WebProNews

Tag: OS

  • Facebook Home Looks to Be on Its Last Legs

    Facebook Home isn’t quite dead yet. You can still download it in the Google Play Store. Facebook hasn’t made any official announcements about abandoning Home.

    But according to a report from The New York Times, Facebook Home is on its last legs.

    Sources tell the Times’ Bits blog that Facebook has disbanded the crew of engineers responsible for working on Home.

    Facebook Home was launched at a big press event a little over a year ago. Described as a “mobile experience that puts your friends at the heart of your phone,” Home is basically Facebook’s attempt to take over your Android device. Home is an OS-lite, an app suite that pretty much turns any phone into a “Facebook Phone” by putting a constant stream of Facebook content front-and-center on your smartphone’s homescreen.

    Despite the initial fanfare and strong download figures, Facebook Home suffered from very poor reviews. By the time Facebook Home hit 500,000 installs, over half the reviews were of the dreaded one-star variety. Shortly after its launch, the first phone built with Facebook Home already pre-installed was price-cut and then faded into oblivion.

    It was clear, pretty early on, that Facebook Home wasn’t poised to take over anything.

    To be fair, the team responsible for Facebook Home hasn’t really been working hard to push the software onto more devices. The last update Facebook Home received was way back in January.

    Facebook isn’t afraid to kill poorly-performing apps, so if Home gets the official ax sometime in the near future, nobody should be all that surprised.

  • Android May be Too Much For Low-Priced Smartphones

    As the high-end smartphone market begins to be locked up by Apple, Samsung, LG, and others, smartphone manufacturers are now looking to the low-end market segment for growth in the industry. In particular, growing demand for low-priced smartphones is predicted to grow rapidly in countries such as China, Brazil, and India.

    However, a new report from DigiTimes Research predicts that the growth in low-end smartphones may loosen Android’s iron grip on the global smartphone market. The report states that newer versions of Android may not be suitable for the low-end hardware that will go into coming entry-level smartphones.

    Though consumers may want the benefits of Android Jelly Bean, this may limit how low-cost manufacturers can go with their hardware choices. Older versions of Android, which could easily run on low-end hardware, may not have the features consumers are looking for.

    The report also states that manufacturers are now considering alternative smartphone operating systems to even further decrease hardware specs. Platforms such as the new FireFox OS and Tizen are now being evaluated. DigiTimes also stated that Apple’s iOS may have less of a problem running on entry-level iPhones, which are expected to be announced next month.

    (via DigiTimes)

  • Samsung Reportedly Slowing Development on OS Tizen

    Samsung Reportedly Slowing Development on OS Tizen

    Last year, Samsung teamed up with Intel and the Linux Foundation to develop Tizen, and open-source operating system for mobile devices. Tizen is one of a few new operating systems (including Firefox OS) to compete with Android for the non-iOS smartphone market. Now, it appears that Samsung may have softened on ditching Android in favor of Tizen.

    DigiTimes today reported that Samsung has “slowed down” its development of Tizen. The report’s unnamed “industry sources” stated that Samsung is purposely delaying the development of Tizen, possibly due to competition in the Android market. Samsung’s abandonment of Android could, the report’s sources say, open up the Android market for Samsung competitors such as HTC, LG, and Sony. Android is, by far, the most popular mobile OS in the world. Samsung could see the failure of platforms such as WebOS and BlackBerry 10 as warnings against pioneering new operating systems.

    Samsung earlier this month delayed the launch of its first Tizen smartphone. The delay was reportedly due to issues with the OS’s app store.

    Samsung CEO JK Shin last week praised Tizen, saying that the OS will be in more than just mobile devices. Samsung envisions Tizen powering user interfaces for cars, bank machines, and point-of-sale devices.

    (via DigiTimes)

  • Is Facebook About to Reveal the Mythical Facebook Phone?

    Facebook has just sent out press invites for an event at their Menlo Park HQ on Thursday, April 4th. The invites, in true Facebook fashion, are pretty vague. All they say is “Come See Our New Home on Android.”

    Is Facebook working on a new Android-based OS? Is this about that long-rumored Facebook phone?

    Well, yes and yes, according to one report.

    TechCrunch is reporting that Facebook will unveil a modified Android OS built to heavily incorporate Facebook, and that it may come to a new HTC device.

    This is not a totally new OS we’re talking about here. Apparently, it will simply be an Android tweak that has a bunch of Facebook functionality. TechCrunch describes it as “Facebook’s integration with iOS 6, but on steroids.”

    The report indicates that it could be called “Facebook Home,” which you may be able to guess would sport a Facebook-themed home screen. Maybe your news feed stories built in, maybe your messages, maybe any other aspect of Facebook that you want to greet you in the morning.

    Is this that mythical Facebook Phone that we’ve been hearing about off and on for a couple of years? You may remember that rumors emerged back in April of 2012 that Facebook and HTC were working to develop a Facebook Phone. Similar reports emerged a few months later, stating that Facebook would debut a modified Android OS centered around their service on an HTC handset.

    That report suggested such a product would surface mid-2013. Hm.

    But the reports of a possible Facebook phone have been shut down at every turn, even by CEO Mark Zuckerberg himself. Speaking just two months ago, here’s what he had to say about it:

    “We’re not going to build a phone. It’s not the right strategy for us to build one integrated system…Let’s say we sell 10 million units — that would be 1 percent of users. Who cares for us?”

    This newest report sure sounds a lot like that mythical Facebook Phone. Maybe not the Facebook Phone of yore, but at least a device that runs a Facebook-centric OS. We’ll see what goes down next Thursday.

  • Windows 8 Upgrade Prices Going Up Tomorrow

    Windows 8 isn’t being adopted by PC users in the numbers Microsoft had hoped. Though the company has sold 60 million Windows 8 licenses, the new OS still holds a marginal share of the desktop OS market, while Windows 7 and XP make up over 84% of the market.

    Normally when software (or hardware, for that matter) isn’t selling is the time when most companies consider a price cut to match the low demand for the product. Microsoft isn’t most companies.

    Starting tomorrow, Microsoft will be increasing the price of Windows 8 upgrades, giving customers another reason not to upgrade.

    Since the release of Windows 8 in October, Microsoft has been selling Windows 8 Pro upgrades at the “special price” of $40. Starting February 1, an upgrade to Windows 8 Pro will cost PC users $200. Even the upgrade to the normal Windows 8 edition will cost $120. Students with a .edu email address will be able to buy the Windows 8 Pro upgrade for $70.

    Microsoft has also been selling the “Pro Pack,” which upgrades regular Windows 8 to Windows 8 Pro, for $70. That upgrade will cost $100 tomorrow. Also, the Windows Media Center upgrade pack that is currently being given away for free to anyone with Windows 8 Pro will cost $10 tomorrow.

    Microsoft hasn’t commented on whether prices for stand-alone versions of Windows 8 will be increasing in price tomorrow. If not, that would mean that simply buying a copy of Windows 8 OEM for $140 (or regular the regular Windows 8 OEM for $100) would be far less expensive than upgrading from Windows 7.

  • Facebook Allows Advertisers to Target by OS, Device

    If your business makes trendy iPad covers, it would make sense that you spend most of your advertising dollars on customers with iPads, right? Or maybe market research has shown that your restaurant is really popular with Android users, but not iPhone users. In these scenarios, you need specific ad targeting on mobile devices. Luckily for you, Facebook has quietly rolled this out in the past couple of weeks.

    According to TechCrunch, the new targeting options first appeared as part of Facebook’s final launch of their mobile app install ads to all developers. These ads allow app devs to promote their apps to more users within their news feeds. Apparently, Facebook realized that developers needed to be able to target specific mobile OS with their advertising (no use targeting iPhone users if you made an Android app).

    So the company introduced these new OS and device targeting options. And although they seem to be originally slated for app developer use, other types of marketers can definitely take advantage of the new categories.

    As of right now, the new placement options for mobile ads include iOS or Android – and iOS is broken down into the iPhone, iPad, and iPod. TechCrunch notes that these options are similar to “broad category” targeting already available to advertisers, but differ because they allow advertisers to get specific on exactly where their ads manifest.

    More specific advertising for mobile ad customers – not the first step in this direction and definitely not the last, especially from a company that is trying to court these types of advertisers at every turn. What do you think? Could this type of device targeting make a difference in the success of your ads?

  • Anonymous Operating System: Real or Fake?

    Anonymous Operating System: Real or Fake?

    Active Anonymous twitter accounts are now tweeting that the Anonymous Operating System is a fake.

    @anonops
    AnonOps    The Anon OS is fake it is wrapped in trojans. RT 12 hours ago via TweetDeck ·  Reply ·  Retweet ·  Favorite · powered by @socialditto

    The ubuntu based OS has already been downloaded over 25,000 times in four days. Although the download site has an overall positive score, with 40 recommends, a user notes in the reviews that the OS provides no source code, pointing to a fake.

    A Tumblr account was set up for the purpose of the release. The creator, claiming to be apart of anonymous, has this to say on an “about us” page.

    Q – Who created Anonymous-OS Live?
    A – Anonymous-OS created by Anonymous!
    Q – Is it safe to use Anonymous-OS?
    A – Yes it is 100% safe. You can use Anonymous-OS as safe as you can use any Linux distro.

    Another anonymous tweet alludes to a recent attack that placed the infamous Zeus Trojan on a program Anonymous hackers use to carry out DDoS attacks.

    @YourAnonNews
    Anonymous    Seeing lots of news about just-released purported “Anonymous OS.” BE CAREFUL! Remember the Zeus Trojan incident w/Slowloris recently! 12 hours ago via web ·  Reply ·  Retweet ·  Favorite · powered by @socialditto

    The creator responded with this post on the Anonymous-OS tumblr thread.

    The #anonops on their twitter account say “That Anonymous-OS is wrapped in trojans.”
    Please people… in our world, in Linux and opensource world, there is not virus.

    If any user believe that Anonymous-OS “is wrapped in trojans” or “backdoored OS by any Law enforcement Company or Hacker” please don’t download it!

    But don’t mislead the world that Linux is dangerous and has trojans!

    Real or fake, it’s safe to say that it’s not worth the risk in downloading.

    @RepDanGordon
    Rep. Dan Gordon    #Anon isn’t a criminal organization. Those who say so, r intellectually lazy to the point of negligence or duplicity. https://t.co/JD8C1fhz 1 day ago via web ·  Reply ·  Retweet ·  Favorite · powered by @socialditto

  • Ice Cream Sandwich To Galaxy Devices In Early 2012, Says Samsung

    Now that the Samsung Galaxy Nexus has been released as the first smartphone pre-installed with the new Android operating system, all the attention now turns to when other devices might be getting a yummy Ice Cream Sandwich.

    If you’re looking for news on other Samsung devices, look no further. The company has announced that a fairly lengthy list of Galaxy devices will be receiving the ICS upgrade soon:


    Samsung Electronics plan to provide the Android 4.0 Ice Cream Sandwich update for GALAXY devices. The platform update for GALAXY S II and GALAXY Note will start in the first quarter 2012, and other GALAXY devices will soon follow.

    The ICS-upgradable devices are the GALAXY S II, GALAXY S II LTE, GALAXY Note, GALAXY R, GALAXY Tab 10.1, GALAXY Tab 8.9, GALAXY Tab 7.7, and GALAXY Tab 7.0 Plus.

    Samsung adds that they will make separate announcements for each device when specific timeframes becomes available.

    So it’s not exactly a bunch of specific dates, but users now know that they only have to wait a few more months to get the new OS for their existing Samsung smartphones and tablets.

    Ice Cream Sandwich sports a brand new UI as wells as NFC capabilities and Face Unlock functionality. Are you excited to install ICS on your device? Let us know in the comments.

  • VLC Media Player Coming to Android?

    While the Android environment does support various types of media files, one of the knocks on the OS is it’s not easy to watch movies on. Issues with media conversion and a lack of playback control has hamstrung the Android operating system, something an article from 2008 demonstrates.

    When it comes to supporting various media files, the VLC Media Player is a man among boys, offering one of the most thorough levels of media support, thanks to multitude of codecs VLC includes in its media player. With that in mind, an effort to bring the VLC Media Player’s robust level of file to the Android environment is underway, as discussed in an article by Geek.com. According to Geek.com, developer Austen Dicken is fast at work on adopting VLC for the Android operating system, and if successful, it will make the device one of the more powerful media players in the mobile industry:

    Austen describes his work on VLC for Android to be pre-alpha at this point in time, but he is still able to show some impressive results regarding basic functionality. In its current form, VLC for Android is actually two separate programs, one for the two different processor types currently supported by Android.

    While the VLC Android app is not ready for prime time as of yet, the Geek.com article discusses their hands-on experience with the fledgling application, and the early impressions are very good:

    For a pre-alpha, the app has been faster and more stable than any other video player I have used on Android. On top of this, it’s free and has played every file I have thrown at it so far.

    That’s about as glowing of an alpha test response as you can get. Over at Austen’s blog, he shares some details about the development process:

    I DID NOT WRITE THE SOURCE FOR VLC-Android.
    It was written by the VideoLAN dev team. I simply compiled it based on their wiki and posted the binaries for convenience. I never made any claim that I had contributed any code to this project and stated in the original post that I pulled from their GIT repo and followed their wiki instructions. Please don’t falsely attribute work that others have spent so much time on.

    Apparently, credit was given to Austen where it wasn’t due, and he made sure to correct that line of thinking by pointing to the VLC development team. Austen also indicates the app is “NOT ANYWHERE NEAR RELEASE,” although if the hands-on is correct, what Austen has, even though it’s not ready for mass consumption, is already better than the other media players offered by Android’s apps.

    With that in mind, Android geeks everywhere should be supporting Austen as much as they can, especially those who fancy their mobile device as a one-stop shop for entertainment, including watching movies and videos.