VentureBeat |
- Samsung updates 7-inch Galaxy Tab with dual-core processor and Honeycomb
- Search startup Blekko closes $30M funding round
- Famigo makes it easier to discover family-friend mobile apps on Android and Apple
- Quantum dot technology brings richer colors to TVs (video)
- Chrome to surpass Firefox in market share by December
- Ultimate fanboys create gorgeous, realistic iPhone 5 replica
- Spotify adds a private listening mode for Facebook’s Open Graph
- Amazon has Palm in its shopping cart — will it click Buy? (exclusive)
- Review: Quora’s new iPhone app is great for casual and experienced users
- The rules for building a cloud commerce community
- Box.net founder Aaron Levie is poised on the edge of startup stardom
- Battlefield 3 multiplayer open beta: first impressions
- More evidence Facebook will make a mobile announcement next week
- Nokia’s bold new Meltemi OS will make feature phones smarter
- Own takes aim at point-of-sale with ambitious hardware, software and cloud product
- Microsoft drops Zune Music Pass to $9.99, brings Zune to Canada
- Google improves Analytics with premium and real-time features
- Samsung Nexus Prime and Ice Cream Sandwich likely to debut Oct. 11
- The year of the mobile security breach is here: Attacks skyrocketed in 2011
- Chinese police bust fake iPhone ring
- SweetLabs raises $13M for desktop apps interface
- Foursquare revises checking-in at home addresses (again)
- Twitter’s revenue tripled since last year, and its valuation doubled
- Apple’s iPhone 5 to support speedy 4G HSPA+ networks like AT&T
- 29 electric car makers ready to rule the streets
- Zynga teams up with Enrique Iglesias for CityVille promotion
| Samsung updates 7-inch Galaxy Tab with dual-core processor and Honeycomb Posted: 30 Sep 2011 08:47 AM PDT
The tablet market got quite an injection this week with the announcement of the $199 Amazon Kindle Fire, a 7-inch Android tablet connected with Amazon’s extensive services and built for e-reading, web browsing, streaming shows and more. Samsung’s decision to update its 7-inch tablet was already in the works before the Kindle Fire announcement, but it will likely have a hard time competing with that price point. The Galaxy Tab 7.0 Plus has some nice specs under the hood. It includes a 1.2-GHz dual-core processor, 1GB of RAM, a 3-megapixel rear camera, a 2-megapixel front-facing camera, a microSD card slot and 16GB or 32GB of on-board storage. The tablet runs a TouchWiz-enabled version of Android 3.2 (Honeycomb), which is optimized for tablets. Pricing was not mentioned by Samsung, but because the original 7-inch tablet with Wi-Fi only is priced at $349.99, we would expect a similar base price on the new model. Pricing will escalate with more storage and data networking abilities. The Galaxy Tab 7.0 Plus will first launch in Austria and Indonesia at the end of October and likely launch in the U.S. and other countries later this year. It will face steep competition this holiday season from the Apple iPad 2 on the high end and Amazon Kindle Fire on the low end. Are you interested in the Galaxy Tab 7.0 Plus or are you more attracted to something like the Kindle Fire? Filed under: mobile        
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| Search startup Blekko closes $30M funding round Posted: 30 Sep 2011 08:38 AM PDT
Unlike search giant Google, Blekko uses slashtags to help filter results, which means it searches only the sites you want and discards the bulk of spammy and artificially-gamed SEO sites. The startup launched its search engine in 2010. The new round was led by Yandex, the top Russian search engine company that also operates in Ukraine, Kazakhstan, Belarus and Turkey, with $15 million. The funding gives Yandex a minority stake in Blekko, and Yandex's CEO will join Blekko's board of directors. Australian investor MLC Private Equity, and existing investors U.S. Venture Partners, CMEA Capital and PivotNorth Capital also contributed to the new funding. Founded in 2007, the Redwood Shores, Calif.-based startup has 27 employees, including former Google and Yahoo search engineers. The company has $54.2 million total funding to date. Filed under: deals, social, VentureBeat        
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| Famigo makes it easier to discover family-friend mobile apps on Android and Apple Posted: 30 Sep 2011 08:30 AM PDT
The “power search” feature is pretty useful because you can enter the age of the child. Then you can check off whether you want an app that “appeals to a wide audience,” is “good for road trips,” or is “great for tablets.” There are 14 categories where you can check off what you want, and there are 17 categories where you can exclude features that “contain profanity,” “contain violence,” or has “in-app purchases.” Q Beck, founder and CEO of Austin, Texas-based Famigo, said in an interview that the site addresses the huge problem of discovery (a common theme at our past DiscoveryBeat events) where there are hundreds of thousands of apps available in the Android Market and Apple App Store. Famigo helps weed out the bad stuff and zero-in on the content that parents want for their kids. “Parents don’t want to be the taste testers for the apps their children use,” Beck said. “They don’t have the time for it. We want to be the one-stop source for mobile discovery for parents.” Parents can sign up to receive a weekly email that recommends the best apps for their favorite platform, with the recommendations tailored to their own tastes. Famigo tests each app with its own internal review team. App ratings are determined by a team that scores apps based on topics such as "Ease of Use," "Educational Value," "Entertainment" and "Family Usefulness." Each review has a link to the store so that you can purchase the apps directly. The scores from each category are calculated and processed through an algorithm that draws on user analytics and research to mirror how families make their own choices. The reviews tell you what’s cool about the app and what’s “drool,” or bad. The web site is free for users. Famigo makes money through an affiliate partnership program with Android. If you purchase a game or app after reading a review, Famigo gets a share of it. Beck said that about 40 percent of the site traffic comes from organic searches. The company has done a little advertising, but most of its traffic is coming from parents sharing the information with their friends. Beck and Matt Sullivan co-founded Famigo in 2009. Rivals include CommonSense Media, Appsfire, Appolicious Family, and Bloom Worlds. Famigo tries to do a better job with all-human reviews and by getting reviews up fast. Famigo has marketed its site at the “mommy bloggers” who share tips for busy parents. The company has six full-time employees. Funding hasn’t been disclosed. The company was incubated with Austin’s Capital Factory incubator.  Filed under: mobile        
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| Quantum dot technology brings richer colors to TVs (video) Posted: 30 Sep 2011 08:00 AM PDT
The result will be richer and more viscerally vibrant colors such as deeper reds and greens, which are colors the human eye sees more intensely than others. Nanosys could use this technology to grab a small slice of the $40 billion LCD display market and enable better TVs that consumers are more likely to buy. If you look at the demo TV picture at the top, you might notice that the strawberry on the left is slightly more red than the orange-like strawberry on the right. And if you look at the two frogs, you can clearly see that the frog on the right is much more green, while the frog on the left is more like yellow-green. The greener frog is more saturated with color, or denser. Jeff Yurek, head of corporate communications at Nanosys, gave us a video demo of the TVs. You may not notice it as much in the video, but the colors really are better in the TVs with the nanotechnology. The TVs at the top are both off-the-shelf models.
The current generation of displays in smartphones, tablets, laptops and big TVs can only express about 20 to 35 percent of the colors the human eye can see. (The one on the right at top is about 35 percent). But QDEF displays will be able to deliver more than 64 percent of visible colors on a display. Yurek said that QDEF will give display makers a competitive edge by providing consumers with a color quality experience they have only seen in movie theaters and professionally printed photos. Most content has to be dialed down to match the limited capabilities of displays, but that won't be necessary with QDEF displays. If you see these TVs alongside 40 others in a Best Buy Store, you’ll notice that the colors are better. The difference is even more dramatic in displays such as those used for iPads, as demonstrated by Yurek in our video. “We can precisely make any wavelength of light that we want to make to match the performance of the TV,” Yurek said.
Nanosys makes QDEF technology with its patented quantum dot materials. It disperses them in a polymer matrix and suspends them within an optical film. The material makes it easier to create a high-quality white light with a wide range of hues when hit with an energy efficient blue light-emitting diode. A blue LED light is cheaper to manufacture than a white one. In the picture at right, Yurek shines a blue LEC light through a solution of quantum dots to create a different color. That’s exactly what the materials do inside a TV. Larger than a water molecule, but smaller than a virus, the tiny phosphors in the Nanosys quantum dots can convert blue light from a standard gallium nitride LED into different wavelengths based upon their size. Larger dots emit longer wavelengths (red), while smaller dots emit shorter wavelengths (green). Blending together a mix of dot colors allows Nanosys to engineer a new spectrum of light. Nanosys basically adds a new layer of material to an LCD screen during manufacturing. Nanosys first commercialized the quantum dot technology with QuantumRail, a component that improved the quality of small-size LCDs. That technology has been licensed to LG Innotek. The company was founded in 2001. Samsung and Nanosys formed a strategic partnership around the new technology last year. Rivals include QD Vision. In terms of rival technologies, alternatives include organic light-emitting diode (OLED) display technology. Nanosys investors include Samsung Ventures, Venrock Associates, Arch Venture Partners, Polaris, El Dorado Ventures, Prospect Venture Partners, Harris and Harris, and Lux Capital. The company raised $133 million in an era when nanotechnology got overhyped. But a decade later, some of the promise of nanotech is near fruition. Check out our video interview with Yurek below.  Filed under: VentureBeat        
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| Chrome to surpass Firefox in market share by December Posted: 30 Sep 2011 07:42 AM PDT
We reported at the beginning of August that Chrome had overtaken Firefox in the UK, but now that trend appears to be intensifying on a worldwide scale. Chrome has gained an incredible eight percentage points in worldwide market share since January, which is a 50 percent increase in total share growth, and it is expected to keep growing at a quick pace. The data from StatCounter, as first noted by Computerworld, says both Microsoft’s No. 1 Internet Explorer and Firefox have been losing market share since January, with most of those lost customers being picked up by Google. As of Wednesday, Chrome’s global share for September was 23.6% with Firefox at 26.8% and Internet Explorer at 41.7%. For Chrome to surpass Firefox by the end of the year, StatCounter makes the assumption that Chrome’s rapid growth will continue at the same pace. At the end of the year, Chrome should have approximately 26.6% share and Firefox should have 25.3%. A rival report by U.S. web metrics company Net Applications shows a much wider current gap between Chrome and Firefox. In August, Net Apps said Chrome had 15.5% of market share and Firefox had 22.6%. But if Chrome keeps up its growth pace, Net Applications’ data points to Chrome surpassing Firefox by the middle of 2012, which would still be an impressive feat. What’s your favorite web browser? Filed under: VentureBeat        
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| Ultimate fanboys create gorgeous, realistic iPhone 5 replica Posted: 30 Sep 2011 07:26 AM PDT As we near Apple’s official iPhone 5 announcement (set for Tuesday, October 4), we have our closest look yet at what the mystical device may look like, thanks to the creative geeks at BENM.AT. The stunningly realistic mockup shows off a thin and slightly curved design that makes the iPhone 5 look a lot like the iPad 2. The curved design will be a welcome change for those who never got used to the sharper edges of the iPhone 4. Using information gleamed from CAD designs, hardware components, cases, and other iPhone 5 gossip from around the web, the group was able to create a virtual model of the phone. It then proceeded to carve the design out of a block of aluminum and treated the metal with glass pearls to achieve a look close to the iPad 2. Compared to the iPhone 4, the iPhone 5 appears to be smaller, thinner, yet slightly wider. The slight bump in width makes room for a 4-inch screen, which has been rumored for some time. The bigger screen is sorely needed for the next iPhone, since it will make it more competitive against large-screened Android phones. And as the video below makes clear, the design also takes into account rumors of a rectangular and capacitive home button. That would be a good addition for the iPhone 5 since it means one less mechanical part for consumers to break, and it also opens the door for touch-sensitive swiping on the home button. BENM.AT posits that you’ll be able to unlock the phone by swiping on the home button, instead of waiting for the screen to wake up. That would also mean the end of greasy unlock swipe streaks from the iPhone’s screen.  Filed under: mobile, VentureBeat        
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| Spotify adds a private listening mode for Facebook’s Open Graph Posted: 29 Sep 2011 07:33 PM PDT
Spotify, which allows people to share playlists with friends, recently partnered with Facebook to offer integration with Facebook’s new Open Graph platform. One aspect of the new integration is automatically sending notifications to Facebook of whatever song you’re listening to in real-time. The new Facebook integration made many Spotify users angry for fear of being ridiculed for their music selection. For example, you can imagine the embarrassment VentureBeat editor Dylan Tweeny would feel if the entire staff discovered that he listened to Rebecca Black’s “Friday” 12 times in a single hour — (hypothetically speaking, of course). “We’re rolling out a new client as we speak where you can temporarily hide your guilty pleasures. It works like a browser’s private mode,” said Spotify CEO Daniel Ek in a Tweet earlier today. Spotify isn’t the only streaming media service that plans to automatically update Facebook with whatever you’re watching/listening/reading. Streaming video services Netflix and Hulu, as well as several news publications like the Wall Street Journal, are also offering integration with Facebook’s Open Graph. Although Spotify is the first to add a blanketed “private mode”, it’s something I think a lot of services will end up doing in the future. Image via Kerosene Photography Filed under: media, social, VentureBeat        
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| Amazon has Palm in its shopping cart — will it click Buy? (exclusive) Posted: 29 Sep 2011 06:54 PM PDT
A well-placed source tells us that HP is currently looking to rid itself of Palm as soon as possible, and that Amazon is the closest to finalizing the deal, among a handful of contenders. Indeed, after yesterday’s announcement of Amazon’s Kindle Fire tablet, no other company seems as fitting a home for Palm and its webOS software. It’s worth noting that former Palm CEO Jon Rubinstein, who now holds a vague “product innovation” role at HP’s Personal Services Group, joined Amazon’s board late last year. When asked for comment, an HP spokesperson said the company doesn’t comment on rumors and speculation. We’re still waiting to hear back from an Amazon representative. The Kindle Fire is powered by Android, but it’s been heavily customized by Amazon to the point where you can barely tell. By purchasing the remnants of Palm, Amazon would have free rein to redesign webOS to its own liking, and it would be able to further differentiate its Kindle devices from the slew of Android tablets in the market. And even though HP has given up entirely on its webOS hardware business after the TouchPad tablet failed spectacularly, there’s still plenty of potential for webOS to power a successful device. Palm’s mobile software was praised for its slick multi-tasking capabilities, which could allow future Kindle Fire tablets to juggle games, movies and media with more finesse than Android. It also appears that HP has been eyeing Amazon for some time as a potential webOS partner. In an interview with This is my next in July, Rubinstein revealed quite a bit about having Amazon use webOS in its future tablets:
HP paid $1.2 billion for Palm in 2010, but Amazon will end up spending a fraction of that if the deal goes through. Given just how badly the TouchPad failed, HP will likely offer what’s left of Palm at a major discount, especially since Amazon woudn’t be interested in resuscitating now extinct webOS hardware. Personally, I’ve never had much faith in HP’s ability to effectively manage Palm and webOS. Amazon, with its commitment to long-term planning and innovative consumer devices, seems like a much better fit. And in a way, it seems fitting for the company that released the first widely-available $200 tablet to snap up the company that made PDAs, the precursor to the smartphone, a phenomenon. Graphic credit: Tom Cheredar Filed under: mobile, VentureBeat        
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| Review: Quora’s new iPhone app is great for casual and experienced users Posted: 29 Sep 2011 06:44 PM PDT Quora, the much buzzed-about social question-and-answer service, has released an app for the iPhone and iPod Touch, ending a long period of relative quiet from the company since it opened to the public over a year ago. Quora users have long been able to use the company’s mobile-optimized HTML site, but a native app was one of Quora’s most popular requests. I've been testing the beta version for nearly two months now and can confidently say that with its various new features, it finally delivers the goods to both casual users and more actively engaged ones. The site, known for its patronage by prominent Silicon Valley insiders and other noteworthy people, is maturing into the authoritative tome of knowledge its co-founders, former star Facebook engineers Adam D'Angelo and Charlie Cheever, originally envisioned. When it debuted, Quora’s steep learning curve and elite user-base seemed too intense for some casual knowledge-seekers. But this app hopes to change all that. Here’s a look at some of its best new features and how they work: Location-based Searches: The geolocation-aware "Nearby" feature pinpoints where you are on a map and brings up topics relevant to that area. This information is based on the crowd-sourced efforts of Quora’s web users, who assigned map locations to topics manually. The Nearby feature is useful for anyone on the go, especially travelers. If you’re heading to Shanghai, for example, you can use Nearby to find out which culture faux pas to avoid. You can also move the map around to, "explore the world through the lens of Quora" according to mobile lead Anne Halsall. That experience is the type of novel app-candy more hardcore users of the site will definitely appreciate. Speedy Response Times: The app is certainly fast enough to rival other sources of content — great when an answer is needed quickly. This is one of the most polished iPhone apps I've had the pleasure of using. Not only is it wicked fast, it’s also devoid of the usual opening-day bugs and crashes. Refreshing content and notifications takes just a quick second, and page loads are just as lightning-fast. Search queries are similarly responsive. This is mostly thanks to predictive, pre-fetching systems that use pre-rendered web views, as well as tight integration with Apple's Core Data development framework. Slick User Interface: The app’s user interface borrows heavily from Quora’s cleverly streamlined website. Like the website's singular search bar for all user input, one tap on the "Search & Add" tab allows you to write a post, search for Q&A pages (and users and topics) or ask a question if it wasn't already there. There are convenient sharing options for questions and answers, say on Twitter, Facebook or a personal blog. Almost the entire site is squeezed onto the 3.5-inch iPhone screen, a departure from some other mobile apps that sacrifice features and content for portability. Notifications: The Notifications tab takes you to a discrete page that lists any new answers to your questions, follower announcements and other alerts. If you're outside of the app, push notifications will draw your attention back — useful when you're away from your computer or have disabled email notifications from Quora. Time-killing Shuffle Option: The mobile app also ports over the website’s Shuffle feature, which was mostly a novelty before. Its revamped implementation on the mobile app makes much more sense, since it’s a great way to kill time on your smartphone. Shuffle's results are random at the moment, but the feature may be tweaked to support individual preferences in a future update. An active member of Quora myself, I've found the app to be useful in a number of situations. My feed is packed with great reading material whenever I've got a free moment (side-note: many users have confessed to me that Quora has become their defacto bathroom reader). I can also ask questions (and hopefully get answers) as soon as they pop into my head. Lastly, I can resolve those pesky barroom debates that usually rely on Wikipedia or Google to break the impasse. The speed of this app makes "Let's see what Quora has to say about that, mister!" a reality. It also helps that the service has been around long enough for it to be populated with good content. I asked head of marketing, community and business operations Marc Bodnick about the site's metrics and other information on traffic and revenue, but he was mum on the details. He did however stress that New York City is now its largest user-base by geography, proving that Quora's starting to shed its Silicon Valley roots. Bodnick said a tablet-optimized iPad app is still off the shelf for now, as are non-iOS platforms such as Android. "We want to bring the site to all the platforms our users embrace, but we do not have a specific timetable for any of those efforts," he added. Like Quora's desktop site, the new app is available for free with no advertising. You can get it on the iTunes Store here (currently in English-speaking countries only). Filed under: mobile, social, VentureBeat        
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| The rules for building a cloud commerce community Posted: 29 Sep 2011 04:17 PM PDT
A decade ago, the Internet was viewed primarily as a consumer application, with limited viability for critical business processes. Today, nearly every company is using it to help run their business in some significant way. What brought about the shift?Certainly, the Internet has evolved — it's faster, more secure and proven. But the business world is also a much different place today. As business has become more global, the traditional enterprise as we know it has morphed into something new called the extraprise. In the extraprise, it's not just about executing a process within a company, but also across the entire value chain — especially outside the four walls of the enterprise. It's not just about the intelligence within an organization, but also the extended intelligence networks that are developed through communities. This new approach to business commerce won't be driven by enterprise applications. Companies have invested billions in such technologies to simplify tasks like developing proposals or taking orders. Why? Because commerce happens between companies. And the closed systems and processes that have long been the domain of installed enterprise applications aren't designed to accommodate this fluid company-to-company, extraprise activity. How do you build the cloud community?So what does it take to build these networks and communities to drive and support collaborative commerce? A whole new way of thinking and operating. Performing as a cloud commerce community requires a whole new set of rules: Break down application silos: Participants in business commerce networks want to acquire capabilities – not purchase tools or application models as they did in the legacy software era. To enable this, vendors must break down product-oriented boundaries among applications and make development a more intertwined process. Make innovation a constant: Innovation and capabilities are now expected as part of business commerce networks, not as a product tool to be purchased and installed. The concept of innovation extends to reporting, hosting, monitoring and security and must be frequently streamed. Focus on quality: While innovation is key, quality trumps all other considerations when it comes to business networks. Remember the Golden Rule: "Thou shall not break anything." And when it comes to business commerce, buyers and sellers demand greater integrity. They expect to be able to conduct complete transactions without disruption or any compromise of their data. This also means scrapping traditional notions of software availability in favor of a more comprehensive definition of business commerce availability. Stay agile: Constantly evolving needs and shifting priorities, dictated by a more connected, globally engaged business environment, have made speed the new market requirement for success. And this means organizing to operate in a more nimble and flexible manner than ever before. Overhaul customer support: Participants in business commerce communities have outsourced much of what used to be the function of their internal IT departments to the network provider. As a result, assistance with software and non-software challenges as well as process enablement to drive more efficient and effective business commerce is not only expected, but required. And in an always-on community, customers demand immediate, proactive responses. Redefine customer relationships: In the legacy software product world, customer relationships were episodic. Upon "go-live," the relationship was essentially considered complete. In a network-driven cloud community, customers and other participants require more continuous, ongoing assistance. Lots of companies are reaching for the cloud. It's a more scalable, efficient way to do business on a global basis. It requires no software, hardware or resources to deploy. Time to value is near immediate, and results can be astounding. But to reap these rewards, organizations must transform in ways that enable them to deliver products and services that meet a completely new set of business challenges and customer needs. Otherwise, the benefit of the cloud will remain nothing more than a dream. Kent Parker is chief operating officer of Ariba. He submitted this story to VentureBeat. [Image via Jozsef Bagota/Shutterstock] Filed under: cloud, Entrepreneur Corner, VentureBeat        
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| Box.net founder Aaron Levie is poised on the edge of startup stardom Posted: 29 Sep 2011 04:01 PM PDT
A year later, the 26-year-old was standing on stage (in his typical electric orange sneakers) in front of 350 customers and press at his company’s first annual conference, BoxWorks, held yesterday in San Francisco. He had just turned down a buyout offer worth more than $500 million. That evening, Box.net hosted a party where the entertainment was one of his favorite bands from middle school, Third Eye Blind. Levie has come a long way since middle school. In fact, he and his company have emerged as iconic figures for the new wave of enterprise technology. Like Steve Jobs, Marc Benioff and Mark Zuckerberg, Levie is part inspirational leader and part visionary. More to the point, Box.net is part of a new wave of startups that are bringing new ways of thinking into the enterprise, borrowing from Apple’s consumer playbook. For instance: make something simple, easy to use and insanely useful, something that you would have never realized you needed, but can’t live without today. It’s a totally different way of working than most enterprise technology companies. “In the last 10 years, it feels like something fundamental is changing, consumer computing is leading the industry,” Andreessen Horowitz co-founder Marc Andreessen told VentureBeat. (Andreessen Horowitz is one of Box.net’s investors.) “Consumers get the hottest mobile devices years ahead in advance before adoption in the enterprise.” Box.net was started in 2005 in a garage by a bunch of University of Southern California students. It has since gone on to capture the attention of investors and massive companies. The enterprise-focused cloud storage provider went from five-figure revenues in its first year to millions by the time it closed its first round of funding from Draper Fisher Jurvetson in 2006 and more than $10 million by its fourth round in February, 2011, Meritech Capital managing director George Bischof said. Today, the company has more than 7 million users and 77 percent of the largest companies in the world on the Fortune 500 list have deployed its service in some form. Box.net just closed an extension to its most recent funding round worth $50 million that includes its existing investors — including Draper Fisher Jurveston, Andreessen Horowitz and Meritech Capital, all Facebook investors — and also a new investment from Salesforce.com. In total, the company has raised more than $130 million in funding. “We were kind of kicking ourselves for not getting in earlier, but they were below our revenue threshold,” Bischof told VentureBeat. “We met a year before, and we saw it had the potential to be one of those mega-spaces that affects everyone.” And half of the $130 million is still in the bank, Draper Fisher Jurveston partner Josh Stein told VentureBeat. The most recent round is an extension to its fourth round of funding, which had already brought in $48 million. Box.net is gearing that funding toward infrastructure costs and opening a third data center to run alongside its existing two centers to manage the load from its new customers. Now, using all those new enterprise applications is basically a prerequisite for an investment by Andreessen Horowitz, Andreessen said. Every company funded by Andreessen Horowitz in the past year has used Box.net to some extent, along with a mishmash of the other enterprise 2.0 applications like Google Docs and Workday, he said. Most of the time they are either free to try out — in the case of freemium apps like Yammer and Box.net — or are dirt cheap. Filed under: cloud, VentureBeat        
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| Battlefield 3 multiplayer open beta: first impressions Posted: 29 Sep 2011 03:26 PM PDT
This game is one of the potential blockbusters of the fall season, and it represents EA’s big challenge to market leader Activision Blizzard and its Call of Duty Modern Warfare 3 title, which debuts in November. If EA gets this one right, it could generate hundreds of millions of dollars in sales from one game alone. The multiplayer beta is EA’s way of kicking the tires on the massive server infrastructure required to handle this kind of high-intensity game. EA has released a single battle map called Operation Metro, the same one that the company showed off at the E3 conference and at a company event earlier this summer. To get the game, I had to sign up for EA’s Origin digital downloading service and then log into Battlelog, the online social network for Battlefield gamers on the PC. I also downloaded the game beta to my Xbox 360 game console. I was looking forward to getting a good look at the graphics of the game, as this kind of title lives or dies on whether it looks real or fake.
Pictured at top, Battlelog’s main page shows you the options you have for playing (only multiplayer quick match is available now). It shows what your avatar character looks like, tells you your rank, and says what rewards and unlocks are coming up. If you want to drill down on it, you can see your player stats and change details on your profile. You can also jump right into a game. Naturally, that was the first thing I wanted to do after downloading the three gigabyte file for the beta. But the server seems overloaded today, as the game manager can’t find an open match for me. If I can get into the PC version, I’ll do an update, as the graphics on the PC should look much better. Update: I managed to get into the PC version, after downloading a special Nvidia driver patch for the beta test. The graphics on the PC were awesome. The smoke, flames and glaring lights can blind you temporarily. But it’s cool to look through the sniper scope and see some ultra-real imagery. You can shoot at enemies who look like real soldiers, not just little stick figures. That’s what Battlefield is all about, giving you a sense of realism. It took a while for me to get used to the mouse and keyboard, so I made an easy target for the other team. But once I did, I was having some fun. The first thing I had to learn to do by necessity was to use the “Z” key to go prone. I found that if I stuck my head up, I would get shot. I played a couple of rounds now and have had a very hard time shooting anybody, though I’ve gotten some assists. I’ll see if I can get into a mode where I can stay alive for a longer period and actually enjoy myself. If I can, then the PC version could be a real challenger for the Call of Duty game. End update. So I switched to the Xbox 360 and was able to get into a match pretty quickly. I pulled out my assault rifle and was immediately shot by an enemy camped directly in front of the spawn point. I respawned on top of some rocks looking out across a park in Paris near a couple of combat targets. I was placed into a squad on the attacking team, and our goal was to arm and detonate a couple of bombs at the target sites. I ran across the grass, got shot, and did this a few times until I figured out what the enemies looked like. You have to quickly distinguish the little red indicators for enemies compared to the blue and green ones for friendlies. I lined up my cross hairs on some targets but couldn’t really hit targets that were far away with the assault rifle, which has very coarse cross hairs. I shot one or two guys but was getting beat pretty bad, so I switched to a sniper rifle. That worked much better. Once I figured out how to duck, I found I could move along the barriers, bushes and rocks of the park and pick off some of the attackers. It was exceedingly hard to shoot anyone who was moving at an angle, mainly due to the lag. First day lag is to be expected, so I didn’t mind it so much. Hopefully, EA will correct that problem over time. The graphics looked reasonably good and the game moved somewhat faster, but it was a lot slower than Call of Duty Black Ops, which runs twice as fast. The Xbox 360 version didn’t look nearly as good as some of the trailers that EA showed earlier this year. But it was good enough to be worth of the Battlefield name. The Xbox 360 version looked pretty much the same as the PlayStation 3, which I played earlier this summer. Our team managed to blow up the bombs. After that, you advance further on the map and push the enemy into the underground train tunnels. There, the sniper rifle wasn’t as useful, as close combat was a lot more common. I switched back to the assault rifle. The game play is interesting, since you can earn points for your team by throwing out ammo or health packs. When you’re under heavy fire, the screen blurs. That makes it hard to shoot back. That is called being suppressed, and you can earn points when you do that to the enemy. Some of these features are particularly good for novice players, who aren’t as likely to get kills. Players can lie down prone, but the graphics don’t look so pretty when you do that. Overall, EA has a competitive game that will be a contender for one of the most popular blockbusters of the year. If it can fix the lag problems on the network in the coming month before the official launch, that would be good. Having played Modern Warfare 3 multiplayer, I still have to say that I like Call of Duty multiplayer better, mainly because of the faster graphics and more accurate shooting. But EA is at least in the same arena now. EA’s advantages include bigger battles, the use of playable vehicles such as tanks, more accurate physics, and destructible environments. We’ll find out soon enough what gamers think about it. Filed under: games, VentureBeat        
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| More evidence Facebook will make a mobile announcement next week Posted: 29 Sep 2011 02:29 PM PDT Social network giant Facebook may kick its mobile strategy into high gear next week, debuting both its long-awaited iPad application and an HTML5-based mobile app platform, and now there is more evidence in the form of leaked screenshots of an HTML5 Facebook project discovered by TechCrunch. Despite 350 million of its 800 million total active users accessing the social network through mobile devices every day, Facebook hasn’t made any significant strides in mobile for over a year. A new announcement is long overdue. Facebook actually finished (or nearly finished) the Facebook iPad app development in May, but held off on releasing it due to conflicting decisions about the company’s dedication to producing an HTML5 app — which would allow it to surpass restrictions of producing native apps for iOS and Android. In addition to Facebook’s iPad app development, the company was also rumored to be working on an HTML5-based mobile app platform nicknamed “Project Spartan“. This platform would allow other developers to create Facebook-specific applications much in the same way that Apple does with its App Store — something Apple probably isn’t very happy about, since it makes Facebook a direct threat. I think it’s far more likely that Facebook will debut its HTML5 platform and bury its iPad app. Partially, this is because screenshots of (what looks like) Project Spartan have leaked online, and partially because the former Facebook iPad engineer lead has publicly stated that he doesn’t think Facebook will ever release the iPad app. Also, it contradicts Facebook’s strategy to focus on a web app platform. As VentureBeat previously reported, the announcement about Facebook’s mobile presence is expected to coincide with Apple’s October 4 press event. Image via TechCrunch Filed under: mobile, social, VentureBeat        
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| Nokia’s bold new Meltemi OS will make feature phones smarter Posted: 29 Sep 2011 02:15 PM PDT  2009-era Nokia feature phones Not content to let its feature phone software stagnate, Nokia is apparently working on a new low-end mobile operating system called “Meltemi,” which will allow the company to sell more capable phones in emerging markets. News of the Linux-based Meltemi, which is the Greek word for winds that blow across the Aegean see from the north during summer, was first reported by the Wall Street Journal. For Nokia, Meltemi is a sign that the company isn’t forgetting about low-end devices, a segment which represented about 47 percent of its device sales last quarter. It’s also a strong hint that the company isn’t willing to be entirely on another company’s platform. Nokia recently abandoned its plans to develop the MeeGo operating system with Intel (though it is releasing a single MeeGo device for some reason, the N9) in exchange for adopting Microsoft’s Windows Phone 7 platform. Meltemi will allow Nokia to continue innovating with low-end feature phones — which is important, since consumers in emerging markets expect smartphone-like functionality from their feature phones, a source tells the WSJ. Developing a new OS will let Nokia offer those devices at cheaper prices than if they used Windows Phone 7, which requires beefier hardware and licensing fees to Microsoft. As the WSJ points out, Meltemi could be Nokia’s equivalent of Samsung’s Bada platform for low-end phones. The new software will completely replace Nokia’s S40 software in feature phones, according to the mobile site Boy Genius Report. “Nokia's vision is seemingly to build an operating system with capability that reaches well beyond "S40," but that can function on similar low-cost hardware,” writes BGR’s Zach Epstein. “This new platform will be fairly capable, but our understanding is that it will not be a full-fledged OS intended to compete with the likes of Android, iOS and Windows Phone.” Nokia will still develop inexpensive Windows Phone devices in some markets, BGR says. That will likely happen with Microsoft’s recently announced “Tango” version of the OS, which offers a stripped down experience for low-end hardware. Nokia has yet to confirm Meltemi’s existence, but a spokesperson told BGR in a statement “our Mobile Phones team has a number of exciting projects in the works that will help connect the next billion consumers to the Internet.” Filed under: mobile, VentureBeat        
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| Own takes aim at point-of-sale with ambitious hardware, software and cloud product Posted: 29 Sep 2011 02:00 PM PDT
Own is aiming to make a point-of-sale (POS) system that doesn’t just overhaul the cash register, it turns it into a node on a web-connected information system. Its solution combines the slickness of tablet hardware, the optimization of a custom operating system, and the flexibility of a cloud-based infrastructure to make it all happen. That is, if it works. The company has been testing its system with about 20 beta customers in the Detroit area. It just secured an $850,000 investment round led by Detroit Venture Partners, and plans to move the engineering team to Silicon Valley by mid-October. Own was founded by Verdi Ergün and Erol Ahmed. “We’re not an app, nor a POS. We’re a cloud-and-social-based platform for retail 2.0, plus POS,” says Rajeev Viswanathan, the company’s energetic 20-year-old chief executive. The company’s plans are more ambitious than most startups — it’s not just making an app, it’s building a whole system. That system starts with tablets (sourced from Asus) running a custom, Linux-based operating system called Nimbus, which Own has developed. The tablets act as touchscreen point-of-sale devices in retail locations. From there, the tablets transmit data over the Internet to Own’s servers. Business owners can get real-time data about retail sales through a web-based interface called Up. The analytics can also show trends over time, by location, or even correlated with the weather, Viswanathan says. The analytics apply to all of a company’s Own-enabled points of sale, across an entire restaurant chain, for example.
In an age when many startups are focused on making a better iPhone photography app or yet another daily deals site, Own’s ambition is impressive. It also means there are a lot of pieces to coordinate, which will be a challenge for the young startup. The server software is built on Ruby on Rails, which Viswanathan says will facilitate integrating Up with other commerce systems, such as daily deals sites, social shopping services and more. “Since it’s web based, we can integrate in a flash with all these components that people have built web apps for,” Viswanathan says. “It’ll become a platform for web services that want to integrate into the point of sale. It’s the connectivity between daily deals, mobile payments, or social media and the small business owner,” says Jake Cohen, vice president of Detroit Venture Partners. The company has about 20 employees, Viswanathan says, and has been working for over two years on the project. Much of the development has been driven by feedback and requests from beta testers. “These store owners are helping us. They’re telling us what they want. We’re not just making this up,” he says. The company competes with POS vendors like Micros, Radiant and Coffee Shop Manager. But when I ask him if it competes with Square, Viswanathan bristles. “We’re not an app,” he reiterates. Whereas Square focuses on credit-card processing and “making anyone a merchant,” Own will target shop owners: people who are already retailers. The company is in the process of moving its technology team to Silicon Valley, to better attract engineering talent and to be closer to potential integration partners. However, it plans to open a sales, marketing and customer support center in Detroit. “These guys are from the Midwest. At the end of the day, these guys think they can differentiate through customer service,” Cohen says. “It’s about understanding the customer, and their customers are nationwide. We feel like we can relate to people across the country. Silicon Valley is a great place for technology, but maybe not as great of a place for sales and customer service,” says Cohen. Viswanathan credits a series of mentors for helping guide him. Amit Gupta, Ambassador G. Wallace Hope, Babu Lal Jain, and his former employer, Alex Antonov at Siber Systems. And, while he isn’t getting much sleep, it’s clear he’s fired up about the move. Other Own investors include Vinyard Capital, Compuware Ventures, Ludlow Ventures and Bluewater Angels. The company previously raised $250,000 in a seed round from investors including Tolga Ciftci, Nathan Stoll (founder of Aardvark.com), David Fry (founder of Fry.com), Murat Ahmed, and Bob Stefanski (co-founder of TIBCO). Top photo: Own CEO Rajeev Viswanathan and cofounders Erol Ahmed and Verdi Ergün. Courtesy Own. Note: VentureBeat first mentioned Own in an unsubstantiated story yesterday, which we’ve since pulled. We regret the error. Filed under: cloud, VentureBeat        
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| Microsoft drops Zune Music Pass to $9.99, brings Zune to Canada Posted: 29 Sep 2011 01:51 PM PDT
The streaming music service landscape is increasingly competitive with companies such as Spotify, MOG and Rdio battling for the hearts and ears of music fans. But Zune is at least interesting because it’s targeting Microsoft users specifically, offering interaction between Windows Phone 7, Xbox 360, Windows PC, Zune MP3 players and Zune.net. Zune, however, does lose out because it doesn’t work on rival iOS and Android mobile platforms. The Zune Music Pass offers on-demand access to more than 14 million songs and “tens of thousands” of music videos. Previously, Microsoft had a $14.99 per month plan that allowed users to keep 10 MP3s each month, but now will offer streaming for $9.99 a month without the kept MP3s. Microsoft also announced that it would bring the Zune Marketplace and the Zune Pass to Canada starting Oct 3rd. Many of the quality streaming music options in the U.S. aren’t available to Canadians, much to their frustration. Because each country has its own copyright laws to navigate, music streaming companies have to work deals in each country separately. I’m sure Canada’s music lovers will appreciate having another option. Are you a fan of the Zune Music Pass? Do you think it could catch on? Filed under: media, mobile        
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| Google improves Analytics with premium and real-time features Posted: 29 Sep 2011 01:19 PM PDT Google on Thursday finally launched real-time traffic tracking tools for its already-good Google Analytics service. On top of that, the company introduced premium Google Analytics accounts that offer more ways measure data. For quite some time, Google Analytics has offered webmasters a free way to measure traffic of their sites 24 hours after the action occurs. But since real-time traffic startups like Chartbeat (a service we use) and Woopra came onto the scene, Google Analytics has looked slow in comparison. Thankfully, that’s remedied with these new stats tools, which include social media impact and campaign measurement. The company said its real-time stats are only available in the newest version of Google Analytics, so you’ll have to click the “New Version” link in the top right corner to get started. After that, you can read real-time reports by going into the Dashboards tab. Google used the Analytics spotlight to launch more feature-rich Premium accounts targeted at its largest customers. In the pilot phase, Google coordinated with the likes of Gucci, Travelocity and eHarmony to collect feedback. Google lists the following new features for Premium accounts:
Google did not list the fee it charges for the Premium service, but it said the fee was annual for users in the U.S., Canada and the U.K. A video introduction to Google Analytics Premium can be viewed below: Filed under: cloud, enterprise        
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| Samsung Nexus Prime and Ice Cream Sandwich likely to debut Oct. 11 Posted: 29 Sep 2011 12:42 PM PDT
The Android OS update, Ice Cream Sandwich, was leaked in video form earlier today and leaked in photo form in mid-August. Now we should finally be able to see it officially running on the hyped “Nexus Prime” smartphone. Because Android is the number one smartphone OS in the world and 56 percent of new smartphone buyers choose Android devices, many people can't wait to see what Google has in store with the next OS update. By contrast, Apple's mobile operating system, iOS, remains in a distant second place with 28 percent of new smartphone buyers choosing iOS devices. The Nexus Prime, or Droid Prime, will almost certainly be the first phone running Ice Cream Sandwich. The device is expected to feature a 1.5-GHz dual-core processor, a huge 4.5-inch screen, and have 720p (1280 by 768) video resolution. Most likely, it will be incredibly similar to the awesome Galaxy S II phones Samsung unveiled a month ago and run on the Verizon Wireless network. Ice Cream Sandwich appears to take cues from existing Android OS versions Honeycomb (for tablets) and Gingerbread (for phones). It uses a cool blue color instead of green on notifications and icons, has a Honeycomb-like multitasking menu and a revamped notification bar and camera interface. The Nexus Prime and Ice Cream Sandwich debuts will help make October the biggest month for smartphones this year, as Apple is expected to introduce a new version of the iPhone at a press event Oct. 4 and release the new iPhone the week after the event. Are you pumped about the Nexus Prime and Ice Cream Sandwich? Do you think it will compete well with the new iPhone? Filed under: mobile        
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| The year of the mobile security breach is here: Attacks skyrocketed in 2011 Posted: 29 Sep 2011 11:56 AM PDT
“For years, observers have been wondering when malware would become a real problem for the latest generation of mobile devices,” said Tom Cross, a manager at IBM’s X-Force security research arm. “It appears that the wait is over.” X-Force security experts research and evaluate vulnerabilities and security issues, develop assessment and countermeasure technology and educate the public about emerging web and mobile threats. In a new report on mobile and general Internet security, X-Force researchers found that the combination of new vulnerabilities and more sophisticated phone-hacking technology has led to a huge spike in the number of security exploits on mobile phones. Add to that the fact that more people are storing more information worth stealing on their phones — including corporate information, since more smartphones and tablets are appearing in the workplace — and you have a perfect storm for criminally focused mobile hacking. The X-Force Mid-Year Trend and Risk Report, released today, is based on data gathered through IBM's research of public vulnerability disclosures as well as the team’s monitoring and analysis of around 12 billion security events daily since the beginning of the year. Among the report’s findings is the fact that in 2011, mobile users will experience twice the number of mobile exploit releases than last year. Much of this is due to the fact that, as X-Force researchers observed, “many mobile phone vendors do not rapidly push out security updates for their devices.” The report urges consumers to be cautious about downloading apps that don’t come from an official app store. Third-party app stores or off-market apps are more likely than officially sanctioned apps to contain malicious (and highly monetizable) software. Cross gives these six tips for consumers to protect themselves from the threat of a mobile attack:
The X-Force team said the number of critical, non-mobile security vulnerabilities has tripled in 2011, and researchers particularly noted the practice of “whaling.” As opposed to “phishing,” a technique that casts a wide net to capture sensitive information, whaling implies that the criminal or criminals behind the attack are zeroing in on a “big fih,” a high-profile target. Phishing has lately been on the decline, but whaling, which targets those positioned in high levels of an organization with access to critical data, is on the rise. "Although we understand how to defend against many of these attacks on a technical level, organizations don’t always have the cross-company operational practices in place to protect themselves," said Cross. Here is Cross’ full commentary on the report:  Image courtesy of williamhook. Filed under: enterprise, mobile        
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| Chinese police bust fake iPhone ring Posted: 29 Sep 2011 11:03 AM PDT
A local newspaper reported that around 200 fake iPhones were found during the investigation. The devices had been assembled in apartments in Shanghai from parts bought in southern China. Some of the components were genuine Apple parts, and the cost to make one counterfeit phone was estimated at $313. The fakes in this bust looked and worked just like real iPhones, albeit with a shorter battery life, and they also cost around the same as a real iPhone. Consumers likely thought they were getting the real thing rather than a counterfeit, said police. In fact, over the summer, consumers discovered that fraudsters had set up an entire fake Apple store in Kunming, China — complete with fake Apple staff — for marketing and selling (possibly fake) Apple products. During August, around 22 fake Apple stores like this were discovered and shut down. The Chinese market for counterfeits is old news; the People’s Republic has long struggled with issues surrounding international intellectual property violations and the enforcement of IP laws across a huge swath of consumer goods, from apparel to medications to gadgets and far beyond. A Chinese theme park even opened an unlicensed Angry Birds attraction earlier this month. This news comes in advance of Apple’s highly anticipated announcement of the iPhone 5. The announcement is expected to take place October 4, when Apple is hosting an event for press and others at its Cupertino, Calif. campus. Image courtesy of ivyfield. Filed under: mobile, VentureBeat        
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| SweetLabs raises $13M for desktop apps interface Posted: 29 Sep 2011 10:50 AM PDT
The San Diego, Calif. company makes an app platform called Pokki, which lets developers create and distribute rich connected desktop apps using standard web languages such as HTML5. e also runs the Open Candy ad network, which offers recommendations to users when they are downloading and installing apps. Open Candy has powered more than 400 million desktop app installs since the product launched in 2008. SweetLabs launched Pokki for beta testing in June. The idea is to create an easy-to-use app platform that is similar to the app experience users enjoy on smartphones and tablets. The company will use the money to expand that platform. SweetLabs will also expand its Ope nCandy ad network. Intel Capital led the round. The investment fits with Intel’s strategic goals, since SweetLabs aims to reinvigorate the PC for the age of apps. Existing investors Google Ventures and Bessemer Venture Partners also participated. Darrius Thompson, chief executive, said that the PC is the largest platform for applications, but it is the most underserved when it comes to apps. Filed under: deals, VentureBeat        
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| Foursquare revises checking-in at home addresses (again) Posted: 29 Sep 2011 10:27 AM PDT
The revision enhances the privacy of Foursquare users who want to share their locations at all times. “A lot of people love checking in to their homes on foursquare. They want to be Mayor of their house, or they may want their friends to know they made it home safe after a night out, or they may be tracking the time they wake up every morning with a quick check-in. It's obviously an important part of your day,” Foursquare said on its blog. Previously, venues that were categorized as “homes” only showed up in the “nearby places” list if you were friends with the creator of the venue, if you'd checked in there before, or if you searched for it specifically by name. As part of the revisions, Foursquare has also decided to hide personal addresses on the venue page unless you’re friends with the person viewing the information. Additionally, the company only allows friends to see the location pin placed on the venue page’s map listing. Foursquare also did a massive sweep of its venue database and re-categorized several venues as homes to make sure everyone gets the benefits of these new privacy filters. Image via Agent X Comics Filed under: mobile, social, VentureBeat        
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| Twitter’s revenue tripled since last year, and its valuation doubled Posted: 29 Sep 2011 10:23 AM PDT
These figures come from eMarketer, a digital intelligence firm that keeps a close eye on ad revenues for companies like Twitter and Facebook. Last year was Twitter’s first full year of selling advertising products. In 2011, however, Promoted Tweets, Promoted Trends and Promoted Accounts (as the company calls its various ad products) really started ramping up. Earlier this month, the company started serving promotional content in a new way altogether, allowing advertisers to push tweets to users even if those users don’t follow the advertiser’s account. Another new source of revenue for the end of 2011 and the duration of 2012 will be political advertising. The company opened a Washington, DC-based ad sales office to gear up for a slew of political advertising over the next 13 months or so. While Twitter has played an important and growing role in politics since its use by the 2008 Obama presidential campaign, this marks the first time the platform will be used for traditional, disclosure-tagged political ads. eMarketer estimates that by 2013, Twitter’s ad revenue shall have grown to around $400 million annually. Not bad for a startup that famously didn’t have a business model just two years ago. This month, the company also announced that ad targeting options would be coming up soon. These would allow marketers and brands to target consumers by location and other criteria. Already, Twitter’s unique approach to ads is creating stellar engagement rates for brands. The company doesn’t even call its promoted content advertising, in fact, because it insists that even brand-related messages are and should be indistinguishable from “normal” tweets and trends on Twitter. "Marketers have seen solid engagement rates with Twitter advertising — in some cases better than those on Facebook — despite Twitter's relatively smaller audience," said eMarketer principal analyst Debra Aho Williamson. Twitter CEO Dick Costolo confirmed this at a meeting three weeks ago, saying, "We continue to see great engagement rates … The health of the business is great." Costolo noted that one major advertiser, Virgin, had its fifth largest sales day ever due to a Twitter campaign. Most advertisers see an engagement rate of between 3 and 5 percent, and 80 percent of advertisers run more than one campaign. Twitter’s rising valuationAs the company’s business model has emerged and begun to show early signs of success, its valuation has grown. In April 2008, the company was worth less than $150 million and actually closer to $80 million, according to sources familiar with the company’s then-latest round of funding. But by the following year, the company’s valuation had already skyrocketed to $1 billion. Another round late in 2010 put Twitter’s worth at $3.7 billion, with another February 2011 investment pegging it at more than $4 billion. While speculation was running rampant that some investors valued the company at around $10 billion toward the end of 2010, a confirmed funding round last month left Twitter valued at $8.4 billion. While $8.4 billion seems like a significant jump from $4 billion a few months before, VC firms aren’t the only ones who’ve pegged Twitter’s valuation in that neighborhood. Recent private stock trading on sites such as SharesPost has seen prices ranging between $34.50 and $31, which values the company at $6.8 billion to $7.7 billion on the private market. Filed under: social        
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| Apple’s iPhone 5 to support speedy 4G HSPA+ networks like AT&T Posted: 29 Sep 2011 10:06 AM PDT While it’s not quite the LTE 4G iPhone many were hoping for, the iPhone 5 will apparently support HSPA+ technology, which many carriers bill as 4G. Speaking at Macworld Asia this week, a China Unicom executive showed off the above slide, which lists the iPhone 5 as supporting HSPA+ technology up to 21Mbps. In comparison, the iPhone 4 supports the slower HSPA standard with maximum speeds up to 7.2Mbps. The news could mean faster speeds for AT&T users, but Verizon and Sprint users, whose networks don’t support HSPA+, will be left out. The news was first reported by Japanese IT news site PC Watch and was then picked up by Japanese blog Macotakara, which is where it spread to US tech blogs. While the slide isn’t firm proof that this is where Apple is headed with its upcoming iPhone, past rumors have pointed to Apple including HSPA+ technology in the iPhone 5. It wouldn’t be too difficult to do since, unlike LTE chipsets, HSPA+ chips are easy to integrate into thin smartphone designs. Apple is holding an event on Tuesday, October 4, where it will officially announce the iPhone 5. If those rumors are true, the iPhone 5 would be able to take advantage of AT&T’s faster HSPA+ network, which AT&T has been marketing as 4G with smartphones like the Motorola Atrix and the HTC Inspire 4G. HSPA+ is a stop-gap technology for AT&T as it rolls out its LTE 4G network. T-Mobile, on the other hand, has banked its entire 4G strategy on HSPA+ with speeds up to 42Mbs. But if the iPhone 5 does include the faster technology, users on CDMA networks like Verizon and Sprint will miss out, since HSPA+ is based on 3G GSM technology, which is only supported by AT&T and T-Mobile in the US. If this happens, many Verizon iPhone users who were glad to abandon AT&T may end up cursing their purchase. Filed under: mobile, VentureBeat        
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| 29 electric car makers ready to rule the streets Posted: 29 Sep 2011 10:01 AM PDT Pages: 1 2
We caught up with 29 electric car manufacturers and developers to find out what they’re doing today. Some are still going strong, some have begun actively producing their cars, and some … well, not every startup can survive. Most major car companies have begun working on a hybrid electric car or a pure battery-powered electric car. The Nissan Leaf and the Chevy Volt, two of the cheapest electric cars on the market, now cost less than $50,000. And there are plenty of other battery-powered and hybrid electric cars in the pipeline that will bring those costs even lower. This list is sorted according to car availability and release dates based on publicly available information. Battery-Powered Electric CarsBattery-powered electric cars are emerging as reliable forms of transportation. The Nissan Leaf is currently the leader in the early adopter market for battery-powered electric cars. It costs around $35,000 and has a range of around 100 miles. Tesla Motors’ cars have much higher ranges — the Model S is expected to be able to travel around 300 miles between charges — but are more expensive. Battery-powered electric vehicles face longer turnaround times than hybrids because they take longer to charge than filling up a gas tank.
Myers Motors: NmG (No more Gas) Reva: G-Wiz Smith Electric Vehicles: Edison
Venturi: Fétish Universal Electric Vehicles: Spyder
Pages: 1 2 Filed under: green        
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| Zynga teams up with Enrique Iglesias for CityVille promotion Posted: 29 Sep 2011 10:00 AM PDT
Under the deal, fans can interact with Iglesias’s avatar, get rewards that showcase his lifestyle and hobbies, and get early access to Iglesias’s upcoming music video, “I Like How It Feels.” The deal is similar to a promotion that Lady Gaga did for Zynga’s FarmVille game. While Zynga doesn’t have brands of its own, it can benefit from brand recognition by cutting these kinds of deals with stars. These celebrity deals are relatively quick and painless for Zynga to implement. They can be a matter of creating a few new branded virtual goods in an existing game. But they can make a big difference to starstruck fans, who may be more likely to spend money on virtual goods as a result. As few as 2 percent of Zynga’s players spend the bulk of the money on Zynga’s games. So any celebrity promotion can be a good return on investment. CityVille could use the help from Iglesias. The game has 71 million monthly active users, compared to its peak of more than 100 million. Electronic Arts’ The Sims Social is closing in on the No. 1 spot with The Sims Social, which has 62 million monthly active users, according to AppData. Overall, Zynga has 265 million monthly active users, while EA has 100 million. In the game, players above level six will be visited in their city by Iglesias’s avatar. Users can collect Iglesias’s brown boots, leather bracelet, military cap, and two-seater plane. They can get rewards such as an Iglesias-themed speedboat and a Miami high rise. Players who build Iglesias’s Euphoria Arena (pictured) can unlock a preview of the new music video. Besides Lady Gaga and Iglesias, Zynga has also partnered with Lucas Films (to bring Indiana Jones to Adventure World) and Dr. Dre for Zynga’s Mafia Wars game. Filed under: games, social        
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Ambitious search engine startup 
Relax, 
Samsung
The number of mobile security exploits is on track to double year over year between 2010 and 2011.
Today in Shanghai, police cracked down on a fake iPhone production ring, making five arrests.
Location-based check-in service 
Twitter is on track for nearly $140 million in revenue for 2011, up from a reported $45 million just last year.
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