The Avengers: The hype was spot on (Go see this movie)

The Walt Disney Studios who owns Marvel; announced that “The Avengers” made $200.3 million in its domestic debut May 4-6. The movie Hulk Smashed previous records to become the highest-grossing domestic debut of all time. The global box office gross for the film is an estimated $641.8 million over 12 days in release.

The film had second highest single day of all time at $80.5 million and the highest Saturday’s box office gross of all time with $69.7 million. Not only is this movie making money hand over fist but its actually a very good movie. Critics gave it a perfect A+ CinemaScore. Marvel’s The Avengers is good enough for the fanboys and well written enough for any age to enjoy.

It’s not just the America that is love with the Avengers. Internationally it had the biggest Marvel opening weekend ever in Russia with $17.9 million, China with $17.4 million. The biggest opening weekend of all time in Mexico, Brazil, Argentina, Ecuador, Peru, Central America, Bolivia, Hong Kong, Malaysia, New Zealand, and Philippines

The film’s success only means one thing, sequels. Lots of money making sequels. The following films have them on the way; Captain America is due April 4, 2014. Thor in 2013, and Iron Man on May 3, 2013. I’m sure Walt Disney Studios is glad the scooped up Marvel.

Couldn’t get a ticket to Apple’s Worldwide Developer Conference? Try the Indie Developer Labs event

Apple’s Worldwide Developer Conference sold out before some people even knew the tickets were up for sale. One guy even offered to change his name if he could get a ticket. I love Apple but I would not go that far. However I would consider going to an alternative.  Indie Developer Labs is that alternative. The organizers said “Indie Developer Labs is an open area where developers are provided with space to work, free Wi-Fi, and an open environment to connect with other developers. Our mission is to help foster the collaborative spirit of the Apple developer community. It is a place to help the developer community have a place to collaborate during WWDC.”

The organizers are Kyle Kinkade, Craig Fox and Nate True. They are will also have a  hackathon event. That may draw developers from Jailbreak community. Cydia has always been their home so this may be a way for them to showcase their new apps like Apple showcase a new version of iOS.  The Indie Developer Labs event will take place from June 12th to June 15th in San Francisco. Whats more it will be in Moscone Center which is very close to where WWDC is held.

Your iPhone may never break again thanks to BuffLabs

For anyone that has drooped their iPhone this new product is for you. It is more than a protective shield as this thing can literally take a brick.  Buff Labs’ transparent film for iPhone take more impact than most cases. They show it being tugged by a skateboard, hit by a hammer, jabbed by a screwdriver and yes, even a brick. Buff Labs  screen protector has four layers. They are called air the bubble-releasing silicon adhesive layer, a stretch resistant later, a shock dispersive cushioning layer, and a shock absorptive cushioning layer.

Buff Labs is a new company so these protectors are not in stores just yet.  Buff Labs is based in Asia so it is going to take a while for them to setup production. At the moment the only way to get one is if you are brave enough to venture into the eBay. The price tag is something like $30 to $45 per shield protector. I’m going to have to hold off until I can get this in the store or a review copy.

Facebook IPO: What is in the S-1 to convice you its a good buy?

Facebook’s IPO is going to be as big if not bigger than Google was a few years ago. The S-1 filling document is a very lengthy dry read that most people will skip. We are not most people. The S1 was very insightful. For one thing we don’t have to wonder if Zuck would still be in charge. He will have the most votes based on his type of stock. The shares will be split into “A” and “B” shares, where the latter get 10 votes per share, and the former get one. Zuckerberg presently owns around 28.2% of the share capital.

Facebook had revenues of $3.7bn and had an operating income of $1.7bn.
They had 845 million active users and the numbers are still growing.

Saying Facebook depends on advertising is a common sense but what surprised us is that it only accounts for 85% of the revenue. The rest comes from in-app purchases.

Zynga is almost as important as Mark is for the company. In 2011, they were 12% of Facebook’s revenue. Facebook wrote in that “If the use of Zynga games on our Platform declines, if Zynga launches games on or migrates games to competing platforms, or if we fail to maintain good relations with Zynga, we may lose Zynga as a significant Platform developer and our financial results may be adversely affected.”

The mobile version of the site had 425 million monthly active users in December 2011. There are no ads on the mobile site but that may soon change. The S1 states, “our revenue may be negatively affected unless and until we include ads or sponsored stories on our mobile apps and mobile website. We believe that people around the world will continue to increase their use of Facebook from mobile devices, and that some of this mobile usage has been and will continue to be a substitute for use of Facebook through personal computers. In 2011, we began serving our products from data centers owned by Facebook using servers specifically designed for us.” I wonder will the servers help place ads on mobile devices?

There are 138m shares that have been issued to the employees of Facebook for $0.83. At an expected price of about $45, that’s almost $6.2bn profit for the employees. That is not a bad turn around for a 401K plan.

CES 2012: SaintelDaily.com Hands on with NEST

The NEST may one day find its way into every new home. Here is my hands on with it from CES 2012

Chrome over takes Internet Explorer but so what, It’s free. Will Chrome OS ever beat Windows?

Google’s Chrome browser is now the most popular browser in the world according to StatCounter. Google Chrome reached a total global market share of 23.6% compared to Microsoft’s Internet Explorer 8 market share of 23.5%. Side Note: Internet Explorer still has the largest global market share if you combine all versions of the browser.

“Google announced Chrome for business exactly a year ago and IT administrators appear to have embraced it in a remarkably short time,” commented Aodhan Cullen, CEO, StatCounter. “Looking at the daily stats, Chrome 14 and 15 have been overtaking IE8 at weekends since the beginning of October. However, Chrome 15 overtook IE8 for the first time during the five day working week, in week commencing 5th December. It looks as if people favour Chrome on weekends at home but office commercial use has now caught up.”

StatCounter Global Stats are based on aggregate data collected on a sample exceeding 15 billion page views per month (4 billion from the US) from the StatCounter network of more than three million websites.

Now that is all great for the browser but Google is not making a dent in the all important operating system market. The Chrome OS has failed to gather any steam after the initial buzz of the CR-48.

Viva iTunes: Apple opens iTunes store in Brazil & Latin America

Apple fresh off a new iTunes update last night has just announced, via a press release that it’s launching the iTunes Store in Brazil, Argentina, Bolivia, Chile, Colombia, Costa Rica, Dominican Republic, Ecuador, El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras, Nicaragua, Panama, Paraguay, Peru and Venezuela. Also those lucky Brazilians will have iTunes Match to play with. Brazil is now the only country outside the USA to have the service.

The thing I like most about Apple is that when they announce something it’s launched right away. iTunes Store is open right now and iTunes Match is available today if you live in Brazil. The cost remains $24.99 a year.

Brazil and Latin American now have a wide open library music from all four major labels. If you live in Brazil, you also get Movies in your iTunes store.

Apple Press Release:

SAO PAULO, Brazil—December 13, 2011—Apple® today announced the launch of the iTunes Store® in Brazil (www.itunes.com/brazil) with an incredible selection of Brazilian and international music from all the major labels and thousands of independent labels. Launching with a catalog of over 20 million songs, the iTunes Store in Brazil features local artists including Ivete Sangalo, Marisa Monte and the digital debut of Roberto Carlos’ catalog, available to purchase and download along with a wide range of international artists including the Beatles, Rihanna, Coldplay and thousands more. With most songs priced at 99 cents and most albums at $9.99, the iTunes Store in Brazil is the best way for iPad®, iPhone®, iPod®, Mac® and PC users to legally discover, purchase and download music online.

The iTunes Store in Brazil offers over a thousand movies to rent or purchase, with many in stunning HD, from major studios including 20th Century Fox, Paramount Pictures, Sony Pictures Home Entertainment, Universal Pictures, The Walt Disney Studios and Warner Bros. Pictures. The iTunes Store in Brazil now joins the revolutionary App Store™, which offers more than 500,000 apps to consumers in 123 countries, reaching hundreds of millions of iPad, iPhone and iPod touch® users around the world. Customers have downloaded more than 18 billion apps to date.

Apple is also bringing the iTunes Store to 15 additional Latin American countries including Argentina, Bolivia, Chile, Colombia, Costa Rica, Dominican Republic, Ecuador, El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras, Nicaragua, Panama, Paraguay, Peru and Venezuela.

The iTunes Store in Brazil and Latin America offer music from major labels EMI Music, Sony Music Entertainment, Universal Music Group and Warner Music, and thousands of independent labels. All music on iTunes® comes in iTunes Plus®, Apple’s DRM-free format with high-quality 256 kbps AAC encoding for audio quality virtually indistinguishable from the original recordings.

iTunes in the Cloud lets you download your previously purchased iTunes music to all your iOS devices at no additional cost, and new music purchases can be downloaded automatically to all your devices. In addition, music not purchased from iTunes can gain the same benefits by using iTunes Match℠, a new service that upgrades your music to iTunes Plus when matched to the over 20 million songs in the iTunes Store catalog. iTunes in the Cloud is available today for free in Brazil and Latin America and iTunes Match is available today for a $24.99 annual fee in Brazil.

Pricing & Availability
iTunes 10.5.1 for Mac and Windows includes the iTunes Store and is available as a free download from (www.itunes.com/brazil). iTunes Store purchases require a valid credit card with a billing address in country.

Apple designs Macs, the best personal computers in the world, along with OS X, iLife, iWork and professional software. Apple leads the digital music revolution with its iPods and iTunes online store. Apple has reinvented the mobile phone with its revolutionary iPhone and App Store, and has recently introduced iPad 2 which is defining the future of mobile media and computing devices.

BlackBerry has been going downhill for awhile now. It’s new low being, dethrone as top smart phone in the Enterprise workspace

BlackBerry has been going downhill for some time now. The two headed CEO leadership just keeps saying everything is alright. We are still “King of the World” like they can’t see what everyone else sees. The near death of a once untouchable market leader. The service interruption might have been the last straw that pushed users and businesses over the edge. The timing could not have been better for other phone manufacturers looking to take a bite out of the enterprise space.

The release of iPhone’s are always a big deal for everyone this time around. Many Telecom, IT and just people who are forced to carry a BlackBerry thought long and hard this time around about making the switch. It seem to have worked. According to a report by iPass you might see an iPhone around the office more than you see a BlackBerry. Truth be told I see more and more of them everyday in the office. Most people where I an issued BlackBerry and a person iPhone on their hips gunslinger style. What the Mobile Workforce Report from research firm iPass is saying is that people are now actually being issued iPhones instead of a Blackberry.

The report states 45% of the enterprise workforce carries an iPhone, up from 31.1% last year. BlackBerry market share has only 32% Android’s market share doubled year over year to surpass Symbian. I tend to take Android numbers with a grain of salt since everyone and their mother makes a phone for the platform. Nevertheless they have 21% share of the enterprise smartphone market. So they soon as next year could pass BlackBerry as well since only 2.3% of workers have plans to buy a BlackBerry next year.

The iPass study also shows that found a number of other compelling tidbits: 40% of mobile workers would feel disoriented if they didn’t have a smartphone for a week. I feel that way if missing my iPhone for an hour. The iPass study was based on a survey of more than 2,300 workers around the world. Feel free to read the report at iPass. Note that it is a PDF.

SecondMarket making more money

For companies that are not yet ready to go public, SecondMarket has become the best place to raise capital. This is the only place where you can buy Facebook stock the Holy Grail of IPOs. The recent series C investment raises its valuation to $200 million, according to the Wall Street Journal.

The founder of Social+Capital Partnership recently invested $17 million in enterprise social network, Yammer said the following in a statement: “SecondMarket has become the preeminent platform for private company shares enabling companies to meet their liquidity needs, help retain and reward talent, and provide start-ups with an opportunity to monetize and grow their businesses.”

Cantor Fitzgerald & Co. and Liquidnet in the last few months have become competition for SeconMarket. Both have expanded their portfolios to include pre-IPO trading of shares.

How to get me time in a Social World

Have you ever tried to fade away for some me time? Back in the day you could just turn off your phone and be invisible on AIM. It’s hard to do now a days. With Social Media giving your current status to pretty much everyone you directly or indirectly know.

Your thoughts, moods and location are constantly updated to the likes of Facebook, twitter, Google plus, Xbox live, PS3 even WordPress if they subscribe to the rss feed of your blog. Just fading away no longer happens its more like you become a ghost.

I don’t think it’s even possible to completely ignore the social space. It’s in almost everything we do. Your phone has a GPS to check in to FourSquare. Your car can tweet when you’re low on gas or need a charge.

Mainstream news such as CNN has adopted tweets. Where are you going to find a nice calm place for me time? Worse yet, let’s say you this magical place. Would you be able enjoy it without constantly thinking about your post and tweets?

[ Some parts via RubenSaintel.com]