Mar 14
Stop watching zombies on your TV and start fighting them in your neighborhood. The team behind the essential survival tool Map of the Dead have created Map of the Dead: Zombie Apocalypse Survival, a location-based app that has you battling …
Mar 13
Google pulls ad-blockers from the Play Store for violating Terms of Service
Posted in: Today's ChiliIt has proved to be a frustrating day for Google users. Before the announcement that Google Reader (and a bunch of other services) will be shut down as part of the company’s spring cleaning round two, developers took up digital arms after realizing that their ad-blocking apps were pulled from the Play Store.
Such popular ad-blockers that were pulled include AdBlock Plus, Adfree Android, Adaway, and a host of others. The reason? For violating the service’s Terms of Service. As such, Google is being trigger happy today and putting the kibosh on such applications. While developers are complaining, it is only fair to point out that Google was clear on what is not allowed.
According to the Google Play Store’s Terms of Service, any and all ad-blockers are in violation, the sole reason they have been pulled. Says agreement 4.4 in regards to what is not allowed, “Any app that interferes with, disrupts, damages, or accesses in an unauthorized manner the devices, servers, networks, or other properties or services of any third party including, but not limited to, Android users, Google or any mobile network operator.”
While it is a frustrating day for the developers of ad-blockers, the cries of which they are quite vocally voicing on Twitter and such networks, it is a good day for other developers who have lost revenue due to these applications. Many developers provide apps for free, relying on the money generated by the advertisements they utilize in the place of a flat-rate app fee.
[via Android Community]
Google pulls ad-blockers from the Play Store for violating Terms of Service is written by Brittany Hillen & originally posted on SlashGear.
© 2005 – 2012, SlashGear. All right reserved.
Mar 13
Google is just releasing shocker after shocker today. First with the announcement that Andy Rubin is leaving Android, and now with its announcement that Google Reader (and several other of its services) will be shutting down. Google says that usage of Google Reader has been declining year after year, and that it’s time to “retire” the service. Users will have until July 1st to export their Reader data via Google Takeout.
This is a shocker to many of the loyal Google Reader users (like me) who use Google Reader to keep up with the latest news from their favorite websites (ahem). Many users have voiced their disappointment through various social media portals, like Twitter and Facebook. Users are now scrambling to find an alternative RSS reader that can live up to the Google service’s glory.
Along with Google Reader, services Apps Script, CalDav API, Google Buliding Maker, Google Cloud Connect, Google Voice App for Blackberry, Search API for Shopping, and Snapseed Desktop for Mac and Windows will all be shutting down as well. This is all part of Google’s “second Spring cleaning.” Along with its first Spring cleaning, Google will have shut down a total of 70 of its features and services.
For those of you who want to save your Google Reader data in order to export it somewhere else, you can head over to this Google Takeout link. You’ll just have to sign into your Google Reader account, and verify your password once the archiving is complete. So where will you go next Google Reader users? Feedly? Pulse? Flipboard?
[via Google]
Google to shut down Google Reader and other services on July 1st is written by Brian Sin & originally posted on SlashGear.
© 2005 – 2012, SlashGear. All right reserved.
Mar 13
MakieLab’s iPad App For 3D-Printing Your Own Dolls Has 70K Designed In First Week
Posted in: Today's Chili
Growing up, I pretty much had the standard dolls and toys everyone did — Trolls, Barbies and Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles action figures.
But with the advent of 3D printing, kids today have access to something truly special: their very own custom-made toys.
A U.K.-based startup called MakieLab is making a bet that the rise of smartphones and tablets coupled with the decline of traditional retailers is making the iPad the right place to sell the toys of the future. And custom 3D printing will let kids have products that no one else does — toys they design themselves.
The startup launched a Makies Doll Factory app last week that lets you design your own unique doll with special hair, facial features and custom clothing. You can then have it 3D printed and sent to you at a price that starts around 59 pounds ($88), excluding shipping. The app has seen about 70,000 dolls designed so far in the first week. (These are dolls designed, not ordered. MakieLab isn’t sharing stats on orders yet.)
“People love the fact that these toys are on demand,” said co-founder Alice Taylor. “Because the child or adult has made the toy themselves, they’ve got a precious relationship with it. The doll has a heirloom aspect to it.”
MakieLab has been running a web-based version of the store for about a year, but this is the first time they’ve transitioned to mobile platforms. Ultimately, they hope their business will offer a mix of real-world and virtual goods. You can design dolls to buy in real-life or eventually there will be options to dress them up with virtual accessories. Like the rest of the gaming world, Taylor says there is a “power curve” dynamic with a small minority of customers being very aggressive with purchases. One had even bought everything in the store twice, she said.
The startup, which raised $1.4 million last year from seed investors, has been working hard to bring down the costs of manufacturing the dolls. At the beginning, it was about 99 pounds ($148). Now the most basic doll (sans hair) will be about 59 pounds, and then probably 20 pounds more if you want a simple outfit and a hairstyle.
“This is a journey we’re on,” Taylor said. “The material costs are quite high with the type of plastic we have.” MakieLab has printers in the U.K. and Amsterdam and ship globally. Right now, about 10 percent of sales are coming from the U.S., and the majority of people who order a physical doll also buy accessories.
“Eventually, we’ll expand it to be like a distributed manufacturing network, rather than having a centralized factory model,” she said. Finding printers has been a “trial-by-fire” effort, she said. “But we’re getting a ton of support. The suppliers and manufacturers want to see this happen.”
The company isn’t profitable yet and margins on each doll are about 20 percent, compared to the 50 percent level you’d see with standard toys and dolls. But Taylor thinks that a Moore’s Law-type effect is starting to kick in for 3D printing. Costs are coming down fast enough, that the MakieLab model will work over the long-run, she says.
The company also has other products in the works that will be more targeted toward boys or other demographics. That could help them reach the scale they need to raise margins.
“What you see now is 20 percent of our vision,” she said. “We want so much to happen faster, and it will happen over time.”
Mar 13
Forrester: U.S. Online Retail Sales To Rise To $370BN By 2017 (10% CAGR) As Ecommerce Motors On With Help From Tablets & Phones
Posted in: Today's Chili
Despite years of chewing the digital cud — not to mention a global financial downturn — there’s no sign of the U.S. or European ecommerce cash-cows ailing, according to two new forecasts from Forrester. In the U.S. Forrester is projecting online retail sales will reach $370 billion by 2017, up from $231 billion in 2013 — a 10% compound annual growth rate (CAGR) over the next five years.
The ecommerce growth rate in Europe is expected to be fractionally higher over the same period, although the overall market is obviously smaller. Europe’s online retail sales are projected to hit €191 billion ($247.1 billion) by 2017, according to Forrester, up from €128 billion ($165.6 billion) in 2013 – a 10.5% CAGR.
In the U.S. Forrester notes that online retail will continue to outpace the growth of physical retail stores — something the category has done since its inception, so no change there. The analyst notes two “notable changes” have helped prop up ecommerce growth in recent years: firstly the rise of smartphones and tablets, which is says are boosting the amount of time consumers spend online and generating more buying opportunities.
Forrester’s report notes:
Consumers are more likely to use their phones not only to research purchases — both to learn about products and store options — but also to find the best price for a given item. But it’s not just phones that drive retail web traffic; virtually all retailers report that traffic to their sites from tablets spikes during evening prime-time hours, when consumers are in a leisure state of mind. This also suggests incremental web sessions and conversions, because web retail traditionally spikes not in the evening, but during business hours.
And secondly, Forrester notes that traditional retailers have invested heavily in their web divisions — including by offering hybrid online/offline capabilities such as in-store pickup for online purchases — which it says is also helping to grow ecommerce.
U.S. ecommerce growth is not coming from newbies, according to Forrester, which said it expects only four million people to shop online for the first time in 2013. But rather growth is down to existing web shoppers spending more of their time and money online — and spending it on a variety of goods. Forrester notes that online loyalty programmes such as Amazon Prime and ShopRunner are “one driver”, but the wider driver here is web shoppers getting more accused to spending their cash digitally, and therefore becoming more comfortable buying “high-touch, high-consideration goods like furniture or appliances online”.
The report also notes that ecommerce is also helping to boost the U.S. jobs market — with Forrester and Shop.org estimating that more than 400,000 individuals are currently employed by ecommerce companies in the U.S., projected to reach 500,000+ by 2017. And of course more people in employment means more disposable income that can be spent buying goods online (so arguably that could be another factor fuelling online retail).
European Ecommerce
In its European forecast, Forrester includes a breakdown by country of online retail spend — noting there is considerable variation in the landscape across key markets in Europe. Despite this, it’s projecting CAGRs from 2012 to 2017 of between 9% at the low end, for the Netherlands, jumping up to 18% and 16% for Spain and Italy respectively, the fastest growing European markets over the forecast period:
The ecommerce growth disparity between European countries is generally down to a divide between more mature markets in Northern Europe, where Forrester says online shopping is “the norm”, vs markets in the south where ecommerce has yet to become a mainstream activity — but is projected to grow to become one by 2017.
In more mature Northern European markets, such as the U.K. and Sweden, Forrester forecasts that ecommerce growth will continue to outstrip physical retail growth but will slow, as the markets enter what it calls a “new phase of competitive expansion”. In this phase online retailers will need to optimise and innovate, by creating more personalised shopping experiences across “new touchpoints”, in order to stay ahead of the competition.
The report notes:
Mobile presents an opportunity to reach out to shoppers in new ways, influencing the decision to buy at a critical moment. eBusiness execs must support their online strategies with a mobile strategy that considers mobile as more than just another transactional touchpoint. Instead, they must use features like barcode scanning and augmented reality to capture and analyze offline activity in order to more accurately personalize future online interactions and drive web sales.
European markets currently display considerable variation when it comes to “multiple touchpoints” for online shopping, according to the report — with increasingly sophisticated and complex behaviours in some but not all Northern markets. For example, Forrester notes that Germany has “notably lower” mobile shopping adoption than elsewhere in Europe, and few “multichannel customer offers”.
Mar 13
While it may not seem noticeable at first, Apple is continuing to update its Maps app with the addition and expansion of features. Case in point, within the past couple of months, Apple has added and expanded its flyover feature in 30 cities around the world, including locations like Indianapolis, Indiana and Glasgow in Scotland.
Most of the new locations that have received the flyover feature for the first time are mostly US cities, including locations such as the Hoover Dam, but Glasgow and Cologne, Germany also received flyover for the first time. Places that received expanded coverage are mostly European cities, but US cities like Boston, Portland, and Houston also received updates.
Furthermore, 12 cities received updates to 3D buildings for Standard view and turn-by-turn navigation, all of which are cities located in Europe and the UK, including Barcelona, Berlin, London, Munich, and Rome. Most of the cities that received an update are larger cities, so you may be waiting awhile for flyover and 3D buildings to come to your smaller town.
Apart from that, Apple has made some updates to city labels in locations worldwide, and they also improved satellite imagery in a number of countries. The company added more location information for Apple Stores, movie theaters, restaurants, airports, businesses, and transit stops. You can expect Apple to constantly be updating its Maps platform for a while, since the initial launch of the app didn’t go too well for the company.
[via The Loop]
Apple adds and expands Maps flyover in 30 cities is written by Craig Lloyd & originally posted on SlashGear.
© 2005 – 2012, SlashGear. All right reserved.
Mar 13
It’s always better to be safe than sorry if you’ve had too many drinks to get behind the wheel. Breathometer is a new breathalyzer that works with your smartphone to make absolutely sure you’re clear. And it’s a whole lot cheaper than a DUI. More »
Mar 13
The clatter of ergonomic keyboards is already bearing fruit, just two months after the Ubuntu developer community was let loose on the SDK for the newly touch–enabled OS. Canonical’s Michael Hall has posted an update on his personal blog detailing progress with some core apps, such as Calendar and Weather, as as well the broader effort to give mobile Ubuntu a sense of personality. The source link shows off some nice-looking puzzle games, news readers and even an app built around the disembodied head of a strapping lad called Jono, who in many ways symbolizes the minimal-but-cheerful look of the emerging ecosystem. A bit of debugging here, a swoosh of the razor there, and it could be perfect.
Filed under: Cellphones, Tablets, Software, Mobile
Source: Michael Hall’s blog
Mar 12
There is nothing else out there quite like Google Now. It’s arguably the single best feature found in Android Jelly Bean, and soon, it seems, it’ll be coming to iOS, Windows 8 and Chromebooks everywhere.
Mar 12
For those unfamiliar with the concept of Guitar Hero, it’s a game that can be played on consoles that asks players to tap out notes on a plastic guitar (or controller) to the rhythm of the song. When you miss a note, you are notified and lose points, but when you get notes correct, especially in a row, you get bonus points. Now if you wanted something similar in real life, an app for the iPad called TabRider might be of interest to you. Making use of the microphone built into the iPad, the app will be able to “listen” to what you’re playing and let you know when you have missed a note. Players will be able to jam along to some tunes, mapped out in tablature form, and get rated based on how accurate their playing is.
The app supports both acoustic and electric guitars, with electric guitars having the option of being plugged directly into the iPad via an adapter. The app itself is free, surprisingly, and from what we see it looks pretty decent. Granted it’s not as flashy as Guitar Hero or Rock Band, but for guitarists hoping to improve their skills, this is an app worth checking out. According to the developers, they are in negotiations with publishing companies in hopes to include more songs in their app, but in the meantime you can download it for free from the iTunes App Store.
By Ubergizmo. Related articles: The ampjacket Amplifies Your iPhone, iPad Mini And iPod Touch’s Sound Naturally, iPad Used To Drive A Car In Russia,
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