BlackBerry 10 might not make it back into the consumer spotlight soon, but with Fed approval, RIM's devices may end up in the hands of government officials in need of secure communications.
Is This Line Secure?
Due out in early 2013, RIM's BlackBerry 10 devices and OS need all the help they can get to reinvigorate the brand, raise consumer confidence and get something of a vibe going. Perhaps the image of clandestine agents toting their BB10s for secret messages, or seeing those in power wielding them to talk to "the man," or using them to solve the world's problems will help.
That's because the US government has already given RIM approval for Federal Information Processing Standard (FIPS) 140-2 certification. Meaning that BB10 devices and the back-end BlackBerry Enterprise Service 10, have one useful stamp on them.
The technology used in them offers data encryption on both server and device, and as messages are passed on. That's what the Feds demand, so no unauthorised listeners can drop in on what's being sent.
Too Little, Too Late?
Of course, this accreditation is nothing if the government (and the standard also applies north of the border in RIM's home country) doesn't end up buying them. And there's little guarantee that anyone will be rushing to buy BlackBerry devices next year.
However, with no phone maker really grabbing the third spot in the market behind Apple and Samsung, there is a fair chance that RIM could still stage a comeback, particularly with its powerful enterprise following with secure collaboration needs.
BlackBerry Enterprise Service 10 is the key to keeping those IT managers happy and offers a great deal for those in admin. With consolidation of mobile device management, security, infrastructure, and app management from a unified web-based console, there's plenty to appeal to security concious businesses.
Google has slightly altered its search engine results page, and the company now says its search experience is more consistent across mobile devices and the desktop.
Search options like Web, images, maps and videos are now across the top of the page and the sidebar where they used to live on the left hand side is now gone. That means more room for the Knowledge Graph on the right hand side of the page. It also, however, allows for more room on the right side for advertisements.
Clean Search Design
Search results page changes had already rolled out to tablets and mobile phones this summer, and now desktop users in the US are getting a taste of the new design, Google's search team said in a blog post. The changes will roll out to other languages and other regions 'as soon as we can,' the post reads.
More white space appears on desktop Google searches now.
For those who regularly make use of the search options that used to live on the left hand side, they are now at the top. The Search Tools button reveals a little menu of choices below the search options for refining searches by time, location and related searches or visited pages.
Drill down into results with the same tools, just moved a bit north.
Searching for the Ultimate Result
Google will probably never stop tweaking its search features, and as long as it remains on top of the search world, that will continue to be its prerogative. In fact, the company has been adding new search features all summer. Making search more semantic is always welcome, and Google's commitment to natural language search makes finding things a bit easier.
There were a couple of other updates that were a bit more controversial, however. First was adding voice search to iOS before bringing it to Android users. That was obviously just a strategic move, but natural language voice search is certainly a fun tool.
Google also began surfacing gmail, Drive and calender results in relevant search queries. This is only available by field trial, so those interested can opt into the program by signing up. Tell us in the comments if you are used to the shifting search results page design or if you think the most recent change is the best one yet.
In August, a group of top HP reps and product directors gathered in New York to show off the company's newest devices: laptops, tablets, desktops, hybrid PCs. But its flagship product--or at least the device HP reps spent the most typing selling to attendees--was the HP ElitePad 900, a 10-inch Windows 8 tablet designed for business. With a slew of business-friendly accessories (keyboard, docking station, Stylus pen), HP believes its slate can finally compete with the iPad in the corporate world. But what about Microsoft's Surface tablet?
Surface
Like most hardware makers in the space, HP's interest in the enterprise space is indicative of its larger struggles to keep pace with Apple in the consumer tablet market. Long have hardware manufacturers (or OEMs) relied on corporate customers to boost sales: Not only did these customers value low-cost products over high-end design, but their employees depended on legacy applications, meaning programs built for older systems that required backward compatibility to function--programs that would be too costly to migrate over to a new platform like Apple's. In this environment, Windows-based PCs thrived. But that's all changing thanks to the iPad. Apple's best-selling tablet has dominated the enterprise space--one recent study suggested the iPad accounted for 97.3% of tablets activated by enterprise customers last quarter, a strong indication that even stodgy business clients value quality design and user experience.
Apple now sells more iPads than HP does PCs. Mike Hockey, worldwide public relations manager for HP’s multi-billion-dollar personal systems group, describes this sea change: "Let's be honest, there's a certain expectation in the market--the iPad has set an expectation for what a tablet should be. We know that you have to design something that looks good. At the end of the day, nobody wants to be embarrassed to pull something out--it's got to have a consumer look and feel. If you pull out something butt-ugly these days, end users will revolt. It used to be, 'You take it; you're going to like it.' That's changed. It really has. You got the IT guys saying, 'I need X, Y, and Z.' But you have the end user going, 'Man, screw you, I'm going to bring in my own device.' So if you're not even close to the iPad, then why even bother?"
It's a radical change in thinking for HP. Only last year, the company was trying to sell me on the HP Slate 2, a super-thick, Windows 7-based tablet that had barely any of the functionality of the iPad yet sold at an alarmingly high price of $699. At the time, Hockey and his colleague Kyle Thornton, category manager for emerging products at HP, argued that due to the reliance of the enterprise on Windows and legacy applications, the HP Slate 2 would be a huge hit in the market, despite its deficiencies and appalling design. "To be honest with you, we've had many customers look at [the iPad], but they're not necessarily looking for that whiz-bang experience," Thornton said then. "Let me tell you, for a lot of customers, the Windows 7-based [Slate] performance is more than enough for what they're looking for… Now, the CEO might get the iPad, but for the 500 or 2,000 [employee] deployment? They're not going to get iPads. They're going to get something like this [Slate 2]."
Slate 2
In other words, the CEO gets the good device, while the employees get the cheap device. Look how much has changed: "I agree with you: Windows 7 was not the answer," Hockey told me over the summer. "I'm not going to argue with you. I'd be the first to tell you that Windows 7 on a tablet was not a very strong product. But we think that with this new generation of Windows 8, touch-enabled devices, there's an opportunity now."
All told, the ElitePad 900 is a pretty sleek device on its own. At 9.2mm and 1.5 pounds, the ElitePad is actually more appealing than many of HP's consumer offerings. The company hopes the tablet's accessories will set it apart: a two-piece Smart Jacket system provides extra battery life and ports; a docking station provides additional features such as USB and HDMI connectivity; and the company is also offering an external keyboard and Stylus pen.
However, these accessories are also the ElitePad's downfall: the thick and heavy jacket system is anything but Smart; the docking station provides little differentiation; and the external keyboard is a bulky slab of hardware that doesn't match the device's light-weight design, while the Stylus pen doesn't even attach intuitively the tablet itself when not needed. (Because the Stylus pen was foolishly designed thicker than the tablet itself, you actually need an external cover just to store the pen.) Compare that to Microsoft's Surface tablet, which features a sturdy, built-in kickstand as well as a super-thin attachable keyboard that doubles as a cover. Why would corporate customers want all the additional clutter of accessories if Microsoft's offering eliminates the baggage?
"Because you may have a situation where you may need more options--the [Surface] might not be enough for you," Hockey says. "If all I'm looking for is a notebook, well I might as well buy a notebook. If I'm just going to carry the Surface with a kickstand, what's the point? We've got notebooks that are down to 2.5 pounds now. I don't know what the Surface is with the kickstand--it's right at 2 pounds I think. If i'm going to have the kickstand and keyboard all the time, and that's really all I'm using it for, then why not just go buy a light-weight notebook or ultrabook?"
HP ElitePad 900
It's a talking point HP was clearly prepared to deliver. Only several weeks ago, HP CEO Meg Whitman knocked the Surface, which she said "doesn't function like a laptop," adding that "it lacks a keyboard you can do real work on." Whitman argued the Surface is more so geared toward the consumer space, while HP's offering will compete in the enterprise market.
One thing is for sure: HP can no longer rely on the same formula and advantages it has for decades. High-end design and user experience are now incredibly important, even in the corporate world. And with Apple's rocketing success in the enterprise space, HP and other hardware makers can't depend on Windows forever to sell its products.
NewsGator has moved its Social Sites to the new Windows 8 platform. The Denver-based company announced this week an app that will offer its Social Sites on devices using that new OS.
The app is also touch-enabled for those who want to use it on Windows 8 touch-based devices. It employs Lookout, a new drag-and-drop interface that was introduced by NewsGator in August as part of a major version 3.0 update of Social Sites for SharePoint 2013. Lookout allows users to pick and choose from the activity streams and other information emanating from SharePoint.
Multi-Column Dashboard
The company said Lookout is intended to solve the tendency of activity and other informational streams to overwhelm a user, causing important information to be overlooked. The interface allows a user to choose and configure which content to view from activity streams, people, communities, topics, subjects, notifications and other areas, including documents from SharePoint that match search terms.
Lookout presents the information as a multi-column dashboard view, and the columns can be dragged-and-dropped into a customized configuration. New or unread information is visually highlighted so users can quickly scan and locate the latest content.
Also displayed is “social intelligence” via recommendation engines, with descriptions why colleagues and communities are being recommended. And the app has the ability to include HD video, private messaging or email. As with the previous version of Social Sites, users can respond to notifications and conversations from activity streams via email.
Filtering Information
Brian Kellner, NewsGator’s executive vice president of development and product management, said in a statement that the company built Social Sites because “our customers told us they needed a better way to filter, refine, interact and consumer large amounts of information in the social streams.”
The intent of the new Windows 8 app, he said, is to “focus on a more human-centric approach,” since other tools on the marketplace “do not empower the end user.” He added that the app is making “social technology smarter and better-enabling the end user to surface relevant connections when and where they need it.”
With mobile devices blossoming, how can content publishers best distribute their wares? A South Africa-based company, Snapplify, is providing one solution.
The company enables publishers, authors and other mobile content providers to package their offerings into digital publications that become available within a branded mobile app. Content providers can create, manage and distribute multiple publications — and handle subscription and other revenue streams — through a single app.
Custimization for iOS, Android
The app, which is customized to the owner’s requirements, is then distributed by Snapplify globally through app stores. Currently, Snapplify is working through Apple’s App Store and the Google Play app store.
App development, submission and approval are handled by Snapplify, and its platform can handle a variety of file formats, including PDF, ePDF, ePUB, maps, embedded websites, HTML 5 and common audio and video formats. The client receives analytical data about downloads and sales, and payment collection and disbursement is handled by Snapplify.
Apps can be made available for iOS or Android smartphones or tablets, depending on the client’s needs, although Snapplify points out that many kinds of digital publications are best viewed on tablets.
No Upfront Cost for Publishers
Snapplify gives several use case examples, such as Africa’s first tablet-only interactive daily newspaper, called iMaverick. The publication needed a solution that would offer mass distribution to both Apple and Android devices, integration with a large database of existing subscribers, a reliable and engaging interface, and options such as in-app subscriptions.
With Snapplify, publishers can upload mobile-optinimzed pdf files and produce a digital newspaper with multimedia content.
Snapplify’s solution utilized the existing PDF files that had been optimized for mobile, and resulted in a Digital News app for iMaverick that offers the digital newspaper with embedded video, interactive ads and other multimedia content. iMaverick staff employ the Snapplify platform to manage content in the app.
The platform was launched a year ago at the Frankfurt Book Fair. While a variety of publishing solutions for mobile devices have emerged, including WoodWing’s collaboration with Adobe’s Digital Publishing Suite and small vendors such as 955 Dreams, a potential strength to Snapplify’s approach is a soup-to-nuts solution that takes care of distribution. Additionally, pricing is based on a commission of sales, so the lack of upfront costs could appeal to small publishers.
With HTML5 all the rage, Quark has announced that the next generation of its App Studio will enable cloud-based, HTML5-based app development for Apple and Android mobile devices, or for Amazon’s Kindle Fire.
The latest App Studio combines technology from Quark’s acquisition of PressRun and its parent company, Mobile IQ earlier this year, with Quark’s existing digital publishing technology, QuarkXPress and InDesign. PressRun is being retired as a brand. The previous App Studio, included with QuarkXPress 9.1, 9.2 and 9.3, will be renamed Quark AVE Publishing, and will continue to support existing App Studio customers.
Smaller File Size
The company said that the hosted App Studio is the only digital publishing solution for creating customized apps with HTML5, QuarkXPress, InDesign and XML.
App Studio-created apps feature searchable and selectable text, can be bookmarked or shared, and the company said the apps are often a quarter of the file size of apps created with other solutions — potentially saving time for users during downloading. QuarkXPress and InDesign, the company’s flagship products, can be utilized for content creation in the apps.
Shaun Barriball, Vice President of Mobile Products for Quark, said in statement that the intent of App Studio is to “remove the complexity around creating and delivering the best app experiences,” while allowing content creators to employ their favorite design tools and to work within a cloud environment.
Native apps are designed and developed for a specific mobile device platform, so as to optimize performance and access such on-board device capabilities as a camera. Web-based apps are server-based, accessed through a browser, and offer device independence but have a limited ability to utilize the specific capabilities of a device and often provide slower performance.
Hybrid apps, however, use web technologies such as HTML5 and run inside a native container, with a web-to-native layer that provides access to a device’s resources.
A recent report by Forrester noted that native apps offer the highest performance for mobile devices, but that hybrid apps “offer an inexpensive alternative to native apps,” especially for apps where content is frequently modified.
To cover all bases, and hand sizes, Samsung is entering the shrinking game with the announcement of a smaller-model Galaxy S3 smartphone. Will all smart devices soon come in a range of glove sizes?
Harry Potter, Where Are You?
With Apple engorging the size of its iPhone screen and shrinking down the iPad to Mini proportions, why can't Samsung get in on the fun? All they, and other, companies need is a handy wizard to do the work, instead of all these process shrinks and redesigns.
Wizardry aside, Samsung has done it the hard way and will announce tomorrow a European mini version of the top-selling Galaxy S3 super-phone. That will bring it more in line with Apple's iPhone 5 and give choice to those who think the original S3 (and the Samsung Note) are just a touch too big.
Likely to ship with a 4-inch screen, it will match Apple's phone and create a new entry point in Samsung's arsenal. But the phone shouldn't be substantially less-specced, as Samsung is stating that it is only a mini in size, not in specification, while highlighting the demand for smaller-screen devices in Europe.
The specs have just leaked and we see a dual-core CPU clocked at 1GHz and 1GB RAM with 16Gb storage (plus a microSD slot). It will be running Android 4.1 Jelly Bean and comes with a 5MP main camera and flash, plus a VGA front-camera, The European model will have quad-band 2G and tri-band 3G (No real need for 4G in the old world).
What Size Would You Like?
Samsung won't comment if the smaller device will come to the American market, where presumably those hulk-hands are happier with the current Samsung Galaxy model (pictured below). Either way, you can expect an interesting court date between Apple and Samsung at some point in the future arguing over the "Mini" name, with lawyers going "we shrunk it first!" "No, we did!" etc.
The official unveiling will take place in Germany tomorrow, and the news is scorching across Twitter right now. But, will a smaller phone be as successful as a larger model… we have Apple going up the scale and Samsung going down it, it will be interesting to see which is the most successful route?
It would be hard to envisage existing Samsung users "downsizing" against the throng of upgrading Apple users. But, if Samsung gets many million new users through this popular-branded product, it should put it in a far better position over time.
Mobile devices are moving audiences and advertisers away from the television set. But can they also help bring them back? Zeebox's second screen solution makes live programming more fun and potentially more profitable.
Let’s say you’re the television industry. A Nielsen study says that says 88% of tablet owners and 86% of smartphone owners are using mobile devices while they watch your shows. Some of them are playing Angry Birds, but some of them are Shazaming to get more information, checking into content with GetGlue and tweeting about plots in real-time.
This is the point that likely stands out to you: Bad Piggies, Shazam, GetGlue and Twitter are all making money by capturing your viewers attention on mobile devices. You, the television industry titan, are likely not. At least not directly.
So what are you going to do about it? You might try to make apps that provide a second-screen environment for each show. But those are expensive to develop, and they don’t deliver a great experience for channel surfers who don’t want to app surf simultaneously. You might promote the existing social media conversation around your shows, but that won’t directly promote increases to your bottom line.
Anthony Rose and Ernesto Schmitt
Perhaps it’s time to partner up.
That's what NBCUniversal, Comcast (which owns a controlling interest in NBCUniversal) and HBO have decided. On Thursday, the companies announced partnerships with Zeebox, a startup app designed to play sidekick to any television show. NBC and Comcast have invested an undisclosed amount in the startup. British Sky Broadcasting has previously taken a 10% stake.
Launched in the UK last January, Zeebox has been downloaded by 1.5 million people there. It launches in the U.S. Thursday.
The app isn't an alternative venue for shows the way Hulu and Netflix are. Instead, it aims to enhance programs as they're watched on a television set. The free app not only acts as a program guide--telling users, for instance, which shows are being most discussed or watched by their friends--but also as a remote. Meanwhile, it allows any broadcaster to add additional content like videos, games and polls to their shows' digital hub. Even if a show’s producers don’t participate, users will find a dedicated page for it with relevant twitter chatter, additional information and a chatroom on Zeebox.
Zeebox has no specific killer feature. Its biggest advantage is an appeal to broadcasters.
Like Shazam, it will extend its second-screen experience to advertisements. Unlike Shazam, it will share revenue from enhanced commercials with all broadcasters (Shazam says it does share revenue with some broadcasters, but declined to provide information about the circumstances in which it does so). Adding a mobile component to a commercial can nudge consumers toward action (think “buy this now” buttons) in a way that television ads can’t. You don't have to be an advertising executive to realize the potential for profit. Zeebox has also invented television’s first form of keyword advertisingby pulling important terms from shows' closed captioning data as they air. Users can click on each term within the app to see more information about it. Zeebox plans to sell sponsored versions of the terms the same way Google sells promoted links in your search results.
For HBO, which relies on subscriptions rather than advertising, Zeebox could provide an incentive for watching programming on cable rather than through iTunes or your parent’s HBO Go account.
If you’re still pretending to be the television industry, this probably all sounds awesome. But if you’ve lapsed back into average viewer mode, you might be feeling left out. What does Zeebox give you that you don’t already have? Short answer: Everything. At once.
Want to tweet about the show you're watching? Zeebox has a chatroom for group discussion with strangers. Want to share what you watch with friends? You won’t need GetGlue when you have Zeebox. Looking for what to watch next? There's a guide built in. More info on that celebrity the host just mentioned? Use Zeetags instead of Google. Games? Got those, too. Put your Bad Piggies away.
None of Zeebox's many features is the most likely source of new users. That would be HBO, Comcast and NBC, which will all help promote the app. NBCUniversal EVP of Strategic Integration Page Thompson declined to comment on the scale of the network's planned marketing effort, but Zeebox co-founder and CTO Anthony Rose said it “will be hard to watch NBC without noticing Zeebox.”
Microsoft plans to release a new version of its Lync communications platform that will be compatible with Windows 8 and Windows RT-based devices. Lync 2013 will be available as both a mobile app and desktop client.
Delivering the Full Lync Experience via Mobile Device
The new Lync app, slated for release at the end of October 2012, will be optimized for touchscreen devices (which at this point covers virtually any mobile device released in the last few years) and provides integration of voice, video, telepresence, IM and online Lync Meetings. Using the H. 264 SVC (Scaling Video Coding) standard, Microsoft says Lync Meetings will be delivered to devices of varying screen sizes without “heavy transcoding.”
In addition, the new mobile app will deliver VoIP and video to Windows Phone, iOS and Android devices and be compatible both Lync Server 2010 and Lync Server 2013.
Connecting to Skype, Office
Microsoft also plans to connect Lync to the Skype VoIP service, which it purchased in May 2011. Lync users will have full access to Skype users, including “seeing” their availability and directly communicating with them via IM, phone call or telepresence.
Furthermore, connections between Lync and Microsoft Office will enable activities such as presence information, click-to-communicate capabilities and social network integration. In addition, Office users will have direct access to Lync communications and meetings directly from Office documents, and the new SharedOneNote feature will let Lync Meeting attendees all share and work from the same iteration of a note created in Office.
Microsoft Lync Joins the ‘Elites’
CRN is gung ho about the upcoming revamped version of Lync, stating that “Lync's embrace by both customers and the channel thrust Microsoft into the elite class of unified communications (UC) providers, where it competes head to head with Cisco, Avaya, Siemens Enterprise Communications and a number of smaller vendors.” Considering the general acknowledgement of Cisco as the leader in unified communications, placing Microsoft in the same UC category is high praise indeed.
Billion Dollar Baby?
Microsoft released Lync in November 2010 with much fanfare as the new family brand of products formerly known as Microsoft Communications Server, Microsoft Office Communications Online and Microsoft Office Communicator. The brand also includes Microsoft Lync Web App and Microsoft Lync Online. As a single platform, it integrates instant messaging, presence, audio, video and web-conferencing with a single interface that can be linked with Microsoft Office, Microsoft SharePoint and Microsoft Exchange.
At the time of release, Kurt DelBene, president of the Microsoft Business division, indicated that Microsoft was hoping that Lync will be a billion dollar business in much the same way that SharePoint has been. A billion dollars is a lofty goal, even for Microsoft — but the upcoming revisions to Lync, particularly on the mobile side, should bring it at least a little closer to the hopes and dreams expressed at its birth.
Let’s face it, mobility should absolutely be on your radar if you’re an IT executive or decision maker. Whether your firm has a substantial investment in mobile devices for the workforce or you’ve adopted modern BYOD policies, you cannot ignore the impact of mobile devices on how we do business. Microsoft knows this, and has been hard at work to upgrade SharePoint’s plumbing in relation to the mobile experience.
The below list comprises some of the notable, new features Microsoft has developed for SharePoint 2013. This isn’t really a list for any particular type of user; it’s just a general overview of how Microsoft is adding to the feature set. The list is ranked based on my opinion of relevance and value to the organization.
1. Contemporary View
The first feature that will grab everyone’s eye is the new HTML5 view that is best suited for mobile devices. Think of it as a mix between the boring and lifeless classic view from SharePoint 2010 and the new metro look and feel for SharePoint 2013.
What you get is a clean and highly compatible UI that should work on just about any device supporting HTML5. A new site feature handles whether or not mobile devices are automatically routed to this view or not, so it couldn’t be easier to deploy for IT pros.
2. Device Channels
Here’s a gem for site managers and devs. You now have the ability to render content for the appropriate device without having to duplicate the content itself. This functionality lets you serve up the same content with multiple master pages, page layouts and style sheets. If all goes well, you should be able to support most of the mobile devices in your firm with a lot less overhead than with 2010. The current list of compatible mobile browsers is available on the Microsoft Technet site.
3. Better Office Web Apps UX with Touch Support on Tablets
Working with Office Web Apps on a mobile device in SharePoint 2010 left a lot to be desired. Editing documents was not really possible on many devices and browsers (without a hack), which left users with the ability to basically view only.
Flash forward three years, and the dominance of information workers working on the go has caused Microsoft to revamp their offerings. Unless you were living under a rock, you should already be familiar with the big push Microsoft is making for the new web-based versions of the popular Office apps.
The new UI sports bigger buttons, gesture support, context menus (rejoice!), support for touch, mouse and keyboard input, and many more cool features. I don’t expect the experience to be any different coupled with SharePoint 2013, so you can test drive the experience now with SkyDrive or Office 365.
4. Push Notification Support for Mobile Applications
Push notifications have become staple features for mobile applications and the devices that support them, so it’s not shocking that Microsoft is now supporting this with SharePoint 2013. This feature requires adoption though from 3rd party developers or internal custom development.
The end result is that your device will be able to receive notifications from SharePoint lists and sites. For instance, a new document is uploaded in a library that you’re following, and the notification service sends your device a notification. Simple, yet necessary for today’s mobile devices
Rumors of a mobile phone and Apple TV competitor remained just that, but a range of Kindle devices including a $69 Kindle, a 'Paperwhite' e-reader, and the high-end Kindle Fire HD 4G LTE, shows that Amazon is stepping up to Apple.
Even as Apple's iPad towers over the competition, Google, Microsoft and Amazon continue to fight for their share of the $66.4 billion tablet market with devices of their own. Today, Amazon announced an updated version of its Kindle Fire that includes 4G wireless, a lower-priced $69 Kindle, an improved e-reader called the Kindle Paperwhite, and a range of new software features.
There had been a massive amount of speculation that Amazon would totally new products as well. One possibility, which was first put forth by The Verge, is a smartphone that would use Google's Android platform. There was also speculation that a video box might be unveiled, which made sense given some recent moves by the company: Amazon tried to buy box maker Roku earlier this year, according to AllThingsD. And earlier this week Amazon announced an a deal with EPIX that will bring Hollywood such fare as "The Avengers" and "Iron Man 2" to its Prime Instant Video service. Neither of those rumors proved true.
The best-selling item on Amazon, which accounts for 22 percent of tablet sales in the U.S. according to Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos, will sell for $199 for the 7-inch model and $299 for the 8.9-inch model. Both offer 16GB of memory, with 40% faster performance, and longer battery life. Both models can be ordered starting today and will ship on September 14.
Bezos also unveiled a Kindle Fire HD with 4G LTE wireless capability. Amazon engineered a wireless modem specifically for this device in order to maintain its 2.2mm thickness. The 4G model is 8.9 inches, and offers 32GB of storage for $499. The data plan, which costs $50 per year, offers 20GB of cloud storage and 250MB of data per month. By comparison, the iPad 3 device and data plan would cost around $959 -- at least according to a slide Bezos showed on the screen. The Kindle Fire HD 4G LTE (try saying that 3 times quickly) can be ordered today and will ship on November 20.
The Fire HD has improved Wi-Fi reception, dual band 2.4 GHz and 5.0 GHz, as well as two antennas. (That's one more speaker and antenna than the iPad, if you're counting such things.) Bezos claims these Wi-Fi and antenna improvements will make the Fire HD exponentially faster than either the iPad or Google's Nexus 7.
The HD display (which is now 1920 x 1200) has been tweaked so there is less glare. The device also includes dual stereo speakers--the first tablet with Dolby Digital Plus, says Bezos.
The software that's been added to the device is in many ways even more interesting than the hardware, and it shows that Amazon is keenly aware of how people use its devices.
Having sold 3.5 million Kindle Singles, Amazon is going to further boost the mid-length reading market with Kindle Serials. You're delivered all the installments with one payment. New updates are added as they become available. Bezos mentions, twice, that Charles Dickens' novels were serialized originally. There are at least eight titles to kick things off, all will be $1.99.
Targeted specifically to parents, Time Limits allows them to control the amount of time kids spend using different aspects of the tablet device. Specific limits can be set for the amount of time spent watching videos, using apps, or reading books. And there are different profiles so that you can set limits for multiple children. There is also a color-coded "Free Time" mode so that a parent can easily see when the device is being used by children.
When Amazon released the Kindle Touch it also revealed X-Ray as a feature that let readers look at the "bones of a book" by tapping on the text to see background info on characters, historical figures or topics and other information--with rich data sourced from Wikipedia and elsewhere. Now it's revealed X-Ray for Movies, which similarly lets watchers peep beneath the skin of a film. When you pause a movie, X-Ray will serve up data like actor biographies, info on the cast and so on--basically all the stuff that makes us curious while we watch a movie, and which we then go and Google later. This data is sourced from IMDB.
It's also expanding X-Ray for books with a special Textbooks power, aimed at students. When you tap on text in a textbook, X-Ray brings up additional reference data that'll help with studies.
Amazon's Whispersync was pivotal for its Kindle e-readers, enabling zero-cost downloading of text content, as well as seamless syncing of your current reading position no matter where in a book you were and which of your devices you're reading it from. Now Amazon's enabled Whspersync for Voice, leveraging its ownership of the Audible audio book brand. It syncs your position in a book no matter if you're reading it or listening to the voice performance of the text--perfect for reading the book at home in the morning, and continuing to listen to the text while driving. It's simply clever "chapter marking" in both digital files--text and audio--but its impact for readers may be significant.
Whispersync for Games is a similar progress-syncing channel, routed through Amazon's cloud services, which lets you keep track of where you get to in a game. Essentially it's a cloud hook that snags the position you've got to in a game, so if you reinstall the app or run the game app on a new device you don't have to play through all your earlier levels.
Upgraded email options, a custom Facebook application, and built-in Skype with improved resolution are a few of the ways Kindle Fire HD owners will be able to take advantage of the Wi-Fi and dual antennas.
Audiobooks are no longer separate from reading with this feature that highlights the text in the book while it is also being read aloud as an audio book.
Bezos opened the event today by unveiling the Kindle Paperwhite, an e-reader with a vastly improved screen and front-lighting. The contrast ratio is improved 25%, according to CEO Jeff Bezos, and the screen has 62% more pixels (no raw data just yet). It's very thin -- 9.1mm -- and 7.5 ounces. There are multiple fonts and more control of the size of the type. One interesting new feature: Time to Read, which shows not just the number of pages, but how much time, in minutes, you have left in the chapter or book.
The basic version of Paperwhite will cost $119, and there is also a 3G cellular version for $179. Both can be ordered today and will ship on October 1.
Highlight: The Kindle Paperwhite's battery will last eight weeks even with the light on, according to Bezos.
Amazon managed to both upgrade the Kindle's specs and lower its price. New fonts, crisper text, faster page turns and $10 less than existing model. Ships on September 14. It's amazingly cheap, but not free just yet, Farhad.
As the number of Internet-enabled consumer devices continues to grow, so does the propensity of consumers to sequentially use multiple devices to complete a single online task. In fact, according to a new study from Google, 90 percent of people move among devices to accomplish a goal.
Results of “The New Multi-screen World: Understanding Cross-Platform Consumer Behavior” indicate that these devices can include smartphones, PCs, tablets or TV. Examples of how consumers sequentially use multiple devices for a single task include opening an email on a smartphone and then finishing reading it on a home PC and looking up product specs on a laptop after seeing a TV commercial. And 98 percent of sequential screeners move between devices in the same day to complete a task.
The most popular reasons for sequential device usage include web browsing (81 percent), shopping online (67 percent), managing finances (46 percent) and planning a trip (43 percent). Eighty-one percent of sequential online shopping is spontaneous, which Google credits to the widespread availability of smartphones.
The other primary way of using multiple devices is simultaneous use, meaning using more than one device at the same time. This includes both multitasking — performing different tasks on different devices — and complementary usage such as looking up a product online while watching a TV commercial.
Seventy-seven percent of the time, TV viewers have another device plugged in — with smartphones (49 percent) and PCs/laptops (34 percent) the most popular.
Search Connects Devices
The study also found search to be a critical connector between devices used sequentially. Consumers use search to pick up on a second device where they left off on the first 63 percet of the time they are conducting multi-device search, 61 percent of the time they are browsing the Internet using multiple devices, 51 percent of the time they are shopping online via multiple screens, and 43 percent of the time they are using more than one device to watch online video.
In response, Google advises digital marketers to allow customers to save their progress between devices, as well as use tactics like keyword parity (maintaining the same keywords across different publishers and the three primary match type silos of broad, phrase and exact) to ensure that they can be found easily via search when that customer moves to the next device.
Consumers Combust into Spontaneous Search
Study findings show that 80 percent of searches that happen on smartphones are spur-of-the-moment, and 44 percent of these spontaneous searches are goal-oriented. And more than half (52 percent) of PC/laptop searches are spontaneous, with 43 percent goal-oriented. Google says this presents more opportunities to connect with consumers, so businesses have to make sure they’re present and optimized across multiple screens.
Advertisers and Publishers Take Heed
In an interview with AdWeek, Google head of global mobile sales and strategy Jason Spero said direct-response advertisers “cannot ignore the sequential use of devices because it’s a direct effect on how we shop and how we purchase. A brand advertiser — and many, many, many brand advertisers spend on TV — can’t ignore how the connected device is being used to complement TV.”
As Sony quits the optical storage device market, and cloud storage costs become ever lower, how long will it be before we struggle to find devices to access those DVD archives or Blu-ray backup discs?
How Do You Backup Your Data?
In the old PC days, life was simple. You copied your files to a few floppy diskettes, kept one set on the desk, one in a safe and one at home, and voila, a business-class archive storage solution was born. Hard disk storage on those voluminous Winchester drives made things a little simpler, until files became too big for floppies.
So, over the years, we had tape, then optical, portable HDD and now cloud storage, all offering ways to keep your data safe and secure. Enterprises probably use a mix of all kinds, but smaller businesses will likely be indoctrinated with the good old regular DVD-R back-up. Those companies won't be in danger any time soon, but like the floppy before it, the DVD and Blu-ray drive are soon to become endangered species.
In the news this week, the big blow to DVD's future was Sony is closing down its optical drive manufacturing unit. In the wider PC world, we see a majority of svelte upcoming Windows 8 devices that won't be seen dead lugging a bulky optical drive, and Amazon's offer of cheap Glacier cloud-based archival storage putting more data online,
Shiny Trinkets
On the positive side, there are plenty of drive makers still in business, but optical drives and discs will become a reducing commodity, like floppies, ZiP drives and other formats, which are still in use around the world, but in ever-fewer numbers.
Most of us will adapt and overcome, gradually moving our DVD archives back to portable hard drives, or as online storage becomes cheaper, to the cloud. The general reliability of DVD drives means investing in a couple of internal units for a tower PC (remember them) or an external unit for your notebook will be an easy way to ensure some degree of future compatibility.
As long as you look after them, the storage media too is pretty reliable, so there will be no great panic. Internet-savvy companies are probably using their remaining DVDs for target shooting. Still, there are tens of millions of users and smaller businesses who will need to start looking ahead now and planning to ensure historical data, digital documents, official photos and family backups are all accessible for that that time when you dig out a DVD and suddenly realise there is nothing in the office or home to play it on.
We all know our mobile devices are not only for making calls, sending text and listening music anymore. It goes far beyond that and they have become part of our everyday life in recent years — so much so that we like to do almost all our personal and business transactions using some form of handheld devices.
Businesses treat handheld devices as one of the primary channels today to create a differentiator, improve customer satisfaction and more importantly engage customers toward its brand. Enterprises like to build simple, intuitive, innovative business applications and knowledge worker tools for handheld devices so that employees enjoy maximum flexibility with increased productivity.
At the end of the day, it's all about ease of use, engaging users, flexibility, productivity and accessing the right information anytime, anywhere. This is one of the most disruptive innovations that has happened in recent years. With the pace it is moving and the explosion we have seen already, industry is going to see a phenomenal growth of usage of handheld devices like smartphones, tablets across the globe. Businesses definitely like to take this as an opportunity to be part of this transformation journey for good reasons.
Setting the Context
I am going to mention some tools and technology throughout the article. These are just examples and there are other equally good tools are available in the market —you may need to evaluate for your specific implementation. I am not going to focus on any tool specific implementation, rather I will talk about implementation strategy at conceptual level for different scenarios/use case(s) and I will use the names of these tools/technology to make the discussion more relevant. I do not have any intention to promote or demote any tool/technology through this article.
I am not going to talk here on the popular subject of developing mobile apps using platforms like iOS vs. Android, nor will I focus much on the kind of application (native, web application- HTML5 or hybrid) we should build. Though I personally believe:
Each one is going to stay in its own way and HTML5 will become stronger day by day. Especially with the help of PhoneGap app platform, native APIs can be accessed and compelling interactive apps can be built on HTML5 and this app may look as good as native app. This is certainly an attractive option from a supportability standpoint.
The decision of choosing a specific/tool technology will depend on the kind of target mobile app (eg. gaming app vs. business app) you are planning to build and the features you like to have in the app.
Sometimes time to market, target devices, availability of developers in marketplace, profitability, user experience and non-functional requirements (like supportability, security etc.) also drive the technology choice.
You can find two types of enterprises today — some of them have already defined (or in are in process of defining) their mobile strategies for the next three to five years. They have evaluated and identified (or are in process of evaluating) Mobile Enterprise Application platforms (MEAP - like Antenna Software, IBM Worklight, Sybase Unwired Platform etc.) for building/delivering their native or web apps.
Some organizations (enterprises or SMB) still have not decided on specific tools/technology for mobile development because of lack of maturity or for cost reasons, or they prefer to deal with the situation case by case based on priority as and when they come. There is lot of churns in the industry. Every other day there is another tool and technique to build and deliver a mobile application. Good part of it — iOS (Objective C), Android (Java), RIM- - BlackBerry (Java), Windows Mobile (C++, C# etc.) and web app (HTML5) mostly remain the core platform/technologies to build apps for native applications and web applications.
The areas I am going to focus on in this article:
Why delivering content via handheld device is so relevant in this journey of transformation
What are the implementation options are available while delivering content across handheld device
Why Delivering Content Across Devices is so Relevant - Some real Scenarios/Use cases
What is mobile content? In loose terms, mobile content is any type of content which is delivered and viewed on mobile devices — it can be anything from graphics, songs, videos, documents, web content, forms, etc. Let us now talk about some of the use cases that involve consuming or delivering content using handheld devices:
In a typical auto claims processing system (case management), claimant like to take a snapshot of the damaged car and upload the digital picture in the claims application using his/her smartphone while initiating the claims process. The Adjuster and claims processing manager use this information in the downstream content centric workflow to process the claim.
Passengers within a long flight would be more comfortable to watch movies or listen songs using a tablet rather than using the In-Flight entertainment system. In other words, delivering interesting content via tablet for in-Flight entertainment is another example for content usage for handheld devices.
No need to mention that enterprise users would be very happy to do the basic day to day business work, involving content centric applications using their tablet starting from invoice processing, bill payment, HR document upload.
For any publication (book, news etc.) industry, publishing content to Smartphones and tablets is almost mandatory. Delivering news based on a user’s location (location awareness) can add value for the readers.
If we take an example from retail industry, it's all about delivering personalized digital content of the product to the prospective customer based on customer context.
Any business would like to make available the relevant web content (part of standard website) across diverse devices to improve the brand and increase the traffic.
This list can go on and on. So there is no doubt delivering content via handheld device is playing a very important role for success of this journey of transformation and enterprises are taking a ‘mobile friendly’ or ‘mobile first’ approach to reach the large number of audiences quickly and effectively.
Implementation Options Available to Deliver Content Across Handheld Devices
There are two kinds of application we talked about above dealing with content:
Delivering traditional enterprise content (word, pdf, ppt etc.), associated transactional content centric functionality and workflow across devices.
Delivering web content and associated functionality across devices.
No matter what tool, technology or platform you use for mobile app development, user experience of mobile apps would be treated as the key differentiator for any application you are building. User experience design for desktop applications and mobile apps will not be the same in most cases:
Mobile App will be task or action oriented so that user can quickly find the relevant information and completes a transaction.
Mobile Apps should only focus on important information the user will be interested in.
Let us now look at the strategies we have in hand to implement mobile apps for content centric business applications or for delivering web content across mobile devices.
Delivering Traditional Enterprise Content and Content Centric Applications Across Handheld Devices
Mobile App & platform provided by ECM Vendor
Some of the ECM vendors (EMC Documentum, OpenText, Alfresco, etc.) already have made their mobile apps available for Smartphones and Tablets. Mobile apps provided by ECM vendors tend to take the form of some of the select content management use cases like:
Create, manage, view and search content
Initiate and review content centric workflow tasks
Collaboration features like share, comment, discussion around content
Share content via email
The above list is not complete and will vary to some extent based on the app provided by vendor. Customers can use these apps if they have standard content management needs. EMC Documentum and Alfresco have apps for iPhone and iPad. OpenText supports its app for platforms like RIM BlackBerry, Apple iPhone and iPad, and Google Android. Most of these vendors use REST as the underlying technology to access the ECM repository. Interestingly OpenText and Nuxeo provide a mobile application development platform too so that customers can easily build rich content centric mobile application across devices. The apps provided by these vendors are mostly native apps and the reasons might be:
Results from Adobe’s recent 2012 Mobile Consumer Survey show that consumers are using their smartphones and tablet devices to connect with brands in a variety of ways. However, many companies aren’t yet providing optimized experiences that leverage these different devices. And while it seems fairly obvious that businesses should not approach their mobile strategy in an identical manner as the desktop, many still are.
An Uneven Mobile Landscape
Adobe surveyed more than 1,200 mobile users in the United States in an effort to learn what mobile devices they use, how they interact with websites and applications, and what they want most out of their mobile experiences. What they found out highlights the inevitable rise of mobile devices, with smartphones becoming the preferred form of web access for consumers. However, the overall mobile landscape is not as well developed and hardly in tune to how, when and where consumers are using their mobile devices.
So what exactly did they find?
Mobile Usage
For consumers who own both a smartphone and tablet, the primary device is still the smartphone (88%).
Android devices lead the way in overall popularity at 51%, followed by iPhones at 38%.
The numbers for Android devices skewed even higher for the young age group at 58%.
Tablet users are more likely to be home-based (70%), while 24% use tablets on the go. Consumers devote a significant amount of time to their tablets, with 31% using them daily between 1 to 4 hours.
Tablets are more likely to be shared devices, with a majority of tablet users (56%) stating that they allow other members of the family, such as children, to use their tablet.
iPad users (62%) and Android tablet users (56%) reported spending more than $250 on consumer products via their devices over the past 12 months, compared to 58% of iPhone users and 53% of Android smartphone users.
User Experiences
Consumers who shop via mobile applications on Android tablets report the highest percentage levels of satisfaction at 88% versus iPad users at 71%, and Android smartphone users at 69% versus iPhone users at 66%.
When it comes to shopping for consumer products via mobile websites, iPad users reported the highest satisfaction levels at 75%, followed by Amazon Kindle at 73%, iPhone at 66%, Android tablet at 66%, and Android smartphone at 60%.
When asked why they prefer a regular website when shopping on your mobile device, a majority of respondents indicated convenience (39%), followed by access to more features (21%).
Social Media Engagement
Facebook is the dominant social network accessed by mobile (85%), followed by Twitter (35%), and then Google+ (21%).
While users’ most popular activity is to read status updates (85%), consumers are also using their mobile devices to view Facebook fan pages of their favorite brands.
While 53% of consumers who view a Facebook fan page receive an offer or promotion, one in five consumers report that they do not have a mobile-optimized experience when linking from Facebook to a brand’s site.
Location services are on the rise and are being driven by consumer incentives to check in. Younger demographics are more likely to check in (35%) versus senior at 18%.
Mobilize & Optimize
Put together, these results indicate that different devices deserve different experiences. Regardless of the device they use, consumers expect to visit optimized websites. As a result, brands are behooved to offer an engaging and dynamic mobile user experience design that corresponds with the experience users expect to receive. To do this, however, is more complicated. To help organization design better user experiences Adobe shares a few tips to incorporate into their mobile strategy:
Reduce touch events to conversion.
Design for mobile interactions.
Optimize for speed.
Make content “findability” easy.
Don’t launch mobile channels without analytics.
Plan and prioritize optimization efforts for tablet experiences that are unique and different from smartphones, given the larger screen size.
Don’t launch a social mobile presence that is not mobile optimized.
Don’t run mobile advertising campaigns that link to a desktop site.
They say knowing is half the battle. The more important part is putting that knowledge into action. As mobile devices continue to infiltrate the customer experience, companies must make a concerted effort to keep up or suffer the consequences.
To cover all bases, and hand sizes, Samsung is entering the shrinking game with the announcement of a smaller-model Galaxy S3 smartphone. Will all smart devices soon come in a range of glove sizes?
Microsoft plans to release a new version of its 
Kindle Fire HD 
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