Major League Baseball is a big fan of Apple (AAPL) when it comes to the company’s Passbook application in iOS 6. In the final two weeks of the regular season, four teams tested Passbook and found that fans were quick to utilize the service. Out of all e-ticket buyers, 1,500, or 12%, chose to receive their tickets through Passbook when given the opportunity, Market Watch reported. “That adoption rate really floored us – there is no question our fans want digital tickets,” CEO of MLB Advance Media Bob Bowman said. “Fans can use the tickets, forward them to a friend, resell them, or even donate them to charity – and they never get lost or left at home.” More →
eBay (EBAY) announced on Wednesday the launch of its redesigned website alongside a new simpler logo. The new eBay site draws on cues popularized by social photo-sharing site Pinterest. The most noticeable addition is the eBay Feed, a section dedicated to provide improved product discovery features. The Feed will suggest items that a user might be interested in based on pre-selected likes, eBay history or Facebook (FB) interests. Recommended items will populate the Feed’s stream and users can then instantly choose to buy the item or watch it. Users can even follow other user feeds to get more ideas. eBay users who want to get in on the Feed early can turn it on here. More →
It seems like companies are doing everything they can to squeeze extra revenue out of their customers these days by taking advantage of the personal usage data they collect. Google (GOOG) and Facebook (FB) are likely the two tech companies that are most often associated with turning usage data into dollars — Google isn’t even shy about it anymore — but plenty of other companies collect data from their users and use it to make money in a variety of ways. Two such companies, as it turns out, are Verizon Wireless (VZ) and AT&T (T).
UPDATE: A Verizon Wireless spokesperson contacted BGR to confirm that data collected is “anonymous and aggregated,” and to note that users have 30 days from the date they activate a new phone to make an initial decision, but they can then change their privacy settings later at any time. More →
Microsoft (MSFT) will reportedly launch its Xbox Music service on October 26th and will make it available free of charge, The Verge reports. The streaming service will be offered as either a free ad-supported model or a subscription-based plan similar to the company’s Zune Music Pass, which is available for $10 a month or $100 a year. Xbox Music won’t just be limited to Microsoft’s gaming console, however, as the service will also be available on Windows Phone and Windows 8. More →
Google (GOOG) was offered a large number of incentives from the government of Kansas City to bring its fiber optic service to its neighborhoods. The Internet giant was allowed to skirt regulations and provided with special privileges such as discounted services, free fiber and access to government employees, buildings and infrastructure. According to a report from The Wall Street Journal, Time Warner Cable (TWC) and AT&T (T) have been in negotiations with Kansas City officials for a “parity agreement” granting the two companies the same benefits Google received. More →
Nokia (NOK) on Monday announced an agreement with Oracle (ORCL) that will see the company’s Fusion Middleware Mapviewer integrated with the Nokia Location Platform. The deal will also provide enterprise customers a chance to license the Nokia Location Platform for use in their Oracle-based applications. More →
Tim Cook on Friday issued a statement to iOS device owners apologizing for the quality of its Maps app in iOS 6. In the letter, Cook admitted that Apple (AAPL) “fell short” on its commitment to deliver the best experience possible to its customers. He also recommended that while the company works to fix its mapping experience, users can take advantages of alternative options for iOS including MapQuest and Microsoft’s (MSFT) Bing app. Cook’s letter follows below. More →
With so much competition in the streaming video business, it’s only natural that Netflix (NFLX) is feeling the heat. In an interview with The Wall Street Journal, Netflix CEO Reed Hastings wasted no time in sharing his thoughts on why his company’s streaming video is better than Amazon’s (AMZN) Prime Video. Besides stating how Netflix has better algorithms in place to deliver recommended content and how the user experience is better because video is its only business, Hastings says that Amazon Prime Video is “a confusing mess” and that consumers don’t want lower prices that come at the expense of more available content.
Apple’s (AAPL) new Maps app in iOS 6 is awful. And the world knows it. Even Apple knows it, and the company has vowed to improve its new mapping product as quickly as it can. The service certainly doesn’t need any help looking bad, but that didn’t stop Google’s (GOOG) Motorola Mobility from faking an address in a recent ad in an attempt to make Apple’s mapping app look inferior to Google’s Maps app. The ad, dubbed “iLost” shows a DROID RAZR M smartphone locating an address in Manhattan on a beautifully detailed map comprised of satellite imagery. Next to the RAZR M is an iPhone 5, which failed to locate the same location and instead found a similar address in a completely different borough. There’s just one problem with Motorola’s ad: The address it references — 315 East 15th Street in Manhattan — does not exist according to the United States Postal Service and the New York City Department of Buildings. Oops. More →
Megaupload founder Kim Dotcom has put out a new video teasing his new project dubbed Megabox, which is purportedly legal. The video mostly shows coders building and doing tests on the new music download site and gives a glimpse of what Megabox’s user interface will look like. No launch date was announced but the video does say that the site is “coming soon” and will give users access to their music collections “anywhere and anytime.” Dotcom earlier this month said that he was working with his lawyers to make sure that the new Megabox site had ironclad legal protection and would be free of the legal controversies that dogged its predecessor. More →
Announced at E3, Xbox Music is Microsoft’s (MSFT) own subscription-based music service that will rival the likes of Spotify. A new online leak for an update to the Xbox 360′s dashboard in the U.K. has prematurely revealed that Xbox Music will be priced at £8.99 for a monthly pass and £89.90 for an annual pass. It’s speculated that Microsoft will launch Xbox Music in the U.S. with the same prices as its current Zune Music Pass service: $10 per month or $100 for a yearly pass. Another leak from NeoGAF also suggests that a free, ad-supported version of Xbox Music will also launch alongside the subscription service that will allow cross-platform playlist syncing between Xbox 360, Windows 8 PCs and Windows Phone 8 smartphones. Xbox Music is slated for a launch this fall and will replace Zune Music Pass. Microsoft says the service will have a library of 30 million tracks.
New York iPhone users who ask Siri for a weather forecast this week might be surprised to learn that the Big Apple is expected to register temperatures in the mid-90s for the next several days. Of course, that’s not the actual New York weather forecast, but a weather forecast for the town of New York that’s located in Texas. MacRumors reports, and BGR has independently confirmed, that Siri is coming up with the wrong results for weather requests in several towns, including the particularly egregious example where Siri pulls up the weather in New York, Texas when asked for weather in New York. BGR also experienced intermittent connectivity issues with Siri on Monday, although it’s unknown whether this is related to Siri’s weather forecast mistakes. More →
