Newspapers have been around for many decades, in fact, it is one of the oldest forms of delivering news to people. With newer media such as television and the internet, printed news is slowly becoming a very stagnant and non-evolving medium –something that would inevitably be replaced.
Of course, the industry is not going out without a bang. Many publications have already taken some small measures in the effort of bringing print technology up to par with modern innovations. With print material limited strictly to static information and content, newspapers are now going in sync with augmented reality applications in smart phones to bring new content to users.
The premise is simple, if you see an image of the Secretary delivering a speech, you can point your phone at the picture and get to see a video of the actual presentation. Not only articles get additional content, so do advertisements and other features –such as weather forecasts, real time stock trends or even updates on current articles.
The practice has already begun in a small scale. Just take a look at an issue of Grazia from last week; use your iPhone on the publication and get to see a quick video of the performance in the headline article. Some companies are also looking into actually embedding video screens on publication –something that might see reality should the technology to mass produce thin and cheap screens become available.
Looking beyond what we currently have now, there are also innovations such as the Sixth Sense AR technology; this would actually allow users to see the media content associated with the printed material projected onto the paper itself as opposed to looking at things through a 3 inch screen.
Find out more about the new trends of print publishing with augmented reality at the Independent UK.
In the United States, a young 16 year old girl is making plenty of waves and income from her YouTube videos. The pioneering “haul queen” of the internet, Blair Fowler has become one of the most watched users on the video streaming website.
Her video formulas are simple, she goes out with her sister to shop and when she gets home, she makes videos about the new products that she has brought. The combination of product reviews and women’s love for finding good bargains makes for an excellent combination as Fowler not only makes well made reviews of clothes and accessories, but she also provides sound advice and tips on fashion and more importantly, how to spot good deals.
It is not exactly the success story parents would want to expose their children to, Blair has already quit school so that she can spend more time shopping and reviewing. It’s a special case as the young lady has already caught the eye of major product developers who are sending her and her sisters samples of products in the hope that their new designs would be showcased on the YouTube channel –not something that any YouTube user can easily aspire to attain.
To begin with, Blair and her sister started doing the videos only for fun and without the delusion that they would be able to make money out of their hobby. Right now, signs that the success is taking its toll on the young girl are slowly being shown. According to reports, Fowler recently stated that she is slowly running out of content as she has already reviewed everything that she owns.
Blair’s YouTube account, Juicystar07, has been viewed over 15 million times.
Find out more about this new YouTube shopping review sensation at the Times Online UK.
Francois Cousteix is 25, unemployed and fond of computers. He has had no formal training in programming or any form of computer science, he is purely self-taught; and this self-taught individual managed to get into the Twitter accounts of US President Obama and hundreds of others simply by using his common sense.
The Frenchman stated that he had meant no harm in the action of taking over the online accounts of people over the internet (not only on Twitter, but also on Facebook and Google) simply by figuring out people’s passwords. What may seem like a difficult task (something that hackers would prefer to use phishing techniques for) was easily executed by doing research into the backgrounds of the owners of the accounts.
Security questions on websites often had answers that can be found on people’s blog or Facebook profiles. Names of spouses, mother’s maiden names, favorite teachers and first pets are all basic bits of information that people tend to take for granted.
Mr. Cousteix has been arrested and will go into trial in July, but the public is still fortunate that it was a man like him who had decided to show the world that we still taken internet security for granted. This has also shown that all it takes is a simple degree of effort and research to get into less secure accounts. He has been quoted as having a passion for computers and spends more than 10 hours of his day in front of one.
With more and more of our daily lives being integrated online, there is a growing need for people to understand the need to practice good security procedures. From making good passwords that are hard to guess and in ensuring that no sensitive information about their lives can be found online.
Get to know more about the Twitter hacking incident at Times Online UK.
Swype just got competition which looks suspiciously similar. A company called Nuance has just revealed their own sliding touch input system that works on a smart phone’s virtual keyboard. Just like Swype, the product called T9 Trace lets you swipe or “trace” a path through the letters you want to use for faster input. The program does have a provision for easy switching back to tap input.
The T9 Trace has multimodal support, meaning it supports 12-key touch screen layouts as well as QWERTY keypads. For those who are not as neat when it comes to swiping letters, the program comes with a “sloppy-type correction” that is able to correct input based on which letters surround the mistyped character. The spell correction goes as far as to correct basic errors such as “I”s before “E”s and double letters (overtyping or under typing). It is also able to predict the intended word based on often used phrases and arranges the words according to which is used the most often.
That is not all the T9 have to offer, with the enhanced word completion and “user added words” features that basically lets you store internet lingo, slang, chat and text phrases easily. It is able to detect email messages and website links as well. Punctuations are automatically added in both tap or trace modes so that speed typists will not have to worry about mistakenly leaving out periods. With the Bilingual input, two languages can be used simultaneously without problems and over 70 languages are recognized by the T9 Trace.
Lastly, the XT9 backup feature lets users back up the word database on their device to be transferred to another. While the T9 Trace does sound pretty extensive on paper, it is looking too much like Swype which already has avid users due to being released for the Motorola CLIQ XT. Perhaps a little interface tweaking is in order? It is kind of hard to differentiate the two.
For more about the T9 Trace, head over to Geek.
T-Mobile is offering two high end Android smart phones free on plans at £35 monthly tariffs.
The announcement is a welcome surprise to anyone hoping to bag any of the two devices when they come out in April. While Vodafone UK and Orange Mobile have also announced that they will be offering the devices as well, T-Mobile has put up the selling page for the phones. Ordering the HTC Desire will take up to 7 days before the device ships and the XPERIA X10 will take 10 days prior to shipping.
In both cases, the phones will be available for free with T-Mobile plans at two year contracts with a monthly fee of £35. Naturally, given the nature of the Android operating system, the best plans are the offers with unlimited 3G internet. The best deal for the Desire gives users 500 text messages, 1200 minutes of talk time and unlimited internet. The optimum X10 plan shares the same offer as well (but only with 900 minutes).
Those originally looking forward to the UK launch of the Google phone Nexus One might want to go for the HTC Desire instead. With the two phones sharing very similar specifications, their performance and handling of the Android OS are pretty much the same. Both have 1GHz Snapdragon CPUs, 3.7 inch AMOLED touch screens and 5 mega pixel cameras. Google’s Nexus One does have an advanced voice recognition software technology while HTC offers the Sense UI and 720p video recording with the Desire.
The XPERIA X10 comes with a 4 inch capacitive TFT touch screen, an 8 mega pixel camera and the Qualcomm Snapdragon processor clocked at 1GHz. This device will be followed by two Mini versions in May.
Get to know more about the T-Mobile plans and tariffs for the HTC Desire and the XPERIA X10 at Stuff TV.
For those who use their smart phones for accessing the internet and strictly only for checking email, viewing Facebook and sending the occasional Tweet, what does the Digital Economy Bill mean for them?
The initial parts of the Bill deliver nothing close to a significant change. We would appreciate getting better speeds in WiFi areas as the bill will push for high speed net connections everywhere -2MBPS, but no word yet on who will actually pay for this. Second, pushing for “internet access being a right” is also a vague statement that makes us wonder how exactly it will get implemented.
We do expect to see better mobile phone games –with the bill potentially creating a nice tax break for game developers; we can expect a growth in the quality of productions. Now that is one part of the Bill we would definitely want to see.
One might think that that would be the extent of it. After all, no one wants torrents music and videos on their smart phones, and there is hardly anything embarrassing to hide if the government wants to spy on your Farmville account. But to think that the Digital Economy Bill will not affect general web browsing is completely untrue.
Take a moment to remember about all those impressive, funny and cool videos you have seen posted on Facebook.
Now imagine all those contents, gone. The Bill will prevent anyone from posting a link to the latest U2 music video since posting the U2 music video in the first place would be restricted.
The same goes for checking out music and other media. No longer are you going to be free to see the content prior to actually deciding if it is worth buying on iTunes or Spotify.
If you still think that the Digital Economy Bill will not affect you, head to the Guardian UK.
Song writers and budding music artists rejoice! Line 6 has made the MIDI Mobilizer to appeal to the music genius in you. The handy little peripheral is for the iPhone and the iPod Touch and it lets you play, record, save and transfer your MIDI sequence creations from any MIDI device with the use of the MIDI Memo Recorder. The hardware is a collaborative project between Line 6 and D’ Addario who has released a few music iPod projects before (namely the Scale Wizard and the Chord Master).
The portable MIDI system gets released alongside their Planet Waves Rig Remote. The Rig Remote will act as a means enable guitarists to control their own Line 6 amps and guitars by using their Apple devices. The MIDI Mobilizer will let users change the presets of their modeling amps, change the applied effects and adjust the default settings. Marcus Ryle, the co-founder of Line 6 and Senior Vice President of the company’s research and development had this to say about their products:
“The iPhone becomes the most portable and versatile editor and tone storage device for your Line 6 gear. Finding the perfect tone has never been easier.”
This system is definitely worth a look if you are an avid music buff who uses Line 6 equipment. It is also for people who mind having to bring their laptops around when they want to record music. While the MIDI Mobilizer price is still a no-show, it should be out within this year. On the other hand, the MIDI recorder is available at this time and is free of charge but its usefulness is limited without its partnered hardware.
Since Line 6 has announced this peripheral, it would probably be only a matter of time before other big name music peripheral manufacturers come out with their own versions of the technology.
Read more about Line 6’s new peripheral at Engadget.
While Apple may be the older company, HTC has been in the mobile industry longer. Before the iPhone, HTC had already made a name for itself with its smart devices and Pocket PCs. They even attracted the attention of Microsoft who turned HTC into a partner in developing Windows Pocket PC.
When HTC grew, they ventured into the mobile phone industry where they became a partner for Google’s Android OS. They made the HTC Dream –the first Android smart phone, and the Nexus One –the first Google branded Android device. It is because of these that the recently claimed lawsuit from Apple accusing HTC of patent infringement comes as an insult to HTC’s long history in the industry.
A few days ago, Peter Chou stated that “HTC disagrees with Apple’s actions and will fully defend itself. HTC strongly advocates intellectual property protection and will continue to respect other innovators and their technologies as we have always done, but we will continue to embrace competition through our own innovation as a healthy way for consumers to get the best mobile experience possible.”
The HTC CEO also said “From day one, HTC has focused on creating cutting-edge innovations that deliver unique value for people looking for a smartphone. In 1999 we started designing the XDA and T-Mobile Pocket PC Phone Edition, our first touch-screen smartphones, and they both shipped in 2002 with more than 50 additional HTC smartphone models shipping since then.”
The lawsuit covers 20 patents for hardware and software, focusing on HTC mobile phones that use the Android OS. Google has also reacted by stating that they will stand behind and support HTC in this case. Despite not being directly involved, Google recognizes the lawsuit as Apple’s own tactics against the Android OS.
For more information about HTC’s defense against Apple, go to ZD Net.
It has been quite sometime since the launch of the Apple App store and with the launch of a dedicated online application source for iPhone users, the mobile industry saw an unprecedented growth for the need for apps not seen in the webOS or the BlackBerry OS.
According to research, the mobile app industry will surpass sales of music CDs by 2012. Currently, apps are already one of the biggest digital commodities on the market.
Factors contributing to the growth of apps are based mostly with the growing demands of smart phone users –and their growing numbers as well. With each passing year, manufacturers focus more and more on smart phone devices over basic handsets. This alone increases the number of smart phone users as people do eventually change and upgrade their mobile phones.
People turn to apps in order to get many functions not pre-installed in the mobile platform. These functions, despite being useful, often tend to be specialized and would be a waste of resources if they were installed by default on a device. Thus, the need for being able to choose which apps you have on a smart phone was born. Depending on a user’s interests and occupations, some apps tend to be more valuable than others.
The mobile game industry is also another reason why apps stores are selling so much. Games, despite being the counter-productive time wasters that they are, are also extremely fun to play and are outright addictive. In general, games will help players pass by long waiting hours while being entertained –and anything that will help you escape from boredom is a very valuable commodity. Also, with smart phones becoming more and more advanced in terms of hardware, game developers are starting to make better game apps.
Find out more about the mobile app industry at the Guardian UK.
Microsoft’s mobile platform is getting some new features –details of which have been shown at MIX 2010. While the OS still lacks multi tasking for third party applications, it seems like there are enough functions to keep users too busy to notice (much like the Apple iPhone).
Despite the fact that the mobile platform is not yet due to be released until much later this year, Microsoft has been able to keep up the interest and demand for the system. This means that since the OS was first shown off last February, there has never been a week without major news updates about the platform.
With developer tools already available and the Marketplace for WP7 already previewed, MS is now giving us a sneak peek at the new features that will be present in the OS. First off, Silverlight compatibility; it is already expected to see Silverlight on WP7 since the MSN Player was announced earlier this month. This web based framework serves as a perfect tool for developers to get some graphically impressive interfaces running on the system
Two new MS based services for the WP7 are the Microsoft Location Service and the Microsoft Notification Service. While some would prefer to do without the constant news updates and alerts, there are those who would love to keep up on the latest happenings and headlines. As with most things about the OS, even the feeds are customizable and users will be able to set preferences on which news updates will be shown onscreen.
The Associated Press News Reader app was also shown off at MIX showcasing Microsoft’s talent at turning huge globs of text into stylized news articles. This, along with the new Media Diary, also makes use of Silverlight.
Get to know more about the MIX 2010 updates regarding WP7 at GSM Arena.
