Wednesday, September 18, 2013

Apple : Google wants to toss stale web cookies, replace with its own ad tracker

Apple : Google wants to toss stale web cookies, replace with its own ad tracker

Google wants to toss stale web cookies, replace with its own ad tracker

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Google wants to toss stale web cookies, replace with its own ad tracker

Cookies have long been used to identify internet users and direct relevant advertising to their computer, but Google apparently believes that method has become as stale as the baked goods that bear their namesake.

USA Today reported Tuesday that search giant Google may be planning to ditch web browser cookies in favor of its own anonymous identifier for advertising, or AdID.

According to the unnamed, loose-lipped source who tipped off the newspaper, AdID would effectively replace the traditional method companies like Google use to present web advertising to consumers, while offering them more anonymity at the same time.

Although Google has not made such plans public, they certainly have good reason for spearheading the effort - after all, roughly a third of the company's worldwide revenue is generated from advertising.

Cookie monster

While most internet users are at least familiar with the term "cookie," few probably realize what it actually is: A tiny bit of text containing an identification tag, which is passed from the browser to websites that communicate with it.

In their purest form, cookies identify consumers to the website they visit - such as e-tailers remembering web logins upon subsequent visits - but they can also be used for more nefarious deeds.

Last year, Google settled a case with the Federal Trade Commission over accusations it had its own hand in the virtual cookie jar of Apple Safari users, which resulted in a $22.5 million (about UK£15.52M, AU$26.3M) "civil penalty" settlement.

Google declined to comment specifically on any potential plans for AdID beyond recognizing that "we and others have a number of concepts in this area, but they're all at very early stages."

  • Apple's iOS 7 is here - and so is the full TechRadar review!

Updated: iTunes Radio release date, news and features

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Updated: iTunes Radio release date, news and features

Apple's foray into the music streaming arena has been a long time coming and today it finally launched iTunes Radio at its WWDC 2013 keynote.

The iTunes Radio release date is set for September 18 alongside iOS 7.

But with the software not set to launch in the US until fall and the rest of the world soon after, will it be too little too late for the tech giant to take on the already bedded in likes of Spotify, Pandora and Rdio?

We take a look at what Apple's iTunes Radio streaming service has going for it:

YouTube : http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QcY-e8jxDpM

iRadio by any other name

Happily, Apple rejected the name 'iRadio' that had been bandied about by the internet for so many months before the WWDC unveil.

There were so many reasons why Apple should have shunned the name iRadio. For starters, it's ugly and inelegant and those are two qualities Apple does not go for.

Secondly, multiple trademarks already exist on the name iRadio - there's a music service in Ireland, for example, and an old four-star Wi-Fi radio bearing the name.

Thirdly, the word 'radio' smacks of old tech - and with Apple reportedly ditching skeumorphism in its iOS 7 update, we thought it might do away with such out-dated premises in its music streaming service - obviously a swing and a miss on that one.

Finally, iRadio is a name that the media collectively coined for ease of referring to whatever it is Apple has up its sleeve - and we know from the 'new iPad' debacle that Apple won't be led by the media when it comes to naming conventions.

There's a free, iAd-funded version

Just as an advertising trade mag reported, Apple is looking to use its iAds platform to deliver targeted audio ads to non-premium iTunes iRadio users.

The same trade rag revealed in August that the iTunes Radio service will force ads on you from all angles: audio, video and full-screen display ads.

The audio segments will run every 15 minutes, Ad Age says, while video ads hit every hour (but only when you're looking at the screen).

All iTunes users will be able to access iTunes iRadio for free but if you want to ditch the ads, then you'll have to subscribe to iTunes Match.

You can buy music

Of course, Apple's streaming product ties in with iTunes, giving users a barrier-free way to buy songs they've streamed. The 'buy' button prevails on all songs played through iTunes Radio.

One patent points to the possibility that you'll even be able to load up credit and buy cached songs without even having an internet connection - no official word on that from Apple yet, though.

The iRadio release date is September 18

At its September iPhone 5C and iPhone 5S launch event, Apple confirmed that iOS 7 would launch on September 18, with iTunes Radio on board.

Although Apple to unveiled the service to devs at WWDC 2013, it won't launch to consumers until 'fall' which is when we'll also see iOS 7 hit our iPhones.

Ad Age, the main source of iTunes Radio chat in the intervening months, says it will hit in September - a theory backed up by word that Apple began training AppleCare staff on the service in August.

...but only in the US

But that fall release date (or autumn, if you prefer) only applies to those in the US - the rest of the world is still awaiting a vague release date which will follow the American launch.

What did we see in our technological crystal ball ahead of the iTunes Radio reveal? Check out the rumours below:

Music labels are on board

This is all speculation, of course, but several separate sources have claimed that the big three record labels - Sony, Universal and Warner - have all signed on to Apple's upcoming streaming service.

After literally years of negotiations (depending on who you believe), Universal was supposedly the first to crack, with Warner not far behind. Sony was a tougher nut to crack, however - perhaps mindful of its own streaming ambitions - but got on board at the eleventh hour.

Details of the deals are pretty much non-existent at this point, although an aging rumour suggests that Apple is looking to pay out more to rights holders than its major US rival Pandora.

It's kind of delayed

Apple is lagging well behind the competition in the music streaming arena. It's been five years since Spotify took streaming main(ahem)stream and although Apple's managed to retire Ping and bust out iTunes Match in that time, it hasn't really made it into streaming.

That's despite rumours of the service circling for at least a year - the reasons for the hold up are supposedly down to rights holders trying to hardball for a better deal, rather than any technological issues. But worth remembering that this is all speculation and you can't believe everything you read.

Meanwhile, arch-nemesis Google has managed to get in on the action - something that will have the folk over at Cupertino really het up.

Genius is iRadio's not-so-secret secret weapon

Genius, which runs in the background of your iTunes account working out what you're into so it can offer relevant recommendations, is what could set iRadio apart from Spotify and Pandora, which rely far more heavily on social integration and third-party apps to help you find new music to stream and (hopefully, eventually) buy.

For a roundup of the biggest WWDC 2013 keynote highlights, check out the video below:

FutTv : zbPOPT74ZBezm

Exclusive: 'Walking away from Apple helped make it great,' says Atari founder

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Exclusive: 'Walking away from Apple helped make it great,' says Atari founder

He may have famously turned down the chance to buy a third of Apple from Steve Jobs for $50,000, but Atari founder Nolan Bushnell has told TechRadar he still feels he played a role in the company's eventual success.

Bushnell, speaking at the O2 Campus Party, told us that his decision not to invest was based on how busy he was with another of his projects - Chuck-E-Cheese restaurants - but that he did help a young Jobs in a more indirect fashion.

"I'm still an Apple fan and you know I think that hindsight is 20/20," he said when we asked him about his decision to say no and the forthcoming Apple iPhone 5S launch.

"I can go through a thread very easily which, by me turning Steve down led to me introducing him to Don Valentine and he introduced him to Mike Markkula who is as responsible for Apple's success as Steve Woz[niak] and Jobs.

"Markkula really was the adult supervision that mentored Steve and had him grow up. I think if I had put the money in, Markkula would never have shown up and it would have been different."

Hard cheese

So why did Bushnell make the decision not to buy into a company that was racing to develop an early personal computer?

"I was so busy with Chuck-E-Cheese at the time that I couldn't have thrown my lot in with them," he added.

"When I sold Atari, I'd been working on my own personal computer the Atari 800, but the 2600 was going so fast that we couldn't divert our resources."
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