AI, Mobile, and Eveything Around the Cloud

Source:   9to5Mac . Here is yet another example of Chinese consumer tech companies demonstrating their inability to innovate and using government shields to copy Western companies like Apple.  Here is its Miui 6 skin that runs on top of its own Android variant (san Google apps) where it copied the look and feel of Apple's iOS. What's worse as it has been reported previously by various media outlets is that it even copied the look and feel of the iPhone 5 and iPhone 5S. However, don't look for Apple to do anything about this in China anyway.  It's unlikely Chinese courts under Beijing's control will issue favorable rulings to foreign companies.  If anything, should Xiaomi become a threat outside of China, look for Apple legal to go to bat once more. However, this is just one example of how Chinese companies are unable to innovate all on their own.  For one thing, the OS Xiaomi and other phone/tablet makers are using are Google's Android.  That in ...

In the mobile market, a quarter can be a life time let alone a year.  So, why am I talking about the rest of the decade?  Frankly, a quarterly misstep or two could be enough for a company to start sliding but with all the corporate cash companies like Apple, Google, and Microsoft have, any decline could be stave off for years. Sure that could also mean that companies have a better chance to survive any downturn or misstep and maybe innovate its way out of corporate death much like Apple did.  However, there are a couple of companies that I think are not going to disappear within the year but could very likely be gone by 2020. I'm talking about Blackberry and Yahoo.  Blackberry and Yahoo has 2.68 and 2.78 billions of cash on hand.  Blackberry has been bleeding money while Yahoo has managed to eek out some profit.  However, each of these two companies have critical decisions to make. The decisions each of their respective CEOs make will determine whethe...

The market, by that I mean the financial as well as mobile, is used to Cupertino release new iPhones along with a new version of iOS to go along with it.  However, I think for the sake of market disruption, I would love to see Apple release a new iPhone even without a new iOS in the fall, say, this summer.  That would really kick things up for its fans and really screw things up for its competitors.  Has this happened before?  Sure, the iPad.  What if there are new features that are specific to the new iPhone hardware?  Well, then Apple simply (okay, I know it's not simply but the talented hard working Apple employees sure make it appear that way) update apps and release codes for this new iPhone. As it is now, it's the hardware that catches up to the software.  Beta versions of iOS are released in the June to coincide with Apple's World Wide Developer Conference.  Then new iPhones are released later in the fall that support new features.  Ta...

I'm always been a bit jealous of the camera capability of the high-end Lumia devices running Windows Phone from Nokia.  I want those features.  I mean the camera on the 1020 is just crazy.  Sure, the iPhone 5S camera rocks but there are still new tricks the next iPhone can pick up. It's why Apple hired away from Nokia its top camera expert, Ari Partinen.  With Nokia having sold its mobile division to Microsoft, it was a perfect tiemf or Mr. Partinen to move to sunny California.  And he's exactly the type of new blood that Apple can use.  Imagine what he can bring.  Just looking at Nokia's Lumia 1020 page, I want it all.  Lossless zoom.  Better pics in poorly lit environments.  Better flash.  Truer colors.  Of course, he'll have to really be creative and innovate in ways that he was not familiar with or expected to at Nokia.  There is the design element that the new Apple hire will have to deal with.  He won't have the...

This might not be the best analogy but I'm beginning to see Beats as Apple's Instagram.  Bear with me and maybe I'll manage to muddle my way through this.  This is because I'm not entirely convinced about why Apple would want to buy Beats.  In fact, I'd bet come next week, there will be no announcement regarding Financial Time's breaking rumor about Apple plucking down $3.2 billion for Beats, maker of headsets and floundering streaming music service. So, the only thing I can think of is that Apple is looking at Beats for the streaming music service to supplement its iTunes buy/download music store as interests in streaming music has increased while downloads have decreased in the last couple of years.  Most of Apple's iTunes service growth comes from app sales.  And just like Facebook who spent $1 billion for Instagram (which as far as I know is still not making money), Apple is buying Beats to make sure it has a foot in the streaming music service.  Why no...

Source: Arstechnica . The FCC abandoning net neutrality (essentially a U-turn from its previous position has many big and small companies protesting the move.  It's good for broadband dumb pipe operators like Comcast (currently trying to buy Time Warner Cable to gobble up more bandwidth) and Verizon but not for end-users. So, while most companies like Google and Netflix are content with sending letters and lobbyists, one ISP decided to act.  So, it's taken FCC's IP addresses and throttle all connections down to dial-up speed of 28kbps.  I think that is kinda cruel considering 56K should be enough but I'm a gentle person at the end of the day. The ISP, Neocities, And they're quite funny about it too. They're giving the FCC a special "Ferengi plan" (obviously Star Trek fans there):  pay the $1000 a year (they'll accept most payments including digital currencies but not Latinum) and Netcities will remove the throttle. I think that's brilliant.  Ma...

Source: IO9 . Did you know that bears can climb? No? Neither did I. I mean I know they climb trees and stuff but scaling the sides of a mountain is something else. I've gone climbing before. And I suck at it. But these bears you're about to see are natural climbers. I had no idea they could to this. Enjoy. - Posted using Mobile