Twelve percent of U.S. adults own an e-book reader as of May 2011, according to our latest report, up from 6% in November 2010. Hispanic adults, adults younger than age 65, college graduates and those living in households with incomes of at least $75,000 are most likely to own e-book readers. Parents are also more likely than non-parents to own these devices.
Meanwhile, tablet computers have not seen the same level of growth among U.S. adults in recent months. As of May 2011, 8% of adults report owning a tablet computer such as an iPad, Samsung Galaxy or Motorola Xoom. This represents just a 3 percentage-point increase in ownership since November 2010. Overall, the highest rates of tablet ownership are among Hispanic adults and those with household incomes of at least $75,000 annually.
PEW Internet
Apple has more than 30,000 retail employees in its 325 stores around the world.
At a panel on search engines in 2009, a Microsoft executive said that using Google is like smoking cigarettes: "It’s a habit that’s going to be difficult to give up." He was talking about switching search engines, but the difficulties of breaking the Google habit increase exponentially for people who also rely on Google Docs, the Chrome browser, or an Android phone.
[ spectrum.ieee.org ]
The clash demonstrates the risks of relying on a technology platform such as Microsoft’s Windows, Apple’s App Store or Facebook, where a distribution partner can become a direct competitor overnight.
“Third-party developers can become a free R&D resource for Apple,” said Mark Mulligan, an independent media and technology analyst. Apple watches independent developers to see what is successful and then builds some of the ideas into its own software, he said.
[ ft.com ]
Navy spokeswoman: "The Navy is fully committed to protecting its trademark rights as it pertains to this matter and is currently examining all legal options"
Square, the mobile payments start-up, has tried to make cash obsolete by offering a way for any business, from a farm stand to a restaurant, to turn their phones or tablets into credit card terminals. Now Square is trying to make wallets obsolete, too, by upending the way that consumers pay for things.
On Monday, Square announced a way for shoppers to pay by simply giving their name to the merchant — as in, “charge it to Jack.” With two new apps, Card Case for consumers and Register for merchants, Square wants to be involved in every step of the transaction process by replacing cash registers, loyalty cards and paper receipts.
In an email today to publishers including the Boston Phoenix, Google told partners in its News Archive project that it would cease accepting, scanning, and indexing microfilm and other archival material from newspapers, and was instead focusing its energies on “newer projects that help the industry, such as Google One Pass, a platform that enables publishers to sell content and subscriptions directly from their own sites.”
The five-year-old News Archive project was Google’s attempt to do for old newspapers what Google Books has been attempting to do for the world’s libraries. As part of the project, newspapers opened their morgues to Google, which promised to scan, index, and host the digital files it made from the archives. Google and the newspapers would then share revenue on the pageviews of those archives. Google says it eventually scanned 60 million pages, covering 250 years.
“Customers are now choosing Kindle books more often than print books. We had high hopes that this would happen eventually, but we never imagined it would happen this quickly - we’ve been selling print books for 15 years and Kindle books for less than four years,” said Jeff Bezos, Founder and CEO, Amazon.com. “In addition, we’re excited by the response to Kindle with Special Offers for only $114, which has quickly become the bestselling member of the Kindle family. We continue to receive positive comments from customers on the low $114 price and the money-saving special offers. We’re grateful to our customers for continuing to make Kindle the bestselling e-reader in the world and the Kindle Store the most popular e-bookstore in the world.”
Many feel like Flickr has swerved from its original course of being a community of photographers and photosharers to being a storage center.
n a new study of crowd wisdom — the statistical phenomenon by which individual biases cancel each other out, distilling hundreds or thousands of individual guesses into uncannily accurate average answers — researchers told test participants about their peers’ guesses. As a result, their group insight went awry.
“Although groups are initially ‘wise,’ knowledge about estimates of others narrows the diversity of opinions to such an extent that it undermines” collective wisdom, wrote researchers led by mathematician Jan Lorenz and sociologist Heiko Rahut of Switzerland’s ETH Zurich, in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences on May 16. “Even mild social influence can undermine the wisdom of crowd effect.”
[ wired.com ]
Post your thought at www.whatifgoogle.com
Post your thought at whatifamazon.com
Or what if Google trades for you, in your trading account based on your profile data?
Post your thought at whatifgoogle.com
Post your thought at whatifapple.com
Apple has actually done something few companies have been able to do – it will sacrifice one extremely profitable, disruptive product to open way for another one.
Post your thought at whatifapple.com
It seems they have done something which basically involves making up numbers and calling it research. All very Web 2.0. The brand value is just measuring 'good will' -- i.e. the intangible worth of the company once all tangible assets (buildings, data centres, licenses, etc.) have been discounted.
Post your thoughts at whatifgoogle.com
One is like the Mafia; demanding protection from every shop in the street. The other is like a "friend of the family" who takes obscene liberties after being left the keys to your house.
Buy only our hardware, use only our software then develop apps that we (Apple) and charge you a fee...
Post your thoughts at whatifamazon.com
Who would win a cyber war, Google or the Chinese government?
Post your thoughts at: whatifgoogle.com
Post your thoughts at: whatifmicrosoft.com
Advertisers, celebrity endorsers and even some internet bloggers will be held liable for false statements they make about products as part of a crackdown by US regulators on deceptive advertising practices.
The new rules on the use of testimonials in advertising, released by the Federal Trade Commission on Monday, also say that anyone who endorses a product, including celebrities and bloggers, must make explicit the compensation received from companies. In an effort to hold companies and endorsers accountable, the FTC guidelines state that businesses and reviewers will be liable for any false statements made about a product. If a blogger receives a free sample of skin cream and untruthfully claims it cures eczema, for example, the company and the blogger could be held liable for false advertising.
» FTC GOV - FT [ Contribute: submit link / submit article ]
A surveillance state, with cameras on every street is commonplace but now Big Business is also turning to Big Brother.
Face recognition, behaviour analysing surveillance cameras, biometric profiling and the monitoring and storing of our shopping patterns has made snooping into our habits, movements and private lives ever easier. Dismayed at its shrinking power to market to us via traditional media or even the internet, the private sector is now proposing to reach potential customers in ways that critics say should have us all concerned.
» BBC [ Contribute: submit link / submit article ]
The U.S. government plans to propose broad new rules Monday that would force Internet providers to treat all Web traffic equally, seeking to give consumers greater freedom to use their computers or cellphones to enjoy videos, music and other legal services that hog bandwidth.
The move would make good on a campaign promise to Silicon Valley supporters like Google Inc. from President Barack Obama, but will trigger a battle with phone and cable companies like AT&T Inc. and Comcast Corp., which don't want the government telling them how to run their networks.
Treating Web traffic equally means carriers couldn't block or slow access to legal services or sites that are a drain on their networks or offered by rivals.
» Reuters [ Contribute: submit link / submit article ]
» Wall Street Journal
» Washington Post
In a recent essay in the New York Review of Books, Michael Massing articulates a point made so often about the Web that it's nearly catechismal. Blogs, he says, have torn down the power structure of old media. "Decentralization and democratization" are the law of the land, offering “a podium to Americans of all ages and backgrounds to contribute.” This is a notion that bloggers and web gurus have been touting for years. In his 2006 book, An Army of Davids, for example, “Instapundit” blogger Glenn Reynolds argued that “markets and technology” empowered “ordinary people to beat big media.” And this June, internet sage Clay Shirky assured an audience at a TED event that the old model, where “professionals broadcast messages to amateurs,” is “slipping away.”
» The Atlantic [ Contribute: submit link / submit article ]
Just about everyone, from the general public to news executives, has an opinion about the future of journalism. Now, the Federal Trade Commission is stepping into the debate.
The commission is planning two days of workshops in December — titled “From Town Criers to Bloggers: How Will Journalism Survive the Internet Age?” — to examine the state of the news industry.
More often, the F.T.C. tends to organize workshops related to consumer protection issues like mortgage fraud. But Jon Leibowitz, the F.T.C. chairman, says the agency has taken a look at other industries, through workshops on hospital competition, food marketing and the patent system. Journalism’s future falls in the agency’s purview, he said.
» NY Times - FTC [ Contribute: submit link / submit article ]
On Thursday, the first of a set of new rules went into effect resulting from the landmark credit card legislation earlier this year.
Banks must now provide written notice to customers 45 days before increasing the interest rate or changing the terms on a card. So banks raced to get out in front of that requirement, making a bunch of changes before Thursday, lest they have to give you a month and a half of warning.
Irritated by the changes? Inclined to take your business elsewhere now? This is exactly the right instinct, since plenty of people can still get a better deal from a different card. Fee-free balance transfers still exist. And banks have barely touched the most lucrative rewards programs — and wouldn’t dare fiddle too much given the revenue they generate.
The best revenge is a better card. Here’s how to find one.
» NY Times [ Contribute: submit link / submit article ]
The reSTART Internet Addiction Recovery Program is specifically oriented towards launching tech dependent youth and adults back into the real world. Our individually tailored program is designed to assist participants with an internet and/or computer based behavioral addiction to break the cycle of dependency. Our 45-day abstinence based recovery program exposes participants to a variety of activities and everyday life skills which are often avoided or underdeveloped as a result of ongoing computer, video game play and internet abuse.
» reSTART [ Contribute: submit link / submit article ]
