kids choice awards 2009 winners

A sampling of green-tech news with quick commentary.

Economy forces consolidation in solar industry - San Francisco Chronicle
Darwinian forces at work in solar as project developer Recurrent Energy buys project pipeline of another firm.
Valero Energy to Buy 7 Ethanol Plants - The New York Times kids choice awards 2009 winners
Corn ethanol maker VeraSun had to auction off its refineries. Meanwhile, the industry is pushing to increase the mix of ethanol in gasoline to 15 percent from 10 percent.
Oil, Water Are Volatile Mix in West - The Wall Street Journal
Oil firms cause concerns by buying water rights in dry west for oil shale exploration, another example of the close tie between water and energy.
Biofuels, not wind and solar power are Shell's energy future - The Guardian
Shell says that biofuels are a better fit with its fossil fuel business. No more wind, solar, and hydro. AT&T plugs into grid, powers smart meters' conversations - Ars Technica
A deal between AT&T and SmartSynch which uses the cell phone network to communicate smart meter data back to utilities.
"Detroit 3" pressures will impact EV startups - Darryl Siry's Blog
Former Tesla exec argues that the cratering auto industry hurts start-ups as well. Implication is that pace of innovation will slow.
A Rising Tide for New Desalinated Water Technologies - Press release
Lux Research predicts a wave of new water technologies based on reverse osmosis to meet the growing demand for fresh water. kids choice awards 2009 winners
Study finds national standard efficiency can save U.S. consumers and business nearly $170 billion - Press release
An industry group focused on energy efficiency runs the numbers on potential savings. It's lobbying for efficiency mandates for utilities.
Smart grid's growth now depends on states - Stateline.org
Modernizing the grid makes sense and home energy monitoring can help consumers reduce energy use, but it costs money, which is where state utility regulators come in.

dog the bounty hunter

Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer once again publicly declared his interest in a Yahoo search deal, during a keynote speech at the 2009 Media Summit in New York.

And as with his past declarations of interest, Yahoo's stock responded. Yahoo climbed 4.84 percent to $14.07 a share in early morning trading.

Ballmer, according to a post in AllThingsD, had this to say about Yahoo and new CEO Carol Bartz: dog the bounty hunter

I'm sure when it's appropriate, we'll have a chance to sit down and talk.

...Whether a deal gets done or not, who knows.

...There are a lot of things that are fairly compelling economically in trying to put our two search efforts together in a partnership.

AllThingsD points out as well that Bartz is also in New York this week.

my big fat greek wedding

Google Maps now shows Trafalgar Square in London among other locations.

(Credit: screenshot by Stephen Shankland/CNET)
Google has brought its driver's-eye view of the world to more parts of Europe, releasing Street View imagery for the United Kingdom and the Netherlands. my big fat greek wedding

As with the United States and other countries that have Street View, not all areas are photographed, but major cities have some coverage. Google Blogoscoped had this list of cities: Birmingham, Bristol, Cambridge, Coventry, Derby, Leeds, Liverpool, London, Manchester, Newcastle, Norwich, Nottingham, Oxford, Scunthorpe, Sheffield, Southampton, and York in England; Belfast in Northern Ireland; Aberdeen, Dundee, Edinburgh and Glasgow in Scotland; and Cardiff and Swansea in Wales.

For the virtual tourist, Google Maps Mania has a nice gallery of images, too.

polar storm

Piaggio Group Americas, a subsidiary of the Italian manufacturer known for the Vespa, has a highway legal plug-in hybrid scooter in the works that could be available in the U.S. for early 2010.polar storm

While Paolo Timoni, the president and CEO of Piaggio Group Americas, has made mention of this plan in interviews, the company has made no formal announcement so it's been hard to gauge whether you can hold it to the timeline.

The plug-in hybrid version in the works is a modified version of Piaggio's MP3 500 (the Gilera Fuoco in Europe). The MP3 500 scooter in plug-in hybrid version will get about 140 mpg, have a range of 40 miles per charge when running on electric power alone, and be priced between $8,000 and $9,000, according to Timoni.

For those unfamiliar with the MP3 500, it's a scooter/motorcycle hybrid that attempts to get rid of the girlie, Audrey Hepburn image of the Vespa. It offers a little more speed and heft, but with two front wheels maintains the stability of a scooter. There is even a switch so drivers don't have to balance themselves at stoplights.

Timoni acknowledged in one interview that one obstacle his company has had to overcome is that U.S. cities are not yet scooter-friendly. Rather than offering preferred parking spaces, most U.S. drivers are faced with the same parking options as car drivers.

But the company was encouraged by its 2008 U.S. success, according to Timoni. While sales were down in the last quarter, Piaggio Group Americas saw a 61 percent increase in the sales of scooters and 15 percent increase in motorcycles overall for 2008. The company attributed the good year to the gas price increase, convenience, and the lower cost of scooters generally compared to cars.polar storm

If the company makes good on Timoni's promise, as HybridCars points out, this would mean Piaggio is going to beat Chevy and its Volt to market by about six months.

While there are all-electric plug-in scooters, a hybrid would give riders the flexibility of filling up at the pump in an emergency. They wouldn't be stuck without juice, or have to time when they next need to charge up at an outlet.

Whether a scooter is an actual competitor to a rain-proof car is arguable. But you could see a plug-in hybrid scooter as an option for urbanites and commuters who park daily at the train station near their house.

Piaggio did not immediately return a request for comment.

us soccer

NEW YORK--Smart-grid upstart Silver Spring Networks closed a round of funding on March 1, which the company hopes will be its last before going public, according to Chief Executive Scott Lang. us soccer

Silver Spring Networks raised an additional 20 percent to the $75 million it secured last year, or another $15 million, Lang said during a presentation at the Jefferies Clean Technology Conference on Tuesday here.



After his talk, Lang said the company intends to go public through an initial public offering, although he did not say when.

"I hope (this round of financing) is the last one. We did it to shore up the balance sheet," Lang said during his presentation. "Break-even should be pretty soon based on (sales) volume."

Silver Spring is one of the most established smart-grid companies in the burgeoning field. Founded in 2002, the company has a few large contracts with U.S. utilities, notably Pacific Gas & Electric, Florida Power and Light, and Pepco. It is negotiating deals with other utilities that could connect between 10 million and 12 million homes, Lang said.

The company makes software and chips to create a network that brokers communications between utilities and customers. For example, its products can be embedded in a smart meter so that it can send usage information to utilties in regular intervals and utilities can send electricity rate information to customers in real time.

From a technology point of view, Silicon Valley-based Silver Spring Networks is well known for its decision to use the Internet Protocol standard as the basis for its products.

"I believe that ultimately the trend is toward IP. It creates an open playing field," Lang said. "If the industry doesn't standardize on this, what are we going to standardize on?" us soccer

Speedy progress in California
Last July, Pacific Gas & Electric chose Silver Spring Networks as its supplier for a large-scale smart-grid project worth about $200 million, according to Lang.

He predicted that the roll-out of smart-grid gear to 5 million people will take two and a half years, rather than the five years as originally projected.

"The ramp-up is unbelievable. We are deploying over 100,000 homes a month and that will probably double next quarter," he said.

The massive government stimulus plan set aside billions of dollars for modernizing the grid, which includes smart-grid projects.

www.nick/kca

This week in London I remembered one of the remarkable things that Mac OS X and the Apple hardware provide: wireless access.

By this I'm not referring to the ability to access the Internet through the Mac's WiFi hardware, but rather, the ability to provide wireless access to others using one's Mac. I used it this week to get WiFi access on my iPhone while in my hotel room, so that I'd only have to pay for Internet access once (through my laptop), and avoid Apple's/AT&T's substantial roaming data charges.www.nick/kca

For many Mac people, you already know how to do this. For the rest, well, pay attention. It's quite easy, and it can be a nice party trick for making you popular at conferences, company meetings, or other places where Ethernet access is in short supply.

Assuming you have Apple's Mac OS X 10.5, follow these instructions. (They're not much different for earlier versions of OS X.)

First, click on System Preferences. Next, click on Sharing, then Internet Sharing. You'll see a "Share your connection from" dialogue box, which I enable as "Built-in Ethernet" and then "To computers using AirPort." You can set security preferences here, as well, which is a good idea to keep unwanted lurkers off your connection...and computer.

This allows you to use your Ethernet connection to make a WiFi connection for other computers around you, Windows or Mac. It's a great solution if you happen to be in a conference room that has fewer Ethernet jacks then computers.www.nick/kca

Is this the best reason to get a Mac? No. But it's a great utility that Apple provides through the Mac, and one that has made me very popular at conferences in the past. I even had a few Linux users shed a tear of envy that their hardware couldn't pull off the same feat. Priceless.

midnight bayou by nora roberts

Photo-sharing site Photobucket announced Thursday that it has inked a deal with T-Mobile that makes it a provider of a mobile photo service for T-Mobile customers. According to the company, users will be able to send photos directly from their mobile phone to their Photobucket album, their PC hard drive, or any e-mail address. To use the app, customers will need to download it onto their BlackBerry Curve, Pearl, or any one of three Windows Mobile devices. The app is available in a free 21-day trial. Once that period is up, subscribers can choose to keep using the free version or purchase the full software for a one-time fee of $19.99.midnight bayou by nora roberts

Community discovery service Citysearch announced Thursday that its new site design and new features have officially gone live. According to the company, users will have access to its new "hyper-local" search that enables them to find and share local information and recommendations with friends in social networks across the Web. The revamped site boasts 150 local city guides and information on over 75,000 cities and neighborhoods nationwide, the company claims. With the help of Facebook Connect, users can sign in to Citysearch with their Facebook usernames and share their local reviews on the popular social network. All of Citysearch's new features are live now on its homepage.

Peer lending company LendingClub.com announced that it has raised $12 million of Series B funding in a round that was led by Morgenthaler Ventures. The company also announced that Pamela Kramer, former chief marketing officer at MarketTools, has joined the company as its own chief marketing officer. LendingClub did not disclose how it will put the funding to use.

Personal finance site Wesabe launched a new version of its financial management tools for banks and credit unions Wednesday. Dubbed Wesabe SpringBoard, the service will offer customers a "smart statement" that allows them to view their account data and guide them in savings and creating financial goals. The service also boasts community features that will allow users to share advice, support, and tips for acquiring more wealth. Along with the software, users will be able to use widgets for the Mac Dashboard or Vista Widget pane to have access to their information. Wesabe declined to disclose availability or pricing information.midnight bayou by nora roberts

Correction at 5:00 p.m. PDT: The Photobucket/T-Mobile deal is not exclusive.

nick/kca

Gmail has four new items in its labs section, all of which enhance the links people have included in their messages. You're now able to flip on support for Yelp, Flickr, Picasa Web albums, and YouTube. Doing so will turn a link from one of those sites into a full-quality preview of the content you'd find on that site.

For instance, if someone has included a YouTube link, it simply shows up at the bottom of a message, just as if they had included it as an attachment. (You are less likely to get Rickrolled, that way.) The same goes for Yelp reviews, and individual photos and albums from Picasa and Flickr.nick/kca

Gmail had previously done this for information embedded within messages, including package-tracking numbers, dates, and addresses, all of which led to a related Google service. However with the addition of Yelp and Flickr, Google is opening this up to third parties.

In fact, the official Gmail blog is encouraging interested parties to submit their own site to be added as a preview, which could lead to a whole new subcategory within Gmail labs.

With this addition, it also brings the tally of Gmail labs add-ons past 40. It may be time for a better way to sift through all that information, especially if the company intends to add more of these site preview options. In a meeting I had with Google back in December, Gmail product manager Todd Jackson had said this was something that was being considered.

airport 1975

LAS VEGAS--Having finished its latest browser, Microsoft on Thursday kicked off its campaign to get consumers to actually start using it.

After years of losing market share to Firefox and other rivals, Microsoft is hoping to convince people, many of whom use old versions of Internet Explorer, to give the company a new look. airport 1975

Part of that marketing push is a light-hearted video on the history of the Internet that also shows off some of the new features of Internet Explorer 8, including its private browsing mode and so-called "accelerators" that let users take action without leaving the Web page they are on.

The video was shown prior to the browser's formal introduction at the Mix 09 show. Microsoft also released the final version of the browser for download on its Web site.

"We are releasing it here at Mix because we are excited about what you, the developers, can build with it," IE general manager Dean Hachamovitch said. Hachamovitch then launched into a demo of the new browser, touting its anti-malware features, such as protection from click-jacking attacks.

Speaking to a crowd of Web developers, Hachamovitch also spent a good deal of time talking about the moves Microsoft made to make IE 8 far more standards-compliant than earlier versions.

The biggest ding on IE 8 so far has been its performance. Microsoft has sought to blunt criticism in two ways. First, the company has released a video that it says shows that its browser is faster at loading a number of key sites. Second, the company has tried to downplay the difference in speed to the average user.

"In most cases the difference could literally be measured by a blink of an eye," Microsoft Senior Director Amy Barzdukas said in an interview on Wednesday. "That kind of speed becomes almost a push." airport 1975

The release of IE 8 comes at a critical time for Microsoft, which faces its steepest competition in years, facing credible rivals not only in Firefox, but also from Apple and Google, among others. The global market share of Internet Explorer, which was more than 90 percent in 2004, ended last year at just above 70 percent, according to Net Applications.

nick kca

Despite its reliance on advertising revenue in a difficult economic environment, Buzznet announced Thursday it has raised a $12.5 million fourth round of venture funding.

Focus Ventures led the round, with existing investors Anthem Ventures, New Enterprise Associates, Redpoint Ventures, and Sutter Hill Ventures participating.

Buzznet, which operates such Web sites as Celebuzz, Socialite Life and Videogum, nick kca also announced that it is changing its name to Buzz Media.

Buzz Media declined to comment on whether it received a higher or lower valuation in its fourth round. But CEO Tyler Goldman said: "I thought it was a fair valuation and a high valuation."

In the fall of 2007, the company raised approximately $15 million in a third round of funding. To date, Buzz Media has raised approximately $35 million, Goldman said.

slums of beverly hills

Intel announced two new board members Thursday as Carol Bartz, CEO of Yahoo, resigned from the board.

The chipmaker said Thursday that John J. Donahoe, CEO of eBay, and Frank D. Yeary, vice chancellor of the University of California at Berkeley, have been elected to serve on Intel's board of directors.

Concurrently, Intel announced that Carol Bartz, the new CEO of Yahoo, is retiring from the board. slums of beverly hills

Intel issued the following information about the two newly elected board members:

Donahoe, 48, has served as eBay president and CEO since 2008. He joined eBay in 2005 and oversaw the company's global e-commerce businesses. Prior to joining eBay, Donahoe spent more than 20 years at Bain & Company, a worldwide consulting firm, last serving as CEO. In addition to serving on eBay's board of directors, Donahoe is on the board of trustees of Dartmouth College. He received his bachelor's degree in economics from Dartmouth College and an MBA from the Stanford Graduate School of Business.

nick.com/kca

A small new survey from Nielsen about the five fastest growing "member community destinations" in the U.S. reveals what we all kind of knew already: Twitter is at the top. From February 2008 to February 2009, it clocked in at a whopping 1,382 percent growth rate. That's to be expected, considering the amount of press the still-without-a-business-model microblogging service has gotten in recent months.

In third place is Facebook, with 228 percent growth year-over-year according to Nielsen. That's not terribly surprising, as Facebook is still growing in the U.S. but not quite as exponentially as it once was.nick.com/kca

There are, beyond that, a handful of interesting things to note. Two of Nielsen's top five, for example, aren't social networks but rather wiki creation services: Zimbio (240 percent growth) and Wikia (172 percent growth). And in fourth place is Multiply, which probably got a surge of activity when it recently acquired the MSN Groups service that Microsoft was spinning off.

But a blog post from Nielsen said that Twitter (which counts the 35-to-49 age demographic as its biggest, the statistics said) may be growing even faster than its numbers say. "PC Web usage of Twitter.com doesn't tell the whole story," the post by Nielsen Online's Michelle McGiboney read. "The ability to (use) Twitter via a mobile phone--whether through the mobile Web or via text messages--is a driving factor in the social network's success. In January, 735,000 unique visitors accessed the Twitter Web site through their mobile phones. The average unique visitor went to Twitter.com 14 times during the month and spent an average of seven minutes on the site."

An additional 812,000 users accessed Twitter via text message on the AT&T and Verizon carriers alone.

nations baseball

By any measure, MIT's OpenCourseWare initiative, which seeks to "open source" education by making course ware from premier institutions available online to all for free, is a success.nations baseball

But recently published data for OpenCourseWare suggests that it's an even bigger success than I had supposed. Consider:

More than 53.7 million individuals have now visited OpenCourseWare's site/affiliated sites;
OpenCourseWare servers have now delivered over 3.1 billion files ("hits") since launch;
8.5 million zip files of full course content have been downloaded from the site;
2.1 million OpenCourseWare videos have been downloaded from iTunes, with its videos viewed more than 2.5 million times on YouTube.nations baseball
Wow. These are almost mind-boggling numbers, and they don't simply represent the local state college student who didn't get admitted to MIT. MIT uses OpenCourseWare to reach out to high school students, international students, and more.

the wedding date

A new machine dubbed the "Black Phantom" can turn biomass into manmade coal.

Carbonscape, a New Zealand-based start-up, describes its invention as an industrial-sized microwave that can cook plant waste, wood waste, and "even sewage" into coal.

Carbonscape also claims that the machine captures and stores more carbon than the amount of carbon generated by the electricity needed to power it for the process. the wedding date

Why would anyone want to make more coal when humans are desperately trying to get out from under the carbon dioxide mess we've been making since the Industrial Revolution?

The invention combines two popular environmental efforts: using biochar for carbon capture and storage (CCS), and developing alternative fuel sources from biomass.

While there are issues to be worked out on carbon capture and storage (CSS), it's seen by energy utilities and governments as a possible tool in reducing greenhouse gas emissions. Biochar is coal made from biomass that can be buried in soil as a carbon sink or for use in farming, rather than letting decaying plants release carbon dioxide back into the atmosphere.

Biomass--agricultural and wood byproducts that can be used to make ethanol, or electricity directly--is considered by the EU, the U.S. and others as a possible answer to reducing oil dependence while providing a cleaner and more efficient way to produce and consume energy.the wedding date

As reported by the Financial Times, Carbonscape's machine turns biomass into a kind of biochar to be stored underground.

Though it's unclear just how clean it would burn, Carbonscape's biochar can also be burned as fuel.

Whether or not the invention is scalable remains to be seen, but judging from who is involved Carbonscape's claims seem legit.the wedding date

The company's board includes Nick Gerritsen, the director of Aquaflow Bionomic, one of the companies developing algae biodiesel; and Tim Flannery, former Harvard University professor and environmental activist known for his books "The Future Eaters" and "The Weather Makers."

julio cesar chavez jr

Internet Explorer 8 is now ready to download. We installed the final build of Microsoft's latest browser, and captured the (looong) download process and our first impressions of some of the featured highlights in pictures.julio cesar chavez jr

If that's not enough (it never is,) CNET's Ina Fried has the full story of Microsoft's launch of IE 8 at Redmond's MIX 09 conference, and some details about a version of the browser for Windows 7. Also stay tuned to Download.com for our forthcoming video review and an in-depth look at the features and faults we find with Internet Explorer's latest iteration--and how IE compares with browsers Firefox, Google Chrome, and Opera.

beerfest

As part of a plea to lawmakers in New Zealand to overturn a new pro-copyright law, Google claims that most takedown notices are bogus. beerfest

According to a story in PC World, Google says 57 percent of the takedown notices it has received under the Digital Millennium Copyright Act were sent by businesses trying to undermine a competitor.

About 37 percent of the notices weren't valid copyright claims, Google wrote.

New Zealand is considering whether to force Internet service providers to cut off Web access to those accused of violating copyright law. Google opposes the plan.

The law would "undermine the incredible social and economic benefits" of the Web, Google told the lawmakers, and added that service termination is "disproportionate to the harm of copyright infringement online."

Google did not respond to an interview request.

I know many at the major film studios and music labels who would make the counterargument that cutting off Web access is not in any way out of line for punishing intellectual-property theft. beerfest

What Google was trying to prove with the figures is that with such a law in place, Web users could lose Internet access on "mere allegation."

earth hour las vegas

WASHINGTON--The U.S. economy is suffering massive losses every year due to cyberattacks, yet most Americans are not aware of the gravity of the problem, cyber experts told Congress Thursday. Without more federal funding for educational reforms and basic research to promote cybersecurity, the nation will regularly suffer from attacks of serious consequence, they said. earth hour las vegas

"We've had our electronic Pearl Harbor," said James Lewis, a senior fellow at the Center for Strategic and International Studies. "We're trying to figure out how many people have figured out this is a major national security problem, and I don't think enough have."

Seemingly in demonstration of Lewis' point, he and the three other cybersecurity experts testifying before the Senate Commerce, Science, and Transportation Committee on Thursday had a small audience--no more than three of the committee's 25 senators were in attendance at a time.

"I'm mortified by the lack of attendance," said Committee Chair Jay Rockefeller (D-W.Va.) "I regard this as a profoundly and deeply troubling problem to which we are not paying much attention."

He insisted he will aggressively press the subject with more hearings, as well as a bill he will introduce with Sen. Olympia Snowe (R-Maine) that will, among other things, provide funding for scholarships to get more people into the field of cybersecurity. earth hour las vegas

While Congress has dedicated a number of hearings over the past year to cybersecurity, Thursday's meeting focused specifically on the damage the private sector incurs from cyberattacks.

"The commercial losses are in the tens of billions of dollars a year," said Eugene Spafford, a professor and the executive director of Purdue University's Center for Education and Research in Information Assurance and Security (CERIAS). "Imagine a Hurricane Katrina-style event occurring every year and being ignored."

Furthermore, he said, the criminals who profit from cyberattacks are reinvesting their money in new tools to conduct more attacks--far more than the United States invests in defensive tools.

The federal government, Spafford said, should invest more in basic research to fundamentally redesign security systems, both for the purpose of creating better systems but also to strengthen the country's level of cybersecurity expertise.

"Our investments in research, even if they don't always produce something we can use, do have a benefit in the country's knowledge base," he said. earth hour las vegas

Expertise is especially lacking in the area of industrial control systems, said Joseph Weiss, managing partner for the consulting firm Applied Control Solutions. A control system, he said, is a "system of systems" typically designed by an engineer rather than a computer scientist.

"I believe less than 100 people worldwide truly know and understand control system cybersecurity," he said.

Control systems, he said, are designed as simply as possible so they perform more reliably, but are consequently more vulnerable to cyberattacks. An attack on such a system would take the country "months--not days"--to recover from, he said.

Rockefeller expressed disbelief that more students were not interested in pursuing careers in cybersecurity.

"This ought to be the most fascinating, cerebral problem that exists," he said. "It just cries out for the smartest, most creative people."

Sen. Maria Cantwell (D-Wash.), one of the few other senators in attendance, said some of the people who have built careers in finance would have done more good in cybersecurity.

"It is pretty disgusting we've had more people cooking up toxic assets than killing bugs" on networks, she said.

The witnesses at the hearing said the economic downturn driven by those toxic assets has only increased the risk of cyberattacks. They cited the case of a disgruntled information technology worker indicted Tuesday for allegedly sabotaging a computer system he helped set up for a California oil and gas company, after he was not offered a permanent job.

earth hour us

NetSuite on Thursday unveiled its SuiteCloud Ecosystem, expanding its on-demand enterprise software service to include cloud computing.

The company, which hosts enterprise software on demand, is branching out to allow customers the ability to push their core operations into the clouds.

As part of its SuiteCloud Ecosystem, NetSuite is launching a developer program, SuiteCloud Developer Network, and an online cloud-computing application marketplace, SuiteApp.com. earth hour us

The SuiteCloud platform will be built on core NetSuite enterprise resource management (ERP) software, as well as its customer relationship management (CRM) and e-commerce offerings.

NetSuite is delving into cloud computing at a time when this relatively new industry is coming to grips with its own definition and purpose.

midnight bayou

It used to be said that open source is purely a commodifying force in the software industry, that open source can't innovate. While we've had Mozilla Firefox and other projects to demonstrate open-source innovation, the impression nonetheless persists.

One way to crush the idea completely is for open source to help shape a new market, midnight bayou rather than influence an old market. Online video, despite 14.3 billion videos watched online in December 2008 in the United States alone, according to ComScore, is a nascent market with no 800-pound gorillas building the industry in their image.

Online video is up for grabs.

Shay David, co-founder and chief technology officer of Kaltura, an open-source video company (disclosure: I am an adviser to Kaltura), believes that open source is the key to creating a robust, innovative online video market:

For anyone who is part of the video universe, the key question that remains open is what drives value in this brave new world. How can publishers, advertisers, and technology enablers make money in a world in which delivery (CDN) is commoditized, display opportunities are abundant (driving CPMs for video advertising down), and audiences expect to get everything for free? The short answer, I believe, is to focus on innovation--of formats, user experiences, content, or delivery.midnight bayou

And here is where open-source video enters the picture: It is a development methodology and distribution strategy that allows each company in the ecosystem to focus on what it does best, instead of replicating the efforts of others. Open-source video...is being adopted at every level of the ecosystem by industry leaders such as Akamai, Mozilla, and Wikipedia.

Its premise is simple: Video is too important of a medium to be controlled by a single player. By espousing the principles of openness at all levels, including formats, technology, and content, and by collaborating in the development process, video can enjoy the force multipliers that we have seen in other areas of open-source software. The result is a better user experience, a reduction in the total cost of ownership, and a focus on innovative value-driven results.

I agree, and I believe that Kaltura and other open-source video companies and projects, some which have banded together to form the Open Video Alliance, have the opportunity to prove that open source can not only innovate, but also surpass proprietary software and proprietary standards in innovation.

It's a bold ambition, one that also could be applied to OpenX in online advertising, MySQL in Web-centric databases, and other areas. I don't know that open source is necessarily the best solution to every problem, but it certainly seems to be a viable, free-market alternative to how our industry has traditionally formed: one big vendor corners the market, and we spend decades trying to get out of its grip.midnight bayou

In open-source video, we have the means to foster an open industry, one that lets individual developers focus on their respective core competencies, while customers get lower costs and reduced lock-in. Sign me up.

airport 77

Well, other than the fact that both Mega Man and Jay-Z were pop-culture icons of their respective eras (yes, people, Jay-Z is that popular), they now each have 8-bit, NES-style music associated with them. airport 77

Video game music from the 8-bit Nintendo Entertainment System (NES) era had a very distinct style. Even music on other 8-bit consoles like the Sega Master System could not match it.

Anyone who at least played an NES back in those days (pretty much every kid, at least in the U.S.) will immediately recognize the style of that sound after just a few bars.

It's not surprising, then, that some very talented individuals have begun experimenting with that distinct sound and applying it to contemporary popular music. In this case, specifically, hip-hop--or at least rap (the difference between the two as I see it should probably be saved for another blog).

Anyway, hip-hop--8-bit NES-style--is here, and according to the story at Shot Then, all the remixes were created by one Jesse Tugboat. airport 77

Check them out below. And if that doesn't remind you how much the memory of those old gaming days clings, take a look at the video below. It's a game intro for "The Dark Knight" produced as if it had been done on the NES. I especially liked the "by Sunsoft" touch.

ashley biden

A lot of companies have torn down the PC Berlin Wall and now allow employees to use Macintosh computers as well as PCs. Apparently, this creates some interesting dynamics for PC support people. ashley biden

From what I've heard, most organizations settle in at approximately 95 percent PCs, and 5 percent Macs. Seems like a small and manageable percentage, but here's the rub. According to some services vendors and PC administrators I've talked to, a large portion of the Mac users are executives--CEOs, COOs, chief legal counsel, etc. These folks get top priority and can be very demanding, so network and endpoint administrators have to be on their toes and establish strong Macintosh "chops" quickly. As a result, some IT professionals claim that 5 percent of Macs may as well be 20 percent of the total PC population. Thus 5 percent equals 20 percent.

Historically, IT pundits would point to this inefficiency as a reason why organizations should not allow employees to use Macs. Heck, maybe some analysts still do. There is more in play than just labor cost and accounting here however. "C-level" people tend to get what they want and, obviously, they want Macs.

Do Macs make these folks more productive, creative, or engaged? I don't have any data suggesting that they do, but this would be a worthwhile study. In any case, if Macs make the mucky-mucks happy and a happy worker is a productive worker, those excess PC support costs may be well worth it.
ashley biden

chris porco

To stem continued losses, Sony said Thursday there will be no pay increases for non-managerial employees this year.

Sony doesn't give automatic raises every year based on seniority--unlike many other Japanese companies--but instead awards them based on responsibility and performance, according to Reuters. chris porco

It's the first time Sony has ever made such a move, but the company's financial circumstances give it few options. Sony is predicting an operating loss of $2.9 billion for the current financial year ending March 31, the electronics giant's first annual loss in 14 years.

It has already resorted to closing several factories, laying off 16,000 full-time and contract workers, cutting salaries for managers, and trimming bonuses.

Sony is just one of many Japanese electronics companies that have been hurt by the global economic downturn and a stronger-than-expected yen.
chris porco

www.nick.com/kca

Nvidia announced that its PhysX technology is now available to Wii developers. This follows a similar announcement Wednesday, when Nvidia said it has become a PhysX tools and middleware provider for Sony's PlayStation 3.

www.nick.com/kca
Nintendo Wii

(Credit: Nintendo)In Thursday's Nintendo-related announcement, Nvidia said it has been approved as a third-party tools solution provider for the Wii console. As a result, Nvidia's PhysX technology software development kit (SDK) is now available to registered Wii developers, the graphics chip supplier said.

Nvidia's PhysX technology, based on the laws of physics, enables game objects to respond dynamically to physical events in a game. Typically, Nvidia trumpets the performance of PhysX on its graphics chips. But this applies only to PCs, according to Nvidia spokesman Bryan Del Rizzo. In the case of game consoles, the PhysX processing is done by the CPU, not the GPU--even if a GPU is present. (CPU stands for central processing unit. GPU for graphics processing unit.)

"Based on all the processing cores in the GPU, we can do a lot more processing on the GPU than the CPU. That doesn't mean the CPU isn't a great place to do processing, but we can just take more advantage of an Nvidia GPU," Del Rizzo said.

The Nintendo Wii uses an PowerPC-based "Broadway" CPU and an AMD-ATI "Hollywood" GPU. The Sony PlayStation 3 uses an IBM Cell processor and an Nvidia GPU.

"Adding a PhysX SDK for Wii is key to our cross-platform strategy and integral to the business model for our licensed game developers and publishers," Tony Tamasi, senior vice president of content and technology at Nvidia, said in a statement. The Nvidia PhysX SDK consists of a full-featured application programming interface (API) and physics engine.
www.nick.com/kca

christopher porco

Streamy, the personalized home page meets social feed reader, is now open to everyone. We originally profiled the company back in mid-2007. Since then it's been rebuilt and is noticeably faster. It's also streamlined the blog reading experience, which is the core of the service.christopher porco

While I originally compared Streamy to Digg for the way it filtered up news stories based on who was reading and recommending them, these days it's a lot closer to FriendFeed. There's more of an emphasis on reading the content without leaving the site, and interacting with other users who have also read that same story. Where FriendFeed makes you jump to the site where the content is hosted, Streamy simply loads it within an overlay pop-up which also lets you comment, bookmark, and share it with friend.

New for the open beta launch is support for Facebook and FriendFeed. If you're a user of either of these services you can plug in your user credentials and it will pull in the latest stories from each, which to FriendFeed users may seem a bit odd. The added benefit of using Streamy over FriendFeed to corral all this information is that it throws in live chat and an RSS reader. Beginning next week you'll also be able to send anything you've bookmarked or read into your FriendFeed stream.

This was a really standout product back in 2007, and I worry that it may have lost some of its relevance since then. Where it has real potential is with its christopher porco recommendation system for blog posts and the fact that it includes so much in one place. I don't know of any other product outside of a Web OS solution that manages to have live user and group chat, a news aggregator start page, full RSS reader, and a feed directory within the same enclosure. The closest thing is Netvibes, but that doesn't offer nearly as many options for re-sharing content without being noisy.

potfest movie

It's probably safe to assume that if they really do exist, Apple's marketing group doesn't plan on letting the iProd and iFPGA ever hit the market under those names.

As developers have gotten their hands on the iPhone OS 3.0 beta released earlier this week, they've started to turn up interesting tidbits while splashing around in the code. Ars Technica reports that an iPhone developer has uncovered references buried deep in the OS code to two possible Apple products: the iProd and the iFPGA.potfest movie

For the uninitiated, it's possible to find references to Apple products inside code strings in the iPhone OS, such as the iPod 2,1 reference that correctly predicted the arrival of a new iPod Touch, and a more recent reference to an iPhone 2,1 model that seemed to indicate another revision to that product would be arriving soon. The iPhone 3G is listed as iPhone 1,2 in those code strings.

Now Steven Troughton-Smith claims to have found references to four new Apple products: iPhone3,1, iPod3,1, iFPGA, and iProd0,1. The iPhone and iPod references are self-explanatory (although it's not clear what happened to iPhone 2,1), but iFPGA and iProd are not.

The early speculation is that the iProd is the tablet-like device that has been rumored for quite some time as a possible second-half 2009 product from Apple. It makes sense that Apple would introduce a new naming and labeling convention for such a product, even if iProd isn't the name that passes final muster with the branding people. The 0,1 label could mean that it's not ready for prime time just yet, at which point it would get the 1,0 label as used on the original iPhones and iPod Touches.

FPGA is a chip-industry term for a "field-programmable gate array" chip, or one that can be configured to work in different ways after the manufacturing process is complete, unlike ASICs, or application-specific integrated circuits. Could this be what P.A. Semi is working on, a custom chip for a new type of phone or tablet that could be programmed with software to tackle different tasks? No one really seems to have any idea.potfest movie

In any event, the code strings seem to indicate that Apple plans to run iPhone OS 3.0 on hardware other than an iPhone or iPod Touch. We'll just have to see what that turns out to be.

earth hour los angeles

LAS VEGAS--Just like its predecessor a year ago, Silverlight 3 is clearly one of the stars of the Microsoft Mix conference under way here this week.earth hour los angeles

Silverlight is a Web browser plug-in for Microsoft's Internet Explorer Web browser. (Silverlight also supports Firefox and Safari browsers and Mac OS X in addition to Microsoft Windows. A primarily Novell-developed plug-in, Moonlight, runs on Linux.) Its initial iteration was narrowly focused on media. However, Silverlight's direction is toward enabling a broad class of "rich Internet applications."

So, for example, Silverlight 3 will allow developers to create lightweight Web application experiences that exist outside the browser and offline. Although it retains a strong focus on media, Silverlight is thus starting to look more like a full-fledged rich Internet application.

I'll discuss Silverlight generally in more detail in a future post. More immediately, I want to focus on one demo that I found to be particularly compelling because it addressed a problem that no one has yet cracked in the Web space yet.

The demo, given by David Anthony of Bondi Digital Publishing and Scott Stanfield of Vertigo, came during Wednesday's keynote speech (see video). Bondi has been working with various publishers to put the back issues of magazines online. Vertigo designs and codes software for Microsoft environments; it has been particularly emphasizing visually rich applications built with Silverlight.

Last year, Vertigo's Hard Rock Cafe memorabilia project was a big hit. It used Silverlight's Deep Zoom feature to allow users to dive into and around a digital display of photos, clothing, art, letters, and so forth connected to a variety of rock musicians. Give it a try; it's easier to experience than to explain.earth hour los angeles

This year's demo also featured Deep Zoom--combined with Silverlight 3's support for deep linking. That is, bookmarking a page within a rich Internet application. (Technically, deep linking is a server-side feature associated with .Net that Silverlight 3 simply exploits.) This demo may not have had quite the "ooh" factor of the Hard Rock one, but I think that it suggests more interesting and more generally useful possibilities.

This year, the project was putting back issues of Rolling Stone magazine online. The basic concept was to show an "entire issue as though pages had the staples torn out of them" with the addition of search and bookmarking features. Thus, you could "flip" through an issue, and dive in to look at detail, if something caught your eye. It's essentially an attempt to replicate the "zero boot time and random access" of a paper magazine as closely as possible.

That's all very nice, though I have to wonder what sort of business model there is around viewing back issues of magazines.

But this--or something like it--could have enormous potential for things like catalogs.

Think about it. What's the nice thing about the user experience associated with a paper catalog? Well, one big thing is that you can flip through it and dive in for a closer look, if a photo or a description catches your eye. Essentially, catalogs are great for browsing.

Contrast this with the typical online catalog. They're great for searching. If you know more or less what you want, search can quickly filter out the almost infinite things that you're not looking for. But casual paging, seeking serendipity? Not so good.
earth hour los angeles
To give just one personal example, I like to flip through the many catalogs that Sierra Trading Post sends to my home, advertising the various overstocks and otherwise heavily discounted products that it sells. I find trying to do the same on Sierra's Web site a poor substitute, unless I'm actively seeking something in particular.

The sort of experience I saw on the stage with Deep Zoom would seem to combine some of the best of the browsing and searching experience. It improves on aspects of a paper catalog; it has search, and the amount of low-level detail isn't constrained by the limits of the printed page. At the same time, it brings browse ability of the digital domain.

It's sometimes a mistake to attempt to mirror the physical world in our computer software. But the way we interact with physical objects is often more than just ingrained. It can just plain work well too. And if we can augment that physical experience in the process of translation, all the better.

[UPDATE 3/19/09: Clarified Silverlight platflorm support.]

beth chapman

Technical problems have been plaguing Xbox.com on Thursday morning, affecting users' account management and access to the Xbox Marketplace.

According to the official Xbox Live status page, "Users may experience difficulties with account recovery, account management, Marketplace functions, and/or making purchases. We are aware of the problem and (are) working to resolve the technical issues." beth chapman

And on Twitter, Xbox Live's director of programming, Larry Hryb (otherwise known as Major Nelson) has been posting updates.


Larry Hryb, director of Xbox Live programming, twittered on Thursday that there are ongoing problems with Xbox.com and Xbox Live billing.

(Credit: Twitter)"As some of you may already be aware, we've been having billing issues for the last few hours," Major Nelson tweeted. "This may impact your ability to manage your account, buy points, use existing points, redeem tokens, and other similar actions."

He added, "We're actively engaged with the billing team on resolving this."

And elsewhere on Twitter, many people are reporting the problems. Their comments range from Twitter user weclock's complaint, "Is there someplace where I can check on the status of the Xbox Live servers? I can't reach Xbox.com or Xbox Live" to user iheartrobots' commiserating, "Glad to know I'm not the only one that can't get onto Xbox.com." beth chapman

Microsoft did not have an immediate corporate comment.

It sounds, however, as if the company is well aware of the issues and will most likely have them resolved before too many players get overly frustrated at not being able to get their "Halo" on.

kate nauta

As economic worries grow in America, many consumers are ready to disconnect their expensive cell phone plans and seek cheaper alternatives for wireless communication, according to a survey released Thursday. kate nauta

The study, conducted by Opinion Research Corporation (ORC) for the New Millennium Research Council (NMRC), reports that 19 percent of cell phone users polled have already canceled their cell phone contracts in reaction to the financial crisis.

The survey, which earlier this month polled 2,005 adults ages 18 and older via their landline phones, found that two in five Americans are likely to cut back on their contract-based cell phones if the economy worsens.

The NMRC, a Washington, D.C.-based organization that conducts surveys largely for telecommunications companies, suggests that as a result, consumers will turn to alternatives such as prepaid cell phones, or cut back on "extras" such as text messaging and Internet access.

Some may even ditch their cell phones altogether and stick with their landlines (of course, the very fact that the survey was conducted via landline excludes those who already lead landline-free lives).

During a live conference call Thursday morning, representatives of the ORC and NMRC went over the survey's findings and said the poll suggests that "millions" of consumers could end up altering their cell phone services.

Currently, prepaid cell phones are commonly suggested for emergencies, light usage, or avoiding long contracts. However, the NMRC suggests that as consumers continue to disconnect or cut back on their contract-based cell phones, wireless companies such as AT&T and Sprint will offer more less expensive prepaid plans.

Though less expensive prepaid plans offer financial advantages, there are downsides. Handsets purchased with prepaid plans generally have little in the way of advanced features, and that could discourage consumers who keep up with the latest gadget trends. kate nauta

But like the NMRC suggests, the dramatic changes in cell phone behavior may encourage wireless companies to revise their plans. For example, companies may go the way of MetroPCS, a no-contract company whose customers get "unlimited" plans and cheaper monthly rates in exchange for purchasing more expensive handsets.

NMRC would not disclose details on who funded the survey, although it did say that some telecommunications companies provide financial support.

airport 1977

President Barack Obama on Thursday launched a $2.4 billion program to boost development of plug-in electric vehicles in the U.S., including grants to finance domestic production of auto batteries.

Obama spoke at Southern California Edison's Electric Vehicle Technical Center in Pomona, Calif., where he said the Department of Energy has now started taking grant proposals from electric-vehicle battery makers.
airport 1977


Obama speaks at Southern California Edison's electric-vehicle testing center in Pomona, Calif., on Thursday.

(Credit: CBS)
The stimulus plan passed earlier this year set aside $2 billion to jump-start electric-vehicle manufacturing. Out of that total, $1.5 billion is available for U.S. battery manufacturing and $500 million for related technology, such as electric motors.

The Department of Energy is making another $400 million available to build and test the infrastructure needed for plug-in electric vehicles. This includes charging stations and training for technicians in electric vehicles.

The funding will help meet the president's goal of 1 million plug-in vehicles by 2015 and position U.S. companies for the next wave of transportation technology, Obama said.

"Even as our American automakers are undergoing a painful recalibration, they are retooling and reimagining themselves into an industry that can compete and win, because millions of jobs depend on it," Obama said at the event.

Echoing comments he made during his address to Congress last month, Obama said the U.S. lags other countries in plug-in battery technology, which the grant program is designed to address.

Because the company considers it strategic technology, General Motors earlier this year decided to build the battery packs and power controls for its forthcoming Chevy Volt electric sedan in-house. Battery companies A123 Systems and Ener1 have already applied for DOE loans and are expected to seek participation in the $2 billion battery manufacturing grant program. airport 1977

"Show us that your idea or your company is best-suited to meet America's challenges, and we will give you a chance to prove it," Obama said, addressing electric-vehicle companies. "Every company that wants a shot at these tax dollars has to prove their worth."

To spur demand for electric vehicles, the stimulus act gives consumers a federal tax credit worth up $7,500 for the purchase of plug-in electric vehicles.

But executives at U.S. auto companies have voiced concern over the ability of the industry to supply enough batteries for an oncoming wave of plug-in electric sedans. Creating the capacity for hundreds of thousands of plug-in passenger cars in two or three years requires big investments today, Charles Gassenheimer, the CEO of Ener1 said on Tuesday.

"Demand is not the issue. It's the ability to supply," he said. "You still need to make the investments in the platforms today. Otherwise, you miss the window of opportunity."

www.nick.com kca

So there's a new Facebook app out there, designed to poll users on the social network's latest redesign. The results? Hundreds of thousands have responded. 94 percent give it a thumbs-down. Ouch.www.nick.com kca

Comments range from "WHY FIX IT, WHEN IT WASN'T BROKE, you will be SORRYYYYYYYYYYY" to "It feels counterintuitive and less technologically advanced than the last layout."

Now, this is clearly not an official vote. Chances are, you're not going to install a third-party polling application with the sole purpose of voicing an opinion on the new Facebook design unless you're really opinionated about it. So the 94 percent might be kind of high.

But still. Facebook is so big now--over 175 million members--that even an interface change may throw many of the less technical users completely off guard. And from what we've heard, non-geeks really do find the new design more difficult to use. The new site, particularly the activity feeds on member profiles, really do look different. The blurring between status messages and wall posts doesn't make much sense in my opinion--though I do like the improved news feed filtering tools.

It's easy to wave this off, because Facebook redesigns have brought up one threatened user revolt after another, and the site has just kept on growing. Members grew used to the new features, and in some cases (like the original launch of the news feed) it's hard to imagine Facebook without them. The only changes Facebook has made in response to user outrage, historically, have been in response to privacy concerns.

But Facebook's not just dealing with the young and tech-savvy anymore. When the people who freak out over a redesigned phone bill or cable channel-changing menu have Facebook profiles, "they'll get used to it" doesn't float as well. So this could really be a problem. www.nick.com kca

The new layout is a forward-thinking one, inspired by streaming content services like Twitter. Executives from Facebook have said that they see "the stream" as the next evolution of how we interact on the Web.

But even though Twitter's all over daytime talk shows these days, it's still just barely out of the gates as something more than an early-adopter toy. It's a fraction the size of Facebook. And the "Twitter plus media sharing" model doesn't have the best track record, as its most notable example, Pownce, was sold to Six Apart and shut down amid dwindling traffic. It probably would've been smarter for Facebook to ease users into the "stream" with a course of smaller tweaks rather than to require them to plunge in headlong.

Facebook's last redesign was finalized in September. That's only six months ago. If a site is putting out changes every six months that a mainstream audience sees as drastic, they could get fed up with it fast.
www.nick.com kca

frozen four

As expected, iTunes customers (Windows|Mac) can now buy and rent films in high definition, Apple said Thursday.

Customers can buy hit titles for $19.99 and rentals will cost $4.99. Rentals will be available a month after a film is released on DVD. Prior to this offer, high-def films were only available for rental. frozen four

The high-def quality movies are compatible with Macs and PCs. But iPhones and iPods can still only play films in standard definition, the company said. Each high-def film comes with a standard-def copy to play on Apple's handhelds.

"Customers have made HD content on iTunes a hit, with over 50 percent of TV programming being purchased in HD when available," said Eddy Cue, Apple's vice president of Internet Services in a statement.

As my colleague Declan McCullagh notes, the $20 price for HD costs less than Blu-ray discs but the large HD files are likely to eat up a lot of hard-drive space.

Apple's downloads use more compression than Blu-ray so that means a falloff in quality.

upromise

Times are tough in Detroit. Many citizens of the city are struggling to find ways to keep their homes and find steady work. It couldn't get much worse.

But thanks to Jay Leno and eBay joining forces, it actually has gotten worse.

Jay Leno is planning a free stand-up comedy show for struggling Detroit residents. The tickets were made available Monday morning. By Monday night, Leno noticed that some of the tickets he gave away were on sale on eBay for "eight hundred something dollars," he said.upromise

During his television monologue Monday night, Leno told viewers about the situation and explained that "you're out of your mind to pay $800 to see me." And then he asked eBay to cease all ticket sales for his live show. "I would like to ask the people at eBay to take the tickets down," he said. "There's nothing for sale here. It's just totally free."

By Tuesday, all instances of the sale were down from eBay. According to the company, Leno's request to have the tickets removed falls under its "Authorized Resellers Only" policy, so all would-be sellers were banned from selling tickets to the events.

Jay, what did you expect? Many of the people who would be in your Detroit audience are down on their luck and need cash to pay bills and feed the family. Doesn't it make sense that they would try to make a few dollars off the free tickets if they could?

If Jay Leno really wants to do what's best for these people, he should allow them to use eBay to sell the tickets. Maybe they need the money more than they need to listen to Jay's jokes. Just a guess.

This isn't the only example of people using eBay to resell special access to events. As a New York Yankees season ticket holder, I received an e-mail earlier this week with information on the team's "pre-on sale ticket sale." I have a password that I can input Thursday or Friday that will let me buy individual game tickets to Yankee Stadium before the public has access to those tickets. It's a perk for people who were season ticket holders last year.

After those passwords were made available, I noticed some of them up for sale. Some people were selling their passwords on eBay because they knew they were valuable and they needed the money. Those are the same people that declined seats this year due to financial hardship.upromise

Unlike Leno, the Yankees didn't respond by taking the passwords down from eBay. Instead, those auctions were allowed to continue and people made hundreds of dollars from them.

I'm all for it. Those who have been hurt by this recession shouldn't be held back when they see an opportunity to get some extra cash. I realize Leno thinks he's being altruistic by hosting a free show, but if he really wanted to do what's right, why would he stop people that need the money from reselling tickets to it?

eBay is the place where people can turn found junk into money. I would like to see Leno less surprised or galled when so-called "fans'" sell his tickets. Comedy pays his bills. Let it pay some other peoples', too.

Check out Don's Digital Home podcast, Twitter stream, and FriendFeed.

the game tv show

The Chicago Tribune listed its top executives and editors by their Twitter IDs Thursday instead of by their real names.

(Credit: Chicago Tribune)the game tv show
According to the masthead of the Thursday print edition of the Chicago Tribune, the paper's publisher is @twhunter.

No, the publisher's parents weren't playing a funny joke on him. And nor were the parents of the paper's other top executives and editors, all of whom were listed on the Thursday masthead with Twitter IDs instead of their names.

The editor? @GerryKern. The editorial page editor? @BruceDold. The managing editor? @jjhirt. And so on.

So what's going on?

"I've been on Twitter a couple of years, since it first emerged from South by Southwest, and so I've been on it for awhile, as you would hope that the digital editor of the Tribune" would be, said Bill Adee, the paper's digital editor. "And in the last month or so, we've really tried to get our reporters and editors on (Twitter) to show them how it could make them better reporters and editors."

He added that, "If you're a reporter or an editor, Twitter is a great way to get in touch with your audience in real time, and if you do it right, if you follow the right people in your sphere of knowledge, you will get a lot out of it."

And, in an experiment to show the many Twitter users among the paper's audience that the Tribune gets the microblogging service, and to make it easy to get in touch with the top editors and executives, the publication decided to publish, for one day only, the Twitter-friendly masthead. the game tv show

"We were talking at dinner," Adee said, "and maybe we had too many glasses of wine...but we were just all talking, and we were like, 'Hey, let's do it.' Tomorrow, it's back to normal, but you never know when it will spring up again."

Adee explained that as part of its Twitter initiative, the Tribune gave reporters interested in taking part some education about the microblogging service in hopes of showing them how to sign up and how to get value out of it. But he said he had to make clear to the journalists taking part in the program that they shouldn't look at Twitter as a way of building instant new audiences.

"One thing I always warn people" about Twitter, Adee said, "is that it's not a way to generate page views. It's a way to share knowledge and learn what your audience is really interested in."

airport movie

Writing a term paper and thinking about borrowing one that already got someone else an A, or at least is geared to deliver a mere passing grade?

For some California high school students, that dodgy maneuver now means reckoning not just with the sharp (or tired) eyes of the teacher, but also the algorithms of a Web-based plagiarism sniffer.airport movie

San Mateo High School is trying out the services of Oakland-based Turnitin.com, according to a report from CBS station KOVR-TV in Sacramento. (Note: CNET News is a unit of CBS Interactive.) Students are asked to submit their essays online, and their work is then compared with what's on the Internet.

"It's a good way to kinda catch kids who use their brother's papers from previous years. That's the best resource. Or maybe someone had a similar assignment in another class," English teacher Nels Johnson told KOVR.

Colleges including the Cal State system have been using antiplagiarism tools for years, but high schools are just starting to use it, KOVR reports. How long San Mateo High uses Turnitin remains up in the air--it had to pay $9,000 for the service this year, and in a recession-weary economy, that may simply prove too pricey.


Local Video from CBS13 in Sacramento
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universalsports.com

Internet Explorer 8 takes some long-needed strides to bring it up to speed with its competitors. It's more secure, with tab sandboxing and more aggressive malicious site warnings, and introduces some slick new features like Accelerators and Web slices.
universalsports.com
Even with better support for Web standards, it's far from perfect. Check out what's hot and what's not in this First Look video.

pooch hall

10. Netflix Netflix asks you to rate movies to determine which films you'll want to see next. And although it does make it easy to rate movies and it does return huge lists, there's too much duplication in the results and the ideas it gives you aren't all that strong. It's easy to use, but it's not the best way to get movie recommendations.pooch hall

9. Rotten Tomatoes Instead of telling Rotten Tomatoes which films you like, you can tell it what kind of films you enjoy, which actors you want to see, and other criteria to help it find the best movie for you. There's a lot of variability in the quality of Rotten Tomatoes recommendations but it's also a nice way to find the right film for any mood.

8. Movielens Movielens is ugly. But what it lacks in beauty, it makes up for with a great recommendation engine that evaluates your tastes based on ratings to films you've seen before. Once you rate 15 movies, it returns recommendations that, based on my testing, were quite accurate and certainly more relevant than results from Netflix.

7. Flixster Flixster is the pretty version of Movielens. The site allows you to rate films and it returns recommendations that are about as good as Movielens. Beyond beauty, Flixster beats out Movielens because it offers extras like film quizzes, the capability to monitor friends' ratings, and more. It's good for people who want more than just movie ideas.

6. IMDb Instead of asking you to input ratings or to tell it what movies you like, IMDb automatically recommends similar films to the movie you search for. At the bottom of the page, a "Recommendations" section explains that if you liked a respective film, you'll like the handful of other films being displayed, based on information gathered from an IMDb database, which examines films to find similarities and differences. It's a great way for people who don't have time to rate movies to find some films worth watching. Even better, the recommendations are solid.
pooch hall

Yep, Iron Man was a good movie.

(Credit: Don Reisinger/CNET Networks)5. Criticker Criticker is another one of those sites that places no stock in design, but it does a fine job of finding movies worth watching. Instead of just allowing you to rank films, the site compares your ratings to those of other users and employs something called the "Taste Compatibility Index" to see how closely your tastes match these other users. Once the service finds matches, you can view other users' profiles and see which movies they like. When I tried it, the other users' preferences were in line with my own on almost every film. Combining community and functionality, Criticker is a unique, yet worthwhile service to check out.

4. Clerkdogs Input the name of a film you like and Clerkdogs will return similar films. It's that simple. And it works. For both major movies and small films, it always found relevant recommendations when I gave it a starting point of a film I liked.

3. Nanocrowd At first glance, Nanocrowd looks like every other film search engine: you input the name of a film you like and it returns results. But the site goes well beyond a simple results page. Nanocrowd allows you to drill down into a more refined search with the help of a "three-word nanogenre." On the results page, you click which three-word category you prefer, based on keywords related to the movie you input into the search field, and Nanocrowd immediately refines your search to get the best film for you. Even better, the films it displays aren't always blockbusters.
pooch hall
2. Taste Kid If you want more than good movie recommendations, Taste Kid is the site for you. It's simple enough--you input a film you like and it returns results that offer similar action to your favorites. But it goes beyond just movies. If you really like "The Godfather," Taste Kid fills you in on what kind of bands you'll like to listen to, books you'll want to read, and "other stuff" that's related to that film. Taste Kid is a full entertainment recommendation engine.


Semantic search on Jinni is incredible.

(Credit: Don Reisinger/CNET)1. Jinni Jinni is the best movie recommendation engine on the Web. Period. Whether you want to search for films in the search field or you want to find films based on your mood, time available, setting, or reviews, the site has it all. I searched for movies based on my mood and followed that with a search based on my plot preference. Each time, films that I've watched and loved in the past, or that I haven't watched but definitely want to see popped up.

But perhaps the most compelling feature that Jinni offers is its semantic search. You can input terms like, "movies that have gangsters" or "films that show Chris Farley yelling" and the site will return films that match your query. It's mind-blowing.

Go use Jinni. You won't regret it.

ronald hearns

Updated at 3:30 p.m. PDT with additional detail and to correct the filing date for TomTom's suit, which was Monday.

TomTom has responded to Microsoft's patent suit by filing a patent claim of its own against the software maker.

The GPS device maker, based in The Netherlands, filed the countersuit in the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia on Monday. TomTom says Microsoft's Streets and Trips products infringe on four patents it owns related to vehicle navigation software. ronald hearns

In a statement, Microsoft lawyer Horacio Gutierrez said the company is still in the process of reviewing TomTom's court filing.

"As has been the case for more than a year, we remain committed to a licensing solution, although we will continue to press ahead with the complaints we initiated in the U.S. District Court for the Western District of Washington and the International Trade Commission."

Microsoft sued TomTom in late February, accusing the company of infringing on eight patents. The suit was notable because it included, for the first time in a court filing, Microsoft's long-asserted position that the Linux kernel infringes on Microsoft patents.

lily collins

Cisco announced Thursday that it will pay more than $600 million to buy Pure Digital, the company that makes Flip Video camcorders. Reporter Marguerite Reardon joins today's podcast to talk about why that shouldn't be a surprise. lily collins

Also in this podcast: Microsoft unveils Internet Explorer 8; a security conference in Canada that got makers of Safari, Firefox, and IE's attention; and Google adds a feature to Gmail that just might make your life Rickroll-free.

kim yu na

Two owners of Acer Predator gaming PCs reported recently that the desktops got so hot the external casing melted. Accordingly, Acer issued a voluntary recall Thursday.

The recall affects approximately 215 Predator desktops sold by Acer between May and December 2008, according to the Consumer Product Safety Commission.

There have been at least two reported incidents of the PCs short-circuiting, causing both internal components and the exterior casing to melt. Fortunately, there were no injuries as a result, according to Acer. kim yu na

Acer says the problem is caused by the insulation on the PCs' internal wiring, which can "become bent or stripped," leading the wires to overheat.

Anyone who bought one of these Predators during the period listed above can call Acer for a free repair. See the CPSC Web site for more details.

mulan

The Associated Press quoted an AT&T representative Thursday confirming plans to sell no-contract iPhones for $599 or $699 starting next Thursday, as first reported Wednesday by the Boy Genius Report. There's a catch, however; those phones will still be locked to AT&T's network.

A regular AT&T iPhone account will be required to operate the phone, although theoretically you could activate the phone one day, cancel your account the next, and only be out activation fees and a month's worth of service, rather than two years worth of service. But then you'd be reduced to using your expensive iPhone over just Wi-Fi networks unless you're willing to unlock it for other networks.mulan

An Apple representative did not immediately return a call seeking comment on whether a similar offer would be in place at Apple's retail stores, which the AP was also unable to confirm.

samsung finesse

Other user-preservation features already available include Gmail's capability to watch for words like "attached" in the body of an e-mail and to alert you if there are no attachments to the message; and a feature in Google Apps (the corporate version of Gmail) that puts orange borders around the names of e-mail recipients that are not inside your company--to alert you to not send confidential information where you shouldn't. samsung finesse

Also, last year Google launched the "Mail Goggles" Labs feature that prevents you from sending e-mails during the small hours of the morning unless you pass a simple math test. It's designed to prevent drunk e-mailing.

Undo Send is a much smarter feature. We've all regretted pressing "send" on e-mails. Sometimes we realize, too late, that our message is a "reply all" when it shouldn't be. Or that we spelled something wrong. Or that we were angry and shouldn't have sent it at all. Undo Send lets you snatch an e-mail back before it gets sent out. But you have to act fast.

Google product manager Keith Coleman told me that internal testing of the feature, which was created by a Google engineer in Japan as a side project, indicated that five seconds was an appropriate compromise between the ability to recall an errant message and the need to not introduce lag to e-mail conversations. "Adding a delay could be potentially frustrating," Coleman said. I'm not sure the rest of the world is as agile with the mouse as Google's internal testers, but Coleman also told me there's an option to increase the un-send time window to 10 seconds. "We may decide to add longer options," he said. samsung finesse

I'm one person who'd like the option to introduce a longer waiting period, or an "outbox" where queued messages reside for a minute or two before being sent. This is what I do with my desktop e-mail client, Outlook, and Gmail users can get a similar function if they switch to offline mode before they start composing messages. But for most users, who run Gmail in online mode, Undo Send is a good emergency valve.

To activate the Undo Send option, click on "Settings" in Gmail and then the "Labs" tab.

Read more on the Official GMail blog.

jack mcbrayer

Interesting new data from Nielsen Online says "member communities" (e.g., social networks and blogs have become more popular than e-mail.


Blogs and social apps beating e-mail jack mcbrayer

(Credit: eMarketer)While the data does not show a dramatic difference between member communities and e-mail use, in terms of percentage points, it does reflect an impact that social communication is having on the way we work and communicate.

Of course, the other side of the equation is finding out how the sample data was taken and if it's based only on consumer data. Nonetheless, it shows that information is moving online, not getting stuck in e-mail boxes.

Another interesting statistic is the fact that 85 percent of those surveyed use search tools, showing once again that the data structure of the Web still has a long way to go. That stat should also bring comfort to Google shareholders.
jack mcbrayer

linda larkin

The annual Web 2.0 Expo kicks off at the end of this month in San Francisco. As in years past, it should be an interesting conference with a ton of useful sessions for those involved in the Web ecosystem, as well as an exhibit hall populated by core Web 2.0 infrastructure companies.
linda larkin
You can get a 35 percent off a conference pass to the event by using the code websf09btd45 on the registration site, or better yet, win a free, all-access pass (I have two to give away) by participating in our contest.

Here's the game: Describe, in one paragraph, the Web service you want someone to build for you that hasn't been built yet. In addition to winning the free pass, I will harass the entrepreneurs and VCs I meet for next few months with the best ideas, trying to actually get them built.

Use the feedback system below to tell us what you'd like to see. If you haven't already, you'll have to register on CNET to post a comment. Or you can use Facebook Connect to sign on. If you use a CNET ID, we'll need to reach you through e-mail if you're a winner, so please be sure your e-mail address is current. If you've been registered on the CNET network for a while, use this form to check your e-mail address. If you use Facebook, we'll notify your Facebook account. In the case of multiple versions of an idea we like, the earliest entry will win.

You have 24 hours--I'll stop taking submissions at 4:00 p.m. Pacific Time on Friday. Good luck! linda larkin

streamys

If you haven't noticed, Cisco Systems, whose products have been used to build the Internet for 20 years, has spent the past 6 years becoming a big player in the consumer electronics market.streamys

While Cisco still generates the bulk of its nearly $40 billion in yearly revenue from selling routers and switches to large companies and Internet service providers, the company has also been pushing into new markets, such as consumer electronics, over the past several years.



Still, most consumers probably have no idea who Cisco is or what it does. Sure, they may have seen those cute "human network" commercials on TV. But other than that, I'd guess the average Joe has no clue what Cisco does.

Some might be familiar with the Linksys brand, which has traditionally sold home networking gear. But Cisco executives say they are on a mission to make Cisco a household name. Not only is the company making a bigger effort to brand its products as Cisco, but it's also busy developing a slew of new products for the consumer market.

And on Thursday the company announced its most aggressive play in the consumer market to date with the $590 million acquisition of Pure Digital Technologies, the maker of the popular Flip Video mini camcorders.

But Pure is by no means the only major acquisition Cisco has made in the consumer market. In fact, the company so far has pretty much built this part of its business through acquisitions. In 2003, it got its start in the competitive CE market with the $500 million acquisition of the home-networking equipment maker Linksys. Then in 2005, it bought Scientific Atlanta, a quasi-consumer electronics company, for $7 billion. Scientific Atlanta makes set-top boxes that Cisco sells to subscription TV providers.streamys

Since then the company has made a few, smaller consumer electronics purchases. In 2005, it spent $61 million in cash for a small Danish company called Kiss Technologies. Cisco never ended up selling Kiss' online video-on-demand boxes, but it has integrated the technology into some of its new products. In fact, Ned Hooper, senior vice president of Cisco's Corporate Development and Consumer Groups, said in an interview that some of Kiss' technology made its way into Cisco's new Media Hub, which was announced in January at the Consumer Electronics Show. And some other bits of the technology have also been integrated into Scientific Atlanta's products.

To give readers a sense of just how far along Cisco is in its efforts to win over consumers, I've highlighted some of Cisco's most important products in the consumer market. From its flagship Linksys router to the newly announced Home Audio and Media Hub products to the newly acquired Flip Video cameras, Cisco is building up an arsenal of consumer devices that not only connect devices together via a home network, but also help users produce and share digital media throughout the home and throughout the Web.

dinner impossible

VANCOUVER, B.C.--Presenters at the CanSecWest security conference detailed on Thursday how they can sniff data by analyzing keystroke vibrations using a laser trained on a shiny laptop or through electrical signals coming from a PC connected to a PS/2 keyboard and plugged into a socket.dinner impossible

Using equipment costing about $80, researchers from Inverse Path were able to point a laser on the reflective surface of a laptop between 50 feet and 100 feet away and determine what letters were typed.

Chief Security Engineer Andrea Barisani and hardware hacker Daniele Bianco used a handmade laser microphone device and a photo diode to measure the vibrations, software for analyzing the spectrograms of frequencies from different keystrokes, as well as technology to apply the data to a dictionary to try to guess the words. They used a technique called dynamic time warping that's typically used for speech recognition applications, to measure the similarity of signals.

Line-of-sight on the laptop is needed, but it works through a glass window, they said. Using an infrared laser would prevent a victim from knowing they were being spied on.

The only real way to mitigate against this type of spying would be to change your typing position and mistype words, Barisani said.

In the second attack method, the researchers were able to spy on the keystrokes of a computer which was using a PS/2 keyboard through a ground line from a power plug in an outlet 50 feet away.

"Information leaks to the electric grid," said Barisani. "It can be detected on the power plug, including nearby ones sharing the same electric line" as the victim's computer. dinner impossible

The researchers used a digital oscilloscope and analog-digital converter, as well as filtering technology to isolate the victim's keystroke pulses from other noise on the power line.

Their initial test, which took about five days to prepare and perform, enabled them to record individual keystrokes but not continuous data such as words and sentences, though they expect to be able to do that within a few months, Barisani said.

In addition to being used to sniff a neighbor's keystrokes in a nearby room, the attack could be used to sniff data from ATM machines that use PS/2 or similar keypads, Barsani said. The attack does not work against laptops or USB keyboards, he said.

The attacks are similar to other recent research that involves sniffing keystrokes through a wireless antenna.

And of course there is the big daddy of these types of remote sniffing attacks, TEMPEST, which allows someone with a lot of expensive equipment to sniff the electromagnetic radiation emanating from a video display.

The new attacks are easier and can be accomplished at lower cost, the researchers said.

air force hockey

Add YouTube to the list of Web sites offering visitors live streaming video of NCAA Division I men's tournament games.

The Google-owned video site quietly began streaming college basketball games on Thursday via a feed from CBS (parent company of CNET News). air force hockey

I don't understand why CBS wouldn't have promoted this more in order to take full advantage of YouTube's enormous audience. YouTube, by far the Web's largest video site, recently said more than 100 million U.S. visitors log on to the site. YouTube didn't do a lot of press prior to Thursday's tip-off either. Is there more going on here?

When I contacted YouTube, all they would say was: "This is a program that we are running with one of our long standing partners around popular premium content. We're excited that the YouTube community will have the opportunity to watch March Madness on YouTube and look forward to hearing from them about their experience."

CBS, which declined to comment for this story, has been a big booster of YouTube and all of the company's content partners for a long time. But CBS now owns a YouTube competitor in TV.com.

CBS' streaming video of the tournament, however, can be seen on a host of sites, such as ESPN, AOL, Yahoo and Sports Illustrated's Web site, SI.com. Some of those sites compete with CBS as well.
air force hockey
The company has long had a syndication strategy and distributes content on numerous platforms.

house of games

The video games industry continued to defy general economic realities in February, posting a 10 percent year-over-year sales increase and a 10.5 percent boost over January. house of games

For the month of February, the industry recorded sales of $1.47 billion, up from $1.34 billion a year earlier, according to numbers released Thursday by industry analyst NPD Group. And the February numbers also outpaced January's $1.33 billion. In February, software accounted for $733.5 million in sales, while hardware and accessories came in at $532.7 million and $207.1 million, respectively.

According to NPD, Microsoft's Xbox 360 had its second best non-holiday-season sales month since its launch, with 391,000 units sold. But once again, it was Nintendo that had the best overall performance. It sold 753,000 Wii consoles, as well as 588,000 DS handheld systems. Those numbers were up 10.8 percent and 15.1 percent, respectively, over January.

Sony's PlayStation 3 and PlayStation 2 didn't have quite as successful a February. The PS3 moved 276,000 units, while just 131,000 PS2s were sold. However, those figures did represent a 35.8 percent and a 29.4 percent jump over January. In February, Sony's PSP sold 199,000 units.

Nintendo also dominated the software sales side of things. Six of the top 10 best-selling titles in February were for either the Wii or the DS, including the repeat No. 1 performer, Nintendo's "Wii Fit.

NPD analyst Anita Frazier said March looks good for the industry as well, despite the recession, because of titles such as Halo Wars, Grand Theft Auto: Chinatown Wars, Resident Evil 5, and more. house of games

"The sheer quantity of great content coming to market early in the year should keep industry sales humming throughout 2009," Frazier said in a statement.

reese witherspoon movies

Update, 10:38 p.m. PDT: To include more background on factors that led to shutdown.

SpiralFrog, the pioneering ad-supported music service, quietly closed down on Thursday. SpiralFrog's site went dark at about 4 p.m. PDT. reese witherspoon movies

A source close to the company told CNET News that SpiralFrog has ceased operations and assets have been surrendered to creditors. To keep operations going last year, the company issued secured notes in order to borrow at least $9 million from several hedge funds and others.


SpiralFrog representatives weren't immediately available for comment.


New York-based SpiralFrog made a splash in August 2006 by attempting to offer music free of charge to the public while supporting the site through ad sales. Media outlets such as The New York Times, Reuters, and USA Today questioned whether the site might one day challenge Apple's iTunes.


Some argued that SpiralFrog's business model was the answer to illegal file sharing.

But the model has yet to be proven. SpiralFrog is the second ad-supported service to shut down in 2009. Ruckus, which catered to college students, also shuttered operations. reese witherspoon movies

The deaths of these companies come at a time when executives at some of the top labels are questioning whether ad-supported sites boost music sales or cannibalize them.

In SpiralFrog's situation, the company couldn't overcome "a macro-economic perfect storm" says a source close to the company. The sagging global economy, combined with "the collapse of the capital markets" and rapid compression of the ad markets," led to the company's demise, said the source.

That only tells part of the story, however. In truth, the service never caught on with music fans. SpiralFrog's downloads were locked in Digital Rights Management at a time when most of the front-running music services, such as iTunes and Amazon, were freeing songs from copy-protection software, enabling them to play on numerous devices.

In addition, SpiralFrog's music library was always much more limited than iTunes, Imeem, or other competitors. After signing a licensing deal with Universal Music Group, the largest of the four major record companies, in the summer of 2006, nearly two more years would pass before the start-up signed a second top label: EMI.

This meant that SpiralFrog never was able to offer songs from Sony Entertainment Group or Warner Music Group, which account for a large chunk of overall music sales.

The company saw two CEOs come and go, conflicts between managers and founder, Joe Mohen, and perhaps most significantly, the company struggled with debt.

A year ago I wrote that SpiralFrog was borrowing money to fund operations and avoided a debt crisis by renegotiating the loan terms. At the time, SpiralFrog had borrowed more than $9 million, but in March 2008 was given an additional year to repay it. reese witherspoon movies

According to a story published last month in Digital Music News, SpiralFrog's debt was coming due and the story suggested the company may not have the means to repay it.

Here's the obvious question raised by the demise of SpiralFrog and Ruckus; is the ad-supported music sector seeing a shakeout?

vermont hockey

Updated: Amid weak fiscal third-quarter results reported Thursday, Palm Chief Executive Edward Colligan said that the company is well positioned to launch the Pre and promised a road map of smartphones and an application ecosystem built on the company's new WebOS. Bottom line: Palm envisions an entire product line built on the WebOS.

vermont hockey
Palm hasn't put a date on the Pre launch.

(Credit: Corrine Schulze/CNET)Palm didn't put a date on the Pre launch, but said the device and its software were "being polished up" and being certified from Sprint as the company prepares to ramp up manufacturing.

The big takeaway: There are no showstoppers for the Pre launch in the first half of the year. Chief Financial Officer Doug Jeffries also added that "there's an enormous amount of interest globally for the Pre." Palm execs weren't going to detail European partners, but did note that the Pre plan calls for a step-by-step addition of international partners. "Right now we're 100 percent focused on getting the Pre launched and the Sprint product out the door," said Jeffries.

On a conference call with analysts, Colligan provided an upbeat tone to what were predictably dismal results. The company reported a net loss of $98 million, or 89 cents a share, on revenue of $90.6 million, down from $312 million in the same quarter a year ago. Smartphone revenue fell 72 percent to $77.5 million.

"With these financial results it's easy to forget the progress we've made," said Colligan, who argued that strategically the company is on track.

Colligan said the company is well positioned to launch the Pre on time. "We are under no illusions about the hard work that remains with bringing the Pre to market," said Colligan. But he added that "I have never had more confidence in Palm's ability to bring a new product to market on time and at scale."
vermont hockey
However, analysts asked Palm executives what made them comfortable that the Pre would launch on time. After all, the Treo Pro was delayed. Jeffries said Palm has been working "more collaboratively" with Sprint and the company understands the process to launch more. "It's never a slam dunk, but I'm as comfortable as I've ever been that we'll nail it," said Jeffries.

Colligan delivered the following points:

The company needs seamless execution on the Pre launch.

Palm is "working hard with developers to get applications ready at launch" and "aligning marketing efforts with Sprint."

Palm wasn't prepared to disclose a European partner for the Pre, but the company has some "excellent options."

The company plans to establish a WebOS ecosystem that goes "well beyond our base."

Palm wasn't going to discuss its cash burn situation in the fourth quarter, but said its latest move to raise capital gave the company enough headroom to launch the Pre.


The messaging from Palm can be boiled down to one statement: Look ahead. Jeffries said the company's cost cutting and the launch of the Pre--along with its WebOS--will "greatly improve" performance.

Indeed, Palm will need the improvement. Palm smartphone units plunged 42 percent to 482,000 in its fiscal third quarter ahead of the launch of the Pre.

The results were largely expected since Palm had already warned that its third-quarter results would be messy. The company in a statement said it is officially "proceeding through a challenging transitional period" ahead of the Pre launch.

If successful, the launch of the Pre, Palm's much ballyhooed device, will create a new era for the company. If the Pre fumbles, Palm could be in big trouble.

The third-quarter net loss included a bevy of items, but even under non-GAAP accounting Palm lost $94.7 million, or 86 cents a share. Inventories for the third quarter were $13.2 million, up from $8.89 million in the same period a year ago.

On the bright side, Palm recently raised capital that largely offset what it blew through during the third quarter. The company ended the third quarter with cash and equivalents of $219.4 million. Jeffries repeatedly noted that Palm had enough capital to give the Pre the marketing support it needs.

pitt villanova

A couple weeks ago, I wrote about how Seattle company Melodeo had created an iPhone application for the band Presidents of the United States of America, which delivers the band's music in a direct stream, rather than forcing users to download (and pay for) each song individually. pitt villanova

On Thursday at South by Southwest (SXSW), digital-marketing and distribution specialist The Orchard announced that it's adding iPhone applications to its arsenal of tools.

The Orchard handles songs from more than 14,000 acts, focusing on musicians on independent labels such as Amphetamine Reptile, Ipecac, and Lookout (just to name three with which I'm familiar). Now artists--or, more likely, their labels or management teams--will be able to create a customized iPhone app through The Orchard's standard set of management tools.

The iPhone applications themselves will be developed by design and branding firm Fluidesign.

Artists will be able to offer as many songs as they like as free streams (a link will let users click to download the songs from the iTunes Store), as well as post photos and aggregated news from various sources (such as RSS feeds or Twitter streams, if the band is into such things). Musicians will be able to set their own prices, but The Orchard envisions this as a promotional tool rather than as a revenue generator, so it is encouraging its clients to offer them for free. pitt villanova

The first app available is for The Black Lips, but when you run a search for that band's name in iTunes, the app shows up listed only as Mobile Roadie, the name of the platform for iPhone apps developed by Fluidesign. This link will take you directly to the application in iTunes.

usa soccer

AUSTIN, Texas--I've blogged about Topspin Media in the past--it's the company that handled the staggered direct-to-fan release for the recent David Byrne-Brian Eno album, "Everything That Happens Will Happen Today." At the South by Southwest festival here this week, Topspin announced that it has taken a lot of the lessons it learned from the Byrne-Eno release and applied it to their platform. usa soccer

Under the Byrne-Eno program, the artists first asked listeners to enter their e-mail address in exchange for a free song download. A few weeks later, they released a streaming version of the entire record, while simultaneously offering various packages for sale at various price points. This was the only way you could get the CD for eight weeks, when it finally went on sale for retail.

Subsequently, the artists used the e-mail addresses they'd collected to send messages about the David Byrne tour for the album, as well as a vinyl release that just came out. It was a very clever and canny way to market a record, and it benefited not only fans but also the artists--they say they earned the equivalent to a record company advance during the eight-week exclusive period.

I got a demonstration of the new platform from Topspin on Thursday morning, and there's a lot of impressive behind-the-scenes work going on there. The process starts with embeddable widgets that the artist (or, really, their management) can offer through their Web page or MySpace page; any fan can then take these widgets and redistribute them on their own pages, allowing artists to leverage their fan base as marketers.

There are a couple standard widgets, including one that lets users enter an e-mail address in exchange for a free download, and another that can be used to share an audio and video clip of some sort (Byrne and Eno sat down and talked about the album). usa soccer

As these widgets are redistributed, artists can collect detailed information about who's putting them where, paving the way, for example, for a scenario in which an artist could offer free backstage passes to its 10 biggest promoters. Further down the line, when the artist is selling an album, Topspin enables the collection and storage of more information about fans (such as their ZIP codes). Such data is later used for promotions such as targeted e-mails advertising a local gig. Giving personal data is opt-in; these are fans getting information about an act they like, not random spam or cross-marketing. usa soccer

Topspin's not intending to go broad--musicians have to have some history or traction before it'll take you as a client (management's basically required; a label is nice). The company is not looking to get into the distribution game, either. But I think that this type of direct-to-fan marketing is soon going to become standard-practice, at which point it'll be interesting to see how Topspin differentiates itself from the labels...or, perhaps the labels will just outsource this kind of work to them.