Archive for September, 2012
Source: http://gizmodo.com/5947614/the-canadian-government-accidentally-ran-a-bunch-of-ads-on-the-pirate-bay
The Pirate Bay tends to be a website that national governments aren’t particularly fond of. That being the case, it’d be surprising if a national government ran ads on the site, advertising an Economic Action Plan, right? Canada did that, but not on purpose.
Banner ads for Canada’s Department of Finance’s Economic Action Plan started showing up on the site a few days ago, right next to ads for finding a Chinese bride, as shown by an image from the Ottawa Citizen. The ads were removed quickly, and the Department of Finance is blaming ad networks that were included in their media buy, specifically Yahoo!.
Yahoo! is in turn pointing a finger at Sympatico:
We have confirmed that Yahoo! was not responsible for the EAP ad showing up on The Pirate Bay. We have been able to trace the ad to Sympatico who were responsible for this ad’s appearance on the site, and they have been notified of the issue so they can take the appropriate actions.
Regardless of whose fault it actually was, the fact remains that for a while, the Pirate Bay had the pleasure of running a few government-purchased ads, and is enjoying the irony. According to TorrentFreak they’re even considering covering the site with unsolicited ads for the plan, for kicks. Though only the first run paid in real money, a second one would probably pay pretty well in smirks. [TorrentFreak via CNET]
Image by Arkadia/Shutterstock
Kodak dropping out of the consumer inkjet printer business in 2013
Source: http://www.engadget.com/2012/09/28/kodak-dropping-inkjet-printer-business-in-2013/
More gloomy news from Kodak: the company just announced that it will stop selling consumer inkjet printers in 2013 and instead focus its efforts on commercial printing products. This decision hardly comes as a surprise: Kodak filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy earlier this year and attempted to auction off a stockpile of patents valued at up to $2.6 billion. The company stated on Friday that it expects to take a $90 million hit due to its floundering inkjet business. Kodak’s garage sale attracted interest from unlikely alliances in the form of Apple and Microsoft versus Google and Samsung, but reportedly only reeled in disappointing offers under the $500 million mark. Hoping to rebound next year as a “lean,” mean, successful machine, we’ll just have to wait and see what develops for this fallen photography frontrunner.
Continue reading Kodak dropping out of the consumer inkjet printer business in 2013
Filed under: Peripherals
Kodak dropping out of the consumer inkjet printer business in 2013 originally appeared on En gadget on Fri, 28 Sep 2012 15:50:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
Hard drive shipments recover from floods in Thailand, expected to reach record high
Source: http://www.engadget.com/2012/09/29/hard-drives-thailand-floods-recover-record/
Last year’s floods in Thailand caused hard drive shortages after wreaking havoc on a number of electronics manufacturers, but new stats from IHS iSuppli indicate that the HDD market for PCs has fully recovered and is poised to hit an all time high. The firm expects 524 million units for internal use in PCs to ship this year, besting the previous record by 4.3 percent. What’s giving the recovery an added boost? According to the analytics group, the extra demand comes courtesy of Windows 8 and Ultrabooks. Unfortunately for deal hounds, the company noted in a report earlier this year that prices aren’t expected to dip below the pre-flood range until 2014. If IHS iSuppli projections hold true, total annual hard driv! e shipme nts could reach 575.1 million by 2016.
Filed under: Storage
Hard drive shipments recover from floods in Thailand, expected to reach record high originally appeared on Engadget on Sat, 29 Sep 2012 16:48:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
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Android users chew an average 870MB of cellular data per month, youngest gobble the most
Source: http://www.engadget.com/2012/09/28/npd-android-users-chew-average-870mb-of-cellular-data-per-month/
Ever wonder how much data you burn through every month on average? If you’re an Android user within the US, odds are that it’s quite a lot. The NPD Group estimates that Americans of the Google persuasion typically consume about 870MB of data on cellular networks every month. While it’s not an extreme amount next to the 2.5GB of WiFi usage, it’s enough to give anyone second thoughts about coasting on a basic data plan — and a reflection of how both 4G and media apps have changed our behavior. Not surprisingly, it’s a younger crowd more comfortable with smartphones that’s the most aggressive: the 18-24 set races through 1.05GB a month where the 55-plus audience uses a more modest (if still healthy) 750MB. We don’t yet know how iOS stacks up in current conditions, but the NPD is promising a comparable look soon. Something tells us the iPhone 5’s LTE will lead to just as much voraciousness.
Filed under: Cellphones, Mobile
NPD: Android users chew an average 870MB of cellular data per month, youngest gobble the most originally appeared on Engadget on Fri, 28 Sep 2012 13:12:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
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Why Facebook Defriended HTML5 — For Now (FB)
Source: http://www.businessinsider.com/bii-report-why-facebook-defriended-html5-for-now-2012-9
Many think HTML5, a new technology that allows developers to build rich web-based apps that run on any device via a standard web browser, will save the mobile web.
However, in August, Facebook sent shock waves through the HTML5 world when it released the latest update of its iOS app. In this update, Facebook abandoned its HTML5-heavy app for one built from scratch with Apple’s iOS SDK.
In a new report from BI Intelligence, we explain why Facebook decided to abandon HTML5 for the time being, analyze the state of HTML5 and native apps, and detail why it may take even longer for HTML5 to win out than previously thought.
Access The Full Report By Signing Up For A Free Trial Today >>
Here’s a brief overview of why Facebook defriended HTML5:
- HTML5 app functionality still leaves much to be desired: HTML5 is a set of related standards. Th! is is ke y to understanding the problems that beset HTML5. As such, it has progressed relatively slowly. Facebook’s iOS product manager explained to The Verge, “Up until now, we’ve looked at scale, but we’ve become aware that while we have a great mobile website, embedding HTML5 inside an app isn’t what people expect.”
- And, HTML5 has a fragmentation problem: This is the very problem it is often trumpeted as a solution to. According to Appcelerator’s Michael King, there is a 30% differential on feature support across browsers. In other words, some HTML5 features may be supported in Chrome, but not in Safari or Firefox. This problem carries into mobile browsers as well.
- The success of Facebook’s mobile website underscored this issue: Just last April, Facebook said that its HTML5 mobile site had twice the number of users as its iOS and Android apps combined. This actually presented a problem for Facebook: iOS and Android’s mobile browsers don’t support a consistent feature set, including photo uploads! , a crit ical feature for Facebook.
- Apple and Google refused to help: Facebook started a Mobile W3C Community Group to promote the development of mobile browsers. Apple and Google, who combine for more than 85% of the global smartphone market and have a vested interest in the native app ecosystem, never signed on. The dream of building one HTML5 app and deploying across all platforms never becme a reality.
- But, the promise of HTML5 remains: Zuckerberg had this to say about HTML5: “It’s not that HTML5 is bad. I’m actually, long-term, really excited about it” His regret was not that Facebook spent two years dithering on HTML5, but that it spent two years on HTML5 when it wasn’t ready, or, as he put it, “it just wasn’t there.”
In full, BI Intelligence’s reports on HTML5 analyze:
- The success of an HTML5 pioneer, The Financial Times.How and when HTML5 will take over, laying out how it has all the hallmarks of a disruptive technology.
- What an HTML5 future will look like, with the promise of richer and more interactive experiences.
- Why native apps are winning now, and why it is taking so long for HTML5 to win out
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There Are More Than 1 Billion Mobile Internet Users
Source: https://intelligence.businessinsider.com/welcome
The mobile Internet is scaling much faster than its desktop predecessor. According to the International Telecommunications Union, the number of mobile internet users has grown from 268 million in 2007 to almost 1.1 billion by the end of 2011, and is probably pushing closer to 1.5 billion today.
While it is not surprising that the mobile Internet is growing faster than the desktop, the speed is still impressive. Mobile now accounts for 12 percent of global internet traffic, up from 1 percent at the beginning of 2009.
Furthermore, many new Internet users will be mobile-only. In China, for example, there are now more mobile Internet users than broadband users.
Please follow BI Intelligence on Twitter.
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Here Are The Apps Tim Cook Suggests You Use Instead Of Apple Maps (AAPL)
Source: http://www.businessinsider.com/tim-cook-suggests-alternative-map-apps-2012-9
Tim Cook released a letter to Apple customers today, apologizing for failing to deliver on its new mapping application for iPhones and iPads.
Cook promises the app will get better, but suggests users try a few alternative apps in the meantime.
Here are the apps he suggests you use instead of Apple Maps:
- Bing
- MapQuest
- Waze
- Google Maps (via the mobile website, maps.google.com)
- Nokia Maps (via the mobile website, m.maps.nokia.com)
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Urban Outfitters Says It Will Never Buy Another Cash Register Again
Source: http://www.businessinsider.com/urban-outfitters-replaces-all-cash-registers-with-ipads-2012-9
Retailer Urban Outfitters had its first ever annual analyst day today.
You can listen to the whole presentation here, but about halfway through CIO Calvin Hollinger makes some interesting comments about the future of point-of-sales systems in retail.
Specifically, the company is going all Apple devices for its stores. Sales people will have iPod touches, and cash registers are being phased out in favor of iPads on a swivel.
In fact, he says: “Two or three weeks ago, we placed our very last register order… once we make sure this ipad works.. all stores will be equipped with iPod touches and iPads.”
iPads, he explained, cost about 1/5th as much as a cash register, and can be used for so much. As shown in the picture, they can be turned towards the customer, who can view content, put in personal information, use it as a gift registry and so forth.
What’s more, it makes a lot more sense from a space usage standpoint. An iPad on a swivel that’s not in use can quickly be taken off, with that space being used for packing or more merchandising or anything else.
SEE ALSO: The 29 best stocks in the market right now >
(Via @montoyan)
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