Canon announced the long-awaited EOS 5D Mk III DSLR, which takes its place between the EOS 5D Mark II and Canon’s professional EOS 1D X.
“This solid looking shooter packs a new 22.3-megapixel full-frame CMOS sensor (increased from 21.1 on the Mk II), a high-performance DIGIC 5+ imaging processor and a 61-point High Density Reticular Autofocus (AF) system — the last two being lifted from the 1D X,” reports Digital Trends.
The new camera is being released on the 25th anniversary of Canon’s EOS camera system.
“The Mk III also features a 1,040,000-dot 3.2-inch rear LCD screen — again pulled from the top-of-the-range 1D X camera — and allows photographers to display two images side by side, which is a first for an EOS camera,” adds the post. “Its ISO capability stretches from 100 to 25,600 in the standard range; it can also be pulled down to 50 at the lower end and whacked up to two you’ll-probably-never-need settings of 51,200 and 102,400.”
The EOS 5D Mk III will ship at the end of this month for $3,499 (body only).
Following the successful use of iPads by commercial airlines, the U.S. Air Force announced it will replace its paper-based flight bags with the Apple tablet.
“Air Mobility Command, which provides transport and refueling services to the U.S. military using cargo planes and other military aircraft, announced on Friday that the U.S. Air Force will be buying as many as 18,000 iPads worth over $9 million to be used as electronic flight bags by its pilots,” reports Digital Trends.
In a related story from The Verge, the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives announced it will be switching out its BlackBerrys for new smartphones with better “ease of use and adaptability,” the agency said.
“The iPhone is set to be the big winner here, with the ATF selecting Apple’s handset to replace 60 percent (or 2,400) of those units starting in March. The remaining 1,400 will be phased out and replaced with a mix of other smartphones, though the agency hasn’t specified which mobile OS it will employ for those devices. The entire switch is expected to be completed within one year,” The Verge reports.
Mobile payments startup Square plans to help merchants modernize point-of-sale devices with its new iPad app called Register.
The app, announced Monday morning and currently available, is designed to help merchants ditch traditional cash registers.
“The app accepts cash and all major credit cards, can track a customer’s purchase history, and even allows for analytics to see which times are the busiest and what days aren’t performing up to snuff,” reports VentureBeat. “The app also allows for employee permissions, tipping, and smart receipts.”
Additionally, Square announced it had reached $4 billion in annual mobile payments.
The post includes screenshots and a 1-minute video promo.
Digital Trends suggests location-based apps Foursquare and Gowalla are about to face some competition.
“There’s a new trend set to emerge at this year’s SXSW known as ‘ambient social networking.’ At the helm of this burgeoning trend is the budding two-person startup, Highlight, headed by founder and CEO, Paul Davison,” indicates the post.
Highlight’s goal is simply to connect users with similar interests by running silently behind-the-scenes.
“Rather than the check-ins feature that even Foursquare founder, Dennis Crowley, has admitted was losing steam, ambient social networking applications will only notify users with a pop-up notification when another user of the same application approaches your immediate vicinity,” adds Digital Trends.
Highlight decided to launch in time for SXSW. From the company blog: “We want Highlight to make Austin even more fun for you — by surprising you with hidden connections, surfacing information about the people you meet, and helping you remember these people when you bump into them at a random New York coffee shop a year later. You can expect to see some useful enhancements to search and discovery, new ways to interact with people, and continued improvements to performance and battery life.”
Peel is a free app for Android and iOS devices that draws on TV show recommendations made on a social platform.
“The app is similar to how Pandora recommends music, or how Netflix suggests films,” reports Reuters.
The company has worked with Samsung to install the app on some Samsung products with infrared capability.
“The app also pairs up with the Peel Smart Remote for consumers who want to control their television sets without using their remote controls,” notes the article. “The pear-shaped piece of hardware takes commands from the app and then uses infrared to control the television, settop box, or virtually any other device in a user’s living room.”
“It’s about how to use an intelligent app to find the right show to watch based on the shows I like today and based on shows my friends are watching,” says Scott Ellis, vice president of marketing for Peel.
“Ellis said that the next steps for the app are to integrate a more interactive second-screen experience for television shows. The company plans to focus on the social aspect of the app going forward, and to announce a partnership with a major television show in the coming weeks,” reports Reuters.
The New York Times takes a look at how time-shifting is impacting consumer behavior and the way the industry analyzes television ratings.
The article looks at ABC’s immensely popular “Modern Family” as an example: “No other show on television comes close to that comedy in adding 18- to 49-year-old viewers who record shows and watch them later. So far this season, new episodes of ‘Modern Family’ have grown from a first-day average of 7.1 million viewers in that age group to 10.2 million, counting seven days’ worth of added viewing — a gain of 3.1 million each week, according to Nielsen Research.”
However, time-shifters are not currently including in calculating the overnights.
According to Charles Kennedy, head of research for ABC, the overnights still “set the tone and the agenda” at the networks, influencing marketing and programming decisions.
He adds: “we’ve had to build in this fudge factor,” Kennedy said, “when we know — at least with shows that already have a track record — that the total number will be significantly higher.”
What matters most for networks and advertisers at the end of the season in May, “is the ranking of shows once digital video recorder playback is included in the viewership totals.”
After suffering setbacks in the past year, Sony and AT&T will release the foldable dual-screen Tablet P this week.
The unique tablet will be available with a two-year 4G HSPA+ service agreement from AT&T for $400 — or with month-to-month or prepaid-service data plans for around $550.
“Sony’s latest tablet certainly carries a unique form factor,” reports Digital Trends. “The Tablet P weighs a measly 0.83 pounds, and features dual 5.5-inch displays that fold together. It’s powered by Google’s Android 3.2 (Honeycomb) operating system and — in a nod to gamers — comes with full PlayStation certification, which means users can download and play original PlayStation games.”
“Customers will also be able to connect wirelessly to Sony’s music and video-streaming services, as well as download ebook content from Sony’s Reader Store,” adds the post.
Twitter will launch Promoted Tweets and Promoted Accounts across its official mobile apps.
This will be the network’s first effort to reintroduce promoted content since a disappointing effort last year, suggests Wired.
This time, promoted content will be integrated into users’ main timelines and search results, rather than featured in a separate area of the screen. The content should also be easily dismissible by scrolling or swiping.
“Twitter announced that sponsored tweets and accounts would soon be rolling out to the timelines, searches and suggested follows seen by users of the social network’s mobile client apps,” indicates the article. “Promoted Accounts will appear immediately in user searches and suggestions with the latest updates to Twitter’s official mobile apps for Android and iOS.”
“Users of third-party mobile clients, of course, won’t see any of that advertising at all — something bound to be a point of continued tension between Twitter and the developers who use its API,” reports Wired.
Sales of virtual goods in the U.S. hit $2.3 billion last year.
According to Frank N. Magid Associates and PlaySpan, this marks a 28 percent increase over 2010.
The firms report that fans of games such as Zynga’s “FarmVille” spent an average of $64 on virtual goods last year.
Nearly half of gamers who purchased virtual items conducted transactions through games played on consoles, while 42 percent made purchases within game apps and 40 percent used prepaid cards obtained at retail outlets.
“Among other findings, only 26 percent have bought virtual goods as gifts, suggesting a bigger opportunity in that area,” suggests MediaPost. “Key factors affecting purchases included price, the genre of the game, friends’ recommendations, user reviews and if a game can be played with friends.”
Media access management is expected to be a catchphrase at this year’s NAB Show.
Vendors will be showcasing MAM tools that help facilitate more efficient interaction among TV stations’ news, promotion, sales, graphics and engineering departments.
“At the 2012 NAB Show, the top MAM vendors will introduce still more features and greater workflow efficiencies, with an emphasis on automation; more flexible control of media at the station and through mobile devices; and playout to a wide range of video platforms,” reports TVNewsCheck. “Some vendors will even stretch the definition of media management to automatically confirm commercial runs and generate client invoices.”
An early snapshot of some of the top products scheduled to be on display: Invenio MAM software by Harris integrated with its NewsForce server/editing platform; the latest from Avid emphasizing “improvements in workflow orchestration, innovative control of automation and remote access over mobile devices;” advances in scalable long-term storage from SGL; Grass Valley’s channel-in-a-box product; NVerzion’s “systemwide controls, cross-platform operation, automatic ingest from media services and automated commercial traffic and client billing;” and a new cloud-based service for media storage and emergency restoration from Front Porch Digital.
Apple announced Saturday morning that its iOS App Store has reached 25 billion downloads.
The company posted a message on its website: “A billion thanks. 25 times over. The App Store has reached 25 billion downloads. Thank you for getting us there.”
According to Apple, “there are now over 550,000 apps in the store, created by 248,000 registered iOS developers in the U.S. and countless more around the world. The company says it has so far paid royalties to developers in excess of $4 billion,” reports Digital Trends.
“The result of a competition to reward the person who pushed the app download counter to the 25 billion mark is yet to be announced, but someone out there will soon be receiving a $10,000 gift card redeemable in the Cupertino company’s various online stores,” adds the post.
Rovi technology is being incorporated into release 2.0 of the BlackBerry PlayBook Video Store, the movie-streaming service for the PlayBook.
“The BlackBerry PlayBook Video Store allows users to watch content moments after a download begins, and the tablet device includes an HDMI output for connecting to an HDTV,” reports Home Media Magazine.
In related news, Rovi announced this week that its Rovi Entertainment Store would be used to power Dixons Retail’s KnowHow Movies video service in the UK.
“The service, launching March 1, offers catalog video titles to connected devices, including HDTVs, Blu-ray Disc players and gaming consoles,” explains the article. “Dixons aims to expand the service to mobile devices later this year. The service uses Rovi’s DivX Plus streaming video technology, which includes 1080p video, subtitles and multiple language tracks.”
The New York Times has turned to Tumblr for a photo blog that showcases highlights from the paper’s old news photos.
“The Lively Morgue, as the new Tumblr is called, launched Monday with a black and white photo of news images being sorted in the paper’s physical photo ‘morgue,’ where millions of pictures are stored in filing cabinets and manila folders,” reports Mashable.
Officials say the newspaper has enough images to post 10 archival photos a day for the next 1,900 years.
“Images added so far include a close-up of Yankees catcher Yogi Berra’s gnarled hands, shot in 1965; a policeman, nightstick in hand, watching his beat after a recent nearby double homicide in 1959; and a pair of Philadelphia police officers proudly showing off a captured liquor-smuggling mannequin in Prohibition-era 1930,” explains the post.
The service also includes the option to purchase prints for $169, in addition to featuring marked-up reverse sides of photos. “The reverse sides of the photos are home to a photo-nerd bonanza of information, including how much freelancers were paid for shots, published captions and photos’ sequence numbers.”
Time Warner Cable is testing a broadband service in Texas markets that offers a $5-a-month discount to subscribers who use less than 5GB a month.
The plan could also charge users up to $25 a month extra if they use more than 5GB.
“While that amount of broadband would be plenty for a casual email user, it wouldn’t work for a voracious consumer of online video,” points out the Wall Street Journal. “Streaming just three high-definition movies over Netflix could push a consumer over the five gigabyte cap, according to Novarum, a wireless broadband consulting firm.”
TWC believes the option will be better received than a previous plan that required subscribers to pay based on consumption because users now have the choice of picking unlimited service or getting a discount.
“The move is a small but potentially significant step toward a sensitive subject in the U.S.: charging consumers for the amount of broadband they use,” reports WSJ.
“According to a study last year by Cisco Systems Inc., the average Internet household used 17.1 GB of data per month in 2010.”
Sprint Nextel has announced a streaming app that will allow subscribers to view live TV from an array of networks on an iPhone.
“The app allows its iPhone-owners using Sprint to catch live TV and video-on-demand content on their device for free,” reports The Next Web. “The programming selection includes news, sports and shows from a range of producers that includes ABC, CBS, NBC, ESPN, The Disney Channel, MTV and Comedy Central.”
The SprintTV iOS app includes a basic free version for Sprint customers and a premium option for $10 a month.
The service also has bundled packages that include Spanish-language and children’s programming.
Spanish-language offerings include: Univision, Telemundo, ESPN Deportes, Cine Mexicano and Azteca America.
Children’s programming: PBS Kids, Sesame Street, BabyFirst TV, Pocoyo and Discovery for Families.