Taiwan’s Hon Hai Group, the owner of Apple products-maker Foxconn, invested $1.6 billion in the LCD producer, Sharp.
The deal initially seemed questionable since Sharp is expected to lose $3.49 billion this fiscal year and has only been operating at 50 percent capacity.
However, to some, the move indicates the iTV is soon to come.
A report from Daiwa Capital Markets analysts states: “We expect Apple to debut the iTV by the end of this year, and it is likely to adopt Sharp’s 10th generation TFT production line to produce TFT LCDs for iTVs. We believe Hon Hai will have better vertical integration for the Apple iTV following its stake acquisition in Sharp’s plant in Sakai.”
And according to Pelham Smithers, managing director of London-based Pelham Smithers Associates, the Sharp plant “is the most efficient plant at making 60-inch TV screens and as such, it could be the future of smart television,” adding “if anybody knows what Apple is going to be up to in the future, it’s Hon Hai.”
The researcher Simply Measured has found that brands are getting 46 percent more engagement on average with the help of Facebook’s Timeline.
Topping the list of brands in percentage of change, Livestrong saw its engagement increase 161 percent, while Toyota experienced a 156 percent jump.
The jump in numbers may be inflated since the results are based on only 15 brand pages, but it is weighted to take into account the engagement per post.
The data also shows that responses to status updates fell with the new format, but users are interacting 65 percent more with videos and photos.
“Facebook reported that a week after introducing Timeline, some 8 million brands — roughly one-fourth of the brands on Facebook — had upgraded to the new design,” explains Mashable. “Those that didn’t will be ported over to Timeline on March 30.”
A source familiar with Google matters is saying the Internet giant is planning to launch a new commenting system to rival Facebook’s popular third-party comment platform.
“You can’t go anywhere these days without running into a site that is using Facebook’s third-party comment platform, and it looks like Google wants in on the action,” reports The Next Web.
The service will incorporate the Google+ platform, Web services and Web search. “A third party Google comment system would ensure that users are further plugged in to their Google accounts, and one step closer to Google+,” suggests the post.
It remains to be seen whether people will want to use the commenting system and how the offering will affect services that are solely dedicated to commenting, like Disqus and Livefyre.
The Federal Trade Commission has submitted a 73-page report concerning privacy practices of commercial data-collectors, asking Congress to pass privacy legislation and telling data aggregators to implement “Do Not Track” buttons in Web browsers this year.
“The agency also for the first time turned its attention to offline data brokers — which buy and sell names, addresses and other personal information — calling on them to create a centralized website providing consumers with better access to their data,” reports the Wall Street Journal. “The agency also wants legislation requiring data brokers to give consumers the right to see and make corrections to their information.”
The Digital Advertising Association, representing over 400 companies, has agreed to the FTC’s “Do Not Track” button request. However, certain associations make different distinctions on tracking; for some, “Do Not Target” is favorable, allowing data collection for market research and product development.
But all of this may not make an impact without legislation from Congress because the FTC can only monitor companies that voluntarily accept its guidelines. “The FTC can then use its authority to prosecute ‘deceptive’ behavior if companies that agree to the guidelines don’t live up to their promises,” the article explains.
Ipsos and Reuters released a poll of 19,216 adults from 24 different countries that found 85 percent of people connected online communicate via email and 62 percent use social networking sites.
Indonesia ranked highest for social media, with more than 80 percent using networking sites. Argentina, Russia and South Africa were next with about 75 percent utilizing social media.
Surprisingly, the U.S. had an average of only six out of ten people using social networking sites even though the most popular platforms were developed in the States. Japan was the lowest for social media at 35 percent.
The poll also found that the U.S. and Japan has not strongly adopted voice-over IP — audio conversations over the Internet — compared with Russia, Turkey and India, all of which had about three times the usage.
Email was highest in Hungary (at 94 percent) followed closely by Sweden, Belgium, Indonesia, Argentina and Poland.
While email usage remains high, social media has been gaining ground with more than half of the people worldwide using popular social media platforms. “It is true interconnection and engagement with each other,” said Karen Gottfried, research manager at Ipsos Global Public Affairs. “It is not just about a message back and forth but building messages across communities and only the meaningful messages stick.”
If Skype and free-texting apps that use Wi-Fi weren’t enough of a threat to the data revenue of major wireless carriers, new start-ups are infringing further, offering free data solutions on Clearwire’s network.
“FreedomPop, a company funded by Skype founder Niklas Zennstrom, will sell an iPhone case that gives consumers free access to 1 gigabyte of data from Clearwire Corp.’s 4G wireless network,” Bloomberg writes. “Another Clearwire partner, United Online Inc. (UNTD)’s NetZero, is offering 200 megabytes a month for free for as long as 12 months — so long as users buy a wireless modem, which can take the form of a small USB stick that plugs into the device.”
Last quarter, Verizon and AT&T took in a combined $12.2 billion from data but the free approach could change this. Starting off with free offers, the competing services can entice budget-conscious consumers who are frustrated by rate increases from AT&T and others.
“What Skype did for voice, Clearwire and partners want to do for data,” Bloomberg reports. “The idea is to undercut the prices for the service plans that let smartphones and tablets surf the Web and download applications.”
“There’s a growing awareness among American consumers that there are cheaper alternatives to the top four [wireless carriers],” says Emily Smith, an analyst at Pyramid Research.
A new report conducted by mobile security firm Lookout found that the average American loses his/her mobile device once a year, totaling to a combined value of $30 billion in losses for 2011.
The study also found that people in Philadelphia were most likely to lose their handset, that most phones were lost between 9:00 pm and 2:00 am, and people misplace their mobiles most often in coffee shops, bars, and offices.
“Lookout has created an interactive website — Mobile Lost & Found — to show its findings,” reports Digital Trends. “The website displays statistics for other countries besides the U.S. and also gives more information about its methodology.”
“Don’t forget, if you do happen to lose your phone, you can increase the chances of locating it by making sure you have the Find My iPhone app set up (for iPhone users, obviously); Android users, on the other hand, can use Where’s My Droid,” adds the post.
Can’t feel your phone vibrate in your pocket? You may soon be able to get a vibrating tattoo for your phone alerts. A new patent by Nokia outlines a magnetic ink for body tattoos that can connect to its smartphones.
“Ferromagnetic ink in the tattoo, applied to the body via stamp, tape, or ink, reacts to a smartphone’s magnetic field, meaning calls or voice mails received on a smartphone can then trigger a vibration in the tattoo’s magnetic ink,” Mobiledia explains.
Nokia hasn’t commented on the technology, leaving questions such as whether users can disable vibrations during sleep, Mobiledia points out.
There are also other up-and-coming haptic innovations reliant on magnetic vibrations that help blind students navigate computers and turn any surface into a touchscreen.
Vevo and Yahoo! Music have a new syndication deal that will allow fans of Vevo’s videos to stream them on Yahoo, “one of the most heavily trafficked websites in the country,” according to The Hollywood Reporter.
“Yahoo! gives Vevo a way to reach viewers outside of its other syndication partners and its own web and mobile properties. In aggregate, Yahoo! sites reached 173.5 million unique U.S. visitors in February, according to comScore, putting Yahoo! third behind Google sites (220 million) and Microsoft sites (186.6 million),” the article states.
“The layout of Vevo videos at the Yahoo! Music page has the familiar Vevo look: a black background, a Vevo-branded player in the center of the page, popular Vevo videos on the right column and a video playlist scrolls across the bottom of the page,” reports THR. “Videos have pre-roll advertisements and, below the video player, and display advertisements as well.”
Available in the UK and North America, Vevo is a joint venture music video and entertainment platform between Universal Music Group and Sony Music. Vevo’s extensive catalog also includes content from EMI Music and a long list of independent labels.
Following Yahoo’s lawsuit filing against Facebook, the social network is buying hundreds of patents from IBM to build up its intellectual property portfolio, which pales compared with Yahoo’s.
The lawsuit concerns 10 online advertising patents that Yahoo says Facebook has infringed upon. According to Reuters, a “classic defense” for companies facing patent lawsuits is to threaten with countersuits involving their own patents, which could be Facebook’s motivation for the patent purchase.
“The 750 patents from IBM cover a broad range of technology, ranging from search to semiconductors, according to a person familiar with the matter,” the article states.
Facebook is also prepping for its initial public offering that some analysts have suggested could value the company near $100 billion.
After 18 months of development, the Obama administration is enacting new rules that reduce restrictions on counterterrorism efforts.
“The guidelines will lengthen to five years — from 180 days — the amount of time the center can retain private information about Americans when there is no suspicion that they are tied to terrorism, intelligence officials said. The guidelines are also expected to result in the center making more copies of entire databases and ‘data mining them’ using complex algorithms to search for patterns that could indicate a threat,” the New York Times reports.
Officials say the same information was available under the previous rules, but it was far more cumbersome for analysts. However, privacy advocates are unsure about the change, raising civil liberties concerns.
“There is a genuine operational need to try to get us into a position where we can make the maximum use of the information the government already has to protect people,” Robert S. Litt, the general counsel who oversees the National Counterterrorism Center, told the Times. “We have to manage to do that in a way that provides protection to people’s civil liberties and privacy. And I really think this has been a good-faith and reasonably successful effort to do that.”
Netflix is taking new steps to boost its content offerings. The streaming video and DVD rental service has plans to produce an original horror series to premiere next year and may potentially acquire two broadcast dramas.
“Netflix describes the 13-episode horror series, ‘Hemlock Grove,’ as a ‘gripping tale of murder, mystery and monsters set in a ravaged Pennsylvania steel town,'” reports Mashable. “The show is based on a Brian McGreevy novel by the same name and is being directed and produced by Eli Roth. ‘X-Men’ actress Famke Janssen and ‘Anna Karenina’ actor Bill Skarsgard are among those who have already been cast for the series.”
The streaming service is considering buying rights to the recently cancelled Fox show “Terra Nova” as well as ABC’s “The River,” which is expected to be cancelled after the first season.
“For Netflix, amassing a large stable of original series is just one way the service is attempting to win the broader industry battle over content,” the post states.
Apple is gaining ground in the mobile chip market and is expected to pass long-standing chip-maker Intel for the top spot.
“With demand for the iPhone and iPad growing at an unprecedented pace, and growth in the PC market a bit more lethargic, Apple’s mobile processor business is fast closing the gap on Intel’s. In fact, there’s not much of a gap to close,” AllThingsD reports, adding “…Apple will almost certainly pass Intel this year. And if it swaps in its own chip for the Intel chip in the MacBook Air, it may not only pass it, but claim a decent lead, as well.”
“In 2011, Apple shipped about 176 million chips in its iOS devices, capturing a 13.5 percent market share,” explains the article. “Intel shipped just .4 percent more — 181 million chips, enough to snag a 13.9 percent market share.”
It should be noted that Samsung manufactures Apple’s processors.
Intel has been trying to expand into the smartphone and tablet markets, where it so far has little presence. Medfield, the company’s new Atom chip will reportedly be sent to handsets and tablets by this year’s end.
The market for card readers is heating up. PayPal recently released its competitor to Square and in response, Square has announced its international expansion.
Now there is a new player in the field. Self-service ticketing platform Eventbrite is unveiling its $10 card reader for the iPad.
Paired with the new At The Door app that tracks sales, customer info and payments, the card reader enables on-site credit card payments that are service fee-free (users just have to pay for credit card processing).
There is also the option to wirelessly print tickets and receipts if consumers invest in the compatible printer.
According to the press release: “Prior to launch, the At The Door app was tested successfully with several large, high-profile events, including Meatopia, The Orange County BBQ Festival, and the IFPDA Print Faire. The At The Door Card Reader will be part of the mobile box office solution for the highly anticipated Governors Ball Music Festival — taking place on Roosevelt Island June 23-24, in New York City.”
On Friday, Facebook’s privacy policy will change its name to “Data Use Policy.” And that’s not the only thing the social network is changing.
“The changes reflect the fact that Facebook is extending its data collecting tentacles in all directions: towards people who never even signed up for Facebook, activities that aren’t clearly defined as sharing, and mediums that aren’t clearly defined as advertising,” said Sarah Downey of Abine, an online privacy company.
According to ReadWriteWeb, changes include allowing friends to give apps access to your personal information, banning multiple accounts, and requiring users to keep their profile and contact information up to date.
There are also updates on the rules for developers, some of which Facebook doesn’t even adhere to. These include making it easier for users to remove the application and deleting user data if used in inappropriate ways or if requested by the user.
Concerned? Unfortunately, if you access Facebook on Friday or thereafter, you have agreed to the new terms and there’s no way to opt out. “This Statement is take it or leave it: users agree to it simply by using Facebook,” said Downey. “Most of them will never know when or if the Terms change, let alone what they mean.”