Samsung Said to Unveil Windows 8 Tablet

The upcoming IFA event in Berlin may serve as an unveiling event for a number of electronics giants, who are said to be launch Windows 8 tablets. Samsung has been promoting its tablet on its Facebook page. The Samsung device will have an Intel chip, running  full Windows 8, not the Windows RT version. It will also boost an 8-megapixel back camera and a front 2-megapixel camera. Battery life will be around 10 hours.
In the end consumers will will have to chose between a number of Windows 8 tablets and price will be a huge determining factor.

Microsoft's Facelift

Microsoft is in re-branding mode, and on the heels of their Surface tablet, a new OS, new Office and a slew of other products. The once giant of the digital age has a new logo, which is aimed at re-establishing itself as a dominate player. Unfortunately, their new logo doesn't do anything for me. It doesn't say forward thinking, cutting edge or trailblazer. It yells boring and stale. Judge for yourself.

Adobe Removes Flash From Google Play

News Flash! 

 “Beginning August 15th we will use the configuration settings in the Google Play Store to limit continued access to Flash Player updates to only those devices that have Flash Player already installed. Devices that do not have Flash Player already installed are increasingly likely to be incompatible with Flash Player and will no longer be able to install it from the Google Play Store after August 15th.”

And the years of speculation are over -- you don't need Flash on your mobile device. The debate over Flash and its importance for creating a complete mobile experience is dead. Flash is only one of many Adobe products which has suffered from poor performance and security issues.  Steve Jobs, never one to look in the rear-view mirror, understood that Flash was a proprietary technology that prevented true innovation for the mobile platform. And it came as no surprise that Apple elected to support HTML5 instead of Flash. Years later, the marketplace has spoken and Jobs was right, again.

Google to buy Frommer's travel guides

Last year Google purchased restaurant guide Zagat and now it has acquired travel guide Frommer's. It should not come as a surprise that Google wants a large chuck of online travel advertising dollars, but is that all - Now with two reputable travel information sources under its brand and Google/Flights - Google is developing the next major online travel platform.   It will interesting to see how Google integrates these traditional print products into a new online digital travel platform.

Zynga Gives Out Stock to Retain Employees

On Mar 2, 201, Zynga hit its 52-week high of $15.91. Today, it opened at $2.89. After an amazing IPO, Zynga was in a great position to reap the benefits of a Facebook IPO, which didn't play out. Zynga has been in a downward spiral - complaints from employees and rejections from newly acquired talent. Pincus knows that he needs to weather this storm and he won't be able to do that without development talent, so he is taking this proactive steps to avoid a brain-drain.

also see,

http://mediamixmaster.blogspot.com/2012/06/social-media-bubble.html

http://mediamixmaster.blogspot.com/2011/07/zynga-files-for-ipo-of-up-to-1-billion.html

http://mediamixmaster.blogspot.com/2011/11/zynga-quick-rise-may-bring-about-its.html

http://mediamixmaster.blogspot.com/2012/04/zynga-stock-continues-to-slide.html

Google's Self-Driving Car Logs 300,000 Miles

With so many miles of what Google claims have been error free driving, it expects to run controlled tests shuttling its own employees to the office. Give Google credit -- its out of the box ideas are the things we dreamed of as children. I suspect that the jetsons flying car or the robot Rosie are somewhere in their dev lab. While viewed as a waste by some - this project has real world applications - by assisting the elderly and the visually impaired. We are years away from seeing this type of product in use, but it looks like Google is heading down the right road.

Facebook's Ventures into Gambling

It seems that Facebook is testing the waters with it new gaming app Bingo Friendzy, a social game which allows folks to wager with real money (you'll need to 18yrs or older and have a credit card). This could end up being a very lucrative move for the social media giant in its attempt to generate new revenue streams after a disappointing IPO.
Gamesys, one of the UK's largest gaming providers partnered with Facebook to develop the app.

"The Daily" Makes Big Changes

When Rupert Murdoch launched "The Daily" in 2011, I wondered how the digital newspaper experiment would turn out. Over a year later, the digital pub is still afloat , but it has started to shed some of its crew. During their first year "The Daily" learned a few few import things. First, Digital product production can be just as expensive as print - journalist, designers &  Developers. Second, it doesn't make sense to create your own content for sections when it can be obtained from a reputable source at fraction of the cost.Third, you still need advertisers and subscribers to succeed in a digital model.
I won't announce the slow death of The Daily - the fact is after 18-months its still around and recalibrating itself and defining a digital news model. The Daily is important experiment for the media industry.