Review: iPad 2 is not revolutionary, but it is great – Chicago Sun-Times

Review: iPad 2 is not revolutionary, but it is great

Andy Ihnatko ai@andyi.com Mar 21, 2011 4:50PM

The iPad 2 is a solid, highly-progressive update and it’s only going to disappoint one kind of consumer: someone who was hoping that Apple would somehow completely redefine the greatest new tech product of 2010 in its second incarnation.

Naw. All of the 2011 iPad’s improvements and new features are answers to the question “What would the first iPad have been like if its engineers had been given another year to work on it?” They’d certainly have tried to make it faster and sleeker, and they’d have figured out how to stick a camera or two in there. Done, done, and done.

(Their in-house case also wouldn’t have been a chintzy-looking plastic sleeve, either. Done.)

The iPad 2 is the same iPad. It’s just better in every conceivable way.

After a week with the iPad 2, I’ve come to realize that Apple’s true revolutionary change has been conceptual. The first iPad wasn’t just a new product … it was a whole new category of computer. I think in 2010, Apple instinctively understood that with something this different on their hands, they couldn’t go for broke. They could only lay out their cards and imply the iPad’s many strengths and then they’d have to stand back and watch what happened. After all of their efforts, they could only hope that consumers and developers figured out what the iPad was on their own. Only then could Apple make their next move, based on those reactions.

It all could have gone very badly. If Apple had sold the iPad explicitly as an ebook reader, the first complaint would have been “Why does this cost twice as much as a Kindle?” If they had gone the other way and suggested that the iPad was a substitute for your notebook, then any sensible consumer would have pointed out that while the iPad 1 was far more affordable than the cheapest MacBook, $500-$875 could buy any of a number of powerful, name-brand Windows notebooks.

Selling 15,000,000 iPads in nine months must have filled Apple with a certain degree of confidence that the world had truly gotten the point.

The public got it: the iPad was no mere accessory to a desktop and while it certainly earned best-in-class honors as a reader, media player, and document-viewer, there was no need to limit one’s perceptions of the device. The iPad was, and is, truly an entire new class of computer. Many of you were around for the transition from text to graphical user interfaces. Some of you were even around when the world shifted from mainframes to personal computers. Well, congratulations: you’ve lived to see your third revolution in computing.

For the full review By Andy Ihnatko head on over to the Chicago Sun link below

Review: iPad 2 is not revolutionary, but it is great – Chicago Sun-Times.

Groupon worth ‘as much as $25 billion’ • The Register

Er, can we get a coupon for the IPO?

By Rik Myslewski in San Francisco •

Online daily-discount provider Groupon is rumored to be talking with banks about a public offering that would value it at as much as $25bn.

According to “two people with knowledge of the discussions”, Bloomberg reports, the IPO would be “unlikely to assign Groupon a valuation of less than $15 billion”, with $25bn being the upper limit.

If that higher figure is reached, it would put Groupon’s value above that of Google’s when the online ad broker and search-engine leader went public in 2004 for a piddling $23bn. Those early Google investors didn’t make out too shabbily, though: as markets closed on Thursday, Google’s market capitalization stood at $179.5bn.

Last November, Google was rumored to bemulling an aquisition of Groupon in a deal said to be worth $5bn. Shortly thereafter, however – after the bidding was said to have reached $6bn – Groupon nixed the deal.

As Bloomberg points out, however, Groupon has grown by leaps and bounds since that offer. At the time of Google’s wooing, the daily-discount leader was active in 300 markets. That number has since ballooned to 500.

To put that $15bn to $25bn figure in perspective, The Reg checked out the market capitalization of 10 established companies, both in the tech sector and elsewhere. At the end of Thursday’s trading, the New York Times Company was worth about $1.3bn; AMD, $5.6bn; Seagate,$6.3bn; Harley-Davidson $9.5bn; Nvidia $10.3bn; Intuit, $15.4bn; Adobe, $16.2bn; Yahoo!,$21.4bn; General Mills, $23.1bn; and Dell, $27.4bn.

Is a two-year-old coupon-pusher worth four or five times as much as the world’s second-largest microprocessor maker an

d 12 to 20 times as much as The Gray Lady? We should find out sometime this year, when Groupon is expected to join the publicly traded crowd. ®

Source : The Register hit the link for the story Groupon worth ‘as much as $25 billion’ • The Register.

rise of the picosecond

The rise of the picosecond

03 Mar 2011

Just when you thought high-speed cash equities trading could not get any faster, trading geeks have thrown a new concept into the mix: the picosecond.

A second is a long time in cash equities trading. Four or five years ago, trading firms started to talk of trading speeds in terms of milliseconds.

A millisecond is one thousandth of a second or, put another way, 200 times faster than the average speed of thought. In the time it took your brain to tell your hand to click on this article, a broker or market-making firm trading in milliseconds could fill hundreds of orders on an exchange.

Milliseconds, however, are now ancient history. In the past two or three years, trading speeds have been shaved down to inconceivably tiny increments: from milliseconds to microseconds, and more recently to nanoseconds.

But in recent weeks trading geeks have started to talk about picoseconds in what is a truly mind-boggling concept: a picosecond is one trillionth of a second. Put another way, a picosecond is to one second what one second is to 31,700 years.

Speaking at a London conference on Tuesday, Donal Byrne, chief executive of Corvil, a high-speed trading technology company, caused a ripple of audible incredulity throughout the room when he suggested that trading speeds could be reduced to picoseconds in the not too distant future.

For those whose brains have not instantly combusted at the concept, the rise of the picosecond prompts an obvious question: why on Earth (which spins at a rate of 460 meters a second) is it necessary to trade so fast?

The answer is simple. Firms that trade super fast effectively put themselves at the front of the trading queue and have priority over other orders. This position gives them better information on the trading behaviour of other investors and allows them to react faster.

In a bull market, speed can ultimately make for beefy profits, but in a bear market these tiny fractions matter more than ever. The potential value of millisecond, or indeed a picosecond, was vividly demonstrated during a particularly bloody period on Black Friday, October 10, 2008, when the UK market plummeted at a hair-raising £250m a second.

Source e financial news link below

rise of the picosecond.

The Top 10 Clean-Tech Companies – WSJ.com

The Top 10 Clean-Tech Companies

 

By COLLEEN DEBAISE

Companies that make everything from solar panels to renewable-crude oil continue to be big draws for funding from the venture-capital community.

But a company that rewards consumers for recycling led The Wall Street Journal’s second-annual ranking of venture-backed clean-tech companies.

Ron Gonen, the founder of Recyclebank, discusses building a green business and raising venture capital.

Recyclebank, which provides recycling-rewards programs in 29 states and the U.K., has had a growth spurt since its 2004 launch. In October, the New York-based company brought on Jonathan Hsu, former head of onliine ad firm 24/7 Real Media, as its chief executive.

Two solar-power firms, Suniva Inc. of Norcross, Ga., and eSolar Inc. of Burbank, Calif., came in second and third, respectively.

The Top 10 Clean-Tech ranking, announced Wednesday at the Journal’s ECO:nomics Executive Conference in Santa Barbara, Calif., seeks to identify green companies with the greatest potential to succeed in an increasingly competitive sector.

A team from venture-industry tracker VentureSource calculated the rankings based on a strict set of criteria applied to 516 U.S.-based venture-backed businesses in clean technology. On March 10, the Journal plans to publish its 2011 Next Big Thing ranking of the top 50 US venture-backed companies across all industries, drawn from more than 5,700 firms. (VentureSource is owned by News Corp., which also owns Dow Jones & Co., publisher of the Wall Street Journal.)

Candidates were analyzed on the amount of capital raised in the past three years; the track records of each company’s founders, managers and investors; and the percentage change in its valuation in the 12 months ended Nov. 30.

The list also reflects the difficulties in identifying companies with the best odds for success. Last year, Solyndra Inc. of Fremont, Calif., ranked No. 1, in part because it had secured a $535 million government loan on top of $286 million in venture capital. But amid heavy competition, Solyndra had a difficult 2010 and in June scrapped plans for an initial public offering.

For the Full story head on over to the Wall Street Journal

For the link to the full article below

The Top 10 Clean-Tech Companies – WSJ.com.

iPad 2 vs. Motorola Xoom vs. HP TouchPad vs. BlackBerry PlayBook: the tale of the tape — Engadget

iPad 2 vs. Motorola Xoom vs. HP TouchPad vs. BlackBerry PlayBook: the tale of the tape

By Vlad Savov posted Mar 2nd 2011 2:58PM

Feature

You might recall we ran this comparison about a month back when HP’s TouchPad was announced, but now we’re back with a full set of 2011 devices as Apple’s brand new iPad 2 has joined the fray. There’s no need for excessive introductions, really, just leap past the break to get swalloped up by an avalanche of next-generation tablet specs.

Apple iPad 2

Motorola Xoom

HP TouchPad

BlackBerry PlayBook

Platform	iOS 4.3	Android 3.0	webOS 3.0	BB Tablet OS (QNX)
Display	9.7-inch LED-backlit IPS LCD	10.1-inch	9.7-inch	7-inch LCD
Resolution	1024 x 768	1280 x 800	1024 x 768	1024 x 600
Processor	1GHz dual-core Apple A5	1GHz dual-core NVIDIA Tegra 2	1.2GHz dual-core Qualcomm Snapdragon	1GHz dual-core TI OMAP4430
Memory	?	1GB RAM	1GB RAM	1GB RAM
Storage	16GB / 32GB / 64GB	32GB	16GB / 32GB	16GB / 32GB / 64GB
Front camera	VGA	2 megapixel	1.3 megapixel	3 megapixel
Rear camera	720 / 30p video	5 megapixel AF with dual-LED flash, 720 / 30p video	none	5 megapixel, 1080p video
Cellular radio	Quadband HSPA or CDMA / EV-DO Rev. A	3G with free upgrade to 4G LTE	3G and 4G	3G and 4G
WiFi	802.11a/b/g/n	802.11a/b/g/n	802.11b/g/n	802.11a/b/g/n
Bluetooth	2.1 + EDR	2.1 + EDR	2.1 + EDR	2.1 + EDR
Accelerometer	3-axis	3-axis	Yes	Yes
Gyroscope	Yes	Yes	Yes	—
Battery	25Wh	6,500mAh	6,300 mAh	5,300 mAh
Thickness	8.8mm	12.7mm	13.7mm	10mm
Weight	601g (WiFi), 607g (Verizon), 613g (AT&T)	725g	740g	425g

For the Full Story Visit Engadget at the link Below

 

iPad 2 vs. Motorola Xoom vs. HP TouchPad vs. BlackBerry PlayBook: the tale of the tape — Engadget.

Apple Reveals IPad 2 – PCWorld Business Center

Apple Reveals IPad 2

By Roman Loyola, Macworld

At a special event in San Francisco Wednesday, Apple unveiled the iPad 2, the follow-up to the original iPad it released last April. The iPad 2 features an all-new design along with new features including built-in cameras and a new gyroscope.

At the heart of the iPad 2 is a 1GHz dual-core Apple A5 processor, which should provide a boost over the 1GHz single-core Apple A4 in the first iPad. Apple says the A5 is two times faster than the previous processor, while graphics performance is nine times faster–welcome news for everything from games to video-editing apps like the soon-to-be-released iPad-optimized version of iMovie.

“The graphics on this thing are wonderful,” said Apple CEO Steve Jobs, who made a surprise appearance at the Wednesday event despite being on medical leave.

The A5 also has a similar low-power consumption rating as the A4. Like the original iPad, the new model promises 10 hours of battery life.

The iPad 2 features two built-in cameras, for use withFaceTime video chat and other apps. FaceTime can be used between two iPad 2s, between the iPad 2 and an iPhone or iPod touch, or between an iPad 2 and a Mac using FaceTime for Mac. As with FaceTime on other iOS devices, you’ll be able to use the front-facing camera to capture your own image; you can switch to the rear-facing camera during conversations to show chat participants what you’re looking at without having to flip around your iPad.

Apple also announced a new Photo Booth app for the iPad. The app uses the front-facing camera to snap your image, which you can then alter with eight included effects. The Photo Booth app previews all effects on one-screen in real-time.

The iPad 2’s front camera is capable of recording VGA-resolution (640-by-480) video at 30 frames per second with audio. The front camera can also take still photos at 640-by-480. The back camera can record HD video at 720p at 30 frames per second with audio. When in still camera mode, the back camera has a 5X digital zoom.

The iPad 2 features a 9.7-inch LCD screen with a 1024-by-768-pixel resolution at 132 pixels per inch, like the original iPad.

Overall, the iPad 2 is thinner and lighter than its predecessor, weighing 1.3 pounds and measuring 0.35 inches thick. The original iPad was 1.5 pounds (1.6 pounds for the 3G iPad) and 0.5 inches thick. The iPad 2 is actually thinner than the iPhone 4, which is 0.37 inches thick.

Other new features include a gyroscope, which has previously been included in the iPhone 4 and fourth-generation iPod touch. Apple says the gyroscope feature works with the iPad 2’s built-in accelerometer and compass to sense the direction the iPad is headed and how it’s moving. That should affect gaming and mapping apps, giving both more of a 360-degree feel.

The iPad 2 supports 1080p video out using an Apple VGA Adapter or the newly announced Apple Digital AV Adapter. Users will also be able to choose between a black or white iPad, which will both ship at the same time. That stands in stark contrast to the iPhone 4, which was also supposed to be available in both black and white options; however, the white iPhone 4 has been continually delayed, with model scheduled to arrive sometime this spring.

Apple offers six models of the iPad 2, with pricing identical to the original iPad’s. There are three Wi-Fi only models: a $499 version with 16GB of flash storage; a $599 model with 32GB of flash storage; and a $699 model with 64GB of flash storage.

For the full story visit PC world

Apple Reveals IPad 2 – PCWorld Business Center.

How Chris Sacca And J.P. Morgan Acquired 10% Of Twitter Via Huge Secret Secondary Fund

Michael Arrington7 hours ago

Lotsandlotsofbuzztoday in all the major newspapers about how J.P. Morgan is trying to buy 10% or so of Twitter for $450 million.

As far as I can tell, all of the stories are wrong. In particular, say my sources, Twitter isn’t negotiating with anyone – J.P. Morgan or otherwise – about a new funding round. Thelast round with Kleiner Perkinsseems to have more than satisfied their near term capital appetite. Also, J.P. Morgan isn’t currently trying to buy Twitter shares through the secondary market, either, say my sources. That’s because they already indirectly own 10% of Twitter.

Here’s what’s really going on, as far as I can tell from sources:

J.P. Morgan owns no Twitter shares directly. They have, however, committed the bulk of capital in a secretive new $1+ billion fund by angel investorChris Sacca. Over the last several months, that fund has acquired around $400 million in Twitter stock from current shareholders, at prices ranging from $16 – $21/share. At $21/share, that implies a Twitter valuation of $4.5 billion.

That fund is now the second largest shareholder of Twitter, say our sources. CofounderEvan Williamsis the largest shareholder.

Who’s sold all that stock to Sacca? They bought $100 million from Williams, sources say, beating outGeneral Atlanticin a bidding war for the shares. Early investors Union Square Ventures and Spark Capital make up most of the remaining $300 million, as well as some other employees.

Of note, the recent$80 million Twitter stock purchasebyAndreessen Horowitzwas actually done through a rival fund controlled by angel investorRon Conway.

The fund still has some $700 million in fresh capital to spend, and it’s clearly aiming at investing in other companies, too. They’ve expressed interest in buying shares in Facebook, Zynga and other companies, we’ve heard. That makes them a very real competitive fund toDST, which has purchased primary and secondary shares in Facebook, Zynga, and Groupon to date.

get widgetminimize

Twitter

Website:	twitter.com
Location:	San Francisco, California, United States
Founded:	March 21, 2006
Funding:	$360M

Twitter, founded byJack Dorsey,Biz Stone, andEvan Williamsin March 2006 (launched publicly in July 2006), is a social networking and micro-blogging…Learn More

Chris Sacca

Website:	lowercasellc.com
Birthplace:	Buffalo, NY
Companies:	Omnisio, MotionDSP, Speedera Networks, RescueTime,Someecards, Charles River Ventures, Clickpass, Twitter,Auctomatic, Lookout, Heroku, International Creative Management, Summit Entertainment, path intelligence,Lowercase Capital, Tipjoy, Photobucket (Old), bit.ly,FanBridge, Twilio, Poll Everywhere, Gowalla, Universal Record Database, Posterous, Hello Chair, 280 North, and more

An accomplished venture investor, private equity principal, company advisor, entrepreneur, and public speaker, Chris manages a portfolio of over three-dozen consumer web, mobile, and wireless technology start-ups as well as an array of mature…Learn More

J.P. Morgan

Source Techcrunch: Click below for full Story

How Chris Sacca And J.P. Morgan Acquired 10% Of Twitter Via Huge Secret Secondary Fund.

Android Market adds e-books; movies and music soon to come? — Engadget

The Android world’s been a-buzz this last week over a few new Android Market URLS, includinghttp://market.android.com/music/ and http://market.android.com/movies/. In case you thought there was nothing to this tip, guess again: the third member of this trifecta (http://market.android.com/books/) has gone live. That’s right, visitors to the Android Market can pick up Glenn Beck’s mile-a-minute thrill ride The Overton Window for a mere $9. We hope that takes some of the sting out of the fact that a Google Music launch wasn’t part of this month’s Honeycomb event— although if we had to wager a guess, we’d say that the company will have Music and Movie offerings soon enough.

Source: Engadget:Android Market adds e-books; movies and music soon to come? — Engadget.

Sources: iPad 2 lands in thinner body with spec bump and cameras, SD slot and higher resolution display are out — Engadget

The Apple rumors game can be a volatile thing. Just as we’d heard about last minute alterations to the Apple TV before it hit the market, we’ve gotten word from sources that the iPad 2 slated to be announced next Wednesday will be sans a few of the features we’d previously reported. Notably, that SD card slot and higher resolution display won’t make it into the new model (the latter we’d been hearing rumblingsabout for a little while). What’s the cause of the switch? Well our sources weren’t crystal clear on the exact reasons, but the gist of what was explained to us centered around vague “engineering issues” which may have forced some changes at the eleventh hour. It’s worth noting once again that these sources have beendead right on specific Apple plans and specifications for unannounced products in the past, and we have no reason to believe these changes are due to anything more than legitimate engineering decisions made close to launch.

So what will we see on March 2nd? We’re hearing it’s most likely a thinner, spec-bumped variation of the original iPad with a screen size and resolution identical to the current model. More RAM (512MB) and a more powerful CPU (the A5) are expected as well. It’s also a pretty safe bet the tablet will be sporting at least one camera up front — though if some of those case mockups we’ve seen tell us anything, expect a shooter around back too. It’s also almost guaranteed that we’ll see the next version of iOS (number 5 in all likelihood, along with its SDK for devs), and an expansion of Apple’s cloud services (that part is a little… foggy right now). Of course, that will perfectly set up Apple’s announcement of the iPhone 5 in June, which is when iPad owners can likely expect to be using the new software. Regardless, we’ll have the goods come next week, so stay tuned!

Sources: iPad 2 lands in thinner body with spec bump and cameras, SD slot and higher resolution display are out — Engadget.

Motorola Xoom review — Engadget

As we put rubber to road on our Motorola Xoom review, it’s important to note that it was only a matter of time before the Android army delivered a proper iPad competitor. Moto’s partnership with Google (and use of the 3.0 version of its mobile operating system, Honeycomb), has made that assumed inevitability a very serious reality. There can be little question that the Xoom is certainly a contender for the hearts and minds of potential tablet buyers in the market. Besides boasting that fancy new software (a completely redesigned experience masterminded by the man behind webOS, Matias Duarte), the Xoom is equipped with formidable hardware. The 1GHz, NVIDIA Tegra 2-based slate boasts a sizable 1GB of DDR2 RAM, 32GB of internal storage, a 10.1-inch, 1280 x 800 capacitive display, 3G connectivity (Verizon on our review unit), along with front and rear facing cameras, HD video capability, and loads of wireless options. Not only is the Xoom clearly competitive (and frankly, more stacked) than most of its competition, Motorola has attempted to futureproof the device by offering a free hardware upgrade down the road which will give the tablet access to Big Red’s 4G LTE network. Of course, all this power comes with a cost… literally. With a list price off contract of $799, the Xoom is quite a pricey piece of technology to own. Still, with all that’s packed inside — and more importantly with what Google has done on the software side — the Xoom could represent the next stage of tablet evolution. Is it time to take the plunge? Read on for our definitive answer in the full Engadget review!

For the full review click the link Below to Engadget

Motorola Xoom review — Engadget.