Pele's Blog

Why Google Pays 10 Billion USD to Its Competitor Mozilla?

To Make Google as the default search engine, Google and Mozilla will renew the cooperation agreement at around 10 billion USD. In the case of haveing their own web browser "Chrome", Google's cooperation with Mozilla is understood as a kind of support to their competitor with their money. But Why?

On one hand, Firefox still has millions of users and this agreement means that millions of users will use Google as the default search engine when they are using Firefox. And using Google to search means Google can display ads and that means money to Google.

But 3 billion per year, that is 3 times more than the price in the agreement they signed in 2008. What's interesting is that Google released Chrome after they signed the agreement in 2008. From a common point of view, with the raise of the Chrome's share in web browser market, they should reach an agreement at a lower price. Although Firefox still takes up 1/3 of the web broswer market, their share is going down and the reason is Chrome.

Chrome is like a beast in the market of browser, it is swallowing the share of IE and also Firefox at the same time. Actually, according the the data from StatCounter, Firefox's share in browser market is lower than 2008. Think about it. Aug, 2008, 26.08% of people were using Firefox as their browser, 68.91% were using IE and at that time, Chrome was not released by Google. Last month, 25.23% of people were using Firefox as their default web browser and 40.63% of them were using IE. Chrome took 25.69% of the market. It's true that more people are choosing Chrome as their default web browser than choosing Firefox.

So Google will pay 3 times money, while Firefox's share in browser market is lower than 2008. Why they do that?

The first reason comes to my mind is the competition. Because of the bid. Microsoft wants Bing become the default search engine of Firefox. And it is really interesting that Yahoo also takes part in the bid and Yahoo's search engine is from Bing. So one reason is that Google spend money to let Microsoft and Yahoo out of the game. It's possible.

Microsoft spends billions of USD to try to compete with Google in search engine market. One of the result of this is that Google and Bing swallow Yahoo's share in search engine market together. Now Bing provides the result of Yahoo's search engine, so Bing hurts itself. Nowadays, Bing and Yahoo take the same percent of the search engine market share and Bing is paying this. Here I have to say that Bing and Firefox's cooperation is do useful to Bing. Let's say that Bing know that and when they talking about the cooperation, they are not cheapskate, but they are not that generous and will pay 3 billion a year. Because from the market share, 3 billion is a little crazy.

So why Google still pay this high price to Firefox? Analyst said that compare with the income from displaying ads through Firefox and competition with Bing, avoiding the problem of anti-monopoly after Chrome's share continue growing is the real problem Google cares.

It's not crazy, actually if now it is not the reason, it will be the reason in future. So far, it is relatively safe for Google's browser market in anti-monopoly. They are not like Microsoft and Apple, Google can not control the default browser in any kind of operation system. However, the problem will become more and more serious with the large download of Chrome from google.com and the success of Chrome OS. I think there will be a larger pressure from mobile devices. Now, web browser on Android devices looks like a normal browser, with more and more element from Chrome are added to it. It will become the real Chrome some day.

That means Google has a dominant operation system (Android) to promote their web browser. That will bring investigation from anti-monopoly just like Microsoft few years ago. But if Google pays money to support Mozilla and Firefox, it's another question. Let's wait and see.

Hello everyone, I'm Pele Gao. Nice to meet you guys here. I'm really interested in tech and software. Hope my article will help you after you read it. DVD to iPad Converter and iPad Converter can help you to convert DVD movies to ipad easily.

The Winner of the War of Video Encoder: H.264

According to the report from MeFeedia, over 80% videos are using H.264 as their encoder. If the video is using HTML 5 video tag, it can be played on iPad directly without any help. Of course, this is not mean that you must do that or do that at present. This only means that if you do hope using the same version of video for iPad and other ways, you do not need to re-encode you video with other encoder, you just need to use HTML 5 instead of Flash. This report also points that H.264 is now used widely and really popular. A research on Jan. 2010, at that time, only 10% video was using H.264. And the number rises to 80% after only two years.

Thanks to the iPad and other device's popular, H.264 now dominates the world of video encoder. Most of the devices such as iPad, iPhone, etc support the H.264 hardware acceleration. At May, 2010, the report from MeFeeia showed that only 26% video use H.264 as video encoder.

It's clear that the file which supports HTML 5 is now influce the Giant more and more in video market. Such as Adobe announced that they will no longer provide Flash Player for mobile device's web browser, all kinds of operation system and other devices. Although WebM from Google has been become open source, it develops really slow. A report from MeFeedia, only 2% video use Google's VP8 as their video encoder. That means that the Google's purchase of On2 Technologies benefits Google nothing at all.

With more and more devices support H.264, the share of it will be higher in the future. Only in case that there is a competitor with enough competitiveness and widely used in the devices which support hardware acceleration, H.264 will be the winner in the war of video encoder.

What is H.264?

H.264/MPEG-4 Part 10 or AVC (Advanced Video Coding) is a standard for video compression, and is currently one of the most commonly used formats for the recording, compression, and distribution of high definition video. The final drafting work on the first version of the standard was completed in May 2003.

H.264/MPEG-4 AVC is a block-oriented motion-compensation-based codec standard developed by the ITU-T Video Coding Experts Group (VCEG) together with the International Organization for Standardization (ISO)/International Electrotechnical Commission (IEC) Moving Picture Experts Group (MPEG). It was the product of a partnership effort known as the Joint Video Team (JVT). The ITU-T H.264 standard and the ISO/IEC MPEG-4 AVC standard (formally, ISO/IEC 14496-10 – MPEG-4 Part 10, Advanced Video Coding) are jointly maintained so that they have identical technical content.

H.264 is perhaps best known as being one of the codec standards for Blu-ray Discs; all Blu-ray Disc players must be able to decode H.264. It is also widely used by streaming internet sources, such as videos from Vimeo, YouTube, and the iTunes Store, web software such as the Adobe Flash Player and Microsoft Silverlight, broadcast services for DVB and SBTVD, direct-broadcast satellite television services, cable television services, and real-time videoconferencing.

Pele Gao is the author of iPad Converter. If you are interested in DVD Creator, please click here.

Acer and Lenovo will release quad-core Tegra 3 tablets early next year

Rumors have surfaced that Acer and Lenovo are lining up Android 4.0(Ice Cream Sandwich) tablets with NVIDIA's quad-core Tegra 3 GPU for launch in the first quarter of 2012. The companies haven’t specified what models they’re going to launch, while the devices are designed to compete with Asus's forth coming Eee Pad Transformer Prime, a hybrid tablet that also packs a Tegra 3 processor. Digitimes suggested that Acer’s Iconia Tabs, the upcoming Lenovo tablet, and a future Samsung Galaxy Tab would all be unveiled at CES or Mobile World Congress next year.

Tablet and Smartphone zealots have been salivating over the quad-core ARM Cortex A9 Tegra 3 for some time, and the processor is at the tipping point for appearance in real, purchasable devices. The Transformer Prime's Tegra 3 is clocked at 1.3GHz, though it is shipping as Android 4-capable, there's a window for Acer or Lenovo to slip in as the first tablet to market with that OS.

The new quad-core tablets should be much more powerful than their dual-core predecessors, while the latest generation may not much better against Apple’s upcoming iPad 3, sources say, as they potentially wouldn’t be “fundamentally different than their predecessors and would be trading mostly on their speed”. The sources also speculate that “since non-Apple players’ machines have no advantage to compete against Amazon or Apple’s tablet PC devices, non-Apple players will together account for only 10-15% of the total tablet PC market.” That is to say, the iPad is indeed still king.

It is reported that you'll be able to snag a nifty Acer and Lenovo’s Tablet with a quad-core GPU for between $459 and $599 in 2012. Since neither Acer nor Lenovo have a direct advantage over Apple or Amazon's tablet devices, the mathematical formulas prove that owning a reasonably priced tablet with a quad-core GPU does make you the coolest kid on the block. This would put them essentially in direct competition with the iPad.

iPad users always want to enjoy hd videos and their dvd movies on their iPad. iPad converter can help you to do that. DVD Ripper for Mac is a really nice dvd to iPad converter on Mac. It can convert dvds to iPad files on Mac easily.

How to Keep A Longer life for You Laptop Battery

Laptop battery is one of the necessities for the usage of laptop. When you need to work without a external power supply or mobile officing, we need our laptop's battery. So it is important to know how to maintain our laptop battery well for a long time power supply. In this article I will introduce you some small tips on how to keep your notebook battery well.

Most of the notebook battery on the market now is Li-ion. To know your laptop battery you need to know battery capacity, rated voltage, the normal use temperature.

You can find the battery capacity from your battery. On your battery, the capacity will be print on you battery as XXX mAh. Here the XXX is your capacity. In most cases, the bigger the number of the capacity, the longer you can use your laptop without a external powerful supply. However, in fact, the battery life is also related to the hardware of the notebook. The higher of the hardware configuration, the more powerful will be spent. And the bigger the computation, the faster the battery spend.

Rated voltage is divided into laptop batteries rated voltage and notebook rated voltage. There are differences between the two rated voltage. Laptop batteries rated voltage is the voltage that stay the longest time when battery discharge. When you use the laptop with external powerful supply or just charged, the voltage is higher than just use. So the rated voltage on the battery is lower than laptop rated laptop.

The normal use temperature is a temperature range that laptop can work normally. Under the non-normal circumstances, it is dangerous to use your notebook, such as explosion, leakage and power outage. In most cases, it is really safe to use your laptop.

Most users want to how to keep their laptop battery's life longer. In the following words, I will show you some tips on how to use your laptop battery correctly.

Many users charge their Li-ion over 12 hours for the first 3 time when they get a new battery. It is a controversial topic. Producers said that users need to do that to active their battery fully. It sounds like a really credible reason. However, do you ever think this question. If the laptop's battery is nonactive, when they are sold to customers, it is a semi-finished product. Not everyone who buy a laptop can active their battery themselves. It is impossible.

But it is necessary to do that, because there will be a long time between the battery is active and it is sold to users. And during the waiting time, the battery is discharge naturally and when customer get their brand new laptop, the battery power is lower than they are carried out of factory. So we need to help the laptop to discharge, but not all. When there is 5% power remain, we need to plug the powerful. We need to do that 3 times to help the battery clear up their memory.

Secondly, many users have a question that if they need to use their battery up then charge them. The answer to this question is right. But it is really a trouble for most of the users. Of course, here I need to say that you need to charge your battery before 3% remain. It is proved that it is a kind of hurt to battery for use up the power and shorten the life of battery. So we can charge our battery when our laptop prompt that the power is low.

Some producers said that their Li-ion do not memory. It is a misleading for customers. So When your laptop have relatively much power, it is better do not charge your battery. Memory effect is a process of battery content crystallization when you use the battery. It is obvious in Nickel-cadmium battery, but not in Li-ion. It will make the life of your battery shorten and reduce the use time. It is necessary to keep a nice habit. Do not charge the battery when there is much power remain.

Third, how to deal with a battery that you will not use it for a long. My suggestion is to remain 40% to 50% power and keep it in low temperature shady place. And it is better if you use it once per month.

At last, I will talk about how to keep the battery a longer life. As we know that battery is a consumable product. It will be die one day after a long time use. So how to keep it longer? Do I need to use my laptop not often? No, we buy laptop to use, but not to keep their battery life longer. My advice is that keep a good habit when you use your notebook. It's enough.

Nice to meet you guys here and hope my article can help you to keep a longer life for your laptop battery. I know a really nice DVD Ripper for Mac and DVD to iPod Converter.

Android 4.0 VS iOS 5 Let You Know Which You Want

After the release of iOS 5 and Android 4.0, people always talk about which is better. It is really difficult to say that iOS 5 is better than Android 4.0 or Android 4.0 is better than iOS 5. Today I will compare the features, advantage, disadvantage, hardware and other features from the two most popular mobile operation systems. I believe that you will know more about them after read my article.

From iOS 4 to iOS 5, we can not find big surprise, instead we can see the perfect in details, such as drop-down menu and other new features borrow from Android. That maybe because iOS is already powerful and perfect. People can not find any big disadvantage on it.

In contrast, Android 4.0 has more improvement than the previous version. We not only see the redesigned interface and many upgrades in details, but also we notice the integration of Android mobile phone and Android Tablet in the brand new Android 4.0. Of course, you can understand this as the integration of Android and this is a good news for developers and hardware producers. However, in today's mobile phone area, all the customers care about the apps more than hardware, a well-developed platform can attract more app developers. This will brings more business to them.

As we talking about above, apps is now more important than hardware and game plays a big role in app. In iOS 5 and Android 4.0, which one provides a better game experience for users? I think iOS 5 is better than Android 4.0 now. The game experience in iOS is absolutely better than Android. This is not only because iOS has its own Game Center, but also because the hardware of the devices. For example, the new iPhone 4s has dual-core Graphics processor, while in Android phones, only Samsung Galaxy nexus is comparable. In Android 4.0, we only find the new 3D driver. Now I can not say how much it can improve the game experience.

In the new iOS 5 and iPhone 4s, Apple's iCloud becomes a highlights. In fact, it is developed from MobileMe sevice, which aims to keep the consistency of data from different playform. In addition to the new features, such as photos, bookmarks, presentation's sync, it also can sync your apps from iOS 5 to Cloud.

Altough Android 4.0 does not provide this kind of service, uers can also enjoy the convenient brought by cloud services. Now Android users can update and sync data with multi devices in 24 hours and Android also provides Gmail contact backup and other services.

Though there are many rumors about the NFC in the new generation of iPhone, Apple still choose Bluetooth 4.0 as the way of its data exchange in close distance. While in the Android 4.0, Google brings us Adroid Beam function. It can help users to share app, webpage, map and video with NFC tech. It is definitely the trends in future.

That is not only because google published its Google Wallet Service, but also many producers from different area add NFC tech to their products, especially Nokia, the biggest mobile phone producer, add NFC as a standard function to their mobile phones. We can see clearly that NFC is becoming the trends in future. So, even though iPhone 4s does not add NFC, Apple will use NFC in their next generation of iPhone for sure, just as the rumor. What is different is that Apple may show his creative and use it to give users a different experience.

I believe that many people may think that in future, except better hardware, what's the future of smart phone. So Apple released its voice assistant service, siri, which is a really creative thing that provides users a totally different experience, and become the focus of the smartphone field.

While, back to the topic, Apple releases siri is under a certain situation that hardware update can not attract users' attention any more. Just like iPhone 4's facetime, Apple always can find the advantage of the design to show their personality. However, after the first few month's fresh, I don't think people will speak to their smart phone on the street.

Voice assistant appear on Android system long before. But due to the limitation on content, voice assistant on Android is far behind iPhone 4s's Siri. Even though Android's voice assistant also has a nice performence. It can help you to make a call, send SMS, open GPS, play music and take a note and so on.

SNS is now play a big role in all the smart phone producers. In this section, both Android and iOS have their own killer. IOS 5 only built-in Twitter and iMessage function can be used after you turn on the iPhone 4s, do not need to register and it can match your friends automatically.

While in Android 4.0, Google releases new function People, it makes the contact as the focus and it integrates Twitter, Linkedin, Google+ and communication tools and it will support custom third party service in future.

I have to say that multitask gestures is used more and more than before in the two operation systems. For example, in iOS 5 you can turn off an app by folding four fingers and without using the home button. So it is possible to cancel the home button in future.

In conclusion, Android 4.0 has more upgrades and update than iOS 5 and it has more powerful hardware. But the two mobile operation system have their own advantage and disadvantage and different user experience. Users will get their own point of view on them. Just as the saying that Android system tells you what you can do, but iOS do that for you. Here I can tell which one is better than the other one and the competition between Android and iOS will becomes more and more intense for sure. So when you choose smart phone yourself, choose the one you like.

I have been using iOS for a long time. Although there is something that I don't like but it is really a nice mobile operation system. Here I also recommend some iOS software to help you enjoy your iOS better. Video Converter for Mac, it can help you to convert videos on your Mac computer for iPhone, iPod, iPad easily and fast. iPhone to Mac and iPad to Mac Transfer to help you to backup your fils on iPhone and iPad to your mac.