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KBS+ Employees Make a Social Plea for Google Glass
In case you haven’t heard, smartphones are now officially ‘emasculating’ according to Google co-founder Sergey Brin. In other words, you need to get your Google Glass right away, as your masculinity is at risk of being publicly revoked.
To spur interest in Google Glass, Google has started a Twitter contest using the hashtag #IfIHadGlass, where tweeters have to opportunity to receive Google’s sexy new product should their reasons for obtaining it please the tech giant. KBS+ is using this as a platform to showcase their digital thinking, with more than 70 of their employees making short videos explaining what they would do with Glass.
Videos will be posted throughout the day on KBS+ social media channels, with the whole gallery available at the agency’s Tumblr. Sure, it seems like an awful lot of work, but if they actually score Google Glass early, it will be hard to say it wasn’t all worth it.
New Career Opportunities Daily: The best jobs in media.
Gardiner Resigns from Deutsch
Yes, we have received confirmation that after 13 years at Deutsch, serving as partner, chief media officer most recently, Peter Gardiner has resigned from the agency this week. Here are the statements from all parties involved:
“Today Deutsch NY CEO Val DiFebo announced that Peter Gardiner, Partner, Chief Media Officer, would be leaving the agency to pursue entrepreneurial interests and investments in the media and tech space. Gardiner joined Deutsch in 2000 and during his tenure helped grow Deutsch’s media offering at a time when many agencies were unbundling their media operations. He was an important part of the agency’s success and we wish him well. Gardiner’s last day will be February 28th.
An announcement will be made early next week regarding the plans we have in place, it’s a 1 + 1 = 3 approach that will continue to keep us ahead of the curve.
And from Gardiner himself:
“Having been a Partner of one of the best agencies in history has been incredibly rewarding and fun. But leaving Deutsch now gives me the opportunity to find, grow, and nurture startups in the media and tech space. I’m excited about what’s ahead and I thank everyone at Deutsch for the best years of my professional life, so far…”
New Career Opportunities Daily: The best jobs in media.
Thursday Morning Stir
-Indie integrated agency iris Worldwide has welcomed McGarryBowen alum Andre Galan to head up its newly acquired Barclaycard business.
-SapientNitro has appointed Marcelo Sant’Iago to the role of VP, business development for Latin America.
-L.A.-based Zambezi announced its partnership with Caesars Interactive Entertainment in the latter’s launch of online poker on WSOP.com.
-Here’s your latest appointment of judge and jury for the 2013 New York Festivals:
· Warren Brown, Creative Founder, BMF Sydney, Australia
· Chris Garbutt, Chief Creative Officer, Ogilvy & Mather Paris
· Guido Heffels, Chief Creative Officer, Heimat Werbeagentur GmbH
· Diane Ruggie, Creative Director & Partner, Velocebella, USA
-Apple has topped Fortune‘s list of “World’s Most Admired Companies” for the sixth year in a row.
-Y&R Midwest/VML is behind a new Pinterest page to help those in need. link
-We’ve been told that Laird+Partners is behind the Target spot above, which includes music from electro-poppers, Dragonette.
New Career Opportunities Daily: The best jobs in media.
MediaFire updates design and features of its Mac and iOS friendly collaboration software
MediaFire has added some interesting features to its Mac- and iOS-friendly cloud storage and collaboration platform.
A new file manager home screen and an online document editor with full support of Microsoft Office Word and Excel documents has been added to the available tools for users. For the Mac, MediaFire provides a menubar dropdown for uploading and managing files.
MediaFire offers a variety of plans for users, including a 50 GB ad supported free plan that lets you upload, share and collaborate on documents. Other plans without ads start at $1.50 a month and ramp up to $24.50 a month for 1 TB of storage.
The company also offers free apps for accessing your files from any iOS device. I've been using one of the basic plans for several months and find it really handy for sharing large files and images that don't work well with email.
Gallery: MediaFire
MediaFire competes with firms such as Dropbox and SugarSync although MediaFire has more free online storage, but there are some limitations on individual file sizes and how long files are stored. When users upgrade from the free plan, longtime storage is forever.
Competition is always good, and it's nice to see more and more options for people moving and sharing data to the cloud.
MediaFire updates design and features of its Mac and iOS friendly collaboration software originally appeared on TUAW - The Unofficial Apple Weblog on Wed, 27 Feb 2013 21:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
Daily iPhone App: Horizon puts a weather report in a calendar app
Horizon is an interesting little app that comes from a very simple idea: To combine your weather report and your calendar in one place. That may not sound like a big innovation, but it's actually not a bad one. Horizon's simple and straightforward design (put together by a young developer named Kyle Rosenbluth) makes browsing through your upcoming schedule very easy, and matching up outside temperatures and weather with what you're doing is more helpful than not.
You can use Horizon as its own calendar app, or sync it up with any of your other shared calendars, including any you have available over iCloud. And you can grab weather from anywhere (Horizon will automatically pull in temperature readings based on your calendar event's location and time), and tweak just how the time and temperature are displayed. There's also a "night mode," which is useful both as a visual indicator of how late it is, and for opening the app up in the dark to check your next day's schedule.
Horizon is a really impressive app -- it takes a few good ideas, and then really polishes them to a nice shine. Rosenbluth has put a lot of thought into that initial premise of combining the weather and your calendar, and it shows. Horizon Calendar is available in the App Store right now for US$0.99.
Daily iPhone App: Horizon puts a weather report in a calendar app originally appeared on TUAW - The Unofficial Apple Weblog on Wed, 27 Feb 2013 20:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
Tallahassee, Fla., is a bad place to be an iPhone owner
The folks at gizmo trade-in site Gazelle see a lot of broken iPhones, and fortunately for those in the blogging biz, they keep a lot of statistics on where those phones come from and what kind of damage they see. Gazelle published a Top 10 Klutziest Cities list based on the percentage of broken or damaged iPhones received, and this year's winner was Tallahassee, Fla. A whopping 21.29 percent of all of the iPhones traded in by people from that city had some sort of damage.
With the exception of Bakersfield, Calif. -- which was number three on the list with 20.63 percent damage rate for trade-ins -- the vast majority of klutzes appeared to be in the US South (six of the top 10!) or clustered around New York City. The Bronx and Staten Island were both in the top 10, which makes me wonder if a lot of iPhones received water damage during Hurricane Sandy last year.
If you've recently fumbled your iPhone and destroyed it, Gazelle's also giving you a chance to win a new phone of your choosing with their "Broken Phone Stories" contest on Facebook.
Tallahassee, Fla., is a bad place to be an iPhone owner originally appeared on TUAW - The Unofficial Apple Weblog on Wed, 27 Feb 2013 19:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
Doctors improve usefulness of iOS devices in the ER with Box.net
A group of more than 60 doctors at the Wake Forest Baptist Medical Center in Winston-Salem, North Carolina are now sharing procedures, journal articles and conversations through a unique use of Box.net's file-sharing services.
A Wired article states that the system has become a valuable tool for doctors, who count on it for providing immediate access to critical information. Dr. Iltifat Husain (at right), who edits the iMedicalApps website, found the medical center's Box.net system to be a valuable assistant back in October when he was first testing it.
Husain was offsite at an emergency room in Greensboro, North Carolina when he needed to perform a procedure that he hadn't done recently. He pulled out his iPhone, launched Box.net, and received a quick refresher on how to do an abdominal paracentesis.
While the same information is also available on intranet workstations in the hospital emergency rooms, Husain saved valuable time looking it up on his iPhone. He noted that, "In the ER, the faster I can do something, the more time I can spend with other patients."
The system at the medical center also encourages discussion of research articles, so it's been a helpful learning tool for residents. Husain says, "You can literally have free flowing comments using Box, which really has the potential to change the way medical education is done."
Doctors improve usefulness of iOS devices in the ER with Box.net originally appeared on TUAW - The Unofficial Apple Weblog on Wed, 27 Feb 2013 18:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
Best App Ever 2012 winners announced, Walking Dead takes top prize
Our friend Jeff Scott over at 148Apps has been running the annual Best App Ever awards for five years now, featuring some of the greatest apps on the App Store voted down by popular demand to determine the "Best App Ever." Last year's winners have just been announced, and Telltale's The Walking Dead game has taken the top spot in voting. There's no question at all that it's a great game and a terrific app, though personally I played it on the Xbox 360, and I preferred that platform. But it's a solid choice, and if you don't like that one, there are lots and lots of other categories to go through.
Launch Center Pro, for example (which allows you to launch not just apps, but specific functions within them), won for Most Innovative App, while sync/sharing app Dropbox picked up Most Useful App. One of my favorite games, Punch Quest, won both Best Time Killer and Best Free To Play Game, while the great Junk Jack sandbox adventure game won for Most Addicting Game.
There are tons of great apps in this list -- some are extremely popular, but there are a few choice gems in there that you may not have tried yet. Congrats to Jeff on a fifth successful year of the Best App Ever awards, and the site says they'll be back at the end of this year to reward the best of 2013.
Best App Ever 2012 winners announced, Walking Dead takes top prize originally appeared on TUAW - The Unofficial Apple Weblog on Wed, 27 Feb 2013 17:30:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
TUAW TV Live: Shooting the virtual breeze
Another Wednesday, another TUAW TV Live. While Cupertino has been keeping things quiet recently, there's still a lot going on in the world of Apple. If you have some free time this afternoon, join my fellow TUAW blogger Randy Nelson and me for an hour of live chat about what's new.
Below, you'll find a Ustream livestream viewer and a chat tool. The chat tool allows you to participate by asking questions or making comments. A fan of IRC? Join us in the TUAW TV Live chatroom on server chat1.ustream.tv, chatroom #tuaw-tv. You'll be watching the show in glorious HD!
If you're driving somewhere and would like to watch TUAW TV Live while you're stuck in traffic, please don't -- keep your eyes on the road! However, if someone else is doing the driving, you can watch the show on your iPhone and join the chat by downloading the free Ustream App. It's a universal app and is wonderful on an iPad, both for viewing and participating in the chat. In addition, the live stream and chat will be available through our Facebook page. Just point your browser here to watch the show and chat with other viewers while you're on Facebook.
We'll start at about 5 PM ET, so if you're seeing a prerecorded show, be sure to refresh your browser until you see the live stream. For those of you who are not able to join us for the live edition, you'll be able to view it later this evening on our TUAW Video YouTube channel and as part of the TUAW TV Live podcast viewable in iTunes or on any of your Apple devices.
TUAW TV Live: Shooting the virtual breeze originally appeared on TUAW - The Unofficial Apple Weblog on Wed, 27 Feb 2013 16:55:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
Apple ordered to pay VirnetX $363K daily in patent dispute
Here's one way to force two warring companies to hash things out. A federal judge has ordered Apple to cough up more than US$360,000 daily to VirnetX until the two can come to an agreement on the former licensing four of the latter's patents.
The penalties stem from a verdict delivered in November of 2012 which found that Apple's FaceTime and iMessage infringed on four of VirnetX's patents. A jury in Texas awarded VirnetX $368.2 million in damages, and Apple can still appeal that verdict.
US Circuit Judge Leonard Davis has ordered Apple to pay $330,000 in damages and $33,000 in interest to VirnetX daily for the next 45 days, or more than $16 million in total, in an effort to get the two companies to the bargaining table. Additionally, Davis is making the companies meet with a mediator in an effort to help them reach a licensing deal.
If a deal can't be ironed out before the 45-day period ends, VirnetX will be able to seek a sales ban on devices it believes are in violation of its patents, which originally included the iPhone 4 and first-generation iPad.
Apple ordered to pay VirnetX $363K daily in patent dispute originally appeared on TUAW - The Unofficial Apple Weblog on Wed, 27 Feb 2013 16:30:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
EA reveals 'single identity' cross-platform gaming experience
EA has completed its Origin login service, which means that most of its games going forward (including, presumably, Real Racing 3, which hits the US App Store tomorrow) will use a single company-specific login. Now, all EA games on all platforms will be able to access that login. So, for example, you could transfer your progress on a game of PGA Tour from iOS to your PlayStation 3, or Bejeweled stats on the Xbox 360 might mean something to Plants vs. Zombies 2, once it arrives on the iPad.
Unfortunately, the news is less exciting for actual customers. Namely, it's essentially just another login to remember. It's too bad EA can't hook this up to Apple's Game Center system, as that seems to be the best and easiest social identifier to use these days (not to mention that, since it's official, it's baked right into iOS itself).
But the company will do what it wants. EA also announced this week that all of its games will feature microtransactions for extra customization or content, another decision that might be less than popular with the gaming community. If EA believes that having its own login to connect game information will increase interest in its titles across platforms, then that's what we'll see in EA games going forward.
[via TechHive]
EA reveals 'single identity' cross-platform gaming experience originally appeared on TUAW - The Unofficial Apple Weblog on Wed, 27 Feb 2013 16:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
Advertising Jobs: Scratch, CampaignGrid, Plan B
This week, Scratch is hiring a director of business development, while CampaignGrid needs a digital strategist. Plan B is seeking a web/social media manager, and KD+E is on the hunt for an account supervisor for performance media. Get the scoop on these openings and more below, and find additional just-posted gigs on Mediabistro.
- Director, Business Development Scratch (New York, NY)
- Digital Strategist CampaignGrid (Fort Washington, PA)
- Web/Social Media Manager Plan B (Chicago, IL)
- Account Supervisor – Performance Media KD+E (New York, NY)
- Senior Art Director Mullen (Boston, MA)
Find more great advertising jobs on the AgencySpy job board. Looking to hire? Tap into our network of talented AgencySpy pros and post a risk-free job listing. For real-time openings and employment news, follow @MBJobPost.
New Career Opportunities Daily: The best jobs in media.
From the Apple shareholders' meeting: Approvals, 'new categories' and another campus delay
The Apple shareholders' meeting was held in Cupertino earlier today, and CNBC has a full liveblog of all of the proceedings. There wasn't a lot of hard news out of the meeting, as most of it was taken up with bureaucratic goings-on, including the approval of a certain accounting firm, a few votes on executive payments, and the defeat of a proposal to create a Human Rights board committee at the company. All of Apple's directors were re-elected, and Tim Cook got a 99.1 percent approval rating from investors there.
After the meeting, Cook took some questions from shareholders and answered them. He agreed that Apple is just as disappointed as investors in "where the stock trades now versus a few months ago -- but we're focused on the long term." Cook crowed about Apple's huge growth so far, and promised that "obviously we're looking at new categories -- we don't talk about them, but we're looking at them."
Finally, Cook gave an update on Apple's new campus, saying that the work is ongoing, but it's proving to be a much bigger project than expected. Last we heard, the project was set to be all done in 2015, but Cook now says that, "I project that we will move in, in 2016." You can read through all of the notes of the meeting on CNBC's site.
[via MacRumors]
From the Apple shareholders' meeting: Approvals, 'new categories' and another campus delay originally appeared on TUAW - The Unofficial Apple Weblog on Wed, 27 Feb 2013 15:30:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
Daily Update for February 27, 2013
It's the TUAW Daily Update, your source for Apple news in a convenient audio format. You'll get all the top Apple stories of the day in three to five minutes for a quick review of what's happening in the Apple world.
You can listen to today's Apple stories by clicking the inline player (requires Flash) or the non-Flash link below. To subscribe to the podcast for daily listening through iTunes, click here.
No Flash? Click here to listen.
Subscribe via RSS
Daily Update for February 27, 2013 originally appeared on TUAW - The Unofficial Apple Weblog on Wed, 27 Feb 2013 15:15:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
Tweetbot for iOS outs pirate users
A lot of us at TUAW use Tapbots' wonderful Tweetbot iPhone app to feed our mobile Twitter habit. The US$2.99 price tag is apparently off-putting to some iPhone users who want the excellent features of Tweetbot, but would rather pirate the app than pay three measly bucks for it. Gizmodo UK has discovered that Tapbots now has a way to get revenge on those jailbreakers who are pirating the app -- those pirated copies automatically insert the following phrase into the compose field:
A quick search on Twitter shows that the messages appeared to have peaked a couple of days ago and have since tailed off, so either the shamed pirates are now deleting the message and getting on with their evil ways, or someone has figured out how to remove the "offending" string from the pirated version of the app.
Many loyal Tweetbot users are publicly applauding Tapbots' response to piracy, especially since those pirates are chewing up the company's Twitter token allotment. This isn't the first time a developer has tried to shame pirates; Enfour had its plan backfire when it attempted to call out pirates on Twitter and accidentally burned a few valid users of its dictionary apps in the process.
Tweetbot for iOS outs pirate users originally appeared on TUAW - The Unofficial Apple Weblog on Wed, 27 Feb 2013 15:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
