Google is aiming to harness people’s motivation to carry out their New Year’s resolutions and then use that to help others achieve their goals. Be it lose weight, make more money, learn a new language, or travel more, users can see what people around the world are striving for on Google’s new interactive resolution map.
“Research shows that you’re more likely to achieve your resolutions if you write them down and have support,” Google’s Associate Product Marketing Manager Liz Wessel wrote in a blog postyesterday. “Try sharing your goals with communities around you.”
The zoomable map is filled with colored dots that pop out in dozens of countries around the world. The colors correspond with a map key that categorizes resolutions into love, health, career, finance, family, education, and more. Users can select any language for all of the posts to be translated into.
Some of the postings include, “Play guitar just a couple minutes everyday” in the U.S., “Living with my boyfriend” in Portugal, “Quit smoking” in Russia, “Work less, earn more” in South Africa, and “Eat less sweets” in Brazil.
Users can also add their own resolutions to the map by selecting the most appropriate category and adding in a postal code and country name. The resolutions take between 24 and 48 hours to post to the map.
WhatsApp has a message for its users — a lot of them.
The mobile messaging service announced today that it set a WhatsApp record on New Year’s Eve, processing 18 billion messages on the last day of the year. The company said it delivered 7 billion inbound messages and 11 billion outbound messages, surpassing its previous record of 10 billion messages processed in August.
In comparison, Apple revealed in October that its iMessage text service had delivered about 300 billion texts sent by iOS users during the previous 12 months — an average of less than a billion a day.
That kind of growth reportedly attracted acquisition interest from Facebook — a TechCrunch report that the company called “a rumor and not factually accurate.”
Founded in 2009, the Santa Clara, Calif.-based company provides a smartphone app forAndroid, BlackBerry, iOS, Symbian, and Windows Phone that delivers text messages, as well as images and audio and video messages.
Word has it that Microsoft was able to get ahead of Apple and Google and buy the home entertainment technology startup R2 Studios, according to the Wall Street Journal. This acquisition will most likely help amplify Microsoft’s Xbox platform.
R2 Studios was created by Sling Media founder Blake Krikorian in May 2011. Sling Media developed Slingbox, which let users watch television on their computers. According to the Wall Street Journal, R2 Studios has been working on ways to display content on televisions, which could coordinate with Xbox’s focus of adding TV entertainmentto its gaming console.
Before R2 Studios was snapped up by Microsoft, it was also in talks with Apple and Google, according to the Wall Street Journal. Along with buying R2 Studios, Microsoft is also getting its hands on several patents for controlling certain electronic devices.
The price of the acquisition was not disclosed, and Microsoft declined to comment on the dea
While the smartphone interface is clearly based on Ubuntu’s Unity interface, it’s not just the same old desktop shrunk down to a smartphone. According to Canonical, the smartphone Ubuntu will use “all four edges of the screen for a more immersive experience. Ubuntu uniquely gives handset OEMs and mobile operators the ability to converge phone, PC and thin client into a single enterprise superphone.”
“We expect Ubuntu to be popular in the enterprise market, enabling customers to provision a single secure device for all PC, thin client and phone functions. Ubuntu is already the most widely used Linux enterprise desktop, with customers in a wide range of sectors focused on security, cost and manageability” said Jane Silber, Canonical’s CEO in a statement. “We also see an opportunity in basic smartphones that are used for the phone, SMS, web and email, where Ubuntu outperforms thanks to its native core apps and stylish presentation.”
This new version of Ubuntu will be “aimed at two core mobile segments: the high-end superphone, and the entry-level basic smartphone, helping operators grow the use of data amongst consumers who typically use only the phone and messaging but who might embrace the use of web and email on their phone. Ubuntu also appeals to aspirational prosumers who want a fresh experience with faster, richer performance on a lower bill-of-materials device.”
At the same time, this isn’t just a smartphone operating system. Jono Bacon, Ubuntu’s community manager, added on his blog. that “Ubuntu for phones is not just limited to just the Operating System on the phone screen itself. Ubuntu also has the technology, as demonstrated with Ubuntu For Android, to boot a full Ubuntu desktop from the phone when it is docked with a screen. This provides a complete Ubuntu experience in your pocket, for both your phone and your desktop, with a clean consistent look across both screens, and with all your content available on your phone and desktop using Ubuntu One. This is revolutionary.”
With the new Ubuntu, you will be able to literally have your desktop in your phone.
The Ubuntu handset interface will include the following features:
1. Edge magic: thumb gestures from all four edges of the screen enable users to find content and switch between apps faster than other phones. 2. Deep content immersion – controls appear only when the user wants them. 3. A beautiful global search for apps, content and products. 4. Voice and text commands in any application for faster access to rich capabilities. 5. Both native and web or HTML5 apps. 6. Evolving personalized art on the welcome screen.
Bacon added, “The design and implementation of the phone is beautiful You can immediately tell it is Ubuntu; the Unity mobile experience looks clean and consistent with the desktop and touch is stunningly integrated. The Ubuntu for phones experience is designed to make all your phone content easier to access and your apps more immersive – every edge has a specific purpose, making all your apps, content and controls instantly accessible, without navigating back to the home screen every time. It’s a uniquely, beautifully converged experience.”
For better or worse, Canonical will also be offering “compelling customization options for partner apps, content and services. Operators and OEMs can easily add their own branded offerings. Canonical’s personal cloud service, Ubuntu One, provides storage and media services, file sharing and a secure transaction service which enables partners to integrate their own service offerings easily.”
This offering isn’t aimed for smartphone modders Instead, it’s for OEMs and carriers. “Canonical makes it easy to build phones with Ubuntu. The company provides engineering services to offload the complexity of maintaining multiple code bases which has proven to be a common issue for smartphone manufacturers, freeing the manufacturer to focus on hardware design and integration. For silicon vendors, Ubuntu is compatible with a typical Android Board Support Package (BSP). This means Ubuntu is ready to run on the most cost-efficient chipset designs.”
Bacon added, “To be quite clear, this announcement is not for a physical Ubuntu Phone that you can purchase yet. The announcement is for the Ubuntu for phones platform that we are presenting to handset operators and OEMs as a solution that they can bring to market. The Ubuntu phone offers great performance on handsets with a low bill of materials, while opening up new opportunities for phone and PC convergence at the top end of the market. This is no mockup or flash demo though; this is a real platform, and you have to see it in action…it really is stunning.”
That said, according to Mark Shuttleworth, founder of Ubuntu and VP of Products at Canonical, “Users with unlocked phones, starting with Galaxy Nexus phones, will be able to run Ubuntu.”
Shuttleworth also believes that “Canonical is uniquely placed with a single operating system for client, server and cloud, and a unified family of interfaces for the phone, the PC and the TV.” And that, “We are defining a new era of convergence in technology, with one unified operating system that underpins cloud computing, data centers, PCs and consumer electronics.” Specifically, Shuttleworth, in a press conference, said that eventually “a single Ubuntu image will be able to run with a smartphones, tablet, TV, or desktop face.” He hopes that this universal version will be available in April 2014 with Ubuntu 14.04.
In a press conference, Shuttleworth added that he’s well aware that smartphones is a “hotly contested” area but he believes that Ubuntu has unique advantages for both end-users and developers. “We have ample evidence of interest from both carriers and OEMs.” Shuttleworth added that Ubuntu for Android will ship in 2013 will ship from a brand-name phone vendor. Ubuntu for smartphones is expected to ship in the last quarter of 2013 or first-quarter of 2014. Canonical will be showing off this new spin on Ubuntu at CES in the next few days.
Wednesday I will be preparing Yin and Yang Shrimp Skewers, Confetti Quinoa and an adult refreshment yet to be decided. This will be a special show, as it falls on my birthday
You’re encouraged to post questions for me to answer live during the show. Use the hash tag #AskStayFray on G+, Twitter and YouTube.
Show starts 6pm PST (in case the time zone issue with Google Events is not worked out)
Watch it live on the Event Page, on +Larry Fournillier’s Profile Page or on www.hangoutnetworks.com
Apple’s Paris store near the Paris Opera House, in a photo taken during the iPhone 5 launch this past September.
(Credit: Stephen Shankland/CNET)
Armed robbers broke into the Apple Store in Paris on New Year’s Eve and made off with more than a million dollars’ worth of merchandise, according to reports.
Masked suspects wielding handguns forced their way into the store through an employee entrance as a janitor was leaving, about three hours after the store’s 6 p.m. closing time, England’s Telegraph reported. The janitor was “lightly injured,” the news outlet said. The Wall Street Journal cited French reports and said a security guard had also been overpowered by the thieves.
The Journal said two suspects forced their way in, and the Telegraph reported that four or five suspects total were involved in the robbery.
The thieves ignored display items and grabbed boxes of goods, loading them onto a truck. The whole operation took about 40 minutes, the Telegraph reported.
The total value of the stolen goods was estimated at about 1 million euros, or $1.32 million. But the exact total is not yet known, as an inventory is still being taken, the Telegraph reported.
There’s very little doubt that Apple is developing a new iPhone, and a new version of iOS, but today The Next Web claims to have seen the very first sketchy evidence of Apple’s next handset and mobile operating system. According to the publication, one iOS developer discovered that a device named “iPhone 6,1″ running iOS 7 was making requests from an IP address within Apple’s Cupertino campus itself.
NOW WOULD BE A GOOD TIME TO TEST A NEW IPHONE
Now, it could be that the company that promised to “double down on secrecy” is merely toying with us by pretending to have a new iPhone, or it could be that someone spoofed an Apple IP address and the iPhone and iOS identifiers for fun. Or, it could simply be the honest truth that Apple’s next iPhone is being actively tested right now. The company puts out new devices like clockwork every year. And in 2010, when Apple invited journalists inside its antenna labs, we learned that new designs are tested years before they’re shown to the public.
(Credit: Microsoft)
