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Posted: 03 Oct 2011 09:57 AM PDT
 Adobe announced today that it has acquired cloud font site Typekit. Adobe made the announcement just now at its Adobe Max conference in Los Angeles.Jeffrey Veen (pictured left), chief executive of Typekit, and Adobe chief technology officer Kevin Lynch (pictured right), said the announcement will make it much simpler for artists and designers to get access to cool fonts without having to worry about digital rights issues. Lynch said the Typekit technology will be part of a larger service known as the Adobe Creative Cloud. The new Adobe service is aimed at letting authors create content in the cloud, or web-connected data centers which can host a wide array of services. The Adobe Creative Cloud will have pre-built services for content creators such as e-commerce, customer relationship management, and social network integration. Typekit ensures that a font will work not only with a web site, but with mobile phones as well.  Veen said that Typekit started two years ago as cloud computing was coming to the fore. Typekit created a subscription service to host fonts in the cloud. Designers and developers can pay a fee and get access to a whole library of fonts that will be backward compatible with all sorts of publishing technologies. It also simplifies the process of getting access to the rights for fonts.Typekit is already used by more than 250,000 customers, including some of the largest sites on the web such as The New York Times, Conde Nast, and IGN. Typekit will be offered as a stand-alone service as well as a part of the Adobe Creative Cloud. Filed under: cloud, deals, dev         This posting includes an audio/video/photo media file: Download Now |
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Posted: 03 Oct 2011 09:47 AM PDT
 Expectations are extremely high for Apple’s new iPhone event tomorrow, where the company will unveil its latest flagship mobile device. Apple’s new chief executive, Tim Cook, will also be under pressure to repeat the success of the company’s last CEO, Steve Jobs, who left the company in August. Janney Capital Markets analyst Bill Choi said today that he expects Apple to sell around 107 million iPhones this year.Here’s what the VentureBeat team expects to see when Cook hops on stage tomorrow. Senior Editor Devindra Hardawar: Something new, but also something cheap New Apple devices never fail to stir up the rumor mill, but the run-up to Apple’s next iPhone has been the most maddening yet: It may be called the iPhone 5, or the iPhone 4S. It could be a complete redesign of the iPhone 4 — or not. For every juicy, and seemingly valid, rumor we get, there’s a report that throws cold water on our excitement. At this point, I think Apple would be crazy not to deliver a bold new iPhone. Why else would the company delay its usual summer iPhone launch into the fall? Judging from the plethora of iPhone 5 rumors, I’m fairly certain that Apple is working on a completely redesigned model. Ultimately though, it doesn’t matter if it’s called the iPhone 5 or the iPhone 4S — it just needs to be different. More hazy is Apple’s plans for a low-cost (and potentially free) iPhone 4 — which could be the reason for the recent spat of iPhone 4S rumors. Apple has previously made its last-generation iPhone its low-end offering (see the $50 iPhone 3GS). Now that the iPhone 4 will no longer be the high-end model, it makes sense for Apple to find ways to make it cheaper to build and sell. And such a device could be paired with Apple’s iCloud service, making it a perfect entry-level solution for many consumers. Lead Writer Dean Takahashi: The iPhone 5 — and the kitchen sink — are en route Apple has a wide possibility space. It could push forward on a number of expected fronts, but still surprise us with something new. The rumors this time are focused on a new high-end smartphone, the iPhone 5, with features such as Voice Assistant, based on artificial intelligence technology that Apple acquired from Siri. I expect that Apple will launch this device as the spearhead for staying ahead of Google Android devices. And the new iPhone will mean an update to the iOS software as well. But Apple might also move into low-end smartphones with an iPhone 4S. The company might launch its iCloud music service, and it might sign up more carriers such as Sprint to carry the iPhone 5. If Apple does all of these things, then it will be clear that the company has the bandwidth to do some serious multitasking. Lead Writer Matthew Lynley: Something completely new There were a few reports circulating the net over the weekend that Apple would unveil an iPhone “4s” — which suggests an incremental upgrade to its smartphone lineup similar to the iPhone 3GS. That new phone would likely have a larger hard drive, a new processor (likely Apple’s A5 processor, seen in the iPad 2) and some other upgraded specifications. Apple would not have to significantly retool its manufacturing process to churn out an incremental upgrade for the iPhone. It would also give Apple the option of producing a lower-priced smartphone option with the iPhone 4, similar to what the company did with the 3GS while selling the iPhone 4. An iPhone 4S incremental upgrade leaves the door open for Apple to completely surprise us with something new. It could be a totally new model of the iPhone (an iPhone 5-level upgrade or maybe a smaller, different form factor aimed at a different audience) or a new version of the iPad with a smaller form factor. Given the success Samsung has seen with multiple form factors in its tablets, I don’t think it would be a complete surprise to see Apple drop a 7-inch version of the iPad at its event tomorrow. Executive Editor Dylan Tweney: An incremental upgrade is on its way The evidence that Apple is working on an incremental upgrade to the iPhone 4, possibly called the iPhone 4S, is pretty clear. It will have incremental upgrades to the previous model: A faster, A5 processor; probably more memory; possibly a better camera. It seems it’s already being manufactured in Brazil, even. Sorry to disappoint you, Apple fans: I don’t think there’s going to be an iPhone 5 tomorrow. The argument that Apple is working on two phones, an iPhone 5 and an entry-level iPhone 4S, is weak. The company already has an entry-level phone, after all. It’s called the iPhone 3GS, and it sells for $49 with contract. The most interesting news will have to do with iOS, which will add a voice-control feature called Assistant. I want to believe there will be an iPhone 5 tomorrow. But I don’t think there will. Senior Editor Heather Kelly: Look for speed and fresh iOS features Tuesday’s iPhone event is being held at Apple’s Cupertino headquarters instead of the spacious Moscone center. It’s doubtful Apple picked the smaller location for budgetary reasons, so I’m going to speculate it’s to manage our expectations. We can definitely expect a new iPhone on Tuesday, but I predict a beefed up iPhone 4 called the iPhone 4S instead of an iPhone 5. Hardware changes will be subtle: The phone will be faster, hold more juice, and maybe get a few more megapixels on the back camera. It will sport the Voice Assistant features we’ve heard about, Apple will trot out a few other iOS 5 features that work exclusively on the new iPhone, and it will release iOS 5 to everyone. Finally, Tim Cook will tell the audience to look under their chairs and yell, “Everyone gets a free discontinued Shuffle!!!” Filed under: mobile, VentureBeat         This posting includes an audio/video/photo media file: Download Now |
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Posted: 03 Oct 2011 09:43 AM PDT
 Streaming music service Spotify now has over five million active monthly users after announcing its new integration with giant social network Facebook at the f8 developer conference Sept. 22 — up from 3.4 million users, reports Evolver.fm.Spotify, which allows people to share playlists with friends, recently partnered with Facebook to offer integration with Facebook's new Open Graph platform. To jump-start the integration, Spotify decided to force all new users to have a Facebook account if they wanted to join the music service. While the decision to force users to have a Facebook account was an unpopular one with many users, we now know why Spotify was willing to do it. The service, which has over two million paying subscribers, has added about two million new users (paying and free) in less than a month because of its partnership with Facebook. If Spotify’s growth continues, it would be the second huge success that could arguably be attributed to a partnership with Facebook — with the first being social gaming startup Zynga. Filed under: media, social, VentureBeat         This posting includes an audio/video/photo media file: Download Now |
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Posted: 03 Oct 2011 09:33 AM PDT
 Online retailer Amazon moved 95,000 units of its hotly-anticipated 7-inch tablet, the Kindle Fire, the first day the tablet was available for pre-order, according to estimates from market research firm eDataSource.Amazon unveiled the Kindle Fire, a tablet geared toward the newly-minted low-end tablet market, on Wednesday last week. Rather than creating a high-end tablet like the iPad or Samsung Galaxy Tab 10.1, Amazon opted for a cheaper device that’s closer to Research in Motion’s PlayBook now that Best Buy has lowered the price of that tablet. Both the iPad 2 and the Android-powered Samsung Galaxy Tab 10.1 retail for around $500 for the cheapest model. The Fire hits a similar price point that the TouchPad tablet’s fire-sale kicked off when Hewlett-Packard announced it would sell the 10-inch tablet for $100. The result was an almost immediate sell-out at physical retailers and online stores. The fire sale was so successful that HP said it would issue more TouchPads, though the company did not say when they would be available. Amazon’s new tablet has a dual-core processor, a 7-inch LCD screen and runs on a modified Android operating system. The company also has its own web browser called Silk, which uses Amazon's cloud infrastructure to speed up browsing by pre-fetching and caching pages you are likely to click on. The online retailer can afford to sell the $200 Kindle Fire for less that it costs to manufacture it (which is around $210) because it will more than make up the difference with sales of media and other retail goods. The Fire gives Amazon a way to have a direct pipeline to its customers and push them offers for everything Amazon sells — such as clothing, electronics or even furniture. eDataSource also estimated that Amazon sold around 25,000 models of its new line of Kindle e-readers, priced at $79 and $99. The new Kindle no longer has a keyboard, while the Kindle Touch now has a touchscreen. The 3G model of the Kindle Touch costs $149. The firm made the estimates by analyzing around 800,000 receipts that opt in. The Kindle Fire will be available November 15. Filed under: mobile         This posting includes an audio/video/photo media file: Download Now |
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Posted: 03 Oct 2011 09:04 AM PDT
 Tablet newspaper The Daily has attracted more than 80,000 paying subscribers and 40,000 non-paying trail-only readers each week, it revealed Monday. The numbers are a sign that the News Corp.-owned innovative digital publication could succeed over time.Ever since the launch of The Daily in February, people have wondered just how well an iPad-only publication could do when there are so many news sites available and many established news brands with their own iPad apps. The New Yorker iPad app, for example, has more than 100,000 iPad readers, with more than 20,000 exclusive subscribers on the iPad and more than 75,000 print subscribers using the app as well. An iPad-only New Yorker subscription runs $59.99 a year. Even with the positive-looking subscriber numbers, The Daily is far from having a sustainable business model in its current state. The publication charges $0.99 a week for access, so with 80,000 paying subscribers it brings in about $80,000 a week. But it costs $500,000 a week to run, so it will take time to attract enough subscribers for it to break even. So far The Daily has offered its content only to iPad owners, but it will soon launch an Android version that can run on other tablets. Those will include 10-inch Android tablets like the Galaxy Tab 10.1 and 7-inch tablets like the just-announced Amazon Kindle Fire. Availability on the Kindle Fire and other Android tablets should help the publication attract more subscribers. The Daily’s readers spend between 20 and 30 minutes reading the app each day and view around 40 pages of the 120 pages published daily, according to Localytics. Those are promising engagement numbers and are an indication readers will continue to consume Daily content regularly. What do you think of The Daily? Do you think an Android launch will help it build a larger following? Filed under: media, mobile         This posting includes an audio/video/photo media file: Download Now |
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Posted: 03 Oct 2011 08:21 AM PDT
 Specific Media, the new owner of social networking site Myspace has shifted gears regarding an announcement of the site’s future.After purchasing Myspace in June for about $35 million, the company announced a mid-August press conference with investor Justin Timberlake to show that the social network still had life in it yet. Then the company canceled the press event in favor of presenting at Advertising Week in New York, which starts today. Specific Media will be addressing "CMOs and senior marketers" to tell them about advertising opportunities (and show off Justin Timberlake), according to All Things D. Specific Media is right to delay and retool its strategy toward Myspace, which hasn’t had much positive press recently. Myspace attracted a mere 33 million visitors to the site in August (a 44 percent decline compared to a year ago), and the original press event was scrapped because changes to the site were incremental and not moving fast enough. Also, Specific Media laid off a percentage of its staff — mostly Myspace employees who had overlapping responsibilities, according to a TechCrunch report. The company is also no doubt spooked by the huge amount of progress that Facebook has made toward making its own social network an ideal place for people to both listen to and discover new music. Filed under: media, social, VentureBeat         This posting includes an audio/video/photo media file: Download Now |
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Posted: 03 Oct 2011 08:00 AM PDT
 Mobile game maker MocoSpace, has acquired Geocade, a location-based mobile game platform, the company announced today.The deal shows that MocoSpace wants to take its web-based mobile apps to the next level by imbuing them with location-based elements. Geocade’s location-based social game platform is used in games that have been downloaded more than 30 million times. As part of the deal, Geocade founder and chief executive Jim Caralis will join MocoSpace as vice president of MocoSpace’s HTML5 game platform. MocoSpace makes games that can run on a variety of platforms because they run in web browsers. They are not native apps developed for specific platforms. They use HTML5, the new lingua franca web format, which can be used to create games that don’t require fast interaction. Caralis will oversee the development of the game platform and its features. MocoSpace’s latest in-house game, Rise to Fame, which launches this week, will use Geocade’s location features and will be MocoSpace’s first-ever location-aware HTML5 game. In that game, players become actors vying for stardom and trying out different roles by visiting new locations. MocoSpace already has more than 22 million registered users playing more than 1 million hours of game play per day in MocoSpace’s 20 HTML5 games. Geocade will eventually be merged with MocoSpace’s platform. Justin Siegel, CEO of MocoSpace, said the acquisition furthers the company’s aggressive push into mobile social gaming. MocoSpace was founded in 2005 and is backed by General Catalyst and Softbank Capital. Filed under: deals, games, mobile         This posting includes an audio/video/photo media file: Download Now |
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Posted: 03 Oct 2011 07:09 AM PDT
AOL CEO Tim Armstrong with Arianna Huffington
Additionally, HuffPo has acquired Localocracy, which describes itself as “an online town common where registered voters using real names can weigh in on local issues.” And if that isn’t enough, the site is launching four more sections this week and has hired the New York Times’ Lisa Belkin as a senior columnist to cover parenting and family life. HuffPo has been growing rapidly since it was acquired by AOL for $315 million earlier this year. Today’s news is a sign that the site has no intention of slowing down anytime soon. Arianna Huffington (pictured right with AOL CEO Tim Armstrong), head of HuffPo and AOL’s news content, said that the site is aiming to launch sections that cater to all of the interests and passions of its readers. “Whatever your interest, we want to provide the latest content and stories and most advanced tools for engagement,” she told All Things Digital. HuffPo says it also reached its largest number of unique visitors last month — 37 million — and pulled in a record 5.1 million comments. Localocracy, based in Amherst, Mass., was founded in 2009 to help citizens better engage with local issues and coordinate with others on how to fix them. The company plans to expand on its local democracy ambitions with the help of HuffPo’s community platform and massive audience. “What we've learned with Localocracy is that by harnessing user-generated content, we're able to unleash a lot of people power,” founders Conor White-Sullivan and Aaron Soules said in a statement today. “Our methodology is simple: we believe that everyone is an expert about something, so we want to give voice to that expertise and allow an exchange of ideas for all to see and participate in.” The site’s new sections launching this week include HuffPost Gay Voices, HuffPost Weddings, HuffPost High School, and Huff/Post50. Filed under: deals, media, VentureBeat         This posting includes an audio/video/photo media file: Download Now |
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Posted: 03 Oct 2011 06:18 AM PDT
 ABC News announced today that it would begin distributing its news content through online media company Yahoo.The partnership with ABC News would be a return to form of sorts for Yahoo, which was originally born as a portal site that would direct viewers and readers to content on other sites. Yahoo has tried its hand at several distribution and online content channels. Yahoo acquired Flickr, an online image hosting site, in 2005 and also acquired social bookmarking site Delicious — which it announced it would “sunset” last year and eventually decided to sell. ABC News will be a “premier” news content provider for Yahoo’s news channels. Both companies will coordinate their teams to generate original content that they will cross-post to both Yahoo’s news site and those on ABC’s online site. The Yahoo-ABC combo has roughly 100 million regular monthly viewers, the companies said today. Yahoo recently fired Carol Bartz (pictured above) as the company’s chief executive. She was appointed CEO in 2009, inheriting a company that had slid, over the years, from a web search pioneer to a massive slow-moving media company that watched its dominance slowly ebb away. Since then, the company has been under pressure to find a way to remain relevant online advertising markets as Facebook and Google have rapidly ripped away the company’s share of online advertising. Yahoo's share of overall U.S. online ad revenues will decline to a 11 percent this year, down from 13.3 percent a year ago, according to online market research firm eMarketer. Google's share is expected to grow to 40.8 percent this year, up from 38.5 percent in 2010 and 34.9 percent in 2009, while Facebook's share should reach 7 percent this year, up from 4.6 percent last year, according to the firm. Both Yahoo and ABC’s news teams will also have live coverage of events based in New York, Washington, D.C., and Los Angeles — which will be streamed through Yahoo’s online sites. Yahoo gets a number of exclusive online video streams from ABC News through the deal, such as a video interview with President Barack Obama with ABC News. ABC News content will be integrated throughout the Yahoo’s news sites and Yahoo’s front page. Yahoo experienced some rare support from the market after the announcement today. Its shares rose nearly 4 percent in trading before the bell — a jump the company hasn’t experienced since it ousted Bartz, a move that investors gleefully accepted. Interest in Yahoo has slipped in recent weeks as a number of potential buyers, including Alibaba, began circling the company. Filed under: media, VentureBeat         This posting includes an audio/video/photo media file: Download Now |
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Posted: 03 Oct 2011 06:15 AM PDT
 Sony is announcing today an “Only On PlayStation Network” campaign aimed at drawing attention to its slate of exclusive new online-distributed games for the PlayStation 3 and Sony’s portable game platforms.Under the promotional campaign, the 77-million-plus PlayStation Network users will be able to get new exclusive downloadable games every Tuesday in October. Sony will offer its PlayStation Plus subscribers a 20 percent discount during the launch week of each Only On PlayStation Network special game. The titles include Eufloria, Okabu (pictured at top), Infamous Festival of Blood, and PixelJunk Sidescroller. “Only On PSN is a way for us to curate all of this exclusive content and deliver it under one umbrella for our gaming community,” said Susan Panico, senior director of the PlayStation Network, in an interview.  PSN users are eligible to get a $10 store credit in November if they spend $60 or more on their PSN games during the month of October. The $60 can be spent on games, movies, TV shows, videos, virtual goods on PlayStation Home, and music.The new Only On PSN campaign is an extension of Sony’s larger brand campaign, which started in February as “Only on PlayStation.” The February campaign replaced “It Only Does Everything,” which focused on the PlayStation 3 hardware. The Only On PlayStation campaign focused on software such as major 2011 PS 3 exclusives such as Killzone 3, Infamous 2, and Uncharted 3. Likewise, the Only On PlayStation Network is aimed at highlighting the exclusive downloadable games on the PSN. The network could certainly use a shot in the arm. PSN suffered an unprecedented six-week outage in the spring in the aftermath of a hacker attack. Angry gamers couldn’t log into the network to play their games, and Sony apologized and invited everyone back with special offers. Panico said the network is stronger than ever now and has fully recovered from the loss of audience during that time. So the new campaign is really meant to highlight Sony’s fall line-up, rather than just recruit gamers back to the service. On Oct. 4, Sony will offer Eufloria, a space exploration and conquest game created by Omni Systems. Als that day, Sony will launch Rochard, a gravity-defying puzzle-oriented action adventure game from Recoil Games and published by Sony Online Entertainment. On Oct. 11, Sony is launching Sideway: New York, a 2D adventure game set in a 3D world. That title was developed by Playbrains. On Oct. 13, Sony is launching the Sodium Collection, a collection of combat games under the Sodium name. On Oct. 18, Sony is launching the action-puzzle game Okabu, developed by Hand Circus. Also launching that day is RocketBirds, an adventure game with stereoscopic 3D, developed by Ratloop Asia. It is also launching Infamous Festival of Blood, a vampire-oriented game developed by Sucker Punch. Sony will also feature a collection of classic games starting Oct. 4. Those include God Hand, GrimGrimoire, Maximo Ghosts to Glory, Odin Sphere and Ring of Red. Sony Computer Entertainment America has been based in Foster City, Calif., for a long time. The company is planning to relocate to nearby San Mateo, Calif., over the next 16 months. Filed under: games, VentureBeat         This posting includes an audio/video/photo media file: Download Now |
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Posted: 03 Oct 2011 05:35 AM PDT
 The demand for accessing data keeps going up and up. That’s why Fusion-io has grown quickly by selling flash-based memory systems for data center servers. Now the company is introducing its second-generation ioMemory products today to double its performance.Flash memory chips are breaking into the enterprise servers because of increasing reliability and faster performance compared to hard drives. Fusion-io rode that wave with an ioDrive first introduced four years ago. Now the company is introducing its ioDrive 2 single and dual configuration flash cards, which can dramatically speed up the time it takes to load your web pages without overheating a server. “It’s really quite a feat to use the dense memory of flash and its better performance in the data center,” said David Flynn, chief executive of Fusion-io, which is based in Salt Lake City, in an interview. “With flash, we are finally seeing a shift for data-intensive applications.”  The company made the announcement at the start of the Oracle OpenWorld conference in San Francisco. Fusion-io was founded in 2005, debuted at the DEMO conference in fall 2008, and it went public this summer by riding on the trend of relieving the data crunch in servers. Fusion-io makes memory cards (pictured below) with speedy flash-memory chips on them. The company recently acquired IO Turbine and reported revenues of $197.2 million for the fiscal year ended June 30, up 445 percent from a year earlier. Earnings were $4.6 million, compared to a loss of $32.5 million a year earlier. The flash card puts memory where it’s needed, close to the server’s microprocessor, which needs a constant stream of data to stay at peak processing speed. This significantly reduces latency, or the time it takes to fetch data back and forth from memory, compared to getting data from a combination of random access memory chips and hard disk drives.  Fusion-io designs the controller technology for the flash chips and sources the chips from commodity flash manufacturers. The secret sauce lies in the controller chip which manages all of the different memory chips on a circuit card, which plugs into a server. Fusion-io also creates the virtual software stack that integrates the memory into the computer system, Flynn said.“That’s why we can run applications so much faster on the servers,” Flynn said. Fusion-io gives the storage capacity of drives and the performance that you would otherwise get out of random access memory chips. The new generation of ioMemory also bypasses a bunch of the bottlenecks that stood in the way of the flash memory. The new generation of ioDrive2 beats the previous generation on all metrics for capacity, reliability, performance and cost. The new drives have a 15-microsecond write latency, 3 gigabytes per second bandwidth, over 700,000 read input output operations per second (IOPS), and 900,000 write IOPS. The cards are more reliable because they have a self-healing feature called Adaptive FlashBack, which enables the ioMemory to repair itself in case one chip fails. What does all of that mean? One card can transfer an entire DVD in less than 2 seconds, Flynn said. Corporations such as Facebook are already using the first generation products in large amounts and they are expected to use the new generation for trading platforms, enterprise resource planning systems, virtual environments, enterprise applications, and databases, Flynn said. He said that the speed of the performance will likely enable new applications that could never be done before. It is not that hard to understand why getting data out of flash memory instead of slower hard drives is important. Facebook recently its Timeline feature that gives users access to their entire history of Facebook posts at a glance. If you scroll down the Timeline web page, you can see just about every important event in your Facebook history. That data would normally be stored in archives, which could be stored on slower hard disk drives or even tape storage. But now that data has to be accessed in a split second, so it makes sense that something like the faster flash memory chips would be used to store that kind of data now. The chips can also be used to keep stock exchanges and other financial companies operating at full tilt. Fusion-io worked on the new design for most of the past year. The new design uses flash chips that are based on a more advanced manufacturing process than the previous generation used, Flynn said. While past flash chips were designed to look like hard disk drives to data center operating systems, the new flash chips are designed to work directly with the operating systems so that they can run at a faster way. “Instead of designing flash to work like the wheels on a horse and buggy, we designed the flash to work like the wheels on a car,” Flynn said. “There are a lot of others who build horse and buggy tires. We design for Formula One cars.” Steve Wozniak, co-founder of Apple, joined Fusion-io as chief scientist because he liked the company’s elegant hardware design so much. Analyst firm IDC recently said in a white paper, Datacenter of the Future, that Fusion-io’s technology can help overcome the inefficiencies of traditional data centers. Fusion-io can deliver high performance, reduce operational and capital expenses, and lower power consumption, said IDC analyst and vice president Benjamn Woo. Fusion ioDrive2 and ioDrive2 Duo will be offered in 365 gigabyte (GB), 785 GB, 1205 GB and 2.4 terabyte capacities, beginning in November. The first production run is already allocated to existing customers. Pricing for Fusion's new ioMemory platform starts at a manufacturer's suggested retail price of $5,950. Fusion-io has more than 500 employees now. Filed under: VentureBeat         This posting includes an audio/video/photo media file: Download Now |
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Posted: 03 Oct 2011 05:00 AM PDT
 Social networks such as Facebook have always been vulnerable to malicious hackers who share viral links that lead users to malware and malicious sites. That’s why Facebook is teaming up with Websense to protect users by preventing them from clicking on links without knowing the trustworthiness of the destination.The alliance shows that Facebook — which is now one of the biggest platforms with more than 800 million users — can’t do everything itself when it comes to better security to protect the privacy of its users. San Diego, Calif.-based Websense will add to Facebook’s existing protections by checking the links users click on. Websense will compare the link to its database of malicious sites. If it finds the link is malicious, the user will see a page that offers the choice to continue at their own risk, return to the previous screen, or get more information on why the site was flagged as suspicious. Facebook has its own security systems, but Websense has been analyzing and classifying the internet for more than 15 years using its patented technology. Websense’s advanced classifying engine (ACE), which will be used with Facebook, is already part of Websense’s Triton malware protection products. We have been working with Facebook and their security teams for a number of years in order to better protect their users, and now we have integrated directly into the platform for an un-precedent security combination,” said Dan Hubbard, chief technology officer. “By doing so, Websense is helping Facebook continue their proactive fight to keep malicious links off of their platform and allow safe use for all of its members.” Publicly traded Websense was founded in 1994 and it has 1,400 employees. Rivals included McAfee, Symantec and Cisco. In the second quarter, Triton’s billings were $44.4 million, up 47 percent from a year before. Filed under: cloud, deals, VentureBeat         This posting includes an audio/video/photo media file: Download Now |
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Posted: 03 Oct 2011 04:01 AM PDT
 Customer and workforce analytics software company Enkata on Monday announced it has raised a new $4.4 million funding round, with goals of expanding the company and continuing to help improve customer service tools.“We’re repurposing the industrial engineering techniques from the 1950s and ’60s and applying them to the service industry,” Enkata CEO David Stamm told VentureBeat. Enkata provides wide-ranging cloud-based software to several Fortune 500 countries to them improve call center management and customer service techniques. The software types include tracking customer calls, claims processing, quality assurance functions, and agent management. Current high-profile Enkata customers include Sprint, Aetna, Chase, Citibank and United Healthcare. Stamm said these companies have responded especially well to Enkata’s software because customers more often have their problems solved on the first call. “One of the biggest goals for companies to have the best customer service and rank at the top of JD Power and Associates rankings,” Stamm said. “We make that possible.” The company’s new $4.4 million round was led by new investor IT Farm Corporation. At first appears that amount appears a little small for a traditional third round of funding, but Stamm, who is also the company’s largest individual investor, said the company chose to keep the amount smaller to cause as little share dilution as possible. “We could have easily got as much as $15 million for the round if we wanted,” Stamm said. “But this wasn’t a typical venture round. We had very specific goals in mind.” Redwood City, Calif.-based Enkata last raised $8 million back in February 2008, with Sigma Partners and Apex Venture Partners leading that funding. The company’s funding including the new round now totals $18 million. Stamm said he also plans to expand the 100-employee company by another 40 jobs in the next 12 months. He said Enkata would soon open an office in the U.K. with a goal of furthering its worldwide reach.  We'll be exploring the most disruptive cloud trends at our inaugural CloudBeat event on Nov 30-Dec 1 at the Sofitel Hotel in Redwood Shores. We’ll be unveiling some of the most revolutionary cases of cloud adoption by the enterprise. It’s invite only. To apply to come, click on this link.Filed under: cloud         This posting includes an audio/video/photo media file: Download Now |
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Posted: 02 Oct 2011 03:13 PM PDT
Image of an HTC Evo via Wikipedia
The reported vulnerability, according to Artem Russakovskii of AndroidPolice.com, comes about due to a flawed logging application contained within the most recent version of the HTC Sense user interface, a custom skin that HTC includes with its Android phones. When you grant apps access to the phone’s internet capabilities (permission that would ordinarily only allow the app to access the web for uploading and downloading data), HTC’s logging application also grants access to a whole host of other data. That data, Russakovskii says, includes:
Apparently, HTC installed a suite of logging tools — for a purpose that’s still unclear — but neglected to secure the data that was being logged. The discovery was made by Trevor Eckhart, a security researcher. “It’s like leaving your keys under the mat and expecting nobody who finds them to unlock the door,” Russakovskii writes. We contacted a HTC spokesperson today, who provided this response: “HTC takes our customers’ security very seriously, and we are working to investigate this claim as quickly as possible. We will provide an update as soon as we’re able to determine the accuracy of the claim and what steps, if any, need to be taken.” Removing the vulnerability is not possible without rooting the device, removing the HTC Sense software, or waiting for an update from HTC, Russakovskii says. He has also provided a proof of concept app that you can install to determine if your phone is susceptible. For more details, see the Android Police blog post.  Filed under: mobile, VentureBeat         This posting includes an audio/video/photo media file: Download Now |
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Posted: 02 Oct 2011 02:16 PM PDT
 We already know a lot about the all-electric 2012 Tesla Model S sedan — but at a press event ahead of yesterday’s exclusive VIP event at the former Toyota NUMMI facility in Fremont, California, Tesla CEO Elon Musk announced Tesla was making a faster Model S for those with a sporty side. Cutting the brisk 0-60 time of the standard Model S from 5.6 seconds to under 4.5 seconds, the sportier version features the same 85 kilowatt-hour, 300 miles-per-charge battery pack found in the 2012 Model S Signature series. "That's quicker than a [Porsche] 911 [Carrera]," joked Musk. "Not bad for an electric luxury sedan." The additional model, complete with enhanced powertrain to cope with the additional current required for faster acceleration, will be available from launch alongside the 120 mile, 230 mile and 300 mile 2012 Model S cars. But if you thought 300 miles was the maximum range a Tesla Model S could do, you'd be wrong. "We're also going to be offering aerodynamic wheels that will enable 320 mile range," Musk told us earlier. "There were some skeptics who said we couldn't do a 300 mile range, but we're going to do better than that. We're going to offer 320 mile range, as tested on the EPA 2 cycle test." When the batteries are depleted, Tesla says even the 300-mile range Model S will be able to recharge from empty to full in under an hour thanks to its new direct current external charger. The 90 kilowatt units will be installed by Tesla at suitable rest-stop locations or hotels alongside arterial freeways such as I-5 between Canada and Mexico. On-board AC charging will be dealt with through either a single 10 kilowatt charger or two 10 kilowatt chargers. Tesla says the two options were developed after it realized that many of its existing Tesla Roadster customers did not use the full capability of its 17 kilowatt on-board charger, recharging instead at a more sedate 7 kilowatts or less. Tesla says it now has 6,000 customers who have reserved its 2012 Model S with deposits of $5,000 or more. If it sells each of the cars it has taken deposits on, that means Tesla will have sold out of the first year's allocation of Model S sedans a whole nine months before the first one reaches a customer. Written by Nikki Gordon-Bloomfield, this post originally appeared on GreenCarReports, one of VentureBeat's editorial partners. Tesla Motors provided airfare, lodging, and meals to High Gear Media, the parent company of GreenCarReports. Photo: Tesla Model S Alpha build, courtesy GreenCarReports. Filed under: green         This posting includes an audio/video/photo media file: Download Now |
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Posted: 02 Oct 2011 01:25 PM PDT
 The arrival of Amazon’s Kindle Fire, a $199 tablet, in a market dominated by $500 models looks like an obvious case of price disruption.Not so fast, says Horace Dediu, an analyst at Asymco: Amazon’s margins are too thin to allow it to compete on the tablet’s core technology. It’s an interesting counterpoint to the arguments that most observers have made in the wake of the Kindle Fire’s launch. The Kindle Fire, announced earlier this week and shipping November 15, costs just under $200. For that, you get a dual-core processor, a 7-inch LCD screen, a modified Android operating system, and some enticing cloud-based features that let you access your books, music, movies and more via an internet connection. There’s even a promising-sounding browser, called Silk, which uses Amazon’s cloud infrastructure to speed up browsing by pre-fetching and cacheing pages you are likely to click on. Compare that to the specs offered by numerous other tablets, and the Fire looks like a serious competitive threat. It may not push the envelope technologically, but its price is so low that it could be a truly disruptive innovation on the cheaper side of the market. In fact, it’s already prompted Best Buy to slice prices on the BlackBerry PlayBook by $200. Other 7-inch tablets, such as the HTC Flyer and the Samsung Galaxy Tab 7.0, are already going for about $300, so a $100 price cut is not out of reach. And Amazon has a not-so-secret weapon: It can afford to sell the Kindle Fire for less that it costs to manufacture it, because it will more than make up the difference with sales of media — and even goods. The Fire becomes not just a media device, but a way for Amazon to have a direct pipeline to its customers, pushing them offers for everything Amazon sells, including clothing, electronics, housewares and more. Add that all up, and the Kindle Fire looks like a serious threat to Apple’s iPad. Dediu’s argument splashes some cold economic theory on that optimistic assessment. It’s a complicated argument, in which Dediu compares the Kindle Fire to other hardware products subsidized by ongoing service fees, such as game consoles, set-top boxes and cellphones. In most of these cases, the subsidy means that a company’s profits come from its ability to maximize service sales, not hardware sales. The incentive to invest in updating the hardware technology is accordingly minimized: Game console cycles stretch across many years, for instance. Dediu’s argument boils down to a simple point, however: Amazon’s margins on the digital goods it will sell through the Kindle are razor-thin. That means it will take a large volume of sales to subsidize the Kindle’s sales cost, encouraging Amazon to wait a long time between updates to the underlying hardware. They’ll need to amortize that cost over several years to make the accounting balance out, rather than pushing customers to buy a new tablet every year or two. As a result, the Kindle Fire is unlikely to advance rapidly in terms of its technology. Amazon is going to milk as many years as it can out of each generation of the tablet. That’s not a big deal for Amazon if tablet technology has essentially plateaued, because Amazon is very well-positioned to compete on the basis of its services and additional goods. But if tablet technologies continue to advance, the Kindle Fire could look increasingly like a technological backwater. Dediu’s conclusion: the Kindle Fire is no threat to the iPad. Filed under: mobile, VentureBeat         This posting includes an audio/video/photo media file: Download Now |
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