AI, Mobile, and Eveything Around the Cloud

I know I am going to get some pushback for this but I think Apple should include Google+ as part of its wider integration with social media and networks. The other day, I talked about the values of "networklets" like Foursquare and Yelp that offer values to users beyond anything that Facebook and even Twitter can hope to achieve at this time (even Twitter has had better success than Facebook). Well, despite Google claiming Google+ having a couple of hundred million users, not many uses it on a consistent basis as Facebook, Twitter, and networklets. However, Google+ works more like a networklets because it is composed of a variety of subgroups of audience and users that geared towards specific interests. Writers, sports fans, tech pundits who following one another, etc. Artists often share their latest work. This is why I even use Google+ on a regular basis. And this reason alone is why Apple needs to include Google+. These subgroups have strong passions for their ca...

Source:   Blastr . It's been a while since I've explained about our Friday Movie post.  See, back when I was still a TA and a research assistant at UCLA, we used to sneak out on Fridays for after movies.  With premiums happening at the time there and like with about ten or so theaters, you get a wide range of selections of movies. Awesome time.  Obviously, can't do that no more.  However, I've decided to bring this tradition via Friday trailer or shorts.  And this, it's from  Cloud Atlas (wiki)  starring all time favorite actor, Tom Hank, based on a book by the  same title . It's a series of stories that are intertwined and about how it affects. According to Wikipedia, the plot for the novel "...consists of six nested stories that take the reader from the remote South Pacific in the nineteenth century to a distant, post-apocalyptic future. Each tale is revealed to be a story that is read (or observed) by the main character in the next...

When Facebook bought Instagram for like a gazillion dollars, you have to ask why.  I know all the talks out there about how it was a threat to Facebook and Mark Zuckerberg just kinda bought them out because he somehow knew that it would be a huge benefit to Facebook in the long run.  I don't buy it. Instragram was a threat but it's other social networklets (a term I should trademark me thinks) like Foursquare, Yelp, and others that have their own social networks, albeit not as big as Facebook but big enough to be a threat.  And, furthermore, these networklets are much more useful than Facebook alone. Clearly,  Foursquare has figured  out just how it wants to monetize the network of eighty or so million users via businesses paying to show up as recommendations.  Its intrusiveness is the key to winning users over and provides a more measurable tool for Foursquare and its partners on the effectiveness of the campaign. More about Yelp and Path...

Source:   Marketwatch . Woke up this morning to this incredible surprise:  Apple bought a company that specializes in making sensors for fingerprint authentication.  You're like what?  I'm still "like what?". The company is called unsexily Authentec and was acquired for $356 million in cash.   And yeah, after reading a couple of posts in this, I know this is related to security obviously.  For mobile?  Definitely.  It'll be interesting to see how Apple plans in integrating this with the iPhone and iPad which both have a wide enterprise adoption. AllThingsD speculated that there could be something in the works that Apple wants exclusively for itself. This would be my guess as well.  Otherwise, there would not be a need for Apple to also acquire rights to certain patents and such. Reuters goes one step further and figures this could have something to do with mobile payment.  It figures that even with a year or so lead in m...

Source: Blastr . The “last” of the Batman trilogy, The Dark Knight Rises, has been opened just a week ago (amidst the Colorado shooting tragedy) and fans are clamoring for more (I haven’t seen the movie yet but looking forward to it this Saturday!).  And it could be a while before Warner Brothers and its partners get their act together and figure out where they wanna go. Hopefully, gone are those bat-nipples and may they never made a return.  Having said that, don’t worry.  I’m sure WB will continue to feed our insatiable appetite for all things Batman.  And if that’s not enough, maybe fans will get in on the act. Take for instance, this Nightwing take by a fan. How fraking cool is this?!  I love what’s happening and what’s sure to happen.  Technology, a few clips here and there, some ingenious costumers and how-budget effects, and you have more materials for Batverse. Okay, you creative fans out there, give me more of this!

Big news in the mobile struggle this week between Google and Samsung versus Apple isn’t which company sold what or release new products – although Nexus Q selling out at $300 is awesomely impressive (one has to wonder how many Google actually stocked initially).  It’s what happened in the courts and this could have far reaching ramifications in the next year or two. First, a judge ordered a really prejudicial jury instruction in an Apple versus Samsung court case going to trial.  It stated that Samsung destroyed some e-mail (evidence) and that the jury has to assume the destruction of this evidence that could have helped Apple prove its case against Samsung. Oh, and Apple is asking for $2.5 billion in damages.  Not a big deal for Samsung's money printing machine but still, it's about pride, you know? ( WSJ ,  TheDroidGuy ) Second, in a brief filed by Apple, which is very damning, it stated that even Google thought Samsung’s products were too close in resemblin...

I've wondered when the supply and demand for Apple's new Retina Display Macbook Pro will equalize.  And it's happening quicker than I expected.  Others have wondered about the same thing and as Apple shorten the time to get the Retina Display Macbook Pro to about a week, you have to wonder what's going on. Has supply and demand getting closer to equalizing or something more ominous ahead for Apple?  I started on this post over the weekend and there has been some new developments. So, which is it?  Well, Apple reported earnings and, well, things are good but not "Wall Street good".  First, Apple did beat its own estimates.  Second, Mac sales did increase 2% from a year ago.  Together, that's great. And on top of that, Apple only refreshed the Macbook line after the last financial quarter ended.  I reckon that the coming quarter could be huge.  And in the Christmas quarter, it'll be even bigger. However, we cannot dismiss the fact th...

Source:   Macworld ,  TheDroidGuy . Looks like Foursquare is finally making a move to monetize all the data from the check-ins I've helped them amass.  Well, actually, not just me but twenty million mobile users who use the Foursquare app for the Android devices and iPhones over the years.  And this is a winning strategy that is more potent than anyone, even Twitter, has been able to come up with. Exactly because of two things:  location and user willingness to share with Foursquare. See below from my Facebook app.  This what what Facebook lamely came up with. That's right, sponsored likes that I am never going to click on.  It's just awfully lame. On the other hand, Foursquare's more social and mobile network offers a more targeted and potentially fruitful sponsor integration that gear towards mobile users who will actually be able to see value in the recommendations and ads - exactly because mobile users are "mobile" and will go plac...

As some of you may know by now, Apple failed to meet Wall Street's unrealistic expectation for the last financial quarter.  And you know what?  It's a great thing.  Here's why it's great for the company and mobile warriors in the long run. Apple doesn't do things quarter by quarter but more of on an annual basis.  iOS devices are updated on an annual basis.  Macs now has a longer shelf-life than ever before.  Just as the folks waiting for new updated Mac Pro units how long they've been waiting and still are waiting. iOS is updated on an annual basis as it OS X. Oh, even Apple's hobby, the Apple TV, is updated on such a schedule. So, it's clear that there will be quarters where numbers get blown out out of water and quarters where numbers are more muted.  However, by any measuring stick, Apple's disappointing quarters are the envy of its peers on exchanges and competitors.  Wouldn't HP, Dell, RIM, or Samsung want Apple's $7 billion or ...

Appleinsider has a post that Apple has widen its lead over Android in enterprise.  That’s great and all.  However, I wonder if Apple could do even better if it offers an enterprise version of the iPhone.  The reason is that it’s so pretty. And while the iPhone has a first rate design that not even Samsung dare copy, I wonder if it’s too nice. What do you think?  Can Apple make a form factor that some in enterprise can use and perhaps more durable? I think it can be done without Apple having to compromise over design.  Perhaps this is why many rumors in the Web being circulated are about Apple abandoning the glass back in favor of an unibody design. Or if Apple doesn't go this route, it should at least consider enterprise users when designing future iPhones and other iOS devices.

According to  Blastr , this is the full length trailer of Man of Steel.  So, watching it before it's gone.  It might be gone by now...unless it's not. Enjoy! Can't wait!

Source:  The Register . "Bad". That's how Gartner, a Microsoft friendly analyst firm, described Windows 8.  It looks like more and more people will be opting for Windows 7 and wait it out to see what Windows 9 will offer. There's more.  Gartner tried to make the best of it.  Windows 8 could be good on a tablet but definitely horrible as a desktop experience. This will give competitors, well, Apple, a very good opportunity to capture a larger segment of the PC market with its upcoming Mountain Lion which has many new features that both home and enterprise users will really like.  And Apple has retained the familiar look and feel of the Mac OS X even as it lightly peppered a few iOS features as not to annoy users - more like beta testing them to see how well they do. To be fair, Gartner has been  more wrong than right .  Only DigiTimes is worse.

Google argues that the valuable mobile patents that Apple owns which makes the iPhone an “iPhone” should be fair, reasonable and non-discriminatory and subject to standard essential patent rules. I can’t say that I agree or disagree because of the patent system, which essentially lets anyone’s grandmother patent just about anything without really looking into the background of these so-called patents and whether they really are worth patenting. I do know that companies that patent just about everything and everywhere do spend billions upon billions to patent them.  So, who is to say what patent, hence, which features should be licensable by the patent holder’s competitors.  Furthermore, what if a patent holder simply says its ball can only played on its court and nowhere else, it is no one’s rights, a corporation or government, to come and force the patent holder to open up. I don’t know Google’s strategy in this.  Intellectual properties are essential for innovation...

I happened to venture onto this  Reuters post via Huffington Post  about how the super-rich amassed as much as $32 trillion in offshore havens to avoid taxation.  That's quite a lot of money. If you consider just how much taxes various government entities missed because of this over more than four decades.  But this is an issue that will never get resolved but I that's not why I mentioned it. It got me started thinking about the hundreds of millions in Google's case and billions in Microsoft's Bill Gates' case that were spent to help better the human condition, I kinda asked myself if we should do more to support their goods and services. Should consumers ally themselves with a company's products and services that does more to better the world than those of competing companies that doesn't? More at Clouding Around .