Category: News

The web is now the next great application development platform. Webkit is by far the most popular development “platform” among the web development community. Many are calling for Microsoft to ditch Trident (the rendering engine in Internet Explorer) and replace it with Webkit. I personally think that would be a huge mistake and apparently Google feels the same way or it wouldn’t be forking Webkit as the basis of its own rendering engine.

Nevertheless, the web development community is uber focused on non-Microsoft technologies for development. This presents a big problem for Microsoft and ability to hold on to its development community. I believe Microsoft can overcome this threat if by making a few key moves.

1. Increase involvement in the open-source web development community. Microsoft is already doing a lot of work in this area. But the company can really begin to change negative impressions by contributing tools to make development easier on projects like SASS and Compass, for example. There are many projects Microsoft contributes to. I merely suggest the company thinks about specific tools to make development faster.

2. Be more aggressive at getting Internet Explorer ahead of the competition in standards compliancy. It’s pretty amazing how at version 10 Internet Explorer still lags the competition. Microsoft needs to move a lot quicker to get the browser to at least match the competition. But matching the competition is not enough. I believe the company needs to move ahead of the competition in supporting key features of HTML5/CSS3. Internet Explorer should become the model of standards-compliant browsers.

3. Make HTML5/JS a first-class programming citizen. I think one of the best moves Microsoft made last year is to allow apps on Windows 8 to be developed using HTML/JS. This is a big deal because Microsoft needs to hold on to as many developers as possible and make it very easy for new developers to transition to its platforms. The ability to use languages that are in widespread use today is a major plus for Microsoft.

4. Write once, deploy everywhere. The ability to write an app one time and deploy it across any platform is the nirvana of app development. We seem to be a long ways off from this. I’d love the ability to write an application in HTML/JS one time and have it automatically adjust itself for the desktop, laptop, tablet, phone and TV screen. Some believe this to be a pipe dream. Perhaps so. However, the closer we can get to it, the better.

Those are my top-four picks for what I think Microsoft can do to hold on its developers. What do you think? Is Microsoft in a crisis with developers or is everything easy peasy and the company has nothing to worry about?

Photo Credit:  Piotr Marcinski/Shutterstock

The HTC One is launching on carriers all over the world, and now we’ve got the official announcement for China. As we’d previously heard, the Chinese variant of the HTC One is still packing dual sim slots and that coveted microSD card slot. The battery is still completely non-removable, but the SD card is a very, very nice addition. There’s no word on carrier subsidies, but you can expect the device to be available directly from HTC on April 26th.

As we’d heard before, this customized version of the One is probably not going to hit any other parts of the world, so don’t hold your breath.

source: Engadget

Come comment on this article: HTC One heading to China with dual-sim and microSD card support

So, is Yahoo trying to become a media company again? It’s question to ask as former Googler and current CEO Marissa Mayer snags an exclusive distribution deal for Saturday Night Live. Late last night, Mayer announced the agreement, with Broadway Video, which starts September 1.

“The partnership gives Yahoo users exclusive access to the entire 38-year archive of SNL content as well as clips from the current season”, Mayer says. However, current season, which will be 2013-14 when the deal begins, will be “non-exclusive”.

Mayer is Yahoo’s eighth CEO, and she bears the burden of trying to reinvent one of the oldest and iconic dot-coms. During the Noughties, Terry Semel turned the Internet services giant into a media company, direction a string of successors tried to change. Carol Bartz, who was unceremoniously fired by phone in September 2009, took a hatchet to Yahoo, cutting services, pulling back media emphasis and creating an identity crisis inside and outside the company. Despite Bartz’s heavy hand, Yahoo’s brand remained surprisingly resilient, though tarnished.

Mayer stepped into the executive office in July 2012. Google employee #20 promised to be the CEO who would when so many others couldn’t. In her short time at the helm, Yahoo is more focused, its brand reviving and the stock price rising. Since August 31 through market close yesterday, Yahoo’s share price is up 69 percent.

Yahoo is on a buying spree, this year acquiring Alike, Snip.it and Summly. In December, photo-sharing site Flickr, which had long languished, got a major makeover.

More Americans are posting about political causes and activities to social media outlets now than they were during the 2008 election, showing increased levels of comfort around using social media to advance civic causes, according to a new Pew Research Center report set to release late Wednesday.

The Pew report highlights changes in social media over the first four years of Barack Obama’s presidency, showing how people are more likely to post to sites like Twitter and Facebook. However, these dramatic increases aren’t all that surprising. Twitter was barely a mainstream source for news in 2008, and Facebook wasn’t much older at that point. Now both sites have become much more accepted as major advertising and communications platforms, so the increased participation there makes sense.

However, it’s worth noting how people use these platforms around civic engagement, because these types of participation could impact the business models of companies like Twitter and Facebook as they grow. It’s also worth considering how social participation corresponds with income and education levels, and how it translates into life offline.

Here were some of the most interesting stats from the report, titled “Civic Engagement in the Digital Age,” which will become available on Pew’s site later Wednesday:

• Increased activity: More Americans used social networks for political activity (39 percent of all adults) in the 2012 race than used social media at all in 2008 (only 26 percent were using social media at the time.)
• Offline engagement: Those 39 percent of people who are politically active on social networks aren’t just limiting their activity to Facebook — they’re also really engaged offline as well. Sixty-three percent of the people who post political activity online then do something like attending a meeting in person, compared to the national average of 48 percent of people who take offline political action. They’re also more likely to contact their representative online than the average public.
• What they’re posting: In 2012, 17 percent of adults posted political stories to social media (up from 3 percent in 2008), and 12 percent friended or followed a candidate in 2012 (up from 3 percent in 2008.) Since more candidates now have active social accounts, this makes sense.
• Sparking an interest: It’s encouraging to note that 43 percent of people using social media said they were inspired to go learn more about something they saw on these channels. What exactly they went on to learn and where they learned it is not noted, but it does show that a Facebook post could spark greater civic interest.
• Demographics: Wealthy, better-educated individuals are more likely to become politically engaged both online and offline, although the disparity of participation between low-income and high-income groups was less pronounced on social media than in other capacities. However, the researchers said it doesn’t look like social media will be the political equalizer people thought it might be.
• The remaining power of offline: Americans are still three times more likely to discuss politics offline (in person or over the phone) than they are online, reminding users that political discourse hasn’t moved entirely to Facebook. And the same is true for political donations, 60 percent of which took place offline.

The Pew report was conducted in July and August of 2012 and interviewed 2,253 adults over the age of 18. The interviews took place on both landline phones and cell phones and in English and Spanish. The study’s margin of error is plus or minus 2.4 percentage points.

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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

Samsung Galaxy S 4 initial setup and changes to TouchWiz

How to set up and use Air View and Air Gestures on the Samsung Galaxy S 4

How to set up and use Smart Pause and Smart Scroll on the Samsung Galaxy S 4

For the beginner: How to set the Galaxy S 4 to Easy Mode

Samsung Galaxy 4 camera overview and how to use the Dual Camera function

How to take a Drama Shot and Erase unwanted objects with the Samsung Galaxy S 4 camera

How to make Animated GIFs and add sound to pictures on the Galaxy S 4

Reviews

Blood Runner [Arcade & Action]

Apps

Swype officially out of beta and now available in the Play Store

Update allows for offline viewing in Falcon Pro

Remember The Milk gets major update to version 3.0, adds tablet support

Fieldrunners 2 comes to Android platform

Carriers

MetroPCS shareholders give T-Mobile USA merger the green light

Phones

Acer adds the Liquid E2 to its smartphone lineup

Google X device running Android 5.0.1 shows up in AnTuTu Benchmarks

HTC One receives update to improve UltraPixel camera performance

Lenovo Ideaphone K900 available May 6th in China

Quad-core or Octa-core, it doesn’t matter says Samsung’s J.K. Shin

Sprint and T-Mobile both delay Galaxy S 4 retail launch

Verizon confirms Samsung Galaxy S 4 pre-orders will begin on April 25th

Miscellaneous

New study says market for phablets, “superphones” to reach 825 million units globally by 2018

Come comment on this article: TalkAndroid Daily Dose for April 24, 2013

Tower defense fans will be happy to know that a sequel to one of the most popular tower defense games is now available in the Google Play Store. Fieldrunners 2 from Subatomic Studios gives players the opportunity to once again match wits with an enemy force while saving the world. The title boasts some of the best AI to be found in a Strategic-Action-Puzzle-Defense game to match the beautiful graphics. Subatomic Studios has packed some unique new features into the game, including a tower that shoots bee hives; trenches, bridges and tunnels; and a tower that will turn enemy combatants into barnyard animals. Subatomic estimates the game provides 20 or more hours of fun to complete the campaign against the invading fieldrunners.

Fieldrunners 2 has over 20 new levels to challenge players who have additional options to try their hand at like Puzzle, Sudden Death, and Time Trial levels. Check out some screenshots and a launch video below. If you are ready to defend the world, hit the Google Play download link below and be ready to drop $2.99.

Click here to view the embedded video.

Google Play Download Link

Come comment on this article: Fieldrunners 2 comes to Android platform

How many of you think it matters how many cores the processor in your phone has? It doesn’t matter, or at least that is what the head of IT and Mobile Communications and co-CEO of Samsung J.K. Shin would like you to believe. While Europe and the U.S. will get the quad-core Snapdragon version of the Samsung Galaxy S 4, other markets will see the Exynos 5 octa-core variant. This decision has ruffled some feathers with consumers hoping to get their hands on the Exynos version here in the states without having to import it.

J.K. Shin believes this to be a moot point according to CNET, because the processors are similar enough that the average consumer wouldn’t be affected. If this doesn’t help you to understand Samsung’s decision, maybe this will: the real reason why  Samsung chose to launch different specs in different markets was a supply issue. Most of us can probably agree that if you only have enough to supply your home market or an outside market, we would all chose the home market, and that’s what Samsung did.

There you have it folks, the reason why your shiny new Samsung Galaxy S 4 doesn’t have a Exynos 5 octa-core processor is a supply issue, but it doesn’t matter anyways. He is probably right. I’m sure the average consumer could walk out of the store with either variant and never know the difference. However for developers and gamers, a processor can mean whether their game is better then the next guy’s by pushing the limits of mobile gaming.

So do you guys agree with J.K. Shin? Do you think you could tell the difference?

Source: Tech radar

Come comment on this article: Quad-core or Octa-core, it doesn’t matter says Samsung’s J.K. Shin

In an era of e-tickets, bitcoins and app-based banking, it seems pretty antiquated that we still have to fumble through our wallets for an insurance card each time we go to the doctor’s office. But a Philadelphia-based startup has a plan for making those flimsy pieces of cardboard digital — and the upside isn’t just the potential for going paper-free.

With the rise of high-deductible plans, patients are increasingly on the hook for more of their medical expenses than they’ve ever been before. For patients, that means a bigger need for tools that provide more transparency about health care costs. And for doctors, particularly independent physicians, said Medlio co-founder and CEO David Brooks, that means a growing problem with collecting payment.

According to a 2007 report from McKinsey, hospitals and providers usually only collect about 50 percent of the postinsurance balance (or the amount owed by the patient beyond what insurance covers or what they pay at the time of treatment). That’s not because patients are inherently delinquent, Brooks emphasized, it’s often because they’re either too confused about what they need to pay or they don’t believe that they were billed correctly.

Reaching patients where they are

With a virtual insurance card, Brooks believes, physicians would get a more seamless, reliable way of collecting payments and patients would get better information on how much health care costs. And, he added, it achieves the new “holy grail” of health care: greater patient engagement.

“We’re taking this very simple concept as a starting point to engage patients,” Brooks said. “A challenge most companies have is they shoot really high in the adoption curve… we’d like to meet people at the most basic level where they are today.”

The company, which is part of the new Dreamit Health startup accelerator, said the first version of its app is still a few months away. But the initial plan is a mobile app that enables patients to check in from their smartphones. Instead of handing over a physical card, patients would use the app to provide doctors with their insurance information and the app would automatically verify insurance eligibility for the provider. Medlio also intends to give patients an estimate of their treatment’s cost before they receive it, and it enables patients to initiate (and doctors to collect) payments directly through the app.

As the system evolves, Brooks said, it could store and share medical information so that patients don’t need to fill out forms every time they visit the doctor and it could deliver appointment reminders.

While they’re still working out the details of the business plan, he said, their goal is to keep it free for patients. Even if doctors don’t use the service, patients could use the app to store insurance and health information and potentially enter a doctor’s fax number to share medical information instead of filling out forms.

Privacy and security issues could be challenges

The idea is that, initially, physicians would pay for Medlio services and, ultimately, insurance companies eager to win the trust and attention of their members could also use Medlio to advertise and communicate with patients.

Digital cards are slowly taking off for car insurance – in a few states, drivers can show their insurance with apps or pdfs. But health care obviously implicates a wider range of concerns. Consumers may be wary of the security and privacy consequences of storing and sharing medical and financial information in an app and providers may be reluctant to adopt a virtual card because of HIPAA issues.

Personal.com gives consumers a secure way to store health insurance information and insurance companies are increasingly giving their members mobile apps for storing information and looking up claims. But the big difference between those apps and Medlio is that they don’t directly connect the patient to the provider.  Startup Simplee also aims to give patients more transparency into their health finances and it offers an app that lets patients pay from their phones, but while Simplee has started by targeting larger hospitals with its payment product, Medlio said it plans to start by targeting independent primary care physicians.

Getting the attention of a critical mass of independent physicians could be a challenge for an upstart company. But Brooks said they believe that this is a big problem providers need to solve and, he added, because consumers can download and use the app on their own, they could help push doctors to the service.

Image by Olga Danylenko via Shutterstock.

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Continue reading…

As if having the caloric details of your sex life posted publicly wasn’t enough, new research has exposed additional security vulnerabilities in the popular Fitbit fitness tracking devices (See disclosure). A team from Florida International University has shown that Fitbits can be subject to attacks including denial of service, injection, and data capture.

Many of these problems stem from the fact that the Fitbit uses plain HTTP in its communications, exposing usernames, passwords, and data to opportunistic attackers. A suite of tools to probe the Fitbit created by the researchers was able to capture data from any Fitbit tracker within a radius of 15 feet. Another type of attack they tested forced the Fitbit to attempt frequent data upload, draining the battery 21 times faster than with normal once a day uploading.

An additional problem the researchers identified is an absence of a data consistency check on the Fitbit and its associated online social network. For example, they were able to inject 12.6 million steps into a user account, which the system translated into only 0.02 miles traveled, based on the initial calibration to the user’s stride length. This kind of data injection could be exploited by cheats, people who don’t want to work for the badges and monetary rewards that are available to fitness over-achievers.

While such an attack on a given individual might seem far-fetched, hackers could be motivated to expose or misuse sensitive personal health data. The consequences of that exposure could be no more than embarrassment for the Fitbit’s owner, but the security and privacy ramifications could go much deeper for similarly vulnerable wireless devices used in larger settings by healthcare companies.

The researchers also highlighted a few more bizarre “mule” attacks, such as attaching the Fitbit to a spinning rope or a car wheel (you can “burn” about 350 calories in 20 minutes with the latter method).

To combat these attacks, they developed FitLock, a hacked together defense system that includes encryption. A data consistency check also verifies new uploads against stride length and basal metabolic rate so that number of steps, distance traveled, and calories burned correspond. According to the recently released research, this additional security results in a negligible increase in processing time of 37 ms, about 2.4 percent more than normal Fitbit overhead. They also propose an extra step to thwart mule attacks: using a smaller, more accurate GPS chip to tell whether location is not changing (rope attack) while steps are being taken, or when the location is changing far too much (wheel attack).

The attacks that are averted with FitLock are not unique to Fitbit or other sensing devices. Insulin pumps and cardiac defibrillators, for example, could be manipulated with the same methods, with much more dire consequences.

Disclosure: Fitbit is backed by True Ventures, a venture capital firm that is an investor in the parent company of GigaOM. Om Malik, founder of GigaOM, is also a venture partner at True.

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Dropcam is updating their iOS apps today with two new features their users have been clamoring for: location awareness and in-app time scheduling.

Dropcam is a high definition plug-and-play security camera that has gotten some well deserved praise for its simplistic design and easy installation. Once your Dropcam is plugged into a power source, it automatically connects to your wifi connection. You can control the video feeds through your browser or your smartphone. It’s a painless setup, and pretty neat.

Dropcams can be controlled in the browser and through your smartphone app, so the updates are welcome news. With location aware toggling, Dropcam can now automatically turn itself on when you leave the house, and off when you’re back inside, by virtue of the GPS on your smartphone.

Another added feature is in-app scheduling, which allows you to select which times of the week you’d like your Dropcam to be monitoring your home. For example, if you were planning on going on a week long vacation, you could program your Dropcam to be on during that time in advance.

Dropcam is available at their website for $149. Their apps can be downloaded in the iOS App Store here.

TED Talks are available in 97 languages, from Albanian to Vietnamese, thanks to the tireless work of our translators. So far, more than 8,800 volunteers have created the upwards of 34,000 translated talks. To celebrate this huge accomplishment, every week the TED Blog will be bringing you a Q&A with one of our most prolific translators. Today, meet Elena Montrasio.

Where do you live and what do you do by day?

I live in London, U.K. I am a professor of Italian as a foreign language but at the moment I work as a literary translator.

What drew you to TED?

The desire to participate in a volunteer program where I could contribute my skills. That and general interest in the topics that TED deals with.

What was the first talk you translated and how did you pick it?

Peter Gabriel fights injustice with videoMy first talk was Peter Gabriel’s. I chose it because I have been in love with Peter Gabriel since I was 14!

What have been your favorite talks to translate? Why?

My favorite talks are the ones about marine conservation issues. The decay of the oceans because of damage from human beings is a topic that is very dear to my heart.

Which talk was the most difficult for you to translate and why?

Capt. Charles Moore on the seas of plasticIt was actually a TEDx talk, “Captain Charles Moore on the seas of plastic.” Not because it was hard in itself, but because I really wanted to do my absolute very best to contribute in spreading his message. So it took me a long time to make sure I was accurate and choosing words that would portray the heart that the speaker put into the talk.

What’s a phrase in your language that you wish would catch on globally?

“Se chiure na porta e s’arape nu portone.” It’s literally, “When a door closes, a wider door will open.” I think in English they say: “When a door closes, a window opens.”