Next version of Google Glass to be sleeker: Report

The new version of Intel-powered Google Glass may look slimmer and sleeker than its earlier version. 

The exteriors of the new device also adds a textured area to the touch-sensitive side panel where non-voice interactions are performed, media reports said. Google Glass is expected to be unveiled next year. 

The Google patent describes a sleeker version of Google Glass that should still draw plenty of public attention. The entire thing appears more like a futuristic headset and less like a modified pair of glasses. 

Google Glass is presently available for $1,500, though it is speculated that the final retail version will sell for a lot less. 

Glass displays information in a smartphone-like hands-free format. Wearers communicate with the internet via natural language voice commands.

BlackBerry, NantHealth launch cancer genome browser

BlackBerry Ltd and NantHealth, a healthcare-focused data provider, have launched a secure cancer genome browser, giving doctors the ability to access patients' genetic data on the BlackBerry Passport smartphone. 

Earlier this year, BlackBerry bought a minority stake in privately-held NantHealth. The mobile technology company sees healthcare as one of the niche sectors in which it has an advantage, due to the heightened focus on patient privacy and BlackBerry's vast networks that can manage and secure data on mobile devices. 

The company said the cancer genome browser on the BlackBerry Passport enables deep, interactive reporting on genomics data for physicians. It gives oncologists a tool to view individual genetic alternations in a disease and allows them to highlight relevant treatment options. 

BlackBerry launched the square-screened Passport device in September, the oddly shaped device was fashioned in a sense to tailor to the needs of the physicians, with a wider screen that allows for better viewing of X-rays, scans and documents. 

"Our partnership with BlackBerry has really been able to create a scalable super computer in the palm of the hands of the doctor," said Patrick Soon-Shiong, chief executive of NantHealth. 

BlackBerry chief executive John Chen said he expects this roll-out to get healthcare professionals interested in the Passport?. 

The genome browser is fully encrypted to allow deployment to enable clinicians to securely access patient data as soon as it is available, wherever they are. 

The browser will be demonstrated at the Consumer Electronics Show (CES) in Las Vegas in January and it will be pre-loaded on BlackBerry Passport devices and available to the professional community in early 2015. The browser will also be available on certain other devices running on rival platforms, but secured by BlackBerry's network. 

California-based NantHealth, whose cloud-based platform already connects thousands of medical devices in hospitals, was founded by Soon-Shiong, a surgeon and businessman, who made billions of dollars selling his two former companies, American Pharmaceutical Partners and Abraxis BioScience. 

Soon-Shiong said the BlackBerry and NantHealth will continue to collaborate on software and hardware, and he said that the two are already working on a new device that will revolutionize the transport of big data sets. Details on this will be outlined early next year. 

Bebe stores confirms card card breach

Bebe Stores Inc said it detected a hacking attack on its payment processing system that could have compromised data from cards swiped in its stores in the United States, Puerto Rico and US Virgin Islands. 

The exposed data may have included cardholder names, account numbers, expiration dates and verification codes, the women's apparel retailer said. 

Bebe, which also operates stores in Canada, said the affected transactions were made between November 8 and November 26, the day before Thanksgiving. 

Security blog KrebsOnSecurity said that hackers may have stolen credit and debit card data from bebe during Thanksgiving and Black Friday. 

Bebe is the latest retailer to fall prey to hackers. 

Previous victims included Home Depot Inc, Target Corp, Sears Holdings Corp and Michaels Stores Inc. 

Bebe said online transactions were not affected. 

"We moved quickly to block this attack and have taken steps to further enhance our security measures," chief executive Jim Wiggett said in a statement. 

Bebe operates 175 retail stores and 35 outlet stores in the United States, US Virgin Islands, Puerto Rico and Canada.

Google, Microsoft and others take on ad-blockers

Imagine being able to surf the web and watch videos online without having to swat away pesky pop-up ads?

These days you can, thanks to small programs like Adblock Plus that are available free for download and that arm your browser to defend against ads.

Flashing banner ads, "pre-roll" ads (short ads that play before a video), pop-up notices that cover the whole screen — few of them make it past ad blocking software.

In the beginning, the applications acted under the radar, and were known mainly only to young people or the really tech-savvy. But now they're catching on.

Adblock Plus has nearly five million active users in France, with a further two million in the United Kingdom and 1.5 million in Spain.

Worldwide, they have amassed about 144 million active users, up 69% in a year, according to a September report from Adobe software developer and PageFair, a company that helps publishers see which ads are being blocked.

Depending on the website, the percentage of viewers equipped with ad-blocking software ranges from 10 to 60%.

Internet users may dream about ad-free surfing, but for advertisers and web publishers, who rely on ads to fund content, ad-blocking applications are the stuff of nightmares.

"This is no small matter; it affects all publishers. Our members have lost an estimated 20-40% of their advertising revenue," Laure de Lataillade, CEO of GESTE, an association of web publishers in gaming, media, music and other domains, told AFP.

The growing popularity of ad blockers comes as companies plough more and more money into internet advertising. A quarter of the 545 billion dollars spent on global advertising this year went on digital ads.

To protect that investment, a group of publishers in France, including Google, Microsoft and Le Figaro newspaper, have threatened legal action against the developers of ad blocking software.
In Germany, too, publishers are alarmed at the success of the anti-ad workarounds. "There have already been some companies that have lodged a formal complaint," Oliver von Wersche, head of digital marketing at Gruner + Jahr, publishers of Stern news magazine and several other leading titles, told AFP.

Websites, meanwhile, are experimenting with a range of strategies to placate ad-addled audiences. French sports daily l'Equipe's website is using a carrot-and-stick approach.

Users with ad-blocking software who attempt to watch videos receive the message: "Unauthorized access. L'Equipe.fr is funded by advertising, which allows us to offer you free content."

Once they deactivate the software they can gain access to the video. "We have to find a viable economic model. Either the user pays for a premium model or he accepts advertising," said Xavier Spender, deputy managing director of L'Equipe group.

Sean Blanchfield, CEO of PageFair, compared the campaign against ad blockers to the music industry's takedown of the file-sharing program Napster a decade ago.

"They should instead learn from the Napster story that the users will ultimately get what they want," said Blanchfield, whose company works with publishers to devise ads that "respect users' privacy".

For Helene Chartier, head of French web developers' union SRI, the big mistake was to let users believe the internet was free in the first place, considering "there was never a problem with ads on television or radio."

Industry professionals said the growing rejection of ads — and the shrinking space for them on mobile devices — should spur advertisers to come up with less intrusive messages.

In a sign of how seriously the problem is being taken in the industry, Google has launched an alternative to web advertising.

Called Google Contributor it charges users between 1 and 3 dollars a month to be spared ads, with the fee going to the affected websites.

In levying the fee Google urges users to "support" their favourite websites. The idea is currently being tested on around a dozen US websites, including The Onion, Science Daily and Mashable.

Great Google mystery: The missing Nexus

Nexus 6 is launched but, as ever, legions of Indian fans won't get their hands on one.

 This tale from a technology sector CEO illustrates an unusual thing about an iconic global technology giant. Vijay Shekhar Sharma, CEO of Paytm, is a devoted fan of Google's Nexus smartphone. Sharma is waiting to upgrade to Nexus 6 and has to wait patiently till it's available online on Flipkart, which is the only Indian outlet, online or offline, for the phone. 

The Paytm CEO's frustrating experience is shared by many, many Nexus smartphone fans. Google, as formidable a marketing machine as any globally, has put its weight behind low-cost Android One phones in India, spending Rs 100 crore in the project. Nexus, on the other hand, is not marketed by Google and is rarely marketed by its hardware partners LG, Motorola and HTC either. 

Even as Android One had a tepid start, market analysts and retailers say Google is missing a trick by not promoting the pricier Nexus phone more. "Instead of focusing on Android One, it would be a good call for Google to sell Nexus offline as it is a flagship product that has a good pull," says Satish Babu, founder of Chennai-based retail store chain UniverCell Mobiles, one of several large format chains willing to stock Nexus 6.

"There are takers for Nexus even at the high price," Babu said. He compared this with cheaper Android One phones, which have had a not-so-impressive run since their launch a few weeks back. 

Other mobile brick and mortar retailers — for example, Himangshu Chakravarti of MobileStore — agree with UniverCell Mobiles' Babu. They say there's a lot of latent demand for the high performing Nexus phone but supply is a problem, and Google can tap that by selling offline. 

Some Nexus fans are switching loyalty, not wanting to wait long for an upgrade to arrive. Paytm CEO Sharma says Xiaomi is one of the favourite options of those abandoning Nexus. "I've been waiting for it for some time now, but many Nexus 5 users waiting to upgrade to Nexus 6 have moved to Xiaomi's Mi 3 which offers almost the same specifications at roughly half the cost," Sharma says. 

Xiaomi's Mi 3 was launched in July at Rs 14,999. Nexus phones are in the Rs 20,000 to Rs 30,000 price band. The LG-made 4.95-inch Nexus 5 was launched in November last year, the fifth successor to Nexus 1 introduced in 2010. Nexus 5 is priced between Rs 22,000 and Rs 33,000 on e-commerce sites. Nexus 6, powered by Google's Android Lollipop operating system, has been made by Motorola. 

Nexus 6 was listed for pre-orders in the US late in October and all variants were reported to be sold out within a few hours. 

The story was the same in the UK. In India, initial stocks were pre-booked within a day or two. When asked by ET, Flipkart did not share the number of pre-orders. Nexus 6 may be available in Google's 3-day online sale beginning December 10. 

Hong Kong-based research firm Counterpoint Technologies estimates that around 2,00,000 Nexus 5 phones were shipped to India this year. Compare that with the 1.6-1.8 million Android-based smartphones that were sold in India this year in the same Rs 20,000-Rs 30,000 price band. Clearly, say analysts and retail traders, Google can sell far more Nexus phones than it is selling now — if it wants to. 

On the other hand, in just two and a half months since mid-September, a little under 500,000 Android One phones have been shipped to India, more than double the year-long total for Nexus 5 phones. 

But despite this, Android One hasn't quite taken off. In all 7 million smartphones in the Rs 6,000-Rs 8,000 price band, the range in which Android One phones are available, were sold in four months till October. With less than a half a million shipments, Google's low-cost smartphone was obviously a slow seller in this category. 

That Nexus is a story of untapped potential in India is also clear from the fact that India accounts for just 3,00,000 of the 9.9 million Nexus phones sold globally since 2010, according to data from Counterpoint Technologies. 

Android, both technology and mobile retail experts say, is a hugely popular operating system in India and Google's Nexus phones are ideally situated to exploit that popularity. Nexus, experts say, is the benchmark setting Android-based smartphone. 

Just a showpiece? 

Google responded to ET's query on undermarketing Nexus by saying: "We always introduce Nexus devices alongside our platform releases (such as Lollipop), as advances in computing are always driven at the intersection of hardware and software." 

Other explanations from analysts and experts were more detailed. Google works with hardware partners to build Nexus devices, and the idea is to help push boundaries of what's possible, say analysts tracking the sector. Nexus serves as a reference for the Android ecosystem. 

"Ideally, it would have been a good business case had Google entered into devices," said a Bangalore-based analyst who did not want to be named. He added that Google perhaps wants Nexus to simply serve as a reference point, a showcase for the power of hardware. 

Counterpoint's telecom analyst Tarun Pathak says Google may not want to scale up Nexus distribution to "avoid stepping into its manufacturing partners' toes" and that Nexus phones "may be mostly a showcase that's meant for developers first and then consumers."