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Apple Inc sales chief urging retail staff to prevent lineups for Apple Watch launch

National Post Tech Desk - Tue, 04/07/2015 - 13:24

SAN FRANCISCO — When it comes to buying the Apple Watch, it’s time to think different.

Angela Ahrendts, Apple Inc.’s sales chief, wants to scrap the company’s tradition of having customers wait in line, sometimes for days, to get their hands on the latest gadget. Apple has instructed its sales force to prod shoppers to the company’s website to purchase the new smartwatch, which can be pre-ordered Friday.

“The days of waiting in line and crossing fingers for a product are over for our customers,” according to a memo to Apple sales staff. “This is a significant change in mindset and we need your help to make it happen.”

The approach is the first indication of where Ahrendts is taking the Apple buying experience since joining the company about a year ago from British luxury retailer Burberry Group Plc. While the Apple watch starts as low as US$349, its top-end US$17,000 gold version pushes the Cupertino, California-based company into a new, lofty realm.

“This is not simply a consumer-electronics good — it’s a luxury good,” J.P. Gownder, an analyst with Forrester Research, said. “There are a lot of good reasons” to change, he said, “but there is that danger that it maybe a little bit, literally, buzz killing.”

Introductions of new iPhones also are sold online and usually prompt long waits at stores worldwide, with shoppers lining up days in advance. While many buyers walk away disappointed, the perceived scarcity helps fuel buzz for the devices.

Apple on Friday begins taking pre-orders online after 3:01 a.m. New York time. Shoppers also will be able to try on the device starting Friday, by appointment. Apple hasn’t begun accepting appointments yet. The watch officially goes on sale April 24 in eight countries and Hong Kong.

Encouraging Apple Watch shoppers to make appointments may help the company explain the complicated pricing and options and sell customers on why they would really want it, Gownder said. The watch is being offered in two sizes and three styles as well as different options for bands. The iPhone 6, for example, has three memory and three colour options.

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The watch — which aims to provide new ways to communicate, track fitness goals and give directions, among other things — is the first new gadget from Apple in five years.

The visibility may help bring greater attention to the total market for wearable devices, such as offerings from Samsung Electronics Co. The global market for all smartwatches may rise to 28.1 million units this year from 4.6 million, according to researcher Strategy Analytics. Sales of the Apple Watch may reach almost 14 million in the fiscal year through September, according to the average estimate of five analysts surveyed by Bloomberg.

The device will test whether Apple can create new products that generate as much excitement as those under co-founder Steve Jobs, who died in 2011. Optimism for Apple’s new items under Chief Executive Tim Cook has pushed company shares to record highs this year.

“Part of the problem that Samsung and others have had in the market has so far been: ‘What is making me want to have this device? Essentially I feel like my phone can do what it can do, why do I need this?’” Gownder said. “Being able to articulate a vision of why this is different is very important and Apple, because of this kind of one-on-one approach, will have the best chance of telling people.”

Bloomberg.com

Forza Horizon 2 Presents Fast & Furious review: Standalone expansion feels like a demo that should have launched prior to the game

National Post Tech Desk - Tue, 04/07/2015 - 10:39

It’s a bit bizarre that Universal’s massive Fast & Furious films haven’t spawned a successful licensed game series.

Not only do the films make a killing at the box office – this past weekend saw Furious 7 earn $143.6 million and claim a spot on Hollywood’s coveted list of top-ten domestic opening weekends – but their subject (pretty cars) and target audience (just about everyone) seems ideal for a racing game franchise.

And yet we’ve only seen a procession of poorly received one-offs appearing in the arcade, on consoles, and for mobile devices.

This time round Universal struck an agreement with Microsoft to brand a small, standalone expansion to Xbox One’s exclusive racing series, calling it Forza Horizon 2 Presents Fast & Furious.

But any narrative connection to the film franchise beyond that name is tenuous.

Microsoft Studios

It opens with a lengthy trailer for Furious 7, showing snippets of most of the movie’s biggest action sequences, then plops you into a suped-up 1970 Dodge Charger R/T, one of about a dozen featured cars from the film that include the 2011 Bugatti Veyron and the 2014 Maserati Ghibli.

Then we’re introduced to the bodiless voice of Tej – Chris “Ludacris” Bridges, one of the films’ protagonists – who informs us, without much explanation or any fanfare, that we need to find 10 cars scattered in and around Nice, France. And since this is Forza and not GTA, we’ll be racing for pink slips rather than boosting them.

That’s all there is to it. If you were expecting special guest appearances from Vin Diesel or The Rock, wanted to drive a million-dollar sports car through the upper levels of a trio of skyscrapers, or thought maybe the story – if you deign to be so generous – would be tied to the films in some way, you’ll probably be disappointed.

It seems to me that Universal basically bought the right to name a Forza Horizon 2 expansion and make it a standalone available for free to anyone who wants to play for the week before and after the film released in order to maximize brand exposure. It’s pretty clearly a ploy to boost ticket sales.

But that doesn’t necessarily mean there’s no fun to be had here.

Microsoft Studios

Forza Horizon 2 Presents Fast & Furious is essentially Forza Horizon 2 in miniature, and Forza Horizon 2 is a really fun casual racing game.

As with its namesake – the game, not the movie (this is getting confusing) – you’ll be treated to wonderfully tight driving controls, climb into the lovingly rendered cockpits of several drool-worthy cars, and race through an open network of streets and fields as you roll your way to key events.

It has a taste of almost everything found in Forza Horizon 2, including: bucket list challenges that lure you to do things like race recklessly through city streets or plough through sandwich boards; engage in weird showcase events where you race against a helicopter or a cargo plane; try to post the fastest speed possible while zipping through speed traps; and even go off-road and scour around fields looking for barn finds (abandoned but reliably awesome fixer-uppers).

However, aside from a handful of fresh rides (and keep in mind some of the dozen cars here already appear in the base game), the expansion offers little of anything new for returning players. No fresh event types, no new locations to explore, and only around 5 per cent of the content. (It takes around 100 hours to complete all of Forza Horizon 2‘s objectives, whereas it took under five hours for me to earn a full 100% completion rating and 1000 achievement points playing the expansion.)

Consequently, it feels less like an expansion than a promo or demo for the full game – which would be fine if this were five months prior to release rather than five months post.

Microsoft Studios

If you’ve yet to try Forza Horizon 2, this standalone expansion might prove a good way to figure out whether you want to – especially since it’s free through this Friday, April 10th. I’m not sure, though, what existing players will get out of it that they didn’t get playing Forza Horizon 2.

And once its price shoots up to $10 on Friday, I doubt it’ll be a good bargain for anyone, given how much more game you get if you simply purchase the racer its meant to promote.

In the meantime, Furious fans are still left wondering when the blockbuster films will get a proper interactive interpretation; one that lets them do things like parachute cars from planes or press a button to make The Rock flex hard enough to shatter a cast.

Bell told to seek customer consent for targeted ads after ‘unprecedented’ privacy complaints

National Post Tech Desk - Tue, 04/07/2015 - 09:31

Canada’s privacy commissioner says Bell should seek customer consent to track their Internet, TV and phone call use to deliver targeted online advertising.

After receiving an “unprecedented” 170 privacy complaints, Daniel Therrien launched an investigation that determined Bell shouldn’t assume that customers are consenting to have vast amounts of their personal information used in this way.

Bell has agreed to make some changes to address privacy concerns, but is refusing a key recommendation to obtain express consent from customers.

The Montreal-based company has said its data collection program isn’t breaking any federal telecom rules or privacy guidelines.

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The commissioner said he hopes Bell will reconsider its position but the federal agency is prepared to resolve the issue, including possibly taking the matter to Federal Court.

It says customers support its approach of putting the onus on them to opt out of the program.

However, an expert hired by the commissioner found the survey used by Bell to gauge customer views was complex and couldn’t be scientifically supported. Yet it also found that more than one third of its customers — some two million people — were not comfortable with Bell’s approach.

Therrien said his office will monitor the emerging trend of behaviourally targeted advertising, which isn’t only used by Bell, and reach out to other organizations including the wider telecommunications sector.

Scientists have invented an aluminum battery for smartphones that can be charged in one minute

National Post Tech Desk - Tue, 04/07/2015 - 06:25

LONDON — U.S. scientists said they have invented a cheap, long-lasting and flexible battery made of aluminum for use in smartphones that can be charged in as little as one minute.

The researchers, who detailed their discovery in the journal Nature, said the new aluminum-ion battery has the potential to replace lithium-ion batteries, used in millions of laptops and mobile phones.

Besides recharging much faster, the new aluminum battery is safer than existing lithium-ion batteries, which occasionally burst into flames, they added.

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Researchers have long tried but failed to develop a battery made of aluminum, a lightweight and relatively inexpensive metal that has high charging capacity.

A team lead by chemistry professor Hongjie Dai at Stanford University in California made a breakthrough by accidentally discovering that graphite made a good partner to aluminum, Stanford said in a statement.

In a prototype, aluminum was used to make the negatively-charged anode while graphite provided material for the positively charged cathode.

A prototype aluminum battery recharged in one minute, the scientists said.
“Lithium-ion batteries can be a fire hazard,” said Dai. “Our new battery won’t catch fire, even if you drill through it.”

The new battery is also very durable and flexible, the scientists said.

While lithium-ion batteries last about 1,000 cycles, the new aluminum battery was able to continue after more than 7,500 cycles without loss of capacity. It also can be bent or folded.

Larger aluminum batteries could also be used to store renewable energy on the electrical grid, Dai said.
© Thomson Reuters 2015

Is the worst finally behind Samsung? Profit slump eases after tweaks to mobile chip and smartphone businesses

National Post Tech Desk - Tue, 04/07/2015 - 04:54

SEOUL, Korea, Republic Of — Samsung Electronics Co.’s quarterly operating earnings fell 31% from a year earlier but the drop wasn’t as big as expected in a sign the smartphone and computer chip giant may be emerging from its profit slump.

The company on Tuesday estimated its January-March operating profit at US$5.4 billion, exceeding the average 5.5 trillion won forecast in a FactSet survey of analysts.

Samsung did not give a breakdown of its financial performance but analysts said robust demand for its mobile chips and improvements in its smartphone business were behind the relative improvement. It will release its full quarterly results later this month.

The company’s operating profit was an improvement from the previous two quarters when its mobile business, which accounts for two-thirds of Samsung’s income, suffered from a sales slowdown. Samsung estimated that its sales fell 12% to US$43 billion during the first quarter.

Analysts believe the South Korean company’s profits hit bottom during the third quarter.

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They expect a recovery in Samsung’s bottom line in the current quarter as the company is set to launch the latest version of its flagship smartphone, the Galaxy S6, on Friday.

After criticism that its phones look cheap and are too complicated to use, Samsung ditched plastic, using aluminum and glass for the new flagship smartphone’s body. The company also removed many apps that were installed on the phones that critics said cluttered screen space without being useful.

Solid demand for semiconductor devices that are used as components for mobile gadgets will continue to help drive a recovery in Samsung’s profits, according to analysts.

Samsung is the world’s largest maker of memory chips. For the upcoming Galaxy S6 smartphone, the company is supplying its own mobile processor that works as the brain of the phone.

Samsung’s share price was unchanged in Seoul trading.

Associated Press

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