7 Days in News (03-10-2012)

1. Minority Report is the future!
Mind-blowing hand-controlled computing room from Oblong Industries. This is worth the watch.

The guy behind it was the tech mind behind Minority Report. Yet another piece of that future arrives here.

This is cool stuff. John Underkoffler, chief scientist, Oblong Industries, was the tech advice behind the film "Minority Report" and then he built his own company to make that science fiction real. Here he shows me his latest work which is, indeed, mind blowing. This is part I, in Part II, you'll see a new conference room that Oblong has built using these technologies.



2. Playstations new model
The new PS3 model is out now!



3. Ubuntu and Amazon Make Uneasy Bedfellows
Well it's been another tempestuous week here in the Linux blogosphere, rounding out a month that never ran short on controversy, to put it mildly. The topic du jour this time? None other than Canonical's decision to integrate Amazon results into searches done through the Dash on Ubuntu's Unity desktop. In fact, the rowdy Slashdot masses had to get riled up not just once but twice -- the second following Mark Shuttleworth's calm explanation -- before Canonical finally announced a kill switch.

4. Gnome 3.6 Released
The GNOME Project is proud to present GNOME 3.6, the third update to the 3.x series. This latest version of GNOME 3 includes a number of new features and enhancements, as well as many bug fixes and minor improvements. Together, they represent a significant upgrade to the GNOME 3 user experience.

Andreas Nilsson, President of the GNOME Foundation, said: “The GNOME Foundation is proud to present this latest GNOME release, and I would like to congratulate the GNOME community on its achievement.” He described the release as “an important milestone in our mission to bring a free and open computing environment to everyone.”

5. Mobile-friendly sites turn visitors into customers
The following post originally appeared on the Google Mobile Ads Blog.

In this world of constant connectivity, consumers expect to find the information that they want, when they want it - especially when they’re on the go. We know that this applies to their web browsing experiences on mobile, so we took a deeper look at users’ expectations and reactions towards their site experiences on mobile. Most interestingly, 61% of people said that they’d quickly move onto another site if they didn’t find what they were looking for right away on a mobile site. The bottom line: Without a mobile-friendly site you’ll be driving users to your competition. In fact, 67% of users are more likely to buy from a mobile-friendly site, so if that site’s not yours, you’ll be missing out in a big way.

 

Discover these and more findings from, What Users Want Most From Mobile Sites Today, a study from Google (conducted by Sterling Research and SmithGeiger, independent market research firms). The report surveyed 1,088 US adult smartphone Internet users in July 2012.

The problem (and opportunity) is big...
While nearly 75% of users prefer a mobile-friendly site, 96% of consumers say they’ve encountered sites that were clearly not designed for mobile devices. This is both a big problem and a big opportunity for companies seeking to engage with mobile users.

Mobile-friendly sites turn users into customers
The fastest path to mobile customers is through a mobile-friendly site. If your site offers a great mobile experience, users are more likely to make a purchase.
  • When they visited a mobile-friendly site, 74% of people say they’re more likely to return to that site in the future
  • 67% of mobile users say that when they visit a mobile-friendly site, they’re more likely to buy a site’s product or service
Not having a mobile-friendly site helps your competitors
A great mobile site experience is becoming increasingly important, and users will keep looking for a mobile-friendly site until they find one that works for them. That means your competitors will benefit if your site falls down on the job (and vice versa).
  • 61% of users said that if they didn’t find what they were looking for right away on a mobile site, they’d quickly move on to another site
  • 79% of people who don’t like what they find on one site will go back and search for another site
  • 50% of people said that even if they like a business, they will use them less often if the website isn't mobile-friendly
Non-mobile friendly sites can hurt a company’s reputation
It turns out that you can lose more than the sale with a bad mobile experience. A site that’s not designed for mobile can leave users feeling downright frustrated, and these negative reactions translate directly to the brands themselves.
  • 48% of users say they feel frustrated and annoyed when they get to a site that’s not mobile-friendly
  • 36% said they felt like they’ve wasted their time by visiting those sites
  • 52% of users said that a bad mobile experience made them less likely to engage with a company
  • 48% said that if a site didn’t work well on their smartphones, it made them feel like the company didn’t care about their business
Takeaways
While the research confirms what we already suspected -- that mobile users actively seek out and prefer to engage with mobile-friendly sites -- it’s a sobering reminder of just how quickly and deeply users attitudes about companies can be shaped by mobile site experiences. Having a great mobile site is no longer just about making a few more sales. It’s become a critical component of building strong brands, nurturing lasting customer relationships, and making mobile work for you.

6. A Week With the iPhone 5: A Familiar Alien
The most challenging thing about the iPhone 5 is how it feels in your hand -- it's light. Sure, it's just 20 percent lighter than the iPhone 4S, but it's also smaller and bigger at the same time -- 18 percent thinner with 12 percent less overall volume, despite having a longer screen. All of this comes together in a look and feel that starts off feeling like something alien yet it looks familiar. Apple's best products beg to be held, to be touched, and the iPhone 5 is no different.

7. Apple v. Samsung judge ends Galaxy Tab ban, Apple may have to pay $2.6M
The judge in the landmark Apple v. Samsung patent case today ended a three-month-old sales ban on the Samsung Galaxy Tab 10.1, giving Samsung a small victory after its crushing $1 billion loss to Apple.

One of the bright spots for Samsung in last month's verdict was the jury ruling that the Galaxy Tab 10.1 did not infringe a design patent. The tablet did infringe other Apple patents, but not the one that was the basis of a sales ban on the Tab issued on June 26 by US District Court Judge Lucy Koh. Samsung attempted to get the ban overturned after the jury ruling, but it had also previously appealed the June 26 injunction to a higher court. As a result, Koh was unable to overturn the injunction immediately since she no longer had jurisdiction. Jurisdiction was returned to Koh Friday with a US Federal Circuit Court of Appeals ruling allowing her to decide the issue, and she promptly granted Samsung's motion to dissolve the sales ban today (PDF).

Koh dismissed an argument from Apple that the court should wait until post-trial motions are resolved before deciding whether to end the sales ban. "The public has no interest in enjoining a non-infringing product, and thus any market disruption caused by dissolution would be insignificant compared to Samsung's interest in restoring its product to market," Koh wrote today. In addition to granting Samsung's motion to dissolve the injunction, she retained the $2.6 million bond Apple posted as a condition of obtaining the preliminary injunction.

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