AllThingsD » touch

Google Settles Its Touchy Legal Issues With Immersion

Ina Fried — Tue, 27 Nov 2012 17:11:07 +0000

Touch-feedback firm Immersion said Tuesday that it has reached a settlement with Google’s Motorola unit over the use of haptic technology in phones.

Immersion said it will get compensation for past shipments of Motorola devices with touch feedback, and that Google has a license going forward for what Immersion dubs its Basic Haptics technology. Immersion said the deal does not extend to other hardware makers that use Android.

“The successful resolution of this case is a critical step in our overall strategy of enforcing and monetizing our intellectual property, including Basic Haptics, and we’re pleased to achieve a settlement that is consistent with our business model, which is largely based on per unit running royalties,” Immersion CEO Victor Viegas said in a statement. “We remain fully committed to enforcing our IP rights while continuing to innovate and create new technology and solutions for the mobile space. While the terms of the settlement will remain confidential and are not anticipated to have a material impact on our financial results for 2012, this settlement is a great step forward in validating the value of our IP portfolio and the investments we have made in the mobile market.”

Immersion and a variety of smaller start-ups have been pitching Android makers on using a sense of feel to help stand out in a crowded market. Immersion has been showing off such technology for years, including at our D7 conference in 2009. Here’s a video from Mobile World Congress on some of the current state-of-the-art uses:

[ See post to watch video ]

Reed Hastings on Microsoft: Watch Windows 8, Not Surface

Peter Kafka — Tue, 20 Nov 2012 17:31:51 +0000

After more than five years on Microsoft’s board of directors, Reed Hastings is stepping down at the end of the month. And if you think the Netflix CEO is going to give you insider dish on what’s been going on at Redmond, you’re going to be disappointed.

But last week Hastings did lay out a concise summary of the challenges Microsoft is facing as it launches its newest operating system, along with its Surface tablet/PC. Hastings made his comments in front of a group of Dow Jones reporters and editors, and I figured it’s useful for everyone to see them.

In case you don’t like to read: Hastings says that he likes the Surface, but that it doesn’t really matter whether he and other users like the device — the key battle for Microsoft will be how developers respond to Windows 8. And he thinks CEO Steve Ballmer is “unbelievably self-aware” about the challenges his company faces. “He’s the last guy to be in any little bit of denial.”

His full comments:

[Microsoft has] many great assets and many great challenges. The great assets are the technology, and Windows, Office. And you guys know Ballmer. He is unbelievably self-aware, self-critical, smart. He’s the last guy to be in any little bit of denial.

So he sees the challenges clearly. But they’ve got a better set of competitors than they’ve ever had, in Google and Apple, on different sides. So they’ve got some big, interesting competitive battles.

If you think about the development of the mouse, when they had DOS, that was a real challenge to the whole Windows ecosystem. And they eventually won that, with Windows, because you could run DOS in an internal window, and so they had compatibility to all your DOS-based apps. But they did use pointers and mice and that kind of thing, and they were able to keep the installed base of DOS people and move forward into Windows.

So now look at what they’re doing, which is when you use Windows 8, it’s all for touch. But you can hit a thing and you open a window, essentially into the the old desktop, and you have all your apps and compatibility.

So it’s basically that play, that was so successful for them, again. Which is, essentially “we’ve got all the things about Windows you still need,” especially for the corporate users that generate the profits, “plus we’ve got the new touch stuff.” And then slowly apps get built for the new world. And you use DOS in the original example, or Windows 7 in the new example.

What’s great is they see the threat. They didn’t wait, like RIM, and sort of say “Oh, touch isn’t very good,” and that sort of stuff. Just like they did in the late ’90s about the Internet tidal wave. They’re really good at seeing the threat, and saying, “goddamit, we’ve got to nail this,” and putting all hands on deck and doing that.

I use the Surface. It’s great because you can plug it in at night, and it lasts all day long. It’s like an iPad, it’s ARM hardware.

Does Windows 8 work? That’s the more relevant question. Surface is a tactic to spur people on, to get Windows 8 really successful. It kind of doesn’t matter how successful Surface is. But it does matter a lot if Windows 8 is succesful.

They’ve got 350 million PCs that will be sold next year, and they’ll all have Windows 8 on them. So there’s a huge installed base for people to write Windows 8 applications. And then that kickstarts the application cycle that makes it valuable.

The challenge for them is, okay, what’s the profit stream, if the marketshare is different than it has been in the past. The big profit streams are from very high-share products — Office and Windows. So to the degree that the eventual revenue is not the same split as in the past, then there’s a threat to the profit stream.

Which is why the stock has been flat for eight or 10 years. People see that, and they’re scared about the future profits. The profits in 10 years have grown huge, but the stock hasn’t moved, because people are afraid of the future profit stream.

So, as the company succeeds with Windows 8, that takes away a big fear — if they do. And if they don’t, it’s a different battle.

As Fantasy Football Servers Fumble on Game Day, Yahoo Rolls Out More Homepage Tests Ahead of December Launch

Kara Swisher — Mon, 12 Nov 2012 01:35:24 +0000

Yahoo’s new CEO Marissa Mayer is continuing her tweaking of the critical homepage of the Silicon Valley Internet giant. “Bucket tests” of new iterations are rolling out today to small sets of users across the service, as the company zeros in on launching it widely in the first week of December.

This is a massive move and also a risky one. Yahoo’s homepage sees about 170 million daily users who click in to do a variety of things. That huge traffic means that advertising placements earn big bucks from marketers — which inside sources said is typically upwards of $350,000 for a prime placement for a day, rising in price depending on complexity.

Thus, making any dramatic change to the powerful homepage is a big deal for Yahoo’s bottom line, especially in the important fourth quarter, when big advertisers spend a lot of money online and expect big results.

And the latest versions are certainly a major shift from Yahoo’s older look, with the latest using an interactive tiled approach at the very top that suggests the design spawn of Microsoft’s Windows 8 and Flipboard’s elegant social reading app.

As I noted last week, along with experiments in infinite scrolling, a simplified logo and giving search more prominence, Yahoo’s homepage change seems to be aimed at being consumed on touch-responsive, non-PC devices.

That’s no surprise, since Mayer declared in a recent earnings call that Yahoo was going to veer toward a “mobile first” sensibility. “Yahoo will have to be a predominantly mobile company,” she said.

She also has to aim at being a reliable digital company, it seems. In a bit of unlucky timing — even as Yahoo prepped the home page redo, as well as major overhauls of other products — its hugely popular Fantasy Football offering went down right as eight games were about to start at 10 am PT.

Yahoo acknowledged the slowness in its servers on Twitter, noting: “We’re still working to fix fantasy server issue & will update ASAP. We sincerely apologize for the inconvenience & appreciate your patience.”

Fantasy Football fans were livid, although this has happened before, especially to those who waited to do their lineup. But some were also funny about the screw-up, as you can see below:

Yahoo Fantasy Football site is down. The Republicans were right; America has officially collapsed. The apocalypse is upon us.

— Steve Fuller (@fullsteve) November 11, 2012

Dear Google, please develop a fantasy football platform. That will end Yahoo! as we know it. Love, Long Suffering Yahoo! Fantasy users.

— WFAN Audio Clips (@WFANAudio) November 11, 2012

As of two hours ago, Yahoo said it was still working on the problem. Presumably, it will be the first fix-it challenge for new COO Henrique De Castro, who starts this week.

Hopefully, Yahoo will not have such problems with the homepage rollout, once the final version is selected.

Until then, please check out two images of yet another version, which is similar — although not the same — as the one I posted last week. In the latest design, for example, the swooshy scroll at the top is smaller and a 300 by 250-sized ad unit is back in place at the top. Overall, it is a little bit more conservative, although still streamlined.

Here they are, along with a more dramatic one from last week and also a recent Yahoo homepage:

(Mark Sanchez photo: Debby Wong / Shutterstock.com)

Flip, Slide and Touch: New Machines for a New OS

Katherine Boehret — Tue, 16 Oct 2012 23:03:40 +0000

[ See post to watch video ]

To take full advantage of Microsoft’s new Windows 8 operating system, which integrates touchscreen functionality, a variety of PC manufacturers are offering new touch-enabled devices that are designed to run it.

I broke the machines down into four categories: Traditional laptops with touch screens; laptops that convert into tablets by repositioning their screens; laptops that convert into tablets by detaching their screens; and slate-like tablets, including Microsoft’s much-anticipated Surface, which will challenge Apple’s iPad.

Dell’s XPS 12 Convertible Ultrabook has a screen that flips around, converting it from a laptop to a tablet.

You’ll still be able to use Windows 8 without a touch-enabled device. Touch-pad gestures and the traditional cursor will work, though not as easily across the entire operating system. The new environment of Windows 8’s Start-screen tiles are especially designed for touch. People can do things like swipe left from the right edge of a screen to display function icons, or swipe up from the bottom of a screen to display navigation icons.

The Touchscreens

If you aren’t quite ready to make a dramatic change in your PC hardware, buying a laptop or desktop that has a touchscreen is a more conservative solution than a convertible laptop-tablet device or a slate. Though reaching across the keyboard to tap on a screen may feel unnatural after a lifetime of using a mouse and keyboard, people who use touchscreen smartphones and tablets may already be touching their computer screens out of habit.

The keyboard of the Asus’ VivoTab RT detaches, turning the screen into a tablet.

Acer will sell three categories of touch-capable laptops: the S7 starts at $1,200 and weighs as little as 2.29 pounds; the M5 series is exclusive to Best Buy and starts at $800; and the V5 series laptops start at $750 ($700 in Microsoft stores). Samsung will offer the Notebook Series 5 Ultra Touch line, which starts at $810.

Asus’ VivoBook S400 line will cost $700 for a 14.1-inch screen, and Hewlett-Packard’s TouchSmart Ultrabook series will include the Spectre XT, a $1,400 device with a 15.6-inch screen. Pricing for Dell’s Inspiron 15z Ultrabook is still to be determined, while Toshiba’s Satellite P845t will start at $796 with a 14-inch screen. Sony will extend touch displays to its T and E Series Vaio models, which will start at $670 and $450, respectively.

The Screen Shifters

Can’t decide between the familiarity of a laptop and the flashy new feel of a Windows tablet? Instead of buying two devices or just settling for one, several manufacturers offer in-between options by way of hybrids, or convertibles. Each computer has its own way of transforming from laptop to tablet without disconnecting — though they all usually become relatively thick tablets compared with Apple’s iPad.

Toshiba’s Satellite U925t Ultrabook Convertible flips all the way back, so the screen can slide over the keyboard.

Take Dell’s XPS 12 Convertible Ultrabook, which starts at $1,200. This looks like a regular laptop, but from its opened clamshell position the touchscreen pops out of the screen frame, flipping around to act as the tablet’s touchscreen when the laptop is closed. The screen of Toshiba’s $1,150 Satellite U925t Ultrabook Convertible opens in a clamshell position and flips all the way back, so the keyboard and screen are both parallel. Then the screen slides over the top of the keyboard.

Lenovo’s Yoga 13 and Yoga 11 models, $1,100 and $800, respectively, might scare people the first time they see them because their screens open, bend all the way back and keep going until the laptop lid is touching the bottom of the keyboard.

Asus avoids flipping and sliding by offering two 11.6-inch touchscreens on its Taichi 21 (starting at $1,300): One screen where you expect to see a screen and the other on the laptop lid, activated when the laptop closes.

The Detachables

People who don’t like the thick tablets that come from transformed convertible laptops may want to pull their laptop screens off altogether.

Many models offer touchscreens that completely detach for ultimate tablet portability. Samsung’s $1,200 ATIV Smart PC Pro 700T has optional mobile broadband. The tablet half of H-P’s Envy x2 (pricing not yet available) offers an 11.6-inch display while the 10.1-inch Iconia W510 sells as a standalone tablet for $500 or with a keyboard dock and extra battery for $750.

The Slates

Ready to toss out the laptop keyboard altogether? Asus’s $600 VivoTab RT, Lenovo’s ThinkPad Tablet 2 ($649) and Dell’s XPS 10 (pricing to be determined) offer some keyboardless options.

But of course, Microsoft’s own Surface RT tablet, which will start at $499 for a 32 gigabyte version, is sure to get a lot of attention because it’s made by the company.

Some of these devices are radical new designs, made to match Microsoft’s dramatic new Windows 8 operating system.

Consumers have a lot of choices to make about how they use Windows in this new era of computing.

Write to Katherine Boehret at katie.boehret@wsj.com.

MSN Gets Major Refresh With Windows 8

Kara Swisher — Mon, 01 Oct 2012 16:23:54 +0000

In a blog post today, Microsoft said its MSN portal will be getting a “ground up” redo with the launch of Windows 8 and Internet Explorer 10.

“It opens up a new class of opportunities for us to reimagine all of our products and services including MSN,” said MSN GM Bob Visse in a post. “We thought deeply about how you could interact with MSN in an increasingly touch and tablet-friendly world.”

The new look — MSN for Windows 8 — will be available on October 26, but here’s a nice video about it for now:

Video: The All New MSN for Windows 8

Interview: Multitouch Pioneer Jeff Han on Why He Sold His Company to Microsoft

Ina Fried — Mon, 09 Jul 2012 17:50:27 +0000

TED

After years of running a start-up, Jeff Han said the time was right to sell his company to Microsoft.

Doing so, Han said, will allow the company’s vision of transforming the workplace to occur much more broadly. For much of its history, Perceptive Pixel has focused on ultra-high-end touch displays affordable only to large businesses in key niches.

Han’s company has been working with various parts of Microsoft for years, though deal talks heated up only in recent months.

“Our company has always been about productivity use cases,” Han told AllThingsD. “That’s why we have always focused on these larger displays. Office is what people think of when they think of productivity.”

Han said that the company will retain its manufacturing facilities in Portland, Ore., with much of its team joining Microsoft’s Silicon Valley offices in Mountain View, Calif. Han himself will be moving from New York to the Seattle area.

Although Microsoft will continue to manufacture Perceptive Pixel’s high-end touch displays, the company hopes to find other ways of distributing the technology to allow it to reach the mass market.

Giovanni Mezgec, general manager of the Office unit’s Lync conferencing business, told AllThingsD that Perceptive Pixel’s technology has the potential to change the way meetings are conducted.

“We want to make this mainstream,” Mezgec said. “We want to make this more affordable. We want to make this something every office has, and every classroom.”

Han will report to Office unit President Kurt DelBene, but Han’s title and the exact structure of how Perceptive Pixel will operate is still being worked out, Microsoft said.

Here’s what Han had to say in a 2010 interview and office tour with AllThingsD:

[ See post to watch video ]

And here’s Han’s 2006 demo at TED:

Microsoft Scoops Up Perceptive Pixel, the Start-Up Launched by Multitouch Pioneer Jeff Han

Ina Fried — Mon, 09 Jul 2012 16:08:17 +0000

Microsoft announced at its partner conference on Monday that it is buying Perceptive Pixel, the New York-based company started by multitouch pioneer Jeff Han.

The company is perhaps best known as the maker of the technology behind the giant touchscreen used by CNN. Terms of the deal were not announced.

Perceptive Pixel had shown off a giant display running Windows 8 at a Microsoft event in Barcelona in February. Han told AllThingsD in 2010 that the company was working on adapting its technology to run on more kinds of devices.

Interestingly, though, Microsoft is making Perceptive Pixel part of its Office unit.

“The acquisition of (Perceptive Pixel) allows us to draw on our complementary strengths, and we’re excited to accelerate this market evolution,” said Kurt DelBene, president, Office Division for Microsoft. Perceptive Pixel’s “large touch displays, when combined with hardware from our OEMs, will become powerful Windows 8-based PCs and open new possibilities for productivity and collaboration.”

Here’s Han in 2010:

[ See post to watch video ]

Searching for a Mighty Mouse? Here Are Three Options.

Lauren Goode — Mon, 09 Apr 2012 13:01:22 +0000

Even in an increasingly trackpad-and-touchscreen-driven computing world, I’m pro-mouse. There’s something to be said about the precision that comes with a computer mouse, and about the comfort of using one for extended periods of time, versus hunching over the limited real estate of a laptop trackpad.

But, admittedly, my last mouse was a low-tech, corporate-issued, clunky thing. So I’ve been exploring a whole new world of mice. Many modern mice have taken cues from Apple’s wireless Magic Mouse, which has a multi-touch surface for easy swiping through functions like scrolling up and down a Web page or document, or minimizing and maximizing browser windows with a simple flick of your fingers.

For the past five days, I’ve been playing with three mice that are compatible with Windows 7 computers: Microsoft’s Touch Mouse, Logitech’s new m600 Touch Mouse and HP’s X5000 wireless mouse with touch scrolling. While HP’s mouse comes at the much more reasonable price of $40, it isn’t a full multi-touch mouse and is bulkier than the others. The entrants from Microsoft and Logitech are pricey — $79.95 and $70, respectively — but have multi-touch capabilities and sleeker designs.

All three mice are easy to set up. In each case, I turned on the mouse and just plugged its USB adapter into my laptop, which the machine quickly recognized.

The Microsoft Touch Mouse was my favorite in terms of design. Some new mice on the market have funky shapes, high arcs, or are almost flat. I found that the Touch Mouse was a nice blend of modern tech appeal with a curved mouse feel.

The Touch Mouse measures 2.4 inches in width and 4.7 inches in length — roughly the size of an iPhone. It was longer than the other two mice I tested, but I liked the extra real estate under my fingers. It has tiny laser-etched marks on its front half, to create a little more traction. There’s also a limited edition “artist” version of the mouse, which is white and has a calligraphy-like design.

Since it’s a multi-touch mouse, that means a one-finger swipe on the surface works like an old-school scrollwheel for navigating up and down a document or Web page. Swiping two fingers down minimizes a Web-browsing window. For people like me who are used to two-finger swiping on a laptop trackpad to move up and down a page, this can take some getting used to.

[ See post to watch video ]

A three-finger swipe presented all of my Web browsers and open apps in a Windows instant-viewer format on the desktop. Also, swiping two fingers from side to side “snapped” my current window to the side and allowed me to open up another window next to it.

One tiny part of the Touch Mouse I found to be useful: It has storage space on the underside of the mouse for the USB connector, which frequent travelers will appreciate. It’s easy to lose these mouse connectors, especially if your bag of gadgets, wires and dongles looks like mine.

In terms of battery life, Microsoft says the mouse will run for three to six months, depending on usage habits. It uses two AA batteries.

The Touch Mouse, as with the others I reviewed, is meant to be compatible only with Microsoft Windows. But this isn’t entirely true — my Mac laptop recognized each mouse’s USB connector as a keyboard accessory, and I could still move the cursor with each mouse. I was also able to use the touch surfaces of the mice — or in the case of the HP mouse, the touch strip — to swipe up and down pages on the screen. In the case of the Touch Mouse, functionality on the Mac was limited. For example, I could swipe up and down, but not snap my windows to the side.

Microsoft has also said the Touch Mouse will be compatible with Windows 8, the upcoming operating system that is expected to launch by the end of this year. The mouse’s horizontal scrolling function is actually meant to cater to the new Windows 8 interface.

Logitech’s Touch Mouse M600 is flatter than Microsoft’s Touch Mouse, measuring 2.52 by 4.41 inches, and is smoother to the touch. Its shape and glossy shell reminded me a bit of a giant bug. It’s mostly black, with a gray bottom half, and has barely perceptible squiggly designs along the edges of it, along with a Logitech logo, giving it a somewhat toylike appearance.

The M600’s swiping functions were pretty basic, and it doesn’t offer as many functions as the Touch Mouse. Whether I was using one finger, two or three, the M600 scrolled up and down the page I was on. I found these movements to be pretty smooth. I also felt like I could navigate my cursor more quickly with the M600, probably because it’s slightly lighter weight than the Touch Mouse.

The M600 does have one feature I really liked: Side-to-side swiping for Web browsing. Swiping my finger to the left brought me back to the previous Web page I was on; swiping to the right pushed me ahead to the next page.

The M600 also comes with a unifying USB dongle, which allows users to connect up to five other Logitech devices to the same tiny adapter.

As with the Microsoft Touch Mouse, the M600 should last for three to six months, depending on how many batteries you use. Logitech says two AA batteries will get you closer to six months.

The HP X5000 is the fattest mouse of the three, with the highest curve. Bulkiness aside, it’s got a smooth, tear-shaped plastic top, and its sides have a velvety feel.

The X5000 isn’t a multi-touch mouse. Instead, it’s got a touch-sensitive strip built into the mouse, right where a scroll wheel would be on an older mouse model. It also comes with the traditional right-side, left-side clicking functionality, which some users might appreciate. The tiny touch strip felt a little limited compared to the full-touch surfaces I’d been playing with on the other mice, but I did like the split clicking function.

The mouse also boasts a button that’s supposed to allow you to upload photos to Facebook with one click. In order for this to work, I had to install the software that came with the mouse, and allow the HP mouse’s app access to my Facebook account. Next, I had to open up a photo file on my computer, use the mouse’s Facebook-specific button to draw a square around my photo and create a preview file, and then indicate that I wanted to upload that photo to Facebook. The first time I tried this, the photo didn’t upload.

In my test, the whole experience really wasn’t as simple as “one click.” And while some users might like easy access to Facebook, the idea that distraction is one click away didn’t appeal to me. Maybe I’m just using Facebook less these days, or am more selective about the photos I upload to the site, but I’d welcome another productivity function over the Facebook button.

One of the X5000’s upsides is that it claims a super long battery life of 24 months with two AA batteries. And the USB dongle that comes with the HP X5000, like the Logitech mouse, will allow you to wirelessly connect up to four other HP devices to your laptop.

When it comes to these three mice, I found you get what you pay for. The Microsoft Touch Mouse was my top pick out of the three; Logitech’s M600 mouse is a very close second, and users who like a flatter, smoother design might prefer that one; and HP’s X5000 mouse falls short of what a modern mouse should be.

Tablets That Have a Certain Feel to Them

Ina Fried — Thu, 01 Mar 2012 18:13:48 +0000

Given that most Android tablets look the same, a couple of companies are showing technologies in Barcelona that make sure they don’t feel the same.

One of those companies is a Finnish start-up called Senseg. Its technology, which it says is just now ready to go into products, lets you rub your hand over a flat glass tablet screen and feel texture that is eerily like a real world object. Touch a picture of kitchen tiles, for example and it feels smooth until the bump where the grout is.

A different approach is offered up by Immersion, a longtime player in this field, which is showing off a new generation of electronics that open the door to far more realistic sensations than the current vibrations or simple touch feedback from a virtual keyboard.

Haptics — or the technology that enables adding a sense of feel to electronics — has been around for a while. Immersion, for example, demoed how a phone or tablet could gain a better sense of feel back at our D7 conference in 2009.

Early devices just rumbled or vibrated at certain times. Touch feedback has already made its way in more limited uses, with the most common being virtual keyboards that offer a physical sensation when a key is pressed.

But the field has continued to evolve. Some of the technology just on the horizon reproduces the way things feel much more authentically.

At its booth this year, Immersion was showing a phone with digital maracas that feel like you’re actually rattling rice. Then there’s the roller coaster video that gives you both the click-click-click as you climb and the “whoosh” as the descent begins. Yet another demo app adds to any music playback a bass track you can feel.

Both Immersion and Senseg also demonstrated haptics used another way — as a physical cue to something in a long list of data. Imagine, for example, scrolling though email and feeling a physical bump when you get to a message from your spouse or boss.

Similarly, varying amounts of touch feedback can be used to indicate the popularity or rank of something. Immersion had a demo app, for example, where users could flip through a set of images and feel increased touch sensation when they scrolled to a photo with lots of comments.

The technologies from Immersion and Senseg have some similarities, but work in different ways. Immersion’s technology uses a rectangular bar-like component called a piezo module, that physically vibrates the device in varying locations and frequencies. Senseg, meanwhile, uses the combination of a custom chip and a special screen coating to create an electric field on the front of the display.

Senseg’s approach requires developers to explicitly write their software to use the technology, meaning it could be most attractive to device makers that want to add a feel to their user interface skin. Immersion, meanwhile, has programming interfaces that developers can use, but also has a mechanism to add haptic feedback even to apps that were not designed for it.

The two technologies are also at different stages. Senseg is just now looking to sign its first customers, while Immersion says its newer technology is already in a tablet from Pantech and will come soon to other tablets. Phones should also get the new touch tech, once the piezo modules are reduced a bit in size.

[ See post to watch video ]

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Adobe Brings Photoshop Touch to iPad, Unveils iOS-Friendly Video Ad Platform

Lauren Goode — Mon, 27 Feb 2012 05:05:20 +0000

You might already be aware of this, but Adobe and Apple haven’t always had a warm and fuzzy relationship.

Now, Adobe is bringing Photoshop Touch to the iPad as part of a suite of creative apps for Apple’s iOS. The app was previously only available for Android devices.

Photoshop Touch lets users layer images, touch up photos and use “paint” tools, with a few swipes on the iPad. It also includes a Scribble Selection Tool for removing objects from photos, the ability to search for images through Google Image search, and a quick-sharing option through Facebook.

The app costs $9.99 and currently works only on iPad 2. Adobe already has an iPad app available for photo touch-ups — Adobe Photoshop Express — but it’s a much more limited version of Photoshop.

Adobe plans to introduce a handful of other creative apps for iPad 2 later this year, including Adobe Collage, Adobe Ideas and Adobe Proto, for Web site and mobile-app prototyping. These apps will all work with Adobe’s Creative Cloud services.

The new Adobe apps for iPad show not only that companies are increasingly viewing tablets as devices for content creation — just a few weeks ago, Avid introduced a full video-editing app for iPad — but also signals the importance of getting aboard the iOS boat.

Back in 2010, Apple CEO Steve Jobs likened Adobe’s Flash technology to floppy disks and serial ports, when he explained why Apple wouldn’t support Adobe’s flagship Flash product on its mobile devices. Then, in June of last year, Adobe CEO Shantanu Narayen said that the Flash argument between Adobe and Apple was over. In November, Adobe said it would no longer develop Flash for mobile devices, and would instead focus on HTML5, seen by many as a concession in the war between Apple and Adobe over the future of Flash technology.

Now, in addition to the iPad apps, Adobe is also introducing a video ad service, codenamed Project Primetime, for producing and publishing ads that will work across Apple iOS and Google Android devices, desktops operating systems, and “smart” (Internet-connected) TVs, including Samsung TVs.

Adobe will support a few different video formats in Primetime, including H.264 and MPEG-DASH as well as Adobe’s standard Flash-based video protocol, but Adobe says it hopes to reduce fragmentation in the video technology market. Essentially, it’s doing so by introducing more non-Flash solutions.

Its Adobe Access 4 software, for example, formerly known as Adobe Flash Access, will now support iOS apps, and is expected to be available to broadcast and media companies in spring of this year.

Kindle Fire Heats Up Holiday for Amazon

Lauren Goode — Thu, 29 Dec 2011 16:50:00 +0000

Amazon said this holiday season was the best ever for its Kindle, with more than four million Kindle devices sold in the month of December. The company also said that its new tablet, the $199 Kindle Fire, has become the best-selling and most-gifted product across all of Amazon.com since its introduction to the market 13 weeks ago. Amazon rarely releases unit sales numbers of its e-readers, but said earlier this month that it had sold more than one million Kindles a week for three consecutive weeks.

Ever Heard of the App Touch? Nobody Has, but 12M People Already Use It.

Liz Gannes — Mon, 05 Dec 2011 14:00:17 +0000

An under-the-radar Canadian start-up with more than 12 million users for its free texting app is now trying to break out as a mobile social leader.

Enflick, which makes the popular PingChat, is today renaming its app as the more all-embracing and generic “Touch,” and is reshaping it around communication within small private groups.

(Enflick CEO Derek Ting said he was able to buy Touch.com for the relatively low price of $100,000 from another Canadian who happened to own it. Bet a lot of people would have liked to have known it was on the market, eh?)

Touch helps dynamic groups of close friends chat and share photos. While that functionality is pretty basic, Touch is designed as a very live app — beyond push notifications, it shows when a user is typing, when a message is delivered and when it’s read.

What’s most notable about Touch among all the emerging mobile social competition is that it already has millions of users. For many promising apps, navigating app stores and pockets of smartphone usage to get to critical mass is a huge challenge. Social apps just aren’t as fun or useful without friends, and definitely not without other people.

Still, changing up a product users already know and love often makes those users angry. And there are many texting app alternatives, like Kik, WhatsApp and Pinger.

Touch is available for iOS, Android and BlackBerry at launch, with HTML5 coming. Also on the way are video and voice support, Ting said.

Enflick was bootstrapped for the past two years, and has a relatively large team of 32 in Waterloo, Ontario. It has now raised $1 million from investors including Freestyle Capital and Menlo Ventures.

Spooking Flipboard: Yahoo's Livestand -- Followed by Google's Propeller -- Set to Launch Next Week

Kara Swisher — Fri, 28 Oct 2011 12:35:03 +0000

Memo to Flipboard, as well as Pulse, CNN’s Zite and AOL’s Editions: You might want to make some room in the already-crowded news and social reader space, because you’re about to get some bigfoot company.

Next Wednesday, according to sources close to the situation, Yahoo will finally officially unveil its offering, called Livestand.

And perhaps as early as next week or in the weeks soon after, Google will also weigh in with its version of the genre — code-named Propeller — which also might be the product’s name. Another moniker under strong consideration: Currents.

As I have previously reported, Google Propeller is an HTML5 reader for the Apple iPad and Android — essentially a souped-up version of similar apps such as Flipboard, AOL’s Editions, Zite (which was just bought by Time Warner’s CNN) and Pulse.

All these apps are part of the drastically changing habits of media consumers, helping users better navigate numerous social and media feeds — such as Facebook and Twitter, as well as news sites and more — using handsome interfaces and touch technologies on tablet devices.

Flipboard, the most prominent and elegant of these offerings, is now available only on the Apple iPad.

Flipboard’s traction among elite users, along with its high-level design ethos and strong reviews, is why Google tried to buy the well-funded company last year, sources said.

But Flipboard — which is backed by some of tech’s biggest venture players, who have invested more than $60 million at a $200 million valuation — declined the kind offer.

At the time, sources said, Google told Flipboard execs that if it did not buy the start-up, it planned to do a version of its own.

Hence, after I heard about the product earlier this year, I dubbed it the Flipinator.

According to sources, Propeller will launch with a plethora of media partners, as well as integration into the Google+ social network. The aim of the search giant is to offer media companies easy tools for publishing content on these devices, as well as a better path to monetization.

That is essentially the same plan at Yahoo, which has been working on Livestand with hopes of it being a product that will woo publishers into tight collaboration with the Silicon Valley Internet giant.

Livestand was announced by Yahoo’s now-fired CEO Carol Bartz in February, at a speech at the World Mobile Congress in Spain.

At the time, Bartz demoed a magazinelike platform that would allow publishers to put up content easily and give users the ability to personalize their selections based on search history and interests.

Bartz called it “content in context.” (You can see the demo video below.)

But while Bartz promised the product within three months, development has been slowed by its complex technologies, bugs and the need to sign on publishers.

Yahoo’s Chief Product Officer Blake Irving is pushing the product hard as a way for the company to reinvigorate its media products.

It’s not clear how many publishers Yahoo will have at launch, and neither are the distribution plans, beyond flacking it from the Web site and being present in app stores.

Google, on the other hand, has its Android platform to push out Propeller, although it all must work as well on Apple’s iPad, which is the dominant tablet on the market.

But just because both Yahoo and Google are big companies is by no means a guarantee of success — think Yahoo 360 or Google Wave or Buzz — and their lateness might be a hindrance.

And, in fact, other news reader apps are much further along. The leader, Flipboard, has already had four million downloads and 50 partnerships with leading publishers.

It also has started to introduce rich advertising products and, perhaps most importantly, has tight social integration with Twitter and Facebook.

There will be social elements on both Yahoo’s Livestand and Google’s Propeller. But news reading will be stressed more, making them more like Pulse, a tiny but highly innovative start-up.

Each of the existing apps will presumably compete by adding on more features. Pulse recently added cross-platform, cross-device syncing, while Flipboard is close to unveiling an iPhone version it has said it was working on.

Yahoo and Google PR declined comment.

Here is the Livestand demo video from February:

Apple's iPhone 4S Event in Photos

Drake Martinet — Wed, 05 Oct 2011 00:55:14 +0000

Apple announced numerous product enhancements at the October 4 event at its Cupertino headquarters.

Among them were the new iPhone 4S, Siri voice commands, white iPod touches and a host of cloud services.

AllThingsD was on hand to capture everything in pictures, and we’ve compiled the gallery below from the best of those photos.

Kobo's Strategy Includes Hardware With Introduction of New Touch E-Reader

Tricia Duryee — Mon, 23 May 2011 15:00:37 +0000

The bare bones e-reader that Kobo released in May 2010 was intended to help sell more of its e-books.

In fact, the e-reader was never supposed to be a big part of its business, but now it is seeing the merits of pursuing a hardware business as well.

Today, the Toronto-based company is unveiling its latest e-reader, which comes with the same gray-scale displays that the devices are known for, but boasts a touch display. Users will be able to flip to the next page of the book with a swipe of their finger, a much more natural motion than having to use a directional keypad.

Starting today, the new Kobo eReader Touch Edition will be available for pre-order at Indigo in Canada and Best Buy, Borders and Wal-mart in North America. It will cost $130, and will start shipping in early June.

The company’s first-generation device will be marked down to $100.

“By default, we launched the first device to get into the market,” said Todd Humphrey, Kobo’s EVP of business development. “But what we found is we were able to remain competitive….We are an e-book company, but the device is part of that strategy. We’ll continue to put out top-tier devices in the market.”

Kobo, which celebrated its one-year anniversary in December, announced in April that it had raised a $50 million round in venture capital to help it go up against some serious competition.

Also pursuing e-books are much larger rivals, such as Apple with the iPad, Amazon with the Kindle and even Google. Additionally, Barnes & Noble, which has invested heavily in the Nook, plans to introduce a new e-reader tomorrow at an event in New York.

Humphrey said the decision to produce additional devices does not mean the company is less invested in the digital e-book side of the business.

“I think we are a hardware company in the sense that the device is a pure reading device. They aren’t suddenly getting emails or ads, or allowing people to play Angry Birds. Our consumers have told us they like a single-purpose device, and we will continue to meet the needs of our customers,” he said.

Other e-readers are morphing into tablets as companies see the success of the iPad, and Amazon is rumored to be working on one of its own.

Kobo says it has more than 3.6 million users in more than 100 countries.

But it has not disclosed how many of its original Kobo devices it sold, just like Amazon, which also refuses to say how many Kindles it has sold. The biggest hint it provided recently was that it is now selling more e-book titles than paperback and hardback combined.

Humphrey would not say if a tablet would be next for Kobo or not.

“We have nothing to announce, but we are looking at all the options. We want to enable great reading experiences,” he said.

Comedy Is Not Pretty (And Neither Is CES)

John Paczkowski — Thu, 06 Jan 2011 11:48:32 +0000

That Steve Martin is on Twitter is a good idea. That he’s taken to tweeting about the Consumer Electronics Show in Vegas this week is a great one. Who better than Martin to sardonically poke fun at the annual gadget bacchanal that promises to launch game-changing technologies but more often than not ends up showcasing derivative ones?

Below, four of Martin’s bulletins, each one of them a taut little send-up of the conference commanding so much of our attention this week.

At Vegas Consumer Electronics Show: electronic wired “voice” phone, with “touch” rotary dial surface. Weighs a ton. Wow factor. 3-D.
At Vegas Consumer Electronics Show: Saw large wooden device that can fling boulders over castle walls. iPad killer.
At Vegas Electronics Show: Pet “cat” that you feed and will “die” if you don’t. Also needs air, kitty litter. Gives birth and has feelings.
Report from Vegas Consumer Electronics Show: Saw demonstration of “bow” modular unit that can direct an “arrow” into bale of straw “pad.”

Screen Industry Success Is a Touching Story

John Paczkowski — Thu, 30 Dec 2010 11:37:37 +0000

Here’s a truism: 2010 was a banner year for the touchscreen industry.

Driven by the steady proliferation of multitouch smartphones and tablets–one in particular–the worldwide touchscreen industry will probably see 30 percent year-over-year growth in 2010 by the time the year is over. So says NPD DisplaySearch, which figures suppliers shipped 6.3 million tablet/mini-note touchscreens in the first half of 2010 and more than 20 million in the second half. Quite the upward trend and one that we’ll almost certainly see continue next year as the iPad juggernaut rolls on, more Android tablets arrive at market and consumer and enterprise demand for all of them grows. Wintek and TPK Touch Solutions have a lot to look forward to next year.

Pen Computing Backers Hope to Write New Chapter With Android

Ina Fried — Mon, 20 Dec 2010 18:00:36 +0000

Pen computing seems to be on the wane with the rise of the decidedly stylus-free iPad. However, those who maintain that the pen is mightier than the finger aren’t throwing in the towel just yet.

N-trig, a company whose technology is used in many touch-based Windows laptops, now hopes to convince Android tablet makers to embrace the notion of pen support.

By doing so, N-trig maintains companies can stand out from the pack and make their tablets good for content creation in addition to Web browsing and media viewing.

The company plans to announce as early as Tuesday that its DuoSense technology, which allows for both pen and multitouch input, now supports Android. N-trig said it expects next year to bring several Android tablets using its technology, with at least one shipping in the first half of next year.

In an interview with Mobilized, N-trig Vice President Gary Baum said that adding support for a pressure-sensitive pen like N-trig’s adds about $50 to the cost of the device, but offers advantages like pressure sensitivity and sub-pixel accuracy. But even if companies make the pen an option, adding that support could help them avoid getting lost in the pack and becoming “just another Android slate.”

Whether users value a pen any more on an Android tablet than they have on Windows remains to be seen, however. Another key question is whether software emerges to take advantage of pens.

“To do that, you need more apps, applications that can facilitate drawing and note-taking,” Baum said.

Adobe, though, seems intrigued by the concept. In an interview, Vice President Michael Gough said he has been playing around with various pen-based prototypes and finds the notion very compelling.

Gough, who leads Adobe’s user experience design efforts, said he has carried a Moleskine notebook around for years and has never found a tablet that was thin enough and of high-enough quality to replace old-fashioned pen and ink. With the latest prototypes, Gough said he feels a shift coming.

“The personal computer was actually impersonal,” he said. “The tablet is personal. It’s connected to you. Every time I have to use my laptop I feel it is a compromise.”

As for what software Adobe comes out with and when, Gough said the company will take a somewhat wait-and-see approach.

“I would say that it is obvious that there is going to be an explosion of devices in the coming year,” he said. “Adobe will follow that, I think, just as much as they lead it. It all depends when the devices are in people’s hands.”

Adobe is excited, though, since tablets like the iPad that are mainly for media consumption don’t offer a lot of business for Adobe. Although he isn’t on the business side, Gough said he expects the business model will shift. Instead of selling a big suite of software for several hundred dollars, Gough said, he imagines smaller titles that might offer only a few features, with additional features sold separately.

But cheaper software and the accessibility of tablets might open up more people to trying out creative work, he said.

“One of things that I feel like we did over the past 20 years is convince a whole generation of people they couldn’t draw,” Gough said, noting that software has gotten more powerful, but also harder to learn and use. “What I think is going to happen with these more natural interfaces is we are going to have this explosion of creativity. It could be quite an exciting time.”

Multitouch Pioneer Jeff Han Starts to Think Small (Devices)

Ina Fried — Mon, 13 Dec 2010 14:00:35 +0000

For years now, Jeff Han has been working on large-screen multitouch displays.

Han and his company, Perceptive Pixel, are best known for creating the giant touch wall that John King and others at CNN use to break down elections.

While Apple, Microsoft and others have targeted consumers, Perceptive Pixel has focused on niche professional markets, especially the defense and government sector.

But, after years of watching the small touchscreen device market from the sidelines, Han said he thinks he is pretty close to creating his first products that will run on those devices.

“Mobile is interesting,” he said in an interview last month at his New York offices (in the Manhattan building that Google is buying, with the amazing roof view seen below). “How can you ignore a billion devices being sold every year?”

Han said there is a reason he has stayed focused on the high end of the market.

“I have a personal bias,” he told Mobilized. “I want computers to be functional, not just playful.”

The modern tablet, he said, is the first consumer device that has enough pixels and the precision sensors to potentially be of interest to Perceptive Pixel. In particular, Han said he is intrigued by the idea of using tablets to allow meeting participants to interact with a nearby larger touchscreen that might be in use by someone leading a meeting.

“We’re looking at mobile and slate devices as a way to tie into this family of collaboration [products],” he said, noting that’s where Perceptive Pixel is spending its energy when it comes to mobile, as opposed to coming up with some killer app that works only on smaller screens. “There are a lot of smart people creating mobile apps.”

Han said his first mobile efforts should come out early next year–in the first quarter or early in the second quarter, though he wouldn’t give more specifics.

Whatever Perceptive Pixel ends up doing in the tablet space, Han said his plan is to eventually have it support multiple operating systems, though Han said the company will probably only qualify certain devices. So far, he said, Apple’s iOS and the iPad seem best suited to the applications he has in mind, while the real-time touch performance on Android has certain issues.

“We’re not going to just let it run on anything out there,” he said. “Some of them just can’t guarantee a good user interface.”

Here is the video interview Mobilized did with Han:

[ See post to watch video ]

Infinity Blade Makes Your Favorite iPad Game Look Like Donkey Kong

John Paczkowski — Thu, 09 Dec 2010 17:30:38 +0000

Infinity Blade, the iOS game with which Epic Games wowed the audience at Apple’s September music event, launched on iTunes this morning, raising the bar for iOS games to a dizzying height.

The first RPG to make use of the Unreal game engine, Infinity Blade takes the iOS platform closer to the console gaming experience than any other game I’ve seen. Combat is engaging, despite the constraints of touch-based gaming, and the graphics and textures are impressive enough to drop your jaw–even if you’re already familiar with Infinity Blade’s precursor Epic Citadel, an app designed to do nothing more than show off a beautifully Unreal Engine-rendered 3-D castle. Infinity Blade makes Hero of Sparta look like Donkey Kong and shows off what’s possible when you push iOS and the hardware on which it runs to the limits.

Earlier this year, Nintendo of America President Reggie Fils-Aime said he thought the greatest competitive threat to Nintendo’s gaming business came out of Cupertino. “Do I think that in the near term [Apple] can hurt us more than Microsoft?” he said. “Absolutely.”

Infinity Blade is just one more reason to agree with him.

Apple TV: Streaming and Renting From Devices

Walter S. Mossberg — Thu, 02 Dec 2010 02:02:15 +0000

Of all the set-top boxes designed to bring online and computer content to your TV, perhaps the best known is Apple TV. But, unlike its maker’s other products, Apple TV hasn’t caught on in a big way. In fact, Apple CEO Steve Jobs calls it a “hobby.”

[ See post to watch video ]

Still, the company isn’t giving up. This fall it brought out a radically revamped Apple TV at a much lower price—$99, down from $229—and with a different philosophy. While earlier versions contained a hard disk and allowed you to purchase and store movies, music and TV shows, the new Apple TV is all about streaming and renting. It can’t store content, although, like its predecessors, it can transmit to your TV screen content stored on your networked home computers.

Perhaps the coolest feature of the new Apple TV is that it allows you to wirelessly beam video and audio from an iPhone, iPad or iPod Touch to the TV screen. A new feature called AirPlay in the latest software on these portable devices makes this possible. So, if you have a video or photos on, say, an iPad, you can just tap an icon on its screen to view them on a TV via Apple TV instead of on the device’s smaller screen. (AirPlay also works wirelessly from the free iTunes software on PCs and Macs.)

Apple’s Steve Jobs announcing the new release of Apple TV earlier this fall.

I’ve been testing the new Apple TV, including trying out AirPlay using various devices, and found that it performs as advertised. It has a clean, easy interface, does a great job of streaming content from your own computers, and it allows you to rent TV shows at just 99 cents an episode. It’s even almost invisible next to your TV—a 4-inch-square black box less than an inch tall. And setup is easy.

But it has some significant downsides. The most important of these is a very limited selection of Internet video sources. If you want a set-top box that allows you to watch a wide range of video from the Web, Apple TV isn’t it.

Apple TV is now essentially a modestly priced adapter that streams video, audio and photos to your HDTV from three main sources: your own computers, Apple’s iTunes service plus a few other online sources, and content on your portable Apple devices using AirPlay.

It’s the polar opposite of the new Google TV, which tries to encompass the entire Internet but is too complicated for mainstream users and costs hundreds of dollars. Apple is offering much less variety in content sources, but with a much simpler interface and a tiny remote with just seven buttons, versus the keyboard or minikeyboard used with Google TV.

Apple TV is still tied heavily to the company’s own iTunes service. The new model now also offers Netflix, which is nicely integrated into Apple’s user interface, but is very common on other set-top boxes, including the less expensive Roku models. YouTube is accessible from the new device, though it was present on the older model as well. The device can’t deliver other video services, nor is it designed to bring up Web pages on your TV.

And, even within Apple’s own iTunes service, which is Apple TV’s source for a la carte rental of TV shows and movies, the content is limited. For its 99-cent TV show rentals, the device mainly offers programs from ABC, Disney, Fox, PBS and the BBC. If your favorite show is on NBC, CBS or many other networks, you can’t rent it on Apple TV, nor can you get to the Web to view it. Alas, even within those networks, some of the programs are old and I couldn’t find some popular shows, like “Modern Family” on ABC or “American Idol” on Fox. (Fox, like The Wall Street Journal, is owned by News Corp.)

You can still buy TV shows from the excluded networks, or shows unavailable for rental, on your computers and stream them to the TV via Apple TV, but that is a more complicated process.

The Apple TV set-top box with TV showing 99-cent TV show rentals from iTunes.

Apple claims the largest selection of high-definition movies online, and says many are available the same day they appear on DVD. Movie rentals start at $2.99 for standard-definition versions and $3.99 for high definition, though many are $4.99. Both movies and TV shows can be kept for 30 days, but, once you start playing them, the clock starts on a short window before they expire. In the case of movies, the window is 24 hours; for TV shows, it’s 48 hours. You can pause and resume, or watch them repeatedly, within those windows.

In my tests, video and audio quality were excellent. Programs started rapidly, and I never saw any stuttering or buffering delays. Like the older Apple TV models, the new one did a very good job of streaming to the TV content from both PCs and Macs running iTunes on my home network. In fact, the process of setting this up has been made simpler. Watching slideshows of family photos was simple and rewarding.

Searching for a TV show or movie was tedious, because it requires you to peck out letters from an onscreen keyboard with the little remote. (This is why Google uses a keyboard, but that isn’t a welcome device in many living rooms.) However, there’s an alternative. Apple offers a free iPhone and iPad app that can control the Apple TV, and it has a built in virtual keyboard for much faster searching.

AirPlay worked well in my tests. I tried it on both an iPad and an iPhone, and was easily able to switch a video or song from the device itself to the Apple TV, and thus, to the TV screen and speakers. This requires merely clicking on an icon that looks like a wide-screen TV with an arrow beneath it, and then selecting “Apple TV” as a destination.

I also tried AirPlay on both a Mac and Windows laptop using the latest version of iTunes, and it worked fine. On all the AirPlay-equipped devices, you can also multitask. Once you’ve started beaming a video to the Apple TV, you can do other things on the originating device without interrupting the video. For instance, as I write this paragraph in Microsoft Word, I am watching a video beamed to my TV via AirPlay from iTunes on my laptop.

But AirPlay has some limitations. On the iPhone, iPad and iPod Touch it will only beam video to the Apple TV from Apple’s own Video, iPod and Photos apps, plus the YouTube app. On computers, it only works with iTunes. Some third-party apps on the hand-held devices can use it with audio, though not video.

Also, switching the video stream to the Apple TV can take a few seconds, during which the video keeps playing, so you often have to rewind.

Overall, Apple TV is a reasonably priced, well-designed device. It is especially attractive for viewing videos and photos from your computers, and Apple devices, on your TV. But it doesn’t deliver most Internet video sources, or even all online network programs.

Find all of Walt Mossberg’s columns and videos at the All Things Digital Web site, walt.allthingsd.com. Email him at mossberg@wsj.com.

Palm, Qualcomm Chiefs Weigh Wireless Future

Ina Fried — Wed, 01 Dec 2010 02:32:02 +0000

Palm-CEO-turned-HP-exec Jon Rubinstein and Qualcomm CEO Paul Jacobs faced off with Kara Swisher of All Things Digital at a Churchill Club event last night in an entertaining discussion on the future of mobile tech.

If you missed the live video feed of the event, check back with us–we’re working to repost the video. For those who want to read text, here is my liveblog of the event.

6:48 pm PT: We’re just finishing dinner. It was a chicken in some sort of puff pastry. Nothing is happening onstage, as if that wasn’t clear by the fact I am describing the meal. I think they will get started around 7:15 or so.

7:10 pm: Just about ready to go, with intros going on now. (And I just stole Kara’s seat at the head table.)

Kara: They’re both guys. Paul is taller and they work in tech.

7:14 pm: The plan is to talk about the future, but the event begins with a trip down memory lane as Jacobs holds up the Qualcomm PDQ–arguably the first smartphone combining a cellphone and Palm Pilot. For those who don’t remember, it it was bigger than a Palm Pilot and a huge phone strapped together.

7:20 pm: Digital device history continues. We’ve traced the last decade in digital devices, from the iPod through the Treo and iPhone. Don’t forget ringtones and cellphone bowling, Jacobs reminds us, referring to the Brew operating environment that Qualcomm developed.

The iPhone changed everything, Jacobs says, because it showed that the phone makers just weren’t putting enough work into the phone’s user interface.

7:28 pm: Talk is shifting to where we are today. What are the key things that are shifting? User interfaces, touch, etc. “The other things we are seeing is all of our lives are moving into the cloud,” Rubinstein says. On the limitation side, Jacobs points to the limitations of bandwidth: “We don’t have enough spectrum right now,” Jacobs says, adding that the industry and government are working on it. ‘We are just going to have to be more creative about how we get content to the devices.”

The other big limitation, Jacobs says, is battery life. You can do all this cool stuff on your phone, but then the battery dies three-quarters of the way through the day. He puts in a plug for Mirasol–Qualcomm’s low-power display technology.

Rubinstein concurs that battery and bandwidth are the two biggest issues. “Battery technology has not progressed at the same rate as all of the other things we are trying to do,” Rubinstein says.

7:38 pm: What about all the operating systems out there, Kara asks. Rubinstein: “There’s plenty of room in the market for multiple systems,” he says, adding it won’t be like PCs, where one operating system dominates. “It’s just different today.”

Rubinstein says it’s still the infancy of the major transition. Put on the spot to rank the operating systems, Rubinstein says that clearly Apple and Android are going gangbusters. The battle, he says, is for who is going to be No. 3. “We’d sure like to be that.”

Jacobs: “I agree. It’s very early days to be calling winners and losers.” He sees pretty wide diversity of operating systems, at least for the next five years, unless the operators really clamp down. Even then, there are some alternate distribution channels emerging. Either way, Qualcomm’s in good shape as an arms dealer, he points out.

7:45 pm: Discussion of carriers. While they are immensely powerful, Rubinstein says they won’t be the only distribution channel for every wireless device. “They are not all going to go through the carriers,” Rubinstein says.

More and more screens will emerge, Rubinstein says. If I fast-forward enough years, he says, the walls are going to be big displays capable of talking to other devices.

Jacobs notes that people will be able to use their device with any tool they have access to, from a big screen to a headset to a wireless keyboard. He says Qualcomm is working on a technology that would allow wireless headsets that could work in-ear like a hearing aid.

7:50 pm: Talk about some outlandish things. Rubinstein has already thrown out the idea of a headset in your pillow. Rubinstein points out that there will be a lot of sensors, pointing to the Nike+iPod as a really early example of what we can expect a lot more of.

7:55 pm: Augmented reality is also going to be big, the panelists agree. “The (StarTrek) tricorder is going to happen,” Jacobs says. Health care will also tap mobile technology, particularly in emerging countries where there is less regulation, carriers are trusted and there are fewer skilled health care providers available. “It’s a very efficient way to manage health,” he says. “Over the next few years we will see this happen,” he says. Eventually it will come back to developed markets, but today there is too much legacy and too much regulation in places like the U.S.

8:10 pm: Sorry for the delay–we were fixing some issues with the video coding, which hopefully should be solved now. Anyway, Rubinstein and Jacobs have been throwing out things that they expect in the next five years.

Jacobs’s list includes digital networked textbooks, cellphones as gateways for health care, as well as using augmented reality to translate all the signs and menus in a foreign country.

Rubinstein and Jacobs both see a digital wallet becoming a reality, with Jacobs throwing out the idea of an end to checkout lines as the phone could pay and the store could electronically disable the security on goods, allowing the whole transaction to take place without interaction with store personnel.

“Legal shoplifting, that’s interesting.” Kara says.

The technical hurdles aren’t that big, Rubinstein says. “Clearly NFC (near-field communications) is coming.” It’s more of a social problem than a technical one, Rubinstein says.

8:21 pm: Some good audience questions. One, on what does it take to deliver an Apple-like experience. Rubinstein, who has experience as part of Apple and trying to “out-Apple” Apple, says he thinks that the key is delivering an intergrated experience.

“I don’t think Apple is the only one that can do it, but I do think it is important to have all the elements,” he says.

Another question is on the future of mobile TV–a question that prompts Jacobs to cover his face (Qualcomm spent a bundle on its MediaFlo mobile TV service that saw very limited consumer uptake and Qualcomm is now evaluating what to do with it).

Too few people liked what the service had to offer, Jacobs says, referring to limits on content, screen size, etc. Jacobs said it appears that probably broadcast makes sense for live events, while streaming with TiVo-like controls makes sense for everything else.

“I actually believe strongly in mobile TV, still,” he says.

8:30 pm: Okay. That’s a wrap from me. Thanks for tuning in. If you want to hear more from Rubinstein, he will be speaking at next week’s D: Dive Into Mobile conference.

New Nook Brings a Little Color to E-Reading

Katherine Boehret — Tue, 16 Nov 2010 22:44:47 +0000

Book lovers nowadays fall into one of two camps: They either eschew e-readers altogether, preferring the look and feel of print books; or they dive wholeheartedly into e-books, instantly downloading and racing through more titles by the handfuls. If you count yourself in the latter category, you’re in luck.

[ See post to watch video ]

Starting this week, Barnes & Noble will ship its $249 Nook Color (nookcolor.com), a luxury model in the e-reader world currently dominated by the $139 monochrome Amazon.com Kindle. While the original Nook offered a gray-scale reading screen and a thin, color touch strip for browsing the bookstore, this model is one big color touch screen. It connects to the Web using only Wi-Fi and costs $100 more than last year’s comparable Wi-Fi Nook, but a Barnes & Noble spokeswoman said that preorders online and in stores are far exceeding company expectations, with over twice as many as for last year’s Nook.

I’ve been testing the Nook Color over the past week and I like its book-size build and stylish design. Its user interface is inviting and its digital bookstore is redesigned to make shopping for books enjoyable. Nook Color is aimed at people who are primarily focused on reading but crave the iPad’s color and some of its versatility.

Like the Kindle, the Nook Color has a Web browser and some apps but no dedicated email program or way to access an app store. A spokeswoman for Barnes & Noble says a full email program and app store are expected early next year.

The Nook Color is unapologetically focused on reading. It accesses Barnes & Noble’s library of two million downloadable books and over 100 magazines and newspapers (fewer were available during my pre-release testing). The reader has a feature called ArticleView that displays magazine articles in a clear, readable format. You can highlight passages from books and then share them with friends through Facebook, Twitter or a limited, in-book email system. A LendMe feature gives users an easy way to digitally lend their books to friends for 14 days. And for kids, there’s a feature where popular stories are read aloud by people rather than a computer voice.

The Nook Color is more than just a bright, color screen: It’s built on the Android 2.1 operating system—the same mobile OS used to run many smartphones. This gives the device access to a full Web browser for tasks like reading favorite sites or checking Facebook, which I did easily. Early next year Nook Color will upgrade to Android 2.2, allowing it to play Flash videos.

The Nook Color

Eight apps found in a section called Extras come loaded on the device including apps for Pandora Internet Radio, chess and Sudoku. I logged into my Pandora account, quickly retrieved my saved list of stations and played a QuickMix of music. I was able to work on a crossword puzzle or read a book or magazine on the Nook Color while still listening to Rihanna on the music app. Quickoffice software for Word, Excel and PowerPoint comes built into the Nook Color so users can view—but not edit—documents in these programs if they’re loaded onto the device with a MicroSD card. Until the Nook Color’s app store launches early next year, there’s no way to download free or paid apps.

Navigating around the Nook Color is a cinch. A tiny “n” just below the screen returns you to the home screen, which can be customized with photos loaded via a MicroSD card. The Daily Shelf is a dedicated horizontal section at the bottom of the home screen that updates whenever possible with new versions of newspapers (daily), magazines (weekly or monthly, if you subscribe) or books lent to you by friends. Anything on the Daily Shelf can be dragged out onto the home screen, placed anywhere and resized by pinching two fingers out or together. A Quick Nav button displays the Nook Color’s six sections: Library, Shop, Search, Extras, Web and Settings. A helpful “Keep Reading” prompt at the top of the home screen shows the last thing you were reading; selecting it sends you to right where you left off.

Nook Color weighs just under a pound, or twice as much as the Kindle but still a half-pound lighter than Apple’s larger iPad. It felt a bit heavy in my hands as I read from it for a long period of time, but I solved that by leaning it against a desk or pillow.

While reading Stacy Schiff’s “Cleopatra: A Life,” I found a particularly interesting tidbit about first-century B.C. marriage contracts requiring wives to vow not to add love potions to their husbands’ food or drink. I highlighted this passage by tapping once on the screen and dragging highlighter handles around it, and then sent it to friends via email with a built-in shortcut for sharing through email, Facebook or Twitter. I selected another passage and posted it on my Facebook wall for friends to read. All these posts had links to buy books from Barnes & Noble.

I really enjoyed reading magazines on the Nook Color because these appeared much as they do in print. Brightly colored pages appeared one at a time when I held the device vertically, or two pages at a time in horizontal view. Magazines can be bought per issue or via subscriptions; a single current issue of House Beautiful was $4.50 or $1.99 with a subscription. The Quick Nav button works in magazines, too, so you can flick a finger right or left to skip ahead to specific sections or articles.

If you love reading and want to share your books with friends or reading updates with social networks, the Nook Color has you covered. It will also give you a taste of tablet computing with functions like browsing the Web, using some apps and eventually, full emailing. Just remember that Nook Color is laser-focused on e-reading.

A correction was made to this column on 11/17/2010 to reflect that Quickoffice is not owned by Microsoft.

Edited by Walter S. Mossberg

Email mossbergsolution@wsj.com

What's Apple Announcing Tomorrow: A Subscription Service? ITunes in the Cloud?

John Paczkowski — Mon, 15 Nov 2010 15:52:48 +0000

Apple plans to make an iTunes-related announcement Tuesday at 7 am PT. “Tomorrow is just another day,” a notice on Apple.com reads. “That you’ll never forget. Check back here tomorrow for an exciting announcement from iTunes.”

Not much to work with there, though one could argue that “Check back here”–i.e., at Apple.com–suggests a Web-based iTunes Store. That said, “you’ll never forget” would seem to point to an “iTunes Anywhere” subscription service or some cloud-based version of iTunes. Which is what Piper Jaffray analyst Gene Munster is expecting as well.

“We believe Apple could announce a cloud-based iTunes service for content streaming to connected devices,” he said in a note to clients this morning. “Apple is developing a data center in Maiden, NC that we believe could serve as the hub for such a service. The company has indicated that the data center is on track to be completed by the end of CY10 and it will begin using it then. With Apple’s growing family of connected devices (iPhone, iPad, iPod touch, Apple TV, and Macs) it only makes sense that Apple would deliver a cloud-based media service to leverage its competitive advantage in the space: devices. As part of this, the new Apple TV with limited storage, a lower price, and a focus on accessing content over the internet would fit in nicely. We see this device, and the potential iTunes cloud-based service, as a stepping stone for an all-in-one, connected Apple television.”

Seems a savvy guess to me, particularly since it’s been about a year since Apple bought streaming music outfit Lala and we haven’t yet seen anything come of that acquisition. ‘Course it could also just as easily be iOS 4.2 or the debut of the Beatles catalog on iTunes.

Peter Kafka has a few thoughts on this as well.

FaceTime Hits the Mac

Beth Callaghan — Wed, 20 Oct 2010 18:15:30 +0000

In what has to be the shortest demo in Apple demo history, Steve Jobs introduced FaceTime video calling for Mac by sitting down at an onstage Mac and calling Phil Schiller on his iPhone 4. That was it. The software makes calls between Macs, iPhones and iPod Touches, and the beta is available for download today. No mention of how this product will impact and/or ultimately eclipse iChat–or when iPads might get cameras, so they can use use FaceTime, too.