A group of four magazine publishers and media conglomerate News Corp are expected to announce Tuesday a joint venture aimed at developing new standards for digital magazines, according to a report. The move is seen as preventing Apple or other e-reader developers dictating a new age of digital publishing.
The new company — as yet unnamed — will be jointly owned by Hearst, Time Inc., News Corp., Condé Nast Publications and Meredith Corp., according to The Wall Street Journal.
Who wouldn’t buy a car from a “pretty good dancer”? It’s a 10. Not quite “It. Is. AWESOME.” as taglines go. Hit the jump to view the original classic.
Via Fake Steve
Remember when Apple Chief Operating Officer Tim Cook described netbooks as ‘junky’ at a time PC makers were flooding the market with the low-cost computers? A new reliability survey seems to defend Apple’s decision to avoid entering the netbook arms race. Apple has earned the top spot as most reliable computer maker, dethroning ASUS, creator of the Eee PC netbook.
Apple’s score of 374 reverses the lead ASUS had in late 2008 and earlier 2009, according to computer repair firm RESCUECOM. “Now that many of the netbooks by ASUS have been out for a while, there is obviously a higher need for service,” said the repair company’s CEO David Millman.
Now, if you’re in the middle of a pub crawl, your reality is already pretty augmented. But if you’re just starting out, or aren’t yet wasted to the point where dropping the iPhone down a street grating is a real possibility, then finding the closest watering hole has never been easier — thanks to Belgian beer-maker Stella Artois’ just-released, free, augmented-reality bar-finder app.
Although officially tight-lipped on details, Apple may use recently-acquired music streaming company Lala to upgrade its iTunes service and potentially other applications, reports suggest Monday.
“Lala gives Apple browser/Web-based technology to access music anywhere,” financial analyst Maynard Um told UBS Investment Research clients. Um believes Apple will combine the Palo Alto, Calif. company with a planned $1 billion server farm to “provide seamless access & mobility of digital content across all of its products, including media-focused content of iTunes and user-generated content of MobileMe.”
The iPod touch, Apple’s game machine, is becoming Cupertino’s way to introduce younger users to the iPhone. The phone-less iPod represented more than 40 percent of the devices running the iPhone OS software sold through September, according to researchers.
The iPod touch is “quietly building a loyal base among the next generation of iPhone users,” announced mobile analysis software firm Flurry. The study also suggested young iPod touch owners are using the device for games and social-networking. Flurry found 42 percent of the iPod touch sessions include social-media while gaming is 49 percent of the device’s sessions.
httpvhd://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cHV-6lU8lM8
AT&T’s latest advertisement to tackle Verizon’s “There’s A Map For That” ads uses Luke Wilson, his twin and a decapitated doppelganger to make its point: AT&T’s 3G network is faster than Verizon’s.
As an ad, it’s certainly funny to watch Luke Wilson stumbling around, noggin-less. Guillotined by Verizon’s slower 3G service, Wilson’s body becomes a random engine of nerve endings chaotically firing, like a chicken with its head chopped off. The ad ends as Wilson’s headless body collapses to the floor, deftly cutting away just before his bowels loosen. The intact Wilsons then wander off for a snuggle.
The argument the ad is making, however, seems poorly thought out. AT&T certainly does have a faster network than Verizon… in fact, Verizon’s never contested that fact. What AT&T doesn’t have is anything even approaching Verizon’s coverage.
If you break this ad down to what it’s saying beyond the quirky charm, AT&T is making the following argument: if you are in an area with AT&T’s fastest 3G coverage, you can download a JPEG of Luke Wilson 20% faster than you can download it anywhere on Verizon’s network. That’s great, but most people would take reliability over a 20% boost in speed. AT&T would do better taking the money they are spending countering arguments Verizon has never made into their infrastructure, countering arguments Verizon has made.
In America, filing for a patent is simple, and a patent is often approved by clerks with no actual knowledge of the technology in question. That makes it all too easy to file for frivolous, overly broad patents… then sue other companies for massive pay outs when they unknowingly infringe.
You don’t need any more information to recognize that the entire patent system is completely broken than to just mull over the fact that Apple is being sued over the iPhone’s camera by a small company made up of exactly two lawyers and six staff members whose entire business is patent infringement. And Apple is likely to pay.
As a sidebar to her mega-tribute to Apple’s mobile dominance, Jenna Wortham of the New York Times asked Phil Schiller about his favorite iPhone apps. And, quelle surprise, they’re all extremely popular, many of them having been featured in TV ads and Apple keynote events.
What do you reckon? Does your taste trend with Phil’s, or is he hopelessly vanilla in his picks?
In a sea of bulky, boxy waterproof cameras that do little to encourage stashing them in a pocket and bringing along for the ride, the Pentax Optio WS80 is a refreshing change — it’s tiny, and practically begs to be stuck in a pocket and brought on the next romp. But that scaled-down size is at least in part responsible for scaled-down performance.
Harry McCracken at Technologizer is worried that Apple’s rumored purchase of Lala could be the best thing for iTunes – or the worst.
Harry has been testing LaLa’s as-yet-unreleased iPhone app, and it’s just like iTunes in the cloud. The app streams your iTunes music collection to wherever you are, plus you can buy new songs for a dime (well, streams of new songs).
“…all of a sudden, the iPhone’s relatively skimpy memory isn’t nearly as much of an issue, since you can stream all the music you’ve got in iTunes on a PC or Mac to your phone. You can also listen to and buy songs from Lala’s 8-million song store. It’s all surprisingly fast for a streaming service, and it even caches recent music you’ve listened to so you’re not completely out of luck if you don’t have an Internet connection.”
Harry is in love, and hopes that Apple will roll Lala’s functionality into iTunes if Apple buys the company. But he’s also worried that Apple may be buying Lala to kill it — it’s a competitive threat to iTunes.
Over at Silicon Alley Insider, the same notion is implicit in a quote from an industry insider who says LaLa’s licenses are non-transferable:
One industry source with years of experience in the digital music business is very surprised by the apparent deal. “I would be completely shocked,” he says. “None of the licenses are transferrable (not that Apple has a hard time getting licenses). Why would they buy it? Again, I’d be shocked.”
Thing is, as far as I know, Apple has no history of buying companies to shut them down. Anyone know any examples? And as Elliot Van Buskirk at Wired points out, Apple does have a history of buying companies to kickstart new products. Apple’s iTunes was based on SoundJam.
In addition, as we reported in August, Apple is building a one of the world’s largest data centers in North Carolina. Given it’s enormous size, the new data center is likely to focus on cloud computing, perhaps hosting services like Lala’s for Apple’s giant iTunes customer base.
A new study looking at decades of cancer data has concluded that cell phones do not cause brain tumors.
Scientists looked at cancer rates in Europe after cell phones were introduced and found no rise in brain cancers. If there was a link between cell phone radiation and brain tumors, there would have been a rise in cases after the mid-1990s, when cell phones became mainstream, the researchers figured.
Luckily for us, there wasn’t.
Reported in the Journal of the National Cancer Institute (JNCI), the Time Trends in Brain Tumor Incidence Rates study analyzed national cancer registeries in Denmark, Finland, Norway and Sweden between 1974 to 2003 — a mountain of data that covers the entire adult populations of those countries, a total of 16 million people.
Spot the difference between photographer James Duncan Davidson ‘s iconic photo of the of the first iPhone — snapped at Macwolrd Expo in 2007 — and Verizon’s new ad for the Droid smartphone. Says the snapper:
“I’m kinda speechless right now and I’m not quite sure what to think of it. Whoa.”
httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sLDxv9ohH2s
Harrods department store launched this limited edition 24 karat gold-plated iPod backed by a good cause they hope will induce Scroogy types to part with some extra cash this holiday season.
Laser engraved with the autograph of footie superstar Frank Lampard, the 8GB Midas iPod goes for £264.50 ($440 circa) or £433.81 (64GB) ($722 circa), that’s about £100 over the regular UK retail price for the 8G and £130 for the 64GB.
Lampart will donate all of his royalties from sales to the Teenage Cancer Trust.
This is hardly the first blingy benefit iPod — UK company Gold Genie which is behind this effort seems to be specialized in them — but it will be interesting to see how well they sell in these Bah Humbug! times.
Steve Jobs quietly advised the One Laptop per Child project, founder Nicholas Negroponte said at the University of Pennsylvania yesterday.
Said Negroponte:
“I got an email from Steve Jobs (the night the laptop was revealed) he said you can’t build it for a hundred dollars, and my answer was oh yes I can. He was actually a very good critic, and each time we got to a point, I did talk to him.”
Of course, Jobs was right (Gizmodo reviewed the OLPC and concluded it was “a piece of shit”) but at least he tried to help, unlike Microsoft. Negraponte said Microsoft tried to “thwart” the project at several turns.
Jobs has a reputation as a bastard. And there’s no public record of philanthropic efforts (if any) but this shows he at least has a little bit of heart.
Via TheDigitalLifestyle.tv and Gizmodo.
Apple UK Friday announced ‘iTunes 12 Days of Christmas,’ a promo offering Europeans daily free music, videos, apps and TV episodes between Dec. 26 and Jan. 6, 2010.
A free download will be available for 24 hours at the itunes12daysofchristmas.co.uk site.
The promotion also includes a contest with a chance to win an engraved yellow iPod nano.
Last year’s promotion features free music from Katy Perry, Lily Allen and The Ting Ting Tings. The pro is sponsored by O2, Ticketmaster, Capital FM, Heart FM and The Times, reports said.
The Droid, the Motorola-made smartphone sold by Verizon, is now taking the iPhone head-on, comparing Apple’s iconic handset to a “tiara-wearing digitally clueless beauty pageant queen.” The new ad, entitled “Pretty” features a blonde woman applying lipstick while walking and admiring an iPhone-looking device.
“It’s not a princess, it’s a robot,” the commercial intones, referring to the Android-based handset. “A phone that trades hair-do for can-do.” Verizon is the rival to AT&T, currently the exclusive iPhone carrier in the United States. Recently, Verizon and AT&T have traded salvos both on-air and in the courtroom.
Companies considering introducing products in China may use Apple’s experience as a textbook on what mistakes to avoid. China, with billions of consumers, would seem to be the perfect market for the iPhone, one of the hottest consumer gadgets the Cupertino, Calif. company sells. However, CEO Steve Jobs and others made a number of unforced errors in China, besides those widely-publicized, according to Forbes.
In a review of the lackluster launch of the iPhone in China, Shaun Rein of the China Market Research Group, details several factors which likely caused Apple to stumble right out of the gate.
In theory, officially introducing China up to the charms of the iPhone should have been a coup for Apple, potentially generating the sale of millions of handsets in the largest market on Earth. But the reality looks far bleaker: according to data from the official Chinese online iPhone store, Taobao.com, only five iPhones were sold in the first two weeks of its online availability.
Taobao.com is not the only place selling iPhones: Apple’s carrier partner in China, China Unicom, is also selling iPhones, but has not released official numbers. That said, Taobao.com’s numbers should be viewed grimly: it’s the largest and most frequented electronics site in China… the Chinese equivalent of Amazon.com.
Two weeks ago, we mentioned that the ALK’s CoPilot Live app, an already inexpensive iPhone GPS option, went on sale for $20 (from $35) during Thanksgiving.
Today, ALK announced they’re introducing a similar deal — now $25 — through the end of December.
To make the deal even more enticing, they’re making available a “Premium Live” package that includes live traffic info and routing (from the same source as the $80 Navigon app), a live Internet local search feature and something I haven’t seen before on a GPS app: A live gas-price feature that can route you to the cheapest gas near your location.
The Premium Live option runs an extra $20/year, but the savings from hassle-free routing to cheap gas might just make the package valuable enough to pay for itself.
Two guards in Washington, D.C. were arrested after allegedly smuggling in must-have items for prisoners — namely iPods, cell phones and chargers.
An inmate tipped off the FBI in October 2008 that corrections officers were getting contraband tech — along with the usual stuff like cigarettes — for a price to prisoners.
Two male corrections officers and a female security guard were arrested this week for federal bribery charges on suspicion of accepting cash to smuggle cellphones and iPods. The men are now on administrative leave, the woman was released on personal recognizance.
An undercover FBI agent posing as the brother of an inmate bribed one of the men $300 to smuggle an iPod and charger inside the big house.
Why are iPods verboten in prison?
According to an email sent to Washington Post’s Crime Scene blog , Apple devices are so sought after they constitute a security hazard:
“Inmates may use the components of devices such as iPods to compromise security equipment within the correctional facility. In addition, such items are in high demand and may be stolen or used by inmates to gamble with others…this has the potential to trigger conflict, assaults and other violent behavior.”
Wonder if the playlist on the decoy iPod had “I Fought the Law” on it or some irony-free offerings…
Via Crime Scene
It appears Apple’s iPod touch-based point-of-sale system is drawing interest from retailers looking to use the current proprietary hardware and software for selling more than Macs and iPhones. The Cupertino, Calif. company is considering commercializing the system following massive interest.
“Since the debut of the iPod POS, inquiries have been coming from all directions, including from end-user small businesses, larger chains and system integrators,” according to ifoAppleStore. The iPod maker has instructed Apple Store salespeople to collect contact information from people expressing interest “apparently to create a database of potential customers,” the report said.
Yet another analyst Thursday joined the chorus of voices singing Apple’s praises in a sluggish PC market. Mac sales will grow 26 percent in 2010, far outstripping PCs forecast to grow just 16 percent year over year.
Looking forward, Robert Cichra, analyst with Caris & Company, predicted Apple will have 4 percent of the market share for 2010, providing what the analyst termed “considerable headroom” for more growth.
Apple’s App Store next year will reach the 300,000 mark, tripling the number of applications available for the iPhone and iPod touch, according to one analyst’s preview of 2010. The continued growth of the App Store is at the leading-edge of what analyst firm IDC sees as a ‘platform shift’ to mobile devices and away from the PC.
“We predict at least 300,000 iPhone applications by the end of 2010,” wrote analyst Frank Gens. Many of the new apps will come from businesses as consumers and companies pick the iPhone for their most commonly-used applications.
James Thomson of PCalc fame noted late yesterday on Twitter that the App Store’s again updated the way it deals with app sorting: “Looks like sort by release date in [the] App Store only sorts by original release date now, not update date. Say hello to page 342 of Utilities…”
Thomson’s referring here to PCalc now being housed on the penultimate page in the massive utilities section, because it was one of the earliest apps on the store, released on July 11 2008. However, the app was last updated on October 18.
Although release date sorting was open to ‘abuse’, dodgy developers regularly updating apps to move them to the top of the list, it strikes me as a bad decision to list apps by their original release dates, regardless of how often they’re updated. What impetus does a developer have to update a major app released in 2008, if no-one’s going to see the update unless Apple deigns to include it in ‘new & noteworthy’ or ‘what’s hot’? This decision could start a spate of app removals and ‘updates’ via entirely new products, reducing the likelihood of free updates for long-time users.
A simple workaround would be for Apple to provide an alternate sort option of ‘recently updated’, which would, presumably, make everyone happy. In the meantime, some of the earliest developers for the platform who care about updating their apps just got another kick in the crotch.