At 4,488 Yuan Renminbi (US$734) for the 16GB version, the iPhone might be within reach of well-heeled consumers in Beijing and Shanghai but is unlikely to win over punters in so-called third-tier cities and beyond, who have never owned a smartphone.
via Apple Underwhelms in China, Too | Light Reading.
In another online poll (again in Chinese, naturally), more than 80 percent said the price was too high.
Chic marketing may be wearing off the Apple brand.
In its latest earnings statement filed Thursday with the Securities and Exchange Commission, Zynga reported the number of daily average users (DAU) dropped to 39 million in the second quarter of 2013—the lowest ever since the company began keeping track. Last quarter, the DAU fell to the then-lowest record, 52 million users. The fall to 39 million means that 25 percent of its daily user base stopped using Zynga products in just one quarter.
via Game over for Zynga? Firm loses 25 percent of daily active users in one quarter | Ars Technica.
In particular, ABI said, DOCSIS 3.0 device shipments are spiking. The report found that equipment vendors shipped 37 million DOCSIS 3.0 home devices last year, representing 67 percent of all cable CPE shipments. That portion is up from 65 percent in 2011.
The new Surface RT prices are detailed below.
- Surface RT 32GB – $349.99
- Surface RT 64GB – $449.99
- Surface RT 32GB with Touch Cover – $449.99
- Surface RT 64GB with Touch Cover – $549.99
via Microsoft is cutting the price of its Surface RT tablets, base model to cost $349 | The Verge.
Still too high. I can get a decent laptop at Microcenter for $350 and if I want to go small there are plenty of under $200 tablets. The Surface looks and feels like what they used to call a netbook. Those didn’t do so well in the market. I can’t imagine doing real work on one of those. It’s hard enough with a laptop. The size of the QWERTY keyboard is a big factor in productivity IMHO.
Over the past six months, vendors have responded to the demand for more corporate-friendly analytics by announcing a slew of systems that offer full SQL query capabilities with significant performance improvements over existing Hive/Hadoop systems. These systems are designed to allow full SQL queries over warehouse-size data sets, and in most cases they bypass Hadoop entirely (although some are hybrid approaches). Allowing much faster SQL queries at scale makes big data analytics accessible by many more people in the enterprise and fits in with existing workflows.
via The hot new technology in Big Data is decades old: SQL | Ars Technica.
In 2010, GFK’s survey of U.S. homes found just 14 percent of households relying on broadcast-only TV. In 2012, that number jumped to 19.3 percent and now it has risen well above the 20 million mark.
via Light Reading – Antenna TV Roars Back.
There are a lot more channels on OTA ever since they went digital and added all sorts of sub-channels.
The rise of the iPhone and mobile platforms in general, along with developer-friendly app stores, has made the idea of commercializing interactive fiction possible again. In the age of Infocom, the crude graphics on top-end hardware meant the potential market for text-only games for personal computers was in the millions, and this was enough to fund a whole company of developers. Today, people aren’t likely to pay money to sit down at a PC to play a text adventure game, but enough of them might want to play such a game on their mobile device to fund teams of one or two independent developers.
via Heirs of Infocom: Where interactive fiction authors and games stand today | Ars Technica.
Video on Instagram will allow app users to shoot videos anywhere from 3-to-15 seconds long—unlike the mere six seconds of Vine. Video allows for the use of multiple cuts,
via Instagram hopes 15 seconds will be better than six for social micro-video | Ars Technica.
The gist of the study: Narcissists “like” Facebook and Twitter. A lot. And social media in general both “reflect and amplify” our culture’s deepening narcissism.
The study, by University of Michigan researchers Elliot Panek, Yioryos Nardis and Sara Konrath, was published online in Computers in Human Behavior.
via University of Michigan study links social media and narcissism – chicagotribune.com.
Everyone’s Facebook feed is pretty much the same as everyone else’s of the same age. Twenty-year-olds pose in the club, 30-year-olds share wedding photos, by age 40 you’re looking at a lot of cute pictures of your friends’ kids. But with Tumblr, you never know what you’re going to get — even with people you know personally. That, in a nutshell, is the difference between a social graph and an interest graph.
via Why Tumblr Was a Massive Steal for Yahoo – Adam Rifkin – Voices – AllThingsD.
Here’s an interesting tidbit from TechCrunch written Feb 2013. From Tumblr Is Not What You Think
Pop quiz: what is the favorite social networking site of Americans under age 25? If you guessed Facebook you are way behind the eight-ball, because Tumblr now enjoys more regular visits from the youth of America. That figure struck me while reading Garry Tan’s January 2013 survey and I wondered why? So I delved deeper; this article describes what I discovered while exploring the Tumblr network.