Category: News

Skype has announced the release of Skype 6.2 for Mac and Windows.

It’s essentially a maintenance release, although Windows users will notice a new-look top toolbar. Four icons immediately above the Contacts list and Recent Conversations tab provide quick access to Home, Calling Phones, Creating Groups and Adding Contacts.

The other addition this time around (for all platforms) is what the company calls “eGifting”. Which sounds like it’s going to be some major new technology, but actually just means that, when you get a birthday notification, you’ll now also see a prompt suggesting that you send them a Skype gift of credit.

Elsewhere, you’re now able to send one-way SMS without the hassle of adding and verifying your mobile number, which works for us.

Some worthwhile bug fixes mean that Skype will no longer hang when signing out with a Facebook account, and there should no longer be any mismatch between the credit amounts displayed in Skype and the account window.

But a notable remaining “known issue” means that the program may crash when logging in if “Call Recorder” is installed. A fix is reportedly on the way, but in the meantime, if you’re affected, all you can do is uninstall “Call Recorder”.

Those are the highlights, but Skype 6.2 for Mac and Windows do have a few other bug fixes and issues, too – if you want to know more, then the official Skype blog post on the release has the full list.

Photo Credit: Sarah Newton/Shutterstock

If you’ll be in London on Thursday March 7th, attend the BlackBerry Mini Jam. Connect with experts and other developers interested in BlackBerry 10 development. This half-day event will cover a lot of the basics and you’re sure to walk away with lots of new contacts.

The event will take place at the Skills Matter eXchange, close to Barbican station. If you haven’t attended a BlackBerry Jam event, they’re a good mix of presentations and sessions. There’s plenty of time to answer your questions and the atmosphere is easygoing and friendly.

The app development portion will cover HTML5/BlackBerry WebWorks as well as native C/C++ development.

Click here to register.

Today, Alan Krueger, Chairman of the Council of Economic Advisers, answered questions from the public about President Obama's State of the Union Address in an “Open for Questions” session moderated by Yahoo! Finance. Check it out below.

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During the annual D.I.C.E. conference last week, a number of gaming luminaries spoke on the state of the industry. These talks were all posted online with the exception of one that didn’t show up until this week. Unfortunately, it was the most important talk of all – a chat between Bad Robot’s J.J. Abrams and Valve’s Gabe Newell.

Gamers, and Valve fans in particular, can now rejoice as the talk has been posted online in its entirety. Learn how two of the most famous men in their respective fields compare storytelling in film and gaming. You’ll also get to see the announcement that shook the world – Valve collaborating with Abrams on Half-Life and Portal films:

Opera’s decision to change rendering engines means three of the top five browsers will use Webkit. Internet Explorer stands alone, and that is the wrong place to be. In September 2009 post “Microsoft should dig deep into Webkit to keep Google from Framing IE“, I suggested radical change, which unsurprisingly was ignored. Since, Chrome usage share grew from 2.9 percent in August 2009 to 17.84 percent in January 2013, according to Net Applications. Meanwhile, IE share fell from 66.97 percent to 55.14 percent.

But the real battleground, and where upstarts gobble up territory, is mobile — yeah smartphones and tablets. While the category accounted for just 11.8 percent browser usage share in January, the majority is Webkit — 61.02 percent just for Safari. Internet Explorer: 1.34 percent, or less than Chrome (2.02 percent). Android browser is 21.46 percent. As I expressed three-and-a-half years ago: “Microsoft should answer WebKit for WebKit, by releasing a new browser based on a new rendering engine; put on the IE brand and ship it for desktop and mobile”. There’s still time, but fast running out.

Invasion

Microsoft is losing the new browser war and needs to act rashly and, to be bluntly honest, should have taken my advice in 2009. Starting now is big disadvantage, but what else is there to do? The problem isn’t rocket science, but somehow is lost on the brainiacs in Redmond, Wash. There is:

• Surge in competing browsers
• Monetization of browsers around search
• Growing demand for browsers on mobile devices
• WebKit emerging as dominant rendering engine for mobile apps
• Increasing developer distraction from other Web browsers or technologies
• Rising interest in Chrome OS as platform competing with (and replacing) Windows

Microsoft now fights the new browser war on multiple fronts:

• Desktop, where territory recedes
• Mobile, where rampaging hordes run wild
• Operating systems, where Android, Chrome OS and iOS invade outlying areas

Internet Explorer must reach where it doesn’t today — Android, Android hybrids from Amazon and Chinese phone manufacturers and iOS. Webkit stands in the way, particularly iOS, where Apple demands it. Microsoft develops numerous attractive and effective Android and iOS apps, with Bing being a star. IE needs to be there, too.

Insurgency

But mobile is but one insurgency on the browser battlefront.

In May 2011 post “Chrome OS: The ghost of Netscape rises to haunt Microsoft“, I warned what could happen to Windows. Many BetaNews readers rejected the idea, but look where we are now with Chromebook. It was the geek gift this holiday. Microsoft OEM partners Acer, HP, Lenovo and Samsung now all ship Chromebooks. There are rampant rumors of a Google-branded laptop running Chrome OS and increasing speculation the operating system will soon merge with Android. Such union would be fast-track to rapid adoption across multiple devices. Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer should pee at the thought. Several times a day!

The situation is more than a browser-based OS shipping on low-cost laptops. As I explained nearly three years ago:

During the PC era, Microsoft maintained Windows’ dominance through a number of means, including distribution, standards and contractual commitments. The company also used integration — the very thing that set off the U.S. antitrust case — as means of preserving Windows utility/relevance and to beat back competitors. Microsoft would take a technology a competitor spent millions to develop and integrate it into Windows, essentially giving it away for free. Google is doing something similar to Microsoft, by offering products/services for nominal fees or no cost that Microsoft charges heaps of money for. Enter Chrome or Chrome OS as platform for web apps connected to Google cloud product/services like Apps, Calendar and Gmail.

Chrome OS is free to license, and since I posted Google has copied Microsoft’s past strategy leveraging dominant platforms. Over the past two years, Google has tightly tied most of its products and services together around search. Chrome and Chrome OS bring everything together in a tidy package that also supports third-party web apps. Seriously, if Ballmer isn’t peeing his pants, he should be replaced by someone who is scared, ah, witless.

Mozilla has Firefox OS in the works but doesn’t command Google’s reach or resources. But even the operating system’s development shows competitive opportunity and Microsoft’s vulnerability.

Defense

Microsoft must recognize the seriousness of these competitive threats, particularly as it makes cloud services higher priorities. Can you say Office 365? Microsoft either takes control or is controlled by Apple and Google together setting standards for platforms in categories where Windows isn’t dominant or recedes.

During Microsoft’s glory years, cofounder Bill Gates made dictating and dominating computer standards a top priority, one CEO Steve Ballmer left behind. During the 1990s browser war, Microsoft integrated Internet Explorer into Windows — not far removed from how Google leverages search today. But the software giant did much more, such as either developing or coming to effectively control emerging Web standards during the late 1990s and early 2000s.

Microsoft isn’t really driving Web standards today. A commercially developed WebKit browser, supporting HTML 5 and other standards, would strengthen Microsoft’s position of influence against Apple, Google, Mozilla and other developers supporting open-source browsing engines. Done right, WebKit-based IE could even steal marketshare from other open-source browsers. Actually, there is no other choice.

The first step is the hardest: Conceding defeat. Ballmer and team must admit they blew mobile browsing and that support for standards like HTML5, which is core to Windows 8, aren’t enough. Google is aggressive, like Microsoft in the 1990s, and leverages monopoly position. The search giant is poised to snatch Webkit leadership from Apple and, presumably, drive standards. From that perspective, WebKit IE is table stakes.

Three-and-a-half years ago, I warned: “Left unchecked, Google will take Internet Explorer and Frame it. Perhaps Apple and Mozilla will break the glass. Microsoft is posed to become the Netscape of the 2010s, otherwise. Microsoft must act to preserve and even reclaim territory taken during the browser wars. There’s still time, but not for long”.

Microsoft is running out of options fast. If your next browser is Chrome, why not Chrome OS the next operating system in three years when Windows 9 ships? The transition is easy. Remember a decade ago when analysts and Microsoft dismissed Google because search isn’t sticky — just type a new web address? Or how ridiculous a Google browser or operating system seemed just five years ago? How the industry reacted? Think about it?

Math class should be fascinating, right? At TED2010, Conrad Wolfram suggests that one reason it often isn’t is hand calculation. Conrad Wolfram: Teaching kids real math with computersMost students spend years in math class learning to work sums by hand that a computer can now do. After all, computers are far better at calculation than human beings will ever be, while people are far better at defining problems and coming up with creative solutions.

Wolfram’s website, ComputerBasedMath.org, supports curriculums that allow teachers to focus on real-world math problems, so students can study concepts rather than calculation. As Wolfram says on the site:

“Rather than topics like solving quadratic equations or factorizing polynomials, Computer-Based Math focuses on using the power of math to solve real-world problems like, ‘Should I insure my mobile?,’ ‘How long will I live?’ or ‘What makes a beautiful shape?’”

This week, Wolfram announced its first test country: Estonia will be using the program to create a new statistics curriculum for students. Pilot testing of the curriculum in 30 classrooms will start in early 2014. From there, they plan to roll it out to all schools shortly after completing testing in September 2014.

Why adopt this program? The country’s Minister of Education and Research, Jaak Aaviksoo, says, “We want to lead the world in rethinking education in the technology-driven world.”

Several startups are combining technology and toys from LittleBits (see disclosure) and Sphero to Kickstarter darlings Romotive and Ubooly. As more companies from the tech realm try to bring their Silicon Valley ethos to the toy industry, I thought it would be fun to hit up the toy industry’s annual show — The Toy Fair — in New York City to see what the future holds. While there, I realized there is a massive gap between the $21.87 billion toy industry and the tech firms who want to change the way kids play.

First off, this show is huge. There are more than 1,000 vendors spread over 366,339 square feet of space. There are plush toys, dancing plush toys, building sets and dolls. The buyers at the show represent a wide assortment of stores, from large chains like Toys R Us and Best Buy to mom and pop toy shops, schools, car washes and dollar stores. These people are here to scope out new toys and buy inventory.

Despite the lure of the high-tech toys that brought me here, many of the things that caught my eye and interest were lower tech. For example, I was charmed by shelves of Android robot plush toys (from $10 to $43) from Gann Memorials, a company in North Carolina. You could even buy a plush Android phone cover for $7 if you were so inclined.

Another toy that I liked and saw buyers flock to at the Launchpad event — a small portion of the hall for upstart toy companies with prototypes and $1,900 to spend on a table — was a game called Awkward Moments. While it somewhat resembled the Cards Against Humanity game, it was created by a lab out of Dartmouth that built games to change public perception. This $18.95 game was designed to help overcome prejudice against women in the science, math and engineering fields with a small number of cards dedicated to situations that women might encounter. Surprisingly, it was fun instead of preachy.

However, the tech-related toys that I was there to see were pretty cool. NeuroSky, a company that makes a brainwave-reading helmet was there with a few toys that worked with its headsets. They ranged form ears that wiggled when you were focused to a helicopter that you controlled with your mind. After trying the headset on, I discovered that I am a very focused individual — perhaps a little too focused. My helicopter launched itself pretty aggressively from the moment I put the headset on. At $70 for the headset and ears this was an investment, however.

There were also tech toys for babies with iPads, such as Tiggly, a puzzle game to help toddlers recognize shapes.

And for young kids with iPads, there were the Apptivators. They sat on top of an iPad and interacted with the game playing on the screen. For $25 kids could get either a monster head or a car and play an associated game. When the character dies, the shell covering the little plastic head pops off.

And for adults with $1,000 to blow? Two 18-inch-high robots that could fight another robot via the web (the boxing ring is thrown in too).

After all of this, the $150 for the Romo smartphone robot looked downright reasonable.

And the $90 for the Littlebits toys that have been dubbed the next-generation of LEGOs had me ready to plunk down my credit card. Several educational buyers felt the same way apparently. A lot of people were at the LittleBits booth.

Yet, the 20th century settled back in once I wandered away from the relatively small interactive and tech section of the show. Once again I was surrounded by plastic, plush and puzzles. And as I wondered how tech toys might do in the bigger market outside the geeks and early adopters, I got a reality check from a fellow blogger who writes for the parenting site Babble. She pointed out that $90 was crazy money for a toy. Adrienne Appell, a spokesman for the Toy Industry Association backed that up with data, telling me that the average price of a toy is $8. Of course, that average is brought down by stuff like the junk below.

At the end of two days at the Toy Fair I realized that connected toys, the threat of Kickstarter as a prototyping and marketing tool and advances in robotics were pretty inconsequential in the minds of most exhibitors, buyers and entrepreneurs at the fair, despite headlines shouting that tech was the big trend this year.

The world of tech and the world of toys may be on a collision course, but that crash is far off. If the small space at the show dedicated to truly connected or novel tech toys wasn’t proof, then the fact that I was offered “a disc” of high-resolution images” by the PR person staffing the Madame Alexander booth was. Sadly, My MacBook Air doesn’t have a CD drive and she didn’t have the images on USB. I’m still waiting her to email the images, but I’m not holding my breath ( or the story).

Disclosure: LittleBits is backed by True Ventures, a venture capital firm that is an investor in the parent company of this blog, Giga Omni Media. Om Malik, founder of Giga Omni Media, is also a venture partner at True.

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If the Batman vs. Bane and Wonder Woman vs. Harley Quinn trailers haven’t already convinced you that Injustice: Gods Among Us is a title to keep an eye on, today’s reveal is sure to put the game on your “most anticipated games of April 2013″ list.

IGN today revealed a new trailer for the fighting game that debuts Aquaman as a playable character. For those who aren’t aware, Aquaman is the King of the Seven Seas and Atlantis, as well as a founding member of the Justice League. The character can breathe underwater, swim really fast, and telepathically communicate with fish. In the trailer, though, he mostly just kicks ass with his trident.

Even if Aquaman doesn’t end up being players’ favorite character, his appearance in the game should redeem him slightly in the eyes of gamers. The Marine Marvel’s last appearance in video games was 2003′s Aquaman: Battle for Atlantis, a title widely considered to be one of the worst video games ever made.

The trailer for The Internship is out, following a Google+ Hangout with stars Vince Vaughn and Owen Wilson. If you’re expecting a jOBS-like look at a major tech company, you’re probably going to be disappointed. If you’re expecting a Vince Vaughn/Owen Wilson–style comedy with the Googleplex as the setting, enjoy:

President Barack Obama delivers remarks regarding manufacturing policy, after he tours the Linamar Corporation auto-parts plant in Arden, N.C., Feb. 13, 2013.

(Official White House Photo by Pete Souza)

Last night President Obama used his State of the Union address to lay out his plan to strengthen the middle class. Today he was in Asheville, NC to talk more specifically about his committment to making America a magnet for jobs and manufacturing so we continue to build things the rest of the world buys:

A few years ago, manufacturing comebacks in North Carolina, a manufacturing comeback in Asheville may not have seemed real likely, because Volvo had just left town. This plant had gone dark — 228 jobs had vanished. And that was a big blow for this area, because part of what happens is when those manufacturing jobs go away, then suddenly the restaurant has fewer customers, and suppliers for the plant start withering. And it's hard for everybody. It has a ripple effect.

But then local officials started reaching out to companies, offering new incentives to take over this plant. Some of the workers who got laid off, like Stratton, went back to school and they learned new skills.  And then, a year later, Linamar showed up.  They were looking for a place to build some big parts. And these parts are big, I got to say, hubs and wheels and anchors for 400-ton mining trucks.  And while they could have gone any place in the world, they saw this incredible potential right here in Asheville. They saw the most promise in this workforce, so they chose to invest in Asheville, in North Carolina, in the United States of America.  

So to date, Linamar has hired 160 workers. It will be 200 by the end of the year, and it's just going to keep on going after that. So the folks at Linamar said, they came to Asheville to grow their business. They came here to stay and put down some roots.

And the good news is what’s happening here is happening all around the country. Because just as it’s becoming more and more expensive to do business in places like China, America is getting more competitive and more productive.  

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First Lady Michelle Obama delivers remarks during a “Beasts of the Southern Wild” movie workshop in the State Dining Room of the White House, Feb. 13, 2013. Participating, from left, are: movie director Benh Zeitlin; actor Dwight Henry; actress Quvenzhané Wallis; and moderator Rachel Goslins, a member of the President’s Committee on the Arts and the Humanities. (Official White House Photo by )

(Official White House Photo by Lawrence Jackson)

First Lady Michelle Obama today welcomed 80 middle and high school students to an interactive workshop with the cast and crew of the film Beasts of the Southern Wild, in the State Dining Room. The students, who were from Washington, DC and New Orleans, LA, got to talk with director Benh Zeitlin, actor Dwight Henry and the movie's 9-year-old star, Oscar-nominated actress Quvenzhané Wallis,  who stars as Hushpuppy. 

Mrs. Obama described the film as "beautiful, joyful and devastatingly honest," and praised its underlying message of strength and resilience:

 It's a movie that makes us all think deeply about the people we love in our lives who make us who we are. It shows us the strength of our communities, no matter what they look like.  It shows us that those communities can give us the power to overcome any kind of obstacles. And it also tells a compelling story of poverty and devastation, but also of hope and love in the midst of some great challenges.

So there are so many important lessons to learn in that little 93 minutes. That’s the other cool thing — that a director and a set of writers and producers can say so much in just 93 minutes.  And it doesn’t always happen in a movie, quite frankly, but this one did it, and that’s why I love this movie so much and why our team wanted to bring it here to the White House and share it with all of you.

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As you know, the Harlem Shake craze has hit hard and fast. YouTube says that in just this month they’ve seen 12,000 versions with over 44 million views.

Not to be left out, Groupon’s staff have just put out their own Harlem Shake video.

A solid effort, I’d say:

There are a lot of predictions being floated about what Apple’s going to do in 2013: an iWatch? An iTV? How about a plastic iPhone and an Apple TV SDK? A note from an analyst from Jefferies published Wednesday contains many of these predictions, but one idea about a move the company might make this year sounds likely: that Apple will make big changes to iOS that will allow the software to work better on mobile devices with much more powerful processors.

In a note to investors today, Peter Misek of Jefferies Securities notes (via AppleInsider):

“We think Apple plans to re-architect iOS to utilize more cores and better compete with Samsung. Also, we believe the way iOS interoperates with iCloud, gestures controls, and advertising will be substantially upgraded.”

I’m not sure about those specific things, but I do think big changes are coming to iOS for a couple reasons.

While iOS has seen six new releases since its debut in 2007, there have been few major changes. The arrival of the App Store in 2008, and push notifications in 2009 were the last big adjustments in how the software works. Consistency is good for users, and it’s been working for Apple. But iOS was developed at a time when mobile processors were slower and smaller — and iOS was no doubt built with those parameters in mind. At some point, as the analyst notes, iOS is going to need to make back-end changes to keep up with mobile processors as they become faster and more capable.

Another sign that change is coming? Since between the first iOS release to the debut of iOS 6, the same person was guarding and guiding the development. But Scott Forstall is gone now. CEO Tim Cook dismissed the former head of iOS Software last fall for reasons assumed to be related to the Apple Maps debacle.

However, I think this move will have ramifications for iOS in general, not just Maps. Both the software element and the engineering part of iOS have a new overseers: Jony Ive is now in charge of the Human Interface group, and Craig Federighi was promoted to lead iOS Engineering along with OSX Engineering.

New managers by nature often want to come in and force change (even if sometimes for its own sake). But in this case, as the software ages, as early iOS design decisions incorporating lots of skeuomorphic elements fall out of favor, as competitors catch up, and hardware continues to improve, it’s probably more tempting than ever.

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When mom Aya Sakai uploaded photos of her adorable son Tasuku spending quality time with his French Bulldog Muu to Instagram, she thought she’d just be sharing them with a few people. But pretty soon, anyone with a beating heart and access to a smartphone discovered just how cute the inseparable friends are and the pics went viral.

With that, I give you Tasuku and Muu. Prepare for cuteness overload.

Earlier this month, the State Department’s official Twitter account announced that all tweets coming directly from the mouth of Secretary Kerry would be signed with “-JK,” – the same way tweets from the President are signed “-BO” and tweets from the First Lady are signed “-MO.”

They failed to see the problem with this.

In the last 24 hours, here are three tweets in which it looks like newly-appointed Secretary of State John Kerry is not that serious about what he’s saying:

Listened to #SOTU focus on economy @statedept promotes US business – we’re stronger in world when stronger at home-JK go.usa.gov/4s7H

— StateDept (@StateDept) February 13, 2013

#ClimateChange call to action in #SOTU is in economic, national security interests for all countries. -JK

— StateDept (@StateDept) February 13, 2013

Good visit w/ @nasserjudeh. Commend #Jordan’s welcome of refugees from #Syria, consistent ldrship on peace.–JK

— StateDept (@StateDept) February 13, 2013

People are still commenting on how “JK” makes it look like he’s kidding:

@statedept Does “JK” mean just kidding?

— Annie Rex (@annie3592) February 13, 2013

Seriously, State Department, you have to do something about this. I’d say you could just use his middle initial when he signs tweets, but his middle names is “Forbes.” I don’t think signing his tweets -JFK would be any less confusing.

Today,  Arne Duncan, Secretary of Education, answered questions from the public about President Obama's State of the Union Address in an “Open for Questions” session moderated by Babble. Check it out below.

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