Amazon unveiled a partnership with Twitter on Monday that may signal that the future of shopping lies in your social media feed.
Starting today, Twitter users can link their accounts to an Amazon account, and automatically add items to the shopping cart by responding to any tweet with an Amazon product link with the hashtag #AmazonCart. Customers never leave the Twitter feed, and the product is waiting for them when they head over to Amazon.
It's potentially a new business model for Twitter, which so far has relied on sponsored tweets for revenue, but has struggled both with growth and figuring out a way to make money off its 255 million monthly active users. For Amazon, adding another convenient way for its consumers to buy its products just fuels its primary business.
An Amazon spokeswoman said Twitter doesn't get revenue from the items added to the shopping carts through #AmazonCart, but declined to further discuss its relationship with Twitter.
"We are certainly open to working with other social networks," said the Amazon spokeswoman. "Twitter in particular offers a great environment for our customers to discover product recommendations from artists, experts, brands and friends."
A Twitter spokesman wasn't immediately available to comment.
Customers who have already linked their Twitter and Amazon accounts will be notified with a reply tweet from @MyAmazon and get an email from Amazon when an item is added to the cart. Customers who haven't yet linked their accounts will get receive a tweet reply asking them to do so to enable the feature.
It's not clear, however, whether consumers will embrace #AmazonCart. As all tweets are public, people risk publicizing their purchasing decisions by responding to a Tweet with that hashtag. The program could also lead to advertisers sending out more tweets with Amazon product links.
Amazon made it clear on its site that the tweet only adds the item to your cart, and isn't a confirmation for purchase. You would still have to go to Amazon later to check out and pay for the product.
Amazon customers in the UK can use #AmazonBasket to add items to their shopping carts starting today.
It's all explainable. In a way.
Funny OR die
I imagine them in a duel.
On one side, a scientist with the latest laser-blasting bazooka. On
the other, a believer with nothing more than a Bible and certainty.
At heart, though, they don't need to fight. Plenty of scientists are
deeply religious. Plenty of deeply religious people still leave a place
for science in their hearts (if not their souls).
Can't we all just get along? Oh, of course we can't.
Bill Nye debates creationist Ken Ham and neither seems to get anywhere with the other.
Moreover, those labeled creationists complain that Neil DeGrasse Tyson
hasn't left room for their version of life as we don't know it in his
fine series "Cosmos."
It is left, therefore, to comedians to bridge the gap between the two entrenched armies of truth.
The sometimes satanically amusing people at Funny Or Die
thought they'd take it upon themselves as a penance of peace to create a
creationist version of "Cosmos" and satisfy the cries of those who
claim they're not heard. Except, perhaps, on a Sunday. Why not
present a more fundamentalist explanation of our world's existence and
history? Why not depict Earth as less an example of evolution and more
the result of divine intervention?
Some might feel that Timothy
Simons (the not-so-Biblical Jonah in "Veep") is less immediately
persuasive than Tyson. He's a little too much like a Ph.D student,
rather than a seasoned professor.
He does, though, present an
uplifting and sincere air, as he explains the world's existence with
short words, short sentences and, indeed, a very short series.
After all, if there's only one explanation for everything, there are few mysteries left to be unraveled.
My own experience suggests the world is an absurd place, full of nonsense and non-sequiturs.
My
sense of humor would, therefore, be entirely appeased if scientists
worked for another few hundred years to unlock life's mysteries -- only
to discover, at the very, very end, a ten-legged being wearing a t-shirt
that said "God," laughing his/her/its head off at the sheer
insignificance of man.
It's all explainable. In a way.
Funny OR die
I imagine them in a duel.
On one side, a scientist with the latest laser-blasting bazooka. On
the other, a believer with nothing more than a Bible and certainty.
At heart, though, they don't need to fight. Plenty of scientists are
deeply religious. Plenty of deeply religious people still leave a place
for science in their hearts (if not their souls).
Can't we all just get along? Oh, of course we can't.
Bill Nye debates creationist Ken Ham and neither seems to get anywhere with the other.
Moreover, those labeled creationists complain that Neil DeGrasse Tyson
hasn't left room for their version of life as we don't know it in his
fine series "Cosmos."
It is left, therefore, to comedians to bridge the gap between the two entrenched armies of truth.
The sometimes satanically amusing people at Funny Or Die
thought they'd take it upon themselves as a penance of peace to create a
creationist version of "Cosmos" and satisfy the cries of those who
claim they're not heard. Except, perhaps, on a Sunday. Why not
present a more fundamentalist explanation of our world's existence and
history? Why not depict Earth as less an example of evolution and more
the result of divine intervention?
Some might feel that Timothy
Simons (the not-so-Biblical Jonah in "Veep") is less immediately
persuasive than Tyson. He's a little too much like a Ph.D student,
rather than a seasoned professor.
He does, though, present an
uplifting and sincere air, as he explains the world's existence with
short words, short sentences and, indeed, a very short series.
After all, if there's only one explanation for everything, there are few mysteries left to be unraveled.
My own experience suggests the world is an absurd place, full of nonsense and non-sequiturs.
My
sense of humor would, therefore, be entirely appeased if scientists
worked for another few hundred years to unlock life's mysteries -- only
to discover, at the very, very end, a ten-legged being wearing a t-shirt
that said "God," laughing his/her/its head off at the sheer
insignificance of man.
Canva's graphic design software
Canva
Guy
Kawasaki was on Apple's front line in the 1980s leading the charge to
convince developers to use the Macintosh. A well-known figure in Silicon
Valley, Kawasaki was the company's first chief evangelist, whose job
it was to make sure the Mac stood a chance against incumbent IBM by
winning hearts and minds among applications developers. Obviously, other culminating factors helped put the Mac on the map. There was an elaborate launch keynote by a young Steve Jobs
-- an early example of the kind of rousing presentation Apple's former
chief executive would become famous for delivering. And don't forget the
launch of Macworld, a magazine devoted to the machine, as well as a
now-iconic Super Bowl ad called "1984" by director Ridley Scott. But
Kawasaki hopes he can repeat his success at Apple as the chief
evangelist for a little-known, Sydney-based design tech company called Canva.
The startup makes free software that lets people design graphics for
use in blog posts, or on business cards, fliers, posters, or
presentations. The company announced Kawasaki's appointment on
Wednesday. "Apple was my first platform to democratize something,
which was computing," he said, referring to the Mac's role in bringing
personal computing to mainstream consumers. "Now, this is the way to
democratize design."
Guy Kawasaki
Canva's
software is in line with a greater trend that sees the Web catering to a
do-it-yourself mentality, from the growing popularity of 3D printing
with companies like MakerBot and Shapeways, to the online storefront
network Etsy. There are other graphic design tools, like the
venerable Adobe Illustrator. Kawasaki said the goal isn't to snake away
users from other software but to attract people who weren't doing any
designing to begin with. "It's about making the pie bigger," he said. Canva
was co-founded in August 2012 by Melanie Perkins, Cliff Obrecht, and
Cameron Adams. Perkins and Obrecht originally ran an e-publishing
platform for yearbooks, and spun out Canva from there. Since the
product launched last summer, the company said it has 330,000 registered
users who create 100,000 new designs a week and have collectively
created more than 1.5 million designs on the site. Kawasaki said
he learned of Canva because a woman who helps handle his social media
accounts was using it to create graphics for him. The company contacted
him three weeks ago after seeing his name in its user database. Outside
of Apple, Kawasaki has written several books, founded the venture
capital firm Garage.com, and started firms like the Mac database company
ACIUS and Alltop, a news aggregation site. But he hasn't donned the
evangelical title since working for Apple. Why would Kawasaki get
back in that saddle again? When asked, he paused, and the eloquent
Kawasaki stammered for the only time during our conversation. "It's
basically an emotional decision. Contrary to what many people believe, I
think that something like this is falling in love," he said. Typically,
he gets pitched on things constantly, then consults with his wife and
friends, and brushes the projects off. "I can tell you with great
honesty that this is the first time in my career that I didn't check
with anybody before deciding to do it. Then I let all my best friends
know." The biggest difference
between cheerleading a product now versus while he was at Apple is just
how powerful the communication channels have become. In 1997, he had
44,000 email addresses on his email list -- nothing to scoff at. Now, he
said he has more than 8 million followers across his social media
networks. To get the word out about Canva, he plans to do things like
writing blog posts on how to leverage the software and perform demos
during speaking engagements. While the software is intriguing,
there's got to be something more to attract a Silicon Valley big wig
like Kawasaki. After all, Apple didn't stop with the Mac and went on the
create the iPod and iPhone. Kawasaki said Canva has plans for
expansion, but he's mum about details. "Let's just say it's more than
designing online," he said.
Sarah Tew/CNET
With
the second major revision to Windows 8, somewhat confusingly named
Windows 8.1 Update, Microsoft seems to have finally remembered that
there are PC users out there who still work with a monitor, keyboard,
and mouse. Not everyone is happily tapping and swiping away at tablet
and hybrid screens yet, and the loudest complaints about the OS have
been regarding its lack of support for those who use their PCs in a more
traditional fashion.Windows 8.1, released in October 2013, was a course correction of sorts, walking back some of the more egregious nods to trendy tablet thinking found in the original release of Windows 8,
including a limited-use Start button and a search function that no
longer required you to search apps, settings, and files separately.
Despite these improvements, Windows 8.1 still felt like a
one-size-fits-all solution, cramming a slate-style mentality onto every
screen.
With Windows 8.1 Update, you now get a computing
environment that feels flexible enough to work on 8-inch tablets as well
as 27-inch desktops. Touch is still the preferred input method for
working in the tile interface many still call Metro, but at last, mouse
and keyboard users aren't completely left out.
These select features stand out as the highlights of Windows 8.1 Update (read more about the rest of the new features here),
and the most likely reasons you'll finally feel OK about upgrading if
the somewhat tortured history of Windows 8 has scared you off before
now.
Screenshot by Sarah Tew/CNET
The return of the X-to-close button
If
you have a touch-screen device, anything from an 8-inch tablet to a
27-inch tabletop PC, one of the first Windows 8 moves you no doubt
learned was to swipe a finger down from the top of the screen to the
bottom in order to close native Windows 8 apps (accompanied by an
awkwardly stilted animation). But with a mouse, the same move was both
counterintuitive and hard to pull off consistently. Simply adding the
top-right-corner X button to close is such a no-brainer, it makes the
entire Windows 8.1 Update download worthwhile.
One weird catch,
however. Closing a Windows 8 bumps you back to the traditional desktop,
even if you were previously in the Metro interface. Inexplicably odd.
Screenshot by Sarah Tew/CNET
Different views for different screen sizes
Got
a traditional-size laptop or monitor screen? Then you'll boot right
into the familiar desktop view from previous versions of Windows, rather
than the tile-based menu. Of course, you can still switch at will, but
having the classic desktop as the main event rather than a hidden
feature is what politicians would call "walking back" a controversial
move. Small tablet-style screens still boot to the tile view, which
makes sense, and a taskbar properties menu allows for even more
customization.
Screenshot by Sarah Tew/CNET
Right-click support for Start screen tiles
The
blocky tiles that make up the Windows 8 Start screen can be baffling.
Launch a new PC for the first time, and you'll find a different mix of
apps represented by these tiles, in different sizes, and grouped into
different sections, all with little rhyme or reason. Even worse, some of
the largest tiles offer no usable information beyond a simple icon
drawing. That particular problem hasn't gone away, but at least it's now
easy and intuitive (that's a word that keeps on popping up, in case
anyone at Microsoft is paying attention) to simply right-click on any
tile and resize it, hide it completely, or even pin it to the classic
desktop taskbar.
Screenshot by Sarah Tew/CNET
An easy-to-find power button
Short
and simple, and exactly the type of common sense feature inexplicably
missing from Windows 8 for its first 18 months of life. In the
upper-right corner of the tile interface, there is now a big power icon,
which can restart, shut down, or set your system to sleep. Previously,
if you were using a mouse and/or didn't have a touch screen, you had to
hover the mouse cursor at the upper-right corner, then carefully
navigate down to the Setting section, then down to the tiny power button
all the way at the bottom of the screen. Search gets a top-corner icon
as well, but that was at least easier to find access pre-Update.
Screenshot by Sarah Tew/CNET
Add any app to the desktop taskbar
As
mentioned previously, you can now right-click on any Windows 8 app (the
kind that runs full-screen by default) and add it to the classic
desktop taskbar. Even if you hate the tile view, there are some good
apps hiding there, and I personally really like the built-in News app.
Now you can still access these without having to navigate to the
tile-filled Start screen first.
Screenshot by Sarah Tew/CNET
Battery, time, network, and date indicators in the Start screen
Actually,
these are all basic-but-useful features still missing from Windows 8.
Even after more than a year and a half, PC users can't simply glance at
the vaunted Start screen on their laptops, tablets, or hybrids, and see
how much battery life they have left, to say nothing of the ability see
the time or date. As always, activating the Charms bar gives you some of
this information (with just a very basic visual icon for the battery
and connection icon for the Wi-Fi network), but it still hides lots of
very practical things from view without user interaction. In contrast,
thanks to the live tiles on the Start screen, the latest sports scores,
recipes, and promoted app store apps are always easy to see.
Despite
this oversight, the updates included in both Windows 8.1 and Windows
8.1 Update are small pieces that add up to a very different feel from
the original Windows 8 experience. If the OS had launched in this
condition in 2012, we'd likely have a much different view of it, rather
than waiting for common-sense features to trickle in over time. That
said, for the first time, I now feel like using Windows 8 on a nontouch
all-in-one desktop is now a viable experience, rather than something
that constantly requires you to think about workarounds and compromises.
Bathys Hawaii
You may have seen so-called atomic wristwatches
around, but there's a caveat: they actually keep atomic time by
receiving radio signals from nearby government-owned atomic clocks. If
they go out of range of those signals, you'll be left relying on a plain
old quartz movement.
The Cesium 133 by scientist John Patterson's manufacturer Bathys Hawaii, first unveiled half a year ago in a more industrial-looking form and currently seeking Kickstarter backers,
is different. Patterson calls his watch the "world's first true atomic
wristwatch," and the difference is in the insides: a chip-scale atomic
clock (CSAC) hosting a cesium-based oscillator fits right inside the case, dividing each second precisely into the 9,192,631,770 vibrations of the cesium atom.
"The technology
found in this watch is something even a decade ago no one could imagine
existing in such a small package," Patterson said on the Bathys Hawaii Web site.
"Within a single chip there [are] a laser, a heater, a sealed cavity
of cesium gas, a microwave filter, and a photodiode detector. Using the
exact same principle of counting hyperfine lines of excited cesium 133
atoms used by the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST),
our watch is able to achieve unprecedented levels of accuracy; on the
order of 1 second per thousand years."
This means that the
Bathys Cesium 133 would be the world's most accurate wristwatch, only
losing up to a single second every 1,000 years. This is more accurate by
three orders of magnitude than current wristwatch technologies.
Bathys Hawaii
The current iteration of the watch is powered by a rechargeable
lithium battery that will run up to 36 hours between chargers, and the
dial displays hours, minutes, seconds, the date, and the moon phase.
Under the case, the CSAC is paired with a Ronda 509 Quartz movement so that the timekeeping of the CSAC can be translated to the dial.
All of this is housed in carbon fiber, which keeps the watch lightweight and rust-free.
If you want one, it's not going to be like picking up a Seiko from
your local jeweller. The six prototypes are going for US$6,000 apiece
on Kickstarter, while a new watch will cost you US$10,000, and very
limited numbers are going to be produced. In haute horlogerie terms,
however, this is a pretty great price for something that's bound to
become a collector's item in years to come.
There's little in life more exciting than piloting a fast car around a
good road course, topping 100 mph on the straights and executing
perfect control at the limits of grip in the turns. Now imagine doing
all that in a convertible.
Chevrolet released photos and specs for
its new Corvette Z06 Convertible, a high-performance version of the
Corvette Stingray featuring a convertible soft-top set to debut at the New York auto show next week.
Serious drivers may scoff at convertibles and sunroofs on track cars,
but Chevrolet insists the Z06 Convertible is worthy. Unlike most
convertible conversions, there has been little structural change to make
the Z06 an open top. Chevrolet asserts that the Z06's aluminum
structure was already so stiff that it needed no extra bracing to
preserve its rigidity after stripping off the coupe roof. The weight of
the new convertible is approximately the same as the Z06 Coupe.
Chevrolet's press release includes many details about designing the
Corvette's structure, such as the 17,000 virtual iterations designed on
the computer. Most notably, chief engineer Tadge Juechter said that
technologies used in the new Corvette Z06's frame did not exist five
years ago.
Just like the Corvette Z06 Coupe
unveiled at the Detroit auto show earlier this year, the Z06
Convertible will get a supercharged 6.2-liter V-8 that is expected to
produce at least 625 horsepower and 635 pound-feet of torque. That means
very little time to activate the power-operated rag-top, which can be
opened at up to 30 mph.
One big change for the Z06 Convertible,
formerly rear fender-mounted transmission cooling intakes move
underneath the car, as they were incompatible with the tonneau cover.
The launch of the Corvette Z06 Convertible comes as little surprise. After the launch of the new Corvette Stingray at the 2013 Detroit auto show, Chevrolet followed up with the Stingray Convertible at the Geneva auto show a few months later. Having laid that groundwork, the Z06 Convertible was a logical follow-up.
And think of all that headroom for your helmet.
Along with the price
and launch predictions, Kuo believes the rumored iWatch will come in two
sizes -- both a 1.3-inch and 1.5-inch display. The display is said to
be flexible AMOLED with sapphire cover, which means the screen may be
curved to mimic the shape of a user's wrist. Additionally, Kuo forecasts
the wearable to carry a 200 to 250mAh cell battery that should power it
for at least one day, which is longer than average for many
smartwatches.
Apple was awared 46 new patents by the US Patent and Trademark Office
on Tuesday. One stands out as a compelling, albeit outdated, idea.
Apple
last year filed for a patent on push-to-talk technology, similar to
what Nextel offered before being swallowed up by Sprint and subsequently
shuttered. The patent, which was awarded on Tuesday, describes a method
by which a device owner presses the corresponding button to initiate
the conversation. That data is then transmitted over a cellular or
standard broadband network, hits a push-to-talk server, and reaches its
destination. The feature describes a walkie-talkie-like experience
without any limit on distance.
Push-to-talk was once all the rage
in the mobile world when Nextel brought it to the US as an alternative
to standard calling. After Sprint acquired Nextel, however, the
technology was on the downswing, due in part to device design
constraints and the fact that it ran on a separate technology,
essentially doubling Sprint's costs on cell towers. Before too long,
push-t0-talk was scuttled.
That Apple is now at the very least
thinking about push-to-talk is interesting, if nothing else. But as with
every other major company, Apple files for patents all the time, and
many of those technologies never find their way into products. Adding
push-to-talk to one of its devices, however, could help Apple's iPhones
(or even iPads) stand out in the marketplace.
Last year, AT&T launched an iPhone app that allowed iPhone 5 and iPhone 4S
users engage in conversations in a walkie-talkie-like fashion with its
Enhanced Push-to-Talk technology. The app supported walkie-talkie
communication for up to 250 people at the same time.
In addition
to winning the push-to-talk patent, Apple was awarded intellectual
property on slide-to-unlock functionality, location-based services, and
managing digital content, among other features.
CNET has contacted Apple for comment on its newly granted patents. We will update this story when we have more information.
Netatmo
"Have
you ever seen the rain?" Creedence Clearwater Revival sang. Well, not
only have we seen it, we've monitored it on our smartphones via a
Wi-Fi-enabled precipitation sensor. Which is surely what Creedence meant to sing.
Netatmo's
Rain Gauge is a newly-available accessory for the company's Personal
Weather Station, which tracks environmental changes inside or outside
your home, measuring humidity and air quality among other things.
The
extra module attaches to a standard screw, Netatmo says, and is at home
in your garden, or gathering rainfall in a balcony. It connects to the
Weather Station over Wi-Fi, letting you track the amount of rainfall per
hour, or how much precipitation there's been over a longer stretch of
time. You can also set up custom alerts that will let you know when the
sensors register rainfall -- letting you know it's time to dash home and
take the washing in.
Only works with Weather Station
The Rain Gauge can be pre-ordered as of today
for $79, (or £59 if you're in the UK), though expect to wait 15 days
before it ships. Sadly, it only works with the Weather Station -- which
costs a much heftier $179 -- and you can only associate one Rain Gauge
with each Weather Station.
The accessory could be of interest to
horticultural types who enjoy monitoring their garden from afar,
however, and is part of a growing smart home trend that sees high-tech
tracking features used to give us new data about our everyday lives.
Netatmo has form in this area, revealing the sun-monitoring 'June' wristband in January.
U.S. Cellular puts foot on the 4G LTE gas
U.S. Cellular
U.S. Cellular outlined on Tuesday its intentions to expand and enhance its 4G LTE network this yea
The wireless provider
plans to add more than 1,200 4G LTE cell towers across its footprint
over the course of 2014. In doing so, U.S. Cellular will expand its
existing coverage in 13 states.
Its planned growth will spread out
across a number of states: Kansas, Missouri, Nebraska, Oklahoma, North
Carolina, Iowa, Illinois, Maine, South Carolina, Tennessee, Texas,
Virginia, and Wisconsin.
Looking ahead, Oklahoma City, Emporia,
Kan., and areas of Door County, Wis will also get LTE coverage for the
first time. All told, U.S. Cellular plans to have 4G LTE speeds in more than 93 percent of its network before the year is out.
You could do this for days.
TechSoftZoneFiveVB/YouTube . They
complain there's not a lot to do there. Why, one even took his
girlfriend to "Phantom Of The Opera" last week. I hope they're still
together.
How wonderful, then, that Philadelphia on Saturday saw perhaps the biggest game of Tetris ever, there for all to enjoy.
On the side of the 29-story Cira Centre were LED lights, which you
could control just like the Tetris you might still have on your handheld
device. Well, almost.
As the Associated Press reports, game boys and girls turned up to play something on a scale that Tetris management say has never been seen.
Here was 100,000 square feet of gaming screen.
It was created to
celebrate Philly Tech Week and was the brainchild of Frank Lee, an
associate professor of digital media at Drexel University.
"This
project began as a personal love letter to the games that I loved when
I was a child," he said in a speech. "Pong last year, Tetris this year.
But it ended up as a way of uniting the city of Philadelphia."
It's not always easy to unite the city of Philadelphia, save in its
criticism of the 76ers and its affection for certain cheeses.
This, then, is a considerable achievement.
Still, what might possibly be next? PacMan?
Micron Technology
Micron
Technology doesn't get a lot of attention, but it should. Especially
because it's one of Apple's largest silicon suppliers.
The Boise,
Idaho-based company flies under the radar much of the time in the
non-investor community. But it's the second largest DRAM memory chip
company in the world -- outranked only by behemoth Samsung -- and third
largest chipmaker overall in in terms of wafer capacity, even beating Intel.
And it's now a lot closer to Apple after it completed the $2 billion acquisition of Japanese memory maker Elpida last year. Why? Because Apple uses lots of Elpida memory in its iPhone and iPad products. Most recently, that means the iPhone 5S and iPad Air.
Apple is expected to use Micron's newest DDR4 memory chips in upcoming products. DDR4 will be faster and more power efficient than the current DDR3 technology used widely in PCs, tablets, and smartphones.
Memory
capacities will increase too. Future iPads and iPhones -- and whatever
new mobile products Apple dreams up -- will likely use more system
memory, as designs demand more horsepower (For example, Apple competitor
Samsung uses 3GB of memory in its Samsung's Galaxy Tab Pro 12.2).
So, how big a supplier is Micron to Apple? Well, the last time Micron mentioned Apple was in its 10Q
for the 2014 first quarter (ending November 30, 2013). Apple was listed
as one of Micron's "more than 10 percent of revenue customers," the
chipmaker said to CNET in response to an email query.
With Micron's revenue reported at about $4 billion for the quarter, "more than 10 percent" could be a very large figure.
And as the blog The Obsucre Analyst
points out, Micron received "a mystery payment" of $250 million from
one customer that was "reported during their Q1 2014 conference call and
their 10Q [that] indicates that the payment was 'for product to be
supplied through September 2016.'"
Micron declined to comment on
who that customer may be. But there is precedence for Apple paying very
large sums to Micron. In 2005, Apple paid $500 million to a Micron-Intel joint venture in order to secure flash memory supply.
Sony's 4K-shooting smartphone is now available in Singapore.You can now get Sony's water-resistant 5.2-inch Android
handset in Singapore for 998 Singapore dollars ($792) without an
operator contract or at a subsidised contract price from any of the
three local telcos. And the good news is if you're an bird buyer, you'll
also be getting a Sony Smartband for free.
The all-glass front and back Xperia Z2 comes powered by a quad-core 2.3GHz Qualcomm Snapdragon 801 processor and runs Android KitKat (4.4.2). It shares a similar design and feature set to last year's Xperia Z1, but comes with a new 20.7-megapixel camera that's capable of shooting 4K video.
Those living in the UK and hankering for the Z2 likely won't have to wait for much longer -- despite reports of a delay, the smartphone is still set for an April launch.
Is Google really considering taking on the wireless industry? According to The Information, the company has talked to Verizon and Sprint about leasing wireless capacity to launch a mobile service.
Earlier this week, the blog cited unnamed sources who claimed Google has had talks with Verizon and Sprint over leasing access to their mobile networks in markets where Google has already deployed its Google Fiber 1Gbps broadband service. So far, Google has launched service in Kansas City. And it's building Google Fiber in Austin, Texas, and Provo, Utah. It also recently announced plans to expand the broadband service to several more cities.
Some other blogs have speculated, based on rumors and reports like this, that Google may be interested in becoming a mobile virtual network operator, or MVNO, meaning Google would buy access to these established wireless networks at wholesale rates and resell the service to customers, thus competing directly against wireless operators.
I know what you're thinking. How could Google be so stupid? Didn't the big cable companies try to do the same thing twice and didn't they fail both times?
Yes, you're correct. But before you start jumping to conclusions about the type of service Google may be offering, let me start by saying that the people in charge of Google's broadband strategy aren't dumb. The reports speculating that Google may try to enter the wireless market to compete directly with mobile operators, such as AT&T or Verizon, may be overstated. My theory is that Google is exploring its options and is much more likely to develop a strategy that looks more like what its cable rivals are doing today, rather than rehashing the cable industry's failed attempts to become traditional wireless resellers.
Not surprisingly, neither Google nor either of the wireless carriers would comment on the rumors.
Why a Google MVNO is a bad idea Building a wireless business as an MVNO that uses another wireless operators' setup is a tough way to make money, even for a company like Google. For one, the very fact that you have to rely on another company's wireless network is risky. What's more, even though Google would likely get access to a far more extensive wireless network than it could build itself in a short period of time, the network assets that major wireless carriers offer MVNOs is typically limited.
For example, Verizon doesn't offer any of its wireless reseller partners access to its 4G LTE network. The only MVNOs that get access to Verizon's LTE network are the ones involved in the company's LTE Rural America project. This project lets rural operators use Verizon 700MHz spectrum to build out LTE infrastructure in parts of the country where Verizon doesn't find it cost effective to build a network. Then those operators become partners with Verizon, and their customers can roam onto Verizon and Verizon customers can roam onto their networks.
Sprint also limits the coverage its reseller partners can use to only the Sprint territory. It doesn't include access to any of Sprint's roaming partners, which reduces the overall footrpint the reseller has access to. Still, Sprint does offer access to its 4G LTE network.
And of course, there's the problem of competing with a company whose infrastructure you lease. If the bursting of the telecom bubble in the early 2000s taught the communications industry anything, it's that building a business around someone else's infrastructure just isn't a good idea.
What's more, Google has made it clear that it has no interest in selling traditional voice services. While the cable operators and telephone companies it competes against with Google Fiber all offer phone services as part of a "triple play" bundle, Google decided not to include telephone service as part of its offering because it didn't want to have to comply with all the regulatory requirements. My guess is that the company would be equally averse to complying with wireless voice service requirements.
The last thing to point out here is that selling wireless service doesn't even really make sense for Google, since it's unlikely to help the company's fiber broadband business. This was the harshest lesson the cable companies learned during their foray into the cellular market.
"When we started down this path eight years ago, we believed that if [we] didn't have a cellular service for the quad play, we'd be at a huge disadvantage," Comcast Senior Vice President of Strategic Initiatives Tom Nagel said in a recent interview discussing Comcast's wireless strategy. "But what we learned was that the 'quad' play wasn't really necessary."
Nagle said the quad play sounds good on paper but that the reality is people buy mobile phone and cable services in different ways.
"Wireless may be sold as a family plan," he said. "But each person signs up for the service at different times. Cable and broadband are household services."
What happened with cable anyway? Nearly a decade ago, some of the biggest cable operators around, including Comcast, Time Warner Cable, and Cox Communications, formed a joint venture with Sprint called Pivot, which was supposed to deliver what everyone was calling the "quad play" of services: TV, home phone, broadband, and mobile phone service. The cable operators planned to use this joint venture to resell Sprint wireless service and bundle it with their other services. The idea was to create an even bigger package that would help cable operators retain customers.
Even though the cable operators made a nice little profit from their spectrum sale to Verizon, overall they learned some difficult lessons during the past decade of wireless experimentation.
The biggest lesson was that reselling a wireless operator's mobile phone service was unnecessary and difficult. The second lesson was that having a mobile play is important, but not in the manner you'd expect.
"We realized that licensed spectrum was not critical," Nagel said. "Yet we still believe that making our products mobile is very important. Our mobile strategy today is taking this awesome high-speed data product and extending it. It's like taking your coax cable with you."
Indeed, Comcast, Time Warner, Cablevision, Cox, and Bright House Networks have pooled their assets together to build CableWiFi, the largest Wi-Fi network in the country. The network, which uses unlicensed wireless spectrum, consists of 200,000 indoor and outdoor hot spots. Today, the network is mostly concentrated on the east and west coasts as well as in big cities in the midwest. But the network is growing quickly. And with a recent FCC vote to free up additional unlicensed spectrum in the 5GHz band, these cable operators say they'll be able to do even more with their Wi-Fi network.
Lessons for Google So what does all this mean for Google and its potential plans to launch a wireless service? My guess is that Google is likely looking at developing a mobile strategy more along the lines of what the cable operators are doing, rather than becoming a mobile carrier that directly competes with the wireless giants.
This makes sense for a few reasons. First, with Google Fiber, Google already has the necessary high-capacity backhaul in the ground that's necessary to support an extensive mobile network that acts as an extension of its Google Fiber service. And let's not forget that Google also has experience delivering community based Wi-Fi. The company launched a citywide Wi-Fi project in its hometown of Mountain View, Calif., and it has been operating a free community Wi-Fi network in New York City in the neighborhood surrounding its office in Manhattan.
If Google is indeed talking to Verizon and Sprint about leasing licensed wireless network capacity, my guess is that the company hopes to use these networks only as backup in areas Wi-Fi may not be able to reach. This type of service could end up looking a lot like the service that some interesting new MVNOs, such as Republic Wireless and Ting, are offering.
These companies are offering alternative and very cheap wireless phone and mobile data service. Republic has voice and data plans starting at as low as $10 a month. The company is able to keep prices so low by using Wi-Fi as the main form of network connection and then licensing Sprint's network capacity to handle voice calls and data sessions in areas where Wi-Fi isn't available. The idea is that customers will spend a majority of their time on the free Wi-Fi network and only a fraction of their time on Sprint's network, which Republic pays for by the megabyte.
While the cable industry hasn't yet partnered with a company like Republic or Ting, it's intrigued by their business model and the use of Wi-Fi to provide a low cost alternative wireless service.
"We know of Republic Wireless," Nagel said during our discussion about Comcast's wireless ambitions. "We've talked to them. There are a number of players in that space. And I think it's interesting. It's all about learning and exploring what's possible with Wi-Fi."
As for partnering with a mobile carrier --yet again-- to further its mobile broadband strategy, Nagel admitted Comcast has considered it.
"We look at 4G LTE all the time and evaluate how it might be used," he said. "It's not front and center for us right now. We definitely aren't sitting around saying, 'Boy, I wish we had an MVNO.' But you never know what will happen in the future. The one thing we do know is that Wi-Fi will be the foundation of whatever we do in mobile."
If you need to wake your Mac, you usually will simply go to it and tap the keyboard or click the mouse; however, there may be times when the Mac may be out of reach, such as if it's a server in a locked closet. Granted, as a server you might not want to set the system to go to sleep, but there may be similar instances where a system is inaccessible and you need to wake it up.
Waking a system via the network uses a technology called Wake on LAN, which can be configured in your Mac's system preferences. This allows your system to be woken from sleep or standby modes by a special network datagram called a magic packet. In general, this is done to wake one Mac with another on the same network; however, you can also use it for any device that can send a magic packet, including your iPhone.
To use this, you will first need to know some information about your Mac, and ensure it is set up to be woken through the network. This information includes your Mac's physical MAC address, and optionally the IP address of the system:
With the MAC and IP addresses in your phone, you can tap "Wake Up" to wake your Mac.Screenshot by Topher Kessler/CNET
The Setup
Set the Mac to Wake on LAN by checking the "Wake For Network (or Ethernet/Wi-Fi) Access" in the Energy Saver pane in System Preferences.
Get a Wake on LAN app for your iPhone, some of which are WakeIP, Mocha WOL (free), and iNet WOL.
Launch the App and enter your Mac's MAC address and IP address in the program's configuration.
Tap the option to wake your Mac in the program, and it should wake up.
Note that this process will require your Mac to be on the same network as your iPhone, so this cannot be done over the Internet. If the process does not work, then double-check that you have the right MAC address for your Mac's active network port. You can also try resetting your router, and checking its settings to ensure Wake On LAN features are allowed (sometimes there may be settings that block this).
Cyanogen Inc
Cyanogen Inc, the company founded to promote the popular Android ROM CyanogenMod, gets a new logo that claims to represent choice to consumers.
Looking at the logo, however, I can help but think it somewhat resembles the evil OmniCorp corporation logo in RoboCop. Hopefully, this isn't a sign of things to come.
I'm
not the only one who finds the logo familiar -- commentators at the
Cyanog
Cyanogen Inc
Cyanogen Inc, the company founded to promote the popular Android ROM CyanogenMod, gets a new logo that claims to represent choice to consumers.
Looking at the logo, however, I can help but think it somewhat resembles the evil OmniCorp corporation logo in RoboCop. Hopefully, this isn't a sign of things to come.
I'm
not the only one who finds the logo familiar -- commentators at the
CyanogenMod blog have pointed out that it looks remarkably like Japanese
mobile gaming company Gree.
Gree
The
change in logo also means saying goodbye to seeing CyanngenMod's
mascot, Cid. While he likely won't be appearing on your phone's boot up
screen anymore, the CyanogenMod blog states that he isn't going away and
now belongs to the community.
Lastly, it would seem that we'll
see the new logo on a new build soon, possibly appearing on the upcoming
OnePlus One smartphone that the company has been giving out over the last few days.
enMod blog have pointed out that it looks remarkably like Japanese
mobile gaming company Gree.
Gree
The
change in logo also means saying goodbye to seeing CyanngenMod's
mascot, Cid. While he likely won't be appearing on your phone's boot up
screen anymore, the CyanogenMod blog states that he isn't going away and
now belongs to the community.
Lastly, it would seem that we'll
see the new logo on a new build soon, possibly appearing on the upcoming
OnePlus One smartphone that the company has been giving out over the last few days.
At
the Build 2014 conference keynote in San Francisco, Microsoft’s Terry
Myerson and Joe Belfiore have kicked off things by giving us more
details about Windows 8.1 Update 1, and officially unveiling Windows
Phone 8.1.Windows Phone 8.1 will be available on new devices in
late April and early May, and will roll out to some older, compatible
devices. Windows 8.1 Update 1 will roll out on April 8.
Windows Phone 8.1
The
first part of the keynote was focused on convincing developers that the
Windows Phone ecosystem, with the release of Windows Phone 8.1 this
spring and the securing of more OEM partners, is finally ready to kick
ass. Most of the features that Belfiore ran through we already knew about from previous leaks — but we were treated to one cool new thing: Cortana!
Windows Phone 8.1 Cortana demo
You can ask Cortana to set some amazing reminders, such as “remind me to ask about her puppy”
Unlike Apple’s Siri, which is something of a black box that you merely talk to, Cortana is much closer to Google Now.
Basically, Cortana (yes, that’s her name, much like Siri) sucks up as
much information as you give it — including your contact list, your
email, your searches, etc. — and then proceeds to act as an interactive,
proactive digital assistant. You can also use Cortana like Siri,
though, to set alarms, send messages, and so on.
You can also
perform some very interesting contextual tasks, such as asking Cortana
to remind you to ask someone about something the next time you talk to
them — so, the next time you phone your mom, Cortana might remind you to
ask her about her herb garden, or whatever. Cortana can also hook
straight into third-party apps, such as Skype and Facebook.
Cortana looks very fast and very slick. We’ll be sure to update the post with our own hands-on impressions as soon as possible.
Windows Phone 8.1 notification tray
Belfiore
showed off a cool new feature of Windows Phone 8.1, where apps can
heavily customize the lock screen. The video demos made this new
functionality look very cool indeed. We also got a closer look at the
new notification tray — one of Windows Phone’s most-needed features.
According
to Belfiore, the best (or at least his favorite) feature of Windows
Phone 8.1 is the updated on-screen keyboard, which now allows for
swipe/gesture input.He even showed a video that showed the new Windows
Phone 8.1 keyboard earning the world record for the fastest smartphone
input device.
Windows 8.1 Update 1
Belfiore also stayed on
stage to demo some of the biggest changes in Windows 8.1 Update 1 —
most notably, the ability to interact with Metro apps from the standard
Desktop taskbar. The Windows Store app will also be pinned to the
taskbar by default, so that Desktop users can more easily discover Metro
apps.
Windows 8.1 Update 1, All Apps view showing recently installed apps
There
still doesn’t seem to be a way to launch apps directly from the Windows
Store after installation (why??) — but recently installed apps will now
be highlighted on the All Apps screen, which is nice.
Hilariously,
he noted that these Desktop-oriented changes (which many of us have
asked for since the original Windows 8 beta two years ago) won’t impact
Windows 8′s usability on touchscreen devices. Phew. Personally I’ve been
using Windows 8.1 Update 1 for a couple of weeks (since the official
update files leaked), and it’s definitely an improvement for Desktop
use. (Read: How to install Windows 8.1 Update 1 right now.)
The keynote is still ongoing (it’s a three-hour behemoth that lasts until 2:30pm eastern time), and you can watch a live video feed on Microsoft’s Channel 9 website. We’ll update this post with more details as the keynote continues.
One
of our writers, David Cardinal, is at the Build conference — so stay
tuned for updates over the next few days. We should be seeing a lot of
information about Windows Phone 8.1, Xbox, its new Windows on Devices
push, and lots of other smaller products.
Samsung ChatOn version 3.5 lets you delete messages even
after they've been read, as well as adding new location, language and
file-sharing features.
Samsung ChatOn adds message deletion, finding friends and 1GB file transfer.
Samsung
Samsung has taken a page out of Snapchat's
book -- and then thrown that page away so you can't read it any more.
The own-brand instant messaging service now lets you delete messages
even after they've been read, one of the new features in an update.
ChatOn
users will now be able to erase messages sent in 1:1 chat rooms after
they've been sent and read, by tapping and holding the message bubble
and selecting 'Recall.' Version 3.5 of ChatOn also adds location options
to show your friends where you are and what route you're travelling, as
well as sharing files sized up to 1GB.
Group chats now allow 1,001 Chatty Cathys to pile into group
chats, a significant increase from the current limit of 200 people.
There's support for Arabic, Turkish, Farsi and Hindi language options,
and you can collect both SMS text messages and ChatOn messages from a
particular friend in the ChatOn app.
ChatOn is a cross-platform messaging service for Android, iOS, BlackBerry, Windows Phone and online, so you don't need a Samsung Galaxy phone or tablet to use it. By the end of last year, it had signed up more than 100 million users.
But
ChatOn still lags behind the outrageously popular WhatsApp, which this
week saw its more than 465 million users send and receive a record 64 billion messages in one day.
Snapchat is a messaging app that sees your message self-destruct after 10 seconds. Other ephemeral messaging services include FireChat, which is a kind of chat room where none of the messages are saved.
Screenshot by Lance Whitney/CNET
Android 4.4 KitKat now has a home on 5.3 percent of all Android devices, at least those that visit the Google Play store.In its latest Android Developer Dashboard, Google revealed Google Play stats for all Android versions during the seven days that endedApril 1. KitKat's newest cut of the action doubles the 2.5 percent share seen a month ago and shows continued growth from the 1.8 percent recorded at the beginning of February.Android
Jelly Bean stayed on the top with a collective share of 61.4 percent, a
tiny drop from the 62 percent seen a month ago. But Gingerbread held
third place as the Android flavor that refuses to retire with a cut of
17.8 percent, down slightly from 19 percent the prior month. Ice Cream
Sandwich's hold on the market trickled down to 14.3 percent from 15.2
percent.
Fragmentation continues to be a thorn in Android's side
with multiple versions floating about. But that's an unfortunate side
effect when so many players are involved in the mix.
iOS upgrades
are a relatively simple matter since Apple controls the entire process
from testing to rollout. But Android upgrades involve Google, device
makers, and mobile carriers, each of whom have to play their part before
users get a shot at the latest version.
