ICYMI: Long distance loving, NASA’s ice news and more
Today on In Case You Missed It: NASA scientists are tracking sea ice and say the Antarctic mass is larger than we’ve ever seen since satellite tracking began in the 70’s. Sadly, it’s still growing at a much slower rate than the Arctic’s ice is shrinking. Fire fans can get their hands on a Pyro Mini device from Ellusionist, to launch fireballs from their hands like the true magicians they long to be. And we’re making fun of a pair of devices because why not. The Pillow Talk is a Kickstarter that pairs an under-the-pillow speaker with a wristband to broadcast the sound of your heartbeat to your long-distance love. Meanwhile the TSTAND is a hands-free tablet stand that would let you lie flat and not have to hold a tablet at an uncomfortable angle. We recommend using them together for maximum nerd.
Apple Watch gets an official charging dock for $79
That didn’t take long. Hot on the heels of a couple of leaks, Apple has released its very own Watch perch: meet the Magnetic Charging Dock. Fork over $79 and you’ll get a plastic, Lightning-powered saucer that can power the Apple Watch either flat (when you just need a resting place) or upright (if you’re using WatchOS 2’s nightstand mode). It looks nice and should work particularly well if your watch doubles as a clock, although we’d note that there are cheaper options available if you’re willing to reuse the standard charger. Elevation Lab has a $30 nightstand, for instance, while Twelve South will sell you a $60 stand. And did we mention there’s no included USB power adapter? It still makes sense if you want to free up your existing puck, or dig the cushion-like appearance — just know that you have other options.
Source: TechCrunch
Rdio’s collapse will hurt Sony, Roku and Shazam
When a company goes under, the firms that it still owes money to have to bear the pain of those unpaid debts. Rdio’s collapse has, unfortunately, sent ramifications through the tech and music industries that’ll see firms like Roku and Shazam reaching for the Tylenol. Music Business Worldwide is claiming to have details of Rdio’s bankruptcy filing that reveals that it owed $2.7 million to Roku and $1.7 million to Shazam. In addition, the service had promised Sony Music $2.4 million and Facebook $495,000. Ouch.
Source: Music Business Worldwide
BT Sport ads banned for promoting ‘free’ Champions League coverage
Once again, BT has been criticised for promoting its BT Sport channels with “misleading” TV ads. The UK’s Advertising Standards Authority (ASA) has told the company to pull a number of adverts, including a prominent one on TV, which promises free BT Sport access for BT TV and BT broadband customers. For BT, this is particularly bad timing. The company finally has the rights to live Champions League and Europa League football, after snatching them from Sky back in 2013. The two prestigious tournaments didn’t come cheap, so BT needs BT Sport — and specifically its new BT Sport Europe channel — to be a resounding success. With that in mind, BT has been heavily promoting its coverage as a “free” extra for customers that subscribe to both BT broadband and BT TV.
That isn’t quite true, however. The channels are only free if you’re a new customer, or if you sign a new 12 or 18 month contract covering both services. If you have time left on your current contract, and want to stick with that, you’ll have to pay extra for BT Sport.
Via: Campaign
Source: ASA
NASA sends its Valkyrie humanoid robots to college
NASA wants to send its 6-foot-tall, 290-pound humanoid robot R5 (which also goes by the more intimidating name “Valkyrie”) to Mars and other extraterrestrial locations. The agency originally designed the R5 for search-and-rescue missions, though, so to prepare the machine for a future of exploration in harsh environments, it’s sending two units to college. One will go to MIT, specifically to the Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Laboratory (CSAIL), and the other to Northeastern University in Boston. The institutions were chosen from among the groups that joined DARPA’s Robotics Challenge, and each will receive $250,000 per year for two years to finance their research.
Source: NASA
Apple Watch Space Black Link Bracelet Kit Now Available for $49
Apple today released a Space Black color Link Bracelet Kit, which contains six additional stainless steel links for wrists that exceed 205mm. The six links extend the 42mm Apple Watch band by up to 40mm, for a maximum size of 245mm.
The new Space Black kit is available on the Apple Online Store for $49, the same price as the Silver Link Bracelet Kit released in August, despite the full Space Black Link Bracelet carrying a $100 premium over the Silver Link Bracelet.
The kit is estimated for delivery as early as Tuesday, November 24 with expedited shipping, or Friday, November 27 with standard shipping, in the United States. The kit is also available in Canada for $69 and the United Kingdom for £39.
Apple also released an official Apple Watch magnetic charging dock for $79 today.
Tags: Link Bracelet, Apple retail
Buyer’s Guide: Apple Watch (Neutral)
Discuss this article in our forums
LG prepares to launch rival to Samsung Pay
It seems that earlier reports were correct, as LG has announced that the company is preparing to launch its own mobile payment system, which will see the company directly compete with services like Apple and Samsung Pay.
Speaking earlier today, LG Electronics stated that it is preparing to sign a deal with a number of major card companies in South Korea. Local reports suggest that a deal with Shinhan Card and KB Kookmin Card, two of the largest card companies in the country, could be signed as early as Thursday. However, LG has not announced when the service will go live, what the service will be called, or exactly how it will work.
We probably have a pretty good idea about what type of name the company will use though, as LG has registered trademarks for a number of potential service names in both Korea and the US. These including “LG-Play” and “LG G Pay”.
“We will sign a deal with some of the country’s major card companies before officially launching our mobile payment platform,” – LG Electronics official
Perhaps one of the biggest unknown details is what technology LG will be basing its payment system on. Samsung Pay is currently in the strongest position with its magnetic secure transmission (MST) technology, which supports a wider range of payment terminals than the NFC based technologies used by Apple or Android Pay. Previous reports suggest that LG is looking at a more versatile technology than current implementations, but this doesn’t shed much light on the situation.
“The competition for the mobile payment market is so fierce, as an increasing number of IT giants are betting on similar services.” – Noh Geun-chang, analyst at HMC Investment & Securities
With a number of mobile companies moving quickly ahead with their own mobile payment systems, LG is going to have a tough time catching up if it cannot offer consumers a very compelling reason to make use of its particular service. LG is expected to make an official announcement about its payment service once the card deals have been finalized, which could be as early as next month.
Report: Samsung’s budget smartphones to get fingerprint readers and Samsung Pay (NFC)
Samsung has made a major name for itself with its flagship Galaxy S and Galaxy Note series. This year the company even threw a couple of curve balls into the mix. Even though Q3 2015 held some good news, it was largely a result of its components business and a favorable exchange rate. Smartphones are now a commodity and thus the pricing wars have already started to have an effect on the profit picture for many companies, save for perhaps one.
According to The Korea Herald – citing an industry source – “Samsung is planning to deploy fingerprint sensors in budget smartphone models.” This would be a marked change from the current product line-up which has essentially relegated their use to only high end phones, and the Galaxy A8 mid-range offering.
The unnamed source mentioned the trick will be finding a way to deal with the costs associated with the component in comparison to the selling price of a budget device.
It was also pointed out in the aforementioned news report that:
“Samsung tops 14 out of 15 emerging smartphone markets including Indonesia, Turkey, and Egypt, according to market researcher Strategic Analytics…The company’s market shares in Turkey, Romania, the Netherlands and Portugal stood at more than 40 percent. In Egypt, Samsung scooped up a 53 percent market share…Market analysts attributed Samsung’s robust performance in the markets to the budget Galaxy smartphone lineups.”
In addition to bio-metric reading, the first half of 2016 is expected to see the budget brands getting Samsung Pay:
“Hwang Min-sung, an analyst from Samsung Securities, forecast that Samsung would surely install the payment system, which is compatible with both traditional magnetic stripes and Near Field Communication terminals, on its budget models running on Google’s Android operating system.”
Samsung may also bring its NFC payment platform to Tizen devices, though Min-sung felt that “Tizen smartphones with the mobile payment function would have little impact on the market.”
At the very least, this news serves to offer a possible glimpse into what next year’s Galaxy J or Galaxy E lines might consist of. Alternatively, the company could release an all-together new line of budget products that focuses on NFC and bio-metrics, thus allowing them to possibly exist along side the (possibly) cheaper “bare bones” alternatives.
Still, some of the main creature comforts that people ask for in their smartphones, namely a notification LED and an auto-brightness adjustment setting tend to be absent from Samsung’s more price-conscious models. Will they finally make an appearance as well? Only time can tell.
Amazon announces its Black Friday deals, which go live this week
Amazon has already kicked off its Black Friday deals early this year and has just announced a selection of upcoming offers that will run from November 20th. Discounts can be found on everything from electronics and video games, to fashion and kitchen appliances.
New Black Friday deals will be arrive “as often as every five minutes” and there are a number of Gold Box Deals of the Day to keep an eye on as well. For example, today you can already grab a Fitbit One for $74.99. Amazon Prime members will be given a 30 minute head start on most of the limited Lightening deals. There will also be a number of other exclusive sales that are only available through the Amazon Mobile Shipping App. These will be released daily from 3 PM PT to 11 PM PT, starting Thanksgiving and running through to December 9th.
When it comes to electronics, our favourite Amazon category, there’s a big selection of deals to be had. Amazon is offering discounts on its selection of Kindle readers and tablets, its Fire TV box and Fire TV Stick. A number of Samsung Galaxy Tablets will also have a 20 percent saving applied in the week, and that’s just the tip of the iceberg.
See also: Amazon announces revised Fire TV and Fire TV Stick
There also are discounts on a huge range of TV and speaker products. A 15” ASUS laptop can be bought for just $129, while there’s 50 percent to be saved on the Sennheiser HD 598 over-ear headphones. If you need more space in your smartphone or tablet, there’s up to 70 percent off select SanDisk memory cards and USB flash drives too.
That should be everything you need to keep an eye on the best Amazon deals later this week. To see the full range of discounts revealed so far, click the press release button below.
| Amazon.com Announces Eight Days of Holiday Deals |
|
Enjoy new deals every five minutes starting Friday, November 20 through Friday, November 27 Effortlessly keep tabs on top deals from anywhere with new “Watch A Deal” feature SEATTLE–(BUSINESS WIRE)–Nov. 18, 2015– (NASDAQ:AMZN)—Amazon.com today announced holiday deals start on Friday, November 20, with new deals added as often as every five minutes for eight straight days at www.amazon.com/blackfriday. Customers will have access to 10 coveted Deals of the Day starting at midnight on Thanksgiving, and up to 10 more on Black Friday. Customers can also shop limited-time Lightning Deals on thousands of sought-after products per day throughout the eight days of deals. Plus, Prime members will get 30-minutes early access to the majority of these Lightning Deals. This year, Amazon will introduce more than 150 hand-picked Lightning Deals on everything from electronics to kitchen gadgets only through the Amazon Mobile Shopping App available on Android, iOS, and Fire OS. These deals can be found on the “App Only Deals” tab and will be released daily from 3 PM PT to 11 PM PT starting Thanksgiving through Wednesday, December 9. In addition, Prime members in 20 metro areas can use the dedicated Prime Now mobile app to enjoy free two-hour delivery on select Deals of the Day throughout the holiday season. Last year, total holiday sales from the Amazon Mobile Shopping App doubled in the U.S. and Black Friday had the most rapid growth in mobile shopping. This year, it will be even easier to spend time with loved ones thanks to “Watch A Deal” which allows holiday shoppers to pick the deals they’re most excited about and receive a notification to their mobile device when the deal is live. With this new feature, Amazon customers can effortlessly take advantage of deals throughout the day and while on-the-go. “Customers can truly sit back and relax with their family and friends this holiday season knowing that they will be notified as soon as the products they’ve had their eye on are about to go on sale,” said Steve Shure, Vice President, Amazon Consumer Marketing. “Year after year, more and more customers shop for deals on Amazon from the comfort of their own home, and we continue to make that process even more convenient for them. And with App Only Deals, customers will have plenty of options when it comes to scoring great deals from Amazon.” Following are examples of some of the top deals that will be available at various times between November 20 and Black Friday at www.amazon.com/blackfriday: Electronics:
Baby, Toys & Pets:
Home & Kitchen:
Sports & Travel:
Fashion & Beauty:
Books, Music & Video Games:
All prices available at select times and while supplies last. Amazon Prime members enjoy unlimited Free Two-Day Shipping on more than 20 million items and unlimited Free Same-Day Delivery on more than a million items in 16 metro areas. In addition, Prime members in 20 metro areas receive one- and two-hour delivery on tens of thousands of everyday essentials with the dedicated Prime Now mobile app. To become a member, visit www.amazon.com/prime. Amazon also offers free shipping on millions of items every day, year-round, on eligible orders of $35 or more. About Amazon Amazon.com opened on the World Wide Web in July 1995. The company is guided by four principles: customer obsession rather than competitor focus, passion for invention, commitment to operational excellence, and long-term thinking. Customer reviews, 1-Click shopping, personalized recommendations, Prime, Fulfillment by Amazon, AWS, Kindle Direct Publishing, Kindle, Fire tablets, Fire TV, Amazon Echo, and Alexa are some of the products and services pioneered by Amazon. For more information, visit www.amazon.com/about. |
Google to challenge Russian antitrust watchdog’s ruling on preloaded apps
Google has decided to challenge a recent ruling by Russian antitrust agency that it violated the country’s competition law by forcing Android smartphone vendors to use its own apps such as Google Search.
Russian watchdog FAS ruled in September that the Alphabet Inc-owned company should stop abusing its dominant position and let device manufacturers to install third-party apps such as Russian search app, Yandex.
Google was given the deadline of December 18 to amend its agreement with smartphone manufacturers to facilitate fair competition.
However, the US company now has decided to contest the ruling.
“We intend to contest this decision and explain in court why we consider it unfounded,” Google stated in its Russian blog.
Meanwhile, Yandex has taken its fight against Google to the European Union urging the EU Commission to investigate unfair Android contract.
“Yandex is confident in every point of its position. We are ready for the appeal and welcome the most open trial,” Yandex was quoted as said.
Source: Reuters
Come comment on this article: Google to challenge Russian antitrust watchdog’s ruling on preloaded apps
AIVAnet 