Boot up: Samsung S5 order cut?, Roku v AppleTV, FTC sues Amazon

Steve Jobs called Apple TV a ‘hobby’; Roku takes it seriously. Photograph: David Paul Morris/Getty Images

A burst of 9 links for you to chew over, as picked by the Technology team

The inimitable Maciej Ceglowski:

Any site that aspires to be an archive starts life with a credibility problem. The Internet is strewn with the corpses (or in some cases, zombies) of sites that once promised to save your links forever. As people keep discovering, building a bookmarking site is easy, but making a business of bookmarking is hard. Like one of those leathery, spiny plants that is able to thrive in the desert where everything else dies, I have tried to find ways to adapt to this hostile business environment. And I have feasted on the flesh of my rivals!

I raise this brimming skull to the awesome group of users and fellow-travelers who have made it possible.

…My strategy of pre-emptively antagonizing anyone who might possibly have an interest in acquiring or funding the site has worked wonderfully. In five years, I haven't received a single email from an investor or potential acquirer. The closest I came was a few months ago, when the new Delicious owners reached out to me about providing "vision", but I think they were just unfamiliar with my oeuvre. They learned quickly.

Does good business, too. (We use the non-archiving, one-time pay version.)

From 1979, this book - taking "a trip in time to the year 2000 and beyond" - is fascinating, both for what it gets right and wrong. Correct prediction: onesies. Incorrect prediction: robots capable of bringing your drink. (Yes, we all wish it were the other way round.)

The report – The Evolving Market For Streaming Media Devices – found Roku accounted for nearly one-half of streaming media players (46%) purchased in the US in 2013, while Apple, its closest competitor, had 26%.

Roku is also the most-used streaming media player in the US. Among US broadband households with a streaming media player, 44% use a Roku player the most versus 26% that use Apple TV the most. The gap has widened since 2013, when 37% of streaming media player owners used Roku most and 24% used Apple TV most.

"Multiple factors have allowed Roku to outpace Apple in US sales and usage," said Barbara Kraus, director, research, Parks Associates. "Roku has always had a close association with Netflix, the largest source of video downloads, and currently offers more than 1,700 channel apps as well as a choice of models with different features and price points, all of which appeal to consumers' purchasing instincts. With Amazon entering this CE category, there will be renewed pressure on all players to develop the best combination of 'can't miss' content with a simple and intuitive interface."

The CE category for streaming media players has been robust despite competition from streaming 'sticks' such as the Google Chromecast. According to Parks Associates' 1Q 2014 survey of 10,000 US broadband households, Google Chromecast sold as many units in six months as Roku sold in 2013, but overall, usage of the Chromecast has steadily declined since its introduction.

The FTC is filing a complaint in federal court:

According to the complaint, kids' games often encourage children to acquire virtual items in ways that blur the lines between what costs virtual currency and what costs real money. In the app "Ice Age Village," for example, the complaint noted that children can use "coins" and "acorns" to buy items in the game without a real-money charge. However, they can also purchase additional "coins" and "acorns" using real money on a screen that is visually similar to the one that has no real-money charge. The largest quantity purchase available in the app would cost $99.99.

The complaint highlights internal communications among Amazon employees as early as December 2011 that said allowing unlimited in-app charges without any password was "…clearly causing problems for a large percentage of our customers," adding that the situation was a "near house on fire."

The FTC previously sued Apple (and won a settlement).

Brian Krebs on the systems criminals put into ATMs to collect magnetic stripe data:

Like most electronic gadgets these days, ATM skimmers are getting smaller and thinner, with extended battery life. Here's a look at several miniaturized fraud devices that were pulled from compromised cash machines at various ATMs in Europe so far this year.

According to a new report from the European ATM Security Team (EAST), a novel form of mini-skimmer was reported by one country. Pictured below is a device designed to capture the data stored on an ATM card's magnetic stripe as the card is inserted into the machine. While most card skimmers are made to sit directly on top of the existing card slot, these newer mini-skimmers fit snugly inside the card reader throat, obscuring most of the device. This card skimmer was made to fit inside certain kinds of cash machines made by NCR.

Glass will face tough comparisons against smartwatches. Though made for different body parts, both products are designed primarily to give users a quicker way to get information or check messages without taking out their phones. For example, Google says notifications in smartphone apps will show up on both Android-powered watches and Glass.

Watches will be much cheaper. Glass costs $1,500 today, though the price is expected to drop over time. Samsung Electronics's new Android smartwatch, the Gear Live, costs $199.

Watches will also offer more apps for now. Glass has only 67 apps as Google strives to get software developers to design apps that take advantage of the eyewear's features. One such app, Livestream, broadcasts live video from Glass's built-in camera.

Getting an app approved for Glass can be time-consuming—some developers at Google's conference said it can take months. By contrast, smartwatch apps are typically approved in about 90 minutes.

…"In consumer markets, Glass will require a lot of cultural engineering," said Forrester research analyst J.P. Gownder. "It could take years for the public to get there."

China's Economic Daily News (EDN) this morning reports that with Samsung Electronics' Galaxy smartphone sales having been seriously impacted recently, Taiwan component makers' orders for the Galaxy S5 have greatly reduced to only 15m units for the third quarter, down from 21m in the second, while the Galaxy S4's orders also dropped from six million units to five million."

EDN specifically claims that Taiwan-based component suppliers such as TXC, Merry, Giantplus, Capella Microsystems, HannsTouch Solution, Young Fast, Unimicron Technology, Tripod Technology and Silitech Technology are expected to be affected by the reduced orders.

I couldn't find the EDN source, but assuming for a moment it's reliable, the contrast with 2013 (and the GS4) is thought-provoking:

Samsung Electronics revises its orders for parts and components used for making the Galaxy S4 by a third, for the next quarter this year.

According to an industry source the parts and component orders will be enough for production of 20-25 million units of Galaxy S4 in the second quarter and 20m units in the third quarter, the sources indicated.

20m flagships in Q3 2013, but only 15m in Q3 2014?

In April, the Commission signed two contracts with Microsoft: An agreement for "high-level services" worth €44m, and a framework agreement on software licensing conditions. The actual licenses are provided by Hewlett-Packard under a separate contract from 2012, worth €50m. The contracts cover the Commission itself, and 54 other EU organisations.

"We are extremely disappointed about the lack of progress here," says FSFE president Karsten Gerloff. "The Commission has not even looked for viable alternatives. Its lazy approach to software procurement leaves the Commission open to allegations of inertia, and worse."

The Commission recently admitted publicly for the first time that it is in "effective captivity" to Microsoft. But documents obtained by FSFE show that the Commission has made no serious effort to find solutions based on Open Standards. In consequence, a large part of Europe's IT industry is essentially locked out of doing business with the Commission.

"A large part is locked out"?

The new restoration process will apparently be part of the Play Store app itself, and would allow users to choose from a list of backups from their other devices, so if you're setting up the Play Store on a new (or freshly wiped) phone, you could choose to restore a backup from a phone, thereby restoring all your phone-specific apps and eschewing the apps you use only on tablets or other devices. Our information also indicates there may be an option to add on individual apps to the backup you choose.
What isn't clear right now is exactly what is meant by data. Of course restoring actual app data between devices would be a boon for Android users, but it's just as likely that the new feature is using "data" in the same vague way as the current setup process.

A hugely welcome step, if overdue; Apple's iCloud backup has done this for years. (Then again, the absence of this feature principally affects people who replace their phone often - which most people don't.)

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