Toyota’s original plan for its Entune in-car platform was to draw in new users with three months’ free usage, before whacking ’em with a $5 monthly charge. At some point, however, the company decided to abandon that idea, and will instead offer the connected infotainment service free of charge. We’ll let the cynics amongst you ponder if it was a lack of demand that caused Toyota to change course.
Filed under: Transportation, Software
Source: Prius Chat, Zatz Not Funny
Samsung, tired of its own-brand app store playing second fiddle to Google Play, has decided to throw some of its considerable cash at the problem. It’s appealing to indie app developers in the hope of finding the next Angry Birds big thing. In partnership with Chillingo, EA’s mobile games division, Samsung is launching “100 percent indie,” offering bedroom coders commission-free sales on any of their apps for the first six months of its life. After which, Samsung will take a 10 percent cut, with that fee rising to 30 percent after two years — matching the fees charged by Google and Apple’s services. Now all we need is a Simon Cowell-type to judge which new apps have that… je ne sais quoi.
Filed under: Gaming, Software, Samsung
Source: 100 Percent Indie
Lower Manhattan, Pearl Street, the Financial District. A Starbucks with broad windows, great for people watching. Sipping my $5 flavored coffee, I watched a homeless man sit on the sidewalk. I liked him immediately: his sharp gaze and thoughtful expression. When I left, I squatted down next to him and put five bucks in his jar, contributing the cost of my first-world coffee to the man’s case for survival.
We talked. He knew his tech, this man of no possessions, describing his favorite productivity gadgets of the past decade, scorning Apple for form over function. He had been living on the street day and night for two years. My five dollars was “huge,” he said. I knew that was true only microcosmically. He liked cigars. That’s where the cash would go.
Meanwhile, Starbucks had recently cut a deal with Square, one of the hottest startup stories of the season, so that people with five dollars to spend on coffee needn’t pull out a wallet and ponder their privilege.
Continue reading Editorial: Square gets the attention, but credit cards rule
Filed under: Tablets, Wireless, Software
Editorial: Square gets the attention, but credit cards rule originally appeared on Engadget on Tue, 02 Oct 2012 14:00:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
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Google Wallet’s prepaid card concept has been plagued with its share of security concerns, and though Mountain View seems to have sorted out those issues, it’s now phasing out the prepaid card program entirely. The service was intended to make up for a limited choice in debit and credit cards, and now that Google Wallet accepts any and all plastic, the prepaid option is a bit moot. The cut-off date for adding funds to a Google prepaid card is September 17th, and the prepaid option will vanish entirely on October 17th. Whereas users were previously charged $2.00 per month after 180 days without a transaction, they’ll get slapped with the same fee after 30 days of no purchases. Google says you can request a refund if you have a remaining balance after the prepaid option kicks the bucket, though it’s probably a good idea to just go ahead and spend those leftover dollars.
[Thanks, Chris]
Filed under: Cellphones, Misc, Wireless
Google Wallet to phase out prepaid card, cut-off date set for October 17th originally appeared on Engadget on Mon, 10 Sep 2012 16:11:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
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