Comcast turns the landline into mobile phone
Comcast, the largest U.S cable operator, is pushing ahead with its drive to transform the way Americans live with a range of new communications and video services launched at this year’s Cable Show in Boston.
The latest is a new service called Voice 2go, part of its Xfinity Voice landline phone service, which offers lots of the features customers have become used to with cellphones.
The new features are based within a new Xfinity Connect mobile app that works on iPhones, iPads and Android phones. It enables Xfinity Voice customers to make free calls within a WiFi network — which is even more useful now that the Comcast and several other operators have enabled a common WiFi network across major U.S. cities. It also allows customers to use the service on 3G and 4G phones without eating up valuable minutes. As part of this it also enables free text messaging.
Another key feature is a virtual number offer similar to Google Voice, so a user can have up to four additional numbers within a home at no extra cost.
All this is great stuff for consumers who find these kinds of features helpful. But it might also help allay fears of regulators, who are examining whether a Verizon wireless deals with Comcast and other cable operators will hurt competition. This way, Comcast is giving them an alternative to signing up with wireless competitors.
LinkedIn launches iPad app
Reaching people through mobile devices is one of LinkedIn’s key initiatives and yet, the networking site for job-seeking professionals never had a proper app for tablets.
The number of LinkedIn members — all 150 million of them — who use mobile phones to access the site is growing at a fast clip. In Q1, LinkedIn said that 22 percent of its traffic came from mobile devices, up from 15 percent in Q4 2011.
On Wednesday, LinkedIn finally rolled out an app for iPads hoping to get more people to linger at the site longer.
Joff Redfern, head of mobile product at LinkedIn, said that they noticed specific times of the day that people would log on with their mobile devices. “What we saw, compared to the desktop usage, was huge spikes of usage during the day. One early in the morning from 6 to 9 — the “coffee session” — and the other big spike was from 7 pm to 11 pm–’ the couch session.’”
The free app, available through Apple’s App Store, has a whole bunch of features including one that syncs up to your calendar and will provide a profile of the people you are set to meet.
The high costs of the cloud
How great is it that high-definition video is now portable? Thanks to cloud computing, superfast 4G networks and tablets with high-resolution screens, we can watch thousands of movies and TV shows in lush, beautiful clarity wherever we go.
In a way, that is pretty great, as the millions of people who have bought the new iPad with retina display and LTE connections have already seen. But in another way, it’s going to quickly become not so great: As hi-def video – or rather, the data bandwidth to deliver it – becomes a commodity for more people, that commodity will start to become much more expensive. Not just for consumers, but for the companies that will increasingly need more wireless spectrum and wired infrastructure to handle the surge in data demand.
Call it the curse of the cloud. The proliferation of online video services and portable devices to watch them on have added congestion to data networks even as wireless carriers impose fees on its biggest data users. According to Bytemobile, video accounted for half of all mobile data traffic in February, up from 40 percent only a year earlier.
And that was before the arrival of the new iPad, which has four times as many pixels as the iPad 2. More pixels can enhance hi-def video but requires more data. Demand for wireless data will rise even higher once more LTE smartphones – including, most likely, the iPhone 5 expected this year – start streaming video and other high-bandwidth content on them. If carriers are overwhelmed by the demand, as AT&T was with its notoriously unreliable 3G networks, wireless service will grow more spotty over time. But we’ll be paying more for it.
We’re already seeing some of this happening with the LTE iPads. Just ask the guy who used his brand new iPad to watch NCAA games while attending NCAA games, blowing through his 2GB allotment in less than two days. Or the USA Today columnist who says he did the same just by downloading apps. Meanwhile, complaints were surfacing on message boards that AT&T’s LTE networks were dragging in some urban areas as people played with their new iPads.
It won’t be just iPads and the next generation of iPhones taxing wireless networks. Apple is the first to offer an LTE tablet to the masses, but LTE Android tablets will follow, as will more LTE phones powered by Android, which runs on 51 percent of the world’s smartphones. Verizon, AT&T and Sprint have been building out their 4G networks for years, but Verizon recently warned that despite that effort, demand will outstrip LTE capacity as early as next year.
Five 2011 tech earthquakes
By John C Abell The opinions expressed are his own.
Pick a year: It’s easy to look back and convince yourself That Was The Year That Was in tech, partly because the pace of change is so rapid and partly because we so readily embrace and then quickly depend on things that are completely different. Consider this: When the class of 2012 was applying to college, there was no iPhone. Until those students were just about at the end of their junior years, there was no iPad. Both of these nascent devices now define the mobile Internet, which is where all the action is.
But 2011 had some pretty remarkable advances that seem to be the start of inexorable things to come, as well as some surprising and sad examples of demise, whose impact will surely be felt for years to come, in ways that are currently near-impossible to predict.
Some may argue that 2011 was the year of the tablet (redux), because of the spritely launch of Amazon’s Fire and Barnes & Noble’s reboot of the Nook color. I say, it was bound to happen, and that the only really interesting thing is that content companies are giving Apple a bit of competition, and not the hardware bigwigs.
The cloud was big in 2011, but in a way it just seemed to finally achieve escape velocity after Apple created iCloud within its rigorously controlled ecosystem.
Here are five tech events from 2011 that may not seem entirely obvious but which I think will resonate for years.
Siri
@Vidya3049 You are correct, sir. We will all be looking for early cracks. I think, however, that there is enough in the secret Apple pipeline to stay on the crest of the wave for many years to come — we’ll be seeing what was in Steve’s cupboard well past 2013, I would venture to say.
UPDATE-PayPal tries to lure retailers to mobile app
(Updates to explain “secure element” issue. Changes in bold in paragraphs 10, 11)
Online payments firm PayPal is so keen to get mobile payments off the ground it has taken the unusual step of opening a Manhattan dummy store that demos how the app can be used (pictured at right).
It’s idea is to demonstrate the application to merchants at the “store” between now and February.
PayPal’s head of mobile payments, Laura Chambers, said merchants have given a “very enthusiastic” response to PayPal’s plans for the wallet launch next year. The eBay unit promises to reveal a pilot merchant partner by year end. But Chambers was not ready to name any merchants or even any retail sectors that are interested in supporting the app in an interview at the downtown showcase.
In the meantime it will finally launch a PayPal app for Android phones that lets users tap their phones together to exchange money. The app, which the company already showed off as early as June this year, uses a peer-to-peer version of Near Field Communication, a short range wireless technology.
Other U.S. companies such as Google and the four top U.S. mobile network operators are throwing their weight behind NFC – a technology they plan to use to allow consumers to pay for shopping by simply waving their phones at a check-out terminal in stores.
PayPal (which is owned by eBay) is for fools that don’t mind getting the shaft!!!
What is Google’s mobile revenue? Depends how you do the math.
Google wowed Wall Street with the revelation that its mobile business is generating revenue at a run rate of over $2.5 billion.
Not bad for a business that’s still in its infancy, and which was operating at a $1 billion run rate at this time last year.
Of course, a run rate is not the same as revenue that’s been booked – it’s simply a way of extrapolating what a full year’s worth of revenue will be, assuming the current rate of revenue holds steady.
So what is Google’s actual mobile revenue right now?
Many Wall Street analysts estimated on Friday that Google generated $625 million in mobile revenue in the recently-ended quarter -– a not unreasonable assumption, given that four quarters’ worth of $625 million totals $2.5 billion. (And since Google said the run rate was more than $2.5 billion, perhaps $626 million for the quarter would be an even more reasonable estimate).
Not so fast, says BGC Partners analyst Colin Gillis.
There’s no guarantee that Google based its run rate on a full quarter’s worth of revenue.
Tech wrap: HP’s TouchPad sell-off
Hewlett-Packard has finally discovered the magic price point for its TouchPad tablet: $99. The tech giant announced the new low price for the 16 GB model of the recently discontinued device over the weekend, also dropping the price for its 32 GB version to $149. Retailers such as Best Buy, Staples and Walmart followed HP’s lead by offering TouchPad fire sales of their own.
The response: overwhelming. According to PC World, many retailers had sold out of the devices by mid-day on Saturday. By Monday morning, the TouchPad had climbed to the No.1 spot on the Amazon best-seller list for electronics. Expect the selling frenzy to continue this week: HP said on Monday it intends to deliver more of the tablets until the supply runs out. HP originally launched the smaller model with a $500 price tag, but reduced it to $400 soon after its July 1 release in an attempt to spur demand.
Separately, HP launched a new desktop on Monday, days after the technology company revealed that it might spin off the world’s largest PC business — part of a wrenching series of moves away from the consumer market, including killing the TouchPad. HP billed the new computer — the HP Compaq 8200 Elite All-in-One Business Desktop — as the “first all-in-one PC” aimed at corporate and public sector customers.
Is the patent arms race over in the mobile phone sector now that Google has announced it’s buying Motorola Mobility Holdings? Reuters correspondents Poornima Gupta and Bill Rigby take a closer look in a new analysis: “The bubble in mobile phone technology patent values may just have popped. Now that Google has agreed to buy Motorola Mobility Holdings — scooping up a trove of 17,000 phone-related patents to give itself some ground to defend its Android operating system — the most motivated buyer looks to be off the market.”
Skype is beefing up its mobile communications services. The Internet calling company said on Sunday it was buying GroupMe, a New York-based startup that lets people communicate in private groups over cellphones. Terms of the deal were not disclosed.
I just overclocked my Touchpad to 1.5Ghz and I installed the Hulu fix so I can watch Hulu on my Touchpad! Here is the step by step instructions:
http://www.fatdeals.net/forumdisplay.php ?f=10
Very easy to follow instructions!
Glam Media rolls out mobile ad platform
Glam Media is rolling out a mobile advertising platform for its stable of website properties and for other publishers taking direct aim at Apple’s iAd.
This is the latest move for the company, a network of highly currated blogs mainly centered around fashion, healthy and beauty that target women. It recently launched a new platform to support more than 10,000 authors and writers in addition to a tool box that helps its content creators navigate the increasingly complex world of social media.
The mobile ad platform called GlamMobile is for brand marketers — Lexus and Macy’s are launch sponsors of Glam Mobile. The platform is also available to help outside publishers develop websites that are suited to smartphone and tablets running on Apple’s iOS and Google’s Android operating systems.
“At this point for a brand advertiser you really want to reach all consumers regardless of device,” said GlamMedia CEO Samir Arora. “It makes us move into the one of the fastest growing spaces within digital advertising. For any brand to reach consumers today mobile is a key part of their strategy.”
GlamMedia is one of the top 10 U.S. Web properties in the U.S. with more than 81.5 million unique visitors for the month of July, according to online research firm comScore.
Is a Facebook iPad App finally coming?
In the nearly 15 months since Apple launched its iPad, there’s been one conspicuous absence for users of the tablet: a Facebook app.
That will change in the coming weeks, as Facebook, the world’s No.1 Internet social network, prepares to unveil an app specially-designed for the iPad, according to a report in the New York Times today.
In development for almost a year, the Facebook iPad app is now in its final stages of testing and has received close attention throughout the process from Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg, the Times reported, citing anonymous sources. The report said the app will have capabilities beyond what’s available on Facebook’s website, such as specialized video and photo features.
A Facebook spokesperson told Reuters the company has nothing to announce regarding an iPad app and doesn’t comment on the development of future products. He said Facebook has a great relationship with Apple, citing the work the two companies had done together on Facebook’s existing app for the iPhone.
There has been increasing speculation that Facebook and Apple are increasingly at odds.
Earlier this week, the blog TechCrunch described a secret planby Facebook to undermine Apple’s control of the app market, by encouraging software developers to create apps that run directly in a mobile Web browser, thus bypassing Apple’s App Store.
And Apple of course struck a deal to integrate Twitter directly into the next version of its iPhone and iPad software, a move that could threaten Facebook by making Twitter the social networking service of choice for Apple users.
Zynga plots its mobile stategy
Zynga wants to get into your pocket. As the publisher of games like, “Word with Friends,” a Scrabble-clone popular on Apple devices and since February, on Android platforms, Zynga, known as the top games publisher on Facebook, is likely trying to reduce its reliance of Mark Zuckerberg and co’s platform.
“You should play and you should pay,” says David Ko, the former Yahoo executive who moved to Zynga in November to spearhead its mobile push.
In a recent interview, Ko told Reuters that Zynga’s mobile strategy has two parts: Creating mobile versions of existing Web titles like ”FarmVille” and “Mafia Wars” and, having users play games on their mobile devices before anywhere else, like on “Words with Friends.”
In the U.S, Ko says, mobile games are growing at a “high clip,” but that the faster growth is in markets like South East Asia where people are turning to games first on their smartphones since PCs are less prevalent.
“In markets like South East Asia, mobile-first experiences are going to lead the way,” Ko says.
Next year, users should expect a lot of different types of Zynga mobile games, Ko says. A franchise it could certainly tap is CityVille, which grew to 101 million users in no time but that has no current mobile version.
