Beam me up autonomous car

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Kyk1VLTSH_U&feature=player_embedded#!

Apple TV: 250,000 Sold In Six Weeks

 

Apple didn’t announce the number of Apple TVs sold as part of its earnings release, but Steve Jobs was on the company’s investor call today and gave the first official numbers for how many of the brand new set-top box have seen purchased. So far, the sales are pretty good: Jobs reported that the company has sold more than 250,000 Apple TVs since the company first made the product available in early September.

Apple first announced the new Apple TV broadband set-top box on September 1, pricing it at $99 and announcing a new business model for streaming rentals of TV episodes and movie files. With the new streaming model, Apple rents TV episodes from Fox and ABC for 99 cents, compared to the $1.99 price for standard definition episode downloads and HD downloads for $2.99.

To put that into perspective: Roku reported at the beginning of this year that it had sold 500,000 of its set-top devices after about a year-and-a-half on the market, and hopes to have sold more than a million of its box by the end of the year. So Apple is tracking well ahead of other, similar devices already in the market.

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HP Reveals webOS 2.0, Arriving Friday on Palm Pre 2

HP today has officially introduced webOS 2.0, the biggest update to what was formerly Palm's mobile operating system, one of the assets gained by HP back in April when it acquired Palm, Inc for $1.2 billion. Now called HP webOS, the updated operating system will make its debut this Friday on the new Palm Pre 2 smartphone. The phone will be available first in France and then, in later months, in the U.S. and Canada on Verizon's network.

 

What's New, Pre 2?

In September, HP pushed a beta of the webOS SDK (software development kit) to developers, allowing them to experiment with all the new features of the updated operating system. These features included a multi-tasking user interface improvement called "stacks" (for stacking open screens like a deck of cards), the introduction of "Just Type" quick actions for common tasks like Facebook status updates, adding items to a list or starting an email, an improved Universal Search feature which extends phone-based searches to the Web, a screensaver-like "Exhibition" mode customizable through apps and various under-the-hood improvements including HTML5 support, PDK plugins and more.

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Open Thread: What Joyous Treasures Will Apple Announce Tomorrow?

When I was a kid, Christmas Eve was the most excruciating night of the year. I couldn't sleep and I couldn't think about anything else besides what would be waiting for me under a tree the next morning (it was usually something in the Star Wars, G.I. Joe or Transformers universe). Now, at the youthful age of 35, my Peter Pan complex is rarely as strong as when Apple sets a date to announce a new product. Bang 'a Rang!

Tomorrow, Apple is at it again. Their event, titled "Back to the Mac," has been rumored to cover a number of tantalizing things. While the tech press is notorious for not even coming close to predicting Apple's product announcements correctly, that doesn't stop us from trying!

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Pay Any Bill From Your iPhone, Android or Blackberry

There's something about paying bills - the checkbook, the stamps, the envelopes, the taste of the adhesive - that just rubs me the wrong way. It isn't even the money making a one-way march out of my account, that's just inevitable. If I never had to deal with a paper bill again, my life would be happier.

My world may have just gotten a little rosier, as one company has just released a tool to make paying those paper bills possible by iPhone, Android and Blackberry.

 

Mitek Mobile has developed an app that lets you pay your bills by simply taking a picture of the bill you want to pay and verifying your payment information.

According to the demo video, the app scans the bill for basic information, such as address, company name and payment amount. It then allows you to verify the information before completing the transaction through your bank account.

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Google Dominates Mobile Searches on the iPhone

 

Google holds both the number 1 and number 2 slots in a ranking of search engines on the iPhone, accounting for an estimated 97 percent of all searches, according to figures from ad network Chitika. The firm looked at search volume on the iPhone and found that Google has search pretty much locked up, with 49.08 percent of searches coming through the Safari tool bar, 42.24 percent coming from its home page and other minor sources and 8.68 percent from its dedicated Google app. If you count the app and the regular search as two sources, Google has both of the top two search engines on the iPhone.

The numbers aren’t completely accurate with respect to Bing, which is hard to track because it doesn’t offer referral URLs. Chitika estimates that Bing searches through its app, its home page and through its access to the Safari tool bar represent anywhere from 1-4 percent of searches on the iPhone.

This suggests that Yahoo and Microsoft are having a tough time dislodging Google from its top spot or even duplicating their current success in desktop searches on mobile. With mobile searches only expected to grow, it supports Google’s move to launch Google Instant on phones soon, giving the company yet another edge in facilitating mobile searches. It also points out how valuable the toolbar search engine is. Greg Sterling at Search Engine Land said less than 20 percent of searches happen through a PC tool bar.

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Apple Developing iAds for Video

 

Apple will be adding a video angle to its advertising offerings in the coming months, with a new product that will deliver in-stream ads to videos shown on the iPhone, iPad and (potentially) the Apple TV, according to multiple sources. The new product would not just expand Apple’s advertising capabilities and boost revenue, but could help convince more content owners to make their videos available on its iOS devices.

Many publishers have been slow to bring their videos to the iPhone and iPad, due in part to the lack of mature tools available for monetizing content on those devices. Because iOS devices don’t support Adobe Flash, publishers need to do additional work to make their current ad-serving systems work with the HTML5 video delivery required for the iPhone and iPad. That’s caused many publishers to think twice before delivering video to those devices. (For Adobe’s view on the HTML5-Flash battle, come see Adobe CTO Kevin Lynch at NewTeeVee Live on November 10, 2010 in San Francisco.)

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