Posts tagged chip
As iPhone 5 Launch Nears, an NFC Chip Looks Increasingly Likely
Sep 16th
Apple fans and the technology press have been wondering aloud about what new features will be included in the next iteration of the iPhone for months. As the iPhone 5′s rumored October launch gets closer, that speculation grows more feverish, as details are leaked and rumors turn into facts.
We’re reaching that point with the iPhone 5 (or is it iPhone 4s? Or both?), which is widely expected to launch within a matter of weeks. With a barrage of new rumors and purported leaks everyday, it’s hard to know for sure what’s true. A few things are practically guaranteed: the phone will be faster with upgraded tech specs. It will probably have a better camera than the iPhone 4. One thing that’s always been unclear is whether the device will support NFC.
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NFC, or near field communications, is the technology that’s supposed to power our mobile wallets of the future, according to just about every technology expert and analyst. It does a whole lot more, such as unlock doors and allow people to quickly and wirelessly transmit data to one another.
The iPhone 5 is likely to include a chip from Qualcomm that includes NFC functionality, according to the New York Times. And if it doesn’t, the subsequent generation of the handset is all but guaranteed to have it.
For Apple, it’s not so much a race to satisify consumers, among whom demand for wireless payments is not in particularly high. Rather, it’s a matter of staying ahead of its competitors, who are already building the technology into handsets. The Nexus S is only one of a few Android-powered devices that support NFC, which is a higher priority for Google because its own ambitions in the mobile payments space. The three latest models of the Blackberry Curve also include NFC chips, as do Samsung’s newest Bada-based handsets, among others.
There’s no doubt that Apple is working on NFC, it’s just a matter of when iPhone users will get to use it. When they do, it may provide that hefty push mobile payments and NFC need to begin to achieve mainstream adoption.
View full post on ReadWriteWeb
Getting Ready for Google Wallet, Sprint Switches on Nexus S 4G’s NFC Chip
Jul 11th
A software update being sent out to Sprint’s Nexus S 4G phones today will enable the device’s NFC chip – the same chip that allows the upcoming Google Wallet mobile payments service to operate.
NFC, which stands for near field communications, is a wireless technology that allows you to send and receive data over short distances just by tapping or waving your phone. Google will use NFC in its Google Wallet service to enable mobile payments at the point-of-sale, as well as to deliver coupons and offers directly to users’ phones.
With Sprint’s update, we’re now one step closer to seeing Google Wallet go live.
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Google Wallet is launching first with Sprint, in partnership with issuing bank Citi and payment network MasterCard. Citi card holders will be able to register their card with the service and then use their phone anywhere MasterCard contactless terminals (PayPass) are found. However, Google will also support a “virtual” card option that lets you activate a preloaded, prepaid card within the Google Wallet application, so non-Citi card holders can try the service, too.
Payments Disruption Still Far Off
Even though the update means Google Wallet can work, it’s unknown at this time how soon it will . Google said the service would launch sometime this summer, though, so it can’t be much longer.
But this single launch won’t immediately bring disruption to the payments industry – it’s just one small, initial effort. For Google Wallet to be successful, or for any NFC-based mobile payments initiative to work for that matter, NFC has to see wider adoption by handset makers and OEMs. There are still only a handful of phones that support NFC, such as the Google Nexus S devices made by Samsung, plus the upcoming BlackBerry Bold phones (9900/9930), Nokia’s Astound and some variants of the Samsung Galaxy S II.
In addition, for Google to lead in the mobile wallet space, it will need to expand its service beyond one operator, one bank and one payments network. And rollouts like that will take time, measured in months, if not years.
Google is not the only company building a mobile wallet platform. This fall, we’ll see Visa’s digital wallet go live and, next year, the operator-led Isis consortium will begin trials of its own mobile wallet service. There’s also the elephant in the room: Apple. There have been conflicting reports as to whether the next iPhone will include NFC. Failing to do so will mean that mobile wallet innovation will be supported by nearly all Apple’s smartphone rivals in some way, but it will also mean that NFC will lack the mainstream appeal and acceptance that only Apple seems to bring.
NFC support isn’t the only new feature rolling out in today’s Nexus S 4G update. Other enhancements are detailed here. In addition, some reports state that Android 2.3.5 is part of the package, too.
Other sources: This is My Next…, DroidLife, NFCWorld
View full post on ReadWriteWeb
Simon Cowell Attempts to Clear His Bad Repuation with SEO Optimization – Chip Chick
Aug 12th
 Chip Chick |
Simon Cowell Attempts to Clear His Bad Repuation with SEO Optimization
Chip Chick Supposedly, Cowell has hired an SEO Optimization firm to make sure that all Google searches on his name only produce stories of him cuddling with bunnies … Simon Cowell uses SEO Simon Cowell Is Smart! Business Matters: Simon Cowell, S-Curve, Eminem and more |
View full post on SEO – Google News
Reversing the SEO Process: The Chocolate Chip Cookie Mistake
Aug 10th
Posted by randfish
I’ve had the chance to talk to lots of folks who are just starting out building new web businesses, many of them for the first time and a few with some experience under their belt. What worries me is that a lot of these new businesses are reversing the SEO order of operations; making it 100X more difficult to succeed than need be.
How Do You Bake Chocolate Chip Cookies?
Seriously. I don’t mean a recipe; I mean close your eyes and think about the standard methodology and order of operations you follow. If you’re like me, it looks something like this:
- Determine what kind of cookies you’re making – crispy, chewy, big, small – and what quantity.
- Line up your ingredients – flour, eggs, sugar, baking soda/powder, butter, salt, vanilla extract, chocolate chips
- Mix together ingredients in some relevant order
- Form dough balls
- Bake for appropriate time period
- Remove from oven; eat
Now let’s imagine SEO as a part of your recipe – you’re trying to bake a great web business, and SEO is an essential ingredient. Let’s say for the purposes of our analogy it’s the chocolate chips.
Here’s how many websites bake their SEO-chocolate chip cookies:
- Mix together some of the ingredients (maybe the butter, sugar, eggs and flour)
- Form dough balls
- Bake for appropriate time period*
- Remove from oven
- Realize there’s a few missing ingredients – vanilla extract (social media strategy), salt (viral content) and, oh yeah, the chocolate chips (SEO)
- Sprinkle these on the cookies
Now instead of this:
Courtesy of SavorySweetLife’s excellent post
You’ve got this:
Not quite as appealing.
A website that’s pre-built its content, pre-conceived of its information architecture, pre-envisioned its marketing & communications strategy and already created its underlying code, CMS and functionality without considering SEO impact will always be at a severe disadvantage. And when it comes to links, that disadvantage is even stronger.
We all worry about a poorly built site and whether it will be accessible to spiders, but I see so many SEOs who approach a business or a site that’s got many of the basics right and think, "OK, I just need to get some links." If instead, we flipped this thinking on its head and said "wait, this website hasn’t established a strategy for link acquisition? Then we need to go back to the drawing board," the results might be dramatically better.
For every aspect of search engine optimization, there’s a critical need to make it part of the business strategy, particularly as the field gets more competitive. If you’ve put together a remarkable company, solving a tough problem with a great website, you could still lose in search (and social) to the relatively amateurish competitor who asked and answered these critical SEO strategy questions before building their business/site:
- What does my site do for web content creators (Linkerati) that rewards them in such a way that they’ll naturally share my brand and link to my site?
- What content is in demand (or soon will be) that aren’t sites aren’t addressing well (and how do I effectively keyword target that demand)?
- What functionality/organization will make my site more attractive to search engines?
- How do I build ongoing SEO refinement and growth into my business processes?
The site that answered those questions during the brainstorming phase is the one who can overtake the existing market leaders and win the rankings. Those who keep trying to sprinkle chocolate chips onto already-baked cookies will have a painful time trying to keep up.
* Notice my conspicuous lack of a pun about "half-baked" sites. I plan to use this karma on some horrifyingly bad joke in the future.
p.s. Credit for the analogy goes to the same person who bakes me most of my chocolate chip cookies. She’s pretty awesome.
View full post on SEOmoz Daily SEO Blog
Samsung Elec chip margins up; LCD, phone margins down
Jan 31st
Samsung Elec chip margins up; LCD, phone margins down
SEOUL, Jan 29 (Reuters) – Samsung Electronics <005930.KS>, the world’s biggest memory chip maker, said on Friday its consolidated operating profit margin in semiconductors rose to 21 percent from 15 percent in the previous quarter.
Read more on Reuters via Yahoo! Asia News
PREVIEW-Memory chip makers ride recovery; outlook robust
Jan 19th
PREVIEW-Memory chip makers ride recovery; outlook robust
* What.
Read more on Reuters via Yahoo! Malaysia News
