Two tech geeks.

  • Facebook wants you to use it at Work

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    Jenxi

    TechCrunch reported on Facebook’s new Work apps and web service.

    Employers can create separate log-ins for employees to use with their Work accounts, or users can link these up with their other profiles to access everything in one place.

    The product puts Facebook head-to-head with the likes of Microsoft’s Yammer, Slack, Convo, Socialcast, and a huge number of others who are trying to tackle the “enterprise social network” space. Even LinkedIn conveniently let drop last night that it too was looking at building a product for coworkers to communicate and share content.

    Matt and I love Slack. It’d be interesting to see what Facebook can offer better.

  • To beat the iPhone, you have to beat the iPhone’s camera

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    Jenxi

    The Verge wrote about iPhone’s camera.

    For a show overrun with various visions of smart drones and smarter homes for the future, the present of CES was remarkably uniform. I saw more iPhones in the hands of CES attendees than I did Android phones across the countless exhibitor booths. From the biggest keynote event to the smallest stall on the show floor, everything was being documented with Apple’s latest smartphone, and it all looked so irritatingly easy. I don’t want an iPhone, but dammit, I want the effortlessness of the iPhone’s camera.

    I often tell my friends that the iPhone is a better camera, even though other phones have superior cameras, because it is a complete package. It is not just about the megapixels or the size of the sensor. The software and hardware are designed to work superbly together, giving you the best quality photos from the best performance Apple squeezes out of the phone. It is hard for competitorsto get such performance when the phone manufacturing and OS are developed separately.

    To top it off, the massive selection of camera and photo-processing apps makes the iPhone an attractive camera.

    The iPhone’s lead as the smartphone to beat has rarely been defined by just one thing. At one point, the biggest advantage was the simplicity and speed of its interface; at another, it was down to the diversity and quality of available apps; and most recently, the iPhone has distinguished itself with the quality of its 8-megapixel camera. Today, the combination of all these things — simple and fast operation, strong optics and image processing, and a wide app ecosystem — is helping people create the best possible images with the least possible hassle.

    During my recent trip overseas, I ended using the iPhone a lot more than my DSLR and rangefinder. In fact, I preferred to shoot with the iPhone for most shots that didn’t require a telephoto lens or a shallow depth of field.

    In all the years of Android’s existence, in spite of huge investments of time and money, there’s never been a standout Android cameraphone. Some have cameras that are better in low light than the iPhone’s, many have higher resolution, and a number claim to be faster at focusing — but none pull it all together into the same comprehensive package that the iPhone can offer. Samsung and LG give you a pared-down “just shoot” experience, but they lack software polish and speed; Motorola’s camera launches and shoots quickly, but the quality is mediocre; and Sony manages to combine an excellent image sensor with terrible autofocus. Microsoft’s PureView cameras fare better, but the Windows Phone camera app is comparatively slow and unintuitive, and there’s a reason why former Lumia chief Ari Partinen is now tagging his photos with #iPhone6Plus instead of #Lumia1520.

    All this just boils down to Apple’s philosophy of “it just works”.

  • WhatsApp and iMessage could be banned in the UK under new surveillance plans

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    Jenxi

    The Independent reported on UK Prime Minister David Cameron’s plans to ban encrypted messaging.

    David Cameron could block WhatsApp and Snapchat if he wins the next election, as part of his plans for new surveillance powers announced in the wake of the shootings in Paris.

    The Prime Minister said today that he would stop the use of methods of communication that cannot be read by the security services even if they have a warrant. But that could include popular chat and social apps that encrypt their data, such as WhatsApp.

    Apple’s iMessage and FaceTime also encrypt their data, and could fall under the ban along with other encrypted chat apps like Telegram.

    A display of ignorance. If the data is accessible, it can fall into the hands of people who will misuse it. The safest place to store your data is where there are no doors at all.

  • Xiaomi copies Apple’s design but warns users not to buy copies

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    Jenxi

    BGR reported about Xiaomi CEO Lei Jun warning people not to buy Xiaomi products.

    Chinese smartphone manufacturer Xiaomi has been on a tear lately, although when you look at some of its devices, you quickly notice that they bear a striking resemblance to devices released by Apple. This is why we find it amusing that Xiaomi’s CEO is now warning its fans to watch out for knockoff Xiaomi products being sold at phone retail outlets in Chinese cities.

    Do unto others as you would have them do unto you.

  • Twitter’s plans autoplay video ads

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    Jenxi

    Advertising Age reported on Twitter’s plans to add autoplaying video ads.

    Twitter is mulling the possibility of making promoted videos automatically play 6-second previews when they pop up in people’s feeds, according to people briefed on the company’s plans. If the autoplay previews were to catch someone’s eye, that person could click to watch the full video.

    No. I instinctively close websites that have autoplay video ads, and tend to close YouTube videos that force me to watch the full ad. This is will be one more reason for me not to use Twitter.

  • Is Uber’s rider database a sitting duck for hackers?

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    Jenxi

    Craig Timberg wrote for The Washington Post about Uber’s vulnerable database.

    Imagine further that there existed a database that collected daily travel information on such people with GPS-quality precision– where they went, when they went there and who else went to those same places at the same times.

    Now add that all this location data was not held by a battle-hardened company with tons of lawyers and security experts, such as Google. Instead, this data was held by a start-up that was growing with viral exuberance – and with so few privacy protections that it created a “God View” to display the movements of riders in real-time and at least once projected such information on a screen for entertainment at a company party.

    And let’s not forget that individual employees could access historical data on the movements of particular people without their permission, as an Uber executive in New York City reportedly did when he pulled the travel records of a Buzzfeed reporter who was working on a story about the company.

    You might think that it won’t be that easy to hack Uber, but look at what happened to Sony.

  • Jury finds Apple not liable of harming consumers in iTunes DRM case

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    Jenxi

    The Verge reported on Apple being cleared in the iTunes DRM case.

    Delivering a unanimous verdict today, the group said Apple’s iTunes 7.0, released in the fall of 2006, was a “genuine product improvement,” meaning that new features (though importantly increased security) were good for consumers. Plaintiffs in the case unsuccessfully argued that those features not only thwarted competition, but also made Apple’s products less useful since customers could not as easily use purchased music or jukebox software from other companies with the iPod.

    There wasn’t much of a case after it was discovered that the plaintiffs did not even own the affected iPod models.

  • China buys more iPhones than the US for first time in record-setting sales quarter

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    Jenxi

    Tech in Asia reported on Apple selling more iPhones in China than the US.

    While holiday sales in the US certainly contributed to that number, UBS says China accounts for up to 35 percent of shipments, outstripping Americans for the first time. During the same period last year, China made up 22 percent of all iPhone sales.

    The US share of sales rose from 24 percent to 29 percent year on year.

    We can see why Apple has been making more effort to expand their China market.

  • Two scenarios for the smartwatch market

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    Jenxi

    Creative Strategies wrote about two possible scenarios for the smartwatch market.

    Scenario #1 – like MP3 players where Apple dominates market share

    Apple will easily strongly influence the smart watch category in 2015 and 2016. It is hard to argue against Apple’s vertical advantage and tight control of their entire ecosystem. This advantage undoubtedly will give them a dominance in the early stages of a category. If a number of things play out, we can see them command the category for the long term.

    Apple had a near monopoly on the iPod/MP3 market. We can see a similar scenario playing out where Apple effectively “iPods” the smart watch category, maintaining dominant share over the next five to seven years. While the early success of the iPod was driven by Apple releasing iTunes for Windows, we don’t see the need for Apple to support other platforms in order to hold sway over the smart watch category. Apple’s existing iPhone customer base is large enough to keep it the foremost smart watch vendor and their smart watch platform as the reigning one in the smart watch category.

    Scenario #2 – like smartphones where Apple dominates profit share

    Another possible scenario is the smart watch category shapes up very much like the smart phone category. Apple succeeds at their goal to acquire the top 20% of the market and rake in the majority of the profits. While Android Wear, or another third party licensable smart watch OS, provides the software platform to the vast majority of hardware companies making smart watches.

    In this scenario, the vast majority of Chinese and Hong Kong produced smart watches adopt Android Wear (or something else) and flood the market with very low cost smart watches. Also in this scenario, Swiss watch makers competing in the sub $1000 watch market start making smart watches because Apple Watch cannibalized nearly all the sales of Swiss-made watches in that price range.

    In both scenarios, Apple earns a lot of money.

  • Less than 0.1% of Android devices run Lollipop

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    Jenxi

    Business Insider reported on the breakdown of Android version adoption.

    Google in November launched Android Lollipop, which it called its largest, most ambitious OS update ever — but no one is using it.

    Less than 0.1% of Android devices currently run Lollipop, according to the company’s most recent numbers.

    The problem is, very few phones are capable of upgrading to Lollipop yet. It’s up to the carriers and phone manufacturers to decide when the update rolls out to various phone models.

    This compared to 63% of devices on iOS 8 and 33% on iOS 7 as of December.