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AfterDawn: News

Aereo shuts down its TV service in two markets

Written by Andre Yoskowitz @ 09 Mar 2014 11:54

Aereo shuts down its TV service in two markets Aereo, the popular Internet TV startup, has had to shut down their streams in Salt Lake City and Denver following a loss in the US District Court of Utah.

The federal court rejected Aereo's request to stay the injunction while it prepares its appeal, claiming "Aereo has not made a strong showing that it is likely to succeed on the merits of its appeal. Nor has Aereo demonstrated that the other factors weigh in its favor."

Aereo, which costs $8 per month, allows users to watch free, OTA content on any mobile device along with a free remote DVR. Aereo does not pay any re-transmission fees as it uses tiny digital TV antennas for each user in its own facilities and links to the streams.

Reads the message from Aereo:

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AfterDawn: News

Google releasing Android dev SDK for wearables in the coming weeks

Written by Andre Yoskowitz @ 09 Mar 2014 11:35

Google releasing Android dev SDK for wearables in the coming weeks Speaking during SXSW today, Google's Android/Chrome SVP Sundar Pichai has announced that the company is preparing to release an Android dev SDK for wearable devices.

Google will give a "vision for developers of how we see this market working" with the SDK, shaping the future of smartwatches, Glass and more.

The SDK will hit before the end of March.

Pichai says developers and partners will have to decide what form factors to use the SDK for, so there could be some interesting devices on the horizon.




AfterDawn: News

Kickstarter darling Ouya is already dead, will transition to software company

Written by Andre Yoskowitz @ 09 Mar 2014 11:20

Kickstarter darling Ouya is already dead, will transition to software company Ouya, the Android-based hardware console that nearly reached $10 million in funding on Kickstarter, is already dead in less than a year of availability, says the Verge.

The indie game console took Kickstarter by storm in 2012, raising $8.6 million, promising TV gaming for $99 and a plethora of games, all of which were free-to-play. The company was run by CEO Julie Uhrman, a former VP of digital distribution for both IGN and GameFly, very experienced in the gaming world. Uhrman wanted the Ouya to curate and promote games, and even possibly fund indies.

Unfortunately, the box launched late, the plans to fund indies fell through, and the console launched only a few months ahead of the PS4 and Xbox One.

Ouya, having failed as a hardware console, will now be transitioning to a software platform, effectively killing its hardware business. The company will look to embed the platform into TVs and set-top boxes, starting with the Mad Catz Mojo, which was formerly its own hardware console.

By killing off its hardware, Ouya has turned itself into another Android variant, one that has even less users than others. There are no incentives to build for Ouya, especially when standard Android and iOS have over 1.2 billion users and the PlayStation 4 continues to be a smash hit.




AfterDawn: News

Rovio teases upcoming medieval-themed 'Angry Birds'

Written by Andre Yoskowitz @ 09 Mar 2014 10:37

Rovio teases upcoming medieval-themed 'Angry Birds' Rovio has teased another upcoming 'Angry Birds' game this week, following last month's reveal of Angry Birds Stella.

Without revealing a name (or much else), the gaming company hints that the "next epic Angry Birds game" will be medieval themed.

The teaser shows off an angry bird inside a suit of armor, who then flies out at you.

Strangely, the game company will be "soft launching" the game fist in Canada, New Zealand, and Australia.

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AfterDawn: News

OnLive comes back from the dead

Written by Andre Yoskowitz @ 08 Mar 2014 11:12

OnLive comes back from the dead OnLive, the once-promising cloud gaming service, has returned from the dead.

A year after collapsing, the company has returned as a partner with Steam, allowing you to stream PC games you already own to your TV, notebook, mobile phone and more for $15 per month. The service will sync with Steam, allowing you to seamlessly move from PC to TV, notebook etc., and vice versa.

Dubbed 'Cloudlift,' the service will be very limited out of the gate. The company has signed two publishers, with just 20 games available. That is expected to grow significantly soon, but for now the selection is limited.

One of the major publishers signed up is Warner Bros., who has made the Batman Arkham series available, as well as the new Lego Movie game.

"The new strategy is providing complimentary services," says OnLive executive chairman Mark Jung. Rather than requiring that let OnLive modify the game code in a complex manner, the new service simply needs a publisher's permission to run.

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AfterDawn: News

Live-action feature film of 'The Last of Us' is coming

Written by Andre Yoskowitz @ 08 Mar 2014 7:42

Live-action feature film of 'The Last of Us' is coming The hit video game 'The Last of Us' will be getting a live-action feature film in the future.

Screen Gems has signed on to distribute the film, and the Creative Director for the game, Naughty Dog's own Neil Druckmann, will write the script.

Among the group helping on the film are Sam Raimi (The Evil Dead, Spiderman series), Naughty Dog co-presidents Evan Wells and Christophe Balestra and the game's director Bruce Straley.

The story, as per the site's own bio: "Joel, a ruthless survivor with few moral lines left to cross, lives in one of the last remaining Quarantine Zones. These walled-off, oppressive cities are run by what's left of the military. Despite the strict martial law, Joel operates in the black market of the city, smuggling contraband for the right price.

Joel is asked by a dying friend to look after Ellie, a fourteen-year-old girl with courage beyond her years. What starts out as a simple job to deliver Ellie to another Quarantine Zone, soon transforms into a profound journey that will forever change Joel and Ellie."

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AfterDawn: News

Beats Music API now open to the public

Written by Andre Yoskowitz @ 08 Mar 2014 7:06

Beats Music API now open to the public New streaming music service Beats Music has opened up its API to the developer world.

The service costs $9.99 per month and gives users access to 20 million tracks on-demand.

"If you're willing to pay $100 a year for music, which in my experience for all the world's music is a tremendous bargain, you should have access to music anywhere you might want it, in your car, house, anywhere," Beats Music Chief Executive Ian C. Rogers added.

Many other streaming music services have made their APIs available, including Spotify, who allows for third-party developers to add applications to the service and to integrate their sites better with the services.

Beats Music had previously opened up its API to select developers, including Sonos and Bop.fm.




AfterDawn: News

Yahoo keeps acquiring startups and then eventually shutting them down

Written by Andre Yoskowitz @ 08 Mar 2014 6:00

Yahoo keeps acquiring startups and then eventually shutting them down Ever since Marissa Mayer took over as CEO of Yahoo in 2012, the company's stock and its reputation has soared.

The executive has made a plethora of acquisitions, mainly startups, each of which was supposed to help the company become "cool" again and keep up with current and future trends. Just two days ago, the company made such an acquisition, purchasing Vizify, a "data visualization startup" that allows you to turn your social media posts into interactive infographics.

Overall, since January 1st the company has purchased eight companies, none of which really fit into Yahoo's focus, at least not coherently as of yet.

The strategy of buying everything and anything does not appear to be paying off. Since Mayer's hiring, 31 of the 38 startups acquired have shut down or discontinued their services. Vizify will also be closing down their products, having already provided full refunds to customers.

Attracting Talent



One of the main reasons Yahoo was acquiring all these companies was not for their products or tech, but to take the young talent piloting the technology. Yahoo, like other tech giants, has had issues bringing in younger developers who prefer the free reign of a startup to a corporate bureaucracy.

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AfterDawn: News

Box sees its revenue doubling this year

Written by Andre Yoskowitz @ 08 Mar 2014 5:26

Box sees its revenue doubling this year Cloud storage and collaboration company Box has projected that its revenue will double this year to $200 million, ahead of the company going public.

Box is likely to IPO in the coming two months, and will make a prospectus available in the coming weeks.

CEO Aaron Levie has quietly begun increasing the company's sales staff to promote the service to enterprises that are now shifting to the cloud.

Box is one of the most highly funded startups since its humble founding in 2005 by two college students. Major investors include Mark Cuban, Draper Fisher Jurvetson, Meritech Capital Partners, Bessemer Venture Partners and Andreessen Horowitz and Salesforce.com Inc.

Competition



Despite its strong funding, the company has its fair share of competition. Dropbox, Apple, Google, Amazon, Microsoft and others all offer cloud sharing solutions.

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AfterDawn: News

Walmart slashes price of iPhone 5S

Written by Andre Yoskowitz @ 08 Mar 2014 5:00

Walmart slashes price of iPhone 5S Walmart has dropped the price of the iPhone 5S to new lows, pricing the high-end device at $119 with contract.

The phone retails for $200 with contract, and the current promotion beats out Best Buy's ongoing $50 price cut for the device.

In addition, you can get an even lower price by trading in older gadgets for Walmart credit (via gift cards). The retailer accepts tablets, smartphones and even video games.

If you prefer the plastic iPhone 5C and its nearly two-year old specs, you can get the device for $29 with contract, one of the better deals out there, as well.

The iPhone 5S introduced a fingerprint sensor (Touch ID) and 64-bit processing and remains a hot seller for Apple.




AfterDawn: News

Samsung introduces 'Milk Music' Internet radio service for Galaxy devices

Written by Andre Yoskowitz @ 08 Mar 2014 4:45

Samsung introduces 'Milk Music' Internet radio service for Galaxy devices Samsung has introduced a new Internet radio service for its own products, "Milk Music."

Exclusive to Samsung phones and tablets, Milk Music is completely free to download and free of ads.

As of this week, the service only works on the Galaxy S3, the Galaxy S4, the Note 2, the Note 3 and most S4 variants including the Active and the Mini. Of course, it will also work with the newly unveiled Galaxy S5.

Milk Music is powered by Slacker radio, and includes 200 genre stations and has over 13 million songs in total. Samsung's partnership with the company means they did not have to secure new licensing deals with the labels.

Samsung will deliver exclusives and other "first listens," as well, through its "Spotlight" section. The interface of the service has an aesthetically pleasing dial with genres, Spotlight, and a history of the last 500 songs you have listened to.

The app is available through Google Play now if you own one of the aforementioned devices and it is U.S.-only for the time being.

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AfterDawn: News

Instagram signs $100 million ad deal

Written by Andre Yoskowitz @ 08 Mar 2014 4:17

Instagram signs $100 million ad deal Instagram has signed its first major ad deal, with agency giant Omnicom.

As part of its upcoming paid advertising program, Instagram and Omnicom have signed the year-long deal that could have the ad agency spend up to $100 million.

Instagram users will soon begin to see ads in their streams from hundreds of brands that work with Omnicom in their media and creative agencies.

Facebook did not comment on the deal except to confirm the partnership, as did Omnicom. Instagram has over 150 million active users, with 55 million photos shared on a daily basis.

"This doesn't change our advertising strategy moving forward -- people will continue to see a limited number of beautiful, high-quality photos and videos from select brands who already have a strong presence on Instagram," added Jim Squires, director of market operations for Instagram. "Our teams are going to work hand in hand to develop and execute campaigns that provide people with amazing imagery. This is an exciting new chapter and we're looking forward to the great creative content that comes out of this partnership."

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AfterDawn: News

comScore: Windows Phone finally surpasses BlackBerry in U.S. smartphone market share

Written by Andre Yoskowitz @ 07 Mar 2014 11:42

comScore: Windows Phone finally surpasses BlackBerry in U.S. smartphone market share According to comScore's latest U.S. smartphone data, Windows Phone has finally surpassed BlackBerry for the third spot in the market.

Apple led the way with 41.6 percent share as far as OEMs go, beating out Samsung at 26.7 percent (a new high for them), LG, Motorola and HTC.

Android took a small dive to 51.7 percent, while Apple rose a full percentage point to its 41.6 percent share. Microsoft remained completely flat at 3.2 percent while BlackBerry fell to 3.1 percent, continuing its eventual trend to zero. Symbian retained fractional share.

LG increased to 6.9 percent, Motorola dropped to 6.4 percent and HTC fell 20 percent to 5.4 percent.

Overall, 159.8 million Americans had smartphones, up 7 percent from the previous quarter.




AfterDawn: News

HP unveils nearly 8-inch Android tablet

Written by Andre Yoskowitz @ 07 Mar 2014 10:47

HP unveils nearly 8-inch Android tablet HP has quietly unveiled another Android tablet this week, dubbed the HP 8.

The new Android device has a 7.85 inch screen and will sell for just $170.

Besides its cheap price, there isn't too much to like about the tablet. This display has a 1,024 x 768 resolution, the devices runs on Android 4.2.2, and is powered by a quad-core Allwinner ARM chip and 1GB RAM.

The tablet has 3800mAh battery for 5-7 hours of use and 16GB internal storage with a microSD slot. There are two cameras, but at 0.3MP and 2MP they are not too functional.

HP has quietly returned to the mobile hardware market, unveiling the VoiceTab devices for the Indian market recently and other "Slate" devices.




AfterDawn: News

Sony America president Jack Tretton stepping down

Written by Andre Yoskowitz @ 06 Mar 2014 10:32

Sony America president Jack Tretton stepping down Sony Computer Entertainment America president and CEO Jack Tretton has confirmed he will be stepping down from the position at the end of the month.

Tretton had been with Sony for almost twenty years, and Sony says the decision was reached after the two parties could not "renew their contractual relationship."

Beginning next month, Sony Network Entertainment International EVP and COO Shawn Layden will take over the position.

"Working at SCEA for the past 19 years has been the most rewarding experience of my career," Tretton added. "I leave PlayStation in a position of considerable strength."

Sony has been in a transitional stage for the last year, as it cuts costs and changes focus.





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