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With Internet use on smartphones set to overtake desktop browsing by early 2013, it is surprising that businesses—big and small—are not taking full advantage of mobile search. A recent study by telecommunications giant T-Mobile indicates that 46 percent of local businesses are not visible when users search via smartphones. For those local businesses that took the [...]

iPad: OS X Pad is a new theme that can make your iPad look and operate like an actual Mac. If you prefer traditional desktop paradigms to those of iOS, all you need is the Dreamboard app and a few minutes to install. More »

The mobile chip wars continue to be far more exciting than the desktop side: Samsung last night unveiled the Exynos 5 Dual, which has the distinction of being the world’s first chip using ARM’s Cortex A15 architecture.

Even though it’s a dual-core chip, the Exynos 5 Dual will be superior to Samsung’s Exynos 4 Quad chip, which is currently found in international Galaxy S III models. The Exynos 5 (obviously) promises faster speeds, running at 1.7 gigahertz with ARM’s quad-core Mali T-604 graphics processor. It will compete with the Snapdragon S4 chips currently tearing up benchmarks on newer Android devices.

The Exynos 5 Dual also sports USB 3.0 and SATA III controllers, so it’s well equipped to move data quickly. While I don’t think you’ll ever be hooking up your smartphone or tablet to a SATA connector (meant for storage-heavy products like hard drives), the addition of USB 3.0 should speed up device synchronization.

The chip also supports Wi-Fi Display technology, which will allow you to wireless stream media from your phone to a supported TV. To do that now, Android manufacturers like HTC and Samsung has accessories that plug into your TVs and only work with their phones. Apple’s spin on media streaming is Airplay, which lets you push media from your Apple devices to an Apple TV.

Wi-Fi Display isn’t widely supported yet, but as it shows up on hardware like the Exynos 5 Dual, it has the potential to be a legitimate cross-platform solution for media streaming to your TV.

Thanks to the ARM Mali T-604 GPU, the Exynos 5 supports huge resolutions up to 2560 by 1600 (that’s far beyond the standard for 1080p HDTVs), and stereoscopic 3D. The GPU also has DirectX 11 support, which means the Exynos could power light gaming on Windows 8 machines.

Samsung hasn’t yet announced any products using the Exynos 5 Dual, but it’s expected to be the brains beyond the upcoming Galaxy Tab 11.6. You can also expect a quad-core version of the Exynos 5 next year, based on Samsung’s past release schedules.

Judging from what we’re seeing so far, the Exynos 5 is the chip to look out for when you’re shopping for a new smartphone or tablet later this year.

Via AndroidAuthority

Filed under: mobile, VentureBeat

Social still sucks compared to search, Apple users do, in fact, buy more. And the real browser war is not Chrome versus Internet Explorer, but Chrome versus Safari.

Those are just a few of the conclusions of e-commerce optimization giant Monetate’s state-of-the-online-sales-union report for the second quarter of 2012.

Browser wars: not what you’d think

“The most interesting part for me is the browser war,” says Monetate’s chief marketing officer, Kurt Heinemann. “What we’re seeing on the e-commerce side of the fence is that mobile and desktop Safari are actually equal to Explorer.”

In fact, from 8PM to 11PM EST, when all portions of the country are out of the office, Safari accounts for 30 percent of traffic. That’s the desktop and mobile versions combined together, Heinemann adds. And it’s the browser traffic at e-commerce sites of Monetate customers such as Best Buy, QVC, Comcast, National Geographic, and many more.

Over the course of an entire day Monetate’s customers, which include 20 percent of the top 500 internet retailers in the U.S., get 3.3 percent of their visits from Android phones, up 85 percent year-over-year, and 5.4 percent of their visits from iPhones, up 117%.

Interestingly, Android users convert almost 30 percent better than iPhone users.

Yes, Mac users do actually buy more

In the wake of the Great Orbitz Pricing Non-scandal of 2012, in which Orbitz was found to be recommending higher-priced hotels to Mac users than to PC users, the hot question has been: do Mac users actually spend more?

Well, yes, says Heinemann.

“Apple users do have a higher order value. I think that’s a demographic thing — Macs tend to be a little higher priced than PCs.”

In fact, Mac users spend an average of $102.83 versus $88.75 for PC users, and just $84.91 for the cheapskate Linux faithful. On the other hand, the difference basically disappears in the smartphone world: iPhone and Android are almost neck-and-neck at $97 and change, with Windows Phone a little lower at $92.45.

It’s in the tablet world that the order value differences reappear, but in this case it’s the Kindle Fire that loses out. Average orders on the Kindle Fire lag behind those on iPad or other Android tablets by about $10.

“Again, I think that’s a demographic thing,” Heineman says. “Kindle is $200, and iPad is $500 … that’s the primary difference.”

Social vs. search: social still sucks (but so does search)

It’s fairly well known that social traffic to e-commerce sites converts at a lower rate than search traffic. Monetate confirms that: social converts at a measly .59 percent rate, while search is about four times better at 2.59 percent.

The real story which is sometimes somewhat obscured in the debate?

Email kills them both, converting at 4.25 percent … almost double search, and eight times better than social.

“That’s the great nugget there,” according to Heinemann. “In the whole social hype cycle people can easily take their eyes off the numbers, the conversion rates and average order values.”

Heinemann warns against putting too many eggs in the social basket, saying that email converts massively, and retailers need to do smart things to build their email database, and then use it well.

One caveat: there’s significantly more traffic from social than there is from email … so even with a lower conversion rate, social can still provide a significant amount of value.

Image credit: Mirexon/ShutterStock

Filed under: mobile, search, social

Windows: ToutApp, one of our favorite tools to keep your Gmail inbox under control unveiled an Outlook plugin today that offers many of the same features for those of you who choose to (or are forced by your employer to) use Microsoft Outlook on the desktop. The new ToutApp for Outlook lets you see when recipients have opened emails you’ve sent them, compose a message but delay sending it until a scheduled time, and makes composing messages faster thanks to built-in templates for different contacts. More »

iOS (Jailbroken) and Windows: Clips is a jailbreak tweak that makes it simple to sync whatever you copy to the clipboard with your computer, helping to bridge the gap between your mobile devices and your desktop. More »

Dear Lifehacker,
I have a messy desktop. It’s gotten so bad that there are files on top of files. I periodically throw various documents into folders to try and clean it up, but then I just have disorganized folders and the mess comes back. How can I get my desktop under control? More »

Customer experience management startup Vital Insights has raised $20 million in a growth-focused first round of funding, the company announced today.

Vital Insights offers various customer experience management (CEM) solutions for desktop and mobile devices that help track customer satisfaction and happiness. It claims to have patent-pending process for altering staff of “unhappy customers in real time.” The company is now one of the most-used CEM vendors for the auto industry, with its flagship Foresight product attracting more than 125,000 users across more than 4,000 auto dealers.

“Developing a user-friendly and highly advanced CEM platform for tracking and improving the satisfaction of a company’s customers is instrumental to the future of customer loyalty and retention,” Jason Tryfon, the president & CEO of Vital Insights, said in a statement.

The round of funding was led by Bregal Sagemount, a $500 million private equity fund that makes investments between $15 million and $150 million in high-growth companies. Gene Yoon, managing partner at Bregal Sagemount, will join the company’s board of directors.

Mississauga, Ontario, Canada-based Vital Insights was ranked on the Deloitte Technology Fast 50 for 2010 and 2011 as one of the fastest growing tech companies in Canada. The company also has offices in Phoenix, Arizona, and Germany.

Photo credit: Vital Insights

Filed under: deals, VentureBeat

We’ve known since February that Microsoft was preparing new touch-enabled Office apps for Windows RT, but now it seems those tablet-focused Office apps won’t have as many features as their desktop siblings.

Microsoft will reportedly remove key features from Office 2013 RT, including VBA scripting, macros, and third-party plug-ins, a source tells The Verge. The move is meant to make the apps more reliable and less of a strain on battery life — which are especially important considerations for Windows RT, since it’s the version of Windows 8 meant for tablets running ARM processors.

Additionally, the Verge says Microsoft will ship a preview version of Office 2013 RT with Windows RT devices, which will likely allow you to view and lightly edit Office documents and will be upgradeable to the full version of Office in early 2013. This isn’t too surprising, since PC makers have been shipping Office preview versions in their computers since the release of Windows XP (and possibly earlier).

Microsoft isn’t commenting on the report, but if it’s true the company could see flack from serious Office users over removing features like VBA scripting. It would be difficult for businesses to adopt Windows RT devices when they don’t know if their Office documents will be fully compatible with the new platform.

And if it lacks key Office features, Windows RT runs the risk of being more of a casual computing platform, rather than the lean and mean productivity platform Microsoft is pitching.

Filed under: mobile, VentureBeat