VentureBeat |
- Former White House CIO Vivek Kundra joins Salesforce as emerging markets EVP
- AOL accidentally funds its competitors — Sarah Lacy launches PandoDaily with TechCrunch cast
- Security champ Symantec makes a play for the cloud with $115M purchase of LiveOffice
- Hands-on demo of the Basis Band for tracking your daily health (video)
- Full iPhone 4S jailbreak is almost near (video)
- Ubisoft developers explain the experimental survival game I am Alive (video)
- Facebook headed for its monster IPO in May, says report
- Hands-on with Jawbone’s Up movement-tracking band (video)
- Fanhattan aggregates videos on your iPad (video)
- SoftKinetic brings Kinect-like controls to the PC (video)
- Zappos user accounts get hacked — but your credit card info is safe
- SOPA Opera: Anonymous targets media execs, moguls take aim at Google
- Check out this giant game of Pong (video)
- HP unveils giant 11-feet by 7-feet touchscreens for retailers and businesses (video)
- Social Q&A service Beepl automatically finds experts for your questions
- Consumer Electronics Show breaks record with 153,000 attendees
- The coolest technology and moments from CES 2012 (slideshow)
- Data suggests people using pseudonyms leave better comments
- Hulu to stream first original scripted series: “Battleground” (trailer)
- Supermicro talks multi-purpose workstations for the power gamer (interview)
- Wireless controlled cameras let you broadcast your ski run live to Ustream
- Skype for Windows Phone “coming soon”
| Former White House CIO Vivek Kundra joins Salesforce as emerging markets EVP Posted: 16 Jan 2012 09:53 AM PST
Kundra made headlines as the federal government’s first-ever CIO when he was hired by the Obama administration in March 2009. While in his job, Kundra managed $80 billion in technology investments and instituted a 25-point plan to reform and restructure the government's IT management. Kundra left his job in August to become a joint fellow at Harvard University's John F. Kennedy School of Government and the Berkman Center for Internet and Society. The move to Salesforce as an EVP for emerging markets is well-suited for Kundra. Ideally, his time with the federal government will have prepared him to talk up Salesforce’s cloud initiatives throughout the world. “Vivek Kundra is an amazing technology visionary who opened the eyes of millions to the transformational power of cloud computing,” said Salesforce CEO Marc Benioff, in a statement. “His disruptive leadership is just what the industry needs to accelerate the social enterprise.” Before serving as federal CIO, Kundra was the chief technology officer for the District of Columbia and the assistant secretary of commerce and technology for Virginia. Vivek Kundra photo via Dell’s Flickr page Filed under: cloud        
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| AOL accidentally funds its competitors — Sarah Lacy launches PandoDaily with TechCrunch cast Posted: 16 Jan 2012 09:46 AM PST  Nothing to see here, just digging me own graveStep back for a moment and think about what AOL paid for TechCrunch and The Huffington Post last year. Somewhere in the realm of $350 million dollars. Today Sarah Lacy, formerly one of the top writers at TechCrunch, debuted her new site, PandoDaily. Want to guess who is coming to write for her? Former TechCrunch folks like Mike Arrington, M.G. Siegler and Paul Carr. Why exactly would AOL pay so much for editorial properties, only to let the big name writers on the masthead walk away to start competing publications? It seems like Tim Armstrong doesn’t know how to drive a hard bargain. You want to talk about a painful irony — through Mr. Arrington’s Crunchfund, which is a backer in PandoDaily’s $2 million investment round, AOL is now literally funding its own competition. A similar situation is developing in New York with the crew at Soho Labs. Former Huffington Post chief technology officer Paul Berry, widely acknowledged as the brains behind HuffPo’s top notch SEO and early use of social tools, has left AOL and joined up with Ken Lerer, Eric Hippeau and Greg Coleman, all former high ranking members of the Huffington Post, who were handsomely rewarded when the site was purchased by AOL. The group is working on the next generation of tools for social and viral news, the kind of features that made Huffington Post so attractive as a news brand. And they are doing it with help from Jonah Peretti, another founding member of HuffPo. Meanwhile Mr. Peretti is building his new startup, BuzzFeed, into a direct competitor to The Huffington Post, hiring top notch political reporters to compete for HuffPo’s bread and butter, the news cycle during this upcoming election season. It all prompted veteran media watchers to speculate. “How do you pay $315 M. for HuffPo and not keep the CTO locked up?” asked Peter Kafka. Rafat Ali, the founder of paid content, sees it as a painful trend. “An AOL specialty, they never lock anyone. Or can’t. Ask Tacoda, Bebo, Sphere.” Image via the National Library of Australia Filed under: media, VentureBeat        
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| Security champ Symantec makes a play for the cloud with $115M purchase of LiveOffice Posted: 16 Jan 2012 08:52 AM PST
LiveOffice primarily helps companies archiving e-mail in the cloud, ensuring that they always have access to important communications. If a company’s e-mail client goes down, for example, its employees can still send and receive messages. The company’s archiving, hosting and compliance solutions will bolster Symantec’s popular security products like Norton AntiVirus and give it more clout as a cloud service provider. Symantec was already using LiveOffice to help provide its Enterprise Vault archiving product, so the acquisition makes sense. With a full in-house archiving solution, Symantec can offer its customers a wide array of solutions for security, anti-spam, compliance, archiving and continuity. This means its clients will be broadly protected, whether they use in-house or hosted e-mail clients. “What were once disparate issues — information management, eDiscovery, and data security — are rapidly coming together due to the explosion of electronically stored information and the on-premise and cloud-based technologies that deliver and disseminate it, said Brian Dye, Symatec VP of information intelligence, in a statement. “Organizations are increasingly demanding that these issues be addressed in a unified way through information governance. As a market leader for storage, eDiscovery and security, Symantec continues to enhance its offerings and deepen its commitment to provide the most comprehensive intelligent information governance solutions.” Torrance, Calif.-based LiveOffice was founded in 1998 and claims more than 20,000 customers in 50 countries. LiveOffice received a minority investment from Summit Partners back in 2007. You can get a look at LiveOffice’s cloud e-mail archiving solution in the video below: Filed under: cloud, deals, enterprise        
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| Hands-on demo of the Basis Band for tracking your daily health (video) Posted: 16 Jan 2012 08:30 AM PST Basis Science is a Silicon Valley company that wants to inspire you to be more healthy and make it easier to track your health.
Basis tracks your heart rate, your movement, skin temperature and the ambient temperature, and your galvanic skin response (GSR, or how much you’re sweating). The sweat tells you how strenuous your activity is and how stressed out you are. All of the data gets uploaded to the cloud and Basis analyzes it. You wear the device 24 hours a day. The device knows whether you are asleep or awake. “The breakthrough is that we track heart rate continuously,” said Jeff Holove, chief executive of Basis Science. “Our view is that heart rate is a core indicator of your overall wellness.” The GSR data can be used for a lie detector test, but that’s not why Basis measures it. It’s part of all of the metrics that it uses to figure out your basics. The Basis device doubles as a wrist watch. But it also has little icons that tell you things about yourself. It tells you how many calories you’re burning, how much sleep you’re getting, and how many points you’ve gained as a result. Normally, you’d have to have a chest strap to get the same kind of information about your body. When you log into the Basis web site, you can see your personal dashboard, including graphs that track your progress over time. All you have to do is wear the band 24 hours a day. The dashboard gives you intuitive information about your health and wellness in a snapshot. It measures your activity and the number of calories you burn in a day vs. how many you should be burning. The system can classify this data into meaningful events, like walking the dog, jogging, or sleeping. “The dashboard gives a lot more information about your health than you normally have access to,” Holove said. The Basis Band has multiple sensors around an optical engine that tracks heart rate by directing light into the skin to “see” your blood flow. Additional sensors gather information such as your movement. Basis raised $9 million from Norwest Venture Partners and Doll Capital Management. Prior to that, it was angel funded. Price is to be announced. Check out the video below. Filed under: mobile, video        
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| Full iPhone 4S jailbreak is almost near (video) Posted: 16 Jan 2012 08:19 AM PST It’s taken longer than usual for hackers to release a complete jailbreak for the iPhone 4S, but it looks like one is almost here. The above video by iOS hacker pod2G shows a fully untethered jailbreak — meaning the jailbreak is retained even after you reboot the phone — on an iPhone 4S running iOS 5.0.1. “Only a few to wait now,” pod2G wrote on his blog, hinting that the hack is almost ready for release. Jailbreaking your iPhone allows you to run unauthorized apps and customize your phone in an assortment of ways. It’s a direct affront to Apple’s heavily locked-down app ecosystem, so the company has made each new hardware and software release more difficult for hackers to jailbreak. The iPhone 4S jailbreak was created by Dhowett of the hacker collective Chronic Dev Team. Pod2G was also responsible for the untethered iOS 5.0.1 jailbreak for devices other than the iPad 2 and iPhone 4S. We saw the first evidence of a successful iPhone 4S jailbreak back in October, and a tethered hack has been out for some time. Since tethered jailbreaks require you to hack your phone every time it reboots, it’s not something that I’d recommend most users attempt. Filed under: media, mobile, VentureBeat        
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| Ubisoft developers explain the experimental survival game I am Alive (video) Posted: 16 Jan 2012 08:00 AM PST The game play of I Am Alive, a title developed by Ubisoft’s Shanghai studio, is unconventional. Instead of a plethora of weapons and ammo, you’ll often find that you have very few resources for fighting. It’s a big problem if you run into three mean strangers and you’ve only got one bullet.
We saw a hands-on demo of the game at the Consumer Electronics Show. It takes place in a post-disaster world where survival is the entire object. Mettra told us the story is about a man who comes back to his home city after a mysterious disaster known as “The Event” hits the planet. It’s a third-person action adventure focused on survival, but it doesn’t have monsters or zombies.
You also have to pay attention to your energy, or stamina. If you keep climbing forever, you’ll get tired. If you take medicine, it may not be the right kind. The dust is dangerous enough to kill you, so you have to try to climb above it now and then in order to breathe fresh air. And the dust can obscure areas of the city, so you’ll need a map to get around. In this sense, the game puts you in a hazy gray environment which, even without the human enemies, is dangerous to you.
The game is going to be released on Xbox Live Arcade. That’s a story in itself. The console disk-based games are a shrinking market where blockbusters rule. A new intellectual property like I Am Alive is a little too risky to release as a major release on retail platforms. The Ubisoft title was originally envisioned as a console title but was rebooted midstream and redirected as a digital release. Since digital games aren’t as expensive to distribute, releasing the game on Xbox Live became a much better option. Mettra said the game is one of the biggest titles ever to be released via the digital distribution platform of Xbox Live. The game will be available as a Microsoft House Party downloadable title in February. Check out our interview with Mettra and his colleague Aurelien Palasse. Filed under: games        
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| Facebook headed for its monster IPO in May, says report Posted: 16 Jan 2012 07:32 AM PST
Facebook’s IPO is expected to be one of the largest technology-focused deals ever, with a rumored $10 billion offering on a $100 billion valuation. We’ve heard rumblings of Facebook’s IPO for quite some time, but the noise has gotten louder following the IPOs of Groupon, Zynga and Jive Software over the past several months. If Facebook does plan to go public in May, the company will need to file its IPO documents in the next month to comply with Securities and Exchange Commission guidelines. The SEC usually takes up to four months to review documents, and a company like Facebook will draw much scrutiny. Facebook’s reach is enormous, and it has more than 800 million active users. In August, it will likely reach 1 billion users, which amounts to 14 percent of the world. The company’s success comes from transforming itself from being a network to an expansive platform of communication, gaming, digital commerce and marketing. You can see a full breakdown of all you need to know about Facebook’s upcoming IPO here. Facebook’s IPO will be an important step for the company and will help it accumulate the cash to battle Google, which just incorporated Google+ social results into its core search product. Google’s move could significantly hurt Facebook in search traffic, but expect Facebook to creatively step up the fight for traffic and eyeballs with Google. Filed under: deals, social        
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| Hands-on with Jawbone’s Up movement-tracking band (video) Posted: 16 Jan 2012 07:30 AM PST Jawbone is one of the new entrants into the market for quantifying your life. Its Up movement and sleep-tracking health wristband is aimed at people who want to keep track of and improve their health.
Even so, Travis Bogard, vice president of product management and strategy at San Francisco-based Jawbone, was promoting the product at the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas last week.
A free companion app for the Up band tells you how you’re doing throughout the day — if you’re getting enough sleep, eating the right foods, moving enough. After you start using it for a while, you can see how much you’re exceeding or missing your targets.You can pull the band apart and plug it into your iPhone to synchronize it. The app measures your sleep and wakes you at the ideal time, using a silent “smart alarm” which vibrates on your wrist. It can detect whether you are in a deep or a light sleep and assess the overall quality of your sleep. It also reminds you when you’ve been idle for too long. And after you eat, it asks you how you feel. You can share your information with friends on a social network and compete or get positive reinforcement. Here’s a video of Bogard talking about Up. Filed under: games, mobile        
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| Fanhattan aggregates videos on your iPad (video) Posted: 16 Jan 2012 07:30 AM PST There are plenty of movies and TV shows available to watch online or on your mobile device. The trouble is, they’re spread across too many sources, so it can take a lot of searching across sites like Netflix, Hulu, iTunes, and Vudu to find what you’re looking for. Fanhattan tries to make sense of that, organizing your entertainment under one roof. The company showed off its app for aggregating online video content at the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas last week. Rather than just collect all the video and return pure search results, it lets you discover related content. You can scroll through a variety of images until you find what you want. You decide if you want to watch movies or TV. Then you type in the name of a movie or actor you want to see. Fanhattan will tell you where you can find the movie. Then you can see information about the movie such as description, reviews, related Twitter and Facebook feeds, soundtrack, and video clips. If you search for popular TV show Glee, for instance, you see that a number of episodes are available on a bunch of platforms.The most recent episodes are on Hulu and iTunes, but Season 2 is on Netflix and not on Hulu. Season 1 is on Vudu, iTunes and Netflix. That’s a serious case of fragmentation, and it’s the problem the company is trying to solve. If you want to view an episode only available on iTunes, you can tap on the screen of the iPhone or iPad to buy it. The free app is available for the iPad or iPhone now. Fanhattan is based in San Mateo, Calif. Investors include NEA, Redpoint Ventures, BV Capital, Greycroft Partners and Jarl Mohn. The company has raised $35 million to date. Filed under: media, mobile, video        
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| SoftKinetic brings Kinect-like controls to the PC (video) Posted: 16 Jan 2012 07:00 AM PST SoftKinetic is one of many sensor companies promoting 3D cameras in the wake of Microsoft’s success with the Kinect motion sensors for the Xbox 360. But while Microsoft has already sold 18 million Kinect system, Michel Tombroff, chief executive of SoftKinetic, says motion-sensing technology is just getting off the ground.
Microsoft launched Kinect in the fall of 2010, but Tombroff says technology has moved forward since then. His company showed off some examples at the Consumer Electronics Show last week in Las Vegas. Potential uses of the hardware range from controlling your TV or shopping for clothes online in a virtual dressing room.
Guru Golf was at the SoftKinetic booth at CES, showing off its golf training system, which tracks your swing and offers analysis and training.
The SoftKinetic technology has been used in creating interactive marketing applications, such as the digital interactive art work in the lobby at Yahoo’s headquarters, pictured left. It has been used to show off the Disney movie The Sorcerer’s Apprentice in theaters, and it has been used on a large interactive wall by Bally Total Fitness Centers to encouraging exercise. Filed under: games, video        
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| Zappos user accounts get hacked — but your credit card info is safe Posted: 16 Jan 2012 06:50 AM PST
It appears the hacker was able to get access to data such as customer names, home addresses, and last four digits of customer credit cards (which can be found on most receipts). Secure credit card and payment data remained untouched, Hsieh said. “We’ve spent over 12 years building our reputation, brand, and trust with our customers,” Hsieh said in an e-mail to the site’s more than 24 million customers last night. “It’s painful to see us take so many steps back due to a single incident. I suppose the one saving grace is that the database that stores our customers’ critical credit card and other payment data was not affected or accessed.” The hack also affected Zappos affiliate 6pm.com, which sent the same warning message to its customers. While a security breach is never good news, things certainly could have been much worse for Zappos. Sony’s PlayStation Network hack, for example, compromised 12.3 million users’ credit cards and led to downtime of almost a month. Despite the breach, Zappos will continue running as normal. As a security precaution, the site has expired and reset customer passwords — an easy way to force users to change potentially compromised passwords. Zappos also recommends that its customers change passwords on any other sites that share their Zappos e-mail login and password. Filed under: VentureBeat        
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| SOPA Opera: Anonymous targets media execs, moguls take aim at Google Posted: 16 Jan 2012 05:32 AM PST  Anonymous hacker via Flickr commonsThe White House shook up the debate over the controversial Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA) this weekend, publishing a letter that made it clear the executive branch would not back a bill without changes that addressed concerns over online censorship and damage to the very architecture of the internet. The big news is that Congress has agreed to shelve the vote on SOPA until it can find more common ground. But the battle over how best to address online piracy has now spun out far and wide. The hacktivist group Anonymous, for example, has found a juicy new target: stodgy old media executives. The group obtained and then published posts with personal information about Jeffrey L. Bewkes, chairman and chief executive of Time Warner, and Sumner M. Redstone, who oversees Viacom and CBS. Both of these men run companies that support SOPA. As The New York Times reports, after Anonymous exposed Mr. Bewkes personal email and home phone number, he received a wave of complaints from anti-SOPA advocates. The people in power seem a little perplexed about the guerilla tactics. “"Why can't they just hire a lobbyist like everyone else?" a Congressional aide for the House Judiciary Committee asked the NY Times. If you thought fabulously wealthy media moguls were going to take this lying down, think again. New Corp.’s Rupert Murdoch used his Twitter account over the weekend to respond to the White House letter. “So Obama has thrown in his lot with Silicon Valley paymasters who threaten all software creators with piracy, plain thievery,” he tweeted. “Piracy leader is Google who streams movies free, sells advts around them. No wonder pouring millions into lobbying.” Murdoch seems more than a little confused about how search engines work, but hey, when you’re running a massive multinational corporation, you don’t always have time for the details. Google responded via a letter to CNET. “”This is just nonsense,” a Google spokeswoman declared. “Last year we took down 5 million infringing Web pages from our search results and invested more than $60 million in the fight against bad ads … We fight pirates and counterfeiters every day.” The focus now will shift to the Senate, where Majority Leader Harry Reid has announced his intention to move forward with with a vote on PIPA, SOPA’s evil cousin, some time in the next two weeks. Expect a lot more fireworks, including a massive protest later this week from the New York Tech Meetup, which is holding an emergency event for its more than 19,000 members outside the offices of Senators Charles Schumer and Kirsten Gillibrand. Filed under: VentureBeat        
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| Check out this giant game of Pong (video) Posted: 16 Jan 2012 04:45 AM PST
The HP VantagePoint system runs PC titles and is targeted at retailers and businesses that want to visualize cool stuff. Retailers may be particularly interested in creating giant games like the one demonstrated by HP because they always have a hard time getting people to stop and notice their signs. The HP VantagePoint uses infrared touch technology that is pretty responsive to finger touches. It can detect as many as 32 finger touches at the same time. The possibilities for gamers are pretty cool. You may see these screens appearing in the coming months as businesses deploy them. But don’t expect to get one for your home, unless you’re willing to spend $125,000. Check out the video below. Filed under: games        
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| HP unveils giant 11-feet by 7-feet touchscreens for retailers and businesses (video) Posted: 16 Jan 2012 04:45 AM PST Hewlett-Packard sure knows how to build big stuff. Today, the world’s biggest computer maker is taking the wraps off its wall-sized 132-inch touchscreen displays that can be used in high-end retail displays or battlefield control rooms. HP hopes this will take its digital sign business to the next level.
At that price, HP is lowering the cost of entry for businesses to use big screens for visualization. Companies can create an interactive wall that they can use to attract people into stores and help them see how clothes on the rack look on a real person. They can also entertain them with big screen versions of games like Angry Birds.
“We want to transform the way businesses interact with customers,” he said in an interview. “We’ve taken this from inception to a commercial grade product that can scale.” While the cost seems high, it’s actually not as expensive as many other solutions in the market. HP lowers the display costs by using six 47-inch liquid crystal display monitors whose cost can fall over time — all driven by the Eyefinity technology in the Radeon cards built by Advanced Micro Devices. HP actually innovated on cost of ownership by creating a modular aluminum frame that supports the monitors. If one of the six HP LD4730G Ultra-Micro Bezel monitors goes dark, it can be replaced in a matter of minutes with a screwdriver and a couple of technicians carrying the display. In the past, big displays had to be assembled and tested over a period of days or weeks. But Richard Doherty, an analyst at Envisioneering Group, said that hundreds of businesses and organizations that sell premium products are likely to take HP up on the technology, despite the high sticker price. He doesn’t see much competition that can scale to provide products across a large market. Customers are likely to include product designers, fashion designers, crisis managers, and high-value retailers, he said. The innovation lies in the ability to completely integrate the displays and the back-end information technology to make them work in a dependable manner, he said. HP can also build even bigger interactive walls, some using its older Photon Engine, with a series of ordinary $1,200 projectors, beaming images on an ultra-high resolution screen as big as 40 feet. So the company can tailor the size of the wall to fit whatever a business wants. It can run it at 4K resolution, which is the format for next-generation TVs. A demo of the larger wall — showing a control room for dealing with the tsunami in Japan — is available in a video at the very bottom of this story. HP VantagePoint can be used in executive briefing centers, showrooms, retail, financial services, automotive, airline, consumer packaged goods and government. Customers can include Fortune 1000 companies, entertainment firms, or sports venues where larger-than-life experiences are the way to stand out from a crowd of traditional advertisements or signs. HP will work with a series of certified partners who can assist companies in designing custom-made digital signs. HP will work with value-added resellers, services firms and independent software developers to create solutions for its customers. Partners include Diversified Media Group, Diversified Systems, F2B Services and MicroTech. Certified ISVs are Aniden, Design Reactor and Wire Stone. Montalvo said the idea was born in HP years a few years ago and it was developed through collaboration with key partners including American Airlines, DreamWorks Animation, Edelman and the San Francisco 49ers. All of these companies have versions of the interactive wall on display at their premises. Diane von Furstenberg used the interactive wall to show off lines of clothing. The first version of the interactive wall is in use at Edelman public relations, and since then HP has learned how to make the displays better and cheaper, said Mickie Calkins (pictured above and at top), HP co-innovation program manager in HP’s Personal Systems Group. “This is 100 percent HP, home-grown,” she said. “The wall could be bigger, but we made it this size so it can be fully used by people of normal height.”
HP also worked with Total Immersion to adapt its augmented reality software for HP VantagePoint. I, of course, am interested in what it means for gamers. I played a version of Angry Birds on the wall and popped a bunch of color bubbles in a timed frenzy game as well. You can pick up and stretch or shrink photos and videos on the wall with your fingers. The screen is very responsive. I actually whacked it with a pair of drumsticks, and it didn’t leave a scratch. The glass can actually withstand a 56-mile-per-hour projectile. The screens use an infrared-based touch technology to sense onscreen interaction. It features strong and scratch resistant Gorilla Glass from Corning and is powered by an HP Z800 Workstation which handles video and image processing. An HP Pavilion Slimline PC controls the audio volume and color contrast. HP can pipe content into the displays via cable and satellite feeds, as well as downloaded and streaming content from the web or DVR and DVD players. The signal is 100 percent digital and the system uses the 64-bit version of Windows 7 for applications. HP Labs developed the big screens in a secret warehouse which was nicknamed Area 17. “We found that we needed a bigger lab,” Montalvo said. Check out our videos of the HP VantagePoint wall in action. Filed under: games, media, VentureBeat        
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| Social Q&A service Beepl automatically finds experts for your questions Posted: 16 Jan 2012 04:30 AM PST
Beepl allows users to easily sign-up through Facebook or Twitter and then have the option of connecting to LinkedIn. Once you’re connected, Beepl makes it extremely easy to post a question or browse lists of questions that you may be able to answer. It offers a “direct questions” feature that lets you message other users in private if you don’t feel like publicly posting or answering. Beepl also looks to reward active users by tracking the number of times you post a question or answer one. It keeps a running tally, which determines your “Beepl Rank.” Several similar services exist currently, including Quora, the popular question and answer site that’s curated by its members. The difference is that while Quora asks you what you’re interested in and what you might be an expert of, Beepl does it through a user’s social graph by pulling in information when you connect to Facebook or Twitter as well as LinkedIn. Beepl’s co-founder, Steve O’Hear, explains the secret sauce by saying “We then analyse these social media profiles to help supplement a user's interest graph on Beepl (e.g. Facebook Likes, LinkedIn Skills, recent tweets) so that they see and can answer questions most relevant to them.” The London-based company, founded in 2011, has already secured a “six figure” seed round prior to public beta from Credo Ventures, a VC fund targeting startups in Central and Eastern Europe.
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| Consumer Electronics Show breaks record with 153,000 attendees Posted: 15 Jan 2012 10:33 PM PST
The show attracted executives from business, government, entertainment, automotive, consumer electronics and every major industry. And so it should, as it is the biggest trade show for the $1 trillion electronics industry. The organization behind the show, the Consumer Electronics Association, headed by chief executive Gary Shapiro (pictured right), is now reviewing requests for 2013 CES keynotes. The group has to replace Microsoft’s opening keynote speaker slot, as the company is giving it up after this year. The CEA said that 95,000 square feet of exhibit space in the iLounge Pavilion (for Apple products) has already sold for next year. Among those committed to floor space are car makers Mazda, BMW, Ford, Kia and Hyundai. Hot trends at this year’s show included Ultrabooks, OLED TVs, Android 4.0 tablets, next-generation smartphones and 3D printers. Celebrities who attended included Eliza Dushku, Justin Timberlake, Justin Bieber, Ludacris, 50 Cent, Wil.i.am, Wayne Brady, Jillian Michaels, LL Cool J, Ryan Seacrest, Will Smith and Kelly Clarkson. For the geeks among us, that means technology is cool. Technology innovations generated excitement across the 2012 CES showfloor. Dozens of ultrabooks, OLED TVs, Android 4.0 tablets, next generation smartphones and 3D printers were launched. Reporters wrote thousands of articles about the products. Among the dignitaries who visited were FCC Chairman Julius Genachowski, Nevada Governor Brian Sandoval, Senator Ron Wyden (D-OR), Senator Dean Heller (R-NV), Rep. Marsha Blackburn (R-TN), Rep. Gerry Connolly (D-VA), Rep. Darrell Issa (R-CA), Rep. John Shimkus (R-IL), Rep. Cliff Stearns (R-FL), Rep. Lee Terry (R-NE) and FCC Commissioners Mignon Clyburn and Robert M. McDowell. Government officials from Canada, Columbia, Egypt, Iraq, Jordan, Korea, Lebanon and Oman also attended. Next year, the show will be Jan. 8-11, 2013, in Las Vegas. Audited figures will be out this spring. Microsoft won’t be on the show floor, but you can bet it’s going to be crowded again. In an interview last week with VentureBeat, Shapiro said, "The show is doing phenomenally well. We're at or near our record in attendance and footprint. We have been approached by all sorts of companies that want to do the opening keynote. We will decide in time." "There is no questions that the speed of the introduction of electronics has changed," Shapiro said. "But a show forces companies to meet a deadline. We give people a reason to get things done. The show is also a five-senses experience, where you can see and hear everything. And face to face meetings still work the best. These are reasons why more than 150,000 people still come to the show. Filed under: games, media, mobile        
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| The coolest technology and moments from CES 2012 (slideshow) Posted: 15 Jan 2012 09:15 PM PST Last week, four VentureBeat reporters and our videographer braved the International Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas. They covered 1.861 million square feet of show floor, visited many of the 3,100 exhibitors, and sorted through the 20,000 new products that were launched at the event to find the most interesting stories and gadgets. They also took a lot of photographs. Here are some of our favorite images and finds from the CES 2012 floor, including an Atari controller for the iPad, exciting in-car computers, and the hottest new laptops and mobile phones. For even more images, check out the VentureBeat Flickr photostream. You can find in-depth articles about these products and events in our collection of CES 2012 coverage, including hands-ons and videos. Photos by Dean Takahashi, Devindra Hardawar, Dylan Tweney, and Sean Ludwig. Filed under: games, green, mobile, VentureBeat        
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| Data suggests people using pseudonyms leave better comments Posted: 15 Jan 2012 04:00 PM PST
Before you respond with a “well duh, that’s a fact” retort, you might want to take a look at new data from online conversation startup Disqus. The company analyzed nearly 500,000 comments made via its platform and found that the digital denizens using fictitious names, or pseudonyms, are actually responsible for the highest quantity and quality of comments on the web. Disqus determined that 61 percent of its commenters use pseudonyms, 35 percent remain anonymous and just 4 percent log in with Facebook to comment with their real identity. “The average commenter using a pseudonym contributed 6.5 times more than anonymous commenters and 4.7 times more than commenters identifying with Facebook,” Disqus said. These partially veiled commenters are also soliciting more “likes” and replies — positive quality signals, according to Disqus — than their anonymous and real name counterparts. Sixty-one percent of comments made by people using pseudonyms showed positive quality signals, while 51 percent of comments from those using their real names and 34 percent from the anonymous types possessed positive quality signals. Why might any of this matter? Facebook makes a commenting system that pivots around identity and threatens the livelihood of Disqus. The latter’s commenting solution is used on more than 1 million websites, but Facebook’s Comments Box is growing in popularity and now has the support of more than 400,000 publishers. It also just got a lot more mobile-friendly. It’s in Disqus’ best interest to show publishers that allowing their commenters to choose how they want to represent themselves is the right way to go. As such, take the company’s findings with a grain of salt and expect the identity debate to continue. [Image via marcwathieu/Flickr] Filed under: social, VentureBeat        
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| Hulu to stream first original scripted series: “Battleground” (trailer) Posted: 15 Jan 2012 02:53 PM PST Hoping that content really is king in the battle for viewer attention, video streaming company Hulu has purchased its first original scripted series. Hulu has ordered 13, 30-minute episodes of (somewhat ironically titled) “Battleground,” a faux documentary that follows the characters behind a fictional politician’s campaign for Senator. “Battleground” episodes will beginning airing Tuesday, February 14, and episodes will include eight minutes of advertising, according to AdAge. The site’s exclusive new offering is part of a $500 million new content promise Hulu CEO Jason Kilar made to viewers earlier in the week — and a chess-like response to Netflix. The series announcement, not coincidentally, coincides with Netflix’s first foray into the realm of original programming. The Hulu competitor will start streaming its original series “Lilyhammer” to subscribers come early February. Hulu, a company that had an uncertain future just a few months ago, is also now talking about potentially raising funds to finance more original content deals. “We have a very healthy business,” chief content officer Andy Forssell said at the Television Critics’ Association Winter Press Tour Sunday. “When you have a healthy business, capital is not a problem. There are plenty of people who want to help.” Hulu has also renewed its commitment to documentary series “A Day in the Life.” The company has ordered 10 new episodes of the show, according to Bloomberg. Together, the two shows could help Hulu ramp up advertising sales and encourage more Hulu Plus paid-subscriber signups. Hulu continues to see healthy growth in revenue, new content and subscriber numbers, but it missed its 2011 revenue projection by $80 million. Filed under: media, VentureBeat        
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| Supermicro talks multi-purpose workstations for the power gamer (interview) Posted: 15 Jan 2012 01:00 PM PST On Thursday at the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas, we met with computer manufacturer Supermicro’s technical marketing manager, Bjoern Metzdorf. Metzdorf was accompanied by professional gamer Carlos Rodriguez, as they discussed why Supermicro’s current lineup of traditionally non-gaming workstations have all the power and affordability a gamer could want. In particular, the duo cited the multi-tasking capabilities (running a game, capturing it, streaming it live across the Web, and a number of processor-intensive communication applications all running in tandem). Being able to play a game fluidly, especially where moment-to-moment actions mean the difference between winning or lose, while also running a variety of miscellaneous programs, is something will definitely appeal to even non-professional gamers. Here’s a transcript of our interview. GamesBeat: What is it about Supermicro’s computers? What are you doing differently than other companies? Bjoern Metzdorf: Well, Supermicro is a top-tier server manufacturer. We’re having a range of products in the workstation space as well. What we’ve done is we’ve taken the server technology and quality down to the workstation level. Meaning, we have the best components on the motherboards, the best components on the chassis, the best available power supplies. We’re using Japanese capacitors instead of cheaper ones, we have a very strong focus on quality and performance. It all comes down to this. If you’re playing a high-resolution game on the same machine while encoding your whole desktop in HD quality, sometimes even playing an HD video at the same time, so you have to decode and encode and have your game running and so on, that requires a tremendous amount of CPU power. Nowadays people like Ocelote are able to have their own TV studio at home, they need HD webcams, they need a powerful PC, a one-stop solution for their video production environment, you need beefy machines for that. Our machines are designed to run 24/7… Basically it’s server technology put into a desktop. They’re designed to run 24/7, they’re certified for office, business use, it’s a professional workstation. We want to show, here at CES, that a professional workstation, ranging from uniprocessor to multi-processor to multi-GPU solutions, can accommodate professional gaming as well. In Carlos’s case, he’s not only playing games, but he’s having a very popular channel on the internet as well. He’s actually working on that machine. He’s a professional gamer playing and live-streaming from the same machine. GamesBeat: Carlos was also mentioning that there’s a lot of processor power going into it, but for a smaller price. How do you manage that? Metzdorf: Well, we have a very cost-effective organization, we have a very cost-effective solution range. This can be seen in the server space as well, so everyone that’s interested in servers normally checks out the top-tier companies, and we’re one of those top-tier companies. We’re the fastest company for time to market. We have the newest features, always, ahead of our competition. It’s a very good mix, people can decide what they want. We’re just used, for 18 years now, 19 years now, to do that stuff. Those products. GamesBeat: So would you recommend a Supermicro computer over something like an Alienware, or similar gaming-focused rig? Carlos Rodriguez: I tested Alienware, and I will, ah, tell you… I had an Alienware before, for… Metzdorf: The thing is, we don’t… We are endorsing our professional workstations. We’re not selling gaming PCs directly, we have a very large channel-based and reseller-based distribution. But we just want to show that it’s not only conservative, professional use that our machines can accommodate, but also fun and gaming. That’s what we want to show. GamesBeat: Carlos, can you talk about why you partnered up with Supermicro, what you’re representing? Rodriguez: The thing is, at home I’ve got a pretty good machine to stream. It’s a badass machine, honestly. But I feel like I’m lagging sometimes, even with that. The streaming, plus LoL at the maximum resolution, streaming HD and stuff, it makes the game choppy sometimes. I’m a pro player, I cannot play like that. I can’t play choppy. So I was talking with them, kind of casually, but it ended up with… Is Supermicro capable of making my gameplay, when I’m streaming, not choppy at all? Are you able to make me play without any single problem? They said yes. So I’m here to test it. I didn’t know how it was going to go, honestly, but it went pretty well, I have to say. GamesBeat: What are the most processor-intensive programs that are all running at once? You have League of Legends, your streaming, what are the main programs you have running all at once? Rodriguez: You have to keep in mind that it’s not only streaming, it’s also talking with the fans and stuff, so you need IRC, IRC eats a lot. You need web-based stuff like Twitter, Facebook and stuff. You need a lot of media open already, like, “Okay guys, I’m going to upload this video,” and you shoot it into the stream. While you’re in the game, the game is open. You have to have so many things open. And you need the game to not be choppy at the same time. You’re a pro player, you don’t want to lag in-game. You’re not supposed to lag in-game. And either you stop the streaming, something that isn’t any fun at all, or you get a good machine. A supercomputer, like I say. My fear was, maybe this is going to be hell of expensive. I don’t know how they do it, I don’t know anything about electronics, but the PC I was playing with is actually way less expensive than the PC I’ve got at home. For some strange reason, I can’t explain it to you, but it goes like two times better, three times better. The game didn’t go choppy at any time. And I tested all the games, not only League of Legends, I tested… You know Crysis 2? I tested Crysis 2 streaming it in HD, I can’t do that at home. It’s crazy. For more from Rodriguez, check out our interview from earlier today on why League of Legends will remain the undefeated king of the battle arena. Filed under: games, VentureBeat        
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| Wireless controlled cameras let you broadcast your ski run live to Ustream Posted: 15 Jan 2012 12:42 PM PST
Marc Barros, chief executive of the company, says that the video camera market has been shrinking, but sports cameras are on the rise as people realize they can capture some of the most spectacular moments in life. Contour has been making cameras since 2003 (formerly known as VHoldR) and it has been growing every year. “You can see speed, elevation, distance etc.,” Barros said in an interview. “We’re leading the way in putting video and data together. There’s a proliferation of sensors and video is becoming easier and easier.” In the past, helmet-mounted cameras were hard to control because it was difficult to see if they were aimed in the right direction. But, thanks to technology from chip makers Ambarella and Qualcomm Atheros, you will be able to use a Bluetooth connection to point the camera with your iPhone or other smartphone. The Contour Connect App will be free and available in April. Now you’ll always have the right POV (point of view). “With hands-free, we started this eight years ago so we could record video while we skied,” Barros said. “It’s got to be simple. People are used to Apple products. So we focus on ease of use. Now the traditional video companies are trying to come into this space. We focus on the experiences you can film.” For livestreaming, Contour partnered with Japanese networking company Cerevo, which provides a LiveShell for $299. You connect your Contour+ camera to LiveShell via a HDMI cable. Then LiveShell takes the camera video feed and allows people to share it via the smartphone in real-time on Ustream. The video is recorded in high-definition 1080p format at 25 to 30 frames per second or at 720p resolution at 25 to 30 or 50 to 60 frames per second. These new features can be used with the company’s flagship product, the Contour+. Contour also makes the $199 ContourROAM camera, a one-button, easy-to-use waterproof camera. The cameras have built-in navigation and mobile connectivity and can be mounted on any surface. “It’s all about sharing with your friends,” Barros said. “You want them to be there at that moment. You can tell really rich stories, whether you are a professional broadcaster or not.” With Cerevo LiveShell and Contour+, the maximum resolution is 480p. You can stream to Ustream via WiFi or 3G connections. With LiveShell, Contour+ has more than two hours of battery life. Cerevo Liveshell will be available on Feb. 1 from Contour’s online store, while the Contour+ is available now. Rivals include GoPro. Check out our video with Barros below. Filed under: mobile        
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| Skype for Windows Phone “coming soon” Posted: 15 Jan 2012 11:25 AM PST
A Skype for Windows Phone application, however, will soon make its debut, Skype vice president of products Rick Osterloh asserted in a recent interview taped at the Consumer Electronics Show in Vegas. “We’re … working on a Windows Phone product that will be coming out soon,” he said. When Microsoft purchased the video-conferencing company for $8.5 billion in June 2011 (the deal closed in October), it talked up an unrivaled Windows Phone Skype offering that would include deep integration between the voice over IP service and its mobile operating system. But the merger still has Windows Phone owners waiting for platform integration, let alone a basic application on par with what’s already offered on iPhone, Android and BlackBerry. That wait is likely to continue. The first Windows Phone product, according to The Verge, could be released as soon as the Mobile World Congress in February, but it won’t be the much-ballyhooed operating system-wide offering originally touted by the companies. Windows Phone owners may have to wait for this rich Skype integration until the Apollo software release, which, according to a leaked roadmap, won’t happen until the fourth quarter of 2012. “We understand, from our own sources, that the initial release of Skype will not feature deep Windows Phone integration, and that Microsoft is planning this for “Apollo” and beyond,” The Verge is reporting. “Microsoft’s first Windows Phone Skype application will largely be seen as an interim release until Windows Phone ‘Apollo’ is made available.” But Microsoft and Skype would like you to know that integrations are coming — eventually. “We’re working with a lot of different Microsoft product groups to create direct integrations,” Osterloh said. “Right now, we’re working on Windows Phone, we’ll be working on Windows 8, Xbox, Lync. So a whole range of different Microsoft users will get access to Skype and have a great experience.” Skype, Osterloh said, now has more than 200 million monthly users.
Filed under: mobile, VentureBeat        
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Microsoft’s acquisition of Skype promised to be a marriage made in an integration heaven — especially for Windows Phones owners — but so far it’s been all talk and no action.
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