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Apple has confirmed the existence of a "Frequent Locations" option in iOS 7 beta 5, reports say. Leaving it on allows an iPhone or iPad
to "learn places you frequently visit in order to provide useful
location-related information," according to descriptive text. People
can moreover see a rough map of where they've been since installing iOS
7, and even how long and how often they've been to a particular place.
Tracking
is essential to apps like Siri and Reminders, which need to know where a
person lives and works, for instance, for some functions to work. Some
people have expressed
concern however, since the idea of a viewable location history is
reminiscent of the 2011 "locationgate," when it was discovered that iOS 4
was not only tracking location histories but creating backups of them
that could be accessed by someone with a stolen/borrowed device. iOS
4.3 halted the creation of these backups.
iOS 7's history display may be intended to offer more transparency. At
the moment, iOS 6 lacks not only the display, but also an option to turn
off history tracking without also disabling location services entirely.
Samsung has begun mass producing 3D vertical NAND (V-NAND) flash memory after 10 years of research and development.
In a blog post Tuesday,
the South Korean firm said that the V-NAND will be used widely in both
consumer electronics and enterprise applications -- including NAND
storage and solid state drives (SSDs).
Samsung's V-NAND includes 128gb density within a single chip through
the vertical scaling and vertical cell structure of the product. The
firm says that by utilizing 3D Charge Trap Flash (CTF) technology and
vertical interconnect process technology to link the 3D cell array,
V-NAND can provide over twice the scaling capabilities of 20nm planar,
standard NAND flash products.
Traditional flash memory is based on two-dimensional structures.
However, as technology developed and was able to go from 10nm and
beyond, scaling limits have become an issue, as increasing nanometer
circuit line width can cause a trade-off in reliability, as well as
development time and overall costs.
Instead of using a planar structure, Samsung's product has vertically
stacked planar cell layers. The 3D NAND memory architecture is
described as such:
Samsung's CTF-based NAND flash architecture, an electric charge is
temporarily placed in a holding chamber of the non-conductive layer of
flash that is composed of silicon nitride (SiN), instead of using a
floating gate to prevent interference between neighboring cells.
With the new vertical structure, Samsung can enable higher density
NAND flash memory products by increasing the 3D cell layers without
having to continue planar scaling, which has become incredibly difficult
to achieve.
By making the CTF layer 3D, the company says both reliability and
speed of the flash memory has improved. The product's write performance
was doubled in comparison to standard 10nm NAND flash memory, whereas
the company says the reliability at least doubled -- but in some cases
became up to ten times more reliable than products on the market.
Jeong-Hyuk Choi, senior vice president of flash product & technology at Samsung commented:
"The new 3D V-NAND flash technology is the result of our employees'
years of efforts to push beyond conventional ways of thinking and pursue
much more innovative approaches in overcoming limitations in the design
of memory semiconductor technology. Following the world’s first mass
production of 3D Vertical NAND, we will continue to introduce 3D V-NAND
products with improved performance and higher density, which will
contribute to further growth of the global memory industry."
According to research firm IHS iSuppli, the global NAND flash memory
market is expected to generate revenue of approximately $30.8 billion by
the end of 2016.
LinkedIn used to offer a pretty passive experience: Put your resume on
the professional social networking site and hope it catches a
recruiter’s eye. But
LinkedIn isn’t resting on its laurels, especially when it comes to
mobile—the network is making the job-hunting experience a little less
stressful with a
new update for iOS and Android to let you fill out job applications
on the go.
LinkedIn overhauled its mobile apps in April
and made it easier to search for jobs in July, but
you couldn’t submit any in-app resumes.
“Our ‘Jobs you may be interested in’ feature has been a huge hit with
job hunters and even professionals who may not be looking,” LinkedIn
associate
product manager Vaibhav Goel wrote in a Monday blog post. “As a
result of our highly personalized job recommendations in the mobile
feed, we’re seeing
members who never view jobs on the desktop, viewing and saving jobs
on mobile.”
To capitalize on that growth, the network decided to add a mobile feature that lets you apply for jobs with your LinkedIn profile.
You can search for specific jobs in the app—just click on the Jobs tab
and type in the position or title you’re looking for—then pick an open
gig you want
to apply for. If the company lets users apply with LinkedIn profiles
(and many do), then you can edit your profile with any additional
information and
submit it. If the company doesn’t let applicants submit their
profiles, then LinkedIn will take you the external application site
within the app.
The application feature has long been available for
LinkedIn’s desktop users, but now more than 30 percent of the network’s 225 million users
surf the site on their smartphones.
LinkedIn is doubling down on mobile growth with better search
results and more content, so it makes sense to add a job application
feature. It rolls out in
an update for iOS and Android on Monday to English-speaking users.
Toshiba, in conjunction with SanDisk, plans to build a new memory chip production factory in Yokkaichi, Japan. According to Reuters,
Japanese publication the Nikkei says that a total of 400 billion yen
(approximately $4 billion) will be spent to construct the new building.
The new factory will be built on the grounds of the Toshiba-SanDisk plant in Yokkaichi, Japan.
The tech giant intents to build chips of 16-17 nanometers circuit
line width. At the moment, the Yokkaichi plant produces chips with a
width of 19nm -- and so by making more chips from silicon wafers, the
firms may be able to gain some ground while competing with Samsung's
flash memory offerings.
The Nikkei says that after beginning production next year, the
plant's output capacity will increase by roughly 20 percent, based on
current estimates of 450,000 300mm wafers currently being produced each
month.
At part of the deal, the new factory's bill will be split between the two manufacturers.
Toshiba and SanDisk's long-term joint venture focuses on the
production of NAND flash memory. The joint venture has managed to
survive through the recession and has come a long way from 2009, where
the companies were forced to cut the production of chips due to low consumer demand.
While flash memory is in constant demand due to the popularity of
mobile devices, other areas of business are not doing so well. Last
month, Toshiba announced restructuring plans which
will slice away $300 million in costs from its television and PC
businesses over the next few years. The firm cited a weak global economy
and poor consumer demand as the reasons to make restructuring
necessary.
The
Moto X is expected to launch in late August or early September
Motorola Mobility has finally revealed its first flagship smartphone since
being acquired by Google -- the "Moto X" -- and it looks to be an
All-American, fully-customized smartphone experience that can't be ignored
despite a crowded market.
Motorola knew it would have to come up with a very different Android-powered
device in order to get any attention in a market dominated by Samsung's Galaxy
line, and phones by other tech giants like Apple's iPhone. The Moto X seems to
be the answer, with customization being the key differentiator.
Customers can make their Moto X all their own, designing the front, back,
memory, wallpaper, accents and even engraving. There are over 2,000 designs and
colors to choose from, and more are on the way -- including very different
ideas like real wood backs.
Aside from customization, Motorola is proud to say that the Moto X is assembled
in the U.S. (more specifically, Fort Worth, Texas). So when a customer is done
designing the Moto X of their dreams, the phone can be shipped to them for free
in four days or less.
Motorola has touted features such as Touchless Control, which brings up
information on the Moto X like weather and directions just by voice (no touch
necessary); Active Display, which keeps important and relevant information on
the Moto X's screen without any annoying notifications or without the need to
wake it up, and Quick Capture, which allows the user to turn on the camera
quickly with just two quick twists of their wrist.
Earlier this month, it was reported that Google and Motorola Mobility were
spending as much as $500 million on Moto X marketing. This is a
pretty significant amount, considering Apple spent $333 million and Samsung
spent $401 million to market their smartphones last year in the U.S. -- and
they're the two largest smartphone makers in the game.
This goes to show that Google and Motorola are betting big on the Moto X and
want to make it stand out amongst the crowd. Think the Moto X might be for you?
Read on for the specs, reviews, photos, pricing and availability before you
decide.
"Motorola really needed to make a big splash -- or at least a cunning
maneuver -- with the Moto X, and that it did. Instead of the traditional tactic
of beating potential customers over the head with powerful components and every
feature under the sun, Motorola decided to cater to shoppers' softer side --
how they most use their phone every day. Don't get me wrong; the handset
certainly packs in plenty of interesting abilities and functionality. When you
add up the specs, though, this really is a midrange phone. Hard-core Android
enthusiasts likely won't find the Moto X awe-inspiring. The key to the Moto X's
fate, as with any new device, is whether its unique blend of capabilities and
design will prove valuable to ordinary consumers."
Chris Velazco, TechCrunch:
"I’m reserving final judgment on this thing until I’ve had the chance
to play with it for more than three hours, but I actually rather like the X. Do
I wish Motorola could have pushed the technical envelope further? Sure. I also
think the customization angle, neat as it is, is essentially a ploy to make an
unassuming phone stand out in a crowd. And frankly, it’s a little frustrating
to see that a solid chunk of what the Moto X can do will soon be replicated by
— you guessed it — just about every other new Motorola phone in the works. It’s
far, far too early to tell if Motorola has a hit on its hands — especially
because the X will ultimately compete with Motorola phones with similar feature
sets. If nothing else though, Motorola’s X represents a dedication to creating
a smarter breed of smartphones, and I doubt that’s something the rest of the
industry is going to ignore."
Pete Pachal, Mashable:
"The Moto X is an amazing smartphone, just not revolutionary. Its
name implies the phone is built in the spirit of Google's X program, which
seeks to improve things by monumental leaps rather than increments. The first
phone to be designed and built by Motorola as a Google company isn't going
to transform mobile communication as we know it (the company's stated goal
since the acquisition), but it is a fantastic phone with many great features.
My favorite is Touchless Control. Apple likes to talk about the
"magic" of its products, but this feature is the most magical thing
I've seen in mobile in a long time. With your phone sitting on the table, you
can utter the words "OK, Google Now," and it immediately comes alive,
listening for voice commands. Ask it the weather, to call a friend or do a
Google search, and it'll just do it, and you never have to touch the
phone."
While the iPhone arguably doesn't come with the best native app for maps, at least users had a better shot of finding them with the Find My iPhone app if something went awry.
Now Android owners will soon be able to enjoy a similar level of security.
Google is rolling out the Android Device Manager for locating a lost device and/or erasing it completely remotely if the smartphone or tablet falls into the wrong hands.
Android product manager Benjamin Poiesz explained in a blog post on Friday how it works in a nutshell:
If you ended up dropping your phone between those couch cushions, Android Device Manager lets you quickly ring your phone at maximum volume so you can find it, even it's been silenced. And in the event that your phone or tablet is out of earshot (say, at that restaurant you left it at last night), you can locate it on a map in real time.
This lost device functionality will be rolled out to devices running Android 2.2 or above at yet unspecified date later this month.
Users will need to be signed into Google Accounts to make use of it, and there will be a standalone Android app (again, similar to Apple's Find My iPhone app) for managing (and locating) devices.
Facebook has launched a job-hunting app in hopes that its network of more than 1 billion users will help people find their next career opportunity.
The Social Jobs app announced on Wednesday is a result of Facebook’s year-old partnership with the U.S. Department of Labor, the National Association of Colleges and Employers, DirectEmployers Association, and the National Association of State Workforce Agencies. The app has job listings from other online job boards like BranchOut, DirectEmployers Association, Work4Labs, Jobvite and Monster.com. Right now, users can browse through more than 1.7 million openings. A ticker at the top of the app shows the exact number of available jobs.
So will a site typically considered a casual social network be useful for professional purposes? Facebook is a repository for users’ day-to-day activities, including updates that might be inappropriate if you’re using the site to look for a job. There have been cases where people have losttheirjobsbecause of updates they posted on Facebook, and employers have gotten sued for asking for their employees’ Facebook passwords.
Sites like LinkedIn are built to cater to people’s professional identities, targeting very specific qualities — skills, past jobs, languages spoken, and more — that someone might want to highlight when searching for a job or presenting themselves to recruiters. Unlike LinkedIn, Facebook has a very hazy boundary between social and professional. But the Social Jobs partnership found in its research that Facebook is a useful site for both job hunters and recruiters. In a survey of 530 employers, the National Association of Colleges and Employers found that half of employers use Facebook in the hiring process, and more than half anticipate it becoming a more important tool for finding and recruiting talent. The vast majority said that Facebook helps decrease print advertising for job openings, and that the site can be used as a networking tool to get jobs.
That said, Facebook isn’t actually hosting the job listings. At launch, the app functions more as an aggregated search tool than anything else. Users can find jobs through the app, but once they try to learn more about a job, it points them to another app. The Work4Labs listings, for example, often links back to the hiring company’s Facebook page. If someone wanted to apply for the Head of Lighting position at Cirque Du Soleil, the new Social Jobs app would link to the Cirque Du Soleil hiring page on Facebook. The user would have to access the separate Work4Labs app if they wanted to see if anyone in their network could refer them. Should they want to apply, they would get pointed all the way back to Cirque Du Soleil’s official website.
It’s far from a seamless process, and there are several other glitches (Monster jobs showing up in the Work4Labs page, links going to a company’s Facebook Timeline, etc.). There is a lot of potential for Facebook to connect users to jobs — and create another source of revenue in the process. But in its current state, Facebook’s Social Jobs app is more of an extra side tool than an actual player in the job-hunting space.
I have been using the Nokia Lumia 920 and HTC Windows Phone 8X for the last couple of weeks and even though my head tells me the 920 is best
I keep going back to the 8X. T-Mobile customers will soon get to choose
between the HTC 8X or Nokia Lumia 810 (the Lumia 920 is an AT&T
exclusive) and after using the 810 for the past several days it is not
as clear of a choice as I once thought it would be. The 8X is definitely
positioned at the high end with a price of $199.99 on other carriers
(T-Mobile hasn't announced pricing or availability yet) while the Nokia
Lumia 810 is a mid-range device that should be priced around $100.
Out of the box impressions
The Nokia Lumia 810 did not come in one of those hefty, tank-like
T-Mobile boxes, but it is attractive in gray and pink. Inside you will
find the Lumia 810, USB A/C charger, USB cable, and some advertisements
and basic instructions. There is no headset in the box and no other
accessories. The black cover does not support wireless charging, but I
understand there will be other covers with this support and I think the accessory lineup may help get folks in the door.
The Nokia Lumia 810 is a rather square device, but it still feels
good thanks to the soft touch back cover and rounded corners. The
display looks great and even though it has the same resolution as the
previous Windows Phone devices you can't easily see pixels and I would
have no problem using this device.
What's up with the Nokia Lumia 810, 820, and 822
Nokia announced the Lumia 820 and then we saw T-Mobile reveal the 810
and Verizon the 822. I spent a couple days with an 822 while I was
using the 810 and they are both very similar devices. I like the feel of
the 810 in my hand a bit more than the 822, but they are both solid
mid-level smartphones. The 820 specs show a VGA front facing camera
while the 810 and 822 come with 1.2 megapixel front facing cameras. The
810 and 822 also have 1800 mAh batteries while the 820 is limited to
1650 mAh.
Specifications and walk around the hardware
Specifications of the Nokia Lumia810 include:
Windows Phone 8 OS
4.3 inch AMOLED ClearBlack display with 800x480 pixels
Qualcomm S4 1.5 GHz dual-core processor
Total integrated storage of 8GB with microSD card support
1GB RAM
8 megapixel camera with dual LED flash and F2.2 aperture, Carl Zeiss optics, and 1080p recording
1.2 megapixel front facing camera
NFC, GPS, digital compass, proximity sensor, light sensor
802.11 a/b/g/n WiFi
Bluetooth 3.0
3.5mm headphone jack
Removable 1,800 mAh Li-Ion polymer battery
Qi wireless charging capable (with optional back)
Dimensions of 127.8 x 68.4 x 10.9 mm and weight of 145 grams
The Lumia 810 has very similar specs to the other Windows Phone 8
devices, with the display technology being one of the major differences.
Enthusiasts may actually prefer the 810 due to the microSD card slot
and removable battery.
The front is dominated by the 4.3 inch ClearBlack
AMOLED display and even though the resolution is the same as all last
generation Windows Phone devices it still looks great. Nokia included
the touch sensitivity found in the Lumia 920 on the Nokia Lumia 810.
There is a toggle for the sensitivity too in case you don't need to use
gloves or a fingernail with the display. The headset speaker is above
the display with the front-facing camera to the left of the speaker.
T-Mobile and Nokia logos are found on the upper left and right sides
above the display. Below the display you will find the Back, Start, and
Bing search buttons.
The 3.5mm audio jack is off to the right side on the top. The volume, power, and camera buttons are all on the right, nothing is on the left, and the microUSB port is on the bottom. The camera is centered on the upper back with the dual LED flash to the left of the camera lens (will be on top in landscape orientation).
The back cover is removable and it actually consists of the back and
four sides. Under the back cover you will find the microSIM card slot
with the microSD card slot positioned above it. The 1,800 mAh battery is
removable.
Windows Phone 8 and Nokia software
I covered all the details of Windows Phone 8 in my other article
so I won't go into all of those details here. Needless to say, it is
better than Windows Phone 7 and I appreciate the differences, but it
remains to be seen what the consumer will think.
This is an operator-branded device and T-Mobile includes several additional services and utilities. As I made clear in a recent article
you can easily get rid of all the bloatware (you can later add it back
in by visiting the T-Mobile section of the Windows Phone Store). The
services that are loaded on the 810 include:
411 & More
CallerTunes
My Account
Slacker Radio
T-Mobile TV
One of the benefits of buying a Nokia Lumia is all of the value-added
services they provide, along with many exclusives from other developers
that end up first on Nokia Lumia devices. You will find the following
on the Lumia 810:
Nokia City Lens: Augmented reality application
Nokia Drive: Voice guided GPS navigation only found on Lumia devices.
Nokia Maps: Included on all Windows Phone 8 devices and includes ability to download maps for offline navigation for FREE.
Nokia Music: Awesome free service that had me drop my Spotify subscription. It's a major benefit for the Lumia.
I use my phones for navigation, and having a client I can rely upon
is important. I use Google Maps and Apple Maps and find them both to
work well for me. Nokia Maps has always been a favorite and their
voice-guided navigation is a real benefit for consumers.
Windows Phone provides a new "Lens" feature in the camera utility and
Nokia provides a couple of these in the Lumia 810. The Cinemagraph
utility lets you animate still photos and is lots of fun, while the
Smart Shoot utility shoots five frames for each photo and then picks the
best faces to create the "perfect" shot. Panorama allows you to capture
wide shots with the Lumia 810. Nokia told me there will be even more
camera utilities coming to Lumia, including the existing Lumia 900.
Experiences
Before I received the Lumia 810 to test out I would have told you
that the obvious choice on T-Mobile for Windows Phone was the HTC 8X.
The 8X is an excellent device and I personally would still select it
since it feels so good in your hand and has a great display. The Nokia Lumia 810 is a solid competitor and if you look in my image gallery
you can see that the camera captures still images even better than the
8X in some cases. When you look at ALL of the added Nokia software and
services (Drive, Music, City Lens), combined with the removable battery
and microSD expansion capability you may find the Lumia 810 is actually a
better choice for you. The Lumia 810 should also launch at half the
price of the HTC 8X, which may be enough for some people to consider the
device.
We’ve all seen the great new features coming to Android 4.2 by now. The Photo Sphere camera is pretty amazing, and multiple accounts on tablets has been a long time coming. Those features, however, are just the beginning. The new Jelly Bean also has a number of new features that developers will be able to make great use of.
Starting today, developers will be able to download the Android 4.2 SDK platform. It features a number of improvements and new features that developers are sure to do some amazing things with. Here’s the major improvements and features:
Performance We’ve worked with our partners to run Renderscript computation directly in the GPU on the Nexus 10, a first for any mobile computation platform.
New ways to engage users Users can now place interactive lock screen widgets directly on their device lock screens, for instant access to favorite apps and content. With just a small update, you can adapt any app widget to run on the lock screen. Daydream is an interactive screensaver mode that users can encounter when their devices are charging or docked in a desk dock. You can create interactive daydreams that users display in this mode, and they can include any type of content.
New interaction and entertainment experiences Android 4.2 introduces platform support for external displays that goes beyond mirroring. Your apps can now target unique content to any number of displays attached to an Android device.
Enhancements for international users To help you create better apps for users in languages such as Arabic, Hebrew, and Persian, Android 4.2 includes native RTL support, including layout mirroring. With native RTL support, you can deliver the same great app experience to all of your users with minimal extra work. Android 4.2 also includes a variety of font and character optimizations for Korean, Japanese, Indic, Thai, Arabic and Hebrew writing systems.
At the moment, Google’s own Nexus line are the only devices that are equipped with Android 4.2. Most manufacturers and carriers are still trying to catch up to the first iteration of Jelly Bean – Android 4.1. With that being said, developers will most definitely want to start thinking up apps that can take advantage of the advanced GPU in the Nexus 10. That screen is just begging for some amazing audio-visual experiences.
Internet Explorer 10 is an interesting beast. It was built with Windows 8, and touch, in mind. It launched with Microsoft’s new operating system last month, but now it’s available on the decidedly less-touch friendly Windows 7.
Microsoft announced today that the release preview of Internet Explorer 10 is now available on Windows 7. It features a number of HTML5 and CSS enhancements that any IE stalwarts will want to upgrade for. It also should make it easier for developers to make apps work across all the different browsers now that IE10 is catching up to the strides made by Mozilla and Google with Firefox and Chrome respectively.
Those interested in trying out Internet Explorer 10 for Windows 7 will also be happy to know that Microsoft will turn the controversial “Do Not Track” signal on by default when you first install it. It might not do you any good, however, as advertisers have already made it a point to ignore any DNT signals sent by IE10.
Microsoft attributes IE10′s performance enhancements to its “powerful HTML5 engine.” Users and developers can now take advantage of the following enhancements:
Rich Visual Effects: CSS Text Shadow, CSS 3D Transforms, CSS3 Transitions and Animations, CSS3 Gradient, SVG Filter Effects
Sophisticated Page Layouts: CSS3 for publication quality page layouts and application UI (CSS3 grid, flexbox, multi-column, positioned floats, regions, and hyphenation), HTML5 Forms, input controls, and validation
Enhanced Web Programming Model: Better offline applications through local storage with IndexedDB and the HTML5 Application Cache; Web Sockets, HTML5 History, Async scripts, HTML5 File APIs, HTML5 Drag-drop, HTML5 Sandboxing, Web workers, ES5 Strict mode support.
Windows 7 users can download the IE10 release preview today. IE9 was already pretty good, so users of that particular browser may want to upgrade to IE10 when they get the chance. The performance and security improvements are probably worth the few minutes it takes to install.
Until last Thursday, I had no faith in Rovio Entertainment, the Finnish developer behind Angry Birds.
As the addictive mobile game continued to dominate the world’s mobile
devices (it has been downloaded one billion times as of May) and Rovio
prepared for a possible multi-billion-dollar valuation, I sat back with a smug look on my face and predicted disaster, assuming that the studio was a one-hit wonder.
In the three years since Rovio’s rise to mobile dominance began, it hasn’t developed a single game without the Angry Birds branding. Given that Angry Birds was directly inspired by the browser game Crush the Castle, it seemed Rovio was far more adept at marketing than game design.
Then, on Sept. 27, it released Bad Piggies, a vehicle-themed spinoff of Angry Birds for mobile devices and PC. It’s a cute, funny, wonderfully designed game. Bad Piggies
lets players create their own flimsy vehicles piece by piece, then
guide that vehicle through treacherous levels using goofy contraptions
like fans, balloons and TNT.
Most importantly, it’s completely original. It stands out among the
glut of physics-based puzzle games that have flooded the App Store in Angry Birds‘ wake.
With adept marketing, attractive characters and original content,
Rovio is poised to become the Nintendo of the mobile world: the foremost
maker of appealing, fun games designed around the strengths of the new
platforms.
Copying isn’t uncommon in the videogame business. It’s hard to find a
single game publisher that hasn’t been guilty of it at some point,
especially when it’s just starting out.
Nintendo’s first arcade games were total rip-offs. In 1978 it released Block Fever, a bland, imaginationless clone of Atari’s Breakout. The next year it followed up with Space Fever, a shameless knock-off of Space Invaders.
But within a few short years, Nintendo was known as the industry’s innovation leader, creating revolutionary games like The Legend of Zelda.
Although it copied the concept of Crush the Castle,
Rovio improved everything about it: the user interface, the art, the
music, the level designs. But it was still based on someone else’s
gameplay insight. Another recent Rovio game, Amazing Alex, is a previously existing iPhone game called Casey’s Contraptions that the company bought and rebranded. Good marketing, no innovation.
Just cloning, and not innovating, can be dangerous. Take Zynga (please). The Facebook gamemaker hit it big in 2009 with FarmVille (copied wholesale from Chinese farm games), bought the maker of Words With Friends (a copy of Scrabble), and is mostly in the news today for a lawsuit about an alleged game copy, mass executive evacuations and a stock price that looks like a double black diamond ski slope.
Bad Piggies makes it appear as if Rovio wants to be on a different trajectory. Sure, the characters themselves are spun off from the Angry Birds
brand. But gameplay is king, and creating something that doesn’t feel
like anything else on the market is the only way that the industry can
sustain itself in the long term.
If Rovio continues to produce games like Bad Piggies, it can become something much greater than “the Finnish guys who made Angry Birds.” It might be the first truly powerful force in the games industry born on mobile devices.
“It is the delivery of the marketing message to the right consumer,
not the click, that creates real value for brand advertisers.”
And with that, Facebook has a new strategy when it comes to
convincing marketers that their ad dollars are well spent on the
network. As long as the user sees your ad, they’ll want to buy your
product or service. It doesn’t matter if they click, so you should
really stop worrying about that metric at all.
Facebook isn’t just telling marketers all of this out of the blue –
this comes straight out of a study conducted with new partners
Datalogix. The study looked at over 50 digital campaigns and attempted
to connect exposure to an ad on Facebook with in-store purchases of said
products.
The name Datalogix may ring a bell, and that’s because their partnership with Facebook has raised some eyebrows over the last week.
Datalogix is the owner of a massive database of consumer purchasing
data. That data, when matched with Facebook data on ad impressions, can
give marketers a general picture on whether or not their ad dollars are
being spent on ads the directly lead to in-store purchases.
And that partnership with Datalogix has turned into a way for Facebook to tout their advertising clout with marketers.
Here’s what Facebook’s Measurement and Insights head Brad Smallwood had to say about the study in a studio blog post:
Impressions create value. 99 percent
of sales generated from online branding ad campaigns were from people
that saw, but did not interact with, ads— proof that it is the delivery
of the marketing message to the right consumer, not the click, that
creates real value for brand advertisers. Reach drives revenue for online brand marketers.
This is a concept very familiar to TV marketers, who often start with a
reach objective—but until now hadn’t been proven for online. When
applied to digital brand campaigns, the study demonstrated that
campaigns that maximized reach had on average a 70 percent higher
return-on-investment. Finding the right message frequency is key.
The study revealed that for online brand campaigns, if you reallocated
high frequency impressions to people seeing too few impressions, you
would see a 40 percent increase in ROI with the same budget. What this
means is that for every online campaign there is a “sweetspot” of
effective frequency that maximizes return on investment, and that the
DataLogix tool can help marketers empirically isolate that sweetspot for
each brand and campaign.
Facebook says that digital marketing is shifting its focus from the
click to this more typical metric of measuring ad success. According to
them, the Datalogix/Facebook tool is a huge step forward in measuring
real return on investment for online advertisers.
Of course, this sort of data mining isn’t without its detractors. Two online privacy groups have already asked
the FTC to investigate whether or not the partnership with Datalogix
violates a previous order from the commission, where Facebook pledged to
make “clear and prominent” disclosure of any sharing of nonpublic user
information.
Facebook felt compelled to explain their purchase tracking initiative in a post to their privacy page. In it, they emphasize that all dat remains anonymous on their end and on Datalogix’s end:
“Importantly, we have designed this process with privacy at the
forefront. We compare hashes of some Facebook data with hashes provided
to us by Datalogix. Once we compare, we are able to send corresponding
data on the reach of large-scale ad campaigns, which Datalogix uses to
create aggregate reports comparing product purchases by large groups of
people who did or did not see an ad.
Because of our commitment to privacy, we had an industry-leading
auditing firm evaluate the privacy implications of this process. The
auditor confirmed that, throughout this process, Datalogix is not
allowed to learn more about you from Facebook profile information.
Similarly, Datalogix does not send us any of their purchase data,
meaning we cannot specifically tell whether or not you purchased a
marketer’s product. Finally, with this partnership, Datalogix only sends
the marketer aggregate information about large groups of people. None
of this data is attributable to an individual Facebook user,” said the
company.
Going forward, Facebook will continue to use this tool to show
marketers that their money has legs on the Facebook platform. It’ll be
up to marketers to decide whether or not digital strategies must move
beyond the click.
Citing its unique ability to recommend products, Facebook opened an online gift store.
The move edges the social network onto the turf of e-commerce king
Amazon, but at an opportune time: Amazon is busy making movies, computer
hardware, cloud computing services, and entering other markets far
afield from its core business of selling physical goods.
Not that Facebook is trying to usurp Amazon just yet. The launch of Facebook Gifts is modest: Facebook is emphasizing
sub-$50 products like socks, cupcakes, teddy bears, and Starbucks gift
cards. The idea is that Facebook will see words like “happy birthday” or
“congratulations” on someone’s wall and prompt friends to buy the
person something through the new store.
It’s an obvious and proven idea, one Facebook acquired when it bought
year-old mobile gifting startup Karma in May. In the ensuing months,
Facebook has rebranded the service and created a desktop version of the
app, which is what is being launched today as Facebook Gifts. (From 2007
to 2010, Facebook operated a store by the same name, but it only sold virtual goods.)
In an interview
with Wired Business in July, Facebook’s director of advertising product
Gokul Rajaram explained Facebook’s thinking about gifts:
The reason it all germinated was because we saw that people wishing each
other happy birthday is a really common social norm on Facebook.
Because Facebook will basically tell you which of your friends have
birthdays today. So we said, this could be a really interesting way to
enhance that experience. In addition to saying ‘happy birthday’ you
could actually give a small gift. We think that could be a really
interesting thing that works on mobile, on the desktop, and is something
that fits in with the norms.
In other words, Facebook is trying to monetize common, naturally
occurring behavior on its network in a way that feels more natural than
other Facebook ads, like “sponsored stories” that pop up when one of
your friends mentions a business. Facebook is launching that business
across mobile and desktop, and doing so only about four months after the
acquisition of Karma.
It’s a smart approach. If anyone is better positioned than Amazon to
recommend products to people, it’s Facebook, and the company is off to
an auspicious start. It’s a small start, but then so was Facebook
itself.
Adobe today warned that an internal server with access to its digital
certificate code signing infrastructure was hacked by "sophisticated
threat actors" engaged in "highly targeted attacks."
The compromise, which dates back to early July, led to the creation
of at least two malicious files that were digitally signed using a valid
Adobe certificate, according to Adobe security chief Brad Arkin.
Although only two files were signed, the hack effectively gave the
attackers the ability to create malware masquerading as legitimate Adobe
software and signals a raising of the stakes in the world of Advanced
Persistent Threats (APTs). According to Arkin,
one of the two digitally signed malware files is a utility that
extracts password hashes from the Windows operating system. This hints
at the "lateral movement" that is common once a targeted attacker gains
access to a network and attempts to elevate privileges to gain a higher
level of access.
"The first malicious utility we received is pwdump7 v7.1. This
utility extracts password hashes from the Windows OS and is sometimes
used as a single file that statically links the OpenSSL library
libeay32.dll. The sample we received included two separate and
individually signed files. We believe the second malicious utility,
myGeeksmail.dll, is a malicious ISAPI filter. Unlike the first utility,
we are not aware of any publicly available versions of this ISAPI
filter," Arkin explained.
"Within minutes of the initial triage of the first sample, we
decommissioned our signing infrastructure and began a clean-room
implementation of an interim signing service for re-signing components
that were signed with the impacted key after July 10, 2012 and to
continue code signing for regularly scheduled releases. The interim
signing solution includes an offline human verification to ensure that
all files scheduled for signature are valid Adobe software. We are in
the process of designing and deploying a new, permanent signing
solution," Arkin added.
Adobe did not provide details on the nature of the breach except to
say that it affected a "build server" with access to the code signing
infrastructure. Arkin said the compromised machine's configuration was
"not to Adobe corporate standards for a build server" and lamented the
fact that this was not caught during the normal provisioning process.
"We are investigating why our code signing access provisioning
process in this case failed to identify these deficiencies. The
compromised build server did not have rights to any public key
infrastructure (PKI) functions other than the ability to make code
signing requests to the code signing service," he added.
Arkin said a forensics investigation identified malware on the build
server and the likely mechanism used to first gain access to the build
server.
"We also have forensic evidence linking the build server to the
signing of the malicious utilities. We can confirm that the private key
required for generating valid digital signatures was not extracted from
the HSM. We believe the threat actors established a foothold on a
different Adobe machine and then leveraged standard advanced persistent
threat (APT) tactics to gain access to the build server and request
signatures for the malicious utilities from the code signing service via
the standard protocol used for valid Adobe software," he added.
Arkin says there is no evidence that source code was stolen during the compromise.
Adobe plans to revoke the impacted certificates on October 4, 2012.
The revocation will affect all code signed after July 10, 2012, which
indicates the attackers had access to Adobe's infrastructure for more
than two months.
As riots across the Mideast targeted U.S. embassies and consulates,
the White House quietly asked YouTube to “review” whether an anti-Islam
film allegedly fueling the chaos violated any terms of use. Now, in
front of the United Nations, President Obama insisted that the only
answer to offensive speech is “more speech.”
It’s not that Obama thinks that the Prophet Mohammed ought to be maligned by a filmmaker who uses tons of aliases and was once busted for PCP.
There’s a principle at stake, he told the United Nations General
Assembly on Tuesday morning: “Our Founders understood that without such
protections, the capacity of each individual to express their own views,
and practice their own faith, may be threatened.” The calls for
censoring the video emanating through the Muslim world are ultimately
futile, as well: “When anyone with a cellphone can spread offensive
views around the world with the click of a button, the notion that we
can control the flow of information is obsolete.”
True enough. But his administration’s response to the video and the
anti-American protests continues to whipsaw. The U.S. Embassy in Cairo tweeted condemnations of the film
on September 11 and stuck by them as mobs outside stormed the embassy
gates. Obama basically deleted those tweets in his speech. He challenged
offended Muslims to “also condemn the hate we see when the image of
Jesus Christ is desecrated, churches are destroyed, or the Holocaust is
denied.” And Obama dismissed the idea that the anti-Islam film was the
true cause of this month’s assaults on U.S. embassies, locating it in
“intolerance” instead. Even Obama critics like Weekly Standard editor Bill Kristol conceded that the president’s speech was “conventionally unobjectionable.”
But it was also, at the least, unmoored from the way Obama previously
handled the crisis. “If we are serious about upholding these ideals, it
will not be enough to put more guards in front of an embassy; or to put
out statements of regret, and wait for the outrage to pass,” Obama
said. “If we are serious about those ideals, we must speak honestly
about the deeper causes of this crisis.”
At the same time if we are serious about those ideals, we also have to acknowledge that the White House asked Google to “review”
the 14-minute trailer for the anti-Mohammed video to see if it violated
YouTube’s terms of use. (It didn’t.) And if we are serious about those
ideals, we also have to acknowledge that Gen. Martin Dempsey, the
chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, placed a call to the anti-Islam pastor Terry Jones
to see if Jones would rescind support for the movie. (He wouldn’t.)
Let’s be clear — there’s a world of difference between those requests
and government demands for censorship. But they’re still a far cry from combating hateful speech with more speech.
Obama’s United Nations speech was another indicator that his
administration’s approach to this month’s anti-American violence is
under revision. First the administration attributed the deadly assault on the Benghazi consulate to mob violence; then to a terrorist attack;
and Obama declined to attribute blame for it at Turtle Bay. That might
be fairly chalked up to the fog of war. But information doesn’t just
want to be free, it wants to be accurate. And it should lead to a
consistent response.
Google announced that it has made it easier to translate YouTube video captions into over 300 languages.
“You’ll first need a caption track for your video, so if you don’t yet have one you can learn how to make one here,” the company explains in a blog post.
“Select ‘Request translation’ in the YouTube Video Manager, choose the
languages you’d like to translate into, and click “Next.” We’ll create
caption translation documents that you can now invite anyone to help
translate, or you can translate yourself. To translate the captions
yourself, select the language, and it’ll open up the caption translation
document in the Google Translator Toolkit editor to help your translate
faster.”
“To give you context on the captions, we’ve also embedded the YouTube
video in the editor so you can watch as you translate,” the company
notes. “For several languages
we’ll provide first draft of the translation using Google’s machine
translation technology. We’ll also provide preview of what the
translated caption looks like on the video so you can make sure the
translated captions fit.”
After all of that, just click “Publish to YouTube”.
Sorry, iPad 1, you're too old for iOS 6!
To say that I'm unhappy with Apple about the fact that I can't
install iOS 6 on my iPad 1, is an understatement. It's not like the
thing is seven or eight years old. I bought it just before the iPad 2
came out. And, now I'm angry. I'm very angry. I'm an Angry Bird who
wants to have myself flung at the fortified pigs who made this very,
very bad decision. You can install iOS 6 on the iPhone 3GS and on the
iPhone 4, so why not the iPad 1?
So, now what?
Either I'm stuck with iOS 5.1.1 forever or I jailbreak the damn thing and possibly ruin it.
That's what.
When will Apple stop allowing my iPad 1 access to the App Store or iTunes?
Come on, Apple, how long do I have on this very expensive device that
is less than two years old (for me)? How long does anyone have for a
device launched in April 2010?
Bad move, Apple. Bad move.
I don't see any compelling features in iOS 6 that would preclude me
from using it on my iPad 1. Sure, I don't have a camera or cellular
connectivity (My choice) but what I do have is an official iPad and I
want it supported. To drop support for it so soon after launch is just
short of device homicide. And, it could prevent me from ever buying
another Apple anything again.
I had finally convinced myself to like Apple after drooling over the
original Macintosh and never getting one. I had come over to the "Dark
Side" and even decided that the next computer that I purchase would be a
Macbook Air.
But, not anymore.
You want to know why?
Because I don't know how long Apple would continue to support it.
And, guess what else? When my damn contract on my iPhone 4 is up, I'm
not renewing it nor am I going to buy a new iPhone. $600 might not be a
lot of money for Apple's decision makers but it is for me and I don't
have it to waste. $600 would clothe my daughter for an entire school
year plus extra left over for activities.
In my opinion, dropping iOS support for the iPad 1 means that Apple
no longer cares about its customers and frankly, I'm shocked. It makes
me want to take back all of the good things I ever said about Apple, my
iPad and my iPhone. Sure, Apple probably doesn't give two hoots in hell
about me, my opinion or my unsupported iPad 1, because Apple is going to
be the world's first trillion dollar company. My $600 wasted investment
means squat to them.
Apple, I have some sage advice for you: Stay focused on the customer
or you won't have any. I don't think I'm alone in that feeling now that
you've abandoned us.
I wonder if the other 15 million+ buyers of the original iPad would agree?
Do you really want to alienate 15 million customers?
There was a time in your past, Apple, when you were about 90 days
from bankruptcy and now you're worth more than $600 billion. But,
remember when the US had a $3 trillion surplus when Bill Clinton left
office and now we have a $10 trillion deficit? You do the math and take a
hint.
15 million is a lot of customers.
It's a lot of unsupported iPads.
It's a lot of pissed off individuals.
At $100 profit per customer, that's $1.5 billion. Small change to you?
It could be opportunity for another company who wants to offer
something you don't: Support for your two year old unsupported devices.
Sort of an opportunity for someone who wants to make a business out of
supporting jailbroken devices with an App Store, new OS releases and
updates that will continue the life of this computing platform.
By the way, for all of you who have anything but an iPhone 5, get
ready for this: Your devices won't be supported very soon because Apple
has changed the interface on the iPhone 5. So, the next generation of
iPod and iPad will have the news ones too. And, my friends, that leaves
your old devices in an incompatible format.
Awesome.
Think Different.
Planned obsolescence doesn't mean two years. Get a clue, Apple.
Consider me, "Unconverted."
What do you think of Apple's decision to not offer iOS 6 for a
two-year-old device? Talk back and let (and Apple) know how you feel.
Toyota plans to sell about 100 of its new eQ electric vehicle
Toyota is intent on bringing its eQ EV – the electric version of the Scion iQ
-- to the market despite the fact that electric vehicles aren't selling
well overall. Toyota competitor Nissan has had a very difficult time
selling its electric Leaf EV in
the United States and has so far failed to come close to sales goals.
By contrast, General Motors has found some success with its extended
range electric vehicle the Volt.
Toyota says that it only wants to sell about 100 of its electric eQ
hybrids in the United States and Japan in what it calls an extremely
limited release. Toyota had previously expected to sell several thousand
eQ vehicles per year when the electric version of the company's iQ mini
car was announced in 2010.
"Two years later, there are many difficulties," Takeshi Uchiyamada,
Toyota's vice chairman and the engineer who oversees vehicle
development, told reporters on Monday.
Those difficulties undoubtedly involve the fact that consumers are
staying away from electric vehicles. Toyota has also dropped plans for a
second electric vehicle from its lineup reports Reuters.
"The current capabilities of electric vehicles do not meet society's
needs, whether it may be the distance the cars can run, or the costs, or
how it takes a long time to charge," said, Uchiyamada, who spearheaded
Toyota's development of the Prius hybrid in the 1990s.
Toyota eQ interior
While Toyota is setting its sights very low for the eQ electric vehicle,
the company is more bullish on hybrid vehicles. Toyota reports that it
plans to launch 21 new hybrid vehicles over the next three years. Toyota
also says that it also wants to have a fuel cell vehicle available by
2015. The fuel cell vehicle will be powered by hydrogen. The biggest
challenge that vehicle is likely to face is the availability of hydrogen
as a fuel source, which is virtually non-existent.
Toyota says that 14 of the new hybrids will be completely new. We can
expect that the others will be hybrid versions of existing
gasoline-powered vehicles.
Nokia uses an infographic to tout the Lumia 920's advantages
Samsung has definitely had its time to poke fun at Apple's recently announced (and soon to be released) iPhone 5. Last weekend, Samsung released a print ad that proclaimed "It doesn't take a genius" to select a Galaxy S III over the iPhone 5. Yesterday, Samsung got even bolder by releasing a new TV commercial
that not only poked fun at the iPhone 5, but also the rabid fans that
camp out for hours (if not days) to be the first to have the latest
Apple smartphone.
Now, Nokia is having its fun in the sun with an infographic that touts the advantages of its Windows Phone 8 device -- the Lumia 920
-- over the iPhone 5. Naturally, Nokia points to a number of Lumia 920
highlights including wireless charging and the ability to use the touch
screen with gloved hands. So what do you guys think? Does Samsung or Nokia make a better case in countering the iPhone 5 juggernaut?
Apple has suspended direct sales of the new iPhone 5 in Hong Kong, choosing again to adopt a lottery reserving system which requires consumers to send applications online a day prior the purchase date.
Only those who have received a confirmation e-mail will be able to
purchase up to two sets of iPhone 5 at Apple stores in Hong Kong.
A similar approach was adopted by Apple for the sales of Apple's new
iPad in the first half this year, which is believed to combat a large
number of scalpers looking to resell these machines to mainland China
for profits.
Due to the lottery system, local report
said the number of fans queuing outside the Apple retail store in Hong
Kong was limited on Friday when iPhone 5 was officially launched in the
city.
However, the scarce supply pulled up the selling prices of iPhone 5 in the underground market in Hong Kong. Reports said
scalpers purchased the new iPhone 16G--which is priced HK$5,588
(US$721) in the Apple retail store--for HK$8,000 (US$1,032) from those
who succeeded in buying one through the lottery system. The scalpers
will then resell the handset between HK$8,500 (US$1,096) and HK$12,000
(US$1,548).
The Chinese market was not on the list of the first-batch of iPhone 5
sales. However, Chinese smugglers indicated in the reports that by the
night of Friday, people in Beijing will also be able to purchase iPhone
in the underground market, but at an even higher cost.
