As Universal Music prepares its acquisition of EMI, the group is selling three music-publishing catalogs as well as real estate holdings in France and Germany.
The catalogs — classical, Christian and German schlager — have already attracted 12 bidders and may draw up to $200 million, according to a person with knowledge of the situation.
The proposed acquisition is still under investigation for antitrust concerns by the European Commission, which extended its decision deadline until August to allow for a more in-depth analysis.
“The commission’s initial investigation into the merger showed that the combined firm would be ‘almost twice the size of the next largest player’ on the EU market, the regulator said March 23,” reports Bloomberg.
As the Kinect for Windows hardware rolls out in the coming months, its SDK is already getting an update.
Microsoft’s Craig Eisler offered a sneak peek of the SDK in a blog post this week.
“The Kinect for Windows 1.5 SDK, due in late May, will see the release of Kinect Studio — a new app that allows developers to record, playback, and debug clips of users interacting with applications,” reports The Verge. “Microsoft is also planning to support a new ‘seated’ 10-joint skeletal tracking system, which lets developers track the head, neck, and arms of seated and standing users in default and near mode.”
The update will also include new support for French, Spanish, Italian, and Japanese speech recognition in addition to new language packs from Microsoft that enable regional speech detection.
According to the new Mobile Games Trend Report from research firm Newzoo, “the number of Americans who play video games on their smartphone, tablet, or iPod Touch has surpassed 100 million,” reports VentureBeat.
The report indicates that 69 percent play games on their smartphones, 21 percent play on tablets, and 18 percent opt for the iPod Touch.
“The firm also estimates that 9 percent of total game spending last year was on mobile titles and says the free-to-play (F2P) business model is increasingly converting players into continuous payers,” explains the article. “F2P games already account for 90 percent of mobile game spending in the U.S., Newzoo says.”
VentureBeat suggests there is a potentially significant business opportunity in this space: “Although smartphones and tablets are often seen as ‘casual’ platforms, Newzoo says there is major opportunity for ‘core’ games to be offered as full titles or game extensions, as 62 percent of core gamers in the U.S. also play on mobile devices. Developers that can combine core genres with the games-as-a-service business model on mobile platforms will be the ones that reap the most benefit from what Newzoo is dubbing ‘mid-core’ games.”
Jason Perlow, a technology editor at ZDNet and a long-time Android user, airs the platform’s dirty laundry.
While he praises the open source smartphone and tablet OS, the independence the users have and the variety of devices available — he suggests that issues regarding Android’s stability, the platform standardization and maintenance all combine for a frustrating experience.
“I’ve spent over two years as an Android user,” he writes. “The next time around, I’m going elsewhere unless substantial changes take place in how Google manages its ecosystem and OEM/Carrier partners.”
Google has failed to manage its ecosystem and the carriers who use it resulting in fragmentation and carrier bloatware, according to Perlow. If the issues persist, he says he will stop recommending Android and point people toward iOS and Windows Phone instead.
A study from market research firm Distimo notes that News Corp.’s The Daily, The New York Times and The New Yorker magazine are currently the top titles on Apple’s Newsstand app.
According to the report, which tracked Apple’s App Store for iPad during February, the leading 100 publications account for more than $70,000 per day in the U.S.
“Apple launched Newsstand as part of iOS 5 in October, providing a way for users to view newspapers and magazines they’ve purchased or subscribed to,” reports CNET. “The app also doubles as its own storefront, where users can browse and purchase content, similar to Apple’s App Store, iBooks, and iTunes apps.”
Distimo also says that China has surpassed the U.S. in free app downloads, but the U.S. is the global leader in iPad app spending.
“Smartphones accounted for 29 percent of all prepaid device sales in 2011, compared to just 5 percent three years ago, according to new survey data from marketing research group the Stevenson Company,” GigaOM writes.
Prepaid consumers generally pay full price for new handsets, unlike contract subscribers who get sizable discounts on their smartphones.
In 2011, 50 percent of all mobile phone purchases — both prepaid and postpaid contract plans — were smartphones and the gap between prepaid and contract users is closing, researchers found. Customers are also purchasing their prepaid services from other retailers like Walmart, not directly from the operators.
“Stevenson drilled deep into the demographic data and found that half of prepaid buyers had a household income of $35,000 or more, compared to 76 percent of postpaid buyers, and more than 55 percent of prepaid buyers owned their own home. Income and credit are no longer the sharp dividing lines between prepaid and postpaid,” the article states.
It’s Apple versus Nokia, RIM and Motorola in the battle for the new standard in smaller SIM cards. Nokia contends that Apple has bypassed the standards-setting process, ignoring rules for its own interests, so the phone manufacturer is fighting back.
“Nokia holds more than 50 patent families covering SIM related technologies that we believe may be essential to Apple’s proposal,” the company said in a statement. “We have informed ETSI that, if Apple’s proposal is selected, then Nokia will not license its relevant patents to that standard.”
Nokia seems more concerned about how the rules have been followed or broken and less worried about intellectual property. The company says Apple doesn’t even have the proper patents for its proposed design.
The tech giant has said it won’t require royalties if its proposal is accepted. However, “Nokia’s decision to withhold any of its patents that are ‘essential’ to Apple’s SIM design, should it be selected, would make life difficult for all ETSI members, not just Apple, when it comes to deciding on a future SIM card design,” GigaOM reports.
Nokia claims Apple’s behavior isn’t in the best interest of the industry or consumers, but hasn’t said which aspect of Apple’s design it objects to. Moreover, the article points out that a prolonged standards battle over this critical mobile technology doesn’t benefit consumers.
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.
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.