Apple exceeded expectations when it announced its second quarter numbers on Tuesday, nearly doubling profits from one year ago.
Blame it all on the iPad. The company sold 11.8 million of its tablets during the second quarter.
Apple’s chief executive Tim Cook gave the situation this perspective: “Just two years after we shipped the initial iPad, we sold 67 million. It took us 24 years to sell that many Macs, and five years for that many iPods, and over three years for that many iPhones.”
The tablet market is growing fast and Apple faces little serious competition in the area. “It faces competition from Amazon, Barnes & Noble and Sony in the subsegment of people who want to use the device primarily to read e-books,” explains The New York Times.
Higher frame rates have been the talk of CinemaCon in Las Vegas this week where notable filmmakers have been discussing the shift to 3D production for more than just “the right kind of movies.”
“Right now, we still need an excuse to watch 3D. Someday we won’t need those excuses,” suggested Ang Lee who was joined onstage by Martin Scorsese. “I just think you have to accept it as a part of storytelling,” added Scorsese.
The two directors “took the unequivocal position that very soon, 3D will be the standard not just for the ‘right’ films but for all films. Scorsese, Lee and Baz Luhrmann are among filmmakers taking the format beyond tentpole fare. Luhrmann’s 3D footage from ‘The Great Gatsby’ was warmly received at the confab, even without the benefit of color correction or vfx,” reports Variety.
Scorsese pointed out that depth was one of early filmmakers’ pursuits, and that technology has finally reached the point of achieving that dream. Scorsese’s team on “Hugo” screened Alfred Hitchcock’s 3D thriller “Dial M for Murder” for inspiration. “It was this whole other approach to something that was not a horror genre, that was literally a stage play in 3D,” he said. “I decided I wanted to go more that way (with ‘Hugo’).”
Directors such as Peter Jackson and James Cameron have been touting higher frame rates, the next cinematic innovation that has taken center stage at this year’s convention.
“Scorsese said he did not see the 48 frames-per-second demonstration of ‘The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey’ that divided viewers at Caesars — but he defended it sight unseen, comparing it to the change from nitrate to regular black-and-white film — another cinematic evolution that was initially controversial,” reports Variety.
On Tuesday at the CinemaCon convention in Las Vegas, Warner Bros. screened 10 minutes of Peter Jackson’s “The Hobbit,” which was shot at 48fps. The film will become the first shown in 48fps 3D when it debuts in December.
In a video message from New Zealand, “Jackson implored theater owners to project his new film at 48 frames per second,” reports the Los Angeles Times. “The new speed, he said, gives the ‘illusion of real life, where movement feels smoother, and you’re not dealing with strobing.'”
Reactions to the footage were mixed: “…the wide vistas were pretty breathtaking,” said one of the exhibitors in attendance, also noting concern regarding close-ups. “It will take some getting used to, for sure.”
While some theater owners are anxious to show the film in its 48fps format, not all will be equipped to do so. More recent digital cinema installations are already capable, but others will require software upgrades or new hardware.
James Cameron plans to shoot the “Avatar” sequels in either 48 or 60fps. In a test screening with Cameron’s team, “images that would normally appear adequate abruptly look fuzzy by comparison, as if the moviegoer had been wearing glasses with the wrong prescription but now could suddenly see straight,” according to Wired.
Reportedly, Thomas Edison’s early experiments showed that 46 frames-per-second was the ideal frame rate as “anything less will strain the eye.” But the need to save celluloid and cut production costs led to 24fps becoming the standard for the past 80 years. In the 1980’s Douglas Trumbull attempted to get interest in his Showscan system which ran at 60fps. Interestingly, he’s now shooting 3D test footage at 120fps.
As the theory goes, Internet advertising is more effective than traditional models because advertisers can be sure to get their messages directly to the targeted audience.
But according to Peter Kafka writing for AllThingsD, that theory isn’t proving true. He suggests that these methods only work “for some stuff, some of the time.”
“An ad on the Web may do a better job of reaching its audience than, say, a magazine ad. But that doesn’t mean it does a good job,” writes Kafka.
According to data from Nielsen, which tracked a recent ad campaign aimed at “a manufacturer of women’s personal care products” designed to target women aged 25-54, the most accurate publisher got the ads in front of that targeted group only 40 percent of the time. Nearly half of the time, those ads were served to men.
The Nielsen study suggests that Facebook is a better candidate for targeted advertising than other sites, because of how much information the social network has about its 800 million users.
“The Web’s sorta-close, sorta-not targeting problem hasn’t hampered Google, obviously. But that’s because Google’s search ads respond directly to your input and your intent,” comments Kafka. “Now, Facebook, Google and everyone else are going after the branded ads that dominate TV, where the really big money lives. And if they want to get bigger bites of that, they’re going to have to get more accurate.”
The PlayStation Vita and Skype have teamed up for voice and video chatting on the gaming device, which can even receive calls in the background while games are being played.
It’s been a while since people predicted that the Vita would attempt to become a sort of tablet device for gamers, notes TechCrunch. This brings that prediction one step closer to reality.
“While the addition of the Skype app doesn’t make the Vita a fully-fledged cellphone, the app does support Wi-Fi and 3G WLAN calls and essentially makes the device the N-Gage everyone always wanted,” according to the post.
The free Skype app is available in the Vita app store starting today.
Consumers purchased 56 million tablets in 2011. According to a new report from Forrester Research, that number will significantly increase in the next several years.
Forrester says that there “will be 375 million tablets sold by 2016, representing a compound annual growth rate of 46 percent, and that by 2016 there will be 760 million tablets in use overall.”
While those numbers would still put the tablet behind the projected total numbers for PC’s, Forrester believes that tablets are fast becoming the computing device of choice for consumers, especially within emerging markets.
Because tablets are not as fully functional as an average PC, Forrester predicts that “a new class of consumer electronics” will emerge to “fill that gap,” according to TechCrunch. One such product is the “frame,” a dock which Forrester predicts will “become a common way to give tablets more features, more power and link them up to other devices, like TVs, to use them to consume content.”
Could the growing app Socialcam do for video sharing what Instagram did for photo sharing? According to the app’s founders, it attracted 4 million new users over the last weekend.
Socialcam is available on iOS only and is now in competition with another video-sharing service, Viddy, which saw 5.5 million new users in 11 days and has funding coming in from rapper Jay-Z.
“Its addition of 4 million users in just two days is all the more impressive considering that the team behind the app is just three people strong,” according to The Next Web.
Within the app, users can create videos with custom filters, store them in the cloud and share via Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, email and SMS. It also includes the familiar community elements basic to social networking like browsing, commenting and sharing.
The U.S. International Trade Commission judge overseeing the lawsuit between Motorola Mobility — now being acquired by Google — and Microsoft found that Microsoft infringed on four Motorola patents in making its Xbox gaming consoles, but the fifth patent in question was not violated.
“The patents in the complaint are for technology like wireless connections for the Xbox to the Internet and video compression to speed transmission,” explains Reuters.
A final ruling will be issued in August after the full commission reviews the judge’s decision.
Motorola Mobility is looking to have the infringed devices banned from importation into the U.S. Even so, Microsoft remains “confident the commission will ultimately rule in Microsoft’s favor,” the company said in an emailed statement. Motorola Mobility is also “confident in our position,” the company said in a statement.
According to a report from The Consumerist, eBay could be removing listings for digital copy codes on the grounds of copyright infringement, setting a standard that selling digital copy codes bundled with Blu-ray discs is illegal.
One user claims that eBay removed his listing for an UltraViolet movie code on the basis of copyright infringement. “The owner claims that despite the existence of similar listings and explaining that the code was legally obtained, eBay maintained its stance,” reports The Verge.
“The resale of physical media, such as DVDs, Blu-rays, and games has long been sanctioned under the first-sale doctrine, while the rights for owners of digital content have been hotly contested,” explains the post. In regards to digital copy films, only the individual who accesses the one-time use code is affected by service terms.
“Ultimately, the rules for digital copy versions of films require further definition, though it seems unlikely that this particular instance will spark the debate,” the post suggests.
Your tweets are now less protected following a decision by New York Judge Matthew Sciarrino Jr. who ruled prosecutors need not obtain a subpoena for deleted tweets, since “they are considered public information owned by a third party,” reports TG Daily.
This decision is strongly opposed by Martin Stolar, a lawyer representing Occupy Wall Street protestor Malcolm Harris who was arrested for disorderly conduct.
“There’s a whole other recent series of decisions from Supreme Court and New York State, about whether or not using a GPS device to track someone uses a warrant,” Stolar told the Atlantic Wire. “People’s locations while on the street are generally public, like tweets are, but it’s the accumulation of all that information, like someone’s whereabouts, that the courts have said a subpoena is necessary … I think that’s more analogous to tweets than the bank records are.”
Stolar is working to reject a subpoena of Harris’s user information and three months’ worth of tweets.
While Netflix CEO Reed Hastings says that his company is in good shape, Wall Street has its doubts. That concern resulted in Netflix shares dropping 16 percent to $85.45 directly after its first quarter numbers were announced.
Netflix added 1.7 million new streaming subscribers in the first quarter — considered only light growth for the second straight quarter.
Growth for Q2 is predicted to be lower. “During the analyst call, Hastings appealed for calm and said the problem was temporary and seasonal. The second quarter is typically tough on Netflix,” reports CNET. “Skeptics, however, worry that the problems could be more lasting and have more to do with the company’s inability to secure film licenses and growing competition in the streaming-video sector.”
In order for Netflix to remain competitive and elite, it has to secure more content to encourage subscriber growth. “But licensing costs have gone through the roof,” CNET notes, and “Netflix failed to renew a licensing agreement with Starz, the pay-TV cable service that supplied Netflix with films from Disney and Sony Pictures.”
In the meantime, the competition is growing stronger as Hulu, Amazon and HBO Go continue to expand, along with Comcast’s new Xfinity Streampix service.
Even though Facebook saw sales rise 45 percent to $1.06 billion, the growth was a drop from the 55 percent increase in December. Along with the slowing sales growth, Facebook saw its marketing cost more than double, causing the company’s first-quarter profit to drop 12 percent right at the brink of its initial public offering.
Facebook is looking for a $75-100 billion IPO valuation, which would raise $5 billion in the largest-ever Internet IPO.
“Facebook unveiled a new benchmark that showed monthly revenue per user climbed 6 percent to $1.21,” Bloomberg reports. “The company valued its shares at $30.89 apiece at the end of January, up from $29.73 at the end of the last year.”
Advertising still provides the majority of Facebook’s revenue but it dropped to 82 percent from 83 last year. The company’s revenue from social gaming company Zynga also dropped to 11 percent of the total from 13 percent in the last quarter.
“Our costs are growing quickly, which could harm our business and profitability,” the company said in the filing. “Providing our products to our users is costly and we expect our expenses to continue to increase in the future as we broaden our user base, as users increase the number of connections and amount of data they share with us, as we develop and implement new product features that require more computing infrastructure, and as we hire additional employees.”
Bill Ford, executive chairman of Ford Motor Company, has a vision of lighter traffic and fewer fender-benders, a goal he considers within reach if car makers can collaborate on “an integrated system that uses real-time data to optimize personal mobility on a massive scale,” he said in a TEDTalk.
The plan would develop a mobile network to redirect drivers from congested areas and allow cars to communicate with one another. One potential problem is the demand on wireless carriers’ bandwidth, which would be overwhelmed with Wi-Fi in every car. The bigger hindrance, however, could be lack of cooperation.
“But competition between automakers may prevent that vision from ever happening, since companies pioneering the technology, like General Motors, see it as a competitive advantage and not something to work on together with rivals,” Mobiledia writes.
For now, many innovative apps are working to address the traffic issue. One app, Waze crowd-sources traffic navigation while another, Signal Guru (not yet public) gives suggestions of alternate routes and tells drivers how fast to drive to make lights.
“Ford’s vision for smart cars requires a lot of cooperation from automakers, wireless providers, phone makers and government regulators, and it may be difficult to pull off without a nudge from the government to entice businesses to stop competing and work together towards a common goal — cars designed to avoid clogging up the streets and running into each other,” explains the post.
Coursera, a new start-up from Stanford computer scientists Andrew Ng and Daphne Koller, has attracted some $16 million in venture capital and will offer online interactive courses in the humanities, social sciences, physical sciences and engineering.
Stanford and the University of California, Berkeley have already been offering courses. They will be joined in the venture by the University of Michigan, University of Pennsylvania and Princeton.
Stanford offered an online course in artificial intelligence last fall, which attracted more than 160,000 students from 190 countries. Some 22,000 students completed the course and received “certificates of completion,” but not Stanford credits.
Coursera has not yet determined their business model, but one idea is to offer premium services that students can purchase.
Other start-ups including Udacity, Minerva and Udemy are also targeting free online education.
Coursera breaks lectures into 10-minute segments and has a quick quiz for each segment. Essays are graded by fellow students. And support also comes from the student community. Interestingly, an early test showed that questions were answered in 22 minutes. One problem is there is no way to address possible cheating.
Still, the potential for teachers to reach hundreds of thousands of students has attracted great interest from universities, instructors and venture capitalists.
In a deal worth $550 million, Microsoft has agreed to sell 650 patents and patent applications to Facebook.
“The Haüs of Zuckerberg will stump up the cash in exchange for various social networking patents that were registered by AOL and sold to Redmond for $1 billion a fortnight ago,” according to Engadget.
Microsoft will hang on to the remaining 275 patents in its portfolio “and cross-license those that it’s sold on, but not the 300 patents that AOL licensed but kept hold of,” adds the post.
Engadget explains that with this deal, “the social network will likely utilize the portfolio to better defend itself from litigation like the lawsuit brought by Yahoo back in March.”
“Today’s agreement with Microsoft represents an important acquisition for Facebook,” said Ted Ullyot, general counsel, Facebook. “This is another significant step in our ongoing process of building an intellectual property portfolio to protect Facebook’s interests over the long term.”