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Motorola Droid Xyboard 10.1 tablet review [Video]
posted by Technology @ 6:59 PM
Saturday, January 28, 2012
Motorola’s Xyboard tablet line is just about everything I wished the Motorola Xoom had been when it was released not even a year ago.
The Xoom, Motorola’s first attempt to build an iPad-competing tablet, was critically acclaimed when it launched last February. It even won the Best of Show award at the 2011 Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas.
But the Xoom, which sported a 10.1-inch screen, was a bit too heavy (1.6 pounds) and much too expensive (launching with an $800 price tag), and the 3G and 4G models were available only through Verizon. The 4G capabilities were also delayed about seven months, and when they did arrive, Xoom owners had to mail in their tablets to get a 4G hardware upgrade.
Thankfully, in the Xyboard, it seems Motorola has made up for most (but not all) of its missteps with the Xoom.
For one thing, the Xyboard prices are more acceptable.
The Wi-Fi-only version of the Xyboard starts at $399.99 for the 8.2-inch model and at $499.99 for the 10.1-inch model. The Verizon-exclusive 4G version, known as the Droid Xyboard, starts at $429.99 for the 8.2-inch model and at $529.99 for the 10.1-inch model — that is, as long as you sign a two-year data plan along with the tablet. (All four of the prices named are for tablets with 16 gigabytes of storage.)
Both the 8.2-inch and 10.1-inch Xyboards have touch screens with a resolution of 1280 x 800 pixels.
The Xyboard 10.1 is thin and light, and physically felt much more competitive with Apple’s iPad and Samsung’s Galaxy Tab 10.1, the two high-end tablets against which I think the Xyboard 10.1 will be competing most for consumer dollars. The Asus Transformer Prime tablet, a tablet I haven’t yet tried, is likely be in this category as well.
In my time testing the 4G-equipped Droid Xyboard 10.1, it was clear more than just the pricing strategy was different with Motorola’s new tablets.
Inside, the Xyboard 10.1 is fitted with a 1.2-gigahertz dual core processor and 1 gigabyte of RAM, which powers the tablet to speedy performance that lived up to its price tag.
In the front and rear are 5-megapixel cameras, which shoot detailed photos and 720p video out back too. They aren’t as sharp as some 5-megapixel cameras I’ve seen on smartphones like the Samsung Galaxy Nexus, Apple iPhone 4 and Nokia Lumia 710, but they’re far better than the lackluster cameras in the iPad 2 and the Galaxy Tab.
The Xyboard 10.1 is just 0.35 inches thick and weighs 1.32 pounds, making the inclusion of such high-resolution cameras and a rear LEG flash all the more impressive. It also has dual stereo speakers in the back, which sound good for a tablet (better than speakers on the iPad and the Galaxy Tab 10.1) but don’t replace a good set of headphones.
The displays on the Xyboard 10.1 were another high point, responding to touch input quickly and rendering websites, apps and videos sharply, clearly and brightly. Unlike the iPad or the Galaxy Tab 10.1, the Xyboard has a mini-HDMI port built in, so it’s easy to hook the tablet up to a TV set.
The Xyboard 10.1 is also compatible with a stylus (sold separately) that works well for taking notes and simple sketching. Motorola has preloaded the tablet with is own Floating Note and Evernote apps, which both work well.
I do have a major complaint with the Xyboard’s inability to let a user rest his or her palm on the tablet while using the stylus. Anyone who draws regularly knows that your hand often rests on the surface you’re drawing on. The need to raise your hand above the screen makes the Xyboard basically unusable as a drawing tool for long periods of time. The Xyboard isn’t going to replace artist tablets such as Wacom’s products.
The Xyboard 10.1 is covered in a water-resistant nano coating. For the sake of testing, I poured liquids on the tablet and easily whipped the device on, and it worked with no problems. I still wouldn’t recommend dropping the Xyboard into a bucket of water to see how it holds up, but the water resistance makes a lot of sense. I would love to see this feature on more tablets and hopefully phones too.
The edges of the Xyboard 10.1 and 8.2 are coated in a grippy rubberized material that is comfortable to hold while surfing the Web, watching videos or reading an ebook for a long period of time.
But this thoughtfulness of design didn’t carry over to the power and volume buttons, which are on the back of the tablet and nearly flush with the surface. The result: I frequently flipped around the Xyboard to see the buttons I wanted to use. After a while, I did get somewhat used to this, but the buttons are among the least convenient I’ve found on a tablet. This was a problem on the Xoom as well.
I averaged about seven to eight hours of battery life out of the Xyboard 10.1, which is good for a 4G tablet. But charging from an almost depleted battery took about three or four hours, which is much longer than I would like.
Verizon’s 4G service was fast, but unless you plan to use the Xyboard outside with no nearby Wi-Fi signal, opting for the Wi-Fi-only version makes a lot more sense to me, and it would save you from having to pay at least $30 a month in data-plan charges for the next two years.
All in all, the Xyboard has some quirks and some forward-thinking features that, in my opinion, place it ahead of the Galaxy Tab 10.1 as a daily-use tablet running Google’s Android Honeycomb operating system. THe Xyboard is due for an upgrade to Android Ice Cream Sandwich, which I’m excited about. But for now, Honeycomb is a solid OS for a tablet.
If I had to choose an Android tablet to own, I’d choose the Xyboard 10.1 over the Galaxy Tab 10.1, which is a fine piece of hardware in its own right. The Xyboard 10.1 feels as though it’s made with better materials — the Galaxy Tab has a plasticky feel, and the Xyboard’s speakers and cameras are higher quality as well.
What really prevents the Xyboard from topping the iPad 2 as my favorite tablet is the app selection found on Android. This isn’t Motorola’s fault — it seems to be a side effect of Android tablet sales being much smaller than iPad sales. With low Android tablet sales across the board (in the last three months of last year, Motorola sold 200,000 tablets while Apple sold 15.43 million iPads), developers largely have not designed apps specifically for Android tablets.
It’s a shame because even apps that could be considered essential, such as Twitter’s own Twitter app, don’t work as well on Android tablets as on iPads. On the Xyboard and the Galaxy Tab, the Twitter app is simply a stretched-out version of the Android phone app. The experience is far from ideal and it sure isn’t pretty.
Other apps designed for the large screen, such as news reading app Pulse and Amazon’s Kindle reading app, look and work great on Android tablets, but these experiences are few and far between.
Until developers start treating Android with the same attention and care that they do iOS, great hardware like the Xyboard 10.1 will be hamstrung by inadequate apps.
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Galaxy Nexus, on Android Ice Cream Sandwich, review [Video]
– Nathan Olivarez-Giles
Nathan Olivarez-Giles on Google+
Photo: Pouring water on the water-resistant Motorola Droid Xyboard 10.1 tablet. Credit: Armand Emamdjomeh / Los Angeles Times
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Aneesh Chopra, the first White House chief of technology, resigns
posted by Technology @ 6:58 PM
Friday, January 27, 2012
Aneesh Chopra, the first White House chief of technology, has resigned after almost three years on the job.
Chopra’s resignation was announced in a post on the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy’s blog that did not explain why he’s leaving the Obama administration. The Washington Post reported that he is rumored to be considering a run for lieutenant governor in Virgina.
“When President Obama came into office in January 2009, the administration found a federal government relying too heavily on 20th century technology,” John P. Holdren, director of the Office of Science and Technology Policy, said in the blog post. “On his first day on the job, the president created the position of ‘chief technology officer.’”
Chopra was sworn in as the first U.S. chief technology officer May 22, 2009. The job called for “looking at ways technology can spur innovations that help government do a better and more efficient job.”
Holdren said Chopra had “a dizzying array of accomplishments” while in office, which included input on crafting the president’s National Wireless Initiative, which calls for “the development of a nationwide public safety broadband network”; establishing “a set of Internet policy principles, including the call for a Consumer Privacy Bill of Rights”; and leading “the implementation of the president’s open government strategy focused on unlocking the innovative potential of the federal government to solve problems and seed the jobs and industries of the future.”
Obama, who is known as a more tech-friendly president than his predecessors, said in a statement that Chopra “did groundbreaking work to bring our government into the 21st century. Aneesh found countless ways to engage the American people using technology, from electronic health records for veterans, to expanding access to broadband for rural communities, to modernizing government records.”
The White House under Obama has used technology — social media in particular — much more than previous administrations. This can be attributed to the rise in popularity of social networks such as Facebook and Twitter, but Chopra may have had an influence as well.
Before his White House job, Chopra was chief technology officer for the state of Virgina. On “The Daily Show,” host Jon Stewart once jokingly called Chopra the “Indian George Clooney.”
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– Nathan Olivarez-Giles
Nathan Olivarez-Giles on Google+
Photo: Aneesh Chopra smiles during a roundtable discussion at the 2010 International CTIA Wireless convention in Las Vegas. Credit: Ethan Miller / Getty Images
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Facebook IPO filing reportedly due ‘as early as next week’
posted by Technology @ 2:47 PM
Friday, January 27, 2012
Facebook's initial public offering has been anticipated for months and is speculated to be worth as much as $100 billion whenever it arrives.
And right about now, that's the biggest question for the world's largest social network — when will the IPO filing arrive?
According to a Friday report from the Wall Street Journal, citing unnamed sources, Facebook could file for its IPO "as early as next week."
When next week? The Journal says "Facebook could file papers for the IPO as early as this coming Wednesday, but that timing is still being discussed, said a person familiar with the matter."
Facebook, for its part, hasn't said when its inevitable IPO will arrive, but the rumor mill is in high gear.
On Wendesday, multiple reports said that the Menlo Park, Calif., company had temporarily suspended trading of company shares on private markets so it could tally up just how many shareholders it has — a move sometimes made ahead of an IPO.
The IPO is expected to be the largest of the year and possibly the decade and, as noted by the Times' Jessica Guynn and Walter Hamilton, it could turn as many as 1,000 Facebook employees into millionaires. Facebook has more than 800 million users worldwide and it's expected to also reach 1 billion users soon as well.
Wall Street clicks 'like' on Facebook IPO
Facebook reportedly suspends share trading ahead of IPO
Facebook IPO: Could Facebook be worth more than $100 billion?
– Nathan Olivarez-Giles
Nathan Olivarez-Giles on Google+
Photo: Facebook's thumbs-up "Like" icon is displayed on a sign at the company's new campus in Menlo Park, Calif. Facebook hopes to accommodate over 6,000 employees on the new campus, which is spread out over a million square feet of office space. Credit: David Paul Morris/Bloomberg
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#TwitterBlackout: Tweeters protest nation-specific blocks [Updated]
posted by Technology @ 12:51 PM
Friday, January 27, 2012
Twitter faced a growing backlash on Friday, less than a day after it announced that it can now block specific tweets from being published in specific countries that legally require such censorship.
On Friday, a day after the country-specific plan was announced, #TwitterBlackout and #TwitterCensored were trending topics on the hugely popular social network.
In the case of #TwitterBlackout, thousands of users from around the world threatened to boycott using the service on Jan. 28, with the hactivist group Anonymous among those calling on tweeters to skip the site for a day. The group Reporters Without Borders issued a letter on its website to Twitter's executive chairman, Jack Dorsey, asking him to "reverse a policy that violates freedom of expression."
The trending topic #TwitterCensorship was filled mostly with tweets from users complaining that Twitter shouldn't be censoring any of its users. Fear over increased censorship also was widely expressed, as was some frustration as some believe Twitter's new policy may result in less censorship, not more.
In the past, Twitter only withdrew a user's tweet globally — meaning the entire world wouldn't be able to see a tweet if the site censored it. But now, the San Francisco company has built a tool that allows them to censor tweets just in the country that calls for the censorship, but others outside of that nation will be able to view the message share on the service.
Twitter said Thursday in a blog post that it doesn't want to censor anyone's tweets but legally has to do so in certain cases, such as France's and Germany's ban on "pro-Nazi content."
The company also said it has teamed with the free-speech and online-rights website ChillingEffects.org — an online partnership between the Electronic Frontier Foundation and Harvard, Stanford, Berkeley, University of San Francisco, University of Maine, George Washington School of Law and Santa Clara University School of Law clinics — to document who is asking for a tweet to be censored and why. Such notices will be published at chillingeffects.org/twitter.
Jillian C. York, the Electronic Frontier Foundation's director of international freedom of expression, argued in a blog post defending the company that the move doesn't "represent a sea change in Twitter's policies."
"It's been difficult to comment on the move given the extreme reaction by Twitter's own community," York said. "Lots of 'I told you so' from the conspiracy theorists who think that this is because of Saudi Prince Alwaleed's stake in the company, compounded by the #occupy crowd continuing to claim their hashtag was censored in Twitter's trending topics made me want to avoid the subject entirely."
But, of course, York doesn't avoid the subject.
"Let's be clear: This is censorship," she said. "There's no way around that. But alas, Twitter is not above the law. Just about every company hosting user-generated content has, at one point or another, gotten an order or government request to take down content. Google lays out its orders in its Transparency Report. Other companies are less forthright. In any case, Twitter has two options in the event of a request: Fail to comply, and risk being blocked by the government in question, or comply (read: censor). And if they have 'boots on the ground', so to speak, in the country in question? No choice."
Nonetheless, York said she understands why people are angry.
"Twitter has previously taken down content — for DMCA requests, at least — and will no doubt continue to face requests in the future," she said, referencing Twitter blocking tweets in the past to follow DMCA copyright laws. "I believe that the company is doing its best in a tough situation…and I'll be the first to raise hell if they screw up."
[Updated 3:03 p.m.: Twitter updated it's blog post on the censorship changes in response to the user backlash seen over the last day.
The company said that it believes "new, more granular approach to withheld content is a good thing for freedom of expression, transparency, accountability -- and for our users. Besides allowing us to keep Tweets available in more places, it also allows users to see whether we are living up to our freedom of expression ideal."
Twitter also answered threee questions it says it has been asked since Thursday. The questions and answers from Twitter:
Q: Do you filter out certain Tweets before they appear on Twitter?
A: No. Our users now send a billion Tweets every four days -- filtering is neither desirable nor realistic. With this new feature, we are going to be reactive only: that is, we will withhold specific content only when required to do so in response to what we believe to be a valid and applicable legal request.As we do today, we will evaluate each request before taking any action. Any content we do withhold in response to such a request is clearly identified to users in that country as being withheld. And we are now able to make that content available to users in the rest of the world.
Q: What will people see if content is withheld?
A: If people are located in a country where a Tweet or account has been withheld and they try to view it, they will see a alert box that says "Tweet withheld" or "@Username withheld" in place of the affected Tweet or account.Q: Why did you take this approach, and why now?
A: There's no magic to the timing of this feature. We've been working to reduce the scope of withholding, while increasing transparency, for a while. We have users all over the world and wanted to find a way to deal with requests in the least restrictive way.]
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Twitter can now censor tweets nationally, rather than globally
Twitter blasts prominence of Google+ in Google's revamped search results
– Nathan Olivarez-Giles
Nathan Olivarez-Giles on Google+
Images: Screen shots of Twitter users complaining about Twitter's new nation-specific censorship policy. Credit: Twitter
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Motorola sells 200,000 tablets, reports $80-million loss
posted by Technology @ 11:19 PM
Thursday, January 26, 2012
Motorola Mobility sold 1 million tablets in 2011 – with only 200,000 Xooms and Xyboards sold in the fourth quarter of the year, a quarter in which the company also reported an $80-million loss.
The consumer electronics maker reported the low tablet sales and negative earnings on Thursday in its quarterly earnings report. The loss came on revenue of $3.44 billion in the fourth quarter. A year earlier, the company reported a fourth-quarter profit of $80 million on $3.43 billion in revenue.
For the full year, Motorola reported a loss of $249 million on $13 billion in revenue, up from an $86-million loss on $11.5 billion in revenue in 2010.
Product shipments are also down year over year for the fourth quarter. Motorola shipped 10.5 million phones and tablets (all of which run Google's Android operating system) in the last three months of 2011, down from 11.3 million in the fourth quarter of 2010.
In 2011 as a whole, Motorola shipped 42.4 million mobile devices, up from 37.3 million devices shipped in 2010.
Motorola also said it remains "energized by the proposed merger with Google and continue to focus on creating innovative technologies." The Google takeover is still awaiting approval from regulators in a number of countries, but Motorola said it expects the $12.5-billion deal to "close in early 2012 once all conditions have been satisfied."
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Google agrees to buy Motorola Mobility for $12.5 billion
Apple earnings: $97.6 billion in the bank, and other highlights
Motorola Mobility sues Apple over patents, probably with Google's blessing
– Nathan Olivarez-Giles
Nathan Olivarez-Giles on Google+
Photo: Motorola's Droid Xyboard 10.1 tablet on display at Motorola Mobility's booth at the 2012 Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas. Credit: David Becker/Getty Images
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Twitter can now censor tweets nationally, rather than globally
posted by Technology @ 6:07 PM
Thursday, January 26, 2012
The San Francisco-based company said Thursday that it will now be able to censor tweets in specific countries that ask it to do so for legal reasons, rather than having to block tweets globally as before.
"As we continue to grow internationally, we will enter countries that have different ideas about the contours of freedom of expression," the company said in a blog post. "Some differ so much from our ideas that we will not be able to exist there. Others are similar but, for historical or cultural reasons, restrict certain types of content, such as France or Germany, which ban pro-Nazi content."
Up until this point, Twitter was only able to censor tweets worldwide, which means nobody would get to see a blocked tweet, the company said.
"Starting today, we give ourselves the ability to reactively withhold content from users in a specific country — while keeping it available in the rest of the world," Twitter said. "We have also built in a way to communicate transparently to users when content is withheld, and why."
When a tweet is blocked in a country, a message will appear stating that the tweet has been withheld in that nation alongside a link that explains the reason as to why the tweet was blocked.
"We haven't yet used this ability, but if and when we are required to withhold a Tweet in a specific country, we will attempt to let the user know, and we will clearly mark when the content has been withheld," Twitter said. "As part of that transparency, we've expanded our partnership with Chilling Effects to share this new page, http://chillingeffects.org/twitter, which makes it easier to find notices related to Twitter."
Twitter says in its help center that the ability to block a tweet in a specific nation will allow it to "respect our user's expression, while also taking into consideration applicable local laws."
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– Nathan Olivarez-Giles
Nathan Olivarez-Giles on Google+
Images: Screen shots of what blocked content will look like. Credit: Twitter
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Google+ now open to teens, with a few security tweaks too
posted by Technology @ 2:52 PM
Thursday, January 26, 2012
Google+ opened up to teenagers on Thursday, a move that Google no doubt hopes will help it challenge Facebook as the social network of choice.
"Teens and young adults are the most active Internet users on the planet," said Bradley Horowitz, Google's vice president of products, in a post on his Google+ page. "And surprise, surprise: they're also human beings who enjoy spending time with friends and family. Put these two things together and it's clear that teens will increasingly connect online."
While minors will now be able to use Google+, the experience on the social network won't be exactly the same for them as the 18-and-older crowd. Google has made a few privacy and security changes with teens in mind that Horowitz said will make Google+ a more ideal network to use for sharing and connecting with friends than other services.
"Unfortunately, online sharing is still second-rate for this age group," he said of teenagers. "In life, for instance, teens can share the right things with just the right people (like classmates, parents or close ties). Over time, the nuance and richness of selective sharing even promotes authenticity and accountability. Sadly, today's most popular online tools are rigid and brittle by comparison, so teens end up over-sharing with all of their so-called "friends.' "
The ability to share on Google+ to specific "circles" of friends is a start Horowitz said, but the social network is also giving users "control over who can contact them online. By default, only those in teens' circles can say hello, and blocking someone is always just a click or two away."
Google+'s Hangout video chats will also be tweaked for teens. "If a stranger outside a teen's circles joins the hangout, we temporarily remove the young adult, and give them a chance to rejoin," he said.
Previously, Google+ was only open to users who were 18 years old and up. Now, Horowitz said, anyone who is old enough for a Google account of any sort is old enough for Google+. And in all but Spain (14), South Korea (14) and the Netherlands (16), that age is 13.
Facebook, which boasts more than 800 million users, is open to anyone 13 and older. Google+ has about 90 million users, the tech giant said earlier this month.
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– Nathan Olivarez-Giles
Nathan Olivarez-Giles on Google+
Image: An example of the prompt a teenage Google+ user under age 18 will receive whenever someone they don't have included in a contact "circle" on the social network joins in on a Hangout video chat session. Credit: Google
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Nokia loses $1.38 billion in Q4, sells 1 million Windows Phones
posted by Technology @ 11:30 AM
Thursday, January 26, 2012
Nokia's multibillion-dollar bet on Microsoft's Windows Phone operating system is still in its early stages, but so far the bet is a financially losing one. Though, there are glimmers of hope.
The Finnish phone-maker reported a $1.38-billion loss for the fourth quarter of 2011 on Thursday, but the company also said that it has sold "well over 1 million Lumia devices to date."
While the Lumia sales so far don't come close to challenging heavyweights such as Apple's iPhone, which sold about 37 million units in the same three-month period, the consumer uptake is notable considering that the Lumias aren't sold in nearly as many markets as rival phones from Apple, Samsung and HTC.
The Lumia line is Nokia's first range of handsets running on the Windows Phone software, and since the series debut in October, Nokia has released just two phones — the Lumia 710 and the Lumia 800 — to Europe, Hong Kong, India, Russia, Singapore, South Korea and Taiwan.
Only the Lumia 710 is currently available in the U.S. The newly announced Lumia 900, a phone designed specifically for the U.S. market, is expected to hit stores as early as March. Nokia has yet to launch its Lumia phones in China or Latin America, though the company said in a statement that would happen sometime in the first six months of the year.
Overall Nokia sales fell 21% in the last three months of the year, while smartphone shipments fell 31% from a year ago. Much of Nokia's smartphone dip is attributable to the decline in popularity of phones running the company's Symbian and MeeGo operating systems as consumers have turned to Google's Android platform and the iPhone. When Nokia agreed to take on Windows Phone, it stated that it would abandon Symbian and MeeGo as well.
The company's $1.38-billion fourth quarter loss follows a profit of about $980 million a year earlier.
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– Nathan Olivarez-Giles
Nathan Olivarez-Giles on Google+
Photo: A Nokia Lumia 800 smartphone sits on display inside a Nokia retail store in Helsinki, Finland. Credit: Ville Mannikko / Bloomberg
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Nokia’s Lumia 900 Windows Phone may launch at $99
posted by Technology @ 5:04 PM
Wednesday, January 25, 2012
Nokia's eagerly awaited Lumia 900 might undercut rival flagship phones on price in a big way, according to new reports Wednesday.
How big? Well, the tech sites BGR and CNet are reporting that an unnamed "trusted source" has told them that the Lumia 900 will sell for about $99 on a two-year data plan and launch March 18.
If the rumor is true, the AT&T-exclusive smartphone would come in at about half the price of the entry-level Apple iPhone 4S and even less than half the price of the Samsung Galaxy Nexus. AT&T officials declined to comment on the reports.
That's a pretty good price considering the hardware the Lumia 900 offers (I was expecting a price of about $200 but no lower than about $150).
The Lumia 900 — which I got a bit of hands-on time with at the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas this month — features 4.3-inch touch screen with a resolution of 480 by 800 pixels.
The unique-looking new Nokia will also be available with either cyan or black bodies, a 1.4-gigahertz Qualcomm processor, 512 megabytes of RAM and 16 gigabytes of built-in storage.
An 8-megapixel camera that can shoot up to 720p video is on back, while a 1.3-megapixel front-facing camera sits above the Lumia 900's display.
So, do you think $99 is a fair price for the Lumia 900? Would $199 have been a better price? Feel free to sound off in the comments and check out our hands-on video with the Lumia 900 from CES below.
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– Nathan Olivarez-Giles
Nathan Olivarez-Giles on Google+
Photo: The Nokia Lumia 900 in the foreground, with the Lumia 800 in the middle and an Apple iPhone 4S in the rear. Credit: Armand Emamdjomeh / Los Angeles Times
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Facebook reportedly suspends share trading ahead of IPO
posted by Technology @ 2:09 PM
Wednesday, January 25, 2012
Facebook Inc. has reportedly frozen the trading of its shares on secondary markets through Friday, a move that might be made in preparation for the company's expected initial public offering.
Buy and sell orders can be made, but the world's largest social network won't approve or reject any transaction Wednesday, Thursday or Friday, according to a reports from both Bloomberg News and the New York Times, which each cited unnamed sources.
Officials at Facebook were unavailable for comment on the reports Wednesday, but for months speculation has been rampant over just when the Palo Alto company would sell stock on public markets for the first time.
As we've reported before, Facebook's IPO, whenever it comes, could be as worth as much as $10 billion, which would place the social networking giant's market value at more than $100 billion.
The move to temporarily suspend trading might be taking place so Facebook can get a count on just how many shareholders it has among employees, investors and traders who picked up company stock on private secondary markets. Or the freeze may be attributable to Facebook preparing a pre-IPO prospectus of its financial information, Bloomberg said, noting that companies don't want secondary-market investors trading stock with the prospectus out before going public.
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– Nathan Olivarez-Giles
Nathan Olivarez-Giles on Google+
Photo: Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg shows off the Timeline view at the company's F8 developer conference in September in San Francisco. Credit: David Paul Morris / Bloomberg
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Microsoft releases Hotmail app for Amazon’s Kindle Fire
posted by Technology @ 10:03 AM
Wednesday, January 25, 2012
Microsoft's Hotmail service now has a Kindle Fire app.
OK, this may not be as exciting as Google releasing a Gmail app for Apple's iPhone, and there is still no native Gmail app for the Fire. But the Hotmail app for the Fire should be a worthwhile release for many owners of Amazon's popular 7-inch tablet due to the addition of Exchange Active Sync.
Unlike Amazon's included email app on the FIre, which merely downloads your messages via POP3, Microsoft's Hotmail app will synch emails, contacts, folders and subfolders, said David Law, Microsoft's director of Hotmail product management, in a blog post.
While the free Hotmail app for the Fire is technically an Android app, the version for Amazon's tablet is different from the standard Hotmail Android app used by more than 3 million people, Law said.
The differences between the Fire Hotmail app and the standard Android Hotmail app have to do with the changes Amazon made to Android to create the Fire-specific operating system it runs on its tablet, which as we've noted before is unlike any other version of Android out there.
"Because the Kindle Fire uses a different implementation of Android, we needed to make some updates to our previous Hotmail app for Android to ensure it worked well," Law said. "Now that we've finished the work and the app is ready, we're excited to give customers a great Hotmail experience on the Kindle Fire."
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– Nathan Olivarez-Giles
Nathan Olivarez-Giles on Google+
Image: A screen shot of the Hotmail app listing in Amazon's Appstore for Android. Credit: Microsoft / Amazon
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Droid Razr Maxx with bigger battery to launch on Verizon
posted by Technology @ 7:40 PM
Tuesday, January 24, 2012
When I reviewed the Motorola Droid Razr in November, I had a lot of good things to say about the Verizon-exclusive handset, but I also had a complaint when it came to battery life.
"Daily charging would be a part of life with the Razr and anyone considering buying this phone should have a charger at home, work and in the car," I wrote.
And evidently, I wasn't the only one who thought the Razr could do better when it came to holding a charge — lots of other tech critics complained too. Motorola seems to have agreed also, which is why the company is releasing the Droid Razr Maxx through Verizon on Thursday.
The Razr Maxx, as I reported before, is the same fantastic phone as the Razr, but it features a bigger battery.
With a bigger battery comes a thicker phone, so the Razr Maxx will be 0.35-inches thick compared with the Razr, which is just 0.28-inches thick. Yeah, they're both pretty thin, but the Razr Maxx won't be able to claim its place as the thinnest 4G phone on the market the way the original Razr does.
Other specs included a 4.3-inch screen, 1.2-gigahertz processor, an 8-megapixel rear-facing camera that can shoot 1080-pixel video, a front-facing camera for video chat and 32 gigabytes of storage (16 gigabytes of storage built into the phone and the rest coming on a 16-gigabyte microSD card).
The price for the Droid Maxx will be the same as the skinnier Razr when it launched — $299.99 on a two-year Verizon data plan. The first Razr was dropped to $199.99 earlier this month. Both run on Google's Android Gingerbread operating system.
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– Nathan Olivarez-Giles
Nathan Olivarez-Giles on Google+
Image: The Motorola Droid Razr Maxx. Credit: Verizon Wireless/Motorola
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Apple earnings: $97.6 billion in the bank, and other highlights
posted by Technology @ 5:21 PM
Tuesday, January 24, 2012
Apple just reported its best quarter of all time, as covered by my colleague David Sarno here on the Technology blog.
The Cupertino tech giant reported a boost in sales of iPads, iPhones and Mac computers (but not iPods), pushing it into a record quarterly revenue of $46.33 billion and $13 billion in profit for the first quarter of the company's 2012 fiscal year.
Let's take a closer look at Apple's huge numbers for the quarter ended Dec. 31, which showed strong holiday sales and sent shares in the company up 8% after the markets closed Tuesday.
Cash balance — One major number to note from Apple's earnings report, as mentioned in its earnings call, is that the company has a cash balance of $97.6 billion, up from $81 billion a year ago.
That's a massive amount to be sitting in the bank and it's a sum Apple will spend in part on developing new products that will help it remain competitive against rivals such as Samsung, Sony, HTC and Motorola.
Revenue — Apple racked up $46.33 billion in sales in the 14-week quarter, which is up from $26.74 billion in the same quarter a year ago.
Profit — The tech giant reported a $13-billion profit last quarter, which is more than double the profit the company reported for its first fiscal quarter of 2011.
IPhones — Apple sold 37.04 million iPhones in the last three months of 2011, which marks 128% growth from a year earlier, when the company sold 16.25 million iPhones.
IPads — Sales of the ever-popular Apple tablet grew 111% when compared to the year-earlier quarter, with 15.43 million iPads sold for the company's fiscal 2012 first quarter versus 7.33 million iPads sold in the first quarter of 2011.
IPods — The iPod isn't dead yet, but it is on the decline. Apple sold 15.4 million iPods last quarter, down 21% from 19.45 million iPods sold a year earlier.
Mac computers — Apple's Mac line of desktop and laptop PCs — which includes MacBooks, iMacs, Mac Minis and the Mac Pro — saw a 26% increase in sales from the year-ago quarter, with 5.2 million Macs sold in the first fiscal quarter of 2012 and 4.13 million Macs sold in the first fiscal quarter of 2011.
"Portables," which would include the MacBook Air and MacBook Pro laptops, made up the majority of Macs purchased, with 3.71 million units sold last quarter, up from 2.9 million sold a year ago. Apple sold 1.48 million desktops last quarter, up from 1.23 million sold a year earlier.
Looking ahead, Apple said Tuesday that it is projecting it will record about $32.5 billion in revenue in the second quarter of its fiscal year.
[Updated: An earlier version of this post incorrectly stated that Apple's profit for the first quarter of its fiscal year was $6 billion. Apple reported a $13 billion profit last quarter and recorded $6 billion in profit a year earlier.]
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– Nathan Olivarez-Giles
Nathan Olivarez-Giles on Google+
Photo: An Apple Store in San Francisco. Credit: Justin Sullivan/Getty Images
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Tweets deny that Anonymous will try to hack into Facebook
posted by Technology @ 2:45 PM
Tuesday, January 24, 2012
Anonymous has lobbed many online attacks against high-profile websites, but so far the hacktivist group has never hacked into the world's largest social network, Facebook.
And, if you believe most Anonymous connected Twitter accounts, that won't be changing anytime soon — despite ongoing rumors and a YouTube video stating an Anonymous-backed Facebook strike is planned for Saturday.
The question of whether Anonymous will attack Facebook got started with that YouTube video, published Monday. The video, which can be seen above, states that the group is targeting the social network as a part of an online war in reaction to two controversial online anti-piracy bills known as SOPA and PIPA that were abandoned by several Washington politicians last week.
"Hello. People of the world. We are Anonymous," a computer generated voice-over says in the video. "The time has come. An online war has begun between Anonymous, the people, and the government of the United States. While SOPA and PIPA may be postponed from Congress, this does not guarantee that our internet rights will be upheld."
Later, the video states that "while it is true that Facebook has at least 60,000 servers, it is still possible to bring it down. Anonymous needs the help of the people, the people who want to take a stand against the government. The people who want to make a difference. This is what we must do."
On Monday, just a few hours after the video was published on YouTube, the @AnonOps Twitter account — which many believe to be an authentic Anonymous account — said there were no plans to hit Facebook.
"Again we must say that we will not attack #Facebook! Again the mass media lie," one tweet said.
Another tweet repeated the denial of the YouTube video, stating "AGAIN: 'Anonymous Threatens Facebook Shutdown Jan' IS A FAKE. RT PLEASE."
But while the attack may not be a legitimate Anonymous operation, and while it may never even take place, the group's lack of hacks against Facebook isn't for a lack of threats.
Rogue members of the collective, which has no publicly clear leadership structure, and possibly even impostors have threatened attacks against Facebook multiple times in the past. Notably, one such threat last August planned for Guy Fawkes Day on Nov. 5 never panned out.
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– Nathan Olivarez-Giles
Nathan Olivarez-Giles on Google+
Image: A screenshot of a tweet from the @AnonOps account that denies the hacker group Anonymous will attack Facebook. Credit: Twitter
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Apple loses bid to ban Samsung Galaxy Tab 10.1 in Netherlands
posted by Technology @ 11:42 AM
Tuesday, January 24, 2012
For the second time, a Netherlands court has denied Apple its request for a ban on sales of the Samsung Galaxy Tab 10.1 tablet, whose design Apple says illegally copies the iPad's.
The Samsung victory, first reported on the blog Foss Patents run by patent expert Florian Mueller, came Tuesday in The Hague, where an appeals court ruled that the Samsung device — which runs on Google's Android operating system – doesn't steal from the iPad's patented design.
The Dutch court's decision, which upheld a lower-court ruling made in August, is another setback for Apple in its worldwide patent battle against South Korea-based Samsung.
Last month, a U.S. district court in San Jose denied Apple's request for a ban on the Galaxy Tab 10.1 before a July trial on Apple's lawsuit in that court. Also in December, a temporary ban on the Samsung tablet in Australia expired. The dispute is set to go to trial in Australia in March.
Apple last week filed two new patent suits against Samsung in Germany, seeking a ban on 10 Samsung phones and five tablets.
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– Nathan Olivarez-Giles
Nathan Olivarez-Giles on Google+
Photo: An Apple iPad 2, left, and a Samsung Galaxy Tab 10.1 at a store in the Netherlands. Credit: Robert Vos / EPA
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SoundCloud hits 10 million users, launches Story Wheel web app
posted by Technology @ 9:46 PM
Monday, January 23, 2012
SoundCloud announced Monday that it has reached a milestone: more than 10 million users and 5 million downloads of the SoundCloud mobile app.
But what's probably more interesting to SoundCloud users is a new Instagram-compatible Web app called Story Wheel that the Berlin company launched Monday.
"It's a really big thing for us to have the community get to that point," Alex Ljung, SoundCloud's co-founder and chief executive, said in an interview. "It's just been a great last year for us. Everything has sort of ramped up faster and faster and recently we're signing up about a million users a month."
The audio-hosting and -streaming service, which we've said aspires to be the YouTube of audio, has grown largely by word of mouth, Ljung said.
"The SoundCloud community is really pushing it forward," he said. "We see now super clearly that sound is mobile with the number of sign-ups and usage growth on the mobile app side. We've also seen over the last year just how wide sound can be beyond music."
One example of that diversity is that there are more than 3.3 million tags that SoundCloud users identify their recordings with, Ljung said.
Another example of SoundCloud's "sound is more than music" ethos is the Story Wheel app, which is essentially an online version of a slide show with a projector sound effects, to re-create the feeling of sharing photos the old-school way with friends and family.
The app enables users to import in photos from the popular iPhone photo-sharing app Instagram and add recorded narration — hosted by SoundCloud — to go with the pictures.
On Monday, Ljung and SoundCloud co-founder and Chief Technology Officer Eric Wahlforss posted a Story Wheel of their own that offered up a bit of company history: Their first SoundCloud "office" was a Berlin coffee shop.
The app started last November in Boston as a project at Music Hack Day, which SoundCloud helps organize, then continued in the company's Berlin and San Francisco offices. The inspiration for Story Wheel came when SoundCloud engineers found themselves telling each other the stories behind the photos they posted to Instagram.
"We chose Instagram is because it's the service we use the most for our own photos," Ljung said. "We built Story Wheel because it's something we wanted to see and we thought it was something our users would like to see and use too. And we built the whole thing on the same API that we offer to our developers, who have made more than 10,000 apps on our platform."
About a year ago SoundCloud had about 2 million users, Ljung said, adding that he thinks third-party developers and the popularity of the company's mobile apps deserve as much credit for the growth to 10 million users as the word of mouth spread by users.
So where does SoundCloud go from here? Ljung said the 80-employee company is focused on continuing its growth and creating more things like Story Wheel that show users what they can do with the audio files they record and share on SoundCloud's website.
Aiding that effort is a recent round of venture funding and the addition of Mary Meeker, a renowned tech analyst and partner at the investment firm Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers, to SoundCloud's board as an observer.
Ljung, however, wasn't too interested in talking about Meeker or just how much money SoundCloud has raised.
"I think for us it's not such a big deal," he said. "It's just kind of like a background thing that helps the company grow. It's great to have good partners and have great apps built on our platform. But for us, the 10-million-user figure is really more interesting. Everything we do, we think about how it will affect our users because without the users, none of the other stuff is there."
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– Nathan Olivarez-Giles
Nathan Olivarez-Giles on Google+
Image: A screen shot of SoundCloud's Story Wheel Web app. Credit: SoundCloud
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‘Don’t Be Evil’ tool alters new Google search results
posted by Technology @ 4:44 PM
Monday, January 23, 2012
When Google changed the rankings of its search results this month, items from its Google+ social network — such as photos, videos, comments and links — got a boost at the expense of other social media sites such as Twitter and Facebook.
Twitter wasn't happy about the changes, which Google called Search Plus Your World, and made its dissatisfaction known. Privacy groups called on the Federal Trade Commission to investigate the changes.
But merely complaining about the new search results wasn't enough for a few engineers from Facebook, Twitter and Myspace. On Monday, the backlash against Search Plus Your World hit another level with the release of their Don't Be Evil bookmarklet, available on the new website Focus on the User.
The bookmarklet, which is a browser plug-in of code that alters Google search results to make them more like they were before Search Plus Your World, was built over the weekend by a small team that included Facebook's director of product, Blake Ross, and Facebook software engineers Tom Occhino and Marshall Roch.
The bookmarklet's Don't Be Evil name is a nod to Google's company mantra.
A statement posted on Focus on the User says:
When you search for "cooking" today, Google decides that renowned chef Jamie Oliver is a relevant social result. That makes sense," reads a statement on Focus on the User. "But rather than linking to Jamie's Twitter profile, which is updated daily, Google links to his Google+ profile, which was last updated nearly two months ago. Is Google's relevance algorithm simply misguided?
No. If you search Google for Jamie Oliver directly, his Twitter profile is the first social result that appears. His abandoned Google+ profile doesn't even appear on the first page of results. When Google's engineers are allowed to focus purely on relevancy, they get it right.
So that's what our "bookmarklet" does. It looks at the three places where Google only shows Google+ results and then automatically googles Google to see if Google finds a result more relevant than Google+.
Google officials were unavailable for comment on the bookmarklet Monday afternoon.
Facebook's Ross, who is also one of the three co-founders of Mozilla's Firefox Web browser and was spreading the word about the bookmarklet on his Twitter and Facebook accounts, has had a run-in with Google+ before: In August, Ross' Google+ profile page was temporarily suspended. Google never commented on why that happened, but Ross has said it was because Google didn't think the page really belonged to him.
Along with the launch of the bookmarklet and the Focus on the User site, a video (which can be seen below) explaining how the bookmarklet works, narrated by Ross, was posted to YouTube.
The bookmarklet isn't an official product of Facebook, Twitter or Myspace, but nobody seems to be shying away from the connection to those companies.
Where will this beef go from here? That's up to the involved engineers and anyone else around the Web who wants to dig in and write some code.
"This proof of concept was built by some engineers at Facebook, Twitter and MySpace, in consultation with several other social networking companies," Focus on the User says. "We are open-sourcing the code so that anyone may use it or make it even better."
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– Nathan Olivarez-Giles
Nathan Olivarez-Giles on Google+
Image: A screen shot of FocusOnTheUser.org.
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President Obama to answer questions in Google+ Hangout on Jan. 30
posted by Technology @ 11:17 AM
Monday, January 23, 2012
President Obama is back on social media like it's 2008 — when the Technology blog described him as "the first social media president."
The president has a presence on Twitter, Facebook, Tumblr, Instagram and Google+ — both for his reelection bid and for official White House communications. You can even download a ringtone for your smartphone of Obama singing Al Green's "Let's Stay Together" from a recent New York campaign fundraiser.
Next up is the first Presidential Google+ Hangout.
Obama will take part in a hangout video chat with up to nine other Google+ users on Jan. 30.
The hangout will cap a week of White House officials' fielding questions across Facebook, Twitter and Google+ about the president's annual State of the Union speech, to be delivered Tuesday.
And while the focus of the conversation is likely to be on the State of the Union, anyone can submit a question on just about any topic to Obama this week on Google+ and YouTube, the White House and YouTube said in separate blog posts.
YouTube posted even published a video promoting the event Monday showing scenes of tea party, Occupy Wall Street and Arab Spring protests, coverage of the death of Osama Bin Laden and the end of the Iraq War, as well as a brief voiceover from a gay Air Force lieutenant.
"If you could hang out with President Obama, what would you ask him? Would your question be about jobs or unemployment? The threat of nuclear weapons? Immigration reform? Whatever your question is, submit it on YouTube for the opportunity to ask the president directly in a special interview over a Google+ Hangout from the White House," YouTube said.
Of course, Obama won't answer all the questions submitted through the White House YouTube channel, but he will answer "several of the most popular questions" the White House said, and a small number of those who submit questions will be invited to join the president in the video chat.
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– Nathan Olivarez-Giles
Nathan Olivarez-Giles on Google+
Image: Screen shot of the White House on Google+. Credit: Google
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White House joins Google+ ahead of State of the Union speech
posted by Technology @ 5:34 PM
Sunday, January 22, 2012
The White House is now on Google+ and no, it's not technically a move to help President Obama get reelected — there is a separate Obama 2012 page for that.
So why is the Obama administration now on Google's social network? The State of the Union speech on Tuesday is at least one reason to join Google+.
The annual speech will be broadcast across major TV networks and an enhanced version will be streamed online to the White House's mobile apps and at whitehouse.gov/sotu, with "charts, stats and data that helped inform President Obama's policy decisions as he delivers his speech to the nation," the White House said.
After the speech, which starts at 6 p.m. Pacific time, White House officials will field questions throughout the week regarding the speech, the president's policies, and the direction in which the country and economy is headed. Those questions will be taken from Twitter, Facebook and (as of this week) Google+.
Down the road, the White House may use Google+ Hangouts, the social network's group video-chatting feature, to reach constituents.
"The President and First Lady often call the White House 'The People’s House.' Well, this is another way we're opening our doors (virtually) to citizens around the country," said Kori Schulman, the deputy director of outreach at the White House Office of Digital Strategy, in a blog post. "On our Google+ page, we'll host regular 'White House Hangouts' with administration officials on a range of issues and topics.
"Some Google+ users will be invited to join the Hangout with the White House and have a conversation with policy experts. But the best part is that even if you're not 'in' the Hangout, you can watch the whole thing live on WhiteHouse.gov, on our Google+ page or on the White House YouTube channel."
The White House currently has no Google+ Hangouts planned.
Although the White House's Google+ page isn't an official campaign tool, there is no doubt that the Obama administration and his reelection campaign staff are looking to use every tool possible to reach voters this year.
After all, the president's use of social media in his winning of the 2008 election is often cited as one of the reasons he was able to build up support among voters. The Technology blog even described Obama as "the first social media president."
One other reason the White House might want to be on Google+ — Republican rivals looking to knock Obama out of office are there too.
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– Nathan Olivarez-Giles
Nathan Olivarez-Giles on Google+
Image: A screen shot of the White House page on Google+. Credit: Google
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Sony's PlayStation Vita has got me intrigued.
As much of the gaming world has moved toward smartphones and tablets, I've wondered if consumers (or myself as a gamer) would take to new handheld consoles the way they did with the Vita's predecessor, the PlayStation Portable.
But after spending a few minutes with the Vita in my hands at the 2012 Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas last week, my interest has piqued.
If you've played video games on the PlayStation Portable, which affectionately became known to most as the PSP, then the Vita will look very familiar at first glance. Joysticks and buttons are placed to the left or right of a nice, wide display and the graphics produced by the system are detailed and sharp.
But unlike the PSP, there are many features of the Vita that better equip Sony's handheld formula for competition in a smartphone-riddled future. On the front of the Vita is a 5-inch OLED touchscreen and a similarly sized touch panel can be found on the back of the device.
I played a bit of Uncharted: Golden Abyss, one of the titles that will launch with the Vita during its U.S. release on Feb. 22, and the game used traditional controls and the touchscreen. And switching between the different control options was intuitive and easy.
The Vita can also be used as a controller for Sony's PlayStation 3 home console, which could bring touch controls to even more games if developers embrace this feature. Though I didn't get to spend a long time with Uncharted or the Vita, the potential for some really creative game-play options was obvious.
The Vita will also run a number of smartphone-like apps, including apps for the photo-sharing site Flickr and video-streaming service Netflix, local-discovery app FourSquare and social networks Facebook and Twitter.
There are also two cameras on the Vita, one on the front and one on the back, and in the few test shots I snapped on the CES showroom floor, I have to say I was a bit disappointed. Photos didn't seem to be high quality and colors were washed out and not sharp. Sony wouldn't say what the resolution of the cameras would be for the U.S. release of the Vita, but the Japanese version (which went on sale on Dec. 17) featured VGA-quality cameras in front and back with a resolution of 640-by-480 pixels, which is about the same as an Apple iPad 2.
We'll be getting a review unit of the Vita in a few weeks, and I'll reserve final judgement for then, but after my hands-on time with the system, there's a lot to like and a few things that I'm not so excited about (aside from the camera). One of them is the pricing of Vita's new proprietary memory cards.
The Vita will sell for either $249 in a Wi-Fi-only version or $299 for a 3G/Wi-Fi model that runs on AT&T's network. AT&T is offering no-contract data plans for the Vita of $14.99 for 250 megabytes of data per month, or three gigabytes for $30. Games (on a new card format and not the UMDs found in the PSP) will sell for about $9.99 to $49.99, according to Sony. All of that seems to be pretty fair pricing in my opinion.
However, memory cards for the Vita — which you will definitely need if you want to store any apps, downloadable games, movies, music, photos or any other content on the Vita — are sold separately.
A four-gigabyte memory card will sell for $19.99. Not bad. An eight-gigabyte card will sell for $29.99 and a 16-gigabyte card will sell for $59.99. Getting a bit higher. And, a 32-gigabyte card will sell for a whopping $99.99.
It seems a bit painful to think you may end up spending an extra $100 after plunking down as much as $300 for a Vita, but this is the current reality, depending on how much stuff you'd like to store in the device. Ouch.
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– Nathan Olivarez-Giles
Nathan Olivarez-Giles on Google+
Photo: The game Uncharted: Golden Abyss on the Sony PlayStation Vita. Credit: Armand Emamdjomeh / Los Angeles Times
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MegaUpload was a ‘mega conspiracy,’ Justice Department alleges [Updated]
posted by Technology @ 4:41 PM
Thursday, January 19, 2012
MegaUpload, one of the world's largest file-sharing websites, was shut down Thursday by the U.S. Department of Justice, which accused it of violating piracy and copyright laws.
In an indictment, the Justice Department alleged that MegaUpload was a "mega conspiracy" and a global criminal organization "whose members engaged in criminal copyright infringement and money laundering on a massive scale."
The Justice Department said MegaUpload, which had about 150 million users, tallied up harm to copyright holders in excess of $500 million by allowing users to illegally share movies, music and other files. Prosecutors said in the indictment that the site's operators raked in an income from it that topped $175 million.
DOCUMENT: Read the indictment against MegaUpload
MegaUpload was just one of the many services that allow for the easy sharing of large files online. Others include sites such as Mediafire and Rapidshare and cloud storage services that allow for shared folders such as Box.net and Dropbox.
One way MegaUpload differentiated itself was with its online marketing campaign that featured celebrities such as rapper/producers Kanye West, Lil' Jon, Sean "Diddy" Combs and Swizz Beats stating in YouTube videos why they loved using the site. Other videos feature tennis star Serena Williams, boxer Floyd Mayweather Jr., Def Jam Records founder Russell Simmons and director Brett Ratner testifying to their use of MegaUpload.
The release of the Justice Department indictment came after dozens of websites, led by tech heavyweights Wikipedia, Craigslist, Mozilla and Google, altered their websites to protest two anti-piracy bills under consideration on Capitol Hill: the Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA) and the Protect Intellectual Property Act (PIPA).
Critics of the bills say the proposed laws would give the Justice Department the ability to censor the Internet by giving the agency clearance to shut down a site without having to get court approval of an indictment, as it did with MegaUpload. Although the indictment was unsealed Thursday, it was issued by a federal court in the Eastern District of Virginia on Jan. 5, the agency said.
In a statement issued with the indictment,the Justice Department said "this action is among the largest criminal copyright cases ever brought by the United States and directly targets the misuse of a public content storage and distribution site to commit and facilitate intellectual property crime."
The Justice Department said that at its request, authorities arrested three MegaUpload executives — officially employed by two companies, Megaupload Ltd. and Vestor Ltd. — in New Zealand, including the site's founder, Kim Dotcom, who was born Kim Schmitz. The agency is also looking to arrest two additional executives.
The indictment charges the two companies with running a "racketeering conspiracy, conspiring to commit copyright infringement, conspiring to commit money laundering and two substantive counts of criminal copyright infringement."
According to the Associated Press, before the MegaUpload site was shut down Thursday, a statement was posted on the site saying the allegations made against it were "grotesquely overblown" and that "the vast majority of Mega's Internet traffic is legitimate, and we are here to stay. If the content industry would like to take advantage of our popularity, we are happy to enter into a dialogue. We have some good ideas. Please get in touch."
Visits to Megaupload.com on Thursday showed the website as unable to load. The Justice Department had ordered the seizure of 18 domain names it linked to the alleged wrongdoing.
[Updated at 3:42 p.m.: As noted by Times reporter Ben Fritz on our sister blog Company Town, the hacker group Anonymous has allegedly lobbed a denial-of-service attack that has temporarily taken down the websites for the Department of Justice and Universal Music as a move in retaliation for the shutdown of MegaUpload. Forbes is reporting that the same attack has struck the sites for the Recording Industry of America and the Motion Picture Assn. of America.]
[Updated at 3:50 p.m.: The Twitter accounts @YourAnonNews and @AnonOps are taking credit on behalf of Anonymous for the web attacks on the websites of the Justice Department, Recording Industry of America, Motion Picture Assn. of America and Universal Music.]
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SOPA blackouts inspired protest around the world
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Wikipedia: SOPA protest led 8 million to look up reps in Congress
– Nathan Olivarez-Giles
Nathan Olivarez-Giles on Google+
twitter.com/nateog
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Apple’s iBooks 2, iBooks Author: Bids to own publishing’s future
posted by Technology @ 12:43 PM
Thursday, January 19, 2012
NEWS ANALYSIS: Alongside Apple stating that iBooks 2 and textbooks on the iPad would reinvent the textbook as we know it, the iPad-maker announced Thursday that it would also attempt to reinvent book-making by way of an app called iBooks Author.
The Apple-developed app, available as a free download from the Mac App Store, (ideally) makes it easy to make books for the iPad. But together, iBooks 2 and iBooks Author are moves to capture the future of education and self-publishing, and to continue to build on the success Apple had under the late Steve Jobs.
If you've ever used Apple's Keynote or Pages (or Microsoft's PowerPoint or Word) apps, then you should be able to hit the ground running in iBooks Author. There are templates for different types of book layouts, and adding the interactive 3-D models, photos, videos and diagrams that Apple demoed iBooks 2 textbooks on Thursday is as easy as clicking and dragging a built-in widget — provided you've already produced the video, photos, diagrams and models you want to use.
Apple has even built into iBook Author HTML5 and Javascript support for programmers looking to take their books beyond what the app can do itself; multi-touch interactions for pinch and zoom views of photos and swiping gestures are also included.
Want to see what your book looks like before you publish it to iBooks? Just connect your Mac to an iPad by way of a USB cable and you can preview the book on the tablet.
The aim of the iBooks Author app is to make it easy to get these impressive multimedia elements, as well as questionnaires and other educational materials, into a page of text and published as a book on the iPad as easy as possible — whether you're a self-publisher looking to write your first book, a teacher whipping up something quick for a special class, or a publishing powerhouse like the textbook trifecta of McGraw-Hill, Pearson and Houghton Mifflin Harcourt.
Before his death, Jobs told biographer Walter Isaacson that he believed Apple could disrupt the $8-billion-a-year textbook industry. Jobs said in Isaacson's book, titled simply "Steve Jobs," that the iPad was the tool to make transformation in the textbook business a reality.
According to the book, Jobs' idea "was to hire great textbook writers to create digital versions, and make them a feature of the iPad. In addition, he held meetings with the major publishers, such as Pearson Education, about partnering with Apple."
Jobs told Isaacson "the process by which states certify textbooks is corrupt … but if we can make the textbooks free, and they come with the iPad, then they don't have to be certified. The crappy economy at the state level will last for a decade, and we can give them an opportunity to circumvent that whole process and save money."
In announcing the iBooks 2 and iBooks Author products, Apple is beginning to bring a piece of Jobs' long-term vision to fruition. The company also noted Thursday that there are currently about 1.5 million iPads being used in schools and more than 20,000 education apps sitting in its iOS App Store.
But make no mistake, iBooks 2 and iBooks Author aren't just about textbooks. The two new apps are working together to entice students, teachers, educational institutions to embrace and buy the iPad in bigger numbers than they already have.
On Thursday, in announcing the new products, Apple made no mention of new discounts on iPads for students or schools — though Apple has offered such discounts in the past on Macs and even created special versions of the iMac for schools. Apple even built the now-defunct eMac line specifically to sell to schools.
Apple wants us to ditch the paperback and hardcover textbooks in favor of an iPad and digital downloads, that much is obvious. But the company also wants the iPad and Macs to become to go-to devices for educational institutions and publishing houses.
Although Apple's iTunes is the world's most popular online music storefront, Amazon is the world's largest seller of e-books. By adding a level of interactivity to books that Amazon and others simply can't match, and by making it easier to publish a book and sell it in the iBooks app directly from iBooks Author, Apple has made a move to challenge Amazon and its Kindle e-reader and Kindle Touch tablet as the preferred platform for self-publishers and digital textbooks.
In a statement announcing iBooks 2 and iBooks Author, Apple said as much (without naming Amazon and other e-book rivals such as Google and Barnes & Noble).
"iBooks Author is also available today as a free download from the Mac App Store and lets anyone with a Mac create stunning iBooks textbooks, cookbooks, history books, picture books and more, and publish them to Apple's iBookstore," Apple said.
The apps are also a challenge to Adobe, a company Apple has been known to partner with and feud with from time to time. Adobe's Creative Suite, Digital Publishing Suite and Touch Apps, available on both Windows PCs and Macs, are some of the most popular tools used by publishing houses and self-publishers looking to create a book, whether an e-book or a book before it heads to print.
Though capable of producing many different types of content for a broader range of devices, Adobe's software can cost thousands of dollars, while Apple's iBooks Author app is free.
Apple on Thursday also released an iTunes U app, which allows teachers from kindergarten to the university level to stream video of their lectures and post class notes, handouts, reading lists, etc., all within the app.
Previously, iTunes U was a podcasting service for college professors who wanted to put up video or audio of their lectures. Now it is one more reason for a teacher to consider an iPad and a Mac as tools to reach students at any grade level. And like iBooks Author, the app is free.
In my opinion, Apple is one of the best companies out there at providing lower-cost products that pull consumers into an ecosystem of apps and gadgets. It's one of the reason the company has so many cult-like followers.
For many Apple fans, their first purchase was an iPod or iPhone. With those purchases comes buying apps, music, movies and TV shows from iTunes. And for many, later comes a MacBook or an iMac computer. This strategy is repeating itself with iBooks 2 and iBooks Author.
First, get students and teachers to use more iPads in school by offering affordable and engaging digital textbooks. With iBook textbooks capped at a price of $14.99, I have to wonder whether or not textbooks will become shorter and more narrow, and thus students and teachers we'll have to buy more of them. Second, make it easy for anybody to produce their own iBooks (textbooks or otherwise) and then sell those books in the iBooks app, luring in aspiring authors. When those students, teachers and authors go to download music or a movie, set up a cloud storage service or buy a laptop, a phone, a new tablet — maybe someday a TV — what brand will be at the top of minds? Apple.
iBooks, iBooks Author and iTunes U, together are a move to fend off Google, Amazon, Adobe and other competitors in determining the future of education, publishing and book reading. Together, the launch of these apps is an attempt to not only maintain but also expand Apple's current success into the company's post-Jobs future.
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Photo: Apple's iBook Author app on an iMac, and an iBook and an iPad. Credit: Apple
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Apple says iBooks 2 app reinvents textbooks
posted by Technology @ 10:16 AM
Thursday, January 19, 2012
Apple promised to reinvent the textbook and offer a new experience for students and teachers by way of an update to its iBooks app for the iPad, iPhone and iPod Touch on Thursday.
The app update — which Apple is calling iBooks 2 and is already released to the iOS App Store — will allow for textbooks to be sold through the popular app, which in the past sold novels, nonfiction and poetry, but not textbooks.
All textbooks sold through the free app, which is available only to Apple's i-devices, will be priced at $14.99 or less — a stark contrast to the high-priced paper books that fill college bookstores.
But the main allure might not be the price as much as the interactive features iBooks textbooks can offer.
Apple, which announced the iBooks update at a press event in New York at the Guggenheim Museum, said the iBooks textbook exceeds paper texts in terms of engagement, calling it a durable, quickly searchable book that offers easy highlighting and note-taking as well as interactive photo galleries, videos, and 3-D models and diagrams.
Digital textbooks can also offer immediate feedback with questionnaires at the end of chapters and automatically create flash cards of glossary terms for a student to study.
Apple said the move makes sense given that more that 1.5 million iPads are used in schools. "Now with iBooks 2 for iPad, students have a more dynamic, engaging and truly interactive way to read and learn, using the device they already love," said Philip Schiller, Apple’s senior vice president of Worldwide Marketing.
One thing not mentioned by Apple on Thursday was any sort of program that would offer iPads at a discount to students, teachers or schools.
Apple also said there are more than 20,000 education-focused apps available in the iOS App Store.
The tech giant has enlisted the heavyweights of textbook publishing — Pearson, McGraw Hill and Houghton Mifflin Harcourt — to sell textbooks through iBooks 2. Combined, the three companies make 90% of textbooks sold in the U.S. Smaller publishers such as DK and the EO Wilson Biodiversity Foundation will be publishing to iBooks 2 as well.
Just as iBooks does with other types of books, textbooks will offer a free preview of a few pages or even a chapter before a purchase is made.
EO Wilson is also publishing a new book through iBooks 2 called Life on Earth, and the first two chapters of the new title will be free with more chapters coming as they are written.
Apple iPad 3: Launching in February, March, or later?
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– Nathan Olivarez-Giles
Nathan Olivarez-Giles on Google+
Image: Textbooks for sale in iBooks 2 on an Apple iPad. Credit: Apple
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AT&T’s new pricing: more data for more money
posted by Technology @ 7:22 PM
Wednesday, January 18, 2012
If you already have AT&T service, your contract and bill will be unaffected.
The new plans roll out Sunday, the Dallas-based company said Wednesday.
AT&T's current smartphone data plans come in three flavors: 200 megabytes of data for $15 a month, two gigabytes for $25, or four gigabytes for $45. As of Sunday, those plans will be scrapped in favor of a new trio: 300 megabytes of data for $20 a month, three gigabytes for $30 or five gigabytes for $50.
In the new pricing structure for tablets, the nation's second-largest mobile carrier will increase the price on only the top two tiers of data. So the 250-megabytes-for-$15 plan will remain in tact for tablet owners, and the new options will be three gigabytes of data for $30 a month and five gigabytes for $50.
Although the plans are more expensive, the adjustment offers more gigs for the money — essentially tacking on an extra gigabyte of data for $5 a month in the top two plans.
So what's with the rate change? Is this a consequence of the failed attempt to purchase T-Mobile USA or a move to fuel AT&T's new, expanding 4G LTE network?
"Customers are using more data than ever before," David Christopher, AT&T's chief marketing officer, said in a statement. "Our new plans are driven by this increasing demand in a highly competitive environment, and continue to deliver a great value to customers, especially as we continue our 4G LTE deployment."
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– Nathan Olivarez-Giles
Nathan Olivarez-Giles on Google+
Photo: AT&T logo. Credit: Lisa Poole / Associated Press
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SOPA blackout: Protests hits streets of NYC, SF, Seattle, Las Vegas
posted by Technology @ 2:34 PM
Wednesday, January 18, 2012
The protests against the House's Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA) and the Senate's Protect Intellectual Property Act (PIPA) spread from the Web into the streets of New York on Wednesday.
According to the New York Times, the New York Daily News, USA Today, Cnet and Mashable, hundreds (and maybe thousands) of people organized by the group New York Tech Meetup protested in person and with signs against SOPA and PIPA outside of the offices of New York Sens. Charles E. Schumer and Kirsten Gillibrand, both Democrats.
The group, which reportedly has about 20,000 members, targeted Schumer and Gillibrand for the protest because the two are co-sponsors of PIPA. The protesters, which police corralled into metal barriers on a sidewalk in front of the senators' Manhattan offices, called for Schumer and Gillibrand to withdraw their support for PIPA — a move a few politicians took on Wednesday amid the widespread online actions against the proposed laws.
Similar protests were also planned Wednesday in San Francisco, Seattle, Las Vegas and Washington, D.C.
While lawmakers in support of SOPA and PIPA have said that the bills are written to protect against online piracy and theft of American-made films, TV shows, music and other digital goods, those against the bills say the legislation would open the door to online censorship that would essentially ruin the free flow of information on the Web.
Andrew Rasiej, chairman of the New York Tech Meetup, told the New York Daily News that not only would SOPA and PIPA open the door to censorship of the Internet, but the laws would also have negative effects on the ability of the U.S. to remain a leader in the global tech industry.
"Because a new innovation by a start-up could be interpreted by a judge unfamiliar with how the technology works as infringing on copyright, investors and entrepreneurs would be discouraged from moving forward with a start-up due to a significantly increased risk of legal entanglement," Rasiej told the New York Daily News. "This in turn would dampen job creation and future opportunities for New Yorkers and Americans as a whole."
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– Nathan Olivarez-Giles
Nathan Olivarez-Giles on Google+
Photo: People gather outside the offices of two U.S. senators from New York, including Sen. Charles "Chuck" Schumer, to protest against proposed laws to curb Internet piracy. Credit: Stan Honda / AFP/Getty Images
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Samsung: No, we’re not interested in buying RIM
posted by Technology @ 11:55 AM
Wednesday, January 18, 2012
Just one day after Research In Motion shares received a boost off news that Samsung Electronics might be interested in buying the struggling smartphone and tablet maker, Samsung came out on Wednesday and said the rumored deal isn't happening.
Samsung, the second-largest cellphone producer on the planet behind Nokia, said it is not considering taking over RIM and that it has "never" been interested in buying the BlackBerry maker, according to a Bloomberg report.
James Chung, a Samsung spokesman, told the news outlet that the Korean company and RIM, based in Canada, haven't had any contact regarding a purchase deal.
Chung also told Bloomberg that Samsung isn't interested in the rumored software licensing deals that RIM has been reportedly exploring as well.
On Tuesday, stock in RIM rose $1.30, or 8.04%, to $17.47 per share after the tech news site BGR ran a story, citing unnamed sources, stating that Samsung was the "front runner" to purchase RIM.
Of course, Samsung hasn't been the only company that has been rumored to be interested in buying RIM. Among the other potential suitors with speculated interest in RIM are Nokia, Microsoft and Amazon. RIM shares jumped 10% in December on news of possible takeover interest from Microsoft and Amazon.
This also isn't the first time that Samsung has come out and denied rumors of its interest in a smartphone property. Last September, Samsung declared its lack of interest in buying the WebOS operating system from Hewlett-Packard.
After months of trying to figure out what to do with WebOS, HP eventually decided to retain ownership, open-source the software and then move forward on developing new tablets (but no new smartphones) running the operating system.
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– Nathan Olivarez-Giles
Nathan Olivarez-Giles on Google+
Photo: BlackBerry Messenger on a BlackBerry smartphone from Research In Motion. Samsung announced Wednesday that will not purchase BlackBerry maker RIM. Credit: Oliver Lang / Associated Press
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SOPA blackout: Who’s gone dark to protest anti-piracy bills? [Updated]
posted by Technology @ 11:23 AM
Wednesday, January 18, 2012
Wednesday, Jan. 18: the day of the SOPA "blackout" protest. As you may have seen from our coverage, major names in the online world such as Google, Wikipedia, Mozilla and Reddit are censoring their own websites with black bars and blacked-out pages in protest of SOPA and PIPA, two online anti-piracy bills currently under consideration on Capitol Hill.
Lawmakers who support the bills say the Stop Online Piracy Act and the Protect Intellectual Property Act will protect the intellectual property rights of music, movie and TV studios. But the websites and tech giants taking part in the Wednesday blackout argue that SOPA and PIPA would allow for a censoring of the Internet that would forever alter the Web and what we can do, say and publish online.
And it's not just Silicon Valley that's protesting SOPA and PIPA in the day-long blackout — a few publications that cover the tech world are taking part as well, including Wired and ArsTechnica.
Here's a list of more than 30 websites (and screen shots of each) we've spotted that are protesting today in the form of full-on blackouts or even just making their anti-SOPA and anti-PIPA stances known publicly. If there are a few we've missed, feel free to let us know in the comments.
Wikipedia.org
Google.com
Craigslist.org
Mozilla Firefox's start page
BoingBoing.net
Reddit.com
ArsTechnica.com
Wired.com
TheVerge.com
OReilly.com
TechCrunch.com
MoveOn.org
WordPress.com
Xkcd.com
Fark.com
4Chan.com
GigaOm.com
FunnyOrDie.com
PerezHilton.com
GoDaddy.com
KnowYourMeme.com
Imgur.com
BoardgameGeek.com
Newgrounds.com
UrbanSpoon.com
DemocraticUnderground.com
JoinDiaspora.com
Heritage.org
GameBreaker.tv
Pocho.com
RateYourMusic.com
SparkFun.com
DayTrader.com
TextsFromLastNight.com
[Updated 12:29 p.m.: GigaOm.com is also against SOPA and PIPA, and on Wednesday the news site let that stance be known.]
[Updated 2:49 p.m.: Added the Jan. 18 anti-SOPA and PIPA protests on FunnyOrDie.com, PerezHilton.com, GoDaddy.com, KnowYourMeme.com, Imgur.com, BoardgameGeek.com, Newgrounds.com, UrbanSpoon.com, DemocraticUnderground.com and JoinDiaspora.com.]
[Updated 3:15 p.m.: Added the anti-SOPA and PIPA Jan. 18 stances seen on Heritage.org, GameBreaker.tv, Pocho.com, RateYourMusic.com and SparkFun.com.]
[Updated 4:51 p.m.: Added DayTrader.com's blacked-out Jan. 18 homepage.]
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Images: Screenshots (made using the Mac app LittleSnapper) of websites taking part in the Jan. 18, 2011 protests against SOPA and PIPA by either blacking out their websites, or publishing statements condemning the controversial anti-piracy bills.
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Verizon cuts price and memory storage of Droid Razr, as expected
posted by Technology @ 7:25 PM
Tuesday, January 17, 2012
One of my major complaints when I'm reviewing just about any top-of-the-line Android smartphone on Verizon is the price.
Samsung's Galaxy Nexus and Motorola's Droid Razr and Droid Bionic each launched at a price of $299.99 and each phone packed 32 gigabytes of storage. Verizon isn't alone in this high-end, high-price approach; AT&T and Sprint release similar handsets at similar launch prices.
My beef isn't so much that new smartphones with 32 gigabytes of storage debut at the $300 price point as much as it is that there is often no option of getting the same phone with less storage for $200 at the same time.
This approach to leave out the $200 option at launch is, of course, by design. After the hot new handset is on the market for a few weeks or months, the price, and often the storage capacity, goes down. It happened with Samsung's Nexus S, which came out before the Galaxy Nexus, and the Droid Bionic. On Tuesday, Verizon announced that it is happening with the Droid Razr too.
The Razr, a Verizon exclusive, is available with 16 gigabytes of storage at $199.99 on a two-year 4G contract. Gone is the more expensive 32-gigabyte model for $299.99. The difference between the phones, aside from price, is that the 16-gigabyte microSD card has been removed in the lower-priced version.
If you want the Razr with more than 16 gigabytes of storage, the newest version still contains a microSD card slot, which can support up to a 32-gigabyte microSD card.
In the $300 price point, the upcoming Motorola Droid Razr Maxx will replace the Droid Razr for Verizon. The Razr Maxx is essentially the same phone as the Razr, but it adds a thicker battery that Motorola promises will offer all-day battery life and the ability to handle a 21-hour phone call — something I've never seen before in a 4G phone.
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– Nathan Olivarez-Giles
Nathan Olivarez-Giles on Google+
Photo: The Motorola Droid Razr. Credit: Armand Emamdjomeh/Los Angeles Times
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Apple iPad 3: Launching in February, March, or later?
posted by Technology @ 5:01 PM
Tuesday, January 17, 2012
Apple rumors — they seem to work readers, writers and editors up into a frenzy producing an echo of reports around the Internet. These blips of salacious speculation seem to spawn anew multiple times each week and, from time to time, they also fail to line up with one another, instead butting heads in contradiction.
The latest example of such conflicting rumors is the recent reports published on the pending release of what the tech media has dubbed the "iPad 3," Apple's eventual follow-up tablet to the hugely successful iPad 2 of 2011 and first-generation iPad released in 2010.
Late last week, as many tech reporters were hustling to keep up with wacky gadgets and the evolutionary advancement of TVs, smartphones and tablets at the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas, Bloomberg News reported that Apple's next iPad would go on sale in March with 4G LTE connectivity (the first two iPads have Wi-Fi or 3G), a faster processor and a higher resolution touch screen.
Bloomberg didn't mention when it believed Apple would unveil the iPad 3, in its report, which cited three anonymous sources that reportedly have knowledge of Apple's plans.
Aside from the March-debut nugget of information, the rumored iPad 3 specs have been reported and re-reported countless times since Steve Jobs unveiled the iPad 2 on March 2, 2011, ahead of the tablet hitting U.S. stores on March 11, 2011.
On Tuesday, the Japanese website Mackotakara reported that the unveiling of a so-called iPad 3 along with an update to Apple's iOS 5 operating system would take place in February. According to PCMag and Apple Insider, Mackotakara cited an unnamed Asian supplier and an anonymous source in the U.S. for its report.
So, do the Bloomberg and Mackotakara reports line up or contradict? When is the iPad 3 coming — February or March?
In all likelihood, only Apply really knows when it will launch its next iPad. And Apple, which is known to reschedule its events and product launches up to the last minute, isn't saying. The company never comments on speculation about its product launches.
But it could be that both Mackotakara and Bloomberg are right? Maybe (and yes, I'm speculating here) the iPad 3 will be unveiled in February and go on sale in March?
Apple introduced the original iPad on Jan. 27, 2010, but it didn't go on sale until April 3, 2010.
Complicating matters is the Taiwanese website DigiTimes (which has a reputation for publishing inaccurate tech rumors). The DigiTimes has reported that the iPad 3 would be released sometime this month — but the site has also said its unnamed sources have also said the iPad 3 may arrive in March or April.
Well, here's one thing you can count on: Whenever Apple's next iPad is released, the Technology blog (and the much of the tech reporting world) will have plenty of coverage of the eagerly anticipated new tablet.
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– Nathan Olivarez-Giles
Nathan Olivarez-Giles on Google+
Photo: The Apple iPad 2. Credit: Nathan Olivarez-Giles / Los Angeles Times
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Samsung reportedly ‘front runner’ in RIM purchase
posted by Technology @ 3:01 PM
Tuesday, January 17, 2012
BlackBerry maker Research In Motion is again at the center of buyout rumors and this time the speculated buyer is consumer electronics giant Samsung.
Among other possible suitors believed to be interested in RIM are Nokia, Microsoft and Amazon, which sent shares in the smartphone and tablet maker up as much as 10% in December when the rumor mill was churning.
On Tuesday, after the website BGR published a story that stated Samsung was the "front runner" to purchase RIM, stock in the Canadian company rose $1.30, or 8.04%, to $17.47 per share.
"Research In Motion is currently weighing every single option it can think of in an effort to reverse a negative trend that is approaching a boiling point for investors," BGR said. "Reports that RIM is currently in talks to license its software to other vendors are accurate according to our trusted sources, though we have been told that RIM is most likely leaning toward an outright sale of one or more divisions, or even the whole company."
RIM officials were unavailable to comment on the BGR report on Tuesday.
The negative trend mentioned by BGR is a well-documented slide at RIM that didn't relent in 2011. In December, RIM recorded a $485-million loss on unsold PlayBook inventory after the tablet failed to live up to sales expectations since its launch in April. Every model of the PlayBook was also cut to $299 in a move to entice consumers.
With sales of the PlayBook slow, no wireless carriers have stepped up to offer a 3G or 4G version of the BlackBerry tablet as RIM had originally planned.
RIM also dealt with multiple product delays, employee layoffs, service outages, contracting market share, disappointing earnings results and declining stock prices in 2011.
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Nathan Olivarez-Giles on Google+
Photo: Research In Motion's senior manager of brand marketing, Jeff Gadway, discusses new BlackBerry technology in a presentation at the company's "BeBold" event at the Consumer Electronic Show in Las Vegas on Jan. 10. Credit: Eric Reed / AP Images for BlackBerry
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Apple sues Samsung again in Germany, calls for ban on 10 phones
posted by Technology @ 10:34 AM
Tuesday, January 17, 2012
Apple has reportedly filed another patent infringement lawsuit against Samsung in Germany, this time calling for a sales ban on 10 smartphones it says violate its design rights.
Filed in Dusseldorf Regional Court, Apple's suit — which calls for a ban on the Galaxy S II, Galaxy S Plus and eight other models — isn't the only front in the ongoing international patent battle between the two firms, reports said Tuesday. Apple also filed a suit against five Samsung tablets "related to a September ruling" that imposes a sales ban on the Galaxy Tab 10.1, according to a Bloomberg report.
Apple alleges that Samsung's Galaxy Tab 10.1 copied the design of the Apple iPad in a way intended to confuse customers. After sales of the Galaxy Tab 10.1 were halted in Germany, Samsung released the re-designed Galaxy Tab 10.1N, which the Dusseldorf court said in December is different enough from the iPad that "it is unlikely to grant an injunction" against the new design, Bloomberg said.
"An appeals court also voiced doubts about the reach of Apple's European Union design right that won the company the injunction against the Galaxy 10.1," the report said.
For now, Apple's new smartphone suit against Samsung is set to "come before the court in August and the case against Samsung's tablets will follow in September," according to PCWorld.
If this all sounds a bit familiar, it is. Apple and Samsung have been suing and counter-suing each another across Europe, Asia, the U.S. and Australia for months, each alleging patent infringement over the design and operation of their respective phones and tablets.
In December, Apple failed to win an extension of a temporary sales ban against the Samsung Galaxy Tab 10.1 in Australia, where the dispute between the two tech giants is set to go to trial in March.
According to the news site ArsTechnica, the ongoing patent battle between Apple and Samsung has caught the attention of the European Commission, which is conducting an antitrust investigation with the two companies regarding the suits.
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Photo: An Apple iPad 2, left, and a Samsung Galaxy Tab 10.1 at a store in The Hague, Netherlands, in August. Credit: Robert Vos / European Pressphoto Agency
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Monster, Beats by Dr. Dre to split up, but first: new headphones
posted by Technology @ 9:57 PM
Monday, January 16, 2012
Beats Electronics and Monster Cable Products, two companies that together defined the current $1-billion headphone industry with the Beats by Dr. Dre line, are parting ways at the end of the year.
But before the two become competitors in a segment of consumer electronics that is just as much about fashion as it is technology, a wave of new Beats by Dr. Dre headphones and boom boxes (built by Monster) will hit store shelves.
At the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas last week, I caught up with Jimmy Iovine, Beats Electronics' chairman and CEO of Interscope Geffen A&M Records, to talk about what products the Beats brand had planned for 2012 (you can see our interview in the video above).
First up will be the new Mixr headphones, designed by Grammy-winning producer and DJ David Guetta. The Mixr is a lightweight and strong design — I twisted and bent the headband, and it returned to form and never felt week — that offers the bass-heavy sound Beats is known for. At $279, the Mixr is set to hit U.S. stores in early February in black and white. They're already available in Europe.
February will also see a wireless release of the Solo headphones, also priced at $279. And due in mid-September are the $349 Executive headphones, which bring a sleeker and more understated look with a leather headband and aluminum ear cups.
Iovine was also proud of the new BeatBox, a follow-up to the first-generation (and much less portable) BeatBox, which will sell at a price of $399. A release date hasn't yet been set for the new battery- or AC-powered BeatBox, which plays music from smartphones and MP3 players docked on the speaker setup.
Since launching in 2009, Beats has teamed with Justin Beiber, Lady Gaga and Sean "Diddy" Combs for artist-sponsored headphones. The Mixr is the only artist-specific set of headphones planned for 2012, Iovine said.
But this year we will see more HTC smartphones paired with Beats headphones as a result of HTC purchasing a $300-million stake in the audio company late last year, he said. And Beats speakers will be found not just in the Chrysler 300, as they were in 2011, but also in the Dodge Charger. And, as we saw at CES, Beats speakers are making their way into more HP laptops this year too.
After the Monster manufacturing deal expires at the end of the year, Beats plans to go out on its own, Iovine told my colleague Gerrick D. Kennedy on our sister blog Pop & Hiss. Despite reports to the contrary, Iovine said, the split was always the audio start-up's intention.
"It was always planned. It was always a five-year deal," Iovine said. "It was a manufacturing distribution deal. We were with Monster for headphones and speakers. It was always a plan to turn into a freestanding company."
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Nathan Olivarez-Giles on Google+
Image: The Beats Executive headphones from Beats by Dr. Dre. Credit: Beats Electronics/Monster Cable Products
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Skype coming soon to Windows Phone, later to Xbox Live
posted by Technology @ 3:35 PM
Monday, January 16, 2012
Skype can be used to make voice and video calls over the Web using PCs, a number of TVs and Blu-Ray players, Facebook and via smartphone apps found on BlackBerrys, Androids, iPhones and iPads.
Yet, despite Microsoft buying Skype at a price of $8.5-billion in October, you still can't make a Skype call on a Windows Phone handset. However, that will change soon, Skype and Microsoft said in a YouTube video produced at the Consumer Electronics Show last week.
If you're feeling a bit skeptical, you're likely not alone. Skype has been promising a Windows Phone app since April of last year. But a higher level of integration between Skype and its new owner Microsoft is inevitable, if not late.
Rick Osterloh, Skype's vice president of product, said in the company's CES video that the online calling service is working on apps for not only Windows Phone, but also for Microsoft's Xbox gaming console and the in-development Windows 8 operating system.
Osterloh also said that Skype is on an upswing of growth with the service recently passing 200 million monthly users who use more than 1 billion minutes a day. Also on the way is group-calling with up to 10 people on a single call, he said.
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– Nathan Olivarez-Giles
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Twitter.com/nateog
Image: A screenshot of a demonstration video of Skype for Android on a Samsung Nexus S smartphone. Credit: Skype
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Nokia Lumia 710 Windows Phone is free at Wal-Mart with contract
posted by Technology @ 10:43 AM
Monday, January 16, 2012
The Lumia 710, Nokia's first Windows Phone to hit the U.S., barely went on sale on Jan. 11 and already Wal-Mart is undercutting other retailers by giving the new phone away for free on a two-year contract.
T-Mobile USA, which launched the phone, sells the Lumia 710 for $49.99 on a two-year data plan, as do other retailers such as Best Buy. The price drop by Wal-Mart is a fast one and it's unclear if other retailers or T-Mobile itself will follow suit.
But if we do see more price drops on the Lumia 710, they will probably be motivated in part by the pending arrival of the new Lumia 900 at AT&T, which is rumored for sometime in March. An official release date and price haven't yet been disclosed for the Lumia 900.
The Lumia 900, which made its debut at the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas last week, has a 4.3-inch display and a unique polycarbonate body.
But while the 900 packs a larger screen and a bit more style, it and the 710 are very similar on the inside, with both phones running Windows Phone 7.5 Mango on a 1.4-gigahertz Qualcomm processor and 512-megabytes of RAM.
The Lumia 710 has 8 gigabytes of built-in storage, while the Lumia 900 has 16 gigabytes. And the Lumia 710 features a 5-megapixel camera with a single-LED flash, while the Lumia 900 has an 8-megapixel camera with a dual-LED flash.
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– Nathan Olivarez-Giles
Nathan Olivarez-Giles on Google+
Photo: The Nokia Lumia 710 Windows Phone from T-Mobile USA. Credit: Armand Emamdjomeh / Los Angeles TImes
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Hands-on with Alan Wake’s American Nightmare on Xbox 360 [Video]
posted by Technology @ 4:00 PM
Sunday, January 15, 2012
The future of video games is increasingly shifting from discs to downloads over Internet-connected consoles, phones, tablets and PCs.
Microsoft Corp. is aware of this trend as much as any other player in the gaming industry and rolls out multiple promotions a year to bring attention to games available for download through its Xbox Live Arcade storefront on the Xbox 360 console. And next up for Microsoft is the Xbox Live Arcade House Party, which starts Feb. 15 and includes the launch of one game a week for four weeks.
At the Consumer Electronics Show last week in Las Vegas, I went hands-on with Alan Wake's American Nightmare, which will be the first game to roll out in the month-long promotion.
Alan Wake's American Nightmare is a sequel to the on-disc game Alan Wake, which was released in 2010 to critical acclaim for story-driven game play that mixed a psychological thriller plotline with the action of a third-person shooter.
The game, which focused on a fictional fiction writer named Alan Wake and his quest to solve the mystery of his wife's disappearance in a small Washington town, was also praised for its inventive use of lighting, with Wake spending a lot of time running around in dark forests at night with a flashlight and a gun.
In Alan Wake's American Nightmare, the game's hero finds himself in the deserts of Arizona. The impressive lighting effects are back and shooting mechanics are solid. I tried my hand at the new title's Fight 'til Dawn survival mode, which pits players in a 10-minute scene with wave after wave of enemies attacking. (You can check out our hands-on with the new game above.)
The game play was intense and challenging, and it should be a satisfying experience for fans of the original Alan Wake game as well as those of shooting games such as Dead Rising, Left 4 Dead, Resident Evil and the Call of Duty series' zombie modes.
Alan Wake's American Nightmare will also have a campaign of about four to five hours, depending on how much time a player spends exploring and digging into the game's story, said Oskari Hakinnen, a spokesman for Remedy Entertainment Ltd., the developer of the series.
For those who haven't played the original Alan Wake, there's no need to fret. Hakinnen said that the sequel will pick up where the first title left off story-wise, but it was written in a way that won't confuse those who are new to the world of Alan Wake. Pricing for the game hasn't yet been disclosed.
The other three titles coming out in this year's Xbox Live Arcade House Party are Warp, a new puzzle game from Electronic Arts; arena-based first-person shooter Nexuiz from THQ; and the eagerly anticipated I Am Alive, from Ubisoft, which follows a man searching for his wife and daughter a year after a worldwide disaster killed most humans on the planet.
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– Nathan Olivarez-Giles
Nathan Olivarez-Giles on Google+
Image: A screen shot from Alan Wake's American Nightmare. Credit: Remedy Entertainment
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CES 2012: Nintendo’s Wii U and Zelda in HD, hands-on [Video]
posted by Technology @ 1:46 PM
Saturday, January 14, 2012
The most interesting and impressive gadget I saw at the 2012 Consumer Electronics Show this week was Nintendo's next video game console — the Wii U. It was also one of the riskiest products I saw, outside of Nokia's new Windows Phone handsets.
Despite not offering games with high-definition graphics, Nintendo's Wii home console changed the way people play video games, introducing motion sensing controllers called Wii remotes and a then-new level of casual games that appealed to millions of people who in the past didn't consider buying a gaming system. But since the Wii's launch in 2006, the gaming landscape changed as well.
Microsoft's Xbox has controller-free motion gaming with its Kinect technology. Sony has motion-sensing controllers with its PlayStation Move controllers for the PlayStation 3 console. Casual gaming is increasingly taking place on smartphones and not home consoles.
The Wii U intends to have an answer to all of its rivals, Nintendo of America's President Reggie Fils-Aime told me this week in an interview and hands-on demo of the new system in Las Vegas (you can see a video of our hands-on above). The demos we played were the same demos Nintendo showed off at the E3 gaming expo in Los Angeles last year.
The most obvious feature that separates the Wii U from rival hardware is the system's new tablet-like controller. Traditional buttons, triggers and joysticks are found in the Wii U controller, as is a 6.2-inch touchscreen in the middle of the unit that can be used by hand or with a stylus. The controller was 5.3 inches tall, 9 inches long and about 1 inch deep. There's also a built-in accelerometer and gyroscope, with a front-facing camera, microphone, speakers and a motion-sensing strip to interact with the remotes introduced on the Wii.
So what can this new controller actually do? One gaming demo, called Chase Mii, was essentially video-game hide and seek. My character in the game was the one being chased and, with the Wii U controller's screen, I saw an entirely different view of the game then those I was playing against with an included map of the terrain I was using to hide from my chasers.
In another demo, Fils-Aime and Nintendo spokesman J.C. Rodrigo showed me a recording of a car driving around a street in Japan. The same image that was on the HDTV that the Wii U console was connected to showed up on the Wii U controller in my hands, but when I moved the controller to either side or above my head, the view changed. I could see the street in 360-degrees; the sky, the cars passing by, a rear view, all just by moving the controller around.
The potential that this sort of technology offers video game developers is hugely exciting if you love playing video games, as I do. The military shooter genre is hugely popular right now — how about the ability to see a digital battlefield in 360 degrees while not disrupting the view on your TV? Maps and menus on the Wii U's controller are an obvious choice as well.
The most important feature of the Wii U for video game developers, however, might be that it can handle high-definition gaming, up to 1080p in resolution. This can allow for developers to more easily develop games for Nintendo's new hardware alongside high-definition titles being made for the Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3.
We'll have to see whether or not Nintendo can actually get developers on board en masse to bring major titles to the Wii U, but adding HD gaming should make this option more attractive.
I saw a demo of a Legend of Zelda game in HD and it looked outstanding. The main character of the game, Link, had texture details in the fabric of his clothing that simply weren't possible on the Wii's lower-powered hardware. I was able to change major environmental details, such as being able to switch the scene from night to day and back, with just a tap on the Wii U controller's touchscreen.
The touchscreen also seemed to me to be a play to court developers who are building for smartphones and tablets. The Wii U's hardware will enable it to be a console that (if enough games are made) can offer something for the hardcore gaming crowd and something for the smartphone set. Angry Brids or Cut the Rope on a Wii U controller? Yeah, I'd love to see that and I'm sure Nintendo would too.
The Wii U controller's second screen can also act as the only screen for gameplay too. For example, if you're playing a game, and your roommate or partner wants to watch the latest episode of their favorite TV show, the Wii U can stream the game to the controller so you can keep gaming. Despite looking like a tablet, the Wii U controller isn't a tablet and isn't usable without the Wii U nearby.
But as impressive as the demo was, Fils-Aime and Nintendo didn't show up to CES with much new information about the Wii U. We still don't have a price for the system, launch titles haven't been announced and hardware specs are few and far between. The Wii U will play downloadable games and games on-disc. It will also be backwards compatible with Wii games. It will also have some undetermined amount of internal flash storage, four USB ports and at least one SD card slot will also be included for expanded storage. IBM is supplying a multi-core processor and AMD is supplying a graphics processor as well.
Fils-Aime also wouldn't say whether or not the Wii U will be able to support multiple Wii U controllers or not. This, in my opinion, is a huge question for an otherwise solid-looking piece of hardware. If the Wii U only supports one Wii U controller, I think Nintendo will be making a mistake. Unlike the Wii Remotes, the Wii U offers the experience of a traditional controller. Some games are better played by pushing buttons and using joysticks rather than flailing your arms. For example, with fighting games and shooters, many gamers prefer the precision and speed that a regular-old controller can offer. If only one person can use a Wii U controller at a time, playing the sorts of games with friends on the couch won't be as fun. Hopefully the new console will support multiple Wii U controllers and give gamers the ability to choose the gameplay set-up they prefer.
Nintendo still also hasn't offed any details on what it will offer in terms of online multiplayer. In my opnion, Microsoft's Xbox Live service is the best in console gaming and allows gamers to play with their friends online and talk in real time as they play in their respective homes. Online multiplayer has been something that so far Nintendo has flatly failed to include in a compelling or easy-to-use way with its home consoles. For that reason most games for the Wii are single-player games. I believe Nintendo has to get online gameplay right in order for the Wii U to succeed.
So, when will our questions be answered? Hopefully at E3 2012 in June, which will be the next time Nintendo makes a big push before the press with the Wii U.
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– Nathan Olivarez-Giles
Nathan Olivarez-Giles on Google+
Image: Zelda in HD on the Nintendo Wii U console. Credit: Nintendo
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CES 2012: Nintendo’s Fils-Aime on declining Wii sales, prepping for Wii U [Video]
posted by Technology @ 9:57 PM
Friday, January 13, 2012
Nintendo is set to launch the Wii U, a new video game console, later this year. And while there is a lot of excitement around the Wii U, there are also a lot of questions hovering around the Japanese company, which seems to have its back against the wall despite a history of innovation and success in an industry it has helped define.
The company's current home gaming system, the Wii, is on the decline, selling about 4.5 million units in the U.S. in 2011, down from about 7 million sold in 2010.
Meanwhile, the 3DS, Nintendo's new hand-held console, started out selling slowly when it launched in March. But by the end of 2011, the system sold about 4 million units in the U.S., hitting that mark faster than the Wii when it first launched in 2006.
With all that in mind, I sat down with Reggie Fils-Aime, president of Nintendo of America, at the 2012 Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas this week. You can see parts of our interview in the video above, but as expected, Fils-Aime said he didn't see sliding Wii sales as a negative but a positive leading into the release of the Wii U.
"The Wii is now approaching 40 million homes here in the United States, so from a penetration standpoint we're beginning to top out in terms of the total number of systems sold, and that's why it makes so much sense to prepare for the launch of the Wii U," he said.
The Wii U will still use the motion-sensing controller system introduced in the Wii, but will add to the mix a new tablet-like controller with a built-in 6-inch touch screen. Some have said that, so far, the Wii U's new controller is a winning idea, while others have questioned if it's already destined to fail.
Fils-Aime said Nintendo is on the path to breaking new ground again, just as it did when it added a joystick to a controller for the first time or when it was first to add motion and rumble feedback to controllers as well.
"The big innovation with the Wii U is the controller and the ability to have an interactive experience that leverages all of your traditional input buttons as well as a screen built right into the controller," Fils-Aime said. "Yes, the system is HD capable; it'll generate the most gorgeous pictures. But for us that's not enough.
"We need to continue pushing the overall experience forward. We need to bring new types of entertainment. New types of gaming and the combination of a big first screen — your home TV — coupled with a second screen in your hands, in our view, is going to bring gaming to a whole new experience and to continue driving the industry."
Fils-Aime offered little new information about the Wii U — we still don't know much about specs and Nintendo isn't announcing launch titles, pricing or release dates yet.
But for now, the Nintendo executive said hardware horsepower isn't the point as much as what the Wii U and its new controller will be able to do that rival gaming platforms — the Microsoft Xbox 360, Sony PlayStation 3 and even Apple's iPhone and iPad — can't.
"The system is capable to do the most complicated, the most HD-intensive types of games. But plus, now with a touch screen in your hands, all types of other gaming possibilities exist. So we want the full experience," Fils-Aime said, later adding, "One of the things that we think makes us different from all of the other companies here at CES is that we leverage technology for people to have fun."
Stay tuned to the Technology blog for more on the Wii U from CES. I also got to go hands-on with the Wii U, and on Saturday I'll offer my take on just how much fun the new system is.
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– Nathan Olivarez-Giles
Nathan Olivarez-Giles on Google+
Image: Nintendo's new Wii U controller. Credit: Nintendo
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CES 2012: Ford’s Sync AppLink adds NPR, Slacker Radio to lineup [Video]
posted by Technology @ 7:52 PM
Friday, January 13, 2012
As General Motors introduced its first efforts to bring apps from your smartphone into your dashboard at the 2012 Consumer Electronics Show, Ford expanded its Sync AppLink system — which does just that and launched about a year ago.
When AppLink made its debut, Pandora was the only app a Sync user could operate via in-dash touch screen. Later, Stitcher radio gained Sync compatibility, which includes voice control as well.
Ford announced at CES in Las Vegas this week that apps for iPhones, BlackBerrys and phones that Google's Android would be added to the AppLink-friendly list, including NPR News, Slacker Radio, iHeartRadio, TuneIn Radio and Ford's own Sync Destinations turn-by-turn navigation app.
To see NPR News and Slacker Radio in action in a new Ford Mustang GT, check out our video from CES above.
Ford says that more apps that work with Sync's voice recogniton software are on the way. Oddly enough, Sync (which was developed through a partnership between Ford and Microsoft) has no AppLink compatibility with Windows Phone apps.
Just as with GM's in-car-app systems — Chevrolet MyLink and Cadillac CUE — AppLink can use apps only if it’s connected to a smartphone with the app installed, and it accesses data through the phone. Ford isn't selling any AppLink data plans.
For now, AppLink is available only in Sync-equipped Fiestas, Mustangs, Fusions, F-150s and Econoline vans, but the U.S. automaker is considering pushing AppLink out to other Ford brands, such as Lincoln, as well as to vehicles running older versions of Sync.
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– Nathan Olivarez-Giles
Nathan Olivarez-Giles on Google+
Image: A screen shot of Ford's Sync Destinations app. Credit: Ford
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Apple lists 156 of its suppliers in 2012 ‘responsibility report’
posted by Technology @ 3:30 PM
Friday, January 13, 2012
For the first time, Apple listed all 156 of its suppliers and manufacturing partners as a part of its "Supplier Responsibility 2012 Progress Report."
The report, which is issued annually, detailed Apple's efforts to monitor its suppliers to make sure they're operating within legal codes and its own policies regarding environmental standards, occupational health and safety, and human rights.
Apple did not, however, say why this year it decided to name each of its suppliers, though the company has come under scrutiny in the past over workplace problems with its suppliers, such as nearly a dozen employees committing suicide at the Shenzhen, China, plant of Foxconn in 2010.
After that shocking and public string of tragedies, Apple sent then-Chief Operating Officer Tim Cook to Foxconn, which also manufactures products for a number of Apple's competitors, with two suicide experts and other high-level company executives to evaluate the working conditions there. Cook is now Apple's chief executive, officially taking over for Steve Jobs just before his death in October.
As it does each year, Apple documented good and bad news in its report.
The tech giant said that its Supplier Responsibility team conducted a total of 229 audits in 2011, which was an 80% increase from 2010.
"More than 100 of these were at factories that we had not audited before," Apple said in the report. "Facilities where we conduct repeat audits consistently show fewer violations, and the vast majority improve their audit scores year-over-year."
Apple also said that in 2011 it trained its 1 millionth supplier employee as a part of its "worker empowerment program," which trains workers on Apple's supplier standards as well as "their rights as workers, occupational health and safety standards, and more."
The Cupertino-based company also found that just 38% of suppliers it audited were in compliance with its policy of no-more-than a 60-hour work week.
"93 facilities had records that indicated more than 50 percent of their workers exceeded weekly working hour limits of 60 in at least 1 week out of the 12 sample period." Apple said in the report. "At 90 facilities, more than half of the records we reviewed indicated that workers had worked more than 6 consecutive days at least once per month, and 37 facilities lacked an adequate working day control system to ensure that workers took at least 1 day off in every 7 days."
108 audited facilities "did not pay proper overtime wages as required by laws and regulations," Apple said. "For example, they did not provide sufficient overtime pay for holidays." In response to that finding, Apple says it required suppliers to repay workers the wages they were due and to "change their current payment system to prevent recurrence."
The iPhone-maker also said it increased the amount of money its suppliers paid out to workers to compensate for migrant laborers paying outrageously high fees to recruiters, middle-men and other companies just to get a job making parts found in Apple goods.
"We increased audits in Malaysia and Singapore, countries known to be destinations for foreign contract workers," Apple said. "As a result, suppliers reimbursed $3.3 million in excess foreign contract worker fees, bringing the total that has been repaid to workers since 2008 to $6.7 million."
Apple also said in the report that it found no incidents of underage workers at its suppliers last year and that it stopped doing business with one supplier over a repeated "core violation" though the company didn't say who the supplier was or what the violation was.
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– Nathan Olivarez-Giles
Nathan Olivarez-Giles on Google+
Photo: Workers assemble and perform quality control checks on MacBook Pro display enclosures at an Apple supplier facility in Shanghai. Credit: Apple
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GM to launch OnStar API for apps that can control cars
posted by Technology @ 11:15 AM
Friday, January 13, 2012
General Motors, Ford, Mercedes, Subaru and even QNX (owned by Research In Motion) each showed off their respectively differing approaches to getting apps into the dashboards of our cars at the 2012 Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas this week.
And while the idea of apps in the car is a dream for some, so far, most of the apps center around replicating smartphone or tablet experiences from the driver's seat.
OnStar, the GM-owned telematics company, has a slightly different idea to piggyback off the work developers are doing building apps for use in both smartphones and cars.
OnStar wants developers to create apps that use its wireless service to actually control cars in new ways that utilize what it already can do — automatic crash response, stolen vehicle tracking, turn-by-turn navigation and roadside assistance for subscribers of its wireless in-car assistance service.
This isn't Google's self-driving car but rather OnStar is hoping developers will follow what it started when it launched its OnStar RemoteLink app for Apple iPhones and iPads last year.
OnStar RemoteLink enables users (who also own select 2010 or newer Cadillac, Chevrolet, Buick or GMC vehicles) to view real-time data such as mileage, fuel in the gas tank, oil life and tire pressure from their car or truck. The app also allows users to remotely unlock doors, honk horns, shine lights, start the engine and, of course, contact a dealer.
It's these sorts of capabilities that OnStar is now offering developers through its API, and the first developer to build on that is RelayRides, a neighbor to car-sharing service. A new RelayRides app, which we got a preview of at CES (as seen int he video above), will launch later this year on Apple's iOS and allow car owners to unlock their cars remotely after the person renting their vehicle arrives, or even track where a renter has taken their car.
OnStar's API isn't yet available to all developers; company officials said that would take place in the first half of this year, but what RelayRides is working on shows a bit of its potential. GM said at CES that any developers interested in using the OnStar API should email the company at developers@onstar.com.
RelayRides says its new OnStar integrated app, in both an iOS and Android-friendly HTML5 form, will launch "early this year."
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– Nathan Olivarez-Giles
Nathan Olivarez-Giles on Google+
Image: A screenshot of OnStar's RemoteLink app for Apple's iOS. Credit: OnStar
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New televisions, laptops, all-in-one desktops and a "Stream Player" set-top box that can add Google TV software to any HDMI-equipped television set — Vizio had a lot of announcements to make at the 2012 Consumer Electronics Show.
A bit more quietly, the Irvine company also previewed a new tablet that it says will launch this year as a follow-up to the 8-inch Vizio Tablet that launched late last year.
Vizio let us get a few minutes of hands-on time with its new tablet, but details on what the device would be made up of were few and far between.
VIDEOS: 2012 Consumer Electronics Show
The new tablet sports a 10-inch touch screen and front and rear cameras, and it felt a bit lighter than the current 8-inch model.
Rob Kermode, a senior product manager at Vizio, said the company was declining to say anything about the tablet's price or release dates or about what processor, how much RAM, how much storage or what screen resolution the tablet would be.
In my short time using the tablet, I felt a step up in performance compared with its 8-inch predecessor. The device reacted faster to my touch, launched apps more quickly and seemed not to stutter as much when it handled simple tasks such as playing animations Vizio has programmed into the operating system.
The prototype tablet was running Google's Android Honeycomb software with Vizio's VIA Plus user interface over the top of it, which looks very similar to the version of Android Gingerbread found on the 8-inch tablet. Kermode said Vizio was looking into Ice Cream Sandwich, the latest version of Android, but wouldn't promise that the new tablet would ship running that OS.
To see the new tablet in action, check out our video from CES in Las Vegas above.
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– Nathan Olivarez-Giles in Las Vegas
Nathan Olivarez-Giles on Google+
Photo: Vizio's 10-inch tablet. Credit: Vizio
Vizio's 10-inch tablet. Credit: Vizio
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Ion Guitar Apprentice turns aspiring guitar heroes into students
posted by Technology @ 8:14 PM
Thursday, January 12, 2012
Pick. Thrash. Wail. Let out your inner Jimmy Page, Jack White or Yngwie Malmsteen — with an iPad.
The Guitar Apprentice app and controller from Ion Audio, which we looked at during the 2012 Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas this week, aims to help students learn the basics of playing guitar before they drop some cash on a full guitar and amp setup. Although playing iPad guitar isn't as sexy as the real thing, this might reduce the number of Squier Strats and practice amps languishing in the closets of frustrated students who never pegged down barre chords.
The most obvious comparison is with the popular Guitar Hero and Rock Band video games, but Guitar Apprentice offers a more complex setup than the video game controllers, with buttons simulating the six strings on each of 14 frets on the neck, in a body similar to the classic Gibson SG. LEDs on the frets light up to show basic note or chord patterns, and students strum or pick simulated strings on the iPad screen. Effects such as delay, reverb and flanger are also available to customize distortion effects.
VIDEOS: 2012 Consumer Electronics Show
Guitar Apprentice is one in a series of music learning app-and-controller sets from Ion Audio, which also includes Piano Apprentice and Drum Apprentice, as well as Drum Master, which comes with a full-size electric drum kit. The plastic instruments connect to the iPad, and each shows students where or how to play, lighting up frets, piano keys or drum pads as appropriate. Teachers also appear on the apps to present basic lessons to users.
Apps are Core MIDI, which enables integration with other music apps such as GarageBand. The app and controller, when released, are to have a retail price of $99.
Just keep in mind: Although the frets on the controller are designed to simulate fretting real guitar strings, it doesn't look like the app will alleviate the sore fingers students will have if they ever move up to a real guitar.
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– Armand Emamdjomeh
Photo: The fret board on the Ion Guitar Appretice. Credit: Armand Emamdjomeh / Los Angeles Times
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Sesame Street Kinect shows promise of TV voice, gesture control [Video]
posted by Technology @ 12:41 PM
Thursday, January 12, 2012
At the 2012 Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas, we saw a bit of a scramble by TV makers such as Samsung and LG to show off what they working on or releasing in the coming year that would allow us to control our TVs using voice, gesture and facial recognition.
Many technology pundits and analysts have said these sorts of announcements, which also took place at last year's CES, are in response to rumors that Apple is working on an "iTV" that will offer a new way of controlling a TV and maybe even how we pay for or watch channels and TV shows.
But as many video-game lovers out there know, TV voice recognition, gesture controls and facial recognition are already here in the form of Microsoft's Kinect motion-sensing camera, which is an accessory to the Xbox 360 home gaming console.
However, Kinect is just getting started, and currently has a small number of apps. And it's still a device that sells for about $150 and requires an Xbox 360, which starts at $200. Make no mistake, there will be a cost of entry to the future of TV.
At CES 2012, Microsoft showed off a bit of what the future may hold for Kinect, the Xbox and TV with demonstrations of its latest Kinect-enabled app for the Xbox, called Sesame Street Kinect (you can see our demonstration of the app in a video atop this article).
Sesame Street Kinect is what it sounds like, episodes of the long-running children's program tailored to use the Kinect camera. And what Kinect can do is really impressive.
Since 1969, children around the world have sat in front of TVs repeating back the alphabet, colors, words and numbers to characters on Sesame Street (I did it when I was a child). Until Sesame Street Kinect, which is set to release later this year at an unannounced price, the characters on the screen couldn't respond to the viewer's actions. Now, to a limited extent, they can.
The demonstration we saw featured the Grover, Elmo and Cookie Monster characters prompting viewers to interact by either saying certain words or moving in certain ways.
For example, we took part in a demonstration in which Grover drops a box of coconuts and asks that the viewer pick them up and throw them back to him.
I f the viewer stands up and moves in the way that they would throw an imaginary coconut (don't throw a real coconut unless your trying to break your TV) then Grover catches each one in his box, even reacting to how hard the Kinect interprets the viewer's throw to be.
The experience was a lot of fun for a room of four adults, and I imagine kids will enjoy this sort of thing too. Jose Pinero, am Xbox spokesman, said a similarly interactive app from National Geographic is coming this year as well.
Although Microsoft has sold more than 66 million Xbox consoles and more than 18 million Kinect cameras, the tech giant realizes it has something bigger than just video games on its hands with Kinect.
Both Kinect and Xbox Live are headed to Windows 8 later this year. Hopefully, that will mean more interactive "two-way TV" apps like Sesame Street Kinect, and more apps related to media outlets such as ESPN and National Geographic.
There are also rumors that the company is working to get Kinect built directly into TVs, which would very likely place Xbox Live and Kinect in direct competition with Google TV and Apple's expected entry into the TV market. That's a living-room showdown I'd like to see.
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– Nathan Olivarez-Giles in Las Vegas
Nathan Olivarez-Giles on Google+
Photos: Sesame Street Kinect in action. Credit: Armand Emamdjomeh / Los Angeles Times
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Motorola is building Android phone with Intel CPU for late 2012
posted by Technology @ 2:10 PM
Wednesday, January 11, 2012
A Motorola smartphone with Intel inside is due to arrive in the second half of 2012, the two companies announced at the Consumer Electronics Show.
The phone will be the first product of a multi-year agreement that will extend to not only smartphones but tablets too, Intel said.
Although the firms didn't disclose much about what the device would look like, how much it would cost or what it wouldd be called, Intel did say that the first of its processors used by Motorola would be the new Atom Z2460.
No word yet on which carrier the handset will make its way to either, but in a meeting Tuesday night, Motorola Chairman and Chief Executive Sanjay Jha said the new phone would run Google's Android operating system.
Hopefully that means the first Motorola and Intel smartphone will be running Android Ice Cream Sandwich.
The Atom Z2640 is a 1.6-gigahertz processor with integrated graphics capabilities and low power consumption, Intel said in a statement.
The partnership is an important one for both companies, especially Intel. Motorola currently uses processors from both Qualcomm and Texas Instruments, two chip suppliers that have found a lot of success in the smartphone and tablet market. Intel's mobile chips, meanwhile, have had a tough time catching on with hardware makers as many have chosen processors from rivals.
Though Intel, the world's largest processor maker, has so far failed to match its dominant positon in the laptop and desktop market on the mobile side, a deal with Motorola might help boost its influence in smartphones and tablets — particularly if Google's $12.5-billion purchase of Motorola Mobility is approved by federal regulators.
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– Nathan Olivarez-Giles in Las Vegas
Nathan Olivarez-Giles on Google+
Images: (Top) Intel's smartphone reference design and (bottom) its Atom Z2460 processor. Credit: Intel
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Samsung TVs add gesture, voice control; Sharp previews 8K
posted by Technology @ 11:29 AM
Wednesday, January 11, 2012
On Tuesday, here on the Technology blog, we summed up a few of the TV-related highlights of the 2012 Consumer Electronics Show from LG, Vizio and Sony. But make no mistake, Sharp and Samsung made some news of their own.
Sharp
As noted by my colleague Jon Healey and myself, 4K TVs have been a major trend at CES in Las Vegas this year. The promise of 4K TVs is a display that offers up to four times higher the resolution of today's highest resolution high-definition TVs, which currently top out at 1080p.
A bit confused by all the terms? No problem — 1080p refers to TVs with a resolution of 1,920 x 1,080 pixels with the 1,080 counting the number of lines of resolution on the vertical side of the TV. The newer 4K standard refers to displays with about 4,000 lines of resolution counted on the horizontal side of a screen.
Sharp, however, took the resolution jump further than its rivals and introduced a prototype 8K TV this year, which it says will offer double the resolution of a 4K TV set, or a resolution of about 16 times higher than a 1080p TV. Sharp's 8K TV is currently planned for retail, but the prototype at CES did come in a whopping 85-inch screen size. The screen resolution of the Sharp prototype does fall short of an actual 8,000 mark, despite the name, with a 7,680 x 4,320 resolution display being used.
Huge TVs are something Sharp has been into for the last few years, choosing to concentrate on the higher-end of the TV market. This year it also showed off an 80-inch LCD TV, with LED backlighting, that will playback 3-D video (viewable with 3-D glasses of course). Sharp said its 80-inch was equal to about the size of nine 32-inch TVs, or about 266 smartphones laid out next to each other.
The TV maker also said it was committed to its LCD TV business and plans to introduce 17 new LCD TVs over the next 90 days.
But not all of those 17 new TVs will be big-screen heavyweight sets. As noted by my colleague David Sarno, Sharp also introduced its line of Aquos Freestyle TVs at CES this year. The Aquos Freestyle is a series of TVs that are built thin and light and can actually be picked up and moved around a home.
The idea is maybe you'd want to take the TV out in the back yard for a couple hours, or maybe into another room for a bit for a party or other good reason.
As reported by Sarno, "Sharp's Aquos Freestyle flat-screens get their signal wirelessly, and as the models demonstrated by parading them down the showroom runway, they are light enough to be carried around the home, whether to the balcony, the kitchen or the powder room."
Portable? Yes. Mobile? Not really. The Aquos Freestyle sets were shown off in 20-inch, 31.5-inch, 40-inch and 60-inch sizes.
Samsung
Like Sharp, Korean electronics giant Samsung had some prototypes to show off at CES too, including a 55-inch TV that it described as "Super OLED."
OLED, or organic light emitting diodes, are more energy efficient, thinner and provide better black-levels when compared with standard current LEDs used in TVs today. OLED is also more expensive to produce than LED backlighting. And just about every TV maker throws out claims at CES that its display, which is also 3-D capable, provides the best picture — Samsung's stance is no different with its Super OLED sets, promising in a statement that its prototype display offers "the ultimate in vividness, speed and thinness, with true-to-life picture quality, enhanced color accuracy and motion picture quality even in the fastest scenes."
Samsung also announced an update to its high-end Smart TV line, which runs apps such as Netflix on its TVs, that it says will allow users to control their sets with voice and motion control and facial-recognition technology.
"For example, users can turn the TV on or off, activate selected apps or search for content in the web browser simply by speaking in any of the 20 to 30 languages that are supported by the technology," Samsung said in a statement. "With a wave of their hand, they can browse and choose a link or content via the web browser."
A built-in camera in the top-of-the-line Smart TV sets "recognizes movement in the foreground and two unidirectional array microphones recognize voice at an incredibly accurate rate. Noise cancellation technology helps separate any background noise from the users commands."
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– Nathan Olivarez-Giles
Nathan Olivarez-Giles on Google+
Image: Samsung's LED 8000 Smart TV, which features built-in cameras and microphones for voice, gesture and facial recognition. Credit: Samsung
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Lumia 900, Nokia’s first 4G LTE Windows Phone, debuts [Photos and Video]
posted by Technology @ 3:11 PM
Tuesday, January 10, 2012
Nokia and Microsoft's first flagship smartphone for the U.S., the Lumia 900, made its official debut at the 2012 Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas.
The new Windows Phone handset was first unveiled Monday by Nokia, and later that night Microsoft brought the new phone on stage in what was the final CES keynote speech from the tech giant best known for the powerhouse Windows PC operating system.
The Lumia 900 so far has been confirmed as running only on AT&T's 4G LTE network and picks up stylistically where the Lumia 800 left off, with an attractive rounded polycarbonate body and a flat, sliced-off-looking top and bottom.
However, the Lumia 900 will have a larger screen than the Lumia 800 — up to 4.3 inches from 3.7 inches. The resolution of the display will remain 480 by 800 pixels, as is standard for all Windows Phone handsets.
The new Nokia will be offered from AT&T in either cyan or matte black and feature a 1.4-gigahertz Qualcomm processor, 512 megabytes of RAM, 16 gigabytes of built-in storage, an 8-megapixel rear camera that can shoot up to 720p video and a 1.3-megapixel front facing camera for video chatting.
The Lumia 900 will be thinner than T-Mobile's Lumia 710, a 0.45-inches-thick 4G phone I reviewed last weekend.
Nokia officials also told me at CES that the Lumia 800 is finally going to get a U.S. launch as well, but it will be sold only as an unlocked phone. That means the Lumia 800 will sell without part of the cost of the phone being eaten up by a wireless carrier's subsidy, which may put it in the $500-range, though Nokia declined to specify.
Microsoft and Nokia also had no details to offer on pricing or a release date for the Lumia 900. As soon as we can, we'll get the phone in our hands for a full review. In the meantime, check out our hands-on video from CES with both the Nokia Lumia 900 above; and photos and of the Lumia 900 and Lumia 800 after the jump.
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– Nathan Olivarez-Giles
Nathan Olivarez-Giles on Google+
Photo: The Nokia Lumia 900 in the foreground, with the Lumia 800 in the middle and an Apple iPhone 4S in the rear. Armand Emamdjomeh/Los Angeles Times
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CES 2012: Cadillac CUE, Chevrolet MyLink — a nail in the CD’s coffin? [Video]
posted by Technology @ 3:03 PM
Tuesday, January 10, 2012
General Motors is at the 2012 Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas in a major way, showing of its new infotainment systems for Chevrolets and Cadillacs.
Both systems — Chevy's MyLink and Cadillac's CUE — will debut this year, and each brings touch screens and in-car apps like Pandora and Stitcher to GM's automobiles. For many cars, MyLink and CUE replace in the dashboard a big radio and CD player.
After getting some hands-on time with CUE and MyLink, I couldn't help but think that systems like these are yet another nail in the coffin of CDs and physical media in general.
VIDEOS: 2012 Consumer Electronics Show
And why not? It seems that for years CD sales and even DVD sales have been on the decline. With the rise of MP3 players and smartphones, many people are now plugging their digital devices into their dashboards to listen to music. Even GPS units have been replaced by navigation apps found in smartphones for many.
So what's GM doing about this change in consumer behavior? MyLink and CUE are aided by users who have smartphones. For example, both systems offer a Pandora app for listening to music streamed from the Web, but that app is unusable in the dashboard unless you have a smartphone with a Pandora app of its own.
When you're using Pandora with MyLink or CUE, you're consuming data on your smartphone's data plan as well. And MyLink and CUE can play music, video and even photos loaded on a smartphone, MP3 player or even a thumb drive.
Although the systems use the smartphone, they don't by any means replace the smartphone's role in a car. Instead, MyLink and CUE build off of this growing relationship between consumers and their phones.
Of course, MyLink and CUE are usable without the aid of a smartphone, for things like operating a car's air-conditioning system, tuning the ol' AM/FM radio or getting turn-by-turn navigation through OnStar (with an OnStar subscription of course).
Chevy's MyLink also comes in two flavors, so to speak. There is a lower-end version, built and supplied by LG, that will be found in the 2013 Sonic and Spark, Chevrolet's entry-level autos. In these models, MyLink will be devoid of a built-in CD player.
However, a different version of MyLink built by Panasonic for higher-end Chevrolets such as the Volt and the Equinox can be ordered with a CD player as an option. With Cadillac Cue, owners can get a CD player in their glove box as an option.
The two variations of MyLink perform the same actions but offer different user interfaces and perform tasks a bit differently. For example, although both can handle voice recognition for hands-free calling, LG's version uses voice recognition software found in a connected smartphone, and the Panasonic version has this feature built in.
GM has promised software upgrades and some more apps for MyLink and CUE after customers offer some feedback on what sort of apps they want.
To see CUE in action, check out our hands-on video above. For MyLink, check out the video from GM below.
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– Nathan Olivarez-Giles in Las Vegas
Nathan Olivarez-Giles on Google+
Photo: Chevrolet's MyLink infotainment system. Credit: General Motors
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TVs go big, wide and ape at the Consumer Electronics Show
posted by Technology @ 2:56 PM
Tuesday, January 10, 2012
As always, the 2012 Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas has been filled with new TVs and home entertainment product announcements.
In fact, there have been so many announcements that it might be tough to keep up with them all if you're actually looking to CES to help you decide what your next TV set will be.
No worry, we're here to help sift through the noise. We'll have more on TVs and Google TV products coming, but here are some of the highlights from LG, Vizio and Sony thus far.
LG
As we reported ahead of CES, LG had big-screen plans for this year's Vegas show with a new 55-inch OLED TV that is just 4 millimeters thick and an 84-inch LED-backlit LCD TV with 4K-display resolution.
For those who don't know, 4K resolution is what many in the TV industry believe will be the next bump up in high-definition standards for TVs and Web video. Current top-of-the-line HD TV sets available to consumers now are either 1080p or 720p — each number indicating the number of vertical pixel lines of resolution the HD sets can handle. The term 4K resolution identifies displays with about 4,000 horizontal lines of resolution. There isn't a ton of 4K video content out yet (most HD TV channels are 720p), but many filmmakers are moving toward shooting in 4K with newer digital cameras.
As promised, LG unveiled both the 55-inch and 84-inch sets at CES this year, each set falling into what LG is calling its Cinema 3D series of TVs, which will range in size between 55 and 84 inches and feature a super-thin bezel when they hit the market later this year. I saw both sets in person here at CES and they looked big, bright and clear.
Of course, how a TV looks on the showroom floor and how it looks in the living room can vary. But LG, as well as many other TV makers, seems to be producing thinner and lighter TVs with increasingly more detailed and accurate pictures displayed on screen.
Another announcement from LG this year was wider implementation of its Magic Remote, which was shown off at CES in 2011 too. As my colleague David Sarno noted in his reporting on CES, the Magic Remote acts much like the Wii remote used by Nintendo's Wii video game console.
With the motion-sensing Magic Remote in hand, a user can navigate on-screen TV menus, settings and even channel changes with a combination of gestures and button presses.
LG is also showing off Google TV sets that will launch in the U.S. in the first half of 2012 and later for the rest of the world. Among LG's Google TV offerings will be a 55-inch model, and each Google TV set from LG will come with a Magic Remote with a built-in keyboard.
Google TV will run on LG's TVs alongside its Smart TV platform unveiled last year. Since 2011's CES, LG said it has added more than 1,200 apps to its Smart TV offerings.
Just as it was last year, 3-D is a major theme at CES this year, and LG also said that about 50% of its 2012 TV line would be made up of 3-D TVs. But like Vizio, and unlike many other TV rivals, LG's 3-D TVs won't use active-shutter 3-D glasses. Instead, LG's and Vizio's 3-D TVs will work with passive 3-D glasses that are more like the glasses often found in movie theaters.
Vizio
Irvine-based Vizio also showed off a newer, wider vision for home TVs. Dubbed Cinema Wide, Vizio is releasing a line of new TVs with a 21:9 aspect ratio. Nearly all TVs currently being sold have a 16:9 aspect ratio.
So, what'll this mean when you're actually watching TV on a Cinema Wide display? When watching a movie in a wide-screen format, no more "letterbox" black bars above and below the image.
However, if you're watching TV on a Cinema Wide set, you're almost guaranteed to see black bars running to the left and right of the screen, since most TV shows and sporting events nowadays are broadcast in a 16:9 aspect ratio.
Vizio says it will release its Cinema Wide sets (which will also be 3-D TVs) in both 50-inch and 58-inch sizes in the first six months of the year, with a 71-inch size to follow later.
The bargain-priced TV maker is also releasing a lineup of Google TV products including TVs running the Google TV software, Google TV Blu-Ray player and a set-top box called the Stream Player that will enable Google TV to run on any HD TV.
Sony
In 2012, Sony's Bravia line of TVs will be divided into three series — BX for entry-level models, EX at the mid range and HX at the top.
The high-end HX line will be made up of LED-backlit LCDs with 3-D and built-in Wi-Fi for Skype and Sony apps. The even higher-end HX850 series will also feature screens made of Coring's Gorilla Glass, which is easy to clean and scratch resistant, as well as thin and light. The HX series will be available in 46-inch and 55-inch sizes, each with a 1080p resolution.
The EX line won't have Gorilla Glass or 3-D, but these TVs will have built-in Wi-Fi and Sony apps and will be available in 40-inch, 46-inch and 55-inch sizes, each with a 1080p resolution.
The entry-level BX line from Sony will be made up of some pretty basic TVs. The BX450 series,will offer 1080p resolution in 46-inch and 40-inch sizes while the BX330 series will consist of one 31.5-inch set with a resolution of 720p, the lowest resolution that can still be classified as high definition.
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– Nathan Olivarez-Giles on Google+
Top photo: LG's press conference at CES 2012 in Las Vegas on Jan. 9. Credit: LG
Second image from top: LG's Google TV Smart TV set. Credit: LG
Third image from top: Vizio's Cinema Wide TV. Credit: Vizio
Bottom image: Sony's HX850 TV at an angle. Credit: Sony
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Vizio introduces all-in-one desktop, laptop PC line (Photos)
posted by Technology @ 2:41 PM
Monday, January 9, 2012
Vizio is hoping to find the same success it’s had in the TV business in the competitive market of personal computing.
At the 2012 Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas this week, Vizio is showing off its lineup of PCs, which consists of two all-in-one desktops and three laptop computers all running Microsoft’s Windows 7 operating system.
The Irvine company is planning on taking the same retail approach with its PCs that it used with its TV and home-theater products, selling its devices at lower prices than most rivals, said Jim Noyd, a Vizio spokesman.
On the laptop side of Vizio’s offerings will be a 15.6-inch-screen laptop and two thin and light laptops in both a 15.6-inch screen size and a 14-inch size. The thin and light laptops will be lower-cost alternatives to Apple’s MacBook Air and Ultrabook laptops from the likes of Dell, Lenovo and HP.
Desktop-wise, Vizio is planning on releasing two all-in-one models to challenge the likes of Apple’s iMac. The desktops will be built in both 24- and 27-inch screen sizes.
So far, Vizio isn’t offering any details on the specs of its PCs or its processor partners, though the company says it is set to release its PCs sometime this spring.
We’ll go hands-on with Vizio’s PC lineup later at CES, but for now check out the media photos Vizio sent to the Technology blog to see some detailed shots of how these new Windows machines will look.
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– Nathan Olivarez-Giles in Las Vegas
Nathan Olivarez-Giles on Google+
Photos: Vizio’s laptop (top) and desktop (bottom) PCs. Credit: Vizio
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LG introduced the Spectrum, a new high-end smartphone coming this month to Verizon, at the 2012 Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas on Monday morning.
The new handset checks nearly all (but not all) the boxes a consumer might want from a current top-of-the-line smartphone.
The Spectrum features a 4.5-inch scratch-resistant Gorilla Glass touchscreen with a resolution of 1280 x 720 pixels (yes, that's a high-definition display) and a pixel density of 329 pixels per inch.
That pixel density is important because it could offer something similar in look to Apple's retina display on the iPhone 4 and 4S, which both feature a pixel density of more than 300 per inch. Any display with a ppi of 300 or greater is said be so dense that pixels are indistinguishable from one another to the human eye at a distance of 10 to 12 inches.
LG is capable of producing some impressive screens for mobile devices, as we've seen on the recently released LG Nitro HD for AT&T and the Barnes & Noble Nook Color and Nook Tablet slates.
Inside, the Spectrum will come with 16 gigabytes of storage on a microSD card, and run on a 1.5-gigahertz dual core processor from Qualcomm.
The Spectrum will run Google's Android Gingerbread operating system which is, for now, the one area on paper where the Spectrum is a bit behind as it's not running the newer Android Ice Cream Sandwich software out of the box. But LG did say on Monday that an upgrade to Ice Cream Sandwich would arrive sometime after the Spectrum's release Jan. 19.
For $199.99 on a two-year contract, the Spectrum will also offer up an 8-megapixel camera that can shoot up to 1080p video, paired with a single LED flash. Up front is a 1.3-megapixel camera for video chatting.
ESPN will also provide high-definition streaming video to its Score Center app, which will come preloaded on the Spectrum, so sports fans can take advantage of the phones' HD display.
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– Nathan Olivarez-Giles in Las Vegas
Nathan Olivarez-Giles on Google+
Images: The LG Spectrum smartphone. Credit: LG
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Lumia 710, Nokia’s first U.S. Windows Phone — review
posted by Technology @ 1:04 PM
Saturday, January 7, 2012
The Nokia Lumia 710 is a small, low-cost smartphone with some big, high-cost bets riding on its success.
The Lumia 710 is Nokia's first phone to hit the U.S. running Microsoft's Windows Phone operating system — more specifically, Windows Phone 7.5 Mango. It's also the first tangible product to hit store shelves, in this case T-Mobile stores, as a result of a deal between Nokia and Microsoft announced in February and signed in April that's reportedly worth billions of dollars.
So is the Lumia 710 a good smartphone or not? Simply put, it is. It's a simple, low-end phone, but it's a solid little phone worth your consideration if you're new to smartphones or looking for an affordable Windows Phone handset. The Lumia 710 runs $49.99 on a 2-year contract with T-Mobile starting Jan. 11.
The specifications match-up with most entry-level Windows Phone handsets — namely the Samsung Focus Flash and the HTC Radar 4G.
The Lumia 710 isn't thin by today's smartphone standards, coming in at 0.49-inch thick, but it doesn't feel bloated by any means, weighing 4.4 ounces.
A 3.7-inch touch screen is featured on the new Nokia, which looks good but results, disappointingly, in a bit of color distortion at extreme angles. The resolution of the screen, which is responsive and very fingerprint prone in the black colorway I tested, is 800 x 480 pixels. Video playback, apps, photos and websites all looked great on the Lumia 710.
The phone is powered by a single-core 1.4-gigahertz Snapdragon processor from Qualcomm, and 512 megabytes of RAM and 8 gigabytes of built-in storage are included. There is no microSD card slot for storage expansion and there is no front-facing camera for video chatting — which falls in line with the lower-end expectations the Lumia 710's price reflects. Though it should be noted that the HTC Radar 4G, which sells for the same price from T-Mobile, does include a front-facing camera.
On the back is a 5-megapixel camera with a single LED flash, which takes clear, detailed photos and can also shoot 720p video. The camera can't match the 8-megapixel shooters found on higher end smartphones, but again, the Lumia 710 isn't a high-end $200 or $300 smartphone.
The Lumia 710 was fast and performed well. I won't go too deep into Windows Phone Mango (for more on that, check out my October review of Mango), but while it isn't the most complicated or power-demanding operating system out there, the Lumia 710 handled everything I threw at it. In about two weeks of testing, I never had an app freeze or crash on me. Call quality was good with voices sounding clear and no dropped calls experienced. T-Mobile's 4G network offered up fast downloads and uploads on the Lumia 710. Battery life was also great: I consistently got a day's worth of charge, no problem.
Stylistically, the Lumia 710 is a bit plain, though not at all unattractive. The curved back plate on the phone is coated in a rubberized plastic that is grippy and comfortable to hold in the hand no matter what you're doing on the phone. The back plate is removable and Nokia is selling different colors — cyan, magenta, yellow, black and white — which thankfully can help add a bit of style.
Below the phone's display is a single piece of plastic which rises out of the face of the Lumia 710 to house three buttons: back, home and search. Many Windows Phone handsets have opted for touch-capacitive buttons and not a large physical button, but that's the way Nokia went this time around and it's unique. You may or may not like the large button, but it is an original look and one I didn't mind at all. The right side of the Lumia 710 is a volume rocker above a dedicated camera button, which responded fast when clicked. Up top is the phone's power button, headphone jack and, in another departure, USB port.
The top of the phone is a bit of a strange place for a USB port, but I actually liked this decision simply because I hadn't really seen it before. Nokia's phones will need to stand out and feel genuinely different from Samsung, HTC and others that make Windows Phone handsets.
This phone, while overall a standard and not at all groundbreaking phone, still feels different than others I've seen at this price range and I think that's a good thing. It's small choices, like the removable colored back plates, the large button on the front, and the USB port up top that give the Lumia 710 some personality.
Build quality is solid and the Lumia 710 feels like it could take some abuse and survive over the life of a two-year contract with no problems.
The Lumia 710 also has a couple of unique features on the software side, with a different color option for Windows Phone's app tiles called Nokia Blue, which looks a bit more royal than the standard blue like the Tar Heel blue worn by the University of North Carolina. Nokia apps are also another differentiator for the Lumia 710 and future Nokia Windows Phones.
The best of the included Noika apps was Nokia Drive, a turn-by-turn voice navigation app that delivered GPS directions in a clear, understandable manner. Nokia Drive also re-calibrated quickly when I went against its suggested routes.
There's also an app, if you can really call it that, called Nokia Cares, which is simply a slide that states that yes, Nokia cares and "respects your privacy. We collect information about your phone and your use of services to improve Nokia products and to provide you more relevant content." But, the app says, Nokia doesn't share your data with third-party companies without your consent. There's also an included link to Nokia's service terms and privacy policy.
All in all, the Nokia Lumia 710 was a phone I enjoyed using. It didn't make me want to give up my Apple iPhone 4S or the Samsung Galaxy Nexus. But unlike the Nokia Lumia 800 on sale in Europe and Asia, the Lumia 710 wasn't designed to do that. Nokia will need to release such a phone in the U.S. to justify its multibillion-dollar partnership with Microsoft.
But while there aren't a ton of bells and whistles here, this straightforward, well-built, speedy little smartphone looks like a good starting point for Nokia and Microsoft.
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– Nathan Olivarez-Giles
Nathan Olivarez-Giles on Google+
Photos: The Nokia Lumia 710. Credit: Armand Emamdjomeh/Los Angeles Times
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Apple iOS 5.1 beta code hints at quad-core iPad, iPhone
posted by Technology @ 8:23 PM
Friday, January 6, 2012
Rumors of a new quad-core "A6" processor for Apple's next iPad and iPhone have been circulating for months, and on Friday a bit of information came to light that will fuel the speculation.
The code for Apple's iOS 5.1 beta operating system, which developers can access for testing before the software is released to the public, hints at compatibility with quad-core CPUs, according to a report on the website 9to5Mac.
The report — by Mark Gurman, who has also delved into a bit of iOS app development — says iOS 5.1 beta describes three different processor variations, making reference to "/cores/core.3," as well as "/cores/core.0," which identifies a single-core CPU, and "/cores/core.1," which identifies a dual-core processor.
Based on Apple's naming convention so far, Gurman says, ".cores/core.3" would refer to a quad-core chip. The speculation is that such a quad-core processor would be called the A6 and be used in the expected iPad 3, following Apple's dual-core A5 (used in the iPad 2 and iPhone 4S) and single-core A4 (used in the first-generation iPad and the iPhone 4).
"Apple leaving references to quad-core chips in the iOS 5.1 beta is notable because iOS 5.1 is the software currently being tested against the third-generation iPad," Gurman wrote. "We cannot conclude that due to iOS 5.1 including quad-core processor references, Apple's next-generation iPad and iPhone will include a quad-core chip, but it seems reasonable based on Apple starting with a single-core chip in 2010 and moving to dual-core in 2011. A quad-core chip in 2012 would fit the pattern."
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– Nathan Olivarez-Giles
Nathan Olivarez-Giles on Google+
Photo: Reading on a first-generation Apple iPad. Credit: Jay L. Clendenin / Los Angeles Times
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Mini Apple Stores to open inside Target locations?
posted by Technology @ 3:14 PM
Friday, January 6, 2012
In an effort to expand its retail reach, Apple is reportedly planning to open mini Apple Store displays inside select Target locations later this year.
As many as 25 locations in smaller metro areas not large enough for Apple Stores of their own could end up with the in-Target Apple Store set-ups, "according to a source familiar with Apple's plans," the website AppleInsider reported Friday.
Officials at Apple weren't available for comment on the report — the company's usual practice is to decline to comment on rumors — but the tech giant has taken this type of approach before.
Hundreds of Best Buy locations feature Apple Store displays, with Apple signage and tables that match the look of what is seen in Apple's retail locations.
At some Best Buy stores, there are even Apple staffers on hand from time to time to explain products to customers and show off iPads, iPhones, iPods, iMacs and MacBook laptops as well as accessories.
Target sells iPods, iPhones and iPads but no Mac computers. That is likely to change with the Apple-Store-within-a-store plan, AppleInsider said.
The site also noted that although there are 1,752 Target locations and 245 Apple Stores in the U.S., there are also more than 600 BestBuy locations with mini Apple Store displays inside.
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Photo: Shoppers look at Apple products inside of a Best Buy store in San Francisco on Dec. 9, 2011. Credit: David Paul Morris / Bloomberg
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Sprint announces first 4G LTE cities for mid-2012 — no L.A. yet
posted by Technology @ 11:28 AM
Friday, January 6, 2012
Later this year, Sprint plans to launch its 4G LTE network in the cities of Atlanta, Dallas, Houston and San Antonio; no plans for Los Angeles have been announced as of yet.
So what does that mean for Sprint customers? Hopefully, noticeably faster download and upload speeds on smartphones, tablets and mobile hotspots.
Sprint's first LTE markets are to be activated "in the first half of 2012" along with improved 3G coverage and improvements in "boosting voice and data quality," Sprint said in a statement. In December, Sprint also began testing its LTE towers in Kankakee, Ill.
Of course, once Sprint begins its move over to an LTE network, its current customers with 4G WiMax phones may be left wondering what will happen to their devices — and maybe even what the difference between WiMax and LTE is.
Sprint's current WiMax network offers users average download speeds of about 3 to 6 megabytes per second, which is about four times faster than 3G service. LTE, which uses different cellular-tower and in-phone-chip technology to build out the network (among other differences), offers higher top speeds than WiMax or the 4G HSPA networks AT&T and T-Mobile use.
LTE networks promise speeds that can be as much as 10 times faster than 3G service, with theoretical peaks of 300 megabytes per second for downloads and 75 megabytes per second for uploads. Among the nation's four largest carriers, only Verizon and AT&T currently have LTE networks up and running.
Sprint said that it planned to launch up to 15 devices, "including handsets, tablets and data cards," in 2012 that would be able to run on its LTE network and its 3G CDMA network if LTE was out of range.
Current WiMax devices won't suddenly be downgraded to 3G service or anything like that, Sprint said, adding that it "remains committed to our WiMax customers and plans to sell WiMax devices with two-year contracts through 2012."
AT&T's 4G LTE enters 11 new markets, including Los Angeles
Sprint says it has stopped pulling Carrier IQ data from phones
Verizon expanding 4G LTE network to cover area with 200 million people
– Nathan Olivarez-Giles
Nathan Olivarez-Giles on Google+
Photo: The Samsung Galaxy S II Epic 4G Touch, which runs on Sprint's 4G WiMax network. Credit: Armand Emamdjomeh / Los Angeles Times
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CES Preview: Google TV items on tap from Sony, Samsung, Vizio, LG
posted by Technology @ 7:51 PM
Thursday, January 5, 2012
Google is trying again with Google TV, and on Thursday it announced its partners for the television effort before hardware is unveiled at the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas next week.
The lineup is mostly familiar, with LG, Samsung, Sony and Vizio producing Google TV products. Sony has released Google TV television sets and set-top boxes, and Samsung and Vizio both showed off prototype Google TV products at CES last year that never made it to market.
Absent from the Google TV hardware lineup this year is Logitech, which gave up on the Internet-connected TV software after its Google TV products failed to catch on with consumers, resulting in more returns than sales in the second quarter of 2011.
Marvell and MediaTek will produce chipsets for Google TV products.
LG "will showcase a new line of TVs powered by Google TV running on their own L9 chipset at CES," Google said, also noting that Samsung and Sony will have new Google TV devices on the market this year. LG said in its own statement that some of its Google TV sets will be 3-D.
Vizio will hold "private demos at CES showcasing their new line of Google TV-powered products," Google said.
The Technology blog will be at CES next week looking at Google TV products and other new gadgets, games and technologies, so stay tuned.
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– Nathan Olivarez-Giles
Nathan Olivarez-Giles on Google+
Photo: Sony's first-generation Internet-connected LCD television powered by Google's Android-based Google TV platform. Credit: Kiyoshi Ota / Bloomberg
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AT&T’s 4G LTE enters 11 new markets, including Los Angeles
posted by Technology @ 4:56 PM
Thursday, January 5, 2012
AT&T announced that its 4G LTE network is growing, spreading to 11 new markets.
The 11 markets added Thursday are Los Angeles; San Diego; San Francisco; Oakland; San Jose; the New York City metropolitan area; Phoenix; Austin, Texas; Orlando, Fla.; Chapel Hill, N.C.; and Raleigh, N.C.
By the end of 2011, AT&T's 4G LTE service was available in 15 markets: Athens, Ga.; Atlanta; Baltimore; Boston; Charlotte, N.C.; Chicago; Dallas-Fort Worth; Houston; Indianapolis; Kansas City; Las Vegas; Oklahoma City; San Antonio; San Juan, Puerto Rico; and Washington, D.C.
AT&T said its 4G LTE service's coverage area now includes a combined 74 million people across those 26 markets.
The nation's second-largest wireless provider also said it expected its LTE network to be "largely complete" across the U.S. by the end of 2013. Sprint and Verizon have both said they plan to have their respective LTE expansions wrapped up by then as well.
Verizon, the largest U.S. wireless carrier, has a 4G LTE network in 190 markets, covering an area with about 200 million people.
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– Nathan Olivarez-Giles
Nathan Olivarez-Giles on Google+
Photo: The LG Nitro HD, a 4G LTE-capable phone from AT&T. Credit: Armand Emamdjomeh / Los Angeles Times
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Barnes & Noble considering selling Nook business
posted by Technology @ 2:30 PM
Thursday, January 5, 2012
Barnes & Noble said Thursday that it is evaluating the possible sale of its growing Nook e-reader and tablet business, which hit a record level of sales over the holiday season.
"We see substantial value in what we've built with our Nook business in only two years, and we believe it's the right time to investigate our options to unlock that value," said William Lynch, Barnes & Noble's chief executive, in a statement. "In Nook, we've established one of the world's best retail platforms for the sale of digital copyright content. We have a large and growing installed base of millions of satisfied customers buying digital content from us, and we have a Nook business that's growing rapidly year-over-year and should be approximately $1.5 billion in comparable sales this fiscal year."
"Between continued projected growth in the U.S., and the opportunity for Nook internationally in the next 12 months, we expect the business to continue to scale rapidly for the foreseeable future," Lynch said.
Shareholder's weren't particularly pleased Thursday with the idea of spinning off Barnes & Noble's Nook business into a separate company or selling the Nook unit altogether.
Shares of the New York-based company fell about 20% on the news of a possible spin off, which also came alongside word that the bookstore chain also expects "full year losses per share to be in a range of $1.40 to $1.10."
Holiday sales at Barnes & Noble retail stores rose 2.5%, to about $1.2 billion, over the last nine weeks of 2011 when compared with the same period in 2010. Meanwhile, during that period, sales of Nook devices and digital content rose 43% from a year earlier.
The company also said it was "in discussions with strategic partners including publishers, retailers, and technology companies in international markets that may lead to expansion of the Nook business abroad."
As for how long Barnes & Noble will take to decide just what it will or won't do with its Nook unit, the bookseller isn't saying.
"There can be no assurance that the review of a potential separation of the Nook digital business will result in a separation," Barnes & Noble said. "There is no timetable for the review, and the company does not intend to comment further regarding the review, unless and until a decision is made."
Barnes & Noble didn't release specific sales numbers for Nook devices, or for the sale of Nook e-books, apps and other digital content, but it did say that even in that segment of its company there is some mixed performance.
For the last nine weeks of 2011, digital content sales grew 113% from the same period 2010 and overall sales of Nook devices were up 70% from a year earlier, setting a new holiday record for the company.
But sales of the Nook Tablet "exceeded expectations, while sales of Nook Simple Touch lagged expectations, indicating a stronger customer preference for color devices," Barnes & Noble said.
[Updated 5:19 p.m.: Barnes & Noble fell Thursday $2.32, or 17%, to close at $11.23 per share.]
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– Nathan Olivarez-Giles
Nathan Olivarez-Giles on Google+
Photo: Barnes & Noble Nook Tablet. Credit: Armand Emamdjomeh/Los Angeles Times
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Apple iPad 3 rumors: From feasible to far-fetched
posted by Technology @ 10:17 AM
Thursday, January 5, 2012
When it comes to rumors, Apple is currently unmatched by any other consumer electronics brand in the amount of hype and speculations its products generate.
And it can be argued that the iPad and iPhone are the top devices when it comes to spawning Apple rumors, many of them never panning out to be true and many conflicting with one another along the way — no wonder Apple always declines to comment on speculation.
With the iPhone 4S now a few months old and a next-generation iPhone (rumored to be called the iPhone 5) not expected until later this year, most of the hype over the last few months has been focused on the expected iPad 3 and the possible iTV project underway.
Here's a rundown of the current iPad 3 rumors that have been popping up around the Web recently:
Retina display
The longest standing rumor about the next iPad, which many believe will be called the iPad 3, is that it will feature a high-resolution screen that will put the tablet on par with the iPhone 4 and iPhone 4S' retina display.
So, what's a retina display? That would be any screen that has a dpi (dots per inch, which is a measure of how many pixels can fit in a square inch) of 300 or greater. The name retina display is used because such a dense screen should allow pixels to be indistinguishable from each other to the human eye at a distance of about 10 to 12 inches away.
The first-generation iPad and the iPad 2 both feature a 1,024-by-768 pixel resolution touchscreen. In August, the Wall Street Journal reported the rumor that the iPad 3 would have twice the resolution of the first two models, upping the ante to 2,048-by-1,536 pixels with a 326 dpi.
It should be noted that the iPad 2 was, before its launch, at one time rumored to be outfitted with a retina display as well, but that didn't pan out.
Industry analysts have gone on to make the retina display prediction for the iPad 3 as well. Of the rumors out there, this one might make the most sense for Apple as its rivals are releasing tablets with higher resolution screens and the retina display on the iPhone 4 and 4S has been met with widespread approval by critics and consumers.
One screen size or two?
Another widespread rumor has been that the next iPad would be offered in not just one screen size, but possibly two sizes with the current 9.7-inch being complemented by a new, smaller model. That smaller iPad has been rumored to have a screen of a few different sizes, but a persistent rumor is that 7 inches would be the choice.
This is an idea that has also been shot down by a number of analysts and tech pundits and the late Steve Jobs shot down the idea of a 7-inch iPad as well, stating that, at that size, "the screen is too small to express the software," as reported by the website AppleInsider.
Quad-core A6 processor
The first-generation iPad ran on Apple's 1-gigahertz, single-core A4 processor. The second-generation iPad ran on a 1-gigahertz, dual-core A5 processor. The iPad 3 is rumored to included a new CPU that is expected to be called the A6.
What the A6 chip's clock speed and core count could be depends on what piece of speculation you're reading, but most reports point to the A6 as being a quad-core processor.
The A4 and A5 were built by Samsung and that isn't expected to change (despite Apple and Samsung's ongoing patent battle), though there are reports that A6 production might take place in Austin, Texas.
4G LTE
The first two iPads were either available in Wi-Fi only or Wi-Fi and 3G models. So far, each of the five generations of iPhones produced by Apple have all been 3G phones as well. But much of the mobile world is moving over to 4G networks.
Verizon's 4G LTE network has been up and running for about a year. AT&T is just getting started with its 4G LTE network and Sprint's network is under development with T-Mobile's 4G LTE service in planning stages.
The iPad 2 is currently only available in its 3G variation with AT&T and Verizon service. Rumors as to a Sprint-compatible iPad are circulating, as are rumors that the iPad 3 will connect to 4G LTE networks.
The tech news website CNET has reported that the iPad 3 might make use of Qualcomm's LTE Gobi 4000 chip and as noted by Wired in an iPad rumor roundup of its own, Qualcomm 3G chips are used in Apple's iPhones.
Release date
So, when will the iPad 3 (or whatever the next iPad will be called) actually make its debut and arrive in stores? That, like everything else, is up for debate.
Apple, so far, hasn't said anything about the next iPad, but usually the Cupertino, Calif.-based tech giant releases its products on something resembling an annual cycle. The first-generation iPad arrived in U.S. stores on April 3, 2010. The iPad 2 hit U.S. stores on March 11, 2011, not quite a year later.
Going off of the release dates of the iPad 1 and 2, a good guess might be that the iPad 3 could arrive in this year in March or April. However, Apple runs on its own schedule, as evidenced by the iPhone 4S going on sale Oct. 14, 2011, when the iPhone 4 first hit U.S. stores on June 24, 2010.
The most recent rumor, originating with the often-inaccurate DigiTimes, was that the iPad 3 will arrive earlier than the first two iPads and have a January 2012 release date — a rumor that, while popular among tech writers, was shot down by the Apple-centric website the Loop. The DigiTimes had also previously reported rumors stating that the iPad 3 could arrive in March or April — conflicting its own reporting.
As noted by AppleInsider and an assessment of recent rumors by the Washington Post, there is also speculation that the iPad 3 could make its debut on Feb. 24, which would be Steve Jobs' birthday.
Of all the rumors that have made their way around the Web, the iPad 3 launching on Jobs' birthday as some sort of tribute to the deceased Apple leader seems to me to be the most far-fetched.
What do you think? Any of these rumors seem off-base or accurate by your guess? What rumors not listed above have you seen out there? Are there any features you may or may not have seen rumored that you'd like to see in a production iPad.
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– Nathan Olivarez-Giles
Nathan Olivarez-Giles on Google+
Top photo: Media members look at Apple's iPad 2 after its unveiling at an event in San Francisco on March 2, 2011. Credit: David Paul Morris / Bloomberg
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Obama 2012 campaign joins Instagram on eve of Iowa caucuses
posted by Technology @ 10:14 AM
Wednesday, January 4, 2012
As Republicans focused on the Iowa caucuses and President Barack Obama made a pitch to Iowans of his own over streaming video on Tuesday, the Obama 2012 reelection campaign took its message to Instagram.
The president's campaign staff, which is also looking to reach voters on Tumblr and Google+ (along with a few Republican rivals), has posted two photos thus far, both of the president speaking with Iowa's caucus voters via video chat, making his case for another term in the White House.
Although Instagram — a photo-sharing app known for retro filters that allows people to share photos with one another from their iPhones, iPod Touches and iPads — is new territory for Obama, the move by his 2012 campaign shouldn't come as a surprise.
In the 2008 election, Obama's team was so well known for its use of Twitter, Facebook and blogging to help build up an overwhelming amount of support that the Technology blog described Obama as "the first social media President." And over the last four years, the White House has made great use of the photo-sharing site Flickr.
Instagram, which has seen its more than 5-million users share more than 150-million photos, said in a company blog post that it is "excited to welcome President Barack Obama to Instagram" and that it looks "forward to seeing how President Obama uses Instagram to give folks a visual sense of what happens in the everyday life of the President of the United States."
The Obama 2012 campaign is also looking for supporters to share their photos with the @BarackObama Instagram account by tagging their photos with "#obama2012," Instagram said.
The company also made sure to point out that political coverage on Instagram has been on the rise over the last year as the 2012 presidential election gets closer.
"News organizations such as NBC News, ABC World News and the Washington Post have been sharing behind-the-scenes photos at debates and town hall meetings across the country, offering a unique look into the 2012 elections," Instagram said.
Among the most interesting photos shared so far by news organizations covering the election on Instagram would have to be Washington Post reporter Philip Rucker's shot of Republican hopeful Mitt Romney typing on his Apple iPad in an airport.
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— Nathan Olivarez-Giles
Nathan Olivarez-Giles on Google+
Image: A screen shot of President Barack Obama's first Instagram photo. Credit: Obama 2012 / Instagram
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SoundCloud reportedly raises $50 million and adds board member
posted by Technology @ 7:56 PM
Tuesday, January 3, 2012
As we've reported, SoundCloud is a company that wants to become the YouTube of audio, and on Tuesday it announced two moves that may help make that happen.
First off, SoundCloud has closed a major funding round. How much? The Berlin company, with an office in San Francisco, isn't saying, but TechCrunch Europe has reported that it may be as much as $50 million.
The new funding round, led by the investment firm Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers with GGV Capital also contributing, will go toward allowing the site to "expand more rapidly," SoundCloud said in a statement. In June, SoundCloud said that it had more than 5 million users.
Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers is well-known in the tech industry for investing in Google, Amazon, Zynga and other high-profile companies.
Secondly, Mary Meeker, a renowned tech analyst and partner at Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers, is joining SoundCloud's board of directors.
Meeker also sits on the board at mobile payment startup Square and is "actively involved" in the firm's investments in Groupon, Legalzoom, Waze, 360buy.com, Spotify, Jawbone, One King's Lane and Trendyol, SoundCloud said.
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– Nathan Olivarez-Giles
Nathan Olivarez-Giles on Google+
Image: A screen shot of Nathan Olivarez-Giles' SoundCloud page. Credit: SoundCloud
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RIM co-CEOs reportedly may be out as board chairmen
posted by Technology @ 6:40 PM
Tuesday, January 3, 2012
Research In Motion may reportedly relieve its co-chief executives, Mike Lazaridis and Jim Balsillie, of their positions as co-chairmen of the company's board of directors.
The move comes amid shareholder pressure calling for new leadership, according to the Financial Post, a Canadian newspaper.
The shareholder pressure is due in large part to a rough 2011 for RIM in which the smartphone and tablet maker dealt with declining market share, earnings results below expectations, shrinking stock prices, multiple product delays, employee layoffs, service outages, a $485-million loss on unsold PlayBook tablet inventory and takeover rumors.
Among those under leading consideration to take over as the head of RIM's board is Barbara Stymiest, who joined RIM's board in 2007 and is the chief operating officer of the Royal Bank of Canada's Financial Group, the Financial Post said in its report.
If Lazaridis and Balsillie are removed from their shared chairman posts, the move reportedly wouldn't change their roles as co-CEOs.
Regardless of what happens, it's clear 2012 will be a major year for RIM as it is looks to rebound from 2011 and release its new BlackBerry 10 operating system, which has been under development for months.
BlackBerry 10 will be introduced on a new line of BlackBerry smartphones that will favor touchscreens over full physical keyboards and enable users to run Android apps alongside native QNX and BlackBerry 10 apps, apps developed using Adobe's AIR software and HTML5.
The new operating system, which was supposed to launch in early 2012 but has been delayed to later this year, will also run on the BlackBerry PlayBook tablet.
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– Nathan Olivarez-Giles
Nathan Olivarez-Giles on Google+
Top photo: Mike Lazaridis, Research in Motion's president, co-CEO and co-chairman. Credit: Justin Sullivan/Getty Images
Bottom photo: Jim Balsillie, co-CEO and co-chairman of Research in Motion. Credit: Carolyn Kaster/Associated Press
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CES preview: LG’s OLED TV is super thin, has minimal bezel
posted by Technology @ 3:12 PM
Tuesday, January 3, 2012
LG Electronics offered a few more details of its new 55-inch Organic-LED TV set ahead of its debut at the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas next week.
The new display will be the world's largest OLED TV, LG said, and will feature a minimally-small bezel on the edges, a thickness of 4 millimeters (which is thinner than most smartphones) and a weight of about 16.5 pounds.
The massive set, which hasn't been officially announced as coming to the consumer market, was manufactured using new technologies that enabled LG to bring down production costs, the company said in a blog post.
"We have a product which not only delivers on all the advantages of OLED over LCD but at a significantly lower cost than what could be achieved using existing OLED manufacturing technologies," said Havis Kwon, president and chief executive of LG's home entertainment division.
Among the advantages that OLED promises over the current LCD displays on the market are truer colors and deeper black levels, as well as lower power consumption.
Just what is this new lower-cost production technology? LG didn't say in its blog post and company officials weren't available for comment Tuesday, but we'll make sure to ask next week when we're at CES in person.
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– Nathan Olivarez-Giles
Nathan Olivarez-Giles on Google+
Photo: A model shows off LG Electronics' new 55-inch Organic-LED TV set. Credit: LG Electronics
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RIM cuts all BlackBerry PlayBook tablets to $299 for limited time
posted by Technology @ 10:01 AM
Tuesday, January 3, 2012
Research In Motion’s BlackBerry PlayBook tablet has hit a new low price — $299 for every model.
Yup, that’s $299 for the PlayBook regardless of how much storage you buy it with: 16 gigabytes, 32 gigabytes or 64 gigabytes.
RIM made the temporary price cut, which ends Feb. 4, on its BlackBerry online store. If you’ve been waiting to buy a PlayBook, this might be the time to go for it — though it was offered as low as $199 on Black Friday.
Normally, the 16-gigabyte PlayBook sells for $499, the 32-gigabyte model for $599 and the 64-gigabyte unit for $699.
RIM officials weren’t available on Tuesday to say just what prompted the price cut, which can fairly be described as a fire sale of sorts. But it is well known that the PlayBook hasn’t lived up to RIM’s sales expectations since its launch April.
Last month, RIM took a $485-million loss on unsold PlayBook inventory. The PlayBook also has yet to entice wireless carriers, as none has offered a 3G or 4G version of the BlackBerry tablet as RIM had planned.
The dramatic price cut follows what was a difficult 2011 for RIM with multiple product delays, layoffs, service outages, shrinking market share, disappointing earnings results, sliding stock prices and takeover rumors.
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– Nathan Olivarez-Giles
Nathan Olivarez-Giles on Google+
Photo: Mike Lazaridis, president and co-chief executive officer of Research in Motion, speaks about the BlackBerry PlayBook tablet at BlackBerry’s DevCon in San Francisco on Oct. 18. Credit: Beck Diefenbach / Reuters
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Sony has cut $100 off the price of its first tablet, the Tablet S, in a move to entice consumers to its Android slate.
Those who buy a Tablet S also receive a free 180-day trial of Sony's Music Unlimited service, as well as five free rentals from Sony's Video Unlimited Service.
Through the end of January, the company is offering up five free downloadable "Classic PlayStation" games in its PlayStation Store app for new Tablet S owners as well.
The price drop, as listed in Sony's online store, pushes the Tablet S down to $399.99 with 16 gigabytes of built-in storage or $499.99 for 32 gigabytes of storage.
The dual-screen Sony Tablet P, which made its debut alongside the Tablet S as a prototype in April, still hasn't been released or given a launch date, although the tech giant promises it is on the way.
The Tablet S features a 9.4-inch touchscreen with 1280 x 800 resolution and a wedge-like shape that makes the slate feel something like a rolled magazine in the hand. A Wi-Fi Internet connection is needed for use.
The device also has a 5-megapixel camera in the rear and a 0.3-megapixel camera up front, 1-gigabyte of RAM and a dual-core Nvidia Tegra2 processor. The tablet runs on Google's Android Honeycomb operating system, but Sony has promised an update to the newer Android Ice Cream Sandwich.
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Nathan Olivarez-Giles on Google+
Image: A Sony Tablet S running Sony's Video Unlimited service. Credit: Sony
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Galaxy Nexus, on Android Ice Cream Sandwich, review [Video]
posted by Technology @ 3:51 PM
Saturday, December 31, 2011
The Samsung Galaxy Nexus is one of the best smartphones on the market and in my opinion, it's the best all-around Android phone out there.
Just about everything you could want from a smartphone, the Galaxy Nexus has — and that's a really good thing considering that the phone is selling in the U.S. for $299 on a two-year 4G LTE data plan from Verizon.
Hardware
The phone, which Google and Samsung teamed up on to design, is just .37-inches thick, which is about the same thickness as Apple's iPhone. Inside, the Galaxy Nexus is packed with a 1.2-gigahertz dual-core processor, 1-gigabyte of RAM, 32-gigabytes of built-in storage and near field communications technology.
On the outside, you'll find a gigantic 4.65-inch touchscreen, which may be a bit too large for some. But, in use, the screen doesn't feel as massive as it is thanks to a thin bezel around the display.
The resolution of that screen is an impressive 1,280-by-720 pixels, which is high enough to be classified as high-definition. This provides a big, beautiful, bright canvas on which to watch videos, browse websites and read e-books.
The display is one of the best I've seen on just about any smartphone. It's a pentile display, which can lead to some pixelization from time to time, but the high resolution of the screen allows for smoother images than I've seen on low-resolution pentile screens.
Battery life on the Galaxy Nexus is pretty good for a 4G phone with such a large display. Over about a week and a half of testing, I regularly found that I could make it through an entire workday before I had to recharge the phone. Of course, the more you use the phone, the faster the battery life goes, and 3G phones still have better battery life. But as far as 4G phones go, the Galaxy Nexus is among the best I've used battery wise.
Phone calls were clear and reception on the Galaxy Nexus was also solid with Verizon's 4G service being fast and plentiful around Los Angeles during my testing.
Cameras
The Galaxy Nexus sports a 1.3-megapixel front-facing camera above the display, which works well for video chatting in a Google+ Hangout or with other video calling services. On the back is a 5-megapixel camera that can shoot up to 1080p video, paired with an LED flash.
Video shot on the phone looks good, but in the rear camera's still photos is where I found one of my few complaints with the Galaxy Nexus. By no means is 5-megapixels a weak camera, but the sharpness and color reproduction of photos I shot on the Galaxy Nexus wasn't at the level of 8-megapixel shooters I've seen on other top handsets such as the iPhone, the Motorola Droid Bionic and Razr and the Samsung Galaxy S II.
One huge plus on the Galaxy Nexus for still photos is the ability to take photos with almost no shutter lag at all. Snapping a picture is nearly instantaneous and while this results in taking some blurry photos from time to time, it should also allow Galaxy Nexus owners to miss fewer moments with their phones than with many other handsets.
Design
The look of the Galaxy Nexus is clean and simple. If you've seen the Galaxy S II, then you won't be too surprised style-wise with the Galaxy Nexus. It's thin and even has a slight bump at the bottom, housing a speaker and microphone, just as the Galaxy S II does.
The front of the phone is thankfully devoid of any Samsung, Google or Verizon logos, which is something I'd like to see from more smartphones. On the right side, toward the top is a power button that also wakes the phone or puts it to sleep. On the left is a volume rocker. A mini-USB port for charging the phone is on the bottom, as is a headphone jack.
The whole of the device, except for the screen, is covered in a dark gray plastic which offers an understated look. The back of the Galaxy Nexus has a removable plastic cover, which conceals the SIM-card slot and battery. Unfortunately, this panel has a thin, flimsy feel to it that is also reminiscent of the Galaxy S II.
You won't find any premium materials on the Galaxy Nexus as you may find on other rival high-end handsets. But while the phone doesn't feel luxurious, it's still durable and well-built.
Android Ice Cream Sandwich
Though the hardware offered is mighty by current standards, the best part of the Galaxy Nexus is undoubtedly its software — Google's Android 4.0 Ice Cream Sandwich.
The Galaxy Nexus is the first device on the market to run Ice Cream Sandwich, which is the biggest overhaul of Android since its debut in 2008. Ice Cream Sandwich is also the first version of Android designed to run on phones and tablets.
Ice Cream Sandwich feels like a turning point for Android. Sure it's the most widely used mobile operating system in the world, but Android has never felt as polished, easy to use, fast or efficient as Apple's iOS. It lacked the design cohesiveness seen in both iOS and Microsoft's Windows Phone too.
Things now are a bit different thanks to Ice Cream Sandwich. Nearly everything has been redesigned and given a new look. This is the first version of Android that I truly enjoyed using — every tap, touch, pinch and swipe. And that can be attributed to its clean style and the fact that Ice Cream Sandwich is simpler and easier to use than any Android before it.
Gone are the four physical buttons built into the front of Android phones. In Ice Cream Sandwich, all the buttons used for the OS and apps are on-screen and can appear or disappear as needed. The OS makes use of three buttons instead of four: a back button, to get you out of whatever you're doing at the time; a home button, which takes you to your default home screen, and a recent apps button for easy efficient multitasking.
Hit the recent apps button, and a column of screenshots of recent apps will show up (similar to multitasking in Android Honeycomb, the previous version of Android built specifically for tablets). But now, closing down an app running in the background is much easier to do. To close an app, just swipe it to the right or left and it will smoothly roll off screen and out of your queue.
In the pull-down notification center, to discard a notification, just swipe it left or right. If you're in Ice Cream Sandwich's Gmail app, reading an newer or older email requires a left or right swipe as well. This repeated gesture feels like one more example of a new level of thoughtfulness brought to Android in Ice Cream Sandwich.
Other improvements include a contacts app that pulls in contact information from Facebook, Twitter and Google+. For Google+ users, contacts can be viewed by circles of friends, co-workers or whatever groups you set up. The Google search bar now follows you as you swipe across the five home screens of Android.
Virtual buttons rotate to different sides of the screen as you rotate the phone from portrait to landscape orientation. And now, finally, Android has app folders — just move one app icon onto another to create a folder, it's that simple.
A new font designed for Ice Cream Sandwich called Roboto is used throughout the new OS, adding to the feeling that Android finally has an identifiable style, which it previously lacked.
Google also built tools into Ice Cream Sandwich's settings menu that detail how much data has been consumed by your phone toward the 2.0-gigabyte cap Verizon puts on its users. You can also view how much data is used by each specific app and set a data usage limit to keep from using so much data that overage charges rack up.
Of course, there are some downsides as not all apps are optimized for Ice Cream Sandwich or the Galaxy Nexus' huge screen and iOS still has a superior app selection.
Also, Ice Cream Sandwich offers users the option of a "Face Unlock" feature that uses facial recognition technology to open the phone from its lock screen. It works fast and is an alternative to not locking the phone, or locking it with a passcode or gesture. But the phone doesn't just recognize actual faces, it also recognizes picutures of faces. With Face Unlock turned on, I was able to unlock the Galaxy Nexus with an iPhone displaying a photo of myself — not exactly the most secure option.
The bottom line
Android Ice Cream Sandwich is without question the best version of Android thus far. When combined with such fantastic hardware, its hard not to pick the Galaxy Nexus as the best overall Android phone on the market.
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– Nathan Olivarez-Giles
Nathan Olivarez-Giles on Google+
Photo: Armand Emamdjomeh / Los Angeles Times
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Verizon: Recent 4G LTE outages are ‘growing pains’
posted by Technology @ 8:33 PM
Friday, December 30, 2011
Verizon Wireless' 4G LTE network, normally known for its speed and stability, has had a rough time this month with three nationwide outages.
So what's the problem? Well, according to Verizon, this is all just some "growing pains."
"The Verizon Wireless 4GLTE Network is BY FAR the largest and the most advanced 4GLTE wireless network in the world," Verizon said in a statement posted to its website. "It is available in 190 US markets and covers more than 200 million people, providing the fastest 4G Network in the U.S."
Currently, only Verizon and AT&T are the only major wireless carriers in the U.S. with active 4G networks, and AT&T's 4G LTE network is much smaller.
Sprint is in the early stages of building up its 4G LTE network and T-Mobile will follow soon as well.
"Being a pioneer comes with growing pains," Verizon said. "The recent issues that affected our customers' 4G LTE service were unforeseen despite careful, diligent planning, deployment and ongoing upgrade programs.
"Problems customers experienced affected connectivity to the 4G LTE Network and data service. Several times, we have proactively 'moved' 4GLTE customers onto our 3G Network to ensure all would have a data connection. For brief periods, such as on Wednesday (12/28), 4G LTE customers could not connect to the 3G Network as quickly as we would have liked."
Verizon, the nation's largest wireless carrier with about 90 million customers, also estimated that the outages resulted in its network being in service about 99% of the time this year.
"Each incident has been different from a technical standpoint," Verizon said, failing to go into detail about just what has been the cause of the outages over the last four weeks. "Our engineers have successfully diagnosed those past triggering events, and they have not re-occurred. We also work diligently to rectify technical problems in the network before they affect any customers."
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– Nathan Olivarez-Giles
Nathan Olivarez-Giles on Google+
Photo: The Samsung Galaxy Nexus smartphone, available from Verizon and running on the carrier's 4G LTE network. Credit: Nathan Olivarez-Giles / Los Angeles Times
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Verizon abandons $2 ‘convenience fee’ after consumer backlash
posted by Technology @ 1:48 PM
Friday, December 30, 2011
Verizon Wireless announced on Friday, after one day of consumer backlash and interest from a federal regulator, that it has decided to scrap a $2 "convenience fee" for credit and debit payments made either online or by phone.
"At Verizon, we take great care to listen to our customers," said Dan Mead, Verizon Wireless' president and CEO, in a statement. "Based on their input, we believe the best path forward is to encourage customers to take advantage of the best and most efficient options, eliminating the need to institute the fee at this time."
The decision to not implement the controversial fee came down "in response to customer feedback about the plan, which was designed to improve the efficiency of those transactions," Verizon said in the statement.
The $2 fee was supposed to go into effect on Jan. 15 and be charged to customers each time they paid their bills with a credit or debit card — unless that customer was enrolled in automatic bill-paying options that can charge credit and debit cards or withdraw money directly from bank accounts.
The decision also came after the Federal Communications Commission said on Friday that it would look into the charge as well as an online petition at the website Change.org that contended the fee was unnecessary.
When Verizon introduced the fee on Thursday, it said it was doing so to help cover the costs of processing fees taken from credit and debit payments by credit card companies.
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– Nathan Olivarez-Giles
Nathan Olivarez-Giles on Google+
Photo: A Verizon Wireless store in Portland, Ore. Credit: Don Ryan/Associated Press
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Verizon’s $2 ‘convenience fee’ sparks online petition, FCC interest
posted by Technology @ 1:09 PM
Friday, December 30, 2011
Verizon Wireless’ new $2 “payment convenience fee” for online credit and debit payments is sparking a consumer backlash and a some scrutiny from the Federal Communications Commission.
Since the fee was announced Thursday, customers of the nation’s largest wireless carrier have complained about the charge on Twitter, in Facebook groups and pages and Google+ too. The $2 charge is set to go into effect starting Jan. 15 for Verizon users not enrolled in automatic bill pay options who pay their bills online with a credit or debit card.
On Friday morning, the FCC said in a statement that, “On behalf of American consumers, we’re concerned about Verizon’s actions and are looking into the matter.”
Molly Katchpole, a Washington activist and Verizon subscriber, started a petition at the online activism site Change.org calling for Verizon to scrap the $2 fee.
The Change.org petition, launched late Thursday, is a tactic Katchpole used earlier this year when Bank of America attempted to institute a similar $5 fee for those who use its debit cards for purchases.
The Bank of America fee promoted a national outcry and eventually the bank abandoned the fee before it could go into effect.
Time magazine identified Katchpole’s petition as one of the many instrumental actions that defeated the Bank of America fee and the activist is hoping to have similar success this time around with Verizon. As of the middle of the day on Friday, the petition had more than 37,000 signatures.
“Verizon just announced a new $2 fee for paying your bills online. Really. Even though paying via internet is fully automated,” Katchpole’s petition reads. “It’s not just about the money (though if you’re like me, you don’t have extra cash to be sending to a giant phone company in order to pay your own bills.) It’s that Verizon thinks it can do anything to its customers, and that we’re powerless to stop it. (Spoiler alert: We’re not.)”
Verizon, which has more than 90 million customers, said it was introducing the fee to help make up for the frees credit card companies take when they process payments.
In 2010, Verizon Communications, Verizon Wireless’ parent company, reported a profit of $10.2 billion, down from $11.6 billion in 2009. Last quarter, Verizon doubled its profit from a year earlier to $1.38 billion.
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– Nathan Olivarez-Giles and Jim Puzzanghera
Nathan Olivarez-Giles on Google+
Photo: A sign at a Verizon store in New York. Credit: Seth Wenig / Associated Press
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Motorola Droid Xyboard tablet prices drop $50, with Verizon plan
posted by Technology @ 11:03 AM
Friday, December 30, 2011
Like the Xoom tablets before them, Motorola's two latest Android tablets, known as the Droid Xyboard 8.2 and Droid Xyboard 10.1, sit on the high side of tablet prices.
Thankfully, Verizon has dropped the price of the Xyboards by $50 — as long as you sign up for a two-year data plan for your device as well.
When the Xyboard line launched earlier this month, the Xyboard 8.2 (with an 8.2-inch display) was priced at $430 with 16 gigabytes of built-in storage or $530 for 32 gigabytes of storage, on a 4G LTE contract.
At launch, the Xyboard 10.1 (with a 10.1-inch screen) rolled out in three storage options and three different prices on contract. A Xyboard 10.1 with 16 gigabytes of storage fetched $530, a 32-gigabyte model sold for $630 and a 64-gigabyte unit ran $730.
With the $50 across-the-board price cut, the Xyboard 8.2 starts at $380 and the Xyboard 10.1 starts at $480, each with a two-year data plan.
While the price is lower and undercuts the Apple iPad (which is the best selling tablet on the market), it's still on the higher end of current tablet prices.
As noted by The Verge, which first reported on the price drop, it isn't clear whether or not this price drop is a permanent move or a temporary cut. Verizon is currently running a $50-off 4G LTE tablet promotion that ends Saturday. Verizon officials weren't available for comment on Friday morning.
If you're looking for a Xyboard and don't want to take on the two-year contract, the price of the tablets won't be receiving a price drop. Instead, the Xyboard 8.2 starts at $599.99 and Xyboard 10.1 starts at $699.99 free of contract.
Aside from the different prices, screen sizes and storage options, the Xyboards are largely the same. The tablet line runs on Google's Android Honeycomb operating system, although an upgrade to the Android Ice Cream Sandwich operating system is said to be in the works.
Regardless of screen size, the Xyboards feature a resolution of 1280 x 800 pixels, a 1.2-gigahertz dual-core processor, 1 gigabyte of RAM, a 5-megapixel rear camera with an LED flash, a front-facing camera for video chatting, and micro USB and HDMI ports. Unlike the Xyboard 8.2, the Xyboard 10.1 can also make use of a stylus.
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– Nathan Olivarez-Giles
Nathan Olivarez-Giles on Google+
Image: The Motorola Droid Xyboard 10.1 tablet. Credit: Motorola/Verizon Wireless
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Google, Facebook, YouTube are most visited websites in 2011
posted by Technology @ 8:00 PM
Thursday, December 29, 2011
Google, Facebook and YouTube racked up the most unique visitors among U.S. websites in 2011, according to new data from the research group Nielsen.
Not necessarily the most surprising news is it? What may be a bit more interesting is that, despite its rapid growth, Google+ was on average visited by fewer users than Myspace this year, according to Nielsen. Google+ was released in beta in July and opened to the public in September.
The Nielsen data also doesn't cover the entire year, only January to October.
According to Nielsen, the top 10 U.S. social networks and blogs, by page views, in 2011 were:
1. Facebook — 137.6 million average page views per month
2. Blogger — 45.5 million average page views per month
3. Twitter.com — 23.6 million average page views per month
4. WordPress.com — 20.4 million average page views per month
5. Myspace.com — 17.9 million average page views per month
6. LinkedIn — 17 million average page views per month
7. Tumblr — 10.9 million average page views per month
8. Google+ — 8.2 million average page views per month
9. Yahoo! Pulse — 8 million average page views per month
10. Six Apart/TypePad — 7 million average page views per month
Nielsen also reported that the 10 most visited overall U.S. Web brands in 2011 were:
1. Google — 153.4 million average page views per month
2. Facebook — 137.6 million average page views per month
3. Yahoo! — 130.1 million average page views per month
4. MSN/WindowsLive/Bing – 115.9 million average page views per month
5. YouTube — 106.7 million average page views per month
6. Microsoft — 83.8 million average page views per month
7. AOL Media Network — 74.6 million average page views per month
8. Wikipedia — 62 million average page views per month
9. Apple — 61.6 million average page views per month
10. Ask Search Network — 60.5 million average page views per month
And finally, the top 10 U.S. Web brands for video, according to Nielsen's data:
1. YouTube — 111.1 million average page views per month
2. Vevo — 34.6 million average page views per month
3. Facebook — 29.8 million average page views per month
4. Yahoo! — 25.3 million average page views per month
5. MSN/WindowsLive/Bing — 16.6 million average page views per month
6. AOL Media Network — 13.3 million average page views per month
7. Hulu — 13.1 million average page views per month
8. The CollegeHumor Network — 12.5 million average page views per month
9. CNN Digital Network — 8.3 million average page views per month
10. Netflix — 7.4 million average page views per month
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– Nathan Olivarez-Giles
Nathan Olivarez-Giles on Google+
Image: A screen shot of plus.google.com. Credit: Google
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Kindle Fire continues streak as Amazon’s top selling item
posted by Technology @ 4:17 PM
Thursday, December 29, 2011
The Kindle Fire tablet has, since its launch, sold more units than any other single item on Amazon.com.
But just how many tablets sold would that be exactly? Amazon isn't saying. As is the company's typical stance with its Kindle products, the Seattle company isn't offering up specific sales numbers.
Instead, on Thursday, the world's largest online retailer issued a statement saying that "2011 was the best holiday ever for the Kindle family as customers purchased millions of Kindle Fires and millions of Kindle e-readers."
As noted by our sister-blog Jacket Copy, so far this month, the Kindle Fire tablet and the Kindle and Kindle Touch eReaders, have sat in the top three spots for most sold items on Amazon.com, with the Fire ranking first, the Kindle Touch in second and the standard Kindle in third.
The retail giant also said that the Kindle Fire is the item most often found on Amazon.com wish lists too.
Without exact sales numbers, it's tough to judge just how well the $199 Kindle Fire is selling or whether or not it will reach analyst estimates of 5 million tablets sold before the end of the year.
Despite Amazon's continued stance on not disclosing how many Kindle Fire tablets it's selling, many analysts still project that the device will become the second-best selling tablet behind Apple's iPad.
Amazon also said that this Christmas Day was the "biggest day ever for Kindle book downloads" and that the No. 1 and No. 4 best-selling Kindle eBooks released in 2011 "were both published independently by their authors using Kindle Direct Publishing," Amazon's digital publishing platform.
"We are grateful to our customers worldwide for making this the best holiday ever for Kindle," said Jeff Bezos, Amazon's founder and CEO, in the statement. "And in a huge milestone for independent publishing, we'd also like to congratulate Darcie Chan, the author of 'The Mill River Recluse,' and Chris Culver, the author of 'The Abbey,' for writing two of the best-selling Kindle books of the year."
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Photo: The Amazon Kindle Fire tablet. Credit: Armand Emamdjomeh / Los Angeles Times
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LG to debut 84-inch ‘ultra definition’ 4K TV at CES
posted by Technology @ 11:44 AM
Thursday, December 29, 2011
LG Electronics is set to debut an 84-inch "ultra definition" 4K television at next month's Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas.
And yes, the new TV set will be a 3-D TV as well. LG is calling the new 4K display "ultra definition" or "UD," to signal that this set can output a higher resolution image than current high-definition televisions.
So what is 4K exactly? It's the resolution that many believe will be the next step in high-definition standards for TVs and Web video. Today's current HD TV sets are either 1080p or 720p — each number indicating the amount of vertical pixel lines of resolution the HD sets can handle.
As the name suggests, 4K resolution images have 4,000 lines of resolution, but this time the name refrences horizontal resolution. Many of today's top digital cameras used by filmmakers are shooting in 4K.
"LG is pushing the limits of home entertainment innovation with this 3D UD TV," said Havis Kwon, the president and CEO of LG's home entertainment division, in a statement.
LG 84-inch 3-D TV will actually offer a resolution of 3,840 x 2,160 pixels, which by some standards is considered worthy of being called 4K.
The huge TV will also run apps using LG's Smart TV software, which offers more than 1,200 apps, such as Netflix, Hulu and Major League Baseball, and it will make use of LG's motion-sensing TV Magic Remote, which allows users to operate the TV using voice recognition or motion gestures.
The so-called UD TV will debut alongside two other massive LG sets at CES: a 55-inch organic-LED TV and a 72-inch LED-backlit 3-D TV. LG hasn't yet offered prices or details on when these TV will make it to store shelves.
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– Nathan Olivarez-Giles
Nathan Olivarez-Giles on Google+
Photo: A model next to LG Electronic's 84-inch "ultra definition" 4K television. Credit: LG Electronics
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Samsung ships 1 million Galaxy Notes, says U.S. release coming
posted by Technology @ 11:06 AM
Thursday, December 29, 2011
With a stylus and a 5.3-inch touch screen, the Samsung Galaxy Note has prompted the question, is it a phone or a tablet?
For about 1 million people in Asia and Europe, what it's classified as may not matter much.
Samsung said in a statement posted to the photo-sharing site Flickr that it has shipped more than 1 million Galaxy Notes globally and that "worldwide sales of Galaxy Note are also on the rise in Europe and Asia including France, Germany, Hong Kong and Taiwan."
The Korean tech giant didn't disclose specific sales numbers, but said that the "rapid global sales of Galaxy Note are notable since it is creating a new market for something between smartphone and tablet pc."
The Galaxy Note, which does make phone calls, will also arrive in the U.S. sometime next year, Samsung said. A tip-of-the-hat goes to the Verge, which first reported on Samsung's Flickr statement.
The device has been released thus far running a modified version of Google's Android Gingerbread operating system, but Samsung has said that the Galaxy Note will be updated to Android Ice Cream Sandwich in the first quarter of 2012. Samsung has yet to offer up a U.S. retail price.
So what do you think? Is the Galaxy Note just a big phone? Or is it really a new class of gadget? If so, what should it be called — maybe a phoblet or a tabone? Sound off in the comments.
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Nathan Olivarez-Giles on Google+
Photo: D.J. Lee, executive vice president of Samsung, unveils the Galaxy Note at Berlin's IFA mobile trade show in September. Credit: Odd Andersen / AFP/Getty Images
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AT&T closes $1.9-billion purchase of Qualcomm spectrum
posted by Technology @ 5:55 PM
Wednesday, December 28, 2011
AT&T Inc. has officially completed its $1.9-billion purchase of wireless spectrum licenses owned by San Diego-based Qualcomm Inc.
The deal gives AT&T the ability to offer service on wireless spectrum that covers an area of more than 300 million people nationwide, with more than 70 million of them in five of the top 15 metropolitan areas, such as Los Angeles, San Francisco, New York, Boston and Philadelphia.
The nation's second-largest wireless carrier announced the closure of the purchase Tuesday in a short statement on its website after the Federal Communications Commission approved the purchase Friday.
The FCC's sign-off on the purchase followed AT&T's decision last week to drop its attempted $39-billion takeover of T-Mobile USA, the fourth-largest wireless carrier in the U.S.
Until the AT&T backed off its bid to buy T-Mobile, the FCC was reviewing both the spectrum deal and the takeover together — a move that was expected to push any possible approval into next year.
AT&T's new wireless licenses applies to the 700 MHz spectrum, which the FCC described in its approval of the deal as "underutilized" by the telecommunications industry.
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– Nathan Olivarez-Giles
Nathan Olivarez-Giles on Google+
Photo credit: Lisa Poole / Associated Press
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Windows Phone reportedly passes 50,000 apps
posted by Technology @ 3:02 PM
Wednesday, December 28, 2011
Microsoft's Windows Phone operating system has reportedly passed 50,000 published apps, hitting the milestone just 14 months after its launch.
The 14-month time frame for 50,000 apps is second only to Apple's iOS, which hit 50,000 published apps in 12 months, according to a report from All About Windows Phone, a website that tracks Windows Phone apps and hosts a Windows Phone app directory as well.
Google's Android reached 50,000 apps published in its Anroid Market in 19 months, the report said.
For its part, Microsoft declined to comment on the report, neither confirming nor denying that it has passed the 50,000 mark. All About Windows Phone, a site not affiliated with Microsoft, said it compiled its data "from our own tracking system," which is also used to power its directory of Windows Phone apps.
"It took just over a year to get to 40,000 apps, but just 40 days to add the next 10,000 apps," showing increased growth for the Windows Phone operating system, Rafe Blandford, who runs the All About Windows Phone site, wrote in the site's report.
But just because more than 50,000 apps published doesn't mean that every Windows Phone user has access to all of those apps, Blandford said.
"Of the 50,126 items published to the Marketplace, just under 6,000 are no longer available," meaning they were removed by Microsoft or withdrawn by the publisher, he said. "In addition, some apps are only available in select markets. This means the number of available items to a consumer, in a given market, is lower than the number of published items."
In the U.S., about 42,655 apps are available for download, the report said.
Of the apps published to the Windows Phone Marketplace storefront, about 58% are free, compared with about 69% of apps being free in Google's Android Market and about 43% free in Apple's iOS App Store, Blandford said.
Both Android and iOS have published about 10 times more apps than Windows Phone so far, he said, though the two rivals have been offering downloadable apps since 2008.
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Photo: The Foursquare app running on a Windows Phone handset. Credit: Armand Emamdjomeh / Los Angeles Times
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Android Ice Cream Sandwich coming to Sony Tablets
posted by Technology @ 9:54 AM
Wednesday, December 28, 2011
Sony has announced that its tablets, the Tablet S and Tablet P, will receive upgrades to Google's Android 4.0 Ice Cream Sandwich operating system.
The tech giant, however, isn't yet saying when Ice Cream Sandwich will hit its tablets, of which only the Tablet S is on sale.
The Tablet S, which features a tapered shape resembling a rolled-back magazine and a 9.4-inch touch screen, went on sale in September at a price of $500.
Meanwhile, the Tablet P — a clamshell device with two 5.5-inch touchscreens and a hinge running through the middle of the displays that allows it to close on itself, screen to screen — was announced in April but has yet to hit stores or even get a solid release date.
Both devices currently run Android 3.0 Honeycomb, but that will soon change, Sony said in a forum posting on its website, as first reported by PCMag.com.
"We're happy to confirm that an update to Android 4.0 will be available for Sony Tablet," Sony said in a statement posted to its company forums. "Details including timing will be announced in due course, so please stay tuned."
Sony also said in the forum posting that it recently released a software development kit for the dual-screen Tablet P to help aid developers looking to create apps specifically for that device.
The company has previously stated that Ice Cream Sandwich, the first version of Android designed for use on both phones and tablets, will be heading to 11 Sony Ericsson smartphones next year as well.
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Image: Sony's Tablet S, left, and Tablet P. Credit: Sony
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LG to debut ‘world’s largest’ Organic-LED and 3D LED TVs at CES
posted by Technology @ 7:03 PM
Tuesday, December 27, 2011
LG is bringing some big TVs to January's Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas. Specifically, the world's largest Organic-LED TV, at 55 inches, and the world's largest 3D LED TV with a screen size of 72 inches.
The new television sets may or may not be considered affordable, but they surely will be large and probably will attract attention at the show to Korea's second-largest electronics maker, behind rival Samsung.
"Our objective has always been to actively define and lead emerging display technology markets," Sang Beom Han, chief executive and executive vice president of LG Display, told the Times of India newspaper about the massive new Organic-LED, or OLED, TV set that will debut at CES.
"Although OLED technology is seen as the future of TV display, the technology has been limited to smaller display sizes and by high costs, until now. LG Display's 55-inch OLED TV panel has overcome these barriers," Han told the newspaper.
The website Engadget reported that a prototype of LG's new OLED set came in at just 5-millimeters thick. LG hasn't yet said how much its new large-screen TVs will cost, but big screens don't come cheap, especially when they make use of OLED technology. As noted by the website Gizmodo, in 2009, LG introduced a a 15-inch OLED TV priced at $3,000.
Sony is also currently selling a wearable TV headset that contains two OLED displays that are just 0.7 inch big for $800.
[Updated, Dec. 28, 8:59 a.m.: An earlier version of this post incorecctly stated that LG released a 15-inch OLED TV for $2,500. That TV was priced at 3,000, as reported by the website Gizmodo. This post has been updated to correct this error.]
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Nathan Olivarez-Giles on Google+
Image: LG's 72-inch LZ9700 3D LED-backlit television. Credit: LG
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Samsung to buy Sony’s half of LCD-making joint venture
posted by Technology @ 2:53 PM
Tuesday, December 27, 2011
Samsung Electronics Co. is buying Sony Corp.'s half of an LCD-display-making joint venture between the two companies for about $935 million.
The move will make S-LCD Corp., founded in 2004, a wholly owned subsidy of Samsung and help Sony withdraw from a venture that has given it eight years of losses.
After the deal's expected closed in January, Sony will take an $846-million loss, the Japanese tech giant said in a statement.
But the exit from the LCD-manufacturing business won't mean that Sony is leaving the TV or computer-display business altogether.
S-LCD will provide LCD panels for Sony products via a "long-term supply agreement of LCD panels, as agreed by the two companies," Samsung said in a statement.
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– Nathan Olivarez-Giles
Nathan Olivarez-Giles on Google+
Photo: A Sony television with a remote control. Credit: Sony Corp.
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Apple fined in Italy, accused of misleading warranties
posted by Technology @ 1:01 PM
Tuesday, December 27, 2011
Italy has fined Apple 900,000 euros, or about $1.2 million, accusing the tech giant of selling consumers two-year AppleCare warranties when they were entitled to free two-year warranties under Italian law.
The Italian Antitrust Authority said in a statement that instead of offering consumers a no-cost two-year warranty and tech-support plan, Apple offered only a one-year plan and charged consumers an extension fee for the second year in the form of its AppleCare Protection Plan.
This resulted in Italian consumers being misled into paying for something they should have received at no extra cost, according the agency's statement, which was reported earlier by the BBC.
The one-year warranty and the second year as an AppleCare purchase is the same warranty that Apple offers in the U.S. and many other countries.
Apple officials were unavailable Tuesday for comment on the announcement.
In addition to the fine, the antitrust agency said, Apple has 90 days to update its Italian website to reflect that it now offers a free-of-charge two-year warranty.
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Nathan Olivarez-Giles on Google+
Image: A screen shot of AppleCare two-year warranties being sold in Apple's online Italian store. Credit: Apple
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LG: Android Ice Cream Sandwich upgrade due for 11 phones
posted by Technology @ 10:29 AM
Tuesday, December 27, 2011
LG has detailed its Android 4.0 Ice Cream Sandwich plans and 11 of its smartphones are due for the update to the latest Google mobile operating system.
The updates will begin in the "second and third quarters of 2012, which will be followed by a global rollout," LG said on its company Facebook page on Monday. "During the second quarter of 2012 upgrades will begin for the following smartphone models: the LG Optimus LTE, Prada phone by LG 3.0, the LG Optimus 2X, the LG Optimus Sol, the LG my Touch Q and the LG Eclipse.
"These upgrades will be followed by upgrades for the following smartphone models during the third quarter of 2012: the LG Optimus 3D, the LG Optimus Black, the LG Optimus Big, the LG Optimus Q2 and the LG Optimus EX."
Not all LG Android phones will get the upgrades. Noticeably absent from the list was AT&T's recently released LG Nitro HD, T-Mobile's LG G2X and the LG Thrill 4G.
However, these phones may yet get the Ice Cream Sandwich upgrade since they are rebranded versions of phones that are scheduled for updates. The Nitro HD is a rebranded version of the Optimus LTE, the G2X is a redubbed Optimus 2X, and the Thrill 4G is a renamed Optimus 3D.
Also missing from the list was the dual-screen LG DoublePlay and T-Mobile's LG MyTouch, which is largely the same phone as the MyTouch Q but without the MyTouch Q's sliding keyboard, and G-Slate tablet.
Officials at LG were not available Tuesday to comment on the upgrade status of the Nitro HD, G2X, Thrill 4G, DoublePlay, T-Mobile MyTouch and G-Slate.
"The exact start dates can vary by market, as each country can have different requirements, depending on the carrier and the smartphone model," LG said in its statement. "Further details on the ICS OS upgrade, including their exact start dates, will be released prior to their commencement."
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– Nathan Olivarez-Giles
Nathan Olivarez-Giles on Google+
Photo: The LG Nitro HD smartphone, available from AT&T. Credit: Armand Emamdjomeh / Los Angeles Times
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Five ways to get started with your new iPhone
posted by Technology @ 12:46 PM
Sunday, December 25, 2011
Got an Apple iPhone this Christmas? Well, you're doing pretty well for yourself. It may or may not be Santa Claus' smartphone of choice and you successfully avoided waiting in long lines as many Apple fanatics do once a year when a new iPhone launches.
But marketing and hype aside, the iPhone is one of the best smartphone lines on the market and each of the devices currently available — the 3GS, the 4 and the 4S — run iOS 5, the latest version of Apple's mobile operating system. With that in mind, here are five places to get started if you're a first time iPhone owner.
1. Photography apps: Apple's App Store (the only place you can get iPhone apps), with more than 140,000 apps available, is a major bragging right for the iPhone versus its competitors, but not all apps are created equal. However, no other smartphone platform can currently match the iPhone for slick apps that produce fun and artistic photos. The best place to start is likely Instagram, which combines a solid selection of filters to make photos look like they were shot on vintage film cameras and a social network of other users so you can see the world through other lenses. Hipstamatic is another popular choice, which takes the vintage filter approach to another level with the ability to mix and match digital lenses, flashes and film choices to create a more customized look than in Instagram. Another app, called SwankoLab, allows you to alter photos already taken using a simulated dark room.
2. Games: The iPhone is also arguably the best gaming smartphone out there and the choices here are plentiful. Angry Birds is one of the most popular games available on smartphones and is a good place to start. But other choices such as Robo Surf, Cut the Rope, Tiny Wings, Bumpy Road and Kosmo Spin are worth checking out too — each combining unique art styles, enchanting soundtracks and simple touch screen controls. For those looking for a bit more of a gaming challenge, the third-person shooter Minigore and puzzle game Scribblenauts impress. The sword fighting games Infiniti Blade and Infiniti Blade II show what the iPhone is capable of with detailed 3-D graphics and fast-paced action.
3. Music: Apple's iTunes allows for easy music buying, but there are plenty of other music related apps worth checking out as well. Shazam can listen to and then identify thousands of songs. Band of the Day is a great way to discover new music. Soundtracking is a unique social networking app that allows you to share what you're listening to with others, as well as check out what tunes they like. And if you're a Spotify Premium subscriber, the Spotify app is a must.
4. Built-in Twitter: If you're a big Twitter user, as I am, or even if you're new to Twitter, you're likely going to appreciate that the social network is baked into iOS 5. Checking out a website you care to share in the iPhone's Safari web browser? You can tweet that directly from Safari without having to go and open up a Twitter app. Same goes for photos, videos and locations in the maps app.
5. Ask a friend: As always, talking to a buddy can generate suggestions that may line up with your interests on just about anything — same goes here. Ask a friend who uses an iPhone what they like about the phone or available apps and you're bound to find something you may enjoy too.
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Photo: A newly purchased iPhone 4S smartphone outside an Apple Store in New York. Credit: Michael Nagle / Getty Images
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Five ways to get started with your new Android phone
posted by Technology @ 11:33 AM
Sunday, December 25, 2011
Did you unwrap your gifts this Christmas/Hanukkah/Kwanzaa/Festivus to find that you're the proud new owner of an Android? If so, welcome to the world of Google-powered smartphones.
Millions of others around the globe own phones running Google's Android operating system, across dozens of devices with varying screen sizes and specs. These phones might be from one of more than a dozen hardware makers, running on just about every wireless network out there.
Given the variation, Android can be a bit fragmented, but no matter what your Android looks like, here are a few basics that can help you get started if you're new to smartphone ownership.
1. Set up your Google Account: To use an Android phone you'll need to have a Google Account, which means you'll have to set up a Gmail.com email address if you don't already have one. Your Google Account is, of course, the login identity that follows you as you use all things Google — Gmail, YouTube, Google Docs, Google Maps, Google Calendar, Blogger and anything else Google produces. This can add some convenience to your life by automatically syncing your contacts and calendars across your computer and your smartphone if you make use of Google's services for keeping track of all that information.
2. Get yourself some apps: The major differentiator between smartphones and other cellphones, aside from the ability to send and receive email, is the mobile app. Android phones have the second largest app store, behind only Apple's App Store for its iPhone/iPod/iPad lineup. Unlike Apple's i-devices, Android users have the option of getting their apps from Google or from third parties. The top two places to find apps currently are Google's official Android Market and the Amazon Appstore for Android. Both stores offer a wide selection of apps and games that have been tested and vetted before being sold, to help prevent apps filled with viruses and other malware from making it out to Android users. Amazon also allows you to test many apps, which can be helpful before downloading. Some basic apps we really like for Android: Pulse is a great news reading app if you like to read news from multiple websites and Cut the Rope is a fun game that can be a bit tougher than Angry Birds but is just as fun.
3. Social networking: Android phones are among the best choices for staying on top of your social networks. The official Twitter app is thoughtfully designed and can help you keep up with the fast-paced social network. Path is a social network that is by default private and designed for easily sharing what's going on in your life with close friends, but you can also share to Facebook, Twitter, Tumblr and Foursquare from Path as well. And, of course, there is Google+. The Google+ Android app isn't the greatest social networking experience in mobile apps, and falls far below Twitter, Path and Facebook in terms of looks and usability, but if you were lucky enough to receive the Galaxy Nexus smartphone this holiday, which runs Ice Cream Sandwich (the latest version of Android) this might not be as big of a problem. In Ice Cream Sandwich, Google has baked-on Google+, allowing for automatic photo sharing and the ability to even read emails in your Gmail inbox by circles of friends on the network.
4. Check out Google Music: For many, the smartphone is also a portable music player, and if you're not already a big iTunes or Amazon customer for music, Google's own Google Music is worth a serious look. Google Music on a PC isn't as easy to use as iTunes, but it does allow you to sync your purchases and music library to the cloud for streaming or easy downloads on the go. Also, Google so far has done a great job on pricing, with hundreds of songs as low as 49 cents and albums as low as $4.99.
5. Talk to friends: As suggested by my colleague Deborah Netburn in her "Five Ways to Get Started With Your New iPad" post, talking to others who own and use Android on a daily basis is a good call. This shouldn't be too tough considering that Android is the most widely used mobile operating system worldwide.
Do you have any other suggestions for new Android owners? Feel free to sound off in the comments.
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Photo: The Motorola Droid Bionic from Verizon Wireless, left, and the Samsung Galaxy S II Epic 4G Touch from Sprint. Credit: Armand Emamdjomeh/Los Angeles Times
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RIM sued over use of BBM name by BBM Canada
posted by Technology @ 6:20 PM
Friday, December 23, 2011
Research In Motion is facing a new lawsuit for its use of BBM as a name for its BlackBerry Messenger service by a Canadian radio and TV industry group known as BBM Canada.
Based in Toronto since 1944, BBM Canada filed its suit against Research In Motion this month "after attempts to negotiate failed," according to the Globe and Mail newspaper which first reported on the complaint.
Jim MacLeod, BBM Canada's chief executive, told the Globe and Mail that RIM also turned down an offer from BBM Canada in which the group would rename itself if RIM would pay for the costs of the rebranding, but the smartphone maker wasn't interested.
Officials at RIM were unavailable to comment Friday, but the company told the Globe and Mail that it doesn't comment on ongoing legal matters.
MacLeod said BBM Canada doesn't want to pick on RIM, which has had a tough year with declining market share, sliding profit and another trademark lawsuit loss over the use of the BBX name.
"We want our name back," he said in the report. "I find it kind of amazing that this wouldn't have been thought about before they decided to use the name. The same thing goes for BBX."
RIM announced in October that its next smartphone and tablet operating system would be called BBX, a name owned by the New Mexican software firm Basis International, which quickly sued RIM for trademark infringement. Earlier this month, RIM was denied use of the BBX name and announced that its next operating system would instead be known as BlackBerry 10.
BlackBerry 10 has been under development for months and was slated to launch early in 2012 before being delayed into late 2012. When it arrives, RIM says, it will be the first OS from the company to run on both smartphones and tablets — an approach taken by Apple's iOS and Google's new Android Ice Cream Sandwich.
The delay is the latest of multiple product delays to hit RIM this year, including the delay of an update to the software running on its PlayBook tablet, which recently racked up a $485-million loss for RIM in unsold inventory. So far, no mobile carriers have offered up a 3G or 4G version of the PlayBook, and RIM has also dealt with layoffs, service outages and takeover rumors.
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Nathan Olivarez-Giles on Google+
Photo: BlackBerry Messenger on a BlackBerry smartphone from Research In Motion. Credit: Oliver Lang / Associated Press
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No Ice Cream Sandwich for Samsung’s Galaxy S and first Galaxy Tab
posted by Technology @ 1:17 PM
Friday, December 23, 2011
Samsung on Friday confirmed that yes, the original Galaxy S phone and Galaxy Tab tablet won't receive upgrades to the latest version of Google's Android operating system, Ice Cream Sandwich.
The disappointing news seemed to be coming after Samsung announced which of its Android devices would get the Ice Cream Sandwich update on Tuesday, while leaving the popular Galaxy S and first-generation Galaxy Tab off the list.
But on Friday, Samsung explained itself in a company blog post on its Korean website, which was reported on by the websites Xataka Movil and The Verge.
In its post, the South Korean company says that the Galaxy S and Galaxy Tab won't be upgraded because the two devices lack the necessary hardware, namely not having enough RAM and ROM, to power Ice Cream Sandwich after Samsung puts its TouchWiz user interface changes over the top of the software.
The argument seems understandable for the sluggish performer that is the first Galaxy Tab, which launched in U.S. stores November 2010. But the Galaxy S, which launched in June 2010, isn't a performance dud by any means, with a 1-gigahertz processor, 512-megabytes of RAM and either 8 or 16 gigabytes of built-in storage.
As noted by The Verge, the Galaxy S has the same internal hardware found inside the Samsung Nexus S, which has been upgraded to Ice Cream Sandwich.
So why is the Nexus S getting Ice Cream Sandwich and not the Galaxy S? The reason, according to Samsung, is that the Nexus S runs a pure version of Android with no third-party changes to the operating system, while the Galaxy S has to maintain TouchWiz and other carrier-specific software additions as well.
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Photo: Taking a photo on the Samsung Galaxy Tab. Credit: Los Angeles Times
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FCC approves AT&T’s $1.9-billion purchase of Qualcomm spectrum
posted by Technology @ 10:50 AM
Friday, December 23, 2011
The Federal Communications Commission has approved a $1.9-billion AT&T purchase of wireless spectrum licenses owned by San Diego-based Qualcomm Inc.
The purchase gives AT&T control over licenses that, according to the FCC, "cover more than 300 million people nationwide, including more than 70 million people in five of the top 15 metropolitan areas (New York, Boston, Philadelphia, Los Angeles and San Francisco)."
The FCC's decision on the spectrum deal was set to be delayed into next year as the regulatory agency was reviewing both AT&T's proposed Qualcomm purchase and the proposed $39-billion takeover of T-Mobile USA together — that was until AT&T dropped its T-Mobile plans on Monday.
In its approval of the Qualcomm deal, the FCC stated Thursday that AT&T cannot use the spectrum in a way that would negatively impact other carriers using or roaming on nearby wireless airwaves.
The FCC said that, given that AT&T is the largest phone company in the U.S. and the second-largest mobile carrier, concerns of competitive harm were looked at, but any resulting harm wouldn't "outweigh the public interest benefits of this transaction," the FCC said in the order.
In fact, the FCC said it hopes the purchase will prod AT&T and its rivals to use the "underutilized unpaired 700 MHz spectrum" for mobile service, "thereby supporting our goal of expanding mobile broadband deployment throughout the country."
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– Nathan Olivarez-Giles
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Photo credit: Lisa Poole/Associated Press
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Still shopping? Amazon launches Best of Digital store
posted by Technology @ 7:38 PM
Thursday, December 22, 2011
Haven't gotten that holiday shopping wrapped up just yet? Amazon.com, the world's largest online retailer, has plenty of stuff to sell and on Thursday launched a Best of Digital store full of items it recommends.
As the name would suggest, the items for sale in Amazon's Best of Digital store aren't physical goods. The store, which is a section of Amazon's website, has for sale mp3 music files, not CDs; downloadable movies, not DVDs or Blu-ray discs. Apps, games, magazines, e-books (for Amazon's Kindle e-reader, of course) and software for home PCs are on the list as well.
Launching such a store after the start of Hanukkah and so close to Christmas might seem like odd timing, but "historically, Christmas Day is the largest day of digital sales on Amazon.com, followed by Dec. 26," Amazon said in a statement.
"Last year, from Christmas Eve through Dec. 30, Amazon customers purchased over three times more digital content, including Kindle books, magazines, movies, TV shows music, and digital games as compared to the weekly average for the year," the company said.
Not at all a coincidence, all the digital items (except for the PC software) for sale in the Best of Digital store can be read, watched, listened to, played and used on Amazon's new Kindle Fire tablet.
"With the introduction of Kindle Fire this season, millions more customers will be shopping for new digital content," Craig Pape, Amazon's director of music, said in the statement. "This year we're making it easier and more convenient than ever to get all the content they want."
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Image: A screen shot of Amazon's Best of Digital store. Credit: Amazon.com
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Google-Firefox search deal reportedly worth $900 million
posted by Technology @ 3:34 PM
Thursday, December 22, 2011
Google is reportedly paying Mozilla about $900 million over the next three years to remain the default search engine in the Firefox Web browser.
The two parties this week renewed their longstanding partnership to keep Google as the default search engine, rather than moving to alternative such as Yahoo or Microsoft's Bing. When the agreement was announced, neither disclosed financial terms.
On Thursday, the website AllThingsD reported that the deal would call for Google to pay the nonprofit Mozilla about $300 million a year for the next three years.
"We're pleased to announce that we have negotiated a significant and mutually beneficial revenue agreement with Google," Mozilla said in a blog post Tuesday. "This new agreement extends our long-term search relationship with Google for at least three additional years."
Mozilla said the financial details weren't disclosed because the deal is "subject to traditional confidentiality requirements."
If the AllThingsD report is true, the new deal would be a huge revenue increase: Mozilla's total revenue last year was just $123 million, according to the website ZDNet.
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Image: A screen shot of Mozilla.org in the Firefox Web browser. Credit: Mozilla
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Hasbro sues Asus over use of Transformer Prime name
posted by Technology @ 12:59 PM
Thursday, December 22, 2011
Transformer Prime — does this name make you think of Android tablets or toy robots that can disguise themselves as semi-trucks and sports cars?
Hasbro, the toymaker that owns the popular Transformer's brand, is suing consumer electronics manufacturer Asus over its latest tablet, the Transformer Prime, alleging that consumers might get confused and think the toys and tabs are somehow related, when they're not.
The suit, first reported by the website PaidContent.org, cites Hasbro's ownership of the Transformers name and a pending trademark for the Transformers Prime cartoon.
Also worth noting, one of the main characters in the Transformers toys, cartoons and movies goes by the name Optimus Prime.
Officials at Asus and Hasbro were not available for comment on Thursday, but Hasbro said in the PaidContent report that the suit was a move to protect its Transformers brand.
"Hasbro continues to aggressively protect its brands and products and the specific actions we are taking today against Asus underscores yet again Hasbro's willingness to pursue companies who misappropriate our intellectual property for their own financial gain," the company said in the report.
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Top image: The Asus Eee Pad Transformer Prime and its keyboard dock. Credit: Asus
Bottom image: Optimus Prime as depecited in the Transformers movies. Credit: Hasbro/Paramount Pictures
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NFL to stream Super Bowl online and to Verizon phones, tablets
posted by Technology @ 11:24 AM
Thursday, December 22, 2011
For the first time, the Super Bowl, arguably the biggest U.S. sports event of the year, is going mobile.
On Feb. 5, the National Football League will stream Super Bowl 46, taking place at Indianapolis' Lucas Oil Stadium, to smartphones and tablets using Verizon's NFL Mobile app (available on Apple's iOS and Google's Android).
Don't have a Verizon Wireless smartphone but still want to see the big game over the Web? The Super Bowl will be streaming at NFL.com and NBCSports.com.
And, as is the norm, the Super Bowl will be broadcast live on regular ol' TV on NBC. As noted by our colleagues over at The Times' Fabulous Forum sports blog, a record 111 million people watched Super Bowl 45 the old-fashioned TV way last year.
"The live NFL.com and NBCSports.com coverage will come from NBC’s TV coverage of the games," NBC Sports said in a statement. "Complementing that stream will be a number of extra features to enrich the viewing experience including additional camera angles, in-game highlights, live statistics and other interactive elements."
But, of course, the NFL is looking to reach more viewers and looking to mobile gadgets to do so. And that's not all. The NFL, NBC and Verizon will also stream wild-card Saturday, on Jan. 7, the playoffs and the Pro Bowl on Jan. 29.
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Image: A screenshot of NFL.com. For the first time, the Super Bowl will be streamed live online and to Verizon phones and tablets. Credit: NFL
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Amazon Kindle Fire software and Kindle iOS apps updated
posted by Technology @ 7:43 PM
Wednesday, December 21, 2011
Amazon updated its Kindle Fire software and iPhone and iPad apps this week, adding new features all around.
For the Kindle Fire, Amazon's first tablet and a hot-selling item, the update promises to improve the responsiveness of touch navigation and the speed of actions on the device, such as loading webpages in the Fire's Web browser.
However, the biggest new feature might be the ability for users to edit what shows up in their "carousel" of recent apps and content displayed on the Fire's home screen.
Before the update, a Fire user couldn't remove any items — books they've read, games and music played, movies watched or websites visited — in their carousel.
The ability to remove items from the carousel was a highly requested feature and in this case, Amazon was pretty quick to deliver — the Fire was released Nov. 14.
The iOS Kindle app updates the user interface for periodicals and text books, with access to the same selection of more than 400 magazines and newspapers that are offered on the Fire, Amazon said in a statement.
For the first time, Amazon is also offering "print replica textbooks" to iOS Kindle app users, which allow for full-color pages and the ability to zoom in and out or take notes as needed, the company said.
And the update also now makes the Kindle iOS app a PDF reader as well, Amazon said, which will allow users to view their own documents — a feature offered by iBooks for some time now.
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Nathan Olivarez-Giles on Google+
Photo: The Amazon Kindle Fire tablet. Credit: Armand Emamdjomeh / Los Angeles Times
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Google’s Andy Rubin: Over 700,000 Android devices activated daily
posted by Technology @ 11:28 AM
Wednesday, December 21, 2011
Google's Android, the world's most widely used mobile operating system, keeps on growing and is activated on more than 700,000 smartphones and tablets each day.
Andy Rubin, Google's senior vice president of mobile, who oversees the Android operating system, announced the latest Android statistic in one quick sentence on his Google+ page and on Twitter, writing:
There are now over 700,000 Android devices activated every day
Later, Rubin added on Google+:
…and for those wondering, we count each device only once (ie, we don't count re-sold devices), and "activations" means you go into a store, buy a device, put it on the network by subscribing to a wireless service.
To put that all in a bit of perspective, Android activations are up from more than 500,000 a day in June and 300,000 daily activations in December 2010.
Last week, the research firm NPD Group said that Android's share of smartphone sales in the U.S. grew to 53% from January through October, up from 42% in 2010.
Since January of this year, Android has been the most widely used mobile operating system worldwide as well.
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Image: A screenshot of Google executive Andy Rubin announcing on Google+ that the Android mobile operating system has passed 700,000 daily activations. Credit: Andy Rubin/Google
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China-based hackers reportedly targeted U.S. Chamber of Commerce
posted by Technology @ 10:05 AM
Wednesday, December 21, 2011
Hackers based in China reportedly pulled off a massive Web attack against the U.S. Chamber of Commerce lobbying group, which resulted in access to a significant number of confidential emails and documents.
Unnamed sources told both Bloomberg and the Wall Street Journal that the security breach took place in 2010 and gave the hackers access to information belonging to the Chamber's 3-million members.
The chamber, the U.S.' largest business lobbying group, is still investigating the attack, both reports said.
The strike is believed to be one in a wave of Web attacks from hackers based in China, along with previous reported hackings against "U.S. companies, business associations, and lobbying groups involved in trade policy associated with China," Bloomberg said.
Officials at the Chamber of Commerce were unavailable for comment on Wednesday.
According to the Journal's report, the chamber hasn't yet determined how much of its data was viewed or taken by the hackers, though evidence has been found that "hackers had focused on four chamber employees who worked on Asia policy, and that six weeks of their email had been stolen."
It is also possible that the hackers, who investigators suspect may have ties to the Chinese government, "had access to the network for more than a year before the breach was uncovered, according to two people familiar with the chamber's internal investigation," the Journal said.
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— Nathan Olivarez-Giles
Nathan Olivarez-Giles on Google+
Image: A screenshot of www.uschamber.com, the website of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce lobbying group. Credit: U.S. Chamber of Commerce
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Google investing $94 million in Sacramento-area solar plants
posted by Technology @ 8:43 PM
Tuesday, December 20, 2011
Google announced that it's investing $94 million in solar panel farms in the Sacramento area.
The money will go toward four photovoltaic, or PV, panel farms built by San Francisco-based Recurrent Energy, owned by tech-giant Sharp, and will help fuel the project alongside funding from investment firm Kohlberg Kravis Roberts & Co., said Axel Martinez, Google's assistant treasurer, in a company blog post Tuesday.
The investment pushes Google's portfolio of clean energy investments to more than $915 million, $880 million of which has been invested since January, Martinez said. Kohlberg Kravis Roberts, Recurrent and Google did not disclose how much Kohlberg Kravis Roberts was investing in the project.
"We're already committed to providing funding this year to help more than 10,000 homeowners install solar PV panels on their rooftops," he said. "But this investment represents our first investment in the U.S. in larger scale solar PV power plants that generate energy for the grid — instead of on individual rooftops."
Martinez said the effort will produce about 88 megawatts of power, or about the amount of energy needed to power "the electricity consumed by more than 13,000 homes."
The investment is the first in which Google and KKR are partnering, but it is likely not the last, he said.
"We believe investing in the renewable energy sector makes business sense and hope clean energy projects continue to attract new sources of capital to help the world move towards a more sustainable energy future," Martinez said.
The power that will be produced by the four solar farms "is already contracted for 20 years with the Sacramento Municipal Utility District," he said.
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Nathan Olivarez-Giles on Google+
Photo: A Recurrent Energy solar panel farm. Credit: Google
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T-Mobile to gain licenses to AT&T wireless spectrum
posted by Technology @ 4:42 PM
Tuesday, December 20, 2011
When AT&T gave up its $39-billion bid to buy T-Mobile USA on Monday, a $4-billion pre-tax break-up fee wasn't all the telecommunications giant lost.
Deutsche Telekom, T-Mobile USA's German parent, will also receive licenses to AT&T-owned wireless spectrum — known as AWS, or Advanced Wireless Solutions spectrum — in major U.S. markets, and the ability to allow its customers to roam on parts of AT&T's wireless network.
"Both companies are in agreement that the broad opposition by the U.S. Department of Justice (DoJ) and the U.S. telecommunications regulator (FCC) is making it increasingly unlikely that the transaction will close," Deutsche Telekom said in a statement on Tuesday.
"As part of the break-up fee, T-Mobile USA will receive a large package of AWS mobile spectrum in 128 Cellular Market Areas (CMAs), including 12 of the top 20 markets (Los Angeles, Dallas, Houston, Atlanta, Washington, Boston, San Francisco, Phoenix, San Diego, Denver, Baltimore and Seattle)," Deutsche Telekom said.
AT&T also agreed to a seven-year roaming service deal with Deutsche Telekom that will result in T-Mobile's coverage area growing "from 230 million potential customers at present to 280 million.
"As a result of the agreement with AT&T, coverage will be extended to many regions of the U.S. in which T-Mobile USA previously had neither its own high-speed mobile communications network nor the associated roaming agreements."
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Photo: A T-Mobile billboard near the Bellevue, Wash., headquarters of T-Mobile USA. Credit: Ted S. Warren / Associated Press
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Apple supplier factory blast injures dozens, may hurt iPad supply
posted by Technology @ 1:16 PM
Tuesday, December 20, 2011
A factory explosion at an Apple supplier in China has left dozens injured and sparked concerns about whether iPad supply would be affected.
The blast took place over the weekend at a Riteng Computer Accessory Co. factory, owned by Apple supplier Pegatron, in Shanghai's Songjiang district, according to a report from the Associated Press.
The Chinese government is investigating the cause of the explosion and has ordered safety checks at the plant, the AP said.
Chinese media reported that 61 people were hurt in the explosion and that more than 20 had to be hospitalized, though none of the injuries were considered life-threatening, the AP said.
Apple officials were unavailable for comment on the explosion Tuesday, but company spokeswoman Carolyn Wu told the AP that "our hearts go out to the people who were hurt in Songjiang. We are working closely with Pegatron to understand the cause of this accident."
Pegatron told the AP in a statement that the blast was the result of "dust collection equipment."
Forbes magazine reported Tuesday that the explosion could produce shortages of Apple's big-selling iPad 2 tablet, noting that the Japanese earthquake and tsunami earlier this year and an explosion at Apple supplier Foxconn last year also resulted in difficulties for iPad production.
Apple has faced criticism in the past for troubles at its suppliers' factories. Foxconn, which also supplies products for many other top consumer electronics companies, has also recently dealt with employee suicides, prompting Apple's then-COO (and current CEO) Tim Cook to visit Chinese factories in person over workplace concerns.
The iPad, like many other Apple products, makes use of aluminum and, as the AP noted it its report, aluminum dust is "highly combustible."
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– Nathan Olivarez-Giles
Nathan Olivarez-Giles on Google+
Twitter.com/nateog
Photo: The Apple iPad 2. Credit: Nathan Olivarez-Giles / Los Angeles Times
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Samsung Galaxy phones, tabs to get Ice Cream Sandwich in 2012
posted by Technology @ 10:33 AM
Tuesday, December 20, 2011
Samsung said Tuesday that upgrades to Google's new Android Ice Cream Sandwich operating system are due early next year for its lineup of Galaxy smartphones and tablets.
That should be welcome news to owners of Galaxy devices who might feel a bit behind after last week's launch of the new Galaxy Nexus phone, the first device to run on Ice Cream Sandwich.
All of Galaxy phones and tablets for sale will receive the software upgrades, Samsung said in a blog post. The Galaxy S II and Galaxy Note phones will be updated in the first quarter 2012 "and other Galaxy devices will soon follow," Samsung said.
Among the other Galaxy products promised for updates are the Galaxy R phone and the Galaxy Tab 10.1, Galaxy Tab 8.9, Galaxy Tab 7.7 and Galaxy Tab 7.0 Plus tablets.
Older Galaxy devices no longer on sale, such last year's original Galaxy Tab, aren't set to receive the upgrades.
Ice Cream Sandwich, the latest version of Google's mobile operating system, is the first version of Android designed to work on both smartphones and tablets and adds many new features such as "face unlock," which removes the needs for passwords to unlock a phone by enabling the phone to recognize its owner's face looking at the screen.
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– Nathan Olivarez-Giles
Nathan Olivarez-Giles on Google+
Photo: Visitors walk past Samsung's Galaxy Tab 10.1 on display in Seoul on Oct. 13. Credit: Jo Yong-Hak/Reuters
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ITC to ban select HTC Android phones in Apple patent win
posted by Technology @ 6:56 PM
Monday, December 19, 2011
Apple landed a potentially major victory against HTC on Monday after the U.S. International Trade Commission ruled in its favor and found that some of HTC's Android smartphones and tablets violated one of its patents.
In its ruling on the patent dispute between Apple and HTC, the ITC also handed down a ban on the importing of specific HTC Android devices that goes into affect April 19, 2012.
The HTC phones or tablets banned by the ITC will include any that run on Google's Android 1.6 Donut to 2.2 Froyo mobile operating system, according to Gizmodo.
The decision doesn't specifically call for an import ban on phones running newer versions of Android such as 2.3 Gingerbread, 3.0 Honeycomb or the new 4.0 Ice Cream Sandwich. Most newer HTC phones and tablets run on Android Gingerbread, and some (such as the HTC Rezound) are due for upgrades to Android Ice Cream Sandwich.
In its complaint to the ITC, Apple accused HTC of violating a number of its patents, each of which are older than smartphones themselves.
But the ITC found HTC in violation of only one of Apple's patents — patent 5,946,647, which Apple was awarded in February 1996 and covers the "system and method for performing an action on a structure in computer-generated data," or basically a patent for handling the actions that take place in the background when you do something as simple as tapping a link in an email to open it in a Web browser.
In an emailed statement, HTC lawyer Grace Lei said that the company was pleased that the ITC found that it wasn't in violation of all the patents Apple accused it of infringing. As for the one patent it was found to be in violation of — patent 5,946,647 — HTC said it would alter its use of Android to avoid the problem.
"We are very pleased with the determination and we respect it," Lei said. "However, the 647 patent is a small UI experience and HTC will completely remove it from all of our phones soon."
Apple officials were not available to comment on the commission ruling Monday.
From here, the ruling still has to be approved by the ITC's president, who has 60 days to sign off on the decision or veto it.
If the decision sticks and the import ban comes to fruition, HTC will still be able to sell whatever it has in the U.S. before April 19 of next year. The Taiwanese company also has until Dec. 19, 2013, to import refurbished devices "to be provided to consumers as replacements under warranty or an insurance contract (whether the warranty or contract is offered by HTC, a carrier, or by a third party)," the ITC said in its ruling.
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– Nathan Olivarez-Giles
Nathan Olivarez-Giles on Google+
Photo: The HTC G1, left, and Apple iPhone 4S smartphones. The G1 was one of a number of HTC smartphones found to be in violation of an Apple-owned patent. Credit: Eric Risberg / AP
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IBM ’5 in 5′ predicts no more passwords, mind-reading smartphones
posted by Technology @ 11:22 AM
Monday, December 19, 2011
IBM is predicting that in the next five years we'll no longer need passwords for email or even ATMs, we'll be able to control smartphones and laptops with our minds, and we may even live in a world without junk email.
Too good to be true? Today, yes. But researchers at tech companies such as IBM are working on bringing these ideas to fruition, which is why the 100-year-old tech giant is including these and other ideas in its sixth annual "5 in 5" report of five technologies "that have the potential to change the way people work, live and interact during the next five years."
Mind-reading gadgets: IBM and other companies are working on devices that you can control with your mind. For example, rather than having to tap on a touch screen or through a series of buttons to place a phone call, someday you may need only to imagine calling someone and a mind-reading phone will make the connection, IBM said.
"If you just need to think about calling someone, it happens," IBM said of its prediction. "Or you can control the cursor on a computer screen just by thinking about where you want to move it."
Mind-reading technology, known as bioinformatics, has already shown up in simple forms from toy makers such as Mattel, and engineers at IBM and other companies "have designed headsets with advanced sensors to read electrical brain activity that can recognize facial expressions, excitement and concentration levels, and thoughts of a person without them physically taking any actions," the report said.
"Within five years we will begin to see early applications of this technology in the gaming and entertainment industry," IBM said. "Furthermore, doctors could use the technology to test brain patterns, possibly even assist in rehabilitation from strokes and to help in understanding brain disorders, such as autism."
No more passwords: Passwords will be left behind as devices instead grant you access by recognizing who you are, IBM is predicting.
"Your biological makeup is the key to your individual identity, and soon it will become the key to safeguarding it," IBM said. "Imagine you will be able to walk up to an ATM machine to securely withdraw money by simply speaking your name or looking into a tiny sensor that can recognize the unique patterns in the retina of your eye. Or by doing the same, you can check your account balance on your mobile phone or tablet."
A bit freaky right? An example of this sort of technology hitting the mainstream can already be seen in the facial recognition technology used in the "face unlock" feature found in the latest version of Google's Android operating system, known as Ice Cream Sandwich.
"Biometric data — facial definitions, retinal scans and voice files — will be composited through software to build your DNA-unique, online password," IBM said. "Referred to as multifactor biometrics, smarter systems will be able to use this information in real time to make sure whenever someone is attempting to access your information, it matches your unique biometric profile and the attempt is authorized."
Of course, this idea has and continues to raise privacy concerns as companies collect the biometric data needed to pull this sort of thing off.
"To be trusted, such systems should enable you to opt in or out of whatever information you choose to provide," IBM suggested.
People-powered homes: IBM projects that we will soon have the technology to generate the power needed for our homes ourselves.
"Anything that moves or produces heat has the potential to create energy that can be captured," IBM said. "Walking. Jogging. Bicycling. The heat from your computer. Even the water flowing through your pipes."
The ability to collect kinetic energy that is currently untapped is improving, the company said, pointing to its own team of scientists in Ireland who are "looking at ways to understand and minimize the environmental impact of converting ocean wave energy into electricity."
Mobile devices could fill the technology gap: Currently, the disparity between those with access to modern technologies is a wide one, particularly in emerging countries, though it is believed to be shrinking.
IBM is forecasting that over the next five years the gap will continue to lessen.
"In our global society, growth and wealth of economies are increasingly decided by the level of access to information," IBM said. "And in five years the gap between information haves and have-nots will narrow considerably due to advances in mobile technology."
The current, fast-growing adoption in India, an increasingly wealthy and powerful country, is an example of this already taking place, the company said, projecting that as many as 5.6 billion mobile devices could be sold worldwide over the next five years.
"As it becomes cheaper to own a mobile phone, people without a lot of spending power will be able to do much more than they can today," IBM said. ""In India, using speech technology and mobile devices, IBM enabled rural villagers who were illiterate to pass along information through recorded messages on their phones. With access to information that was not there before, villagers could check weather reports to help them decide when to fertilize crops, know when doctors were coming into town, and find the best prices for their crops or merchandise."
Junk mail extinction: Junk mail as we know it today will cease to exist in five years, IBM said.
But, if this prediction comes true, it won't be because companies are sending us less email. Instead, "unsolicited advertisements may feel so personalized and relevant it may seem spam is dead," IBM said. "At the same time, spam filters will be so precise you'll never be bothered by unwanted sales pitches again."
So how do IBM and its rivals envision a junk-mail-free future coming to pass? Real-time analytics will be used "to make sense and integrate data from across all the facets of your life such as your social networks and online preferences to present and recommend information that is only useful to you."
What do you think of IBM's five predictions for the next five years? Do you have some of your own? Feel free to sound off in the comments.
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– Nathan Olivarez-Giles
Nathan Olivarez-Giles on Google+
Photo: Kevin Brown of IBM Software Group's Emerging Technologies wears the "EPOC" headset, with which he can control devices, such as a toy car, with his brain impulses. Credit: IBM via Flickr
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Amazon Kindle Fire to gain performance boosts in software update
posted by Technology @ 9:16 AM
Monday, December 12, 2011
Amazon's Kindle Fire is reportedly due for its first software update, partly in response to complaints about the performance of the hot-selling new tablet.
The retail giant, which has in the Fire a sales hit, is looking to improve the Web-browsing speed of its first tablet, among other things, according to a report from the New York Times.
"In less than two weeks, we’re rolling out an over-the-air update to Kindle Fire," Amazon spokesman Drew Herdener said in the report.
As well as the speed of its Silk Browser, the software update should improve the responsiveness of the Fire's multitouch navigation and users will also be able to edit the Carousel of recent items they've used on the device, the New York Times said.
The Fire's last software update came about a month ago and since the Fire first shipped about a month ago, a significant number of consumers have complained to Amazon about the performance of their devices, and some have returned the new gadget because they were so unhappy with it, the report said.
Amazon doesn't disclose its sales or return numbers for the Fire, or any other Kindle devices, but reviews (myself included) did have a number of performance complaints with the 7-inch tablet. However, research groups have estimated that already, the Kindle Fire is the second-best selling tablet in the U.S.
The report also echoes the rumors that Amazon is working on a new Kindle Fire, possibly with a larger screen size, that could launch in the spring.
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– Nathan Olivarez-Giles
Nathan Olivarez-Giles on Google+
Photo: An Amazon.com employee holds the Kindle Fire tablet at the device's unveiling in New York in September. Credit: Emile Wamsteker / Bloomberg
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The LG Nitro HD reminds me a lot of the Samsung Galaxy S II, and if you’ve ever seen the two smartphones, I’m sure you’ll agree.
The two phones could be mistaken for twins, sitting side-by-side with 4.5-inch touchscreens, and similarly designed plastic backs with 8-megapixel cameras sitting rear-center.
However, aside from the outside looks, the overall experience of using the two phones is quite different and it’s on the software side where LG comes up short with the Nitro HD.
The Nitro HD is one of a new wave of smartphones (along with handsets like the HTC Rezound and upcoming Samsung Galaxy Nexus) that is upping the ante for screen resolution into high-definition territory, with a 1,280 x 720 screen resolution.
The Nitro HD’s display is one of the nicest I’ve seen on any smartphone so far. Streaming video, websites, apps all looked detailed and worthy of being called high definition. Colors came though balanced and accurate. Images looked smooth, with pixelation hard to find due to a density of 326-pixels-per-inch, which is the same pixel density as the iPhone 4 and 4S.
The display also features edges that are curved to roll into the sides of the phone’s body, so running your finger across the device for any swiping motion on-screen is extra satisfying. It’s such a small detail, but not having a hard edge to run into makes using the touchscreen a thoughtlessly pleasant experience. Nokia has taken a similar approach with its Lumia 800 and this is a design touch I wouldn’t mind seeing on more phones.
The internals of the Nitro HD are top-notch as well, with a 1.5-gigahertz dual-core processor, 1 gigabyte of RAM and 4 gigabytes of built-in storage pared with an included 16-gigabyte microSD storage card.
Photos from the rear camera looked good, but colors came out a bit oversaturated for my taste; 1080p video shot by the camera was impressive.
But all this goodness felt a bit held back by LG’s modifications to Google’s Android operating system and a few other gripes.
Every handset maker out there adds their own “skin” over the top of Android in an effort to stand out in the crowd. But LG’s version of Android adds app icons, widgets and even fonts used in the operating system that all feel a bit too big, as if LG is failing to take advantage of all the screen real estate the Nitro HD’s display has delivered.
Battery life was poor, as is pretty much standard for just about any 4G smartphone nowadays, especially phones with 4.5-inch screens requiring so much power. In a week of testing, I found that I needed to charge the Nitro HD before my work day was done, after charging the phone each night as well — so keep spare chargers around at home, work and in the car if you’re considering buying the Nitro HD.
The Nitro HD also has a quiet, flat sounding speaker that wasn’t good for talking to a friend on speakerphone, much less for video watching or music listening — so a nice set of headphones would be a good accessory as well.
At $249.99 on a 2-year data plan from AT&T, the Nitro HD is fairly priced (though it’d be a lot nicer at about $200), but the Samsung Galaxy S II Skyrocket and HTC Vivid are worth a look if you’re looking for big-screens and 4G speeds from AT&T.
Like the Vivid and the Galaxy S II Skyrocket, the Nitro HD runs on AT&T’s 4G LTE network if that network is available wherever you are, which so far isn’t very many places.
AT&T’s 4G LTE network is up and running in Atlanta and Athens, Ga.; Baltimore; Boston; Charlotte, N.C.; Chicago; Dallas-Fort Worth; Houston; Indianapolis; Kansas City, Mo.; Las Vegas; Oklahoma City; Washington D.C.; San Antonio; and San Juan, Puerto Rico, with more markets planned to launch next year. If you’re outside of those markets, the Nitro HD (and other AT&T 4G LTE phones) run on the carrier’s HSPA+ 4G network or its 3G network, each of which are speedy in their own right, whenever you have a strong signal.
So, taking a look at the good and the bad of the Nitro HD, the new phone sits among the nicer phones available from AT&T at this time, but there is one major hurdle I see that would make me hesitant to purchase this device: the question of Ice Cream Sandwich.
The Nitro HD runs on Android Gingerbread and LG hasn’t yet said whether or not its flagship AT&T phone will be upgraded to the latest version of Android, known as Ice Cream Sandwich. It seems a no-brainer that LG would make the move to Ice Cream Sandwich eventually, but many hardware manufacturers have made a habit of leaving devices stagnant when it comes to Android.
As great as the Nitro HD’s hardware is, it’s the software, both in its current form and its undefined future, that holds this phone back from living up to its potential.
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– Nathan Olivarez-Giles
Nathan Olivarez-Giles on Google+
Photo: The LG Nitro HD from AT&T. Credit: Armand Emamdjomeh/Los Angeles Times
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T-Mobile may offer Nokia’s Lumia Windows Phone handsets
posted by Technology @ 9:15 PM
Friday, December 9, 2011
T-Mobile and Nokia are expected to announce next week that the Lumia 710 Windows Phone, and possibly the Lumia 800 as well, is headed to the U.S.
Nokia's Lumia phones are the handset maker's first devices to run Microsoft's Windows Phone operating system, the product of a deal between Nokia and Microsoft announced in February and signed in April that's reportedly worth billions of dollars.
The colorful new handsets are already available in Europe, but so far Nokia hasn't announced a U.S. carrier for the Lumia, despite saying that its intent is to have at least the Lumia 710 available in America by sometime next year.
Nokia hasn't yet said whether the Lumia 800 will also be available stateside. Nokia also hasn't introduced any other planned Windows Phone devices outside of the Lumia 710 and Lumia 800.
On Friday, T-Mobile sent an invitation to the press for an event in New York on Wednesday, Dec. 14, that reads "T-Mobile and Nokia have something exciting in the works. Be amongst the first to experience it."
The band Clap Your Hands Say Yeah, as well as DJ Sam French, will perform at the event.
For details on the Lumia 710 and the Lumia 800, check out our previous coverage of the handsets here.
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– Nathan Olivarez-Giles
Nathan Olivarez-Giles on Google+
Image: The Nokia Lumia 800, running Microsoft's Windows Phone 7.5 Mango operating system. Credit: Nokia
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Motorola Droid Xyboard tablets on sale, start at $430
posted by Technology @ 8:55 PM
Friday, December 9, 2011
Motorola's two latest Android tablets, exclusive to Verizon Wireless, went on sale online Friday; the Droid Xyboard 8.2 and the Droid Xyboard 10.1.
The two screen sizes come with different prices.
The Droid Xyboard 8.2 has an 8.2-inch display and sells for $430 with 16 gigabytes of built-in storage or $530 for 32 gigabytes of storage. Each price is based on signing a two-year 4G LTE data plan with Verizon.
The Droid Xyboard 10.1, with a 10.1-inch screen, is offered in three storage options and three prices. A 16-gigabyte Xyboard sells for $530, a 32-gigabyte model sells for $630 and a 64-gigabyte unit runs $730, again with a two-year Verizon 4G contract.
While the Droid Xyboards went on sale online Friday, the new tablets actually land in stores Monday, Verizon said in a statement.
Aside from the differing screen sizes and storage options, each of the five variations of Droid Xyboards will run on Google's Android Honeycomb operating system, although an upgrade to the soon-to-arrive Android Ice Cream Sandwich operating system will come later.
The Droid Xyboards also all feature a screen resolution of 1280 x 800 pixels, 1.2-gigahertz dual-core processor, 1 gigabyte of RAM, a 5-megapixel rear camera with an LED flash, a front-facing camera for video chatting, and micro USB and HDMI ports. The 10.1-inch models also can be used with a stylus.
For a limited time only, Verizon said, those who buy a Motorola Droid Razr smartphone from Verizon can get a $100 discount off a Droid Xyboard tablet.
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– Nathan Olivarez-Giles
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Image: The Motorola Droid Xyboard 10.1 tablet. Credit: Motorola/Verizon Wireless
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Apple vs. Samsung: Galaxy Tab 10.1 sales ban lifted in Australia
posted by Technology @ 1:15 PM
Friday, December 9, 2011
Samsung's Galaxy Tab 10.1 tablet is back on sale in Australia after a temporary sales ban on the competitor to Apple's iPad expired on the device due to a patent lawsuit between the two companies in that country.
The lifting of the sales injunction is a win for Samsung, since it finally can start selling the Galaxy Tab 10.1 after the South Korean tech giant voluntarily pulled the Galaxy Tab 10.1 from shelves in August and an Australian court order made the ban official in October.
Samsung, however, won't be able to sell the Galaxy Tab until next week as it wasn't allowed to import shipments of Galaxy Tab 10.1 into Australia as a part of the sales ban, according to the Sydney Morning Herald.
Apple and Samsung are suing each other over alleged patent infringement related to technologies used in their respective tablets, and the expiration of the ban is the latest development before the dispute goes to go to trial in March.
But as we've reported the clash in Australia is just one part of a larger international patent battle between the two consumer electronics heavyweights that cover touchscreen technology, the look and feel of products and even how the devices connect to the Internet.
Apple and Samsung are suing one another in the U.S., France and 30 other European countries, as well as Japan. And in other countries, the litigation has spread to encompass Samsung's Galaxy S, Galaxy S II and Ace smartphones, other Galaxy Tab tablets (all products that run Google's Android operating system), and Apple's iPhone and iPad products.
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– Nathan Olivarez-Giles
Nathan Olivarez-Giles on Google+
Photo: An Apple iPad 2, left, and a Samsung Galaxy Tab 10.1 at a store in the Hague, Netherlands, in August. Credit: Robert Vos / European Pressphoto Agency
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Apple iPad 3, with retina display, slated for February?
posted by Technology @ 10:46 AM
Friday, December 9, 2011
According to a Citi analyst, Apple is prepping a next-generation iPad — likely called an iPad 3 — for a February release.
Such a device would be similar to the iPad 2, but include Apple's high-resolution retina display technology found on the iPhone 4 and iPhone 4S by doubling the iPad 3's screen resolution, said analyst Richard Gardner in a research note first reported on by Business Insider and PCMag.
Gardner reportedly said that "several sources" told him that Apple could launch the iPad 3 as early as February, which would put its debut ahead of the first two generations of Apple's tablet.
The first iPad hit stores in April 2010 after being unveiled the month before, and the iPad 2 was unveiled and released in March 2011.
The analyst also said that "there do not appear to be any significant technical hurdles remaining" to prevent the launch of a high-resolution iPad, which contradicts previous reports that fitting such a dense screen into an Apple tablet was one of the reasons Apple iPad 2 maintained the 1024 x 768 resolution of the first iPad.
Both the first iPad and iPad 2 displays have a pixel density of 132 pixels per inch (or ppi).
Apple's iPhone 4 and 4S have what is classified as a retina display, with a resolution of 960 x 640 resolution, and a 326 ppi. Any display with a ppi of 300 or greater is said be so dense that pixels are indistinguishable from each other to the human eye at a distance of about 10 to 12 inches — and thus, those displays can be dubbed retina displays.
Tablets with higher screen resolution have been released by Apple rivals and more are on the way, but nothing close to a retina display tablet has surfaced yet — though Samsung has been working on it for months.
Among the most anticipated iPad competitors coming soon is the Asus Eee Pad Transformer Prime, which features a screen resolution of 1280 x 800 pixels.
Gardner also estimated that Apple would sell about 12 million to 13 million iPads in the final three months of this year.
The major sales competitor to Apple's iPad is widely considered the Amazon Kindle Fire, which boasts much lower specs than iPads and Eee Pads. The research firm IHS iSuppli has estimated that Amazon will ship about 3.9 million Kindle Fire tablets before the end of the year.
In the past, Apple normally released new generations of its products about a year apart, though the iPad 2 did arrive 11 months after the first iPad, and recently the tech giant waited 16 months before releasing the iPhone 4S after the iPhone 4.
Apple is currently the leading tablet seller worldwide, with an estimated 65% share of the market.
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– Nathan Olivarez-Giles
Nathan Olivarez-Giles on Google+
Photo: A man uses his Apple iPad to take a photo of Pope Benedict XVI outside the pope's summer residence in Castel Gandolfo, southeast of Rome, on Aug. 28. Credit: Andreas Solaro / AFP/Getty Images
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Galaxy Nexus smartphone on sale in Canada, but still no U.S. release date
posted by Technology @ 5:35 PM
Thursday, December 8, 2011
The Galaxy Nexus and Google's Android Ice Cream Sandwich have finally arrived in North America — but not in the U.S.
On Thursday, Android fans in our neighbor up north were able to buy Samsung's new Galaxy Nexus smartphone as it launched on Canadian carriers Bell for $159.95 and Virgin Mobile for $159.99, along with each company's respective data plan.
But the Galaxy Nexus, which is the first device to run on the highly anticipated Android Ice Cream Sandwich operating system, still has no U.S. release date or price.
Making things a bit more painful for Google gadget lovers in the U.S.: The Galaxy Nexus has been on sale in Britain for weeks and is launching across Europe over the next few days.
Whenever the Galaxy Nexus hits the States, it'll be available on Verizon's 4G LTE network (something we've known since mid-October), sporting a massive 4.65-inch touch screen with a 1280 x 720 pixel resolution, a 1.2-gigahertz dual-core processor and 1 gigabyte of RAM.
The new handset will also have a 5-megapixel rear camera capable of shooting 1080p video and a 1.3-megapixel camera on the front for video chatting, and no physical buttons on the curved face of the device. The back of the Galaxy Nexus looks, well, a lot like the Galaxy S II and the LG Nitro HD.
All of that measures up with other top-of-the-line smartphones out there — so nothing groundbreaking hardware-wise, but nearly all you'd want out of a current smartphone is included, on paper anyway.
So what makes the Galaxy Nexus remotely special? Again, Android Ice Cream Sandwich, Google's first operating system designed for both smartphones and tablets.
Ice Cream Sandwich is the version of Android that Google hopes will get hardware makers on the same page. In the past, many handset makers have failed to issue software updates for older phones when newer versions of Android are released.
Will Galaxy Nexus and Ice Cream Sandwich be any good? We'll have a full review of the Galaxy Nexus shortly after we get our hands on it. Stay tuned.
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Nathan Olivarez-Giles on Google+
Photo: Andy Rubin, left, Google's vice president in charge of Android, and Samsung President J.K. Shin unveil the Galaxy Nexus smartphone in China on Oct. 19. Credit: Bobby Yip / Reuters
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Apple denied ownership of iPad trademark in China
posted by Technology @ 12:44 PM
Thursday, December 8, 2011
Apple has been denied the rights to the trademark for the term "iPad" in China in a legal battle with Hong Kong-based Proview Technology that registered a trademark back in 2000, according to reports.
At the core of the dispute is whether or not a 2006 agreement between Proview's Taiwan-based subsidiary, Proview Electronics, to sell Apple the "global trademark" for the "IPAD" name for £35,000, or about $54,000, applies to China, according to a report from the Financial Times.
Apple says the agreement should include trademark rights in China, and Proview disagrees, Reuters reported.
Proview is arguing that the Chinese trademark owned by its Shenzhen-based company, Proview Technology, is different than the trademark formerly owned by Proview Electronics, the reports said.
Apple has sued Proview Technology for trademark infringement in the Shenzhen Intermediate People's Court, the Financial Times said, adding that while the court has rejected Apple's ownership claim, the U.S. tech giant can appeal the decision.
Meanwhile, Proview Technology has sued Apple resellers in China in an attempt to block the sale of Apple's iPad tablets, the reports said. In October, Proview Technology also filed a suit against Apple seeking 10 billion yuan, or about $1.5 billion, from Apple over alleged infringement of its Chinese "iPad" trademark.
But despite the legal back-and-forth, Proview spokesperson Li Su said told the Financial Times that a the company is open to a settlement.
"We hope that this decision will make our negotiations with Apple a bit easier," Su said in the report.
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Nathan Olivarez-Giles on Google+
Photo: An Apple iPad 2, running the Tabletop app. Credit: Armand Emamdjomeh/Los Angeles Times
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China’s ZTE to launch high-end Android or Windows phone in U.S.
posted by Technology @ 10:28 AM
Thursday, December 8, 2011
If you're familiar with ZTE in the U.S., then you're familiar with low-cost or free phones from prepaid or contract carriers such as Boost Mobile, Cricket Wireless and MetroPCS, and from major carriers such as AT&T.
And you'd also know that ZTE's phones are nowhere near challenging top-tier handsets such as the Apple iPhone, or Androids such as the Samsung Galaxy S II and the Motorola Droid Razr. Like HTC used to do, ZTE often makes products devoid of their own brand for carriers looking for entry-level devices.
But next year, the Chinese company is looking to change things up and launch a high-end smartphone in the U.S., according to a report from the Wall Street Journal.
A high-end ZTE handset, running on speedy 4G LTE networks, could arrive toward the middle of next year and "by 2015, we expect the U.S. to be the largest market for handsets for ZTE," said Lixin Cheng, ZTE's North American president, in a Hong Kong interview with the Journal.
Such a smartphone would offer iPhone-like features at a price still somewhat lower than Apple's handset, Cheng told the Journal, declining to go into specifics about price.
The newest version of the iPhone, the iPhone 4S, starts at $199 for a unit with 16 gigabytes of built-in storage, increasing to $299 for 32 gigabytes and $399 for 64 gigabytes.
The idea may seem a bit far-fetched if you've never heard of ZTE before, but the company's growth is very real. As noted by the Journal, ZTE grew to a 5% share of global cellphone shipments in the third quarter of the year.
That recent push propelled ZTE to pass Apple as the No. 4 shipper of cellphones (not just smartphones) in the world, according to the research firm Strategy Analytics. Aside from phones, ZTE also makes mobile hotspot and USB-wireless dongles for carriers such as T-Mobile, Sprint and Verizon.
ZTE is "in talks" with U.S. carriers about selling its high-end phones, which may run either Google's Android operating system or Microsoft's Windows Phone 7 software, Cheng said in the report.
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– Nathan Olivarez-Giles
Nathan Olivarez-Giles on Google+
Image: A screen shot of ZTEusa.com, ZTE's website for the U.S. market, which displays the AT&T Avail, an Android smartphone ZTE builds for AT&T. Credit: ZTE
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HP to sell one more batch of $99 TouchPad tablets on EBay
posted by Technology @ 8:27 PM
Wednesday, December 7, 2011
The HP TouchPad isn't dead yet. While Chief Executive Meg Whitman and the top brass at Hewlett-Packard Co. decide what to do with WebOS, the tech giant is reportedly set to sell one last batch of TouchPads at the fire-sale price of $99 on EBay.
According to a company memo leaked to the websites TechCrunch and SlickDeals, HP is planning to release an unspecified number of TouchPads to the HP EBay store at the sub-$100 price.
The last time HP marked its lone consumer-minded tablet down to $99, the company did so in an effort to unload the slow-selling slates after Whitman's predecessor, Leo Apotheker, decided to abandon WebOS and WebOS devices such as the TouchPad and the Pre smartphones.
That price slash, which happened in August, resulted in HP selling hundreds of thousands of TouchPads and sellouts at retailers across the U.S. and Canada.
Officals at HP were unavailable for comment Wednesday night on the reported EBay sale.
The TouchPads that will reportedly hit EBay will all be refurbished units and they'll hit the online retail and auction website at 6 p.m. Dec. 11. A TouchPad with 16 gigabytes of built-in storage will sell for $99, and those with 32 gigabytes of storage will be available at $149, the reports said.
HP employees will have a chance to buy the refurbished TouchPads on EBay — and not on HP's own online stores or anywhere else — before the sale goes live to the public, TechCrunch said.
"In an effort to give HP employees first chance at a very limited supply of refurbished TouchPads, there will be a short delay between when the product is posted live for sale on EBay and when the general public is notified of the sale," the memo reportedly said.
HP will also be selling "an optional three-piece accessory bundle with a case, charging dock and wireless keyboard for $79.
TouchPads will be limited to two per EBay user "sold on a first come, first served basis," the reports said.
So, who's excited about possibly buying a tablet with probably little or no app or manufacturer support?
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– Nathan Olivarez-Giles
Nathan Olivarez-Giles on Google+
Photo: A Hewlett-Packard TouchPad tablet running apps on its WebOS operating system. Credit: Armand Emamdjomeh / Los Angeles Times
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Apple updates plans, renderings for new ‘spaceship’ campus
posted by Technology @ 4:15 PM
Wednesday, December 7, 2011
Apple Inc. has updated the plans for its "spaceship" campus, offering a few new details about the massive facility that the late Steve Jobs pitched to the Cupertino City Council before his death.
The plans were posted on Cupertino.org this week, revealing that the roof of the circular main building will be covered in photovoltaic solar panels.
"Apple proposes to create Apple Campus 2 — an integrated 21st century campus surrounded by green space," the updated plans said. "This new development will provide a serene and secure environment reflecting Apple's values of innovation, ease of use and beauty. The state-of-the-art office, research and development facilities include strategies to minimize energy demand, reduce car travel and increase the use of reclaimed water."
The main building totals 2.8 million square feet in four stories and can accommodate as many as 13,000 employees, the plans said. Jobs, when he proposed the new campus to the Cupertino City Council in June, said that Apple had about 12,000 employees in the Silicon Valley city.
"Campus amenities will include a striking cafe within the main building, a separate corporate fitness center and a corporate auditorium seating 1,000 people," the plans said. "Parking will be provided under the main building and in one multistory parking structure."
Apple is promising that its new campus, which is expected to open by about 2015, will be environmentally friendly with an on-site power plant "that will supply the majority of the power needed for the campus."
The website 9to5Mac has estimated that the solar-panel-covered roof will make the new Apple campus one of the largest solar power generators in the U.S.
The new site will also be home to 300,000 square feet of separate research facilities that "will house technical support functions that need to be located adjacent to the main building."
The exterior of the main building will be covered in curved glass. Apple has said that landscaping will make up 80% of the 150-acre site that it purchased from PC-maker Hewlett-Packard Co.
"It's a little like a spaceship landed," Jobs said of the proposed building before the Cupertino City Council. "It's a circle, and so it's curved all the way around. As you know if you build things, this is not the cheapest way to build something. There's not a straight piece of glass on this building, it's all curved.
"And we've used our experience in making retail buildings all over the world now, and we know how to make the biggest pieces of glass in the world for architectural use."
Check-out some of the new renderings Apple has submitted after the jump.
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– Nathan Olivarez-Giles
Nathan Olivarez-Giles on Google+
Image: A rendering of the proposed Apple Campus 2 facility. Credit: Apple Inc.
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RIM denied BBX name, redubs new phone/tablet OS BlackBerry 10
posted by Technology @ 12:27 PM
Wednesday, December 7, 2011
Research In Motion's next BlackBerry smartphone and tablet operating system won't be called BBX after all.
Instead, RIM is going with the name BlackBerry 10 after a Federal Court in Albuquerque issued a temporary restraining order against the Canadian company, banning it from using the name BBX, which is a trademark of the New Mexico-based software firm Basis International.
Basis sued RIM in October over its use of the BBX name and rather than continue to fight the suit, RIM announced via Twitter on Wednesday that it's moving forward with its new operating system under the name BlackBerry 10.
In a tweet regarding the keynote speech at its BlackBerry DevCon Asia developer conference, currently taking place in Singapore, RIM said:
#BBDevCon Asia Keynote: BlackBerry 10 is the official name of the next generation platform that will power future BlackBerry smartphones!^BZ
Basis uses the name BBx — note the difference in capitalization — as branding for its Business Basic eXtended line of software developer tools. The BBx tools are used to build applications that can run on a number of operating systems that use the Java programming language, including Linux, Microsoft Windows, Apple's iOS and Mac OS X, and Google's Android, according to Basis, which says it trademarked the name in 1995 but has been using it since 1985.
RIM's formerly-known-as-BBX operating system has been under development for months and will be the first OS from the company to run on both smartphones and tablets — an approach taken by Apple's iOS and Google's new Android Ice Cream Sandwich.
The OS now-known-as-BlackBerry-10 is based on QNX, the current operating system found on the slow-selling BlackBerry PlayBook tablet. RIM recently announced a $485-million loss on unsold PlayBook inventory.
BlackBerry 10 will usher in increased touchscreen-based controls to new RIM phones and the OS will enable BlackBerry devices to run Android apps alongside native QNX and BlackBerry 10 apps, apps developed using Adobe's AIR software and HTML5 apps.
The software is expected to arrive on new BlackBerry phones and the PlayBook tablet early next year.
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— Nathan Olivarez-Giles
Nathan Olivarez-Giles on Google+
Image: A screen shot of Research In Motion's message on Twitter announcing that its BBX operating system has been renamed BlackBerry 10. Credit: Research In Motion / Twitter
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Microsoft offers sneak peak at Windows 8′s Store for apps [Video]
posted by Technology @ 10:20 AM
Wednesday, December 7, 2011
Microsoft has released new details on its Windows Store for Windows 8 — no it's not called App Store a la Apple — which will be its online storefront selling applications to run on Windows 8 laptops, desktops and tablets.
The Windows Store will sell "Metro-style" apps. Microsoft Metro is the design language of flat, actively updating "live tile" icons for apps that debuted last year on the Windows Phone 7 operating system, and is making its way over to the Xbox 360 video game system this week in a software update.
Most Windows 8 Metro apps available in the Windows Store should adhere to touch, stylus or keyboard and mouse input, since they'll have to run on traditional PCs and tablets as well.
Microsoft will also have a tiered system of what its cut of an apps revenue will be. Apple famously takes a 30% cut of revenue for all apps sold in its iOS App Store (for the iPad, iPhone and iPod Touch) and Mac App Store (for Mac computers).
Microsoft will take a similar 30% share of revenue for each app sold in its Windows Store, but once an app passes $25,000 in total revenue, the tech giant will drop its share down to 20% for the remainder of time that the app is sold, the company said in a statement.
To access the new Windows Store, the masses will have to wait until Windows 8 officially launches sometime next year. But developers will be able to access the Windows Store, in a beta release, if they've installed the Windows 8 Developer Preview version of the new OS, which is a free download available to all.
Microsoft is now taking Windows 8 app submissions and has launched a "First Apps Contest," which the tech giant will use to choose the first eight apps available in the Windows Store when it officially opens.
The new Windows Store isn't the first time that Microsoft is taking a stab at replicating the success Apple has had with its App Stores. The much-maligned Windows Vista had an app store called the Windows Marketplace, though both the operating system and the Marketplace never found much popularity.
Still, Windows is the most widely used PC operating system in the world. Microsoft says it has sold more than 500 million Windows 7 licenses worldwide to date and the company is hoping that Windows 8 will continue dominating PCs as well as give the company a significant stake in the growing tablet market that it lacks.
Microsoft also said that the Windows Store will launch globally in 231 markets and more than 100 languages, with the ability to accept payments in 58 currencies.
Follow the jump to see screen shots of the Windows Store in action.
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– Nathan Olivarez-Giles
Nathan Olivarez-Giles on Google+
Image: A screen shot of the Windows Store in Windows 8. Credit: Microsoft
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AT&T again ranks lowest in customer satisfaction
posted by Technology @ 5:20 PM
Tuesday, December 6, 2011
AT&T's cellphone service was pegged with the lowest satisfaction rating for the second year in a row in an annual Consumer Reports survey of wireless providers in the U.S.
"In the newest satisfaction survey of Consumer Reports online subscribers, a provider called Consumer Cellular topped the Ratings — and AT&T found itself at the bottom of the Ratings for the second year in a row," the magazine said in an article about its survey, which will be published in its January 2012 issue.
The survey also offers rankings for mobile carriers in 22 major metropolitan markets, the L.A.-area among them.
"Of the four major U.S. national cell-phone standard service providers, Verizon again scored the highest in this year's Ratings, followed closely by Sprint. Survey respondents gave very good scores to Verizon for texting and data service satisfaction, as well for staff knowledge," Consumer Reports said.
"T-Mobile was below Verizon and Sprint but continued to rate significantly better than the higher-priced AT&T, which recently withdrew its application to the FCC to merge with its better rival."
For AT&T's part, Andy Shibley, the carrier's vice president and Los Angeles general manager, said the complaints noted in the Consumer Reports survey aren't being ignored.
"We hear our customers and we are committed to getting better and better," Shibley said in an emailed statement. "And that will continue as we deploy 4G LTE technology to millions of more customers. We have turned a corner, and we are making progress toward our goal to offer our customers the best experience anywhere."
AT&T also said in a separate statement that it has made more than 1,700 network improvements in the Los Angeles area this year and that dropped-call rates in the L.A.-area have fallen 41% over the past year.
Subscribers of prepaid and smaller carriers "are happiest overall with their cell-phone service," Paul Reynolds, electronics editor for Consumer Reports, said in the article. "However, these carriers aren't for everyone. Some are only regional, and prepaid carriers tend to offer few or no smartphones. The major carriers are still leading options for many consumers, and we found they ranged widely in how well they satisfied their customers."
The Consumer Reports survey was put together using the survey responses of 66,000 of the magazine's subscribers and focused on experiences with their carrier's customer service and support.
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– Nathan Olivarez-Giles
Nathan Olivarez-Giles on Google+
Image: A screen shot of ConsumerCellular.com. Credit: Consumer Cellular Inc.
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Google’s Android Market passes 10 billion downloads
posted by Technology @ 1:25 PM
Tuesday, December 6, 2011
Google's Android Market has passed 10 billion app downloads, a major milestone for the world's most widely used mobile operating system.
"One billion is a pretty big number by any measurement. However, when it’s describing the speed at which something is growing, it’s simply amazing," said Eric Chu, director of the Android Developer Ecosystem, in a company blog post. "This past weekend, thanks to Android users around the world, Android Market exceeded 10 billion app downloads — with a growth rate of 1 billion app downloads per month."
The massive number is even more impressive when considering the fragmentation found on Android, with companies such as Amazon, Barnes & Noble and Yahoo hosting Android app stores of their own, in addition to independent app stores such as GetJar.
Apple passed 15 billion downloads from its App Store in July, noting that there are more than 200 million iPad, iPhone and iPod Touch users worldwide.
More than 200 million Android smartphones and tablets have been sold and about 550,000 new Android activations take place each day, Google has said.
To celebrate passing the 10-billion-download mark, Google and a number of developers are offering selected apps for 10 cents for a limited time, Chu said.
"Starting today for the next 10 days, we'll have a new set of awesome apps available each day for only 10 cents each," he said. "Today, we are starting with Asphalt 6 HD, Color & Draw for Kids, Endomondo Sports Tracker Pro, Fieldrunners HD, Great Little War Game, Minecraft, Paper Camera, Sketchbook Mobile, Soundhound Infinity & Swiftkey X."
Each day, until the 10-day period is up, Google will offer another 10 apps for 10 cents each, as listed on the Android Market.
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– Nathan Olivarez-Giles
Nathan Olivarez-Giles on Google+
Photo: A screen shot of Google's Android Market. Credit: Google
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Galaxy Nexus: Still no U.S. release date, could sell for $299.99
posted by Technology @ 10:38 AM
Tuesday, December 6, 2011
The Galaxy Nexus smartphone, whenever it goes on sale in the U.S., may come with a $299.99 price tag on a two-year data plan.
So far, Verizon hasn't said when the Samsung-built, Google-approved handset will hit stores or at what price the eagerly anticipated phone will sell.
But, according to a Dow Jones report, unnamed sources "familiar with the matter" said the Galaxy Nexus would fall in line at the $300 level with the launch price of other top-tier Verizon smartphones, such as the Motorola Droid Bionic, the Motorola Droid Razr and the HTC Rezound.
Apple's iPhone 4S, which many consider to be the Galaxy Nexus' main competitor, sells at a starting price of $199.
Unlike the iPhone, the Galaxy Nexus will run on Verizon's 4G LTE network (the iPhone is still 3G-only) and feature a larger 4.65-inch touchscreen.
The Galaxy Nexus will also be the first device to run Android Ice Cream Sandwich, the latest version of Google's mobile operating system. Ice Cream Sandwich is also the first version of Android that is designed to work on both smartphones and tablets.
The new handset is already on sale in Britain and is launching in Canada on Thursday from Bell for $159.95 and Virgin Mobile for $159.99 on each carrier's respective data plans.
The new Samsung phone will also feature a resolution of 1280 x 720 pixels (same as the HTC Rezound), a 1.2-gigahertz dual-core processor, 1 gigabyte of RAM, a 5-megapixel rear camera capable of shooting 1080p video and a 1.3-megapixel camera on the front for video chatting.
As soon as Verizon offers an official release date and price we'll let you know here on the Technology blog and we'll have a full review of the Galaxy Nexus as soon as we can get our hands on the new phone.
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– Nathan Olivarez-Giles
Nathan Olivarez-Giles on Google+
Photo: Models hold up Samsung's Galaxy Nexus smartphones that run the Google Android Ice Cream Sandwich operating system in Hong Kong last month. Credit: Jerome Favre / Bloomberg
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Sony Ericsson phones dropping ‘Ericsson’ in mid-2012
posted by Technology @ 8:19 PM
Monday, December 5, 2011
After a little more than a decade, Sony Ericsson is reportedly dropping the Ericsson, giving Sony a cellphone brand of its own.
The move to re-brand Sony Ericsson as just Sony follows the October announcement that Sony is buying Ericsson's half of the joint venture for about $1.5 billion. The mobile phone company was founded in 2001 and currently makes a wide range of smartphones, with some Google Android handsets among its offering.
Kristian Tear, a Sony Ericsson executive vice president, told the Times of India about the re-branding effort, stating that the switch should be completed by the middle of 2012.
"A lot of planning goes into getting the branding right but we will be done by middle of next year," Tear said. "It will also mean that the marketing and advertising investments will go up. We haven't been as fierce as we were a few years back but we will step it up, refocus and invest more in brand-building in select markets, and India is one of those markets."
The name change makes sense given Sony's pending sole ownership of the mobile phone maker.
As the Los Angeles Times has previously reported, Sony will also cross-license five essential patent families relating to wireless handset technology as a part of its takeover of Sony Ericsson.
Sony to take over Sony Ericsson
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– Nathan Olivarez-Giles
Photo: Sony Ericsson Xperia Play smartphone. Credit: Sony Ericsson
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Verizon expanding 4G LTE network to cover area with 200 million people
posted by Technology @ 4:30 PM
Monday, December 5, 2011
As of Monday, Verizon's 4G LTE network is 1 year old.
It's also the largest 4G LTE network in the U.S., with AT&T having launched its LTE service in November, while Sprint uses a WiMax 4G network and T-Mobile's 4G service runs on a HSPA+ network.
Sprint and T-Mobile are planning to move over to LTE sometime in the future, but when they do, the two carriers will have some catching up to do, as AT&T does now.
On Dec. 15, Verizon's 4G LTE network will expand to a coverage area of 190 markets, populated by about 200 million people, the company said in a statement.
So what's the difference between 4G in an LTE flavor versus WiMax or HSPA+?
LTE networks, from both AT&T and Verizon, offer higher top speeds than the other networks and can be as much as 10 times faster than 3G service, with theoretical peaks of 300 megabytes per second for downloads and 75 megabytes per second for uploads.
HSPA+ networks have theoretical top speeds of 42 megabytes per second for downloads and 23 megabytes per second for uploads. Sprint's WiMax 4G lists a theoretical top speed of more than 10 megabytes per second for downloads and 1 megabyte per second for uploads.
But, as always, just how fast and how reliable a phone or tablet runs on any cellular network varies by city, by device and by carrier.
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– Nathan Olivarez-Giles
Photo: The Motorola Droid Razr, one of Verizon's latest 4G LTE phones. Credit: Armand Emamdjomeh / Los Angeles Times
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RIM exec in Indonesia under scrutiny over BlackBerry stampede
posted by Technology @ 2:57 PM
Monday, December 5, 2011
The head of Research In Motion's Indonesia division is reportedly under investigation after a stampede of consumers broke out at a launch event for a BlackBerry smartphone last month.
Police in Indonesia told Reuters that about 5,000 people were on hand to buy a new BlackBerry phone on Nov. 25 in Jakarta. As customers rushed forward to see and purchase the new phone, "dozens passed out in the crush," Reuters said in a report about the incident.
Now, authorities there are saying that Andrew Cobham, RIM's Indonesia chief executive, is suspected of being responsible for the event getting out of hand, Reuters said.
Officials at RIM were unavailable on Monday to comment on the report.
"Police also named a security consultant hired by RIM, an event organizer and a manager of the sale's shopping center venue, as suspects who are likely to be charged," Reuters said.
The launch event generated an overnight line of more than 1,000 consumers and the main attraction was a 50% discount on the phone for the first 1,000 people to make a purchase, the report said.
Cobham hasn't been arrested, but he "has been banned from traveling overseas. He must go through the legal process here," Jakarta Police investigator Budi Irawan told Reuters.
If charged and found guilty of negligence, Cobham could face a maximum penalty of nine months in jail, the report said.
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– Nathan Olivarez-Giles
Nathan Olivarez-Giles on Google+
Photo: A screen shot of ID.BlackBerry.com, Research In Motion's Indonesian websites. Credit: RIM
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Apple loses bid to block U.S. sales of Samsung Galaxy Tab 10.1
posted by Technology @ 10:13 AM
Monday, December 5, 2011
Samsung chalked up a victory in its ongoing patent battle with Apple when a federal judge ruled against a proposed sales ban on the Galaxy Tab 10.1 in the U.S.
Apple had requested a ban similar to the temporary injunction placed on sales of the Galaxy Tab 10.1 in Australia, but the U.S. District Court in San Jose on Friday decided that such a move wasn't necessary before the dispute goes to trial in July, according to Bloomberg Businessweek
Australian's ban on sales of the Galaxy Tab 10.1 is set to lift on Dec. 9, with the patent battle there headed for trial in March.
The two consumer electronics titans are involved in a running legal war over the rights to technologies used on tablets and smartphones in more than 10 countries, including the Netherlands, Germany, Japan, France and Italy, and with more than 20 lawsuits filed between the two companies.
So far, sales of Samsung's Galaxy S, Galaxy S II and Ace smartphones have been temporarily banned in 30 European countries, and Germany has placed a preliminary sales ban on the Galaxy Tab 10.1 and 7.7 (all devices which run on Google's Android operating system). Samsung went so far as to redesign and then re-release the German version of the Galaxy Tab 10.1 as the Galaxy Tab 10.1N, but Apple requested a new ban of that tablet in that country as well, according to the Times of India.
When Apple and Samsung aren't fighting to keep each other's products off of store shelves, the two are actually business partners. Samsung, for example, manufactures Apple's A4 and A5 processors found in the iPhone 4, iPhone 4S, iPad 2 and iPod Touch, among other components, such as flash memory, inside of i-devices.
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Photo: An Apple iPad 2, left, and a Samsung Galaxy Tab 10.1 at a store in the Hague, Netherlands, in August. Credit: Robert Vos / European Pressphoto Agency
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The Kobo Vox tablet feels like a missed opportunity.
Over the last year, the scrappy Canadian e-reading company has released the impressive Kobo Touch eInk eReader and polished its Kobo Reading Life apps into worthy rivals to Amazon’s Kindle apps and Barnes & Noble’s Nook apps on tablets and smart phones.
The company is in the process of being purchased by Japan’s equivalent to Amazon, the massive online retailer Rakuten. Despite Kobo’s largest U.S. retail partner, Borders, closing its doors, it seemed that Kobo was akin to a promising, aspiring prizefighter on the brink of being ready to challenge the heavyweight champs of e-reading, Amazon and Barnes & Noble.
And then I used the Vox — Kobo’s answer to Amazon’s Kindle Fire and Barnes & Noble’s one-two punch of the Nook Color and Nook Tablet.
With the Vox, Kobo has taken a step back, delivering a product that doesn’t come close to its rivals and one that doesn’t match up to the quality I expected given how much I like the Kobo Touch and Kobo reading apps on Google’s Android and Apple’s iOS devices.
On paper, the Vox looked like a smart move, selling for $199.99 and featuring a seven-inch touch-screen with eight gigabytes of built-in storage — that’s the same included storage and price as the Fire and the same as the Nook Color (the Nook Tablet sells for $249). Just as the Nook Color and Nook Tablet do, the Vox features with a MicroSD card slot, which can accommodate a card of up to 32-gigabytes in size, if you don’t mind buying one.
Like the Fire and the Nook, the Vox runs a modified version of the Android Gingerbread operating system, designed by Google with phones, not tablets in mind.
But unlike those two others, Kobo has only made minimal changes to Gingerbread, most noticeably pinning reading-related functions to the bottom of the Vox’s Android home screens.
I was hopeful Kobo would deliver a competitive product, but instead I found myself disappointed at just about every turn in using the Vox.
The hardware, from the outside, isn’t bad looking. The back of the Vox is great to hold on to, with Kobo’s signature quilted pattern rendered in a soft and grippy plastic. On the review unit I tested, a light-blue rim of plastic sat between the back of the Kobo and its 1020 x 600 pixel resolution display.
It’s nice to see a company take a bit of risk design-wise, especially when compared with the boring looks of the Kindle Fire. The Vox is also offered with lime-green, pink and black rims.
But once I turned on the device, it was mostly downhill.
The Vox starts up slow, and I failed to ever reach the seven-hour battery life Kobo claims for the Vox. I usually got about four or five hours of battery life, but there were about four times in my week of testing that the device would shut itself off when falling below an 80% charge (a couple of those delays struck when we were shooting the above video).
When the Vox was up and running, it did so sluggishly. Loading apps, menus, Web pages; checking email; opening e-books; turning pages in e-books — everything took place slowly. It felt as though the Vox was always a step, or a second or two, behind my touch input. The display also fails to match the clarity, brightness, color range or viewing angles of the Fire and the Nook Tablet.
Snappy, speedy, responsive — these are not words I would use to describe the Vox. Too often I found myself staring at a rotating gray circle waiting for something to load. This complaint can partly be attributed to lower-end internal specs, such as an 800-megahertz processor and 512-megabytes of RAM, but if tuned enough with the right software, such hardware shouldn’t be so slow.
Kobo has a solid selection of books available for sale, more than 2.3 million titles. Major new releases are often available at a price that meets or beats those of Amazon or Barnes & Noble. But unlike Amazon and Barnes & Noble, Kobo has no app store — instead directing users to purchase apps from the independent online app store GetJar.
Like Barnes & Noble, but very much unlike Amazon, Kobo has no storefront for music, movies or TV shows, either.
Although I like the hardware of the Nook Color and Nook Table, and I like the software and Web services of the Fire, I can’t say that I’m happy with either the hardware or software offered by the Vox. At the same price as the Fire and the Nook Color, the Vox seems overpriced and more in line with tablets that sold for about $130 to $150 a year ago.
I wanted to like the Vox, but I didn’t. Instead, the Vox feels like a prototype, not a fully finished product ready for the masses. And that left me flatly disappointed.
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– Nathan Olivarez-Giles
Nathan Olivarez-Giles on Google+
Twitter.com/nateog
Photo: The Kobo Vox tablet, on top of an Amazon Kindle Fire and a Barnes & Noble Nook Tablet. Credit: Armand Emamdjomeh/Los Angeles Times
Twitter.com/emamd
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Syrian government reportedly bans use of Apple iPhone
posted by Technology @ 8:41 PM
Friday, December 2, 2011
The Syrian government has reportedly banned the use of the Apple iPhone in an effort to prevent activists from documenting the ongoing uprising in that country and government violence against protesters.
Activists in Beirut were notified of the iPhone ban in a letter from the Syrian Finance Ministry that reads "the authorities warn anyone against using the iPhone in Syria," according to reports from the Haaretz newspaper in Israel and the U.S. website the Next Web (which quoted the Lebanese site El Nashara).
Since the Syrian protests began Jan. 26, opposition groups — who are calling for political reform and the ouster of President Bashar Assad, an increase in civil and human rights and a democratic government — have used devices such as smartphones to document online, in photos and video, the government's violent response to their actions.
The United Nations has said that more than 4,000 people have been killed in Syria since major protests began in March and fears of civil war have arisen as well.
According to Ria Novosi, a Russian news site, protest groups have built and distributed an iPhone app, called Syria Alone, that offers independent news reports and "a collection of videos and jokes" that mock Assad.
According to both Haaretz and the Next Web, no other smartphones have been banned yet. But unnamed protesters reportedly did say, in both reports, that the ban has made it so that "it is enough for any tourist or guest visiting Syria to own an iPhone to be a spy suspect."
In the Haaretz report, a protester added that "Steve Jobs must be turning in his grave on learning that his iconic device is banned in his home country."
Steve Jobs, Apple's American-born co-founder and longtime CEO, died Oct. 5. His biological father was from Syria, though Jobs was raised by adopted parents.
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Photo: Pro-Syrian regime demonstrators gather in Damascus on Dec. 2 during a rally against sanctions by the European Union against the Syrian government. A banner of President Bashar Assad hangs from a building. Credit: Bassem Tellawi / Associated Press
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What are you doing on the Web? Most under 30 are wasting time
posted by Technology @ 6:39 PM
Friday, December 2, 2011
The Internet is one of the greatest inventions of all time, allowing for a nearly instantaneous sharing of information that the world had never come close to previously.
But for most people under the age of 30 in the U.S., the Web is mostly a time killer, according to a new study from the Pew Research Center's Internet & American Life Project.
"Americans are increasingly going online just for fun and to pass the time," the Pew Research Center said in its report, released Friday. "On any given day, 53% of all the young adults ages 18-29 go online for no particular reason except to have fun or to pass the time.
"Many of them go online in purposeful ways, as well. But the results of a survey by the Pew Research
Center’s Internet & American Life Project show that young adults' use of the Internet can at times be
simply for the diversion it presents. Indeed, 81% of all young adults in this age cohort report they have used the Internet for this reason at least occasionally."
The report, of course, is one more testament to what many of us already know, given the declining profits seen for years by TV networks, print publishers and record companies — not to mention the popularity of memes, LOLcats, YouTube and other online time-wasting cultural phenomena.
Pew also found that the Web as a pastime is on the rise.
"These results come in the larger context that Internet users of all ages are much more likely now than in the past to say they go online for no particular reason other than to pass the time or have fun," the report said. "Some 58% of all adults (or 74% of all online adults) say they use the Internet this way. And a third of all adults (34%) say they used the Internet that way 'yesterday' — or the day before Pew Internet reached them for the survey. Both figures are higher than in 2009 when we last asked this question and vastly higher than in the middle of the last decade."
So what's to explain the increase in time wasting on the Web? Pew is pointing to "a variety of trends," including the growth of broadband Internet connections, the increased use of video on the Web and the meteoric rise of social networking.
"All of those factors are strongly associated with people who use the Internet for fun: If they have broadband, if they are online video consumers, if they use social media of any kind — especially social networking sites — they are much more likely than others to go online to pass the time."
A bit of perspective: when Pew first started tracking the Internet as a diversion, back in March 2000, 29% of adults and 63% of the Internet users at that time said they surfed the Web as a time waster.
"At that time, age and class were the biggest factors associated with using the Internet this way," Pew said. "More young adults were online and more of them were using the Internet as a diversion. And more relatively well-off and well-educated people were online and using the Internet as a diversion.
"In the ensuing years, men and women, blacks, Latinos and whites, those in higher-income households and lower-income households, those with a lot of education and those without as much education, have all increased their use of the Internet for this reason."
However, some things remain unchanged in Pew's findings. "It is still the case, though, that well under half of senior citizens and those without high school diplomas are using the Internet as a way to kill time and divert themselves."
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– Nathan Olivarez-Giles
Photo: In March 2010, Kayla Eland checks her email sitting in the window of her dorm room at Pitzer College in Claremont. Credit: Irfan Khan / Los Angeles Times
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RIM to take $485 million loss on unsold BlackBerry PlayBook inventory
posted by Technology @ 10:49 AM
Friday, December 2, 2011
Research In Motion said Friday that it will take a $485 million loss on its unsold BlackBerry PlayBook tablet inventory, sending shares in the company down about 8% in day trading after the announcement.
The news is the latest setback for the PlayBook and RIM as a whole, which has had a rough year so far with multiple product delays, no carriers offer up a 3G or 4G version of the PlayBook, layoffs, service outages, shrinking market share, disappointing earnings results and sliding stock prices.
"As previously disclosed, RIM has a high level of BlackBerry PlayBook inventory," the Canadian company said in a statement. "The Company now believes that an increase in promotional activity is required to drive sell-through to end customers. This is due to several factors, including recent shifts in the competitive dynamics of the tablet market and a delay in the release of the PlayBook OS 2.0 software."
The significant loss, which is technically called a pre-tax provision, will allow RIM to expand its marketing push around the PlayBook in a bid to boost sales, the statement said.
But while the PlayBook has been painfully costly for RIM so far, the company said it isn't planning on giving up on that tablet market.
"RIM is committed to the BlackBerry PlayBook and believes the tablet market is still in its infancy," Mike Lazaridis, RIM's co-CEO, said in the statement. "Although a number of factors have led to the need for an inventory provision in the third quarter, we believe the PlayBook, which will be further enhanced with the upcoming PlayBook OS 2.0 software, is a compelling tablet for consumers that also offers unique security and manageability features for the enterprise."
Lazaridis said that the response to PlayBook sales promotions so far have shown a "significant increase in demand across most channels."
Still, the numbers are small compared with the sales of competing tablets. RIM said in its statement that it sold about 150,000 PlayBook tablets to retailers in the quarter ended Nov. 26 "and sell-through to end customers, based on RIM's internal data, was higher than this amount."
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– Nathan Olivarez-Giles
Photo: The BlackBerry PlayBook tablet from Research in Motion. Credit: Nathan Olivarez-Giles / Los Angeles Times
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Australia’s Samsung Galaxy Tab 10.1 sales ban back on
posted by Technology @ 8:39 PM
Thursday, December 1, 2011
Samsung was set back again, temporarily, as an Australian High Court put back in place a sales ban on its Galaxy Tab 10.1 in an ongoing patent lawsuit the South Korean company is involved in with Apple over tablets and phones.
This go-around, the temporary sales injunction is on for just one week as High Court Justice John Dyson Heydon blocked the overturning of the ban through Dec. 9, according to a report from Bloomberg Businessweek.
"A stay for one week will cost Samsung, in effect, one week's trade," but lifting the ban would probably "be injurious to Apple," Heydon said, according to the Bloomberg report.
The reinstatement of the preliminary sales injunction, which was overturned on Tuesday, will delay Samsung's plans to get the Galaxy Tab 10.1, which many see as the Apple iPad's current top competitor, onto store shelves as consumers are ramping up their holiday shopping.
Samsung has said it plans to give up on releasing the Galaxy Tab 10.1, which runs Google's Android operating system, in Australia if it can't sell the device there before Christmas.
Katrina Howard, a Samsung lawyer, told Heydon in court that "even one day can make a difference" and that holiday sales were crucial for the company. Samsung has no doubt already missed many sales opportunities for the Galaxy Tab 10.1 because of its suit with Apple — the sales ban has been officially in place since October, but Samsung voluntarily pulled the Galaxy Tab 10.1 from shelves in August.
Apple and Samsung, which are suing each other over alleged patent infringement on the technology used to make their respective tablets, are set to go to trial in Australia in March to settle their dispute.
The two tech giants are also in similar patent battles over tablets as well as phones in the U.S., France and 30 other European countries, as well as Japan.
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Photo: Visitors walk past Samsung's Galaxy Tab 10.1 on display in Seoul, South Korea on Oct. 13, 2011. Credit: Jo Yong-Hak/Reuters
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Foursquare launches ‘Save to Foursquare’ and ‘Follow’ buttons
posted by Technology @ 9:55 PM
Wednesday, November 30, 2011
Foursquare launched its "Save to Foursquare" and "Follow on Foursquare" buttons Wednesday in an effort by the New York company to get users to integrate what they do on the Web with what they do in the real world.
The Save to Foursquare button is aimed at online publishers and can enable publications to relate stories and reviews to places listed in the Foursquare app.
"For example, from a user perspective, if the L.A. Times were to use this feature, and I'm on the L.A. Times website and I'm reading a review of a new sushi place at LA Live, then I can click the Save to Foursquare button from the review online and that sushi place will be added to my to-do list on Foursquare," said Jonathan Crowley, who oversees Foursquare's partnerships with media companies. "And then when I'm in L.A. near LA Live and I'm looking at my to-do list, I'll see that sushi place on my list and the L.A. Times review would show up when I am looking at that sushi place in the app.
"So I could go back and read that review if I wanted to remember why it's on my list in the first place. And all of this would take place with the publisher's logo and branding."
As of now the L.A. Times isn't using the Save to Foursquare button, but Crowley's hypothetical example went into practice Wednesday with launch partners such as Frommer's Travel, Eater.com, New York Magazine, Time Out NY and Time Out NY Kids, Time Out Boston, Time Out Chicago, AskMen.com and CBS.
CBS' use of the Save to Foursquare button is something that Crowley said he is particularly excited about because it's a move many people wouldn't expect, he said.
"We wanted to bridge the gap between what you're reading and watching online, and what you go out and do in the real world," Crowley said. "A lot of people don't look at CBS as a local brand, but if you think about it, there are all of these markets out there that have local CBS stations and they're producing a ton of locally focused content, so it actually makes a lot of sense.
"The fact is that the best content creators, the places that know cities the best, are publications like newspapers and magazines and local TV stations. And now we can connect the work all of these publications are doing with what we're doing on Foursquare very easily. It's something we've been working on for a while now."
The Follow on Foursquare button enables anyone with a website to allow Foursquare users to follow that person or business on Foursquare with a simple click, similar to Twitter's follow button, he said.
"The Follow button is even easier to put on a website," Crowley said. "With the Save to Foursquare button, a publisher has to structure the location data of what they're writing about in a certain way. With the Follow button, it's as easy as copying code from our website over to your website. Anyone can do it."
When a person follows someone or something on Foursquare, they'll see that person's or brand's tips when they check in at a location and they'll see lists of things to do by who they follow as well, he said.
"It's all the same as when you've followed a person or a brand on Foursquare before, but now you can follow someone you see on the Web without having to take your phone out of your pocket and go looking for them," Crowley said.
The company also launched a redesigned developer website Wednesday that should make it easier for third-party apps to build on what Foursquare has built and has coming up.
"I think a lot of people look at us as a 'check-in service,' but it's so much more than that," Crowley said. "It's about exploring your city, having a travel guide when you're in a new city, getting brand or friend recommendations wherever you go — and all of this just adds to that.
"We've got a very long product road map, and we're focused on building more of these types of tools that make it easier for people to explore what's going on around them."
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– Nathan Olivarez-Giles
Image: A screen shot of the Save to Foursquare button on NYMag.com. Credit: New York Magazine / Foursquare
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BeachMint’s ShoeMint is a ‘sell out’ over Black Friday, Cyber Monday
posted by Technology @ 8:06 PM
Wednesday, November 30, 2011
This post has been corrected. Please see note below for details.
Black Friday and Cyber Monday delivered for major retailers, as expected. But the holiday shopping weekend generated unexpectedly high sales for Santa Monica start-up BeachMint too.
BeachMint, which operates e-commerce websites with products designed by celebrities, launched its fourth site — ShoeMint.com — on Friday. By Monday evening, the site had sold its entire inventory of women's shoes.
"We sold thousands of shoes, and honestly, we underestimated the demand a bit," said Josh Berman, BeachMint's chief executive. "The one mistake we made is we didn't order enough shoes, and it'll take about a week to get more shoes made and delivered to us, but it's a good problem to have."
ShoeMint sells women's shoes, for an average of about $80 a pair, that were designed by actress Rachel Bilson and Hollywood stylist Nicole Chavez, and manufactured by Steve Madden, whose eponymous brand has been a major shoe seller for more than a decade.
"We sold through just about everything we had by Cyber Monday, and we had to go into our warehouse and find a few pairs that weren't even in our inventory system to meet demand," said Diego Berdakin, BeachMint's president. "We're still trying to piece it all together. The traffic was incredible."
The pairing of a brand with celebrity designers and stylists is a model used in each of BeachMint's sites so far: JewelMint.com, which sells jewelry designed by actress Kate Bosworth and her stylist, Cher Coulter; StyleMint.com, which sells T-shirts designed by actresses Mary-Kate and Ashley Olsen; and BeautyMint.com, which sells skin-care products designed by Jessica Simpson and skin-care guru Nerida Joy.
"Our model, and you can see it with everybody that we've picked, is to find the authentic experts in that category and to work with them," Berman said. "These aren't just endorsement deals. We're relying on Kate Bosworth, Rachel Bilson, Nicole Chavez, Mary-Kate and Ashley Olsen, Jessica Simpson to identify quality products that we can sell using our technology. Diego and I aren't experts on women's shoes, but we see the opportunity and demand there, so we find the people who are experts and we work with them to deliver the right products."
So far, ShoeMint is BeachMint's fastest-growing site, Berman said, noting that it passed BeautyMint's company record of 500,000 visitors in the first 24 hours of operation.
More than 10,000 people are on waiting lists to buy shoes, and about 80,000 consumers registered to buy goods over a four-day period before the site's official launch, Berdakin said.
Berman and Berdakin declined to say how many shoes ShoeMint has sold so far, but they did say that they had originally planned for their inventory to last them through the end of the year.
Berdakin also said that more than half of the site's pre-launch registrations came from referrals made on Facebook, Twitter and other social networks. And the bulk of those referrals were made by people who had purchased items from BeachMint sites.
The company produces shoes in limited numbers, so the next shoes that will arrive will be designs originally planned for January.
"We're already looking at expanding the size of the shoe line in April, May, June because of the demand we're seeing" Berdakin said. "But we have the benefit of working with someone like Steve Madden, who has made hundreds of millions of shoes in their life, and he's definitely ready to ramp up production with us. And Steve, Rachel and Nicole are making sure what we come out with each month will be what's on trend, what's fashionable."
While ShoeMint's success is just a few days old, Berman said the company is confident that it has a hit on its hands. The firm, which has about 85 employees and was founded in July 2010 by Berdakin and Berman (who is a MySpace co-founder) has raised more than $43 million in funding to date and is looking to continue to expand.
"This year our tongues are wagging, we're pretty tired," Berman said. "But we are planning some new Mints for next year, and we're going to keep expanding the model. We're focused on expanding the right way and with the right partners, and we're seeing a lot of pent-up demand outside of the U.S., so we may launch internationally next year as well. But, at this point, we're just looking to get the word out about the Mints we have running, and we need to get more shoes in."
[For the record, 8:17 p.m. Nov. 30: An earlier version of this post said BeachMint had raised about $23 million in funding to date, that about 20,000 people pre-registered on ShoeMint before its official launch and that Steve Madden was among ShoeMint's designers. The company has actually raised more than $43 million in capital so far, more than 80,000 people pre-registered for ShoeMint, and Madden is manufacturing, not designing, ShoeMint's shoes, Berdakin said.]
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– Nathan Olivarez-Giles
Image: A screen shot of ShoeMint.com. Credit: BeachMint
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Is Microsoft Office coming to Apple’s iPad?
posted by Technology @ 10:53 AM
Wednesday, November 30, 2011
Microsoft on the iPad: So far there isn't much of that happening outside of the Bing app.
But that might change next year, according to a report from the Daily, News Corp.'s e-magazine delivered each day to Apple's iPad.
According to some unnamed sources of the Daily writer Matt Hickey, Microsoft is prepping iPad-versions of its Office suite of software.
"With the iPad making up over 80 percent of the tablet market and millions of people worldwide using Office, that could mean big bucks for the tech giant based in Redmond, Wash.," Hickey wrote in his report. "In addition to an iPad-ready version, a new edition of Office is expected for OS X Lion sometime next year."
Microsoft's current Office for Mac offering, Office 2011, lacks the ability to take advantage of new features found in Mac OS X Lion. "A Lion version, likely available via the Mac App Store, is widely expected," the report said. "Windows, too, is due for an update, with Office 2012 currently in beta form."
Currently, Apple has a few Office-like productivity apps of its own, with its iWork suite (Pages, Numbers and Keynote) on the Mac, iPhone/iPod Touch and iPad.
If Microsoft were to challenge iWork on the iPad (and maybe even iPhone) with Office, apps for Word, Excel and PowerPoint could go head-to-head with Apple's own productivity apps.
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Photo: Apple's Numbers app for the iPad. Credit: Nathan Olivarez-Giles / Los Angeles Times
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Samsung Galaxy Tab 10.1 sales ban in Australia overturned
posted by Technology @ 9:29 PM
Tuesday, November 29, 2011
An Australian court has lifted its temporary sales injunction against Samsung's Galaxy Tab 10.1 tablet, landing the Korean company a win in its patent battle against Apple in that country.
The sales ban had been in place since October, after Samsung voluntarily pulled the Galaxy Tab 10.1 from shelves in August.
No doubt, Samsung has to be pleased with the reversal of the preliminary injunction, given that the holiday shopping season is in full swing.
This is just the latest development in the Australian patent battle between the two tech giants, which is set to go to trial in March.
And as we've reported, the Australian dispute is just one piece of the puzzle. The patent battle between the two companies is raging in the U.S., France and 30 other European countries, as well as Japan, and has spread to encompass not only the Galaxy Tab 10.1, but also Samsung's Galaxy S, Galaxy S II and Ace smartphones, other Galaxy Tab tablets (all products that run Google's Android operating system), and Apple's iPhone and iPad products.
The suits and counter-suits cover disputes over touchscreen technology, the look and feel of products and even how the devices connect to the Internet.
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– Nathan Olivarez-Giles
Photo: The Galaxy Tab 10.1 is displayed in Seoul last month. Credit: Park Ji-Hwan/AFP/Getty Images
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RIM Mobile Fusion to add BlackBerry security tools to Android, iOS
posted by Technology @ 1:22 PM
Tuesday, November 29, 2011
Research In Motion announced on Tuesday that it will soon launch software that will bring security and management features once only found on BlackBerrys over to Android and iOS phones and tablets.
The new tools, which RIM is calling BlackBerry Mobile Fusion, will allow businesses to set up and control Apple's iPhone and iPad, as well as smartphones and tablets running Google's Android operating system, as they have done for years with BlackBerry phones and more recently, the slow-selling PlayBook tablet.
"We are pleased to introduce BlackBerry Mobile Fusion — RIM's next generation enterprise mobility solution — to make it easier for our business and government customers to manage the diversity of devices in their operations today," said Alan Panezic, RIM's vice president of enterprise product management and marketing, in a statement.
"BlackBerry Mobile Fusion brings together our industry-leading BlackBerry Enterprise Server technology for BlackBerry devices with mobile device management capabilities for iOS and Android devices, all managed from one web-based console," Panezic said. "It provides the necessary management capabilities to allow IT departments to confidently oversee the use of both company-owned and employee-owned mobile devices within their organizations."
In announcing Mobile Fusion, RIM touted itself as "the leading provider of enterprise mobility solutions with over 90 percent of the Fortune 500 provisioning BlackBerry devices today," a nod to its still-large market share of the business market for smartphones.
But the Canadian company also acknowledges that when it comes time for consumers to buy phones and tablets for themselves, they're increasingly choosing rival devices and then bringing those gadgets into the workplace.
"The enterprise market for smartphones and tablets continues to grow in both the company-provisioned and employee-owned (Bring Your Own Device or BYOD) categories," RIM said. "BYOD in particular has led to an increase in the diversity of mobile devices in use in the enterprise and new challenges for CIOs and IT departments as they struggle to manage and control wireless access to confidential company information on the corporate network. This has resulted in increased demand for mobile device management solutions."
Among the features RIM said Mobile Fusion will offer for Android and iOS phones and tablets is the management and configuration of devices, as well as security features such as remote locking and data wiping, the creation of multiple user profiles on shared devices, app management and control over how a device connects to the Internet, among other settings.
While some would seem to love having an iPhone or an Android that's as secure and easy to manage at the scale a large business would require, others such as ReadWriteWeb has asked if RIM isn't "shooting itself in the foot with Mobile Fusion?"
GigaOm described RIM's stance with Mobile Fusion as "If you can't beat iOS and Android devices in the market, you might as well secure them."
Currently, Mobile Fusion is in "early beta testing with select enterprise customers," RIM said. But the company is accepting "customer nominations for the closed beta program which will start in January." The commercial rollout of Mobile Fusion isn't expected until late March.
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Photo: An Apple iPhone 4S. Credit: Robert Galbraith / Reuters
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Cyber Monday sales up 33%, new sales records set, IBM says
posted by Technology @ 10:47 AM
Tuesday, November 29, 2011
Cyber Monday deals lured a record number of online shoppers, leading to a 33% jump in U.S. sales compared with the Monday after Thanksgiving last year, according to a new IBM report released Tuesday.
Consumers spent an average of 2.6% more this year than they did in 2010, with the value of an average online order rising from $193.24 to a record $198.26 this year, according to IBM's fourth annual Cyber Monday Benchmark study.
Also increasing this year was the number of shoppers who made purchases on their smartphones and tablets, the study said. On Cyber Monday, a record 10.8% of people used a mobile device to visit a retailer's site, up from 3.9% in 2010. Mobile sales also grew to 6.6% on this year's Cyber Monday purchases, up from 2.3% a year earlier, the tech giant said.
"Consumers flocked online, with shopping momentum hitting its highest peak at 11:05am PST/2:05pm EST," IBM said in a statement. "Consumer shopping also maintained strong momentum after commuting hours on both the East and West coast."
Two statistics not included in IBM's study was an estimate of how much in total was spent or exactly how many people were shopping on Cyber Monday. IBM produces its Cyber Monday shopping report by "analyzing terabytes of raw data from 500 retailers nationwide," the company said.
And, as a tech firm that sells software, tech infrastructure and consulting services to businesses, IBM's analysis of this data is a bit of a marketing opportunity for the company founded in 1911.
"Retailers that adopted a smarter approach to commerce, one that allowed them to swiftly adjust to the shifting shopping habits of their customers, whether in-store, online or via their mobile device, were able to fully benefit from this day and the entire holiday weekend," said John Squire, the chief strategy officer of IBM's "Smarter Commerce" team, in a statement.
So, how did Cyber Monday compare with Black Friday, the Friday after Thanksgiving? IBM has some data on that too, reporting that it found Cyber Monday brought in 29.3% more online sales than Black Friday did (though many shoppers on Black Friday were in brick-and-mortar stores and not online).
According to a few other Black Friday reports, that day was a shopping sales record too.
Most people who purchased items online on Cyber Monday and Black Friday did so using Apple's i-devices, which "continued to rank one and two for mobile device retail traffic" with 4.1% of shopper Web-surfing taking place on the iPhone and 3.3% on the iPad, IBM said.
Android came in third with a solid 3.2% of Cyber Monday and Black Friday Web traffic, the report said.
"Shoppers using the iPad also continued to drive more retail purchases than any other device with conversion rates reaching 5.2 percent compared to 4.6 percent," on other devices, IBM said.
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Photo: Cyber Monday specials on Target's website. Credit: Stan Honda / AFP/Getty Images
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Facebook’s IPO: Could it come in the first half of 2012?
posted by Technology @ 8:56 PM
Monday, November 28, 2011
Facebook's initial public offering has been the source of Wall Street speculation for months. Some thought the IPO would come this year, others have reported that it wouldn't arrive until late next year.
And on Monday, the Wall Street Journal added fuel to the Facebook IPO fire with a report that the world's largest social network, with more than 800 million users, is prepping to issue its first public stock offering in the second quarter of 2012.
The Facebook IPO could be a $10-billion offering based on a $100-billion valuation of the Palo Alto-based company. But as to when in the second quarter the IPO would come, well that hasn't yet been decided, the Journal said in its report, citing unnamed "people familiar with the matter."
As reported by my colleague Walter Hamilton over on our sister-blog Money & Company:
The timing of Facebook's IPO is likely to hinge in part on the condition of the stock market, which has not been kind lately to some other prominent tech IPOs.
In a major disappointment, shares of one of this year's most closely watched IPOs, online-coupon company Groupon Inc., have plunged recently. The stock closed Monday at $15.24, far below the $20 price at which it sold shares to investors earlier this month.
Earlier this month, Facebook co-Founder and CEO Mark Zuckerberg said on a PBS interview with Charlie Rose that indeed, his company was planning an IPO, but that the company hadn't yet decided when.
Zuckerberg also said that an IPO isn't something he spent "a lot of time on a day-to-day basis thinking about."
"We've made this implicit promise to our investors and to our employees that by compensating them with equity and by giving them equity, that at some point we're going to make that equity worth something publicly and liquidly, in a liquid way," he said. "Now, the promise isn't that we're going to do it on any kind of short-term time horizon. The promise is that we're going to build this company so that it's great over the long term, right. And that we're always making these decisions for the long term, but at some point we'll do that."
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Photo: Facebook co-founder and CEO Mark Zuckerberg walks around Harvard University in Cambridge on Nov. 7, 2011. Credit: Brian Snyder/Reuters
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LG Nitro HD: 4.5-inch 720p display, on AT&T 4G LTE, due Dec. 4
posted by Technology @ 7:38 PM
Monday, November 28, 2011
Smartphone screens keep getting bigger and thankfully, the resolution on displays is finally starting to grow too.
The latest example: the LG Nitro HD, which features a 4.5-inch screen with a 1,280 x 720 screen resolution. That'd be 720p, the lowest possible resolution that can be considered high definition.
As such, this will be AT&T's first HD-screen phone when it goes on sale Dec. 4 at a price of $249.99 with a two-year contract, the carrier said in a statement.
But the promising touch screen isn't all the Nitro HD has going for it. The new LG handset features a 1.5-gigahertz dual-core processor (that's the same clock speed as some laptops), an 8-megapixel and 1080p camera on the back with an LED flash, and a front-facing 1.3-megapixel camera.
Verizon has a 720p screen phone of its own in the $300 HTC Rezound, which I'm currently testing for an upcoming review. Both of the competing handsets run Google's Android Gingerbread operating system.
The Rezound, which has a 4.3-inch touch screen, runs on Verizon's 4G LTE network and the Nitro HD will run on AT&T's 4G LTE network. The Nitro HD will also offer 20 gigabytes of storage with 4 gigabytes built in and an additional 16 gigabytes on an included microSD card.
Stay tuned — we'll have a review of the Nitro HD soon as well.
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– Nathan Olivarez-Giles
Image: The LG Nitro HD, from AT&T, front and back. Credit: AT&T
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