The Hidden iPhone Feature That's Freaking Out The Competition

By Dan Lyons at Huffington Post:

In public, Apple's rivals in the smartphone market have tried to downplay the technological advances Apple introduced in the iPhone 5s. But it turns out that one breakthrough -- Apple's speedy, 64-bit A7 microprocessor -- has set off a panic inside its competitors. At chipmaker Qualcomm, which provides microprocessors for many of the Android phones that compete against the iPhone, executives have been trying to put on a brave face to the world, but internally people are freaking out, according to an insider at the company.

"The 64-bit Apple chip hit us in the gut," says the Qualcomm employee. "Not just us, but everyone, really. We were slack-jawed, and stunned, and unprepared. It's not that big a performance difference right now, since most current software won't benefit. But in Spinal Tap terms it's like, 32 more, and now everyone wants it."

A 64-bit processor handles data in bigger chunks than 32-bit processors, so it can get jobs done faster. PCs have had 64-bit chips for a while, but until Apple introduced the iPhone 5s in September, nobody had put one in a smartphone.

At the time Qualcomm CMO Anand Chandrasekher called the chip "a marketing gimmick," though Qualcomm quickly put out a statement in which it walked back Chandrasekher's comment and called it "inaccurate." Soon after that, Chandrasekher was reassigned. Whoops.

In fact, Qualcomm and others now are racing to finish their own 64-bit chips. But Apple has gained a substantial jump on them. Qualcomm faces an additional challenge, which is that while Apple designs only one new chip a year, Qualcomm must create multiple designs with little tweaks and alterations to meet the needs of each different phone-maker.



Read the full story >>

Social Video Startup Magisto Raises $13 Million From Qualcomm And Sandisk

By Ryan Lawler at TechCrunch: 

Once upon a time, seemingly everyone was creating mobile apps to help users shoot, edit, and share videos with one another. Thanks to a desire to build or invest in the “Instagram for video,” a number of new social video apps popped up and got funding last year.

One startup that was always a bit of an outlier in that race was Magisto, which had built an app that was designed to magically create interesting videos out of the videos that users had stored on their computers and phones. Now, after posting pretty incredible growth, the company has raised $13 million to take on the ambitious goal of unlocking all the world’s photos and videos and making them shareable.

The funding comes from two major strategic investors — Qualcomm Ventures and Sandisk. Existing investors Magma Venture Partner and Li Ka Shing’s Horizons Ventures also participated in the round.

Magisto has signed up more than 13 million users since being founded, pitching them on the idea of “video storytelling.” By using proprietary algorithms, the mobile and web app pieces together multiple video and photo assets and creates shareable videos and photo slideshows. They can then be shared on social networks, or with specific friends and family.

While a large amount of video is being created and stored on smartphones, there’s also a ton of photos and videos that has been shot but never makes it off a user’s SD card. Magisto CEO and co-founder Oren Boiman hopes to make all that content available to be shared.


Read the full story >>

Nokia Lumia 2520 Bigger, Faster, Lower Power Than Microsoft's Surface 2

If you, like me, took some offline time this weekend, we’re a bit late to the latest slap fight in the world of Windows RT. Until recently, there was only one functional player in the Windows RT space – Microsoft, and its Surface 2 tablet – but Nokia has stepped into the ring, and one of its suppliers is talking a little trash.

No shame in that, of course. Bragging is as old as language. But how Qualcomm – the supplier of the Nokia Lumia 2520 Windows RT tablet’s processor – is taking the Surface 2 to task is interesting.

Both the Nokia 2520 and the Surface 2 run Windows RT, so when it comes to software, they are on parity. Certainly, you could argue that the Surface 2 might behave better with Windows RT than rival devices, given that Microsoft builds both, but that’s edge work.
Qualcomm, as quoted by CNet, thinks that the Lumia 2520  is “bigger, faster, [and] lower power” than Microsoft’s rival Surface 2 tablet. Ok.

The kicker to this is that, for the Surface line of tablet hybrids, the hardware component of the devices has largely not been the point of complaint raised by reviewers and users. Instead, it’s been the software that the Surface devices run on – Windows 8 at first, and now Windows 8. 1- that was the sticking point. Windows 8 was not ready at launch. And Windows 8.1 has yet to be tested against consumer demand.

Why Qualcomm is trumpeting the “speeds and feeds” of the Lumia 2520 is simple: It provides the silicon that powers the device. Microsoft’s Surface 2 runs on Nvidia chips.

Keep in mind, however, that Microsoft is in the process of buying the Nokia assets that built the Lumia 2520, so we could see reconciliation. For now, however, Nokia’s tablet does directly challenge its future brother. Microsoft recently reported that Surface unit volume doubled in its most recent quarter, compared with the sequentially preceding quarter. Surface revenue totaled $400 million for that period.



Read the full story >>