Google to reveal more details about ‘Instant Articles’ solution next week

The dust is still settling from Google’s press event this past Tuesday when they announced their lineup of new devices for the fall, including the Nexus 5X and Nexus 6P along with  the second generation Chromecast and new Chromecast Audio. Nevertheless, Google is already getting back in front of the media, this time with plans to hold a press event next Wednesday to reveal “a new open source initiative for the mobile Web.” The initiative is believed to be their new “Instant Articles” platform that first surfaced a few weeks ago.

The new publishing platform from Google is meant to compete against offerings from Facebook, Snapchat and Apple. To differentiate their solution, Google plans to open source the tool and to use cached content rather than hosting the content. Indications are that Twitter has already partnered with Google on the tool and both The New York Times and The Guardian have agreed to provide content. The press event may provide more details about the business arrangements Google will be undertaking to get content in front of smartphone users and hopefully information about a release schedule.

source: Re/code

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Nest unveils Weave, the protocol that’ll help home devices communicate without Wi-Fi

Nest today took to its blog to unveil a new communication protocol aimed at giving home automation devices the ability to talk to each other and Nest. Called Weave, Nest is hoping this will allow home devices to communicate with each other, even when a Wi-Fi connection isn’t available.

Here’s Nest’s quick summary of how Weave works:

Nest Weave lets devices talk directly to each other and to Nest. And because it’s reliable, compact and secure, it works great for all kinds of products – like a lightbulb that needs to turn on and off without any lag time, or a door lock that runs on battery power, or a security system that needs to work even if Wi-Fi goes down.

Click here to view the embedded video.

Nest will also be introducing a “Works With Nest” logo that will be attached to various home devices, indicating that the device is compatible with Nest products. This makes it easy to identify what products will work with Nest Protect or the Nest Thermostat. The company is hoping this’ll make it an easy and smooth process to setup your home automation devices, instead of finding out later some device you picked up just isn’t compatible.

To make things even easier, Nest, in the future, will be creating a Works with Nest store to make the process even easier. Some exciting things are happening with Nest, and the company is truly working towards making home devices make your life easier, not more difficult and frustrating as has been the case in the past.

source: Nest

Come comment on this article: Nest unveils Weave, the protocol that’ll help home devices communicate without Wi-Fi

‘Thug Notes’ is YouTube’s unlikeliest education destination

Not long ago, whenever a teacher would assign a book report, most students would sprint to Barnes & Noble to grab the CliffsNotes version that could save their weekend. These days, however, they’re more likely to head to YouTube to listen to the wise words of Dr. Sparky Sweets, PhD. He’s the star of Thug Notes, a show that explores classical literature in a language you won’t find coming out of your teacher’s mouth. It’s become such a success that the channel behind it, Wisecrack, has more than half a million subscribers and has its sights set on becoming an internet behemoth. Thug Notes’ cultural impact is growing too, since it’s now being used in public schools and an accompanying book was recently published. We went to find out how this weird mix of comedy and education became so successful.

Wisecrack’s story began when Jacob S. Salamon met co-founder Jared Bauer as students at the University of Texas at Austin in 2006. Their paths shouldn’t have crossed, since Salamon was a business major and Bauer was at film school, but they shared a love of astronomy. “We were both Jewish Texans, immediately fishes out of water, but both smart guys with a passion for entertainment,” says Salamon. Their friendship would continue through their time at the university and, as they were graduating, Salamon says that he “made a pinkie promise” to reconnect with Bauer once he’d scored big in the tech industry. It would be seven years before the pair met again, since Salamon went to work for tech startup Bazaarvoice, cashing out his stock options when the company went public in 2012. It was then that they reunited, moving to LA in the hope of becoming Hollywood big shots.

Breaking into the film business proved difficult, so Salamon decided to produce a “calling card” series to generate some attention from the executives. That show was 2012’s Bubala Please, a YouTube sitcom where two LA gangsters explain how to navigate the nuances of Jewish culture. One episode, for instance, provided the best latkes recipe (a sort of potato pancake), the right gifts to bring for game day and even how to conduct your own “Gangsta Bris.” The show turned out to be a modest success, with individual episodes gaining between 30,000 and 800,000 views.

“YouTube did a survey, and they took Thug Notes into 100 classrooms with 1,100 students around the world and it was overwhelmingly positive.”

Jacob Salamon, Wisecrack

Having tackled their shared Judaism, Bauer expressed a desire to combine his love of classic literature and comedy. The idea would eventually develop into Thug Notes, starring comedian Greg Edwards as Sparky Sweets PhD, the “smartest man in the universe.” The pair decided to shoot four episodes in a day, with Crime and Punishment being the first to be released. The set was rounded out with some of the most assigned books in US public schools: including The Great Gatsby, Lord of the Flies and To Kill a Mockingbird. Each episode bombed, much to the duo’s horror, and, so they decided that maybe the dream of making it in Hollywood was over.

But their fortunes suddenly changed when a Reddit user stumbled upon one of the clips. As Salamon tells it, “Nobody watched them, for weeks, and then suddenly I looked at my phone and we had 5,000 subscribers.” The video for To Kill a Mockingbird had made Reddit’s front page, and within two days the channel had 30,000 people signed up for new clips. The internet’s hive mind had deemed Thug Notes was worth saving, but there was still a hurdle to leap over before the show could continue: funding.

Dr. Sparky Sweets PhD (Greg Edwards) bones up on this week’s script.

Salamon’s finances had dwindled to the point where he could no longer bankroll his own attempts at becoming a big shot. YouTube, however, pulled the pair into a meeting to tell them that they had, almost inadvertently, launched the “fastest growing educational channel,” and that they shouldn’t give up. As such, Salamon and Bauer set up Wisecrack as less of a comedy studio and more of a tech startup, seeking investment from outsiders to help fund their growth. Part of the plan was to branch out from just making Thug Notes, and so the firm launched 8-Bit Philosophy, a mash-up of philosophy and gaming culture, which, for example, used a gaming icon like Zelda to explain Plato’s Allegory of the Cave.

Wisecrack was beginning to grow, and Bauer, a self-described “film major and pretentious bastard” wanted to do something relating to cinema. The result was Earthling Cinema, in which movies are analyzed by an “alien,” Garyx Wormuloid (UCB LA’s Mark Schroeder), centuries after the planet has been destroyed. The series was a slow burn, something that Salamon puts at the feet of YouTube’s opaque algorithms. “We started with the movies that were sorta canon, like Fight Club, Pulp Fiction and 2001 and it was our worst performing show,” he says. “I thought, ‘This is so great. Why isn’t it working?’”

The secret to success, Salamon realized, was in how the show was marketed. “We started to tweak the messaging, so it said: ‘An alien analyzes movies,’ but nobody watched it. Then we did ‘2001 through Alien Eyes’ and nobody gave a shit. It was only when we used the phrase ‘the hidden meaning’ and people latched onto that. And it’s those little tweaks that make a successful and an unsuccessful show.”

Earthling Cinema’s growing success encouraged the company to broaden the sort of channels that it offered to users. Earlier this year, Wisecrack launched Boss Bitches of History, a show created by and starring adult actresses Sovereign Syre and Ela Darling. In it, the pair recounts tales of prominent women throughout the ages that made their name for pushing back against the prevailing culture. The series’ first two episodes were released simultaneously, featuring stories about Cleopatra and Marie-Joseph Angelique. According to Salamon, it was Wisecrack’s “most successful series launch to date.” Unfortunately, the critical reception wasn’t particularly warm and those episodes garnered nearly 1,000 dislikes — something that can kill a channel’s standing with YouTube’s secret-sauce algorithms.

“The idea was to take these porn stars, who are dismissed as unintelligent, and have them talk about emboldened women throughout history,” explains Salamon.

The premise was seen as preachy and the performers, two women, came under criticism. “Typically our videos get 99 percent approval, but these got closer to 75, which is shockingly low,” he adds. Even an 8-Bit Philosophy episode that tackled the topic of gender received significant backlash. As far as Salamon’s concerned, it’s all about crafting shows that are a fit for the channel’s core demographic. “Because our audience is 80 percent male; 80 percent 18 to 34, [this sort of content] just doesn’t work for them.” Another issue Salamon identified was in how Boss Bitches of History was presented to the internet. “We were being subtle that they were porn stars,” he says of the social satire that was lost on audiences. “I didn’t want to exploit them in that way.”

Wisecrack is currently doing its best to fix the show in a way that’ll make it more palatable to its male-dominated audience, while preserving the core concept. At the same time, they’re looking into broadening Earthling Cinema to cover other aspects of the arts, for instance Earthling Television. The scope may broaden, but it will maintain the philosophy of alternating between discussing “serious” works of filmmaking and more commercial-friendly fare. Salamon likens it to candy and vegetables: “‘Candy’ is the shit that everyone loves, like Frozen and Batman, and then there’s ‘Vegetables,’ which are the movies and books that we think are important.” The aim is two-fold: Help the channel pull in enough ratings to survive, while bringing higher-brow materials to those who may otherwise miss it.

Dr. Sparky Sweets, PhD, studies a forthcoming set text for Thug Notes.

Another thing the channel has had to fight is the idea that it’s not trading in stereotypes, especially concerning Sparky Sweets, PhD, himself, the eponymous “Thug” of Thug Notes. With his do-rag, T-shirt and chains, it would be easy to say that it’s a portrayal that’s inappropriate, especially given that its creators are both Caucasian. “From the get-go, we wanted to use social satire and this character as a way of saying: ‘Don’t judge a book by its cover,’” says Salamon. It’s less of an issue now that the show has been featured on BET, but the suggestion that Thug Notes is somehow racist is one that clearly irks him. “I can name a handful of pretentious academics who found it offensive because they didn’t listen to the analysis.”

Cast your mind back to high school and you may remember being warned not to base your book report on the CliffsNotes version, or worse, the movie adaptation you watched half-asleep. The burning question then, is what do teachers think about Wisecrack’s Thug Notes? “YouTube did a survey, and they took Thug Notes into 100 classrooms with 1,100 students around the world … and it was overwhelmingly positive,” says Salamon. The stats make a compelling case for the series: Nine out of 10 students asked by YouTube said their enjoyment of English classes has improved with the introduction of Thug Notes into the classroom.

Salamon‘s pragmatic about the fact that, when presented with something taxing like a book report, “kids are gonna cheat anyway.” But still the series’ positive impact cannot be overlooked; it has been praised by both students and teachers, alike. Wisecrack’s email account frequently receives missives from people who’ve just about finished high school and, thanks to Thug Notes, have now developed an interest in reading. Then there’s the feedback from teachers themselves, who write in to say that the students have been unengaged with the reading material until they see the show, which acts as a sort of icebreaker.

Despite being the co-founder of one of YouTube’s most popular educational channels with more than half a million subscribers, Salamon doesn’t feel as if he’s made it. His ambitions are far grander than just making some web (and TV) shows. As he sees it, the success of shows like The Colbert Report and Last Week Tonight with John Oliver make it clear that people want smarter, more in-depth entertainment. But starting a similar news-based satire show isn’t on the cards for Wisecrack just yet, since the current plan is to grow the brand beyond just making video clips.

The recently published Thug Notes book is only the first step in this expansion, but there’s plenty more real-world items planned for the future. Salamon‘s grand vision for Wisecrack is to create a subscription-style service “like Lootcrate, where you get a cool product from us every quarter,” and early access to new series’ episodes. He’s not there yet, but if all of these various bets pay off, Wisecrack could be end up being just as ubiquitous for educational material as Lonely Planet is for travel.

Image credits: Jacob. S Salamon / Wisecrack

Why does the Nexus cost more in UK and Europe?

Buying a smartphone free of a contract can often be very expensive and sometimes, the location you’re buying it in can result in you paying even more for that handset.

A couple of days ago, Google announced its new Nexus handsets and with it, brought a key issue to the forefront of the market; the price. If you’re buying your new Nexus in Europe or the UK, you may end up paying over 40% more for the same handset than those buying in the US, but why is tech more expensive in the UK and Europe versus the same prices in the USA?

The Nexus pricing

To add some context to this topic, let’s take a look at the pricing for Google’s new Nexus 5X and Nexus 6P in the USA and how it compares to selected European countries (you can sort this table and it will display according to the US equivalent price):

As you can see, the pricing is rather affordable in the US but as you move East towards Europe, the price rises exponentially. In the UK, the Nexus devices are approximately 34-36% higher than the US dollar equivalent while in Europe, the costs can rise by over 50% in some countries.

So why does tech cost so much more outside the USA? Here’s just a few of the reasons that can have an impact on the overall price you pay for your handset.

Exchange Rates

Exchange rates play a very large part in the overall cost you pay for your handset and as a particular currency weakens or strengthens, the cost also makes a large difference.

In the case of the Euro, a year can make a large difference. A year ago, the Euro was a lot closer to the Pound and now, it’s almost identical to the US dollar. As an example, a year ago 1 Euro was worth 1.299 US dollars, while now it is worth 1.115 US dollars. The 16 percent drop in the value means the equivalent handset pricing has risen by roughly the same amount to account for the weaker currency.

While this is certainly true of the Euro, it also explains why the UK pricing is almost the same a year later. The Pound and the Dollar have been pegged at a very similar rate over the past year and while the Dollar has grown a little stronger – a year ago, 1 GBP was worth 1.514 USD while now it is worth 1.51246 – the rate is still similar to how it was last year.

With the UK especially, there are a lot of other factors that impact the overall cost of a handset, so let’s take a look at some of the other reasons you’ll pay more for your handset on this side of the pond.

IBtimes

Taxes

Taxes, taxes, taxes; who needs them – apart from the government and those who need relief/benefits that is!

A key thing that I’ve been caught out on before is taxes when buying an item in the USA; as every state can charge their own tax rate (and some don’t charge any tax at all), most – if not all – items you buy show the pre-tax price. Once you enter your ZIP code, the shopping cart will then update with the final price including all taxes and subsidies.

In comparison, when you buy a handset in the UK or Europe, the price listed almost always includes the tax, which can be 20 percent or more depending on the country you’re buying in. For companies aiming to import their devices for sale in a particular country, a key barrier can be the fact that before any of the other associated costs are included (see below), taxes will be levied by the respective government.

At least in the UK, there’s no way to buy without paying the relevant taxes (including most of the times when importing from abroad) and as I discovered on a trip to New York a couple of years ago, 4 percent sales tax on an $800 item can increase the cost by quite a large amount.

Distribution and other costs

A lesser known element to pricing is the distribution channels, cost structures and tariffs, which all vary from country to country and, at least in the UK, can make up a significant part of the overall price you pay.

For those that aren’t sure on how the process works, let us try and explain; a company is more than welcome to introduce a new handset into the market and attempt to sell directly to consumers but what happens when someone actually buys one? Without a distribution warehouse to ship the handset, the customer won’t receive their phone and without a customer service infrastructure, there’s no one for customers to contact when something goes wrong.

That’s one side to distribution but there’s also the other side of distribution; partners. With the new Nexus devices, you’re able to either buy them directly from Google or pick one up on a post-paid plan from one of the carriers here. When dealing with carriers, the overall price of a handset – either on a post-paid or outright – includes the carrier’s and Google’s percentage of revenue, the costs of distribution and any other marketing and sales-related activities.

Marketing is also another key factor that will impact on the overall cost you pay for your handset; as the cost of marketing activities such as TV exposure, billboards, newspaper ads and more vary according to each country and the market position in that country, the overall cost of marketing can be a key factor behind the difference in the overall cost of a particular handset.

Should you import from the USA to the UK (or Europe)?

With all of these factors in mind, should you import a handset from the USA to either the UK or Europe? Or once all the various costs of importing are included, would you be better off buying from your local market?

Let’s remind ourselves of the Nexus pricing in the USA and UK but this time, we’ve added the state taxes you’re likely to pay in five selected states (New York, Florida, Nevada, California, Oregon):

Now let’s consider the various costs of importing a handset into the UK; the cost of delivery (which we’ve estimated as $30 including insurance for relatively speedy delivery), the taxes (20% on the item price including delivery) and the charge applied by a courier when an item is intercepted by customs (which varies by courier but averages to around $15).

With all these costs of importing in mind, now let’s take a look at the same table, with the five popular locations, but add the estimated cost of importing into the UK, if you were to choose a shipping service from that location.

There you have it – just some of the reasons that the cost of a phone varies according to different countries and whether it’s worth importing or buying locally. Importing the new Nexus handsets from the USA into the UK or Europe also means you won’t have access to all the network bands that the international model has, but this is the same with importing most phones.

What do you think? Would you buy the Nexus 5X or Nexus 6P (or another flagship) from the USA and import to the UK or Europe? Personally, I would probably buy it locally, as the savings are minimal at best and require you to find a shipping service that will deliver to the UK (at least in my case, I’m yet to find one!) But what do you think? Do you have insight into other factors that you feel impact on the overall price that we’ve missed out? Let us know your views in the comments below guys!

TAG Heuer’s first smartwatch gets a $400 price bump

Normally, when a company changes its mind about the pricing of a forthcoming gadget, it’s to surprise us all with a nice discount. Luxury watch brand TAG Heuer, on the other hand, felt that its first smartwatch, the Carrera Wearable 01, was actually too cheap at $1,400. In an interview with CNBC, CEO Jean-Claude Biver revealed that the timepiece, created with Google and Intel, will now actually retail for $1,800. Biver also let slip that the watch will launch on November 9th at the LVMH building in New York. The executive also feels that $1,800 is a fair price for the unit, since it’s only a few hundred bucks more than you’d pay for an Apple Watch Hermés Collection — produced by a rival luxury goods brand that may, one day, be owned by TAG’s parent company.

Via: SlashGear

Source: CNBC