AllThingsD » launch

Private Spacecraft Lifts Off Toward Space Station

Andy Pasztor — Tue, 22 May 2012 11:30:45 +0000

The first private spacecraft aiming to dock with the international space station blasted off from Florida early Tuesday with split-second precision, but the biggest tests for the mission are still days ahead.

The predawn skies around Cape Canaveral filled with the bright glow and deep rumble of Space Exploration Technologies Corp.’s Falcon 9 rocket lifting off the pad, carrying an unmanned Dragon spacecraft on a highly anticipated test flight scheduled to last about two weeks. Within three minutes, the Falcon 9 reached a velocity of 10 times the speed of sound, with the first stage dropping off and the second stage continuing to speed toward orbit.

Read the rest of this post on the original site »

Sony PlayStation Vita Launches in U.S., Europe

Lauren Goode — Wed, 22 Feb 2012 13:53:22 +0000

Sony’s new handheld gaming product, the PlayStation Vita, goes on sale today in Europe and the U.S. Following its initial launch in Japan in December, the device was plagued by some reported bugs, including crashes and gameplay lags, but Sony quickly issued a software update to address the issues. As The Wall Street Journal’s Katie Boehret notes in her review of the Vita, the 3G and Wi-Fi capable Vita costs $299; the Wi-Fi-only version costs $249.

Jildy, Whose Patents Google Owns and Facebook Licenses, Launches Its First App

Liz Gannes — Tue, 27 Dec 2011 20:28:15 +0000

When the early social search engine Wowd started to wind down last year, its assets were divided among three parties: Facebook, which “acqhired” seven of its engineers and licensed its technology; Jildy, a new start-up created by a Wowd co-founder and backed by Wowd’s venture capitalists, that also licensed the technology; and a “large public company” that bought the patents outright.

Public records now show the buyer was Google.

So yes, indeed, there is a body of social search intellectual property — around things like user-driven ranking of Web pages and a distributed file system — that three companies have the rights to use: Google, Facebook and the virtually unknown start-up Jildy.

Last week Jildy released its very first product: An iPhone app for clustering and sorting Facebook friends and status updates.

It’s kind of similar to Katango, a friend-sorting app that Google recently bought for an undisclosed sum.

The Jildy interface is rudimentary and so far only includes Facebook data, but it already provides some interesting tools to those who want to slice and dice their social streams.

Jildy gives users tools to monitor four types of lists:

keyword-based searches of their friends’ status messages that they can set up manually
algorithmically created lists of friends who are friends with each other (this is like what Katango did, but Jildy users can both read and write to the lists of people)
demographically created lists, like male friends and female friends, or San Francisco friends and New York friends
any lists that users have already created on Facebook

Then, Jildy tries to find out the top five to seven people or topics within each of those lists, so a user can quickly dive in and see what’s happened recently.

In the next couple of weeks, Jildy plans to add notifications. So for instance, said Jildy’s Mark Drummond (the co-founder and former CEO of Wowd), a user could be alerted every time a friend mentions a term like “skiing,” “snowboarding” or “Tahoe,” the better to facilitate serendipitous meet-ups on the slopes.

Other upcoming additions should include Twitter and LinkedIn data. Drummond said he also thinks it’s important to help users edit their friend lists to stay updated as social circles change.

On a larger note, the patent wars that plague the mobile device industry haven’t crept into social networking yet, aside from a few defensive buys throughout the years, like the Friendster portfolio (now owned by Facebook) and the Six Degrees patent (bought by LinkedIn’s Reid Hoffman and Zynga’s Mark Pincus, when Pincus was at Tribe.net).

But all the interest in the Wowd patent portfolio — which, to be clear, has not yet been used to build a successful social search product — shows that giants like Facebook and Google are attentively shoring up access to intellectual property in case social patent wars do break out.

It’s kind of ironic (and maybe even a good thing, if you don’t like software patents) that the two rivals have rights to use the very same technology from the same defunct start-up.

Palo Alto, Calif.-based Jildy has seven employees and $650,000 from Draper Fisher Jurvetson and KPG Ventures. To be specific, it has non-exclusive licenses to three awarded patents and six patent applications from Wowd, and owns three more Wowd patents. Drummond said Wowd is in the process of becoming a liquidating trust.

Photo of Mark Drummond by James Duncan Davidson for the Web 2.0 Summit 2009, where Wowd was first announced.

iPad 3 Debut in February? Hmm, Steve's Birthday Is the 24th.

John Paczkowski — Thu, 08 Dec 2011 19:35:49 +0000

Apple’s next generation iPad could debut a month earlier than its predecessor. Industry sources tell Citi analyst Richard Gardner that the iPad 3, or whatever it’s to be called, will launch sometime in February. That’s a month earlier than Apple showed off the iPad 2, and a month later than the original iPad. As far as specs for the device go, Gardner doesn’t have much to say, though he does believe it will have a display with a resolution significantly higher than that of the current model.

Sony's New PlayStation Portable Will Hit Shelves February 22

Tricia Duryee — Tue, 18 Oct 2011 23:59:22 +0000

Sony’s PlayStation Vita will launch in the U.S., Canada, Latin America and Europe on Feb. 22, missing the critical holiday period by a couple of months. The handheld gaming device, with a five-inch touchscreen and dual cameras, was originally announced at E3 in June and delayed in August. It is expected to be released in Japan by the end of the year. The company said the Wi-Fi model will cost $250; a 3G version will cost $50 more.

Jeff Bezos Pitches His New Kindles: The Full Video

Peter Kafka — Thu, 29 Sep 2011 18:43:27 +0000

I liveblogged yesterday’s Kindle Fire + Kindle Touch unveiling, but if you want to see it for yourselves, here you go — here’s all 52 minutes. The Fire reveal comes almost exactly at the 31-minute mark.

And if you’ve got a gripe with the video quality, take it up with Amazon — this is from their official YouTube account.

Most -- But Not All -- Big Magazine Publishers Sign On for Amazon's Tablet

Peter Kafka — Mon, 26 Sep 2011 19:19:22 +0000

In 2010, magazine publishers got giddy about the prospects of selling their stuff on the iPad. This year’s version of the story: Lots of enthusiasm, tempered with a little bit of skepticism, over Amazon’s new tablet.

When Amazon unveils its new iPad-like device on Wednesday, it will have the backing of at least three of the big magazine publishers: Hearst, Conde Nast and Meredith all have deals to sell digital versions of their titles on the new device, according to industry sources.

The notable standout, for now, is Time Warner’s giant Time Inc., which has yet to come to terms with Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos. A person familiar with negotiations suggests that a deal won’t get done in the next two days, either — “hopefully by the end of the year” was the guidance I got today.

Publishing sources say Amazon’s terms will roughly mirror the ones that Apple has established with most magazines this year: Publishers will keep around 70 percent of all Amazon sales, and the retailer will share some customer data with the publishers. The deals aren’t cookie cutter replicas, however, and in some cases Amazon may take a little more or less than 70 percent, depending on the title and the customer offer.

It’s worth noting that Time Inc., the likely holdout for Wednesday’s launch, has yet to completely embrace Apple’s subscription terms as well. The publisher sells individual titles through Apple’s App Store but has yet to strike a deal to sell subscriptions directly from the platform.

Industry sources say publishers have tailored some of their titles for the seven-inch tablet that Amazon plans to unveil on Wednesday, with the expectation that the company will roll out a bigger version that is closer in size to the iPad next year. Both tablets will use Google’s Android operating system.

The publishers who are on board with Amazon view their decision to link up as a no-brainer: They want more distribution channels for their stuff, not fewer. And they’ve been begging, unsuccessfully, for a credible competitor to the iPad since April 2010.

There’s no guarantee that Amazon will be one either, of course. But if you’re going to try to sell stuff, it doesn’t hurt to sell it through the world’s biggest e-commerce platform.

“You’ve got beauty and design with Apple, which we love,” says a publisher who has an Amazon deal. “But with Amazon you have marketing, and ease of use. We’re very optimistic.”

And Amazon has another compelling reason for publishers to join up: It’s already a huge partner for many of them, as a marketing platform for their ink-and-paper titles. Hearst and Amazon spelled out that relationship in a press release earlier this month, which noted that “Amazon will become Hearst’s single-largest third-party seller of print subscriptions for its magazines via digital channels.”

It's Called Google Propeller and It's Aimed at Flipboard (and Facebook, Too, Natch)

Kara Swisher — Fri, 16 Sep 2011 00:25:10 +0000

Please see this disclosure related to me and Google.

Earlier today, well-known digerati dude Robert Scoble posted on his social feed on Google+ that the search giant was working on a social and news reader.

“I heard from someone working with Google that Google is working on a Flipboard competitor for both Android and iPad,” posted Scoble. “My source says that the versions he’s seen so far are mind-blowing good.”

If blowing the minds of hot Silicon Valley start-up Flipboard and Facebook is the goal, then Scooby-Don’t's rumor is pretty spot-on.

According to numerous sources close to the situation, Google is indeed working on rolling out the new product, which is currently called Propeller.

Sources said Propeller is apparently one of a number of new socially focused announcements Google is prepping, including new apps. But the timing for their launch is unclear.

Here’s what is: Propeller is a souped-up version of similar reader apps such as Flipboard, AOL’s Editions, Yahoo’s Livestand, Zite (which was just bought by Time Warner’s CNN) and Pulse.

Facebook is also making social versions of publications available within its site. So, instead of just seeing a sidebar on a news site of what stories your friends liked, you’ll get a personalized and reformatted version of the latest news when you visit that publication’s page within Facebook.

All these apps are part of the drastically changing habits of media consumers, helping them better navigate numerous social and media feeds — such as Facebook and Twitter, as well as news sites and more — using handsome interfaces and touch technologies.

Flipboard is the most prominent and elegant of these offerings, available only on the Apple iPad. The company is working on an iPhone version, too.

Flipboard’s traction among elite users, along with its high-level design ethos and strong reviews, is why Google tried to buy the well-funded company last year, sources said.

But Flipboard — which is backed by some of tech’s biggest venture players, who have invested more than $60 million at a $200 million valuation — declined the kind offer.

At the time, sources said, Google told Flipboard execs that if it did not buy the start-up, it planned to do a version of its own.

Hence, after I heard about the product earlier this year, I dubbed it the Flipinator.

Propeller is probably a better name, I will admit.

It’s not clear what Google’s Propeller will include in the product, such as Facebook integration, since the pair of Silicon Valley behemoths have not been able to partner over data exchange.

Which is an understatement, I know.

But sources said it would be available on both Apple’s iPad and Google’s Android tablets.

In any case, stay tuned and thanks to Scoobs for the tip!

[Photo credit: This Noogler Propeller Hat -- which is given to all new Googlers -- is in the collection at the Computer History Museum, the gift of Marcin Wichary; the image is by Mark Richards.]

Windows 8: Here Comes Another Football (Comic)

Nitrozac and Snaggy — Thu, 15 Sep 2011 16:03:20 +0000

Here is the latest comic from our Joy of Tech friends at Geek Culture, Nitrozac and Snaggy. Joy of Tech appears three times a week in the Voices section of this site.

Mossberg on Jobs (Video)

Kara Swisher — Thu, 25 Aug 2011 02:51:41 +0000

Here’s a video of Walt Mossberg — who perhaps knows the outgoing Apple CEO and co-founder Steve Jobs better than anyone else covering tech — talking about his career in a video he recently did for The Wall Street Journal.

Mossberg also did a great essay on the departure of Jobs from his job as CEO of the iconic computer company today.

Also below is a chitchat the pair had at the Apple iPad launch event in early 2010, which is pretty interesting to see, too:

Both are well worth a watch:

[ See post to watch video ]

Throttle Back Those Hypersonic Dreams

John Murrell — Thu, 11 Aug 2011 17:48:40 +0000

This morning, DARPA’s Falcon Hypersonic Technology Vehicle 2 was successfully launched over the Pacific on its second test flight. It separated from its booster, went into glide mode at the edge of space, bound for Mach 20, and … nothing. Sadly, much like the first test flight in April 2010, the aircraft stopped sending back data and headed to a watery grave. Hey, if it were easy, it wouldn’t require advanced research.

DARPA: That's Mach 20, Baby

Kara Swisher — Wed, 10 Aug 2011 13:50:21 +0000

In an onstage interview at the ninth D: All Things Digital conference in June, Regina Dugan — who is director of the federal government’s Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency — riveted the crowd by talking about a plane in development that can fly at a speed of Mach 20.

That would be 13,000 miles per hour, or 20 times the speed of sound.

Now DARPA is trotting out the Falcon Hypersonic Technology Vehicle 2 for its second and final launch this morning at 7 am PT from Vandenberg Air Force Base in California.

According to the DARPA site, the aircraft will be boosted into the atmosphere via a rocket, and will blast around for 30 minutes. (See the chart below for the info as to how it does so.)

On its first outing, the plane already proved it can maintain Global Positioning System (GPS) signals while traveling 3.6 miles per second. But DARPA also lost contact with the vehicle, which had a controlled landing in the ocean.

The goal of the second flight, said DARPA, “is to validate current assumptions and increase technical understanding of the hypersonic flight regime. More than 20 test assets will collect continuous flight data to achieve this goal.”

Cool.

Here’s a video of the full interview at D9, with DARPA director Dugan talking about the Mach 20 flight and more:

[ See post to watch video ]

Apple Launching iPhone 5 in October

John Paczkowski — Mon, 01 Aug 2011 09:40:07 +0000

So those rumors claiming the iPhone 5 will debut in late September? They’re wrong.

Instead, it’s going to be an October surprise — the month in which Apple plans to launch its next-gen iPhone.

Sources with knowledge of the situation say reports claiming AT&T has blacked out employee vacations during the last two weeks of September in preparation for the retail debut of the next iPhone are misinformed.

“I don’t know why AT&T’s calling for all hands on deck those weeks, but it’s not for an iPhone launch,” a source familiar with Apple’s plans said.

So when can we expect the company to uncrate the iPhone 5?

“October,” the source said, while declining to offer a hard-launch date. Other sources said it will be later in the month, rather than earlier.

The source offered no details on the device’s design, but supply-chain chatter has previously indicated that the iPhone 5 will use the faster A5 processor on which the iPad 2 runs, a Qualcomm dual mode GSM/CDMA baseband, and a higher resolution eight-megapixel rear camera.

Why a Free Ticket to Spotify Is Worth $3

Peter Kafka — Fri, 15 Jul 2011 19:30:27 +0000

So you’ve heard everyone talking about Spotify, and now you’d like to try it yourself.

Except there’s a line outside the door, and you don’t want to wait. (Even though that line is one of the reasons you want in.)

So you have a couple options:

1) Pay up: Anyone who actually wants to hand over a credit card and start paying a minimum of $5 a month can hop onto the streaming music service right away.

2) Find one of Spotify’s launch partners, like Coke or Motorola, and see if they’ve got any free passes left to hand out.

The passes are valuable chits Spotify has provided to its launch partners, as part of a larger launch advertising package. How valuable? Well, it turns out that Spotify has put a price on it: In the marketing materials I saw last week, the music service says that those launch invites are worth $3 apiece:

Which turns out, maybe not that coincidentally, to be what Spotify invites are selling for on eBay right now (so that’s a third option, too).

[Image credit: Wikipedia]

Google+ Exec Is Now Really Plus One

Kara Swisher — Wed, 06 Jul 2011 04:01:05 +0000

Usually, I don’t fall for this kind of stuff, but the posting on Google+ by one of the key execs involved in its recent launch, Bradley Horowitz, is too adorkable to resist.

In a post tonight, he announced his engagement to fellow Google exec Irene Au, complete with a photo of the ring in a pretty dish. Horowitz asked her last week in Paris.

Both also worked at Yahoo.

In the status update — which begins “She said yes!” — Horowitz noted, “Having gotten through the trivial details of launching Google+ (!), I recently turned my attention to more important matters…”

And, in an email to me about it, Horowitz wrote (judiciously for both Google and Au): “And just to be clear…I got her *permission* to make it public. (So I’m off to a good start, eh?)”

Like I said, adorkable.

Your move, Facebook!

Samsung Mobile Scraps May 24 Launch Event in New York

Ina Fried — Mon, 16 May 2011 21:51:12 +0000

Whatever it was that Samsung planned to launch on May 24, it will be a little while longer before it gets launched. Samsung Mobile said on Monday that it is postponing the New York event it had slated for that date. It’s not clear if the event would have been for the U.S. launch of the already announced Galaxy S II, the Galaxy Tab 10.1 or some other device. “We apologize for the inconvenience,” Samsung said in an email to reporters. “We will be in touch soon with more details.”

PlayBook Gets Mixed Support From Carriers

Roger Cheng and Stuart Weinberg — Wed, 20 Apr 2011 22:29:18 +0000

BlackBerry maker Research In Motion Ltd.’s new PlayBook tablet is running into hurdles right out of the gate, as Verizon Wireless says it hasn’t decided whether to carry the device and AT&T Inc. acknowledges it isn’t yet supporting a wireless linkup needed to get email on the tablet.

The stumbles with the two largest U.S. wireless carriers are the latest challenge for RIM and the PlayBook, which launched Tuesday to mixed reviews and criticism that the tablet was rushed to market. RIM needs a successful product to get back in the tablet race and ease concerns about the ground it is losing in the tough market for mobile devices.

The initial version of the PlayBook, unlike Apple Inc.’s iPad and Motorola Mobility Holdings Inc.’s Xoom, doesn’t offer cellular service. RIM is selling the tablet through retailers including Best Buy Co., Office Depot and OfficeMax Inc.

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IPad: The International Language of Gadget Lust

John Paczkowski — Fri, 25 Mar 2011 19:44:17 +0000

The international launch of Apple’s newest iPad is drawing massive lines overseas, even as stores in the States struggle to keep up with demand.

Long queues for the device are being reported pretty much everywhere it’s gone on sale today–France, New Zealand, Scotland, Canada, England and Australia, where ship times for online orders went from 2-3 weeks to 3-4 weeks in a matter of hours.

Demand for the iPad abroad appears to be just as strong as it is at home. And that bodes well for Apple, because demand in the States continues to be very strong indeed: Two weeks after launch there are still lines for the device. “Never before have we seen lines as long or as persistent as the iPad 2 lines at U.S. Apple stores,” Piper Jaffray analyst Gene Munster said today. “Lines at Apple’s flagship store in New York City’s Meatpacking district were upwards of 400 people one week after the iPad 2 launched. And at more typical stores, lines were 30-100 people long waiting for 9am sales of iPad 2 shipments, which are selling out before the stores open at 10 am.”

Nintendo's 3DS Brings Dizzying Fun On the Go

Katherine Boehret — Tue, 15 Mar 2011 22:35:29 +0000

The first videogame that promises 3-D without the goofy glasses is about to hit stores, but in my tests, it made me a little dizzy.

On March 27, Nintendo is introducing the 3DS. This apparent breakthrough turned negative for some when Nintendo added a warning to the device that said viewing 3-D images by children age 6 and under may cause vision damage.

[ See post to watch video ]

Unaffected by age restrictions, I’ve been using the 3DS for the past week, and it’s a lot of fun—though its chunky design looks like the company is taking a step back rather than forward. Its 3-D screen works as advertised without 3-D glasses, though its effects can’t be seen from side angles, so friends trying to peek at the screen won’t see much. It made me a bit dizzy after a while, so I adjusted a 3-D Depth Slider to make the screen images appear less three-dimensional. This slider, or a setting in parental controls, can turn off the 3-D.

The videogame industry has a lot riding on Nintendo’s launch. Sales of new videogame consoles in 2010 fell 13% to $6.29 billion from $7.19 billion a year earlier, according to market-research firm NPD Group. Sales have begun edging up in the past few months following the launch in November of Microsoft Corp.’s Kinect motion-controller for its Xbox 360 console.

The industry is facing competition from sleeker, lighter smartphones which offer good quality, downloadable games free or for a few dollars, much less than the average $40 price for each Nintendo 3DS game. While Nintendo has created products with 3-D capabilities since the mid-1980s, none have caught on. Nintendo 3DS is the result of improvements in screen technology and lower prices for these screens. The company, which is based in Kyoto, Japan, saw no apparent damage to its headquarters after the recent earthquake, a spokesman says. Business operations, including future product shipments, haven’t been affected, he adds.

Nintendo’s competitors aren’t jumping on the portable 3-D bandwagon quite yet. Apple has no intention of introducing a 3-D, portable display anytime soon, say people familiar with the situation. When Sony announced plans for its Next Generation Portable gaming device in January, the company confirmed this device wouldn’t have 3-D. A spokesman says Sony considered including 3-D during the development process for this device, but decided to focus on other features. A Microsoft spokesman says as consumer demand evolves for 3-D, the company is committed to evolving its technology. Both Sony and Microsoft offer 3-D games and movies in the living room via their PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360 consoles.

On March 27, 18 game titles will launch including Nintendogs + cats from Nintendo, and Madden NFL Football and Sims 3 from EA Sports. Almost all Nintendo DS games and DSiWare games will be playable in 2-D on the Nintendo 3DS.

Games that come loaded on the 3DS include Face Raiders and Nintendo 3DS Sound, which plays MP3 or AAC files and mixes your voice using funny sound effects. A Mii Maker program lets people make a Mii (personalized game character) with photos they take with the device. I created a particularly funny looking Mii with features that mirrored some of mine. But these Miis can’t be exported back to the Wii gaming console, where Miis first became popular.

Nintendo’s 3DS has cameras that capture 3-D photos for use in games.

Another cool game called AR Games lets users look through the 3DS cameras at six augmented-reality cards that come with the device. The cards make images more animated and three-dimensional. I found the effect so realistic, I reached out with my hand to make sure the imposed images, like a card with mini bull’s-eyes, weren’t actually on the table in front of me.

The 3DS has a few new features besides 3-D. A new circle pad works like a super flexible joystick for smoother navigation. Two outward-facing, stereo cameras take 3-D photos of friends or things, which can then be used in games. This made the games more personal and fun.

I used the 3-D photos I took in games like Face Raiders, which makes use of its motion and gyro sensors. The 3DS has an Internet browser, which wasn’t available on the device I tested. A Nintendo spokesman says it won’t work on devices until May. Also in May, Nintendo will start offering downloadable games for the 3DS.

Programs called SpotPass and StreetPass allow the 3DS to wirelessly receive or send data on the go even when the device is in sleep mode. SpotPass detects wireless hot spots so the 3DS can download free software, videos or game data. In late May, SpotPass will let users access AT&T’s Wi-Fi hot spots, free of charge. StreetPass lets one 3DS wirelessly exchange data with others within range (roughly 100 feet). A light on the 3DS indicates when the device has received new notifications.

The 3DS can perform other functions in sleep mode, like counting steps for a built-in pedometer. I carried the 3DS in my bag on several occasions throughout a conference and noticed a tiny icon of feet at the top of the screen with a number of steps beside it.

But the addition of 3-D technology to this device meant compromises on some key features. At eight ounces and 0.8-inch thick, the 3DS is slightly heavier and thicker than its comparable predecessor, the Nintendo DSi, which came out in 2009. (Apple’s iPod touch weighs less than half as much and is 0.28-inch thick.)

The 3DS’s estimated battery life is up to five hours while playing 3DS games, while regular Nintendo DS games will last up to eight hours. The DSi’s estimated battery life is up to 14 hours of game play. The 3DS is $100 more expensive than the DSi and its games are also pricier.

The Nintendo 3DS does a good job of incorporating 3-D with photos and games, as long as the games don’t make you feel dizzy. But its clunky form and limited functionality is up against steep competition from smartphones that cost less and offer more games.

Ian Sherr in San Francisco contributed to this article.

Write to Katherine Boehret at katie.boehret@wsj.com

Update: Steve Jobs Bio Moving Forward, But No Launch Date As Yet

Kara Swisher — Tue, 15 Mar 2011 18:42:59 +0000

A little over a year ago, news of a Steve Jobs’ biography, penned by well-known author Walter Isaacson, made the rounds.

Since then, according to numerous sources in Silicon Valley, Isaacson has been busy interviewing well over 100 people in the Apple CEO’s past and present, both inside and outside the company.

That includes current execs at Apple, as well as Jobs’ friends and colleagues, such as Oracle’s Larry Ellison.

Most recently, Isaacson–who has written big, popular biographies other American luminaries, such as Benjamin Franklin and Albert Einstein–was in San Francisco for the iPad 2 launch on March 2.

Unlike others who have written about Jobs, sources said, Isaacson has the legendary tech icon’s full cooperation and participation, but apparently also will maintain control over the book itself.

(Nonetheless, it still might be a good idea to take Jobs’ advice on the cover, since he’s pretty good at design stuff.)

In any case, when and by whom the Jobs bio will be published remains anyone’s guess, since there has been no actual publisher nor release date named yet.

Isaacson, who now heads the Aspen Institute, is currently contracted with the CBS-owned Simon & Schuster, so it seems the likely publisher of what will be one of the most anticipated books in tech.

I suppose such mystery is in keeping with Apple’s tone around the launch of its own products, the next of which is supposedly an iPhone 5 this summer.

Or so we’ve read.

TED Again: Iconic Conference Kicks Off 2011 With Gates, a Data Artist and a Wrongologist!

Kara Swisher — Tue, 01 Mar 2011 14:15:18 +0000

Today, the formal program at the famous TED conference begins, with the theme title: “The Rediscovery of Wonder.”

BoomTown will be flying down to Long Beach, where the event is now held and runs through Friday (and where I will be sadly missing the Apple iPad 2 launch in San Francisco on Wednesday).

As usual, it’s a highly diverse and unusual speaker schedule, full of artists, scientists, educators and architects.

Among the most interesting to me are speakers such as: Data artist Aaron Koblin, who is now creative director of the Data Arts team in Google’s Creative Lab; Wrongologist Kathryn Schulz, who writes a Slate series featuring interviews with high-profile people about how they think and feel about being wrong; and roboticist Dennis Hong.

And, of course, I will be paying mind to whatever Microsoft Co-founder Bill Gates has to say about his latest philanthropy efforts.

There is a lot more you can read about here in TED’s schedule.

What I like a lot about the TED event is that what’s onstage in terrific videos soon appears on its very robust Web site.

I will be taking my own videos, of course, so get ready.

Viral Video: "The Whipped Cream Situation" on TWiT

Kara Swisher — Tue, 01 Mar 2011 08:15:54 +0000

On Sunday, BoomTown tossed my mohawked dog Phineas in the Mini and motored up to lovely Petaluma to appear live and in studio on Leo Laporte’s fine “This Week in Tech” online show.

It was a week full of news–from the about-to-launch Apple iPad to Google taking aim at content farms to the Oscars.

Which is why I wore my Ray-Bans, so stop asking.

The title of this week’s show was due to a story I told about an unfortunate parenting Web snafu I had just experienced when I let my almost nine-year-old son check out Katy Perry’s music video for “California Gurls.”

Let’s just say, I had no idea a whipped-cream bra could exist.

Here’s the video of me, Laporte, as well as Om Malik and Iyaz Akhtar:

Early Adopter: Quick Hits from the Launch Conference

Drake Martinet — Thu, 24 Feb 2011 09:30:11 +0000

Yesterday was the launch of the two-day Launch Conference, a start-up demo orchestrated by entrepreneur Jason Calacanis.

Aside from presiding over the event–playing a cross between a master of ceremonies and Jerry Lewis at a telethon–Calacanis also put together a field of start-up judges to give feedback to the companies. (Full disclosure: BoomTown’s Kara Swisher will serve as a judge this morning.)

At the end, winners will be crowned by winning a combo of judge and audience votes.

But, since nearly every company that has presented thus far has mentioned that they are seeking funding, the real winners will be the ones that go home with a pocket full of checks signed by the angel investors present.

If that focus was ever far from the minds’ of the audience members, they’d be immediately reminded by Calacanis’ shuttling back and forth between the angel investors in the front row, mic in hand, asking them which companies they will be investing in after the show.

Early Adopter took a swing around the demo pit where all the companies present have set up shop, so here are a few quick hits and highlights:

Trend: Deals are the new social.

It seemed everyone who offered a location-based service was also serving you contextual deals of some kind.

One company, Karma Key, gets my vote for most interesting implementation of the deal at Launch.

While it was not the most polished, and has significant hurdles ahead to reach scale, the company hopes to replace all the paper loyalty-cards we carry in our wallets through a combination of low-tech point-of-sale partnerships and high-tech points systems that are more flexible and secure than punching holes.

Karma Key also delivers metrics on loyalty conversion to the merchants.

Trend: Tech your workout.

The only company demo I saw that made every judge sit forward in their chairs with the glee of new user was Zepp Labs, with a product called GolfSense.

Although it’s little more than a three-axis accelerometer (the kind inside your smartphone) worn on a golf glove, the app allows you to view your golf swing in 3D, and get feedback on both the regularity and conformity, so you won’t repeat a bad swing.

There were other fitness-related companies present, but honorable mention for addressing a real pain point goes to Shoefitr–it maps the inside shape and size of running shoes, so you can see how a new model will fit based on your previous shoes. You can even see a 3D model of the inside space of your desired shoe, with a heatmap of where the new shoe will be looser or tighter.

It is already live at Running Warehouse, an online running shoe retailer, and I imagine tools like this will pop up elsewhere soon.

Early Adopter Picks:

Cabana:

The Cabana team made its demo simple, essentially creating a clone of Instagram, the popular photosharing app, on-stage, with no coding.

Most apps rely on a stock series of functions. Cabana allows the app creator to design the app graphically in a visual programming environment (think Yahoo Pipes, or Max MSP, which is popular with artists and musicians).

Several of the judges who started life as developers did quietly grunt in disapproval over not owning your own code, but similar folks once had the same attitude toward WordPress.

OnCompare:

Its quick pitch: OnCompare is like Yelp for software as a service.

If you have a small or medium business, and aren’t sure which cloud file storage system to use, for example, you can answer a few questions and get statistical recommendations from several service providers based on the features they offer.

Those feature-based recommendations are then added to ranks from people with the hope of helping decision-makers be better informed, at a lower cost, without the need for an RFP.

Moso:

This video-editing app, which is currently for sale in the Mac app store, might be called an Instagram for video, or it might be called a Vimeo for control freaks.

The app allows users to live mix effects, text, and transitions into video (without rendering time) and then post those live–or near-live–video and photo creations to social streams.

I can’t yet tell if users will sink their teeth into this type of social video creation and mixing, but I’m always a fan of a divergent solution to a popular problem.

Spotify Signs On EMI for U.S. Launch. At Least One More to Go…

Peter Kafka — Thu, 17 Feb 2011 19:52:02 +0000

It’s getting closer: Spotify has finalized a U.S. distribution deal with EMI Music, multiple sources tell me.

Both EMI and Spotify declined to comment.

Coupled with last month’s Sony deal, Spotify now has the approval from two of the four major music labels for an American launch. But that still doesn’t guarantee you’ll see the streaming music subscription service in America anytime soon.

In order to make a credible offer to U.S. users, Spotify will need to at least get Universal Music Group, the world’s biggest label, on board, and it’s not there yet.

It would also be nice if Spotify could land Warner Music Group, which now seems more doable than in the past, given Warner CEO Edgar Bronfman’s increasingly positive comments about the company.

If and/or when Spotify does come to the U.S., it will also have to contend with new rules from Apple, which will require a 30 percent cut of any subscriptions the service sells through Apple’s iTunes platform. That tariff is going to be a significant problem for many of Spotify’s peers, who are working on slim margins to begin with; I don’t know how Spotify plans to address this one.

Stephen Colbert Rips Rupert Murdoch, Rips Off Arianna Huffington

Peter Kafka — Thu, 17 Feb 2011 14:30:18 +0000

If you like metamedia criticism and Web media, then last night’s “Colbert Report” was for you. At least twice!

Colbert started out with an entire segment on the Daily, Rupert Murdoch’s new iPad newspaper. (Note that this Web site, like the Daily, is owned by News Corp. Though apparently, based on Colbert’s montage, we did not cover the Daily’s launch as enthusiastically as some of our corporate siblings.)

But that was just a warm-up! Colbert really got going when he got around to the AOL-Huffington Post deal, with a drop-dead Arianna impersonation.

Even more accurate: “The Colbuffington Re-Post,” which is exactly what it sounds like.

What’s that? You want more meta? Okay. Here’s HuffPo’s repost of Colbert’s post. And now I’m a little dizzy and will have to sit down for a bit.

AllThingsD » launch

Private Spacecraft Lifts Off Toward Space Station

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Sony's New PlayStation Portable Will Hit Shelves February 22

Jeff Bezos Pitches His New Kindles: The Full Video

Most -- But Not All -- Big Magazine Publishers Sign On for Amazon's Tablet

It's Called Google Propeller and It's Aimed at Flipboard (and Facebook, Too, Natch)

Windows 8: Here Comes Another Football (Comic)

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