Daily Bits

Arnold Zafra

Google Gets Patent for Location-Based Advertising

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So last week Facebook won a rather “vague” patent for news feeds. Now, it’s Google’s turn. This time it’s a patent for location based-advertising which if compared with Facebook’s patent is very clear as to what intention Google will use this patent for.

Actually, Google may have set the pattern already when it acquired mobile ad company – AdMob. It is clear that Google wants to dominate the mobile advertising market, what with the recent launch of its Google branded phone, the Nexus One. AdSense on the other hand have implemented mobile ad serving a long time ago.

And now this patent for location in an advertising system, which is actually the emerging business model for most consumer-facing location startups today.

We must also consider Google’s long-standing  priority over location-enabled search. In fact, just last week a location filtering option for search was rolled out by Google.

Interestingly, this development has to come amidst the proliferation of location-based mobile applications such FourSquare, Gowalla, Yelp and even Google’s own Buzz in its mobile version. [Read more…] about Google Gets Patent for Location-Based Advertising

TigerText Mobile App Lets You Set a Termination Date for your Text Messages

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How about this? – A text message that expires on both your phone and the receiver’s device as well. Sounds cool, right? The patent-pending technology was announced recently by a company called X Sigma partners and is currently available at the Apps Store. But soon, it will also be available for BlackBerry and Android devices.

In brief, here’s what TigerText can actually do:

“For the first time, you have complete control over what happens to your texts after you hit the send button. It brings safety and peace of mind to anyone who sends messages that are intended to remain private.”

TigerText lets you send text messages that delete off on your phone and the receiver of your text messages after a set period of time.  The text messages that you sent disappears from the phones and are not stored on any server. That means that you can’t retrieve the text messages anymore after it’s lifespan expires.

It practically answers your need to keep your text messages private. I mean, you can even set the lifespan of your text into as less as one minute, well if you think that it’s enough time for your recipient to read your text, why not?  Talk about giving you peace of mind, right?

The TigerText app also features an easy-to-use interface, making sure that you don’t have to learn another set of new applications methodology. It’s similar to the text messaging app of your iPhone.

The app is available now from the Apps Store for free. If you use it now, the first 100 messages that you will send or the first 15 days  of your usage will be free. After that, it will cost you $1.49 per month for every 250 text messages. Or if you want unlimited texting, you can opt to pay $2.49 per month.

Symbian Hard at Work to Make S^4 at Par with iPhone and Other Platforms

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Ironically, while  the iPhone, Android and BlackBerry mobile platforms have been pretty much covering the smartphone market, previously major players such as Palm and Symbian are now trying to catch up with them. Symbian for one has recently released S^3 which signals the mobile platform’s transition into the free, open-source route.

And now, even while fans are still awaiting for Symbian ^3 phones to come out, Symbian is already hard at work on its latest version – Symbian S^4.

The folks at Fierce Wireless checked out the latest iteration of what use to be the most popular mobile platform, Symbian S6 and unfortunately were underwelm by what the new Symbian platfrom has to offer. Basically, the new Symbian S64 looks and acts a lot like the iPhone and Android. Although Nokia informed Fierce Wireless that what was demoed during the Mobile Web Congress is still a work in progress. It is by no means the final look and feel of Symbian ^4.

Symbian S^4 will be a completely redesigned  mobile platform which was built from the ground up including a new programming language in place. Previous Symbian OS were built on C++, but now it is based on Qt. So this means that old apps written for old versions of Symbian including S^3 will not run on the new Symbian S^4.

It’s still a long way to go before we see if Symbian will be able to reclaim its lost glory and whether there will be new cool phones to run on Symbian S^4.

Facebook to Stop Sending Apps Notifications, Thankfully!

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Although you can always add a friend’s updates on Facebook it’s still annoying whenever that friend used another application which you have not hidden on your profile before. So, you go out and hide it again to remove the noise that has been cluttering app your profile. Starting Monday, you will not have to go through each every one of those applications notifications and hide them. Facebook will stop sending those notifications, finally!

So, how could you then communicate with your friends to tell them about this cool new Facebook apps that you’re currently spending your time on? The Facebook Developers Blog suggested that you use counters instead, set news within the dashboards to share lightweight messages and activate the extended permissions to email users and send richer and more engaging messages.

Facebook is also planning to change how app requests function and how Facebook profiles will be displayed, all to make Facebook a pleasant, less noisy social networking platform.

I would have to commend them for doing this, despite the fact that it might actually turn some users away, especially those who enjoy using all those apps and telling their friends about them.  Who knows, some Facebook users might actually miss those notifications about their friends needing this or that on Mafia Wars. Or notifications about the fact they have no watered their plants on FarmVille, and many other time-wasting activities that they are doing on Facebook.

So, will you be disappointed or happy about this announcement or what?

Facebook Acquires Vague Patent on News Feeds, Questions Abound

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There are ongoing discussions right now among social media experts and analysts over a recent patent that was awarded to Facebook. Many analysts are considering this patent crucial in the social media industry. Why? Because Facebook has just been granted the patent for news feeds.

Yes, you read it right. Facebook now owns the technology for delivering news feeds. The patent was first discoverd by All Facebook which was filed by Facebook sometime in 2006. Just before other social networks started publishing news feeds as part of their social networking features.

While this may seem just another case of patent filing by a major Internet player, the thing is – it is not.  This is Facebook, claiming rights to the news feeds which is making other social networks thrive.

And what’s causing the commotion is the fact that nobody knows how Facebook is going to use this patent. Will Facebook use it to kill of rival social networking sites? Or will it use the patent to defend itself?

Another question is what exactly does Facebook own by getting the patent? Is it the technology that generates  the news feeds? Is it the distribution of news feeds? What are the components of these news feeds? Individidual status updates, uploading of contents?

Facebook has not issued an official announcement regarding this issue.  Mashable has published a statement which they got from Facebook saying:

“The launch of News Feed in 2006 was a pivotal moment in Facebook’s history and changed the way millions of people consumed and discovered information on the site. We’re humbled by the growth and adoption of News Feed over time and pleased with being awarded the patent.”

How far Facebook would bring this patent remains to be seen.

Opera 10.50 Browser for Mac Makes You Want to Forget About Safari

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Alright Mac users, if  you’re tired of using the stock Safari browser on your machine but you don’t feel like using Google Chrome for Mac or Firefox, how about Opera 10.50 for Mac which is now available for download?  This new version of Opera for Mac is said to be using a new Javascript engine and boasts of key features like HTML5 support and multi-touch gestures.

Honestly, I’ve never used the Opera Browser on a laptop or desktop before. The only time I used it was on my old Sony Ericsson P990i mobile phone. But that was a long time ago. For all I know, both the Opera Mini browser for mobile phones and the Opera desktop browser have probably gone through several revisions already.

Anyway, here are the new things that you should expect in the latest iteration of Opera browser for Mac:

  • More stable than the pre-alpha build
  • A whole new polished UI
  • Supports Opera Unite allowing you to download unite apps from the Unite Apps Repository
  • Supports HTML5 tag
  • Supports widgets as stand-alone apps
  • New menu for Developer Tools

Now, why did we say that Opera 10.50 for Mac might make you forget about the Safari browser that comes preloaded in your Mac? Well, blame it on the guys from 9 to 5 Mac who’ve tested the browser and found that it beats Safari in a WebKit Javascript benchmarking test.

You may want to give Opera a try on your Mac, get it from here.