Tech Industry

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Here’s the first iPad competitor from a known brand. I’m not so sure how ‘pocketable’ this thing is (see video below) but I do know that it will have Samsung’s TouchWiz overlay and run Android 2.2.  Also the screen is widescreen (for better or worse) and is about half the size of the iPad.
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http://www.viddler.com/player/e372d463/

According to Norwegian Mac Site Mac1, Apple  has bought up all of the shares of a Swedish face recognition company called Polar Rose.  An example of their technology can be seen above (Flashless). Google translated:

The Malmö-based company specializes in developing technology which makes facial recognition, not unlike what Apple already has and uses iPhoto for Mac OS X. Through sophisticated algorithms, manages the software of the Arctic Rose to recognize faces in images and the company offers three different products using this solution. Two of the (Face Cloud and FaceLib) them seem to be very interesting for Apple.

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COMPUTERWORLD: Apple’s iPad hints at an end-to-end Apple network strategy for television everywhere, but is the television industry ready to be reinvented? Meanwhile Radiohead hint they are looking at the iPad — might the band explore the new app universe for its ‘In Rainbows’ album follow-up?

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Today we reported that Apple has officially announced a September 25th launch date for the iPhone 4 in China. Now, 9to5mac has learned that Apple has some more international iPhone 4 launches up it its sleeve. We’ve heard that the iPhone 4 should be launching in both Israel and Malaysia next weekend and presumably a few other countries. Exact info on the Israeli side of things is scarce but we’ve managed to get some more precise info out of Malaysia.

The iPhone 4 and the 8 GB iPhone 3GS are said to be launching in Malaysia this upcoming Thursday, September 23rd on both Maxis and DiGi as the carriers. That’s what we know for now and we’ll be sure to update when we learn more.

Update: We’ve just gotten some new info… Israel will be getting the iPhone 4 on September 24th on Orange, The Philippines will get the iPhone 4 on September 26th for Globe Telecoms, and Turkey will be getting the iPhone 4 on Turkcell & Vodafone Turkey on September 24th. Lots of additional info coming in via comments, below…

Apple has just announced that the iPhone 4 will officially launch in China next Saturday, September 25th. Both official Apple retail stores and China Unicom stores will open their doors for iPhone 4 customers at 8 AM. Pricing for the iPhone is CNY4,999 ($743) and CNY5,999 ($892) for the 16 GB and 32 GB models (without a contract) respectively.

CUPERTINO, California—September 19, 2010—Apple® today announced that iPhone® 4 will be available to customers in China beginning Saturday, September 25 at 8:00 a.m. at Apple Retail Stores including the new Apple Store® Hong Kong Plaza in Shanghai and the new Apple Store Xidan Joy City in Beijing opening on the same day. iPhone 4 will also be available on Saturday at China Unicom retail stores for qualified buyers with a new two year contract.

Apple also announced that a new Beijing retail location will be opening on September 25th. iPhone 4’s will be on sale at this new store for those wondering. China readers: Be sure to send in your line waiting experiences, photos, and video to tips@9to5mac.com

Update: Here’s an unboxing of the official Chinese iPhone 4. WiFi, FaceTime, and iOS 4.1 included.

Full press release is after the break.

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The big news this weekend was TechCrunch’s supposed revelation that there will be a FaceBook Phone.  A few hours later, Facebook released a statement saying “we aren’t building a phone”.  Like all of these things, the answer is probably in somewhere in between.

Perhaps Facebook will brand an Android phone with Facebook tied to all parts of the OS.

But really, do you need any more Facebook in your phone?  Or in your life?

BTW, we’ve obtained a secret prototype image of the FaceFone, below:
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Fortune reports on a blog post by Adobe’s John Nack which appears to show that Flash is faster and much more efficient than HTML on mobile phones. These statements are conclusions based on a benchmark test by web developer, Chris Black. He tested HTML 5 running the same animation on an iPod touch 4 (same for iPhone 4), and a Nexus One, but also ran it in pure Flash on the Nexus one.

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sFFax1oYyBE&w=480&h=385]

The HTML 5 animation ran at 24 frames per second on the iPhone 4 and at 40 fps on the Nexus One. The same animation running on Flash on an Nexus One ran at an unprecedented 57 frames per second. This is more than double the frame rate of Apple’s offering and is still 17 frames faster than the HTML 5 version on the same Nexus One. The post also claims the Flash version used half the battery but it is not clear as to what the battery life of flash is being compared to. We presume it is being compared to the HTML 5 running Nexus One.

Update: The original Author chimes in in the comments:

Hey everyone, thought I might chime in as the author of the blog post being criticized. The code was engineered to be as equal as possible between the two demos. Full source has been provided to show this. The code posted by wolever is not scalable but raises some interesting points. The physical dimensions of the canvas being rendered does matter. Scaling the demo down to 300x300px yields 40fps on the iPod Touch. I’ll be doing an updated blog post on this tomorrow showing results at different sizes. I’m not sure why anybody thinks canvas is limited to 24fps. My post tomorrow that wrong. And no, I don’t work for Adobe. I complain about Adobe almost as much as Apple and I much prefer running my own company at the moment. You might find this post a bit more interesting,http://www.blackcj.com/blog/2010/09/19/css3-excels-on-ios-but-lacks-on-android/

Sean Kovac’s “GV Mobile +” – arguably the best non-official Google Voice app – has just hit the App Store. For the first week it’s on sale for $2.99 but there will be one free night. Kovacs will announce when that night occurs and we’ll be sure to post on that when the time comes.

It’s about to hit so Go! Go! Go!

This morning we reported on an interview between the WSJ and Best Buy CEO Brian Dunn where Dunn supposedly said Apple’s iPad is “Cannibalizing” notebook sales by 50%. Now, Best Buy has just released an official statement calling out the WSJ for exaggerating Dunn’s statements.

Statement:

“The reports of the demise of these devices are grossly exaggerated,” Dunn said. “While they were fueled in part by a comment in the Wall Street Journal that was attributed to me, they are not an accurate depiction of what we’re currently seeing. In fact, we see some shifts in consumption patterns, with tablet sales being an incremental opportunity.  And as we said during our recent earnings call, we believe computers will remain a very popular gift this holiday because of the very distinct and desirable benefits they offer consumers. That’s why we intend to carry a broad selection of computing products and accessories to address the demand we anticipate this season.”

It looks like the CEO’s statements were misquoted and Best Buy simply believes tablets are “incremental opportunities” and notebooks will continually to be popular products.

An unofficial yet fully functional Google Voice app called “GV Connect” has just hit the App Store. This isn’t Sean Kovac’s GV Mobile + but it allows for GV calling, texting, voicemails, and more. via Mobile Crunch.

It’s available on the App Store for $2.99 right now! Update: It looks like Sean Kovac’s GV Mobile+ is in review… we should know it’s fate shortly.

It looks like Apple’s got another exploit on their hands and that’s the ability for users to install cracked apps on non-jailbroken devices. Supposedly an app called “IPA God” will be released in the near future that takes advantage of iOS 4.1 and 4.2 (beta currently) devices to allow cracked app installations.

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The video above shows it in action and we strongly OPPOSE this and DO NOT support the cracking of App Store applications. We truly hope Apple figures out the exploit in time and addresses the issue with a software fix very soon.

iLounge has come across the new iPod nano’s diagnostic mode dubbed “iTerm.” This mode essentially lets Apple test the living daylights out of your new (iWatch) touch screen nano. iTerm takes you back to the ’80’s with a black and greened color display and lets you test your touch screen, radio, headset jack, USB connectivity, and pretty much everything else.

To get the show rolling your iPod nano follow iLounge’s instructions:

Due to changes in its buttons relative to the prior Click Wheel iPod nanos, the new iPod nano’s hidden modes are activated with a slightly different button combination: first, the nano needs to be reset by holding down the sleep and volume down buttons until the Apple logo appears. Holding down both volume buttons during the reset enables Disk Mode, while holding down all three buttons will start up the iPod nano in Diagnostic Mode, briefly flashing the message “iTerm: iPod Display Console” on screen.

Jobs’ war on Flash video and growing  iOS device line have all led up to this…

[vodpod id=Video.4289468&w=650&h=425&fv=videoGUID%3D%7BFF922002-FA63-4B68-A326-EA12EC800612%7D%26amp%3Bplayerid%3D4001%26amp%3BplyMediaEnabled%3D1%26amp%3BconfigURL%3Dhttp%3A%2F%2Fm.wsj.net%2Fvideo-players%2F%26amp%3BautoStart%3Dfalse]

Steve Jobs told the AllThingsD audience a few months ago that the reason no one including Google and Apple have been successful in the TV space is that they lacked a successful ‘Go to market TV strategy’.

Apple has that strategy.  They’ve been working on it since the original iPhone release three years ago.  But you won’t find much of it on their website touting the new AppleTV.

The new AppleTV in its current form is basically a Roku box that streams content from various places on the Web.  It does Netflix, iTunes, Youtube photo albums, etc. and it also can stream media from computers around the house. It costs a paltry $99.  That is close enough to the ‘almost free’ that Steve Jobs talks about above.  But it isn’t really bringing all of the video on the Internet to your TV is it?

Sure, you can search YouTube directly from the AppleTV.  But it is a hassle too pull over YouTube URLs when you find something cool while browsing the web with your iPad?

The stated use above isn’t how people are going to use their AppleTVs the majority of the time.  In fact, what’s on Apple’s site right now is a red herring. This will be just one way people use AppleTV.  I think a much bigger use will be what puts these in almost every house in America – or at least gives it the market share that the iPod enjoys.

AppleTV is a Airplay-compatible device, meaning it can stream video/sound from other Apple devices. We found out last night that it isn’t just iTunes content that it will be able to broadcast.  Any H.264 content from the web can be broadcast over Airplay to your HDTV.

That includes any video that can play on your iOS 4.2 device, like: Facebook video, YouTube, Netflix, Videos, BBC News, MLB and really anything else you can watch on your iOS device.  That also includes videos built into Apps and magazine subscriptions too.  All of this can be beamed to your AppleTV via Airplay.

You know what won’t play over Airplay?  Flash…
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Computerworld: Apple’s iPad landed in China this morning. And in the usual way, Apple Store staff cheered and high-fived shoppers as they entered the stores, queues formed overnight and sales seemed brisk. Meanwhile the results are in — iPad isn’t just killing the netbook market, it’s grabbing half of the PC laptop market, too, at least according to Best Buy. And Apple is already assembling components for the iPad 2, set to debut early next year.

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No sooner has Apple accomplished a world-class smash with the original iPad than it has begun moving toward manufacture of the second-generation version of the device.

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Best Buy CEO Brian Dun claims the iPad has cannibalized sales of PC laptops by as much as 50 per cent.

His remarks are contained within an interview with the Wall Street Journal in which Dun describes the retailer’s move to offer a wider selection of digitally-connected gadgets. Expect to see smartphones, eBook readers and iPods in full view at BestBuy this Holiday Season, the report informs us.
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Apple has started shipping its much-expected 27-inch aluminium and glass LED Cinema Display.

The $999 display delivers a crystal-clear 2,560-x-1,440 resolution with a 178-degree viewing angle. It boasts a MagSafe connector which charges your Apple notebook, three USB 2.0 ports and a Mini DisplayPort cable.
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Here are some new features in iOS 4.2 for iPhone that we came across:

Assign text message tone to individual contacts:

Much more after the break:

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We tested Netflix on our iPad and it works with Apple’s AirPlay service. We connected some speakers to an Airport Express and the audio from the Netflix film wirelessly streamed and played perfectly with absolutely no hiccups. When the new Apple TV launches, you’ll be able to wirelessly stream both the video and audio to your television set; that’s right, I said television.

We’ve got another screenshot after the break.

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If you’re wondering why Warner Brothers didn’t join up with Apple for the 99 cent iTunes TV show rentals, WB Chief Executive, Barry Meyer’s got an answer for you. According to the AP, the major film and TV studio chose not to participate in Apple’s TV show rental service as they felt the price “was too low and would have hurt sales of full seasons.” Meyer also stated that he prefers his company’s current $2.99 TV show purchasing model through iTunes. This way they make more profit and the user gets to keep the show.

Apple launched their new TV show rental service at their September 1st event alongside a slew of new iPods, a new version of iOS, and of course the all new Apple TV. Apple’s current participants in the show renting service are News Corp. (FOX), ABC (Disney, etc.) and BBC America.

Aidacase’s iPad case seems like a dream. It’s a full on folio-style iPad case that flips open to reveal an external full-sized physical keyboard. This keyboard connects to the iPad via bluetooth, charges through USB and delivers a whopping 45 hours of battery life. That’s 4.5 times longer than your average daily iPad battery life. As a case, the “keycase” functions like a champ. Simply lock it into place using the magnetic latch and you’re good to go.

The keyboard is made from silicon so its durable and includes the USB charging cable. To remove the hassle, the keyboard works seamlessly with iOS to reconnect instantly whenever you want to type. The case ships in 1-2 business days and is available for $30 off at Amazon for just $99.