VentureBeat |
- What happened to Multiverse? The inside story of its closure and the truth about that Firefly MMO
- Cool private companies: Software to helps companies tackle risk and reward
- League of Legends developer takes anti-SOPA stance, urges players to write to Congress
- Denver-Boulder Companies: Get feedback from VentureBeat and Foundry Group
- Apple and Amazon outrank eBay and Best Buy in holiday mobile satisfaction survey
- The magical (and sometimes ridiculous) gadgets of tomorrow
- Cerf on science: The father of the Internet talks string theory, the physics of Angry Birds & more
- Sony exec confirms no PlayStation 4 at this year’s E3
- Justin Bieber makes a dancing robot even cooler at CES
- Striive tells me I walked 8,686 steps at CES today (video)
- Google+ Hangouts get bigger video player, screen sharing available to all
- DC Universe Online exec talks about the game’s future and competition from Star Wars (interview)
- Microsoft’s live TV service for Xbox is dead
- Google creating its own social game using Google Maps
- Doctor-booking site ZocDoc adds ex-senators to its board
- 400K publishers rejoice: Facebook’s commenting system now works on mobile
- Hands-on with the unique Sony Xperia Ion and Xperia S smartphones (video, pics)
- FCC chairman Julius Genachowski warns of looming wireless spectrum crunch
- Hands-on with Nokia’s best phone in years (pics, video)
- Why Google’s new search tools might have Twitter ready to sue
- Dylan’s Desk: 6 must-watch trends for 2012
- Everything you need to know about Facebook’s potential IPO (infographic)
- Sony is bringing its Music Unlimited streaming service to iOS soon
- IBM security software knows your job and what you’re allowed to do
- Shazam Player is the be-all, end-all music app for the lyrically challenged
- Apple announces education event Jan. 19 — iTextbooks coming?
- Stratfor site is back online after recovering from Anonymous attack
- Google’s new social search: How far can you trust it?
- Game streaming service OnLive to be preloaded on all Google TVs
| What happened to Multiverse? The inside story of its closure and the truth about that Firefly MMO Posted: 12 Jan 2012 09:00 AM PST On December 7, 2011, gaming-platform creator Multiverse Network ceased operations. Formed in 2004, Multiverse was looking to change the world of massively multiplayer online games (MMOs) by empowering independent game developers to create their own virtual worlds, with minimal start up costs. By 2008 Multiverse had acquired licenses for two of the most popular TV franchises in recent history, namely Buffy The Vampire Slayer and Firefly, and had Hollywood legends James Cameron and Jon Landau on its advisory panel. Roll forward three years, and the closure of the company was announced with the following low key statement: Although thousands of developers showed interest in the Multiverse Platform, Multiverse wasn’t able to achieve a profitable business model. As a result, Multiverse ceased operations in December 2011 due to lack of funding. In an attempt to examine what happened at Multiverse, I have spoken with some of the key figures in its story. They have shared their experiences of working with the platform, their thoughts on where things went wrong, and their hopes for the future of the virtual world technology. Between 2004 and 2006, the Multiverse team, headed by a group of Netscape veterans, were building the platform they hoped would alter the face of virtual worlds and MMO games for good. On the back of the MMO boom, which saw future big hitters like Star Wars Galaxies, World of Warcraft and Everquest enter the market, independent developers were keen to take on their own projects, and create their own virtual worlds. Multiverse created a technology solution to support just that. The platform would allow development teams to bypass many of the prohibitive challenges of game creation, by providing "a comprehensive, pre-coded client-server infrastructure and tools, a wide range of free content – including a complete game for modification – and a built-in market of consumers."
The Beta build of the Multiverse development platform launched in 2006, and Patrick Hamilton, of Wardog Studios was involved in those early days of the emerging technology. Hamilton speaks fondly of that time, explaining "We had participated with Multiverse during the Austin Game Developer Conferences in 2006 and 2007. From my standpoint, those were good years, as there was a lot of momentum and positive outlook. I would say the support from Multiverse for us was great during that time." In May 2007, things were looking very positive for Multiverse. The company reported that over 10,000 development teams had signed up to use its platform. Over 150 teams had begun building projects, ranging from fantasy and science fiction MMOs to educational worlds designed to teach users math, science and the works of William Shakespeare. On the back of its business model, Multiverse raised $4.175 million in Series A funding, to be used to hire additional staff, complete version 1.0 of the platform and launch its network of games the following year. Multiverse was also making strong connections with Hollywood at this time. Headlines were made when it was announced in Dec 2006 that Multiverse had acquired the rights to produce an MMO based on the popular TV show Firefly. At the time, Corey Bridges said that "Fox’s Firefly series is set in an incredibly rich and exciting universe. It’s going to make a very compelling and unique online experience filled with adventure, humor, and mystery.” The appeal of a Firefly MMO as a Multiverse property was undeniable. Bill Turpin, co-founder and CEO of Multiverse Network, remarked that "Firefly will bring in even more consumers, making the network that much more attractive to developers of other worlds." Multiverse also acquired the rights to produce a Buffy The Vampire Slayer MMO game, in Sep 2008. Academy Award winning producer Jon Landau made the announcement, saying “Multiverse has the vision and expertise to create the type of rich environment needed for the best possible game based on the ‘Buffy’ series. The resources are in place to develop a great MMOG.”
While the reasons for the cancellation of the Firefly MMO are not entirely clear, Bridges is adamant that "Fox were wonderfully supportive partners. They were thrilled that we were making a Firefly game. Related to that, I can further say that none of the partners involved were unhappy with what we were building." The cancellation apparently came as the result of "an unexpected legal issue from a completely unexpected quarter. It was arcane and odd and tragic." Away from the big name rights acquisitions, work by independent developers was continuing apace on the Multiverse platform. However 2008 saw the start of the global financial crisis, which brought with it problems for developers and platform holder alike. With Multiverse so geared towards helping out smaller, independent development teams, it was perhaps no wonder that the economic downturn would affect the company's fortunes more than most. "The world economy went to hell three years ago," explains Bridges, "which not only froze investment and discretionary spending by big media companies, it made the indie developers, our bread and butter, drop their “extra-curricular” projects, like building an MMO on Multiverse, in favor of putting more time into their day jobs." Adrian Wright, of Max Gaming Technologies, was a developer involved with Multiverse from the start of the Beta in 2006. His game, Dark Horizons: The Awakening made it as far as the private beta stage, but sadly never made it to full release. Wright explains how the global economic downturn affected his project: "We halted production on it because we had to take on work that paid us instead of us spending our money building our own game." With independent developers cutting back on their projects, Multiverse was also forced to make financial adjustments of its own. Corey Bridges takes up the story, explaining "as our revenues dipped, we had to manage our cash flow responsibly. So from that time onward, we moved at a slower pace with platform development than we originally wanted. And in the video game business, as dynamic–as full-on chaotic–as it is, moving more slowly makes it difficult to keep pace with the significant changes that occur almost month-to-month….Developing more slowly [also] made it difficult to finish some of the original technology as quickly as we’d planned. So parts of the platform remained not quite finished." Jono Vanderkolk, a member of the Multiverse community at the time, says that "general community interaction (by the company) was more or less severed, as Multiverse Inc. had to let go the community staff, so the community developers more or less ran things themselves, in the form of inter-developer support."
Wright explains "We were asked by Multiverse to use their platform to build their Flash based MMO for MMO players instead of for young kids. Realms at War was much more like World of Warcraft than Club Penguin. We had features [such as] a full skill system and a huge world for players to explore. We were very proud to make a grownup MMO that people could play in their browsers." The technology on which Battle was based was intended to be rolled out to Multiverse developers, enabling them to take their own games down this route. As Patrick Hamilton explains though, "While the news for the implementation with social networks [through a flash client] was welcomed, there were continued delays. We were waiting for the source code for this capability, but this was not available and as months went by without [news], I had finally come to accept that we would need to move on." This was in the Spring on 2009, shortly after Multiverse had received $2.4M in angel funding, to help sustain itself through 2010. Filed under: games, VentureBeat        
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| Cool private companies: Software to helps companies tackle risk and reward Posted: 12 Jan 2012 08:30 AM PST As a software securities analyst for investment banking firm Canaccord Genuity, Richard Davis spends 200 days a year on the road visiting companies. He goes to public companies such as Oracle and Salesforce.com, but he also visits up-and-coming software companies he thinks will go public in the near future. In his new column, Davis talks about some candidates he thinks may be ripe for the IPO class of 2012 or 2013.
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| League of Legends developer takes anti-SOPA stance, urges players to write to Congress Posted: 12 Jan 2012 07:00 AM PST Riot Games, developer of popular free-to-play online game League of Legends, has announced its opposition to the Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA). Chief Executive Office Brandon Beck announced in a forum statement "While we do support efforts to prevent online piracy, the current form of this legislation comes at far too high a cost for us, our players, and online communities across the internet." The SOPA bill is intended to target rogue websites and prevent piracy, but critics say it will stifle creativity, cost jobs and curb free speech. If it passes, SOPA will give the U.S. government and copyright holders the authority to seek court orders against websites associated with infringing, pirating or counterfeiting intellectual property. League of Legends has more than 30 million registered players, and Beck has reached out to them, saying "We're not usually inclined to comment on politics. We're a game company, and making games is just a whole lot more fun. But there is legislation under consideration today by the United States Congress that gives us serious concern." Beck explains how SOPA would specifically affect League of Legends, with the potential loss of the game's online forums and restrictions on the sharing of game videos and live streams, due to copyright concerns. He adds that SOPA may "raise serious constitutional free speech issues, and could even compromise the basic security infrastructure of the internet." Community news sharing site Reddit recently announced that it plans to shut down on Jan 18 in protest of the proposed SOPA legislation. Speaking on a dedicated Reddit thread, Riot Games' Attorney, going by the user name RiotLomar, said that while his company is not currently considering a blackout of its own, "nothing is off the table." He explains how he believes SOPA opponents can help prevent the bill from passing: "Where we can ultimately win, is in public action.….Congressmen, whatever you think of them, will always value votes over money. If a single Congressman receives enough letters, they will respond. If you make this an election issue – that’s how you kill SOPA". He adds "I’d much rather anyone saved the time it would take to fill out a petition to write your Congressperson. And to bug everyone you know to do the same." Riot Games is not the only gaming company that has come out against the controversial SOPA bill. Major League Gaming, a professional electronic sports operation, has stated it is "firmly against both the specifics of SOPA and the philosophy behind the bill." Epic Games, creator of the hit Gears of War series, has also declined to support the SOPA legislation, in its current form. You can keep up with news on SOPA by following VentureBeat's ongoing coverage. Filed under: games, VentureBeat        
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| Denver-Boulder Companies: Get feedback from VentureBeat and Foundry Group Posted: 12 Jan 2012 06:00 AM PST
If so you’ll want to apply for a special meetup we are hosting with one of Boulder’s most respected venture capitalists, Foundry Group. Basically, we’re offering awesome, free feedback about your idea. Here are the details: We're inviting 10 companies who plan to launch products soon to pitch their idea to a few key members at Foundry as well as to me (as DEMO Executive Producer, I select the companies to present at DEMO) on Wednesday, February 8. Ideally, we’re looking for companies contemplating launching products at DEMO Spring (held April 17-19 in the Silicon Valley), or in Fall (date TBA). Of course, as editor-in-chief of VentureBeat, I’m also on the prowl for great companies to write about too — so there either way, I’m interested in meeting ambitious entrepreneurs. We’ll also be co-hosting a party with AARP at the T-Zero Lounge from 6-8pm that evening where drinks will be on us. Register to attend here (AARP is also sponsoring full scholarships for three companies focused on the 50+ year old market to launch DEMO Spring in April. If interested in that opportunity, apply here). DEMO has become an incredible launch platform for startups, mid-level companies, and fully developed, publicly traded corporations to show off their new tech products to a captivated media audience, investors and other ecosystem players tracking innovation (many large Silicon Valley companies send their corporate or business development officers, for example). DEMO alumni recently hitting the news include Fusion-io, which went public this year, and SuccessFactors, which just got acquired by SAP for $3.4 billion. They add to the long list of successes, which includes companies like Salesforce.com, VMWare, WebEx and Palm. We’ve made a lot of changes to make DEMO even more compelling. A new scholarship program makes it free to attend for most early stage companies, and more affordable for later stage companies too (and we’re doing even more on that going forward). And we’re keeping the event in Silicon Valley, which we’ve found is helpful for most companies wanting to do deals and meetings while they’re here from out of town. If you’re interested in presenting your ideas to the DEMO team and the members at Foundry, please fill out this form. If you’re selected, we will get in touch with you immediately to explain the details and provide further explanation. We look forward to seeing you in Boulder! Filed under: DEMO, VentureBeat        
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| Apple and Amazon outrank eBay and Best Buy in holiday mobile satisfaction survey Posted: 11 Jan 2012 09:00 PM PST
Consumers were most satisfied with the shopping experiences on Apple and Amazon mobile sites or apps, according to new data released by market research firm ForeSee. ForSee collected data around the top 40 U.S. retailers’ websites and was able to produce statistically reliable satisfaction scores — on a 100-point scale — for 16 of the retailers’ mobile experiences. The scores are based on the responses from more than 3,000 visitors to apps and mobile sites. The average satisfaction across these sites was 76 out of 100.
On the whole, consumers graded their mobile retail experiences as inferior to the experiences they have on the web. The lesser-quality offering, however, isn’t preventing them from shopping via their mobile devices. Thirty-four percent of online shoppers used their cell phones to research products and 15 percent made a purchase directly from their device, according to ForSee, which counts that purchase stat as an 11 percent jump from last year. The data backs up previous reports from eBay, PayPal (an eBay company) and Amazon, all of which talked up their holiday 2011 mobile sales. But satisfaction does matter. Highly satisfied mobile shoppers are 54 percent more likely to consider the same company for a future similar purchase. They are also twice as likely to buy from the retailer's mobile app or store again. “The smartphone is a powerful shopping tool and a double-edged sword. Consumers will use it to research products and check a retailer's own site while they're in the store, but they'll also use it to compare prices and check out the competition," ForSee president and CEO Larry Freed said. "The gap between mobile experience and web experience is an opportunity for retailers as much as it is a liability. We know consumer expectations will only continue to grow, and right now Amazon and Apple are setting a very high bar.” Filed under: VentureBeat        
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| The magical (and sometimes ridiculous) gadgets of tomorrow Posted: 11 Jan 2012 07:09 PM PST Brian Lam is the editor of Wirecutter, a list of the very best gadgets. Hello! I just found a handful of wonderful technology in Las Vegas, an oasis in the desert, at CES, the country’s biggest electronics show. There are over 100,000 people here to see roughly 20,000 gadgets brought to the light of day in less time than it takes for a rattlesnake to shed its skin. Without hype, these are the gadgets that will be worth knowing about in 2012. I found about 9, with the help of my friends. (Below these, I’ve listed a few dozen that were lauded, but I believe are not very important, interesting, or relevant.) A HOBO PHONE: The most important phone at CES is the SpareOne, a simple phone that can run off of an AA battery—perfect for stashing as an emergency phone along with a prepaid SIM card. ART CAMERA: This is the only gadget at the show that melts my heart every time I think about it. Fuji has a new interchangable lens camera called the XPro-1 that follows up their adored X100 street camera, which even regular people lusted after. Why? The X100 looks like a rangefinder/leica, manual controls when you needed them, and took great photos with its fast, fixed lens. X1-Pro camera is the followup that will have changeable lenses and potentially be able to use Leica M mount lenses with an adapter, said Fuji. It will also have an awesome lens collection of three primes: a wide, 50mm equivalent and a modest zoom macro. These are the kinds of fast lenses that can give your photos those romantic out of focus backgrounds that make every place look like Paris. The body alone is $1700, which is DSLR priced, but the images should keep up with DSLRs of the same price. I want this more than anything else I’ve seen at the show, and I think I might get one over the also amazing Sony NEX-7 Camera, which is technically astounding but has a mediocre lens selection that is not worthy of a $1300 camera. If you want to know a LOT about this camera, check out DP Review’s awesome preview. That’s all I care about in cameras at CES. But wow, I care about this camera a LOT. A DRONE FOR THE REST OF US: The Parrot AR DRONE 2.0 is an update to the ipad-controlled quadcopter toy that makes it a bit more serious and a lot cheaper as a tool for aerial photography. The new one is better at staying in place (it has an air pressure sensor that lets it maintain altitude more steadily) and an HD wireless video camera. When I saw it running, the drone was loitering in place, occasionally flipping over in mid air. It is also cheaper than the last model than at $300. I want one. My dream is to fly one over the beach and film the ocean from above. BIG TV: The real action in TVs is, as always, not with the mega high end concept televisions but the Panasonic and Samsung plasma TVs that are the ones people will end up owning. Samsung’s amazing D7000 plasma HDTV was one of the best TVs of last year, and its follow up in the PNE8000, will also be great as a TV. It will have gesture and voice commands, which are a useful way to control the TV when the remote is on safari. Considering how hard it was for Microsoft to master Xbox’s Kinect and its voice and motion controls, it could suck. Samsung is also going to be dropping 2 to 4 sets of 3d glasses in the box of every new 3D tv. These generally cost over $100 each, so this is more than an afterthought–it’s serious charity that everyone else will have to follow. Vizio, the king of cheap TVs, had a rough year in 2011 winning few awards. This year, they’ve also got a super widescreen HDTV called the cinemawide that is super cool. No, really–it’s wide as a hollywood movie at 21:9 (2560 x 1080) instead of the more standard 16:9 and much wider than all other TVs you can buy now in the US. If you’re a movie buff, this could make watching films super cool as long as the sets perform well. It’s 58-inches. At the very least, it will look amazing in a livingroom. I want. That’s everything you need to know about TVs in the coming year. THIN COMPUTERS: Everyone’s talking about ultrabooks! I don’t even know what an Ultrabook technically is, but they all seem to be Macbook Air like, thin and powerful. That is a good thing. But a real head turner at the show is the Dell XPS 13, which is lighter and smaller than a Macbook Air but with better screen resolution. It has some cloud connect thingy that lets it check your email and get it ready for you to read, among other tasks, while its in sleep mode so you can get back to work as soon as you open the lid. It has a backlit keyboard, and is aluminum and carbon fiber. Mark from Laptop Mag has a solid hands on here. The kicker? This pup starts at just under $1000. The thing that makes it inferior to the Air is its screen is lower resolution. There’s one laptop I liked with better resolution and slightly more power potential than the Air, although at a larger price and footprint: HP’s Specter 14. It has a gorilla glass lid and a $1400 price tag. (The reason it’s not the primary laptop of choice here is because most agree the XPS has it by wow factor.) But here’s the bottom line: Sometimes this year, Intel’s faster chipset called Ivy Bridge as well as Windows 8 are coming out. Wait for them to get a PC. That’s all I care about in computers. (If you want to know about computer components, check out Anandtech.com) WIRELESS SOUND: I trust Bang & Olufsen to make good, expensive gear, and so I have a good bit of faith the Beolit 12 wireless speaker will be wonderful. Some Jambox wireless speaker competitors have tried and failed to take the throne, but this B&O airplay speaker is high powered at 120 watts, so it kind of opens up a new category out of nowhere: Wireless airplay speakers that can make you deaf. MATERIAL MATTERS: Gorilla glass, the miracle glass that is strong enough to put on gadget faces like the iphone or even TVs, is now 20% stronger in version 2.0. This means it can be implemented in a thinner manifestation on future gadgets to improve touchscreen responsiveness, weight and thinness. It’s amazing to think about Gorilla Glass as a lost technology that Corning couldn’t monetize until Steve Jobs pushed them to convert a factory to start making it again, in 6 months. I can’t recall exactly, but in Walter Isaacson’s bio, I think the tech was decades old. ANNOUNCING THE BEST GADGET OF CES: An expensive fridge by LG that can take a can of beer from warm to cold in 5 minutes. Here’s a video by my friend, John Mahoney, for Pop Science: http://bcove.me/q4z2nhu7 APPENDIX: LOVED OR UNLOVED STUFF THAT DID NOT CAPTURE MY INTERESTOnkyo is doing this thing called Instaprevue, which lets us see thumbnails previes of the video inputs on a receiver. It’s neat and useful, but not worth upgrading a receiver for. Buffalo is showing off an 802.11AC router. The AC spec is faster than G or N. This won’t matter for awhile because the standard needs to settle and N wireless has been keeping up with media streaming pretty ok these days. Plus, your laptop and phone won’t work with it. Netgear has a wireless extender that works with dual band routers. Intel’s refocusing on smartphone processors. This is good news because competition for ARM is good news. Or, it will be once gets into things we can buy. The Nokia Lumia 900 is the first Windows Phone to come to the US–it’s basically the older phone with a bigger screen, on AT&T. I am appreciative but dispassionately unaffected by Android. Windows Phone, on the other hand, makes me crazy. It’s got a slick interface and wonderful Nokia hardware. Too bad the apps are atrocious. I am carrying a Windows Phone now, next to my iPhone. And if you know me, that is a crazy thing in and of itself. I reluctantly say Windows does not matter, but I want it to matter a lot. Eton Solar Speakers. I’m embarrassed I want this, but I do. Probably because I live in a van in the desert sometimes. Android phones of note are a Droid 4, which is supposedly to be one of the best with a keyboard and a Droid RAZR Maxx that is the RAZR from last year with an extended battery, which kind of defeats the purpose because the RAZR was intended to be thinner than everything. I’d prefer a Windows Phone. Samsung and LG made TVs using OLED technology. Samsung’s OLED TVs are supposed to be 40% more color accurate and 1000x more responsive than LCD. Sony has a concept TV where 6 million LEDs light up a TV instead of using traditional methods . LG is showing off a 4k (basically ultra-hd) 84-inch TV, Sony’s got a 4K projector, and JVC has a camera to get this content. These future techs are amazing, but wildly expensive. I’d guess 4 times more expensive than a plasma. If you can afford a yacht, maybe one of these sets is right for you in the near future–when there’s actually content worthy of it. One day, maybe they’ll be more than museum pieces. But not today. Today they are as useful as sand. I won’t file any of this stuff as junk, though, because 10 years ago, LCD TVs couldn’t touch tube TV prices, either. I’ll call it wonderfully irrelevant in an Epcot world of tomorrow way. Panasonic is Samsung’s major competition in TVs and they’ve followed up their top line VT30 and budget ST30 HDTVs with the VT50 and ST50s. They’ll be solid, as are Panasonic’s TVs every year. But Samsung’s been catching up and is less expensive these days, so who knows what the reviewers will pick. I heard Panasonic is building MySpace into its TVs, which is obviously ridiculous. Don’t hold it against them. But this could be the year that Panasonic falls to Samsung. Who knows. I like Sony TVs and commend them for reducing their product lines from 6 to 3. Clarity is wonderful! But based on LCD tech, these TVs are always wildly expensive for the size. Pass. Tablets–Unlike phones, where Android has made quite a few people happy, I still feel like Android Tablets are generally uninteresting because the app selection is next to nothing. Vizio has one of the best of the show from a pure hardware perspective, while Viewsonic has one of the cheapest. Samsung has tablets of 3 different sizes under the Galaxy Brand. But the tablets at the show were not interesting to me. I prefer the iPad and Kindle Fire over these, for app selection and media buying infrastructure, at those two prices. Also, as Wilson Rothman from MSNBC said to me, “I am shocked to hear how many are shipping with Honeycomb 3.2, with promised upgrade to Ice Cream Sandwich later.” (Ice Cream Sandwich is the new version of Android.) In chatting with Mark from Laptop Mag and Joanna from The Verge, I’ve come away with admiration for both like the Lenovo U310 and Samsung Series 9 which are strong followups to last year’s favorite Ultrabooks. They’re both updates to older models from last year, and can’t be considered brand new, but these well-tested machines are still worth knowing about. Oh, some people like the Vizio laptops, but I’ll wait and see. Nah, I’ll just get a Dell XPS or a Macbook Air. Canon has a megapowered point and shoot called the GX-1. You can ignore it. It’s got a sensor that is bigger than most point and shoots but smaller than the sensors in the best , interchangeable lens cameras that are small, high quality and that I am in love with as an idea and category. The Canon is a non starter at $800 because it has a slow f/2.8 zoom lens and for the money you can get a better camera at the price in a DSLR or interchangeable lens cam. Garmin realizes it can’t beat the smartphone so they’re linking their GPS to Android handsets to give it gas, weather and traffic data in their new flagship. (It’s called the 3590LMT and it’s $400.) They’re charging $20 for traffic data and $10 for traffic cameras and $10 for fuel prices and $5 for weather, per year. I still prefer a smartphone and a GPS app. At these prices, you should, too. At least they’ve got a golf course GPS that will be useful. Polaroid has a point and shoot that runs android and doesn’t print photos. It’s bad. Camcorders–I should know more about this. I don’t because I’m into digital cameras that shoot video rather than standalone camcorders. However, they’re still important because a good camcorder can shoot quality video that keeps up with a high end DSLR for less than $1000. Sony has a camcorder with a projector built into it. I can’t decide if this is stupid or genius. Let’s go with go with “ehhhhhh fine.” Camcorder Info says they’re excited to test the Panasonic flagship, the HC-X900M and Panny is claiming “near pro” level performance from this $900 camera. They’re also interested in the JVC GZ-GX1 because it follows up a camera that had too many bells and whistles. This one is more simple, and $900. Pico Projectors–New, better mini projectors. But they are still one or two generations away from being anything but piss poor. The high end ones usually hit at the CEDIA show later in the year. Car Audio–Pioneer has an update to its App radio that works with Android and has a bigger screen. The concept is useless because it depends on specially written apps to display themselves in a special mode on the screen of the radio. Duh, just use the phone’s screen and an iPod cable with a regular car stereo. Solar powered Kindle cover. It has a reading light and they claim the cover provides three hours of reading for every one hour of sunlight, but at $80, this thing makes no sense. A Kindle needs so little power to operate that you could charge it for a few minutes by USB and have a lot of reading time. And if you’re in the desert of some place without power, you should get a general purpose solar panel with battery, like the Orange Joos. Here’s an obscene portable PC gaming machine from Razor. This is weird. But people who used it said it’s a solid way to play PC games, if you’re into that sort of thing. Limke is a little dongle that charts your pulse and charts your oxygen levels and compares them to your friends online. Cute app, but if I wanted this kind of information, I’d live in a hospital full time. Heart rate and oxygen levels are symptomatic and it would be more constructive to track walking with something like a fit bit. I’m a little bit over health tracking at the moment. I find it a distraction to actually taking care of your health. Exercise, get a juicer, sleep well. The Lenovo Yoga is a concept for a laptop that turns into a tablet but it is ultimately flawed because laptops and tablets have different power and battery life profiles. Ignore. Cable and satellite are screwed. This is probably the most desperate gadget of the show. Dish is making a mega-DVR that can play video in many rooms and capture every prime time show from every major network with one click. They’re also previewing their satellite channel lineup for free for 24 hours–through the internet. All of this seems like a desperate try to stave off the inevitable march towards watching internet streamed TV on tablets while we bathe, cook, lay in bed, and sit on the can. Good for old fashioned mansion-ites who love live television. The OLPC 3.0 Tablet is a tablet for poor kids designed by rich people. $100. Solar charged. Not junk, per say, but not relevant to most of us. I really appreciate it for its attempt to computerize the rest of the world. More BS: Haier made a see through TV. Sharp is making 17 different LCD panels that are bigger than 60 inches, but that’s useless because LCDs are too expensive at those sizes. Friends at Televisioninfo.com believe it’s a way for Sharp to earn business partners by showing their manufacturing might. I buy that. They’re also making battery powered TVs up to 60 inches. This is simply dumb. Lenovo is making a TV with Android built in. It’s not built on Google TV, though, which is Google’s interface for TVs? This is a clusterfuck. For Lenovo and for Google. Focus! Also, too many people are making waterproof computers and tablets. Stop it. META: For Writers At CESThe first thing I notice every year when I settle into a hotel at CES is that no matter how fancy the hotel, the tap water smells like eggs. They say the memory of smell is powerful although elusive and I use the memory of the smell of the tap water to wake me up when my eyes start glossing over at CES. Eggs. CES can buckle a strong man’s knees. The quantity of data and visceral noise on the show floor causes many junior reporters to whine and go cross-eyed and sometimes catch a cold from all the hubbub, hand shaking, and fondling of dirty gadgets. This is my 10th year visiting the show. I’ve learned the key is to wash your hands every 120 minutes and to avoid touching your eyes and nose. Also, to take the monorail, not the cab line. Get a trailer to write from if you can. Another key to being at CES as a writer is to avoid worrying about CES’s terrible signal to noise ratio and instead, do something about it. Ignore the bullshit, shoot down the overhyped, and focus on the most interesting. If a writer complains about CES and writes 40 posts about it, it’s a little hypocritical, no? The last key is to enjoy Las Vegas with people you only get to see once a year and get into a healthy amount of trouble. Living a fun life and escaping the news machine will give any reporter the time and perspective to think a bit more about what’s real in all the manufactured news, in a manufactured show, in a manufactured town filled with mirage. If a writer can do that, they can avoid being part of the problem and get the space to think and write at the pace of a human, not at the pace of a robot. Quiet is cool. Filed under: media, mobile, VentureBeat        
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| Cerf on science: The father of the Internet talks string theory, the physics of Angry Birds & more Posted: 11 Jan 2012 07:00 PM PST When Vint Cerf talks about Google’s upcoming global Science Fair, you can hear the infectious enthusiasm in his voice. “I just am a huge cheerleader for getting kids interested in science and technology,” he told VentureBeat in a phone conversation yesterday. But the Father of the Internet, who is also now a Googler, isn’t simply being patronizing. Oh, look at the kiddies playing with their toy volcanoes, how cute. He truly expects great science and fresh thinking to come from the fair’s crop of intelligent teens. “I think there are some big surprises awaiting us in this round of the Science Fair,” he says. “It’s important that the adults appreciate that young people are capable of doing really astounding work.” As an example, another Googler points out 16-year old Harine Ravichandran's 2011 entry to eliminate power outages in rural India. This year, Google award a special "Science in Action" prize to the best project with positive, local community impact and the potential for use in other parts of the world. Vint Cerf and the Science Fair“The interest [in science and technology] has been difficult to stir up because we don’t give enough visibility to our scientists and technologists as we do to entertainers and sports figures,” Cerf says. So part of the initiative to stir up such interest is the annual, global, online Google Science Fair. This year is the fair’s third in existence, and a handful of participants will be recognized for their work and awarded with prize money, scholarships and once-in-a-lifetime opportunities. Cerf is, for all intents and purposes, the public face of the fair, which begins January 12, 2012. “What’s really different is that we’re taking submissions in other languages,” he says. “I’m very interested to see what that does in terms of international participation.” Of all the 13- to 18-year-old fair participants, who will create and upload their projects to Google’s site, 90 regional winners will be selected from all around the globe (barring U.S.-sanctioned countries such as Cuba, North Korea and Iran) — 30 winners each from the Americas, Europe, the Middle East/Africa and Asia Pacific. Google is offering support for 13 languages, a new effort to increase international participation. From this group of 90, judges will select 15 finalists. Those finalists will travel to Google’s headquarters in Mountain View and will present their projects to a panel of judges (Cerf is one). The judges will then pick one finalist in each age group (13-14, 15-16, 17-18) and one grand prize winner. As in previous years, Google is partnering with CERN, LEGO, National Geographic and Scientific American on the fair. “I’m a huge enthusiast because it’s global,” Cerf said. “It’s an opportunity to show young people what science is all about and show the rest of the world that young people have interesting, fresh, creative ideas… and how capable our young people are in doing this sort of thing.” Cerf on scienceWe wondered what sorts of science experiments from the adult world had captured Cerf’s attention, as well. “I am very curious about the Large Hadron Collider outcomes… to see if any string theories can be validated,” Cerf told us. “Nanotechnology has my attention, the ability to create an unnatural material that will steer light around objects,” he continued, referencing recent advances in invisibility technology. “The materials that have been created can now do this kind of bending — I find that pretty fascinating.” But what has Cerf most intrigued, it seems, is the origin and structure of everything we know and don’t know about the very space we inhabit — the vast unknown quantities of the universe itself. “All of this pales as we start looking at cosmology and realize that we know less now at the beginning of the 21st century than we thought we knew at the end of the 19th century,” Cerf said. “We only know about 5 percent of the matter in the universe. We don’t know what dark energy is, we don’t know what dark matter is… we don’t have a clue.” And here’s a tip for you undecided-major types: “If you get an interest in physics, you have a shot at the Nobel Prize because anything you discover about this 95 percent [of unknown matter] is bound to be new information.” Cerf on science fictionWhen we start talking about invisibility and the universe, I note that we’re bordering on topics that used to belong in the realm of science fiction and fantasy. I point out that a recent VentureBeat speaker, Leonard Nimoy (Star Trek‘s Mr. Spock), had expounded on the migration of science fiction into science fact. Cerf wholeheartedly agreed with Nimoy’s assessment (and noted as an aside that he had previously worked with Nimoy on a television project, during which Nimoy’s sense of humor made it impossible to shoot a scene with a straight face). “It sounds like science fiction, but the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency, they funded [Cerf's original and groundbreaking] Internet work, the interplanetary protocols work. Now theyre funding a design for an interstellar mission to get to Alpha Centauri within the next hundred years.” Cerf said that with our current propulsion systems, it would take around 65,000 years to reach this star — obviously, the technologist noted, this would not do. “The second problem is communication — how do you develop a signal that will be detectable over four light years?” he asked. “Even though I won’t be around, the idea that you coud participate in what sounds like a science fiction story… there’s nothing more exciting than that. And it’s launching in 2012.” In other areas of science fiction, Cerf pointed to the Jetson’s-like imagined future of the mid-century era, when we thought in terms of home automation and self-flying cars. Again, Cerf sees some aspects of that fictional world becoming reality, especially with regard to the Internet of Things. “The Android OS is turning out to be of interest… in other devices, things that consume electricity, appliances around the house,” he said. And of course, there’s Google’s revolutionary self-driving cars. “We’re very proud of those cars,” said Cerf. “This is turning out to be an incredible period of time when we’re able to harness the power of computing in small devices and also harnessing huge computing power in the form of clouds.” Filed under: dev, VentureBeat        
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| Sony exec confirms no PlayStation 4 at this year’s E3 Posted: 11 Jan 2012 06:55 PM PST
Hirai confirmed there will be no announcement about the PlayStation 4 during a roundtable discussion at the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas, according to the Wall Street Journal, shooting down a previous rumor that Sony and Microsoft would be bringing their new hardware to E3 in June. "I've always said a 10-year life cycle for PS3, and there is no reason to go away from that," Hirai told the media at CES. Sony says the PlayStation 3, which debuted in 2006, sold 6.5 million units this holiday season and has cumulatively sold over 50 million units worldwide since launch. The PlayStation Network, an online multiplayer gaming and digital media delivery service, has more than 75 million registered accounts and operates in 59 countries and regions. With these robust figures, it’s no wonder Sony is in no rush to push their next console out the door. Similarly, Microsoft’s Xbox 360 has seen strong sales late in its life cycle. Earlier this week at CES, Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer revealed the console has sold more than 66 million units since its launch in 2005. Sony and Microsoft rival Nintendo, however, has seen declining sales of its motion-controlling Wii console and will be showing off its predecessor, the Wii U, at this year’s E3. The Wii U will feature a controller with a 6.2-inch screen and will support full HD graphics, two features many fans felt were lacking in the original. Filed under: games, VentureBeat        
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| Justin Bieber makes a dancing robot even cooler at CES Posted: 11 Jan 2012 06:25 PM PST Canadian pop superstar Justin Bieber made an appearance at the Consumer Electronics Show on Wednesday to help promote a dancing robot from TOSY Robotics. No, he did not dance “the robot” with the robot, but hey, at least he signed some autographs. Bieber was on hand to talk up the mRobo Ultra Bass robot, the latest device from Vietnamese manufacturer TOSY. The robot has a large speaker at its middle section to play music and it can dance along with whatever tunes it is playing. The robot did a relatively poor job of dancing during his performance and could only do the splits, but it the device is still in beta. The Consumer Electronics Show floor often has celebrity appearances, but this was easily the biggest one in terms of crowds this year. People were crawling over each other to take photos, and several people I asked on the floor said they wanted to get pics for their children. Bieber’s fan base is comprised heavily of young women, and there was a group of girls that shouted “We love you Justin!” twice during his appearance. TOSY expects the mRobo Ultra Bass robot to retail for $200 and it will be available in the fall of 2012. Filed under: VentureBeat        
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| Striive tells me I walked 8,686 steps at CES today (video) Posted: 11 Jan 2012 05:41 PM PST
Knowing that gives me a goal for tomorrow, my last day on the show floor. I can try to beat that score and earn various achievements in the footstep-counting game that is built into the screen. Striiv launched last fall as a $99 portable device which you can hook up to the web if you want to analyze your stepping patterns. The Striiv device is one of many on the show floor that “gamifies health,” or makes it more fun to engage it exercise. It is part of a larger movement toward “the Quantified Self,” which promises self-knowledge through numbers. By measuring your physical activity, Striiv can show you how active you are and give you goals to beat. Lexi Franklin, head of design and strategy at Redwood City, Calif.-based Striiv, said in an interview that the company is showing off social challenges this week at CES. In this case, you can use the device to send a challenge to a friend and see if you can outdo them in a real-time walking challenge. It’s hard to make out the screens in the video below, but they basically show how fast you are walking and how many footsteps remain in the challenge, measured against how fast your friend is walking. Whoever gets to the goal first wins the challenge and gets achievement points. Franklin challenged me to a walking match, and you can see the results below. Check out our video interview with Franklin at the Digital Experience Party at CES earlier this week. Filed under: games, mobile        
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| Google+ Hangouts get bigger video player, screen sharing available to all Posted: 11 Jan 2012 05:26 PM PST Been waiting for those extras like screen sharing in Google+ Hangouts? Wait no more. The company is rolling out its first extra to the masses and increasing the video player size while they’re at it. The company introduced “extras” in September, which included a sketchpad for doodling, integration with Google docs for simultaneous editing, the ability to name a hangout, as well as screen sharing. This last feature is the first of these to be rolled out for all Google+ users. It’s an important feature that sets Google’s free Hangout service apart from other business-focused video meeting software. Why? Well, it’s great for showing a team what you’re working on without sending the unfinished document out to everyone. It’s also a part of a free service, which many small businesses can appreciate. “When we launched Hangouts with Extras last September, we wanted to test new features and get feedback from users. We've learned a lot over the past few months, and today we're rolling out a new Hangouts look and feel that incorporates some of the "extras," and better reflects Google's overall design,” the company said in a Google+ post.
Google has also recently undergone a visual strategy change, starting with its search homepage in June. The goal of this strategy was to bring focus, elasticity and effortlessness to its products. That is, deliver on what the person is looking for, be developed to work across multiple devices and be simple to use. Hangouts is getting a bit of this flavor with a new screen size. The white space was too underused for Google, so the new screen will take up most of this. Also, other interaction tools such as chat, invites, YouTube and more have been made more discreet. Filed under: VentureBeat        
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| DC Universe Online exec talks about the game’s future and competition from Star Wars (interview) Posted: 11 Jan 2012 05:00 PM PST Sony Online Entertainment (SOE) is celebrating DC Universe Online’s one-year anniversary today. All current players (with characters created on or before today) will receive a mission allowing them to earn a unique One Year Anniversary Cape. The massively multiplayer online game (MMO) is notable for a number of reasons, including a dynamic, real-time combat system unlike most other MMOs, which generally feature turn-based battles (a la World of Warcraft). This gives it more of an “arcade-y” brawler-type feel, perfect for a game based on the DC universe of comic super heroes and villains. SOE was previously responsible for the EverQuest franchise and troubled Star Wars Galaxies MMO, which was recently shut down permanently to make way for BioWare’s Star Wars: The Old Republic. DC Universe Online is also the first MMO released on the PlayStation 3, where the majority of its users reside (2.3M, compared to 1.8M on PC, according to Sony). GamesBeat sat down with Executive Producer Lorin Jameson to discuss about where the game has been, where it’s at, and where’s it going. The Old Republic and World of Warcraft make their way into the interview as well, naturally.
Jameson: I am the Executive Producer. In a typical day I am coordinating with the team on upcoming content, managing the team directors, analyzing data and planning future strategies. It is an interrupt-driven job really where I never know what may happen from one day to the next and what challenges I may face. It is really quite exciting. GamesBeat: DCUO's Game Director has undergone a few personnel swaps since launch. Can you talk about who has come and gone, and how that has impacted development? Jameson: It is pretty common post-launch on a long development cycle like DCUO's to have people shift around or seek new opportunities. Also, team requirements and needs change when you shift from development to live. I think the current team on DCUO is perfect. GamesBeat: Has Jim Lee's role changed much since the launch of the game? Jameson: Jim is still involved with the product, but since taking over as co-publisher for DC Comics he has a lot on his plate so he is not involved with the team on a day-to-day basis. He is still a player though and provides a lot of feedback. GamesBeat: For the uninitiated, can you detail the content packs that have been released since launch? Jameson: Our first DLC was Fight for the Light which introduced light-based powers from the Lantern and Sinestro corps. It has a lot of new missions based around Green Lantern themes and a ton of new gear. Next we released our second DLC, Lightning Strikes. Themed around the Flash and his origins it introduced Electricity Powers and included a very large open play area for high level characters in Central City, Flash's hometown. We have also released eight free updates as well during the year adding a lot of new content and features into the game. GamesBeat: What's next in terms of major additions, features, areas, characters, etc? Jameson:Most recently, we released the Research and Development system in Game Update 8. This system allows players to gather resources, learn plans, and create powerful modifications for their armor as well as advanced buffs and other consumables. It is a great system that we will be building on down the road and expanding to every aspect of the game. Additionally, we are excited to be celebrating our one-year anniversary. As you guys know, to celebrate this milestone, on January 11th we are giving players a special one-of-kind One-year Anniversary Cape that features the number "1" on the back. GamesBeat: Did DC’s New 52 impact DCUO at all? Jameson: DCUO has its own cannon and continuity. We may integrate some aspects of the DC reboot but we will pick and choose what fits. GamesBeat: The NGE in Star Wars Galaxies was seen as the death of that game, and Blizzard has also redone their talent system twice now, much to the disdain of longtime players. Is the gameplay foundation in DCUO safe from any similar overhauls? Jameson: Changes in MMO's are pretty unavoidable. What every online game developer has to ask themselves, and what I ask my team whenever they propose a major change, is: Whose problems are you trying to solve? If the answer is "The Player's" then I am usually good with it. Where developers run into issues is when the answer is "Mine". As a company we are dedicated to our players and as long as we see them as our primary concern I think we will be OK. GamesBeat: What other lessons (positive or negative) have you learned from other MMOs? Jameson: Every MMO, successful or not, teaches me something about the industry and the art. For myself I see a lot to learn from Eve Online. They have not been without issues, but I always sense they are building from their core. They have managed to grow a game by knowing their own customers. Many games fail because they are still chasing the customers they wanted and not catering enough to the ones they have. GamesBeat: Looking at other games, like WoW or even iterative bite-sized experiences like Pocket God, the current version is a far cry from the launch version. With that in mind, where would you like to see DCUO in five years? What are some of the big ideas waiting to be implemented, and what’s holding them back? (interview continues on next page) Filed under: games, VentureBeat        
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| Microsoft’s live TV service for Xbox is dead Posted: 11 Jan 2012 05:00 PM PST Announcements about internet-connected smart TVs have had an overwhelming presence at this year’s Consumer Electronic Show, which is probably because streaming live video is growing in popularity among consumers. But despite this upward trend, tech giant Microsoft has decided to cancel the launch of its new live TV service, according to a Reuters report today. The company was planning to implement the live TV service through its Xbox Live game console, as VentureBeat’s Dean Takahashi previously confirmed. For a monthly fee, this “Xbox Diamond” service would give Xbox 360 owners the ability to watch all their favorite television channels, socialize through the recently revamped Xbox Live dashboard and access popular internet video channels like YouTube, Hulu Plus, Netflix and others. Microsoft, however, decided to scrap the launch because of the high content licensing costs necessary for its live TV service to operate, according to Reuters. These are the same costs that cable providers like Comcast, AT&T Uverse and DirecTV must pay to provide each channel of programming. Microsoft plans to refocus its efforts to improve content delivery over the web via the Xbox console, which is a very smart and cost-effective move in the long run. The move shouldn’t hinder Microsoft’s partnerships with Verizon FiOS, AT&T Uverse or Comcast to use the Xbox 360 as a cable box. Rumors are also circulating that Apple has been meeting with various media companies to launch a live TV service. Should it succeed, Apple could end up with the same complications that caused Microsoft to retreat — expensive licensing costs and lots of competition from existing cable and satellite TV service providers. It makes far more sense for these companies to create devices (Microsoft’s Xbox 360 and Apple’s Apple TV set-top box) that enable existing televisions to access a platform allowing third-party companies to launch their own channels or apps. Filed under: games, media, VentureBeat        
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| Google creating its own social game using Google Maps Posted: 11 Jan 2012 04:13 PM PST Watch out, Facebook. Google is making its own game for Google+ … and it involves maps. Yesterday, the company released a video of the new game, which takes advantage of its Google Maps product. The video shows a cube with a map overlay. A small blue ball travels through the map based on the spinning and tilting of the cube. Judging by the video, it seems players will have to move through the map, hitting certain destinations to collect points along the way. When a destination is hit, a small piece of information about the place pops up, then you can go on to your next. Google introduced games to its social network Google+ in August. Facebook, Google+’s major competitor, integrated gaming applications onto its platform long ago and has made a very successful business of it. In fact, Zynga, now a social gaming powerhouse with titles like Castleville and Farmville, recently debuted as a public company on the Nasdaq. Google+ didn’t wait the shadows for too long, however, and quickly attracted big gaming companies such as PopCap and Zynga to its own social network. Facebook does not create games of its own. Rather, it focuses on one thing, sharing, and lets third parties develop on top of its open graph. Mark Zuckerberg, creator of Facebook, and chief operating officer Sheryl Sandberg recently told Charlie Rose in an interview that Facebook is shaving off extraneous products, such as Groupon-like deals, in favor of sharing. Sharing, for Zuckerberg, is the future of the Internet and the way people interact with content. Thus, Facebook doesn’t have its own gaming titles. On the other hand, Google is taking a small step forward as a horizontal company and making the games itself. This game seems pretty lackluster at first: help a ball through an interactive map, woo. You can probably make some cool discoveries, as it allows you to reach a destination and then continues the map inside the building. But will probably get boring quickly and become a procrastination game. The game is slated to come out in February, so we don’t have to wait too long to see if Google takes this in the right … direction. Yeah, let that one sink in. via The Next Web Filed under: games        
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| Doctor-booking site ZocDoc adds ex-senators to its board Posted: 11 Jan 2012 04:12 PM PST
ZocDoc helps patients find doctors who accept their insurance, and then directly books medical appointments from the ZocDoc site. Doctors show available time slots and patients can choose their appointment times without even needing to pick up the phone. Patients can also rate their doctor based on wait time, bedside manner and professionalism. The site is designed to make the entire process of seeing a doctor as painless as possible. “Senators Daschle and Frist are among the most influential leaders in healthcare and government, and they each have a long history of building consensus from both parties to affect change,” co-founder and CEO of ZocDoc Cyrus Massoumi said in a statement. “We are honored to work with them to develop the high-level partnerships we need to bring better access to medical care to patients everywhere.” Both senators have decades of medical and healthcare policy experience under their collective belt, BetaBeat reports. In addition to their specific medical knowledge, Sen. Daschle is a democrat and Sen. Frist a republican, so both bring their differing political views to the table. Adding politicians from both sides of the political spectrum to its advisory board is a smart move for ZocDoc, especially since healthcare is one of the most hotly debated political topics in Washington today. As of the beginning of 2012, ZocDoc serves 13 metropolitan areas including Boston, Chicago, New York, San Francisco and Washington D.C. In 2011 alone, ZocDoc reported a whopping $75 million in funding; $50 million from DST Global and $25 million from Goldman Sachs. Filed under: deals        
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| 400K publishers rejoice: Facebook’s commenting system now works on mobile Posted: 11 Jan 2012 04:01 PM PST
The social network pushed out an update today that makes its Comments Box third-party commenting plugin work on mobile devices. Facebook’s Comments Box has undergone many revisions over time, but its purpose remains the same: “To make commenting more social and authentic.” The plugin first appeared in 2009, but was dramatically improved in early 2011. It then finally became a viable alternative to Disqus and other commenting platforms for publisher’s looking to stimulate more intellectual conversations on their websites. People who comment from their Facebook profiles are more accountable for what they say, and the resulting comments are of a higher caliber than usual. “More than 400,000 sites have integrated with the Comments plugin,” a Facebook representative told VentureBeat. Those same 400,000 publishers have been gifted with the Facebook Comments Box on the mobile version of their sites. The mobile version, as expected, automatically appears when accessed by a mobile device visitor. The mobile comments box replicates the web experience, and allows commenters to post their missives back to the social network or “like” comments others have posted. And for the consumers of the world, the upgrade makes commenting more of any anywhere, anytime social behavior. The addition of mobile support to the Comments Box is a necessary update should Facebook wish to convince more media sites to switch to its commenting solution — and it desperately does. It’s not all about cleaner, better conversations (as you’ve probably figured out by now). The more publishers that switch to Facebook’s Comments Box, the more Facebook comments and “likes” flood the web and get passed around its social network. [Mobile phone image via Shutterstock] Filed under: dev, mobile, social, VentureBeat        
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| Hands-on with the unique Sony Xperia Ion and Xperia S smartphones (video, pics) Posted: 11 Jan 2012 02:53 PM PST Sony has yet to have a major success with its Xperia line of Android smartphones, but it may have a shot with its two new models, the Xperia Ion and Xperia S, which were announced at the Consumer Electronics Show this week. The Xperia Ion has the privilege of being the company’s first LTE 4G smartphone, while the Xperia S is a stylish upgrade to the Xperia lineup. Both phones are also branded as Sony devices, instead of Sony Ericsson, the result of the company’s buyout of Ericsson’s share in their mobile partnership. It’s clear from looking at both phones that Sony is getting more serious about design this time around. Both devices feature interesting angles and look unlike anything else on the market. I’ve always been a fan of Sony Ericsson’s smartphone design in the pre-iPhone era, but now it seems like it’s finally stepping up when it comes to Android smartphones. Both the Xperia S and Xperia Ion feel solid in the hand, though they’re not exactly thin devices. The Xperia S features a gorgeous 4.3-inch screen, while the Xperia Ion has a massive 4.6-inch display. Given its screen size, the Ion feels a bit more awkward than the Xperia S, but it’s about on-par with the Galaxy Nexus in terms of unwieldiness. Both devices feature 1280-by-720 high-definition screen resolutions, are powered by dual-core 1.5 gigahertz processors, and run Android 2.3 (Sony has said that its Xperia lineup will receive Android 4.0 eventually). Sony is once again using a customized Android interface on the new Xperia devices, but it’s attractive enough that I’m not complaining. The visual facelift is necessary because the phones are running an older version of Android — come Android 4.0, Sony may not feel the need to reskin Android as much. Filed under: mobile, VentureBeat, video        
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| FCC chairman Julius Genachowski warns of looming wireless spectrum crunch Posted: 11 Jan 2012 02:01 PM PST The U.S. needs to address the looming wireless spectrum crunch to allow for continued innovation in broadband wireless, Federal Communications Commission chairman Julius Genachowski said Wednesday at the Consumer Electronics Show. One of the ways to do that is to offer so-called incentive auctions that motivate the owners of current wireless spectrum to make them available to those who bid the highest. New York City, Genachowski said, does not need 28 TV stations using valuable spectrum that could be returned for use in wireless applications, and raising money not only for the private companies that own the spectrum but also billions of dollars in money that could help address the budget deficit. He said a third of Americans — almost 100 million people — don’t have broadband at home. Closing the gap between haves and have nots would give the innovators much larger markets to go after. At the same time, the U.S. leads in the number of 3G subscribers and the American mobile industry has recaptured leadership in the industry. Tens of thousands of jobs have been creaetd. “Our apps economy is the envy of the world,” he said. Yet the spectrum shortage was one of the reasons that AT&T made its ill-fated bid to acquire T-Mobile, which owns a lot of spectrum, because of the rapid growth of data usage on mobile devices. Genachowski said that we need to get incentive auctions done for wireless spectrum and “we need to get it right,” he said. “We’ve led the world in spectrum policy.” He urged Congress to adopt legislation to endorse incentive auctions to make the U.S. more competitive with the rest of the world.The approvals should apply to licensed and unlicensed spectrum. At the same time, he said in a conversation with Gary Shapiro, chief executive of the Consumer Electronics Association at the annual Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas, that the U.S. should innovate in making wireless spectrum more spectrally efficient by developing new wireless technologies. Without such approval, the country could fall behind. While many people note that technology destroys jobs in the old economy, Genachowski said studies have shown that 2.6 jobs are created for every one destroyed in the innovation economy. Last year, Genachowski told Shapiro that innovation was needed for U.S. companies to stay competitive in the creation of 4G wireless networks by moving faster, without interference. This year, Genachowski walked the show floor and took note that there were more than 3,000 of them, each of them creating new jobs. “Virtually every company is fueled by broadband Internet,” he said. “If you shut off the internet, virtually nothing on the show floor would work.” He said there was innovation in education, healthcare, business, and other categories. “We saw smart textbooks, smart thermostats, and smart fitness equipment,” he said. He noted that Thomas Friedman, columnist for the New York Times, wrote recently that when bandwidth goes up, the technology gets better and the products get more useful communications, Genachowski said. "Though we can't see it, spectrum is becoming increasingly essential to the daily lives of almost every American. This invisible infrastructure is the backbone of a growing percentage of our economy and our lives," Genachowski said. He added that the looming spectrum crunch "threatens American leadership in mobile and the benefits it can deliver to our economy and our lives." Last year at CES, Genachowski also discussed wireless spectrum and what it means for universal broadband in America — but we found him to be vague on actual goals. This time around, it's clear that both Genachowski and the FCC have a plan. And this time, Genachowski made the case again for his long-awaited National Broadband Plan, which details what needs to be done to expand broadband access to all Americans. As for the failed AT&T and T-Mobile merger, “it should remind us the benefits of competition.” Genachowski said that on balance, the system has worked. But in this case, AT&T, an American company, had to pay $3 billion to a German company because the deal was not consummated, Shapiro said. The law was sufficiently vague enough on antitrust matters that AT&T’s lawyers gave the merger a try. For more news out of this week’s Consumer Electronics Show, be sure to check out VentureBeat’s live coverage from CES 2012. Filed under: VentureBeat        
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| Hands-on with Nokia’s best phone in years (pics, video) Posted: 11 Jan 2012 01:37 PM PST Nokia announced the anticipated Lumia 900 smartphone earlier this week at the Consumer Electronics Show, and we decided to spend some well-needed hands-on time with the device. Simply put, the Nokia Lumia 900 may be the single best phone Nokia has produced in years. It features a beautiful 4.3-inch AMOLED Clear Black display that makes Microsoft’s Windows Phone operating system pop. For specs, it has a single-core 1.4-GHz processor, an 8-megapixel camera with an LED flash and a front-facing camera for video conferencing. (Read more about the Lumia 900′s specs in our product database.) While it’s disappointing that the processor is only single-core, Windows Phone’s lightweight OS makes it very responsive. While I was a fan of some early smartphones from Nokia, the Symbian OS looked clunky and way outdated compared to iOS and Android of recent years. The Finnish company certainly knows how to make sexy hardware — it was just software that it struggled with. The Windows Phone operating system, while not exactly popular, is a staggering improvement, and that counts for all three officially-announced Nokia phones with the Windows Phone OS. The Lumia 900, if you’ve been paying attention, is like the big brother to the previously announced Lumia 800. The 900 has a larger screen than the 800′s 3.7-inch display, and adds a front-facing camera. It also blows away the less-expensive budget model, the Lumia 710, which has only a 5-megapixel camera. I really like the feel of the Nokia 900, more so than the 800 and the cheaper 710 model, mostly because of the screen size. The 4.3-inch screen makes a lot of sense with Windows Phone’s Mango OS. Flicks between screens are fast, fluid and responsive. I also like the first two color choices for the 900, black and cyan. While the phone has no official price or release date, a Nokia representative said the device would be out in the “spring” on AT&T exclusively. If we had to take an educated guess, the Lumia 900 will likely run $199 with a 2-year contract. Check out more photos of the Nokia Lumia 900 here: And don’t miss this short video by VentureBeat writer Dean Takahashi:
Filed under: mobile        
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| Why Google’s new search tools might have Twitter ready to sue Posted: 11 Jan 2012 01:32 PM PST
With Google’s new mode of searching, social media results powered by Google+ show up among regularly ranked links and images. However, searching for a Twitter handle with these Google+ results included won’t necessarily get you to a Twitter page. Instead, you might be shown Google+ profiles instead — a move that doesn’t seem fair or competitive to the Twitter team. Twitter general counsel Alex Macgillivray tweeted today, “Folks asked for examples. Here's what a user searching for ‘@wwe’ will be shown on the new @Google.” He included the screenshot below: While Twitter couldn’t provide any additional comment, a company spokesperson said these search results speak for themselves — and as you can see, searching for this particular Twitter handle doesn’t seem to yield much in the way of Twitter.com results. We thought we might see non-Google+ social results by turning off Google+-powered search altogether. However, this wasn’t the case. Searching for “@wwe” in a non-Google+ search session yielded the same results. Whereas a day or two ago, we could easily find Twitter profiles in Google search, these results from Twitter.com are now shoved down on the page and designed to be ignored by users. Granted, you can find Twitter-specific results easily if you search for a name or handle and add “Twitter” to the query (for example, searching for “wwe twitter” will take you directly to the brand’s Twitter profile). But as Twitter pretty much owns the “@” symbol and its place in online handles, it seems odd to show Google+ results for an intentionally Twitter-focused query. Yesterday, a Twitter rep sent us the following statement in an email:
The statement struck us as uncharacteristically pointed, and we wondered what would come of it. Apparently, those were fighting words from the startup to the search incumbent, and having legal counsel look into the matter is only a first step. Google launched these social search features just yesterday. In addition to the usual assortment of links, pictures, news items and shopping results you'd see in a typical Google search results page, logged-in Google+ users can now also find several kinds of Google+ content sprinkled in among the normal search results. There are even promoted Google+ profiles and pages — an attempt to compete with Facebook's highly successful social ads, we're betting. Even as Twitter sends out its examples, some commentators are already murmuring about possible antitrust violations. “Google has had a form of social search in its main results for a while, but this is a significant redesign that gives a lot more prominence to social and to Google's own social product, Google+,” wrote analyst Rocky Agrawal on VentureBeat yesterday. “The biggest losers are Twitter, Facebook, Yelp and TripAdvisor. Twitter and Facebook stand to lose if brands choose to move some of their efforts to Google+ to benefit from enhanced Web search rankings.” In a conversation with VentureBeat, a Google spokesperson said, “As always, our goal is to provide you with the most relevant and comprehensive search results possible. That's why for years now we've been working with our social search features to help you find the most relevant information from your friends and social connections, no matter what site that content is on. “However, Google does not have ready access to incorporate all the information from some sites, so it's not possible for us to surface all that content in real time.” In other words, if Twitter wanted to see its pages appearing in Google’s social search results, it shouldn’t have revoked access to the Twitter firehose back in July 2011 or started using The course of real-time search never did run smooth, and we’ll be following this testy war of words to its conclusion. Stay tuned. Filed under: social, VentureBeat        
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| Dylan’s Desk: 6 must-watch trends for 2012 Posted: 11 Jan 2012 12:41 PM PST
It’s fitting that I’m writing this while sitting on the floor of a carpeted hallway in the Venetian Hotel in Las Vegas, shoulder to shoulder with hundreds of other journalists and bloggers who are waiting to get into a press conference here at the Consumer Electronics Show. CES is one of the biggest trade shows in north America, and it’s one of the largest electronics trade shows anywhere. It also causes more bellyaching among bloggers and members of the press than any other show. This year, several writers I know and like posted stories about how CES doesn’t matter any more, pointing to the fact that the show rarely produces any blockbuster hits. Some of the biggest players in this industry don’t tie their product announcements to CES, and one — Apple — has never even had a presence of any kind. Add to that the announcement that Microsoft will no longer be delivering the show’s major keynote, and it’s easy to jump to the conclusion that CES is dying. That conclusion would be wrong. CES is and always has been a buyer’s show, first and foremost. It’s where buyers for retail stores like Best Buy go to schmooze with sales reps for manufacturers like Panasonic and Sony. Sure, there are lots of new products here, but that’s hardly the point. The point is to put buyers and sellers together in one big, lavish, decadent city, get them all drunk, and then send them home with new purchase contracts in hand. The press events are important, but they’re a sideshow, and I think that’s why members of the press like to complain about it: We’re not having our asses kissed quite enough. Plus, CES is big, uncomfortable and noisy. It’s hard to get around the town, the hotels are all packed, the taxi lines are impossible, and you can barely walk a hundred yards without someone bumping into you or stepping on your foot. Still, it’s where the electronics industry shows off its agenda for the coming year, and even with some significant missing players, CES still matters. So CES is as good a place as any to get a glimpse of the tech industry’s future direction. As I sit here, borrowing electricity from the Venetian’s power grid and linking myself to the internet via a Verizon MiFi, here are some of the big themes I’d like to focus on in 2012. 1. Multi-screen video entertainmentConsumer electronics manufacturers have woken up to the fact that people aren’t just sitting in front of the boob tube like slack-jawed couch potatoes anymore. Instead, we like to hold tablets or smartphones in our lap while watching broadcast TV, digital TV services, media stored somewhere in our own homes or video streamed from the internet. Why can’t we use one device to control the other, browsing videos on YouTube from a tablet and then throwing them up onto a big HDTV, for instance? The problem is that none of this stuff comes together seamlessly in one place — yet. It’s a deceptively complicated problem to solve. A large part of the problem is that there are few agreed-upon standards to rally around, and every manufacturer wants to be in the driver’s seat when it comes to integration. Still, I expect many companies to make attempts at solving this problem in 2012, and it will be a fun space to watch. One dark horse contender will be Apple, which is widely rumored to be planning an Apple television set for early 2012. 2. More and more speedIt’s a given that nothing in the computer or electronics world is ever fast enough. Whenever our devices increase in speed, the new apps we use suck up all the extra processing power and bandwidth. Still, several significant advances will play out in the coming year. Quad-core mobile processors like Qualcomm’s new Snapdragon S4, and Nvidia’s Tegra 3 will find their way into tablets and smartphones, bringing these devices ever closer to parity with the processing power on notebooks. Ultrafast USB 3.0 connections will show up in ever more computers and in smartphones and tablets, so you can sling files from place to place ever faster. Thunderbolt will offer similar blinding speeds and the ability to use a cable to add peripherals, such as graphics cards, that you could only previously add by plugging into a slot inside your computer. A new flavor of Wi-Fi, 802.11ac, promises four times the speed of current 802.11n networks, or over 1.3Gbps. And 4G networks will be rolling out everywhere, most of them based on the Long Term Evolution (LTE) standard, which now seems to have decisively won out over the competing WiMax standard. 3. WindowsMicrosoft's Windows 8 operating system, due later in 2012, will likely be the consumer tech product that affects more people than any other. With the ability to run on Ultrabooks (the slimline, instant-on notebook specification that Intel is touting), on a variety of processors, and with an interface that promises to be usable on touchscreen devices as well as computers with keyboards, Windows 8 may be Microsoft’s most ambitious reinvention of its operating system since Vista. As Vista proved, a new version of Windows doesn’t have to be excellent to sell an awful lot of copies. That means that whether or not Microsoft’s grand plans pan out, Windows 8 will be an incredibly significant tech product, and it will be an enormous ecosystem for other tech products. Windows Phone is also worth watching: With Microsoft’s partnership with Nokia, this is a big chance for both companies to regain relevance in the mobile world. The upcoming Lumia 900 looks like it could be the flagship phone to kick that process off. 4. AndroidLike it or not (and I’m not a big fan of Android), Google’s mobile operating system has a tremendous amount of momentum, having become the most popular smartphone OS in 2011. Expect it to make further market share gains. And, after a year of mostly disappointing Android tablets, manufacturers might finally figure out how to make an Android tablet that’s competitive with the iPad. Google’s latest version of the OS, Ice Cream Sandwich, should make Android even more compelling for tablets, large smartphones and in-between hybrids. And there’s no question it’s the mobile OS that’s most open to developers — or people who just want to tweak their phones. As the OS irons out the rough edges on its interface (and even adds a cool new Android font, Roboto) and continues to appear in hundreds if not thousands of new devices, we will be closely tracking the evolution of Android. 5. Cloud-based servicesConsumer cloud services like iCloud and Dropbox get all the attention, but the real money is in enterprise cloud technology. I was reminded of this at VentureBeat’s recent CloudBeat conference, where company after company explained how cloud technologies were making them nimbler, faster and better able to do their business, and at lower cost than traditional enterprise tech. Because corporations are less price-sensitive than individuals — especially when a technology saves them money — enterprise software companies can get away with charging large amounts for their services, and that’s as true of cloud services as it is for anything else. The result is that the cloud sector is filled with opportunity. It helps that many of the companies serving this space, like Amazon, SuccessFactors, VMware, Box, Twilio and more, are solving real problems. 6. Daily deals start to deflate rapidlyGroupon just completed a successful initial public offering, which some have taken as a proof point for the viability of this market. A lot of companies are betting on that being true: At last count, there were several hundred Groupon-like deals companies in operation. I’m a skeptic. I think that collective buying is a noble idea in principle, but in practice it always seems to benefit merchants more than consumers. Read Rocky Agrawal’s skeptical analyses of Groupon and other coupon companies for a deeper and more incisive analysis. My bottom line? I expect this market to fall apart in 2012, as more and more people see how bogus it is, like the Pet Rock fad in the 1970s. Still, we’ll be watching closely and chronicling the downs — and ups — of the market that has attracted so much interest. Think of these not as predictions, but as the direction I’m facing in 2012. Think I’m on the right track? Got something else you think we should be tracking closely at VentureBeat? Let me know — I want to hear from you. [Photo credit: Cheryl Ann Quigley / Shutterstock.com] Filed under: VentureBeat        
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| Everything you need to know about Facebook’s potential IPO (infographic) Posted: 11 Jan 2012 12:33 PM PST
However, the high level of success Facebook has reached privately is likely to pay off when it finally files an initial public offering (IPO), which could raise over $10 billion. The $10 billion IPO, which only three other companies (AT&T, General Motors and Visa) have ever achieved, isn’t very surprising. Facebook is arguably the most successful social network ever created — so much so that it’s transformed from being just a “network” to an expansive platform of communication, gaming, digital commerce and marketing. The reason Facebook was able to do this is because it’s ridiculously popular, serving over 800 million active users per month. With that many people paying attention, the potential for generating a massive amount revenue is very high. In 2011, some speculate that the company earned $4.2 billion, but the coming year should prove even more successful. By some estimates, Facebook will account for nearly 17 percent of total U.S. advertising revenue in 2012, while its advertisements will account for 28 percent of all ads seen. This suggests that Facebook will earn more ad revenue than Google, Microsoft or Yahoo by the end of 2012. But to give you a better understanding of how a Facebook’s IPO would compare with other successful publicly traded companies, check out the detailed infographic below. (Click image to enlarge.) Infographic via AccountingDegreeOnline.net Filed under: deals, social, VentureBeat        
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| Sony is bringing its Music Unlimited streaming service to iOS soon Posted: 11 Jan 2012 12:23 PM PST
The electronics company will offer a free iPhone and iPad app for Music Unlimited at some point this quarter, Tim Schaaff, head of Sony Entertainment Network said today at a small CES media gathering. Additionally, the iOS app will offer offline caching for subscribers to Sony’s service, allowing them to save playlists for listening when away from a network connection. Competing services like Spotify and Rdio already offer caching, and have also been available on iOS for some time. When asked how the Music Unlimited app would differ from its competitors, Schaaf and Sony’s Michael Aragon said that the company is aiming to take advantage of its major retail and international presence. The company will also be targeting users who have yet to adopt a cloud music service, instead of directly targeting those using competitors. The Music Unlimited service now has over 1 million active users, Schaaf said. The company also recently struck a record deal with indie music site CDBaby, which brings the services total amount of global tracks to 15 million. Given Sony’s increased media streaming presence on other platforms, it almost seems as if the days are numbered for traditional Walkman devices (the company also announced a new Android-based Walkman at CES). But when asked if the company has considered killing the Walkman, Schaaf said Sony would only do it “when people stop buying them.” There’s still a big market for media-only devices, Schaaf said. Filed under: media, mobile, VentureBeat        
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| IBM security software knows your job and what you’re allowed to do Posted: 11 Jan 2012 12:06 PM PST
A lot of companies use software that limits what an individual employee can do on the computer. Some classes of employees, such as sales people, are allowed access to different applications, software, and social media that others are not. This is especially true in larger organizations where confidential information is distributed on a need-to-know basis, and can slip outside of company firewalls without this the right security software. The problem is that as a company grows larger, tailoring security for individual employees can become tedious. IBM has developed identity software that takes care of this problem. The software, which is called Security Role and Policy Modeler, looks at your existing applications and detects how many permissions each person has. These applications include Salesforce, Oracle Finance, Active Directory and more. Based on the access permissions certain employees have in these applications, Security Role and Policy Modeler will group employees into “roles” and assign them a blanket permissions scheme, which can be edited manually. The roles aren’t based necessarily on what job you have, just on what permissions already exist for you, and how they are similar to other people in the company. But not everyone is the same, right? Well, from a security standpoint, your 10,000 person company may be filled with individuals, but it costs a lot of money to sort them one by one. For IBM, it makes more sense to divvy them up into groups and then, if necessary, manually tweak permissions, also known as, “roles plus.” “Having roles well defined will get the compliance auditor off your back faster,” said IBM Security Systems vice president of strategy and product development Marc van Zadelhoff in an interview with VentureBeat. Industries such as finance and medical have compliance regulations around communications and security that are often audited for updated practices. This can be sloppy if your permissions are spread across a number of different applications, especially when a compliance officer wants to see order. Van Zandelhoff believes the role creating software is a way to bring calm to the chaos. For Van Zandelhoff, the new software is also a testament to IBM. The product was born out of IBMs newest division, Security Systems, and is meant to show what Van Zandelhoff calls “good ol’ fashion organic innovation.” The company announced this morning that it acquired 6180 patents in 2011, and won the most patents received in a year for the 19th year. While this and company acquisitions are what IBM is known for, the Security Systems team wants to change that with internal inventions. Ironically, the department has acquired 12 companies thus far, but doesn’t want to limit itself. “We announced IBM Security Systems in October,” said Van Zandelhoff, “It’s the culmination of security growing to become quite a sizeable business.” Filed under: security        
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| Shazam Player is the be-all, end-all music app for the lyrically challenged Posted: 11 Jan 2012 12:05 PM PST
Shazam Player launched Wednesday in the App Store as the be-all, end-all music player for the lyrically challenged or karaoke-obsessed people of the world. The free iPad, iPhone and iPod touch application is the first separate application to be released by Shazam. The company first became famous years ago for its track-identifying technology. The app starts by scanning your device’s music library to match your tracks against the tracks in Shazam’s LyricPlay database. The end result is list of tracks, organized by artists, albums or playlists if you wish, that you can play (and sing-a-long to) with synchronized lyric-streaming. “We think the Shazam Player App is a great new addition and is an excellent complement to our Shazam App,” Shazam CEO Andrew Fisher said, “so that people will always have a magical musical discovery experience, whether the song is something that they're just hearing for the first time or is a favorite in their collection.” For a little history, not-as-cool LyricPlay features were first introduced into the standard Shazam mobile application in June 2011, following the company’s acquisition of Tunezee. The company’s lyrics library has grown from 25,000 to 30,000 songs since that time, and Shazam promises to continue adding lyrics for even more tracks over time. The core of the new application experience centers around the streaming lyrics functionality, and Shazam Player’s interface will likely delight the listener with its colorful, animated and whimsical lyrics display. The application also presents you with a track-by-track menu called a “track tray” (click the down arrow next to each song to access it), which includes YouTube watching options, band tour dates, a lyrics sheet, and Facebook and Twitter sharing buttons. Altogether, the Shazam Player application offers an experience that is equally as fun as it is educational — even if it is a productivity killer. In fact, to the dismay of those nearby, this reporter just spent the last 30 minutes singing along to lyrically-complex songs. Sign me up for karaoke night boys and girls, I’m ready. In recent months, Shazam has seemed especially motivated to break away from being labeled as “that app that helps you figure out what’s playing on the radio.” It’s been busy broadening its scope to include broadcast content discovery (primarily around sponsored advertisements), raising $32 million in additional funding and working with big brands like Starbucks to further promote its mobile apps. Filed under: mobile, VentureBeat        
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| Apple announces education event Jan. 19 — iTextbooks coming? Posted: 11 Jan 2012 11:44 AM PST Apple is sending out media invitations to an event next week where it plans to make an “education announcement”, much to the dismay of many fanboys and fangirls hoping for information about the company’s next generation iPad. The event, which is scheduled for January 19 at the Guggenheim Museum in New York, is expected to be a low-key affair. The invitation, as you’d expect, doesn’t contain any details that would shed light on what the announcement will be. It could be something as ambitious as putting iPads in the hands of more public school children, the next evolution of its iTunes U service or maybe even something that would disrupt the textbook industry. (It’s worth noting that the Guggenheim Museum is where Apple announced the News Corp.-owned iPad “newspaper” The Daily.) Walter Isaacson, who authored the official biography of Apple co-founder and former CEO Steve Jobs, has commented that the company was working on a project involving school text books. Yet, Jobs declined to go into detail about the project since it was (is) Apple’s creation and not a personal project. The education book publishing industry is mammoth, bringing in annual revenue upwards of $5.5 billion for sales of lower education (Kindergarten to 12th grade) and $3.7 billion for sales of scholarly/higher education in 2010, according to statistics from the Association of American Publishers. So it makes perfect sense that Apple would want to enter into an $8 billion industry. (It also helps that textbooks are very expensive, mostly because of unnecessary bureaucracy or a lack of regulation at the university level.) What do you think Apple will announce? Let us know in the comments. [Via The Loop] Filed under: media, VentureBeat        
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| Stratfor site is back online after recovering from Anonymous attack Posted: 11 Jan 2012 11:11 AM PST
Anonymous, a hacktivist collective, opened fire on the site for reasons unknown. The group gained access to and then published contact and financial information for hundreds of thousands of Stratfor subscribers. “In the global commons, anonymity is an option,” said Stratfor CEO George Friedman in a statement this morning. “This is one of the great virtues of the Internet. It is also a terrible weakness. It is possible to commit crimes on the Internet anonymously. The technology that enables the Internet also undermines accountability. Given the profusion of technical knowledge, the integrity of the commons is in the hands of people whose identities we don’t know, whose motives we don’t understand, and whose ability to cause harm is substantial.” Friedman also recorded a video about the attack and subsequent downtime: Stratfor announced last month that it had been hacked on December 24, 2011 and that member data had been illegally stolen and exposed. The company delayed relaunching its website “until a thorough review and adjustment by outside experts [could] be completed," a Stratfor rep told VentureBeat in an email at the time. Then, on December 30, Anonymous dumped a huge amount of sensitive data on text-storage site Pastebin. The data dump inlcuded 200GB of names, email addresses and unencrypted passwords for around 860,000 Stratfor users as well as unencrypted credit card numbers for 75,000 paying Stratfor subscribers. “We knew our reputation would be damaged by the revelation, all the more so because we had not encrypted the credit card files,” said Friedman today. “As the founder and CEO of Stratfor, I take responsibility for this failure.” Today, Stratfor has finally brought its site back online and is working to scale back up after several weeks of downtime. Moving forward, Stratfor will use a third party to process credit card transactions for clients and subscribers. Also, Sec Theory consultants have rebuilt Stratfor’s site, infrastructure and email system for better security against possible future attacks. Verizon and the FBI continue to investigate the forensics of the attack. “It was deliberate destruction,” Friedman said to Reuters. “Their only motivation in doing that was to silence us. We don’t know why they wanted to silence us.” All along, we’ve wondered exactly why Anonymous went after Stratfor, which claims to provide neutral intelligence, analysis and forecasts on matters of international security, politics and more. In a statement issued December 29, representatives of the Anonymous movement wrote, "All our lives we have been robbed blindly and brutalized by corrupted politicians, establishmentarians and government agencies sex shops, and now it's time to take it back." “The consequence of this will not be a glorious anarchy in the spirit of Guy Fawkes, but rather a massive repression,” Friedman countered. “I think this is a pity. That’s why I wonder who the hackers actually are and what cause they serve. I am curious as to whether they realize the whirlwind they are sowing, and whether they, in fact, are trying to generate the repression they say they oppose.” Filed under: security        
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| Google’s new social search: How far can you trust it? Posted: 11 Jan 2012 10:01 AM PST
Google has had a form of social search in its main results for a while, but this is a significant redesign that gives a lot more prominence to social and to Google’s own social product, Google+. So is SPYW part of an evil attempt by the "Don't-be-evil" company to rig search so that it always points back to Google? Or is it a legitimate response to a market need? I'd argue, it's a bit of both. Social search has been the Holy Grail of the search business — people have been looking for it since the early days of search. (Disclosure: I worked on social search when I was at AOL. I’m also an inventor on an AOL patent that may cover parts of social search.) The premise of social search is simple: Content shared by your friends is more relevant than content shared by random people you don’t know. It also fits the mental model that many use in the real world: When you’re looking for a referral for a plumber or a dentist, you start by asking your friends. If that doesn’t work, you turn to search. People have been doing a form of social search in a very inefficient way by using Facebook status updates to pose questions to friends. When I’m about to go on a trip, I’ll post a status message asking friends for advice on things to do and places to eat. For each post, I usually get 5-10 responses. This annoys a friend who works at Yelp, who almost always responds that I should check Yelp instead. But one thumbs up from someone I know is worth a hundred positive reviews from random strangers. I can quickly evaluate the result based on what I know about the responder. If my friend Dariusz recommends a restaurant, I know I can go there without thinking twice because he’s a foodie and our tastes overlap. But I also know to discard the recommendations of another friend whose favorite place is Chick-fil-A. With SPYW, Google automates this process and makes it instantaneous. Instead of relying on users to actively respond to my request, I get access to all of the previous activity they’ve shared. If a second- or third-degree friend shares content about a topic, I instantly have access to it. Think of it as word-of-mouth on steroids. In the real world, I might remember the travel histories of 5 to 7 of my close friends. With SPYW, I have access to the travel-related content of hundreds of friends. There’s an ancillary benefit: It helps to strengthen my relationships with those friends because I can discover shared interests. So SPYW is a great product and represents a very important milestone in search. But a lot of people aren't happy about it. Luther Lowe, Yelp’s director of business outreach and government affairs, expressed a concern many share when he tweeted:
Lowe’s tweet was retweeted by Yelp CEO Jeremy Stoppelman, who was a star witness in September’s hearings about Google and antitrust before the Senate Judiciary Subcommittee on Antitrust, Competition Policy and Consumer Rights. Google faced that hearing because of antitrust concerns that the secret algorithms it uses to rank search results were manipulating those results to fit the interests of the company. In defending Google at that hearing, Google executive chairman Eric Schmidt told Congress that the algorithmic results are untainted. That is true. But it's also not a meaningful statement, because no one sees algorithmic results. Atop and alongside the algorithmic results, you'll see special content that favors Google products. Queries for stock quotes, maps, products and others highlight this content. Consider the following search result screen shot, for example. Yelp, which is a top-ranked site for this result and has some of the best local content, gets a fairly standard treatment. Google gets nearly the entire right side of the screen, with a map and pictures. Schmidt made the argument at the hearings that Google is delivering what consumers want. That’s a fair point — a consumer doing this search would likely want a map, hours of operations and pictures. (In this case, 4 of the 5 pictures that are used are actually from urbanspoon.com, but clicking on the thumbnails takes you to the Flour + Water Google Places page.) Does Yelp just suck and not have pictures from flour + water? Nope. Pictures are one of Yelp’s greatest assets. For flour + water, Yelp has 232 pictures; that’s 231 more pictures than Google. But you wouldn’t know it from Google’s Web search results. How do you tell other results from an algorithmic result as a consumer? They're not labeled. Even experts can have trouble figuring it out. But consumers consider them to be algorithmic results. More accurately, consumers don't care — they trust Google to be impartial and bring them the best of the Web. But Google treats its own content with special presentation that other sites don't get. It blends in to its algorithmic results content from maps, news and social search. A result from Google Places can take the screen real estate of 6 or 7 algorithmic results. If you happen to follow an account on Google+ and that person posts content that matches your search term, it will move up in the rankings for you. In the following example, I did a search for "Rick Santorum" and the eighth result is a story by search guru Danny Sullivan. It showed up there because I follow Danny on Google+. As you can see, Google+ gets preferential treatment here. 7 of the 8 links in this result go to Google+, including the most prominent links. Only one of the links goes to the site that Danny shared. The entire block gets as much real estate as about four standard Google results. The display alone will significantly increase the likelihood of a click. When I do that search while logged out, that same result doesn’t appear in the first 5 pages of results. That's a significant disadvantage as many searchers don't go past the first page. This creates an incentive for a) people to create an account on Google+ and b) people to share articles on Google+. These incentives are especially critical right now when Google+ is struggling to gain meaningful adoption. On its own merits, I would not currently recommend to my clients that they spend time on Google+. But because of the potential effect on Google Web search results, I think it now makes sense for many businesses. As an author, I have long avoided meaningful use of Google+ because it didn’t solve a problem for me. (See my Bloomberg West debate with Robert Scoble about Google+.) But with the launch of SPYW, I’m reconsidering that because I want to be where my audience is — and that’s on Google search. Google provides enhanced treatment for some links shared on Twitter, but this seems to be reduced now that Google is no longer licensing Twitter's firehose. In addition to the explicit incentives that Google creates, there are the implicit incentives created by Google's black-box ranking algorithms. Legions of SEOs with no inside knowledge Make Shit Up. They advise clients how they can please Google's algorithm Gods, often by making more use of other Google properties. (Which, of course, said SEOs can assist them with.) The way Google packages its ad products also means that SPYW will likely let the company help itself to a bigger portion of available ad dollars. Google bundles several discrete ad products together. In some cases, it is impossible for advertisers to opt out of certain properties that they might not want to buy. In other cases, Google offers a wide range of other ad products that can be easily purchased with the primary Web search advertising buy. Advertisers can easily buy into the contextual ad network, mobile ads, etc. From an efficiency standpoint, this makes things much easier for advertisers. But the net effect is that Google can take more share of limited advertising dollars. Ben Edelman, an assistant professor at Harvard Business School, wrote a great analysis of how Google's practices affect advertisers. That was a topic that didn't get much consideration in the Senate's hearings. So who wins and who loses with the launch of SPYW? The clear winner in SPYW is Google+. This level of integration illustrates a commitment to Google+ that many questioned with the failures of Google Buzz and Wave. The biggest losers are Twitter, Facebook, Yelp and TripAdvisor. Twitter and Facebook stand to lose if brands choose to move some of their efforts to Google+ to benefit from enhanced Web search rankings. Facebook has presented a special challenge to Google. Because much of the content in Facebook is private, Google’s crawlers can’t access it. That’s an important loss of signal. While real people have been sharing quality content on Facebook, spammers have been gaming Google’s results on the Web. SPYW significantly dampens the effects of spammers and has the potential to force Facebook to open some of its content to crawlers. Yelp, which recently filed to go public, and TripAdvisor, which was spun out of Expedia in December, are both heavily dependent on Google for Web traffic. On the potential plus side, consumers stand to win if Google’s move finally forces Twitter to build a usable search product for tweets, something it has long neglected. This post was adapted from a series on Google and antitrust published on Rocky Agrawal’s blog, reDesign.
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| Game streaming service OnLive to be preloaded on all Google TVs Posted: 11 Jan 2012 09:52 AM PST
At the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas, the Google TV is clearly gathering momentum as multiple TV makers announce new models with the second-generation service, which allows you to access internet content through connected TVs. Consumers will be able to access console-quality games without having to download them, said Steve Perlman, chief executive of Palo Alto, Calif.-based OnLive. With OnLive’s cloud-based solution, games are computed in a web-connected data center and the results are streamed as video to the user’s machine. That means the user’s hardware only needs to display video, rather than complex 3D graphics, so it can be much lower end and lower cost than typical gamer PCs. “With OnLive, the latest high-performance videogames stream just as instantly as videos or movies,” Perlman said. For now, Google TV will integrate OnLive’s Viewer app, allowing users to be spectator of action. You can also watch the action and use social features. “But hang in there, OnLive is working closely with Google to enable full gameplay with OnLive gamers from around the world on Google TV,” Perlman said. “And more Google TV devices are coming, with OnLive built right in.” Among the TV makers showing off Google TV products are Vizio. OnLive launched its games-on-demand service on the PC in 2010 but hasn’t released numbers of users yet. “It all comes back to the bandwidth available and whether people will use the service,” said Michael Cai, an analyst at market research firm Interpret. “OnLive has made a lot of announcements, but I haven’t seen the substance yet.” Chris Early, vice president of digital games at Ubisoft, says the announcement is important because it gives users another place to access gaming, and it accelerates the trend of letting gamers play games on any platform or anytime. For more news out of this week’s Consumer Electronics Show, be sure to check out VentureBeat’s live coverage from CES 2012.
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Consumers shopping from mobile devices over the holidays played a significant role in 
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The online comment is a troubled entity, often abused or under-appreciated by the anonymous masses. But 
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