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Apple patent reveals new MacBook battery and SSD configurations

Mon, 14 Nov 2011 15:40:28 +0000

Apple has patented many inventions and innovations in the past, some practical and some bordering on something you would expect from a sci-fi novel, but a recent publishing of Apple’s patents for their MacBook series of laptops might suggest that these could actually come into fruition in the near future. (more…) Apple patent reveals new MacBook battery and SSD configurations , By Ubergizmo . Top Stories : iPhone 4S Review ,

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Apple patent reveals new MacBook battery and SSD configurations

MacBook Pro Firmware Update 1.5 might solve random shutting down issue

Fri, 11 Nov 2011 03:12:46 +0000

Are you using what some deem to be the sweetest computing machine ever created, the MacBook Pro from Apple? Well, life is not always peaches and cream, and some MacBook Pro owners do experience glitches from time to time – the latest being the computer itself shutting down randomly for no apparent reason at all. As usual, things like this are not supposed to happen, but Apple has just released the MacBook Pro Firmware Update 1.5 which could potentially resolve this particularly irritating issue. Check out what Apple says about it below. MacBook Pro Firmware Update 1.5 might solve random shutting down issue , By Ubergizmo . Top Stories : Epic 4G Touch Review , Droid Bionic Review ,

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MacBook Pro Firmware Update 1.5 might solve random shutting down issue

Nokia Champagne calls for celebration

Fri, 11 Nov 2011 03:05:51 +0000

The name of a new Nokia phone has surfaced from the stats of an app called “I’m a WP7!” which has been used to discover certain Windows Phones in the past. But other than the name of the phone “Nokia Champagne” and its operating system, we don’t have a whole lot of details to work with. It could be the Nokia Lumia rebranded for another country or it could be a brand new device. However, because the phone is running on Windows Phone version 7.10.8711 which makes it a Tango device (since Tango builds are said to start at 8200 and higher). And since it is running on Windows Phone Tango, there have been speculations about the phone being the Lumia 800 with LTE support (Tango is supposed to be the first version of WP that supports LTE connectivity). Well until Nokia officially announces the phone, or more details leak, you’d best not hold your breath waiting for this device, since there’s no way to confirm if it’s even going to be released – at least not just yet. What do you think the Nokia Champagne is going to be? Nokia Champagne calls for celebration , By Ubergizmo . Top Stories : iPhone 4S Review , Epic 4G Touch Review ,

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Nokia Champagne calls for celebration

Honda small sport EV concept has great design cues

Fri, 11 Nov 2011 02:51:59 +0000

You know how strange it is for electric cars to be sold at the very beginning, only to have gas-powered ones overwhelm them, and the rest, as they say, is history. Well, the future has come one full circle this time around, and electric vehicles are starting to be pushed across different countries in a concerted effort to reduce global greenhouse emissions, not to mention lowering the dependency on ‘black gold’ (that’s oil). Since electric cars are the future, they ought to come with a mean looking design, and Honda does not disappoint with their small sport EV concept that is said to maximize “the fun of driving while achieving excellent environmental performance.” Sounds good on paper, and it also looks really nice as what you can see above, but other than promises of words, there is no word on the specifications of the vehicle, so hopefully Honda will be able to share more about the small sport EV concept in due time. Honda small sport EV concept has great design cues , By Ubergizmo . Top Stories : Epic 4G Touch Review , Droid Bionic Review ,

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Honda small sport EV concept has great design cues

Nissan Pivo 3 electric vehicle parks itself

Fri, 11 Nov 2011 02:42:50 +0000

You know that we are all created differently, and for some, doing something might be considered as child’s play, while others will struggle with it. Take parking your car into a tight spot for example – some relish the challenge and pull it off brilliantly, while others take ages to park before giving up (not before sharing paint with the other car to boot) and spending more money for valet parking. With Nissan’s Pivo 3 electric car, it will feature an Automated Valet Parking (AVP) system. As the name implies, the car can park itself without any help from the driver. I am not quite sure how long that will take in a potentially tight spot, as surely there is an algorithm programmed that does not allow the Pivo 3 to take chances – I guess this is when you override its command and take over the wheel. Check out the Pivo 3 in action in the video after the jump. Nissan Pivo 3 electric vehicle parks itself , By Ubergizmo . Top Stories : iPhone 4S Review , Droid Bionic Review ,

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Nissan Pivo 3 electric vehicle parks itself

Apple offering to replace frayed MagSafe power adapters

Thu, 10 Nov 2011 15:03:17 +0000

Some MacBook owners have probably received their laptops with Apple’s MagSafe chargers. For those who may have received the original T-style MagSafe adapters, you’re probably painfully aware of the MagSafe adapter’s ability to fray right the top, which will ultimately lead to wires being exposed and sometimes affecting the MagSafe’s ability to charge the MacBook properly. Apple offering to replace frayed MagSafe power adapters , By Ubergizmo . Top Stories : iPhone 4S Review , Droid Bionic Review ,

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Apple offering to replace frayed MagSafe power adapters

Gary Morgenthaler Explains Exactly How Siri Will Eat Google’s Lunch

Wed, 09 Nov 2011 19:36:41 +0000

The iPhone 4S is on the streets, and accompanying it is a helpful young virtual assistant named Siri. You’ve probably heard something about Siri by this point, as tech blogs and the media writ large, have been yammering about Siri’s technology at full blast. Since the beginning, and even more so since Siri was acquired by Apple in 2010, there’s been a lot of excitement about voice recognition technology. This hit fever pitch with Siri’s native launch on the 4S. Of course, Siri isn’t perfect. She’s been down and out and has experienced a backlash due to limitations in voice recognition, inability to open apps, etc. But many people (among them, one Eric Schmidt) take another stance: Siri is game-changing, and not only that, she poses a significant threat to Google (and beyond). In his letter to the Senate Subcommittee on Antitrust, Competition Policy, and Consumer Rights , Google Executive Chairman Eric Schmidt talks quite a bit about Siri and how it represents “an entirely new approach to search technology” — one that is a “significant development”. Basically, he says that Siri is the biggest threat to Google’s control of search, well, ever. The writing, as they say, is on the wall. So, we thought there was no better way to get the lowdown on Schmidt’s statement to the Senate Subcommittee and the future of the feisty young virtual assistant than by talking to one of the people who played an integral role in Siri’s early life. Gary Morgenthaler , a partner at the eponymous VC firm, Morgenthaler Ventures , was the first investor in Siri in 2008 and served on the company’s board of directors until it was acquired by Apple. Morgenthaler was also an early investor in Nuance Communications, now a leader in voice recognition (and also now used in the iPhone 4S). “Eric might be more right than he knows,” says Morgenthaler. “A million blue links from Google is worth far less than one correct answer from Siri,” he adds. These are very early days for Siri, but already he hears that “Siri’s usage has been 10x more than what Apple anticipated.” The big potential, of course, is if Apple opens up Siri to outside developers, which could create a new wave of voice-enabled apps and give Apple an edge over Android and other mobile platforms. (Morgenthaler also gets into the challenges Apple must overcome before it can open up Siri). If people start using Siri to bypass search, that is a huge threat to Google. But how would Siri make money? It wouldn’t be from advertising. In Morgenthaler’s mind, the biggest opportunity is getting in the middle of transaction. “Corporations will be happy to skip advertising altogether, if they can go straight to transactions,” he says. Below Morgenthaler responds to a number of questions, on Siri, the future of voice technology, and MG’s post here . Google Chairman Eric Schmidt testified before a Senate subcommittee investigating Google’s dominance in Web search in September 2010. During the proceedings, Schmidt said Siri was a serious threat to their search business. What do you make of that? At the time Schmidt said that, Siri was just a 3-week old beta product. While some may say it’s a smokescreen for the Senate, Eric might be more right than he knows. He’s smart and understands the potential threat of Siri to disrupt Google’s search business some time in the future. What he may not realize is just how quickly that will happen. Not only is the Siri team within Apple extremely capable, but Siri is learning every day and adding streams and streams of user data to her artificial-intelligence knowledge base. I predict she will be able to answer and perform transactions as quickly as a human within 2 or 3 years. The real turning point will be when, and if, Apple will open their API to 3rd-party developers. Android will suddenly not be at parity with iOS – it won’t be an even playing field anymore because Google will simply not have a response to Siri’s natural language, artificial intelligence capability. Developers will flock to Apple’s platform because they can build the next generation of cool, new apps. I hear Siri’s usage has been 10x more than what Apple anticipated – which accounts for the outages of last week I suspect. Siri has captured people’s imagination. After 50 years of sci-fi movies in which you can talk to your computers and have it understand and perform tasks for you – that time is finally here. We’ve crossed a threshold, though it’s only the beginning. How is Siri different from what Google has currently? Google has had voice tech for some time. Siri allows free-flowing natural language interaction with computers, whereas Google requires you to speak like a robot. Google Voice Actions (GVA) is not bad for what it does, but Siri leaves it far behind as the last vestige of the 20th century in human-computer interface. Speaking technically, GVA supports speech recognition and simple agent behaviors, whereas Siri understands language, models knowledge and applies logic, in addition. As a result, Siri creates a far more intelligent and human-like experience for users. Beyond that, Google is robotic and devoid of personality. The Siri team went to great lengths to create an appealing persona and personality to create user engagement. In particular, we defined a lifelike virtual personal assistant with the best qualities of human personal assistants: efficient, knowledgeable, professional, compliant, uncomplaining, and witty with a slight attitude. At all costs, she could not be robotic or insipid, like Microsoft’s “Bob.” Instead, she must always be fresh, unexpected, entertaining and engaging. Siri must consistently “surprise and delight,” such that users become attached to using her. TechCrunch also addressed this question in a truly excellent article by MG Siegler. As you said, Siri is in beta and only used for internal apps in 15 use cases, e.g. calendaring, music, etc. When do you think they will go prime time and open up to a world of 3rd-party developers? First, there is an extraordinary distance to go before Siri is ready for 3rd party developers. Apple has much work to do in perfecting the basic Siri experience. With a good Internet connection and proper diction, Siri answers correctly 9 times out of 10. To compete with humans, however, Siri must get to the correct answer 29 times out of 30, or 97% of the time. Interestingly, once machines give consistently correct answers, humans would rather deal with them than other humans, i.e., witness ATM machines. It takes less energy to deal with a machine than a human to accomplish your purpose. Beyond consistency, there are MANY more tasks that Siri can perform on your behalf. She can manage travels plans and reservations, coordinate local services, find and plan entertainment, purchase e-commerce goods and serve as gateway to 3000 e-commerce service APIs on the Web. Beyond that, Siri can learn your preferences and transactional information, so that she can automate any of these transactions without user involvement. Regarding 3rd parties, this is harder. First, there is the question of who will provide the service: Apple in the iCloud or the 3rd party developer. If 3rd parties are to provide the service, then Apple must license Siri server technology to them. If Apple provides Siri service in the iCloud, a pricing model for 3rd parties must be developed. Someone must manage provisioning, and ramp service up and down, to meet changing demand. Finally, there is the matter of quality control and branding. Siri is built from complicated technology that is difficult to use correctly. 3rd parties must be taught to integrate with it and use it effectively, as well as to debug it when things go wrong. This will not be easy. There is also the matter of persona and brand. Siri as a character now has a brand meaning to the masses in terms of competence, attitude, persona and engagement. Third parties, very reasonably, will want to create their own characters and personae. Apple will not be happy if they trample or spoil what has been created with Siri. What is the real threat of Siri to Google? A million blue links from Google is worth far less than one correct answer from Siri. People don’t really want search engines. Rather, they want “do” engines. They want to get things done. Siri is the precursor to a revolution in search that provides far more intelligence in filtering results. The end goal is a single correct answer. Siri is a major advance in this direction. Perhaps more importantly, Siri doesn’t stop with giving you URLs (a.k.a., blue links). Instead, Siri takes you all the way through to pending transactions, requiring only your confirmation to complete them. Siri’s better filtering of results and automation of parameter entry for forms and transactions saves enormous human effort. In this way, Siri points to the future of search. How do you see Siri threatening Google’s advertising and ecommerce dollars? Ultimately, corporations don’t want impressions; they want customer transactions. Corporations will be happy to skip advertising altogether, if they can go straight to transactions. In the age of “do” engines, Google becomes much less relevant. I know you don’t have inside information, but what is possible with Siri in terms of future revenue streams? Again, there are 3000 e-commerce service APIs open and available on the Internet. As a platform, Siri is designed to integrate with any of them. Moreover, Siri is designed to be extensible and readily incorporate new domains of knowledge and expertise. Referring e-commerce transactions on a cost-per-action (CPA) basis is the highest value marketing lead referral on the Internet. In this regard, Siri represents a long-term threat to Google; Siri can disintermediate Google from advertisers altogether. What is the future of Siri’s technology? Siri was architected as an extensible platform to which new domains (e.g., e-commerce shopping, personal memory, sports, blogging, news, social networking, etc.) could be added in a matter of weeks. Effectively, the plan was for Siri to become significantly smarter with new product releases adding multiple new domains each quarter. Beyond that, Siri was designed to be extensible by 3rd party developers to add their specific domain expertise to the core domains understood by Siri (e.g., travel, entertainment, restaurants, local services, Twitter, messaging, etc.). The goal was to make Siri an open platform for Siri developers to build valuable independent businesses. The Apple developer community includes more than 100,000 developers. Opening Siri to this developer community would create a potential tsunami of new voice enabled applications of all kinds. However, for Apple, it also presents a new and unfamiliar class of problems. For example, is Siri a licensed server software product or an Internet software-as-a-service? If the latter, what is the pricing, and how does Apple manage provisioning, etc. Likewise, the Siri “executive assistant” personality now has branded characteristics as a positive experience in the minds of users. How does Apple defend this branded experience against those who might vary it, trade upon it or parody it? There are MANY more such questions for Apple to answer before it opens its revolutionary conversational user interface to developers. When it does, developers by the thousands will shift their energies to the Apple/Siri platform, thereby disadvantaging Android, as well as the flagging RIM and Microsoft platforms. What has the most monetizable value and solves our biggest problems? The Siri team thought long and hard about this question. Ultimately, we concluded that a relatively small portion of Internet searches were directed at those transactions that resulted in commercial transactions, e.g., hotel reservations, restaurant reservations, ticket bookings, travel bookings, e-commerce purchases, local services procurement, etc. Deep knowledge of a relatively small number of domains was required to manage these domains. The long tail of the Internet is epistemologically very hard to comprehend. However, the domains that have commercial value are relatively few in number and not that difficult to understand. Therefore, when Siri was an independent company, its plan was to map these domains deeply and seamlessly to automate transactions for its users within them. For example, “Buy that Steve Jobs biography book and send it to my dad”; “Send a dozen yellow roses to my wife”; “Book me the usual table for 2 tonight at 8 p.m. at Giovanni’s”; and “Get me 2 box seats for the Giants game on Saturday.” Then comes the question of what solves our biggest problems. Ultimately, Siri’s value is that of automation and removing “friction” on the Internet. Siri achieves this by: (1) understanding speech input in natural language form, (2) mapping user requests against its knowledge base (i.e., ontological domains) and (3) activating software “agents” to interact with Internet service providers to fulfill user requests. All this is easier said than done. User problems in using the Internet are amplified on mobile devices because their screens and keyboards are small and cumbersome — and page downloads are slow. Siri removes these frictions. It eliminates thumb-typing entirely, and it dramatically reduces the number of page downloads. In this sense, Siri finally and truly enables the mobile Internet.

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Gary Morgenthaler Explains Exactly How Siri Will Eat Google’s Lunch

AOL, Yahoo, And Microsoft Band Together To Fend Off Facebook’s Ad Assault

Wed, 09 Nov 2011 01:32:47 +0000

There have been a number of rumors circulating around Yahoo, Microsoft, and Aol of late, most of them focusing on a potential Aol/Yahoo merger, or Yahoo’s acquisition by Aol or Microsoft, etc. Well, it seems the companies have officially become linked, but they’ve run into each other’s arms not by way of M&A, but by way of display ads. Yes, the three internet behemoths today announced agreements that they hope will improve the process of buying and selling premium online display inventory. In other words, the agreements will allow each to offer the other’s display ads to their respective customers. With agencies and advertisers now able to pick and choose between Yahoo’s Network Plus, Aol’s Advertising.com and Microsoft’s Media network, each of which has different strengths in data, optimization, packaging, etc., this strategic partnership creates somewhat of a mega ad network. Online advertising is all about scale, and with this threefold growth in inventory, the three companies are looking to more quickly achieve the scale that is far more difficult to reach alone. While the companies hope that this agreement will drive better returns for their customers ( see Yahoo Executive VP Ross Levinsohn’s statement here ), it remains to be seen just how “premium” the partnership’s ads will be. Premium ad inventories are inherently a product of scarcity, which seems to be a bit at odds with the scale/network approach the companies are taking, where nobody really knows what they’re selling. What’s more, while this may improve the process of buying and selling online display inventory, it’s also a play to fend off the meteoric rise of Facebook (and, in turn, Google, which owns a 75 percent share of search advertising). Really, everyone is spending more time on Facebook, what with their measly 800 million users, and advertisers are following them there. To that point, Facebook now accounts for one out of every three ad impressions in the U.S. Up until now, no other web property in the U.S. really comes close. ( See our coverage here .) Thanks to the tables below from eMarketer , we see that Facebook leads the way in net display revenues in the U.S. with over $2 billion this year. Yahoo comes in second, with Microsoft and Aol far behind Google in third and fourth. The same ranking is true for share of the online display ad market, with Facebook holding 16 percent over Yahoo’s 13 percent — and eMarketer expects both Google and Facebook’s share to increase significantly next year to 19 percent and 12 percent, putting Google neck-and-neck with Yahoo. What’s more, in terms of growth in online display advertising, Facebook saw a 66 percent increase this year, far outpacing the rest of the pack. I’ll hold off there, because you probably get the picture. Yahoo has the biggest ad network in terms of revenues and marketshare of the this new ad trifecta, which certainly makes this an advantageous partnership for Microsoft and Aol, at least from this perspective. But, in the end, at least for the foreseeable future, it’s hard to see this as anything but a bandaid. Facebook’s growth in display advertising isn’t slowing down any time soon. Crunchbase YAHOO! MICROSOFT AOL FACEBOOK GOOGLE Company: Yahoo! Website: yahoo.com Launch Date: January 1, 1994 IPO: December 4, 1996, Nasdaq:YHOO Yahoo was founded in 1994 by Stanford Ph.D. students David Filo and Jerry Yang. It has since evolved into a major internet brand with search, content verticals, and other web services. Yahoo! Inc. (Yahoo!), incorporated in 1995, is a global Internet brand. To users, the Company provides owned and operated online properties and services (Yahoo! Properties, Offerings, or Owned and Operated sites). Yahoo! also extends its marketing platform and access to Internet users beyond Yahoo! Properties through its distribution network… Learn more Company: Microsoft Website: microsoft.com Launch Date: April 4, 1974 IPO: NASDAQ:MSFT Microsoft, founded in 1975 by Bill Gates and Paul Allen, is a veteran software company, best known for its Microsoft Windows operating system and the Microsoft Office suite of productivity software. Starting in 1980 Microsoft formed a partnership with IBM allowing Microsoft to sell its software package with the computers IBM manufactured. Microsoft is widely used by professionals worldwide and largely dominates the American corporate market. Additionally, the company has ventured into hardware with consumer products such as the Zune and… Learn more Company: AOL Website: aol.com IPO: NYSE:AOL AOL is a global advertising-supported Web company, with display advertising network in the U.S., a substantial worldwide audience, and a suite of popular Web brands and products. The company’s strategy focuses on increasing the scale and sophistication of its advertising platform and growing the size and engagement of its global online audience through leading products and programming. On March 13, 2008, AOL Internet division announced their plans to buy social network Bebo for $850 million in cash. History of Aol: AOL was… Learn more Company: Facebook Website: facebook.com Launch Date: January 2, 2004 Funding: $2.34B Facebook is the world’s largest social network, with over 500 million users. Facebook was founded by Mark Zuckerberg in February 2004, initially as an exclusive network for Harvard students. It was a huge hit: in 2 weeks, half of the schools in the Boston area began demanding a Facebook network. Zuckerberg immediately recruited his friends Dustin Moskowitz and Chris Hughes to help build Facebook, and within four months, Facebook added 30 more college networks. The original idea for the term… Learn more Company: Google Website: google.com Launch Date: July 9, 1998 IPO: NASDAQ:GOOG Google provides search and advertising services, which together aim to organize and monetize the world’s information. In addition to its dominant search engine, it offers a plethora of online tools and platforms including: Gmail, Maps and YouTube. Most of its Web-based products are free, funded by Google’s highly integrated online advertising platforms AdWords and AdSense. Google promotes the idea that advertising should be highly targeted and relevant to users thus providing them with a rich source of information…. Learn more

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AOL, Yahoo, And Microsoft Band Together To Fend Off Facebook’s Ad Assault

Firefox 8 update throws in Twitter search as well

Tue, 08 Nov 2011 17:55:36 +0000

At long last, the Firefox 8 browser is no longer in beta mode – but rather, it is a full fledged, grown up piece of software that intends to bring your web browsing experience to totally new heights. An update to Firefox for Windows, Mac, Linux and Firefox for Android platforms will include the rudimentary fair share of features, where among the goodies that come with this update would be providing not only users but developers as well with more control over how one customizes their Web experience. Firefox 8 update throws in Twitter search as well , By Ubergizmo . Top Stories : iPhone 4S Review , Epic 4G Touch Review ,

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Firefox 8 update throws in Twitter search as well

Time Warner Cable users experience outage

Mon, 07 Nov 2011 19:28:22 +0000

Most of us with a decent Internet connection these days might have gotten far too comfortable in our respective comfort zones – that an outage, even a short one, might actually irk us to no end. Well, I guess the same applies to a bunch of Time Warner Cable’s Internet customers around the country earlier this morning when a brief outage happened. According to Time Warner Cable, “We appear to be recovering from a large but brief internet outage affecting most of our service areas.” A tweet from them did request for customers to “attempt to connect again.” It seemed as though the outage happened sometime after 6:00 a.m. PT, affecting subscribers around the country – at least that was the impression we received. Plenty of folks took to Twitter as well to vent their frustrations on the outage. Good news is, the issue does seem to have been resolved already, yet again underlining how pervasive and influential an Internet connection is in our lives. Time Warner Cable users experience outage , By Ubergizmo . Top Stories : Epic 4G Touch Review , Galaxy S2 Review ,

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Time Warner Cable users experience outage