New Media Communication Technologies

New Media Communication Technologies 

Here are some contemporary New Media communication technologies that are a mix of mass communication and interpersonal communication.

• Virtual Reality Worlds: A virtual world is simulated by a computer, displayed as a three-dimensional environment on the computer's monitor screen, and intended for its users to inhabit and interact via graphical avatar representations of themselves. The best known 3-D virtual-reality environment is Second Lifecreated by the San Francisco company Linden Lab. SL's more than 15 million residents create avatars representing themselves, build and create objects and clothing, and interact with each other in the setting of a user-created virtual world complete with its own economy in which they may own land. SL is not a game. It has no game rules, no scoring, no winners, no losers. Instead, it is a social networking environment widely used for recreation, commerce and education. Learn more about SECOND LIFE and virtual worlds »
  
  Lesser-known virtual world hangouts where users have social avatars with profiles and connections to people with whom they share interests include There and Kaneva and Whyville andLinkedIn and IMVU and Moove. For teenagers ages 13 and up there are Second Life and Zwinky or Zwinktopia.
  
  The virtual worlds sometimes are referred to as collaborative virtual environments (CVEs), multi-user virtual environments (MUVEs) because they involve more than one person's avatar, or immersive virtual environments (IVEs) because the user actually senses being within the world.
  
  MUVEs also have been called massively multiplayer online role-playing games (MMORPGs), massively multiplayer online games (MMOGs), massively multiplayer online (MMOs). They include such online computer games as World of Warcraft in which players do combat with hundreds of others; Weblo; Ultima Online; and Everquest II. The text-only games that were popular a few years ago were called multi-user domains (MUDs) and MUD object oriented (MOOs).
  
  There's a list of virtual worlds by category, which shows 128 virtual-world websites in 11 "best for" categories: kids, teens, 20-30s, 40+, techies, newbies, artists, dial-up, broadband, free access, and Mac access.
  
  Another important virtual reality tool is Google Earth, which creates a mashup of satellite imagery, maps, terrain and 3D buildings. In addition to the surface of Earth, you can explore the sky with Google Earth. Google SketchUp and Google 3D Warehouse complement Google Earth. A virtual reality tool from Microsoft built on Google Earth sky is WorldWide Telescope, a data mashup that forms a visualization environment in which a personal computer can function as a virtual telescope.
  
• Wiki: A wiki is an online resource which allows users to add and edit content collectively. Through the use of hypertext, a wiki's collection of web pages can be navigated and edited by anyone. The fact that anyone can edit, delete, or modify its content makes a wiki the collaborative work of many different authors. The best known of this informative type of website is Wikipedia. It is a research resource like an encyclopedia or database that is broad and general in coverage of topics. The English-language Wikipedia has the largest user base among all wikis and ranks in the top twenty among all websites in terms of traffic. On the other hand, many wiki's are narrow and focused on a defined range of topics. Wikis can be set up for free from providers such asWetpaint and Wikidot. There is a list of the largest wiki's. The words wiki wiki mean "rapidly" in the Hawaiian language.
  
• Blogs: Blog is short for weblog, a form of online journal. Best known services are WordPress and Blogger and Typepad andLiveJournal and Squarespace. A blog can have a single author or several. Most blogs allow readers to post comments in response to an article or post, but some do not. Bloglines is an RSS reader, which is a service that collects updates from your favorite blogs so you can read them in one place.
  
• Microblogs: A cross between instant messaging and blogging, Twitter is a microblogging system that allows a user to send a short, 140-character informational updates. Users also can follow the updates of selected friends.
  
• Photo Sharing: The best known online photo sharing site isFlickr. Users upload digital still photos. Public photos may be viewed and commented on by others. Other photo sharing sites include Photobucket and Snapzilla and Ringo and Buzznetand Picturetrail and Dotphoto and Fotki and Faces andImageShack. There are sites that let you embed slideshows in your web page such as Slide and OneTrueMedia.
  
• Video Sharing: An online video sharing site is YouTubeowned by Google. Videos are uploaded by users and can be viewed free by others. Users can leave comments on video pages. There also are Video Egg and jumpcut and Google Video and eyespot and vimeo and Sony's Crackle and revverand ourmedia and vSocial and Bright Cove.
  
• Data Sharing: A Web application that allows discovering, reading, organizing and sharing on the Internet of valuable personally-selected data and information is Pageflakes. The tool creates a Web start page for blogs and news sources that are read daily. The page is personalized with photos, videos, a calendar, email, to-do list and more. Pageflakes is a free service offering thousands of Flakes (a.k.a. widgets or modules) including Facebook, a universal News Search, YouTube, Twitter, message board, blog, and hundreds of RSS feeds to choose from.
  
• Digital Storytelling: Digital storytelling is mediated mass communication combining traditional techniques from television, video production radio, newspapers and magazines with contemporary multimedia tools to deliver informative and entertaining short productions with text, still and motion images, sound, music, and voice. They are script-driven and all about the articulation of a coherent verbal expression – the voice of the narrator.
  More about digital storytelling with examples »
  video sampler »
  machinima »
  
• Machinima: The art of making a real movie in a virtual world is called machinima from the term "machine cinema." A machinima is a video production shot in a 3D virtual reality world, such as Second Life, and produced with real life tools and techniques.
  More about machinima »
  video sampler »
  digital storytelling »
  
• Social Networks: A social networking site where users can set up a profile of themselves, create formal connections to people they know, communicate, and share preferences and interests is Facebook. Once restricted to college students, Facebook's fastest-growing demographic is users over 25.MySpace is another social networking site where users can set up profiles, create formal connections to people they know, communicate, and share preferences and interests.
  
• Social Bookmarks: The social-bookmarking sitedel.icio.us let's you add, categorize and manage social bookmarks for storing, sharing, and discovering web pages. Another bookmarking system is Furl.
  
• Tag Clouds: A cloud of tags is a visual list of weighted keywords on a Web page – usually hyperlinked single words listed alphabetically with their importance shown in font size or color. They can be created at TagCrowd and Tag Cloud Generator and TagCloud Generator and TagCloud.
  
• Content Sharing: An online content sharing site is Digg. It surfaces the best stuff on the Web from news to videos to images to Podcasts as voted on by its users. There are no editors. Users collectively determine the value of content. Once something is submitted, other people see it and vote by going to it.
  
• Cloud Computing: Traditionally, users ran software on their own computers and stored all of their data on their own computer disk drives. However, Internet connections have become faster and more reliable. Cloud computing has application software on Web servers and stores information on those same remote servers. A service company delivers software applications as an online service using the computing power of its network of powerful computer servers accessed via the Web. That network of servers is the cloud. In the past, cloud computing has been known as client-server architecture, thin client, and software as a service. Cloud computing allows access to documents from anywhere and collaboration with co-authors. Examples of companies delivering applications online include Google Apps,Adobe Buzzword word processor and Photoshop Express,Amazon.com Web Services, Salesforce.com, Microsoft Windows Azure, Hewlett-Packard, IBM, Oracle, and SAP. Users must trust putting all their personal, family, corporate and strategic data on computers operated by someone else. Of course, they already are doing that with such websites as Facebook, Flickr, orGmail. Notably, the Free Software Foundation is against the idea of trusting for-profit corporations.
  
• Google Tools: While Google itself is not native to the 21st century, its many Tools and Packs are: Google Tools andGoogle Pack for Windows XP or Vista and Google Pack for Macintosh. Dating to the old days of 1998, Google now is the largest search engine on the Web, indexing a large proportion of all pages on the Web. Google handles several hundred million queries each day through its various services. The main function is the well-known Google Search. Google Trends allows users to see underlying numerical data on the popularity of any particular search in Google's vast database of search terms, relative to others. Other Google services include Google Language Toolsand Google Toolbar and Google Clock, and numerous others. Wikipedia has a List of Google products and a List of Google tools.
  
• Conversion Tools: There are many useful new conversion and building tools appearing on the Web. For instance, the freeOnline PDF Converter and Document Creator. Another isVIXY, which offers a free service to convert YouTube videos to QuickTime-playable MP4 files. And Videobox, that converts Flash from most video sites to Quicktime. More free Web Toolsincluding webmaster tools, and tlbox, and W3C HTML Tools.
  
• Podcasts: Long lists of podcasts can be found at Podcasting Station and Podcast Alley and Digital Podcasts and Podcast Central. You can download podcasts from iTunes.
  
• iTunes: The best-known online music store is iTunes, where you can buy music, TV shows, audiobooks and iPod games, buy and rent movies, and download podcasts. Other places to buy music online include Amazon and eBay and Napster andRhapsody and Wal-Mart, and many others.
  
• Writing Communities: Writing has been around since, maybe, the 4th millennium BC and printing dates back a thousand years, so they definitely are not 21st century natives. However, new technologies are allowing individuals to publish readily, rapidly and repeatedly, thereby creating communities of writers. One of the best known is Lulu. These low-cost, on-demand publishers make it easy to disseminate ideas with the support and feedback of a large online writing community.
  
• Digital Scrapbooking: Also known as digi-scrapping or computer scrapbooking, digital scrapbooking uses a computer and graphics software to create visual layouts to preserve memories. Scrapbookers used to paste photos on paper alongside hand-written journal notes and various small embellishment objects and memorabilia such as stickers, buttons and ribbons. Digital scrapbooking uses digital photos, clip art, and graphic textures as embellishment. Preservation of memories remains the ultimate purpose. Digital scrapbook layouts can be printed for an album, or left as computer files shared via Web pages or email. Software includes Picaboo and Smilebox andTwo Peas in a Bucket and Memory Mixer.
  
• Internet Calling: An Internet calling service, Skype is reminiscent of the telephone. It enables two-party audio and video chat and multi-party audioconferencing. Skype can make computer-to-computer calls as well as computer-to-land or mobile phone calls. Yahoo! Voice is an Internet calling service that has the ability to assign a phone number to your computer so that it can be called from land-line and mobile phones; computer-to-computer calls from within Yahoo! Messenger; and computer-to-phone calls.
  
• Rich Media: What is rich media? It isn't a new-media technology in itself, but rather a term used in the advertising business referring to the use of the latest technology in creating Web advertising content. It means ads on Web pages that contain interactive elements, which permit active participation by consumers in a website audience. Ads with this kind of interactivity also are referred to as interactive media. More than just stationary banner ads with simple GIF animation, the digital files that form the new rich-media ads incorporate richer graphics, animation, audio, streaming video, applets that allow user interaction, special multimedia effects, hypertext, pull-down menus, and fill-in forms for greater transaction behavior. They use such enhanced technologies as Flash, Shockwave, Java, Javascript, and DHTML. You might say they look more like television commercials, as opposed to ads containing only static images and text. Businesses look at rich media as new ad production formats while New Media are new delivery vehicles they use to reach out to new and different audiences. 

Scientists create never-before-seen form of matter

          

                      

Harvard and MIT scientists are challenging the conventional wisdom about light, and they didn't need to go to a galaxy far, far away to do it.

rd Professor of Physics Mikhail Lukin and MIT Professor of Physics Vladan Vuletic have managed to coax photons into binding together to form molecules – a state of matter that, until recently, had been purely theoretical. The work is described in a September 25 paper in Nature.

The discovery, Lukin said, runs contrary to decades of accepted wisdom about the nature of light. Photons have long been described as massless particles which don't interact with each other – shine two laser beams at each other, he said, and they simply pass through one another.

"Photonic molecules," however, behave less like traditional lasers and more like something you might find in science fiction – the light saber.

"Most of the properties of light we know about originate from the fact that photons are massless, and that they do not interact with each other," Lukin said. "What we have done is create a special type of medium in which photons interact with each other so strongly that they begin to act as though they have mass, and they bind together to form molecules. This type of photonic bound state has been discussed theoretically for quite a while, but until now it hadn't been observed.

"It's not an in-apt analogy to compare this to light sabers," Lukin added. "When these photons interact with each other, they're pushing against and deflect each other. The physics of what's happening in these molecules is similar to what we see in the movies."

To get the normally-massless photons to bind to each other, Lukin and colleagues, including Harvard post-doctoral fellow Ofer Fisterberg, former Harvard doctoral student Alexey Gorshkov and MIT graduate students Thibault Peyronel and Qiu Liang couldn't rely on something like the Force – they instead turned to a set of more extreme conditions.

souce:: http://phys.org/news/2013-09-scientists-never-before-seen.html#jCp

Moto X born of new attitudes at Motorola Mobility

        

Paul Pierce remembers the reaction his team of designers elicited from their engineering colleagues when they proposed a smartphone with a gently curved back that would nestle into a person's hand.

"We didn't take it as a negative, but they were literally laughing when they saw the concept," recalled Pierce, Motorola Mobility's director of industrial design for the Moto X, the first flagship phone to come out of the company after it was acquired in 2012 by Google for $12.9 billion.

Pierce and the designers loved the natural feel of the rounded device, but the engineers saw a guffaw-inducing challenge: How would they fit a multitude of tiny, rectangular components into a curve without wasting space?

As it turned out, overcoming that engineering conundrum for the Moto X set the tone for solving another vexing problem at the stalled technology giant: Jump-starting a creatively inert culture that, through years of painful restructurings and cuts, prioritized cranking out dozens of products to meet nitpicky technical requirements rather than coming up with groundbreaking ideas. In setting out to reclaim Motorola's long-lost position as a dominant player in mobile technology, designers and engineers were given one directive: Think big.

Reshaping a corporate culture, particularly at a company like Motorola with 85 years of history and thousands of employees, isn't done overnight or through a single product launch. Even so, the Moto X marked a turning point for the Libertyville, Ill.-based company, one that the team hopes will spur the company's rebirth.

"It wasn't like Google bought us and all of a sudden (said), 'OK, guys, let's work on this new thing, we've got this great idea,' " said Joe Allore, the lead product architect for the Moto X. "No, it wasn't like that. Maybe this is old-school thinking, but I was expecting a little of that. If anything, the expectation was higher: Step back and look at ourselves and set our own expectations for what we wanted to do and make."

The burden on the Moto X and its successors is enormous. Motorola, which produced the first commercial portable phone and once had a top-seller with the Razr, is clinging to barely 1 percent of the global smartphone market. The team behind the Moto X wants to show that Google didn't just buy a lucrative patent portfolio with a money-losing hardware manufacturer attached to it, but rather a company capable of producing cutting-edge technology that appeals to consumers worldwide.

Read more at: http://phys.org/news/2013-09-moto-born-attitudes-motorola-mobility.html#jCp

Download Windows 8.1 RTM, Visual Studio 2013 RC and Windows Server 2012 R2 RTM Today

Download Windows 8.1 RTM, Visual Studio 2013 RC and Windows Server 2012 R2 RTM Today

Starting today, we will extend availability of our current Windows 8.1, Windows 8.1 Pro and Windows Server 2012 R2 RTM builds to the developer and IT professional communities via MSDN and TechNet subscriptions.The Windows 8.1 RTM Enterprise edition will be available through MSDN and TechNet for businesses later this month. Additionally, today we’re making available the Visual Studio 2013 Release Candidate which you candownloa.d here

We heard from you that our decision to not initially release Windows 8.1 or Windows Server 2012 R2 RTM bits was a big challenge for our developer partners as they’re readying new Windows 8.1 apps and for IT professionals who are preparing for Windows 8.1 deployments. We’ve listened, we value your partnership, and we are adjusting based on your feedback. As we refine our delivery schedules for a more rapid release cadence, we are working on the best way to support early releases to the various audiences within our ecosystem.

In providing the best developer tools to our customers, Visual Studio 2013 RC enables development teams to build, deliver and manage compelling apps that take advantage of today’s devices and services. With the release of Visual Studio 2013 RC, we’ve made available additional features and functionality to enhance developer and development team productivity and agility. For more information of what’s new in Visual Studio 2013 see today’s blog post from S. Somasegar.

With these updated platform and tools bits, developers will be able to build and test their Windows 8.1 apps. The RTM versions of tools, services, and platform are required for store submissions which will open up for new Windows 8.1 apps beginning at general availability on October 18.

Given the accelerated rate of technological advancement we continue to see in the industry and here at Microsoft, it’s an exciting time to be an app builder. We recognize the critical role developers play—the breadth of our apps ecosystem is a key pillar of the Windows experience. It’s an essential end-to-end relationship – we deliver the tools, services and platform to give developers the flexibility and opportunity to innovate and build experiences for Windows that make all our lives more productive and fun. 

We also recognize that our commercial customers need time to perform application compatibility and other testing and validation to best plan for their Windows 8.1 deployments following general availability on October 18.

The primary purpose of Windows 8.1 RTM and Visual Studio 2013 RC availability is for testing as our engineering teams continue to refine and update the product and tools in preparation for Windows 8.1 general availability on October 18 and the release of Visual Studio 2013 RTW.  Third party apps may require final refinement to onboard into the Windows Store at the October 18 GA milestone.  However, we’re confident this pre-release will enable developers to ready their Windows 8.1 apps for customers while validating their existing apps function as expected on Windows 8.1

Similarly, we continue to validate the Windows Server 2012 R2 software with our partners and expect to make further updates to the build for general availability on October 18 as well. 

We are pleased to provide non-production support for Windows Store app development and testing for Windows 8.1, via forums and assisted support channels.  For links to those resources, along with existing Windows 8 support options, please visit the Dev Center support options page. We will also provide assisted support for Windows 8.1 RTM and Windows Server 2012 R2 RTM through standard commercial support channels.

souce: StevenGuggs

iPhone 5s and iPhone 5c vs. iPhone 5: What has Apple changed?

Apple today announced the iPhone 5s and the iPhone 5c, both successors to the iPhone 5. After all the rumors and leaks, Apple’s seventh and eighth iPhones are finally official.

Yet before you run out and buy one of these gadgets, assuming you’re not interested in Android or Windows Phone, it might be wise to see what you’re getting for your hard-earned cash. As such, we’ve put together two tables to show you what’s new.

	iPhone 5	iPhone 5s
Price on contract	$199, $299, $399	$199, $299, $399
Price off contract	$649, $749, $849	$649, $749, $849
Storage	16GB, 32GB, 64GB	16GB, 32GB, 64GB
Display	4-inch, 1136×640, 326 ppi	4-inch, 1136×640, 326 ppi
Processors	A6	A7 64-bit
Touch ID		Fingerprint sensor
Rear Camera	8MP, ƒ/2.4 aperture	8MP, 1.5µ pixels, ƒ/2.2 aperture
Video Recording	1080p at 30fps	1080p at 30fps, Slo-mo
Front Camera	1.2MP photos, 720p video	1.2MP photos, 720p video
FaceTime	Over Wi-Fi or cellular	Over Wi-Fi or cellular
Assistant	Siri	Siri
Navigation	GPS and GLONASS	GPS and GLONASS
Bluetooth	4.0	4.0
Talk Time on 3G	Up to 8 hours	Up to 10 hours
Browsing time on LTE	Up to 8 hours	Up to 10 hours
Browsing time on 3G	Up to 8 hours	Up to 8 hours
Browsing time on Wi-Fi	Up to 10 hours	Up to 10 hours
Standby time	Up to 225 hours	Up to 250 hours
Height	4.87 inches (123.8 mm)	4.87 inches (123.8 mm)
Width	2.31 inches (58.6 mm)	2.31 inches (58.6 mm)
Depth	0.30 inch (7.6 mm)	0.30 inch (7.6 mm)
Weight	3.95 ounces (112 grams)	3.95 ounces (112 grams)
SIM card	Nano-SIM	Nano-SIM
Connector	Lightning	Lightning
Colors	Black/Slate, White/Silver	Silver, Space Gray, Gold

Model	iPhone 5	iPhone 5c
Price on contract	$199, $299, $399	$99, $199
Price off contract	$649, $749, $849	$549, $649
Storage	16GB, 32GB, 64GB	16GB, 32GB
Display	4-inch, 1136×640, 326 ppi	4-inch, 1136×640, 326 ppi
Processors	A6	A6
Rear Camera	8MP, ƒ/2.4 aperture	8MP, ƒ/2.4 aperture
Video Recording	1080p at 30fps	1080p at 30fps
Front Camera	1.2MP photos, 720p video	1.2MP photos, 720p video
FaceTime	Over Wi-Fi or cellular	Over Wi-Fi or cellular
Assistant	Siri	Siri
Navigation	GPS and GLONASS	GPS and GLONASS
Bluetooth	4.0	4.0
Talk Time on 3G	Up to 8 hours	Up to 10 hours
Browsing time on LTE	Up to 8 hours	Up to 10 hours
Browsing time on 3G	Up to 8 hours	Up to 8 hours
Browsing time on Wi-Fi	Up to 10 hours	Up to 10 hours
Standby time	Up to 225 hours	Up to 250 hours
Height	4.87 inches (123.8 mm)	4.90 inches (124.4 mm)
Width	2.31 inches (58.6 mm)	2.33 inches (59.2 mm)
Depth	0.30 inch (7.6 mm)	0.35 inch (8.97 mm)
Weight	3.95 ounces (112 grams)	4.65 ounces (132 grams)
SIM card	Nano-SIM	Nano-SIM
Connector	Lightning	Lightning
Colors	Black/Slate, White/Silver	White, Pink, Yellow, Blue, Green

There you have it. So which iPhone is for you?

See also – iPhone 5c and iPhone 5s will both ship on September 20, iPhone 5 discontinued, and iPhone 4s goes free and What the iPhone 5S ’64-bit’ processor means, in plain English

source: thenextweb.com

Sony takes on Apple TV with PS Vita TV: A tiny console for playing games, music, TV and films

          

Sony has made its third announcement at the SCEJA Press Conference, and it’s arguably the most significant of the day.

The company has unveiled PlayStation Vita TV: a 6cm x 10cm gadget that connects to a TV to let users play Vita and PSP games, and access a broad range of entertainment services — including Hulu, and Sony’s own Music Unlimited and Video Unlimited.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=rG5l78gbvpU

The device is launching in Japan on November 14 for 9,480 yen, that’s around $99. It will also be available with a controller (it connects to standard PS controllers) and storage card for 14,995 yen, which is approximately $150.

As of yet, there’s no word on whether it will make it out overseas, and at what cost. Assuming it does launch globally — it will be a competitor to Apple TV, since it’s an interestingly affordable device that could serve as a point of entry to brings new users into the PlayStation ecosystem.

➤ Press release [Japanese]

Earlier: Sony’s PlayStation 4 will go on sale in Japan on February 22 2014, three months after the US and Sony announces lighter, thinner PlayStation Vita with longer battery life

Source: thenextweb.com

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PayPal Freezes Campaign Funds

Saturday August 31st I woke to two emails from PayPal. The first notified me they had cancelled the debit card associated with my sole proprietor business account, the second was informing me they placed a block on my account barring me from withdrawing or sending any money out of my PayPal account. I figured my account must have tripped an automatic security limit the night before. I logged into their website to see what actions I needed to do in order to remove the block on my account.

After 4 phone calls, the last of which I spoke to a supervisor, the understanding I have come to is, unless Mailpile provides PayPal with a detailed budgetary breakdown of how we plan to use the donations from our crowd funding campaign they will not release the block on my account for 1 year until we have shipped a 1.0 version of our product. A final email communication from PayPal reaffirmed us of their stance by stating:

"Please provide an itemized budget and your development goal dates for your project"

This puts us in an incredibly uncomfortable position as we do not feel that it's remotely in their jurisdiction to ask for a detailed budget of our business, any more than it is within our right to ask for theirs.

Communications with PayPal have implied that they would use any excuse available to them to delay delivering as much of our cash as possible for as long as possible. Asking us to give them justification for such behavior is obviously not in our best interests. PayPal's position particularly ridiculous when contrasted with IndieGoGo's policy of transferring all funds to successful campaigns within 15 days of their conclusion. If IndieGoGo can do it, so can PayPal.

They just don't want to, and we cannot help but wonder why. Crowd funding is an adventure. It is thrilling to feel a community of supporters backing your project and giving you a sense of security that you'll be able to bring your vision to life over the course of the next year coupled with freedom to maintain your vision unbeholden to shareholders and 3rd parties. After going round and round on the phone with PayPal, I am left with the very strong feeling that this entrpreneurial freedom is in jeopardy. If PayPal has financial risks to mitigate, why is that specially true in our case? Are the risks larger because we are successful?

Source: Brennan

Google Announces 1B Total Android Activations, Names Next Version ‘KitKat’

Google Announces 1B Total Android Activations, Names Next Version ‘KitKat’

Apple made waves this morning when it announced its oft-rumored September 10 event, but Google isn’t giving up the day’s limelight without a fight — according to a post on Sundar Pichai’s Google+ page, more than 1 billion Android devices have been activated to date. That’s not exactly a shock considering the sort of momentum we’ve seen in activations over the past few months. CEO Larry Page said there were 1.5 million Android activations a day back in July and Android device activations hit the 900 million mark earlier this year.

Even more puzzling than that is the name of the next version of Android, which bucks the long-standing trend of generic dessert names. As it turns out, Android 4.4 is going to be called “KitKat”and not “Key Lime Pie” as earlier thought, though at this point there’s still no official word on when we can expect to see the build go live. Kit Kats are of course a popular chocolate treat made by Nestle, and at this point we’re trying to determine how much this 
crazy little deal is worth, but the promotional blitz has already begun.

UPDATE: Google has confirmed to the BBC that the idea for the name originated with them, and that no money is changing hands as part of the deal.

Nestle has already kicked off a bizarre cross-promotion strategy that will bestow Nexus 7s and Google Play credits on those who find specially branded Kit Kat candy bars emblazoned with the Android logo, à la Willy Wonka. Yes, this is really happening. Apparently the agreement was finalized behind closed doors at this year’s Mobile World Congress in Barcelona, and all parties involved amazingly managed to keep the name under wraps (I slay me) for six months despite the fact that Nestle has been churning out that Android-laden packaging for 50 million candy bars.

Though the name itself is enough to get Android fans and mobile pundits talking, Google may be looking to expand its scope with this latest update. The newly anointed Android KitKit landing pageclaims that it’s the company’s goal “to make an amazing Android experience available for everybody,” which may hint at an expansion into different hardware segments. Google already has some skin in the smartphone and tablet games thanks to its acquisition of Motorola Mobility and hardware partnerships with Asus and LG, but it’s possible we could see Android KitKit powering a smartwatch — a move made partially possible by Google’s quiet acquisition of WIMM Labs last year

Source:android, KitKat, google

Android News

Samsung To Announce Deal With Lookout, Antivirus To Be Bundled With New Samsung Phones

The assortment of apps you have to wade through when powering on a new phone for the first time is about to grow by one. Samsung is expected to announced on Wednesday that is has licensed Lookout's anti-malware suit for all its upcoming Android devices. No word yet on whether or not current devices will get Lookout as an update

Some users take it upon themselves to install apps like Lookout, but others don't want to put up with the added hassle and battery drain. If a phone isn't full of random APKs from around the internet, the risk of true malware infection is very low. Most users that know their way around Android will probably disable Lookout in the system settings. However, this move might not be directed at regular consumers. Samsung is pushing business features in its phones with features like the Knox data segregation system. Lookout is yet another way for IT to lock down a phone.

Samsung doesn't just sell high-end phones, though. Lookout could also be important to users in the developing world, where Google's services are spotty or non-existent. These are the people most likely to install apps from shady places around the web where Android malware is a legitimate concern.

This is far from the first time a company has forged a deal with anti-malware makers. Carriers like T-Mobile and Sprint have done so in a limited fashion. However, this is the first time an OEM has decided to add antivirus across all its devices, and Samsung is by far the largest maker of Android phones. The phone maker might have more to say when the deal is officially announced.

Source:www.androidpolice.com

Android News

Samsung and LG are going to mass produce flexible displays in November report

Flexible (plastic-based) displays have been a long way coming. Samsung, one of the leading developers of the technology, has been showing off prototypes of flexible panels at trade shows for years now. But it seems we’re finally on the verge of seeing the technology used in real life products.

According to the Korean outlet ETNews, both Samsung Display and LG Display are going to achieve limited mass production of flexible panels this November. Samsung is reportedly able to produce up to 1.5 million 5-6 inches panels a month, assuming yields of 100 percent, while LG could churn out about 500,000 panels a month under ideal conditions.

As it usually happens with new technologies, actual yields are likely to be far lower, meaning that the supply of plastic-based panels is going to be insufficient for either company to produce a high-profile flagship device based on a flexible panel. However, production capacity might be sufficient for a limitedly available series to showcase the potential of the new tech, with more capacity to be added if market response is positive.

First generation devices equipped with flexible panels won’t be flexible themselves. Rather than that, the flexible panels will be enclosed in rigid glass, like the Youm prototypes that Samsung showed on the stage of CES in January.

The main benefit that plastic-based panels will bring to the first devices will be greater endurance – a plastic based panel won’t break, though the glass covering it will. Flexible panels are also thinner and lighter than glass-based panels, meaning that phone makers have more freedom to increase battery life or pursue even thinner designs.

Source:www.androidauthority.com

Android News

Alcatel to show off Idol Alpha Android smartphone at IFA

Alcatel One Touch has revealed that it will showcase its new 4.7 inch smartphone – the Idol Alpha – at IFA in Berlin which opens to the public on Friday, September 6th. The Idol Alpha looks good on paper with its 1.2 GHz quad-core CPU and its HD IPS screen but that isn’t what Alcatel are pushing, according to the company the phone’s design is taking them in a new direction. How you may ask – why by adding “exciting” curves of course!
The official fluff from the company talks about “unique and sleek design” and how the phone is “taking creativity and design in a new and unexpected direction.” But beyond the hyperbole there are some interesting things of note. First, the chassis of the Idol Alpha is made of aluminum and is only 7.5mm thick. Second, the phone has translucent edges, which illuminate in various modes such as charging, video, notifications, and so on. This second idea could turn out to look just like a cheap gimmick but if it is done properly it could be a neat feature.
The press photo probably doesn’t truly convey the unique design elements of the device, so we will need to wait for some more photos or even for some hands-on videos. Also details like the size of the camera, the name on the processor, pricing or availability haven’t yet been released. When we know more, so will you!

 Source:http://www.androidauthority.com/alcatel-idol-alpha-ifa-262530/