Yesterday, mobile security firm Lookout announced at the Black Hat security conference that it had discovered a seemingly benign wallpaper application for Android that had been downloaded millions of times — and allegedly harvested user data like text messages and browsing history, which was being sent to servers in China. At least, that’s what was reported. Turns out, it looks like the press jumped the gun on reporting this as a major security issue, and the company has posted a clarification to its blog. According to the post, while there is something suspicious going on here, the data these applications are accessing is not nearly as sensitive as some of the initial reports would have you believe (it isn’t grabbing your text messages and browsing history). The apps are apparently sending some potentially sensitive data like your subscriber identifier, but even then, the Lookout team says that there is no concrete evidence of malicious behavior: The data included the device’s phone number, subscriber identifier (e.g. IMSI), and the currently entered voicemail number on the phone (see below for technical details). While this sort of data collection from a wallpaper application is certainly suspicious, there’s no evidence of malicious behavior. There have been cases in the past on other mobile platforms where well-intentioned developers are simply over-zealous in their data gathering, without having malicious intent. For its part, Google says that it has “suspended this application while we investigate further”. CrunchBase InformationAndroidInformation provided by CrunchBase
Apple’s earnings and revenue growth in mobile have been awe-inspiring to witness. From zero presence three years ago, Apple is now the most profitable cell phone maker in the world. Apple’s success in this compressed period has helped it become an enormous buyer of components. In fact iSuppli projects that next year Apple will become the second-largest semiconductor buyer worldwide and may edge out HP in 2012 to become the world’s largest. Though this scale presents Apple with enormous bargaining power, it also begs the question: Should Apple own its own wireless chip development? This week’s rumors that Intel is about to acquire Infineon’s wireless chip business to make a run at the smartphone market bring this question front and center. Infineon is Apple’s sole supplier for cellular basebands, the core chipsets used in mobile phones to handle voice and data communications. Based on Apple’s deep relationship with Infineon, and its famed secrecy around M&A, it is a pretty safe bet that Steve Jobs is analyzing the implications of a deal. Vertical Integration is Back In Vogue: We are re-entering a period where companies are integrating vertically instead of horizontally. This is happening at an incredible pace at companies like Cisco and Oracle. Even Microsoft recently hinted at creating its own chips, by obtaining an architectural license for ARM processors. There are even precedents in the mobile phone market—both Nokia and Ericsson successfully managed cellular chip teams up until 2007 before spinning them off in a quest to move up the services stack. The fact is that despite Apple’s success with the A4, it trails nearly all other large hardware companies in chip development, including Cisco, Sony, and IBM. Synergies Between Infineon and Apple are Significant: In addition to having supplied every cellular baseband chip that Apple has ever bought, Infineon is one of only four companies with an ARM architectural license (Qualcomm, Marvell, and now Microsoft are the other three). This allows Infineon to extend ARM’s basic capabilities, and is clearly synergistic with the charter of PA Semi and Intrinsity, which were acquired by Apple for their respective ARM expertise. But below the surface, the rationale for Apple owning wireless technology runs even deeper. Because Apple primarily sells just one hardware version per year, it’s infinitely easier for it to match devices with features. Nokia got rid of its chip business because it was impossible to produce different variants of chips for hundreds of handsets. In this way, it’s Apple’s minimalistic approach to hardware that makes it the perfect candidate for vertical integration at the wireless level, as R&D can be narrowly focused. For example, if Apple’s not going to release a 4G handset in 2011, they don’t need to worry about cramming in pre-release versions of LTE / 3GPP. Or if they are strategically planning around short range wireless micro-payments, they can begin to integrate NFC technology now. This edge could conceivably help Apple out-innovate larger competitors like Qualcomm who must produce more generic chips which cater to the needs of the broader market. Lastly, since Infineon is only the fourth largest 3G baseband provider, there are fewer OEM customer relationships to phase out following the acquisition (LG and Nokia are its next biggest customers and wouldn’t be happy buying from Apple, so would turn elsewhere for subsequent designs). But precisely because Infineon is a smaller player, this issue of buying into the supply-chain is entirely manageable. Apple could also learn better practices in RF design from Infineon, clearly a weak spot per the recent antenna issues. Financially, It Makes Sense: Apple can do no wrong right now with Wall Street. That’s why 2010 is an ideal time for “risky M&A” in the wireless space. With its stock at an all-time high and with over $40 billion in cash, Apple can afford to strategically spend capital on expanding into wireless chip development. Infineon’s wireless group did $1.2 billion in sales last year, and comparable transactions suggest a premium of about 1.5x sales, or a $2 billion dollar price-tag. Let’s compare this to the ridiculous rumor in April that Apple was going to buy ARM, the maker of semiconductor IP that goes into all of the world’s cell phones. At that time I outlined why buying ARM for more than $5 billion made zero sense. Clearly acquiring Infineon for around $2 billion absolutely does make sense. And here’s the real crux: If Infineon is acquired by Intel or Samsung, Apple won’t ever be able to obtain wireless technology at this price again. Every other chip vendor supplying cellular basebands is enormous and diversified across industries (Qualcomm, ST-Ericsson, MediaTek, Broadcom). Not Owning Wireless Is Dangerous For Apple: Aside from the synergies and advantages to owning wireless chip development, you can bet Steve Jobs is thinking about the risks of not doing so. In the future, handset OEMs will buy “package solutions”, consisting of application processors (e.g. Apple’s A4, which give mobile phones computing power for handling software and applications), integrated connectivity chipsets (GPS, Wi-Fi, FM, Bluetooth, NFC), and multifunction radios—all from one vendor. Qualcomm is nearly there today, and Intel wants to combine Infineon with its Atom processors to get there. This poses a threat to Apple, since Qualcomm and Intel will start to integrate portions of digital interface logic into their application processors in proprietary ways in an effort to promote bundled solutions. This will marginalize Apple’s ability to marry merchant wireless chipsets with subsequent variations of its A4 application processor. And it’s why vertically integrating “half-way” is a dangerous journey for Apple as mobile innovation accelerates and integration levels skyrocket. The truth is Apple is a different company today than before it entered the mobile world. Picking up Infineon would give Apple all the necessary pieces listed above to completely control its future as a mobile device company. And if Apple misses out, it will likely never get another chance to acquire the wireless technology necessary to do so because the entire mobile component value-chain is consolidating and the remaining players are giants. Which is exactly why Intel is rumored to be salivating so much at the prospect of snapping up Infineon for itself. Intel has big ambitions in mobile and understands why it can’t let this one get away. The only real question is whether Apple wants to get into a bidding war with Intel. _________________________ Contributor Steve Cheney is an entrepreneur and formerly an engineer & programmer specializing in web and mobile technologies. CrunchBase InformationAppleInfineonInformation provided by CrunchBase
A few weeks ago, we were alerted to a new site currently in stealth mode called Voyurl. As the name implies, the idea behind it is to make it so you can see what other people are looking at on the web (and to make your clickstream seen). It sounds creepy as hell. It’s like Blippy but with more potential porn. I love it. But when I tried to sign up for the service, they sent me a note back that it wasn’t quite ready yet and that they were cranking on the beta. Fine, that happens from time to time. I can be patient. But I’m not sure I can quietly wait any longer when the site starts running ads like this. As freshly unemployed angel investor Joshua Schachter pointed out this evening, Voyurl has one hell of a way to get potential investors’ attention: buy Google ads targeted at them. “Well, that’s one way to get a potential investor’s attention. I’m either impressed or creeped out,” Schachter notes. Voyurl’s ad reads: Hi Joshua. We’re VOYURL. We Love Delicious. And We’d Love to Talk! Well, it definitely worked. He saw the ad — though it’s not clear if he wants to talk after seeing it. I, for one, am even more intrigued now. The service is giving me some spiel about how it’s all about open data. That’s nice, but what I find really interesting is the concept of people showing off every website they’re browsing at all times — in realtime. From their landing page: A little creeped out? That’s cool. But don’t worry, it’s ok to look. Besides, you can turn off voyurl at any time, for those, ahem, unmentionable sites. Plus, you can set your own filters. See, it’s not that scary. Again, Blippy for web browsing. Ads targeted at angel investors aside, they’re actually trying to raise money through Kickstarter. While would-be Facebook rival Diaspora raised some $200,000 that way, Voyurl only has about $1,300 so far. But they still have 75 days to go to reach their $10,000 goal — so help them out if this idea interests you. Voyurl co-founder Adam Leibsohn managed to get profiled a couple years ago in the New York Times. Here’s what they wrote: Adam Leibsohn, a 27-year-old communications strategist who makes roughly $60,000 a year and pays $1,650 a month for his own apartment in the East Village, says the trick to squeaking by in the city is to swear off impulse purchases and credit cards. He cooks for himself, pirates wireless Internet access and buys electronics from Craigslist or eBay. If he wants new clothes, he unloads old ones first at the Salvation Army, keeping the receipt for his taxes. “It’s kind of a spartan lifestyle,” he says. “I eat a lot of street meat for lunch.” Again, I keep getting more intrigued. Is Voyurl going to be the next big thing, or a haven for online predators? I can’t wait to find out. As a sidenote, this is the second time Schachter has found oddly targeted ads around his name. The last time, it was Yahoo (the company he quit in 2008 after selling Delicious to them) who wastrying to find new employees on Google off of searches for his name. Classy. Schachter apparently loves Googling himself. As we all do. Soon, we’ll be able to prove it on Voyurl. CrunchBase InformationvoyurlJoshua SchachterInformation provided by CrunchBase
We’ve just received official word from Google confirming that they are not currently blocked in China and that a server issue was most likely the cause of their dashboard misread. One month ago, Google put up their watered-down engine to avoid being shut down completely in Mainland China. Because the Chinese government did not like the auto redirect to Google Hong Kong previously in place, the new degraded version at the center of all today’s confusion simply links to Google Hong Kong. From Google, in an email today: Because of the way we measure accessibility in China, it’s possible that our machines could overestimate the level of blockage. That seems to be what happened last night when there was a relatively small blockage. It appears now that users in China are accessing our properties normally. Please also note that the dashboard is not a real time tool. The email also suggests that an error in measuring what turned out to be a small amount of blockage was responsible for the false alarm. The fact that the dashboard does not update in realtime is probably what lead to today’s mixed reports as to whether or not the service was working. When asked what specific issue caused the blockage, Google responded that they had nothing more to add. Image: Bramus! CrunchBase InformationGoogleInformation provided by CrunchBase
Despite earlier reports to the contrary, Android Market watcher AndroLib says there aren’t 100,000 applications available in the store – yet. There have, however, 100,000 apps been submitted to Android Market since its public debut, the site wagered this morning, up from approximately 5,000 in June 2009. The Androlib directory covers multiple markets, including international ones, so not all apps and games are available in the United States, necessarily. Not all markets are counted, even, so AndroLib claims it may potentially undercount the number of apps, although it’s safe to say there’s somewhat of an error margin either way as with every data aggregation. According to AndroLib, an estimated 18,000 apps have been removed or otherwise unpublished from Android Market, so the current number of active apps currently available in Android Market is closer to 83,300 today. That’s more in line with the number Google itself shared in its latest earnings call, about two weeks ago (more than 70,000 in total). How long before the number of active Android apps hits 100,000? CrunchBase InformationAndroidInformation provided by CrunchBase
Developer BioWare has revealed that its aim for every game it releases is to sell 10 million copies globally, showing the growing media might of the gaming world. Bioware is the developer behind hits such as Mass Effect and Dragon Age, but it is its forthcoming Star Wars: The Old Republic that is garnering the most interest, with the MMO widely tipped to provide a real rival for industry giant World of Warcraft. But for those that doubt the growing power of gaming, the 10 million target should show the scale of the industry. 10 million copies BioWare vice president and co-founder Greg Zeschuk revealed the figure in an interview with Video Gamer. "We need to sell 10 million units. That's actually the new target, right?" he said. "We do Top 10 games, our stuff is quite successful. I know Mass [Effect 2] is number eight so far this year, in North America. "Sometimes I'm facetious when I say some of those things, knowing that we can sell a few million but seeing that someone else can sell 25. You're kinda like, 'Well, that's a hit!'" WoW Zeschuk jokes that managing to sell half as many subscriptions to the public as Blizzard have managed with World of Warcraft would be a major success. "We always joke that if we only do half as well as Blizzard on Star Wars: The Old Republic, we'll be quite satisfied, he added. " We've been very fortunate." Related Stories Is Sony considering 3D-slider tool for PS3?Updated: Top 20 best free games you should play todayUpdated: Top 20 best free games you should play todayNintendo DS R4 cards declared illegal in UKPlayStation 3 outsells Xbox 360 by 28%
Steve Ballmer has admitted that Apple has sold more iPads than he'd have liked, as he defended the lack of a credible Windows 7 tablet alternative. Speaking at a conference, Ballmer insisted that the Windows 7 tablets would not be rushed out, but that everybody was aware of the pressing need for options. "They'll be shipping as soon as they are ready," Ballmer said. "It is job one urgency. No one is sleeping at the switch." Apple When asked about the popular iPad, which has sold well globally despite people's reservations about Apple's closed garden approach, Ballmer confessed that he was not enjoying the success. "They've sold certainly more than I'd like them to have sold," added Ballmer. The Microsoft chief executive has consistently pointed to Windows 7 tablets as a key part of the company's immediate future along with Windows Phone 7. Related Stories Apple refreshes iMacs with Intel Core i3, Core i5 and Core i7 chipsApple takes on mouse with Magic TrackpadOpinion: Apple declares that the mouse is deadHands on: Apple Magic Trackpad reviewApple iPad fridge magnet mount announced
Wolfram has announced a beta release of Wolfram|Alpha widgets, bringing the computational engine to your Facebook or Twitter accounts. The widgets offer the chance to build a mini-app on top of Wolfram Alpha queries – so you can do those oft-repeated computations more quickly. The Wolfram Alpha widgets given as a examples include the 'essential kitchen unit converter' which, as you may expect deals with units and measures and a mathematical derivative solver. Free mini-apps "Wolfram Alpha Widgets are free, personalised mini-apps that leverage the depth and breadth of the Wolfram Alpha computational knowledge engine," explains Wolfram's release. "Widgets can do almost anything, from calculating calories in a recipe to solving complex equations. "If Wolfram Alpha can answer your query, you can use it to create a widget." When you are done creating your widget you can then share it on Facebook, Twitter or via email. You can check out the beta at http://developer.wolframalpha.com/widgets/ and even make your own. TechRadar has already come up with an 'not a valid input, please try again' app with virtually no effort whatsoever. Related Stories Facebook Questions beta is announcedInternet gets massive security upgradeGary Marshall: Facebook wants you to work for it - for freeYouTube now gives users 15 minutes of fameOpinion: Social networks need more social, less network
TechRadar spoke to Amazon today about its new Kindle device which is set to hit the UK this August. The refreshed Kindle range has been made 20 per cent smaller than previous devices and utilises new more readable e-ink, but features like colour and touchscreen technology are nowhere to be seen on the device. There is a very good reason to this according to Amazon. Speaking to Steve Kessel, senior vice president for Kindle at Amazon, he told TechRadar that there won't be a touchscreen version of the Kindle as this will impede on the user experience. We won't compromise "I don't think there will be a touchscreen version [of the Kindle] and let me tell you why: touch for an LCD display makes a ton of sense. Because touch is a layer which goes over the top. But an LCD is backlit so it doesn't matter," Kessel notes. "But if you put touch on an e-ink display – a reflective display – then anything you put on the top ruins readability. You can already see this with some devices which are out on the market at the moment that have integrated touch into the displays. "It increases glare and makes it more fuzzy. We won't do that; we won't compromise the reading experience because of the technology. "Colour is the same, there isn't a great colour reflective display yet." When we asked about the simple functionality of the Kindle and its general lack of features and gimmicks, Kessel explained: "We didn't want to design a gadget, we wanted to design a functional dedicated reading device." Related Stories Hands on: new Amazon Kindle review
A British design company has unveiled a novel iPad fridge magnet mount – putting your gadget at the centre of your kitchen. The FridgePad from Woodford Design, is as you have probably gathered by now, an iPad mount that magnetically sticks your Apple tablet to your fridge. "The FridgePad magnetically mounts your iPad to your kitchen fridge so it's at the heart of your home and in a perfect location for all the family to use," explains the company's release. Clipped in "The FridgePad can be used in landscape or portrait mode, allows the iPad to be simply clipped in and out for fast access and provides a great safe and secure place to store your iPad," it continues. "The FridgePad is an accessory to make the iPad work better for you. This really is one of those products that once you have tried it you'll love it." Woodford points out that the design offers replaceable corner clips – meaning you can change it for the iPad mark II or your Windows 7 tablet. Oddly, TechRadar had called for a magnetic iPad fridge dock back at the beginning of June. And it's certainly handy for those people who need to look up recipes but don't want their iPad sitting on their work surface. The FridgePad has a UK release date of Autumn 2010 and will cost £49. Related Stories Apple refreshes iMacs with Intel Core i3, Core i5 and Core i7 chipsApple takes on mouse with Magic TrackpadOpinion: Apple declares that the mouse is deadHands on: Apple Magic Trackpad reviewBallmer: Apple has sold more iPads than I'd like
When we think of banks, we think of the brick-and-mortar financial institutions we turn to to keep our money safe. Even though in recent years we’ve seen reputable banks crumble and interest rates tumble, most of us would never think to abandon a bank — especially one whose history dates back hundreds of years — for an unvetted alternative. Banksimple, a startup still in stealth mode, is that alternative. It’s not offering online banking, but “banking online.” The company is approaching the banking space in a whole new way and hoping to capitalize on the erosion of consumer trust in banks, as well as growing frustration about hidden and miscellaneous fees that are rampant in the industry. The Banksimple formula is one that puts customers first and focuses on automatic, “worry-free” money management with a digital twist and penchant for social integration. Alex Payne of Twitter API fame left the company he helped to grow to join Banksimple. We spoke to Payne about the startup’s bleeding edge approach to banking that we predict will be both controversial and groundbreaking. For now, Banksimple will remain closed to the public, but use this post as a primer for things to come.A New Way to Bank Banksimple is not a bank. Banksimple doesn’t hold its own bank charter; instead it works with FDIC insured banks that serve as the financial backbone for the platform. Customers, however, will have an entirely Banksimple-branded experience from the time they login and make their first deposit to each and every cash withdrawal they make at ATMs. According to Payne, this approach allows the company to offer the best of both worlds and provide “a customer-friendly startup experience, while money sits with institutions that are solid.” With Banksimple, customers will have one account and one debit card — whether it be a VISA or MasterCard has yet to be decided. The signup process will be relatively painless and require the user to make an initial transfer of money to setup their Banksimple account. From there on, Banksimple seeks to provide an automated banking experience with a flair for the unconventional, but the comfort of traditional serves like automatic deposits and bill payments. There will be also be mobile apps for iPhone and Andriod that support electronic deposits.Predictive Money Management Part of Banksimple’s secret sauce is its predictive money management model. While users only need to concern themselves with a single account, there are actually checking, savings and credit accounts tied to that one login. Those will function behind-the-scenes with Banksimple automatically managing funds and transferring money between the accounts as needed. This approach attempts to take the thinking out of banking for customers. Customers deposit funds, Banksimple does the rest to ensure that the most money is yielding the most interest at any given time. The predictive model knows how much money to keep for padding and can calculate how much money is safe to spend.Social Media Meets Banking The idea of connecting your bank account to Twitter and Facebook is likely just as scary as sharing your credit card purchases with the world, but Payne believes that Banksimple can use social integrations to simplify money transfers between social network friends. To that purpose, Banksimple will support Facebook Connect and Twitter @Anywhere at launch. That’s just barely scratching the surface. Payne’s specialty is in API technology and he’s bringing that expertise to Banksimple with the intention of releasing a Banksimple API that will be both secure and powerful. Third-party application developers will have the opportunity to tap into the bank accounts of Banksimple users, but only when permission is explicitly granted by the user. On that front, Payne has an aggressive attitude around security, pointing to his own background in information security. In some ways, Payne’s vision around simple, friend-to-friend money transfers overlaps with the mobile payment purpose of services such as Venmo and Square, though with the API there’s also the opportunity for harmony in lieu of competition. Of course, as Twitter buddies, we’d certainly expect a partnership, and not a battle, between Payne and Jack Dorsey, the Founder of Square.Fee-Free For Real “You can’t trust banks to do the right thing,” Payne says. Payne speaks of banks as bad guys that knowingly deceive customers with hidden fees, overdraft charges and ATM fees. He believes he’s not alone in his contempt for these practices and points to similar responses found in the company’s pre-launch research efforts. Banksimple promises fee-free banking, a mantra that extends to 50,000 plus ATMs in a initiative that the company has orchestrated to support fee-free withdrawals come launch time. It also means that Banksimple won’t charge overdraft fees. Instead, the startup will take a percentage of interchange fees and net interest margins to monetize their service on day one. Both are standard sources of revenue for banks, the former of which is simply a percentage of the fee that businesses pay to credit card companies to process transactions. In the future, Banksimple also hopes to offer for-charge services around products designed to make customers’ financial lives easier.The Zappos of Banks Stellar customer service isn’t typically considered a revolutionary feature. Still, Zappos has gone a long way to prove that legendary customer service is worth the extra expense. Payne believes that Banksimple can apply a customer service focus, la Zappos, to change the way people think about engaging with their bank. “Customer service is key,” says Payne. “The technology is not rocket science, and other banks could do what we’re doing, but they don’t. We’ve built a pretty solid and clean user experience, but if the person on the phone can’t help you, that ruins everything.” That’s why Banksimple is investing in a resource-heavy call center that will include trained professionals who will be available to all customers for any of their queries, free of charge. It’s an expensive undertaking, but a necessary one for the startup to stand out. Payne reiterates, “We want to keep people really happy.”More Business Resources from Mashable: - Growing Your Business: 5 Tips From the Founder of Blip.tv - Growing Your Business: 5 Tips From the Founder of Foursquare - 10 Tips for Corporate Blogging - 5 Lessons to Learn from Web Startups - 11 Essential Online Resources for Consultants [img credits: Daniel Y. Go, Leonard John Matthews, lowlevelrebel, and image courtesy of iStockphoto, Henrik5000] More About: alex payne, banking, banks, banksimple, online banking, social media, startups, twitter For more Business coverage: Follow Mashable Business on TwitterBecome a Fan on FacebookSubscribe to the Business channelDownload our free apps for iPhone and iPad
This post is part of Mashable’s Spark of Genius series, which highlights a unique feature of startups. If you would like to have your startup considered for inclusion, please see the details here. The series is made possible by Microsoft BizSpark. Name: slydial Quick Pitch: slydial is a free voice messaging service which connects you directly to someone’s mobile voicemail. Genius Idea: If you’ve ever dreaded making a phone call and anxiously wished for a voicemail greeting as you dialed, you know exactly why this app is a genius idea. It strips away the awkwardness of a voice-to-voice call while still letting you claim to have attempted direct communication. How perfectly passive-aggressive! We can imagine this app going over well for: Breakups,Firings,The-morning-after apologies,Stalling on or avoiding a meetup,Making excuses to a boss,“Duty” calls to chatty friends and relatives,“Just touching base” reminder/nagging calls,3 a.m. calls that don’t need to be wake-up calls, as well,And ever so much more. Essentially, the app “creates the illusion of communication” without making you actually have to listen to other people, play politics or hear someone else’s side of an argument. In theory, it works just as well for the incurable narcissist as for the cripplingly antisocial. Before you protest, it’s true that slydial isn’t the Ghandi of applications. But it plays into a powerful part of the human psyche: Our desire to avoid conflict. The makers of slydial have paved the path of least resistance beautifully, and we can imagine that quite a few people will be traipsing down that path in the months to come. To use slydial, which is free and audio-add supported, just dial 267-SLYDIAL (267-759-3425) and enter the mobile number of the person you want to leave a voicemail. You can also try slydial’s mobile apps, which include offerings for iPhone, Android, BlackBerry and Windows Mobile. We gave slydial a try, and it worked just as promised; the other person’s phone didn’t so much as twitch while slydial connected me to the voicemail box in question. What do you think of this app? It is something you’d use when you don’t have the personal fortitude or wherewithal to make voice-to-voice contact? [img credit: djou]Sponsored by Microsoft BizSpark BizSpark is a startup program that gives you three-year access to the latest Microsoft development tools, as well as connecting you to a nationwide network of investors and incubators. There are no upfront costs, so if your business is privately owned, less than three years old, and generates less than U.S.$1 million in annual revenue, you can sign up today. Entrepreneurs can take advantage of the Azure Services platform for their website hosting and storage needs. Microsoft recently announced the “new CloudApp()” contest – use the Azure Services Platform for hosting your .NET or PHP app, and you could be the lucky winner of a USD 5000* (please see website for official rules and guidelines).”Reviews: Android, PHP, Slydial More About: App, Mobile 2.0, slydial, voicemail For more Mobile coverage: Follow Mashable Mobile on TwitterBecome a Fan on FacebookSubscribe to the Mobile channelDownload our free apps for iPhone and iPad
If you’ve ever been snickering over the latest YouTube viral video on your smartphone in the evening and ended up frustrated by slow load times and a congested network, you’re not alone — and that’s exactly the problem. New research from mobile web optimization firm Bytemobile shows that more and more of us are making demands of our devices, our mobile carriers, and video-hosting sites such as YouTube by consuming large amounts of video content on our phones. Our video consumption tends to peak around 10 p.m., at which point bandwidth takes a nosedive and stalling cripples our viewing experience. In other words, we get the worst possible experience exactly when we want most to have a good experience. This viewing experience is even worse when videos aren’t optimized for mobile devices. In these cases, for a 60-second video, the average viewer on a 3G network connection would have to deal with around 10 seconds of stalling. Video optimization, the report said, can reduce stalling to almost zero seconds per minute of video. End users have been dealing with stalling by choosing to view lower-quality videos in exchange for faster load times. Around 95% of mobile video viewers watch at resolutions between 17644 and 64080. Less than half a percent of mobile video viewers are watching what could be considered high-quality videos. According to these findings, Flash is by far the most popular mobile video format, accounting for a full 90% of total video traffic. That’s one strike against Apple’s no-Flash marching orders. Another is the stats on adult content; four of the top 10 video sites accessed from mobile phones contain only adult content. So much for “freedom from porn.” However, even when you include adult content sites, YouTube is the most popular video content site, accounting for 36% of mobile views. A distant second is Google Video, which grabs just 6% of mobile video views. If you watch videos on your phone, do these finding match up with your viewing experiences? [img credit: larskflem] More About: Mobile 2.0, mobile video, report, stats, video For more Mobile coverage: Follow Mashable Mobile on TwitterBecome a Fan on FacebookSubscribe to the Mobile channelDownload our free apps for iPhone and iPad
The latest version of Google’s 3D map application, Google Earth, now has the ability to display real-time rain and snow in certain parts of the world. To see it, you must first enable the clouds layer, and then zoom in to a location where it’s raining or snowing. Google Earth displays rain and snow only in certain parts of North America and Europe; to see where exactly the new feature is available, enable the radar layer. The weather simulation adds another layer of coolness to the already mesmerizing Google Earth application. Since it displays rain and snow in real time, the feature can actually be useful as a precise visualization of what weather is like in a certain place. It may, however, render all of those weather-related chats you have with friends and relatives over the phone even more meaningless. Unfortunately, there’s no word on when this feature might be enabled in other parts of the world. More About: 3D, google earth, Map, Weather For more Tech coverage: Follow Mashable Tech on TwitterBecome a Fan on FacebookSubscribe to the Tech channelDownload our free apps for iPhone and iPad
This series is brought to you by HTC EVO 4G, America’s first 4G phone. Only from Sprint. The “First to Know” series keeps you in the know on what’s happening now in the world of social media and technology. Welcome to this morning’s edition of “First To Know,” a series in which we keep you in the know on what’s happening in the digital world today. We’re keeping our eyes on four particular stories of interest today. Google Is Going into Gaming Google is going into social gaming in attempt to win over some of the ad dollars that have gone to social networking sites, sources familiar with the matter have told The Wall Street Journal. The company has reportedly been in talks with top developers like Playdom Inc., which was acquired by Disney this week, as well as Electronic Arts’s Playfish and FarmVille creator Zynga. Checkins Coming to Google In further Google news, the company has indicated that it is working with developers to bring checkins to location-based applications via its Places API. Google Places is the new version of the company’s Local Business Center, designed to help local business owners gain an edge in search engine marketing. Facebook May Put Off IPO Until 2012 Three sources have informed Bloomberg that Facebook may postpone its initial public offering until 2012. “At some point along the path, I think it’ll make sense to have an IPO. But we’re not running the company to do that. We’re running the company to serve more people,” CEO Mark Zuckerberg told ABC’s Diane Sawyer recently. Spotify’s U.S. Launch Faces Further Delays Negotiations between free music streaming service Spotify and U.S. record labels are faring none-too-well; the company is reportedly “back to square one.” The startup is still aiming for a late 2010/early 2011 launch in the U.S. Further News Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer says the company is hard at work making Windows 7 a great OS for tablets; Redbox is adding Blu-ray rentals to its kiosks [via Variety]; Samsung confirms it will the Galaxy S smartphone will get Froyo in September [via Engadget]; and Google dispelled rumors that it was fully blocked in China. Disclosure: Microsoft is a Mashable sponsor.Series supported by HTC EVO 4G This series is brought to you by HTC EVO 4G, America’s first 4G phone. Only from Sprint. The “First to Know” series keeps you in the know on what’s happening now in the world of social media and technology. More About: facebook, facebook ipo, first to know series, geolocation, Google, google places, spotify For more Social Media coverage: Follow Mashable Social Media on TwitterBecome a Fan on FacebookSubscribe to the Social Media channelDownload our free apps for iPhone and iPad
When it comes to preservation, video games are problematic. Hardware becomes outdated and the media that houses game code becomes obsolete, not to mention the legal issues with emulation. In short, one day, there may not be a way to play Super Metroid at all, and that's a scary thought. A new paper from the International Journal of Digital Curation, called "Keeping the Game Alive: Evaluating Strategies for the Preservation of Console Video Games," suggests several ways this problem can be tackled, and the pros and cons of each approach. First, there's what the paper calls the museum approach, which is just what it sounds like: keeping the original copies of both game hardware and software in playable form. But since most consoles feature proprietary parts that are discontinued along with the system, this is really only a temporary solution, as eventually the consoles will break down and there will be no parts left to repair them. Magnavox Odyssey. Another approach outlined in the piece is backwards compatibility. This process is a great way of letting players enjoy old games, but it's not designed with preservation in mind: just because I can play GameCube games on my Wii doesn't mean I can play them forever. It's also not a guarantee, as the removal of backwards compatibility from the PlayStation 3 has shown us. So the answer seems to lie in digital preservation, and the paper outlines two different options: the migration approach and emulation. Both allow you to play old software on modern computers, but present legal issues when it comes to ownership of the original game code. The 27-page paper does a good job of outlining the potential upsides and downfalls of each of the various strategies, and is well worth a read for anyone interested in video game preservation. The conclusion notes that the only real possible, long-term solution is emulation, and that would only be possible with the consent and cooperation of hardware manufacturers, game developers, and publishers. Read the comments on this post
Much of this post originally ran in July 2009, but the issue is still on the minds of gamers. We've edited the post to add some thoughts now that the game has launched, and added a section at the end dealing with the rumors of officially supported LAN play. We wanted to revisit the issue again to drive this point home: even if it doesn't directly hurt Blizzard's bottom line, LAN play matters. When the first stories began to spread about StarCraft 2 not supporting LAN play, the Internet began to grumble with discontent. Sure, there were the usual online petitions and griping on various gaming forums, but there was a sense that something big had been taken from us. Why were people so upset about the exclusion of LAN play? It has much to do with nostalgia, and much to do with why so many of us fell in love with StarCraftin the first place. Read the comments on this post
Recently released FCC documents reveal that Sprint is set to launch what appears to be a new case for the iPod touch that would enable 3G networking on the WiFi-only device. Manufactured by ZTE and called the "Peel," the case is essentially a MiFi-like mobile hotspot that snaps on to an iPod touch, giving it a network connection wherever you can get a Sprint 3G signal. The Peel has its own 3.4Whr lithium ion battery, which is good for about 40hrs of standby time—there's no mention of how long it would last in active use, but our guess is perhaps a few hours. In addition to giving 3G network access to an iPod touch, it can also connect other WiFi devices. It doesn't appear to have a limit to the number of simultaneously connected devices (the manual submitted to the FCC suggests this number is configurable), unlike most mobile hotspots that usually limit connections to four or five. Phone Scoop also notes that the device is only cleared to operate on the slower EV-DO Rev 0 standard, and not the faster Rev A that most current 3G devices use. We're not exactly sure what to think of the Peel (Apple, Peel, get it?). It seems that if an iPhone really appealed to you, you wouldn't have opted for the iPod touch to begin with. Then again, there are some users who would rather have an iPhone with data but no voice, and on a different network. Depending on the pricing and data options—especially if there is a pay-as-you-go option—it might be a nice complement to an iPod touch. The added utility of being able to connect multiple devices—one clear advantage over an iPhone—is offset somewhat by the slower 3G speeds. Sprint tried to attract Apple device users with a similar tack when the WiFi-only iPad was released, offering users a free iPad case with a pocket that would fit the carrier's 4G/3G Overdrive mobile hotspot. Still, we're wondering if there are any iPod touch owners out there excited by this news. If you are, let us know in the comments. Read the comments on this post
Microsoft Chief Operating Officer Kevin Turner revealed today at the company's annual financial analyst meeting that the first beta of the Internet Explorer 9 Web browser is planned for release in September. This is a little later than expected; leaked documents that emerged last month pointed at an August release date for the beta. Some apparently authentic screenshots of Internet Explorer 9 have leaked, though perhaps surprisingly, they show few changes from the current version. Microsoft has shipped three platform previews to show off the Internet Explorer 9 engine, but these previews used a simple, bare-bones interface; the company wanted to wait before revealing Internet Explorer 9's look and feel. If the new browser really is just a minor evolution of the old browser's interface, that decision seems a little peculiar. The new browser is eagerly anticipated, especially by Web developers; Internet Explorer 9 is a big improvement on Internet Explorer 8, with considerably improved standards compliance and functionality. News of the beta is certainly welcome, but there's still a marked contrast between Microsoft's release policy and the more frequent updates of browsers like Firefox and Chrome. For all of its improvements, there's a good chance that Microsoft's browser will have been surpassed by its competition by the time it finally ships. No release date has been announced, but most believe that the final version will not arrive until 2011. Read the comments on this post
For centuries, people have tried to pinpoint what makes humans unique. The most current scientific theory suggests that three main qualities separate Homo sapiens from other animals: the construction and use of complex tools, the use of symbolic behavior including language, art, and ritual, and the domestication of other plants and animals. However, in a new paper in Current Anthropology, Dr. Pat Shipman suggests a fourth trait unique to humans. Shipman cites humans' long history of learning about and understanding animals as a unique trait, calling this tendency "the animal connection." She claims that this relationship is the common unifying factor that underlies each of the other three previously recognized human traits, and has played a major role in human evolution over the last 2.6 million years. Read the comments on this post
Amazon is ready to take your money for the world’s first consumer 3D camcorder just in case you and the misses are planning on producing your own, ummm, bedroom movies. If you don’t care about having it right out of the gate, you might want to hold on to your cash a while longer though because it isn’t scheduled to ship until October 15. Or you could save your money altogether because 3D is dumb. Just saying. [Amazon via 3D-Display-info]
The Nook and the Kindle is currently locked in a heated battle. The B&N shot first a few weeks back with a sudden price cut, but Amazon responded likewise. Then Amazon dropped a huge bomb just the other day with the Kindle mkIII, which took nearly everyone — probably including B&N — by surprise. But Barnes & Noble isn’t going to close up shop and admit defeat. They still have one huge advantage over Amazon: in-store displays. B&N’s just-announced plans includes expanding in-store Nook displays into 1,000 square-foot boutiques with multiple operating Nook demo units. Adjourning displays will be used to showcase the trendy accessories and useful add-ons such as lights and cases. All this means is book shoppers can actually spend some time with the ereading device before they drop $150 or $200 on the Nook. This is something Amazon doesn’t have. Sure, the Kindle is now sold in Target stores, but it’s a different market. B&N shoppers are there for books — or coffee — and so it only makes sense to take full advantage of the foot traffic. Chances are the new, larger Nook displays will be located in a prime location with the goal of reaching a lot of shoppers. These displays will no doubt help convert more B&N shoppers into Nook owners than anything else. Many consumers know the Kindle brand and name, but they might find that the Nook is a perfectly acceptable device after spending some time with it. The ereader war just got a little more interesting.
Here it is, hands-on coverage with a close to final production ready prototype of the highly anticipated Devon Tread 1 watch. While it tells the time and is a luxury item, the Devon Tread 1 shares very little with the rest of the high-end watch world. Despite the fact that it has plenty of moving parts, this isn't a mechanical watch in the traditional sense. It uses a micro-controller board, rechargeable battery, and small motors to power the movement, as opposed to being a purely mechanical machine that is spring powered. There are a series of small, micro one-step motors in the movement that pull the treads that indicate the time. The treads are sophisticated reinforced nylon belts that move around the dial in a ballet of synchronized moves. The video should illustrate that well. The Tread 1 is really among the most gadgety watches I have ever had the pleasure of wearing.
If your inner tree-hugger cringes every time you get a single book or knick-knack wrapped up in enough packing materials for ten, then this is for you. Oh, and you have to live in Seattle. Amazon has started a program in which you can get your packages delivered to the Seattle area in these cute reusable tote bags, which they seal with tape (and a kiss) and pick up the next time they come by. The downside is that the totes are only delivered once per week, so if you’re in a hurry to get your item, this isn’t the best option. I wish I could do this with everything I get in the mail; my storage room looks like a UPS warehouse. [via Giz; image via Giz commenter Kevin]
iPads are great kitchen computers. They’re small, portable, and seemingly designed to take splatter and spills. But it’s probably best to get yours off the countertop and mounted anyway. Wall mounting is so permanent, and, well, not everyone wants one flush-mounted in their cabinets. That’s where the Woodford FridgePad comes in. It’s essentially a large, magnetic mount that’s perfect for sticking an iPad directly to your fridge — or anything else magnetic like an office filing cabinet. The fridgepad should hit Amazon sometime in the coming months for £49 (around $75 USD) but you can sign up for email updates on Woodford’s site.
We first caught wind of the SCH-R900 after MetroPCS announced that it would be first to carry the Samsung handset when its fledgling LTE network lights up in select markets sometime after the summer. Now the FCC has been kind enough to bless a preproduction R900 with its approval. Not much is known about the dual-mode CDMA / LTE device other than what we can glean off the broad-shouldered image above and certifications for Bluetooth, 802.11b/g WiFi, dual-band 1700 / 1900 LTE and EvDO data. The future: it's what's for breakfast. Samsung SCH-R900 approved by FCC: first US LTE phone is go originally appeared on Engadget on Fri, 30 Jul 2010 01:53:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.Permalink Phonescoop | FCC |Email this|Comments
Been itching to get your hands on the Parrot AR.Drone ever since it first took flight at CES way back in January? Well, you can now finally get your $299 pre-order in to ensure it ships to you on the September 3rd launch date. What's more, Parrot has also announced that the Drone will be exclusively available at Brookstone stores in the U.S., where you'll be able to try it out first-hand through October 31st. Head on past the break for the complete press release, and be sure to check out our recent hands-on if you need a reminder of the iPhone-controlled shenanigans possible with the device. Continue reading Parrot AR.Drone now available for pre-order, shipping September 3rd Parrot AR.Drone now available for pre-order, shipping September 3rd originally appeared on Engadget on Thu, 29 Jul 2010 16:01:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.Permalink | Brookstone |Email this|Comments
After a few years of teasing and smoke blowing, the HomePlug Powerline Alliance has finally released the skinny on major enhancements we can expect to see integrated into the HomePlug AV2 powerline networking specification that's scheduled for finalization in Q1 of 2011. Chief among them is MIMO (Multiple-Inputs Multiple-Outputs), which will expand home coverage by increasing the throughput speeds, and transmission ranges, without additional signal power or requiring more spectrum -- but you knew already that didn't you, MacGyver? Compounding this efficiency gain will be the expansion of the operating spectrum by an order of magnitude. Tallied together with other upgrades, the end result for consumers will be a "reported" 5x increase in performance, not to mention support for bigger, more reliable networks. Oh, and it'll also play nicely with original HomePlug AV technology, too. Frankly, that's jolly good news for our dreams of pushing 1080p HD video streams to every room in our house with an outlet -- including the pantry. Doing the same thing for 3D and 4K HD content... well, that's just brilliant! For more details peep the PR below the break. Continue reading HomePlug Powerline Alliance reveals features of new HomePlug AV2 spec HomePlug Powerline Alliance reveals features of new HomePlug AV2 spec originally appeared on Engadget on Thu, 29 Jul 2010 13:06:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.Permalink | Business Wire |Email this|Comments
Chinese company TESO has an unrequited love for all things Apple. Not that it cares, we're sure it's doing just fine on the grey market with its KIRFy Cupertino crafts. But maybe it's time for this Shenzhen cloner to go mainstream with what's purported to be a 9.7-inch tablet running "MeGoo" (a MeeGo typo, certainly) or "Andriod2.2" (that'd be Froyo) OSes on a 14-mm thick LPAD powered by Intel's newest 1.9GHz Z600-series Moorestown processor. Of course, it's a hell of a lot easier to list specs on paper than it is to ship highly spec'd product. And given TESO's inability to correctly copy the names of its choosen operating systems onto a sheet of paper, what hope is there of it cloning the user experience of a class-leading tablet? Keepin' it real fake: TESO LPAD runs 'MeGoo' or 'Andriod' on Moorestown originally appeared on Engadget on Fri, 30 Jul 2010 08:53:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.Permalink | |Email this|Comments
It's fairly safe to say that DMC Worldwide's Copia e-reader family won't exactly make that estimated Spring 2010 ship date, but a new report over at The Wall Street Journal is cluing us in on a bit of a revised outlook. As of now, the first Copia suite of e-readers will "hit stores this fall in time for the holiday season," a suite that'll presumably include the 5-inch color (LCD) Wave 5 for $99, a 7-inch Wave 7 for $129, a 10-inch Ocean Color for $299 and a pair of E Ink-based options for $49 (Tidal) / $159 (Tidal WiFi). It doesn't seem as if the two Waves will include any sort of wireless connectivity, and given the LCD display, we're sure that battery life will be nowhere near as good as the marginally-more-expensive Kindle. That said, the user interface does look rather striking from afar, and if these manage to slip a bit further in price before that magical day in December, you could very well see a rush to stuff stockings with a member of this here family. Give those links below a poke if you're on the prowl for more detailed specifications. DMC's 5-inch Copia color e-reader landing this fall for $99, others to follow originally appeared on Engadget on Fri, 30 Jul 2010 10:06:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.Permalink UberGizmo | Wall Street Journal, Copia |Email this|Comments
Evidently Google’s Mainland China Service Availability page is not the best indicator of the availability of the company’s mainland China services. Though that page at the moment shows Google’s Web search, YouTube, mobile and ads as blocked in the country, they are in fact available–as a number of China-based Twitter users will tell you. Why the discrepancy? “Because of the way we measure accessibility in China, it’s possible that our machines could overestimate the level of blockage,” a Google spokesperson told me. “That seems to be what happened last night when there was a relatively small blockage. It appears now that users in China are accessing our properties normally.” An earlier version of this post noted that Google’s Mainland China Service Availability page inexplicably showed a number of the company’s services as blocked in China.
Perennial question for Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg: When are you going public? Perennial answer: Someday, probably. But I’m not in a rush. Now a new report from Bloomberg puts a finer point on it. Citing three anonymous sources, it says the social network will “probably” push off an IPO until 2012. That certainly sounds plausible. It’s not clear that Facebook needs to raise any cash for operations, given the booming ad business it has finally gotten off the ground. And more money will be coming in the door this year, when the company launches its own payment/credits system for virtual goods. Zuckerberg has structured his board, and ownership structure, so he retains control of the company, so investors who would agitate for an IPO don’t have much leverage. And if the company does want to sell shares, it has plenty of options in the private market. Assuming Bloomberg’s story is correct, there is at least one significant ripple effect here. If Facebook doesn’t IPO for another 12 months or more, that reduces the pressure on social games giant Zynga to go public, too. The two company’s finances are tightly intertwined — for now, Facebook represents most of Zynga’s revenue, and Zynga is a big chunk of Facebook’s business. Which means that whoever goes public and opens their books first is also opening the other company’s books to some degree. There’s an interesting game of chicken going on there, and it’s worth keeping an eye on. Meanwhile, if you’re dying to buy Facebook on the open market, you may be able to do in a roundabout way next year anyway. Russian investor Digital Sky Technologies, which bought a chunk of Facebook last year, is reportedly planning on a 2011 IPO.
QOTD: If Only Steve Jobs Would Say the Same Thing About Our Tablet … [Digital Daily] “They’ve sold certainly more than I’d like them to sell, let me just be clear about that.” – Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer on Apple and the iPad
QOTD: Church of iEntology? [Digital Daily] “The religious-like behavior and language surrounding Apple devotion/fandom is an example of ‘implicit religion.’” – Texas A&M University professor Heidi Campbell, author of “How the iPhone Became Divine: New Media, Religion and the Intertextual Circulation of Meaning”
BoomTown took the corporate All Things Digital jet–aka Virgin America, seat 10A–up to Redmond, Wash., today to attend Microsoft’s annual Financial Analyst Meeting, which also includes a passel of media drones like me. I will be liveblogging the event all day, which is essentially a cavalcade of top execs from the software giant taking the stage and showing off their wares. There should be a little bit of swanning, since Microsoft (MSFT) turned in very good financial results last week, posting a huge increase in earnings and revenue due to the uptick in PC sales and the intro of the Windows 7 operating system. Losses at its Online Services division remained high, so thank goodness for servers and tools! Here we go: 8:15 am PT: I was late due to the completely confusing streets of suburban Redmond, all of which look exactly alike, as does every building on Microsoft’s sprawling campus. I am a streets of San Francisco girl, obvi. In the Conference Center, though, things had not started well past the 8 am start time, as we await the entry of investor dude Bill Koefoed. U2’s “Beautiful Day” was playing over the sound system, which it was not up here in the Pacific Northwest this morning–it was kind of cold and gloomy, a la “Twilight”–but hopefully will be for sparkly Microsoft execs. We’ll see! Finally, Koefoed came out and started in on feedback, touting the newly renovated investor relations site, which he is “pretty proud of.” It is nice looking, as are most of Microsoft’s hand-out materials. In fact, he sent me an excited note last week, because I posted Microsoft’s pretty fourth-quarter slides. Dear Bill: You need much better things to get excited about! Like the new Magic Trackpad from Apple (AAPL)! Wait, I mean Windows Phone 7! Koefoed moved quickly to point out last week’s strong results, which is no surprise. When you’ve got lemonade, make more lemonade! Then he outlined the various Microsoft’s eight “core” businesses, such as Xbox, Bing, Microsoft Office, Windows Azure and, of course, Windows, that the company will be going over. That’s a lot of core, isn’t it? Some questions to be answered: Business PC refresh and share momentum? Impact of iPad/slates? Windows 7 phone? Expense control? Beautiful or not, it was going to be a looooong day. 8:42 am: A jaunty Kevin Turner, Microsoft’s COO, bounded out. He tried to get the crowd more lively, but this was not to be unless there was a lot more coffee. I had great hopes for a goofy quote this morning from Turner, who declared at the Microsoft Worldwide Partner Conference earlier this month about Apple’s antenna controversy: “It looks like the iPhone 4 might be their Vista, and I’m okay with that.” I don’t know about you, but insulting a competitor by shooting off your own foot is a gift that keeps on giving to me. In any case, Turner said Microsoft was now “leading with the cloud,” a move that the company had been resisting in the past. Now: All in! He outlined all the various services for business customers. “We are the market leader in cloud services for business,” said Turner, noting Microsoft had been too quiet about the inevitable move of data and software services to big services in the digital sky. (Actually, in its secret heart, Microsoft was hoping this whole Internet thing would go away and it would be back to a PC on every desktop, but that horse has left the barn, so it’s cloud time!) Next up for Turner: The much deserved popularity of Windows 7. Of course, since Vista was Microsoft’s Antennagate–except much, much, much worse–it was not hard to be better. Turner then moved on to bashing Google (GOOG) and other competitors. Turner put up some quotes from Jaguar employees, after the car company switched to Google for email and other services. One said Google was like vinyl seats. Ziiiiing! Next Turner victim: VMware (VMW)! He claimed its products were pricier and not cloudy enough. As for Linux: Meh! Oracle (ORCL): Customers don’t want to be locked into the land of Larry Ellison! Cisco (CSCO): Just you wait, John Chambers! 9:19 am: Turner headed off and Chief Research and Strategy Officer Craig Mundie started in on his speech, titled “Reimagining Microsoft’s Future.” That would be the client plus the cloud, natural user interface and something he called “working on your behalf.” Mundie launched into his future-dude schtick, but he’s not exactly Alvin Toffler, so I started desperately mainlining the caffeine. He talked about movable data centers, the “Internet of Things” and other cloud innovations, but there is no new idea here to blow your mind. Is it too much to wish Mundie would talk about an invisibility cloak? Instead, it was the orchestration of data authority. That will apparently be a new data marketplace product, codenamed Dallas, to shop for giant data sets and more. Mundie than showed off some personalization-driven features in the Bing search service, which are also not new concepts. For example, he showed a menu, embedded in a table, that might know what you like to eat at a particular restaurant you frequent. This is what would be on my table and there is no need of a fancy computer table to know this: Donuts, donuts, donuts. Speaking of which, FAM minions: Where the heck were my donuts? Mundie then moved onto Kinect, once called Project Natal, the actually cool gesture interface for gaming that will be available for Xbox soon. Finally, he finished up with a video clip of a medical triage assistant. Great, even less customer service from hospitals. The demo was flatly freaky. The morning session wrapped up with a visit to the technology showcase to “expect the unexpected,” although I was not expecting that in any way, and then it was off to lunch. Next up in the afternoon session: CEO Steve Ballmer at 1 pm PT.
The same professors who recently wrote on the Freakonomics blog about how restaurant innovation thrives without copyright recently wrote another post about how the porn industry is also thriving despite widespread infringement. Even though there is copyright on porn works, with rampant infringement, there doesn't seem to be any evidence of less porn being made these days. The professors make the argument that the overall porn marketplace will likely adapt and change without copyright enforcement, but it certainly won't go away: Here's a prediction: the porn-tube sites are here to stay, and yet many, many people and companies will continue to produce pornography -- even in the face of virtually uncontrolled copying. Like it or not (and we'll leave the morality of this subject to others), there is huge demand for porn. And although we are not economists, we feel safe in saying that where there is demand, there will be supply.... In short, the porn-tube sites probably won't kill the porn industry. But they will change it. Production is likely to shift even more from "features" to short porn-tube-friendly clips.... They then try to suggest some business models that the porn industry might pick up in the changing marketplace. One is to go upscale (such as an upcoming 3D porn film) that gives people additional "reasons to buy." The other is to focus in on specific niches. The predictions are a bit simplistic, and economist and Techdirt reader Eric Crampton wrote in to point us to his own attempt at applying my "connect with fans + reason to buy" formula to the porn industry. He finds the suggestions in the Freakonomics article not very workable, and also points out that some of the classic "reasons to buy" probably wouldn't work all that well, at least in some circles. Unlike with musicians, people are probably a lot less interested in wearing a t-shirt highlighting their favorite porn star (yes, I'm sure there are some exceptions, but...). He then suggests that touring is a possibility -- with online clips being used as enticement to come out and see "live" performances of some kind, though, I would imagine that might not fully work either. I would guess that for most -- "stripping" and "porn" aren't quite the same thing, and while I'm not familiar with how licenses for strip clubs work, I'd have to imagine that most don't allow actual sexual acts between people to happen either. Though, the Freakonomics article does say that some porn actresses use online clips to drive people to come see them strip -- which is a higher margin business. Of course, a commenter suggests an even more obvious (though very illegal, mostly) form of CwF+RtB: prostitution. Though, that's got all sorts of problems as well. What surprises me is that one of the more obvious models is mostly left out: straight up advertising. One thing that porn does well is attract a lot of eyeballs. In fact, plenty of online porn sites have supported themselves with advertising for ages. There's no reason for that to change. And, certainly you could think of interesting "tiers" that some top porn stars could use to attract people to pay for greater levels of access, such as private videos, chats and the like. A few months ago, someone had submitted a story about a porn star who was offering special packages on her website where she would attend sporting events with you (I believe for the Phoenix Suns), but I can't find that submission any more. Either way, I have to concur with the initial analysis. Whatever the business model that comes out, it doesn't seem likely that porn is going away any time soon, even if copyright is totally ignored.Permalink | Comments | Email This Story
We keep hearing stories of how copyright is getting in the way of preserving or archiving cultural works. The latest is video games, which face a double whammy of obsolete proprietary hardware and restrictive copyright laws, making it quite difficult to legally preserve those games: Even if preservationists had the resources to develop the kind of emulators that can stand the test of time, their task would be made all the more difficult by the tendency of game companies to worry more about piracy than preservation. This means that documentation on how their machines work is either non-existent (if the company goes out of business or fails to preserve it) or secret, so makers of emulators must laboriously reverse-engineer existing hardware. Finally, there's the copyright issue. Getting permission to preserve a game requires signoff by everyone with a stake in it--its creator, publisher, etc. Given the current legal situation concerning emulation, it is not possible to preserve video games digitally using emulators and copy media to different physical layers without the manufacturer's agreement. Establishing responsibility for the preservation of digital data must be seen as a priority. Awareness has to be raised among the manufacturers of console video game systems and console video games to reach agreements about how to preserve their work. The article also notes that there probably needs to be a legal change, such as exempting such archival activity in the DMCA rulemaking process that just concluded -- but so far it doesn't seem like such changes are likely.Permalink | Comments | Email This Story
A couple years ago, on a whim, knowing nothing at all about the movie, I rented the documentary Who the #$&% Is Jackson Pollock?. It's a really amazing documentary. Compelling, well-done and really entertaining. The reviewers loved it too. It tells the story of a truck driver woman, who bought a painting for $5 at a garage sale, and is convinced that it's actually done by Jackson Pollock. The movie has numerous amusing scenes with famed art experts staring at the painting and dismissing it in the most... condescending of tones. Eventually, the "hero" of the film is a guy named Peter Paul Biro, who matches a fingerprint on the back of the painting to one he found in Pollock's (still preserved) studio. The movie ends and you're absolutely convinced that the painting is really by Pollock -- even if the art world won't recognize it. At the end of the film, the truck driver who bought the painting has turned down a $2 million and a $9 million offer for the painting, holding out for the $50 million she's sure it's worth. I highly recommend watching it (though, oddly, I can't seem to find any video clips of it online -- not even a trailer for the flick). Remembering that, I was fascinated to see that The New Yorker recently did a long feature piece on Peter Paul Biro and dove in to read it. The first half of the article covers Biro's rise to fame. How a few of these "fingerprinting" authentications had made him quite famous, with that documentary ratcheting up his fame level even higher. The key point that everyone keeps noting is that, rather than the traditional form of authentication -- the condescending art experts in the documentary who are ripe for mocking and use what often feel like extremely subjective techniques -- this involved science. After all, if the fingerprints matched, how can you question that? But, then, the article takes a turn. There are a few cracks in the story, and someone who knows Biro well suggests that the reporter, David Grann, look a bit more deeply into Biro's (and his family's) history. It turns out that they were involved in several lawsuits years earlier involving selling what were later found to be forged artwork. Of course, painting forgeries are nothing new, but as Grann dug deeper and deeper he kept coming across evidence that Biro's "authentications," may have involved questionable practices -- including planting faked fingerprints on some of the paintings he was supposed to be authenticating. It's an amazing and gripping article -- and totally calls into question pretty much all of Biro's work. At the end of it, I was just as convinced that the truck driver's "Pollock" painting is not by Pollock, as I was that it was by Pollock at the end of the documentary! But I found most interesting of all was the reasons why so many people were convinced that Biro's authentications were real. It wasn't just the use of "science." And it wasn't just that people had this natural inclination to believe that so-called "art experts" don't know what they're talking about, but that Biro appears (and, for what it's worth, Biro denies the allegations in the article) to have used what are effectively social engineering tricks to make this work. There's a certain brilliance in realizing that rather than forging paintings, there may be money to be made in authenticating works by effectively forging fingerprints on top of other works -- which then gives it the air of legitimacy-via-science. Honestly, the whole idea that someone would go in and forge fingerprints on top of a piece of art work just doesn't seem in the realm of possibility, and so most people didn't even consider it. I had started reading the article last week (as mentioned, it's pretty long), but ended up finishing it up now, because I was thinking some more about the recent story of those glass negatives that have been "authenticated" as being from Ansel Adams -- which Ansel Adams' estate is vehemently denying are Adams' work. After reading The New Yorker piece, it's difficult not to be increasingly skeptical of the claims of these new negatives, even with all of the "scientific" evidence that has been mentioned by the team involved in the authentication.Permalink | Comments | Email This Story
Nearly two years ago, we wrote about a company, called Leader Technologies with an incredibly broad patent (7,139,761) that covered associating a piece of data with multiple categories, that was suing Facebook for infringement. Our usual group of patent system defenders rushed to the comments to quickly declare that I was an idiot for daring to question this patent. The case took a weird turn when the court actually ordered Facebook to hand over its source code. We were confused as to how this made sense. Since the lawsuit was about patents, not copyright, the specific source code shouldn't really matter. Either way, it looks like the jury in the case seemed to agree with me about the quality of the patent. The jury has declared the patent invalid. Clearly, the only explanation is that the jury was also made up of idiots. Next time, Leader Technologies should file the lawsuit in East Texas where they know how to make juries, rather than Delaware.Permalink | Comments | Email This Story
A bunch of folks have sent over the story from TechCrunch, based on a tweet from Chris Dixon that patent hoarding giant Intellectual Ventures isn't doing so hot for those who invested in it. Now, it's no secret that I'm no fan of Intellectual Ventures. I believe the company represents a huge tax on innovation and has a variety of very questionable business practices. I would be very happy to hear that it was doing poorly. But, unfortunately, the numbers being revealed are mostly meaningless. To understand why this information is even out there, you have to go back to 2002. Historically, the internal rate of return (IRR) for venture capital funds was kept secret from the outside world. However, many big public universities invest in such funds and get the usual reports about those funds' performance. Back in 2002 (I believe, due to a reporter's request), the University of Texas was the first of a few public institutions to realize that, being public, they probably should publish that information. Venture capitalists freaked out that people would misinterpret the results. That's because the IRR for a venture fund, especially in the early years, is pretty meaningless. A typical venture fund lasts ten years, and the first few years is when all that money is being invested, and there's no real returns. On top of that (and, more importantly), the IRR is usually reported based on a totally made up number, which is what the VCs believe their portfolio is valued at, since it doesn't involve a liquid market. VCs were afraid that publishing such numbers would freak people out, and lead VCs to focus on more short-term investments. I don't think that's really happened, but it does appear that the Intellectual Ventures funds represented here (showing IRRs of -73% and -10%) might not really mean anything. Without knowing the details of what those funds represent, or how long the timeframe is for those funds, it's difficult to assess what's really going on. It does look like IV isn't valuing its first fund very highly any more, and considering it's Intellectual Ventures I, perhaps you can assume it's further along in the process. But, in a game where a sudden "home run" can change things quickly (even if we're talking about patent infringement lawsuits or licensing demands, rather than true venture investments), it's difficult to make any serious call on the performance just yet.Permalink | Comments | Email This Story
Social-game maker Zynga has signed a joint venture deal with Softbank Corp. to set up a Japanese subsidiary of the company. Softbank has also invested $150 million in Zynga, whose Farmville and Mafia Wars games are among the most popular on Facebook. The partnership was reported last month by the Nikkei news service and by Bloomberg, but was not officially confirmed until Wednesday. The deal is expected to involve distributing Zynga games to Softbank’s mobile phone customers, one of the largest groups in the Japanese mobile market. Zynga is also reportedly involved in a partnership with Google that included $100 million in financing from the search company. Although there has been no official confirmation of the investment, Google CEO Eric Schmidt told the New York Times in an interview that a partnership with Zynga was in the works. The web giant is said to be working on a gaming-centered social networking project — code-named Google Me — that is seen as a competitive response to the growth of Facebook. Zynga has been the social-gaming industry leader for some time, with several of the leading games on Facebook, and has attracted more than $500 million in investment from venture funds (if the reported Google investment is included). Although the company has been closely aligned with Facebook, it has also signed a number of external development and distribution deals, including a recent one with Yahoo that will see Zynga games appear on Yahoo properties. Based on the trading of Zynga stock on secondary private markets, some have estimated the company could be worth as much as $5 billion. Zynga competitor Playdom was acquired this week by Walt Disney Co. for as much as $763 million, depending on future performance, and game-maker Electronic Arts bought Playfish for as much as $400 million last year. Related content from GigaOM Pro (sub req’d): How the Next Zynga Could Reinvent Social Gaming
If there’s one thing that web startups –particularly engineers at web startups — think about a lot, it’s what they call “scale.” What they usually mean by that is the ability to take the beta service tested with a dozen friends and turn it into a globe-spanning colossus, with millions of users interacting simultaneously, all while ensuring that those users don’t experience delays in the service. But the route to those twinned goals is never an easy one, says former Twitter engineer Alex Payne, who now works for a financial startup called BankSimple. As Payne notes in a blog post, focusing on speed can not only send you in the wrong direction, but leave you high and dry when you are in desperate need of true scalability. The impetus for Payne’s post was an ongoing discussion about a software program called Node, which is used for running JavaScript code on a virtual machine. But alongside his comments about that specific topic, the software engineer noted that many startups confuse engineering for speed with the ability to build something that can really scale. He writes that scaling is so hard that “the ability to scale is a deep competitive advantage of the sort that you can’t simply go out and download, copy, purchase, or steal.” As he noted later in his post, the availability of high-powered computing systems and plenty of bandwidth is great for speed, but that doesn’t solve the scale problem: The power of today’s hardware is such that, for example, you can build a web application that supports thousands of users using one of the slowest available programming languages, brutally inefficient datastore access and storage patterns, zero caching, no sensible distribution of work, no attention to locality, etc. etc. Basically, you can apply every available anti-pattern and still come out the other end with a workable system, simply because the hardware can move faster than your bad decision-making. When it comes to truly scaling to Twitter or even Facebook size, however, those stop-gap solutions don’t really work any more, Payne says. When your system is faced with a deluge of work to do, no one technology is going to make it all better. When you’re operating at scale, pushing the needle means a complex, coordinated dance of well-applied technologies, development techniques, statistical analyses, intra-organizational communication, judicious engineering management, speedy and reliable operationalization of hardware and software, vigilant monitoring, and so forth. Scaling is hard. Debates about scale aren’t just an esoteric discussion of interest to engineers and developers. As Twitter’s repeated issues with reliability have shown, getting the right architecture in place to grow quickly and seamlessly — that is, the right combination of both software and hardware — is incredibly important, as Om noted, because it’s very difficult to re-engineer a service as large and fast-growing as Twitter is after the fact. It’s a little like realizing that you have the wrong kind of airplane, and then trying to convert the one you have into the one you need, all while you are still flying, and without crashing or disturbing your passengers. Twitter investor and VC Fred Wilson said recently that the service repeatedly breaks because “it wasn’t built right — [it] was built kind of as a hack and they didn’t really architect it to scale and they’ve never been able to catch up.” In the past, Twitter’s own founders have admitted that the architecture they chose couldn’t keep up with the company’s growth, in part because they didn’t expect the SMS-style service they started with to become such a widely used form of communication — used not just for personal updates, but for everything from breaking news stories to providing customer support for major corporations. In blog post, Payne notes that Twitter has solved some of its small problems with software changes, but that the service “is still fighting an uphill battle” to scale in a more substantial way. And unfortunately for every startup that is hoping something from the NoSQL movement or a specific development language or Node will be the magic ingredient that will transform their service into one with Facebook scale, Payne adds that “there are no panaceas for problems of significant scale.” For more on how Facebook has managed to grow to serve more than 500 million users and handle 100 billion hits a day, check out this recent post from the social network’s head of engineering. Related content from GigaOM Pro (sub req’d): Social Networks Need to Grin and Bear Infrastructure Costs Post and thumbnail photos courtesy of Flickr user jpctalbot
When it comes to the jargon-laden “green IT” sector, companies have a common response: meh. But it’s the opportunity that companies see to save money via reduced energy costs that’s really driving companies to buy so-called green IT products, or gear that can make IT more energy efficient. That’s the findings of a report out from research firm Forrester, which found that while only a quarter of the companies surveyed have a dedicated budget specifically for “green IT,” close to three quarters of the companies are actually buying products that reduce the energy consumption of data centers and IT systems. In other words: cut the jargon, follow the savings. Right now, it’s the data center, and its massive energy-sucking ways, that can often provide the most savings for companies’ energy bills. Forrester says that 70 percent of the companies are already virtualizing servers — replacing server hardware with software — which eliminates the energy consumption of the retired machines. You can bet that virtualization giant VMware didn’t set out marketing its technology as “green IT.” About half of the companies are already (or planning on) rearranging the hot and cool aisles in data centers to optimize cooling. Cooling systems for data centers often come in the form of large chillers, and can be responsible for half of the data center’s energy consumption. A quarter of the companies said they had already implemented precision cooling, which is cooling systems targeted at certain sections of the data center. And a third of the companies surveyed have already reduced redundant applications on servers (eliminating unnecessary processing that consumes energy). However, other data center energy innovations aren’t making much of a dent yet. Energy efficient modular data center designs are not being looked at seriously — 77 percent of companies have no plans to implement this on a near term horizon. Direct current power systems (DC), which is a more efficient way to use power, are almost unheard of with 83 percent of companies saying they have no near term plans to implement the tech. While clearly some of the data center energy efficiency tech is more popular than others, startups are still gearing up to sell their energy innovations to corporations. Just this week, General Electric said it invested in SynapSense, a startup which makes wireless monitoring and management systems that track energy consumption for data centers. Forrester says it’s up to the Chief Information Officer’s leadership to show his/her company that “green IT” isn’t about jargon, but about savings. Forrester recommends using real world case studies as examples, like those from Nike, AT&T, the City of Palo Alto, and UPS, who have shown significant financial savings, via the energy savings of green IT. For more research on data center energy check out GigaOM Pro (subscription required): Green Data Center Design Strategies Dedupe Heats Up the Green Storage Market The Real Reason Google is Buying Wind Power
Facebook is beta-launching its expected Q&A product today. It’s a way to ask friends, and friends of friends, for advice and recommendations on any topic. What’s surprising about this product is it’s entirely public — and that it’s awfully similar to Quora, the startup founded by former Facebookers. Everything submitted to Facebook Questions — which can be asked through user’s status publisher box or from the dedicated Questions page — will be publicly available to everyone on the Internet via the Questions page. That’s not to say they’ll be easy to find; Facebook is not opening the product up to be indexed by search engines or creating a directory of all questions — yet. Users can browse question pages by topic or through a roulette-style randomizer. The millions of users chosen for the Questions beta will start seeing questions from their friends showing up in their news feeds today (users have been chosen in pods of friends so that they will have people to participate with). While questions will be publicly accessible, unless you’re friends with someone asking one, you’ll have to go looking through the application to find questions. Questions can be free-form or polls with up to five choices, can be tagged with topics, and can be “followed” for updates. A Facebook spokesperson said the company wants to incorporate user feedback before rolling out the product to all its users, and that it hopes to do so soon. The public nature of Questions makes it an important test for Facebook. The company has been harshly criticized for changing the default settings on personal content that may have been previously private to make it more public. But there’s no such thing as a private question on Questions, so if this product does well, it could be a bounty of public (and more monetizable) content. When early word of Questions got out, the prototype product was criticized for its similarity to Quora, which former Facebook CTO Adam D’Angelo and early engineer and product lead Charlie Cheever founded last year. Facebook director of product Blake Ross participated in a discussion on Quora itself about the overlap, arguing that the comparison was unfair, and Facebook’s product would be differentiated because it would be oriented towards helping users find quick answers to questions from people who are socially or spatially around them. However, Questions as currently implemented does seem awfully close to Quora, with its public questions, follows, and organization based on topics. The Facebook spokesperson said Facebook is building a system to match similar questions, and will attempt to direct users asking a question to previous ones on the same topic so it can create a living resource, just as Quora does. Though perhaps Facebook Questions will have less of a rigorous attitude towards moderation and social governance, which are crucial parts of the Quora DNA. One of the reasons Q&A companies and products are so hot right now is because they provide a crowdsourced alterative to search. But then the question becomes, as we move away from traditional search, how will this activity be monetized (for more on that question, see a GigaOM Pro analysis I wrote (sub req’d)). Facebook Questions is currently not an advertising product, though you can see how advertisers would want to get involved in recommending their products as answers to questions. However, the spokesperson said Facebook Pages owners will be able to ask and answer questions of their fans (and some Pages are already being included in the beta). LoadingNextPreviousPicture 1 of 6 Please see the disclosure about Facebook in my bio.
UPDATED: Nokia appears to have an Ovi-branded web browser in the works, although the company hasn’t officially confirmed the effort. There’s solid evidence such a client exists, however, as Nokia’s Beta Labs site has a password-protected page with the telling URL of http://betalabs.nokia.com/apps/ovi-browser. There’s also an Ovi Browser Twitter account first noticed by ZOMGitsCJ noticed by Clinton Jeff at ZOMGitsCJ Unwired View, as well as alleged confirmation of someone actually using the browser. The question then may not be “is” Nokia is building an Ovi browser, but more a question of why it is building a branded browser when it has an existing browser? Reportedly, the Ovi Browser is based on WebKit, which makes sense for several reasons. Nokia began to use WebKit for its smartphone browsers in 2005, so changing to another platform would be a change in pattern. And there’s really no reason for Nokia to use a different web platform, especially given that WebKit’s current use on mobile platforms such as iOS4, Android, webOS and soon in BlackBerry handets, makes it currently the dominant browsing technology for mobiles. If Nokia already has a WebKit browser then, there’s a few things that a newly-branded Ovi Browser could bring. The very branding of an Ovi browser would help Nokia’s Ovi platform gain consumer awareness. And for a company that needs to ramp up service revenues due to falling handset prices, what better way is there than to market the Ovi service store to their customers? It’s also possible that an Ovi browser unifies the existing Ovi services and adds room for new ones in the future. Currently, Nokia offers Ovi Mail, Ovi Messaging, Ovi Contacts and more. Ovi is a platform with many clients, but an Ovi browser could tie all of these services together seamlessly. Lastly an Ovi browser could be a dual-purpose client for both mobiles and the desktop. Nokia is juggling various platforms — Symbian S60, Symbian^3, and MeeGo – across feature phones, smartphones and eventually netbooks. One web client that syncs preferences, bookmarks and passwords among those devices would make an Ovi browser appealing to owners of multiple Nokia devices. Update: Apparently, there’s also a fourth way Nokia could use an Ovi Browser — as an Opera competitor on Symbian S40 Series 40 handsets. Nokia just released a beta Ovi Browser for low-end handsets that — like Opera — centrally compresses web data before serving it up on a Symbian S40 Series 40 handset. The company is targeting the right devices to reduce data throughput by up to 90 percent as many S40 Series 40 devices are found in emerging markets where mobile broadband is either scarce or expensive. Related GigaOM Pro Content (subscription required): WebKit is Great, But It Isn’t the Great Unifier
The woman who made a name for herself, more or less willingly, as Tiger Woods’ Mistress Number 1, Rachel Uchitel, is currently shooting for the latest season of “Celebrity Rehab with Dr. Drew.” According to the National Enquirer (story via here), she and the golfer are still together and actually have plans of tying the kno... (read more)
Gateway already showcased the silver-colored Gateway ID notebooks, with Intel Core processors and NVIDIA graphics, but it seems to have more in store than just those Optimus-enabled machines. In fact, while the ID cater to the needs of the fashion-conscious market, the company supplied the budget segment with new models for the Gateway NV5 line.... (read more)
Over the past couple of months, Thermaltake unveiled quite a number of Toughpower PSUs, each strong enough to take on any mainstream or high-end system. Now, the company decided to do something a little different while still making the best of this brand. What Thermaltake decided upon was the creation and release of a high-quality laptop AC ada... (read more)
Microsoft has updated the content offered through the Windows Personalization Gallery and is now providing customers running its latest Windows client with new themes. The Wolves themepack is one of the fresh customization releases from the Redmond company, bringing to the table a collection of 11 beautiful images, featuring wolves, as you might have guessed... (read more)
LEGO Indiana Jones: The Original Adventures is an puzzle platfomer developed by Traveller's Tales and published by Lucas Arts that was released on the Nintendo DS, as well as the other platforms, on the 3rd of June 2008 in North America and on the 6th of June 2008 in Europe. The game revolves around the first three Indian Jones movies... (read more)