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Verizon's rebranded TracFone prepaid service includes Disney+ with some plans
Verizon has relaunched TracFone as Total, and the new prepaid carrier offers both 5G and perks like Disney+.
2011 boasts record holiday season for online shopping, especially from mobile devices
2011 has only just ended, but I have a sneaking suspicion that even when we look back on it in another 12 months from now, we'll find a pretty revolutionary year in terms of the quality and quantity of our shopping. For example, UI expert and project leader Luke Wroblewski has compiled a list of facts about shopping during the holiday season last year, and the list provides a lot of solid insight on just how different 2011 was. Online buying was up both on Christmas Day and during the holiday season as a whole, and a large percentage of that buying was done with mobile devices. Over 90 percent of mobile device shopping was done with iPads and iPhones, making 2011 a really landmark year in how we use these devices to make purchases and spend money. Spending on these devices wasn't always for material goods, either. App downloads were up by 125 percent on Christmas Day last year, which makes it a record day not only for 2011, but for the history of both the iOS and Android marketplaces. The week ending December 18 and the last shopping weekend before Christmas were both record periods for spending overall. In other words, this past holiday season was kind of a landmark in more than a few different ways. We'll have to see how the industry reacts to this next year; there will likely be an even bigger emphasis on spending and shopping from mobile devices in the future.
Urban Airship delivers 5 billionth push notification
Urban Airship is a company that works with developers to power and send out push notifications through the various applications on your iPhone, and it recently announced that the five billionth push notification left the company's servers. The company has been sending push notifications since June 14, 2009 (when they were first opened up to developers by Apple in iOS), and it's now sending out 19 million push notifications a day. That's notes from games, to-do apps, Twitter apps, and all of the other various reasons that all of your apps have to pop that little window up. Urban Airship isn't the only company sending these things either -- there are many more notifications going out, through various servers and setups. It took Urban Airship just over a year to reach 1 billion notifications sent, and traffic is still climbing, too. And the inclusion of a notification management system in iOS 5 means that we'll see even bigger growth with this feature. And that's not all: Urban Airship also says that in-app purchases have been mushrooming as well, with 4.2 million so far in just its company, and even more through developers directly. iOS is really "pushing" new ways for developers and users to interact. Show full PR text Urban Airship Delivers 5 Billionth Mobile Push Notification Mobile services platform start-up also hires first CFO August 22, 2011-Portland, ORE- A short two years since Urban Airship formally launched, the company has established itself as a leader in its ability to navigate the complex, multifaceted explosive-growth industry of mobile apps. Push notifications-short, real-time alerts sent from within apps direct to users with the app installed on their device-are quickly joining email, social networking and SMS as a critical communications channel. Urban Airship sent the first push notification for any app in the Apple App Store on June 14, 2009. Since then, interest in push notifications has continued to gather steam: the Urban Airship messaging platform powers an average of 520 million push notifications per month, roughly 13,000 messages per minute. Successful brands onmobile are engaging their customers with compelling, relevant information that extends the utility of their app. Several brands, including ESPN, Yahoo, Slate, msnbc.com, dictionary.com, Groupon and LivingSocial use Push to deliver ongoing content such as advertisements, deals and special sales, news stories, podcasts and playlists, weather and traffic alerts, transactional receipts and sports scores. It took the company's thousands of app developers 472 days (1 year, 3 months, 15 days) to hit the 1 billion notification mark. As context, it took Twitter 3 years, 2 months and 1 day to hit 1 billion tweets. "I'm amazed at the growth we've seen in such a short time. Our team has delivered on the vision of a ubiquitous messaging layer for any connected device and we're just getting warmed up over here," says Scott Kveton, CEO of Urban Airship. "The market is rapidly adopting push notifications as a critical communications channel, and it's clear that mobile is changing everything." App Messaging by the Numbers · As of August 21, 2011, Urban Airship has delivered 5 billion push notifications. · Twenty thousand active iOS, BlackBerry and Android apps run on the Urban Airship mobile platform. · Year over year, the number of notifications Urban Airship has delivered increased from 834 million to 5 billion, a 500% growth rate. · Urban Airship delivers, on average, 520 million push notifications every month, 130 million per week, 19 million per day, roughly 13 thousand messages per minute. · In-App purchase continues to gain momentum. Thus far, Urban Airship has authenticated and enabled more than 4.2 million transactions. The company hits the 5 billion milestone as it embarks on the next phase of its growth. Dylan Anderson is joining the executive team at the company as CFO, VP of Finance and Corporate Secretary. He will oversee strategic growth and help drive capital needs as Urban Airship continues to make traction with significant larger-scale enterprise-scope partners. Anderson, a seasoned start-up veteran, has more than 18 years of financial and operational leadership in early-stage, innovative companies. He brings strong credentials in fund raising, M&A, and both pre- and post-IPO companies. Most recently he was CFO for Max-Viz, Inc., a VC–backed avionics technology company, where he led the finance, legal, HR and administrative teams. "Dylan is joining the team at the perfect time," says Kveton. "As the deals we are doing start to become more and more complex, we need someone intimately familiar with sophisticated revenue models and experience structuring full-service, SLA-level contracts." About Urban Airship Urban Airship powers the world's most successful mobile apps. Providing breakthrough technology, Urban Airship makes mobile marketing far more engaging, effective, and efficient. Top brands depend on Urban Airship to ensure their mobile app initiatives are scalable and profitable. Verizon, Dictionary.com, Groupon, Yahoo, and Warner Bros. are just a few of the thousands of companies that utilize Urban Airship's innovative platform to reach and engage targetaudiences and increase app revenue streams through push notification, rich messaging, in-app purchase, subscriptions and data tracking. The venture-backed company was recently named to Fast Company's list of the most innovative companies and to the Red Herring Top 100 North American Startups. Urban Airship is based in Portland, Oregon.
TUAW's Daily App: John Enock's Quaso
We've been spotlighting a lot of quick and easy action games in our Daily App feature lately, so here's something a little more cerebral. Quaso is a new kind of Crossword-style puzzle game, except that instead of guessing words, you're trying to figure out numbers in math equations. The game was created by an English mathematics teacher named John Enock, and has been brought to the iPhone by a developer as John Enock's Quaso, now available on the App Store for free. Here's how it works. For every crossword line on the board, you're given a set of math equations with the numbers missing. There's one total number for every puzzle (say, 6), and then for each equation, you need to figure out how another set of numbers fits in to complete the clue and make the equation equal to the total number. In other words, given the clue (*+*) x (*-*), and the answer of 6, you'd eventually work out that the numbers should be (1+2) x (5-3), and then put 1, 2, 5, and 3 in each spot on the answer. But that answer line has to match up to any that it intersects with, so you may need to switch the numbers around -- (2+1) instead of (1+2) -- for it all to work. It's fiendishly clever, and it really puts your brain to work, especially if (like me) you're not that great at casual math. But there are a ton of puzzles to work through, and then you can even buy a puzzle pack via in-app purchase for more. Especially at the current price of free, Quaso is a mathematical brain teaser that you shouldn't miss.
MIT researchers develop liquid metal battery for the grid and the home
We've see plenty of green power research over the years, from solar plants to underwater turbines , but relying on the sun or the sea for electricity is not without its challenges: the sun doesn't always shine, for instance, and sometimes the water is calm. A group at MIT led by professor Donald Sadoway is developing grid-scale storage solutions for times when electricity isn't being generated. Since these batteries are intended for the power grid instead of cellphones and Roombas, the researchers can use materials not feasible in consumer electronics -- in this case, high temperature liquid metals. Besides being recently awarded a grant from ARPA-E (Advanced Research Projects Agency, Energy) to put these things in green power facilities, MIT has just embarked on a joint venture with the French oil company Total to develop a smaller-scale version of the technology for homes and office buildings.
Blu-ray surpasses HD DVD in disc sales for the first time
The Blu-ray and HD DVD battle has entered a new era, as preliminary Nielsen VideoScan stats show the BDA's baby sold more -- a ratio of 100 Blu-ray to every 98.71 HD DVD discs, sorry still no hard numbers here -- since their inception last year. As we all know, HD DVD was first to market and had enjoyed a lead on Blu-ray ever since, but then things started to turn with the launch of the PlayStation 3. The studios supporting Blu-ray finally began releasing significant numbers of titles and haven't looked back. Each team put its own spin on the numbers, with HD DVD-backing Universal pointing out that despite a 5:1 advantage in hardware due to the PS3, disc sales are still nearly even, while Blu-ray supporter 20th Century Fox sees the format war as being in its "final phase," and fence-straddling Warner merely noting that both formats are "selling well". Still, with the exception of the LG combo playing BH100, none of the major players have shown any plans to change sides, so until they do, prepare for a prolonged stalemate before this war is truly over.[Thanks, Jason]
