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BetaNews.Com (9 non lus)

Pokki says that it 'knows' you want that Start menu in Windows 8

Publié: janvier 16, 2013, 8:24pm CET par Alan Buckingham

I suspect Microsoft may keep track of the number of people who use a Start button/menu replacement app in Windows 8, but it is not in the company's interest to say so -- both because a large number would reflect badly on the decision to remove the feature and because the company did a lot of, ah, "research" to determine the feature was not necessary. Oh, and the whole privacy thing as well.

Pokki, which is perhaps the market leader in this new genre of Start-menu-adding apps released a bit of information today: "1.5 million Pokki downloads on the new OS itself and users opening the Pokki Menu an average of 10 times a day".

That is great for them -- 1.5 million downloads of anything is a milestone type of number. Unless you are Windows or Office...or Adobe or Google.

Put it in perspective. Last week we reported that Microsoft has already sold 60 million Windows 8 licenses. That is an an average of 4.6 million licences per week since launch. We are now 2.5 months from launch, or 64 million licenses -- it's an estimate of course. That means Pokki has a total of less than one percent of the market.

It's a solid number. Good enough to keep a business afloat for sure. We should also consider that Pokki is not the only one in this game -- others like Classic Shell will have a bit of market share. So maybe we have three percent of users clamoring for that Start menu back.

It is hardly numbers compelling enough for Microsoft to rethink the decision. In fact, it points to a niche market. Companies like Pokki will do well in that market, but it hardly qualifies as the mainstream problem that a boisterous few seem to be making it out to be.
MediaFire cloud storage app comes to Android

Publié: janvier 16, 2013, 7:05pm CET par Mihaita Bamburic

The words "free" and "50GB of cloud storage" don't often come together in the same sentence, so when the company announced the mind-boggling offer there was only one question on my mind: "When's it coming to Android?" Well, good things come to those who wait! After an almost five-month hiatus, MediaFire arrived on green droid land.

So what's it like? Well, straight off the bat MediaFire for Android "features" a major flaw -- users cannot sign up for the cloud storage service using the app. That's an inconvenience seeing as, for instance, Box or Dropbox do sport the basic functionality. That said, the app does have some interesting features starting with the camera options.

Users can choose to take a picture or shoot a video straight from MediaFire, press a button after they're done and upload the newly created content straight to the cloud, without going through various menus. Sadly though, the feature is limited to only one picture or video at a time which, again, is inconvenient.

Another issue, but more concerning, relates to uploading content from the Gallery app. After pressing the Share button, MediaFire is nowhere to be seen and cannot be therefore selected to upload pictures or videos. So how can one upload content to the cloud? Well, you'd have to solely use the app for that. There's another problem -- users can only upload one item at a time.

While that's fine for casual use, it really puts a dent on backing up multiple files. From my point of view going through, for instance, pictures and videos one by one is not particularly exciting considering MediaFire's biggest appeal -- the immense storage space. Same goes for performing batch operations such as moving or deleting files, an impossible feat for the company's initial foray.

Looking at Dropbox or Google Drive, for instance, one can also easily notice the outdated design, which really has no place in 2013. It's straight from the history books, and nowhere near as good looking as its iOS counterpart. By comparison, the latter looks astonishing. I can only assume that MediaFire deems green droid users as Android 1.5 Cupcake or 1.6 Donut fans.

Luckily files can be shared from MediaFire, and users can also pull out links for uploaded content which should come in handy for collaboration purposes. Also, the app features search functionality and can also open the folder which contains the item using the integrated file menu. Neat, but certainly not mind-blowing.
So your Windows 8 Preview expired -- now what?

Publié: janvier 16, 2013, 5:00pm CET par Alan Buckingham

I really should heed my own advice. Yesterday I warned you that all preview versions of Windows 8 would expire. You had two choices -- upgrade to gold code or deal with a computer that reboots every two hours. Hopefully you went with the former, but I chose the latter with a desktop PC that I rarely use. I had the nerve to say to myself that "I will get it tomorrow".

Well, I did get around to it today. I had purchased the license -- two months ago in fact, but I just did not get around to doing anything with it. Well, guess what? Microsoft punished he who procrastinates.

You see, the confirmation email the company sends you when you purchase your license contains a link, and that leads to a Windows 8 upgrade assistant. The problem is, once you get through running this and obtain your key, then the download process turns out to be much longer than the time between reboots of your expired computer.

Restarting the process upon reboot is of little help -- Microsoft begins the whole process again, including asking for your credit card number for a key. Useless.

There is, however, a work-around for this mess. Point your browser to this site. There you will find an installer, as opposed to an upgrade assistant. It is faster and requires only the input of your key.

Now, next time, let us both learn from this lesson and not allow this to happen again. Except, we will. Because we are procrastinators after all.

Photo Credit: iQoncept/Shutterstock
Microsoft Surface Pro arriving very soon - time to get excited?

Publié: janvier 16, 2013, 1:09pm CET par Mihaita Bamburic
In late November, Tami Reller, Windows and Windows Live Division chief marketing officer, revealed that Microsoft was planning to launch the Surface Pro tablet "in January" 2013. However, seeing as the second half of the month is already underway, that doesn't give the tech giant long to get its product out there.

Fortunately prospective purchasers will be pleased to know they won't have long to wait now. Panos Panay, general manager of Microsoft Surface, tweeted yesterday that he was on his "way to the factory to check out Surface Pro", and that the Redmond, Wash.-based corporation will release the Windows 8 Pro tablet "in the coming weeks". Presumably that could mean either a late January or early February launch.

If anything, Panos Panay's vague tweet appears to be written to drum up interest before the big launch rather than provide useful information to would-be buyers. To paraphrase the man, he throws a bone but without actually throwing anything.

We do know that Surface Pro runs for $899 for the 64GB variant and $999 in 128GB trim. Some of the most noteworthy specs include:
- Windows 8 Pro 64-bit
- 10.6-inch ClearType Full HD 10-point multi-touch display
- Third generation Intel Core i5 Processor
- Intel HD Graphics 4000 graphics card
- 4GB of RAM
- Wi-Fi 802.11 a/b/g/n, Bluetooth 4.0, USB 3.0 port, mini DisplayPort
- Pen input and pen (stylus) included in the box
- 48Wh battery
Microsoft also provided some details concerning battery life. According to the software giant, Surface Pro only lasts half as long as its Windows RT-powered sibling. That places the battery life anywhere in between four to five hours of off-the-grid operation.
UK mobile owners will soon be able to send cash payments by text

Publié: janvier 16, 2013, 12:12pm CET par Wayne Williams

When I need to make a payment or send money to someone, I use a bank app on my smartphone. It’s quick and easy, and I can check my balance beforehand to make sure I’ve got enough cash in my account. The app does require me to know the other person’s bank details though, and so isn’t particularly handy for making swift payments to just anyone.

Fortunately the Payments Council is working on a project that will make it possible for anyone living in the UK to send secure payments via text message. You won’t need to worry about account numbers or sort codes -- all you’ll need is the recipient’s mobile number.

Set to launch in spring next year, the aim of the scheme is to link up every bank account in the country with a mobile phone number that will work as a proxy, so neither the sender nor recipient will be required to disclose their bank details. Great for paying a workman, for example, or splitting a dinner bill with friends.

According to the Payments Council, just prior to launch, "participating financial institutions will invite customers to register via their online banking service, mobile app or other approved method to provide their mobile phone number and confirm which account they want to link it to". Apparently eight financial institutions -- representing 90 percent of UK current accounts -- have already committed to the new scheme.

Transactions will be handled by the Faster Payments service, which processed more than 800 million online and phone banking payments last year, and the LINK network, which processed 3.1 billion ATM transactions in the same time period.

There are still some details to be worked out, including defining minimum service standards for security, speed and other technical requirements. Security will of course be a major concern, and the Payments Council has said at the very least a passcode or similar security feature will be required to authorize payments. Which will be essential, especially given that the Metropolitan Police says an average of 314 mobile phones are stolen in London every day.

Photo credit: Stuart Miles/Shutterstock
iPhone Mini will be evolutionary, not revolutionary

Publié: janvier 16, 2013, 9:00am CET par Robert X. Cringely

First in a series. Has Apple peaked? Yes and no. I think the company still struggles somewhat to find its path following the death of former CEO Steve Jobs. But there’s still plenty happening and room for growth in Cupertino. So let’s start a discussion about what’s really going on there. I thought this might be possible in a single column, but looking down I see that’s impossible, so expect a second forward-looking Apple column.

The catalyst for this particular column is word coming over the weekend from the Wall $treet Journal that Apple is cutting back component orders for the iPhone 5, signaling lower sales than expected. I’m not saying this story is wrong but I don’t completely buy it for a couple reasons.

Not so Fast

It’s from a single unidentified source, which I always find suspect, and the publication makes the interpretation that the order changes are because of slow iPhone sales. How would they know?

"Wait", you protest, "there are now lots of stories in many publications with lots of experts quoted".

Not really. There are many reaction stories (called second day stories in the newspaper game) and the experts quoted aren’t for the most part revealing anything new, they are responding to highly specific questions like "IfApple is in fact scaling-back orders, what could it signify?" That’s not news.

Where people are quoted beyond this they are generally traders and traders love volatility. This extends right back to the Journal, I’d say, which also likes volatility.

Here’s what I believe. Apple has clearly opened up the iPhone 5 to anyone who will buy it. A friend bought his at Costco. Straight Talk Cellular (Walmart) now has them. Every carrier in America has or shortly will (T-Mobile) have iPhones, so that means the market is maturing. Remember the turnover in phones is twice as fast as it is in PCs, so everyone has all new stuff within three years, tops.

We have to be careful about our terms here, so while I doubt that iPhone sales have slowed I’d say that sales growth has undoubtedly slowed, which at Apple traditionally means it is time for a new product category -- or would have been during the Steve Jobs era.

Milk Run

But this isn’t the Steve Jobs era and a characteristic of the Tim Cook era, I believe, will be building out existing franchises farther than Jobs ever bothered to. This does not mean Apple won’t pioneer new categories, but that the company wants to milk the current categories for now.

A case in point is the rumored cheaper iPhone, which marketing chief Phil Schiller reportedly says isn’t happening. I’m not here to call Schiler a liar, but I’m sure he’s dissembling (isn’t that a great word?).

Schiller says "no cheap iPhone". Well that’s BS. He’ll change his mind this spring or summer saying something like "We don’t make cheap anything -- our products are packed with value -- but now we’re introducing a less expensive iPhone".

That’s exactly how Jobs would do it, right?

China Syndrome

Let’s throw in another data point: China. Last week Tim Cook was in China signing a huge iPhone deal with the dominant mobile carrier -- the largest in the world. China is both proud and price-sensitive. What better way to blow open the Chinese market than with a less expensive iPhone?

Cook was quoted as saying that China will become Apple’s largest market. He’ll want to deliver on that sooner, rather than later, and larger numbers of a cheaper model could help do that.

It wouldn’t surprise me at all, in fact, to see Apple do a short-term exclusive for the cheaper iPhone, limiting it to China -- yet another excuse for Phil Schiller to say it isn’t happening...here in the USA.

The iPhone Mini (that’s what I’d call it and Apple will too) will be evolutionary, not revolutionary. It will have a smaller form factor because Samsung has already staked its claim to oversized smartphones. It will have a smaller, cheaper display, but still a Retina Display, along with all the guts of a 4S, further integrated and made cheaper. When the Mini is eventually offered outside of China it will become the low-end phone replacing the current iPhone 4. Apple’ll keep the larger form factor 4S and the 5 until they launch the iPhone 6 at which point the 4S goes away except for the Mini.

It’s important here to understand the purpose of such an iPhone Mini, which is two-fold. The first reason is to hit the Chinese phone market with a big bang, knocking Samsung back on its heels somewhat by making chic the smaller form factor and selling 100 million or more of them in the first year. The second reason for doing an iPhone Mini is to kill feature phones altogether, expanding smart phones to the entire mobile market. This alone doubles the potential market size and will give Apple another two years of robust growth.

More about Apple’s likely trajectory (it’s not all positive) next.

Reprinted with permission

Photo Credit: Alex Wolf/Shutterstock
Phrozen Safe USB protects your stick

Publié: janvier 16, 2013, 8:10am CET par Mike Williams

There’s no doubt that USB keys are compact, portable and a very convenient way to transfer files and documents. Unfortunately, they’re almost as good as transferring malware, and allowing snoopers to steal information, which is why you might want to control them with a copy of Phrozen Safe USB.

After a simple installation and a reboot, launching the program will add an icon to your system tray. By default this will leave USB devices working just as they did, but right-click the icon and you can choose a couple of alternative settings: “USB Mode Read Only” (drives show up in Explorer, but you can’t write to them), and “USB Mode Disabled” (USB storage devices no longer appear in Explorer at all).

These changes won’t work immediately, unfortunately. If you already have a drive connected, for instance, choosing “Disable” won’t remove it; you’ll have to unplug it yourself.

When you connect a drive after changing the Phrozen Safe Setting, though, the new policy will apply. So if you’ve selected “USB Mode Read Only”, then Explorer will display an error message if you try to copy files there, making it more difficult for attackers to grab data from your PC. And if you choose “USB Mode Disabled” then any USB storage devices won’t show up at all.

There is one very obvious weakness here, in that Phrozen Safe USB doesn’t have any password protection. So if, say, you’re hoping to use the program to prevent family members connecting any old USB drive to your system, there’s nothing whatsoever to stop them from manually disabling its protection and doing whatever they want.

To be fair, not everyone is technical enough to do this, or will be able to take the time to play around on the computer. And if you simply want a basic extra layer of protection against rogue USB usage, then Phrozen Safe USB should prove a simple and lightweight solution (it uses just under 3MB RAM on our test PC).

Password protection would make a real difference, though. And as multiple other users have suggested the same thing to the author, hopefully they’ll be adding it soon.

Photo Credit: chien321/Shutterstock
The PC is far from dead

Publié: janvier 16, 2013, 6:54am CET par Alan Buckingham

This week, my colleague Joe Wilcox wrote about the popular catch-phrase these days -- the "post-PC era". The only problem: this concept is wrong. Yes, he included lots of analyst information, fancy numbers and predictions, but none of it is realistic to the vast majority of computing users.

Yes, tablets are popular. There is no denying that. The iPad, despite not being the first tablet, brought the concept into the real world. Amazon and Google made the devices affordable. Sure, tablets make a great solution for checking email, weather and answering a question about that movie or show on your TV -- the one that occurs while sitting on your sofa.

But, what more can it really do? Play games? Sure, that adds to the enjoyment. After all, Angry Birds looks much better on a seven or 10-inch screen than it does on one sized to a smartphone.

But, as Mark Twain famously said, "rumors of my demise have been greatly exaggerated". So to have been those same rumors surrounding our trusty desktops and laptops.

Try Typing

Do you think I could write this post from a tablet? If I did I would have already torn out my hair before I got this far.

In my previous life I had to occasionally write a report or prepare a PowerPoint presentation. Try doing that on your iPad and then we can talk. My daughter has term papers to write and if I handed her a tablet, even with a Bluetooth keyboard, I expect I would not be in the running for "dad of the year".

Games

I alluded to Angry Birds, which is great on a bigger screen. But what else will you play? Battlefield 3? Think again. PC gaming is still popular and guess where it can be played?

Mobile gaming is fun, but it is just a time waster, not something even considered by serious gamers and those of the MMORPG crowd. Those folks want a real computer, and probably one with a name like AlienWare on it.

Size does Matter

Screens? Seven inches is great when you lie in bed looking at the news or weather. Want to gather your family around to watch the latest release on Netflix? Hell, the computer is bad enough for that, but try doing it on a tablet. See my "legacy" section below for more on this.

Numbers Game

All of the talk seems to be about tablet sales. But it is a ghost in the sense that the devices are basically disposable. Every time a new iPad is released people line up for it, even though most of them have one that is practically new and perfectly fine. When was the last time you saw lines for a new computer, regardless if it was Apple or Windows?

Computers do not sell like tablets. We keep them until they die, and even then we sometimes try to fix and repurpose them. The two devices are not in the same category. So forget the sales figures because they are not relevant when comparing different pieces of technology.

Legacy

Perhaps HTPCs are going the way of the dinosaur, and set-top boxes like Roku and Google TV are moving into that space, but they are not gone yet and they still have a loyal following. Your Google TV still cannot act as a DVR or process a cable card. For those who choose to go through the building and setup process, the Media Center, or equivalent type of computer, is still the best device to have in a home theater.

On the Surface

If anything, the computer will not be replaced by a tablet or smartphone, but by a hybrid device like the new Microsoft Surface. It can function as a tablet or a laptop. It wont replace that HTPC, but it can do pretty much anything else.

Even the Surface provides a rather small screen for some of the functions I mentioned, but devices like it could be the future. But that future is not here yet, and it will not be brought into existence by analyst reports or the web sites that cover them. The future will be shaped by what real people want and need.

Photo Credit: NinaMalyna/Shutterstock
What's rotting Apple?

Publié: janvier 16, 2013, 2:03am CET par Joe Wilcox

I'm not an investor or financial analyst. But I do have a measure of commonsense. Lots of people are asking about Apple's falling stock price and why it is. You don't need a MBA or ponder price-earnings ratios to, by commonsense, see what's happening. Apple is undergoing a long-overdue course correction. It's the new normal, baby, get used to it.

Analysts making wild-eyed predictions just months ago about $1,000 a share or bloggers banging keyboards about $1 billion market capitalization are nutty fruitcakes. Apple cofounder Steve Jobs is gone, so they made their own Kool-Aid and spiked it. They're the only thing getting high here. Apple is laid low.

I know. I know. The concept confuses you, because Apple flew high for so long, rakes in more dough per quarter than the next couple big tech companies combined and sits on a mountain of cash. (Say, can Hubble see the far reaches of this $120 billion stack?)

Save Us, Lord!

Apple believers, the so-called cult of worshipers, clasp there hands and look to the Heavens (where they hope Jobs resides) looking for a reason. The justifications surely are amazing. Over at the Apple 2.0 blog, Philip Elmer-DeWitt asks the common question: "If Apple is about to report its best ever quarter, why does the stock keep falling?" He struggles because the falling share price -- down 32 percent at market close today from September's all-time high -- doesn't reconcile with his pretty performance charts for fourth calendar quarter.

Financial analysts and armchair investors can talk numbers until the rest of us gasp for air because of all the oxygen sucked out of the room. But people make many decisions based on emotions and perception. With a company like Apple, where image and perception are intertwined with marketing and product design, how people feel really matters -- and many people aren't exactly feeling good about the fruit-logo, including some of the aforementioned fruitcakes.

For many people, investing is an act of faith. For many others, it's about making a quick buck. Both types meet at the gut-feeling level -- that fear of losing everything or excitement of winning big suddenly. Behind it all is perception. Think! Why else can one rumor send any stock soaring or tumbling, regardless of the company's performance.

As I explained last month, Apple has a huge perception problem. Perceived or real missteps mute people's good feelings and confidence in Apple: Patent lawsuits; iPhone 5 lackluster features; iPad mini pricing; and Apple Maps, among many others. Then there is what's missing: Steve Jobs spinning every little thing into one more big thing. The magician is gone and the hypnotic magic with him.

The Bubble Bursts

There's a strangely appropriate metaphor, analogy really, to Apple's share price rot.

In 2004, my family looked at buying a home in suburban Maryland. The general perception: Housing was a good investment; borrowing was cheap, loans were easily gotten and home equity kept rising. I couldn't go a day without someone telling me to buy. Everyone I knew either was buying new or moving somewhere else. My local bank extended hours to 7 pm weekdays and 4 pm on Saturday. Home buying was easy.

But as we shopped for a house, something didn't feel right. After extensive research and observing the skewed ratio of rents to mortgages, I understood and told my wife that a housing bubble had formed and we wouldn't buy. In a normal market, mortgages and rents should be about the same, but the former were about 35 percent higher nationwide and 40 percent in our area; that indicated over-inflated house prices.

Mortgage-to-rent ratios are actually quite similar to P/E. The experts look at price-earnings ratios and try to reconcile Apple's performance potential against its falling share price. I see a trend not-so dissimilar from the housing boom in reverse. Home prices are actually quite arbitrary, lifted as much by perception based on numerous factors including what something else in the neighborhood sells for. Your neighbor takes in an extra 100 grand, and your home's value rises, too. The bank forecloses on his property and a couple others, and your home loses value. There are lots of other factors like supply and demand, but surely you get the point. Home values and stock prices are greatly influenced by perception.

Anyone doing mortgage-to-rent evaluations in the mid-Noughties could see a reality separate from general perceptions about home buying. Similarly, those folks looking at Apple metrics, P/E among them, surely wonder about reality being seemingly detached from perception. They're right to ask, yet wrong to do so. Because Apple has long been a perception stock. There's little rational about how people feel about the company, and if you disbelieve that statement look to this story's comments and others about Apple.

The falling stock price is a fundamental realignment with sentiment and people's feelings that Apple isn't sustainable. Everything looks good, considering products so well-positioned for the so-called post-PC era. But a crop so dependent on brand perceptions is ripe for pestilence. Mmmm. Have I mixed enough metaphors?

Photo Credit: nui7711/Shutterstock