As part of its plan to emerge from bankruptcy, Kodak is selling off more of its businesses. This time, its claim to fame, the camera-film business, is getting axed.
Within the first six months of 2013, Kodak hopes to break from bankruptcy protection, which involves paying off $660 million owed to banks.
“In addition to print film, Kodak’s businesses for sale include kiosks that develop digital photos as well as heavy-duty commercial scanners and related software used by large companies such as health-insurance firms to process thousands of forms from customers. A business that takes photos of theme park visitors for souvenirs is also up for sale,” the Wall Street Journal reports.
The article explains the businesses for sale are categorized as either “personalized imaging” or “document imaging.” The two groups make $1.3 billion and $466 million a year in revenues, respectively.
Kodak was hoping to get between $2.2 billion and $2.6 billion from selling its patent portfolio. The auction for the patents has dragged on and, according to insiders, the company will have a difficult time getting that much for its portfolio.
Kodak has already cut off other businesses to raise money, including its photo-sharing website, digital cameras, video cameras and digital picture frames. Ultimately, the company will focus on consumer businesses, primarily printing.
Facebook implemented a new technology in the messaging features on its iOS app. According to ReadWriteWeb, the new update “could have a potentially big impact on the future of the Internet of Things.”
“The technology is called Message Queuing Telemetry Transport (MQTT), an IBM-developed protocol for real-time messaging over networks with low power and bandwidth,” the post explains. “For Facebook app end-users, the immediate effect of using the push-driven protocol for the updated app won’t immediately be apparent, but it portends some potentially big features down the line.”
For the Internet of Things to become a reality, devices needs to seamlessly communicate with each other and users.
“Messaging in the Internet of Things sector is still gelling around one standard implementation, as device manufacturers figure out how to get sensors and other micro-devices to best communicate with the Internet and from there the rest of the world. MQTT is one such protocol,” suggests ReadWriteWeb.
Being adopted by Facebook could be the first step in MMQT becoming the standard.
Is the freemium strategy too costly for some businesses? According to the Wall Street Journal, giving away products for free to build a user base “is turning out to be a costly trap, leaving them with higher operating costs and thousands of freeloaders.”
While selling advertising was once the most common way for a digital start-up to make money, the freemium model has taken off as companies like Dropbox, LinkedIn and Skype have implemented it successfully.
“The freemium approach doesn’t make sense for any business that can’t eventually reach millions of users,” explains the article. “Typically only 1 percent or 2 percent of users will upgrade to a paid product, said David Cohen, founder and CEO of TechStars.”
“The strategy also often isn’t effective for businesses whose range of products is limited in scope, because paid users generally expect to get better or different versions of what they’ve already received free of charge,” notes WSJ. “And it rarely makes sense for companies that sell products or services mostly to large businesses. Enterprise clients typically have budgets for buying goods and services, thus, they aren’t as drawn to free products.”
Yet the reach of the freemium model is expanding. “About 77 percent of the top 100 grossing mobile apps inApple Inc.’s App Store use a freemium pricing plan, up from just 4 percent in 2010, according to Velti PLC, a mobile advertising and marketing company,” says the article.
“Awareness has been spreading among individuals, businesses and other organizations that DRM is a completely unnecessary restriction of freedom, and it drives people away,” claims Defective by Design, a campaign of the Free Software Foundation.
The post suggests that going “DRM-free” is becoming increasingly valuable for patrons. To address this, the organization has created a logo to be placed on products, making it easier for consumers to locate legitimate DRM-free products.
The label reads: “DRM-Free: All files are provided without restrictive technologies.”
“We are excited to already have a list of several first adopters using our DRM-free label,” notes the post. “ClearBits, a BitTorrent distributor of various digital media, much of which is under free culture licenses, is displaying the logo in the footer of each page, and Go Faster Stripe, a distributor of DRM-free DVDs, has the logo on their about page.”
“Music sharing sites ccMixter and TuneTrack display the label on each track’s download page while independent record label, Magnatune, uses it on an about page,” adds Defective by Design.
The post also includes a list of DRM-free publishers and distributors including Foboko, Momentum Books, O’Reilly Media, Weightless Books, Obooko, Pragmatic Bookshelf and others.
The new Ultra High Definition Television (UHDTV) format that has 16 times the resolution of current HDTV has been approved by international standards body the International Telecommunication Union, according to Japanese sources and reported by TechWorld.
UHDTV will allow “for programming and broadcasting at resolutions of up to 7680 by 4320, along with frame refresh rates of up to 120Hz, double that of most current HDTV broadcasts. The format also calls for a broader palette of colors that can be displayed on screen,” explains the article.
This new format was designed and developed in Japan, which is why the country has been pushing hard for international approval.
“It is hoped that international adoption will give the country an advantage as television progresses to the next generation,” writes TechWorld. “The standard also includes a smaller layout, which is 3840 by 2160 pixels. The two arrangements are commonly referred to by their horizontal pixel counts, or 8K and 4K.”
The same standards will be used in home entertainment sets and public spaces, including screens in movie theaters and sports venues, according to a report posted by the ITU earlier this year.
Sources indicate Apple will debut the next iteration of its iPhone during an event slated for September 12.
A second event, currently scheduled for October, is expected to feature the so-called “iPad mini” — a smaller version of the company’s popular tablet with a display of less than eight inches.
Recent speculation hinted at both products being announced at a single event. However, sources have debunked that theory.
“I don’t think Apple would want reviews of both a new iPhone and new-size iPad appearing at the same time,” writes John Gruber on his Daring Fireball blog. “Why share the spotlight? Why have another Apple product battling with the iPhone for the top spots in news coverage?”
“With a new iPhone and a new, diminutive iPad in the pipeline, Apple has two opportunities to commandeer the tech news cycle ahead of the annual holiday shopping binge, and it’s going to take them both,” suggests AllThingsD.
In the wake of its patent infringement case with Samsung, Apple has filed a notice stating which Samsung products it is looking to have banned in the U.S.
“Despite having received a finding of infringement from the jury on most of the 28 products in play in the case, it looks like Apple is only going after an injunction on eight of them — all smartphones,” reports The Verge. “That’s not terribly surprising given the fact that many of the products in the case are no longer available in the U.S.”
The filing lists the following devices: Galaxy S 4G, Galaxy S2 (AT&T), Galaxy S2 (Skyrocket), Galaxy S2 (T-Mobile), Galaxy S2 Epic 4G, Galaxy S Showcase, Droid Charge and Galaxy Prevail.
“With infringement already established… Apple must convince the court that it will be irreparably harmed if these handsets are not banned in the country. It’s easier to make this argument after a positive jury verdict, but an injunction is by no means a foregone conclusion,” notes the post. “It’s easier for Apple to establish irreparable harm when the focus of the injunction is on products it may actually compete against in the market.”
“We will take all necessary measures to ensure the availability of our products in the U.S. market,” responded Samsung in a statement.
Samsung has announced its plans to appeal the U.S. court verdict that found the company willfully infringing on Apple’s patents. Even as it looks to appeal the $1.05 billion decision, Samsung “will not want to put at risk its Apple supply contract which is worth billions of dollars,” reports Reuters.
According to a Samsung counsel, Samsung’s chips, processors and screens account for 26 percent of the iPhone’s component cost.
“Samsung’s component sales could hit $13 billion next year and bring in $2.2 billion in operating profit, according to a recent estimate by Morgan Stanley. That’s nearly 8 percent of estimated group operating profit for next year,” the article states.
Apple has been looking to become less reliant on Samsung by diversifying its supply chain. Likewise, Samsung is looking to expand its customer base beyond Apple. Even so, the two companies are still intertwined.
“Apple needs Samsung to make the iPhone and iPad. Period. Samsung is the sole supplier of Apple’s processing chips and without Samsung, they can’t make these products,” says analyst James Song of KDB Daewoo Securities. “Samsung might be considering lots of options to leverage its components business’ importance and pressure Apple, and Apple could be also well aware of this.”
Even though it may seem like Samsung’s court experience spells trouble for Google’s Android OS, ReadWriteWeb argues that the decision will actually help Android fight fragmentation.
“Android has often been criticized for the fragmentation the open source platform undergoes every time a hardware vendor makes modifications to the core Android platform in order to differentiate itself from the vendor’s competitors,” notes the article. “In addition to confusing Android users who switch brands, such modifications have made it difficult for application developers to write apps that work on all Android device/OS combos.”
As Google explained in a statement, the features that the court decided were infringing upon Apple’s patents had been added by Samsung — and not part of Google’s core OS.
“Google seems to be saying that if the Android vendors stick closer to the core Android operating system — and not try to add on so many of their own bells and whistles, they’ll be more likely to avoid the kinds of disasters that sliced 7 percent off Samsung’s market cap on Monday,” the article states.
Google recently acquired Motorola Mobility, a move that will help it create a bulletproof “home” platform for Android.
“Motorola’s ‘safe’ platform could also serve as a beacon for other Android vendors: a version of Android that’s less vulnerable to lawsuits could be very attractive to Motorola’s competition, even if it means working more closely within Android’s core look and feel,” ReadWriteWeb suggests.
Last week the California state legislature passed the Location Privacy Act of 2012 (SB-1434), “which would make it mandatory for law enforcement agencies to obtain a warrant before gathering any GPS or other location-tracking data that a suspect’s cell phone might be sending back to its carrier,” reports Ars Technica.
The act passed with strong support from both parties and requires the governor’s signature to be put into law.
“But the bill isn’t necessarily a straight-shot to penal code glory: the EFF points out that Governor Jerry Brown vetoed California’s last attempt at enforcing stricter privacy rules in 2011, when he killed a bill that would have prevented police from searching the phones of apprehended suspects without a warrant,” according to the article.
The issue was recently in the news after a federal appeals court ruled that law enforcement could track the GPS signal coming from a suspect’s prepaid phone without a warrant.
“Privacy advocates questioned the constitutionality of that ruling, which seems to open the door to a world where cellphones can reveal much more information to the wrong people than their users would ever have expected,” concludes Ars Technica.
Global communications agency M Booth and analytics firm Simply Measured studied sharing patterns and interactions on Facebook and other social networks. The report found videos and photos are much more effective sharing tools than links or text.
The report indicates users share videos twelve times more often than text and links combined. The report also indicates users like photos twice as much as text posts.
Photographs also dominate Tumblr, as pictures represent 42 percent of all posts, while text, chats, quotes, videos and links constitute the rest.
The success of Instagram also lends credence to the importance of photographs in social media. Instagram is on pace to reach 100 million users in under four years, which would represent a record for social media growth.
As of February 2012, users share 700 YouTube videos per minute via Twitter.
The post includes a compelling infographic featuring additional statistics.
It’s a transitional time for websites and mobile devices. As increasing numbers of consumers spend less time on their PCs and more time on their mobile devices, it’s more important than ever for sites to design specifically for such devices.
“The problem is that much of the Web is just too overcrowded for tablet displays. When you load up a site on your iPad, you’re often presented with a crush of text, pictures, and videos that are jammed up together. Sites are powered by code that’s too slow and buggy for small devices, they’re stuffed with buttons and links that are too small to hit with a finger, and their pictures don’t look good on super-high-definition tablet displays,” writes Slate.
The tablet should now be the first consideration for designers, suggests the article. It’s time to reprioritize and put PC page design behind mobile. “They ought to think of tablets first when they’re creating new sites. Only after building pages for 7- and 9-inch touchscreens should they tweak their sites for desktop browsers.”
Because of the simple and often elegant design of tablet pages, columnist Farhad Manjoo believes that the entire Web, traditional and mobile, would be vastly improved if tablet design became the top priority for designers.
“Web companies should focus on building a unified experience that can work across every gadget. In an ideal world, the mobile site wouldn’t be an offshoot of the desktop site — the desktop site would be the same as the mobile site, a clean, quick-loading page that looked good on every gadget,” writes Manjoo.
Under the guidance of Mike Bell, a rebellious spirit who was hired in 2010 to help Intel become the “premier chip provider in the phone industry,” Intel is on course to break into the mobile industry.
“Intel had built its business by predictably releasing increasingly powerful chips that could accomplish ever-more-impressive tasks… That, however, was before the iPhone, the iPad, and Android phones and tablets hijacked the future of computing,” reports Wired. “Unfortunately for Intel, its rivals knew how to build chips for just those kinds of devices.”
Thus, Bell was brought on board. “He spent 17 years as an engineer at Apple, where he worked on software for the Mac and the original iPhone before decamping to Palm, where he led hardware development of its well-received but ill-fated Pre and Pixi devices,” according to the article.
“Bell’s phones had the processing power that consumers had come to expect from Intel,” reports Wired. They were above average by almost every measure — energy efficiency, display, call quality, and processor speed. They were no match for the iPhone — these were just the first round of Intel phones, after all, and were meant to be modest — but they were a good value.”
Bell exceeded the expectations of building a low-powered chip for mobile. He’s also created a phone to put it in.
“This spring, after an intense two-year sprint, the first consumer phones to use Intel processors went on sale in India, China, and Europe. By the end of this year, Motorola Mobility, now owned by Google, is expected to launch its own Intel-powered phone,” notes the article.
More than two-thirds of smartphone users say they cannot live without their smartphones, according to “A Portrait of Today’s Smartphone User,” a report from The Online Publishers Association (OPA).
The report estimates 107 million Americans own smartphones. This represents 44 percent of the American Internet-using population. The OPA expects this number to grow to 142 million within the next year.
OPA President Pam Horan explains the shift to smartphone use as consumers “now expect the world at their fingertips anytime, anywhere, and publishers have worked vigorously to optimize their mobile sites and create apps that cater to this demand and behavioral shift.”
She also notes that “smartphones are providing a great monetization opportunity for publishers. With over half of smartphone users accessing content on a daily basis, this growing smartphone population is showing a willingness to pay for content.”
The report found that 24 percent of smartphone users have “purchased content for viewing on their smartphones,” 54 percent of multiple device users prefer using their phones over other devices for at least one activity, and 84 percent of smartphone users self-identify as two-screen multitaskers.
According to a related post from Mashable, a recent survey from free messaging app TextPlus found that “half of all teens surveyed said they couldn’t live without their mobile device for a week, while 36 percent said they weren’t able to go 10 minutes without checking their phones.”
The TextPlus survey also found that “texting is the first and last thing teens do everyday, with 73 percent checking their phones before bed, and 72 percent on their devices first thing in the morning.”
TIME, in cooperation with Qualcomm, recently surveyed 5,000 people in an effort “to better understand attitudes about mass mobility.”
An infographic has been posted that provides an overview of the survey results. Some interesting findings:
29 percent of U.S. respondents said their wireless device is always the first and last thing they look at every day (15 points below the international average).
26 percent said they feel guilty if they don’t promptly respond to work-related messages outside of normal work hours, and 66 percent indicated they would take their wireless mobile device to work instead of their lunch.
65 percent of parents believe their devices make them better parents.
32 percent said that given the choice, they prefer to communicate via text message, and 17 percent said they check their phone at every meal.
29 percent of respondents said they fear society places too much emphasis on technology.