Apple: The new AT&T

 

Steve Jobs last gift to technology buffs may not be just a new iPhone or SmarTV. Apple’s next market maybe to take on carriers. So look out AT&T and Verizon Wireless. It makes perfect sense and something that Google has been working on for a while.  Apple as  a direct mobile service provider ensures that the network can not be to blame for shabby service. Apple has somewhere in the neighborhood of 250 million credit cards on file for iTunes users. That means they can just charge your iTunes account for the monthly phone bill.

Apple has a network architecture technology that will help it make the jump. They have had a patent-pending on the technology since 2006.  If Apple does have a very large piggy bank to help with the  subsidies carriers pay to keep iPhone pricing affordable. As much as I love the iPhone,  I do not think I nor anyone else but the most die hard Apple Fanboy would pay upwards of $700 for a phone.

Would Apple bite the hand that feeds it? Apple has never been one to care about anything other than a good product. They don’t about their customers wants only what Apple thinks they need. So, I think Apple will do this just as soon as their patent gets approved.

Google Drive set to take on Dropbox for your easy backup needs

 

The rumors are true.  Google Drive is ready to come out and play with the cloud store age world.  So far it is not as integrated at Apple’s iCloud but that is only a matter of time. Google says you can create, share, collaborate, and keep all of your stuff. They do mean all of it. You can save anything from videos, photos, Google Docs, PDFs and even executable files.  You can upload and access all of your files from any device including iOS. It is yet to be seen if this little beauty will have enough of what it takes to go up against the current Cloud Favorite DropBox.  Drive gives you 5GB of storage for free from the start and it is well integrated with your Google account already. That in its self maybe a pro and a con. I personal think Google knows to much about me already. Do I want to give them my files as well? If 5GB is not enough for you, you can choose to upgrade to 25GB for $2.49/month, 100GB for $4.99/month or even 1TB for $49.99/month.  The bonus of that is your Gmail account storage will get a bump to 25GB. You can request to be notified when Google Drive goes live by going over to drive.google.com/start.

What can you do with Google Drive? Ask no more:

• Create and collaborate. Google Docs is built right into Google Drive, so you can work with others in real time on documents, spreadsheets and presentations. Once you choose to share content with others, you can add and reply to comments on anything (PDF, image, video file, etc.) and receive notifications when other people comment on shared items.
• Store everything safely and access it anywhere (especially while on the go). All your stuff is just… there. You can access your stuff from anywhere—on the web, in your home, at the office, while running errands and from all of your devices. You can install Drive on your Mac or PC and can download the Drive app to your Android phone or tablet. We’re also working hard on a Drive app for your iOS devices. And regardless of platform, blind users can access Drive with a screen reader.
• Search everything. Search by keyword and filter by file type, owner and more. Drive can even recognize text in scanned documents using Optical Character Recognition (OCR) technology. Let’s say you upload a scanned image of an old newspaper clipping. You can search for a word from the text of the actual article. We also use image recognition so that if you drag and drop photos from your Grand Canyon trip into Drive, you can later search for [grand canyon] and photos of its gorges should pop up. This technology is still in its early stages, and we expect it to get better over time.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Microsoft and Facebook play nice with Patents. Apple and Samsung tae should take note.

Dear Apple and Samsung,

You might want take  note of what Microsoft and Facebook did today. Rather than squabbling over patents they worked out a $550 million patent agreement in which the social networking giant will purchase a portion of the patent portfolio Microsoft recently acquired recently from Aol. Facebook gets 650 patents and license the remaining patents from Microsoft. Microsoft will keep 275  patents and license 650 it transferred to Facebook.  Brad Smith, EVP and general counsel of Microsoft said that “Today’s agreement with Facebook enables us to recoup over half of our costs while achieving our goals from the AOL auction. As we said earlier this month, we had submitted the winning AOL bid in order to obtain a durable license to the full AOL portfolio and ownership of certain patents that complement our existing portfolio.” Ted Ullyot, Facebook’s general counsel, said, “this is another significant step in our ongoing process of building an intellectual property portfolio to protect Facebook’s interests over the long term.”

Microsoft, Facebook Announce Patent Agreement

April 23, 2012
REDMOND, Wash. and MENLO PARK, Calif. — April 23, 2012 — Microsoft Corp. and Facebook announced today a definitive agreement under which Microsoft will assign to Facebook the right to purchase a portion of the patent portfolio it recently agreed to acquire from AOL Inc. Facebook has agreed to purchase this portion for $550 million in cash.

In the initial AOL auction, Microsoft secured the ability to own or assign approximately 925 U.S. patents and patent applications plus a license to AOL’s remaining patent portfolio, which contains approximately 300 additional patents that were not for sale.

As a result of today’s agreement, Facebook will obtain ownership of approximately 650 AOL patents and patent applications, plus a license to the AOL patents and applications that Microsoft will purchase and own.

Upon closing of this transaction with Facebook, Microsoft will retain ownership of approximately 275 AOL patents and applications; a license to the approximately 650 AOL patents and applications that will now be owned by Facebook; and a license to approximately 300 patents that AOL did not sell in its auction.

“Today’s agreement with Facebook enables us to recoup over half of our costs while achieving our goals from the AOL auction,” said Brad Smith, executive vice president and general counsel, Microsoft. “As we said earlier this month, we had submitted the winning AOL bid in order to obtain a durable license to the full AOL portfolio and ownership of certain patents that complement our existing portfolio.”

“Today’s agreement with Microsoft represents an important acquisition for Facebook,” said Ted Ullyot, general counsel, Facebook. “This is another significant step in our ongoing process of building an intellectual property portfolio to protect Facebook’s interests over the long term.”

The parties are evaluating the accounting treatment for these transactions. These transactions are also subject to customary closing conditions, including clearance under the Hart-Scott-Rodino Antitrust Improvements Act of 1976, as amended.

Gmail down for the count. YahooMail might pick up new users?… Nah

 

Gmail is down for the moment so says the InterWebs. I am not having issues but that seems to not to be the norm.  Temporary Error 500 errors are all over Twitter and Facebook. They are just now popping up on blog sites.  This is not the first time that Gmail has gone down. There have been numerous outages over the years of Google’s email service crashing.  Google said that it is “investigating reports of an issue with Google Mail.” In the meantime F5 is  your friend.  Side note: The mobile apps are working just fine.

Google gets a $25,000 slap on the wrist and warning of more punishment for its Street View

Google was fined $25,000 by the Federal Communications Commission for accessing unsecured networks and collected personal information without users’ permission. The  U.S. investigation is not even done yet but seems that things will not turn out so well for the Big G. The investigation all stems from the data collection scandal surrounding its Street View project.  The FCC said that “Google refused to identify any employees or produce any e-mails. The company could not supply compliant declarations without identifying employees it preferred not to identify,” . “Misconduct of this nature threatens to compromise the commission’s ability to effectively investigate possible violations of the Communications Act and the commission’s rules.”

Google  for its part said that “As the FCC notes in their report, we provided all the materials the regulators felt they needed to conclude their investigation and we were not found to have violated any laws. We disagree with the FCC’s characterization of our cooperation in their investigation and will be filing a response.”

Amazon Fire Phone: Dear Google we can do an Android phone & we can do it better

Google’s Android device makers love Android because it is open source. What they don’t like is that they have to pay Google to use parts of it and that so much of it is locked down. Amazon’s Kindle Fire showed them another way it and they want to release their own.  Amazon’s Kindle Fire tablet runs on Android 2.3, gingerbread but Amazon has done such a great job with modding it; one can barely resembles Android.  Android’s source code is readily available, companies can do what they want with it. The only thing keeping them tied to Google has been, up to now, the desire to be part of the official lineup of Android Play and other Google apps.

However Amazon went their own way with a store and it worked. More and more companies plan to do the same thing. Sony already does something similar with Vita. This trend is great news for fans of the Android platform. This is not a good thing for  Google who will continue to lose what little control they have over it.

It is yet to be seen can Amazon work with major carriers to offer a phone.  There could and most likely will be a conflict of interest since Amazon currently sells phones. What is to stop them from marketing just their own phone and leaving everyone else on the shelf. That said it would be a PR nightmare if they did. I for one I’m looking forward to some competition to the Apple dominance and Android mediocreness.

Project Glass: Another cool Google dream that will never be used.

This looks very cool but will it work as an everyday type of device? Now if we take this a step further and have the technology inserted into contacts like the Six Million Dollar Man, that would be very cool and practical at the same time. Check out the concept video.

 

Google states on their blog “We think technology should work for you—to be there when you need it and get out of your way when you don’t. We’re sharing this information now because we want to start a conversation and learn from your valuable input. So we took a few design photos to show what this technology could look like and created a video to demonstrate what it might enable you to do.”

Google DuckDuckGo and see what Bings.

When it comes to the Internet and technology in general, hackers discover it first. Than when it becomes mainstream others follow. So is the case with the newest search engine on the block. The alternative search engine DuckDuckGo is growing at a staggering 227% a year. The bump is usage was ignited by a new and much more streamlined visual redesign. Google and Bing may have to take notice.

What makes DuckDuckGo different from other search engines is that it puts a concentrated effort to be privacy-friendly. With Google’s recent privacy change and Congress saying is alright for your boss to get your Facebook password; a little privacy seems like a great thing.

DuckDuckGo raised funding from Union Square Ventures and angel investors in October 2011. DuckDuckGo’s currently focused on ‘better programming queries’ and speed enhancements. Give it a try.

Google says your wallet is now safe

A security firm found vulnerabilities  for Google Wallet. One lets hackers bypass PIN protection if you have a rooted phone. The other one does the same thing but on a non rooted device.  Those exploits let anyone let an unauthorized user will be able to access a user’s prepaid funds without needing to know the Google Wallet pin.  Google said The  Wallet is safe and “offers advantages over the plastic cards and folded wallets in use today.” Google went on to say “rooting your phone will cause your Google Wallet data to be automatically wiped from the device,” “We strongly encourage anyone who loses or wants to sell their phone to call Google Wallet support toll-free at 855-492-5538 to disable the prepaid card,” Google said in a statement. “We are currently working on an automated fix as well that will be available soon. We also advise all Wallet users to set up a screen lock as an additional layer of protection for their phone.”

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.