|
Posted: 07 Oct 2011 10:13 AM PDT
 A video of Google’s flagship smartphone, the Samsung Galaxy Nexus (a.k.a. the Samsung Nexus Prime), has leaked online — showing off not only the device, but also a preview of how the latest version of the Android operating system Ice Cream Sandwich.The 88-second video shows off the phone’s app library, placing widgets, locking and unlocking the phone from sleep mode and a short look at its camera display. As for the operating system itself, Ice Cream Sandwich seems like smooth experience that’s more unified than the previous Honeycomb version. Previously, the phone’s specifications were leaked online, which revealed that the new Nexus phone will sport a 4.65-inch display with curved glass, a 1.2-gigahertz dual core CPU, and LTE 4G connectivity. The official debut of both the Galaxy Nexus phone and Android Ice Cream Sandwich have been pushed back by Samsung. It was originally scheduled to make an appearance Oct. 11 at the CTIA event in San Diego. Check out the leaked video of the Samsung Galaxy Nexus embedded below.  [Source: Gadget.ro via BGR] Filed under: mobile, VentureBeat               This posting includes an audio/video/photo media file: Download Now |
|
Posted: 07 Oct 2011 10:00 AM PDT
 Everybody should see Marc Benioff live and unplugged. The chief executive of Salesforce.com gave an amusing keynote speech at the AME restaurant in San Francisco this week after getting booted out of Oracle OpenWorld 2011.We caught his Q&A with reporters after the keynote and have shared the video below. Benioff’s off-the-cuff presentation is worth catching, since it was kind of overshadowed this week by a lot of other news. Benioff got into a tiff with Ellison, his former boss, early in the week when he said on his Facebook page that Ellison’s keynote on Sunday had “hit a new low.” Ellison evidently took that personally and reportedly canceled Benioff’s keynote speech at Oracle OpenWorld. Benioff said the cancellation cost Oracle about $1 million, since that is what Salesforce.com paid as a sponsor to secure the keynote spot. After that, Benioff’s team mobilized, and on Wednesday, Benioff held a keynote speech at the restaurant, instead, where he talked about how corporations are adopting social networking in their internal and external communications. Benioff said Oracle should have left the talk intact, because it would have drawn less press. “No one would have cared what I had to say today,” he said. Sadly, we missed the last video part of the Q&A where Benioff said, “We saw an Arab Spring. We’re going to see a Corporate Spring. CEOs need to transform themselves as leaders. You should be in touch with your customers. That’s my point. Are you reflecting change? Things are changing. Can you still operate like a foreign dictator? I don’t think command and control is going to work in the future.” Benioff brought up CEO Reed Hastings and the revolt he caused by raising Netflix’s DVD rental subscription fees and then trying to justify the move in a way that generated 27,000 more angry responses. Benioff said that CEOs have to use social communication to be in touch with the pulse of customers and how they feel about the company. He was also asked if he was really comparing Larry Ellison to a “foreign dictator” or Hosni Mubarak, the deposed president of Egypt who was thrown out of office during the Arab Spring revolt. Benioff said he chose his words carefully and did not make that exact comparison, since his mother was attending the keynote. Asked if he would try to speak at Oracle OpenWorld next year, Benioff noted that his own Dreamforce conference was bigger now and that it was very unlikely he would go back. Here’s the Q&A on video in two parts.   Filed under: cloud            This posting includes an audio/video/photo media file: Download Now |
|
Posted: 07 Oct 2011 09:40 AM PDT
 Apple fans are nowhere near done paying their respects to the man who arguably jump-started the smartphone revolution.
Dozens of fans are still gathering at the Apple retail store in New York City and across the country to pay their respects to Steve Jobs, the company’s former chief executive officer, who passed away on Wednesday at age 56. Some left notes, some left flowers, some left apples and personal messages. A security official on staff outside the Apple Store said that was the largest the crowd had grown to so far. When Jobs died, many also converged on Apple’s campus in Cupertino, Calif., and left flowers and tributes at Jobs’ house in Palo Alto, Calif.
Jobs was known as a visionary, creating products that he knew people would be fighting tooth and nail to get their hands on. They were products you didn't even know you needed: the tablet market was basically non-existent before the introduction of the iPad, and the iPhone is now one of the most popular smartphones in the world and is an industry standard. Jobs arguably jump-started the smartphone revolution with the iPhone and its associated App Store. “It's a phone, it's an iPod, and it's an Internet communicator — are you getting it yet?" he said on stage when he unveiled the iPhone.
President Barack Obama said perhaps Jobs’ greatest tribute to his success was that much of the world learned of his passing on a device he invented. It might be an even greater tribute that all the events honoring his life have been documented by those same tools. Many people present at the vigils were sending tweets, emailing, calling, taking photos or messaging friends — on their iPhones."There are few people who could build something so successful and so magical and do more than (Jobs,)" Reddit co-founder Alexis Ohanian told me. "It's humbling as an entrepreneur, more than anything else, to see what he's done." [Photo credit: Matthew Lynley] Filed under: mobile            This posting includes an audio/video/photo media file: Download Now |
|
Posted: 07 Oct 2011 09:02 AM PDT
 Daily deals startup Groupon plans to significantly reduce its spending on online marketing to acquire new customers to its service, the company stated in a regulatory filing today.Groupon, which filed an initial public offering in June, makes money when subscribers to its email list purchase online deals offered by local businesses, like restaurants and spas. Those email subscribers are currently Groupon’s best source of new customers to grow its business. Due to a growing number of daily deals competitors and consumer fatigue, the cost of acquiring new email list subscribers has risen dramatically in the past year — meaning Groupon is getting an insufficient return on its marketing expenses. However, the company said cutting back on marketing expenses won't negatively impact business with existing Groupon customers. Many have criticized Groupon for its shady accounting practices and its inability to become profitable after several years. Groupon has consistently lost money every quarter since launching except for one — the first quarter of 2010, when it brought in an $8 million profit. The Chicago-based company recently pushed back its plans for an IPO due to poor stock market conditions. Filed under: deals, social, VentureBeat            This posting includes an audio/video/photo media file: Download Now |
|
Posted: 07 Oct 2011 08:30 AM PDT
 X.commerce, eBay’s developer arm, named the five venture capitalists today who will be involved in next week’s “VC Bait” panel at its Innovate conference.The Innovate conference, as well as the VC Bait panel, are all about creating for the commerce sector. 50 contestants will pitch Andreessen-Horowitz general partner, Jeff Jordan, Matrix Partners general partner Dana Stalder, Felicis Ventures founder and managing director Aydin Senkut, First Round Capital managing partner Chris Fralic, and Webb Investment Network founder Maynard Webb. The body behind this conference, X.commerce, gives developers access to all of eBay Inc.’s assets through application programming interfaces (APIs). These assets include its marketplace, PayPal and its open source storefront system Magento. Developers also get access to eBay parters such as Kenshoo, Rackspace and Adobe Ominture. The APIs are meant to be use for retailers who need developers to solve “back-end” issues, such as taxes and inventory, as well as layout and customer experience in their apps. “The retailers are desperate for developers,” Matthew Mengerink, general manager of X.commerce, told VentureBeat in an interview. “That's where we come in and say we have this developer network — we don't want to be the devs — [and] saying we're all about making our developers money. Now retailers have access to all these developers, like a rolodex of developers they can choose from.” Jeff Jordan, who will be judging and choosing a worthy company to invest in during the panel, only recently joined Andreessen-Horowitz. Speaking about his first few months at the firm, Jordan told VentureBeat, “It’s been a blast! I get to meet and partner with the best entrepreneurs building the most important companies, which is super exciting and incredibly rewarding for me.” For the companies he evaluates Jordan says, “Start with a great business model. Build a great team. Innovate relentlessly. Focus. Reach high.” After judging the 50 contestants, the venture capitalists will choose three to return and pitch their companies or ideas in hopes of receiving funding. Outside of the conference, X.commerce also makes an effort to support developers and their apps. According to Mengerink, developers have full ownership over what they create using X.commerce’s APIs. eBay benefits by driving retailers back to their products through the apps made in the X.commerce program. Mengerink went so far as to say for every dollar an eBay asset such as Magento makes, the developer makes $20. “It's about indirect monetization. You win long-term because they're using eBay products to innovate,” said Mengerink. “Strategically speaking this is the best thing we could do — create this framework. We are fundamentally part of this innovation.” [Photo courtesy of djevents/Flickr] Filed under: dev, VentureBeat            This posting includes an audio/video/photo media file: Download Now |
|
Posted: 07 Oct 2011 08:25 AM PDT
 The run-and-gun Max Payne series hasn’t seen a new title in eight years but will finally return when Rockstar Games releases Max Payne 3 next year. It’s the company’s largest release slated for 2012 and follows the success of the company’s last two games, Red Dead Redemption and L.A. Noire. We’ve got a first look at it.Rockstar, a division of Take-Two Interactive in New York, often sets the pace for innovation in traditional console video games, and this game could attract a larger audience than in the past because of the company’s growing reach beyond its traditional Grand Theft Auto fan base. That, in turn, will help Take-Two reach its financial goal of further broadening beyond Grand Theft Auto in its bid to become the maker of the highest-quality video games. I got a chance to sit down and check out a quick demo of two levels of the game at Rockstar’s studio in New York, which feature the game’s titular character Payne escaping from New York mobsters and gunning down police officers in Sao Paulo, Brazil. It’s not your traditional shooter — your health doesn’t regenerate and you survive by eating pain killers to restore health and using “bullet time,” which slows down animations and lets you dodge bullets and get off a better shot at your enemies. There’s a cover system in the game that lets you duck behind walls and obstacles like in the Uncharted and Gears of War games, but using it would be missing the point of the game. You’re supposed to plow through enemies with little regard for your own personal safety. Payne heads to Sao Paulo, Brazil. He serves as a bodyguard for the three brothers of the Bronco family. The wife of one of the brothers is kidnapped under Payne’s protection, and he finds himself wrapped up in a much larger conspiracy outside of a typical kidnapping. In the demo, Payne and company sneak into a nearby building and have to fight their way through local police to get to the exit. Payne jumps from ledge to ledge and grabs a crane, dropping down into a huge group of police officers and takes them all out in bullet time. You can blow up gas tanks and fork lifts and shoot the safety mechanisms on a wall, sending a bus up in the air falling onto a group of enemies. If it isn’t pinned down or nailed to the environment, chances are you can kill someone with it. Each bullet in the game has its own set of physics rules, so the enemies move around dynamically as you are shooting them or hitting them. If you shoot them in the arm, the arm whips back from the force and leaves them crippled as they still try to take you down. When you get off an excellent kill shot or finish off a wave of enemies, the camera jumps over to the bullet and follows it as it hits an enemy — whether that’s in the shoulder or flying through their skull. It’s over-the-top violent and outlandish, but that’s what the Max Payne series has always been about. “We’re talking no-holds-barred Hong Kong action style movies,” a spokesperson told me. “Guns are disposable and you’re going to rack up a huge body count — like a John Woo film or something.” After that, Payne jumps on a bus while the friend drives through the parking lot. Payne has to kill police officers that are trying to shoot the bus and destroy it before they can get away. The whole scene is pretty similar to some of the super-dynamic environments that show up in triple-A blockbuster titles like the Uncharted series. Eventually, the driver crashes the bus into a building, and the demo abruptly comes to an end. They didn’t want to spoil anything, representatives said.  Despite all the crazy stunts, the game features some very realistic environmental collision and character movements. Payne visibly twists his torso when flying through the air to turn around and covers his head if he’s about to jump into a pack of trash cans. When climbing through the environment, the game highlights the tiny parts of Payne’s movements, like flattening his palm against a dumpster to support his weight or peeling back a chain link fence to help a friend crawl through. Max Payne 3 picks up a few years after the second one. Payne is a little older and a little weary and still in a state of depression and self-loathing after what happened at the end of the second game. At this point, he’s an alcoholic addicted to pain killers, so he leaves the force and looks into jobs at private security firms. The first Max Payne game came out in 2001 and had a score of 89 out of 100 across 32 reviews on review aggregating site Metacritic, and the second one had a score of 86 out of 100 across 46 reviews. Both were developed by Remedy Entertainment, But Rockstar picked up the rights to the game and has been working on Max Payne 3 with its internal studios for the past three years. “People are like, ‘oh it’s been like eight years since the last Max Payne,’ yeah it’s been a long time but internally it has never gone away,” a Rockstar spokesperson told VentureBeat. “We’ve always had the intention of bringing it back.” Rockstar doesn’t typically tie itself to the same rigorous release schedule as supergiants like Activision-Blizzard and Electronic Arts. The company releases around one game a new year, and that game is typically in development for a long time before it finally comes out. The company doesn’t really succumb to the same kind of pressures that major publishers face, a spokesperson told VentureBeat.  Rockstar released LA Noire, a detective-style open world game centered around a Los Angeles detective, earlier this year. The year before that Rockstar released Red Dead Redemption, an open-world shooter set in the wild west. Both games were critically acclaimed, with LA Noire picking up an 89 out of 100 across 77 reviews and Red Dead Redemption earning a score of 95 out of 100 across 96 reviews.“Rockstar is a company that very much makes games that everyone thinks are cool and will want to play,” he said. “Our mantra has always been, when it’s ready, it will be ready.” Rockstar has always focused on having a compelling storyline with each of its games, and Max Payne 3 is no exception. The story is told through graphic novel-style cut scenes (cinematic videos) and lots of internal monologue. Payne is hardly a silent, stoic protagonist — he’s human and he clearly has his share of problems. The game has its own share of surreal moments, like when a crazy guy sits in front of a crowd of bad guys and tells them “they will be cleansed in fire” before blowing himself up. Those kinds of moments have come to define the Max Payne series, and they’ll definitely show up in the latest installment, a spokesperson said. Along with the run-and-gun single player story, Rockstar plans on releasing a multiplayer mode for the game — though the company wouldn’t give us any details about it. But a spokesperson said that it would feature some “completely new” things that other online games, like Call of Duty, did not highlight. But the company doesn’t expect it to really compete with something like Modern Warfare 3 because the Call of Duty franchise is “basically on its own planet,” representatives said. Filed under: games            This posting includes an audio/video/photo media file: Download Now |
|
Posted: 07 Oct 2011 08:09 AM PDT
 YouTube is launching a movie rental offering to its U.K.-based users, YouTube owner Google announced today.YouTube has been expanding its movie rental offerings over the past year to better compete with the likes of Netflix and Apple’s iTunes. Google has also reportedly put up $100 million for original YouTube content to capitalize on a new generation of cable TV cord cutters looking for content online. U.K. users will now be able to rent movies such as the The Dark Knight (pictured) as well as new releases like Fast Five and Hanna. British classics like Monty Python’s The Meaning of Life will also be available. Newly released films will run £3.49, while older movies from studio catalogs can be rented for £2.49 in standard definition and £3.49 for high-definition. “Britain has a long history of cinema, starting from the first moving pictures being developed on celluloid film in the UK,” Matteo Vallone, YouTube Business Product Manager, wrote in a company blog post. “Now British film buffs can be part of the digital revolution too.” Companies that have partnered with YouTube on movie rentals include Universal, Lionsgate, Entertainment One, Metrodome and Revolver Entertainment. Have you ever rented a movie on YouTube? Filed under: media, VentureBeat            This posting includes an audio/video/photo media file: Download Now |
|
Posted: 07 Oct 2011 08:00 AM PDT
 NOTE: Each week, I'm writing a column on videogames called The DeanBeat that’s available to newsletter subscribers a day before it appears on the VentureBeat website. This week, my column was co-written with Matthew Lynley.
The fall blockbuster video game season is under way and we thought it would be useful to update readers on our opinions about the best games of the fall. We previously wrote about our favorite games from the E3 trade show back in June and our most anticipated titles, but now we’re focused only on the games that are coming out for the fall and holiday seasons. One switch from then is that Call of Duty Modern Warfare 3 is looking stronger as a title compared to Uncharted 3: Drake’s Deception. But we’ll have to watch these closely as you never can tell just how well each game is executed until you play it for real. At the end of the year, we’ll have our usual list on the best games of the year. In the meantime, we’ll be putting a lot of hours into the games below. Vote for your own favorite in the poll at the bottom.
1. Call of Duty Modern Warfare 3
Call of Duty games have become the entertainment event of the year. Each title is consistently generating more than $1 billion a year in sales, and this year should be no different. Call of Duty Modern Warfare 3 will be another intense combat game where you have to constantly shoot enemies until your hands tremble from overworking your controller (or mouse). This game always takes gamers on a trip around the globe to exotic places where you have to shoot everybody you meet. But now the war against madmen terrorists has spread to some of the world’s biggest cities: New York, London and Paris. The single-player campaign has you fighting underwater, in the middle of a Wall Street stock exchange, on speeding trains and in the air with dueling helicopter gunships. The formula for Call of Duty games is to deliver epic realism with combat scenes that are believable and intense, fast game play at 60 frames per second, over-the-top Hollywood-style action, and “easy to play, hard to master.” This year, you can control new Reaper drones, study your stats in the Call of Duty Elite social network, and fight hordes of enemies in the Spec Ops cooperative multiplayer mode.Developer: Infinity Ward and Sledgehammer Games Publisher: Activision Blizzard Platforms: Xbox 360, PlayStation 3, PC Release date: Nov. 8 The single-player stories in these games are sometimes a little weak, but the cinematic intros always do a good job of setting up combat scenes. We expect this game to become the most popular this fall not because of its single-player campaign, but the multiplayer combat that turns the game into a year-round avocation. The combination of cool weapons, fast game play, well-crafted multiplayer maps, and a reward-based leveling up system make the game more fun to play than just about any other multiplayer combat game. In the multibillion-dollar first-person shooter market, this game is the one to beat.  2. Uncharted 3: Drake's DeceptionDeveloper: Naughty Dog Publisher: Sony Platform: PlayStation 3 Release date: Nov. 1 The game has an interesting new female villain, Katherine Marlowe, who will likely motivate gamers to move on to the next level over and over again. In addition, Sony has shown that the multiplayer combat is great. This is likely to be more like a summer blockbuster-style movie than Call of Duty. But it will be a close call as to which game beats out the other for the best game of the year. Uncharted may have an edge because of its storytelling success in the past. But Call of Duty has the combination of fun single-player campaigns and outstanding multiplayer. That’s a tough combination to beat.  3. Battlefield 3 Developer: EA DICE Publisher: Electronic Arts Platforms: Xbox 360, PlayStation 3, PC Release date: Oct. 25 We haven’t seen much of the single-player game, where the quality will really be tested. But the trailers that EA has shown so far look like the combat scenes will be intense and filled with the shock of ambushes. The question is whether the game is going to be as fun as it is realistic. We’ve got high hopes, since EA has been steadily learning how to make games as competitive as Activision Blizzard in this all-important segment. Whether this game beats Call of Duty or not, analysts are predicting that it will sell in the millions.  4. Gears of War 3Developer: Epic Games Publisher: Microsoft Platform: Xbox 360 Release date: Sep. 20 In this swan song, Epic Games hits us with an emotional story about brotherhood, survival and loss. The new installment introduces the game’s first female characters and it brings to a close the story about Marcus Fenix and his lost father that began in the original. The game play is intense and familiar, but now you can play in a four-person cooperative mode. The enemies are bigger and badder, and they include not only the underground-dwelling Locust Horde but also the new and nasty Lambent enemies. The familiar chainsaw bayonet is back and so are staples such as the Hammer of God satellite guns. It’s a fitting and emotional end to the series.  5. Assassin's Creed RevelationsDeveloper: Ubisoft Publisher: Ubisoft Platforms: XBox 360, PlayStation 3, PC Release date: Nov. 30 The latest Assassin's Creed game features Ezio searching for some of the lost relics left behind by his ancestor, another assassin named Altair. He's following the trail of a Templar, one of the main antagonists of the series, while trying to elude a number of Ottomans chasing him. The game takes place in the early 1500s and will feature Constantinople as a major focus (Venice and Rome figured prominently in the past two Assassin's Creed games.) The environment of the game looks very vibrant, with a lot of action, similar to the crazy environments players run through in the Uncharted series. Ezio also has a few new tricks up his sleeve, like stunning enemies with a smoke bomb and quickly taking them out with a crossbow.  6. Legend of Zelda: Skyward Sword Developer: Nintendo Publisher: Nintendo Platforms: Nintendo Wii Release date: Nov. 20 Unlike Twilight Princess, Skyward Sword will use the Wii’s MotionPlus motion controller attachment and track the gamer’s movement entirely using an accelerometer instead of the Wii controller’s infrared sensor. Skyward Sword also features more vibrant, colorful visuals compared to the dim, darker look that showed up in Twilight Princess. It’s a gamble Nintendo has taken before with The Legend of Zelda: Wind Waker, which was another hit with gamers and critics, who initially slammed the brighter visuals but quickly warmed to them.  7. Batman Arkham CityDeveloper: Rocksteady Games Publisher: Warner Bros. Interactive Entertainment Platforms: Xbox 360, PlayStation 3, PC Release date: Oct. 18 Gotham City’s new mayor, Quincy Sharp, has bought out a large portion of Gotham City to serve as a home for criminals now that the prisons are overrun. The prisoners are brought into what’s dubbed “Arkham City” and are given free rein, as long as they do not attempt escape. Batman is called into Arkham City when Two Face, one of the series’ most famous villains, plans to publicly execute Catwoman. As the Dark Knight, you can now fly over the city and stalk bad guys from above. As much of a free-flowing brawler Batman: Arkham Asylum was, the game prized stealth and investigative tactics. Batman can scan the area for clues and jump from higher areas to remain undetected. He can quickly incapacitate enemies by knocking them unconscious or hanging them from objects in the environment.  8. Rage Developer: id Software Publisher: Bethesda Softworks Platforms: Xbox 360, PlayStation 3, PC Release date: Oct. 4. Rage took more than five years to get to the market, and now that it’s here, fans should find it worth the wait. While id Software is known for its corridor-focused shooting games, this title is a breakout achievement because it marries the expected great graphics with a variety of game play beyond shooting games. The game has elements of role-playing, adventure, racing and shooting. It borrows from the sci-fi and Western genres of storytelling, and it is very well executed in terms of game play and the intelligence of enemies. The game takes place in a post-apocalyptic world where survivors of a giant meteor impact eke out a meager existence in a land full of ruins and wastelands. You have to be a pack-rat scavenger, since you have to collect parts to assemble cars, lock grinders, and bombs. As you tangle with the locals, you pick up some cool weapons like the "wingstick," a boomerang-like device with razor blades that can sever an enemy's head when you throw it. The game play is diverse, ranging from racing to shooting. You have to square off against a number of different territorial clans and move from mission to mission. Add to that some beautiful graphics and you’ve got a formula for fun. If you get tired of shooting, you can head out into the Wastelands and blow up enemy buggys with homing rockets.  9. The Elder Scrolls V: SkyrimDeveloper: Bethesda Softworks Publisher: Bethesda Softworks Platforms: Xbox 360, PlayStation 3, PC Release date: Nov. 11 Bethesda is known for going big. You could play Oblivion for hundreds of hours without ever actually finishing the game, and Skyrim looks to be even bigger than that. Each world is filled with hundreds of areas to explore and even more quests to complete. There are entire subcultures and extra stories to explore throughout the game that rival the length of modern games. The Elder Scrolls series has always been about playing a game “your way,” and it looks like Skyrim is no exception to that. Skyrim looks like it will once again raise the bar for fantasy role-playing games set by Fallout 3 and Oblivion.  10. Cave StoryDeveloper: Nicalis Publisher: NIS America Platform: Nintendo 3DS Release date: Nov. 8 Cave Story is one of a number of success stories for independent game developers. After cracking the scene as an 8-bit style Metroidvania-style platformer in 2004, Cave Story has experienced resurging popularity as a WiiWare downloadable title. This year the game will land as a high-definition remake on Nintendo’s 3DS handheld console alongside high-profile first-party titles like Star Fox 64 3D and Super Mario Kart 7. Players take control of Quote, a gun-wielding robot stranded on an island in the sky trying to remember why he was there in the first place. You’ll have to explore every nook and cranny of the island to unlock all the most powerful weapons and find upgrades. Cave Story’s success came from a near-flawless application of the explore-and-destroy formula pioneered in the Metroid and Castlevania games layered on top of an original story with some clever writing and art. We expect the 3DS version to continue that entertaining combination. View This Poll Filed under: games, VentureBeat            This posting includes an audio/video/photo media file: Download Now |
|
Posted: 07 Oct 2011 07:52 AM PDT
 Sprint is set to launch an ”aggressive roll-out” of LTE 4G technology on its network, starting in the middle of 2012, the third-largest US cellular carrier announced today.As part of the upgrade, Sprint will simplify its cellular site hardware, optimize its use of wireless spectrum, and kill off its iDEN network (which is used for push-to-talk features). For Sprint, the announcement couldn’t come soon enough, as its WiMax 4G network is beginning to show its age, and both Verizon and AT&T have already launched their faster LTE 4G networks. Even T-Mobile, the smallest of the big four US carriers, has been more aggressive about its 4G plans with its HSPA+ network, which can achieve speeds close to LTE. News that Sprint is going all-in with LTE was first reported last week. The carrier describes its LTE rollout as “rapid.” It will launch its first LTE markets in mid-2012 and expects to be mostly complete by the end of 2013. Verizon, by comparison, expects to achieve nationwide LTE availability by 2013. Sprint says it’s still committed to WiMax for now, and it will be selling those devices until 2012. (But you can expect WiMax to be killed off within the next few years.) Sprint’s new multimode hardware will allow it to combine 3G and 4G hardware, instead of running them as separate units. New integrated chipsets in mobile devices will allow them to take better advantage of multiple wireless spectrums and multimode technology. Sprint’s multimode antennas will be able to broadcast both CDMA and LTE across 800 and 1900 MHz spectrums. Pending federal approval, the carrier will also offer LTE wholesale to Lightsquared in a deal worth $9 billion, which also gives Sprint access to the 1600 MHz spectrum. The streamlined approach is a stark contrast to how Sprint has been running its network so far, which involves juggling multiple incompatible technologies. To take over the push-to-talk capabilities of its iDEN network, Sprint recently launched its CDMA PTT Direct Connect Network. The transition from iDEN is expected to be completed by mid-2013, but it’ll be worth it, since the move means push-to-talk will be available more widely throughout the US. Customers will also be able to roam onto other CDMA networks and use push-to-talk. All of Sprint’s upgrades will also improve the overall experience for its 3G customers. The carrier says its 3G network will offer faster data speeds and better in-building performance, and it’s also looking into using additional spectrum for voice calls. Sprint is working with Samsung, Alcatel-Lucent, and Ericsson on the infrastructure side to deploy its new LTE network. Via Boy Genius Report Filed under: mobile, VentureBeat            This posting includes an audio/video/photo media file: Download Now |
|
Posted: 07 Oct 2011 05:57 AM PDT
 Google and Samsung were set to debut a Samsung Nexus Prime (or Galaxy Nexus) on Oct. 11 at CTIA Fall in San Diego, but now the two companies have decided to delay the phone’s big introduction. They sent the following statement this morning to VentureBeat: Samsung and Google have decided to postpone the Samsung Mobile Unpacked event during the CTIA in San Diego, previously scheduled for Oct. 11. Under the current circumstances, both parties have agreed that this is not the appropriate time for the announcement of a new product. We would ask for the understanding of our clients and media for any inconvenience caused. We will announce a new date and venue in due course.Not only had Samsung posted a promotional video teasing a “big” smartphone that looks like the Nexus Prime, but Google apparently leaked when Ice Cream Sandwich would launch through a YouTube livestream placeholder. With all this pre-established hype, it’s strange that the two companies have decided to delay the launch. Three possibilities come to mind for why the companies decided to postpone: First, they may not have attracted enough press to attend the event at CTIA in San Diego and decided to push it back to a New York launch where attendance will be higher. Second, perhaps Google needed a little extra time to polish the Ice Cream Sandwich OS. Third, the companies could have decided at the last minute to distance the launch of their flagship Android phone from the iPhone 4S launch by more than a week . We don’t expect to wait long for another date to be set, though, because Google Chairman Eric Schmidt said Ice Cream Sandwich would launch before November. I absolutely believe that timeline because Google and Samsung will want to take advantage of increased holiday sales. The Nexus Prime’s leaked specs do sound pretty impressive and could attract consumers disappointed by the iPhone 4S introduction. The smartphone will feature a massive 4.65-inch display with curved glass, a 1.2-gigahertz dual core processor and LTE 4G connectivity through Verizon. Update: Google and Samsung have reportedly moved the debut of the Nexus Prime and Ice Cream Sandwich to London with an Oct. 27 launch. We will see if this event turns out. Filed under: mobile            This posting includes an audio/video/photo media file: Download Now |
|
Posted: 06 Oct 2011 11:11 PM PDT
 For those of you still planning to buy it, Apple’s new iPhone 4S will be available for pre-order in just a few hours from Apple. The company’s hyped iPhone 4S will be available from Apple.com and will run on AT&T, Verizon and Sprint. Tim Cook unveiling of the new device disappointed some because it was not a wholly new design, but we expect it will still be one of the best smartphones on the market. The iPhone 4S includes a blazing dual-core A5 processor, an 8-megapixel camera that will be one of the best smartphone cameras ever and will run iOS 5 software that will improve the user experience with more than 200 new features. The 4S will also offer Siri, the much-hyped voice assistant that will answer your questions. Because it is a world phone, the iPhone 4S will actually be the same exact model when it is sold on AT&T, Verizon and Sprint. Each carrier will do what it can to show that a customer should choose them, but AT&T might have the best argument of the three because it can provide 4G-like data speeds while Verizon and Sprint will be offering 3G speeds. That said, Verizon has the most reliable voice network while Sprint is the only carrier to offer an unlimited data plan. The most hyped competitor to the iPhone 4S might very well be the Samsung Nexus Prime Android phone on Verizon, which is set to debut to the world Tuesday [update: the Nexus Prime launch has been rescheduled for Oct. 27]. That phone will most likely offer a 1.2-GHz dual-core processor, LTE 4G connectivity and a massive 4.65-inch LCD screen. Will you be pre-ordering the iPhone 4S? Which carrier will you choose? Filed under: mobile            This posting includes an audio/video/photo media file: Download Now |
|
Posted: 06 Oct 2011 08:28 PM PDT
 Steve Wozniak broke his silence today and publicly mourned his friend and Apple co-founder Steve Jobs.In an interview with the Associated Press, Wozniak said he learned about Jobs’ death from a reporter who called him for reaction. “What do you say?” Wozniak said. “It’s like the world lost a John Lennon.” Wozniak was always known as the quiet engineer behind the salesman-like Jobs. But Wozniak has found his public-speaking voice as he talks about the wonders of technology and how to inspire kids. It’s rare to see such public figures showing emotion, but it shows you what kind of impact Jobs had on Wozniak’s life. “Somehow he had the ability to think out new ways of doing things, not just improve what we already had, but to do them in a totally different way,” Wozniak said. He said he thought about all the good times he had when he was young, misbehaving and plotting out the uses for new technologies. He said they worked together in a garage because they had no money and no one to lend them money. “We’re like a million young people who are so excited about the future making a business just out of their ideas,” he said. “That’s what we were.” At the close of the interview, Woz was overcome with emotion. He signed and rubbed tears from his eyes.  Filed under: VentureBeat            This posting includes an audio/video/photo media file: Download Now |
|
Posted: 06 Oct 2011 06:53 PM PDT
 Communication technology company Nuance is in talks to acquire Swype for more than $100 million, according to tech news blogger-turned venture capitalist Michael Arrington, who cites sources familiar with the matter.Swype is best known for its touch screen-based predictive text technology, which allows people to draw (or swipe) characters instead of typing individual buttons on a graphical keyboard. Its Swype application is optimized for many different devices, like smartphones, tablets, TVs, gaming consoles and more. It’s not surprising that Nuance would be interested in buying Swype. Nuance’s T9 predictive text software, which is used on over 3 billion mobile phones worldwide, is a direct competitor to Swype’s application. Also, Swype’s co-founder Cliff Kushler created the T9 technology. So basically, Nuance would be eliminating competition, (potentially) gaining new talent and gaining a hot new product (the Swype application). Founded in 2002, Seattle-based Swype has $13.9 million total funding from Samsung Ventures, Nokia Growth Partners, Benaroya Capital, DoCoMo Capital, Ignition Partners and others. Update: A new SEC document filed by Nuance today reveals that the company paid $102.5 million to acquire Swype — with $77.5 million paid upfront and the remaining amount in 18 months. Filed under: deals, mobile, VentureBeat            This posting includes an audio/video/photo media file: Download Now |
|
Posted: 06 Oct 2011 04:33 PM PDT
 Google’s Android operating system update Ice Cream Sandwich will officially launch on October 11, according to a placeholder set up on the “androiddevelopers” Youtube page.The text on the page says, “This event will begin in 4 days, 19 hours. Please come back later.” The description text reads, “tbd.” Mobile telecommunications company Samsung is also having its Unpacked event that day, where it is rumored Samsung’s Nexus Prime phone will be unveiled. There are also rumors the Nexus Prime will be the first Android phone to run Ice Cream Sandwich, so the timing of the two releases is fitting. Currently, more smartphones run Android than any other mobile operating system in the world, with iOS coming in second. Apple announced at its October 4 press event that iOS 5 — the operating system running on iPhones, iPads and iPod touches — will be available for download on October 12th, a day after the Ice Cream Sandwich launch. Filed under: mobile            This posting includes an audio/video/photo media file: Download Now |
|
Posted: 06 Oct 2011 02:51 PM PDT
 We begged the Shpoonklers to tell us they planned on changing their company’s name, but CEO Robert Niznik wouldn’t budge.“Shpoonkle is a funny word,” he said in an interview with VentureBeat. “It brings a smile to your face, and it is definitely something you will remember.” We thought his startup idea was brilliant — an eBay just for legal services. People who need legal representation but who don’t have time to call around for rates, or who might not be able to afford a lawyer in other circumstances, can post their needs and get bids. Attorneys then have to compete for a piece of the action. The idea made some waves in the legal community, where some attorneys called the practice unethical. “What’s unethical is charging upwards of $300 an hour or more, making it nearly impossible for the average American to afford legal representation,” Niznik retorted. “The bidding process is definitely ethical. The American Bar Association Journal [stated] that despite our quirky name, we are getting the job done. We provide clients a confidential way to get competitive bids from attorneys.” Niznik said that people who use the bidding process are able to spend one third less than the national average for legal services. Overall, Shpoonkle users paid around $100 less per hour than an average attorney’s rate. “Additionally, our users keep more of their winnings on contingency cases,” Niznik said. The CEO told us that 13,000 out of every 44,000 graduating law students don’t have jobs lined up, making Shpoonkle (that name!) great for new attorneys as well as for their customers. Also, he said, “We are also saving attorneys money. Instead of wasting thousands of dollars on outdated means of advertising, they can use our site for free to find new clients. The time savings for attorneys is also significant. Every time a new client in their local and practice area posts a case, the attorney is notified by email, text or however they choose. They can, on their own schedule, bid on that client if they wish. Instead of spending countless hours of free in office consultations, they can save time by using Shpoonkle’s process.” In addition to working with attorneys, users choose to work with mediators, paralegals, notaries or other licensed professionals. As far as privacy goes, users cannot see one anyone else’s case details, and non-attorney legal professionals can only see case details if the user indicates that he or she is seeking their particular kind of help. And as for the name, Niznik assured us, “Xerox, Haagen Daas and countless other companies chose names that meant nothing, but they eventually became synonymous with the product or service they provide. That is our goal with our brand Shpoonkle.” Filed under: VentureBeat            This posting includes an audio/video/photo media file: Download Now |
|
Posted: 06 Oct 2011 02:23 PM PDT
 User-generated encyclopedia Wikipedia shut down its Italian website yesterday to protest a proposed privacy law drafted by the Italian government, reports The Atlantic.The law would force websites to remove any information identified as defamatory to an individual within 48 hours of a complaint. The website would also have to publish an unaltered correction issued by the party that originally made the complain, or face a fine of up to €12,000 (about $16,000). The publisher or owner of the website can’t file an appeal over a complaint, which means the Italian government could basically censor any website. “The obligation to publish on our site the correction as is… without even the right to discuss and verify the claim, is an unacceptable restriction of the freedom and independence of Wikipedia, to the point of distorting the principles on which the Free Encyclopedia is based,” Wikipedia users wrote in a statement posted on the Italian website’s front page. The proposed law was introduced by Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi in 2008. In addition to websites, the law also applies to newspapers — specifically, their ability to publish information from police wiretaps during preliminary investigations. While Berlusconi claims that the restrictions on the media and websites are necessary to ensure the rights of private citizen, opponents of the law cite accusations that Prime Minister had an illegal sexual relationship with a minor — which was revealed from a police wiretap — as his true justification. “The Wikimedia Foundation stands with our volunteers in Italy who are challenging the recently drafted ‘DDL intercettazioni‘ (or Wiretapping Bill) bill in Italy,” wrote Wikimedia Foundation Communications Manager Jay Walsh in a blog post. “This bill would hinder the work of projects like Wikipedia: open, volunteer-driven, and collaborative spaces dedicated to sharing high-quality knowledge, not to mention the ability for all users of the internet to engage in democratic, free speech opportunities.” Wikipedia said it may shut down the Italian site indefinitely if the law is made official. Filed under: media, social, VentureBeat            This posting includes an audio/video/photo media file: Download Now |
|
Posted: 06 Oct 2011 02:17 PM PDT
 For kids from low-income backgrounds who want to level up, getting money for college is one of the most significant and most daunting challenges to try to overcome.Takeashine is a new crowdfunding platform that aims to help deserving, underprivileged youth get the money they need to continue their education. “Takeashine has the potential to not only directly changes the lives of students, but to change the way we approach the community’s role in the process of educational access,” founder Sarah Baird said. “I think technology’s ability to create large-scale social impact is only getting started.” This New Orleans-based nonprofit lets students close the gap between government and school estimates of financial ability and the students’ actual ability to pay for school. Because of the way the financial aid system works, young people are often assumed to have a higher “expected family contribution,” or EFC, than the amount their family or they themselves can actually afford to pay for school. The organization currently has five fellows in New Orleans. Beginning next year, Baird hopes branch out to three cities per year over the next three years. Baird came up with the idea for crowdfunded college aid while she was working as press secretary for the Governor of Kentucky; this idea developed further as she joined the the Louisiana Association of Public Charter Schools as its communications director. “When meeting with constituents out around the state, an issue faced by families time and time again — and especially those from underserved communities — was a deep and profound concern over paying for higher education,” she told VentureBeat in an interview. “The notion of inequality around access to higher education due to financial constraints resonated with me. While there are numerous high-level organizations working to prepare low-income students academically for college, there are no organizations to help them bridge that gap financially.” Here’s a demo video showing more about why Takeashine is important and how it works:  Baird said her strong “belief that technology is a profound vehicle” prodded her to apply the crowdfunding model — a buzzword if ever there was one — to a real-world problem and try to make a difference. Baird told us that college micro-lending programs do exist, but none use the crowdfunding approach. “Takeashine is different because it focuses specifically on low-income, underserved student populations for whom college is especially cost prohibitive, and the money comes as a kind of investment in the student’s future instead of a loan that must be repaid,” she said. She also said that the organization plans to scale “in a pretty rapid fashion in order to serve as many students as possible as quickly as possible.” Baird continued, “People frequently talk about housing bubbles and tech bubbles, but what’s often ignored is the massive higher education bubble that has caused the cost of college tuition to skyrocket over the past decade. College is now placed out of reach for many families, and in particular students from low-income backgrounds. “The most worrisome part of this is that this trend of extreme college costs doesn’t appear to have any end in sight, making this a major hurdle both currently and well into the future.” Takeashine is part of the Social Entrepreneurs of New Orleans New Venture Accelerator. This incubator program has allowed the startup to launch its pilot class of fellows, who are raising funds through December 15, 2011. On February 1, 2012, the Takeashine platform will open to all students in New Orleans. “The locations we plan on targeting next are primarily in various stages of post-recession recovery, such as Detroit,” said Baird. Each location would have its own program director to manage operations and help both students and donors. Takeashine is currently in the early stages of exploring funding and partnership options with larger organizations. “Takeashine has the potential to not only directly changes the lives of students, but to change the way we approach the community’s role in the process of educational access,” Baird concluded. “I think technology’s ability to create large-scale social impact is only getting started.” Filed under: VentureBeat            This posting includes an audio/video/photo media file: Download Now |
|
Posted: 06 Oct 2011 01:33 PM PDT
 Sal Khan, a YouTube phenomenon, is on a stage talking to higher education professionals about how he’s disrupting their business. How he got here is an interesting story that has everything to do with money.“I can’t claim to be a Mother Teresa, but the fact that helping people is more important than making money is just reality,” he told us. In 2006, Khan was working in the world of hedge funds. To help his young cousins who were struggling with science and math concepts in grade school, he started tutoring them remotely via a series of YouTube videos. This work, which became known as the Khan Academy and has turned into his full-time job, was less about financial profit and more about helping people who desperately needed a higher quality education. Today, five years later, Khan has made more than 2,600 micro-lessons and posted them on YouTube. They’re all free for anyone to watch; yet somehow, without revenue, Khan feels he is more successful than he was in the world of finance. Now, Khan is addressing a room of industry professionals at the Future of State Universities Conference in Dallas, talking about how technology can be used to give everyone a better education. The conference brought together education influencers from around the world, including university heads, state governors and policy makers. Moments before he spoke to them, Khan took a moment to talk with VentureBeat, and he gave us some amazing insights about work, money, happiness and the value of helping others. When he started the Khan Academy, he said, “Helping people felt good. Not good enough to quit my job, but all of the sudden, the idea that I could reach millions on a regular basis and transform their lives, it made a lasting impact. That mental model, being able to do that rather than racking up points on a scoreboard, it’s a no-brainer.” Back in his hedge fund days, Khan said he saw financial gain as “a way for me to prove myself, a scoring mechanism.” These days, thanks to the guidance of mentors who had plenty of money but placed a greater emphasis on morality and family, Khan said he sees wealth in a new light. “If you have enough money to buy a house and a couple Hondas, you have everything you need. Beyond that, you should be optimizing for your happiness.” Currently, the Khan Academy operates on funding from donations and support from various foundations, but Khan says, “The social ROI is pretty huge… We hope that it’s sustainable so we can stay 100 percent focused on the mission.” He also notes that the Khan Academy is becoming a powerful brand name in education. “We’re delivering value. And there are models we can leverage while still keeping our core content free.” We asked Khan what industries other than education could stand a good shake-up from the tech industry. “I think the big one is healthcare,” said Khan. “Both education and healthcare are a huge part of our society, and both, because of structural strangeness, have been hard to change. “But it’s obvious there’s room for change. I suspect that the best way to help this industry is to rethink it from the ground up. I’m sure people thought that was very hard to do for education, but we created a clean slate.” Khan finished off our conversation with a comment on one of the most powerful and overarching forces in the world: Political freedom. “I think democracy itself is undergoing a transformation,” he said. “Look at what’s going on in the Middle East. Because of cross-border communication, it’s changing what it means to be a nation.” Filed under: VentureBeat            This posting includes an audio/video/photo media file: Download Now |
|
Posted: 06 Oct 2011 01:27 PM PDT
 Recently, I've had several conversations with the heads of marketing at large brands that surprised me. They have opt-in mobile lists of hundreds of thousands, if not millions, of consumers who have raised their hands and said, "Yes, I love your brand and want to receive information from you on my mobile phone."A marketer's dream, right? Yes and no. Most marketers intuitively understand there is value in building mobile opt-in lists, but wonder "What do I do next?" There is a tremendous opportunity to create conversations with consumers, promote products and services in timely ways, and gain key insights like location and time of day preferences. But, more often than not, marketers are choosing not to do anything with their mobile lists because they are afraid about have messages be perceived as spam or they are too busy fueling the content machines of Google, Facebook, and Twitter. We can do better than this. It's time to for marketers to unleash the power of their mobile lists and data. Although mobile engagement is still an emerging discipline, savvy marketers are transforming the power of mobile opt-in lists into marketing gold. Here are a few tips marketers need to start paying attention to or risk losing customers to their competition. Start with Smart DataRight now, you probably have unsynchronized consumer data in your mobile marketing platform, your email marketing solution, and your CRM system, among other places. This is a problem. And, it will only get worse over time.According to a recent Gartner report, enterprise data is expected to grow 650 percent in the next five years. Given the amount of time and energy it takes to acquire new customers, it's ironic that little is being done to effectively manage–and capitalize on–current customers' data. By embracing data in different places as an untapped asset, it'll help you cultivate new relationships and strengthen existing ones. Start with something as simple as matching mobile numbers with email addresses to create compelling promotional offers, for example. If a marketer isn't comfortable reaching out to consumers on their cell phone, then they can always continue the conversation in email and realize higher response rates than normal–given these are the same consumers who have opted-in to receive mobile communications from you (a much higher bar than standard email communications). How Ford Uses Mobile Engagement to Drive LeadsThe last three years, Ford has sponsored the American Idols LIVE! Tour and successfully transformed mobile engagement at a concert into tens of thousands of leads. This year, the campaign began at the concert when American Idol fans were given the opportunity to use their mobile phones to enter to win a "Meet the Idols" backstage pass after the show. Everyone who entered the contest was then given the option to provide their email addresses and receive more information about the Ford Fusion. This simple activation not only helped Ford connect mobile numbers to email addresses that were later used in direct marketing promotions, but directly tied to lead matching for new car buyers.Tap Mobile for its Best PurposeBefore you can start your journey, you need to know where you're going. What channel should be used for what communication? Do you want to grow new relationships and/or build depth into your existing relationships? How might you extend your event or brand experience after it ends? How do you measure success? And, how do you tie your mobile promotions into other marketing campaigns to maximize impact? These are all questions that you need to answer before you can begin.Mobile presents the most compelling channel for building the database. For example Clorox was able to drive a similar number of database opt-ins using the mobile channel at concerts as it did with its always-on online channel. Considering that interactive digital spending still accounts for less than 20% of overall media and promotions spending, according to Forrester, no brand should be leaving its media and event spending untouched with mobile calls to action and mobile list building. Be Relevant and Respectful to Earn TrustConsumer trust is most critical when you're engaging with them on their most intimate communication device–their cell phone. Always gain proper permissions by requiring a clear opt-in process. By requiring the additional step to join your mobile list, you guarantee a higher percentage of qualified and loyal fans who will not mistake your text for spam. Know that consumers are still looking to be in touch with the right message at the right time. Pew Research recently reported that 31% consumers prefer to be reached by text messaging. A text message is perfect for timely and scarce content that can drive a "first to know" feel to info or merchandise.As we head into 2012, you will see more examples of smart mobile engagement strategies that fuel clean and improved database building. Marketers are making the move to take mobile beyond a brand experience and leveraging it to build a long-term relationship with powerful and quantifiable results. It's time to unleash the power of mobile.  Dorrian Porter is the founder and CEO of Mozes. He is an entrepreneur who co-founded HigherMarkets, an on-demand software company in March 2000. He later became CEO and led it to its acquisition by a Nasdaq listed company in 2002.Filed under: mobile, VentureBeat            This posting includes an audio/video/photo media file: Download Now |
|
Posted: 06 Oct 2011 12:48 PM PDT
 Enterprise mobile software company Enterproid, which lets Android device owners split their phone between business and personal profiles with its Divide software, announced Thursday it has raised $11 million in funding. Enterproid launched at the Demo Spring 2011 conference back in March, and even then we had a feeling these guys had a smart idea. Business users don’t want to carry two phones, one for work and one for personal (believe me, I know). The Divide software makes it super simple to switch between two profiles on one phone, and it wraps the business profile in an extra layer of security. The IT departments at companies can use the Enterproid Divide software too. IT pros can remotely wipe business profiles from company phones without getting rid of personal data, and they can see which phones are accessing business databases. “Employees bringing their own devices to work is a growing phenomenon, and Enterproid has found a solution for the challenge it creates for businesses’ privacy and security,” said Dave Zilberman, Principal at Comcast Ventures, in a statement. “We think Enterproid provides meaningful customer value, has the potential to disrupt an industry and, most importantly, changes the way people live, work and interact.” Enterproid’s $11 million in first-round funding was led by Comcast Ventures, with participation from Google Ventures and Qualcomm Ventures. Filed under: DEMO, enterprise, mobile            This posting includes an audio/video/photo media file: Download Now |
|
Posted: 06 Oct 2011 12:21 PM PDT
 When I was an eighth-grader in 1980, living here in Honolulu, I used to beg my mother to let me spend Saturdays at a neighborhood computer store, so I could play with (and learn about) the Apple II computers they were selling.When VisiCalc came out, one of the original spreadsheet programs, I taught myself how to use it and demonstrated its features and usefulness to the occasional customer. Frankly, most seemed more curious about what the heck a boy was doing with a computer that was supposed to be an office tool than what the Apple could actually do. Four years later, now in high school in Washington, D.C., I attended an Apple Users' Group meeting featuring members of the original Macintosh team, demonstrating an entirely new home computer. I remember being in awe of the ease with which a mouse click changed the margins on a word-processing document which then reflowed instantly. The designers talked about having built a computer that they themselves wanted to use, rather than what customers were telling them they wanted. I didn't understand it then, but what they were talking about was how you create a new market, rather than limit yourself to the definition of an existing market. It requires a leap of faith, thinking differently. The Mac's screen was white, not black, so it would look and feel more natural, like paper. It was "user-friendly," and it had a unique "look and feel." Even the vocabulary used to describe this tool was new. With Steve Jobs at the helm, Apple always went its own way. He built products that he thought "the rest of us" would want to use, and he built them with utter confidence that we would. Steve was comfortable with leaps of faith. He urged us to "think different," and in the process he fundamentally changed the way we thought about technology. Before Steve, computer technology was considered by most people to be an office tool: nothing more than the next generation of adding machines. Or maybe a hobbyists' plaything, something to tinker around with in the garage. With his historic George Orwell "1984" Super Bowl ad, he challenged us to reject the status quo, and embrace a new vision. With the design of the Macintosh, he understood that the aesthetics of a tool were as important as — or more than — its functionality. A decade or so later, Steve made a crucial breakthrough with the iPod and the beginning of the digital revolution in media. The iPod and the iTunes Store began to change the computer from a tool into something personal, something that we became attached to because it reflected who we were, or wanted to be. And then, he changed the world again with the iPhone. Instead of simply being a phone, he envisioned a tool with no buttons, and a natural user interface that we would interact with using our fingers on smooth glass, as if we were directly touching whatever was displayed on the screen. A phone with no buttons — another leap of faith. He taught us to stretch and rotate photos with our fingers. He also taught us the Zen of touch-screen auto-correction typing, something which admittedly some of us do better than others. In hindsight, the iPad seems a natural evolution from the iPhone, but at the time it was another leap. There is a sense of contact and physicalness that its apps provide, and in the process the iPad has become much more than a simple tool. From the very beginning of Apple, Steve had a vision of the positive impact technology could have on people's lives. He was unique among most technologists, because he constantly innovated on both the hardware and the software, humanizing technology more and more with each new product. And in the process, the technology he created went from being just an occasional tool to being a constant companion. With Steve's passing, we've lost someone who had a historic impact not only on how we use technology, but on how we think about it. Losing him at such a young age makes me wonder what other breakthroughs and leaps of faith he would have made in the coming decades. For me, Steve's legacy won't be limited to these breakthrough products, however. More important than the products themselves, he changed the way we think — and how we think about something is often the hardest thing to change. This makes Steve's successes all that much more remarkable. Steve challenged the world to "think different," and he didn't limit that to his company's products. In a very real sense, thinking differently has the effect of expanding our world and our reach — our view of what we can accomplish. Steve expanded our world with technology, but he also showed us that thinking differently is indeed how we can change the world. And for that, I am truly thankful for his passion, his example and his inspiration.  Pierre Omidyar is the founder of eBay. This article originally appeared on his Honolulu-based news site, CivilBeat.com. [Image via Rob Janoff (Apple) Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons.] Filed under: VentureBeat            This posting includes an audio/video/photo media file: Download Now |
|
Posted: 06 Oct 2011 11:58 AM PDT
 The classic book “How To Win Friends and Influence People” by Dale Carnegie (pictured) was first published in 1936. This week, a new edition of the title was released, and it is packed with all new information for the digital era.Over the past 75 years or so, while our means and ways have shifted toward the electronic, our motives have remained fairly constant. We still want people to like us. We still need people to do us favors. We still need to balance the personal and the professional in our friendships. “One cannot argue that the fundamental techniques originally crafted by Carnegie, including how to be genuinely interested in other people, how to be a good listener and how to win people to your way of thinking by having them respect you, are not long-standing theories,” said Peter Handal, chief executive at Dale Carnegie & Associates, in an interview with VentureBeat. “However, with Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn and blogging, our workplace is forever changed. Gone are the days of building a friendship through face-to-face communications; instead we resort to email, texting, phone calls and video sessions for meetings.” But Handal says we can still succeed in being professional, likable and helpful to others using these new media and Carnegie’s original philosophies. “The principles are even more relevant today,” he said. “The original ‘How To Win Friends and Influence People’ was written during the 1930s when we were in the Great Depression and employment was at an all-time low. It's fair to argue that we are again in an economic downturn where it's difficult for leaders and small businesses to flourish. This fact alone means that the book is still relevant.” Handal also told us that the original book’s overarching principle, which remains intact in the new version, is still applicable and encompasses all best practices for our online interactions. “Influencing others is not necessarily about being the smartest, but it is about discerning what people truly want and offering them a solution,” he said. “When we say to influence people online to gain friends, it really means listen to their conversation. By listening and then participating, which can be done through leaving comments on a blog or sending a thoughtful email, you are swaying them to your side of the conversation.” There’s almost no profession that the online world doesn’t touch. Teachers, CEOs, store clerks, customer service reps and many other offline workers are impacted professionally by their Facebook activity and other online comings and goings. “I don't think you could name one employer who wasn't using the Internet to check your background,” said Handal. “No matter what your profession is — if you're in sales, a babysitter or an executive of a Fortune 500 company — what you're doing online does matter.” Of course, these concepts, both how to behave professionally and how to be professional online, aren’t new. But Handal says this book’s revamping brings something new to the table. It not only shows us how to avoid hurting ourselves with our online behavior; it also tell us how we can take these online tools and be proactive about using them to benefit our careers and lives. Filed under: VentureBeat            This posting includes an audio/video/photo media file: Download Now |
|
Posted: 06 Oct 2011 11:56 AM PDT
 Atlassian, maker of cost-hosting service Bitbucket, has acquired SourceTree, a Mac client for Git and Mercurial distributed version control systems and Subversion source control.For a limited time, Atlassian is making SourceTree free for all in an attempt to attract more users. The app can be downloaded from the Mac App Store and via direct download from the SourceTree website. Steve Streeting, the original SourceTree developer, is now working for Atlassian and will continue working on his app. In the future, SourceTree will get more resources from Atlassian to allow for more customer support and product integration. "SourceTree has won over the hearts and minds of its customer base by building a brilliantly engineered app," Atlassian chief executive and co-founder Mike Cannon-Brookes said in a release. "[It] provides serious relief to the headache of managing multiple repositories, letting you manage and interface with multiple Git and Hg repositories visually through a client instead of the command line." In the same release, Streeting stated, “Atlassian was the perfect place for SourceTree to set down new roots. I’m looking rolling up my sleeves and taking SourceTree to new heights.” Atlassian also announced that Bitbucket now supports Git. Over the past year, Atlassian said the number of Bitbucket accounts has tripled. In adding Git support, Atlassian hopes to bring even more users into the fold by offering customers the ability to use both Git and Mercurial repositories in a single code hosting service without limiting the number of repositories (both private and public) each user can create. The company is offering unlimited private and Git repositories for teams of five developers free of charge. Cannon-Brookes told VentureBeat that while he sees Bitbucket and its most popular competitor, Github, as having slightly different foci (Github skews toward open-source projects and public code repositories, while he says Bitbucket is more focused on private repositories for teams), he admits there’s a fair amount of overlap between the two. “We believe Bitbucket offers more choice and greater flexibility for its users: support for both Mercurial and now Git, and unlimited private repositories,” he said. “Developers don’t get penalized by forking and sharing code privately. Bitbucket is priced based on the number of collaborators, not the amount of work those collaborates do. “SourceTree similarly is about developer choice and flexibility. SourceTree supports Mercurial, Git, and Subversion. And you can connect SourceTree to a variety of code hosting services, including Bitbucket and Github.”  Check out DevBeat, VentureBeat’s brand new channel specifically for developers. The channel will break relevant news and provide insightful commentary aimed to assist developers. DevBeat is sponsored by the Intel AppUp developer program.Filed under: dev, VentureBeat            This posting includes an audio/video/photo media file: Download Now |
|
Posted: 06 Oct 2011 11:32 AM PDT
 If you were expecting more from Apple this week than just the iPhone 4S, Samsung’s upcoming Nexus Prime should satisfy your gadget lust. The next entry in Google’s flagship Nexus series of Android phones, the Nexus Prime will sport a massive 4.65-inch display with curved glass, a 1.2-gigahertz dual core CPU, and LTE 4G connectivity, according to the mobile site Boy Genius Report. Google and Samsung will unveil the phone officially at the CTIA conference in San Diego next week. The phone is expected to be a Verizon Wireless exclusive for now. Given its specs, it now makes sense that Verizon decided not to offer one of Samsung’s Galaxy S II models. The Nexus Prime will be the first phone to run the Android 4.0 operating system, which goes by the codename “Ice Cream Sandwich.” The phone’s massive display will run at a sharp 1280 by 720 pixel resolution, or the equivalent to a 720p high-definition screen. That should address fidelity concerns that many have with larger-screened phones. The 9 millimeter thin phone will pack 1 gigabyte of RAM, 32 GB of built-in storage, and near-field communication (NFC) support. The phone will have a 5-megapixel rear camera (Apple’s iPhone 4S has an upgraded 8MP camera), and a 1.2 MP front camera. It can record video at up to 1080p HD resolution. The Prime, like the Nexus devices before it, will serve as the model Android phone for other manufacturers to follow for the next year. While the recently announced iPhone 4S is no slouch when it comes to hardware — Apple upgraded its processor to the speedy dual-core A5 — it’s possible that Apple’s reliance on the iPhone 4′s design, in particular the smaller 3.5-inch screen, could make it seem less compelling compared to larger-screened Android phones. Filed under: mobile, VentureBeat            This posting includes an audio/video/photo media file: Download Now |
|
Posted: 06 Oct 2011 10:04 AM PDT
 Twitter officially opened the doors of its New York office today, and even New York City Mayor Mike Bloomberg showed up.Twitter executive chairman and Square CEO Jack Dorsey joined Bloomberg on stage to announce the opening, coming at a somber time, since Apple’s Steve Jobs passed away yesterday. But Dorsey kept the conversation light and even offered Bloomberg a job, saying, “I know you have an engineering degree, Mr. Mayor, and you may be looking for a new job soon. We're hiring.” Dorsey said New York has a burgeoning tech community that can help the company with talent. He also noted that New York is the most active city on Twitter, so it the city is a natural fit for the company. "New York has the most Twitter users of any city in the world and the biggest community of Twitter developers outside of California," Dorsey reportedly said. Maybe more importantly, New York’s connections to some of the biggest players in advertising could open new doors for the social media company in generating revenues. Twitter has more than 30 employees in New York already, but the new office at 340 Madison Avenue will be able to hold 100 people if the company wants to expand further. Twitter’s integration into New York’s growing tech scene will no doubt be welcomed by other startup owners who want New York’s creativity and ingenuity recognized. Filed under: social            This posting includes an audio/video/photo media file: Download Now |
|
Posted: 06 Oct 2011 09:00 AM PDT
 Editor’s note: This story contains some spoilers.Uncharted 3: Drake’s Deception will be one of the best video games of the year, no question. The burning secret is really just how good this game will be. Based on my hands-on preview at Sony’s Silicon Valley game headquarters yesterday, I think it’s going to be an outstanding game.  Playing through two levels and watching a third has convinced me that this game is going to be another blockbuster, similar to Uncharted 2: Among Thieves, which I thought was the best video game of 2009 and one of the best video games ever made.The new game will have stereoscopic 3D viewing, a new story and a new enemy in the evil Katherine Marlowe. But it will feature some of the same characters that were so memorable in Uncharted 2. The Uncharted game series debuted in 2006 with the launch of the PlayStation 3. With each installment, Uncharted has been getting better. The visuals are so well done that you can’t tell the difference between cinematics, which are pre-scripted movies that advance the story, and actual game play. The action seamlessly moves back and forth between cinematics and game play, resulting in a feeling of total immersion in a blockbuster movie. Uncharted: Drake’s Fortune was the first title in the series developed by Sony-owned game studio Naughty Dog. The second game was far more advanced, striking the right balance of great movie-like cinematics that advanced the story, harrowing combat scenes where you took on helicopters, and outstanding graphics and physics, such as a firefight that took place aboard a physically accurate moving train.  No one had made such a true next-generation game before by innovating on so many fronts. I can still remember trying to take out that damned attack helicopter that kept coming back, the swaying train where you had to deal with the movement of the train even as you fired shots, and the breathtaking graphics that allowed you to see for miles across a Himalayan city. And it was all tied together with a story that was emotionally moving and had great humor — like when one heroine says to Drake’s new girl, “I’m last year’s model.”Drake is a lot like Indiana Jones, but he is an ordinary person thrown into impossible situations. He always struggles with his profession as an archaeological thief, raising the question of whether he is a common thief or a decent human being. The voice acting and animations portray Drake as fallible, wobbly and self-deprecating. The only unbelievable aspect of the game is that, statistically speaking, there is no way that an ordinary person like Drake would survive half of the tight spots he is thrown into, like when he takes out a whole bunch of enemies when he is both wounded and tired. Uncharted 2 was 26 chapters long and had a great deal of variety. The new game is going to have dozens of levels as well, and it looks like sand is going to be one of the ever-present environmental effects in the game. The game play is both familiar and novel.  I started by playing a level called the French Chateau, which is an old multi-story building that is being consumed by flames in a most spectacular way. In this level, Drake and his old friend Sully have to escape a burning building even as they deal with large numbers of thugs shooting at them. Drake has to climb walls, scoot along ledges, and tiptoe across balance beams to get to safety.With Uncharted’s combat, you have to duck behind cover and shoot when you have a chance to surprise your enemy. You can use a variety of weapons, but you can’t carry the whole kitchen sink with you. Enemies can cause you trouble, particularly when they shoot at you while you’re in a precarious position on a ledge. The fire animations in the game look outstanding. They give off a roar when you open the doors and a gust of wind blows flames right into your face. The colors of the environment are still sharper and more vibrant than you would ordinarily see in real life. You have to jump from one platform or pipe to another as they collapse into the burning flames. The second level I played was the “Cargo Plane,” which Sony revealed at E3 in June. On this level, the scene starts with a long cinematic that reveals more of the relationship between Drake and Elena, the heroine from the love triangle of Uncharted 2. You feel a tug of emotion as Drake moves on to certain doom and forces himself to separate from Elena. Drake shoots his way to the giant cargo plane, which begins taking off. Elena returns in a jeep and enables Drake to jump onto the landing gear of the plane and board it just as it’s taking off. That’s a true Hollywood action scene. From there, Drake is in for a wild ride. He gets into a nasty fight with a big enemy and the hatch ramp of the cargo plane opens. Everything starts sliding down the ramp and flying out the door. Meanwhile, a bunch of bad guys arrive and start shooting machine guns.  Just as with the French Chateau, Drake has a few ways to die and is caught between the enemies and the danger of falling off the moving plane. The physics of the gun battle are a lot like the one on the train. Drake has to dodge big crates that are sliding off the plane even as he tries to shoot at the enemies. The scene is a tour de force in graphics and physics.Sony also shared a brand new level with me. In this “Settlement” level, Drake has been searching for the fabled “Atlantis of the Sands,” a lost city of the Arabian Peninsula. He has been wandering through the Rub’ al Khali desert for several days. He’s hallucinating, needs water, and finds a deserted town. He starts making his way through the town, searching for water and talking to himself.  Then he runs into a whole gaggle of bad guys working for Katherine Marlowe, the new villain. They attack with machine guns. Drake disarms one of them and it becomes a fair fight. In this level, Naughty Dog showed off a few new innovations in the game play. Drake can now pick up a hand grenade that has been thrown at him and toss it back.He can shoot at pillars and cause them to collapse, causing a whole building or roof to cave in. And he can tactically disarm a rival with his bare hands. Some of the enemies are hard to kill, since they’re wearing armor and helmets. He can pull a pin out of a grenade on a rival’s belt and then kick him away so that the enemy blows up. As the screen fades to block, you can see a spinning silver ring which belonged to explorer Sir Francis Drake. That ring plays a significant role in the story. But we’ll have to wait until Nov. 1 to find out what it means. That’s the day Sony will release the game on the PS 3. Clearly, this game is going to be a contender for game of the year. Filed under: games, VentureBeat            This posting includes an audio/video/photo media file: Download Now |
| You are subscribed to email updates from VentureBeat To stop receiving these emails, you may unsubscribe now. | Email delivery powered by Google |
| Google Inc., 20 West Kinzie, Chicago IL USA 60610 | |