Google has taken a big step in its efforts to make mobile websites act more like native applications on Android smartphones, by adding notifications to its browser.One of the most convincing arguments for building an application instead of a website has been the ability to send notifications to users. Google is hoping to narrow that advantage by adding the feature to version 42 of its Chrome browser for Android.As a result, Android developers no longer have to decide between the engagement potential of a native app and the reach of a mobile website, Google said in a blog post on Monday.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
If you’re tired of touching that touchscreen, try hitting your phone and making some noise.Researchers in South Korea have developed a sound-based method of controlling smartphones, and connected appliances, by tapping them.Graduate students from Seoul National University of Science and Technology are demonstrating an Android app called Sound Tap at the 2015 Computer-Human Interaction Conference (CHI) in Seoul this week.Sound Tap can be used to control a smartphone by tapping its rear surface with a finger once or twice, or by lightly striking the phone itself against various surfaces in the environment. Since the taps create unique frequencies, they can be used to trigger different functions on the phone, such as calling up browsers, photo galleries or music players.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
Telecommunications equipment maker Huawei Technologies plans to launch a public cloud service in China in July, amid growing competition from local and foreign players.“We hope that once it launches, we can bring some surprises to all our enterprise customers,” said Eric Xu, Huawei’s acting CEO, on Tuesday at a company event for analysts.Xu provided few details, but said Huawei aimed to offer a unique service. In China, other large tech players have already entered the public cloud space, including Microsoft and Amazon.com.Chinese e-commerce giant Alibaba Group is currently the leading player, according to Forrester Research. And in March, it announced it would enter the U.S. cloud computing market.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
A plan by Qualcomm to get Samsung Electronics to make its Snapdragon 820 chip could lead to faster smartphones, offering longer battery life by early next year.The chip company will get its top-line device manufactured in factories belonging to Samsung, according to a news report by Re/code. The South Korean company will make the Snapdragon 820 chip using the 14-nanometer process, which will also be used to make Apple’s next A9 chip.The Snapdragon 820 chip was announced last month at Mobile World Congress and is expected to start shipping later this year. Qualcomm hasn’t shared information about where it will be manufactured, but Samsung’s 14-nm process will provide big performance and power advantages over current Snapdragon chips.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
Google said in February that it was going to make mobile-friendliness matter more to its search-engine rankings. On Tuesday, it makes good on that commitment—and webmasters who didn’t heed the warning may see a steep drop in traffic.It’s a shift so potentially fraught with peril for those who aren’t ready that it’s being called “Mobilegeddon.” Essentially, Google is expanding its use of mobile-friendliness as a ranking signal when it compiles search results. Sites that are mobile-friendly will be ranked higher in search results; those that aren’t will suffer.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
Nokia sold off its mobile phone business to Microsoft last fall, but now one of Nokia's remaining business units is eyeing a return to the consumer mobile phone market next year.Nokia Technologies, which controls thousands of technology patents, plans to re-enter the mobile phone market in 2016, according to unnamed sources cited by Re/code.Such plans would be ambitious, especially given the super-competitive global smartphone and feature phone market. It isn't clear precisely what Nokia Technologies is up to, and at least two analysts are skeptical it will work.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
Live video is messy. It’s raw, unedited, and with new mobile apps, it’s now capable of capturing many more people who aren’t aware they’re being recorded. And in some cases, that can add up to legal problems.
Meerkat and Periscope aren’t the first tools to offer live-streaming capabilties, but they have captured attention due in large part to the ease with which they allow video to be recorded on the fly, from a smartphone, and shared publicly on Twitter. Twitter owns Periscope, while Meerkat is the indie player, a breakout hit at this year’s South by Southwest technology festival in Austin, Texas. And both are positioned to spawn a crop of disputes, and even lawsuits, around alleged privacy violations or copyright infringement.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
As part of Twitter’s larger push to give more people a reason to use its service, it is changing its direct messaging function to let users receive missives from people they don’t follow.Previously, users could only send the private, direct messages to those who followed them. By letting more users message each other privately, Twitter hopes to more strongly compete against messaging apps WhatsApp, with roughly 800 million monthly users, and Facebook Messenger with 600 million users who log in monthly. Twitter had 288 million users as of the end of last year.Importantly for those who worry about spam and abuse, Twitter is letting would-be recipients of the DMs decide if they want to change their account settings to accept direct messages from people they do not follow. A new direct message button will appear on the profiles of people who turn this on.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
Sony’s decision to launch its new high-end smartphone, the Xperia Z4, only in Japan, shows its hesitancy about this market and puts into question its commitment to it.Monday’s introduction of the Xperia Z4 stands in stark contrast to the arrival of competing products like the HTC One M9 or the Galaxy S6 and S6 edge from Samsung Electronics, which were launched with much fanfare at Mobile World Congress. And when LG premiers the G4 on April 28, it will do so at events around the world.But considering the very challenging position Sony’s smartphone business has found itself in, the low-key unveiling doesn’t come as a shock.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
Is Nokia on the way back to the phone market?When it sold off its device business to Microsoft, Nokia seemed to be saying goodbye to the mobile phone market it once helped define. But now sources tell re/code that projects in development at the small Nokia Technologies division indicate it’s plotting to return when it’s no longer under contract restrictions that prevent it from directly selling or licensing phones under its brand.DOJ said to be leaning against Comcast-Time Warner dealAttorneys at the U.S. Department of Justice are looking unfavorably on the proposed merger of two U.S. cable and Internet giants, Bloomberg reported. Lawyers in the antitrust division may this week recommend blocking Comcast’s bid to buy Time Warner for $45.2 billion.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
Mozilla will introduce Firefox for Apple's iPhone "soon," according to a company announcement of an open marketing position.As the senior mobile marketing manager, the candidate will "lead marketing for Firefox on both Android and iOS," the listing stated, adding that "a new Firefox for iOS application [will be] arriving soon." Mozilla
An early rendition of Firefox on iOS features a "tab tray" that shows open sites in a vertical orientation. (Image: Mozilla.)To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
New products of the weekOur roundup of intriguing new products. Read how to submit an entry to Network World's products of the week slideshow.Acronis Backup ServicePricing: By cloud storage:· 5,000 GB -> $8,500· 1,000 GB -> $2,400· 500GB -> $1,300· 250GB -> $750Key features: Acronis Backup Service solves your business data protection challenges with a complete and easy-to-manage service that backs up any data from any source and recovers to any destination or system. More info.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
Sony has announced its new flagship smartphone, the Xperia Z4, that will ship in summer in the Japanese market.The device is clearly meant for global markets as well, since it supports a number of languages besides Japanese, including English, Chinese and some European languages.The move by Sony comes amid reports that the company was planning to scale down or even pull out of its smartphone business.The phone, which is powered by the Qualcomm Snapdragon 810 processor, has a display of 5.2 inches at 1920 X 1080 pixel resolution like its predecessor, the Xperia Z3, and will run Android 5.0 operating system. The Snapdragon 810 processor features 64-bit computing on eight CPU cores.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
Apple’s confirmed-but-not-confirmed acquisition this past week of Israeli camera maker LinX has iPhone 7 watchers wishing, begging and hoping that the next great smartphone will incorporate advanced photo-taking technologies.
Neither Apple nor LinX is confirming the buyout, estimated at $20 million by the Wall Street Journal, although Apple did give its standard response that it does sometimes acquire small companies and is not compelled to let the public know.
Assuming this deal is real, Apple watchers have begun slobbering all over themselves in anticipation of improved camera features for the next iPhone. After all, the iPhone is one of the world’s most popular cameras already, and is Number 1 on photo-sharing site Flickr.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
Largely considered one of the best TV commercials to ever hit the air, Apple's award-winning "1984" ad is ripe for parody, even in 2015.Putting that thought into practice, Ben & Jerry's today rolled out a new commercial for its upcoming BRRR-ito product. As the name implies, think ice cream delightfully wrapped up in a waffle cone shell, a'la a standard burrito.To help get the word out, Ben and Jerry's new commercial liberally borrows quite a few directorial cues from Apple's "1984" ad, resulting in an all around great and super creative advert.Check it out below.
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The U.S. Federal Communications Commission has approved what some commissioners called a "historic" plan to allow private mobile broadband services to share spectrum with incumbent military users.The FCC voted Friday to approve its so-called Citizens Broadband Radio Service (CBRS) plan to open up wireless frequencies from 3550MHz to 3700MHz to new users, including new devices that could use the spectrum like current devices use Wi-Fi.MORE ON NETWORK WORLD: The 700MHZ spectrum: Who owns what?
Commercial access to the spectrum may still be years away, and the FCC has several sticky issues it needs to resolve, including questions about the best ways to limit inference between users in the band. But with little new spectrum available to satisfy skyrocketing demand for mobile data services, some commissioners hailed the spectrum-sharing plan as a new model for dealing with a spectrum shortage.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
The Samsung Galaxy S6 is now the benchmark for high-end smartphones running Android, but there are lots of challengers, including the new P8 from Huawei Technologies.The two smartphone vendors have had many of the same goals when building their respective smartphones, including improving the looks and the cameras. But there are still differences that will likely sway you one way or the other. Here’s a spec comparison between the phones:DesignA more premium design has been a common theme for this year’s launches of high-end smartphones. In this regard, both Huawei and Samsung have succeeded. The P8 has a metal unibody design and the Galaxy S6 combines a metal frame with a glass back. They are both good-looking devices, but neither design is very original. The P8 looks a little bland because Huawei doesn’t put its logo on the front.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
For the past eight years, the iPhone has been the innovator. Whether we’re talking about hardware breakthroughs, software solutions, or just plain good looks, the iPhone has always taken the lead, ushering in the latest technologies and design shifts before any other device: the Retina screen, Siri, Lightning, Touch ID, Apple Pay—even the new MacBook’s shiny gold case owes a debt to the iPhone 5s.MORE: 10 mobile startups to watch
For the first time since its debut, the iPhone isn’t the most cutting-edge piece of technology in Apple’s lineup. While Apple Watch borrowed some of the iPhone 6’s style and smarts, it also brings a host of new features and technologies made possible by the uniqueness of the device. So while I wouldn’t expect the next iPhone to sport a Digital Crown or a dedicated Friends button, there are still plenty of tricks it can learn from the new kid on the block.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
Researchers at MIT have come up with a novel way to interact with wireless devices – a miniaturized trackpad so small that it can be stuck onto a user’s thumbnail.NailO, as the device is called, is the brainchild of media arts and sciences grad student Cindy Hsin-Liu Kao, a native of Taiwan, who came up with the idea when she couldn’t find the nail art stickers popular in that country in the U.S. She called the device “unobtrusive.”+ALSO ON NETWORK WORLD: Fave Raves: 34 tech pros share favorite IT products + Techiest college commencement speakers of 2015+To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
Instagram is clarifying its rules around sexual, illegal and other inappropriate content, including posts involving revenge porn.The site now expressly forbids users from threatening to post intimate images of others, as well as sexual content involving minors, the service said in its updated policies on Thursday. More broadly, photos showing sexual intercourse, genitals, and close-ups of fully-nude buttocks aren’t allowed, Instagram says.For safety reasons, Instagram may also remove images that show nude or partially nude children, the company said.Instagram previously had a ban on nude images and other content like photos depicting extreme violence or gore. But as the Facebook-owned company has grown, it’s now clarifying its rules, aiming to keep its app friendly for a general audience. Instagram, which Facebook bought for US$1 billion in 2012, now has more than 300 million users who log in monthly.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here