Gregarius » BetaNews.Com » décembre 29, 2014

BetaNews.Com (11 non lus)

Microsoft's Surface Pro 3 accolades are a bit rubbish

Publié: décembre 29, 2014, 8:38pm CET par Wayne Williams

Considering the very rocky start Microsoft’s slate got off to after it launched in 2012 (middling reviews, a $900 million charge relating to Surface RT inventory adjustments when no one bought it, etc.), you can’t blame Microsoft for being a bit boastful now that it’s finally getting things right with Surface Pro 3.

So when Microsoft releases a video called 'Accolades -- Surface Pro 3' you’d expect it to be filled with, well, accolades for the Surface Pro 3. But instead of a video offering up quality trumpet blowing, we get the equivalent of someone tooting on a kazoo.

The video essentially shows the Surface Pro 3 from the front, then we get a glimpse of the kickstand in use, followed by someone drawing a circle with the pen, and after a little spin around the device, the video finishes with the user detaching the tablet from the type cover. Finally we get the tagline -- "The tablet that can replace your laptop" (not, interestingly, just a MacBook).

In-between all that we get quotes flashing up on screen. The 'accolades'. These consist of "…the most beautiful thing Microsoft has ever produced" (The Verge), which is a bit of an odd choice ("Microsoft has made something stylish for a change" is hardly the greatest selling point ever). This is followed by "Gadget of the year 2014" and "Computer of the year 2014" (both from Stuff) and "One of the best inventions of 2014" (Time).

It’s all a bit meh. The Stuff awards are fine, but using both and presenting them separately, is pretty rubbish.

Surface Pro 3 is a good product, and it deserves the many accolades it has received. But the selection pulled here seem like the work of an intern in a rush to get home for the holidays.

It bugged me, as you can tell (I'm easily bugged), so I've picked some genuine accolades that Microsoft could use next time.

"A super-lightweight cutting-edge mobile device" (ZDNet)

"A futuristic machine, a marvel of engineering" (The Verge)

"The Surface Pro 3 is an awesome device" (Forbes)

"Surface Pro 3 puts Microsoft ahead of the competition" (BetaNews).

No need to thank me Microsoft. I'd bill you for my time but it took less than a minute.

Photo Credit: Suzanne Tucker/Shutterstock
My favorite tech products of 2014 [Ian]

Publié: décembre 29, 2014, 8:31pm CET par Ian Barker

When your working life involves being bombarded with information about new technology it's easy to become a bit blasé about it all. For something to really impress therefore it has to be pretty good or fill a niche that others have missed.

You've already read Alan and Wayne's picks for the year, so here are some of the things that ticked the right boxes for me in 2014.

Fire HDX 8.9

The second generation of the Fire HDX 8.9 did more than just drop the Kindle bit from the product's name. It built on the already impressive capabilities of the original with a faster processor and graphics and the latest 802.11ac wireless.

The screen is unchanged from the first version but it still offers one of the best viewing experiences of any tablet even though others are starting to catch up with its 339ppi pixel density. If there's a downside it’s that you’re tied to Amazon's ecosystem rather than having access to the Google Play store but if you can live with that it’s an impressive piece of kit.

Motorola Moto E

The Moto E is never going to compete with the latest iPhone or Galaxy, but that's not what it's about. The idea is to take smartphone ownership into a whole new marketplace, aiming at people who may be switching from older basic handsets.

Okay, so there's no 4G and no front-facing camera -- so no selfies or video calls. The Wi-Fi is only 802.11n rather than the newer, faster 802.11ac and the rear camera is 5MP, which is okay but not exceptional. It's nicely designed though with swappable rear panels and a family resemblance to the Moto G so it's a budget phone you won’t be ashamed to be seen with.

ChargeKey

The ChargeKey is a simple idea, a USB charger cable that you can fit on a keyring, but its very simplicity is what makes it so clever. Being caught with an uncharged device is one of the great 21st century problems. The ChargeKey means that as long as you have a USB socket -- on a PC or in your car -- you always have the means to replenish the batteries in your smartphone, MP3 player, Kindle or whatever.

Sony Action Cam Mini

Whilst smartphones have been growing in 2014 thanks to demand for bigger screens, Sony has been busy making its video camera smaller. At around three inches long, an inch and a half high and an inch wide it’s small enough to slip into a pocket. Yet it still packs an 18.6 megapixel image sensor that can handle resolutions up to 1080p at 60fps.

The trick to making it smaller is that the LCD display is taken off the camera and put on a separate remote that you can wear on your wrist. You also have the option to connect to your smartphone and control the camera from that.

Software

On the software front Windows 10 previews came along and surprised with a number-skipping name but otherwise looked and felt like Windows 8.1 with a few tweaks, though it works well enough. Android Lollipop brought in a sleeker interface and improved notifications but more importantly under the hood changes for faster app performance and improved battery life.

Do you have any particular technology favorites from the last year? Let us know via the comments.

Image Credit: StockThings / Shutterstock
'Bring Your Own Internet of Things' coming to businesses in 2015

Publié: décembre 29, 2014, 8:25pm CET par Mark O’Neill

So what technological marvels can we expect to see next year?

We spoke to Mark O’Neill, VP of innovation at Axway, about his predictions for 2015, which include Bring Your Own Internet of Things, B2B in the cloud, and connected vehicles.

Bring Your Own Internet of Things

BYOD will evolve into BYOIoT in 2015, which means businesses will need to wake up to the potential risks that come with employees using wearable devices.

At the onset of 2014, smartwatches were for early adopters, but when Apple joined the fray it accelerated the wearable tech revolution. The number and variety of wearable devices is set to explode in 2015, and enter the workplace.

But the apps they are built on are only as strong as the ecosystem around them, the mobile apps, social media APIs and website interface to analyze the data, will need to evolve at the same rate as the devices themselves.

There are a number of opportunities to be had: The rapid growth of devices and IoT business ideas will make more people sit up and take notice of related opportunities.

Take aggregated fitness data, for example: fitness band users may have little control or awareness of how their data is stored, exchanged or sold on. It seems inevitable that insurance companies may be interested in aggregated data about exercise and fitness habits that they could be used in conjunction with personal data such as geography or age brackets.

However, there are also risks: the more links in the chain, means the greater the security risk. With everything connected, one chink in the armor could lead to serious security implications.

Businesses need to be mindful of what data external devices bring into the business and what they take away with it. Users must be more mindful about how wearables gather their data.

Unfortunately, we will likely see some incidents before this is taken seriously. It may be that vendors need to take a leaf out of Google’s book and ultimately adhere to a 'right to be forgotten' approach, for data generated by IoT devices such as wearables.

In the meantime, businesses need to look at whether they get employees to register their connected devices, and whether they roll out a policy or code of conduct, particularly when it comes to traceable devices.

B2B in the Cloud: 1980 Was a Long Time Ago

Data sharing is a vital cornerstone of every enterprise, but in 2014 we are still relying on technology that was developed in the 80s: Electronic Data Interchange (EDI).

Although EDI has proven itself to be a reliable method of exchanging data over the past 30 years, we’re now diving head first into the cloud, and the technology securing these flows of data needs to keep up with the changing data landscape.

Businesses now deal with multiple applications, standards and a host of business partners using a plethora of different devices to connect to the cloud.

With Gartner predicting that in 2015 there will be more than 4.9 billion connected 'things,' B2B cloud technology will need to work much harder for businesses. It will need to take data exchanges beyond the simple computer-computer communication that EDI enables to a much wider cloud-based ecosystem.

The B2B cloud technologies of 2015 will be able to support multiple standards and legacy systems, enabling companies to move beyond EDI and into the cloud.

In doing so, organizations will be able to meet employee’ demand for constant access to data flows from multiple devices.

The Connected Vehicle

2015 will be a watershed year for the connected vehicle. Gartner has predicted that the number of devices interacting with the connected vehicle will jump from 189 million in 2014 to 372 million in 2015.

Next year, there’s a very good chance that when you buy your new car, the dealer will ask you what mobile plan you want.

Connected vehicles including company cars and commercial vehicles will deliver new capabilities and concepts in transportation logistics and fleet management.

The haulage industry has already embraced tracking technologies, for example to monitor driver miles and hours at the wheel.

Although technology will mature in 2015, data management, privacy and security will remain as drag factors. Data protection and privacy regulations remain incomplete, even in the EU.

As connected vehicles will be communicating to various applications through APIs, the companies delivering those apps need to ensure that they are secure and are using the resulting data responsibly.

Photo Credit: Anneka/Shutterstock

Published under license from ITProPortal.com, a Net Communities Ltd Publication. All rights reserved.
Most Americans are fearful of police body-worn camera misuse -- are you?

Publié: décembre 29, 2014, 7:39pm CET par Brian Fagioli

There is a lot of tension in America currently, between citizens and the police. Sure, this is not a new concept; police violence and the distrust of officers has a history, whether misplaced or not. There are bad people in all facets of life, including in the police force, but I want to believe that the great majority of the officers are good. In other words, I respect the police and want them to make it home safe to their families every night.

Unfortunately, the recent deaths of unarmed citizens, regardless of race, has opened up old wounds, and police distrust is on the rise. President Obama called for body-worn cameras to curb violence, and it is not a terrible idea. There are pros and cons to all things you see, and while body-worn cameras can be abused, they should not be dismissed entirely. With that said, 75 percent of Americans are fearful of these videos being misused, including leaks to YouTube and social media.

"According to results from the American Sentiment toward Police Body-Worn Cameras national survey, an overwhelming majority of Americans do not want individual police officers to determine when to record using body-worn cameras. When asked if it should be left up to the police officer to decide when to manually Start or Stop body-worn camera video recording, 82 percent of Black, 77 percent of White and 74 percent of Hispanic respondents answered no", says ORC International.

The company further explains, "the survey also revealed Americans worry over security of video recorded by police body-worn video cameras. In particular, 60 percent of all respondents expressed concern about video being leaked to social media websites, 59 percent expressed concern about video being posted on YouTube, and 44 percent expressed concern that video would be shared with other police officers. More women are concerned about video being leaked than men: Leaked to social media websites -- women 64 percent compared to men 56percent, Leaked to YouTube -- women 62 percent compared to men 55 percent, Shared with other police officers -- women 47 percent compared to men 40 percent".

Sadly, there is potential for abuse with these videos, and I can understand people's concerns. In a world that has things like The Fappening, there is a fear that an embarrassing police interaction could make its way to YouTube, Facebook or something else. Hell, it is uncomfortable to think of police watching it for laughs internally.

Don't forget though, these cameras can be used for good too, such as capturing excessive force by the police and equally important, protecting the police officers from false claims. For this to work though, they must run all the time, while the cop is on duty -- the officer should not be able to turn the cameras on and off.

Are you worried that these videos may be abused? Tell me in the comments.

Survey Methodology: "The study was conducted December 11-14, 2014, using 1,007 randomly selected landline and mobile telephone interviews of adults (18 years old and older) living in the continental U.S."

Photo Credit: pio3/ Shutterstock
2015 will be all about the cloud

Publié: décembre 29, 2014, 6:20pm CET par Lilac Schoenbeck

The Cloud world is evolving fast, furiously gaining greater momentum as we go into 2015 and leaving legacy/on premise systems light years behind. Cloud has the ability to transform the way organizations work, but with any change comes a time of adjustment and the process of cloud adoption comes with its own set of challenges.

Questions about expected service levels, support contracts and technical flexibility are just some of the issues keeping IT leaders awake at night. So, what solutions can we expect to see sprinting to the rescue in 2015? What are our predictions?

Location, Location, Location

Where cloud is concerned, one of the next biggest obstacles for businesses to overcome is the implications of live migration across geographically disparate locations.

With this new capability service providers will be able to load-balance more easily, disaster recovery within the cloud will become a lot more straightforward, and customers will benefit from the economies of broader usage patterns across countries and regions.

I predict that the future of hosting will be around load-balanced, floating workloads.

For example if you take a use case -- i.e. a need for 10 web services running in the UK -- the alleged live-migration over distances that VMware touts, combined with a new focus on cloud-to-cloud DR and shifting usage patterns, means that hosting providers and users can benefit from a more flexible back end model.

Keep customers in mind

However, this is only going to work if customers have complete visibility of their workloads and know exactly where they are located.

Rules and regulations must be firm so that customers can be confident that workloads will not leave the region or country. Cloud locations must grow to make this viable, of course.

The load balancing choices also need to be made with customer priorities in mind or it could lead to a fast path from this to airline pricing and over-booked flights.

Providers will need to be committed to customer success above all. There will undoubtedly be technology required to get to this point but, what strikes me as more important is building the trust between cloud/hosting provider and customer.

The partnership aspect of the relationship between Cloud Service Provider and customer, which I believe has fallen by the wayside with the advent of big-box Cloud, will become critical in 2015.

Automation on the rise

Throughout IT history, the growth in automation -- and reliance on automation -- has always been tied to an increased trust in the management system.

In the cloud space, this translates into an increased trust in the cloud provider. Technology may require a spark of genius, but trust is born of consistent care which can be hard to replicate.

Pundits and analysts have been quick to brand cloud infrastructure as a commoditized market, but the reality is cloud customers continue to report that their experiences with different vendors vary greatly.

Industry research that we commissioned with Enterprise Management Associates, shows that many companies are in the process of switching vendors or adding more vendors into the mix. In the end, customers need to find a complete cloud solution -- resource, pricing model, management tools, SLAs and customer support -- that matches the needs of their business.

When you get passed the blitz of cloud pricing wars and look at the details of an offering, there is a huge divergence in what vendors provide. As cloud experimentation and adoption continues to rise, this will only become a bigger issue.

A big part of cloud experimentation includes Disaster Recovery as a Service (DRaaS). I predict that in 2015 the cost of on-premise DR solutions will begin to look like a waste of IT resources, particularly when failing to meet compliance requirements.

As more people move to DRaaS, stories will start to appear about have-and-have-not successes and failures. After an emergency, some companies will be able to tout continuity while others will not -- and DRaaS will be the difference.

However, as always, awareness of complexities will emerge. Physical systems, co-location, network configuration -- the silver bullet will be seem less sufficient as broader footprints move to DRaaS.

Companies should and will be looking to work with vendors that will step up to meet the challenge and that have made an effort to cultivate a trusting relationship through transparency and reliable service.

Lilac Schoenbeck is VP of product marketing and product development at cloud provider iland.

Photo Credit: aslysun / Shutterstock

Published under license from ITProPortal.com, a Net Communities Ltd Publication. All rights reserved.
Will signatures soon be a thing of the past?

Publié: décembre 29, 2014, 5:48pm CET par Charlotte Marshall

In March a new exhibition opened at the US National Archives in Washington DC. On display you could find, among other things, Adolf Hitler’s marriage certificate, witnessed by Goebbels, a greeting card from Saddam Hussein to George Bush, and a patent application from Michael Jackson for floor-lock shoes that allow the wearer to lean forward without falling over.

The exhibition called ‘Making Their Mark’ aimed to show how the story of the world can be told through signatures. In the months leading up to the opening, while the US archivists were busy trawling through the millions of documents available to them, a very different look at signatures was taking place across the Atlantic.

The European Union’s new directive on electronic identification and trust services (eIDAS) was in the final stages of approval, with the goal of removing the final obstacles to integrated cross-border adoption of digital identification and transactions.

By July the legislation had been approved by the European Parliament and the Council of Ministers. On 14 October it was presented to the world.

European legislation on the use of electronic signatures has been around since 1999. However, it failed to appreciate that electronic signatures don’t exist in isolation, but as part of a transaction of some sort, and therefore require consistent and uniform implementation in order to work.

Member states were able to interpret and apply the directive differently. This meant that firms had to deal with a highly complex and uncertain landscape. The directive also failed to address areas such as universal trust and authentication standards that are essential for secure and reliable electronic transactions.

As a result, many European firms found themselves trying to transform into agile, digital businesses while caught in a dependency on handwritten signatures.

Global information industry association AIIM recently discovered that, worldwide, around half of organizations print documents just to get a legally enforceable signature.

In the UK, this figure rises to 84 percent, with more than a quarter of firms (rising to 31 percent of enterprises) adding an additional day to a process just to allow for signature collection time.

Information management processes have been rendered chaotic. Half (49 percent) of the companies approached by AIIM admitted they had printed and signed documents only to scan them back in to their DM/ECM system. A third confessed that they had run off at least three additional copies of each document in order to collect all the signatures required.

Anything that can remove or reduce such inefficiencies and release information management teams to add value and insight across the business must be welcome and is certainly long overdue.

The new regulation aims to achieve this for European firms. It establishes, among other things, a uniform legal framework for electronic signatures, seals and time stamps that guarantees authenticity and origin to prevent tampering, as well as registered delivery services.

These will validate the source and integrity of electronic documents and the digital signatures they carry, paving the way for secure and trustworthy cross-border electronic transactions, applications and the delivery of public services.

The EU estimates that one billion advanced electronic signatures are already made across Europe every day and the new legislation is likely to accelerate this still further.

However, being able to accommodate signed electronic documents is just part of the story.

Companies still need to address the challenge of the paper they already hold. Not to mention all the paper that continues to arrive. Good information governance should cover scanning, storage, security, management, access, archiving and secure disposal.

There is one further perspective. Signatures are not just administrative, they are symbolic. From birth and marriage certificates to Wills and Testaments, a handwritten signature is our way of saying that something matters: I announce, I agree, I approve, I commit.

Fortunately e-signatures and handwritten ones are not mutually exclusive. A historic international treaty is not the same as a five-page loan application form. Some things are just meant to be hand-signed, and preserved on paper.

After all, who’d want to visit a museum to look at an exhibition of emails?

Charlotte Marshall is managing director of Iron Mountain in the UK, Ireland and Norway.

Published under license from ITProPortal.com, a Net Communities Ltd Publication. All rights reserved.
My favorite tech products of 2014 [Wayne]

Publié: décembre 29, 2014, 3:42pm CET par Wayne Williams

My colleague Alan Buckingham has already listed his favorite tech of the past year, and now it’s my turn. I’ve taken all sorts of new products for a spin over the past 12 months, so narrowing the selection down is actually pretty tricky. Apple disappointed me a little this year -- as the owner of an iPhone 5s I needed a big reason to upgrade to the iPhone 6, and a larger screen and Apple Pay wasn’t it. The iPhone 6 is an excellent phone, but I think I’ll hang on to the 5s for another year. Similarly, the iPad Air 2 just wasn’t different enough for me to consider that either. Thinner is a feature, not a benefit for me.

But fortunately, there was plenty of other new tech around that I did love, and here’s my top selection, in no particular order.

Chromecast

I finally got Google’s streaming device, and I’m a big fan. It’s great that you can cast YouTube and Chrome tabs to the big screen, but it’s the fact that you can do much more with it that really makes the dongle so worth owning. I use it to stream my own videos, and lots of other content including photos.

If you’ve just got one for Christmas, check out my guide here.

Samsung U28D590D UHD 4K 28-inch monitor

I’m a lover of multi-monitor setups, and the U28D590D is the centerpiece of a three screen strip that utterly dominates my desk. But Samsung’s UHD 4K monitor on its own is a fantastic piece of kit. It offers a native resolution of 3840×2160 pixels and has a very clean design. On the rear are two HDMI 1.4 sockets and a Display Port 1.2 input, and you really need to be using the latter to get the most from it. HDMI gives you 30fps, but Display Port doubles that. I wasn’t sold on the idea of 4K to be honest, but the U28D590D has definitely changed my mind.

Hub It

I know I’ve banged on about this quite a lot over the past few months, but the Hub It sync and charging station is a great piece of kit. It sits on my desk and lets me charge everything I could possibly want to without giving it a second thought. Its modular nature -- you choose which connectors (in addition to USB) it offers -- means it’s highly customizable. If you have lots of gadgets that require different charging methods -- mini USB, micro USB, Lightning, Qi wireless charging -- it’s superb.

Gigaset QV830 8-inch Android tablet

Budget tablets have never appealed to me, purely because if you’ve got a decent tablet, the failings of the cheaper model will be amplified in comparison. But Gigaset’s 8-inch tablet is a decent offering, at a very affordable price (£69.99), and I find it useful as a backup device.

Celestron Cosmos 90GT Wi-Fi refractor telescope

I’ve always been fascinated with astronomy, but never owned a decent telescope -- until now. The Cosmos 90GT is a great beginners scope that ties in with the Cosmos TV show, but comes from a respected telescope manufacturer. If you’re a lazy would-be astronomer who wants to see the stars without having to spend hours hunting for them, then this is ideal. You hook it up to your tablet, configure it, then use the app to control everything. Locate a celestial body on the app, and tap it to send the telescope there.

The product comes with its own Wi-Fi, so you can connect to it, and control it, from anywhere.

Others

Google Cardboard is a fun project that lets you turn your smartphone into a cheap virtual reality setup that can give you motion sickness and headaches, but which does just enough to get you excited about owning an Oculus Rift. I don’t use my cardboard creation very often, but I do enjoy dipping into the virtual worlds it makes possible.

Woojer, a wearable subwoofer that lets you feel sound, is similarly something I don’t use much, but which I do get more use from than I perhaps would have expected to.

Finally, Jawbone UP24 deserves a mention. I’ve only had the wearable since Christmas (it was a present) but as someone who likes to track their activity, I’m really appreciating it so far. The sleep tracking is a little iffy -- I spent over an hour being unable to get back to sleep last night, and my lack of movement had the device declaring I was experiencing deep sleep at that point, although of course there’s no way for it to be able to tell the difference. Shortcomings aside, it’s a good little tracker.

What new tech (hardware or software) have you acquired that you love this year?

Photo Credit: iQoncept /Shutterstock
Check for 'too long' file paths with Path Scanner

Publié: décembre 29, 2014, 1:23pm CET par Mike Williams

In theory, it should be easy. A quick drag and drop starts the process of copying a folder tree from one location to another, and all you have to do is watch as Explorer transfers each file.

Normally this works just fine, too -- but there can be problems. In particular, if the destination path plus the file name is longer than 255 characters then you’re likely to see an error message suggesting you "shorten the file name and try again". (And if you think that’s unhelpful, it could be worse: in some situations the copy operation fails without generating any message at all.)

Path Scanner is a simple free tool which can give you advance warning of this issue by scanning a specified path, and reporting files whose folder and file names are greater than a defined length.

The program requires installation, which is a little annoying -- this sort of application really should be portable. But it doesn’t include any adware or system components, and we were able to install it, copy the pathscan.exe file elsewhere and immediately run it on other systems.

Path Scanner launched with a default path of D:\ on our test system, for some reason (this was an empty DVD drive). It’s easy to type or browse to whatever other folder you like, though. We chose a maximum path length of 220, clicked Scan, and the results were listed within a few seconds.

Ideally we’d have liked to be able to process these files from the program. Maybe select any we didn’t need and press Del to delete them, or perhaps right-click something to access its usual Explorer context menu.

Unfortunately all you get is a custom "Analyze" function, which looks like it’s supposed to help you rename or delete selected folders. But it’s less than intuitive, and also warns that it’s in "beta" and using it is at your "own risk", so we decided to leave it alone.

Path Scanner is extremely basic, then, but its single core function can still be useful, and if you occasionally run into "long path" problems then it’s worth a try.
Samsung unveils a better Galaxy Note 4 -- faster download speeds in tow

Publié: décembre 29, 2014, 12:11pm CET par Mihaita Bamburic

Samsung has unveiled a new version of its Galaxy Note 4, featuring support for LTE Advanced Tri-Band Carrier Aggregation and Category 9 cellular networks. Dubbed Galaxy Note 4 LTE-A, it promises much faster download speeds over 4G LTE compared to the regular models, which the South Korean maker announced in early-September.

Galaxy Note 4 LTE-A is capable of offering download speeds of up to 450 Mbps. To put things into perspective, that is 50 percent faster than the Qualcomm Snapdragon 805-equipped Galaxy Note 4 -- which is no slouch to begin with -- and a whopping 200 percent faster than the Exynos-powered model.

However, Galaxy Note 4 LTE-A will only be able to reach those kind of download speeds later in 2015, when 4G LTE Category 9 cellular networks are expected to be commercially available. That being said, the phablet does have another trick up its sleeve, which it will be able to use much sooner.

Because it features LTE-A Tri-Band Carrier Aggregation, Galaxy Note 4 LTE-A can connect to three cellular network bands at the same time, and, as the name of the technology implies, aggregate them into one, juiced-up connection.

Compared to the Snapdragon 805-powered Galaxy Note 4 -- which can only connect to up to two bands simultaneously -- the new model is better equipped to maximize the transfer speeds offered by today's fastest 4G LTE cellular networks, which enable download speeds of up to 300 Mbps.

One thing that Samsung is not clear on is which processor powers the new Galaxy Note 4 LTE-A. Is it still the Snapdragon 805, or has Qualcomm supplied its newer Snapdragon 810? Given Samsung's track record, I'm inclined to believe it is the latter.

There is no official word yet regarding where Galaxy Note 4 LTE-A will be available, and how much it will cost when it goes on sale.
Book wakeup calls from strangers with Wakie

Publié: décembre 29, 2014, 10:10am CET par Mike Williams

There are a vast number of alarm clock apps available for every platform, most of which are tired variations on the same thing: choose a skin, set a wakeup sound/ method, and that’s about it.

Wakie is an iOS and Android alarm clock app with a difference. Forget custom audio files or complicated snooze functions, instead you’re called by another Wakie user, who chats, sings songs, ask you questions, or otherwise gets your day off to a much more interesting start.

If this idea makes you a little uncomfortable, then you’re not alone, but the app does include some important safeguards.

The calls are routed through Wakie, so the caller never gets to see your phone number or find out who you are.

Calls are automatically cut off after 60 seconds, too. There’s no time for your chat to get awkward, and even if it did, you can just hang up.

The developer also says the app "learns" who you like to connect with, so presumably will try to match you with your preferred gender/ age range, most of the time.

Alternatively, if you don’t need to receive a call, you can volunteer to make one yourself. Just click “Wake Someone Up” and you’ll be sent push notifications whenever someone needs a call. (You’ll need an internet connection to wake someone up, although not to be woken, as you’ll receive a regular phone call.)

There are some restrictions and issues. In particular, Wakie only works in a few countries at the moment: the USA, Canada, the UK, Ireland, Hong Kong and Singapore. More English language countries are due to be added soon, with further expansion to follow.

As the system relies on other people calling you, your alarm time won’t be as precise as with automated apps. The official FAQ says they could be out by plus or minus five minutes.

But the good news is that, if there’s no-one around to make your call, Wakie does have an automated system which steps in, makes the connection and plays you a pre-recorded message.

There’s no telling quite what sort of call you’re going to get with Wakie, and that’s probably the point. If you want complete safety then stick to your phone’s built-in alarm app; but if you’re happy to gamble with a random caller -- who, even if they turn out to be an idiot, will still at least wake you up -- then this is certainly a more interesting and personal way to start your day.
Apple's rumored iTunes and Beats Music 'Exclusives' plan is potentially evil

Publié: décembre 29, 2014, 12:10am CET par Brian Fagioli

Imagine if in the 1990's, there were CDs that only played on certain players. In other words, what if Warner Brothers released the Red Hot Chili Peppers' iconic album, "Blood Sugar Sex Magik", and it only worked on CD players made by, say, Pioneer? Not only would it harm consumers, but also limit the reach of the artist. If you did not own a Pioneer CD player, you could not hear the album.

If a new rumor by the New York Post is to be believed, Apple is planning such a thing, but rather than CD players, its iTunes and Beats Music would be the means of harming the consumer. Yes, the fruit-logo company may be working with artists (and ultimately record labels) to bring album-exclusives to its own music services.

"It's been a while since we've heard much about Jimmy Iovine and Dr. Dre's Beats Music, but our music industry spies say Iovine is having fresh talks with artists about doing exclusives", says Claire Atkinson of the New York Post.

Atkinson further explains, "Beats executives -- now Apple employees -- are looking to replicate the kind of success Beyoncé had with her iTunes album, 'Beyoncé by Beyoncé'', back in December 2013".

Yes, many will point to Beyoncé's self-titled album as an example of success; it was an iTunes exclusive for a week, before expanding to greater availability. While this release sparked consumer interest on its limited nature alone, it would not likely be duplicated if commonplace.

Currently, iTunes and many retail stores, such as Target and Best Buy, offer exclusive bonus tracks, in addition to the album. I find this to be acceptable, as the perks are an added bonus. Apple's plan of limiting albums to its own iTunes or Beats, however, is an entirely different ball game, which does nothing to benefit the consumer.

Let's not forget, not everyone uses Apple products, such as iPads and iPhones. While iTunes is available for Windows, what about Chromebook users? or traditional Linux distribution users? Hell, some people use Android exclusively. Not everyone will have access to iTunes, and quite frankly, not everyone wants to access it.

Even worse is exclusivity to streaming services. If this practice were to catch on, consumers might have to shell out multiple monthly subscription fees in order to gain access to all of their favorite artists. Even then, with the music spread across multiple services, the user could not create playlists using all of the desired music.

Again, this is all rumor at this point, and I hope it is not true. With that said, the potential harm to consumers is so great, that even the mere notion should have music fans up in arms.

UPDATE: As a reader points out, iTunes already has some exclusives such as The Beatles. Obviously, expanding this practice would further harm consumers, much like not having the Fab Four on other services already does.

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