Amazon’s Kindle Fire has been the strongest competitor to Apple’s iPad and Google’s slew of Android devices. Amazon may now take on Apple and Google in the area of 3D mapping with its purchase of UpNext.
Amazon purchased the New York-based 3D map developer for an undisclosed sum. “UpNext offers interactive, detailed three-dimensional maps of cities and venues,” according to GigaOM.
“Currently, Kindle Fire owners must use third-party apps or access Google Maps (or another service) through the Web browser,” reports VentureBeat. “We could see UpNext’s mapping platform show up on Amazon.com or see it integrated with Amazon’s mobile apps.”
The purchase will allow Amazon to move away from its reliance on Google Maps for its new line of Kindle Fire tablets. “The Kindle Fire doesn’t currently include a GPS radio but the UpNext acquisition, which would help Amazon offer native mapping capabilities, potentially points to a more robust Kindle Fire in the future, as well as an Amazon smartphone,” notes GigaOM.
The VentureBeat post features two videos demonstrating UpNext’s 3D maps on the iPhone and iPad.
Google has released Chrome for iOS, but without the latitude to integrate its JavaScript rendering engine, the app runs slower than its Android cousin.
Rather than use the JavaScript engine, Chrome for iOS uses its UIWebView in order to comply with Apple’s strict third-party developers agreement.
TechCrunch notes that many users enjoy Chrome on other platforms for its speed, but that the absence of the JavaScript engine makes Chrome on iOS appear sluggish. The post adds that the lack of speed “doesn’t just apply to page loads,” but that “there is often a slight but noticeable lag when you scroll, too.”
Chrome on iOS still provides a valuable experience, and includes fluid tab switchers. Users can also sync their iOS device to their desktop with Chrome’s bookmark and tab syncing features.
According to a statement from Google, the company’s “goal was to bring the same fast, secure and stable Web browsing experience you’ve come to enjoy when using Chrome on your desktop or Android device, while also adapting to platform specific technical specifications.”
“Google’s engineers, though, did what they could on iOS,” comments TechCrunch. “Sadly, those platform specific technical specifications dictate that the current iteration of Chrome for iOS can’t quite live up to what we’ve come to expect from Chrome on other platforms.”
Music streaming competition continues to heat up and Microsoft plans to enter the mix with “an expansive Xbox music service joining Spotify-style streaming with download and online-storage functions similar to Apple Inc.’s iTunes,” according to Bloomberg.
Microsoft is in negotiations with major record companies now and plans to launch the service later this year.
“By combining the best features of competing services, Microsoft seeks to build a digital product that lets customers consume music any way they like,” notes the article. “The maker of the Xbox console is building the new music business after its unsuccessful effort with the Zune service, which will close and move customers to Xbox Music, the company said on its website.”
According to “several people with knowledge of the situation,” Xbox Music will offer a streaming subscription service similar to that of Spotify and enable customers to purchase digital music via an online store, similar to the model used by iTunes and Amazon.com.
Sources also say that Microsoft wants to offer Xbox Music users an online locker, from which they can access content from mobile devices running Windows 8.
Reports indicate that an issue with Apple’s App Store was causing problems for its users this week. According to CNET, “Marco Arment, the creator of Instapaper, reported…that he was ‘deluged’ earlier this week by users who had downloaded Instapaper 4.2.3 and found that upon opening it, the application ‘crashed immediately.'”
The issue continued to plague users even after uninstalling and reinstalling the app. Arment also suggested that he’d heard of other app developers having similar issues.
“Arment found that the problem was due to what he said was a corrupt update Apple distributed through its App Store. According to Arment, the update he sent over worked just fine, so he quickly complained to Apple about the issue. Within a couple of hours, a new, reliable update was distributed and the problem was addressed,” reports CNET.
“I haven’t yet received a response from App Review, so I don’t know whether the fix was because I made noise, or simply because time passed, which may, for instance, expire a cache with the bad data,” Arment wrote in a blog post. “The only fix for people with bad copies, once good copies are being served again by the App Store, is to delete and reinstall the app.”
TechCrunch reports that Apple is aware of the problem and has been working to resolve it. “The short of it is that corrupt app store binaries, and possibly some problem related to Apple’s FairPlay DRM, is at the root of these mysterious crashes,” notes the post.
Apple issued an update late last night: “We had a temporary issue that began yesterday with a server that generated DRM code for some apps being downloaded. The issue has been rectified and we don’t expect it to occur again.”
In a related report from International Business Times, Russian security firm Kaspersky Lab has reported an app named “Find and Call,” which it suggests is the first case of malware to enter Apple’s App Store. Reportedly also found in the Android Google Play store, the malware “steals your phonebook details and sends spam SMS messages to all your contacts, claiming to be from you,” explains the article.
Retail stores have suffered from “showrooming,” a process by which customers browse products in stores, but then return to online retailers to purchase their items.
Some retailers have attempted to combat the problem by replacing bar codes with company-only bar codes that cannot be scanned and compared online.
Other retailers are transforming “their stores into extensions of their own online operations” by ” stepping up efforts to add Web return centers, pickup locations, free shipping outlets, payment booths and even drive-through customer service centers for online sales to their brick-and-mortar buildings,” reports The New York Times.
“We are living in the age of the customer, and you can either fight these trends that are happening — showrooming is one — or you can embrace them,” explains Joel Anderson, chief executive of Walmart.com for the United States. “We have a lot of assets, but they’re only assets if you embrace the trends of the customers.”
Retailers who offer pick up locations for online purchases find that it attracts different types of customers than traditional online shopping. Whereas traditional online shoppers often pay with credit cards, shoppers who order online and then pick up their order in the store often pay with cash, either to avoid identity theft or because they do not have credit cards.
Vice president of stores for the Container Store John Thrailkill notes that “the online orders for in-store pickup also tended to be much larger than typical in-store purchases, and that customers who picked up orders in the store visited about 50 percent more often than customers who shopped only in the stores.”
Rumor has it that Apple is getting closer to revealing a 7-inch iPad (the Wall Street Journal reports that the company component suppliers in Asia are set to begin production in September of a tablet smaller than 8-inches).
However, reports indicate that Apple’s late CEO Steve Jobs was critical of such a tablet.
During a conference call in 2010, “Jobs talked about how such tablets offered just a fraction of the screen size as a 10-inch tablet, while not offering a significant boost over the smartphone that most tablet buyers were already carrying,” reports AllThingsD.
Even knowing the inevitability of improved pixel density in the future, Jobs said: “The reason we [won’t] make a 7-inch tablet isn’t because we don’t want to hit [a lower] price point. It’s because we think the screen is too small to express the software. As a software driven company, we think about the software strategies first.”
Serious competitors in the low-cost, smaller tablet sector continue to emerge, including last year’s Kindle Fire from Amazon and the pending arrival of the Nexus 7 from Asus and Google.
While competitors continue unveiling smaller, more affordable tablets, “Apple may well feel that it no longer makes sense to leave the segment to competitors,” notes the article.
The launch of Samba, an advertising-based, free British broadband service, prompts GigaOM to question if ad-based mobile data can succeed.
Samba targets traveling tablet and laptop users. The customers watch advertisements to gain data credit, which they can use at their convenience. Once users purchase a Samba SIM card, they can get 3G access for free.
“Watch two and a half minutes of adverts in a day — from brands like Volvo, Microsoft and Dell — and you’ve worked up enough credit to cover more than 500MB of data,” notes the post.
Co-founder Ben Atherton explains “With Samba you earn the credit watching ads at a time that is convenient to you and then have access when you need it.”
However, GigaOM argues that ad-supported mobile services have nearly always failed in the past, and most successful ad-supported platforms “aren’t purely ad-supported at all: advertising is just one part of a complex revenue mix.”
The post also notes that ad-supported businesses are most successful when they are platforms such as Facebook and Google. “These are appealing to advertisers because they are self-service, highly-segmented, and targeted. They make money because they scale easily, they don’t necessarily require huge sales teams and they aren’t broadcast mechanisms,” explains GigaOM.
An infographic from Digital Flash analyzes social media use by gender, finding that men dominate Google+ and Reddit while women use Facebook, Twitter, and Pinterest with more frequency than males.
Women account for 56 percent of all social network use in the United States, and this number carries over to use of both Facebook and Twitter. Females account for 58 percent and 64 percent of use on these sites, respectively.
Women also account for 55 percent of the online gaming population, and 60 percent of Zynga’s users are women. Women over the age of 55 account for the most Zynga gaming, as this demographic games more than males 15-24 and 25-34 combined.
Men account for 84 percent, 71 percent, and 63 percent, respectively, on Reddit, Google+ and LinkedIn.
The infographic concludes “women are far more active users of social networking sites, racking up an astounding 99 million more visits per month than their male counterparts.”
Sony Computer Entertainment (SCE) announced this week it would purchase cloud-streaming game provider Gaikai Inc. for approximately $380 million.
“Through the acquisition, SCE will establish a new cloud service, ensuring that it continues to provide users with truly innovative and immersive interactive entertainment experiences,” states the press release.
ReadWriteWeb suggests that the acquisition “could completely reshape the way Sony interacts with the lucrative gaming market.” The Gaikai network could allow users to access games without the need for a dedicated high-end game console.
“Users of the free, ad-supported Gaikai service can play top-of-the-line video games on pretty much any Web-enabled device — including desktop browsers, Internet TVs, tablets and smartphones,” notes the post. “Gaikai promises to deliver a low-latency experience in gameplay even on platforms not necessarily built for gaming.”
While Sony may be looking to expand possibilities in gaming content delivery, implications of the deal go beyond such an endeavor.
“Cloud streaming services such as Gaikai and remote desktop service Splashtop are fast becoming popular ways to deliver digital content across the Internet,” indicates ReadWriteWeb. “Sony’s acquisition of Gaikai clearly validates cloud streaming as a delivery method.”
According to a Facebook post from Netflix CEO Reed Hastings, subscribers to the video streaming site viewed more than 1 billion hours of video last month, marking a new record for the company.
“Congrats to Ted Sarandos, and his amazing content licensing team,” wrote Hastings. “Netflix monthly viewing exceeded 1 billion hours for the first time ever in June. When ‘House of Cards’ and ‘Arrested Development’ debut, we’ll blow these records away. Keep going, Ted, we need even more!”
Netflix is still working to repair the damage done last year after splitting off its DVD-by-mail service. This new milestone may be the result of those efforts.
“Netflix ended the first quarter with more than 26 million subscribers worldwide, which was a new high for the company and more than 1.5 million above the number it had in the fourth quarter of last year,” reports TechCrunch. “More importantly, its subscribers are engaged and watching a ton of video on the service.”
After Hastings’ announcement, the company’s stock rose 6.2 percent, its largest gain since May 23, reports Bloomberg. In total, Netflix stock has risen 4 percent in 2012 so far.
Rather than a separate chip to communicate with cell phone towers, another for Wi-Fi base stations, a third for GPS signals, and a fourth for Bluetooth, software-defined radio hardware receives the raw electromagnetic signals and uses software to handle each frequency.
In theory, a single software-defined radio chip could perform the function of all these separate chips simultaneously, plus record FM radio and digital television signals, read RFID chips, track ship locations, or do radio astronomy.
“Software-defined radio will make it possible to use the electromagnetic spectrum in fundamentally new ways,” reports Ars Technica. “Most radio standards today are designed to use a fixed, narrow frequency band. In contrast, software-defined radio devices can tune into many different frequencies simultaneously, making possible communications schemes that wouldn’t be feasible with conventional radio gear.”
Per Vices co-founder, Victor Wollesen, whose company has developed a low-cost software-defined PCI Express card, one day sees a time when every home will have a similar radio device.
“We see our device being used as a center that’s able to take any sort of wireless signal, process, and re-package it. A universal router,” he explains. “Our device, by loading a piece of software on it can replace a router, a cell phone, a base station, or a garage door opener.”
More importantly, these devices will usher in a new era of wireless experimentation leading to innovative new uses such as spread spectrum approaches that make much more efficient use of the frequencies.
Tech journalist Larry Magid comments on the current transition of physical to digital media (notably books, CDs, DVDs) and its potential impact from consumer and cultural perspectives.
He notes that a lack of shelves housing our physical media may take away a viewable history of our hobbies, interests and education.
“The loss of this visible manifestation of who we are may be of little consequence to most people, but it’s a loss worth noting,” he writes, adding that books, CDs and DVDs are becoming endangered species that will eventually become expensive luxury items.
Magid points out that this is not necessarily all bad, citing the multiple conveniences of e-books and digital storage of music and movies.
However, he makes an exception regarding his record collection: “I do have a soft spot for LPs. Some say they have a warmer sound, but what I mostly like about LPs is the covers and the ritual of carefully placing them on the turntable and lovingly returning them to their sleeves. And there is nothing like flipping through those old album covers for a trip down memory lane.”
“I do think there will come a time when we won’t easily be able judge a friend by his book covers, but somehow society will endure,” Magid concludes. “Maybe we’ll have to settle for talking to people to find out what interests them or, perhaps, someone will create ‘an app for that.'”
While the iPhone was once considered just a fancy, expensive cellphone by some — it’s now obvious, five years after its initial launch, that the iPhone continues to revolutionize mobile phones and computing.
“The iPhone is not and never was a phone. It is a pocket-sized computer that obviates the phone. The iPhone is to cell phones what the Mac was to typewriters,” according to John Gruber of Daring Fireball.
Gruber suggests that the iPhone was the “world’s best portable computer… It was the best because it was always there, always on, always just a button-push away. The disruption was not that we now finally had a nice phone; it was that, for better or for worse, we would now never again be without a computer or the Internet. It was the Mac side of Apple, not the iPod side, that set the engineering foundation for the iPhone.”
The post claims that in the past five years, Apple has “destroyed the handset industry by disrupting the computer industry.”
“Today, cell phones are apps, not devices,” notes Gruber. “The companies that were the most successful at selling cell phones pre-iPhone are now dead or dying. Amazon, Google, and now even Microsoft are designing and selling their own integrated touchscreen portable tablets. ‘App’ is now a household word. All of this, because of the iPhone.”
Sam Biddle offers a compelling commentary via Gizmodo that questions several of the announcements made during the recent Google I/O event, suggesting the company “revealed an unsettling lack of human understanding.”
“We’ve had privacy concerns before, but could it be more? Could it be that Google just doesn’t get real people?” asks Biddle.
The keynote featured some interesting products including the Glass wearable computer, smartphone system Google Now, the Nexus Q social media streamer, and new Google+ parties.
“But underneath each of these feats of technology you could see a hollow, lurching weirdness that makes you wonder: Who will use any of this stuff besides the actors in Google’s promo videos?” he asks.
Google is indeed ambitious and its motives seem genuine in its efforts to make our lives better through technology.
However, Biddle questions whether Google, despite its intentions, is effectively focusing on today’s average consumers: “There isn’t any lack of effort or innovation here, but rather a gaping disconnect between the way data geeks and the rest of us see the world.”
Verizon argues that the Federal Communications Commission’s new network neutrality rules exceed the agency’s regulatory authority and violate network owners’ First Amendment right to freedom of speech and its Fifth Amendment property rights.
Congress has debated net neutrality 11 times since 2006 but has yet to enact legislation. Even if it had, Verizon argues that it would violate its constitutional rights.
“Broadband networks are the modern-day microphone by which their owners [e.g. Verizon] engage in First Amendment speech,” writes Verizon.
“Although broadband providers have generally exercised their discretion to allow all content in an undifferentiated manner, they nonetheless possess discretion that these rules preclude them from exercising,” the company adds. “The FCC’s concern that broadband providers will differentiate among various content presumes that they will exercise editorial discretion.”
Verizon also believes the FCC’s rules violate the Fifth Amendment through a “government compulsion to turn over [network owners’] private property for use by others without compensation.”
Amazon’s Kindle Fire has been the strongest competitor to Apple’s iPad and Google’s slew of Android devices. Amazon may now take on Apple and Google in the area of 3D mapping with its purchase of UpNext.
