ABACUS LETS YOU FILE YOUR EXPENSES--AND GET PAID BACK--IN REAL TIME FROM YOUR PHONE.
Ted Power had just gotten his dream job at Google, but the first thing he experienced with the company was more like something out of the movie Office Space. Power says.
"I was based in the New York office, but my manager was in California and she asked me to spend a month out there for orientation. I had to pay for the flight and the hotel out of pocket, which I couldn’t really afford considering I was fresh out of college. It was a couple months before I got reimbursed through their nightmare system. Considering how much companies like Google focus on employee happiness and tech, it was amazing how backwards the process was."
Click Image To Enlarge
Now Power wants to kill expense reports for good so no one else has to suffer. His new mobile app, called Abacus, lets employees ping a la carte expenses to their employers in real time, right from their phones. Managers can approve the reimbursements quickly, and then Abacus directly deposits the funds to the employee’s bank account. Power says.
"The money is usually in your account within one to two business days. People love not having to wait weeks or months to get paid back."
Click Image To Enlarge
From an employee’s perspective, it sounds too good to be true. No saving receipts or filling out paperwork. Need to take a business trip? As soon as you buy the ticket or book the hotel, just ping the dollar amount to your boss and wait to get paid back. But what about the other side of this user experience--the boss "on the other end" of Abacus? Won’t he or she be getting spammed every other minute with piecemeal charges to approve?
Click Image To Enlarge
Power says.
"Sometimes managers new to Abacus worry that these notifications will get annoying--we worried about that, too. What we’ve found is that managers usually like the transparency of knowing what their team is up to, and it’s a great opportunity to send a little love to your employees by getting back to them quickly. You can turn off the notifications, and only do it once a week or once a month, but most people do it daily or every couple days."
Turning an irritating administrative chore into something more like personal messaging sounds like a brilliant mind hack indeed. But for giant companies like Google with a lot of existing accounting infrastructure, Abacus probably won’t be able to come to the rescue. Powers who cofounded Abacus with Josh Halickman and Omar Qari says.
"Right now we’re really focused on smaller companies, ~5-100 employees. This seems to be where the biggest need is--these companies need something better than a spreadsheet, but they don’t yet have super complicated Oracle-type accounting tools."
Click Image To Enlarge
Still, Power says that "a few big companies" are test driving Abacus with internal teams, and Pinterest is using Abacus specifically to reimburse prospective employees’ travel expenses when they’re flown out for job interviews. That’s exactly the pain point that inspired Abacus’s creation in the first place, so Power and his team must be on the right track.
COMMENTARY: I like the idea for Abacus, but I wonder, given the formal accounting and payables procedures of big companies, who detest cutting checks on the fly, but usually schedule payments once a week, whether they will subscribe to an app like Abacus. On the other hand, smaller companies (less than 100 employees), like the ones Abacus is targeting, have a bit more flexibility, and a whole lot easier to sell to.
I chatted with Omar Qari one of the Abacus co-founders via the Abacus website, and I quizzed him about the response from customers so far, the number of clients they had signed up, and size of those clients, and he told me:
"Admittedly biased, but thus far, we've had a positive response from our customers. They range in size from small founding teams all the way up to 200 employee companies. I'd say the biggest pluses for them are the fact that there literally is no more 'expense report', so employees and manages can do everything in realtime and we do next day direct deposit reimbursements for employees. The biggest complaint thus far from administrators has been that they want more accounting integrations - we've already launched QuickBooks and Xero, but working on Netsuite now."
I am glad to see that Abacus is working rapidly to make their expense report app integrate with small business accounting software like QuickBooks. This is a must have.
But, why stop with expense reports? Abacus should consider adopting their app for paying independent contractors/consultants and temporary workers employed by temp agencies. It shouldn't be too difficult to process weekly timesheets in real-time by having contractors, consultants and temps submit their timesheets via the app. If the app could allow employers to signoff the timesheets using a digital signature input, the timesheet could be downloaded to the agency or employer for approval and payment, just like expense reports.
High-tech companies would embrace contractor payments because they are the largest employers of contractors like programmers, software engineers, systems designers, IT professionals, accountants, etc.. If Abacus could integrate their app with corporate enterprise accounting systems (SAP, Oracle, etc.), this would open a huge opportunity to take the Abacus app to the next level.
Having worked on both sides of the corporate fence -- small and large corporations -- expense reports and contractor payments are an accounting nighmare. Businesses spend countless hours auditing, approving, coding and processing expense reports and contractor timesheets. I believe that Abacus has a huge upside potential. With sufficient capital, adequate staffing, and the right type of sales and marketing push, Abacus should be able to signup thousands of clients.
If I were Abacus, I would signup as many clients as possible. To make it easy, I would offer the app for free for 30-to-90 days before I started charging. The company also needs to get client reviews on their website. Nothing works better than to have your clients advertise on your behalf. Having said this, my greatest fear is that a large payroll processor like ADP or accounting software maker like QuickBooks will compete with Abacus by develop similar software to expand their business. A buyout is also not too far-fetched.
This is the MOD-t. It's a $250 3-D printer, and also the first project of Frog Venture Design. (Click Image To Enlarge)
THE MOD-T 3-D PRINTER IS THE FIRST RELEASE OF FROG VENTURES, THE VENTURE DESIGN ARM OF ONE OF THE WORLD'S MOST PROMINENT DESIGN FIRMS.
Today, a 3-D printer called the New Matter MOD-t hits Indiegogo. It’s expected to cost $250, making it the most affordable 3-D printer to date (comparable printers are in the $350 to $1,300 range). It’s also being billed as one of the simplest 3-D printers: users buy and download designs for chess pieces or kitchen utensils or whatever they want to make in a storefront that crosses the App Store with Etsy. They can then edit these objects--changing size or adding texture--about as easily as adding an Instagram filter. The printer, engineered by inventor Steve Schell, is expected to be built with a third of the parts of its peers, allowing it to reach that $250 price point.
While most 3-D printers require the use of esoteric software, the MOD-t has built its entire experience around usability. (Click Image To Enlarge)
The MOD-t is the first release of Frog Ventures, the venture design* arm of Frog (think venture capital, but with the investment being design rather than money). Frog Ventures backed Schell's startup New Matter to bring the MOD-t to market.
Frog is the design consultancy behind some of the most important products in recent history--Apple’s early line of computers, for example. But in recent years, Frog has become less known for physical products. That's in part because the company has developed expertise in software but also because the Fortune 500 companies that hire Frog for product design work are secretive. “We do work for some very very big clients, and those very very big clients are quite proprietary about their relationship with us," Ethan Imboden, head of Frog Ventures, says.
"They're secretive about how they get their innovative product into the market, and they don’t necessarily want our name associated with that. Even as a new employee, I didn’t see the work I’m most excited about until after I joined Frog. I had to pull rank on people and say, ‘This is work I’m allowed to see. I need to take a look into the portfolio.’”
It will have an App-Store-like marketplace, where designs can be purchased, then modified with simple controls like pinching and zooming. (Click Image To Enlarge)
And it's a fine looking machine, as far as 3-D printers go. (Click Image To Enlarge)
This secrecy may sound cool, but the reality is a burden for Frog, creating what Imboden calls “a vacuum of content” as to what Frog is doing. No doubt, it’s one reason that when everyone talks about Frog, they (even we) still talk about Apple.
The project is a bit of a risk for Frog, who generally works in secrecy. (Click Image To Enlarge)
Frog Ventures is the firm’s development studio outside this cone of silence. It’s currently working with three startups--New Matter is the only one that’s public--to make big, showy bets on new products. Imboden says.
“We have an excellent opportunity to say, ‘Here’s exactly what we did.' That’s very valuable for us, to put the work out there, be very vocal, and take accountability for it, no matter how it goes.”
MOD-T 3D printer in action. (Click Image To Enlarge)
Frog’s role in each of these startups may vary. One startup, for instance, has blocked time to embed itself in Frog’s offices to learn to think like Frog designers. In the case of the MOD-t, Frog's role was similar to the one they adopt with their secretive companies. Schell had developed the core MOD-t technology over at the technology incubator Idealab. While 3-D printers have intricate mechanics to float the build plate precisely in 3-D space (basically, moving the printed object around the needle-sized hose of melted plastic ink), the New Matter team had developed what they describe as a “unique mechanical solution” that reduced the clockwork of parts by a third.
But the company is excited to take on the challenge, to fail in public rather than succeed in private. (Click Image To Enlarge)
Schell says.
“For me personally, that motion system was the breakthrough I needed to say we have a significant advantage. We could create a 3-D printer at the cost target we’re hoping for.”
Meanwhile, Idealab had been in casual talks with Frog Ventures about new products in their pipeline. The MOD-t caught Frog’s eye.
Imboden says.
“What we’re looking for, and what we see here, is a technological advantage that creates a whole set of opportunities. And the goal is to tie those opportunities back to the real world and the experience of the end consumer, to make sure the company is living up to its promise, and living up to the full opportunity of the technology they’re embedding.”
Frog's mobile app allows uers to design and resize objects in 3D before they are printed on the MOD-T 3-D printer. (Click Image To Enlarge)
Frog and New Matter co-developed the MOD-t’s experience--the approach of using a marketplace where designers could sell their products the way software developers sell apps--and a team of roughly 12 from Frog built out much of the product. They polished the industrial design (the mechanics and the aesthetic). They created mockups of the digital app and marketplace. And they built the MOD-t brand itself--right down to shooting the Indiegogo video.
Now, all New Matter and Frog can do is wait. Truth be told, it’s hard to imaging the MOD-t being anything but a monstrous hit in a crowdfunding world obsessed with 3-D printers already. But Frog is mentally prepped for failure. Imboden says.
“The reality is, there’s a risk in all of our projects. If there’s not a certain measure of risk, there can’t be a certain measure of success. Will we always knock it out of the park? No, I don’t think that’s possible. If we did, we’d be knocking it out of a very small park for very small risk.”
COMMENTARY: If Frog Ventures can raise the required capital to produce a commercial version of the Mod-T 3-D printer, and be able to price it at $250.00, and still make money, they are accomplishing something truly incredible. I think $495.00 would've been a far better price and given the company some "wiggle" room in case something goes wrong during the manufacturing process.
The relatively high cost of 3-D printers has prevented this technology from taking off like smartphones and tablets have, and the low price point of the Mod-T 3-D printer and quality features of the product certainly allow this new product to standout in the marketplace.
IT LETS YOU DRAW IN 2-D AND MANIPULATE YOUR DESIGN IN 3-D.
We’re stuck in an awkward spot. We can manufacture nearly any 3-D product we’d like. But these objects are trapped behind the 2-D computer screen we design them in.
The Gravity Sketch tablet uses augmented reality to make a drawing appear in midair. (Click Image To Enlarge)
The core hardware of the Gravity Sketch tablet is just a headset, tablet, and pen. (Click Image To Enlarge)
One solution is to 3-D print a plastic mock up. A more efficient solution is a new working concept called Gravity Sketch. It’s essentially a 3-D notebook. You put on a pair of video glasses, grab the stylus, and hold a tablet in your hand. Then you draw your creation in 3-D space using augmented reality--the glasses, pen, and tablet work in concert to create a digital illusion that your drawing is floating right there in front of you. But you're literally drawing on a 2-D surface.
The Gravity Sketch team refused to get into technical details about their system unless we signed an NDA, but they did share quite a bit more about how they designed the sensation of drawing itself. In fact, they may have solved one of the biggest problems in 3-D drawing today--namely, how do you make it feel natural to people who’ve grown up drawing on flat, 2-D surfaces?
You draw directly on the Gravity Sketch tablet. (Click Image To Enlarge)
And those drawings stack and rotate to become 3-D objects. (Click Image To Enlarge)
Current 3-D drawing systems, including the holographic zSpace or this 3-D-printer pen, ask you to be part sculptor, part surgeon as you draw wisps in boundless midair. It's a weird concept to get accustomed to.
Right now, the Gravity Sketch tablet is just a working concept. (Click Image To Enlarge)
But the team is in talks with various companies and investors to bring the Gravity Sketch tablet to market. (Click Image To Enlarge)
Gravity Sketch takes a different approach. It only lets you draw on the flat plain of the tablet itself. But you work with your design in 3-D as you draw--and the program give you a set of rules by which to manipulate your design. The team explains.
“By providing a simple set of rules, people quickly learn the limitations of the tool and work their way around them. Through experiments, we found that people could build their ideas out in a three-dimensional space while playing to their natural instincts and the ease of drawing in two dimensions.”
But it still begs the question--would you wear glasses to draw in 3-D? (Click Image To Enlarge)
Here's how it works. You draw something on the tablet. That drawing becomes, conceptually speaking, several pieces of paper stacked into a cube. You can then rotate or excavate those layers via simple controls on the tablet.
The value of this technique emerged during trial and error during the research process. Gravity Sketch tried out several low-tech inventions to simulate the experience of drawing in 3-D. The most successful, they decided, was a layered acrylic cube, so that’s what they settled on when they built the program.
COMMENTARY: The Gravity Sketch 3D drawing tablet is a cool device, but like most mobile devices based on augmented reality technology, the cost will most likely be prohibitively high. Considering that this device is just in the concept stage, and limited in what it can do, and funding is needed for a commercial version, let's hope that it has sufficient horsepower to satisfy the needs of engineers and designers who require 3D rendering.
Apple CEO Tim Cook kicked off the iPhone 5S unveiling event in Cupertino on September 10, 2013 (Click Image To Enlarge)
On Tuesday, September 10, 2013, Apple unveiled its new flagship iPhone 5S and a new budget smartphone, the iPhone 5C, as it seeks to attract more customers and revitalize interest in its devices.
The launch comes as the Cupertino, Calif., company faces heightened competition. Apple has been losing market share to rivals, such as Samsung, with its position in the most recent quarter falling to its lowest level in three years. As growth in the high-end smartphone market slows, Apple must find ways to attract new buyers, as well as expand into lower-priced phones.
Philip W. Schiller, senior vice president of worldwide marketing at Apple took over the microphone and talked about reatures of the new iPhone 5S and 5C at the unveiling event in Cupertino. (Click Image To Enlarge)
iPhone 5S
The iPhone 5S is Apple's newest flaghip smartphone. According to Phil Schiller, Apple's Senior Vice-President of Worldwide Marketing,
"The iPhone 5S the most forward-thinking phone we've ever created."
A person holds the new iPhone 5S during an event at the Apple campus on Sept. 10 in Cupertino, Calif. (Click Image To Enlarge)
The iPhone 5S includes updated components, comes in three colors (white, black and gold), and includes a fingerprint recognition sensor to unlock the device and make purchases. It will retail for $199 for 16GB, $299 for 32GB, or $399 for 64GB, all with a contract.
Oh, and in the off chance that you're not a fan of cracked screens, Apple's also offering up proprietary cases that'll run you $49 a pop.
It's made of high-grade aluminum and comes in silver, gold, and "a new space gray."
f The iPhone 5S comes in three colors -- white, silver and gold (Click Image To Enlarge)
The iPhone 5S also sports a new A7 processor. The A7 chip includes 64-bit capabilities, which brings the processing speed and capabilities of desktop personal computer microprocessors to the iPhone 5S. The iPhone 5S is "up to twice as fast" as the previous-generation system and has twice the graphics performance as well. There's OpenGL ES 3.0 on board, but the next-gen handset still promises, thankfully, to remain compatible with the 32-bit apps of yesteryear.
Apple also incorporated a chip that it calls the M7. This is a "motion co-processor" that aggregates and monitors accelerometer, gyroscope, and compass data and offloads it from the A7. That enables a new generation of health and fitness apps, such as a new Nike+ Move app. The app keeps track of what users do, tracks their Fuel points, and lets them compete with friends.
On the Surface
Battery life is on par with the iPhone 5. The 5S has 10 hours of 3G talk time, 10 hours of browsing over LTE cellular networks or Wi-Fi, 40 hours of music playing for all of your live Grateful Dead material, and 250 hours of standby.
The iPhone 5 camera features a sensor that's 15 percent larger than the one on its predecessor as well as a five-element, Apple-designed lens with an f/2.2 aperture. Also on board is autofocusing matrix metering, so you can leave the arty blurring to Instagram. Even the flash is getting an upgrade this time out. Apple's offering up "True Tone," which features 1,000 variations of color temperatures to help you get things like flesh tones just right.
The fingerprint reader folks were predicting ahead of launch. The iPhone 5S features a 170-micron-thick fingerprint recognition sensor with a 500 ppi resolution built into the Home button, dubbed Touch ID, that'll biometrically let you into the phone. It's still a physical button that a user needs to push down, but there's a metal ring that senses the person's finger. It can be used to unlock the phone or purchase items from iTunes. Oh, and if someone else wants to access your phone, you can also set the thing up to read multiple fingerprints. And before you ask, for extra security, all of that fingerprint information isn't stored directly to Apple's servers, because Apple apparently isn't in the market of collecting that info.
The Apple iPhone 5S now comes with finger print recognition for increased security and a more powerful A7 microprocessor that is twice as fast as its predecessor that will greatly improve digital images, music and video performance (Click Image To Enlarge)
The iPhone 5S is available for pre-order in three days. It'll start hitting Apple stores on the 20th of September in the US, Australia, Canada, China, France, Germany, Japan, Singapore and the UK. In December, that list will expand to include more than 100 countries.
The iPhone 5 is going away, but the iPhone 4S will now be available for free with a two-year contract.
iPhone 5C
The iPhone 5C, which is made of plastic, starts at $99 for the 16GB version or $199 for 32GB with a two-year contact.
Preorders start Friday. The devices will be available in stores on September 20.
The new lower-priced Apple iPhone 5C front, back and side views. (Click Image To Enlarge)
Phil Schiller said during the event.
"The iPhone 5C is made with all the incredible technology that customers have loved with the iPhone 5, but there's more, too. It has an incredible new design -- one that's more fun, and more colorful than anything we've made before."
The iPhone 5C has a polycarbonate wrap-around back. It will come in five colors -- green, white, blue, red, and yellow. The screen wallpaper will match the exterior of the phone.
The iPhone 5C has a polycarbonate wrap-around back that will come in five colors -- green, blue, yellow, red and white. (Click Images To Enlarge)
For the new iPhone 5C, Apple also designed $29 custom cases made of silicon with a microfiber lining. The new custom cases come in six colors: white, red, yellow, blue, green and black. Add one of the six Apple‑designed cases to your iPhone 5c and it instantly goes from colorfully cool to impossible to ignore. The case design allows the color underneath to show through, creating 30 fun possibilities. So the iPhone 5c Case does more than just protect your phone — it helps it stand out. And it helps you make it yours.
The new iPhone C custom cases come in six colors: white, red, yellow, blue, green and black. (Click Images To Enlarge)
The iPhone 5C will sport a 4-inch retina display, like the iPhone 5, as well as an A6 chip inside with "blazing-fast performance." The battery is larger than in the iPhone 5, and it includes an 8MP iSight camera, with the five-element lens and IR filter as seen on the 5.
The iPhone 5c also comes with a new Camera app that raises your photography game. Now you can shoot images in a square format. And choose from eight live filters than can be applied before or after you take your photo. Use the Instant filter to give a group shot at the beach a vintage color look. Make a sunset even more vivid with the Chrome filter. Or choose Noir to capture a self-portrait in dramatic black and white.
The iPhone 5c also comes with a new Camera app that raises your photography game. (Click Image To Enlarge)
Now when you record video in 1080p HD, the new 3x zoom feature lets you get in tighter on your subject. Video image stabilization helps smooth out shaky footage from your high‑adrenaline moments. (Running of the Bulls, anyone?) Face detection for up to 10 faces makes sure nobody gets lost in the crowd. And the ability to take still photos while recording video comes in handy when you want to tell that story within a story.
The iPhone 5C camera includes video image stabilization to help smooth out shaky footage. (Click Image To Enlarge)
iPhone 5c comes with a new FaceTime HD camera. Larger pixels and an improved backside illumination sensor give it increased sensitivity in low light — great for, say, letting your friend back on the East Coast experience a West Coast sunset with you. You can also make audio‑only FaceTime calls with clearer sound than even wideband audio.
The new Phone 5c comes with a new FaceTime HD camera. (Click Image To Enlarge)
The iPhone 5C also represents Apple's chance to broaden its market. While its smartphones are popular around the world, the majority of people in places like China can't afford $800 phones. The company plans to host an event in China later this week, where it is believed that Apple will announce a partnership with China Mobile, the world's biggest carrier.
Upgraded iOS 7
Both the iPhone 5S and 5C come loaded with the latest version of iOS 7. Apple CEO Tim Cook calls the latest iOS 7
"The biggest change to iOS since the introduction of iPhone."
The newer iOS7 incorporates a "flatter" user interface and esthetics that provide a whole new user experience and does away with 3d icons, bevels, shadows, and rounded corners, and makes some operatons automatic and behind the scenes. Checkout the video:
But, there is good news for owners of older iPhones. On September 18, you'll be able to download the latest version, iOS 7 onto your older iPhone (models dating back to the iPhone 4), iPad (version 2 or later), iPad Mini or iPod touch (fifth generation). Here's a look at ten key new features.
Control Center: Swipe up from any screen to immediately jump into system settings such as Bluetooth and Wi-Fi, as well as brightness controls, a flashlight, calculator and other utilities.
Camera app: When the camera app is open, beyond stills or video, you'll get two other labeled options: shooting the photo as a square picture or a panorama. You can also edit photos with Instagram-like filters.
Photo app: Apple is bringing organization to hundreds of photos, using the camera information about where and when they were shot to organize them into "Moments," "Collections" and "Years."
Find My iPhone lock: A new "activation lock" feature requires your Apple ID and password before you can turn off Find My iPhone, further thwarting thieves.
AirDrop: The new feature is Apple's answer to Samsung's Galaxy S line of phones, which let other Galaxy users share photos and other files by clicking the phones together. AirDrop lets other iOS users send items directly to each other, without opening up a text message or e-mail to do so. A slightly different version of the AirDrop feature has already been available on Apple's latest Mac computers.
Multi-tasking: Apple has improved multi-tasking. By pressing the home button twice, you can see preview screens of all your running apps and swipe to move from one to another. By swiping up you can delete an app.
Background updates: The new iOS will update apps automatically in the background and does so when you're plugged into Wi-Fi. The idea is that fetching such updates won't kill your battery.
iTunes radio: Apple's answer to Pandora will be available on computers and mobile devices when it arrives with the new operating system on Sept. 18. The program brings in pre-programmed radio stations to iTunes, and will let listeners create stations based on their favorite artists.
Safari: Apple's new look for the Safari browser will let you see more of your content and includes full-screen browsing. There's also a "smart search" field that unifies separate search and address fields into one, and a cool new tab view for scrolling from one page to another.
Siri: You'll find new male and female voices in Siri. Also new: Twitter search integration, which lets you ask Siri what people are chatting about on Twitter. Siri also now taps Wikipedia as a resource as well as Bing search.
Design: Not to be underestimated is the overall look and feel of the operating system. With freshly designed fonts, icons and animations — a flash of lightning, say, in the weather app — you may feel like you have a new phone without actually buying the latest hardware.
COMMENTARY: CEO Tim Cook is stuck in a no-win situation. On Tuesday, he was master of ceremonies of the unveiling of the new iPhone 5S and budget-priced iPhone 5C that seemed to please no one.
The unveiling event was short on surprises, and the new iPhone's played it safe for the most-watched company in the world.
Cook was criticized for pricing Apple's new cheaper iPhone 5C too high. By making the 5C a midrange product instead of a low-end smartphone, he protected the company's profit margins — and left a large swath of the market open to rivals selling inexpensive Google (GOOG) Android-based smartphones.
His decision on pricing also preserved Apple's reputation as a premium, aspirational brand. But Cook sacrificed the opportunity to increase Apple's smartphone market share and boost unit sales and revenue in order to maintain the company's business model and image.
On selling a cheap iPhone, Cook is damned if he does and damned if he doesn't. And Apple stock was down nearly 6% in midday trading inthe stock market Wednesday.
As for the lack of surprises at the product launch, Apple is battling media leaks from supplier partners and lofty expectations set by its history of groundbreaking products under the late, great Steve Jobs.
Even when it did announce something unexpected on Tuesday, the media mostly shrugged, failing to see the significance.
Tech bloggers had photos weeks in advance of the iPhone 5S fingerprint sensor, dual-LED camera flash, the gold model 5S, and the colored plastic cases of the iPhone 5C, but they didn't predict everything. Those surprises, mostly overlooked Tuesday, concerned the details of advanced components and software in the new phones.
New A7 64-bit microprocessor chip that promises to deliver processing speeds twice as fast as its predecessor chip.
New M7 motion co-processor that gathers data from the accelerometer, gyroscope and compass to offload work from the A7 for improved power efficiency.
Free productivity apps available on both the iPhone 5S and 5C including Pages, Numbers and Keynote, which previously cost users $9.99 and let users create, edit and share documents, spreadsheets and presentations, and iPhoto and iMovie, which previously cost users $4.99 for editing snapshots and videos.
Making Pages, Numbers and Keynote available for free could make the handsets even more popular with professionals. Those software products compete with offerings from Microsoft (MSFT) and Google.
The pressure on Apple's CEO is likely to intensify in the months ahead. Cook has promised "amazing" products to be rolled out through 2014 and he had better deliver. Whether those include the rumored iTV television and iWatch smartwatch remains to be seen.
Apple Makes Huge Mistake Not Introducing A Big Display Phone
In my opinion, Apple lost out on another huge money-making opportunity -- launching an iPhone with a big display to match that of Samsung's Galaxy S4 (5-inch) and Galaxy Note 2 (5.5-inch). Samsung will also be unveiling a newer Galaxy Note 3 (5.5 inch) within the month. As you already know, the S4 (and S3 before) has run away with the market for large display smartphones. Since the S4 was introduced in May, Samsung has sold over 10 million
During a press event at IFA on September 9, 2013, J. K. Shin, President of Samsung mobile communications, revealed some interesting sales figures for the Galaxy Note and Galaxy Note 2. According to Shin, Samsung has sold over 38 million Galaxy Note devices over the past two years.
That is a very healthy number and raises the question yet again about large screen smartphones (5 inches and over) verses smaller screen smartphones (4 to 5 inches). Apple has rigidly stuck to the smaller end, but iPhone fans seem happy with Apple’s choices since the iPhone continues to sell well. However Samsung has taken a different approach in that it offers phones with a variety of screen sizes including the popular Galaxy S3 (4.8 inches) and the Galaxy S4 (5 inches). If Samsung, HTC, LG and others are able to sell millions of phones with 4 to 5 inch displays plus the very same companies are able to sell millions of units featuring even larger displays then it is clear that consumers cherish the choice and that larger screen phones are not just an odd statistical blip.
Shin didn’t elaborate any further or breakdown the number per year or per device, but he did add that Samsung expects to sell at least 10 million Galaxy Note 3 phones. The 10 million figure is probably low, or maybe only a short term prediction, as both the Note and Note 2 sold in greater quantities.
The Samsung Galaxy Note 3 will go on sale internationally from September 25 except for in the U.S. and Japan where it will be released during October.
Large display phones, also referred to as "phablets," because they resemble a hybrid between a phone and tablet, out sold tablets and laptops combined during Q2 2013, but Apple got exactly zero of those sales. According to several mobile technology analysts, iPhone owners are crying for an iPhone with a larger display. Having said this, you have to question why Apple CEO Tim Cook never considered producing the iPhone 5S with a 5-inch display as a defensive strategy. There is no longer any doubt that there is a demand for large display phones. If an iPhone phablet is in the works, why put it off when the market for them is boiling hot?
Apple made a similar mistake with the iPad, when Steve Jobs called 7-in tablets like the Amazon Kindle Fire and Samsung Galaxy Tab as "dead on arrival." Well, surprise, surprise, Amazon sold 10 million 7-inch Kind;e Fire tablets over the next 12 months from it launch. Apple finally realized this mistake, and introduced the 7.9 inch iPad Mini in 2012. But, that was a rush job, the iPad Mini is under-powered and has an inferior display. I thought about buying a 9 or 10-inch tablet, and was even leaning towards an iPad, but after seeing and reading the reviews of Google's Nexus 7 2nd generation 7-inch tablet in early August, I bought one. Now I am leaning towards a 5-inch phone.
iPhone 5C and 5S Specifications
For those readers interested in the iPhone 5C and 5S technical specifications, check this out.
Click Image To Enlarge
For more detailed iPhone 5S and 5C technical specifications refer to GDGT1and GDGT2.
Courtesy of an article dated September 10, 2013 appearing in C|NET, an article dated September 10, 2013 appearing in Engadget, an article dated September 11, 2013 appearing in USA Today, an article dated September 9, 2013 appearing in Android Authority, an article dated September 9, 2013 appearing in Forbes, and an article dated September 11, 2013 appearing in Investors.com
Since September 11th, 2001, the United States government has dramatically increased the ability of its intelligence agencies to collect and investigate information on both foreign subjects and US citizens. Some of these surveillance programs, including a secret program called PRISM, capture the private data of citizens who are not suspected of any connection to terrorism or any wrongdoing.
In June, a private contractor working for Booz Allen Hamilton leaked classified presentation slides that detailed the existence and the operations of PRISM: a mechanism that allows the government to collect user data from companies like Microsoft, Google, Apple, Yahoo, and others. While much of the program — and the rest of the NSA’s surveillance efforts — are still shrouded in secrecy, more details are coming to light as the public, as well as its advocates and representatives, pressure the government to come clean about domestic spying.
The What
What the hell is PRISM? PRISM is a tool used by the US National Security Agency (NSA) to collect private electronic data belonging to users of major internet services like Gmail, Facebook, Outlook, and others. It’s the latest evolution of the US government’s post-9/11 electronic surveillance efforts, which began under President Bush with the Patriot Act, and expanded to include the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) enacted in 2006 and 2007.
There’s a lot we still don’t know about how PRISM works, but the basic idea is that it allows the NSA to request data on specific people from major technology companies like Google, Yahoo, Facebook, Microsoft, Apple, and others. The US government insists that it is only allowed to collect data when given permission by the secretive Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court.
Why is PRISM a big deal?
Classified presentation slides detailing aspects of PRISM were leaked by a former NSA contractor. On June 6th, The Guardian and The Washington Post published reports based on the leaked slides, which state that the NSA has “direct access” to the servers of Google, Facebook, and others. In the days since the leak, the implicated companies have vehemently denied knowledge of and participation in PRISM, and have rejected allegations that the US government is able to directly tap into their users' data.
Both the companies and the government insist that data is only collected with court approval and for specific targets. As The Washington Post reported, PRISM is said to merely be a streamlined system — varying between companies — that allows them to expedite court-approved data collection requests. Because there are few technical details about how PRISM operates, and because of the fact that the FISA court operates in secret, critics are concerned about the extent of the program and whether it violates the constitutional rights of US citizens.
CRITICS HAVE QUESTIONED THE CONSTITUTIONAL VALIDITY OF PRISM
Click Image To Enlarge
How was PRISM created?
As The Washington Post reported, The Protect America Act of 2007 led to the creation of a secret NSA program called US-984XN — also known as PRISM. The program is said to be a streamlined version of the same surveillance practices that the US was conducting in the years following 9/11, under President George W. Bush’s “Terrorist Surveillance Program.”
The Protect America Act allows the attorney general and the director of national intelligence to explain in a classified document how the US will collect intelligence on foreigners overseas each year, but does not require specific targets or places to be named. As the Post reports, once the plan is approved by a federal judge in a secret order, the NSA can require companies like Google and Facebook to send data to the government, as long as the requests meet the classified plan's criteria.
Click Image To Enlarge
Who is responsible for leaking PRISM?
Edward Snowden, a 29-year-old intelligence contractor formerly employed by the NSA, CIA, and Booz Allen Hamilton, confessed responsibility for leaking the PRISM documents. He revealed himself on June 9th, three days after reports on PRISM were published; in an interview with The Guardian, Snowden said, “I don’t want to live in a society that does these sort of things,” and claimed he was motivated by civic duty to leak classified information.
Edward Snowden an NSA, CIA and Booz Allen Hamilton intelligence contractor leaked information about the NSA's PRISM surveillance system. Snowden fled the U.S. and is now in Moscow, Russia via Hong Kong waiting for a permanent safe haven (Click Image To Enlarge)
Snowden left the United States prior to leaking the documents in order to avoid capture, taking refuge in Hong Kong — where he stayed until June 23rd. With the assistance of WikiLeaks, Snowden fled Hong Kong for Moscow, and has requested asylum in Ecuador, Russia, and other countries. He is still residing in a Moscow airport, waiting to be granted asylum.
Surveillance systems like this one are located in cities throughout the U.S. (Click Image To Enlarge)
What does the NSA collect?
While PRISM has been the most talked-about story to come out of Snowden’s leaks, the disclosures have shed light on a vast array of NSA surveillance programs. Broadly speaking, these can be split into two categories: “upstream” wiretaps, which pull data directly from undersea telecommunications cables, and efforts like PRISM, which acquire communications from US service providers. One of the slides in the leaked PRISM presentation instructs that analysts “should use both” of these sources.
NSA programs collect two kinds of data: metadata and content. Metadata is the sensitive byproduct of communications, such as phone records that reveal the participants, times, and durations of calls; the communications collected by PRISM include the contents of emails, chats, VoIP calls, cloud-stored files, and more. US officials have tried to allay fears about the NSA’s indiscriminate metadata collection by pointing out that it doesn’t reveal the contents of conversations. But metadata can be just as revealing as content — internet metadata includes information such as email logs, geolocation data (IP addresses), and web search histories. Because of a decades-old law, metadata is also far less well-protected than content in the US.
NSA Programs Collect Two Kinds of Data: Metadata and Content
A leaked court order provided by Snowden showed that Verizon is handing over the calling records and telephony metadata of all its customers to the NSA on an “ongoing, daily basis.” Mass collection of internet metadata began under a Bush-era program called "Stellarwind," which was first revealed by NSA whistleblower William Binney. The program was continued for two years under the Obama administration, but has since been discontinued and replaced with a host of similar programs with names like “EvilOlive” and “ShellTrumpet.”
Click Image To Enlarge
How does the NSA collect data?
Many crucial details on how and under what circumstances the NSA collects data are still missing. Legally speaking, surveillance programs rely on two key statutes, Section 702 of the FISA Amendments Act (FAA) and Section 215 of the Patriot Act. The former authorizes the collection of communications content under PRISM and other programs, while the latter authorizes the collection of metadata from phone companies such as Verizon and AT&T. However, multiple reports and leaked documents indicate the statutes have been interpreted in secret by the FISA intelligence courts to grant much broader authority than they were originally written to allow. They also indicate that the FISA courts only approve the NSA’s collection procedures, and individual warrants for specific targets are not required.
An analyst starts by inputting “selectors” (search terms) into a system like PRISM, which then “tasks” information from other collection sites, known as SIGADs (Signals Intelligence Activity Designators). SIGADs have both classified and unclassified code names, and are tasked for different types of data — one called NUCLEON gathers the contents of phone conversations, while others like MARINA store internet metadata.
Leaked documents show that under the agency’s targeting and “minimization” rules, NSA analysts can not specifically target someone “reasonably believed” to be a US person communicating on US soil. According to The Washington Post, an analyst must have at least “51 percent” certainty their target is foreign. But even then, the NSA’s “contact chaining” practices — whereby an analyst collects records on a target’s contacts, and their contacts’ contacts — can easily cause Americans to be caught up in the process.
The rules state the analyst must take steps to remove data that is determined to be from “US persons,” but even if they are not relevant to terrorism or national security, these “inadvertently acquired” communications can still be retained and analyzed for up to five years — and even given to the FBI or CIA — under a broad set of circumstances. Those include communications that are "reasonably believed to contain evidence of a crime that has been, is being, or is about to be committed," or that contain information relevant to arms proliferation or cybersecurity. If communications are encrypted, they can be kept indefinitely.
NSA headquarters in Fort Meade, Maryland (Click Image To Enlarge)
So, what now?
In the weeks since the PRISM documents leaked, a widespread international public debate about the United States government’s surveillance and spying programs has engulfed the NSA, Congress, and the Obama administration in controversy. While outspoken supporters of NSA surveillance in Congress and the White House —including President Obama — have defended the legality and necessity of the programs, some US lawmakers are pushing back. In June, a bipartisan group of senators unveiled a bill that aims to rein in the problematic legal provisions that give US intelligence agencies nearly unfettered authority to conduct warrantless surveillance on domestic and foreign communications. Several other lawmakers have introduced their own measures, but legislative reform is still in early stages.
Meanwhile, a diverse coalition of interest groups and private organizations are directly challenging some of the NSA’s surveillance programs in court. On July 16th, a broad coalition of plaintiffs sued the US government for “an illegal and unconstitutional program of dragnet electronic surveillance,” in which the NSA scoops up all telephone records handled by Verizon, AT&T, and Sprint in the US. Separate suits brought by the Electronic Privacy Information Center and the American Civil Liberties Union are also in the works, but the government hasn’t responded to the allegations in court yet.
The companies at the heart of PRISM’s controversy are also acting out, but the specific details regarding their involvement in government surveillance on US citizens is still unclear. Microsoft, Google, Yahoo, and others have stepped up pressure on the government in the past month to declassify the process which compels them to hand over user data to the government. In an impassioned plea made by Microsoft on July 16th, the company’s general counsel Brad Smith said: “We believe the US constitution guarantees our freedom to share more information with the public, yet the government is stopping us.”
Finally, there’s the group of people most affected by PRISM and its sibling programs: the American public. On July 4th, “Restore the Fourth” rallies in more than 100 US cities protested the government’s surveillance programs, focusing on electronic privacy. It’s not clear if public outrage will result in reform, but thanks to the dramatic actions of a young intelligence contractor, we now at least have the opportunity to discuss what the US government has been hiding from the public in the name of national security.
COMMENTARY: In a blog post dated April 28, 2011, I told my readers about the National Security Agency (NSA), and what goes on inside that super-secret agency. For a long time, the U.S. government told Americans there was "No Such Agency," and that it would never use the NSA's intelligence gathering capabilities to spy on and gather information about Americans. However, along came the September 11, 2001 terrorist attack on New York's World Trade Center, and over 3,000 Americans died -- the worst death toll on America since the attack on the U.S. Navy fleet in Pearl Harbor on December 7, 1941 by the Japanese.
Click Image To Enlarge
A lot has happened since 9/11. Shortly after the attack on the World Trade Center, George W. Bush formed the Department of Homeland Security and signed into law the USA Patriot Act of 2001, which allowed the federal government unprecedented powers to protect Americans against terrorist attacks and gather intelligence on terrorists and "persons of interest," including unwary innocent Americans.
The act, as a response to the terrorist attacks of September 11th, significantly weakened restrictions on law enforcement agencies' gathering of intelligence within the United States; expanded the Secretary of the Treasury’s authority to regulate financial transactions, particularly those involving foreign individuals and entities; and broadened the discretion of law enforcement and immigration authorities in detaining and deporting immigrants suspected of terrorism-related acts. The act also expanded the definition of terrorism to include domestic terrorism, thus enlarging the number of activities to which the USA PATRIOT Act’s expanded law enforcement powers can be applied.
From broad concern felt among Americans from both the September 11 attacks and the 2001 anthrax attacks, Congress rushed to pass legislation to strengthen security controls. On October 23, 2001, Republican Rep. Jim Sensenbrenner introduced H.R. 3162 incorporating provisions from a previously sponsored House bill and a Senate bill also introduced earlier in the month.The next day on October 24, 2001, the Act passed in the House of Representatives by a vote of 357 to 66, with Democrats comprising the overwhelming portion of dissent. The following day, on October 25, 2001, the Act passed the U.S. Senate by 98 to 1.
Click Image To Enlarge
Opponents of the law have criticized its authorization of indefinite detentions of immigrants; the permission given law enforcement officers to search a home or business without the owner’s or the occupant’s consent or knowledge; the expanded use of National Security Letters, which allows the Federal Bureau of Investigation(FBI) to search telephone, e-mail, and financial records without a court order; and the expanded access of law enforcement agencies to business records, including library and financial records. Since its passage, several legal challenges have been brought against the act, and Federal courts have ruled that a number of provisions are unconstitutional.
Many of the act's provisions were to sunset beginning December 31, 2005, approximately 4 years after its passage. In the months preceding the sunset date, supporters of the act pushed to make its sunsetting provisions permanent, while critics sought to revise various sections to enhance civil liberty protections. In July 2005, the U.S. Senate passed a reauthorization bill with substantial changes to several sections of the act, while the House reauthorization bill kept most of the act's original language. The two bills were then reconciled in a conference committee that was criticized by Senators from both the Republican and Democratic parties for ignoring civil liberty concerns.
The bill, which removed most of the changes from the Senate version, passed Congress on March 2, 2006, and was signed into law by President George W. Bush on March 9 and 10, 2006.
The Role of Social Networks In National Security
Click Image To Enlarge
In a blog post dated January 26, 2012, I told my readers about the FBI's plans to develop a social network monitoring system to track our social media activities. Internet users already post a huge amount of personal and private information about themselves online, especially on their social network profile pages. For the Department of Homeland Security tapping into the the vast amount of information available on social networks was a no-brainer
The Central Intelligence Agency has also joined the FBI in tapping into the huge amount of data we post on social networks. In a blog post dated January 26, 2012, I told readers that Facebook was basically a front for the CIA. Can there be any doubt? If you are still skeptical, checkout this video and listen to what CIA Deputy Director Christopher Sartinsky had to say about the value of Facebook to the CIA before a Senate national security subcommittee.
Click To View Video
In January 2012, Facebook appointed Erskine Bowles, president emeritus of the University of North Carolina and a former chief of staff to President Bill Clinton, to its board of directors. Mr. Bowles replaced former Clinton Chief of Staff Daniel Pineta, when President Clinton appointed Pineta as CIA Director. Pineta later served as CIA Director under George Bush and briefly under President Barack Obama. If there is any doubt that the CIA has tightened its grip around Facebook, just look at this picture. That's right, it's President Obama reminding Facebook CEO and co-founder Mark Zuckerberg, who is the boss.
Facebook CEO and Co-Founder hopnobs with President Barack Obama at a dinner of Silicon Valley executives during his second term campaign (Click Image To Enlarge)
Courtesy of an article dated July 17, 2013 appearing in The Verge
Samsung on Thursday officially took the wraps off the Galaxy S4, a 5-inch smartphone coming to all the major U.S. carriers during the second quarter.
Journalists packed Radio City Music Hall tonight for the big reveal, which – as expected – was brought on stage by Samsung's pint-sized pitchman, Jeremy. Samsung's mobile chief, JK Shin, touted the Galaxy S4 as "a life companion for a richer, simpler life."
Shin said.
"We are committed to innovation, we are always listening to learn from people around the world about what kind of progress they really want."
The smartphone will roll out with 327 mobile operators around the world in 155 countries starting at the end of April, he said.
The revamped smartphone, which follows last year's Samsung Galaxy S III and Galaxy Note II is "slimmer yet stronger, less to hold yet more to see, [and] it is simply amazing," according to Shin.
The new Samsung Galaxy S4 (Click Image To Enlarge)
Design and Specs
The Samsung Galaxy S4 is 136.6 by 69.8 by 7.9mm and 130g, the same height but slightly slimmer both in width and depth than the Galaxy S III. The edges are a little squarer than the GS3's, but the phone is still made of plastic.It comes in two colors, "black mist" and "white frost."
There's a 5-inch, 1920-by-1080 Super AMOLED screen on the front with a very tight 441ppi density. New software on board alters the screen's color temperatures based on what kind of content you're looking at, for the best possible view.
The processor inside is either a 1.6-GHz Samsung Exynos 5 Octa or a 1.9-GHz Qualcomm S4 Pro, depending on the country. The phone has 2GB of RAM and either 16, 32 or 64GB of storage, plus a MicroSD card slot. It runs Android 4.2.2.
There's a 13-megapixel camera on the back and a 2-megapixel camera on the front. The cameras can actually be used together to shoot picture-in-picture photos and videos.
For networking, the GS4 has EDGE, HSPA+ 42 and LTE; there will also be a CDMA/LTE version. Wi-Fi 802.11 a/b/g/n/ac, GPS, NFC, Bluetooth 4.0, and MHL are all on board as well. An infrared transmitter lets the phone work with the built-in WatchOn software to function as a TV remote and electronic program guide. The phone will support wireless charging if carriers demand it, the company said.
Tons of New Software
The Galaxy S4 has a huge amount of new software and features beyond the Android baseline.
Samsung's director of product marketing, Ryan Bidan said.
"We wanted to give users a device that really understands what's going on around them."
Samsung groups the new features into four categories.
"Fun" features include a bunch of new camera modes including dual-camera picture-in-picture, time lapse, and animated GIF, and a "sound and shot" mode which lets you record nine seconds of audio with any image. The built-in "Story Album" app lets you combine pictures with location information from TripAdvisor and then print it all as a paper copy through Blurb.
"Relationship" features include Group Play, which lets multiple Galaxy S4 phones play the same music track, show the same photos, or play multiplayer games over Wi-Fi Direct; Asphalt 4 and Gun Bros 2 will be the first two multiplayer games to be supported, Samsung said. S Translator builds language translation into both the email program and Samsung's ChatOn chat program, automatically translating between nine languages.
"Convenience" features include WatchOn, a universal remote control app which works with the phone's IR emitter. It combines data from the Peel electronic program guide along with streaming choices from Netflix, Blockbuster and Samsung's own media store, although it can't access DVRs. Smart Pause pauses videos when you look away. Gesture control lets you scroll the screen or fast-forward music by waving at the screen. Air View lets you preview items like e-mail messages by hovering your finger over them, like you can do with the S Pen on the Galaxy Note. An OCR program reads business cards.
"S Health" features take on Fitbit and its ilk with a built-in pedometer, environmental sensors and diet guide. Samsung will sell Fitbit-like bands for people to wear when they aren't carrying their phones with them, and the biometric data will sync back to S Health, the company said.
All of these features interact with the new Samsung Hub, a unified app, movie, video, book and music store that will appear on Galaxy S4 phones.
No Samsung event would be complete without a theatrical performance. Samsung showed off the Galaxy S4's camera functionality with a scene at an Upper West Side dance studio, where Jeremy's mother was all set with the GS4, but his classmate's dad was out of luck. Then, of course, Jeremy tapped danced – all captured by the new Galaxy S4.
Flash to two friends traveling around the world, which gave Samsung the chance to show off S Translator, as well as photo album options. In concert with blurb, Galaxy S4 owners will be able to order hard copies of their albums for $10-$30 for a 20-page album.
To cut down on the distracted driving, meanwhile, S Voice Drive features bigger fonts and bigger text to speech for drivers. It's intended to serve as an in-car personal assistant, and allows users to respond to texts, calls, and other messages by voice.
For those in cooler climates, meanwhile, the Galaxy S4 works for those wearing gloves.
Availability and Carriers
The Galaxy S IV will come out on all four national U.S. carriers plus U.S. Cellular and Cricket between April and June of this year; Samsung didn't cite a price.
T-Mobile has set up apre-registration page, but the other carriers had few other details about the Galaxy S4 at this point.
Jeff Bradley, senior vice president of devices of AT&T said.
"AT&T was the first to deliver Samsung's Galaxy series and we are excited to bring the Galaxy S4 to the nation's fastest 4G LTE network. We continue to offer our customers a broad choice of devices and features to fit any mobile lifestyle, and look forward to growing our family of Samsung Galaxy devices."
Fared Adib, senior vice president of Product Development at Sprint said.
"Sprint is excited to bring the benefit of Truly UnlimitedSM 4G LTE data to the U.S. variant of Galaxy S 4 in the second quarter of this year. Our customers will appreciate the ability to use Galaxy S 4 to surf the Web, share pictures and videos, and use this smartphone as much as they want without worrying about throttling or overage charges on their monthly bill due to data caps."
COMMENTARY: Let's take a look at a Specifications Comparison between the new Samsung Galaxy S4 versus the iPhone 5, HTC One and BlackBerry Z10 to determine how Samsung's new Galaxy S4 measure up against three major competitors:
Specifications Comparison - Samsung Galaxy S4 vs Apple iPhone 5 vs HTC One vs BlackBerry Z10 (Click Image To Enlarge)
As you can readily conclude from the above Technical Specifications comparison between the Samsung Galaxy S4 and three other leading smartphones -- Apple iPhone 5, HTC One and BlackBerry Z10, the S4 is clearly superior in every major technical specification.
The Samsung Galaxy S4 (left) and the HTC One (Click Image To Enlarge)
The latest slick software accoutrements give the S4 a continuation of the bragging rights it gained when it released the S3. Of special note are the S4's four software features:
"Fun" features, which now includes dual-camera picture-in-picture, time lapse, and animated GIF, and a "sound and shot" mode which lets you record nine seconds of audio with any image. Very cool indeed.
"Relationship" features, which allow users to interact with others by sharing content like multiplayer games, music and photos. This includes Group Play, which lets multiple Galaxy S4 phones play the same music track, show the same photos, or play multiplayer games over Wi-Fi Direct; Asphalt 4 and Gun Bros 2 will be the first two multiplayer games to be supported, Samsung. The S4 comes with Samsung’s S Translator tool that enables you to speak in one language and have the phone translate to another. When someone responded in Chinese, the phone typed out his words in English. It supports several other languages including French, Spanish, Italian and Portugese.
"Convenience" features, provide a storehouse of intuitive and automatic features to help improve the overall S4 owner experience. This includes WatchOn, a universal remote control app which works with the phone's IR emitter to faciliate video stream from Netflix, Blockbuster and Samsung's own media store. My favorite convenience feature is Smart Pause which pauses videos when you look away. The Gesture control lets you scroll the screen or fast-forward music by waving your hand over the screen. The Air View control lets you preview items like e-mail messages by hovering your finger over them, like you can do with the S Pen on the Galaxy Note. An OCR program reads business cards. The S Voice Drive voice recognition feature outclasses Siri. You can ask it to read your email out loud and ask the phone to respond to a text message while you’re driving. Now that's cool.
"S Health" features, provides a built-in pedometer, environmental sensors and diet guide. Samsung will sell Fitbit-like bands for people to wear when they aren't carrying their phones with them, and the biometric data will sync back to S Health, the company said. That's a neat medical device that is sure to attract the attention of athletes and the health conscience.
Although Samsung lost a patent infringement suit against Apple in 2012, and demonstrated stone cold audacity and defiance by paying the settlement in coins -- $2 billion worth -- and delivered by several armored trucks in front of Apple's HQ, it now has the last laugh. It is now giving those arrogant bastards at Apple lessons in innovation and oneupmanship.
It remains to be seen whether Samsung's S4 has climbed to the level of a "super-smartphone" or "best in class," but from what I have seen and read so far, there is no doubt in my mind that Samsung has "raised the bar," finally supplanting Apple when it comes to new smartphone product innovation. Apple's iPhone 5 clearly looks drab, tarnished and very ordinary (albeit with a few differentiators like SIRI), for it is now Samsung that has "put a dent in the Universe" and will make S4 customers "lust" over their new smartphone when they go on sale in April 2013. Makes you kind of wonder "what Steve would've done", doesn't it.....
Courtesy of an article dated March 14, 2013 appearing in PC Magazine and an article dated March 14, 2013 appearing in C|NET
As it turns out, there really is a great future in plastics.
Marius Watz announced to an appreciative crowd at the start of a talk in Brooklyn recently.
“There’s nothing like working with plastic!”
Mr. Watz, a Norwegian-born artist, was describing his work with MakerBot, a new consumer-grade, desktop-size 3-D printer. With some assembly and do-it-yourself tinkering, the MakerBot makes, or “prints,” three-dimensional objects from molten plastic, creating a piggy bank, say, or a Darth Vader head from a computer design at the touch of a button.
Click Images To Enlarge
Mr. Watz said.
“I’d heard about 3-D printing in the ’90s, but at that time it sounded like some sci-fi technology, like laser guns. Basically, it sounded totally awesome.”
“Awesome” was sort of the buzzword at MakerBot’s inaugural open house, held at its warehouselike offices in Gowanus, Brooklyn, where Mr. Watz, its first artist in residence, showed off his sculptural forms (“We just started doing some blobby objects — vaguely disturbing but also awesome”) to a few dozen admirers and MakerBot owners, mostly guys in various stages of nerdy bliss. (“Aaawwwe-some.”)
After a burst of invention by three friends, the company was formed two years ago — “built on caffeine,” said a founder, Bre Pettis — and has since expanded to 32 employees and thousands of MakerBot kits sold. Three-D printing has existed for years, but the machines were cumbersome and expensive, relegated to art and engineering schools, often monopolized by specialists. The MakerBot, which tops out at about $1,300, gives anybody with a computer and an idea the same creative horsepower, and artists are beginning to take notice.
On Saturday 3rd Ward, the Brooklyn arts and design collective, will host a Make-a-Thon, where those interested can play with the Bots and receive miniature 3-D busts of themselves printed by Kyle McDonald, MakerBot’s current artist in residence and an expert in digital scanning.
Click Image To Enlarge
Mr. Pettis, 38, who worked as a middle school art teacher in Seattle before starting the company with Zach Hoeken Smith, 28, and Adam Mayer, 35, hardware and Web developers.
“It’s definitely baked into the DNA of MakerBot that this is a tool for creative people.”
They met at a Brooklyn hacker space.) As part of their mission, MakerBot’s founders also embrace sharing: users are encouraged to post their designs for the machine on a company blog, Thingiverse, where anyone can have access to them, to print or modify.
Mr. Pettis said.
“We’re obsessively open-source.”
Pettis, like many people in the MakerBot universe, speaks with the zeal of the technologically converted.
“In this age of the Internet, the sharers are the people who will come out ahead — the people who make progress and then share it so that other people can stand on their shoulders.”
He knows his audience. John Abella, a MakerBot hobbyist from Huntington, N.Y., came to the open house with a bin full of objects for the show-and-tell.
He said, clutching a brightly colored plastic doodad.
“Almost all these things are things we got off Thingiverse. We have a rabbit that someone put a dragon head on.”
Mr. Abella, 35, who works in network security, said the appeal of MakerBot was that “everybody sees it with their own slant.”
He continued.
“My wife’s friends look at it, and they ask me for cookie cutters in shapes that don’t exist. At work people see it and say, ‘Can that replace the missing part in the company Ping-Pong table?’ ”
Probably, though the MakerBot has its limits — it can print objects that are at most five inches on a side, at relatively low resolution.
Another hobbyist, Ed Hebel, made a carrying case for a single cigarette.
Mr. Hebel, an engineer from upstate New York, demonstrating his little holder, which he invented for the show-and-tell said.
“I go out and I don’t want to take a whole pack of cigarettes. This is called a Lucy. I thought of this like two days ago. I thought for like 20 minutes, and I thought of this. And an hour later, I printed it.”
And shortly after that, it went up on Thingiverse, where, despite Mr. Hebel’s disclaimer that smoking is bad, another user quickly suggested a modification.
As part of its open-source ethos, in its offices MakerBot has a “botfarm” — 18 machines capable of operating almost continuously — that it will give over to worthwhile projects. Michael Felix, a Brooklyn designer, used it to make the hinges for a giant geodesic dome he built for a music video shoot. Noting that nearly 4,500 MakerBots have been sold so far, Mr. Pettis said,
“For artists, it’s kind of like, imagine, you create something that’s a 3-D model, there’s 4,500 different locations in the world where it can seep out of the Internet into the real world and blow people’s minds.”
But the ease of replication does present some questions for art professionals.
Mr. Watz, who is represented by the DAM gallery in Berlin, noted dryly at the open house.
“Art is not traditionally an open-source practice.”
Nonetheless, he posted some of his technical specs on Thingiverse, explaining that he didn’t want to take advantage of the generous community spirit there without giving back.
And as a digitally oriented artist, Mr. Watz said, he had long questioned the art market’s economy of scarcity, even if he participated in it with limited-edition designs. For prospective buyers, he does offer to sign his MakerBot work, which brings up another question. He mused,
“What is the real value of my signature on the object? When I’m trying to model with the MakerBot, I don’t consider that printed model the final product. It’s the process that is the significant part.”
Some Bot artists are just excited about the machine’s practical applications. David Bell and Joe Scarpulla have been laboring for years on a stop-motion animated film and photo series with an elaborate, labor-intensive miniature set. On a whim, Mr. Bell and Mr. Scarpulla bought a MakerBot — a “CupCake” model, which costs about $700 — and found it to be a good fit as a custom manufacturer.
Mr. Bell said.
“Our first successful prop was a miniature toilet bowl. We’re outfitting an entire apartment in 1/8 scale. So far we’ve done sinks and light sockets, a bathtub and pots and pans.”
Including the painstaking design process and troubleshooting, using the Bot takes the same amount of time as hand carving, Mr. Scarpulla added, “but the results are definitely better.”
Now they are imagining other things they can use their machine for, on a much bigger scale. Mr. Bell said.
“It opens up a lot of opportunities.”
That sentiment was echoed by Mr. Watz and Mr. McDonald and visible on a tour of MakerBot headquarters, known as the Botcave. In the front, by the whirring Botfarm, is a vending machine of Bot-extruded plastic bangles. Employees sit behind stacks of products with high-tech Seussian names, like Thingomatic Gen. 4 Subkit for Stepper Drivers V 3.3.
Little plastic doohickeys and thingamabobs cover many surfaces. (A new employee recalled being told to print out his own coat hook.) Mr. McDonald, 25, comes nearly every day to work on his MakerBot project, which turns the Kinect, an inexpensive 3-D scanner and Xbox accessory, into a miniature replicator. Though his previous work was theoretical — his background is in computer science and philosophy, which translated to an interest in “democratizing technology,” he said — playing with plastics and engaging with other Bot fiends has changed his focus.
He said.
“Now I think about physical things. I spend a lot of time thinking, how can these systems be used in an interactive way? It’s basically my full-time job to inspire myself and others. It doesn’t pay very well, but I’m happy.”
COMMENTARY: MakerBot Industries makes 3D printers for creating finished products and prototypes. The company makes the following products:
MakerBot Thing-O-Matic® 3D Printer - A kit you can assemble to create the latest in cutting edge personal manufacturing technology. Includes the new StepStruder® MK7 Complete Upgrade! PRICE: $1.099.00. Allow 3 weeks for delivery.
Click Image To Enlarge
Click Image To Enlarge
Here's a time lapse video that shows how to assemble the MakerBot Thing-O-Matic 3D Printer kit.
Here's the MakerBot Thing-O-Matic in action printing a Buddha head. It took 1 hour and 13 minutes to print the Buddha, but the video speeded it up considerably. That's so cool.
MakerBot Replicator™ - The ultimate personal 3D printer, with single or dual extrusion (2-color printing)--and a bigger printing footprint, giving you the superpower to print things BIG! Comes pre-assembled. PRICE: $1,749.00 (single extruder) and $1,999.00 (dual-extruder) Pre-Orders Only - Allow 6 weeks.
Click Image To Enlarge
In this video Bre Pettis, CEO and Co-founder of Makerbot Industries, reveals the newest generation of MakerBots - The Replicator! This is the first footage of The Replicator ever to made visible to the public! Find out what makes The Replicator awesome and why you are going to want one!
January 9, 2012 was a big day for the newly launched MakerBot Replicator™ when it was unveiled at the world famous Computer & Electronics Show (CES) 2012 in Las Vegas. The latest in open source 3D printing features the ability to use two print heads for two-clor printing or printing with dissolving support material. Not only does this printer feature the largest build area ever for a MakerBot, but best of all it ships to you fully assembledand ready for printing! For more info check out these great posts!
Here's MakerBot Industries' press release for CES 2012:
MakerBot Industries
MakerBot Industries is excited to announce the launch of its latest product, The MakerBot Replicator™, which will debut at CES in Las Vegas, NV on Tuesday, January 10th.
The MakerBot Replicator™ is the ultimate personal 3D printer, with MakerBot Dualstrusion™ (2-color printing) and a bigger printing footprint, giving you the superpower to print things BIG! Assembled in Brooklyn by skilled technicians, the MakerBot Replicator™ is ready within minutes to start printing right out of the box. At $1749 for a single extruder and $1999 for a dual extruder, The MakerBot Replicator™ is an affordable, open source 3D printer that is compact enough to sit on your desktop.
With a build envelope that's roughly the size of a loaf of bread, The MakerBot Replicator™ gives you the power to go big. Make an entire chess set with the press of a button. Friends, classmates, co-workers, and family will see the things you make and say "Wow!"
The MakerBot Replicator™ creates anything you can imagine with the new MakerBot Stepstruder™ MK8, the extruder is the part of the machine that turns raw feedstock, like ABS (what Lego® is made of) or PLA (a biodegradable material made from corn), into the objects you desire. You can order your MakerBot Replicator™ with single or dual MakerBot Stepstruders on it. By choosing the dual extrusion option, you'll print with two different colors at the same time. MakerBot Dualstrusion™ unlocks the ability to make beautiful combinations of colors and opens the door to experimenting with multi-material objects.
Today, MakerBot Industries re-launches Thingiverse.com, the website that allows you to share your designs and download files for thousands of models turning your ideas into real, physical objects. It's now easier than ever to share your digital designs! Thingiverse users will notice a new look and better organization for Thing pages and User profiles, as well as improved search and navigation making it easier to find what you're looking for. The updated Thing sharing process allows you to share designs faster with the "I Made One" button and use the new "I Made a Derivative" button to show off your mashups!
The MakerBot Replicator™ is ideal for personalized manufacturing, providing a new way to make the things you want and need. It is also an essential tool for children and students; parents and educators with a MakerBot Replicator™ offer the next generation an opportunity to learn the digital designing skills required to solve the problems of the future. Students with access to a MakerBot have an edge in the future job market. Just like the youth of the 1980's, who had access to computers, children with access to a MakerBot Replicator™ will become the leaders who make a better tomorrow.
The MakerBot Replicator™ is the tool from tomorrow, today. In the two years since the company was founded, the capabilities of a MakerBot have grown from printing cupcake-sized objects in 2009 to printing things as large as an entire loaf of bread today on on the MakerBot Replicator™. MakerBot Industries continues to demonstrate its dedication to putting the tools of creativity into the hands of the those brilliant and bold enough to bring their imagination into the physical world.
The 2012 International CES in Las Vegasruns from January 10-13 and the CES convention and exhibit takes place at the Las Vegas Convention Center in Las Vegas, Nevada. Tickets at the gate are $200.00 for individuals who did not pre-register. MakerBot's booth is located in section South 4, Booth 36839. To locate MakerBot's booth or the booth of other exhibitor's an interactive floor plan can be found HERE. To enhance your experience you can download the official CES app for your iPhone or iPod Touch HERE.
If you own a MakerBot Thing-O-Matic or have seen the new MakerBot Replicator™ in action, we welcome your feedback.
Courtesy of an article dated May 14, 2011 appearing in the New York Times and an article dated January 9, 2012 appearing in Engadget
Recent Comments