Apple announced a new 13-inch MacBook Pro with Retina display yesterday, expanding its high-end family of notebooks.
“At a time when PC sales are plateauing and profit margins for many manufacturers are shrinking in a race to build cheaper netbooks (such as Samsung’s $250, Web-only Chromebook), Apple is asserting its leadership position to build the state of the art in notebooks,” comments Apple Insider.
The new Retina display touts more than four million pixels. The company says the 13-inch MacBook Pro is the “second highest resolution notebook ever,” behind its 15-inch cousin.
“The 13-inch MacBook Pro with Retina display has nearly 2 million more pixels than an HDTV,” notes the article. “The 15-inch model has over 3 million more.” The Retina display is now available in the two MacBook Pro models and the iPad.
More pixels to push means additional graphics processing, rewritten software, and changes to the operating system and third party apps. This translates to more cost.
“The result is an expensive system,” writes Apple Insider. “The cheapest 13-inch model starts at $1,699, compared to basic PC notebooks selling for $600 to $800, and 13-inch netbooks selling for as little as $250.”
Apple’s new 13-inch MacBook Pro has opted for solid state flash storage to increase booting and file copying speeds. Also featured: 2.5 GHz Intel Core i5 processors, 8GB of 1600 MHz memory, dual Thunderbolt ports, HDMI video out and an NVIDIA GeForce GT 650M graphics processor.
According to the press release, the new 13-inch MacBook Pro is currently available through the Apple Online Store and its retail locations.
As anticipated, Apple unveiled a smaller version of its popular iPad at a product launch event in San Jose yesterday. The new iPad mini starts at $329 and features a screen about a third smaller than the original iPad.
“But Apple’s smaller tablet is priced well above Amazon.com Inc.’s Kindle Fire HD and Google Inc.’s Nexus 7 — two tablets which are similar in size and some specs,” reports the Wall Street Journal. “Those devices cost $199 or $249 depending on the amount of memory.”
The screen of the iPad mini measures 7.9-inches diagonally. The tablet, designed to fit comfortably in one hand, weighs about half as much as the original iPad.
“A dual-core Apple A5 processor powers the iPad mini, and the device sports fast 4G LTE speeds like the most recent iPads,” reports VentureBeat in a related post. “It features the same 1,024 by 768 screen resolution as the iPad 2, but given its smaller screen that resolution will look much sharper on the iPad mini.”
Apple is offering more variety in an effort to maintain dominance in the tablet wars. “Rivals are releasing a flood of tablets and phones powered by Google’s Android operating system and other software,” notes WSJ. And Microsoft is expected to release its Surface tablet running Windows 8 on Friday.
“Others have tried to make tablets smaller than the iPad and they have failed miserably,” says Phil Schiller, Apple’s senior VP for worldwide marketing.
“He gave a side-by-side product comparison between the iPad mini and Google’s Nexus 7, and claimed that the mini offers two-thirds more space to surf the Web when turned on its side,” explains the article. “A Google spokeswoman declined to comment.”
Versions of Apple’s new iPad mini, along with the company’s fourth-generation iPad, will be available the first week of November.
Apple made more product announcements than expected at yesterday’s event at the California Theater in San Jose.
“Between hardware and software, Apple announced at least six new products… seven if you include Apple Fusion Drive, and a whopping 23 new products if you include different models and build configurations,” reports VentureBeat.
The company unveiled new iBooks software, a 13-inch Retina display MacBook Pro (two build configurations), a Mac mini (three configurations), at least two sizes of iMacs, the fourth generation iPad (six main models), Apple Fusion Drive and the much-anticipated iPad mini (six models).
The new $500-$830 full-sized iPad features an A6X processor (which Apple claims will double CPU and graphics power), support for more wireless carriers (including Sprint), faster Wi-Fi and an HD camera on front for video calls.
Apple’s Fusion Drive, available in the latest iMac and Mac mini, is a hybrid hard drive that blends solid state storage with traditional hard drive tech. It will come with a 128GB SD and the option of a 1TB or 3TB HDD.
CEO Tim Cook notes that iOS 6 has hundreds of new features and, in the month since its release, has been downloaded to more than 200 million devices.
Apple by the numbers: The company sold its 100 millionth iPad a few weeks ago, the iPhone 5 has shattered records with 5 million units already sold and App Store customers have downloaded more than 35 billion apps.
“Meanwhile, users of Apple’s Mac and iOS devices have combined to share 125 million documents in the cloud; they’ve also shared more than 60 million photos using the new shared photo streams service,” reports Macworld in a related article. “And iMessage users are now exchanging 28,000 messages per second.”
Government auditors have criticized the FBI for promoting cyber security awareness, but never showing any tangible success in educating Internet users. The FBI is looking to change that with its new cyber security education program for elementary students.
“‘Cyber Surf Island’ is a playable, Web-based game world for school children from grades 3 to 8,” explains Naked Security. “By playing simple games, the children learn about online threats ranging from malware to Internet predators to cyber bullies. Schools can compete against each other for points and winning schools get a visit from a real FBI agent.”
The FBI’s revamped Safe Online Surfing program intends to help teachers educate students regarding topics such as sexting, copyright violations, secure passwords and more. Teachers wanting to participate must create an account with the FBI to receive online IDs for each student.
The program separates content by grade level and includes tests to evaluate what students have learned — a good measurement for auditors.
However, occasionally “substance wins out over style on ‘Cyber Surf Island,’ with games that are heavy on the message but light on the entertainment,” the article notes. Also, a Facebook post about the initiative showed many users having problems like account takeovers.
Music publishers have long taken offense to websites posting song lyrics. “A recent court judgment against LiveUniverse makes it crystal clear: hosting an unauthorized lyrics site can get you in serious legal trouble,” writes Ars Technica.
LiveUniverse and its owner Brad Greenspan were hit with a $6.6 million judgment last week by a federal judge for running a lyrics site with no licenses from music publishers.
“That’s $12,500 per song for the 528 songs whose lyrics he was accused of infringing,” according to the article.
“There are thousands of lyrics sites, and many of them remain unlicensed. Music publishers started pursuing these sites several years ago, and now… they’re starting to see some real revenue come from online businesses who have taken licenses,” writes Ars Technica.
The lyrics sites may be viewed as harmless by some, but they are generating significant advertising revenue, and subsequently stealing from songwriters and publishers, according to Ross Charap, one of the attorneys representing the music publishers who sued Greenspan.
“This is an important new stream of revenue for publishers,” suggests Charap. “They got nothing from it five or six years ago, and now they get tens of millions of dollars.”
DirecTV’s new Genie system allows for multiple, simultaneous DVR recording of HD shows; eliminates the need for receivers in every room; and adds new recommendation features.
“The company’s flagship HR34 DVR has been relabeled as the Genie and makes the new software its centerpiece, with those five tuners letting even the chronically uncommitted take new recommendations as seriously as they like,” writes Engadget.
“As before, simultaneous viewing is otherwise the biggest angle: there’s support for up to eight RVU-capable TVs hooked up at once, two shows playing on one TV and up to four TVs watching the same show,” notes the post. “You’ll have to be a new subscriber to get the video recorder under the Genie moniker.”
According to the press release, the Genie system offers “up to three times more HD recording capacity than cable HD DVRs.”
“Gone are the days of scheduling conflicts, channel surfing, messy wires and boxes, missed shows and family fights over the remote,” suggests Romulo Pontual, executive VP and CTO of DirecTV.
CBS CEO Les Moonves, who recently renewed his contract until 2017, recognizes the need for the TV industry to evolve in light of new digital offerings.
“Moonves has an answer for cable and satellite operators who complain their profits are getting squeezed by continually rising content costs: eliminate low-rated channels from their lineup,” reports the Wall Street Journal.
He says having hit shows helps networks avoid high-level fee disputes that can result in channel blackouts.
Moonves said he would be interested in expanding CBS’s content portfolio by buying Sony Corp.’s film and TV studios businesses. There are, however, no specific plans in the works right now.
“With online video options growing, overall viewership of traditional TV has slipped lately, according to Nielsen. At the same time, the push by broadcasters such as CBS for a share of pay TV subscription fees has intensified tensions between entertainment companies and pay TV distributors,” explains WSJ.
“Moonves also said CBS was prepared to distribute its content directly to viewers, via apps or Web portals, in the event that a la carte pricing and cord-cutting eventually threaten the company’s business model,” the article continues.
“We like the system now and we are being adequately paid for it,” Moonves says. “But if the universe changes and they [viewers] want us to bring the content directly to them, then we can.”
The TV industry could be on the brink of collapse, Business Insider writes. Viewing habits are changing drastically, which spells trouble for TV’s traditional advertising revenue and pay subscription model.
“The explosion of options for digital entertainment — some of which, importantly, are viewed or otherwise consumed on TV screens — will gradually bleed away the attention that was once devoted exclusively to traditional TV,” suggests the article. “At some point, just as it has with newspapers, this dwindling attention will be noticed by the folks who pay all those massive TV industry bills — advertisers and consumers.”
The widespread adoption of HDTVs looks promising for the TV industry, but other devices — like smartphones, tablets, and wireless laptops — have been pulling eyes from TVs. Consumers devote less attention to their TV sets as they delve into the second screen experience.
Additionally, the television isn’t being used for the same purposes as in years past. “Specifically, they spend less time watching traditional ‘TV’ and more time watching streaming video, watching time-shifted video (DVR), and playing video games,” the article states.
Gen Y is especially representative of these changes, showing the largest deviation from traditional viewing and having the highest percentage of streaming video.
“Traditional TV viewership is changing. None of the changes are good for the traditional TV industry,” comments BI. “Someday, if attention keeps shifting, the money will follow.”
In an interview with Metro, Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos suggests that government intervention may be necessary to create new patent legislation.
Patent wars have become prevalent in the smartphone and tablet industries. A patent lawsuit culture could be a significant threat to innovation and society, notes Bezos.
“Patents are supposed to encourage innovation and we’re starting to be in a world where they might start to stifle innovation,” he said. “Governments may need to look at the patent system and see if those laws need to be modified because I don’t think some of these battles are healthy for society.”
The article notes the iconic lawsuit of the patent war culture: Apple v. Samsung. “The tech giants have had mixed results in the courtroom, however, as Apple secured a significant legal victory in the U.S. but Samsung won comparative cases in South Korea and Japan, with many more lawsuits not yet heard.”
Bezos remains positive about the current consumer technology market. “I love technology, I love invention, I like rapid change, and really it’s the golden age of wireless devices and mobile devices,” he said.
Following the landmark patent suit with Samsung, Apple has lessened its reliance on its rival for iPhone parts — and now Samsung is pushing back.
“We are unable to supply our flat-screens to Apple with huge price discounts. Samsung has already cut our portion of shipments to Apple and next year we will stop shipping displays,” a senior Samsung source told The Korea Times Monday on the condition of anonymity.
“Samsung has been the top supplier of liquid crystal displays to Apple, selling more than 15 million displays in the first half of 2012 to Apple,” GigaOM explains. “But according to the same unnamed source, Samsung has sold only 3 million to Apple since then. Apple has been cutting its reliance on Samsung Display and buying similar products from other sources, such as LG and Sharp.”
“Samsung has also seen its chip orders from Apple cut,” notes the article. “Reuters reported earlier that Apple planned to rely less on Samsung for the iPhone 5′s memory chips. Then perhaps to add a little insult to injury, Apple also recently snaked a top chip designer away from Samsung. In this context, the severed panel business relationship seems like an inevitable next step.”
Samsung is likely to simply substitute Apple’s business with its own, producing displays for its own line of tablets. Amazon could also be a potential new customer for the company with its expansion of tablet offerings.
Facebook and Twitter users today are simply out to get followers, no longer focused on sharing good content. There is just too much noise created by high volume of poor-quality content.
At least that’s what the new social network Pheed is arguing as it places emphasis on providing high-quality content.
“It’s pretty simple, if you allow influencers to charge for content, high quality content will be produced,” Forbes writes. “Pheed enables users to share all forms of digital content, including text, photo, audio, video, and live broadcasts. ‘Pheeders’ then have the option to share for free or at a premium, either by applying a monthly subscription fee to their channel or setting up a pay-per-view live broadcast event.”
Just days after launching the site, Pheed has already seen 350,000 unique visitors. The company says 200 celebs and “taste-makers” have signed up for the service.
“Users can charge anywhere from $1.99 to $34.99 per view, or $1.99 to $34.99 per month. In both cases, the user selects their own pricing and owns all of the content,” explains the article. “Pheed makes money by taking half of the revenue, which covers bandwidth and storage, payment processing, and of course, Pheed’s profits.”
Pheed faces one, potentially large, obstacle: Will people actually pay to view content or subscribe to celeb content?
“Time will tell,” Forbes concludes. “Pheed has a good opportunity to succeed if it stays focused and doesn’t try to become a jack-of-all-trades. For now, it’s safe to say Pheed is a site we should all keep an eye on — its Twitter-with-a-business-model approach stands to seriously impact the social media game.”
Tablets and PCs running the new Windows 8 operating system will have access to video content via Hulu Plus, according to a post on the Hulu blog yesterday.
“Hulu announced that it will be launching its Windows 8 app on October 26, the same day that devices running the Microsoft operating system will finally become available,” reports TechCrunch.
The Hulu app will be tile-based, similar to the styling of Windows 8, and promises to make it simpler to discover and watch TV shows.
“When a user selects an episode, they’ll be treated with a menu of options, like ‘Play’ or ‘Queue,'” explains the post. “Users will also be able to ‘Pin’ shows” to their home screen, and “minimize shows they’re watching into a ‘Snap View’ and multitask, replicating the typical TV watching experience where they’re not watching TV and doing email instead.”
In related news, Engadget reports that Skype is also offering a new version optimized for Windows 8. Skype and Microsoft accounts will be linked so users who log in with their Microsoft ID will already be on Skype, and integration with the People Hub will list an individual’s Skype handle alongside other contact information.
“Just as you can pinch your Live Tiles to zoom out and make them easier to navigate, you can use semantic zoom to sift through a long list of contacts,” notes Engadget of the new functionality. “And, because Skype runs in the background, you can set up your Start Screen so that the Skype Live Tile shows notifications for things like missed calls.”
The free Skype app will be available in the Windows Store starting Friday. Microsoft will likely have more app announcements as it gets ready for this week’s release of Windows 8.
New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg has announced a 3D printing competition called “New York’s Next Top Makers,” intended to strengthen the city’s tradition of innovation.
“The competition will act as a business accelerator for New York City-based entrepreneurs, inventors and makers, who will be judged by a panel of experts as well as the public and will receive assistance on the path to commercialization, including studio space, business support and mentorship from industry experts including Shapeways, Adafruit Industries, and Honeybee Robotics,” the mayor’s website explains.
“This contest will make sure New York City stays on the cutting edge of 3D printing, an exciting new industry with virtually unlimited potential, and which could completely revolutionize manufacturing,” says Bloomberg. “New York City — the center of creativity, innovation and entrepreneurship — is a natural home for Shapeways, and we look forward to seeing what kinds of exciting products — and quality jobs — they can create.”
The competition will progress in four phases: Entrepreneurs will upload pitches of the their proposed products from November 2012 to February 2013. Expert judges will then select five pitches from qualifying entries. There will also be a sixth “people’s choice” entry.
“Over five months, from approximately April 2013 to August 2013, the six selected finalists will participate in a five-month design studio, to further develop their product ideas,” explains the post about the third phase. “During this process they will receive studio space provided by competition sponsor NYDesigns, as well as technical support, materials, access to equipment and mentorship.”
And finally, during the second annual Maker Week in September 2013, judges will award additional cash prizes to the most promising business.
Amazon has tested its Kindles on students in grades from kindergarten to high school and hopes to sell the devices in bulk at a discounted price to school districts, reports Yahoo Finance. Amazon would then profit as districts purchased e-books on the devices.
Amazon has increased its appeal by introducing Whispercast, a “service that lets schools manage fleets of Kindle devices from one online location,” explains the post.
Whispercast allows administrators and teachers to block websites like Facebook from the devices, while also setting up user accounts for students and grouping students by class and grade level.
Jay Marine, VP of Kindle product management explains that Amazon wants “to make it as easy as possible for everyone to own a Kindle device.” But Yahoo Finance says that while Amazon’s mission to convince children to read more is noble, the company’s primary goal is to sell more product.
E-readers provide some tangible benefits for students. The devices are small and light, as opposed to bulky books. This also makes an e-reader less intimidating, as the student may not realize how many pages they are going through as they tap through the pages, rather than flipping them.
However, e-books also have their drawbacks. E-books cannot be resold, which places financial burden on those who rely on the resale of books. Also, it is difficult to study from multiple e-books at once, as people do with physical books.
AOL has launched a beta version of its new Alto email service that works with existing email platforms and promises to “revolutionize how we interact with email,” reports Fast Company.
Bill Wetherell, senior director of UX design at AOL, talks about today’s “inbox fatigue,” which has resulted from a continued lack of innovation.
“Yes, there have been improvements — in search, contacts, storage size — but they’ve been incremental at best, and based on an outmoded architecture of lists, folders, and more lists,” notes the article. “Alto is a radical rethinking of inbox design, and features a stripped-down interface that’s spruced up by visual cues and intuitive navigation tools.”
“In Alto, many messages and files are automatically and neatly aggregated into tiles of common categories: for photos, attachments, social, daily deals, and retail. So, for example, say you get an email offer from Amazon or iTunes — Alto will automatically pull those messages into the retailers stack, seamlessly and without hassle,” Fast Company explains.
“In the social stack, notifications are culled from Twitter, LinkedIn, Path, Facebook, and more. But Alto goes the extra mile to display infographics to help users navigate through fragmented social network updates.”
Users can easily create new stacks and a “skip inbox” function that sends certain emails straight into a stack. The left hand message column has a “people” tab, which shows contact information and a social profile of email correspondents.
“The colors are softer on the eyes than Gmail’s scheme; there is less junk mail; and the myriad icons that normally overwhelm inbox screens (stars, trashcans, checkboxes, numbers) are gone, save a select few that appear upon mousing over a particular message,” suggests the article. “It’s a clean experience reminiscent of your simple, thin iPhone email message list.”
Apple announced a new 13-inch MacBook Pro with Retina display yesterday, expanding its high-end family of notebooks.
