In giving the thumbs-up to Google’s acquisition of Motorola, regulators in China stipulated that Google must make Android free and open for five years, a source with knowledge of the situation confirmed with CNET today.

The stipulation would seem to be designed to keep Google from denying Motorola’s handset competitors access to the mobile operating system, or from giving Motorola an advantage of some sort — such as integration between its handsets and Android that’s tighter than connections between rival phones and the OS.

From the beginning, Google has taken an open approach with Android, making it free and available to any hardware manufacturer — a strategy that’s helped to quickly make Android the No. 1 mobile OS globally.

“Many hardware partners have contributed to Android’s success and we look forward to continuing our work with all of them on an equal basis to deliver outstanding user experiences,” Google CEO Larry Page said during a conference call last August, at the time the intended acquisition was announced. “We built Android as an open-source platform and it will stay that way.”

Still, despite the offering of such olive branches, and despite Android’s great success as an open OS, Motorola rivals may well have been nervous. “Any way (Google) tries to couch this, there’s no doubt Motorola is the most favored player,” Gartner analyst Michael Gartenberg told CNET’s Roger Cheng in August. “If I’m a third-party vendor, I have some real concerns here.”

That’s in part because it could have at least crossed Google’s mind to integrate its software and services more tightly with the Motorola hardware, following Apple’s end-to-end approach with its own hardware and services.

Apple uses the sale of its iPhones and iPads to drive sales of iTunes, the App store, iCloud, and other offerings. Google, of course, has its own services — Google Drive, Google+, and so on — and a Google-focused Android device could further push subscribers to them. Ultimately, it’s these services that are the money-makers for Google. Fragmentation of Android is another concern, and a dominant, tightly integrated Android handset might help to address that.

What, then, would rival phone makers do? There aren’t many alternatives to Android. Windows Phone might become a more attractive option, but then, Microsoft has a cozy relationship with Nokia, so it could be deja vu all over again. Here’s what CNET’s Maggie Reardon had to say back in August, in a discussion of the merger’s possible impact on consumers:

What is likely to happen is that HTC, LG, Sony Ericsson, and Samsung will remain Android partners, but they may have to find new ways to differentiate their products from Motorola’s more Google-centric hardware. This may mean that HTC offers more advancements for its Sense software, which rides on top of the Android software. And Samsung may develop more TouchWiz customizations.

For consumers this could either be a good thing or a bad thing. If executed well, it will offer consumers more variety in device capabilities as well as look and feel. But if it’s not executed well, it could just mean more fragmentation in the Android ecosystem.

Reardon also wrote that the merger would probably lead to more-advanced devices from Google, a good thing for consumers.

With the stipulation from China’s regulators (which was reported earlier today by several media outlets), all this may have become moot. And if Google is to be believed, it may not have been an issue anyway.

A company representative told CNET today that Google’s “stance since we agreed to acquire Motorola has not changed and we look forward to closing the deal.”

So, had it crossed Google’s mind to tie Android tightly to Motorola handsets? We might have to wait five years to find out. And who knows what the landscape will look like then?

We have an e-mail out to Motorola for comment and will update this post if we hear back.

Chinese antitrust and competition regulators have cleared Google’s move to acquire Motorola Mobility for $12.5 billion, completing the worldwide regulatory review process.

A Google spokesperson confirmed the Chinese government had given the merger the green light on Saturday. The deal is set to close early in this coming week.

The deal had to be approved by a series of regulators around the world, not limited to the United States and Europe.

Both authorities across the pond cleared the deal within hours of each other in February, leaving Israel, Taiwan, and China to mull over the deal.

China was the last hurdle in the chain of regulators to approve the merger. A second phase of the review caused the investigation to be delayed, as tensions between Google and the Chinese continued to stir.

After all, it comes only a couple of years after Google accused the Chinese government of hacking its networks, which led the search company to famously leaving the country altogether.

The move is significant for Google, as it allows the Android mobile operating system maker — which has the majority of the global mobile market share — to complete the smartphone ecosystem by acquiring handset maker Motorola Mobility.

Google will also receive Motorola’s vast portfolio of around 17,000 patents and 6,800 pending applications in the deal.

This story originally appeared at ZDNet’s Between the Lines.

Google has just introduced a new search feature called Knowledge Graph that’s designed to make it easier to find basic information on a variety of topics. When you search for people, places or things, Google now retrieves the basics on those topics, such a short biography, a map or historical significance, and displays that at the top right of your search results automatically.

Knowledge Graph is an effort by Google to make its search engine “think” in a more humanlike way, and to provide the information it believes you are looking for, rather than simply offering a bunch of links. The feature will roll out to users gradually over the next few days, the company says.

Here are two examples: searching for Edgar Allen Poe brings up a short Wikipedia biography of the author as well as the date and place of his birth and death, information on his family, his education and his writings. A search for the Eiffel Tower shows you a map of its location, a brief history, its height and construction date and even contact information for visitors.

All the basics are in one place, and it’s awfully convenient. Before using Knowledge Graph, however, there are a few things you should know.

Knowledge Graph uses Wikipedia

Google partnered with Wikipedia to display much of the information you see. While commonly searched-for topics are fact-checked fairly well, keep in mind that anyone can edit a Wikipedia page. This sometimes leads to inaccuracies and omissions. So don’t use Knowledge Graph as a primary source of information, but rather as an initial, quick reference.

Sometimes you need to be specific

Knowledge Base understands that some things have the same name, but it’s not a mind reader. For example, Taj Mahal is both a shrine in India and an American blues musician. Searching for “Taj Mahal” brings up the results most are looking for: the building. If you are looking for the Grammy winner, it may be necessary to add a keyword (like this: “taj mahal musician”) to get Knowledge Base to show you the results you’re looking for the first time.

Search around a bit

One of the neatest things about Knowledge Base is Google’s effort to connect what you’re searching for with related topics, things or people. Don’t stop at what you’re looking for; check out the related searches that Google provides below the information box. It’s a fun exercise that can lead to some interesting discoveries.

Article provided by TechNewsDaily, a sister site to Laptopmag.com.

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Audeze LCD-3 headphones

(Credit: Steve Guttenberg)

I’ve written about the Audeze LCD-2 headphones in this blog before, but now I’m going to cover the LCD-3 model, Audeze’s best headphones. At first glance the two don’t look all that different, but the LCD-3s sport real zebrawood earcups and have thicker and softer real lambskin leather cushions to coddle your ears. This is a fairly heavy (550-gram) set of headphones, but they’re comfortable to wear for hours at a time. Details of why the LCD-2s and LCD-3s sound different aren’t forthcoming from Audeze, other than the drivers, which use similar technology, are different. I can’t say the two sound hugely different, but the LCD-3s are definitely more transparent and clear. Are they worth double the price? No, the LCD-2 model remains in the line and gets you 80 percent of the LCD-3′s sound, but if you want the very best, get the LCD-3s.

Rather than use standard headphone drivers that operate like miniature woofers or tweeters, the LCD-3s, like the LCD-2s, use a large, 6.17-square-inch thin-film planar magnetic driver to make sound. The Audeze circular flat diaphragm is sandwiched between rows of neodymium bar magnets. When audio signals pass through the diaphragm it moves in and out to produce sound, but thanks to its large size and superlow mass the planar magnetic drivers generate significantly lower distortion than conventional headphone designs. The LCD-3′s headphone cable is detachable, via locking connectors, and is therefore user-replaceable.

During the course of the review I brought the LCD-3s to a recording session to use as monitors, and they blew my mind. As impressive as they were at home — and they are exceptional — it was great to have the opportunity to hear the sound of a blues band playing live in the studio, and then hear their music over the LCD-3s. I have never heard a set of headphones that got even remotely close to the sound of live music the way this one does. To put the LCD-3′s sound in perspective, I borrowed the engineer’s Sennheiser HD 650 headphones ($650), and it was really shocking how much better the LCD-3s were. The HD 650 is a great set of headphones, but it sounded small, thin, dynamically compressed, and its stereo imaging was relatively flat next to that of the LCD-3. Both headphones were played with the same Grace Design m901 headphone amplifier.

The engineers and musicians at the session all took turns checking out the LCD-3s, and they were all knocked out by the sound. They weren’t audiophiles, but they all heard the difference great headphones can make.

Ray Samuels’ Dark Star headphone amplifier

(Credit: Steve Guttenberg/CNET)

Back at home I used Schiit Lyr and Hifiman EF6 (review in the works) headphone amps for the bulk of my listening tests. The LCD-3′s dynamic punch is simply the best I’ve heard, bass definition and power are phenomenal, stereo imaging is remarkably open and spacious. No dynamic headphone at any price comes close to the LCD-3′s sound. Some audiophiles think the Stax SR-009 ($5,250) is the best sounding headphone on the market; I don’t agree. Yes, it’s even more transparent and clear, but the SR-009 lacks the LCD-3′s power, dynamics, natural midrange, and potent bass.

What’s the ultimate headphone amplifier for the LCD-3? That honor goes to Ray Samuels’ Dark Star balanced amp. I briefly had it at home, and its brute-force dynamic impact, out-of-head imaging, and transparency all improved the sound of the LCD-3s. I also love the design; the Dark Star is a drop-dead gorgeous, handmade amplifier.

The LCD 3 headphones are available directly from Audeze for $1,945, or from its worldwide dealers.

Broadband data caps were a hot topic this week as Comcast and Verizon Wireless separately talked up upcoming changes to their policies. So how will these data cap tweaks affect consumers?

In short, Comcast’s move, which increases its existing cap from 250 GB to 300 GB and now offers an overage fee for those who exceed the cap, is likely a positive for its subscribers. Even the consumer advocates who typically hate the idea of data caps applauded the company for improving the policy. Meanwhile, Verizon’s new plan, which will force existing subscribers “grandfathered” on its unlimited data plan into a tiered share-data plan, will likely eventually lead to higher prices for wireless consumers.

Let’s look at Comcast’s policy change first. The cable operator said on Thursday that it will no longer cut-off users who exceed 250 GB of data usage per month. Instead, the company is testing a new policy in which it will increase the usage cap to 300 GB of data per month. And for those that do go over the cap, it will charge an additional $10 for 50 GB of usage. David Cohen, executive vice president for Comcast, said the company has no intention to raise prices on its existing tiers of service. On a conference call with reporters after the announcement, he said that the new policy was meant to free its users from the worry of having their service cut-off.

“We didn’t like the message that we were giving our customers with the static 250GB cap,” he said. “Now, we are sending a signal to our customers that we want them to use our broadband service and to feel free to use it for all lawful purposes. We want them to subscribe to Netflix and stream YouTube and use Skype to their heart’s content without worrying about hitting some artificial data cap that results in them losing their service.”

The reality is that Comcast’s cap, even at 250 GB, was more than generous for the majority of its broadband customers. According to Sandvine, a company that makes network management tools used by cable operators, only about 1.5 percent of U.S. broadband households use more than 250 GB of data per month. And only about 1 percent exceed 300 GB. On average, broadband users in the U.S. use about 32 GB of data per month.

For the vast majority of Comcast’s customers, this change in policy means nothing, since most will never even get close to reaching the 300 GB cap. Comcast’s executives wouldn’t admit it, but the move was an attempt to quiet accusations that the cable operator is violating promises it made to regulators in order to merge with NBC Universal that it wouldn’t favor its own content over competitors. Earlier this year Comcast began offering a service that streams its Xfinity video content to Xbox gaming consoles over its broadband network. Unlike the Web portal or the mobile app for Xfinity, the service with the Xbox will not count against a users monthly usage. Other streaming video companies, like Netflix have cried foul. Netflix believes that Comcast’s discriminatory treatment of its own content violates the deal it made with the FCC and it also violates the spirit of the Net Neutrality regulations that the agency recently put in place.

Comcast says it’s not violating the conditions of its merger nor is it violating the FCC’s regulations, because the content it’s streaming is not over the public Internet.

This notion of whether or not Comcast has violated Net Neutrality rules or promises to the regulators is another issue entirely. And perhaps the company’s pro-consumer move to increase its cap to 300 GB and suspend the 250 GB cap while it’s testing the new policy is simply a good-will gesture to distract from this other issue. In any case, what Comcast did this week was a good thing for consumers.

Meanwhile, I think Verizon’s plan to move customers off unlimited data and onto shared plans will likely result in higher prices for consumers. On Wednesday Verizon’s chief financial officer Fran Shammo said at a JP Morgan investor conference that the company would be migrating its existing smartphone unlimited data customers to a new tiered offering that will allow families to share data among individuals as well as add other connected devices to their accounts. He didn’t offer details about the plan or how the company will get customers to give up their unlimited data plans. But he said that as customers upgrade to 4G LTE devices, Verizon will require them to go onto a tiered share plan. For some consumers, a shared-data plan may actually save them money, depending on how Verizon prices the service. Most smartphone users in the U.S. are using less than 1GB of data per month anyway. So most subscribers on Verizon’s unlimited data plan are over-paying for service anyway. But I’m not confident that Verizon will come up with plans that serve customers any better than the unlimited plans.

But based on Shammo’s comments, Verizon expects subscribers to use more data and have to upgrade to higher tiers of service. But if they had been able to keep their unlimited data plans, these customers would have been able to consume more for the same flat rate.

“I think revenue ARPU [average revenue per user] will continue to grow as we get into data share plans and people start to connect more devices [on the network],” he said, according to the transcript of the event. “As they add more devices, they are going to have to buy up into tiers. So again, you will see the revenue increase there.”

It makes perfect sense that Verizon would want to get away from the flat-rate all-you-can eat pricing of its data service. Unlike traditional broadband, wireless operators don’t sell different tiers of wireless Internet access based on speed, instead when data was introduced, they charged a flat fee to encourage more usage. Subscribers got whatever speed they could get, and they were allowed to consume as much data as they liked.

By contrast, cable and DSL service providers offer different levels of services. Slower speeds services cost less money, while higher speeds cost more. Users are still able to use as much data as they like, but if they plan to watch a lot of streaming video or back-up very large files, they will either suffer through lots of buffering and long waits or they’ll pay for a higher level of service so that the speed of the network is faster.

For Verizon and the other wireless carriers moving to these data caps, creating tiers of service based on usage is a way for them to make more money over the life of a customer. And the side benefit is that they also curb extremely heavy usage, which can be a problem for both wireless and wired broadband networks.

“The sad reality is that while it’s a great market penetration strategy, unlimited data is simply not a sustainable economic model,” said Guy Rosen, CEO of Onavo, a wireless application that helps people control data usagel. “Supply is limited by the laws of physics and demand is simply exploding. Verizon’s statement adds to AT&T’s throttling debacle of earlier this year, ushering us into a future where all data has a price tag. It’s now clear that operators will find any loophole they can to eradicate grandfathered unlimited contracts.”

Comcast and Verizon Wireless are dealing with a deluge of Internet traffic on their networks. Data usage on wired and wireless networks is exploding. Cisco Systems has predicted that worldwide Internet traffic will increase four-fold between 2010 and 2015. The company’s networking index, which looks at the growth of Internet traffic each year, forecasts global traffic will be 80.5 exabytes per month during this period, which is equivalent to 17 billion DVDs worth of traffic. In 2010, the world saw about 20.2 exabytes of data transmitted over the Internet per month.

Much of the growth in Internet traffic is coming from the fact that people are streaming more video, particularly high-definition video. Services like Netflix, Hulu.com, and Youtube account for huge amounts of traffic on the network. And this traffic is only expected to increase as these services and others grow in popularity.

The trend is also moving to mobile. And it’s driving usage there as well. In fact, Cisco anticipates that global mobile traffic will actually outgrow fixed data traffic by three times between 2011 and 2016. In addition to the increase in mobile video, Cisco also attributes this trend to other streaming content, like music. What’s more there will simply be more Internet-enabled devices in the market in the coming years. By 2016, there will be 10 billion mobile Internet-connected devices, which exceeds the world’s projected population at that time of 7.3 billion.

What this means for service providers, such as Comcast and Verizon, is that they have to deal with a tsunami of data traffic on their networks. Wireless and wired broadband providers have been upgrading their networks to keep up with demand. Comcast has just upgraded its network to the Docsis 3.0 standard, supercharging its network with even higher speeds and more capacity. And Verizon Wireless is leading the world in terms of its 4G LTE deployment, which will use wireless spectrum more efficiently and provide faster speed connections and more network capacity.

Even with these upgrades, these companies say they need to control and manage traffic on their networks. While there are differences between wireless and cable broadband networks in terms of how much traffic they can actually handle, the one thing the two have in common is that the network capacity is shared among the users in geographic areas. This means that a few users running huge back-ups on their home computers can hose an entire neighborhood’s cable broadband service. And a few users streaming HD video all at the same time in the same cell site can cause super slow connection speeds for everyone else in the area.

While it’s clear that consumers are likely to see more data caps in the future both on their wireless and wired broadband connections, the question is how companies will implement them. Harold Feld, legal director for the public policy watchdog group Public Knowledge, commended Comcast for taking a step toward offering more flexibility in its usage cap. But he also warned that even though Verizon’s plan will also increase flexibility, it will also likely result in higher prices for consumers. He called on regulators to take a closer look at these data caps.

“The Federal Communications Commission (FCC) and Congress should find out how those caps are set, how they are evaluated and what purpose they serve,” he said. “In the very limited and potentially even more limited digital marketplace, and in light of the importance of broadband to our national economy, the answers to these questions are essential.”

Windows Vista: ‘Get more done in less time.’ Not everyone agreed with that Microsoft ad copy.

(Credit: Microsoft)

Microsoft published a “brief” history of the Windows interface in a blog post today that offered some flashes of candor about Vista and Windows 95 and argued that the tablet as we know it today is one device too many.

Friday’s Building Windows 8 post lays out “a brief history of the Windows user interface” that is anything but brief. (True to the blog’s prolix style).

Penned by Jensen Harris, director of program management for the User Experience team at Microsoft, it begins with, “the user interface of Windows has evolved and been transformed over the course of its entire 27-year history,” and then takes a tour of the interface from Windows 1 to Windows 8.

Some highlights of “Creating the Windows 8 user experience”:

• Windows 1 and the “dubious value” of the mouse: Windows 1, released in 1985, was a “rough graphical shell around DOS, primarily to be used with the keyboard,” Harris writes. And the mouse was doomed to fail from the beginning, according to pundits at the time. “Mice are nice ideas, but of dubious value for business users” (George Vinall, PC Week, April 24, 1984). “There is no evidence that people want to use these things.” (John C. Dvorak, San Francisco Examiner, February 19, 1984).
• Windows 3 and 3.1 and File Manager: File Manager arrived. “This upgrade bet big for the first time on most users having a mouse,” he writes. And Alt+Tab came into vogue then. “Because getting to…minimized apps often required moving a bunch of windows out of the way first, the Alt+Tab keyboard shortcut became a very popular way to switch between running programs.”
• Windows 95 and the nonstarter “Start” button: That Start button didn’t live up to its initial billing. “The Start button was so undiscoverable that, despite having the word Start right on it…text had to be added to the taskbar after early test releases so that people could figure out how to get started using the programs on their PC.” And an interesting sidebar about the IBM Simon mobile phone. “The first ever mobile phone with PDA capabilities, the IBM Simon, was introduced around this time. It weighed almost 1.5 pounds, ran DOS, and the only app ever designed for it sold only two copies.”
• Windows XP a “garish” experience for some: Not everyone loved Windows XP. “Although Windows XP eventually became a major success, some people at the time were frustrated with the changes to the user interface. They found the Windows XP experience to be garish, and users inquired about how to ‘downgrade’ to previous versions,” Harris writes.
• Windows Vista now looks “cheesy”: Microsoft’s most panned OS. Harris has relatively little to say beyond describing the Aero interface as having the “appearance of highly rendered glass, light sources, reflections, and other graphically complex textures.” But he does add this: “This style of simulating faux-realistic materials…looks dated and cheesy now, but at the time, it was very much en vogue.”
• Windows 8 means not having to carry around a tablet, necessarily: Converge the tablet and laptop and, presto, you don’t necessarily need a tablet. “Windows 8 imagines the convergence of two kinds of devices: a laptop and a tablet. Instead of carrying around three devices (a phone, a tablet, and a laptop) you carry around just a phone and a Windows PC,” Harris writes. Of course, this attempts to refute Apple’s argument that convergence doesn’t always work. “Anything can be forced to converge, but the problem is that products are about trade-offs, and you begin to make trade-offs to the point where what you have left doesn’t please anyone,” CEO Tim Cook said last month.

And Harris touches on Windows RT, the version of Windows that will run on ARM processors from Nvidia, Qualcomm, and Texas Instruments.

Harris argues that the tendency for phones and tablets to “show only one app on the screen at a time” is strictly done to “manage the background activity on the device so that only apps you are actively using can drain the battery.”

Harris continues. “We did feel like only offering ‘one-at-a-time’ in the Metro style experience was a bit of a constraint, and not totally true to the Windows history of multitasking. So we evolved Snap for Windows 8. This feature lets you run any two WinRT-based apps side-by-side, so that you can watch a video while you browse the Web.”

Windows 1 was released in 1985. Mice were still a novelty.

(Credit: Microsoft)

Windows 3 introduced the File Manager.

(Credit: Microsoft)

A Windows 8 Messaging app ‘snapped’ next to the Maps app. ‘Two apps at once, even on a tablet.’

(Credit: Microsoft)

The CoPilot GPS app offers very basic route guidance, and does not recalculate automatically.

(Credit: Wayne Cunningham/CNET)

When heavy hitters such as Microsoft and Google can offer iPhone navigation apps with turn-by-turn guidance for free, smaller companies find it tough to compete. ALK Technologies makes a play for continued relevance with its free CoPilot GPS iPhone app, building on the company’s previous CoPilot Live Premium apps.

Free always sounds good, and CoPilot GPS makes its case against Google Maps and Microsoft Bing by offering downloadable maps. As part of the set-up process, CoPilot GPS presents a list of maps for different regions you can download. With this very thoughtful approach, you can load up the U.S. and Canada, at 1.3 gigabytes, just the U.S., at 1.2 gigabytes, or individual regions, such as the Midwest, taking up 300 megabytes. You can choose at anytime to change the maps on your phone, as well.

To keep the downloads small, and make up for the app being free, CoPilot GPS does not include 3D, or perspective view, maps. Similar to the free competition, the maps only show in top-down view. However, CoPilot GPS does offer a variety of color schemes.

Where the interface for CoPilot Live Premium was confusing, ALK has cleaned up the menu structure in CoPilot GPS somewhat. The map screen shows a big, red button at the bottom labeled ‘Add Destination’, and an odd little button made up of purple boxes opens up the Driving menu. This latter menu lets you switch to walking mode, and has the extremely useful ‘Cancel Destination’ button, something ALK’s paid navigation app lacked.

Along with downloadable maps, CoPilot GPS also offers better destination options than most of its free competition. Along with manual address entry, if offers saved locations, points of interest, and photo locations. This last is particularly cool, as it looks at the geo-tag for any photo stored on the iPhone and inputs that as the destination. The app also offers Wikipedia locations.

Unlike the maps, the most of the destination options rely on an Internet connection, so don’t expect to be searching for a restaurant in a cellular dead spot.

The app can set a destination based on the geo-tag from a photo.

(Credit: Wayne Cunningham/CNET)

Other cool features in CoPilot GPS are weather, a music player, and sharing options. The weather feature does not integrate with the maps, just launches a forecast for any location you specify. It, of course, relies on a data connection. The music player is a convenient way to access the iPhone’s music library without leaving navigation.

The sharing options include Facebook and Twitter. Once you have signed in through the CoPilot GPS app, you can do useful things such as send a tweet about your ETA to a destination.

So far, so good, but the app takes a dive when it comes to route guidance. ALK’s business model involves upselling users on voice prompts, which cost $14.99 per year. Without this feature, it is very difficult to use CoPilot GPS for navigation, especially in a car.

The need to constantly look at the phone while driving makes it a bit dangerous, do it would be better to have a passenger using the app to help navigate. When under route guidance, the app shows your location on the route, along with an arrow showing the direction of your next turn. But it does not bring up any explicit graphics showing the upcoming turn as you get close.

Further, it does not automatically recalculate if you miss a turn. There is a big recalculate button right on the map, which is helpful. However, when testing out the route guidance, we generally would only hit the recalculate button while at a stop light. The app did not remember which direction the car was going, so often would come up with a new route going the other direction on the street. This proved very frustrating.

The voice prompt upgrade, an in-app purchase, also adds 3D maps and graphics for upcoming turns, which should make turn-by-turn navigation much more usable.

CoPilot GPS, without the voice prompt upgrade, seems worthwhile to keep around as an emergency back-up, for those times you find yourself in a location without data access. However, it would never work as a primary navigation app.

Click here to download the free CoPilot GPS app for iPhone.

May 18th, 2012 by Davey Alba, LAPTOP Staff Writer  

Facebook has finally gone public. The much-fussed-over IPO came to pass this morning, making its debut on the Nasdaq at $38 per share. So what does that mean for you, the average joe? Unfortunately not much, since majority of the shares have likely already been scooped up by various bigwigs and moguls, and they’ll only become available once more to the public when they begin to lose their value.

However, if there’s one thing this frenzied affair has sparked in you, it’s probably at least a tiny bit of renewed interest in stocks, how they work, and how to track them. After all, it’s a little hard to get started on something that esoteric! But if you’ve got a smartphone and some storage space to spare, why not check out some of these stock apps (no, not that kind) that we’ve rounded up for your benefit? You don’t have anything to lose — Zuckerberg and co. are billionaires now, while these apps are free. Learn from them while saving every penny on your road to affluence.

A recognizable name amongst the mainstream public by any measure, Bloomberg has come out with an official app on both iOS and Android to give users instant access to its vast and comprehensive database of business news, market data and portfolio tracking tools.

Get market-moving news from a broad swath of categories — 35 in total — ranging from Economics, Politics, Technology, Health Care, Currencies, Emerging Markets and more. The Bloomberg is sure to satiate whatever hankerings you have to learn finance, giving you a perspective of the subject from multiple angles. It even supports live Bloomberg TV and videos on the top business stories in-app.