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Google is doing a second round of spring cleaning — its euphemism for small projects it finds unworthy of its time and efforts — and is killing off a whole bunch of projects, the biggest of them being Google Reader. In a blog post Wednesday afternoon, Urs Hölzle, Google’s senior vice president of Technical Infrastructure, announced the pending closure:

Everyone has a device, sometimes multiple devices. It’s been a long time since we have had this rate of change—it probably hasn’t happened since the birth of personal computing 40 years ago. To make the most of these opportunities, we need to focus—otherwise we spread ourselves too thin and lack impact. So today we’re announcing some more closures, bringing the total to 70 features or services closed since our spring cleaning began in 2011

The other projects that are being euthanized include Google Voice for Blackberry, Calendar API, Snapseed for desktop, Search API for shopping and others. However, it is the loss of Google Reader that is going to impact a lot of people — especially those of us who actually love using RSS feeds to plow through hundreds of feeds. I use it in combination with Reeder app on my iPad, iPhone and Macbook Pro to stay on top of the technology world.

We launched Google Reader in 2005 in an effort to make it easy for people to discover and keep tabs on their favorite websites. While the product has a loyal following, over the years usage has declined. So, on July 1, 2013, we will retire Google Reader. Users and developers interested in RSS alternatives can export their data, including their subscriptions, with Google Takeout over the course of the next four months.

I take issue with Urs’ comments about usage declining. It declined because the company put no resources into the product and took away social features that made it useful for many. It was a project that was orphaned because it didn’t fit into Google’s vision of a machine-driven reading experience. Despite minimal resources devoted to it, Google Reader was one of the better apps built by the Mountain View, Calif.-based company.

It is probably my second-most used Google service — after GMail — and I have always been befuddled by Google’s lack of desire to make Google Reader into a bigger reading platform. It could and it still can evolve into a Flipboard type service, but that would mean that Google would have to put resources and some real creative thought into Reader.

I wish they would reconsider this decision or, better yet, release the project into the open-source community so that someone can build a follow-on product.

Update: Folks from Feed.ly are offering an option for all of us left at the altar by Google’s decisions.

Google announced today that they will be shutting down Google Reader. This is something we have been expecting for some time: We have been working on a project called Normandy which is a feedly clone of the Google Reader API – running on Google App Engine. When Google Reader shuts down, feedly will seamlessly transition to the Normandie back end. So if you are a Google Reader user and using feedly, you are covered: the transition will be seamless.

A Feedly spokesperson tells us:

Our goal is to have the API be identical to the Google Reader un-official API. So any client which plugs in to the API should be to easily migrate to Normandy. There are just a few things around authentication and ordering of categories and feeds which might be different.

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It seems like we have been waiting for the release of the Huawei Ascend Mate for a really long time, but in reality Huawei is not too late in releasing the device relative to some of our earlier projections of a February release date. Huawei has confirmed today the giant phone will be available in the Chinese market on March 21 for 3,120 yuan ($500 USD). You may recall the Ascend Mate comes with a huge 6.1-inch IPS display, a 1.5GHz quad-core processor, 2GB of RAM and a gargantuan 4050mAh battery, running Android 4.1 Jelly Bean.

What is still unclear is whether the Ascend Mate will ever find its way outside of China. There is some hope that it will at least make it to some European markets like Germany, where Amazon has listed the device for €499 ($646 USD).

source: Softpedia
via: Android Authority

Come comment on this article: Huawei Ascend Mate set to hit Chinese market on March 21st

Online courses are racking up the cred.  In the last few months, providers of massive open online courses (MOOCs) have won partnerships and pilot programs with universities, as well as credit equivalency approval from the American Council on Education. But a new state bill in California could give online courses even more gravitas.

In a press conference via Google Hangouts Wednesday, State Sen. Darrell Steinberg introduced a bill that would enable public universities in California to award credit for classes taken online.

It’s unclear whether the bill will ultimately pass, but it shows that online course providers like Coursera, Udacity, edX and others are being viewed by people outside the Silicon Valley bubble as a real solution to access and cost problems in higher education.

Even though California’s public higher education system was created to give everyone access to quality education, and has long been a model for other states, the state’s colleges continue to report overcrowding and students say they have trouble getting the courses they need to graduate.

“The great California system is at a crossroads,” said Steinberg during the press conference. “[This] bill would reshape higher education by bringing together California’s pubic higher education system in partnership … with the technology that we already use to break the bottleneck that prevents students from completing college.”

Careful to calm concerns that the bill would encourage online education to replace in-classroom instruction or undermine faculty control, Steinberg said his proposal limits the scope to 50 courses that are over-subscribed on campuses and would not mean a shift in funding priorities. He also emphasized that while the online courses could come from a variety of sources, panels comprised of faculty would be responsible for certifying them.

Sebastian Thrun, the former Stanford University professor and co-founder of Udacity, joined the Google Hangout conference. And though he called the bill “a shift in higher education for the state of California,” he was also careful to describe his company as a “technology provider – we’re not educators.”

How disruptive will online education be?

As online education picks up steam across the country – and begins to realize disruptive innovation expert Clayton Christensen’s prediction that half of North American higher education will move online in the next 10 years – providers of online education are careful to downplay the likelihood of another one of Christensen’s predictions: that half of universities may be bankrupt in the next 15 years.

On a panel last week at SXSWedu, Coursera co-founder Andrew Ng and edX President Anant Agarwal not only rejected Christensen’s prediction, Ng declined to acknowledge that degrees comprised of all MOOC credits could be around the bend. Like Thrun, he talked up Coursera’s role as a “humble hosting platform,” not a startup laying the groundwork for disruption among their peers.

Online course platforms provide a mechanism for colleges and universities to remain relevant and competitive in a rapidly changing world but they also pose a threat, particularly to middle-of-the-road colleges that can’t offer brand-name degrees or top professors.

Michelle Rhee-Weise, an education research fellow at the non-profit Innosight Institute, in San Mateo, Calif. said middle-tier schools tend to look to big intro classes as their profit centers but that those are the same classes online education companies like StraighterLine and Altius tend to focus on.

Still, those “101″-type classes tend not to be where college students have their most memorable educational moments (or where professors want to spend most of their time) and if technology can help students get more access to the classes they need while saving institutions money that can be better spent elsewhere, that’s a good thing.

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Have you ever played with the settings of a YouTube video to make it look better? YouTube Mobile and TV engineering head Andy Berkheimer would like you stop doing that.

Don’t touch that dial: YouTube’s adaptive bitrate streaming makes manual adjustments unnecessary.

Berkheimer headed a project last year that brought adaptive bitrate streaming to the YouTube desktop player, enabling the player to automatically switch between different video quality settings based on your internet connection speed, among other factors.

Now he is bringing the same technology to mobile devices and TVs. “We are making it work just as it should,” Berkheimer told me during an interview this week.

From 240p to 4K

That may sound simple, but optimizing video playback has been a long journey for the Google-owned video site. Berkheimer joined YouTube six years ago, when there was just one default video quality — 320×240, also known as 240p. “That was really, really grainy video,” recalled Berkheimer.

Berkheimer joined YouTube when every video still looked grainy.

His team used Google’s cloud infrastructure to allow for additional codecs, bringing HD and eventually even 4k to the site. But with higher bitrates, buffering also became more of a problem.

The solution? Adaptive bitrate streaming, which is industry-speak for switching the quality of a video in midstream, without the need to re-buffer and start over. YouTube started switching from progressive downloads to adaptive bitrate streaming in its desktop player a year ago, and completed the process late last year.

The new player is keeping close eyes on the speed and health of your internet connection, explained Berkheimer: “It’s continuously monitoring the bandwidth and the throughput it is seeing,” he said, adding that it also keeps tabs on the size of your player. Are you watching a video in full screen? Then you can expect YouTube to send you more bits, as long as your connection is fast enough.

YouTube’s take on adaptive streaming

Adaptive streaming isn’t new: Companies like Netflix and Hulu have used the technology for some time to optimize their streaming experience. But YouTube had some unique challenges to solve when it rolled out its own implementation. For example, Netflix often starts with a lower-bitrate stream and then slowly scales up, which is why it can take a minute or so before full HD quality sets in.

That approach doesn’t really work for YouTube videos that only last a minute or two. YouTube tends to be more aggressive in sending out higher-quality video, and then scales down the video if necessary, Berkheimer explained. The site also makes use of the fact that you often watch more than one YouTube video in a row, and optimizes your bit rate across an entire session.

The results of these efforts have been encouraging. YouTube has seen buffering reduced by 20 percent since it launched adaptive streaming for its desktop player. That’s why the company is now taking the technology to TVs and mobile devices.

Next up: mobile and TVs

YouTube on TV: Buffering is much more noticeable on the big screen.

Of course, TVs require a lot more HD video, and buffering becomes even more obvious when you compare it to the nonstop experience of a traditional broadcast. Berkheimer told me that YouTube is working with the majority of the TV industry to bring adaptive streaming to TV sets, and that virtually all models introduced at CES this year already support the technology. The company is also working to bring adaptive streaming of YouTube videos to game consoles.

Mobile, on the other hand, comes with different challenges, as people move in and out of the reach of cell towers while they get their video fix on public transport.

And then there is this: “One of the biggest challenges we have is the global nature of YouTube,” said Berkheimer. Average mobile internet speeds are much slower in India and Brazil than in the U.S. and Europe, but videos still have to play without long and tiresome buffering. Broadband in Canada on the other hand is fast, but tightly rationed, with major ISPs charging their customers extra if they go over their caps.

That’s also one reason that those settings that allow you to manually change the bitrate of a YouTube video haven’t disappeared from the player yet — even though Berkheimer would very much like them gone. He told me that there have been some passionate discussions within the company about these manual settings. The result? For now, they’re staying.

But Berkheimer and his team are still working hard so that you can completely ignore them. “The most rewarding thing is that users don’t have to think about it,” he said.

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Amazon announced today that it was cutting the price on both versions of its largest Kindle device, the Kindle Fire HD 8.9. The WiFi only version of the tablet was priced at $299 in the U.S. and will see its price drop to $269. The price cut for the 4G enabled version is more dramatic, going from $499 down to $399. According to Amazon, they sell their Kindle devices at cost. With the impending release of the device to several new markets including the U.K., Germany, France, Italy, Spain and Japan, Amazon claims they have achieved some new economies of scale as they ramp up production to meet the expected demand from the new markets.

Amazon sells their devices at cost as part of a strategy to make their profit selling content for the devices, whether it is books, movies, magazines, games or other digital products. A small amount of profit is also made selling accessories for the devices. This strategy depends on Amazon selling a lot of units, something some analysts don’t think is happening. Chad Bartley with Pacific Crest Securities cites sources in the supply chain who have told him demand is weak. Others, like BGC Partners’ Colin Gillis, think the price drop is part of the normal sales cycle that slows down during the first part of the year.

If you have been eyeing a Kindle Fire HD 8.9, now may be the time to make your move.

source: Reuters

Come comment on this article: Amazon Kindle Fire HD 8.9-inch model price cut

Apple doesn’t engage in much public discussion involving anything besides its own products, or maybe its retail stores. So it’s extremely interesting — and rare — that Apple SVP of Worldwide Marketing Phil Schiller went on the record the night before the most anticipated Samsung phone launch to date, the Galaxy S4, to go negative on Android.

In a brief interview with the Wall Street Journal on Wednesday, Schiller ticked off reasons why he thinks iOS is better than Android: it’s not fragmented (“Android users are often running old operating systems”), the hardware and software for Android phones are made by separate companies, and the devices aren’t high quality (“Android is often given a free replacement for a feature phone”).

These are not new complaints; especially for those used to interacting with Apple, these talking points will seem familiar. And Apple’s not above slamming the competition in advertisements: witness the successful multiyear run of its Mac vs. PC ads.

Schiller did share a nugget we haven’t previously heard before — that “four times as many iPhone users switched from Android than to Android during the fourth quarter.” The number is supposedly from Apple’s own internal research. Obviously it should be taken with a grain of salt, but it’s also true that Apple sold 48 million iPhones in the fourth quarter and the device was the best-selling smartphone in the fourth quarter of 2012 in the U.S.

Whether Apple initiated the interview or the WSJ did, the rarity of a high-level Apple executive commenting on a rival’s looming product launch — something normally assumed to be beneath the company — will come off as somewhat defensive. But it could be yet another subtle signal that under CEO Tim Cook, the company is becoming a bit more open to traditional notions of competitive public relations.

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Now that Verizon has closed its blockbuster spectrum deal with the cable operators it’s ready to break ground on its second 4G network. In an interview with FierceWireless, Verizon Wireless CTO Nicola Palmer said Verizon would deploy 5,000 LTE cellsites this year in the Advanced Wireless Service (AWS) band, layering mobile data capacity onto the 4G network it’s already built in the 700 MHz band.

In 2014, Palmer added, Verizon will start building a much broader footprint in the new band. What’s more, Palmer said that Verizon would start selling its first AWS compatible devices in the next few months.

“You can’t have the network without compatible devices,” Palmer told Fierce’s Sue Marek. “We have already given the OEMs guidance on that strategy. The first half of this year we will see AWS-compatible devices in our lineup so when the network comes online in the second half, we will take advantage of that.”

There are some major implications in Verizon’s move:

• Verizon is now ready to start focusing on capacity instead of coverage. Palmer said Verizon’s 700 MHz LTE network will cover 90 percent of the U.S. population this year, meaning there will be few populated places where Verizon customers can’t get a 4G signal. It has enough AWS spectrum to double its LTE capacity nationwide, and almost everywhere east of the Mississippi it can triple it. That means it will be able to support more 4G subscribers and more 4G devices and eventually it will be able to boost 4G speeds.
• The AWS band uses 1700 MHz and 2100 MHz frequencies, which make it an ideal spectrum for urban deployments. The lower the frequency, the further radio waves propagate, so while 700 MHz was perfect for Verizon’s coverage network, you can expect Verizon to be more selective about where it builds the second network. It will likely target cities and other high-traffic areas and it may even USE AWS for its first indoor and outdoor small cells.
• By moving to AWS, Verizon will actually have a 4G band in common with other North American carriers. T-Mobile’ and the Canadian operator use the band. AT&T owns AWS licenses as well and is already sells devices that support those frequencies (the iPhone 5 is one of them). Network fragmentation has been a huge problem in the U.S., requiring handset vendors to make different variants of their devices for different carriers. With the operators coalescing around AWS, we could get a step closer to a smartphones that work across all carriers’ networks.

Other operators have plans to launch LTE over a second band as well: AT&T will make use of its newly minted 4G band in the 2.3 GHz frequencies, while Sprint will refarm the 800 MHz airwaves currently occupied by its Nextel network for LTE. Both operators are still at least a year away from making those plans reality.

By putting LTE into a second band, Verizon could also become the first U.S. operator to start down the path toward the next-generation of mobile technology called LTE-Advanced. The first LTE-Advanced technique we’re likely to see is called carrier aggregation, which bonds two disparate spectrum bands together to create a single super-fast air link. Verizon could choose to merge its two LTE networks, effectively doubling the uplink and downlink speeds available to its customers.

Several U.S. operators — from Sprint and T-Mobile to Clearwire and Dish Network — have talked a big game about LTE-Advanced, abusing the term to make their networks seem more sophisticated than they are. Ironically, Verizon has never made any boasts about LTE-Advanced, but it might well be the first U.S. operator that commercially implements the first LTE-Advanced technique.

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WASHINGTON D.C. — IER Director of Regulatory and State Affairs Daniel Simmons will testify on Thursday, March 14, 2013 at 9:30AM ET before the House Foreign Affairs Subcommittee on the Western Hemisphere, chaired by Rep. Matt Salmon (R-AZ). The …

This afternoon, Gene Sperling, Director of the National Economic Council, turned to Reddit to answer some questions about the President’s plan to reduce the deficit. During the 'Ask Me Anything', Sperling responded to questions on a range of topics, including the President's proposal to raise the minimum wage and how the "The West Wing" (television show) compares to the actual West Wing.

You can see all of the responses on Reddit, or check out the questions and responses below.

Gene Sperling, Director of the National Economic Council and Assistant to President Obama for Economic Policy, answers questions during an ‘Ask Me Anything’ on Reddit.

March 13, 2013.

read more

Last week, we showed you the incredible re-imagining of AMC’s hit series Breaking Bad as a mid-90s sitcom. At that time, I told you of my fondness for these types of things.

So it should come as no surprise that I’m equally as excited about this VHS-era reworking of HBO’s Game of Thrones, inspired by the Breaking Bad video.

Terrific work. Please keep it up, internet.

[hunterlsanders]

In December, I warned: “You can’t trust IDC’s 2016 tablet forecast, or any other“. That’s because the analysts revise predictions every couple months. Well, lookyloo. The firm dropped a new forecast late yesterday, and like every other Android gives iOS another beating. I say, “Perhaps”.

The great soothsayers now see Android tablet shipment share rising above iOS for all 2013, a feat already claimed individually for third and fourth quarters. IDC sees the green robot at 48.8 percent share to 46 percent for the fruit-logo. Don’t believe it. The market is too volatile and IDC, along with all its competitors, has yet to make accurate predictions. Anything can happen, including an unexpected surge of Windows tablets.

Let’s look at the track record for 2012. In June, IDC forecast iOS tablet share of 62.5 percent, but revised downward to 59.7 percent in September and in early December to 53.8 percent. Meanwhile, IDC forecast Android share of 38.8 percent in June, lowered to 35.3 percent in September and raised to 42.7 percent in December. With just three weeks left in the year, the analyst firm couldn’t get projections right. Final numbers: 51.3 percent for iOS and 46.3 percent for Android. Statistically, the margins of error here are huge. Just ask NASA sending spacecraft to Mars.

Let’s use a different measure. Between March and December last year, IDC raised its tablet forecast for 2012 by 15.3 percent and 2016 by 42.6 percent. This kind of change is huge, taking place during the course of a single calendar year.

A new year means another forecast (through 2017) and more revisions. The analyst firm raised full-year shipment projections to 190.9 million from 172.4 million. That’s an 11-percent change, which IDC applies throughout the forecast period. Projection for 2017: 350 million. Don’t believe it. The actual number will be considerably more.

That’s because smaller slates, which sales potential most analyst dismissed two years ago, are gangbusters. “One in every two tablets shipped this quarter was below 8 inches in screen size — and in terms of shipments, we expect smaller tablets to continue growing in 2013 and beyond”, Jitesh Ubrani, IDC research analyst, says. Geez Louise. NPD DisplaySearch predicts models with 7-7.9-inch screens will account for 45 percent of all tablet shipments in 2013.

Oh, and keeping with the “you can’t trust anyone’s forecast” theme, DisplaySearch estimates 240 million tablets, or 67.6 million more than IDC projections.

I do expect smaller slates to outsell larger ones, since they double so well as ebook readers (which forecast IDC lowers) and cost so much less. “Vendors are moving quickly to compete in this space as consumers realize that these small devices are often more ideal than larger tablets for their daily consumption habits”, Ubrani says. Yes, there are.

Perhaps it’s no coincidence that less than 24 hours after IDC released the forecast, Amazon cut prices by as much as $100 on Kindle Fire HD 8.9″.

The tablet, from the maker of Kindle Reader, is good segue to ebook readers, to which IDC says smaller slates are “damaging”. The analyst firm cut projections by 14 percent average through 2016.

Photo Credit: Cheryl Ann Quigley/Shutterstock

One of the more popular apps on the Nintendo DSi was Flipnote Studio. It allowed artists to create frame-by-frame animation on the handheld device, and share the animations with the world via the Web. Now Nintendo is bringing an updated version of the software to the Nintendo 3DS.

During a Nintendo Direct Mini posted today, the company announced that Flipnote Studio 3D is currently being developed for the Nintendo 3DS. The software still allows artists to create short animations, but the animations can now be rendered in 3D on three separate planes. Artists also now have access to six colors per animation instead of the two available in the original software.

Flipnote 3D will be available for free this summer.

Check out the announcement, and Iwata’s creepy floating head, below:

Gwyneth Paltrow may be most famous for her acting abilities, but the oscar-winning actress would really like you to know just how meticulously she plans her diet. The star and co-writer Julia Turshen will soon release a cookbook filled with recipes from Paltrow’s “elimination diet.”

According to the publisher’s book description, Paltrow was once diagnosed as anemic and vitamin D deficient. She was placed on an “elimination diet” the star maintains helped her from feeling fatigued. Paltrow supposedly uses the diet when she needs to “feel more energetic” or “lose weight,” which seems suspicious since the actress has never been considered overweight (other than when wearing a fatsuit in the movie Shallow Hal).

Elimination diets are based on the idea that certain foods should be avoided altogether, due to food allergies or some other reason. In Paltrow’s case, this meant she cut out coffee, alcohol, dairy, eggs, sugar, shellfish, deep-water fish, wheat, meat, soy, or anything processed.

That wouldn’t seem to leave much to eat, but the new book manages to come up with 185 different recipes that don’t have any of those things. Highlights include huevos rancheros and salmon burgers, but the “power brownies” and “banana ‘ice cream’” mentioned probably won’t live up to their sugary namesakes.

The book, titled It’s All Good, will be out starting April 2.

Those who don’t particularly care what Paltrow eats on a daily basis may be happy to learn that she won’t be giving up her day job to become a cooking author just yet. Paltrow will reprise her role as Tony Stark lover Pepper Potts in this summer’s upcoming Iron Man 3 and has been cast as artist Dora Maar in an upcoming Pablo Picasso biopic.

Continue reading…

I love hardware. That’s why I want you guys to bring some of the coolest hardware projects imaginable to Disrupt NY this year. That’s why I want you guys in our Hardware Alley and spots are almost full.

Hardware Alley is a one-day celebration of hardware startups both young and old. The goal has always been to show off amazing hardware that we have written about over the past few months, as well as a few surprises. Last Disrupt we featured the guys from Thermovape, Makerbot, and Lit Motors. This year we want to fill Disrupt NY with more amazing companies.

For more details on Disrupt head over here. We’re looking for new or even unlaunched products, as well as potential Kickstarter projects. Prototypes are fine as long as they’re amazing.

You can see the previous Hardware Alley participants here. You can sign up here. Bootstrappers can contact me directly at [email protected] if you need a break on price. Hope to see you in the alley… the Hardware Alley.

Our sponsors help make Disrupt happen. If you are interested in learning more about sponsorship opportunities, please contact our amazing sponsorship team here [email protected].

Do you still purchases boxed retail versions of software? If so, you might want to grab a boxed copy of Adobe’s Creative Suite 6 as the company is beginning to phase out its retail offerings.

Adobe told multiple outlets today that it will be discontinuing its retail offerings of Creative Suite 6 and Acrobat. An Adobe spokesperson provided the the following comment to TechHive:

“As Adobe continues to focus on delivering world-class innovation through Creative Cloud and digital fulfillment, we will be phasing out shrink-wrapped, boxed versions of Creative Suite and Acrobat products. Electronic downloads for Creative Suite and Acrobat products will continue to be available—as they are today—from both Adobe.com, as well as reseller and retail partners. We are in the process of notifying our channel partners and customers, as plans solidify in each region.”

Since last year, Adobe has put considerable marketing muscle behind its Creative Cloud subscription service. For $49.99 a month, subscribers get access to all the software included in CS6 alongside development tools for games and Web pages.

Phasing out its retail presence makes perfect sense as Adobe pushes for more subscribers. After all, a few hundred thousand subscribers paying $50 a month for years to come will make them far more money than single time purchases of CS6.

So, what if you really want to own a boxed retail copy of CS6? TechHive says that stores will carry boxed copies of CS6 until April 30. After that, you’ll either have to buy digital copies or sign up for a Creative Cloud subscription.