Another iPhone 4G prototype shows up, bares all including Apple’s own A4 chip

 

This is just silly now. Another iPhone has leaked onto the Internet. What kind of ship does Steve Jobs run over there at Apple? This time around they aren’t going to be able to bust down the owner/seller/stealer’s door seeing as it all went down in Vietnam. Then again, anything is possible with the Apple gestapo.

But somehow a Vietnamese website got a hold of the device. The back story really doesn’t matter right now. They got and posted pics and video — good for them. The site went a bit farther than Gizmodo, though. They actually tore it apart, revealing a nice little surprise.

It seems that this prototype is a bit farther along the evolutionary path. There a no longer small screws next to the dock connector on the bottom. Overall it just seems a bit more production-ready than the prototype left in a bar a few weeks back.

The big surprise, however, came during the teardown. It seems this boy is powered by a reduced version of the A4 CPU that also runs the iPad. There’s no indication of the the actual clock speed of the Samsung manufactured chip, but it marks a significant, if not predictable, deviation from the iPhone norm. It’s probably safe to say the iPhone OS 4’s multitasking was coded with this platform specifically in mind and should run like a dream.

Of course we’re going to have to wait just a few more weeks before ol’ Steve-o shows off what the final version, but there isn’t much to wow the crowd anymore. After both the iPhone leaks and the press event showcasing the wonders of iPhone OS 4, what’s left?

Hopefully Steve just walks on the stage and says “Alright, jerks. iPhone 4G, $199 on both AT&T and Verizon.” That would be grand.

 

http://www.crunchgear.com/2010/05/12/another-iphone-4g-prototype-shows-up-bears-all-including-an-apples-own-a4-chip/

HTC’s Defense Against Apple: “In 2007, We Changed The Way You Use Your Fingers”

HTC is facing a serious patent infringement lawsuit from Apple covering 20 of its patents for touchscreen devices. Today, it finally responded with a vague press release announcing that it is countersuing Apple for infringing on five patents of its own. Yup, it took more than two months to find those patents, which it doesn’t even disclose in its release. And the company won’t tell us what patents are in question. I guess we’ll just have to wait until the complaint turns up.

In the meantime, HTC did decide to release a propaganda video titled, “The Quietly Brilliant Story of HTC.” It goes through HTC’s history and all of the mobile technologies it supposedly pioneered, but you never heard of because they don’t like to brag (until they are getting sued, I guess). There is a lot of emphasis on touch technologies. In fact, the video claims, “In 2007, we changed the way you use your fingers.”

I don’t even want to know what that means. But if that’s the best argument HTC can muster against Apple, it better keep looking for more patents. (Didn’t the iPhone launch in 2007?)

Read more: http://techcrunch.com/2010/05/12/htcs-defense-fingers/#ixzz0nrhRxlYq

Adobe thinking different, countering Apple’s hate with love

In the court of public opinion, I doubt Adobe has much to worry about. They make products that are synonymous with image editing – after all nobody ever “MS Paints” Emma Watson’s head onto a nude body, they Photoshop it – and for the vast majority of users Flash or no Flash on a mobile device is immaterial. However, companies must fight and fight they must. Adobe’s latest salvo? A reminder to the world that they love openness and Apple through a new ad campaign and essays by Adobe founders Chuck Geschke and John Warnock. Click here or the thumbnail below to see the ad.

The context of this is Steve Jobs’ rant against Flash in which he says:

I wanted to jot down some of our thoughts on Adobe’s Flash products so that customers and critics may better understand why we do not allow Flash on iPhones, iPods and iPads. Adobe has characterized our decision as being primarily business driven – they say we want to protect our App Store – but in reality it is based on technology issues. Adobe claims that we are a closed system, and that Flash is open, but in fact the opposite is true. Let me explain.

To this, Adobe retorts:

Openness is at Adobe’s core. Our first technology was an open standard that liberated publishing from proprietary printing systems, and soon afterward our PDF technology eliminated barriers to sharing documents across platforms.

Adobe® Flash® technology enables the delivery of content to hundreds of millions of people, regardless of platform or browser. In 2009, in partnership with Google, Research In Motion, and dozens of other companies, we formed the Open Screen Project, a coalition committed to making web experiences seamlessly available on any mobile device.

Why the kind words? Well, I’d love to be able to say that Adobe is really into openness, but they’re not. They’re into selling Adobe CS5 to creative types and creative types are flocking to OS X. But that’s not all – prepare your fanboi outrage in 3…2…1 – whither goes the iPhone, there goes the rest of the world. For the past three years or so handset manufacturers have been falling over themselves trying to offer an iPhone-like experience. This lemming-like behavior seems to have abated of late and with the rise of Android there’s a better chance they will take a breath and rethink their strategy. But with Apple’s high-profile launch of the iPad and the high-profile failure of Flash on multiple devices thus far – barring Flash Light appearances on some Android handsets – Apple has the upper hand.

Will Adobe pass through this difficult period? Sure. Adobe will rejigger it to make it more compelling and the folks who have been sticking by Flash since Shockwave will force their widgets and animated banners through on multiple platforms. After all, the majority of ads on the web are Flash, and ad buyers are currently scrambling to figure out this HTML5/CSS/H.264 stuff before their clients start asking about it – and even Steve Jobs doesn’t want to piss off ad buyers.

Methinks Adobe doth protest too much with this new campaign, but they see an opening. Steve Jobs and Apple have been so draconian and downright evil lately that just by putting a heart on their website, another company with a history of being equally draconic and evil can look downright folksy.

 

http://www.crunchgear.com/2010/05/13/adobe-thinking-different-countering-apples-hate-with-love/

How Much Web Video Is iPad-Ready? About Two-Thirds. Really.

by Erick Schonfeld on May 13, 2010

A couple weeks ago, in the wake of Steve Jobs’ tirade against Flash and why the iPad won’t support it, I wanted to find out exactly how much video out there on the Web is already encoded in the iPad-friendly H.264 format. Encoding.com provided me with some data showing that 66 percent of the videos it encoded in the first quarter of 2010 were in H.264, up from 31 percent the year before. Today, video search engine MeFeedia reported that only 26 percent of the videos in its index are in H.264, which prompted my good friend Peter Kafka at MediaMemo to question my report (the gall) and ask, “How Much Web Video Is Really iPad-Ready?”

It is a good question, but the answer remains about two thirds. To get a reality check on this number, I asked another video search engine, blinkx, which has an even bigger index than MeFeedia, for an estimate of how much H.264 video is on the Web. Their answer: “around 67 percent.” And remember, the original 66 percent figure from Encoding does not represent all videos ever uploaded to the Web, but rather shows the shift that is happening as H.264 takes over. That was just the number they saw in the first quarter of 2010. The percentage is likely much bigger now. In fact, Blinkx estimates that as much as 85 percent to 90 percent of the Web videos it is currently processing are in the H.264 format.

Regardless of the exact numbers, it is pretty clear that H.264 is being adopted in a big way across the Web. Even MeFeedia CEO Frank Sinton admits to me that “more than 50 percent of new videos coming through right now are H.264.” MeFeedia tends to index more longtail video, and its 26 percent figure includes not only a lot of old archived video and longtail video that hardly anybody watches, but also a lot of video from Chinese web sites which are all in Flash.

Going forward, practically all videos on the Web will be encoded in the H.264 format, which means they don’t need an Flash player to play them. Websites still need to change over to HTML5 players or otherwise tag the videos to make them playable on iPads, and that is a transition which will still take some time. For instance, Hulu announced today that it is not quite ready for HTML5 players, but not so much for technical reasons as for business reasons. HTML5 players don’t yet support all the advertising systems and reporting requirements Hulu needs to serve ads. But these problems are being solved by Brightcove and others (Brightcove just announced a deal with FreeWheel earlier this week to serve up HTML5 ads). Eventually, Hulu will solve these problems too and be viewable on the iPad. Probably first in a dedicated app, but then in the browser as well. And so it will go for all video sites.

It’s not going to happen overnight, but it will happen within a year.

Read more: http://techcrunch.com/2010/05/13/web-video-ipad/#ixzz0nrdyKJIA

Apple Acknowledges, Prepares to Patch iPad Wi-Fi Bug

It's never easy being an early adopter of first generation hardware, but for a select group of iPad owners, an irritating Wi-Fi bug has put a damper on the fun of using the latest touch-based mobile computing gadget from Apple.

Shortly after its official launch, a number of iPad owners began to post about connection issues both on Apple's own support site and elsewhere. Now it appears that Apple is officially acknowledging the Wi-Fi bug's existence and, even better, is preparing a patch to fix it.

Poor Reception, Dropped Connections

The Wi-Fi bug plaguing some iPad owners has been a tricky one to diagnose. For some, the issue is simply weak Wi-Fi reception while others routinely lose their connection altogether...even as often as every 10 minutes.

Everyone from bloggers to university I.T. departments have tried to diagnose the situation. Princeton, for example, found that the iPad doesn't handle DHCP assignments correctly. (DHCP is the protocol that provides IP addresses to computers requiring network connectivity.) Unfortunately, the university did not have a solution for the matter.

Then there was Loren Wiener, an I.T. consultant in Australia, who thought he discovered the fix which involved toggling a switch in the Wi-Fi connection settings area. However, his fix didn't solve everyone's problems.

The same goes for the official suggestions provided by Apple on its support site. A somewhat bizarre list offers potential workarounds ranging from setting wireless security to WPA on your Wi-Fi router to adjusting the iPad's screen brightness. (Brightness? We don't understand that one either - perhaps it prevents the iPad from going to sleep?)

Did You Try Rebooting the iPad?

Despite all the suggestions for potential workarounds, the only consist fix for the issue was this: turn the Wi-Fi off and then back on again. Or reboot the iPad.

For a company that likes to brag about how its products are simple and "just work," this bug is a bit of an embarrassment. However, early adopters aren't too put out by the whole mess - for the most part, they've come to expect issues when braving the purchase of first generation gadgets.

The only concern was that the bug could be hardware-related, and therefore, unable to patch via a software update. Luckily, that's not the case.

An iPad Patch is Coming

According to a recently updated support document on Apple's website: "Apple will also address remaining Wi-Fi connectivity issues with a future iPad software update." No word on when that patch will be available, but, hopefully, Apple doesn't wait much longer. Resetting the Wi-Fi constantly is annoying and has probably even led to decreased usage of the device in some cases, if not out-and-out returns on the part of frustrated owners.

 

http://www.readwriteweb.com/archives/apple_acknowledges_prepares_to_patch_ipad_wi-fi_bug.php

Court Rules for MobiTV in Fee Case

The United States 5th District Court in New York handed down a ruling today regarding the licensing rates and terms that may be charged for streaming television and radio content to mobile devices.

In US v. ASCAP, music performance rights publisher ASCAP sued MobiTV a company that provides methods for delivering media over wireless and broadband networks. It asserted that, after the company would not assent to its proposed rate structure, MobiTV subsequently owed ASCAP $41.3 million.

Judge Denise Cote thought not and ruled so. The decision forced ASCAP to levy fees based on its cable licensing framework instead of the new, and higher, structure it was proposing.

The precedent in this case is likely to influence others involving Internet companies, wireless carriers, cable and broadcast television and radio. In a sense, it is the precedence of precedents. The format for assessing these fees is already in place and the need to create new, more expensive and more complex ones may be a need the court does not recognize.

 

http://www.readwriteweb.com/archives/court_rules_for_mobitv_in_fee_case.php

Apple Flash Ban Good for Greystripe: Company Behind "iFlash" Ads Sees 200% Growth

No Flash on the iPhone? It's not a problem for advertisers, apparently. Developers tasked with creating rich media ad units for Apple's popular mobile devices have been busy porting their Flash-created ad collateral into an iPhone-friendly HTML5 format using mobile ad firm Greystripe's "iFlash" ad technology, which provides a Flash-like ad experience.

The iFlash ad format has become so popular, in fact, that Greystripe is just now announcing a 200% growth spike for these "iFlash" ads following the iAds announcement.

According to news the company linked to by way of Twitter post, but not press release, the growth for the 18-month old iFlash technology is due to the experience it offers, something that's similar to Apple's recently announced iAds technology. Like iAds, iFlash also provides rich media animation, touch interactivity and click-through actions, all of which are available without leaving the mobile application where the ad appears.

Greystripe's CEO Michael Chang sees iAds' imitation as a form of flattery in this case, proof that his company is doing it right. "Apple's selection of an ad format almost identical to our 'iFlash Custom' ads is a testament to the incredible potential of interactive, rich media mobile advertising and the value of customer engagement," he is quoted as saying.

The company claims it holds a 75% market share on the full screen rich media mobile market and have ads that reach 14 million unique monthly users in the U.S. Over the past two years, it has served over 2 billion full screen rich media impressions. Recent reports from comScore Inc. put the CTR for these iFlash ads at 2-5% on average, with 15-30+ seconds of user engagement.

While "fat-fingering" may contribute to some accidental ad launches, it's the engagement time that's really telling. Spending half a minute watching or interactivity with an ad is proof that creative, engaging ads can and do appeal to mobile users. (At least for now. Web banner ads used to be popular too, believe it or not).

Flash's Backdoor to iPhone

What's interesting about this news, besides, of course, the incredible growth rates the company is seeing, is how the iFlash ad technology actually works. It takes pre-created rich media ad units that were built using Adobe Flash and transcodes them to run on the iPhone, iPod Touch and, as of this month, iPad. The resulting ads are transformed into HTML5 format, a web standard that is supported on Apple's iPhone operating system.

For ad developers used to working with Flash technology, iFlash is essentially a workaround for the Flash ban on Apple devices, explained in detail by Steve Jobs himself back in April.

Apple caused quite a stir when it announced that iPhone apps created using Adobe's now-discontinued Packager for iPhone would not be allowed into the iTunes App Store, prompting Jobs' eventual response to all the hubbub. The Adobe software had allowed developers to create mobile applications using Flash and then port those to an iPhone-ready format. Although the technologies behind the Adobe converter and the iFlash transcoder are quite different on the back-end, the idea is the same: create with Flash, then port to iPhone.

With Apple's iAds launch just around the corner, one wonders if Apple will continue to allow a Flash transcoding product that competes directly with their own advertising initiatives to remain in business. Booting them out, though, would be tricky. After all, iFlash ads are in supported HTML5 format. Still, considering Jobs' opinions on Flash, it must irk him to see that Flash developers have found such an easy workaround for the Flash ban, if not for apps, at least for ads. 

 

http://www.readwriteweb.com/archives/apple_flash_ban_good_for_greystripe_company_behind.php

CloudKick: Practical Efforts for Unifying the Cloud

The team over at CloudKick have been busy connecting open standards with its efforts to monitor cloud computing. By focusing on different cloud providers and listening to customers, the company is in a good position to nudge cloud computing implementations towards open source - and live to tell about it.

libCloud: Unifying Cloud Interfaces

The company's decision last year to move its work on libCloud into the Apache Foundation incubator project seems to be taking off. The project it has been growing in contributors to the effort as well as the number of cloud implementations that are supported.

The libCloud incubator project is designed to allow developers to interface with common functions across cloud providers with one library and to grow the support with the growth of cloud vendors.

Here is the current status of support offered in this library.

HTML 5 and Real Time Cloud Visualization

Additionally, the company is demonstrating it's HTML 5, Canvas, and JavaScript implementation of its visualization tool of real-time cloud resources. This tool shows some of the promise of HTML 5 and also demonstrates the power of CloudKick's monitoring services and the power of visualization in real-time.

Here is how it looks when getting started. The axes are orientated around response time (ping), CPU utilization, and memory utilization. (View demo live)

Here we see clicking on one of the dots (which represent a server host), a control panel pops up with real-time stats.

Monitoring Open Source Implementations

CloudKick has also opened up monitors customized for other open source implementations, such as Cassandra and Apache to its list of pre-configured monitors.

The company also announced support of Memcached and DNS at the same time.

CloudKick has been a first-mover in abstracting and connecting cloud services together for the practical purpose of supporting applications. In a way, the company seems to be supporting projects that it loves (e.g. Cassandra) and is keeping up with innovative developers who are using the latest software techniques to scale in the cloud.

Are there other services you would like to see unify within cloud vendors?

 

http://www.readwriteweb.com/cloud/2010/05/cloud-open-unify.php