Things Get Hairy For Veet Ad

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‘Family Guy’ Not Tapped Out

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Your Brain On Engineering

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iWatch Rumored For September

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For the longest time, we’ve seen hints that Apple could be diving into the smartwatch market, perhaps even as soon as this year. Now, a new report shows that it could very well be on the way.

China’s Economic Daily stated that the Cupertino company’s smartwatch could be arriving by September, with 65 million units planned to ship by the start of next year.

DigiTimes also had a say in the rumors, suggesting that three companies that work with Apple in terms of supplies – Flexium Interconnect, Zhen Ding Technology Holding and Career Technology – have already begun working on samples of flexible circuit boards for the company to look at.

Apple had no comment on the matter, but some announcements could be forthcoming as soon as this summer.

Source: Digital Trends

Amazon Streaming Passes Apple, Hulu

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Amazon has come a long way in streaming video popularity since it launched its Instant Video streaming service, even before  the recently released Fire TV has an effect.

A report from Qwilt last month indicates that the company has increased by 94 percent in streaming traffic since last year. In addition, some U.S. operator networks report that the company’s video traffic has increased by nearly 300 percent during that same time period.

As a result, Amazon has now moved into a third place position when it comes to ranking of streaming services, just behind Netflix and YouTube. It’s managed to pass Hulu and Apple with ease, after being ranked number five at this time last year.

“We’ve invested hundreds of millions of dollars in great TV shows and movies for Prime members and it’s working,” said Bill Carr, the vice president of Digital Video and Music for Amazon.

The channel currently airs a number of fan favorites, including 24, Veronica Mars and Downton Abbey.

Source: CBS News

Are Mobile Apps Killing The Internet?

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The Internet continues to thrive with sites and offers galore – but could it slowly be dying at the hands of popular mobile apps. Enterpreneur turned venture capitalist Chris Dixon seems to think so.

Dixon recently put up a post called The Decline of the Mobile Web, quoting details from Flurry and comScore about information the growth of mobile, and how the Internet could be affected by it.

“This is a worrisome trend for the web,” says Dixon in his post. “Mobile is the future. What wins mobile, wins the Internet. Right now, apps are winning and the web is losing. This will hurt long-term innovation. Apps have a rich-get-richer dynamic that favors the status quo. The end state will probably be like cable TV – a few dominant channels/apps that sit on users’ home screens and everything else relegated to lower tiers or irrelevance.”

He continued, “(Apple and Google) reject entire classes of apps without…allowing for recourse (e.g. Apple has rejected all apps related to Bitcoin). The open architecture of the web led to an incredible era of experimentation. Many startups were controversial when they were first founded. What if AOL…had controlled the web, and developers had to ask permission to create Google, YouTube, eBay, Paypal, Wikipedia, Twitter, Facebook, etc. Sadly, this is where we’re headed on mobile.”

Do you think Dixon has a point about the Internet being in trouble?

Source: Forbes

Wearable Devices Growing Fast

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Wearable tech may seem like a fad to some people, but there’s no question that it’s quite popular – and could become even more so over the next few years.

A report from Advertising Age indicates that wearable tech devices could see a huge increase in sales, with an increase of 704.5 percent between 2013 and 2018. Smartwatches lead the charge in this sales push, thanks to its capability of becoming an ad platform.

Last year, over 22 million purchased items involving wearable tech, but Cisco Systems expects that number to rise to 177 million in 2018, including possible offerings from Samsung and Apple.

Average monthly mobile data traffic could grow as a result as well, rising from 67 MB per month last year to 345 MB in 2018.

Source: eMarketer

New 3D Newspaper Ad Impresses

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There’s only so much that can be done with newspaper ads these days – mainly due to what they’re printed on – but some companies have shown innovation, including HBO with a dragon shadowed Game of Thrones ad and the blank-paged The Book Thief promotion.

Now, in Colombia, a new 3D-style ad has appeared, making it look like there’s more depth to it than there actually is. This ad, for the HiperCentro Corona kitchen, appears in the classified page, and makes it look like the page is actually sinking further in, as you can see above. It represents the image of an actual kitchen, similar to the one being sold.

It’s a neat idea, and could perhaps lead to similar ads in newspapers in the future.

Source: Adweek

New ‘Mario’ Game In The Works

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Whenever a new Mario game is confirmed for a Nintendo console, it’s usually a cause for celebration, as such innovative efforts as Super Mario Galaxy and Super Mario 3D World have really shown the plumber’s best adventures are yet to come. Now, there’s a new one on the way.

In an interview with Edge Online, producer Yoshiaki Koizumi confirmed that a new game featuring the heroic plumber is being worked on, but stopped just short on confirming whether it would be for the struggling Wii U console or the thriving 3DS handheld. He stated that “we’ve already started approaching our next challenge” and “there’s still a lot more room for discovery and invention, and we’ll continue to propose new and exciting game mechanics going into the future.”

EAD Tokyo team leader Kenta Motokura added that the development team “might need to make even more use of the GamePad” should the project be made for the Wii U.

In a surprising note, Nintendo icon Shigeru Miyamoto isn’t working on the new game, as he’s currently working on a new, unannounced title for the company.

Source: Polygon