Eddy Cue: It’s ‘Complicated’ Solving Problems With TV
Eddy Cue, Apple’s SVP of Internet Software and Services, and new Apple employee Jimmy Iovine sat down with Re/code’s Walt Mossberg and Kara Swisher tonight at the inaugural Code Conference and were asked about the much-rumored Apple TV. Cue echoed past Apple sentiments that today’s TV experience “sucks” and that Apple was working on a way to fix it, but that “it’s complicated”.
The problems aren’t complicated. Solving them is complicated, because there are lots of parties involved.
A lot of the problems with TV, according to Cue, are because there are no global standards and because of the complicated rights issues with content, issues that are far easier to deal with in the music industry. Cue does confirm, however, that Apple is talking with various industry players to work on fixing TV.
Specifically, Cue noted that Comcast CEO Brian Roberts “is the best” and that Cue himself is a Comcast subscriber that is able to watch ESPN and HBO on his Apple TV, which he says Apple will keep evolving and improving. He noted that Apple is looking to add even more content. In March, it was reported that Apple was in talks with Comcast about a potential streaming TV service on a future Apple TV.
Despite Steve Jobs biographer Walter Isaacson speculating that Iovine could be key in any potential TV deals, Iovine told Swisher and Mossberg that he was “not going anywhere near TV”. He did, however, acknowledge the challenges of movie curation, pointing to difficulties in finding content to watch on the various video-on-demand platforms like iTunes and streaming services like Netflix.
Engadget Daily: Apple buys Beats, LG’s G3 inspiration and more!
Today we watched Apple purchase Beats Electronics for $3 billion, investigated the benefits of solar energy, learned about LG’s inspiration for the G3 and uncovered a few tricks to help you find new life in your old Wii. Read on for Engadget’s news highlights from the last 24 hours.
Apple acquires Beats Electronics for $3 billion
Well, it’s official. Beats Electronics will soon be part of the Apple family. And despite the rumors, the $3 billion deal will include both the software and hardware sectors of Dr. Dre’s audio company.
Inside LG’s G3: How vacuums, focus groups and competitive pressure shaped a smartphone
The LG G3 doesn’t just have the nicest display on the market, it’s got an ultra-fast autofocusing laser sensor — all thanks to a coffee break with the company’s vacuum experts. Read on as our own Brad Molen investigates the inspiration behind the company’s most powerful smartphone yet.
Old console, new tricks: Getting the most out of your Wii
Be honest. It’s been a while since you last dusted off your Wii and engaged in a match of Mario Power Tennis, hasn’t it? Not to worry, we’ve got a few tricks to help you rekindle your relationship with the 10-year-old console.
What you need to know about solar energy
Most of us realize the basic benefits of harvesting solar power, but did you know it was the second leading source of new energy last year? Even still, many argue as to the efficiency of the technology. Continue reading to learn all you need to know about the business of the sun.
You also might like:
Filed under: Misc
This is why Apple bought Beats
Ever since the rumors first broke that Apple wanted to buy Beats for $3 billion, the masses have uttered one universal word: Why? Apple Senior VP Eddy Cue and Beats CEO and co-founder Jimmy Iovine sat down with Recode’s Walt Mossberg and Kara Swisher at the Code Conference to discuss the confirmed news. Not wasting any time, the execs got right into it. According to Cue, there were three overall reasons why the company made the deal: Talent, great headphones (something many folks will debate) and Beats Music.
“It was a no-brainer for us,” said Cue, outlining the three reasons in more detail. First, Cue says the Beats team is sensational, and will be a perfect fit for Apple; additionally, Dr. Dre is an incredible artist with an incredible ear. Second, Cue notes that Beats has great headphones that do a great job at making music sound good. (He also revealed that Apple’s interested in speakers as well as headphones.) Finally, he also mentioned that this is the “first music subscription service done right.” To Cue, the magic is in the ability to curate songs and listen to playlists.
On Jimmy Iovine’s side, selling Beats was all about the billions finding a company that has a strong respect for music, and does a solid job of making its hardware sound good. “These guys get it,” Iovine said. “They respect what we do. They respect copyright. They respect the entire food chain.” Of course, the idea of having a base of 800 million subscribers (compared its current status at 250,000) is likely rather encouraging to him as well. “Our dream is that everyone in the world who buys a phone” will upgrade their headphones, Iovine said.
Iovine also discussed the fact that Beats originally sold part of its business to phone maker HTC, because it needed a partner, but apparently the culture clashed and the deal ultimately didn’t work out for either side. When asked why they didn’t approach Apple, Iovine revealed that he’d tried to ask several times over the past decade, but “Apple makes deals the way they make products,” making a slow whirring motion with his fingers.
Cue confirmed that Apple will retain the Beats brand, and that Iovine will report to him on the music side and Apple SVP Phil Schiller on the product side. Additionally, the deal that Beats had with HP will be done in the near future, though Iovine didn’t go into detail on exactly when this will happen. If you’re hoping that Iovine will produce content for Apple as part of the deal, no luck: He confirmed that he won’t be focusing on his own stuff anymore.
Iovine mentioned that he initially approached Apple, not the other way around, although the two companies have been in contact for the last decade. “I told Eddy, ‘we should work together, I’ve got some ideas.’ How does somebody date for ten years and all of a sudden you get married? It just happens!”
Filed under: Cellphones, Wireless, Mobile, Apple
T-Mobile Partners with Jays AB to Bring Big Sound to Customers
Back in March of last year we had the chance to review a set of A-Jays One+ Bluetooth earbuds. They were designed with Android users in mind and come with a companion app to help enhance your audio enjoyment. They sounded great, looked great and had a price tag that was under what they should have been. That is a good thing. Today Jays has announced a new partnership with T-Mobile to bring their quality Swedished designed earbuds to Magenta customers across the nation.
“We believe that our products gives the value and features that the increasingly demanding headphone consumers are looking for today”, says Rune Torbjörnsen, CEO Jays AB (publ) in a comment. “As we are seeing growth in the carrier segment for headphones, this collaboration marks an important step for Jays in introducing our iWA-concept to the US consumers and T-Mobile provides a perfect launch platform that allows us to do that.”
Initially there will be four JAYS models to choose from landing in 3000 stores across the nation in June. It should be a great launch for Jays and help them gain some more exposure for their great products. Rune mentions a new iWA-concept that will be introduced through T-Mobile. That has me wondering what exactly they will be bringing to the table. Jays has earbuds, headphones and some other audio accessories. We will have to keep our eyes out for things to come next month.
//<![CDATA[
ord = window.ord || Math.floor(Math.random()*1E16);
document.write('’);
//]]>
Apple owns Beats, but the brand is still alive at HP
Beats Audio may be moving to Cupertino, but that doesn’t mean it’s giving up on the PC market. Well, at least not yet — HP says it still has rights to use the brand’s audio technology for the foreseeable future. It’s part of the company’s pre-existing contract with Beats: HP can develop new Beats-bundled products through 2014, and it’s allowed to sell those products through the end of the 2015. In other words, we’ll be seeing HP laptops, desktops and tablets with beats branding for the next year and a half. That’s a lot of leeway. According to CNET, HP isn’t wasting time: it says it’s building an aggressive line-up of Beats enabled devices for 2014.
Filed under: Portable Audio/Video, Apple, HP
Source: CNET
Backers pledge over $1 million to bring Reading Rainbow to the web
Few things in this world are as moving as a potent mix of nostalgia and passion. Don’t just take my word for it: just look at the more than 22,000 people who backed LeVar Burton’s vision of bringing Reading Rainbow to the web on Kickstarter. That’s more than a million dollars raised in less than a day, and it’s all to help kids realize that theeeeeey can be anythiiiiiiiiing.
This isn’t the first time Reading Rainbow has been brought back to life since it left public airwaves in 2009 — Burton and company launched a Reading Rainbow iPad app nearly two years ago. The real issue here is access. Wanting to teach kids the joy of reading is a noble goal, but affecting change on a wider scale requires more than just hardware designed in California and assembled in China. Now that the team has shattered its funding goal, they’re going to make the books and “video field trips” from the app available on the web, and craft a version specifically meant for classrooms.
Alas, Reading Rainbow’s public television days have long since passed, so you’ll actually have to pay a subscription fee for all that fine content. LeVar’s looking out for the disadvantaged too, though — the team plans to make that web version available for free in underprivileged schools. Perhaps the best part of the entire campaign (erm, besides getting kids excited about books)? All the Star Trek backer goodies Burton has on offer. On the off-chance you’ve got $10,000 burning a hole in your wallet, you’ll be able to don Burton’s straight-from-the-set VISOR from Star Trek: The Next Generation (and without the risk of being called to Engineering to diagnose a warp core hiccup).
Source: Kickstarter
Injoy Labs’ Draw A Box game will bring out the OCD in Everyone
Flappy Bird was an extremely unique game in that it was able to tap into our addictive natures despite being the most frustrating game on the planet. It’s something that many game developers have since tried to emulate, whether by making a direct clone of Flappy Bird or by coming up with a game with a similar, addictive concept. Developed by small Australian indie developer InJoy Labs, Draw A Box works on the latter of those two ideas and introduces a simple concept that aims to help you in times of procrastination. Check out the trailer to get a better look at how the game is going to play:
It may look quite simple to just be drawing boxes around something, but having played Draw A Box briefly, I can safely say that if you have any obsessive or compulsive tendencies, you will become addicted to this game. If you want to compare yourselves to your friends, Draw A Box also has a leaderboard which is made up of all your Facebook friends after you sign in.
Draw A Box is available to download on Google Play now for free so if you’re hankering for something addictive to play, think you’re the best perfect square drawer in the world, or just need to burn some time, be sure to give the game a try (Play Store links below).
Game: Draw A Box
Price: Free
//<![CDATA[
ord = window.ord || Math.floor(Math.random()*1E16);
document.write('’);
//]]>
Nova Launcher 3.0 Beta Brings on New Features and Enhancements
Nova Launcher is still running strong in the Android Community, and yesterday the team updated their precious launcher to version 3.0 beta 1. Today they added beta 2 to the list, and it brings in some new features and of course enhancements.
- Subgrid positioning.
- Snap widgets/icons to half cells.
- Greater control of placement/size without shrinking/cropping app icons.
- Custom label colors (desktop, dock, drawer).
- Individual drawer tab colors (tap on the tab and select Edit).
- New tab style Colorblock.
- Vertical drawer scrolls under transparent navbar.
- Backup/Restore using Kitkat’s Document Provider (supports ext-sdcard, Drive, Box, etc).
- Full 4×1 widget support in dock.
- Individually toggle widget padding (long-press on widget and select Padding).
- Nova Action for First Item In Folder (Use with swipe/tap action of folders).
- Honeycomb style persistent searchbar available on phones.
- Slight visual refresh (settings screen, menu icon, color picker)
Nova Launcher becomes that much more customizable. To get the beta version of this update, go into your Nova settings and click “check updates”. Make sure you check the beta updates to get it, and you will be able to download the apk. Let us know how you like it.
//<![CDATA[
ord = window.ord || Math.floor(Math.random()*1E16);
document.write('’);
//]]>
Join the 400th Engadget HD Podcast live on Ustream at 9:30PM ET
It’s Tuesday Wednesday, which is time for the Engadget HD Podcast and we hope you’ll join us for the live recording at 9:30PM. This might be our 400th show, but that doesn’t mean we’re taking the week off from covering the latest news. Sure, we’ll pause to reflect about the last eight years, but we’ll also cover the latest in net neutrality — again — and the latest content from our favorite providers. We will have at least one surprise for you too, as we work our way to the end where we’ll cover what we’re watching this week . If you’ll be joining us, take a peek at the topics after the break and then get ready to participate in the live chat.
Cox will start its gigabit internet rollout in Phoenix, Las Vegas and Omaha
Google Fiber won’t charge content providers for quicker access
Sony’s PlayStation 4 is already profitable and on course to beat the PS2′s success
Xbox One’s June update adds your friends’ real names and external drive support
Old console, new tricks: Getting the most out of your Xbox 360
Amazon invites customers to try Fire TV free for a month
Amazon’s Prime Instant Video gets its first HBO shows, right on cue
Normandy landings recreated in Oculus Rift D-Day simulation
ESPN mulls streaming Major League Soccer to fans without cable subscriptions
What’s on your HDTV this week: Watch Dogs, The Life Aquatic, Wil Wheaton, Mario Kart
Filed under: Home Entertainment, HD
Google highlights the lack of diversity in tech by publishing worker data
While many will tell you that there isn’t much diversity among technology workers, it has been tricky to back up that claim with real, hard numbers. Well, Google now has some evidence: it just published diversity figures for its own staff, broken down by ethnicity and gender. And it’s not a pretty sight, at least in the company’s eyes. About 91 percent of Googlers are either Asian or white, and 70 percent are men. That’s not exactly a wide variety of people, and the ratios only get worse when you examine technology-specific jobs.
The search firm argues that this narrow range partly stems from longstanding educational challenges that limit who it can recruit. Less than 5 percent of Americans earning computer science degrees are black or Hispanic, for example, while women make up 18 percent. Google has poured money into educational programs in hopes of diversifying the technology industry in the long run, but it’s clear that there’s a long way to go before Google’s offices (and those of other companies) represent a broader range of cultural experiences.
[Top image credit: Campus Party Valencia, Flickr]
Filed under: Misc, Internet, Google
Via: New York Times
Source: Google Official Blog, Google Diversity
AIVAnet 