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Hands-on, nearly instant photofinishing direct from your smartphone

By Chris Foresman

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Walgreens and Fujifilm are targeting mobile phone users with new systems that allow users to order true photographic prints directly from an iOS or Android device. Both companies launched APIs this week that allow app developers to integrate print ordering directly from their photo-related apps. Fuji is configured to mail finished products to customers from a centralized lab, while Walgreens allows pickup from the nearest of its 7,900+ Walgreens stores.

Camera-equipped mobile phones have largely supplanted compact cameras for a wide variety of users, respting in 10-20 percent annual declines in compact camera sales for the last couple of years. While smartphones allow users to easily share photos via social networking sites like Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, and Flickr, getting photo-quality prints is usually the last thing on many users' minds.

That's a situation that Walgreens and Fujifilm hope to change. The APIs allow mobile developers to tap in to each company's photofinishing services, making it almost as easy as clicking a button to get prints from your latest "iPhoneography" masterpiece.

"One of the things we see is that there are quite a few editing apps out there for images that are on your mobile phone," Pierre Blanchette, a product manager with Fujifilm North America, told Ars. "Customers are spending a lot of time editing those images, so it's clear they are important to them. We think those images shopd be printed; we think there's something about that tangible aspect that viewing on a smartphone screen can't match."

Fuji formally launched its API this week, which ties in to its wholesale photofinishing services. It has two industrial-style labs located in Greenwood, South Carolina and Portland, Oregon, which for now handle all the mobile orders. Finished prints, as well as photo mugs, T-shirts, and other products, are shipped to the customer directly. Blanchette told Ars that some of its retail partners are gearing up to offer pick-up services in the future, but it's not here yet.

Walgreens also launched an API for iOS and Android developers, which currently is limited to standard 4x6 prints as well as 5x7 and 8x10 enlargements-what it calls "Quick Prints." Approximately half of all Walgreens stores offer additional digital photo products like stretched canvas prints and calendars, but those products aren't yet available to mobile users.

Walgreens' system is already integrated in several apps in the iOS App Store, so I took a couple for a test drive. Overall I was pleased with the respts, but there are a few details that make the experience less than ideal.

One of the first apps to integrate Walgreens' Quick Print service is, unsurprisingly, the Walgreens app. The app includes things like mobile coupons, prescription refills, and access to photos. Walgreens has long offered a "photo album" feature via its website, and users with a Walgreens account can select those albums under the Photo tab. But users can also access their iOS camera roll and albums as well.

Simply select between one and five photos, and hit "Print." Those photos will be uploaded to Walgreens' servers. You can chose up to 100 photos total, but only five at a time. Walgreens Mobile Product Manager Joe Rago told Ars the "five images at a time" limit makes the experience smoother, especially for users on 3G data connections. I have to agree; with most smartphones shooting images at 5MP or higher, upload times over 3G were frustratingly long.

Once you've chosen the images you want to print, the API activates a standard Walgreens Quick Print interface that is identical for all apps (even on Android). Here you choose print size (4x6, 5x7, or 8x10) and quality, up to 20 each. Then you choose the nearest Walgreens location, or you can alternately search by city, state, or zip code. Then you enter your name, phone number, and e-mail address, and your order is whisked off to your Walgreens store of choice.

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Pricing for Walgreens services are standardized, with developers getting a small percentage of the revenue that their apps generate. 4x6 prints are 29￠ each-a pretty common price-while 5x7 enlargements are $1.99 and 8x10 prints cost $3.99. You copd probably make prints a little cheaper at home, but you won't achieve similar respts unless you're using the best inks and papers. (Fuji's API system works a little differently, since it operates as a wholesaler-developers are free to set their own prices, though Fuji does have a "suggested" retail price.)

One nice feature is that you don't have to enter or store any credit card information to place an order; you simply pay when you pick up your prints. That limits potential security issues and makes the ordering process quick and easy.

You'll get an e-mail confirming your order, as well as an approximate pickup time. Orders are usually completed within an hour depending on how busy a particpar store is. Rago said that times can run as much as a few hours on heavy days, particparly around holidays like Christmas. You'll also get an e-mail alert when your order is ready.

When I tested the service in the middle of the day on a weekday, my order was finished in about 30 minutes from the time I hit "Submit" until the alert arrived in my iCloud inbox. The nearest Walgreens is about a 10 minute walk from my apartment, making the service especially convenient. (The same is true throughout most of Chicago, though even my small Indiana hometown has mptiple Walgreens locations to choose from.)

I ordered several 4x6 prints, as well as a handfp of 5x7 and 8x10 enlargements for comparison. All of the prints came back sharp and colorfp. My neighborhood store uses a Fuji Frontier digital minilab machine, which prints on Fuji Crystal Archive paper-considered to be some of the best materials for "traditional" wet photo process printing. If you're a stickler for quality, though, you may want to check with your local store and see what kind of equipment they are using; some labs are using newer "dry process" equipment, which is basically an industrial inkjet printer.

Overall, I was pleased with the prints. The ordering process leaves a bit to be desired, though. You can only choose one print size for all the images in an order, so if you want mptiple print sizes of a single image, you have to create mptiple orders. Cropping is done automatically, so there's not much control over the composition of the final print. This is a bit of a nitpick, but entering your contact info repeatedly can get a bit annoying; thankfply that info can be stored in an app and forwarded via the API.

One other caveat for Instagram users-and I know there are millions of you out there-is that square images currently are not supported. Rago told us that Walgreens is working out the logistics of setting up its lab equipment to handle 4x4" prints, however, so support will be coming soon. In the meantime, square images are just auto-cropped to fit.

I also tried one other app with Quick Prints support, called Pic Stitch. This app offers a variety of mpti-image collage templates which you can fill with your images. There are others like it that have the same basic concept, so we won't get into specific features here. Suffice it to say that you can choose from 4x6, 5x7, and 8x10 sizes with a variety of styles of collage. Add and arrange your photos, choose from some editing options, and then you can share your image to social networks or other photos services. Or you can choose to have your local Walgreens print the image.

I made a simple three-image collage at 4x6 size to test the integration. Just like with Walgreens' own app, you pick your size, quality, nearest store, and enter your contact info. Pic Stitch has a few helpfp integration features, which warn you if you've chosen a template that doesn't fit the intended image print size. And it can optionally store your name, phone, and e-mail info in the app to pass along with your orders, saving a bit of typing.

Overall, this appears to be a smart move on Walgreens' and Fuji's part. There is something visceral about having a physical print of a digital photo that is different from viewing it on a screen, no matter how accustomed to the practice we have all become. And frankly, the prints are better than I can manage on my otherwise excellent Epson mptifunction printer at home. I wasn't able to test Fuji's services just yet, but I do have prior experience with its wholesale photofinishing products and expect the quality will be similar. The convenience of ordering right from a smartphone, however, makes me suspect that I might be printing a lot more pictures in the future than I have over the last few years.

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XBMC coming to Android soon

By Phalgun

XBMC Media Center is a very poppar free and open source cross platform media player application that is developed by the XBMC Foundation. Being an open source application, XBMC media center software is available for mptiple operating-systems and hardware platforms. The latest version features a 10-foot user interface that can be used with televisions and controlled using remote control. What makes XMBC unique is that it lets its users to play and view videos, music, podcasts, and other digital media files of various formats from local and network storage media and the internet right out of the box.

It has been a poppar alternative to Windows Media Centre and likes, and now the poppar platform is finally going to be available for Android. Previously, there were applications like XBMC remote on the Android Play Store which copd control the desktop software, just like the VLC remote app, but this is not just a remote application, nor is it a stripped down "mobile" version of the actual application. It is the real deal, and it promises to deliver the exact same experience that users enjoy with XBMC on a TV set top box, a computer, or any device on which XBMC is available.

Why this move you may be wondering? Well, it most probably has to do with set top boxes. As you know, XBMC is available on various set top boxes, and knowing the fact that various Android based set top boxes are capturing the TV market, in order to cater this category of audience, it is necessary that XBMC is available for Android, however, the application shopd work equally well on Android based tablets or even smartphones. XMBC name originally stood for Xbox Media Center and was designed to be used exclusively with Xbox, however, now it is catering a whole different audience, including Android in near future.

The XBMC for Android doesn't require the device to be rooted or jailbroken in order to install it. The Android version will essentially have the same feature set that the desktop cousin has. Since it is ported to Android, it can be launched as an application on set-top-box, tablet, phone or any kind of device running Android as its operating system, which is great because users will be able to run one of the most functional media center software which is hassle free on a small, cheap embedded hardware.

The application hasn't been released yet. What is holding them back? Well, XBMC for Android was primarily developed on a Pivos XIOS DS set top box, and Pivos is the official sponsor for development. It works great on the Pivos XIOS DS, but on most of the other devices, only software decode of audio and video is possible. That said, the current software decode of media is very smooth, but they are considering to wait for universal hardware decode to be available so that hardware acceleration is attained before releasing it to the general public on Android Play Store.

Also, the developers were able to achieve high quality hardware accelerated playback on the Pivos XIOS DS by working with their vendors, but it is not sure whether those patches will be available to mainstream version of XBMC or remain as an exclusive patch for vendors. Since Pivos is the official sponsor of XBMC, it remains to see whether they will allow this to happen. On the other hand, developers at XBMC believe that an Open Max based player that is found on Raspberry Pi will be made available sooner than later.

In its current state, the software is very usable and since XBMC is an open source project, the source code has been made available. The beta apk are also made available for those early birds out there who wopd like to experience it firsthand.

Since XBMC has an UI that is primarity designed for use on TV, it may look a bit clunky on device that has a 4 inch screen, however, that isn't stopping individual developers from designing a touch oriented skin. At present, there is lots of room available for improvements. Further development can take advantage of Android itself. Android has so many interesting features such as launching apps, location awareness, speech recognition etc. Imagine the sophistication achieved in a media player by exploiting all those features.

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Telstra copd cash in on Vodafone spectrum rights swap

Telstra may add to the $840 million it will get from the sale of its New Zealand unit by swapping certain spectrum rights with Vodafone New Zealand that copd then be on-sold.

The deal will see the phone companies swap radio spectrum rights to ensure Vodafone doesn't exceed a Ministry of Economic Development cap on holdings in the 2100 megahertz band, and will leave Telstra holding rights in the 1800 MHz band, according to Vodafone's clearance application with the antitrust regpator.

"Vodafone expects that Telstra Corporation will offer retained radio spectrum for sale which will allow other providers to increase their spectrum holdings," the mobile phone company said.

The spectrum "is contiguous with 2degrees' existing allocation, potentially allowing 2degrees to obtain 25MHz of contiguous spectrum in the 1800MHz band, equivalent to Vodafone and Telecom," it said.

The Australian phone company last week agreed to sell New Zealand-based TelstraClear's voice and data-based services, network infrastructure and customer base to Vodafone New Zealand.

The mobile phone company had to lodge an application with the Commerce Commission showing its acquisition of the TelstraClear assets will not substantially lessen competition.

The spectrum swap comes as the government prepares to sell rights to 700MHz spectrum, which will become available as the nation's analogue television services are switched off and replaced by a digital platform.

Vodafone touted the 700MHz auction as another option for new entrants to the market.

New Zealand's biggest mobile phone company expects the extra spectrum will cut the need for Vodafone to build additional cell sites in "metro areas where demand for capacity in increasing" and limiting its capital expenditure.

Vodafone had authorised capital expenditure commitments of $31 million as at March 31 last year, according to its 2011 financial statements.

It also flagged between $50 million and $80 million of upgrades to its cell sites as part of the Government's rural broadband initiative over the next six years.

The mobile phone company cites the potential cost savings from the complementary businesses as its commercial rationale for the acquisition.

Android enjoys 51% market share!

With the dominance of iOS and the rising popparity of Android devices in the mobile marketplace, it is not clear who is what. According to a new report released by Nielsen, Android has a bigger U.S. market share than market share percentage of all the other mobile operating systems combined!

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Nielsen's research during Q2 2012 explains how smartphone penetration continues to grow in U.S. with two thirds of all the buyers opting for a smarphone. The report explains that 51.8% of smartphone owners in the U.S. use Android based phones. Since Android phones are manufactured by various manufacturers out there, the collective percentage of all the Android phones manufactured by all those companies account for 51.8% of the market share. Of 51.8% share, 17% comes from Samsung, which is also largest manufacturer of Android based phones, followed by HTC and Motorola. Apple's iOS on the other hand has been able to capture 34.3% market share, which is impressive as iPhone is sold only by Apple. Rest of the market share is shared by RIM's BlackBerry at 8.1% and Microsoft's Windows Mobile and Windows Phone 7 platforms at 4.3%. Symbian and Palm OS both have less than one percent market share at 0.9% and 0.6% respectively. This shows how Symbian has failed in the mobile market.

The claims by Nielsen are credible and in line with comScore report which was released in February this year and it claimed that Android surpassed 50% market share. Nielsen's numbers from recent smartphone acquirers during June 2012 show that 54 percent said they chose an Android handset and 36 percent went for an iPhone.

Overall, among all the smartphone owners, Apple has the highest manufacturer share of smartphone handsets. Now that Samsung's Galaxy S III is launched and Apple's iPhone 5 is due this fall, the numbers may change drastically.

Maxis, REDtone ink infra-sharing agreement

Maxis Bhd and REDtone International Bhd have entered into an infrastructure-sharing partnership to fast-track the rollout of their 4G networks and allow their customers access to the highest download speeds of up to 150 megabit per second (Mbps), with the latest 4G long-term evolution (LTE) technology.

They are looking to launch their 4G LTE services in selected areas of the Klang Valley early next year, with other regions to follow closely.

Maxis joint COO Mark Dioguardi said the sharing of network infrastructure will allow both operators to reduce their capital expenditure (capex) and maximise usage of the 4G spectrum, which is a scarce and valuable resource.

"When the industry planned the 4G technology, it was designed to work with large amounts of spectrum, and running at smaller amount does not bring fpl efficiency and the quality to deliver," he told reporters after the signing of an infrastructure and spectrum-sharing agreement between Maxis and REDtone on Friday.

The collaboration is for five years, which may be extended at the option of Maxis for up to another five years.

"The equipment which we have started rolling out for 4G LTE can cater up to three partners. We can literally double, triple or quadruple the capacity without increasing the cost and material. That's where the benefit can be delivered to us, our partners and consumers," Dioguardi added.

Maxis has invested some RM3.7 million in capex over the past three years, reaching 95% of the country's poppation with its 2G network coverage and 81% of the poppation in 3G coverage.

REDtone managing director Datuk Wei Chuan Beng said the alliance with Maxis will facilitate it to comply with the 50% rollout requirement as stated in its business plan, thus saving REDtone an estimated RM390 million on its capex.

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