Google’s Chrome browser is assumed to be coming for Apple’s iPhone, iPad and iPod touch devices by at least one analyst group. On Tuesday, Macquarie (USA) Equities Research released a lengthy note explaining what this would mean for both companies, suggesting it could reduce the amount of money Google pays to Apple for the use of Google searches in the native iOS Safari browser. Given the growth of iOS devices sales and usage, the reduction in such payments could be meaningful says Macquarie, if users transition from Safari to Chrome on iOS.

While the analysis of such an outcome makes sense, there’s a key problem that history has already proven true: Odds of a third-party browser on iOS becoming a major success are very limited at best.

Why? Because although Apple now allows such browsers — it originally didn’t — none of them can be set as the default browser, meaning all links in emails, texts or other apps will always open in Safari, regardless of what other browsers are installed. That’s a big usability barrier that gives Safari a competitive advantage on iOS, no matter how great Chrome is. Ironically, Google (as well as Mozilla) are grumbling about Microsoft giving its own Internet Explorer an advantage on Windows 8 as well.

Macquarie’s note suggests that Chrome for iOS will get approved this quarter and is likely to have such limitations. I can’t speak to the timing, but I have zero doubt that the current default browser limitation will apply to a version of Chrome on Apple devices, just as it does with Dolphin HD, Opera and others.

Apple has always had full control of its smartphones and tablets; it’s one of the platforms selling points and there’s simply no reason to think that’s going to change. And while Chrome for Android can sync bookmarks with its desktop counterpart, so too can Safari between its mobile and desktop versions. The mobile version of Chrome now shows open desktop tabs as well, but there’s no reason Apple can’t add such functionality through its iCloud service.

Much of Macquarie’s analysis hinges on the believe that mobile browser wars are beginning, and there’s nothing wrong with that. But the expectation that Google will gain a large benefit from releasing Chrome on iOS is based on how Google has done in the desktop browser wars and that’s a huge mistake in my opinion. The desktop paradigm is decades old, and to assume the mobile market will simply follow the same path is an error in judgment. Chrome for iOS may indeed appear and some few will use it, but Google isn’t likely to gain much. Instead, users are best poised to get a benefit as some of the better features in Chrome could find their way in future versions of mobile Safari.

Thumbnail image courtesy of MyDroidWorld

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JON KRAWCZYNSKI, AP Sports Writer

The Metrodome always felt like a rental property for Zygi and Mark Wilf, two New Jersey real estate developers who purchased the Vikings in 2005 with the hopes of moving out of the place as quickly as possible.

Now the Wilf brothers will have a home of their own, hopefully by the 2016 season.

One day after winning their seven-year fight for a new stadium, the Vikings owners started to lay out their vision for the $975 million project they hope will serve as a recruiting tool for free agents for decades.

They appear to be leaning toward footing the bill for a retractable roof, which could help them bring a Major League Soccer franchise to Minnesota. They also see a stadium and plaza with cutting-edge technology and lots of open spaces for fans to congregate.

“We’re going to try to get the maximum number of features within the budgets that we can make this a facility that is going to be exciting to the fans,” Mark Wilf said Friday. “We know it’s a competitive landscape to attract our fans to the facility and we’re going to want to make it something special. To the extent that (a retractable roof) can get there, we’re going to try to do it.”

The Vikings and the NFL are contributing $477 million toward the project, with $348 million coming from the state and $150 million from Minneapolis. If the Wilfs want a retractable roof, they will have to fork over even more money. State lawmakers put a provision in the bill that allows for a retractable roof, but the Vikings would have to pay the extra cost.

The price tag of such a feature isn’t immediately known because the architects have yet to be hired, but Zygi Wilf has long been keen on the idea of an open-air stadium like his beloved New York Giants had in the Meadowlands when he was younger.

“If it’s snowing very, very hard, we’ll open up the roof,” Zygi Wilf quipped.

When asked if that meant a roof was definitely in the plans, Wilf backed off, saying he wasn’t sure yet. The plans are in their infant stages, with just a few artist renderings shown to the public that could change dramatically over the next eight to 12 months of the design phase. The most recent depiction shows a circular stadium with a huge plaza and green space.

The Wilfs visited every new stadium in the league, from Lucas Oil Stadium in Indianapolis to new football palaces in New Jersey and Dallas to research ideas for their own venue.

“Public spaces to us seem a very exciting place to gather,” Mark Wilf said. “Whether it’s the plaza outside, you hear about the Lucas Oil Stadium, the way they have the large areas where people can gather, wide concourses, clubs. We want to really enhance the ability for people to come together.”

It will be the first time in the Vikings’ 51-year franchise history that they will have a place of their own. They shared Metropolitan Stadium with the Twins for 21 seasons, then shared the Metrodome with the Twins and University of Minnesota football team for most of the past three decades.

“We want to get people out of their homes and come to the stadium and enjoy that,” Zygi Wilf said. “The features that we have there will evolve. As much as we’ve seen other stadiums, this will be our own. This will be a Minnesota Vikings stadium on its own. It will have its own footprint and own features that will be different from others.”

Sightlines in the stadium and proximity to the field will be a priority. One of the Metrodome’s endearing qualities is the noise level that the fans generate, ear-splitting volume that gives the Vikings one of the better home-field advantages in the league. The Wilfs want to recreate that atmosphere as much as possible.

“It’s very important that fans feel they’re not watching it from a blimp, that they’re watching it from close to the field,” Zygi Wilf said. “That’s very, very important. We underestimate that when we go to other stadiums, the fan experience, sit in those seats and see how it would be, and a lot of stadiums don’t have the closeness as we’re trying to get here.”

The Wilfs declined to put a number on the revenue that is expected to be generated from the new stadium and also said they weren’t ready to discuss nearby commercial development just yet. Mark Wilf said they are considering personal seat licenses as a form of generating more revenue, but have not made a decision.

They did object to depictions that the $477 million Vikings share was overstated. Critics have said the Wilfs are putting little of their own money in, relying primarily on a $200 million loan from the NFL and revenue from stadium naming rights and other related business to foot their portion of the bill.

“The reality is, whatever sources or ways we go about putting together the private investment, we’re at risk for the investment,” Mark Wilf said. “From that standpoint, it’s something that should not be forgotten.”

The stadium is scheduled to be ready for the 2016 season, and the Vikings are hopeful of bringing a Super Bowl here as early as 2017. Mark Wilf said they hope to only need to play one season at the university’s TCF Bank Stadium, “but it very well may be two.”

The stability the stadium provides should help the team attract big-name free agents, Zygi Wilf said.

“When a guy comes to a team, the traditions from an ownership standpoint and fan experience, it’s very, very important to come here and know that you can raise a family here in a way that you don’t have to worry about the future, that you have the support of alumni,” he said. “That also has the ability to attract and I think that will be the best competitive advantage that we can have from this.”

View full post on NFL Gridiron Gab

LG revealed two Google-loaded TVs at CES, but never gave us prices or told us when these LED models might dangle their skinny bezels in stores. In briefings at Google last week, we heard that the 47-incher (47G2) and 55-incher (55G2) would sell for $1699 and $2299 respectively — although Amazon already has them listed significantly cheaper than that. Now, to complete the jigsaw, Reuters has quoted LG exec Ro Seogho as saying that these Google TVs will ship in the US from May 21st. In the meantime, check out our hands-on from Las Vegas, because that new QWERTY-equipped Magic Motion remote is especially enticing.

LG’s Google TV-enabled sets coming to US end of May originally appeared on Engadget on Mon, 07 May 2012 03:03:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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With the explosion of e-books lately, there is increasing dialogue about the emergence of books that users can interact with. There’s an entire new class of digital books that contain links to websites, have embedded videos and dynamic content, and all sorts of other things that take advantage of the fact that these books are being presented on a digital device.

But long before there were books powered by high-end semiconductors and advanced software, publishing pioneers were introducing the idea of interactive tomes decades and decades ago. They were called “Choose Your Own Adventure” books, and if you’re too young to know what that means, then good news – the classic text-based adventures are coming to the iBookstore.

Now of course, it will be impossible to get the same experience as flipping through dozens of pages to find the next chapter in your adventure. Nevertheless, the dynamic nature of the story will be fully replicated, with readers able to click on the path they want to choose and be directed right to the correct page. It’s really cool to see these old-school dynamic adventures being remade in the digital age.

[via Wired]

Choose Your Own Adventure books coming to iPad is written by Mark Raby & originally posted on SlashGear.
© 2005 – 2012, SlashGear. All right reserved.

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Jarrett Bell – USA TODAY

Discipline for Saints players stemming from the team’s bounty scandal is still high on Roger Goodell’s to-do list, but the NFL commissioner said Tuesday that there is more fact-gathering to be done before finalizing any decisions.

The investigation in advance of the anticipated penalties has dragged on for weeks, while the NFL Players Association asserts that the league doesn’t have enough evidence to punish players.

“I hope to reach those decisions very soon,” Goodell said during an interview for The Rich Eisen Podcast on the league-owned NFL Network. “We have been continuing our work. We have continued to talk to players and to other people that can give us a perspective. Once we have got all the information and we feel that we are in a position to be able to issue the fairest and most thorough types of decisions, we will do that.

“I expect to do that soon because this is a big element to me. This is player-on-player, and what we want to do is make sure that people understand that there needs to be respect for players that play the game and that needs to start with players against players.”

It is unclear how many players will receive discipline, and to what extent. When the NFL announced findings from its investigation in early March, it maintained that between 22 and 27 players were involved.

The number of players who could be disciplined is expected to be significantly fewer, a person with knowledge of the process recently told USA TODAY Sports.

Goodell suspended former Saints defensive coordinator Gregg Williams indefinitely for his lead role in the bounty program. Williams, who moved on to a similar job this year with the St. Louis Rams, has admitted guilt. Saints coach Sean Payton, meanwhile, began a season-long suspension on April 16, while GM Mickey Loomis and interim coach Joe Vitt will begin suspensions of eight and six games, respectively, in September.

During the NFL owners meetings last month, Goodell said that he wouldn’t finalize player discipline until conferring with the players union. Since then, the sides have had multiple discussions, but the NFLPA has stated that the league hasn’t provided sufficient evidence that warrants suspending players.

Goodell contends otherwise, while also dismissing the argument that player involvement in attempts to injure opponents was merely the result of following directives from Williams.

“I don’t buy that,” Goodell told Eisen. “The evidence is quite clear that the players embraced this. They enthusiastically embraced it. They put the vast majority of the money into the program, and they are actually the ones playing the game. They are on the field, so I don’t think they are absolved from any responsibility because of that.

“I think everyone bears responsibility here. We have held the executives and the coaches to a higher standard, but the players need to recognize, they need to make sure that this is not happening either, and that was the whole point that I made with the Players Association.

“I am not necessarily looking for their recommendation on discipline,” Goodell added of the union. “I am looking for their recommendation on what we do to continue to make our game safer and to get this type of activity out of the game and get back to the point where we have respect for each other and the game itself.”

View full post on NFL Gridiron Gab

New York (CNN) – Don’t look now, but the phone hacking scandal that shuttered the British tabloid “News of the World” and cost James Murdoch his job at BSkyB is about to hit stateside – at least if Mark Lewis has his way.

The UK lawyer who represents alleged victims of phone hacking, including the family of murdered teenager Milly Dowler, is in New York this week meeting with lawyers and exploring legal options against parent company News Corp.

Lewis, who represents three to four people – one believed to be an American citizen and one person from the world of sport – says his clients phones were hacked while they were on U.S soil.  The incidents are linked to alleged hacking that took place at the “News of the World,” but when I sat down with Lewis in New York, he was quite clear he believes the problem is much more widespread.

“It's a systemic problem that is really coming from the extent of ownership by one company – power corrupts and absolute power corrupts absolutely,” Lewis said. “When you have a very wide media ownership, it moves onto the fact that it has power and it can look at that power and use that power perhaps wrongly.”

Lewis was careful to say he does not have any hard evidence right now that phone hacking occurred at any other News Corp. publication, but he believes this new round of legal action may in fact uncover more wrongdoing.

“It seems uncanny that you would say the only detectives were this one in America and Glenn Mulcaire (in the UK) and News of the World was the only newspaper.  If one house gets burgled and one burglar gets caught that doesn’t mean he is the only burglar, it just means he is the only burglar that got caught.”

Lewis’ plan to move forward with legal action is being watched closely by investors. To date, stock owners have largely stood by the company, believing that the phone hacking problems were isolated to the UK.  If any evidence turns up that it happened at the media conglomerate’s U.S. outlets, it would be a game changer.

News Corp. would not comment for this story.  Critics say Lewis is pursuing a case in the U.S. to tap the deeper pockets of parent company News Corp., which is based here.  But Lewis says this is about something more.

“This is not about an individual.  It is also not about money for people.  For the most part the people who instruct me, they want to know the truth. They want to find out what happened.”

News Corp. has paid out millions of dollars in settlements to phone hacking victims, including a reported $4 million to the Dowler family.  But pursuing the media giant has also come with costs for Mark Lewis. At the height of the UK investigation, he says reporters from “News of the World” put him and his family under surveillance.  Lewis was fired from at least one law firm and turned down for jobs at others, he said.

I asked if he was afraid of the consequences of pushing this legal battle to on to U.S. soil.

“My job as a lawyer is to stand up for the client and therefore I am not scared of Murdoch.  That is what you do, you stand up, you tell the truth and you hope not to take a personal risk, but sometimes you have to,” he said.

Though I have been swapping emails with Lewis for months, this is the first time I met him in person.  He is unusually frank for a lawyer.  He has overcome a lot of obstacles, fought hard to get where he is and still has an outsider’s edge.  In a strange way I think he and Murdoch would get along quite well if they met under different circumstances.

View full post on Business 360

Meizu has officially announced the quad-core version of the company’s flagship smartphone.  Called the Meizu MX Quad-Core, the handset will be the first in the market using the Exynos A9 CPU.
While there’s no word on clock speed, it’s likely Meizu is using the 1.5GHz Exynos 4412 chip, making this one seriously powerful machine.  Despite the [...]

View full post on Latest Cell Phones, iPhone Apps, Android Apps, News & Reviews – Phone Blog

It appears that either Barnes & Noble played a very low-key April Fool’s joke on unsuspecting NOOK lovers this week, or they’re bringing a NOOK Audio device to the market very soon. What we’re seeing today is a NOOK Audio model number OE250 page on Barnes & Noble thanks to intrepid searchers at The Digital Reader where they also note that the company filed for a trademark for that name all the way back in February (last month.) Will Barnes & Noble be releasing an MP3 player soon?

This product may well also just be an addition to the already released NOOK Touch and/or NOOK Color e-readers. These units do not have speakers currently in them, so this product could very well just be a dock or a pair of headphones. The NOOK Color already has products made by 3rd party developers along these lines, but Barnes & Noble could be bringing the heat themselves this time.

Meanwhile the NOOK line has survived over a year in an otherwise wild and crazy Android-based world, and Barnes & Noble is keeping a candle lit for the whole line through the future. For those of you looking to purchase a NOOK Color or NOOK Touch, we’ve got hands-on time and reviews of both if you’d like to take a look. Head to the timeline below and see!

[via The Digital Reader]

NOOK Audio coming from Barnes and Noble soon is written by Chris Burns & originally posted on SlashGear.
© 2005 – 2012, SlashGear. All right reserved.

View full post on SlashGear

If the Apple rumor machine is to be believed then we might soon see a lighter, skinnier and bigger brother of the current Macbook Airs in the market. A report from CPU Central, a blog covering computer processors, points to the April 8 launch of a new range of chipsets from Intel followed by the end-of-April launch of Ivy Bridge processors, which points to a new Macbook Pro.

CPU Central:

On April 8 Intel will announce Z77, Z75, H77 and B75 chipsets. On the same day we should see numerous reviews of 75 and 77 boards with, well, Sandy Bridge CPUs. Ivy Bridge processors will be announced in the 4th week of April, between April 22 and April 28. The announcement will include only quad-core models: mobile Core i7 and Core i7 Extreme families, desktop Core i7, Core i5-3570K, i5-3570T, i5-3550, i5-3550S, i5-3450 and i5-3450S. The announced chips will be available for sale on April 29.

What does this all mean? An iMac upgrade? Sure, why not. But my best guess is that sometime in early summer we will see the launch of a new 15-inch Macbook Pro that is thinner and lighter. Frankly, the current generation of Macbook Pros are long in the tooth. After you have used the 13-inch Macbook Air, switching back to even the fastest Macbook Pro feels like a step back — it is heavy and feels like a brick. Instapaper creator Marco Arment thinks that there could be two 15-inch machines, a Pro and an Air:

My guess is that they pick two: they make a 15″ Air that drops the Pro’s discrete GPUand downgrades to dual-core 17-watt CPUs, effectively pairing Air-class performance with a larger screen. In a 15″ Air-like chassis, this could be very cool-running and quiet with a great battery life and a significant weight savings from the 15″ MacBook Pro. Apple could plausibly launch such a 15″ Air in June with the 1.8 GHz i5-3427U and 2.0 GHz i7-3667U, also bringing those CPU options to the 11″ and 13″ Airs in a minor simultaneous update. To placate pro users and buy some time until Intel makes lower-wattage quad-core CPUs, Apple could keep selling the current-style 15″ MacBook Pro with fast, hot CPUs and GPUs alongside the 15″ Air.

Earlier this year, after reading a report on Electric Pig, Erica Ogg argued that it makes sense for Apple to merge the Air and Pro line-ups, and they would be better off simplifying things even further for mainstream consumers. What do you guys think?

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There’s been a lot of hype lately surrounding the recently announced Epic Mickey sequel for the PS3, Xbox 360, and Wii. But that’s not the only new title Disney is bringing to the franchise. It has also been confirmed that a completely new and exclusive adventure in Mickey Mouse’s epic saga will be heading to the Nintendo 3DS. This entry will be titled Epic Mickey: The Power of Illusion, and will obviously be the first in the series to go to a handheld platform.

The original Epic Mickey title was exclusive to the Nintendo Wii, a decision that developers said almost from day one was a limitation, and they hoped the franchise would be able to expand its horizons. It looks like those hopes are absolutely being realized. Epic Mickey 2: The Power of Two will be hitting all three home consoles, with a brand new cooperative multiplayer option that is sure to bring a completely new level of depth to the experience.

And now, thanks to a brief tease in the latest edition of Nintendo Power magazine, we know that Epic Mickey: The Power of Illusion will be hitting another segment, that of 3DS owners. This version is being developed by Dreamrift, but other than that not much is known about this new title. It hasn’t even been officially announced by the companies that are working on it. Expect many more juicy details to be revealed in the coming weeks.

[via Siliconera]

Disney’s Epic Mickey franchise coming to 3DS is written by Mark Raby & originally posted on SlashGear.
© 2005 – 2012, SlashGear. All right reserved.

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