Square has already gained popularity and success with its small credit card reader that plugs into smartphone audio jacks. The company wants to take the service one step further: remove the device altogether and enable payments without even digging out your wallet or phone.
Pay With Square keeps users credit card information to enable charges online. While it may be “unsettling” for first time users who don’t know whether to trust the app, the company hopes it will improve the payment experience and even help customer service.
“When you open a tab on Pay With Square at a store, café, restaurant or food cart, the merchant sees your name and face appear on Register. When you check out, you give your name, so the merchant knows on whose tab to put your order. When the payment goes through, your phone buzzes, and the merchant says you’re all set,” ReadWriteWeb explains.
The “Auto-Open Tab When Near” option will open and close your tab based on location so you don’t even have to use your phone at all.
“Likewise, on the merchant’s side, Register keeps track of when customers are nearby and ready to pay. Since it shows their names and faces and keeps track of their visits, the merchant has a powerful customer service advantage: ‘Hi, Anna. How are you? Would you like the usual?'” the article says.
“Higher technology made payments more complicated,” suggests the post. “As our economies gained complexity, so did our media of exchange. But now we’re over the hump, and mobile networking can make things simpler again.”
As mobile usage increases, non-profits like the Wi-Fi Alliance continue to work with manufacturers, creating standards to make the wireless experience seamless and faster for all users.
One example is the new 802.11ac wireless standard, which enables high-speed connectivity, backup and sync for wireless devices.
“802.11ac significantly increases available Wi-Fi bandwidth, improving wireless performance for reliable high-definition (HD) video streaming, alleviating nuisances such as slow loading times and videos pausing in the middle of a scene,” Forbes explains. “802.11ac also allows consumers to transmit multiple HD videos simultaneously without losing the connection.”
NFC is also going to be important to digital households, allowing “two devices to securely communicate wirelessly without the hassle of passwords,” the article states.
Besides enabling mobile devices to connect to Wi-Fi automatically when close, near field communication also “simplifies the pairing of Bluetooth devices such as remote controls, 3D glasses and an array of mobile and audio streaming products,” reports Forbes.
The article also details the new technology, Wi-Fi CERTIFIED Miramast, which, “uses a peer-to-peer Wi-Fi connection to deliver audio and video content from one device to another without cables or a connection to an existing network,” so users can easily stream mobile content onto their big screen TVs.
“In the coming years,” Forbes concludes, “the latest and greatest consumer devices will only be as good as the wireless technologies they’re built on and the standards that they support.”
Top pay TV providers are facing fierce competition from evolving Internet services. In addition, the companies are dealing with harsh realities of a weak U.S. economy as well as battles with program makers, all contributing to over 400,000 American homes canceling their pay TV service since January.
While the second quarter is generally weak for the business — with college students moving out and people changing houses before summer — top providers are reporting some noteworthy drops in subscriptions.
DirecTV had 52,000 homes cancel their services, Time Warner Cable saw 169,000 customers cord-cut, Comcast lost 176,000 subscriptions, and Dish Network saw 10,000 customers leave. For Dish and Comcast, the rate of losses were actually less than previous quarters, but the losses were a first ever for DirecTV.
The declining numbers are “ominous” for pay TV services, suggest Reuters. Competing with new services has led pay TV distributors to try new measures.
“The maturity of the nearly fifty-year-old cable TV market has raised the stakes leading to more bitter and prolonged battles between distributors and their program maker partners,” notes Reuters. “These disputes now typically end up with customers losing some of their favorite programming for days on end and adds to customer weariness with pay TV.”
“The idea of cord-cutting has gathered steam as several major technology companies [Google, Intel, Amazon and others] have held talks with program makers about putting together TV packages that will be delivered via the Internet,” the article states.
But some don’t think cord-cutting is the primary issue. “We actually think a bigger issue in the market is that there is a group of customers that are in really serious financial shape, they have been out of work for a long time,” said TWC CEO Glenn Britt.
Free-to-play gaming provides consumers with more choice and possibly even more content as developers update to attract more people or bring previous users back.
“The concept of paying a regular, flat fee for access to game time has had a good run since apparently getting its start in the mid-’80s, and the business model will no doubt continue to limp along for a while in some corners of the industry,” writes Ars Technica. “But it seems obvious now that offering online games for free, and monetizing players once they’re hooked, has fully replaced this outdated business model.”
Already, game makers are seeing a switch in consumer behavior. “‘Lord of the Rings Online’ saw its monthly revenue double after it stopped requiring subscriptions in 2010. ‘DC Universe Online’ saw a seven-fold revenue increase when it did the same late last year. Even the venerable ‘Team Fortress 2’ started bringing in 12 times as much money when it switched to a primarily hat-based business model,” notes the article.
While this trend hasn’t held out for all games — like “World of Warcraft,” which continues to benefit from monthly subscriptions — Ars Technica criticizes the model’s non-negotiable rates compared with the more a la carte approach of level-limited free-to-play options that offer microtransactions.
“It’s that kind of inflexibility that has proven to be the online gaming subscription model’s ultimate downfall,” suggests the article.
Do you prefer writing over typing? For those of you who answered yes, Google has just released a new handwriting recognition feature that will translate your scrawls into searches (with support for 27 languages).
“Google Handwrite works in the background while you scribble your search so you don’t have to look back and forth from the keyboard to the search box,” Mashable explains. “Google says the feature isn’t designed to replace keyboard search but instead supplement it.”
Available on Android phones and tablets as well as iOS devices running iOS 5, Google Handwrite is still experimental so users have to opt-in to use it.
“On your mobile device, login at google.com, tap on ‘Settings’ at the bottom of the screen and enable the ‘Handwrite’ feature. Then save your changes and refresh the homepage to get started,” the post states. “To enable Handwrite, tap the icon on the bottom right corner of your screen. You can scribble on any part of the screen, not just the search box. After writing a few letters, autocomplete options will appear below the search box.”
Third-party developers are concerned after Michael Sippey, Twitter VP of product, posted a brief company blog entry that offered general insight into Twitter’s new direction and noted stricter guidelines that may impact how outside developers will be allowed to use the popular data stream.
As outsiders worry what limitations will be established, “…nearly all have overlooked the section of Sippey’s post which holds the key to Twitter’s future: Cards,” reports AllThingsD. “Twitter’s new Cards technology allows third-party developers to create richer, more compelling — and, above all, visually consistent — content inside of Twitter itself.”
“With the addition of a few lines of code, publishers, brands and developers can create better tweets showcasing their content inside of the Twitter stream,” explains the article, suggesting improvements will attract more eyes to brands and traffic to publishers.
Sippey’s blog post also highlighted consistency as a major concern for the microblogging site. Unfortunately, Cards may have issues with standardization.
Developers are expected to make the media-rich tweets look the same across all official Twitter clients (Web, mobile and apps). Adding to that, the new technology won’t appear the same for non-official third-party clients, spelling danger for those services.
Only major publishers, brands and media apps will have access to Cards at the start, but any developer can apply for use. Twitter’s distancing of third-party developers could end up being bad for Twitter, according to the article.
“Twitter cards are an important step toward where we are heading with our platform, which involves creating new opportunities to build engaging experiences into Twitter. That is, we want developers to be able to build applications that run within Tweets,” wrote Sippey.
According to Forrester analyst Sucharita Mulpuru, Amazon could be converting on-site recommendations into sales at a rate as high as 60 percent in some cases.
Fortune suggests the recommendation system likely played a significant part in Amazon’s 29 percent sales increase for the second fiscal quarter this year.
“At root, the retail giant’s recommendation system is based on a number of simple elements: what a user has bought in the past, which items they have in their virtual shopping cart, items they’ve rated and liked, and what other customers have viewed and purchased,” the article explains.
In addition to featuring recommendation panes throughout the purchasing process (from search to checkout), Amazon sends users recommendations via email. To keep the volume of Amazon emails down, the company only sends out emails from product lines that have the highest average revenue-per-mail-sent. Simple, but when the customer qualifies for mail across multiple product lines (books, video games, etc.), it makes a difference and it also maximizes the purchase opportunity.
But there are still areas where Amazon could expand its system. “Already, the company has begun selling items previously sold in bulk that were too cost-prohibitive to ship individually like say, a deck of cards or a jar of cinnamon,” notes Fortune.
“Customers may buy them, but only if they have an order totaling $25 or over. But the company could actively recommend these add-on products during check-out when an order crosses that pricing threshold, much like traditional supermarkets have impulse-purchase items like gum and candy bars at the register.”
Amazon has released a promising Netflix challenger, bringing an Amazon Instant Video app to the iPad.
The app is available on iTunes for free — but as of now, there are no iPhone or iPod Touch versions.
“It has access to streaming Prime Instant Video for subscribers, as well as downloaded or streamed video on-demand,” Engadget reports. “Other key features include access to the Watchlist/queue, and automatic access to any shows subscribed to with a Season Pass the day after they air on TV.”
The post suggests that Amazon’s app could be bad news for Netflix: “The app runs smoothly, and while the video player itself gets just the bare bones iOS treatment, every other part of the app seems polished, including the Watchlist.”
“Add in the fact that you can watch things via subscription and seamlessly jump to fresher/premium content available for purchase or individual rental (with the notable caveat that you can’t actually browse the VOD content, or purchase or buy it from within the app itself) and there’s a serious competition going on,” notes Engadget.
Thanks to a $800,000 grant from the Knight Foundation, a new YouTube channel called “The I Files” will bring hard-hitting investigative journalism to the video aggregation site, adding to its professional content offerings.
YouTube is helping to launch the channel with the Center for Investigative Reporting (CIR). The channel will feature videos from local citizen journalists and content partners, like The New York Times and Al Jazeera, who will share revenue with the Knight Foundation.
“The YouTube project is part of the Knight Foundation’s push for philanthropically-funded local investigative journalism, which has been hit especially hard by the financial downturn of traditional media,” reports TechCrunch.
“Last year, the FCC released a report on the decline of journalists covering local politics, and speculated about the possible corruption and negligence going unnoticed. YouTube could potentially offset this problem with user-generated content and by incentivizing the CIR’s national partners, such as the BBC, with some added viewership,” notes the post.
The extent of YouTube’s long term commitment is unknown, but according to a company spokesperson, “we highlight all kinds of news content from time to time on the site, and often highlight new channels — so you can expect that in the first few weeks after launch we’ll look for opportunities on YouTube and social media to tell more people about it.”
Through its $400 million investment in the YouTube Original Channel Initiative, Google has launched premium content featuring stars such as Amy Poehler, Chris Hardwick, Tony Hawk and Madonna. And its attempt to become a digital content creator has paid off with advertisers paying up to $10 million for spots in the shows.
SourceFed is one premium channel that made it big, hitting 500,000 subscribers and 158 million views. But you won’t find any prominent celebrities on their YouTube posts.
“Despite the star power, so far, the top-performing shows have been created by people who initially built their audience on YouTube. This shouldn’t come as a surprise: These young Web celebs understand the online video space, and some of them have grown up there,” ReadWriteWeb explains. “It is only fitting, then, that the first premium content channel to hit a major milestone of success would be one created by a YouTube mega-personality.”
SourceFed was created by experienced YouTuber Philip Defranco. The channel’s producer attributes its success to two main factors: “easily consumable” short videos accessible on mobile devices and fan interaction that has developed a strong online community.
“Our viewers treat us like we’re their best friends,” producer James Haffner says. “We get to have fun every day, but at the same time, we inform people.”
Hollywood is discovering new ways to leverage social media. When Universal Pictures was getting ready to release its summer comedy “Ted,” for example, the marketing department set up a Twitter account for the film’s teddy bear.
Screenwriters Alec Sulkin and Wellesley Wild were paid extra to help create social buzz about the film, including authoring Ted’s (often foul-mouthed) tweets.
In addition to the Twitter account, Wild was commissioned to blog via “Ted’s Fuzzy Thoughts.”
Mark Wahlberg even changed his Facebook cover picture to a banner that read “ted is here” (followed by content such as a NSFW video message that Wahlberg’s 600,000 fans could share).
“It worked spectacularly,” notes the Wall Street Journal. “Tracking polls, which movie executives rely on to guide box office expectations, suggested an opening-weekend gross of $35 million to $40 million for the film, which was co-written and directed by Seth McFarlane, creator of ‘Family Guy,’ who also provided the voice for Ted. Instead, ‘Ted’ generated $54 million, catching the industry by surprise.”
Studios are looking beyond Facebook and Twitter as just promotional tools. “They are now developing elaborate social media campaigns early on, sometimes as soon as a film gets greenlit,” notes the article.
“Researchers are conducting deep numerical analysis on posts and tweets to guide marketing decisions, sometimes predicting box office revenue with pinpoint accuracy,” adds WSJ. “They’re looking not just at opening movies, but sustaining their word-of-mouth through subsequent weeks.”
Ted’s Twitter account now has 400,000 followers and the film’s Facebook page has more than 2.7 million fans. “Talking Ted,” now the top entertainment app on iTunes, has been downloaded 3.5 million times.
“Excluding sequels, ‘Ted’ is now the most successful R-rated comedy of all time and this weekend should surpass $200 million in domestic box-office revenue,” concludes the article.
The Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) in Pasadena, California streamed a live link as the Curiosity rover landed safely on Mars and began transmitting images from the planet.
The Mars Science Laboratory (MSL) is managed for NASA’s Science Mission Directorate by JPL, a division of the California Institute of Technology.
According to the MSL update page: “NASA’s Curiosity rover has landed on Mars! Its descent-stage retrorockets fired, guiding it to the surface. Nylon cords lowered the rover to the ground in the ‘sky crane’ maneuver. When the spacecraft sensed touchdown, the connecting cords were severed, and the descent stage flew out of the way.
“The time of day at the landing site is mid-afternoon — about 3 p.m. local Mars time at Gale Crater. The time at JPL’s mission control is about 10:31 p.m. Aug. 5 PDT (early morning EDT).”
Launched from Cape Canaveral Air Force Station in Florida on November 26, Curiosity is scheduled to spend one Martian year (687 Earth days) analyzing samples drilled from rocks or scooped from the surface of Mars.
“Curiosity will carry the most advanced payload of scientific gear ever used on Mars’ surface, a payload more than 10 times as massive as those of earlier Mars rovers,” notes the NASA fact sheet. “Its assignment: Investigate whether conditions have been favorable for microbial life and for preserving clues in the rocks about possible past life.”
Just two years ago, 24 percent of consumers used Google to begin researching potential online purchases, while 18 percent started with Amazon.
A new survey from Forrester Research shows the tables have turned. Today, Amazon sees 30 percent of online buyers researching on their network, doubling the number Google attracts.
Last year, Amazon accounted for 19 percent of all online sales in the U.S., amounting to $48 billion. The company has even larger growth internationally, with nearly half of its revenue coming from sales outside the U.S.
Although the site is known for books and other media such as music and video, non-media products have accounted for more than half of Amazon’s total revenue since 2010.
With its competitive pricing and popular price comparison app guiding shoppers directly to Amazon, “other online retailers may feel the need to establish a sales channel on the site, or risk losing out on exposure,” reports Mashable.
Amazon’s secret? Forrester identifies several key strategic differentiators: “a ‘rentless obsession’ with customer experience; a willingness to invest heavily in customer acquisition and retention through low prices and programs like Lending Library and Amazon Prime; its investment in technology, which is more than double the average retailer, as well as logistics; and a willingness to play ‘legal hardball,’ going after Apple for fixing prices of e-books and fighting against states’ attempts to levy taxes against the retailer,” the post states.
A new report from BI Intelligence suggests that mobile devices are playing an increasingly significant role in commerce, including multiple uses of phones by consumers for shopping and research.
“An analysis by Deloitte estimates mobile will influence $158 billion of in-person retail sales this year,” reports Business Insider, noting how mobile users are increasingly comparing prices at brick-and-mortar retailers with e-commerce competitors. But that is just one way mobile is changing the way consumers shop.
The use of mobile devices to buy items directly has also risen. The mobile sales on Cyber Monday last year doubled the percentage of the previous year. Additionally, Forrester Research predicts mobile commerce will hit $10 billion this year, a sizable jump from $6 billion in 2010.
Mobile users are also frequently accessing email on their phones to get discounts and coupons as well as using their devices for in-store payments.
“NFC probably won’t be the solution that powers this change though, but new apps like Pay with Square and Apple’s Passbook are promising,” the post states.
There is one unique financial difference between a design patent and a utility patent and it’s one word: apportionment. In the case of Apple v. Samsung, that difference means $2 billion in damages.
“‘Apportionment’ basically means that the patentee only can recoup profits associated with the patented feature, not the entire profit from the sales of the accused product,” writes Christopher Carani, a patent attorney at intellectual property law firm McAndrews, Held & Malloy, Ltd.
Carani sent reporters an email explaining the key foundation to Apple’s $2.52 billion damages claims, with $2 billion-worth related to design patents.
“The no apportionment language (i.e. disgorgement of infringer’s ‘total profits’) was placed in the Patent Act in 1887 in response to a 1886 U.S. Supreme Court case regarding infringement of a design patent on a carpet design, whereby the Court said the design patentee was only entitled to 6 cents in damages — the portion of the damages attributable to the design,” Carani explains.
“In response to that holding, a holding that members of Congress felt was a miscarriage of justice, the 1887 Patent Act was enacted and provided a remedy for ‘total profit’ without apportionment for design patent infringement,” he adds.
According to Carani, the Court’s decision will likely have a major influence on cellphone design in the coming years. If Apple wins, new designs will flourish; “…despite Samsung’s cries, there are many different ways to design these devices. Young, creative and hungry industrial designers the world over will no doubt rise to the challenge of designing non-infringing devices.”
“However, if Samsung prevails,” Carani says, “we can expect the market (including Samsung and others) to coalesce around the minimalist design embodied in the iPhone, iPad and Galaxy devices for at least 2-3 years.”