AllThingsD » industry

Talent Management Start-Up PeopleMatter Raises $14M, Led by Morgenthaler

Kara Swisher — Mon, 27 Feb 2012 03:00:46 +0000

PeopleMatter said it has raised $14 million in a Series C funding, which was led by Morgenthaler Ventures.

The Charleston, S.C.-based software company, which focuses on hourly workers, said the new investment will be used for product innovation and customer-acquisition strategies.

Existing investors Noro-Moseley Partners, C&B Capital, Intersouth Partners and Harbert Ventures also participated in the round. PeopleMatter had previously raised $14.4 million, which brings its total funding to just over $28 million.

PeopleMatter competes with other online talent management firms, such as SuccessFactors, Taleo and Rypple, although those focus on career professionals. In contrast, PeopleMatter is aimed at service-industry workers, including food service, convenience store, hospitality and retail verticals.

The company’s offering allows organizations to manage applicant tracking, hiring, onboarding, training and scheduling processes. It is also launching a smartphone app this week that workers can use.

Netflix Hands Out Its ISP Report Cards. Clearwire, Please Get This One Signed by Your Parents.

Peter Kafka — Thu, 27 Jan 2011 19:01:59 +0000

Here’s the report card that Netflix promised to produce on broadband providers’ performance yesterday. Which is really a not-so subtle salvo in a war of words between the streaming movie service and the ISP industry.

But then again, it’s not the most aggressive move Reed Hastings could make. Note that the chart Netflix provides makes it quite difficult to really evaluate broadband provider against broadband provider, without doing a whole lot of squinting.

And even then, I can’t tell which light-blue line represents CableOne and which one represents CenturyTel.

We do know, because Netflix already told us, that Charter gets the best marks. And it appears that Clearwire, the wireless service co-owned by Sprint and some of the big cable companies, ranks dead last.

The news that most of you care about: Time Warner Cable and Comcast, the nation’s two biggest cable companies, appear to be in the top part of Netflix’s rankings. I’m asking the company for clarification for those of us with decaying vision.

And here it is, via CNET–a top-to-bottom ranking:

1. Charter
2. Comcast
3. Time Warner
4. Cox
5. Suddenlink
6. Cablevision
7. Cable One
8. Verizon
9. AT&T
10. BellSouth
11. Embarq
12. Windstream
13. Qwest
14. Century Tel
15. Frontier
16. Clearwire

You can click on the chart below to see a larger version, and you can read a technical explanation of what it measures over at the official Netflix tech blog.

Seven Questions for Ric Telford, IBM’s VP of Cloud Services

Arik Hesseldahl — Mon, 24 Jan 2011 16:45:15 +0000

It wasn’t so long ago that the primary appeal of cloud computing was cost-savings. Companies struggling to slash their operational costs moved their data and applications out of their own back offices and handed them off to cloud providers. Now the question about the cloud is turning in a new direction. CIOs who last year asked, “How much can I save?” are now asking, “What more can I do with it?”

Often they’ll turn to public cloud providers like Amazon or Google or Microsoft. Those are the three names that usually get mentioned in the same breath whenever enterprise cloud services come up. But what about IT giant IBM? It turns out it’s a significant player in the cloud game, offering both public and private cloud services. Last week I sat down with Ric Telford, IBM’s VP of Cloud Services to talk about how Big Blue’s cloud business is going and what its priorities are in the year just started.

NewEnterprise: Ric, let’s start at the top. Tell me how IBM sees the cloud business right now?

Telford: Initially the cloud is all about doing more with less. Suddenly you could deliver the same IT services for less. Fast-forward to today, and it’s not all about saving money. People are realizing they can do things they never could before with the cloud. I was recently met with a small aircraft engineering company, and the guy running it described how he competes with much larger companies for defense contracts. It used to be that doing all the modeling and simulations he needed required buying hardware and software and running it all on premise. Now he can go out to the cloud, pay for what he uses and be done with it. He can now compete for contracts he wouldn’t have been able to go after before. And we’re seeing a lot of examples like that in industry after industry.

Someone said to me the other day that the cloud is going to have to have all the parts of the mainframe. Do you agree with that?

There’s a lot of parallels between the cloud and the mainframe. IBM’s view is that we have a single-reference architecture. It’s the same whether we’re delivering the service or if we build it for you. We did a deal recently with France Telecom where they are going to be a cloud services provider to their clients. They already have the network connections. But they’re not a cloud company. So they’re using IBM’s cloud architecture to give them all the pieces in one easy-to-consume bite. So we have that architecture and we use the same blueprint in all the various permutations of the cloud. For some people it’s confusing, but for us it’s all the same whether you want to have it inside your firewall or outside.

Which do your customers tend to prefer–a private cloud or a public cloud?

We do surveys every year and right now we’re seeing about a two-to-one preference for private versus public. About 60 to 70 percent of respondents say they’re working on a private cloud, and about 30 to 40 say they’re working on the public cloud. To us it’s all the same. We offer a core set of services from the IBM cloud–development, test, compute, storage, collaborations, desktop. But we can also build the same thing inside your firewall.

How big is your public cloud business?

I can’t give you a revenue figure because different business units take advantage of it to deliver different things. We just opened up a delivery center in Research Triangle Park. It’s probably one of the most advanced data centers in the world. And now we’re rolling out a model that we are cloning around the world. We just opened one in Germany and another in Canada. And then we’ll just keep adding them. We manage about eight million square feet of data centers around the world.

How does a company typically get started with the cloud?

Usually I suggest they start with their develop-and-test operations. It’s usually not mission-critical, and there’s usually a lot of hardware that’s not being used. Usually that’s the group that buys hardware long before it’s needed and it ends up sitting idle 90 percent of the time. At IBM we put our whole research division on the cloud because they were the worst hardware hoarders, putting servers under desks and whatnot. They knew that if they needed a new server it would take weeks to get it. Now they go out to the research and compute cloud, and the services they need are usually ready to use in minutes or at most an hour. It just makes a huge difference in people’s ability to get going.

So what you are your priorities for this year?

One of the big things we started seeing last year was an uptake of cloud delivery in industry-specific ways. We’re working not just on the generic things like email and collaboration, but on the specific applications that are used in various industries. Health care, banking and government are a few that have complicated regulatory needs that vary state by state and country by country, and we have the deep understanding required to work with them. We also built a private cloud to help the 29 countries involved in NATO share data on logistics and troop deployments. We also have an initiative with the consumer electronics industry. Utilities is another, and it gets tied in with our Smarter Planet initiatives.

Will IBM be making deals in the cloud this year?

IBM will make a few billion in acquisitions. Cloud is one of the four key growth areas we’re focused on. The others are Smarter Planet, analytics and the growth markets. We’ve said that in those four growth initiatives we’re going for $20 billion in additional revenue by 2014. Four initiatives, five years and $20 billion dollars. That’s certainly not all going to happen organically.

Verizon Makes Its Net Neutrality Objections Formal

Voices — Thu, 20 Jan 2011 23:43:08 +0000

Verizon, one of the myriad and diverse parties unhappy with the FCC’s latest net neutrality rules, took its beef to court today, filing a challenge to the agency’s authority in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit. “We are deeply concerned by the FCC’s assertion of broad authority for sweeping new regulation of broadband networks and the Internet itself. We believe this assertion of authority goes well beyond any authority provided by Congress, and creates uncertainty for the communications industry, innovators, investors and consumers,” said Michael E. Glover, senior VP and deputy general counsel, in a statement.

Videogame Sales Lagged in 2010 Despite Xbox's High Scores

Tricia Duryee — Fri, 14 Jan 2011 00:44:58 +0000

Microsoft’s Xbox dominated the charts at the end of 2010, despite year-over-year revenue declines for both videogame hardware and software.

The latest statistics released today from NPD Group estimated that consumer spending on game content totaled between $15.4 and $15.6 billion, which was flat to down 1 percent, compared to 2009. Meanwhile, sales of new physical videogame hardware, software and accessories were also down–6 percent, to end the year at $18.6 billion.

Microsoft was able to counteract those industry-wide trends through the successful launch of its Kinect hands-free controller and strong sales of the hit game Call of Duty: Black Ops.

Sales of the Xbox 360 jumped 42 percent year-over-year, and was the only platform to register an increase in unit sales. In fact, December 2010 was the best month ever for Xbox 360 sales after selling 1.9 million units.

After the figures were released today, Microsoft used the moment to toot its own horn: In a statement, it said it had pulled units from its January and February production to keep up with holiday demand for both Xbox and Kinect–and it still sold out in some circumstances. Now it’s scrambling to catch up.

At CES, Microsoft said that roughly eight million Kinects had been sold after being on the market for roughly two months, and that over 50 million Xbox 360s have been sold worldwide over the lifetime of the console.

The videogame industry is very cyclical, with software sales often trailing new hardware sales. Without new console introductions from the usual suspects, Microsoft has tried to increase sales by repositioning the Xbox as an entertainment hub, and relied on the Kinect to make the console appeal to a wider audience outside hard-core gamers.

Nintendo is hoping that its new 3DS gaming handheld will boost sales–however, it doesn’t come out for another couple of months, so it missed the critical holiday season and will face competition from smartphones.

NPD Group concluded that in December the Wii and the 360 platforms generated the greatest dollar sales of all platforms at 32 percent and 31 percent, respectively. That’s across all categories, including hardware, software and accessories.

Other than Xbox, there were some bright spots, but it wasn’t enough to offset overall declines. NPD Group said the highlights included digital downloads, mobile apps, social network games and non-digital stuff, like used games and PC games.

The numbers released today are early estimates. NPD Group said it will issue its final analysis in March.

Sprint: Collateral Damage in the Verizon-AT&T iPhone War

John Paczkowski — Thu, 13 Jan 2011 20:30:36 +0000

So much for Sprint’s tentative comeback. The company’s no longer hemorrhaging subscribers and money like Dan Aykroyd’s exsanguinating Julia Child, as I once joked–at least not as badly as it was. But that could change now that Apple has added Verizon as a second iPhone carrier in the States.

Not only will the Verizon iPhone likely draw new wireless subscribers away from Sprint (and T-Mobile, for that matter), it will boost its churn rate as well. Compounding that effect will be AT&T’s reaction to its loss of iPhone exclusivity and its efforts to hold on to subscribers it fears might defect to Verizon. As Bernstein Research analyst Craig Moffet noted today, AT&T’s not going to stand idly by as Verizon woos away its customers.

“Already in 2Q and 3Q 2010, AT&T partially pre-empted Verizon’s iPhone introduction by upgrading a massive number of its iPhone subscribers, so as to lock them into new 2-year contracts,” Moffet observed in a note to clients today. “This amounts to a massive re-subsidization of existing subscribers, sacrificing margins for subscriber retention. When the actual iPhone introduction at Verizon occurs, AT&T is likely to react further, with more aggressive phone subsidies, incremental advertising, the introduction of other compelling devices, and possibly with price cuts.”

And when it does, Sprint’s share of industry gross additions will inevitably decline.

There’s a wild card here, though: The special event that Sprint has planned for February. If what the company shows off there truly is the industry first it’s promising (and let’s be clear: It’s almost certainly not going to be another CDMA iPhone), perhaps it will indeed make the “impossible possible”–helping Sprint limit subscriber churn in the face of the Verizon iPhone.

Fewer Than 6 Percent of Gamers Buy Virtual Goods…And That's Big Bucks

Tricia Duryee — Thu, 13 Jan 2011 18:04:32 +0000

Fewer than 6 percent of the social game players in the U.S. spend money on virtual goods, but that’s adding up to a whopping $653 million this year alone.

When you add other sources of revenues, including lead-generation offers, which are incentives for filling out a survey or signing up for a subscription, and advertising dollars, the social gaming industry is expected to break $1 billion this year for the first time, according to eMarketer.

In 2012, revenues will rise to $1.32 billion, with a majority of sales still expected to come from virtual goods.

Still, as the audience for social games is expected to rise, so are advertising revenues. EMarketer forecasts that advertisers will spend $192 million in 2011, a 60 percent rise over last year, and in 2012, advertising revenues are expected to jump another 41 percent.

The success of virtual goods and the rise of advertising will lead to more branded virtual goods, said Paul Verna, author of the eMarketer report. “This is the largest segment of the social gaming economy, and one that marketers are increasingly turning to as a branding vehicle. We expect to see more branded virtual goods as social gaming matures over the next two years.”

Still, these figures appear modest in comparison to the turbocharged bets companies are making on the space, and the revenues that the leading companies are achieving.

Two acquisitions over the past year and a half easily exceed this year’s revenue projections alone, bringing into question whether the projections are modest or the industry is overhyped.

Disney purchased Playdom for upward of $700 million, including earnouts, and in late 2009, Electronic Arts acquired Playfish for $400 million. Those together value the space at more than $1 billion, and that doesn’t include Zynga, which remains independent and is the largest social games company on Facebook. Its revenues were estimated at more than half a billion dollars last year–up from about $300 million in 2009.

PC Sales Weakened in Q4–Everyone Blame the iPad

Arik Hesseldahl — Thu, 13 Jan 2011 00:20:41 +0000

Research houses Gartner and IDC are both out with their market reports on PC sales for the fourth quarter and the full year of 2010. Both say the market was weak, and both are citing the same reason: Apple’s iPad.

One interesting revelation is that both Hewlett-Packard and Acer, the top two vendors by volume in the Gartner survey, saw their shipments decline year-on-year in a period where the rest of the industry was seeing growth, albeit slower than had been previously expected.

Hewlett-Packard maintained its market lead, with a share of about 18 percent worldwide, and 29 percent in the U.S. Acer came in second. Both saw their unit volumes decline. For HP, that translated to a decline of more than 200,000 units in fourth-quarter PC sales, or a little more than 1 percent. For Acer, which had hitched its wagon to the netbook craze a few years ago, it translated to a decline of nearly 2 percent, or more than 222,000 units. Dell, Lenovo and Toshiba all saw their shipments grow, with Lenovo leading the pack, growing a healthy 21 percent.

Gartner says that worldwide shipments totaled 93.5 million units in the fourth quarter, which amounted to growth of only 3 percent over the same period a year earlier, falling short of the 5 percent growth it had previously forecast. Gartner Analyst Mikako Kitagawa blames the iPad and other media tablets for the slackening growth. She says the industry’s one bright spot, oddly enough, is in enterprise, where companies are upgrading the machines they issue their employees. For the full year, the worldwide PC industry recovered from the recession, growing nearly 14 percent to 308 million units.

Apple remained in fifth place in the U.S. with a share of market just shy of 10 percent, and less than a percentage point behind Toshiba. Notably, this figure doesn’t include iPads, which hit a combined 7.5 million units in Apple’s third and fourth fiscal quarters, both of which ended before the holiday season. (Apple will reports earnings for its first fiscal quarter, which includes the holiday season, next week.)

IDC’s survey found the same trend, but it differed from the Gartner survey on a few key points. IDC put Dell in second place, behind HP and ahead of Acer in the worldwide market share race. I’ll attribute this to differences in methodology, since Gartner and IDC differ a little in how they count.

Another interesting note is that IDC paints a more negative picture of Acer, pegging its decline in fourth-quarter sales at 15 percent from 2009 to 2010. I asked IDC analyst Loren Loverde about the difference in IDC’s results versus Gartner’s, and he said part of it comes from differences in methodology, but also from the fact that Acer is closely held and so is a tricky company to track, and the data it does disclose isn’t as detailed as the other companies’.

But Loverde also says decline, whether 2 percent or 15 percent, reflects a stark business reality for Acer. The road to PC growth through mini-notebooks and geographic expansion is closed. It was a good strategy while it lasted.

Remember the Parrot!

Peter Kafka — Thu, 06 Jan 2011 11:30:55 +0000

This is the gadget industry’s week of hope and promise. But if you’re a dark sort, you can invert all that and see nothing but doom.

Me, I’m a peppy, perky guy. Ask anybody! Still, if I were a gloomy Gus, I’d spend some time reminiscing about 2010′s Consumer Electronics Show, where I spent a bunch of time checking out:

Hearst’s Skiff e-reader
The Plastic Logic Que e-reader
Palm’s new line of smartphones
Keychest, a dizzingly dull rights-management scheme from Disney.

A year later, and they’re all gone: Either officially dead, or just pining for fjords, and very unlikely to perk up.

Not all of this stuff was vaporware, in the technical sense. Palm, at least, really did sell a few of those Palm Pre Pluses before it gave up and sold out to HP.

Still, an 0-for-4 experience like that is enough to make a humble media correspondent want to avoid checking out new technology altogether, and that’s basically what I’m going to do.

I might take a look at the UltraViolet media locker demo, but that’s about it. I’m headed to Las Vegas this morning* with the primary goal of talking to media people, many of whom live in New York, just like I do.

So yes, it might seem a little odd to head across the country to talk to people who live and work a few miles away, but there’s a logic to it. Trust me!**

And if you do want smart, incisive technology coverage, trust the rest of the All Things D team: Walt, Katie, Kara and Ina are on the ground already, and the rest of the gang is monitoring developments from their home bases. It’s good stuff!

*Not just because I enjoy being fashionably late, but because it was many hundreds of dollars cheaper to fly out today than earlier in the week. (And also because I’m old, and at my age every extra day you spend in Las Vegas is a dog year.)

**Totally not a boondoggle. Note the line about saving money on airfare, above.

Go-Go Gadget Economy

John Paczkowski — Wed, 05 Jan 2011 16:15:08 +0000

After a disappointing 2009, the consumer electronics industry grew 13 percent in 2010 and is expected to grow another 10 percent this year to $964 billion, according to a new forecast by the Consumer Electronics Association. And, if the year turns out better than expected, consumer electronics sales could surpass $1 trillion in 2011. “I’m bullish,” Consumer Electronics Association analyst Steve Koenig said on the eve of the Consumer Electronics Show. “That number is truly within reach. It’s clear that global retail sales of tech products have rebounded. Tech is at the vanguard in leading the recovery.”

Fashion Community Strutting User-Generated Trends Down the Catwalk

Tricia Duryee — Wed, 22 Dec 2010 02:58:14 +0000

Fashionistas may roll their eyes at the effort, but Polyvore is trying to make designing and merchandising apparel more data driven–and presumably less arbitrary.

To do so, the online fashion community will be crunching user-generated data to roll out analytical tools for designers and retailers. Think Quantcast or Compete, but for the fashion industry.

The beta tool, called Style Analytics, will be free and openly available to anyone on Polyvore’s Web site. It’s expected to launch officially tomorrow afternoon.

The data points are coming from its community of users, who create virtual outfits–or what they call “collages” of clothing–by mixing and matching shirts, pants, dresses, shoes, skirts and accessories from around the Web.

Jess Lee, Polyvore’s co-founder and head of product management, said it will show what’s trending, so brands can make better decisions. Specifically, it shows how consumers associate your brand, for instance, with Abercrombie & Fitch or Juicy Couture.

“The fashion industry, from designing to merchandising and marketing is inefficient and not data driven,” she said. “Our goal is to open it up and make it more democratic and more data driven.”

The Mountain View, Calif.-based company has raised about $8.7 million in venture capital since 2007. Each month, its two million registered users create one million collages that generate 140 million page views.

Google Goes To the Cloud For New Idea In PC System

Walter S. Mossberg — Thu, 16 Dec 2010 02:03:25 +0000

In the personal-computer industry, where things change fast, one fact has been a constant for years: There are two major, mainstream operating systems for consumers. One, Microsoft Windows, runs on many brands of hardware and dominates sales. The other, Apple’s Mac OS X, runs only on its maker’s Macintosh computers, and has had a resurgence in popularity in recent years. Other contenders, such as various versions of Linux, have remained on the fringes.

[ See post to watch video ]

Next summer, however, Google hopes to add a third broad-based computer-operating system to challenge the duopoly. It’s called Chrome OS, and is based on Google’s Chrome Web browser. With Chrome, Google isn’t just aiming to elbow its way into the OS business. It’s hoping to change the entire paradigm. Instead of storing most programs and files on your computer itself, the Chrome OS will mainly run programs from, and require you to keep your data in, the cloud—remote servers located on the Internet. In effect, it turns your entire computer into a giant Web browser, instead of treating the browser as just one among many local programs.

The Chrome OS isn’t finished, and isn’t ready for broad public testing. Google readily concedes it has lots of bugs and rough edges. But the company has designed a small test laptop with the new operating system installed and distributed “a few thousand” of them to outsiders to try.

A Cr-48 test machine, with Chrome OS installed. Chrome will be licensed to select manufacturers.

I have been using this machine, called the Cr-48, for about a week, and have some explanations and first impressions to share. This isn’t a formal review; that will have to wait till the product is finished and is on commercial computers.

I focused mainly on the software, which is built on a Linux underpinning. That’s because Google doesn’t ever intend to sell the Cr-48 hardware, an all-black, unbranded laptop with a 12-inch screen, a rubbery surface and a large, buttonless touchpad that resembles those pioneered on the Mac.

In my tests, I found this early Chrome OS machine to be fast, with decent battery life and almost instant resumption from sleep. It handled most Web sites fine, and worked almost exactly like the very nice Chrome browser on Windows and Mac.

I also liked the one hardware feature worth mentioning: a radically redesigned keyboard. Instead of function keys, or various legacy keys such as Caps Lock, Chrome OS keyboards feature dedicated browser-oriented keys, like ones for moving back and forth among Web pages and windows, refreshing a page, entering full-screen mode, or quickly opening a new tab and beginning a search.

The Chrome OS will have a big advantage. Because it is mainly a front-end-to-cloud service, if you lose your laptop, you can get another one and just sign into your cloud accounts. You should be able to find all your stuff waiting for you.

However, users of the Chrome OS will have a huge adjustment to make. They will have to give up the rich, local programs they have spent years learning to use and tweaking to their liking. You can’t install local programs on a Chrome OS computer. Instead, Google provides a Web Store inside the browser that allows you to download icons for “Web apps”—mostly websites designed to look and work like standard programs.

Some of these, like Gmail, are familiar and popular. Others are newer. For instance, the New York Times and AOL already designed Web-based news apps for Chrome OS, and there is a Web-based version of the TweetDeck program for Twitter. These apps, and the store’s own icon, appear on the new Tab screen of Chrome OS (and also are available in the current Chrome browser.)

In my tests, I found these apps generally worked fine. But most aren’t as rich and versatile as local Windows and Mac programs. For example, there was no way to play my local, personalized iTunes music collection, unless I spent many hours uploading it to some Web-based service.

I also had to settle for Web-based productivity programs—like word processors and spreadsheets—with many fewer features than standard local ones, such as Microsoft Office.

And I ran into plenty of frustrations. At this stage, Chrome OS can’t do anything with USB flash drives or SD memory cards, and can’t synchronize phones. And it has a very limited ability to store, or allow you to do anything with, email attachments or other files you might download and prefer to keep locally rather than on a server controlled by somebody else.

Printing was a chore, requiring a complicated setup on a Windows computer that Chrome used as a conduit to a printer.

Plus, Chrome OS is hardly stable yet. I suffered numerous crashes of Adobe’s Flash player, and even Google’s own Google Talk instant-messaging service, which appears in a little pop-up window on top of the browser. The company says it hopes to fix these problems by next summer.

Finally, the biggest downside: Because it’s a cloud-oriented system, Chrome OS is almost useless if you lack an Internet connection. Google says it plans to offer some limited offline functionality, and to encourage makers of Web apps to do the same. It will also eventually be able to make some use of some files stored on external hard disks. But the basic operating mode will require you to be connected to the Internet.

To help with this, the Cr-48 has a Verizon cellular modem built in, to supplement its Wi-Fi connectivity. Verizon is offering 100 megabytes of data free, but that is a small amount, and you have to pay for more.

Like the Mac OS, but unlike Windows or Google’s own smartphone operating system, Android, the Chrome OS will be deeply integrated with hardware. So, Google doesn’t plan to distribute or license the new operating system to every hardware maker—at least not at first. You won’t be able to install it on an existing computer. It will be available in 2011 on a limited number of computer models from selected manufacturers.

Google says this is because security is a high priority and requires special hardware designs that tightly bond with the software.

Also, Chrome OS computers will, in some respects, be more like iPads than laptops. They won’t have hard disks, just a limited amount of flash-memory storage, and they won’t have DVD drives.

They are an attempt to realize the old idea of a “network computer,” or one which is mostly a front end for network services.

Of course, many people already spend most of their time with their PCs and Macs connected to the Net. Many use Web-based email programs or streaming music programs instead of local software.

So the time may be right for a cloud computer, a change in the paradigm. Google certainly hopes so.

Find all of Walt Mossberg’s columns and videos online, free, at the All Things Digital Web site, walt.allthingsd.com. Email him at mossberg@wsj.com.

Apple Finally Starts Supersizing Its Free iTunes Samples

Peter Kafka — Thu, 09 Dec 2010 12:00:08 +0000

Still not convinced you want to plunk down $1.29 for that new Black Eyed Peas single? Take your time!

And then take some more time: Apple has started to increase the length of the free music samples it offers at its iTunes music store, from 30 seconds to 90 seconds.

Will that help Apple and the music industry move more product? It shouldn’t hurt, right? And anything they can do, they should do: Download sales are starting to droop.

This move has been in the works for months, but Apple had been unable to get clearances from music publishers. I’m still not sure if Apple will be doing this throughout the store: As of early Thursday morning, most of the songs I checked, in a decidedly unscientific survey, still had 30-second samples.

But my hunch is that Apple will adopt the 90-second standard as widely as it can, and that the inconsistency we’ve seen so far is just because it hasn’t gotten around to changing everything yet.

For instance, if you want to sample the Beatles’ version of “Twist and Shout”, you can hear 90 seconds of the song, but you can only hear 30 seconds of “Day Tripper.” Etc.

The only consistency I’ve found so far is that no Sony acts seem to offer the extended samples. But, again, my gut is that’s a temporary aberration.

Meanwhile Amazon, which runs a very distant second to iTunes in digital music sales, seems to still be offering the shorter samples.

Google's Andy Rubin Gives a Flash of Tablet Future

Ina Fried — Tue, 07 Dec 2010 01:33:10 +0000

Although Andy Rubin’s keynote at D: Dive into Mobile is scheduled for just before dinner, expect to hear a lot of talk about dessert. On the menu are Froyo, Gingerbread and perhaps even a hint of Honeycomb.

Google did release a couple of tasty treats already on Monday–announcing plans for the Samsung co-developed Nexus S as well as the release of Android 2.3 (Gingerbread). But I hear the cookie jar isn’t quite empty yet.

In between sugary snacks, Kara Swisher and Walt Mossberg will pepper Rubin on the many issues facing Android and the wireless industry. Mobilized will have live coverage of the session at this spot beginning around 6:45 pm PT.

Liveblog

6:37 pm: The crowd is still settling into their seats here at the Ritz-Carlton San Francisco, the swanky home to the inaugural D: Dive Into Mobile.

6:40 pm: Lights dim. Kara Swisher and Walt Mossberg take the stage. “My husband, Walt Mossberg, and I would like to welcome you to this intimate dinner,” Swisher quips.

6:42 pm: Ironically, the crowd was asked to silence their mobile devices, but Kara says they should just feel free to leave them on.

6:44 pm: It’s Rubin time (and he has brought a satchel of goodies with him).

Rubin is asked about the Nexus One and why it didn’t shake up the business model. “We bit off a little more than we can chew.” Rubin says that they were hoping for a model more like that in Europe, where people can pick a phone and then separately pick service, typically at retail stores like Carphone Warehouse. “We were trying to do that model in the U.S. and only do it online.”

6:46 pm: Kara: So have you given up on that business model?

Rubin: With Nexus S, which is the thing we announced today, we still have that notion of an unlocked phone. But we are not selling it ourselves, but through traditional channels, in this case Best Buy.

6:48 pm: Walt: How is Android doing?

Rubin: Android started as an eight-person start-up. “During that time at Google we obviously staffed up.” Now there are 172 different phone models using Android after the OS was launched two years ago with one, the T-Mobile G1.

Rubin credits the quality of the software and the open nature of it.

6:49 pm: Walt: I notice more and more they are taking on the personality of the carrier, not Google, not the handset maker. There are lots of what I would call craplets. Verizon, for example, swapped out Google for Bing. Is there a danger it is being taken over?

Rubin: That’s the nature of open. That’s actually a feature of Android.

He takes a swipe at Windows Mobile, saying that the alternative is a commoditized world where all the phones have to have a start menu in one place and all the icons have to be tiles.

6:54 pm: Kara: Do you consider yourself the Microsoft of phones in that regard?

Rubin: No. We’re probably more like the Linux of phones, and that’s a true statement.

Walt: You mean hard to get drivers for, only for geeks, no real consumer would buy it?

Rubin: No, I think we’ve already proven that wrong. Bad analogy.

6:55 pm: Discussion about all the crapware that comes on many phones.

Rubin: The consumers are voting and the consumers are voicing their opinions.

6:56 pm: Rubin has some relatively nice things to say about the iPhone.

“I think everybody is embracing the iPhone. They are pretty open.”

Rubin says that most developers actually are having a pretty easy time getting their apps approved by Apple.

6:57 pm: Kara: How do you consider Apple as a competitor?

Certainly they make great products, Rubin says–robust, solid, good user experiences. A lot of consistency across applications. More recently I see them getting involved in the other end of the spectrum–services like a bookstore, the app store.

6:59 pm: Walt: What about Apple’s massive data center? That’s another area of competition for you guys.

Rubin talks about the power of Google’s ad-based model, which allows the core advertising to fund all kinds of applications.

Walt: Do you think Apple has the DNA to do this?

Rubin: “My assumption is Apple is a company that learns from its mistakes.”

7:01 pm: Kara and Walt: Are you profitable? Is Android profitable? Does Android make any money?

Rubin: We’re making money on the advertising that’s generated through Android.

Walt: Are you profitable if it was broken out as a separate business?

Rubin: Yes. [Wow. I'm curious about the math, but maybe if you add all the searches on Android-based devices.]

There’s no way I would have ever been profitable as a start-up. I probably wouldn’t have made it as a separate company.

7:06 pm: Walt: How do you see the rest of the competition beyond Apple?

Rubin: I don’t think it’s ever going to be just two [Apple and Android]. There’s a lot of innovation and a lot of ideas out there.

Rubin says there is a fundamental advantage to Android and iPhone since they are new and designed from the ground up.

He notes even Windows Phone 7 has legacy code from the original Windows Mobile from way back when.

“You just have this package of stuff that was invented before the Internet,” Rubin says. “When the architects built that product, they didn’t have the Internet in mind.”

7:08 pm: Walt: Is there anything you do like about Windows Phone 7?

Rubin: It was a big bet. They struck upon that notion of the centerpiece of the main tiles. It’s a good 1.0 product. It does look different and it does look unique. It’s solid. I’m not the predictor of being successful.

He says if he were to give advice to Microsoft, he would suggest that it give more freedom to carriers and phone makers so the devices don’t look the same.

Kara: Have you gone to Finland to woo Nokia?

Rubin: I haven’t been to Finland.

Walt: Forget Finland, have you tried to convince Nokia?

Rubin just laughs (a-ha).

7:12 pm: Kara: The discussions with Nokia–talk about them in detail.

Rubin: The company has new leadership [referring to CEO Stephen Elop]. They are evaluating lots of alternatives. I’m open-minded and a big proponent of Android.

Rubin again declines to talk about any meetings he may have had.

7:14 pm: What about the challenge of iconic products like RIM?

Rubin: Talks about the challenge of legacy and points out Motorola had that problem when it became overly dependent on the Razr. Then, “they bet the company on Android,” he points out.

Rubin said RIM is doing the right things–acquiring assets like QNX and DataViz to build a more modern operating system.

7:16 pm: Walt points out that RIM will be here Tuesday–PlayBook tablet in hand.

7:16 pm: Back to the discussion about persuading companies to use Android.

Rubin: If it’s good–and we all believe that it’s good–everybody can use it.

“You don’t need to be a partner of Google to run Android.”

7:17 pm: Walt asks about tablets. Are they exciting to you? Are they important to you? Can they replace laptops for some people?

Rubin: I think what is going on in tablets is interesting. It’s fundamentally changing the model of computing interaction.

It is much more physical. You touch it. You feel it.

7:19 pm: What changes in the paradigm? It’s not a laptop. It’s not a phone.

Rubin points out that we used to have PDAs, but the cellphone eventually replaced it. The tablet is a sort of in-between device so the use case is less clear. You might definitely have it on the couch, but maybe not on the subway.

7:21 pm: Walt: What makes it more interesting and more immersive? There is something different there?

Rubin: If you do a good job, what you’ve done is make it a reflex. Like a car. You learn how to drive and you can drive almost any car. You don’t get distracted by things. That’s the result of many, many years of evolution. That’s true of any consumer product. They become almost like second nature for you.

7:24 pm: Kara and Walt ask about privacy.

Rubin: There is nothing in open source Android OS that sends keystrokes or what applications you use to Google.

He encourages people to look at the source code.

Walt: There are Google services that do collect certain things?

Rubin: Yes, like on other platforms. But he encourages people to read the company’s privacy policy.

7:27 pm: How do you overcome the perception that Google wants to collect more information than the others?

I think you just have to be transparent. You have open source–be inspectable. Any other interpretation is either FUD or just people who don’t understand.

7:28 pm: On to the goodie bag. Rubin pulls out a Nexus S. Says it is his personal device.

Kara: Oh good. She grabs it and pulls it close to her.

Now Rubin is showing the features, screen, etc. He’s talking about the Near Field Communications technology that is actually printed inside the back of the case. NFC allows a phone to scan specially printed tags.

Walt: Is that what sends all the information back to Google?

Rubin: Laughs. Goes back to demoing NFC and showing the Nexus S scanning a tag, which sends a URL for a video of the Nexus S to the phone, which then starts playing.

7:31 pm: Rubin talks about the applications: Buying coffee, getting coupons.

What we are hoping is third-party developers create a lot of cool apps. Devices can also use NFC to exchange contact info between two devices as well, kind of like beaming in the old Palm days.

7:32 pm: Rubin is talking abut the Nexus strategy.

To give a “Pure Google” phone. Google works with the hardware maker to take maximum advantage of Android’s features.

7:35 pm: What’s new with Gingerbread?

We added a garbage collector. Added broader voice over Internet Protocol support. Can cut, copy and paste without a trackball.

7:36 pm: Walt: What about video calling? I know there are third-party apps that do that. It seems like a natural thing that it belongs in the phone function.

Kara: FaceGoog or GoogleTime.

Rubin: There’s a whole bunch of software engineers hitting their keyboards back in Mountain View. If consumers want it, we’ll add it. [He strongly hints that it is coming, points out there already is Google video chat for PC.]

7:38 pm: Rubin reaches into his bag of tricks again. Pulls out a prototype Motorola tablet to show a forthcoming version of Google’s mobile map application.

7:38 pm: Shows the improved 3-D abilities and new panning and zooming options. What we are showing off here is some pretty cool performance.

“It will be available for cellphones in a matter of days,” Rubin says.

What allows the new presentation is that maps are no longer a series of tiles, but rather vector graphics.

7:40 pm: Vector data is smaller and more efficient, so users can load data in case they go offline. “You could load a whole state,” Rubin says.

This app runs on Android only for now, though it will work on tablets and phones.

Walt: What about PCs?

Rubin: That would be a natural extension.

7:41 pm: What version of Android is running on that tablet?

Rubin: Honeycomb [the next version of Android, due out some time next year]. There are no buttons on the Motorola tablet. He’s showing his personal email again.

7:43 pm: More on Honeycomb: We added new APIs to Honeycomb that allow an application to split its views to multiple views. On a a tablet they can be side by side, while on a phone they might be one after the other.

7:46 pm: On to Q&A.

7:46 pm: What about the Chrome OS team? What’s the delineation between the two?

Rubin: That’s a good question. Google was born on the Web. “I don’t think it would be doing its job unless it reinvested in the Web.”

But evolution of the Web had stagnated a bit, prompting Chrome. “It’s kind of slowed down a bit.”

Apps vs. Web?

There’s no need to argue. We’re doing both, Rubin says.

7:50 pm: What are the plans for the Android team to focus on the enterprise?

We did a little bit, Rubin says, but he likens it to baby steps. Support for VPN and some secure browsing. Gingerbread has some added features like remote wipe. Each release you will see more and more.

7:51 pm: App discovery. What are your plans?

Rubin: This is all evolving. The Android market is evolving as well. Gingerbread allows “related applications.” We are always adding features.

As a search company, if we can’t help you discover apps, I think we have a problem. We should be very easily able to organize a few hundred-thousand apps.

7:53 pm: Question about mobile payments; What is Andy Rubin’s vision? Groupon?

Rubin: I think there is a lot of opportunity. It is not an opportunity that is going to be seized by one company. Today Android does carrier billing integration, so you can put apps on your carrier bill. Creates an efficient micropayment option.

With Nexus S having added gyroscope capability, can see things from even within a store. Should help make, for example, better coupon apps.

7:57 pm: Android on TVs?

Rubin: That’s exactly what Google TV is. It is Android running on a set-top box. The first versions of that are running an Intel processor.

Have demonstrated the same app can run on both a three-inch screen or a flat-panel TV.

People are building all kinds of things. Refrigerators, ovens, automotive. Rubin says the nice thing about open source is that he and Google don’t have to be involved in every use. “We knew what to do to make it scale as widely as possible.”

7:58 pm: Question about carrier data plans and pricing.

Rubin: Average usage on an Android phone is 440MB a month. Rubin points out we are at a bandwidth crunch, but that it tends to be a cycle. New networks tend not to be overwhelmed by demand at first, but then the demands grow. Then new networks come along.

How should OEMs try to differentiate?

Rubin: I think HTC has done a really good job with Sense. Motorola has Blur. People are really differentiated.

Rubin says he often hears complaints about fragmentation. “Fragmentation” is the wrong word. Different phones do things differently, but that’s differentiation. Basically the apps are still compatible, Rubin says.

8:04 pm: Is Android too clunky? Will we see a sea change where Android really gets more user friendly?

Rubin: I would probably characterize Android today as an enthusiast product for early adopters–or wives of tech enthusiasts.

8:05 pm: Rubin says the company made some concessions that led to “geeking it out.” But then there are apps that offer easier customization and personalization.

8:07 pm: Walt points out places where it requires an extra step to do things like compose an email, while the iPhone does it in a single step.

Rubin: Yep. We get it. You will see the fruits of that investment in the tablets first and then in the phones. It’s going to get better. Honeycomb will be a good start

8:08 pm: Applause and they exit stage. ‘Night.

Investor Jitters a Factor in Failed Seagate Deal

Therese Poletti — Thu, 02 Dec 2010 21:22:34 +0000

A few years ago, former Seagate Technology PLC Chief Executive Bill Watkins made an analogy comparing the hard-disk industry to Rodney Dangerfield.

“I think it’s unfair not to respect a commodity,” Watkins told Newsweek in 2007. “There’s a tremendous amount of technology in this commodity.”

Yet for the most part, investors have given the hard-drive business, with its razor-thin profit margins, short shrift. A valuation debate, plus a nagging fear about the potential obsolescence of hard disks, may have been the two biggest factors in Seagate’s failure to reach a deal to go private.

Most analysts, however, believe that the deal collapsed purely over price.

Read the rest of this post on the original site

No One Is Happy With the FCC Chairman's Speech, Except Broadband Investors

Arik Hesseldahl — Wed, 01 Dec 2010 20:52:29 +0000

Everyone has something to say about today’s speech by FCC Chairman Julius Genachowski on the subject of net neutrality (video below). Having been blocked in the courts from imposing sanctions on Comcast for throttling users of BitTorrent, the commission has been spinning its wheels trying to find a way to nudge the broadband industry in a direction toward treating all Internet content fairly.

To Genachowski and network neutrality proponents, a bit is a bit is a bit, and your broadband service provider should have nothing to say in blocking you from using the services and applications that you choose and saying what you want to say so long as you’re not breaking any laws.

It makes sense until you hear rebuttals from the providers who spend billions to build the networks, arguing that they should have some right to protect their networks from cases where the heaviest users–video-downloading BitTorrent users are the classic example–can degrade the experience of other users. Think of it as “My network, my rules.”

Without the legal authority to force net neutrality on the providers, Genachowski has circulated draft rules that would instead require them to disclose what they intend to throttle and why, so that consumers can more intelligently choose whom they’re going to do business with. If there are going to be rules, put them on a sign where all can see them before walking in the door, he’s saying here.

Gone is the talk of reclassifying broadband, which some had described as a sort of “nuclear option” that would potentially give the FCC the authority to force net neutrality on the carriers, and would have probably led to more pointless, expensive lawsuits.

The big shift came when Genachowski said he’d be open to “business innovation to promote network investment and efficient use of networks, including measures to match price to cost such as usage-based pricing.”

That means broadband providers can start creating variable price plans under which consumers will pay more for using more.

Oh, and the wireless Internet? It’s too early in its lifetime to impose any rules on it. The FCC, he said, “would closely monitor the development of the mobile broadband market and be prepared to step in to further address anti-competitive or anti-consumer conduct as appropriate.”

The reactions have been predictable:

It’s “not perfect,” but it’s reasonable, says Kyle McSlarrow, president of the National Cable & Telecommunications Association. If the order changes materially, however, the group reserves the right to fight it.

It’s a step in the right direction but needs to be “strengthened,” says Gigi Sohn of Public Knowledge, a Washington, D.C., public interest group.

Tyrone Brown of the Media Access Project says he is “very disappointed.” By taking the reclassification option off the table, the FCC loses a key piece of the legal authority it would otherwise need to require service providers to extend broadband service to people who don’t currently have access, which has been a key objective of the Obama administration.

Josh Silver, president of FreePress, another policy organization that advocates for net neutrality, called it “fake Net Neutrality” and said that “Genachowski is taking the same exact approach to splitting the open Internet into fast and slow lanes that Verizon and Google proposed last summer.”

Republican FCC Commissioners Robert McDowell and Meredith Attwell Baker essentially promised to vote against the proposal when it comes before the commission on Dec. 21. Only Congress, Baker said, should decide if the Internet is to be regulated. Unlikely with the GOP taking control of the House in less than a month. “We don’t have authority to act,” he said.

After all that: Comcast stock is up 4 percent today; Verizon shares up one percent; Time-Warner shares are up more than two percent; Cablevision shares are up about 1.5 percent. This news will be a boon to broadband providers, says Sanford Bernstein analyst Craig Moffett in a research note issued today.

Usage-based broadband plans are probably soon to follow, which would be good for business because consumers would probably embrace them. One question for all the critics: Would that be so bad?

Here’s the video of the speech:

The eMoney Ribbon Cutting

Tricia Duryee — Wed, 01 Dec 2010 13:28:50 +0000

Welcome to the grand opening of eMoney.

I’m Tricia Duryee, one of the latest additions to All Things Digital. You may know me from the three years I spent at mocoNews, where I wrote about the mobile industry, or before that, as a technology reporter at the Seattle Times. Going forward, I will write about e-commerce and gaming, as well as all sorts of financial machinations.

As you might expect, I will be reporting on some of the more traditional companies in the space, such as Amazon, Walmart, Microsoft, Nintendo and Sony.

But there will also be strong emphasis on a handful of start-ups that are currently doing their best to upset the status quo. In this bucket, I see three categories emerging: Virtual goods, social-and-group-buying companies and mobile payments.

The dollars are really starting to ring up in these areas, even after such a short period of time. In just three years, Zynga has signed up 320 million registered users, has hired 1,300 employees and is estimated to have $500 million in 2010 revenues with a roughly $5 billion private-market valuation.

Likewise, the two-year-old Groupon is being sought by Google, which BoomTown’s Kara Swisher reports may offer up to $6 billion to get a foothold in the social-buying business and gain a local sales force across the country.

And finally, mobile will be an increasingly hot topic as consumers use their devices for every part of this value chain–from discovering deals to researching recommendations to substituting their wallet for a phone. Among other topics, there’s a flurry of contenders challenging Visa and MasterCard for its merchant fees, which were estimated to have totaled $7 billion in the U.S. over the past year.

Generally, when I think of this coverage area, I see one central theme: How will people make money, and how will consumers pay? Will games be purchased, or will they be ad-supported? Or, will consumers buy one virtual tractor at a time?

The debate reminds me of what Zynga’s CEO and founder, Mark Pincus, said at a recent event, where Kleiner Perkins announced a new fund dedicated to social.

Said Pincus:

“We are massively under-invested across the board in the ‘user-pay economy.’ There’s been this wrong assumption for first-generation Web services that it has to be free with ads. We believe in a model that is supported by users. That’s not just games and virtual goods. There’s a lot of newly created valuable digital goods and services products.”

What will these new services and products be? Will these new models be sustainable? How will they evolve over time? As I look at how it all adds up, I’ll be relying on a lot of you to tell me the important stories that illustrate how we’ve gotten here and where we are going.

And I’ll be wasting no time, as I immediately jump into one of the busiest times of the years–the holiday shopping season!

Online, of course.

[Photo Credit: donebythehandsofabrokenartist]

Palm, Qualcomm Chiefs Weigh Wireless Future

Ina Fried — Wed, 01 Dec 2010 02:32:02 +0000

Palm-CEO-turned-HP-exec Jon Rubinstein and Qualcomm CEO Paul Jacobs faced off with Kara Swisher of All Things Digital at a Churchill Club event last night in an entertaining discussion on the future of mobile tech.

If you missed the live video feed of the event, check back with us–we’re working to repost the video. For those who want to read text, here is my liveblog of the event.

6:48 pm PT: We’re just finishing dinner. It was a chicken in some sort of puff pastry. Nothing is happening onstage, as if that wasn’t clear by the fact I am describing the meal. I think they will get started around 7:15 or so.

7:10 pm: Just about ready to go, with intros going on now. (And I just stole Kara’s seat at the head table.)

Kara: They’re both guys. Paul is taller and they work in tech.

7:14 pm: The plan is to talk about the future, but the event begins with a trip down memory lane as Jacobs holds up the Qualcomm PDQ–arguably the first smartphone combining a cellphone and Palm Pilot. For those who don’t remember, it it was bigger than a Palm Pilot and a huge phone strapped together.

7:20 pm: Digital device history continues. We’ve traced the last decade in digital devices, from the iPod through the Treo and iPhone. Don’t forget ringtones and cellphone bowling, Jacobs reminds us, referring to the Brew operating environment that Qualcomm developed.

The iPhone changed everything, Jacobs says, because it showed that the phone makers just weren’t putting enough work into the phone’s user interface.

7:28 pm: Talk is shifting to where we are today. What are the key things that are shifting? User interfaces, touch, etc. “The other things we are seeing is all of our lives are moving into the cloud,” Rubinstein says. On the limitation side, Jacobs points to the limitations of bandwidth: “We don’t have enough spectrum right now,” Jacobs says, adding that the industry and government are working on it. ‘We are just going to have to be more creative about how we get content to the devices.”

The other big limitation, Jacobs says, is battery life. You can do all this cool stuff on your phone, but then the battery dies three-quarters of the way through the day. He puts in a plug for Mirasol–Qualcomm’s low-power display technology.

Rubinstein concurs that battery and bandwidth are the two biggest issues. “Battery technology has not progressed at the same rate as all of the other things we are trying to do,” Rubinstein says.

7:38 pm: What about all the operating systems out there, Kara asks. Rubinstein: “There’s plenty of room in the market for multiple systems,” he says, adding it won’t be like PCs, where one operating system dominates. “It’s just different today.”

Rubinstein says it’s still the infancy of the major transition. Put on the spot to rank the operating systems, Rubinstein says that clearly Apple and Android are going gangbusters. The battle, he says, is for who is going to be No. 3. “We’d sure like to be that.”

Jacobs: “I agree. It’s very early days to be calling winners and losers.” He sees pretty wide diversity of operating systems, at least for the next five years, unless the operators really clamp down. Even then, there are some alternate distribution channels emerging. Either way, Qualcomm’s in good shape as an arms dealer, he points out.

7:45 pm: Discussion of carriers. While they are immensely powerful, Rubinstein says they won’t be the only distribution channel for every wireless device. “They are not all going to go through the carriers,” Rubinstein says.

More and more screens will emerge, Rubinstein says. If I fast-forward enough years, he says, the walls are going to be big displays capable of talking to other devices.

Jacobs notes that people will be able to use their device with any tool they have access to, from a big screen to a headset to a wireless keyboard. He says Qualcomm is working on a technology that would allow wireless headsets that could work in-ear like a hearing aid.

7:50 pm: Talk about some outlandish things. Rubinstein has already thrown out the idea of a headset in your pillow. Rubinstein points out that there will be a lot of sensors, pointing to the Nike+iPod as a really early example of what we can expect a lot more of.

7:55 pm: Augmented reality is also going to be big, the panelists agree. “The (StarTrek) tricorder is going to happen,” Jacobs says. Health care will also tap mobile technology, particularly in emerging countries where there is less regulation, carriers are trusted and there are fewer skilled health care providers available. “It’s a very efficient way to manage health,” he says. “Over the next few years we will see this happen,” he says. Eventually it will come back to developed markets, but today there is too much legacy and too much regulation in places like the U.S.

8:10 pm: Sorry for the delay–we were fixing some issues with the video coding, which hopefully should be solved now. Anyway, Rubinstein and Jacobs have been throwing out things that they expect in the next five years.

Jacobs’s list includes digital networked textbooks, cellphones as gateways for health care, as well as using augmented reality to translate all the signs and menus in a foreign country.

Rubinstein and Jacobs both see a digital wallet becoming a reality, with Jacobs throwing out the idea of an end to checkout lines as the phone could pay and the store could electronically disable the security on goods, allowing the whole transaction to take place without interaction with store personnel.

“Legal shoplifting, that’s interesting.” Kara says.

The technical hurdles aren’t that big, Rubinstein says. “Clearly NFC (near-field communications) is coming.” It’s more of a social problem than a technical one, Rubinstein says.

8:21 pm: Some good audience questions. One, on what does it take to deliver an Apple-like experience. Rubinstein, who has experience as part of Apple and trying to “out-Apple” Apple, says he thinks that the key is delivering an intergrated experience.

“I don’t think Apple is the only one that can do it, but I do think it is important to have all the elements,” he says.

Another question is on the future of mobile TV–a question that prompts Jacobs to cover his face (Qualcomm spent a bundle on its MediaFlo mobile TV service that saw very limited consumer uptake and Qualcomm is now evaluating what to do with it).

Too few people liked what the service had to offer, Jacobs says, referring to limits on content, screen size, etc. Jacobs said it appears that probably broadcast makes sense for live events, while streaming with TiVo-like controls makes sense for everything else.

“I actually believe strongly in mobile TV, still,” he says.

8:30 pm: Okay. That’s a wrap from me. Thanks for tuning in. If you want to hear more from Rubinstein, he will be speaking at next week’s D: Dive Into Mobile conference.

Intel Offers Silicon With New Packages, Deals

Don Clark — Tue, 23 Nov 2010 08:00:02 +0000

Most personal computer makers buy chips the way Intel wants to offer them. But the technology giant has learned it needs to be more flexible in other markets, as an unusual arrangement with another Silicon Valley company shows.

Intel on Monday detailed plans to begin offering a version of its Atom microprocessor–best known as the calculating engine inside millions of low-end portables called netbooks–that the company is packaging along with a different sort of a chip supplied by Altera. The combination is designed for what industry executives call “embedded” applications, a loose term that refers to office equipment, cars, medical devices, industrial machines and just about anything that is not a computer.

Companies designing such products are a key focus for Intel as it tries to diversify beyond PCs. They often need special circuitry to handle chores that aren’t easily carried out by general-purpose microprocessors, like Atom.

Read the rest of this post on the original site

Goodbye, Free TV on Your iPad. For Now…

Peter Kafka — Tue, 23 Nov 2010 02:05:35 +0000

The only surprise here is that it took this long: A federal court has put the kibosh on a Web site that served up programming from broadcast TV networks for free, without their permission.

A federal judge in New York has issued a temporary restraining order against FilmOn.com, which has riled up the U.S. TV industry for a couple of months. The four broadcast networks–News Corp.’s Fox, GE’s NBC, Disney’s ABC and CBS–had asked for the order on Nov. 9.

FilmOn argues that the U.S. copyright act allows it to redistribute broadcast programming; Ivi Inc., a Seattle-based company that offers a similar service, makes the same argument.

FilmOn offers a free service that’s supposed to work on conventional PCs, as well as on mobile devices like Apple’s iPad. As of Monday evening it wasn’t clear whether FilmOn had actually taken down the streams, or if the service was simply misfiring, as it has been prone to do.

UPDATE: Here’s FilmOn’s response, issued Tuesday morning:

FILMON.COM, INC. ISSUES RESPONSE REGARDING NEW YORK SOUTHERN DISTRICT COURT’S RULING ON CBS BROADCASTING, INC., ET AL v. FILMON.COM, INC., TEMPORARY RESTRAINING ORDER

Los Angeles, CA – November 23, 2010 –FilmOn.com Inc. CEO and Chairman, Alki David today issued the following statement regarding the ruling made by the New York Southern District Court, which issued a temporary restraining order, in effect pending the court’s decision on if it will issue a preliminary injunction.

“We respect the Court’s decision in this matter and have temporarily ceased retransmission of free network television on FilmOn. In the few weeks FilmOn provided free access to basic television on consumers’ mobile devices, it received more than 30 million individual users. We also garnered dozens of positive reviews about our free service’s quality and ease of use. We have, in essence, shown full proof of concept of the FilmOn delivery system–proving that millions of viewers will watch our superior television service online, all with commercials, adding millions of extra impressions that enhance network’s value to its viewers and advertisers.”

“FilmOn has succeeded in securing partnerships with several independent broadcast channels to be able to keep a compelling live offering online in the near future. Coupled with our own library of content and that of our partners, FilmOn will remain open for business. “

We do expect to bring the major networks back to our lineup in the near future, all in a legitimate and collaborative business model. We have already begun very positive discussions with TV networks affiliates and other content owners to provide our delivery service and measurement analytics to stream their live content online.

Scott Zarin, Zarin & Associates P.C., legal counsel for FilmOn added:

“In addressing FilmOn’s argument that it is exempt from copyright infringement liability as a cable system, the court indicated that it was not convinced–on the facts currently known to it–which this is the case. Although the court issued a Temporary Restraining Order, it is providing FilmOn with an opportunity to elaborate upon its ‘cable system’ argument more thoroughly in a hearing on the Networks’ request for a preliminary injunction.

“FilmOn will be drafting papers in opposition to the Networks’ motion for a preliminary injunction in the coming weeks, with which it expects to submit to the court the opinion of an expert on FilmOn’s technology in order to demonstrate that FilmOn is indeed a cable system. If FilmOn successfully opposes the Networks’ motion for a preliminary injunction, the court’s Temporary Restraining Order–which by law can only remain in effect for a short duration–will be dissolved.”

Zynga Chooses Facebook, Yet Again, for Exclusive Launch of Next Game: CityVille

Liz Gannes — Thu, 18 Nov 2010 02:00:20 +0000

Zynga may make “social games,” but they do not foster much in the way of complex or rewarding social interaction. The company is trying to change that, and today is announcing its next game, CityVille, which it calls its most social offering to date. CityVille (of course) is a cutesy simulation game in which users work to turn a small town into a big city.

What’s different is that rather than playing in their own siloed version of the game, friends can place businesses in each other’s cities, and benefit from the success of these franchises. CityVille also uses 3-D rendered buildings and characters and will be released in five languages, both things Zynga has never done before.

But for all those firsts, the game will only be released on Facebook. Zynga is of course working to diversify its platforms, adding iPhone, iPad, Android and Yahoo. But as a matter of priorities, said CityVille general manager Sean Kelly, “We feel like Facebook is the best partner to prove out.”

Kelly, who previously was GM of Zynga’s FishVille, declined to say how long Zynga had been developing CityVille, or how many people were on his team. However, he said this was the “first job ever” for half of his developers, and that his team also included game industry veterans from places like Blizzard, as well as longer-term employees of Zynga. Plus, one CityVille product manager came from Harvard Business School, so he helped the team create its in-game franchising arrangements. And an architect advised on how to properly build structures within the game.

This is only Zynga’s third game launch this year, after Treasure Isle and FrontierVille. The actual release of CityVille will be sometime over the next few ~~days~~ Update: weeks, based on the alignment of the stars and other factors.

Warner Music Still Pining for Google. But What About Spotify?

Peter Kafka — Wed, 17 Nov 2010 15:00:23 +0000

The good news for Warner Music Group: Digital revenue growth, anemic earlier this year, has perked up a bit. The bad news: It’s still not enough to counter dropping CD sales, which continue to account for the majority of the industry’s revenue.*

And while Warner, and the rest of the industry, had been hoping that Google might launch a music service that would give sales a boost this year, that doesn’t look likely. The new hope: Google arrives sometime next year.

That’s the line from Warner CEO Edgar Bronfman Jr. during his company’s earnings call this morning. Bronfman said he’s hoping that Google and other services “will come online in calendar 2011,” and that they’ll create “very significant opportunity both for consumers and the music industry.”

Any more detail than that? Nope.

But Bronfman did have a few nice things to say about Spotify, the much-hyped music service that has yet to launch in the U.S. Warner has renewed its European licensing deal with the service, which offers both free and subscription options, and Bronfman murmured some hopeful things about getting something done in America.

In Europe, the new Spotify deal “was a long time coming, [and] was not easy for us, and not easy for them,” Bronfman said, and says he’s “hopeful” the two companies can reach an agreement.

As I’ve previously reported, music sources say that Spotify and Sony have essentially reached an agreement for a U.S. launch. And the consensus seems to be that the service is close to getting something done with Universal Music Group, the world’s largest label.

So the question for Spotify is whether it needs to get Warner on board before it can launch in the U.S., something it continues to insist it wants to do this year.

Spotify officials have previously said that they’d only go forward with three of the big four labels on board, which makes sense–no point in launching a service that doesn’t have lots of the music people want to hear.

On the other hand, if the Spotify guys wait to get Warner–or EMI Music Group, the other major label–on board before launching, they could get held up for quite some time.

Speaking of EMI Music, what does Bronfman think of the label’s deal with Apple that brought the Beatles to iTunes? He thinks what most of you think: “I don’t know how impactful, after 10 or 12 years of digital business, their coming to iTunes will be,” he said.

But it does give Apple the ability to run a very cool marketing campaign, and that will get more people into iTunes. And that’s good for Warner–and everyone else who sells stuff there.

*You really can’t stress this point enough: We’re a decade past Napster, but the music industry still runs on CD sales. In Warner’s case, digital now accounts for 25 percent of overall revenue.

Don't Count on Music Subscriptions or Streaming From Apple Tomorrow

Peter Kafka — Mon, 15 Nov 2010 18:20:56 +0000

What’s Apple planning at its iTunes announcement tomorrow? Good question!

But I’ll be very surprised if it is music related–like a new music subscription service, or even one that lets you stream music you already own to multiple devices.

(UPDATE: The Wall Street Journal says that Apple has finally signed the Beatles to an iTunes deal to be announced “soon”. Which makes tomorrow’s announcement a much easier guess.)

It’s easy to understand why Apple might head in that direction: Generally, because it seems inevitable and because Google has been talking about doing something similar. And specifically, because Apple has that shiny new North Carolina data center to play with.

But the music industry sources I’ve talked to so far today don’t know of any new deals between Apple and the big music labels. So that would rule out a new subscription service, which would definitely require a new rights deal.

And that also makes it very unlikely that Apple does the next best thing: Letting users upload their iTunes catalog to the cloud, and letting them access it anywhere they want.

Does Apple have to get a special deal with the labels in order to do that? Not necessarily. Some start-ups are offering similar services, without a deal (though one of them, MP3tunes, is getting sued).

And you can make a common-sense argument that simply storing someone’s data, then letting them access it again, shouldn’t require a deal. But the labels argue that it does.

So unless Apple wants to make them go ballistic–and freak out the movie and TV studios, the folks that Steve Jobs really wants to court–it’s hard to see Apple announcing a service without signed paperwork.

Okay. So what are they announcing? Again–got me. Hoping to find out before tomorrow, but if not I’ll be watching at 10 am Eastern like the rest of you.

Apple's Song Remains the Same, But Could Get Longer

Peter Kafka — Wed, 03 Nov 2010 10:09:51 +0000

Apple appears ready for an extended play: It’s about to offer 90-second samples of songs for sale at its iTunes store, up from the industry-standard 30 seconds. Apple has been trying to offer the feature for months, and CNET says the company may still be negotiating with labels and publishers for the rights. But if the move helps sell more music, there’s no reason for the industry not to embrace it: Digital song sales have been stagnating.

Michael Jackson Can't Help Sony Music Any More

Peter Kafka — Fri, 29 Oct 2010 13:37:02 +0000

Michael Jackson was such a huge star that he was able to stop the music industry’s perpetual slide: In the aftermath of his death last year, sales perked up at Sony’s music arm, which puts out the singer’s catalog.

But there’s no star big enough to permanently stop gravity. Now that Jackson sales have come back to earth, Sony reports that last quarter’s sales dropped another 10.8 percent, or a mere 6 percent if you strip out the effect of currency fluctuations. Operating income dropped 6.1 percent.

Reminder: Digital music sales, which were eventually supposed to overtake physical sales and push revenue back up once again, aren’t doing the trick. In the U.S., sales via Apple’s iTunes and other outlets are either flat or shrinking, depending on the sales data you’re looking at. (Which should make the labels either less likely or more likely to get deals done with the likes of Spotify. Take your pick!)

Meanwhile: Did you buy, or hear of, any of the following? Sony says they were bestsellers, at least comparatively: Yui’s “Holidays in the Sun,” Miliyah Kato’s “Heaven,” Kana Nishino’s “To Love,” Yannick Noah’s “Frontières,” Santana’s “Guitar Heaven: The Greatest Guitar Classics of All Time” and Kenny Chesney’s “Hemingway’s Whiskey.”

UPDATE: Billboard editor Bill Werde notes that Sony plans to release more Jackson this year, so perhaps it can wring out another bump. He also notes that he’s heard of Kenny Chesney. Me too! But I was surprised to learn that Yannick Noah has a post-tennis career as a musician.