RT @clarocada: [thenextweb] World Cup fever? Here are 5 apps to keep you on top of things. http://bit.ly/c1aG7Y #in
We’re only a day away from the first games, and the Internet is on the verge of a meltdown with World Cup news. With 32 teams, 10 stadiums and an entire month of play, how can you stay on top of it all? We’d like to introduce you to 5 applications that will tell you what you need, when you need it.
We’ll talk about web based apps, as well as ones for your iPhone or Android device so you can keep up while you’re on the go. So now, without further adieu…
Marca.com is a Spanish-written site that has an amazing web-based application. As you scroll around the outer circle, Marca.com will show you information related to whatever area you’re highlighting. Want to know when Brazil plays? Just scroll over to find their schedule, as well as location.
For the iPhone, ESPN has put out arguably the best application on the planet. And it’s a good thing, too, because this isn’t called the World Cup for no reason. Worldwide, people are going insane over their favorite football clubs.
The ESPN app has a countdown, some highlight videos and other sundry information at the moment. But once we get into the action, the app will go to work keeping tabs on games results, scores and up-to-the-minute stats. The basic app is free, but you can choose to upgrade to get live audio, in-game highlights, commentary and alerts for all 64 matches.
Not forgetting the Android users of the world, the Associated Press is on top of the games with its FIFA 2010 application. The AP has been at every World Cup match since 1930, so chances are that they know what they’re doing.
Given that this is the World Cup, the AP app is available in multiple languages. Further, you can set custom skins to show your FC pride. To top it off, you’ll get world-class AP coverage, both in video and images. This is the deal for Android users, bar none.
Yes, Google. The world leader in search has caught the World Cup fever, as we first reported to you yesterday. But if you Google for World Cup, you’ll find not only the typical results, but a few surprises as well.
Google has gone a step ahead, and provided some lovely search-based tools to help you keep up with the games. For now, it’s limited to a calendar, but there are more features to be released as the games kick off on Friday.
Blackberry users? We’re showing you some love too, to round out this top 5. ScoreMobile is available now in the Blackberry App World.
Though ScoreMobile isn’t specific to the World Cup, there’s still plenty of football info to be had. ScoreMobile allows you to customize with your favorite teams, and gives you options for refresh intervals. Further, ScoreMobile will keep up with your local time zone, to let you know when games start in your time.
It’s another free app, and for sports fans of many genres, it’s a must-have.
So that’s it. Grab your app of choice and let’s get ready for 
Original title and link for this post: World Cup fever? Here are 5 apps to keep you on top of things.
Patch seems to have fixed disappearing apps in the Android Market RT @AndroidDev: Application Visibility Issues: http://goo.gl/iKVF
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I recommend you watch the WWDC 2010 keynote before reading.
If you watch the video above, you’ll note that I was generally impressed with the announcements made by Apple. I’ll attempt to go into more detail on this post as to some of the other features and what I think about them.
History repeating itself?
Before I talk about the iPhone 4, I want to comment on a statement that Steve Jobs made regarding the pre-iPhone world. He said that before the iPhone and App store, things were completely different. If you think about it, he is absolutely right. I can barely remember what it was like to run apps on my phone, perform firmware upgrades, check email, and surf the web on my smartphones. iPhone was definitely a game changer in 2007-2008.
So will the iPhone 4 be a game changer as well? It’s really hard to predict these things, especially with how often Apple reinvents features that sucked on other phones in a way that we love them somehow. Distortion field? Magic? I don’t know, but it’s a force to be reckoned with. Take for example, the engineering of the iPhone 4 case. What other smartphone maker will take you into the manufacturing process and explain to you why they made the choices they did? I can’t think of many. Apple has put together an integrated antenna design that I have not seen before. Has it been done before? I don’t know, because other companies don’t bother to share these important information. Some may dismiss Apple’s focus on their stainless steel + space age glass design as “useless” or a “distraction from what’s not there” but I disagree with both of those points.
The Screen
My Mechanical Engineering background kicked in a bit when I saw the manufacturing process in action. It sounds pretty unique. Has anyone else done this? I don’t know because companies don’t openly share this information. Apple uses a special lamination technique to bond the screen to the glass, so no more dirt particles as stated by John Gruber:
It’s mentioned briefly in Apple’s promotional video about the design of the iPhone 4, but they’re using a new production process that effectively fuses the LCD and touchscreen — there is no longer any air between the two. One result of this is that the iPhone 4 should be impervious to this dust-under-the-glass issue.
Combined with Apple’s pixel-packing “Retina” technology, we have the makings of an absolutely amazing reading experience. Did you notice how many times Steve Jobs referred to the screen being akin to reading high quality print? Apple sees the trend that everyone else is talking about: the death of print. This is a preemptive strike to capture that rising market through the iPad and iPhone 4.
Two Microphones
For the first time on the iPhone, Apple has introduced a second microphone for “noise cancellation”. Before FaceTime was announced, this didn’t make a whole lot of sense, but now it does. I imagine this will be utilized during video calls and video recording. Currently on iPhone 3GS, the audio quality is not that great on recorded video. I imagine this will not be the case on iPhone 4. We will have to wait and see if this second microphone will help at all.
The A4 Chip and Battery
Apple was proud to announce they are using their own A4 processor in iPhone 4. Not only does this chip offer great performance, but it does so without the cost of heavy power consumption. I think it’s amazing that Apple is able to produce a 40% increase in talk time while providing more power, functionality, and a slimmer design. Again, a lot of critics will overlook this as “ho-hum” because it’s not some futuristic amazing bell or whistle, but I will disagree and will say this is an enormous feat and Apple should be commended.
The Gyroscope
This one surprised me as it did others. The gyroscope has opened up new doors for developers to create spatial awareness type games. Steve Jobs gave a great demonstration of this using a clone of the popular puzzle game, Jenga. As he turned around physically, the iPhone’s display updated its point of view. This is absolutely brilliant!! Think about some of the applications that could utilize the new CoreMotion APIs to create amazing experiences. Kudos to Apple for this one.
The Camera and HD Video
Steve Jobs did an outstanding job explaining protons to a bunch of journalists, and I believe they understood him completely. He went into detail about how megapixels aren’t everything (by the way, thank you Steve for re-iterating this important point). iPhone 4 uses a backside illuminated sensor to produce sharper photos. The 3GS brought a huge increase in quality in photos over the 3G and I wonder if iPhone 4 will do the same. Apple’s example pictures are there, but I’m a bit skeptical until I take my own photos with the thing.
I was extremely happy to hear that Apple has enabled HD video capture from iPhone 4. It will be 720p at 30 frames per second which is perfect for most of us. I doubt it will be professional grade HD video, but I think it will be on par with popular pocket HD cameras like the Creative Vado 3 (which I own), Kodak Zi6 and the Flip HD series. As I stated in the video, I think this opens a new market to Apple which was previously untapped. Pocket HD cameras are fabulous, but we don’t carry them everywhere. We carry our phones everywhere. This is a possible game changer in terms of iPhone reach.
While HD video is not new to smartphones, the ability to edit them on your phone is not common. iMovie for iPhone completely blew me away. This is a fabulous idea and will definitely encourage iPhone 4 owners to shoot more video and to edit it (with transitions, titles, effects, and music) right on the phone! While most of us travel with a laptop where we can edit video, we don’t always have them with us. We carry our phones everywhere. Yet another possible game changer.
Apple is creeping into other markets with iPhone 4.
The Name Change
iPhone OS is now known as iOS. First off, I hate the name, but that doesn’t really matter in the grand scheme of things. It actually does make sense to come up with a single name for the OS that powers three separate mobile devices: iPhone, iPod Touch & iPad. Apple was smart this time and licensed the name from Cisco. I welcome the change, but I hate the name.
iOS Tidbits
Apple reiterated a lot of points they covered in the iOS 4 launch event including multitasking, folders, and iAds. All of these are great additions to a polished platform that is getting better and better. I was happy to see iOS will be a free upgrade for all supported devices now.
And Now, Competition
Steve Jobs was on the defensive in this keynote more-so than ever before. He addressed many of the concerns raised by Google’s Android camp including: App approval process, market share, and App store health. For the first time (that I’ve heard of), Apple has publicly acknowledged their main reasons for rejecting apps in the App store: 1. Use of private APIs 2. They crash 3. They don’t do the functionality they describe. When we hear of all of the horror stories of why apps are rejected from developers, it’s usually one sided. We never hear Apple’s side of it and now I’m really skeptical about all of the developers who cried foul. Were your apps actually stable? Did you use private APIs but aren’t telling us? Did your app do other things you didn’t describe? Before this knowledge, we could only assume Apple was being evil and randomly rejecting applications. It’s something to think about.
Apple also did something that I was pleased to see. They didn’t make useless jokes and cracks about their competition. Google, on the other hand, felt it was needed to constantly bash Apple’s products, process, and philosophy. It’s this attitude that has me leaning towards the Apple side of this competition. I acknowledge Android’s incredible momentum and their feature set differentiates itself from iOS in many ways. I hate to see unprofessional, childish acts when your features could speak for themselves.
With this competition, Apple and Google have two very different approaches:
Which do you believe is more powerful? I’m going to say it’s Apple for me, but that’s not the case for everyone. Android has snatched up all the people who are frustrated with Apple’s “limitations”. They’re also capturing folks who want an alternative to the iPhone. Let’s face it, Android is the only real alternative to the iPhone in the marketplace in terms of point by point features. Nokia and RIM may dominate the worldwide marketshare, but neither of these two companies has a direct answer for the almighty “app store”.
If you watch the FaceTime video, you’ll see very clearly why Apple does what it does. You see families connecting and sharing intimate moments through technology. This can be done easily with iPhone 4 because there is zero setup, zero configuration, zero worry. You can’t say the same about Android. Android appeals to those who want to tinker, who want to configure, who want to customize, and there’s nothing wrong with that, but it’s a difference in their approaches. We know video calling on smartphones has been around for a long time on Symbian, but you don’t hear about ordinary, non technical people using it. Why? Because it’s hard to set up, requires technical know-how, and the experience sucks overall. Apple comes in, and makes the experience as simple as a phone call. See what I mean? Android will likely have 50 applications that crop up that do the same thing as FaceTime and we’ve already seen the Qik app on the platform. Will it be as seamless as Apple’s? No. That’s the difference.
Some people don’t want it be seamless. They’d rather have total control of the experience than have it be easy as possible through Apple’s implementation. Apple wants to move the technology in the background and let you make a video call. Some call it “draconian”, I call it “a great experience”.
Apple controls the experience for a reason, and that reason is so you can experience emotion through your technology and not experience technology for emotion.
Conclusion
Overall, iPhone 4’s unveiling went great. Even with technical difficulties, Steve Jobs was able to show why he is king of keynotes. He took control of the situation and actually made it pleasant.
Apple continues to innovate despite the critics. Look at all the engineering that went into iPhone 4 before passing “ho-hum” judgement. Realize that Android is great where it is, and iOS is great where they are, and these two packages offer different perspectives on smartphones. The choice of platform is personal and depends on your preferences and desires.
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It took just six months, but Esquire magazine’s iPhone app has crossed a big threshold: it’s gotten 100,000 downloads of in Apple’s iTunes Store. But that’s only for the free “shell” that serves as a storefront to buy individual issues or subscriptions. While the Hearst mag says it’s sold about 1,000 subscriptions to the monthly digital version of the magazine, sales numbers and circulation figures are not the big focus right now; Esquire just wants to get the marketing right.
Since magazine apps began appearing in the App Store last year, most have appeared as individual paid-download items in the iTunes Store. With some exceptions, most users have balked at paying for the news apps on recurring basis, so titles like Time magazine and WSJ have turned to the free “shells” to serve as an enticement.
Initially, Esquire’s monthly iPhone editions were sold individually through March. Then Esquire hit on the idea of offering each issue for $2.99 within the free shell, says the mag’s editor David Granger. “It’s so easy to get lost in the App Store unless you market it well,” Granger said. “You’re basically selling a whole new product to a whole new audience every time. The idea was to give away the app for free, which included some representative stories and a live feed. That way, we could gather enough people interested in Esquire so we could then market digital issues to sell to them.”
Over the last three weeks, Granger claims, Esquire went from 20,000 downloads to hitting the 100,000. But he won’t talk about individual sales. The app offers tiered subscriptions, where users who paid $2.99 for one month’s digital replica can get 11 more issues for $9.99; five additional iPhone issues cost $6.99 and two more are $4.99. Esquire won’t say how many of the 1,000 iPhone subs have paid to get the rest of the year’s editions.
For the most part, Granger argues that these are early days and that it’s all still experimental, so unlike Hearst rival Conde Nast, which has sold 72,000 individual issues of GQ since its first iPhone/ iPad edition last November, the mag isn’t rushing to have digital sales count by the Audit Bureau of Circulations. Granger also isn’t interested in putting out a similar version of Esquire on iPad either. “We should be ready by the fall, but we’re more interested in learning what we can—we think readers want something different from the iPad than on the iPhone—and would rather get it right than just get it out fast.”
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Good news for developers and fans of mashups, as this morning Microsoft has announced the availability of a software development kit (SDK) for building map apps on Bing Maps. What's more, last week Microsoft announced the creation of the Bing Search Library for PHP - a wrapper built in conjunction with PHP expert Cal Evans that gives developers easy access to the Bing Search API via PHP. Microsoft seems to be embracing third-party developers more openly now with these tools, so here's a breakdown of what's available now.
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Previously, the Bing Map App Gallery - a collection of map mashups for showing data overlaid on Bing maps - has been fenced-off to third-party map app development. The gallery has only featured Microsoft-built apps, like Photosynth, or those from partner sites, like Twitter or Foursquare. Now, however, Microsoft is opening the gates for anyone to create and upload a map app - well, almost anyone.
To build apps, developers will need a Microsoft Live ID to access the SDK, a Windows box running Visual Studio 2010 to build the application, and a browser with the Silverlight plug-in to view the apps. Microsoft is also placing an Apple-esque app store submission process in place for the map mashups, requiring developers to submit apps for review and approval.
To kick off the opening of the SDK, Microsoft has also unveiled a pair of new apps from partner sites today. An app from WeatherBug lets users visualize various weather related data on Bing Maps, and another from panoramic and 3D image service EveryScape helps users find interesting imagery from inside restaurants.
Announced last week, the Bing Search Library for PHP is a wrapper that allows developers to easily harness the power of Bing Search on dynamic Web pages. In the example shown by creator Cal Evans, developers can contextually place domain restricted search results from Bing onto web pages based on any search query - and it's all done from within the PHP written to power the site.
"The Bing API is very straightforward and most importantly, consistent in design. These two facts make it very easy to work with," says Evans. "The Bing API is easy to work with, powerful, and since Google doesn't give you access to this information from an API, unique."
Evans says the current wrapper only includes support for the Search API, but that he hopes future releases will support other Bing API hooks, such as News, Translation and more.
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Bing Opens to Developers with Maps SDK & Search Library for PHP
- Sarah PerezRT @GuyKawasaki: Top 8 self-help iPhone apps http://tinyurl.com/26vgp9b
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Back in December 2009, the number of tweets per month on Twitter reached 1 billion for the first time. Now in May, we reached yet another milestone: 2 billion tweets per month (or to be precise, 1.99 billion, which is close enough).
We actually called that this would happen at this exact point in time, based on a prediction we’d made for Twitter’s “tweet growth” in 2010 a while back.
Here’s a chart showing the number of tweets per month from December through May, i.e. the path from 1 to 2 billion tweets per month on Twitter:
Twitter saw the following numbers in May:
Maybe Twitter won’t quite be able to reach the almost 6 billion tweets per month we’ve predicted for the end of the year, but it’s clear that the Twitter platform is still growing at a healthy pace. Close to doubling the volume of monthly tweets in the last six months is no small feat.
Note: These numbers represent all tweets that pass through Twitter, including those using the Twitter API (i.e. from apps). For an explanation of how we are extracting the number of tweets, see the bottom of this post. It also shows the number of monthly tweets all the way back to July 2008.
Read-Only Facebook Coming to Your Company? http://bit.ly/aOB3s7
Shared by Jesse Stay
Security teams that implement this are failing to understand "Employee 2.0". The idea being that employees in today's word take their work home with them and it is a 24 hour a day, 7 day a week job for many of them. Same thing for home. Just as employees are encouraged to take their work home with them, they should be just as encouraged to bring their home to work without consequences. If the job gets done, and the employee does excellent work, does it really matter?
IT managers using Palo Alto Networks firewalls are now able to switch Facebook into a "read-only" mode, thanks to an update released today. There is no relationship between Palo Alto Networks and Facebook - the changes are all within the customer's network. Previously, managers using Palo Alto Networks firewalls have had the option to block all Facebook apps (but not individual apps) as well as Facebook's e-mail and chat features. The update adds the ability to disable posting, making Facebook effectively read-only.
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Palo Alto Networks firewalls enable granular control over 1,000 applications cataloged in the company's Applipedia - regardless of port, protocol, or evasive strategy (so the company says). The firewalls connect to Active Directory or other LDAP based directory to assign permissions by group or by individual user. All of the application detection and user permissions take place on dedicated firewall devices to avoid bogging down servers with analytical duties.
Turning read-write applications into read-only applications may seem antithetical to the read/write philosophy, but we think solutions like this will help enterprises adopt social media and break out of a binary world where they can either offer full access to Facebook or other web applications or no access at all.
Managers could, for instance, grant full Facebook access to its social media team, partial access to a customer service team, and read-only access to its competitive research team. Access can also be assigned by time of day, so permissions could be relaxed during lunch or after business hours.
Social media is being put to use in many enterprises; Ford, for example, is spending 25% of its marketing budget on social media. Social media reputation tracking is a hot topic in marketing, too. Yet, according to a Robert Half Technology report published in October, 54% of CIOs surveyed say they block social media websites completely.
Chris King, director of product marketing at Palo Alto Networks, says "IT departments are stuck in an old world. In the old world, if an application has a business use, then it's safe and you allow it. If it doesn't have a business use, then it's a threat and you block it. That black and white world is gone. Facebook has business uses, but it also poses threats."
King hopes that Palo Alto Networks can bring IT departments into a new world, where the benefits of Facebook can be embraced and the threats mitigated. The company says its product can help prevent data leaks, improve worker productivity, and reduce the threat of malware spread through social networks like Facebook.
King also suggests allowing some use of Facebook in the workplace could improve morale. One idea he mentions, though he's quick to point out the product isn't currently being used by the military, is limiting soldiers read-only access to social media sites in the weeks before a deployment. This would keep sensitive information from being leaked, but allow soldiers to view pictures and status updates from home.
Another problem the company hopes to solve is the use of proxies to bypass firewalls and browsing restrictions. An increasing number of users are routing their Web traffic through public proxies or proxies on their home computers. King says, referring to the Robert Half report, that although 54% of enterprises are trying to ban Facebook, 94% of the companies whose network traffic Palo Alto Networks analyzed had employees actively using Facebook. We wrote about the company's research in this area last year.
Palo Alto Networks firewalls use their own AppID technology to identify applications based on an analysis of a number of parameters including application protocol detection and decryption, application protocol decoding, application signatures, and heuristics. This enables the firewalls to block applications regardless of what port the application is using. The firewalls can also identify many individual proxies, such as Ultrasurf and TOR.
All of this control sounds great for companies. However, if the technology works the way its supposed to, couldn't it also be used by governments, such as China and Australia, which restrict access to the web? Could it also be used by ISPs to restrict their customers activities? If evasive technologies can't stay one step ahead of control technologies it's good news for enterprises, but bad news for freedom of speech.
Still, it's hard to believe that any company or country can win the game of whack-a-mole that's afoot. Short of creating a whitelist of sites that employees (or citizens) can visit, there will always be holes in the firewall. But Palo Alto Networks' technology offering is far more interesting than that tedious game, and its success isn't riding on it. They just need to offer a better way for enterprises to manage the dizzying array of Internet applications and bring useful tools into the work place. And they seem to be succeeding thus far.
DiscussNetflix CEO Reed Hastings says iPhone app coming this summer http://bit.ly/aebQZr - awesome!
At Apple’s Worldwide Developer’s Conference today, Netflix CEO Reed Hasting hit the stage to officially announce that a Netflix iPhone application is coming this summer.
Hastings also mentioned that the Netflix iPad application is the No. 1 most downloaded in entertainment apps. Details were sparse on what the iPhone app will feature, but we can expect the usual: You can search Netflix titles, and manage your queue. Hastings made it clear that users would be able to continue watching video from their last position — which will include the iPad and likely other Netflix viewing devices as well. The app will be free when its released, just like the iPad version.
He also mentioned that the iPhone app will take advantage of Apple’s adaptive bitrate technology to allow it to seamlessly switch between networks — which tells us that it will also work over AT&T’s 3G network. While that’s certainly a nice feature, now that AT&T has moved towards limited bandwidth data plans, many new iPhone owners likely won’t spend too much time enjoying Netflix over 3G.
[Image via Engadget]
People: Reed Hastings
iPhone 4G: What Steve Jobs Needs to Announce Today http://bit.ly/dmURVR
You may have heard that a little company called Apple will be announcing, among other things, a new iPhone today. Supposedly called the "iPhone 4G" (or maybe the "iPhone HD?"), for the first time ever since the product's initial debut, news of the latest Apple gadget may not be met with same levels of adoration granted to Apple's previous announcements - and not just because photos of a stolen iPhone prototype spoiled us by giving away all Apple's secrets in advance.
No, today, Apple is finally facing some tough competition in the smartphone space from none other than its former friend and partner Google, whose Android mobile operating system can now be found on a range of devices including the new must-have phone, the EVO, the Droid, the Nexus One and more.
In a matter of hours, we'll find out if the iPhone can still compete.
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Sprint's launch of the first 4G Android phone has already been met with success, according to the latest company news. Via a morning press release, Sprint is announcing that the total number of HTC EVO 4G devices sold on launch day was three times the number of Samsung Instinct and Palm Pre devices sold over their first three days on the market combined.
The announcement also claims the demand for the device has led to some "temporary shortages" at some of the 22,000 Sprint stores across the U.S., which Sprint certainly thinks is a badge of honor. "We have a sold out phone!", they're practically crying.
But the reason for the EVO's success isn't just the innovative features of the device itself, it's the operating system powering it. Google's Android OS has succeeded by offering what Apple doesn't. For one thing, Android's App Store is wide open. Apps don't go through lengthy review processes - they're instantly published to the Android Market. The OS is also available to multiple carriers on multiple hardware form factors at multiple price points. You can get the kind of phone you want (keyboard, no keyboard, size, weight, screen resolution, etc.) while still enjoying the Android experience.
But even more importantly, Android offers things the iPhone doesn't. If Apple wants to compete, here's what Steve Jobs needs to announce today.
The current version of the Android OS, version 2.2 (code-named "froyo"), offers both USB and Wi-Fi tethering, the latter of which may be operator-controlled. With this feature, already available on the EVO thanks to Sprint's own offering, your phone becomes an instant Wi-Fi hotspot for neighboring devices. Apple had to delay a tethering feature until now because they're dependent on AT&T, a network which hasn't quite been up to par with its competitors as of yet. It simply couldn't support the data load of tethering.
But now AT&T has announced new data plans, one of which offers a tethering option for $20 extra per month. But wait - there's a catch (besides the fee, that is). The iPhone can't be tethered with the iPad, so no free data for you Wi-Fi iPad users. Why? According to AT&T, it's an issue with Apple software. The iPad doesn't have USB ports, a spokesperson told the tech news site TechFlash. And iPad Bluetooth tethering is still a no-go.
With EVO's launch came the first mainstream video chat/video calling application, Qik. Joining Fring and perhaps soon, Skype, Qik's video chat application for Android lets EVO users make video calls to other EVO users and soon to others who have supported Android handsets (those with front-facing cameras.) It's not enough for Apple to simply launch a front-facing camera at this point and let the 3rd-party apps do the work. If Apple wants to one-up Android, the company needs its own specialized mobile iChat service that integrates with its lineup of other Apple apps, including its mobile mail, contacts and calendar. A cohesive digital office offering which includes iChat as a feature could trump standalone apps for those who have invested in Apple's ecosystem.
For users of Google services, going Android just makes sense. Gmail is one of the world's most popular webmail programs, and its deep integration, along with contacts, calendar and other Google offerings, into the Android mobile OS make the phone a powerhouse for Google users. Apple has a shot at doing something similar with its "MobileMe" collection of services, but unlike Google, Apple charges hefty fees to use them. Google gives away its basic services for free, while businesses and other advanced users can upgrade to Google Apps for a fee. Apple should copy Google's "freemium" plan with a free entry-level version of MobileMe if it wants to compete as a services company, too.
iTunes is an old, clunky behemoth in desperate need of an overall. Let's make this absolutely clear: Zune HD has done Wi-Fi sync from day one. Yes, that's right, Microsoft's Zune. Day one. Why can't Apple do this? Answer: because they didn't have to. Zune wasn't a competitor. But now Android is and has plans for Wi-Fi sync. That means Apple needs to fix the iTunes situation.
Google is working on over-the-air music downloads with automatic sync, according to Google's VP Engineering, Vic Gundotra. Announced at Google's recent I/O conference, the updated Android Market ("coming soon," said Gundotra), will let you download both apps and music over-the-air, the same as with Apple's iTunes and mobile App Store, but with a twist: automatic OTA updates.
Apple, better do something with that Lala.com acquisition, quick!
These are just a few of the things we're hoping Apple announces today at the upcoming event. Hopefully, the company will continue to surprise us as it has in the past, making the choice between iPhone and Android a tough one.
Discuss
HP has announced a major new initiative and a slew of new devices that enable users to print from any device to a web-enabled printer by simply using email.
The idea – which builds off the Google Cloud Print announcement we saw back in April — starts with giving each printer its own unique email address.
That printer’s owner (and their designated family, friends, and colleagues) can then print documents by sending it an email from a smartphone, from a tablet, or any other device that allows it. Called HP ePrint, the technology eliminates the need for installing drivers and enables a variety of new apps and services.
The new printers that HP is unveiling today along with ePrint can connect directly to Google Cloud using their touchscreen interface. That means users can print Google Docs directly from the cloud without using their desktop computer, as well as scan documents directly to their Google Docs account. Other Google services like Calendar and Picasa for photos are also supported. Similarly, Box.net and Docstoc users can also retrieve and push documents to and from the cloud through new print apps.
Another area HP is exploring with the ePrint concept is scheduled delivery. This allows users to get content printed at specific times – for example, getting a customized daily newspaper printed out every morning that they can take with them on the train. MSNBC has signed on as a partner to pilot this concept, and HP has teamed with Yahoo to sell the ads, which, you can imagine could include a mix of contextual advertising and locally relevant promotions and coupons.
Beyond productivity and news, initial apps include Facebook for printing photos and events and MapQuest for printing maps and directions. HP also sees a big opportunity for providing different types of activities for parents and kids, and to that end has signed on Crayola for coloring pages and PBS for a variety of education-driven printing. As for the market size for developers here, HP says it expects to ship, “tens of millions of web-connected printers” by the end of next year. Currently, developers interested in building apps need to apply for access to HP’s SDK.
Beyond selling printers, HP needs to sell ink. With more and more types of documents getting digitized and smartphones replacing former functions of printers (think coupons and tickets), HP needs new ways to drive printer usage.
Web-connected printers fill this need in a few ways. First, they connect to the ever growing cloud for business users and make their lives easier. Second, the email-to-print concept clearly has the potential to drive new kinds of usage, both from business users and consumers who do things like print photos and news. Finally, there’s also opportunities for developers to create sticky apps – perhaps not on the scale we’ve seen in mobile, but with HP betting the future of its printers on web connectivity, you can bet we’ll see some big winners emerge from the developer community.
HP will dive into these topics at a press conference this morning to kick off Internet Week NY, where I’ll be moderating a panel with a number of the players involved in the new ePrint initiative. We’ll try and bring you video of the discussion later on.
Tags: eprint, Google, Google Cloud Print, HP, printers
HP Looks to Change the Way We Print
- Rob DianaIf you missed @steverubel at my house talking iPad apps, that's up here: http://bit.ly/bBIAvr Tons of great iPad apps!
Steve Rubel came over the house on Friday (and so did my friend Luke Kilpatrick, who is a Palm Pre freak and does social media for VMWare) and he has already switched his business life to the iPad (he’s a senior vice president at Edelman PR, the largest independent PR firm in the world) and when we started talking iPad apps over dinner I knew this would be a fun way to look at a bunch of different apps. We spend an hour going through all our favorite iPad apps.
What iPad apps do you have that we missed?
Steve Rubel’s (and mine) favorite iPad apps
- Robert ScobleI can't get the Ustream video to play. I get the spinning white circle of death inside the ustream embed.
- Brian Daniel Eisenbergustream anyway doesn't buffer so useless on slow connections
- Gregory Lent
We adored Beejive IM for iPhone when we last looked at it back in November, giving it a 5/5 star rating. And rightly so—Beejive is a premium chat app with a gigantic suite of features, touting everything from a slick interface to push notifications to support for multiple accounts and services. It was even selected as one of the top apps by Apple in the iTunes Rewind 2009 feature.
Now, the folks at Beejive, Inc have released an iPad-native version of their award-winning iPhone app. BeejiveIM for iPad is very similar to the iPhone app, but with the interface overhauled to support the iPad’s larger screen. It’s designed to work best in landscape view, in which your buddy list, current chat, and open chats each appear in their own column on-screen. Portrait view is still functional, of course; your buddy list simply slides off-screen, to be accessed by a button tap when needed, leaving you with your current chat and a list of your open chats.
Of course, all of the features which have earned Beejive its accolades are still present; you can juggle multiple accounts, take advantage of push notifications, and connect to services ranging from AIM to Google Talk to Jabber. The lovely giant-image background can either be taken from Beejive’s built-in library or from your own camera roll.
This new app comes at a cost, of course. Beejive has always been a premium IM app, and the iPad version will set you back by $9.99, regardless of if you already own the iPhone version. If you’re willing to pay for quality, however, consider it an investment. Beejive already rules the iPhone IM arena for good reason; now, we’ll likely see it dominating the iPad, too.
[ Premium IM Client, Beejive IM, Now Available for iPad is a post from 148Apps ]
Would you keep a daily diary on Twitter? Or use it to decide what to wear? Or use it to bypass text-messages charges in international countries?
The possibilities for Twitter are about to get a lot richer with the ability to add annotations to any tweet. A handful of developers got the opportunity to play with the new application programming interface over the weekend at a company hackfest in San Francisco.
Annotations, which launched in April at Twitter’s first developer conference and will go live sometime later this year, are a way of marking up tweets with additional data. Instead of having a simple 140-character tweet, you could make a note that the tweet is about the weather or a movie. Other apps will be able to interpret this and display display or interpret the tweet in a different way. It has the potential to make the experience of the microblogging network feel a lot more media rich and powerful. (We suggested a few possibilities for “Annotations” here based on conversations with different Twitter developers.)
A dozen or so developers showed off a few works in progress at the company’s headquarters yesterday. (Note: These aren’t finished products, just ideas people have hacked together in a few days).
Fab or Drab, developed by engineers at San Francisco-based Crowdflower, helps people decide what to wear through an iPhone app. You take and upload pictures that friends can vote “Fab” or “Drab” on. (In typical fashion, Crowdflower, which specializes in farming out microtasks that computers can’t solve to thousands of people, says it can also pay strangers tiny amounts of money to judge your photos too.) Another app, Tazpic, brings some classic Facebook functionality to Twitter with photo tagging. 5Slices lets people keep a daily journal of their lives through Twitter by recording five words a day that describe how they’re feeling. Another developer built an Android to SMS gateway that basically lets people text each other in international countries without incurring expensive charges. You can see all of the projects here.
Twitter also revealed a few more details about “Annotations.” The biggest foreseeable problem with them was whether different developers would agree on a taxonomy or structure for the annotations. If one developer decided to mark up movies one way, and another developer decided to do it a different way, none of their respective features would work properly because other applications wouldn’t be able to interpret them.
So Twitter’s actually giving suggested structures for annotations. They include annotations for reviews, songs, movies, books, products, stocks and more. The full list is here. The new guidelines should prevent a huge mess from developers having different standards.
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Tags: Annotations
Companies: Twitter
Apple Selling Million iPads a Month http://vdege.org/bSYySZ
So much for it being a niche product! Apple says it has sold two million iPads in 60 days since the launch of the tablet device. It sold the first million iPads in 28 days. It is hard to find some of the 3G enabled iPads in their retail stores. The pace of iPad sales is way ahead of the early results for iPhone, which took 74 days to sell the first million. According to some estimates, iPad is outselling the Mac itself.
Apple began shipping iPad in Australia, Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, Spain, Switzerland and the UK this past weekend. iPad will be available in nine more countries in July and additional countries later this year. There are about 5,000 special apps for iPad.
Click to enlarge
Related GigaOM Pro Research Report (sub req’d): Forecast: Tablet App Sales to Hit $8B by 2015
Infographic by Column Five Media
10 Free Android Apps to Boost Your Productivity - http://bit.ly/auDJOk
[Direct Link]i-liked it!
- Mr Ghaz10 Free Android Apps to Boost Your Productivity
- Kol Tregaskes"If you value efficiency and effectiveness, then your Android device should be your best friend. These tech toys are capable of handling all kinds of work and personal tasks, from email and schedules to file management and to-do lists. And all the tools you need are conveniently located right in the Android Market. With so many choices, however, things can get a little complicated. Here are ten highly rated, absolutely free Android apps that will help you work smarter, get more accomplished, save time and stay organized."
- Kol TregaskesFiled under: iPhone
There's good news and a little bit (just a little bit) of bad news. Good news first: the iPhone Skype app has been updated to allow for calls using AT&T's 3G data network.
AT&T's restrictions on cell data usage have evolved over time. Recently, download data caps have been eased, from 10 MB to 20 MB. And since October 2009, VoIP apps have been allowed to use AT&T's data network to place calls.
The elephant in the airwaves, however, has been Skype. Several months after AT&T allowed VoIP apps to use cell data, Skype was still without an update. The company, via a blog posting on its site, stated that it wanted to take the time to ensure that audio fidelity was at the best quality.
I made several calls over AT&T's 3G network this afternoon using the updated app and was surprised at how good the quality was. Each person I spoke with said they could barely tell the difference between this and a call using AT&T's voice network.
TUAWSkype app finally delivers on 3G voice calling originally appeared on The Unofficial Apple Weblog (TUAW) on Sat, 29 May 2010 18:15:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
It’s no secret that mobile, hyperlocal advertising is poised to grow into a massive market in the next few years, spurred by the proliferation of GPS-equipped smartphones. Earlier this week we saw the launch of another competitor called BeThere Deals that’s hoping to crack the nut. The service offers a self-serve platform for local businesses, who can quickly deploy time sensitive deals that are limited in quantity.
While it’s focused primarily on time sensitive, local deals, BeThere Deals isn’t really in the same vein as GroupOn and LivingSocial — it doesn’t have a ‘group buying’ mechanic, and it features many deals in an area, rather than one or two. Instead, it’s more competitive with apps like Yowza!!, Mobile Coupons, and Mobiqpons.
The service is pretty straightforward: you download the free iPhone app, then open it up when you’re in a supported city to find some regional deals. At this point the service is only available in San Francisco, but it will be expanding to Los Angeles and New York City in the near future.
So how is BeThere going to survive when there are already some bigger players in this space? The company says it has a few key differentiators. First, it says that it’s primarily targeting local, independent businesses, rather than chains (they say that one goal is to make the application useful for discovering interesting new mom-and-pop stores and restaurants). Second, the application is exclusively for time-specific deals that are deployed in real-time by merchants — BeThere could be used by a local bakery, for example, that’s looking to sell excess pastries at a discount before the end of the day. The service will make money by charging merchants on a per-conversion basis.
The app still has a ways to go. For one, it badly needs push notifications — right now users have to manually open the app to see new deals, which isn’t much help when some of the deals are only available for a few hours (the startup says the feature is on the way). And the service obviously needs to get traction with users before it will be very appealing to many businesses (it’s the classic chicken-and-egg problem). The app is also going to see plenty of competition. Aside from the services mentioned above, location-based services like Foursquare have already started to enter this space.
One thing to note — the iPhone application currently has a pretty low average rating (though most of the written reviews are positive). The company says this is because users outside of San Francisco are downloading it, only to find that they can’t access any deals.
Geoff Livingston co-founded Zoetica to focus on cause-related work, and released an award-winning book on new media Now is Gone in 2007.
Open data is the big trend these days when people talk about “Government 2.0.” In reality, the open data movement has just begun, with governments finally starting to release data en masse in an effort to promote transparency. While projects like Apps for Democracy have received significant media attention, we are just at the dawn of the government open data app movement.
“Open data apps are becoming ever-more effective, but insofar as they have actually had a dramatic ‘effect’ on the systems that most influence our lives, we still have a long way to go,” said Jake Brewer, engagement director for the Sunlight Foundation. “I always say that until my mom or dad in Middle Tennessee are actively using open data apps that our community creates, we haven’t gotten there yet. At this point, it’s clear open data applications are in their infancy from the relatively low number of new apps being produced and the usage stats of those apps once the initial buzz factor dies down.”
Here’s a look at how public sector open data apps are evolving.
Citizens often get frustrated with their local, state and national governments, but they rarely understand how much demand the system faces. Lack of transparency into governmental departments and processes can leave the average American bewildered. Apps can change that with transparency.
“This transparency makes it possible to track how well the city is keeping up with requests, their performance over time, which neighborhoods are getting help first, etc.,” said Jennifer Pahlka, founder and executive director of Code for America. “[W]hen you see the other requests in the queue and realize that your issue is one of thousands in your community, it’s not just the government who becomes accountable; you start to be held accountable as a citizen as well.
“If you could see a list of all the lights that weren’t fixed in your city, and see that a dozen people had complained that there had been a spike in crime under another broken light in another part of town and that people were really suffering because of it, you might you think to yourself ‘hey, it’s more important to fix that light than my own,’” explained Pahlka. “This is a moment of citizenship, when the needs of the larger group take precedence over the individual’s needs.”
Some apps, like SeeClickFix, have been wildly successful, but in general, open data applications don’t always make the impact that designers would like. Not every American has an iPhone — far from it. Ad Mob statistics show only 10.7 million units in the United States. Pragmatic accessibility for the average citizen can be a difference maker.
“A lot of people started to make iPhone apps with this public data, which is great, but for many cities there isn’t a high overlap between bus ridership and iPhone use,” said Christopher Csikszentmihalyi, Director, MIT Center for Future Civic Media. “We are currently deploying a public/private initiative called LostInBoston which includes a cheap LED sign that shows real-time estimates of when the next MassDOT bus is coming.
“If government were to do this, it would probably take many years and be incredibly expensive. We are looking at a couple of hundred dollars for a sign placed on private property, in the window of a restaurant or corner shop,” said Csikszentmihalyi. “Business owners get customers coming in because pedestrians know they have a few minutes … Bus drivers are excited because an informed rider is a less hostile rider.” While this is a relatively narrow application, it shows that not all open data applications have to be “Web 2.0″ for citizens to really benefit.
Given what’s already been released, some best practices are starting to emerge. For example, two-way engagement has become a critical success point for some applications. Pragmatic use for real needs is another important factor.
“The best applications are those that are built with cross-cutting teams of data providers, community users, and app makers,” said Lucy Bernholz, president of Blueprint Research & Design. “Ecofinder in [San Francisco] is very cool — it solves the problem of knowing where to recycle various household goods at the point in time when you need that info.”
“While much of the open data initiative has been about making government data public, getting citizen data to the government and to the rest of the public — whether complaints or other information — is also important,” said Csikszentmihalyi. “The state of Ohio has no online way to complain about a well that is leaking, nor does it keep a record of complaints by citizens. A new family can move into a house with a well on the property, but have no way of knowing if that well had previously blown out or exploded.”
As local governments ban together to create data standards via Open311 and as the Federal Government’s data.gov initiative continues, we are seeing more data hit the market. Local, state and Federal Governments alike are early in the process of providing open data. One thing is clear — government’s role should be about enabling data application development and facilitating improved processes from the public sector to increase transparency and open data.
“Government’s role really should fall on the ‘enabler’ side when it comes to apps, by releasing all their public data online and in real-time,” said Brewer. “Once data is released, citizen developers and designers — ‘civic hackers’ — can go to town with the released data, innovating and creating utility for the public.”
“Think about how technology companies launch platforms,” said Pahlka. “They employ a small army of developer relations professionals who seed the market and enable an ecosystem around their technology. Developer relations isn’t a function government is used to providing, but they are learning how to do it.”
- How Social Media is Changing Government Agencies
- How the U.S. Engages the World with Social Media
- 5 Ways Government Works Better With Social Media
- How Social Media Can Effect Real Social and Governmental Change
- Why Open Source is the New Software Policy in San Francisco
Image courtesy of iStockphoto, DHuss
Tags: apps, citizenship, data, development, government, open data, public, social good, Web Development
When I post a picture of my computer people try to figure out what apps I'm running. Here's a screen shot of my dock. http://r2.ly/zcey
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iWork for the iPad is a post from Chris Pirillo
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I was at a conference a few weeks ago, and realized I hadn’t taken my presentation with me! I had the iPad on the trip, so I purchased Keynote and threw it on there. I created a pretty awesome presentation in just minutes. For my needs, it was more than sufficient. It’s perfect if you need to create presentations and things of that nature on the fly. The software only cost me right around ten dollars, so I was even more happy at how well it worked.
I also ended up picking up Pages. I don’t really like the regular notes application, so I decided to give this a try. Again, this application was only ten bucks. I’m very appreciative of the features that Apple just released. I like being able to turn the iPad into landscape mode instead of portrait and still have Pages work properly. Pages definitely isn’t perfect. If you want my opinion, I think you should likely wait to buy it. There are other document-editing programs out there that you can grab.
Then, I was lucky enough to have Alex donate Numbers to me for the iPad. If you need spreadsheets, I’d say the implementation of Numbers on the iPad is well worth the money it costs. It’s very comprehensive and works really well. They’ve done a very good job with this app to optimize it for the iPad.
If you don’t need the apps, don’t get them. I feel there are much better things available at lower prices. What are your thoughts if you’re using any part of the iWork suite on your iPad?
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Another longtime Yahoo exec is departing–this time Tapan Bhat (pictured here), who had purview over the Internet giant’s important front page.
The news of the departure came in an internal email from new Chief Product Officer Blake Irving, titled “Busy Week” that highlighted the Yahoo (YHOO) investor day that took place yesterday.
Buried at the end of the memo was a paragraph noting “there’s always a downside to a productive week,” and saying that Bhat had decided to leave the company.
Bhat’s team will report to Yahoo exec Jeff Kinder until a replacement is found. It is not clear
Bhat joins a number of top execs who have recently clocked out of Yahoo of late, such as U.S. advertising head Joanne Bradford.
Bhat was in charge of a range of products at Yahoo, most importantly, the most recent redesign of its powerful homepage a year ago.
Yahoo has since confirmed the departure.
“Tapan Bhat, SVP, Integrated Consumer Experiences, has decided to leave Yahoo!. Tapan has been an integral leader within the Products organization since joining Yahoo! more than five years ago and we value his many contributions and wish him well. His last day will be June 15.
And from Bhat:
“Leaving Yahoo! has been a difficult decision to make because I’m incredibly proud of the work that’s been accomplished by my teams over the last five years, particularly related to the Yahoo! homepage, My Yahoo!, our content optimization engine and most recently, our Mobile and iPad apps. I’m looking forward to new challenges that lie ahead and am confident that I’m leaving Yahoo! on the right path, and with the right leadership in place.”
According to some sources inside and outside of Yahoo, Bhat has clashed with CEO Carol Bartz at times, and also has long been considering a new move.
