Friday, June 29, 2012

THE STATE OF MOBILE COMMERCE: How Facebook Is Losing The Retail War

Source: http://www.businessinsider.com/the-state-of-mobile-commerce-how-facebook-and-pcs-are-losing-the-online-retail-war-2012-6

girls shopping phone mobile

As more online shopping moves to mobile and tablet devices, PCs are the obvious losers in the e-commerce wars.

But Facebook, which once also dominated social media referrals into e-retailers, is losing share too.

About 67 million iPads have been sold since the device was launched. Apple now claims it sells more iPads than any other PC—and that's having a profound impact on e-commerce and social commerce retailers.

"Desktop and laptop usage is being replaced by tablet browsing," according to a new report by Monetate, the e-commerce customization company. "At the current rate, website traffic from PC users will dip below 75% in less than one year."

Until very recently, nearly 100 percent of shoppers arriving at retailers' web sites did so on a PC.

But "at the current rate, website traffic from PC users will dip below 75% in less than one year," Monetate's report says, because of the iPad.

In addition, Facebook's dominance of online shopping referrals has weakened. It once served 88 percent of e-commerce referrals. Now it only serves 59 percent. Pinterest is stealing its share over time, the numbers show.

The following slides are a selection from Monetate's "EQ1 2012" report into social commerce. The data is drawn from more than 100 million online shopping experiences.

The death of the PC? Traffic to e-commerce sites from tablet devices increased 348% in one year; visits from smartphone users increased 117%. PCs, however, lost 6 points of share.



Tablets are almost as effective as PCs for converting users into customers. Phones are the least effective for purchases. The conversion rate for smartphone shoppers has never gone above 1.7%, Monetate says.



Similarly, tablets are now just as effective at getting existing shoppers to add things to virtual shopping carts. Phones aren't.



See the rest of the story at Business Insider

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Thursday, June 28, 2012

3D NAND Chips Are Going to Make High-Capacity SSDs a Reality [Guts]

Source: http://gizmodo.com/5921974/3d-nand-chips-are-going-to-make-high+capacity-ssds-a-reality

3D NAND Chips Are Going to Make High-Capacity SSDs a RealitySSDs are wonderful things that massively speed up your computer and they're getting cheaper too. But currently they don't offer the capacity that some users demand. Fortunately, that could all be about to change.

Extreme Tech reports that a company called Applied Materials has announced that a new etching system will allow it to take 3D transistors from scientific dream to reality. You see, currently most flash memory is made up from a bunch of transistors grouped together to form things called NAND gates, which can be used to store data. String enough of them together, and you get a flash memory chip.

The problem is, though, that currently they have to be made in 2D layers. That means the only way to increase memory density for a given area is make the transistors smaller—but scientists are reaching a plateau, where they can't reduce things in size any longer.

The solution it to build up—a bit like building skyscrapers in Manhattan. One way is just to stack layers on top of each other—and that's already done—but to really get high-density memory, you need to build a proper 3D NAND structure in the first place.

One snag: according to Applied Materials, trying to build 3D NAND structures in real life is like trying to dig a one-kilometer-deep, three-kilometer-long trench with walls exactly three meters apart, through interleaved rock strata. Scaled down, obviously. Their new system, however, uses some neat tricks to make that possible—though they're not letting on exactly how it works.

They do, however, admit that the 2D proportions of the resulting chips are akin to older NAND memory—but that the extra third dimension allows them to cram in storage space which massively offsets the difference.

The downside, as usual, is the fact that there's bound to be a long wait before it makes a commercial appearance. Don't go expecting an affordable 1TB SSD just yet. [Extreme Tech]

Image by Intel

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JVC's Tiny HD Action Camera Looks Like a Freaking Tank [Video]

Source: http://gizmodo.com/5921995/jvcs-tiny-hd-action-camera-looks-like-a-freaking-tank

JVC's Tiny HD Action Camera Looks Like a Freaking TankJVC's new GC-XA1 ADIXXION action camera is loaded, combining the best features of the competition into a compact, everything-proof package. No extra add-ons to buy. Is this the most-powerful compact action footage weapon yet?

The GC-XA1 ADIXXION weighs just 4.5 ounces and it's water, shock, dust and freeze-proof. It packs a five-megapixel CMOS sensory, shoots Full HD 1080p footage as well as 1280 x 720 footage at both 30 and 60 fps. It's also capable of shooting stills.

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Smart HDMI Cables Tell You If You're Getting an SD, HD, or 4K Signal [Video]

Source: http://gizmodo.com/5921983/smart-hdmi-cables-tell-you-if-youre-getting-an-sd-hd-or-4k-signal

Smart HDMI Cables Tell You If You're Getting an SD, HD, or 4K SignalIt's no secret that you don't have to spend a small fortune on the HDMI cables connecting your home theater gear. But that doesn't stop Monster from charging hundreds of dollars for its cords, justifying the costs with features like glowing signal indicators.

The company's newest line of HDMI cables are certified by the Imaging Science Foundation—or ISF—to deliver "maximum picture and audio quality" but since it's a digital signal, that doesn't actually mean much. What makes these HDMI cables worthy of note—and the 'smart' descriptor—is a simple LED indicator that lets you know if the cable is sending a standard def, HD, or 4K video signal. It's supposed to guarantee you're getting the best signal quality, but it seems more useful in a complicated theater setup where it could make identifying multiple HDMI cables easier.

In true Monster form, the new smart HDMI cables don't come cheap. They start at $60 for the 5-foot ISF 750, which boasts 14.3 Gbps transfer speeds. Then, they go as high as $350 for the 75-foot ISF 2000, rated at 21 Gbps. But if you really want to guarantee you'll enjoy everything your home theater has to offer, you might just want to stick with that $15 gray market HDMI cable and put your money towards your Blu-ray collection instead. [Monster via Chip Chick]

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Google teases Web Lab beta, an intersection of art, technology and the internet?

Source: http://www.engadget.com/2012/06/27/google-web-lab/

Google teases Web Lab beta, an intersection of art, technology and the internet

In case you didn't get enough Google I/O news today, the Chrome team has just let loose a video teasing the launch of Web Lab beta. We aren't exactly sure what the Mountain View crew is up to, but apparently, the Web Lab will be revealed through a series of experiments set to be launched later this summer. Apparently, the installations will make their debut at the London Science Museum, and from the video snippets we've seen, they'll leverage the web and some custom machinery to create works of art. You don't have to take our word for it, however, jus take a minute to see for yourself in the video after the break.

Continue reading Google teases Web Lab beta, an intersection of art, technology and the internet?

Google teases Web Lab beta, an intersection of art, technology and the internet? originally appeared on Engadget on Wed, 27 Jun 2012 20:01:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Permalink   |  source@googlechrome (Twitter), Chrome Web Lab  | Email this | Comments

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