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BetaNews.Com (10 non lus)

'Slightly closed Android ecosystem could be reality by the end of 2015'

Publié: avril 5, 2013, 11:40pm CEST par Joe Wilcox

That's the prediction Aapo Markkanen, ABI senior analyst, makes today. It's the right call, as Larry Page starts his third year returning as Google CEO. Page resumed duties on April 4, 2011, and the company's direction took a hard turn. Business is more aggressive, altruistic goals less and so-called openness a waning thing. As I asserted a year ago, "Google has lost control of Android". That Page and Company would try to wrestle back control is no surprise.

Facebook Home is good reason. The user interface debuting April 12 takes over the more app-centric Android homescreen, putting the social network first before anything else, including Google+. Facebook's OEM program could put Home on many more devices. HTC already is on board with the First smartphone. Then there is Samsung, which during fourth quarter accounted for 42.5 percent of all Android handset sales, according to Gartner. TouchWiz, which gets a big update with forthcoming Galaxy S4, is the user experience -- not that determined by stock Android. These are but two examples of many.

The OEM Problem

Amazon Android for Kindle tablets is another example. But the most disturbing, perhaps, comes out of China, now the world's largest smartphone market, according to IDC. Markkanen observes that Chinese phone maker Yandex "appears to be keen to use Android UI tweaks -- combined with an app storefront -- for the benefit of its own vertical integration. The firm’s 'Shell' is available as a downloadable overlay, and it’s also available to potential OEM and carrier partners. If Yandex is successful it could quickly weaken Google’s foothold in Eastern Europe, Central Asia, and even Turkey".

Facebook Home and Yandex Shell are distributed to end users via Play store, something Google could easily block. But OEM distribution is another matter, which, like Samsung TouchWiz, would require intervention from Open Handset Alliance. The more OEMs that preinstall alternative homescreen UIs and the more successful sales, the more control Google loses of Android.

Changes are already afoot. "With hindsight, Google's decision to not certify Acer’s Aliyun devices as Android was one of the most significant strategic developments in the OS space in 2012", Markkanen asserts. "Google made it clear that it’s ready to play hardball if it concludes that an OHA member (in this case Acer) is about to cross a line, and did so in a deliberately vague manner, leaving a lot of scope for further, case-by-case interventions".

Remember, Android is fundamentally Google's gateway to mobile -- the hub around which the company's cloud services are consumed. China balks at the situation. In a paper posted one month ago, the country's Ministry of Industry and Information Technology condemns: "Our country's mobile operating system research and development is too dependent on Android...While the Android system is open source, the core technology and technology roadmap is strictly controlled by Google". I can't speak to the first part, but the latter absolutely is true.

How strange that Apple apologized to Chinese customers this week, but not Google.

Close the Door!

It's not a question of if Google exerts more control over Android but when. Nexus devices released in 2012 are carrots. But sticks surely will come. Google's corporate character is changing under Page. There is more accountability, less tolerance for frivolous projects, more focus on business and revenue goals, broader cross-integration of products and services, increased market aggressiveness, and tighter control of projects. The latter is about resetting priorities benefiting Google first, which in part means stepping back from some of the perceived openness that defined the company for a decade.

Simply stated: Google acts more like a monopoly by the day, and I'm struck by similarities seen about Microsoft in the last decade.

I've never been quite satisfied with the reasons -- lack of them, really -- for Andy Rubin stepping down as Android chief. The operating system was his baby after all, and in context of all the other changes taking place under Page's leadership, I have long suspected a rift between the men regarding the operating system's future. There is speculation far and wide that Google plans to bring together Android and Chrome OS. I disagree.

The philosophical winds are changing direction. Openness allowed Android to spread far and wide -- 750 million cumulative devices, according to Google -- but it's a knife that cuts both ways. Mixing metaphors, Google finds that you can't have your cake and eat it, too.

Markkanen expects "muscle flexing" that will be "gradual" but the timeframe depends "on how successfully Amazon, Facebook, Alibaba and others manage to exploit Android for their own purposes. Either way, a slightly closed Android ecosystem could be reality by the end of 2015. If Google finds that its lunch is being eaten it will have no problems acting even faster than that, despite of all the openness rhetoric we’ve got used to".

I see Rubin's exit as the canary in the coalmine. Google has too much invested in Android to let openness get in the way of broader business objectives.
Best Windows 8 apps this week

Publié: avril 5, 2013, 9:04pm CEST par Martin Brinkmann

Twenty-third in a series. The app count in Windows Store made a huge jump this week from 35,631 apps last week to 38,113 apps, an increase of 2,482 apps in total. The majority of new apps fall once again in the free category, with 2,044 new ones released this week for a total of 29,840. Paid apps increased by 439 this week to 8,273 in total. It appears as if Windows Store is picking up pace in regards to apps releases. The chart above highlights the progression in the last five weeks.

As far as updates go: the Skype app for Windows 8 bumped up to version 1.6, adding better options to block contacts in the communication app.

Microsoft released the first security patch for a bundled operating system app, after announcing last month that it would start to publish app security updates. Windows Modern Mail received a security update rated as moderate that fixed a spoofing vulnerability in the application.

App of the week

Samurai vs. Zombie Defense

The game made a big impact this week when it received more than 250 reviews and 850 ratings only days after release. The game is free to play but ships with an in-game store where gems, one of the game's currencies, can be purchased. The app itself is a side-scrolling tower defense game.

You take the role of a samurai who has to defeat the sacred gate against hordes of undead. Game mechanics may look strange at first sight, as you can control the Samurai's movement but not the attacks he performs. Both sword and bow attacks are automatic. That does not leave you without options though as you can use two special attacks from time to time, and summon allies to your side that help you defend the gate. You need leadership to summon allies, which you can automatically right from the beginning. Leadership can be spend on summoning allies right away, or on increasing the leadership output itself.

You earn gold that you can spend on upgrades that include a more powerful bow and sword, more hitpoints, and to upgrade the units that you can summon to make them more powerful. Some upgrades need to be purchased with gems, which free players can't really do as they do not get many of them through the course of the game. You can ignore the gems for the most part of the game and can even earn some playing Pachinko. The game itself is however a lot harder without you spending money to get gems and as a result better equipment and defenses.

Other apps

Nokia Music

Just fresh in is the official Nokia Music app for Windows 8. The application is free to use but limits the music to 30 second samples until you begin a free trial, sign in to an existing account or subscribe to a paid account.

Subscribing will provide you with the full music experience, high quality audio, unlimited song skips, unlimited offline mixes, lyric sync where available, and options to listen on the web browser, app, tablets or smartphones that are supported. It is not really usable without an account, so keep that in mind.

MLB.tv

The official Major League Baseball app for Windows 8 provides you with the latest scores and options to watch the games in HD quality either lie or from the video archive that is included. To do so, a subscription is needed that starts at $19.99 per month or $109.99 per year.

A free game of the day is provided free of charge by the app, and from the looks of it, country-restrictions do not apply. That's great for baseball fans from abroad for instance as it enables them to watch games as well. The quality of the broadcast is excellent, and there is an option to go play the game fullscreen. Captions are another interesting feature as they seem to be included for all games that you can watch.

Channel 9

The Channel 9 application for Windows 8 provides you with options to browse and view developer and consumer-orientated videos right from the operating system's Start screen. Favorite shows can be pinned to the start screen for faster access, and videos can be streamed directly to the system or downloaded instead.

Two streaming options, progressive or smooth streaming are available. Progressive is the traditional way of streaming media to PCs while smooth streaming uses a faster loading algorithm with less buffering that may result in lower quality videos. You can switch between both streaming formats in the options. Videos can also be snapped to the site so that you can continue watching a stream while you do other things on your system.

Chess Masters

Chess Master brings chess players from all over the world together. It is a chess game and community, and the first thing you need to do after installation is to create an account as you can't really do anything without one. You can create your own games from that moment on or join games that are currently playing as a guest to watch the two players battling it out on the chessboard.

You can play games against your friends or random opponents who see that you have created a game in the lobby. There are not many players available currently, but if you have a friend who likes to play chess as well, it should not bother you. There is unfortunately no option to test your skills against a computer player or by other means which means that random matches are often too easy or too hard depending on the opponent.

Yelp Explorer

Yelp is a popular online community where users from all over the world review businesses, restaurants, pubs or shops. The app provides you with a similar experience as the website. You can search for businesses directly and narrow them down by location, or search for a type of business instead that can be really handy if you are on holiday or on a trip and want to find a place to eat, stay or do something else.

All users can write reviews, view events in their area, find recommendations or add photos taken in businesses or restaurants they visited. Members can sign in to their Yelp account, use the app to find new and old friends, and use all other features that Yelp provides you with. It is basically the Yelp website in form of an app.

Drift Mania Championship 2 Lite

This is the sequel to the popular racing game Drift Mania. The lite version ships with ads, less tracks and achievements and no multiplayer option. The two versions apart from that are identical. The paid version is available for $2.99 in Windows Store. The game is all about drifting and you are introduced to the game concept in a tutorial course. You use the up and down arrow keys to accelerate and brake, left and right to steer the car, and the space bar to use the handbrake.

If you have a Xbox controller, you can use it as well. Drift Mania Championship features a career mode that you can play through starting with little cash and not so great cars, or race in a tournament. You can buy various cars and put a lot of upgrades in to them provided you have enough cash to do so. All in all a good looking game for Windows 8.

Best Buy

The official Best Buy app for Windows 8. It features a daily deals section, a list of weekly and all deals, and a product browser that you can use to browse a specific product category right from the apps' interface. The app uses Windows 8's built-in search that you need to open from the Charms Bar which is not the most elegant way of doing so.

The application on top of that features a store location that enables you to find the next Best Buy store, options to check your order status and viewing history, enter gift card details or trade-in your used computer games. Each product is listed with a description, a feature list, customer reviews and ratings, and options to have the product delivered or to pick it up in one of the stores instead.

Wikipedia Touch

This is not an official app. It is a touch optimized version of Wikipedia that supports many of the new features that Microsoft introduced in to the operating system. This includes support for the operating system's search and sharing functionality next to tab support.

Pages can be pinned to the start screen, and from what I can tell, the full Wikipedia website in all of its languages is being made available here.

Shuffle Party

Shuffle Party is a collection of Shuffleboard games that you can play after installing the app. Games in question include bowling, league bowling and shuffleboard, as well as a challenge mode and a Shuffleboard variant. You can play the game in hot seat mode against friends or alone in a single player mode.

It is a basic game comparable to the collection of games that Nintendo ships with its Wii gaming system. Still, if a friend is around you will certainly have some fun playing it.
T-Mobile starts taking iPhone 5 preorders

Publié: avril 5, 2013, 8:06pm CEST par Joe Wilcox

One week from today, Apple's smartphone goes on sale from the nation's fourth-largest carrier. But you can order now. The 16GB iPhone 5 is available with T-Mobile USA's new Simple Choice, no-contract plan. The device is $99.99 upfront, plus tax, and $20 per month for 24 months -- or $579.99 outright. Full price elsewhere: $649. The 32GB is $199.99 and the 64 gigger $299.99 upfront and 24 monthly payments, or $679.99 and $779.99 outright, respectively. Full price elsewhere: $749 and $849.

By several measures, T-Mobile offers the most-affordable iPhone 5 around, but it's the odd duck of the flock. Apple only sells devices for AT&T, Sprint and Verizon from its online and retail stores, which is advantageous sales placement. Perhaps T-Mobile's status will change after official sales start, but I suspect the carrier will join regionals selling iPhone in the backwater. C`mon, none of the big three would want T-Mobile's model listed alongside theirs for about $100 less.

Money down is another odd thing. Upfront pricing from the big three for 16GB, 32GB and 64GB iPhone 5 is $199, $299 and $399, with 2-year contract. T-Mobile not only asks for less at time of purchase, but there are no contracts, and no financing charges to pay off the phone. So when full price is reached, the bill goes down by $20 a month. With, say, AT&T, your bill stays the same after the contract commitment is complete.

Contract-free is another way this odd duck stands apart from larger rivals. They sell you iPhone at a lower subsidized price, with contract commitment. My soon-to-be old carrier, AT&T, charges considerably more, particularly for data, and plan is required for smartphones. Minimum: $20 for 300MB per month (cough, cough).

AT&T's cheapest family plan starts at $59.99 per month for 550 minutes. For two lines, with minimum 300MB data for both phones ($40) and unlimited family messaging ($30) monthly bill is $129.99 for iPhone 5 (two). T-Mobile is $80 ($50 for first line and $30 for the second) and comes with unlimited talk and text and 500MB high-speed data and unlimited slower speed through end of the monthly bill cycle. Adding monthly fee for two iPhones, brings T-Mobile to $120, but for more of everything.

AT&T's Mobile Share plan, with unlimited talk and text would be $130 ($40 for plan and $45 for each phone). T-Mobile's bill would go up $20 a month ($10 for each line) for 2.5GB data and tethering or $140 for unlimited data. That 2.5GB is for each line versus 1GB shared from AT&T. Going up to the 4GB shared plan raises AT&T's monthly commitment to $150 ($70 for the plan and $40 for each phone). Remember, if you bring your own phone, then T-Mobile is $40 less per month -- that's $100 for 2.5GB data for each of two lines or $120 for unlimited.

I ordered one black and one white 16GB iPhone 5 this morning, setting me back nearly $293, thanks to California's outrageously high sales tax (yeah, I know it's a pittance to many Europeans). The handsets are for my college-age daughter and 91 year-old father-in-law. I already moved over three lines. My total bill, even paying $40 a month for two iPhones, should be about one-third less with T-Mobile compared to AT&T.

One more odd thing: T-Mobile's iPhone 5 includes the 1700MHz, which along with 2100MHz, supports the carrier's HSPA+ network. Am I confused. No 1700MHz is the reason other iPhones unlocked and brought to T-Mobile can't use the high-speed data network. If Apple can add the radio now, why not years ago? There is also 4G LTE, but coverage is limited to a handful of cities, for now.
Hide your Bitcoins from Skype!

Publié: avril 5, 2013, 7:53pm CEST par Alan Buckingham

Another day, another threat to your computer. Kaspersky Labs is reporting that your faithful communication app may in fact be looking to steal your virtual money right out of your virtual pocket. The attack is underway in many locations around the world, and this is not the first malware to target Skype, just the latest and potentially most costly for users.

Kaspersky's Dmitry Bestuzhev reports that the latest curse on Skype "turns the infected machine to a slave of the bitcoin generator". The attack affects users in Russia, Poland, Costa Rica, Spain, Germany, Ukraine, Italy and is spreading to other locations, but the initial dropper is downloaded from a server located in India and the malware connects to its C2 server located in Germany.

Once the malware is on a victim's computer, it begins usurping the PC's processing power in the service of mining Bitcoins. The Bitcoin network is reliant on a rather complex system that creates each Bitcoin and verifies that it is valid and is being spent by the owner of the Bitcoins. The process requires a lot of processing power, and that is exactly what the attackers behind this malware are after. This news follows closely on the heels of a DDoS attack of Bitcoin Exchange service Mt. Gox.

The biggest clue is if your machine begins ramping up CPU usage. You need to look into why it is doing that, though that is something you should always do, virus fear or not. According to Bestuzhev "as I said the campaign is quite active. If you see your machine is working hard, using all available CPU resources, you may be infected". As of this writing, a single Bitcoin is worth $115.

Photo Credit: Seleznev Oleg/Shutterstock
Microsoft's clueless response to 'always on' Xbox

Publié: avril 5, 2013, 3:35pm CEST par Alan Buckingham

I should first clarify that the "clueless" response is not an official Microsoft comment, but comes from one employee who took it upon himself to cause the entire company trouble. We have been hearing a lot of rumors regarding the next Xbox that is expected to be announced at the upcoming E3 gaming conference, which kicks off June 5. Much of what has been floating around the internet surrounds anticipation of the "720" being an "always-connected" device. In other words, customers would not be able to game without an internet connection.

The furor around "always on" is mostly about DRM and the used-game market, but it also means that no game would play if your connection happened to go down. Microsoft has never confirmed this to be the case, though it also has not refuted the possibility.

Now Adam Orth, the Creative Director at Microsoft Studios, has decided to take to his Twitter account and tackle the rumors and, in the process, insult pretty much everyone who followed him. Part of the exchange that took place is what follows.

Adam_Orth - Sorry I don't get the drama around having an "always on" console. Every device now is "always on". That's the world we live in. #dealwithit

Manveerheir - Did you learn nothing from Diablo III or SimCity? You know some people's internet goes out right? Deal with it is Sh***y response.

Adam_Orth - Electricity goes out too.

Manveerheir - You've live in LA, SF, Seattle...very connected places. Try living in Janesville, WI or Blacksburg, VA.

Adam_Oth - Why on earth would I live there?

Soon after this happened, Orth's Twitter account was changed to private, meaning nobody who is not following him can read the exchange and all followers must be approved.

As I previously stated, we really have no idea if the next Xbox will actually ship with this "feature", though Orth seemed to indicate that it could. In my opinion, it would result in a huge backlash against Microsoft, as if Orth has not already caused the company enough trouble.

Update: Microsoft issued an official response via Major Nelson: "We apologize for the inappropriate comments made by an employee on Twitter yesterday. This person is not a spokesperson for Microsoft, and his personal views do not reflect the customer centric approach we take to our products or how we would communicate directly with our loyal consumers. We are very sorry if this offended anyone, however we have not made any announcements about our product roadmap, and have no further comment on this matter".

Photo Credit: Denis Belyaevskiy/Shutterstock
Switching from Google to Microsoft, part 3 -- A positive Outlook.com

Publié: avril 5, 2013, 1:36pm CEST par Wayne Williams

As someone who switched from Hotmail to Gmail in 2004 and then never looked back, moving to Outlook.com has been quite a weird experience (setting it up was fun in its own right). Some people hate Gmail’s interface, but if you’re used to it, using anything else seems odd.

That said, I’ve adapted to Outlook.com pretty quickly. It feels a bit like going back in time, using an interface similar to the ones I used in the past, but it doesn’t feel dated -- quite the opposite actually -- and I’ve grown to really like it in the short period of time I’ve been using it as my email service.

There are some elements I miss about Gmail. Message previews for example. When a message arrives in Gmail, I can instantly tell if it’s worth opening or not because I can see the first lines of text. Some messages just say "OK" for example and I can get everything I need from the preview.

I’m a big Labs user, so I make good use of features like Undo Send which lets me cancel sending when I realize I’ve made a mistake -- failed to attach something or missed off a CC -- but equally there are some elements of Outlook.com I really appreciate.

The Quick Views in particular are really handy. I like that I can quickly view emails that have documents or photos attached, that I can see just view unread messages (as I can in Gmail) and that I can trawl through newsletters. Adding additional emails/senders to categories takes seconds via a drop down menu.

I’ve got used to the message pane in Outlook.com. I couldn’t decide initially if I wanted to turn it on or not, but now it’s active I find it very handy. I can have the pane at the bottom or on the right -- and as I have dual widescreen monitors, it makes sense to use the spare real estate and go for the latter option.

In Gmail I can send exceptionally large files through Google Drive. Outlook.com lets me do the same using SkyDrive.

The lack of IMAP support in Outlook.com is an annoyance, but there are ways around this and I rarely delete emails anyway (which is why my primary Gmail account is 82 percent full). Outlook.com offers unlimited space, which is great.

Spam, Spam, Spam

So far, so good. But now we get to the problem I have with Outlook.com, and it’s a problem I’ve had since I signed up for an account -- spam. I get a lot of junk mail. In Gmail I never see it. It goes straight into my Spam folder and I never have to worry about it. Occasionally, and it’s very, very occasionally, some spam slips into my inbox, but it’s quickly dispatched and I never see it again. Sometimes, even less occasionally, real messages make it through into spam. I often miss these because Gmail is so good at filtering junk I rarely bother to look in my Spam folder.

Despite the fact that Gmail removes any spam before forwarding on clean messages to Microsoft’s webmail service, I continue to get spam in my Outlook.com inbox that’s linked to either my Outlook.com address or the Hotmail account I had previously.

I use the Sweep option to delete and block all future messages from the spam senders, but while this has had a huge impact on the amount of junk mail I receive, it hasn’t stopped it entirely. I know I can switch to the Exclusive junk email filter and optionally block content from unknown senders, but that all seems a bit extreme to me.

On a related note, I went into my Junk folder after having previously just ignored it, as I do with Gmail, and found 20 or so messages -- blatantly not spam -- sitting there. Messages that Gmail knew were clean, but which Outlook.com had tagged as undesirable.

It’s become clear in the couple of weeks that I’ve been using Outlook.com that I can’t trust the service to just handle spam, as I do with Gmail. I have to get much more hands on (managing safe and blocked senders myself, for example). It’s not a problem -- and over time I think the issue will diminish to the point that I no longer even think about it -- but at the moment it’s still slightly annoying to me.

But I like how easy managing messages is in Outlook.com. The bar at the top makes it easy to do everything I need to with an email. I prefer the way Gmail lets me search for messages but that might be partially down to conditioning.

On the mobile side of things, accessing Outlook.com through iOS is fine, the mobile version of the site is decent, and there’s a passable Android app too, so I’m fairly well covered. I have niggles about all of them, but I have niggles about Gmail on mobile too.

The question I’ve asked myself a lot, and which I’ve yet to fully answer, is whether at the end of my trial period if I’m going to stick with Outlook.com or switch back to Gmail. I’ve settled into Outlook.com nicely and I don’t actually miss anything major about Gmail, with the exception of the message previews (I hadn’t realized how much I used to them to visually locate messages I was looking for until the preview lines were no longer available to me). Right now at least, I’m leaning towards making my switch to Outlook.com permanent…

Provided I can just stop that last annoying bit of spam reaching my inbox.

Anyone else here made the switch from Gmail to Outlook.com and what was your reason for doing so?

Photo Credit: 3Dstock/Shutterstock
Microsoft releases Advance Security Bulletin for April

Publié: avril 5, 2013, 1:31pm CEST par Alan Buckingham

Patch Tuesday is almost upon us yet again. As is its custom, Microsoft has released a monthly Advance Security Bulletin to let customers know what to expect next week. There are nine bulletins headed our way on April 9, with two of them being considered critical.

Per standard procedures, Microsoft does not release details of the patches until the updates are actually live. This is done in an effort to prevent the bad guys from knowing the vulnerabilities and attempting to take advantage of them between now and the update release. There is, however, nothing to protect those users who fail to install Windows updates in a timely fashion.

This time around fixes are coming for all versions of Internet Explorer going back to IE 6 (please tell me you are not still running that). The updates will also cover Infopath 2010, Sharepoint Server 2010, Sharepoint Server 2013, Sharepoint Foundation 2010, Office Web Apps, Windows Defender, Windows operating system versions XP, 7, 8 and RT and Windows Server 2003, 2008 and 2012.

This pretty much covers everything except Windows Home Server, so all of you can expect an update and reboot to be coming your way next week.

Photo Credit: zimmytws/Shutterstock
With its new video calling feature can Vonage Mobile really take on Skype? [Q&A]

Publié: avril 5, 2013, 10:18am CEST par Wayne Williams

On Tuesday, Vonage introduced free video calling into its mobile app for iPhone and Android, rounding out a suite which already offers features like free app-to-app calls, texts, photo and location sharing, as well as international calling.

I chatted to Nick Lazzaro, Vonage’s SVP Product Development, Information Technology and Managing Director Mobile Services, about the new addition, the company’s plans for the future, and what he thinks is next for the mobile industry.

BN: Tell me more about the new video capability in Vonage Mobile.

NL: We’ve launched Vonage Mobile with video calling as part of the ongoing expansion of our mobile platform. Vonage Mobile lets users make video calls to other app users with terrific image quality and high-definition voice. Video is available now for Android and iPhone devices and allows users to make free video calls over Wi-Fi and 3G/4G. The Vonage Mobile app is a free download from Google Play and the iTunes app store, and it’s easy to register, invite friends and start making free video calls immediately. To use the feature, users simply tap the "Video" button from within the app to connect their video call to another app user. If the person being called is not available, the caller is able to send a free text message letting them know they were trying to call.

BN: Why add video calling to Vonage Mobile now?

NL: Our goal is to continue to make Vonage Mobile the most comprehensive communication solution for voice, messaging and now video -- and improve upon the user experiences already provided by other apps. Our first order of business was to deliver free app-to-app calling and messaging and, true to Vonage’s heritage, ultra-low international long-distance calling. With this foundation, video was our most logical next goal.

BN: What are the features of video calling with Vonage Mobile?

NL: We’ve worked to make Vonage Mobile video calling as seamless and flexible as possible, so while making video calls on 3G/4G or Wi-Fi, users can toggle between front and back cameras, switch between voice and video mid-call, mute the line and use the app with Bluetooth.

BN: Skype has similar offerings. What are the difference between Vonage Mobile and Skype?

There are several significant features that differentiate Vonage Mobile. First, Vonage Mobile allows you to access your existing contacts to build a global personal free calling and texting network. Users can invite multiple contacts via SMS to join their free calling and texting community, and for each friend who downloads and registers for Vonage Mobile, users will earn $1 of credit (up to $10) as part of the app’s Referral Program. The app also mirrors your mobile phone experience -- and uses your existing mobile identity -- to make a phone call or send a text message. Vonage Mobile also offers international long distance calling with per-minute rates that are, on average, 30 percent less than Skype and 70 percent less than major carriers.

BN: Vonage became well known for home phone service via VoIP. What motivated the addition of mobile, and what are the company’s plans for the future?

NL: Our Vonage home service continues to be very popular -- especially with the unlimited international long distance calling offered by our flagship Vonage World plan. But with the explosion of mobile, our customers were asking for greater mobility and we’ve delivered that through Vonage Extensions and Vonage Mobile.

Vonage Extensions lets our subscriber customers extend their home plan for free to a second phone line, including a mobile phone. Our Vonage Extensions app for iPhone and Android enables one-touch international calling anytime, anywhere over 3G/4G or Wi-Fi. Today, 28 percent of our customers have signed up for Vonage Extensions and one out of four Vonage international long-distance calls is originated from a mobile.

Vonage Mobile gives any Android or iOS user the opportunity to tap Vonage’s global network to make ultra-low cost international calls, plus make free app-to-app voice calls, texts and now video calls. Our plan is to continue to deliver new innovations that solve today’s consumer calling problems -- whether those are mobility, convenience, cost, flexibility or network.

BN: This would seem to transform how Vonage defines itself to consumers, right?

NL: We’ve been defined as a telco company or a VoIP provider, but we see ourselves today as a technology company. We apply our innovations in technology and software to solving communications problems for consumers, and that’s where we believe we provide the greatest value for consumers and the business marketplace as the communications world continues to converge and compress across the globe.

BN: With the number of OTT (Over-The-Top) apps on the market, do you believe major carriers are beginning to see a need to integrate more OTT communications apps to stay competitive?

NL: We’ve seen an increasing innovation in communications and it’s creating a compression in the pricing and a migration of communications to the lowest-cost networks. It’s great for consumers and I think carriers are taking notice of this trend. Some are developing their own OTT apps and many may look to partner with OTT providers who can help them more quickly participate in this growing global communications trend.

BN: It seems the mobile industry is constantly evolving and pushing for the next best thing. What do you think is next for mobile? Where do you see the industry headed?

NL: There is a great convergence in communications as more communications networks and devices proliferate in the consumer marketplace. Simplifying this experience for consumers and helping them manage their communications and their growing social graphs is going to drive a certain amount of innovation.

There is also a great compression in international communications pricing for voice, messaging and roaming, which is fostering the migration of communications and data traffic to the lowest cost solutions.

Consumers will play a role by demanding solutions that have superior user experiences and are easy to access and incorporate into their everyday lives.

Companies like Vonage will continue to develop new innovations and solutions that simplify user experiences and facilitate the migration of traffic to cost-savings channels -- for our subscriber customers and any consumer looking for easy, low cost solutions to communications. We believe communication should be like email -- wherever and whenever you want it -- and in a way that is easy, convenient and affordable.

Understanding these key trends and how they play in mobility and the way people interact with mobile technology will continue to drive innovation in the industry.

Photo Credit: Bevan Goldswain/Shutterstock
Jam with Google Play Music Manager

Publié: avril 5, 2013, 2:29am CEST par Mark Wilson

The cloud is now used for many things, from simply storing documents, to create and editing files online. Google Play, in addition to many other things, offers a place to store up to 20,000 tracks that can then be listened to online or with a range of mobile devices. This number relates only to songs from your "personal collection" and is in addition to any purchases you make. Google Play Music Manager is the tool you need to get everything up and running.

Install and launch the app, sign into your Google account and you’ll be asked where you current music collection is stored. There is support for iTunes and Windows Media Player, but there’s also the option of just opting to work with files stored in My Music, or any other folder for that matter. If you have your music scattered across multiple folders, you can add them all to your Google library.

Once your library has been created, you can opt to have any new files that you add to these folders automatically uploaded. This ensures that you always have access to all of your most recently ripped CDs and other music acquisitions without the need to remember to manually sync anything.

Even if you have a relatively small music collection of just a few hundred tracks or so, you’re possibly envisioning a very lengthy wait while all of your music is uploaded for you. Well, unless you have particularly eclectic tastes, you should find that things happen much faster than you might expect -- if Google already has a copy of a track you own available online, there’s no need for it to be uploaded.

In practice, however, just how long it takes for your collection to be made available online will depend on its size, the types of music you like, whether your music files are ripped or purchased as well as the speed of your internet connection. The web interface for the music player is comparable to an online version of iTunes. It is a little limited, but it gets the job done.

You can create playlists, listen to albums in their entirety or pick out individual tracks. In addition to the usual browse by album option, a large library can also be searched or you can filter tracks by artist, genre or alphabetize them.

Google Play Music Manager is available free of charge for Windows, OS X and Linux.

Photo Credit: CREATISTA/Shutterstock
What Facebook Home means to Apple and Google

Publié: avril 5, 2013, 2:19am CEST par Joe Wilcox

How important is Facebook really? The answer may come soon after April 12, when the social network releases Home to Google Play. The Android add-on usurps the homescreen, putting interactions/people first and pushes apps to the background. This, ah, Home invasion means potential trouble for Apple and Google, but in vastly different ways. Apps anchor both their platforms, curated content and the digital lifestyles users adopt. Facebook bets that between the choice of both ways, human relationships matter more.

For either the fruit-logo company or search and information giant, another question is perhaps more significant: Is Facebook's mobile experience already good enough? Related: Do most users want to be enmeshed in a constant stream of social updates and interactions most of the time? Affirmative answer to either, or both, spells trouble for the platform developers but most worrisome for Apple, for which Facebook Home affronts and condemns the entire business model.

Apple is a Has-Been

Do you remember Apple's not-long retired marketing tagline "there's an app for that". iPhone, and later iPad and mini, are built around the value of apps and supporting curated content. That's fine for PCs, but not mobile devices. "Computers have been designed around apps and tasks for more than 30 years", Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg says, today. "Even though the devices that we're using are a lot nicer now, the UI model is actually largely the same".

He contends that people matter more to people, and that apps are in the way for devices that are so personal and so tuned to interpersonal communications as mobiles. "Why do we need to go into those apps in the first place to see what's going on with the people that we care about?" Zuckerberg asks. "That's because today our phones are designed around apps and not people. We want to flip that around. We want to bring all this content to the front".

But "many people" doesn't mean Apple phones or tablets. Facebook Home isn't available for iOS and probably never will be, because Apple so tightly controls the app-centric user experience. Android gets the big makeover, because Google enables it.

"The great thing about Android is that it's so open", Zuckerberg praises. "It was designed carefully so that you can improve almost any part of the system" -- everything from the keyboard to the camera to the homescreen. "You don't need to fork Android to do this -- you don't even need to modify the operating system, really. Android was designed from the ground up to support these kinds of deep integrations".

By insinuation -- and sometimes the unsaid is more poignant and potent -- iOS does not. Zuckerberg slaps Apple without ever naming the company: "Because of Google's commitment to openness, you can have experiences on Android that you can't have on most other platforms". He's absolutely right. Look how Amazon, HTC and Samsung, among others, have modified Android to create unique experiences and, around them, branded digital lifestyles.

Zuckerberg's statements today, given during the Facebook Home launch event, are as much as anything a statement of purpose and affirmation about the company's core philosophy -- to "give people the power to share and make the world more open and connected...these two concepts are a lot about what makes us human".

Facebook's CEO is right. Apps are a tired model that makes little sense on phones. Relationships and tasks matter more -- and context. Apple is cut-off from Facebook's invention. How much or little that's a problem depends much on how satisfied iOS users are with the Facebook status quo -- the app and partial integration into the operating system. If that's good enough for most users or they really do put apps first, Apple needn't worry much. If.

Trojan Horse invades Google

Google is a different matter. While Zuckerberg praises the company and Android, both are means to an end. Android's openness enables Facebook's larger objectives, while allowing the social network to usurp core UI. Facebook Home is a Trojan Horse that takes control of the Android user experience but far more aggressively and freely than other custom UIs. For example, HTC sense or Samsung TouchWiz are designed for the manufacturers' devices. By contrast, Home will be available from Google Play store to anyone with a supported device.

"We want to bring this experience to as many people as possible", Zuckerberg says -- and that's a major reason the company chose not to build a phone or develop an operating system. Facebook is "building something a whole deeper than just an ordinary app".

I find it interesting that among the high-end devices Facebook Home supports -- HTC One, One X and One X+ and Galaxy S III, S4 and Note II -- none are stock Android Nexus devices that Google directly sells. You have to wonder why? I sure do. Perhaps they can run Home and it's unstated. Or perhaps openness is a closed door among rivals. Facebook Home so completely takes over the user experience -- homescreen, notifications and messaging -- there is little room left for Google+. The search and information giant has big ambitions for its rival social network.

Is Google blocking the way Home, or did Facebook simply decide not to go there? Either, or both, is sensible. Considering Nexus device owners are presumably Google enthusiasts, Facebook might not want to invest in them first. The search giant has reasons to keep Zuckerberg and Company off its turf, despite his heaping them praise.

But the Trojan Horse is more insidious. Facebook has launched a Home program for phone manufacturers. HTC is first OEM in line with the appropriately-named First smartphone. AT&T starts selling the device on April 12, but preorders began today. Facebook Home and Instagram are preinstalled, displacing HTC's own Sense UI.

Google has trouble enough dictating the Android experience now. What if more OEMs load Home and make it the default user experience? Zuckerberg promises monthly updates, which means more features and revenue-generating tie-ins, such as search and advertising that directly compete with Google on mobile. Should enough people really want Facebook to be the first -- and major -- user experience, should enough Android OEMs preload Home and should Zuckerberg and Company do search, advertising and context right, collision course with Google is inevitable.

Stock Android Jelly Bean already is less-app focused than older versions, but nothing like Home. Google+ integration is tighter with every release and includes supporting apps like Hangouts and Talk. But apps, not people, rule. Google could do something similar, likely better, than Home supporting G+ -- on stock Android. That Trojan Horse could go anywhere else, and even Nexus devices if allowed.

If Facebook fails, it won't be for not trying. If Home succeeds...