Good news for us cord cutters out there: the Verge reported today that the FCC has just offered a proposal which would give companies the ability to license traditionally broadcast television based shows for streaming on the internet.
This proposal would be excellent for consumers, because it would mean generally lower monthly bills, and also only paying for shows that you actually want to watch. And it likely would lead to more competitive pricing from cable companies as well, which is never a bad thing.
This could also mean that we will actually see the long rumored Apple Television, rather than just the current set top box iteration. Google appears to have been prepping for a future with this passed proposal, based on an app seen for Android TV.
Are you excited for this as I am? Let me know what you think in the comments.
Finally, a developer is actually trying to do something useful with the notification center widgets in iOS 8.
Waze just released an update that includes a widget which can be added to the "today" view of the notification panel in iOS 8. The widget will show estimated travel time to two different locations, which are pre-set as "home" and "work." The widget is also a quick trigger to launch into directions to either location.
Waze is a mapping service which uses crowd-sourced routes and live, crowd-sourced traffic information. It's always played second fiddle to Google Maps and Apple Maps, but it's still a useful service.
This is a pretty cool use of the today view, but Waze definitely borrowed this feature from Google Now.
Google Now has been displaying cards with directions to frequent locations since its inception, and this predictive information is a big part of what made it unique and useful.
But hey, I'm not complaining. Useful features are useful.
I just think that it's interesting that widgets have been on Android for a years, and there has been an incredible demand for them by consumers, yet developers seem slow to really adopt them. I mean, how many truly useful widgets have you actually found on iOS? To me, it seems like iOS 8 is one of the slowest adopted iOS versions by developers.
Are you using Waze? Will you try it out now that it has a cool widget? Are you an Android user still laughing at iPhone users who are thrilled about finally getting widgets? Let me know what you think in the comments.
OnePlus is the OEM behind the One, which is a relatively cheap off contract phone running Cyanogenmod 11s on flagship level specs that has been a huge hit in the Android geek community recently. The phone started sales on an invite system, meaning that not everyone who wanted the phone were able to purchase it. There have been other issues associated with the phone, but that's another post for another day.
The first bit of good news is that the OnePlus One will be available for purchase by anyone, with or without an invite, "while supplies last" according to OnePlus' official website. This is about 5 months too late, but at least they've finally gotten around to letting people buy their phone. Do note, though, that this is clearly stated as "while supplies last" so I recommend buying a device as soon as you can if you're interested. I have a feeling that the supply isn't huge.
The thing about OnePlus and the OnePlus One is that the phone is being sold for so cheap ($300 for the base model off contract, which is less than half of the average flagship phone off contract) that OnePlus is essentially making no money on the sales of their devices (although, I mean, I'm sure they're making some money...). This is problematic for a business, since the whole point of a business is to make money, and it needs money to survive.
Part of OnePlus' strategy to make money, then, is to sell themes and other software to OnePlus One owners. But that can only take in so much money at $1-2 per download on an extremely limited user base.
OnePlus had initially planned to sell back cover replacements for the phone, but it now appears that that plan has been scrapped, and that the company is focusing on back covers for the next generation of their phone.
So how else is OnePlus going to make money, you ask? Well, we're seeing the strategy unfold now, and it looks like accessory sales are the name of the game.
As reported by AndroidAndMe.com, OnePlus announced today a portable external battery pack made to match the two existing OnePlus One models, those being the "silk white" and "sandstone black" models. They appropriately call the product the OnePlus Power Bank. The battery pack carries a charge of 10,000 mAh, which is more than enough to give any modern smartphone at least two charges.
Now, battery packs aren't new by any means, and while I am a sucker for matching items, I wouldn't buy a new battery pack just to match my phone. But the real beauty of this battery pack is that it's dirt cheap compared to the competition. OnePlus has announced the price as $14.99. That's an incredible deal if you've ever looked into purchasing external rechargeable battery packs on Amazon.
But, of course, the usual OnePlus comes back, and this product isn't yet available for purchase. AndroidAndMe.com reports that OnePlus will have the power banks available "soon." However, as we've seen with the One, "soon" might mean a couple months.
Are you excited for this ultra cheap battery pack? Are you buying the OnePlus One as you read this? Do you hate OnePlus as a company? Personally, I'm really looking forward to this battery pack actually hitting the market, but I'm not buying a One, because it isn't supported by my carrier.
Let me know what you think in the comments.
Apple Pay uses a specific codec of NFC which only allows transmission to the NFC reader, not from it. This allows iPhones to send payment information, but they cannot receive anything back from the merchant.
This is great for the consumer, because you don't end up getting annoying ad pop ups after making a payment, but it's not good for the business, which benefits from their advertisements spreading.
Also not beneficial to businesses is that Apple Pay doesn't support loyalty cards or programs, which businesses also rely on.
Other proposed services do support loyalty programs and point-of-sale advertisements. This is the reason why we're seeing companies like Walmart support services like CurrentC, despite the service being inferior, and not desired by customers.
What businesses will have to come to terms with, though, is that if Apple Pay catches on with consumers, businesses will lose customers if they don't support the technology. And Apple Pay will gain mainstream support once word of its ease of use spreads, and people are able to get phone upgrades.
Do you find the fact that businesses don't care about a good experience annoying? Let me know what you think in the comments.
That's right, as of right now, you can download Hearthstone from the Google Play Store to your Android tablet. The game is free to play, and offers in-app purchases. Let the downloading ensue.
There is talk that the game may come out for phones (Android and iOS) as well, being that current phone hardware is more than up to the challenge. I'm personally curious as to how they plan on implementing the game on a phone screen. I'm also curious as to whether or not anyone would want to play the game on their phone.
If you haven't heard of Hearthstone, it's an electronic trading card game based loosely on the mechanics of Magic the Gathering. It's been simplified from Magic's physical card game roots, but it retains all of the fun play-ability and strategy of the inspiration.
The game has been available on PC for over a year now in beta form and full release, and has been on iPad for a little less than a year. One of my friends was in on the beta, and he actually got me hooked on the concept. It's really quite addicting.
It's sad that in 2014 we still see Android launches lag behind iOS launches, but hopefully Lollipop and Google's recent developer focused efforts can remedy this.
That's right, you read that title correctly: you can get the first installment in Peter Jackson's The Lord of the Rings trilogy today on Google Play.
Click the link above to get to the page on Google Play.
Thanks to Android Authority for the heads up. Google also gave a heads up on their Google Play Google+ page, but I saw it first from Android Authority. Definitely make sure to check out Android Authority's site if you appreciated this tip. They have a lot of quality Android (duh) content.
Let me know what you think about the movie, the series, and Peter Jackson's rendition of Tolkien's classics in the comments below.
So, remember my post about how Beats Studio headphones are actually pretty good, even if they aren't the right fit for a true studio setting, as their name might imply? If not, it's linked above for your perusing.
In any case, while doing my normal YouTube watching routine, I happened upon this video, embedded below, which is I think worth your watching. The hosts of the show take to the streets and do blind and non-blind listening tests with random people.
It would seem as though the hosts expected people to like the Beats when they saw what headphones they were wearing, but dislike them in the blind test.
What they actually found? It turns out that in blind tests, people generally preferred the Beats headphones, while in the non-blind test they preferred the other headphones.
Now, in interest of full disclosure, the alternative headphones used, made by Philips, are not the model of perfect sound accepted by the audiophile community, or anything. They simply offer a relatively flat, studio sound, and are designed for mobile use and fashion. Because of this, they are reasonably similar to the Beats headphones, with the main differences being brand and sound signature.
The hosts want to chalk this up to the noise cancelling of the Beats headphones. While noise cancelling is certainly a factor for the average person, I think there are other factors to account for.
For one thing, the people in the test used their own audio sources, so this creates two different cases in which the Beats headphones would offer the "better" sound.
The first case is the obvious one, which is that the subjects chose to listen to pop or rap music. This isn't a far stretch, being that hip-hop/rap and pop make up nearly all of the modern top 40 music, so there's a statistically high chance that the subjects would be listening to that.
The second case is less obvious, but no less important. The subjects were very unlikely to be in possession of well-recorded lossless files, and were not using a high quality audio interface. They were likely playing lossy .mp3 files or streaming music at low bit-rate. More importantly, they were likely listening to modern music, which is increasingly mixed in compressed resolution, so that even lossless files do not sound "good" on high quality audio interfaces. The sound signature of the Beats headphones actually improves the sound of these low quality files by not pointing out the harshness like a flat, studio headphone does.
A final factor I would consider is the changing sound signature taste in America. Beats joined the subwoofer movement which began in cars (yes, that's right, Beats did not start the bass-head revolution) and brought it into pop culture. Because of this, many people expect more bass out of headphones, and bass is the defining criteria of "good" audio products.
These factors explain why people chose the Beats headphones as sounding better when they were blindfolded, but it doesn't explain why they thought the better headphones were the non-Beats alternative.
The reason behind this is likely that as much as pop culture pushes the Beats brand, pop culture also pushes that Beats sound like garbage. While this may have been true for the first generation Beats Studio headphones, the most recent Beats products have radically different sound signatures, and no longer sound "bad." The problem is, pop culture hasn't caught up with that change, because it's not easy to change the minds of the masses after they've formed an opinion. Beats have been equated with bad sound, and that's not going to be changed easily.
So, with this video in mind, are you willing to give Beats another shot? Do you own a pair of the new Studio or Solo 2 Beats headphones and take a lot of flack and have a hard time convincing people that they actually sound okay? Let me know in the comments.
Good news for us cord cutters out there: the Verge reported today that the FCC has just offered a proposal which would give companies the ability to license traditionally broadcast television based shows for streaming on the internet.
