Rovio’s astounding festive season downloads, BuzzFeed funding and Current TV becomes Al Jazeera America, it’s all in today’s Daily Dose.
(Source: thenextweb.com)
Facebook is continuing to fine-tune and adapt its Messenger mobile apps (iOS/Android), today pushing live updates which include a potentially disruptive feature: voice messages. The iOS and Android Messenger apps (which will be available later today) have been outfitted with a new option alongside the photo and camera buttons, offering a ‘Record’ toggle that can be pushed and held to record voice messages. (via Facebook launches voice in iOS and Android Messenger apps, tests VoIP calling in Canada - The Next Web)
In the following charts, a keyword or phrase is listed, and to its right is the number of posts on this site that contain it. This loose analysis reveals that on these pages, Google is more popular than Apple, from a total post perspective. iPad and iPhone both edge out Microsoft in terms of total unique mentions in discrete posts, something that will surprise none and annoy many. (via Inside the guts of a tech blog: What the heck do we write about at TNW? - The Next Web)
Ubuntu is coming to a smartphone near you, Intel’s audacious TV project is on the rocks, and Facebooks valuation is back north of $60 billion.
(Source: thenextweb.com)
The first ‘Polaroid Fotobar’ store, which is set to open in Florida next month, will allow in-store customers to wirelessly transmit the images stored on their smartphone or tablet to a bar-top workstation. From here, the photos can be edited to fix red-eye or alter the contrast and brightness. A number of filters will also be available, presumably to help users get that vintage, “analogue feel” if they haven’t done so already using an app such as Snapseed or Instagram. (via Polaroid to launch Fotobar stores designed to print photos from our smartphones - The Next Web)
One of the startups to grab our attention at LeWeb last month was Phonitive and its product Touchalize, which makes videos interactive in some interesting ways. Designed with marketing in mind, Touchalize is touchscreen-focused and allows end users to manipulate video. Watching an ad for a new car but want to see what it would look like in the color you’d actually want to buy it in? With a couple of taps of the screen, the car’s color will have changed, with everything else around it in the video unaltered. (via Touchalize Makes Video Ads Interactive – and You the Star)
To recap, lucky bags (known as ‘Fukubukuro‘, 福袋, in Japanese) are not unique to Apple and most retailers in the country offer shoppers the pre-sealed ‘lucky dip’ bag that are bought for a fixed amount. The bags are packed with a random assortment of goodies that are unknown on purchase. Customers hope that the total sum of what’s inside is worth more than the cost of the bag — which, in Apple’s case, is 33,000 yen ($380). (via Apple’s Lucky Bag sale brings New Year bargains to shoppers in Japan - The Next Web)
