The Good NET Guide

Posts Tagged ‘australia’

PayPal has seen the future, and apparently it lies out East. The eBay company has just announced plans to double its presence in the Asian-Pacific region by the end of 2010, and made a couple of other, separate announcements to underscore its focus on Asia.

At PayPal’s new international headquarters in Suntec City, Singapore’s technology hub in the middle of the nation’s central business district, the company said that it plans to double the number of employees in Asia Pacific from 1,000 currently to more than 2,000 by the end of the year. The company plans to add more than 100 new jobs at its international headquarters in Singapore alone, as it represents all of the company’s business outside of the United States.

New jobs will be located at all seven offices in the region including Australia, China, Hong Kong, India, Japan, Singapore and Taiwan. For its Singapore business headquarters and development center, PayPal will be recruiting Singapore-based professionals with expertise in technology, product development, infrastructure design, risk and engineering.

PayPal says it has processed more than $6 billion of total payment volume (at spot rate) in Asia Pacific in 2009, an increase of 38 percent from 2008. Since its establishment in the region in 2006, the company has struck dozens of partnerships with Asian companies including this morning’s announcements today with DBS, Singapore’s largest bank, and China UnionPay, China’s bankcard association.

As part of PayPal’s plans to help grow the e-commerce ecosystem across Asia Pacific, the company also announced that the PayPal mobile payment software development kit (SDK) will be made available to developers in the region. That way, developers can add a checkout button to accept mobile payments without the need to collect financial information from customers with just a few lines of code.

The mobile SDK, which will initially support iPhone app development, will be available in the second quarter of 2010 to developers in the region.

Last month, Google acquired reMail, the startup behind a very powerful application that brought full-text search to the iPhone. That’s great news for the reMail team, but it had a major downside: Google was effectively killing off the product by removing it from the App Store (though it would continue to function for users that had already downloaded the app). Fortunately, today comes news that reMail will continue to live on in some form: the company has just announced that it’s open sourcing the product. You can find the Google Code site for the project here.

Founder Gabor Cselle outlines what the product’s code can be helpful for:

As someone who is passionate about mobile email, my hope is that developers interested in making email-related apps can use reMail code as a starting point. Part of the reason email apps are hard is because you have to pay the tax of figuring out how to download email via IMAP, parse MIME messages, handle attachments, and store data. reMail has already solved these problems. If you have a great mobile email idea, I hope you will find reMail’s source code helpful in your quest.

There’s a good chance that we’ll soon see reworkings of the app for the iPhone: the project’s documentation specifically details how to get it up and running on the popular platform. The Google Code site also includes some ideas on how to improve the application, based on some of reMail’s most common feature requests (suggestions include implementation of a landscape mode, more compatible email account types, and improved autocomplete).

Google did something similar to EtherPad late last year, after it acquired the application’s developer AppJet. At first, EtherPad was simply going to shut down as the team moved to Australia to work on Google Wave. But after significant backlash, Google and AppJet quickly made moves to open source the project.

You’ll have to make do with this until April Get thee to the clickery! The iPad is hitting the streets on April 3 and you can start pre-ordering on March 12. As far as we can tell there was no real “delay” here, per se

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iPad to be released on April 3, pre-orders on March 12

Apple just announced that its tablet device, the iPad, will be available in the U.S. on April 3. See announcement below.

When Apple unveiled the device a few months ago, we were told it would be available by March. Rumors began to swirl recently that shipment of the devices was delayed until April. According to the release, the Wi-Fi models of the iPad will be available starting April 3, with the Wi-Fi and 3G models rolled out by late April. Starting on March 12, U.S. customers can pre-order the device either online or at their local Apple retail store. The device will be available in Australia, Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, Spain, Switzerland and the UK in late April.

Pricing has remained the same, with the basic Wi-Fi enabled model starting at $499. Pricing is as follows: $499 for 16GB, $599 for 32GB, $699 for 64GB. Wi-Fi + 3G models will be available in late April for $629 for 16GB, $729 for 32GB and $829 for 64GB.

Apple is launching with 12 apps designed especially for iPad and will run almost all of the 150,000 apps on the App Store. The supposed Kindle-killer will debut with an iBooks app, which will be available for free download from the App Store in the US on April 3. Apple’s partnered witha number of publishers including the Hachette Book Group, HarperCollins Publishers, Macmillan Publishers, Penguin Group and Simon & Schuster.

Apple® today announced that its magical and revolutionary iPad will be available in the US on Saturday, April 3, for Wi-Fi models and in late April for Wi-Fi + 3G models. In addition, all models of iPad will be available in Australia, Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, Spain, Switzerland and the UK in late April.

Beginning a week from today, on March 12, US customers can pre-order both Wi-Fi and Wi-Fi + 3G models from Apple’s online store (www.apple.com) or reserve a Wi-Fi model to pick up on Saturday, April 3, at an Apple retail store.

“iPad is something completely new,” said Steve Jobs, Apple’s CEO. “We’re excited for customers to get their hands on this magical and revolutionary product and connect with their apps and content in a more intimate, intuitive and fun way than ever before.”

Starting at just $499, iPad lets users browse the web, read and send email, enjoy and share photos, watch videos, listen to music, play games, read ebooks and much more. iPad is just 0.5 inches thick and weighs just 1.5 pounds–thinner and lighter than any laptop or netbook–and delivers battery life of up to 10 hours.*

iPad’s revolutionary Multi-Touch(TM) interface makes surfing the web an entirely new experience, dramatically more interactive and intimate than on a computer. You can read and send email on iPad’s large screen and almost full-size “soft” keyboard or import photos from a Mac®, PC or digital camera, see them organized as albums, and enjoy and share them using iPad’s elegant slideshows. iPad makes it easy to watch movies, TV shows and YouTube, all in HD, or flip through the pages of an ebook you downloaded from Apple’s new iBookstore while listening to your music collection.

The App Store on iPad lets you wirelessly browse, buy and download new apps from the world’s largest app store. iPad includes 12 new innovative apps designed especially for iPad and will run almost all of the more than 150,000 apps on the App Store, including apps already purchased for your iPhone® or iPod touch®. Developers are already creating exciting new apps designed for iPad that take advantage of its Multi-Touch interface, large screen and high-quality graphics.

The new iBooks app for iPad includes Apple’s new iBookstore, the best way to browse, buy and read books on a mobile product. The iBookstore will feature books from the New York Times Best Seller list from both major and independent publishers, including Hachette Book Group, HarperCollins Publishers, Macmillan Publishers, Penguin Group and Simon & Schuster.

The iTunes® Store gives iPad users access to the world’s most popular online music, TV and movie store with a catalog of over 12 million songs, over 55,000 TV episodes and over 8,500 films including over 2,500 in stunning high definition. All the apps and content you download on iPad from the App Store, iTunes Store and iBookstore will be automatically synced to your iTunes library the next time you connect with your computer.

Pricing & Availability

iPad will be available in Wi-Fi models on April 3 in the US for a suggested retail price of $499 for 16GB, $599 for 32GB, $699 for 64GB. The Wi-Fi + 3G models will be available in late April for a suggested retail price of $629 for 16GB, $729 for 32GB and $829 for 64GB. iPad will be sold in the US through the Apple Store® (www.apple.com), Apple’s retail stores and select Apple Authorized Resellers.

iPad will be available in both Wi-Fi and Wi-Fi + 3G models in late April in Australia, Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, Spain, Switzerland and the UK. International pricing will be announced in April. iPad will ship in additional countries later this year.

The iBooks app for iPad including Apple’s iBookstore will be available as a free download from the App Store in the US on April 3, with additional countries added later this year.

*Battery life depends on device settings, usage and other factors. Actual results vary.

Apple ignited the personal computer revolution in the 1970s with the Apple II and reinvented the personal computer in the 1980s with the Macintosh. Today, Apple continues to lead the industry in innovation with its award-winning computers, OS X operating system and iLife and professional applications. Apple is also spearheading the digital media revolution with its iPod portable music and video players and iTunes online store, and has entered the mobile phone market with its revolutionary iPhone.

In the great metal room There was a comlink and a Tauntaun and a picture of- The Executor flying over the forest moon That’s right: for those parents who don’t want to read their children the potentially death-tinged Goodnight, Moon we present Goodnight Forest Moon , a beautiful parody by Noah Dziobecki. You can download it here , print it out, and totally freak out the other fathers when they come over on playdates and realize you totally have the coolest book collection ever.

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Goodnight, Forest Moon

Fresh off the acquisition of AppVee, social mobile app directory Appolicious is releasing a few new features including a Facebook App, an Appo.me URL Shortener for links to apps, and a Twicker ad model, which allows users to view tweets and offers from sponsors on the site. Appolicious, which just raised $1.5 million in funding and debuted an iPhone app, tries to make sense of the 100,000 apps on Apple’s App Store and the 16,000 apps on the Android Market, but with a social twist. So not only can you find apps based on category or topic, but you can share those apps with your social graph on Twitter and Facebook, review apps, and more.

The Appolicious Facebook app allows users to access Appolicious’ recently launched Curated App Lists, which are recommended lists of apps from users based around hobbies and interests. The startup also launched Twicker, an ad format where advertisers send customized messages to the Appolicious audience via Twitter. The Tweets are seen on a ticker at the top of the site’s page. Sponsors pay a monthly fee to advertise via the Twicker.

Additionally, Appolicious is rolling out the Appo.me URL shortner, which gives the ability to easily create, grab and share a shortened URL that links directly to an app. You simple type in the name of an iPhone app and Appo.me automatically completes the app name and will give you a shortened URL for the link to the app in the iTunes store and its landing page on Appolicious’ directory.

Appolicious’ Facebook app will compete with the mPlayit, a Facebook-based mobile app directory. But the feature I find most compelling is the URL shortener, which makes it dead simple to find and link to any app on Apple’s App Store. Founded in May of this year by former Yahoo VP, Alan Warms, Appolicious is hoping to expand its platform to include Blackberry and other smartphone apps. Warms is a serial entrepreneur who sold his startup Buzztracker to Yahoo in 2007.

Research reports forecasting future market sizes should always be taken with a grain of salt, but it occasionally helps to see the estimates of research organizations in order to gain some perspective on the current and upcoming trends for those markets.

With that in mind, let’s take a look at what research2guidance has to say about the worldwide smartphone application market, which it estimates will grow from $1.94 billion in 2009 to $15.65 billion by 2013.

The big surge in applications will be driven by a fast-growing number of smartphone users, which the research company estimates will increase from about 100 million last year to nearly 1 billion by 2013.

There’s a ton of opportunity for corporations to tap into this vast audience with mobile apps, research2guidance adds, because according to its research only 10% of Fortune 2000 companies are targeting their customers with a smartphone application to date.

Still according to the agency’s findings, the vast majority of them have published applications to give access to their core products or for promotional purposes (91%). Only a minor share (9%) use applications as a stand-alone product.

If you’re interested in the full report, you can purchase it here.

Does your company offer mobile applications for smartphones? On what platform?

It’s getting to be a mighty dangerous place out there for DS pirates. Several months ago , Nintendo decided to sue a few of the big DS hacking companies out there, and although that ended up causing a major boost to those companies’ sales, it looks like the big N is starting to crack down on resellers too

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Nintendo successfully sues Aussie etailer for selling DS flash cartridges

Man, what’s up with Australia? I think we’ve touched on the country’s plan to block all sorts of unwanted content from reaching the country’s computers, but now Google and Yahoo have officially come out against it

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What’s up with Australia’s planned Internet filter?

Crowdsourcing. It’s so hot right now. Case in point, this crowdsourced spoon

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MugStir is a spoon that hangs on a mug