IHS: #Chromecast Sales Overtake Apple TV for First Time

 Apple's TV has lost traction versus rival Google's smaller Chromecast stick. And while Apple might make up a little room if it announces a fifth-generation Apple TV at Monday's Worldwide Developers Conference (and launches it soon after), there are plenty of rumors that suggest the event isn't going to have any big hardware announcements whatsoever. So, Apple might be stuck chugging along a bit longer while Google's Chromecast continues its sprint. genesis mining promo code

 According to a recent report from IHS, the Chromecast has struggled to beat the Apple TV throughout much of its life so far. However, the tides finally turned in Google's favor in the first quarter of the year, where IHS figures put Chromecast sales at 3.2 million to the Apple TV's 1.7 million.

 As for why, IHS maintains that Google has been pushing a much different (and seemingly more successful) strategy for selling its streaming stick than Apple's marketing for its media box. And you can probably even guess what that is: the Chromecast, at $35, has incredible mass-market appeal, and it is priced low enough that even those who are not quite sure if they'll use one very much might be tempted to pick one up. It's simple. A Chromecast doesn't even need a specialized UI or remote for you to use it—just your phone or tablet and, of course, Chromecast-compatible apps.

 "The Apple TV, starting at $149, has inexorably been shuttled into the segment's top end. The device is now positioned as a premium hub that appeals to consumers of digital video, to casual gamers and to iOS owners who are intrinsically attracted to Apple's singular user-interface," reads IHS' report.

 That said, the significant price delta (and different features) between the two devices does skew an apples-to-apples comparison a bit. It's like saying Android devices are obliterating iOS devices in sales—a true statement, but one that conceals the simple fact that there are many manufacturers making many Android devices, but only one manufacturer making iOS devices.

 IHS also expects that this trend—the Chromecast beating the Apple TV in sales—is likely to persist, though the firm didn't share any estimates on what an updated Apple TV might be able to do for the company's sales, if anything.

Pcmag.com

June Android distribution: #Marshmallow at 10%, Lollipop at 35%

 It's that time of month again when Google gives developers and users a quick glimpse at the health of the Android market as far as version numbers go. And boy how the mighty have fallen! The combined might of the three Jelly Bean releases no longer has any hold, as it goes below a fifth of the market. Lollipop has taken over its throne, becoming the largest so far. Meanwhile, Marshmallow rises at a steady pace, now occupying 10% of the Android space.

For a long time, Android 4.1 to 4.3 reigned unchallenged, reaching heights in early 2014 when it nearly conquered three-fourths of the pie. Which isn't surprising considering we're talking about three Android releases lumped together. A year later, it would finally be dethroned by Android 4.4 "KitKat", though the latter's victory would be short lived, as Android 5.0 and 5.1 Lollipop would overtake it in just 8 months.

Now the Jelly Bean is near the end of its journey. Android 4.3 in particular, teeters close to the lower limit. It now stands at 2.7%, not that far from Android 2.3 Gingerbread's 2.0%. Any distribution that goes below 0.1% gets removed from the list. Amusingly enough, Android 2.2 Froyo still remains solidly in its place, which it has held for the past 6 months.

Looking to the future, it would seem that Marshmallow's path is secure. But there's a catch. Android N is around the corner and it brings some features that are quite irresistible. There's split screen for one. But there are also other goodies like a more reasonable Doze mode and quicker system updates. It is possible that Marshmallow might reach its highest point in just a month or two. It's not exactly unheard of, as versions like Android 4.3 (Jelly Bean) and 5.0 (Lollipop) never reached the 20% that its other siblings enjoyed.

Given how many Marshmallow devices there are in the market now, and some are still getting their updates, it could yet be another messy phase as far as Android fragmentation is concerned.

SOURCE: Google

#Google tests a cleaner look for Search

 Google has begun to test a new Material Design layout for its desktop search results. The company introduced Material Design in 2014 at its annual I/O conference during its Android Lollipop unveil, promising to spread the new grid-based look across Android, Chrome OS and the web. It's... taken a while to get there, and arguably the most important of Google's web properties -- YouTube and Search - still haven't made the switch. Last month, Google began testing a fresh look for its video streaming site, and now, we're beginning to see that familiar grid of floating cards show up in google.com search results.

The change isn't exactly monumental: Google Search has always returned results in a grid, so the basic layout is functionally identical to the current one. The biggest change is a visual one: the background in the test is a light gray, and individual search results are boxed in white with a small drop shadow to imply elevation.

Another major change is to the informative modules that Google shows for certain terms. Typing "Run The Jewels," for example, would bring up a list of search results accompanied by a card displaying information on the musicians and upcoming events on the right. In the new layout, this card is shown inline, before the regular search results. Given this is just a limited test, there's every chance this behavior will change if Google makes the Material Design layout the default.

Small changes elsewhere include new iconography for the magnifying glass in the search box, and switching out the settings cog for the three vertically aligned dots. Both the changes will be familiar to Android users. The google.com homepage has also been modified in line with the new aesthetic.

The test seems to have begun fairly recently, and on a small scale: There have been a few mentions of the new layout on Twitter and Reddit over the past week, and it's only showing up in one Engadget editor's search results. The company frequently trials new features and layouts on a small group of its users, seemingly at random. Many of the changes never make their way out of the testing phase. We've reached out to Google to ascertain its plans for the new design.

Engadget.com

#Snapchat Passes Twitter in Daily Usage

 The four-year-old messaging app is said to have 150 million people using it each day.

Snapchat Inc. has 150 million people using the service each day, said people familiar with the matter. That makes the four-year-old messaging app more popular than Twitter Inc. by daily active users. genesis mining promo code CZL5k6

 Snapchat has been growing quickly, boosted by its popularity among young people. The app had 110 million daily users in December, said the people, who asked not to be named because they weren’t authorized to speak about the numbers.

 Twitter, which was founded in 2006, has less than 140 million users interacting with the service daily, according to an average of analysts’ estimates surveyed by Bloomberg. The short-messaging service was once the largest social network after Facebook Inc. but has since been surpassed by Facebook’s other apps, including Instagram, Messenger, and WhatsApp.

 Twitter has 310 million monthly active users, according to its most recent earnings report. The company doesn’t disclose how many of those people check in daily, but in the third quarter, it said about 44 percent of monthly users are active each day in the service’s top 20 markets. Twitter Chief Financial Officer Anthony Noto said at the time that the percentage had been stable but that “we’ll be sure to disclose” if there was a significant change. The company hasn’t given an update since then. This implies a daily active user count of 136 million. Twitter and Snapchat declined to comment.

 Snapchat has made communicating more of a game by letting people send annotated selfies and short videos. It has allowed people to use its imaging software to swap faces in a photo, transform themselves into puppies, and barf rainbows. (In March, Facebook said it acquired the startup behind an app called Masquerade, which offers similar photo-manipulation tools.) Snapchat encourages people to visit the app frequently with features such as the "Snapstreak," which counts the number of consecutive days they’ve been communicating with their closest friends. Snapchat’s other content, such as news and Live Stories, disappear after 24 hours.

 Messaging on Snapchat is “very modern,” Twitter Chief Executive Officer Jack Dorsey said on Wednesday at Recode’s technology conference. He acknowledged that Twitter at times can be confusing and alienating—something he’s trying to fix.y.

Bloomberg.com

#Xiaomi ’s 4K Mi Box, with #Android TV, Google Cast and HDR coming to the US market

In the growing market for 4K ultra HD set-top box technology, the number of specific device offerings is growing almost monthly it seems, and what’s even more interesting to see are the different streaming content platforms being attached to these new set-top boxes. Genesis Mining Promo code : CZL5k6

The latest example of these two trends converging is the new 4K Mi Box from Xiaomi and its partnership with none other than Google and its Android TV streaming media and gaming platform.

Recently, Google Announced that it is partnering up with a number of new hardware makers for the delivery of Android TV and Google Cast to users homes so they can watch web content on their TVs. For users of 4K UHD TVsand HD TVs, the content options in these two Google solutions is also quite robust. Naturally enough, 4K set-top boxes figure importantly in this equation.

This is where the Chinese manufacturer Xiaomi’s 4K Mi Box comes into the picture. It will be one of these Google partners and its newest set-top box not only offers 4K content support but will also run on the Android TV platform when it ships to US customers soon. Earlier versions of the box offered nothing more than Full HD support and were only available to customers overseas (mainly on the Asian market) but the new 4K Mi goes beyond both of these limitations in a very smooth, cool way from what we’re hearing.

The 4K Mi operates through a Bluetooth remote control that comes with voice recognition and comes with Google Cast as a built-in feature, allowing for content downloads from both Android and even iOS devices. Naturally enough, with Android TV and its own built-in 4K content support, the 4K Mi Box will also offer access to a whole host of ultra HD content apps that include all those found in many other Android TV-powered 4K TVs or other devices.

This new development will also make the 4K Mi-TV into what is to date only the second set-top box with Android TV as its smart platform along with 4K content compatibility. The competition is thus only the NVIDIA Shield 4K gaming platform/set-top box. 4K TVs from brands like Sony also offer Android TV and 4K content streams but no other set-top boxes do.

The new Mi Box will also come with support for the same streamed games found in the NVIDIA Shield and its remote control doubles as a game console, much like Amazon’s Fire TV box gamer’s combo or the NVIDIA Shield itself with its own gaming control device.

Furthermore, the new 4K Mi Box comes with 2GB of RAM, 8GB of internal storage that can be expanded through a USB port and will almost certainly include support for HDR 4K content as well as all the latest connectivity features now common to 4K set-top boxes. These include HDMI 2.0a, HDCP 2.2 support, HEVC and VP9 (Google’s alternative to HEVC) decoding (especially since this is a set-top device with Google’s own 4K and other content streaming platform) and some other features which we have yet to know.

the 4K Mi box and its two controllers, for content and gaming

Moving back to Google, Its Android TV platform has already gained some serious traction in the 4K market thanks mainly to integration with Sony’s popular 4K TVs since late 2014. This new inclusion in more than one 4K set-top box will only further entrench this excellent smart content platform as a competitor to other smart TV OS systems in home entertainment devices.

Google Cast on the other hand is the second major advance in Google’s streaming video endeavors, and it offers an affordable, mobile-driven option for casting content from a mobile device to an HD or 4K TV screen. However, unlike Google’s other streaming system Chromecast, Google Cast doesn’t require a plug-in dongle and can be used directly between a compatible TV or set-top remote and the 4K TV or box in question if both are compatible with this Google streaming technology. One notable user of Google Cast as the backbone of smart TV functionality in its 2016 4K TVs is Vizio, which has developed this feature into all of its major 2016 ultra HD Television releases like the excellent P-Series, through their mobile remote control/smart TV platform SmartCast.

These Google staples are what you can look forward to in the Xiaomi 4K Mi Box when it arrives.

For now, Xiaomi is hesitating to reveal deeper details about the 4K Mi Box and we don’t yet have a release date or expected price for the U.S market.

Story by 4k.com

#Metlife ’s escape of ‘too big to fail’ label is defeat for #Obama administration

 A federal judge on Wednesday delivered a significant setback to the Obama administration’s efforts to rein in the financial sector and prevent a repeat of the conditions that caused the 2008 financial crisis.

In 2014, a government panel run by Treasury Secretary Jack Lew determined that MetLife should come under stricter federal scrutiny, essentially calling the nation’s largest life insurance company “too big to fail.” With that designation, MetLife would be forced to set aside a bigger financial cushion and put in place other safeguards to protect taxpayers if it fell into financial trouble.

MetLife sued, arguing that the new rules would force it to raise prices, and on Wednesday, U.S. District Judge Rosemary M. Collyer sided with the New York-based firm. Collyer did not explain her decision in the two-page ruling.

“From the beginning, MetLife has said that its business model does not pose a threat to the financial stability of the United States,” Steven A. Kandarian, MetLife’s chairman and chief executive, said in a statement. “This decision is a win for MetLife’s customers, employees and shareholders.”

MetLife, which was founded in 1868, has a global footprint, 100 million customers and a market capitalization of $48 billion. The company’s stock rose 5 percent Wednesday to close at $45 a share.

The ruling comes at a time when the Obama administration is struggling to put in place the final portions of the massive 2010 financial reform package, the Dodd-Frank Act. That effort has come under greater scrutiny recently as Democratic presidential candidate Bernie Sanders has called for the breakup of large financial institutions.

This defeat could also give ammunition to Republicans in Congress who have argued that Dodd-Frank goes too far. The act “ominously grants the Federal Reserve near de facto management authority over such institutions, thus allowing huge swaths of the economy to potentially be controlled by the federal government,” Rep. Jeb Hensarling (R-Tex.), chairman of the Financial Services Committee, said in a statement.

Washingtonpost.com

Will the FBI share its #iPhone-cracking method with police?

 The successful hack of a phone linked to the San Bernardino terror attacks is unlikely to help police win greater access to encrypted data in thousands of smartphones sitting in evidence lockers nationwide, legal experts and law enforcement officials say.

The process used to gain access to Syed Rizwan Farook's iPhone 5c might not work on other devices, according to an FBI official with knowledge of the investigation.

Though the FBI might want to use the new tool to help solve other criminal cases, doing so would also make the process subject to discovery during criminal trials and place the information in the public domain, according to the official, who was not authorized to discuss the case and spoke on the condition of anonymity.

Any application of the method used to access Farook's phone would probably be limited to investigations that are unlikely to result in criminal cases, the official said.

“A technical option developed for a particular computing device may not work on other devices,” the FBI official said. “The effectiveness of these lawful methods may be limited by time and resources, and may lack the scalability to be a viable option for most investigations.”

On Wednesday, an Arkansas prosecutor said the FBI has agreed to help his office gain access to an iPhone 6 and an iPod that might hold evidence in a murder trial. It was not clear if the FBI would employ the method it used to access Farook's phone.

News that the FBI found a way into Farook's phone Monday thrilled police, who have long complained that encrypted data represents a major roadblock to routine police investigations. Thousands of smartphones sit in police evidence lockers across the country. At least 400 locked devices are in the possession of the Los Angeles Police Department and the L.A. County Sheriff's Department.

But as it became clear that the FBI's success in the San Bernardino case wouldn't translate to broader access for law enforcement, officials once again called on Congress to settle the issue.

“We cannot ask crime victims across 3,000 local jurisdictions to stake their hope for justice on an unending technological arms race between the government and Apple,” Manhattan Dist. Atty. Cyrus Vance Jr., one of the leading national voices decrying encryption, said in a statement issued Tuesday. “The ongoing public safety challenge posed by warrant-proof encryption demands a comprehensive, legislative solution.”

Terrence Cunningham, the police chief in Wellesley, Mass., and president of the International Assn. of Chiefs of Police, said he respects the FBI's position but warned that criminals will continue to use encryption to deflect police investigations until a legislative solution is presented.

“The concern is that today's technology provides criminals with powerful new tools that keep police from protecting the public,” he said. “Data that rests in emails, text messages, photos and videos stored on mobile devices can help to locate a suspect or a victim, and in some cases, save lives. Law enforcement's mission is to keep the public safe and to protect communities, and collecting digital evidence from criminals and terrorists will help us do that.”

Federal investigators have offered few details about how they gained access to Farook's phone. The iPhone 5c was at the center of a court battle between the FBI and Apple, which led to a court order that Apple create software that would allow the FBI to access encrypted data on the device.

Farook disabled the phone's iCloud backup feature six weeks before the Dec. 2 attack, according to court filings. He had also enabled an auto-erase feature that would permanently destroy all data on the phone after 10 consecutive failed attempts to enter the device's password.

A third party provided the FBI with a way to disable the password entry limit, according to another law enforcement official with knowledge of the investigation who was not authorized to discuss the case and spoke on the condition of anonymity.

Internal government policy might limit what, if anything, the FBI could share about the method used to hack Farook's phone, said Andrew Crocker, a staff attorney with the Electronic Frontier Foundation, a digital rights advocacy group.

If the government exploited a flaw in Apple's security measures, it could be required to disclose that information to Apple under the Vulnerabilities Equities Process, Crocker said. The policy is weighted toward disclosure, but the government has successfully fought to keep such details secret before.

Government agencies are allowed to share information about digital security flaws with one another, he said. But if the government chose not to share that information with Apple, it could also conceivably be barred from telling police agencies about the process used to unlock Farook's phone.

“They certainly can share it within the federal government without disclosing it to Apple,” Crocker said. “The way I read the policy, sharing it with local police would be a dissemination outside the government.”

In the Arkansas case, Cody Hiland, prosecuting attorney for the state's 20th Judicial District, said the FBI's Little Rock field office had agreed to help prosecutors gain access to a pair of locked devices linked to suspects in the slayings of Robert and Patricia Cogdell.

Calls to the FBI's Little Rock field office were not immediately returned. An FBI spokesman in Washington, D.C., declined to comment.

Attorneys for Apple are researching legal tactics to compel the government to tell the company what, if any, flaws it exploited in gaining access to Farook's phone. But most experts believe the FBI has no obligation to comply. The FBI could also argue that the most crucial information is part of a nondisclosure agreement, solely in the hands of the outside party that assisted the agency, or cannot be released until the investigation is complete.

Though the debate over Farook's phone did not land in criminal court, the fight between law enforcement and Silicon Valley over access to encrypted data is far from over. The FBI may have claimed a victory this week, but some police leaders fear it won't take long for Apple or another company to build tougher encryption methods.

“If the FBI did in fact find some type of a flaw that they were able to exploit, clearly the industry is going to say, ‘We've got to find a way to plug that hole,'” Cunningham said.

Latimes.com