Apple Maps search may get personal, and much better, thanks to Spotsetter...

 Apple may be looking to infuse its mapping software with personally relevant results by incorporating social search with technology acquired from the startup Spotsetter.

A Friday TechCrunch report said that Apple had acquired Spotsetter. The company provided personalized recommendations for places to go based on various outside data like content from people's social networks on Facebook and Twitter.

Apple declined to comment. But a blog post from Spotsetter published last week said that the company was closing down its app, which was available on iOS and Android.

Though the Spotsetter app is now dead, its technology may find its way into Apple Maps -- or maybe an altogether new app -- providing new features around discovery that could help Apple better compete against Google Maps. Google Maps provides a variety of targeted search functions, but it's not currently using social data in a major way.

With Spotsetter's technology, Apple probably sees an opportunity to improve Maps, and possibly grow elsewhere.

"This could be a sign that Apple will become more social, which is a technology they have struggled to master," said Brian Blau, an industry analyst with Gartner. "Adding context to maps will make them more useful and more interesting, as people will start to use maps for not only general navigation, but they can use maps as a primary search tool."

Spotsetter's technology was focused on what it called a "personal index," to provide recommendations on places to go based on data like people's Foursquare tips, Facebook posts, tweets and even Instagram photos. The indices, the company has said, were based on the content of the posts, who posted them, when and from where. Results were ranked based on a number of signals including the searcher's location and which friends the person may have tagged as "experts."

The idea was that no two users would get the same results for a given search.

"Many people will have Chinese food in their suggestions," as the company previously described its service on its website. "But if you and your friends are die-hard joggers, into indie bands, or like kite surfing, Spotsetter will highlight that information."

Spotsetter also pulled in content from other sites like Zagat, OpenTable and Yelp.

Glitches and routing inaccuracies have plagued Apple's Maps. In 2012 Apple CEO Tim Cookapologized for the state of the software. So, Apple no doubt is looking to improve its mapping software.

courtesy:www.itworld.com

The cloud and big data are no threat to data warehouses...

I'm often told that the use of big data systems will kill the now very old world of data warehousing. Why? It's hugely expensive to build data warehouses. Consider the cost of the technology, including very pricey hardware and software. The minimum buy-in is well over $1 million -- and I'm being kind with that number.

Enter big data on cloud platforms. Now you can access other people's hardware to build massive data-storage systems. These data-storage systems can use highly distributed query processing systems for a divide-and-conquer approach to gain answers from massive amounts of data in mere minutes or even seconds.

Traditional data warehouses typically work with abstracted data that's been rolled up (cleansed and transformed, in data warehousing lingo) into a separate database (the data warehouse or data mart), for which specific analytics are known in advance (such as compliance reporting or sales trend analysis). That database is updated incrementally with the same type of rolled-up data, typically on a weekly or monthly schedule. By contrast, big data systems tend to have raw data, whether from operations (log reports), user activity (website tracking), or other real-world usage (census surveys). That raw data is left as is because its usage is not predetermined, so there's no known target to trasnsform it to.

It's clear that using big data systems means you have more current, original-context information that can better support line managers and executives. What's more, the cost is about a third or less than that of traditional data warehouses. And getting a big data system up and functional on a public cloud takes about one-tenth of the time, if that.

Given the huge differences and the obvious benefits of big data on public clouds, what's the future of traditional data warehousing?

The reality is that those who use data warehousing technology will continue to do so. Although tasks are moving quickly to big data, the systems I've seen deployed are more operationally focused. Big data systems are typically used to understand tactical issues, such as when inventory likely needs to be replenished or who's not selling their quota.

Enterprises still use data warehousing for reports and visualizations that go to executives and regulatory agencies to report the holistic performance of the company. They are generated by traditional data warehouse systems that cost millions of dollars to build, and those systems are not going anywhere anytime soon. No matter how good and cost-effective big data on the cloud is or becomes, data warehousing will still be a fact of life in many enterprises, and that fact will last for the lifecycle of existing systems. It's strange, but that's the way I see it.

courtesy:www.infoworld.com

Hands-on with the Tizen-powered Samsung Z smartphone

For two years, we've been hearing about Tizen smartphones. But we haven't seen any.

Tizen was first promised by Nokia as a replacement for its Symbian OS -- one of several such successors that never saw the light of day, including Maemo and MeeGo. When Nokia switched to Windows Phone, Intel and then Samsung picked up Linux Foundation's Tizen open source project as a lower-end operating system for phones and other devices. Now it's pitched as the "everywhere" OS for the Internet of things.

Tizen has been all hat and no cattle. But now the cows are coming: The poorly reviewed Samsung Gear 2 smart watch is the first device to run the full Tizen OS, and full-Tizen cameras and TVs are promised by Samsung for later this year. And the first Tizen smartphone, the Samsung Z, is due this fall for sale in Russia and other former Soviet-bloc countries. I got a brief chance to try out the Samsung Z this week at the Tizen Developers Conference, and I can tell you that, despite its still-languid pace of development, Tizen is an actual operating system, not just the never-ending research project it has felt like.

The Samsung Z looks and feels very much like Samsung's Android smartphones. There's the tiles section at the top of the home screen, with some app icons at the botton, and there's the pull-down notifications and settings tray at the very top. You also get the hardware Back and Menu buttons, in addition to the main Home button. The Settings app looks almost identical to Samsung's Android version.

None of that is a surprise -- Samsung has said it wants its Tizen phones to feel like its Android phones so that users don't hesitate to stay within the Samsung universe. Back when it had the Bada OS, it espoused the same goal of a largely converged UI.

But there are some differences, and not just in the icon designs. If you swipe up from the app section on the home screen, you get a full-screen window of app icons, similar to the standard iOS home screen. And you don't get the multitasking controls in Android, such as when you swipe in from the side. The Tizen UI may echo the look of Samsung's Android UI, but it's a much simpler interface with only basic gestures to learn. In that regard, it's less complex to master than Canonical's Ubuntu Touch or Mozilla's Firefox OS, both aimed at the same users.

courtesy:www.infoworld.com

Microsoft promises lower prices on Windows tablets, phones...

Dell's Windows 8 Venue 8 Pro tabletCNET

Windows tablets and smartphones will be cheaper this year, according to Microsoft.

Prices on 7-inch, 8-inch, and 10-inch Windows tablets will become more competitive, Nick Parker, Microsoft's vice president of OEM partners, said at this week's Computex Asia trade show, the Wall Street Journal reported Thursday.

"We'll reach price points that are very industry competitive for 7, 8, 10-inch devices," Parker told reporters at Computex. "They will really surprise you. Last year, we were in the 3s, 4s, 500 dollars. This year, we'll be 1s, 2s, 3s."

The consumer cost of Windows Phone handsets will also drop to less than $200 in certain markets this year, Parker added.

Slashing the price on Windows tablets could help Microsoft win over more customers in a market dominated by the iPad and lower-cost Android devices. Rival tablets such as the Google Nexus 7, start at around $200, though the Amazon Kindle Fire 7 undercuts much of the competition at just $139. In contrast, comparable Windows tablets still tend to run higher. Microsoft's own Surface Pro 2 rings in at $900, though it offers much greater memory and far more features than the average Windows 8 tablet.

But lower prices will only go so far. Windows 8 hasn't exactly been greeted with open arms, challenging Microsoft to convince consumers to choose a Windows 8 tablet over an iPad or Android device. In the smartphone arena, Windows Phone has grown in popularity and market share but still runs a very distant third to leaders Apple and Android.

In April, Microsoft announced that it would start offering Windows for free to manufacturers of phones and tablets with screen sizes under 9 inches. That move will pave the way for device makers to in turn lower the prices to consumers.

courtesy:www.cnet.com

Apple's Beats buy the result of executive ignorance -- report...

A glance at the streaming music market back in March.Statista

Apple's management underestimated the importance of streaming music to consumers until it finally snagged Beats Electronics, which includes the Beats Music streaming service, a new report claims.

Apple's management team has historically focused on getting customers to purchase songs through its iTunes service rather than on feeding them streaming music, leading to a level of "arrogance" that put the company behind the 8-ball, Buzzfeed reported Thursday, citing people who claim to have worked at the company and have knowledge of the behind-the-scenes discussions over music.

According to Buzzfeed's sources, who include both current and past employees on the iTunes and iTunes Radio teams, many of the company's own employees have opted for Pandora and Spotify over Apple's streaming service, iTunes Radio. Those sources also said Apple's management failed to see Spotify or Pandora as threats, causing the company to "panic" and acquire Beats.

"The management in particular were pretty much tone-deaf in what Spotify was and that's why they're panicking now," the source told Buzzfeed. "They didn't understand how Spotify worked, which is why they thought iTunes Radio would be a Spotify killer."

Apple launched iTunes Radio last year as a streaming competitor to Spotify and Pandora. The service allows people to create stations and then hear tracks similar to their stations' songs or artists.

Despite the Buzzfeed sources' claims, iTunes Radio isn't a failure or could eventually hurt Spotify. In March, an Edison Research study found that in the US, iTunes Radio had surpassed Spotify for streaming share, with 8 percent of the market. Spotify could muster only 6 percent share. Apple still had a long way to go to catch Pandora, however, which owned 31 percent of the market.

The growth of iTunes Radio suggests that Apple is doing something right. In addition, Apple's recent acquisition of Beats Electronics, which included the company's popular hardware as well as streaming service Beats Music, may not have been an act of desperation, despite what Buzzfeed's sources say.

courtesy:www.cnet.com

PC gaming at E3 2014: Picking up where consoles falter...

Sarah Tew/CNET

With the new living room consoles from Sony and Microsoft still so fresh, it may be difficult for PC gaming to garner much attention at E3 2014.

Or, will it? With lingering disappointment over the so-called next-gen console graphics in hot, new games, people are looking to the PC versions to really push the visuals.

In fact, if there's one consistent story we've heard since the Xbox One and PlayStation 4 launches in late 2013, it's that content for these specialty boxes is largely not there, or else disappointing when it is. Hence a number of articles and discussion threads recently on how the graphics in the buzz-heavy new game Watch Dogs on next-gen consoles look suspiciously like previous-gen games, and how to really get a next-gen feel, you've got to get the PC version cranked up on a high-powered gaming PC.

Another knock was when high-profile MMORPG The Elder Scrolls Online saw its Xbox One/PS4 version pushed back until at least the end of this year, leaving at as a PC exclusive for now.

What this all means is that, while the category doesn't benefit from a dedicated major press conference at E3, as the Microsoft and Sony consoles do, you can be sure cross-platform games will have their PC versions emphasized as well, and there will even be a decent amount of PC hardware and accessories on display.

The slim Razer Blade 14 broke new ground for gaming laptops earlier this year.Sarah Tew/CNET

We expect to see new PC gaming hardware, especially gaming laptops, which are growing in popularity as mobile GPUs get ever better. Breaking the big, black box mentality has proven difficult, but gaming laptops will definitely need to become thinner, more stylish, and more flexible as dual-purpose PCs in order to thrive. Already this year, we've seen good examples of that, with the revamped Razer Blade 14 and the MSI GE60 breaking new ground in no-compromise gaming laptop design.

Nvidia is pushing hard to keep PC gaming at the forefront of the industry (it helps that rival AMD makes the graphics chips for both the Xbox One and PS4). The company is hosting its own E3-adjacent event, called the Nvidia Gaming Expo, at a parking lot across the street from the Los Angeles Convention Center -- which may feel familiar to any attendees who recall of the classic Gathering of Developers GoD Lot (yes, my first E3 was in 1999).

Some of the gaming laptops we've tested recently (including models with dual Nvidia GeForce 8000-series cards) can even push past 1080p into 4K resolution -- coincidentally just as 4K monitors are starting to become more affordable. Look for new monitor models at the show at lower prices.

Don't expect to see much of this guy at E3 2014.Sarah Tew/CNET

But, despite the rosy outlook, there's one major PC gaming development that we won't be seeing much of. Steam Machines, also known as Steamboxes, running high-end PC games on Valve's Steam OS, have been much talked-about and demoed in the past year, with a major collection of Steam Machine hardware announced at CES 2014. Besides doing an end-run around the difficulties in hooking your PC gaming rig up to your big-screen TV, the Steam Machine platform also promised a revolutionary new controller, bridging the gap between gamepad and mouse.

Well, it turns out that controller -- notable for its two concave circular control zones -- still needs some work, and according to Valve, the controller, and presumably the hardware platform tied to it, is being pushed back to 2015, making it a candidate for lead PC gaming story from next year's E3.

courtesy:www.cnet.com

'Giant' iOS 8 adds widgets, new keyboard, home automation, Health, Touch ID for all; arrives this fall...

Apple officially announced iOS 8 on Monday at its annual WWDC conference in San Francisco, following an annual tradition of showcasing the evolution of its software for the iPhone and iPad. Big-ticket announcements include "widgets," Touch ID for third-party apps, a brand-new keyboard that learns as you go, and software for home automation. Conference-goers get the iOS 8 beta today, while everyone else can get their fingers on the new software in the fall.

Before we get into those details, let's get one thing on the table: iOS 8 doesn't undergo changes to its visual design. Last year's major overhaul with its flat icons remains, and iOS 8 focuses heavily on building out software enhancements across the board.

What's this about widgets?

Widgets were a major iOS rumor, but don't go imagining that they look and act as enlarged home screen icons a la Android -- they don't. Instead, think of them as enhancements to the notification center by letting you respond from events, even from the lock screen. Beyond replying to messages, you'll also be able to interact with eBay bids, for instance. iPad users get this, plus a tab view for the iPad and a sidebar for handy-dandy access.

Here's a little navigational gem: in addition to seeing the apps you've recently used, double-tapping the home button gives you quick access to the people you've spoken to most recently. A few gestures can initiate conversations with them.

Home and health

Last year Apple promised that Touch ID would work with third-party apps -- and a year later, it finally can, while keeping fingerprints secure.

Apple is extending its digital fingers into two very personal areas: your home and your heart. HomeKit(the name of the tool pack for developers) is Apple's systemwide OS foray into home automation, letting iOS device owners control elements like your thermostat, alarm, garage door, and lights. Hooking in Siri means that uttering the command, "Get ready for bed," can engage all connected devices to lock up the house, adjust the thermostat, and turn down the lights for the night.

Taking a leaf from Samsung's book on seeing digital health as the next frontier in mobile development, HealthKit and its corollary Health app will track your vitals by bringing together all your health data in one place. It'll work with third-party apps to notify the Mayo Clinic, for instance, to get word to your doctor in an emergency. It will also work with third party hardware such as the Jawbone UP or the FitBit.

Typing, messaging, and more

Apple has done some really promising work with the keyboard to make it extremely context-sensitive and adaptive to your lingo. Called QuickType, you get word suggestions (in the manner of Android) in 16 different languages. And since it learns your conversational style as you talk with certain people, it might helpfully predict words and phrases like "hecka" or "snoozer" when you chat with a friend, and pull from a different lexicon when you're talking to your boss or grandma.

The new keyboard still doesn't natively support tracing, as Android does, but there is now support for third-party keyboards, which is a big deal for iOS users who so far haven't been able to use keyboards like SwiftKey.

A little more control over messaging should go a long way with iOS 8. You'll be able to send an audio message to any contact. Apple calls this Tap to Talk, and you can listen to incoming audio messages from the lock screen, which is becoming a busy place in iOS 8.

Another feature we like is tucked into Safari, where support for extensions will let you do a number of tasks inline. Here's a good example: when you open up a Web page in a different language, you can select the Bing translate extension from a dropdown menu, then get your translation inline on the Web page to read it naturally in your language.

Here's another change: all your attachments, such as audio messages and pictures, appear in the details page for a chat thread. This means you won't have to scroll all the way through a conversation to get a specific photo, for example, because the details page keeps all attachments like photos and audio notes together in one place.

Also in the messaging realm, you'll be able to name group message threads, which will help you keep tabs on multiple conversations. Better yet, you can mute "noisy" chat threads that go off on tangents.

Email on the iPad gets some refinements as well, like even more sliding gestures in the sidebar to delete and flag emails. While you're composing a new message, you'll be able to tap and slide the menu bar to the bottom to get it out of the way so you can grab an image from elsewhere in your inbox. With the attachment copied to the clipboard, you can touch the bar at the bottom to reopen the e-mail, drop in your attachment, and send the completed email.

In this release, iOS 8 gets some feature parity with Mac's OS X 10.10 Yosemite, like iCloud Drive and the Spotlight feature. iCloud Drive works across Mac OS and iOS 8. What excites us more in terms of day-to-day use is Spotlight, which gives you a bevy of online and offline suggestions, including Wikipedia entries and suggestions for relevant apps you don't even have yet. Searching for a movie pulls up local theaters and showtimes, right on the phone, and without you having to fire up a browser.

Photos and Siri

Photos are always a big deal with Apple, and iOS 8 adds a heap of new features to help you edit, perfect, and find photos. Auto-straightening and cropping are two headline tools in the new Photos app, but you also get a couple of automatic color correction tools to make your photos look better. Fans of manual photography also get thrown a bone, because Apple announced that those controls will be available for developers to tap in iOS 8.

To make your photos look better, Apple has added two new sliders for lightness and color. But don't think of them as basic brightness controls; with each slider, the app analyzes the photo at hand and makes adjustments across several categories to give you the best looking shot. So lightness includes varying adjustments to shadow, highlight exposure, black-point, and contrast. You can still adjust each of these individually, but for a quick fix to your photos, the slider seemed to work surprisingly well.

Now, every photo you take through iOS is available on any other iOS device (with the Mac getting the same experience sometime early next year), and edits to photos and videos show up across devices as well. Search filters at the top of the app help narrow down categories like location of the shot or the date. You can search for pictures taken a year ago, or grouped by location, singly and in albums.

As we guessed it might, Siri supports Shazam music recognition for identifying songs as well as your speech, and plug-and-play compatibility with Siri in cars means that you don't have to press a button to use it, you just speak -- whether you have a Siri button built into your steering wheel or not. Siri will also support streaming voice recognition for quicker results, with support for 22 new dictation languages.

In the app store...

Another addition is to the iOS 8 App Store that lets developers create short video app previews, and sell multiple apps in bundles, which means that device owners can buy groups of apps at a discounted rate. Apple's editors' choice insignias also pop up to guide user choices, and integrated TestFlight lets developers beta-test apps to interested users without them having to buy anything or side-load apps.

Now, on the money side, parents who want a little more control over how many apps their kids buy get a little more say-so with a new feature called Family Sharing. When a kid, for example, requests to buy an app on a family account, the card owner can approve or decline the purchase. This works for up to six family members who pay for apps through the same credit card.

What else?

Gamers will appreciate this next little nugget: Apple has pledged to amp up iOS gaming with Metal, a new graphics engine that promises 3D graphics rendering that'll be as much as 10 times more efficient than before.

iOS 8 in China, specifically, gets support for the lunar calendar, better vector maps, and improved weather data.

iOS 8 in a nutshell

From what we know about it so far, iOS 8 is shaping up to aggregate a raft of minor-but-useful additions to the OS. There's no one feature to dominate headlines. Instead, we see Apple expanding a lot of existing features for the iPhone and iPad, and starter movements into health and the home.

Users of both iOS devices and Macs will see a lot more cross-device compatibility where information like text messages, photos, and even phone calls jumping seamlessly from one device to another.

Now, Apple has been known to withhold software surprises that would give away iPhone and iPad secrets. In fact, we'll expect to learn more about what iOS 8 can do when Apple launches its new mobile devices -- and the OS -- this fall.

courtesy:www.cnet.com

Why the private cloud has stalled...

The appeal of making your own data center cloudlike is easy to understand: Who wouldn't want an entirely flexible commodity infrastructure, where you can pour on compute, storage, and network resources as needed?

From the early days of the cloud, CIOs saw promise in the cloud's magic combination of reduced cost and vastly greater agility and wanted to capitalize on cloud architecture in their own organizations. But those closer to the ground in enterprise IT have always had a tendency to roll their eyes. They see the advantage of scale-out, self-service architectures for some applications -- such as dev and test -- but the return on investment in other areas is not always so obvious.

Part of that resistance is the usual allergic reaction to change, because major shakeups mean fewer resources to meet project deadlines and keep legacy systems humming. But there are also very good reasons why the private cloud is taking so long to take hold. The two leading ones are the immaturity and expense of available private cloud solutions.

Private IaaS shuffles along
The three major IaaS solutions remain the OpenStack framework-- a growing collection of open source projects revised twice a year -- and commercial IaaS solutions from Microsoft and VMware.

The word from the latest OpenStack conference is that adoption appears to have slowed, in part because OpenStack remains a moving target. To deploy OpenStack, customers generally need packaged versions -- from the likes of HP, Rackspace, RedHat, or Ubuntu -- or major professional services assistance. Both are often required by those serious about deploying OpenStack, and in the process, customers run a serious risk of being locked into the specific implementation they've adopted.

Microsoft has an interesting DIY hybrid cloud solution, where Windows Server and System Center together provide both private cloud infrastructure and a bridge to the Azure public cloud, but it's still evolving. With its vCloud Suite, VMware provides the most mature private cloud solution, but it's expensive enough to make you think twice about scaling it out.

From what I've heard, for the most part, private IaaS is still mainly used for dev and test -- so developers can access self-service features to reconfigure their environments (or at least have ops do that more easily). Interestingly, if you add deployment, this is also what PaaS (platform as a service) was deisgned to do.

Private PaaS seeks momentum
Although most people think of PaaS in terms of such pubic cloud offerings as Amazon Elastic Beanstock or Heroku, I actually think private PaaS offers the most compelling value proposition for the private cloud.

Private PaaS provides a modern replacement for the application server. You develop, test, and deploy applications that scale out on commodity servers rather than scale up on premium hardware; also, you can accommodate multiple languages and (theoretically) wrap governance around application development across your organization. A scale-out platform that can embrace almost all applications you develop in-house provides the most compelling reason I can think of for building your own cloud.

courtesy:www.infoworld.com

Tech Retrospect: Apple's new Beats and Google's new autonomous ride

It's been expected for what seemed like forever, and frankly at this point we were thinking Apple might just hold off and make the announcement at WWDC. But no, this week Tim Cook & Co. pulled the trigger one one of its biggest acquisitions ever -- or certainly one of its most talked-about acquisition, anyway. The $3 billion deal gives Apple a number of things: a line of overpriced headphones, a powerful new brand partner, and a bunch of new employees.

Most notable among those? Jimmy Iovine and Dr. Dre. It's unclear what role they'll have at the company, but what is known is that Beats is getting rid of its long-time design firm Ammunition, which has certainly had a major hand in making the brand what it is today. Apple's (very capable) design team takes over from here, and what comes next remains to be seen.

These happy gentlemen just signed a $3 billion deal. From left: Beats co-founder Jimmy Iovine, Apple CEO Tim Cook, Beats co-founder Dr. Dre, and Apple SVP Eddy Cue.Apple

In various interviews all the major faces in the deal -- Tim Cook, Eddy Cue, Jimmy Iovine, and Dr. Dre -- were all quite quiet about what comes next, other than the fulfillment of a dream on one end, and a great opportunity on others. Many tech pundits of the world, however, are rather more skeptical about the deal, questioning things like whether Apple really needs a line of oversized headphones, whether the addition of the Beats brand can help the company be more attractive to users, and whether the Beats music service is really going to help Apple. One thing is for sure: as of today, Apple now has apps on both Android and Windows Phone.

Google launches new self-driving car with no steering wheel

Google's new prototype.Google

If you're leery about the concept of a car driving itself, you probably won't be assured by the latest turn of wheel from Google. It has unveiled a prototype car that seats two people who will be completely unable to control it beyond giving it a destination, or requesting that it make an emergency stop. The car, you see, lacks a gas pedal, a brake pedal, and a steering wheel. It's not only self-driving, it's truly driverless. It's just a concept for now, and it's unclear whether Google will continue testing its current fleet of self-drivers built on production cars, but I'm a little concerned that this may be taking things a bit too far.

SpaceX and Elon Musk unveil Dragon V2 capsule

Tim Stevens/CNET

The Space Shuttle has been properly mothballed and, with US-Russian relations having something of a retro moment, we will very soon find ourselves in need of some more reliable space transportation. Thank goodness for SpaceX. Elon Musk's startup may be headed for the stars but it's based in Los Angeles, where it unveiled the Dragon V2. It's a larger capsule than the current Dragon, capable of carrying seven passengers in reclined, carbon fiber seats, along with roughly three tons of cargo. The capsule uses a series of far more powerful SuperDraco engines than its predecessor, enabling it to actually land in a controlled manner, "virtually anywhere on the planet," said Musk. It's also able to make as many as 10 flights before needing anything more than refuelling, which could drastically reduce the cost of space travel. Want a ticket? The thing could be carrying human cargo as soon as 2016.

www.cnet.com

Beats Solo 2: Iconic headphone gets a new look and sound (hands-on)

It's been a long time coming, but a day after Beats consummated its sale to Apple for $3 billion, it's finally released a successor to its on-ear Solo, one of the most popular headphones in the world. The new, improved Solo 2 carries a list price of $200 in the US and £170 in the UK, and comes in a variety of glossy colors. (Australian details weren't available, but the US price converts to AU$215.)

The Solo 2 looks a lot like a mini version of Beats' revamped over-ear Studio (2013) headphone. For starters, the earpads have been redesigned with swankier materials that make the headphones slightly more comfortable and should hold up better over time. Those pads do offer a slightly tighter seal to prevent sound leakage, as well as better noise isolation form the outside world.

The Beats Solo 2 comes in a variety of colors.Sarah Tew/CNET

Like the new Studio, the Solo 2, which weighs in at 7.2 ounces (205 grams), is built more sturdily and has no visible screws. The curve of the headband has been changed to deliver a snugger, more ergonomic fit too. The headphones fold up but not flat and come with a soft carrying case and a detachable cord with an inline remote and microphone for making cell phone calls. (It's worth noting that the cord color matches the headphone color, which wasn't the case for the Studio Wireless I reviewed.) This on-ear model doesn't have the active noise-cancellation of the step-up Studio and Studio Wireless models.

I personally wasn't a fan of the original Solos and thought they were overpriced and lacked clarity. Like with the new Studios, Beats has tamped down the bass a little and gone with a more accurate sound profile with better detail -- that doesn't mean there isn't strong bass, but it isn't as hyped.

The Solo 2 doesn't offer quite the fullness of the larger Studio, but it's definitely more pleasant to listen to and sounds better than the original Solo. In other words, the Solo 2 is still pretty pricey, but at least its sound and build quality is more in line with a headphone that costs over $100, rather than one that costs less than $75.

The headphones fold up to fit in an included carrying case.Sarah Tew/CNET

Outlook

Beats has been gradually updating its product line after severing its partnership with Monster in early 2012. While it had huge success with the headphones and Bluetooth speakers built by Monster, it also got a bad rap with audiophiles, who considered the headphones inferior. These new headphones may not win audiophile hearts and ears, but Beats does appear to be moving away from its bloated-bass roots and staking out a more refined sound.

courtesy:www.cnet.com

Ubisoft's open-world hacking game struggles to establish a connection...

It's really not fair for a game to get the kind of hype that Watch Dogs has received over the last two years. Its publisher, Ubisoft, would never admit it, but the initial reception the game got back at E3 2012 was ridiculous. It immediately set unrealistic expectations for something that was so far away from being released, with so few people actually getting their hands on trying it.

It was one of those lightning in a bottle moments. There was an instant buzz reverberating through the show floor in Los Angeles -- and no one had a firm grasp on what the the game was really about. Interestingly enough, for a title that was able to generate such an organic groundswell for what appeared to be a fresh idea, Watch Dogs lifts influence from countless facets of modern culture, well beyond the obvious hat tip to Grand Theft Auto.

So how on Earth could anything live up to the emotional and monetary investment so many gamers have already pledged? I'm not entirely sure. Because while Watch Dogs has its moments of nirvana, there's some stuff that falls flat, and whole bunch of mediocrity jammed in the middle. In the end, the experience as a whole isn't regrettable, it's just more contrived than you might be willing to accept.

Ubisoft Montreal

I think Watch Dogs' debut made such an insurmountable splash because people's imaginations ran wild with suggestions of what might be possible in the game. Those expectations can doom a title out of the gate. Watch Dogs doesn't feel as "open-world" as a game like Grand Theft Auto V, mostly because it fails to blur the boundaries of what's possible in the game. Once I was able to wrap my head around the rule set of the Watch Dogs world, everything suddenly felt small and unimportant.

Hacking, the very mechanic Watch Dogs is built upon, doesn't feel strong enough to carry an entire game.

You play as Aiden Pearce, an antihero who has inexplicable hacking abilities that he shares with an underground network of quasi-acquaintances. A few months back his nefarious actions cost him the loss of a loved one. Since that night, guilt has been eating away at him and it's chewed through his relationship with his family. Now it's time for Pearce to get to the bottom of a corrupt world of surveillance and control in order to make sense of who is responsible for his pain.

The game takes place in an alternate present-day Chicago where the entire city is accessible through an all-seeing, interconnected network known as CenTral Operating System, or ctOS. It's the intravenous lifeline of the city, with its tentacles dipped in every aspect of everyday urban life.

Ubisoft Montreal

Pearce can jack into all of these utilities through his smartphone. He can piggyback into security cameras, trigger traffic lights to switch, cause drawbridges to rise, control trains, and more.

In close-quarters situations Pearce can force electrical boxes to explode, steam pipes to burst, activate forklifts, open gates and unlock doors. These assets form an diabolical sense of playing boobytrap puppetmaster, especially when you're conducting the chaos hidden behind a corner.

Aiden can enter a "profiling mode" at any time that sniffs out top-level information about anyone in the city. It's a neat trick, but it only allows you to steal their bank account balance, unlock a type of car, or eavesdrop on a random call or text. Occasionally they'll lead to a side-mission, but it's overlap that you can access other ways, sometimes contextually within a campaign mission.

Not every area is immediately available to Aiden's smartphone. A district's ctOS mainframe must first be exploited before he has unrestricted access. Think of these as the "viewpoint" locations from the Assassin's Creed series.

The lifeline of the game is centered around security cameras though, as they allow you to chain hacks together as you sort of "Spider-man" from viewpoint to viewpoint. Anything you can see through the lens of a camera is vulnerable.

Players are presented with an deceptively overwhelming amount to do from the start. You can dive right into the campaign to chase down the narrative of Aiden's shattered past and present, or you can spend some time looking for hidden items, compete in races or intercept convoys, among other objectives.

Ubisoft Montreal

The campaign takes a few hours to gain some momentum, but it's not without the constant bombardment of HUD items distracting you from the game's other features. Some of the extra items are fun to investigate, but others aren't worth more than a first try. There's also a handful of activities that you're bound to have seen before. Can anyone really stomach another round of Texas Hold 'em? A lot of the extras in the game aren't worth the time spent completing them. After a while, earning more cash turns stale and collecting XP feels fruitless. Beyond completionists, most players will get tired of them quickly.

Watch Dogs doesn't do a great job of explaining the circumstances that I, playing as Aiden Pearce, found myself in. At first I thought I'd be maneuvering through the game mostly as a stealthy hacker, secretly infiltrating highly classified areas -- you know, controlling the show from behind the curtain. I was able to piece together that I've assumed the role of a vigilante of some sort, but overall I found my role conflicting. Eventually I was told I need to buy a gun, and all of a sudden I realized, "I need to start killing these people."

courtesy:www.cnet.com