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PayPal Wants You to Shop While Straphanging In Singapore

Lauren Goode — Thu, 09 Feb 2012 15:06:18 +0000

Mobile shopping is getting even more mobile.

No longer just about using your smartphone to make purchases, mobile payment options are now popping up in transit systems in metropolitan areas, as companies look to gauge consumers’ appetites for buying products while truly on the go.

EBay-owned PayPal has just launched a pilot in Singapore’s subway stations for commuters to buy goods while en route. The experiment, through which eight merchants will offer Valentine’s Day gifts at reduced prices, is being conducted across 15 subway stations across Singapore.

Commuters can make purchases by using their smartphone to scan a QR code on a billboard or poster, and can then pay through a PayPal account. (For those wondering how cell service might work while riding a subway, Singapore has long boasted complete underground coverage, in addition to being one of the most Wi-Fi-friendly cities in the world.)

Earlier this week, New Yorkers learned that they would be able to purchase beauty products while riding in some taxicabs, with just a swipe of their smartphones.

Launched by Glamour magazine as part of a Fashion Week experiment, 50 Manhattan cabs will be equipped with SnapTags from technology company SpyderLynk; according to a Wall Street Journal report, VeriFone, which handles payments for New York City cabs, will power the beauty product purchases, as well.

The experiment was inspired by the virtual stores launched in the Seoul subway system by the Tesco supermarket chain, the Journal says.

While mobile payments are becoming increasingly popular — even the Obama campaign has hopped on board — the companies pushing mobile payments forward are divided on their approach to the technology. Square, for example, uses a dongle that plugs into the iPhone to accept mobile credit card payments; it also offers an app that uses geo-fencing to allow a customer to pay when he or she is within a certain distance from a store. Google’s mobile payments app, Google Wallet, uses near field communication technology to transmit payments.

For PayPal, which recently doubled its mobile payments predictions for 2012 to $7 billion, the emphasis has been on options that don’t require near field communication; which, as my AllThingsD colleague Tricia Duryee points out, can be a limiting factor for adoption.

PayPal says that, aside from a smartphone and an app with bar-code scanning capability, no additional infrastructure — such as an NFC-equipped terminal — is required for merchants, retailers and consumers to participate in the Singapore pilot.

Late last year, PayPal began testing point-of-sale purchasing at Home Depot retail stores, in which a select group of PayPal employees can purchase items by using a PayPal-issued credit card or by entering an account number at the register.

Cellphone Etiquette on the Subways of Seoul and Taipei

Ina Fried — Mon, 31 Oct 2011 11:30:34 +0000

Smartphones are a common sight on subways all around the world.

Even in places where cell signals are scant or nonexistent, the versatile devices are being used for playing games, listening to music and watching videos.

However, where there is a signal, cellphones are often a lightning rod for controversy: There’s an ongoing debate over how to handle something that can be very useful — and also very irritating to those nearby.

In Taipei, signs and recorded messages encourage commuters to think twice before annoying fellow passengers with loud conversations. A sign depicting a talking cellphone suggests that phone users consider sending a text message rather than talking and, if they must converse, urges them to keep things brief and and use a quiet tone.

On the subways of Seoul, where wireless coverage is strong and ubiquitous, there is plenty of opportunity to talk on cellphones. On the Web site for the Seoul subway system, transit authorities list tips on how to be a polite passenger, starting with using a soft voice and setting cellphone ringers on vibrate.

Instead of talking, many transit passengers opt to use their phones as on-the-go TVs, utilizing Korea’s unique mobile video service, known as Digital Multimedia Broadcasting (DMB).

In both Taipei and Seoul, it was fairly uncommon to hear someone yakking away on their phone — something I hear all the time on the buses and streetcars of San Francisco, even if service here is a whole lot spottier.

Made in China: Fake Stores

Laurie Burkitt and Loretta Chao — Wed, 03 Aug 2011 12:30:16 +0000

In China’s “fake world,” consumers can shop for furniture at an imitation IKEA store, eat a six-inch sandwich at an outlet strikingly similar to Subway, and then grab dessert at “Dairy Fairy”— where they might knock back an Oreo-flavored “Ice Storm” whose, thick, creamy texture takes unabashed inspiration from the famous Dairy Queen “Blizzard.”

Welcome to the modern era of copying in China, in which sophisticated proprietors of knockoff stores and chains are targeting increasingly sophisticated Chinese consumers with store experiences and customer service extremely similar to the real thing, down to the helpful store maps, coupons, shopping bags and employee uniforms.

The imitation retailers and restaurants go beyond the simple fakes of consumer goods that have long been abundant in China.

Read the rest of this post on the original site »

Mind the App: Thieves Target Phones

Andrew Grossman — Fri, 22 Apr 2011 08:08:09 +0000

More New Yorkers are using smartphones and tablets on the subway–and more thieves are ripping them out of riders’ hands.

This year, there were 311 grand larcenies on the subway through the end of March, an 18 percent increase over the same period in 2010, according to police statistics.

That jump is largely driven by the increasing theft of smartphones, especially Apple’s iPhone 4, said Raymond Diaz, chief of the New York City Police Department’s transit bureau.

Read the rest of this post on the original site

Your Phone Knows Where You Are, and Always Will. Get Used to It.

Arik Hesseldahl — Thu, 21 Apr 2011 21:58:22 +0000

Yesterday everyone seemed to freak out about the disclosure that Apple’s iPhone collects data on where it has been. Ooooh, scary. There were lots of references comparing Steve Jobs to Big Brother from 1984.

I wasn’t surprised that this data–which shows basically everywhere an iPhone owner has been with the phone in his or her possession since iOS 4 was released–is being collected. But it’s important to make one thing clear before we go any further: There’s no evidence that Apple is collecting any information about where you go. It does collect anonymized information on where iPhones go, and it has a number of legitimate business purposes for doing so.

Nor is any of what Apple is doing some kind of newly discovered secret. In fact, it has been documented for some time. (For more on this, read this excellent post by Alex Levinson, an expert on iOS security.) In fact, Apple has been very clear in its privacy policy about what data it collects, and even highlighted the part about location data in a letter to Congress last year.

Got all that? Okay, let’s proceed.

I found the revelation unsurprising because of stories I’ve written in recent years on the new field of academic research known as “reality mining.” I wrote about it for BusinessWeek in 2008 and interviewed two researchers from MIT, both of whom told me that there is a great deal of value–both commercial value and value to society at large–that can come from gathering data on where people go, and also when they go there and who they go with.

The value comes not in gathering that data about you personally, but in aggregating it, basically mixing it all together with the same data about everyone else, until you have huge databases on the comings and goings of millions of people. It’s helpful for a city to know, for instance, how many cars cross a bridge between the hours of 7 am and 8 am, and how the traffic varies by the day of the week. It’s helpful to see how many people drove to the last New York Yankees game and how many people took the subway, and also how bad the crowd congestion was both on the streets and on the trains.

Getting an accurate picture of exactly how many people are involved is tricky. You can try to do a labor-intensive count or you can estimate, but both are messy and subject to error. A wireless phone is a pretty good sensor because almost everyone will be carrying one and each phone identifies itself to the closest cell tower, so it’s easy to count. The value comes not from knowing who was where at any given time, but how many were there.

Wireless phones already play a big role in tracking traffic congestion. If you use a GPS receiver in your car that gives you live traffic information, those green and red lines that appear on the map are often generated by thousands of cars with wireless phones in them, all of them reporting their location, speed and direction of travel. The company that tracks that information, analyzes it and turns it into something useful is Inrix, and its name can be found stamped on the packaging of a number GPS receivers. When yours pipes up to say “traffic ahead” or says it is changing your route because of congestion, it’s because it is getting a live data feed that is generated in part by information gathered from wireless phones. Are you still so creeped out?

But let’s take it a step further and imagine a case where it actually might be useful and not anonymized. Let’s say you’ve caught a really bad flu but it’s in its early stages, so you’re feeling just a little sick and you go to work. The next day you find out you’ve got this year’s super-flu virus. Would there be a public health benefit in being able to look through a record of where you’ve been? Could there also be a benefit from cross-referencing that with data from other people’s phones to find out how many people–and who–has been within close enough proximity to you during the last 24 hours to maybe catch this flu from you? Data gathered from your phone and others could conceivably help arrest the spread of that super flu by giving authorities an accurate picture of how many people are connected in the branching chains of potential infection.

After a while you start seeing patterns, and these patterns can help solve other problems large and small. Does your town need a traffic light at that intersection based on the number of people who drive through it every day? Does your city need to build another subway line because the existing ones are overwhelmed? Reasonable minds can have different perceptions as to the scale of problems. Real, unimpeachable data can only add clarity to the debates.

MIT’s Sensable City Lab has done some fascinating work in this area. Its most recent project has taken the team to Singapore, and I’ve embedded a video below that shows samples of some of the data they’ve gathered and turned into visualizations. Another older video from a 2008 project, The New York Talk Exchange, showing calls made to and from New York, is just as interesting.

Is there a commercial use for this sort of data? You bet. Advertisers will always pay for the right and the ability to reach you in some new and incrementally intrusive way. But that’s just the way that things go, though more often than not, if you don’t like it, you have the ability to opt out or not participate. But people do choose to participate. Ask the eight million Foursquare users why they like voluntarily giving up their live location data day after day. They have clearly opted in because there’s something about that they like, and it isn’t just claiming the mayorship of the corner tavern. And there are probably scores of other commercial uses for the location data on our phones that I’m not imaginative enough to think of.

My point in all this is really simple. Phones have for about a decade had GPS chipsets in them that can keep track of the phone’s precise coordinates–latitude and longitude plus their position relative to a cellular tower. To anyone who is surprised that this data is being collected and even being used I have only this to say: Well, duh! You better get used to it. As long as there’s value in measuring where we go, the phones we take with us everywhere are going to be the device used to do the measuring.

Yes, there needs to be a clear set of rules of the road, and I think the discussion touched off by this round of coverage will help us get to setting those rules. But the data is so valuable, and the potential for benefits are so great, that no amount of consumer outrage is going to put an end to your phone keeping track of where it is.

(Cool Image borrowed from MIT’s New York Talk Exchange)

Want My Attention on Facebook? Post a Picture on Friday Morning

Peter Kafka — Tue, 21 Sep 2010 11:04:20 +0000

Brands are flocking to Facebook because their users are flocking to Facebook. But the more crowded it gets, the harder it is to get people’s attention. Some tips on how to stand out: Use a picture, not a video. And put it up on Friday morning.

That’s the conclusion from a new study from Vitrue, a social media marketing shop. Vitrue looked at engagement rates–”likes,” comments, etc.–for posts published via consumer brands’ “fan pages” and found that:

Posts with images get clicked on 22 percent more often than video posts, and 54 percent more often than text-only posts.
Posts published before noon get clicked on 65 percent more often than those published later.
Posts published on Friday do best; weekends are the worst.

You can do some dot-connecting using Vitrue’s data if you feel like it. Perhaps the reason that images do better than video is that clicking on a clip takes more commitment from a Facebooker than simply looking at a picture. Or perhaps it’s because lots of Facebook activity happens on mobile devices like Apple’s iPhone (AAPL), and Facebook video has all sorts of issues on phones.

But note that a lot of this data varies depending on who is doing the posting: Consumer-packaged-goods guys like P&G, for instance, are least effective when they publish stuff on Wednesdays.

But McDonalds (MCD), Subway, Starbucks (SBUX) and other “quick serve” restaurants do best on Wednesdays. Vitrue figures this is because Facebookers are most interested in rewarding themselves with a meal out on “hump day.”

And if you don’t like this data, you can always find another set of numbers that may suit you a bit better. Like social marketing consultant Dan Zarrella’s work, which contends that Facebookers are more likely to share stories and stuff on the weekends.

And speaking of video, here I am chatting about this very story on WSJ.com’s Digits from Tuesday afternoon:

[ See post to watch video ]

FML! New York City Subway Managers Show Remarkable Web Savvy.

Peter Kafka — Thu, 17 Jun 2010 20:18:38 +0000

If you’re the kind of person who uses “FML” in texts, IMs or tweets, then you may be the kind of person who is aware of a recent change to the New York City subway system, which resulted in this sorta-funny signage:

(Image credit: 2nd Ave Sagas)

In the old days, this is the kind of thing that would have remained a semiobscure Internet meme/in-joke for quite some time.

But maybe there are no semiobscure Internet memes anymore–everything gets widely distributed, really fast. Wide enough and fast enough, in this case, for New York City Transit to change the signs within days. New version:

(Image credit: 2nd Ave Sagas)

So that’s that! But, as I noted back in October when the Wisconsin Tourism Federation grappled with its own meme, Finite Matters Ltd. might still want to think about a new URL.

Apple iPad Event Liveblog

John Paczkowski — Wed, 27 Jan 2010 18:00:40 +0000

After months of feverish speculation and as many years of wishful thinking, Apple uncrated its tablet computer–the iPad–at an invitation-only event in San Francisco this morning.

Liveblog

9:13 am PT: Quite a scene here this morning; the queue for media credentials is nearly as long as some of the iPhone 3G launch lines I saw a few years back. Moments ago, an Apple PR rep slipped through the doors of the Yerba Buena Center to ask that the press waiting outside take two big steps back. The last time that happened to me, I was at a Jesus Lizard show.

9:54 am: The doors open and the press enters the event hall. Initially, at least, the scene is pretty crazy. “This is like the subway in New York,” an attendee behind me jokes. More like the subway in Tokyo, I think to myself.

A Bob Dylan soundtrack plays as media and guests file in. It’s momentarily interrupted by a “please take your seats, our event is about to begin” announcement.

10:00 am: Interesting stage set-up today: Instead of an empty stage or a simple table, there are a black leather chair and side-table. Lights are dimming….

And Steve Jobs takes the stage to a standing ovation.

“We want to kick off 2010 by introducing a truly magical product, but first a few updates….A few weeks ago we sold our 250 millionth iPod…I didn’t want to let that moment pass without recognizing it.”

10:05 am: Jobs offers a quick overview of Apple’s retail operations and some of the new stores it has opened recently before moving on to the iTunes App Store. “A few weeks ago we announced that three billion applications had been downloaded from the App Store–that’s in 18 months…amazing.”
He notes, as he did in the company’s earnings release the other day, that Apple is now a $50 billion company.

Apple is a mobile devices company, says Jobs, “the largest mobile devices company in the world now. Larger than Sony’s mobile device business, larger than Samsung’s and, astonishingly, Nokia’s as well.”

10:07 am: A quick historical overview now. Jobs touches on the first PowerBook, introduced in 1991. He moves on to the MacBook and then the iPhone.

“All of us use laptops and smartphones, now. And the question has arisen lately: Is there room for a device in the middle?…We’ve pondered this question as well.”

This “middle” device, says Jobs, must be better at doing certain tasks than either the laptop or smartphone. If there’s going to be a third-device category, it must be better at browsing the Web, video, photos, music, etc.

“Some folks say this device is a netbook…. The problem is, netbooks aren’t better at anything.”

10:10 am: But we have something that is, says Jobs, “and it’s called the iPad.”

Photos of the device appear on the giant screens. Very thin. Very slick. “IPad offers the best Web browsing experience there is–way better than laptops.” There is no camera that I can see. That’s not going to go over well with folks hoping for a device that supports video iChat.

10:13 am: Further details: The “iPad is a dream to type on,” Jobs says, pointing out its life-sized onscreen keyboard. It’s also an awesome way to enjoy media. iTunes, iTunes University and YouTube HD support are built in.

10:14 am: Jobs sits down to demo the device: “Using this thing is remarkable. It’s so much more intimate and capable than the laptop.” He loads Safari and surfs over to the New York Times (NYT). The iPad loads quickly and Jobs is able to easily navigate the page, loading stories and zooming in on articles.

10:15 am: Demonstrating landscape and portrait now. “This device adapts to the way I want to use it.”

Definitely an impressive browsing experience. Fast and elegant.

Now, an overview of Mail. Also elegant. Nice split-screen presentation. Hit compose, and a nice onscreen keyboard pops up. Jobs types out a message to his colleagues at Apple. Seems relatively easy.

10:19 am: Moving on to iPad’s photo capabilities. It supports iPhoto’s Events, Faces and Places features. It also offers built-in slideshows complete with soundtracks and transitions.

Running a slideshow demo, Jobs pauses and looks out at the audience with a Chesire Cat-wide grin. He’s clearly relishing this moment.

10:22 am:: The iTunes experience on iPad is much as you would expect. Similar, if not identical, to what the software currently offers. Calendar and Contacts apps are also nice and, again, similar to what you’d find on a MacBook or iPhone.

10:24 am: Demoing Google Maps now. The iPad supports Google Street View and the implementation is very slick.

10:25 am: Moving on to video. Jobs calls up an HD clip from Google’s (GOOG) YouTube and displays it in both portrait and landscape. That finished, he fires up iTunes and loads “Star Trek” to demo the device’s video features, scrubbing, etc. Then he shows us a clip from Pixar’s “Up.” Tap to go full-screen. “Isn’t that wonderful?”

10:27 am: Watching that is nothing like actually having one in your hands, says Jobs.

iPad is one-half-inch thick, weighs 1.5 pounds, and comes with 9.7 inch IPS display–“very high-quality display”
Full capacitive multitouch
16GB-64GB flash storage
iPad is powered by our Apple’s custom silicon–“We did it inhouse and it just screams,” says Jobs.
Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, accelerometer, compass.
Battery life: 10 hours.

“And in addition to 10 hours of battery life, iPad offers a full month of standby time,” Jobs notes. “It’s also a good environmental citizen,” he adds, noting that it’s a very green device.

10:31 am: Jobs invites Scott Forestall to the stage to talk about apps on the device.

“We built the iPad to run virtually every app in the App Store right out of the box,” Forestall says.

Evidently, a built-in pixel-doubling feature automatically scales iPhone apps to full-screen iPad apps.

10:35 am: Forestall runs an unmodified racing game from the App Store. He first demos it in the screen size of an iPhone. Then, using the pixel-doubling feature, he blows it out to full screen. Very slick.

“So you can buy the iPad, take it home, hook it up and download all your iPhone apps and run them with no problem at all,” he says.

Forestall announces a new iPhone software development kit specifically geared to the iPad. He notes that iPad-specific applications will be featured “front and center” in the App Store.
He then invites Gameloft’s Mark Hickey to the stage to demo some new games the company has developed using the new SDK.

Hickey notes that the iPad’s additional screen space is a boon for developers, particularly those building games. He demos a first-person shooter that showcases this. “We’re now able to interact with the game world in ways that we weren’t able to before.”

10:40 am: Next up, the New York Times. Martin Nisenholtz takes the stage to talk about its iPad effort.

After talking up the Times iPhone app, Nisenholtz segues to the the paper’s new iPad app: “We think we’ve captured the experience and essence of reading the newspaper.”

The app is largely what you’d expect. Tap to resize text, zoom, breaking news updates, video. “This is everything you love about the paper and everything you love about the Web.”

10:44 am: Now, a painting application called Brushes that was famously used to create a New Yorker cover.
The app is impressive enough on iPhone; it’s even more so on the iPad. It supports “playback” of paintings, and as the presenter notes, brings us one step closer to a real virtual painting studio.

10:46 am: EA’s Travis Boatman take’s the stage. The topic of his presentation: Need For Speed.

“Building for the iPad is a little bit like holding a high-def TV screen a few inches from your face,” he says.

The iPad version of Need for Speed boasts a number of touch-activated enhancements: Tap on the car to view its interior, tap on the rear-view mirror to look behind you.

10:52 am: Up next: MLB.com’s Chad Evans. He demos the outfit’s iPad-optimized app, which uses the device’s additional screen space to display video excerpts and MLB TV.

MLB TV can be streamed like and enhanced with onscreen stats and data. “This big display really allows us to create a much more immersive experience,” Evans says.

10:52 am: Forestall returns to the stage to make another brief plug for the SDK before Jobs takes over for him.
“Let me show you another one of our apps that we’re very excited about,” Jobs says. “An e-book reader.”

Behind him a photo of Amazon’s (AMZN) Kindle appears. “Amazon did a great job with their reader and we’re standing on their shoulders here….Today we’re announcing the iBooks store,” says Jobs, adding that it will be supported initially by Penguin, Simon & Schuster and a number of other big publishers.

The iBooks Store interface begins with a simple bookshelf view. Tap the screen and it loads a more iTunes-like view. Purchase a book and it’s added to your bookshelf with a slick little animation.

The reading experience seems very appealing. Much more book-like. From where I sit, the pages look like they’re written on paper.

“We use the e-pub format, the most popular open-book format in the world,” says Jobs. “We think iPad is going to be a very popular e-reader not just for bestsellers, but for textbooks as well.”

10:58 am: And here’s another new product announcement: A new version of iWork tweaked for use on the iPad. Jobs invites Phil Schiller on stage to demo it.

“We have a completely new version of Keynote, a completely new version of Pages and a completely new version of Numbers–all optimized for multitouch.

Schiller demos Keynote first. Creating presentations appears intuitive and simple–a slide navigator on the left, tap to load individual slides in the main window, drag to rearrange.

Nice use of multitouch gestures to enhance the app. Pinch to resize photos, tap to insert animations and transitions. These are all fairly advanced techniques and the device seems to handle them well.

11:05 am: Moving on to Pages now. Also impressive, though creating a written document on a tablet device like the iPad seems like it might be a drag. A nice tool for editing, though. Simple controls.

11:07 am: Moving on to Numbers. This application also makes good use of multitouch gestures and boasts a data-entry keyboard along with some 250 built-in functions. The software’s gesture capabilities makes Excel look antediluvian.
Powerful and fast.

So what’s Apple going to charge for iWork? $9.99 each, says Schiller, who notes that all three applications are compatible with their Mac versions.

Jobs returns to the stage, grinning. “Isn’t that great?” he asks for what’s easily the 10th time. iPad, he says, will synch to Mac or PC via USB.

11:14 am: Evidently, there will be two iPad models–one with Wi-Fi-only and one with Wi-Fi and 3G. The 3G device will come with two plans: 250 MB per month for $14.99, unlimited data for $29.99.

And who’s the carrier? AT&T.

A small groan ripples through the audience.

Jobs allows that AT&T is also throwing in free Wi-Fi at its hotspots. He follows that up by noting that there are no contracts for the iPad. You can cancel at anytime.

All iPad 3G models are unlocked and they use new GSM micro SIMS, so chances are they will just work, Jobs says, after noting that Apple hasn’t yet worked out international carrier deals.

11:16 am: Now a quick overview as a wrap-up. Jobs touts the overall tablet experience along with the new iBook app and iBook Store. “This is an amazing product with tremendous breadth. What should we charge for it?…When we set out to develop the iPad we not only had aggressive UI goals, we had aggressive price goals, because we wanted to put this in the hands of as many people as possible….IPad pricing starts not at $999, but $499,” Jobs says to a huge round of applause.

$499 for 16GB base model.
32GB for $599.
64GB for $699.
Adding 3G requires an additional fee.

Apple will ship Wi-Fi models in 60 days and 3G models in 90.

11:20 am: Apple has created new accessories for the iPad: A standard dock and a second dock with a keyboard attached to it. “Keep one of these in your den and you can write the next “War and Peace” on it.” The final accessory, a new case that doubles as a stand.

Running a video now. It features a number of Apple execs enthusiastically talking up the iPad.

11:25 am: Let me circle back here for a moment to pricing. Adding 3G to iPad requires an additional $130. So we’re talking $629 for the 16GB model, $729 for the 32GB and $829 for the 64GB version.

Designer Jon Ives on the iPad: “In many ways iPad defines our vision, our sense of what’s next.”

11:32 am: Jobs returns to the stage and recalls the “middle device” scenario he mentioned earlier today. “Can we create this new category? The bar is set pretty high, but we think we’ve got the goods.”

“This is our most advanced technology in a magical and revolutionary device at an unbelievable price,” he adds. “The reason the iPad is going to be so great is because Apple has always strived to be at the junction of technology and liberal arts.”

And with that he concludes. Lights go up and Dylan begins playing over the speakers again.

View the slideshow

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iFugly

Digital Cameras With Room for New Views

Katherine Boehret — Tue, 06 Oct 2009 23:36:02 +0000

At a glance, the most obvious physical improvements on today’s digital cameras compared with those bought five years ago are slimmer size and larger LCD viewing screens. Other than that, they don’t look a whole lot different.

But this week, I tested two physical features that I’ve never seen on digital cameras.

[ See post to watch video ]

I used the $430 Nikon Coolpix S1000pj (nikonusa.com), which has a mini projector built right into the camera itself. This extra characteristic lets you take pictures and, by pressing a button on the camera, project them onto any nearby surface, in old-school slideshow style. The projected image can measure up to 40 inches, growing or shrinking as you walk away from or toward the surface onto which the images are projected.

I also tried the $350 Samsung DualView TL225, which had two LCD viewing screens—including one on the front side. This front screen lets the subjects of the photograph see how they look as the photo is being captured, raising the concept of instant gratification to a new level. The outward-facing LCD can also display a smiley face or cartoon animations to encourage children to smile. It also can be used to display a timer’s countdown clock so you know exactly when the photo will be taken.

Technical Advances

These two compact cameras also feature less obvious technical advances that aren’t quite as eye-catching as a built-in projector or dual LCD screens.

Each camera can capture photographs with over 12-megapixel resolutions, and the Nikon and Samsung have 5x and 4.6x wide-angle zoom lenses, respectively.

Both cameras have built-in automatic scene-detecting capability, meaning they can analyze a scene to determine which shooting mode would work best. And they allow the user to edit images directly on the camera like brightening an image or rotating a photo.

The Nikon sticks to one traditional 2.7-inch LCD screen with separate buttons that control functions like menu, timer, deleting and playback. And, like many digicams, it accepts a SecureDigital (SD) memory card.

Getting your good side: Samsung’s DualView TL225′s front LCD shows people how they’ll look in photos.

In somewhat unusual fashion, the Samsung requires a tiny microSD memory card. The viewing screen on the back of the Samsung is a generous 3.5-inch touch LCD that covers close to an entire side of the camera; the front-side LCD is 1.5 inches.

I focused my testing on the unique physical features of each camera: the Nikon’s built-in projector and the Samsung’s two LCD screens. I tried them out over the course of a week and used them in real-life situations including at a birthday party and at the Army 10-Miler, an annual run in Washington, D.C.

When the Nikon’s projector isn’t in use, it functions like a regular camera—albeit an expensive one at $430. Nikon says this price is largely due to the cost of its built-in projector. Until now, most people who wanted portable, mini projectors bought them as standalone products; for example, the Pico Pocket Projector from Optoma Technology Inc. is listed for $230 online at Best Buy (BBY).

Subway Show

I took the Nikon Coolpix S1000pj along to the Army 10-Miler, capturing photos of runners as they ran near the National Mall. Later on, while I waited with hundreds of people to get on the D.C. Metro subway system, a friend and I looked through photos from the day by projecting the camera’s images onto a concrete wall.

At first, passersby thought the slideshow images were put there by the race organizers, and they commented about how neat it was that the race images already were posted for everyone to see.

The D.C. Metro was an ideal spot to use the Nikon’s projector because of its low light and white concrete walls. Outdoors, the projected images weren’t quite as easy to see.

I also used the projector in a house and in my office, setting it on a table and turning off the lights for the best view. A tiny remote comes with the camera if you want to sit back and give your friends and family a slideshow. Videos taken with the camera also will play in video format.

To start the projector, I pressed a button on the top ledge of the camera, which immediately covered the lens and turned on the projector’s bright light. A slider button adjusts focus. The image size can be as small as five inches and as large as 40 inches, and it will project from about six feet away. Nikon says the camera’s projector will work for an hour before its battery runs out.

Nikon’s S1000pj displays images and videos with its brightly lit projector—just right for a subway slideshow.

Surprise, Surprise

The $350 Samsung DualView TL225 is black with an accent color that comes in purple or orange. Its front-side LCD screen isn’t visible when the camera is turned off, making for a surprising experience when you take pictures of friends who can suddenly see themselves.

A similar but slightly lower-quality and less-expensive version of this camera is available in the $300 Samsung DualView TL220. This camera’s back LCD screen is a half-inch smaller than the TL225′s and not nearly as bright. Other notable differences include the TL220′s plastic casing compared with the TL225′s aluminum.

Clowns in Action

This front LCD performs various functions in addition to showing people what they look like. A scene called Children puts animated cartoon clowns on the outer LCD in hopes of making a child smile for the camera. Another setting puts a large, yellow smiley face on this LCD when the shutter button is pressed down halfway. And when the camera’s timer is set, the outer display counts down, showing “3, 2, 1″ until the image is captured.

I used this Samsung camera with two LCD screens to take pictures of friends who were all surprised and delighted when they saw themselves on the camera before the photo was taken. At a birthday party, the clown animations made even a group of people in their 20s laugh.

Some Downsides

The downside to this display screen is that it’s to the left of the camera’s lens, so if you’re taking a close-up shot of someone, they will appear in the photo like they’re glancing away slightly.

Another negative of this display is that it blacks out a split second before the photo is taken, so as long as you can hold the pose you saw of yourself on the screen, you’ll look fine.

It’s too early to know whether the innovations in these cameras will catch on, or be viewed over time as expensive gimmicks.

If these features become more common, hopefully the prices will come down and more consumers will be able to enjoy them.

Edited by Walter S. Mossberg

Write to Katherine Boehret at mossbergsolution@wsj.com

Condé Nast's Most Drastic Cuts Yet: The Disappearing Town Car

Peter Kafka — Wed, 25 Mar 2009 09:30:12 +0000

Sure, fabled magazine publisher Condé Nast has been forced to shutter magazines and trim its staff. But now you know things have really gotten dire: It’s cutting back on cars.

The New York Post’s Keith Kelly says that top Condé editors are eschewing the use of chauffeured autos to make their way across Manhattan and beyond. Hailing a taxi or even–gasp–riding the subway are as symbolic as it gets at Condé, where the use of a car was considered a birthright, even for mid-level employees.

Alas, symbolism is unlikely to suffice at Condé, where CEO Chuck Townsend has already announced that the company will need to tighten its belt again this spring; Condé is reportedly gearing up for another round of layoffs.

Meanwhile, other New York publishers who never doled out that much largesse to begin with are probably going to make another round of cuts themselves this spring.