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.
Dr. Raymond Soneira, president of DisplayMate Technologies, has published the results of an extensive shoot-out between the iPhone 4, iPad 2 and new iPad with a focus on display technology.
The article specifically provides “a combination of objective praise and critical analysis of the Retina Display on the new iPad.”
Soneira explains some interesting specs regarding the Retina Display, questions what level of resolution is really necessary for a consumer device, draws comparisons to other tablets such as the Nook and Kindle Fire, offers suggestions for improvement and addresses features including power consumption, camera capability, color saturation and accuracy, and more.
In his conclusion, Soneira writes: “…the new iPad’s picture quality, color accuracy, and gray scale are not only much better than any other Tablet or Smartphone, it’s also much better than most HDTVs, laptops, and monitors. In fact with some minor calibration tweaks the new iPad would qualify as a studio reference monitor. So we have also awarded the new iPad the Best Mobile Picture Quality Award, which was previously held by the original Motorola Droid.”
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.
Hillcrest Labs says it has adapted its FreeSpace system to bring gesture recognition technology to Android and Windows 8 devices.
The company explains that the introduction of gyroscopes, accelerometers and other sensors has made phones viable candidates for Kinect-style movement recognition.
The FreeSpace motion engine is currently used in Roku set-top boxes and Smart TVs. Hillcrest Labs hopes to use the technology in phones and tablets by early next year.
According to SVP Chad Lucien, gesture recognition has wide potential. “In addition to being used in such obvious areas as gaming and augmented reality, sensors can detect when a phone is in a car, and can change the interface and aid indoor navigation by detecting where a phone has headed once it leaves GPS range,” he says.
“The Motion Picture Association of America released statistics today saying that Chinese theatrical revenue grew 35 percent to nearly $2 billion last year, making China the world’s third biggest film market behind the U.S. and Japan,” reports paidContent. “More quietly, though, a U.S.-based upstart VOD distributor, YOU On Demand, might be emerging as an even greater force for U.S. studio profits in China.”
YOU On Demand entered China under a 20-year exclusive contract from the government to run national VOD services.
The New York-based company, run by former professional wrestler Shane McMahon, drew attention last year when it signed Warner Bros. to the first VOD deal in China. Within the last month, the company announced agreements with Disney, Lionsgate and Magnolia Pictures. More studio partnerships are expected.
“YOU On Demand has been able to entice American studios with a ‘anything is better than nothing’ proposition, given the traditionally rampant piracy of U.S. video content in the region,” suggests the article. “Going forward, the company projects sizable revenue for its U.S. partners, who provide their video content on a revenue share basis under which they control a majority interest.”
New Paradise Laboratories, a Philadelphia-based theatrical company, is using social media to make its stories and characters available to the audience even before the show opens. This approach appeals directly to people who might not attend theaters but are active Internet users.
In their “Fatebook” production, NPL used Facebook, Twitter and Flickr to allow the audience to interact with the actors in character. The actual live show became the party where all the characters met.
In “Extremely Public Displays of Privacy,” one actor spent a year creating the character online that included pictures, songs and Facebook entries.
“What I loved the most was that I had a constant outlet for my creativity. I would follow my impulses. I was creating little pieces for my character,” explains actress Annie Enneking. “After the show closed, it felt like a little death.”
“In addition to molding the two characters’ lives online, the play also incorporated geo-location technology where a character guides you through a park,” reports Mashable. “Audience members could download a sound file for a 45-minute guided tour in a Philadelphia park. Online audiences can take a virtual walk online via YouTube. The third act completed the play with a real-time performance in Philadelphia where the theater is based.”
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.
Market research firm Penn Schoen Berland recently polled 750 social network users ages 13 to 49 regarding their interests in social media and entertainment.
According to THR, 90 percent of respondents “view social networking sites like Twitter and Facebook as a new form of entertainment, and more than half say social media sites are important tastemakers in determining what to watch and buy. Perhaps more surprising, 80 percent of television viewers visit Facebook while they watch.”
“The poll found that a majority of 18-to-34-year-olds believe using social media while watching a movie in a theater would add to their experience, and nearly half would be interested in going to theaters that allowed texting and Web surfing,” reports THR.
“Millennials want their public moviegoing experience to replicate their own private media experiences,” says pollster Jon Penn. “Having dedicated social-media-friendly seats, or even entire theaters, can make the moviegoing experience more relevant and enjoyable for them.”
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.
According to research firm IHS Screen Digest, online movie viewing will exceed viewing on DVDs and Blu-ray this year.
Legal online viewing is expected to grow from 1.4 billion movies last year to 3.4 billion this year. Meanwhile, viewing movies on physical discs will decline from 2.6 billion to 2.4 billion.
Streaming services from Netflix and Amazon represent 94 percent of paid online movie viewing.
“The report highlights the price disparity between online purchases and movies sold in retail shops,” reports Bloomberg. “Consumers paid an average of 51 cents for every movie consumed online, compared with $4.72 for physically purchased videos, IHS found.”
“We are looking at the beginning of the end of the age of movies on physical media like DVD and Blu-ray,” says Dan Cryan, IHS senior principal analyst. “But the transition is likely to take time: almost nine years after the launch of the iTunes Store, CDs are still a vital part of the music business.”
Adobe is currently offering a free beta download of Photoshop CS6 for both Mac and Windows. The first major upgrade in two years, CS6 is expected to hit the market by June.
“Adobe says highlights of the next version of CS6 include an addition to its content-aware component called Patch, similar to Clone, where users can choose a sample area they want to patch and then blend pixels ‘for a stunning result,’” reports Digital Trends.
Adobe is emphasizing dramatic enhancements to speed and performance for the new release.
“The final product will come in two versions — the standard Photoshop CS6 and the more expensive Extended edition with its extra features,” explains the post. “The free beta version offers users the full Photoshop experience.”
The latest Android tablet from Acer is the quad-core Iconia Tab A510, which the company claims is its fastest tablet to date.
According to Acer, the upgraded processor offers “three times the graphics performance compared to previous generation processors.”
The A510 will include the latest Android 4.0 Ice Cream Sandwich. Additional features: 10.1-inch screen, 1280 x 800 resolution, 1080p video playback, Dolby Digital sound, 32GB memory and two cameras.
Pre-installed apps include Polaris Office 3.5, Evernote, Netflix, Kindle and Google Music.
Pre-orders for the $450 tablet began yesterday. “While there are no words yet on when the tablet will ship, the special edition models will celebrate and sponsor the upcoming 2012 Olympic games in London by featuring the five Olympic rings on the back of the tablet,” reports Digital Trends.
