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Google owned, Motorola Mobility has filed for a patent for a system "that comprises an electronic skin tattoo capable of being applied to a throat region of a body”. This tattoo would communicate with smartphones, gaming devices, tablets and wearable tech like Google Glass via a Bluetooth-style connection and would include a microphone and power source.

The idea is that wearers could communicate with their devices via voice commands without having to wear an earpiece or the Glass headset. The filing says that in addition to sticking via an adhesive to the throat, the tattoo could go on a collar or a band around the user's neck.

As completely outrageous as this throat tattoo may sound, it’s far from the first of its kind. Last year, Nokia patented a “vibrating tattoo” to let you “feel” when someone is calling you.

APPLE ANNOUNCMENT WRAP UP

  EXEC SUMAMRY:

Tuesday, October 22nd, was Apple’s iPad-centric event in San Francisco. Apple offered a live stream of the event, something that they don’t always do, via their website and Apple TV. Apple updated their website with a new page that carried the live stream of the event but it was only viewable through Safari and Apple TV included an “Apple Events” icon on the home screen as a shortcut.

This blog will cover the key details on each of the products introduced: iPad Air, iPad Mini with Retina, Macbook Pro, Mac Pro and the new OS Mavericks. As well as the disruptive marketing efforts made by Samsung and Nokia during Tuesday’s event and the recently released Apple videos.

IPAD AIR, THE 5TH GENERATION

This is the first time since the iPad 2 that we’re seeing a brand new design for the iPad. The Air is lighter, thinner, and faster than its predecessors.

Size: Same 9.7-inch display but with an updated shape following that of the iPad mini

Weight: One pound, making it the lightest full size tablet in the world

Thickness: 7.5mm thick, which is 25% thinner than previous models

The bezel is 43% thinner on the sides and the edges of the device are tapered the same way the iPad mini does

Processor: updated to the 64-bit A7, the same found in the iPhone 5S.

Co-Processor: accompanying the A7 is the M7 motion co-processor which focuses on computing information generated from the sensors to make the device smarter

Camera: 5-megapixel iSight camera, 1080p Facetime Camera in the front and dual-mic for video chat

Battery Life: 10 hours, same as its predecessor

The iPad Air will be available starting November 1 and in Apple’s standard colors of white/silver and gray/black, no gold like the iPhone 5S. The Air will replace its predecessor iPad (4th generation) with a starting price of $499 and $629 for the wifi+celluar model.

IPAD MINI, WITH RETINA

The first iPad Mini launched with great success last year but one thing amiss was the low resolution display. Tuesday’s announcement brought an updated Mini with Retina display to the joy of reviewers. Impressively, Apple kept the Mini’s basic formula while fitting the same specs of the Air into the new Mini except for the size and weight. It will run the same A7 processor and have 10 hours of battery life.

The Mini with Retina will be available the same time as the Air with prices starting at $399.

WHAT APPLE TABLETS WILL BE AVAILABLE MOVING FORWARD

With the introduction of two new devices, Apple will only carry four tablet devices moving forward: iPad Air, iPad 2nd generation, iPad Mini, and iPad Mini with Retina.

While the lineup and cost seems in line the inclusion of the iPad 2 at $399 seems off. You can either go back in time to the $399 iPad 2 with the same internals as the older Mini with the outdated 30-pin connector, and a larger screen or you can step into Apple's future with the $399 iPad mini with the same A7 chip as the iPad Air and a beautiful Retina display. Asked at Apple's event, Tim Cook said only that there was still a demand for the iPad 2, and Apple wanted to meet it. But the answer might be that people are still fixated on “bigger is better” and Apple is giving them a less costly option with the iPad 2.

OTHER PRODUCT ANNOUCEMENTS

iPad was the main attraction this Tuesday but also present were the new and improved MacBook Pro, the Mac Pro, and operating system- OS X Mavericks.

Apple upgraded its high-end MacBook Pro line of notebook PCs with the latest Intel Haswell processors. The update boosts battery life between 8 and 9 hours and improves the machines’ graphics capabilities. Both the 13-inch MacBook Pro with Retina and the 15-inch MacBook Pro got the refresh, and was available starting Tuesday for $1299 and $1999, respectively. Thanks to the improved graphics technology, the MacBook Pros also now get twice the 3-D performance at a 45 percent faster rate. Apple also added 802.11ac WiFi and Thunderbolt 2 ports, matching the feature in the MacBook Air. With all these updates they were still able to make them thinner and lighter than its predecessors, a theme for this announcement.

The new Mac Pro was also announced but hasn’t received a lot of buzz behind it. This is the first major upgrade since August of 2010. It will come with a 3.7GHz quad-core Intel Xeon processor, 12GB of DRAM, dual AMD FirePro D300 graphics chips with 2GB VRAM each, and 256GB of SSD. And unlike their other products that are outsourced, this will be assembled in the US. The new desktop will start at $2,999 this December.

In our second ever guest blog, we have the team from Business Plus commenting on the recent figures that came from RTE annual report. If you liked it, why not get in touch with them on Twitter - @BusinessPlusMag

Despite being Ireland’s most popular website, with 1.6 billion page impressions in 2012, RTE still can’t turn a profit from its digital activities.

The company’s annual report shows digital advertising income of €4,535,000 through 2012, a drop of €17,000 on the previous year despite a 16% increase in page impressions.

According to RTE, “the third and fourth quarters of 2012 proved to be quite challenging in that there was no uplift from either the Olympics or Euro 2012 and, towards the end of the year, advertisers cut back on their brand spend considerably”.

In addition to advertising income for its Digital unit, RTE also garnered €503,000 in sponsorship income for its websites and other digital activities. This brought total advertising and sponsorship revenues to €5,038,000.

According to the report, RTE.ie attracts average page impressions per month of 135.7 million. With average monthly advertising and sponsorship income of €420,000, that means that the cost per thousand impressions on RTE.ie, or the CPT, is €3.10.

This low rate obviously affects the price media buyers in Ireland are prepared to pay for digital inventory on other Irish websites, such as those run by national newspapers.

RTE’s Digital unit also reported income of €8,575,000 under the heading ‘Content, merchandising and related sales’.  This includes revenues from what the annual report describes as digital distribution, premium on-demand and new mobile services.

However it would seem that this new Digital unit also accounts for elements of what was previously in the Publishing unit, such as RTE Guide and DVD sales.

The content and merchandising activity brought total revenue in 2012 for RTE’s so-called Digital division to €13,630,000.

The costs attributed to the Digital unit amounted to a total of €17,658,000. So effectively the Digital unit made an operating loss of €4,028,000.

The costs are broken down as follows: General broadcast and transmission costs €3.85m; Sales costs €3.54m; Other output related costs €10.27m.

In the RTE accounts, the Digital unit has a “licence fee revenue attribution” of €4,437,000. When this figure is included, the Digital unit reported a surplus of €409,000 for the year.

Elsewhere in the report it is stated: “No licence fee income is utilised to fund RTE Digital’s commercial operations.”

The double-think may be explained by the fact that last year RTE created a centralised news desk that operates across all RTE radio, television, online and mobile platforms.

News of course is central to the massive online audience that that RTE.ie attracts. RTE’s news gathering activity is subsidised by the licence fee, but in the RTE mindset this activity is not commercial, even if the end product is.

Digital revenue is small beer for RTE compared with revenues from the television and radio channels. Television advertising and sponsorship income in 2012 was €90.9m, down €8.8m on 2011.

RTE’s radio advertising and sponsorship income was €23.6m in 2012, down €2.9m year-on-year.

For the first time ever, 2FM was propped up with licence fee allocation. In previous years RTE’s position was that 2FM doesn’t benefit from the licence fee because it just plays pop music, which isn’t a public service.

Spotify launch their latest feature, Browse

Spotify are making it easier for users to find playlists that will suit their mood or occasion through the launch of their new feature, Browse. The feature is launching on their mobile apps first, for both iOS and Android, while desktop will launch later this year. The new service is rolling out today. It will allow users to search through and select playlists based around different moods, activities and collections of music. So ‘Bank Holiday Tuesday Blues’ might just help you get through today!

http://mashable.com/2013/08/05/spotify-browse-themed-playlists-smartphone/

Twitter makes efforts to target online abuse

Twitter is making efforts to crack down on abuse on the site. The social networking site will be updating its rules that deal with online abuse and will be expanding the number of teams that work on handling these issues. The changes comes on the back of a #TwitterSilence campaign that ran on Sunday Aug 4th and saw a number of high profile users stay off Twitter for 24 hours in order to highlight the level of abuse that some female Twitter users were receiving. Twitter has said “We want people to feel safe on Twitter, and we want the Twitter Rules to send a clear message to anyone who thought that such behaviour was, or could ever be, acceptable.”

http://www.irishtimes.com/business/sectors/technology/mixed-reaction-to-twittersilence-campaign-1.1484311

Pat Kenny makes the move to Newstalk

Pat Kenny has brought to an end his 41-year stint working with RTE and made the move to Newstalk. The move will see Kenny take up a mid-morning slot on the station, running from 10am – 12.30pm, a slot previously held by Tom Dunne, and will launch on September 2nd. Kenny’s Radio 1 slot had an average of 328,000 listeners across the 10am-12pm show, while Newstalk’s highest rating show, The Right Hook’ has 134,000 listeners. The move will see Newstalk hoping to increase their listenership dramatically in 9am-12pm, while Radio 1 will be looking to find a suitable replacement for Kenny’s previously-held slot.

http://www.irishtimes.com/business/sectors/media-and-marketing/cantillon-kenny-needs-at-least-150-000-listeners-on-newstalk-1.1483521

Amazon CEO to buy The Washington Post

Amazon.com CEO, Jeff Bezos, has agreed to buy The Washington Post newspaper for $250 million. The deal would see the e-commerce magnate moving into the struggling newspaper industry. The news comes on the back of further news in the US that The Boston Globe has been sold to Boston Red Sox owner John Henry for $70 million. With paywalls popping up on news sites, including on The Washington Post’s, it’s still a difficult time for the publishing business, with many newspapers struggling to finance their digital offering.

http://www.adweek.com/news/press/amazon-ceo-jeff-bezos-buy-washington-post-151693

Setanta’s growing portfolio sees dramatic increase in group’s financial position

Setanta have grown their channel portfolio, adding BT Sport 1, BT Sport 2 and ESPN to their channel mix from August 1st. The growth will likely see the station group’s subscriptions increase; driven by access to 71 Premier League matches including 18 top-pick matches. While the company had reported pre-tax losses in 2011, 2012 has seen a dramatic improvement, and 2013 will likely grow again on the back of the increased station mix.

Wow, it’s been a mad week in radio land since the publishing of the JNLR results (check out our nifty top 5 here: http://wearestarcom.tumblr.com/post/56432196497/jnlr-top-5). First the sad passing on Colm Murray at only 61 years of age. Then the shock move of Pat Kenny over to Newstalk (we’ll have a full analysis of this soon!). For now though, let’s take a look at some of the listenership developments across the country.

First of all, radio is still a major part of the media landscape, and contrary to some arguments, it isn’t going anywhere, at least for a long time. 3,012,000 adults still listen to the radio every day (that’s a whopping 84% of the total all adult universe). Granted that number is down 11,000 book on book, fluctuations up and down are par for the course. But we don’t need to tell you the effectiveness and size of the radio landscape; it’s well documented and a tried and tested advertising medium.

Let’s start off where national radio always stars off: RTE Radio 1. The station saw a moderate growth of 3,000 adult listeners – nothing major but certainly a happy outcome all the same. Their shows still dominate the top 10, and their reputation among listeners is second to none. For building a strong coverage figure, Radio 1 is where us agency geeks nearly always tend to turn to. However, the IRS ‘Ireland FM’ platform now reaches a massive 1,536,000 listeners – wow! On a numbers game, it would seem like Ireland FM has become the first port of call for coverage. The only problem is that their portfolio of brands cater to so many different target audiences across the country, while Radio 1 have a more consolidated listener base, making it easier to reach a specific type of consumer. Hence it becomes a balancing act of minimising wastage while building coverage, but sure that’s Starcom’s bread and butter! Not to be forgotten, UTV Radio’s numbers come in at 1,154,000, and that’s with fewer than half the amount of stations of IRS. Suddenly national buying ‘national’ radio has become a little less easy to define. Also of note, the only other strictly national station to grow was Newstalk by a good 6,000 listeners, and that’s despite the departure of the highly successful ‘Off the Ball’ team. 2FM dropped quite a large amount (17,000), but here at Starcom we’re eager to find out how the station will fare in future books under Dan Healy (the same man who spearheaded the Ireland FM platform!).

Shifting the focus onto the local stations now, we can’t help but highlight Radio Nova’s continued growth. Of adults 20-44 in Dublin, they now sit at 6.3% market share. A decent number of its own accord but don’t forget Nova have been on air for less than three years! Of course their numbers are still very small when compared with FM104 (76,000 20-44 Dublin city and commuter area listeners compared to 229,000), but nonetheless they’re an interesting one to watch. Over in Munster, Cork’s 96 is still the major contender with Red FM in a distant second (over 100,000 Co Cork adult listeners between them). That’s no major surprise as 96 enjoys a great deal of respect among local listeners; through solid programming and actively trying to give back to the community (for example they raised nearly half a million euro in their Giving for Living fundraiser earlier this year).    

Yawn-Activated Machine Gives You Free Douwe Egberts rte

Coffee company Douwe Egberts set up a machine in O.R. Tambo International Airport that dispenses free coffee to tired passengers.  However with all free things there was a catch, the customer must yawn in order for the coffee machine to pour a cup.  Using facial recognition technology the machine determined what kind of coffee the passenger needed based on their yawn.  Watch it in action here:

http://mashable.com/2013/07/29/douwe-egberts-yawn-machine/

  Leaders Unveil Publics Omnicom Group

In a historic merger that will change the advertising world Publics and Omnicom have decided to merge to form the largest global marketing communications company in the world.  After a conversation about six months ago CEOs Maurice Levy (Publics Group) and John Wren (Omnicom Group) decided the merger would benefit both companies.  Headquarters for the company will be in the Netherlands with offices in New York and Paris. 

http://www.adweek.com/news/advertising-branding/publicis-omnicom-group-debuts-paris-151469

  Google to open digital innovation centre in Dublin docklands

Goole is set to open a new “digital innovation centre” in Dublin called Foundry, their first such investment outside of the U.S.  The Foundry will bring up to 15,000 extra overseas business visitors to Dublin each year to host conferences and research gatherings for small to medium-sized companies.  The centre will open in September and already has 70 conference bookings in this year alone.  For more information check out Google’s plans here:

http://www.irishtimes.com/business/sectors/technology/google-to-open-digital-innovation-centre-in-dublin-docklands-1.1471776

  Android's Privacy Game-Changer

Andriod 4.3 has introduced a new feature, the App Ops. This new feature allows notifies users when an app is draining their battery, it also allows Andriod users to turn off multiple Facebook functions such as your location and access to your contacts. Catering to the user, this new function does pose major problems for developers and has morphed into the concept of privacy by design, values endorsed by “data protection watchdogs”. This change in the app world can be seen as a chance to open communication for the user and developer, http://www.businessweek.com/articles/2013-07-26/androids-privacy-game-changer#r=nav-fstb

    Tracey Piggot tips Aengus MacGrianna for Celebrity MasterChef Win

RTE One’s latest hit show, MasterChef has seen significant viewership success with over 292,000 adults watching it on Sunday the 21st, taking 24% of the market share. Tracy Piggott’s deserts did not delight the judges as much as she had hoped, making her the third contestant to be sent home on Celebrity MasterChef. So far this year’s season has done well on RTE ONE, despite the state of current TV viewership nationwide.  

It’s that time again, another JNLR day rolls around! We’ll have some more interesting factoids to provide over the next few days but until then, here’s your JNLR Jul ’12 – Jun ’13 Top 5

  1.      On national, nearly everyone saw change book on book (national all adults listenership)

a.      RTE Radio 1 went up by 3,000 to 1,325,000

b.      2FM went down by 17,000 to 800,000

c.       Lyric went down 10,000 to 254,000

d.      Today FM went down 17,000 to 879,000

e.      Newstalk went up 6,000 to 553,000

  2.      The Dublin arena remains competitive but FM104 stays on top with 318,000 listeners with Spin 103.8 coming in second at 201,000

  3.      The Youth arena (adults 15 – 34) paints a similar story with FM104 staying flat and reaching 33,000 more young listeners than Spin 103.8

  4.      Morning Ireland is of course still the top breakfast show growing their base by 7,000 to reach 450,000 listeners