GLENN’S SHOWNOTES
Google Maps dives underwater for panoramic ocean views
Google on Tuesday announced that the company has added its firstunderwater panoramic images to Google Maps. The service now offers 360-degree views of what are generally considered to be six of the world’s most beautiful underwater vistas, including Apo Island in the Philippines and the Great Barrier Reef in Australia.
The new panoramic underwater views are accessible in the Street View feature of Google Maps.
http://maps.google.com/help/maps/streetview/gallery.html#!/ocean
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7syWPIZt9B4
Samsung fixes remote wipe Galaxy S III vulnerability
Samsung today released an over-the-air update for a vulnerability discovered in its Galaxy S III smartphone that lets hackers remotely tap into and wipe personal data from the device.
The vulnerability was first discovered last week by Ravi Borgaonkar.
If not addressed, Galaxy S III users run the risk of accessing a malicious line of code that sparks a factory reset on their phones. All personal information, as a result, will be wiped.
Samsung spokesperson told ZDNet. “We recommend all Galaxy SIII customers to download the latest software update, which can be done quickly and easily via the over-the-air (OTA) service.”
Light-bulb moment: invention adds new depth to digital camera field
Exclusive: Closed Dick Smith stores to re-open
http://www.crn.com.au/News/317024,updated-woolworths-sells-dick-smith.aspx
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Newly appointed Dick Smith CEO Nick Abood will re-open a number of stores previously closed by former parent Woolworths, while pushing into new product categories and online retail over the coming year.
Woolworths announced this morning it had ended a nine-month search for a buyer of its Dick Smith business, with private equity firm Anchorage Capital Partners snapping up the consumer retail chain for $20 million.
Earlier today, Anchorage revealed its intention to reverse the 22 planned closures.
He revealed a new push into the home appliance category, singling out coffee machines, with around 26 larger stores in line to move into the home appliance space.
He said the previous store closures had rid the business of debt, and with $290 million in net assets, Dick Smith was in a good position to regain its position as the go-to for technology.
Amazon slams Apple for fight over ‘app store’
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Amazon.com has asked a federal judge to throw out Apple’s false advertising claim in a lawsuit challenging the online retailer’s use of the “app store” name.
The claim is part of a March 2011 trademark lawsuit
Apple added the trademark claim last November, soon after Amazon announced the launch of the Kindle Fire tablet and, according to the complaint, began to call its app store “Amazon Appstore” rather than “Amazon Appstore for Android.” It said this change could have contributed to confusion among consumers.
But in a filing on Wednesday with the U.S. District Court, Amazon said the term “app store” has become so generic that its use could not constitute false advertising.
Amazon added that even Apple Chief Executive Tim Cook and his predecessor Steve Jobs have used the term to discuss rivals, with Cook having commented on “the number of app stores out there” and Jobs referring to the “four app stores on Android.”
A hearing on Amazon’s motion is scheduled for October 31, and a trial is scheduled for August 19, 2013.
Kogan named eighth richest young Aussie
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Online entrepreneur Ruslan Kogan has increased his personal net worth by a massive $83 million in one year, skyrocketing up the BRW’s Young Rich List for 2012.
Last year, the notorious headline-chaser came in 34th on the annual list, with a personal net worth of $62 million. This year Kogan soared up the list to eighth spot thanks to a new personal net worth of $145 million
Kogan facing iPhone 5 backlash after shipping delays
Australian online store Kogan is facing a customer backlash after it admitted orders for Apple’s new iPhone 5 would be delayed by more than four weeks.
Kogan claimed earlier this month it would be the “first retailer in the world” to sell the Apple iPhone 5. The company began taking iPhone 5 orders on Friday 14 September and initially advised customers that the first orders would begin to ship on Friday 21 September.
Kogan has offered all iPhone 5 customers affected by the shipping delay a $25 gift voucher to use towards goods in the Kogan store, but says customers are welcome to refund their order if they wish. A Kogan spokesperson confirmed any customer who proceeds with a refund will still be offered the gift voucher.
The iPhone 5 listed for sale on Kogan is model A1429, which is a global GSM variant of the iPhone. This is the same model that Apple sells in Australia, though Kogan’s model is a grey import device sourced from Hong Kong.
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Google has made no move to provide Google Maps for the iPhone 5 after Apple dropped the application in favor of a home-grown but controversial alternative
users have complained that Apple’s new map service, based on Dutch navigation equipment and digital map maker TomTom NV’s data, contains glaring geographical errors and lacks features that made Google Maps so popular.
Google and Apple were close partners with the original iPhone in 2007 and its inclusion of YouTube and Google Maps. But the ties between the two have been strained by the rise of Google’s Android mobile operating system, now the world’s leading platform for smartphones.
Apple told Fairfax that its Maps app was “a major initiative and we are just getting started with it”. The company said it was working with developers to integrate some of the transit apps from the App Store into iOS Maps.
“We are continuously improving it and as Maps is a cloud-based solution the more people that use it the better it will get,” Apple said.
http://www.crn.com.au/News/316757,customers-complain-of-chipped-iphone-5s.aspx?utm_source=feed&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=CRN+News+feed
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The aluminium finish on Apple’s new iPhone 5 has been plagued by reports of chipping, with customers complaining of dents and scratches on the new back and side of the smartphone.
Customers who have purchased the new black iPhone 5 are reporting silver chips appearing on the anodised aluminium edges.
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The iPhone maker said it had sold five million iPhone 5s in nine countries during the first weekend since release, a figure that had outstripped initial supply in most countries.
The company said 100 million iOS devices had been updated to version 6 in the five days since the update’s release, representing a quarter of the total market share.
Cloud performance analysts Deepfield measured a large increase in iTunes traffic during the release of iOS 6, estimating that downloads accounted for seven to 12 percent of the total data traversing North American internet backbones.
It suggested the iOS 6 update caused spikes much larger than seen for previous updates in some internet backbones, overwhelming some networks and causing brief outages and degraded performance due to the data volumes.
According to Deepfield, this was “roughly equivalent to abruptly switching on a new internet sevice on the scale of YouTube or Netflix”.
Google Apps drops download support for old Office formats
Google Apps will not support the downloading of documents in older Microsoft Office formats starting on Monday, the company said on Wednesday.
The change will affect “.doc,” “.xls,” and “.ppt” documents created in Office versions 1997-2003, Google wrote on its blog. It affects Google Apps, Google Apps for Business, Government and Education.
The change could make it cumbersome for someone who uses an old version of Office and receives, for example, a XML-based “.docx” Word document from a Google Apps user, although Microsoft has long offered asoftware upgrade to allow older Office suites to open the newer file formats.
Google Play tops 25 billion download mark
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Google’s Play Store, the official source for Android software, has served up 25 billion downloads, the company announced Wednesday,
Google said in today’s announcement that the Play Store offers 675,000 different apps, just behind Apple’s latest public figure of 700,000 for the App Store.
MySpace undergoes another facelift
The site, now part-owned by Justin Timberlake, aims to focus more on music and offer deeper integration with Facebook and Twitter
According to measurement firm comScore, the MySpace audience is 54 million.
This is down from hundreds of millions at its peak in 2005.
A message on the website announced the redesign: “We’re hard at work building the new MySpace, entirely from scratch.”
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