Apple Said Developing Ad-Skipping as Part of TV Strategy

　　Apple Inc. (AAPL) is developing ad-skipping technology that would let owners of its Apple TV set-top box and future television devices watch shows without commercials, people with knowledge of the matter said.
　　Apple executives have briefed at least two owners of broadcast TV networks and cable channels, as well as some of the biggest U.S. pay-TV systems, said the people, who asked not to be identified because the talks are private. One proposal is for Apple to reimburse programmers for skipped ads, they said.
　　The company is seeking to develop TV products with broader appeal than Apple TV, a set-top device purchased by 13 million consumers, Chief Executive Officer Tim Cook said in May at the D: All Things Digital conference. Apple TV is more appropriate for “hobbyists” than mainstream viewers, he said. Apple continues to work on a “grand vision” to update TV-viewing that remains “much like 10 or 20 years ago,” Cook said.
　　Jessica Lessin, a technology writer, reported on July 15 that Apple was working on the ad-skipping initiative.
　　With advertising accounting for the largest share of their revenue, commercially supported TV networks have resisted skipping technology.
　　Dish Network Corp. (DISH) introduced ad-skipping for broadcast network TV shows with its Hopper TV set-top box in March 2012. 21st Century Fox Inc., Comcast Corp. (CMCSA)’s NBCUniversal and CBS Corp. (CBS) sued, claiming the service will destroy free, over-the-air prime-time TV. Dish sued the networks in New York, seeking a court ruling that it isn’t infringing copyrights.
　　DVR Popularity
　　Almost three-quarters of consumers in a survey cited the ability to skip commercials as a main reason to use a digital video recorder, Google Inc.’s Motorola Mobility unit said in its annual media engagement barometer released on March 19.
　　Apple has also been working to license more content for people to watch via Apple TV. In June, it announced deals to offer apps from Time Warner Inc. (TWX)’s HBO and Walt Disney Co. (DIS)’s ESPN to customers who already receive those channels from cable or satellite pay TV services.
　　The maker of iPhones and iPods is also reaching out to cable services, which buy content from media companies such as Disney. It is nearing a deal with Time Warner Cable Inc. (TWC) that would let subscribers of that cable system watch channels on Apple TV, people have told Bloomberg. The companies plan to announce an agreement within the next few months, those people said earlier.
　　Web Viewing
　　While Apple pitched an ad-skipping feature to Time Warner Cable, the New York-based cable operator isn’t interested in the idea, according to a person familiar with the matter.
　　Accessing content from the Internet on a TV has become common since Apple introduced Apple TV in 2007. According to Leichtman Research Group, 44 percent of U.S. households have a TV set connected to the Internet through a video-game console, Blu-ray player or streaming devices such as Roku Inc. and Apple TV. That’s up from 38 percent a year ago, the researcher said.
　　More competition is coming. Intel Corp. (INTC), the world’s largest chipmaker, plans to begin selling a set-top box with Web-based pay-TV service by the end of the year.
　　Google has also held discussions with media companies about licensing content for an Internet TV service, people with knowledge of the matter said yesterday. The news was reported earlier by Dow Jones.
　　Apple, based in Cupertino, California, was little changed at $430.31 at the close in New York. The stock has fallen 19 percent this year.

Windows says there’s an extremely basic explanation

　　Tablets depending on Microsoft’s Windows eight and Windows RT operating systems have struggled to achieve traction so far and Paul Thurrott with the Supersite for Windows says there’s an extremely basic explanation for this: The first generation of Windows tablets just isn’t really superior. To become clear, Thurrott says that there are several touch screen Windows eight PCs and ultrabooks which can be pretty worthy of users’ time and that shouldn’t be overlooked. But when it comes to pure tablets, he deems that each and every single one is “simply to flawed to recommend” to anyone serious about purchasing one particular.
　　“Looking around my own workplace, that is what I see,” Thurrott explains. “A Surface RT which is attractive and light and gets fantastic battery life but is worthless and frustrating in use due to its horrible performance. A Surface Pro that may be thick and heavy and gets only four.five hours of battery life whilst offering the weird mixture of a little screen having a pretty higher resolution. A Samsung ATIV Intelligent Computer 500T (Clover Trail based) that will be laughable from a performance point of view if it weren’t for that Surface RT. (Truly, it is nonetheless terrible.) That 700T that will not charge anymore unless I plug the energy cord into the tablet itself … which, wait for it, you can not do whilst the keyboard is connected.”
　　Of course, the first round of Android-based tablets were similarly lackluster when compared with Apple’s iPad, so it is not as although Windows eight is doomed as a tablet operating technique. It does recommend, on the other hand, that Microsoft and its OEM partners will have to put a good deal of work into adding better functionality and worth to their tablets, similar to how Nokia has tried to produce Windows Phone 8 look far more cutting-edge together with the inclusion of its industry-best 41-megapixel smartphone camera in the Lumia 1020.
　　Thurrott is optimistic that the next generation of Windows tablets is going to be a major improvement more than the present generation considering the fact that improvements to both hardware and computer software will make the devices additional palatable for customers.

　　“Things are going to obtain better,” he concludes. “Intel’s new generation Core processors, codenamed Haswell, seem to have solved the battery life issue. And Windows eight.1 seems to solve many from the troubles customers have highlighted in Windows eight, like desktop display scaling. Each of those improvements suggest to me that waiting is in order, as Haswell- and Windows eight.1-based tablets are going to be plentiful in just a couple of months.”

iPhone 6 and iPhone 5S rumors: sizes, colors, cheaper plastic option

　　The picture for the iPhone 6, iPhone 5S, or whatever Apple decides to call the seventh generation iPhone is becoming more clear thanks to an increasing array of rumors which overlap each other and are evolving to create a basis of legitimacy. Whether the new device keeps the styling of the iPhone 5 and becomes the iPhone 5S, or moves to a new cosmetic styling and becomes the iPhone 6, is still anyone’s best guess. But regardless of body style, the new iPhone will come in more colors, multiple options, and in some parts of the world will come in a cheap plastic housing instead of its signature bulletproof glass and metal.
　　The screen size and color changes, despite not adding much to the iPhone 6 or iPhone 5S experience for most users, will drive sales significantly if consumer sentiment is any indication. Most people who buy an Android phone over an iPhone claim that “choice” as the determining factor in their buying decision, but then proceed to nearly all purchase the same specific Galaxy model from the same specific vendor. But with Apple offering the iPhone 6 in colors which go beyond black and white, and impractical screen sizes above four inches, those same consumers will view Apple as offering “more choice” even as most of them continue to buy the black four inch model of the new iPhone 6. Consumers, it seems don’t want to make individual choices. They merely want to be able have the option and then not exercise it.
　　It’s a game Apple will have to learn how to play, pointless as it may be, if it wants the iPhone 5S or iPhone 6 to retain the world’s #1 selling smartphone mantle which the iPhone 5 currently holds.Speaking of world sales, the iPhone 6 (or something lesser than the iPhone 6) is rumored to be offered in a low cost model that’s made from the same cheap plastic as the Galaxy. The reason: in the U.S., carriers will sell the iPhone 6 for about two hundred dollars thanks to contract subsidies. But in other nations where contracts and subsidized pricing don’t exist, Apple must sell the iPhone for its full retail price. By making a cheaper iPhone alternative for those nations, Apple has a better shot at competing there. It’s not clear whether the “cheap iPhone” will also be sold as a free-with-contract model in the U.S. alongside the iPhone 6, or will be strictly an overseas affair.

This security evaluate was released weeks once the services

　　Evernote today produced an update for its Home windows Contact software that provides a redesigned hub website page, assistance for its Business merchandise, and two-step verification to its consumers. Even though a transfer that may appear to be slight, the corporate phone calls them important that will help build the “best-looking, native experience” on Home windows equipment.
　　For anyone buyers accessing Evernote on the Home windows Floor, mobile phone, or pill machine, a brand new start display screen is going to be displayed. The corporation suggests that it has positioned all of its core navigation things and account material that a user could possibly want proper on a solitary display screen.

　　The screen has now been sorted into multiple sections, like “create”, which must quickly permit you to develop notes, snapshots, or start off that has a file attachment. Other sections on the screen include things like shortcuts, your latest action, as well as a listing of your notes, notebooks, and tags.
　　Realistically, that is extra of an aesthetic adjust if just about anything. None of these functions are brand-new.
　　Evernote Business is now supported about the Windows Touch app, bringing it to par with its Android and iOS counterparts. Now, Evernote states end users can integrate with their company’s Company Library with the Get Far more section. Within the notebook part about the hub webpage, customers will see not simply their personalized contents, and also office 2010 professional retail these for their company.
　　And lastly, to ensure that person information is properly shielded, Evernote is applying two-step verification. This security evaluate was released weeks once the services endured an unauthorized breach in March, which resulted during the corporation resetting its fifty million-plus users’ passwords. In May possibly, Evernote said that two-step verification might be in the beginning available for its premium and Business enterprise people. So even though Home windows Contact application customers have that attribute, you could not be essentially in a position to employ it.
　　Two-step verification provides a further security stage to logging in to an Evernote account, and ensures that the person logging into Evernote may be the rightful owner of that particular account. The login course of action with two-step verification enabled needs a username, password and one of a kind code which is sent to the user’s cellular telephone, produced because of the Google Authenticator app or printed out via the user in advance.