WHEN BUYING IN A RETAIL STORE USE THE LATEST IPHONE APP TO COMPARE PRICES INSTANTLY ELSEWHERE

Amazon, a mover & shaker at the very forefront of online retailing in the United States is to make a compelling offer this coming Saturday for one day only – use its smartphone app (Android or Apple app) to compare prices, and they’ll effectively pay you $5 if you walk out of the store.

Certainly an historic move in the evolution of retail sales.

Mobile sales make up around 5% of American retail sales currently, but with the population heading for blanket smart phone penetration, the price comparison app might go mainstream quite quickly from here and retail advertising may never be the same again. Several such apps exist, but none with this level of promotional upbeat effort behind them.

The Price Check by Amazon App is designed to let users compare prices with Amazon.com and its merchants when you are standing in front of a real product in a bricks and mortar store. Products are identified by scanning a barcode, taking a picture, speaking the product name or using text search, then compared to Amazon prices. You can then, of course, purchase the product online if you want.

On Saturday December 10 Amazon is sweetening the deal by giving customers who use the app (with geolocation switched on) a discount of 5 percent (up to $5) if they buy the item they price checked through Amazon (within 24 hours) instead of accepting the price in front of them for the convenience of taking immediate possession of their purchase. The offer is valid for up to three items per customer.

The advantages of getting a customer to use a mobile app are obvious from the point of view of the customer, but in grabbing the lion’s share of attention on a critical shopping day, Amazon’s move seems well calculated.

A mobile app gives online retailers the ability to make a bid on a customer’s patronage at the time- and point-of-sale, inside a competitor’s bricks and mortar. Offers can be made and thresholds established for changing behaviors with incentives, at the same time as creating a marketing intelligence tool par excellence.

The offer could cost the company a lot of money if everyone downloads the app and plays along, though its move establishes it clearly as an online thought leader and with the news coverage likely to be massive. The stunt offers good value for money, particularly when you consider the price comparison app looks set to go mainstream as a new weapon in the war between bricks-and-mortar retailing and online retailing and Amazon will be leading the charge. The knowledge it gains will enable it to discern patterns on the exact deals their bricks and mortar competitors are prepared to do, and react in real time.

For bricks and mortar retailers, this could be a telling blow, and it is a fact that the industry is very aware of:

“The Retail Industry Leaders Association (RILA) reacted to a new smartphone App from Amazon.com that encourages holiday shoppers to use brick and mortar stores as showrooms to then purchase merchandise online from inside the store. Central to this tactic is Amazon’s continued practice of using a pre-internet loophole to avoid state sales tax collection, a move that gives them an unfair competitive advantage over Main Street retailers.” (RILA)

Regardless, it’s going to be worth watching the take-up of the app, as the news of this offer will focus enormous attention on Amazon’s shopping comparison app and its abilities to tell you where you’ll get the best deal.   The app is available at the Apple App Store and Android Market.

This is big! Mobile phone retail purchasing is about to become a significant factor in buying decisions.

Sourced & published by Henry Sapiecha

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NUCLEAR APPS FOR IPHONE

A Japanese company has unveiled a cheap Geiger counter for the iPhone to enable people worried about the Fukushima nuclear accident to check their environment for radiation.

The probe, 14 centimetres long by 5cm wide, connects to the iPhone and the screen displays radiation readings in combination with a special app such as the Geiger Bot.

The device was developed on the initiative of a young researcher who wanted to make a cheap and easy-to-use Geiger counter available following the world’s worst nuclear disaster since Chernobyl.

“Immediately after the disaster triggered by the earthquake and tsunami of March 11 in the northeast of the archipelago, the cheapest Geiger counters cost Y60,000 ($765) and were hard to find,” said Takuma Mori on the origins of the device made by Sanwa Corp.

The first models for iPhones will go on sale in the next few days priced at Y9800 ($124).

Japan has been on alert for the impact of radiation since the devastating tsunami crippled the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant.

Its cooling systems were knocked offline and reactors were sent into meltdown, resulting in the leaking of radiation into the air, oceans and food chain and causing concern among the population.

Radiation hotspots have been discovered in various regions, some of which were unrelated to the nuclear disaster.

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QUICK OVERVIEW ->

What Is Spy Phone Software?

How & why does it work?

How to spy on a cell phone using cell spy phone software?

Have you ever wanted to secretly spy on your spouse’s cell phone due to signs of cheating? Or perhaps you’re worried about your children, and want to monitor their cell phone for evidence of sexual activity or drug abuse?

Now you can, and it’s a lot easier to do than you think. All it takes is for you to purchase spyphone software available from several online cell phone spy vendors. Within minutes of your purchase, you can be reading your suspected cheating spouse’s sms messages, find out who they are calling or who is calling them, know where your children are, listen in on their surroundings or even intercept a live phone conversation.

**It’s worth mentioning that another option is to buy a cell phone with mobile spy software pre-installed for you. These phones are usually referred to as “spyphones” and are sold by many online spy phone vendors. However, watch out for the cost. I’ve seen some of these spyphones selling for $500 – $1,500, and all you are getting is an old cell phone with spy phone software pre-installed.

What is spy phone software?

Used by suspicious spouses who are looking for cheating spouse software, parents who want to monitor the kids, or employers who want to monitor phone usage by their staff, spy phone software such as Flexispy, Mobile Spy, MobiStealth is software built for cell phones that you download into a mobile(cell) phone of the person you want to spy on. Once installed, the software then secretly records all cell phone activity, giving you complete visibility of everything that occurs on the phone. Installation is done via the phone’s web browser, and usually takes anywhere from 10 – 30 minutes, depending on the skill level of the person installing the software.

How does spy phone software work?

After installation, the spy phone software is completely hidden from the user and starts to collect all available data such as SMS Messages, ingoing/outgoing call history, GPS coordinates, photos, videos, GPRS usage, etc. and uploads the collected data to a remote server using 3G, GPRS, or WiFi.

You then simply access the webpage of the spyphone vendor, enter your account details, and then you have full access to all the data collected 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, regardless where you are in the world. You can read all text messages (both incoming and outgoing), know who they are calling or who is calling them, where they were when the call was received, view photos stored on the phone, and more. Once armed with this information, you can use a reverse cell phone look up service and find out the identify of the person calling or sending messages.

Here is an overview of the entire process:

Imagine if you are a wife who suspects her husband is cheating on her . Now you can listen to their conversations, listen in on their surroundings (essentially be a fly on the wall), read all their incoming and outgoing text messages, find out who is calling them and where they actually are when they say, “Honey, I’m at the office.” or if you are a parent worried about their children and want to monitor their sms messages. No more guessing what happens when your loved ones leave the house.

IMPORTANT TIP! You MUST install the spy phone software on the cell phone you want to monitor. There is no way around this. No spy phone vendor on the market sells spy phone software with a remote installation feature. Don’t trust any company that says they offer spy phone software that does not require physical access to the phone. It DOES NOT exist!

Sourced & published by Henry Sapiecha

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??CHECK OUT THE WORDWIDE SMARTPHONE PHOTON 4G

If you frequently travel overseas for business or pleasure, a smartphone with world-roaming capabilities is a good thing to have in your travel kit.

Not only do these phones allow you to stay in touch with friends and family back home, but with their built-in functions and various apps, they can also organize your travel itinerary, provide recommendations for things to do, capture memories, and much more. So which phones make good travel buddies?

Well, first, you’ll need a world phone that supports the four GSM networks (850/900/1800/1900). T-Mobile and AT&T phones already offer this compatibility, but Sprint and Verizon Wireless customers will have to check their carrier’s respective lineup for a handset that offers dual-mode CDMA/GSM technology.

To make it a bit easier for you, below you’ll find a selection of some of the latest and greatest smartphones that will support international networks. You’ll also want to check and sign up for international calling and data plans, so you don’t return home to a shocking cell phone bill. Alternatively, you can purchase an unlocked phone, which isn’t tied to a service provider, so you can insert a prepaid SIM card from a local carrier while overseas to save money. Some of the U.S. carriers will also unlock the SIM (for example, Verizon has a policy where it will unlock the included SIM if you’ve been a customer for more than 60 days and are in good financial standing) so you can do the same.

Our quick guide to world phones provides a more in-depth explanation on the topic and is definitely worth a read if you’re new to the subject, but if you’re simply after some recommendations, head on over to our roundup of the latest world phones.

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The free video calling service

is growing faster than Skype did.

Eric Setton looks at his phone and sees $60 billion in revenue via low-cost video calling. “Smartphones, advanced cell networks, Skype, app stores–this is the best time to have built a new communications platform,” he says. “We’ll be on PCs, tablets, you name it.”

With the aforementioned Skype soon to be bought by Microsoft for $8.5 billion, or ten times 2010 revenue, we’ll forgive Setton for his enthusiasm. In September he and cofounder Uri Raz released an app called Tango, which allows you to make video calls for free. It already has 13 million users in 190 countries and is adding another 1 million every two weeks. Skype, which began offering desktop peer-to-peer video in August 2003, achieved 9.5 million in its first year. Go, mobile world.

Tango calls are good, not great, and can be done with or without looking at yourself as you talk. You can switch from a front to a back camera to show things as you talk. By this summer Tango will likely start charging for enhanced features. Setton won’t say what, but think video voicemail or add-ons like the hearts subscribers could put inside their videos last Valentine’s Day. Those items would show up on a cellphone bill, saving Tango a lot of hassle.

Video calls are hard to do well on a cellular network. The inevitable dropped data packets and congestion show more immediately in video than in voice calls. Developers also have to juggle the requirements of different phone models and the two very different dominant operating systems, Apple iOS and Google Android.

One secret of Tango’s success is clever software. Skype’s so-called peer-to-peer technique involves the trick of distributing data packets to relatively precise ports on the network. Tango has to figure out, during the couple of seconds that a call is dialed and set up, which of several million ports inside a mobile router is the right one. Setton says they have 80% to 85% success and are getting better. During a call the service monitors how fast data are going through the air and adjusts call quality so the video doesn’t cut off when a network’s load changes or someone roams to a new cellular tower.

Tango’s other strength is ubiquity. While Apple’s Facetime video service works only on iPhones, Tango works on iPhones and Android and will be on Microsoft Windows Phone 7 when it is released. Tango arrived functional on 25 phones and now works on some 70 models, including tablets. “We’re getting support requests from the Congo, Botswana,” says Setton, a Ph.D. who serves as chief technical officer. About 55% of Tango users are in the U.S. Korea is the second-largest market, with 2 million users. Not bad for a company funded with only $15 million, most of it from five private investors.

There are lots of applications, but the founders think the biggest market is spontaneous consumer calls. “Shopping, when the kids are doing something cute–the best-use case is close family, the people you talk to when you don’t care what you look like,” Setton says. He figures this group is between 10% and 20% of the worldwide communications market, valued at $600 billion to $700 billion. Hence, $60 billion for Tango–nothing like a startup that thinks big.

Rivals abound, including other startups such as Fring and Jajah. Skype bought a video-sharing service called Qik, which has taken lumps over call quality; Microsoft may do something about that. Android’s video ser vice hasn’t caught on in a big way. Apple’s Facetime, if it hopes to gain share, needs to operate on other phones. “It’s a race right now,” says Setton, “but anybody who tries to start now has to be on the 70 phones we’re doing, plus whatever comes next.”

Sourced & published by Henry Sapiecha

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Your smartphone

spies on you

for Google, Apple

Charles Arthur

April 25, 2011 – 8:08AM

Apple and Google are using smartphones running their software to build gigantic databases for location-based services, according to new research following revelations that iPhones and devices running Android collect location data about owners’ movements.

iPhones and Android smartphones swap data – which does not contain information directly identifying the user or the phone – back and forth with their respective companies.

The news has led some European governments to announce investigations into whether either company is breaking privacy laws.

Samy Kamkar, a hacker and researcher, has shown that Android phones, which run on software written by Google, collect the location data every few seconds and store it in a local file, but also transmit it to Google several times an hour.

This functionality is almost certainly used in any phone that provides mapping services, meaning that similar files will exist in some form on all smartphones, including those from Nokia and BlackBerry-maker RIM. It is not known whether these models synchronise data from the phone to the companies’ servers as well as storing it locally on the handset.

Sources familiar with Google’s systems said the location data was used to help the phones orient themselves by identifying nearby mobile phone masts and wi-fi sources and comparing them with Google’s own database, with which they are synchronised continually. The file is also updated so that if the mobile signal is interrupted – for example when the user is on a train and goes into a tunnel – it will be able to re-establish contact more quickly by knowing which towers are in the vicinity.

Apple and Google are collecting the data, which amounts to an international map of the locations and unique identities of cell towers and wi-fi networks, to improve targeting of their adverts based around mobile phones.

In a letter to the US congress last July, Apple confirmed it collected the data and said that, in order to be useful, “the databases [of tower and network locations] must be updated continuously”.

The value of location-based services, which feature advertising, is reckoned to be $US2.9bn already and forecast by the research group Gartner to grow to $US8.3bn by 2014.

In 2009, Google itself pointed to the value for users of having Android phones upload real-time location data to its servers, suggesting it could give “a pretty good picture of live traffic conditions”. It said: “We continuously combine this data and send it back to you for free in the Google Maps traffic layers. It takes almost zero effort on your part – just turn on Google Maps for mobile before starting your car.”

A Google spokesman said Android phones explicitly asked to collect anonymous location data when users turned them on.

Apple iPhones and iPads also ask whether users want to have “location services” turned on, and the iPhone licence has a passage that says Apple “and its partners and licensees” may transmit, collect, maintain, process and use location data, including the real-time geographic location of the iPhone, though it points out that this is anonymised and can be disabled by turning off the “location services” feature.

However, even if users disable location services, the iPhone and Android phones are believed to continue storing locations of cell towers and wi-fi networks in what is known as a “neighbour list”.

Google’s list is limited to the most recent 50 cell masts and 200 wi-fi networks, while Apple’s list is retained for up to a year. Sources close to Apple have suggested the long-term retention may be an error which it will correct in a future software update.

Privacy advocates fear that although the data is anonymised, the Apple data is not encrypted and could be misused by law enforcement or others who wanted to capture information about someone’s movements.

One security researcher, Alex Levinson of Katana Forensics, said on Thursday that US law enforcement had already made use of the location data recorded by the iPhone in investigations.

Some police forces, such as those in Michigan, already carry readers that can copy all the files from a smartphone even if it is protected with a password, and that it has been used on motorists stopped for minor traffic violations. The American Civil Liberties Union says such examination amounts to an “unreasonable search”, which would be illegal in the US.

In Germany, the Bavarian Agency for the Supervision of Data Protection said it would examine whether and why Apple’s devices were capturing the information, and that it had asked Apple for more information.

“If it is true that this information is being collected… without the approval and knowledge of the users, then it is definitely a violation of German privacy law,” Thomas Kranig, the agency’s director, told the New York Times.

Italy and France are expected to do the same. France’s data protection authority suggested that a major source of concern would be over whether Apple transferred any of the data to any commercial partners. “If the information is marketed without the knowledge of the consumer, it is much more serious,” Yann Padova of France’s CNIL said.

The Guardian

Sourced & published by Henry Sapiecha

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IPHONE APP FOR TESTING PULSE RATE

Measure Your Heart Rate Ever wanted to know how fast your heart is beating? It’s never been easier! Use your smartphone’s built-in camera to get an accurate reading almost instantly. Anytime, anywhere. * Authentic Visual Style Beautifully designed, authentic visual interface inspired by real-life medical equipment. Watch as every beat of your heart is drawn on paper and reported on the monochrome LCD screen below. * Interesting Facts Enjoy dozens of interesting, insightful and fun facts about the heart while you measure your pulse. Just don’t get too excited about them, it may interfere with the results… * Authentic Audio Design The stride for authenticity and the attention to detail carry over to the audio department, with convincing sound effects that wouldn’t sound out of place in a hospital. *** Operational Manual Step 1. Power on the device by tapping the START/STOP button. Step 2. Gently place the tip of your index finger over the camera, so that it covers the lens completely. Step 3. The readings will appear after a few seconds. The heart-shaped bars indicate measurement accuracy. Hint: If you are getting wrong readings (or none at all), please try adjusting the position of your finger on the camera lens. Also, please be sure to take measurements in a well-lit environment if your device does not have a torchlight. ******History and Profiles coming soon.****** Recent changes: * Added Droid / Droid X / Droid 2 support * Fixed broken ad overlay * Huge drawing optimization and performance boost * Various small bug fixes

Surced & published by Henry Sapiecha

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Playbook maker

defends

iPad rival

against tough reviews

Hugo Miller

April 18, 2011 – 10:20AM

The RIM PlayBook. Photo: AFP 

Research In Motion co-chief executive officer Jim Balsillie said criticism of the company’s PlayBook tablet computer, which goes on sale next week in the US and in Australia sometime in the second quarter, are misguided because they ignore RIM’s base of BlackBerry faithful.

Technology columnists criticised the 7-inch tablet for its limited number of applications, lack of built-in email and inability to connect to mobile-phone networks – issues that won’t be remedied until new software and further editions of the device are introduced later this year. Some critics suggested RIM rushed an unfinished device to market, a charge Balsillie refutes.

“I don’t think that’s fair,” Balsillie, 50, said in a television interview yesterday on Bloomberg West with Emily Chang. He pointed out that more than 60 million BlackBerry smartphone users can pair their phones and PlayBooks to read email and connect to the internet. “A lot of the people that want this want a secure and free extension of their BlackBerry.”

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Jim Balsillie, co-chief executive officer of Research In Motion, holds up the PlayBook tablet computer during a Bloomberg Television interview in New York. Photo: Bloomberg 

RIM will need those loyal customers to help it come from behind in the tablet market. Apple, which put its first iPad on the market last April, has sold more than 15 million units and Samsung Electronics, Motorola Mobility Holdings and Dell have all introduced tablets already.

While RIM hasn’t forecast how many of the devices it will sell, Balsillie said the opportunity is significant.

“I like our chances for a lot of share,” he said. “We’re very excited about where we are.”

Business market

The iPad accounted for 75 per cent of tablets shipped in the fourth quarter, according to researcher Strategy Analytics. Tablets that use Google’s Android software, including Samsung’s Galaxy Tab and Dell’s Streak, had a 22 per cent share.

RIM’s best chance to win customers is with business users, say investors such as David Eiswert of the T. Rowe Price Global Technology Fund.

“RIM’s got this really good tablet but would a consumer buy anything other than an iPad, given the time it’s been out on the market and all the applications that come with it?” said Eiswert, manager of the Baltimore-based fund, which includes Apple shares and a “small” amount of RIM. “They need to take the PlayBook, install it among their diehard installed base and then push back out to consumers.”

‘Ultraportable’

Co-chief executive officer Mike Lazaridis said RIM expects to distinguish itself in the tablet market the same way it did in mobile phones – through better technology. The PlayBook has security features that appeal to corporate customers and unique extras, such as the ability to let consumers browse the web and run videos simultaneously, he said in an interview last week.

The device, which is smaller than the 9.7-inch iPad, is also designed to be “ultraportable” so it can be more frequently used during the day, he said.

“This is superior,” he said. “It’s far more portable, it’s lighter in your hands, you can hold it for longer.”

RIM didn’t make the decision on size lightly. Todd Wood, vice president of industrial design, and his team studied the optimal proportions for a tablet while Lazaridis weighed what format would offer a screen big enough for watching video and could pack a powerful processor, and remain portable. The inspiration for the final size was decidedly low-tech: the Moleskine leather notebooks used by Pablo Picasso and Ernest Hemingway.

“It’s an iconic form factor,” Wood said in an interview. “There’s the science part of it that led them to 7 inches and we took the human factor side and in the end agreed very quickly.”

Smaller tablets

Consumers have had the chance to buy smaller tablets for months, though sales haven’t threatened the iPad’s dominance. Samsung’s Galaxy Tab, the size of the PlayBook, went on sale in October and had shipped 2 million units by the end of 2010.

“There’s no doubt the PlayBook has a lot of power,” said Michael Gartenberg, an analyst with Gartner in San Jose, California. “The question is whether those things will matter to consumers more than the things that the iPad can do, namely with its breadth and depth of applications.”

Pricing parity

The PlayBook starts at $US499, the same as the least expensive iPad 2 in the US (the least expensive iPad 2 is $579 in Australia). The priciest PlayBook is $US699, while the top- end iPad, which comes with a 3G connection, is $US829 (the top- end iPad is $949 in Australia).

A large installed base of business customers should help RIM sell about 250,000 PlayBooks in its current fiscal quarter which ends in May, and 5.4 million over the fiscal year, predicts Alkesh Shah, an analyst with Evercore Partners Inc.

The device will probably capture 10 per cent of the tablet market by 2015, compared with 47 per cent for the iPad, research firm Gartner predicts. PlayBook sales will be about 29 million devices in 2015, eclipsed by a forecast of about 138 million iPad sales, according to Gartner.

ManuLife Financial, Canada’s largest insurer with about 24,000 employees worldwide, plans to deploy the device across its businesses in North America and Asia. Toronto-based insurer Sun Life Financial is ordering as many as 1000 of the devices to make signing up new policyholders easier. ING Direct, a Canadian unit of ING Groep NV, plans to pilot the PlayBook for its staff. All three companies have said the adaptability of the PlayBook to existing BlackBerry networks, and the tablet’s security features were primary reasons to stick with RIM.

“Any new tablet maker faces an uphill challenge in capturing the attention of the market, but PlayBook has the potential to be meaningfully different,” said Paul Taylor, chief investment officer of BMO Harris Private Banking in Toronto, which holds both RIM and Apple shares.

Bloomberg

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