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Corning And Samsung Strike A Deal To Make Lotus Glass

user — Sat, 04 Feb 2012 12:57:24 +0000

Corning is a well known name for smartphone manufacturers and users alike. The company’s proprietary Gorilla Glass is seen widely on most smartphones. But Samsung and Corning have taken it to a whole new level with a deal to make Lotus Glass for Samsung’s devices (including televisions). This new venture will be based out of South Korea, Samsung’s home. According to the press release, this glass will act as a shell for Samsung’s OLED displays and upcoming Samsung smartphones, mainly Galaxy smartphones. According to the press release, Corning and Samsung have been partners since the early days of television. When introduced into a high temperature atmosphere, a display/glass generally tends to expand a little. But that will not be the case with Corning’s Lotus Glass as it is engineered to expand as little as possible. The best part however is that the glass will consume very little power to display crisp images in higher resolutions. This deal is vital mainly due to the fact that Samsung makes most of its smartphones with OLED displays and is the only maker of Super AMOLED displays in the world. This could mean that future Samsung smartphones would be stronger and more durable. So accidentally dropping your phone face first would cause little or no harm to your smartphone. That’s great news right? It could however take some time to see smartphones with Lotus Glass in the market. Stories you may like: Samsung to launch 4 new Android smartphones for Asian markets Microsoft Demanding $15 Per Android Handset From Samsung Samsung’s latest entrant in the Galaxy series : The Samsung Galaxy SL GT – I9003 This article, Corning And Samsung Strike A Deal To Make Lotus Glass , was published at TechBuzz . Please don’t violate our copyright

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Corning And Samsung Strike A Deal To Make Lotus Glass

Investors Drive $ZNGA Up 26% In Two Days Following Facebook IPO Filing

Achilles — Sat, 04 Feb 2012 08:54:13 +0000

Those of us who have been following the social gaming industry already know that Zynga makes up a big portion of Facebook’s revenues. But lots of public investors only seem to have gotten the memo on Wednesday evening, when Facebook’s S-1 filing revealed that the developer accounts for 12% of its total revenues , or $445 million. In the two days since, Zynga’s stock has gone up more than 26%, to close at $13.39 this evening. This is far more than most analysts had previously projected. The ones who began covering Zynga after its December IPO had pegged its stock well under ten bucks. When analysts at banks who underwrote Zynga entered the fray a couple weeks ago, they were unsurprisingly more bullish . Following the end of the quiet period, Goldman Sachs, Morgan Stanley, J.P. Morgan and Barclays Capital, along with analysts from banks not involved in the IPO, all put their target price above Zynga’s public opening amount of $10. This drove the Street’s average target price up to $11.08, as you can see from the StreetInsider table below. Existing industry research, namely the Inside Virtual Goods report from my previous company, Inside Network , had indicated as of last fall that virtual goods revenue from Facebook applications reached $500 million last year . Facebook’s prospectus more than confirmed this on Wednesday, revealing that a strong fourth quarter had actually put the number a little higher, at $557 million. There are other data points you can use to try to figure out Zynga’s position with that number. AppData traffic shows that it has a dominant traffic position on Facebook’s platform. It gets 90% of its revenue from Facebook, but first Facebook collects 30% of its virtual goods transaction sales, per terms that have been in effect since midway through last year. And, Zynga has since at least 2009 used Facebook ads as a main way to bring in new and returning users. The problem is how to add this up. The Wall Street Journal’s Rolfe Winkler explains the confusion in how to calculate the results: Different assumptions lead to different estimates for Zynga’s fourth-quarter “bookings,” which is the preferred method for measuring Zynga’s top line. Macquarie analyst Ben Schachter’s quick-and-dirty analysis says Facebook’s disclosure implies $268 million for Zynga’s bookings for the fourth quarter, short of the $302 million analysts are expecting. Baird Equity Research analyst Colin Sebastian digs deeper, making more assumptions, and comes out with a number of $315 million. Both analyses included many caveats. Heavy trading volumes indicate high volatility among investors. Zynga will do its first ever earnings call on February 14th. Get ready for some new estimates.

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Investors Drive $ZNGA Up 26% In Two Days Following Facebook IPO Filing

Google Adjusts Political Posture With Sponsorship Of Conservative Conference

Achilles — Sat, 04 Feb 2012 07:09:02 +0000

In interesting but ultimately not very shocking news, Google has signed on as a major sponsor of the Conservative Political Action Conference , which is more or less what it sounds like. Not that there’s anything wrong with that. It’s just a little odd seeing Google, which is becoming increasingly political, listed next to such organizations as the Koch Institute, the Heritage Foundation, and the NRA. But this isn’t the moment Google comes out as a closet Republican. It’s actually quite in keeping with Google’s position of aggressive neutrality. Google says that it’s there because it’s a great place to promote their election-tracking site, push Google+ as a platform for sharing and collaborating, and because the conference is fairly young and tech-savvy. Hard to accuse them of pandering, or of partisan pandering anyway. And that’s sort of the point. Google will no doubt be sponsoring similar events on the left side of the political spectrum as well (they say as much, but haven’t announced anything specific). The message is: hey, we just provide a service. No agenda here. Not that Google is totally apolitical, but their fierce opposition to SOPA was more like a mother bear defending its cubs than a deliberate political decision. On the other hand, they did go out of their way to take an official stance against Proposition 8 . By and large, though, they have avoided taking a stance on hot-button issues. Can Google actually remain neutral? SOPA was the product of bipartisan ignorance and greed, not just left or right, but what if the next bill threatening a Google territory were to be led by one party or the other? Or what if Google refuses to support, say, a communications embargo with a terrorist-harboring country, or such like? The dance they’re doing will become increasingly difficult if they insist on putting their neutrality on a pedestal for much longer. On the other hand, this may be overthinking it. Why can’t a company spend a little cash to have a ring in the political circus, and not choose sides overtly? No reason. But, as has been observed in other contexts, sometimes the only winning move is not to play.

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Google Adjusts Political Posture With Sponsorship Of Conservative Conference

Watch 2012 Super Bowl Commercials Now With Facebook + USA Today’s Ad Meter

bestcbstore — Sat, 04 Feb 2012 04:48:56 +0000

Want to watch the big budget Super Bowl commercials, but can’t wait till Sunday or don’t care about football? Facebook and USA Today have just launched Ad Meter , a Facebook app where you can watch many of the TV spots right now. Then from kickoff until Tuesday night you can vote for your favorites. Traditionally an offline poll done live with handheld meters, USA Today has finally brought Ad Meter online so you can judge ads both in real-time and post-game. Facebook tapped Involver to build the app, and has secured early previews of roughly 20 commercials. The rest of the ads will become available through the app at game time. Last year Facebook let you watch Several Internet companies have plopped down the big bucks this year in an attempt to court the mainstream. Arrested Development’s Gob plugs Hulu, and Teleflora.com touts the lovin you might get if you use it to send a Valentine’s Day gift. Etrade, Careerbuilder.com, Investing in Super Bowl ads makes more and more sense for web services as the general public becomes more internet savvy. They should tread cautiously, though, considering past ads from Salesforce, Groupon have been voted most disliked and caused PR crises . Let’s hope no one gives our industry a bad wrap this time around. Oh wait, GoDaddy’s ads filled with body-painted models and angels in the cloud are just as sexist as ever.

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Watch 2012 Super Bowl Commercials Now With Facebook + USA Today’s Ad Meter

Pokki Gives Quick Access To Madden NFL Superstars, Just In Time For The Big Game

blogger — Sat, 04 Feb 2012 04:00:32 +0000

It’s the Super Bowl season, when a host of services and apps debut just in time for the biggest television event of the year. And, if you’re a fan of Madden’s NFL Superstars (a web app that’s available through Facebook), then you’ll like this launch: the game is now available as a Pokki right here . Pokki , for those that haven’t used it, is a platform that lets you install lightweight apps that live in your Windows Taskbar (a Mac version is on the way). Each app gets its own icon — click on it, and the app will pop open immediately, click away and it’ll hide itself, and when you click it again, it’ll pick up right where you left off. The point is to give you quick access to apps without having to deal with browser tabs or standalone windows, and it works well.There are other apps and services that do something similar (Mac users may want to check out Fluid ), but Pokki’s platform features apps that are specifically designed for its quick, pop-over design. Pokki has landed two major gaming companies so far: Kabam and, with this launch, EA, and it seems likely that more will follow suit (the platform is well-suited for quick sessions of gaming throughout the day). And there are other apps available as well, including Gmail and eBay. The company says that Pokki is still in beta and hasn’t yet focused on marketing, but that its early numbers are very promising — so far they’ve seen “hundreds of thousands” of app installs, with users who have used the apps “tens of millions of times”. The platform is also seeing strong traction with its built-in app market: 60% of users are browsing and installing two new apps per month. Pokki is one of two main products from SweetLabs — their other major product is OpenCandy , which lets developers include targeted ads within their application’s install flow.

Arianna Wants To Put A Nap Room In TechCrunch HQ. LOL.

Achilles — Sat, 04 Feb 2012 03:48:36 +0000

This funny little piece of email just got forwarded to me … From: “****, ***” Date: February 3, 2012 10:11:04 AM PST To: Greg Barto [@ TechCrunch] Subject: NapQuest Hey Greg It is one of our goals to get a “nap room” set-up in every location. Basically, it’s a closed room where we would put a chaise or couch, darken the windows and allow people to nap as the [sic] like. This is high on the priority list for Arianna and your office is one of the few where we don’t yet have it in place. When I visited your office on Wednesday, I looked around. It strikes me that the room (3rd office from the back corner) might be a good choice? There are currently a couple of desks in there we would need to remove. Then I would purchase the furniture and arrange to have the window glass tinted. What do you think? I just need your agreement to move ahead and I will coordinate making it happen. Let me know. Thanks, **** **** Sr. Facilities Manager, PA/SF Corporate Services, AOL Inc. 395 Page Mill Road Palo Alto, CA 94306 After making a bunch of “nap room” jokes and laughing uncontrollably like a hyperactive child around the office, I’ve finally figured out why this “high Arianna priority” (LOL) strikes me as so funny — other than the fact THAT IT IS ACTUALLY CALLED NapQuest. This is Silicon Valley, where we herald founders like Jack Dorsey for working 16 hour days (at not one, but two! companies). People at startups are never not working. Silicon Valley absolutely, positively doesn’t need a nap room because in theory we don’t sleep, let alone nap (and if we do need to nap — like in an emergency — we take that shiz home, far far away from hungry competitors!). Please Aol Mr. Sr. Facilities Manager, take that money and buy us a bunch of Diet Coke to drink late at night or that great beef jerky we used to have or a copyediting slave intern or passes to Burning Man or anything but a room specifically designed for being less productive. Oh sure, it could be worse. At least they’re not trying to install one of these things. Image: Roger Jegg – Fotodesign-Jegg.de

Fear Not: Google Will Still Support The Verizon Galaxy Nexus

bestcbstore — Sat, 04 Feb 2012 03:29:23 +0000

Earlier this afternoon Droid-Life noticed something strange: the Android developer devices page had been modified to remove the Verizon Galaxy Nexus, leading the site to question whether Google may have removed support for the device because of its spat with Verizon over Google Wallet. Which would stand to infuriate a lot of new Galaxy Nexus users (including myself), who are looking forward to receiving device updates directly from Google and not having to wait for Verizon to get around to pushing their own releases. Thankfully, we’ve confirmed this isn’t the case: Google says it will indeed be updating the Verizon Galaxy Nexus in the future. Turns out Droid Life made a bit of a logical leap, as the page stated that No CDMA Devices were supported any more, and other devices including the Sprint Nexus S 4G had been removed as well. In response to the post, Google has written a clarification to the Android Contributors group, in which it explains that CDMA devices are being removed from the Android Open Source Project site because they need carrier-signed .apk files (which users can’t generate). Here’s the post: Hello! This is a quick clarification about support for CDMA devices. For various technical reasons, recent CDMA Android devices implement core telephony functionality in .apk files provided in binary form by the carriers. To function correctly, these .apk files must be signed by the so-called “platform” key. However, when an individual creates a custom build from the AOSP source code, they don’t use the same signing key as these CDMA flies were signed with. The result is that these files don’t work properly, and pure AOSP builds running on these devices can’t place calls, access mobile data, and so on. Because we aim to make sure that we are as clear as possible about the degree of support that devices have, we updated the docs over at source.android.com to reflect this reality. We will still make available as many as possible of the closed-source binaries for these devices, and Nexus devices will continue to have unlockable bootloaders. And, of course, GSM/HSPA+ devices are still supported, as are any other devices we’re able to support. We’ve simply updated the documentation to be clearer about the current extent of CDMA support. We are of course always working to improve support, and we’ll keep everyone updated as we make improvements. Thanks as always for your interest in AOSP! – Dan

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Fear Not: Google Will Still Support The Verizon Galaxy Nexus

U.S. Government & Military To Get Secret-Worthy Android Phones

Budowniczy425 — Sat, 04 Feb 2012 02:50:16 +0000

The amount of stuff we trust to fly in and out of our smartphones is astounding . Just look at what happened when a couple of reporters got access to an unwitting (and rather unlucky) Apple employee’s iMessages alone — within days, they learned more about him than most people know about their closest friends. Now, imagine all the stuff that could fly in and out of a government official’s phone, or that of a highly-ranked member of the military. Forget saucy texts and booty pictures — we’re talking about state secrets, here. Looking to keep their secrets underwraps while on the go, the U.S government is working on a build of Android custom-tailored to meet their security requirements. Word of the project comes from CNN , who notes that U.S. officials/soldiers aren’t currently allowed to send any classified data over their smartphones. If they need to transmit anything that might sink ships (so to speak), they currently need to find a secured (generally meaning hardwired) line hooked to an approved device. Here’s the gist of the project: A limited number of soldiers will get the phones first, then federal agencies, then possibly contractors The U.S. won’t be building their own hardware — that’d be too expensive. Instead, they’ll be buying commercially available devices and reflashing them. They hoped to be able to offer iOS devices, but it’s not going to happen. CNN notes that federal officials met with Apple to request that they share their source — as you’d probably guess, Apple wasn’t too cool with that idea. Surprisingly, users of the handsets will be able to install new applications, though the handsets will put a specific emphasis on exactly what information the application can access and what it’s currently sending. Seems unlikely that they’d give these things full Android Market access, though — that’d be rather silly. The project is being funded by DARPA, with the NSA evaluating it as they go (while working on a version of their own, curiously.) Most of the project’s details are still underwraps, but this is all still rather interesting. What hardware might they use? If DARPA makes any substantial security improvements to Android’s kernel, might that work make it back to the official branch? Might this work eventually be monetized (remember, Siri was born as a DARPA project) and offered to enterprises looking for a locked-down version of Android — and what does that mean for RIM/BlackBerry?

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U.S. Government & Military To Get Secret-Worthy Android Phones

Some Refurbished Xooms Could Put Personal Data In The Wrong Hands

user — Sat, 04 Feb 2012 00:55:56 +0000

Maybe it was too thick, maybe it was too heavy, maybe you just didn’t like Honeycomb. Regardless of your reasoning, you may want to keep your eyes peeled on your credit score if you bought and returned a Motorola Xoom between March and October 2011, because your personal information may be in someone else’s hands. That’s the story from Motorola, anyway. As it happens, the standard refurbishment process that occurs when a customer returns a piece of hardware didn’t go exactly as planned for some devices. Motorola estimates that out of batch of 6,200 refurbished Xoom Wi-Fi tablets, about 100 of them weren’t properly erased before they were resold in batches on daily deals site Woot.com. Though the odds are in your favor that you weren’t affected, I doubt that same line of reasoning will provide much comfort to someone who was. Motorola doesn’t go into much detail about how exactly the process went awry. Were the tablets simply not wiped before they were resold? Did some glitch cause user-stored data to remain on the device even after a factory reset? According to them, the “information that may be accessible to the purchasers of the impacted refurbished tablets may include any information that the original user elected to store on the tablet.” That could potentially include media like photos and video, as well as “user names and passwords for email and social media accounts, as well as other password-protected sites and applications.” With tablets supplanting notebooks and PCs for a growing number of users, this sort of snafu is the last thing Motorola needs as they and bounce back from a disappointing fourth quarter , though they’ve been pretty forthcoming about the whole mess. If you were one of the people who returned a Xoom between March and October 2011, let Motorola know — they’ll be setting you up with a free 2-year subscription to Experian’s ProtectMyID identity theft alert service. They would also like to have a word with you if you bought a refurbished Xoom from Woot, so mosey on over to their returns site to see if your new old tablet is one of the troublemakers.

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Some Refurbished Xooms Could Put Personal Data In The Wrong Hands

The Wheel: What Is The Foxconn Debate Really About?

vertical8 — Sat, 04 Feb 2012 00:20:31 +0000

Thirty spokes meet at a nave; Because of the hole we may use the wheel. Clay is moulded into a vessel; Because of the hollow we may use the cup. Walls are built around a hearth; Because of the doors we may use the house. Thus tools come from what exists, But use from what does not. – Tao De Ching There’s a carousel in a small Cape Cod town that we visited this summer and the kids rode it a few times. The carousel is quite old and quite handsome and it makes a great diversion of an evening. I’m reminded now of trying to take pictures of the kids while they rode the carousel. For a while I’d wave and try to get their attention as they roared past, their laughter dopplering around the edge of the curve, and then, after four or five tries I’d give up and just watch. It’s a wheel, an endless circle, designed to delight and enthuse and distract. Reading the recent back and forth between Stephen Fry – an Apple apologist – and Mike Daisey – an Apple user/abuser – I’m reminded of that carousel. The gist is this: Mike Daisey woke up the NPR-listening world with his long piece of Foxconn for This American Life . It was a great piece – dramatic, educational, and eye-opening – but it’s definitely nothing we haven’t seen before. Some could say that it was The Jungle of Chinese manufacturing, a tell-all with just enough outrage to make us rethink a great horror. But the problem is this: Daisey is an actor and knows how to bring out the story, just as John Steinbeck was a writer and knew how to populate the Dust Bowl with Christ figures. That doesn’t make the story less effective – it makes it more so – but it does make the story less true. The problem is the endless circle of blame and apology. Daisey is correct in many of his assumptions, but offers a way forward that is currently unenforceable. But if you argue against Daisey’s points, you’re an apologist. But, as Paul Krugman writes : Such moral outrage is common among the opponents of globalization — of the transfer of technology and capital from high-wage to low-wage countries and the resulting growth of labor-intensive Third World exports. These critics take it as a given that anyone with a good word for this process is naive or corrupt and, in either case, a de facto agent of global capital in its oppression of workers here and abroad. We keep going over the same ground here. The argument can be delineated like this: Foxconn is an evil sweatshop. Apple is a huge Foxconn customer. They should change things. Two of those things are true, a third is false. To be clear, I’m with the crowd that says that Apple is, at best, ignorant of Foxconn’s problems and at worst ignoring them. I agree things must change and Apple is in a great position to do it. But I don’t agree with the first point. I’ve seen sweat shops and Foxconn is a factory. If many of the major brands (I recall that Ford was a customer at one factory I visited) knew that their promotional USB keys were made in a building that looked like a gulag, they’d be skewered. Here’s hoping they are, one day. However, Daisey’s Foxconn story – written outside of the factory – and my own research , written inside the factory – don’t jibe. His discoveries that people get sick or are injured in factories are naive and I suspect his sample size of employees who approached him is far smaller than we realize. To go into the Foxconn factory is to see a place staffed by college-age kids and engineers who work 10 or so hours a day building electronics. There is no great Dickensian work house nor are there sad-eyed madonnas of the assembly line chained to the soldering irons. This isn’t the mundanity of evil – this is just mundanity. Nor am I saying that Daisey’s interviewees are malingerers with an axe to grind. I’m sure their lives are ruined or much harder thanks to Foxconn. The value of Daisey’s efforts is his ability to give these people a voice in an environment that would normally quash that voice. He’s doing what artists must do – reflecting a time and place through his own lens. My own opinion is simple: Apple needs to do more for the people in its manufacturing chain. I will not pretend that Apple can simply wave a magic wand and make every Foxconn employee rich and happy, but it has the cash and the wherewithal to further disrupt the Chinese supply chain and improve the lot of Foxconn’s employees. But I also agree with what one Gawker commenter said : “I believe Tim Cook will do more good for those employees (and already has, in point of fact) than Mike Daisey ever will.” Apple on the aggregate couldn’t care less about our existence nor does it deserve our undying respect and admiration. On an personal level there are plenty of folks inside Apple working and worrying about worker’s rights in China, but as an entity we are talking supply chains and price management. Apple makes excellent tools for our digital age, that’s it. To defend or excoriate the company is like screaming into the wind. However, through their constant rejiggering and improvements, they have essentially created a Western, ISO-compliant factory environment in a corporate culture that used to force underperforming employees to stand outside wearing a sign that said “I am a bad worker.” What Daisey did is made us think. Did he do it the right way, using the right tools? Absolutely not. Will he improve the lot of the workers he interviewed? I doubt it. But will his efforts – and the efforts of many who came before him – help bring the Chinese worker out of penury? Sure, eventually. I opened this piece talking about a carousel in Cape Cod, a delightfully bourgeois setting for a piece on poverty wage labor practices. I get to go to Cape Cod and put my kids on a carousel because my job involves dicking around on the Internet all day (I suspect Daisey’s does too). My one wish is that every Foxconn employee, at some point in their lives, will be able to sit down to an unhurried meal, chat with family, and maybe ride a carousel. I think it’s in Foxconn’s best interests to ensure that that happens – and soon – and I think that we’re nearly there. Things will get better, I’m sure of it, and I also feel that they already have.

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The Wheel: What Is The Foxconn Debate Really About?