May 28, 2011
Apple’s iOS App store has just crossed the golden figure of 500,000 apps after combining the apps of iPhone, iPad and iPod Touch. This milestone was compiled by 148Apps, Chomp, Chillingo and was posted in the form of a huge and interesting infographic to enlighten us on some of the milestones and trends on the way to the golden mark.
In January, Apple announced that they’ve reached the 350,000 mark and in about four months, they’ve achieved another 150,000 which is a milestone in itself. Games, Entertainment, Books, Education makes up the half of the milestone, which is a bi thing and almost 37% of the apps currently available on the app store are free.
If these numbers are accurate, then it suggests that the paid apps have generated about $34.3 billion dollars in revenue, i.e. 63% of 15 billion downloads as paid apps times average price of $3.64. Amazing when you think this market never even existed 4 years ago. These revenue numbers alone are worthy of a headline story.
May 25, 2011
What initially appeared to be a marketing move for Amazon’s music sales and the launch of its Cloud Player service now appears to have blown up in the company’s face. Initially, the music world was stunned to learn that Lady Gaga’s much anticipated second album was for sale on Amazon for the ultra low price of $0.99 cents, compared to $11.99 on iTunes. The loss leading price was thought to be a means of promoting Amazon’s new Cloud Player service and left many initially impressed with the strategy. However, it’s rock n’ roll in dispersed with technology and sure enough, things went tits up. In essence Amazon couldn’t handle the traffic, ensuring that downloads of the album were delayed, leaving fans unable to acquire the whole album after purchase.
Amazon issued a statement saying “Amazon is experiencing high volume and downloads are delayed. If customers order today, they will get the full Lady Gaga, Born This Way album for $0.99. Thanks for your patience.” However, the damage may have been done because fans are already giving the album one star reviews as a protest against the album download difficulties. It’s also likely to affect the take up of Amazon’s Cloud Player service, as punters go running back to iTunes where they may pay more for their music, but they’re guaranteed to be able to download it and store it.
May 13, 2011
It seems Fujitsu's got a thing for morphing PCs. Now the outfit's short-listed this deja-vu-inducing transformer for its 2011 "Life with Future Computing Award." The Flexbook, designed by Hao-Chun Huang, features a foldable 21:9 touchscreen and similarly flexible keyboard that allow its users to switch from laptop to tablet to book-like e-reader. It's also been designed to sport a number of interchangeable sleeves in a array of colors and patterns. It might have seemed impractical five years ago, but with convertibles coming of age, I'd say the Flexbook isn't really all that far out.
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May 2, 2011
Apple has finally released the long awaited white iPhone 4 after months of speculation, rumors and teases. You can get your white iPhone 4 at Apple Store retailers AT&T, Verizon Wireless stores and select retailers. The white iPhone 4 will be available for $199 for the 16 GB version and $299 for the 32 GB version with a new 2-year agreement.
Outside of the colors, consumers will not see any other major changes to the device.
Apr 26, 2011
The day has finally come and technology has once again taken a massive leap forward with the creation of 2D glasses. Yep, that’s right, 2D not 3D. Some people get headaches when watching 3D movies and others just flat out hate 3D. The simple solution would be to just not buy the more expensive 3D ticket and 2D glasses, but there are some people who get dragged to 3D movies by their friends or whoever, and I can somewhat understand how these glasses could be helpful for those that get headaches from 3D.
2D glasses allow any RealD 3D movie to be viewed as if it is a normal two-dimensional movie and can be purchased for $7.99 plus $2.00 shipping here. Here’s how they work:
When you watch a 3D movie, there are actually two images being projected onto the screen. That’s why the screen is blurry when you look at it without glasses. In 3D glasses one of the lenses blocks one image and the other lens blocks the other image.
Thus, when you watch a 3D movie each of your eyes is seeing a slightly different image. Your brain combines those images together, creating the illusion of a 3D image.
2D Glasses block the same image with both lenses, so each eye gets the same picture resulting in a 2D image and an elimination of eyeball strain.
Apr 20, 2011
Yesterday marked the release of the new Blackberry Playbook, which is a tablet that is said to compete with the iPad 2 and the Xoom. The Playbook is smaller than the two popular tablets but packs a big punch and will be a thorn is the side of Apple and Motorola. The Playbook doesn't have any buttons on the front of the device, instead all is controlled with touch gestures. It took a while for me to get use to the gestures and kept on forgetting what does what. This device will be difficult for people to get use to especially when you don't have a home button that is easy to push to get to the home menu. Other than that the device is overall fun to play with and the user interface is well set up. Lets take a look at the specs of the Blackberry Playbook.
Ultra portable, super convenient
Height 5.1" / 130mm
Width 7.6" / 194mm
Depth 0.4" / 10mm
Weight 0.9 lbs / 425g
7" LCD display, 1024 x 600 screen resolution
Multi-touch, WSVGA, capacitive screen
Professional grade performance
Get started easily – simply swipe-to-wake
Full computing power in a tablet format
1 GHz dual-core processor, 1 GB RAM
Symmetric multi-processing
Accelerometer, 6-axis motion sensing (gyroscope), digital compass (magnetometer) and GPS
Micro USB port
Uncompromised web
Games, media, apps and everything the real Internet offers
Full Adobe® Flash® 10.1 enabled
Built-in support for HTML 5
No-compromise rendering of text, graphics and video
Connect anytime, anywhere
BlackBerry PlayBook tablets will offer support for network configurations as follows:
BlackBerry PlayBook with Wi-Fi 802.11 a/b/g/n
BlackBerry 4G PlayBook with Wi-Fi 802.11 a/b/g/n + WiMax
BlackBerry 4G PlayBook with Wi-Fi 802.11 a/b/g/n + LTE
BlackBerry 4G PlayBook with Wi-Fi 802.11 a/b/g/n + HSPA+
All BlackBerry PlayBook tablets support Bluetooth® 2.1+EDR
Amplified BlackBerry experience
Wirelessly connect to your BlackBerry® smartphone* for real time access to:
Email, calendar, address book and task list, using
BlackBerry® Bridge™
Best-in-class media
3 MP high-definition forward-facing camera
5 MP high-definition rear-facing camera
Stereo speakers and stereo microphones
Crystal clear video; H.264, MPEG4, WMV HDMI video output
Micro USB and Micro HDMI ports
Business ready
BlackBerry Bridge technology
Corporate intranet browsing
DocsToGo, Adobe Reader
Enterprise VPN
BlackBerry Tablet OS
Powerful, user-friendly QNX technology: It’s what the World Wide Web runs on
Multi-processing for true multitasking
First and only microkernel based end-to-end real time
operating system
Rich application ecosystem
Rapid development environment
Reliable BlackBerry Tablet OS, powered by QNX technology
Supports POSIX OS, SMP, Open GL, BlackBerry® 6, WebKit, Adobe Flash, Java® and Adobe Mobile AIR
Ultra portable, super convenientHeight 5.1" / 130mm
Width 7.6" / 194mm
Depth 0.4" / 10mm
Weight 0.9 lbs / 425g
7" LCD display, 1024 x 600 screen resolution
Multi-touch, WSVGA, capacitive screen
Professional grade performance
Get started easily – simply swipe-to-wake
Full computing power in a tablet format
1 GHz dual-core processor, 1 GB RAM
Symmetric multi-processing
Accelerometer, 6-axis motion sensing (gyroscope), digital compass (magnetometer) and GPS
Micro USB port
Uncompromised web
Games, media, apps and everything the real Internet offers
Full Adobe® Flash® 10.1 enabled
Built-in support for HTML 5
No-compromise rendering of text, graphics and video
Connect anytime, anywhere
BlackBerry PlayBook tablets will offer support for network configurations as follows:
BlackBerry PlayBook with Wi-Fi 802.11 a/b/g/n
BlackBerry 4G PlayBook with Wi-Fi 802.11 a/b/g/n + LTE
BlackBerry 4G PlayBook with Wi-Fi 802.11 a/b/g/n + HSPA+
All BlackBerry PlayBook tablets support Bluetooth® 2.1+EDR
Amplified BlackBerry experience
Wirelessly connect to your BlackBerry® smartphone* for real time access to:
Email, calendar, address book and task list, using
BlackBerry® Bridge™
Best-in-class media
3 MP high-definition forward-facing camera
5 MP high-definition rear-facing camera
Stereo speakers and stereo microphones
Crystal clear video; H.264, MPEG4, WMV HDMI video output
Micro USB and Micro HDMI ports
Business ready
BlackBerry Bridge technology
Corporate intranet browsing
DocsToGo, Adobe Reader
Enterprise VPN
BlackBerry Tablet OS
Powerful, user-friendly QNX technology: It’s what the World Wide Web runs on
Multi-processing for true multitasking
First and only microkernel based end-to-end real time
operating system
Rich application ecosystem
Rapid development environment
Reliable BlackBerry Tablet OS, powered by QNX technology
Supports POSIX OS, SMP, Open GL, BlackBerry® 6, WebKit, Adobe Flash, Java® and Adobe Mobile AIR
Apr 17, 2011
Get ready for glasses free 3D applications on the iPad 2! Jeremie Francone and Laurence Nigay from the Laboratory of Informatics of Grenoble have developed a method to track a users point of view using the iPad 2′s FaceTime camera.
Glasses free 3D technology is not new. Nintendo recently deployed the popular 3DS which offers glasses free 3D technology from a single focal point. Francone and Laurence’s technology is significant because a 3D effect is possible from a moving focal point.
This technology opens the door for amazing game and app development. I hope Apple integrates it into iOS very soon!
Check out this video, it will blow you away!
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