All posts in IT news

The most favorable technical CEO is Mark Zuckerberg

According to the report of Morning Consult, Mark Zuckerberg obtains the most favorable CEO in US large science and technology enterprises. The favorable of Satya Nadeall, Larry Page and Elon Musk ranked after Zuckerberg.

ceo

Unfortunately, Facebook’s security trust is lower. Its security trust ranked after Amazon’s, Google’s and Apple’s.

Tim Cook obtains 1935 favorable votes during the investigation of Apple vs FBI. The favorable rate was 39%. Zuckerberg won 48% of favorable rate. Amazon Jeff Bezos was 38 % and Satya Nadelle was 29%.

In the votes of most favorable CEO, Zuckerberg ranked first. Only 31% of voters claimed they have never heard about him. He was attending the Samsung release at MWC on last Wednesday. He was warmly welcome by the participants.

Tim Cook was gained some more media exposures due to against of FBI issue. But there are also 44% of voters showed they don’t know him.

trust

Speaking of Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey and Uber CEO Travis Kalanick, how are their favorables? 65% of voters claimed don’t know them. 19% of voters voted Kalanick as unfavorable and only 16% of voters voted him as favorable.

The unfavorable that Kalanick received seem to be related to Uber itself. When asked about the personal information security of Uber, 18% of voters stated yes.

The personal information leaks don’t seem to affect the companies security trust. Over 50% of voters claimed that they are confident with the data security of Google, Apple and Amazon. Facebook only got 32% of favorable rate for this.

Taking the business organization into consideration, American citizens are most reliable to Social Security Administration. Even though, Amazon and Apple still beat Internal Revenue Service concerns the security and trust.

Will you see Apple Siri on Mac soon?

As reported, Apple will introduce Siri when it rolls out OS X 10.12 later this year. Siri is an important component of iPhone, Apple Watch and Apple TV OS.

siri

Apple has been studying how to integrate Siri to OS X since 2012. Quoting from the confirmed source, Siri version for Mac will has new user interface. It is possibly that Apple will release OS X 10.12 at Worldwide Developers Conference in June.

Siri will be possibly displayed in Menu Bar of Mac system, that is, displayed in the menu on the computer monitor. The Menu bar includes date, time and Spotlight search options. The icon of Siri will be used to activate the software, while Spotlight icon is used to search, Notification icon is used to open the Notification Center.

When users click the Siri icon, a transparent Siri software interface will be displayed on the right corner of computer screen. The interface will show the color acoustic graphics to demonstrate the imput of voice. The testing interface is not the final version yet.

You will find the specified settings interface of using pressing the keyboard shortcuts. It could be activated when OS X 10.12 is operated.

If you set up Siri to be activated as long as OS X 10.12 is operating, its operating process is the same as it works on iPhone and iPad.

Facebook teams up with Samsung to promote VR technology

Quoting from the oversea media report, Mark Zuckerberg attended the release of UNPACKED 2016 held by Samsung lately. He talked about the future of VR technology. He confirmed that Facebook Oculus will support the sandbox game Minecraft.

vr

Zuckerberg said VR technology will be the next important platform. Anyone could create or experience anything they wish on VR technology. Right now, the VR technology is mostly applied in games. It will be soon applying in other industries.

He implied the consumers to image how if we use the VR technology to experience the campfire or hold conference anywhere or any time they like. Zuckerberg said:” This is the reason why Facebook invests much on VR technology. It will offers convenience to users for new social experience. VR will be the next social networking platform.”

Zuckerberg claimed that Samsung is the most advanced company that produces OLED screen. It will help VR technology to be the mainstream technology. Zuckerberg offered many latest statistics concerning VR technology during the conference, such as videos are being watched for over one million hours under the VR surroundings.

He suggested that Facebook is now concentrating the launch of 360 view. He said:”we are engaging in improving Facebook as the best platform for 360 view. There are about one million people watch such panoramic video on our community each day.”

The new team is to launch the next generation application of VR technology. In a few weeks, Facebook will launch the technology named dynamic streaming for Gear VR. It will offer clearer resolution for the videos that being watched.

At last, Zuckerberg announced that Oculus has launched over 200 gaming applications. Its VR platform will support Minecraft.

Google Picasa service will be ended by this May

Google Picasa announced the first bad news on its official website since its release. Google will shut down the Google Picasa service by this May. The public has been concerning the development of Picasa since Google released Google Photos. Google Picasa and Google Photos have similarities, however, the machine learning and automatic classification of Google Photos are better than Picasa’s.

23

Anil Sabharwal who is in charge of Google Photos indicated on the blog that if the company focuses its vigor and resource on this application, it will be upgraded with better experience for users. Photo service means a lot to any internet companies, especially when the smartphone becomes the most popular camera. The users require advanced storage, management and photo sharing devices.

Google once announced the montly active users of Google Photos reached 100 million in last October, however, it seldom announced the statistics of Picasa. Judging by the number of its monthly active users, Google Photos could be considered as a successful application. It could replace the function of Picasa. Google Photos was made for the mobile devices while Picasa was made for the need of desktop internet.

Many of Google Photos users might not hear about Picasa. Picasa was a CPE that acquired by Google in 2004. Google enaged in promoting this application, but its launch got stuck since 2011.

To Google, it works better to focus on the core products if it simplifies its product line. But it might cause effect to Picasa users. Google will stop supporting Picasa from March 15 and then its developers won’t be able to use some of the Picasa API.

If the Picasa users stored the photos on its online albums, they just need to login Picasa and open the Google Photos service to transfer the photos. If they are unwilling to use the Google Photos, they could login Picasa and check their photos. But they are unable to create or edit the albums in the future.

WhatsApp monthly active users reached one billion

Google just announced its Gmail monthly active users reached one billion, Jan Koum, the founder of WhatsApp announced its monthly active users reached one billion as well. It means on average every 7 people around the world, there is one person uses WhatsApp service.

WhatsApp announced its monthly active users were 900 million five months ago. It only took five months to obtain 10 million active users.

whatsapp

Besides releasing the number of its monthly active users, Koum also shared a series of WhatsApp statistics:

42 billion messages sent per day
1.6 billion photos shared per day
1 billion total groups
53 languages supported
250 million videos shared per day
57 engineers are hired

It is worth noting that 1.6 billion photos shared per day. According to statistics reported by Mary Meeker in 2014 Internet Trends report, she indicated 1.8 billion photos shared per day on the internet. While there are 1.6 billion photos shared on WhatsApp. What a surprise!

Facebook also obtained 1.5 billion monthly active users for itself. What is more, the monthly active users for Facebook Messenger are over 800 million. It might not be too far for Instagram or even Oculus to reach such amount of active users.

It means a lot for Facebook that WhatsApp obtained one billion monthly active users. It only had 450 million monthly active users when it was acquired by Facebook. It took less than two years to reach one billion monthly active users under the leadership of Mark Zuckerberg.

WhatsApp Jan Koum claimed lately that the company would cancel the one-dollar subscription service per year. It used to apply the business mode to offer free service for the first year and then charged one dollar subscription per day after being acquired.

Koum revealed that the company is testing app to connect the company and users in order to create new business mode. But the final plan did not make yet.

 

Google sold 5 million units of Google Cardboard

There are VR helmets released in the beginning of 2016. VR market becomes a popular field now. It seemed that Google Cardboard is forgotten by the public. Google revealed the statistics concerns Google Cardboard recently, showing its current ecosystem.

cardboard

There are two classifications of VR helmets, one is the high performance VR such as Sony’s and Oculus Rift. The other is simple type VR such as Google Cardboard and Samsung Gear VR. The formers need to connect with gaming PC or gaming console, the latters just need to plug in the smartphones.

The Los Angeles Times reported that Google Cardboard has been sold 5 million units in 19 months.

As statistics showed, Google Cardboard users have download 25 million VR applications on Google Play store. The duration that users watch videos with Google Carboard reached 350,000 hours.

The selling price of Google Cardboard is about $ 20 which attracts more users to buy. Samsung Gear VR is sold at $100.

The selling prices for high-performance VR are more expensive. Oculus VR was set at $599 and it needs to work with a gaming pc which costs 1,000 dollar. Sony and HTC haven’t revealed their specific prices for VR.

Google has obtained a large amout of users for Google Cardboard. However, the consumers might turn their heads to better qulity and higher performance VR products.

Frank N. Magid Associates did a search concerned VR products. Among the interviewees, 25% of them heard about Oculus Rift, 20% came to Sony PS VR while only 17% of them heard about Google Cardboard.

Google might need to focus on enhancing the its technolog for the VR products. It is planning to recruit more talents to launch better VR products. Quality, performance are important for a product’s competitiveness.

WhatsApp and Facebook will realize interconnection of user data

Facebook spent $22 billion to acquire WhatsApp and made a great success. Zuckerberg once claimed that the company will start the superposition of business model when it obtains one billion users. WhatsApp is making change as its users come close to one billion.

It is reported that WhatsApp allows the interconnection of Facebook account in its settings. Facebook might enhance the experience of WhatsApp and Facebook for users with the help of user data interconnection.

WhatsApp has obtained 900 million users in September, 2015. Its users group get close to one billion. It becomes the boss among global mobile chatting programs.

According to the test for WhatsApp’s latest version, it might realize the interconnection of user data sharing with Facebook. Facebook might have bigger plans later then.

The developers found a hidden setting in the latest WhatsApp version ” share my WhatsApp account with Facebook” to enhance its Facebook experience. It is said that such setting does not appear in iOS version.

With this setting, it will realize the data sharing between Facebook and WhatsApp. However, Facebook and WhatsApp keep silent for this figure.

Facebook made promise for allowing WhatsApp to run independently when Facebook finished the acquisition. WhatsApp refused to inplant the ads and fancy figures. It is simply a mobile chatting program.

WhatsApp announced to cancel its one-dollar yearly subscription this month. It results in difficulties to charge their subscriptions by bank card info as there are about one billion users.

It will extend to some more services that bases on the need of consumers. It will come to an integrated service platform.

GoPro will streamline 7% of its workforce

GoPro announced on Wednesday that its sales performance did not meet the expectation in the fourth quarter 2015. It addressed that it will streamline 7% of its workforce as well. Being affected with this news, GoPro share price dropped 28% after trading-hours on Wednesday.

GoPro revealed that the revenue of the fourth quarter was $435 million, and annual revenue was $1.6 billion. These figures are far below its market expectation. Thomson Reuters reported that some analysts predicted its fourth quarter revenue would be $511.9 million. The reason why 4Q revenue did not meet the expectation was its camera sales did not perform well as predicted.

Morgan Stanley analyst reduced GoPro target share price in October as Hero4 did not make a since releasing. GoPro cut the selling price of Hero4 shortly after its release. GoPro claimed that such price adjustment of Hero4 led to a loss of $21 million.

GoPro workforce increased by 50% in the past two years. It had about 1,500 employees by the end of 2015. To carry out this workforce reduction plan, GoPro will spend $5 million to $10 million to dismiss its employees.

Nicholas Woodman analyzed the reasons why Hero4 did not perform well were higher price and fewer promotions.

Its 4Q0215 performance is not a good sign for its development in 2016. GoPro is supposed to report the 4Q and annual earnings of 2015 on Feb. 3rd.

GoPro share dropped $ 3.31, closing at $11.3. It encountered the range of a price drop at 22.66%.

Will Samsung’s share increase by 40% in the upcoming 12 months?

Even though Samsung’s fourth quarter peformance did not perform as well as predicted, there are at least 10 analysts assume its share price might increase by 40% in 12 months.

Its share price declined three years in a row. Accoring to the investigation did by Bloomberg from 38 analysts, they assumed its share will increase in 12 months with an averagetarget price at 1.62 million KRW.

Such prediction was based on its latest quarters performance. Daishin Securities and Hyundai Securities reiterate Samsung’s buy rating.

Its current market value is 8 times of its last year’s profit. Its PE ratio is behind Apple’s 10.5 PE ratio, but it is higher than the average PE ratio 6.7.

Samsung will reveal the performances of related divisions later. The smartphone business grows slower while the semi-conduct division has potential to be the most profitable department then. Samsung’s market value lost $ 8 billion in last fiscal earnings.

Kwon Oh-Hyun claimed that the competition become intense. He urged its employees to give suggestions in the smartphone, television and flash chip business to obtain its technical leadership.

Samsung made adjustment in the management group. It appointed new mobile device officer Koh Dong Jin. It claimed to focus on software innovation. Koh Dong Jin was responsible for Samsung Pay and Knox security software.

Greg Roh from HMC Investment Securities claimed that Samsung could consider a different development direction, such as reducing expense, launching new brands and innovative technology. Innovation is important for its mobile business.

Apple cuts iPhone orders, share decline accumulative over 8%

Apple share encountered sucession share decline for three days on Thursday. It is reported that Apple cuts orders expectation for its suppliers in the past months. Up to now, it lost $ 40 billion market value due to the decline of share.

On Thursday, its share dropped $4.25 at NASDAQ market, clsoing at $96.45. The range of a share drop was 4.22%. Apple received a succession drop over 8.4% within three days. Up to now in the new year, Apple share declined by at less 4%, while its share declined by 4.6% in 2015.

Morgan Stanley decreased the predict of iPhone output as the demand of iPhone 6S and iPhone 6S Plus become weaker. It seems to be saturation of smartphone in some developed countries. Apple just released these two models in last September.

Its share decline was based on the report of Nikkei Asian Review. It reported Apple firm would cut 30% of iPhone output in the first quarter of 2016 that surprised many analysts.
SBS decreased iPhone sales expectation by 5%, down to 220 million units. It indicated iPhone 6s & 6s Plus lack of new features to attact more uses to upgrade to new versions. The another reason is that consumers might prefer its predecessors as they charge less.

Apple’s revenue growth relies much on iPhone demands. The sales of iPad is declining and it needs time for consumers to accept Apple Watch.