Samsung Galaxy S5 Will Include More Than $500 in App Subscriptions

Samsung's Galaxy S5 will ship with more than $500 worth of premium app subscriptions and services.

Dubbed Samsung Galaxy Gifts, the services will include long-term subscriptions to fitness, productivity and lifestyle apps, premium app upgrades and subscriptions to The Wall Street Journal and Bloomberg Businessweek.

In total, the apps and services bundled with Samsung's latest flagship device will total as much as $576. In dollar terms, the most valuable are a six-month subscription to the WSJ ($160), three months of LinkedIn Premium ($75) and six months of 50GB of storage on Box ($60).

Also included with the handset: a host of fitness tracking and lifestyle apps. New S5 owners will get a year of Lark's premium service (which can take advantage of the S5's heart rate monitoring capabilities), a year of Run Keeper's elite membership and six months of premium membership to Map My Run and Skimble.

The bundle will also include three months of Evernote premium, three months of 1 TB of cloud storage from Bitcasa and more than $50 in freebies from PayPal when shopping from participating retailers.

This isn't the first time Samsung has bundled free apps and services with a new device. The company previously offered similar deals for its Galaxy Note 3 handset and Galaxy Note 10.1 tablet.

Samsung hasn't indicated whether any billing information will be required upfront to access the free trial subscriptions, and which (if any) will be auto-renewed when the trial period runs out. This will likely vary from app to app.

Your Next Job Application Could Be Via Smartphone : Mashable

According to Kiplinger’s Economic Outlooks, 2.3 million new net jobs will be created in the U.S. in 2014. Add that to a recent CareerBuilder survey, which indicates two in five professionals plan to change jobs before the end of the year, and get ready for a churning employment market.

As a result, serious job seekers should be ready to apply for a job at any moment’s notice — even if that means resorting to unconventional methods such as applying via mobile devices.

Mobile recruiting is becoming the 'new normal'

Last year’s Mobile Recruiting Insights Conference reported that only 26 of the Fortune 500 companies offer a mobile-optimized job application process; but prepare for those numbers to change. As mobile device sales surpass PC sales, the business world will likely respond by creating easier mobile processes.

Rayanne Thorn, vice president of product marketing and strategy at Technomedia Talent Management, a global talent management software platform, predicts mobile will become the new normal. 

"More and more people are using mobile for all computing and online activities — online job applications are the norm now. Gone are the days of simply walking into a workplace and filling out an application," says Thorn. "Applying online is now requisite in most pre-hire situations, and with over 7 billion mobile devices out there, applying via mobile should be an obvious standard."

Mobile can be advantageous to the candidate

Even though technology innovations are driving a definite change, it’s not necessarily a bad change for candidates.


Susan Vitale, chief marketing officer at iCIMS, a provider of talent acquisition software solutions, explains why: "Applying via mobile is designed to help the candidate more than the employer. As the economy has improved in recent years, more and more workers are considering changing jobs. Essentially, the goal [with mobile job applications] is to make sure that when you do see a job opportunity listed, you can apply right away (when you’re excited about it!) versus having to bookmark the site and come back to it once you’re back on your computer."

Storing your resume on your device

Candidates need to do some planning before they can apply for a job using a mobile device. First, a copy of your resume must be easily accessible.


When it comes to storing your resume on a mobile device, Thorn has a few suggestions: "Resumes should be accessible in online or cloud storage solutions like Google Docs or Dropbox. Additionally, creating an online resume, either on a site like LinkedIn or by saving a PDF in WordPress is a very good idea — many organizations are recognizing the ease of ‘Apply using your LinkedIn profile’ and have added this to their application process."


Does applying via mobile change response time?

One of the most important questions job seekers and employers alike want answered is whether or not applying via mobile device speeds up the hiring process — ultimately, candidates want to get hired and recruiters want to fill open positions as quickly as possible.

Ultimately, the answer isn’t clear. Smooke leans toward yes: "If a company accepts mobile applications, their recruitment strategy is ahead of most companies, including most Fortune 500 companies. Companies that ‘get' recruiting respond to top talent the same day a candidate applies, reply to all rejected candidates with an invitation to connect on LinkedIn or Twitter and close all interested talent within two weeks."


On the other hand, Thorn says that hiring managers still need to adapt to the speed of improved technology. "Unfortunately, on the other side of the application, the process is the same. You may or may not receive feedback quicker," she says. "I can tell you this –- if a company has a robust mobile-application process, chances are they are doing pretty darn good at updating their process, which means a faster, better experience for all. And isn’t that what we are all striving for?"

More:- http://mashable.com/2014/03/02/smartphone-job-application/

Brazilian Man Legally Charges Against Date-Ranking App Lulu

A Brazilian man is leading a legal charge against the creators of date-ranking app Lulu. Almeida Scolari, a 28-year-old student in Sao Paulo, claims the app violates Brazilian law. He filed a suit against the app in early Dec 2013.

Scolari's suit seemingly influenced the Brazilian Public Prosecutor's workplace to launch a civil inquiry into Lulu and Facebook, escalating the difficulty. Scolari has already won one battle with beauty. Since late Dec, once users try and go surfing in Brazil, they've seen this notice: "Lulu is on vacation, happy Christmas. we have a tendency to square measure renovating throughout the vacations and that we are going to be back before long."

Lulu and its creator Alexandra Chong primarily friend-requested argument from the app's starting, however this can be the primary time the app has encountered legal issues to the purpose of going offline for a chronic amount.

Quick review just in case you incomprehensible the media hand-wringing regarding Lulu: it is an app that lets folks known as feminine on Facebook rank folks known as male on Facebook, and is not a pleasant service. It encourages ladies to assign variety rankings to the blokes they apprehend, and provides a listing of descriptive hashtags to flesh every profile out.

Male profiles square measure culled from Facebook, therefore although someone's not hierarchal, if they need Facebook, they are in all probability on beauty. There square measure complimentary hashtags, starting from the benign (#Alwayshappy, #Smellsamazeballs) to the graphic (#Manscaped, #Pleasef***meiloveyou). Then there square measure the mean ones, like #Boring and #WearsEdHardy. Allegations regarding sexual performance are honestly mentioned on the app.

Whatever classes Scolari was assigned , he was indignant enough to bring the app quickly to its newsy knees (I guess he did not browse our article on a way to game Lulu).

"It's a matter of privacy on the net. i need to examine the app now not permitting folks to comment anonymously and Facebook now not giving personal details to any app," Scolari told Telegraph in associate interview. "I wish to examine the app befits Brazilian law."

This is an enormous drawback for beauty, since Brazil was the company's largest market. beauty started within the U.S., however when it launched in Brazil in Nov 2013, the app became the most-downloaded within the country, beating Facebook and electronic messaging app Whatsapp. lots of ladies logged on to rank the lads in their lives (and out of them).

At the tip of Dec, when Scolari filed suit and therefore the company learned of the inquiry, the beauty team created changes. beauty already allowed men to cop out of the app, however the corporate tweaked its terms in order that men in Brazil had to actively affirm that they wished to be reviewed by the app before they appeared thereon.

Perhaps realizing that this modification would primarily kill the app (how several men were progressing to comply with that?), beauty went offline there shortly when.

Brazil's laws around social media square measure in flux, and therefore the Brazilian Congress is predicted to form some major legal reforms regarding technology and privacy, therefore it is not clear however Scolari's case can play out once it goes to court in March.

Either way, beauty higher tread a lot of rigorously or it's going to get a ranking of #NotConstitutional in alternative countries because it continues to expand.