Microsoft: Windows Phone 7.8 is Coming in Early 2013

Microsoft’s Windows Phone 7.8, the next iteration of the WP7 platform, is coming in early 2013, the company announced Wednesday.
The news disproves a recent rumor that pegged the release for Nov. 28, though Microsoft did publish a blog postt revealing the actual launch time on that day.
In the post, Microsoft says the Windows Phone 7.8 update is coming to WP7.5 devices, but that there will also be new devices launched with the new OS, mostly at lower price points.
The post also mentions several of the most important (and mostly already publicized) new features in 7.8, including resizable Live Tiles, double the number of theme and accent colors (now totaling 20), Bing-adorned lock screen and — finally — the ability to set up a PIN/password that protects accidental wiping of devices connected to Exchange accounts.
The update likely won’t be available to all users at once. Microsoft says it’s working closely with its hardware and carrier partners to bring it to “as many devices as possible” in early 2013.

Kinect-like technology turns any surface into a touchscreen

Technology projects a touchscreen onto your hand, clothes, a wall, or any surface, so you can operate your phone without removing it from your pocket.

 

Imagine a world where any surface could potentially become a touchscreen for your phone: your hands, clothes, a wall or table. That's the vision behind a new Kinect-like technology called OmniTouch, a wearable system that projects any multi-touch interface onto everyday surfaces,

 

Perhaps the most convenient aspect of the technology is how it can be operated on the go, requiring no special calibration for each new surface it is used on. The system adapts easily to surfaces of most textures in 3D space, so it works even when the surface is not flat, such as with your hand, or perhaps a tree trunk.

 

The technology, which is primarily composed of a shoulder-mounted depth camera and a Pico-projector, was developed by researchers at Microsoft and is a vast improvement over previous prototypes that could only work on skin. A user study of the technology showed that dragging performance and touch accuracy approached the sensitivity of conventional touchscreens.

 

The device also allows for user flexibility far beyond the capability of your phone or tablet. For instance, users can choose the position and size of the projected interface, meaning that they can adjust the size of the screen to better suite their needs and eyesight. OmniTouch is also itself capable of intelligently choosing the best display setting, so the user doesn't have to readjust with each new surface.

 

The only inconvenient aspect of the prototype is the bulkiness of the camera and projector, which are mounted on a user's shoulder like a large parrot. The good news, though, is that future prototypes are expected to be much smaller, closer to the size of a matchbox.

Mozilla ships Firefox with H.264 support on Android

New Firefox version uses hardware support to avoid patent license fees.

 The Firefox browser is now shipping with support for HTML5 videos compressed with the H.264 codec to users of Android 4.1 (Jelly Bean) and Samsung phones with Android 4.0 (Ice Cream Sandwich).

This is the first time the open source browser has supported the widely used video codec. Firefox's developer, Mozilla, was reluctant to support H.264 because the open standard was not available on a royalty free basis; implementers of decoders have to pay for a license to use the various patents that cover H.264. Instead, the group hoped the Google-owned VP8 codec would suffice; a hope buoyed by Google's announcement that Chrome would drop its support for H.264 and concentrate on VP8.
Google never did remove H.264 from Chrome—the browser supports it to this day—and a substantial fraction, possibly 80 percent or more of HTML5 video on the Web uses the H.264 codec. The growth of mobile platforms made the demand for H.264 support even more acute: hardware acceleration of H.264 decompression is all but universal on mobile devices and taking advantage of this hardware support is essential for providing acceptable battery life.

These concerns led Mozilla to changeits policy in March and start work on providing H.264 support in Firefox. The group is sidestepping the licensing concerns by taking advantage of the system frameworks provided on Android that expose the hardware accelerated H.264 features. By leaving the decoding up to the hardware, Mozilla also leaves the license costs up to the hardware suppliers.
The result? H.264 in Firefox on Android just works, though support is currently limited on pre-Android 4.1 devices due to bugs. Mozilla plans to enable support for Android 2.3 (Gingerbread) and 3.x (Honeycomb) devices in due course.
H.264 support won't be limited to mobile devices, either. Work is also under way to support H.264 in desktop Firefox, using Media Foundation in Windows Vista, 7, and 8, GStreamer in Linux, and AV foundation in OS X.

If Samsung doesn't supply Apple's processors, who will?

Switching foundries isn't easy, says an analyst. It's going to take years and cost billions.

FORTUNE -- Samsung, believe it or not, is still the sole supplier of the processors that run every iPhone, iPad and iPod touch that Apple (AAPL) sells.
On the assumption that Tim Cook will not want to be forever dependent on a company that he claims has stolen Apple's intellectual property and as everyone can see is rapidly gobbling up its market shares, RBC Capital's Amit Daryanani took a look Friday at Apple's alternatives.
It's not going to be easy to switch suppliers, he writes. Apple did most of the heavy lifting on the A6 chips in the current generation of iPhones and iPads -- designing the processors in-house and paying Samsung to manufacture them. Nonetheless, moving its business to a different foundry would require, according to Daryanani, "a complete redo" that would take a minimum of 12 to 18 months, cost a fortune and not produce marketable chips before 2014. New fabs start at $1-3 billion. In 2010, TSMC budgeted $9.3 billion to build a massive chip foundry in central Taiwan.
So where might Apple take its business? Daryanani offers four possibilities: (I quote his spec-heavy prose)

• Intel (INTC): According to our Semiconductor analyst (Doug Freedman) Intel has 3 foundry partners including Achronix, Tabula and Netronome. Intel is currently ahead of ARM by 1.5 generations plus FinFET, comparing 22nm x86 SoCs to Apple's ARM-based 32nm. This gap could widen as Intel moves into 14nm production in 2014. Notable dynamic would be by becoming a foundry for AAPL it may dilute its own mobile ambitions. Conversely, this gives INTC a shot at getting AAPL to use x86 based chip down the road.
• TSMC (TSM): Our SemiCap Equipment analyst (Mahesh Sanganeria) believes AAPL may begin using TSMC fabs to manufacture chips starting in 2014 as they transition to 20nm production. TSMC may potentially raise CAPEX by $1-3B as the company starts processing wafers for AAPL. AAPL may co-invest with TSMC much as it does with other suppliers to ease TSMC's capex burden.
• GlobalFoundries: Another possibility would be using GlobalFoundries, who is already working with ARM to build 20nm chips based on ARM-design. AAPL could co-invest to ramp-up dedicated fabs with them for production.
• Go Vertical: A low probability, but AAPL could decide to go vertical and build their own fabs. This is unlikely as AAPL has maintained an asset-light manufacturing model while keeping key design elements inhouse

iTunes 11 Finally Available for Download

At long last, iTunes 11 is finally available for download.
Apple was originally supposed to release iTunes 11 — a total revamp of the longstanding music and apps manager in October. The launch was then delayed because of “engineering difficulties.”
Reports surfaced earlier this week that Apple would release iTunes 11 within its promised November timeframe.

Since its debut in 2001, iTunes has morphed from a standard music player into something larger and more complex. It’s no longer just a music player, it’s also an App store, a music and movies store and a way to manage iPod, iPhone and iPad devices. In other words, iTunes has become a bloated,slow,unwieldity mess.

Whether or not iTunes 11 can solve all these problems is unclear. We’ll report back later with a full hands-on review. In the meantime, Mac users can grab the update from Software Update and on Windows by having iTunes “Check for Updates.”
The software is also available for download directly from Apple — though the download links may take a few minutes to propagate

Android App Revenue Growing Faster Than iOS’

Revenue from apps on Google Play — Android’s official app store — grew a massive 311% between October 2011 and October 2012, according to a report released Thursday by App Annie, an app analytics company. In comparison, iOS revenue grew just 12.9% over the same 12 months.
Despite that growth, in October 2012 global revenue from the iOS App Store was four times larger than Google Play’s. App Annie was unable to disclose any actual financial number in the report.
“The gap between global revenues on iOS and Google Play is still there,” says Bertrand Schmitt, CEO, App Annie. “But the gap is shrinking every month, creating more opportunities for publishers to generate significant revenue growth in several countries on Google Play.”
The numbers are different when it comes to free downloads. Google Play grew 48% over the 12-month period, while iOS grew only 3.3%.

Thursday’s App Annie Index was the first in what will be a series of monthly series reports from the company on app analytics.
According to App Annie, the top 10 iOS publishers by revenue for October 2012 are: Electronic Arts, Supercell, Zynga, Gameloft, Apple, Applibot, SQUARE ENIX, GungHo Online Entertainment, Kabam and Gree.
On Android, top performers were: DeNA Co., COLOPL, GungHoOnlineEntertainment , WeMade Entertainment, LTD, Zynga, GAMEVIL, Gree, NAVER, Gameloft and NextFloor.
Zynga was the only company to make the top 10 list for both iOS and Android. The top lists from each platform include several developers who only have one or two high-performing apps, as well as a few who have more than 50 apps in their library.
“We can also see from the data that app publishers have two options when it comes to becoming a global app store success -– distributing a large quantity of apps, or marketing one or two high-quality apps,” says Schmitt. “Both business models are working – from large publishers including EA and Zynga, which have been able to scale, to smaller publishers such as Supercell, which had runaway success last month with Clash of Clans.”
 Japan overtook the United States in Google Play revenue in October 2012, making it the first month that the U.S. did not rank number one on the platform. On iOS, the U.S was still on top accounting for 32.7% of ad revenue to Japan’s 14.1%.

“What has become clear from App Annie’s first Index is that while iOS took home more of the global revenue pie in October, the rising adoption of Google Play in Asian markets, including South Korea and Japan, is already driving major revenue growth opportunities on the platform,” says Schmitt.

As more devices hit the market, those numbers are only going to grow larger.
You can check out the full App Annie index on the company's website



What do you think App Annie’s findings say about the app industry as a whole? Let us know your thoughts in the comments.

 Image courtesy of iStockphoto, juniorbeep

Apple Will Reportedly Start Selling Unlocked iPhones As Early As Tonight In The U.S.

 Apple has yet to release the unlocked iPhone 5 in the U.S., even though early on they let images leak depicting pricing of that device on its website. Now a new report from 9t05Mac claims that the company will start selling unlocked iPhones as early as tonight via its online store, with physical retail availability coming shortly thereafter. As we reported at launch,unlocked pricing for iPhone will be $649, $749 and $849 respectively for the 16GB, 32GB and 64GB versions.
9to5Mac’s generally solid retail sources say that the phone will be made available unlocked beginning around 9 PM PT tonight at the earliest, and that physical stores will have them “soon,” but haven’t received a firm starting date for sales as of yet. The report does claim that unlocked device inventory is already making its way out to retail locations, however, in advance of being put on sale. Finally, their sources also indicate that customers will start being able to reserve devices ahead of time anytime, rather than just after 10 PM, as is the current practice.
Unlocked devices are on the market through Apple in other markets, like the Canadian store. These come SIM-unlocked, meaning you can use them with the carrier and plan of your choice. Customers still have to ensure that the version of the iPhone they pick up is compatible with the network of their choosing. In the U.S., Apple offers two versions of the iPhone, one that works with Sprint and Verizon 4G networks, and one that works with AT&T frequencies. It’s unclear from this report whether both versions will be made available unlocked, but hopefully we’ll find out later this evening.

Windows 8 Impact on Tablet, PC Sales Minimal: NPD

Microsoft’s long-awaited operating system Windows 8 is not having a massive impact on PC and tablet sales, the NPD Group found.

 Excluding sales of Microsoft’s much buzzed about Surface tablet, the consumer Windows PC and tablet market didn’t get the boost it needed from the launch of Microsoft’s Windows 8 in the U.S, according to a report from IT industry analyst The NPD Group.

Since the Windows 8 launch on October 26, Windows device sales have fallen 21 percent versus the same period last year, according to NPD Group’s Weekly Tracking Service, comprised a subset panel of retailers. However, average selling prices (ASP) of Windows computing devices have jumped significantly this year. This year’s ASP over the past four weeks rose to $477 from last year’s overall ASP of $433.

The report also found notebooks, which have been weak throughout most of 2012, saw that trend continue, falling nearly a quarter (24 percent compared with the same period last year. However, desktop sales have fared better this year, dropping just 9 percent. Windows 8 tablet sales have been almost non-existent, with unit sales representing less than one percent of all Windows 8 device sales to date, according to the report.
Windows 8 notebooks have seen a nearly $80 rise in selling prices versus the prior year, propelled  by the aforementioned strong performance of touchscreen devices and a solid uptick in the pricing on mainstream notebooks. Windows 8 desktop ASPs were also strong with selling prices up nearly 10 percent, driven by the same factors as notebook sales, the report revealed.

“After just four weeks on the market, it’s still early to place blame on Windows 8 for the ongoing weakness in the PC market,” NPD Group’s vice president of industry analysis Stephen Baker said.  “We still have the whole holiday selling season ahead of us, but clearly Windows 8 did not prove to be the impetus for a sales turnaround some had hoped for.”

Since its launch, Windows 8, the latest version of Microsoft’s ubiquitous operating system, has captured a little more than half (58 percent) of Windows computing device unit sales, compared to the 83 percent Windows 7 accounted for four weeks after that launch.

 “The bad Back-to-School period left a lot of inventory in the channel, which had a real impact on the initial sell-through rates for Windows 8,” Baker said. “The strong performance of Windows 8 notebooks with touchscreens, where Windows 8 truly shines, offers some reason for optimism.  These products accounted for 6 percent of Windows 8 notebook sales at an average price of $867 helping to re-establish a premium segment to the Windows consumer notebook market.”

The report follows a proclamation on Nov. 28 by bombastic Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer, who said that the company sold 40 million licenses for the new operating system in its first month of availability. However, Ballmer, speaking at Microsoft’s annual shareholders meeting, didn’t clarify whether the licenses were sold to original equipment manufacturers (OEMs) or to consumers who bought the OS or a new Windows 8 computer.

How a fake Google news story spread online

  It was big news in the tech world -- or at least it would have been if it had been true.

Google, so the story went, had purchased ICOA, a Wi-Fi provider, for $400 million. Some news organizations pounced, with everyone from long-established outlets like The Associated Press to new-media tech blogs like TechCrunch reporting the news Monday.

But hours later, both companies would deny the story, which PR Web, a site that distributes press releases for a fee, says was planted by someone falsely claiming to represent ICOA

Hoaxes have slipped their way into the public eye for as long as journalism has existed. But media experts say the way bad information spread so quickly casts a light on how reporting can go wrong in the fast-paced world of Web journalism.

 Long gone are the days when newspapers and the evening TV news were the only game in town -- when reporters had hours, if not days, to sift through a report before sharing it with the masses. In their place is an info-hungry Web that wants news now and rewards the quick with a currency of page views, Twitter links and Facebook "likes."

"With something like this, there are a lot of blogs and websites that build their reputation on the tech world," said Kelly McBride, a senior faculty member at the Povnter institute a nonprofit devoted to the study and teaching of journalism.

"If Google is spending $400 million to buy something, there are people who are expected to have something to say about that and they want to be in that mix."

 The Onion:We just fool the Chinese Government

While a rush to get into that mix as quickly as possible probably played a role, McBride said there were multiple breakdowns in the Google-ICOA nonstory.

The first, obviously, was the person who -- according to PR Web owners Vocus -- impersonated an ICOA representative.

"Vocus reviews all press releases and follows an internal process designed to maintain the integrity of the releases we send out every day," the company said in a written statement. "Even with reasonable safeguards identity theft occurs, on occasion, across all of the major wire services. We have removed the fraudulent release and turned the matter over to the proper authorities for further investigation."

Vocus did not respond to messages Tuesday and Wednesday seeking further comment.Financial experts say the hoax looks like an illegal effort to inflate ICOA's meager stock. Shares, which trade for a fraction of a penny, jumped in price dramatically Monday and hundreds of millions of shares changed hands before the stock was frozen.

ICOA CEO George Strouthopoulos told Mashable a CNN content partner, that the release apparently originated in Aruba and was sent from an e-mail account designed to look like an official ICOA address.

But the most damning gaffe may have been PR Web's, McBride said.

Acquired by Vocus in 2006, PR Web aims to compete with the decades-old PR Newswire and other press-release outlets.

"Their quality-control process in printing out press releases obviously has some problems," McBride said. "It's not just that they got 'hacked' -- but that it was a pretty crappy press release."

The release had several grammatical errors, included no contact information for representatives of Google or ICOA, and didn't include biographical information about the companies that is typical in releases from major corporations.

In a post title"How PRWeb helps distribute crap into Google and News Sites" Danny Sullivan of Search Engine Land searched PR Web and found one of the Internet's ubiquitous "how to buy cheap Viagra" posts and other content that would seem more at home in a spam e-mail than on a news site.

The final error, McBride said, was on the part of reporters. Whether racing to publish fast or working on analysis of the supposed purchase, news outlets missed what should have been red flags.

"Journalists who were looking at it should have spotted those same weak spots in the press release and questioned whether it was real or not," she said. "Those journalists were relying on PR Web to do that and they shouldn't have.

"It would be easy to conclude that we're all going too fast. But it could be that we placed way too much trust in PR Web ... and assuming it had the same checks and balances and safety nets that other PR wires have."

(Full disclosure: Last year, this reporter, like others at numerous news outlets, was druped by pranksterswho created an entire website for a fictional consulting firm to release a phony survey comparing the IQs of users of various Web browsers.)

Perhaps helping push the fake ICOA story, McBride said, was the Web's ability to share news stories in real time.

"Once one organization does it, other organizations tend to place even more blind faith," she said. "Once the AP (for example) does it, then everyone does it."

The Associated Press retracted and issued a correction for the story. When contacted, an AP spokeswoman referred CNN to the wire services retraction which cited ICOA and "a person close to Google" as saying the original report was untrue.

TechCrunch apologized to its readers, both owning up to the error and appearing to take a shot at PR Web in the process.

"We were wrong on this post, for not following up with Google and the other company involved but posting rather than ... waiting on a solid confirmation beforehand from either source," read an editor's note atop the original post. "We apologize to our readers, to the companies involved, and we'll be sure to act in a more responsible manner for future stories, rather than trusting the word of a website that doesn't necessarily hold itself up to any journalistic standards."

Forbes and Reuters were among the other news outlets that reported the fake purchase, as were popular tech sites PC Magazine, The Next Web, Business Insider, Engadget, VentureBeat, The Verge and GigaOM. Other outlets, like MSNBC and USA Today, ran the Associated Press account.

10 Mobile Apps to Control Your TV

1. XBMC

You don't need a separate piece of hardware — just a computer that can talk to your TV. Download this remote for your Android phone and run all of your media through the set with the help of the XBMC SOFTWARE HUB just like you would with a dedicated set-side device.
Control From: Android
Price: FREE

2. Re Universal Remote Control

Check out the funky buttons (just one of many options). This TV control app talks to its own infrared accessory as an intermediary, bringing your iPhone into the picture as the control panel for the TV. You'll also have access to re-compatible DVD players, audio equipment and the like. The app itself is free.
Control From: iOS
Price: $59.95 – $79.95

3. Google TV Remote

If your TV is equipped with Google TV integration, the free remote app puts every function at your fingertips, from powering up and down to voice-searching your content.
Control From: Android
Price: FREE

4. ArkMC DLNA UnpP

Way more than a simple TV remote — though it does that well, too — this app can play material from your PC, your Xbox360 and even stream video from a separate camera to the screen.
Control From: Android
Price: $3.99

5. Sony Media Remote

While it's not tied to any one piece of hardware, this remote is designed to push content from dozens of compatible Sony TVs, Blu-ray players and receivers. It can catch and throw websites from phone to set, and it becomes a gamepad when you play via Sony Internet TV.
Control From: Android
Price: FRE

6. VIERA Remote

Many Panasonic sets are equipped to run from your smartphone via VIERA, which allows you to not only switch channels and play content, but also gives you full touchpad interaction with all the set's settings. Of course, you can push pictures and video from your iOS device to the screen, and you can even browse the web with your TV as the monitor.
Control From: Android and IOS
Price: FREE

7. Samsung Remote

Another brand-designed, full-function remote for your smartphone, with web integration and features designed to allow you to pull content from online sources. Smart TV is the concept, and these apps are the core of the implementation.
Control From: Android and IOS
Price: FREE

8. PEEL

With the help of a battery-powered, pear-shaped device that pairs with the TV, your iPhone becomes a browser. The Peels sorts content into graphical tiles, grouped by genre. These are fully customizable and couple with the concept of on-board Peel curation.
Control From: Android and iOS
Price: Approx. $100

9. Beacon

From the Beacon hub, placed in the room with your set, your Android or iOS-equipped phone becomes a full media remote. Beacon will work with your TV, stereo and any media component that its Dijit software knows or can learn.
Control From: iOS and Android
Price: $69.99

10. VLC Media Player

There's absolutely nothing to buy. This media player and remote app combo runs from your PC or OS system to your linked set. It's all powered by the non-profit open source multimedia wizards at the VideoLAN Organization.
Control From: iOS and Android
Price: FREE

Online-Only Bank Simple Adds Photo-Check Deposits

Saying it's "beyond excited" by the news, online-only alternative bank Simple has updated its iPhone app with a new power: it now lets you simply snap a picture of a cheek you want to deposit, and Simple's tech will identify all the right details and perform the transaction for you.

 It's simply the next step in Simple's plan to fully replace your traditional bank with something much more 21st Century. As Simple points out a check is just a "piece of paper with your bank account information on it, instructing your bank to allow the bearer to withdraw a designated amount of your money. It’s one of the most basic ways we have to abstract money." But while checks once revolutionized payments by giving a new alternative to cash, processing them nowadays--actually hand-checking, stamping, posting the things around--costs money that outweighs the costs associated with a digital payment card payment. Checks are basically out of date. In some places, such as Portugal, it's now nearly impossible to pay with them. There are a few hoops to jump through to use the new system on Simple, such as snapping both the front and back of the check and popping your account number on the back too, but until the wonderful world of mobile payments is with us, this is a great step forward. Some folks are already excited:

Facebook Gives New Mobile Page Ads More Color And Context To Make Every Pixel Count

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You scrolled right past the old design for Facebook’s “Pages You Might Like” mobile ads. Too much gray, not enough description. But they just got updated to show colorful banners and explain what a business does. Their designer Jeff Kanter thinks you’ll stop to give them a look. Maybe even a tap. With style and targeting, Facebook is turning limited mobile ad space into its secret weapon.


 As a product manager for the news feed ads team, Kanter’s job is to convey the messages of Facebook’s advertisers in a way that doesn’t interrupt the Facebook experience. To make sure he’s on the right track, Kanter tells me “we dogfood all these different ad experiences with employees first. We’ll give feedback, make tweaks, identify bugs, and then roll out a small external test.”


Next, Facebook watches to make sure they don’t anger the users. Kanter tells me “There are dedicated teams and people here who spend all day every day thinking about this, measuring sentiment and engagement carefully.”
Facebook only started showing ads on mobile in March, so it’s still figuring things out. “We’ve learned a lot this year and are continuing to learn. We’ve found that the news feed ads experience is pretty different from the right-column ads experience we’ve been working on for many years now, and we have already made a bunch of adjustments.”

Overall, the ads business is doing well, and Facebook is poised to rake in a ton of sales over the holidays. Facebook adtech developer Nanigan'swill be releasing data later today noting that the cost per click that advertisers paid Facebook over the Black Friday / Cyber Monday shopping weekend was up 25% compared to earlier in November, and ad rates are now twice as high as in 2010.
But the future hinges on mobile. Since Facebook’s IPO, everyone has been terrified that th shift to mobile would kill its ads business. Critics seem to be ignoring a important fact about the intersection of advertising and mobile design: If you have less room to show ads, each of those ads must be more eye-catching and relevant to the viewer.

Every web advertising company has to weather this same storm. However, Facebook has extraordinarily powerful ways to address these two needs that could keep it afloat while everyone else sinks.

First, Facebook has your friends’ names and faces. They’re inherently eye-catching. Second, it knows more about more people than practically any website or even government. Your age, gender, location, interests, the device you use, the apps you play with, and who your friends are. That means if it can only show you one ad, it’s more likely to be for something you actually want.
Kanter used both of these assets to make Facebook’s revamped “Pages You Might Like” ads better. Rather than suggesting three different businesses at a time, the new ad unit relies on Facebook’s targeting to show just one highly relevant Page. Beyond just showing the name of one friend who already Likes the Page, the ad shows the number of other people who Like it, providing a stronger peer recommendation. “If all these people Like it and so do my friends, maybe I will too.”
Facebook has also improved the visual feel of the ads without burdening the advertiser by pulling in creative materials straight from the Page. Instead of just a tiny thumbnail of the Page’s profile picture, the ad takes its cover image and overlays a larger profile pic. Since covers are supposed to be big, beautiful images that generally represent a Page’s identity, they work well in the ads and can often give them a splash of color.
Finally, there’s a big “Like Page” button at the bottom to convert interest into a subscription. Kanter sums up how the new design makes much better use of a small space, saying “instead of showing three at a time, we show one with more context, and a more prominent call to action.”
Personally, I think these ads look great. Those succulent green apples in the Jasper’s Market ad up top are much more eye catching than the old gray box or Jasper’s profile pic alone. Facebook recently launched a similar redesign of its mobile app featuring big banners and descriptions of what an app or game does to replace the low-content “Try These Apps” design that showed just a profile pic and an often cut-off blurb.
Beyond these designs, Kanter tells me “We’re also testing a bunch of different features for mobile ads, including Page and app categories and descriptions, social context, headers, and more. Friends’ faces are currently used more on desktop…and though we’re not currently testing these outside of sponsored stories for mobile, it might be something we could consider in the future.”
Facebook is slowly transitioning into a mobile ad company. 14% of its revenue last quarter came from the small screen and adtech startups tell me brands are lining up to buy mobile inventory. That’s pretty impressive since I think the old mobile ad designs weren’t very compelling. Now Wall Street finally seems confident enough to start betting on the future of Facebook’s mobile ad business, and this is what it will look like.

Windows 8 upgrade tips you’ll wish you knew before the leap

Learn before you leap with tips from a Windows 8 vet who’s been there, done that. And messed it up a few times along the way.

I’ve now installed Windows 8 five times. Some installations have gone amazingly well, and one went horribly awry, bricking an entire PC. Having experienced the best and worst Windows 8 has to offer, let provide some recommendations on how to upgrade with the least pain possible.

.0 products

Windows 8 is what we call a “.0” product, the first in what will be a new series. The last time Apple did a .0 product was the move to OS X, which is why recent upgrades seem to be relatively painless. Microsoft makes major changes far more often, generally to address critical security holes and to catch up with leaps forward in hardware.

Microsoft’s past .0 products have included Vista, Windows 2000, and Windows 95; all came with plenty of teething pains. Having experienced all of those (I once bricked my CEO’s laptop with Windows 95 accidentally) my standard recommendation is to not upgrade early to any .0 product unless you are willing to experience some pain.

Having said that, Windows 8 has generally performed far better than any .0 product I’ve so far experienced but, for most thinking about upgrading existing hardware, I’d recommend waiting at least a quarter so most of the hardware incompatibilities and other issues have been corrected.

The best path early on is to simply buy something that already is running the OS, because it has been tested at several levels. To date, every Windows 8 machine I’ve been sent has performed flawlessly.

Bricking a PC

The worst experience I had was with a very high-end, very unique PC that Intel had sent over to showcase extreme performance. I figured if Windows 8 would upgrade this machine, it could upgrade any machine. Turns out it can’t.

The upgrade seemed to work, but I noticed that the one of the USB systems was constantly failing and resetting, so clearly the system didn’t like one of the drivers. I started to perform a clean installation (deleting the partitions and loading the system fresh), but that resulted in blue screens of death and the installation wouldn’t complete.

Lesson learned: With a very highly customized system, there is a risk right now that Windows 8 won’t complete installation. The fix will be to swap out the motherboard with one that is Windows 8 certified, and the problem will clear. If you want to try anyway, make sure you take a full system image copy of your drive so you can restore it back to the way it was if Windows 8 doesn’t work. Because I hadn’t done that, I didn’t have this option.

Wrecking a laptop

Windows 8 uses the edges of the screen (or a touchscreen) to bring up menus. Many laptops that shipped before Windows 8 (if not most) have raised edges around the pad as a design feature, or are “center weighted” to prevent accidentally moving the cursor while you type. Both these features work poorly with Windows 8. Finally, multi-touch touchpads are still rare, and Windows 8 without a good touchpad sucks in use. You can use a mouse, it’s far from ideal. Products like this are better off left running Windows 7.

Upgrading versus installing from scratch

Generally, I advise a clean installation. It cleans out your PC of all the crap that you’ve loaded, both on purpose and accidentally from malware (unless you have installed a root kit). While it takes longer, the end result is much closer to a brand new system. However, you have to reinstall all of your apps. An upgrade leaves in place all of your apps, and Windows 8 has the best upgrade process I’ve ever seen from Microsoft.

That said, I think it is even more important to do a clean installation with Windows 8. This is because if you choose to install new apps from the Windows Store going forward, you can easily migrate these apps and get the benefits of clean installation, plus the speed of an “in place” upgrade. Going from Windows 8 to Windows 9, 10 and so on will go much more easily if you make a clean break from Windows 7 and embrace Windows 8 apps. The exception, ironically, is Microsoft Office, which won’t fit this model until the Windows 9 timeframe.

On my last system, I put together the hardware, installed Windows 8 and Office, and was in full production in under two hours. That’s going from a bare case and parts, all in separate boxes, to an up and running PC on my desk. I’m convinced that if I didn’t screw around (I had some issues with a cheap power supply I had to address), I could do it in under an hour. Historically it takes me around four hours to do the same thing, and even then, all my settings and files aren’t fully in place for several days.

Acquiring the OS

While the installation may be simpler, choosing a package to install is more confusing this year. If you buy an upgrade package, you get Windows 8 Pro, if you install on fresh hardware or you are buying a new PC, chances are it comes with plain Windows 8. (Personally, I have yet to miss any of the features that are uniquely in Pro.) Even more confusing: If you upgrade Windows 8 to Pro, you get Media Center, but if you upgrade to Pro or put Pro on a new system, you don’t. If you download the Windows 8 Pro upgrade from Microsoft, it costs around $40; if you buy the DVD it costs around $65; if you buy the “systems builder” copy of Windows 8 it costs around $85; if you buy the “system builder” copy of Windows 8 Pro you are approaching $125. Windows Media Center is around $10 on top of Pro, and the upgrade from Windows 8 to Pro is $65.

The cheapest path if you have a Windows 7 system (along with the image disk) is to download and install the Windows 8 Pro upgrade for $40, and then upgrade it to Media Center for another $10 (assuming you want Media Center). The most expensive way is to buy the system builder Windows 8 for around $85, then buy the upgrade to Pro for $65 on DVD. This lands you the same result for around $150, or about $100 more, for the convenience of not having to track down your Windows 7 DVD.

Wrapping up

I’ve completely moved over to Windows 8. I’m using Surface while on the road, and Windows 8 Pro on my two primary desktops. If you are happy with Windows 7, I’d stay there until you have a compelling reason to move or need to buy new hardware. The easiest long-term upgrade will be simply buying hardware designed for Windows 8 when you’re ready. If you do want to upgrade existing hardware, you’re best off waiting until after the new year to execute the move. Most of the fixes from us early adopters will be in the product by then, and help resources will be far less stressed out if you need to use them.

One thing to keep in mind, though: That $40 download price for the upgrade is supposed to expire, so you may want to get it and the key while it is on sale, then do the upgrade when ready.

Good luck! If you’ve made the move to Windows 8 already – or tried and bounced – I’d love to see your comments on the experience. For me, even with all the .0 warts, this has been the easiest and fastest OS I’ve ever installed. It’s fun to build systems again… at least as long as you build them using a motherboard that was designed for Windows 8. 

Foxconn to Make Smartphones for Microsoft, Amazon: DigiTimes Report

Taiwanese news site DigiTimes reports that Foxconn has received orders to manufacture smartphones for Microsoft and Amazon to go on sale in mid-2013.

A Taiwanese tech news site DigitalTimes reports that contract manufacturer Foxconn has received orders to manufacture a limited number of smartphones for Microsoft and Amazon that would go on sale sometime in mid-2013.

News media reports and analyst predictions that Microsoft might introduce it's own brand of smartphones have repeatedly circulated since the introduction of the Microsoft Surface tablet and Windows Phone 8.

DigiTimes said Foxconn International Holdings and its parent company, Foxconn Electronics, declined comment. Microsoft and Amazon did not respond to requests for comment from eWEEK.

The news site also added, citing unnamed sources, that “Microsoft and Amazon's own-brand handsets will only have a limited shipment volume initially and may become a new business model for the manufacturers in the future.”

Foxconn is a contract manufacturer for a number of electronic products including the Apple iPhone and devices from Nokia, Sony, Lenovo, Huawei and ZTE, DigiTimes noted.

Speculation about Microsoft manufacturing its own smartphones has been circulating ever since the company introduced the Surface, the first tablet computer with both hardware and software from Microsoft.

Digitimes Research, a sister company to the DigiTimes news site, reported that Microsoft building its own smartphone could upset relationships with its current original equipment manufacturer (OEM) partners who make devices running Windows Phone 8.

“Microsoft's launch of own-brand smartphones may result in a reduction in support for the Window Phone platform by hardware vendors, which should otherwise serve as a key factor to push for the growth of the Window Phone to become a third major platform in the segment,” Digitimes Research stated in a report published Nov. 19.

The leading smartphone platforms in the market are Google Android and Apple iOS, respectively, according to IDC research Nokia only makes smartphones running Windows Phone 8 but, while HTC and Samsung also make WP8 devices, they also make devices running Android.

The Digitimes report says that smartphone makers will be competing in an expanding market for the products next year. It forecasts global smartphone shipments to rise by 30 percent in 2013 to 865 million units, representing 43.9 percent of all handset shipments.

Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer didn’t confirm or deny reports about Microsoft making its own smartphone when speaking at a ChurchillClub event in Santa Clara, Calif., Nov. 14. He said he believes that OEM partners will continue to make “the lion’s share” of products running Windows 8 or Windows Phone 8, be they PCs, tablets or smartphones. But he said Microsoft would not rule out manufacturing more of its own products such as the Surface or the Xbox game system.

“There is an innovation opportunity on the scene between hardware and software and that is a scene that should not go unexploited at all by Microsoft,” Ballmer said.

Microsoft did irk some OEM partners when it announced plans to launch Surface in competition with them. J.T. Wang, the CEO of computer maker Acer, famously urged in August that Microsoft “think twice” before going into the device manufacturing business.

It was unclear from the DigiTimes report whether Amazon would sell the smartphones with the Microsoft brand or brand them as Amazon devices, though the latter seems more likely. Amazon, which built its empire as an ecommerce site, has also ventured out into the hardware business with its Kindle line of e-readers and tablets.