VentureBeat |
- Judge kills lawsuit against Hurt Locker pirates, matey
- Buddy can you spare a dollar? Indie game developer makes you think about being homeless
- Sorry Galaxy S owners, no Ice Cream Sandwich for you (blame TouchWiz)
- The DeanBeat: Game industry predictions for 2012
- Gogo IPO: Raising $100M for airplane Wi-Fi service
- Workday gears up for IPO, plans to raise up to $500M
- Top 10 new game brands of 2012
- FCC gives the nod to AT&T’s $1.9B Qualcomm spectrum deal
- Worst press release titles of 2011
- Kiip announces Swarm to stage contests with big rewards in mobile games
- VBWeekly: Top 10 games of 2011
- Facebook rejiggers platform to increase game usage
- YouTube videos get a snowflake button for the holidays
- UC Berkeley chooses Google Apps over Microsoft Office 365 (updated)
- The Kindle Fire allows third-party e-book apps, starting with Wattpad
- Facebook most-searched term and most-visited site of 2011
- DST may invest $200M in Chinese microblogging company, Sina Weibo
- Game trade group celebrates a big year for video games
- Wowza: Apple will likely ship 30.3M iPhones this quarter
- Sony unveils big line-up for PlayStation Vita in the U.S.
- Zynga launches Words With Friends on the Nook e-book reader
- Court authorizes jury trial to proceed in Activision lawsuit against Electronic Arts
- Gameloft pulls ads from Hero of Sparta 2 mobile game due to complaints
- Surprise! BlackBerry 10 OS is already being called a failure
- Paul Graham: SOPA supporters are no longer welcome at Y Combinator events
- Google paying nearly $1B for Firefox search deal
- Now your robots can post status updates too with MyRobots.com
- Louis CK’s digital distribution experiment clears $1M in 12 days
- MoviePal helps mobile users discover and share film trailers
- Motorola Mobility acquires SetJam, beefs up entertainment value
| Judge kills lawsuit against Hurt Locker pirates, matey Posted: 23 Dec 2011 09:08 AM PST
Judge Beryl Howell killed the case, refusing to grant an extension to the trial when the studio asked for more time to track down specific defendants from Internet service providers. Back in October, around 20,000 defendants were dismissed from the case when Voltage Pictures was having trouble tracking them down. Eventually, the lawsuit was cut down to 2,300 people, but in the end, even that number was just too much for the studio to handle. Because many of the John and Jane Doe defendants were filing documents of their own with the ISPs, identifying all the defendants was taking more than the allotted 120 days that Voltage Pictures had to serve them with papers. When the judge denied Voltage’s request for another extension to track down the defendants, he effectively killed the case. However, TorrentFreak reports that Voltage’s lawyers are still trying to get thousands of dollars from each of the pirates, even the ones who had already been dismissed from the case, regardless of the fact that the case has been closed by the judge. Voltage’s law firm for this matter is Dunlap, Grubb & Weaver, and these tactics are apparently nothing new for them. In a similar torrenting case last year, the lawyers were served with a class-action lawsuit for racketeering, extortion and committing fraud on the U.S. Copyright Office. The attorneys had been sending letters demanding payments between $1,500 and $2,500 from people who had downloaded the film Far Cry. Filed under: media        
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| Buddy can you spare a dollar? Indie game developer makes you think about being homeless Posted: 23 Dec 2011 09:00 AM PST
This week I played a game called Homeless on my Xbox 360 game console. The game involved bumming quarters from passers by, trying to scratch enough money together to get through another day. It was pretty simple to play, and I didn't place on any high score table, but the game told a story, and it made me think. I was left wondering if that was enough to expect from a game, or whether it had actually delivered far more than I had expected. Intrigued, I got in touch with Silver Dollar Games' Jon Flook, who talked to me about the inspiration behind Homeless, and the challenges he faces as a developer on the Xbox Live Indie Games (XBLIG) platform. Flook is based in Toronto, a large city with a homeless population like many others. The bridge next to Flook's apartment plays host to a homeless couple every summer, and he is always amazed by how many people can't be bothered to help them. When it comes down to it though, many of us are guilty of the same. As Flook says "How many times have I passed a homeless person and said "sorry" when they ask me for money? Sorry? What does that even mean to them? Does it mean, I'm sorry I'm too cheap to spare a dollar? Does it mean, I'm sorry that you're too lazy to get a job? Of course not, but when everyone ignores the problem it comes off that way." Inspired to try and tell a homeless story, Flook began to create a game in his head. His initial plans were much grander than the final product, but budgets are tight in the independent game arena, and "we had to cut out the seasons, weather effects, multiple locations, just about anything that would bring the costs up." Initial plans to use a real homeless person and their surroundings in the story were also abandoned as "it's just not practical when you can barely make rent yourself." Instead the script and voice work were put together by Flook and his friend. Flook very nearly didn't make the game at all, thinking that "no one was going to even look at Homeless. Who wants to play a game about a homeless man after all? It's just not what Xbox users want." Having created more than 50 Xbox Indie games already, Silver Dollar Games knows the market well enough to realize that "we would probably sell 100 units or less, but my brother said, "If it's a story you want to tell, let's tell it."" Silver Dollar Games has what can be best described as an eclectic back catalog. The company is perhaps most famous for titles like the geek dating sim "Don't Be Nervous Talking To Girls", which featured on the Conan O'Brien Show, or the self-explanatory "Try Not To Fart". Flook admits his company makes "a lot of stupid games", not least of which is the gloriously silly, but sadly unreleased Xbox on The Go!. Homeless is a more somber and thoughtful title though, and it is one that Flook is clearly proud of. Even on a minimal budget, Homeless still cost over $1000 to make, and selling the game at 80 MS Points ($1) a pop on XBLIG, Flook doesn't expect to break even on the project: "In spite of the fact that we lose money on most of our projects we'll continue to make games like this. They will probably be few and far between because we simply can't afford to do it more often." Looking at those numbers, it becomes apparent why Flook didn't take the game down a charitable route, giving the profits to a cause like The United Way, as he had first imagined. Silver Dollar Games had attempted this approach with a previous title, Help Fight Breast Cancer, with somewhat disappointing results. "Ultimately it was a complete failure" says Flook. "I wrote to the NBCF [National Breast Cancer Foundation] and told them the following "Since April 2011 there has been only 215 purchases at a $1 per unit, with a mere 4980 trial downloads."" Having failed to make a difference with Help Fight Breast Cancer, the developer "knew it probably wasn't realistic for us to try again with Homeless." Lack of commercial success for the company's more esoteric titles doesn't seem to phase Flook at all. Despite the fact that he doesn't see a viable market for Homeless on XBLIG, that is precisely the reason he wants to put it out there, saying "Maybe, just maybe, there's a slim chance someone will look at the game and it will open their eyes to something different." Homeless offers no rewards or incentives for players to continue, in the traditional sense. There is no high score table, and no achievements to be gained, other than surviving another day, and hearing more of the story being told. It also lacks the closure so often associated with a traditional 'Game Over' screen. For Flook though, "the lack of closure to me is a little heart breaking, and in many ways so is the story of Homeless." There is an ongoing debate about whether games can be considered an art form, and Flook weighs in, saying "maybe games don't have to be all about unlocking, progressing, attacking or defending. Maybe video games can be all that and also a medium for telling a story or showing art. There have been many articles on whether video games can be considered art. Well our games, Fatal Seduction, Game 35: The Experiment, Sins of the Flesh and Office Affairs are our way of experimenting with video games as an art form. Whether a game gets noticed or not, I think XBLIG is a great place to try new ideas." Despite achieving greater commercial success with the more "stupid games" in the Silver Dollar Games portfolio, Flook remains convinced that XBLIG is the perfect medium to encourage experimentation with video games as an art form. Having played Homeless, which is far from perfect, but as intriguing as anything I have played this year, I find it hard to disagree. Homeless can be purchased on Xbox for 80 MS Points. A free trial is also available. Filed under: games        
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| Sorry Galaxy S owners, no Ice Cream Sandwich for you (blame TouchWiz) Posted: 23 Dec 2011 08:07 AM PST
Samsung pointed to its TouchWiz interface on the phones as the main reason for the snub, saying that there isn’t enough RAM and storage to run both Android 4.0 and TouchWiz, the Verge reports. The company recently announced that its newer Galaxy S II phones will receive an Ice Cream Sandwich update early next year. Given that Samsung sold over 10 million Galaxy S units in 2010, there are certainly going to be a lot of customers angered by this news. It’s particularly surprising since the Nexus S, which is also built by Samsung and shares plenty of hardware with the Galaxy S series, will be getting an Android 4.0 upgrade. Samsung explains that away, saying the Nexus S doesn’t run TouchWiz, so there are more resources available for Ice Cream Sandwich to use. The news shows yet another downside to custom Android skins, which have been criticized for slowing down phones without adding much additional functionality. While Samsung likely won’t ever let go of TouchWiz on the Galaxy S, some intrepid users could release a version of Ice Cream Sandwich for the phones with Samsung’s software stripped out. Additionally, Samsung also said that its first tablet, the original 7-inch Galaxy Tab, won’t see an upgrade for similar reasons. That’s less of an issue, since that tablet didn’t win over many fans. Filed under: mobile, VentureBeat        
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| The DeanBeat: Game industry predictions for 2012 Posted: 23 Dec 2011 08:00 AM PST
1. Social and mobile gaming will get stronger. Now that Zynga and Nexon have both raised a billion dollars, they’ll be able to use that money to accelerate acquisitions and expand their positions in the fastest-growing parts of the video game business. Along with that growth will come more competition. Big rivals such as Electronic Arts and Disney are battling in the same markets. Consumers are embracing content on social networks and mobile devices. But it won’t be a walk in the park. Companies like Zynga will have to work harder than ever to get users to keep coming back to their games. The good thing is that social and mobile games are already popular, but they’re in their infancy. They have plenty of room to evolve and grow. 2. Console games become the Red Queen. Like the Red Queen in Through the Looking Glass, console and PC games will continue to run just to stay where they are. With sales flat compared to 2009 and 2008, the console game sector appears to be stuck. Game publishers will have to get creative, pulling out all of the stops when it comes to more touch points, accessibility, and more platforms for the distribution of their AAA content. Activision Blizzard’s move to create the year-round subscription for Call of Duty Elite is one way to expand that franchise and its revenues at a time when the larger console market is flat. 3. World of Warcraft will continue its steady decline. Rift has already put a dent in the WoW subscriber base, getting more than 1 million players for the rival fantasy role-playing game. And Star Wars: The Old Republic will likely take away more users as well. Gamers have already formed more than 78,000 guilds in Star Wars, and the guilds make the game sticky, as you’re less likely to quit if you play with friends. And the ankle-biters are coming. Online games using the free-to-play model are also trying to offer gamers a better deal than WoW can. The question is whether Blizzard will be able to execute an orderly retreat. At some point, the company will launch Titan, its next massively multiplayer online game. But it sure doesn’t look like that game will arrive in 2012. 4. Cloud gaming gains ground. In 2010, OnLive launched its cloud-based game streaming service. But its impact hasn’t really been measurable yet. OnLive hasn’t released user numbers, retailers such as GameStop haven’t gone out of business, and publishers are still counting on retail sales for a big part of their revenues. In 2011, cloud gaming continued to expand, growing to the United Kingdom and spreading to mobile devices. As more web sites embed cloud-gaming demos for free, users will start to see the benefits of the games-on-demand services. We can expect to see more game streaming in 2012, since Gaikai has teamed up with Wal-Mart and GameStop is prepping its own service. OnLive has a couple of hundred games available, making it a force to be reckoned with among those distributing games in digital form. If more titles and more exclusives land in the lap of OnLive, the gamers will follow. But the question is, will the growth be gradual, or will it pick up momentum in 2012? 5. Tablets and smartphones will continue to steal gamers from dedicated handheld gaming devices. Sony’s PlayStation Vita is making a valiant attempt to turn the tide against the Apple iPhone and iPad, but it seems like a lost cause as the tablets and smartphones are starting to offer a good enough gaming experience. New tablets, such as the Kindle Fire, have brought prices down to $199. The competition between Android and Apple will accelerate the rate of innovation in mobile, and that will grind up the dedicated gaming devices. Kids in particular will drive this transition as they move from the iPod Touch to iPhones to iPads, possibly skipping handhelds altogether. The PS Vita has plenty of cool new games, but it’s hard to beat the free-to-play or 99 cent prices on iOS and Android. 6. The platforms will multiply. In every part of the business where there isn’t enough competition, new platforms will emerge to provide it. Google+, for instance, will rise as a gaming platform to compete with Facebook, which has pretty much wiped out a lot of its competition. In mobile, Microsoft’s Windows Phone will mount a bigger challenge to Android and iOS. And within existing platforms, such as Android, we’ll see new kinds of gaming devices emerge. And where these new platforms arise, they will prominently feature games, because games will help differentiate these platforms and show off what they can do. 7. Nintendo launches a console in the fall of 2012, but Sony and Microsoft wait until 2013. Nintendo’s new Wii U console is expected to debut in 2012 with its tablet-like controller. But I don’t expect it to set the world on fire the way the Wii did starting in 2006. That will give Microsoft and Sony some breathing room to create high-end machines that can run circles around the Wii U. By waiting a year, the heavy-duty console makers can stretch out the console cycle by one more year and then make more money on the current generation. They will also be able to launch advanced consoles with one more year of the cost learning curve under their belts. Having said that, I would bet that it is more than likely that Sony and Microsoft will try to dampen the enthusiasm for the Wii U by announcing new systems in 2012 that won’t ship until 2013. That’s the familiar vaporware tactic that helped the PlayStation 2 defeat Sega’s Dreamcast in the good old days. I have no inside information on this prediction. It’s just based on my gut feel. 8. Location-aware mobile gaming will gather momentum. Will Wright, the gaming legend who created SimCity, is exploring location-based entertainment because it can lead to what he calls “personal gaming,” where a game can be more easily customized to a person’s tastes because it makes use of data that it knows about that person. By tapping into location information, game creators can make their titles more and more relevant to consumers. To date, location-based games have had density problems, where not enough players are playing in one location. But it’s possible to design games that get around this issue, and developers will be able to keep you entertained based on where you are. 9. Family mobile data plans increase game consumption. I borrowed this prediction from Exent, which forecasted that numerous mobile carriers will lower their data fees per device and allow families to share plans. This means that you won’t have to pay a lot extra to enable your kid to play online games. That will enable more users to engage in connected social games on mobile devices that operate at satisfyingly high speeds. That could trigger sales of more data-enabled devices, which are ideal gaming machines. 10. HTML5 won’t be ready for prime time yet. This new format for web content wants to be the lingua franca of the web. But it isn’t so fast when it comes to running games. By contrast, native apps run much better on mobile devices. HTML5 games can’t make use of specific hardware in games such as a camera, and they don’t work well if the browser’s connection is weak. As devices get better and web speeds improve on mobile, HTML5′s performance will get better. But it has a long way to go, and native or hybrid solutions are likely to rule the day next year. 11. Monetization matters. New revenues from ads and improved conversion rates will provide a bigger growth rate for the industry. Too many companies rely on one business model when they could embrace multiple ones. If you look at Zynga, the company gets only 5 percent of its revenue from advertising and 95 percent from virtual goods. With more than 200 million monthly active users, Zynga has amassed a huge audience for brand advertisers, yet it has shied away from ads for fear they could be intrusive in the game experience. But in-game ads can be crafted so that users like them. Just ask innovators such as Kiip, which offers promotional rewards in a mobile game at the moment when you achieve something. If Zynga made just $1 a month in ads from each user, it could generate an extra $2.4 billion in annual revenues. That’s an untapped opportunity. By the same token, Zynga generates revenue from only 2.5 percent of its users. If it could double that number to 5 percent, it could double its revenue. In 2012, I expect to see publishers take advantage of multiple monetization strategies. 12. Somebody will get hacked. With embarrassing security breaches all over the place, game companies can expect more hacker attacks in 2012. The PlayStation Network suffered the ultimate embarrassment as it went down for six weeks after being hacked. Valve, Square Enix and many others suffered the same indignity. It’s good to be prepared. Online game sites and companies that use virtual currency have a lot at stake. Filed under: games        
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| Gogo IPO: Raising $100M for airplane Wi-Fi service Posted: 23 Dec 2011 07:44 AM PST
Gogo offers an in-flight Wi-Fi service through nine major airlines in North America, including Delta, Virgin America, US Airways, American Airlines, and others. Its service is available on more than 1,100 aircrafts (or 85 percent of all Wi-Fi-enabled commercial planes on the continent), with commitments to add service on another 525 in the future. — and operates on over 4,000 flights per day. Gogo will likely use the new capital to grow its in-flight Wi-Fi service by adding it to more domestic and international flights. The company also launched a streaming video service in August, which is available on American Airlines flights. As for the company’s financials, Gogo posted $113 million in total revenue for the first three quarters of 2011. The company has taken a loss during the last three years, with a $140 million loss in 2010 and a $26 million loss in 2011 (excluding Q4). Founded in 2005, the Itasca, Ill.-based company has raised $500 million in funding to date. It has over 350 employees and faces competition from Boingo and others. Filed under: deals, VentureBeat        
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| Workday gears up for IPO, plans to raise up to $500M Posted: 23 Dec 2011 07:26 AM PST
The company hopes to raise up to $500 million in its IPO, Bloomberg reported yesterday, based on information from two sources. Workday is said to file its S-1, the first step to going public, in the first half of 2012, and debut in the second half of the year. The company has begun looking for banks to help out with the process, and it’s currently eyeing Allen & Co., Morgan Stanley, Goldman Sachs, and JPMorgan Chase. Workday is also looking to recruit a chief financial officer to spearhead its public offering. As VentureBeat’s Sean Ludwig described it in Workdays’s recent $85 million funding round (which reportedly ended up fetching around $100 million, by the end), the company provides more than 230 companies with cloud services for human resources, payroll and financial management. While that may not initially sound exciting, those 230 companies account for more than 2 million users and unlike many new could-based startups, Workday has a track record of helping organizations cut costs and bringing them immediate value. It seems like we’re finally beginning to see the true value of cloud software — especially for something as critical to a business as operations management. Just look at SAP’s massive $3.4 billion acquisition of SuccessFactors, another cloud business software company. Pleasanton, Calif.-based Workday was founded in 2005 and has thus far raised $250 million in funding. Filed under: cloud, deals, VentureBeat        
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| Top 10 new game brands of 2012 Posted: 23 Dec 2011 07:00 AM PST Earlier this month, VentureBeat published a list of 10 of the most anticipated video games of 2012. Some of you had plenty to say about our picks, especially the fact that most of them were sequels. With many established franchises moving to a yearly release schedule, one might start to wonder where all the originality in gaming has gone. Well, wonder no more. While newly announced intellectual properties like Naughty Dog's The Last of Us and Epic Games' Fortnite don't make the list because they currently have no release date information, there are still plenty of promising new IPs set to hit store shelves in 2012. Here are ten brand new titles worth keeping an eye on.
Asura's Wrath Asura was once a revered deity before he was betrayed by his fellow gods, banished from the realm of Shinkoku, and stripped of all his powers. Twelve thousand years later, he is awakened by a mysterious voice and, consumed by vengeance, he sets out on a quest for revenge against his betrayers. Asura's Wrath, Capcom's latest beat 'em up, will be told through episodic gameplay similar to a TV drama series, blending Asian mythology with sci-fi. Capcom says Asura's Wrath will deliver a fresh take on the action genre by combining intense combat with a seamless player-controlled narrative. Through a mix of range attacks and close quarter action, Asura will face off against numerous unique enemies, including planetary sized bosses, that Capcom says will continually challenge your expectations.
Dishonored Dishonored is an all-new first person action game currently under development at Arkane Studios. It's the studio's first project since being acquired by ZeniMax, the owner of Bethesda, in 2010. Overseeing the project are co-directors Raphael Colantonio, former lead designer on Arx Fatalis, and Harvey Smith, former lead designer on Deus Ex. In Dishonored, you take on the role of Corvo, a legendary bodyguard falsely imprisoned for the murder of the Empress, in an industrialized retro-future game world designed by Half-Life 2 Art Director Viktor Antonov. Using a mix of assassination and stealth, you will have to unravel the conspiracy behind the murder and hunt down those responsible. You will have numerous powers and tools to accomplish your tasks, and Arkane says each encounter will play out based on hundreds of different factors.
I Am Alive Publisher Ubisoft says I Am Alive is an action/adventure game engineered to create a convincing post-disaster world in which players are faced with thought-provoking choices. The game follows a man's journey to find his wife and daughter in his hometown, Haventon, one year after a cataclysmic "Event" wipes out most of the human race. The mystery of the Event is an important part of the experience, the publisher says, and you will have to figure it out for yourself based on what you see and what others tell you. Stamina and resource management will be key to surviving I Am Alive's post-apocalyptic world. There are no supernatural threats. Instead, you will have to brave deadly dust clouds and scale enormous buildings to search for supplies while using a unique combat system that requires you to utilize intimidation against your foes.
Journey thatgamecompany, the studio behind flOw and Flower, is known for challenging traditional gaming conventions and Journey is their vision of a unique online adventure experience. After awakening in an unknown world, you will walk, glide, and fly through an awe-inspiring, interactive landscape and discover the history of an ancient civilization. The game encourages exploration without violence and seeks to "de-empower" you, making you feel tiny and helpless in a vast world. Journey's approach to online gaming sounds similar to that of Demon's Souls or Dark Souls, in that you will occasionally be able to explore your surroundings with fellow travelers who cross your path. By traveling together, you will be able to re-shape the experience in a way that the developer hopes will be authentic, emotional, and memorable. Here’s our interview with Journey co-creator Jenova Chen.
Kingdoms of Amalur: Reckoning 38 Studios is the creative enterprise of former MLB pitcher Curt Schilling, who also happens to be an avid gamer. Kingdoms of Amalur: Reckoning is the studio's first project and it has already generated buzz simply because of the names attached to it. Ken Rolston, former lead designer of classic role-playing games The Elder Scrolls III: Morrowind and The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion is leading the project, while New York Times best-selling fantasy author R.A. Salvatore is creating the lore and game world and Spawn creator Todd McFarlane is in charge of the art direction. 38 Studios says Reckoning will have the open-world exploration, vast narrative, and character customization fans expect from the genre, as well as fast-paced, graphically stimulating action and fluid controls. If God of War and Fable had a baby, it would probably look a lot like Reckoning, and expectations are high for this brand new IP. Filed under: games        
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| FCC gives the nod to AT&T’s $1.9B Qualcomm spectrum deal Posted: 23 Dec 2011 06:39 AM PST
The FCC has approved AT&T’s $1.92 billion purchase of Qualcomm’s 700 megahertz spectrum, originally meant for the company’s failed FLO TV project, which AT&T will use to strength its LTE network. Verizon is in the midst of several big spectrum deals of its own (which the government is also investigating), so this is a particularly desperate win for AT&T. And with the failure of the T-Mobile deal, which would have given AT&T plenty more spectrum, the carrier needs to scrape up as much wireless space as it can find. As I wrote previously, Qualcomm's block of spectrum covers more than 300 million people across the country, including major cities like New York, Boston, Los Angeles and San Francisco. AT&T says that it intends to use the spectrum to increase the downstream speed and total capacity of its 4G network. The company will utilize carrier aggregation with the spectrum, a technology for LTE 4G networks that allows networks to use multiple frequencies to achieve high speeds, to combine its existing spectrum with Qualcomm's. The FCC has imposed few limitations on the deal, reports the Wall Street Journal, other than making sure AT&T keeps an eye on spectrum interference and offers data roaming to competitors. The agency didn’t force AT&T to make sure its wireless frequencies are compatible with nearby spectrum, something that smaller carriers have been pushing for. Apparently, the FCC agreed with AT&T’s argument that ensuring frequency interoperability would slow down its 4G roll-out — though the agency did say that it will conduct an examination of the industry next year to determine if that’s truly the case. Filed under: deals, mobile, VentureBeat        
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| Worst press release titles of 2011 Posted: 23 Dec 2011 06:21 AM PST
However, in the interest of public service, here are some of the worst press release and pitch email titles of 2011 and our notes on how to avoid making next year’s list. Names have been changed to protect the guilty. “Press release for my new startup” (Email) “My new startup”, “Launching a startup” and ”New product” and are popular variations on this title. Be aware that all technology news publications receive hundreds of emails a day. Your subject line is a headline; Make us want to read the rest of the story. A pitch email with a generic subject line is likely to go straight to Trash. “Startup X’s Scalable, Modular System Combines Shared-Nothing MPP Relational Database with Enterprise-Class Apache Hadoop for Structured and Unstructured Data Co-processing” (Press Release) No, I don’t know what it means either. Well actually I do, but I shouldn’t need to. This is not a press release title. It’s a winning entry in a game of buzzword bingo. If your title does not fit into a tweet, it’s too long. If it contains more than two buzzwords, that’s too many. “Startup Y appoints four new Vice Presidents” (Press release) Why this would be of interest to anyone except your shareholders, who should be troubled by the sudden surplus of VPs, is beyond me. Unless Steve Jobs has visited you in a dream and agreed to run your product team from the Great Beyond, executive appointments are generally not news. Exceptions are personnel moves caused by scandals, epic feuds or messy divorces. Company Z issued shareholder’s letter to highlight recent developments (Email) In other breaking news, unspecified household bill was received by this journalist this morning. “Workplace bullying lessons” (Press release) Ensure that your press release title actually means what you think it does. My first reaction to this was “Should they really be advertising lessons in that?” Pitches pegged to horrible events This covers pitches along the lines of ”To mark the passing of Steve Jobs, we’re offering a 10% daily deals coupon…” “Can you let Sean Parker know I’d like to talk to him?” (Email) This is my favorite email title of the year since it has a sort of loopy genius (after all I read the mail) and it seemed to be a genuine request from a small business owner. However, Sean hasn’t called lately so we can’t help. Consult “How to pitch to tech journalists” for tips on how to make your news stand out for all the right reasons. Happy typing! Filed under: Entrepreneur Corner, social, VentureBeat        
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| Kiip announces Swarm to stage contests with big rewards in mobile games Posted: 23 Dec 2011 06:00 AM PST
Kiip offers rewards at the moment when you achieve something in a mobile game, such as getting past a level or a boss. With Swarms, it will be able to offer bigger prizes to the winners of instant tournaments in games that players are already engaged with. “Swarms are flash competitions that are built around larger, sponsored rewards,” said Brian Wong, chief executive of Kiip, in an interview. Kiip developed the Swarm idea over the past six months and is introducing it Dec. 23 to Dec. 26 with a promotion of the Disney film John Carter, which arrives in theaters on March 9. The concept is simple: mobile games with millions of players should be able to offer higher rewards to consumers who win tournaments. The skill-based contests can be things like, if you get the highest score in the next hour, you can win a free car. The time periods can be set by the brand. Players find out immediately if they win. Testing has shown that the number of game sessions per user can increase 30 percent as a result of engaging in Swarm contests. “It’s a massive benefit across the board with Swarm,” Wong said. Many of Kiip’s individual prizes are things like coupons for a cup of coffee, and those rewards are being built into more and more games. Those rewards have reached tens of millions of players. Kiip is actually releasing a list of those games on a web site now. But that left big advertisers such as car makers, travel companies, and entertainment firms unable to easily participate. With a Swarm, a travel company could offer a reward of a free trip to the player who completes a level in the shortest amount of time. To show off the Swarm, Kiip is working with Walt Disney Studios, giving game fans a chance to win prizes by playing some of their favorite mobile games — like Mega Jump, by Get Set Games — on Kiip’s network. Winners of the Swarm could win a new 3DTV + Surround Sound System, tickets to a 3D showing of John Carter, Disney DVD packs, and a $10 credit for snacks in theaters. The tournament has one grand prize, 10 first place and, 25 second place winners. The Disney Swarm will run from December 23 through 26 as it promotes the film, based on classic novels by Edgar Rice Burroughs. High scores will be counted and displayed on Kiip's Swarm leaderboard. Wong said that the Swarm is just one of many that will be coming in the new year. “We are stoked for the new year,” he said. San Francisco-based Kiip was founded in September 2010 by Wong, Courtney Guertin, and Amadeus Demarzi. The company has raised money from Hummer Winblad Venture Partners, True Ventures, and Crosslink Capital. San Francisco-based GameSalad was founded in 2007. Kiip has 20 employees.
Filed under: games, mobile, VentureBeat        
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| VBWeekly: Top 10 games of 2011 Posted: 22 Dec 2011 08:37 PM PST This year, with our ramped up our GamesBeat review team, we've taken our Game of the Year choices much more seriously than we have in the past. We asked our reviewers to select the semi-finalists and then picked the final winners ourselves. But our vote on the best game of 2011 ended in a tie, so we had to hold a tie-breaker round to pick our winner. And the final tie-breaker vote went — for the second time since 2009 — to the Uncharted franchise. It was a more democratic and contentious process than we've ever had. But it's the least we could do, considering game companies are spending millions of dollars on games, and consumers are spending billions of dollars on them. This year offered some of the best games we've ever seen. We hope you enjoy reading our selections, and please let us know in the comments if you agree or disagree with our choices. Be sure to take our poll at the bottom of the story. The winners starting with the best are: Uncharted 3: Drake’s Deception; Portal 2; Batman: Arkham City; Minecraft; Dark Souls; Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3; The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim; Gears of War 3; Saints Row: The Third; and Super Mario 3D Land. Our honorable mentions included Dead Space 2 and Superbrothers: Sword and Sworcery EP. Dean Takahashi and Sebastian Haley sat down to discuss the picks in this video. Enjoy the talk and let us know your favorite game of the year in the comments below. Filed under: games, video        
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| Facebook rejiggers platform to increase game usage Posted: 22 Dec 2011 06:26 PM PST
The social network said it made changes to the platform based on tests that showed it could drive re-engagement and discovery higher. The changes are part of constant tinkering that the company does to prompt users to do certain things like return to their games or click on new titles. If they work, they could generate more usage and profits for game companies.
Facebook has also begun testing aggregated game stories for mobile platform apps to drive traffic from mobile devices to games. Gamers and non-gamers will both see stories for the games their friends are playing the most. And Facebook published a Games Tutorial to help developers get started building social games. Earlier this month, Facebook hosted a Social Games Hack at its headquarters and it has now provided tips for best practices in making games. Filed under: games, VentureBeat        
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| YouTube videos get a snowflake button for the holidays Posted: 22 Dec 2011 06:04 PM PST
Overall, the majority of the country has experienced a pretty mild winter this holiday season, which means there isn’t much fluffy, white snow falling. The same cannot be said for YouTube videos. The Google-owned video sharing community site has added a temporary snowflake button that allows you to control the level of frosty precipitation within your video player. The feature is available on most videos, but some still don’t have the ability to manipulate the weather. As you can see from The Hobbit trailer screenshot, the falling snowflakes accumulate along the bottom of the video and continue to stack up until you toggle off the effect by clicking the snowflake button. Pausing the video doesn’t stop the snowfall, but if the entire player is covered in white you can clear the screen by clicking the snowflake button. Obviously consistency is very important to the YouTube developer staff, which is why they’ve also changed the progress bar’s cursor into a snowflake as well. This isn’t the first time YouTube has changed some of the site’s user interface elements due to a special event, popular meme or trending topic. The site previously added a rainbow progress bar and tiny pop-tart kitty cursor to the original Nyan Cat video meme. Other amusing additions include the YouTube Vuvuzela button during the World Cup soccer tournament, a xkcd web comic inspired playback option for comments, as well as the Onion News Network parody of YouTube’s "Actually Good" tab. YouTube engineers are actually encouraged to slip in these kinds of quirky features, the company told me in a previous interview. The person responsible for the most recent quirky feature (or random act of awesomeness) is even awarded a temporary trophy. [Screenshot from The Hobbit movie trailer via YouTube] Filed under: media, offBeat, VentureBeat        
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| UC Berkeley chooses Google Apps over Microsoft Office 365 (updated) Posted: 22 Dec 2011 05:08 PM PST
The decision is part of the university’s goal to save $75 million a year in technology expenses. Switching to a web-based email and calendar system will contribute about $500,000 annually to that savings, according to Shelton Waggener, the chief information officer for the university. Berkeley isn’t being shy about why it chose Google Apps over the competing Microsoft Office 365. First, Google provides the Google Apps for Education suite for no charge to schools and universities. The entire suite — Gmail, Google Docs, Google Calendar and even the Google+ social network — will be provided to Berkeley students, faculty and staff for free and with no advertising, forever. It’s up to the school’s administrators which aspects of the suite actually get deployed, but in principal, the entire suite is available. Moreover, as Berkeley’s internal IT teams spin down the existing CalMail and CalAgenda systems, the school is expecting to save on infrastructure costs by cutting out costly, redundant services. Some users may have to stay on whatever’s left of CalMail even after Google Apps is in place for legal reasons (UC Berkeley handles a lot of sensitive government contracts, after all), but the vast majority of users will move to Google’s cloud. “We’re thrilled that UC Berkeley has decided to switch to Google Apps for Education. Google Apps was designed to help people work — and learn — better together, and we look forward to bringing our suite of cloud-based communication and collaboration tools to the UC Berkeley campus,” Tom Mills, a Google director responsible for Google Apps for Education, told VentureBeat in an e-mail. No one at Berkeley is saying exactly how many people they will move to the new system, but UC Berkeley’s current Wikipedia page pegs student enrollment at around 36,000, so one could guess that all told this deal would be for around 50,000 seats. As for why UC Berkeley picked Google Apps over Microsoft Office 365, well, the university literally has a list. In short, Google offered a quick migration plan, freedom for Berkeley to handle its own deployment with support from its colleagues at UC Santa Cruz and Lawrence Berkeley Lab who are already using Google Apps, support for the Box cloud file syncing product that Berkeley has a contract with, and so forth. By contrast, Microsoft wanted too much change to Berkeley’s existing e-mail infrastructure and too much additional expense managing the on-premises infrastructure that Office 365 requires to operate at the scale that Berkeley’s talking about. It’s worth noting that Berkeley found Microsoft to have better calendaring, better security and better integration with traditional tools, but in the final analysis, Google got the nod. On the official Google Apps project site, Berkeley promises that a more detailed migration plan is forthcoming in January 2012. Meanwhile, students and staff will continue with the current CalMail and CalAgenda systems. This plan has no bearing on Berkeley students’ and faculty’s ability to get Microsoft Office under the school’s Microsoft Campuswide Software License. In fact, university officials expect to see the Google cloud and Microsoft desktop software live in harmony. Correction: An earlier version of this story incorrectly stated the savings from switching to Google Apps. The $75 million savings is the total amount expected from Berkeley’s overall Operational Excellence program, which includes many other initiatives. Image credit: Lynn Watson/Shutterstock Filed under: cloud        
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| The Kindle Fire allows third-party e-book apps, starting with Wattpad Posted: 22 Dec 2011 04:35 PM PST
Before now, Amazon had been hiding competitor’s e-reader apps in the Kindle Fire’s Amazon Appstore. The apps still showed up in the web-based Appstore, but weren’t available for download onto the Fire. Hidden e-reader apps included Wattpad, Kobo, and Bluefire, all competitors of the Kindle. For those who wanted these e-reader apps on their Fire, they could use work-arounds to download them. Customers needed to sideload the app, which is downloading it from a different source, a somewhat confusing process for the average Kindle owner. “Over the past couple of weeks we’ve spoken with representatives at the Kindle Fire Store, first over email and then eventually with some phone calls up to the higher levels, convincing them that we’re actually a valuable complementary service,” a spokesperson for Wattpad wrote in an email to VentureBeat “Our community is super engaged readers and writers; they are passionate book lovers and eventually Amazon came around to see the value we could bring.” After some back forth between the two companies, Amazon made the Wattpad app available for download on the Kindle Fire. Kobo and Bluefire apps are still missing from the Fire’s Appstore. It’s not surprising that Amazon hid these apps; they could cut into Amazon’s profits from e-book sales. And given that Amazon just barely breaks even with its sales of the Kindle Fire, Amazon is counting on e-book sales to make the Fire profitable. With Kobo’s in-app marketplace selling the same books at around the same prices as Amazon’s Kindle store, Kobo could be a big threat to Amazon’s digital content sales. Just because Wattpad made it back onto the Kindle Fire, doesn’t mean will we seen other apps follow suit. Filed under: media, mobile        
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| Facebook most-searched term and most-visited site of 2011 Posted: 22 Dec 2011 03:58 PM PST
Don’t tell Google, but the top search term and the most-visited website of 2011 were one in the same: Facebook. Inquiring minds asked about the world’s largest social network so much that Facebook accounted for 3.10 percent of all U.S. searches, according to data intelligence company Experian Hitwise. Add in a few slight variations, and altogether, Facebook-related queries accounted for 4.42 percent of searches this year. This means the company has now been the top-searched term for three years running. Perhaps more notable, and an even bigger blow to Google, is that the social network was once again the most-visited website of the year. From January to November 2011, Facebook attracted 10.29 percent of all U.S. visits, according to Experian Hitwise data. Pretty impressive, no? Not a total loser, Google.com came in second with 7.70 percent of all U.S. visits, which is a 7 percent increase in visits from 2010. And, if you combine visits to all Google properties — not just Google.com — Google actually gets the edge over Facebook with 11.98 percent of all U.S. visits. Back on the search side of things, YouTube, Craigslist, Yahoo, eBay and MapQuest were among the top 10 most-searched terms in a year that was defined by social media queries. “Analysis of the search terms revealed that social networking-related terms dominated the results, accounting for 4.18 percent of the top 50 searches,” Experian Hitwise said. “This is an increase of 12 percent compared with 2010.”
[Image via Spencer E Holtaway/Flickr] Filed under: social, VentureBeat        
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| DST may invest $200M in Chinese microblogging company, Sina Weibo Posted: 22 Dec 2011 03:47 PM PST
This deal will give Sina Weibo a $1 billion valuation. Is it a better deal than what was reported in July? Then, Sina’s stock was $120 per share and the report said the valuation offered by DST was $5 billion. And now its stock is down to $52 per share, partially due to new rules that require microbloggers to verify their identities. Sina Weibo claimed 250 million users in November. Twitter, which claims 100 million active users, recently received a $300 million investment from the Saudi Prince Alwaleed bin Talal and his firm Kingdom Holding. The interesting part is that DST is partially owned by Tencent Holdings Ltd. which holds 10.26 percent of its shares. Sina Weibo's biggest competitor is Tencent Weibo, which claims a larger user base of 310 million registered users as of Nov 2011. This article originally appeared on TechNode, a VentureBeat editorial partner. Filed under: social, VentureBeat        
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| Game trade group celebrates a big year for video games Posted: 22 Dec 2011 03:42 PM PST
“The word ‘historic’ is overused, but as we look back on 2011, it is a perfect fit for our industry’s year,” Gallagher said in a letter. “The U.S. Supreme Court’s vigorous affirmation of our First Amendment rights, a new array of artistically astonishing games, and educators’ increasing recognition of the role games play in teaching and learning made 2011 a remarkable year and set the stage for a great 2012.” On the court case, Gallagher said the ruling was a “landmark declaration that video games enjoy the same Constitutional protections as books, movies and fine arts was exactly what we hoped to hear.” He noted that game reviewer Seth Schiesel wrote in The New York Times earlier this month, “Game makers are producing more high-quality entertainment for a broader variety of players than they ever have in the past. No other form of fun melds advanced digital technology, personal engagement and mass-market cultural relevance as felicitously as video games. That is why video games are the ascendant form of popular entertainment.” Gallagher said that, beyond fun, video games hit new milestones in appreciation as works of art. The Smithsonian Institution announced that it will unveil a new exhibit dedicated to showcasing the art of game at its American Art Museum in Washington, D.C. That exhibit opens March 16, 2012. And as the economy struggled to recover during much of the year, games kept many people employed, generating about $25 billion in revenue in 2010 and a similar amount this year. The expansion of the mobile, social and online game businesses have helped the industry reach new heights in the number of gamers and pull more non-gamers into the market. Gallagher noted that games had an impact on healthcare. An online game called Foldit, designed by Professor Zoran Popovic at the University of Washington, tapped online gamers to decipher the protein that helps the HIV gene multiply. The problem had stumped scientists for more than a decade, but the gamers unlocked the secret of the protein in just 10 days. On the education front, Gallagher applauded the White House for launching Digital Promise, a public-private partnership aimed at incorporating technological tools, including games, into American classrooms. Filed under: games, VentureBeat        
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| Wowza: Apple will likely ship 30.3M iPhones this quarter Posted: 22 Dec 2011 03:29 PM PST
Susquehanna appears to be falling in line with UBS analyst Maynard Um’s prediction a few weeks ago that Apple would sell as many as 30 million iPhones by the end of December. Both Um and Susquehanna have now bumped their initial iPhone sales up by 2 million, based on super-strong web buzz and strong sales reports from carriers. In terms of the full year projections, Susquehanna now is estimating Apple could ship as many as 111.4 million iPhones in fiscal year 2012 (which started in October), up from its previous estimate of 104.4 million units. “Demand appears solid as iPhone 4S continues to ship in one to two weeks online and stores are generally sold out for in-store reservation and pickup (still hoping Santa has a few left),” Susquehanna analyst Jeffrey Fidacaro said in an investor’s note on Wednesday. “These factors, combined with positive color from Best Buy and AT&T, led us to increase our iPhone shipment forecast for North America and modestly for Western Europe and Asia Pacific.” For future product predictions, Susquehanna indicated that Apple will likely unveil the touted iPhone 5 sometime around June. That said, I’d take that last estimate with a grain of salt because of how off projections were concerning the iPhone 4S launch. Filed under: mobile, VentureBeat        
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| Sony unveils big line-up for PlayStation Vita in the U.S. Posted: 22 Dec 2011 03:15 PM PST
The company said the software support for the new device is the biggest in history for a new gaming platform from Sony. The titles are all built from the ground up to to take advantage of features such as the front and back touchscreens, two analog joysticks and a 5-inch screen. The game system is Sony’s big thrust to grab market share in the handheld market away from the Nintendo 3DS as well as smartphones and tablets. The Vita has the full support of the game industry, including Sony’s internal studios and third-party companies. Altogether, the system will launch with 25 titles on its first day. The first-party titles from Sony will include Escape Plan, Hot Shots Golf, World Invitational, Little Deviants, ModNation Racers: Road Trip, Uncharted: Golden Abyss, and wipEout 2048. Third-party launch titles include EA Sports’ FIFA Soccer (Electronic Arts), Lumines Electronic Symphony (Ubisoft), Touch My Katamari (Namco Bandai Games America), Ultimate Marvel vs Capcom 3 (Capcom Entertainment, Inc.) and Virtua Tennis4: World Tour Edition (Sega of America). A number of other titles will be available on the PlayStation Network. The games will cost $10 to $50. The handheld itself will cost $249 with Wi-Fi only access and $299 with 3G. “PlayStation Vita is the ultimate portable gaming device, offering all of the interface, controls and social connectivity that gamers have been dreaming about to deliver unsurpassed entertainment and completely new ways to play,” said Jack Tretton, president and chief executive, Sony Computer Entertainment America. “PS Vita features the most extensive launch lineup in PlayStation’s history, and there are more than 100 games in development, ensuring that PS Vita gamers will always have a steady stream of amazing titles at their fingertips.” I’ve played around with the Vita numerous times and it has an outstanding organic light-emitting diode (OLED) touchscreen and a console-like gaming experience. Games such as the Uncharted title are fast and vibrant. The Vita interacts with the PlayStation 3 and offers a good wireless multiplayer experience. The system will have non-game features such as Facebook, Flickr, Foursquare, Skype and Twitter. Sony launched the system in Japan over the weekend and got a good turnout, but it also had numerous reports of technical problems. It’s going to have to do a lot better as rival systems such as the iPhone are selling in the tens of millions per quarter. Consumers who pre-order the PS Vita First Edition Bundle will be able to pick up devices as early as Feb. 15, 2012. Like the Nintendo 3DS, the Vita will have an augmented reality experience where users can point the camera at AR Play cards to download a handful of augmented reality mini games via the PlayStation Network. Titles available near the launch date include Sony’s Gravity Rush, MLB 12 The Show, Reality Fighters, and Unit 13. Third-part launch window games include Lego Harry Potter Years 5-7 from Warner Bros., Disgaea 3 Absence of Detention from NIS America, Ninja Gaiden Sigma Plus from Tecmo Koei, Ridge Racer from Namco Bandai Games America, Silent Hill Book of Memories from Konami, and Supremacy MMA Unrestricted from 505 Games. Peripherals include a Starter Kit at $40 with a 4 gigabyte memory card, pocket pouch, protective film, card case, head phones and a cleaning cloth. Memory cards range from 4GB at $20 to 32GB at $100. Filed under: games, mobile        
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| Zynga launches Words With Friends on the Nook e-book reader Posted: 22 Dec 2011 02:45 PM PST
The wildly popular Scrabble clone will debut as an app for the Nook tablet today. The move is one more attempt by Zynga to reach non-gamers on non-traditional gaming devices. Zynga wants to expand the mass market for games and the Nook is one more platform for that. Zynga is dependent on Facebook for more than 94 percent of its revenue, and it is trying to diversify beyond that. The Nook has more than two million digital books available. On top of Words With Friends, the Nook is also adding games such as Plants vs Zombies, Angry Birds, Office Gamebox, RockEm SockEm Robots, Mad GAB, Magic 8 Ball, Doodle Jump Christmas, Wreck This App, Azada, Atlantis Sky Patrol, Serpent of Isis, Roll in the Hole, Spider Jack, Brick & Bubble Revolution, Tower Bloxx My City and Vegas Casino Cruise. New York-based Barnes & Noble also said it was adding Netflix to the Nook apps. Filed under: games, mobile, VentureBeat        
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| Court authorizes jury trial to proceed in Activision lawsuit against Electronic Arts Posted: 22 Dec 2011 02:26 PM PST
The case is one of the most heated battles between two major game publishers, and it involves some very high stakes. The Call of Duty games are multibillion-dollar properties that are at the heart of Activision’s business. Actvision Publishing, a division of Activision Blizzard, sued EA in 2010 for interfering in its business by actively recruiting Jason West and Vince Zampella to leave Infinity Ward and start a new game studio with EA funding. Activision has claimed $400 million in damages, claiming the departures of West and Zampella led to a gutting of Infinity Ward’s staff and nearly derailed one of the major Call of Duty games. A Los Angeles Superior Court judge, Elihu Berle, denied EA’s motion to dismiss the case based on lack of evidence. EA has denied the charges and both West and Zampella have sued Activision Blizzard, saying it denied them more than $36 million in royalties that they were due. Activision alleges that EA intentionally interfered with Activision’s employment agreements with the former Call of Duty developers. Activision said it fired West and Zampella for insubordination. The trial is set to begin May 7, 2012. Filed under: games        
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| Gameloft pulls ads from Hero of Sparta 2 mobile game due to complaints Posted: 22 Dec 2011 02:10 PM PST
The move shows that it’s not always that easy to switch from one form of monetization to another, as fans can react negatively to in-game ads, particularly those that interrupt a hardcore gaming experience. Gameloft said it received a lot of complaints from fans of Hero of Sparta 2 after the game was converted from a paid title to a free ad-supported title. A spokeswoman for the mobile game publisher said that the gaming experience was not up to par, and it would remove the ads from the game immediately. With the rush to release Christmas games, the update for the game didn’t go through Gameloft’s usual quality process. Gonzague de Vallois, senior vice president at Gameloft, said in a statement, “Gameloft wishes to apologize to the fans of Hero of Sparta 2 given the poor gaming experience, brought by the free version. We acknowledged the advertisement included into the game deteriorated the gaming experience. We have now completely removed all ads from the game and switched it back to its previous status on the Appstore. Thank you for your patience and sharing your frustration with us, we hope you will be happy with our response. Happy Holidays and enjoy Hero of Sparta 2.” The Hero of Sparta 2 game will now cost $4.99 in the App Store. Filed under: games, mobile, VentureBeat        
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| Surprise! BlackBerry 10 OS is already being called a failure Posted: 22 Dec 2011 02:07 PM PST  Mike LazaridisResearch in Motion has become the mobile industry’s punching bag lately and today is no exception, with a new report saying its upcoming BlackBerry 10 OS is all-around awful. A new report from Boy Genius Report asserts that the upcoming BlackBerry 10 OS, which has already been pushed back until late 2012, is basically a failure and won’t be able to compete with other smartphones operating systems. This is especially true when you consider more advancements to iOS, Android and Windows Phone 7 will come before BB10 hits shelves. BGR’s anonymous inside source said that the PlayBook 2.0 OS, which will be released in February, is a window into what BlackBerry 10 will be. Looking through the window isn’t a pretty thing, though, because crucial things like native e-mail and BlackBerry Messenger still don’t work. "Email and PIM [is better] on an 8700 than it is on BlackBerry 10," the source said. "RIM is simply pushing this out as long as they can for one reason, they don't have a working product yet.” RIM, however, has responded to the report by saying it is inaccurate and says it that BlackBerry 10′s release date has been pushed back to ensure everything, including e-mail and Messenger, runs smoothly. The company’s (lengthy) official response is below:
It’s hard to tell what exactly is happening behind the scenes, but at this point, I’m willing to give RIM the benefit of the doubt. Yes, at this point, the BB10 OS is probably terrible and undercooked. But RIM has already set expectations low and has another year to deliver its savior OS on time within company projections. CNET has decided to say that BGR’s report means that Co-CEOs Lazaridis (pictured) and Jim Balsillie are “lying” about the reason for the delay of BlackBerry 10 until the end of 2012. As seen in the offical statement above, RIM says the delay is because of a new chip, but BGR’s source says it’s the under-baked software. I wouldn’t go so far as to say the company is flat-out lying. If the goal is to have an advanced integrated chipset with LTE and a great new OS, that doesn’t mean the delay can’t be for both reasons. Filed under: mobile, VentureBeat        
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| Paul Graham: SOPA supporters are no longer welcome at Y Combinator events Posted: 22 Dec 2011 01:56 PM PST
Graham founded Y Combinator, an incubator and accelerator program that attracts some of the brightest minds and most interesting startups around the world. A Graham-imposed ban means the exiled parties might not have the best chance get in on early investment rounds — or acquisition deals when companies (and founders) are young enough to sell for a song. SOPA, or the Stop Online Piracy Act, is a wildly unpopular (in Silicon Valley, at least) piece of legislation currently being bandied around on Capitol Hill. While the bill is intended to stop things like the sale of counterfeit goods and the piracy of music and movies, it also has some far-reaching and detrimental consequences for the entire Internet. “In general terms, I dislike SOPA because it’s an instance of old,declining industries trying to restrain technical progress that threatens their obsolete business models,” Graham said in an email to VentureBeat. “Specifically what I dislike about it is (a) the lack of due process and (b) the provisions that will require ISPs to censor the Internet for their users. Both of these seem deeply un-American.” If SOPA and its sister bill, PIPA (Protect IP Act) are passed into law, sites like Scribd and Wikipedia, which have both taken a stand against the bill, could be crippled or even taken offline and deindexed from search engines completely. When the full list of SOPA-supporting companies was published earlier today, Graham participated in the resulting discussion on Hacker News, the news discussion side of Y Combinator, saying, “Several of those companies send people to Demo Day, and when I saw the list I thought, ‘We should stop inviting them.’ So yes, we’ll remove anyone from those companies from the Demo Day invite list.” Scribd and Wikipedia are each planning to use some creative self-censorship to raise awareness and encourage action against the bills. Also, a long list of Internet progenitors has published an open letter to Congress stating their reasons for opposing the bill. “It’s hard to predict who will win in this fight, but it’s encouraging that Congress has decided to spend more time thinking about it,” Graham continued in his correspondence with VentureBeat. “I think Congress means well. When SOPA’s supporters first presented the bill, it probably sounded to a lot of representatives like it was a good way to solve an important problem. But now they’ve seen that practically everyone who understands the Internet is strongly against the bill, I think they’ve started to ask questions about it.” To contact the congressional representatives responsible for SOPA, check out the resources available at AmericanCensorship.org. Filed under: VentureBeat        
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| Google paying nearly $1B for Firefox search deal Posted: 22 Dec 2011 12:55 PM PST
Google competed in an aggressive auction with Microsoft and Yahoo to maintain its place as the default search engine on Firefox, according to AllThingsD. It successfully renewed a three-year deal, but the placement came with a massive markup and will now cost the company $300 million a year. That’s one heck of a price jump. In 2010, Google contributed 84 percent of Mozilla's $123 million total revenue. In 2012, Google will give Mozilla three times that amount. So is it worth it? Most likely. Microsoft, hungry to buy Bing more exposure, salivated over the search spot like a ravenous wolf, and was said to have competed ferociously to oust Google from the Firefox throne. The company, which produces the most-popular browser, Internet Explorer, is a distant second in the search market. It would have likely benefited greatly, to Google’s detriment, from additional default queries originating via Firefox. Meanwhile, the pricey deal comes as Chrome and Firefox duke it out for second place in the browser competition. Perhaps the almost $1 billion in funds will help Mozilla, a non-profit organization that heavily relies on the search deal for revenues, ease the pain as it continues to lose browser market share to Google’s Chrome. Google declined to comment on the specific terms of its deal with Mozilla. [Image via bionicteaching/Flickr] Filed under: VentureBeat        
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| Now your robots can post status updates too with MyRobots.com Posted: 22 Dec 2011 12:25 PM PST
Launched on December 20th by RobotShop, the social network aims to connect robots and other intelligent electronic devices to the Internet. Instead of posts about how much fun they had with friends last night, robots can post useful updates such as “My battery is low” or “Help me, I’m stuck in a corner.” Updates from the robots are automatic and can be monitored by the robot’s human companion. You can also control your robots remotely and monitor their needs from MyRobots. Right now computers, Arduino controlled devices and a few robots such as the NAO Humanoid Robot can connect to the service to post updates. RobotShop also created a serial-to-ethernet gateway that connects any unsupported device to MyRobots. Other robots will be able to connect soon, including the floor-cleaning Roomba. The service is completely free and operates on an open-source application programming interface (API). So go ahead, connect your robots and let the socializing begin. Via Forbes Filed under: offBeat        
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| Louis CK’s digital distribution experiment clears $1M in 12 days Posted: 22 Dec 2011 12:01 PM PST
CK made his latest performance Live at the Beacon Theater available as a non-copy-protected download for purchase on his website for a meager $5. Purchasing the special allows you to stream it twice in your browser, or download it twice as an unprotected MPEG 4 video file. Unlike his previous standup appearances, CK cut out the distributor (which was previously Comedy Central and HBO), opting to handle all transactions on his own site. The results were lower prices for his fans and much more revenue than the comedian expected. “So it’s been about 12 days since the thing started and yesterday we hit the crazy number. One million dollars. That’s a lot of money. Really too much money. I’ve never had a million dollars all of a sudden,” CK wrote. “I want to set an example of what you can do if you all of a sudden have a million dollars that people just gave to you directly because you told jokes.” If the $1 million in revenue didn’t catch people’s attention, the way CK intends to use the money definitely will. Rather than hoard the vast new profit from the digital download sales, CK said he plans to split it up among various people and organizations. The comedian explained that $250,000 would pay for the standup special and $250,000 would be disbursed as bonuses to people who work for him. Also, CK plans to donate $280,000 to five different charities, including the Fistula Foundation, Green Chimneys, Charity:Water, the Pablove Foundation and micro-loan non-profit Kiva. That leaves CK with $220,000 for himself. “Some of that ($220K) will pay my rent and will care for my children. The rest I will do terrible, horrible things with and none of that is any of your business. In any case, to me, 220k is enough out of a million,” CK said, adding that he’s always viewed money as a resource rather than something you keep for yourself. The standup special is still available for purchase on his website. CK said if the special makes another million he’ll give more away to charities. [DVD box artwork via Louisck.net] Filed under: media, VentureBeat        
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| MoviePal helps mobile users discover and share film trailers Posted: 22 Dec 2011 12:00 PM PST
The app is aimed at creating a social experience around watching, capturing, and sharing movie trailers. MoviePal lets you identify a movie trailer, much like the Shazam app helps you recognize songs that are playing. The app uses your iPhone’s audio recording function to record about 10 seconds of sounds from the movie trailer. It then identifies the movie and retrieves it for you to view on your mobile phone. Then you can tag and archive the movie trailer, watch it again, share it with your friends (even if they don’t have the app) and set up a time to meet once the film opens.
Peter Relan, chairman of YouWeb, said in an interview that it fits with the company’s strategy of finding ideas in the converging gaming, education and entertainment markets. “So far, movies trailers have not been a very social experience,” Relan said. “But movie trailers are a $4 billion TV ad industry. We can make that social.” MoviePal is useful whether you are in a movie theater or not. With MoviePal, you can discover movies playing in a theater near you and watch trailers for the upcoming films. Sharing can be done via text messages, email, Facebook or Twitter. You can get an alert when a movie you tagged comes out in theaters. And you can keep track of the movies you’ve watched. "The multi-billion dollar film industry focuses on the instant rush of excitement, suspense or horror that can be communicated in 30 seconds from a movie trailer," says co-founder, Suneet Shah. "Until now, there hasn't been a way to truly capture that excitement and put it in your pocket for later."
The MoviePal database already includes a library of 500 movie trailers and the company adds more as they come out. Rival services include Shazam, which started with identifying songs and has now moved to movies, and MovieGoer, a free iOS app from California-based Nettle, Inc. Shazam has taken an e-commerce approach, pushing advertising offers to users once they use Shazam to identify a movie. Shazam also has a smaller library of movies so far and it has to work with studios. Another company, IntoNow, has a dual-screen TV sharing experience. You tap a button, it recognizes the show, and you can share it with friends. Filed under: media, mobile        
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| Motorola Mobility acquires SetJam, beefs up entertainment value Posted: 22 Dec 2011 11:45 AM PST
The acquisition will give Motorola hardware devices more command over the entertainment space. “Motorola and SetJam share the vision of making content delivery, discovery, and consumption seamless across any screen, and as a world leader in video technology, Motorola will provide us with unprecedented levels of reach and distribution,” said Ryan Janssen, chief executive of SetJam, in an e-mail announcing the acquisition. The company curates a television and movie database from content houses all over the Web including Amazon, iTunes, Netflix and Hulu. It then provides data to its customers through a suite of products aimed at helping that business capitalize on affiliate links or page views. For example, if a blog is focused on a particular television show, it can place these products on its site in the hopes that someone will click the link and purchase the episode being discussed. These products include a Web widgets, where businesses can insert a box or in-text advertisement to provide readers or customers an easy way to buy entertainment (see image right). You can opt into SetJam’s XML Download, which downloads its entire television and movie database to your computer for you to play with. There is also a rest application programming interface for those who want to create their own entertainment widgets, and various customization opportunities. Filed under: mobile, VentureBeat        
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