ReadWriteWeb

Ping: First Look at the iTunes Social Network

Richard MacManus — Thu, 02 Sep 2010 04:48:51 -0800

Part of the new iTunes 10 software, announced and launched yesterday, is a significant new social networking feature for iTunes called Ping. It allows you to comment on music, 'like' it a la Facebook, or rate it. Ping is also very similar to Twitter, in that you can 'follow' people and music stars. All of this happens inside of the iTunes application, either on your computer, iPhone or iPod Touch.

We took the new feature for a spin and came away intrigued, despite some initial flaws. We do however wonder at the overly commercial focus of Ping. Is this really about social networking, or mostly for Apple and artists to sell more music?

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How to Get Ping

To access Ping, you first need to download iTunes 10 onto your computer. You'll need to also download 300+ MB worth of iPhone Software Update, to get it on your iPhone or iPod Touch.

On the computer, once you've downloaded iTunes 10 click the iTunes Store link in the sidebar. You'll see a "Get Started" link in the top right of that page (also 'Ping' appears as a menu option in the sidebar). You'll need to turn on the Ping feature and agree to Apple's privacy policy. After that, create a profile.

Note that you may encounter issues with uploading a profile photo and connecting to Facebook. If you wait for about 10 minutes, eventually your photo will upload. However Facebook Connect appears to be broken at this stage. We assume these are technical teething issues.

Once you have your profile set up, you're invited to follow other people and also stars like Lady Gaga and U2. This is very similar to how Twitter works, except that it's all happening inside of iTunes (on your computer or on your iPhone or iPod Touch).

Social Networking, or Prodding You to The Cash Register?

Ping isn't entirely intuitive. It took some head scratching to figure out that to actually post content, you need to be in the iTunes Store. You can't create new content from within Ping itself, although you can comment on what others have added.

To add new content to your Ping stream, go to the iTunes Store and either comment on an album, 'like' it or give it a star rating.

The fact that you need to be inside the iTunes Store to create new content or like something, seems a rather cynical move to encourage people to buy more music. Why not let users search inside Ping for a song or album? Or, even better, let them right-click and comment, like or rate music from within the iTunes player?

Follow The Stars

To track - and optionally comment on - what others are doing, click on the Recent Activity feed in Ping.

Ping places more focus on feature accounts than Twitter, inviting you to "set your inner groupie free by following your favorite artists on Ping." The service comes pre-loaded with accounts for some leading pop, rock and other music acts.

These accounts don't offer much more than what the stars can already do on Facebook and Twitter. The main difference is that it's within an application where people can buy the music.

I'll Follow You (If You Share My Music Tastes)

Overall, I can see Ping being useful for following friends who have similar tastes in music to me. In those cases, if they 'like' a new album then it's a great recommendation - and yes, I'm more likely to buy it. Also the ability to see which concerts they plan to go to is a useful feature.

However, Ping is probably not going to be very useful for following friends who don't share my music tastes. That could be most of them. You may be a mate of mine on Facebook, but if you listen to electronica then sorry I'm not very interested in the content you're liking (you probably feel the same way about the alternative music I tend to favor).

Have you tested out Ping yet? Let us know your verdict in the comments!

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Windows Phone 7 Ships; Phones Coming Before the Holidays

Adrianne Jeffries — Wed, 01 Sep 2010 22:30:00 -0800

Microsoft's new mobile OS has shipped to handset makers and will be appearing on phones in time for the holiday season, the company announced today.

The stage is set for Microsoft to either rock the mobile world with a mainstream alternative to the iPhone and Android platforms, rebounding after a string of failures a la Bing, or flop in its attempt to catch up after "missing a cycle."

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The long-awaited update to Windows Mobile is expected to show up on devices from Dell, HTC, Samsung and LG, so there is the possibility that an exciting handset like the Dell Lightning could rekindle interest in Microsoft's mobile offerings.

Windows Phone 7 is designed around tasks with programs pushing information to the home screen. This "hubs" design may lessen the need for third-party apps. But Microsoft is still hoping apps can be evangelists for Phone 7, offering developers tools and an emulator last month for free. Microsoft says the tools have been downloaded more than 300,000 times.

The OS has gotten mixed reviews, including a scathing critique from InfoWorld's Galen Gruman, who called it "a tepid knockoff of a 2007-era iPhone" and claimed it was "a platform no carrier, device maker, developer or user should bother with." Other reviewers praised the OS for its zoomy user interface, integration with Microsoft Office, voice search and other features.

Microsoft has been agonizing over the development of the Phone 7 OS, throwing money at the launch, carefully studying how people use their phones and engineering down to the most minute details. For example, Windows Phone 7 will feature eight keypad tones, so that a user will hear slightly different clicks when typing instead of the same tone repeatedly as is the case with the iPhone.

A Windows Phone 7 preview by InfoWeek in July.

Whether the attention to detail pays off will be decided in a few months by consumers in the general public - who largely pay little attention to the OS pedigree of a phone, and can therefore be trusted to evaluate Windows Phone 7 without being biased by Microsoft's track record.

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Verizon: A High Profile VMware Service Provider with Extra Importance

Alex Williams — Wed, 01 Sep 2010 22:05:00 -0800

Service providers are a lynchpin in VMware's strategy to extend its virtualization technology into the cloud.

If the strategy works, VMware could become the leader in providing hybrid cloud infrastructures. It's a test for VMware's new foray into the cloud. And it has its risks. VMware is looking to provide an end-to-end platform that extends from the enterprise data center to the public cloud environments managed by the service providers.

How the technology performs will come to define VMware's position in the vast network of service providers that work with the majority of enterprise customers.

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Verizon is one of the companies that has opted to begin using VMware vCloud Director. This has to be VMware's highest profile partner. But in cloud computing, it is not well known.

But Verizon is making a play into cloud computing. It calls its platform Computing-as-a- Service (CaaS).

Its latest enhancement to its CaaS platform is built on VMware vCloud Datacenter. It uses VMware's cloud infrastructure technology including VMware vSphere, the new VMware vCloud Director and VMware vShield security solutions.

Verizon is using the VMware technology to provide customers with both performance and security that can be audited. Verizon is banking that VMware will help enhance its security features such as layer 2 isolation and LDAP integration.

Verizon will launch the service initially with the Intercontinental Hotel Group. It's a wordlwide field trial and a test to determine how the VMware platform will perform in the demanding and dynamic world of the hotel business.

The service providers are critical to VMware's success. Verizon will be a test to see how well the new VMware technology performs in a demanding environment.

Verizon is offering a sophsiticated service. The goal is to extend its service with VMware across the enterprise and public clouds. If they can do that it will help show how VMware can help service providers provide hybrid cloud environments for its customers.

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Billboard Magazine, Est. 1894, Tries to Boost Its Digital Cred

Adrianne Jeffries — Wed, 01 Sep 2010 19:45:00 -0800

Billboard is best known for charts that rank the most popular music and musicians, which the weekly industry magazine started publishing in 1913 as a list of the most popular sheet music. Since then, topping the Billboard Hot 100 has become a coveted milestone for musicians, but the Billboard brand has lost some of its critical cache in recent decades, just as record companies saw their influence decline with the rise of the Internet.

But it's clear Billboard knows it will lose relevance fast unless it can establish itself as an authority on music and the digital frontier.

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Billboard Magazine recently published a cover story on the best ten music startups of 2010, and the company, which includes Billboard Magazine, Billboard Events and Billboard.com, is hosting its first "Music App Awards" at something called "Billboard's Mobile Entertainment Live!: The Music App Summit." Both lists, and the company's careful emphasis on Billboard.com as an entity separate and edgier than its print product, seem like a play at securing Billboard's reputation as the arbiter of what's important in music today.

Billboard's Hot 100 and other lists are still coveted symbols for artists and labels. But the company has challengers on all sides from the iTunes and Last.fm charts as well as digital review sites like Pitchfork Media and Hype Machine. At least one company is challenging Billboard's authority with a list it calls the Ultimate Chart that factors in more modern metrics such as ringtone sales and how many times a song is streamed. (Although this list proved less than earth shattering - see our coverage, Is Ultimate Chart Overhyped?)

Billboard is ultimately a trade publication aimed at industry insiders - many of whom are groping for an authority on what's popular after the record sales-driven revenue apocalypse. So it's crucial for it to have an accurate read on what's popular and therefore monetizable, and it's not unthinkable that it might succeed. Billboard has innovated with its charts over the years and the company says single sales and online streaming are now factored into its rankings along with radio airplay and album sales.

Billboard.com even tracks the top 40 "digital songs" as measured by paid downloads across genres. But this chart is arguably already losing relevance as more artists release their music digitally online for free.

What do you think - can the 116-year old, mainstream company get its groove back in a time when most of the trends in music are in the direction of digital and underground? Are efforts like the Music App Awards smart - or doomed?

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World Economic Forum Honors 31 Startups as "Technology Pioneers"

Audrey Watters — Wed, 01 Sep 2010 19:00:57 -0800

As I argued earlier this week, words like "disruptive," "innovative," and "transformational" can lose their punch when applied to every new company, every new product, every new feature. But there are undoubtedly plenty of areas in which innovation and transformation are not just happening and warranted, but absolutely crucial.

It is with that in mind that each year the World Economic Forum selects a group of startups to honor as Technology Pioneers. The WEF announced the recipients of the 2011 award today - 31 companies selected from over 300 nominations from 13 different countries.

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Technology is clearly empowering people in all walks of society by giving them more information, more options, a bigger voice in the world around them and more control over their own health and their impact on the environment.
- World Economic Forum

The startups selected are rated in terms of innovation, impact, growth, proof of concept, and leadership. Over 450 companies have been honored since the award began in 2000, and past winners include Twitter and crisis mapping platform Ushahidi.

In announcing today's winners, the World Economic Forum lauds the ways in which Internet technologies, particularly social networking, have shifted power and knowledge. "Technology is clearly empowering people in all walks of society by giving them more information, more options, a bigger voice in the world around them and more control over their own health and their impact on the environment. Technological advances that allow an unprecedented level of collaboration and cooperation in real time mean that acting on that information has never been easier."

Many of the startups address energy, environmental and health issues. But 13 of the 31 startups honored today fall into the categories of "information technologies and new media." They are:

Aster Data: Big data analytics
Atlassian: Collaboration tools
Foursquare: Location-based social networking
GetJar: An independent marketplace for apps
Knewton: Adaptive learning
Layar: Augmented reality
NetQuin Mobile: Mobile security
OpenDNS: Global DNS service
ReputationDefender: Control of personal information
Scribd: Publishing
SecondMarket: Financial marketplace
Spotify: Digital music
Vortex Engineering: Solar ATMs

An international non-profit, the World Economic Forum's motto is "entrepreneurship in the global public interest." Kudos to the companies honored today for doing just that.

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4 Must-Attend Small Biz Tech Conferences in September

John Paul Titlow — Wed, 01 Sep 2010 18:00:10 -0800

Remember when you couldn't figure out where July went? Well, now it's September.

Summer is indeed coming to a close, but to help soften the blow, ReadWriteWeb has compiled a list of four essential technology conferences for small business owners and professionals coming up this month. These events are US-only, but if you know of any international events worth checking out, please leave a note in the comments.

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New York Times Small Business Summit

Sponsored by American Express Open, the New York Times Small Business Summit promises to "explore the next steps of social media marketing and how best to navigate a new economic and legislative landscape."

Speakers include reknowned social media guru Shiv Singh of PepsiCo, Jerry Greenfield of Ben & Jerry's Ice Cream, Polyvore CEO and former Googler Sukhinder Singh Cassidy, and David Liu, CEO of wedding media mini-empire The Knot, Inc, among others. The keynote speaker will be Robin Chase, CEO of ZipCar.

With a speaker list like that and session titles like "How Innovation Drives Business in Challenging Times" and "Leveraging the Digital Space to Grow Your Business" this conference is sure to be loaded with valuable insight.

When: September 23, 2010
Where: The Hilton New York [MAP]
Cost: $99
Register Here

BizTechDay

BizTechDay is bicoastal gathering of entreprenuers, business leaders, journalists and government representatives with the goal of providing "an intensive one-day experience where entrepreneurs meet to inspire and be inspired by each other."

The conference, which will take place in both Seattle and New York City this month (with a third date in San Francisco next month), will feature of entreprenuers and big thinkers. Those attending the Seattle event can look forward to hearing Cheezburger Network CEO Ben Huh and Colleen McCreary from Zynga, Squidoo cofounder Megan Casey, among others. The New York event will feature authors Clay Shirky and Seth Godin, along with Meetup founder Scott Heiferman, Gymoree founder Joan Barnes and a host of others.

When: September 18, 2010
Where: Seattle, WA - Bell Harbor Conference Center [MAP]
Cost: $395 regular, $795 VIP
Register Here

When: September 24, 2010
Where:New York, NY - The Times Center [MAP]
Cost: $595 regular, $1,195 VIP
Register Here

Small Business Technology Tour

Most of the Small Business Technology Tour will take place across the United States in October and November, but it kicks off on Sept. 28 in Mountain View, CA. Hosted by smallbiztechnology.com, this traveling conference of business tech insight has an impressive line-up of small business technology experts and big name sponsors.

When: September 18, 2010
Where:Mountain View, CA - Computer History Museum [MAP]
Cost: $49 (subsequent dates will cost $99 if purchased after 9/21)
Register Here

Check out the conference's Website for more dates and locations in October and November.

New Marketing Experience

The New Marketing Experience conference is a one-stop-shop for expertise on all things related to social media, email and Web marketing. Organized by Chris Brogan and the team at New Marketing Labs, this conference features a veritable who's who of new media marketing experts.

When: September 21, 2010
Where:Chicago, IL - Museum of Science and Industry [MAP]
Cost: $199
Register Here

Do you know of any other tech-oriented conferences, events and webinars for small or medium-sized businesses? Let us know about them in the comments.

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Cops Not Sure How to Use Twitter, Study Shows

Adrianne Jeffries — Wed, 01 Sep 2010 17:45:00 -0800

A study of 1,089 official and unofficial law enforcement Twitter accounts shows about 21 percent don't tweet, nine percent tweet personal opinions about crime or criminal justice, and three percent have tweeted in a way that could be interpreted as racist or sexist.

Furthermore, the vast majority of agencies did not include legal disclaimers or refer to a social media policy on their Twitter accounts.

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The official Twitter page for the Portland Police Bureau, @PortlandPolice.

The study covered accounts in the U.S., U.K. and Canada, and concluded that there is no consensus for how police should conduct themselves on Twitter. It was conducted by the Canadian Association of Police on Social Media, a group of police, academics and citizens that advocates the use of social media by police (check out this guest post by co-founder Laura Madison, The Dark Figure Of Social Media: What Can Twitter Teach Criminologists?).

"The lack of legal disclaimers (e.g. "The opinions expressed here do not reflect those of my employer" or "This account is not monitored 24/7; please do not use it to report crimes") and social media policy (which may include disclaimers as well as purpose and other information) is of concern," the study's authors conclude.

A disclaimer seems especially wise for police accounts given that a recent Red Cross report showed half of social media users believe emergency responders are monitoring social media (see our coverage: 74% of Social Media Users Expect Cries for Help to Be Answered Within an Hour).

Just one account had a link to a social media policy from Twitter - The New Scotland Yard, Metropolitan Police in London, @metpoliceuk. The policy tells users to expect updates on the latest news stories from New Scotland Yard, alerts about items posted to Flickr and YouTube and "in the event of a major incident," information from the agency's website. It also explains who is behind the account, when it is monitored and even its followback policy. However, the account has yet to tweet.

Alarmingly, the study also found that 15 police accounts tweeted sensitive legal information, such as clues that could identify suspects of victims of crimes. That's less than one percent, but police officers should know not to publicly broadcast information that could compromise ongoing investigations, inaccurately implicate someone who has not been proven guilty of a crime, or lead an at-large criminal to a victim.

Police tweeted mostly about missing persons, wanted suspects, traffic and safety, arrests and other on-duty activity. But agencies and officers seemed to have no strategy for Twitter use, the study concludes.

CAPSM recommends that police agencies use Twitter more and experiment with third-party and mobile applications. It also recommends that agencies clarify the way they plan to use Twitter and train their officers accordingly.

The group also encourages police agencies to use Twitter to preempt brand hijacking via fake accounts, such as this one in Portland:

"That more police are using Twitter to connect with their communities is encouraging. However, they should take care not to use it only because it is popular or because the neighboring agency signed on. Instead, they must recognize it in the context of public communication at large: who uses it, how they use it, and where it can fit into various types of police operations," the study concludes.

UPDATE: CAPSM contacted us to say that its main takeaway was that police are "doing quite well and learning a few things" and "the numbers supporting the quality of tweets are very encouraging. It means that more and more citizens are getting important real time safety news delivered right to them."

There are agencies on Twitter who are using the medium effectively to communicate with the community and enhance their policing - the Portland Police Bureau, referenced above, is a good example - and we didn't mean to suggest otherwise. Rather, our takeaway was that the wide variation in the ways police use Twitter, the fact that some are not using it at all, the absence of clearly denoted social media policies, and the instances of misuse added up to an uncertainty about using the medium - which CAPSM's recommendations for a "best practices" approach would likely remedy.

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Intel and the Cloud - Federated, Automated and Intelligent

Alex Williams — Wed, 01 Sep 2010 17:30:27 -0800

Is a cloud utopia possible? The idea being that someday everything will be elastic. Services scale up and down based on usage. You would never have to worry about updating an application on your laptop. Security would be taken care of and devices would be smart enough to know what data to process and what should be rendered in the cloud.

Sure. We are already seeing some of these scenarios unfold. But it's not common. In reality, the builder has a big job ahead.

Intel is here at VMWorld with a message about how this plays out. In their view, it comes down to three factors. The cloud and correlating devices should be federated, automated and client-aware.

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Federated Cloud

A federated cloud means an open cloud. It's a cloud that can be connected. Virtual machines work in the enterprise as well as they work in the data center. Communications, data, and services can move easily within and across cloud computing infrastructures. Identity is seamless. Interoperability is without question.

Automated Cloud

An automated cloud means cloud computing services and resources can be specified, located, and securely provisioned with very little or zero human interaction. This is a data center with intelligence. It does not have to be as manually operated as it is today. It allocates resources and is optimized in terms of its utilization and power efficiency.

Client-Aware

This represents one of the most significant challenges and in many ways represents the emergence of the intelligent network. In this scenario, the device and the cloud are optimized to work with each other. The client-aware chip technology know when to process on the device or in the cloud. In today's world we do see some level of data intelligence but for the most part the service provider looks for the lowest common denominator. That's why it is often difficult to use services on a handheld device because they were written for a PC, not a mobile phone. The trick is to know the device attributes that include location, policies, and connectivity. Security is taken care of in this scenario as the device and the cloud are synchronized to meet policy requirements.

Developer Challenges

A developer always has to choose a platform. Once the platform is chosen, the developer then has to consider what different versions are required for the various devices on the market. This is increasingly complex as the types and total number of devices continue to multiply. A client-aware scenario could mitigate the issue. Further is the issue about when to use the cloud and when to use a device for processing. For example, should a video be rendered on the device or in the cloud? It all depends. But client-aware technology could help bring a level of data intelligence that would mitigate the issue. It would be capable of determining if the video should be rendered in the cloud or on the device.

Is this all far off into the future? Intel says the disruption in the enterprise market is helping advance innovation. As the impetus for moving to the cloud increases, so should the advancements in these various scenarios.

We may never reach a utopia but at least we may find some ways to make it a bit easier for the builder trying to optimize the relationship between the cloud and the devices people use.

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Weekly Poll: What's in Store for Cloud-Related IT Jobs?

Audrey Watters — Wed, 01 Sep 2010 17:00:03 -0800

There's a lot of talk about the ways in which cloud computing will impact the IT job market - changing demands for the numbers and the skills of employees.

As James Urquhart notes in an article in CNET today, there have been a number of interesting signs lately pointing to the health of the cloud-related job market: 181 jobs advertised at Amazon Web Services last week, for example, and 175 at Rackspace.

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But it may be the recent release of Elance's quarterly employment report that has raised the most eyebrows. The report looks at IT job listings overall, examining the demand for certain skills. And notably, it's Google App Engine that has shown the largest growth over the last quarter, increasing demand tenfold and surpassing Amazon Web Service as the the most sought after cloud skill.

Cloud Ave's Krishnan Subramanian has an excellent analysis on why this might be, noting that the recent partnership between Google and VMWare might explain the jump in demand.

Does the increase in employment opportunities for those with Google App Engine experience mark a shift in the sorts of IT jobs we'll see in the future?

Photo credits: Flickr user Brenda Gottsabend

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FashionStake Opens Its Virtual Showroom

Curt Hopkins — Wed, 01 Sep 2010 16:30:00 -0800

Five months after we first wrote about FashionStake's decision to crowd-source the rag trade, the site is out of beta and wide open. Has it succeeded in its goal to "democratize fashion"? Not yet. That's a tall order in an extremely hierarchical industry. But it is exciting the fashion crew.

And now that it's not so hush-hush, we can mention some of the 30 designers involved. They include Lauren Merkin, Nicholas K, Lewis Cho, Alice Ritter, AIRA and Yotam Solomon. The old screenshot from the site showing Phillip Lim, Alexander Wang, Donna Karan and Jeffrey Montero was clearly no indicator of who would be involved.

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It makes more sense, I suppose, that more adventurous, less high-profile brands would find the undertaking more worth the risk.

The site, led by Harvard Business School alumni Daniel Gulati and designer Vivian Weng, brings designers and consumers together. Financially, an investment in a designer can earn a user discounted pre-orders, store credit and perks such as Fashion Week tickets. Critically, viewers may browse collections, vote them up or down and suggest ideas for new garments or lines and praise or criticize designer directions.

The hope is that lovers (and customers) of fashion will cherish the personal investment in a designer's collection and career. If there is a punk streak in the fashion industry (philosophically, not aesthetically) this is part of that movement: Away from gatekeepers, away from enforcers, snobs and ghouls; forward into the breach, taking chances, leveling, engaging. Democratizing fashion, maybe.

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I Really Hope Curated.by Launches Soon

Marshall Kirkpatrick — Wed, 01 Sep 2010 15:40:56 -0800

Curated.by is a new Twitter curation tool that makes it easy to gather and share collections of messages on any topic. The service is slowly letting more and more people create accounts, and I really hope it will launch soon so I can make public use of it.

It's quite simple: create a collection and drag Tweets into it, or use the service's new Chrome Extension to curate Tweets right from Twitter webpages. Then share your collections, embed them on a web page and subscribe to the collections of other users. Founder Bastian Lehmann, for example, curated a really good collection of Tweets about today's Apple event that I would have embedded below if the service had launched yet.

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Other interesting examples of collections saved for posterity include All YC DemoDay Startups as seen by @davemcclure and Tweets about the Chevy Volt.

Curation is a beautiful thing and something that's still too hard to do online. Curated.by is likely to make a nice addition to any content curator's toolset. (See also Curated.info, a very cool blog subscription bundle sharing service.) The service still has some rough edges, and these sorts of tools tend to require more investment than most users are willing to make, but I'm personally very excited for it to finally launch. "Soon," Lehmann says.

Click to enlarge.

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3 Trends in Idea Management

Klint Finley — Wed, 01 Sep 2010 15:30:00 -0800

Idea management software seeks two "holy grails" of enterprise collaboration technology: 1) innovation and 2) the breaking down of silos. Enterprise idea management has been around for over 10 years, but according to Mark Turrell, co-founder of pioneering idea management company Imaginatik and current CEO of Orcasci, there's been an "explosion of interest" in the field in the past 18 months. Here are a few of the trends in the area that we've noticed.

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SharePoint Integration

Stand alone enterprise idea managment platforms are increasingly integrating with Microsoft Sharepoint. Imaginatik recently added Sharepoint integration to its flagship Idea Central product.

Spigit (our coverage) and Kindling, newer players with big name customers, have both announced SharePoint integration in the past 12 months as well. Kindling actually took it a step further with Outlook integration.

Since Sharepoint is the most popular enterprise collaboration platform, it makes sense for vendors to focus on Sharepoint.

Vendors Baking In Idea management

Meanwhile, other enterprise collaboration vendors are baking idea management into other products. MangoSping has an idea management solution (previous coverage) and Jive added an ideation module to its offerings in March.

Newsgator is fusing both trends by adding Ideas to its Social Sites for SharePoint offering.

Bringing ideation into existing collaboration tools - whether it's SharePoint, Jive or something else entirely - is a logical strategy for enterprises hoping to encourage not just innovation but collaboration on ideas.

Customer Facing Tools Being Turned Inwards

Many times departments and business unit managers want to gather ideas from staff but don't want to deal with complex solutions or wait for the IT department to purchase and deploy a solution. Other times, they find that the systems like Spigit are too complex.

"Most employees don't three hours a day to spend in these systems," says UserVoice (see our previous coverage) CEO Richard White. UserVoice started as a customer-facing web application, but White says the company has been getting more inquiries from enterprises wanting to use it for internal purposes.

Deloitte is now offering a Deloitte Innovation Academy service that combines some of its own tools, UserVoice, and education to provide all in one innovation solution to enterprise customers.

Don't be surprised to see Salesforce.com customers turn the Salesforce.com Ideas platform, used by companies like Starbucks and Dell to solicit consumer feedback, inward for more ideas.

Are You Using Idea Managment Software?

Are you using idea management software in your organization? Which software? Has it been successful in fostering innovation, or has it been an unnecessary distraction? Have you seen any trends we didn't mention?

Photo by Bart

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Hack of the Day: commandlinefu - Linux Command Heaven

Ben Barden — Wed, 01 Sep 2010 14:30:00 -0800

Today is a slight departure from the usual Hack of the Day, as we recommend a site that's bursting with Linux goodness. Bumper Link of the Day, if you will.

If you're an avid user of the Linux command line, this one's for you. A growing collection of handy hints, commandlinefu, makes light work of tricky commands. You can quickly find the top commands or simply browse through the list. There are thousands, so it may take a while.

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Naturally, there's a search facility ("grep the archive"), so you should be able to isolate the bits you need. For instance, here's a search of, um, grep itself.

Check out commandlinefu - let us know your favourite commands.

Photo by Stephen Woods
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Twitter Hands Sports Columnist His Ass

Curt Hopkins — Wed, 01 Sep 2010 14:00:00 -0800

Washington Post sports columnist Mike Wise decided to do an experiment. It's analogous to the kind of "experiment" a kid might do in dropping a glass of milk to see if it will fall. He knowingly Tweeted false information to see if other media would copy it. Gasp! They did. In its ceaseless pursuit of poetic justice, the Washington Post suspended Wise in turn.

He Tweeted "Roethlisberger will get five games, I'm told," talking about the NFL quarterback, who was suspended for six games. Sure enough, some in the media did RT it, though very few and those who did mostly credited him. So, you know, dumb. He admitted as much.

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Grand-standing about the unreliability of Twitter transmission or of journalism is about as daring as taking a stand against shotgunning kittens. But Twitter is as huge among sports figures as it is anathema to sports organizations. So perhaps the power of the tool in his context seemed to justify the attention he devoted to it.

Still, it begs the question, are social media tools so much different than any other media? Maybe yea, maybe nay. But every new way of speaking to our friends, peers and fans requires some sussing out. This is a painful step in that process. What does it teach us? Being a tool in one medium is not unlike being a tool in another. Companies don't like it when you make them look like tools. Credibility is no less valuable in one medium than another.

What do you think about how we use social media tools in terms of our day jobs? Is the world of sports, of entertainment, of media, different than others in quality or quantity? Does the ethics of social media go through a color shift depending on where it's used or by whom it's used?

By the way, are we sure Roethlisberger's charges of "sexual misconduct" are not maybe more important than the credulous media's relationship with Twitter? I get my coffee money from it if not my wages and I'm still pretty sure (alleged) rape (the police declined to arrest him) trumps Twitter. Maybe Wise should have stayed on point. After all, we media boobs may buy into another reporter's (alleged) credibility, but apparently the NFL believes one of its multi-millionaires (allegedly) attacking a 20-year-old girl is worthy of a suspension, instead of impalement. Well, it's not like he took steroids, right?
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TechStars Comes to the Big Apple

Audrey Watters — Wed, 01 Sep 2010 13:30:05 -0800

In what's bound to be a boost for an already thriving tech startup scene, the Boulder-based incubator TechStars announced today that it is opening a program in a new location, New York City. This will be the fourth city into which the program has expanded, joining Boulder, Seattle, and Boston.

TechStars is accepting applications now for the NYC Class of 2011. The deadline for applying is November 21, and the inaugural program will kick off in New York in mid-January of next year.

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TechStars provides participants in the 3 month program up to $18,000 in seed funding ($6000 per team member), office space, and mentoring.

And the list of mentors for the New York program is impressive, including Foursquare's Dennis Crowley, Founder Collective's Chris Dixon, GetGlue's Alex Iskold, First Round Capital's Charlie O'Donnell, and Union Square Venture's Fred Wilson, to name just a few.

TechStars takes a 6% equity stake in each startup and has demonstrated a solid track record for those who've participated in the incubator program.
Discuss

Did Steve Jobs Accidentally Confirm Cameras for Next Gen iPads?

Chris Cameron — Wed, 01 Sep 2010 13:02:00 -0800

There was a flurry of activity today at the YBCA Theater in San Francisco as Apple unveiled a whole slew of new products and services to the public. With all of that information to remember, it's no surprise that Steve Jobs may have let something slip out that he perhaps wasn't intending to say. While discussing the latest version of the iOS software, Jobs said something that may hint that cameras will be coming to the iPad. So what was it that he said?

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One of the tent poles of Jobs' keynote today focused on the iOS software and upgrades being made on the iPhone and iPod Touch. Next week, owners of these devices will be treated to some new features, including the ability to upload HD video over WiFi, TV show rentals, multiplayer Game Center and various bug fixes for hardware issues. But the most interesting new feature is the inclusion of high dynamic range (HDR) functionality into the iPhone's (and the new iPod Touch's) camera.

HDR photography is a practice by which three photos at varying exposures are blended together into one image. By picking the best parts of each photo, the picture becomes much richer as detail in shadows and light are more visible. Here's an example from a photo I took and ran through an HDR app on my iPhone. It's a cool feature, but what does that have to do with the iPad getting a camera?

When Jobs went over some of the features of iOS 4.2 - the iteration in which the iPad would get all of the 4.0 and 4.1 goodness - he said the iPad would have all of the new features the iPhone is getting from 4.1, including HDR photography. As far as the rest of the world knows, the iPad doesn't have a camera, so one could assume that either the iPad is getting a camera, or Jobs just misspoke when he rattled off the list of the features the iPad would be getting.

The later is possible, but why wouldn't Apple put a camera on the iPad. When the iPad was first dissected, a placeholder frame for mounting a camera was found built into the design of the current model. A forward-facing camera on the iPad certainly makes sense (for things like FaceTime), and with all the extra room, they could make the quality of the camera match that of the iPhone's outward facing camera. And hey, why not slap another on the outside to take photographs in beautiful HDR for viewing on that big lovely screen Apple loves to talk about?

Apple seems to be in love with cameras these days, anyhow. The iPod Touch now has a two-camera system just like the iPhone - a push by Apple to get more people using FaceTime. Why not get people FaceTiming on their iPads too? Rumors of a smaller 7-inch iPad have been circulating as well, and what better time than November to launch that when iOS 4.2 is released?

What do you think? Did Jobs let one slip? Or was it a mental error as he rattled of features? Let us know what you think in the comments below!
Discuss

Apple Hides Prop 8 Tweets from Lady Gaga Promo Page for Ping (Screenshots)

Marshall Kirkpatrick — Wed, 01 Sep 2010 12:45:38 -0800

The new iTunes social network Ping will let you connect directly with your favorite artists, but Apple's promotional image for the new feature conveniently omits a string of Tweets from Lady Gaga's timeline in which she protests anti-gay marriage legislation Proposition 8.

It's a little thing, but given the controversies Apple has faced around app store censorship, and the direct-to-audience promise of both Twitter (and presumably Ping), it certainly seems notable. Apparently the company wanted to have its cake and eat it too when it came to one of the world's most famous, and outspoken, musical artists.

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Full coverage of today's Apple news.
Surely we'll get the real deal on Ping itself, right? Lady Gaga with all her sex, politics and sensationalism - in addition to her musical thoughts? Dear Gaga, please don't break the new iTunes. It has retina display!
Thanks to the always observant Kevin Marks for pointing this out on Twitter.
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Report Examines Where the Top VC Firms Are Investing

Audrey Watters — Wed, 01 Sep 2010 12:30:51 -0800

Last week, we looked at one of the latest reports from the investment research firm CB Insights, tracking the top venture capital firms across the U.S. in terms of their deal activity. According to that report, over the past year the top 30 firms participated in 663 unique deals (almost a quarter of all deals) with amounting to almost $9 billion in investment.

CB Insights has broken down these deals further to examine the trends in terms of deal flow by sector, and no surprise, investment in Internet technologies led the pack, comprising 36% of the deals and 26% of the dollars the top VC firms invested. (Healthcare was the number 2 sector for both the deal numbers and deal size.)

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Within the Internet sector, there are numerous sub-industries where VCs invested - monitoring, security, web development, video. But despite this diversity, four of these sub-industries dominated, accounting for 40% of the funding from VC firms: social; advertising, sales and marketing; e-commerce; and gaming. Social, advertising, and gaming were the top three sub-industries in terms of deal flow as well.

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Apple Event Announcements Rundown: iOS 4.1, New iPods, iTunes 10, Ping and Apple TV

Chris Cameron — Wed, 01 Sep 2010 11:47:00 -0800

It was a busy day at the YBCA Theater in San Francisco today as Apple unveiled a slew of new products and services to its crowd, and to those watching live on the Web. We saw upgrades to the iOS software for all iOS devices (even the iPad), a new line-up of iPods for the holiday season, iTunes 10 with its social network Ping and of course, the new $99 Apple TV. Here's a run down of everything that happened in one handy-dandy list in case you missed it!

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Retail Store Update

Apple has opened three new stores internationally in Paris, London and Shangai. They now have 300 stores in 10 countries, with their 11th, Spain, coming soon.

Apple has single days where over 1 million people visit their stores, and more than 50% of their customers are buying their first Mac.

iOS 4.1 and 4.2

120 million iOS devices have been sold since the first iPhone launched. 230,000 new activations occur each day.

6.5 billions apps have been downloaded from the AppStore, which now hosts 250,000 apps. 10% of those apps are iPad apps. 200 apps are added tot he store each second.

iOS 4.1 - The next iOS iteration will be available next week for iPhones and iPod touches and features bug fixes for issues associated with the proximity sensor, Bluetooth and iPhone 3G.

iOS 4.1 also features high dynamic range (HDR) photographs within the camera app, which takes three photos at varying exposures and blends them together to make rich photographs.

Game Center will finally be lauching with the 4.1 release. It allows game enthusiasts to network with friends, get matched up for multiplayer games, see leaderboards and get push invitations to play online. Mike Capps from Epic Games (makers of Gears of War) demoed a new game, "Project Sword," which features Game Center functionality.

iOS 4.2 Sneek Peak - Apple also provided a first-look at iOS 4.2, which will bring all the functionality of iOS 4.1 to the iPad. Folders, multitasking, and other familiar features will hit the bigger screen in November. Also, 4.2 will allow for wireless printing to networked printers on the iPad.

New iPods

Apple has sold 275 million iPods to date.

A new iPod Shuffle is a "best of both worlds" approach, which combines buttons and voice controls in a new small design. It will be in 5 colors, will get 15 hours of battery life and will hold 2GB of music for just $49.

New iPod Nanos have eliminated to the click-wheel and gone touch screen with a square-shaped miniature iOS device. It also features a clip on the back like the shuffle, and the screen can be rotated with a pinch-and-twist motion. It has the same colors as the shuffle, plus granite and red versions. $149 for 8GB, and $179 for 16GB.

The iPod Touch, the #1 portable game player, is now thinner and gets all the hardware upgrades from the iPhone 4, including the Retina Display, the A4 chip, the gyroscope. Also, it features forward and front-facing cameras, and can now run FaceTime for chatting with iPod and iPhone owners. $229, $299 and $399 are the prices for 8, 32 and 64 GB models.

All of the new iPods are available next week, and can be reordered starting today.

iTunes 10 and Ping

A new iTunes is available today and features a new logo (finally) and Apple's foray into social networking with Ping, a place to discover music and follow friends and artists.

A new Hybrid View lets you view album artwork when browsing your library in list view. It only activates when you have more than 5 songs in an album as to not waste space.

Ping, the iTunes social network, will feature a stream of activity and customized Top 10 lists based on your friends' music tastes. It can be accessed on-the-go from iPhones and iPod Touches.

One More ~~Thing~~ Hobby: New Apple TV - $99

Apple unveiled a $99 Apple TV that is a fourth the size of the original and features a dark black design. It has no local storage and streams all of it's content from the Internet and your local machines.

It has HDMI, ethernet, 802.11n WiFi and a remote.

Users can stream music, TV shows, movies, podcasts, radio stations, photos and more with the device.

Users can now rent first-run HD movies for $4.99, and HD TV shows for $.99 from FOX and ABC. Jobs thinks more networks will "see the light" soon.

It also supports Netflix, YouTube, Flickr and Apple's MobileMe.

It will retail for just $99, and is available in roughly 4 weeks.

Wow! That sure was a lot from Apple. Those new iPods look pretty slick, especially the new square Nanos that look like a watch-face (some one please make a watch strap accessory!). Ping and iTunes 10 should be fun to play around with, and I don't know about the rest of you but that $99 Apple TV looks very enticing. Oh yeah, and iOS 4.1 looks cool too - the HDR photos is sure to excite the photo bugs out there.

Let us know what you think in the comments below!
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Facebook Credits: Coming to a Target Near You

Mike Melanson — Wed, 01 Sep 2010 11:30:00 -0800

Facebook Credits is continuing its march from the virtual into the real world today, with the introduction of Facebook Credits gift cards at Target stores nationwide.

The move follows a number of recent steps by Facebook to redefine its Credits, from getting rid of its virtual gift shop to handing out free Credits to grease the wheel a bit. Now, Facebook Credits will be something you can buy your kids for Christmas.

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Starting this Sunday, Facebook will be getting into the real, instead of virtual, gift giving business with gift cards available for purchase at all of Target's 1,750 stores and on Target.com. The cards will come in $15, $25 and $50 denominations and the timing is perfect, of course, for the upcoming holiday season.

"We think (the cards) will be incredibly popular as a holiday gift," Dan Rose, vice president of partnerships and platform marketing at Facebook, told USA Today.

Right now, Credits can be used on more than 150 games and applications and already 200 million people play free social games on Facebook each month. The next step, we expect, might be for Facebook to begin offering an app market of its own, as we've seen with numerous other major platforms and companies. We also have to wonder when Facebook Credits will make the switchover into purchasing not virtual but real-world goods, such as tickets to events.

Now that we have a Facebook gift card, how long can it be until we see a Facebook credit card?
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Live Blog: Apple's Fall Event (New iPods, iOS 4.1, iTunes 10, Apple TV)

Frederic Lardinois — Wed, 01 Sep 2010 09:55:07 -0800

Apple is holding its annual Fall event today. Historically, these events have always focused on the iPod line. While we definitely expect to see a revamped iPod lineup, the rumor mill also points towards a new Apple TV and a major update for iTunes. A number of pundits also expect Apple to release iOS4 for the iPad today.

To find out what really happens, check out our live blog below. The event is scheduled to start at 10am PT/1pm ET.

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Live Streaming

For the first time in years, Apple plans to provide a live video stream of today's event. By default, this stream will only be available to Mac, iPod and iPad users. There are some workaround for this for Windows users, however, and we also expect to see numerous rogue streams on sites like USTREAM and Justin.tv.
Live Blog

9:42 AM:The live video stream will be available here.

9:55 AM: Audience is settling in. Eric Clapton playing in the background.

10:00 AM: Steve Jobs takes the stage.Perfectly on time.

10:01 AM: Steve points out that Woz is in the audience. His "old partner in crime."

10:03 AM: Update on Apple retail. New stores in Paris, London and China. There are now 300 Apple stores. On some days, more than a million people visit Apple's stores on a single day. Apple teaches 80,000 one-on-one classes in its stores per week.

iOS Update

10:05 AM: iOS update: Apple has shipped 120 million iOS devices. Apple activates 230,000 new iOS devices per day. Steve Jobs notes that some of Apple's competitors seem to count upgrades as well.

10:06 AM: 200 apps per second being downloaded from App Store.

10:07 AM: iOS 4.1 Coming today (iPhone and iPod): bugs fixed: proximity sensor, bluetooth, iPhone 3G speed.

New features: High Dynamic Range (HDR) photos, HD uploads over WiFi, TV show rentals, Game Center.

10:11 AM: Game Center: play games with friends online. Showing how it works in Angry Bird.

10:09 AM: shows off HDR photos - very standard implementation of HDR with three different exposures.

Coming next week.

10:12 AM: Epic on stage to demo new game: Project Sword. Role-playing game (looks great on the iPhone). Uses Game Center. Show how easy it is to find other players (friends and strangers) to play with.

Going to be available in time for the holiday season.

10:15 AM: Sneak Peek at iOS 4.2: Update for iPad

10:17 AM: Air Play: stream audio, video and more over WiFi.

New feature: wireless feature and something called Air Play ("we will talk about this later").

Demo of printing: iPad will get an option to print - print queue will be in the multitasking bar at the bottom.

10:18 AM: Demo of iOS 4.2 on iPad. Steve shows off multitasking, folders, etc. Everything looks just like iOS 4 for the iPhone.

Release date for iOS 4.2: November for iPhone, iPod touch and iPad.

iPod Update

10:20 AM: 275 million iPod's sold to date.

10:21 AM: "We have gone wild." All-new designs for all models.

Shuffle: "It's been a really big hit." Recaps history of the Shuffle. People missed the buttons on the last generation shuffle.

New Shuffle: buttons, voice over and playlists. Also includes Genius mixes.

Will come in five different colors. Will sell for $49.

10:24 AM: iPod nano: "How do we make this better. The iPod nano has been super popular. We want to make it smaller and better.

The nano is now a really tiny iPod touch. Space for four icons. Comes with FM radio, volume buttons and 24 hour battery life.

"One of our board members plans to use this as a wrist watch.

10:26 AM: Demo of new iPad nano.

10:30 AM: New nano will come in 8 different colors, including a Product RED edition.

Price: $149 for 8GB and $179 for 16GB

10:30 AM: iPod Touch update: "It's an iPhone without a contract." Also: most popular game player in the world. Now Apple's most popular iPod.

Over a 1.5 billion games and entertainment devices have been downloaded to the iPod touch.

10:32 AM: New iPod touch won't get the iPhone 4 look. Instead: thinner, Retina display ("the best display in the world"), A4 chip, 3-axis gyro, iOS 4.1, front-facing camera. Support for FaceTime (also between iPhone and iPod touches).

Also: rear camera with HD video, 40 hours of music playback.

Pricing: 8GB for $229, 32GB for $299 and 64GB for $399.

Available next week. Pre-order starts today.

10:37 AM: Showing new ads.

iTunes Update

10:38 AM: "People have downloaded over 11.7 billion songs from iTunes." 100 million movies, 35 million books, 450 million TV episodes.

"It's clearly the #1 digital media store in the world.

10:39 AM: iTunes 10

New logo

10:39 AM: New feature: hybrid view - instead of long list with the same album title, you can now choose to see cover in the list view instead.

Discovery: "How do you find out about new stuff?" "What are my friends listening to? What concerts do my friends go to?"

Find out what your friends are listening to and downloading. With status updates, too.

Ping: a new social network all about music. Right in iTunes.

10:42 AM: Custom Top 10 chart based on what your friends and the people you follow are downloading from iTunes. "Just for you."

Shows Lady Gaga's Ping page. You can follow her, Twitter-style. If you want to, you can also allow anybody to follow you.

"It's super easy to use. Most of us will live in our feeds and all the music from people we follow will be delivered to us."

10:44 AM: Strong privacy controls: choose who can follow you, follow and be followed. "You can be as private or as public as you want."

Available immediately.

10:46 AM: Demo time. Jobs shows how ping works.

10:48 AM: Posts to Ping can include text, video, audio. Shows profile pages. Looks a lot like Facebook.

10:49 AM: Ping will be available on the iPhone and iPod touch. Will show up right in the iTunes store on iOS (but not the iPad yet, apparently).

10:50 AM: iTunes 10 will be available later today.

One More Thing

10:51 AM: "We've got one more thing. Actually - it's one more hobby."

"We have sold a lot of them, but it has never been a huge hit." But the people who have them tend to love them.

10:51 AM: "What do Apple TV users want? Hollywood movies and TV shows ("they don't want amateur hour" - a little swipe at YouTube), lower prices for content. Consumers don't want a computer in the living room. Don't want to manage storage.

10:53 AM: People don't want to manage storage. Want a silent, cool and small device.

10:53 AM: 2nd generation AppleTV.

Extremely small. One-fourth of the size of the original. Black. Built-in power supply, 802.11n wifi, Ethernet, HDMI.

10:56 AM: No more downloads. All HD (when available).

Prices:

First run HD movies for $4.99 the day the DVD comes out.

$0.99 cent TV show rentals. Only ABC and Fox for now. Jobs hopes others will get on board soon.

Netflix support. YouTube streaming.

10:58 AM: New UI - includes ratings from Rotten Tomatoes for movies.

11:00 AM: Jobs shows demo of Netflix (instant queue, etc.), photo slideshows, movie rentals.

11:03 AM: Apple TV demo continues with TV rentals (Jobs apparently like 'Glee'). The user interface looks very slick.

11:04 AM: "This is by far the easiest implementation of Netflix to use." (a swipe at Roku)

11:05 AM: With Air Play, you can stream movies from iOS devices to Apple TV. Seamlessly switch back and forth between iPad and Apple TV. See photos from your iPhone on your Apple TV. No apps, though.

11:08 AM: Pricing: "$200-$300 price range was a bit too high" New lower price: $99.

11:08 AM: Available in about four weeks.

11:10 AM: Recap of today's announcements.

11:11 AM: Obligatory music performance at the end of the event: Coldplay's Chris Martin ("I have no new products to reveal.")

11:14 AM: And while Chris Martin plays "Yellow," that pretty much wraps it up for today's event. Thanks for reading everybody!
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Microsoft Celebrates IE6 Decline, IE8 Growth

Mike Melanson — Wed, 01 Sep 2010 09:45:00 -0800

These days, even Microsoft is awaiting the demise of its nearly decade-old Internet Explorer 6. Today, the company looked at August's browser usage numbers according to Net Applications and announced that "Internet Explorer 6 is at or below 5% in many developed markets", calling the drop "overall goodness".

At the same time, the company is celebrating its continued dominance in the browser market, calling IE8 "the fastest growing browser worldwide."

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As Net Applications is reporting that IE6 share is now at its lowest point ever, I thought it would be a good time to address how we think about the aging browser.� As we have�said in the past, one of our main missions is to get people off IE6 as fast as humanly possible.� And while IE6 was a great browser for its time, we all need the web to move forward.� First, this is good for developers who we want to be able to write thesame markup�across their sites. It's good for consumers who should have the�protections�afforded by a modern browser. Finally, it's good for the web, particularly as we�look ahead�to IE9 and begin to see what's possible.�

According to Net Applications' August numbers, Internet Explorer 8 grew by just over 1% to account for 32% of the browser market worldwide and it's growth was nearly three times that of Google Chrome.

As we noted when looking at similar numbers last February, Net Applications doesn't always agree with other browser stat sites, such as StatCounter, which shows IE8 dropping by 1% over the past month and IE6 actually increasing its share by 1%.

Perhaps the most interesting statistic to note from Net Applications, however, is one involving IE6 and China. There, the browser we all love to hate continues to hold 46% of the market (just over 50% if you include various editions of IE6), which the company says is "significantly skewing global share". Overall, however, Net Applications finds that IE6 has declined by 1%, bringing its share to just under 17% worldwide.

Of course, all of this may change when Microsoft releases the beta of its latest browser, IE9, which looks to bring the company into the future with a clean-cut, slimmed down design and a number of advanced features.

What do you think - what will the browser market look like when Microsoft brings out the latest? Will Chrome continue its climb? And will IE9 take over the top spot from IE8?
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Justin.tv Launches Mobile Broadcasting App, Competes on Video Quality

Sarah Perez — Wed, 01 Sep 2010 09:00:55 -0800

Justin.tv is finally breaking into the mobile broadcasting business with today's release of its first Android application and with an iPhone version soon to follow. The company admits that it's not the first to do mobile broadcasting - competitors like UStream and Qik have been around for some time - but it's the first company do it at this quality. According to CEO Michael Seibel, Justin.tv wanted to wait until the hardware on smartphones would be able to support their vision for what a mobile broadcasting experience should be like. And now, thanks to modern smartphones, features like support for hardware encoding, high quality cameras, sufficient CPUs and more, Justin.tv says it has been able to develop the best live streaming mobile application yet.

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How Justin.tv Does High-Quality Mobile Broadcasting

The major drawback to mobile broadcasting is having to deal with network connectivity issues. Mobile users in an area of poor network coverage or who are moving in between areas of good coverage and bad, have typically faced video quality issues like stuttering, stops and starts. But with Justin.tv's mobile applications, both on Android and the soon-to-launch iPhone version, connectivity issues have been addressed through the use of smooth streaming and adaptive bitrate technologies. What this means is that the mobile app can ping the phone to determine how much upload bandwidth you currently have available and then make adjustments to the quality of the encoded video on the fly, adaptively reducing or increasing the bitrate of your stream as the network coverage gets better or worse.

Although the app can't record high-quality video when cell towers simply aren't providing your device with a good signal, the app can seamlessly make adjustments for varying coverage. In addition, it can perform hand-off from Wi-Fi to 3G and vice versa without dropping the connection.

The app also takes advantage of hardware developments like hardware encoding, a feature common on many of today's smartphones. Your phone doesn't have to offer hardware encoding (a separate chip that handles video) in order for you use to app, it makes the experience better if you do.

Given the talk of all the hardware and mobile advancements that have made the Justin.tv application finally possible, you may think that it's limited only to select devices or those running the latest version of the Android operating system, for example. But the company says that's not actually the case. The Android app runs on over 95% of the devices in the marketplace today. Justin.tv itself tested the app internally on ten different phones then ran a beta program where it was tested on a number of other handsets, too. When asked what phones it wouldn't work on, Seibel wasn't sure. Maybe the G1?, he wondered. We suppose we'll find out today as the app is released to the official market.

Other Features: Social Networking, Unlimited Storage, Chat

In addition to focusing on video quality, Justin.tv also strived to make an app that mainstream mobile users could embrace, even if they had never heard of the company. All registration and social networking integration setup, including direct broadcasting via links to Facebook and Twitter, is configured within the app itself. You never have to visit the company website. Other features introduced today include built-in chatting and unlimited video storage, at no additional cost. The app itself isn't monetized yet - it's free, has no ads and it may remain that way for good. The company says it's focused only on the product for now. The links created by the app drive traffic to the Justin.tv website which is already successfully monetized, so there may never be a need to charge for the app or insert ads within it, we're told.

Of course, a lot of companies claim their apps are "the best" at what they do, so Justin.tv released this comparison video that positions their Android app head-to-head with its competitors. Will it perform as well for you? There's only one way to find out.

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Skyfire Submits Flash Video Enabled Browser to App Store

Mike Melanson — Wed, 01 Sep 2010 09:00:00 -0800

Steve Jobs doesn't like Flash. He says it has poor security, kills your battery and performs poorly on mobile devices. For those reasons and more, Apple doesn't allow Flash applications or video to run on the iPhone, iPad or iPod Touch.

Today, Skyfire will try to break through Apple's Flash blockade with the submission of its mobile browser, which transcodes Flash into HTML5 in real time, to the App Store. And according to its creators, Apple is going to accept it.

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According to an email from the company, "this submission is the tech industry's first test of whether Jobs' 'thoughts on Flash' ban is actually political rather than technical" and it will be approved for several reasons. The company maintains that the app has been developed with "significant oversight and feedback from Apple" and that "it adheres to every guideline put forth by Apple regarding HTML5 video playback for iOS". The process of transcoding Flash to HTML5, the company contends, will allow Apple users to "play millions of Flash videos on Apple devices without the technical problems for which Jobs banned flash."

This isn't the first time we've expected to see Flash on the iPhone, but aside from a hack for jailbroken phones and a program that uses your home computer as a proxy server, Flash has remained off-limits for Apple's mobile users.

Skyfire operates similarly to Opera Mini for the iPhone, basing its Web-browsing capabilities off of a Webkit browser core shared with Safari and using cloud-computing to transcode Flash into HTML5 in real time. Flash video is translated every three seconds, with video data being compressed by up to 75%.

Skyfire also avoids the concerns raised in Steve Jobs' recent essay regarding Flash on mobile devices. By optimizing Flash for iPhones and network conditions in the Cloud, Skyfire improves performance and maximizes battery life while playing video. The browser also avoids alternate runtime environments and other security vulnerabilities.

Opera may have already broken the non-native browser barrier, but we'll have to wait and see if Skyfire can use this sort of end-around to bring Flash video to Apple's mobile devices while thumbing their nose at Jobs all the while.
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Apple Event Announcements Rundown: iOS 4.1, New iPods, iTunes 10, Ping and Apple TV

Retail Store Update

iOS 4.1 and 4.2

New iPods

iTunes 10 and Ping

One More Thing Hobby: New Apple TV - $99

Facebook Credits: Coming to a Target Near You

Live Blog: Apple's Fall Event (New iPods, iOS 4.1, iTunes 10, Apple TV)

Live Streaming

Live Blog

iOS Update

iPod Update

iTunes Update

One More Thing

Microsoft Celebrates IE6 Decline, IE8 Growth

Justin.tv Launches Mobile Broadcasting App, Competes on Video Quality

How Justin.tv Does High-Quality Mobile Broadcasting

Other Features: Social Networking, Unlimited Storage, Chat

Skyfire Submits Flash Video Enabled Browser to App Store