Find: Nokia’s next-gen Windows Phone may have original pureview

Very good idea. 

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Nokia’s next-gen Windows Phone may get a 41-megapixel camera

Nokia is angling to release a Windows Phone handset with a real-deal PureView camera, reports The Verge. The next generation Lumia would include a 41-megapixel sensor similar to the one found in Nokia’s Belle-powered 808 PureView smartphone, and would help it stand out in a sea of 8-megapixel cameras embedded in diminutive black slabs.

The specs of the Nokia 808 PureView’s sensor blew us away when it was revealed at Mobile World Congress last year—it had a giant camera protrusion from the back that resembled a periscope (we explained last year the merits of the massive sensor and its ability to oversample pixels). The phone didn’t launch in the US, it used Nokia’s own operating system, and it didn't rack up huge sales numbers, but its attempt to push the smartphone camera out of the 5-to-8 megapixel comfort zone earned it attention.

When the Nokia Lumia 920 was announced in fall 2012 alongside Windows Phone 8, the PureView branding of its camera created brief speculation that it would carry the same 41-megapixel sensor as the 808 PureView. Ultimately, Nokia’s use of the PureView brand turned out to be more flexible, and the Lumia 920 had just an 8-megapixel camera with some expanded functionality.

Find: Amazon ebooks that read themselves

Amazon’s latest acquisition could bring dictation back to Kindle devices

Amazon today announced it acquired the text-to-speech technology company IVONA Software. The Polish company, which now prominently refers to itself as "an Amazon company," is the brains behind the Kindle Fire's text-to-speech capabilities. IVONA currently offers 44 different voices in 17 different languages, with more in development. If you're curious, IVONA's site gives users the ability to try out its technology.


Amazon used to offer text-to-speech capabilities with some of its Kindle e-readers by enabling users to plug in a pair of headphones and listen to the dictation of almost any book (as long as publishers had opted in to the feature, of course). However, the latest Kindle Paperwhite does not include "Read to Me" capabilities—in fact, the device doesn't even include a headphone jack.


Though the text-to-speech feature was once classified as an experimental application on the Kindle, the acquisition of IVONA may finally make it a permanent staple on future Kindle e-reader devices. It would be helpful for users with visual impairments to have dictation options, rather than having to scope out an audiobook.

Find: webOS alive still

Cool, but when will it be more than a hobby?

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Reviving the dead: How Android devices are keeping webOS alive

There's an old saying that all good things must come to end, but that’s not always the case in the world of technology. A year after webOS was officially shut down, HP opened it up in hopes that third-party developers would continue development. And sure enough, the Open webOS project, established by HP to help further develop the operating system, is thriving—despite the prospect of having no new hardware.


In March 2012, a month after HP announced it was opening up webOS for development, a group of outside developers quietly began investigating the idea of porting webOS to other mobile devices. Many of these developers had been active participants in the webOS Internals group, a homebrew developer organization that formed in June 2009 (shortly after the "Konami code" was discovered, opening up the developer mode in Palm's webOS). So when HP decided webOS was no longer commercially viable, the team immediately wondered if webOS would eventually be set free for developers. “It did not appear that [HP was] going to be creating any new devices,” Tom King, project leader of the webOS Ports group, told Ars. “I think we all liked webOS, what it was, and what it potentially could be in its open source life. We realized that it was a minority OS and, at the time, there really wasn't any other good open source option available to us. Tizen and Meego were having its share of problems finding foothold anywhere.”

The webOS Internals team began working with HP to help release the Community Edition of webOS for the TouchPad. The objective of the Community Edition was to get the "community" code out in the wild, giving developers a chance to familiarize themselves with how the TouchPad hardware worked in conjunction with the webOS software. The idea was the practice time they had with this version would enable them to do more with Open webOS once it was officially released. But this also gave King and the team an opportunity to...

Find: Unlocking new cell phones to become illegal on Saturday

But you can still unlock after paying off subsidies. 

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Unlocking new cell phones to become illegal on Saturday

An edict from the Library of Congress is about to make phone unlocking illegal for the first time in 6 years. The decision, issued in October, is part of a triennial process whereby the Librarian of Congress hands out exemptions from the Digital Millennium Copyright Act.

The two previous batches of regulations, issued in 2006 and 2010, respectively, granted users permission to unlock their phones in order to switch wireless carriers. But in the wake of a 2010 decision holding that software is licensed rather than sold, the Library reversed itself and declared phone unlocking illegal once again. The Librarian was also influenced by claims that there are more unlocked phones on the market than there were three years ago.

The new ruling comes with a grandfather clause. It will continue to be legal to unlock phones purchased before Saturday, January 26. But if you unlock a phone purchased after that date you could be liable under the Digital Millennium Copyright Act, which prohibits the "circumvention" of copy protection schemes.

Find: Indystate, tablets - Kindle Fire nabs 33% of Android tablet market, Nexus 7 just 8%

Kindle Fire nabs 33% of Android tablet market, Nexus 7 just 8%



Localytics finds that even the Nook and Samsung Galaxy tablets are beating the Nexus 7.

The Kindle Fire overwhelmingly dominates the Android tablet scene, while Google’s own Nexus 7 finishes a distant fourth, according to data from app analytics company Localytics. While the company couldn’t offer raw data or comparative figures with Apple’s tablets, it does point out that the US has the majority share of Android tablets at 59 percent, and Great Britain has the next largest share at five percent.

Android tablet manufacturers continue to be cagey about sales figures, save a trickle here or there: David Chang, CFO of Asus, stated Google had sold around three million Nexus 7 units between the device’s launch in July and the end of October; Amazon did not trumpet sales of its Kindle Fire for the 2012 holiday season as it did in 2011, when around three million units sold in the month of December alone. By contrast, Apple sold 22.9 million iPads in the fourth quarter of 2012.

According to Localytics, the Kindle Fire element in the US constitutes a 33 percent share of the Android tablet market. The Kindle Fire is tailed by the Nook (Tablet) at 10 percent, the Samsung Galaxy series at nine percent, and the Nexus 7 at eight percent.

Final: Guest visit by Ravi Devarajan of SAS


Folks,

Ravi Devarajan of SAS Institute will sit in on critique with us on May 3 during final period.

Best,

Kalpesh Padia

Open position in Mobile development at SAS

open position Android ios.docx Download this file

A job opportunity at SAS

From: Himesh Patel <Himesh.Patel@sas.com>

Date: Tue, Jan 15, 2013 at 10:55 AM
Subject: Open position in Mobile development at SAS.

Hope you both had a relaxing holidays and New year. It is rare, but with all the work going on at SAS with VA and in mobile area, I have 2 open position in my group. Both of them are in mobile area with preference in graphics, Java & C++ programming. If anyone you that is interested then please ask them to apply.

Above one will be posted soon, here is the one that is already out there and is specific to Android development:

https://sas.taleo.net/careersection/10000/jobdetail.ftl?lang=en&job=13001053

 

Thanks

Himesh

 

Data Visualization R&D

Phone: (919) 531-7132

http://www.sas.com

SAS...The Power to Know


Find: NEC says two phone screens are better than one with Medias W

Good idea. Want to play with this. 

NEC says two phone screens are better than one with Medias W

Gallery Photo:

Time was you could rely on Japan to provide some of the most off-the-wall phone designs in the world, but companies like Sharp and Fujitsu have largely settled into producing straightforward Android slabs that could have come from anywhere. Thank NEC, then, for its Medias W N-05E, announced today for release on NTT Docomo. Originally teased close to a year ago, the Medias W is NEC's attempt at a dual-screen folding Android smartphone. It's not an entirely new idea — the Kyocera Echo and Sony Tablet P have done similar things to middling results — but can NEC be the first to get it right?

Two-screen Google Maps is a killer feature

The Medias W has two qHD 4.3-inch screens that, when unfolded, combine to create a roughly square...

Find: indystate, iPhones by carrier

Verizon posts $4.23 billion Q4 loss despite record subscriber growth and smartphone penetration

Verizon stock 1020 1

Verizon just announced its financial results for Q4 2012, revealing an 8.4 percent year-over-year increase in retail revenue. The wireless carrier added what it calls a "record-high" of 2.1 million new postpaid subscribers over the quarter, and now has 98.2 million retail customers in total. Verizon users are opting for smartphones now more than ever: more than 58 percent of its postpaid subscribers now have smartphones, up from 53 percent last quarter. Overall, the company activated some 9.8 million smartphones, and 87 percent of the carrier's postpaid sales were smartphones.

With the increase of smartphones comes a similar uptick in LTE compatibility, and Verizon reports that 23.3 percent of its customers now have devices capable of...

Find: Verifying ID on android backends

Verifying Back-End Calls from Android Apps

Posted by Tim Bray


Most Android apps have some sort of server-side back end, to persist and share data. Even the most basic game needs to remember its players’ high scores. When you’re building your back end, one problem you have to solve is how the back-end code knows what app it’s talking to and who the person using it is.

You probably have HTTP endpoints for communicating with your client apps, but how can the server-side code be sure who’s sending messages to it? After all, anyone can send HTTP POST requests from anywhere; could they impersonate your users if they could guess their identities?

It’s really user-unfriendly to ask people to type in usernames and passwords on mobile devices. In particular, if someone has installed your app and given it permission to use the Internet and know your identity, they shouldn’t be pestered any more.

It turns out that Google Play services, now available on every compatible device running Android release 2.2 or higher, offers a good solution to this problem, based on the use of Google Accounts.

Summary

Doing this is a multi-step process, which I’ll outline in full, but here’s the short version: You use the GoogleAuthUtil class, available through Google Play services, to retrieve a string called an “ID Token”. You send the token to your back end and your back end can use it to quickly and cheaply verify which app sent it and who was using the app.



This capability is built into Google facilities such as App Engine’s new Cloud Endpoints feature, which bakes app/back-end identity into a simple programming model.


Now let’s get to the details.

App Registration

You’re going to have to use the Google API Console quite a bit in this process. You’ll need to make a new project for this purpose; while you can give it a nice human-readable name and graphical branding, it turns out that those resources aren’t used in this particular scenario.

You can also authorize this project to access a large number of different Google APIs; but once again, you don’t need to in this scenario.

You should give serious thought to the people you autho...

Find: An Ars staff wish list for iOS 7

In effect a list of faults with ios 6. 

Bring us the features! An Ars staff wish list for iOS 7



Aurich Lawson

It's 2013, which most likely means another major iOS update will soon come down the tubes from Apple. iOS 7 has already begun popping up in some server logs—no huge surprise, since Apple is constantly working on its next big thing(s). But so far, we know virtually nothing about what to expect from iOS 7. After all, the general public is still only on iOS 6.0.2, with iOS 6.1 reportedly just around the corner.

While the 6.1 update will undoubtedly improve on what we already have, iOS 7 has the potential to make significant changes and improvements to how iPhone, iPod touch, and iPad users interact with their devices. So, what better opportunity for the Ars staff to dream and speculate about what we'd really like to see Apple do with its next major release? I asked a number of our iOS-using staff members to tell me the most important items on their wish lists and came up with a list of eight things we think would be great to see when iOS 7 is released to the public.


1) Let us set and remove our own default apps

Could there be a more common complaint about iOS than this? Users are dying to have the ability to specify their own default apps for things like Web browsing, mapping, task management, notes, and more—but Apple won't let us. The time is now: Apple should add a panel in the iOS Settings that lets us do this so that when we click a link from another app, we don't have to use Safari, or when we tap on an address on a webpage, we don't have to use Maps.

Find: New positioning technology could compete with GPS

New positioning technology could compete with GPS

A ground-based system that uses much stronger signals than GPS can pinpoint your location in cities and indoors

Find: RIM CEO will consider sale of hardware division after BlackBerry 10 launch

Good idea, it's not rim's hardware that sets it apart. Though I'm not sure they will get a lot for it. 

RIM CEO will consider sale of hardware division after BlackBerry 10 launch

Photo

Thorsten Heins is considering selling RIM's hardware production division after the launch of the company's next-generation OS, BlackBerry 10. Speaking with German publication Die Welt, the CEO said that, although there was no need to make such a decision in haste, all options are being considered as he continues in his attempts to turn around the Canadian manufacturer's fortunes.

As previously confirmed, those options also include licensing out the BlackBerry OS and enterprise infrastructure, as well as the company's BlackBerry Messenger platform, but despite earlier rumors this is the first time anyone from RIM has publicly confirmed it may cease production (or at the least move production duties to a third party) of physical devices....

Find: Smartphones Become Life's Remote Control

Smartphones Become Life's Remote Control

At the Consumer Electronics Show, many app-powered accessories are on display that allow consumers to turn off lights, unlock doors or monitor their blood pressure.

Find: The Smartphone Frontiers: India, Russia, Brazil

As long as iphone is more expensive, it will not win. 

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The Smartphone Frontiers: India, Russia, Brazil

Here in the United States, if you whip out a clamshell flip phone, you'll almost immediately be called a caveman or Luddite. But in some emerging countries, the old-school cellphone has yet to become passé.

Find: ray tracing on tablets in a few years? Imagination's real-time ray tracing card

Shedding some realistic light on Imagination's real-time ray tracing card



Imagination Technology's Caustic R2500 real-time ray tracing card wants to bring better lighting to your 3D renders, and it's just the beginning.

Chris Foresman

Imagination Technologies is one of those companies simultaneously ubiquitous and invisible. Its PowerVR graphics processors drive high-profile electronics like Sony's PlayStation Vita, Apple's iPhones and iPads, and any number of past-and-present smartphones, tablets, and laptops. But you'd probably be hard-pressed to find anyone outside of technology circles who actually knows the name.

While most of our coverage of Imagination is driven by these mobile GPU designs, they've also got their eyes on other markets. We stopped by their CES meeting room to get a glimpse at the Series 6 PowerVR GPUs that are going to begin making their way into consumer products this year, but the company was also showing off something else: a pair of workstation-class PCI Express add-in cards that allow 3D rendering programs to do something called ray tracing in real time. This is something hardware developers have been chasing (and we've been covering) for many years, so we took some time to see the hardware in action.

What is ray tracing, and why do I want it?



Enlarge / Ray tracing algorithms are designed to accurately render light and its interaction with various objects. 
Chris Foresman

To put it as simply as possible, ray tracing is used to render light and its interactions with objects. A ray tracing algorithm will track rays of light from a light source to an object. Once the light hits that object, the algorithm can account for how much light will be absorbed by the surface, how much will be reflected or refracted by the surface, and how that reflected and refracted light interacts with other surfaces, among other things.

Find: Nike looks to unleash potential of fitness platform with new developer APIs

Nike looks to unleash potential of fitness platform with new developer APIs

via cdn2.sbnation.com

Nike's FuelBand and Nike+ running accessories are already among the most popular fitness trackers on the market, but the company is keenly aware the platform holds plenty of room for potential. To that end, today it's released a set of APIs that grant select third-party developers access to your workout metrics; type of activity, exercise duration, calories burned, and earned NikeFuel will all be available to app makers. Developers will also be made aware of the specific Nike+ device you're using / wearing, and if said hardware offers GPS functionality they'll receive that information as well.

These APIs come ahead of Nike's recently-announced Accelerator program, an initiative it hopes will uncover the brightest minds planning to use...

Find: Ford AppLink opens floodgates to in-car iOS, Android, and BlackBerry apps

Ford AppLink opens floodgates to in-car iOS, Android, and BlackBerry apps



"It's open, it's global, it's live, let's hack!" says Ford's John Eliss, global technologist for connected services. Ford has been leading the way in networking its cars and encouraging app developers to give Ford vehicles an edge in the increasingly technology-obsessed motor industry. So Wired.co.uk travelled to Detroit for the North American International Auto Show (NAIAS) to try them out.

Pandora, Amazon Cloud Player, BeCouply, and Kaliki are four of the 63 in-car apps that currently make use of the microphones, speakers, control panels and smartphone connectivity found in Ford dashboards. With the free SDK kits available, they're the first of a flood of apps that will provide useful content and services that help the driver without causing distraction—they use voice commands to avoid fiddly keypad text entry.

By 2014 there will be 14 million app-capable Fords on the road, and with no cost for the SDK or a royalty fee and free advice at Developer.ford.com, there's plenty of incentive for novice developers to get busy. All new Fords will be compatible, and the apps themselves can be downloaded onto Android or iOS devices, explained Eliss.

Announcement: Update to Assignment 1

Folks,

We have updated the assignment text for Assignment 1 for better clarity and updated the link to ning forum and an example app. Please make sure you read the updated post carefully before proceeding. The assignment is still due on Jan 23, by class time.

Regards,
Kalpesh Padia

Find: Draft bill would make mobile developers delete your stored data

Draft bill would make mobile developers delete your stored data

hank johnson (official)

US Representative Hank Johnson (D, GA) is unveiling a new draft bill that would require app developers to disclose their information-gathering practices, and allow users to request their stored information to be deleted. The Application Privacy, Protection, and Security (APPS) Act of 2013 is the culmination of a six-month web-based initiative called AppRights, and according to Johnson, incorporates three provisions championed by the project’s participants — user control, transparency, and security.

Find: Why Pixel Counts Don't Count in Cameras

Why Pixel Counts Don't Count in Cameras

Camera manufacturers are bringing out new models but falling back on old marketing strategy. Here is why pixel counts shouldn't count when buying a camera.

Find: Intel making money, but revenue declines due to mobiles

Intel posts $13.5 billion revenue in Q4, but sees income drop 15 percent in 2012

Intel CES 2013 stock 2 1020

Intel has seen itself stuck in a difficult position as its primary business — PC processors — gets marginalized by the growth of smartphones and tablets powered by competitors' chips. The company is managing to keep up with expectations, however, as it revealed in its earnings report today that it earned a total of $3.2 billion on $13.5 billion in revenue during the quarter. While Intel may have met Wall Street's expectations, it is clear that it's feeling the effects of the decline in PC sales (despite the recent launch of Windows 8), and Intel knows it. CFO Stacy Smith admitted "the PC market segment was impacted by the growth of tablets." The company pulled in $400 million less than it did during the same period last year, and for...

Find: Toshiba's smartwatch prototype connects your phone to your wrist in classy style

Toshiba's smartwatch prototype connects your phone to your wrist in classy style

Toshiba smartwatch

Tucked away at the back of Toshiba's CES booth is a surprising and intriguing product — a prototype smartwatch that can pair with an iOS or Android phone and provide notifications, kind of like the famed Pebble smartwatch. Instead of using an "e-paper" display, however, Toshiba's watch has an OLED color display and ARM processor. We just got a chance to handle a hardware prototype, but unfortunately it didn't turn on — the only models with screens on were stuck behind glass. The prototype itself felt solid, if unremarkable, but it seems a bit more stylish than the average tech-focused smartwatch at first glance — the bands and colors felt similar to what you'd see on standard watches.


According to the display in Toshiba's booth,...

Find: Qualcomm gets some competition as Broadcom enters mobile processor market

Qualcomm gets some competition as Broadcom enters mobile processor market

Broadcom logo


Broadcom, a manufacturer of baseband modules (the chips that let devices communicate with mobile networks), announced today that it has licensed the ARMv7 and ARMv8 mobile processor architectures. Broadcom will use these licenses to develop mobile processors with integrated LTE chips, something that Qualcomm already does. Qualcomm's processors feature integrated LTE modems, a feature that has given it a leg up over competitors such as Nvidia, Texas Instruments, and Samsung. These system-on-chip (SoC) designs are used in many smartphones and tablets currently on the market. Though Broadcom has a long hill to climb to catch up to Qualcomm in the mobile processor space, today's announcement is the first step towards giving the market leader...

Find: The Caliber Advantage is the first real iPhone gaming controller

The Caliber Advantage is the first real iPhone gaming controller

Gallery Photo:

No matter how many million first person shooters developers crank out for iOS, the platform’s touch-based controls mean the games will never control as well as their console counterparts. Here at CES, mobile accessory maker Zagg is unveiling the best-looking solution to the problem we’ve seen so far — the Caliber Advantage. Its dual analog sticks give gamers the same kind of precision as something like the PlayStation Vita or 3DS. And to get around the lack of content — iOS games don’t natively support anything other than touch input — Zagg is working together with Epic Games to add support for the controller in Unreal Engine 3-based iOS games. In the first half of this year, for $69.99, iOS gamers will get the closest yet to...

Graph Search shows that, for Facebook, mobile is still always 'tomorrow'

On facebooks Achilles heel: mobile.

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Graph Search shows that, for Facebook, mobile is still always 'tomorrow'

Photo

Facebook launched Graph Search as a beta product for many reasons: its gradual rollout to only US English users; its limitation to people, photos, places, and interests (posts and Open Graph actions still aren't included); an attempt to manage what could be outsized expectations from both users and Wall Street. But it's also because Graph Search isn't available on most of the devices people use to access Facebook, and it won't be anytime soon.

Graph Search isn't mobile, whether on the web or through any of the company's smartphone or tablet apps. This is a problem. It sharply limits the usefulness of Facebook's new search in almost all of the use cases presented on Tuesday. It cuts off access for Facebook's fastest growing and most...

Assignment: Your user ids.

Folks,
As we need to collect your user ids for tools from outside the university domain, we have created a simple form for you to fill out. The form is accessible here. Keep these things in mind:
  • You do need to fill out this form, it is an assignment and part of your grade.
  • You must sign in using your ncsu id to access and fill this form.
Best regards,
Kalpesh.

Assignment: online waiver and consent form

Folks,

As I've said, we'll use a lot of online tools in this course, some of which are not university tools. We'll need your consent to use them. You can fill out the online consent here. Keep these things in mind:

  • You do need to fill out this form, it is an assignment and part of your grade.
  • You do not have to consent. If you do not, please email us for alternative arrangements.
  • We will never use these non-university tools to deliver your grades (those will only be private to you in Moodle), so please don't worry about that.
Best regards,

Ben.

Assignment: critique an example mobile app


Goal:
  • Find an app you love, hate, or just think has potential. Describe it critically to the course using other web apps (voicethread, ning).

Constraints:
  • We describe what makes a good example mobile app assignment here.

Deliverables:
  • Assignment is due January 23, by class time.
  • As described above, turn your assignment with 

Note:
  • In order to be able to post on the course site and voicethread, you will have to give us the IDs you use there. We will distribute a logistical assignment shortly to collect these.

Find: Imagination Demonstrates PowerVR Series6 Rogue on LG's H13 SoC

Imagination tech's latest gpu in product. 

Imagination Demonstrates PowerVR Series6 Rogue on LG's H13 SoC

I stopped by Imagination Technologies at CES 2013 and talked about their upcoming GPU IP blocks and a few recently announced SoCs, and one demo caught my eye running on one such SoC. This is the year we finally get to see some PowerVR Series6 Rogue in silicon shipping and in the flesh, and the SoC in this case is LG's home entertainment oriented H13 (hence the H) SoC that was announced at the show. 

Imagination was showing off the H13 running through a variety of their own custom-built demos showing off OpenGL ES 3.0 features like multiple render targets, occlusion queries, expanded MSAA support, new texture formats, and such that we've gone over already. We don't know too much about LG's H13 SoC at this point beyond that it likely isn't an ARM Cortex A15 based design, but does include a two-cluster Series 6 GPU (G6200?) at unspecified clocks. Alongside that live demo on real production silicon was a four-cluster Series6 GPU being simulated on an FPGA inside a PC running much slower (obviously) thanks to very constrained memory bandwidth and clocks. 

I'm told that LG's H13 isn't necessarily the first production silicon with Rogue inside, but the first that's been shown and demoed in the wild. For this it's particularly exciting. I expect to see some more Rogue designs emerge later this year. 

The second part is some news about a subset of OpenGL ES 3.0 features that will be enabled retroactively on all PowerVR Series5XT hardware. The entire lineup apparently has the hardware to enable these OpenGL ES 3.0 features as an optional extension inside OpenGL ES 2.0. Features include multiple render targets; occlusion queries; seamless cube maps; sampler access from vertex shaders; floating point textures; GLSL full-precision floating point; R and RG textures; min/max blends; and multisample render buffers. 

Imagination demoed some of the same demos they had running on Series6 Rogue on an OMAP5430 development board with...

Find: anandtechs concluding thoughts on the sees show: mobile chips and peripherals, vr

A nice wrap up. 

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Brian's Concluding Thoughts on CES 2013 - The Pre-MWC Show

Anand asked each of us to write up some final thoughts on CES 2013, something which is honestly a daunting task at best, and a potentially controversial or rage-inducing one at worst. Having now attended three CESes, I still have a relatively small window of reference within to gauge this one, but some things like CES need almost no context.


Press Conferences at CES are often largely fruitless, but something to behold

First, CES is and hopefully always will be a spectacle. I actually disagree with many who say that Las Vegas shouldn't be the venue for CES. That's because there's something appropriate about Las Vegas being the home to CES, since it's a city and environment I approach with as much skepticism and trepidation as the products and announcements made during the show. Almost everything you see isn't what it seems, and I've recounted a few analogies in person that I think bear repeating here. Just like the showiest buildings and people usually have the least to offer (and thus rely entirely on show and presentation to draw you in), so too do exhibitors and companies and everyone giving you their exactingly rehearsed pitch. That is to say good products and announcements draw their own crowds and don't need overselling with dramatic entrances and expensive demos. Some of the most engaging and busy companies I met with had almost no presence on the show floor, and instead had only a tiny meeting room with a single table and a few chairs. Similarly just like hotels on the strip appear close and within walking distance (signs can be read almost two miles away), so too should one approach the release dates for things announced at CES — they're almost always further away than they appear. Finally Vegas itself is an carefully engineered, computationally optimized environment designed to extract maximum dollar from anyone it entwines, and so too the CEA crafts (and engineers) a show that will be crowded regardless of the number of attendees, and record breaking in scale regardless of whether there's actually any real growth going on. I guess what I'm saying is that there is a certain kind of skepticism one has to approach everything CES related with, and in that sense the only appropriate context for gauging CES is itself, as a subset of Las Vegas. I don't think you could ever have a CES detached from that environment, and especially not without the pervasive, eye-stinging smell of the casino floors, which is a world-un...

Find: Swype Adds Crowd-Sourced Dictionaries for Better Word Prediction

Good idea. It will be copied. 

Swype Adds Crowd-Sourced Dictionaries for Better Word Prediction

Android: Swype, one of your favorite Android keyboards, has been pressed to update in the face of heavy competition from other keyboards. This week the Swype team announced that the latest version of Swype no longer requires you sign up and register to download it, and includes a new "living language" feature that rolls in crowd-sourced dictionaries, so words like "hashtag" and "instagram" are already in your dictionary without you having to add them.


The new "living language" feature automatically updates your dictionary periodically with popular words added by other users. Think terms like "Roku" and "CES" without having to add them yourself first. In addition to crowdsourced dictionaries, the update also improves the "hotwords" feature, which automatically adds words to your dictionary imported from newspapers, magazines, and other popular media outlets.


Finally, the new Swype beta includes voice and text support for several new languages and improved cloud support for personal and custom dictionaries. This means it's easier for you to add your own custom words, then have those words backed up so you can get them on other Android devices running Swype. You can grab the latest version at the link below—finally, no registration required.

Find: What to show when there is nothing to show

Getting empty spaces right in the most popular iOS apps

Empty Inboxes Codrops

Giving the right feedback when something fails to happen in an app is just as important as showing content. Craig Dennis of Codrops has taken a look at what sits in the empty spaces of frequently used apps — the empty inbox of Sparrow, the failed page load of Safari, or the blank Favorites page of Dropbox. The first order of business is clarity: it should be easy to tell whether there's been an error or if there's simply nothing to show, a test that Apple's default mail app fails. The message designers choose will also determine whether users are alarmed, confused, or reassured. For designers, it's a guide to how different apps are perceived; for everyone else, it's a look behind how the people who create your apps are thinking about...

Find: keyboards that come and go on demand

Not in product quite yet. 

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Tactus Gives Touchscreen Users Something To Touch

One of the hardest leaps to make in entering this modern era of mobile phones was the idea of using a touchscreen keyboard. Losing our beloved keys was anathema to Blackberry and Treo users. But what if you could get a little of that back? Tactus has been exploring that idea almost since the iPhone’s first announcement. By combining a small pump and an array of microfluidic channels and chambers on a plastic panel, they can bring topology to otherwise flat touch screens. The keys raise on demand when the keyboard is called, and will disappear when the keyboard is no longer needed. The technology is still very much a work in progress. The demo device they showed off has a single portrait keyboard configuration, and while raising takes a quick second, evacuating the chambers takes considerably longer. Dr. Craig Ciesla, founder and CEO of Tactus , says reliability concerns have largely been dealt with and they’re well on their way to bringing the technology to phone sized devices, as well as refining their larger offerings. The technology is still in its earliest days, but we’re excited to see where it gets. 

Find: on using web Apis

Leads on using web Apis

Tim O'Reilly (@timoreilly)

1/9/13, 3:31 PM

Short @Codecademy courses on how to use APIs to many common services. bit.ly/XkMdl9 Nice work!

Apple: 40 billion unique app downloads, $7 billion paid to developers

775000 apps. 

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Apple: 40 billion unique app downloads, $7 billion paid to developers




The iOS App Store has come a long way since its launch in 2008.

The mobile app world has come a long way since Steve Jobs extolled the virtues of Web apps in 2007. Apple announced early Monday that it had crossed the 40 billion mark for App Store downloads, with 20 billion of those downloads taking place in 2012 alone. In its announcement, Apple pointed out that the 40 billion number was derived from unique downloads that exclude re-downloads and updates—a common nit picked by critics.

Apple provided a number of other figures for context. The App Store now has more than 500 million active user accounts, and two billion app downloads took place during the month of December—undoubtedly after many new users unwrapped iPad minis and iPod touches. Apple says it has now paid out more than $7 billion to third-party developers for their apps, of which 775,000 are now available for the iPhone, iPad, and iPod touch in 155 countries.

The iOS App Store was first launched in early 2008, almost a year after the iPhone made its debut. It took a year for the App Store to push its first billion downloads, but it was only five months later when it crossed the two billion download mark in September 2009. The market has exploded since then for Apple and for competing platforms alike; earlier this month, Flurry analytics said there were 1.76 billion app downloads on iOS and Android during a single week in 2012, with an estimated 17.4 million devices being activated on Christmas Day. With numbers like that, it's no surprise that Apple's download numbers are multiplying—now if only app browsing and searching were even more intuitive (particularly when it comes to keywords), we could all download some more.

Find: Walmart to sell iPhones with a $45 per month unlimited prepaid plan

For me, cheaper than AT&T about 15 months in. 

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Walmart to sell iPhones with a $45 per month unlimited prepaid plan

Starting this Friday, Walmart will be selling the iPhone for use with wireless provider Straight Talk, which is offering a $45-per-month contract with unlimited voice, data, and texting. This sale will make it one of the cheapest ways—as measured over a two-year period—to get a prepaid iPhone. Walmart says it will offer $25-per-month financing for the phone itself if customers use a Walmart credit card.

Straight Talk, which uses AT&T’s towers as a mobile virtual network operator (MVNO), is becoming an increasingly popular option for prepaid customers who want to use an iPhone without paying high prices. (Full disclosure: I am a Straight Talk customer, and have been since April 2012.)

"We believe customers shouldn't have to choose between saving money and having the latest technology," said Seong Ohm, senior vice president of Entertainment for Walmart US, said in a statement on Tuesday. "Now customers can have the coveted iPhone with unlimited talk, text, and data without a contract for $70 a month thanks to our exclusive Straight Talk plan and industry first financing offer."

Find: RIM’s BlackBerry 10 bets on gestures for its saving grace

I don't think it's enough to save rim. 

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RIM’s BlackBerry 10 bets on gestures for its saving grace




Later this month, RIM will officially pull the cover off its revamped mobile operating system, dubbed BlackBerry 10. Finally, consumers will be able to decide for themselves whether it's worth giving the BlackBerry ecosystem another shot. The Canada-based company has been working hard on the software for about 15 months, even while it was drastically losing market share to companies like Samsung and Apple (who have both practically dominated the smartphone scene). However, if what we saw of BlackBerry 10 is any indication, RIM could have a second wave up its sleeve, or at the very least entice its 80 million-strong customer base to stick with it. This all depends on whether or not users can learn to love its gestures—if they can even learn them at all.

(Before you delve into the preview, we apologize for the caliber of the photography. Taking photos of mobile screens on prototype devices is difficult in a dimly lit room, and we appreciate your understanding.)

Gestures, gestures, gestures!

Plenty of gadgets use gestures. Apple's MultiTouch TrackPad uses two- and three-finger swipes for navigating back and forth between webpages or switching between Spaces. Microsoft's Surface tablet features the ability to set up a custom gesture for unlocking the device. Even RIM's BlackBerry PlayBook utilized a few gestures of its own, and that's actually where the company has taken its inspiration for gestures in BlackBerry 10.

Find: New quad-core Snapdragon supports 55-megapixel images, Ultra HD

The latest arm cpu from Qualcomm, nvidia main competitor in mobiles.  This one has integrated lte. I'm betting better battery trumps any graphics advantage the tegra has. I think nvidia bought a wireless chip maker recently, so that may be solved soon....

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New quad-core Snapdragon supports 55-megapixel images, Ultra HD



Dr. Paul Jacobs, CEO of Qualcomm, shows off the processing power of the upcoming Qualcomm 800 series mobile processor.

Andrew Cunningham

A new Snapdragon series processor will arrive from Qualcomm this coming summer, the company announced during its keynote presentation at the Consumer Electronics Show Monday. The new processor, named the 800 series, “delivers 75 percent better performance” than its predecessor, the Snapdragon S4 Pro, while consuming less battery life.

The 800 series includes a quad-core Krait 400 CPU clocked at up to 2.3GHz per core alongside an Adreno 330 GPU. Qualcomm claims that the Adreno 330 has twice the “compute performance” of the Adreno 320, showing off its processing power during the presentation with a real-time render of a dragon blowing fire and stomping its feet.

The chip will include support for 4G LTE and 802.11ac as well as “Ultra HD” (née 4K) video resolutions of 4096×2304. The chip also has dual image signal processors that will support up to four cameras, 3D image capture, and photo-merging to create up to 55-megapixel images, if manufacturers can provide the hardware.

Find: Nvidia unveils Tegra 4, 'world's fastest mobile processor'

Nvidias latest mobile graphics chip. Still without integrated lte, so still requiring too much power. 

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Nvidia unveils Tegra 4, 'world's fastest mobile processor'

Photo

Nvidia has just announced its next-generation Tegra 4 processor for smartphones, tablets, and notebooks. The Tegra 4, like its predecessor, features a quad-core processor along with a fifth, low power, core to save battery life. Although it retains the 4-plus-1 setup of Tegra 3, Nvidia's fourth-generation chip is built on an all-new architecture. The company's CEO Jen-Hsun Huang says that Tegra 4 is the world's fastest mobile processor, surpassing everything currently on the market. Nvidia hasn't revealed the clock speed of the Tegra 4's processor yet, but it does say that it has 72 GPU cores — we imagine its referring to CUDA cores here. Although it hasn't been confirmed, it's been rumored that Tegra 4 is produced using a new 28nm...

Find: Nvidia Shield handheld streams users' PC games, connects to Steam and Big Picture Mode

Pretty cool. Full graphics capabilities streamed to your mobile. Nu what is the latency?

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Nvidia Shield handheld streams users' PC games, connects to Steam and Big Picture Mode

via d35lb3dl296zwu.cloudfront.net

Nvidia has just announced at its CES press conference that its new Shield handheld gaming device can connect to users' home PCs to stream and play games. To work, users need an Nvidia Kepler-based graphics card (GTX 650 or GTX 660M or higher), which utilizes a piece of software in GeForce Experience. Games streamed to the device must also support controller input, though Nvidia says some games without controller support can be played by mapping control buttons to the Shield's inputs. The move will allow PC gamers to extend their game sessions to the handheld or through Shield to their TVs without having to lug their computer towers or gaming laptops over to the living room.

In a demo on stage, Nvidia CEO Jen-Hsun Huang played Assassin's...

Find: Delphi's Connected Car device lets you remotely track and monitor your vehicle

Delphi's Connected Car device lets you remotely track and monitor your vehicle

delphi connected car

Delphi and Verizon this week unveiled their new Car Connect device — a small device that allows users to remotely monitor, control, and track their vehicles. Announced at CES this week, the Bluetooth-enabled Car Connect plugs into a car's OBD2 port (typically located under the dashboard), and includes a CDMA data connection to Verizon's network. Once the device is installed, drivers can download an accompanying smartphone app (available for both Android and iOS) that allows them to monitor their vehicle's fuel levels, engine temperature, and other vital signs. The app will also notify drivers of any error codes that may prompt them to check their engines.

The Car Connect's GPS chip, meanwhile, allows users to track their car's...

Find: Vizio goes after the Nexus 7 with a Kindle-sized stock Android tablet

This means still lower prices

Vizio goes after the Nexus 7 with a Kindle-sized stock Android tablet (hands-on)

Gallery Photo: Vizio 7-inch Tablet hands-on pictures


Vizio's 10-inch Android tablet might be one of the first Tegra 4 devices to be announced, but the California company also has a 7-inch tablet here at CES that's equally interesting: it's essentially a Nexus 7 in a package the size of a Kindle e-reader. That's a Tegra 3 processor, a 1280 x 800 IPS display, 16GB of storage, a 1.2 megapixel front-facing camera, and stock Android Jelly Bean. The prototype was fairly quick to flip around the OS, and the display looked slightly better than the typically washed-out Nexus 7 display, although it's not laminated like the 10-inch tablet.

Vizio head of design Scott McManigal told me that most people use 7-inch devices for reading, so the company designed the device primarily to be held in...

Find: Canopy's Sensus touch-enabled iPhone case offers ten extra points of input

Good idea 

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Canopy's Sensus touch-enabled iPhone case offers ten extra points of input (hands-on)

Canopy Sensus case for iPhone

Cases for the iPhone are a dime a dozen, but there aren't too many that promise to do more than just protect your device. The Sensus case by Canopy is different, as it features touch-sensitive areas that are designed to extend your capabilities while playing games. Situated on the sides and back of the case, the touch-sensitive areas are very similar to the touch-sensitive pads on the back of Sony's PS Vita. Canopy says that the case offers support for ten distinct touch points to let you control games, switch between apps, scroll, and other functions normally reserved for the touch screen itself. The key with the Sensus, as Canopy tells it, is that you don't have to obstruct the display with your fingers while controlling the device.

T...

Find: Apps Indystate by Flurry - downloads smash records—1.76 billion in one week—during the holidays

App downloads smash records—1.76 billion in one week—during the holidays

Consumers may be slow to get back into the groove after the holiday, but that didn't stop them from spending time in a mobile app store. On the last week of 2012, a record-breaking 1.76 billion apps were downloaded to both iOS and Android devices, according to a report from Flurry analytics.


Other records were also broken in the last week, including the most device activations and app downloads in a single day. Flurry estimates that at least 17.4 million iOS and Android devices were activated on Christmas Day, while 328 million apps were downloaded among both mobile platforms. To top that off, more than 50 million iOS and Android devices were activated between Christmas and New Year’s, though it was not specified whether these were tablet or smartphone numbers. All in all, app downloads increased by 65 percent when compared to Flurry’s early December numbers, and broke the record from last year’s count, which was 1.2 billion. The numbers show impressive growth for the two biggest app marketplaces, and Flurry posits that it may very well set the precedent for app downloads for this year.


Flurry took its data from analysis it gathered on more than 260,000 apps available in the iTunes App Store and Google Play store. All of that data is then cross-referenced against figures released by Apple and Google to help round out the final numbers. The company claims it can detect more than 90 percent of devices activated each day. The site makes no mention of whether or not the numbers include downloads from the Windows Phone Marketplace or BlackBerry App World.

Find: Why Mark Shuttleworth thinks Ubuntu on phones will outclass Android

Sorry, but portability and truly native apps won't be enough. It'll need a more radical departure. 

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Why Mark Shuttleworth thinks Ubuntu on phones will outclass Android


Canonical

Ubuntu is coming to phones near the end of 2013 or the beginning of 2014, as we reported earlier today. After the announcement, Canonical founder Mark Shuttleworth spoke to the media about why he thinks Ubuntu will be great on phones and, more specifically, why it will be better than Android.

Somewhat confusingly, Ubuntu has two phone projects. One of them is called "Ubuntu for Android," which allows Android smartphones to act as Ubuntu PCs when docked with a monitor, mouse, and keyboard. The version of Ubuntu for phones announced today is just Ubuntu, no Android required, allowing devices to run Ubuntu in both the phone and PC form factor, with different interfaces optimized for the different screens. Canonical is keeping Ubuntu for Android around, even as it touts its own phone operating system as a better alternative.

The smartphone market is already dominated by iPhone and Android, with RIM losing prominence, Windows Phone making a charge at third place, and various other operating systems aiming for elusive name recognition. So why should carriers and handset makers warm to Ubuntu, and why should anyone buy an Ubuntu phone?

Find: IndyState of Android - Ice Cream Sandwich and Jelly Bean get a big bump from the holidays

40 % ics or newer. 

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Ice Cream Sandwich and Jelly Bean get a big bump from the holidays


There's still a long road ahead, but Gingerbread is slowly loosening its grip on the Android ecosystem.

Android market share numbers for the end of December have just gone up on the Android Developers site, and the story is much the same as it was last month: Android 4.0, 4.1, and 4.2 continue to gain ground over older versions of the software. Version 2.3, codenamed Gingerbread, still powers more of the Android devices that accessed Google Play in the last two weeks of December than any other version, but its share has finally fallen below 50 percent (it now sits at 47.4 percent, down from 50.7 percent last month).

Now, 39.3 percent of all Android users are running Ice Cream Sandwich or newer, with 10.2 percent of those users running one of the two Jelly Bean versions. Some of this sizable uptick—up from 34.2 percent just last month—doubtlessly reflects the number of Android phones and tablets given as gifts over the holidays. Though Android 4.2 is still confined largely to Google's Nexus devices, it's rare to find a new device that isn't at least running Ice Cream Sandwich.

Some of the increase, especially Android 4.1's 3.1 percent jump, can also be attributed to Samsung's Galaxy S III, which began receiving its Android 4.1 updates in earnest in the middle of December. Samsung's flagship is one of the most popular Android handsets with consumers. The Verizon version of the handset likely accounts for a good deal of the upgraded phones given Verizon's status as the United States' largest wireless carrier.

Find: Samsung drifts away from Android toward Tizen

Bad idea: no evidence that Samsung knows software. Why will this be better than bada? 

Samsung drifts away from Android; will Motorola rise to replace it?




Can Samsung succeed away from the Android OS? And if it drifts away, which company will rise to replace it?

Casey Johnston

As the largest Android handset manufacturer, Samsung has grown so confident in its position in the smartphone market that it plans to expand its product line to include phones with the Tizen operating system, Bloomberg Businessweek reported Thursday. Speculation suggests the company is moving away from Google as a result of Google’s acquisition of Motorola in 2011.

Like Android, Tizen is an open-source software platform that is already in use in tablets, vehicle infotainment systems, and smart TVs, though it hasn’t nearly reached the market share of Android or iOS. Tizen competes with other small-scale open-source platforms, including Sailfish and the recently announced Ubuntu for smartphones.

But with some hand-holding from one of the most profitable smartphone manufacturers in the world Tizen could be pushed into the big time. Samsung has a 35 percent market share and shipped 56.9 million smartphones in the third quarter of 2012.

Find: Hands-on with Ubuntu's brand-new, gesture-based phone OS

Hands-on with Ubuntu's brand-new, gesture-based phone OS

Ubuntu phone OS hands-on

Our top London agent Vlad Savov just got his hands on the new Ubuntu phone OS and was able to get a quick look at some of the new OS's trademark features, including its new gesture-based interface. There's a bit of lag while swiping through the phone's different panels, but overall it looks to be quite the attractive and intelligent interface. Unlike nearly all of the major phone operating systems, there's no "home" button to speak of in Ubuntu — it's all based on gestures.

There's also no "lock screen" to speak of; users can just swipe in from the edges to access their content any time, rather than having to get past a gatekeeper sort of screen before accessing their apps. Swiping down from the top can bring up a variety of menus,...

Find: Conflict-free - FairPhone struggles for more ethical smartphones in 2013

Good idea: not sure I'll pay more for these though because phones are already overpriced. 

Conflict-free: FairPhone struggles for more ethical smartphones in 2013

Credit: Fairphone via Flickr

Here’s something interesting you might find on a holiday wish list as early as next year: a fair-trade smartphone.

It’s an idea that’s been floating around for a while, a phone designed to have minimal impact on humans and the environment — and under FairPhone, a Dutch initiative for responsible tech, it’s quickly taking form. It’s a reminder that beneath the sleek shells of metal and plastic many will discover in their holiday stockings this year is a far less cheerful story. One increasingly familiar part of that story is the unethical treatment of factory workers, an issue which seems to arise again and again within even the most progressive sections of China's colossal manufacturing sector.

The full picture, of course,...

Find: Toshiba to take on Lytro with refocusing smartphone camera

Refocusable imagery makes its way into phones. And it's not Lytro. 

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Toshiba to take on Lytro with refocusing smartphone camera

toshiba lytro sensor


Toshiba is working on an image sensor that will let smartphone or tablet users refocus photos that have already been shot, according to the Asahi Shimbun. The effect sounds very similar to the Lytro light field camera that was released earlier this year, but that device was over four inches long.

Find: Jolla's Sailfish mobile OS thoroughly toured in new video

Jolla's Sailfish mobile OS thoroughly toured in new video

Sailfish

Back in November, Finnish startup Jolla publicly unveiled its Sailfish mobile operating system to the world. The OS is based on MeeGo, a platform Nokia created but quickly abandoned in favor of Windows Phone. But with Sailfish, Jolla — which itself employs several ex-Nokia staffers — is intent on carrying on the torch. And though we're still no closer to knowing when we'll see consumer devices running Sailfish on store shelves, Engadget has taken a lengthy look at where things stand today. In an eight-minute walkthrough video, you'll get a closer glimpse at many of Sailfish's unique interface choices that were briefly showcased two months ago. Overall the OS seems fluid and lightweight, though some app icons are in clear need of a...