If I pay is it mine?

Solid piece on The Verge about the risks and rewards of paid vs free apps for the end user and your data. People assume that if it’s paid there’s likely to be more of an implied trust your data and time spent accruing the data is safer than with free where you are more likely to monetized. Things are far from black and white however as plenty of companies still sell access to you or even sell ads on top of the experience.  Others go bust or get acquired changing the original plans. What’s needed is a sure-fire system to get your data out when the time comes …

Mike Masnick at Techdirt nicely covered this recently as well.

BTW, games are serious in China

The online gaming market reportedly represented over 90 percent of revenue, bringing in $9.1 billion (RMB 56.96 billion). Mobile gaming still represented a small part of the market, with just $520 million (RMB 3.24 billion) in revenue. Dedicated gaming devices, which operate in a legal grey area, accounted for just 0.1 percent of sales.

Looking ahead, the report expects the Chinese game market to swell to $21.7 billion (RMB 135.2 billion) by 2017 with a projected annual growth rate of 12.4 percent.

via The Next Web.

Samsung’s New Smart TV

Stunning screen resolution … the real trick is how it works with your craptastic cable box. I’m still holding steady for the hopeful Apple TV, but this sounds really, really good.

Here’s a quick breakdown of what Samsung’s Smart TVs can do:

The menu is divided into five panels for live TV, movies or TV shows, your personal photos/videos/music, social content recommendations from services like Twitter, Facebook, or YouTube, and apps.

The interface recommends what to watch based on what’s stored on your mobile devices and what your friends like.

You can control the TV with your voice or motion gestures.

If you have a Samsung smartphone or tablet, you can beam video content to and from your Smart TV. It’s similar to Apple’s AirPlay.

via Business Insider.