ReadWriteWeb

Twilio Brings VoIP Calling to Any App With New iOS SDK

Dan Rowinski — Thu, 23 Feb 2012 06:48:54 -0800

Imagine playing a game of Scrabble on your iPhone against your mother. You and Ma are competitive and these games tend to turn into rabid battles for literary supremacy. Also, she's your mother so you want to talk about how things are with the family, your nephew and if Pa is taking that new job in Chicago. So, you press a button in the app and create a voice connection running over your data connection. No dialing, no minutes used. Just a data connection straight from the app.

Cloud communications company Twilio is making that possible. Today it is announcing a new native iOS software developer kit for its Twilio Client, allowing Voice-over-IP calls from any app. The future of telephony is in data connections, not wireless minutes and Twilio is looking to make the mobile carriers' networks programmable for the next generation of app developers.

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The Twilio Client iOS SDK is an extension of its browser-based SDK the company announced in 2011. The idea is to create a voice connection from any app, anywhere. Think of it as the smart device version of a walkie-talkie. It is a fairly simple but powerful idea.

We wrote about Twilio's ability to disrupt the mobile carriers in January and the basic tenets hold true - when communications become IP based, the business model has to change. Twilio is just nudging the carriers in that direction. Yet, instead of outright disrupting the carriers, Twilio thinks that it can become a partner. The idea is to create value for the cellular network.

"I actually think would be interested in a partnership opportunity with the carriers. I think something like Skype would be in competition with the carriers because they are going after the end users," said Thomas Schiavone, Twilio's project manager responsible for the iOS SDK. "We are an API on top of networks that the carriers have the opportunity to work with developers and add value to the networks, which is something that they need to do. We are trying to figure out how to give people an API that adds value to the network and new and interesting use cases as opposed to the traditional, 'I want to call someone.'"

Unlike other companies that provide programmable VoIP solutions, Twilio does not institute a threshold to use its services. There are no minimum messages that need to be sent per month, no amount of minutes or data that a developer needs to hit to use the Twilio Client. The idea is to create ubiquity across the developer landscape as opposed to an artificially high limit that precludes smaller developers from adding an interesting feature like push-to-call in their apps.

From an enterprise standpoint, Twilio can add a lot of value to a single employee out of the office. The logic needed to create a call center is located in the Twilio cloud and accessible through its variety of SDKs. Since it creates a data connection, all an employee would need to become a IP PBX call center is an iPad and the proper software.

"What we really think is interesting is that it can run the gamut between consumers and enterprise; how do I improve my business practices?" Schiavone said. "All that logic is internal to Twilio. You can think of the Twilio Client as sort of the end-user experience that you present to the user and all the smarts and intelligence are not in the SDK. All the brains and smarts are in the Twilio cloud."

Twilio has an Android SDK in beta that developers can sign up for. The company will continue to evolve the Twilio client, giving it more robust features.

"You will see continued investment in this Twilio Client with Web calls, IP next-gen infrastructure because I think there is a lot of value we can give to developers and in extension, to users," Schiavone said.

What do you think about the "programmable network?" Is a voice connection something you need in your app? Let us know in the comments.

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Facebook Faces Nationwide Class-Action Lawsuit

Dave Copeland — Thu, 23 Feb 2012 05:30:00 -0800

A Baltimore law firm filed a nationwide class action lawsuit against Facebook Friday, claiming the social network illegally tracked user activity on the Internet.

In its claim, the law firm Murphy P.A. said the company "repeatedly ignored" warnings from a user who noticed Facebook continued to track users' activities on the Internet even after they had logged off. Facebook finally confirmed the practice in September and promised to make corrections within 24 hours.

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Facebook is in a quiet period ahead of its initial public offering.

"The days when online service providers can run roughshod over the privacy rights of their customers are over," said Murphy, P.A. Founding Partner William Murphy, Jr. said in a statement. "Companies that operate commercial websites, such as Facebook, need to realize the public is increasingly concerned about its privacy rights. Perhaps even more importantly, there is a growing community of security experts and bloggers that is extremely savvy about internet technology and committed to ensuring that people's privacy rights are respected and protected."

The company faces similar claims in Mississippi, Kansas and other states, but this is the first that seeks to bring a nationwide class against Facebook which could potentially involve every U.S. user who signed up for the service before Facebook updated its cookies and privacy policy. All of the lawsuits claim Facebook violates state and federal wiretap laws, among other accusations.

Murphy P.A. partnered with the San Francisco office of Girard Gibbs LLP to file the lawsuit in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California.

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Facebook Shares Could Be Overvalued By First Day Of Trading

Dave Copeland — Thu, 23 Feb 2012 04:30:00 -0800

More than 1,000 people are now trading shares of Facebook on private markets - well above the 50 to 100 that most companies have ahead of their initial public offering.

Sam Hamadeh, head of research firm PrivCo., who made the current shareholder estimates for Bloomberg News, said that has pushed Facebook's valuation over $100 billion and could limit the returns the company's first public investors will see if they buy shares soon after the company goes public.

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On private markets, Facebook was trading as high as $44 per share this month. That would give the company a valuation of $103 billion. Kevin Landis, portfolio manager for the Firsthand Technology Value Fund in San Jose, Calif., told Bloomberg that's up from October, when his fund purchased shares for prices between $30 and $31.

"Facebook is a blue-chip stock and it's not even public yet," said Landis, who still hopes to add Facebook shares to his fund.

Facebook, which is not commenting as a result of its mandated quiet period ahead of the IPO, has not set price ranges for its offering. Insiders have said founder Mark Zukerberg has considered valuations as high as $100 billion.

Barry Ritholtz, CEO of FusionIQ, an equities research firm, told Bloomberg the heavy activity on the private markets could make the IPO more like a secondary stock offering.

"The people buying now at the IPO price are presuming there's lots of upside -- I'm skeptical," said Ritholtz. "There's a lot of smart money agitating for the highest possible valuation, and they don't necessarily have the investing public's best interest at heart."

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Daily Wrap: RIM Playbook Disappoints and more

Robyn Tippins — Wed, 22 Feb 2012 18:06:28 -0800

David Strom says the RIM Playbook isn't ready for primetime. This and more in today's Daily Wrap.

Sometimes it's difficult to catch everything that hits tech media in a day, so we wrap up some of the most talked about stories. We give you a daily recap of what you missed in the ReadWriteWeb Community, including a link to some of the most popular discussions in our offsite communities on Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn and Google+ as well.

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What Facebook Says About Your Potential Job Performance

David Strom gives 4 reasons why The RIM Playbook Still Sucks, even after the recent upgrade. From messaging inadequacies to a power button that is almost inoperable, David explains why he's not happy with the Playbook.

The commenters on this story vehemently disagreed:

Patrick Zimmerman II - Really still suck? This tablet has never sucked. I use my tablet everyday for work and it saves me so much time working in .xls and .doc files, O and i do all my power point with it as well. To me I need a Tool and not a Toy. Maybe Apple needs to join WOW then you would be happy. Good Job RIM keep the Tools that work for me coming. O and i don't need a app for that

From Twitter the reactions were mixed:

Reviews Are In.Sorry, RIM: The Playbook Still Sucks rww.to/yrEQuS via @RWW
— Brett Bell (@heybrettbell) February 22, 2012

Pretty damning on #tablets generally! "Sorry, RIM: The Playbook Still Sucks" rww.to/yX1cu8 @RWW
— Dan Purvis (@DanPurvis) February 22, 2012

Flickr Can't Go Back To What It Once Was

Alicia Eler — Wed, 22 Feb 2012 15:30:00 -0800

Flickr will launch a major makeover in its quest to return to its once young and sexy past, according to reports from BetaBeat.

The new Flickr homepage will look more like the slick, image-only homepages of online visual pinboard Pinterest and photo-sharing app Pixable. There will be little white space on the homepage. In the new version, photos will appear four times their current size. They will lie on the page, scattered about like puzzle pieces slipped together without overlap. Flickr is repositioning itself to look more like an app, which is right in line with Yahoo's "mobile first" strategy. But this is a Web-only photo community - and if Instagram is showing us anything, it's that the future of photography is in smartphones.

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Next week, users will be able to see changes to their contacts page, which includes the removal of some whitespace. In late March, users will notice significant changes to the photo uploading process.

"This is an evolving design, one that will develop over time, starting with the redesign of the contacts page," a Flickr spokesperson tells ReadWriteWeb. "There will also be more changes to the site later in the year."

Photography by Smartphone Users, for Smartphone Users

Photo-sharing service Instagram is only available as an iPhone app, and it already has 15 million users. For more than a year, the Android app has been "coming soon," or so says CEO Kevin Systrom. According to data from Nielsen, Android users make up more than 46% of the smartphone market. Imagine all those Android users in addition to the already Instagram-obsessed iPhone users. And this is all without an existing Web version of the Instagram service. Plus, with a variety of third-party applications utilizing the Instagram API, the idea of a Web-only service doesn't feel very important at all.

When Kodak announced that it was preparing to file for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection earlier this year, it became clear that the nature of photography was in for a major change. Indeed, point-and-shoots and SLRs were hardly in use; instead, people were taking photos with their iPhones, first and foremost. Kodak launched two Facebook-integrated cameras at CES 2012, but it might be too late even for that.

But here's an interesting detail: Apple iPhone 4 and 4S, followed by the iPhone 3G and 3GS are the most popular cameras in the Flickr community. If Flickr can retool to focus on these users, who are most likely also Instagram users, there is a chance they can come back. But it will take some careful strategizing, and a product that's even more gimmicky fun than Instagram's tinted filters.

Will Flickr's new layout for the Web matter, especially when photography is becoming mostly smartphone-focused?

Here's a photo from my now-dormant Flickr stream. I just pinned it to one of my Pinterest boards and posted it to Facebook. It will drift downstream to other users, my friends and the Internet at large. Would that same thing have happened on Flickr?

Lead image courtesy of Shutterstock. Sailboat photograph by Alicia Eler.

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Open Knowledge Releases Open Data Handbook 1.0

Joe Brockmeier — Wed, 22 Feb 2012 15:01:00 -0800

The Open Knowledge Foundation (OKF) announced the 1.0 release of the Open Data Handbook today. The 1.0 release is the culmination of a project that started in October 2010 at a book sprint in Berlin as the Open Data Manual.

The Open Data Handbook provides the introduction to what open data is, why organizations (particularly government) would be interested in providing open data, and how to go about it.

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Open data proponents will find the Open Data Handbook pretty basic stuff, but it's an excellent resource to pass on to others. It's also the starting point for a lot more work.

Specifically, the OKF is looking for feedback on the text, contributions for the next version of the handbook, and help translating the handbook into different languages. Currently the handbook is only available in English.

The OKF is also working on additional guides and handbooks, like the data journalism handbook and data patterns handbook. If you're interested in contributing, check out the mailing list.

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Xerox Goes Up Against RIM in 'BYOD' Mobile Device Management

Scott M. Fulton, III — Wed, 22 Feb 2012 14:30:00 -0800

The firm that entered our lives as "The Document Company" must reinvent itself again if it is to thrive in a world where paper is used less and less as the agent of transferring information. Taking a cue yesterday from Research In Motion, which last November set up a safety net for itself as a mobile document management (MDM) company, Xerox is now headed the same direction.

Now, the former "Document Company" has announced it's setting itself up as a managed service provider for SMBs and enterprises to provision secure mobile devices, effectively reselling an MDM platform from Boxtone. If you think you're experiencing déjà vu, there may be a less-than-supernatural reason: Verizon has entered into a similar agreement with Boxtone, for similar services, on the exact same day.

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Boxtone's MDM platform is geared around a policy management tool that extends the policy framework of Active Directory. The goal is to enable employees to bring their own devices (BYOD) into the workplace, including Android and iOS, and enable them to be provisioned, enrolled into the network, and secured. This places Boxtone in direct contention with Centrify, which last week announced a similar BYOD platform using Active Directory, available to some customers for free.

Xerox's ACS division will be offering Boxtone MDM service on its own cloud, with what it promises to be competitive fees, calculated per-device. ("Free" will be difficult to compete against, but we'll see how Xerox manages the quality issue.) Administrators will assign mobile policies to existing employees in AD, and will then be able to provision devices over-the-air. A white paper released by ACS yesterday (PDF available here) states the provisioning tool will work with iOS, Android, Windows Mobile (other sources list Windows Phone), and BlackBerry OS devices.

Boxtone's MDM monitoring dashboard [shown: Boxtone branding]

Boxtone's compliance management tool offers end-to-end compliance monitoring, with automated alerting of IT to potential violations, and background auditing and reporting.

According to ACS, Apple iOS users will need to acquire what's called an Apple Push Notification Service (APNs) certificate separately. It's an SSL certificate required for the signing of secured transactions, including e-mail - and with the Apple ecosystem, there's only one way to get it. Luckily someone outside of Apple thought it might be a good idea to document this process (PDF available here).

Xerox closed its acquisition of ACS in February 2010.

In the wake of its recent release of all new Droid devices including Droid 4 with a revised QWERTY keyboard, the thinner Droid RAZR, and the new Xyboard tablet, Verizon Wireless announced yesterday it will also be reselling Boxtone MDM tools to enterprise customers. For now, VZW will be concentrating on the healthcare segment, in hopes that health providers moving off the BlackBerry platform will consider Droid.

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MasterCard Mobile Money Partnership Program Aims to Bring Mobile Payments Everywhere

Dan Rowinski — Wed, 22 Feb 2012 14:00:00 -0800

For all of the talk about the mobile payments revolution, most of the world still deals in cash. About 85% of world retail transactions are still done with paper currency, while payment processors are smacking their lips at the prospect of increasing their share.

The problem with digital payments in emerging markets is most people do not have proper bank accounts. However, they are likely to have mobile phones. So today, MasterCard announced a partnership initiative to turn those phones into payment processors. Walk into a store anywhere in the world and use your phone to make a purchase. The combination of currency with telephony holds great promise, one that MasterCard thinks will net it a billion new customers.

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"In the majority of emerging countries the percentage of the population that has access to normal banking accounts as you and I have with a normal bank is limited. It is well below 100% of the population," said Mung Ki Woo, group executive for mobile and emerging payments at MasterCard. "On the contrary, penetration of mobile telephony has increased massively. To the point where in those countries, even the poorest, have 50%-60% penetration rates. This means that most adults can have access to mobile phones. Out of this this discrepancy was born mobile money services."

The MasterCard Mobile Money Partnership Program is intended to help 2.5 billion people in emerging markets gain financial services through their mobile phones. MasterCard is partnering with Sybase 365, Utiba and Comviva to bring transactions through telephony to brick and mortar and online merchants across the world.

The target locations for the partnerships will be in Africa, the Middle East, parts of Asia and Eastern Europe. All that will be needed to make a transaction between two parties is that each have a cellphone.

"What we have been doing over the last 10 months is reaching out to this world of mobile money services and building bridges to enable transactions between this world of mobile money services and the existing world of MasterCard accounts," Woo said. "For us we think that it is about getting the next billion customers and consumers connected to the MasterCard network."

Here are the specific services offer by the MasterCard Mobile Money Partnership Program:

Prepaid companion cards that account holders can use at merchants that accept MasterCard cards.
Virtual card accounts that can be used for e-commerce payments with a user's mobile money account.
Person-to-person payments between subscribers of two different mobile money services.
Face-to-face or remote payments using mobile phones for goods and services at merchants that do not have traditional point of sale systems.

Visa also announced a payments model in an emerging market today, teaming with a company called Monitise to bring mobile payments to India.

Imagine all the world's transactions as one giant river. Right now that river flows with physical currency and a small stream of digital transactions. Companies like MasterCard and Visa see emerging markets as the key to digitizing more of that flow.

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As Romney's Wife Takes to Pinterest, Campaign Cracks Down on Hoax Accounts

Dave Copeland — Wed, 22 Feb 2012 13:30:12 -0800

And you thought First Lady Michelle Obama was hip for jumping on Twitter.

Wannabe First Lady Ann Romney, as far as we can tell, is the only 2012 Presidential candidate's wife on Pinterest, the rapidly growing social network. But while Ann Romney is busy pinning family photos, "candid" campaign shots, books worth reading, recipes and patriotic images, her husband's campaign is playing a game of whack-a-mole with people using Pinterest to satirize the candidate and his wealth.

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Earlier this month, Gawker reported that the Romeny camapign had convinced Pinterest to get the user who claimed the handle MittRomneyGOP to change it to FakeMittRomney. Sample pins include "Have you ever taken a Pellegrino bath? It's like a jacuzzi, but you save on electricity" on a photo of the pricey sparkling water and "I don't even know what this is, but I have 12 of them," on a photo of a handcut vase.

We've asked Pinterest to clarify its policies on user names and hoax accounts, but should note we're also still waiting to hear back from them on our request to help us make sense of their user policy and its relationship to copyright law. We'll update both posts if and when Pinterest gets back to us.

Hoax accounts are nothing new: Twitter even allows satirical accounts as long as they are clearly labeled as such, and as long as they don't poke fun at French President Nicolas Sarkozy. What is shocking, however, is that more candidates aren't paying attention to Pinterest, given its rapid growth and the fact that a majority of its users are voting-age women.

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Apple's Messages Beta: Pretty Meh in a Mixed OS World

Joe Brockmeier — Wed, 22 Feb 2012 11:29:00 -0800

Installing Messages is simple enough, though it does require a system reboot. If you've been using iChat, Messages will automatically import your accounts and you're good to go. If not, it's simple enough to set up your accounts. Like iChat, Messages supports AIM, Yahoo, Google Talk and Jabber accounts. To get the most out of Messages, though, you'll need an Apple ID and Messages on the desktop and/or an iOS device.

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Also like iChat, Messages doesn't support IRC, Windows Live, or a host of other less-popular protocols. If you still need one of those, you'll want to turn to Adium or another chat client.

Using Messages

For the most part, Messages is a pretty standard instant messaging application. If you're talking to other users on Jabber, Google Chat, AIM, or whatever then you'll see very little difference. Like iChat, Messages supports screen sharing, sending files, video chat, text chat and integrates with the Mac address book.

Messages' real bonus kicks in if you're chatting with users who use Messages, and/or you're also using an iOS device.

Messages basically unifies texting and instant messaging for users who are on Mac OS X and iOS. For instance, I have Messages installed on my iMac, and have an iPhone and iPad with iOS 5.0.1. If I'm chatting with my brother, who has an iPod Touch with iOS 5.0, he can send me a text message from his Touch or computer and I'll get it on my phone and desktop. The conversation is synced between my computer and my iOS devices almost immediately. If someone tries to start a FaceTime call, I'll get the request on any device that I'm logged in on.

FaceTime is also integrated with Messages, so you can initiate a video call from your desktop to a friend or colleague on an iOS device (or vice-versa). If you've been wanting FaceTime on the desktop, but didn't want to pay the $0.99 for the standalone App, grab the Messages beta.

Quality-wise, I've been pleased with FaceTime messaging. I tested it out with a couple of calls to users on iOS devices, and I didn't really notice any problems with the quality of video or audio. When full-screening the session, the video was a bit fuzzy, but given that my display is 2560 x 1440 and the iPod touch doesn't send HD video, that's not surprising.

The only bug I did run into with the beta was Messages mixing up the display of transcripts. It'd show one user, but the transcript for a chat would belong to a different user. This was easily corrected, though.

It would be nice if Apple offered the option of initiating a voice-only chat over FaceTime, but that might annoy its carrier partners a bit much. Group video chat would also be a boon, since there are times that it'd be nice to chat with two or more colleagues, friends or family members. (If Google can do it with Hangouts, surely Apple could figure it out with FaceTime as well?)

Messages is a modest improvement over iChat and brings Mac OS and iOS a bit closer together. Unfortunately, the benefits that Messages brings to the table really only apply if you happen to have a lot of friends using iOS and/or Macs. If most of your contacts have iPhones, iPads and/or a Mac on the desktop, it's pretty useful. If most of your contacts have Android phones and/or use Linux or Windows, you're pretty much just as well off with Adium or sticking with iChat.

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Europe Refers ACTA to Court of Justice, Decision Could Nullify Enforcement

Scott M. Fulton, III — Wed, 22 Feb 2012 11:00:00 -0800

In a move ostensibly to confirm the European Parliament's opinion that the international Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement is above board - but perhaps also to alleviate its own suspicions - E.U. Trade Commissioner Karel de Gucht has opted to refer the treaty to the Court of Justice (ECJ). While Comm. de Gucht expects his support of ACTA to be ratified, the Court's decision could end up blocking enforcement of the treaty throughout the continent.

This even though 22 of the E.U.'s 27 member nations have already signed on to the treaty. Under the terms of the Treaty of Lisbon with which the E.U. was formed, the European Parliament must give consent to any treaty becoming law among its member nations. It will be holding public hearings on that very question next week.

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"We are planning to ask Europe's highest court to assess whether ACTA is incompatible - in any way - with the EU's fundamental rights and freedoms, such as freedom of expression and information or data protection and the right to property in case of intellectual property," reads a statement from Comm. de Gucht this morning from Brussels. "I believe the European Commission has a responsibility to provide our parliamentary representatives and the public at large with the most detailed and accurate information available. So, a referral will allow for Europe's top court to independently clarify the legality of this agreement."

At issue is whether enforcement of the treaty would put Internet service providers in the uncomfortable (and, as far as Europe is concerned, illegal) position of providing back-channel access to suspected IP thieves and pirates to content rights holders, especially in the entertainment industry. Also, the treaty may be interpreted as compelling governments to enforce means to block infringing users from accessing the Internet, or similarly to block ISPs from enabling themselves to be accessed by them. The European Commission had already endorsed ACTA.

But the treaty had not always been negotiated in the public light. As a result, citizens who are only just now becoming aware of its existence are skeptical why the treaty wasn't made subject to judicial review prior to the endorsement.

In the wake of the historic SOPA/PIPA defeat in the U.S., European lawmakers are eager to stay on the right side of public opinion. At the same time, they can't exactly be seen as backtracking on their existing stance. While the E.C. was on record in opposition to ACTA's being negotiated in secret, it did not put up much of a fuss after negotiated drafts were made public, and the most potentially offending parts were stricken.

One of those removed parts would have facilitated so-called "three strikes laws," which would bar individuals' access to the Internet after three intellectual property-related offenses. In a statement last week, E.C. Vice President Viviane Reding reminded Europeans that she had a hand not only in getting that provision removed, but with inserting in its place a provision that would ensure it never re-emerge elsewhere.

"In spite of significant political pressure, I instead supported - in the name of the European Commission and in close alliance with the European Parliament - the inclusion of an Internet freedom provision in the final text of this legislation," stated Comm. Reding. "Under this provision, 'three-strikes laws,' which could cut off Internet access without a prior fair and impartial procedure or without effective and timely judicial review, will certainly not become part of European law. This situation can and must not be changed by the ACTA agreement."

The E.C. is the upper house of the E.U. legislature; Parliament is the lower house. According to Parliament, now that the E.C. has consented to ACTA, it cannot make changes to it. But it can decline its consent, the effect of which would be to nullify its enforcement, even among those member nations that have already signed.

Leading the ACTA debate in Parliament is MEP David Martin (U.K.), who issued this statement earlier today: "We will wait for the ECJ ruling before we draw conclusions, but an open political debate in the European Parliament is also necessary on the measures foreseen by ACTA. We must guarantee a good balance between intellectual property rights, which are fundamental for the European economy and job creation, and individual freedoms."

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Why Tablets Should Replace TVs in New York City Taxis

Alicia Eler — Wed, 22 Feb 2012 10:30:00 -0800

Hop into the back seat of a cab, and you're likely to see one of those annoying mini-TV screens/credit card machines playing some banal news cast or commercial. To drown out that background noise, you stare at your smartphone and frantically check email and Facebook. Or maybe you put the phone away and strike up one of those "how's the weather"-type conversations with the cab driver. What if there was something better than either of these options?

If Square has its way, in tablets might soon replace TVs in New York City taxis. According to reports from CBS New York, Square recently met with the Taxi and Limousine Commission to discuss just that. To test things out, tablets would land in 50 cabs, replacing the current taxi TV system.

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Taxi cab riders would be able to do and play whatever they want on the tablets. Think about it: Play Angry Birds, check email and Facebook, tweet about something random that the cab driver is doing, pin stuff to one of your Pinterest boards, book your next plane ticket to London, buy tickets to the movies, check your online bank statement, look at porn...the possibilities are endless. But is that a good thing?

With so much stimuli already available in an urban environment like New York City, the tablet with its endless possibilities could be overly distracting for both a passenger and the cab driver.

What if you, the cab rider, mess up the address of where you're going? And then when you arrive, you realize that you're in the wrong location? If you had been paying attention instead of busily tapping away on the in-cab tablet, you might have noticed. But technology is too alluring. We distract ourselves with the shiny glow of all-things-i, so much so that we do not know where we are going.

We distract ourselves with the shiny glow of all-things-i, so much so that we do not know where we are going.

And then there's the whole "oops I forgot to sign-out" syndrome. Imagine jumping into the cab, only to find the previous user's email and Facebook accounts open. If you're a gentlemanlady, or a gentleman, or just a lady, you will promptly sign out off the random person's accounts. We know that ReadWriteWeb readers are proper chaps - but unfortunately, not everyone can be like us.

One way to avoid the entire "accidentally forgetting to logout" problem: Square could propose some sort of lock on the tablet, which would force the passenger to sign out of every currently running application before exiting the cab. This could even be connected with Square's payment technology, requiring passengers to sign out and pay before leaving the cab.

Additionally, the solitary experience of playing on a tablet might be a welcome alternative to the annoying noise of in-cab TVs. Manuel, a cab driver of 24 years, told 1010 WINS reporter Glenn Schuck that he really does dislike the noise of those TVs

"This thing is annoying all day long," Manuel told CBS. "I gotta listen to this thing time and time again. Nobody likes it. None of my passengers like it."

Tablets in cabs will pose new problems that both drivers and passengers will have to deal with. But for now, anything is better than the annoying drone of commercials and static.

Square is making a formal presentation to the Taxi and Limousine Commission on March 1.

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Mozilla is Placing Itself in Position to be the King of the Mobile Web

Dan Rowinski — Wed, 22 Feb 2012 10:15:00 -0800

One company is in the perfect position to take the reigns. What do you think about when you hear terms like "open," "cross-platform," and "standards?" Certainly not Apple. Facebook has the chops to lead the mobile Web but is closed system flies against the open Web community. When it comes to developers, resources, leadership and coding acumen, one company stands ahead of the mobile Web pack. If Mozilla wants it, the mobile Web is there for the taking.

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At Mobile World Congress next week, Mozilla will open up its Marketplace for mobile Web apps to developers. The idea of the Mozilla Apps Marketplace is to create an app store model for HTML5 apps that can work on any HTML5 compatible device. It will be the first major mobile Web app store from a major player.

There will be three main features of Mozilla Web Apps:

The Mozilla Marketplace, the first operating system- and device-independent market for apps based on open Web technologies like HTML5, JavaScript and CSS.
New Mozilla-proposed APIs that advance the Web as a platform and will be submitted to the W3C for standardization.
A new identity system for the Web that puts users in control of their content, tying apps to the user and not the device or platform.

The identity system frees users from device specific apps. Mobile Web apps will be available anywhere a browser is present.

Developers can start submitting apps to the Mozilla Apps Marketplace starting at Mobile World Congress. The Marketplace will be available to consumers later in 2012.

We have covered Mozilla's plans to create a Web-based mobile operating system several times. The idea hinges around the Boot2Gecko project and will be built to be open and compatible with standards such as JavaScript, CSS3 and HTML5. See the roadmap for Mozilla's mobile plans here.

When it comes to the mobile Web, there are precious few companies set to lead like Mozilla. Facebook has no plans for an app store, Zynga is tied to Facebook and the social graph, Google may endorse the open Web but its mobile initiative is tied to Android. Mozilla has the chops and the mind share to pull it off.

There are several companies and developer studios doing great things with HTML5. Sencha and appMobi are both working on the spec and the ecosystem that will help developers create dynamic Web apps and get paid. Brightcove is taking great steps with HTML5 video and there are a variety of game development studios (like Zynga) that are pushing the bounds of the spec. Taken together, this is the HTML5 ecosystem but none of those companies are positioned to be the leader.

This is Mozilla's chance to become a major player in the mobile ecosystem. It can chip away at the base of the native platforms while setting itself up to be the location that developers flock to with mobile Web apps. The ability to become a central hub of developer activity is what has made Apple and Google's mobile platforms so lucrative.

The first step is the Mozilla App Marketplace. It will be the first major app store for the mobile Web and developers should pay attention to how it evolves. Are you planning on submitting an app to Mozilla? What is the potential of this Marketplace? Let us know your thoughts in the comments.

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Firefox Data Visualization Shows You How Dumb Your Passwords Are

John Paul Titlow — Wed, 22 Feb 2012 09:58:55 -0800

Mozilla knows all too well the online privacy and security issues that its users face. Its Firefox browser is the gateway to the Web for millions of people, and it doesn't take that responsibility lightly. Mozilla Labs recently launched what it calls the Watchdog initiative to help users understand and manage passwords and privacy-related matters.

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The latest Watchdog project to see the light of day is a Firefox add-on called the Password Reuse Visualizer. Once installed, it allows users to see a data visualization of their stored passwords and how they're being used across sites.

The visualization also shows relationships between similar passwords, even if they're not the same.

"Some users like to make many slight variations on the same password," wrote Watchdog developer Paul Sawaya. That's fine, but still an example of password reuse. When the visualization detects two similar passwords, it connects them with a square orange node."

The idea is to help users understand how widespread their password reuse is so that they can put the effort into make things right.

Unfortunately, those with the worst password security habits of all are probably unlikely to download a Firefox add-on like this and use it. Still, anything Mozilla can do to generate awareness about Web security issues is a worthwhile effort.

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Ready, Set, Download the Universe

Alicia Eler — Wed, 22 Feb 2012 09:30:00 -0800

Download the Universe brings together 15 of the Internet's top science folks in an online forum that guides readers through the vast world of digital science e-books, texts and apps.

It was born last month, after a group of writers and scientists had started gathering at Science Online to discuss the rapid growth of e-books. They saw a blissful future for science books - but how would readers be able to find out about them? If you spend too much time on the Internet, you've probably noticed that science e-books do not get reviewed often, nor are they picked up by blogs.

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On Download the Universe, these 15 smart scientists have dedicated their time to reviewing books about science that only exist in the digital universe. Those may include self-published PDF manuscripts, Kindle Singles about science, or even apps with games in them.

But why a website dedicated to only science e-books? And why now?

The idea of a scientific e-review comes from Carl Zimmer, who writes about science for the New York Times. He also authors the blog The Loom.

In his introduction to the site, Zimmer raises important points about the nature of the traditional publishing industry versus the infinitely malleable digital publishing industry. Zimmer has an answer to that question.

"E-books are once again redrawing the boundaries. Walk into a book store and look at the science section. Most of the books are between 200 and 400 pages. Most are created by large publishing houses. There's nothing fundamentally wrong about a 50-page book, of course. It just doesn't fit comfortably into the publishing business - a business that has to contend with costs for printing books, storing them in warehouses, shipping them to book stores, and accepting returned books. E-books create an economic space for the very short book (and the very long one). They also allow authors to reach readers without having to persuade a publisher that their book will earn back an investment."

The first review is already up. Pulitzer-prize winning science writer Deborah Blum evaluates the popular iPad app The Elements.

Because Download the Universe includes texts and apps that are not quite packaged as "e-books," one could argue that these items are not "books." Zimmer sees this argument, and assures readers that perhaps this is true. But nonetheless, there is "something missing in between," as he writes. Download the Universe fills that space online where the science inbetweenness lives.

Image courtesy of Shutterstock.

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Rawporter Is A Brilliant, But Poorly-Executed, Idea

Dave Copeland — Wed, 22 Feb 2012 09:00:00 -0800

The future of journalism, as Rawporter sees it, will include armies of regular people selling raw video footage to outlets who can't get a crew to breaking news events.

But, based on a test of Rawporter's iOS app Tuesday, the future of journalism is going to have to wait. And the test also provides a case study in why rushing an app out the door may not be the best business strategy: I'm frustrated after using it for a couple of hours as a correspondent. But think about how the news outlet that tried to contact me last night to purchase my footage and couldn't get it in time for their evening broadcast feels.

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Rawporter is built on the idea that almost anyone can become a local news cameraman or camerawoman. Instead of dispatching a camera crew to a fire during rush hour and risk their not getting there until after the flame is out, a television news producer can create an assignment from Rawporter's Web interface and send it to anyone with the app who may be in the area of the fire.

How Rawporter Is Supposed To Work

When I first heard about Rawporter at Columbia University's Social Media Weekend last month, I left the room wondering "Why didn't I think of that?" It was one of those ideas that was so simple, yet so brilliant:

People like me download the app, which I previously described as looking and feeling a lot like Instagram, only with an emphasis on video instead of photos.
I load my contact info into a profile and begin shooting video, which is uploaded to the Rawporter Web site and can be browsed by news outlets.
In addition to purchasing footage I shoot on my own, news outlets can send assignments via push notifications to people with the app, based on their GPS coordinates: "We're getting reports of a fire near where Rawporter says you are. Do you have time to run by and shoot two minites of footage? We'll pay up to $25."
I get to retain the rights to my footage, meaning I can tweet it out, resell it or post it on my own site.
The news station avoids the expense of sending out a crew and gets to bring viewers more footage of more events.

How Rawporter Actually Worked When I Tried It Out

The app looks good but, in use, it was clunky, not all that intuitive and, when I tried to use it to cover a march against hate at Bridgewater State University in Massachusetts, it simply didn't work. To be fair, Rawporter is brand new, and an update to their iOS app is waiting for final approval so it can be sold on iTunes.

And they also get points for trying to offer potential fixes via Twitter as soon as I started tweeting about my frustration using the app.

Tuesday's event was to show support for a student who was allegedly attacked on campus after writing an opinion piece supporting gay marriage in the college newspaper, of which I am the adviser. I attended the rally, which my students were covering, and decided I'd use Rawporter to shoot some video of the event, which drew widespread, regional media coverage.

I shot video of the six minute speech by the university's president to open the rally and the nine-minute speech by the victim's father, who is also a professor at the school, at the end of the rally. Rawporter told me the six-minute clip was saved successfully, but when I checked on the Web site the only thing that got uploaded was a one-second test clip (with the description I had written for the longer clip).

And the nine-minute clip? It was completely eaten. I later found it in the standard video camera of my iPhone, but I could not find any way to move it back into Rawporter so it would be available for viewing.

But that's only where the frustrations started. Other major flaws:

When I started to realize I was having trouble, I tried to update my Rawporter profile with my phone number so if any news outlets did want footage, they may be able to contact me. Every time I tried, however, I got an error message when I saved it. I was able to update the profile when I got online, but, 16 hours later, those changes still aren't showing up when I access my profile through the app.
At 4:30 or so yesterday afternoon I got a push notification saying a news outlet - I still don't know who - was willing to pay me $25 for the speech I shot. But when I logged into the app, and then the Web site, there was no record of the new outlet making such an offer and no way of responding.

Rawporter is a brilliant idea, and you can see companion apps popping up for writers and professional photographers looking to sell work and field assignments. But it's a poorly-executed idea. The company has an uphill battle, convincing clients that using the service is worth the effort of finding ways around the tight union contracts for camera crews that are in place at many broadcast news outlets. A poorly-designed app that frustrates even the most technically-inclined potential user is not going to make that sales pitch any easier.

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The Hats Swap Heads: Microsoft Uses EU Leverage to Pin Google on Patents

Scott M. Fulton, III — Wed, 22 Feb 2012 08:30:00 -0800

Today's move marks perhaps the final step in Microsoft's spectacular transformation from the de facto force of evil in all matters of intellectual property, to the champion of the oppressed and the standard bearer of the people. Wearing the black hat now is Google, which just two years ago considered a bold solution to the video patents problem: open sourcing the technology and dare others to sue.

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If Google completes its acquisition of MMI (only a few roadblocks remain), the newly combined company will be the holder of essential patents pertaining to the H.264 video standard. In an early morning blog post today, Microsoft VP and General Counsel Dave Heiner noted that MMI presently charges a 2.25% fee for rights to some 2,300 essential H.264 patents, for roughly $22.50 shaved off the sale price of a $1,000 laptop. By contrast, the MPEG LA group (whose name Heiner omitted, though we all know to what he refers), which collectively licenses rights to other essential patents also surrounding H.264, charges a somewhat different fee.

"Microsoft's patent royalty to this group on that $1,000 laptop? Two cents," Heiner writes. "That's right. Just 2 cents for use of more than 2,300 patents. (Windows qualifies for a nice volume discount, but no firm has to pay more than 20 cents per unit.) Motorola is demanding that Microsoft pay more than 1,000 times that for use of just 50 patents."

Heiner added that Microsoft ends up paying a kind of penalty whenever a PC manufacturer implements Windows in a premium model - hike the hard drive capacity, and Microsoft pays more. "Windows implements more than 60 standards, and a PC supports about 200. If every firm priced its standard essential patents like Motorola, the cost of the patents would be greater than all the other costs combined in making PCs, tablets, smartphones and other devices," he argues.

Neither Google nor MMI have issued a response.

The timing of Microsoft's move is interesting. If its motivation were to block approval of the Google + MMI acquisition, it could have acted well before the EC Commissioner for Competition, Joaquin Almunia, issued his approval of the deal last week. Instead, Microsoft's strategy may be to see the deal go through and then sink MMI. When Google offered $40 per share for MMI last August, that 75% premium on its public share price at the time reflected the perceived value of MMI's patent portfolio - the principal reason, investors believe, Google wants the company.

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MMI shares are trading unchanged as of this morning. In his approval of the deal last week, Comm. Almunia indicated he believed Google would have no reason to raise MMI's royalty rates after the deal goes through. That's not exactly a statement of skepticism, although Almunia did warn that his office would continually ensure that the combined Google's conduct would be "fully compliant with EU competition law and with the FRAND commitments given to standard setting organizations." If Almunia's stance changes even slightly in the wake of Microsoft's complaint, the needle on MMI's public share price could start ticking negative.

And perhaps that's the idea. If the new Motorola is compelled to charge significantly lower fees for its portfolio, Google may end up propping up a deadweight property at the same time Microsoft is going for broke.

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The Need to Belong: Cellphones May Make People Less Charitable

Dan Rowinski — Wed, 22 Feb 2012 07:30:00 -0800

Technology changes not only the medium in which we process information, but how we interpret and act on that information. The creation of cellphones was a seminal moment in the history of human communication. Barriers that were once impossible to cross are only a push of a button away. Cellphones satisfy a basic human impulse, "the need to belong." By fulfilling that need to belong, though, some researchers show that people may be less inclined be charitable to others.

The term for an individual being charitable to others is "prosocial." When we help out our community, give to a charity, volunteer our time, we are being prosocial. A study by researchers at the University of Maryland Robert H. Smith School of Business posits that cellphone use may be linked to less prosocial tendencies. Can it be true? By fulfilling our need to belong, do cellphones cause us to care less about our fellow human?

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Method & Results

The study used three experiments to determine cellphone use on prosocial activity.

Experiment 1 examined prosocial thought after mobile phone use with a word puzzle task. There were three classes of words in the puzzle: "others-related" (theirs, themselves), "self-related" (mine, myself) and neutral (cello, heed). Participants were broken into two groups: cellphone and control. The cellphone group was asked to draw a picture of their phone and describe how they used it the previous day and the told to do the word puzzle. The control group just did the puzzle without the picture or description.

Right: Figure 1 from the study. "Study 2 advertisement. This figure depicts an advertisement by a fictitious charity looking for volunteers."

The results were that participants in the cellphone group found less others-related words, at 6%. The control group found 13% of others-related words. There was no discernible difference between the two groups in self or neutral related words.

The next two experiments were similar to each other, each trying to validate the results of the first. Experiment 2 tested prosocial intentions against two groups: cellphones and Facebook. The theory was that people would satiate the need to belong more with a cellphone than on Facebook. In one phase, participants were asked to rate their moods after cellphone or Facebook use. The second phase asked them if they would volunteer for a "Help the Homeless" program. Overall, cellphone users were less likely to volunteer time than Facebook users.

Experiment 3 was similar to 1. Participants were broken into two groups: cellphones and television. They were asked to draw the device and describe their interaction with it. They were then asked to do a complicated word puzzle and told that for every answer they got right, one cent would be donated to the National Parks' Conservation Association. Participants could break off and do a fun activity like browsing the Web at any time. They were then asked to rate their mood. Cellphone users spent less time on average on the puzzle (189 seconds) to television (220 seconds). The theory is that a TV does not fulfill the need to belong like a cellphone does, hence not inhibiting prosocial behavior.

All three experiments showed that cellphone use correlated towards less prosocial behavior. The first experiment had 98 participants, No. 2 had 197 and No. 3 had 117. Most were undergraduate students in their early 20s.

Changing Human Behavior

Ultimately, the study is trying to correlate the need to belong with cellphone usage then tying it to charitable behavior. It should be noted that the study is a "working paper" and hence has not been peer reviewed or substantiated by outside researchers.

"As technology is advancing at a very rapid pace, with devices such as smartphones, iPads and other communication devices becoming ubiquitous, the habitual and almost perpetual use of such 'social' devices might ironically lead people to become less, not more, prosocial over time," the study states.

The researchers noted that there are areas that need further study. For instance, choosing a charity that a person feels more associated with. People may act more prosocial to something they are close to. For instance, I gave several dollars to a fundraiser for a local chef that has an aggressive form of cancer. I think about it and say, "that chef could have been me." At the time that I donated the dollars, I was sitting at a pub reading an article on my iPad. The closeness of the situation struck me whereas I am less likely to care about a distant issue like the NPCA.

The barrier to entry for prosocial behavior may also be a matter of ease. The counterweight to this research was seen when millions of dollars were donated to Haiti and Japan through the Red Cross via SMS message. It is easy to donate money via a simple text and the magnitude of those disasters affected everybody in the world.

There is a chance that the researchers are correct. By fulfilling the need to belong, we care less about our fellow human. There is also a chance that the sample size is too small and narrow, focusing on college students in one part of the world. Yet, the fundamental principle remains intact: the psychological and sociological affect of new technology is as yet un-quantified. Technology is changing how we think, how we behave. As a species, are we evolving with our technology towards more perfect beings or are our devices holding us back?

Top image: Damage from Haiti earthquake courtesy Shutterstock

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