Leading mobile comics app developer, Comixology, has finally opened up the program they teased last fall: Comixology Submit, a new publishing idea that may help independent comics creators find their audience.
Basically, it allows comics creators the ability to submit their comics to the program and potentially be distributed on one of the biggest platforms for digital comics today, right next to the likes of Spiderman, Superman, and other professionally produced books. Users on iOS, Android, Windows 8, and the web can then find and download these indie gems, and creators split the profits down the middle with Comixology.
Sharp has this morning announced a ¥10.4 billion ($112 million) investment from Samsung that will provide the latter with a 3% stake in the company. It makes Samsung the biggest individual shareholder in the Japanese display maker, and secures its access to Sharp’s LCD panel supplies.
The investment comes at a time when Sharp has been struggling. The company received a $4.4 billion bailout from the banks in October 2012, and its iPad display orders from Apple were recently cut as consumer demand shifted to the smaller iPad mini, which Sharp is not involved with.
If you’re an Apple fanboy that reads a lot of tech websites, you may have come across the name Andy Ihnatko before. Andy’s been a hardcore Apple fanboy for years. He’s got a column at the Chicago Sun Times and Macworld, and he’s on a popular Apple podcast almost weekly.
Sadly, Andy’s decided that his love for the iPhone 4S has died. He’s switched to Android. The two of them are happy. But Andy wants you to know why he’s switched to Android, so he’s published a monster story to give you all the details.
Google is preparing to take on companies like Spotify and Rdio with a new YouTube music streaming service, according to sources in the record industry, who have been speaking to Fortune. The service, which is expected to launch later this year, could be available for free, but there will be subscription options for those who don’t like to see advertisements.
Twitter, the social networking company, purchased TweetDeck, the Twitter application company, back in May of 2011. Today, the Twitter-owned TweetDeck announced that it was discontinuing support for the venerable stand-alone Twitter clients on Android, iOS, and desktop computers via Adobe AIR, ostensibly to concentrate on the TweetDeck web experience.
While many current users of the clients may disagree, Twitter feels that its user base is both better served on the web, and that the decision mirrors the real-time activity of those very same TweetDeck customers.
“Over the past few years,” says the TweetDeck posterous website, “we’ve seen a steady trend towards people using TweetDeck on their computers and Twitter on their mobile devices. This trend coincides with an increased investment in Twitter for iPhone and Twitter for Android –– adding photo filters and other editing capabilities, revamping user profiles and enhancing search.”
In essence, then, TweetDeck, offering such things as customizable, filtered columns and some other user interface innovations, will no longer be accessible via TweetDeck AIR, TweetDeck for Android, or TweetDeck for iPhone. Instead, users will need to head over to the TweetDeck web client, or use a newly released Chrome app. For users who want Twitter on their Android or iPhone smartphone, they’ll need to use the official Twitter app, or another third-party app like Tweetbot.
The Mac and PC stand-alone apps, as opposed to the AIR apps, will not go away, but will no longer get new features first.
Apple has demonstrated muted contempt for podcasting, with its passive-aggressive stewardship of the content and its apathy about the low quality of its own Podcasts app.
I believe podcasting is the future of all audio and video media — the future of radio and television — and I’ll tell you why below.
So if Apple doesn’t want to own the future of TV and radio, maybe Google should take over the leadership role from Apple?
Apple has lost nearly half of the $1 billion in damages it was awarded last August after beating Samsung in a high-profile U.S. patent lawsuit. The presiding judge over the case, Lucy Koh, decided to invalidate $450.5 million of the original damages owed to Apple in a new ruling today.
Damages were incorrectly calculated for 14 Samsung devices related to the trial, and Koh has ordered a retrial for the updated damages amount.
The latest App Report from research firm Appthority has found that free apps downloaded onto iOS devices are more likely to collect your personal data than free apps downloaded on Android, with 60% of the top ten App Store downloads sharing data with advertising and analytics networks.
The report suggests that due to the volume of titles in the App Store, iOS developers are more likely to collect your data and pass it on as an alternative revenue stream.
Teardown specialists iFixit have published a new tablet repairability guide that quickly tells you how difficult it’s going to be to mend your broken Android, iOS, or Windows 8 slate. The guide features 18 popular tablets, which have been given a repairability score between one and ten. The higher the score, the easier they are to repair.
Unsurprisingly, Apple’s iPads are some of the hardest tablets to fix, second only to the Microsoft Surface Pro — the only tablet with a score of one. Amazon’s Kindle Fire’s, on the other hand, are relatively easy to repair, as are Dell’s devices.
British carrier O2 has today launched a new VoIP and messaging service called TU Go, which is available to its pay monthly customers with Android and iOS devices. The service allows users to make calls and send texts over the Internet, so even when they have no cell reception, they can connect to a Wi-Fi hotspot and get in touch with friends and family.
We got it wrong last week, when we thought a cryptic Disney teaser was a clue to something we’ve been salivating over for a few months: the arrival of Android and iOS at Disney’s Infinity platform.
Instead, Disney has released a beautiful Toy Story 3D puzzler game for iOS and Android; and even though it’s not exactly what we’ve been waiting for, it still looks really freaking cool.
This small Bluetooth speaker looks remarkably like the iconic Jawbone Jambox, arguably the most popular ultra-portable Bluetooth speaker on the market right now. And just like the Jambox, it can be used to stream music and make calls. It even comes in what looks like the same colors — or very similar colors — the Jambox comes in.
But look more closely, and you’ll see small cosmetic differences — because this isn’t the Jambox. It’s the Urge Basics Sound Brick, and it has one very big difference with the Jambox: it’s less than one-third the price.
Guy Kawasaki was one of Apple’s most famous evangelists. He’s the guy who helped Steve Jobs market the hell out of the original Macintosh back in 1984 to really put Apple on the map.
Guy left his post as Chief Evangelist of Apple in 1987 and has reclined into a life of venture capitalism along with running his popular blog, but now he’s gearing up to help Google do battle with Apple by advising for Google-owned Motorola.
Speaking in front of an audience at TED today, Google co-founder Sergey Brin made a bizarre pitch for buying his company’s wearable Google Glass headset, essentially by arguing that product utilizing one of his company’s biggest projects — Android — were effeminate and made for wussies.
BARCELONA, MOBILE WORLD CONGRESS — During a Samsung developer conference here at Mobile World Congress this morning, the Korean company unveiled a new service called Samsung Wallet, which lets Samsung smartphone owners turn tickets, coupons, membership cards, boarding passes, and more into digital cards that they can store in a virtual wallet.
The service probably sounds familiar, and it is — Samsung Wallet is basically Apple’s Passbook, but for Samsung phones. It works in almost exactly the same way, and looks very similar, too.
BARCELONA, MOBILE WORLD CONGRESS — Here at MWC in Barcelona, Krussell is showing off its latest lineup of waterproof smartphones cases called Sealabox, which let you take your smartphone swimming to snap pictures of the fishes. Available for almost all common smartphones, the Sealabox is IPX7 certified for water resistance up to one meter, and it’s been carefully designed to allow you to make the most of your smartphone in almost any environment.
BlackBerry has been the preferred handheld for many of the U.S. Department of Defence’s employees because it’s got the security clearance to run on the Pentagon’s network. That might all change in 2014 though when Android and iOS join the party.
The U.S. Defense Department said today that it plans to open up its networks by February 2014 and allow 100,000 mobile phones and tablets from Apple and Google to use the network.
Yesterday we showed you the ZTE Open, the first entry-level smartphone running Mozilla’s new Firefox OS. Other companies, like Sony, are planning to release Firefox OS phones as well. Mozilla has been trying to get the word out at Mobile World Congress in Barcelona.
During a recent talk at MWC, Mozilla CEO Gary Kovacs touted Firefox OS as a new platform to disrupt Android and Apple’s hold on the industry.
The popular method for listening to music online has shifted from $0.99 paid downloads to subscription services like Spotify and Rdio. Bigger tech companies like Samsung have tried to claim their piece of the music subscription pie, and Apple is rumored to be entering the space with some sort of ‘iRadio’ product.
That’s why it shouldn’t come as a surprise that Google is working on its own music streaming service too.
BARCELONA, MOBILE WORLD CONGRESS — As I was walking around the show floor at MWC today, I noticed a number of smartphones that looked very familiar — yet they were being paraded by Chinese companies I’d never heard of. I saw what looked like a large iPhone 5, an entire range of Samsung Galaxy devices, and a number of high-end HTC handsets.
Except they weren’t really Apple, Samsung, or HTC devices at all; they were actually cheap clones that were trying their best to look like the real thing. They even had fake accessories that were identical to the originals.
Apple and Samsung have been exchanging blows with each other in the Australian courtroom for the past two years. Neither side has emerged as a clear favorite to win, but the case is already breaking records.
Because of the enormity of the case, Australia’s Federal Court has appointed two judges to hear the case together. It’s the first time Australia’s Federal Court has ever needed to have two judges hear a case together.
If you’ve ever heard a snatch of a song in a bar and found yourself tormented for not knowing who it was by, you should probably know about Shazam, an awesome iOS app that analyzes music around you and tells you who the heck it’s by and how to buy it.
Are you one of the 300 million users who already knows about Shazam? Great! Shazam’s just announced some mean new updates to its iPad app, including much faster tagging with automatic resubmissions, better sharing features and Shazam Friends interactions, a revamped home screen, and more.
If you were expecting Samsung to unveil the Galaxy S4 at Mobile World Congress in Barcelona this week, prepare to be disappointed: Samsung has instead sent out invitations to a press event in New York on March 14, where they will debut their much-anticipated (and iPhone 5 challenging) new smartphone.
In an attempt to go head-to-head with the likes of iMessage and BBM in emerging markets, social network Facebook has just announced that it will be allowing users of its Messenger app to send messages at free or heavily discounted data rates.
BARCELONA, MOBILE WORLD CONGRESS -Mobile World Congress 2013 is now underway here in Barcelona, and there’s one device we couldn’t wait to get our hands on: the Galaxy Note 8.0 — Samsung’s answer to the iPad mini. In addition to its 8-inch display, the device boasts a 1.6GHz quad-core processor, 2GB of RAM, and of course, the Note’s trademark S Pen.
But can it give the iPad mini a run for its money?
