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Thomas Penfield Jackson, Judge in Microsoft Antitrust Case, Dead at 76

Arik Hesseldahl — Sun, 16 Jun 2013 20:42:57 +0000

Thomas Penfield Jackson, the federal judge who in 2000 branded software giant Microsoft a predatory monopolist that should be split in two, only to see his ruling reversed on appeal, has died of cancer complications at the age of 76, according to an obituary in the New York Times. An appeals court set aside his ruling in part because of interviews he gave to journalists in which he explained his views. Microsoft later settled the case and the government decided not to seek the company’s breakup.

Criteo's Coleman Joins Opera Software Board

Kara Swisher — Fri, 07 Jun 2013 21:11:19 +0000

Opera Software has named Criteo president Greg Coleman to its board of directors. The maker of browser software for computers, tablets and phones is based in Norway. Coleman has previously worked at AOL, the Huffington Post and Yahoo and is also an adjunct professor of digital marketing at New York University’s Stern Business School. In a statement, Coleman said he would help the company with its mobile advertising business, among other things.

Accel's Breyer Leads Forbes Midas List of Top Tech Investors Again, While Kleiner's Doerr Leads in Media Scrutiny

Kara Swisher — Wed, 08 May 2013 16:12:13 +0000

Forbes magazine put out its much-watched Midas List today, which is kind of the Oscars for venture capitalists in tech. (Caveat: Think more khakis and dudes than glitz and glamour.)

On the Top 10 list of 100 of the best-performing and most influential tech investors, Jim Breyer of Accel Partners and Marc Andreessen of Andreessen Horowitz led the list at No. 1 and No. 2, as they did last year. And several others in last year’s list remained on it: Peter Fenton of Benchmark Capital, Greylock Partners’ Reid Hoffman, and also David Sze, Peter Thiel and Bessemer Venture Partners’ Jeremy Levine.

Accel scored well on the rest of the list with nine partners named; Sequoia Capital had six VCs on the list; Benchmark, Greylock and New Enterprise Associates got five slots; Bain Capital Ventures, Bessemer, Kleiner Perkins and Meritech Capital Partners had four; and Andreessen Horowitz, Institutional Venture Partners and Venrock each had three.

As usual, there were few women on the list — only three — reflecting the lack of gender equality in the top tier of the VC business, which solidly remains a boy’s club, despite a lot of noise about changing it (see the pictures here and become depressed once again). Those women who did manage to get on the Midas List were Jenny Lee at GGV Capital, who jumped from No. 94 to No. 36; Kleiner Perkins’s Mary Meeker, who dropped from No. 42 to No. 47; and Theresia Gouw of Accel at No. 82, up from No. 92.

One notable part of the massive Forbes package of VCs on parade was the intense and multipart focus on the travails of Kleiner Perkins and its longtime leader and legendary VC John Doerr. Doerr clocks in at No. 26 on the list, dropping from No. 12 last year, a significant fall.

He does address the nagging issues at the storied firm, including ill-conceived investments in clean tech, a late-to-the-game move into social media, and even its big stake in stock-declining online gaming giant Zynga, in a video (below) and in several pieces, one of which is titled ““John Doerr’s Plan To Reclaim the Venture Capital Throne.”

More like “Game of Thrones” from reading it; there is another, more critical article in the New York Times that appeared yesterday. That piece focused on Kleiner’s investment in the troubled green-car startup, Fisker Automotive, and also the firm’s ongoing sex-discrimination lawsuit with former partner Ellen Pao.

“It was a challenging year, one of my more challenging years in the venture business,” said Doerr to Forbes.

Indeed, although Forbes does hand Kleiner a hey-we-have-some-sharpie-young-folks-here-too! gimme with its focus on “new generation” partners Megan Quinn and Mike Abbott in an interesting Q&A, as well as yet another piece on Kleiner supporters — such as Google’s Eric Schmidt — touting the firm as perhaps down but definitely not out in the “mojo” department.

“John always wins eventually, and the reason he always wins eventually is because he has the processing power and human energy,” Schmidt told Forbes. “Whatever the set of challenges, he will drive the change in the firm. They’ll have a crisis meeting and another crisis meeting, but he will do it. It may be messy but he will get them there.”

Presumably, if Doerr and team can get some mileage out of its Twitter investment next year and somehow turn around Zynga’s moribund stock. (Kleiner has held on to a pile of it, which is why Doerr recently joined the board that already had Kleiner’s Bing Gordon on it.)

On problem for Kleiner, and boon to others like Accel and Greylock, was that the firm was not early in Facebook, whose IPO — as rocky as it was — gave many VCs making the top of the Midas List the needed turbocharge in terms of performance. Other key companies to help VCs look good this year, according to the Forbes report: Workday, LinkedIn and Skype.

Here’s Doerr, who is indeed a legend, even if more bruised and battered this year, talking about it all to Forbes’s Connie Guglielmo, in the video interview:

Speaking of media attention, here’s a more provocative video interview by Forbes with Sequoia’s Doug Leone (No. 4, up from No. 18 last year), in which he takes aim at VC firms that do too much self-promotion — three guesses which pioneering browser inventor he is referring to here, and the first two don’t count. He called it an “embarrassment,” although Sequoia did hire an excellent PR person from Google this year — nonetheless making the point that the focus should be on entrepreneurs and not investors.

Except, of course, when it comes to scoring high on the Midas List.

Firefox CEO Kovacs Makes Case for Firefox OS at Dive Into Mobile (Video)

Ina Fried — Wed, 24 Apr 2013 14:05:32 +0000

Gary Kovacs may be stepping down as chief executive of Mozilla at the end of the year, but he’s still got big hopes when it comes to the future of the mobile Web and Firefox OS.

Here’s what the outgoing CEO had to say at D: Dive Into Mobile, in an interview with Walt Mossberg and me.

You’ll want to watch just to see his response to Walt’s blunt, “Firefox OS: What the f**k?” question.

Kovacs also confirmed the first Firefox OS phones will start arriving in five countries in June, with 11 more slated before the end of the year (though not the U.S., which is slated to get its first taste of Firefox OS in 2014).

In the meantime, if you want to see the latest Firefox OS build in action, check out this post from Lauren Goode.

We’ll be posting the rest of the full video interviews from D: Dive Into Mobile in the coming days, so check back to see what you missed or relive the highlights of what you saw in New York.

[ See post to watch video ]

Rockmelt Ends Its Browser Dreams

Mike Isaac — Thu, 11 Apr 2013 20:25:01 +0000

Rockmelt announced Thursday it would soon end support for its desktop browser service, instead transitioning its user base to its mobile apps and newly launched Web-based product. The company, helmed by ex-Netscape engineers and backed by Marc Andreessen, aimed to reinvent the browser with social capabilities. But as Rockmelt subtly admitted in its post, Google’s Chrome momentum was just too much to keep up with.

In Midst of Mobile Pivot, Mozilla CEO Kovacs to Step Down Later This Year

Kara Swisher — Wed, 10 Apr 2013 17:30:38 +0000

Gary Kovacs, who has been CEO of Mozilla for just over two years, will be stepping down later this year, the company announced this morning to employees. The Mountain View, Calif.-based open source software nonprofit foundation (which is also a for-profit company) said it will be searching for a new leader immediately to replace Kovacs, who will remain on the board of Mozilla.

“After three years of a lot of change to move the organization faster forward, I wanted to move back to something more commercial,” said Kovacs in an interview yesterday, in which he outlined the many changes made at Mozilla since he arrived, including adding staff, opening global offices and, most of all, doubling down in mobile. “It is really a different Mozilla.”

Kovacs came to Mozilla in late 2010 — after stints as an exec at Sybase and Adobe, as well as at Zi Corporation, a company specializing in embedded software and services for mobile and consumer devices — to lead the development and direction of its best-known product, the Firefox Web browser.

But Kovacs, who had a strong mobile background, was also brought in to spur Mozilla’s move to a key arena with the development of its Firefox OS, a mobile operating system. That’s because while Firefox has kept its browser market share against larger rivals such as Google’s Chrome and Microsoft’s Internet Explorer, and garners a large chunk of revenue from royalties from making Google’s search engine the default in its browser, Mozilla has also had to move past its reliance on desktop software.

Thus, a number of moves, the most significant of which has been Firefox OS. A Web-based platform where all the features and apps are created using the HTML5 Web standard, the project was originally called “Boot to Gecko,” and has largely been aimed at the international market.

As noted by Liz Gannes last summer in a post about Firefox OS:

It has won the support of a crew of global carriers, with the first Firefox OS phones set to launch early next year in Brazil, through Telefónica’s Vivo.

Firefox OS is to be an open mobile platform where every app and function is based on HTML5, with none of the so-called “native apps” specific to a particular operating system.

Want to make a call? HTML5. Want to send a message? HTML5. Want to play a game? HTML5.

The push toward HTML5 as a broader mobile platform comes at a time when some early advocates seem to be moving away from mobile Web applications out of frustration with their performance. For instance, the new version of the Facebook iPhone app has reportedly been rebuilt specifically for iOS to make it much faster. Previous versions had been built around HTML5 in the interest of compatibility across fragmented mobile platforms.

But Mozilla is doubling down on the Web. The named reference to Mozilla’s biggest brand is purposeful. Much as the Firefox browser targeted Internet Explorer, so Firefox OS is a major project meant to disrupt the existing smartphone leaders.

In this case, that’s iOS, Android and Windows Phone — where the operating systems and apps are not as open and compatible as Mozilla and its partners would like.

Firefox OS isn’t going to try to compete with the high end of the market, but rather with entry-level phones at relatively low prices, Mozilla has said. The thrust is to engage first-time smartphone users in emerging markets around the world.

The carrier partners on record supporting the project are now Deutsche Telekom, Smart, Sprint, Telecom Italia, Telefónica, Telenor and Etisalat.

Kovacs has also been striking a lot of commercial partnerships, such as a recent software project with Samsung to build a new browser engine for Android and the ARM architecture called Servo, which will be written in Mozilla’s new Rust programming language.

As part of the CEO change, longtime Mozilla leaders Mitchell Baker and Brendan Eich will continue to step up their involvement in the company, with Baker’s title as executive chairman and Eich’s as CTO and SVP of engineering. In other management changes: Jay Sullivan, SVP of products, has been appointed COO; Harvey Anderson, VP of business affairs and general counsel, has been named SVP of business and legal affairs; and Li Gong, who has been running Mozilla’s Asian operations, will also take on the role of SVP of mobile devices.

“We have been intent on making change into mobile and into reinvigorating our relationships with commercial players,” said Baker. “Gary’s been really helpful in developing deep mobile outlook and capabilities, which is critical going forward.”

Who’s going to take up the fight is unclear — which perhaps makes the search for a CEO a little more difficult, especially given Mozilla’s unusual status as both a for-profit and a nonprofit. That can be a hindrance, since it is not headed for an IPO to shower its Silicon Valley employees with lucrative stock.

Kovacs had replaced John Lilly, who left to become a venture partner at Greylock Partners. Lilly also led Mozilla for about two years, and has remained on its board.

He noted that the change of leadership is normal at Mozilla, and also that the job for the next leader is deeply challenging.

“Firefox changed the world, and now we have to orient around how to build mobile,” he said. “And while the odds are still ‘who knows,’ Mozilla is now in a good position to fight the fight.”

As it turns out, Kovacs will talk more about the Firefox OS project — and these changes at Mozilla — when he takes the stage at our D: Dive Into Mobile conference, which takes place next week in New York.

Until then, here’s his memo to staff, which was sent out this morning:

Hello, all,

What a ride!

When I first joined Mozilla in 2010, it was clear that the Web was at a turning point. Competition on desktop was more intense than ever, smartphone adoption was on fire, and new challenges to openness were developing in both areas of these converging worlds. We needed to move faster, pivot hard to mobile, and scale globally. And we needed to change how we operated if we were to lead the Web through these market transitions. It was this challenge that lured me to Mozilla back in 2010, and it was this challenged that kept me engaged ever since. I just knew that if we focused our energies and executed with the passion and urgency that defined us, we would do amazing things together.

And we have! This period has been an incredible time of growth for Mozilla, and for me personally. I couldn’t be more proud of the work we have done — on desktop, on mobile, and in advancing our mission to empower the next 2 Billion Web citizens coming on line for the first time. The project today is led by experienced teams, set on a strong foundation financially and operationally, and with a clear path to the future.

It is my confidence in this team that makes this the right time for me to move on to the next phase of my personal journey. Today, I am announcing that I will be stepping down as CEO of Mozilla later this year. I am committed to continue through the search for a new CEO and to ensure that we do not miss a beat in the process. Following this, I will stay on as an active member of Mozilla’s board of directors — so I am staying within the family to help as much as I can.

So, what next? In 2010, when I told my father I was joining Mozilla, he said “Son, you don’t know anything about cheese.” (he has a strong accent). Last year, after he learned more about us, and our mission, (including how to correctly pronounce our name), he simply said: “Wow, the work you are doing is critical to the world. “lease keep going!” And today, I simply pass along that message: Please keep going! We have momentum, we have a great vision and mission, and we have tremendous support from all of our partners and users for what we are doing. We cannot let up — not for one second! Stay focused, keep going, and keep rocking the free Web!

The world is expecting nothing less!

– gary

And, if you want even more, here’s a video interview I did with Kovacs in early 2011 when he first got to Mozilla:

[ See post to watch video ]

Samsung Buddies Up With Mozilla on New Android Browser Tech

John Paczkowski — Wed, 03 Apr 2013 18:12:53 +0000

Here’s an odd pairing: Samsung and Mozilla are collaborating on a software project.

The two companies said today that together they are developing a new browser engine for Android and the ARM architecture. Called Servo, the engine will be written in Mozilla’s new Rust programming language, optimized for multi-core computing and, in the words of Mozilla CTO Brendan Eich, designed to cast aside “old assumptions” about how a browser engine should work.

An interesting project, but a more interesting alliance. What is Samsung, the world’s largest manufacturer of mobile devices running Google’s Android OS, doing collaborating on a mobile Web browser with Mozilla, which in case you’d forgotten is also hard at work on a mobile operating system? Samsung shipped 215.8 million handsets last year, and pretty much all of them ran Android. And with them it captured nearly 40 percent of the global market for smartphones, according to IDC. Given that, why is Samsung bothering with Servo, an alternative to Android’s built-in browser and Google’s Chrome?

The most likely explanation: This is one more hedge against the company’s big bet on Android. It’s no secret that Samsung’s dominance of the Android device market is straining the company’s relationship with Google. And the company’s heavy reliance on Android could become problematic once Google starts really leveraging its Motorola Mobility acquisition. As much as Android has been a winning platform for Samsung, it’s also a vulnerability. With that in mind, the company has already begun diversifying away from Android by making devices powered by Microsoft’s Windows Phone OS and co-developing with Intel an entirely new mobile OS called Tizen. This new alliance with Mozilla is just an expansion of that effort.

“Samsung’s partnership with Mozilla … diversifies Samsung’s reliance, at least as much as possible, on Android,” Rajeev Chand, managing director at boutique investment bank Rutberg & Co., told AllThingsD. “Samsung continues to have a strategic weakness in its reliance on an ecosystem that the company does not own.”

EU May Fine Microsoft Over Browser Ballot Bungle

John Paczkowski — Fri, 01 Mar 2013 12:09:25 +0000

Looks like there could be legal consequences for Microsoft’s European Union browser ballot bungle — and soon.

Reuters reports that the European Commission plans to sanction Microsoft for failing to comply with a mandate to offer Windows users in Europe a choice of Web browsers beyond its own Internet Explorer. And sources familiar with the matter have confirmed to AllThingsD that this is indeed the case at this time. No word yet on the size of the fine, but given EU Competition Commissioner Joaquin Almunia’s public threats over the misstep, penalties could be severe. Whatever they are, sources say the EC will likely announce them sometime in March.

Under the terms of Microsoft’s 2009 antitrust settlement with the European Commission, the company was to present Windows users with a ballot screen offering them an opportunity to swap out Internet Explorer for one of 11 other browsers. And Microsoft did do that — at first, anyway. But when an update to Windows 7 rolled out in February of 2011, the company unwittingly eliminated the ballot screen, and didn’t realize it had done so until last summer.

In July of 2012, the commission opened an investigation into the matter, despite Microsoft’s apologies for what it claimed was a “technical error.” And by fall it had filed formal charges against Microsoft. “If companies enter into commitments, they must do what they have committed to do or face the consequences,” Almunia said during an October news conference. ” [They] should be deterred from any temptation to renege on their promises or even to neglect their duties. This is why, when this happens, the commission has the power to impose fines.”

And in this case it seems the agency plans to exercise it. That’s potentially bad news for Microsoft, which has already been fined about $1.28 billion by the EU. If the commission follows through on its current plan to sanction Microsoft, it could slap the company with fines equivalent to 10 percent of its fiscal 2012 revenue. That’s about $7.4 billion.

Microsoft declined comment.

Netflix, Redbox and More: What You Need to Know

Lauren Goode — Mon, 21 Jan 2013 14:00:42 +0000

Thousands of titles available, for just $8 a month! Content from major movie studios! If you listen to the marketing behind most subscription video services on the Web, you might think you’d never run out of interesting things to watch.

But before you commit to a subscription, you might want to consider whether the titles available are actually new and relevant, and how you’ll be able to access them.

I’ve had the enviable task of testing four of these streaming video services: Amazon Prime Instant Video, Hulu Plus, Netflix, and the newly announced Redbox Instant by Verizon, which is still in beta mode and is expected to launch sometime in the next couple months.

Other Web video services might come to mind — including Apple’s iTunes and Google Play — but I focused on these four because they’re all subscription models.

[ See post to watch video ]

Below is a guide to how they stack up against one another in the U.S., but, in short: Netflix is still my go-to streaming service for newer TV shows, some new movies and a bunch of old movies (despite company stumbles and lapsed content deals that made me pause my subscription for a while last year).

Hulu Plus is better for TV shows than movies, although Hulu Plus runs ads, and newer TV shows tend to be only from ABC, Fox and NBC. Amazon’s Prime Instant Video service can be less compelling than it’s a la carte service, Amazon Instant Video; its biggest benefit is that if you’re already an Amazon Prime shipping subscriber, you can stream the Prime video for free. And Redbox Instant is the newest entrant, with the smallest number of titles. It doesn’t currently offer any TV content.

Pricing

Netflix charges $8 a month for unlimited movies and TV shows streamed through the Web. You can also get DVD mail-in service (one rental at a time) for an additional $8 a month.

Hulu Plus, the subscription-based version of Hulu, charges $8 a month for unlimited streaming.

Amazon and Redbox Instant offer both subscription video services and individual purchase options. Amazon’s subscription-based streaming video service is tied to Amazon Prime, the company’s two-day shipping service, which costs $79 a year.

So, if you’re a Prime member, you have unlimited access to the Prime Instant Video catalog at no additional cost. If you’re not a member, and you want to rent or buy one digital download, you do that through the Amazon Instant Video Store. Rentals are usually $4 or $5, and most movie purchases range from $8 (“The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo,” for instance) to $15 (“Snow White and the Huntsman”).

Redbox Instant offers unlimited streaming for $8 per month. That also includes four DVD rental credits to redeem at any of the 42,000 Redbox kiosks across the U.S. Additionally, some of the titles can be digitally purchased and stored in your Redbox account. For example, I purchased “Eat Pray Love” for $12 through Redbox Instant.

**Popular TV Shows, Available Through Instant Streaming**
	Netflix	Amazon Prime Video	Hulu Plus	Redbox Instant
“Modern Family”	No	No	Yes	No
“30 Rock”	Yes	No	Yes	No
“Homeland”	No	No	No	No
“Breaking Bad”	Yes	No	No	No
“Glee”	Yes	Yes	Yes	No
“Downton Abbey”	Yes	Yes	Yes	No

**New (And Old) Movies, Available Through Instant Streaming**
	Netflix	Amazon Prime Video	Hulu Plus	Redbox Instant
“The Hunger Games”	No	No	No	No
“Bridesmaids”	No	No	No	No
“Moneyball”	No	No	No	No
“Lost in Translation”	Yes	No	No	No
“Titanic”	No	No	No	No
“One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest	No	No	No	No

Titles

Netflix won’t specify exactly how many movies and TV episodes can be streamed, except to say that it has “hundreds of thousands” of titles available through both DVDs and instant streaming. Hulu Plus subscribers can stream more than 63,000 TV episodes and 3,700 movie titles. Amazon Prime members can access around 33,000 movies and TV episodes through the subscription, with 140,000 episodes available through the entire Instant Video service. Right now, Redbox Instant only streams around 8,000 movie titles and, again, it doesn’t offer TV episodes.

Often you’ll hear things from these services like, “We carry Epix movie titles,” or “The streaming content will be available 28 days after the DVD is available.” That’s great. But what does this mean?

Some of the Netflix titles I’ve watched or browsed through recently include: “30 Rock,” “Arrested Development” and “The West Wing” and, on the movie side, “Tiny Furniture,” “Lost in Translation,” “Louis C.K.: Chewed Up,” and “Blue Valentine.” Netflix’s assortment of romantic comedies is probably enough to satisfy any Nora Ephron fan.

On Hulu Plus, you can currently watch episodes of “Modern Family,” “The Daily Show,” “Downton Abbey,” “Glee,” and many more TV shows. But Hulu Plus’s movie selection is lacking. When I clicked on the Drama genre, a bunch of skin-filled movie covers came up, like “The Wild Reporter,” which didn’t look like it was about investigative reporting.

Amazon Prime’s movie offerings were so-so. I’ve already seen “Morning Glory” and “How to Lose a Guy in 10 Days” more times than I should admit. Amazon Prime’s appealing TV offerings were mostly early seasons of newer shows, like “Downton Abbey,” “Arrested Development,” “The Closer” and “Parks and Recreation.” I also saw a fair amount of kids’ titles.

But Amazon’s non-Prime, or a la carte, offerings seemed much more inclusive than its Prime subscription service (“Men in Black 3,” “The Bourne Legacy” and “The Hunger Games” were a few newer titles).

At this early stage, Redbox Instant isn’t up to par. Again, there was “Morning Glory.” There were also a few award winners from last year, like “True Grit” and “Winter’s Bone.” Frankly, there were a lot of movies I liked 10 or 15 years ago, like “Steel Magnolias,” “Snatch” and “Flatliners.”

Quality

When it comes to online video, 1080p HD isn’t a priority for me. I’ll gladly watch old standard-definition episodes of “The West Wing” on Netflix. But, for some consumers — especially those who have spent good money on fancy TVs — the quality matters.

Netflix and Hulu Plus stream full HD (1080p) content when it’s available, whereas Redbox Instant and Amazon Prime Instant Video top off at 720p.

Mobile Apps and Devices

Streaming video is no longer just about the PC. Some of the devices you can access these services from include new “smart” TVs and Blu-ray players, Roku boxes, Apple TV, Sony PlayStation 3, Nintendo Wii and Microsoft Xbox 360, to name a bunch.

Redbox Instant will be available on LG Electronics Blu-ray players and smart TVs, as well as Google TV devices, but the company hasn’t confirmed yet whether it will be on gaming consoles, Apple TV or Roku.

All of these services have iOS and Android apps optimized for mobile video watching — with the exception of Prime Instant Video, which has an iOS app but not an Android version. (You can, however, watch Amazon’s instant video offerings on the Kindle Fire tablet, technically an Android tablet.)

Most of my mobile streaming experiences have been good. I’ve watched several episodes of “30 Rock” through Netflix mobile, and parts of “Into the Wild” through Amazon Prime on mobile, without interruption. In fact, I like the look and feel of the Amazon video mobile app (as well as the TV app) a lot more than I like the desktop experience.

All four services also offer the ability to stop and start videos from one device to another. So, for example, I started watching “Stand By Me” through Redbox Instant on my PC, then picked it up where I left off on my iPhone, then went back to watching on my PC.

It’s important to keep in mind that these offerings are constantly changing, too, as content deals are made (or lapse), and as more platforms, like new mobile devices and “smart” TV set-ups, become available.

Yahoo's New "Homerun" Homepage Is Rolling Out More Widely Across Several Browsers

Kara Swisher — Sun, 06 Jan 2013 07:41:33 +0000

Yahoo appears to be rolling out the newest version of the redesign of its homepage even more extensively across several major browsers, including Google Chrome, Apple Safari and Mozilla Firefox.

As AllThingsD has previously reported several times, the Silicon Valley Internet giant has been working on a new homepage look, designed to improve its declining consumer usage.

The latest look has been present on all my browsers all day, rather than cycling off to the old version as before. The design is cleaner, with a more touchscreen tablet approach, new icons, and a scrolling news feature. With a more mobile feel, it’s slightly different than previous new versions that Yahoo has been testing over the last few months.

After redoing its Yahoo Mail and Flickr photo-sharing service, sources inside the company said that Yahoo is now close to launching the new homepage. It’s part of an effort called Project Homerun and also a larger effort called Project Zed, which will also include more personalization and a focus on bringing in a range of third-party content.

Microsoft's New Browser "Sucks Less," Says Microsoft

Peter Kafka — Thu, 29 Nov 2012 22:57:34 +0000

Last year we saw Samsung sell itself by attacking its competitors’ fans, and that seems to have worked pretty well. Now we’ve got a tech company attacking its critics — and giving itself a sort-of-gentle ribbing at the same time.

Take it away, Microsoft:

Does anyone actually get whipped up about browsers anymore? Hard to believe.

But smart of Redmond to embody its critics as a basement-dwelling troll, because those guys have even fewer defenders than line-sitting hipsters. And because they’ve ensured that basement-dwelling trolls will spread the ad widely on their behalf, free of charge.

Well played!

Yahoo Dings "Do Not Track" Default (And Search Partner Microsoft)

Kara Swisher — Fri, 26 Oct 2012 20:05:44 +0000

In a post today on its policy blog, Yahoo took aim at Microsoft’s controversial “Do Not Track” default in its Internet Explorer 10 browser.

Said Yahoo in a post titled “In Support of Personal Experience”:

“Recently, Microsoft unilaterally decided to turn on DNT in Internet Explorer 10 by default, rather than at users’ direction. In our view, this degrades the experience for the majority of users and makes it hard to deliver on our value proposition to them. It basically means that the DNT signal from IE10 doesn’t express user intent.”

Thus, Yahoo “will not recognize IE10’s default DNT signal on Yahoo! properties at this time.”

Such a move should make Yahoo very popular with advertisers, most of which are publicly and privately decrying the Microsoft effort for their browser having advertising targeting and tracking turned off by default.

In fact, Yahoo’s statement of no-default-respect pretty much tracks on what the Digital Advertising Alliance, which represents thousands of major marketers, said recently, as well as the Association of National Advertisers.

Both those groups and many others are seeking to kill DNT.

According to sources, the impetus for the Yahoo decision was CEO Marissa Mayer, a former Google exec.

Interestingly, Google recently added DNT support to the latest version of its increasingly popular Chrome browser developer build.

And the third major browser, Mozilla’s Firefox, also offers a DNT product as a key feature.

Right now, Mayer is in discussions with the software giant about improving the weak results of its search advertising partnership, too. This should make those talks much more interesting.

In fact, in a longer privacy post today, titled “Privacy and Technology in Balance,” Microsoft’s general counsel Brad Smith noted:

“Just because the signal is turned on doesn’t mean that a consumer wants no services that involve tracking. It means instead that consumers are empowered to make their own choices, including selecting services that involve tracking from advertisers and ad networks they trust.”

Here’s the whole post, and here is a really good New York Times piece on the controversy, including talks taking place via an international group working on global DNT standards, called the World Wide Web Consortium:

In Support of a Personalized User Experience

Friday, October 26th, 2012

At Yahoo!, we aspire to make the world’s daily habits more inspiring and entertaining. Our users have come to expect a personalized Yahoo! experience tailor-made for their lives — whether they’re checking local weather, sports scores, stock quotes, daily news, or viewing ads on our site. We fundamentally believe that the online experience is better when it is personalized.

That said, we also believe that there should be an easy and transparent way for users to express their privacy preferences to Yahoo!. That’s why we offer our own tools and resources such as Ad Interest Manager, to give users more control over personalized advertising on Yahoo!, and why we participate in industry-wide programs such as AdChoices, which allows users to learn why they’ve been shown an ad.

Yahoo! has been working with our partners in the Internet industry to come up with a standard that allows users to opt out of certain website analytics and ad targeting. In principle, we support “Do Not Track” (DNT). Unfortunately, because discussions have not yet resulted in a final standard for how to implement DNT, the current DNT signal can easily be abused. Recently, Microsoft unilaterally decided to turn on DNT in Internet Explorer 10 by default, rather than at users’ direction. In our view, this degrades the experience for the majority of users and makes it hard to deliver on our value proposition to them. It basically means that the DNT signal from IE10 doesn’t express user intent.

Ultimately, we believe that DNT must map to user intent — not to the intent of one browser creator, plug-in writer, or third-party software service. Therefore, although Yahoo! will continue to offer Ad Interest Manager and other tools, we will not recognize IE10′s default DNT signal on Yahoo! properties at this time.

Yahoo! is committed to working with the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) to reach a DNT standard that both satisfies user expectations and provides the best Internet experience possible. We will closely evaluate our support for DNT as the industry makes progress in reaching a meaningful, transparent standard to promote choice, reduce signal abuse, and deliver great personalized experiences for our users.

EC Won't Let Microsoft Off the Hook for Botching Browser Ballot

John Paczkowski — Wed, 24 Oct 2012 17:31:42 +0000

Microsoft’s EU browser ballot bungle has indeed drawn a complaint from European antitrust regulators.

The European Commission today handed Microsoft a statement of objections, accusing it of failing to comply with its pledge to offer Windows users a choice of Web browsers.

Under the terms of a 2009 antitrust settlement with the EC, Microsoft was to present Windows users with a ballot screen offering them the chance to replace Internet Explorer with an alternative browser. And it did do that, initially. But, with an update to Windows 7 issued in early 2011, Microsoft unwittingly killed the ballot screen, and didn’t realize it had done so until it was alerted by the EC on July 2. And while the company corrected the error and apologized profusely for it, that hasn’t done much to ease the EC’s ire.

“If companies enter into commitments, they must do what they have committed to do or face the consequences,” European competition commissioner Joaquín Almunia said today in remarks to the press. “Therefore, companies should be deterred from any temptation to renege on their promises or even to neglect their duties.”

Hence, the EC’s statement of objections, which is another step toward a possible fine — one that could be as high as 10 percent of Microsoft’s global annual revenue.

Little wonder, then, that Microsoft is doubling down today on its apology.

Someecards

“We take this matter very seriously and moved quickly to address this problem as soon as we became aware of it,” the company said in a statement. “Although this was the result of a technical error, we take responsibility for what happened, and we are strengthening our internal procedures to help ensure something like this cannot happen again.”

Apple Streaming iPad Event on Web, iOS, Apple TV

Peter Kafka — Tue, 23 Oct 2012 13:20:52 +0000

You don’t have to go to San Jose to see Apple’s product launch today, as long as you have Apple hardware and a broadband connection: The company is streaming the event on its Web site (via Safari only), on iOS devices, and on Apple TV. And if you like text and pictures, AllThingsD will have that, too, beginning around 12:30 pm ET.

Your Old Bookmarks Are Out to Get You (Comic)

Nitrozac and Snaggy — Fri, 12 Oct 2012 22:43:06 +0000

Microsoft's Promise Doesn't Derail Second EU Browser Complaint

John Paczkowski — Tue, 18 Sep 2012 20:20:37 +0000

Evidently Microsoft’s pledge to recomply with the 2009 European Union antitrust sanctions wasn’t enough to get it out of hot water with EU regulators. Bloomberg reports that the European Commission is preparing a formal complaint alleging Microsoft violated an agreement requiring it to present Windows users with a ballot screen offering them an opportunity to swap out Internet Explorer for one of 11 other browsers. Microrosoft declined to offer comment beyond the one it issued earlier.

The Mobile Browser Dominates in Emerging Markets

Yongfu Yu — Fri, 14 Sep 2012 20:33:27 +0000

Redefining the Browser in the Mobile Internet Era

There are seven billion people in this world and only 1.2 billion computers — but close to six billion cellphones. That makes the commercialization ability and growth potential for the mobile Internet massively greater than that of the PC-based Internet. China, the world’s biggest Internet market, recently surpassed the U.S. in smartphone activation, and the mobile browser is once again coming to the forefront. Here’s why.

In emerging markets such as China and India, the world’s two most populous countries, the mobile browser is a critical channel that connects people to the Internet in ways that the PC browser never did. For many people, it is their only connection point to the Internet — take Indonesia, for example, where linking its thousands of islands by a fixed nationwide network was prohibitively expensive, so they prioritized the build-out of a mobile network.

Since cellphones are much cheaper than computers, and the mobile Internet is much more accessible than fixed-line Internet in emerging markets, users purchase their first cellphones much earlier than their first computers, which sets user habits to surf the Web through cellphones.

In fact, Internet traffic flow on mobile devices surpassed that of the PC in India in May of this year, and the number of mobile Internet users overtook that of the PC in China just a month later.

The graph above is slide 18 from Mary Meeker’s 2012 Internet Trends presentation

In addition to user habit, technological advancement has contributed to the widespread use of the mobile Internet. For example, cloud computing has made mobile browsing work where bandwidth and mobile devices’ computing power are lacking. Before, in many parts of the world, browsing the Web through a cellphone with its native browser was extremely inconvenient and slow. Opening a Web page took almost a minute — intolerable to most users, particularly those accustomed to surfing on a PC. It was also ridiculously expensive. For example, opening a 2MB Web page in China (the typical size of a homepage for popular Chinese Internet portals), would cost 60 RMB, or almost $10. With cloud computing, data can be compressed by 80 percent or more, offering much faster and affordable Web surfing.

With the bandwidth issue easing and mobile devices becoming more capable, the cloud computing technology approach makes mobile browsing accessible to a much larger worldwide population, and gives users an overall improved mobile Internet experience.

Mobile Apps vs. the Browser

People in the industry have made sweeping generalizations like “The Web is dead.” Yes, apps are important, but they will never replace browsers. Internet surfing has gone has through three stages: the first was browser-centered (Netscape), the second was client app-centered (Apple). With Web surfing on cellphones, particularly in emerging countries, the third stage is back to being browser-centered. Here’s why:

Security. This is a serious issue on cellphones. Installing an app means opening up a myriad of ports, which is like punching holes in a wall. Cellphones are closely connected to a user’s identity and financial information, which attracts thieves. The browser has been created with a high level of security; the browser sandboxes the Web apps running on it, hence providing an extra level of security over apps.
Service. What users really want is the functionality that an app provides — not the app itself. With the Internet browser becoming more capable, Flash-based games can run on a browser, as can videos. For a long time, people used dedicated video software, but with YouTube, people have become accustomed to watching videos on a browser — and may not need a video player at all. The apps are still there, of course, but they’re morphing into Web apps.
Standardization. Today we need to develop for different platforms like Android, iOS and Symbian. This takes a tremendous amount of resources from developers, and users are reluctant and annoyed with having to update their apps all the time. But for a Web app, it’s “develop once, run on multiple platforms.”

What’s Next for the Browser

By nature, the browser is a user’s access point to the Internet. Software companies such as Netscape and Microsoft went against nature by developing products as isolated pieces of software. Both Apple and Google are innovation leaders in the Internet industry, and serve as great examples for newcomers. The lesson learned from Netscape and Microsoft is that we should not view the browser simply as a single software tool; instead, it should be treated as an Internet service platform. Google knows this with its platform, and tries to fulfill the needs of vastly different users by enabling them to customize their browsers with plugins and Web apps.

Users turn to the browser for three reasons: Information gathering, entertainment and daily life enhancement. The capabilities browser companies provide must match those service areas, like personalized navigation. Smart technologies can now adjust picture and text size, provide voice control, offer different reading modes or change delivery priorities based on the network environment.

Browser companies gain customers and market share with industry-leading performance, but that is far from enough to build a service platform. To build a global ecosystem of users, there also needs to be a strong business-building component, like account management and billing services, or platforms developed specifically for game use. Dedicated operations teams need to conduct research in market dynamics and actively monitor user feedback to drive timely updates that satisfy the ever-changing needs of users.

Only by focusing on the diverse needs of users wherever they reside can we fully realize the value of the Internet browser. The time is now for the tech industry to take more of a global view of what that means.

Yongfu Yu is the chairman and CEO of UCWeb, whose mission is to provide a better mobile Internet experience to billions of users around the world. Earlier in his career, he was a VP at Legend Capital. Yu graduated from Nankai University in 1999 with a bachelor’s degree in economics and minor in computer science.

Toshiba’s Widescreen Ultrabook: Good for Movies, Multitasking

Lauren Goode — Mon, 10 Sep 2012 13:00:41 +0000

Let’s face it: Most Ultrabooks look alike. When browsing through rows of these tapered, lightweight laptops in a Best Buy, many consumers wouldn’t see much of a difference between models.

So, in an effort to stand out from the pack, Toshiba has introduced an eye-catching, ultra-widescreen Ultrabook. Its display is much wider than it is tall, with a 21 by 9 aspect ratio — wider than even the rectangular, 16 by 9 aspect ratio that has become standard for most HD TVs. Called the Toshiba Satellite U845W, this laptop, with its extra screen real estate, is aimed at heavy media consumers and multitaskers.

It measures 14.5 inches by 7.9 inches, and is .83 of an inch thick. At four pounds, it’s substantially heavier than the 2.96-pound MacBook Air, but in line with some other Ultrabooks. It felt surprisingly lightweight when it was open and resting on my lap.

[ See post to watch video ]

The Satellite U845W hit the market in late July. The base model, which has a mid-level Intel chip, comes with a 500 gigabyte hard drive plus 32GB of solid-state drive and retails for $1,000. The model Toshiba sent me for testing costs $1,500, and has a faster, 256GB solid-state drive and Intel’s third generation Core i7 chip. Both machines are built with 6GB of RAM. While the Satellite U845W was designed with Microsoft’s upcoming Windows 8 operating system in mind, it’s currently running Windows 7. And, unlike some upcoming Windows 8 laptops, this one lacks a touchscreen.

Overall, it’s a solid laptop, with fast processing and boot-up speeds and terrific speakers. I did find the widescreen display to be useful for multitasking, because I was able to view a couple of Web pages side by side on the screen, such as a live video stream next to my Twitter feed.

But the design is a little too awkward for my taste. The wide screen feels lopped off at the top, and the laptop doesn’t fit some of my larger purses as well as other Ultrabooks do. Plus, I couldn’t find a ton of video content with a 21:9 aspect ratio to fully enjoy the widescreen experience.

The laptop’s color is called “midnight silver,” but it actually has a coppery sheen to it, which I liked. The chassis of the laptop is made of machined aluminum, with a thick, black, rubberized strip running along the long side, which gives it a distinguished look.

The underside of the laptop is made of a combination of polycarbonate plastic and aluminum, and is covered entirely with the same textured black rubber, for keeping a good grip on the laptop.

The keyboard is backlit, with an extra-large trackpad. Another benefit of such a wide-sized computer: My fingers had a little extra room and didn’t feel at all cramped while typing. The keys themselves were a little flat, without the kind of spring I usually prefer.

In terms of ports, the Satellite U845W has an HDMI port, three USB ports and an expandable Ethernet port, as well as a headphone port and a microphone input. It also has an SD card slot.

It does not have a DVD drive. While a lot of newer, thinner laptops are lacking optical disc drives, a drive would be particularly handy with this one — since it’s targeted at movie buffs.

The 14.4-inch, glossy display has a resolution of 1,792 by 768. While I’ve seen more luminous laptop displays, most movies and video clips looked pretty crisp, with good color quality.

I wasn’t able to watch a lot of video content optimized for this sort of screen because it’s just not widely available. I more often watched 16:9 videos, which appeared with black bars on the right and left sides of the screen because of the extra-wide display. This included shows on Hulu, a movie on Netflix and the livestream of President Barack Obama’s convention speech on YouTube.

The only full-screen media I watched was several new movie trailers that were in 21:9 — “The Hobbit,” for one — which were suggested to me by Toshiba. The few clips I found did feel a little more cinematic, but ultimately, I didn’t get a lot of out of the video-watching experience.

I found this laptop to be more useful for browsing multiple Web pages at once. I could snap two browser windows side by side and get a good-sized view of both of them, so I could monitor work email while watching a movie, or see the commentary from Twitter while watching livestreamed videos from the conventions.

Among the standout features of the laptop were its battery life and its speakers. Toshiba says this laptop has a battery life of nine hours; in my test, which involved turning off sleep mode, playing iTunes on a loop and running an email application, all while the display was on full brightness, the battery lasted just under five hours.

This is weaker than the battery life of the MacBook Air, according to our previous tests at AllThingsD, but beats out some other Ultrabooks, including the Lenovo IdeaPad U300s, the Dell XPS 13 and the Sony Vaio T13.

And, as with other premium Toshiba laptops, the Satellite U845W comes with two powerful Harman Kardon speakers that offer full, clear sound for both music files and movies.

Despite these features, the Toshiba U845W is still a niche product that, for now, will likely appeal to only true cinephiles or multitaskers.

Microsoft Will Recomply With EU Antitrust Mandate on Browser Ballot

John Paczkowski — Mon, 10 Sep 2012 10:26:41 +0000

Microsoft has taken to heart the European Union’s recent threats about its failure to comply with all of the terms of its 2009 antitrust settlement.

According to EU Competition Commissioner Joaquin Almunia, the software giant is scrambling to reimplement in Windows the Browser Choice Screen that it accidentally removed with a February 2011 update to Windows 7. That screen was a requirement under Microsoft’s 2009 antitrust settlement with the European Commission, and it was intended to present Windows users with a ballot screen offering them an opportunity to swap out Internet Explorer for one of 11 other browsers from rivals like Mozilla, Apple, Opera and Google.

In the face of Almunia’s public threat of severe penalties for the misstep, Microsoft has reportedly claimed it is working hard to address the EU’s antitrust concerns. Said Almunia, “In my personal talks with Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer, he has given me assurances that they will comply immediately regardless of the conclusion of the antitrust probe.”

Baidu Births Mobile Browser

John Paczkowski — Tue, 04 Sep 2012 10:17:58 +0000

With the wireless Internet market in China exploding, Baidu, the country’s largest search engine, is moving quickly to stake its claim. In May, Baidu debuted a new smartphone OS based on Google’s Android operating system. Now the company has launched its own mobile browser to accompany it.

Christened Baidu Mobile Browser, the software is intended as a direct competitor to Safari, the default browser on Apple’s iOS devices; to Chrome, which serves the same function on Android devices; and to UCWeb’s UC Browser. And Baidu has high hopes for its success. During a Monday briefing with reporters, company executives said they hope to see the Baidu Mobile Browser preinstalled on 80 percent of smartphones sold in China by the end of 2012.

That’s a tall order, but then Baidu’s services are enormously popular in China. The country’s share of the Chinese search market is about 80 percent, according to Analysys International. Is it reasonable for Baidu to expect to duplicate its search market success in the mobile browsing space by the end of the year? We’ll know in a matter of months.

Bing Deepens Social Ties With Foursquare Tips Integration

Mike Isaac — Wed, 18 Jul 2012 19:50:22 +0000

Two months after launching a more social version of its Bing search engine, Microsoft on Wednesday added Foursquare integration. Now after completing a Bing search for a particular business or place of interest, any tips and recommendations posted on Foursquare will appear in Bing’s social sidebar. The update comes after Google’s recent similar Zagat integration with search and its relaunch of Places, now dubbed Google+ Local.

Nook for Web Lets You Sample and Read Books From Your Browser

Bonnie Cha — Tue, 17 Jul 2012 18:07:08 +0000

Whenever I go into a bookstore, I always check out the new-releases section, and if a title catches my eye, I like to skim the first couple of pages to see if I want to buy it. Now, Barnes & Noble is giving you the ability to do just that from the comfort of your own computer.

Nook for Web launches today, allowing you to browse and read free samples of books from almost any Web browser, including Firefox, Chrome, Internet Explorer and Safari.

You don’t need to download any software, sign in or have a Barnes & Noble Nook account to use the service. You will, however, need the latter if want to buy a title; once purchased, you can read it on the Nook or from your computer’s browser.

Barnes & Noble is not the first to offer such a service, as Amazon and Google have had similar Web-based services for some time now.

To entice new customers, Nook for Web is offering free downloads of six bestsellers, including “Map of Bones” by James Rollins, “Sex and the City” by Candace Bushnell and “The Vow” by Kim Carpenter, through July 26.

Barnes & Noble says support for Internet-enabled tablets and smartphones is coming this fall.

Amazon's Cloud Music Finally Lands on Apple's iPhone

Peter Kafka — Tue, 12 Jun 2012 13:38:10 +0000

More than a year after it launched, Amazon’s cloud music service has finally made it to Apple’s iPhones and iPods, via a new iOS app.

The new software will let iOS users download or stream music they’ve stored in Amazon’s locker service and will also play music they already have on their devices, including songs stored in Apple’s native iTunes player.

Apple iPad users have already been able to use Amazon’s cloud service via a browser-based player; Google’s rival cloud service uses a similar solution for iOS devices.

The Amazon app doesn’t appear to let users move music into Amazon’s cloud. And it won’t let users sign up for the service within the app, either — a restriction that is now standard for non-Apple “subscription” services.

Google VPs Sundar Pichai and Susan Wojcicki Talk Ads, Chrome and YouTube (Video)

Mike Isaac — Thu, 31 May 2012 21:21:04 +0000

It’s a rich time for Google: Ad revenue is up, the Chrome division will soon launch a new version of its Chromebook, and YouTube still receives hundreds of hours of video every single day. Check out Google SVPs Sundar Pichai and Susan Wojcicki in conversation with Walt Mossberg at D: All Things Digital conference.

[ See post to watch video ]

Full D10 Conference Coverage

Good Lord, I Might Now Want to Use Yahoo Search Again -- Product Dudes Talk About New Axis Browser (Video)

Kara Swisher — Thu, 24 May 2012 03:14:03 +0000

Yahoo introduced its new Axis browser tonight, with versions for the Apple iPad and iPhone, as well as plugins for the top desktop browsers.

The company briefed a media army on the product and the consensus is that it’s very good. My favorite headline from Gizmodo: “Yahoo Came Out With Its Own Web Browser and It Actually Doesn’t Suck.”

No, it’s even — dare I say it — innovative!

That it was done while Yahoo has been in such crisis is a minor miracle, I would add.

It’s a slick offering, which essentially eliminates the texty link-filled search page for one of pretty visual tiles and pull-downs and more. Think Pinterest of search and you have the general idea.

But let’s hear from the dudes who pulled it off (though please allow me to customize or hide the giant klutzy search bar at the bottom).

Here’s an interview I did with Ethan Batraski, who runs product for Yahoo’s Search Innovation Group, as well as Shashi Seth, who heads its Connections unit, about Axis (which I might note was the name of the group that lost World War II).

But better luck at winning the browser war here, since — in this case, at least — Yahoo deserves it.

[ See post to watch video ]

And here’s the Yahoo press release on Axis:

Navigating a New Course In Search — Introducing Yahoo! Axis

Seamless Across Multiple Devices, Axis Re-defines Searching and Browsing

SUNNYVALE, Calif., May 23, 2012 – Yahoo! (NASDAQ: YHOO), the premier digital media company, today announced the availability of Yahoo! Axis, a new experience that re-imagines how people search and browse on the web. Axis offers the only search experience that allows you to enter your search, see and interact with visual results, all without ever leaving the page you are on. Axis seamlessly integrates with your favorite desktop browser and automatically connects your online experiences across multiple devices. Axis is available today for download across iOS devices and as a desktop plug-in for HTML5-enabled browsers.

“Our search strategy is predicated on two core belief — one, that people want answers, not links and two, that consumer-facing search is ripe for innovative disruption,” said Shashi Seth, senior vice president, Connections, Yahoo! Inc. “With Axis, we have re-defined and re-architected the search and browse experience from the ground up.”

Visually rich, Axis provides an easy and efficient cross-device experience that today’s connected consumers want:

· Smarter, Faster Search with Rich Design: Axis gives people instant answers and visual previews so they can continuously discover and explore content without interruption. Encased in a sleek design, Axis keeps people moving forward rather than constantly returning to a page of endless blue links. Once on a search results site, Axis also lets people simply swipe or click to the next result.

· Connected Experience: Axis allows people to move seamlessly across devices. Upon downloading Axis, people can start a search on their computer, flip through the results while out on their iPhone, and finish the search at home on their iPad. Content can be easily shared by email, Pinterest and Twitter.

· Personalized Home Page: After signing in with Yahoo!, Google or Facebook credentials, Axis centralizes online lives with a customizable Home Page that provides direct access to their favorite sites, saved articles and bookmarks across all devices where Axis has been downloaded.

· Standalone Mobile Browser, DesktopPlug-In: On iPhone, iPad, iPod touch, Axis serves as a standalone mobile browser app. On the desktop,Axis is a browser plug-in that works with Firefox 7+, Safari v5+, Internet Explorer 9 and all versions of Chrome.

· Innovative Technology Backbone: Axis is built upon the Yahoo! Cocktails mobile development platform, which is designed for creating deeply personalized products that are built for connected devices first. Comprised of Mojito, an open source JavaScript MVC framework and Manhattan, a cloud-based hosted environment, Cocktails is a blend of open, standard web technologies including HTML5, CSS3, JavaScript and Node.JS.

To learn more about Yahoo! Axis and download the desktop plug-in, visit the Axis microsite and our company blog, Yodel Anecdotal. The new Yahoo! Axis App is available for free from the App Store on iPhone, iPad and iPod touch or at www.iTunes.com/appstore/.