Here is Why TV Apps Are Very Popular Now Days

When it comes to online video, people may not want to cut the cord. Instead, they want to take the cord with them. People are streaming broadcast television on their smartphones in record numbers, according to Adobe’s state-of-the-industry report on digital video viewing. 

 Online video has reached record numbers, according to the report, compiled by Adobe Digital Index, the marketing and research arm of Adobe. Mobile video viewing went up 57 percent over the same time last year, and overall online video was up 43 percent, representing more than 35 billion viewings. 

 Among the report’s more interesting findings are that TV Everywhere — a term for authenticated viewing of broadcast shows from channels you subscribe to on your cable or satellite network — is approaching mainstream use and is growing much faster than other online video sources like YouTube, Hulu or Daily Motion.

 However, Adobe’s numbers do not include Netflix, which has about 48 million subscribers worldwide, so cord-cutting might not be entirely off the table. 

 TV Everywhere apps include the very popular HBO Go, standalone channel apps like Watch ESPN, Cartoon Network, CNBC, Syfy and similar offerings. Cable and satellite providers also offer their own branded apps, like Comcast’s Xfinity TV Go, Time Warner Cable’s TWC TV and Dish Anywhere. Most of these apps were announced within the last two to three years, but have been steadily getting the rights to stream more content and have seen a heavy marketing push over the past year. 

 Authenticated TV viewing is more palatable to content providers than services like Netflix, because it encourages people to keep their ad-rich cable subscriptions, and gives them the benefit of streaming the TV they already pay for. Critics have, in fact, charged that TV Everywhere is little less than collusion between cable companies and rights holders. Nevertheless, as streaming television gets onto mobile devices, people appear to be gobbling it up. TV Everywhere viewing rose 246 percent (you read that right) over last year, said Adobe, driven mainly by interest in sports programming. (To be clear, those numbers do not include streams of the Sochi Olympic Games, which an Adobe analyst said would have skewed the numbers beyond recognition.) “Over one in five households are watching TV Everywhere content,” said Tamara Gaffney, an Adobe Digital Index analyst. “That’s really beyond early adopter.” Of course, the other thing that’s happened to push TV Everywhere growth is that these apps are actually starting to get some channels. Ms. Gaffney said TV Everywhere offerings had increased by 30 channels in just the last six months, as networks start to lower some (not all, but some) of their resistance to digital distribution. 

 The most common way for people to watch TV Everywhere content was with iOS apps. In fact, Adobe said, iOS apps just passed the browser as the most popular portal to streaming TV. Browsers remained the second most popular way, and Android apps were third. In another interesting twist, though, Adobe said viewing on game consoles and so-called OTT (over the top) devices increased by the highest percentage of any platform — 123 percent over last year. Granted, the amount of TV watched on those devices is still tiny: They have just 6 percent of the TV Everywhere streaming market, but that’s up from 1 percent last year.

Gaffney said most of that growth was in game consoles, although the category also included devices like Apple TV, Roku and Chromecast. Adobe said the numbers were too small to break out individual devices, but I’ll be curious to see if they continue to grow and how much add-on gadgets contribute to the numbers, as opposed to consoles.

TV Everywhere is still significantly less than everywhere, as even the industry itself admits, and the authentication process for watching shows is legendarily annoying.

But as that improves — and cable operators extend authentication to devices like Apple TV and Roku — it may be that the best way to cut the cord is to keep the cord.

Source : nytimes.com 

Taliban Release Video Showing Sgt. Bowe Bergdahl's Handover to U.S.

Top Things to Know for You Being in New York Today

4th June- Wednesday - Few Big Things and Events Will Take Place Today in New York

Good morning New York

Meet Deborah C. Garner.

As the director of consumer services at the Department of Consumer Affairs, she helps handle 30,000 complaints a year.

Today, Ms. Garner and five other city workers will receive Sloan Public Service Awards, given by the Fund for the City of New York.

Ms. Garner has seen the city’s ups and downs, reflected in consumer complaints.

After Hurricane Sandy hit in 2012, despite the hardship it inflicted, complaints actually declined as New Yorkers struggled to get back on their feet.

Then they shot up last year.

“Some consumers lost homes, were flooded, lost cars.”

This year, Ms. Garner has noticed a puzzling surge in complaints against dry cleaners.

No complaint is too small.

Recently, Ms. Garner resolved one about a 55-cent grocery store coupon.

After Ms. Garner successfully negotiated a refund, “You know what the consumer said? ‘It’s only 55 cents.’

“I said, ‘Sir, please go to that store and get your 55 cents.’”

The others honored today are:

• Arnaldo Bernabe, public safety director at Hostos Community College.

• Annie Fine, who detects disease outbreaks for the health department.

• Janice A. Halloran, who oversees the emergency rooms of two Bronx hospitals.

• Assistant Commissioner Kathleen Hughes of the Department of Cultural Affairs.

• April Leong, founder of Liberation Diploma Plus High School in Coney Island.

Here’s what else you need to know.

WEATHER

The fog lifts to reveal another beauty, with a high of 82.

And showers fall after dark, if at all.

COMING UP TODAY

• Mayor de Blasio delivers remarks at the Fire Department’s Medal Day ceremony in Midtown East. 11 a.m. …

• … At the Jennifer Lopez concert at Orchard Beach in the Bronx. 6:40 p.m. …

• … And at the Janelle Monae concert in Prospect Park, Brooklyn. 8 p.m.

• An exhausting lineup of events for National Running Day includes 2,000 children running around Icahn Stadium on Randalls Island. 10 a.m.

• A talk on technologies that could change how we vote, at New York Law School. 5 p.m. [Free, R.S.V.P.]

• A talk on the history of anti-Asian imagery with Jack Tchen, author of “Yellow Peril!” at the Tenement Museum on the Lower East Side. 6:30 p.m. [Free]

• Gov. Chris Christie of New Jersey is inducted into the National Football Foundation’s leadership hall of fame at the Hilton in Midtown. 7 p.m.

• Fran Lebowitz, “one of the foremost advocates of the Extreme Statement,” speaks at St. Mark’s Church in the East Village. 8 p.m. [$10]

• Yankees host A’s. 7:05 p.m. (YES)

• Mets visit Cubs. 8:05 p.m. (SNY)

• For more events, see The New York Times Arts & Entertainment guide.

COMMUTE

• Subways

• PATH

• L.I.R.R. and Metro-North

• N.J. Transit

• Roads: Check traffic map or radio report on the 1s or the 8s.

• Alternate-side parking: is suspended today and Thursday for the Jewish holiday of Shavuot.

• Air travel: La Guardia, J.F.K., Newark.

IN THE NEWS

• Police arrested dozens of suspected gang members in early-morning raids across Harlem today. [NBC]

• The operation targeted rival gangs linked to the 2011 slaying of an 18-year-old high school basketball star. [Daily News]

• A man was stabbed repeatedly on a subway platform in Chelsea this morning. [DNAinfo]

• City teachers approved a labor contract that raises pay by 18 percent over nine years. [New York Times]

• A teenager from the Bronx drowned herself after she was caught cheating on a math exam. [Daily News]

• The Fire Department has as many female firefighters now as it did in 1982. [Village Voice]

• California Chrome’s chance of winning the Triple Crown at the Belmont on Saturday has people buying $2 betting tickets as souvenirs, not to bet on the race. [New York Times]

• A radio story about a performance artist who married her openly gay friend in order to have children. [WNYC]

• Cubs clamber over Mets, 2-1. A’s beat Yankees, 5-2 in 10 innings.

AND FINALLY …

Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo announced a cross-country hockey wager on Tuesday with California Gov. Jerry Brown.

The stakes:

If the Rangers win the Stanley Cup finals — Game 1 is tonight (8 o’clock, NBC) — Governor Brown will send Governor Cuomo a history book about California and some Lundberg organic brown rice cakes, lightly salted.

If the Los Angeles Kings win, Governor Cuomo will send Governor Brown a considerably more delicious gift.

His basket of state-made products will include Dutchess County apples, oysters caught off Long Island and red velvet cupcakes from Harlem.

Mr. Cuomo will also throw in a hockey puck commemorating the “hat trick” of three straight on-time budgets.

Kenneth Rosen contributed reporting.

Source : NYTIMES

Here is Why Apple's New Font Won't Work On Your Desktop

STAR TYPEFACE DESIGNER TOBIAS FRERE-JONES EXPLAINS THE CHALLENGES OF USING HELVETICA NEUE AS AN OPERATING SYSTEM FONT. 

 For the first time ever, Apple is ditching Lucida Grande as the OS X system font in favor of Helvetica Neue, which also happens to be the iOS system font. For an operating system that's used by 80 million people, that's no small thing. Will it make reading on desktop computers easier? Harder?

DESPITE ITS GRAND REPUTATION, HELVETICA CAN’T DO EVERYTHING.

We asked Tobias Frere-Jones, the famed typeface designer who has worked with some of the world's best publications and design shops, to offer his insights on what this change means for consumers. In his view, Apple might have made a mistake. Here, he highlights some of the challenges of deploying 
Helvetica Neue onto an OS abundant with small type and devices where non-Retina displays are still the norm: 


Apple's desktop and mobile operating systems have been gradually converging for some time. So it was inevitable that one typographic palette would displace the other. With OS X 10.10, Mac desktops will sport Helvetica everywhere. But I had really hoped it would be the other way around, with the iPhone taking a lesson from the desktop, and adopt Lucida Grande. Check the lock screen on your iPhone. You’ll see Helvetica there, a half-inch tall or larger, and it looks good. Problem is, there aren't many other places where it looks as good.

Despite its grand reputation, Helvetica can’t do everything. It works well in big sizes, but it can be really weak in small sizes. Shapes like ‘C’ and ‘S’ curl back into themselves, leaving tight “apertures”--the channels of white between a letter’s interior and exterior. So each shape halts the eye again and again, rather than ushering it along the line. The lowercase ‘e,' the most common letter in English and many other languages, takes an especially unobliging form. These and other letters can be a pixel away from being some other letter, and we’re left to deal with flickers of doubt as we read.

Lucida Grande presents open apertures, inviting the eye to move along sideways through the text. It has worked really well--for years, and for good reason. For any text, but particularly in interfaces, our eyes need typefaces that cooperate rather than resist. A super-sharp Retina Display might help, but the real issue is the human eye, and I haven’t heard of any upgrades on the way.

Seeing as Helvetica Neue was not universally well-received on the iPhone, it will be curious to see how Mac users react this fall when OS X Yosemite goes live. Until then, maybe try and get your eyes in peak working order.

Source : fastcodesign

Afghan-Pakistan border like 'house without door

Who wins in the border area could win the entire Afghan war
Continue reading the main story
Taliban Conflict

Will US cut reverse Afghan gains?
Eight weeks to face the Taliban
Taliban tactics spark panic
Can the insurgents be defeated? Watch
Afghan intelligence officials in the province of Nuristan have accused the central government and Nato forces in particular of ignoring insurgents there and in other strategically important areas close to the Pakistani border.

They say that increasing violence in Nuristan - and in the provinces of Laghman, Kunar and Nangarhar - poses a significant security threat.

"Nuristan is now al-Qaeda and Taliban central," said one senior police official in the province. "They attack in hundreds, they have blocked key roads. We need to retake these areas from them."


The problem has become so acute that Gen Aminullah Amarkhel of the Afghan border police says the border with Pakistan is like a "house without a door".

The general commands Afghan forces along the 450km (280 mile) international border that cuts across Nangarhar, Kunar and Nuristan.

Poor security in this area makes it not only harder to fight insurgents - it also makes life easier for smugglers who also operate in the border areas and know its terrain only too well.


Meanwhile relations between the Afghan army and Pakistani forces remain tense on the border. Only recently Afghan officials in Kunar said close to 200 rockets landed in the province from Pakistan.

Separately, foreign and Afghan insurgents targeted a wedding party, killing 12 people - relatives of a powerful tribal elder who is also a district governor.

The police chief of Kunar, Gen Ewaz Mohammad Naziri, accused Pakistani forces of firing the rockets.

In recent months, Afghan and Pakistani border forces have clashed in the district of Goshta. Both sides exchanged heavy weapons fire.


'Enough is enough'
Like much of Afghanistan's armed forces, the border police are heavily dependent on their coalition partners.

The American military has helped them by providing armoured Humvees, heavy weapons and radios. More recently they have supplied sniper rifles.

"Since they have helped us, things have improved a lot. Their training is the most effective. But I need helicopters, I need mine-clearing machinery, I need better radios, I need more troops on the ground," says Gen Amarkhel.


Tribes in the region are helping security forces
A former Mujahideen fighter, Gen Amarkhel fought the Soviets in the 1980s for the National Islamic Front of Afghanistan and later against the Moscow-backed government of President Najibullah.

It could be that he is receiving help in his battle to control the border from some unlikely sources.

Various powerful tribes who reside in the area often help to defend it, an officer with the country's spy agency, the NDS, told the BBC.

Recently the Pakistani and Afghan Taliban killed nine members of a family on a wedding night.

"These tribes now have decided enough is enough," says the spy.

In order to get some idea of just how dangerous this part of the world is, Gen Amarkhel allowed me to accompany him as his troops launched an operation to seize illegally-held hashish.

The mission was top secret and the general had chosen not to disclose the programme even to his personal staff. Just before dawn, a heavily armed convoy of 20 vehicles was ready to move.

"There's been an exchange [of fire] last night with drug smugglers in the border district of Dehbala," Gen Amarkhel said. "We will know more on the way."

This is a mountainous region covered with dense vegetation. The tough terrain, thick forests, poor roads and non-existent communication network provides a perfect sanctuary to drug dealers, arms smugglers, the Taliban and al-Qaeda.

The government has never been in total control of this region. Nangarhar in particular is notorious for the illegal drug trade. Poppy and hashish are grown here and it is known to have several heroin processing laboratories.

Under-resourced
Like much of rural Afghanistan, Nangarhar's border districts have never had asphalted roads. There are few schools or heath clinics, making it easier for the smugglers and militants to recruit into their ranks.


The hashish discovered on the mules is estimated to be worth millions of dollars
After a two-hour drive, we arrive in the border village of Gorgoray. On the previous night, smugglers had used heavy machine guns and grenades on the border police.

But the police drove them back and the blood of the the smugglers could still clearly be seen on the ground. Although they escaped, they left behind 10 mules loaded with hashish estimated to be worth about $15m in London or New York.

"The Taliban and al-Qaeda charge a 10% tax on the smugglers," Gen Amarkhel said. "I am happy that we have denied them such huge revenue."

"In the past seven months, we have seized 7.5 tonnes of hashish and 60kg of heroin," the 46-year-old general said.

But he has his hands full. There are 5,000 soldiers under his command, mostly under-resourced and under-equipped. They have to guard one of the most treacherous areas in the country.

Back in his office, the general was trying to call in Nato air strikes to help one of his police posts, which was coming under attack from the Taliban.

''I will send you help very soon," the general said into his mobile phone. "We have asked for close air support. Keep fighting back.''

But as aides frantically tried to find the location, they realised that the insurgents were only a few hundred metres away from the district headquarters. Calling an air strike at this point could endanger civilians. The jets were ordered to turn back.

Hours later, dozens of heavily armed insurgents attacked a post not very far from the Pakistani side of the border. Border police reinforcements were again dispatched.

This is a part of the world that is literally in the line of fire - whoever wins here could win the entire Afghan war.

Afghanistan drawdown risky, US joint chiefs head says

The top US military officer has said President Barack Obama's plan to withdraw troops from Afghanistan is "more aggressive" than he had advised.

Adm Mike Mullen said leaving troops in place was "the safer course", but added he supported the president's decision.

Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said Mr Obama had kept a pledge to begin withdrawals by July 2011.

On Wednesday Mr Obama announced the withdrawal of 33,000 troops from Afghanistan by September 2012.

Afghan President Hamid Karzai welcomed the move, but the Taliban dismissed it as "symbolic" and vowed to continue fighting until all foreign forces left.

In a series of interviews and congressional hearings on Thursday, senior US officials lent their support to Mr Obama's decision to remove about one-third of the US troops from Afghanistan by the end of next summer.

Defence Secretary Robert Gates acknowledged that the president had taken account of waning domestic political support when making the decision, AFP news agency reported.

Meanwhile, President Obama visited Fort Drum military base in New York state on Thursday, where he reiterated the messages conveyed in his speech on Wednesday evening.

'Broken momentum'
The newly announced US reductions are larger and faster than military commanders had advised.

Continue reading the main story
“
Start Quote

Few love the plan, but I suspect a lot of this is beltway chatter, and I suspect many Americans will welcome the President refocusing on what he called 'nation building at home'”


Mark Mardell
BBC North America editor
Military grumbles over Afghan plan
At a House of Representatives committee hearing, Adm Mullen, the chairman of the joint chiefs of staff, said Mr Obama's decisions were "more aggressive and incur more risk than I was originally prepared to accept".

"More force for more time is, without doubt, the safer course. But that does not necessarily make it the best course," he said.

"Only the president, in the end, can really determine the acceptable level of risk we must take."

Mr Mullen told lawmakers Mr Obama considered the views of senior military officials, and said the drawdown would not jeopardise the effort to quash the insurgency.

President Obama's nominee to head the Central Intelligence Agency, General David Petraeus, echoed Mr Mullen's remarks on Thursday, while testifying on his nomination before members of the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence.

"The ultimate decision was a more aggressive formulation in terms of the timeline than what we had recommended," Mr Petraeus said, adding that he would stand by the president while he remained commander of coalition forces in Afghanistan.

Separately, in a Senate committee hearing, Mrs Clinton said the 10-year-old US military effort in Afghanistan had "broken the Taliban's momentum".

"We do begin this drawdown from a position of strength," she said.

'Unnecessary risk'
At least 68,000 US troops will remain in the country after the 33,000 have been withdrawn, but they are scheduled to leave by 2013, provided that Afghan forces are ready to take over security.

Meanwhile, Republican Senator John McCain, who lost the 2008 presidential election to Mr Obama, vigorously opposed the troop withdrawal in a speech on the Senate floor.

Continue reading the main story
US troops in Afghanistan

Dec 2004: 19,200
Dec 2005: 22,400
Dec 2006: 22,200
Dec 2007: 25,700
Dec 2008: 31,400
Dec 2009: 71,000
Dec 2010: 103,700
March 2011: 111,000
Source: US defence department

Q&A: Foreign forces in Afghanistan
He said Mr Obama had opted to deny military commanders in Afghanistan the capability finally to defeat "a battered and broken enemy".

"I'm very concerned that the president's decision poses an unnecessary risk to the progress we've made thus far, to our mission, and to our men and women in uniform," he said. "Our troops are not exhausted, they are excited that after 10 years" they are finally approaching victory.


Correspondents say the enormous cost of the deployment - currently more than $2bn (£1.25bn) a week - has attracted criticism from congressional leaders, while the public is weary of a war that seems to have no end and has left at least 1,500 personnel dead and 12,000 wounded.

There have also been changes on the ground, notably the killing in May of al-Qaeda leader Osama Bin Laden by US forces in Pakistan.

On Thursday, French President Nicolas Sarkozy followed Mr Obama's lead by announcing the phased withdrawal of 4,000 French soldiers serving in Afghanistan.