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Boot up: Steam data, iPhone 6 panel?, Galaxy S5 (and S4) numbers, and more(Guardian Web Via Acquire Media NewsEdge) A quick burst of 8 links for you to chew over, as picked by the Technology team Introducing Steam Gauge: Ars reveals Steam's most popular games >> Ars Technica Kyle Orland: Right now, I can tell you that about 37% of the roughly 781m games registered to various Steam accounts haven't even been loaded a single time. I can tell you that Steam users have put an aggregate of about 3.8bn hours into Dota 2. I can tell you that Steam users tend to put nearly 600% more time into the multiplayer mode on Modern Warfare 2 than the single player mode. Basically, I can give you an idea of how any of the thousands of games on Steam have performed, both in terms of sales and gameplay hours. An amazing piece of data-driven journalism that wouldn't have been feasible or affordable (because of its processing demand) even a few years ago. First photo of purported iPhone 6 front panel appears online >> VR-Zone Only one photo of this purported front panel has been posted on Sina Weibo, China's equivalent of Twitter. In it someone is holding a black iPhone 5S alongside the panel to show off the sheer difference in size. Obviously the authenticity of this part can not be verified and no additional information was offered alongside the picture. The Sina Weibo user who posted the image online didn't reveal the exact size of this display panel. It's unclear if it would have the correct 16:9 aspect ratio that all iPhones have had since the iPhone 5. A closer look at the purported panel shows that screen bezels might be very slim in comparison with existing iPhones. That corroborates with rumours about the next generation iPhone being thinner and lighter than its predecessors. The leaks began at about this time last year too. Windows tablets gaining traction in Japan >> Digitimes Sales of Windows-based tablets in Japan have been rising as vendors have been aggressively releasing Windows 8.1-based 8-inch models since October 2013. In February 2014, 15.7% of Japan's tablet sales were contributed by Windows-based models, up significantly from a year ago and also larger than the Windows tablet's share of 2% in the worldwide tablet market, according to figures from Japan-based BCN. XE16 release notes >> Google Glass Help Mostly little tweaks. But what's dropped is telling: A fond farewell to... Video callsGlass is always evolving. In this release, we turned off video calls. Why? We've been experimenting and gathering feedback on video calls and, while we love the idea, the experience did not live up to our high standards. Meanwhile, it wasn't used all that often by Explorers. We're sad to see it go, but are encouraged to see some effort by Glassware developers coming down the line. Song searchSong search is a relatively new feature that saw little usage. We wouldn't be surprised to see it come back in someone's Glassware (hint, hint). Even with a video camera in front of one eye, video calls don't pass the popularity test. Solid S5 sales to bolster Samsung >> Korea Times Samsung Electronics said it shipped 1.3 times as many S5s on April 11, the first day of global sales, as it did S4s when it was launched, with demand for the S5 doubling in some European countries. Samsung launched the S5 in 125 countries Friday and signed contracts with the top five mobile carriers in the United StatesA Samsung spokesman declined to comment on the sales target for the S5... However, Samsung insiders said that it aims to ship at least 35m units in the second quarter of this year to create some 17 trillion won in quarterly revenue from the product. The insiders said about 63m S4s have been shipped, but so far, only some 40m units have been sold. Samsung generates most of its profit from smartphones. Apple said to prepare song-ID feature for IPhone software >> Bloomberg The company is planning to unveil a song-discovery feature in an update of its iOS mobile software that will let users identify a song and its artist using an iPhone or iPad, said two people with knowledge of the product, who asked not to be identified because the feature isn't public. Apple is working with Shazam Entertainment Ltd., whose technology can quickly spot what's playing by collecting sound from a phone's microphone and matching it against a song database. Apple is bolstering its music offerings even as song-download sales have slowed across the industry. While the Cupertino, California-based company is the world's largest music seller through its iTunes store, customers are listening more to Internet services like Google's YouTube, Spotify and Pandora Media. Apple last year introduced its own streaming service, iTunes Radio, which it plans to expand outside the US this year, people with knowledge of the plans said. When they say "update", they mean iOS 8. Windows Phone 8.1 will have this (via its Cortana voice-driven assistant). Seems like Shazam or equivalent could become a new basic functionality for smartphones. 'White box' leads growth in tablet PC panel shipments >> DisplaySearch Blog Led by growing sales of inexpensive white box tablet PC brands, tablet PC display panel shipments nearly doubled in 2013. According to our Monthly Tablet PC Panel Shipment & Value Chain Report, private label tablet PCs consuming increasing numbers of panels. While low-cost white box products were originally aimed at emerging markets, sales have recently expanded into more developed markets, and are competing directly against established brands. More than half of all tablet PC panels (54%) in 2013 were shipped to Apple, Samsung, and other brand name tablet PC manufacturers; however, the rapidly growing white box device market recorded 146m shipments in 2013, more than three times the level reached the previous year. Market growth for white box tablet PCs is expected to remain strong in 2014. "White box" is the essentially unbranded devices - the sort of thing that became the Tesco Hudl. Why do Android smartphones guzzle the most data? >> NYTimes.com Brian Chen: In a recent study, Ericsson, the networking company, found that global mobile Internet traffic varied greatly, depending on the software system and the network that a phone uses. But the highest average data consumption was seen on Android phones, which consumed an average of 2.2GB of data a month on one network, the study said. By contrast, iPhones used roughly 1.7GB a month and Windows phones used approximately 1.4GB a month, Ericsson found. Chetan Sharma, a telecom analyst who is a consultant for wireless carriers, also has found that Android phones were the biggest data hogs. In the United States, high-end Android phones used about 4GB a month on average this year, he said. That is well above the average of 1.2GB a month that American wireless subscribers consumed this year. So why does Android use more data? You can follow Guardian Technology's linkbucket on Pinboard. To suggest a link, either add it below or tag it with @gdntech on the free Delicious service. (c) 2014 Guardian Newspapers Limited. |