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  • Facebook gets simpler with bet that we just want the news that fits

    Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg paused before unveiling a fresh design for its News Feed on Thursday at company headquarters in Menlo Park, Calif. Before moving to the slide everyone was waiting for, he took us back in time for a few seconds, first showing how Facebook’s homepage used to look.

    It was a good reminder. Back in 2007, the News Feed was a lot boxier. It had a lot fewer photos. There was more text, and everything seemed smaller.

    In those early days, Facebook pioneered a different look that distinguished it from competitors like MySpace, offering a cleaner design and fewer options and customization for users. It was a new approach, and it worked. But the amount of content shared to the site has grown by an astounding amount since those days, as you’d expect from a site with now over a billion active users, and the News Feed hadn’t exactly kept pace. It had started to look cluttered and dated, and navigation (not to mention surfacing interesting content) was a challenge.

    Mark Zuckerberg takes questions after announcing the updated News Feed in the company's Menlo Park headquarters on March 7.

    Mark Zuckerberg takes questions after announcing the updated News Feed in the company’s Menlo Park headquarters on March 7.

    So from a visual perspective, Thursday’s update clears out most of the clutter from the homepage, taking Facebook back to its original design proposition of simplicity and filtering. And it emphasizes the idea of Facebook as the “local newspaper,” bringing you a small slice of the most interesting and informative posts on the homepage — and giving you sections where can dive deeper into the material where you want. It’s unclear how advertising will play into the changes, since the company gave virtually no attention to ads on Thursday, but if ads change to look anything like the enhanced photos, this could be a boon for advertisers as well.

    I wrote on Wednesday about the three advantages Facebook still has that I didn’t think it should break with the new design: content discovery (showing you interesting things you hadn’t previously discovered), visual media (photos and videos still look the best on Facebook’s page), and the content directory (taking advantage of all your friends and their information on the site.) In many ways, the re-design announced Thursday played perfectly into these three strengths, primarily the first two.

    “We believe that the best personalized newspaper should have a wide variety of content,” Zuckerberg explained during the hour-long presentation.

    With content discovery, the new News Feed — structured after the metaphorical newspaper — is all about giving you more content to read and discover (in fact, it seems more like a consumption page now than one for sharing — interesting to consider that users are probably sharing more from mobile devices than desktops now). The re-design introduces tabs on the top right of the page that let you toggle your view: “All Friends” (who you haven’t hidden from the newsfeed), “Close Friends” (an older feature where you can designate certain people), “Following” (pages and people you subscribe to), “Groups,” “Photos,” “Games,” “Music,” and “Other.”

    In each of these categories, users will be able to select specific set of content to dive into. “All Friends” gives users a chronological series of updates from friends, providing a feature that Facebook employees said was highly requested from users (especially considering the criticism the News Feed algorithms and perceived lack of transparency have faced in the past.)

    Screenshot Facebook newsfeedThe “Following” page serves as almost like a page for news, assuming you like any celebrities, journalists, news outlets, or organizations on the site who post updates. The New York Times’ Nick Bilton recently criticized the company for not sharing his posts with subscribers as much as he would expect, and while the company refuted his claims, the Following page certainly addresses this need for asynchronous relationships and sharing.

    And the company emphasized music — the music page will show songs your friends are listening to through apps like Spotify that use the company’s Open Graph. Each of these tabs give you a new set of information to dig into and greater control over the information you see.

    From a design perspective, the emphasis on photos is a huge part of what’s new. Photos are far more dominant in the main news feed, appearing larger in previews and playing on two obvious influences: the Instagram experience of a continuous photo scroll, and design for mobile that inherently incorporates a simpler, stripped-down look. Michael Reckhow, a product manager for mobile newsfeed, said they had worked so hard to build a cleaner mobile feed, that in looking at the desktop, they realized they’d already devised many of the solutions they needed:

    “Mobile is inherently simpler,” he said. So it’s fair to say that in some ways, you’ve already seen the new Facebook — on your phone.

    For Facebook, the question is how users will respond to the updated look — and if adoption of the new features goes the opposite way of print newspaper subscriptions.

    Related research and analysis from GigaOM Pro:
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  • Samsung Pays $111 Million For 3% Stake In Sharp To Secure LCD Supply

    Sharp

    Samsung is a fan of Sharp’s displays and has acquired three percent of the Japanese company for $111 million. The move now makes Samsung the largest shareholder outside of a financial institution, and the fifth largest shareholder overall. This three percent stake helps solidify both companies’ relationship and ensures a steady supply of LCD panels for Samsung’s products.

    Sharp isn’t doing so well financially and has created similar deals with such companies as Qualcomm who owns 2.56 percent of the business. Foxconn could soon be another shareholder Sharp with a 10% stake. However, that deal was announced in March 2012 and closes at the end of this month.

    Source: Unwired View

    Come comment on this article: Samsung Pays $111 Million For 3% Stake In Sharp To Secure LCD Supply

  • How to backup apps and app data on your rooted or non-rooted Android phone or tablet

    backup-options

    We’ve all been in a situation before where we needed to either factory reset our phone, send it in for a warranty replacement, etc. Not a big deal by itself, but you’ve got 3 stars on 80% of Angry Birds levels, and who would want to lose that accomplishment? You want to be able to keep that data forever. Fortunately, it’s pretty easy to do, and this guide will help you get started. You’ll even be able to start transferring some app data to new phones when you upgrade.

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    Carbon – No Root Method

    Carbon is an application by popular developer, Koushik Dutta, who has also developed ClockworkMod Recovery, ROM Manager, and a recent Superuser application. Needless to say, he’s made some extremely useful applications that are very widely used. Carbon is no exception, and it allows any device running Android 4.0 or higher to back up their applications and data without root. All you’ll need is your device, a computer, and your USB cable. (It’s worth noting that according to its Play Store page, Motorola devices are not supported due to a bug on Motorola’s part.)

    First off, you’re going to need the free companion desktop application to use the backup features (for non rooted users only).  There are versions for Windows, OS X, and a Linux shell script, so regardless of what kind of computer you’re using, you’ll be able to take advantage of Carbon. If you’re using Windows, you’re also going to need specific drivers for your phone. There’s a link on the download page (above) with a list of drivers for easy access and installation, and just about every major OEM is covered. OS X and Linux users don’t have to worry about the driver issues.

    Once you have that all set up and running, start the Carbon desktop app, connect your device via USB to your computer, and start Carbon on your phone or tablet. Wait just a few seconds, and Carbon will be fully enabled so you can start backing up your apps. You can now disconnect your phone/tablet from your desktop and utilize the app itself. You won’t have to reconnect your phone/tablet again, but if you reboot your device you will have to connect it again to re-enable the app. It’s an inconvenience, but a minor one when you consider this is the only option for backing up app data for non rooted devices.

    There’s a few cool features and tricks you’ll probably want to take advantage of while using Carbon, though, so poke around and look at some settings before you back up your massive stockpile of apps. Let’s say you really only want to back up your Angry Birds data, but you don’t mind re-downloading the app from the Play Store first. If you swipe up the bottom tab in Carbon, you’ll see a check box that gives you the option of backing up only the app data, and it does exactly that; your bigger apk will not be saved, but the data that goes along with it will be saved. You’ll have to download the app from the Play Store before you can restore that data, but if you want to save some storage space on your phone or SD card and don’t mind the extra step, that can be a pretty helpful option. There are also quick options to select and deselect all available apps in this window.

    If you don’t mind going for the paid version of Carbon ($4.99), you’ll get a really cool feature; the ability to back up your data to cloud storage. Carbon supports Dropbox, Box, and Google Drive, and it can seamlessly get your data on your favorite cloud service. That’s extremely helpful if you’re switching over to a new phone without an SD card, or just to make a backup in case you were to ever lose your phone.

    So let’s fast forward a bit and say you’ve got your warranty exchange, you’ve finished your factory reset, or you just brought your shiny new phone home after upgrading. Restoring those applications is quick and easy, and all you’ll have to do is download Carbon from the Play Store. After downloading, run Carbon, connect it to your computer again, and you’ll be able to restore all of your apps and data. That precious Angry Birds is still completely intact. You’ll never have to worry about losing data again.

    You can also use Carbon as a rooted user  and you don’t need to bother with the desktop companion software. Everything else works the same, but I prefer the next option, Titanium Backup because it’s more feature rich, but Carbon is still a great app.

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    Play Store Download Link

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    Play Store Download Link (Premium)

    titanium-backup

    Titanium Backup – Root Method

    Carbon is useful, and if you can’t or don’t want to root your device, its backup capabilities are fantastic. If you are rooted, however, it’s hard to beat Titanium Backup’s extremely rich feature set. It essentially works the same as Carbon but with a bit more flexibility and automation. It also works on any device that can be rooted, regardless of manufacturer or OS version.

    First off, with Titanium Backup, you must be rooted. There’s no way around it. If you need some help on that, we do have a guide to rooting to get you started and answer most of your questions. If you’re already rooted, just download and install the app and start it. It will prompt you for root permissions, which you will want to grant, of course, and you’re ready to start backing things up.

    Titanium Backup has three tabs you’ll be looking at; an overview page, a backup/restore page, and a schedules page. For this guide, we want that middle tab to start backing up applications. You’ll see a long list of every single application that’s installed on your phone, including system applications and data. This is the biggest difference from Carbon, and it’s extremely important to remember. Backing up and restoring system applications and data can cause serious problems. As a general rule of thumb, it’s much safer to manually sign back into accounts and adjust settings instead of restoring a backup for those settings. In some cases, restoring system data will be fine, but more often than not it will cause problems. Restoring system data from one device to another will definitely cause problems.

    Now that we’ve got that friendly disclaimer out of the way, tap the “Click to edit filters” button above your app list. For safety, we want to uncheck the boxes under “Filter by type” except for the User option. Only the User box should be checked, and the System and Uninstalled box should be blank. Tap your green checkmark at the top right of the screen to go back to your app list that’s been completely filtered to only user apps and no system apps. Here you can manually select which apps to backup and restore, so if you really only wanted to keep data for your games when moving to a new device, it’s easy to do so.

    Now let’s say you want to run a full backup for your apps. That button on the top right of the screen, next to the magnifying glass, is your “batch” button in Titanium Backup, and that’s where the magic happens. Tap that and it will give you a long list of actions you can take. For this backup, we want to run the “Backup all user apps” action. This pulls up a list of your user apps where you can individually check each app you want to back up, or you can simply select all of your apps. After figuring out what you want backed up, tap the green checkmark at the top right and the batch action will run in the background.

    Restoring your apps again is pretty much the same thing. When you go to your batch actions list, scroll down a bit until you find the action for “Restore all apps with data.” This list will show each app you’ve backed up so you can batch restore everything you need, data included. The free version of Titanium Backup will make you press a yes dialog box for each app you want to restore, so it’s not totally automated, but the paid, premium version does it all behind the scenes. And, like Carbon, you can set up schedules to back up at specific times and, if you opted for the paid Pro Key, sync your local backups to cloud storage. So if you’re in one of those situations we mentioned earlier, like moving to a phone without an SD card or just making backups in case your phone is lost or stolen, Titanium Backup supports the same three major cloud storage services for backing up your data.

    QR Code generator

    Play Store Download Link

    QR Code generator

    Play Store Download Link (Premium)

    Like always, there’s plenty of Android apps available that do what Carbon and Titanium Backup can do, (although Carbon is the only app that can fully backup nonrooted devices) so if neither of these seem like your cup of tea, it’s easy to find an alternative. Both of these apps have relatively simple, easy to use designs that most users can figure out to do something that we’ve all needed to do once or twice with our phones.

    Come comment on this article: How to backup apps and app data on your rooted or non-rooted Android phone or tablet

  • Check Out Some More Multiplayer From God of War: Ascension

    God of War: Ascension comes out next week, and you’d be forgiven if you forgot the game had a multiplayer mode. Most of the press leading up to the game’s release has been focused on the traditional single player campaign without much attention being given to this new gameplay element.

    To correct that oversight, Sony has been sharing some videos over the past few days that help to show what players will be getting themselves into once God of War: Ascension launches next week on March 12. The first is a look at Poseidon and how pledging allegiance to him will help players overcome their enemies in multiplayer battles:

    Up next is a look at the new Trial of the Gods mode. In previous games, this was a simple extra mode that allowed players to take on challenges against increasingly tougher enemies to unlock rewards for use in the main game. In Ascension, players can now take on these challenges with a co-op partner, or go it alone.

    Finally, here’s a look at three of the multiplayer maps that will be shipping with the game:

  • 100,000 Killer Bees Attack Tampa Park Workers

    The ABC New affiliate in Tampa Bay, Florida is reporting that two public park workers were attacked by as many as 100,000 Africanized honeybees – also known as killer bees.

    The report states that two park employees were removing a pile of rubbish from Picnic Island Park using a payloader when the attack occurred. The pair flipped over an old tire that hadn’t been moved for years and angered the aggressive bees. One of the workers was stung over 60 times and the other endured more than 100 stings before fleeing into a nearby building.

    According to ABC, both of the men were admitted to a local hospital where they were treated with antibiotics and anti-inflammatory drugs. Luckily, neither of them seem to have been highly allergic to bee stings.

    Africanized bees are an agressive breed of bee that have been spreading north into the U.S. since the early 90s. In addition to being able to take over the hives of western honey bees, killer bees swarm more often and are able to travel further than other bees.

  • Android accounted for 79% of all mobile malware In 2012

    Android Malware
    A new study has found that Google’s (GOOG) mobile operating system is targeted by hackers far more than any other mobile platform. Security firm F-Secure found that Android accounted for 79% of all mobile malware in 2012, an increase from 66.7% in 2011 and 11.25% in 2010. Apple’s (AAPL) iOS platform on the other hand has remained nearly untouched throughout the years. Malware on the operating system, which is the second most popular among smartphone buyers, was found to account for only 0.7% in 2012. The firm also found that Android saw a significant increase in malware at the end of the year, accounting for 94% of all threats in the fourth quarter. Most malware, however, is found in emerging markets. A majority of mobile users in Europe and the United States will never be affected but should still be cautious of suspicious text messages, links and emails. F-Secure’s graph outlining mobile malware threats is posted below.

    Continue reading…

  • UCLA Dentistry gets $5M to establish clinical research center for patient care, education

    Philanthropists Dr. Mick Dragoo and his wife, Mary, have pledged a landmark gift of $5 million to the UCLA School of Dentistry to establish the UCLA Mick and Mary Dragoo Periodontal and Implant Clinical Research and Patient Care Center.

    The Dragoo’s gift, the largest single donation from an individual or couple the dental school has ever received, will create a leading site for clinical research, patient care and education in periodontology and implantology — specialized areas of dentistry related to tooth-supporting structures and tooth replacement.

     
    The new Dragoo Periodontal and Implant Center will be a place for world-renowned faculty to conduct independently funded clinical research to advance scientific knowledge in periodontal and implant dentistry. Researchers from the school will translate their findings into meaningful treatment protocols and will disseminate their research through publications, educational programs and the Internet to advance the state of patient care worldwide.
     
    “With Dr. and Mrs. Dragoo’s extremely generous gift, our hope is to advance the standard of patient care, as well as influence decisions made by dentists and patients alike,” said Dr. No-Hee Park, dean of the UCLA School of Dentistry. “The Dragoo Center helps us further achieve our mission, which is to improve the oral health of the people of the world. I cannot thank the Dragoos enough for their support.”
     
    Directing the Dragoo Periodontal and Implant Center will be Dr. Perry Klokkevold, an associate professor, acting chair and director of the residency program in the section of periodontics at the UCLA School of Dentistry. Klokkevold has more than 20 years of experience in education, administration and clinical practice in periodontics and implantology.
     
    “We searched the country for the perfect place and director to execute our vision,” said Mick Dragoo. “Our search led us to the UCLA School of Dentistry, and we are thrilled that Dean No-Hee Park has appointed Dr. Klokkevold as the director of our new center.”
     
    “I am fully committed, honored and inspired to have the opportunity to direct the Dragoo Periodontal and Implant Center,” Klokkevold said. “I share the Dragoo’s vision and goals of improving patient care worldwide through independently funded clinical research.”
     
    Mick and Mary Dragoo are new donors to the UCLA family and the School of Dentistry. Dr. Dragoo is a well-known periodontist who has written and published numerous books and clinical articles. He has lectured extensively throughout the world and has been involved in independent clinical research on periodontology and implantology for nearly 40 years; he is considered an expert in these fields. He and Mary also own and operate Belle Marie Winery in Escondido, Calif., where Mick is the wine-maker.
     
    The UCLA School of Dentistry is dedicated to improving the oral and systemic health of the people of California, the nation and the world through its teaching, research, patient care and public service initiatives. The School of Dentistry provides education and training programs that develop leaders in dental education, research, the profession and the community. The School of Dentistry also conducts research programs that generate new knowledge, promote oral health and investigate the cause, prevention, diagnosis and treatment of oral disease in an individualized disease-prevention and management model; and delivers patient-centered oral health care to the community and the state.
     
    For more news, visit the UCLA Newsroom and follow us on Twitter.

  • White House Office Hours: The Violence Against Women Act

    Today, President Obama signed a bill that both strengthened and reauthorized the Violence Against Women Act (VAWA).  Thanks to the bipartisan agreement, thousands of victims of domestic violence, sexual assault, dating violence and stalking will be able to access resources they need in their communities to help heal from their trauma.

    Do you have questions about the Violence Against Women Act? On Friday, March 8th at 3:45 p.m. ET, we're holding a session of White House Office Hours on Twitter with Valerie Jarrett, Senior Advisor to the President and Chair of the White House Council on Women and Girls, and Lynn Rosenthal, White House Advisor on Violence Against Women, to answer your questions.

    Here's how it works:

    To learn more, you can check out a fact sheet on key provisions in the law and read the President's remarks. Be sure to follow @WhiteHouse for the latest updates and more opportunities to engage.

  • Fly Or Die: Google Chromebook Pixel

    Screen Shot 2013-03-07 at 4.35.58 PM

    Google’s new Chromebook Pixel is a curious device. While its beautiful, seamless hardware nearly justifies its $1,299 price tag, the Chrome OS (which only offers access to a limited pool of third-party apps and Google products, plus the Internet) does not.

    In the specs department, both John and I are impressed. The Pixel has a 12.85-inch 2560 x 1700 touchscreen. To be exact, that’s 4.3 million pixels (not 4.1 billion, like I mentioned in the video). As MG points out in his review, the touchscreen is truly beautiful. I find myself longing for it at this very moment, while I type this out on my MacBook Air.

    The Pixel powered by an Intel Core i5 processor, and comes with 1 terabyte of free storage on Google Drive over three years. If you prefer, Google is also coming out with an LTE-capable version of the Pixel soon, which will come with 100MB/month for two years courtesy of Verizon.

    And boy is the Pixel a beauty! It’s possible that the Pixel is one of the best looking laptops I’ve ever set eyes on, and John seems to agree (albeit less enthusiastically).

    The main obstacle between the Pixel and two flies is how caged-in the user will eventually be. If you use all Google services, exclusively, then please don’t hesitate to pick up the Pixel. However, if you’re fond of Skype or Microsoft Office or TweetDeck, you’ll find yourself quite displeased the moment you realize you can’t download any of that.

    Of course, Google has its own answers for those services with Docs, Hangouts, Drive, etc. But we all have our preferences, and no one likes to feel restricted while at the computer.

    As we move toward life entirely in the cloud, the Pixel will become increasingly relevant. For now, however, you either need to adore Google products exclusively or be ready to install Linux.

  • ASP.NET and Web Tools 2012.2 Now Available

    The world of Web development is changing rapidly. To keep up, Microsoft has been making incremental changes to ASP.NET. The latest update to the framework brings changes and additions to every member of the ASP.NET family.

    Micrososft recently released ASP.NET and Web Tools 2012.2 to the general coding public. The release contains new templates and tooling ASP.NET Web Forms, ASP.NET MVC, ASP.NET Web API and the rest of the ASP.NET family. Microsoft put together a little video to go over what’s in the latest release:

    If you don’t like watching informative videos, here’s a quick rundown of the new features in this latest release. First, Web Forms got a a new FriendlyURL package that adds the following benefits:

  • It automatically maps URLs to ASPX pages
  • It automatically passes route values to controls with a nice bindable syntax

    • The ASP.NET Web API gets the following three new features:

  • Automatic Help Page generation.
  • Tracing – Everything in the pipeline is output to the System.Diagnostics.Trace, so you can read it in the Visual Studio output window as well as any registered Trace Listener.
  • OData – Lots of new stuff here, including routing and query validation

    • ASP.NET MVC gets a few new templates and the following three features:

  • The Facebook template makes it easy to create full Facebook apps. Your users log in on Facebook, approve your requests to access their Facebook content, and then your app can interact with their social graph.
  • There’s a lightweight Single Page Application template based on Knockout.js and ASP.NET Web API.
  • We’ve made it possible to create new ASP.NET MVC templates using a Visual Studio extension (VSIX). Expect to see a lot more templates from us and others in the community!

    • As for Web Tools, here’s some of the highlights that you’ll see in practice in the above video:

  • Page Inspector now has live sync, so when you update CSS you’ll see it update immediately.
  • There’s IntelliSense support for Knockout bindings, CoffeeScript, and more.
  • The integrated publishing includes single file publish and compare. That means that you can edit a single file and push it out, or even compare your local changes against the live production version.

    • You can grab this latest release of ASP.NET and any future release over at the official Web site.

  • FBI continues to seek data about users from Google without a warrant

    Logo of Google outside their headquarters building in Mountainview, California.

    During 2012, Google says they received “national security letter” requests for up to 2,000 accounts from the Federal Bureau of Investigation. National security letters are a tool used by the FBI and other government agencies to gather financial, phone and Internet data without a warrant. National security letters are normally subject to gag orders and even acknowledging their existence can land the recipient in hot water. Nevertheless, Google provides period reports concerning the number of inquiries it receives pursuant to the letters.

    Google has provided these numbers in the past. In 2009 they received up to 1,000 letters and in 2010 the range was between 2,000 and 3,000 users. Google only releases a range for the number of letters of received due to concerns expressed by the FBI and other agencies about the impact on active investigations if exact numbers were released.

    In their most recent release, Google also provided some information regarding their policy for responding to the letters. They indicate that they do not believe the government can obtain Gmail content, search query information, videos, or even user IP addresses. Most companies will not provide any information about the letters received or they will indicate in a very generic fashion that they comply with all legal requests for information. The FBI has provided template information regarding the letters which companies may respond to with up to thirteen different data points. However, only two points are known – “transaction/activity logs” and “header information” from emails.

    source: The Wall Street Journal

    Come comment on this article: FBI continues to seek data about users from Google without a warrant

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  • Why We Have to Die (Scientifically Speaking) [VIDEO]

    “Mother, why do I have to die?’

    “Well, Timmy, it’s because our cells stop replicating. And so that we’re not riddled with cancer by the age of two. Oh, and because I passed it down to you and you’re a ticking timebomb. Any more questions?”

    [AsapSCIENCE]

  • Long-shot distributed data center project in Canada like SETI for mobile

    A California company has an ambitious plan to capitalize on all the idle compute cores in the small Canadian city of Stratford, Ontario, and make them work together as a distributed data center, according to an article that appeared Thursday on VentureBeat.

    The concept of distributed computing is not new. People in computer science circles have discussed it for decades. Implementations include Folding@home for medical research and SETI@home for discovering aliens. More recently, a Texas company came up with a way to harness compute power when gamers play certain games and pay users for compute cycles.

    Still, if the project goes off without a hitch and spans not just personal computers but other connected devices as well, it would be an impressive feat. Success could cause people to rethink how, when and where data can be processed. It could even disrupt the data center construction industry. For now, though, some technical hurdles could lie ahead.

    The Sunnyvale, Calif., company behind the project, LeoNovus, envisions using the “dark cores” to form what it calls SMART Networks in press releases. To do so, LeoNovus is employing technology licensed from a company THAT LeoNovus’ CEO, Gordon Campbell, is involved in, Sviral, according to the VentureBeat article.

    In Stratford, deployment began this week and should go across the entire network over the next few months. To sweeten the deal for consumers at home who might be reluctant to relinquish their dormant compute power, LeoNovus might give everyone a laptop and free internet access.

    The LeoNovus project aims to provide more power by letting end users of all sorts of devices with compute cores give up their compute cycles. Presumably, enterprises could find value in the resources if it can become available. But implementation could be a bumpy road.

    Different cores have different architectures and might not be able to easily work together. Uniting the compute power with a customer’s storage could take longer than it might in a more traditional data-center setting. There would be an abundance of compute power to use, but moving to use fewer cores or none at all might not be as straightforward for a customer as on, say, Amazon Web Services. And the business model cited in the article — the part about giving away computers and internet access — might not be the best way for LeoNovus to generate enough revenue to build out more SMART networks.

    If the project works, LeoNovus could become a household name, and Stratford could become as widely known as data-center cities such as Prineville, Ore., and Quincy, Wash. And if it flops, well, it will keep being Stratford, just another corner of the world that dreams of becoming a tech hub.

    Related research and analysis from GigaOM Pro:
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  • New documentary at SXSW traces William Kamkwamba’s journey from rural Malawi to the TED Stage

    William Kamkwamba built a windmill out of spare parts to provide electricity for his family in rural Malawi, after seeing a similar design in a library book. It’s an incredible story — one that set TEDGlobal 2007 ablaze. William Kamkwamba: How I built a windmillWilliam Kamkwamba: How I built a windmill Now, Kamkwamba is the subject of a new documentary, William and the Windmill, which makes its world premiere at the SXSW film festival on Sunday, March 10. It is up for the festival’s Documentary Competition.

    Directed by Ben Nabors, William and the Windmill begins with Kamkwamba’s incredible feat of engineering but focuses on what happened after — as Kamkwamba becomes one young man straddling two cultures. It follows him as he travels to TEDGlobal, meets with renewable energy experts in the United States, enrolls in a pan-African high school, publishes a book and founds the nonprofit, Moving Windmills, which aims to bring schools, clean water, solar power and scholarship programs to his area. The film even follows Kamkwamba on a media tour, as he films segments on The Daily Show with Jon Stewart and Good Morning America.

    William and the Windmill is an exploration of how ingenuity ripples out through the world, and the intense pressure that builds as this happens. As Kamkwamba says in the trailer, “My pressure comes when I’m thinking about, ‘Yeah, I did this and I did this. So, now what next?’ Maybe people out there, they’re waiting. Expecting a lot of things from me.”

    When Nabor and TED’s own Tom Rielly took to Kickstarter in 2011 to raise the funds to edit this film, pledgers donated more than $111K. So if you’re at SXSW, make sure to see it. And stay tuned to the TED Blog for a Q&A with Kamkwamba and information on when you can see this doc.

  • New report says claims of slumping BlackBerry Z10 sell-through are wrong

    BlackBerry Z10 Sales UK
    A fight is brewing on the Street over BlackBerry’s (BBRY) next-generation Z10 smartphone. Following early reports of BlackBerry Z10 sellouts across the UK and Canada, Pacific Crest analyst James Faucette recently claimed that sales have stalled and unsold inventory is now building up. While Faucette isn’t alone in his belief that sales aren’t going to be as impressive as many had hoped, a new report from Jefferies & Company suggests Pacific Crest is mistaken and the Z10 is selling just fine.

    Continue reading…

  • Google takes a Field Trip to visit iOS

    Apple fans can breath a sigh of relief — not only do they now have Google Maps again, but today they gained another Google travel app, Field Trip. The app quietly rolled to the iTunes Store today with no fanfare, nor even an announcement from the search giant, bringing with it all of the features that many Android users have grown to love.

    Field Trip works in the background and is unseen the vast majority of the time. However, when the user is out and about, it can suddenly spring into action when a place of interest is detected nearby. These can include local history as well as the latest and best places to shop, eat and even have fun.

    Google pulls the data from TimeOut, Thrillist, Food Network, Zagat, Eater, Sunset, Cool Hunting, WeHeart, Inhabitat, Remodelista, Atlas Obscura, Dezeen and Daily Secret, Songkick and Flavorpill. More services are being added regularly.

    The new iOS version is available in multiple languages — English, Arabic, Catalan, Chinese, Croatian, Czech, Danish, Dutch, Finnish, French, German, Greek, Hebrew, Hungarian, Indonesian, Italian, Japanese, Korean, Malay, Norwegian, Polish, Portuguese, Romanian, Russian, Slovak, Spanish, Swedish, Thai, Turkish, Ukrainian and Vietnamese.

    Field Trip for iOS is free and compatible with the iPhone 3GS and newer devices and will also work with the iPod touch and iPad as well. Just a word of caution — if you are traveling to somewhere historical (like Williamsburg, Virginia), the app can become quite active, to the point of annoying — but it is a good kind of annoying.

  • Google’s Field Trip App Launches on iOS

    Back in September of 2012, Google released an app called Field Trip for Android. The app, a creation of Google’s Niantic Labs, was billed as “your guide to the cool, hidden, and unique things in the world around you.”

    Today, Google has finally launched an iOS version.

    Field Trip runs in the background of your phone, and it only makes itself known when you are near something interesting. Field Trip uses your location to trigger popup info cards on various places including landmarks, historical places, food, art, and more.

    “The hyperlocal history experts of Arcadia and Historvius will unveil local lore in places you never expected. Trend-setting publications like Thrillist, Food Network, Zagat, and Run Riot will point out the best places to eat and drink. Experts at Sunset, Cool Hunting, WeHeart, Inhabitat, and Remodelista will guide you to the latest unique stores and products. Atlas Obscura and Daily Secret help you uncover hidden gems no matter where you are. Songkick and Flavorpill guide you to local music,” says Google.

    Here’s the full feature list:

    • Discover thousands of interesting places/experiences that fall under the following categories: Architecture, Historic Places & Events, Lifestyle, Offers & Deals, Food Drinks & Fun, Movie Locations, Outdoor Art and Obscure Places of Interest around you.
    • Choose from three different modes to set frequency of Field Trip notifications. See “Field Trip” worthy places around you on a map, by tapping on cards in map view to pull up enthralling points of interest around you.
    • Go on a Field Trip while you drive. Field Trip can detect when you’re driving and automatically “talk” about interesting places and experience around you.
    • Came across an amazing story or restaurant? Mark it as a favorite to easily come back to it at any point.
    • Capture the memory of a special place, by sharing a wondrous discovery through email and social networks such as Google+, Twitter and Facebook.
    • Wondering where the gem that you recently discovered is? Find your discovered field trip cards in the “recent’ section.

    You can grab Field Trip for iOS today.

  • More Data Showing iOS, Especially The iPhone, Still Killing It In The Enterprise, At Android’s Expense

    iphoneapple

    Apple’s iOS is consolidating its grip on the enterprise market and taking share from Android, according to customer data from enterprise file sharing and hybrid cloud storage company Egnyte, which offers cloud back-up and storage services for a mix of customers, from large corporates with thousands of seats to SMEs with just a handful.

    Of course different enterprises have very different needs and requirements when it comes to mobile devices. Take a look at governments, for instance, and you’d be convinced BlackBerry is still killing it. But as a snapshot of the mobile OSes being favoured by different sized companies, mostly U.S.-based (80 percent of the data, with the other 20 percent pertaining to European businesses), this data is an interesting subset to add to the pile.

    The data, shared directly with TechCrunch, covers 100,000 of Egnyte’s paying customers over the last year-and-a-half+, tracking which OS they are using to access its services on mobile devices and also splitting out iPhone and iPad use. The numbers look strong for Apple, with the iPhone especially growing its proportion of users since the second half of 2011 to-date — perhaps helped by the halo effect of iPads arriving in the enterprise and persuading business folk to trade their BlackBerrys for iPhones. Egnyte’s data doesn’t specifically refer to BlackBerrys but does show Apple taking share away from Android.

    “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,” Egnyte told TechCrunch.

    In Q3/Q4 2011, Egnyte’s data shows the following device breakdown — giving iOS a 68 percent majority of Egnyte’s enterprise user-base:

    • iPhone 28%
    • iPad 40%
    • Android 30%  (phones and tablets)
    • other 2%

    In 2012, the iPhone grew its proportion, while the iPad’s very sizeable share shrank to below a third — suggesting iPhone usage cannibalised iPad usage to an extent. Overall, though, Apple’s percentage rose to 69 percent:

    • iPhone 42%
    • iPad 27%
    • Android 30% (phones and tablets)
    • other 1%

    Egnyte has also scraped some early data for Q1 2013, which shows both iPhone and iPad usage rising — this time apparently at the expense of Android phones and tablets, which had previously held a steady share of 30 percent. There is also no sign as yet of a Microsoft enterprise mobile resurgence with its Windows Phone OS (the ‘other’ catch-all category doesn’t yet figure in the 2013 data). Apple holds a whopping, ‘Pacman-shaped’ 78 percent share of the user base as of Q1 2013:

    • iPhone 48%
    • iPad 30%
    • Android 22% (phones and tablets)

    Egnyte’s data on enterprise users’ preference for iPhones tallies broadly with data from mobile device management company Good Technology, covered recently by CITEworld. Good reported even higher percentages for iOS — with nearly 77 percent of devices activated by its corporate customers in Q4 2012 powered by iOS, up from 71 percent in the fourth quarter of 2011. Good also found Android’s enterprise mobile shared declining, dropping to 22.7 percent in Q4 2012, down from 29 percent in Q4 2011. (It also tracked a 0.5 percent rise for Windows Phone.)

    Returning to Egnyte’s data for 2012, almost a fifth (19 percent) of the Android traffic was generated using a Nook tablet — so despite the iPad’s popularity with business users, some enterprises are evidently not immune to the lure of using cheaper tablet hardware.

    The company also breaks out Wi-Fi access by device for 2012. It found that 40 percent of iPad sessions occurred over Wi-Fi, while just 31 percent of iPhone sessions did — suggesting the iPhone still prevails as the device of choice in the most mobile situations, ie when users are moving around a lot or aren’t in range of a Wi-Fi network (perhaps because businesses have purchased Wi-Fi only iPads to keep ongoing costs down).

    Egnyte speculates that smartphones are fractionally quicker to begin using than tablets, typically sitting within easy reach, so tend to be the device of choice for viewing files on the fly, with users waiting for a more comfortable environment before getting out the tablet to do some editing.  ”Overall, tablet use in the corporate marketplace hasn’t been as high as we would expect, but… we think this may be more due to people’s love affairs with their phones, than for any lack in the capabilities of a tablet,” the company said.

    Commenting generally on the data, Egnyte told TechCrunch:

    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.

  • Developer Tips On How To Get The Most Out Of Facebook’s New News Feed

    Facebook unveiled its new News Feed today, and some users are already getting to play around with it. Developers will be pleased to know that the new News Feed has the potential to make their content more engaging, but it will require a few changes on your part to really have an impact

    The first thing you’ll notice about the new News Feed is that the images are larger. This is no mistake as Facebook wants to engage users with images instead of text. Likewise, developers would be wise to update their apps to display larger images that take advantage of the increased screen real estate. The recommended size for all images is now 600×600 pixels, though Facebook says that image size can be reduced to a minimum of 200×200. For more on image size, check out Facebook’s documentation.

    These images will be of particular importance to game developers as Bookmarks will become more important in the News Feed. For those unaware, a Bookmark is the image that accompanies 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.

    Here’s an example of what Bookmarks should look like in the new Games Feed:

    Tips On How To Get The Most Out Of Facebook's New News Feed

    The new News Feed is slowly rolling out over the next few weeks so there’s no need to rush on implementing any changes in your app for now. That being said, it’s important that you update your app to better reflect the more visual oriented design of the new News Feed.

  • Kim Kardashian Scare Leads to Hospital Visit

    Reality TV actress and amateur porn star Kim Kardashian this week visited an L.A. doctor after having a pregnancy scare.

    US Weekly reported that that Kardashian had the “minor” scare on Tuesday, March 5, after returning home from Paris.

    Kardashian’s sister, Khloe Kardashian Odom, posted an update on Kim’s condidtion to her blog today. She assures all of the Kardashians’ fans that both Kim and hare baby are “doing fine” and are now “taking it easy.” From the blog post:

    A lot of you have expressed concern in the recent hours about Kim, and I just wanted to let you all know that mommy and baby are doing fine and just taking it easy right now. Thank you so much to all of our wonderful fans and loved ones for your concern and support. We love you!

    Kim Kardashian announced her pregnancy back in December 2012, just before New Year’s Day. She has stated that the baby’s father is R&B singer Kanye West. Kim and her legal husband, Kris Humphries, are currently in the midst of a contentious divorce, with Humphries trying to have the marriage recognized as a publicity stunt.