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Nokia Pledges Allegiance To Windows RT With The $499 Lumia 2520 Tablet
Oct 22, 8:07AM
Microsoft is dead-set on keeping Windows RT with devices like the Surface 2, but now that it’s committed to shelling out $7.2 billion for Nokia’s devices business the folks in Redmond have yet another source of hardware know-how to tap. Perhaps the earliest fruit of that reinforced partnership is the $499 Lumia 2520, Nokia’s newest tablet and its first to run Windows RT. As a slew of leaks have already suggested, the 2520 doesn’t stray too far from the existing Lumia smartphone formula. The trademark polycarbonate Lumia body has been carried over, and it with comes much of the same design language — think gently curving midsections and tapered edges. Meanwhile, the whole shebang is powered by the same 2.2 GHz Snapdragon 800 we saw in the Lumia 1520. But of course, there’s one thing you’ll probably notice before all of that. Nokia has outfitted the Lumia 2520 with a 10.1-inch IPS LCD panel that runs at 1080p and is swathed in Corning’s Gorilla Glass 2. Some of Nokia’s mobile DNA has carried over into this tablet too: unlike what other companies have done, all Lumia 2520s will ship with LTE radios for mobile connectivity… whether or not their owners choose to fire up them is another question entirely. But RT? Really? The platform has been critically derided, and at this point nearly every OEM of note save for Microsoft itself has publicly moved away from it. Considering its tight (and now tighter) relationship with Microsoft, it’s perhaps no surprise that Nokia is finally getting roped into building RT hardware. Thankfully, in typical Nokia fashion, the resulting device is as consumer-friendly a Windows RT tablet as I’ve ever seen. I got the chance to play with the Lumia 2520 in New York while Ifi Majid (Nokia’s head of North American marketing) looked on, and one thing is for sure — the Lumia formula feels just right when applied to tablets. The Surface’s angular design and metallic chassis seemed tailor-made to evoke feelings of mechanical awe, but the 2520 is its friendlier, more colorful counterpart. The 2520 is impressive on a technical level, too. The display is plenty crisp, and it’s capable of showing off Windows RT’s myriad colors without getting too lurid and in-your-face — its great viewing angles were only icing on the cake. And swiping through the start screen and firing up apps was as snappy as you’d
Blogmutt, A Crowdsourcing Platform, Makes An Equity Offer To Its Bloggers For Hire
Oct 22, 7:59AM
The SaaS model is now for blogging, too. A new breed of companies are crowdsourcing writers to do posts for small and large businesses. Blogmutt is a bit different than the other services in this regard. It is now offering equity to its top performing writers.
Instagram Finally Coming To Windows Phone, Nokia Confirms
Oct 22, 7:53AM
It’s taken a lot longer than Nokia hoped it would but Windows Phone is finally getting an official Instagram client. The photo-sharing social network, which has north of 150 million monthly active users, has been on iOS some three years, and on Android since April 2012. Now it’s coming to Windows Phone within “weeks”, according to Nokia. The news was confirmed by Windows Phone’s foremost OEM at its own conference, Nokia World, taking place in Abu Dhabi today. Nokia’s devices division is of course also in the process of being acquired by Microsoft. According to the Verge, Instagram CEO Kevin Systrom has also confirmed the app is on the way. “Our ultimate goal is to bring Instagram to everyone who wants to use it,” he said. “We’re looking forward to watching the Windows Phone community use Instagram to capture and share beautiful moments in the coming weeks.” Neither Systrom nor Nokia provided further details about exactly what features the Windows Phone Instagram app will include. The arrival of Instagram fills the biggest app gap in Windows Phone, and symbolically at least cements its position as the third choice mobile platform — for app developers to address (and consumers to adopt). Windows Phone remains a very far distant third in the smartphone OS rankings, however. Analyst IDC pegged its global smartphone OS share at just 3.7% in the second quarter of this year, vs 13.2% for iOS and 79.3% for Android. Establishing a third ecosystem was the original stated intention of Nokia and Microsoft when they kicked off their Windows Phone partnership back in February 2011. The price of throwing its lot in with Microsoft has been a high one for Nokia, which has been forced to divest itself of its loss-making mobile phone making division and sell it to Microsoft. That acquisition is due to close at the start of next year, pending all the necessary approvals. In recent times Nokia has tried its best to fill the Instagram-sized hole in the Windows Phone platform — with alternatives like Oggl from Hipstamatic. Asked about the continued lack of Instagram back in May, Nokia’s Jo Harlow told TechCrunch: ”Obviously our goal is to brings great apps to the Windows Phone platform. We have a huge amount of respect for Instagram and we continue to work in that direction and in particular with Microsoft, and with apps like Hipstamatic and the ability to share your pictures on Instagram.” The lack of Instagram has been a particular pain
Nokia Unleashes Two New Phablets, The Flagship Lumia 1520 And The Budget Lumia 1320
Oct 22, 7:49AM
Well folks, this probably won't come as much of a shock, but those persistent rumors of a pair of Nokia Lumia phablets were true after all. Nokia officially pulled back the curtains on the Lumia 1520 and 1320 at its big Nokia World show in Abu Dhabi today, and it's clear that the company isn't backing down the from challenge laid down by its mobile rivals. 
Apple CEO Tim Cook Joins Board of China's Tsinghua University School of Economics and Management
Oct 22, 7:41AM
Apple CEO Tim Cook has joined the advisory board of Tsinghua University's School of Economics and Management (SEM), according to its Web site. Located in Beijing, Tsinghua is one of China's most prestigious universities. The advisory board meets annually "to offer advice on the development of Tsinghua SEM," according to its site. Other notable American members include Henry M. Paulson Jr., the former U.S. Secretary of the Treasury and former Wal-mart CEO H. Lee Scott. 
Live From Apple's New iPad Announcement
Oct 22, 7:01AM
It’s that time again! We’re live at San Francisco’s Yerba Buena Center for the Arts, where Apple CEO Tim Cook is set to take the stage to debut everything the company has been secretly working on for the last few months. What will they show? No one knows for certain, of course — but we’ve got some ideas, and there’s been no shortage of rumors. New iPads? Probably! New iPad Minis? Perhaps! Release details for OS X Mavericks, or the crazy cylindrical Mac Pro? Maybe! You’ll have to tune in to our live blog to find out. We’ll be bringing back the news the very second it breaks by way of our liveblog down below. As with the last few big Apple events, it’ll mostly be Greg Kumparak typin’ away while Darrell Etherington blasts out photos. Apple’s announcement is scheduled to start at 10 a.m. Pacific (That’s 1 p.m. Eastern, 7 a.m. Hawaii, 6 p.m. London, and 2 a.m. on the 23rd over in Tokyo. Neru!) We’ll be bringin’ back all sorts of photos and commentary as soon as things get interesting around the venue, so be sure tune in early — say, maybe, 9 a.m?
Yahoo Is Ordered To Start Using Microsoft Search In Hong Kong And Taiwan
Oct 22, 3:30AM
Signed in 2010, Microsoft and Yahoo's ten-year Search Alliance was supposed to lift Google's stronghold on search advertising. But the deal has steadily eroded since then, with the latest sign coming from a court filing that says Yahoo tried to delay adopting Bing search in Taiwan and Hong Kong. 
With $1M In Funding, Appsee Promises Mobile Developers Real Insight Into Their Users
Oct 22, 3:22AM
Israeli startup Appsee says it's taking a different approach to mobile analytics. I wrote about the company more than a year ago under its old name, UserVOD, when it focused on making video recordings of mobile app user activity. Now the company is launching a broader iOS analytics platform, where user recordings are just one feature.
YPlan Launches On Android
Oct 22, 3:15AM
YPlan has only been around for less than a year, but the company is rapidly covering new ground. After expanding from the UK into New York city last month, the social planning service is today launching an Android app. 
LovelyHeroku Offers A Better Way To Manage Apps And Services
Oct 22, 1:50AM
LovelyHeroku is a new breed of app that enables IT staff and developers to use their smartphones to manage their work on the Heroku platform-as-a-service (PaaS). It's the kind of service that reflects how different work is these days now that we can carry it wherever we go. The service is the creation of Matija Bogdanovic, a computer science professor in Croatia, and Mario Danic, a well-known open-source contributor who independently kickstarted one of the first online communities for Slicehost, the company that eventually sold to Rackspace. LovelyHeroku allows developers to manage tasks for apps on multiple accounts, change passwords, scale the apps and a host of other services such as mapping a new domain to the app, orchestrate SSH keys and add new collaborators.
Netflix Tops HBO In Paid U.S. Subscribers As Members Stream 5 Billion Hours Of Content In Q3
Oct 21, 10:46PM
Today, Netflix posted its third-quarter earnings, with the streaming video provider exceeding analyst projections thanks to strong subscriber growth in which it added 1.3 million domestically. Netflix CEO Reed Hastings and CFO David Wells said in a letter to shareholders this afternoon that the company recently surpassed the 40 million members milestone, up from "less than 30 million just one year ago," they said. 
A Closer Look At Microsoft's New Surface 2 And Surface Pro 2 Tablets
Oct 21, 10:30PM
Over the past few days, we’ve had in our hot hands the new Surface 2 and Surface Pro 2 tablets. We published an initial video clip and hands-on notes last evening and today, we’re sharing a short video run-through of the hardware. Surface, of course, is Microsoft’s hardware gambit that places it in contention with its traditional OEM partners. The company’s new devices replace its earlier efforts, which produced decidedly mixed sales. So, enjoy the above clip, and then strap in: Apple’s iPad event is tomorrow morning, and you’re going to need your rest.
Google Maps Engine Gets Free Tier And A Public Data Program To Help Governments, Other Orgs Surface Maps
Oct 21, 9:30PM
Google is launching a free tier of Google Maps Engine today, in conjunction with its announcement of Maps Engine Pro, a small business tool. The free tier offers all of the same features but has smaller quotas for data access, in the ‘tens of megabytes’ vs. the terabytes available in the full version. Google is also launching a new Public Data Program that allows organizations to sign up for a free GME account to create maps and publish them on the web. This could let an organization like, say, the government of Latvia, surface maps of data that it would normally have to have a team build custom tools to present. The idea is to offer up a public map of new voting districts, transport routes, public works or any other kind of data in a way that can be easily searched via Google or other tools, and that can be distributed widely in a stable fashion. Google happens to be very good at that, and many organizations and government simply aren’t. Any organization will be able to take advantage of the new program, which does not face the same quota limitations as the free-tier Google Maps Engine product. The only stipulation is that these maps be posted publicly. This serves their needs to have those maps easily searchable, and Google needs to have its mapping products be the most complete picture of the world. There are only so many layers of data that Google can collect itself, and this program taps another whole group of organizations with unique, valuable data to add to the overall product. Today, Google is also announcing that it will have integration with some very popular GIS software like ESRI and QGIS. It’s also firing up a partnership with Safe Software, one of the biggest spatial visualization companies around. Their data transformation tool FME will get full Google Maps Engine integration. Maps Engine is used by companies like FedEx, Amtrak and NOAA. Google recently launched a Maps Engine API that was designed to allow companies to import data and layer it on top of Google’s own mapping layers. The Google Maps Engine product has been around for about two years and available commercially for over a year. The benefits of a free tier are obvious: It offers a taste of the full-on product to attract new enterprise customers. The benefits of a public data tool to help
Google's Maps Engine Pro Aims To Help Small Businesses Visualize Location Data As Easily As They Make A Pie Chart
Oct 21, 9:30PM
Today, at Google’s San Francisco offices, Google introduced Maps Engine Pro, a utility that allows small businesses to use Google’s location tools to create maps out of location databases. There will also be a mobile app available for Android initially to allow users to edit and create these maps on the fly. The app, called Google Maps Engine, will allow access to any level of GME service. Brian McClendon, VP of Google Maps, noted that there are still 1 billion monthly users of Google Maps but also over 1 million active sites and apps using the APIs. McClendon says that Google is also after semantic data, including local location, imagery, Street View and base maps. Each of those layers must be collected separately and sometimes includes mistakes. Google has spent a lot of time creating what it calls a ‘canonical base map of the world.’ This map allows it to answer questions like ‘how do I get there?’ But on top of all of those data layers is something Google is calling the Knowledge Layer, which contributes to people’s ability to get questions with more complex parameters answered. All of these layers service consumers and the enterprise on either end of the scale. Now, to service those in the middle, like small businesses, Google is introducing Maps Engine Pro. It’s a tool that allows businesses to create internal- and external-facing maps that utilize its data layers to make business decisions. Among the decision-making tools will be the ability to optimize the locations of your people and company assets, engage your users and build apps that take advantage of all of Google’s layers. Google’s Vinay Goel, Google Product Manager on Google Maps, detailed how professionals could use some of these tools to solve problems. One example Goel gave is that an insurance underwriter should have easy access to your location and the canonical data surrounding the risk profile of your neighborhood in order to calculate your plan and premium. The pricing of Maps Engine Pro is $5 per user per month or $50 per user per year depending on the license usages. Here’s an example of a map that you might see created in Maps Engine Pro: Heather Folsom, Product Manager of Google Maps Engine Pro, spoke about the capabilities of the new service. Basically, you’re able to upload a spreadsheet of data that you might have with locations or other
Andreessen-Backed Game Developer TinyCo Lays Off 27 Employees
Oct 21, 8:53PM
TinyCo, an early mobile game developer that picked up funding from Andreessen Horowitz, is laying off 27 employees as it moves toward a new strategy. The company says it will outline its new moves in the coming few weeks. “We’ve moved 10 steps forward on executing a specific strategy around how we build games and what games we build. To execute against this strategy, we decided to consolidate game development out of our SF office and reduce our staff,” said CEO Suleman Ali in a statement. “Laying people off sucks, especially since TinyCo has always been a breeding ground for great friendships. We’ll provide more updates, including a game launch, in the near future.” According to a source, they’ve laid off employees based both in San Francisco and in Argentina. TinyCo is one of a handful of early mobile game developers that built casual simulation games on iOS and Android. They were pursuing a strategy that was kind of like what Zynga did to build out presence on the Facebook platform. TinyCo built casual games around proven concepts like Tiny Chef, a restaurant sim, or Tiny Monsters, where players would raise baby monsters. Early on, they had multiple top-grossing titles in the top 100 — Tiny Monsters, for example, held onto a top-grossing spot in the top 100 U.S. iPhone games for more than six months last year. But they haven’t held on as strongly this year, with their top grossing title being the #272 ranked VIP Poker, according to App Annie. Many of the other companies that blew up around that time in 2011 like Pocket Gems and Storm8 have since been eclipsed by studios like Supercell, which just sold a majority stake to Softbank and GungHo for $1.53 billion, or Candy Crush-maker King and Kabam, which successfully transitioned from Facebook to mobile platforms. Pocket Gems still has three top-grossing titles in the top 100 on the iPhone in the U.S., however, and Storm8 holds two top 100 grossing titles on Google Play.
InfoScout Tells Brands Who Buys What By Getting Meatspace Shoppers To Photograph Receipts
Oct 21, 8:35PM
Like Quantcast but for brick-and-mortar shopping data and not web traffic, InfoScout.co launched to give consumer product brands insight into consumer demographics. With $5 million from Bain Capital Ventures, InfoScout machine-reads receipts photographed by 100,000 users of its Receipt Hog and Shoparoo apps. It combines this data with surveys to tell CPG brands like P&G who buys their products.
Netflix: 'Orange Is The New Black' Is Our Most-Watched Original, But Our TV Exclusives Are Even Bigger
Oct 21, 8:35PM
Earlier comments from Netflix suggested that its show "Orange Is The New Black" was a hit — specifically, the company said in July that each of its original shows had a better first week than the one before it. It expanded on that point in today's earnings report and letter to investors: [Orange Is The New Black] will end the year as our most watched original series ever and, as with each of our other previously launched originals, enjoys an audience comparable with successful shows on cable and broadcast TV
TechStars-Backed Lua Will Open To The Public By 2014
Oct 21, 8:30PM
More than two years after launching out of TechStars NYC, little Lua has grown up. The company, which provides mobile workforce technology to enterprise customers with mostly out-of-office employees (think Convo or Yammer but as a usable mobile-first product), is today announcing plans to offer self-service public availability by the end of the year. 
Who Said It? President Obama Or An Infomercial?
Oct 21, 8:22PM
At today's White House Press conference, President Obama came out to sell Americans on the Affordable Care Act and try to deflect criticism about Healthcare.gov's continued glitches. I think most of us in the press expected him to address the shady government contract processes that allowed a mediocre web developer, CGI Global, to take on a $92 million, U.S.-government-funded e-commerce project.
Netflix's Q3 Beats Analyst Estimates With 1.3M New Domestic Subscribers, $0.52 Earnings Per Share
Oct 21, 8:03PM
Netflix's third-quarter earnings report just came out, with the company beating analyst expectations on higher-than-expected subscriber numbers. For the third quarter, Netflix reported earnings of 52 cents per share on revenues of $1.1 billion. That compared to earnings of 13 cents per share on sales of $905 million in the year-ago quarter. Earnings were above analyst expectations of 49 cents a share, while revenues were in-line with the $1.1 billion forecast for the quarter.
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