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Yesterday, at an event at their Menlo Park headquarters, Facebook unveiled a radical redesign of their core product: the news feed. Unlike Graph Search or Gifts (two of the last big products that Facebook’s unveiled), the news feed is not an “extra,” if you will, in the film of Facebook. The news feed is the star of the Facebook experience. Sure, whenever Facebook announces a brand new product it’s a big deal, but when Facebook announces changes to the most vital part of the user experience, it’s a massive deal.

“Our mission is to make the world more open and connected,” said CEO Mark Zuckerberg at Thursday’s event. “[And] news feed is one of the most important services that we build.”

“Our goal…is give everyone in the world the best personalized newspaper.”

Were you ready for a news feed refresh? What are your first impressions? Let us know in the comments.

The new Facebook news feed is “designed to reduce clutter and focus more on stories from the people you care about,” says Facebook. “We’ve completely rebuilt each story to be much more vibrant and colorful and highlight the content that your friends are sharing. Photos, news articles, maps and events all look brighter and more beautiful.”

And that’s one of the main things that this news feed refresh is all about: an enhanced visual experience. Along with content-specific feeds that give users more freedom and mobile consistency, that makes up the three key points about the new news feed that Facebook hammered home on Thursday. Here’s what you need to know about what’s changing.

A More Visual User Experience

So, what’s going to change for the average user? Quite a bit, actually – both in how it looks and how you actually navigate around the network.

First, the desktop look. It’s cleaner, more visually stunning, and yes, it feels a bit more mobile-inspired. Everything is more photo-oriented, and those photos are given much more prominence inside the news feed. Photos that your friends post are huge, spanning all the way across the feed. Photo albums are also larger. Facebook says that they want to be able to make the story, as it appears in the news feed, more visually indicative of the experience. For instance, this story about a friend going to China gives a big, bold, photo-oriented snapshot of the trip:

And it’s not just photos from friends that are more visual. It’s shared articles, which feature larger images and more information like snippets and author & publication info:

And events:

And links that your friends share, which now feature profile cards on the left-hand side that show you exactly who has shared the same link. You can hover over each friend to see what they said about the link when they shared it:

Stories about your friends making new friends now feature snippets from Timelines:

Check-ins are also more visual with large map images, as is content from third-party sites like Pinterest. Overall, you’re going to see a news feed that doesn’t just highlight images, but is inundated with them. At Thursday’s event, Zuckerberg said that nearly half of the news feed already consists of photos and other visual content – so this redesign is simply an expression of the evolving face of the feed.

New Ways to Navigate

As expected, the new Facebook news feed will also sport content-specific news feeds. You’ll still have the classic news feed as the default, which will combine recent activity with “top posts.” You’ll also still have the opportunity to filter the feed by “most recent,” which will show you everything from both friends and pages in chronological order.

Facebook’s new, hyper-specific news feed options include “all friends,” which shows a stream of all activity from friends (nothing from pages or people that are simply “followed”). There are also specific feeds for photos, music, games, groups, and more.

The old “pages feed” has a new name: “Following.” It will unearth all the posts from pages and people that you follow (no friends).

In other words, Facebook is giving you more options for customizing your news feed experience.

Long story short, Facebook has given users a lot more choice in how they browse content on the site. And the prominent placement of the specific news feeds on the homepage nearly ensures that users are at least tempted to spend more time on the site. By delving into a specific content feeds like “music” or “photos,” users can unearth posts from the deep, dark, cavernous void of Facebook content that’s been cast aside by their ranking algorithms. When there’s more to explore, people typically choose to explore it – at least that’s Facebook’s hope. And more people spending more time on the site means more chances to serve ads.

The third tenet of Facebook’s news feed redesign is mobile consistency – meaning that your experience on the desktop, web, and apps across all platforms should feel fluid. As I mentioned before, the new Facebook desktop experience feels more mobile – at least more streamlined.

All of your Facebook extras, your events, messages, gifts, apps, and more, are now housed on the left-hand side inside cute little icons. Like mobile, this is accessible from anywhere you go on the desktop version. In fact, Facebook made a point at Thursday’s event to say that “now you can get to any page on Facebook to any other page on Facebook without going to your homepage.”

Facebook chat has also been resigned to the left in the new news feed. Facebook said that the reason for this is to get more people to see it. Some desktop users simply didn’t have the screen capabilities to see the chat information on the right-hand side.

Facebook’s mobile experience for the new news feed is going to look and feel just like the desktop experience. That’s the bottom line. With this refresh, Facebook is no longer allowing any light between the two. Your Facebook news feed is your Facebook news feed – it doesn’t matter how you access it.

It seems that this is what Facebook means when they say “goodbye clutter,” and that they want to get Facebook “out of the way” of the Facebook experience.

The Business of Business

So you know that with the new news feed, photos are both bigger and more prominent. You couldn’t have thought that ads were going to stay the same, right?

Yes, ads in your news feed will be getting bigger.

“We’re taking all the content you see in the feed and making it more immersive. So that goes across the board for everything, including ads,” said Facebook’s Julie Zhuo.

As a marketer, this presents plenty of new opportunities. Promoted Posts, Sponsored Stories, and Page promotion ads almost have to be visually impressive in order to flow with the rest of the news feed. If marketers didn’t see the advantage of developing striking, image-based ads before, this must surely be a wakeup call – that’s the future of ads on Facebook.

If you operate a Facebook Page, there are both good and bad aspects of Facebook’s news feed redesign. The good is that there’s a new “following”-only news feed option, so users have the opportunity to browse an unadulterated stream of content from business and interest pages. And the option to browse this specific feed is given prime placement on the homepage. In light of the recent hullabaloo of page owners accusing Facebook of decreasing post visibility to promote their Promoted Posts product, this feed option should be welcomed with open arms.

But it’s still just an option. And whether or not users choose to utilize that option remains to be seen.

Now for the bad: to compliment the “following” feed, there’s also an “all friends” feed that weeds out all page posts. Bummer.

Overall, the more visual news feed can only help business pages. Remember the aforementioned Timeline snippets that pop up when a user’s friend makes friends with another user? Well, that concept also applies to pages. When a user likes a new page, a visual snippet of that page’s Timeline will appear in the news feed. This gives pages a chance to make a bold first impression, increasing the likelihood that a user will choose to visit or like the page on the spot.

Facebook Tells Developers to Prepare

Everything is larger and more visual in the new news feed, and app developers have to prepare for this as well.

Facebook is suggesting that developers begin to optimize for high-res feed stories (on both desktop and mobile):

In the new design, the things people share through apps are larger and more engaging in News Feed. We’re also making it easier for people to access their game and music feeds, now accessible from the top right area. To take advantage of this new design, we encourage you to optimize for high-resolution feed stories on both web and mobile by providing 600X600 pixel images (minimum 200X200 px).

These images will be really important to game developers as Bookmarks will become more important in the news feed. Bookmarks are images that accompany a shared story about a game. The larger image size means may just be what it takes to convince new and returning players to check out your game.

“These ever-present bookmarks will also display the notification counter from the most recent game requests to help drive re-engagement with players,” says Facebook.

So, there you go. Facebook has just unveiled the most dramatic redesign of its most important product in years. All that’s left to know is the “when?”

Not soon, probably. At least for most of you. Facebook has said that this will be a slow, careful rollout so that they can get their ducks in a row. It’s a big change to a big product, and they want to make sure it’s right before handing it over to everyone in the world. This shouldn’t really surprise anyone, considering they’re currently doing the same sort of slow rollout with Graph Search.

There is one thing you can do, however, to improve your chances of getting the new news feed before your friends. You can go to facebook.com/about/newsfeed and join the waiting list. All you have to do it click a big, green button. You can’t miss it.

From what you’ve seen, what do you think? Good for users? Good for businesses? Let us know in the comments.

We’d recently reported that Apple’s brand seems to be growing at a steady rate and it seems to have a direct impact on the enterprise market out here in the States. According to customer data from enterprise file sharing and hybrid cloud storage company Egnyte, of all the enterprise devices out there using its service in Q3/Q4 of 2011 to date, Apple iPhones and iPads account for nearly 70% of all enterprise-based devices out in the corporate world, compared to a paltry 30% for Android-based smartphones and tablets. More over, preliminary results for 2013 indicates that iPhone and iPad enterprise market share accounts for nearly 80%, while Android smartphones and tablets dipped to 22% total. Here’s a full statement from Egnyte on its thoughts of the fascinating study:

“While initially iPads dominated our use, iPhones have taken over.  2011 use showed the iPad accounting for 40 percent of our usage, in 2012 iPhones are now 42 percent of usage, and Android has remained constant at about 30 percent of use. There are two interesting points here, first, Apple seems to have at least temporarily won the hearts and minds of business users with its products accounting for about 70 percent of our traffic. This is important because it’s a flip-flop from the days of old, where Apple products were rarely seen in the corporate landscape.   It’s also an indication that when BYOD wrested control over what devices consumers used from IT, they overwhelmingly chose an easy to use product that focused on UI and usability, perhaps even at times over depth.

The second interesting point is that while tablets are certainly hot, iPhones are driving most of the traffic. This may be due to the fact that the iPad doesn’t replace a laptop yet as the corporate device of choice, but try and take a business person’s smartphone away from them, and you may not have a hand left.  Smartphones are a must have, and we suspect that since people are already checking email on such a phone while they are working remotely, it’s an extra step to get out and bootup your tablet, so if you have a great phone app that does the same thing, just use it to view your files. Most editing we think still happens on the laptop/desktop.  This ‘on the go’ access is further confirmed by the fact that only 31 percent of iPhone sessions occurred over Wi-Fi, that means over three-quarters of access happens via cellular services”.

Looks like the Android platform is going to have some work cut out for it if it wants to get in the good graces of corporate users. Then again, special designs and arrangements from manufacturing giants would probably be a good way to start trying to get in the good graces of corporate folk.

source: TechCrunch

Come comment on this article: Apple iOS platform favored by enterprise users over Android

What’s next for Venezuela’s economy, in the post-Chavez era?

To find out, I called Francisco Monaldi, Robert F. Kennedy Visiting Professor of Latin American Studies at the Harvard Kennedy School, and Professor at Instituto de Estudios Superiores de Administracion (IESA) in Caracas, Venezuela. He’s a leading authority on the politics and economics of the oil industry in Latin America and developing countries.

What can you tell us about the leadership transition underway?

We are facing elections probably in April or May, and the candidate from the government will be the interim president being sworn in today, Nicolás Maduro. That will give him a great advantage.

The campaign will be very uphill for the opposition, Henrique Capriles. The only advantages he might have is, first, that Maduro is not Chavez and is much less charismatic and less well known by the public, and second, that the public perception that the economy is doing well, which was up around 60 percent last year, is now down to the mid-40s. That’s a big change, and may indicate that the popularity of the president will go down.

How much do you expect the change in leadership to change the Venezuelan economy in the near term?

In the case of Maduro, he is a guy who comes from the left wing of the chavismo, very close to the position of Chavez. He is known to be a negotiator and a relatively pragmatic guy inside that wing. He was instrumental in negotiating the new relationship with Colombia, which was a major accomplishment. But we know very little about him otherwise. It’s difficult to know if he will become more pragmatic as the economic situation becomes more complex.

The problem is that, even though it makes sense for Maduro to move into a more moderate position, he will be a weak president in the sense that he’s not a military guy, he doesn’t have the leadership Chavez had, and he might not move to a moderate position because that would create problems with him controlling the radical faction. He can only pull that off if he has leadership skills we don’t know about yet.

In one of your papers, you write, “Venezuela is the textbook case of a resource-rich country,” but that such natural wealth may not be a good thing. Tell me about that “resource curse.”

Venezuela has huge potential. It has some of the largest oil reserves in the world, up there with Canada, Saudi Arabia. And it has the potential to be a powerhouse in oil production, but only if things are well managed.

The resource curse mostly is the way you manage your oil wealth. On that, Venezuela has a dismal record. It was one of the worst in the 1970s oil boom. It had a terrible record from ’78-’98. In fact, that was one of the reasons Chavez came into power. Then with Chavez, Venezuela was making all the big mistakes — increasing debt in the middle of a boom; investing a lot in military equipment and things that are not going to generate economic growth; not investing enough in the oil sector itself; overvaluing the exchange rate and destroying the tradable sector. Venezuela is the textbook case of the worst economic policies if you want to avoid the resource curse.

So do you see a way for Venezuela to escape that curse? Are there examples of resource rich countries that have worked out better?

Venezuela is an interesting outlier compared to other oil countries that seemed to have learned the lessons from past oil booms in the 70s and 80s. Most of those countries are not running big deficits [like Venezuela]. For instance, Venezuela could go the way of Chile, who have also had a resource boom but are creating a national stabilization fund by not putting all the money back into the economy at once, a counter cyclical policy almost unheard of in Latin America.

Venezuela is also losing about 15 to 20 billion dollars a year in revenues because oil is domestically sold at a price of zero. Basically, gasoline is free. The government could be selling a barrel at $110 [overseas] and they’re selling it domestically at less than a dollar. That’s a big loss. And that’s regressive because it’s mostly benefitting the wealthy, the people who have cars and buy that gas. By contrast, the Iranians changed their policy — they changed the domestic price to close to the international price and then distributed the revenues to the general population. That gave legitimacy and support to increasing the price of domestic gas. That’s the type of thing that Venezuela should be thinking about doing. Improving macroeconomic management like Chile, eliminate domestic subsidies like Iran, and think about other ways to create incentives so citizens make government more accountable in use of oil revenues to create a healthy oil industry and a better managed economy.

OK, so… how likely is that to happen?

If the opposition wins, there is a significant likelihood. However, if Madura wins it is less likely. I think they will do some things to improve the economy, but I think it’s very unlikely they can make a turnaround. The chavista coalition is very authoritarian; they believe this is a revolution that should not be put in the position of losing these elections. Many believe there shouldn’t even be elections.

In the case of the opposition, there is a lot of chance [for reform], but it will be a tough uphill situation. Venezuela has a very corrupt public sector. Moreover, the potential for political instability is very high in any case. Unless the price of oil keeps going up, it will be very hard to sustain this fiscal expenditure path that has happened in the last few years.

The Economist had a useful chart showing how much the poverty rate across all of Latin America has declined in the last ten years, which they predict will drain much of the support for Chavez-like leaders. Do you agree?

The whole region has received a very significant windfall from commodities. Most of these countries are net resource exporters and during the last decade, almost all commodities have risen. Most countries have benefited very significantly. Poverty reduction has happened almost in every single country in the region.

However, the oil windfall has had different impacts on different countries. In Venezuela, it’s 330 percent of GDP according to the IMF. It’s 10 times less in some other countries in the region. Still, this has implied a significant wave of support for almost any politician ruling in these countries. There are very few cases of presidents who were not popular in this period. Most incumbents were reelected with huge margins, an average of 25 points.

Is this going to last? I’m afraid if the commodity boom — as usually happens — dissipates, many of the countries will suffer significantly. Only Chile and Peru have done it very by the book. The others have tended to increase expenditure too much.

Particularly after the financial crisis in the US, Latin America performed very well. Usually when the US caught a cold, we got pneumonia. Not this time. But that gave even the orthodox governments like Chile the license to spend money now, counter-cyclically. But those expenditures are not sustainable.

The history of commodities has been highly volatile. The combination of the resource boom with very high liquidity, especially in the last few years all this liquidity coming from the US, searching for a return, has created a very favorable external environment. But as we know these patterns… well, some things come to a sudden stop. That could create a lot of trouble for these countries.

Mock-up of a proposed installation in which live chanting triggers the sounds of the stars. The orange squares are meditation cushions arranged in the shape of the Kepler telescope’s detectors, and the projection is of the star field from which the data originate – near the constellations of Cygnus (the swan) and Lyra (the harp). Image: Lucianne Walkowicz

Ever wondered what the music of the cosmos sounds like? You’re about to find out. Astrophysicist and TED Senior Fellow Lucianne Walkowicz works on the Kepler mission, looking at a patch of our galaxy to learn about stars and their planets. During an interview at TED2013, she mentioned that she is also an artist and has begun composing music woven from star data, after feeling inspired by the work of Fellows like data artist Julie Freeman. Here, she tells us how this is done:

“One of the things I like about science is that I can entertain myself by looking at the world and thinking about what’s happening at a microscopic or macroscopic level. It makes me feel like I have access to an additional dimension of information that’s around me all the time.

Recently I’ve started doing sound installations based on the data that I use for my own work. The Kepler mission finds planets and studies stars by measuring how stars get brighter and dimmer with time. Planets block some of the starlight as they pass in front of the star, making little dips in the stars’ brightness that tell us the planet is there.

However, stars periodically appear brighter and darker on their own because they have bright and dark patches on their surfaces caused by the star’s magnetic field. As it spins, we see light fluctuate as the patches rotate into and out of view – and the frequency of the fluctuation tells us how fast it’s spinning. To make things a bit more complicated, stars don’t rotate exactly like tops, in that different latitudes on the star spin at different rates – so usually there are several frequencies in the star’s light, and they can change and drift in time.

I take the data and search for which frequencies are present at different times, then scale them to frequencies the human ear can hear, using a sine-wave generator. Then I create tones that change with time to represent how the frequencies in the star are changing. A first pass sounds like this: in each second of playback, you hear the three strongest frequencies in the star for a day of real time. As you listen, the sounds change as the frequencies change.

Then I do some additional processing to get the effect I want. Usually I want to capture some echo to convey a sense of vast space, and some blending between notes to convey the dynamic nature of the features on the star’s surface that are creating the changes in the star’s light. It sounds like this:

I do this for multiple stars, and can then weave them into compositions along with other samples. It sounds like this:

In the following piece, Powerful Protectors, I’ve woven the sounds of two stars in with samples of Buddhist chanting around the world. The composition is about how people try to access deeper knowledge about our universe.

As a scientist, communicator and educator, I am driven by wanting to share with others how science offers access to a deeper dimension of information. But sometimes you end up at odds with people who have looked for other ways to explain or address mysteries in their lives, and in fact some people feel alienated from science.

Many people seek deeper meaning through religion, which is often (though not always) at odds with science. I chose these chants for their rhythmic qualities, similar in nature to the periodic frequencies of the stars I study. As the piece evolves, the sounds weave together – sometimes blending and complementing one another, but sometimes battling and drowning one another out.”

Let’s just invest in what’s working. The idea is intuitive and compelling, especially in this historical time of constrained resources. If social-purpose organizations are generating superior results, we should support them financially so they can expand and more people can benefit. Sadly, this rarely happens. Because we don’t have evidence of what works and what doesn’t, few organizations grow very large.

The basic facts were established in a 2012 study by The Bridgespan Group in the Stanford Social Innovation Review, which looked at the more than 200,000 nonprofit organizations founded between 1975 and 2008 to determine how many had grown to $50 million or more in annual revenues. The answer? 201 &#8212 just 1%.

How one interprets this finding largely depends on whether you see the glass as 99% empty or 1% full. Being an unrepentant optimist, I’ll start with the good news — some organizations did succeed in growing a lot bigger. And they ranged in the issues they address, the financial models they use, and how they structure themselves. So it can be done.

The bad news centers on two simple truths. For starters, 1% is far too few if we hope to build strong organizations that can address big problems. Secondly, and more troubling, we don’t have any idea if this 1% comprised the organizations making the most actual impact. Indeed, it is entirely possible that what most distinguished the scalers from the non-scalers was simply their skill at getter bigger.

So why don’t the best social-purpose organizations grow? First off, let me acknowledge that growing any type of organization — for-profit or mission-driven — is tough to do. My work at the Social Innovation Fund (SIF) and prior experience in venture philanthropy investing, foundation grant making, and strategic consulting taught me that. However, my experience also showed me that there’s a critical issue holding back those who want to do good: Lack of evidence.

If you can’t tell which organizations or models are truly generating social impact, you can’t know which warrant investment. Yet there is an astonishing dearth of reliable evidence on the performance of different programs, practices, and approaches for solving social problems. And there are deep disagreements about what “impact” is, how it should be measured and how much evidence is enough. Funders and investors are making decision in the dark.

Assessing impact has always been a major challenge. It’s hard to do and it can cost a lot. But this is knowledge we have to find and use.

Fortunately, there are some promising efforts underway. The federal government is demanding stronger evidence in many of its own grantmaking programs like SIF. Private groups like the Coalition for Evidence-Based Policy are shedding useful light on productive approaches and methods. And groups like the Urban Institute and the Foundation Center have developed tools to improve evaluation and increase access to high-quality studies already completed. But these have yet to take hold across the sector.

Compounding the problem is the fact that funders don’t typically demand proof that an innovation is working. Few are committed to only supporting solutions that have evidence backing them up. Even where evidence does exist, too many funders, including government agencies and big foundations, still base their decisions on anecdotes, overhead ratios, or the advice of so-called experts.

Happily, there is an expanding body of knowledge about how to effectively grow different types of models and organizations. We know we must invest in infrastructure and capacity. And here too are many promising efforts in motion to address these issues, involving a diverse group of actors: government agencies like SIF, university-based research centers such as those at Duke and Stanford, and nonprofit intermediaries like the Bridgespan Group.

One needn’t be a hopeless optimist to recognize we’re making some progress towards the alluring vision of builder bigger, stronger, higher-impact organizations. But government and philanthropy need to get a whole lot better in finding and using evidence to invest in the best.

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As more people and companies use 3-D printers, there’s a growing number of uses for the devices, which turn designs into actual things. I’ve seen printed skull implants, coffee mugs and even 3-D printed replacement parts for 3-D printers — how meta! But I have yet to see this: A 3-D printed rocket engine. That’s likely to change as the result of a contest kicking off Friday at SXSW.

DIYROCKETS, a global space company, and Sunglass, which offers a collaborative design service, are partnering for the event, which offers $10,000 in prize money. Shapeways, a company that prints out designs for people without 3-D printers will also provide $500 in printing costs to the top two entries. To get an idea of how 3-D printing works, here’s a short video from Shapeways to explain:

For the 3-D rocket engine contest, teams will work together in order to foster collaboration and to advance designs for private space efforts. Judges include inventor Dean Kamen, as well as individuals from MIT, NASA and TED. Per the announcement:

“Although several companies have recently made strides in showcasing the power of the private sector in space exploration, DIYROCKETS is taking this a step further by creating the first of many competitions that encourages the fusion of creativity, technology and collaboration by people across the globe. Utilizing Sunglass’s cloud-based platform to visualize, collaborate, manage versions and exchange feedback on each design with team members and the public from anywhere on the globe, the contest aims to dramatically drive down design costs, while creating innovative technology for all types of space hardware and parts, ranging from space propulsion to space medical sensors.”

While I don’t have the science chops to participate, I like the idea of this contest. As government funding for space projects has been cut over time, private efforts have thankfully expanded. Even better is that many have succeeded and picked up where government programs left off: Last week’s SpaceX Falcon launch and docking with the International Space Station is a great example.

The contest also brings more awareness to what I think is game-changing technology: We’re in the early stages of consumer-based 3D-printing, but the technology is getting cheaper so that more homes and businesses can eventually afford these devices. And as that happens, a design revolution should follow.

Think of the many products and design ideas that will come from millions of 3D-printer owners. Rocket engines aren’t one I’d normally envision, but why not if they can get us beyond our planet at lower design costs?

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Sony hopes to capture more iPhone users who switch to Android every single day, and has launched its Xperia Transfer app for Mac and PC. When switching from one mobile platform to another, it can be a hassle transferring your contacts, photos, videos, messages, etc. With the app, as long as you have a Sony Xperia smartphone of course, you can transfer all your iPhone data in a few clicks. Here is a video with more details:

Click here to view the embedded video.

Source: Sony Mobile

Come comment on this article: Sony Xperia Transfer App Makes Switching To Android From iOS Dead Simple

Not too long ago we heard rumors that Samsung would implement touchless gestures for screen navigation on the Galaxy S IV. Well, the latest rumors from SamMobile say that we’re definitely going to see that floating technology on March 14th. This won’t be a first for Samsung, as we’ve seen Sony dabble with floating screen tech, and Samsung even uses it for Air View with the S-Pen in the Galaxy Note 2, but rest assured, it’s going to be an awesome feature.

In addition to the floating technology, we also have some information on the screen technology that Samsung’s going with for the S IV. According to SamMobile’s insider, we’ll be seeing “green PHOLED” screens, a new type of AMOLED screen, make its debut. It uses a green-yellow matrix that’s supposedly 25% more efficient than what’s currently being used, so we can expect some battery life improvements. It will also be a full-HD 1080p display, of course.

We’ve heard about the touchless tech, the fantastic screen, the new Smart features, and hardware specs to stay relevant for several years. I don’t think I’ve ever seen so many rumors pop up about a phone before its release, but if even half of these turn out to be true, Samsung might spend another year at the top of the OEM dog pile.

source: Sammobile

Come comment on this article: Samsung’s Galaxy S IV to feature floating touch technology and green PHOLED material AMOLED display

Markham, Ontario-based Camilion Solutions Inc., which focuses on product development, product life-cycle and underwriting solutions for the insurance industry, has been bought by SAP AG, a German provider or enterprise application software. The financial terms of the acquisition were not disclosed. Camilion was founded in 2001 with a startup financing led by Canadian venture capital firm Celtic House Venture Partners. Other backers of the company have included GrowthWorks and MMV Capital Partners.

PRESS RELEASE:

SAP AG (NYSE: SAP) today announced plans to acquire Camilion, a leading provider of insurance product development, product life-cycle and underwriting solutions that help insurance companies significantly improve the quality of the business they write and bring new products to market faster.

The transaction will broaden the SAP® solution portfolio in the insurance space, providing insurers with powerful software tools to streamline the management and creation of new products. It also will give insurance brokers and underwriters — those who deal directly with customers — simple, modern tools that speed up transactions. Together, these components could help insurers grow their businesses and reduce costs.

Many insurers today struggle with outdated core insurance systems that are not agile enough to meet rapidly changing consumer needs and the latest technology trends. Insurers seek to modernize these core systems in order to increase the quality of their business and deliver new products to the market more quickly. At the same time, they need software tools that provide instant analysis and simulation across huge volumes of data — all while protecting the value of past IT investments.

The move adds significant value to the integrated SAP® for Insurance solution portfolio and prominently positions SAP in the rapidly emerging market for integrated core insurance platforms, the industry’s first “Super Suite.” Traditional solution suites for the insurance industry have been limited to policy, billing and claims. SAP, together with Camilion, plans to provide an integrated yet modular end-to-end insurance offering: the SAP® Business All-in-One solution for Insurance. This will include comprehensive integrated capabilities from strategy through finance to operations powered by leading-edge in-memory and mobile technologies, available both in the cloud or on premise.

“With this acquisition, SAP is able to meet the needs of insurers that face a challenging new business environment and that need to make significant product and strategy changes quickly at low risk,” said Simon Paris, global head of Financial Services, SAP. “Camilion brings deep expertise and trusted relationships in the new age of insurance applications, well recognized by customers and analysts.”

“We are convinced this is a ‘win-win-win,” said Ross Orrett, president and CEO, Camilion. “It’s a win for SAP and Camilion, for our joint customers and for an industry that is modernizing at a staggering pace. We intend to deliver best-in-class products and services from a combined team with unmatched depth in the insurance industry.”

Global Underwriting
Leading insurers use Camilion’s capabilities to perform sophisticated underwriting of some of the most complex global risks. These capabilities integrate seamlessly with back-end systems to support the entire product life cycle, including the development of new business across the world.

Product Development and Management
Camilion’s ProductAuthority® helps customers manage everything about insurance products into re-usable components that can be rapidly adapted to form new products or enhancements. Camilion and SAP have uniquely built their respective solutions from the ground up to externalize product information and agnostically integrate with any core system.

Full Solution for ISO
Camilion helps insurers address the requirements of the Insurance Services Office (ISO) and state policies and regulations in the U.S. Using an advanced automated process for importing and testing content, Camilion builds complete, functional insurance product definitions as interpreted by ISO. The combination of Camilion and SAP solutions will provide a complete platform for insurers with operations in the U.S.

Mobile and “Big Data”
Camilion intends to expand its mobility capabilities for quoting and underwriting, which is critical as brokers and underwriters increasingly work remotely and rely on the latest applications on iPad, iPhone and other mobile devices. One Camilion customer already has more than 10,000 brokers using this capability.

About Camilion
Camilion was founded in 2001 and is an innovative software company that leading insurers use to gain enterprise-wide agility with their products and underwriting. It is privately held, with offices in Canada and the United States. SAP and Camilion have collaborated since 2008.

For more information, visit the SAP Newsroom.

About SAP
As market leader in enterprise application software, SAP helps companies of all sizes and industries run better. From back office to boardroom, warehouse to storefront, desktop to mobile device – SAP empowers people and organizations to work together more efficiently and use business insight more effectively to stay ahead of the competition. SAP applications and services enable more than 197,000 customers (includes customers from the acquisition of SuccessFactors) to operate profitably, adapt continuously, and grow sustainably. For more information, visit www.sap.com.

Any statements contained in this document that are not historical facts are forward-looking statements as defined in the U.S. Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. Words such as “anticipate,” “believe,” “estimate,” “expect,” “forecast,” “intend,” “may,” “plan,” “project,” “predict,” “should” and “will” and similar expressions as they relate to SAP are intended to identify such forward-looking statements. SAP undertakes no obligation to publicly update or revise any forward-looking statements. All forward-looking statements are subject to various risks and uncertainties that could cause actual results to differ materially from expectations. The factors that could affect SAP’s future financial results are discussed more fully in SAP’s filings with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (“SEC”), including SAP’s most recent Annual Report on Form 20-F filed with the SEC. Readers are cautioned not to place undue reliance on these forward-looking statements, which speak only as of their dates.

©2013 SAP AG. All rights reserved.
SAP and other SAP products and services mentioned herein as well as their respective logos are trademarks or registered trademarks of SAP AG in Germany and other countries. Please see http://www.sap.com/corporate-en/legal/copyright/index.epx#trademark for additional trademark information and notices.

Note to Editors:
To preview and download broadcast-standard stock footage and press photos digitally, please visit www.sap.com/photos. On this platform, you can find high resolution material for your media channels. To view video stories on diverse topics, visit www.sap-tv.com. From this site, you can embed videos into your own Web pages, share video via email links, and subscribe to RSS feeds from SAP TV.

Follow SAP on Twitter at @sapnews and @sustainableSAP.

For customers interested in learning more about SAP products:
Global Customer Center: +49 180 534-34-24
United States Only: 1 (800) 872-1SAP (1-800-872-1727)

For more information, press only:
Andy Kendzie, +1 (202) 312-3919 [email protected], EST
Crystal Lu, +1 (925) 236-6431, [email protected], PST
Daniel Reinhardt, +49 6227 7-40201, [email protected], CET
SAP Press Office, +49 (6227) 7-46315, CET; +1 (610) 661-3200, EDT; [email protected]

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Sonos is a wireless audio company that makes solid – albeit comparatively expensive – audio hardware. Setup is drop dead simple – to add a component you simply press one or two buttons on the new device and everything “just works” and the remote control UI, refined over most of the past decade, has a cult-like following. You can create different audio zones around your room and play different music in each one or enter party mode and turn your house into a massive disco. In short, Sonos makes whole-home audio easy.

So what of this new Playbar, a long sound bar that sits above or below your television and connects to your system via a single optical cable? This new device has nine speakers built-in, six midrange and three tweeters, and works with Sonos’ SUB subwoofer and Play:3 mini speakers that can act as satellite surround sound speakers.

To use the Playbar you need at least a Sonos Bridge – the central device that talks to all Sonos devices – and an iOS or Android device. Setup requires you to connect the Playbar to your TV (or receiver) via a single optical cable. You then plug in the power and you’re set. It also has an Ethernet port, but Sonos has excellent QOS control via wireless and I’ve never had a problem with streaming.

The $699 Playbar can be mounted above or below your TV – a built-in accelerometer senses the direction – or you can put it on a TV stand.

Unfortunately, this reliance on a single optical cable is both good and bad. If you don’t have a receiver and connect all of your devices directly to your TV, you’re golden. If you have a receiver, however, setup is a bit more difficult. I set my receiver to output HDMI audio as well as video and turned it down all the way. The TV, then, does all of the audio output via optical and your receiver becomes little more than a switch. You can control the Playbar’s volume with your TV remote or the Sonos app.

The app also bears some discussion. The Sonos app breaks your sound system into different rooms and nearly everything is managed through the app, including the addition of more speakers to the system. You can add music services and grab multiple songs from multiple services – an album from your own collection, a few songs from a shared drive on your network, and maybe a playlist from Rdio – and play it as a queue. You can save queues (playlists, really) and all of the audio manipulation, including control of bass and treble, are done in the app. With the addition of the the Playbar, the app adds a “TV” input that allows you to control the volume of the Playbar remotely.

How is the audio quality? A single Playbar will make your TV sound better (although that’s usually not hard). I was able to turn up the sound on action movies and get a few solid whomps out of the soundtrack as well as hear clear and distinct dialog, which was actually an improvement over my current 5.1 setup. Your results may vary, but I didn’t get much out of the “simulated” surround sound these speakers advertised but I was pleased with the sound overall.

Music playback over this speaker – because, using the Sonos app, you can beam services like Pandora and Rdio as well as your own collection through the Playbar – was clean and nuanced and these were an excellent replacement for the pair of stereo speakers I usually used to listen to music.

Current Sonos users will be pleased to note that this system does replace the Play:5 or Play:3 speakers, whether you have paired them in stereo or are simply using a single unit. You could, for example, remove a pair of Play speakers and simply use this to play TV audio as well as your music. The Playbar is that good. I saw no discernible difference in using this vs. the two Sonos speakers I already had in the room I was testing this gear in.

The Playbar also answers another home audio prayer – the promise of true wireless 5.1 sound. While the Playbar technically isn’t a center-front right-front left setup, by pairing this with two Play:3 satellites (Play:5 units don’t work) and a sub-woofer, you’ve got a very nice wireless 5.1 system.

The Playbar really shines in this setup, which, in the end, will cost you $1,996 to set up, including the Playbar. The Playbar paired with the sub-woofer, for example, really opens up the audio considerably while the satellite speakers – which require all of five minutes to setup – are almost magical in their simplicity. For folks who have pulled wire under or across walls and floors, this setup is a godsend. At the bare minimum I’d recommend the Playbar and the Sub. If you want to spring for the Play:3s in the back, you won’t be disappointed.

Better (or at least more bass-heavy) soundbars can be had for about as much as the Sonos system. However, if you’re already familiar with the Sonos system, this is probably your best bet. It completely replaces any Play speakers you already have (allowing you to stick them in another room) and paired with other Sonos gear it really sounds great.

If you’re new to Sonos, you may not want to start here. Sonos truly shines in music playback and there’s nothing like setting all of your speakers on party mode and creating a soundscape that would normally take you hours of setup and wire management to pull off. The Playbar, then, seems like a device for folks who want to Sonosify their whole home and it’s understandable why they created it. However, it’s not a good introductory device unless you’re in the market for a solid sound bar with a few very cool features. If you’re only looking for music playback, a few Play:5 speakers and maybe a SUB are a good place to start.

Can you get better sound out of equally or more expensive speakers? Potentially. However, the added value of complete control of your music and TV audio is a huge plus. The Sonos system shines when there are a few speakers going at once and if you’re looking for a true wireless surround sound system, look no further. If you’re simply trying to replace the wonky speakers built into your TV, however, the Playbar faces tougher competition but stands firm against similarly-priced soundbars. It is well worth a look when considering living room/TV audio systems.

February has come and gone. With a new month upon us, and spring inching closer, it’s time to crown a new BlackBerry Fan of the Month (FOTM)!

As a self-proclaimed “superfan of all things BlackBerry”, our March FOTM is no stranger to #TeamBlackBerry. He’s active on our Twitter and Facebook pages where his BlackBerry expertise is so legendary that he’s known as “The Guru” and “The King”. When he’s not lending a helping hand to the BlackBerry fam, you can find him hard at work running his courier business or volunteering to helm dragon boats (SO COOL!). We were also seriously impressed when we learned that he’s a retired athlete who won a bronze medal in flatwater sprint kayaking during the World Championships!

At the end of the day, though, this rock star FOTM is really just a family man. He loves spending time with his wife (who’s also a proud member of #TeamBlackBerry), and enjoys taking pictures of his two kids with his BlackBerry Z10 (especially now that he can use Time Shift to fix those blinking eyes!).

So with that, it is my great pleasure to introduce you to our March FOTM. #TeamBlackBerry, meet Gino (@eugenbaban):

1. How many years have you been on Team BlackBerry?

I’ve been on #TeamBlackBerry since 2008. I have had many mobile phone makes and models since around 1997 or so but once I bought my first BlackBerry in 2008 it was game over for all other makes, when you find something that fits perfectly you just know it

2. How many BlackBerry devices have you had in total? Could you list them all out for us?

I started with a BlackBerry Curve 8320 followed by the BlackBerry Bold 9000, BlackBerry Storm 2, BlackBerry Bold 9700, BlackBerry Bold 9900 and now the BlackBerry Z10. However, being the BlackBerry geek that I am, I’ve also bought: BlackBerry 7230, BlackBerry 8707V (quite a rare model, first 3G BlackBerry) BlackBerry 8800, BlackBerry 8820, BlackBerry 8310, BlackBerry Pearl 3G and of course, a BlackBerry PlayBook tablet. I would love to see a “retro” BlackBerry model in the shape of the BlackBerry 7230 but with modern internals

3. How many BBM contacts do you currently have?

I have 37 BBM contacts but I treat it like a private club, you have to be special to get in

4. What is your favorite BBM emoticon?

The smiley face and I use it a lot.

5. What is the best BBM you ever received?

I get a best BBM every day when my wife sends me a kiss emoticon

6. Gino, if you could BBM your BlackBerry, what would you say? How do you think your BlackBerry would respond?

I would say “how you doing” and I would probably get a giggle in return

7. Gino, we know the community refers to you as ‘The Guru and ‘The King’. How does that make you feel?

I didn’t know that, you’re making me blush

8. Gino, we know you love to take #BlackBerryPhotos, hence your Twitter name. What is the best BlackBerry photo you have ever taken?

I love taking photos with my BlackBerry mostly because it’s always in my hand , ultimate quality is not as important for me but capturing that special moment, whether it’s the kids doing something funny or particular time and place in nature etc., I always keep an eye out for the next inspiration moment. The new BlackBerry Z10 is amazing in this respect, it has all the tools I need out of the box: Time Shift for group photos, Burst for those action shots, Built in Editing software if you’re feeling arty and the incredible Story Maker for fun sharing.

9. What did you think about the launch of BlackBerry 10? Did any announcement in particular stand out?

It was an amazing experience watching the start of a brand new mobile platform with so much potential. What stood out for me was the name change from Research In Motion to BlackBerry, a brand name taking over the company name and it makes perfect sense

10. And finally, we just have to ask: Are you prepared to handle the fame that comes with being our Fans of the Month?

Fame or infamy, Bring it on

Be sure to check out the other awesome members of the BlackBerry Fan of the Month (FOTM) club:

January – Brian (@newshutr)
February – Ivan (@IvanSHarris)
March – Jane (@photosfromabb)
April – Josh (@BBbrodyBB)
May – Mark (@AllAboutMyBB)
June – JT (@jt_teran)
July – Kimberly (@kmcooley)
August – Mike (@flash0p)
September – Jon (@nerdologist_jon)
October – Guido (@FuriousGuido)
November – Ange (@Afl2277)
December – Zalman (@Zalman5K)
January 2013 – Arisham (@arisham2003)
February 2013 – Julie and Andrew

Keep sharing your FOTM suggestions with us, either by leaving a comment below, tweeting to us @BlackBerry on Twitter, or posting on our Facebook page. Stay tuned – our April FOTM could be YOU!

The Associated Press is reporting that former NFL player Chris Zorich has been charged for tax evasion. The football player has allegedly not filed federal income tax returns for “over four years.”

Zorich played for Notre Dame in college and was an All-American before being drafted to the NFL in 1991. He played for the Chicago Bears until 1997, and then capped off his NFL career with one year with the Washington Redskins in 1997. Zorich was a member of the 1988 Notre Dame football team that went undefeated and won the National Championship.

An attorney for Zorich told the AP that he would be pleading guilty to four misdemeanor counts for not filing tax returns between 2006 and 2009. Each misdemeanor count has a maximum one year prison sentence and $100,000 fine. The former athlete is alleged to have made over $1 million during that time, including income from the Christopher Zorich Foundation, a charity he founded in 1993 to help disadvantaged families.

In 2010, the Chicago Tribune reported that over $850,000 was missing from the Christopher Zorich Foundation, and that the organization had not filed taxes since 2003. Late last year, Zorich agreed to pay nearly $350,000 in unaccounted-for funds back to his charity after an Illinois Attorney General investigation.

It’s a crying shame that the Mercedes-Benz G63 AMG is one of the most under utilized vehicles sold here in the United States. Generally driven by people of wealth, this is one of those rare beasts that needed an after market builder to get involved before it could actually be taken seriously. Power comes by way of a 5.5-liter twin-turbo V8 that churns out 544 hp and 560 lb.ft. of torque allowing it to cruise at 100 mph while rolling on 37-inch tires. It also has seating for 8 passengers, full-on off-road capabilities and a presence that is not for the faint of heart. The price? A mere $244,000.00 U.S. or 7.5 million rubles. Check out the video after the jump.

Source: Autoreview.ru

Google has the unenviable position turning around Motorola Mobility and making it profitable again. That means the company has to make some tough decisions that will affect its employees around the world.

The Wall Street Journal reports that Google has begun laying off 1,200 employees at its Motorola Mobility hardware division. The cuts are a result of Motorola’s inability to return to profitability as the smartphone maker attempts to compete against the likes of Samsung and Apple.

The email announcing the layoffs said that the company “is optimistic about the new products in our pipeline,” but says that high costs and operating in non-competitive markets has led to a situation where the newly christened subsidiary of Google just isn’t making money. The layoffs will affect employees in the U.S., China and India.

The new round of layoffs is apparently a continuation of the layoffs announced last summer that affected over 4,000 employees at Motorola shortly after Google bought the company for $12.5 billion. Since then, the company has struggled to create a smartphone that could be certified as a hit.

Despite its struggles, Google is still trying to get the most out of its purchase. The company is reportedly working closely with Motorola on something called the “X Phone.” The rumored device is said to be “a real breakthrough” and will go on sale in July. It’s unknown if Google will announce the phone at May’s Google I/O, but it very well could be if the device is chosen to house the next version of Android.

We’ve been hearing about another Facebook phone since last November, and at that time it was codenamed “Opera UL.” Then last month, the codename “Myst” appeared. Either way, it looks like “Myst” is indeed the codename for the next Facebook phone that will be made by HTC. The specs have leaked again and they are a lot like what we heard last month, but with some minor changes and additions.

What’s different is the CPU. It’s still a dual-core Qualcomm Snapdragon S4 Plus, but now we are hearing it’s 1.5GHz , as opposed to 1.4GHz.  The display is confirmed to be 4.3-inches and 720p, but we now know it will have a ppi of 320. Other new information is the RAM, which is 1GB, 16GB of internal storage (no microSD slot), both LTE and HSPA radios, and Android 4.1.2 Jelly Bean. As to the camera, there isn’t anything different than what we already heard, a 5MP rear camera and 1.6MP front camera. Obviously these specs don’t scream high-end, but when you consider the target demographic, they don’t need to.

As to when this bad boy will become available, the latest rumor points to the spring.

source: unwiredview

Come comment on this article: Next Facebook phone (aka HTC Myst) specs are now confirmed

PayPal readily admits it hasn’t been the most developer-friendly company, but the online payments giant claims it is now ready to start actively courting the developer with a bevy of new tools it is launching at SXSWi.

First off, it’s launching a new iOS software developer’s kit (SDK), which allows app makers to code PayPal’s payment processing tools directly into their apps, instead of opening up a PayPal authorization and payments page. PayPal devs can also embed credit card scanning software from Card.io, which PayPal bought last summer. While it’s starting with iOS, PayPal said it would expand to other mobile platforms “soon.”

For quick integration, PayPal has developed Javascript buttons that can be embedded into a desktop or mobile website by adding five lines of codes. The payment feature can also be programmed into a QR code, allowing retailers to trigger transactions from outside of the device. Finally, PayPal is also retooling its application programming interfaces (APIs) around more modern and open frameworks such as REST, OAuth and JSON.

Previously, PayPal’s development platform ran over parent company eBay’s X.commerce, but PayPal is taking its developer efforts independent, launching a new development website that houses its sandbox, tools, documentation and other resources in a single location.

“This is just the beginning,” PayPal CTO James Barrese wrote on the company’s blog. “We will be releasing new APIs and capabilities throughout 2013, while continuing to support our existing developer tools through this evolution. We will continue to listen to the developer community and rapidly respond to their feedback.”

Related research and analysis from GigaOM Pro:
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That problem where you’re meeting someone for the first time, maybe to pick up something you bought through Craigslist? Google Glass can help with that. A new app designed for Google’s upcoming smart-mounted computer will be able to identify people based on what they’re wearing. The so-called InSight project (via 9to5Google) is funded in part by Google and developed by University of South Caroline and Duke University researchers, and uses a smartphone app to develop a clothing-based digital fingerprint to help identify strangers.

The app would let users like sellers on Craigslist, or members of online dating sites, or anyone meeting someone for the first time create a profile of themselves using their smartphone camera, and shots from various angles. InSight would then piece together a virtual profile of that person based on what they’re wearing, which could then be used by Google Glass to make a positive ID when that person comes within range of its visual sensors. It’s very sci-fi, it’s very cool, and best of all, it’s very accurate: in tests so far the researchers behind the project have been able to get a positive match 93 percent of the time.

The system uses clothes because it provides more visual signals at a distance to help with identification, and also because it keeps a user’s identity more or less private, since all they have to do is change clothes in order to not be identified by the same person’s Google Glass application in the future. But it could be refined to help with prosopagnosia, otherwise known as face blindness, and that’s where Google Glass’s therapeutic potential really starts to become apparent.

Prosopagnosia may affect up to 2.5 percent of the world’s population to varying degrees, according to a recent study, so while rare a system that corrects it could still have a significant impact. InSight, or technology like it, could help by identifying people based on their facial characteristics and keeping a stored database of people know to the Google Glass wearer, so that they can ‘recognize’ faces thanks to information provided through their heads up display.

The same kind of tech could also help with visual agnosia, a disorder resulting from strokes that can render a patient incapable of identifying everyday objects. And for more quotidian uses, it could work in tandem with language learning software to help learners identify the world around them in their target tongue.

Google Glass may not be something consumers can buy quite yet, but it’s already showing that it could have plenty of applications beyond just acting as an extension of your smartphone.

Huddle around the radio, all. TED Radio Hour’s second season is under way and episode two, “Peering into Space” premieres today. Host Guy Raz says that this episode may even be his favorite created so far. In an interview with the TED Blog, he said, “It totally changed my world … I think people who haven’t taken the time to look at the stars recently are going to be amazed by what they hear. You look out at the brightest star in the sky — and you are looking at the past in real time. That idea to me is so beautiful.”

Gazing up at the night sky is always both humbling and thrilling. In this episode of TED Radio Hour, you’ll hear from speakers who share a sense of wonder and curiosity about our place in the universe. Phil Plait breaks down how we can defend Earth from an asteroid. Jill Tarter of the SETI Institute explains why it’s crucial for humans here on earth to continue searching for sentient beings in the cosmos. And Cosmologist Brian Greene unravels the strange tale of dark matter and why our universe may be one of the many in the “multiverse.”

Check your local NPR schedule to find out when the show airs today, or listen via NPR’s website »

Or head to iTunes where the podcast is available now »