Watch TV on Apple

More people stream video over the Internet via Apple TV than with any other device. I took a crack at a pie chart like this a couple months ago with limited success, so I was pleased to see how the professional market researchers at Frost & Sullivan do it.

Like me, they left off Microsoft's Xbox, which has some of the same media functions but is primarily a game machine. Unlike me, they remembered to include TiVo and an assortment of products from Boxee, Logitech, Liberty, Western Digital, Netgear, RCA, Sony, Vizio and others.

They didn't offer any sales estimates. I did.In any event, here's what they had to say about Apple's offering and its 56% share of the market:

"Apple accounts for the majority of sales by far, despite offering relatively narrow content access – this is not a market being driven by the value proposition of a streaming TV experience. AppleTV's AirPlay feature was strategically crafted to simplify the process of transferring laptop and tablet displays to a TV screen, and it is AirPlaying – not OTT streaming – that is the primary reason for purchase of AppleTV devices. Roku is the second largest vendor in this space and is driving growth through a strong lineup of content as well as through a series of agreements with Pay TV vendors such as Time Warner Cable. The long-term potential for this segment does remain uncertain. It is important to note that while current growth rates are high, the total installed base of $99 streaming boxes is quite low."

Google, they add, "is conspicuous by its absence in this segment."

Robot can give you service

Rapiro is a humanoid robot that can be programmed to do various tasks including make you coffee.

The kit was created by a Japanese company as a "catalyst between robotics and Raspberry Pi." The credit-card sized, Linux-based PC known as Raspberry Pi is designed to work with the basic hardware of Rapiro, allowing you to program it to do many things, such as manage your calendar or tell you the weather, in addition to making the coffee.

Rapiro isn't the first of its kind: BrickPi is a Raspberry Pi-controlled lego robot that was funded through Kickstarter. According to its developers, BrickPi "connects LEGO Mindstorms Sensors, motors, and parts to turn your credit card-size computer into a robot." Unlike Rapiro, it functions more as a toy than a personal assistant.

Raspberry Pi makes the software easily customizable for users who are familiar with the technology. Rapiro can also be fitted with a camera to give it the ability to gather and store visual data. Rapiro also has 12 "servo motors," which help it with mobility.

If you're not Raspberry Pi-savvy or just dabbling in robotics, that's fine too. According to the website, the idea of the project is for a beginner to get into robotics and for an expert to create higher utility through Raspberry Pi.

There is strong interest in this little robot: With over 46 days left in its Kickstarter campaign, it has already crossed its funding goal. Interested backers can get the full kit for a $350 pledge.

apps that make the App Store's success

"App" has been a computing term for a lot longer than five years. But, on July 10, 2008, it began its journey to becoming a household word.

That's when Apple, a year after launching the iPhone, introduced its App Store to the world.

The online marketplace launched with 500 apps, mostly for established Web companies such as Facebook, eBay and Yelp. Today, it has more than 850,000. And, a couple of months ago, it passed a mind-boggling threshold, marking the 50 billionth app to be downloaded.

Apple can no longer claim proprietary ownership of apps, those mini-programs that continue to push the boundaries of what a mobile phone can do. Google launched its own app store, now called Play, less than a year after Apple. Today, it's on a path toward surpassing Apple's number of downloads. 2012: 'Angry Birds' soar into space Map apps: Google vs. Apple Instagram now lets you share video.

But the iPhone was the first smartphone most folks ever saw, and the App Store was the accessory that gave it extra usefulness. On this anniversary, we look at five iconic apps that got a huge lift from the App Store and expanded the capabilities of our phones.

Smartwatches multifunction

Last week, Sony announced the Smartwatch 2, a follow-up to last year's rightfully maligned Smartwatch. As unimaginative in concept and execution as it was in name, the watch was the abject failure it deserved to be. Using the thing was awful.

This year's iteration boasts a waterproof housing, a few extra pixels in a slightly larger display, and NFC functionality, but the basic concept is unchanged from the last generation. Sony expects us to interact with its smartwatches as though they were dumbed-down smartphones.

It's an idea that will immediately resonate with the masses. It triggers those childhood sci-fi fantasies. But it's also certain to frustrate and confuse, because it's not how wearable tech should be implemented.

We've seen demos of flexible touchpanels and contextually aware components, but we're still hung up on trying to mount tiny, self-contained displays on a technologically inert band.

Just as early tablets were hell-bent on trying to wholly replicate the function of a desktop PC, most current smartwatches are caught up trying to mimic the UX and UI of a smartphone. That's an ugly solution.

Consider Apple's patent application for a smartwatch-type device, or the recent product concept sketched out by Frog Design: their hypothetical products bear little resemblance to a conventional watch. These are just rough, early ideas, but they at least offer insight into how some of the world's best tech companies and designers are thinking about this space.

The concepts have information displayed across the wrist in non-traditional but potentially more efficient manners. They recognize that there's a better way to convey data than working within the confines of a small rectangle.

Corporate partnerships notwithstanding, there's a good reason why Apple CEO Tim Cook publicly professed his love for his Nike+ FuelBand fitness tracker: It's not trying to be a watch. It's not pretending to be a watch. It wants to be new.

Mini smartphones will be next trend

These days, picking out a smartphone is almost like trying on shoes. Does a four-inch, four-and-a-half-inch, or five-inch screen fit best?

For years, the trend in major smartphone brands' screen sizes had been the bigger, the better. Whether it was the iPhone 5's extra row of apps or the giant, tablet-sized Android "phablets," phones had definitely been getting larger.

But recently, that trend has begun to reverse. Samsung and BlackBerry released mini versions of their top-of-the-line smartphones and Apple and HTC are rumored to follow suit. The Samsung Galaxy S4 mini has a 4.3-inch screen, which shaves off more than a half-inch off its larger version. The BlackBerry Q5 isn't smaller in size than the top-of-the-line Q10, but it uses all of last year's technology inside.

One factor behind the looming mini smartphone wave: Smartphone growth is beginning to slow in developed markets like the United States and Western Europe, where giant smartphones with the latest features are a hot commodity. Emerging markets will be "the key future growth driver," according to Macquarie Securities analyst Kevin Smithen, but consumers in those regions are more budget-conscious.

Larger screens can contribute significantly to the price of a smartphone, so smaller devices released by low-cost smartphone makers like China-based Huawei, ZTE and Lenovo are wildly popular in those regions. The iPhone isn't even in the top five list of best-selling smartphones in China.

Top-tier smartphone makers "are finally waking up to the fact and starting to fight back" with a wave of "smartphone mini" launches this year, said Smithen.

But other analysts are doubtful that the top smartphone brands are truly getting the message.

"It's not about size so much as the price," noted Sarah Rotman Epps, an analyst at Forrester.

China's major smartphone makers have been focused on producing devices that cost less than $350. The Samsung Galaxy S4 Mini is currently selling in the United Kingdom, its first market, for $530. That's cheaper than the Galaxy S4 which goes for about $600, but perhaps by not enough.

Apple raise e-book prices

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A federal judge ruled Wednesday that Apple conspired to raise the prices of e-books.

The e-book publishers at issue -- CBS's  Simon & Schuster, Hachette Book Group, Pearson's Penguin Group, Macmillan and News Corp.'s HarperCollins -- settled and didn't go to trial. Apple held out, and the U.S. Department of Justice brought a civil antitrust suit against the company in 2012.

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The DOJ alleged that Apple and the publishers engaged in a "conspiracy" to team up against Amazon and fix the price of e-books -- and Apple was the ringleader of the deal.

U.S. District Judge Denise Cote agreed after hearing three weeks of arguments in June.

"Apple not only willingly joined the conspiracy, but also forcefully facilitated it," Judge Cote wrote. "This price-fixing conspiracy would not have succeeded without the active facilitation and encouragement of Apple."

In response to the ruling, Apple said it was simply giving consumers more choice in the e-book market, "breaking Amazon's monopolistic grip on the publishing industry."

"Apple did not conspire to fix e-book pricing, and we will continue to fight against these false accusations," said Tom Neumayr, spokesman for Apple. "We've done nothing wrong and we will appeal the judge's decision."

Publishers hated Amazon's discounted price structure, under which the retailer set the prices for e-books. Amazon sold many titles for $9.99 each, a price publishers thought was far too low.

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iPad and Android tablet with new Google Maps

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Google has updated its Maps app, rolling the new-ness out now to Android devices and coming soon to Apple portables. Aside from a few new features, Maps will sport tablet-optimized versions for the iPad and Android slates.

One of the most helpful additions in this most recent update is intelligent re-routing based on current traffic conditions. According to Google's blog post:

"In addition to current traffic conditions, we've added two new features to help you navigate around traffic. You can now see reports of problems on the road that you can tap to see incident details. While on the road, Google Maps will also alert you if a better route becomes available and reroute you to your destination faster. This feature is available only on Android and is coming soon to iOS."

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Google is also leveraging its Zagat purchase and its Offers product to serve up restaurant reviews and discounts to nearby places. In addition, Google's friend finder and Foursquare-like Latitude feature is being retired, but similar functionality will be folded into Google+.

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Google said:

"One important change you should know about is that Latitude and check-ins are no longer part of the new Google Maps app, and will be retired from older versions on August 9. We understand some of you still want to see your friends and family on a map, which is why we've added location sharing and check-ins to Google+ for Android (coming soon to iOS)."

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