As AAPL share price dwindles and the competition for the tablet and smartphone market heats up, Apple may be looking to build a smart watch. The New York Times, Nick Bilton reports that Apple may be working on a “wristwatch-like devices made of curved glass.”

There are not many details on the function of this device and at this stage is probably just an R&D project—similar to Google Glass project—of which Google’s co-founder, Sergey Brin was spotted wearing on a New York subway.

The device could be a number of things; a fitness tracker could be an option to compete with the Nike Fuel band which syncs with the iPhone.

It could also be an iOS device for performing task such as picking voice calls or remote controlling an iPad or the Apple TV.

With a company as wealthy as Apple, there is also a strong possibility it is just a research prototype that may never see the light of day. After all, Apple’s 2012 revenue worldwide was $156 billion, a smart watch may be thinking to small in terms of making a dent in Apple’s financial sheet.

An Apple television, game console or some sort of revolutionary product will be more ideal for Apple to create a new product.

Nike, Adidas and Pebble—which raised $15 million—are in the smartwatch market, so there is demand. It is just a question now if there is enough demand for Apple to build a product.

Make your Username a Brand

Do not choose a random username, as with all product or services branding is important, you want a username that reflects your photography. An example of a good username is @newyorkcity, a photographer named Liz did not name her Instagram after herself rather she used New York City, which is associated with the theme of her photographs. Her Instagram account has over 500,000 followers. Also, make good use of your bio section, introduce yourself and tell your visitors what your Instagram account is about so that users have an idea of what to expect. You can also use your bio to promote a second account and other social networks.

Use accurate Hashtags & Geotags

Most guides will suggest you use popular #hashtags, but the problem with that is everyone is using them and your photograph will get lost in the mix. Misleading hashtags will drive visitors away, rather than using popular hashtags use appropriately. One or two hashtags that describe the photo will serve you better than #hashtag bombing for traction. Geotagging lets users find your photographs via your geographical location; this will help you gain followers when users search for photography of certain towns or countries.

Photograph Trending Topics

Good photographs of current events can get you more followers and possibly media publication. For example, several ground zero photographs of Hurricane Sandy were published by online media websites. Taking great pictures of landmarks and monuments such as the Eiffel Tower, the Hollywood sign and the ruins of Pompeii will get you followers because users search for these sort of photographs in the explore tab. Current and relevant photographs will increase your exposure to users because there are what users are looking to view.

Quality Pictures & A Consistency Theme

When a user discovers your Instagram feed, they will look at your other photos before deciding to follow. If you consistently take high quality photos, your follower retention rate will be high. Stick to a consistent theme and only publish your best work. An example of a niche theme will be a couture fashion Instagram page, or a sports team Instagram page such as the Lakers. When users like your photos, their Instagram followers will also see, your photo under the news feed thus helping increase your followers.

Promote Your Instagram on Social Media

Use your contacts and other social media outlets to promote your Instagram. Go to your Instagram settings and link your account to your Twitter and Facebook. This will allow you to automatically post your Instagram pictures onto your Twitter feed and Facebook simultaneously; as your photos are being shared on other platforms it will help you gain followers due to higher visibility. Encourage your friends and followers to share your best work. Other promotional tools include:

• Pinstagram: Pinterest meets Instagram
• Webstagram: The Instagram web viewer has a follow button you can add to your blog
• Instagram share options: Add Flickr, Tumblr and Foursquare to your share options

Things not to do

Now that we have covered what you should do to gain followers let us look at some common practices you should avoid. Some sources will recommend you like, comment and interact with other people’s Instagram accounts, but this is not likely to help gain followers in the long-term. Here are a few common practices you should not do

• Follow back: although this will help, you gain followers in the short term, they are not following you for your work and are less likely to ‘like’ and share your photography.
• Do not buy followers: not only are the users going to be fake accounts, it could get you banned from Instagram.
• Comment spam: Liking and commenting on random photos will likely be ignored and if you are prolific, you will have your account suspended.

This is probably one of the most expensive iPhone cases money can buy– a pure gold iPhone cover. If you have, $10,000 to spare it could be yours. Each order is costumed made with options that include polished gold, rose gold and engraving. The case is available at Miansai, a luxury brand manufacturer. It is probably not the best investment seeing that the iPhone size will most likely change with each new edition losing weight and getting thinner. But then again $10,000 wouldn’t be much money to someone who will buy such luxury accessories so changing up with each phone shouldn’t be a problem.

If you haven’t heard, News Corp’s iPad only publication– The Daily is shutting down on December 15th. This doesn’t come as a total surprise, earlier this year News Corp where looking to restructure and The Daily was on the chopping block.

Some of the staff of the iPad publication will be moved to the New York Post according to The Verge.

It begs the question if the world was ready for a iPad only publication, yet alone a subscription based one. It is clear mobile is the future of internet media consumption but News Corp may have jumped on that train too quick with all guns blazing. Not only did they start an iPad only publication, they made it subscription based as well, probably due to the fact News Corp’s chief Rupert Murdoch doesn’t believe in free content.

While the mobile user base is growing, we are not quite ready for mobile only platforms due to the fact most people still use their notebooks and desktops to consume content. The Daily would have fared better if made their publication a cross platform, with a HTML 5 responsive design suited for both mobile and desktops. In addition, charging a subscription without growing a user base firstly doesn’t quite work, and a free trail doesn’t cut it either. A publication should prove its value before charging subscriptions; especially in an internet where quality content comes free– it’s a hard sell.

Therefore, what can News Corp learn from the failed experiment?: Let readers buy into your content before you sell it and multi-platform options until the numbers are right for a mobile publication.

The silver finish iPhone case comes with a mirror screen protector. The case provides protection for your smartphone with a thin minimal look. It is impact resistant and provides protection against scratching your iPhone. The case doesn’t get in the way of your phones ports and it cost $30 so it has a plastic feel to it but it is good value for the price.

Buy from Case-Mate

PandoDaily has recently reported on the ‘Series A crunch’, the lack of Venture Capitalist investing in startups due to an influx of bad ideas and inexperienced entrepreneurs starting companies. Recently many ‘hot’ companies have turned cold, Zynga was worth $9 billion only a year ago and now it is on life support. Other tech IPO’s that has met the same fate as Zynga includes Demand Studios and Friendfinder.

In a world where an app sells for a billion dollars without making a cent, entrepreneurs are selling their success on data such as visitors, user engagement and fast growth, yes, these are all important signs of a company’s potential but people are forgetting the most important data of them all, finances. (What are you going to sell and who is buying). Entrepreneurs are start a company, get a few million users, and raise a few rounds that eventually come to $30-$40 million without a plan on making money.

Angel investors that throw money at everything and anything caused this problem. This is due relatively low amount of money each angel invest ($75,000- $100,000), so it is hardly a risk, but what you get is a bunch of companies with a few millions in the bank hire a bunch of programmers to build products without any real business plans. Then they end up firing 80 percent of their workforce after a year when the money runs out. Angel investing provides a sort of mental cushion that makes finances an afterthought rather than a priority equal to product development. Earlier this year Draw Something has explosive growth but no long-term value and Zynga took the bait. It seems that venture capitalist are wising up and are now looking for value as well as growth, hence the ‘Series A crunch’.

Dan Lyons wrote up a great analysis on the fact that there are too many apps and so called startups with no real value. Other than the unnecessary personal attacks, it is a great write up.

Image credit: Scobleizer/Flickr

Imagine a MacDonald’s with no employees; Momentum Machines is hoping to automate the Burger making process, which it claims can save fast food restaurants $9 billion every year in wages. According to Momentum Machines, the restaurant industry is the most labour intensive in the United States.

The burger machine could potentially destroy your potential high school job. It is not known how efficient the burger-making machine is, but you can get the idea of what it looks like from the pictures below. The company claims this is a more hygienic way to create burgers and the machine allows restaurants to create high quality gourmet burgers without the labour.

Lemnos Labs back Momentum Machines and they are hoping to open their first restaurant soon, where they can also provide training for food businesses that are interested in using their product.

Big franchises like MacDonald’s are highly profitable with net income in the billions despite its large and cheap labour force. However, mid-size and small businesses owners may benefits from saving on the labour cost with a machine like this.

There is no information on pricing on the website, it is still at an early stage but it is not a bad idea.

Source

For the last 24 hours I have been unable to connect to Black Ops II online multiplayer mode without this annoying message coming up:

“The call of duty Black ops 2 server is not available at this time. Please try again later or visit http://www.callofduty.com/blackops2/status for updates“

I have checked with friends in my demographic and their online status is working just fine (I am in the U.K), the website above also states the servers are working well. Since it is a server problem, there is little we can do for now, I will stalk the Call of Duty websites and social networks to see if the problem has been acknowledged. For now, it is back to campaign mode, check back for updates.

Update 1: Follow Activision website here for information on the server outages and patch updates here

Update 2:  Online mode is back up and running

The Galaxy S3 is Samsung’s flagship phone, it is has the latest Android operating system so all the Android apps will be at your grasp. With 2 GB ram and 1.5 GHz, the phone runs apps smoothly and the 1280x720px resolution makes the S3 visually- a good gaming smartphone. There are plenty of great apps on the Google play store; this is going to be a list of a few great apps to try. There is a mix of games, utility and social apps you get you going with your new phone or maybe some app you just have not discovered yet.

Zombies Run

This is a great running app; it is not a game exactly because you actually have to run. It is a cross between an interactive running/audio adventure games. This is how it works, you put of your headphone before you go for a run, the audio stimulation will make it seem like zombies are running after you and you have to run for your life. You end up getting a good work out and having fun at the same time.

Juice Defender

Smartphone batteries die quite quickly, and it is not because the battery sucks- it is just that we use smartphones much more than regular phones. Juice defender helps you manage your battery life by allowing you to easily turn off functions you are not using that is killing your juice.

WhatsApp Messenger

WhatsApp is a social app and gets rid of your need for SMS messaging. The app allows you to make calls and text free, as long as you have Wi-Fi or 3G.

Wolfram Alpha

Is another search engine but it is very different from Google because it gives you answers rather than options or links to several sites. The app is great for answering questions that pop into your head, solving math equations, converting measurements and finding expert answers quickly.

Angry Birds Series

The successful game has turned into a franchise with Angry Birds Space and Angry Birds Star Wars. Non-stop bird slinging fun, there are several stages and some require logic keeping the user engaged.

Flipboard

Flipboard is built for the mobile and tablet experience while most of the content out there is built for the web browser. The app gets rid of all the clutter on the web, and gives the reader an experience built for your device; the app has a beautiful user interface and it very easy to use and navigate for content.

The introduction to the Elder Scrolls Online, is a video that details what to expect in the up and coming MMO game. Bethesda is bringing the world of Skyrim online as a massively multiplayer role-playing video game, a version well sort after by fans of the video game series. Unlike most MMO’s all the players are going to be on one server rather than their being several servers which makes it difficult to find friends or play with them.

You will be able to pick a race and particular skill sets such as healer or warrior. As you play, you level–you can join a guild and take on challenges as part of a team. The video below shows gameplay footage- explaining the combat system and characters, games like World of Warcraft or Guild Wars will give you a feel for the type of experience you will get with the Elder Scrolls online.

Is you have ever said to yourself: Skyrim would be awesome if you could play it online- then this is what you have been waiting for. It is set a 1,000 years before the events of Skyrim, so all the myths and legends written about in Skyrim may feature in the game.

The game is expected to hit the shelves for all PC operating systems in 2013: