Aereo programming as app soon

The controversial online television broadcast company Aereo is planning to launch an Android app on October 22 via the Google Play store. First, the app will be launched as a public beta in areas where the firm currently offers service, stated an employee of Aereo in a press release.

Furthermore, Aereo CEO and founder Chet Kanojia mentioned their this year´s focus has been about expanding their footprint across the country. In fact, they’ve grown beyond the east coast to include parts of the south and west. Service is now available in New York City, Boston, Atlanta, Miami, Salt Lake City, Houston and Dallas.

Kanojia noted that the whole company is looking into a bright future and added that they are committed to creating innovative and simple-to-use technology consumers can use to access live TV online.

Until now, the programming has only been available via web browser on desktops and notebooks and through a special mobile site for iOS only. The apm which will be free to download, will be compatible with phones and tablets running Android 4.2 or newer. On top of that, Aereo members will now be able to connect a Roku box to their Aereo account using their Android device.

New Google operating system will bring up a multi-window interface including a taskbar and an app launcher

Google has released a new version of its browser onto the developer channel. With it we’re getting an interesting glimpse at the firm’s next step to bring its Chrome-based operating system to a broader audience. Launching the browser within Windows 8’s Metro-style mode will bring up a multi-window interface including a taskbar and an app launcher that looks and feels a lot like Chrome OS.

As you can see on the screenshot below, the bottom shelf includes an app launcher to the left next to Chrome, Gmail, Google, Docs, and YouTube icons for quick access. This shelf can also be snapped to the left or right of the screen and icons can be re-arranged or customized with other Chrome Apps. Once you launch an app you can have it run either in tabs or its own window, which you can as well move around or snap to the sides.

With the current stable launch, releasing Chrome within Windows 8’s Metro-style start screen brings up the desktop client in full screen mode. The new version is still a full fledged desktop application. Though, according to The Verge, it uses a unique mode in Windows 8 that Microsoft has enabled specifically for web browsers. It allows them to launch in the „Metro-style“ environment providing they’re set as default.

At the moment, it is still unclear when the new feature will be graduated onto the stable channel. However, reports indicate it is still a little buggy and crashes occasionally. Furthermore, Google has yet to announce it on the official Chrome blog.

This isn’t the first time the company has taken steps to extend its reach within Microsoft’s operating system. In this year´s July, it quietly launched its Chrome App Launcher for Windows, and with the release of packaged apps, desktop notifications and improved touch support for Chrome, the company is slowly building something that could become a serious threat to established desktop platforms.

Office for iPads is in the works

As reliable sources stated, Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer has currently confirmed that Microsoft Office is finally in the works for the iPad. During a speaking engagement at an event in Florida, Ballmer said that support for the iPad would be picked up once there is a touch first user interface. This means, it will be presented after a Windows version is launched.

As Ballmer said, the touch first user interface is already in progress.

The first rumors of Office for iPad date back to when the first tablet was released in spring 2010. The Daily, which has become the defunct iPad-only news app, reported in November 2011 that an app for the iPad was in the works and additonally provided photographic evidence. Microsoft, however, denied the accusations and said the story was based on inaccurate rumors and speculation.

A version of Office for iOS already arrived earlier this year but was limited to the iPhone. However, the Office 365 app requires a subscription to the Office 365 service. It grants mobility through access to Word, Excel and PowerPoint documents while on the go. Back then, Microsoft suggested iPad users could use Office Web Apps via their web browser.

It is not known at this time whether or not the iPad version will need an Office 365 subscription. Nor is it sure when it will be released. If it leaked roadmaps, however, Microsoft is likely to not launch the app until late next year.

A rival for Chromecast?

Mozilla is working on a second-screen solution.

As some intern sources stated, Mozilla is currently working on a Chromecast-like mirroring feature in Firefox. In fact, Mozilla employee Mark Finkle posted an image of what he described as tab mirroring from Firefox to Roku via a Nexus 4.

Furthermore, the firm has confirmed the authenticity of the photo with Engadget. In a message to the publication, Mozilla said they are conducting some experiments around second-screen support with a number of devices. However, they noted it was just at an investigation stage and added that they have nothing solid to announce at this time.

Right now, it’s not sure if Mozilla is planning to use the functionality like Google does with Chromecast. But as it looks like and as we all know, any competition in the marketplace is welcomed as it helps drive innovation and lower prices, a rivality between the Mozilla solution and Chromecast is almost possible.

Google first published Chromecast alongside Android 4.3 and the new Nexus 7 in July 2013. The USB flash drive-sized device connects to a spare HDMI port on the back of a TV and allows to push content from a smartphone, tablet or notebook directly to a television.

The $35 gadget quickly sold out and earned favorable reviews around the world wide web. Some mods soon surfaced but it would seem that Google wants to keep Chromecast under lock as evident by a software update last month that blocked local video playback support. With any luck, Mozilla’s eventual solution or something from another firm will be a bit more flexible in terms of functionality.

App store for Windows phone?

Th firm Microsoft highlighted how their multiple platforms, such as Windows and Xbox, all share bits of the same underlying kernel. At the moment, it seems there is more convergence in the horizon, since reports suggest that the company is working on a single app store for „next releases“ of Windows and Windows Phone.

According to several sources, Microsoft’s head of the operating systems group Terry Meyerson confirmed the move at a firm meeting in front of thousands of employees. Myerson didn’t reveal exactly how the single Windows Store would work initially, though the end goal seems to be clear. As it was reported, the executive said at an financial meeting “We should have one set of developer APIs on all of our devices.  And all of the apps we bring to end users should be available on all of our devices.”

The new, unified store will probably be launched at the same time as the next major update to Windows Phone — expected to debut as version 8.1 — and a special update planned for Windows 8.1. Right now, we don´t know much about the latter, however, ZDNet’s Mary Jo Foley is convinced it will come preinstalled on a Surface Mini tablet sometime next year. He added that internally it’s known as the Spring 2014 GDR (General Distribution Release).

The Windows Store is going to offer ‘Metro’ style apps for Windows 8 and RT, and though many of them will run on both x86 and ARM architectures, not all of them do right now. Then there’s Windows Phone, also designed to run on ARM processors, yet apps built for Windows Phone won’t run on Windows RT. It is possible that Microsoft might address this using a similar approach to Apple’s App Store, with tablet specific apps that don’t run on the phone, phone specific apps that scale to run on a tablet and universal apps optimized to run on both.

Foley names a couple of scenarios on how Microsoft would help developers with the cross-platform scenario — both involving Windows Azure. The first involves Microsoft compiling developers‘ apps for them in the cloud, while it is also possible that the back-end code for certain apps will run on Windows Azure and then stream to phones and PCs.

The latter is especially interesting as Microsoft recently demonstrated a beta of such a service that had Halo 4 running on a Lumia 520 Windows Phone and PC, both streaming the game from the cloud.

Drupal Commerce – an introduction

Drupal Commerce is an e-commerce framework based on Drupal. In this article I would like to give an overview and a brief introduction to the structure and the possibilities with Drupal Commerce.

Drupal Commerce and Commerce Kickstart

As a basis for shop solutions or even to try out how Drupal Commerce feels the Commerce Kickstart installation profile is available for download. Installation is as simple as a Drupal installation. During installation, it is possible to take advantage on a complete set of demo store test data that can be used to install. With the Commerce Kickstart installation you get a complete functional and preconfigured Store, which you can customize to suit your needs or use as a playground to try out. Commerce Kickstart thus consists of Drupal, the Commerce module, various Commerce contrib modules and a pre-configuration so that everything goes along well.

For existing projects, which will be expanded to a shop, you of course can not take a base installation profile. Here you have to install the Drupal Commerce module yourself. Then you configure the Commerce module as desired and extend it to commerce contrib modules until you reach the desired result. Here, the Commerce Core is kept flexible so that you can expand the shop almost at all places with private or self-written code modules.

When you install the Commerce module you should carefully observe that you meet the module dependencies. For non-compliance with the module version numbers may otherwise quickly lead to conflicts.

Google Quickoffice for free

More than 12 months after acquiring mobile documents editing suite Quickoffice, Google has decided to offer it for free, and is furthermore throwing in 10GB of Google Drive storage for the next two years to anyone who links Quickoffice to their account before Thursday, September 26. Only some days ago, the suite was restricted to Google Apps business users, or as a standalone ‘Pro’ variant priced at $15 for iOS and Android handsets and $20 for tablets.

Quickoffice makes it possible to open and edit Microsoft Office files without the need to convert them to Google Docs first. Google is likely to merge its mobile and cloud-based documents suites over time. However, there are still some compatibility limitations between the two. For instance, although you can save documents to Drive within Quickoffice, documents created with Google Docs can only be viewed and not edited.

Thus, if you need to use both suites, for now you are stuck with two separate apps for editing on mobile: Google Drive for Google’s web based documents and Quickoffice for Microsoft Office files.

Nevertheless the move of Google steps up the fight against Microsoft in the mobile front, which has also launched document editing apps for iOS and Android, but only available to Office 365 subscribers at a price of $99/year.

The old Quickoffice for Google Apps and Quickoffice Pro versions are being pulled from Google Play and Apple’s App Store and will no longer be supported after March 2014. Hence, existing users will need to switch to the new app to ensure they keep receiving updates. Besides the new price tag, the latest version also includes some new features such as the ability to create ZIP folders and view charts in PowerPoint and Excel.

Criteria of app design

Why is it important to provide an online project in form of an app  and what criteria are to be considered when designing an App?

If the connection to a specific CRM software or a geolocation-based way optimizer is needed, push notifications are planned or the application in any way must be quickly accessible via a mobile device, an app is usually unavoidable .
What is the purpose?

As an app usually serves a specific purpose, specific needs which should be chosen before the implementation of the app will be covered. In particular, the added value that the consumer receives through the app needs to be clear.
What is the target audience?

Then, it is important to define the target group of the design, the user language and of the end based communication. An exact description of the persons who are to be addressed is useful.
Which operating system is useful?

The next step involves the selection of an operating system. Whether iOS , Android, or both, the decision should be taken seriously and, if appropriate, it should be based on current user numbers.
Make or buy ?

A fundamental decision in the app creation is whether the app itself is outsourced or developed inside the company. In any case, there should be a concept for the app or specification, so time is not wasted due to unnecessary mistakes.
Where does the content come from ?

The question of the content includes a make or buy decision. Labels , texts, buttons and help screens must be drawn, whether by an editorial office or an app agency. Hence, responsibilities should be clearly defined.
How will the app look like?

As it is already difficult to take over existing layouts from the Web for an app, often independent layouts must be developed with a user friendly media infrastructure. It is important to note that the layout corresponds to the brand and product.
How are the update cycles ?

Often a conceptual or thematic development of the app is required. As these updates are to be made, they should be planned before the creation of the app.

Apple Update (9/22)

Update (9/22): During the past weekend Apple TV users have been reporting that the latest 6.0 update was bricking devices. Even though this is not happening to everyone, with many users able to successfully update and enjoy the newly added features post-upgrade, Apple has decided not to risk it anymore and pulled the update from the automated Software Update. Now, users with bricked Apple TVs will be forced to connect their devices to a PC and restore from iTunes, which is a process Apple has tried to skip altogether before.

In fact, Apple has released a software update for their Apple TV set-top box including a number of new features and services. The most popular one is iTunes Radio, the streaming music service that debuted alongside iOS 7 some days ago.

Other new features are AirPlay from iCloud, iCloud Photos and Videos which replaces Photo Stream, iTunes Music Store and conference room mode. The AirPlay from iCloud feature works quite similar to Google’s Chromecast since it allows users to utilize iOS devices to play videos from iTunes in the Cloud. So, content will be streamed directly to Apple TV rather than going through an iOS device.

iCloud Photos and Videos allow users to see media that has been added to a shared photo stream on their TV. Now, podcasts are also available via the set-top box with the ability to synchronize playlists and favorite stations between the box and other iOS devices.

iTunes Music Store support permits Apple TV owners to browse music downloads, purchase tracks and play them directly through the set-top box as well.

It can be predictet, that this isn’t the last we will be hearing about Apple TV this year since a hardware refresh is also expected in the next weeks.

Middle class loses fear of contact with ERP systems : What you need to consider when deciding for one:

In recent years, the German middle class has steadily gained confidence in ERP systems. With over 50 % at least half of all companies have a business software for everyday use. So it is not surprising that the demand for suitable tools increases step by step. The next major challenge is finding a suitable solution and the implementation project. Only here, they figure out if the right provider was chosen.
Has a medium-sized company without an IT department decided for an ERP system based on a long search, the provider usually runs through the implementation needed in order to integrate it into the company ’s IT infrastructure . Since the establishment of the software often requires good programming skills, this can be done only in rare cases by the companies themselves.

However, the establishment of projects does not always run smoothly and often lasts longer than planned even with professionals. With the additional time, transaction costs increase as well.
As the importance of IT to business success and customer satisfaction is often immense, the right choice of a supplier is an important step. So besides the performance of the software, it is necessary to obtain the customer´s opinions on the projects and to compare them. Smaller web agencies that specifically focus on implementation and adaptation are often characterized by diligence and competence. But most remarkable are agencies that offer their browser-based software that enables its customers to get clear insight and independence in the project are recommendable. Along, the customization is often very moderate and of short duration, from a financial point of view. Transparency and customer contact are at the forefront and are often taken more seriously than in large IT-companies, where one customer often does not matter significantly.
That no additional consultants must be contacted and the desired decrease of workload does not turn into a lengthy and costly labor increase, it is useful to consider these aspects in the choice of software and to put much emphasis on the proper selection of the provider.