AllThingsD » elections

A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Mall in Seoul (Video)

Ina Fried — Fri, 28 Oct 2011 11:15:55 +0000

During one of my evenings off in Seoul earlier this week, I headed to a popular mall for dinner.

On my way, I ran into a group of Koreans who were line dancing for what appeared to be no reason at all. I’m told it had to do with the local mayoral election, which at that time was just a couple of days away.

I’m not sure what it was meant to signify, but I will say it was a lot more fun than getting handed a pamphlet. In any case, it seems to have worked, as the party being backed by the dancers — the liberal opposition party — saw its candidate, Park Won-soon, win the election.

Multitouch Pioneer Jeff Han Starts to Think Small (Devices)

Ina Fried — Mon, 13 Dec 2010 14:00:35 +0000

For years now, Jeff Han has been working on large-screen multitouch displays.

Han and his company, Perceptive Pixel, are best known for creating the giant touch wall that John King and others at CNN use to break down elections.

While Apple, Microsoft and others have targeted consumers, Perceptive Pixel has focused on niche professional markets, especially the defense and government sector.

But, after years of watching the small touchscreen device market from the sidelines, Han said he thinks he is pretty close to creating his first products that will run on those devices.

“Mobile is interesting,” he said in an interview last month at his New York offices (in the Manhattan building that Google is buying, with the amazing roof view seen below). “How can you ignore a billion devices being sold every year?”

Han said there is a reason he has stayed focused on the high end of the market.

“I have a personal bias,” he told Mobilized. “I want computers to be functional, not just playful.”

The modern tablet, he said, is the first consumer device that has enough pixels and the precision sensors to potentially be of interest to Perceptive Pixel. In particular, Han said he is intrigued by the idea of using tablets to allow meeting participants to interact with a nearby larger touchscreen that might be in use by someone leading a meeting.

“We’re looking at mobile and slate devices as a way to tie into this family of collaboration [products],” he said, noting that’s where Perceptive Pixel is spending its energy when it comes to mobile, as opposed to coming up with some killer app that works only on smaller screens. “There are a lot of smart people creating mobile apps.”

Han said his first mobile efforts should come out early next year–in the first quarter or early in the second quarter, though he wouldn’t give more specifics.

Whatever Perceptive Pixel ends up doing in the tablet space, Han said his plan is to eventually have it support multiple operating systems, though Han said the company will probably only qualify certain devices. So far, he said, Apple’s iOS and the iPad seem best suited to the applications he has in mind, while the real-time touch performance on Android has certain issues.

“We’re not going to just let it run on anything out there,” he said. “Some of them just can’t guarantee a good user interface.”

Here is the video interview Mobilized did with Han:

[ See post to watch video ]

Election 2010: Facebook Fan Favorites Fare Well

Voices — Wed, 03 Nov 2010 17:12:38 +0000

Well, what do you know–in elections, the most popular candidate usually wins. True in the real world, and apparently true in the virtual world. Plumbing its community sentiment for political insights (as it did all Election Night on ABC), Facebook today noted that in 98 key U.S. House races, the candidate with the most Facebook fans won 74 percent of the time. In 34 Senate races, the figure was 82 percent. Lots more fun facts on the site.

"Changing the World Through the Web": Video Interviews with Zuckerberg, Kutcher, Rospars and Shah

Kara Swisher — Wed, 28 Oct 2009 14:19:34 +0000

Yesterday, BoomTown moderated a panel at California First Lady Maria Shriver’s well-known Women’s Conference in Long Beach, titled “Changing the World Through the Web” for a crowd of several thousand people.

The panelists for my session at what has become one of the top forums for women’s issues included Hollywood actor/producer, Katalyst co-founder and Twitter demigod Ashton Kutcher; Facebook’s Randi Zuckerberg, who leads the social networking site’s elections, breaking news and social change initiatives; Premal Shah, president of online microloan site Kiva.org; and Joe Rospars, founder and creative director of Blue State Digital and new media director for Barack Obama’s presidential campaign.

It turned out to be a lively session with the sharp digitally-focused group, which was the first tech panel at the six-year-old conference.

Here are video interviews I did with each of them (and you can see other video scenes from the conference here):

[ See post to watch video ]

Icahn Announces Proxy Bid for Technorati 100

John Paczkowski — Thu, 19 Jun 2008 18:05:27 +0000

Carl Icahn’s a busy guy–busier than usual lately penning broadsides against Yahoo (YHOO). So he can be forgiven the 138-day delay in lauching “Icahn Report,” the blog he announced back in February, and subsequently failed to debut in April.

Earlier today the blog offered nothing more than a placeholder page, but a few moments ago it went live with Icahn’s promised anecdotes on “the desultory state of corporate governance in America.”

And, specifically, Yahoo.

Which seems to figure in many of Icahn’s first few posts–though the company is never mentioned by name.

Unfit CEOs. Absurd poison pills. Absurd board elections. It’s pretty clear to whom Icahn is referring, isn’t it? Presumably he’s had his site admins ban Yahoo’s IP address from the blog. I’m told comment spam can be a real nightmare.