Here’s a helpful reminder, via a Bernstein research note out today. By 2016, analyst Carlos Kirjner predicts, the majority of Web search queries will come from mobile devices.

One interesting caveat to that projection: It doesn’t include searches from tablets. I gather this is because Kirjner is trying to distinguish between searches conducted via wireless networks and those made using broadband connections, via Wi-Fi, although I’m not quite sure why that matters.

But if you added tablet searches, you’d reach the tipping point that much earlier. And it will get there much sooner in the U.S., anyway, because smartphone penetration is much higher here than other parts of the world.

Given that Apple’s iOS devices use Google search now — last fall, Google said that two-thirds of its search traffic comes from iOS — all mobile growth is good for Google.

But at some point, Kirjner suggests, Apple may decide to jettison Google for a competitor like, say, Microsoft. And that could cause real problems for Larry Page and company. But those problems would be much, much worse if Google hadn’t created an iPhone competitor in the first place.

GreenGoose makes fun sensor technologies, and its first product — a kit for measuring when you walk, feed and play with your dog — starts shipping, after various delays, next week.

For its next product, the “Brush Monkey” Internet-enabled toothbrush, GreenGoose posted a campaign to raise $18,000 on Kickstarter.

This is more of a play for the DIY lovers in the Kickstarter community than anything else, said GreenGoose founder Brian Krejcarek. He wrote in an email,

We’ve raised some angel funding, but we’re still in this early-stage mode of figuring things out and trying to bring a dream to reality. We wanted to open it up to a DIY community with an API, that’s already out there for developers.  If we can get other folks using a toothbrush or some of these other sensors in their applications, that helps us bring it into real production to get the cost down so we can make it available to lots of people.

Obviously, making physical products takes real money — but it’s possible Kickstarter is a better home for the DIY kinds of things GreenGoose is trying to do, especially in the early days. Another sensors-for-everyday-life project, Twine, raised $556,541 last year, after setting out to raise $35,000. Its Kickstarter campaign got coverage from many tech outlets, and generated tons of community recognition and goodwill.

Kickstarter on "Portlandia"

But Kickstarter campaigns aren’t just about the viral goodwill anymore. Kickstarter backed 10 percent of the films at Sundance this year. The site is becoming a serious source of funding and marketing for both start-ups and established companies.

In fact, Kickstarter recently started generating upward of $1 million per project. By “recently,” I mean “yesterday” — which was the first time a project got more than $1 million, and two projects did it in the same day.

The first was the Elevation Dock for the iPhone, which was posted by Elevation Lab of Portland on Kickstarter in December, and was a couple days away from its funding deadline.

The funding deadline is basically just a preorder deadline at this point, though. Kickstarter only makes backers pay up if a project’s goal is reached, but the dock received commitments for its goal of $75,000 in funding in just eight hours on Dec. 14. At last count, it had 1,124,440, from 10,275 backers.

Then, five hours later, another Kickstarter project got $1 million in funding — just a day after it was posted.

Double Fine Productions, a well-known studio that makes games for the Xbox and other platforms, turned to Kickstarter on Wednesday to raise $400,000 to create a new game and document it for Kickstarter backers. That goal was quickly met, and then some.

The Double Fine Adventure campaign now has $1,267,843, from 34,376 backers.

Double Fine didn’t come out of nowhere — its first hit was “Psychonauts” in 2005 — but that’s the point. The company’s Kickstarter pitch posed the project as a goal to see if crowdfunding can take it to the next level: Funding a major game release that usually requires publishers, investment firms and loans.

It appears the answer is yes. Or, as Double Fine put it “WoooooooooOOOOoooOoOoooOOooo!” The studio said it would put the extra money into things like translations and an original soundtrack for the documentary about the making of the game.

Last night, the New York City-based Kickstarter team quite understandably threw a party rather than updating its most-funded project page.

Hopefully the team’s hangovers will be in remission by tonight, when Kickstarter reaches another all-too-perfect milestone: Being the subject of a skit on “Portlandia” on IFC. Here’s a preview:

Here is a deeply silly video of NBC late-night show host Jimmy Fallon and First Lady Michelle Obama competing in a potato-sack race.

You read that right. Also a push-up battle, a hula-hoop hip-off and a tug-of-war in the White House, all part of Obama’s “Let’s Move” exercise initiatives aimed at improving children’s health.

It’s got a goofy charm, and the kids will love it (mine did):

On your birthday, I find you wherever I turn. I will say that I have loved aspects of you, hated others, and could not understand many more.

– One of three tweets that were the basis for an arrest warrant for Hamza Kashgari, who addressed the Prophet Muhammad on his birthday, and is now charged as apostate and an infidel, both of which are crimes punishable by death

The photo-viewer started rolling out earlier this month, and appears to have been implemented widely in the last few days. Plenty of folks have noted that it’s similar to the format Google uses in Google+. I think the ad treatment is much more interesting.

Here’s the old format, via a Huffington Post screenshot:

And here’s the new one:

Those screenshots give you some idea of the new prominence the ads get, but it’s even more obvious in real life. Put it this way: I look at Facebook a lot, and I didn’t even realize that Facebook had been showing me ads when I clicked on photos. Now I can’t avoid them.

For now, that is. Entirely possible that I’ll develop the same “banner blindness” that I have for lots of other Web ads.

Also worth noting that these ads only seem to show up on photos that don’t have many comments on them. Photos that do have lots of comments display those comments instead. So if you’re looking at, say, pictures posted by Mark Zuckerberg, you won’t end up seeing ads next those images at all.

I asked Facebook reps for comment, and they offered a boilerplate response: “We’re constantly testing new designs and layouts on Facebook.”

So I’ll take the liberty of adding what they might say — if they had a beer or two and weren’t talking to a reporter: “See? This is one reason why you guys should trust us when we explain that we’re in the early stages of social advertising. If this format works, it means we’ll have opened up a huge slug of real estate we weren’t using. Boom! Instant revenue stream! And it’s also why you should just chill out about the fact that we don’t yet make any money from mobile. Of course we’re going to figure out how to put ads on your iPhone! We just haven’t gotten around to it yet.”

Thanks, imaginary slightly tipsy Facebook rep! Look forward to chatting with you again soon.

The tiny, Atlanta-based company launched in October 2010. Run by CEO Juan Pablo Gnecco and CTO Alan Queen, Movl (pronounced (MOE-vul) develops what it calls “multiscreen, multidevice” apps that are meant to enhance the connected-TV experience.

In early 2011, Movl’s Pictionary-like WeDraw app won $200,000 as part of Samsung’s Smart TV apps competition. Last month, Movl announced that it had developed an app called SwipeIt, which works on Android phones and Samsung TVs (and is technically owned by Samsung), allowing users to “swipe” content from their phones and have it appear on their TV screens.

Now the company is working on something called Direct Connect, which adds to the existing Connect service and is designed to work with both the Wi-Fi and 3G capabilities of mobile devices. One example the company gave was tapping into a smartphone’s built-in accelerometer and using the phone as a game controller.

Movl is also experimenting with a multiscreen, interactive ad platform and something it has code-named Kontrol TV, which will offer shortcuts for users to find multiple TV apps from the same app — and not just channel apps, but also trends, tweets, and other social media references related to TV shows. The company is aiming for a May launch of Kontrol TV.

Essentially, Movl is to Samsung TVs what AirPlay is to TVs using the Apple TV box. While enabling users to “throw” content from their mobile devices to their TV screens, Movl also wants to package all the various TV-related apps on that mobile device into one “shell.”

The apps currently work on Samsung TVs, Google TV-equipped sets, iOS and Android devices. Movl said that it is becoming increasingly focused on developing everything in HTML5, which Gnecco and Queen say they see more smart TVs moving toward.

Cuban explained his interest in the company by saying he thinks smart TVs, as a platform, are getting ready to take off, as new TVs get more powerful by the day.

He also said he feels the introduction of an Apple TV — as in an Apple-manufactured television set, not Apple TV in its current form — wouldn’t necessarily disrupt small fish like Movl, because they might have an already-established user base if or when an Apple TV comes out. Apple won’t ever have 100 percent of the TV market, and both Samsung and Vizio have a solid foothold, Cuban believes.

There’s also the question of whether Movl’s new applications could potentially raise the ire of cable operators, who have been introducing their own apps for mobile devices, and who might not like Movl’s idea to aggregate all TV-related apps into Movl’s Kontrol “shell,” as the company describes it.

But Movl says it’s not looking to usurp other apps — it mainly just wants to make it easier for a user to toggle between various TV apps during a multiscreen viewing experience. The company has been speaking with some cable providers that are interested in using Movl as a possible white-label solution, it says.

The effort marks the Internet company’s first full-fledged effort to design and market consumer electronics devices under the Google brand, and represents a sharp shift in strategy. Google has up to now mainly focused on developing the Android software that powers devices such as smartphones and tablets and allowing other companies to build and brand the hardware that uses it.

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At any given Summit, you might rub elbows with Bill Clinton, Russell Simmons, the president of Georgia, or drummer ?uestlove from The Roots. The event is not lecture-driven; it’s meant to inspire open discussions and connect people through out-of-the-box activities.

The atmosphere at this year’s Summit Basecamp was even more dynamic and powerful than in previous years. It took place in Squaw Valley, Calif., and brought many attendees together on a deeper level. Regardless of the range of business icons, politicians and artists, Rishi Malhotra, President of Bollywood content distributor Saavn notes, “Summit has this unique ability to make everybody equal.”

Unlike other multi-discipline events, Summit Series doesn’t just promote back-patting and lofty ideas, it actually drives action. Connections kindled through the event have led to hundreds of start-up investments, non-profit initiatives and new art programs.

Here are four trends buzzed around the Summit that could spur the next wave of innovation:

1. Technology fuels an education revolution. Catalyzed by cloud computing, online video, and the lower cost of tablet PCs, a crop of new initiatives are set to change the way the world learns. Four notable examples are:

   Free classes: Khan Academy, with its mission to “provide a free world-class education to anyone anywhere,” is leading this entire space. Over 2600 online videos are now free to the world, covering a variety of educational topics.

   The Behaving Game: ClassDojo has built an entirely new model for managing student behavior in real time. The rewards system feels like the future of getting a “gold star” for good behavior. The company came out of the U.K. last summer and is already one of the fastest growing education technology companies, ever. ClassDojo is diving into the realm of behavior management, a completely untapped area of education innovation.

   Extreme PC makeover: Neverware is another awesome company looking to make “old school computers” new again, thanks to one central server installation. The Neverware Juicebox is a server appliance that ends the need to upgrade all desktops in a school. Once installed on the school’s network, all of the PCs run Windows 7 as though they were new, fast computers. So instead of being forced to replace old PCs, schools can use Neverware’s affordable service to keep machines up to date with the newest OS available.

   DIY coding: Thanks to Codecademy, programming is no longer a skill reserved for the Internet elite. With its interactive self-teaching JavaScript course, Codecademy encourages individuals with no coding background to dive in and learn how to build Web sites at their own pace.

   New companies like these, coupled with Apple’s push behind its iBooks textbook store and Pearson Education’s incubation AlleyOop, which gamifies adaptive learning, demonstrates that major corporate support for the sector is also happening. Combined with this group of start-ups and many others, 2012 should be the year of education innovation.

2. Beyond Facebook. Despite Facebook’s pending IPO, this year’s Summit buzzed about a new cadre of social media gathering spots.

   Google+ was a popular topic among many Summit attendees. Discussions revolved around Google’s ability to scale its social network and leverage assets such as Gmail and Android. Some attendees believed that Google’s ability to potentially turn on a requirement that any new Android user sign in via Google+ could be a major game changer, resulting in hundreds of millions — if not a billion — new users.

   Interest-based social networks were a hot topic this year. These services, many of which are primarily accessed via smartphone or tablet, cater to specific passions — with particular buzz around services like Pinterest, Thumb, Foodspotting and Instagram.

3. Go global or risk losing out to your copycat. The old rules of building a start-up in America meant incremental growth: Build a critical mass and then expand, country by country, only making moves when a service or product could meet the needs of a new market and its economics.

   Today’s start-ups are going global at a faster rate than ever before because a good idea spreads faster than ever. The rate of copycat creators in Asia, Europe and Latin America is forcing U.S. start-ups to launch and then expand quickly, before spinoffs of their own products surpass them. A new crop of gatekeepers appeared at this year’s Summit, offering effective ways to take businesses to China, India and the Middle East. Lesson of Summit: Once you create a hit service, you need to rapidly scale it before someone else does.

4. Self-Measurement. The past two Summits have spread a powerful message of self-measurement. Based on the nearly full sessions ranging from breathing to yoga to self-confidence, tomorrow’s leaders are more in tune with their spiritual, physical and mental health.
   As Tim Chang, Managing Director of Mayfield Fund summed up nicely, “Summit was a great checkup and check in on the power of self-evaluation and the potential for innovation in every aspect of our lives.”

   Additionally, technology and self-measurement are aligning with each other. From blood-pressure-monitoring iPhone apps to memory-strengthening online videos, there was an emphasis on ways to improve one’s daily routine, focusing on a true work/life balance. Expect technology and self-measurement to continue to grow in sync and produce amazing new services.

Let’s see how these trends play out in 2012.

As Chief Talker of VSCpr, Chattha’s agency has led strategy and public relations efforts for over sixty technology brands representing a combined $20bn in public market capitalization and disruptive start-ups that have successfully exited for a combined $4.7bn to the likes of Google, Visa, Nokia, AOL and Omnicom Group. Chattha received the gold star award for Publicist of the Year and Digital Communications Professional of the Year as judged by reporters at the New York Times and Washington Post in the 2011 Bulldog Reporter Stars of PR Awards. Follow him on Twitter at @vijaychattha.

I say: Bring on the personalization, as long as we can have some control over our settings and can see what else is out there that we’re missing.

To that end, Yahoo has built a visualization of its “CORE” content optimization and relevance engine technology, which helps power story selection on its home page and other verticals.

CORE calculates a personalized mix of stories for Yahoo Today users 13 million times per day. It has increased Yahoo’s home page click-through rate by 300 percent since being implemented in 2008.

Yahoo brags that CORE is a stunning example of “deep science and great engineering,” but the visualization itself is fairly simple. Visitors to the CORE site can see what content is shown to people of different genders, ages and major American cities. They can also scan through the past 24 hours.

Plus, there’s a real-time counter of the number of views of Yahoo’s home page on a particular day — which continues, of course, to be a whole freaking lot.

So what is he doing running a radio and billboard company?

The Clear Channel CEO explained his newest job choice to Kara Swisher last week at D: Dive Into Media. The takeaway: Clear Channel’s radio and billboard businesses are huge because people — both advertiser and users — like them. And they still have growth in them.

You can see the whole interview, which touches on everything from Facebook to Spotify to Tim Armstrong, here:

]]> http://allthingsd.com/20120209/the-internet-hasnt-killed-the-radio-star-clear-channel-ceo-bob-pittmans-full-dive-into-media-interview/feed/ 0 http://allthingsd.com/20120209/ready-to-rumble-or-make-nice-activist-shareholder-daniel-loeb-could-strike-sooner-than-yahoo-thinks/ http://allthingsd.com/20120209/ready-to-rumble-or-make-nice-activist-shareholder-daniel-loeb-could-strike-sooner-than-yahoo-thinks/#comments Thu, 09 Feb 2012 18:14:38 +0000 Kara Swisher http://allthingsd.com/?p=172971

For someone who is still mulling things over about what to do about his more than five percent investment in Yahoo, hedge fund investor and activist shareholder Daniel Loeb has been very busy lately getting his arsenal ready.

While deciding whether to mount a proxy fight — a potentially nasty public fight with the Silicon Valley Internet giant that sources said could start much earlier than the expected February 24 filing date to make a board challenge — he’s also had at least one phone meeting with new Yahoo CEO Scott Thompson in the last week to talk about the company’s future.

Sources said the talk was cordial, although the pair were not yet discussing any kind of rapprochement, which presumably could lead to board seats for Loeb.

But how far Loeb will go and how far Yahoo will give are the big open questions that are about to be answered.

The earliest nominations for directors by outsiders like Loeb can be submitted is February 24. He then has a month after that to propose a competing slate.

Starting last fall when he started accumulating Yahoo shares, Loeb had aggressively called for the ouster of Yahoo’s Chairman Roy Bostock and director and co-founder Jerry Yang. Yang stepped away from Yahoo earlier this month and Bostock just announced his upcoming departure this week.

Despite the renewed communication with Yahoo, Loeb is still acting like he might opt to fight — or at least freak out Yahoo enough to cooperate.

Among his recent activities, according to many sources:

* Attempting to assemble an alternate slate of directors — including trying to persuade high-profile entrepreneurs such as David Goldberg and Max Levchin to join his board. Loeb has been to Silicon Valley several times to stir that pot.

* Meeting with a spate of powerful tech execs, here and elsewhere, in order to gain support for his battle and search for his own preferred leaders for Yahoo. A favorite is Hulu CEO Jason Kilar.

* Working on hiring a top outside crisis communications firm to handle the expected onslaught of media mudslinging that is sure to take place.

* Buttonholing large Yahoo investors to join him and getting, sources said, more support than expected from bigger ones. That’s no surprise: Capital Research Global Investors and Capital World Investors, Yahoo’s biggest institutional shareholders, voted against the company’s board in its last proxy battle and has been much disgruntled with the latest Yahoo stumbles.

* Recently reaching out to top Yahoo execs, including both Yahoo’s Chief Product Officer Blake Irving and Americas head Ross Levinsohn. Irving was so spooked by Loeb’s hello-there, several sources said, that he sent an email to Yahoo’s top staff about the contact attempt, noting he did not return the call (teacher’s pet alert!).

These are, of course, classic activist tactics by Loeb, aimed at getting the changes he wants made at Yahoo by applying real and perceived pressure.

Loeb had previously criticized the company’s talks with private equity investors, saying the prices being discussed were too low, which helped scuttle those talks.

Yahoo has also tried to gird itself and to assuage other shareholders and the media, as it can hardly stand what a proxy fight will do to its already battered image.

Some recent moves to look like it is on the move include: Loudly negotiating with its Asian partners for a big payday; making significant board changes; and hiring Thompson. Next up, as I previously reported, a large-scale restructuring and the inevitable cost-saving layoffs.

Who wins — and who blinks — in this Loeb versus Yahoo face-off, though, is still to be determined.

]]> http://allthingsd.com/20120209/ready-to-rumble-or-make-nice-activist-shareholder-daniel-loeb-could-strike-sooner-than-yahoo-thinks/feed/ 0 http://allthingsd.com/20120209/fbi-file-shocker-steve-jobs-was-a-willful-mercurial-ex-hippie-and-computer-genius/ http://allthingsd.com/20120209/fbi-file-shocker-steve-jobs-was-a-willful-mercurial-ex-hippie-and-computer-genius/#comments Thu, 09 Feb 2012 17:00:16 +0000 John Paczkowski http://allthingsd.com/?p=173102 What did the FBI have on Steve Jobs? Not much, according to its investigation of the late Apple founder and CEO.

The agency just released its file on Jobs, compiled during a background check conducted in the 1990s, when Jobs was being considered for a spot on a White House council on exports. And, with the exception of a noteworthy nugget or two, it’s about as mundane as they come.

If you’ve read Walter Isaacson’s biography of Jobs — or, frankly, any newspaper obituary of the man — then you’re already as well-informed on his life and peccadilloes as the FBI.

Put it this way: Among the highlights of the agency’s 191-page dossier is the observation that Jobs was a former hippie: “During the late 1960s and early 1970s, Mr. Jobs may have experimented with illegal drugs, having come from that generation.”

A few others:

• Jobs had a tendency to “twist the truth and distort reality in order to achieve his goals.”
• Jobs underwent a “change in philosophy by participating in eastern and/or Indian mysticism and religion. This change apparently influenced his personal life for the better.”
• Jobs was “strongwilled, stubborn, hardworking and driven, which … is why he is so successful.
• Jobs liked to get his way.
• Jobs was not a member of the communist party.
• Jobs did “an outstanding job in the computer industry.”

Really, the FBI’s only discovery of note was that Jobs was inexplicably granted Top Secret security clearance by the Defense Industrial Security Clearance Office between 1988 and 1990. Oddly, those credentials were issued by Pixar, which may have done some government work around that time.

Beyond that? Not much. Had Isaacson written his biography of Jobs a few decades earlier, he would have saved the FBI a hell of a lot of work.

Below, the report in its entirety:

Jobs

]]> http://allthingsd.com/20120209/fbi-file-shocker-steve-jobs-was-a-willful-mercurial-ex-hippie-and-computer-genius/feed/ 0 http://allthingsd.com/20120209/spotify-dollars-boost-warner-music-but-not-as-much-as-itunes/ http://allthingsd.com/20120209/spotify-dollars-boost-warner-music-but-not-as-much-as-itunes/#comments Thu, 09 Feb 2012 15:45:57 +0000 Peter Kafka http://allthingsd.com/?p=173030 Music sales may have bounced back last year after a very, very long slide. But we won’t really know for some time. Meantime, a short-term marker: Warner Music says revenue didn’t increase last quarter. But it didn’t decrease, either: Sales stayed flat at $780 million.

If you are looking for a more positive story here, Warner is happy to provide one. Digital revenue jumped 17 percent, and now accounts for 28 percent of the company’s sales. (As always, the label cites guy-you’re-unlikely-to-complain-about Michael Buble as one of its biggest stars. Shudder to imagine a Buble-less quarter for Warner.)

Most interesting is Warner’s take on the kind of digital revenue it is seeing, which we can assume is a rough proxy for the rest of the business.

Downloads — primarily from iTunes, but also Amazon and other players — accounted for $205 million in music revenue last quarter, while payments from streaming services like Spotify and Deezer generated $15 million. But that streaming revenue is growing at a 36 percent clip, compared to 15 percent for downloads.

If people who used to buy albums from iTunes ditch the service for a $10 monthly subscription to Spotify, Rhapsody or the like, then the industry would see substantially more revenue, as paidContent notes. But not even the optimistic music folks think we’re heading there.

A much more realistic best-case scenario: Some people who weren’t buying any music at all start shelling out a monthly fee for subscription services, turning pirates into profit centers. That still won’t be enough to replace the dollars the industry has lost since its pre-Napster party days. But it is much, much better than nothing.

]]> http://allthingsd.com/20120209/spotify-dollars-boost-warner-music-but-not-as-much-as-itunes/feed/ 0 http://allthingsd.com/20120209/talking-windows-8-sprints-iphone-and-much-more-on-tech-news-today/ http://allthingsd.com/20120209/talking-windows-8-sprints-iphone-and-much-more-on-tech-news-today/#comments Thu, 09 Feb 2012 13:00:53 +0000 Ina Fried http://allthingsd.com/?p=172924 I stopped by Tech News Today on Wednesday to chat about a variety of tech topics.

Fortunately for me, the topics were largely familiar, as several were topics I had written about, including layoffs at Nokia, Microsoft’s preview version of Windows 8, and the impact of the iPhone on Sprint.

Here’s a video of the show. It’s 45 minutes, but Tom Merritt, Sarah Lane and Iyaz Akhtar are a lot of fun. Plus, if you watch until the “randomizer” segment at the end, you will get to see this super crazy robotic pack mule the Army has cooked up:

]]> http://allthingsd.com/20120209/talking-windows-8-sprints-iphone-and-much-more-on-tech-news-today/feed/ 0 http://allthingsd.com/20120209/breaking-news-rules/ http://allthingsd.com/20120209/breaking-news-rules/#comments Thu, 09 Feb 2012 08:01:03 +0000 Bo Kim http://allthingsd.com/?p=172936

But when it comes to the verdict, surely the reporter should rush to the live microphone or camera first — even if that means being beaten by a rival tweeter?

– BBC technology correspondent Rory Cellan-Jones on the BBC’s new guidelines that prohibit its reporters from breaking news on Twitter

]]> http://allthingsd.com/20120209/breaking-news-rules/feed/ 0 http://allthingsd.com/20120208/alibaba-seeking-3-billion-loan-to-buy-back-yahoo-stake/ http://allthingsd.com/20120208/alibaba-seeking-3-billion-loan-to-buy-back-yahoo-stake/#comments Thu, 09 Feb 2012 05:12:35 +0000 Prudence Ho http://allthingsd.com/?p=172916 Chinese Internet giant Alibaba Group Holding Ltd. is in the process of raising a US$3 billion loan from around six banks to buy back the stake that Yahoo Inc. owns in the company, people familiar with the situation said Thursday.

Yahoo owns 40% of Alibaba Group.

The six banks — Australia and New Zealand Banking Group Ltd., Credit Suisse Group AG, DBS Bank Ltd., Deutsche Bank AG, HSBC Holdings PLC and Mizuho Financial Group — are in the process of getting internal credit approval to underwrite the loan, which is said to have a tenor of three years with a yield of around 4%.

The loan is expected to be finalized this month, the people said.

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]]> http://allthingsd.com/20120208/alibaba-seeking-3-billion-loan-to-buy-back-yahoo-stake/feed/ 0 http://allthingsd.com/20120208/for-ipad-and-mobile-devices-a-port-out-of-the-norm/ http://allthingsd.com/20120208/for-ipad-and-mobile-devices-a-port-out-of-the-norm/#comments Thu, 09 Feb 2012 02:04:27 +0000 Walter S. Mossberg http://allthingsd.com/?p=172874 The pocket-size USB flash drive has become nearly ubiquitous in the PC world, for moving files among machines and for adding extra storage. But it can’t be used with most tablets because they lack standard USB ports.

Now, there’s a special, modified, pocket flash drive that works as usual with PCs and Macs, but can transfer and stream files to popular mobile devices without standard USB ports, such as Apple’s iPad and iPhone, Amazon’s Kindle Fire and many other Android devices. Its secret: It has built-in Wi-Fi to beam the files to and from tablets and smartphones wirelessly. It can even stream files like videos to many devices simultaneously.

The AirStash drive with removable SD memory card

It’s called the AirStash and is made by a tiny company called Wearable Inc., and distributed by Maxell Corp. It’s available at Amazon.com and a few other retailers for $150 for an 8 gigabyte model, which can increase the storage capacity of a base iPad by 50 percent. An AirStash model with 16 gigabytes is $180.

The AirStash is a clever device that solves a genuine problem, though not without some issues. In my tests, it worked as advertised, without crashing or exhibiting bugs. But it’s pricey and has one big drawback: When a device is connected to the AirStash via Wi-Fi, it can’t be connected to the Internet. The company plans a fix for that as early as next month.

The AirStash looks like other USB flash drives, except a bit wider. Its storage is provided by a removable SD memory card that pops into the bottom edge. You can substitute your own larger card. In fact, you can swap in the memory card from your camera and beam your photos.

This product is aimed at the iPad and iPhone, and the company has a free app for those products that makes it easy to manage and view the files on the drive. But its wireless file transfers also work, via the Web browser, on non-Apple devices, even computers. And the company plans an Android version of the app.

A typical way to use the AirStash would be to first plug it into your computer like any flash drive and copy onto it photos, documents, videos, podcasts or songs. Then remove it from the computer and press a small button on the front of the AirStash that turns on its Wi-Fi network. Next, you connect your iPad to this network, launch the AirStash app and all the files on the drive show up.

The AirStash app allows an iPad to wirelessly import photos from the drive.

The AirStash app allows an iPad to create a new directory on the drive, below.

From the app, you can view documents, play songs, watch videos, view photos or listen to podcasts. On a non-Apple device, there’s no special app, but you can still access the content on the drive. You just link up to the AirStash Wi-Fi network, launch your Web browser and go to airstash.net. A page appears with a list of the drive’s contents.

AirStash performed some feats I found impressive. In one test, I was able, from about 75 feet away, to flawlessly watch three movies stored on the AirStash at the same time on three devices. I had “Inception” playing on an iPad, “The King’s Speech” playing on a Kindle Fire and “Star Trek” playing on a Dell laptop. I stress, none of these movies was stored on the devices—all were stored on the AirStash.

In another test, I was able to watch a movie on an iPad, play a song on an Android-based Motorola Droid and read a PDF file on a Mac, simultaneously. Once again, all these files were stored on an AirStash drive 75 feet away.

The AirStash can beam material to as many as eight devices at once, except for video, where the limit is three devices. It can beam the same video to three devices at the same time. A parent could use one AirStash to provide different videos to each of three kids during a drive in the car.

Wearable, the maker of the AirStash, boasts it works in both directions: You can also write files to the AirStash from a device like an iPad. Technically, this is true. For instance, from the AirStash app, you can export photos stored on an iPad or iPhone to the drive.

But several iPad apps for viewing or editing documents, which the company says work with AirStash, require a geeky setup process, and I couldn’t get them to send edited documents back to the drive.

There are some other limitations. For instance, on non-Apple devices, the Web interface is rudimentary, and on the Kindle Fire, music can’t be streamed from the AirStash.

Finally, unlike most other flash drives, the AirStash has a battery to power its Wi-Fi. The company claims up to seven hours of continuous battery life between charges, and while I didn’t do a formal test, the battery life seemed good to me. You can recharge the device either through a standard USB wall charger, like those that come with cellphones, or by plugging it into the USB port of a computer. In the latter case, the Wi-Fi capability can’t be used while charging.

If you’re pining for easier file transfer or expanded storage on your iPad, iPhone or other mobile device without a standard USB port, the AirStash might be the ticket, albeit an expensive one.

Email Walt at mossberg@wsj.com.

]]> http://allthingsd.com/20120208/for-ipad-and-mobile-devices-a-port-out-of-the-norm/feed/ 0 http://allthingsd.com/20120208/news-corp-s-phonegate-tab-keeps-rising/ http://allthingsd.com/20120208/news-corp-s-phonegate-tab-keeps-rising/#comments Wed, 08 Feb 2012 21:12:34 +0000 Peter Kafka http://allthingsd.com/?p=172750 News Corp. says investigations into the PhoneGate scandal cost it $87 million in the last quarter. That’s on top of $17 million in legal/advisory fees in the previous quarter, plus a $91 million restructuring charge the company took when it shuttered the News of the World. The media conglomerate, which owns this Web site, reported adjusted earnings of $0.39 a share and revenue of $8.98 billion; Wall Street had been expecting $0.34 a share and $8.94 billion.

]]> http://allthingsd.com/20120208/news-corp-s-phonegate-tab-keeps-rising/feed/ 0 http://allthingsd.com/20120208/gigaom-buys-paidcontent-like-peter-kafka-said/ http://allthingsd.com/20120208/gigaom-buys-paidcontent-like-peter-kafka-said/#comments Wed, 08 Feb 2012 19:19:06 +0000 Kara Swisher http://allthingsd.com/?p=172658

GigaOM finally fessed up and said that it had bought tech and media news site paidContent, as AllThingsD.com media ninja Peter Kafka had reported earlier this week it would.

The price is reportedly low, according to sources, but we’ll find out for you, since neither GigaOM nor the former paidContent owner, Britain’s Guardian News & Media, is talking. As part of the deal, though, the Guardian has gotten some sort of stake in GigaOM, and someone there is joining its board as an observer.

PaidContent founder Rafat Ali left his company a couple years after selling to the Guardian in 2008. The Guardian put it up for sale in the fall.

Malik has sold off chunks of his own business — one of the pioneering tech and media news blogs — to venture capitalists such as True Ventures (where he is now a venture partner) and Reed Elsevier Ventures, who have invested a total of $15 million.

In a blast from the past, here is a video interview I did with Ali in mid-2007 in Santa Monica, Calif., at what was then its new offices, talking about the bright future ahead for paidContent (sorry about the quality, but whatevs!):

Here is Om Malik’s blog post on the subject, which goes into all (or almost all) the deets:

First the news: Yes, the rumors are true. We are indeed buying the assets of ContentNext Media from Guardian News & Media Limited. And no, we are not disclosing the terms of the deal, except that we are buying the entire group of properties — paidContent.org, mocoNews.net, contentSutra and paidContent:UK and that a representative of Guardian News & Media will join our board of directors as an observer.

A few weeks ago when Paul Walborsky, CEO of GigaOM, came to the board and suggested that we should try and acquire paidContent, my fellow board members — Jon Callaghan (True Ventures), Ammar Hanafi (Alloy Ventures) and Kevin Brown (Reed Elsevier Ventures) — didn’t hesitate for a minute. The ethos of paidContent and our company are in sync. GigaOM’s core belief is that as connectivity becomes ubiquitous, it changes everything from society to business to we the people. paidContent from the very beginning has been built on the idea that connectedness is and will change media. It makes perfect sense for us to team up. Since then, Paul and his team worked tirelessly to make it happen.

OK, now you know what. Let me tell you why.

Now, why are we doing this deal, clearly the biggest of our five-and-a-half-year history? Two simple but equally powerful reasons — the first and perhaps most important reason: people. I have been an admirer of paidContent’s editorial team from the very beginning of its journey. Rafat Ali and Staci Kramer were two of my favorite writers in the early days of professional blogging. And while Rafat (who is on our board of advisers) has moved on to new things, I am glad to have Staci join us. She has been instrumental in building ContentNext from the ground up, and in addition to writing, she has been building the company’s event business. I am thrilled to announce that she will remain the editor of paidContent.

Ernie Sander who spearheads the ContentNext editorial operations is the kind of veteran everyone on our team, including me, can learn from. And for that precise reason, Ernie is going to become the executive editor of our sprawling online editorial operations. Our managing editor, Nicole Solis, is being promoted to VP of Editorial Operations. And then there is the most awesome team of journalists — Robert Andrews, Tom Krazit, Daniel Frankel, Laura Hazard Owen, Jeff Roberts and Amanda Natividad. In addition there are a wonderful group of technology, business and sales people who are joining our company. I welcome them all to our growing family and can’t wait to break bread with them in weeks to come.

Location, location, location

These fine folks are actually going to help bolster our presence in New York and help increase our footprint in Europe, a region of key strategic focus for GigaOM. (We will be hosting Structure:Europe in Amsterdam, October 16-17.) With this deal, we are really pleased that one of the most forward-looking media outlets around, Guardian News & Media, will become a shareholder in our business.

As you all know, I am (and will always be) a displaced New Yorker; New York City is my spiritual home. By increasing our footprint in the capital of the world, I would get a chance to go back more often. But it’s not an emotional tug that is driving us to this decision. New York is fast becoming a major technology hub, as Ryan Kim outlined in his recent post. And we want to expand our coverage to Boston — thanks to Barb Darrow who joined us several months ago — and the Washington DC corridor as well. paidContent’s New York City offices are now GigaOM East.

Media is the new Wild West

We are quite strategic about our acquisitions — we acquire media entities only if we love the people and believe that we are at the starting phase of a trend. In 2008, we acquired jkOnTheRun as our tip of the hat to the growing demand for mobile devices and the changes it would bring into society. Later that year, we brought in The Apple Blog because we knew the best was yet to come for Apple. Both of those acquisitions have helped GigaOM cover the issues that matter most to our ultimate customers — you, the reader — in a smart, sensible fashion.

“The question that mass amateurization poses to traditional media is ‘What happens when the costs of reproduction and distribution go away? What happens when there is nothing unique about publishing anymore because users can do it for themselves?” We are now starting to see that question being answered.” — Clay Shirky

Shirky’s observation means that we are in a time of chaos where the very idea of media is being questioned. And as a Chinese proverb says, from chaos emerges opportunity. I believe the best is yet to come for media.

Over the past few years we have started to see the transformation of media by new technologies, new methods of distribution and newer ways to consume information. Mathew Ingram has been writing about these disruptions on a regular basis, and now we are going to double down on what we think is a great new chapter in the media industry.

I have always believed that we’ve got to stop thinking of media as what it was and focus on more of what it could be. In the world of plenty, the only currency is attention and attention is what defines “media.” Zynga is fighting Hollywood for attention (and winning). Instagram is taking moments away from other media. They have attention. There are old companies that are dying and new ones that are being invented. We’re eager to expand our coverage of social and digital media editorially, in our research and at our events. paidContent is the best chronicler of the media industry, and by blending their coverage with ours, we hope to watch this fast-changing industry ever more closely.

Please join me in welcoming the ContentNext team!

]]> http://allthingsd.com/20120208/gigaom-buys-paidcontent-like-peter-kafka-said/feed/ 0 http://allthingsd.com/20120208/hulu-ceo-jason-kilar-is-still-standing-the-full-dive-into-media-interview-video/ http://allthingsd.com/20120208/hulu-ceo-jason-kilar-is-still-standing-the-full-dive-into-media-interview-video/#comments Wed, 08 Feb 2012 15:40:02 +0000 Peter Kafka http://allthingsd.com/?p=172445 Hulu isn’t supposed to be a success. And Jason Kilar isn’t supposed to have a job.

But the Hulu CEO is still running his site, a full year after angering his owners/bosses with a “Jerry Maguire” manifesto. And Hulu itself generated more than $400 million in revenue last year — just a few years after all the smart money was sure that the “ClownCo” would never work.

So what was Kilar thinking when he published that memo, anyway? And more important, what’s next for him and his site? We got to ask him directly at D: Dive Into Media last week — his first onstage interview in a very long time.

You can watch the full interview here, but you’re also going to want to watch Hulu carefully in the next few months. That’s because its strategic owners — Comcast, Disney and News Corp., which also owns this site — still don’t seem to have figured out what they want to do with the joint venture. And financial backer Providence Equity has a chance to get its money out this spring, which could directly impact Kilar’s plans, too.

]]> http://allthingsd.com/20120208/hulu-ceo-jason-kilar-is-still-standing-the-full-dive-into-media-interview-video/feed/ 0 http://allthingsd.com/20120208/one-more-reason-to-occupy-wall-street-concern-over-accurate-tech-news/ http://allthingsd.com/20120208/one-more-reason-to-occupy-wall-street-concern-over-accurate-tech-news/#comments Wed, 08 Feb 2012 14:44:43 +0000 Kara Swisher http://allthingsd.com/?p=172410

In one of the odder things to happen in my journalism career, I was forwarded a flash analyst report by Wall Street’s Macquarie Capital on the news that AllThingsD.com broke yesterday (and foreshadowed before) about the shakeup of Yahoo’s board.

I cover the Silicon Valley Internet giant closely, obviously, and have had a lot of scoops on its machinations over the years. This was simply the latest, and turned out to be on on target (Phew!).

While that is presumably my job as a reporter, it was apparently of “concern” to Macquarie’s analyst.

Said the report:

One final note: it continues to concern us that one particular journalist, Kara Swisher, frequently seems to be privy to such precise information regarding YHOO. On January 9, almost a month prior to the actual release from the company, Kara wrote, “While some departures seem most obvious — longtime board members Vyomesh Joshi, Arthur Kern and Gary Wilson — the really interesting part will be the possible exit of Chairman Roy Bostock.” Yesterday she wrote, “expect a change in the Yahoo board composition, too, as early as this week.” And today at 3:38pm EST, she posted a story that “Yahoo will announce the impending departure of four of its longtime board members, including chairman Roy Bostock. The others headed out the door are Hewlett-Packard exec Vyomesh Joshi, Gary Wilson and Arthur Kern.” While we give much credit to Kara for her ability to obtain this information, we believe it reflects very poorly on YHOO’s ability to maneuver effectively outside the public spotlight.

While I appreciate the fist-bump, it’s unclear why it’s concerning for shareholders — whom these reports are created for — to know this information before Yahoo deigned to release the news or spoonfeeds any other information at investor events. After all, fair, complete and accurate information from anywhere in the tech news media could help them make better investment decisions.

And Yahoo also always operates in the public spotlight, even when it is outside it, as does every tech company. That’s especially true these days, in the vastly changed media environment, in which news moves faster and with more immediate impact.

In fact, I’m concerned that worrywart Wall Street doesn’t grok this — but I’m definitely not surprised, either.

]]> http://allthingsd.com/20120208/one-more-reason-to-occupy-wall-street-concern-over-accurate-tech-news/feed/ 0 http://allthingsd.com/20120208/time-warner-beats-q4-estimates/ http://allthingsd.com/20120208/time-warner-beats-q4-estimates/#comments Wed, 08 Feb 2012 12:10:41 +0000 Peter Kafka http://allthingsd.com/?p=172442 Media giant Time Warner turned in a Q4 report card that beat Wall Street’s expectations, generating adjusted earnings of $0.94 per share on revenue of $8.2 billion. Analysts had expected $0.87 per share and $8.1 billion. Revenue was up 5 percent on the year.

]]> http://allthingsd.com/20120208/time-warner-beats-q4-estimates/feed/ 0 http://allthingsd.com/20120208/tastemakerx-raises-1-8m-for-mobile-social-app-platform/ http://allthingsd.com/20120208/tastemakerx-raises-1-8m-for-mobile-social-app-platform/#comments Wed, 08 Feb 2012 11:00:32 +0000 Kara Swisher http://allthingsd.com/?p=172405 TastemakerX, a San Francisco start-up that is developing a social mobile platform focused on “targeted taste graphs,” said it had raised $1.8 million in funding from a variety of venture firms, including Guggenheim Partners, Baseline Ventures, True Ventures and Tekton Ventures, as well as angel investors. The company said it will release its TastemakerX Music mobile app as a private beta in early March.

]]> http://allthingsd.com/20120208/tastemakerx-raises-1-8m-for-mobile-social-app-platform/feed/ 0 http://allthingsd.com/20120208/viral-video-the-amazing-spider-man-looks-kinda-amazing/ http://allthingsd.com/20120208/viral-video-the-amazing-spider-man-looks-kinda-amazing/#comments Wed, 08 Feb 2012 08:15:04 +0000 Kara Swisher http://allthingsd.com/?p=172426

Here’s the new official movie trailer for next summer’s latest take on the moody web-slinger of New York City, Peter Parker.

“The Amazing Spider-Man” looks at the comic book hero’s origins more deeply, but mostly it will be about the special effects and 3-D.

Here’s the video:

]]> http://allthingsd.com/20120208/viral-video-the-amazing-spider-man-looks-kinda-amazing/feed/ 0 http://allthingsd.com/20120208/ingredients-of-communication/ http://allthingsd.com/20120208/ingredients-of-communication/#comments Wed, 08 Feb 2012 08:01:43 +0000 Bo Kim http://allthingsd.com/?p=172330

When people talk to one another long enough, they want to meet, and when they’ve been in one another’s presence, they want to keep in touch.

– Clay Shirky, talking to David Carr about the “ingredients of communication” in the digital world

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