Google is looking to its new $12.5 billion Motorola Mobility acquisition to create innovative new devices. But they will need to do so without scaring away Android’s 55 manufacturers.
The challenge for Android is that more companies will develop so-called “forked” versions like Amazon. Each will have features to differentiate them that may be at odds with Google itself. Samsung, for example, is bringing out its own advertising network that will compete with Google.
Moreover, Google will be challenged to maintain its traditional high margins in a hardware business where companies are barely profitable. Motorola Mobility, in fact, has been losing money. Google may be forced to sell off parts of the company such as the cable set-top box business. And there are rumors that the handset business is also for sale.
But Google denies that rumor. “And that may be the scariest part of all for Google’s investors. The company really believes it can be all things to all people,” reports the Wall Street Journal.
Verizon has long been the only wireless carrier of the “big four” to allow upgrading for free. No longer. Starting on April 22, Verizon will begin charging a $30 upgrade fee whenever an existing customer wants to extend a contract with new hardware.
According to a released statement, this new fee will be used to help Verizon “continue to provide customers with the level of service and support they have come to expect.” According to TechCrunch, “that apparently includes Verizon’s online support tools, their in-person Wireless Workshops, and ‘consultations with experts who provide advice and guidance on devices.’”
AT&T bumped up its fee from $18 to $36 earlier this year, which is about equal to Sprint’s. T-Mobile’s upgrade fee still stands at $18 for now.
“In fairness, it’s a fee that doesn’t come into play but once every two years or so (unless something tragic happens to your device before that), but it makes for an unsightly bill that can temper the joy of new phone ownership,” comments TechCrunch. “Families in particular will have it rough — the bill for a bog-standard four-person family plan could easily double if everyone gets a new phone at the same time.”
Research firm Gartner forecasts that tablet sales will hit 119 million in 2012, nearly doubling last year’s 60 million tablets across the world.
“Of those 119 million tablets, approximately 73 million, or 61 percent, will be iPads, Gartner predicts. The researcher thinks that the Apple device will continue to dominate the tablet market through 2016, despite increased competition from the likes of Amazon and Microsoft,” Mashable reports.
In 2012, Android tablet sales will only be about half of the iPad sales but the OS will catch up by 2016 when an estimated 137.6 million Android tablets will be sold, only slightly behind the forecasted 169.6 million iPads.
The study also found that enterprise will be a big sector for tablets, taking up 35 percent of all tablet sales in 2015.
The TriggerHappy camera remote is yet another Kickstarter success story.
TriggerHappy, from engineer Kevin Harrington and his development team, provides digital SLR control via its iPhone or Android app.
As of April 6, the Kickstarter campaign had 27 days remaining, yet the TriggerHappy team had already raised $125,000 (their initial funding goal was $25,000).
Digital Trends interviewed the young software engineer about his concept and his team’s experience with Kickstarter.
According to Harrington: “Kickstarter is a great place to bootstrap a business. That’s what we wanted. We don’t see TriggerHappy as a project, but instead we see it as a business with an ever-improving product. Starting a business requires capital. Kickstarter is a great place to raise that capital without giving away company equity to investors. Crowdfunding is how we wanted to raise capital, and Kickstarter is the premium crowdfunding service.”
The post features a 4-minute video describing the TriggerHappy project.
New York-based startup Yapp has launched a beta version of its Yapp Events app that allows users to create special event apps without doing any programming.
“Yapp’s first product is like a mobile Paperless Post,” reports Business Insider. “Instead of sending an email or Facebook invite, Yapp lets you create a mobile app invite that can be downloaded by friends.”
Yapp Events works on iOS and Android devices.
The company is also working on a product that will allow non-programmers to create other mobile products. Is this the future of app development?
Take a look at the 2-minute video to see how simple it is to use.
YouTube Live has now been around for a year and to celebrate the milestone, YouTube added some new features on Tuesday.
“Most of these (new production software, improved publishing flows and real-time analytics) are mostly of interest to video producers,” reports TechCrunch. “The most important new feature, though, is the addition of pay-per-view as a monetization option for all publishers.”
Additionally, publishers will be able to see how many users are watching their live stream in real time.
“It’s worth noting that Ustream and a number of other live streaming services have offered pay-per-view as an option for a while now,” explains TechCrunch.
It was also announced that there will now be a special YouTube Live version of Wirecast available to its partners — “a professional webcasting solution that generally retails for around $449,” explains the post. This will make it easier to produce live events and give them a more professional look.
Toshiba is taking another stab at the tablet market after backlash from its Thrive tablets that were criticized for poor battery life and chunky design.
Its latest three models are much more slim and sleek with textured aluminum backs. The Excite 7.7-, 10- and 13-inch slates will run Ice Cream Sandwich and feature NVIDIA’s Tegra 3 SoC.
The 7.7 has an AMOLED display and will launch on June 10, costing $500 for 16GB and $580 for 32GB versions.
Launching the same day, the Excite 13 will have 1600×900 resolution, a full-sized SD slot and will sell for $650 and $750 for 32GB and 64GB versions, respectively.
The Excite 10 will roll out a little sooner on May 6 for $500, $530, or $650 for 16GB, 32GB and 64GB versions. The tablet will also have a full-sized SD slot.
“Each tablet is equipped with a 5-megapixel camera on the back, along with a 2-megapixel front-facing shooter for convenient photography, video capture and chat. The tablets also include stereo speakers with exclusive sound enhancements by Toshiba and SRS Labs, as well as Wi-Fi and Bluetooth connectivity,” the press release states.
Yahoo CEO Scott Thompson has issued a memo to his staff, outlining a “new organizational structure and a focus on commerce initiatives,” according to The Hollywood Reporter.
This memo comes after Yahoo laid off 2,000 employees last week. According to THR, that move and the start of this new plan indicate that “Thompson is looking to return the Internet giant to prominence, with commerce revenue being one key focus.”
Thompson said he would split the company into three groups with different objectives. “They are a consumer group, which includes Yahoo’s media sites and commerce-related, search and email services; regions, which is broken up into the Americas, Europe and Asia divisions that work with advertising partners; and technology.,” explains the article.
According to Thompson’s memo, the overall goal of focusing on commerce is “driving higher [return on investment] for advertisers and agencies that reach users on Yahoo by closing the loop for them between user interests, advertiser spend, consumer intent and purchase behavior,” reports THR.
Yahoo currently generates about $1 billion in annual revenue via commerce partnerships.
Best Buy has been struggling to keep customers coming into its stores with competitors like Amazon that often sell the same electronics for less. The retail chain announced it would have to close 50 stores to return to a profit margin.
In the wake of these challenges, CEO Brian Dunn has resigned, handing over the reigns to director and board member G. Mike Mikian while the company searches for his replacement.
“There were no disagreements between Mr. Dunn and the company on any matter relating to operations, financial controls, policies or procedures,” Best Buy stated in a press release. “There was mutual agreement that it was time for new leadership to address the challenges that face the company.”
Dunn started at Best Buy in 1985 as a store associate. By June 2009, he had worked his way up to CEO, right when the company was facing mounting pressure from Amazon and Walmart.
According to VentureBeat, “Dunn did not radically change the company’s strategy to deal with these threats.”
Pay TV could cost as much as $200 a month by 2020, according to a new survey from NPD Group. Compared to today’s $86/month rate, the rise seems rather drastic, especially when considering the rise of online content services.
“As pay TV costs rise and consumers’ spending power stays flat, the traditional affiliate-fee business model for pay TV companies appears to be unsustainable in the long term,” said Keith Nissen, research director for The NPD Group. “Much-needed structural changes to the pay TV industry will not happen quickly or easily; however, the emerging competition between S-VOD and premium-TV suppliers might be the spark that ignites the necessary business-model transformation of the pay TV industry.”
The majority of pay TV subscribers have stuck with their services despite the trend to cut cords in favor of streaming services. The main reason for staying with their services is lack of content, especially live sports, as well as the convenience of getting all their content from one source.
As prices go up, however, these reasons might not be enough to keep customers. Online options will become even more appealing if consumers don’t have to worry about going over their broadband cap.
“So the question for TV consumers is: Do you keep paying $86 today for access to a walled garden of really good content that will likely to continue to rise in cost? Or do you go outside the walled garden and scramble to get your regular shows while fighting the caps and agreements that will eventually make the world outside the walled garden inhospitable for a TV lover? And the bigger question is whether or not the FCC or anyone in Washington is watching this play out and plans to help the consumers by taking action?” GigaOM asks.
A bill banning employers from asking for social media passwords is sitting on the desk of Maryland Governor Martin O’Malley.
After passing unanimously through the state Senate and by a 128-10 vote in the House, the bill could go into effect with the governor’s approval.
The proposed bill is in response to recent reports of employers requesting that job applicants submit their passwords to Facebook and other social networks.
Facebook was quick to denounce the practice and a number of states began drafting bills in opposition.
“While Maryland is the first state to pass such legislation, it likely won’t be the only one for long — Illinois and California have both introduced similar pieces of legislation, and senators from New York and Connecticut have both asked the U.S. Attorney General to prohibit this practice,” The Verge reports.
The U.S. government is joining the top wireless providers to fight cellphone theft with the creation of a centralized database for stolen phones.
Using the database to track stolen phones by their serial numbers, the carriers — Verizon, AT&T, T-Mobile and Sprint Nextel — will be able to deny access to voice and data networks. This will hopefully make the devices impossible to use after they’ve been reported stolen.
Additionally, the initiative will include a program to educate consumers on mobile privacy, “teaching them how to remotely lock their phones, delete personal information, and track their devices’ location,” Mashable reports.
The carriers will create their databases within six months, which will then be consolidated into one large database within a year.
Similar programs in Australia, France, Germany, and the UK have proven successful in reducing — if not entirely eliminating — phone theft.
TechCrunch analyzes the future of content suggesting that it will be free (ad-supported), shorter, and promotional.
Consumers are demanding free content and they’re also increasingly impatient, watching only the first 30-60 seconds of YouTube videos, which is a strong motivator for producers to cut their content length.
New York venture capitalist Fred Wilson suggests in his piece “The Future of Media” that producers consider the following four steps: “Microchunk it — Reduce the content to its simplest form; Free it — Put it out there without walls around it or strings on it; Syndicate it — Let anyone take it and run with it; and Monetize it — Put the monetization and tracking systems into the microchunk.”
The article says scale comes from distribution and monetization. “Content was an art. Today it’s a science as well. It will always be about Influence and Authority,” explains TechCrunch.
With some 48 million tablets and e-readers sold last year, book publishers are being forced to become multimedia companies whose e-books can include audio, video and interactive elements.
Standards and formats can vary from books with audio and video for the iPad to so-called “enhanced e-books.”
Young adult (YA) fiction caters to teens who are already involved with text messages, Facebook and blogs. YA literature crosses film, TV and social media to create multimedia storytelling.
One publisher envisions books as social experiences. Another released a book that allows the story to be told in different ways. “Last fall, for example, indie publisher Folded Word released author Mel Bosworth’s ‘Freight’ as an e-book that electronically built on the choose-your-own-adventure format, creating a narrative that could be told in more than one way (‘Chopsticks’ incorporates a similar feature),” reports Wired.
HarperMedia is looking for opportunities where publishers and studios can work together to create both print and screen versions.
New York City is preparing to upgrade its mostly unused payphones with 32-inch touchscreens, which will “offer a quick connection to 311 for requesting info and filing complaints, as well as interactive guides to the neighborhood,” explains Engadget.
Presently, the payphones are essentially useless to a society filled with smartphones, but soon the booths will transform into a mechanism for gathering restaurant suggestions or locating local landmarks.
The organization City24x7 is providing 250 of the new touchscreen devices free of charge as part of its pilot program.
“If all goes well, the company and the city will split revenue generated from ad sales following an expanded roll out,” explains the post. The touchscreens are expected to be available in May.