Horizons

Google is concerned with how Samsung's growing power might affect their partnership. Here, a man walks by a Samsung advertisement in Seoul, South Korea. (Kim Hong-Ji/Reuters/File)

CES 2013 rumors: Smart fridges, translucent TVs, and more

By Jeff Ward-Bailey, Contributor / 01.04.13

The Consumer Electronics Show (CES) is a week away -- which means that rumors about what will be on display in Las Vegas have started to fly in, right on schedule.

Before we dive in to gadgets, it’s worth noting that the show itself may be changing a bit this year. For years, CES has been absolutely huge, devouring a good chunk of Las Vegas as big companies show off their latest and greatest. But last year, Microsoft announced it wouldn’t be attending CES 2013, and other major players like Intel, HP, and Sony will be absent as well. As Matt Burns at TechCrunch points out, that means Lenovo and Samsung will be the biggest companies in attendance -- which leaves plenty of room for smaller startups to demonstrate their products.

But in spite of the absence of some of the bigger companies, there are good reasons to expect that CES 2013 will be bigger than ever. So what can we expect to see demoed in Vegas next week?

For starters, Samsung is teasing a new portrait TV that will be unveiled at CES. In a December 30th blog post, the company posted a picture showing a screen in an upright 4:3 orientation (think of a giant iPad), describing the product as “an unprecedented new TV shape and timeless design,” according to a translation by The Verge. Last year the company unveiled high-end OLED TVs at CES, and the most optimistic speculation this year includes translucent TV screens like those used in Samsung’s refrigerators.

Speaking of fridges, Stacy Higginbotham at GigaOM speculates that CES 2013 will showcase an “Internet of things,” with connected appliances and home automation products stealing the show. It’s certainly no stretch to predict that we’ll see not only smart fridges that can tell you what’s inside and communicate with your phone (especially since we saw similar devices at last year’s CES), but also services that can tie data from different appliances together in useful ways. Think, for example, of a fridge that can not only keep track of inventory, but also order groceries, create recipes based on what’s at hand, and even suggest meals based on things like the age and activity level of each family member.

We’ll also likely see lots of Windows 8 devices -- desktops, laptops, tablets, and smart phones alike -- on the CES floor this year. The OS wasn’t made available until relatively late last year, and manufacturers are still coming up with spiffy new hardware that runs Windows 8. And given that the OS is designed to take advantage of touch input, we can expect to see lots of touch-enabled devices at the conference, including some new laptop/tablet hybrids.

CES will begin in just a week, so we’ll know then which of these rumors are true. In the meantime, let us know in the comments section below what you’re hoping to see at CES 2013!

For more tech news, follow Jeff on Twitter: @jeffwardbailey.

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Smart phones and tablets were activated in record numbers during the holiday week, and the iOS App Store and Google Play had more downloads than ever before. Here, customers examine the Apple iPad tablet at an Apple Store in Paris. (Charles Platiau/Reuters/File)

A very techy Christmas: 50 million new phones and tablets activated

By Jeff Ward-Bailey, Contributor / 01.02.13

For devicemakers and app developers alike, it was a good holiday season -- to say nothing of the record numbers of happy people who found a new smart phone or tablet under the tree.

Seventeen million new iOS and Android devices were activated on Christmas Day alone in 2012, “more than any other day in history,” according to mobile analytics firm Flurry. Over the following week, the number of new devices activated rose to 50 million.

And what would new hardware be without some apps to go with it? The same week saw record-breaking app downloads: 1.76 billion from the iOS App Store and Google Play, up 65 percent from the weekly average from earlier in December. The US accounted for 604 million of these downloads, and China took second place with 183 million -- tempered by the fact that most of China’s population doesn’t celebrate Christmas.

Flurry’s numbers don’t include devices running other platforms such as Windows Phone, nor are they a complete record of all phones and tablets. But the firm says it can detect more than 90 percent of the devices activated each day, and its figures are considered pretty accurate. And its conclusion is clear: the last week of the year was the biggest in history for iOS and Android devices and apps.

Flurry also says these kinds of numbers have staying power. The firm estimates that we’ll see more than a billion apps downloaded each week during 2013, and that that number will rise to 2 billion by the summer or early fall. Given what we already know about the growth of smart phones and tablets, these numbers aren’t totally surprising -- but they do emphasize just how briskly app markets are growing. During the 2011 holiday week, Flurry reported only 1.2 billion apps downloaded, and a comparatively paltry 6.8 million devices activated on Christmas Day.

Interestingly, Flurry also noted that slightly more tablets were activated than smart phones on Christmas Day (51 percent to 49 percent). There are usually about four smart phones activated for every tablet, but December 25th was a big day for bigger screens -- probably because people wanted to save those comparatively higher-end devices for the holiday. The iPad and iPad Mini had an especially strong showing, as did the Amazon Kindle Fire HD tablet.

Did you get a new smart phone or tablet this holiday season? Do you think the trend of app downloads and device activations will continue? Let us know in the comments section below.

For more tech news, follow Jeff on Twitter: @jeffwardbailey.

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The FCC announced new rules on Friday that will make it easier for companies to provide in-flight broadband Internet. Here, a Lufthansa airplane comes in for an early-morning landing at Munich Airport. (Matthias Schrader/AP/File)

FCC paves the way for better in-flight broadband

By Jeff Ward-Bailey, Contributor / 12.28.12

Lots of airlines offer Wi-Fi on their flights, but if you've ever tried to use it, you know the service can be ... less than ideal. Scarce bandwidth, frequent outages, and high-connection charges on lots of planes can make the prospect of connecting to in-flight networks a dicey proposition.

For some people, that's a plus: after all, a flight is one of the rare times when you can enjoy a novel or take a nap, untethered from the demands that come from being online. But if distracting yourself from a long flight with Facebook and YouTube sounds like more your cup of tea, you can thank the FCC: the Commission established rules on Friday that will make it easier for companies to offer Internet service on airplanes.

The new rules will streamline the process by which companies apply for permission to offer in-flight Internet, says FCC chairman Julius Genachowski. The approval process will be standardized, allowing the FCC to process license applications about 50 percent faster, and administrative burdens on companies seeking license will be reduced.

"This will enable providers to bring broadband to planes more efficiently, helping passengers connect with friends, family, or the office," Genachowski says in a statment.

The FCC has already authorized a number of companies to provide in-flight Internet service, but the process has been "ad hoc" up until now. In-flight broadband relies on a technology called Earth Stations Aboard Aircraft (ESAA), which carries two-way broadband signals between geo-stationary satellites and an antenna mounted on the aircraft. The new rules establish a framework for any company to use ESAA, provided that their systems don't interfere with aircraft communications and that they meet with approval from the FCC and the Federal Aviation Administration, which operates the country's air traffic control system.

Interestingly, the FCC's new rules don't mean that passengers will be able to use electronics throughout flights. The longstanding ban on using cell phones in-flight still stands, as does a ban on using laptops and other electronics during takeoff and landing. The government says those rules are in place because of concerns about interference with ground communications. But Genachowski also asked the FAA earlier this month to relax the rules on aircraft -- so perhaps you'll soon be able to stay connected from takeoff 'til landing.

The FCC notes that the new rules are being put in place with an eye toward "enhancing competition in an important sector of the mobile telecommunications market", as well as "promoting the widespread availability of Internet access to aircraft passengers." That means you'll likely have to rely on willpower soon, if you're interested in maintaining your flights as an oasis of "unplugged" time.

Are you excited about the idea of more connected flights? Or are you happy to pass the time in the air with a book? Let us know in the comments section below.

For more tech news, follow Jeff on Twitter: @jeffwardbailey.

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A new rumor suggests that Apple might move the production of the Mac mini to the US. Here, CEO Tim Cook speaks at the launch of the iPhone 5 in September. (Eric Risberg/AP/File)

Next Mac Mini might be 'Made in USA'

By Jeff Ward-Bailey, Contributor / 12.27.12

When Apple CEO Tim Cook announced earlier in December that some Mac computers would be produced in the US in 2013, he didn't give many specifics. The company would invest at least $100 million, he said, to move some of its manufacturing from China to the United States. Lots of news outlets speculated that the iMac line would be produced domestically, since some iMacs with "Assembled in USA" stamps had already started showing up in stores.

Now, the Taiwanese trade magazine DigiTimes says that the Mac mini will be built in the US starting next year.

DigiTimes says Apple will move the assembly of the Mac Mini to an American factory run by its manufacturing partner FoxConn. FoxConn will begin recruiting workers in 2013 for "new automated production lines," DigiTimes says, citing "sources from the upstream supply chain."

It's worth taking this rumor with an extra grain of salt, since DigiTimes doesn't have a great track record when it comes to stories about Apple. Still, the idea of stateside Mac Mini assembly makes a good deal of sense: the machine has fewer parts than either the iMac or the Mac Pro, so it would be better suited for automated production. The Mac Mini also comes in fewer different configurations, meaning it's simpler to produce and doesn't require as much customization on the factory end. If Apple is going to invest the money upfront to establish production lines in the US, the high-volume Mac mini is a good candidate for those lines.

DigiTimes also predicted that Mac Mini sales will rise by 30 percent in 2013, driven by the popularity of the Mac Mini upgrades that Apple unveiled in October. That would mean 1.8 million Mac Minis shipped in 2013, compared with 1.4 million in 2012.

Apple has been enthusiastically drawing attention to its American operations, both current and planned, for months now. In an interview with NBC on December 6, Cook estimated that Apple had created 600,000 jobs in the US over the years.

He added, "We've been working for years on doing more and more in the United States." He also noted that Apple maintains data centers in North Carolina, Nevada, and Oregon, and plans to add a new one in Texas.

Would you be more likely to buy a Mac if you knew it was made in the US? Let us know in the comments section below.

For more tech news, follow Jeff on Twitter: @jeffwardbailey.

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In this file photo, a passerby takes a picture of an Apple Store in Sydney, Australia, with a Samsung Galaxy phone. Smart phones surpassed feature phones in shipping numbers for the first time, in Q1 of 2013. (Tim Wimborne/Reuters/File)

Samsung says it will ship half a billion phones in 2013

By Jeff Ward-Bailey, Contributor / 12.26.12

Samsung may be the biggest phone maker in the world, but it's not resting on its laurels: the Korean company announced on Wednesday that it expects to ship 510 million handsets in 2013, three-quarters of which will be smart phones.

Samsung shipped 420 million handsets in 2012, which means that if its 2013 estimate is correct it'll be a 20 percent jump for the company. The Korea Times reports that 390 million of its 2013 sales are expected to be smart phones, and that Samsung is counting on pulling away from its biggest smart-phone rival, Apple.

That estimate may be a little bit rosy: market research firm Gartner previously predicted that Samsung would sell between 250 and 300 smart phones in 2013. But no matter how you slice it, Samsung's sales have been rising sharply. The company sold 0.6 million smart phones in 2009, 23.9 million in 2010, and 97.4 million in 2011.

What's on the menu for Samsung in 2013? The company will continue to develop its popular line of Galaxy smart phones and tablets, which are rivals to Apple's iPhone and iPad. It also plans to release a line of Windows Phone 8 handsets to compete with offerings from Nokia and HTC. As fast 4G LTE networks grow, Samsung will also double down on LTE-compatible devices to meet demand, Samsung executive Kim Hyun-joon said, quoted in The Korea Times.

To produce all this hardware, Samsung will have to expand its manufacturing base. The company expects to build just 40 million devices at its Korean factory; the lion's share will come from Samsung factories in Vietnam, China, and India. The company plans to spend $2.2 billion over the next several years to expand its Vietnamese factories.

Samsung is also planning to produce devices running Tizen, an operating system it developed together with Intel. Tizen is designed to run on smart phones, tablets, TVs, computers, and even GPS units to give users a consistent experience across devices. The first Tizen devices haven't been released yet, but Samsung's 2013 phones and tablets may be among the earliest.

Samsung has had a busy year, not least because of its public legal battles with rival Apple. The latter won a $1 billion injunction against Samsung earlier in 2012, but the judgement hasn't done much to dent Samsung's momentum -- especially since Apple has been largely unsuccessful in barring Samsung smart phones from being sold. Samsung's bullish predictions for 2013 suggest that the company isn't too worried about future legal roadblocks, either.

For more tech news, follow Jeff on Twitter: @jeffwardbailey.

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More and more companies are considering the cloud-based Google Apps suite as a serious competitor to Microsoft Office. Here, a city bus in Los Angeles shows an advertisement for the Microsoft Surface tablet. (Fred Prouser/Reuters/File)

Google Apps makes gains on Microsoft Office

By Jeff Ward-Bailey, Contributor / 12.26.12

For years, Microsoft Office was widely considered to be the way for businesses to get "serious" work done. Google Apps, the cloud-based office suite, wasn't generally thought of as being stable or full-featured enough for company use. But as Google Apps has matured, more and more companies have noticed -- and in 2012 Microsoft found its core business base eroding as offices jumped ship to Google.

Google has been promoting its software for business use since 2006, focusing mainly on small businesses that didn't need all the features of Microsoft Office. Now, The New York Times' Quentin Hardy reports, big companies are starting to notice Google as well. New Google Apps clients in 2012 included Hoffman-La Roche, a Swiss drug company with over 80,000 workers, and the U.S. Interior Department, where 90,000 employees use Google Apps.

Google's pricing is a big mark in its favor with businesses. The Google Apps suite, which includes word-processing, data-entry, spreadsheet, and presentation programs, has added features at a steady pace for several years, but the price of the software -- $50 a year for each business user -- has stayed the same. By contrast, Microsoft Office will cost $400 a year for each business user in 2013, although the Times notes that many companies pay half that with bulk discounts.

Microsoft hasn't ignored the cloud-software trend, though. Last year it released Office 365, an online version of its venerable software suite, which costs between $72 and $240 per year for each user, depending on how many features are needed. Julia White, a manager in Microsoft's business division, says Office 365 is "on track to be [Microsoft's] fastest-growing business," according to the Times, although the company hasn't released figures on usage. In late 2011 and early 2012 Microsoft's business divison made almost $24 billion -- but that revenue came almost entirely from conventional Office software that runs on computers located on companies' premises.

Google announced this summer that more than five million businesses were using its Apps suite, although nearly all of those companies have ten or fewer employees. So big companies like Hoffman-La Roche aren't jumping to Google Apps en masse, although the Times notes that Google won 23 of the 42 large government contracts for which it competed with Microsoft in 2012, compared with 10 for Microsoft.

Neither company is boasting about its total number of enterprise users, and it would be inaccurate to suggest that Microsoft is hemorrhaging business customers. But as companies put more stock in online collaboration, Microsoft will have to find ways to make Office 365 more attractive -- or come up with another strategy to tempt businesses away from Google.

For more tech news, follow Jeff on Twitter: @jeffwardbailey.

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Google and Motorola are reportedly working on a flagship "X Phone" to rival the iPhone and popular Android smart phones. Here, a man raises his hand at Google's offices in Mountain View, California. (Mark Lennihan/AP/File)

Can a Motorola X Phone keep up with Apple and Samsung?

By Jeff Ward-Bailey, Contributor / 12.21.12

When Google purchased Motorola last year for $12.5 billion, there was lots of speculation about what was behind the deal. Was Google only interested in Motorola’s portfolio of patents? Or did it hope to put the company’s engineers to work on its own projects?

New rumors suggest that it’s largely the latter: The Wall Street Journal reported Friday that Motorola is hard at work on a flagship Android phone known internally as the “X Phone,” to be released some time in 2013. Citing “people familiar with the matter,” the Journal says the X Phone is designed to stand head and shoulders above current handsets, although engineers are running into some early obstacles.

Motorola and Google apparently have big plans for the X Phone: Motorola is investigating materials that would make the display more flexible and less likely to crack or break under pressure, and the company wants to include better camera software and gesture recognition while simultaneously boosting battery life. It’s too early to speculate on the size of the phone or the features it will include, but the Journal’s sources say Motorola will also begin building an X Tablet once the phone has been completed.

The X Phone would run what’s known as “vanilla” Android: a pure version of the OS that comes directly from Google. Right now only the Nexus line of phones, including Samsung’s popular Galaxy Nexus, run vanilla Android; all other handsets have extra code added by manufacturers, like Samsung’s “TouchWiz” UI or HTC’s “Sense.” Lots of users find these additional features helpful, but others prefer the flexibility of being able to use a version of Android that doesn’t have the manufacturer’s “stamp.”

But along with developing the X Phone, Google and Motorola have to carefully navigate their delicate relationships with other companies that make Android handsets -- especially Samsung. Samsung has become the biggest smart phone maker in the world, thanks in no small part to a warm relationship with Google -- but it’s also a rival to Motorola. Google wants to boost Motorola’s sales (Motorola commands an anemic 3 percent of the Android phone market, compared to Samsung’s 40 percent) but doesn’t want to jeopardize its relationship with Samsung or other manufacturers.

By the way, if you own one of Motorola’s existing Droid phones, don’t worry: the company will continue to produce them for Verizon, its carrier partner, as well as devoting resources to developing the X Phone. In spite of poor sales, many of the Droid phones Motorola released in 2012 were well-received by critics.

What are your thoughts on the X Phone? Do you think Google and Motorola can design a handset that stands apart from everything else on the market? Let us know in the comments section below.

For more tech news, follow Jeff on Twitter: @jeffwardbailey.

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Facebook $1 fee? A monitor shows a welcoming message for Facebook's listing on the NASDAQ Marketsite prior to the opening bell in New York on May 18, 2012. (Keith Bedford/Reuters)

Facebook $1 fee? New scheme aims to make money, cut spam.

By Jeff Ward-Bailey, Contributor / 12.20.12

Cutting Facebook spam is great. But letting people pay to get priority seats in your inbox? That could be a dicier proposition.

Facebook announced a number of updates to its Messaging platform on Thursday, but the most interesting news was something the company called a “small experiment”: giving a select group of Facebook users the ability to pay a small fee to have a message delivered to the inbox of someone outside their circle of friends. The cost to do so? $1, reports the Wall Street Journal.

A little context: right now, you can send messages to anyone on Facebook, regardless of whether you’re friends with that person or not. But pretty soon the social network will begin automatically capturing mail from unknown people (those who aren’t friends or friends of friends) before it reaches the inbox, filtering it into a catch-all “Other” folder.

The upshot of this plan is that messages that you see in your inbox are more likely to be from people you actually know. The downside is that the filters make it more difficult to reach people you aren’t already friends with. If you were to contact a company’s HR representative about a job opening, for example, your message would likely get shunted to the “Other” folder, where it would be less likely to be seen.

The reason for this test, Facebook says, is to make it more likely that a message in your inbox is from someone who has a legitimate reason to contact you. In the company’s words, it wants “to test the usefulness of economic signals to determine relevance.” The announcement adds that “Several commentators and researchers have noted that imposing a financial cost on the sender may be the most effective way to discourage unwanted messages.”

For now, the company says, this pay-for-relevance service is limited to only one message per week, and is usable only by selected individuals -- not brands -- in the US. Facebook says it will continue tinkering with prices, too, to see what works best for users. You probably don’t need to worry about a draconian future in which you’re charged for all Facebook communications -- but it’s no stretch to speculate that the company could expand the service if it proves to be useful (or profitable). LinkedIn already has a similar model in place with its InMail service -- InMail costs money to send, which bestows extra credibility on its messages and (hopefully) confers extra cachet on the senders.

What do you think about paid Facebook messages? Would it be useful, or does such a service offer too much room for abuse? Share your thoughts in the comments section below.

For more tech news, follow Jeff on Twitter: @jeffwardbailey.

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Path debuted a new search feature that lets you look back on moments you've shared with friends. (Path.com)

Path introduces social search that's more intuitive than Facebook

By Jeff Ward-Bailey, Contributor / 12.20.12

Want to know what your friends are doing right now? Facebook is a great place for that. You’ve got a constant stream of photos, messages, and updates that refreshes automatically and can be customized to show only those updates you’re interested in.

But if you’ve ever wanted to reminisce about parties, dinners, or other fun times you shared with friends, Facebook can come up short. It doesn’t really give you a way to look back on events you’ve attended with your friends -- short of just skimming down rows of pictures or scrolling backward through your Timeline.

Path, a small social-networking startup launched in late 2010, is taking a different approach. On Thursday, the company launched a new search interface that lets you get a little nostalgic by calling up different moments in your life.

Path’s whole network is built around moments -- a place you visited, a song you listened to, a photo you took with a friend. Those moments are then tagged not only with people, dates, and locations, but also with emotions. So you could search for surprising moments, and be rewarded with a photo album of, say, an unexpected birthday party.

Path bills itself as a “smart journal” that allows you to share your life with a close circle of friends. By design, it’s more modest and more private than open networks like Facebook, Twitter, or Instagram: the company says “You should always be in control of your information and experience,” and each person’s network is limited to 150 contacts to encourage you to share with people you really know well. Path has about 5 million registered users, which is a vanishingly small fraction of what Facebook has -- but that’s the whole point.

Path’s new search also includes location, date, holidays, and seasons, among other parameters. You could, say, look back on moments that happened a year ago, or holidays that you shared with a certain group of friends. There’s also a nifty location feature that lets you instantly see moments that took place for you or your friends wherever you happen to be. (This might seem like a strange feature at first, but think about the next time you take a trip abroad: it’d be pretty useful to be able to guide yourself around a foreign city based on what your friends did when they were there.)

Path may never achieve the popularity of Facebook or Twitter -- but for those users looking to share details about their lives with close friends, and to be able to digitally reminisce about moments spent together, the small social network might be a refreshing change. 

For more tech news, follow Jeff on Twitter: @jeffwardbailey.

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