Business

Trend Micro report claims Google Play store loaded with fake apps

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Typically, a fake version of an app is created by copying the .apk file and inserting code, with the possible goal of creating malware. While there are certainly knock-offs that have made their way onto Apple’s app store, there’s a review process to prevent this sort of malware factory.

The value of Twitch

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About a month ago, word spread that Google-owned YouTube had completed negotiations to buy game-streaming service Twitch with an all-cash offer of $1 billion.

Yesterday, YouTube had the rug pulled from under them when Twitch announced that they had accepted another all-cash bid for $970 million from Amazon. Here’s the thank you post from Twitch CEO Emmett Shear.

So why would someone care about this? The key is the allure of Let’s Play, the general term for watching someone else play your favorite game. A huge win for Amazon. [Hat tip to Daniel Mark]

L.A. Unified school district halts contract for iPads

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The LA Times:

L.A. schools Supt. John Deasy suspended future use of a contract with Apple on Monday that was to provide iPads to all students in the nation’s second-largest school system amid mounting scrutiny of the $1-billion-plus effort.

The suspension comes days after disclosures that the superintendent and his top deputy had especially close ties to executives of Apple, maker of the iPad, and Pearson, the company that is providing the curriculum on the devices. And an internal report that examined the technology effort showed major problems with the process and the implementation.

Jump to the original Loop post for more detail and a link to the internal LA school district document that lays all this out.

China moves to end Apple, Samsung phone subsidies

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China Daily:

China should end smartphone subsidies to overseas vendors and give more support to local brands, industry insiders said on Tuesday, as telecom carriers pledged to cut operating expenses and Apple Inc gets ready to debut its next-generation iPhone.

Xiang Ligang, a telecom researcher in Beijing, said cutting carriers’ subsidies to foreign-made handsets will not only reduce carriers’ operating expense but also leave local players with more market demand.

The perception is that buyers of high end phones are price insensitive and will buy the phones even without the subsidies.

Forget your Tesla S key fob? Use your iPhone instead

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The new Tesla S electronics update will communicate with your iPhone (there’s no Android support), sending you notifications and allowing you to use your iPhone to start your car. The question has been asked before about the security of remote start systems like this. No car is theft proof. And the convenience seems high enough to be worth the potential risk.

Apple pops the $100 barrier

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Apple stock today popped through the $100 per share barrier for the first time since they split the stock 7-1. That makes for a pre-split price of $700 a share. An important psychological step for Apple investors.

Google’s attempt to solve their jarring fragmentation problem

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There are a number of reasons developers develop for iOS first, or avoid Android completely. Perhaps the top two reasons are OS fragmentation and device fragmentation, both of which drive up the development costs (more use cases to build for, more use cases to test for).

This post from GigaOM makes the case that Google has solved these problems, at least in part. The key is Google’s Play Services.

Play Services, introduced in 2012, is effectively a background download of core services required to run apps on Android. Putting the OS install numbers to one side for a moment, this is the stat that matters to developers – over 93 percent of all Android users are running the latest version of Google Play Services.

More importantly, Google has been slowly moving core Android features, APIs and app elements out of the OS and into Google Play Services — meaning developers can ensure their apps run smoothly (with all the new features they plan to implement) across all devices carrying the latest infrastructure.

Apple beats Bud, Nike and GE to win the 2014 Emmy for Best Commercial

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[VIDEO] Ad Week:

The spot, created by TBWA\Media Arts Lab and directed by Lance Acord of Park Pictures, shows a teen at Christmas who seems anti-socially glued to his iPhone, though it turns out it’s for heartwarming reasons. It beat out four other nominees for the prize. Two of them were Super Bowl ads by Anomaly for Budweiser—”Hero’s Welcome” and “Puppy Love.” The other two were BBDO’s “Childlike Imagination” for GE and Wieden + Kennedy’s “Possibilities” for Nike.

The commercial took three days to shoot and was filmed in a historic house located on the edge of the River Valley in snowy Edmonton. Beautifully done.

Nintendo rises after report Pokemon game to debut on iPad

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This is a tricky piece of news.

Nintendo Co. (7974) jumped in Tokyo trading after its new Mario Kart 8 video game surpassed 1 million units in U.S. sales and affiliate The Pokemon Co. said an online trading-card game will be released as an application for Apple Inc. (AAPL)’s iPad.

The Pokémon game is owned by The Pokémon Company, which is affiliated with Nintendo (Nintendo has certain licensing and marketing rights) but not owned by Nintendo.

“We have been here many times before in regards to Nintendo’s tentative plans to introduce some of its characters for smart devices,” Amir Anvarzadeh, a manager of Japanese equity sales at BGC Partners Inc. in Singapore, said by e-mail. “This latest Pokemon cards plan which is already out on PCs is hardly a change in its direction.”

This is not quite correct.

30 year old blood test billionaire

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Elizabeth Holmes is only 30 years old, but has a lifetime of success. Back in 2003, Holmes was a sophomore at Stanford University and envisioned a process of performing blood tests with a device that required much less blood (just a drop) than existing blood tests (normally requiring a vial or two of blood).

This is a fascinating story, one that reminds me in many ways of Steve Jobs and Apple.

Selling the first telephone

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The network effect is the idea that the value of a product or service is dependent on the number of others using it. If you are breaking ground on a new business area that depends on the network effect, this anecdote offers some terrific insight.

The anecdote goes this like: One telephone has no value. Two telephones have a wee bit of value. After 100 phones, you may know someone with a phone, and if so, then there is value in you signing up for telephone service. After 100,000 phones, you very likely know many people with phones. And at 1,000,000 phones, many of your friends, colleagues, and family will have phones, making the service highly valuable.

Interesting read, especially if you’ve got a bit of the entrepreneur in you.

Pandora CFO, Beats “not a competitive service”

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Here’s one for Gruber’s Claim Chowder file. Pandora CFO Mike Herring, speaking with Oppenheimer Securities analyst Jason Helfstein at an investment conference:

I don’t have much comment on Beats. Frankly, it’s not a competitive service in any form today. iTunes Radio is much more of it, competitive service and really had no impact on us long-term.

Apple bans benzene and n-hexane from supply chain, goes public with regulated substances spec

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From a letter released today by Lisa Jackson, former administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency and now Apple’s environmental director:

Recently, we received some questions about whether the chemicals benzene and n-hexane are used in the manufacturing of our products. Apple treats any allegations of unsafe working conditions extremely seriously. We took immediate investigative action, sending specialized teams into each of our 22 final assembly facilities, and found no evidence of workers’ health being put at risk. We’ve updated our tight restrictions on benzene and n-hexane to explicitly prohibit their use in final assembly processes.

The thing that broke the net yesterday

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There was trouble on the internet yesterday.

Tuesday Morning, various networks experienced outages from 4-6am EDT (8-10am UTC). [It] appears the outage was the result of a somewhat anticipated problem with older routers and their inability to deal with the ever increasing size of the Internet’s routing table.

Older routers were designed to handle an impossibly huge, not possible to pass, 512K router table entries. So big. No chance this could ever be an issue. Except now we’re hovering right around that threshold and some older routers with that limit are being tested and found wanting.

Amazon introduces mobile card reader to compete with Square, PayPal

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PC World:

Amazon.com has introduced a card reader coupled with smartphone and tablet apps that aim to provide small businesses with a way to accept payments on these devices.

At least in the short term, this is excellent news for both consumers and small businesses, as Amazon will push down the per transaction fee, down to 1.75 percent per swipe til the end of the year, then rising to 2.5 percent per swipe which is still lower than Square and PayPal Here.

Apple’s new “Achieve big things” iPad email campaign

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The ad features links to buy an iPad Air and a retina iPad mini, as well as sections that highlight Apple’s productivity suite (Pages, Numbers, and Keynote), Microsoft’s Office iPad apps, and the Your Verse campaign.

Google consortium to build trans-Pacific, undersea fiber-optic cable

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From the NEC press release:

A consortium of six global companies announced that they have signed commercial agreements to build and operate a new Trans-Pacific cable system to be called “FASTER” with NEC Corporation as the system supplier. The FASTER cable network will connect the United States to two landing locations in Japan.

The Disney, Amazon feud

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WSJ:

Price isn’t the only issue keeping “Maleficent” and “Captain America” off of Amazon.com Inc. AMZN +0.48% ‘s virtual shelves.

Walt Disney Co.’s dispute with the giant online retailer also encompasses promotion and product placement on the Amazon website, as well as questions over who makes up the difference when Amazon loses money to match the prices of competitors, said a person with knowledge of the matter.

Apple’s two new “Your Verse” ads

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Apple has added two new verses to its “Your Verse” ad campaign. The first one takes you on the road with Chinese musicians Yaoband. The second new “Your Verse” ad follows Jason Hall as he rallies thousand of his fellow Detroit bicyclists to inspire his city. Click through for the videos and links.

The incredibly important Adobe Illustrator story

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[VIDEO] Vimeo:

When Adobe Illustrator first shipped in 1987, it was the first software application for a young company that had, until then, focused solely on Adobe PostScript. The new product not only altered Adobe’s course, it changed drawing and graphic design forever.

Watch the Illustrator story unfold, from its beginning as Adobe’s first software product, to its role in the digital publishing revolution, to becoming an essential tool for designers worldwide. Interviews include cofounder John Warnock, his wife Marva, artists and designers Ron Chan, Bert Monroy, Dylan Roscover and Jessica Hische.

It is hard to truly appreciate the impact Adobe had on the world of computing. In the video embedded below, you’ll meet John Warnock, the co-founder of Adobe, and watch as the invention and evolution of PostScript and Adobe Illustrator unfolds.

Absolutely brilliant.