Thursday, 30 October 2014
In an era where the iPhone 6 and Galaxy S5 are assumed to be available virtually anywhere, it would seem obvious to anyone selling a smartphone that having wide distribution was critical. But Google hasn't always followed a conventional path with its Nexus products, which are held in high regard by Android enthusiasts but largely ignored by mainstream consumers.
That changes with the Nexus 6. At a starting price of $649, it is in line with a typical premium smartphone, a break from the Nexus line's history of focusing on affordability. And for the first time for any Nexus device, it will be available at all five major US carriers -- Verizon Wireless, AT&T, Sprint, T-Mobile and US Cellular.
"We are selling the Nexus 6 in a way most people are used to buying it," Hiroshi Lockheimer, vice president of engineering for Android at Google, said in an interview Wednesday.
The decision to create a more expensive, premium device that is more readily available suggests a maturation of the Nexus line. The primary goal of a Nexus device has always been to serve as a vehicle to show off the latest version of Android, largely attracting developers and enthusiasts. But the Nexus 6 phone appears poised for more mainstream attention.
"That's a major shift in the Nexus model," said Jan Dawson, an analyst at Jackdaw Research.
The decision to go with a more expensive product was a result of feedback that showed interest in a more premium-feeling smartphone, Lockheimer said. The result was the Nexus 6, which features a large 5.9-inch quad-HD display, 13-megapixel camera with optical image stabilization, front-facing speakers and an aluminum frame. Constructed by Motorola Mobility, it unsurprisingly features the same design scheme as the new Moto X.
While counter-intuitive, Lockheimer said he believes the more traditional price tag will actually help spur sales. Google has traditionally promoted its own Google Play store as the primary source to purchase past Nexus devices, with the Nexus 5 selling at $349 as an unlocked smartphone with a contract. Working with the carriers, Google will be able to sell the Nexus 6 at $199 with a two-year contract, which at first glance seems cheaper.
Most savvy customers will know that the rest of the cost of the device is baked into the higher service fees charged by the carriers, but the move to this more traditional pricing structure will help get the Nexus 6 in more stores, with more average customers willing to take a look at the device.
"Nexus fans understand the pricing model of an unlocked device," he said. "But outside of that, paying $350 upfront was a foreign concept."
While more expensive, the Nexus 6 holds its own against the competition, Lockheimer said. The jumbo smartphone, which falls into the category of phablet, or a mash-up between a phone and tablet, stacks up against the iPhone 6 Plus, which starts at $749 unlocked or $299 with a two-year contract, and the Galaxy Note 4, which costs $700 unlocked or $300 with a contract.
Google, of course, could have sold an even less expensive Nexus device under contract. But the company, working with Motorola, made the decision to focus on specs and capabilities first.
"It was a deliberate decision to push the boundaries on technology," said Sandeep Waraich, a Google product manager working on the Nexus 6. "We first arrived at the solution, then the price."
If Google wants to increase the reach and sales of its Nexus products, it may no longer be comfortable with the razor-thin margins of previous devices. While Google hasn't publicly talked about the profitability of the business, industry observers believe the company barely makes money on the devices, or even takes a slight loss, in order to drum up attention for the Android platform.
"If Google wants to start selling these devices to the broader market, and therefore sell many more of them, it can't just keep selling them at cost -- it has to actually make money on them," Dawson said.
It's a strategy that worked well with the Asus-built Nexus 7 tablet, which was highly regarded because it started at $229. The Nexus 4 and Nexus 5, both built by LG, were also popular phones because of their low non-contract price.
The Nexus 5 remains an option. But while the Nexus 7 is still available through retailers, it has been removed the Google Play shop. In its place is the Nexus 9, a more premium-feeling tablet that has an aluminum frame, higher-end specifications and a starting price of $399. Google went to HTC to build the tablet because the Internet titan liked what HTC had done with the design of the One.
Lockheimer also dismissed the rumors that Google was scrapping the Nexus program, pointing to the two devices, as well as the Nexus Player media-streaming box, as proof that the company continues to invest in this area. He declined to comment on Android Silver, a rumored line of high-end smartphones from various partners all running the latest unaltered version of the Android operating system.
He also cautioned against reading too much into the higher priced devices. The Nexus program was designed with the purpose of experimenting in different areas. Its goal has never been about volume but about building hardware to test out its software. Google generates a vast majority of its revenue and profit from its traditional online search business.
Wednesday, 29 October 2014
If you do the bulk of your listening in noisy places, continuing with ear buds (the type that come with phones) may eventually lead to hearing loss from continued exposure over a long period of time to excessively loud sound. I covered how ear buds, in-ear, and closed- and open-back headphones work and how they differ on previous blogs.
If you have to listen in noisy places or while commuting, consider buying in-ear or closed-back full-size headphones to seal out noise. When you reduce the background noise level competing with the music, you can turn the music's volume way down, and the difference can be very significant. Even inexpensive closed-back or in-ear headphones will help you listen more quietly.
I find with the better-sounding in-ear and closed-back headphones I can listen at a much lower volume and still not feel like I'm losing detail or the music's energy. Quiet listening draws me in more, so I listen more attentively. Once you get used to listening quietly it will become the new norm, and your ears will suffer less listening fatigue.
Noise-canceling headphones block more noise than any other type of headphone, so you can turn the music down even more, but most noise-canceling models don't sound as good playing music as equivalently priced closed-back headphones.
Custom-molded ear canal headphones may not seal out noise as well as the noise-cancelers, but they sound a lot better. Custom in-ear headphones are more expensive than noise-canceling models, and before you buy a custom-molded headphone, you need to visit an audiologist to have them take "impressions" of your ear canals. It's a quick procedure and not very expensive.
Loud sound from your home speakers is another matter, but again, with better ones you won't feel like you're missing detail when you turn the volume dow
IHS, a market researcher that tears down the latest devices to see what components they include and how much a device might cost the company produce, has revealed that the iPad Air 2 costs between $275 and $358 to build, depending on the version. At the low end is the 16GB with Wi-Fi-only version, while the most expensive version offers 128GB with Wi-Fi + Cellular.
To put that into perspective, Apple charges $499 for the entry-level iPad Air 2. The 128GB Wi-Fi + Cellular option costs consumers $929.
That Apple is boasting healthy margins is perhaps no surprise. As IHS pointed out, the company's total cost on the iPad Air was about $269 to start. So, while Apple is making slightly less per unit this year, its product is still providing healthy margins.
Apple launched the iPad Air 2 last week. The company's latest flagship tablet is thinner than the first-generation iPad Air and comes with the same 9.7-inch screen. Apple offers customers 16GB, 64GB and 128GB versions.
According to IHS, Apple pays between $5 and $6 per unit to have its iPad Air 2 produced. Apple's 9.7-inch display is the most expensive component, costing the company $77 per unit. The touchscreen layered on top of that sets Apple back $38 per unit. Apple's rear- and front-facing cameras combine to cost $11, while the company's wireless, GPS and Bluetooth chips cost $4.50 each.
Apple did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
The computer and printer company claims that the new 3D printing technology is 10 times faster than that in existing 3D printers, is more affordable and prints stronger products than current offerings in the market. With those improvements, HP claims it can make 3D printing much more widely adopted than it is today. However, any customers will have to wait a little longer to buy the product -- it doesn't become generally available until 2016.
HP on Wednesday also announced the new Sprout, a desktop computer that works as a dual-screen creative console, with its own projector and a 3D-capable scanner.
Earlier this year, HP said it would announce a 3D printing offering by the end of its fiscal year (which is this Friday). Wednesday's announcement comes just three weeks after HP unveiled plans to split into two companies, joining a recent trend of large corporate breakups to create smaller, more targeted firms, including eBay's plans to spin off its PayPal unit. After the split, the new Hewlett-Packard Enterprise will focus on business and government software and services, and HP Inc. will focus on PCs and printing. The split will be completed by the end of October 2015.
"As we examined the existing 3D print market, we saw a great deal of potential but also saw major gaps in the combination of speed, quality and cost," Stephen Nigro, an HP senior vice president, said in a statement. He said Multi Jet Fusion is designed to "transform manufacturing across industries" thanks to improved quality and productivity from what's already offered today.
HP claims the technology achieves that in part by building an entire surface area, instead of one point at a time, substantially speeding up 3D imaging. Additionally, beyond the current use of thermoplastics, HP plans to develop new 3D printing materials, using color, ceramic and metal. The company eventually wants to offer the same set of colors it already does for traditional printing. Multi Jet Fusion currently prints in fused nylon, to an accuracy of 20 microns.
Early customers should have access to initial Multi Jet Fusion systems next year, with full availability expected the year after. HP said that while the technology is mostly targeted to corporate clients, the company wants to make it available to consumers as well through "service bureaus."
HP already has a strong name in printing, having sold consumer and business printers for decades, so it may be able to leverage its expertise and customer relationships to expand its new 3D printer offerings. Still, 3D printing has struggled to take off into the mainstream, with companies including 3D Systems and Stratasys working on developing their markets beyond prototyping early products and creating custom industrial tools.
With HP becoming one of the biggest companies to enter 3D printing, the landscape for the young industry is likely to shift quickly -- and perhaps not to the benefit of the smaller players already in the space. Just as HP made its announcement Wednesday, shares of 3D Systems, ExOne and Stratasys all dropped some 3 percent to 7 percent.
Dear overenthusiastic middle manager, who thinks that enthusiastically e-mailing at midnight is a wonderful way to get promoted.
Dear supposed co-worker, who leans on others night and day by sending them evening e-mails detailing everything that "needs" to be done.
Enforced Vacation is for you. Or, rather, against you.
This is an app that insists it will efficiently block every single work e-mail, so that you can do fancy things like live, breathe and watch "The Good Wife" in peace.
Enforced Vacation works like this: You select your time frame. You block everything.
The app does allow you to make exceptions for specific individuals or subjects. You can share a secret keyword with others and they know to include it only in anything that is truly urgent.
However, David Thielen of Windward Studios, the man behind the app, told me: "What we are is not a very strict filtering system. What we are is no business e-mail when you're 'off.' None."
Writing on the Enforced Vacation website, he explained that the idea for the app came to him because of his own staff.
"Quite simply Ryan & Logan (two of our sales engineers). Getting them to leave email alone at night is impossible. Getting them to ignore it on the weekend, also an exercise in frustration," Thielen wrote. "As Ryan was heading in to the operating room for gall bladder surgery, he was on his cell phone answering a support ticket. This wasn't how we wanted our employees to work, even if they did."
Thielen believes that people need to be treated as people, not tools in a corporate shed. He wants to "give people back their personal time."
He told me: "The goal is that people truly have work e-mail off during their personal time. And maybe once a month there's a single email that needs to go through."
For many, this would be a peculiar nirvana. The price of $1 per user per month seems small compared with the potential sanity that might be achieved. And, perhaps, the potential productivity. No one's ever proved that being on e-mail at all hours creates a better employee.
Some countries have begun to protect workers from modern e-mailing practices. In Brazil, for example, they passed a law that said e-mail after hours constituted overtime. This year, the French passed a labor agreement that required workers simply not to reply to e-mails sent after 6pm.
How such regulations might work in practice is, of course, debatable. I wonder what will happen when overbearing bosses discover that their employees are using Enforced Vacation to get away from their overbearing bosses.
However, it's rare that an enterprise product offers headlines such as "Stop Working 24/7. Be Happier."
In a world where everything is being pushed onto everybody, there's something uplifting about an app that tries to pull you away from technology.
Synthetic sapphire, a material second only to diamonds in hardness, has been the talk of the tech industry this year as a potential replacement to the glass that now covers smartphone screens. The sapphire piece Reiman held didn't scratch. Not one bit.
But then he placed the 0.5-millimeter-thick sample on a table and pressed against its surface with the pink eraser on the back of a pencil. With a dull pop, the sapphire broke into pieces with as much exertion as Reiman may have used to push a doorbell.
"You can't see the damage, but its strength is gone," Corning executive Jaymin Amin later explained. "Its retained strength is very, very poor."
The demonstration was part of my visit to Corning this month, where the 163-year-old glassmaker -- they built the first light bulbs for Thomas Edison -- offered a rare look inside its reliability and testing labs for Gorilla Glass. The hardened glass released seven years ago now fronts 2.7 billion electronic devices, including Apple's iPhone and Samsung's Galaxy Note Edge. While showing the torture testing that goes into making Gorilla, Corning's scientists also presented for the first time a handful of in-person demonstrations that compare its glass to sapphire -- part of Corning's effort to move the conversation about sapphire away from its scratch resistance and toward its brittleness.
With the sandpaper test, Gorilla Glass did get scratched -- a lot. But a pencil eraser failed to break it.
Its durability aside, Corning's Gorilla Glass is under even more pressure to stay ahead of the market. Mobile devices are updated and redesigned faster than ever, forcing Corning to speed its research process. The company has also had to contend with claims that Apple -- its most prominent customer -- might swap out Gorilla Glass in its iPhone for sapphire, a move that seemed likely after Apple signed a $578 million deal last year to make a massive amount of sapphire. In a surprise turn, Apple's supplier -- GT Advanced Technologies -- filed for bankruptcy protection this month and will shut down its sapphire production.
The stumble may buy Corning more time to improve its products -- that is, until another company or material tries to knock Gorilla Glass off its throne.
Corning has reason to be defensive about Gorilla Glass. The business now generates roughly $1 billion annual sales for the company (out of total sales of $7.8 billion last year) since it was released as the display cover for Apple's original iPhone smartphone in 2007. The material is now used in a majority of smartphones and tablets from just about every major device manufacturer.
Corning, based in the 11,000-population upstate New York city it's named after, said Tuesday it plans to unveil its fourth-generation Gorilla Glass on November 20, claiming it will offer "dramatically improved" performance.
Corning's main business of making LCD displays for televisions has been challenged by falling prices (the LCD business accounts for about 40 percent of sales). So, a lot of the company's future expansion rests on Gorilla and Corning's plan to capitalize on the rapid growth of smartphones and tablets, Oppenheimer analyst Andrew Uerkwitz said. "There's not a single growth driver equal to Gorilla Glass," he added.
Corning's expert glass-breakers
Far from Apple's slick, high-wattage product launch events in California, the iPhone's display glass is developed in an unassuming, blue and gray building on a quiet country road across from an unkempt cornfield. The low-standing structure in Painted Post, N.Y., houses the Gorilla Glass reliability and testing labs, where a team of engineers spends much of their day dropping, bending, shattering and scratching the material."We primarily break glass. It's our job," said a smiling Jon Pesansky, who runs the labs.
Much of the space is off limits to other Corning personnel, since it's used to test experimental recipes of Gorilla Glass and to collaborate with smartphone makers on prototype devices. Visitors are usually required to sign a confidentiality agreement when entering and I was told not to take wide photographs of the labs, so Corning's competitors couldn't ascertain the size of the space.
The group visiting included me and a team from electronics repair chain uBreakiFix. We put on safety glasses, walked into a restricted corridor and soon entered one of the main labs, which -- despite all the secretiveness -- looks a lot like shop class. There were large testing machines set in stations along bare white walls, with a handful of researchers there to present their torture devices.
Using the machines, the workers took turns bending, puncturing and scratching the glass, repeatedly emphasizing the point that Gorilla Glass -- unlike sapphire -- retains its strength even after being damaged. It may scratch, but it doesn't break easily. During my visit, I tried to break a thin piece of Gorilla Glass with a pencil-sized metal rod, putting most of my weight into the effort. My hand shook and reddened, but I couldn't make a dent in the glass.
One worker used a machine to drop a metal ball on the glass from varying heights. Another dropped a dummy smartphone with its outer shell made almost entirely of glass onto a marble surface. I asked why Corning was using a nearly all-glass phone, and one worker explained that they like to test out new design concepts before handset makers come to them with the idea, so they can stay one step ahead of a fast-moving industry.
"Part of what we're doing is looking at the real details of how things break in the field and then bringing that back into the laboratory to generate new tests," Reiman said, "so we can evaluate the damage resistance of glass better, so we can design better glass."
Apple finds a tough partner
When Apple was first developing the iPhone, it tested out plastic as the display screen, like with the iPod music player, but found that it scratched too much and lacked style. Soda-lime glass, which is used for windowpanes and bottles, wasn't strong enough. "We told them absolutely we can make a better glass," said Amin, an affable Brit who heads up Gorilla's technology development.During an early meeting, Apple CEO Steve Jobs told Corning CEO Wendell Weeks he wanted as much of the material as could be made within six months for the iPhone's first launch, according to Walter Isaacson's biography of Jobs. Weeks responded that his company didn't have the capacity to complete the project. "Yes, you can do it," Jobs told him. "Get your mind around it. You can do it."
An Apple representative didn't respond to a request for comment.
Corning, which got its start making kerosene-lamp globes and colored signal lenses for railroad companies, used a hardened glass it developed in the 1960s as the basis for Gorilla Glass. That precursor material, called Chemcor, was marketed for car windshields and prison windows, though it failed to sell.
Decades later in the new market of mobile devices, Gorilla Glass became a hit, in large part because of Apple's endorsement. The material has been used in every iPhone, including the new iPhone 6 and 6 Plus, as well as dozens of laptops, smartwatches and tablets from Samsung, LG, Acer, Dell and Motorola.
Gorilla gets its strength by a manufacturing process that replaces the glass' sodium ions with larger potassium ions, creating more compression at the material's surface. It's something like replacing tennis balls with softballs inside a frame. The effect is a more scratch- and damage-resistant glass, despite the fact that intrinsically glass isn't all that strong.
As of last year, Gorilla Glass held more than 80 percent of the hardened cover glass market it helped create, according to Bernstein Research. Japan-based Asahi Glass' 3-year-old Dragontrail is growing its market share but remains a distant competitor. Nippon Electric Glass of Japan, Schott of Germany and KMTC of China have introduced similar cover glasses though haven't gained much traction.
Gorilla contributed just 15 percent of Corning's overall revenue last year, with the company's businesses spanning TV displays, fiber optics and research lab equipment. But, Gorilla Glass has been the leading growth driver for the company, as Corning works to expand the material's use for car windows and displays (one of Chemcor's original markets), elevator walls and kitchen backsplashes.
The company has dominated the market thanks, in part, to Gorilla Glass becoming one of Corning's most recognizable brands. It's now synonymous with tough glass -- a feature manufacturers use to market their mobile devices.
Back at the testing lab, Reiman sat at his desk, where he provided a tutorial in his area of specialty -- fractography, or the study of fractured surfaces. He propped up a shard of glass using a piece of gray putty, placing it under a large microscope connected to a computer monitor. Looking at a magnified cross-section of the shard on the computer screen, he searched for the "fracture origin" -- the smoking gun that initiated the break. "I happen to think these are beautiful," he said, pointing to a close-up of the glass shard.He takes samples from devices sent by handset makers, pieces used in Corning's lab tests or busted phones brought by co-workers ("If we've got a phone in the family that's broken, we give it to Kevin," Amin said). Reiman then uses each break to learn more about the glass so he can try to make the next Gorilla Glass a little better.
"It's like detective work, looking for clues, looking for evidence, piecing it together and putting the story together," Reiman said. "It's a lot like CSI, in a way, because you're letting the glass tell the story of how did it break."
Gorilla's next step forward
The reliability and testing team's work is part of Corning's broader research and development engine. The company spends hundreds of millions of dollars a year and employs about 1,700 scientists at its headquarters to better understand glass and other materials. It's all that R&D that has helped Gorilla Glass maintain its lead in the market, said Oppenheimer's Uerkwitz, who added that Corning's rivals spend far less in R&D each year to catch up to Corning's latest innovation.Although Corning's executives say they see a strong future for its glass in mobile devices, some industry analysts predict that down the road more smartphone makers will use sapphire as display covers. A handful of niche phones already do, including the heavy-duty Kyocera Brigadier and Vertu Signature Touch, which starts at $10,800. Apple also uses the material in newer iPhone models to cover the device's home button and back-camera lens. "I think sapphire will be adopted in high volume sooner or later," said Pierre Maccagno, an analyst at Dougherty & Co. who holds a Ph.D. in material science. The reason, says Maccagno: sapphire is a "superior" material to Gorilla.
Corning's Amin agreed that sapphire had some impressive qualities but disputed that it would ever become mainstream. He said it was too brittle to be used in most smartphones, even as a laminate atop Gorilla.
Sitting in the Corning headquarters dining hall, which features large windows overlooking the Chemung River, Jeffrey Evenson, the company's operations chief of staff, discussed the future of Gorilla Glass. He told me a main focus will be making it even stronger, so it can survive the daily scrapes, drops and bumps a smartphone gets in the real world.
On top of that, Corning is looking into glass that reflects less light, repels water (to avoid phone shortages in the sink) and fends off oil (to prevent fingerprints on the screen). Corning can make Gorilla Glass thinner than a dollar bill, so it appears the company is looking to add new features to the next generations, since Gorilla can't get much thinner. Evenson conceded that it will be a challenge to balance all those capabilities into one piece of glass, but added, "We think we can definitely offer improvements on multiple dimensions at once."
In a hint at what could be coming next, earlier in the day Amin showed off a sleek glass display with curved edges all around, offering a potential wrap-around look for a smartphone. Although the display is curved, Amin said the company was able to make it just as transparent and durable as flat Gorilla sheets. "I think it has exciting potential," Evenson said. "We're looking forward to working with customers on it."
But before the new design can hit the market, it will first have to make it through Corning's torture lab.
Earlier on Wednesday, CNET attempted to place an order for a Fire TV Stick. Upon getting to the checkout page, Amazon revealed the streaming device would not ship until January 16. The listing page earlier on Wednesday was still promising a November 19 ship date, but that has since changed.
"Due to popular demand, orders placed today are expected to arrive after January 1, 2015," Amazon wrote on its listing page. "See delivery date at checkout. This item will be released on November 19th."
The $39 Fire TV Stick, a streaming-media device that connects to an HDMI port on the back of your TV, was revealed on Monday and is available for perorder. It works with a slew of streaming-video and -music apps, including Netflix, Hulu Plus, Spotify, Vevo, A&E and, of course, Amazon's own Prime Instant Video. The Fire TV Stick comes with a remote control and a free, 30-day trial of Amazon Prime and Netflix.
The device is designed to take on products like the $35 Google Chromecast and $50 Roku Streaming Stick, both of which connect to an HDMI port to stream content via your television. There's also now the Matchstick, a streaming device based on Mozilla's open-source Firefox OS that cropped up on Kickstarter earlier this month and easily beat its $100,000 funding goal.
When announced, Amazon said the device would start shipping on November 19, with people who ordered it early receiving the device on that day or soon after. It's not clear when the cutoff occurred, forcing everyone else to wait nearly two months for their order to ship.
The big question now: Are shipment dates for new orders of the Fire TV Stick being pushed back because of demand or because of supply shortages? According to Amazon, it's the former.
"We built a ton of these but customer demand outpaced our supply," one Amazon spokesperson told CNET in an e-mailed statement. "We're excited by the overwhelming customer response and we have teams working hard to build more as quickly as possible."
Another Amazon spokesperson said that "the device will start shipping on 11/19 as promised. People who ordered early will get their device on time. New orders are prioritized on a first-come, first-served basis."
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