Category: News

Giant snails appear to be invading Texas, according to new reports, and some health experts worry that the unusual creatures might begin spreading a disease that could be deadly to humans. As reported by NBC News, a Houston woman recently discovered what is believed…

Thank goodness for President Barack Obama, for without his wisdom and foresight none of us would know how to live our lives, and in particular, how much money we need to save for our own retirement. Consider the president’s proposal for the government to come after…

Beginning Monday, May 20th, Natural News is broadcasting a free cancer solutions seminar featuring one expert speaker each day for six days. The cost is FREE and there is no registration required. To listen in, just visit Healing.NaturalNews.com beginning Monday at…

Blackstrap molasses has always been a great choice for home baking. Aside from having a delicious and sweet taste, blackstrap is also an effective, and inexpensive, health supplement. Rich in calcium, magnesium, iron, copper, and other trace minerals, as well as a great…

Google has made some great enhancements to the Android platform with the goal of making their devices more user friendly to people with blindness or low-visibility. Google engineers have simplified the process for developers to augment their code to let Android use its accessibility features for these users. These accessibility features utilize either TalkBack (a spoken feedback system), or enable connected devices which give a blind person a legible description of the display to read using BrailleBack (a Braille emulator). TalkBack is already implemented in Android, while BrailleBack is available in the Play Store.

These features were put on display at an “Enabling Blind and Low-Vision Accessibility on Android” presentation at Google I/O. Developers were explained how to optimize their applications to take advantage of Android’s accessibility tools.

Mobile Accessibility by a Spanish company called Codefactory has already been assisting blind users for a while by using a simplified audio-based user interface. Their developers say that Android’s new enhancements will allow the company to work on new features for the service.

It’s really great to see support being improved for the visually-impaired community. There’s no reason everyone shouldn’t be able to experience how great Android is.

Source: Phone Arena

 

Come comment on this article: Google makes Android easier to use for visually-impaired users with TalkBack and BrailleBack.

With hectic schedules, it can be hard to keep track of everything in your news feed. That’s why we created the TalkAndroid Daily Dose. This is where we recap the day’s hottest stories so you can get yourself up to speed in quick fashion. Happy reading!!

Guides

Best Android music playing applications [May 2013]

Accessories

Samsung TecTiles 2 Now available to purchase

Apps

Fitbit adds Bluetooth 4.0 sync support for Samsung Galaxy S 4 in new update

Classic Sonic the Hedgehog by Sega launched to Google Play for $2.99

Carriers

AT&T blocking Google Hangout video chats on mobile networks

Gaming Hardware

NVIDIA to begin accepting SHIELD handheld gaming device pre-orders from today

Google Glass

Google Glass successfully unlocked, boots up with Ubuntu at I/O

Congress wants to know a little more about Google Glass privacy guidelines, sends a friendly letter to Larry Page in the process

Phones

HTC One $100 trade up program ends this Sunday, no extensions planned

Google to debut Android 4.3 on white Nexus 4 June 10th

Panasonic launches P51 in Indian markets, packed with 5-inch screen and stylus

Samsung Galaxy S 4 to reach 10 million sales by next week, Note III to have 5.9-inch OLED display

Is success of Samsung Galaxy S 4 pushing company to look outside for components?

Tablets

Nexus 7 refresh expected in July, same price with updated specs

Photo and details leak of 8-inch Samsung Galaxy Tab 3

Archos officially announces 80 Xenon tablet, set for June launch at $199 asking price

Updates

HTC One X rumored to get Sense 5.0 in new incoming update, brings Zoe and Blinkfeed along for the ride

HTC sales increase for One and Butterfly, Butterfly to receive Sense 5.0 update

Miscellaneous

Samsung grabs 95% of global Android smartphone profits in Q1 2013

Come comment on this article: TalkAndroid Daily Dose for May 17, 2013

Do you remember last month when we told you of the sad news that Samsung’s old TecTiles didn’t work with the new Galaxy S 4. Well cheer up my friends because Samsung TecTiles 2 are now available for you to purchase. For those of you that don’t know what a Samsung TecTile is, let me give you a quick refresher. They are smart NFC tags that can be programmed by the Samsung TecTile app to do many things. You can set TecTiles to change settings in the phone, call a specific number, or send a predefined text. As an example, you can place a tag at the office, and when you scan the it, it can set your smartphone to silent or it could bring up your work calendar. You choose what you want the tag to do when it is scanned, making the little tasks that much easier.

For those that have a Galaxy S 4 and want more info, check out the source.

Source: Samsung

Come comment on this article: Samsung TecTiles 2 Now available to purchase

If you’re thinking that HTC will extend their $100 trade-in promotion for the HTC One, then think again. Earlier in the month they extended it to purchases made by May 19th, which is this Sunday. HTC is reminding everyone that this is your final chance to get in on it, which means they don’t plan on extending it. Of course we never say never in this business, but if you’re thinking of grabbing the One with this deal, you might want to pick it up this weekend. Because there is always the possibility that you might want to return your shiny new phone, HTC is giving you until June 19 to get your paperwork in. Hit the source link and use code US001UVORE.

source:  HTC Trade Up

Come comment on this article: HTC One $100 trade up program ends this Sunday, no extensions planned

In one point in time, Nokia was the top-selling smartphone vendor in the world by a wide margin. It wasn’t even that long ago, in fact. But when Nokia failed to respond quickly enough to the industry’s shift toward touch, the Finnish giant lost its footing and toppled spectacularly. Just how bad have things gotten for Nokia? Market share numbers paint a pretty frightening picture, but a single tweet from Benedict Evans of Enders Analysis might do an even better job of putting things in perspective.

Continue reading…

Tumblr’s fate could be decided Sunday by Yahoo’s board of directors. AllThingsD reported late Friday that Yahoo is closing in on a $1.1 billion deal for the site, moving quickly to cement what would be the biggest deal of CEO Marissa Mayer’s tenure at the venerable but lackluster internet pioneer.

After reporting Thursday that Yahoo was considering a number of options for Tumblr, including partnerships or strategic investments, ATD reported Friday that Mayer had decided to go all in. Om reported Thursday that Yahoo was worried about counteroffers from Facebook, much how Facebook stole Instagram from Twitter after Twitter co-founder Jack Dorsey’s courtship of the photo-sharing site. Now the board plans to meet Sunday to consider giving final approval to the offer.

Tumblr’s backers will likely be pleased with a $1.1 billion price tag, especially if, as reported, it involves cash However, it’s far from certain that such an outlay would do anything to revive Yahoo’s fortunes. Mayer certainly has been trying to bring new blood into the company of late, snapping up a number of smaller mobile startups before focusing on Tumblr over the last month.

Yahoo has scheduled a press event for Monday evening in New York to discuss “something special,” but it wouldn’t hint at anything else. We’ll be there to cover the event, but in the meantime, here’s Tumblr founder and CEO David Karp’s appearance at our paidContent Live conference in April, discussing his company’s fortunes:

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Toward the tail end of Google I/O on Friday, Sunil James, a Google product manager (on left in picture), and John Cormie, a software engineer focusing on networking for Google Compute Engine (GCE), showed off new network capabilities for GCE that can enable hybrid clouds running between GCE deployments and on-premise data centers.

GCE customers are now able to do things like establish virtual private Layer 3 networks and assign static public IP addresses to instances, James said. Connecting networks will also become possible. And a load-balancing service is on the way “as part of the native fabric for Google Compute Engine,” James said.

Developers interested in trying out GCE load balancing can fill out a form to do so. Developers can also sign up for early access to all emerging Google Cloud Platform features.

The load balancing and routing services are the sorts of things that could help more businesses make the decision to try real projects on the newly publicly available Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS) piece of the Google Cloud Platform.

And the new capabilities move Google a few steps closer campaign to becoming a top, widely used IaaS provider — if not one day bigger than Amazon Web Services then at least No. 2. That position is already feasible for Google as it is.

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Redbox Instant by Verizon is going to bring its streaming service to Google TV devices soon: The company demonstrated a prototype of its app at Google I/O Friday, and a representative told me that the app will launch in earnest within the next few weeks. After that, the company is going to launch a channel on Roku media streamers.

Check out a photo of the app UI below:

Redbox Instant by Verizon’s prototype app was on display on an LG Google TV that ran the next version of Google TV that is based on Android 4.2.2 aka Jelly Bean. That version will come to Google TV devices in the third quarter of this year, but I was told that the Redbox Instant app will be available before that, and that is going to work just fine with the current version of Google TV. However, the service won’t be available on Google TV devices using an Intel processor, which means that owners of the Logitech Revue and other first-generation devices won’t be able to use it.

Redbox Instant first launched on select Samsung TVs and Blu-ray players as well as PCs and mobile devices in March. The joint-venture between Redbox and Verizon has since added support for Microsoft’s Xbox 360 as well as select LG Smart TVs. I was told by a representative Friday that the company is looking to add support for Roku players soon after rolling out the Google TV app.

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If you can only digest six awesome pieces of Internet content this week (plus one congrats), look no further. Here’s a round-up of the best stories on the webs this week.

Paul Bloom: The origins of pleasure

TED speaker Paul Bloom makes a compelling case against empathy, arguing that empathy alone is not sufficient to uphold morality — and may even work against it. [The New Yorker]

42 truly stunning photos from the 2013 National Geographic Traveler Photo Contest. [The Atlantic]

Would you be friends with Humbert Humbert? Authors weigh in on whether fictional characters ought to be likable. [New Yorker blog]

Damon Horowitz: Philosophy in prison

The most popular way to spend time at Beaumont Juvenile Correctional Center in Virginia is … reading Tolstoy? [The Washington Post] Watch a talk on philosophy in prisons »

Scientists show an electronic jolt to the brain can improve mental arithmetic skills in the long-term, and without negative side-effects. [New Scientist]

Chris Hadfield alights from space with another social media masterpiece, a cover of David Bowie’s “Space Oddity,” along with a full-length music video. Shot in the International Space Station. [YouTube] Watch a TED Blog playlist we published to welcome him home »

Raghava KK: My 5 lives as an artist

And a brief congrats to TED speaker Raghava KK, who was named a National Geographic Emerging Explorer this week, and TED Fellows Skylar Tibbits and Marc Fornes, who were both awarded the 2013 Architectural League Prize for Young Architects + Designers.

As we reported before, over 900 million Android-powered smartphones have been activated since the platform’s debut in 2007. While its no surprise that Samsung leads the herd over HTC, LG and Sony (among other competitors), it may come as a shock just how much they dominate by. According to a report by Strategy Analytics, Samsung captured 95% of Android’s profit in the first quarter of 2013. 

The report states that Android made $5.3 billion dollars in the first quarter, with Samsung making $5.1 billion off Android-powered handsets in that same time period. That comes to 94.7% of the profit share, and those figures don’t include tablets. While some question Samsung’s tactics, such as using all plastic hardware and producing multiple phones every year, something is clearly working for them.

In second place, LG accounted for 2.5% of the profit share, while all other manufacturers (including HTC, Sony, Pantech and many more) accounted for the last 2.7%. Samsung’s incredible numbers led to one more startling realization: Strategy Analytics’ Director Neil Mawston believes Samsung now makes more money from Android than Google.

Source: Strategy Analytics

 

 

Come comment on this article: Samsung grabs 95% of global Android smartphone profits in Q1 2013

Of all the problems to have when launching a new flagship smartphone, trouble keeping up with demand is hardly the worst. Of course, things change a bit when a company has to pump units into channels as quickly as possible before the top-selling smartphone vendor in the world launches the Galaxy S4. HTC undoubtedly lost some sales thanks to its production woes with the One, but a new report suggests its manufacturing issues are behind it. According to Focus Taiwan, HTC North Asia president Jack Tong said that production capacity for the HTC One will double in May and increase further in June. “Our capacity is expected to rise significantly starting from mid-May,” Tong reportedly said Friday at a press conference. “We are optimistic about our high-end sales during April and June.”

Data analytics star Tableau had a successful initial public offering on Friday, closing the day up nearly 64 percent at $50.75 per share. That means the company brought in about $254 million (it sold 5 million shares, while stockholders sold 3.4 million) and has a market cap of $2.9 billion. Shares have remained relatively steady in after-hours trading, trending down only slightly.

“We’re thrilled,” Tableau co-founder and CEO Christian Chabot told me during a call after the market closed. One should hope so.

Chabot and his fellow co-founders stand to make a lot of money if today’s closing price holds up, as does its sole investor NEA. The firm put $15 million into Tableau since it launched in 2003, and has rode that sum to profitability and more than $127 million in annual revenue.

Here’s a quick chart (made using Tableau Public) showing who owns how many share and what they’re potentially worth.

The company didn’t really need more capital to operate, Chabot said, but one of the primary drivers was to raise awareness of the company. It has about 12,000 customers, he said, but there are millions more possible users. As part of attracting them, the company is going to expand globally and is working to improve its reach across mobile devices, the cloud and the Mac operating system.

“I don’t believe in the this whole ‘or’ philosophy with computers,” Chabot said. “It’s ‘and’” — meaning people will use desktops and tablets and smartphones.

More prominence and more users singing its praises might also dispel the notion that Tableau is just about visualization. It has some fairly advanced features under the covers (as a commenter to my earlier post about the company’s influence pointed out), even if they’re hidden by the relatively simple user experience.

“Tableau is not a visualization company, per se, it’s really an analytics company,” Chabot said.

However, if the company really wants to expand its reach to everyone one who wants to gain knowledge from data — something Chabot calls a “timeless human need” — it might actually need to get simpler. More marketing can let potential business users know about new features like forecasting and data-extraction, but it won’t make a dentist is Des Moines better at formatting his data.

After raising $254 million in its IPO, though, Tableau is in a good place to do whatever it has to.

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