Gregarius » BetaNews.Com » juillet 18, 2013

BetaNews.Com (11 non lus)

Tales from an Android fan: This Lumia 928 is nice!

Publié: juillet 18, 2013, 9:13pm CEST par Alan Buckingham

I have never had a single thing against Windows Phone, nor iOS for that matter, but I embraced the Android ecosystem early on, with much invested in apps. Alright, "much" may be a stretch -- I can not imagine it is more than $50 total, but paid software still means money spent, and I am not known as Mr. Big-Spender.

For the past month I have been taking the Windows Phone challenge -- my Nexus is put aside, SIM card removed and currently residing within the confines of a Nokia Lumia 928.

Throughout this time I have attempted to use the device as an average user, meaning no customization -- aside from the default tile color and the like -- and almost no questions asked of a resident expert here at BetaNews. I wished to discover on my own, much the way my 75-year-old dad would do if he were to get one. Well...okay...he would likely call me, but you get the point. In other words, I am not looking at specs -- you can already find those here.

First Impressions Count

Despite the old phrase "you can not judge a book by its cover", I am afraid first impressions actually do mean a lot. If something is not appealing at first glance then we are unlikely to look twice -- a sad, but true, and human, fact.

The Nokia Lumia 928 did not suffer this ill -- the handset came out of the box looking sleek and beautiful. Despite its rather square shape, the appearance works.

If You Start Me Up

Upon first boot up there is little setup to be done -- enter your Microsoft account then setup your email accounts (yes, Gmail works too). Once logged in, the live tiles begin propagating themselves with people, weather and more. I was also immediately prompted to identify my WiFi network and enter the password.

Screens are much simpler than Android, as there are only two -- the home, which contains the tiles and, one swipe away, a listing of apps. Part of the Nokia app suite is installed by default, as is the excellent Panorama camera app. Social networks like Facebook and Twitter will need to be added by the user.

Updates appear as a number on the Store tile and are easily installed with a couple of clicks. Unlike the Play store, the menu is much simpler -- perhaps not as pretty, but better for most average users in the long run.

Screen resolution is also premium here. The display is crystal clear, and the response time would be measured in nanoseconds. The Galaxy Nexus is fast, this is even faster.

Usage

As I previously stated, I tried to use this as my parents would have, meaning no real customizing (other than tile color -- the Nokia red was a bit bright).

I was shocked that my first call made from the Lumia 928 resulted in my mom telling me I sounded "really clear". That is a compliment I never received on my Galaxy Nexus.

There is little more to say in this regard, as the "clear" statement covers it. No calls were dropped and no SMS failed to be delivered. Apps work as advertised and many more can be easily added.

Say Cheese

The camera is amazing -- the 8.7 MP PureView shooter with Carl Zeiss lens takes incredible images, as my colleague Brian Figioli already pointed out while testing the handset during his vacation. The difference over my sad little Galaxy Nexus camera was astounding. No need to say more as you can see the results in the aforementioned post.

What Is Missing?

In a word, apps. That is the biggest deterrent to making this switch, as many things I take for granted are simply not there. Even Rovio, which has added its Angry Birds lineup to the mobile platform, charges for each game, while making them free on Android. YouTube does not exist, though Microsoft took a stab at bypassing this limitation (and, failed, at least for now).

The Bottom Line

Aside from these simple, yet crippling, setbacks, the platform proves robust and simply beautiful to behold. The hardware too is gorgeous.

So what is my bottom line? Will I make the big switch? I love my Android smartphone, and I have much invested in the apps -- okay, again, much may be pushing things, as most were $0.99, but still. I honestly believe that when Big Red deems it time for me to choose my next source of revenue to them I may indeed take this plunge. It truly is that good.

After spending a month as the platform newbie, and intentionally so, I plan now to dive into a more in-depth look at this device before I have to ship the little beauty back.
British women enjoy fondling 7 inchers (and larger)

Publié: juillet 18, 2013, 6:17pm CEST par Wayne Williams

According to YouGov's latest Tablet Tracker report there are more women owning tablets than men in the UK. The study says that in May, 52 percent of the country's touchscreen computers were in female hands, an increase of nine percent compared with the same time last year.

Over the same period, the share of tablets owned by men fell from 57 percent to 48 percent. There’s no equivalent report for female tablet ownership in the US, but I wouldn’t be surprised to see it following a similar trend. Tablets are ideal for women.

The beauty of devices like the iPad is you don’t need to know anything about technology to use them. They make it easy to do all the tasks a casual computer user would want to do -- check and send email, browse the web, use Facebook and Twitter, and play games. There’s no need to find and download new programs from the web, everything is within easy reach in the App Store.

While men care about things like processors, RAM, storage space, and operating systems, women are -- and this is a huge sweeping generalization bordering on sexism I know -- far less interested in such matters. They just want something that does what they want it to. This is reflected in YouGov’s data which shows that the increase in female ownership primarily comes from older Apple devices (women own 60 percent of iPad 1s and 2s) and the handbag-sized iPad Mini (58 percent).

The report also shows that 22 percent of the adult British population now own a tablet (up from 18 percent). Of those who don’t yet own one, 19 percent are considered likely to purchase a device soon, with a third of those potential buyers being women.

Summing up, John Gilbert, Lead Director at YouGov Technology & Telecoms, says: "The early adopters of tablets have typically been affluent males. As they buy the latest models, they have placed their old devices on to the secondary market or give them to other members of their household. A growing number of females and under-35s own older tablets, such as the iPad 1 and 2 while affluent males have the more recent iPad 3 and 4 and Samsung devices. Add to this the fact that it is women and young people driving the popularity of iPad Mini in the UK and it is clear where the surge in tablet ownership among females and under-35s comes from".

Photo Credit: LiliGraphie/Shutterstock
LG to kill Optimus branding -- starting with G2 flagship

Publié: juillet 18, 2013, 4:12pm CEST par Mihaita Bamburic

On Thursday, South Korean tech giant LG announced that its upcoming Android smartphone flagship will not feature the company's well-known Optimus branding, but is instead set to receive the "G2" name.

According to LG, the new G branding will be used in all of its future "premium phones", with existing devices to retain their current monikers. Similarly, the maker's 4:3 handsets (from the Optimus Vu series) will be renamed as "Vu". Why? Well, this is done in order for new flagships to kick off with a clean slate, and, therefore, establish an undiluted brand going forward.

"Our vision is to make LG's newest G devices synonymous with excellence, raising the bar even further for the ultimate in user experience", says LG CEO Jong-seok Park. "The new G2 will build upon the excellent reputation established by previous G Series products".

LG has also used the Optimus branding for its late Windows Phone lineup (with devices like the Optimus 7 and Optimus 7Q) and for lesser Android lineups, called Optimus F, L and One (the first of which was unveiled in late-February).
So that’s how H-1B visa fraud is done!

Publié: juillet 18, 2013, 3:18pm CEST par Robert X. Cringely

Mark Surich was looking for a lawyer with Croatian connections to help with a family matter back in the old country. He Googled some candidate lawyers and in one search came up with this federal indictment. It makes very interesting reading and shows one way H-1B visa fraud can be conducted.

The lawyer under indictment is Marijan Cvjeticanin. Please understand that this is just an indictment, not a conviction. I’m not saying this guy is guilty of anything. My point here is to describe the crime of which he is accused, which I find very interesting. He could be innocent for all I know, but the crime, itself, is I think fairly common and worth understanding.

The gist of the crime has two parts. First Mr. Cvjeticanin’s law firm reportedly represented technology companies seeking IT job candidates and he is accused of having run on the side an advertising agency that placed employment ads for those companies. That could appear to be a conflict of interest, or at least did to the DoJ.

But then there’s the other part, in which most of the ads -- mainly in Computerworld -- seem never to have been placed at all!

Client companies paid hundreds of thousands of dollars for employment ads in Computerworld that never even ran!

The contention of the DoJ in this indictment appears to be that Mr. Cvjeticanin was defrauding companies seeking to hire IT personnel, yet for all those hundreds of ads -- ads that for the most part never ran and therefore could never yield job applications -- nobody complained!

The deeper question here is whether they paid for the ads or just for documentation that they had paid for the ads?

This is alleged H-1B visa fraud, remember. In order to hire an H-1B worker in place of a U.S. citizen or green card holder, the hiring company must show that there is no "minimally qualified" citizen or green card holder to take the job. Recruiting such minimally qualified candidates is generally done through advertising: if nobody responds to the ad then there must not be any minimally qualified candidates.

It helps, of course, if nobody actually sees the ads -- in this case reportedly hundreds of them.

When Mr. Cvjeticanin was confronted with his alleged fraudulent behavior, his defense (according to the indictment) was, "So let them litigate, I’ll show everyone how bogus their immigration applications really are". Nice.

If we follow the logic here it suggests that his belief is that the client companies’ probable H-1B fraud is so much worse than the shenanigans Mr. Cvjeticanin is accused of that those companies won’t dare assist Homeland Security or the DoJ in this case. Who am I to say he’s wrong in that?

Employers are posting jobs that don’t really exist, seeking candidates they don’t want, and paying for bogus non-ads to show there’s an IT labor shortage in America. Except of course there isn’t an IT labor shortage.

My old boss Pat McGovern, who owns Computerworld, should be really pissed. Pat hates to lose money.

Reprinted with permission

Photo Credit: Ahturner/Shutterstock
Nokia posts record Lumia sales, but is the Windows Phone bet paying off?

Publié: juillet 18, 2013, 2:36pm CEST par Mihaita Bamburic

After receiving constant criticism for betting its future on Windows Phone, instead of adopting Google's widely-popular Android, Finnish maker Nokia posts record Lumia sales, proving to naysayers that choosing Microsoft's smartphone operating system was not a bad call after all.

Nokia's latest financial results show that the company sold 7.4 million Lumias in Q2 2013. This translates to an 85 percent increase over the 4 million units which the Finnish maker moved in Q2 2012, and is 32 percent higher compared to the numbers -- 5.6 million -- posted by the company in the previous quarter.

Blame Nokia for Lumia Success

The aforementioned 85 percent increase in Lumia sales (between Q2 2012 and Q2 2013) is the most telling. Last year, in the second quarter, Nokia struggled to make a splash due to unimpressive Windows Phones which arrived with outdated hardware, limited market reach and a bold pricing strategy.

Now, the Finnish maker offers Windows Phones with more modern hardware (720p displays, dual-core processors and competent cameras), that are available to a wider audience (Lumias are offered in most mature markets at major local carriers) and at competitive price-points (covering the smartphone market from the $150 Lumia 521 all the way up to the $650 Lumia 1020 flagship).

There's a direct connection between Lumia sales and the aggressiveness of Nokia's Windows Phone strategy. The Finnish maker has to capitalize on current momentum now, in order to further increase the popularity of its Lumia range in upcoming quarters. This means: increased market availability, shorter announcement to release times, updated product range with latest hardware (1080p panels, quad-core processors) and bolder marketing (better placement in mobile operator stores, more billboards, etc.).

Nokia CEO Stephen Elop is confident that this is the direction towards which the company is heading. "Overall, Lumia volumes grew to 7.4 million in the second quarter, the highest for any quarter so far and showing increasing momentum for the ecosystem. During the third quarter, we expect that our new Lumia products will drive a significant part of our Smart Devices revenue", states Elop.

Nokia says that it has expanded the availability of its "recently announced Lumia products", so this is one issue that appears to be resolved for the current quarter. Therefore, I expect the Finnish maker to post even higher Windows Phone sales. But, it remains to be seen whether the company's efforts will actually yield the expected results on the market, which so far seems to mostly prefer Android handsets and iPhones.

Waving Good-Bye to Symbian

And, as in the previous quarter, Nokia actually sold more Lumias than it did Asha handsets. Sales of the latter topped 4.3 million units, a number which is 700,000 units smaller compared to Q1 2013. What is more interesting is how Symbian has "evolved" since the Finnish maker embarked on its Windows Phone endeavor.

"Our Symbian volumes decreased from 6 million units in the second quarter 2012 to approximately zero in the second quarter 2013", says Nokia. "Our Lumia volumes increased from 4.0 million in the second quarter 2012 to 7.4 million in the second quarter 2013".

Nokia sold 53.7 million phones in Q2 2013, which represents a four percent decrease over the numbers -- 55.8 million units -- posted by the Finnish maker in Q1 2013. Prospective buyers are either switching to handsets from rival makers or increasingly adopt smartphones or both.

Stock Market Impact

Following the release of its Q2 2013 financial results, in pre-market trading, Nokia's stock took a slight dive from $4.04 per share to $3.92 per share. This is due to missed analyst forecasts, which previously estimated that Lumia sales would top 8.1 million units. Similarly, phone sales also fell short of the predicted 56.2 million units.

Photo Credit: suphakit73/Shutterstock
Google Chrome for iOS offers app interoperability, full-screen support on iPad

Publié: juillet 18, 2013, 1:40pm CEST par Nick Peers

Hot on the heels of its Google Maps for iOS update, Google has unveiled Google Chrome for iOS 28, its alternative web browser for iPad, iPhone and iPod touch users. The new build contains a number of notable new features, plus rolls out full-screen support for iPad users, something that has been available to iPhone users for quite some time.

The first major new feature is better interoperability with other Google apps. By tapping Settings > Google Apps in Chrome itself, users can instruct the browser to pipe relevant links through to other installed Google apps such as YouTube, Google Drive and Google Maps rather than using the browser itself.

Another new feature is added support for synced browser history, which allows iPad and iPhone users to access (and share) their browser history from the iOS device with other Chrome installations they’re signed into. Users can view and access web pages from other machines, plus manage the history by deleting unwanted pages direct from the app.

The app implements improvements to its Voice Search feature, plus comes with the promise that users will be able to make data usage savings by opting to run all pages through a Google server. The server then optimizes them by using elements such as WebP images to reduce the page size to deliver fast loading times and reduced data usage.

The feature -- which will be rolled out over the next few days -- will be optional for those with privacy concerns.

As always, the update is rounded off with "lots of stability improvements and other bug fixes" -- all unspecified of course. Google Chrome for iOS 28 is available now free for iPad, iPhone and iPod touch running iOS 5.0 or later.
HTC downsizes its Android flagship, calls it One mini

Publié: juillet 18, 2013, 1:35pm CEST par Mihaita Bamburic

Following rival maker Samsung, HTC continues the smartphone flagship miniaturizing trend by unveiling a smaller iteration of the company's popular One. The new handset, simply called One mini, offers appealing hardware specifications in a package that targets a wider market audience.

The One mini packs a 4.3-inch Super LCD 3 panel with a resolution of 720 by 1280 (341 pixels per inch density). The device is powered by a 1.4 GHz dual-core Qualcomm Snapdragon 400 processor, backed by an Adreno 305 graphics card, 1 GB of RAM and a non-removable 1,800 mAh battery. The smartphone ships with 16 GB of internal storage and no microSD card slot (therefore, users will be limited to the out-of-the-box capacity).

On the back, the One mini features a 4 MP UltraPixel shooter with auto-focus and LED flash, that is capable of 1080p video recording. The smartphone also comes with a 1.6 MP front-facing camera that can record 720p video. Beats Audio sound processing, BoomSound stereo speakers and the Zoe camera software are offered.

In terms of connectivity, the One mini supports 4G LTE and HSPA+ cellular networks; Wi-Fi 802.11 a/b/g/n; Wi-Fi Direct; DLNA; MHL; Bluetooth 4.0; A-GPS with Glonass support and the usual array of sensors.

The One mini runs the latest Android iteration, version 4.2.2 Jelly Bean, alongside HTC's usual add-ons from Sense 5, like BlinkFeed and Share.

The One mini comes in at 132 x 63.2 x 9.25 mm and 122 grams. The smartphone will be offered in Glacial Silver and Stealth Black. It will be initially available only in "select markets" in August, followed by a global roll-out that will kick off in September.
Quickly extract frames from any video with Free Video to JPEG Converter

Publié: juillet 18, 2013, 1:32pm CEST par Mike Williams

If you’ve chosen your media player wisely then capturing a single frame from a video is usually very easy. In VLC Media Player, for instance, selecting Video > Take Snapshot -- or just pressing Shift+S -- will save a JPG of the current frame to your Pictures folder.

If you’d like to save multiple frames, though, perhaps as a way to summarize the content of a video, then your life becomes a little more difficult. Some players can still help (check out VLC Media Player’s command line options for one method), but for real simplicity you might prefer DVDVideoSoft’s Free Video to JPEG Converter.

The process starts by dragging and dropping your source videos onto the program. There’s support for all the main formats: AVI, MPEG, MP4, WMV, WEBM, MKV, MOV, TS, VOB, 3GP, FLV, RM, OGV, DV and many more.

You can ask the program to extract images every few frames (10, 30, 50, 100, 500 or 1000), or every few seconds (1, 2, 5, 10, 20). There’s an option to set the total number of frames, and you can even choose to extract every frame, if you like (although for videos of any length at all that’s probably a very bad idea).

Once you’ve configured Free Video to JPEG Converter to suit your needs, click Convert, and that’s it: the program will cycle through each file, extracting the necessary frames, and saving them to your preferred export folder. A separate folder gets created for every source video, and the frames are saved within this, each having the source video name with the frame number added ("Video Name 01.jpg", "Video Name 02.jpg"), so your images are well organized and easy to find later.

There are some issues here. It seems odd that you have to choose the frame or time interval extraction from a standard list, for instance. What if, for some reason, you want to grab a frame from every 3 seconds? Or 30? This surely isn’t going to require any major changes to the core program engine, and so it’s hard to see why that kind of flexibility shouldn’t be available.

The extraction options don’t always work as you expect, either. We chose to extract a total of 50 frames from each video, for instance, and assumed the program would just take 50 frames spread evenly across the clip. But, well, no: our test videos had anything from 26 to 79 frames extracted, so the word "total" clearly doesn’t mean very much.

Free Video to JPG Converter is otherwise very easy to use, though, and if you need a way to visually summarize a video through individual thumbnails then it’s a good first choice. Give it a try.

Photo Credit: Spectral-Design/Shutterstock
Cloud-based social collaboration aims to make businesses more productive

Publié: juillet 18, 2013, 1:00pm CEST par Ian Barker

We're used to sharing information via social networking in our personal lives, but in the business world the impact of this has so far proved limited. Enterprise software supplier Deltek hopes to change this with the launch of Kona Business, a premium version of its cloud-based social collaboration and productivity tool.

A cross between a calendar, social network and project management tool, Kona Business brings together all of the interactions between people working on a project, allowing them to get things done more effectively and more quickly, and as it's in the cloud it can be rolled out easily via browsers or through Android and iOS apps.

Because it's conversation rather than task centered the software allows individuals to work in a more natural way and helps to remove communication barriers.

Scott DeFusco, Deltek's Vice President of Product Strategy and Management for Kona says, "Individuals have become accustomed to things that span across your life -- personally and professionally. Kona Business addresses both organizational adoption and ongoing engagement -- a huge challenge in the social collaboration space".

Kona allows all conversations relating to a project to be captured in one place. It can also integrate with file sharing tools like Dropbox as well as with Google Docs so that project documents can be shared.

"Kona can be the glue that connects key individuals and processes, extending the power of interaction and technology for the entire ecosystem," says DeFusco. "Effectively connecting people, processes and technology is no longer the exception, it’s the rule. This is why Deltek created -- and uses -- Kona Business".

You can find out more about what Kona can do for your business by visiting the Deltek website.

Photo Credit: Alexander Kirch/Shutterstock
This is why you dislike Bing

Publié: juillet 18, 2013, 12:32pm CEST par Robert Johnson

I love Bing. There aren’t many products (Xbox) that I’ll admit to being a fanboy of but Bing is getting pretty close to that status for me. I’m an oddity because most people don’t use Bing at all; either because they’ve used it and didn’t get the results they wanted, or based on word of mouth about it being so terrible. I don’t know where you fall, but I would bet most of you reading this don’t use or even like Bing. That’s unfortunate because you’re missing out.

Yes, Bing is good. But why do so many people hate it? Why do so many googlers refuse to even give it a try? Why do those who actually do give it a try, enter one search query, fail to get the results they want, and go back to Google, never giving Bing a second chance?

In April, SurveyMonkey conducted a study comparing Bing and Google. 641 test participants were given two pages of search results, one with Bing branding and the other Google, and were asked which results they preferred. Participants preferred the Google results.

In another survey 262 participants were given the same results but this time the branding was swapped: Google results labeled Bing and Bing results labeled Google. More people preferred the Bing results labeled Google.

When you look at both studies an interesting thing appears: more people preferred the Bing results labeled Google than the Google results labeled as Google. According to Matt Wallaert of the Bing team:

Before explaining the psychological forces at work here, let me put to rest any concerns of corporate trickery. Bing wasn’t involved in this study in any way. We didn’t even know it was happening until after the results were released, and since Google recently became a prominent investor in SurveyMonkey, it would be hard to argue that SurveyMonkey had a pro-Bing bias. To the best of our understanding from the outside, this was impartial, data-driven research done by an internal team at SurveyMonkey.

He goes on to explain why people chose based on brand rather than quality. The explanation is found in a psychology concept known as confirmation bias. According to the most accurate encyclopedia on the planet (that was a joke), confirmation bias is a "tendency of people to favor information that confirms their hypotheses".

Confirmation bias has to do with how people process information, particularly any way in which people avoid rejecting their assumptions whether they are searching for evidence, interpreting it, or recalling it from memory.

The Search for Evidence

In this bias, people hold a hypothesis which they assume to be true. They test it in such a way that requires an affirmative answer that supports their hypothesis. In other words, they tend to look for the evidence they would expect if their hypothesis were true. For example, if I assume Bing returns bad results, then I would be intentionally looking for all the bad results instead of the good ones.

Interpreting Evidence

In this bias a person will make a judgment call on the evidence to support their original hypothesis. For instance, again, if a person with a "Bing sucks" attitude, arrives at Bing results, they will interpret those results as bad. But if shown the same results labeled as Google, they will interpret them as good.

Recalling Evidence

Information is remembered selectively. That means that when a person has a positive experience with a service they inherently have a negative assumption about (i.e. Bing) they will only remember the ways in which that service provided a negative experience.

So what?

The point I am trying to make is this, perhaps confirmation bias is the reason why Bing is hated by so many people. Regardless of the fact that in some cases Bing still lags behind Google, in pure search results, I can count on one hand in the past two years where Bing has failed me. From the Bing blog:

Think of it this way: have you ever tried using Bing, not found what you wanted, and then immediately went back to using Google because "Google is better at search"? But then when you use Google and it doesn’t give you the right results, you change your search and try again because you "searched wrong", rather than giving Bing a try? That’s the confirmation bias: if you were truly trying to find out which search engine was better, you’d give them an equal chance to give you right and wrong answers.

This happens a lot. I’ve had people tell me that they’ve tried Bing and did not find what they were looking for. But something tells me that they were not looking hard enough because they didn’t overcome their inherent bias against Bing. I understand that Bing is not perfect and still has some growing to do. Remember, Google wasn’t perfect either and it took time for it to grow into what it is today. Bing is innovating at a rapid pace and although I would love to see it add features a little bit quicker, I’m a happy Bing user.

The Solution

My solution to this problem is this. Try Bing for 30 days. In other words, use Bing and nothing else for 30 days; use the maps, local search, general search, images and travel for 30 solid days and let me know how it goes. This is what I did back in 2010, about one year after Bing launched. I decided to give it an honest try. And I haven’t been back to Google since. Yes, I occasionally use Google when I don’t find what I need on Bing, but eventually I will stop using Google altogether because this behavior has not yielded any positive results for me: if I don’t find it on Bing, I typically don’t find it on Google either. Bing is just that good.

Photo Credit: Gajus/Shutterstock
Microsoft takes ownership of XboxOne.com

Publié: juillet 18, 2013, 10:04am CEST par Wayne Williams

The first time we heard the name of Microsoft’s forthcoming next gen console was when the company announced it at the reveal back in May. Part of the reason for keeping it so successfully under wraps was that Microsoft didn’t register any domain names in advance.

Unfortunately for Microsoft, XboxOne.com and XboxOne.net were already taken. Unfortunately for the owner of those domains -- an individual living in the UK who had owned both since 2011 -- Microsoft wanted them.

The tech giant filed a dispute with the National Arbitration Forum (NAF) in late May and now both of those domains belong to Microsoft. You can see this for yourself by checking the WHOIS record for XboxOne.com.

Microsoft’s success at winning the domains comes as no surprise. The firm has a history of this kind of thing, and although XboxOne.com had been used for Xbox-related news early on, both it and XboxOne.net were currently dormant, so an easy target. It’s not currently known if Microsoft paid any money to the previous owner to ease the speed of the transition.