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Monday, December 16, 2013
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Huawei Windows Phone 8

For all its polish, Windows Phone still lags the competition in certain features that seem obvious to include. Windows Phone 8.1, set for a public reveal at Microsoft’s Build conference in April, brings two iOS and Android standards to the Windows Phone quiver, including a Notification Center and a smart personal assistant.


Sources familiar with the unreleased update for Microsoft’s mobile operating system told The Verge that we’ll see a Siri-style personal assistant introduced, codenamed “Cortana,” (nice Halo ref, Redmond) and also a notification center that collects all your notices in one place. There’s also potentially going to be a move away from hardware keys and to on-screen soft keys, similar to the move made by Android in recent versions.


Cortana was a known quantity previously, or at least a frequently leaked one, though the latest report confirms when it’ll make its first official appearance. Other things are also being added including VPN support, separate volume control for different types of things like calls and music, and more depending on different devices from different companies. But there’s a fairly common thread here: most of these are what I’d consider table stakes for a mobile OS at this point.


It’s true that Windows Phone offers some things that the other players in the space don’t (I can’t think of any off the top of my head, but they’re there), but a lot of the work left to do is just making sure that anyone coming from another platform will be comfortable with what they find when and if they switch from either Android or iOS. There are expectations out there now about what you get with a smartphone, and those expectations are growing as Apple and Google raise to impress and win more of that top half of the market.


Of course, it’s possible to trail in feature-richness but then lead in execution once you do get the stuff out there, and Microsoft could implement a notification repository and digital assistant that blow away their equivalents on iOS and Android. But it’s hard to see that happening given the current state of mobile affairs. Still, Microsoft might just need to call in order to earn that third spot at the table permanently, especially if its plan of attack on the low end of the market works out.







9:40 AM

For all its polish, Windows Phone still lags the competition in certain features that seem obvious to include. Windows Phone 8.1, set for a ...

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A million years ago (ok, 2005) Glasses Direct was founded in the UK. It wasn’t quite Warby Parker, but it did help pioneer the whole wave if online optometrist startups. Now the business behind Glasses Direct, Sunglasses Shop and LensOn brands has gone back to its existing investor pool to raise new funds, closing an £8 million investment round to grow internationally and expand through acquisition.


Index Ventures, Highland Capital Partners and Acton Capital Partners led the deal, along with new backers Cipio Partners and GP Bullhound Sidecar. MyOptique’s last funding round was £10 million in December 2012. Between 2007 and 2011 it raised £20 million.


Maurice Helfgott of Amery Capital and a non-executive director of stock market-listed Moss Bros, joins as chairman to provide experience in fashion retailing.


The move also spells the end of founder Jamie Murray Wells’ involvement, as he steps down as Director and Chairman following the sale of the majority of his shares to Cipio Partners.


The company says it is in its second year of profitability and predicts gross retail sales of revenues to be £35 million during this year.


MyOptique bought Sunglasses Shop in 2011 and covers products from sun wear through to contact lenses.


Kevin Cornils, chief executive of MyOptique, says the company now has a full service optical business that spans eight European markets, serving over 800,000 customers, and shipping an order every 40 seconds.


MyOptique has also developed two designer eyewear brands, London Retro and Scout, which are the fastest growing brands on Glasses Direct and which will be further developed as part of the expansion plans.


The past 12 months has seen the launch of sunglasses and prescription eyewear on LensOn in the Nordic market, the launch of LensOn contact lenses into the UK market, and the introduction of a new London Retro Collection, titled Metropolitan.







9:09 AM

A million years ago (ok, 2005) Glasses Direct was founded in the UK. It wasn’t quite Warby Parker, but it did help pioneer the whole wave i...

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In the past few months, we’ve seen the launch of several e-book subscription services using a Netflix-style pricing model, where users pay a monthly fee and get access to any title in the catalog. A new service called Entitle is going in a different direction — users still pay a subscription fee, but they can only download a few books each month.


Isn’t that a worse deal? CEO Bryan Batten argued that it’s not, for a couple of reasons. First, Entitle users actually own the books they purchase, so if they unsubscribe they still have access to the titles that they’ve already paid for. And while many people have become accustomed to the pay-for-access model popularized by Netflix and Spotify, Batten argued that there’s still “a majority of people who like the thought of owning something.”


“With an all-you-can-eat type service, people might put five or 10 books on their bookshelf that they may not ever get to,” he said. “And they don’t get to them, they’re lost if they cancel.”


Second, the Netflix model may make more sense for, well, Netflix, where it really is possible to binge watch an embarrassing number of movies and TV shows. But while there are bookworms out there who read dozens titles in a month, for the average reader the number is probably much lower.


And appropriately for a content company, Batten said the biggest lure for Entitle should be the books themselves. The company has deals with major publishers including Simon & Schuster, HarperCollins, HarperCollins Christian, and Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, with more than 100,000 professionally-published titles from authors like Stephen King, Dan Brown, Doris Kearns Goodwin, Michael Crichton, Walter Isaacson, Janet Evanovich, Mark Helprin, Ernest Hemingway, and F. Scott Fitzgerald (uh, some of those are more contemporary than others). Batten pointed out that the Entitle catalog includes recent releases like King’s Doctor Sleep, Glenn Beck’s Miracles & Massacres, and Goodwin’s The Bully Pulpit.


For a point of comparison, when Scribd unveiled its subscription service in October, its big publisher deals were limited to HarperCollins (including HarperCollins Christian), and it didn’t include the publisher’s newest titles.


We actually wrote about Entitle last month in an overview of various “Netflix for e-books” services. At the time, however, it was called eReatah. Apparently, the biggest piece of feedback during the beta period was to change the name, and even Batten admits now that the old name was “pretty terrible.”


Entitle’s current pricing is $14.99 per month for two books, $21.99 for three books, and $27.99 for four books. (In some ways, the pricing seems closest to a book-of-the-month type model.)


The company is also announcing that it has raised $5.3 million in funding. (Turns out the funding was actually disclosed in a filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission over the summer, but the filing didn’t attract too much attention.) Batten said the money comes from a single investor who asked not to be identified.


You can read more about Entitle on its website and download its iOS app here and its Android app here.







7:39 AM

In the past few months, we’ve seen the launch of several e-book subscription services using a Netflix-style pricing model, where users pay a...

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VoIP provider Rebtel has been steadily growing ever since launch in 2006, with over 20 million users and an increasingly popular VoIP SDK.


But today the company is dipping their toes in a new pool, launching a credit transfer service called Sendly.


Sendly is a standalone app that lets almost anyone in the world send credit to their friends or loved ones that can be used to top up prepaid phones.


Obviously, this move makes sense for Rebtel’s existing customers who are predominantly using the app to talk to loved ones who are in a different country. Sending funds to distant loved ones goes hand-in-hand with that, especially as pay-as-you-go phone plans become more and more popular.


To use Sendly, all you need is the app and the recipient’s phone number. You can choose the amount you’re sending, and when the notification is received, the money automatically turns into phone credit.


Here’s what Sendly’s Mans Ullerstam had to say about the launch:



We know that the people who use our calling app the most are those with family and friends in other countries. With Sendly, we want to give millions of callers an easier and quicker way to provide their loved ones with credit to use on calls, texts and data. The ability to send mobile credit to prepaid phone users is another big step we’re taking as a leading communications platform that’s powering stronger connections between individuals, businesses, and mobile subscribers around the globe.



The app is free, and thanks to existing relationships between Rebtel and over 60 global mobile operators, fees taken by the company are lower than other, traditional forms of money transfer. According to CEO and founder Andreas Bernström, Rebtel’s fees are about 12% of the value of the transfer.


But even more interesting are the opportunities beyond topping up a phone. Rebtel sees huge potential for this type of technology to be turned into an API, allowing other app makers to implement money transfer within their apps.


Sendly is available in over 50 countries at launch, and interested parties can learn more here.







6:24 AM

VoIP provider Rebtel has been steadily growing ever since launch in 2006, with over 20 million users and an increasingly popular VoIP SDK ...

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One of the best side effects of Apple's app ecosystem is spinoffs -- in addition to great games and apps for most everything imaginable, successful franchises can create apps to keep stoking the adoration of fans. If you haven't noticed the invasion of Duck Dynasty-branded merchandise in department stores everywhere this holiday season, you might have stumbled upon the surprisingly delightful Battle of the Beards app. How about right now, though -- this week? Anchorman 2: The Legend Continues hits theaters Dec. 18 in the U.S.


5:39 AM

One of the best side effects of Apple's app ecosystem is spinoffs -- in addition to great games and apps for most everything imaginabl...

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I just finished reading a very interesting book by Intel Futurist Brian David Johnson, Humanity in the Machine: What Comes After Greed? At the book's core is the idea that we eventually will use machines to make our lives better as opposed to coming up with creative ways to get more stuff. This seems an appropriate subject for this time of year: anticipating the coming of an age when we use machines to enrich our lives rather than just our pocketbooks.


5:09 AM

I just finished reading a very interesting book by Intel Futurist Brian David Johnson, Humanity in the Machine: What Comes After Greed? A...

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Yahoo’s new direction under Marissa Mayer is still coming together, but one thing they’ve unquestionably done right is the weather app for iPhone they debuted earlier this year. The iPad version has just been released, and it’s about as close to a native iPad weather app as you can get, given the similarity in design choices between Apple’s native iPhone weather app and that of Yahoo’s third-party version.


It feels at home on the iPad, but it also probably exceeds whatever Apple would’ve done, taking the two iPhone weather apps from either party as a point of reference. The app uses your device’s location to find imagery from Flickr to populate the background, and more often than not, those reflect actual current conditions on the ground. Then you can scroll up to get a detailed forecast, including hourly and daily predictions, details, wind speed, precipitation and maps, all of which is presented in a beautiful, cleverly animated but easy-to-read interface.


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The app is simple enough in terms of how it works, but it does everything it needs to, and doesn’t clutter things up with too much else. It’s a perfect companion to the iPhone version, and comes as a universal update for the existing free app. Apple provides extremely limited weather information on the iPad, both in the “Today” tab on the new iOS 7 notifications screen, and in the Clock app, but these are limited essentially to current temps or the predicted high for the day. Yahoo’s offering is leaps and bounds better, completely free, and an actual visual treat thanks to the Flickr-sourced imagery.


I still wonder about some of Yahoo’s recent decisions, like a logo design that pretty much ushered Yahoo into the early 1990s, and mail outages that span impossible multiple-day gaps, but the Weather app has been a rock solid product reinvention for them, and the iPad version doesn’t do anything to debate that.







5:09 AM

Yahoo’s new direction under Marissa Mayer is still coming together, but one thing they’ve unquestionably done right is the weather app for i...

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Posted by at 5:09 AM 0 comments
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