Category: Tech news

It should be clear by now that there’s much more at play in Android 4.4 KitKat than some early reports alluded to, and one of the more interesting (to me, anyway) tidbits managed to escape the early leak treatment.

Tucked away toward the tail-end of Google’s Nexus 5/KitKat presentation was a mention of a feature called App Indexing that should get companies (and the Android app developers that work for them) a little worked up. That’s because Google has developed a way to deep-link to the contents of an app from within a user’s Google search results with a feature it calls App Indexing.

Here’s how it works. Say you’re using the Google Search app to dig up some dirt on that Ender’s Game movie that doesn’t look very good. If you happen to have the IMDb app installed on your device while you search, you’ll be treated to an info card in that results stream that includes an “Open in app” button. Give it a quick tap and the IMDb app will spring to life and immediately direct you to its Ender’s Game listing.

Naturally, the feature isn’t just limited to showing off movie details – so far the full list of supporters includes Allthecooks, AllTrails, Beautylish, Etsy, Expedia, Flixster, Healthtap, IMDb, Moviefone, Newegg (yes!), OpenTable, and Trulia.

The way Google sees it, the move is all about providing these companies with a choice. If they think their mobile interfaces are enough to keep users engaged, they can simple go about their business. But if they already have an Android app (or are in the process of building one) that can do a better job of engaging with its users, a little extra work to implement those deep links may be well worth it.

It’s not hard to look at this as a move to bolster Android app development, either. There’s little doubting that Android is a global force – which may be only compounded by the fact that Android 4.4 KitKat may drive device sales in developing markets by bringing a more advanced feature set to cheap hardware – and in many cases the Google Search app is going along for the ride. That means that with any luck, huge swaths of the global Android community will be searching for stuff using the Google search app and seeing those deep-linked “Open in app” buttons when they’ve got the right apps installed. Tell me that’s not a compelling reason for a company to develop an Android app if they haven’t already.

Despite the buy-in from all those app partners, it’ll be some time before users like me will actually start getting those results in the wild. Google is testing the feature with those previously listed partners, but the updated cards that will display that information won’t actually roll out until some time in November.

Today Google announced details of its long-awaited Android 4.4 KitKat operating system for the first time, going beyond just the candy bar branding. KitKat is designed around three major tentpoles, Google told TechCrunch, including reaching the next billion (it previously announced 1 billion activations) Android users, putting so-called Google “smarts” across the entire mobile experience, and building for what comes next in mobile devices.

Google said that Android is growing at three times the speed of developed markets in developing countries; but the phones that are catching on in those markets are mostly running Gingerbread, a version of Android that’s now many versions out of date. These phones, however, have lower specs with only around 512MB of memory available, and Gingerbread is what’s required to fit within those tech requirements.

That presented a technical challenge Google was keen to tackle: How to build KitKat in such a way that it can bring even those older and lower-specced devices up-to-date, to help provide a consistent experience across the entire Android user base. That mean reducing OS resources, and then also modifying Google apps to stay within those boundaries, as well as rethinking how the OS manages available memory to make the most of what is present.

None of this was enough, however, so Google went further to help third-party developers also offer their content to everyone on Android, rather than just those with the top-tier devices. A new API in KitKat allows devs to determine what amount of memory a phone is working with, and serve a different version of the app to each, making it possible for the same application to run on even the earliest Android devices.

“People generally launch new versions of operating systems and they need more memory,” Android chief Sundar Pichai said at a Google event today. “Not with KitKat. We’ve taken it and made it run all the way back on entry level phones. We have one version of the OS that’ll run across all Android smartphones in 2014.”

That’s the single biggest feature being announced here: Google wants to get everyone on the same platform, and is doing more than it ever has to end the fragmentation problem. One version over the next year is a hugely ambitious goal, but if the company is serious about not only serving a growing developing market, but offering it something like software version parity, it seems like it’s finally figured out how to go about doing that. It’ll still be up to manufacturers to decide whether or not devices get the KitKat upgrade, Google notes, so we’ll probably still see a fair amount of older devices get left out via official update channels.

Here’s what’s coming with KitKat, which launched on the new Nexus 5 today.

Lock & Home Screen

Aside from making KitKat the One OS To Rule Them All, Google has also introduced a number of new features with this update. Album art is displayed full screen behind the lockscreen when music is playing, for instance, and you can scrub the track without unlocking. There’s a new launcher, with translucency effects on the navigation bar and on the top notification bar.

Long-pressing a blank space on any homescreen zooms out to allow you to re-arrange them all, and when you’re running an app that is written for full-screen, the navigation bar and the notification bar both now disappear entirely from view.

Launcher-specific stuff is Nexus-only initially, of course, and whether some of these elements make their way to manufacturer-specific home screens will depend on those OEMs.

Dialer

Android now offers up a new dialer, which incorporates search for easy reference. This means you can enter the name of a business even if you don’t know it’s number or have it stored in your address book, and then the dialer will retrieve it from the same database that powers Google Maps. It’s incorporating local data, as well as looking for the name used in your search. This also allows the phone to provide caller ID information for incoming calls, too, and there’s a new auto-populating favorites menu that builds a list of your most frequent dialled numbers.

Hangouts

Google has indeed consolidated the entire text/video/MMS experience with Hangouts, as predicted. It replaces the default messaging app, and allows you to send an SMS just as you would’ve before, to a number or to someone in your contact book. There’s also a new Places button for sharing map locations, and emoji support is finally built-in to your software keyboard.

This is the iMessage equivalent that Android has been lacking thus far. It’s going to be a tremendously useful feature, especially for those who are transitioning to Android from BlackBerry in that next 5 billion Google is adamantly pursuing.

You can now attach photos to communications not only from your local library, but also from Google Drive, and from Box, as well. Any third-party provider can provide a hook to be included, according to Google, which is impressive considering that Google isn’t limiting things to its own ecosystem.

Camera

New HDR+ software is built-in to Android KitKat, which has no apparent changes to the surface user experience – a device owner just snaps the shutter button. Behind the scenes, however, Google’s mobile OS is taking many photos at once, and fusing the best parts of each together seamlessly to come up with a better end product. Lights appear more natural, faces are visible even when backlighting threatens to overwhelm, and moving objects are more in focus.

HDR+ is Nexus 5-only to start, but Google says they’re looking to bring it to other devices later on, too.

Wireless Printing

Developers can now add printing to individual apps, and Google will work with building it out for additional manufacturers, too, something it says is “easy” to accomplish. Right now, any HP wireless printer works with the system, and any printer that already supports Google Cloud Print will also be able to take advantage of the new feature.

Google Search

Search is at the core of Google’s overall product experience, the company explained, so it’s doing more to make that accessible on mobile. Search is now on every homescreen by default in Android, and it supports hotwording, so that you can just say “Okay, Google” to get search up and running at any time, much like you would on Glass.

Speech is crucial to Google with this update, and it said it was proud of its improvements so far; the error rate of speech recognition dropped 20 percent last year, and there’s been a 25 percent increase in overall speech recognition accuracy over the past few years, according to Pichai. Using voice recognition also now allows you to tap a word and bring up a list of alternatives to select from. The system also now asks more clarifying questions, using natural language, to ensure better service overall.

Google Now

Google Now has been updated to be accessed via a swipe form the left side of the screen, which is a tweak from when it was accessed via swiping up in previous versions of Android. Google also focused on answering questions like “How can we help users in more ways, and bring up the most relevant content?” with this update, which means new types of cards.

Now can now figure out that The Walking Dead is a favorite show of the user, for instance, and offer up articles related to it and its progress. So not only is Google Now aware of your surroundings and schedule, but also what type of content you’re interested in. It can also note which blogs you check regularly, and provide you info about when new posts appear; in other words, Google is adding some of the features that were core parts of Google Reader to Now, and making them more contextually-aware.

It can also incorporate crowd-sourced data to make better recommendations. For instance, it could know that people often search for geyser times at Yellowstone National Park, and provide a card with those if it sees you’re in the area. If you’re near a cinema, it’ll present movie times and a link to the Fandango application for purchasing tickets.

Another example Google provided is that Stanford students, who often search for the academic calendar in fall, will now receive that data automatically when the correct season arrives, provided they’ve informed Google of their student status previously in some way. These types of Cards will roll out in mid-November, Google says.

Deep App Linking For Google Search

Now when you Google things, results can link into apps directly – and not just to the app generally, but to specific content within the app. Some results will have “Open in App X” next to them, and those will take you directly to a relevant section within, like a recipe for example. Partners at launch include Expedia, Moviefone, OpenTable and more. This is a Nexus-only feature at launch, but Google says it will be available for all KitKat devices in time.

Availability

Android 4.4 KitKat is available today via the Android Open Source Project, and it’s available on Nexus 5 hardware immediately, which also goes on sale today in 10 countries. It will also be available on Nexus 4, Nexus 7, Nexus 10, and the Google Play edition of both the Samsung Galaxy S4 and HTC One in the coming weeks.

It’s an OS update that Google says is focused on furthering their vision for software that will run across all levels of all kinds of devices, not just on phones, which has interesting connotations give everything we’ve been hearing lately about Google wearables.

At long last, Google has officially announced what has been perhaps their worst kept secret in a while: the Nexus 5.

The Nexus 5 had seen more than its fair share of early outs, with everything from fleeting, “accidental” appearances in the hands of Google employees in quickly-deleted promo videos to full-blown product pages going up on the Google Play store ahead of time.

The Nexus 5 will be the first device to ship with Android 4.4 (codenamed “KitKat” through a suprising collaboration with Nestlé and Hershey), which they first announced back in early September. Other devices, like the Nexus 4, 7, and 10, will be getting 4.4 in “the coming weeks”.

The new Nexus comes with two color variants: one black, one white. The 16GB LTE model will cost you $349, while the 32GB LTE model will set you back $399. Both devices are unlocked, and will go up for sale later today.

While Google’s Nexus line mainly exists to provide people a direct route to an unlocked, higher-end device, the Nexus 5 will have a few features that’ll be exclusive at first. It’ll be the first device with Google’s “HDR+” mode, their company’s new in-house approach to HDR, which takes multiple shots in rapid succession and combines the best parts of each into one photo. It’ll also be the first with Google’s new homescreen launcher, which brings Google Search to every page of your homescreen and allows you to trigger a search at any time by saying “Ok, Google”.

Here’s what we know so far about the innards:

• Display: 4.95″ 1920×1080 HD Display (445 ppi)
• CPU: 2.26 Ghz Qualcomm Snapdragon 800
• Front Camera: 1.3MP
• Rear Camera: 8.0MP with Optical Image Stabilization (read: a gyroscope built into the lens that tries to counteract any shaking)
• Storage: 16 GB or 32 GB internal storage
• GPU: Adreno 330 running at 450 Mhz
• RAM: 2GB
• WiFi: 802.11 a/b/g/n/ac
• Battery: 2300mAh (w/ an estimated talk time of around 17 hours, or 8.5 hours of WiFi usage)

We’re just about to run off and spend some time with the device, so check back in just a bit for our hands-on pics and early impressions!

Amazon today launched the developer preview of its AWS SDK for JavaScript. With this, developers can now easily build dynamic JavaScript applications that can access AWS services from the browser without the need to write any server-side code and to configure an application server for hosting.

Amazon previously launched an SDK for Node.js apps, so this isn’t Amazon’s first foray into supporting JavaScript. Indeed, it turns out that this new SDK uses the same programming model in the browser and in server-side Node.js code.

With this new SDK, developers can make direct calls to Amazon’s S3 storage services, Amazon SQS for reading from and writing to message queues, SNS for generating and processing mobile notifications and to Amazon’s DynamoDB NoSQL database. Access to Amazon’s more traditional database services is not currently an option. This means developers can now build JavaScript apps that can create and popular S3 buckets, for example, and query DynamoDB tables without the need to access these services through any server-side code.

To access these features, developers need to add a tag that integrate’s Amazon’s JavaScript library into their code. The SDK supports Amazon’s web identity federation feature (you wouldn’t want to add your AWS credentials in your HTML and JavaScript, after all). By doing this, you can also use a public identity provider like Facebook, Google or – of course – Amazon itself.

As with all things Amazon, the setup isn’t completely trivial, but the company has created a number of tutorials that will get you started.

Another chapter in the ongoing saga between city cab regulations and on-demand taxi apps: cab app Hailo, which in London relies on a portion of the city’s black cabs to power its taxi-hailing-on-demand service – meaning it is bound by the same minimum fare regulations attached to London black cabs – has raised its minimum pricing in the city.  Hailo operates in a range of cities globally, including New York, Toronto and Chicago, tailoring its pricing to each market.

In London Hailo’s minimum fare has gone up to £10 between 6am to 10pm Monday to Sunday; and £15 between 10pm to 6am. The problem is that licensing regulations for black cab drivers stipulate they can’t charge more than a £2.40 minimum fare at any time.

Transport for London (TfL) confirmed to TechCrunch that it is investigating complains following Hailo’s price hike. “We are investigating complaints about Hailo introducing a minimum fare policy.  It is against the licensing regulations for any taxi driver to charge a customer more than the metered fare.  Action will be taken against any driver found to be doing so,” noted Helen Chapman, TfL’s General Manager for Taxi and Private Hire, in a statement.

The sharp-eyed among you will have noticed that Hailo’s prior minimum fare also broke the regulatory minimum. Despite the fact it has technically been breaking TfL regulations since it launched its service two years ago (with a £5 minimum), a TfL spokesman said he is not aware of any instances of a Hailo-using driver having had their licence taken away as a result of a complaint about charging more than the regulatory minimum.

Complaint investigations are on a case-by-case basis, into individual drivers. There is no wider investigation into Hailo’s practices, he confirmed. A Hailo-using driver losing their cab licence as a result of such a complaint is “theoretically possible”, he conceded.

A spokeswoman for Hailo reiterated that the startup has always charged a minimum fee in London. Asked about TfL investigating complaints about the price hike she described it as being engaged in a “conversation” with the local authority cab licensing body.

The rational for Hailo’s price hike is to attempt to encourage more black cab drivers to sign up to use the app – since they are guaranteed a base fee of £10, even for a short trip. More cab drivers using Hailo means app users having a bigger pool of cabs at their command and therefore less time waiting around to be picked up (or poached by a non-Hailo using taxi).

At present, Hailo has some 14,000 black cab drivers on its books, out of a potential pool of 24,000, according to the spokeswoman, so there’s evidently room for growth.

“The updated minimum fares  help Hailo to continue to increase cab coverage across London whilst still passing on savings to our customers by providing all the benefits of their service which include: no booking fee or billing the customer for the cost of the journey to the pick-up, five minutes free waiting and arriving at their door in two taps with all of the information on the cab driver that will be picking them up including a photo,” she said.

“If the fare on the meter is more than the minimum charge, we will not charge more than the meter, but if the fare is below we will charge for the provision of using our service – the ability to e-hail a cab which will arrive within minutes and include contact details and license plate of your pick-up driver. This will also help ensure you get a cab when you really want one.”

On the one hand it’s the classic story of dusty regulations not keeping up with changing technologies times. But, on the other, a £10 minimum does sound pretty steep vs £2.40 – as alternative Twitter-based cab hailing system, @tweetalondoncab, points out:

Hailo points out that only a small proportion of cab journeys conducted via its app fall under its new minimum fare. The “average minimum charge” is £15, according to the spokeswoman. And just 15% of journeys fall under the new higher minimum fares. Ergo, if the amount on the meter is less than the minimum you are required to pay then that extra money is going to pay for the convenience of the service vs standing around hoping a black cab will chance to drive by.

“This upfront, transparent and fair pricing model means that we can continue to provide a fare with no hidden charges, and will increase the likelihood of our customers being able to get a cab,” she added.

Those arguments may sound convincing but convincing arguments take time to overturn regulation. In the mean time, the issue is that black cab drivers using Hailo in London are breaking licensing regulation when they ask for more money than is displayed on the meter. And since Hailo’s minimum charge has been increased, drivers are probably going to be breaking the terms of their taxi licence* more often than they were before (and customers may be more inclined to complain about the higher minimum).

At the end of the day, Hailo may well be upping its minimum fare because it feels it can get away with it – having carved out a dominant position in London vs other cab hailing apps.

Hailo provided the following stats on its London usage:

• Over 3 million jobs in London
• At least 5 million passengers (based on 1.5 people per cab)
•  Just under 400,000 registered passengers

And if it gets more black cab drivers registered, that lead will only increase, cementing those higher minimum charges.

*London cabbies aren’t always averse to breaking the terms of their licence – just try and get a cab to take you South of the river after hours and see how many drivers speed off in search of another fare when they hear where you want to go

Hey, squishy human, ready to be imprisoned and forced to buff robot parts to a high shine by hand until your body and soul are destroyed? I bet you are! Today in TIDWRTWHUFOO we present the robot that will build the prison and the robot that will play you to your death.

First there’s a machine that does Countour Crafting and can 3D print a house in 20 hours. The system, built by USC Prof Behrokh Khoshnevis and his team, extrudes concrete in clever shapes which then harden to form an impregnable shell of sadness and woe. Remember: the robots won’t 3D-print doors!

Next we have the iRobot 110 FirstLook, a throwable scout robot used by armies to search rooms for danger. The robot has been given a set of arms it can use to defuse bombs… or lay bombs. The Throwbot can drop from a 16-foot roof and keep running and it includes a manipulator arm and new sensors to help in bomb detection… or bomb making.

Finally, this is cute little Bo from i-Play is playing Beethoven’s 9th using a cute little hammer and xylophone. Imagine this robot just a little bit bigger and a little bit meaner and replace the hammer with a bigger hammer and the xylophone with your family and you get an idea of where these robots are headed. I, for one, welcome our robotic musician overlords.

Twitter did an interesting thing this morning with its @magicrecs recommendation service. It introduced a text-based menu system that you access via DM, which lets you tune the recommendations that you get via push notification or message.

The new system has you DM the @magicrecs account with a ‘hi’ or ‘hello’, and presents you with a few actions. The basic ones are these:

• tweets on/off
• users on/off
• help

These allow you to toggle the recommendations of tweets which the MagicRecs system deems noteworthy. Generally by velocity of and network relationship to the retweets from people you follow. You can also toggle off the user recommendations, which tell you when a bunch of people you interact with follow an account.

You’re also prompted to give feedback on the service:

• Provide feedback:
• good
• bad

Twitter’s bot says that this will help them improve the MagicRecs service. Earlier this year, Twitter began experimenting with MagicRecs as a Twitter account which gave DM tips on interesting accounts or tweets. It was later folded into the product itself as a push notification that can be toggled on or off.

This new DM menu feature allows you to fine-tune the recommendations that you get in at least a couple of small ways. If a lot of people use it, I wouldn’t be too surprised to see an option to turn tweets or users on or off that appear inside the Twitter apps themselves.

Twitter’s experiments with breaking news and recommendations via push notification continue with @eventparrot, as well. The addition of options to tweak what MagicRecs shows you indicates that it’s still experimenting with how granular to make these recommendations and which type users value.

Image Credit: John Greenaway/Flickr CC

FightMe, a social video app with what may be my favorite startup name ever, is announcing that it has raised $500,000 in seed funding from an undisclosed London investor.

Using a hashtag system, app users can post their own 30-second, unedited videos, and they can also browse other videos and post their own footage in response. Other users then “applaud” the videos that they like, and the videos with the most applause rise to the top. The most popular videos right now (which are showcased on the FightMe home page) include some pretty amazing footage of someone making a basketball shot while also flipping into a swimming pool.

The company was founded by Jamie Lorenz (who also founded the London music venue The Cuckoo Club) and Joelle Hadfield (former head of PR for social network Lulu). There are plenty of other services for sharing videos, and they often come with a strong social component, but Lorenz argued that FightMe’s competitions may spur more people to participate.

“I play the guitar and do a few other things [that could be featured in videos], but I would never showcase any of the things that I’ve learned on YouTube or Facebook, because it’s too much about myself,” he said. “This is a different way for people to showcase their talent in a way that isn’t, ‘Hey, look at me.’”

Since launching in July, Lorenz and Hadfield said they’ve focused on building a community in the United Kingdom (the company is based in London), so they were surprised to see that 48 percent of their audience already comes from the United States. They added that one of the site’s strengths is “urban” performance like beatboxing, rapping, and spoken word, while stretching to include things like parkour.

With the new funding, FightMe is taking the beta label off the app and starting to plan for more expansion in the U.S. – Lorenz said he’s already been spending a lot of time in Los Angeles, so that doesn’t necessarily mean opening a U.S. office right away.

As for making money, Lorenz and Hadfield said they’re looking at a number of possibilities. For one thing, they pointed out that competitions could be a good opportunity for brand advertisers.

You can download the FightMe app here.

Our European podcast this week mainly focuses on what we liked at Disrupt Europe. Marc Samwer opened the show in a rare public appearance, trying to respond to some of the accusations against the Samwer brothers. The fireside chat with Tinder founder and CEO Sean Rad, Box’s Aaron Levie interview, and the Bitcoin panel were also highlights.

Talking about Bitcoin, also happening this week, Coinfloor launched a new Bitcoin exchange focused on complying with any current and future financial regulatory rules.

This is the TechCrunch Europe Podcast, wherein we European writers discuss tech news, as well as what’s happening in our startup scene. Join Steve O’Hear, Natasha Lomas, Darrell Etherington, and Romain Dillet to hear what we think about those topics.

We invite you to enjoy our weekly podcast every Thursday.

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Intro music by Espanto.

HowAboutWe, a startup that recommends date activities for both singles and couples, is launching the first internationalized versions of its iOS app.

The company bills itself as “the first offline dating site” because of its emphasis on real-world activities. Beyond the obvious dating site features (browsing profiles, sending messages to set up dates), HowAboutWe offers the ability to post local date ideas, to browse ideas from others, and to see who’s online nearby.

Head of PR Jade Clark told me via email that the HowAboutWe already has international users, but the app was only available in English, limiting its growth outside the United States. Now it’s available in 15 new languages covering more than 30 countries, including Japan, France, and Russia.

The company says it’s also making all features in the app available for free to international users, in contrast to the US, where premium features like unlimited membership can cost between $8 and $35 per month. Asked why HowAboutWe is taking this approach, Clark said the first step is “to extend our reach as a brand and to hit critical mass in one of these new markets,” and then to look at monetization options.

HowAboutWe Dating (that’s the singles product) has 1.7 million users in the US, while there are half a million HowAboutWe for Couples users in four markets, the company says. When asked about mobile and international plans for the couples product, Clark said, “Yes, we’re working to expand our mobile offerings and have some big announcements tied to this planned for Q1 .”

Co-founder and co-CEO Aaron Schildkrout has also to put together a blog post with his team about “10 Things You Need to Know Before Internationalizing Your App.” Many of those items are pretty technical (“All of your translatable copy should be stored in strings”) but some are more general – for example, he talks about the challenge of languages that require “grammatical differences for men and women”.

His final point: “It will always take 3x longer than you think!”

For years now, most of us have been quietly not turning off our phones and devices at landing and take off, and merely putting the screens to sleep and stuffing them in seat pockets instead. Now, we’ll be able to do that officially and more, according to the FAA. The American government organization overseeing air travel today announced that travelers won’t face regulations that are quite as strict when it comes to electronics on planes.

Don’t start celebrating just yet – this doesn’t mean you can continue playing Candy Crush while waiting for your massive, heavy hunk of metal to defy physics and launch itself into the air as of this very moment. The changes will differ depending on each airline, the FAA says, since there are differences between types of planes and how things are run at each different carrier, but the FAA anticipates that most will allow passengers to use their gadgets “in airplane mode, gate-to-gate, by the end of the year.”

Passengers can use e-book readers, play games and watch videos on devices, and can hold gadgets during both take-off and landing, or else stow them in the seatback pocket. These gadgets need to be in Airplane Mode or have cell service turned off during both landing and taxi/take-off, but you can actually use Wi-Fi during your flight and continue to use Bluetooth accessories connected to your phone.

There are still some things the FAA says travelers need to be aware of regarding these rules, to make sure they’re still in compliance with guidelines. Here’s a full list of those points flagged by the regulatory organization:

1. Make safety your first priority.

2.  Changes to PED policies will not happen immediately and will vary by airline. Check with your airline to see if and when you can use your PED.

3.  Current PED policies remain in effect until an airline completes a safety assessment, gets FAA approval, and changes its PED policy.

4. Cell phones may not be used for voice communications.

5.  Devices must be used in airplane mode or with the cellular connection disabled. You may use the WiFi connection on your device if the plane has an installed WiFi system and the airline allows its use.  You can also continue to use short-range Bluetooth accessories, like wireless keyboards.

6. Properly stow heavier devices under seats or in the overhead bins during takeoff and landing. These items could impede evacuation of an aircraft or may injure you or someone else in the event of turbulence or an accident.

7. During the safety briefing, put down electronic devices, books and newspapers and listen to the crewmember’s instructions.

8.  It only takes a few minutes to secure items according to the crew’s instructions during takeoff and landing.

9.  In some instances of low visibility – about one percent of flights – some landing systems may not be proved PED tolerant, so you may be asked to turn off your device.

10. Always follow crew instructions and immediately turn off your device if asked.

Earlier this year, the FAA seemed ready to relax the rules around personal electronics use in-flight, but they quickly noted that this didn’t mean we’d see blanket bans lifted immediately. Now, the FAA is taking pains to roll this out more quickly, and is “streamlining” approval of the new rules via clear instructions and guidelines for airlines about implementation of device use.  Delta has announced that it’s the first to submit its plan to comply with the new regulations, and that it will do so by November 1, it hopes.

With any luck, some passengers might be able to watch Home Alone 2 on their new iPad Air while winging their way home to enjoy a family Christmas dinner. It’s about time.

Ducati’s latest superbike, the 899 Panigale, is shorter, sharper, and sweeter than its big brother, the 1199.

Ingram Micro has acquired Palo Alto-based Shipwire, the cloud logistics and supply chain management SaaS provider. The acquisition price was not disclosed.

Shipwire has established itself as one of the leading cloud logistics platforms for retailers and e-commerce companies. It also provides shipping and developer tools. For its part, Ingram Micro is a well-known for providing logistics and supply chain technology for the businesss market.

To date, Shipwire had received $10 million in venture capital.  In 2011, the company received a strategic investment from eBay and Newell Rubbermaid, the company behind the Calphalon, Rubbermaid and Goody brands. Existing investor Meakem Becker Venture Capital also participated in the round.

The company has been a recognized leader in the still forming market but the company decided it would be betterr not to go it alone, said VP of Marketing ad Business Nate Gilmore in a phone interview with me today.

“Ingram is a powerhouse that we complement very well and allow us to ramp services and scale for our customers faster than we think we could have done with an IPO,” Gilmore said. “We’re coming at the market from the smaller/mid space, they know the enterprise space well.”

The investment from Ebay was a big boost for Shipwire and exemplifies the value the company has for Ingram Micro  Online selling is one-click for the buyer but for the seller it is a complex undertaking that really is all about logistics. Online sellers need to know at all times the location of the product that they are selling. That’s complicated by the ways products are often sold. Retailers will sell through multiple channels. To get the product sold, the retailer has to offer the channel the best rate possible.

Through the Shipwire SaaS platform, customers get on-demand access to warehouses in the U.S., Canada and Europe allowing merchants to access inventory closer to buyers so that they can cut shipping costs and delivery times.

Ingram Micro has lacked the SaaS capability that Ingrid Micro provides. It offers software but not the on-demand SaaS capabilities that it will get with Shipwire.

The cloud logistics and SaaS supply chain market has a number of competitors. Amazon dominates the list but there are a host of others such as Shipstation, Trade Gecko and Netsuite, all of which offer a similar flavor of service.

According to Feargal O’Rourke, a partner at PricewaterhouseCoopers, the infamous Double Irish tax avoidance method could be endangered. If it were to be written out of law, the legal practice would force many companies to either find new methods to avoid taxation, or pay far higher rates on their profits.

Before we dig into the details of the matter, keep in mind that it is the responsibility of every tax-paying entity to arrange its affairs in the way that will most limit its tax bill, and then pay every cent of that total. The gist is that we should expect corporations to pay as little in taxes as they can. How they manage to do so while staying inside of the law you may find abusive, or asinine, but you should never be surprised by their efforts.

O’Rourke is a voice that matters as he advises a number of companies on how to employ the Double Irish tax avoidance method. Intel, for example, is his client. He has worked with Facebook, Google, and LinkedIn. In an interview with Bloomberg, O’Rourke predicted that the Double Irish will, in time, become illegal.

Regarding government policy, O’Rourke has standing, as, Quartz notes, he helped end a 20 percent tax on profits leaving Ireland. This made use of the country as a place to more simply shuffle around revenue and profit.

What Is The Play?

So, what is the Double Irish, or the Double Irish with a Dutch Sandwich? It’s a form of income moving that helps companies avoid huge tax bills. In the same report, Bloomberg states that Google saved $2.2 billion last year using the technique, and that companies overall slip past around $100 billion in taxes in the United States and Europe yearly through its effectiveness. So, the dollars at play here are not small.

Here’s how it works: Move your money to Ireland, then the Netherlands, and finally to a tax haven such as Bermuda, but in a very specific order.

1. Develop technology or other intellectual property in the United States.
2. Set up a corporate subsidiary in Ireland, and sell (or license) foreign rights to said intellectual property. However, ensure that this company is headquartered in Bermuda, or a different but similar tax haven.
3. Foreign profits that come from revenue based on that intellectual property can now be assigned to that entity. This means that the parent company will not pay home-market taxes on the full profit bill. Instead, it will pay home-market taxes only on the fees that the Irish subsidiary remits to the parent corporation itself.
4. Have the subsidiary pay as little as possible for the sold or licensed intellectual property. This shifts the maximum amount of profit to Ireland and away from the parent company’s home-market tax rate.
5. Now, set up a second Irish corporation. Your first Irish company will own this company. The second company will do the work of selling products and recording revenue. However, its profits won’t stay put.
6. Send the profits from the second Irish corporation through a third subsidiary corporation in the Netherlands. Ireland has tax-free transfers inside the European Union. The profits from the second Irish corporation are now safely ensconced in Holland.
7. Now, route that profit from the Netherlands back to the first Irish subsidiary, which is headquartered in Bermuda.
8. Thanks to Irish law, if a company is managed elsewhere (Bermuda!), its profits can, in the words of the New York Times, “skip across the world tax free.”
9. Ship the profits sent to the first subsidiary to its headquarter location in Bermuda and no taxes are paid!

And that’s the kids’ version. The process can become vastly more complex once new entities are involved, primarily when you begin to extend the number of countries.

This is enough: A company sells its foreign intellectual rights to an Irish subsidiary (company) that is separate from the firm (which the first subsidiary will own) that will actually drive revenue for it abroad. That second company will “pay” the first company for using the rights. The first firm, headquartered in Bermuda thanks to Irish law, can ship those profits back over the Atlantic sans taxes. But to get the money from company two to company one, the Netherlands is used as a stopover to dodge any sort of withholding taxes.

So, two Irish companies with a Dutch company in between. Hence the “sandwich” metaphor.

Tech Impact

This method, and others similar to it (you can just Double Irish and not Dutch Sandwich, or use a different country to start with) is very popular with wealthy technology companies. If Apple had paid the full-ticket U.S. corporate tax rate on all of its global profits (it never will, of course), it would have far less cash – stored profit – and thus be worth less, and have less internal flexibility. It would also have less ability to distribute profits via dividends, share buybacks, and the like.

The winners are shareholders. The losers are governments losing out on huge incomes that they, presumably, want.

If O’Rourke is correct, and the Double Irish play is doomed in time, it will either greatly lower the profitability rates of tech companies, or they will find another way to avoid taxes. If tech companies become less profitable, that will trickle down the ecosystem, lowering the rate of acquisitions and any other cash-dependent activity.

End of the world? Not close. Painful correction to corporate rates that could shake up tax policy for immensely profitable companies? Yes.

Apple, Microsoft, Google and others have stacked mountains of cash built on profits that are taxed at vanishing rates. The next giants to do the same might not have the same favorable tax options open to them. It will take them more time, therefore, to become just as rich.

Provided that the Double Irish is closed, the implicit value of future tech-giant cash flow is lowered. This decreases the value of large technology companies, those big enough at least to rock a Double Irish. Twitter, for example, a company that is struggling to find a way to profits, could see that path steepened if the loophole closes.

There is increasing pressure to keep profits where they are sourced. But tech giants are wealthy and wealth comes with advantages, such as lobbying dollars, political donations and the finest legal offense and defense that you can buy. Given the sums involved, expect the coming battle to get messy.

Top Image Credit: Flickr

Apple completed 15 acquisitions in fiscal 2013, Apple CEO Tim Cook announced during its Q4 investor call. That amounts to one acquisition every 3-4 weeks during the year.

Given that we only know about 8 of those acquisitions, there are still 7 more out there. Apple typically makes small acquisitions of companies that have developed a set of skills it needs or a product that it wants to integrate into its hardware or software. Apple’s famous acquisition ‘confirmation’ boiler-plate alludes to this stating “Apple buys smaller technology companies from time to time, and we generally do not discuss our purpose or plans.”

So far, we know of the following acquisitions by Apple in 2013:

• WiFiSlam – An indoor location company that Apple has or will likely integrate into mapping efforts or iBeacon development. Exploring the WiFiSLAM technology deeper leads to the realization that Apple has everything it needs to leverage the tech already on-board on hundreds of millions of iPhones.
• Locationary – A Canada-based startup that focuses on merging and organizing business profiles and location data. This is a no-brainer as Apple’s biggest Maps problem is point-of-interest data.
• Hopstop.com – A transit and walking-directions company that Apple could use to build out its own transit directions inside the Maps app. The app famously shipped without either in its first iteration, and iOS 7 added walking directions to the mix. Hopstop could have helped with that/
• Passif Semiconductor – A low-energy chip maker. It seems likely that Apple could use this to either improve or enhance its iBeacon technology, which runs on Bluetooth LE. Apple’s new Apple TV software allows you to use a similar procedure to transfer settings directly from an iPhone.
• Matcha – An acquisition that appeared to be aimed at bolstering Apple’s Genius offerings for media, marketing efforts for iTunes movie store front-ends or perhaps iRadio.
• Embark – A popular iOS transit app.
• AlgoTrim – A data compression company that could help Apple market its offerings in countries where plans are expensive and data is at a premium.
• Cue – A smart assistant company that Apple likely purchased to bolster its Siri and ‘Today’ offerings in iOS in order to compete with Google Now.

As for what the others are, we’ll keep our ears open. If you have any info, well our doors are always open.