The iPhone continues to dominate Flickr's list of popular cameraphones. As pointed out by the folks at TUAW, the iPhone has once again spiked past the Nokia N95, no doubt a result of the iPhone 3G's recent launch and scads of new users taking photos with the device. Check out the graph below, but you can also look at all of Flickr's graphs by looking at the Camera Finder:
As you may remember, we last reported on the iPhone's Flickr spike in May, when the world observed that it shot past the N95 for the first time. In many ways, the iPhone's success on one of the Internet's most popular photo sharing services isn't surprising: its ease-of-use makes taking photos and e-mailing them to Flickr extremely simple compared to many obnoxious mobile phone interfaces. In other ways, it's also a little surprising, considering that the iPhone's built-in camera isn't exactly considered the best available. The two megapixels is only the beginning—the tiny lens, lack of autofocus capabilities, and atrocious low-light photos are only some of the complaints that users have about it.
As for other cameras that are popular on Flickr, the Canon PowerShot SD1000 managed to maintain its top spot among popular point & shoot cameras, while the Canon EOS Digital Rebel XTi held steady at the top of the list for all of Flickr. The somewhat poorly-marked graphs represent trends over the last year and are normalized to account for new users joining Flickr at any given time, so if you're interested to see what people have been using lately, go ahead and check out the charts.
August 12, 2008
iPhone atop Flickr's cameraphone list once again
August 4, 2008
Another Apple Magic Trick: iTunes From Free Web Video (AAPL)
We're usually wowed by Steve Jobs' latest computer or gadget. But today we're in awe of a different achievement: He's gotten customers to pay for Web video that they could easily -- and legally -- get for free.
Check out the two most popular TV "seasons" on iTunes (AAPL) right now: "Dr. Horrible's Sing-Along Blog" and Stephen King's "N."
That means people are opting to pay ($3.99 for a "season pass", or $1.99 for each of three acts), for the convenience of being able to download "Dr. Horrible" to the iPods, iPhones and computers rather than surfing over to Hulu and watching the whole thing for free.
Similarly, they're paying $3.99 for a "season pass", or 99 cents for five episodes (there will be 25) of King's "N," an animated promo for his coming "Just After Sunset" short story collection, rather than watch it for free on the CBS "audience network," which includes Veoh, Yahoo, MSN and AOL.
Granted, lots of video for sale on iTunes has been availble for free before, but most of that is usually broadcast or cable TV (like AMC's "Mad Men", which is also available on Hulu, now that we think about it). "Dr. Horrible" and "N" began their lives as free Web shows from the get-go. But somehow Steve Jobs has convinced his customers to pay for them.
Bluetooth Two-Way Earpiece Communicators Reviewed (Verdict: Spy Movie Fun at 250 Feet Or Less)
Like many geeks, the New York Times' David Pogue watches movies, like the Bourne Supremacy or Mission: Impossible, and yearns for the wireless earpiece tech they use to communicate with their buddies without microphones, headsets or cellphones. He's right, they're cool, and recently he had the chance to review two consumer versions, the SM100 (SoundID.com, $86), and the Dragon V2 (CallPod.com, $100). The final verdict? Both are *really* just average yuppie Bluetooth earpieces like the ones you see stuck in people's ears on the subway. The catch, however, is that with the press of a button, they become "secret-agent two-way radios."
被隐藏部分
被隐藏部分
Blackberry Flowberry Theme is for Closet Mac Admirers Who Can't Pull the Trigger
The brand spankin' new Flowberry theme is full of icons for the Blackberry owner who really wants to own an Apple product, like the iPhone or MacBook Pro, but can't quite commit. As you'll see from the video, there's a pseudo Cover Flow quality to the latest effort from bplay, but that's about it. And, just like the iTunes Store and other Apple products, the theme's home screen icons are locked in, giving you that DRM feeling without actually having to deal with DRM.
Bplay says Flowberry is compatible with all device software, but works best with version 4.3 or higher. The unchangeable home screen icons are: Messages, Calendar, Address Book, Media, SMS/MMS, BlackBerry Messenger, MemoPad, and Keyboard Lock
Bplay says Flowberry is compatible with all device software, but works best with version 4.3 or higher. The unchangeable home screen icons are: Messages, Calendar, Address Book, Media, SMS/MMS, BlackBerry Messenger, MemoPad, and Keyboard Lock
Kevin Lynch, CTO, Adobe Systems
Sitting across from me in the lounge of a posh Half Moon Bay, Calif., resort recently, Kevin Lynch, chief technology officer of Adobe Systems, a software company based in nearby San Jose, outlined his vision of the technology world at large. In particular, Lynch, who bears an uncanny resemblance to Harry Porter (picture the impish wizard as a grown-up) talked about how the confluence of cloud computing, web-centric applications and the emergence of the mobile Internet was going to impact our collective future.
Below are edited excerpts from our conversation:
Om Malik: How is the emergence of cloud computing impacting desktop-centric Adobe Systems as a company?
Kevin Lynch: Adobe is a 25-year-old company and that’s a great achievement because we have had the ability to change. We have changed with technological shifts. And now we are in that situation again. How software is made and sold is changing, so we are changing.
We are taking a balanced approach, and are building a hosted infrastructure. It’s not just about the cloud, but also about the desktop. There are some who are all about the cloud while others think about the desktop first. We have a hybrid approach, and we are doing that with our products like AIR.
Om: Can you talk about your online software-on-demand strategy?
Lynch: We have products like Buzzword, Photoshop Express and Acrobat.com that we are doing online. We are not deploying at the level of raw storage and raw hosting. Instead we are looking at application hosting from our customers’ perspective.
We want to be very specific about hosted online services, which are essentially about the collaboration of creative services. For instance, Premiere Express is being used by MTV where we are enabling (and sharing) video.
We are working on something called CoCoMo, which is a framework that is based on our Adobe Connect conferencing offering and uses Flex front-end technology. It’s going to be available as APIs that are use-specific. We are essentially turning Adobe Connect into components and then allowing developers to do audio- and video-sharing, for instance.
Om: So that means you guys need to learn a whole new language of building scalable infrastructure?
Lynch: We have 600,000 users of Photoshop Express and 500,000 unique visitors to the site every month. About 8 million Flash players are installed every day, and that needs a lot of bandwidth and infrastructure. So we know that, but it is a question facing all software companies going forward.
Om: Adobe Flash is one of your most well-known products. There was some talk about the latest beta version of the software allowing P2P transfers. What are you guys thinking here?
Lynch: Our current goal is to lower the cost of online video deployments so you [can] take advantage of P2P. We are being super targeted in how it is being used. Most of the overall web video traffic is in Flash. (Ed. note: Popular services such as YouTube and Blip.tv use Flash for the playback of videos.) The way we see it, for the whole web [video] to work, Flash has to work reliably, so that’s why we are taking small steps here and using P2P in a very basic form.
Om: What new features are you cooking up in Flash?
Lynch: Interactivity in videos — that is, highlighting certain items in video and making them clickable — is something we are enabling.
Om: What about Flash in mobiles? I know there have been some efforts to marry Flash at the interface level with mobile operating systems like Java.
Lynch: Mobile is really happening right now. There are a lot of screens in our lives right now and to make information accessible across these devices is important. There is no consistent runtime across these devices.
Right now, there is no single technology that has a dominant reach. I think that’s going to change over next three to four years. We are working on that, and have initiated an Open Screen Project that will make designing for multiple screens less of a challenge.
Om: You seem to have strong views about mobile and how we need to think differently about mobile as an opportunity.
Lynch: People will start to think about the small screen first, and that is a sea change. Mobile is central to the future of computing and I think all software and web companies need to look at mobile first and then from there, extend to PCs.
Om: So you like these “mobile Internet devices?”
Lynch: I am a big fan of the MIDs. I think the form factor is the sweet spot and there will be some experimentation (on design) going forward. The big challenge there is power, and batteries are a big drain.
Below are edited excerpts from our conversation:
Om Malik: How is the emergence of cloud computing impacting desktop-centric Adobe Systems as a company?
Kevin Lynch: Adobe is a 25-year-old company and that’s a great achievement because we have had the ability to change. We have changed with technological shifts. And now we are in that situation again. How software is made and sold is changing, so we are changing.
We are taking a balanced approach, and are building a hosted infrastructure. It’s not just about the cloud, but also about the desktop. There are some who are all about the cloud while others think about the desktop first. We have a hybrid approach, and we are doing that with our products like AIR.
Om: Can you talk about your online software-on-demand strategy?
Lynch: We have products like Buzzword, Photoshop Express and Acrobat.com that we are doing online. We are not deploying at the level of raw storage and raw hosting. Instead we are looking at application hosting from our customers’ perspective.
We want to be very specific about hosted online services, which are essentially about the collaboration of creative services. For instance, Premiere Express is being used by MTV where we are enabling (and sharing) video.
We are working on something called CoCoMo, which is a framework that is based on our Adobe Connect conferencing offering and uses Flex front-end technology. It’s going to be available as APIs that are use-specific. We are essentially turning Adobe Connect into components and then allowing developers to do audio- and video-sharing, for instance.
Om: So that means you guys need to learn a whole new language of building scalable infrastructure?
Lynch: We have 600,000 users of Photoshop Express and 500,000 unique visitors to the site every month. About 8 million Flash players are installed every day, and that needs a lot of bandwidth and infrastructure. So we know that, but it is a question facing all software companies going forward.
Om: Adobe Flash is one of your most well-known products. There was some talk about the latest beta version of the software allowing P2P transfers. What are you guys thinking here?
Lynch: Our current goal is to lower the cost of online video deployments so you [can] take advantage of P2P. We are being super targeted in how it is being used. Most of the overall web video traffic is in Flash. (Ed. note: Popular services such as YouTube and Blip.tv use Flash for the playback of videos.) The way we see it, for the whole web [video] to work, Flash has to work reliably, so that’s why we are taking small steps here and using P2P in a very basic form.
Om: What new features are you cooking up in Flash?
Lynch: Interactivity in videos — that is, highlighting certain items in video and making them clickable — is something we are enabling.
Om: What about Flash in mobiles? I know there have been some efforts to marry Flash at the interface level with mobile operating systems like Java.
Lynch: Mobile is really happening right now. There are a lot of screens in our lives right now and to make information accessible across these devices is important. There is no consistent runtime across these devices.
Right now, there is no single technology that has a dominant reach. I think that’s going to change over next three to four years. We are working on that, and have initiated an Open Screen Project that will make designing for multiple screens less of a challenge.
Om: You seem to have strong views about mobile and how we need to think differently about mobile as an opportunity.
Lynch: People will start to think about the small screen first, and that is a sea change. Mobile is central to the future of computing and I think all software and web companies need to look at mobile first and then from there, extend to PCs.
Om: So you like these “mobile Internet devices?”
Lynch: I am a big fan of the MIDs. I think the form factor is the sweet spot and there will be some experimentation (on design) going forward. The big challenge there is power, and batteries are a big drain.
Who has the clouds
In 10 years, which company will own the cloud computing space? That question has been the subject of long and contentious funding debates over the past year, especially here on Sand Hill Road. And while I know that predicting the future is an inaccurate science, I think that when it comes to evaluating this nascent industry, the VC community has been focusing on the wrong criteria.
Today, cloud computing offerings are application-specific frameworks that are run by companies both large and small. Google’s App Engine is a cloud for running Python applications; EngineYard is a cloud for Ruby-on-Rails; Amazon’s EC2 and S3 provide generic compute and storage clouds, and so forth. While each of these companies addresses a vertical market need, I believe that by 2018, clouds will instead be evaluated based on three generic criteria: transactions, user experience and presence. And as with any active market, it’s a safe bet that there will be plenty of companies that best showcase each of them. One of the emerging trends in cloud computing is providing infrastructure that allows businesses to perform transactions. Two companies that immediately come to mind are eBay and Amazon; both have significant infrastructure expertise and business divisions devoted to processing their customers’ transactions. Amazon in particular just launched Checkout, which facilitates highly scalable transaction services. Imagine if over the next 10 years these companies find a way to bring their scale and transaction expertise to a cloud offering across multiple industries and market segments.
What will become increasingly critical is providing cloud consumers with a spectacular user experience, something nobody does better than Apple. While I realize the company is not strictly focused on cloud computing today, imagine a scenario in which it leverages the success and elegance of iTunes — essentially a cloud for selling digital media — to other markets. I can foresee a cloud computing environment where Apple allows users to build applications using their user interface templates and designs; every application developer that strives to make their application “as sexy as iTunes” could leverage this infrastructure. A current example of Apple’s approach can be found in its new MobileMe cloud, which emphasizes ease-of-use and user experience for keeping email, calendar and contacts synchronized. Elsewhere, Google Gears and Microsoft Live Mesh are also attempting to be environments in which users develop cloud applications, but they don’t seem to have the same focus on consistency of user experience.
Speaking of Microsoft, when it comes to presence in the computing space, they have an enviable position. With their software presence on the PC, mobile phone, game console, media center and even autos, they’re set up to be everywhere for at least the next decade. And the Redmond giant has recently changed its PR to emphasize software and services, which leads me to think that they’re moving to offer a wealth of cloud-based services.
The key will be leveraging their almost ubiquitous presence across nearly every aspect of the computing space to convert their hordes of desktop and IT application developers to work on their cloud in order to come up with future services for the same markets. If Microsoft can execute on this strategy, use their presence and motivate their developers, they will be a significant player in the cloud computing market in 2018.
It seems clear that the dominant cloud computing company in 2018 will be able to process transactions on the scale of Amazon and eBay, have the eye-popping user experience of Apple and the presence of Microsoft. Which cloud company do you think it will be?
Fellow GigaOM writer Alistair Croll contributed heavily to this post.
auo's liquid crystal display may be bending
Recently, the auo of Taiwan's electronic publication of the world's first glass substrate of the LCD can be bending. Qu up to a radius of its 100 mm. At present, and the glass substrate of different electronic paper display technology, this display of better quality, more expressive color.
At the same time, Partners also has a display of the world's thinnest liquid crystal display - only 0.63 mm thick! In one stroke to break their own in the FPD 2007 on the creation of a world record of 0.69 mm. The display size of 1.9 inches, weighing about 2.1 grams, brightness up to 400 nits.
August 3, 2008
IBM Prepares to Fight off Microsoft
IBM/Lotus Thursday hit back at Microsoft's boast that it plans to steal 5 million Notes customers this year by detailing a new 300,000-seat licensing deal with an Asian company and strong interest in Notes from emerging markets.
Last week, Microsoft's COO Kevin Turner told financial analysts that his goal is to have the company's messaging and collaboration software displace 5 million Notes seats this year. Turner also said Microsoft has replaced 8 million seats of Notes in the past two years.
It was another shot in a messaging and collaboration war that has been going on between the two for nearly 20 years. In the late 1990s, the two jousted using e-mail seat-count numbers that were often inflated if not outright dubious.
"It is very difficult to tell what Microsoft is talking about when they talk about numbers of seats or costs because they shove so much into their environment, but I do know we have been engaging against them and winning," says Bob Picciano, general manager of Lotus Software.
IBM/Lotus seems to be doing a better job of integrating current messaging and collaboration tools with next-generation tools like social networking.
In June at the Enterprise 2.0 conference, the two squared off on stage around social software (Lotus Connections vs. SharePoint) with IBM/Lotus showing its Connections tools as "the clear winner across the board," according to Mike Gotta, an analyst with the Burton Group who moderated the session. Gotta in his blog later chastised Microsoft, saying it "did a poor job of showing and explaining why business and/or technical decision-makers should consider SharePoint as a credible solution to meet the social computing needs of an organization."
A month later Microsoft's Turner lit into IBM/Lotus, which is now on the offensive and detailing what it calls strong fiscal second-quarter sales of Notes/Domino 8. The platform, which shipped a year ago, features a modular client architecture that can be customized as the front end for component-based applications.
The company says an Asian firm, which executives said would be named at a later date, will license 300,000 seats of Notes, as well as Lotus Symphony, IBM's open source suite of productivity applications.
IBM/Lotus says the deal is its largest ever in Asia.
IBM also listed a number of foreign companies that chose Notes over Microsoft, including Max New York Life, Reliance Industries, Vedanta, and Aviva in India; GD Development Bank, Johnson Electric, HKG Environ Protect, CED, DL Cosco Shipyard in China; Affin Bank and Trakando in Singapore; and Russian Railways in Russia.
It did not provide seat numbers.
IBM/Lotus also reported that in the fiscal second quarter it recorded its largest client win in North America: 150,000 seats in a "big six" accounting firm.
Like the Asian deal, IBM would not name the company, but IBM executives said Lotus Notes, Sametime, Connections, IBM Lotus Quickr and WebSphere Portal were picked over the Microsoft collaboration portfolio that included Exchange and SharePoint.
The battle is heating up as Microsoft's SharePoint is garnering the lion's share of coverage despite a number of issues corporate users face when considering the platform.
IBM/Lotus has been feeling the heat from SharePoint.
In May, the company released IBM Lotus Quickr Content Integrator, which provides wizards and templates for moving content in mass to Quickr from SharePoint sites. Lotus is betting the tool will help keep users on its content management platform and away from Microsoft, which could use SharePoint as the hook to get users to switch to its entire portfolio of messaging and collaboration tools.
As part of its most recent announcement IBM/Lotus noted other companies that have recently picked Lotus Notes and other Lotus software over other competitors, including Colgate-Palmolive, Ineos of Belgium, the U.S. Federal Aviation Administration, NutraFlo, Dutch Railways, Rohm Haas, Imerys and the Salvation Army.
New Lotus Notes 8 customers were listed as CFE Compagnie d'Enterprises of France, Virginia Commonwealth University, Winsol International, the U.S. General Services Administration, the U.S. Internal Revenue Service, Standard Insurance, New York Life, Kentucky Baptist Convention, Verizon, Publishers Printing, Hyatt Hotels, Union Pacific and Nationwide Insurance.
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