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With 30K U.S. Doctors Now On Board, Doximity Is Fast Becoming The LinkedIn For Physicians

Posted: 30 Nov 2011 06:00 AM PST

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As we reported yesterday, the market for mobile health apps is forecasted to quadruple to $400 million by 2016. The health tech space at large, too, is poised for serious growth over the next year, as medical devices and sensors get smarter, connect to the cloud, and now give us easy ways to track our health, fitness, and interact in realtime with providers.

Thankfully, the Web and digital technology are now playing an increasingly important role in the development of healthcare services (and the industry as a whole), so perhaps it shouldn’t come as a surprise that the professional networking model that has worked so well for LinkedIn is proving just as effective when applied to the sizable network of American physicians.

Earlier this year, Jeff Tangney, Co-founder and Former President of NASDAQ-listed mobile health software applications maker, Epocrates, launched a new venture called Doximity. Taking a page out of LinkedIn’s book, Doximity gives physicians a private network through which to connect and collaborate on patient treatment or identify experts for patient referrals.

Doximity enables MD professional networking on iPhones, iPads, Android devices, and the Web in an effort to connect physicians from just about anywhere. Why? Well, even though the cost of medical care is high, realtime communication between healthcare providers/physicians and patients just hasn’t existed at scale. Patients have their in-office time, are lucky if they can grab practitioners over the phone, but that’s about it.

That’s why startups like Jiff have found great reception in the healthtech community. Avado, too, is tackling this problem, developing a solution for healthcare providers to better manage their relationship with patients.

And other than conferences, physicians don’t have a scaled, easy-to-use platform to connect with each other, network, find referrals, and provide faster, more effective treatments to their patients. Doctors are also, by and large, on the go — from the clinic to the lab, from the lab to the hospital, etc. That’s why a mobile (and Web) network like Doximity, which lets them connect via a private, secure platform is finding plenty of eager adopters.

The startup announced today that over 30,000 physicians are now using its platform to collaborate, which translates to 5 percent of physicians in the U.S., says Tagney. For reference, that’s double the number of physicians using LinkedIn.

The HIPAA-secure professional communication platform reached 30K physicians in just seven months (since it launched its network in beta), a feat that took LinkedIn more than three years to accomplish.

Of course, Doximity is not the only player in the space; there are a number of anonymous physician chat services out there, like the sizable Sermo, which claims to be the largest online network exclusive to physicians.

It looks like Doximity may be poised to give Sermo a run for its money, especially as the platform is professional — in other words, it’s not anonymous — or accessible to the general public. Unlike the anonymous networks, physicians, general practitioners, specialists, nurse practitioners, and physician assistants all use their real names and verified credentials on Doximity in order to establish and share their professional expertise.

Doximity also features a HIPAA-compliant SMS messaging system as well as the ability for physicians to securely fax directly from their mobile phone or computer to any physician in or ourside of the Doximity network.

The service is free to use, and is quick to set up. The platform creates a basic profile using data from public databases, which physicians can then add by uploading their CVs, etc., and then suggests connections based on location, work history, and educational background.

The startup raised $10.8 million in series A funding back in March.

For more, check Doximity out at home here.

Even After Withdrawing Its Application, AT&T Hits Another Huge Hurdle In T-Mo Deal

Posted: 29 Nov 2011 08:38 PM PST

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In the wake of withdrawing its application to acquire T-Mobile, AT&T has hit yet another obstacle otherwise known as the FCC. See, before AT&T pulled its application, the FCC had big plans to put the deal before an administrative law judge, effectively prolonging the process and magnifying the details of the merger. As part of those big plans, the FCC had compiled an 109-page report with their findings during the review process. AT&T had expected this massive report to stay under the rug since it had withdrawn its application, but the FCC feels it “furthers transparency.”

And what, might you ask, is in this staff report?

Really, really bad news for AT&T. From the FCC’s official release:

The draft hearing designation order concluded, based on the staff’s analysis, that the record overall does not support a finding that the proposed AT&T/T-Mobile merger would serve the public interest, convenience, and necessity and that the record presents a number of substantial and material questions of fact.

But wait, there’s more:

In the report, the staff finds that the transaction, which would result in the top two wireless providers having a market share of approximately 75 percent, would substantially lessen competition and its accompanying innovation, investment, and consumer price and service benefits, thus undermining key goals of the Communications Act. Indeed, the staff notes that the unprecedented increase in market concentration that would result from this merger triggers the Commission’s screening tests for possible anti-competitive effects in a large number of local wireless markets.

In other words, the report stands behind the claim that this deal will cause a very real duopoly, or at the very least, force the FCC to investigate. But the blue carrier still has a few tricks up its sleeve, right? Two of AT&T’s biggest talking points during this persuasion have been job creation and the acquisition of much-needed spectrum. The FCC staff report had this to say on the matter:

The staff also explains that the economic and engineering models on which the Applicants (AT&T/DT AG/T-Mobile) rely to show consumer benefits are, in the staff’s assessment, unreliable and, at a minimum, raise substantial and material questions of fact. The staff additionally identifies internal AT&T documents and consistent historical practices that contradict AT&T’s claim that merging with T-Mobile is essential for AT&T to build out its LTE network to 97 percent of Americans. The staff finds the Applicants’ assertions that the transaction would create jobs in the United States to be inconsistent with AT&T’s internal analyses and record statements concerning cost reductions from the merger. The staff also finds that there are serious questions whether the merger of AT&T and T-Mobile would cause other public harms that are not offset by the claimed benefits.

Sentence by sentence, the FCC has whittled AT&T’s argument down to a tooth pick. And it seems like releasing this report falls into a bit of a grey area (now that AT&T’s withdrawn its application), which is even more unfortunate for AT&T. The FCC gives some justification for releasing the report, stating that it would be “unfair to the parties and participants” who’ve been working on this deal, and noting that AT&T is still planning on moving forward with this merger, according to its own statement.

AT&T had no idea that the FCC would release this report, and has said the following:

The FCC has recognized that it is required by its own rules to dismiss our merger application. This makes all the more troubling their decision to nonetheless release a preliminary staff report on the merger. This report is not an order of the FCC and has never been voted on. It is simply a staff draft that raises questions of fact that were to be addressed in an administrative hearing, a hearing which will not now take place. It has no force or effect under law, which raises questions as to why the FCC would choose to release it. The draft report has also not been made available to AT&T prior to today, so we have had no opportunity to address or rebut its claims, which makes its release all the more improper.

How Neustar Plans To Make UltraViolet DRM Work, With or Without Apple (TCTV)

Posted: 29 Nov 2011 08:14 PM PST

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There’s a lot of skepticism about the success potential of UltraViolet, a new cloud based digital distribution format designed to make digital rights management work across devices. That’s because people hate DRM, but also because the standard currently lacks support from Amazon and iTunes, the two biggest digital video sellers and renters. I wanted the real story on where UltraViolet is going, so I sat down with the Tim Dodd, VP and GM of Neustar Media, developers of the technology that powers UltraViolet. Watch here on TCTV as he defends UltraViolet, explains how it works on iOS devices without support from iTunes, and claims that there’s still a future in physical media.

Last year, UltraViolet emerged as the Digital Entertainment Content Ecosystem coalitions choice to power DRM. Hollywood hoped that users would be more likely to continue buying DVDs and Blu-Rays if they could also stream the same content across console, web, and mobile devices. Last month, the first UltraViolet films went on sale from Warner Bros, and they were supposed to play on iOS devices via the Flixster app the studio recently acquired.

But the UltraViolet launch was a disaster. Customers complained that they had bought DVDs that came with a “digital copy” only to find they didn’t actually get to download a copy. Instead they had use buggy UltraViolet through the crash-prone Flixster app, and couldn’t play the films in iTunes. Things got so bad that Warner Bros started distributing free iTunes download codes to customers.

Still, Dodd is optimistic. He thinks it’s only a matter of time before more content producers and retailers adopt UltraViolet. I agree that retailers are in need of a way to keep digital from cannibalizing their sales, and that cross-device content rights are what users want. However, I think users are only going to buy an UltraViolet DVD instead of buying it on iTunes if they can easily play it on all the most popular devices. Right now, they can’t.

Apple has little incentive to cooperate. It has its own DRM system FairPlay, and accounts for such a big percentage of digital sales and rentals that Hollywood can’t afford to pull their content from iTunes to pressure Apple into adopting UltraViolet. Apple makes its money on hardware, so it’s in its interest to prevent the content it sells through iTunes from being played on other devices. Apple could even flex its muscle and ban a dedicated UltraViolet player app for mimicking native functionality.

The only way I can foresee UltraViolet succeeding in any capacity is for it to be expressly anti-Apple. Neustar would need to get Amazon to adopt UltraViolet, concentrate on offering a great Android experience, and publicly hammer Apple and its FairPlay DRM for not permitting interoperability. As nice as a future sounds where you buy content and can play it on any device, a fractured ecosystem seems more plausible right now.

Atari Looks To Reinvent Itself As A Mobile Games Company; Hires Former iWON/Marvel Exec As EVP

Posted: 29 Nov 2011 06:44 PM PST

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Founded in 1972 by Nolan Bushnell and Ted Dabney, Atari played a central role in the early history of video games, going on to create what are still some of the most recognizable arcade games on the planet, like Centipede, Breakout and Pong, to name a few. Not to mention the fact that its joystick-controlled Atari 2600 console was pretty much synonymous with “video games” in the 1980s.

Although Atari remains a recognizable brand around the globe, the company struggled through the video games crash of 1983, financial issues, and various assets have fallen under a number of different ownership and leadership regimes, including Warner Communications and Hasbro — among many others.

Today, Atari is a 65-person company, with headquarters in New York and France. The company looks a lot different than it did two decades ago, but the current leadership team is focused on leveraging Atari’s assets, its strong brand recognition and global distribution, to reinvent it as a mobile and social games company.

But doing so is no easy task. EA, one of the largest and most recognizable video games companies, also has the benefit of strong brand recognition and a number of successful and popular titles, like Battlefield, Need for Speed, Mass Effect, FIFA and Madden, to name a few. EA has recognized that it can’t hope to compete with the likes of Zynga simply by remaining a console company and pumping out sequels to popular titles. Over the last few years, EA has gotten busy porting its flagship games into social and mobile channels. Of course, even that’s not enough. (More here.)

As Atari CEO Jim Wilson said, the key to success for any company is creating quality, original products. “There’s no other way to maintain long-term viability”, he said. “Atari can’t rest on its laurels, we have to stay relevant”.

In refocusing on mobile and social as the two-headed future of gaming, Atari released “Greatest Hits” for iOS back in April, which is an 18-title sample course of Atari’s classic games. Earlier this month, Atari launched Greatest Hits on Android. And two weeks ago, the company brought its Asteroids franchise to iOS, tailoring the retro game for a new medium.

Asteroids: Gunner became a top ten bestseller on the App Store for its first two weeks, and Greatest Hits has racked up over 3.5 million downloads across platforms since its release in April. So, the veteran games company has found some success in moving its classic games to mobile, just as EA and others had found before it.

On December 8th, Atari will continue its release of its classic games on mobile, as it will launch “Breakout: Boost”, an amped-up version of the 1976 arcade classic, on iOS. The game will include the traditional five levels, along with 200 additional levels of brick-breaking that can be unlocked through in-app purchases.

Breakout will also see new control features that allow gamers to change ball speed to ramp up the difficulty, as well as power-ups, “Grenade Balls” (and ball upgrades), brick varieties, the ability to save progress, and OpenFeint and Game Center integration.

To back up the retooling of its games for mobile devices, Atari has also made some additions to its executive leadership, including the recent hiring of Gui Karyo, a gaming and entertainment industry veteran, as EVP of Development & Operations. Karyo has previously held senior executive positions at Mindspark, Majesco, and Marvel and has taken over day-to-day oversight of the company’s product development, operations, and Atari.com in an effort to accelerate the development of its mobile and online strategies.

Leadership with prior experience in social and mobile game development and restructuring business processes and products around these growing channels is key as Atari goes after a new freemium, microtransaction-driven rebranding. Atari has miles to go before it can ever compete with the bigs in social gaming, but as a relatively lean company, it may have an easier time transitioning into the mobile and casual game space than some other heavier companies that have come before it.

Of course, leadership is only the start. To build a successful modern mobile gaming company, Atari has to internally become a company comprised of developers, engineers, and designers that specialize in mobile. They’re on their way, and the Atari CEO says that the company is constructing initiatives that will increase outreach to the developer community to drum up interest around modernizing Atari’s games.

Atari is happily the owner and/or manager of an extensive library of more than 200 games and franchises that include brands like Centipede, Missile Command, Pong, Test Drive, Backyard Sports, and Deer Hunter. Moving forward, Wilson says that the company is looking to evolve these games for a new generation of gamers — updating their look — while maintaining gameplay identity.

But more important will be launching, new original titles. Atari can coast on its brand and classic arcade games and probably continue to cash in on brand recognition, retooling its games for any and all new channels that manifest over the years. But without creating new, relevant products, Atari’s reinvention as a mobile company will really only be skin deep.

And looking at Atari’s current financials, it seems that this reinvention as a mobile and digital operation is now a must. The company’s digital revenue (for the first half of the year) comprised 63.6 percent of its total net revenue — compared to 20.1 percent in the first half of last year. Digital revenues were $10.5 million in the first half of the year, an increase of $6.3 million over the prior year. This has led the company to cut its operating loss to about $2.6 million, a 61.2 percent improvement over the same period last year.

Revenues are still low, but focusing on fewer and more profitable games has helped the company see improvement in its gross margin; and while ramping up its spend on R&D and marketing for its new digital games has contributed to lower numbers, Wilson and team are hoping that these kind of investments can help push its mobile transition forward.

To that end, the CEO also said the company is currently hiring, and is now going after “the best and brightest” to help steer its new mobile/social trajectory. If the company can learn from Zynga’s metrics-driven approach to customer retention, while baking freemium, location, and social elements into their new titles, Atari could be poised to lift itself out of replay mode.

What do you think?

Market For Mobile Health Apps Projected To Quadruple To $400 Million By 2016

Posted: 29 Nov 2011 01:51 PM PST

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The latest healthtech research shows that the forecast is looking good for mobile health solutions, especially for those companies buying into mobile apps. ABI Research recently released a report which predicts that the sports and health mobile app market is on pace to hit $400 million in revenues by 2016. That’s up from $120 million in 2010, meaning the market could quadruple over the next four years.

ABI’s report projects that the majority of that $400 million will come from sports, fitness, and wellness apps, which have begun to see heavy adoption over the least year. The increase of available health data and the growing adoption of health-related apps is owed largely to the development of increasingly wearable, portable, and non-invasive devices and their sensors that can effectively measure and transmit biometric data.

As smartphones add new ways to access and support healthcare apps and connect with these complementary diagnostic and health-measure devices, the mobile health market — and its customers — only stand to benefit. There are many great examples of this new generation of smart health tracking devices, like Basis’ heart and health tracker that you can wear on your wrist, Lark’s sleep monitoring band — to name a few.

These wearable devices are hooked into apps and web dashboards that let users track and improve their health. These bundled solutions are becoming increasingly user-friendly and intelligent, with many beginning to take advantage of gamification to keep users interested and coming back.

Naturally, everyone wants to build a graph, interest, social, etc., and the health graph seems to be poised to be next in line. RunKeeper, an app that helps users track their exercise, is just one among many going after the health graph — that is to say, they’re looking to aggregate all of your fitness and health data, culled from an ecosystem of apps and smart-sensored devices that collect and transmit this data (and speak to each other through APIs), then serving it to users across platforms and mobile devices, all through a simple dashboard.

And RunKeeper isn’t alone. This is where the healthtech industry is going — well, there and of course digitizing health records as well as making everything about health insurance less of a pain in the ass.

In conjunction with ABI’s report on the mobile health market’s growth, Juniper Research today released its own study, forecasting that “mHealth” apps will reach 142 million downloads globally by 2016. Which is slightly puzzling, especially when contrasted with the projection made by Jonathan Collins, the principal analyst at ABI Research. Collins said that he expects downloads to grow at almost twice the rate of revenues, with more than a billion downloads occurring annually by 2016.

Collins appears to be more optimistic than Juniper, which is likely using slightly different criteria to define mobile health apps.

But the point is clear, mobile health is on the rise.

Excerpt image from BasicHealthCare

Carrier IQ Video Shows Alarming Capabilities Of Mobile Tracking Software

Posted: 29 Nov 2011 01:19 PM PST

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You may be aware of the growing controversy surrounding Carrier IQ, a piece of software found pre-installed on Sprint phones that, according to developers who have investigated, is capable of detecting, recording, and transmitting various user actions and inputs. Among the data CIQ potentially has access to are location, SMS, apps, and key presses.

News of the software has been percolating for months on development forums, but when Trevor Eckhart recently summarized his findings, he found himself facing a cease and desist while Sprint vigorously denied the charges, saying “We do not and cannot look at the contents of messages, photos, videos, etc., using this tool.”

The C&D was quickly retracted, but Eckhart has now released a video that seems to give the lie to both Sprint and Carrier IQ’s assurances.

A step by step breakdown of the video, with code snippets, is available here.

A couple grains of salt are suggested. First, while Eckhart has no reason to falsify this information, it’s possible that this debug log is not entirely accurate for technical reasons, or that the conclusions are only applicable to this handset or software version. Second, this log does not prove that any of this information is actually being transmitted to any third party.

However, the fact that CIQ is in fact seeing all this information means that it has access to it and could very easily record it and transmit it. Whether it has or hasn’t isn’t material, because Sprint and CIQ have both said that they can’t. In fact, CIQ claims their software:

-Does not record your keystrokes.
-Does not provide tracking tools.
-Does not inspect or report on the content of your communications, such as the content of emails and SMSs.
-Does not provide real-time data reporting to any customer.
-Finally, we do not sell Carrier IQ data to third parties.

Note the careful use of the words “record,” “provide,” “inspect,” and “report.” It’s obvious from this video that the application has access to the information in question, and whether it records, provides, inspects, or reports it is simply a setting they can choose. The purposes for which CIQ says their software is installed — identifying trending problems in the fleet, for instance — don’t seem to me to require the level of access the software has granted itself. Add this to the fact that users are not informed at any step of the fact that their information is passing through “quality assurance” layer (sometimes before the user layer itself is aware of it), and their indignant denial begins to ring hollow.

Furthermore, as many developers have pointed out, the mere presence of the software is detrimental. Removing the software has reportedly improved performance and battery life. Furthermore, secure handshake information over wifi is passed through the software unencrypted, something that has little to do with carrier quality assurance. And if that information is cached even temporarily, that’s a security risk.

The presence and capabilities of this software, if it is indeed necessary, should be explained fully to users and the option given to safely opt out. As it is, Carrier IQ’s software appears to be overly invasive and potentially insecure. Hopefully Sprint will provide an adequate explanation soon; in the meantime, CIQ cannot be removed except by installing a custom ROM, so unless you’re prepared to do that, you’re out of luck.

Galaxy Nexus Gets The iFixit Teardown Treatment

Posted: 29 Nov 2011 12:19 PM PST

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I’ve spent what seems like months obsessing over every little bit of Galaxy Nexus minutiae that’s crossed the wire, and what better to celebrate its (hopefully) impending launch than to watch one get torn apart? That’s right folks — iFixit is at it yet again, and this time it’s the GSM Galaxy Nexus that’s going under the knife.

Dismantling the Galaxy Nexus seems simpler than is the case with some other devices (it doesn’t need the use of a giant knife, for one), but it still isn’t a cakewalk. Things start off simply enough with Nexus’s the NFC antenna/1750mAh battery, which is sure to make buying replacements and spares less pleasant than usual. A few screws and handful of guitar picks later, and we’re looking at the rest of the phone’s innards: the 5-megapixel camera module, WiFi radio, RAM, and more.

You may need to be patient in order to get the full skinny though — iFixit’s newest teardown is so new that it hasn’t fully been fleshed out yet. Those who live and breathe power amplifiers and motion processing units will want to keep wailing on the refresh key, but that hasn’t stopped the teardown team from getting some great shots of the Nexus’s mostly-blue innards.

If the iFixit team wants you to know anything, it’s that you should play it safe when it comes to the screen: it’s apparently a real pain to replace. But then again, you wouldn’t dare let anything happen to your precious Nexus would you?

Foursquare Adds Scoutmob To Its Growing List Of Deal Providers

Posted: 29 Nov 2011 11:55 AM PST

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Over the last year, Foursquare has been actively buddying up with the daily deal players. Groupon, LivingSocial, Gilt City, AT&T Interactive, BuyWithMe and Zozi all provide their daily deals to Foursquare. And today, Atlanta-based Scoutmob joins the ranks of deal sites partnering with the check-in champion, as Foursquare will today begin offering Scoutmob’s 50 percent-plus discounted deals in 13 U.S. cities from the within Foursquare’s mobile apps.

Foursquare CEO Dennis Crowley has said before that he thinks daily deal companies are version 1.0 of the tools merchants will eventually use to drive foot traffic to their stores. But, while daily deals are hot and companies are adopting them, there’s obviously no use in resisting. The more daily deal sites that Foursquare partners with, the more localized and nearby deals it can display to its mobile users.

The next step, Crowley said, is for Foursquare to become focused on what has long been seen as Groupon’s weakness: Loyalty. Through badges and check-in specials, Foursquare is beginning to focus more aggressively on loyalty. And with the startup’s growing dataset that captures user check-ins, where they’ve been, what destinations they’re visiting most frequently, the key will be for Foursquare to let merchants access its data to segment their customers. As Erick has said in the past, to be successful Foursquare has to find a way “to close the redemption loop between an offer and a purchase”.

The new partnership with Scoutmob is a good move for Foursquare because users can redeem Scoutmob’s deals without ever leaving the Foursquare app. Scoutmob’s formula also means that no payment is required to find deals spontaneously (their deals are free), as Scoutmob doesn’t require a credit card or cash upfront, the user simply pays the merchant, and Scoutmob receives a flat payment once deals are redeemed.

For Scoutmob, which was founded last year and is still a relatively young player in the deals space, this is a big win, because it gives the startup a national platform. Through Foursquare’s some 10 million users, Scoutmob can now leverage that brand recognition to begin signing up more restaurants, which is the startup’s specialty. The startup’s editors offer users tips on what kinds of food to order at local restaurants, what owners to interact with, etc.

With Foursquare on iPhone, Android, Blackberry, and Windows, Scoutmob now has the opportunity to reach a whole new set of customers through each of the big mobile OSes, giving the local businesses they highlight a new shot at customer acquisition. For the Atlanta-based startup, which has some 800K users to date, this could be a great opportunity to increase brand awareness, expand their user base, and reach a whole new set of eyeballs.

For more, see Scoutmob’s blog post here.

The Little Printer Puts Your Customized Digital Content On A Slip Of Paper

Posted: 29 Nov 2011 11:41 AM PST

Little Printer

Our collective trajectory these days seems to be a migration from print to digital. Books, calendars, to-do lists, and newspapers are all victims of the digital revolution, at least in paper form. But not everyone’s down with the death of paper.

Meet the Little Printer, the latest gizmo out of Berg Cloud. Cute, right?

When it’s not smiling up at you from your desk, the Little Printer pops out receipt-sized slips of paper loaded with your custom info, news, and friendly gossip, according to the product page. Using your smartphone (Android or iPhone), you can subscribe to one of Berg Cloud’s many “publication” options, whether it be daily puzzles, friends’ birthday reminders, headlines from your favorite news sources, to-do lists, Foursquare check-ins, “Partworks” (which is a daily lesson on your chosen genre of art), or a workout check-off list.

When you’re ready to go, just press the little button on the top of your printer and today’s news is ready and waiting for you.
There’s also something called “Picture of the day” shown in the demo video, with a caption that says “the most popular photo from your friends today.” It’s not clear where that data is coming from, though.

While a receipt-sized slip of paper probably isn’t going to disrupt the way you ingest information (digitally), there are some added benefits to the little slip of daily info. For one, things like the “word of the day,” “partworks,” and the “picture of the day” would be great to post up on the fridge or a bulletin board. Little Printer also offers a way to keep a record of your daily digital life on real paper instead of in binary code. That may sound like the early stages of some sort of hoarder disorder, but one day I bet we’ll really appreciate what we have recorded on paper.

Plus, it’s just really cute.

Pre-orders don’t begin until 2012, at which point Little Printer will launch in beta form.

[via DVice]

Microsoft Builds A Browser-Based Windows Phone 7 Simulator To Woo iPhone/Android Users

Posted: 29 Nov 2011 11:10 AM PST

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While the features that Windows Phone 7 can call “exclusive” are few and far between, there’s at least one aspect of it that is absolutely, undeniably original: the user interface.

Called “Metro”, the UI is so unique that it’s almost polarizing — you’ll know whether you love it or hate it within a few seconds. Microsoft is counting on finding a few more lovers in the crowd, it seems: they’ve just launched a browser-based WP7 simulator, seemingly tailored solely to sing Metro’s siren song to the wandering iPhone/Android user.

The simulator is cute, and definitely a great example of what can be done with some incredibly clever scripting — but I’m not sure that it’s actually helpful, either for Microsoft or the curious user. For a laundry list of reasons, the simulator only scratches the surface of what Windows Phone 7 can do; while you can tap into certain screens (the People hub, the Phone dialer) and kinda-sorta simulate what you’d do there, the vast majority just kind of sit there. You’re really just walking through a series of animated screenshots. For anyone who’s written a line of code, the limitations make sense — but for the user trying to get that full-fledged Windows Phone experience, it could easily come across as broken.

Still, it’s worth checking out if only to admire the scripting work. You can find it at http://bit.ly/vvvU05, or by clicking this direct link from your smartphone. It’ll (sort of) work from your desktop browser as well — but as it’s tailored around swipe gestures and touch input, mouse input tends to choke it up.

Financial Analyst Compares RIM To Apple, Pigs Spontaneously Take Flight

Posted: 29 Nov 2011 08:18 AM PST

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Though I’m fairly sure that I disagree with him, Laszlo Birinyi of Birinyi Associates had some flattering compliments to lay on RIM today, putting the Waterloo-based company at the top spot of his five investment picks for 2012.

While we don’t usually cover analyst predictions, this statement reported by Barrons was too good to resist.

“[RIM's] been beaten down, it's a brand, it's got its fans, it's got its products. In 1997, I was in the Year in Wall Street show, and Louis Rukeyser asked me what were my picks for 1998. I said my first pick is a $7 stock — called Apple Computer.”

So, let me get this straight, Mr. Birinyi.

You’re comparing RIM — the same peeps facing a lawsuit over multiple massive service outages, the same stuck-in-the-past executive team that refuses to step down (despite employee pleas), the folks that freak out and bail on BBC interviews, the people responsible for the failure that is the BlackBerry Playbook, and the folks who are currently bringing you mid-range handsets as their flagship line — to the most valuable publicly traded company in the world?

That’s like comparing a BlackBerry to an iPhone.

Then again, those of us who aren’t enjoying the liberties of the USA tend to thoroughly enjoy the BlackBerry brand. The phones were apparently a core part of the London riots this year, and folks in Indonesia started an all-out riot over the half-off BlackBerry Bold 9790. Many of us here in the States have already written off RIM as a crumbling failure, but a crowd of 3,000 people lining up for a BlackBerry, whether it’s here or on Mars, is a surprise in itself.

Come to think of it, Apple was a pretty broken brand in the 90′s, and found a way to pull itself into glory. Perhaps, RIM can do the same, but it’s a long shot. As a computer company, Apple had more potential markets to infiltrate (and we welcomed the iPod with open arms). RIM isn’t quite in the same position as Apple was, but a comeback for the BlackBerry brand wouldn’t be the craziest thing that’s ever happened.



CTIA And ESRB Debut App Rating System, No Buy-In From Google Or Apple

Posted: 29 Nov 2011 08:17 AM PST

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The CTIA and ESRB pulled back the curtains on their new mobile app rating system today, and it looks like with the help of their six founding partners, app ratings could soon grace a smartphone near you.

The new app rating system will be implemented first by AT&T, Microsoft, Sprint, T-Mobile USA, U.S. Cellular, and Verizon Wireless, and other storefronts are said to have expressed interest.

If that list appears to be missing a bit of star power, you’re right: Apple and Google aren’t participating in the program as they both already provide age and maturity level suggestions for each app listed in their app stores. Though the reasoning seems pragmatic, I’m sure neither company wanted to cede control over part of the app submission process to a third party.

I expressed some concern about the logistics of getting an app rated when the news first broke, and thankfully the CTIA and ESRB have worked out a fairly painless process for developers. When an app is completed and is being prepared for submission to a given app store, developers will fill out a quick online survey that determines their ESRB rating level.

Once the review is completed and the app earns a rating (think classic ESRB: E for Everyone, T for Teen, etc.), developers will be given a unique identifier code that allows them to submit that same app to other participating app stores without having to go through the review process again.

CTIA President Steve Largent made it clear that the app rating system would only apply to new app submissions — apps that are already available in their respective app stores won’t be rated unless developers choose to submit them for ratings. Developers can also appeal a rating for an app if they find it to be inaccurate with regard to their app’s content.

When the CTIA and the ESRB teased us with a heads-up press release last week, I took a quick look at the current state of in-store app ratings. Apple is doing just fine on their own: they have fairly descriptive ratings for their applications, and they already encompass some of the content descriptors that ESRB ratings are known for.

Google on the other hand doesn’t go into as much detail with their content ratings, which are usually hidden below the fold when viewed on Android devices anyway. The Android Market could stand to benefit from some more robust app descriptions, especially given that Android remains the most widely used smartphone OS in the country and that the Market is no stranger to funny business.

This of course begs a fairly weighty question: is there a point to an app ratings system that Apple and Google won’t use? More than a billion apps have been downloaded from the Android Market in the United States alone, and Apple has surely crossed a similar milestone. Will developers see the need to undergo an extra step in the submission process when the app stores that people flock to don’t require it? The jury’s still out on that one — for now we’ll just have to sit back and wait for those first apps to get their ESRB badges.

Apple Tops Android In Mobile Ad Performance, But Windows Phone Still Leads The Pack

Posted: 29 Nov 2011 06:53 AM PST

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Mobile ad optimization platform Smaato, Inc. released the results of its mobile ad report for Q3 2011 today and found that, for the third consecutive quarter, Windows Phone (156) led the company’s “Smaato Index,” a measure of mobile operating system click-through rates. In second place was RIM (113), which has now overtaken both Apple (89) and Android (84) .

End users may not care about the click-through rates on ads – in fact, they may indicate the inability of a platform to offer monetization options through other methods, like paid apps or in-app purchases. However, for developers, high click-throughs may mean the platform is easier to monetize via advertising.

It’s not surprising that Windows Phone is leading in click-throughs, however. The OS’s install base is not large enough to support viable revenue generation through paid applications. And since Windows Phone Mango rolled out without the promised in-app purchasing support, it leaves developers – especially indie developers – with no other real options for monetization besides ads.

Smaato’s CEO and Co-founder Ragnar Kruse, of course, spins this as a positive in terms of the advertising possibilities on Windows Phone and Microsoft/Nokia’s opportunity to create a “viable third ecosystem.”

“Developers are advised not to overlook the Nokia/Windows combination as it might be a platform that is easier to monetize, will have less threats of piracy as it will be a more closed ecosystem, and will also offer more cohesiveness,” Kruse says.

The report also looks at mobile ad fill rates, which have now stabilized with just a 1% drop from the previous quarter. The findings suggest that seasonal factors were at play during the summer, as now, 13 out of the top 20 U.S. ad networks have performed above average at rates between 19% and 84%. Worldwide, the average rate was 10% (an 8% decline since Q2), but the range was wide – 19% to 84%.

Additional details including a look at mobile ad network response time and more are available in the full report here.

Note: The performance parameters in the Smaato Mobile Advertising Index are based on over 40.000 registered publishers managed ad requests in the third quarter of 2011 and over 70 connected ad networks delivering mobile advertising across 230 countries.

AT&T’s Fourth Quarter Hail Mary For T-Mobile

Posted: 29 Nov 2011 06:45 AM PST

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When news breaks on Thanksgiving, you can safely bet that it’s bad news. AT&T’s announcement last week that it had withdrawn its application to acquire T-Mobile (and started preparing for the $4 billion payout it owes should the deal fail) is a great example. As we ate stuffing and turkey and cranberry sauce, AT&T was strategizing (all the football on TV probably helped). The plan, you ask?

Basically, AT&T is in talks with Leap (and presumably T-Mobile) to sell off a big chunk of T-Mobile’s customers and a small portion of its wireless spectrum to regional carrier Leap Wireless, according to the New York Times. The hope is that with fewer potential customers to be acquired in the deal, the Department of Justice may ease up in its campaign to block the merger. Even if the DoJ doesn’t back down, the exchange will give AT&T a stronger argument in the court room.

If it goes through, the AT&T/Leap deal would push Leap past T-Mobile as the number four carrier. The trick is to push over enough subscribers to make T-Mobile seem “smaller,” while leaving the pink carrier with enough wireless spectrum to help AT&T build out its next-gen service once it swallows T-Mo.

The plan is a long shot to say the least, but AT&T has quite a bit riding on this. $4 billion, to be exact.

For inspiration:

The Lenovo LePad S2005, A 5-inch Tabletphone For The Chinese Market

Posted: 29 Nov 2011 05:52 AM PST

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Lenovo, taking a page out of the Android history books, just announced the LePad S2005 tabletphone for the Chinese market. This Gingerbread device pushes the recent trend of supersize phones into tablet territory. But that’s been done before. The Dell Streak rocked a 5-inch screen with pride way back in 2010. However, way back then, the EVO 4G stole most of the limelight, leaving the Dell Streak in the background. The LePad, or as it will be branded elsewhere, the IdeaTad S2005 actually has a chance to make it big in today’s roaring Android marketplace.

Inside the S2005 is a Qualcomm dual-core 1.2GHz CPU, 1GB of RAM, and a 480 LTPS display with a 178-degree viewing angle. The phone rocks 2.3.5 and there doesn’t seem to be any talk of Ice Cream Sandwich. A 1,680mAh battery powers the whole contraption. Despite the larger frame, the S2005 only has the standard connectivity ports of a micro-USB port and a micro-HDMI port. The Chinese flavor uses a HSPA+ radio for the China Unicom network but models headed to different markets might have something else.

Lenovo has yet to pricing or the release schedule. Engadget Chinese is stating that the phone will hit their home market in two days. The rest of us are going to have to wait.