LinkedIn rewards all employees with iPad Minis

With Valentine's Day just hours away, LinkedIn employees are really feeling the love -- from their CEO.
Chief Executive Jeff Weiner surprised the company's 3,458 full-time employees Wednesday when he revealed at an all-hands meeting that they were all getting iPad Minis.
"Jeff 'Winfrey' Weiner decided to give every [LinkedIn] employee an iPad Mini today as a special reward for our recent results," Mike Grishaver, a product manager who works on the company's marketing solutions team, posted on the business social network.
Employees are getting 32GB iPad Mini models in white or black. Krista Canfield, LinkedIn's senior manager of corporate communications, confirmed the giveaway, which she called a "small gesture of the company's gratitude."
"We wanted to acknowledge the hard work and accomplishments of all of our employees in 2012," she said.
Employee enthusiasm trickled over to Twitter, where some wasted no time in tweeting about their new toys.
LinkedIn, currently an object of affection for investors, last week reported fourth-quarter adjusted earnings per share of 35 cents, revenue of $303.6 million, and net income of $11.5 million. The results handily beat expectations and the company's share price has been on a run ever since. 
The company closed at $157.21 a share Wednesday, up nearly 27 percent from last Thursday's $124.05 close.
Perhaps the reward was in order -- especially since the Minis will give employees a chance to browse through all that business content LinkedIn wants to funnel through its network.

Read More...

A keyboard that rises up from flat touch screens

A few weeks ago, right before the new BlackBerry 10 phones were announced, I dragged a cameraman to San Francisco's Financial District during lunch hour and asked random strangers to name BlackBerry's best feature. Care to guess what the results of my highly unscientific poll were? Even iPhone and Android users agreed -- the famed keyboard is BlackBerry's top trait.
Increasingly, we "mobile device addicts" are favoring our smartphones and tablets over our traditional computers to meet our digital demands. Trouble is, a lot of us still despise typing on these beloved touch-screen devices. One Silicon Valley startup has created a new kind of keyboard that could help reduce typos and other fat-fingered mistakes.
Fremont, Calif.-based, Tactus Technology uses microfluidics to make physical keys bubble up from the surface of a touch screen when you need to type and disappear, when you don't. Microfluidics may sound foreign, but if you've operated an inkjet printer you've used the technology.
So how do keys appear out of nowhere? It starts with a panel that has channels built into it. The channels are filled with a non-toxic fluid. By increasing the pressure in the channels, the fluid pushes up the surface of the panel, creating an actual key. What's more, Tactus says the pressure will be adjustable, so the keys could feel a bit squishy, like a gel pack or they could be harder, like the plastic keys on a laptop.
Tactus demo-ed a working prototype for us, but they're still refining the technology. Right now, there's an audible noise when the keys appear. It should be silent in the final version. And the surface has to be rugged. You wouldn't want to spring a leak, after all. Durability tests are part of that process since Tactus needs to guarantee the surface can't be punctured by a newly manicured fingernail or a 3-year-old trying to scribble on your smartphone with a pen.
Currently, the technology is limited in that it's a fixed single array. You wouldn't be able to use the Tactus keyboard in both portrait and landscape mode, for example. But the goal is to make the third generation of the product dynamic. "The vision that we had was not just to have a keyboard or a button technology, but really to make a fully dynamic surface," says cofounder Micah Yairi, "So you can envision the entire surface being able to raise and lower depending on what the application is that's driving it." Meaning it could display a keyboard when you're typing an e-mail, a number pad when you're dialing a phone number, and perhaps letter tiles when you're playing Words With Friends.
Tactus says it wants to be in production by the end of 2013 or beginning of 2014. Executives were mum about which companies they're talking to. Just one partnership has been announced to date, with Touch Revolution, a Bay Area company that makes touch displays. Tactus VP Nate Saal says, "There are more and more touch screens being integrated in devices... from your mobile phone, cell phone, into refrigerators and appliances and I think those are all opportunities for Tactus to really improve the interface and usability of those devices."
Tactus took it's prototype to CES in January. Among the attendees who tried out the technology was a man who was visually impaired. His reaction upon feeling the keys under his fingers? "Amazing."

Read More...

Apple cuts MacBook Pro Retina prices, bumps specs

The 13-inch MacBook Pro with Retina now starts $1,499, or $200 less than before. The higher-capacity 256GB version costs $1,699, or $300 cheaper than the original price. The processor clock speed also gets boosted to 2.6 gigahertz from 2.5GHz.
The 15-inch MacBook Pro with Retina gets a speed boost, with the lower-end version getting its clock speed bumped up to 2.4GHz from 2.3GHz, and the higher-end version getting bumped up to 2.7GHz quad-core processor from 2.6GHz, as well as double the RAM at 16 gigabytes.
The line of MacBook Pros with Retina displays have always been a higher-end item that fewer consumers could buy. The starting 13-inch MacBook Pro is significantly less at $1,199. With its own iPad sales cutting into Mac revenue, Apple is likely looking to goose interest with a minor price cut and spec upgrade.
Apple also cut the price of its high-end MacBook Air. The 256GB version now costs $1,399, or $100 less than the previous price.
The prices have yet to take effect on Apple's Web site, but will change later today.

Read More...

Google Asks “Why Fly Private When You Can Fly Private – Out Of Your Own $82M Airport?”

Google’s executives could soon be enjoying their own private airport space ahead of winging their way to various far-flung locations around the world, according to a news release from the Mineta San Jose International Airport (via MercuryNews). Signature Flight Support, in tandem with a company called Blue City Holdings which represents Google’s fleet of personal aircraft, will likely be awarded a 50-year lease on San Jose Airport’s West Side, in order to build a 29-acre, $82 million facility to house Google’s executive aircraft and those of other clients.
In the news release, the airport expresses its intent to recommend that Signature be granted the lease, which will see it construct a “full-service, world-class fixed base operation” on the site. The physical facility itself should occupy over 270,000 square feet on the 29 acre plot, according to the proposal, and will include an executive terminal, hangars for storing aircraft, ramp space capable of accommodating large business jets and aircraft maintenance facilities. In exchange, Signature and its partners will pay $2.6 million in annual rent, a minimum of $400,00 in fuel fee revenues, minimum annual taxes of $70- to 300,000, around 200 jobs during the construction phase, 36 jobs directly on premises and around 370 total jobs created.
Google’s fleet of aircraft included eight private jets spread across Larry Page, Sergey Brin and Eric Schmidt alone, according to news revealed back in December 2011, owned and operated by an independent company formed by the three executives apart from Google. Google almost definitely has more aircraft than that overall at this point, and establishing their own close-to-hand place from which to operate, maintain and store those means of transportation likely just makes more sense at this point that whatever other arrangements they previously had in place.

Read More...

Opera Confirms “Gradual” Shift To WebKit — Starting With Smartphones — As It Clocks Up 300M Users

Browser maker Opera plans to move to using the WebKit engine, as well as Chromium, for “most” upcoming versions of browsers for smartphones and computers this year. Its first WebKit product is likely to be a smartphone browser for Android — due to be previewed at the Mobile World Congress tradeshow in Barcelona later this month — with desktop and other products following.
The initial shift is aimed at increasing its competitiveness on Android and iOS, it said:

To provide a leading browser on Android and iOS, this year Opera will make a gradual transition to the WebKit engine, as well as Chromium, for most of its upcoming versions of browsers for smartphones and computers.

Opera added that working with the open source communities to “further improve” WebKit and Chromium makes more sense than continuing to develop its our own rendering engine.
“The WebKit engine is already very good, and we aim to take part in making it even better. It supports the standards we care about, and it has the performance we need,” said Opera CTO Håkon Wium Lie in a statement, adding: “Opera will contribute to the WebKit and Chromium projects, and we have already submitted our first set of patches: to improve multi-column layout.”
Writing on the Opera developer blog, Bruce Lawson said moving to using WebKit and Chromium elements, plus V8 for JavaScript, will also help Opera improve compatibility with mobile websites: “Consumers will initially notice better site compatibility, especially with mobile-facing sites — many of which have only been tested in WebKit browsers,” he wrote.
On the question of why Opera is switching to WebKit, Lawson said the web is a very different place to when Opera started out in 1995, competing with Netscape and Internet Explorer. Then it was necessary to build its own rendering engine to — in his words — “drive web standards, and thus the web forward”. Today, says Lawson, the web has a worthy, interoperable standard in HTML5.
“The WebKit project now has the kind of standards support that we could only dream of when our work began,” he added.
Opera’s shift to WebKit is not a huge surprise — the company showed off a WebKit-powered mobile browser called Ice last month. Ice is part of its experimentation with WebKit, it said today, revealing it has “several” R&D projects in the works. ”The shift to WebKit means more of our resources can be dedicated to developing new features and the user-friendly solutions,” added Wium Lie.
Also today, Opera announced it’s clocked up 300 million users across all its browser products — on mobiles, tablets, TVs and computers.
Commenting in a press release, Opera Software CEO, Lars Boilesen, said that in the run up to 300 million users the company experienced “the fastest acceleration in user growth” it has ever seen. “Now, we are shifting into the next gear to claim a bigger piece of the pie in the smartphone market,” he added.

Read More...

iPad 5 To See Complete Redesign, Will Launch In October

The iPhone 5 was the first major change to Apple’s iconic mobile device since the iPhone 4. The move to a 4-inch display was the most noticeable change, but there was a number of small adjustments that made it another hit for the Cupertino-based company. The same, however, could not be said for the iPad as its fourth iteration featured no discernable aesthetic difference. That all may change this year. In a report from iLounge, Editor-in-Chief Jeremy Horwitz claims to have seen a “supposedly accurate” physical model of the iPad 5. In his report, he claims that the iPad 5 will be noticeably smaller than its predecessors. In fact, the next-generation iPad will be taking a cue from the iPad Mini by removing the left and right bezels and reducing the size of the top and bottom bezels to only include enough room for the home button and camera.
So, when we will see this supposedly redesigned next-generation iPad? Horwitz says that Apple is targeting an October release after its previously planned March launch slipped through its fingers. The delay is welcome, however, as it gives Apple ample time to perfect the newest iPad into something that may just wow critics after the disappointing fourth-generation iPad.
The iPad 5 may be the star of this report, but Horwitz adds more credence to the rumors of two iPhones launching this year. He says that the iPhone 5S will look much like the iPhone 5, but feature a larger flash. The other iPhone model coming this year is the same rumored cheaper iPhone that features a plastic body. It will be sold to emerging markets like China where most of the population can’t afford the regular iPhone.
As for that rumored bigger iPhone, Horwitz says that it’s in the planning stages. He says that it will feature a 4.7-inch display. You shouldn’t get too excited though as he says it may never come to market. It’s only experimental for now, and it may just remain that way.

Read More...

Android Tablet Beats iPad Sales in Japan

A new report from a Japanese publication named Nikkei claims that Apple’s iPad sales in Japan this holiday season were beaten by sales of Google’s Nexus 7. The report cites a survey from Japanese market research firm BCN, which contacted 2,400 stores across Japan. According to the survey, Google’s Nexus 7 tablet, manufactured by Asus, made up 44.4% of of all tablet sales by volume in December. Apple’s iPad tablets only accounted for 40.1% of December sales. It should be noted that Amazon’s Kindle Fire tablets were not included in the survey, “as these devices are primarily sold online.” The larger retailers surveyed, however, cited the Kindle Fire as the third best-selling tablet in their stores.
The publication cites the lower price of the Nexus 7 as a large selling point for the tablet. It also points to the iPad Mini as a possible factor in Apple’s lower iPad sales, and the fact that Apple fans may have already bought the newest version of the iPad when it debuted in November.
Even though the Nexus 7 was able to edge out more sales than the iPad, sales were up for both and the entire tablet market as a whole. Nikkei states that tablet sales in 2012 were 2.8 times those in 2011, with market research firm IDC estimating 2012 tablet sales in Japan to be 3.6 million units. IDC’s estimate for 2013 is $4.9 million tablets sold in Japan.

Read More...