The Beautiful Daily - TECH

Exclusive: IAC Finally Kills Off Bloglines

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Fri, 10 Sep 2010 17:26:00 +0000

Exclusive: IAC Finally Kills Off Bloglines: "

It’s finally happened. Bloglines,the troubled RSS feed reader owned by IAC, will officially be shut down, the company has told TechCrunch exclusively. The site has had a tumultuous history, so it’s unsurprising that IAC has finally put the platform out of its misery. Bloglines, which is actually operated by IAC Q&A property Ask.com, will be informing users of the news today and will officially be shut down on October 1.

Bought by IAC’s Ask.com in February 2005 for around $10 million, the site has been in jeopardy ever since the launch of Google Reader long ago, compounded by the shift from RSS to realtime news streams. Over the past few years, the site hasn’t launched any new or innovative features to boost usage. While we’ve heard in the past that IAC was considering shutting down the site, the company held off on killing the site permanently and was looking for ways to refurbish Bloglines.

Doug Leeds, President of Ask.com tells us that the reasoning behind closing Bloglines came down to the fact that the market for people who use Bloglines (and RSS readers, he adds) isn’t growing, and is actually shrinking as people shift to realtime news streams such as Twitter to consume content on the web. In IAC’s market research, according to Leeds, there has been a 20 percent decline in people who are consuming RSS feeds as a whole. He says that Ask.com will continue to focus on drive traffic to and enhance its question and answer site.

Google Android Hidden Secret Codes - Tweaking with Vishal

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Thu, 02 Sep 2010 16:52:00 +0000

Recently I got a Google Android mobile phone "Samsung Galaxy I7500". While I'm loving playing with it, I also found some interesting secret codes which can enable/disable lots of hidden settings in the mobile phone. These codes can also show many useful information about the phone.

So in this topic, you'll get several hidden secret codes which can be used in any Google Android mobile phone to access things which are not accessible by default.

FYI These codes have been obtained by decoding various .apk files present in the phone firmware.

*#*#4636#*#*

This code can be used to get some interesting information about your phone and battery. It shows following 4 menus on screen:

Phone information
Battery information
Battery history
Usage statistics

*#*#7780#*#*

This code can be used for a factory data reset. It'll remove following things:

Google account settings stored in your phone
System and application data and settings
Downloaded applications

It'll NOT remove:

Current system software and bundled applications
SD card files e.g. photos, music files, etc.

PS: Once you give this code, you get a prompt screen asking you to click on "Reset phone" button. So you get a chance to cancel your operation.

*2767*3855#

Think before you give this code. This code is used for factory format. It'll remove all files and settings including the internal memory storage. It'll also reinstall the phone firmware.

PS: Once you give this code, there is no way to cancel the operation unless you remove the battery from the phone. So think twice before giving this code.

*#*#34971539#*#*

This code is used to get information about phone camera. It shows following 4 menus:

Update camera firmware in image (Don't try this option)
Update camera firmware in SD card
Get camera firmware version
Get firmware update count

WARNING: Never use the first option otherwise your phone camera will stop working and you'll need to take your phone to service center to reinstall camera firmware.

*#*#7594#*#*

This one is my favorite one. This code can be used to change the "End Call / Power" button action in your phone. Be default, if you long press the button, it shows a screen asking you to select any option from Silent mode, Airplane mode and Power off.

You can change this action using this code. You can enable direct power off on this button so you don't need to waste your time in selecting the option.

*#*#273283*255*663282*#*#*

This code opens a File copy screen where you can backup your media files e.g. Images, Sound, Video and Voice memo.

*#*#197328640#*#*

This code can be used to enter into Service mode. You can run various tests and change settings in the service mode.

WLAN, GPS and Bluetooth Test Codes:

*#*#232339#*#* OR *#*#526#*#* OR *#*#528#*#* - WLAN test (Use "Menu" button to start various tests)

*#*#232338#*#* - Shows WiFi MAC address

*#*#1472365#*#* - GPS test

*#*#1575#*#* - Another GPS test

*#*#232331#*#* - Bluetooth test

*#*#232337#*# - Shows Bluetooth device address

*#*#8255#*#*

This code can be used to launch GTalk Service Monitor.

Codes to get Firmware version information:

*#*#4986*2650468#*#* - PDA, Phone, H/W, RFCallDate

*#*#1234#*#* - PDA and Phone

*#*#1111#*#* - FTA SW Version

*#*#2222#*#* - FTA HW Version

*#*#44336#*#* - PDA, Phone, CSC, Build Time, Changelist number

Codes to launch various Factory Tests:

*#*#0283#*#* - Packet Loopback

*#*#0*#*#* - LCD test

*#*#0673#*#* OR *#*#0289#*#* - Melody test

*#*#0842#*#* - Device test (Vibration test and BackLight test)

*#*#2663#*#* - Touch screen version

*#*#2664#*#* - Touch screen test

*#*#0588#*#* - Proximity sensor test

*#*#3264#*#* - RAM version

NOTE: All above codes have been checked on Google Android phone Samsung Galaxy I7500 only but they should also work in other Google Android phones.

KT launches tablet PC

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Tue, 31 Aug 2010 19:25:00 +0000

KT launches tablet PC: "(Telecompaper) South Korean telecommunications firm KT has unveiled a tablet PC made by local start-up Enspert. The 'Identity Tab' will be available from 10 September, the JoongAng Daily writes. The device runs on Android 2.1, features a 7-inch touchscreen, a 1 GHz processor, and 8 GB of memory. The Identity Tab is priced at KRW 490,000 without a contract or free with a two-year contract at KRW 27,000 per month. Samsung Electronics is planning to release its own tablet PC, the Galaxy Tab, shortly."

Reinvigorate.net Offers Powerful Real-Time Analytics, HeatMaps, And A Touch Of Creepy

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Mon, 30 Aug 2010 23:48:00 +0000

Reinvigorate.net Offers Powerful Real-Time Analytics, HeatMaps, And A Touch Of Creepy: "

If you’re running a website — be it a world-famous news portal or a personal blog — there’s a good chance you spend a lot of time poring over your stats. There are of course plenty of services available to help with this, including the hugely popular Google Analytics. But the older systems tend to have lengthy lag times before they’ll generate a report, whereas services like Chartbeat show things as they happen. Given how quickly things spread across the web these days, future is clearly real-time, and today sees the public launch of another powerful analytics service called Reinvigorate.net.

After logging into the site you’ll see an overview page which displays the number of currently actively visitors, active pages, and a graph of your traffic over the last few hours, all of which update in real-time. If you’d like to drill down more, you can jump into a separate Traffic tab, which includes stats like your daily and monthly visitor counts, bounce rates, and a breakdown of how much traffic each page is drawing. At this point the site doesn’t offer much in the way of a real-time visualization of your traffic the way Chartbeat does, but the company says that it’s coming in the future.

Reinvigorate.net also offers heat-maps, which allow you to see where users are clicking across each of your pages. These have been available through other services, like Crazy Egg, but the Reinvigorate team believes it’s the only service to offer both heat maps and live analytics in one package.

The main overview page also offers “Live Visitor Tracking” — a list of the users currently browsing your site, listed by their username. This is where Reinvigorate.net gets a bit creepy. If you’ve integrated Reinvigorate’s analytics tools, you can track the browsing habits of each of your visitors across your site, labeling each user with the name they used to register or to leave comments with. You can use the real-time overview to see who is currently browsing your site, or you can jump to the ‘Detailed Activity tab’ to look back at any user’s browsing history, including they’ve time spent on each page. This information can of course be very helpful for site owners, and it’s been technically possible to do this kind of tracking for quite a while. But most systems don’t make it this easy, and it’s a bit unnerving.

For example, to test out Reinvigorate.net I was given the test account ‘techcrunch’. You can see my browsing history as I bounced around the site in the screenshot below:

The service has an unusual backstory. It was created as a side project back in 2002 by Sean Mcnamara, who was a longtime MediaTemple partner. In 2008, MediaTemple acquired it through its ventures arm mt ventures, and Mcnamara began working on it full-time. The service has only been available with an invite until now, but has still grown to tracking 15,000 sites and 500 million pageviews over the last 30 days.

Reinvigorate.net runs $10 per month for its beginner package and ramps up to a $20/month Pro account, with custom plans available for “ultra-high traffic sites”. If you’d like to try it out there’s a free 14 day trial. Also see Clicktale, which is significantly more expensive (the “small site” plan starts at $99/month).

CrunchBase Information

Media Temple

Information provided by CrunchBase

Google, Facebook To Microsoft’s Paul Allen: Your Argument Is Invalid

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Fri, 27 Aug 2010 20:36:00 +0000

Google, Facebook To Microsoft’s Paul Allen: Your Argument Is Invalid: "

The entire Internet (aka Facebook, Google, Apple AOL, Facebook, eBay, Netflix, Office Depot, OfficeMax, Staples, Yahoo, and YouTube) has just been served with a vague and vast patent violation suit from Microsoft’s co-founder Paul Allen. As patent suits are notoriously unpopular, the response from tech pundits has been apprehensive. Now the companies named are starting to punch back, a representative from Facebook told TechCrunch, “We believe this suit is completely without merit and we will fight it vigorously.”

A representative from Google also commented on the validity of the suit.

“This lawsuit against some of America’s most innovative companies reflects an unfortunate trend of people trying to compete in the courtroom instead of the marketplace. Innovation — not litigation — is the way to bring to market the kinds of products and services that benefit millions of people around the world.”

According to the WSJ, “Mr. Allen, a pioneer of computer software, didn’t develop any of the technology himself but owns the patents.”

In the suit, Interval Licensing LLC, a company owned by Allen, lists violations of four decade old patents (6,263,507, 6,034,652, 6,788,314, 6,757,682) that seem to cover basic operations of almost any Internet company including Google, Facebook and Microsoft who unsurprisingly is not listed by Allen as a defendant — especially patent #657. It also seems as though patents #657 and #314 are exactly the same.

Patent #507 “Browser for Use in Navigating a Body of Information, With Particular Application to Browsing Information Represented By Audiovisual Data.”

Patent #657 “Attention Manager for Occupying the Peripheral Attention of a Person in the Vicinity of a Display Device.”

Patent #314 “Attention Manager for Occupying the Peripheral Attention of a Person in the Vicinity of a Display Device.”

Patent #682 “Alerting Users to Items of Current Interest.”

“Defendant Facebook has infringed and continues to infringe one or more claims of the ’682 patent. Facebook is liable for infringing the ’682 patent under 35 U.S.C. § 271 by making and using websites and associated hardware and software to provide alerts that information is of current interest to a user as claimed in the patent.”

“Defendant Google has infringed and continues to infringe one or more claims of the ’682 patent. Google is liable for infringing the ’682 patent under 35 U.S.C. § 271 by making and using websites and associated hardware and software to provide alerts that information is of current interest to a user as claimed in the patent.”

Earlier this month TechCrunch’s Vivek Wadha wrote about why patents in the technology industry are somewhat absurd.

“But in software these are just nuclear weapons in an arms race. They don’t foster innovation, they inhibit it. That’s because things change rapidly in this industry. Speed and technological obsolescence are the only protections that matter. Fledgling startups have to worry more about some big player or patent troll pulling out a big gun and bankrupting them with a frivolous lawsuit than they do about someone stealing their ideas.”

Paul Allen might have just provided us with the most extreme proof of Wadha’s argument yet.

10 Sites to Play with Colors and Create Color Palettes of Your Own

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Tue, 24 Aug 2010 21:02:00 +0000

10 Sites to Play with Colors and Create Color Palettes of Your Own: "

In a way, it’s good that we can just enjoy colors without understanding them. They are actually quite complex. Okay, we use it match clothes or our home décor. But then, contrasting colors can set off one another — two contrasting colors can clash. Then there are the complementary colors that can flatter each other. You can reduce some of the complexity by using color palettes.

If you are a web designer, or want to be one or you simply like to match different colors to see how they look; play around with these online color palette generators.

A color palette in its simplest definition is a range of colors that’s used to make a graphic or a colored work visually consistent. Take the example of our own website which has been designed with a color combination that’s uniform across the site. An example of a specific palette is the web safe color palette (a set of 216 colors) that makes them appear the same across browsers and OS.

ColoRotate

ColoRotate helps to mix and match colors in 3D. The flash-based website lets you browse the already created color palettes or adjust them according to your tastes. You can use the color diamond (or use the slider mode) to play with different color combos and create new palettes. The joysticks make for easy adjustment of color, contrast, and tint, or for toggling foreground and background colors. The palette preview also has a dropdown that allows for various vision deficiencies.

COLOURlovers

Call this a community for color lovers. Or a ‘colorful’ community because it is all about creative people sharing color palettes and patterns. The website is well organized with sections like Channels (which showcases color usage for weddings, home, fashion etc), and Trends (an index for what’s happening with color in different media). But for more hands on work, check Tools where you can create palettes and patterns. You might be interested in Themeleon which lets you create custom themes for your Twitter profile.

kuler

One of our readers suggested the Adobe tool in our How to Search for the Perfect Color Scheme post. You can create cool variations from an image or from the color wheel. If you hit a white wall, you can browse through the many color themes with cooler names already on the site. Try out Pulse where you can browse through thousands of color themes with just a click on a histogram or the color wheel. You can straightaway copy the color values to your clipboard.

Color Scheme Designer

Color Scheme Designer is an online color tool that makes it real easy to design the color scheme of your website or blog. Decide on the type of color scheme you want your site to be based on and then pick and choose the colors from the color wheel. Each color scheme presents the primary colors and their complementary colors. You can get a feel from the preview and also adjust it according to text, light and dark backgrounds. Check out our thorough review on Color Scheme Designer.

Colr

Using your mouse and the site’s random Flickr image (or your own), you can generate color schemes. You can pick and drop colors to further fine tune your scheme. You can also fetch colors from websites by giving a URL.

Toucan

The color palette editor is one of Aviary’s online tools. You can choose up to 20 colors per palette using color combos or an uploaded image. You can import images from Flickr, Picasa, Tumblr, and Facebook. Import from a URL is also provided but I was getting an unknown error with it. Toucan also lets you check and preview the final palette using a dropdown with color deficiency options.

Color Palette FX

If you want to create a color palette from an uploaded image, Color Palette FX is one of the simpler tools going around. Upload a JPEG or PNG and the palette gets made for you. Sort palettes by hue, saturation, brightness, or color frequency and then export them to your graphical application.

Colorjack

The online tool starts off with numerous color blocks which you can mouse over and expand the palettes to edit them. Other tools include Color Galaxy (set of 27 color databases), Color Sphere (for the right color schemes and harmony), Color Studio (create your own colors), Color Conversions Library, and more.

Color Explorer

Color Explorer comes with a quiver full of digital color tools. You can pick a color along with its minute variations. You can browse through common color libraries that have samples of popular print colors as well as RGB colors. You can pick a base color and match colors around it and automate it using the various algorithms given. But what could be of real value are the color analysis and conversion tools that help to match your palette to the prevalent standards and different color systems.

Genopal

Just like the last web tool, Genopal too gives a color designer a choice of tools like a palette creation tool from images and words. The fun and interesting one is a recoloring tool which lets you apply color to any uploaded image. For example, Pic2Graphics lets you transfer ‘color mood’ between two images.

Because our eyes can sometimes lie to us, these online color palette tools help to mix ‘n match and tryout a lot of options before you settle down on the right one. Which is the color tool of your choice? Let us know.

A beleza do JUMPBOX

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Tue, 24 Aug 2010 14:55:00 +0000

Estou ressucitando (ainda estão na UTI, mas tenho esperanças) minhas habilidades técnicas para Administração de Sistemas e Programação. Há algum tempo atrás, tomei a decisão de só ser nerd para meu proveito próprio e não para outros. Estava cansado de administrar projetos que simplesmente não iam para frente por motivos "não-técnicos", mas isso é história para outro POST...

Bom, alguns anos depois, a vida do desenvolvedor ficou muito mais fácil. IDEs avançados fazem com que simplesmente não precisemos lembrar sequer da sintaxe de comandos... ehehehe... mas isso TAMBÉM é assunto de outro POST...

O POST de hoje fala como montar uma infra básica de desenvolvimento, pré-produção e porque não produção também em ambientes virtualizados.

Tudo começa com o Jumpbox.

Jumpbox é um site que se especializou em montar máquinas virtuais pré-configuradas com uma série de pacotes e que podem ser ativadas com um VMWare Player básico, mas que também podem rodar "out-of-the-box" num ambiente EC2 da Amazon.

Basicamente, isso significa que você pode desenvolver seu sistema do jeito que você quiser. Terminando o desenvolvimento e homologando a coisa, você manda TUDO (sistema E ambiente) para um ambiente virtualizado como o EC2. Pense que você também pode construir muito rapidamente um ambiente de produção usando a imagem de sua máquina virtual.

Tudo muito fácil, tudo muito simples, tudo muito rápido.

Estou baixando umas máquinas virtuais e vou postando aqui os desenvolvimentos.

Por enquanto, visite Jumpbox.

Highly recommended... :)

Mobile Browser Comparison: Windows Phone 7 vs. iPhone vs. Android [Video Demonstration]

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Tue, 24 Aug 2010 12:56:00 +0000

Mobile Browser Comparison: Windows Phone 7 vs. iPhone vs. Android [Video Demonstration]: "

Smartphone site Pocketnow demos a side-by-side comparison of Microsoft's smartphone OS, Windows Phone 7, running its mobile version of Internet Explorer. One impressive feature includes background page loading (allowing you to load several pages at a time). Probably better news: The device they're testing Windows Phone 7 on isn't a final production unit, nor is it final software, but when running side-by-side with a Nexus One and an iPhone 4, it fares pretty well. [Pocketnow] More »

Fraudsters Drain PayPal Accounts Through iTunes

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Mon, 23 Aug 2010 21:54:00 +0000

Fraudsters Drain PayPal Accounts Through iTunes: "

Reports are appearing this morning about a major security hole in iTunes accounts linked to PayPal. At least one group of scammers has found a way to charge thousands of dollars to iTunes accounts through PayPal. One targeted customer told us, “My account was charged over $4700. I called security at PayPal and was told a large number of iTunes store accounts were compromised.” His email was filled with nearly 50 receipts from PayPall for $99.99 each. He was able to catch it before his bank disbursed funds to PayPal.

But others were not so lucky. A quick search of Twitter and Facebook shows that the problem is not isolated. Joey Bruce on Twitter laments:

Someone hacked my iTunes/paypal acct and drained everything from my bank account. Life is kicking me in the balls while I’m down.

A search of public status updates on Facebook uncovers more people with the same issue:

Darn…what a day! Someone hacked into my itunes account and bought a crap load of downloads and emptied out my paypal account….grrrrr. . . . Paypal is very cooperative but there is just about no way to get ahold of itunes. I did call paypal and they assured me that they had contacted itunes and it was going to be taken care of in my favor.

so apple/itunes had a security breach & someone bought over $500 worth of music through my paypal account. just what i wanted 2 b dealing w/ while in San Diego! AWESOME!!!

Everybody watch your itunes account closely. I just got hacked for almost $1000.00 worth of software, videos and music. Hopefully paypal will refund it all. . . . This happened within the last few hours. Once transaction after another.

AT least PayPal is aware of the issue, but it seems like the problem is on the iTunes side.

CrunchBase Information

iTunes

PayPal

Information provided by CrunchBase

Brazil adds 1.89 million new mobile users in July

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Mon, 23 Aug 2010 21:17:00 +0000

Brazil adds 1.89 million new mobile users in July: "(Telecompaper) The number of mobile phone users in Brazil grewnto 187 million in July, according to the telecommunications regulator Anatel. In July, 1.89 million new users were added, an increase of 1.02 percent over June. In the first seven months of 2010 Brazil recorded 13.06 million new users, the second best result for this period in history, behind only the same period in 2008 (14.35 million). With the result in July, Brazil now has 96.83 mobile phone users for every 100 inhabitants. Of the total number of mobile phones, 153.78 million (82.22%) are prepaid and the remaining 33.24 million (17.78%) postpaid. Vivo remained the market leader with 56.57 million users, or 30.25 percent of the total. It is followed by Claro (25.42%), TIM (24.05%), Oi (19.93%) and others (0.35%). Brazil had more than 16 million 3G mobile accesses in July, of which 11.02 million from mobile phones and 5.4 million from modems, according to the Anatel figures. Over 604,500 new 3G terminals were enabled during the month and 109,209 modems for broadband access."

When Wrong, Call Yourself Prescient Instead

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Mon, 23 Aug 2010 19:44:00 +0000

When Wrong, Call Yourself Prescient Instead: "

In 1997 Wired Magazine declared the browser dead. “Sure, we’ll always have Web pages. We still have postcards and telegrams, don’t we?” said Kevin Kelly and Gary Wolf.

They were wrong, of course. The browser is still the killer app of killer apps. It’s the single most important way that we interact with the Internet. From Wikipedia to webmail to YouTube, it’s the universal virtual machine that has made pc operating systems irrelevant. If all you have is a browser, you’ll be just fine.

Fast forward to today and Wired is once again saying the browser is dead. “Over the past few years, one of the most important shifts in the digital world has been the move from the wide-open Web to semiclosed platforms that use the Internet for transport but not the browser for display,” says Chris Anderson.

And about that 1997 article: They weren’t wrong, they were prescient. “The point was altogether prescient,” Anderson says now of that article. Overheard on the TechCrunch Yammer stream: “Possibly the greatest explanation for being dead fucking wrong that I’ve ever seen.”

Wired is still wrong. Way wrong.

The new article is based on a foundation of data supplied by Cisco that shows web traffic, as taking a smaller piece of total Internet traffic. The chart itself is misleading, as BoingBoing pointed out. But even taken at face value, it’s still wrong.

Wired’s argument, based on the data, is that the browser is dead and apps, like iPhone apps, are taking over. “This is not a trivial distinction. Over the past few years, one of the most important shifts in the digital world has been the move from the wide-open Web to semiclosed platforms that use the Internet for transport but not the browser for display.”

Um, ok. But the data doesn’t show this at all. Sure, video traffic is expanding. Which makes sense because it’s a heavy load. But most of it is also being transported via Flash and HTML right through a web browser. And most app data is counted under “web” in Wired’s graph, meaning its all lumped together with normal browser data.

In other words, Wired took a misleading graph and then drew all kinds of conclusions based on it that don’t even make sense in their make believe world. It’s like they showed a picture of a banana and said it explains the rising cost of gasoline.

In fact, the only thing Wired’s chart really shows is that video files are really big, and people like to watch them in browsers.

The browser isn’t dead. Web pages aren’t dead. HTML works really, really well. Check out Facebook’s iPad “app,” for example. You don’t download it from an app store, you just point your browser to touch.facebook.com. Not only does it work really well, Steve Jobs doesn’t get to have a veto right over people using it. It’s no wonder that we’re seeing a surge of traffic from the iPad to our site, via a browser.

Apps are great on mobile phones with small screens. But they are a pain to install and keep synchronized. Eventually having less local software will make sense on phones, too. All you really need is that browser virtual machine and you can pull everything else from the cloud. This is obvious. Only a bunch of hipster tech journalists checking email on their iPads all day* would think otherwise, and then make up a bunch of data to support their argument.

*Wired, not us.

There’s No Success Like Failure: Google’s Biggest Product Flops

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Mon, 23 Aug 2010 17:39:00 +0000

Isso é interessante....

Here’s some infographic perspective on the eve of Facebook’s copycat Facebook Places launch, which has some ringing the death knell for location based startups Foursquare and Gowalla.

A stroll through the Google graveyard is a lesson in how rarely it works out when successful companies stop focusing on their core competency to go after the little guys. Between Wave, Jaiku, and Foursquare precursor Dodgeball, Google’s a repeat offender in the “failing to kill the next big thing” department.

With the launch of today’s check-in utility, it seems like the Facebook product team might be following in the search giant’s startup-crushing footsteps. After all, when was the last time you asked a Facebook Question?

Image: Wordstream

Old Books Vs. New Books

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Mon, 23 Aug 2010 15:35:00 +0000

A imagem fica meio esquisita no blog, mas dá para ler...

Old Books Vs. New Books: "

In round #856 of the Print vs. Web saga, Newsweek has come up with the above infographic/artifact. At least they didn’t call it “Old Books Vs. New Books.”

While Nicholas Negroponte earlier this month claimed that the physical book would be dead in five years, the more generous folks at Newsweek still think that the book has some fight left.

Putting forth such vague statements such as “quality hardcover books (in direct light) are still easiest on the eye,” and the frightening because it’s true “$249.2 million vs. $29.3 million in publishers sales totals,” the infographic seems really unsure about the future.

Let me help you out here Newsweek. No matter what the numbers say right now, in 2010, I can pretty much guarantee that in 2020 the advantage will lean heavy towards the E-book side of the graph.

Well maybe not the Jane Austen part.

Image: Newsweek

WorldTV Goes HD, Heads Towards Overlaying Traditional TV

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Mon, 23 Aug 2010 14:54:00 +0000

: "WorldTV, which funnels the world of web video as a TV-like experience, has gone High-Definition, adding full support for YouTube HD videos. The feature allows users to set the quality for how they would like YouTube videos to be played and scales the video to the highest quality available.

On WorldTV the idea is that you create you own channel of preferred web videos, eventually coming up with something that feels more like linear TV. So far there have been 225,000 channels created on WorldTV from users in 200 countries. Interestingly the site is biggest in Brazil.

WorldTV users use the site's chanel editing tools to incorporate clips from YouTube, live video, and 25 other sites, like an iPhoto of videos. Every playlist creates a channel which is then embeddable. The end game will be a WorldTV app which turns your TV into Internet video TV.

"

Telenet Delivers Mobile Services

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Tue, 17 Aug 2010 23:04:00 +0000

Telenet Delivers Mobile Services

Vodafone preps MVNO rush with Teleena

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Fri, 13 Aug 2010 18:12:00 +0000

Vodafone is to approve a number of smaller MVNOs in the next months via its arrangement with aggregator firm TeleenaVodafone UK will open its doors to a number of smaller MVNO operations in conjunction with mobile virtual network aggregator (MVNA) partner Teleena.Vodafone UK wholesale boss Tim Stone (pictured) remarked: “We have a strong belief in small as well as large players. It is about supporting the right partners and working with them.“And we clearly see that a number of small players can be sufficient to make it worthwhile. But within that, we will not just agree a load of MVNOs just for the sake of it. We apply the same rules of success to that market also.”Both Orange and Three have recently brought on a number of smaller MVNOs via similar wholesale arrangements with Transatel and X-Mobility, respectively.

US mobile data service revenues grow 22% in Q2

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Thu, 12 Aug 2010 19:43:00 +0000

US mobile data service revenues grow 22% in Q2: "(Telecompaper) Mobile data service revenues in the US reached USD 13.2 billion in the second quarter, up 6 percent from Q1 and up 22 percent from a year earlier, according to Chetan Sharma. The market researcher said in its quarterly update that the market is on track to reach its annual forecast of USD 54 billion. Verizon and AT&T accounted for 75 percent of the revenues and 62 percent of the subscribers. Verizon was just ahead of AT&T with 32 percent of total subscribers, versus 31 percent for its rival. Sprint followed with 16 percent and T-Mobile USA had 13 percent. Verizon was also the largest mobile data services provider by revenue worldwide in the first half of 2010, and Chetan Sharma expects AT&T and China Mobile to pass number-two NTT DoCoMo by the end of the year. In terms of ARPU, the US industry saw an increase of USD 0.46 in Q2, reversing the decline of the past three quarters. Voice ARPU was down 13 cents from Q1, while data ARPU grew by 58 cents. Data contributed an average 31 percent of ARPU in Q1, with non-SMS services accounting for an estimated 60-65 percent of revenues. Verizon led the market in data ARPU with USD 17.37, followed by AT&T and Sprint. In H1, the average US consumer was using approximately 230 MB per month of data, up 50 percent in six months. Chetan Sharma said the US is at the forefront of mobile broadband developments, as the higher penetration of smartphones and data cards versus countries such as Japan and Korea drives data consumption. Around 31 percent of US mobile subscribers now have a smartphone, and the market is further supported by the growing number of connected devices on the market. This is driving accelerated roll-outs of 3.5G/4G networks in the country."

Quem acha que o mercado de dados móveis vai sofrer alguma retração??

Worldwide mobile phone sales grow 13.8% in Q2

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Thu, 12 Aug 2010 19:20:00 +0000

Worldwide mobile phone sales grow 13.8% in Q2: "(Telecompaper) Worldwide mobile device sales to end users totalled 325.6 million units in Q2, up 13.8 percent from the same period in 2009, according to a study by Gartner.

Smartphone sales to end users accounted for 19 percent of worldwide mobile device sales, an increase of 50.5 percent from the second quarter of 2009.

Although the mobile phone market showed double-digit growth this quarter, average selling prices were lower than expected and margins fell.

Gartner attributes the decline in ASPs to a stronger dollar, a depreciating euro and intense competition that drove price adjustments and changes to the product mix.

Manufacturers such as LG and Samsung pursued market share in a low-margin market but this approach proved risky, as shown by LG's decline of 27.8 percent in ASP in Q2. While new product introductions from Apple, HTC and Motorola, along with the drop in ASPs, drove strong sales of smartphones, shortages of components such as Amoled displays impaired sales volumes of some of the more popular new smartphones. HTC made its debut in the top ten worldwide ranking, in eighth position with 139.1 percent growth year-on-year. This reflects the popularity of its Android portfolio and also a more aggressive branding strategy compared to a year ago.

In the second quarter, Nokia's mobile device sales to end users reached 111.5 million units and a share of 34.2 percent. Nokia's economies of sales and excellent distribution enabled it to hold on to the top spot in the mobile device market, but the company lost 2.6 percentage points year-on-year. Samsung sold 65.3 million devices in Q2, which translated into a 20.1 percent market share. Although Samsung's sales were strong in developing markets, its shift in product mix caused an overall decline in ASP. Research In Motion's mobile device sales reached 11.2 million units in Q2, confirming RIM's position as the fourth largest brand with a share of 3.4 percent in Q2. Apple's mobile device sales reached 8.7 million units or a 2.7 percent share of the overall mobile device market, but 14.2 percent of the smartphone market. Apple maintained its seventh position in the worldwide mobile device market and held the third position in the worldwide smartphone market. In the smartphone OS market, Android expanded rapidly in Q2, overtaking Apple's iPhone OS to become the third-most popular OS in the world. In the US, it also overtook RIM's OS to become the top smartphone OS in the region."

Worldwide enterprise IT spending to grow 2.9% in 2010

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Wed, 11 Aug 2010 22:14:00 +0000

Worldwide enterprise IT spending to grow 2.9% in 2010:

"(Telecompaper) Worldwide enterprise IT spending across all industry markets will grow 2.9 percent and surpass USD 2.4 trillion in this year, according to a study by Gartner.

The study adds that industries are continuing to return to growth after a challenging year in 2009, when IT spending by vertical market totalled USD 2.3 trillion, a 5.9 percent decline from 2008. Utilities and the national and international government sectors will experience the strongest growth rates, with IT spending growing 4.7 and 4 percent respectively this year. Utilities industry's total IT spending will be USD 125.6 million, communications media and services will grow at 3.6 percent with total IT spending of USD 392.5 million. This will be followed by the healthcare industry with 3.2 percent growth and IT spending of USD 88.9 million. Banking and securities will grow 2.8 percent to USD 390.5 million, retail industry by 2.7 percent to USD 146.2 million. Wholesale trade will grow 2.6 percent with USD 83.3 million in IT spending, education industry by 2.5 percent with USD 64.2 million in IT spending. Gartner recommends that technology and service providers target high-growth industry segments through 2014 with most-likely scenario for enterprise IT spending growth at 3.5 percent, as well as undertaking further analysis of large, slow-growth segments for unusual growth opportunities at the subindustry segment level. However, Gartner research director Kenneth Brant advised technology providers to exercise caution with regard to the economy and its impacts on enterprise IT markets. Furthermore, Brant urged technology providers to continue to promote IT services that deliver 'cost optimisation' through 2011, which he contends will be a persistent and overriding value for IT buyers even as markets return to growth."

Motorola, Verizon partner on Android TV tablet - report

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Wed, 04 Aug 2010 11:33:00 +0000

via Telecompaper Headlines em 04/08/10

(Telecompaper) Motorola is developing a tablet device that will allow users to watch TV on it. The device, which will have a 10-inch screen and operate on Google's Android software, could launch as early as this autumn in the US, the Financial Times reports, citing people familiar with the project. The device is expected to tie closely to Verizon's Fios digital pay-TV, people briefed on the plans said. Motorola also manufactures the set-top boxes for the Fios service. Motorola co-CEO Sanjay Jha said in May the company was exploring tablet options using Google's Android smartphone software. "We're very focused on participating in this convergence between mobility and home, and I actually think you will see some products from us in a very short period of time," he said, without providing details.

First Post

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Wed, 04 Aug 2010 11:20:00 +0000

This will be the place where I will post generic ideas and news and whatever about techstuff and things that are currently on my radar.

Contributions are most welcome!

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