to pledges on the site, despite being unsigned and only playing for a 50-person gig in London before. And Songkick is also testing the water with comedy, bringing Aziz Ansari over from the US to the Hammersmith Apollo.
There's demand for Detour to expand into new cities but there's some foot leather involved in setting up the gigs, so the team aren't rushing to open the floodgates just yet. When they do, integration with Soundcloud and Spotify would follow. "We're really concentrating on growing Detour out of Songkick right now," said Hogarth. "It's Songkick with a edit card. Rather than telling us which bands they want to see, they say I really want to see this band and we make it happen."
It is happening in some numbers for Songkick more widely, with monthly user numbers now at 8 million. Ticketmaster claims 12 million, so I can't imagine it is too happy about that.
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Boot up: Google's card nixed, Samsung's ITV exclusive, space station Linux and more
Mon, 13 May 2013 06:30:00 GMT
Plus DRAM prices rise, learn vim by adventure, more on app pricing, the US cyberwar strategy, why mobile web is slow, and more
A burst of 10 links for you to chew over, as picked by the Technology team
Privacy advocate Jonathan Mayer has had it with 'Do Not Track' >> Ad Exchanger
Asked what the ideal solution to the DNT row would be, Mayer says:
"Consumers don't have a great handle on what's going on in terms of how their data is being collected and what it is being used for. Therefore it makes sense to shift the burden of explaining to the user what is going on to those who are in the best position to do it. Advertising companies have an incentive to convince users that they're trustworthy and that users should allow them to collect data.
"By setting those default settings to Do Not Track, we give interested parties the incentive to educate consumers about the impacts of those choices. We allocate to them [those parties] the responsibility of getting consumers to give them access."
Ahead of I/O, Google Wallet drops plans to introduce a physical card >> AllThingsD
The card was part of Google's larger strategic goal to know more about consumer purchases, given the immense potential value of that mostly offline-level data for its massive online advertising business.
Google is already sucking in that purchase data on many fronts ? between Google Play payments, Google Checkout on the Web and also advertiser payments ? in addition to the dedicated Google Wallet project.
But Wallet has been hampered by its focus on and use of NFC technology, which requires certain phones and special readers to make transactions. Google tried to make that easier by introducing a "cloud wallet" last year that accommodated existing credit and debit cards, but it could still go further toward mobile payments at the register without using NFC.
The dumping of the physical card plan was certainly abrupt, since it had actually been built into the new update of Google Wallet, said sources, and some partners had thought the search giant might be demoing it at the [Google I/O] event.
Understanding smartphone use in stores: shoppers who use mobile more, spend more in store >> Google Mobile Ads Blog
The self-interest runs like the words through a stick of rock in this post, but this is intriguing:
Shoppers who use mobile more, spend more in store
While many businesses might assume that smartphone use in store drives shoppers to seek better prices elsewhere and order online, we found that the opposite was true. We compared the in-store purchases of moderate and frequent smartphone users and found that basket sizes of frequent mobile shoppers were 25-50% higher. For instance, while the average appliance smartphone shoppers spends $250 per shopping trip, frequent smartphone shoppers spend $350. Marketers shouldn't shy away from the showrooming challenge, and should instead, meet it head on.
The only, but crucially big, question: is this causation - using smartphones more means you spend more - or correlation: people who use their smartphones more are also, for whatever reason, big spenders?
Mobile web apps are slow >> Sealed Abstract
Drew Crawford:
Now, if what you mean by "web app" is "website with a button or two", you can tell all the fancypants benchmarks like SunSpider to take a hike. But if you mean "light word processing, light photo editing, local storage, and animations between screens" then you don't want to be doing that in a web app on ARM unless you have a death wish.
Sure, you can design performant mobile web apps if you have good engineers. But do you know what else you can do with good engineers? Things that are actually of value to your customers.
Special Report: US cyberwar strategy stokes fear of blowback >> Yahoo! News
Joseph Menn:
US intelligence and military agencies aren't buying the tools primarily to fend off attacks. Rather, they are using the tools to infiltrate computer networks overseas, leaving behind spy programs and cyber-weapons that can disrupt data or damage systems.
The core problem: Spy tools and cyber-weapons rely on vulnerabilities in existing software programs, and these hacks would be much less useful to the government if the flaws were exposed through public warnings. So the more the government spends on offensive techniques, the greater its interest in making sure that security holes in widely used software remain unrepaired.
Moreover, the money going for offense lures some talented researchers away from work on defense, while tax dollars may end up flowing to skilled hackers simultaneously supplying criminal groups. "The only people paying are on the offensive side," said Charlie Miller, a security researcher at Twitter who previously worked for the National Security Agency.
Free trials and tire kickers >> Marco.org
Marco Arment, following on from Dave Addey's piece about app pricing last week:
It's not hard to imagine a world where we have free trials, because we already have such worlds: the Mac and Windows. What most mobile-app developers want is the ability to charge PC-class pricing ? $30, $50, $100 instead of 99 cents, $2.99, $4.99.
But PC-class pricing would fundamentally change iOS buying habits, and we may not like the results.
Browsing the App Store and getting new apps, often spending a few bucks along the way, is a form of casual entertainment for a lot of people. This role used to be filled by movies and music. Today, it's filled by browsing the internet and playing with mobile apps. Usually, they're games, but not always ? modern mainstream culture, especially among younger people, seems to be more interested in media and social apps than games.
This apps-as-entertainment market falls apart if app pricing rises above casual-disposable levels for most people.
ITV Player app for Android now a Samsung exclusive >> Trusted Reviews
Offering access to the past thirty days of ITV content from channels including ITV, ITV2 and ITV3 for catch-up opportunities, the new Android ITV Player app will be exclusively available to Samsung smart devices.
Compatible with Samsung devices running Android 2.3 Gingerbread or later, the Android ITV Player allows users to browse through recommended programmes or search for their favourites over a 3G, 4G or Wi-Fi connection.
The app is available to download now on Samsung smart devices like the Samsung Galaxy S4, Samsung Note 8.0 and Samsung Galaxy Mega duo, but anyone owning another Android device like the Google Nexus 4 or the HTC One won't be able to until the exclusivity period ends.
Hardly good news for the wider Android world, though it fits with Samsung's ambitions in content. The app itself has dire reviews, though.
VIM Adventures
Need to learn vim (the command-line text editor)? Like learning via games? This is the one for you then.
International Space Station switches from Windows to Linux, for improved reliability >> ExtremeTech
In specific, the "dozens of laptops" will make the change to Debian 6. These laptops will join many other systems aboard the ISS that already run various flavors of Linux, such as RedHat and Scientific Linux. As far as we know, after this transition, there won't be a single computer aboard the ISS that runs Windows. Beyond stability and reliability, Keith Chuvala of the United Space Alliance says they wanted an operating system that "would give us in-house control. So if we needed to patch, adjust or adapt, we could." It's worth noting that the ISS laptops used to run Windows XP, and we know they've been infected by at least one virus in their lifetime: in 2008, a Russian cosmonaut brought a laptop aboard with the W32.Gammima.AG worm, which quickly spread to the other laptops on board. Switching to Linux will essentially immunize the ISS against future infections.
That'll flummox those pesky aliens.
DRAM shortages to impact PC players in 2Q13 >> Digitimes
DRAM shortages, which started in early 2013, have become worse recently and may impact PC brand vendors' performances in the second quarter, according to sources from PC players.
Commenting on the issue, Acer chairman JT Wang pointed out that DRAM prices are likely to continue rising as many DRAM makers have switched their production lines to manufacturing smartphone DRAM, leaving insufficient capacity to supply the PC industry. Even If DRAM makers decide to switch back capacity, it will still take about 3-4 months for the process to be completed, Wang said.
Because to its DRAM inventory will be depleted at the end of May, Acer's new supply contracts in June with the latest pricing are expected to impact the company's second-quarter results, dropping from profiting slightly to only breaking even.
DDR3 4GB prices have hit $27 - up 70% since the start of the year. Acer's margins must be very sensitive for that to be the difference between profit and break-even.
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Boot up: Apple v photos, Amazon's 3D phone?, ninja Google searching and more
Fri, 10 May 2013 05:30:00 GMT
Plus Bitcoin gets some venture capital, high-frequency trading visualised, 3D gun downloads and more
A burst of 10 links for you to chew over, as picked by the Technology team
Dear Apple, let's talk about photos >> Peter Nixey
So Apple, I think you've got a bit confused. Don't worry about sharing, we don't need you for that. Your job is to take photos, organise them and make sure they don't get lost. So let's talk about how you can do that.
Makes the very good point that it's hard to work out where the 'canonical' version of a photo lives, and which ones you can safely delete without losing that version. His suggestion: stick it in the cloud. Sensible points, well made. (Thanks @Ornstein for the link.)
Amazon developing smartphone with 3D screen >> WSJ.com
The Seattle e-commerce giant has recently been developing a wide-ranging lineup of gadgets?including two smartphones and an audio-only streaming device?to expand its reach beyond its Kindle Fire line of tablet computers, said people familiar with the company's plans.
One of the devices is a high-end smartphone featuring a screen that allows for three-dimensional images without glasses, these people said. Using retina-tracking technology, images on the smartphone would seem to float above the screen like a hologram and appear three-dimensional at all angles, they said. Users may be able to navigate through content using just their eyes, two of the people said.
Remember the LG Optimus 3D? Remember how everyone bought one? No? That's because they didn't. Audio streaming sounds like a solid idea, though.
Investing in Coinbase >> Union Square Ventures
Venture capitalist Fred Wilson:
We have been thinking about and looking to make an investment in the Bitcoin ecosystem for several years. Today, we are happy to be able to talk about our first investment in the sector. We have made an investment in Coinbase along with our friends at Ribbit Capital, SV Angel and Funders Club.
We believe that Bitcoin represents something fundamental and powerful, an open and distributed Internet peer to peer protocol for transferring purchasing power. It reminds us of SMTP, HTTP, RSS, and BitTorrent in its architecture and openness. Like what happened with those other low level protocols, entrepreneurs and developers are now building technology on top of Bitcoin to make it more useful, more accessible, and more secure.
He has a good track record on investments.
3D-printed gun's blueprints downloaded 100,000 times In two days (with some help from Kim Dotcom) >> Forbes
If gun control advocates hoped to prevent blueprints for the world's first fully 3D-printable gun from spreading online, that horse has now left the barn about a hundred thousand times.
That's the number of downloads of the 3D-printable file for the so-called "Liberator" gun that the high-tech gunsmithing group Defense Distributed has seen in just the last two days, a member of the group tells me.
Dotcom's involvement is passive; the files are hosted on his site, Mega. From a safety point of view, not good - for the people who try to make the device, one suspects.
Quote Stuffing in CEO on May 29, 2012 >> Nanex
A truly amazing video:
Watch High Frequency Traders (HFT) at the millisecond level jam thousands of quotes in CEO Stock through our financial networks on May 29, 2012. Video shows about 3 seconds of time. If any of the connections are not running perfectly, High Frequency Traders can profit from the price discrepancies that result. There is no economic justification for this abusive behavior?
We slow time down so you can see what goes on at the millisecond level. A millisecond (ms) is 1/1000th of a second. The blink of an eye is about 200 ms.
High-frequency trading is now being done because it can be done.
Traceability in the Queen's Speech >> Light Blue Touchpaper
Richard Clayton:
The sole issue on which there appears to be political consensus is that "something must be done" about the traceability failure that regularly occurs when the Internet is accessed from a smartphone. The shortage of IPv4 addresses means that the mobile companies cannot give each smartphone a unique IP address ? so hundreds of users share the same IP address with only the TCP/UDP source port number distinguishing their traffic.
Because this sharing is done very dynamically the mobile phone companies find it problematic to record the source port mapping, and they have argued that the way the EU Data Retention Directive is written they have no obligation to make and keep such records.
The internet protto-col address, as the Queen called it, is a tricky beast to pin down.
Change for change's sake >> Stratechery
Ben Thompson:
The original iPhone included three communications channels: Phone, SMS, and Mail.
My homescreen has 10: Facebook, Twitter, Phone, Skype, Google Voice, WhatsApp, Messages, LINE, Lync, and Mail (and I have other, lesser-used channels on other screens). The vast majority of these channels didn't exist in 2007, or weren't widely used. Since then, social interaction has both exploded in use and fragmented in type, but iOS simply wasn't designed to support multiple channels intelligently.
So a redesign is needed...
Use these secret NSA Google search tips to become your own spy agency >> Wired.com
Kim Zetter:
The book was published by the Center for Digital Content of the National Security Agency, and is filled with advice for using search engines, the Internet Archive and other online tools. But the most interesting is the chapter titled "Google Hacking."
Say you're a cyberspy for the NSA and you want sensitive inside information on companies in South Africa. What do you do?
Search for confidential Excel spreadsheets the company inadvertently posted online by typing "filetype:xls site:za confidential" into Google, the book notes.
Want to find spreadsheets full of passwords in Russia? Type "filetype:xls site:ru login." Even on websites written in non-English languages the terms "login," "userid," and "password" are generally written in English, the authors helpfully point out.
And plenty more, err, helpful advice. (Thanks @ClarkeViper for the link.)
About that Bloomberg report of 'falling iPad mini demand' >> Fortune Tech
Philip Elmer DeWitt emailed the head of Pegatron, who seemed to be quoted saying iPad mini demand was down. The CEO response:
"After the meeting, one reporter from Bloomberg approached me, trying to dig out detail numbers about some specific product. I clearly refused to comment on specific products, nor customers, even though he continued with other questions. I did say those words that he quotes me in the article "more on demand, while price has been stable"?, "almost every item is moving in a negative direction"?; "Not just tablets, also e-books and games consoles". But I did not say anything associated with any specific products.
"'No indication, nor hint for specific products or customers' has been our principle and guideline for any public events such as investors conference. There are always speculations after these meetings."
How the Syrian Electronic Army hacked The Onion >> The Onion Tech Blog
This third and final phishing attack compromised at least two more accounts. One of these accounts was used to continue owning our Twitter account.
At this point the editorial staff began publishing articles inspired by the attack. The second article, Syrian Electronic Army Has A Little Fun Before Inevitable Upcoming Deaths At Hands Of Rebels, angered the attacker who then began posting editorial emails on their Twitter account. Once we discovered this, we decided that we could not know for sure which accounts had been compromised and forced a password reset on every staff member's Google Apps account.
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Boot up: Google v Amazon, Galaxy S4 build cost, luminous plants! and more
Thu, 09 May 2013 06:30:00 GMT
Plus Spotify fixes download exploit, Gatwick's head in the clouds, more on Windows 8 and RT, Alex on gadgets, and more
A burst of 10 links for you to chew over, as picked by the Technology team
Godzilla vs. Mothra, the sequel >> Fortune Tech
Former eBay manager and now venture capitalist Jeff Jordan:
In Google's case today, I am becoming increasingly convinced that their most challenging competitor isn't another search engine like Yahoo!, Bing, Baidu or Yahoo! Japan. It's Amazon, which is bringing a completely different take on search?in this case, product search.
Amazon is a vertical search engine focused on helping users find products. The overwhelmingly dominant way to find things on their site is the search box. Users enter a keyword phrase and are presented with results that match his or her query. The order of the search results is determined by algorithms that seek to optimize relevance and monetization. Sound familiar?
In my personal website use, I increasingly find myself searching for products on Amazon instead of Google. Shopping on Amazon is a superior user experience and it runs the table on the magical retailer formula of selection, price and convenience?Buying on Google takes chunks of an hour, not an Amazon minute.
Samsung Galaxy S4 costs $237 to build, teardown analysis shows >> AllThingsD
A teardown analysis conducted by the market research firm IHS, due to be released tomorrow, has pegged Samsung's cost of materials and manufacturing to produce the US version of the 32GB model of the S4 at slightly above $237 per unit. Without a contract subsidy, the entry-level 16GB version of the phone costs $639 when sold by AT&T Wireless.
The cost is somewhat higher than that of Apple's iPhone 5, the base model of which costs $205 to build for a 16GB version, according to an IHS analysis conducted last fall. It's also well above the cost of Nokia's Lumia 900, which costs $209 to build, IHS found at the time.
Google Wallet chief leaves the company >> VentureBeat
"We can confirm that Osama Bedier has decided to leave Google this year to pursue other opportunities," said spokesman Nate Tyler. "He's achieved a lot during his time here, and we wish him all the best in his next endeavor. Payments are a big part of what people do every day, and we're committed to making them easier for everyone."
Bedier joined Google from eBay in 2011 along with eBay's Stephanie Tilenius. Tilenius left Google last year to join venture capital firm Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers.
Google Wallet seems to be progressing slowly, if at all.
Glowing Plants: Natural Lighting with no Electricity by Antony Evan >> Kickstarter
Create GLOWING PLANTS using synthetic biology and Genome Compiler's software - the first step in creating sustainable natural lighting.
If someone doesn't use this idea in a film soon then all our efforts will have been as naught. How it works: add a fluorescence gene to a plant, and voila: natural light all night. Note: no off switch.
Spotify patches Chrome exploit that allowed MP3 downloads of any song >> The Verge
Spotify has patched an exploit that allowed a Chrome browser extension to download any song available on the music streaming service. We have tested and can confirm that the Downloadify tool is no longer able to connect to Spotify's web player. By allowing premium users to store tracks locally as part of their monthly subscription, Spotify inadvertently allowed the Downloadify tool to grab a copy of any song from its catalog of over 20m tracks.
Google moved quickly to remove Downloadify from the Chrome Web Store but it is still available via a repository on GitHub. Developer Robin Aldenhoven confirmed to The Verge that the tool no longer works, noting that Spotify had employed a more streamlined and secure protocol that makes it harder to request stored tracks.
Quick work by Spotify; the exploit was only around for a few hours.
London Gatwick Airport takes out 200 servers, moves to cloud, BYOD - Network World
Cloud computing isn't the only innovation that's sprung up at the airport. Since every Gatwick employee involved in helping people transit through the airport process today has a personal smartphone, mainly Apple iOS or Android, the airport's BYOD strategy has airport employees using their own mobile devices at work.
Wow. Every employee who helps people through the airport has their own smartphone? That's remarkable. (Thanks @modelportfolio2003 for the link.)
Circles
Surprising population statistic of the day. (Thanks @Ornstein for the link.)
Can Microsoft compete in a post-PC world? >> Tech.pinions
Steve Wildstrom:
Windows 8/RT was a radical step for Microsoft, but in the end it just didn't go far enough to succeed on tablets while perhaps going too far to win friends on the desktop. A true tablet OS simply would not have a Desktop mode that depends on a keyboard and mouse for usability, and Windows RT regularly requires going into Desktop for critical tasks (we can only hope that Blue will fix this.) The vaunted availability of Office is no advantage at all for most users because the Desktop Office apps simply don't work well on a tablet. True touch versions of Office applications are reportedly in the works, but they are not expected before late 2014.
OEMs disappointed with Windows RT are building Windows 8 tablets. The most PC-like of these may succeed as sort of Ultra-ultrabooks, Windows 8 is fundamentally unsuited to a pure tablet. It requires too much process, too much battery power, too much storage, and too much keyboard. The same OEMs, even those most loyal to Microsoft, are also hedging their bets with Android.
That may well be too late. iOS 7, expected this fall, is likely to be a major enhancement of the iPad and we may see iOS 8 before the Windows tablet software upgrade is complete. Android tablet software still lags; the operating system has not made nearly as much progress on tablets as on phones. But Google and its partners will get it right sooner or later, and probably before Microsoft.
That tablet/smartphone OSs and desktop OSs currently evolve at different rates is a big problem for Microsoft's strategy.
Alex >> Peattie & Taylor
"I suppose I'm just showing my age and I'm probably very out of touch in questioning the usefulness of some of these labour-saving devices everyone talks about." As ever with Alex, see if you can guess the punchline before it arrives in the fourth frame.
Google Glass 'Winky' app lets you snap photos by winking >> PCMag.com
Google Glass is finally rolling out to developers and early adopters, and a number of interesting experiments and hacks have already appeared. But one new Glass app is certain to raise eyebrows, figuratively and literally, because it allows you to take photos with just a wink.
Winky is an app that bypasses the side-mounted touch control panel on Glass to take a photo. The app also does away with the need to speak the photo-taking command: "ok, glass, take a picture." Instead, the user simply winks slowly after firing up the app, and the device instantly and discreetly takes photos of whatever the wearer has in Glass' sights.
If the Google Glass store is anything like Google Play, apps like this will become widespread. Not sure that this is going to make people distrustful of its privacy implications more comfortable.
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Boot up: app price woes, Syria traffic stops, Prenda Law phasered, and more
Wed, 08 May 2013 06:30:00 GMT
Plus Nokia's new China boss, first-quarter Windows 8 PC sales analysed, Google Glass positive and negative, and more
A burst of 10 links for you to chew over, as picked by the Technology team
Apps are too cheap >> Dave Addey
Addey is behind the UK Train Times, Qi and Malcolm Tucker apps:
Implementing time-limited trials isn't a new feature for the iTunes Store ? this principle already exists for Movie Rentals. I download the content; as soon as I start using it, I have a time-limited period to consume it.
One of our developers, Amy Worrall, suggested a very neat way to implement this kind of time-limited trial for apps.
This is a really important post; Addey is pointing to a really big flaw in the iOS (and, arguably, Android) app store. Windows Phone allows time trials of apps - a huge, unsung advantage. If - big if - iOS 7 introduces time trials for apps, that will be a huge step forward.
Breaking news: traffic from Syria disappears from internet >> Umbrella Security Labs
At around 18:45 UTC [Tuesday] OpenDNS resolvers saw a significant drop in traffic from Syria. On closer inspection it seems Syria has largely disappeared from the Internet.
Suspicious. (And bad news for the Syrian Electronic Army, whose site is hosted there.)
Nokia appoints new head of China sales, marketing >> WSJ.com
Nokia named a new head of its struggling China sales and marketing operation following significant declines in revenue and mobile device deliveries over the past year.
Erik Bertman, chief of Nokia's Russian business, will oversee Nokia's sales and marketing activities in China beginning June 1, Nokia spokesman Doug Dawson said Tuesday. Mr. Bertman replaces Gustavo Eichelmann, who is leaving Nokia for personal reasons, the spokesman said.
? Nokia sold only 3.4m mobile devices in China during the first quarter of 2013 compared with 9.2m in the first three months of 2012.
Nokia's decline in China was considerable last year. In the second half 2012, sales of devices and services in Greater China fell 78% on the year and the decline for the year was 68% as the company sold 27.5m devices in the region compared with 65.8m in 2011.
Judgement in the case of Ingenuity 13 LLC v John Doe >> US District Court of California
Judge Otis D Wright II in the US district court of California:
Plaintiffs have outmaneuvred the legal system. They've discovered the nexus of antiquated copyright laws, paralyzing social stigma, and unaffordable defense costs. And they exploit this anomaly by accusing individuals of illegally downloading a single pornographic video. Then they offer to settle - for a sum calculated to be just below the cost of a bare-bones defense.
But don't miss out the Star Trek quote he uses too. You simply must read this. It's not - by any means - your average judgement.
Mobile phone usage in Asia >> Jana Mobile
Last week, we at Jana ran our first in a series of weekly surveys of mobile phone users in emerging markets. The theme for last week's survey was mobile phone usage. We surveyed over 3,000 people in Bangladesh, India, Indonesia, Pakistan, The Philippines, and Vietnam. We invite you to take a look at the results of the survey below.
An interactive infographic. Informative, though.
Breakthrough in solar efficiency by UNSW team ahead of its time >> Sydney Morning Herald
At present, the best commercial solar cells convert between 17% and 19% of the sun's energy into electricity. UNSW's technique, patented this year, should produce efficiencies of between 21% and 23%.
"This has really got the industry very excited, not only in China, but elsewhere as well," said Richard Corkish, head of the university's School of Photovoltaic and Renewable Energy Engineering. Alumni of the school hold senior positions at many of the leading PV producers globally.
(Thanks @Ornstein for the link.)
Explaining Windows 8 PC sales in Q1 2013 >> SuperSite for Windows
Paul Thurrott:
One of the most frequent questions I get these days is some variation of "which Windows 8 PC or device should I buy?" The flowchart you'd need to make to arrive at a good decision would be incredibly complex because everyone's needs are so different and because, frankly, the market is perhaps too full of very different PCs and devices. Too much choice is bad. (Likewise, it doesn't help that many of those choices are frankly horrible.)
For all this uncertainty, I can say this: The biggest single issues standing in the way of Windows 8's success are the same as they've ever been: Bad perception and the continued eroding of PC viability as a business due to the continued "success" of PCs with low-ball pricing. That's right. It's the revenge of the netbook all over again.
His numbers on PC prices are, frankly, surprising. And who he blames for it? Even more so.
Nobody really likes Google Glass >> Business Insider
Jay Yarow:
It's hard to imagine going out to dinner with your wife and not getting heat for wearing Glass. Or hanging with your friends at a bar, and having them believe you're fully committed to the conversation.
Looking at your phone in front of friends sends a direct, honest signal that you are tuning them out. With Google Glass, you're doing the exact same thing, just in a more surreptitious way.
There's a lot of excitement around Google Glass right now because it's new, shiny, and exciting.
The iPad was the last new, shiny, exciting tech gadget. And that was three years ago.
Three years may not sound like a long time to you, but imagine if your entire livelihood is built around writing about new gadgets, or selling applications for new gadgets? Of course you're going to get excited about the next new thing.
Thus, the tech press, and the tech investment community, is thrilled with Google Glass.
Now, you can argue that Yarow (and BI) love having it both ways on Glass - writing posts dissing it, having people who love it writing posts, vacuuming up the page views. But Yarow (who also puts together various reviews of Glass in this) points to the "non-early adopters" (across the uncrossed chasm) point of view.
Google Glass isn't a surveillance device >> Popular Science
Dan Nosowitz:
Is Glass moving us one step closer to constant surveillance? That largely remains to be seen; Glass is a very early platform, sort of like a beta version of the very first iPhone back in 2007. It has no apps, it can do only very basic first-party things, and while it's something very new, we don't really know how it'll be used in the culture at large. Privacy advocates will and should make a stink about it; that's the only way to prevent something scary from happening. Attention from these folks might force Google to adjust; I don't see any reason not to include a blinking red "recording" light, for example.
That it's the first pass is the important point; which is why it's important to think about implications. Maybe "isn't a surveillance device yet"? (Thanks @beardyweirdy666 for the link.)
Huge attack on WordPress sites could spawn never-before-seen super botnet >> Ars Technica
Began in April; still ongoing. If you have a Wordpress site or blog then you should make sure that it's hardened. (Although by this time it might be too late, and you need to take remedial action.) Many sites are adding CAPTCHAs as front-end login pages.
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Mobile phone networks must think consumers are idiots
Tue, 07 May 2013 10:00:00 GMT
Carriers are confident we won't read the small print in their adverts ? why are they so rarely called to account?
'My goal in life has been to have just enough money to ignore 8-point Helvetica!' Thus spake a close friend one night in a quiet San Francisco bar. His objection was neither stylistic nor ophthalmologic. We were, once again, lamenting the shenanigans and ruses, the hidden fees and "some restrictions apply" (see, if you can, Sprint's mendacious use of Truly Unlimited here and here), the roach motels of mileage plans, the nickels and dimes extracted by subterfuge, legally or not. In a word, or six, the tyranny of the fine print.
By accumulating "just enough money", my friend has the luxury of not having to fight the schemers to the last dollar, of not spending hours on the phone arguing with a robohuman who has been cruelly programmed to confuse and outlast the overly-curious customer. His benign neglect allows him to keep a sunny view of life and a calm mind.
Lucky man.
Most of us don't lead such a charmed life. We can't, or shouldn't, ignore the amendments, refinements, and exceptions that belie the marketing come-ons. But the fine printers ? the airlines, credit card companies, internet providers and, most of all, the mobile phone carriers ? rely on our neglect, benign or not. They think they can prey on us, that we're too stupid or lazy to fight back, to protest their obfuscating plans and bizarre bills.
Because of their ubiquity, the cell phone carriers get the most heat. They'll sell you a $650 iPhone for a mere $200?and then recoup the $450 shortfall by adding a bit of the difference to each installment of your (mandatory) 24 month "service" contract. If you try to break the manacles, you'll pay for the fractured iron. It's right there in the fine print.
Last year, a group of concerned professionals called for an end to the confusing and wasteful smartphone subsidies. The group? The carriers themselves (see Carriers Whine: We Wuz Robbed!).
Verizon and AT&T make a spectacle of groaning under the weight of these awful subsidies. They get the Wall Street Journal and others to repeat their stories wholesale in articles such as this one: How the iPhone zapped carriers.
Horace Dediu, for one, doesn't buy the sob story:
"I repeat what I've mentioned before: The iPhone is primarily hired as a premium network service salesman. It receives a 'commission' for selling a premium service in the form of a premium price. Because it's so good at it, the premium is quite high."
Dediu's observation applies equally well to all the top smartphone brands. They're all bait, a great way to hook the customer into a revolving 24 month agreement, with high ARPUs (average revenue per user) stemming from the nature, the breadth and attractiveness of services provided by these high-end devices.
T-Mobile, the perennial dark horse, has been one of the more vocal plaintiffs. Besides clearly stating that the company didn't need the iPhone, T-Mobile has hinted that it would get rid of the blood-sucking payments to handset makers altogether.
Last month, the hints became reality. T-Mobile "re-imagined" itself as the Un-Carrier:
"With no more annual service contract required, we don't lock you into a big commitment with our Simple Choice Plan."
It's a clever idea: T-Mobile has seemingly decoupled hardware and service. If you bring your own phone, you just pay for service. If you need a phone, T-Mobile will be happy to sell you one, let's say a 16Gb iPhone 5 for $99?and as an added convenience (watch the left hand), they'll offer you a 24-month contract at just $20/month! You want out before serving your two-year sentence? No problem! Just pony up the full price of the phone; other terms and conditions may apply.
Inexplicably, some pundits (who should know better) have fallen for the pitch. Here's David Pogue in the New York Times:
"Last week, the landscape changed. T-Mobile violated the unwritten conspiracy code of cellphone carriers. It admitted that the emperors have no clothes."
The forums buzzed with the party line: It's the end of contracts and subsidies.
But the company's too-clever way with words didn't sit well with other observers. The no-contract claim is obviously disingenuous; it only applies to people bringing their own phone, a tiny minority. For typical customers ? those who get their phones from their carriers ? the manacles are too familiar.
The claim also didn't sit well with Bob Ferguson, Washington state's attorney general. Ferguson didn't dither, saying "No Dice" to T-Mobile's deceptive "No-Contract" advertising:
"As attorney general, my job is to defend consumers, ensure truth in advertising, and make sure all businesses are playing by the rules."
T-Mobile backed down. The company admitted that there actually is a contract, a subsidy, and they offered to make things right with customers who accepted the agreement under murky pretenses.
Happy ending, congratulations to the vigorous AG.
Still, what were T-Mobile execs thinking? Did they really think that we're such idiots that we can't see a 24 month obligation as a contract? What sort of corporate culture produces this type of delusion?
In theory, T-Mobile was onto a good idea. You bring your own phone, you truly pay less and you're not tied to a contract. Come in, stay as long or as little as you'd like, pay by the month.
But this isn't how the market works in practice. The rapid succession of new phones makes the latest model more desirable. As a result, carriers have an opportunity to tie their customers down by offering the newest device at an artificially low price ? and get a comfortable two-year income stream to recoup the subsidy.
Meanwhile, there's other news in the carrier world:
- Verizon is locked in difficult negotiations for the purchase of Vodafone's 45% share of the company. This is in a context where, two years ago, Vodafone made the decision to shed its participation in other carriers such as Orange, SFR or China Mobile. In their bid/ask conversations, Vodafone and Verizon are $30bn apart, Verizon offering a mere $100bn while Vodafone won't take a penny less than $130bn.
- Softbank and Dish Network are in a bidding war for Sprint, probably out of gluttony for more punishment. Masayoshi Son, Softbank's leader, graciously spared us the carrier-as-victim lament. But if Dish Chairman Charlie Ergen prevails, we can be sure this seasoned sob story practitioner will fit right in once he becomes a cellular operator.
These are the people who tell us subsidies are killing them. They really do think we're idiots.
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UK top 20 video games chart
Tue, 07 May 2013 09:16:28 GMT
Dead Island: Riptide knocks Injustice: Gods Among Us off top spot as BioShock Infinite continues its slide from number one
UKIE Games Charts © compiled by GfK Chart-Track
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Boot up: Google product lives, Motorola slapped, Apple's missed chances, and more
Tue, 07 May 2013 06:30:00 GMT
Plus Google Australia gets hacked (sorta), the sensory computer?, Android virus bypass and more
A burst of 8 links for you to chew over, as picked by the Technology team
Predicting Google closures >> gwern.net
Gwern Branwen:
Naturally, we are preached at by apologists that Google owes us nothing and if it's a problem then it's all our fault and we should've prophesied the future better (and too bad about all the ordinary people who may be screwed over or the unique history1 or data casually destroyed). But how can we have any sort of rational expectation if we lack any data or ideas about how long Google will run anything or why or how it chooses to do what it does? So in the following essay, I collect data on 350 Google products and look for predictive variables. I find some while modeling shutdown patterns, and make some predictions about future shutdowns.
This is a truly awesome analysis. Seasonality, the "just survive this long" period.
Researchers hack building control system at Google's Australian HQ >> Wired.com
On top of all of this was the accessibility they got due to the unpatched vulnerabilities.
"From that point we could have actually installed a rootkit," said [Terry] McCorkle, who first uncovered the Google system online. "We could have taken over the operating system and accessed any other control systems that are on the same network as that one. We didn't do that because that wasn't the intent?. But that would be the normal path if an attacker was actually looking to do that."
A Google spokesman confirmed the breach and said the company has since disconnected the control system from the internet. Despite the "alarm" buttons on the control panel and the blueprint showing the water pipes, he said the system the researchers accessed can control only heating and air conditioning in the building. A report about the incident produced by staff in Australia, which Google did not show Wired, indicated that the system could not be used to control electricity, elevators, door access or any other building automation, the spokesman said.
(Thanks @ClarkeViper for the link.)
Exclusive: Jon Rubinstein joins board of mobile chipmaker Qualcomm >> AllThingsD
Kara Swisher:
For Qualcomm, the selection of Rubinstein to join the board is also something to watch, as he is also the second exec from Silicon Valley to be tapped by the company recently. In March, Qualcomm hired tech investor Laurie Yoler as SVP of business development, making her "responsible for augmenting existing business relationships in Silicon Valley, as well as developing new strategic business opportunities for Qualcomm in the region."
EU rules against patent play by Google's Motorola unit >> NYTimes.com
The European Commission on Monday made a preliminary antitrust finding against Google's mobile communications unit, Motorola Mobility, for seeking and enforcing an injunction against Apple in Germany over patents essential to smartphones and tablets.
The finding, which could lead to a steep fine, comes as the commission tries to ensure that companies do not wield their patent portfolios to block others from using the technologies vital to developing some of the most popular consumer electronics."I think that companies should spend their time innovating and competing on the merits of the products they offer ? not misusing their intellectual property rights to hold up competitors to the detriment of innovation and consumer choice," Joaquín Almunia, the European Union's competition commissioner, said in a statement.
Looks like Motorola is going to cost Google even more. With those patents which Google valued at $5bn. Also in the EC's sights for similar abuse: Samsung. (Thanks @EasilyLead for the link.)
It's time to reinvent the personal computer >> Mobile Opportunity
Michael Mace:
There are pending changes in interface, hardware, and software that could be just as revolutionary as graphical computing was in the 1980s. In my opinion, this would be a huge opportunity for a company that pulls them all together and makes them work.
Introducing the Sensory Computer
I call the new platform sensory computing because it makes much richer use of vision and gestures and 3D technology than anything we have today. Compared to a sensory computer, today's PCs and even tablets look flat and uninteresting.
There are four big changes needed to implement sensory computing.
Now read on.. though 3D remains unpersuasive. See his guesses for who will actually implement this.
Dilbert comic strip for 05/06/2013 >> Scott Adams
Surely not a comment on Yahoo's new policy? (Thanks @JohnnieGoat for the link.)
Android virus scanners are easily fooled >> The H Security
Researchers at Northwestern University and North Carolina State University have discovered that anti-virus programs for Android can usually be bypassed using trivial means. The researchers developed DroidChameleon, a tool that can modify known malware apps in numerous ways to prevent them from being detected.
Most of the ten scanners they tested mainly performed signature-based analyses. In some cases, simply changing the package name in the metadata was enough for virus scanners to consider the malware harmless. Several scanners could be fooled by unpacking the malware and then creating new installation packages. In other cases, the researchers were successful after encrypting parts of the app or redirecting function calls.
Their conclusion is unambiguous: all ten anti-virus programs could be fooled in one way or another?
The researchers' findings are a further reason for users to not allow the installation of apps from untrusted sources, also called sideloading, in the first place.
(Thanks @rquick for the link.)
Apple misses IPhone customers as global carriers balk >> Bloomberg
Apple Inc is missing out on a chance to court as many as 2.8 billion new smartphone customers, many of them in Asia, as wireless-service providers balk at conditions imposed by the iPhone maker and drag their heels in signing on as partners.
Apple has announced fewer than a dozen new wireless-service providers to sell the device since September 2011, leaving the total at about 240. Holdouts represent billions of would-be subscribers in countries such as China, Japan, India and Russia, said Horace Dediu, a market analyst who runs Asymco.com. Samsung Electronics, Apple's biggest smartphone rival, sells devices through almost all of the world's 800 carriers, Asymco said.
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Boot up: Kurzweil at Google, iPhone v Windows Phone, more efficient porn!, and more
Mon, 06 May 2013 05:30:00 GMT
Plus Dediu on emerging markets and smartphones, Bitcoin and hackers, where Microsoft's Android revenue lives, and more
A burst of 13 links for you to chew over, as picked by the Technology team
Gecko-like drone can land on walls and ceilings [updated] >> Popular Science
Why make a drone that can cling to walls and land on ceilings? Sometimes, there is no other surface available, especially in a city after a disaster. Also, given the finite battery life of a vehicle, the ability to transmit information from a fixed location would mean more energy left over for flying and spying.
(Thanks @beardyweirdy666 for the link.)
Interview: How Ray Kurzweil plans to revolutionise search at Google >> Forbes
Q: it struck some people as surprising that you'd essentially become an employee after so many years as an entrepreneur.
A: It's an opportunity to have impact. That's what motivates me as an inventor. A reading machine for the blind involved some scientific breakthroughs, but the real satisfaction is having hundreds or thousands of blind people saying it has helped them get a job or an education. Here you've got around a billion people who use Google. If I can contribute to that, it has tremendous leverage in terms of helping people. It really leverages human knowledge.
Seems Google is getting into AI in a big way.
An iPhone fan's month with Windows Phone: Week four >> TechHive
Remember this?
After my third week with Windows Phone?following which I noted plenty of my complaints?I heard from a lot of ardent supporters of the platform. Some simply had different experiences than I; they found battery life superior on the Lumia 920 versus the iPhone 5 (I don't), or preferred its email client (which I find clunky and annoying). That's reasonable: This is exactly why they make both chocolate and vanilla.
Other Windows Phone defenders, however, told me that I shouldn't mind the platform's weaknesses so much, because Microsoft has promised improvements are coming, like an enhanced TellMe (its version of Siri), a Notification Center counterpart, and so on.
That's weird. I mean, it's not weird that Microsoft's working on those things?it's very, very smart?but it's weird to say that one shouldn't complain about weaknesses because the company says it's going to address them. I can't test vaporware, and I can't stick with Windows Phone just because there's a chance?no matter how good it is?that it will get better.
As it's the season for such things, it also has lots of "what iOS should do is..."
March 2013 US smartphone subscriber market share >> ComScore
The market share numbers mask what's going on among Android handset makers: Samsung is gaining fast (going from 35% of Android to 41% since September 2012), HTC is losing users, Motorola and LG are very slightly up.
What happens when pirates play a game development simulator and then go bankrupt because of piracy? >> Greenheart GamesGreenheart Games
In-game message: Boss, it seems that while many players play our new game, they steal it by downloading a cracked version rather than buying it legally. If players don't buy the games they like, we will sooner or later go bankrupt.
Slowly their in-game funds dwindle, and new games they create have a high chance to be pirated until their virtual game development company goes bankrupt.
Neat illustration of life. (Thanks @clarkeviper and @blossiekins who sent this separately.)
Horace Dediu on the bad habits of Apple analysts and why Tim Cook shouldn't be fired >> The Next Web
TNW: At what point do you believe that the majority of people in emerging markets will own smartphones (if at all)?
Dediu: The question is academic. The more important question is when will mobile broadband be available to all those who own smartphones. The economics of providing bandwidth are out of sync with the economics of providing terminals that can consume it. If it continues this way, all those smartphones will not be used for mobile data and will thus be essentially dumb.
This is a key point, often overlooked.
How I made porn 20x more efficient with Python >> Toptal
A few years ago, I was working for the 26th (at the time) most visited website in the world ? not just the porn industry: the world.
At the time, the site served up porn streaming requests with the Real Time Messaging protocol (RTMP). More specifically, it used a Flash Media Server (FMS) solution, built by Adobe, to provide users with live streams. The basic process was as follows:
The user requests access to some live stream
The server replies with an RTMP session playing the desired footageFor a couple reasons, FMS wasn't a good choice for us, starting with its costs, which included the purchasing of both:
Windows licenses for every machine on which we ran FMS.
~$4k FMS-specific licenses, of which we had to purchase several hundred (and more every day) due to our scale.
All of these fees began to rack up. And costs aside, FMS was a lacking product, especially in its functionality (more on this in a bit). So I decided to scrap FMS and write my own RTMP parser from scratch.
In the end, I managed to make our service roughly 20x more efficient.
Actually a really interesting writeup of a challenging problem about multiple video stream demands.
Let's cut through the Bitcoin hype: a hacker-entrepreneur's take >> Wired Opinion | Wired.com
Dan Kaminsky:
Of all the millions of dollars of purloined bitcoin that's floating around out there, not one Satoshi of it has been spent. That's because while most other stolen property becomes relatively indistinguishable from its legitimate brethren, everybody knows the identity of this particular stolen wealth, and can track it until the end of time.
A pallet of $100 bills that disappears in Iraq is a socialized loss against everyone who holds dollars. A million dollars of lost bitcoin carries its identity, at least as a traceable taint. This loss remains privatized, and it can be sued for, forever.
There are a small number of choke points, which someday may be asked to honor these thefts. Will the currency translators accept the money? Will the mining pools? It's really an open question. We just don't know.
Perhaps the best way to think of stolen bitcoin is as stolen art. Sure, we can hang it anywhere. Don't expect to sell it at Christie's. A resource that loses its value as soon as it is stolen, may be one that isn't stolen.
Smart and realistic.
Android licensing pacts ring up Microsoft's phone revenue >> Nasdaq
Microsoft reports patent-licensing revenue with its Entertainment & Devices division, which includes sales of Windows Phone, Xbox and Skype. In the quarter ended in March, that division's revenue jumped 56%, to $2.5bn.
"I think the bulk of the increase came from licensing," said Cem Ozkaynak, co-founder of Trefis.
Microsoft declined to comment beyond what it has disclosed in securities filings.
For the first nine months of fiscal 2013, Windows Phone revenue has risen $948 million including patent licensing and increased sales of Windows Phone licenses to manufacturers, the company disclosed in an April filing.
Up 56%? Was there a concomitant rise in Windows Phone sales?
Sony's first-mover disadvantage in smart watches >> Businessweek
Priced at $130, Sony's 1.3-inch touchscreen watch wirelessly connects to Android (GOOG) smartphones using Bluetooth technology. The gadget alerts users to incoming calls and allows them to reply to e-mails or texts with an array of prewritten messages. It even connects to Facebook (FB) and Twitter and controls a wearer's phone-based music library. The SmartWatch, about the size of an iPod nano, is a slightly smaller successor to Sony's LiveView watch.
Gee, it's been out since 2010. Wonder why we aren't all wearing LiveView?
LiveView had more limited features and was hobbled by kinks.
The newer model [released in 2012] is more stylish, but users can't enter messages and it sometimes requires daily recharging and a stable connection just to tell time reliably. "Sony was ahead of its rivals to release a watch, but it takes more than an idea to create a hit product," says Mito Securities analyst Keita Wakabayashi.
As the article points out, Sony has had - and missed - plenty of other first-mover advantages.
First 24 Hours of Google Glass >> Medium
Aaron Henshaw:
We are looking for new office space, so a few of us went to check one out in Chinatown [New York].
I had never been to this building before, so when I got off the subway I asked Glass to take me to the address.
Navigating with Glass is unreal. A Google maps navigation comes up on the screen, showing where you are and where to go. As you walk, it updates in your eye, so you only have to glance at it occasionally to see where you are going.
Very impressive. And the reactions and experiences he gets are pretty much all positive.
Cracking the search category problem >> blekko
izik is the iPad and Android tablet app from the search company Blekko:
Search engines have been trying to divide results into meaningful categories ? something better than "web, images, or news" ? for many years without success. A few experimental search engines showed a list of categories on the left-hand side of the screen, and users rarely clicked on them to see what was inside. Now that the iPad has enabled easy horizontal and vertical swiping and scrolling, the user interface for exploring multiple categories of results is much easier and prettier. izik takes full advantage of that opportunity. But the second problem with categories is the one that izik has really solved: picking good ones.
Has the potential to make standard "10 links" desktop search look like something done with a terminal window.
Motorola asks Washington court to limit Microsoft's theories of damages for potential RAND breach >> The Essential Patent Blog
In the aftermath of last week's Microsoft-Motorola RAND-setting opinion, the case will now to proceed toward an August trial date. At this trial - if it gets that far - either Judge Robart or a jury (this issue is still up in the air) will determine (1) whether Motorola breach its RAND obligations to the IEEE and ITU; (2) if a breach has occurred, whether Microsoft is entitled to damages as a result; and (3) the amount of any damages owed.
Microsoft is demanding $11m in damages inter alia for relocation of a distribution facility in Europe, which it says it did to avoid a German injunction. Motorola was in effect demanding $2bn in royalties on Wi-Fi and H.264 patents; the judge decided it should be more like $2m.
In other words, Motorola is costing Google yet more money.
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Boot up: Bitcoin gaming, Android leads tablets, a year offline, and more
Fri, 03 May 2013 07:30:00 GMT
Plus mapping bus routes via mobile, Ghana's ISP woes, HTC v Samsung, what not to put in Google Docs, and more
We're experimenting with different launch times for the Boot Up series. We'll fix on a time within the next week.
A burst of 9 links for you to chew over, as picked by the Technology team
Rogue employee turns gaming network into private Bitcoin mine >> Wired.com
If you've been playing Counter-Strike on the ESEA gaming network, you've been doing a lot more than tossing virtual hand grenades and firing virtual machine guns. You've been mining Bitcoins for an unnamed staffer inside the company that runs the network.
The mining started on April 13 and may have affected as many as 14,000 gamers.
Possibly illegal. Isn't it time someone wrote a book about "rogue employees"? News International, Google, and now ESEA...
IDC: Android now leads the tablet market with a 56.5% share >> Android Central
Jerry Hildenbrand:
These sorts of numbers make CEOs and people who count pennies pretty happy, and will be the fuel for fanboy wars across the Internet, but why are they important? I'll tell you why - because the available selection of applications designed for Android tablets sucks.
Google keeps telling developers exactly how to build their app to take advantage of the real estate on a tablet, but because there weren't that many out there, nobody listened. Sure, there are some really great applications done "right" and look fabulous on our tablets, but most of them are just the phone version blown up to fill the seven or ten inch screen on your tablet with unused white space. Have a look at iPad apps, and you'll know exactly what I mean.
Hopefully, with more Android tablets being sold than any others, developers will take notice and change this.
Only if they can monetise those apps. If they can't, then all that happens is that people have some cheap Android tablets and some blown-up apps, because why bother? (Thanks @modelportfolio2003 for the link.)
Worldwide tablet market surges ahead on strong first quarter sales >> IDC
"Sustained demand for the iPad mini and increasingly strong commercial shipments led to a better-than expected first quarter for Apple," said Tom Mainelli, Research Director, Tablets at IDC. "In addition, by moving the iPad launch to the fourth quarter of 2012, Apple seems to have avoided the typical first-quarter slowdown that traditionally occurred when consumers held off buying in January and February in anticipation of a new product launch in March."
49.2m total: more than desktops, and about equal with laptops. Apple's market share fell below 40% - but the market is growing so fast that in terms of actual units sold (comparing 1Q 2012 and 1Q 2013) it shifted nearly as many extra tablets year-on-year as Samsung did in the whole quarter (7.7m v 8.8m).
The big difference is in "Others" - which now make nearly a third of the market, compared to a quarter a year before. Those are the cheaper Android tablets which are going to overtake the market this year.
Window Socket ? solar energy powered socket by Kyuho Song & Boa Oh >> Yanko Design
Neat idea: a tiny solar panel that sticks onto a window and which you can then plug devices into. However, the total storage is only 1000mAh; it's not going to run your laptop. Mobile phone, perhaps - once it's charged. (Thanks @slimbowski for the pointer.)
Mobile phone data redraws bus routes in Africa >> BBC News
Researchers at IBM have redrawn the bus routes of Ivory Coast's largest city using mobile phone data.
The research was completed as part of the Data for Development competition run by Orange which released 2.5bn call records from 5m mobile phone users in Ivory Coast.
The anonymised data is the largest of its kind ever released.
Such data could be used by urban planners for new infrastructure projects, said IBM.
Discovery: they could reduce travel times for people by 10%. If they could have integrated it with bus timetables..
Ghana's ISPs are dying out because the mobile web is booming >> Quartz
Ghana boasts Africa's highest penetration of mobile broadband, at 23% of the population in 2011, the latest year for which figures are available. That compares with just 7% in 2010. By contrast, fixed-broadband penetration stood at a negligible 0.3% in 2011, and that's killing Ghana's internet service providers (ISPs).
For a time, running an ISP was a trendy thing. Some 150 companies presently have a license, and about 20 are operational. But many of them are finding it hard to stay afloat. Even cyber cafés, many of which are run by ISPs, are beginning to shut down. Ghana's biggest, which had 100 connections and its own satellite connection, closed in February.
One would guess that mobile broadband is a lot higher than 23% by 2013. Another unexpected consequence of the rise of the smartphone: in effect, it drives arbitrage between pricing of mobile and fixed broadband.
I'm still here: back online after a year without the internet >> The Verge
Paul Miller:
I was wrong.
One year ago I left the internet. I thought it was making me unproductive. I thought it lacked meaning. I thought it was "corrupting my soul."
It's a been a year now since I "surfed the web" or "checked my email" or "liked" anything with a figurative rather than literal thumbs up. I've managed to stay disconnected, just like I planned. I'm internet free.
And now I'm supposed to tell you how it solved all my problems. I'm supposed to be enlightened. I'm supposed to be more "real," now. More perfect.
But instead it's 8PM and I just woke up.
His experiment seems to indicate that actually you're pretty much the same person whether on or off the internet; but there's a post-connect or -disconnect phase when you behave quite differently.
HTC and Samsung >> Benedict Evans
Both companies disclose a 'sales and marketing' line. For Samsung this includes activities for the TV and domestic appliance divisions, but the way the spending has grown in recent years suggests that the great majority of the spending is for mobile - and of course the brand is the same anyway, so advertising for TVs will also bleed across to phones.
Where is this money going? Well, Samsung discloses a split in the 'sales and marketing' line - around 40% is advertising and the rest is 'sales promotion expenses' - a lot of which is sales commissions.
In Q4 2012 Samsung's budget was 13 times HTC's. Samsung hasn't disclosed the Q1 number yet, but if it dropped to, say, $2.5bn in Q1, the same proportionate shift as at the beginning of 2012, it would be about 19 times bigger
Dumped! by Google >> The Last Word On Nothing
Tienlen Ho:
In case you're wondering, in the end, I was fortunate. By Monday, a Googler filed the right internal escalation paperwork on my behalf and on Tuesday morning, six days after I lost access to my account, relayed that it had been restored.
My data was intact save for the last thing I'd worked on?a spreadsheet containing a client's account numbers and passwords. It seems that Google's engineers determined this single document violated policy and locked down my entire account. My request to get that document back is still pending.
I returned to the Google fold with eyes wide open to my responsibilities as a user. In relationship terms, I am no longer monogamous.
"Dependence on one supplier" is the new monoculture.
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