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Contents contributed and discussions participated by Dan R.D.

Dan R.D.

US Virtual Goods Market To Hit $2.9 Billion In 2012, With Facebook Games Maturing, Mobi... - 0 views

  • The overall market for virtual goods in the US is headed towards $2.9 billion for 2012, according to the Inside Virtual Goods report. That’s up from $2.2 billion this year, and $1.6 billion in 2010.
  • Virtual goods on Facebook are continuing to comprise more than half of that, going from $835 million in 2010 to $1.2 billion this year to $1.6 billion next year. The gains each year are around $400 million, which means growth is going from 50% down to around 35%. While the report doesn’t break out company-specific numbers publicly, Zynga’s pre-IPO filings indicate it made more than $300 million last quarter. Assuming that number stays around the same, look for Zynga to continue to its historical dominance with about 75% of the Facebook virtual goods market.
  • Mobile has also been coming into its own in the last 18 months, report co-author Charles Hudson tells me. The report estimates that mobile virtual goods (for games only, not including other digital media like iTunes songs) made $350 million this year, and will grow to $500 million next year.
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  • But mobile has its own limitations. Facebook provides a single venue for developers to build, grow and monetize their games, while the dueling mobile platforms have weaker social features and additional development costs; iOS also has the 30% tax on virtual goods sales, same as Facebook.
Dan R.D.

Eye Tracking Could be the Next Natural User Interface - 0 views

  • That's what a Danish startup called Senseye claims to be doing; they say they've got software for Android that uses the front-facing camera to track a user's eye movement and then uses that to control what happens on the phone's screen. They're not alone in working on doing that kind of work, either. Eye tracking could be a big new way that users interact with their devices.
  • If the company can really pull this off, Senseye could join the ranks of Microsoft's Kinect, Surface and the touchscreen mobile devices in what people are calling the Natural User Interface (NUI). A Swedish company called Tobii announced in-car eye tracking technology this week as well and these aren't isolated innovations.
Dan R.D.

Merging the Digital and Virtual Worlds | Product Design and Development - 0 views

  • Putting sensors and actuators in everything from homes and cars to shoes and coffee cups promises to make our daily lives easier, safer and more efficient. But such 'ambient intelligence' requires a merger of the virtual and digital worlds. EU-funded researchers in the Sensei project are bridging the gap and their results are already leading to 'smart cities' being set up all over Europe.
  • 'Today, the internet world is a virtual world of data mostly stored and accessed from servers,' says Dr Hérault. In the future, we will have an 'Internet of things' in which a multitude of things in the real, physical world will be digitised continuously: in many situations, we won't just be asking web servers for data, we will be asking sensors in everyday objects for data, he suggests. 'We need to understand how best to interconnect the real world and the virtual world.' 
  • An open service interface that uses semantic information to process data means that information is accessible and understandable to both humans and machines.  'You could ask, for example, "What is the temperature on Oxford Street?" The system would decode that semantic information, access sensor networks on Oxford Street that have temperature sensors, check the reliability of each network with regard to information quality, and return an answer,' Dr Hérault explains. 
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  • Within the Sensei architecture, each sensor and actuator network is conceived as an 'island' that, through an interface middleware, can be connected to the overall system and can publish data independently of the technologies they are using or the type of information involved. An island could be a home, a bus station, a car or your own personal network of smart clothing and mobile devices. From a privacy and security perspective, each user is able to control which type of information they wish to share and with whom. 
  • 'If we are going to deploy billions of wirelessly interconnected sensors and actuators, the impact in terms of energy consumption and carbon footprint could become very significant. It is thus very important to develop sensors and actuators able to scavenge energy from their environment and communicate with ultra-low power energy consumption,' Dr Hérault says. 
  • Efficient sensors, operating within the Sensei architecture and coupled with technology developed in a parallel EU-funded project 'Wireless sensor network testbeds' (Wisebed), are already in the process of making their real world debut. As part of the 'SmartSantander' initiative, a follow-up project to Sensei, 12,000 devices are being deployed in the northern Spanish city of Santander over the coming year. In a first implementation they will be used to monitor available parking places and inform drivers about where there is space available, helping to smooth the flow of traffic in the city and reduce pollution. 
  • In this project, sensor and actuator networks will be set up in Santander to provide smart street lighting, dimming the lights to save energy when there is no one on the street, for example, and turning them up if some kind of incident or increased activity is detected. In Aarhus, the main focus will be to collect data about the water and sewage infrastructure, shape the information and use it in an intelligent and autonomous way. In Berlin, partners are working on the development of 'intelligent waste baskets' in order to optimise waste management. The Trento partners, meanwhile, are focusing on the development of intelligent water management in order to improve the utilisation of water for both drinking and energy generation in mountain areas. In Birmingham, transport infrastructure and services, including trams, buses, roads, cycle paths and walkways, will be optimised leading to streamlined transitions between modes, time saving and greater efficiency across the board. 
Dan R.D.

Follow-Up: Gerloff Chimes in on YaCy | WebProNews - 0 views

  • YaCy has no web portal like that of traditional search engines, instead it relies on users to download a peer-to-peer software client, which crawls the web from users’ computers, and indexes sites they visit.
  • Instead, each user gets to make these decisions locally. The portal at search.yacy.net is just a limited demonstration. To get the full experience, you have to install YaCy locally (this usually takes no more than a minute). Then your computer will be part of the YaCy network, and you will be able to draw on the whole network for search results.
  • At FSFE, we find YaCy highly interesting because it’s part of a trend to replace centralised systems with distributed ones. We have Diaspora and other distributed social networks as an alternative to Facebook. We have identi.ca and its status.net platform as an alternative to Twitter, which users can install and run on their own servers. YaCy is one of less than a handful (to my knowledge) of distributed search engines.
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  • For more information about YaCy, see here.
Dan R.D.

Intuit eyes NFC for mobile payment system | Digital Media - CNET News [10May11] - 0 views

  • Intuit wants to give its customers a glimpse of the future of mobile payments through an adaptation of its GoPayment service that eliminates the need for credit cards. Tapping into the growing field of NFC (near-field communication) technology, Intuit's reimagined GoPayment service would let consumers wirelessly pay for items on the go through just a touch of an NFC-enabled cell phone. With the necessary NFC hardware and credit card information stored on a mobile phone, consumers could leave their money and credit cards at home and use their phones to buy items and services at stores, restaurants, and other retail outlets. Retailers themselves would be able to send certain information back to the consumer's phone, including receipts, coupons, and loyalty programs.
Dan R.D.

Coming Soon to a Coffee Shop Near You: NFC-Powered Foursquare Check-ins [28Nov11] - 0 views

  • To enable NFC-powered check-ins, establishments need to display a sign or poster containing an NFC tag that points to their venue's Foursquare listing URL. Nokia's developer blog has some resources on getting started with NFC tags. Signs like this not only enable people to check-in with less effort, but can also provide a visual, real-world call to action. For non-power users of location services like Foursquare, it can be pretty easy to simply forget to check in to a restaurant or other local business. Having that sign hanging there can provide a mental trigger. Business owners can also use the opportunity to push promotions and deals, offering discounts or free products to the mayor or anybody else that checks in. Admittedly, the average person has no idea what NFC is right now. But it's almost universally predicted to reach mainstream adoption within a few years, quite possibly replacing our wallets and keys at some point in the future. NFC is already included on a number of Android-powered handsets and is rumored to be coming to the iPhone 5 next year.
Dan R.D.

Africa Mobile Market Now Second Only to Asia - 1 views

  • The first GSMA Mobile Observatory report to focus on Africa has come back with some fascinating conclusions. First among them, Africa has passed Latin America to become the world's second largest mobile market. The global mobile association examined the 25 African countries that account for 91% of mobile use (calling them the "A25"). Here are some of the most interesting of the report's conclusions.
  • The report "integrates data from a wide range of existing sources to provide a comprehensive picture of the African mobile industry. These include public sources such as the ITU, World Bank and research by National Regulatory Authorities as well as commercial providers such as Wireless Intelligence, Informa, Gartner, Buddecomm and ID." Africa now has 620 million mobile connections, passing Latin America Regional penetration has risen from 2% in 2000, to 57% this year Over the last decade, the number of mobile connections has grown an average of 30% per year, forecast to reach 735 million by the end of next year Mobile provides 3.5% of African GDP Highly competetive sector has resulted in price decreases of up to 60% in some areas, with an overall average of 18% decrease in the last year 96% of is pre-paid with voice services currently dominating, however data is increasing rapidly - Kenya data revenues, for instance, including SMS, have increased at a 67% annual growth over the last 4 years, representing 26% of total revenues in that country
Dan R.D.

Deceivers.com » Ipad - A Kindle Onslaught, For Real? - 0 views

  • iPad is not exactly an e-reader. It is a hybrid that hovers between a cellphone, a computer, and in some unbelievable respects, an e-studying device. What it does precisely, no one can somewhat pin down. It houses a formidable instrument that may do anything else from enjoying top definition movies to providing an outstanding gaming console and, smartly, everything else in between. E-studying capabilities included. In the beginning look, iPad seems to run away as a winner in lots of things. But if pitted in opposition to Amazon’s Kindle, does it even stand an opportunity?
Dan R.D.

BBC News - Secret net Tor asks users to sign up to cloud services - 0 views

  • The Tor developers are calling on people to sign up to the service in order to run a bridge - a vital point of the secret network through which communications are routed. "By setting up a bridge, you donate bandwidth to the Tor network and help improve the safety and speed at which users can access the internet," the Tor project developers said in a blog.
  • "Setting up a Tor bridge on Amazon EC2 is simple and will only take you a couple of minutes," it promised.
  • Users wishing to take part in the bridging project, need to be subscribed to the Amazon service.
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  • It normally costs $30 (£19) a month. However, Amazon is currently offering a year's worth of free storage as part of a promotion, which Tor developers believe their users will qualify for.
  • Amachai Shulman, chief technology officer of data security firm Imperva believes that cloud services could have a big impact on Tor. "It creates more places and better places to hide," he said.
  • Tor is also used by people wanting to share images of child abuse. Hacktivist group Anonymous recently launched Operation Darknet which targets such abuse groups operating via the network. "There is an ugly face to Tor," said Mr Shulman. "Studies suggest that most of the bandwidth is taken by pirated content."
  • Imperva research estimates that there are currently "a few thousand" exit nodes on Tor - the points at which communications reveal themselves on the wider internet.
Dan R.D.

iPhone 5 Expected to Have NFC, Help Propel Mobile Payments - 0 views

  • In all the rumor-crazed lead-up to the launch of the iPhone 4S, one feature that was speculated about but never that likely was the inclusion of near field communications. Next year, when the iPhone 5 is actually, finally released, there's a very good chance it will have NFC, according to a report from DigiTimes.
  • Citing sources at Taiwan-based smartphone manufacturers, DigiTimes says Apple's new iPhone will be one of several devices to ship with NFC in 2012, although we expect the sometimes faulty iPhone rumor mill to churn on until the device is unveiled next year.
  • If the iPhone 5 does include NFC, it will be far from the first smartphone of its class to include the technology. In typical Apple fashion, while it may not be the trailblazer, it's sure to popularize the feature and push it toward widespread adoption. Some say the iPhone's inclusion of NFC could propel the technology's penetration from below 10% to more than 50% in just a few years.
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  • The unveiling of the iPhone 5 is still several months away, so any speculation this early in the game can turn out to be fruitless. We expect to see this particular rumor evolve in the coming months as analysts weigh in and supply chain sources leak purported details.
Dan R.D.

Why embedded systems are "terrifyingly important" - O'Reilly Radar - 0 views

  • Why are embedded systems important right now? Elecia White: Embedded systems are where the software meets the physical world. As we put tiny computers into all sorts of systems (door locks, airplanes, pacemakers), how we implement the software is truly, terrifyingly important. Writing software for these things is more difficult than computer software because the systems have so few resources. Instead of building better software, the trend has been to allow a cowboy mentality of just getting it done. We can do better than that. We must do better than that.
  • What's on the horizon for embedded systems? Elecia White: Jewelry that monitors vital signs. Credit cards that only work when we touch them. Smart dust and nanobots. Personalized learning. Self-driving cars. Science fiction isn't so far away from fact.
  • If this is progress, what will 2031 be like? The very goal of embedded systems is to distribute the intelligence from a centralized computer to a smaller widget that can live in your home, on a satellite, in a car, or in your pocket. If a big desktop computer from 2011 can fit in our 2031 pockets, does that mean our smartphones will fit into an earring or disposable microdot?
Dan R.D.

How mobile devices will become smarter with contextual awareness - 0 views

  • At the Nordic Exceptional Trendshop (NEXT) conference in Aarhus, Denmark today, Clark Dodsworth gave a talk about how contextual awareness will transform our usage of devices such as mobile phones. Contextual awareness uses a variety of sensors in a device to give you information that’s relevant to what you’re doing. Imagine your phone being able to offer relevant alerts for traffic when it knows you’re driving, for example. As Dodsworth notes, Apple’s purchase of ‘virtual assistant’ service Siri last year is one example of how this is set to become a reality. He believes contextual awareness features will soon be built into mobile operating systems as standard.
Dan R.D.

IBM's Andy Piper: Negotiating the Internet of Things - 0 views

  • He is officially called the "Messaging Community Lead" for IBM's WebSphere message queue (MQ) architecture, which is a title that grants some modicum of honor without claiming too much authority. Andy Piper has become IBM's point man for the concept of a planet enmeshed in billions, perhaps trillions, of signal-sending, communicating devices. The case may be made that anything that can be "on" could be made to send a signal on a network - perhaps something as simple as "on" itself, periodically. The possibilities for a world where the operating status of any electronic device may be measured from any point on the globe, are astounding.
  • Two weeks ago, IBM and its development partner Eurotech formally submitted Message Queue Telemetry Transport protocol to the Eclipse Foundation open source group. It's being called "the" Internet of Things (IoT) protocol, but in fairness it's only one candidate. It would serve as the communications mechanism for devices whose size may scale down to the very small level, with negligible power and transmission radius of only a few feet.
  • One example application already in the field, Piper told RWW, is in pacemakers. Tiny transmitters inside pacemakers communicate using MQTT with message queue brokers at their patients' bedsides. Those brokers then communicate with upstream servers using more conventional, sophisticated protocols such as WebSphere MQ.
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  • "Look, this is engineered for a constrained environment," Piper emphasized. "But because of that, [these devices] are actually extremely efficient at doing things like conserving battery, and using very low bandwidth. So [MQTT] is actually a fairly sensible protocol for both the machine-to-machine (M2M) space that we're addressing with the Eclipse announcement, and also the mobile explosion as well. All these devices need to be connected."
  • "It's not as such about replacing the Web; it's about enabling devices to talk to the Web," says Piper. "And these devices are unlikely to have user interfaces; they're really about just collecting data."
  • IBM's model (like all IBM models through history) is layered and given a mnemonic. There are three classes of devices: intelligence, interconnect, and instrumentation. Unlike Microsoft's model, which argues that intelligence can be driven completely to the edge at the device level, IBM maintains intelligence at the core, maybe even in the cloud. Instrumentation, on the other hand, doesn't need to be all that intelligent. In fact, it can be essentially autonomic. But it can still communicate, and MQTT would be its protocol.
  • "When you look at the wire trace of an HTTP packet, you end up with a lot of stuff in the headers which you don't see as a user," he tells RWW. "HTTP was designed for getting documents to a user interface. And it's been kind of bent and twisted into being used for inter-application and server-side communication, and that's fine when you have the bandwidth. But if you just want to send, 'The temperature is ___,' and then send 61.7, 60,7, 61.7, every five seconds, you really don't want to be doing a full HTTP post to send that information to an endpoint. So [MQTT] is asynchronous push; it's not request/response, which is what HTTP is."
  • Current networks of devices, such as Cisco routers, utilize small packets of health and status data that some literally call "weather reports." They're sent at specific intervals, and when they don't arrive on time, servers conclude something may be wrong. Such "weather reports" have been said to constitute a majority of the actual messages sent between routers and other devices at the lower levels of the Internet.
Dan R.D.

Klip Video App Raises $8.5 Million - 0 views

  • CNET reported that Klip was the fastest mobile video app to reach 100,000 downloads.  Founder Alain Rossmann believes Klip is creating new form of communication. "Mobile video is essentially emerging as a new communication medium," he tells us.  "Phones are in pockets all the time, they have incredibly good cameras and good networks, and all of those things create a dialogue among users that is really mediated through mobile video.
Dan R.D.

Amazon takes small loss on Kindle Fire - study - MarketWatch - 0 views

  • Shares of Amazon were down about 1% $202.52 by mid-morning Friday. The stock is up about 13% for the year to date. The Kindle Fire is estimated to cost a total of $201.70 to build each unit, a number that includes a bill of materials — or BOM — of $185.60, with another $16.10 in manufacturing costs for each unit, iSuppli estimates. The tear-down estimate does not include cost figures for software, licensing or royalties that Amazon may pay on the device.
  • Amazon began shipping the Kindle Fire on Monday, after first unveiling the device in late September. The tablet costs $199 — about 60% less than the cheapest iPad from Apple Inc. /quotes/zigman/68270/quotes/nls/aapl AAPL -0.16% , which currently dominates the tablet market. Analysts expect the Kindle Fire to make the largest dent in the tablet market next to the iPad, after other devices using Google’s /quotes/zigman/93888/quotes/nls/goog GOOG -0.89%  Android operating system have largely failed to generate strong sales. The low price of the device, along with Amazon’s large library of books and other digital content, are expected to contribute to the appeal of the Kindle Fire. But Amazon does not break out data on its device sales.
Dan R.D.

Gadgetbox - Quad-core Android tablet misses the point [10Nov11] - 0 views

  • With the exception of the Amazon Kindle Fire and the Barnes & Noble Nook Tablet, the Android tablet race is starting to look like the PC race of the early 2000s: SPEEDS AND FEEDS ... and not a lot else. Case in point is Asus' Eee Pad Transformer Prime, the first quad-core tablet to hit the market. That's right, people, four whole cores!
  • quad-core tablet
  • For $499, the price of a 16GB iPad, you get 32GB, and can get up to 64GB for just $100 more. It will ship with Android 3.2 Honeycomb, but Asus promises that it will get an over-the-air update to the eagerly anticipated Android 4.0 Ice Cream Sandwich "at a later date." Great, terrific, you know?
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  • But shoppers aren't buying on specs these days. In fact, they're a bit turned off by them. Shoppers are buying on price — part of the reason we loved the original Asus Eee Pad Transformer — but most of all they're buying on ecosystem. The iPad doesn't lead on specs, but it has a massive share of the market, because Apple focuses on what you can do, from iTunes media to the best lineup of tablet apps.Amazon's Kindle Fire and Barnes & Noble's Nook Tablet may be cheaper, but they're going to sell like hotcakes mainly because they come with their purpose built in.
Dan R.D.

Google Offers is now live in Brooklyn! - The Next Web [09Nov11] - 0 views

  • Google Offers went live in Brooklyn, New York today, much to the happiness of everyone from Kings County to Gowanus. Google Offers, a direct competitor to companies like Groupon and Living Social, first landed in Manhattan this past July with Belgian fries and mango chutney at Pommes Frites. Today, Google’s daily deal service is offering $4 general admission tickets to the New York Aquarium, which is 73% off the normal $14.95 price tag. The Aquarium, which is located just off the Coney Island boardwalk is open year round and features animals such as California sea lions, stingrays, tropical fish, moray eels, penguins, seals, otters, walruses, starfish, sea turtles and sharks!
  • Location Media Microsoft Mobile Sessions Shareables Social Media Twitter Video Editions Africa Asia Australia Canada Europe India Latin America Middle East UK United States Languages France Nederland Polska Portugal Romania Russia Google Offers is now live in Brooklyn: Starting with $4 for SHARKS! 9th November 2011 by Courtney Boyd Myers Google Offers went live in Brooklyn, New York today, much to the happiness of everyone from Kings County to Gowanus. Google Offers, a direct competitor to companies like Groupon and Living Social, first landed in Manhattan this past July with Belgian fries and mango chutney at Pommes Frites. Today, Google’s daily deal service is offering $4 general admission tickets to the New York Aquarium, which is 73% off the normal $14.95 price tag. The Aquarium, which is located just off the Coney Island boardwalk is open year round and features animals such as California sea lions, stingrays, tropical fish, moray eels, penguins, seals, otters, walruses, starfish, sea turtles and sharks!
Dan R.D.

Adobe kills mobile Flash, giving Steve Jobs the last laugh | Technology | guardian.co.u... - 0 views

  • Mobile Flash is being killed off.
  • The plugin that launched a thousand online forum arguments and a technology standoff between Apple and the format's creator, Adobe, will no longer be developed for mobile browsers, the company said in a note that will accompany a financial briefing to analysts.
  • Instead the company will focus on development around HTML5 technologies, which enable modern browsers to do essentially the same functions as Flash did but without relying on Adobe's proprietary technologies, and which can be implemented across platforms.
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  • In "Thoughts on Flash", an open letter published by Jobs in April 2010, he asserted that "Flash was created during the PC era – for PCs and mice. Flash is a successful business for Adobe, and we can understand why they want to push it beyond PCs. But the mobile era is about low power devices, touch interfaces and open web standards – all areas where Flash falls short."New open standards created in the mobile era, such as HTML5, will win on mobile devices (and PCs too). Perhaps Adobe should focus more on creating great HTML5 tools for the future, and less on criticizing Apple for leaving the past behind."
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