Sunday, 22 June 2014

Review TechRadar: Phone and communications news 06-22-2014

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TechRadar: Phone and communications news
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In Depth: Google, Apple, Facebook and Amazon: where do the big four go from here?
Jun 22nd 2014, 12:01, by Jamie Carter

In Depth: Google, Apple, Facebook and Amazon: where do the big four go from here?

Where do the big four go from here?

Search engines, social media and text messages are history. The major 'walled gardens' of the the internet are developing fast, but all of the big four are betting on various visions of the future. Will the next big things be home automation, virtual reality social networking … or something else entirely?

With two-thirds of the world's population not yet online, what happens next to the internet is truly up for grabs.

1 Google

"Google is thinking of mobile in a much broader manner," says Aaron Goldman, CMO of Kenshoo, and author of Everything I Know About Marketing I Learned From Google.

"It's not just about phones and tablets. It's about devices in your home, such as Nest, in your car – such as Waze and Android OS in navigational systems – as well as on your face with Google Glass."


Glass, Android Wear & Google Fit

Last year everyone was obsessed with Google Glass before a collective fear of a loss of privacy took hold. The smart glass now seems destined for a life as a speciality product used as a rather boring work tool, though that hasn't stopped a Google Glass 2 going into development.

Will it run on Android Wear? Although Google will release its own smart watch, the master plan behind Android Wear is creating this new operating system, complete with built-in access to Google Now contextual features and voice commands, Google search, and probably Gmail, too. With products due from HTC, Samsung, Asus, Motorola and LG, Android Wear could be a way-in to the future of how we all interact with gadgets.

You should also expect a layer of cloud-powered sporty goodness called Google Fit, an app that will provide those all-important stats on steps, heart rate and calories that we all simply must have access to. Or not.

Nest

Home automation & navigation

Yes, the internet of things is here and Google wants to be part of it. Whether your home and your car run on Android, iOS or something else is a decision that looms in all of our futures. Google's acquisition of Nest and its smart thermostat and smoke alarm products is more a signal of intent that a concept in its own right. Its Android@Home initiative is likely to expand into Google Home, or something similar, that creates a smart dashboard for homes. As an app, obviously.

Google is covering all of the bases here; it's also interested in robotics and artificial intelligence.

Titan

Google X

Google has big money and big plans, and some of them are probably nonsense. There's a reason Google X, is called the 'moonshot factory'.

On the sensible side comes a Google Maps upgrade: just this month it acquired Skybox Imaging, the company responsible for Google Maps' images, and Google have also opened talks with Virgin Galactic about getting mapping satellites into orbit.

As well as improving Google Maps – something its acquisition of social mapping app Waze is now doing – it could also become part of Google's drive to increase internet access in rural and remote areas of the globe. So far those ambitions come under Project Loon, a bizarre concept to put a network of Wi-Fi balloons at the edge of space to help fill coverage gaps, and bring people back online after disasters. However, with its purchase of solar-powered drone maker Titan Aerospace it could possibly get off the ground.

Other projects to come out of Google X include Calico which focuses on tackling ageing and illness with technology, and a patent application for smart contact lenses with camera sensors embedded inside.

2 Facebook

It may have tried and failed with its Facebook Home OS layer for Android phones, but there are precious few products and service that Facebook doesn't want to offer its 1.28 billion monthly users.

Voice

By adding voice WhatsApp could be huge across the globe. "It will disrupt mobile telephony like Skype did. By integrating a platform like WhatsApp into Facebook, the new owners have a real deep-reach into the day-to-day communications of users," says entrepreneur and strategist Vikas Shah, President, TiE Manchester. "WhatsApp was one of the few 'off platform' ways people did this, and that's important."


Facebook is also creating its own version of SnapChat called Slingshot, which could become a valuable mobile business tool.

VR

Virtual reality social networks

Facebook is also thinking about the next major computing platform. Why else would it have bought virtual reality headset maker Oculus Rift?
 "Unlike mobile, which was not seen as core to the Facebook story, virtual reality is set to be central to its ambitions," says Dave Wallace, CEO of digital agency Heath Wallace. "Imagine being able to step inside a social space, with a virtual representation of yourself, and going to meet others – it certainly has appeal," he says. 


Money transfer

Banking is also in Facebook's future, with the money transfer market rumoured to be on the company's to-do list. "Going after the money transfer market could help Facebook gain access to payment information on a huge number of users while also extending the network's presence in emerging markets," says Patrick Salyer, CEO of social media infrastructure company Gigya. However, he points out that to succeed Facebook will need to find a unique model that differentiates from money transfer providers like PayPal or Western Union. 


connectivity lab

Connectivity Lab

Money transfers are a way of getting people locked-in to Facebook on smartphones, but what if there's no phone signal? Cue the Connectivity Lab. "In most countries Facebook is the internet," says Lorry Destainville, Head of Product Development at Glow. "If users are far from phone relays, Facebook may deploy internet network via drones, so that these users want to start accessing the web." File next to Google's Project Loon.

3 Amazon

Amazon is no longer just a place to buy books. Its brazen attempt to get people to pay a monthly Amazon Prime fee to use its services seems to have worked (thanks in part to Amazon Prime Instant Video), and we're on the cusp of Amazon being integral to some people's daily lives and habits.

It cleared-up in the e-books market with its Kindle, but there's much more emphasis on the Amazon ecosystem in its follow-up Kindle Fire tablets. It's no surprise that Amazon is putting more of its hardware into the market; for now we've got Amazon Fire TV, Amazon Prime Instant Video and – soon – Amazon Prime Music, but what comes next?

Amazon Fire TV

Amazon Fire Phone

Here comes Amazon's 'missing link', the 4.7-inch Fire Phone that's all about tying-in owners to Amazon services. The Amazon Appstore now hosts 240,000 apps and games available in almost 200 countries, and its first handset will boast a glasses-free 3D screen. That novelty might wake-up the dozing smartphone market, but this is about Amazon popularising its locked-in platform while also breaking free from its website-only retail model. The Fire Phone is a gateway to Amazon's digital content library, with the likes of the Kindle Store, Audible, Kindle Newsstand and its newly acquired Comixology service embedded. It's all about popularising Prime; members will get unlimited streaming access to music, movies and TV.

Jeff Bezos Blue Origins

Prime Air

Having taken a chunk of business from high street shops, Amazon now wants to put the postman out of work, too. An air delivery system that would deliver orders in just 30 minutes, Prime Air is a fleet of autonomous octocopters that can deliver 86 per cent of Amazon deliveries – as long as there's a warehouse 10 miles away.

Amazon's Jeff Bezos has plans to go even higher; his Blue Origins private spaceflight company has its own hydrogen-fuelled rockets and has ambitions to lower the cost of spaceflight. It could begin to make suborbital flights in 2018, both for space tourists and astronauts visiting the International Space Station.

4 Apple

It's hard to know exactly what Apple thinks will be the next big thing since it is so massively secretive. But with its trend-setter position gone, Apple is quickly becoming a follower, with its iPhone 5S & 5C split and Apple's acquisition of Beats the evidence.

Apple Beats

iCloud Drive & iOS8

Apple's OS X 10.10 Yosemite announcement is small-fry in the world of the Big Four, but the updates to iOS8 and especially iCloud Drive should allow Apple to catch-up with rivals Dropbox and Google Drive. As well as allowing 5GB email attachments called MailDrop, the storage available will be much larger than the current tiny limits.

Gesture & motion tech

November saw Apple acquire PrimeSense, an Israeli company whose motion tech was used in the first version of Microsoft's Xbox Kinect. Is this for Apple iTV, the iWatch or a future iteration of the iPhone?

  • Check out our hands on review of the now Facebook owned Oculus Rift







Inflame: Amazon Fire Phone: flaming mess or hot stuff?
Jun 22nd 2014, 10:01, by Gary Cutlack

Inflame: Amazon Fire Phone: flaming mess or hot stuff?

Years of leaks, rumours, guesswork and quite a few lies-for-attention were put to bed last week, as Amazon revealed the Amazon Fire Phone, a little smartphone friend for the successful Kindle Fire tablet series.

Most of the pre-launch excitement from phone nerds quickly disappeared, though, when Amazon's boss revealed the pricing strategy for the phone's US launch. There is no 'free with Prime' option many had hoped for; it's a high-cost, high-end model, priced similarly to the top-drawer Samsungs and HTCs of this world.

Those hoping for stellar performance on a tiny budget from the delivery logistics specialist were disappointed, while many others were simply confused by Amazon's baffling head-tracking tools that surely won't add much to the phone -- or the buying stuff from Amazon -- experience.

As is commonplace on the internet, no one was particularly happy about anything.

The price may very well be wrong

Beneath a report on the Guardian, reader Naa27 is already predicting some heavy discounting due to the Amazon Fire Phone's hefty launch price, posting: "The Fire tablets worked because they were cheap. Not sure why anyone would pay a premium for this. The specs aren't anything to shout about and benefit of the added features are arguable. Be surprised if this succeeds - though less surprised if a huge price cut happens early on."

Jeff Bezos

And Phaser isn't exactly a fan either, bemoaning the lack of the core Android apps that arrive pre-loaded on the army of other Google-based phones it's competing with, saying: "I really do not like Fire OS from trying it on tablets, and this is very expensive for what it is, while missing best in class services like YouTube and Google Maps. None of the other stuff feels very significant to change my mind on that."

Rakbeast had a business plan for Mr Bezos, but it's not a particularly kind one: "They are the least strategic company around, financially successful due to their dodgy tax dealings and their only strength is the online store. They would be best placed buying Argos, instead of making a damn phone."

Overseas readers should know that Argos is a mainstream household goods shop, where men go to buy last-minute presents for family members and shower curtains. That is therefore perhaps meant as a bit of an insult.

Heading for trouble

On The Register, things were as cynical as usual. Reader R11 won't be trying the Fire Phone out no matter how much it's discounted to by Q2 of 2015, scoffing: "Moving your head a lot is typically uncomfortable. Try tilting your head and keeping it at an angle for a minute. To me at least, this user interface sounds exhausting at best, and downright painful at worst."

Amazon

He finished his exclusive hands-nowhere-near-it review with: "I really can't think of a worse way to navigate a phone than moving my head."

Reader JDX came back with some facts, or at least some authoritatively-typed words that appear like they might be proper facts, explaining how bodies work with: "People move their head constantly when interacting with the real world or talking to people. Whereas sitting still with a fixed, unblinking stare at your screen is proven to be bad for your health."

And besides, it's all about the apps anyway, as reader Joe K put it: "One of the main reasons that WinPho fails for most people is the lack of app store. Amazon's app store is like a random scattering of apps, some you've heard of, most you won't have, and whose only criteria is their devs who decide to give some money to Bezos."

Gadgets with benefits

The tight integration with Amazon, which even goes so far as to include a physical button to let you scan and buy items, was another sore point for many. Gizmodo reader Dinsy Jones summed up the thoughts of many, with: "So this whole thing is a tool to get me to buy more stuff from Amazon... and I have to pay £500 for the privilege? Right, I can't wait to buy one."

Make sure you buy it via Prime if you're that excited, Dinsy, it'll come quicker.

Amazon Drone

In response, reader ScyBy would clearly rather Amazon had announced a £100 budget marvel, agreeing: "Exactly, it should at least be subsidised. Their tablet offerings stand up as media consumption devices, but this? I can't see why it exists other than to benefit Amazon more than it does the consumer."

A more aggressive response was offered by Nenslo, who mocked: "This phone seems completely useless and here I thought Samsung touted useless gimmicks!"

The most sarcastic comment came via Eurogamer reader Sadakos_fury, who doesn't feel particularly empowered by the one-click item barcode-scanning and ordering system that's built into the Fire Phone.

He painted this sad picture of modern-day retail: "Hold on - so now I can make my way into town, go into a bookshop, scan a book, order it online a bit cheaper, put the book back on the shelf, leave the shop with a happy wave, go all the way home and wait for a few days (give or take) for the book I previously held in my hands to drop through the door, all the while enjoying the feel of the one pound seventy-nine that I saved rolling around in my hands? Amazing. What an age we live in."

Just you wait until the drones are dropping all your stuff on your doorstep. Then you won't want to carry things home like a caveman.








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