Google’s launches Android holiday lineup: LG Nexus 4, Samsung Nexus 10, $299 4G 32GB Nexus 7
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Google is making some big product announcements today, despite having to cancel its event due to Hurricane Sandy. Among the announcements: a new Nexus smartphone from LG, a Samsung-built Nexus 10 tablet, and updates to Google’s 7-inch Nexus 7 lineup.
LG Nexus 4: Google is launching the much-rumored LG Nexus 4 on Nov. 13 starting at $299. Much of the specs were confirmed previously, but Google has interestingly decided to not offer an LTE-capable model of the device. It is, however, including a wireless charging dock. T-Mobile is Google’s premier launch partner for the Nexus 4. Full specs on 9to5Google.
Samsung Nexus 10: Clearly, Google’s iPad competitor, its new 10-inch offering, is a Samsung-built tablet that packs in iPad-like specs starting at $399. The Verge said its 10-inch 2,560-by-1,600-pixel resolution (same as 13-inch Retina MacBook Pro) display is “on par with the iPad’s Retina display, with sharp text, excellent color fidelity, and great viewing angles.” Full specs and more here.
Nexus 7: Google has also confirmed today that its 7-inch Nexus 7 lineup is being refreshed. Google’s iPad mini competitor will now start at $199 for 16GB, and it will offer a 32GB model for $249. Those are both Wi-Fi-only, but Google will also offer an HSPA+ 32GB model for $300, $30 less than Apple’s entry-level iPad mini. The 8GB model is gone. That 32GB HSPA+ Nexus 7 is going up the bigger iPad mini that starts at $329.
Head over to 9to5Google.com for more coverage of Google’s leaked product announcements. Oh, and Microsoft is launching Windows Phone 8 as well.
Philips launching app controlled ‘hue personal wireless lighting’ bulbs at Apple Stores tomorrow
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Philips announced today that it would launch what it called “the world’s smartest LED bulb” exclusively at Apple stores starting tomorrow. The bulbs themselves work like any standard light bulb, but they use a bridge plugged into your router to allow you to personalize lighting settings and timers. This of course is not the first app-enabled product for the home to hit Apple Stores. Apple already sold the first and second-generation of the Nest Learning Thermostat.
The hue bulbs provide all “shades of white, from warm white light to cold with light,” as well as a selection of colors and pre-programmed settings. You can even use a photo from your device as a color palette and save and program settings to activate at certain times of day. Philips said the hue bulbs consume 80 percent less power than traditional bulbs.
Philips will sell a hue starter kit at Apple stores tomorrow that consists of three 50Watt hue bulbs and the hue bridge. That will sell for $199. You’ll also have the ability to purchase additional individual bulbs for $60 and add up to 50 to your existing hue bridge.
Philips is even offering the hue app and an open source platform to developers:
Ron Johnson’s leadership lessons from Apple: No shortcuts and shield team from tough times
Fortune is asking 21 luminaries the best advice they ever got. One of them is Apple’s former Senior Vice President of Retail Ron Johnson:
-Ron Johnson (CEO of J.C. Penney) on leadership lessons from Apple and how he’s applying them to his new position: “I remember when Apple went through a tough period. I didn’t feel the pain as much as Steve [Jobs] did. When you are in the leadership position, the tough times can be much more difficult, because your job is really to shield your team through that, to keep them from taking shortcuts. We are building J.C. Penney for the next century. It’s not about the quarter or the year.”
Here’s what early reviews of Microsoft’s new Surface tablet are saying
Early reviews for Microsoft’s new Surface tablet have been released this evening, giving us a look at the company’s supposed “saving grace.” According to the pundits who got their hands on it early, things aren’t looking too good for Microsoft. Many are complaining about a lack of apps, awkwardness of the Windows 8 RT operating system, and a buggy platform. It sounds like the iPad will remain unchallenged by Microsoft…for now.
It does the job of a tablet and the job of a laptop half as well as other devices on the market, and it often makes that job harder, not easier. Instead of being a no-compromise device, it often feels like a more-compromise one.
There may be a time in the future when all the bugs have been fixed, the third-party app support has arrived, and some very smart engineers in Redmond have ironed out the physical kinks in this type of product which prevent it from being all that it can be. But that time isn’t right now — and unfortunately for Microsoft, the clock is ticking.
The Surface is full of potential, but until its software performance and apps are as strong as its hardware, I, unfortunately, will still drag both a laptop and an iPad through security.
My 48-year-old eyeballs have no trouble telling the difference between iPad Retina text and the Surface’s ClearType — but overall, the Surface’s screen is one of the best I’ve seen on a tablet.
The screen, incidentally, is 16:9, an aspect ratio designed with Windows 8′s panoramic interface in mind. It lets you see more apps without panning, and is well suited to the feature that allows you to snap a widget-like version of one app on the side of the primary program you’re using. Microsoft thinks Surface buyers will use the tablet mostly in landscape mode; it works in portrait orientation too, although the aspect ratio leaves it looking like a small-but-tall magazine.
In the end though, this is nothing more than Microsoft’s tablet. And a buggy, at times broken one, at that, whose “ecosystem” feels more like a tundra. There’s no Twitter or Facebook app, and the most popular 3rd party client breaks often. The Kindle app is completely unusable. There’s no image editing software. A People app is supposed to give you all the social media access you’d ever need, but It’s impossible to write on someone’s Facebook wall through the People app, Surface’s social hub; the only workaround is to load Internet Explorer. Blech. Something as simple as loading a video requires a jumbled process of USB importing, dipping in and out of the stripped-down desktop mode, opening a Video app, importing, going back into the Video app, and then playing. What.
Zynga lays off over 100 employees during Apple keynote, discontinues ‘The Ville’ [Update: company memo]
[tweet https://twitter.com/303/status/260801024732827649]
Justin Maxwell tweeted during today’s Apple event that Zynga, the developers of popular iPhone and iPad games such as Words with Friends, has laid off over 100 employees at the company’s Austin, Texas location, giving them only two hours to vacate their offices.
According to The Next Web, the company also announced they would discontinue its clone of EA’s popular The Sims Social game, The Ville, and it may continue laying off employees by shutting down their Boston office in the near future.
Update 3:08PM: Zynga CEO Mark Pincus issued a note to employees confirming the layoffs. You can find it below.
Samsung/Google’s new ARM-powered Chromebook looks like a MacBook Air, costs just $249
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The price is right, and the processor is an interesting choice (ARM), but unfortunately, the look is unmistakably Apple.
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Amazon making moves to displace iPads in schools
We know Apple has had a lot of success pushing iPads in education, and during Apple’s Q3 conference call, CEO Tim Cook said the company would continue to be “very aggressive”. Apple’s iPad 2 sales in the K-12 market doubled y-o-y in Q3 thanks to a price drop to $399. In Q2, Apple said it sold about a million iPad units to the United States education market. With Apple’s upcoming iPad mini announcement possibly bringing an even lower price point for iPads in education, Amazon is announcing its plans today to get Kindle tablets into schools.
Reuters reported today that Amazon is launching a service, called “Whispercast”, aimed at allowing schools to easily deploy and manage multiple kindle devices:
Sharp announces first IGZO 7-inch tablet, claims battery life increased over 2X with new tech rumored for Apple’s mini iPad
We heard reports in the past that Apple passed on Sharp’s IGZO display tech for the third-generation iPad due to Sharp not having the tech ready in time. Going with Sharp’s IGZO tech would have allowed for a thinner display assembly, a brighter display with less LEDs, and the ability to use a smaller battery or extend battery life specs as a result. It could have also helped shave off some of the increased weight and depth of the new iPad. These are all things we witnessed first hand when we got up close and personal with a few IGZO demos at IFA this year. Sharp is announcing today its first 7-inch tablet to use the display technology, claiming the 1,280-by-800 IGZO display allows for 2.5 times the battery life from the tablet’s 2,040mAh battery (via ComputerWorld).
With the iPad mini launch coming later this month, it is a possibility the tech is finally ready for Apple to take advantage. Sharp also has 10-inch and 13-inch variants of the IGZO displays, but the 7-inch would of course make a lot of sense for iPad mini given what we already know about the device. Apple’s ability to increase battery life, or simply have the ability to use a smaller battery (in a smaller form factor) while maintaining battery life specs, is just one benefit. Another big benefit for Apple would be narrow borders: rumor has it—which is something we also talked about a lot in the past—the iPad mini will have a much narrower border than previous-generation iPads. Sharp told us its IGZO LCDs can be built with a bezel under 2mm, and it was showing off a demo display with a 1.75mm border at IFA. That would definitely fit the bill for the narrow-border, one-handed experience we expect from iPad mini.
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Microsoft’s entertaining Surface Stomp commercial still doesn’t show how it works [Video]
Great commercial—except they did not really show how or if it even works. It reminds me more of an iPod shuffle commercial than a hybrid tablet/laptop introduction.
SNL switches from Final Cut Pro to CS6/Adobe Premiere Pro
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Pros are apparently still not happy about the recent overhaul of Final Cut Pro X: Adobe linked us to story from StudioDaily about Saturday Night Live’s Film Unit making the switch from Final Cut to CS6 following the release of Final Cut Pro X:
The turning point, says Epstein, came when Apple released Final Cut Pro X. “We thought, ‘Well, this just isn’t going to work at all.’ So much of what I do is After Effects-specific, so when CS5.5 came along with Dynamic Linking—definitely the killer feature for me thus far—we decided to try that out on a simple piece featuring Kristen Wiig and Will Ferrell toward the end of last season. It went so smoothly that once CS6 came out, we decided to dial the full workflow in and make sure it fit our needs. So far, it really has.”
Japanese Softbank taking 70 percent stake of US carrier Sprint for $20B
As rumored last week, Japanese Softbank has taken a controlling 70 percent stake in Sprint according to CNBC:
Softbank and Sprint have reached a deal under which Softbank will pay $20 billion for a 70 percent stake in the wireless telecom operator, according to people close to the situation.
Softbank will buy $8 billion worth of shares directly from Sprint and tender for another $12 billion worth of the shares from existing holders.
(Update: Confirmed by Sprint)
The deal will allow Sprint to purchase the half of Clearwire that it does not already own, according to the report. Softbank expects to take use of its expertise in LTE networks to bolster Sprints position in the market.
AT&T is now the sole remaining U.S. carrier not under foreign control. Verizon Wireless is a joint venture with Vodafone, while T-Mobile is obviously German.
Sprint and Softbank both carry Apple’s iPhone. Softbank was the original Japanese carrier while Sprint was the third U.S. carrier to adopt the iconic phone.
The deal is expected to close in roughly six months.
Apple poaches top Samsung chip designer for its staff
The Wall Street Journal reported that Samsung chip designer Jim Mergard has left the South Korean-based company to work for Apple. According to the report, Mergard’s duties before his short stint at Samsung were to lead the development of a “high-profile AMD chip that carried the code name Brazos and was designed for low-end portable computers.”
Mergard’s work at Samsung was rumored to be focused on building ARM chips for servers. It would be interesting to see Apple pick up this capacity.
Apple and Samsung have an intense rivalry in the smartphone space, but Samsung produces all of Apple’s Ax processors. Samsung opened a factory in Austin, Texas just last year that is responsible for making chips to power Apple’s iOS devices.
Apple lands No. 2 spot for ‘most inDemand employer’ globally, considered desirable among students and recent grads
Apple just landed the No. 2 spot on LinkedIn’s fresh list of most “inDemand” employers from around the world.
The occupation-aimed social network pinpointed the most attractive companies for job seekers, and it subsequently broadcasted the list, along with its new Most InDemand Employers website, at the Talent Connect event in Las Vegas this afternoon. LinkedIn further detailed a few insights regarding the results, including: tech/software as the most represented on the list, consumer brands ranked highly, and 50-percent of the top 100 companies had under 7,000 employees.
Apple also earned third-place in the United States, just behind Walt Disney, and students and recent graduates perceive it as the second-best possible employer after Google.
Check out more details in the infographic below, or read LinkedIn’s blog post to learn more about the list’s ranking metrics.
This article is cross-posted on 9to5Google.
Report: Softbank in talks to buy Sprint for $19B
Update: Sprint provided the following statement to The Wall Street Journal:
Sprint (NYSE: S) today confirmed that it is currently engaged in discussions with Softbank regarding a potential substantial investment by Softbank in Sprint. Although there can be no assurances that these discussions will result in any transaction or on what terms any transaction may occur, such a transaction could involve a change of control of Sprint. Sprint does not intend to comment further unless and until an agreement is reached.
According to a report from Nikkei (via Bloomberg), Japan’s Softbank, the third-largest mobile carrier in the country, is currently seeking to acquire two-thirds of U.S.-based Sprint Nextel Corp. The price is rumored at roughly $19 billion USD and would make AT&T the last fully U.S.-based carrier:
Softbank Corp. (9984), Japan’s third- largest mobile-phone company, is in talks to buy control ofSprint Nextel Corp. (S), according to two people familiar with the matter…The deal would give Softbank a base for entering the U.S. market with a compatible carrier that uses similar equipment made by Sweden’s Ericsson AB, the Nikkei reported.
Google Chairman talks Maps and Apple
Google’s executive chairman Eric Schmidt sat down for an AllThingsD talk last night with Walt Mossberg. Among other topics, they not-surprisingly discussed Android and his thoughts on Apple. Much of the talk centered around Schmidt’s thoughts on the Android-Apple platform fight, which he called “the defining fight in the industry today.” He also noted there is a “huge race specifically between Apple and the Android platform for additional features,” and he commented on Apple’s Maps situation:
The Android-Apple platform fight is the defining contest. Here’s why: Apple has thousands of developers building for it. Google’s platform, Android, is even larger. Four times more Android phones than Apple phones. 500 million phones already in use. Doing 1.3 million activations a day. We’ll be at 1 billion mobile devices in a year.
At the 17:30 mark, Schmidt began to talk about Apple’s new Maps app controversy: “Apple should have kept with our maps”…
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Gartner and IDC see Apple’s share of declining US PC market grow to 12.5-percent to 13.6-percent
Both IDC and Gartner are out with their reports for PC shipments in the third quarter today. While Apple is not in the top five vendors for worldwide shipments, estimates from the two firms place Apple’s share of the United States market at 12.5-percent to 13.6-percent.
According to IDC’s numbers (above), Apple captured 12.5-percent of U.S. PC shipments in the third quarter. This is up from 11.8-percent in the same quarter last year. Apple faced a year-over-year unit decline of 7 percent, but market leaders HP and Dell posted shipment declines of 18.8-percent and 16 percent, respectively. Meanwhile, shipments for the U.S. market in total were down 12.4-percent.
In comparison, the same numbers from Gartner have the total market decline at 13.8-percent. Apple hit 13.6-percent of the U.S. market, where as it had a 12.5-percent estimate for Q3 2011. Estimates from both firms put Apple’s market position firmly behind HP and Dell, despite IDC estimating fourth-place Lenovo’s growth at over 9 percent for the quarter:
Four of the top 5 vendors in the U.S. market experienced shipment declines. HP maintained the No. 1 position in the U.S. market despite a shipment decline of 19.3 percent (see Table 2). Lenovo was the only vendor among the top 5 to increase shipments. Both Acer and Toshiba shipments declined significantly due to the tough environment in the consumer market. Apple expected to have a PC shipment decline due to softness in the public market, but the company faced a slowdown in the consumer market.
LaCie updates Little Big Disk Thunderbolt Series with SATA III SSDs and speeds up to 635MB/s
LaCie issued a press release today announcing an update to its Little Big Disk Thunderbolt series that now includes a pair of 2.5-inch SATA III SSDs. The new Little Big Disk provides read speeds up to 635MB/s, according to the company, approximately a 33 percent increase from the previous generation. It is also capable of daisy chaining up to six devices via its dual Thunderbolt ports:
The product features a pair of 2.5” SATA III SSDs. A RAID array can be configured using the Mac OS Disk Utility for performance (RAID 0) or security (RAID 1). It supports daisy chaining up to six compatible devices such as displays and other peripherals.
An example of just how quick the it is: LaCie said the new Little Big Disk can transfer a 50GB project in under two minutes or edit six uncompressed 422 streams simultaneously…
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Sprint says ‘accidental dual fibercut’ on network causing nationwide outages, attempting to fix issues
Update: Sprint tells us service is restored.
A widespread network outage on Sprint’s network started at 7:30 a.m. PST today and hit Portland, Ore., Seattle and Tacoma Wash., Minneapolis, Minn., and San Francisco and Sacramento, Calif. Sprint just confirmed it is working diligently to fix the issue.
Sprint’s statement to 9to5Mac:
“Earlier this morning, an accidental dual fibercut occurred on Sprint’s network causing a disruption in data and voice services for some Sprint customers in parts of Portland, Oregon; Seattle and Tacoma Washington; Minneapolis, Minnesota; and San Francisco and Sacramento, California. Sprint network technicians are working aggressively to resolve this issue and we hope to have service restored soon.”
Apple teams up with W3C, Google, Facebook, & others for new Web Platform developer resource
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A new website recently launched by the W3C, in partnership with a number of the biggest tech companies, aims to be the ultimate resource for developers looking for information on HTML5, CSS3, and other open-web standards. Accessible at webplatform.org, the new website includes documents, forums, chat, and tutorials, and it will act as a Wiki of sorts in an attempt to “become a comprehensive and authoritative source for web developer documentation.” Apple, Adobe, Facebook, Google, HP, and Microsoft are among the many contributors to the project.
This site has the backing of some of the biggest players on the Web: Adobe, Apple, Facebook, Google, HP, Microsoft,Mozilla, Nokia, and Opera. These organizations are stewards for the project, enabling W3C to convene the community and grow the site. Beyond their strong organizational commitment, dedicated individuals from these organizations have invested time to make this happen… WebPlatform.org will have accurate, up-to-date, comprehensive references and tutorials for every part of client-side development and design, with quirks and bugs revealed and explained.
It will have in-depth indicators of browser support and interoperability, with links to tests for specific features. It will feature discussions and script libraries for cutting-edge features at various states of implementation or standardization, with the opportunity to give feedback into the process before the features are locked down. It will have features to let you experiment with and share code snippets, examples, and solutions. It will have an API to access the structured information for easy reuse. It will have resources for teachers to help them train their students with critical skills.
Google Maps web Street View goes live on iOS devices
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As predicted yesterday, Google’s Street View is now available on Mobile Safari and Chrome on iOS devices. Having a quick look around, the service is very fluid, especially for a web page, and the quality is superb with graphics that really look solid on a Retina display.
Perhaps Apple should make a “pop-out” service that lets you open a Street View web page from within the new iOS Maps.app?
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Facebook passes 1B active monthly users [video]
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c7SjvLceXgU&feature=plcp
Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg announced today that the service he started in his Harvard dorm room roughly eight years ago now has over 1 billion monthly users (or over one-seventh of the world’s population).
“Helping a billion people connect is amazing, humbling and by far the thing I am most proud of in my life,” wrote Zuckerberg. “I am committed to working every day to make Facebook better for you, and hopefully together one day we will be able to connect the rest of the world too.”
The … video above was made for the occasion. Apple is obviously a huge partner with Facebook due to deep integration on both iOS 6 and Mountain Lion, and Zuckerberg talked with Matt Laurer on the “Today Show” about his relationship and admiration for the late Apple CEO Steve Jobs:
Zuckerberg also mentioned that current Apple CEO Tim Cook sent him an iPhone 5 and most people actually access Facebook on the mobile web rather than an app.
More big numbers, including 1.13 trillion likes, 140.3 billion friend connections, 219 billion photo uploads, 62.6 million songs played, 600 million mobile users, 17 billion location-tagged posts, were revealed in the data sheet (DOCX).
Study: Samsung Galaxy S III sales spike following Apple verdict & iPhone 5 launch
A new report from research firm Localytics today suggested sales of Samsung’s Galaxy S III have been growing on a weekly basis with huge spikes following the Samsung/Apple trial and the iPhone 5 introduction. The full story is at 9to5Google.com.
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Former Apple CEO discusses the genesis of ARM mobile processors that now power the world’s mobile devices [Video]
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Former Apple CEO John Sculley recently attended a South Florida Technology Alliance event to discuss Apple and the genesis of tablet computing, specifically: the Newton MessagePad and ARM Processor.
The MessagePad is the first series of ARM 610 RISC processor-based mobile devices developed by Apple for the Newton OS platform in 1993. Since then, it has become the dominant platform for mobile computing.
“Handwriting was never intended to be a very important aspect of it. […] It was really much more about the fact that you could hold this thing in your hand and it would do a lot of the graphics that you would see on the Macintosh,” explained Sculley at SFTA.
The tablet-like digital assistant spurred a flurry of models with various ARM processor. The series is generally remembered as a market flop now, of course, but Apple’s ARM initiative essentially paved the way for greatness. As The Next Web first noted, the iPhone today uses a by-product of the Newton MessagePad’s specifically designed ARM core.
“No microprocessor existed that would allow you to do mobile graphics-based software,” Sculley revealed, while discussing the birth of ARM.