Hasta La Gadget!

Microsoft has launched Outlook.com, a new cloud-based email service to take on Gmail with integrated Skype video calling and social networking integration. Considerably more attractive – not to mention comprehensive – than Hotmail, which it replaces, Outlook.com supports easy access to attachment photo slideshows, integration with Office and SkyDrive, and support for Facebook Chat.

As you might expect, there’s also support to open, edit and share Word, Excel and PowerPoint files, and in fact those files can all be edited directly from the inbox. Facebook and LinkedIn contacts are automatically synchronized with the Outlook contacts.

Skype integration hasn’t been enabled yet – Microsoft describes the current service as a “preview” rather than the final release – but when it’s turned on it will allow for calls to Skype and Outlook users. Best of all, it won’t require Skype be installed on the system itself, working instead in the browser.

Twitter, Facebook and LinkedIn content will be pulled into the sidebar, and as for the inbox itself, there’s support for categories, folders, and rules. There’s also ActiveSync support for using Outlook.com with mobile devices.

Outlook.com Introduction:

Hotmail users who want to switch to Outlook.com can do so by clicking “Upgrade” in the options menu, with their existing email address, password, contacts, old email, and rules unchanged; they’ll be able to send/receive email from their @hotmail.com or @msn.com or @live.com address, or indeed set up a new @outlook.com address.

Outlook.com Walkthrough:

Microsoft launches Outlook.com to challenge Gmail is written by Chris Davies & originally posted on SlashGear.
© 2005 – 2012, SlashGear. All right reserved.

Siri, Google Now and other digital personal assistants have a new rival in the shape of Saga, a mobile app that uses learns from users to provide contextual help, suggestions and more. A free app, currently iPhone-only, Saga pulls in data from Facebook, Twitter and other apps to build an understanding of the individual user, and then crunches that with schedules and preferences to produce suggestions as to nearby restaurants, when would be a good time in the day to run, where friends are (and who users might actually like to hang out with), and other recommendations. However, Saga’s future is most definitely in wearables like Google’s Glass.

That will see Saga provide its own contextual suggestions in a far more intuitive and non-distracting way: popping dialogs into the corner of your eye rather than demanding that you pull out your phone. Context – or the lack of it – in the mobile world has been a running theme for several years but still something manufacturers and developers have struggled to implement, but as the number of sensors and data sources with shared personal information grow, apps like Saga promise to pull them altogether.

Initial partnerships for Saga include Runkeeper, which can provide fitness exercise patterns to the assistant app. For instance, if Saga knows from Runkeeper that a user normally runs each Tuesday, but that they haven’t so far today, it will automatically look for a suitable timeslot in the agenda and ping up a prompt to encourage them.

Future iterations of the app will allow users to share recommendations back and forth within a sub-group of their social networks, and increase the number of notifications. Currently, Saga requires users to open the app itself to see suggestions, but as the algorithms improve the company plans to push out personalized prompts. App developers will also be able to use Saga’s APIs to feed their data into the service.

Robert Scoble sat down with CEO Andy Hickl to talk Saga and mobile context, as well as what implications the app might have for wearable devices and augmented reality. “If you sign in with Facebook we understand a little bit about you, we can understand your birthday, the name of your spouse … the other cool thing is what can we tell if we understand a little about your patterns, where you go” Hickl says.

“So f I see you at a bar at 11:30 on a Tuesday night maybe a mile and a half away from your house, what can I tell about you? Well, I can tell maybe you’ve got no children waiting for you at home … the fun thing is that we use that, not to profile you, but to be able to anticipate the queries you might have.”

The app is currently iPhone-only, though with an Android version expected in August, and is a free download. As for how Saga will make money, right now there’s no monetization but possibilities include paid app functionality or sponsored results.

Saga takes on Siri and Google Now in mobile context is written by Chris Davies & originally posted on SlashGear.
© 2005 – 2012, SlashGear. All right reserved.

Apple and Samsung are set to square off in the first day of the San Jose federal jury trial today, as the next phase of the heated design and patent row kicks off with huge stakes in the smartphone and tablet worlds. Having failed to reach an amicable settlement in the preceding weeks, both companies have some impressive claims and demands: Apple wants $2.5bn in damages and a block on US sales of phones and tablets, while Samsung has accused its foe (and, ironically, customer) of hypocrisy and trying to stretch its patents to cover a ridiculous range of possibilities.

Apple’s argument – laid out in pre-trial submissions over the past week – is that Samsung has knowingly copied the aesthetic design of the iPhone and iPad’s external appearance and its UI. Elements that Apple holds patents on, such as local search and bouncing list-scrolling, crop up in Samsung’s Android devices, the Cupertino legal team alleges; such functionality and visual gloss is part of what makes an iPhone or iPad uniquely desirable, Apple says, and Samsung is trying to use it as a shortcut to market success.

The company’s own sums suggest iPhone design patents amount to the equivalent of $24 per unit royalties, with software licensing adding its own heft to that. However, Apple is not seeking a licensing approach moving forward – it wants to keep that “magical” iPhone quality to itself – and so is instead looking to cripple Samsung’s range with huge fines and permanent sales injunctions.

Meanwhile, Samsung has attempted to pick holes in Apple’s design claims, arguing that not only has it been working on touchscreen-focused devices for many years, but that Apple’s own products were inspired by rival firms. According to Samsung’s legal team, Apple looked to Sony for part of its iPhone innovation, something Cupertino unsurprisingly disagrees with (and has the 2005 concepts it says proves its innocence).

Samsung’s arguments have looked patchy in places. Variously accused of destroying documents that should have been used in evidence, as well as ignoring the advice of Google itself on how similar the Galaxy ranges are to Apple’s products.

“In this lawsuit, Apple seeks to stifle legitimate competition and limit consumer choice to maintain its historically exorbitant profits” Samsung’s lawyers said in a brief filed last week. The US trial is simply one of the ongoing legal battles between Samsung and Apple, with cases also ongoing in Australia, the UK, Germany and courts in other countries.

Judge Lucy Koh of the US District Court of Northern California will preside over the trial beginning today. The first day is expected to be monopolized with jury selection, moving to opening arguments either today or on Tuesday; a three day week is expected to be the order for the first two weeks, though could shift to daily meetings in court if the case extends to three weeks or beyond.

Apple vs Samsung begins: Billions at stake in federal court is written by Chris Davies & originally posted on SlashGear.
© 2005 – 2012, SlashGear. All right reserved.

It’s official – science has essentially proven, with a study, that Pop music is indeed both getting louder and diminishing in variety. A team of researchers in Spain headed by artificial intelligence specialist Joan Serra have run a set of songs from the last 50 years through a set of complex algorithms that have yielded the following results: Pop songs on the whole have become more bland in terms of chords, melodies, and types of sound, and are intrinsically louder to boot than they’ve ever been before.

With a gigantic archive known as the Million Song Dataset, the research group took audio and lyrical content and broke it down into crunchable data. From there they checked out how high the intrinsic loudness of the tracks were, for starters. Intrinsic Loudness can be explained as the common sound level that’s present in a song or a whole set of songs.

In the book “Mastering Audio: The Art and Science” by Bob Katz and Robert A Katz, they speak about this situation in short:

“In the days of the LP, the variation in intrinsic loudness of pop recordings was much more consistent, perhaps within as little as 4 gB. Even at the peak of the vinyl loudness race. I cloud put on a Simon and Garfunkel LP, or even a Led Zeppelin, and follow that with an audiophile direct-to-disk recording, barely having to adjust the monitor control to satisfy my ears.

In the earliest days of the compact disc, before the digital loudness race began, many master engineers would dub analog tabs with o VU set to -20 dBFS, and leave the headroom to the natural crest factor of the recording. It was not thought necessary to peak to full scale, and so the intrinsic loudness of early pop CDs was much more consistent. However, the inventors of the digital system abandoned the VU meter, which opened Pandora’s box.” – Mastering Audio: The Art and Science

A Volume Unit meter (VU meter) is a device that shows the signal level of the audio you’re playing. Most often, VU meters are used just for the lovely look of having your meters jumping around at peak – but they certainly can be useful in situations such as these to show how terribly loud everything has gotten.

“We found evidence of a progressive homogenization of the musical discourse. In particular, we obtained numerical indicators that the diversity of transitions between note combinations – roughly speaking chords plus melodies – has consistently diminished in the last 50 years.” – Serra

Serra and her team also spoke with Rueters noting that the timbre palette in today’s Pop tunes has become less diverse over time. Louder and less diverse music for all, that’s what music is evolving into for the masses. Do your part and break out the vinyl, ladies and gentlemen!

Study shows Pop music all sounds the same is written by Chris Burns & originally posted on SlashGear.
© 2005 – 2012, SlashGear. All right reserved.

This morning it’s been made official: Motorola’s next QWERTY device, the Motorola PHOTON Q 4G LTE, the first LTE Motorola device on its carrier in the USA, complete with enterprise security and Android 4.0.4 Ice Cream Sandwich. This device does not have the highest definition display in the land with its 4.3-inch 540 x 960 TFT LCD, nor does it have the most power with 1GB of RAM and a dual-core 1.5GHz processor. What it does have is a QWERTY keyboard, NFC, environmental performance assurance from ULE, and corporate email access with MS Exchange ActiveSync.

Though not detailed in full just yet, this device is ready for business with what Motorola is touting as enterprise security and a 3G / 4G mobile hotspot – though you’ll be paying an extra fee for USA-based hotspot, and international hotspot supports just one person.) And yes, this device is an international phone if you’d like to take it pond-jumping.

You’ve got 1080p HD video playback as well at 1080p video capture with the back-facing 8 megapixel camera, and the front-facing camera is also HD for video chat. This device comes in one flavor – 8GB of onboard memory – though you’re also able to add 32GB with its available microSD card slot. You’ve got Bluetooth 4.0 with EDR, a 1785 mAh non-removable battery, and the whole device is certified for environmentally rough situations.

This smartphone is UL Environment (ULE) Platinum Certified, aka “the highest level of environmental performance recognized by sustainable requirements established by UL Environment.” You’ll be able to work with a lovely five-row slide-out QWERTY keyboard and you’ve got Motorola’s user interface onboard over Android 4.0.4 Ice Cream Sandwich right out of the box. Catch it in stores soon!

NOTE: We’ve reached out to Motorola to find out which manufacturer makes the processor – coming soon!

Motorola PHOTON Q 4G LTE official with QWERTY and ICS is written by Chris Burns & originally posted on SlashGear.
© 2005 – 2012, SlashGear. All right reserved.