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BetaNews.Com (8 non lus)

Chrome 19 beta syncs tabs everywhere -- get it now!

Publié: avril 10, 2012, 11:05pm CEST par Mark Wilson

Most of us now use at least two devices to connect to the Internet and while this freedom of connectivity is great in many respects, there are also problems associated with it. One of the most infuriating aspects of moving from browsing the web on one computer to using another device is that you will lose the web sites you were looking at. This is something that is addressed in the latest beta version of Google Chrome 19, which features the synchronization of tabs between devices. The feature extends to other devices a capability available with Chrome for Android Beta.

If you are working on your computer at work and then head home, there is no longer any need to send yourself an email with links to the websites you have been looking at during the day. Instead, assuming that you have the beta version of Google web browser installed on both machines and you are signed into your account, when you get home you need look no further than the ‘Other devices’ menu on the new tab page.

In this menu you will find a list of all of the tabs you have opened on other machines and you can load them up with just a further click. As an added bonus, the browsing history for individual links is preserved so you can still track back through your browsing trail without the need to worry about which computer you are using.

As well as this handy tab synchronization, the latest beta version also features the usual range of tweaks and bug fixes. Problems with NVIDIA GPUs with 3D graphics have been fixed as have issues with incognito windows. It’s a shame that it’s not possible to easily install the beta version of the browser alongside an existing installation of the stable release version, but it does seem remarkably stable in its own right.

The web browser is available for Windows, Mac and Linux, and you can find out more by paying a visit to the Google Chrome 19 Beta review page.
SAP moves to acquire mobile enterprise app maker Syclo

Publié: avril 10, 2012, 9:28pm CEST par Tim Conneally

Enterprise software company SAP on Tuesday announced it plans to expand its presence in mobile applications by acquiring enterprise app developer Syclo for an undisclosed sum. Syclo provides field service and mobile asset management solutions to industries like utilities, oil & gas, manufacturing and biomedical.

Syclo's SMART family of enterprise mobile applications already integrate with SAP's ERP and CRM products and include a dozen different categories: Work Management, Service Management, Inventory, Auditing, Inspecting, Scheduling, Task Managment, Asset Management, Sales, and so on.

"With this acquisition, SAP adds momentum to our already powerful mobile portfolio, advancing our vision and leadership while accelerating our mobile apps," said Sanjay Poonen, president, Global Solutions, SAP. "Syclo brings both domain-savvy expertise and industry-leading solutions, as recognized by customers and analysts. This will drive innovation and mobility in the workplace."

Syclo's applications can be integrated into non-SAP solutions (such as those provided by IBM and Oracle), and the company says the acquisition will not change that. In fact, SAP’s strategy is to deliver mobile applications to both SAP and non-SAP systems.

The acquisition is expected to close in the second quarter of 2012.

Photo Credit: ssuaphotos/Shutterstock
Did you buy Nokia Lumia 900 Windows Phone?

Publié: avril 10, 2012, 7:58pm CEST par Joe Wilcox

I just have to ask, because your first impressions will matter to other possible buyers. Colleague Tim Conneally reviewed Lumia 900, but good as that is we need more. I want your review, too. AT&T started selling the 4G LTE Windows Phone on April 8 -- Easter Sunday -- when the major malls here in San Diego were closed. Heck, even my local Target shuttered for the holiday. It's Tuesday, and that's time enough for your first impressions.

I got to thinking more about Lumia 900 last night when something quite unexpected happened. My wife asked: "That new phone is only $99?" Which one? "The Nokia". She had seen a TV commercial for the handset. My wife has never asked me about an advertised phone before. Never. Never. Never. If Mrs. Non-Geek Artist is intrigued, what about enthusiasts rushing out to buy Lumia 900? Is it a bruiser or a loser?

"Readers help other readers" is one of my mottos, and your Lumia 900 review can do just that. You can comment to this post or, better, submit a review to joe at betanews dot com; I'll need a bio and photo, too, as your name will appear in the byline.

Strong Buying Intentions

I know somebody bought Lumia 900. Two weeks ago, I posted a poll asking who would. The sample size is excellent -- 3,025 as I write. A whopping 70.45 percent of respondents say they will buy the Windows Phone within 3 months (including preorders). Only 16.96 percent won't buy at all.

Granted, respondents aren't qualified (meaning I don't know who they are) and are presumably Windows Phone enthusiasts (based on what I know about BetaNews readership). But I've been doing these buying polls for about 18 months and this is by far the most overwhelmingly positive response to any smartphone. The questions: How wide is this enthusiasm? Will it turn into real sales?

Commenter IT advisor doesn't believe the numbers: "How bizarre. Microsoft Windows Phone gets a market share of 75 percent among BetaNews readers. In the general population, it gets only 1.9 percent. Are these the same people who bought Zunes and Kins? Yes, they are! Hey, you can wave around your Microsoft Kin phone at parties these days and everyone will laugh!"

"Say what you will, and I am sure you will, but the Zune was actually a really nice device", PC_Tool responds. (Once you got over their utter lack of marketing and whatever childish 'color phobias you might have)." I agree, as expressed in my September 2009 Zune HD review. But he concedes, "not that I'll be getting a Windows Phone -- in the foreseeable, ever".

Shutter Speed

I'm a long-time Nokia fan, and only abandoned the manufacturer after it abandoned me (and perhaps you, too). Nokia had great hardware -- hell, it invented the smartphone around the time Windows 95 launched. But software and services stumbled after iPhone released in June 2007 and fell far behind Apple after App Store opened in July 2008 -- and later Google. I don't believe that Windows Phone can recapture Nokia's glory days, but I can hope!

Last week, in group chat, Tim expressed amazement at just how good is Lumia 900's camera. I explained that Nokia cameras have been great for years. Don't believe me? Gander at my Nokia N97 Flickr set or these tagged photos and compare to Tim's Lumia 900 slideshow.

Circling back where we started. Please submit your Lumia 900 mini-review in comments below or email the big shebang to joe at betanews dot com. Your first impressions take can help others decide whether to take the plunge -- and, remember, the white model comes out April 22nd -- or choose another.
Amazon rolls out in-app billing in Android apps, catches up to Google Play

Publié: avril 10, 2012, 7:43pm CEST par Tim Conneally

Amazon on Tuesday launched in-app billing in its Android App Store, allowing developers to include for-pay content upgrades, subscriptions, and other purchase-driven features to their applications. The feature comes exactly one year after Google introduced in-app billing in the Android Market (now known as Google Play.)

Data from mobile app analytics company Flurry last year suggested that mobile games based on the "freemium" model earned two-thirds of all the revenue of the top 100 games. This business model is based on giving away the game, and keeping it free to play, but earning money through in-app purchases such as add-ons and content expansion packs.

Gaming company Glu Mobile has based its entire success around the freemium model. The company's title Gun Bros., for example, netted $610,000 in the first two months of 2011, after launching on iOS and Android.

Glu Mobile, along with ZeptoLab, Disney, Storm8, Social Gaming Network, Gameloft, G5 Entertainment, Condé Nast, Dow Jones, and New York Post have already integrated Amazon Appstore’s In-App Purchasing API, and offer Amazon's "1-click" purchasing in Android apps.

This announcement is most significant to a couple of groups. Firstly, it is significant to Kindle Fire users, since they have not had access to apps that utilize Google's in-app payment system. With the addition of in-app billing, more applications will be coming to the Kindle Fire.

Secondly, this is significant to app developers who are eyeing a more profitable Android audience.

Flurry, who we mentioned above, published a blog just over a week ago that said Amazon's Android App Store is significantly more profitable per user than Google Play is. The audience is smaller overall, but users are far more likely to spend money on Amazon than they are on Google Play.

"Amazon's bet to fork Android in order to put consumers into their own shopping experience on Kindle Fire appears to be paying off. Showing its commerce strength, Amazon already delivers more than three times the revenue per user in its app store compared to what Google generates for developers," said Flurry's Vice President of Marketing Peter Farago.
HP takes on Amazon, launches public cloud

Publié: avril 10, 2012, 7:12pm CEST par Ed Oswald

In a move aimed at unseating Amazon's dominance in the space, HP on Tuesday launched a cloud service known as HP Converged Cloud that allows companies to take advantage of the company's expansive data centers. Converged Cloud is very much like Amazon Web Services, which is by far the largest provider of public cloud access.

HP will offer on-demand instances and virtual machines, and users will pay for the resources they use starting May 10. In addition, two Infrastructure-as-a-Service offerings will launch: one a storage service that assists in moving data from one instance to another, and the other a relational database tool for MySQL.

New CEO Meg Whitman believes that cloud computing is one of the sectors that will return Hewlett Packard to a position of strength. By increasing cloud computing revenues, it is hoped that will lessen the financial pain of falling PC and printing revenues.

The Palo Alto, Calif. company already provides private cloud services as well as running data centers for select partners. However, HP did not make a big play for public cloud services until it started its public cloud effort last September.

HP is not abandoning the private cloud, and instead points to internal research that says there is a demand in IT for a mix of public and private deployments. The new features launching in may will help manage hybrid cloud deployments, and HP is also offering to manage private cloud deployments for those wishing to outsource.

"HP Converged Cloud enables enterprises to incorporate a blend of public, private and managed cloud services with their existing IT to create a seamless hybrid environment that rapidly adapts to their changing requirements", software chief Bill Veghte says.

Whether this public cloud computing push will change the game remains to be seen. Amazon is believed to hold a commanding lead in the space, and other Silicon Valley companies are making plays for what's left. IBM, Dell, and RackSpace are also staking a claim.

With cloud computing growing by leaps and bounds as of late there is space for new competitors. A 2011 survey by Morgan Stanley found that 28 percent of those surveyed were using the public cloud in their deployments. The firm expects that number to increase to half of all businesses by 2015.

Those entering the market better be prepared to tackle Amazon head on, both in price and in service offerings, however. AWS was responsible for about $1.1 billion of Amazon's total $48 billion revenue for 2011, of which about $100 million was profit.

Photo Credit: Tom Wang/Shutterstock
Kaspersky tool detects and removes Flashback/Flashfake Trojan from Macs

Publié: avril 10, 2012, 5:11pm CEST par Nick Peers

If there’s one silver lining to the cloud cast over Mac users by the recent revelation that the Flashback/Flashfake Trojan has infected over 600,000 Macs worldwide, it’s surely the end to the myth that Macs are invulnerable to viruses and other malware. Seasoned Mac users will have never claimed anything different, but now there’s no excuse for any Mac users to run without protection of some form or other.

Of course, before you can bolt the barn door, you need to make sure no horses have escaped, which is where Kaspersky’s free Flashfake Removal Tool comes in. As the name implies, it’s designed to remove any specific Flashback/Flashfake infection from your Mac; it’ll quickly scan for infection, inform you of the result and then take steps, if necessary, to nullify the infection.

The whole Flashfake furore came about because of a vulnerability in the Java programming language, which was exploited by hackers to great effect after OS X was left unprotected for over a month after the original hole had been patched by Oracle, Java’s developer. That’s because Apple relies on its own update mechanism, which wasn’t acted on until recently.

Once you’ve verified, or cleaned, your Mac, you need to make sure the patch is closed: fire up System Update and you’ll see the Java for OS X 2012-02 v1.0 patch waiting for you. Once installed, you should be safe from Flashfake.

Whether or not the Flashfake Removal Tool detected an infection or not, now is the time to add antivirus protection to your Mac if none is currently installed. You don’t have to pay a penny either, with both Sophos Anti-Virus for Mac Home Edition and Avira Free Mac Security 1.0 providing protection against malware for free.

Kaspersky Flashfake Removal Tool is a freeware download for Mac users running OS X. Take our advice and run it as the first step towards keeping your Mac free from nasties.

Photo Credit: Ye/Shutterstock
Instagram is worth $1B to Facebook

Publié: avril 10, 2012, 4:45pm CEST par Don Dodge

Yesterday, Facebook announced that it acquired Instagram for $1 Billion. The company is less than two years old, has no revenue, and about a dozen employees. Remember, acquisitions are about what the acquirer can do with the company in the future, not some multiple of revenues or profits today. Why is Instagram worth $1 billion?

Facebook acquired Instagram for about $30 per user, or $1B. ($30/user X 33M users = $1 billion) Facebook is valued at about $100 per user or $80 billion ($100/user X 800M users = $80 billion). Other popular social apps are valued around $20 to $50 per user. The monetization models need to work out about the same to justify the valuations.

If Facebook was worth $80B last week, is it worth $81 billion now with the addition of Instagram? Yes. Here is why. The number one thing people do on Facebook is share photos. Photos are going mobile in a big way. Instagram is the clear leader in mobile photos. Instagram added 1 million users in the first day of availability on Android. Facebook needs a growth engine to show investors after they go public. Instagram is that growth engine, and it is worth much more than $1B to Facebook and its investors.

Web2.0 to Mobile

Everything is going mobile. Path, Instagram, FourSquare, are totally mobile, and don't care about the web. This could mark the turning point for another sea change; Web 2.0 to Mobile. Facebook has a horrible mobile app and needs to upgrade its mobile services. Path is the most elegantly designed mobile app, with an awesome user experience. Instagram is the best mobile photo app. FourSquare is the leader in mobile location data. All of them are critical to any company that wants to dominate the mobile paradigm shift.

Is Instagram Worth $1B to Microsoft or Twitter?

Probably not. Microsoft couldn't monetize the users and growth in the same way that Facebook can. Microsoft isn't focused on social or mobile photos. Twitter could realize a ton of value from Instagram, but $1 billion? Probably not. Twitter will still get lots of users and traffic from Instagram. They don't need to own it.

The value of a company is different for different potential acquirers. If Facebook can monetize its users in a way that justifies $100/user, than paying $30 per user for an acquisition is a great deal. For other potential acquirers maybe not. It depends on their monetization model, and what they plan to do with the acquisition in the future. This is why Instagram is worth $1 billion to Facebook, and why AOL patents are worth $1 billion to Microsoft. They both acquired good value for what they want to accomplish.

Don Dodge is developer advocate for Google, where he helps developers build new applications for the company's platforms and technologies. Before joining Google, he was one of Microsoft's most strategically-placed start-up evangelists. Dodge is a veteran of five start-ups, including AltaVista, Bowstreet, Forte Software, Groove Networks and Napster.
Toshiba unveils the biggest Android tablet yet, Excite 13

Publié: avril 10, 2012, 4:43pm CEST par Tim Conneally

Toshiba's first Android tablets, called "Thrive," were a bit thicker and boxier than their competitors; but at the Consumer Electronics Show 2012, the company revealed it had slimmed down its second generation considerably with the 10" Excite tablet.

Tuesday, Toshiba unveiled a new member of the Excite family that proves the company still has size in mind with its Android Tablets. The new Excite 13 has the largest LED touchscreen of any Android tablet yet.

The Excite 13 tablet, as the name suggests, has a 13-inch (1600 x 900) screen, and manages to be only 0.4 inches in thickness and weigh 2.2 pounds. It is powered by Nvidia's Tegra 3 mobile processor platform with GeForce graphics and 1GB of RAM, and it includes a micro USB port, a micro HDMI port and a full-sized SD card slot. Some other unique aspects of the tablet, beyond its size, include its four-speaker sound system, and its support for ten simultaneous touch points.

"One size does not fit all, so we are carefully considering how and where people are using tablets and designing form factors to best suit various needs," said Carl Pinto, vice president of product development in Toshiba's digital products division.

The Excite 13 tablet will be available at the beginning of June 2012, and carries a suggested retail price of $649.99 for the 32GB model and $749.99 for the 64GB model.