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Tag: Ping

  • Missing Jet: Third “Ping” Brings New Hope?

    The missing jet, Malaysian Flight MH370, could possibly be closer to being found after a third “ping” was detected on Sunday that could possibly be signals from the plane’s black box, according to AP.

    The first of these pings was heard on Friday, then another on Saturday. All three have been heard in a small precinct in a very large (88,000 square mile) search area.

    The second was heard only about 1.5 miles from the first and heard for about 90 seconds. There were also sightings of white debris floating in the ocean in that same area.

    When the first ping, and even the second, were heard, enthusiasm was cautiously curbed. The pings did have the correct frequency to be a black box signal, which was created to stand out from all ocean marine life, but optimism has been discouraged.

    “This is an important and encouraging lead, but one which I urge you to treat carefully,” stated “retired Australian Air Chief Marshall Angus Houston, who is coordinating the search from Perth, Australia.

    “We have an acoustic event. The job now is to determine the significance of that event. It does not confirm or deny the presence of the aircraft locator on the bottom of the ocean,” Houston said. He was referring to all three transmissions.

    “We are dealing with very deep water, we are dealing with an environment where sometimes you can get false indications. There are lots of noises in the ocean, and sometimes the acoustic equipment can rebound, echo if you like.”

    However, this new signal brings hope to many in the frantic search for the black box as the batteries only last for about a month.

    “We are hopeful but by no means certain,” Australian Prime Minister Tony Abbott said of the detection of the signals. He added, “This is the most difficult search in human history. We need to be very careful about coming to hard and fast conclusions too soon.”

    Image Via YouTube

  • Missing Jet: Ping May Not Be From Plane’s Black Box

    The missing jet mystery continues as a Chinese vessel’s black box detector deployed by the vessel Haixun 01 picked up a “ping” signal on Saturday in the search for the plane’s black box.

    The signal had a frequency of 37.5kHz per second, which is the same as the plane’s black box would emit, but Australian and Chinese authorities admit that there is no conclusive evidence yet that the signal was indeed from MH370’s box, according to Reuters.

    “The characteristics reported (by the Chinese vessel) are consistent with the aircraft black box.”, said Retired Air Chief Marshal Angus Houston, head of the Australian agency that is coordinating the operation.

    “However, there is no confirmation at this stage that the signals and the objects are related to the missing aircraft,” he said. He added that his agency was seeking more information from China.

    The signal was detected at about 25 degrees south latitude and 101 degrees east longitude. However, the search area continues to be a daunting 88,000 square miles and even with dozens of countries sending boats, planes, and jets, it’s a struggle to determine exactly where the plane is located.

    There are two Towed Pinger Locators that are being towed slowly on two ships, one on navy ship HMAS Ocean Shield and one on British hydrographic survey ship HMS Echo, that may be of little use unless the area of the planes location is narrowed down. The speed at which the Towed Pinger Locators have to be pulled and its low range prohibit them from searching large areas quickly.

    “I won’t even call it an area. What we are doing is we are tracking down the best estimate of the course that the aircraft was on,” U.S. Navy Captain Mark Matthews said. “It takes a couple of days on each leg so it’s a slow-going search.”

    Hopefully a stroke of luck will hit soon and they’ll be able to locate the plane’s black boxes before their batteries run out.

    Image Via YouTube

  • Ping Is Officially Shutting Down

    Ping Is Officially Shutting Down

    It’s official. Apple’s Ping is no more. Apple’s iTunes-based “social network,” which was introduced with iTunes 10, is going away as of September 30.

    This isn’t much of a shock. Apple CEO Tim Cook was talking about shutting it down back in May, and a later report indicated Ping would indeed by going away with the next iTunes release, which Apple revealed on Wednesday.

    Apple’s Ping product page is already gone, and just redirects to the iTunes page. 9to5Mac shares this screen shot:

    Ping Going Away

    I guess with all of the new Facebook integration of iOS 6 as well as the Facebook likes that appear in the new iTunes, what’s the point?

    It kind of reminds me of when MySpace just decided to start using Facebook Connect, except that Ping was never popular in the first place.

    More on the new iTunes here.

  • Ping To Be Killed With Next iTunes Update

    Ping To Be Killed With Next iTunes Update

    Late last month at we brought you news that Apple may finally kill off Ping, the failed music-based social network introduced in 2010 with iTunes 10. Speaking at AllThingsD’s D10 Conference, Apple CEO Tim Cook acknowledged that Ping had failed to capture customer attention, and that there was the possibility that Ping would be killed off in a future release of iTunes.

    Well, now it looks like “future” may mean “fall.” According to a report from AllThingsD, the next major release of iTunes will no longer include Ping. That release – probably iTunes 11 – is expected to launch in the fall alongside the new iPhone and iOS 6.

    The loss of Ping does not, of course, mean that Apple is removing itself from the social media space. Quite the opposite, in fact. After all, iOS has had OS-level Twitter integration since iOS 5 launched last fall. OS X is getting Twitter integration with Mountain Lion next month, and Facebook will be coming to iOS 6 (and probably OS X Mountain Lion) in the fall. Along with all that, Apple is bringing the ability to share apps via Twitter and Like them via Facebook to the App Store, and you can bet that before long you’ll be able to do the same with music and movies in the iTunes Store.

    So Apple isn’t exiting social media, it’s just leaving social media to the social media companies while getting rid of its own spectacularly failed attempt to join them. Considering how few people used Ping, and how many use Twitter and Facebook, that’s certainly the right call.

    [Image Credit: Original photo by Warrenski]

  • Tim Cook: Apple May Kill Off Ping

    Tim Cook: Apple May Kill Off Ping

    Speaking to Walt Mossberg and Kara Swisher at last night to kick off AllThingsD’s D10 Conference, Apple CEO Tim Cook revealed that Apple is exploring the possibility of killing Ping.

    Wait, you may be saying, what’s Ping? Considering how little attention Ping has gotten over the last couple of years, you could be forgiven for not knowing what it is. The next time that someone tells you that everything Apple touches turns to gold (or cash, or increased market value, or whatever), you can point to Ping. Launched in 2010 as part of iTunes 10, Ping is Apple’s attempt at its own social network centered on music. Ping promised to let users “[f]ollow your favorite artists and friends to discover the music they’re talking about, listening to, and downloading.”

    Ping

    While it may have seemed like a good idea at the time, Ping was an epic flop, to put it bluntly. The simple fact is that almost nobody used it. During the question and answer portion of last night’s interview, an audience member asked about Ping, and whether Apple would continue to experiment in the social media space. Cook’s reply neatly avoided discussing Ping directly: “Apple doesn’t have to own a social network, but does Apple have to be social? Yes.” He pointed to the integration of Twitter into iOS 5 last year, and into OS X Mountain Lion later this year. Earlier in the talk he suggested that Facebook integration may be coming soon, too.

    Cook wasn’t allowed to get off that easily, though. When asked again about Ping directly he responded that Apple had tried Ping, and the customers just weren’t interested. He said that Apple would look at killing it, though Swisher suggested selling it to Google+.

  • Apple’s Ping Draws a Great Deal of Criticism

    Apple’s Ping social network, which the company launched as part of the new iTunes 10, has drawn a big mix of excitement and criticism. While most seem to agree that the concept beind Ping is a pretty good idea (social network-meets-music-buying) it’s not exactly the seamless experience one might hope for.

    Let’s take a look at some points made around the Blogosphere.

    Erick Schonfeld at TechCrunch says, "The biggest problem I have with Ping is that it lives in iTunes. Not only does it live in iTunes, it is isolated there. iTunes is not social. It is not even on the Web. And Ping doesn’t communicate with any other social networks. I can’t see people’s iTunes Pings in Twitter, Facebook, or anywhere else. While Ping does make iTunes itself more social, the problem is that I don’t live in iTunes. It is a store. I go in to buy stuff and get out as fast as I can. I am not sure Ping is going to make me want to hang out there more." 

    WebProNews blog partner Bruce Houghton, who writes for the blog HypeBot, says, "Say what you will about iTune’s new social network Ping, but it’s going to be a great place to market music.  So imagine the frustration of the many indie artists – many of who are selling music on iTunes – when they learned  that there was  no obvious way to create an an artist profile in Ping."
     
    "We asked Apple to explain and just heard back from a spokesperson that ‘artist profiles were launched by invitation, but we’ll keep adding more and more.’  No information was provided on who is handing invites or what criteria they are using," he adds.
     
    Mashable founder Pete Cashmore says in a CNN piece, "iTunes Ping is a worthy concept: By adding social interaction to the music-buying experience, Apple could see a significant increase in sales, and artists could form a more direct connection to their fans. But until the majority of artists are able to create official accounts, iTunes Ping merely benefits the privileged few."

    iTunes 10

    Wade Roush at Xconomy has some interesting ideas about Ping: "It’s easy to see how Apple might expand Ping beyond music to facilitate conversations around media of all sorts, including movies, books, and mobile apps…Adding a social networking interface, on top of all of iTunes’ other functions, is like grafting another limb to the forehead of an octopus. It’s just too much." 

    Robert Scoble says, "By the way, if I were @loic I’d be PISSED that Apple infringed his ping.fm trademark." @loic, would be Loic Le Meur, founder of Seesmic, who also has a service called Ping.fm, for updating multiple social networks. 

    The best commentary I’ve seen about Ping so far has to be Paul Carr’s take though. He says, "Ping ping ping ping. Ping. And yet and yet…Ping?"

    Apart from all of the opinions and criticism, Ping is already facing a more concrete problem of spam. Chester Wisniewski of security company Sophos has a post up describing the comment spam that’s already flooding the iTunes social network.

    Google should be launching a music service in time for the holidays if reports are accurate. 

  • Google, Facebook and Boxee Respond to Apple

    Update 2: Swisher reports that Facebook blocked API access to Ping after failing to strike an agreement with Apple, so Apple removed the feature after launch. She credits "sources familiar with Facebook’s platform" with this information. 

    Update:     With regards to Facebook and Ping, Dan Frommer points out that the screenshots Apple used in its prsentation actually did show Facebook integration. MG Siegler also notes that he actually was able to connect to Ping with Facebook, but then it disappeared. It appears that Apple may have pulled Facebook from it at the last minute. Siegler writes:

    I can tell you for sure that yesterday Facebook Connect was a part of Ping — because I used it.

    When I first loaded iTunes 10 yesterday and started up Ping, connecting with Facebook was the first thing I did to find friends. At first, I will say that it didn’t work. I hit the Connect button, entered my credentials, and nothing happened. But I tried again and it worked perfectly. I found a handful of Facebook friends who had just started using Ping as well and connected with them.

    He also claims that he’s still connected to the Ping app from within Facebook and that while Facebook isn’t on iTunes, it’s still live. 

    Original Article: At Apple’s music event yesterday, where the company launched a new version of iOS, a new version of iTunes with a new social network (Ping), a new line of iPods, and a new version of Apple TV, Steve Jobs took a shot at Google involving numbers of smartphone activations.

    Last month, Google CEO Eric Schmidt said that Android gets over 200,000 devices a day.

    "People throw out a lot of numbers about how many devices they’re activating per day," Jobs is quoted as saying. "We are doing 230,000 activations a day.  We think our friends may be counting upgrades – if we were counting upgrades, that would be way higher."

    Fortune has a quote from a Google spokesperson responding to those comments: "The Android activation numbers do not include upgrades and are, in fact, only a portion of the Android devices in the market since we only include devices that have Google services."

    Ping, the iTunes social network, is like Facebook or Twitter meets iTunes. That’s the way Jobs described it in the announcement, anyway. While that may be the case, and it may even resemble Facebook, there is no integration with either Facebook or Twitter (or other social networks).

    iTunes 10

    Kara Swisher was able to speak to Jobs about this, who said Facebook wanted "onerous terms that we could not agree to." When asked about integrating Facebook Connect to help people find their friends, Swisher quotes him saying (or shrugging rather), "We could, I guess."

    She also got this statement from Facebook on the matter: "Facebook believes in connecting people with their interests and we’ve partnered with innovative developers around the world who share this vision. Facebook and Apple have cooperated successfully in the past to offer people great social experiences and we look forward to doing so in the future."

    Om Malik at GigaOm calls Ping "the future of social commerce". "From a content perspective, there are three different types of media we love to talk about: movies we see, music we listen to and books we are reading," he says. "These are accepted social norms. In fact, many relationships are made on the basis of collective love of a movie and many friendships have started with mixed tapes."

    Boxee, whose Boxee Box is due out in November, had some comments on Apple’s Apple TV announcement. These two are now direct competitors. On the Boxee blog, Avner Ronen writes:

    We think people want to be able to watch anything that they can watch on their computer, only on their bigscreen TV.  There is an overwhelming consumer expectation that the content we can consume in our cubicles, our dorm rooms, and in our laps should be available in our living rooms, in full 1080p with a gorgeous interface.  It’s a simple premise, but the challenge is to do it in a way that makes sense in that space, so you can put your feet up, grab a remote and start watching. No keyboards, mice, windows or labyrinthine menus. It should be calm and it should be beautiful. And it *must* be open.

    We all watched the Apple announcement. We walked away feeling strongly confident about the space it left for Boxee to compete. We have a different view of what users want in their living rooms.  We are taking different paths to get there. The Boxee Box is going to be $100 more expensive than the Apple TV, but will give you the freedom to watch what you want.

    We think it’s worth it.

    NewTeeVee has a comparison of Apple TV, the Boxee Box, and Roku, which some have also said is superior to the new Apple TV.