Hasta La Gadget!

Well, Microsoft kicked off its big E3 media briefing today with a big middle finger to rival console player Sony. Starting on July 1, XBOX Live Gold members who still have XBOX 360s will get two free game downloads per month to keep — according to Microsoft SVP Yusuf Mehdi, Assassin’s Creed 2 and Halo 3 will be among the first titles to be available for Gold subscribers.

The big message? The Xbox 360 isn’t dead yet, even with the One on the horizon. Microsoft has made no bones about its ambitions to conquer people’s living rooms, and positioning the 360 as a platform with plenty of value should help the company move cheaper 360s even after its newfangled console has already launched.

Of course, this way of adding value will sound very familiar to a certain subset of gamers. Long time Sony fans already know about with the company’s PlayStation Plus service, which allows its subscribers to download a handful of recent and prominent games provided they shell out money on a continuous basis. So far the service has been well-received (disclosure: I’m a PlayStation Plus subscriber myself), but it comes with one prominent caveat: games you download for free while a Plus member can’t be played down the road if you let your subscription lapse. Microsoft’s Mehdi blasted through this little segment of the show (fair enough, considering all the XBOX One demos to plow through), but it appears that the company will take a similar path. Mehdi did use the phrase “for keeps” though, so it almost seems as though users will be able to hang on to them indefinitely — I’ve reached out for clarification and will update this post once I hear back.

This is a developing story, please refresh for updates…

So Samsung’s Galaxy S4 Mini and Galaxy S4 Active have officially made the leap from unimaginative rumors to unimaginative reality, which leaves only one oft-rumored version of the popular smartphone left unaccounted for — the curious S4 Zoom.

As the name sort of implies, this Galaxy variant is said to blur the line between smartphone and camera, and we may now be getting our first look at the thing. A set of images from both SamMobile and TechTastic purportedly show off the photo-centric S4 Zoom ahead of a big Samsung press event in London later this month.

It’s hard to judge from the unflattering angles, but these images depict a device seems to be more camera than phone. The thickish frame, protruding lens obscuring a 16-megapixel sensor, and rounded butt are all design choices that are more reminiscent of point-and-shoots than they are of any standard smartphone. Too bad then that the supposed spec sheet that’s been attached to the S4 Zoom seems wimpy in comparison — that hefty sensor will supposedly be accompanied by a 4.3-inch qHD AMOLED display and a 1.6GHz dual-core processor.

If the S4 Zoom is indeed the real deal — and at this point it just about seems like a lock — Samsung may find that it’s not alone in using smartphones as a platform to show off their camera prowess. Persistent rumors of a Nokia Windows Phone sporting one of the company’s mind-boggling PureView sensors have been floating around for over a year now, and a handful of spurious “leaked” images of one such device (codenamed “EOS “)have been circulating these past days. Hell, just earlier this morning we were treated to what may be the smoking gun — a purported recording of the EOS’ gigantic rear camera pod blinking at us.

In case you missed the PureView hullabaloo from last year, Nokia’s EOS isn’t expected to feature the comparatively puny sensors seen in the company’s recent Windows Phones. No no, rumor has it that it will instead sport the same 41-megapixel camera sensor that first graced the chubby 808 PureView back in 2012.

But I think there’s a bigger question here that hasn’t been adequately answered yet — who do these companies think we’ll buy these things? I suspect I may be in the minority on this one, but I’ve always though that the camera-first approach that some OEMs fiddle around with is just sort of silly. Yes, there’s definite value in being able to capture compelling shots on the run, but really: do people really care how good their photos look once quality inches past a certain threshold?

After all, the way we visually memorialize things has changed since the dawn of smartphone epoch — most images don’t wind up printed and tucked away in photo albums any more. They get hastily MMSed to friends. They get marred by fugly filters and splayed up on Instagram. And in some cases (I’m looking at you Snapchat), the real value of these photos is knowing that they’ll quickly be lost to the ages, a pointed rejection of the archaic permanence of images chemically etched on dead tree material. Camera quality ranks pretty low on my list of criteria when it comes time to buy a new phone, and leaning too heavily on one aspect of a device could be… problematic to say the least.

The closest thing Samsung has had to the S4 Zoom to date is the Galaxy Camera, and the company has never broken out Galaxy Camera sales for we hardware business dorks to dig into. Still, the device was hamstrung by carriers requiring customers to buy a data plan along with the thing (a Wi-Fi version was announced just two months ago). And while Nokia has kept its PureView numbers a closely guarded secret, enthusiasts have estimated that the Finnish phone company managed to sell over half a million as of Fall 2012.

That’s a very solid number considering all the 808′s potential sticking points, and Nokia’s moving a solid number of Lumia phones these days so Nokia must be hoping that PureView and Lumia are two great tastes that really do taste great together. Thankfully, we probably won’t have to wait much longer to see these two duke it out — while the S4 Zoom is expected to be outed this month, the EOS could see the light of day as early as July 9.

Apple is set to deliver its WWDC keynote address on Monday June 10, and there are bound to be a lot of new things revealed on that day. The exact details remain shrouded in mystery, but as with every major Apple event, there have been lots of leaks and rumors leading up to this one, so we can at least sketch in broad terms what we’re likely in for next week.

I’m leading with Apple’s streaming music service, which is probably freshest in most people’s minds if you’ve been following the news today. That’s because the service (which may or may not actually be called “iRadio”) is now likely a done deal with all the major record labels, which should make it possible for Apple to preview it next week, though we’ll likely have to wait a few months for a general consumer release.

Apple’s iRadio service is supposedly a lot like Pandora, but with some added tricks, like the ability to pull from a user’s existing music library in order to offer up better, more personalized streaming content. The service is similar to Genius, according to 9to5Mac, but uses tracks from the entire iTunes catalog, not just those in a user’s library, and offers an easy method for iOS users to simply purchase tracks they hear with a tap directly through iTunes. Typically, DMCA streaming radio does not permit track skipping, but this may be a feature of iRadio, depending on how Apple’s negotiations with labels went.

iRadio will be free, if reports prove true, and instead make revenue for Apple and its music partners via advertising. That will likely take the form of audio ads that come up in the radio stream after a certain amount of tracks are played, according to reports this week from Bloomberg.

Apple’s iOS 7 has been the talk of the town for a while now, ever since reports back in early April suggested that Apple was planning a significant overhaul of the user interface, and that has been echoed in numerous reports ever since, including more recent information brought to light by 9to5Mac. Apple’s design guru Jony Ive is said to be taking the helm of the redesign, which is interesting because he’s an industrial designer, not a graphic designer, but the result is said to be a scaled back, simplified UI that embraces flat design principles in favor of textures that mimic real-world materials like canvas and aluminum. A new picture of the iOS 7 banner at Moscone West that surfaced today suggests we’ll see something clean and simple.

For the system itself, Apple is said to be including additional hooks for social network sign-in, including Flickr for photos and Vimeo for video, each of which will be accessible via the Settings app in the same way that Twitter and Facebook are currently available. Another new feature could be AirDrop, Apple’s easy file-sharing service introduced recently to OS X. That could be an amazing way to move files easily between desktops and mobile devices, especially for users who otherwise might have to resort to email or something.

Apple CEO Tim Cook also suggested that we’d see Apple begin to open up more APIs for developers to take more advantage of additional system and device features, but the extent of just how far things will go isn’t known, though we’ve already suggested some possible areas, including Siri.

We’ve also heard from a source that Apple might introduce blocking features for some of its own on-device services including iMessage and the phone app. This is something Apple has already secured a patent related to, too. It’s not something we’ve been able to reliably confirm, but it’s a possibility for either this version of iOS or one in the future, and it’s something that would definitely go further in terms of making iMessage feel like a proper competitor to third-party products in the same vein.

We’ll see this released as a beta for developers at WWDC, with a full launch likely to follow in fall alongside new iPhone (and potentially iPad) hardware.

This will be named after a big cat, but we don’t know which one yet. The changes we’ve seen rumored so far include mostly minor tweaks, like a new fullscreen mode that doesn’t render other displays completely useless, and tabs and tags added to Finder to make it more complete. For a preview of what this new Finder might look like, check out advanced 3rd-party Finder replacements like Path Finder. These are minor changes that might only be appreciated by a small subset of OS X users, but those who do appreciate them will find them very welcome.

Other changes to OS X include stuff under the hood for developers that will allow them to exploit some of these new power user features, and some reports indicate that Apple wants to bring more iOS into OS X, including via app multi-tasking and switching features that concentrate more on allowing apps to move into the background and take up fewer system resources.

We’ll likely see OS X 10.9 arrive later in the year, but developers stand a good chance of getting access at the WWDC event, possibly immediately following the keynote.

Apple isn’t supposed to be doing much in the way of hardware, but we’ve seen lots of reports that suggest at least some Macs will get updates at the event. The MacBook Pro with Retina display and the MacBook Air are two specific example, and there’s a chance (albeit a more remote one) that says we’ll see a new Mac Pro unveiled at WWDC, too.

New Mac notebooks are almost a sure thing, with retail sources reporting stock shortages, and 9to5Mac saying there are new SKUs showing up indicating at least refreshed MacBook Airs on the way. The new Macs will likely all boast Haswell chips from Intel, as that company announced the new processors just this week, and other hardware upgrades could include full-HD FaceTime webcams, dual-mics on the MacBook Air to match those introduced in the Retina MacBook Pro, and possibly faster Wi-Fi chips that support new breakneck 802.11ac  networking speeds. If we do see those speeds added, it’s likely we’ll see Apple’s routers also updated to support that, too.

The new Mac Pro is a more remote possibility, but Apple has been doing a lot to talk up recently, alongside reports that we’ll see it made in the U.S. as well. Apple has confirmed it will be making a Mac in the U.S. this year, but it hasn’t said it’ll definitely be the Mac Pro. Still, the machine has languished for a long time now, receiving no significant update since July 2010 (it got a processor bump in 2012, but mostly because the part it was using before was probably being discontinued).

As for availability, expect new Macs to go on sale later in June if they are announced at WWDC, as Apple usually spreads out the ship date a little from the event itself when it debuts new Macs at these events.

One More Thing

Apple could announce all of the above, or just some of it at WWDC next week, but it probably still has at least one or two surprises up its sleeve. Will we see a new iPhone? Indications are pretty strong that we won’t. But still be sure to stay tuned as we bring you live coverage of everything they do announce, and hands-on impressions of new software and hardware they make available.

BlueStacks is hoping to take the clear early consumer interest in a home gaming console built with mobile technologies and make that into big business, and today it’s announcing what could become a huge advantage for its GamePop console over other similar offerings. GamePop will support iPhone and iPad apps at launch, in addition to Android titles, making the first such device to tap into Apple’s rich app ecosystem.

As part of this expansion, GamePop is also announcing its first partner on the iOS side today: Subatomic Studios. Subatomic is the studio behind Fieldrunners, the tower defense game that was one of the iPhone’s first true defining hits. Fieldrunners has since expanded to a number of different platforms, including the PlayStation Store, Android and more, but BlueStacks CEO Rosen Sharma explained in an interview that in the case where a title is available on both Android and iOS, GamePop will offer the version which is considered the flagship for the title.

And while Subatomic is just the first announced partner bringing iOS software to the GamePop, there are many more partnerships in the works And all of the iOS titles will be included free with the cost of the $6.99 per month subscription, alongside Android titles, to make up the 500 titles BlueStacks is aiming to provide to subscribers as part of their package. Like with Android titles, BlueStacks will be looking to procure high-quality iOS games, and Sharma points to Fieldrunners as a perfect example, since it’s a $2.99 game at regular price when purchased through the App Store. Any iOS titles will also be able to bring in-app purchases to the GamePop, though they’ll be handled through one of leading third-party in-app purchase API providers on Android rather than through Apple.

To get iOS games running on the GamePop, the use a new proprietary technology pioneered by BlueStacks called “Looking Glass,” which is somewhat similar to the type of virtualization that the company does when bringing Android titles to Windows 8, for instance, but with some crucial differences.. But Rosen also notes that this isn’t something that’s using Apple APIs or is in any way in danger of running afoul of that company’s rules regarding iOS software.

“From a technology perspective, it uses virtualitzation, but it’s a different kind of virtualization than what we use for example for our PC products,” he said. “This is more API-level virtualization. We don’t use any of Apple’s bits – the developer just gives us the app and we make sure that it’ll run on GamePop.”

Nor does GamePop’s method of bringing mobile software designed for Apple devices result in any kind of sacrifices when it comes to performance or quality of experience. Since the virtualization happens at a very basic level, the GamePop is essentially doing the same heavy lifting as the iPhone or iPad hardware, but doesn’t need to do any additional work, the way it would if it were virtualizing in the same way that Parallels does with Windows on an OS X computer, for instance.

“In iOS the app makes a call and says, for example, ‘draw a menu for me,’ and in GamePop the app would make the same call and we’d be drawing the menu for them,” he said. “At this point, iOS and Android are so similar from an API perspective that it’s feasible to do this. So there’s no difference in terms of performance, and in fact developers on iOS follow such good guidelines that getting them on GamePop is relatively straightforward.”

The change to GamePop not only gives it access to a broader library of software from which to choose its core group of titles, but it also means that GamePop isn’t just another Android-based home gaming console in the tradition of OUYA and GameStick. Now, it’s a different beast entirely, and one with a crucial competitive advantage over and above its subscription-based revenue model. GamePop is currently on sale for the introductory price of ‘free’ through June, with the $6.99 per month subscription, and will retail for $129 after that.

Paris-based Internet of Things startup Netatmo, which makes personal weather station and air quality sensor devices (as seen in the video above) for use with Android and iOS apps, has just closed a €4.5 million ($5.8 million) funding round. It plans to use the funding to launch new connected devices in the second half of this year, including additional indoor air modules (to be announced this month), and also rain and wind meters.

Investors in the round — Netatmo’s first external funding — include Iris Capital, FSN PME, which is the French National Fund for Digital Society, along with Pascal Cagni, Non Executive Director of Vivendi SA and Kingfisher PLC and former Vice-President & General Manager of Apple Europe, Middle East, India and Africa.

Netatmo launched its consumer focused weather station monitoring device last fall. The device allows users to track outdoor weather conditions and environmental conditions indoors — such as air quality and CO2 level — and monitor and chart that data via the corresponding apps.

Although Netatmo is not breaking out device sales data yet, it says its weather stations are currently monitoring the environment in more than 105 countries. ”After a few months on the market, demand continues to grow, and we are experiencing significant increases in sales,” Netatmo CEO Fred Potter noted in a statement. ”Our new financial partners will allow us to pursue further innovations, develop new devices and expand our distribution channels and territories,”

Netatmo said it plans to focus on development and operations throughout Europe, Asia and the U.S., with the goal to expand its headcount as it ramps up the business this year.

Commenting on the funding in a statement, Pascal Cagni added: ”The Internet of Things is the next step in the rise of an even more connected digital world… Thanks to Netatmo’s talented teams and ability to integrate advanced software with state-of-the-art hardware, this company is built to play a leading role in that revolution.”