Your monthly cable or satellite bill just keeps going up — that’s the reality we all face. And while consumers are getting squeezed by price increases, they’re not alone: Bernstein Research analyst Craig Moffett sees a reckoning coming, as increases in the cost of programming are also outpacing cable or satellite providers’ ability to support them.
Over the last five years, programming costs at DirecTV have risen 32 percent. But perhaps more importantly, those increases are accelerating, with costs rising upwards of 10 percent year-over-year. Meanwhile, income growth among U.S. residents has actually been negative during that time. So, according to Moffett, “Something’s gotta give.” → Read More
The most interesting new feature in iOS 6 to me was Passbook. The idea that I can now have quick access to movie, plane and other tickets, as well as relevant information for where I am at any given time, is an absolute time-saver. After I heard about Passbook, I immediately reached out to Brian Wong, CEO of Kiip to find out what the company had planned.
Kiip is the reward platform that works with both developers and advertisers to bring app users rewards for meeting certain milestones in a game or other app on both iOS and Android devices. It looks like Kiip wasted no time getting involved with Passbook and is now pushing its new program out of beta for all users. → Read More
Explore is becoming the focus for foursquare. You can tell that with every release and update that the company has made the last few months. Recently, the iOS app got a simpler design treatment on the Explore tab, along with a new way to find cool places to go and eat.
This appears to be a re-release of a previous update, perhaps with some bug fixes that aren’t documented in the following copy. → Read More
Apple is holding its fourth quarter conference call on October 25, according to an announcement from the company. The call will take place at 2:00 P.M. PT/5:00 P.M. ET, and should provide another early glimpse into how the iPhone 5 is doing since the quarter ended in September. → Read More
Document management provider OfficeDrop has a new capability for voice-activated search that represents just the start in how mobile apps are changing with the advent of natural-language, speech-recognition technology. The service is built on Nuance, the Boston-based company that has developed a speech-recognition service called Nina, which debuted in August. → Read More
The Galaxy Nexus’ one year launch anniversary is fast approaching, and as if on cue, the geekier parts of the web have gone abuzz today with rumors of a new Nexus device (and possibly a new version of Android) that could hit the streets “in the next 30 days.” The timing certainly helps explain things — tablets and funky, arguably misguided media streamers aside, Google’s Nexus-branded smartphones always seem to trickle out toward the end of the year, and we’re very nearly there. → Read More
Over the weekend, I wrote a post about Salesforce telling potential job applicants that one of its “desired skills” was having a Klout score of 35 or more. Needless to say, I found this to be a bit unsettling, as I instantly imagined other companies forcing this into their own job applications.
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For if you suffer your people to be ill-educated, and their manners to be corrupted from their infancy, and then punish them for those crimes to which their first education disposed them, what else is to be concluded from this, but that you first make thieves and then punish them.
That’s perhaps the most famous and beloved quote from Sir Thomas More‘s Utopia. If you haven’t read it yet, you certainly should. You have no reason not to, as a Professor at NYU named Stephen Duncombe has “open-sourced” it. → Read More
Google just announced that its Apps for Education suite is now being used by more than 20 million students, faculty members, and staff worldwide. The company made this announcement in a blog post celebrating the upcoming World Teachers’ Day on October 5. → Read More
Show someone a Facebook ad once and they’ll forget, 100 times and they’ll be annoyed. So Facebook is going to use offline purchase data to help businesses increase ROI up to 40% by showing them the “sweetspot” of ad frequency, it announced today at New York’s Advertising Week.
Privacy fears flared recently when the Financial Times revealed Facebook was working with in-store purchase tracker Datalogix. Facebook has since reassured users their personal data is only shared securely and they can opt out. Most won’t, and the data will let the social network draw a bold line from smart advertising on Facebook to big sales. → Read More
Fandango has been steadily growing as the go-to place for users to purchase movie tickets online and on their mobile phone. But now it also wants to boost its original content, to become a go-to place for movie fans to learn about upcoming movies as well as those in theaters or available on Blu-ray. To do so, it’s hired former Disney exec Paul Yanover.
Yanover, who previously served as EVP and managing director of Disney Online, will report to NBCU President of Digital Nick Lehman. Fandango EVP and GM Rick Butler will remain at the company and continue to run Fandango’s day-to-day operations. I spoke with Yanover earlier today, about what his plans are for Fandango, both as a place for users to purchase movie tickets and as a destination site for movie fans. → Read More
Whether it’s in response to the over-stimulation of banner ads and animated gifs, the proliferation of mobile and tablet devices whose screen sizes dictate simpler navigation and layout options, a reaction to our information-overloaded society, or, likely, all of the above, a new class of web startups is adopting the minimalist look in terms of their user interface and design. This “clean web” movement, if you can call it that, is defined by simple typography, lots of negative space, and thoughtful but careful use of color. And it’s seemingly everywhere you look these days. → Read More
App.net just announced some price changes to its Twitter-like service focused on unlimited API usage. The major change is a much needed 40 percent price drop for its yearly subscription. It now costs $36 per year. In addition to adjusting existing plans, the company is announcing another plan to try out the service. You can subscribe for $5 a month while you are uncertain about using the service or not. → Read More
Earlier, we reported that Apple’s iPhone 5 seemed to have some issues with purple flaring when taking photos with a light source just in or off frame, as reported by a number of users and duplicated in tests. Today, Gizmodo reader Matt Van Gastel received a response from Apple’s engineering team routed through a support representative which essentially says that behavior isn’t cause for concern. → Read More
Braintree already counts Uber, Fab and Airbnb among its clientele for processing payments and it’s seeing $1 billion a year in mobile transactions.
Now it’s trying to give rival Paypal even more of a run by cutting fees and easing the sign-up process for developers. They’re offering instant approval for new merchant accounts, which means a developer can add payments to their apps in about 30 minutes. This is instead of either having to wait several days for approval or partnering with a payment aggregator. → Read More
MindTouch is a services company that has done what innovative companies do: taken the concept of the user manual and turned it on its head. Its technology exemplifies what Oracle lacks and the advantage that Salesforce.com has in the market by developing an app ecosystem. → Read More
One of the things that I usually end up doing at a bar, either after a few drinks or massive boredom, is discuss my latest favorite iOS apps. You know what I’m talking about, a bunch of nerds sitting around a few adult beverages with bright screens flickering. I’ll usually say something stupid like “What do you think about the new Facebook update?” Lame, maybe. Fun, yes. → Read More
Google, according to a report by Forbes, has acquired Viewdle, an augmented reality and facial recognition startup. Forbes says the price was likely around $30 million, but we are still trying to confirm both the acquisition and the price. → Read More
An IHS report has estimated that 10.3 million Ultrabooks shipped (not sold) worldwide in 2012, a considerably change from their original forecast of 22 million sold this year. 2013 should be OK, though, right? Wrong. IHS is expecting sales of 44 million in 2013, down from a forecast of 61 million.
Now those numbers are arguably nothing to sneeze at. There are dozens of OEMs and resellers flogging their wares and with Windows 8 around the corner it’s hard to convince the average consumer to pick up an ultralight let alone a PC. → Read More
Facebook has just closed a deal to hire Dwight Crow and Christopher Berner, the two founders and only teammates of the Y Combinator used car price comparison site Carsabi. The founders are now looking to sell the site so it can live on even though Facebook won’t be needing it.
Facebook tells me there wasn’t something specific that attracted it to the co-founders other than that “they’re awesome entrepreneurs”. It won’t say what team the founders will be joining. However, we see fitting in behind the wheel of Facebook Gifts or Events. Here’s why.
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Iranians once again enjoy the crushing freedom to spend their days writing emails, deleting spam, and responding to queries to “keep in touch.” After Iran cut off access to the country’s favorite Google services, citizens and officials were united in protest for their love for Gmail, which is now accessible again. The initial block was in response to an anti-Islamic film on Youtube that caused global unrest, “We wanted to block YouTube, and Gmail was also blocked, which was involuntary,” said Iran’s telecommunications ministry committee, “We do not yet have enough technical know-how to differentiate between these two services.” → Read More
A new study from Pew Research claims that the more devices we use, the more news we consume. In fact, rather than splitting the time spent consuming news between, say, a smartphone and a tablet, most users who own both devices tend to double the amount of time spent reading the news.
According to the report, which was based on a survey of 9,513 U.S. adults conducted from June-August 2012, tablet owners in particular tend to read more in-depth news pieces, using their slate most in the hours before and after work. → Read More
A new California law funding the replacement of expensive college textbooks with free digital versions is being hailed as a “big step forward” in the press. California, whose massive university system was influential enough to change the SAT for the entire country, will now fund an inter-university council to produce 50 freely available digital textbooks for common lower division courses–perhaps spelling the end of college textbooks.
Yesterday it was revealed that TV guru Simon Cowell planned to create a new TV show to find the next tech superstar, in the same way X-Factor launches the careers of new musicians. The Sun, newspaper said the former American Idol and current X Factor judge was teaming up with Black Eyed Peas rapper Will.i.am to develop the show, probably in the UK. And it now seems other companies are jumping on the TV bandwagon. A German company now plans to use TV to launch new tech companies – but there’s a twist. → Read More
Facebook has been doing a lot of talking in the last day or so about its recently announced partnership with Datalogix — the company published blog posts explaining both the privacy implications and summarizing the results that advertisers have already seen. And Facebook’s head of measurement and insights Brad Smallwood is at the IAB MIXX conference today, where he gave a talk about the partnership.
The goal of the partnership is to track whether Facebook ad campaigns are driving in-store sales, and to find the common themes among the campaigns that work. Facebook and Datalogix have tracked about 50 ad campaigns, from which they have already drawn three general lessons. → Read More
Ping was scheduled for unceremonious termination at the end of September, and now it’s definitely gone dark. Clicking on the Ping link in the iTunes sidebar now returns an error, if it even still appears there. Our own Josh Constine foretold its demise back in September, and now it’s gone, both on mobile and the desktop. → Read More
If there’s one person who’s nailed the art of Kickstarter-driven hardware production, it’s Scott Wilson. The designer’s MNML studio had considerable success with the crowdfunding site, which helped launch his Lunatik iPod nano watch bands, a stylus called the Touch Pen, and now the Taktik heavy-duty protective iPhone case. The last is just making its way out to market (for iPhone 4/4S – iPhone 5 coming soon), and I’ve been provided with a review unit to take for a test drive. → Read More
For the first time ever, YouTube will offer a live video stream of the U.S. presidential and vice presidential debates this year. To do this, YouTube has partnered with ABC News and the debates will stream on ABC News’ YouTube channel and YouTube’s Election Hub. The four debates, which will start on October 3 at 9pm ET, will be available for YouTube viewers around the world. YouTube’s election page will also feature commentary and analysis from seven other partners: Al Jazeera English, BuzzFeed, Larry King, New York Times, Phil DeFranco, Univision and the Wall Street Journal. → Read More
Amazon has nothing to worry about. Oracle will never win the cloud without developers.
No matter what Larry Ellison says on stage at Oracle Open World, Oracle will never match Amazon Web Services’ (AWS) first-class treatment of the developer community. Nor will Oracle even try: it’s a vertical iron machine that Ellison believes has the power to be the new “cloud” for IT. It is not a horizontal distributed, self-service environment that you get when you use AWS. → Read More
Google Catalogs launched as an iPad and Android app in August 2011. Just ahead of the holiday shopping season, Google is now also making this service available on the web. Google Catalogs on the web will feature brochures from about 300 brands, including the likes of Williams-Sonoma, J.Crew, Eddie Bauer, and Bose. From within the catalogs, shoppers can click on featured items to get more information and, of course, buy them from the retailers’ own sites. → Read More
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