How to automatically delete Chrome browsing data
July 27, 2012 | Nicole Cozma
Make Chrome run more efficiently and give yourself some peace of mind at the same time with this convenient extension.
Google Chrome is one of the most popular Web browsers, but sometimes a missing feature can be rather shocking. Automatically deleting things like your browsing and download history, cache, cookies, and even saved form data is missing from Chrome! You could do it manually every time you browse the Web, remember, or get paranoid, but you shouldn't have to.
That's why Click&Clean, a Chrome extension, exists. Not only does it offer more features than the standard check boxes built into Chrome, it also performs actions automatically. That's right, no remembering, lots of being lazy... I mean, doing other things.
First you'll want to install a copy of the Click&Clean extension into Chrome. Once you've done that, it's time to do some configuring so it can automagically work later.
Screenshot by Nicole Cozma/CNET
Click on the new icon in your Chrome toolbar with the C on it. If a new tab doesn't open, and you see a menu instead, click the Options icon.
This extension is great for those who use Chrome at work and want to ensure that none of their browsing habits, cookies, or other information stick around after punching out.
Friday, July 27, 2012
Twitter post
A somewhat radical viewpoint, however with some key opinions of the benefits of Twitter and social media.
The New Twitter Ostriches
By: Oscar Del Santo on July 27th, 2012 at 1:30 pm
Twitter has become the preferred channel to test the mood of the person in the street, and specifically those in the all-important digital community including millennials and other key elements of the population.
And every institution, brand or person who systematically fails to listen, respond, engage or interact with not just her clients but the online community as a whole risks unleashing its wrath and suffering a quick and painful erosion of their prestige and credibility, let alone losing a valuable opportunity to improve their image, find support, apologize (why does it continue to be ‘mission impossible’ for some of our household brands?) or mount a vigorous defense when the situation calls for it.
It is therefore nothing less than shocking to witness the proliferation in Twitter of a new (mutant) species amongst our best-known commercial and personal brands that disregards criticism and feedback as a rule even when – as it is currently happening in Spain with the backlash against the Olympic Committee and its chairman after the fiasco of the official kit to be worn by Spanish athletes at the London Olympics – they are being denigrated and vilified in the social and traditional media alike.
If the microbloggy blue bird was created to chirp and tweet happily away, some of our institutional and business representatives together with a number of notorious yet ill-advised personal brands have degenerated into ostriches that bury their heads in the sand at the sign of trouble imitating the largest of our flightless birds.
The list of ostriches is surprising in its breadth and scope, and includes all those who mechanically publish messages as automaton loudspeakers and in the best of cases sporadically retweet some mention.
Before our most cynical readers jump to conclusions, I hasten to add that this communication policy has nothing to do with size or numbers of followers – though needless to say the latter makes it almost impossible for big Twitter accounts to engage with every single comment.
The fact that there is in many cases not even a standardized answer, or that no effort is made to implement technological solutions –
ITweetLive comes to mind – that would allow them to do so is a telling sign.
The fact is: bidirectional communication continues to remain an uncharted territory for many despite all the hype about ‘engagement’.
Perhaps the most pernicious unintended side-effect our new ostriches face is the so-called ‘boomerang effect’ that their short-sighted attitude provokes, especially in crisis scenarios where they find themselves in the eye of the hurricane at the epicenter of the Twittersphere wrath.
As America’s most prominent crisis management expert Eric Dezenhall has pointed out: “When one has done wrong, repentance is required. When one has been wronged, a vigorous defence must be mounted.”
The Twittersphere is often spontaneously mobilized when it perceives a glaring mistake by a brand.
Author:
Oscar Del Santo is a lecturer, consultant, key speaker, blogger and populariser of online reputation and inbound marketing in Spain.
The New Twitter Ostriches
By: Oscar Del Santo on July 27th, 2012 at 1:30 pm
Twitter has become the preferred channel to test the mood of the person in the street, and specifically those in the all-important digital community including millennials and other key elements of the population.
And every institution, brand or person who systematically fails to listen, respond, engage or interact with not just her clients but the online community as a whole risks unleashing its wrath and suffering a quick and painful erosion of their prestige and credibility, let alone losing a valuable opportunity to improve their image, find support, apologize (why does it continue to be ‘mission impossible’ for some of our household brands?) or mount a vigorous defense when the situation calls for it.
It is therefore nothing less than shocking to witness the proliferation in Twitter of a new (mutant) species amongst our best-known commercial and personal brands that disregards criticism and feedback as a rule even when – as it is currently happening in Spain with the backlash against the Olympic Committee and its chairman after the fiasco of the official kit to be worn by Spanish athletes at the London Olympics – they are being denigrated and vilified in the social and traditional media alike.
If the microbloggy blue bird was created to chirp and tweet happily away, some of our institutional and business representatives together with a number of notorious yet ill-advised personal brands have degenerated into ostriches that bury their heads in the sand at the sign of trouble imitating the largest of our flightless birds.
The list of ostriches is surprising in its breadth and scope, and includes all those who mechanically publish messages as automaton loudspeakers and in the best of cases sporadically retweet some mention.
Before our most cynical readers jump to conclusions, I hasten to add that this communication policy has nothing to do with size or numbers of followers – though needless to say the latter makes it almost impossible for big Twitter accounts to engage with every single comment.
The fact that there is in many cases not even a standardized answer, or that no effort is made to implement technological solutions –
ITweetLive comes to mind – that would allow them to do so is a telling sign.
The fact is: bidirectional communication continues to remain an uncharted territory for many despite all the hype about ‘engagement’.
Perhaps the most pernicious unintended side-effect our new ostriches face is the so-called ‘boomerang effect’ that their short-sighted attitude provokes, especially in crisis scenarios where they find themselves in the eye of the hurricane at the epicenter of the Twittersphere wrath.
As America’s most prominent crisis management expert Eric Dezenhall has pointed out: “When one has done wrong, repentance is required. When one has been wronged, a vigorous defence must be mounted.”
The Twittersphere is often spontaneously mobilized when it perceives a glaring mistake by a brand.
Author:
Oscar Del Santo is a lecturer, consultant, key speaker, blogger and populariser of online reputation and inbound marketing in Spain.
What's going on at Twitter?
Big changes with the service, and who is supported. Are they ready for the big times or have they already damaged themselves? Oh, for the need to make money.
Twitter is looking into making TV shows. That direction would have been unimaginable four years ago. But the Flock has made its nest. Twitter is a media goose that wants to lay a golden egg. And entrepreneur Dalton Caldwell doesn’t believe the company can squeeze it out.
Caldwell is building App.net, which he calls a “real-time social feed without the ads.” He wants a Twitter-like service that acts as infrastructure, the “dial tone for the real-time Web,” not an advertising vehicle with a captive, chattering audience.
ReadWriteWeb caught up with Caldwell in his office on Wednesday, just after Zynga, maker of those addictive games on Facebook and elsewhere, announced its miserable quarterly earnings. “I’ve seen this movie before,” Caldwell said of the ad-based social network landscape. Twitter and Facebook have grown large enough that they're able to make money from socially targeted advertising, but neither has found the formula that will generate enough cash to build a lasting business. “At the end of the day, a crap ad impression is a crap ad impression,” he says.
Caldwell tried the brute-force ad approach himself at imeem and picplz. It didn’t work. He couldn’t mine enough money from these kinds of social media. Facebook and Twitter have ascended on the promise that they can. Caldwell doesn’t buy it.
Twitter’s Chilling Effects
Twitter hasn't made its strategy entirely clear, but recent actions and statements strongly suggest that the company intends to close off its tinkerer's paradise, open for all to invent diverse experiences out of the service's core capabilities, and funnel users into the official Twitter apps. These apps are optimized for the newest features, which deliver rich media experiences designed to hold users' attention while Twitter shows them ads.
The warning signs are everywhere. Twitter has been beating the drum about cutting off the third-party apps responsible for roughly a quarter of its content. It’s doing so in the name of consistency - ostensibly to standardize the Twitter experience.
“You need to be able to see expanded Tweets,” Twitter Product Manager Michael Sippey wrote in June, referring to a rich-media feature that only Twitter's official apps currently display.
And Twitter's axe has begun to fall on third-party developers. In May, Kara Swisher at AllThingsD reported that Flipboard CEO Mike McCue might leave Twitter’s board. Swisher’s sources explained that McCue has begun to feel “that the companies are on a product collision course.” Since Twitter’s latest moves are all about corralling users within Twitter’s walls, the conflict with Flipboard, which repackages material from a user's Twitter stream for personalized browsing, seems obvious.
In June, on the same day Twitter delivered its latest warning about closing off its ecosystem, LinkedIn announced in a mournful blog post that Twitter had cut off the ability for LinkedIn users to automatically publish their tweets as LinkedIn updates.
On Thursday, Instagram released an update in which the "find friends from Twitter" feature is broken. Instagram shows a warning message: “Twitter no longer allows its users to access this information in Instagram via the Twitter API.” Other, smaller services still have this access, but Instagram users are screwed.
Caldwell sees in these events the classic symptoms of an online media company failing to fly. “Media companies are starving,” Caldwell says, “and that’s why they do crazy things.”
Hot Dogs & Caviar
On his blog at daltoncaldwell.com - a must-follow if you’re interested in these issues - Caldwell framed the problem with an appropriately gross metaphor: hot dogs and caviar.
Here's the story that Twitter - and Facebook, too, for that matter - is selling: The social messaging company will create some powerful new “social ad unit” that will turn the “hot dog” ad impressions currently annoying people who are just trying to talk to each other into “caviar” that tastes delicious and is worth lots of money.
That sounds unlikely to Caldwell. But Zynga and Facebook have already committed themselves to this direction. Twitter is another matter, because it doesn’t need to go this way.
At the beginning, “Twitter was the most open, radical, insane thing ever,” Caldwell says. “It was almost like an art project.” It just put this simple service out there, and its users and developers defined the features that built it into a massive service.
But “the ad guys won,” as Caldwell wrote before launching his App.net adventure. Now Twitter wants consistency and control. It wants to be a media company that others “built into,” not “build off” of.
“It makes me angry when I see businesses that are built on controlling bits,” Caldwell says. “Twitter is either going to destroy themselves and sell to Google or turn hot dogs into caviar.”
Caldwell doesn’t want to lose Twitter the service, even if he loses Twitter the company. So he proposes App.net as a business first and foremost, a model that will sustain a Twitter-like service and serve the interests of users and developers - that is, if it can meet its $500,000 crowdfunding goal.
What Is App.net?
App.net will be a paid service. Its members will pay an annual fee to be regular users. That means App.net has to keep them happy. It won’t advertise to them. It will let them own and control all of their data, so their privacy won’t be compromised. And they can leave at any time.
Developers who want to build apps for the network also pay for access. That means App.net has to keep them happy, too. It plans to do so by allowing them to build apps, extensions and businesses of their own on top of App.net’s managed, centralized service. They can even host their own, decentralized versions and just hook in at the end.
The service doesn’t exist yet. If you go to join.app.net, you’ll get the pitch, and you can back the project Kickstarter-style. The member tier costs $50, which covers the first year of service, and you can reserve your user name when you back the project. For $100, you get access to the developer tools, so you can hack on the service. The funding goal is $500,000, and it ends at 11:59 p.m. Pacific on Monday, August 13. At press time, it’s still shy of $100,000.
If App.net doesn’t meet its crowdfunding goal, well, it was worth a try. The backers keep their money. But Caldwell is already talking to well known developers, both of client apps for users and for back-end feed technologies. He says they’re intrigued. If the campaign succeeds, the community will be pretty strong from the get-go.
Caldwell chose the $500,000 goal for its symbolic value, but it represents an important threshold of interest. 10,000 committed users would be enough to incubate the service by experimenting with features and social conventions, just like Twitter did at the beginning.
Reinventing the Stream
Twitter already demonstrated the underlying, world-changing idea: a real-time service for short, public messages where every user can contribute a feed to which anyone can subscribe. That’s vital. Twitter has thrived because people found the service useful, even necessary.
But eventually, Twitter the company had to figure out what business to be in. It decided on ad sales, squeezing money out of the attention paid by its users, which requires clamping down on the Twitter experience. Caldwell is far from alone in feeling disappointed by that decision.
There have been other attempts to build a Twitter-like service that works the way it “should.” Identi.ca is still up and running, but it's hardly a developer's playground. Without business reasons to build better experiences for the service, it will never grow up. Others don’t believe a centralized service can ever be a lasting solution. Dave Winer has offered a neat list of suggestions for how a decentralized messaging service can be achieved, though it has some technical drawbacks.
One obvious problem with a paid, centralized service like App.net is reach. Twitter is great precisely because anyone can be on it. A decentralized service built into the Web itself would expand the reach by allowing people to access it with any app they chose. As a paid service, App.net will be limited, and that kills off much of Twitter’s appeal.
But that’s what the developer ecosystem is for. If App.net can build a good home for developers, it can build the federation needed to reach the outside world. Caldwell's model is GitHub. It's based on a decentralized protocol that anyone can take advantage of, but there's a premium, centralized, managed service that people use for the convenience and peace of mind.
The questions here are less about capabilities and more about motivations. All kinds of technologies can be used to build a new Twitter. But where is the organization that will actually do it?
By starting with a business plan, App.net has put the incentives in place. The product, if it gets funded, may not satisfy everyone. But that’s better than a perfect idea that never gets made.
Twitter is looking into making TV shows. That direction would have been unimaginable four years ago. But the Flock has made its nest. Twitter is a media goose that wants to lay a golden egg. And entrepreneur Dalton Caldwell doesn’t believe the company can squeeze it out.
Caldwell is building App.net, which he calls a “real-time social feed without the ads.” He wants a Twitter-like service that acts as infrastructure, the “dial tone for the real-time Web,” not an advertising vehicle with a captive, chattering audience.
ReadWriteWeb caught up with Caldwell in his office on Wednesday, just after Zynga, maker of those addictive games on Facebook and elsewhere, announced its miserable quarterly earnings. “I’ve seen this movie before,” Caldwell said of the ad-based social network landscape. Twitter and Facebook have grown large enough that they're able to make money from socially targeted advertising, but neither has found the formula that will generate enough cash to build a lasting business. “At the end of the day, a crap ad impression is a crap ad impression,” he says.
Caldwell tried the brute-force ad approach himself at imeem and picplz. It didn’t work. He couldn’t mine enough money from these kinds of social media. Facebook and Twitter have ascended on the promise that they can. Caldwell doesn’t buy it.
Twitter’s Chilling Effects
Twitter hasn't made its strategy entirely clear, but recent actions and statements strongly suggest that the company intends to close off its tinkerer's paradise, open for all to invent diverse experiences out of the service's core capabilities, and funnel users into the official Twitter apps. These apps are optimized for the newest features, which deliver rich media experiences designed to hold users' attention while Twitter shows them ads.
The warning signs are everywhere. Twitter has been beating the drum about cutting off the third-party apps responsible for roughly a quarter of its content. It’s doing so in the name of consistency - ostensibly to standardize the Twitter experience.
“You need to be able to see expanded Tweets,” Twitter Product Manager Michael Sippey wrote in June, referring to a rich-media feature that only Twitter's official apps currently display.
And Twitter's axe has begun to fall on third-party developers. In May, Kara Swisher at AllThingsD reported that Flipboard CEO Mike McCue might leave Twitter’s board. Swisher’s sources explained that McCue has begun to feel “that the companies are on a product collision course.” Since Twitter’s latest moves are all about corralling users within Twitter’s walls, the conflict with Flipboard, which repackages material from a user's Twitter stream for personalized browsing, seems obvious.
In June, on the same day Twitter delivered its latest warning about closing off its ecosystem, LinkedIn announced in a mournful blog post that Twitter had cut off the ability for LinkedIn users to automatically publish their tweets as LinkedIn updates.
On Thursday, Instagram released an update in which the "find friends from Twitter" feature is broken. Instagram shows a warning message: “Twitter no longer allows its users to access this information in Instagram via the Twitter API.” Other, smaller services still have this access, but Instagram users are screwed.
Caldwell sees in these events the classic symptoms of an online media company failing to fly. “Media companies are starving,” Caldwell says, “and that’s why they do crazy things.”
Hot Dogs & Caviar
On his blog at daltoncaldwell.com - a must-follow if you’re interested in these issues - Caldwell framed the problem with an appropriately gross metaphor: hot dogs and caviar.
Here's the story that Twitter - and Facebook, too, for that matter - is selling: The social messaging company will create some powerful new “social ad unit” that will turn the “hot dog” ad impressions currently annoying people who are just trying to talk to each other into “caviar” that tastes delicious and is worth lots of money.
That sounds unlikely to Caldwell. But Zynga and Facebook have already committed themselves to this direction. Twitter is another matter, because it doesn’t need to go this way.
At the beginning, “Twitter was the most open, radical, insane thing ever,” Caldwell says. “It was almost like an art project.” It just put this simple service out there, and its users and developers defined the features that built it into a massive service.
But “the ad guys won,” as Caldwell wrote before launching his App.net adventure. Now Twitter wants consistency and control. It wants to be a media company that others “built into,” not “build off” of.
“It makes me angry when I see businesses that are built on controlling bits,” Caldwell says. “Twitter is either going to destroy themselves and sell to Google or turn hot dogs into caviar.”
Caldwell doesn’t want to lose Twitter the service, even if he loses Twitter the company. So he proposes App.net as a business first and foremost, a model that will sustain a Twitter-like service and serve the interests of users and developers - that is, if it can meet its $500,000 crowdfunding goal.
What Is App.net?
App.net will be a paid service. Its members will pay an annual fee to be regular users. That means App.net has to keep them happy. It won’t advertise to them. It will let them own and control all of their data, so their privacy won’t be compromised. And they can leave at any time.
Developers who want to build apps for the network also pay for access. That means App.net has to keep them happy, too. It plans to do so by allowing them to build apps, extensions and businesses of their own on top of App.net’s managed, centralized service. They can even host their own, decentralized versions and just hook in at the end.
The service doesn’t exist yet. If you go to join.app.net, you’ll get the pitch, and you can back the project Kickstarter-style. The member tier costs $50, which covers the first year of service, and you can reserve your user name when you back the project. For $100, you get access to the developer tools, so you can hack on the service. The funding goal is $500,000, and it ends at 11:59 p.m. Pacific on Monday, August 13. At press time, it’s still shy of $100,000.
If App.net doesn’t meet its crowdfunding goal, well, it was worth a try. The backers keep their money. But Caldwell is already talking to well known developers, both of client apps for users and for back-end feed technologies. He says they’re intrigued. If the campaign succeeds, the community will be pretty strong from the get-go.
Caldwell chose the $500,000 goal for its symbolic value, but it represents an important threshold of interest. 10,000 committed users would be enough to incubate the service by experimenting with features and social conventions, just like Twitter did at the beginning.
Reinventing the Stream
Twitter already demonstrated the underlying, world-changing idea: a real-time service for short, public messages where every user can contribute a feed to which anyone can subscribe. That’s vital. Twitter has thrived because people found the service useful, even necessary.
But eventually, Twitter the company had to figure out what business to be in. It decided on ad sales, squeezing money out of the attention paid by its users, which requires clamping down on the Twitter experience. Caldwell is far from alone in feeling disappointed by that decision.
There have been other attempts to build a Twitter-like service that works the way it “should.” Identi.ca is still up and running, but it's hardly a developer's playground. Without business reasons to build better experiences for the service, it will never grow up. Others don’t believe a centralized service can ever be a lasting solution. Dave Winer has offered a neat list of suggestions for how a decentralized messaging service can be achieved, though it has some technical drawbacks.
One obvious problem with a paid, centralized service like App.net is reach. Twitter is great precisely because anyone can be on it. A decentralized service built into the Web itself would expand the reach by allowing people to access it with any app they chose. As a paid service, App.net will be limited, and that kills off much of Twitter’s appeal.
But that’s what the developer ecosystem is for. If App.net can build a good home for developers, it can build the federation needed to reach the outside world. Caldwell's model is GitHub. It's based on a decentralized protocol that anyone can take advantage of, but there's a premium, centralized, managed service that people use for the convenience and peace of mind.
The questions here are less about capabilities and more about motivations. All kinds of technologies can be used to build a new Twitter. But where is the organization that will actually do it?
By starting with a business plan, App.net has put the incentives in place. The product, if it gets funded, may not satisfy everyone. But that’s better than a perfect idea that never gets made.
Money vs happiness? Who wins and where
How Much Money Do You Really Need To Be Happy?
So many of us work long, hard hours to provide for our families and children-often long hours away from home, maybe taking on extra jobs at times or hoping to get a raise in an effort to make our lives richer financially–working harder at the expense of sleeping and taking good care of ourselves in order to have extra money. It seems so many of us just aren’t content with what we have now.
But is there a point at which striving to earn or acquire extra money can be counterproductive? Or, in other words, when having extra money just doesn’t make us “happy” anymore?
In a recent column in the the Sunday Review of the New York Times, Elizabeth Dunn and Michael Norton attempt to answer this question and by doing so create a perfect opportunity for us to reflect about the limitations of how the desire to accumulate money can ultimately affect our happiness.
There certainly is a relationship between your salary and happiness; people who earn a good living are often happier than people who live in poverty. Having extra money can certainly enhance our lives by providing extra food, objects and creature comforts in our homes.
But the irony is that earning additional income will actually not lead to extra happiness, once you have already attained a “comfortable standard” where you have what you need to function and be content. The “comfortable standard” can be quite variable based on the city, state or country you live in. Here in the US, according to Dunn and Norton, the standard falls around $75,000.
Researchers at Princeton examined Gallup poll data from nearly 500,000 US households and found that higher family incomes were related to better moods on a day to day basis. However, the positive effects of money had no effect on people’s happiness and moods after a level of $ 75,000.00 was attained.
The issue then arises why we work so hard after we have reached an income level that is able to make us happy. Beyond a strong work ethic engrained by family values, or the desire to excel and compete with others, it appears that our ideas about money and happiness have gone awry. Dunn and Norton explain that based on their research with a national sample of Americans, the thought that life would be happier with double their salary (from 25K to 55K) did not translate into any measurable happiness. (Twice the money did not lead to twice the happiness). But according to Dunn and Norton’s data, people who earned 55K were only 9 percent more content than those making $25,000.00. 9 percent happier may be difficult to quantify, and better than 0 percent, but not the 100 percent you may be expecting from the extra income.
PAGE 2
However the true take-away from all of these mental exercises with money and happiness is that what we do with our money is more important than the money we earn. The thought that making more money can allow us to have bigger houses and fancier cars to nicer digital televisions-more for ourselves- is ultimately ineffective at turning money into happiness.
Research has demonstrated that if you are going to spend money on yourself, you may want to switch from buying material objects (TVs or cars) to buying experiences (trips and special events). Based on additional research by Dunn and Norton, while buying more “experiences”, you will be better off by just buying less in general and instead buy for others.
As an extension of this concept, Dunn and Norton refer to the concept of “underindulgence”- indulging a little less than you typically do- may lead you to a place where you achieve more happiness for your money. The concept is that by denying yourself the excess that you may ultimately desire may allow you to savor and appreciate the finer things in life. Dunn gives the example of indulging in chocolate sparingly -instead of in excess- may actually make you appreciate the taste and texture much more.
An extension of the underindulgence concept also relates to the ban on oversized regular soda that New York City recently proposed. In many areas of the country, the childhood obesity crisis has led to a ban on regular soda in a number of schools and campuses. According to research, restricting access to sugary sodas only at particular times of the day may actually have the ability to improve taste, while having a beneficial effect on limiting consumption. In fact, research from Arizona State University has shown that individuals enjoy the taste of soda much more when they can’t have it immediately.
Food experts have previously recognized that the first sip or the first bite is often more enjoyable than the 30th bite or sip.
A more extreme but scientifically proven means of increasing the happiness you derive from your money is a bit more radical-not spending it on yourself. It turns out that people who spend money on others rather than themselves are actually happier in the long run. They derive a greater feeling of reward and satisfaction and this helps to enrich their inner feelings of sharing and contentment.
So instead of buying that extra watch or TV the next time you have some new found money, consider the alternative: indulging less and offering others the opportunity to share in your wealth.
Spy vs Spy on iOS
One of my all time favorite classic games – and a game that frustrated me to no end – is now available for your iOS devices. Calgary’s Robots & Pencils have brought the classic Spy vs. Spy to your touch screen.
The game of course is based off the cartoon in the Mad Magazine comic. I remember playing this for hours on the Apple II. What’s great about this iOS version is you can play the retro game in all its pixelated glory.
It’s also been updated to be enjoyed on your Retina display device as well.
The premise is simple. Find all the hidden items before the opposing spy and get to your plane — oh, and make sure to plant some booby traps along the way just to frustrate your opponent.
Here’s my video review, and please don’t laugh. I’m still as bad as I was all those years ago.
Robots & Pencils has done a great job porting over Spy vs. Spy and updating it for your iOS devices. You have the eight original embassies to make your way through with the addition of 16 more. And for your added enjoyment, it offers online and local multiplayer support. So you’re sure to get a lot of replay value.
If you were a fan of the original, you’ll love this version.
Samsung posts record profit Sony pay attention!
Smartphones power record Samsung profit of $5.9 billion during Apple lull
By Miyoung Kim
SEOUL | Fri Jul 27, 2012 12:59am EDT
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By Miyoung Kim
SEOUL (Reuters) - Samsung Electronics Co, the world's top technology firm by revenue, reported on Friday a record operating profit of $5.9 billion for the June quarter, as rampant Galaxy S handset sales helped stretch its lead over Apple Inc.
September quarter mobile profits are expected to forge further ahead as the latest Galaxy model enjoys a sales boom before the next iPhone launch, widely expected in October, driving Samsung's profit to a record of nearly 8 trillion won ($7 billion). The mobile business brings in around 60 percent of Samsung's earnings.
Profits of the handset division more than doubled from a year earlier and the flat-screen business swung to a profit as LCD prices stabilized.
Shares in Samsung, which also makes TVs and other appliances, flat-screens, and chips, jumped as much as 4.7 percent to a five-week high after the results, outperforming the wider market.
"Solid results from the TV division show its resilience to the euro zone crisis, while the mobile division has become a strong cash cow on the back of strong Galaxy sales," said Seo Won-seok, an analyst at Korea Investment & Securities.
"Weak memory chip prices remain the biggest concern for Samsung in the third quarter, but it will again fare better than rivals as its reliance on Apple, which tends to squeeze suppliers quite a bit, is small compared to the likes of Hynix and Toshiba. It'll have less margin pressure."
JK Shin, head of Samsung's telecoms business, told Reuters on Sunday that sales of the Galaxy S III, the most aggressive competitor to the iPhone, were better than his initial forecast of at least 10 million units in the first two months after its launch in late May.
It is also preparing a sequel to the popular phone-cum-tablet Galaxy Note later this year to counter Apple's new product releases.
Samsung, which earlier this year ended Nokia's 14-year reign as the top global handset maker, is estimated to have increased smartphone shipments to 50.5 million in the June quarter, nearly double the 26 million iPhones sold.
Apple shipments in the June quarter tumbled 26 percent sequentially as the European economy sagged and consumers held off on buying ahead of the release of the iPhone 5.
"Regardless of Apple's performance, Samsung will be strong in the third quarter," said Byun Han-joon, an analyst at KB Investment & Securities. "Actually, for Samsung, Apple's stumble is a chance."
Analysts estimated that Samsung, which now controls more than a third of the global smartphone market, will sell 15 million to 20 million of its Galaxy S III in the September quarter.
PATENT BATTLE
Samsung, valued at $160 billion and the world's leading maker of TVs, said April-June operating profit totaled 6.72 trillion won ($5.9 billion), in line with guidance it issued earlier this month.
That is up 79 percent from a year ago and 15 percent from the previous record - 5.85 trillion won in the March quarter.
Still, its net profit of 5.2 trillion won ($4.5 billion) is only half of the $8.8 billion Apple returned in the last quarter from its iPhone, iPad and Mac computer sales.
Samsung's gross margin of 37 percent also lags Apple's 43 percent.
The two technology giants, locked in bruising patent battle globally, will begin a jury trial in federal court in San Jose, California on Monday. Apple seeks roughly $2.5 billion in damages, plus permanent injunctions on some Samsung phones and tablets, while Samsung is demanding patent royalty payments.
Samsung said it expected its third quarter - July to September - to be marginally positive as demand for consumer electronic goods, including smartphones and tablets remains strong. However, it said it expected weak demand for PC DRAM to continue in the third quarter.
Song Myung-sub, a senior analyst at HI Investment & Securities, said chip earnings might pull back slightly in the third quarter.
"But the increase in demand for its products from Microsoft Windows 8 release in September and the iPhone in October will bring demand higher than supply," Song said.
Profit from the telecoms division more than doubled to 4.19 trillion won from a year earlier 1.71 trillion won, with sales of 50.5 million smartphones - or 380 every minute.
Its semiconductor business showed a small decline in profit to 1.1 trillion won from 1.79 trillion won, following weak demand for NAND memory chips and computer memory chips.
Prices of NAND flash memory chips tumbled 46 percent in the first half of this year following a 34 percent plunge last year, forcing Toshiba Corp to cut output by 30 percent.
The flat screen division swung to a small profit of 750 billion won from a year earlier loss of 210 billion won after a global fall in LCD (liquid crystal display) prices stabilized.
The TV and home appliances business returned 760 billion won, up from 470 billion won. Analysts have said the business has been buoyed by solid sales of high-end TV models with 3D and Internet connectivity features.
While the next iPhone will likely slow Samsung's handset earnings growth, it will boost the Korean firm's semiconductor earnings as Samsung is the sole producer of processing chips used to power the iPhone and iPad, and also supplies Apple with mobile memory chips, NAND flash and display screens.
By Miyoung Kim
SEOUL | Fri Jul 27, 2012 12:59am EDT
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By Miyoung Kim
SEOUL (Reuters) - Samsung Electronics Co, the world's top technology firm by revenue, reported on Friday a record operating profit of $5.9 billion for the June quarter, as rampant Galaxy S handset sales helped stretch its lead over Apple Inc.
September quarter mobile profits are expected to forge further ahead as the latest Galaxy model enjoys a sales boom before the next iPhone launch, widely expected in October, driving Samsung's profit to a record of nearly 8 trillion won ($7 billion). The mobile business brings in around 60 percent of Samsung's earnings.
Profits of the handset division more than doubled from a year earlier and the flat-screen business swung to a profit as LCD prices stabilized.
Shares in Samsung, which also makes TVs and other appliances, flat-screens, and chips, jumped as much as 4.7 percent to a five-week high after the results, outperforming the wider market.
"Solid results from the TV division show its resilience to the euro zone crisis, while the mobile division has become a strong cash cow on the back of strong Galaxy sales," said Seo Won-seok, an analyst at Korea Investment & Securities.
"Weak memory chip prices remain the biggest concern for Samsung in the third quarter, but it will again fare better than rivals as its reliance on Apple, which tends to squeeze suppliers quite a bit, is small compared to the likes of Hynix and Toshiba. It'll have less margin pressure."
JK Shin, head of Samsung's telecoms business, told Reuters on Sunday that sales of the Galaxy S III, the most aggressive competitor to the iPhone, were better than his initial forecast of at least 10 million units in the first two months after its launch in late May.
It is also preparing a sequel to the popular phone-cum-tablet Galaxy Note later this year to counter Apple's new product releases.
Samsung, which earlier this year ended Nokia's 14-year reign as the top global handset maker, is estimated to have increased smartphone shipments to 50.5 million in the June quarter, nearly double the 26 million iPhones sold.
Apple shipments in the June quarter tumbled 26 percent sequentially as the European economy sagged and consumers held off on buying ahead of the release of the iPhone 5.
"Regardless of Apple's performance, Samsung will be strong in the third quarter," said Byun Han-joon, an analyst at KB Investment & Securities. "Actually, for Samsung, Apple's stumble is a chance."
Analysts estimated that Samsung, which now controls more than a third of the global smartphone market, will sell 15 million to 20 million of its Galaxy S III in the September quarter.
PATENT BATTLE
Samsung, valued at $160 billion and the world's leading maker of TVs, said April-June operating profit totaled 6.72 trillion won ($5.9 billion), in line with guidance it issued earlier this month.
That is up 79 percent from a year ago and 15 percent from the previous record - 5.85 trillion won in the March quarter.
Still, its net profit of 5.2 trillion won ($4.5 billion) is only half of the $8.8 billion Apple returned in the last quarter from its iPhone, iPad and Mac computer sales.
Samsung's gross margin of 37 percent also lags Apple's 43 percent.
The two technology giants, locked in bruising patent battle globally, will begin a jury trial in federal court in San Jose, California on Monday. Apple seeks roughly $2.5 billion in damages, plus permanent injunctions on some Samsung phones and tablets, while Samsung is demanding patent royalty payments.
Samsung said it expected its third quarter - July to September - to be marginally positive as demand for consumer electronic goods, including smartphones and tablets remains strong. However, it said it expected weak demand for PC DRAM to continue in the third quarter.
Song Myung-sub, a senior analyst at HI Investment & Securities, said chip earnings might pull back slightly in the third quarter.
"But the increase in demand for its products from Microsoft Windows 8 release in September and the iPhone in October will bring demand higher than supply," Song said.
Profit from the telecoms division more than doubled to 4.19 trillion won from a year earlier 1.71 trillion won, with sales of 50.5 million smartphones - or 380 every minute.
Its semiconductor business showed a small decline in profit to 1.1 trillion won from 1.79 trillion won, following weak demand for NAND memory chips and computer memory chips.
Prices of NAND flash memory chips tumbled 46 percent in the first half of this year following a 34 percent plunge last year, forcing Toshiba Corp to cut output by 30 percent.
The flat screen division swung to a small profit of 750 billion won from a year earlier loss of 210 billion won after a global fall in LCD (liquid crystal display) prices stabilized.
The TV and home appliances business returned 760 billion won, up from 470 billion won. Analysts have said the business has been buoyed by solid sales of high-end TV models with 3D and Internet connectivity features.
While the next iPhone will likely slow Samsung's handset earnings growth, it will boost the Korean firm's semiconductor earnings as Samsung is the sole producer of processing chips used to power the iPhone and iPad, and also supplies Apple with mobile memory chips, NAND flash and display screens.
Is Facebook down for the count?
Can they make money? It will be interesting if the largest social network can prove they are a viable business entity, now that the hype balloon is deflating along with their stock.
I will be curious to see if the online. ad model will also be business savvy. What do you think?
ReadWriteWeb
Featured Sections: Mobile & StartGet the newsletter
Facebook's Stock Has Never Been Lower: Here's Why
DAVE COPELAND· YESTERDAY
Despite meeting analysts’ operating earnings estimates of 12 cents a share, Facebook shares were hammered Thursday, falling more than 10% in after-hours trading. Here’s why.
Yes, Facebook tied earnings estimates and even eked out slightly better revenue of $1.18 billion. But in its first earnings release, earnings per share and revenue weren’t the numbers that mattered. As investors made their way through a sparse earning release, the more telling numbers were laid bare:
Ad impressions and the number of ads delivered rose, but as CFO David Ebersman noted on the conference call, that was almost entirely attributed to year-over-year user growth of 29%.
Ads delivered only rose 2%, in large part because U.S. user growth slowed and - here’s the key point - more than half of those users increased their mobile use where Facebook has no viable advertising model.
During the second quarter, the number of daily active users in the U.S. and Canada, Facebook’s most lucrative market, remained flat from the first quarter.
And even the 12 cents per share number was deceiving. As an average, it represented a wide range of estimates and was seen as being on the low side. Facebook, in other words, reached base on an error when it needed to hit a home run after a lackluster initial public offering and rough communications with Wall Streets in the weeks since shares started trading.
Simply put, Facebook has saturated most of the world’s major markets. Now it needs to be able to show it can squeeze more revenue and higher earnings out of each user, and that is something the second-quarter earnings release did not demonstrate.
On its earnings call, CEO and Founder Mark Zuckerberg (yes, he did show up and shares rose slightly in after hours trading as soon as he started speaking before falling again) continued to talk about what the company can become. He reiterated previous statements that the company is in the early stages of developing its mobile strategy and that sponsored stories and other social ads were showing “an encouraging start.” He laid out a three-pronged strategy focusing on mobile, building high-quality apps and making its developer platform accessible for third parties.
After a 10-minute introduction, Zuckerberg handed the call off to Chief Operating Officer Sheryl Sandberg who talked about Facebook’s “ability to create unique advertising opportunities.” She told listeners about Facebook’s potential to deliver “word of mouth advertising at an unprecedented scale.”
In other words, same story, different over-hyped news event in the life of a public company. Zuckerberg and Sandberg gave no hints of new strategies, instead highlighting some recent success stories, reviewing some recent product launches and reiterating what most observers already knew about the company.
What they didn’t answer were the tough questions. They offered little of the forward-looking guidance Wall Street was looking for. They didn’t address the stock’s lackluster performance since the IPO. And perhaps most telling, they didn’t give the concrete revenue numbers Wall Street was looking for. Yes, the number of mobile users was up from a year-ago, and Sandberg stressed that Facebook is “optimistic with our early tests around mobile.” She said people were “consuming their news feeds and sharing,” but she gave no hard numbers on how many of them were clicking on mobile ads.
At the end of the conference call, Facebook shares were $24.12 in after-hours trading.
Photo by Peter J. Rockwell
I will be curious to see if the online. ad model will also be business savvy. What do you think?
ReadWriteWeb
Featured Sections: Mobile & StartGet the newsletter
Facebook's Stock Has Never Been Lower: Here's Why
DAVE COPELAND· YESTERDAY
Despite meeting analysts’ operating earnings estimates of 12 cents a share, Facebook shares were hammered Thursday, falling more than 10% in after-hours trading. Here’s why.
Yes, Facebook tied earnings estimates and even eked out slightly better revenue of $1.18 billion. But in its first earnings release, earnings per share and revenue weren’t the numbers that mattered. As investors made their way through a sparse earning release, the more telling numbers were laid bare:
Ad impressions and the number of ads delivered rose, but as CFO David Ebersman noted on the conference call, that was almost entirely attributed to year-over-year user growth of 29%.
Ads delivered only rose 2%, in large part because U.S. user growth slowed and - here’s the key point - more than half of those users increased their mobile use where Facebook has no viable advertising model.
During the second quarter, the number of daily active users in the U.S. and Canada, Facebook’s most lucrative market, remained flat from the first quarter.
And even the 12 cents per share number was deceiving. As an average, it represented a wide range of estimates and was seen as being on the low side. Facebook, in other words, reached base on an error when it needed to hit a home run after a lackluster initial public offering and rough communications with Wall Streets in the weeks since shares started trading.
Simply put, Facebook has saturated most of the world’s major markets. Now it needs to be able to show it can squeeze more revenue and higher earnings out of each user, and that is something the second-quarter earnings release did not demonstrate.
On its earnings call, CEO and Founder Mark Zuckerberg (yes, he did show up and shares rose slightly in after hours trading as soon as he started speaking before falling again) continued to talk about what the company can become. He reiterated previous statements that the company is in the early stages of developing its mobile strategy and that sponsored stories and other social ads were showing “an encouraging start.” He laid out a three-pronged strategy focusing on mobile, building high-quality apps and making its developer platform accessible for third parties.
After a 10-minute introduction, Zuckerberg handed the call off to Chief Operating Officer Sheryl Sandberg who talked about Facebook’s “ability to create unique advertising opportunities.” She told listeners about Facebook’s potential to deliver “word of mouth advertising at an unprecedented scale.”
In other words, same story, different over-hyped news event in the life of a public company. Zuckerberg and Sandberg gave no hints of new strategies, instead highlighting some recent success stories, reviewing some recent product launches and reiterating what most observers already knew about the company.
What they didn’t answer were the tough questions. They offered little of the forward-looking guidance Wall Street was looking for. They didn’t address the stock’s lackluster performance since the IPO. And perhaps most telling, they didn’t give the concrete revenue numbers Wall Street was looking for. Yes, the number of mobile users was up from a year-ago, and Sandberg stressed that Facebook is “optimistic with our early tests around mobile.” She said people were “consuming their news feeds and sharing,” but she gave no hard numbers on how many of them were clicking on mobile ads.
At the end of the conference call, Facebook shares were $24.12 in after-hours trading.
Photo by Peter J. Rockwell
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