Cult of Mac claims to have a source that has seen the long-rumored Apple high-definition television.
“According to our source, who has asked to remain strictly anonymous, the Apple HDTV looks like Apple’s current lineup of LED-backlit Cinema Displays but is ‘much bigger,'” explains the post. “It has a built-in iSight camera for making free FaceTime video conference calls. And it has Siri, the iPhone 4S’s voice-activated virtual assistant.”
Cult of Mac claims the “well-placed” source has provided strong tips in the past, although not all of them have involved concepts that have gone beyond the prototype stage.
In an update to the post, Paul Gagnon of NPD DisplaySearch guesses that an Apple TV product will ship in 2013.
“He noted that Apple’s Chinese supplier, Foxconn, has invested $1.6 billion in Sharp’s TV unit, which can efficiently make large size panels up to 60-inches,” explains the post, adding that Gagnon expects a conventional introduction. “They will not be anything exotic like OLED or 4K resolution. There will likely be two to four models ranging from 40-inches to 60-inches. They will be standard 1920 x 1080p resolution and cost between $1,000 to $2,000 or slightly higher.”
Kentucky-based Gyroskope has developed a platform for musicians to upload video content including live concerts, recording sessions and behind-the-scenes footage.
“Videos are uploaded to a social platform, and the artists set their own prices for how much they want to charge,” reports Fortune. “The videos, which are streamed from the cloud, can be viewed in a Web browser as well as on iPhones, iPads and Android phones.”
Musicians collect all of the revenue, but pay Gyroskope a monthly fee, “ranging from as low as $19 a month for the ‘indie’ plan to $499 a month for the ‘platinum plan,'” explains the article.
Pricing is determined based on the number of videos and required bandwidth.
The service currently has 24 customers including musicians, festival organizers and comedians, but Gyroskope expects to increase this base when it plugs into Facebook and Twitter this month. It also plans to start streaming live events in real-time later this year.
Lenovo broke ground this week on a new facility in China that will focus on smartphone and tablet PC research and development. The company plans to spend $800 million on the effort.
The company also introduced an Internet-enabled television to the China market. “The TV is the first to run Google’s Android 4.0 and is powered by a dual-core 1.5GHz Qualcomm CPU,” reports eWeek.
Independent software developers have already produced more than 1,000 apps for the smart TV, now available in Lenovo’s Le Store online storefront.
“Lenovo has also teamed with SMG’s BesTV to a create an ISmartv joint venture that already provides viewers with more than 300,000 hours of high-definition video resources, and the Smart TV will come with a ‘Sandwich’ user interface said to integrate ‘touch, voice, air mouse, gravity sensor, smart keyboard and [a] traditional television remote control in a ‘Six in One’ Smart Remote Controller,'” explains the article.
Fortune offers interesting snapshots of how large firms are leveraging innovative uses of social media marketing. It’s a compelling overview of the evolving landscape in which many companies are still trying to find their footing.
Walmart, for example, has 15 million fans on Facebook and uses a blend of product announcements and fan interaction for events such as National Puppy Day.
The Home Depot’s Facebook page emphasizes the local community service projects initiated by its employees.
Pepsi’s Facebook page is a vehicle for user-generated marketing “with photos of Pepsi cans or bottles in interesting poses or settings, such as the back of a power boat,” describes the article.
Fortune explains that Starbucks’ Facebook page is “different than many other corporate sites given the almost 180,000 people (and nearly 30 million fans) talking about the company… Mixed in between posts mentioning the company by a viewer’s own Facebook friends, you’ll find deals, a healthy dose of community service, and direct feedback for upset customers. It’s also easy for users to manage their Starbucks card or send e-gifts to friends.”
The Top 10: Walmart, The Home Depot, Pepsi, Disney, Starbucks, Google, Capital One, Nike, JetBlue, McDonald’s.
Google is still the most visited mobile site, but U.S. smartphone users spend more total time accessing Facebook.
According to comScore’s first mobile-media rankings, the real winner is apps themselves. “Four in every five minutes spent with mobile media are with apps, even though equal numbers of people visit mobile websites and apps,” reports Advertising Age.
The report indicates that Facebook accounts for 12 percent of time spent on smartphones, with 78 million adults visiting the social network via phones in March alone.
These figures bode well for Facebook’s efforts in the mobile-ad space. “If Facebook’s recent Internet past is any bellwether, mobile may represent the next major boost to its ad revenue,” suggests Advertising Age.
“In just a few years, Facebook has become the top U.S. seller of online display ads, besting giants like Google, Yahoo and Microsoft,” points out the article. “Google collects the largest share of U.S. mobile-ad spending, which is expected to hit $2.6 billion this year, according to eMarketer.”
Researchers at Google have developed a technique called auto-directed video stabilization designed for recording video via smartphones and mobile devices with greater stability and improved image quality.
The technique mimics how motion is smoothly recorded in professional productions with dollies and tripods.
“The technology supports an algorithm that automatically determines the best camera path and recasts the video as if it were filmed using stabilization equipment,” reports MediaPost. “The research is being integrated into YouTube to support videographers.”
Microsoft Research, meanwhile, is developing motion technology that will enable a mobile device to function as a weapon in a game, such as a sword used to go on the offensive or to block the attacks of other players.
“Phone-to-phone mobile motion games must have the ability to calculate accurate distance and range from each other. Then range, speed, and accuracy are calculated,” explains the post. “The process works similar to Kinect, a fixed infrastructure motion capture system that supports game motion in real-time.”
Google launched Hangouts On Air this week, which is essentially an extension to Google+ group video chat that allows users to stream live to large audiences around the world.
The company has already used this for special broadcasts by David Beckham, the Muppets and President Obama. Moreover, it is training media companies like The New York Times and Wired to run their own broadcasts.
“This is a much more efficient and pervasive way to organize a conversation,” Hangouts product manager Nikhyl Singhal told AllThingsD. “Maybe I needed satellite trucks and switchboards for something like this in the past.”
To initiate, users simply flip the “enable Hangouts On Air” switch, and the video chat converts from private to public view — and not only for an audience of Google+ users. Hangouts On Air can be embedded into Web pages and even a YouTube channel.
Google will be leveraging YouTube’s methods for addressing copyrighted content, hate speech, illegal activity and pornography.
MosChip Semiconductor Technology introduced its Personal Computer Virtualization System last week, which allows users to play games, surf the Internet and stream videos on their TVs.
The PCVS box is built around the company’s MCS8142 chip that “facilitates video streaming, gaming and also virtual functioning of multi-purpose home networking,” reports Business Standard. “While the PCVS box is driving the PC to churn out a movie, games or other entertainment applications to your TV, the PC is still available for serious business work.”
The company is pursuing possible bundling deals with manufacturers of set-top boxes, TVs and PCs.
“We will be launching the product in countries like China, the U.S., India, Japan and Taiwan. Revenues from this product are likely to trickle in from the second quarter of the current financial year,” explained Ramchandra Reddy, chairman and chief executive officer of MosChip.
“Even if we can ship about 500,000 units, we will be doing good business. China alone has the appetite to consume about 20 to 30 million units because of higher adoption levels,” he said.
LinkedIn announced it will acquire presentation service SlideShare for $118.8 million in cash and stock.
SlideShare will continue to operate as a standalone service, while LinkedIn will integrate some of its features.
“The SlideShare acquisition is comprised of about 45 percent cash and 55 percent stock, and is slated to close this quarter, LinkedIn said. Founded in 2006, SlideShare hosts more than seven million presentations and fits LinkedIn’s mission of ‘making professionals more productive,’ executives said during a conference call,” according to the Wall Street Journal.
“Revenue has surged at LinkedIn, which sells recruiting tools to businesses and offers premium subscriptions to users eager to network,” adds the article.
LinkedIn’s net revenue more than doubled in Q1 to $188.5 million. Revenue from premium subscriptions jumped 91 percent and revenue from recruiting services more than doubled.
Microsoft has announced that its new Windows 8 operating system will not play DVDs unless users purchase an upgrade.
“Users will either have to pay to upgrade to the ‘Media Center’ or download extra, third-party software if they do want to play films,” reports The Telegraph.
According to the official Building Windows 8 blog, the change is in response to television and DVD use on PCs being “in sharp decline”. “It claims that Microsoft would have to spend ‘a significant amount in royalties’ to offer support for optical media in future software,” explains the article.
Microsoft will support online media including standards such as H.264, VC-1, MP4, AAC, WMA, MP3, PCM and Dolby Digital Plus codecs. Ultrabooks and tablets running Windows 8 will not have DVD drives.
Nokia plans to include tablets and hybrid mobile devices in its future product offerings, Jorma Ollila said in an interview before stepping down as chairman last week. However, a timetable was not provided.
“Nokia lost its place as the world’s largest handset maker to Samsung Electronics Co. last quarter,” reports Businessweek. “The company still hasn’t produced inexpensive smartphones with broad developer support to compete with Google Inc.’s Android, more than a year after announcing its shift to Microsoft Corp.’s Windows Phone.”
Ollila was CEO from 1992 to 2006, during which Nokia became the world’s largest handset maker. Finnish entrepreneur Risto Siilasmaa will succeed Ollila as chairman.
In a related Computerworld article, Nokia announced that it would ship a 41-megapixel camera phone to Russia and India this month. The company says availability of the Symbian-based phone in other countries will be announced in the near future.
The PureView 808 was developed with lens-maker Carl Zeiss. Nokia has extended its deal with Zeiss to continue developing PureView for future smartphones.
A partial verdict has been issued in Oracle’s copyright infringement case against Google. The federal jury has determined that Google violated some Java copyrights owned by Oracle while building the Android operating system.
However, the jury was at a deadlock regarding whether Google’s practices fell under the fair use provision, which “allows excerpts of copyrighted work to appear in other creative expressions, such as books, movies and computer software,” reports Businessweek.
Arguing that the verdict has no legal standing without the question of fair use answered, Google is expected to pursue a mistrial.
“The impasse reached Monday in San Francisco hobbles Oracle Corp.’s attempt to extract hundreds of millions of dollars from Google on grounds that the search leader pirated parts of Android from Oracle’s Java programming system,” explains the article.
In a statement, Google said it realizes “that fair use and infringement are two sides of the same coin. The core issue is whether the APIs here are copyrightable, and that’s for the court to decide.”
Oracle’s statement reads: “The overwhelming evidence demonstrated that Google knew it needed a license and that its unauthorized fork of Java in Android shattered Java’s central write once run anywhere principle.”
ListenLater is a new cloud-based automation tool from streaming specialist StreamOn that helps radio stations create podcasts.
The digital archive/content management program sorts content for podcasts and pulls material that can’t be used due to copyright issues.
Basic editing tools offer stations the ability to manually customize content before posting to iTunes or websites.
“ListenLater also operates as a DVR by archiving all of a station’s output and then making much of it available as on-demand programming,” reports Radio World. “Stations can flag clips for distribution as social media. According to a release, the program provides flexible advertisement placement options and swapping for replayed programming.”
According to StreamOn President Roger Charest, broadcasters can use ListenLater to redistribute live content and expand revenue with digital advertising. “For listeners, we’re giving them the ability to replay live radio broadcasts and capture and share memorable radio content and experiences with others via social media,” he said.
One day after Microsoft announced its $300 million investment in the Nook, Barnes & Noble chief exec William Lynch unveiled plans to add NFC hardware to future versions of the e-reader.
“By adding NFC chips into the next generation of Nooks, consumers will be able to take the new Nook into any Barnes & Noble retail location and simply scan any print version of a book to bring up a synopsis as well as customer and editorial reviews,” explains Digital Trends.
“This would allow anyone that’s interested in buying the print version to immediately read feedback about the quality of the book before purchase,” adds the post.
Digital Trends notes that NFC technology is faster than QR code scanning: “Consumers with smartphones can scan a QR code or a barcode in order to bring up information about a product, but that process is more time consuming than scanning with NFC. While it’s clear that Barnes & Noble management is attempting to gain an advantage over Amazon by leveraging approximately 700 physical locations with this new concept, it’s unclear how many Nook owners will make a trip into the store instead of simply browsing titles at home through the e-reader.”
Ongo is a news curation platform that leverages a team of editors to combine automation with manual curation.
“While content curation platforms are using algorithms to recommend the news, Ongo has a different tactic in mind,” reports Digital Trends. “It uses a team of editors to handpick the latest, need-to-know news for its paid subscribers.”
The article suggests that Ongo is unique in two ways:
“First, it has built its platform based on authoritative sources of news from the New York Times and Reuters. It prides itself on a strict standard of quality for news delivered to Ongo users, while boasting partnerships with the top content providers within each genre of news.”
“Second, Ongo is run using an internal algorithm recommending a selection of 10,000 articles daily for its editors to choose from. The editors will then curate authoritative and must-know news. It’s a daunting number, but with 40 publishing partners representing just over 100 publications, 60 RSS titles curated from the Web, plus 80 more publication deals in the works, this is just the beginning.”
Ongo currently has 20,000 subscribers. Ad-free use is available for a base subscription price of $1.99/month.
