September 20, 2011
Written by Jim Dalrymple
ZDNet:
A new survey from Pew Research Center’s Internet & American Life Project found that 83 percent of American adults own cell phones, and almost three-quarters of that segment (73 percent) send and receive text messages.Voice calling still comes in at number one as the most preferred form between that and texting with 53 percent of the vote. Yet, texting is gaining as 31 percent of respondents said they prefer texting to talking on the phone. Just 14 percent were undecided and replied it depends on the situation. (For example, likely due to the length of the message and how time-sensitive an issue might be.)
I prefer just to be left alone.
Written by Jim Dalrymple
John Paczkowski:
The company, which announced plans to shutter its webOS hardware business back in August, is sacking hundreds of employees as a result. Sources close to HP say the company plans to lay off as many as 525 employees, and that it began carrying out that dreadful duty this week.
Very sad.
Apple on Tuesday released a major new version of Final Cut Pro X, the first update to the company’s professional video application since it was released in late June.
Final Cut Pro X 10.0.1 focuses on implementing the top user requested features into the application to help professionals get their work done more efficiently.
“We got a lot of feedback from our professional users,” Richard Townhill, Apple’s senior director applications marketing, told The Loop. “We listened to the pros and have taken their top feature requests and put them in this update.”
Final Cut Pro now has Xsan support, which includes projects and events. With Xsan support, users can access the same source media while creating separate projects on the SAN. Of course, this means that users can edit from any system attached to the SAN.
The new version also includes support for Rich XML import and export. XML interchange gives users access to third-party workflows like high-end visual effects, color grading and media asset management. This includes products like Blackmagic Design’s DaVinci Resolve and Square Box System’s CatDV.
Apple brought Media Stems support to Final Cut Pro X, but they took it a step further than what you may be used to. When you export stems, you are basically splitting the media into separate files like dialogue, effects, music, etc. You have to mute all of the tracks you don’t want in the stem and them bounce the file out. Obviously, this means that you have to make multiple passes in order to export all of the necessary stems.
Final Cut Pro X introduces the concept of Roles, which allows you to tag tracks based on the stems you want to export. Once all of your tracks are labeled, you can make one pass and export all of the stems at the same time.
You can export a single multitrack file or separate audio stems based on your tags. You can also apply Roles to video clips and graphics giving you a new way to export separate files for versioning and localization, according to Apple.
Apple added a few other features to Final Cut Pro X too, like Custom Starting Timecode, GPU-accelerated export, Camera Import SDK and full-screen view in Lion.
Of course, when Apple first released Final Cut Pro X, some users were not happy with the changes, but Apple said they were listening.
“We have very vocal customers and they told us what they think was missing,” said Townhill. “What we’re doing today is answering those concerns.”
Even with some vocal users complaining early on, Apple said they have not seen customers leaving the platform since Final Cut Pro X was released.
Creative Strategies President and market analyst Tim Bajarin said this release is likely to make Final Cut Pro much more interesting to a broader audience. Bajarin also points to the significant price drop of Final Cut Pro X as a major factor in its success.
Final Cut Pro X introduced many new features like a Magnetic Timeline that lets you edit on a flexible, trackless canvas; Content Auto-Analysis that categorizes your content upon import by shot type, media and people; and background rendering.
“We’ve got a modern architecture, and this is the foundation for the next 10 years,” said Townhill.
In addition to all the new features, Apple is releasing a demo version of Final Cut Pro X today, so all users can try it out.
“We are giving people the opportunity to see for themselves how powerful, amazing and revolutionary Final Cut Pro is,” said Townhill. “No app takes advantage of Lion and the Mac the way Final Cut Pro X does.”
Written by Jim Dalrymple
CNet:
Wireless provider Cellular South has filed suit against AT&T’s proposed T-Mobile merger, arguing that the deal should not be approved.In a complaint filed in the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia and seen by CNET, Cellular South argues that AT&T’s proposed acquisition of T-Mobile USA violates the Clayton Antitrust Act, and, echoing the concerns of other critics, says that the deal would stifle competition in the marketplace.
This AT&T merger seems to be suffering the death of a thousand cuts.
Canon on Tuesday announced support for AirPrint, iOS’s built-in printing capability, in its Pixma MG8220, MG6220 and MG5320 All-In-One inkjet photo printers. What’s more, Canon also said “the majority of Canon Pixma inkjet printers” will support AirPrint as well.
AirPrint was introduced with iOS 4.2, and works on all iOS devices – iPad, iPhone, iPod touch.
A web page Canon claims to have set up with details about AirPrint support was not active as The Loop posted this article.
September 19, 2011
Last week during the introduction of Windows 8, Stephen Sinofsky, president of Microsoft Windows unit said that the “demos we are showing you today are equally at home on ARM or x86,” according to Informationweek.
A Microsoft representative later clarified that statement saying he “was referring only to so-called Metro apps — touch-based applications that are designed for tablets but which also will run on Windows PCs.”
“We’ve been very clear since the very first CES demos and forward that the ARM product won’t run any x86 applications,” said Sinofsky.
Tonight, Mary-Jo Foley said this on ZDNet:
Part of the reason for all this confusion is Windows 8’s terminology, in my opinion. The “Desktop App” in Windows 8 is the classic Windows 7 mode. Not all Metro-style apps are going to be consumer apps, nor are all business/enterprise apps going to run in the Desktop App mode. Business apps — whether they’re written in HTML5/JavaScript or in C++, C#, Visual Basic and/or using XAML — can adopt the Metro look and feel. And consumer apps can technically be Windows 8 Desktop apps.
Clear as mud.
Written by Jim Dalrymple
New York Times:
At the end of regular trading Monday, Apple shares closed at $411.63, up 2.78 percent, with a new record-high market valuation of $381.62 billion. It is now clearly the most valuable company on the stock market, displacing Exxon Mobil, with a market capitalization of $358.34 billion.
Clearly investors still have a lot of confidence in Apple and its executive team.
Written by Jim Dalrymple
Pew Research Center:
Young adults are the most avid texters by a wide margin. Cell owners between the ages of 18 and 24 exchange an average of 109.5 messages on a normal day—that works out to more than 3,200 texts per month—and the typical or median cell owner in this age group sends or receives 50 messages per day (or 1500 messages per month).
I’m not surprised at all. With an 18 year old daughter and 16 year old son at home, I see how much texting goes on. They would both rather text their friends than talk on the phone.
Me, I like speaking to people.
[Via The Brooks Review]
Written by Jim Dalrymple
Nate Anderson for Ars Technica:
Wayne Hoehn beat Righthaven so badly that the Las Vegas-based copyright troll lost its copyright infringement case on fair use grounds—and had to pay Hoehn’s lawyers at the Randazza Legal Group $34,045.50 in attorney’s fees. But Righthaven, which has been squeezing settlements from bloggers and random forum users for more than a year, hasn’t paid up. Now, Marc Randazza and his team want the US Marshals to seize Righthaven’s bank accounts and property.
I bet a lot of people would like to see this happen.
Written by Jim Dalrymple
In May we announced Google Wallet—an app that makes your phone your wallet—with Citi, MasterCard, Sprint and First Data. With Google Wallet, you can tap, pay and save using your phone and near field communication (NFC).
I’m really looking forward to seeing how fast this technology takes off.
Written by Jim Dalrymple
Many thanks to Pixelmator for sponsoring this week’s RSS feed.
Pixelmator is the beautifully designed, easy-to-use, fast and powerful image editing app for Mac OS X that has everything you need to create, edit and enhance your images. With tons of new features and improvements, the next generation of Pixelmator—codenamed Chameleon—is clearly the best Pixelmator ever built. Even more, Pixelmator 2 will be available later this month via the Mac App Store as a free upgrade for everyone who purchased any version of Pixelmator via the Mac App Store.
Written by Jim Dalrymple
App Cubby founder, David Barnard:
When you steal an idea and have the time and good taste to make it your own, it grows into something different, hopefully something greater. But as you borrow more and more from other products, there’s less and less of you in the result. Less to be proud of, less to own.
Interesting thoughts from David.
Written by Jim Dalrymple
Macworld’s Jim Galbraith takes a first look at Apple’s new displays.
Written by Jim Dalrymple
“Just after the arrival of the iPhone 5 here, Samsung plans to take Apple to court here for its violation of Samsung’s wireless technology related patents,” said an anonymous Samsung senior executive.“For as long as Apple does not drop mobile telecommunications functions, it would be impossible for it to sell its i-branded products without using our patents. We will stick to a strong stance against Apple during the lingering legal fights,” he added.
On September 1 we relaunched The Loop with one of the biggest design changes in the site’s two-year history. Overall, the reception to the new design has been great, but there have been a few small issues that needed to be addressed.
The most important issue that readers provided was that the linked posts — those that the headline links out to another site — were not clearly marked. Because of this, it was difficult for users to know how to navigate the site.
That’s the first thing we tackled and here’s what we did:
1. The headlines that are linked posts are now underlined.
2. Headlines that are linked posts are now a smaller font size than posts that are full stories.
3. Linked posts will now have the infinity symbol after the post, clearly indicating that it is a linked post. The headline will link off to the other site and the infinity symbol will link to the permalink of the story.
These changes also carry through to the mobile site and the RSS feed.
Linked posts in the RSS feed will have an infinity symbol after the post that will take you to The Loop, while the headline will take you to the originating Web site.
The mobile site for the iPhone and iPad look, and act, exactly the same as the desktop site, so the user experience will be same no matter what device you use.
I have to take a minute and thank YJ Soon and his great DFLL plug-in for WordPress. I contacted YJ a couple of weeks ago about what I wanted to do with the linked posts and he coded everything that needed to be done.
Just a superb job on his part getting everything to work properly.
Netflix will soon call its DVD mailing service Qwikster and will branch out to video game rentals. The revelation comes from Reed Hastings, the service’s decidedly more contrite co-founder and CEO, who sent out an e-mail to subscribers entitled “An Explanation and Some Reflections.”
Hastings started out the lengthy e-mail by admitting Netflix fumbled its previous announcement that it would break apart DVD shipping and streaming. “… many members felt we lacked respect and humility,” said Hastings. “That was certainly not our intent, and I offer my sincere apology.”
Hastings revealed that Netflix will rebrand its DVD subscription service “Qwikster.com,” and will branch out to offer users the ability to rent video games for Wii, PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360 consoles – a shot across the bow of Gamefly, which offers a Netflix-style rental service by mail, and Redbox, the video rental kiosk system which has also begun to offer video games.
Netflix.com and Qwikster.com will not have integrated Web sites, Hastings said. Users who continue to subscribe to both the DVD mailing and streaming services will need to manage their rental queues on the two separate services, and will see two separate bills on their credit card – though the cumulative price will remain the same as what Netflix has previously described.
Hastings’ note comes a few days after Netflix lowered its forecasted subscriber base by one million, from 25 to 24 million subscribers. The company’s stock valuation has taken a beating, down 40 percent since it announced plans to restructure its subscription prices over the summer. The company’s loss of content partner Starz hasn’t helped the stock’s downward slide, either.
Hastings defends the price increase, calling streaming and DVD “two different businesses, with very different cost structures.”
“I want to acknowledge and thank you for sticking with us, and to apologize again to those members, both current and former, who felt we treated them thoughtlessly,” Hastings said.
September 17, 2011
Written by Jim Dalrymple
Trooper’s Ra McGuire:
The three members of Green Day split songwriting royalties evenly despite the fact that, from what I can tell, Billy Joe Armstrong writes the lyrics and melodies for their songs.Kurt Cobain, on the other hand, received sole songwriting credit for all but a couple of Nirvana’s songs (a co-write and a b-side written by the band’s drummer Dave Grohl).
Written by Jim Dalrymple
Balsillie on the iPhone in February 2007 from BusinessInsider:
“It’s kind of one more entrant into an already very busy space with lots of choice for consumers … But in terms of a sort of a sea-change for BlackBerry, I would think that’s overstating it.”
And you wonder why you’re in trouble.
Written by Jim Dalrymple
Associated Press (via Google):
AT&T’s LTE plans have figured in the company’s bid to buy T-Mobile USA for $39 billion. AT&T says it originally planned to build out LTE to cover 80 percent of the U.S. population, but if regulators let it buy T-Mobile, it will upgrade cell sites in rural areas as well, to cover 97 percent of the population. AT&T has less radio spectrum available for LTE than Verizon does, so it wants to take some of the spectrum T-Mobile uses for 3G and convert it to LTE.
AT&T’s rollout of LTE is a relatively soft launch, with five cities online now and 10 more expected by the end of the year. That’s far behind competitor Verizon, which offers LTE in dozens of cities. While new devices are required to access the faster networking technology, AT&T isn’t adding on new data plans – they’re a “perk thrown in with existing plans,” according to the report.
AT&T is facing stiff resistance to its proposed acquisition of T-Mobile. Seven states have joined the Department of Justice lawsuit to stop the merger in its tracks; they claim that reducing the number of cell phone networks will reduce competition.
Apple, for its part, hasn’t indicated when it will offer LTE-equipped devices.
Written by Jim Dalrymple
MG:
That’s why Paul’s post is dangerous. He’s shining the spotlight on something, but he’s missing the mark. There is exactly one person to blame for all of this — and her name is not Erick.
Written by Jim Dalrymple
IndustryGamers:
Market research firm Interpret has issued a new report “iPad Gamers: A Look at the Users of Gaming’s Shiny New Toy,” which Interpret says “demonstrates that Apple’s popular tablet computer is both drawing the attention of traditional console gamers and developing its own new user base of nontraditional gamers.”In fact, the base of iPad gamers in the U.S. has now grown to over 8 million, the firm claims. 71% of iPad owners in the U.S. use the Apple tablet for gaming, and Interpret says that these owners “include a substantial number of traditional gamers, as well as an ever-bigger proportion of non-traditional gamers.”
It certainly shouldn’t be a surprise, given the widespread popularity of gaming on the iPhone, but it should be reassuring to game developers considering the iPad as a platform to know that there’s already a large and growing audience for their products.
Written by Jim Dalrymple
Examiner.com:
Sony is updating the user agreement for the Playstation Network starting on September 15 and one of the changes included in the update seeks to stop class action lawsuits against the company.
Sony was the target of a hacker break-in earlier this year that exposed tens of millions of user accounts because of lackadaisical security. Sony’s move is a defensive measure to prevent more legal exposure. The company allows you to opt out of the arbitration clause, but you’re required to do so in writing within 30 days of agreeing to the new terms of service.
September 16, 2011
Written by Jim Dalrymple
I would like to thank Pixelmator for sponsoring this week’s RSS feed.
Pixelmator is the beautifully designed, easy-to-use, fast and powerful image editing app for Mac OS X that has everything you need to create, edit and enhance your images. With tons of new features and improvements, the next generation of Pixelmator—codenamed Chameleon—is clearly the best Pixelmator ever built. Even more, Pixelmator 2 will be available later this month via the Mac App Store as a free upgrade for everyone who purchased any version of Pixelmator via the Mac App Store.
Written by Jim Dalrymple
Washington Post:
The attorney generals of California, Illinois, Massachusetts, New York, Ohio, Pennsylvania, and Washington joined the suit filed in the U.S. District Court of the District of Columbia. They argued that the deal would violate antitrust laws by reducing the number of wireless carriers from four to three national companies and removing an important lower-cost competitor.
By piling on the existing Department of Justice lawsuit, the states may make it less likely that Justice will accept a settlement instead of forcing the merger to stop altogether, according to a legal expert consulted for the article.
Written by Jim Dalrymple
Electronista:
BlackBerry owners on Friday were dealt more unfortunate news Friday after many reported losing access to Internet services. Both BlackBerry Messenger and e-mail faced outages, primarily in Canada and Latin American countries. RIM was “investigating” as of Friday afternoon but didn’t have a cause or an estimated time for a fix.
Wow. RIM just can’t catch a break.
Written by Jim Dalrymple
PC World:
U.S. President Barack Obama has signed the America Invents Act, the first major overhaul of the U.S. patent system in about 50 years.The America Invents Act, passed 89-9 by the U.S. Senate last week, would allow new challenges to patents granted by the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO). It allows third parties to file a challenge to a patent within nine months of it being awarded.
The law changes the patent process by giving the patent to the first person to file, not the first person to create. This puts the U.S. on a level playing field with most of the rest of the world. Opponents of the legislation fear that will put small businesses and sole inventors at a disadvantage with larger companies with deeper pockets.
Valve has released its seminal action puzzle game Portal for Mac and PC for free until September 20, 2011. The game is available for download through Valve’s Steam download service.
Portal was the first game from Valve to be published for the Mac when the company began supporting OS X in 2010. It’s an unusual 3D platform-oriented puzzle game in which you use portal guns – devices that open dimensional gateways on flat surfaces like walls, ceilings and floors – and must make your way through an increasingly complicated and bizarre series of rooms filled with intricate traps and puzzles.
Valve has released Portal for free as part of their Learn With Portals initiative, which seeks to inspire kids to learn about science, technology, engineering and mathematics.
“Using interactive tools like the Portal series to draw them in makes physics, math, logic, spatial reasoning, probability, and problem-solving interesting, cool, and fun which gets us one step closer to our goal—engaged, thoughtful kids,” reads a statement on the Learn With Portals Web site.
This isn’t the first time Portal has been made free – when Valve launched its Steam service for Mac in 2010, the company similarly offered up Portal as a free bonus for early subscribers. If you missed your chance to get it then, you can get it now, but act fast.
Written by Jim Dalrymple
BGR:
During RIM’s second-quarter earnings call, Co-CEO Jim Balsillie noted that the company plans to offer price cuts on the not-so-popular BlackBerry PlayBook in the form of rebates, and an incentive program for enterprise sales.
He also said there’s a big software update coming. Too little, too late.
Written by Jim Dalrymple
Heroes from Afghanistan and Iraq.
Written by Jim Dalrymple
Smashing Magazine:
Illustrator makes it easy to use symbols multiple times within a document as well. With the Symbols tools, you can add and alter several symbols at once. And in CS5, you can now change the settings for a symbol while editing.
