July 2012 – DigitalOutbox

DigitalOutbox Episode 128

DigitalOutbox Episode 128
DigitalOutbox Episode 128 – Mountain Lion, Quarterly Results and Nexus 7

Playback
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Shownotes
1:11 – Mountain Lion
– £13.99 upgrade
– iCloud, Notification Centre, Sharing, Twitter and Facebook, Airplay and Airplay Mirroring, Messages, Power Nap, Gatekeeper, Dictation, Safari (fast!), Reminders, Notes, Calendar, Game Center
– Consensus is that the OS feels a lot snappier than Snow Leopard and Lion
– Ian – I hope it’s more stable!
– Safari for Windows no longer available!
5:01 – Apple Results
– Apple disappointed analysts despite reporting profits up 21% year-on-year to $8.8bn (£5.6bn) and revenues up 23% to $35bn, after missing targets that Wall Street had forecast as consumers held off buying iPhones ahead of an expected new model later this year.
– The company also offered surprisingly low guidance of just $34bn in revenues for the coming quarter, suggesting it will not have another blockbuster product and may be expecting a slowdown in sales as people anticipate new products including new iPhones and possibly a smaller version of the iPad.
– That slowdown hit iPhone sales a year ago as anticipation grew ahead of the launch in October of the iPhone 4S.
– Chief financial officer Peter Oppenheimer told analysts after the release that iPhone sales were being impacted by rumours of new products.
– Though sales of its iPad leapt by 84% year-on-year to 17m, iPhone sales rose just 28% to 26m, well below the figures some analysts had expected. The stock plunged almost 5% in after-hours trading after the company announced the results, which were below the Wall Street consensus expectations for the quarter of $37.22bn. The number of iPhones was below forecasts, while iPad sales were ahead.
– A key part of the miss appeared to be sales in Europe and the Asia-Pacific region. In Europe, sequential sales dropped by 7%, but in Asia-Pacific they fell by nearly a 25% from the previous quarter.
– iPhone and Mac shipments were particularly soft, while iPad sales — 17 million — set an all-time high. Apple sold more “computers” last quarter — 21 million Macs and iPads — than any quarter ever before, including last Christmas.
– But the big-picture story is that this is a slower period ahead of the expected new iPhone and potential new iPad this fall (and maybe someday, a television). Apple’s 23% year-over-year revenue growth was its slowest since 12% growth in the June 2009 quarter, and was almost down at Google’s 21% level!
8:01 – Microsoft Results
– Microsoft just released its Q4 2012 earnings report, posting just $192M in operating income before taxes and its first ever loss ($492M) due to the writedown the company took because of its failed aQuantive acquisition. Revenue for this quarter was $18.06, up from $17.41 billion in the last quarter and $17.37 billion in Q4 2011. Loss per share – and this is the first time Microsoft reported a negative EPS in its history – was $0.06.
– Analysts previously expected Microsoft to post around $18.13 billion in revenue and earnings per share were expected to be around $0.62 on earnings of around $5.3 billion. These numbers don’t reflect the aQuantive writedown, however. In the year-ago quarter, Microsoft reported a profit of $5.9 billion and $4.5 billion in Q4 2010.
– Still have $50 billion in the bank
9:25 – Google Results
– It was a strong quarter for Google overall, posting 21% year-on-year revenue growth for Google’s own properties, but Motorola racked up a $233 million loss. Despite running at a loss, Motorola netted Google $1.25 billion in revenue.
– Google’s total quarterly revenue was $12.21 billion, up 35% from Q2 2011, including revenue from Google-owned sites and partner sites not part of the main Google portfolio. Revenues from outside the U.S. accounted for 54% of Google’s quarterly revenue, holding steady from a year ago.
– Adding Motorola to the family caused Google’s employee numbers to skyrocket. The company already had 34,000 workers, and Motorola adds another 20,000. The Motorola loss breaks down to $192 million for the mobile segment and $41 million for the home segment. The loss represents 19% of Motorola’s Q2 revenue of $1.25 billion, $843 million of which came from mobile and $407 million from the home segment.
13:20 – Google buys Sparrow
– Google buys Sparrow for $25 million
– Sparrow still available for Mac and iPhone but will receive no more updates
– Sparrow’s experience at building simple and powerful email clients will be helpful in bringing consistency to the Gmail ecosystem. Our sources also noted that Google isn’t ruling out native Gmail clients for platforms beyond iOS and Android, and emphasized that Google wants to bring polish, “beauty,” and ease of use to all of its Gmail experiences across platforms (a suggestion that a native client for Mac and PC might be in the offing).
– Shame. More and more great developers being bought up by the big firms and their products are then shuttered.
– Worst bit for me is that they put the app on half price sale around a week ago ‘for a few days’. Then at the end of that they have sold and for all those new customers there are no more updates. They still have a great app, but an app that is now frozen from a features perspective.
17:56 – Nexus 7
– Great success for the tablet
– Can’t buy 16gb edition
– Sources close to Google say the search giant seriously underestimated the demand for the 16GB version of its 7in Nexus 7 tablet, which has sold out from stockists and other sources while demand for the smaller 8GB version remains comparatively low.
– The company has now halted further orders of the 16GB version of the tablet, costing £199, on its Google Play store in the US and UK. Orders made in the period up to the end of last week are due to be fulfilled, but a shortage of stock now means a hiatus in sales.
– Couple of weeks wait for 8gb
– Some screen issues
– Not bonded properly
– Complaints are multiplying online about quality issues with the new Google Nexus 7 tablet, with a number of people complaining about “loose screens” which bleed light from the edges or move when touched. Some of those who have had problems say Google has been slow to respond to their concerns.
– Reports of “loose screens” have begun occurring almost since the devices first arrived. Some users have complained that the touchscreen glass is slightly lifted around the edge of the device. In some cases that means that light seems to “bleed” into the display of a page, while others have said it means the screen actually moves.
– In a post on the Android Central forums, a user called psycho9x reported that “Just got [my] N7 yesterday and I love it BUT I have noticed that the glass on the left side is separating from the case… When you look at it from the side you can see the glass sticking up a bit and when you push it back down you can hear the adhesive grab on then it lets go. I haven’t even had it for 12 hours yet.”
– Other reports show “phantom” typing because of uneven screen attachment.
– Other users have reported “stuck” pixels on the 1280×800 screen. Others have said that it is unresponsive to some touchscreen input.
– Ian played with one…..
23:59 – Ofcom reveals 4G auction plans
– Telecoms regulator Ofcom has unveiled plans for the auction of fourth generation (4G) bandwidth for mobile phone services.
– The sales process will start later this year but bidding will not begin until early 2013, which Ofcom said was in line with its previous timetable.
– The regulator says it expects consumers to start getting services in late 2013.
– It wants to see “at least four credible national wholesalers of 4G mobile services” to promote competition.
– The auction will sell chunks of radio spectrum to support future 4G mobile services, which will allow users to download data such as music and videos at much faster speeds.
25:45 – Three users double data usage
– Mobile customers now consume double the amount of data than they did last year, says Three.
– The operator’s contract customers now use an average of 1.1GB a month, compared to the 450MB they gobbled up this time last year. The culprits of high data use are unsurprisingly top-end smartphone users, who swallow roughly 1.5GB a month.
28:13 – Open Internet Code of Practice
– A number of UK internet service providers (ISPs) have signed up to a voluntary code of practice that generally requires them to ensure that they are offering “full and open internet access” to their customers.
– BT, BSkyB, O2 and TalkTalk are among 10 ISPs to commit to the Open Internet Code of Practice (9-page / 52KB PDF). However, Virgin Media, Vodafone and Everything Everywhere have so far elected not to sign up to the code, with Virgin citing concerns with its wording.
– Under the code, the signatory ISPs are allowed to offer “products” that may restrict “full internet access”, but they have committed not to use the term ‘internet access’ to “describe or mark such products and ensure that any restrictions are effectively communicated to consumers”.
– In addition, the code allows for the ISPs to restrict open use of the internet through “traffic management” of their services. This managing of congestion, together with blocking of services when ordered to do so by courts or law, as well as the blocking of sites and services that promote child pornography, count as legitimate restrictions to ISPs’ deliverance of a full internet service.
– Deploying age controls or complying with data caps or download limits as specified in consumer contracts are among the other permissible reasons ISPs can restrict their service.
– The code requires that ISPs do not use traffic management “in a manner that targets and degrades the content or application(s) of specific providers” and ensure that a ‘best efforts’ internet access is a “viable choice” to consumers even where other “managed services” are available.
– The ISPs signed up to the code have also agreed to operate “clear and transparent traffic management policies”.
– A new complaints system has also been established under the code to allow “providers of internet-based content, applications and services” to raise “evidenced concerns about possible instances of negative discrimination” with the individual ISPs. Should complaints be unresolved the Broadband Stakeholder Group (BSG), which is an independent advisory body that helped facilitate the agreement of the new code, will report the incidents to the government and Ofcom, the telecoms regulator. Ofcom would then have to decide whether to investigate further.

Picks

DigitalOutbox Episode 127

DigitalOutbox Episode 127
DigitalOutbox Episode 127 – Marissa Mayer, Office 13, Apple Woes and don’t criticise the Olympics

Playback
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Shownotes
1:05 – O2 Compensation
– The firm says customers who pay monthly will get back 10% of their July subscription, the equivalent of three days’ charges, applied to their September bill.
– Pay-as-you-go customers will get back 10% on their first top-up in September.
– All customers, even those who were not affected, will also be given a £10 voucher to spend in one of its stores.
2:14 – UK Texts more than Talks
– Mobile voice calls in decline for the first time ever, as more switch to text and online communications
– Newer ways of communicating led by 16-24s, with texting and social networking more frequently used than either phone calls or face to face communications
– The average Briton now sends 50 texts per week
– Two fifths of UK adults now own a smartphone, with the same proportion saying their phone is the most important device for accessing the internet
– Tablet ownership has jumped from 2% to 11% in 12 months
5:29 – Marissa Mayer is Yahoos new CEO
– Marissa Mayer, one of the top executives at Google, will be the next chief of Yahoo, making her one of the most prominent women in Silicon Valley and corporate America.
– The appointment of Ms. Mayer is consider a coup for Yahoo, which has struggled in recent years to attract top talent in its battle with competitors. One of the few public faces of Google, Ms. Mayer, 37, has been responsible for the look and feel of some of the search company’s most popular products.
– The move to Yahoo is an opportunity for Ms. Mayer to step out on her own and claim a bigger stage. Ms. Mayer, an engineer by training whose first job at Google included computer programming, was behind the famously unadorned white search home page and the way users interacted with Gmail, Google News and Google Images. She also sat on Google’s operating committee, part of a small circle of senior executives who had the ear of Google’s co-founders, Larry Page and Sergey Brin.
– Marissa Mayer, the Google (GOOG) executive who today was named Yahoo’s (YHOO) new chief executive, is pregnant.
– Mayer told Fortune exclusively that her first child is due October 7. It’s a boy!
“He’s super-active,” Mayer told me in a phone call tonight, three hours after Yahoo announced her appointment. “He moves around a lot. My doctor says that he takes after his parents.”
– Great move by Yahoo – bold and looks to have put someone in place that will actually do something with the assets they have.
9:29 – Office 2013
– a “modern” version of the software that is used on a billion PCs worldwide. Cloud-connected and designed to work well on Windows 8 tablets, Office 2013 signals a shift to document collaboration and anywhere any device access. Notably, Microsoft is introducing an on-demand subscription version of Office 2013 that can be streamed from any Windows 7 or Windows 8 PC, with the ability to sync settings and documents.
– Perhaps the biggest change to Office 2013 isn’t the way it looks or its features, but rather the way documents are delivered along with some important under-the-hood changes. Microsoft is really pushing the ability to create a Word document on a Windows PC and edit it on a Windows Phone, Windows 8 tablet, or any Windows 7- or Windows 8-based PC with an internet connection. Home users can store documents in Microsoft’s SkyDrive cloud storage and businesses can use a range of the company’s SharePoint offerings. Office 2013’s big innovation is its ability to let users stream a full-featured version of Office to a PC with personal settings intact — an on-demand Office suite whenever you require it.
– Office on demand is a powerful aspect to Microsoft’s Office 2013 subscription offering, providing a way to access a full version of Office wherever you are. The service lets you stream a full-featured Office application to any internet-connected PC running Windows 7 and Windows 8, providing access to the settings and documents you use regularly. Simply put, you can sign in to a streaming version of Office at a friend’s PC and finish a document; the app will then be removed from the PC once it’s closed. This all requires an Office 365 Home Premium subscription, but its ease-of-use makes it a compelling prospect for users who are comfortable using Microsoft’s Office suite and require more document editing functionality than Google Docs or Microsoft’s own Office Web Apps provide. Despite this, you can still opt to simply buy a standalone version of the Office 2013 desktop software and utilize SkyDrive as an online storage hub for documents. You won’t get the streaming Office 2013 apps, but you’ll benefit from the cloud and avoid having to pay a subscription fee.
– Lots of different editions – Office 365, the company’s software plus services platform for Office, will power Office 2013 as a subscription service for those who want to avoid the up-front costs of a perpetual license and take advantage of some of the on-demand features. Available in Home Premium, Small Business Premium, Pro Plus, and Enterprise — Office 365 has a variety of offerings that are flexible based on needs, but like many of its other products there’s still no one size that fits all. The new Home Premium product allows a family to install Office 2013 on up to five PCs and get an additional 20GB of online SkyDrive storage to share documents online. Home Premium includes access to Word, PowerPoint, Excel, Outlook, OneNote, Access, and Publisher through an Internet-connected Windows 7 or Windows 8 PC. Documents and settings, and even the actual apps will roam across whatever PC you choose to use Office 365 with. Other editions, like ProPlus and above, include additional user accounts and access to apps like InfoPath and Lync — designed for businesses. Office 365 will also include access to Office for Mac.
– Metro look and feel – A Touch Mode feature is present in each Office 2013 application, but it does very little. Although hit targets become larger, making it slightly easier to navigate with touch, and it’s easy to navigate or type data in documents, the feature feels a little gimmicky and is hidden away from immediate view.
– Word – open, edit and save pdf’s, embed web video, better layout options
– Outlook sees most improvements, but mostly back end
– OneNote look nice – could be great on a surface device
15:43 – Nokia Woes
– The woes at the Finnish mobile phone company Nokia continue to mount, with further losses in its main division in the second quarter of 2012, and a €220m (£170m) write-off on unsold stock of its smartphones.
– Nokia also admitted its high-profile attempt to break back into the US smartphone market with its new range of Lumia phones, running Microsoft’s Windows Phone software, had led to only about 600,000 sales in the US – down on the 1.5m sold in the same period a year ago when the company was only offering its outdated Symbian software.
– The mobile phone division recorded an operating loss of €474m, its second successive quarter of losses, on revenues down 26% year-on-year to €4.02bn. Overall, the company recorded a loss, including one-off restructuring costs, of €826m compared to a loss of €487m in the same period in 2011. Without the restructuring costs, losses would be €327m.
– Elop said Nokia had delivered 4m Lumia smartphones in the second quarter, and that he expected Microsoft’s launch of the new Windows Phone 8 software in the autumn would be “an important catalyst”.
– Existing Lumia phones won’t run the new Windows Phone 8 software…
18:15 – Man assaulted for wearing digital eye by McDonalds staff
– Steve Mann pioneered and wears a digital eye glass
– Think a more permanently attached Google Glass
– On the evening of 2012 July 1st, my wife and children and I went to McDonalds at 140, Avenue Champs Elysees, Paris, France, after a day of sightseeing (8 museums and other landmark sights, as part of a boat cruise package), and while we were standing in line at McDonalds, I was stopped by a person who subsequently stated that he was a McDonalds employee, and he asked about my eyeglass (digital computer vision system, i.e. EyeTap).
– Because we’d spent the day going to various museums and historical landmark sites guarded by military and police, I had brought with me the letter from my doctor regarding my computer vision eyeglass, along with documentation, etc., although I’d not needed to present any of this at any of the other places I visited (McDonald’s was the only establishement that seemed to have any problem with my eyeglass during our entire 2 week trip).
– Since I happened to have it with me, I showed this doctor’s letter and the documentation to the purported McDonalds employee who had stopped me in the McDonalds line.
– After reviewing the documentation, the purported McDonalds employee accepted me (and my family) as a customer, and left us to place our order. In what follows, I will refer to this person as “Possible Witness 1”.
– We ordered two Ranch Wraps, one burger, and one mango McFlurry, from a cashier who I will refer to as “Possible Witness 2”. My daughter handled the cash to pay Possible Witness 2, as my daughter wanted to practice her French. Possible Witness 2 complimented my daughter on her fluency in French.
Next my family and I seated ourselves in the restaurant right by the entrance, so we could watch people walking along Avenue Champs Elysees while we ate our meal.
– Subsequently another person within McDonalds physically assaulted me, while I was in McDonand’s, eating my McDonand’s Ranch Wrap that I had just purchased at this McDonald’s. He angrily grabbed my eyeglass, and tried to pull it off my head. The eyeglass is permanently attached and does not come off my skull without special tools.
– I tried to calm him down and I showed him the letter from my doctor and the documentation I had brought with me. He (who I will refer to as Perpetrator 1) then brought me to two other persons. He was standing in the middle, right in front of me, and there was another person to my left seated at a table (who I will refer to as Perpetrator 2), and a third person to my right. The third person (who I will refer to as Perpetrator 3) was holding a broom and dustpan, and wearing a shirt with a McDonald’s logo on it. The person in the center (Perpetrator 1) handed the materials I had given him to the person to my left (Perpetrator 2), while the three of them reviewed my doctor’s letter and the documentation.
– After all three of them reviewed this material, and deliberated on it for some time, Perpetrator 2 angrily crumpled and ripped up the letter from my doctor. My other documentation was also destroyed by Perpetrator 1.
– I noticed that Perpetrator 1 was wearing a name tag clipped to his belt. When I looked down at it, he quickly covered it up with his hand, and pulled it off and turned it around so that it was facing inwards, so that only the blank white backside of it was then facing outwards.
– Perpetrator 1 pushed me out the door, onto the street.
– The computerized eyeglass processes imagery using Augmediated Reality, in order to help the wearer see better, and when the computer is damaged, e.g. by falling and hitting the ground (or by a physical assault), buffered pictures for processing remain in its memory, and are not overwritten with new ones by the then non-functioning computer vision system.
– As a result of Perpetrator 1’s actions, therefore images that would not have otherwise been captured were captured. Therefore by damaging the Eye Glass, Perpetrator 1 photographed himself and others within McDonalds.
21:40 – Apple ordered to run Samsung didn’t copy ad’s
– A UK judge has ordered Apple to publish announcements that Samsung did not copy the design of its iPad, according to the Bloomberg news agency.
– It said the judge said one notice should remain on Apple’s website for at least six months, while other adverts should be placed in various newspapers and magazines.
– It follows the US company’s failed attempt to block sales of the South Korean firm’s Galaxy Tab tablets.
– Apple has not commented on the news.
– The order did not feature in Judge Colin Birss’s judgement published on 9 July, but Bloomberg said the matter was discussed in the court following the verdict.
– It said the notices must make reference to the court case and should be designed to “correct the damaging impression” that Samsung’s tablets had aped the look of Apple’s products.
23:08 – Apples in-app purchasing circumvented
– a Russian developer has published a method of obtaining in-app purchases from iOS apps for free. First noticed by Russian blog i-ekb.ru, the “in-app proxy” method does not require a jailbreak, can be completed by novices in three steps using just an iOS device, and allows users to install in-app content for free. The hack also works on all devices running iOS 3.0 to 6.0. We confirmed the method works (at least temporarily), and the published instructions are starting to get attention, so we decided to publish this story as a warning to the Apple developer community.
– The hack appears to come from Russian developer ZonD80 who posted the above video demonstration. ZonD80 also appears to run a website called In-AppStore.com, where donations are being accepted to support the development of the project and help keep servers up and running. The developer explained the three steps of the hack, which include the installation of CA certificate, the installation of in-appstore.com certificate, and the changing of DNS record in Wi-Fi settings. After the quick process, users are presented with the message pictured above when installing in-app purchases, opposed to Apple’s usual purchase confirmation dialog. The fact that this hack is being used to steal in-app purchase content is perhaps just as troubling as the developer’s terms of service. Below is a list of data processed through the devs servers as part of the process (but again, we are imploring readers not to try this):
-restriction level of app
-id of app
-id of version
-guid of your idevice
-quantity of in-app purchase
-offer name of in-app purchase
-language you are using
-identifier of application
-version of application
-your locale
– Developers concerned – in app purchasing is a major source of revenue
– Apple has responded to The Loop regarding the situation with the following statement:
“The security of the App Store is incredibly important to us and the developer community,” Apple representative Natalie Harrison, told The Loop. “We take reports of fraudulent activity very seriously and we are investigating.”
– One of the suggestions for a method by which Apple could improve the security of In App Purchasing was to include a unique identifier in validation receipts, and we’ve received word that developers are now seeing something along those lines coming from receipts issued by Apple since late yesterday. The receipts carry a new field called “unique_identifer” that appears to include the Unique Device Identifier (UDID) for the device making the In App Purchase – 5 days after the above report Apple has updated the purchase process
26:08 – Apple reverses course on EPEAT environmental standard
– Apple has posted a letter from retiring senior VP of hardware engineering Bob Mansfield to its website, walking back the company’s abandonment of the EPEAT certification for its eligible products. Per the letter:
– We’ve recently heard from many loyal Apple customers who were disappointed to learn that we had removed our products from the EPEAT rating system. I recognize that this was a mistake. Starting today, all eligible Apple products are back on EPEAT.
– There’s a corresponding statement from EPEAT president Robert Frisbee on the organization’s site. It was only last week that Apple’s 39 EPEAT-eligible products were pulled from the industry registry at the company’s request.
– As recently as this Tuesday, Apple’s PR team was pointing out that the company’s environmental efforts are continuing and include many areas of progress not covered by the outdated EPEAT standards. It’s likely that the “loyal Apple customers” who raised their concerns with Mansfield and Apple management included many large institutional and government accounts, which may have purchasing rules mandating EPEAT-eligible gear when possible.
– Both Mansfield and Frisbee emphasize that this experience has strengthened the collaborative efforts of Apple and EPEAT, and that Apple’s input will be crucial in evolving the standard to deal with more modern devices.
28:32 – Betaworks Acquires Digg
– Betaworks, the company behind bit.ly, news.me, Chartbeat and a number of other successful products, has acquired the social news site Digg.com for an undisclosed amount. Betaworks’ founder John Borthwick will become the new CEO of Digg. The site’s current CEO Matt Williams will join Andreessen Horowitz as Entrepreneur in Residence after the Betaworks transition is complete. Digg’s founder Kevin Rose joined Google a few months ago after the search engine acquired his latest startup Milk.
– Betaworks promises to turn Digg “back into a startup,” with low budgets, a small team and fast update cycles. None of the remaining Digg employees, it seems, are moving to Betaworks. Instead, the News.me team will take over the management of the site. Betaworks, says Digg, will soon unveil a new “cloud-based version of Digg” that will complement News.me’s iPhone and iPad apps.
– According to Digg’s outgoing CEO Matt Williams, his team “considered many options of where Digg could go, and frankly many of them could not live up to the reason Digg was invented in the first place — to discover the best stuff on the web. We wanted to find a way to take Digg back to its startup roots.” Betaworks says it’s planning to “build Digg for 2012.”
– Update: Rumor has it that the price was just $500k, but that number doesn’t really make a lot of sense, given that the site still gets enough traffic to make more than that in a year by just selling ads. Talking to AllThingsD, Digg CEO Matt Williams confirmed that “the overall consideration is significantly larger” and includes a combination of cash and equity. Another source close to the negotiations tells us that the price was indeed not $500k. We haven’t been able to pinpoint the exact price yet.
31:56 – Now TV Launched
– BSkyB is to launch its internet service Now TV on Tuesday, with the aim of taking on rivals such as Netflix and LoveFilm, offering movies for £15 a month or up to £3.49 per view.
– The service, which will launch this week on PC, Mac and some Android smartphones, will initially only offer Sky Movies content at launch with access to 600 films and 11 channels.
– However a typically aggressive rollout plan will see Sky Sports content including Premier League, cricket, rugby and golf before the end of the year, as well as channels including Sky1, Sky Arts and Sky Atlantic.
– Now TV will be priced at £15 a month for customers who want to access Sky Movies content, with a “pay and play” option of selecting individual films from 99p to £3.49.
– Sky is aiming to break beyond its pay-TV roots and target the 13m UK households who refuse to sign up for what can be costly subscription packages.
– BSkyB has more than 10m pay-TV customers, however the number of new sign ups has dwindled to as low as 15,000 per quarter.
– The launch of Now TV is seen as potentially as important as BSkyB’s move into the broadband market in 2006, a move to protect and grow its business model to tap into shifting consumer viewing habits such as watching TV on mobile and handheld devices.
– “We are targeting the 13m non-pay TV households out there with a no commitment, no contract way of delivering Sky content they want in a dip in and dip out way,” said BSkyB managing director of sales and marketing Stephen van Rooyen. “The whole idea is to have something ‘not Sky’, it is purposely designed to attract new customers.”
– BSkyB intends to roll out the availability of Now TV rapidly to other devices including iPhone, iPad, Microsoft Xbox and Roku, while the company is also in discussions to bring it to the PlayStation 3.
36:04 – You can’t link to Olympics website if you say something mean about them
– For years, we’ve highlighted the overaggressive nature of the Olympics in over-protecting their intellectual property — even to the level of getting host countries to pass special IP laws that only apply to the Olympics. But this sense of ultimate entitlement seems to pervade everything that the Olympics does. It was recently noted that the terms of use for the London 2012 website include a restriction on how you can link to the site:
Links to the Site. You may create your own link to the Site, provided that your link is in a text-only format. You may not use any link to the Site as a method of creating an unauthorised association between an organisation, business, goods or services and London 2012, and agree that no such link shall portray us or any other official London 2012 organisations (or our or their activities, products or services) in a false, misleading, derogatory or otherwise objectionable manner. The use of our logo or any other Olympic or London 2012 Mark(s) as a link to the Site is not permitted. View our guidelines on Use of the Games’ Marks.
– Either way, this claim that you can’t link to their site in a “derogatory or otherwise objectionable manner” has inspired the creativity of the internet, it appears. Specifically, lots of folks have taken to Twitter to share their own derogatory or otherwise objectionable statements along with links to the website.

Picks

DigitalOutbox Episode 126

DigitalOutbox Episode 126
DigitalOutbox Episode 126 – O2 Outage, Samsung, KickStarter and Yodel

Playback
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Shownotes
1:54 – O2 Outage
– Started on Wednesday 11th
– Affected up to ⅓ of customers – around 7 million in total (they have 23 million customers)
– O2 customers found they were unable to make calls or send and receive text messages from about mid-afternoon on Wednesday. The disruption continued throughout the night and into Thursday morning.
– Some O2 customers who were not affected yesterday also claimed to have been disrupted on Thursday, in a sign that the network outage spread further overnight.
– O2 is the UK’s second-biggest mobile network and provides services to customers of Tesco Mobile and giffgaff, who were also affected by the prolonged disruption.
– Lasted around 24 hours
– Switching off 3g this morning resolved the issue for many
– Fully restored late this afternoon
– The UK’s second largest mobile network is now facing an investigation by telecoms regulator Ofcom into what caused the downtime and is likely to have to pay compensation to customers affected by the blackout.
– Pity the social media team dealing with complaints on twitter
6:21 – Samsung wins latest patent dispute
– Samsung won a victory over Apple in the UK high court as part of its world-spanning battle over intellectual property and design after a judge ruled the design of its Galaxy Tab isn’t cool enough to be confused with an iPad.

– The ruling, by Judge Colin Birss, means that Apple cannot stop the import or sale of the Galaxy Tab 10 under claims it has made that the designs are too close to those of the iPad.
– Instead, Judge Birss ruled that Samsung’s designs did not have the same understated and extreme simplicity which is possessed by the Apple design: “They are not as cool.”
– He noted distinctions such as the thickness and details on the backs of the devices in his ruling. “The informed user’s overall impression of each of the Samsung Galaxy Tablets is the following,” he said in his ruling. “From the front they belong to the family which includes the Apple design; but the Samsung products are very thin, almost insubstantial members of that family with unusual details on the back. They do not have the same understated and extreme simplicity which is possessed by the Apple design. They are not as cool. The overall impression produced is different.”
– Apple has been given 21 days to appeal against the decision.
– In a statement, Samsung said the judgement confirmed its assertion that it did not infringe Apple’s design rights.
– “Samsung welcomes today’s judgment, which affirms our position that our Galaxy Tab products do not infringe Apple’s registered design right,” it said. “As the ruling proves, the origins of Apple’s registered design features can be found in numerous examples of prior art.
– “Should Apple continue to make excessive legal claims in other countries based on such generic designs, innovation in the industry could be harmed and consumer choice unduly limited.”
9:08 – Windows 8 Launch Date
– RTM in August, general release in October
– Slate from Intel – Jan 2013
9:44 – Dropbox doubling pro accounts
– Good news for Dropbox Pro users: Starting today, you’ll have twice the amount of storage space, for the same cost. Instead of 50GB, you’ll have 100GB to play with; instead of 100GB, it’ll be 200GB of space. You also can send others a 100GB 3-month trial for the online sharing and syncing service.
– So 100GB for $100 a year, 200GB for $200
– A new 500GB plan will also be offered for those who really need a lot of online storage space.
12:02 – Kickstarter coming to the UK
– It is the US-based crowdfunding website behind dozens of eclectic projects, including a $1m-backed fantasy webcomic and an unlikely brand of “rugged yet refined” men’s underwear.
– Now the site, Kickstarter, is to open in the UK, allowing British startups to solicit donations from the potential buyers among the public that could help get their projects off the ground.
– Kickstarter has already proved a remarkable success in the US. Since 2009, its users have helped fund more than 60,000 projects with nearly $280m, ranging from digital innovations to campaigns involving movies and photography. The site makes its money by levying a 5% fee on any projects that reach or exceed their funding target.
– So far seven projects – such as a visual-music project and a collection of “e-paper” watches called Pebble – have managed to raise more than $1m.
– Kickstarter confirmed in a tweet on Tuesday that it will be open to UK-based projects this autumn. “People in the UK will be able to launch projects on Kickstarter starting this autumn! More info soon! <3 <3 <3," the site said. 15:39 – Ouya – the android gaming console
– OUYA is a new game console for the TV, powered by Android and costing $99.
– We’ve packed this little box full of power. Developers will have access to OUYA’s open design so they can produce their games for the living room, taking advantage of everything the TV has to offer.
– Best of all, OUYA’s world-class controller, console, and interface come in one beautiful, inexpensive package. All the games on it will be free, at least to try.
– Specifications:
Tegra3 quad-core processor
1GB RAM
8GB of internal flash storage
HDMI connection to the TV, with support for up to 1080p HD
WiFi 802.11 b/g/n
Bluetooth LE 4.0
USB 2.0 (one)
Wireless controller with standard controls (two analog sticks, d-pad, eight action buttons, a system button), a touchpad
Android 4.0
– Another kickstarter hit – over $3 million with over 20 days to go
19:49 – Amazon launches GameCircle
– Amazon has just announced a bit of good news for avid Kindle Fire gamers and developers — the company has been working to revamp the gaming experience on their wallet-conscious tablet and have decided to share the fruits of their labor.
– Starting today, developers can use Amazon’s GameCircle APIs to implement a host of new features in their Kindle Fire games. Considering how many other console and mobile gaming platforms already support them, it should come as no surprise that support for achievements is on that list of features. Also on deck is leaderboard functionality, which allows users to see how they stack up to their rivals without having to pop out of the game in question.
– So far, it all sounds very Game Center-y (though Amazon could do worse than to take cues from Apple), but GameCircle has one last trick up its sleeve. Perhaps the most immediately impressive feature is GameCircle’s sync functionality, which automatically saves a player’s progress to the cloud. As such, players are able to pick up where they left off even if they’ve had to re-install the game in question or switch devices.
22:38 – Yodel threatened to sue Twitter
– Home delivery firm Yodel, which handles packages for Amazon, Currys, Boots and O2 among others, has asked Twitter to delete dozens of critical tweets and accounts that it claims are defamatory and “constitute a serious libel”.
– Yodel’s lawyers, Weil, Gotshal & Manges, wrote to Twitter on May 9 threatening legal action if the tweets were not removed. It claims the statements in the tweets are “entirely false” and it includes a list of tweets that it wants removed.
– Yodel, formerly known as the Home Delivery Network, has been repeatedly criticised by customers awaiting packages and its reputation has taken a battering online and on TV after it was the subject of a BBC Watchdog programme
– The list of tweets that Yodel provided to Twitter typically include those hitting out its failure to deliver on time, lost parcels and advice to others not to use the deliver service. Many are disparaging while others are humorous but don’t strike me as particular libellous.
– Yodel appears to be using heavy handed legal tactics in an attempt to silence dozens of online critics – hardly a step that is likely to endear it to customers or a step in the right direction when it comes to customers service.
– Some of the tweets Yodel wanted deleted simply call on Yodel to fix its customers service. Others tell of horror stories similar to the one suffered by Claire Jolly.
– Many of the tweets still seem to be online while others appear to have disappeared. Yodel in its letter also asked that a parody account, @NotYodel, and another Twitter account @HDNL (the name by which Yodel previously went by before rebranding) be removed. Both accounts are no longer active and appear to have been taken down by Twitter.
– Weil, Gotshal & Manges claimed that it has been proven that the existence of these Twitter accounts “”over a substantial period of time, that the existence of these pages serves as a platform for such defamatory statements to be made against our client”.
– In a statement Twitter says it doesn’t “comment on actions taken around specific accounts or Tweets” and offered no comment on the Yodel letter.

Picks
Ian
Google+ for the iPad
– Fantastic update to the app to support iPad
– photo’s and video’s look amazing

Tweetbot for Mac
– Alpha release
– Free but will be a paid app upon release to the App store
– Despite missing features it’s my default client on the Mac

DigitalOutbox Episode 125

DigitalOutbox Episode 125
DigitalOutbox Episode 125 – RIM, Twitter, Facebook and YouView

Playback
Listen via iTunes
Listen via M4A
Listen via MP3

Shownotes
0:38 – RIM in trouble
– Blackberry 10 pushed back to 2013
– Loss of $518m in last three months compared to $695m profit for the same quarter last year
– Announce another 5000 job losses
– Wow – in freefall. Shares dropped 70% in last year, down 18% after this announcement
– Either bought or they will focus on their service rather than hardware
4:27 – Twitter restricting third party access
– Post on developer blog hints at future restrictions – The gist of the posts was that Twitter was cracking down on how third parties were using its APIs. LinkedIn’s display of the entire Twitter feed in its users profiles was the first casualty of this new stricter interpretation of the rules, but it won’t be the last.
– these two passages provide a very interesting juxtaposition:
– Back in March of 2011, my colleague Ryan Sarver said that developers should not “build client apps that mimic or reproduce the mainstream Twitter consumer client experience.” That guidance continues to apply as much as ever today. Related to that, we’ve already begun to more thoroughly enforce our Developer Rules of the Road with partners, for example with branding, and in the coming weeks, we will be introducing stricter guidelines around how the Twitter API is used.
– And this one:
– We’re building tools for publishers and investing more and more in our own apps to ensure that you have a great experience everywhere you experience Twitter, no matter what device you’re using. You need to be able to see expanded Tweets and other features that make Twitter more engaging and easier to use. These are the features that bring people closer to the things they care about. These are the features that make Twitter Twitter.
– Third party clients really made twitter for me – would hate to see functionalit or app’s have their access removed
8:30 – Facebook blames e-mail problems on confused users
– Couple of weeks back facebook updated EVERY users profile to say their primary e-mail address was their Facebook address – yep – the one that no one uses
– Also, one that you can’t delete from your profile
– Several bloggers and users raised complaints late last week and over the weekend about missing messages. But a Facebook spokesperson said the missing messages may stem from confusion over how Facebook’s mail system categorizes messages, and that engineers were looking into complaints about a phone syncing issue that made it appear as if users were losing information about their contacts.
– “By default, messages from friends or friends of friends go into your Inbox. Everything else goes to your Other folder,” Facebook spokesperson Meredith Chin said in an email. “That is likely where the messages are being sent from other people’s emails. Even if that person is friends with them on Facebook, if the friend doesn’t have that email on their Facebook account, the message could end up in the Other folder.”
– Worse, many phones that sync Facebook with local contacts have overwirtten working e-mail addresses with these Facebook ones
– Android affected, so is iOS 6
– This morning my mother was complaining that many of the e-mail addresses in her Droid Razr contacts had been replaced with Facebook ones.
– It would seem the Facebook app had been populating her address book with e-mails and contact photos, and decided to migrate all her Facebook-using contacts over to this convenient new system.
– I sync my phone with Facebook for many of my contacts. Now I have an address book full of bogus e-mail addresses where they were correct before.
– What a mess
11:59 – British Airways flies into privacy storm over Google identity checks on passengers
– British Airways today faced a backlash from privacy campaigners after it revealed plans to use the internet to create “dossiers” on passengers.
– The airline said it wanted to be able to deliver a more personal touch by researching passengers. The “Know Me” programme will use Google images to find pictures of passengers so that staff can approach them as they arrive at the terminal or plane.
– BA staff will also search individual data held by the airline, including if a regular traveller has experienced problems on previous flights, such as delays, so that crew are primed to apologise.
– Jo Boswell, head of customer analysis at BA, said: “We’re essentially trying to recreate the feeling of recognition you get in a favourite restaurant when you’re welcomed there, but in our case it will be delivered by thousands of staff to millions of customers. This is just the start — the system has a myriad of possibilities for the future.”
– A BA spokesman added: “The most recent advancement of the system enables the British Airways team to search Google images for a photo of specific customers so they can recognise them and proactively approach them. The airline is aiming to send 4,500 personal recognition messages a day by the end of the year.”
– But Nick Pickles, director of privacy campaign group Big Brother Watch, said: “Since when has buying a flight ticket meant giving your airline permission to start hunting for information about you on the internet?
– “If British Airways want more information about us they can ask us for it, rather than ignoring people’s privacy and storing data without us having any idea what data they are storing.”
15:03 – Flash player for Android finally dead
– Flash on mobile – which at one point was held up as the key differentiator between Apple’s iOS platform and others including RIM’s PlayBook – is having the dates for its death laid out.
– Adobe has announced in a blog post that from 15 August 2012 it will stop any new installations of its Flash Player onto Android devices, and that only devices which already have a mobile version of its Flash player already installed will be updated.
– It’s a logical conclusion to the process that Adobe announced in November 2011, when it said that it would no longer be updating Flash Player for new devices, apart from bug fixes and security updates; effectively, Flash on mobile was a zombie from that point on.
– Given that smartphones and tablets now outsell PCs by a substantial margin, of about 50% – around 150m per quarter compared to 100m at most – the decision renews the question of how much longer Flash on the desktop will survive.
16:59 – Windows Pro 8 Upgrade for $39.99
– We’ve known for a while that Microsoft is offering some upgrade promotions for its new OS, but the company has now said that it will be selling Windows 8 Pro upgrades online for $39.99. In stores, the price will be quite a bit higher: $69.99. The offer is eligible to anyone currently running any version of Windows XP, Windows Vista, or Windows 7; it will last until January 31st, 2013. That’s the same time frame offered for the current $14.99 upgrade deal, but it applies to any current Windows users, not just those who purchase a new PC in the lead-up to Windows 8’s launch. Microsoft says the offer will be available in 131 markets, and that it will release more details as we get closer to launch.
– We’ve also got some more details on the upgrade process for older versions of Windows. An upgrade assistant will help users migrate files, settings, and apps from Windows 7, files and settings from Windows Vista, and files only from Windows XP. As before. After the upgrade, you can add Windows Media Center for free through the “add features” option. The online version obviously comes as a download, but it’s possible to buy a backup DVD for $15.
18:46 – YouView finally launched
– The YouView TV service – a joint venture between the BBC, ITV, BT, Channel 4, Channel 5, Arqiva and TalkTalk – will be set at £299 when the set-top boxes hit shelves just ahead of the launch of the London 2012 Olympics at the end of July.
– Sugar, who was parachuted in as the new chairman last March to put the problem-plagued service back on track, aims to create a subscription-free successor to Freeview that will take on pay-TV heavyweights such as BSkyB and Virgin Media.
– “This is a great moment in British television,” said Sugar, unveiling the product to assembled media at the London Film Museum. “I had something to do with the launch of Sky TV with Rupert Murdoch in the late 1980s, and then Sky+. It is a revolutionary product and I am proud to be associated with it.”
– Now the service is weeks from launch, BSkyB, which has vociferously criticised YouView and aggressively attempted to block its launch at every regulatory opportunity, has signed up as the first new content partner and will launch its new Now TV service on YouView.
– Now TV, the new internet TV service from BSkyB, will not appear as a main channel on the YouView electronic programming guide but will be available as a “portal” on the service.
– Sky is expected to offer live and on-demand programming including Sky Movies, Sky Sports and then entertainment channels such as Sky1 and Sky Living.
– Sugar said the steep price of the first set-top box from Humax, which will be stocked at six retail chains including John Lewis, Currys, Argos and Amazon, will drop as more hit the market.
– “When Sky+ launched, it was at that kind of level,” he said. “Will I be surprised if boxes in the retail channel in two years are £99? Not really. My audience … is the Freeview audience that don’t want to be tied to a subscription. They only need this box, my ambition is that this replaces the Freeview box.”
– No YouTube, no Lovefilm. Looks really limited compared to what is out there already
21:16 – Google Play movies, shows and mags not coming to the UK
– At this year’s Google I/O, the company announced updates to the Google Play store with movies, TV shows, and magazines, but because of differing copyright laws many of these new features will not be available in the UK with the launch of the Nexus 7. The Inquirer spoke to a Google representative who confirmed that the new Play store content is only currently available in the US. This means that Google’s new tablet, priced at just £159 in the UK, will have to do without a lot of the content advertised to US consumers. Google aimed to beat Amazon’s Kindle Fire with international distribution, and although the company never claimed that these features would be available outside the US, it’s still a disappointment for international consumers considering a Nexus 7.
23:43 – Google indoor maps comes to UK
– over 40 venues covered right now — a mix of museums, stations, malls and airports in the main — and most of them in London. With building owners being able to upload their own maps, however, this should / could expand quickly. Good news either way, though if you can get lost at London Bridge Station, then no amount of maps will likely help.
24:32 – Sony buys cloud gaming company Gaikai for $380m
– Sony confirmed today that it has bought the cloud gaming company Gaikai for $380m (£242m). A deal has been rumoured for several weeks and was expected to be announced at the major E3 video game conference in June.
– Formed in 2008 by industry veteran Dave Perry, Gaikai is a cloud-based game service which allows users to play high-end PC titles by streaming the content via a broadband connection.
– Consumers never need to download the games, and don’t need advanced PCs to play because the content is running across the web.
– Late last year, publishers EA and Ubisoft integrated the service into their websites to provide playable demos of new titles to gamers. In April, the service launched on Facebook. The deal will see Sony acquire Gaikai’s cloud-based infrastructure and survivor network.
– Commenting on the purchase, Sony Computer Entertainment president Andrew House said: “By combining Gaikai’s resources including its technological strength and engineering talent with SCE’s extensive game platform knowledge and experience, SCE will provide users with unparalleled cloud entertainment experiences.
– “SCE will deliver a world-class cloud-streaming service that allows users to instantly enjoy a broad array of content ranging from immersive core games with rich graphics to casual content anytime, anywhere on a variety of internet-connected devices.”
26:11 – needadebitcard
– @NeedADebitCard pillages the Twittersphere for unsuspecting users who posted completely legible photos of their credit and debit cards on the web. Its sole purpose: to shame those foolish enough to post Twitpics or Instagrams that contain their credit or debit card information.
– “Please quit posting pictures of your debit cards, people,” reads the account’s bio. It has posted 55 pictures and gained more than 2,000 followers since first tweeting on May 25.
– While some users are wise enough to blur or cover up some of their card’s data, others are exposing it all. One user even included the hashtag #smartidea at the end of her tweet, which showed off her totally transparent cell phone case-credit card holder hybrid.

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