How to transfer your contacts between iPhone and Android

Learn how to how to transfer your contacts between iPhone and Android with this simple how-to guide.

One of the most annoying aspects of changing phones is making sure all of your contacts are transferred to the new device. In the olden days, this meant manually typing in countless names and phone numbers, but our smartphones can now do most of the work for us. This guide will focus on moving contacts from iPhone to Android, but the main principles of this guide will help out other platforms.

Setup

The first thing you will need to do is to make sure you have a Gmail account, which will make moving contacts to any platform very easy. If you don’t have one, sign up here. Before you even touch your new Android phone, you will want to plug your old iPhone into your computer and open iTunes. Once plugged in, you want to visit your contacts page in iTunes. This page will give you an option of where you want to sync your contacts. You want to select Gmail, and then type in your Gmail account information. This allows Gmail and Apple to update your contacts so that all of the names, numbers, and emails from your phone’s contacts are now in Google.

We suggest that you then login to Gmail to modify those contacts before syncing them with your new phone. If you had a Gmail account prior to this process, you will notice that your contacts list is now much larger, and most likely will have several duplicates. If you have duplicate contacts, you can go through them one by one and modify or delete extra contacts. Google also has a “merge contacts” tool that can attempt to do the same thing. To merge your contacts, you will want to click the “more” button with the downward arrow (near the upper-left portion of the window) while on your Gmail contacts page, a drop-down menu will give you the option to “find and merge duplicates.” Selecting this option will have Google automatically search your contacts for duplicate contacts so you don’t have to.

Transferring contacts

Now that you have your contacts in Gmail all organized exactly how you want them, it’s time to put them on your phone. If you haven’t started up your new phone yet, this process is easy. If you have, it’s still easy, but with an extra step.

When you first boot up your new phone, it will ask you if you want to sync your phone to a Google account. Enter in your Gmail info, and you will be all set. Your phone will automatically import all the contacts from your Gmail.

5 High-Risk, High-Reward Steps to Starting Your Dream Company

Nick Hughes is the CEO and co-founder of Seconds, a mobile commerce platform that provides text messaging and mobile payments for local commerce. In his spare time, he inspires entrepreneurs to build meaningful and enduring companies through his writing. Follow him on Twitter@jnickhughes.

So, you want to start a company? That’s a very exciting decision. But first, you must cover all your bases.

For instance, generate a clear and simple idea, then determine what industry or market you plan to target, what type of corporate organization you’ll implement and where your business will be located.

Each is an important decision, but the main consideration when starting a company is how to manage risk. Risk is the heart of entrepreneurship — defined as “the pursuit of opportunity without regard to resources currently controlled.” Risk is the sole determinant whether you will succeed or fail.

Billionaire Sir Richard Branson follows a principle called “protecting the downside,” which means that by looking at any situation and determining all options before making a decision, one can identify the worst case scenario and work backwards from there to find the optimal route forward. Protecting the downside is all about identifying and understanding risk.

Here are five risky steps that will actually help protect the downside of a new company and, counterintuitively, set you up for success.

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1. Quit Your Job

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Conventional wisdom suggests, “Don’t quit your day job” while you start your new venture; only jump over when it shows promise. Unfortunately, this decision can be a recipe for disaster. You will be double-minded, your current efforts at your job will suffer, your family time will suffer, and your product will suffer. Plus, investors will not be impressed with a lack of time commitment. And most likely, you will fail.

Sit down and ask yourself which path you really want to take. Do you really want to leave your current job and start something new? Or do you like the security of your job and a stable paycheck? Although risky, committing to one path will greatly increase your odds of success.

In the summer of 1994, Jeff Bezos quit his job as a vice president of the financial services firm D.E. Shaw. He and his wife moved to Seattle to take advantage of the explosive growth of the Internet and to launch Amazon. When the site first launched in 1995, everyone at the company worked until two or three in the morning, kneeling on a concrete floor to pack, address and ship books. He was all in on his new dream.

Would Amazon have survived and become what it is today if Bezos had chosen to stay at his job and work part time on his side project? I don’t think so. He’s no Steve Jobs, but Amazon is looking to become the next Apple, so I think he made the right decision.

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2. Don’t Follow The Crowd

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Oddly enough, once most entrepreneurs abandon a “normal life” and set out on their own paths, they then look at what others are doing in the industry and opt to imitate instead of originate.

Logitech announces the Cube presentation mouse

While Logitech offers plenty of mice and trackballs for everyone from the typical computer user to the hardcore gamer, the company is launching a new type of mouse with the business user in mind.

With an eye-catching rectangular, boxy design, Logitech has released details prior to CES regarding a new type of mouse that’s designed for anyone giving a presentation. Completely cordless, the device functions as a typical mouse when resting on a hard surface like a desk or conference room table using a 1000dpi laser sensor on the bottom of the Cube. When the mouse is lifted off the surface, the Cube automatically detects the change and launches into ”Presenter mode.”  Each click of the mouse will advance slides being presented in a program like Microsoft’s PowerPoint. The top of the Logitech Cube also serves as a surface to scroll up and down a Web page by using Logitech’s Flow Scroll software. The user simply slides a finger up and down the mouse to accomplish the function.

Owners of the Logtiech Cube don’t have to worry about finding batteries for the device as it comes with a lithium-polymer battery. The battery is charged via a USB connection and the device will let the user when the battery power is low with an illuminated display. The Logitech Cube connects to a computer via a wireless USB receiver operating at 2.4-GHz and offers a sliding power switch to turn off the mouse after completing a presentation. The Cube comes with the Logitech Unifying receiver, a USB charging cable and a pouch to store the device when traveling. The mouse is currently priced at $69.99 and will be available later this month.

While this is the first new device that Logitech has announced for CES 2012, the company will also be showing off other recently released products including the Logitech Wireless Boombox for iPad, Logitech HD Webcam C615 and the Logitech Wireless Solar Keyboard K750. The battery-powered boombox allows iPad owners to stream music from the tablet to the boombox without requiring a cable connection. 

Google Music Manager: A frustrating way to download your music library

Our impressions of the new version of Google Music, which now lets you download your entire music library to a PC or Mac. Unfortunately, it doesn't work as described, and Google's download limitations make it difficult to have a good experience.

Google Music users, you can breathe a slight sigh of relief, but don’t get too excited. Google has finally enabled a way for you to retrieve the music you upload to its new music storage locker service. The announcement was made on the official Google+ page for Android and verified by a new help article on the Android Market Web site. 

Using the Windows or Mac desktop PC client, you can now click one of two options. You can “Download my library” or “Download purchased music.” One of these options presumably downloads only the music you purchased from Google, while the other lets you download all of the music tracks that you have personally uploaded to the service.

A confused cloud

After hearing this news, I tried out the updated app on my Windows 7 machine this morning to mixed results. While it definitely seems to work (it downloads tracks), Google’s new download feature is extremely limited in functionality and its ability to detect which songs are purchased is completely broken. I tried to download only my “purchased music,” thinking that there would be nothing in there except for the few free songs I’ve downloaded on Google Music, but to my surprise, Google Music believes that it now owns a hefty portion of my music library. Hundreds (maybe thousands) of tracks that were ripped from CDs, purchased on Amazon MP3, and given to me by friends are now all labeled as Google Music purchases for no good reason. If this wasn’t frustrating enough, to download music, you can only download all of it. For me, that means I have to download all 7,900 songs I’ve uploaded to Google Music.

There are options to download tracks from http://music.google.com, but you can only download each song or album two times. Yep, two (2) times…forever. If your computer is acting up and you don’t finish a download, well, too bad; you’ll have to use your last download to get your songs. Google announced this limitation for music purchased through Google, but it seems to apply to all music, even the music that you own and have uploaded to Google Music.

The Facebook IPO: Does it matter to you?

The Facebook IPO draws nearer, and we break down why it should matter (or not) to you.

The Facebook IPO has been looming on the horizon for some time now. Recent speculation has increased the ever-building hype around the company’s S1 filing, and the latest rumors say that the process could begin as soon as Wednesday. According to the Wall Street Journal, insiders suggest as much and say the company is expected to raise somewhere between $75 and $100 billion. 

Beyond the fact that this means some very fortunate people are about to become very, very rich, what does the Facebook IPO mean?

For users

Largely, a Facebook IPO means very little for users. The site will continue to serve the same purpose: no one is going to entirely uproot and change the site’s direction, and none of the long-harbored Facebook fears are going to come true. This includes, but is not limited to, users being able to see who has visited their profile and being forced to pay for Facebook.

Of course the company’s structure will change, and there are competing opinions about what the trickle-down effect will be. Yes, the site will become beholden to shareholders, and that could mean a very different governing attitude. When you have to answer to these people more, the way you make decisions inevitably has to change.

At the same time, Facebook is going to come into a lot of cash, and that could mean everything from features everyone’s been holding out on (the Facebook phone, a fully-fledged, built-in media dashboard) to little things, like server upgrades to improve the back-end.

But it’s not like Facebook didn’t have investors to answer to before, or didn’t have enough money to scoop up small startups to its pleasing. It’s just that the degree of both of these things will increase.

Sure, there are concerns that new pressures put on the site could lead to a sacrifice for user experience, or that Facebook could be overrun by its shareholders and become stagnant. These are long-term consequences, though, and apply to every company that goes public. We’re going to call them unlikely based on Facebook’s dependence on users and the fact that it’s probably learned from its predecessors’ mistakes.

For shareholders and employees

Of course the real winners of a Facebook IPO are the company’s shareholders. Early investors like Peter Thiel and Sean Parker will be handsomely rewarded for their insight, and CEO Mark Zuckerberg obviously stands to rake in quite a bit of cash. If Facebook is able to raise the projected $100 billion, then Zuckerberg will go home with $25 billion.

When a company IPOs, there’s a sort of rearrangement that happens, and that means the Facebook team will see some shake-up. Employees are shareholders (to varying degrees, depending on their roles within the company), so they stand to make money off of this move. Some of them have been waiting until Facebook IPOs so they could take the money and pursue their own startup.

For the market

This infusion of Facebook talent back into the market has its own effects. All these very talented people who decide to take their plans and will infuse some new innovation and ideas into the market. We’ve already seen Facebook employees like Dustin Moskovitz (co-founder of Asana) and Adam D’Angelo (founder of Quora) part ways with their former job to strike out on their own, and now some new veterans from within the company – who have some nice, new money – will do the same.

Advertisers will likely see the price of the Facebook Ads service increase. Facebook will have revenue goals it must meet to keep shareholders happy, and an easy way to do this is via its advertising platform. They will probably also be trying to drive business to it, with new features and controls for users. Expect to see the Open Graph fill out as well.

Let’s lump investors in with the market as well, since they are such a catalyst in its growth. Unfortunately, only an elite crowd will be able to get their hands on Facebook stock. If you’re interested in getting a piece prior to the IPO, unless you know someone with a share and they owe you a favor (on the scale of you once saved them from a burning building), you’re probably out of luck. We do advise checking out SecondMarket, where certain individuals can qualify as “accredited investors” and look for Facebook stock for sale. The odds still aren’t great, but it’s worth a shot. And after the fact, it will be trading so high and shares will go so fast that it will be hard for your average Joe to be a part of it all.

This system of successful companies going public later and later is what’s contributed to this: lots of popular and big startups would IPO earlier, and the public would be a part of their growth, and more hands were in the investment pot.

Apple-fan cop uses app to catch iPhone thief

When a distraught crime victim told a New York cop that someone had just taken her iPhone at gunpoint, he immediately believed he had a fair chance of making a quick arrest—thanks to his knowledge Apple's smartphone device and in particular, one of its apps.

A quick-thinking cop used his knowledge of Apple products to lead him to an iPhone thief within 30 minutes of the device being stolen.

The New York cop, Officer Robert Garland,spoke to the New York Times about the incident, which took place in Manhattan on Thursday.

Garland said the episode began when a woman working at a Tuci Italia store on the Avenue of the Americas was robbed of her iPhone at gunpoint as she was using the device to watch YouTube videos during a break.

Officer Garland arrived at the scene of the crime with his colleague, Sgt. Richard Coan, to find an upset and shaken victim.

Once Garland understood it was an iPhone that had been stolen, he realized that there was a fair chance he could locate it. You see, being a fan of Apple products and himself owning an iPhone, iPad and various Mac computers, Officer Garland knew a thing or two about all things i and was therefore familiar with the popular Find My iPhone app, a piece of software that does exactly what it says on the tin.

Without missing a beat, he entered the victim’s Apple ID into his own iPhone and using the app, pinpointed the location of her phone on a map.

Wasting no time, Garland and his colleague followed the information on their map in the hope that they’d be able to make a quick arrest.

After a short time they were confident they could see the robber, outside a Food Emporium store on Eighth Avenue and 49th Street. To confirm it was the right man, Garland pressed the ‘Play Sound’ button on the app, which immediately caused a pinging sound to emanate from the stolen phone.

The cops moved in and sure enough they found the victim’s phone stuffed down one of the man’s socks. And the woman’s reaction to Garland’s recovery? “She was ecstatic,” he told the New York Times.

Of course, the free Find My iPhone app will also come in useful when you misplace your phone, so be sure to download and enable the app on your iOS device. Then if you lose your phone, all you need to do is sign in to icloud.com through any Internet-enabled computer or simply use the Find My iPhone app on another iPhone, iPad, or iPod touch to see its location on a map. You also have the ability to display a message on the phone in case someone finds it, or clear the device of all its data if you’re worried about security.

Apple borrows from BlackBerry, Android, and WP7 with iOS 5

There's no question that the mass amount of new features Apple will introduce with iOS 5 are impressive. Question is, are they original?

Yesterday Apple revealed a massive 200 new features that would hit iOS devices come fall. Among them are innovative and simple tweaks that will make using iPhones, iPads, and iPod Touches easier and more fun. Some of them are even original – and some of them take…let’s call it inspiration…from Apple competitors. For a brand that often takes shots at other mobile manufacturers out there, it certainly seems like the company admires their work. Imitation is the purest form of flattery, right? Here are some of the improvements in iOS 5 Apple is being especially heralded for that we thought looked a little familiar.

iMessages

There’s no denying that iMessages is Apple’s version of BlackBerry Messenger. BBM is one of the most well-loved features BlackBerry has to offer, and gives its users a private messaging app that keeps chatting exclusive between other BlackBerry users. Beyond just feeling privileged enough to be granted access, BBM offers security by keeping your messages between other BlackBerries only. Of course, this was more of an advantage when the brand was the handset of choice for the corporate world, but Apple has been edging in on that status. Now iMessages does…exactly the same thing. Both allow unlimited characters, both show you when recipients have viewed and are responding to your messages, and both allow various types of content.

Swipe for notifications

Apple’s nemesis, Android, got there first when it comes to this notification display system. Apple’s gotten a lot of flak for its previous notifications, which interrupted other use and gave you no choice but to view them right away (often rolling in one after another, in a endless stream of things you had to be caught up on) or ignore them, never to be seen again. Now, taking a page out of Android’s book, you can swipe from the top of your screen downward to see your recent notifications. The Android Notification Bar set the stage for Apple’s Notification Center – and was a feature available in the very first Android phone ever.

Twitter integration

Now this one deviates from straight up copying its competitors. As we all now know, Apple has deeply integrated Twitter into its handsets with iOS 5. Nearly every single thing you do via an iOS device now can be shared on Twitter with one touch. While Android doesn’t have this specific tool built-in, its smartphones have Intents. This means that apps that want to include a share button allow users to customize what the share options will be: Twitter, Facebook, Gmail, etc. We know, Apple didn’t directly take this from Android, but it’s a similar idea and one that’s been on Android smartphones for awhile.

The split keyboard

Score one more for Android. Apple users are thrilled they can finally customize their touchscreen keyboard to their liking – an option Android users have already been able to enjoy. It was a new feature that Apple focused on too much yesterday, but one that iOS users (especially those of the iPad persuasion) are excited about. If should also be mentioned we’ll be seeing this in Windows 8.

Camera function on lock screen

This roundup wouldn’t be complete without Apple being influenced by Windows Phone 7. Yesterday we were reminded how popular the camera function of the iPhone is: It’s one of the top cameras on Flickr. While it’s always been an incredibly easy app to use, Apple has made it easier by giving users immediate access to it even when the screen is locked. A Camera app icon now appears next “Unlock” and users merely have to click the volume-up button to capture an image. Nifty, right? Windows Phone 7 thinks so too! Head of Windows Phone 7 product definition and design Joe Belfiore even commented on the similar features, which include a host of new photo tools: “Feeling flattered today. Lots of great WP ideas headed to iOS. (Camera button/above lock, auto-upload of pics…)”. He also informed one excited iOS user that WP7 handsets have a dedicated camera button that actually wakes up your sleeping phone and takes you directly to the camera. He cheerfully adds the handset has “Been shipping for eight months!”. Do we detect a hint of sarcasm?

Windows Phone 7 may get Instagram before Android

Rumor has it that the hit app will be making its way to Windows Phones before it debuts on Android.

Instagram has catapulted to major success, winning iPhone’s app of the year and spawning an entire ecosystem of smartphone photo products. Despite its enormous popularity, the app has remained rather simple, with only one major upgrade being issued and the team staying relatively small.
But an Android app has always been the biggest priority for Instagram, and CEO Kevin Systrom confirmed as much during Le Web this year.
Now, it appears that Windows Phone 7 users will get their hands on the much-anticipated app first. Insiders tell FastCompany that just may be the case. “A source recently left the impression that the Windows Phone team has possibly been working with the folks from Instagram,” says the site. Systrom would not confirm or deny the rumor. “Other than having pre-announced Android, we don’t comment on roadmap stuff.”
Momentum has been building for WP7. The Nokia Lumia 900 has been incredibly well-received, and Microsoft has been hard at work fine-tuning built-in features for its fleet of phones. Of course, all along Windows Phone has been praised for its metro user interface, which Microsoft has been unifying across its products.
But the platform has struggled with apps—in comparison with Android and iOS. It would be a huge coup to get Instagram on board before its major competitor, and also act as a signal for other developers out there playing the wait-and-see game with WP7. WP7 may have pundits rooting for it, but consumers aren’t going to leave their current mobile operating system if they can’t take their apps with them. And Instagram has one of the most loyal user bases out there.
Obviously, the news has to make Android sweat a little. Systrom said that an Android app was due by the end of 2012, though, so it can’t be too far off in the future if his initial projections were correct. But it’s more what deferring to WP7 says about the market competition—that the tide might be turning for developers.

YouTube offers $500,000 in storytelling contest

YouTube launched a new competition on Thursday involving stories, half-a-million dollars, and Ridley Scott.

If you fancy yourself as a bit of a storyteller, then you might be interested to know about YouTube’s latest project. And by storyteller, we don’t mean people who can read bedtime stories to their little ones in an impressive range of voices and accents – we mean original, engaging tales that could captivate an audience of movie goers.
YouTube announced details of the Your Film Festival on Thursday, and here’s the deal: you submit a short video that’s story-driven—any genre is OK, and format too (eg. short film, web-series episode, TV pilot).
Come June, the videos will be voted on by YouTube users around the world. The makers of the 10 videos which most impress voters with their storytelling prowess will win a trip to Italy to open the 2012 Venice Film Festival.
There, a Grand Prize Winner will be selected. And the prize? A $500,000 grant—yes, that’s half a million big ones—which the winner will use to make a brand new piece of work. The icing on the cake is that the winner’s idea will be produced by the legendary movie maker Ridley Scott and his highly talented team.
The free-to-enter competition is accepting submissions from February 2 and must be in by March 31. The Grand Prize Winner will be announced in Venice on September 3.
If you think you’ve got what it takes to spin a decent yarn, dust off the video camera and get filming. It may be the break you’ve been waiting for….

While MPAA watches SOPA crumble, digital rentals rise as physical rentals decline

As more consumers turn to streaming video rentals on services like Amazon Prime, Vudu and iTunes, physical disc rentals are falling and leaving movie studios wondering how to best distribute films.

According to a new study conducted by the NPD Group, video-on-demand and streaming video from services like Netflix were on the rise during 2011 and 31 percent of all rentals in North America are attributed to digital delivery options. Alternatively, total physical DVD and Blu-ray rentals fell by 11 percent over the year due to the decline in Blockbuster as well as flat Netflix growth. Redbox is the only bright spot in the physical rental market as unit volume increased by 29 percent over 2010, thus increasing Redbox’s share of the rental market to 37 percent.
According to Russ Crupnick, senior vice president of industry analysis for The NPD Group, he stated “There’s no doubt that Redbox has been the largest beneficiary of the collapsing brick-and-mortar store rental business, especially with ongoing Blockbuster store closings and the fact that there are also fewer independent stores than the prior year. The Netflix share erosion may have resulted from their recent well publicized challenges with pricing, and from their now defunct Quikster experiment; however, they are in the process of shifting customers to their Watch Instantly option, so not all of the physical movie rental share drop is a net loss.”
Movie studios have been in a constant struggle with physical delivery systems like Redbox and Netflix due to a general lack of control over pricing. For instance, Warner Brothers recently doubled its 28-day window for Redbox, Blockbuster and Netflix to receive newly released films in addition to halting discounted DVD sales of HBO discs to Netflix in an effort to help preserve falling DVD sales; approximately 15 percent of the studio’s yearly revenue. Studios have also been extremely slow in rolling out support for digital delivery and are currently pinning all hopes on a new technology attached to Blu-ray discs called Ultraviolet. However, the studios have had an extremely difficult time educating the public on the the cloud-based digital locker over the last few months.
The lack of innovation in regards to developing a studio-owned, industry created platform for purchasing movie rentals has allowed competitors like Apple, Walmart, and Amazon to cut into studio profits with user-friendly applications that are compatible across many popular devices like the iPad and Xbox 360. Sony has the strongest grasp on a digital platform to distribute films from Sony Pictures in the form of the PlayStation 3 and possibly the upcoming PlayStation Vita.
While movie studios stumble through the digital age vastly dependent on Internet companies to distribute its content, the MPAA has turned to piracy as the reason for loss of revenue, hence the support for SOPA (Stop Online Piracy Act). As SOPA support is currently evaporating due to a massive outcry from Internet users, MPAA chairman Chris Dodd is calling for a summit between content creators, like movie studios and video game publishers, and Internet companies such as Google. Dodd is seeking a compromise on the issue and declared that he had never seen “an effort that was moving with this degree of support change this dramatically” over the past forty years.
Chairman Dodd is actually barred from attempting to influence any member of Congress regarding SOPA or any future form of the bill due to legislation that bars any former member of Congress from lobbying current members for two years after leaving office. According to Dodd, he has only been working in a strategic capacity in regards to pushing SOPA and PIPA (PROTECT IP Act) through Congress. Dodd has partially blamed Hollywood’s actors, directors, writers, producers, and support staff for not mobilizing support against the Internet movement in order to help the two bills pass.
One studio that is attempting to innovate the process of digital rentals is Lionsgate. They recently announced the simultaneous release of Taylor Lautner’s Abduction on Blu-ray and Facebook at the same time. The movie was released on the social network on January 17 and costs $3.99 for a standard definition rental of the film. While Warner Brothers have been streaming previously released, older films on Facebook such as Inception, this marks the first side-by-side release of a physical disc and a streaming counterpart on Facebook.