Tech News Today 388

Tech News Today Episode 388

Tech News Today 388: Your Phone Is Your Thing

Windows 8 App store unveiled, Eric Schmidt predicts Google TV domination by next summer, Facebok Timeline arrives, and more.

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Hosts

• Tom Merritt (@acedtect)
  • TomMerritt.com
• Iyaz Akhtar (@Iyaz)
  • thisoldnerd.finitecomedy.com
• Jason Howell (@raygun01)/www.google.com Their website]
• Rafe Needleman
  • www.rafesradar.com

Top Stories

• Win 8 app store revealed: more money for devs, beta in late February
• Microsoft confirms Windows 8 public beta coming February 2012
• Microsoft seeks to woo developers with Windows 8 store
• Microsoft’s Steven Sinofsky: A Windows Store Is Just Natural
• Previewing the Windows Store
  • MS detailed its Windows Store, its market for Metro-style Win8 apps
  • It will support both free and paid apps. Paid apps will range in price from $1.49 to $999
  • Trial versions of apps also available
  • MS will provide ads and in-app purchasing (these are optional features)
  • Devs will be able to use the ""App Certification Kit"" - a part of the SDK - to make sure their apps get through. If apps are rejected MS will give feedback.
  • App payment structure. MS takes 30% cut, dev takes 70%. When an app reaches $25,000 in revenue - aggregated across all sales in every market - dev keeps 80%.
  • Microsoft will bolster app development by having its First Apps contest. Winners get a Samsung Windows Developer Preview PC, One year of Azure, two-year subscription to the store.
  • In an AllThingsD interview, Steven Sinofsky said the mechanism by which businesses and developers can deliver Metro apps to customers will be when Windows 8 hits beta. Otherwise, you're using the Windows Store for Metro apps.
  • Microsoft also just confirmed that the public release of Windows 8 Beta will come in February of 2012.
  • Sinofsky also said the WinStore isn't coming to older versions of Windows and refused to say if ARM-based Windows 8 devices will be able to run desktop apps.

• Schmidt Reckons Most TVs Will Have Google TV By Mid-2012
• Eric Schmidt: Google Is Buying One Company A Week
• Google’s Eric Schmidt: Google Is Not A Country
• Google's Schmidt: Android leads the iPhone
• Facebook Loses The Godfather Exclusive to Google’s Game Network
  • "By the summer of 2012, the majority of the televisions you see in stores will have Google TV embedded in it," Schmidt said on stage at the Le Web conference.
  • "Android is ahead of the iPhone now - by unit volume, with ICS features, prices are lower, with more vendors, more pricepoints - do I need to continue the list? It’s free.”
  • “One company comes to define a certain area - you’re better off trying to find something new that’s differentiated,” Schmidt said on that topic. “That’s what we’re trying to do with Google+, with many more products to come.”
  • “Six months from now, you’ll say the opposite. Ultimately, application vendors are driven by volume. The volume is favoured by the open approach Google is taking. Whether you like ICS or not, you will want to develop for that platform, perhaps even first.”
  • Google buying 1 company a week
  • “We’re not a country,”Schmidt said, bringing up the fact that Google did not have nuclear weapons, nor a police force and that it was subject to the laws of most actual countries"
  • Kabam has chosen to exclusively launch its newest big title, The Godfather: Five Families, on Google’s game network instead of on Facebook.

• Facebook's Timeline rollout begins today
• Facebook finally rolls out Timeline feature... but only in NZ
• Facebook Wants Writers and Famous People to Promote Its New Subscribe Feature
• Millions Of People Became Facebook “Developers” Just For Timeline Access
  • "We'll begin by making it available to people in New Zealand and then roll it out more broadly in the near future."
  • Sporadic reports of other countries seeing them roll out
  • Facebook will “imminently” launch a plugin for reporters and public figures to ask their readers to subscribe on Facebook directly from their own Web sites, VP Joanna Shields said at LeWeb in Paris today.

Discussion Stories

• AT&T Says iPhone 4S Sales Strong, Sees Record Fourth-Quarter Smartphone Sales
• AT&T on T-Mobile purchase: 'we will continue to pursue the sale'
• AT&T vows to keep pursuing T-Mobile merger
  • ATT CFO John Stephens talking at a UBS investor conference said its iPHone 4S sales remained strong, said the company almost beat its record for quarterly smartphone sales in just the first 2 months of the quarter
  • Approx. 6 million smartphones sold, previous record was 6.1M
  • ATT says the big sales are bc people were waiting to upgrade to the 4S
  • Also at the UBS conference, CFO John Stephens reiterated the company's plan to purchase T-Mobile. He mentioned that ATT has $10 billion in cash set aside and $28 billion on standby so it close the deal.
  • "So we clearly have an ability to close the deal very quickly and have those resources," Stephens said. "That is the plan."
  • Stephens would not say how the company planned to address antitrust concerns

• World's first 128Gb 20nm NAND flash could pack 2TB into a 2.5" SSD
• Intel, Micron unveil first 128-gigabit flash chip, provide double the data density
  • Intel and Micron's joint venture IMFT has announced that it has produced a 128Gb die.
  • A package combining eight such dies together would be small enough to fit on a fingertip and boast an unprecedented 128GB capacity.
  • Mass production will start in the first half of next year, and devices using the new dies are likely to start shipping in 2013.
  • IMFT also announced that it had started mass production of a 64Gb 20nm die. This part was first announced in April of this year. Consumer delivery should start in the middle of next year.

• Flipboard for iPhone: Beautiful, subtle, still just a reader
• Flipboard down after iPhone app launch
• The Power of Flipboard in Your Pocket
  • Flipboard brought its app to iPhone
- Flick a finger from bottom to top to go from one story to another, not side to side like on the iPad
  • Displays one story at a time
  • Flipboard's recently introduced accounts feature lets you keep an iPad and iPhone in sync
  • Shortly after the Flipboard iPhone app's introduction, Flipboard announced via Twitter the service was down and new users could not create an account. As of 12:30PM PT, Flipboard is still working on it.
  • If you've already got an account, you can login.

News Fuse

• Today, the Logitech Revue just go a whole lot more useful because Android 3.1 is now available for the set top box. Now, Revue users can join their Sony peers and access the Android Market, Google Music and enjoy a revised interface. Sony's GoogleTV devices already received the update about a month ago.

• Evernote introduced "Evernote Hello" a new take on a contact manager. Here's how it works - you meet someone new, you hand them your phone, and they'll put in their own info and take their own picture. If your new contact inputs their email info, the app will send that person your information via email. The app is currently available for iOS 5.0 devices with a camera.
  • Rafe's review of Hello

• The US DOJ is currently investigating antitrust activity in the pricing of ebooks. The investigation is similar to the one being conducted by the EU and focuses on whether Apple along with several publishers colluded to fix prices. News outlets like the Wall Street Journal have reported about the Justice Department's ebook investigation before, but today the DOJ confirmed its existence.

• The U.S. House of Representatives passed a piece of legislation that would make it much easier for people to share information about their video viewing habits online. If the bill is approved by the Senate, then a service like Netflix could obtain your consent to share online instead of needing written permission (as the law currently states).

• According to Symantec's November Intelligence Report, spam is now near a 3-year low and it accounts for just 70% of emails. Back in 2009, spam was 90% of all email. The most spammed nation honors goes to Russia with 76.7%.

• A Chinese court reject Apple's lawsuit against Proview Technology for the use of the iPad name. Proview owned the trademark in China since 2000. Apple's negotiations with Proview fell through which led to the lawsuit. Proview could have the ability to stop sales of the iPad in China, but Apple will likely appeal the decision and begin a whole new round of negotiations at the same time.

• A U.S. court issued a temporary restraining order against RIM for its use of the BBX name. RIM was sued by BASIS, a software company that used the BBX name since 1985. RIM has since announced that it's next operating system will now be called "BlackBerry 10." Problem solved.

• We knew Microsoft would introduce an Xbox app for Windows Phone, but Microsoft just surprised everyone with Xbox Live apps for the Apple iPhone and iPad. The app lets you change your avatar features, view achievements, manage frineds lists, and read and send messages to Xbox 360 friends. The free app is officially called "My Xbox Live" and is available now.

• A petition calls for the Ministry of Justice to grant a pardon to Alan Turing for his conviction of "gross indecency." Turing was chemically castrated when he was forced to take hormone injections for being gay. The UK government has officially apologized for the act, but the petition would remove the conviction.

Randomizer

• Android Phone Name Generator

Calendar

• Nintendo 3DS update goes live, enabling 3D video recording
• HP Is Reviving The $99 TouchPad Firesale! Refurb Models To Hit HP’s Ebay Store On 12/11
• Nokia and T-Mobile USA making announcement on December 14th
• Scheduled for the vague "mid-December," Toshiba will release its REGZA 55X3 glasses-less 3D TV in Japan for $11,000
• Sticking to vague scheduling, AT&T 4G LTE will officially launch in New York City this December
• Know Your Mobile says the Kindle Fire should hit the UK January 2012
• In early 2012, Latin America can get Nokia's Windows Phone powered Lumia 800 and 710
• Verizon to begin offering family data plans in 2012

INCOMING

Email

"Tom, Mr. Akhtar and Assorted Posse,

The only way I can see Apple making a TV and making it work with a more rapid replacement model is to make the TV itself the set-top box. I don't know if its possible, but Apple could work with cable providers to build in their box to an Apple TV, consumers would have to pay a hefty premium on their cable bill (+$50/month?) and they would get something like a 42"" Apple TV when signing a two-year contract. Then every two years they can upgrade to the latest and greatest Apple TV. Do I think this will happen? Probably not, but it's the only way I can see to mitigate the longer consumer replacement rate on TVs, versus phones or computers.

Love 'da sho

Rich in Lovely Cleveland"

Sponsors

Epson

• ad times: :35-:48 and 19:46-20:49

Production Information

• Edited by: Jason
• Notes:

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