Samsung and Google sitting in a tree

from Greg
Samsung and Google have been in legal battle for years over patents. They announced today a 10 year deal to share patents. This is good news for both companies but particularly Samsung. This ensures a decade of innovation in the Galaxy phone line and Motorola products. 

Check out two great cell phone deal HERE

from Samsung
Samsung Electronics Co., Ltd. and Google Inc. today furthered their long-term cooperative partnership with a global patent cross-license agreement covering a broad range of technologies and business areas. The mutually beneficial agreement covers the two companies’ existing patents as well as those filed over the next 10 years.

 “We’re pleased to enter into a cross-license with our partner Samsung,” said Allen Lo, Deputy General Counsel for Patents at Google. “By working together on agreements like this, companies can reduce the potential for litigation and focus instead on innovation.”

 With this agreement, Samsung and Google gain access to each other’s industry-leading patent portfolios, paving the way for deeper collaboration on research and development of current and future products and technologies.

 “This agreement with Google is highly significant for the technology industry,” said Dr. Seungho Ahn, the Head of Samsung’s Intellectual Property Center. “Samsung and Google are showing the rest of the industry that there is more to gain from cooperating than engaging in unnecessary patent disputes.”

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ProQuest's Literature Online

Iconic literary resource gets a dose of accelerant in cloud-based environment

At the American Library Association's Midwinter Conference, ProQuest is demonstrating the new release of Literature Online, the world's largest literary research resource. Essential for teaching and studying literature for more than 15 years, Literature Online now leverages cloud-based technology and responsive design to make its massive store of essential and in-demand content even more accessible, and easier to use than ever before.

"ProQuest is focused on improving researcher outcomes and creating resources that support the task at hand," said Mary Sauer-Games, ProQuest Vice-President, Information Solutions. "The new release of Literature Online is designed specifically to simplify and accelerate literary research, study and teaching, and because of that, it's opening new avenues for study and analysis."

ProQuest's Literature Online is the world's most complete resource for the study and teaching of English-language literature in all its forms. This digital repository encompasses the full text of more than 350,000 important historical and contemporary works of prose, poetry and drama integrated with a nearly bottomless reservoir of contextual materials to support the interpretation of the works – authoritative criticism, reference sources such as encyclopedias, biographies and bibliographies and hours of valuable literary audio and video clips. The new release was informed by the requirements of the literary researcher today and provides faster navigation as well as more intuitive, powerful searching and browsing of content. With a fully mobile-enabled platform, Literature Online can now be with the researchers wherever they need it, putting access to authoritative and accurate resources at their fingertips.

ProQuest's literary resources first gained worldwide acclaim in the 1980s with the publication of the complete canon of English poetry on CD-ROM. In the ensuing decades, content rapidly expanded to cover all genres and time periods -- rare and inaccessible works are now available alongside the established corpus – and the leap to online was made in the mid-1990s with the launch of Literature Online, immediately hailed as a valuable and groundbreaking resource. Pedagogically, it assists in undergraduate study and the design of courses, answers questions from the elementary to the sophisticated, and creates opportunities for new forms of study, analysis, and teaching.

Beloved by students and teachers, Literature Online has an equally zealous following among librarians for its ability to reduce the work of managing journal subscriptions and save budget on book renewals.

Literature Online is dynamic, growing regularly as new primary and secondary texts are converted to electronic form, as new reference resources are added and as new formats emerge. The content of the service is developed with the advice of internationally known scholars, making Literature Online a complete, current and authoritative environment for research, teaching and undergraduate study.

About ProQuest (www.proquest.com)
ProQuest connects people with vetted, reliable information. Key to serious research, the company's products are a gateway to the world's knowledge including dissertations, governmental and cultural archives, news, historical collections and ebooks. ProQuest technologies serve users across the critical points in research, helping them discover, access, share, create and manage information.

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Cell Phone Deals

from Greg
Last week tablet certified reported on a great deal that Best Buy had on Galaxy phone. You can read that story HERE. Well the deals are getting better and better. Cricket announced 5 lines for $100 a month family plan and Aio is matching the Best Buy offer with a sale on devices featuring Samsung Galaxy smartphones starting at $49.99.

from Cricket

Cricket Helps Families Save in 2014 with "5 Smartphone Lines for $100"

As New Year's resolutions to save money linger and tax season approaches, Cricket Wireless is launching the best value multi-line plan ever – up to five smartphone lines for $100 per month. This new offer, along with "The Nation's Best Trade-In" program from Cricket (also announced today), will be available to new and current Cricket Wireless customers beginning this Sunday, January 26, 2014 at company-owned stores and premier dealers. Customers can enjoy unlimited talk, text, music and one gigabyte of full-speed data for as little as $20 per line.

Compared to other multi-line discounts, this new plan offers twice as much full-speed data and at least one more phone line than other carriers. Customers can save even more by signing up for Automatic Bill Pay, saving them an additional five dollars a month per account. That's just $95 for five smartphone lines.

"Our goal is to relentlessly advocate for our customers and help them save money so they can do more of what matters," said Julie Dexter Berg, chief marketing officer at Cricket.  "Our '5 Smartphone Lines for $100' plan, combined with 'The Nation's Best Trade-In' program, provides them the most affordable monthly plan and best bang for the buck for each phone so they can get the very best mobile experience."

Cricket's multi-line plans also include Muve Music, the first complete music experience created for the mobile phone. Muve Music gives Cricket customers unlimited access to more than 17 million songs that they can download directly to their phone and enjoy anytime – even offline or out of network – as part of their mobile plan, without using their data allotment or incurring additional charges.

About Cricket
Cricket is the pioneer and leader in delivering innovative value-rich prepaid wireless services with no long-term contracts. Cricket offers nationwide wireless voice and mobile data services over high-quality, all-digital 4G LTE and 3G CDMA wireless networks. Cricket's innovative products and services, including the award-winning Muve Music® - the first music service designed for a wireless phone, are available nationwide at Cricket branded retail stores, dealers, national retailers and at www.mycricket.com. For more information about Cricket, please visit www.mycricket.com.

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from Aio

Aio announced today a sale on devices featuring Samsung Galaxy smartphones starting at $49.99.

Until March 13, new customers activating Aio service can get the Samsung Galaxy Amp TM for $49.99 (normally priced at $129.99); the Samsung Galaxy Express TM for $199.99 (normally priced at $249.99); or the Samsung Galaxy S4 for 529.99 (normally priced at $579.99).  These devices, combined with Aio's first-class service on a reliable 4G nationwide network, are now available with no-annual contract through dealer-owned Aio Wireless stores as well as online to all U.S. customers.

Aio customers may also choose from a wide selection of smartphones, tablets, and feature phones from ZTE, Samsung, Nokia, and others. Customers may bring a device they love to an Aio store for activation on the Aio network or activate online at www.aiowireless.com.  Or, they may bring a qualifying wireless phone to an Aio store to trade-in for a credit towards an upgraded phone or accessory.

Aio customers may also now take advantage of Aio's newly launched Refer-A-Friend Program, which will reward $25 in Referral Rewards to each new qualifying customer recommended by an existing Aio customer.  In addition, qualifying existing Aio customers will also receive $25 in Referral Rewards for each successful referral that comes to Aio.   

Aio makes wireless easy with a friendly in-store and online experience and three simple plans from which to choose from. All three plans include unlimited talk, text, and data—with a pre-established amount of high-speed access, including 4G LTE.  Plans range from $40 to $70 per month, taxes and fees included.

"We are thrilled to offer this Samsung Galaxy smartphone sale as we kick off the New Year," said Andy Smoak, head of Product and Marketing. "Now it's more affordable than ever to get a Samsung Galaxy smartphone with prices starting at $49.99 for new activations running on our reliable 4G nationwide network," he added.

For more information visit www.aiowireless.com, or like us on Facebook and follow us on www.twitter.com/aiowireless.

About Aio Wireless 
Aio Wireless (pronounced A-O) was created for today's value-conscious connected consumers who want it all.  We created a new class of service for individuals who expect a first class wireless service at a value price - one with no-annual contract, friendly service, uncomplicated plans and the mobile phones and tablets you love.   All of Aio's phone plans include unlimited talk, text, and data, with taxes and fees included - the price you see is the price you pay. Aio Wireless is a subsidiary of AT&T Inc.  Visit www.aiowireless.com to find out more.

Aio's plan pricing includes applicable state and local taxes, and fees. Each unlimited plan includes a pre-established amount of high-speed-data access, and service is subject to Aio's Terms and Conditions of Service and Unreasonable Use Policy. Coverage and services are not available everywhere.

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8 Great Movies on Amazon Prime

from Greg
I love Amazon prime. Free shipping, electronic lending libray, and access to a huge video library. You can watch these movies on just about any mobile device not just Amazon's Kindle products. Here are my current 8 streaming movies.

Subscribe to Amazon Prime HERE

Kiss Kiss Bang Bang - 2005 - The most under rated movie of the last ten years. It stars Robert Downey Jr. and a thinish Val Kilmer. A petty thief posing as an actor is brought to Los Angeles for an unlikely audition, but soon finds himself in the middle of a murder investigation.

Read the tablet certified review of theiPad Air HERE

The Bling Ring - 2013 - Based on true events, Oscar winning filmmaker Sofia Coppola's THE BLING RING follows a group of fame obsessed L.A. teens who rob the homes of Hollywood's biggest celebrities. Stars Emma Watson and Leslie Mann. Directed by Sofia Coppola, the daughter of the famous Francis Coppola. This is the fifth feature film she has directed.

Horse Soldiers - 1959 - John Wayne and William Holden make a Hollywood classic about the Civil War. A Union Cavalry outfit is sent behind confederate lines in strength to destroy a rail/supply centre. Along with them is sent a doctor who causes instant antipathy between him and the commander.

Green Lantern: Emerald Knights - 2011 - As the home planet of the Green Lantern Corps faces a battle with an ancient enemy, Hal Jordan prepares new recruit Arisia for the coming conflict by relating stories of the first Green Lantern and several of Hal's comrades.

Sleepers - 1996 - After a prank goes disastrously wrong, a group of boys are sent to a detention center where they are brutalized; over 10 years later, they get their chance for revenge.

The Goonies - 1985 - A group of ordinary kids discover a secret treasure map, their sleepy seaport lives are suddenly transformed into a fun-filled, roller-coaster ride.

Dumb and Dumber - 1994 - Jim Carrey and Jeff Daniels star as two good-natured but incredibly stupid friends who drive across the United States to return a clients briefcase in this comedy blockbuster.

Austin Powers: International Man of Mystery - 1997 - Austin Powers is back into action to once again battle his archenemy Dr. Evil. With his sexy sidekick Ms. Kensington, Austin must stop Dr. Evil's outrageous plot to control the world.

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Emotions Analytics App

Moodies - The World's First Emotions Analytics App For iOS

App Analyzes Over 400 Emotions, Tells Users How People Are Feeling

Beyond Verbal, the Emotions Analytics world leader, has unveiled its first mobile application, named Moodies, to bring the patented technology to consumers on the go. The app extracts, decodes, and measures a full spectrum of human emotions from their raw voice in real time as they speak. With the click of a button and about 20 second of speech, Moodies provides users the option to analyze their own voice as well as understand the emotions of individuals around them.

The app's technology is based on Beyond Verbal's 18 years of research by physicists and neuropsychologists, who studied more than 70,000 test subjects in more than 30 languages. Bundled into cloud-based API software, the company's emotions detection engines allow devices and applications to understand an individuals' emotional dimension including mood, attitude, and decision-making characteristics as they speak.

The Beyond Verbal team believes Moodies will open consumers to explore the technology's potential in self evaluations, relationships, human resources, pitch feedback, language barriers and more. The app provides a running screen of results and allows users to share the resulted mood analysis through email or via social media platforms such as Facebook and Twitter.

"Over the past six months we have envisioned a world where our Emotions Analytics software is embedded into any voice-enabled device or platform. As we continue to reach additional markets and grow as a company, we believe this vision is coming to life," says Yuval Mor, CEO, Beyond Verbal. "Moodies offers everyone a chance to analyze their own emotions by simply clicking a button on their smart phone device. We envision Moodies as a front-runner to a new breed of emotionally-aware apps and invite third-party developers to join in, license the technology for their own solutions and use our API and SDK to access our engine. As the industry continues to evolve, we believe it's only a matter of time until we start seeing this sort of technology being integrated into a myriad of consumer and B2B product and service applications."

The company launched in May, 2013 and has closed $3.8 million round of funding led by prominent angel investors Kenges Rakishev, and Sami Sagol. Beyond Verbal licenses its technology, which holds four U.S. patents and allows third-party developers access through its API. The app is available on iOS and can be downloaded here.

ABOUT BEYOND VERBAL:
Launched in May 2013, Beyond Verbal is the developer and owner of a patented technology that extracts an individual's full set of emotions and character traits, using their raw voice in real-time, as they speak. Beyond Verbal's software was founded based on 18 years of research by physicists and neuropsychologists, who studied more than 70,000 test subjects in more than 30 languages. The ability to extract, decode, and measure human moods, attitudes and decision-making characteristics, introduces a whole new dimension of emotional understanding, called Emotions Analytics. Led by a veteran management team of industry professionals, the company's goal is to leverage its unique abilities to impact a new multi-billion market of emotionally-enhanced applications installed in practically any voice enabled, voice activated, or voice controlled device. For more information visit www.beyondverbal.com.

Download the app on the Apple app store for free HERE

from Developer
Your mood in 20 seconds. Just press a button and talk.

Intrigued by emotions?
Curious to understand how you and your colleagues feel as you speak, right now?

Moodies is providing the answer - all with a press of a button.

Based on 18 year of research into the science of emotions, Moodies analyses and presents the current emotional state of speakers in real time, as they speak. Based on Beyond Verbal’s award winning Emotions Analytics cloud-based engine, Moodies listens to vocal intonations to understand our emotions as we speak – because it's not what we say, but HOW we say it.

At the press of a button, Moodies requires just 15 seconds of speech to provide a deep, highly granular mood analysis which includes:
-Our Primary Mood: The speaker's most expressed current emotional state
-Our Secondary Mood: The speaker’s less expressed mood.
-Overall mood group categorizations.


Key Moody features include:
- Quick Analysis: Single automatic analysis by tapping the LISTEN button
- Continuous Analysis: Multiple and continuous analysis by pressing and holding (or pressing and locking) the LISTEN button.
- Analysis Library: Vault of emotion analyses complete with edit, tag and management features of analysis files.
- Replay of previously recorded analyses.

- Sharing of analyses by email, Facebook and Twitter.

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• Cloud Service Helps You Communicate Better by 'Reading Your Voice'
• Emotion analytics company Beyond Verbal releases Moodies as standalone iOS app
• 7 important Things to Consider before Submitting your iOS App to the App Store
• Apple wants to show you ads based upon your mood

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Apple beats Samsung in Mobile

Earlier this week I posted about the amazing deal Best Buy had on the the Samsung S4 and S3. The S4 rated higher than the iPhone 5S on the current CNET rankings. It is superior in every physical way. However they are on sale 75% off while iPhone remains at the same price as launched.

Read the post HERE

Now I think I know why. The NPD Group announced that research showed iPhone ownership increased from 35 percent in Q4 2012 to 42 percent in Q4 2013. Likewise, Samsung Android phones increased from 22 percent of smartphones owned in Q4 2012 to 26 percent in Q4 2013. In contrast, fewer smartphone owners reported having an HTC, Motorola, or Blackberry device in Q4 2013.

Source: The NPD Group/Connected Intelligence Connected Home Report

The NPD's first retail tracking service was for toys in 1984 and has launched services in more than a dozen industries since then.  Today, they track businesses representing over $1 trillion in sales in the Americas and more across Europe and Asia-Pac.

Read the full story HERE
As more US consumers migrate to smartphones, they are increasingly opting for iPhones and Samsung Android phones. According to the Connected Intelligence Connected Home Report from The NPD Group, over the past year, smartphone penetration increased from 52 percent in Q4 2012 to six-in-ten cell phone users in Q4 2013.

Apple and Samsung were the winners as more consumers migrated to their flagship devices.  iPhone ownership increased from 35 percent in Q4 2012 to 42 percent in Q4 2013. Likewise, Samsung Android phones increased from 22 percent of smartphones owned in Q4 2012 to 26 percent in Q4 2013. In contrast, fewer smartphone owners reported having an HTC, Motorola, or Blackberry device in Q4 2013.

As smartphone penetration increased over the past year, so has consumers’ data usage, which went from 5.5 GB per month in Q4 2012 to 6.6 GB per month in Q4 2013.  While this increase in data usage came from a variety of activities, a key driver has been the adoption of streaming music services such as Pandora and iHeart Radio. 

According to the Connected Intelligence Smartphone Usage Report, the percent of smartphone owners that use an app to stream music increased from 41 percent in Q4 2012 to 52 percent in Q4 2013. 

The market for streaming music services is getting more competitive.  While Pandora remains the most commonly used music app in Q4 2013, it is followed by iHeart Radio, Spotify, TuneIn Radio, and Slacker Radio, all of which experienced an increase in incidence of usage over the past year.

Top 5 Music Apps Used on Smart Phones
(Q4 2013)
1 Pandora
2 iHeart Radio
3 Spotify
4 TuneIn Radio
5 Slacker Radio
Source: The NPD Group/Connected Intelligence, Smartphone Usage Report

“Considering the increase in prominence of smartphone music apps, it’s not surprising that hardware manufacturers such as Beats are leveraging partnerships with carriers, like AT&T to break into the streaming music market,” said John Buffone, Executive Director, Industry Analyst, Connected Intelligence.  “This allows AT&T to offer subscribers more of what they want in the way of innovative music apps and provides Beats a partner capable of driving trial in a market where consumers already have an affinity for the music services they use.”

Smartphone Usage Report
Data is sourced from an on-device meter "SmartMeter" leveraging a three month rolling panel that provides the equivalent base of 4,500 smartphone users. The panel is weighted and representative of the Android and iPhone U.S. smartphone base. The data was collected between September and November 2013 and compared to trends from the same period in 2012.

Connected Home Report
More than 5,000 US consumers, age 18 and older were surveyed in the fourth quarter of 2013 for the Connected Home study; trended results are compared to the Q4 2012 survey.

About Connected Intelligence
Connected Intelligence provides competitive intelligence and insight on the rapidly evolving consumer’s connected environment. The service focuses on the three core components of the connected market: the device, the broadband access that provides the connectivity and the content that drives consumer behavior. These three pillars of the connected ecosystem are analyzed through a comprehensive review of what is available, adopted, and consumed by the customer, as well as reviewing how the market will evolve over time and what the various vendors can do to best position themselves in this evolving market.

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