Internet News Update: 2011

Tuesday, April 19, 2011

HBO Go Coming Soon to iPad & Android Devices

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It looks like HBO will soon make its TV Everywhere service available ... everywhere. According to a teaser video on HBO's YouTube channel, it will soon launch mobile apps that bring its HBO Go online video service to the iPad and other mobile devices.

By KEVIN J. O'BRIEN 20 Apr, 2011

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Source: http://feeds.nytimes.com/click.phdo?i=daae932b56791f929cd4016764e35dff
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TuneIn Makes Good Use of Windows Phone 7 FM Radio

TuneIn, a free app for Windows Phone 7 handsets, streams Internet radio from more than 50,000 radio stations over Wi-Fi or a mobile broadband connection. The application can also make use of a handset's internal FM radio, which saves battery life and data plan use.

By KEVIN J. O'BRIEN 20 Apr, 2011

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Source: http://feeds.nytimes.com/click.phdo?i=6cd12b879759f17d2b56a3c8602a9ce1
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Solar Trust of America Nabs $2.1B Loan for Solar Thermal Plant

The U.S. Department of Energy has awarded a $2.1 billion loan guarantee to Solar Trust of America for a solar thermal power plant near Blythe, Calif.

The Oakland, Calif.-based company secured the loan for the first phase of a project that will generate 1,000 megawatts of power. Solar thermal power plants use an array of mirrors that focus sunlight onto a single point on a tower. The heat from the focused sunlight heats up water, creating steam that moves conventional turbines to generate electricity.

The loan guarantee basically means the government will cover the debt Solar Power Trust of America will accrue to finance the project if it cannot pay it back to other borrowers. Many renewable energy projects — particularly wind power farms — have large up-front costs and take a while to break even.

Solar power towers recently made news when Google dropped $168 million in a solar power tower project in the Mojave Desert in California. Power towers aren't entirely new — there were two solar power towers deployed in California already to show that the technology worked. The two towers generated 38,000 megawatt hours of electricity while they were active between 1982 and 1988.

The new project should also help push California toward its new goal of generating around a third of the state's power from renewable energy sources — a law that Calif. Gov. Jerry Brown signed last week. The new law is a major incentive for clean technology companies in the state to begin ramping up their production of clean energy sources. Previous laws required power companies to fill 20 percent of their output with renewable energy sources by 2010 with a 3-year grace period.

Tags: solar power, solar power tower, solar thermal power, thermal power

Companies: Google, Solar Trust of America

By KEVIN J. O'BRIEN 20 Apr, 2011

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Source: http://feeds.nytimes.com/click.phdo?i=e435db94abc8168958f719f9a5053694
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Sprint and Clearwire Kiss and Make Up. But Where’s WiMAX?

Clearwire has resolved its wholesale agreement dispute with Sprint, signing a deal that calls for Sprint to pay Clearwire about $1 billion over the next two years. The deal removes some uncertainty for struggling Clearwire and helps forge a stronger bond with Sprint, its majority owner.

By KEVIN J. O'BRIEN 20 Apr, 2011

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Source: http://feeds.nytimes.com/click.phdo?i=2a406c94c2b0309aba8757b67c9228f4
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Diesel Founder Invests in Startup Incubator H-Farm

We have seen plenty of high-tech investors taking stakes in online fashion businesses, such as Atomico Ventures, the investment fund of Skype co-founder Niklas Zennström, investing in Fashiolista, an online fashion community.

A fashion magnate investing in startups is much more unusual. Renzo Rosso, the founder of clothing company Diesel, has just taken a 20 percent stake in the startup incubator H-farm. The amount of the investment was not disclosed.

H-Farm was founded in 2005 is based in an estate in a rural area overlooking the Venice lagoon in Italy. H-farm makes seed investments in startups which then remain on the estate for up to 36 months before taking on further investment rounds. There are H-farm branches in Seattle, Mumbai and London. In its first 5 years, H-farm invested 9.5 million EUR ($13.62) in 26 startups. Another 10 million EUR ($14.33) is expected to be invested in the next 5 years.

Renzo Rosso owns not only Diesel but a plethora of other fashion labels including Marc Jacobs Men, Viktor & Rolf and Vivienne Westwood. Diesel has a turnover of $350 million per year and employs more than 1,300 people.

Tags: fashion, incubator

Companies: diesel, h-farm

People: renzo rosso

By KEVIN J. O'BRIEN 20 Apr, 2011

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Source: http://feeds.nytimes.com/click.phdo?i=8854537f7e463c135c526446d39e87de
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Here’s What’s Behind the Samsung/Apple Patent Showdown

Apple filed suit Friday against Samsung, claiming patent violations regarding the Galaxy line of smartphones and tablets. Samsung has now released an official response to that suit, and it's immediately apparent that the kid gloves are off right from the very beginning.

By KEVIN J. O'BRIEN 20 Apr, 2011

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Source: http://feeds.nytimes.com/click.phdo?i=cde8df9c7ca9e651967b73be53b7aece
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Where to Watch Obama’s Town Hall Meeting Live Online

President Obama is coming to Facebook HQ tomorrow to answer questions about the economy and the budget in a special online town hall meeting. The event will also feature Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg, and Obama may have to deal with questions about marijuana and gambling.

By KEVIN J. O'BRIEN 20 Apr, 2011

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Source: http://feeds.nytimes.com/click.phdo?i=77f65c42933037cabcf462bba6f246c6
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Apple Reportedly Rejecting Apps With Pay-Per-Install Campaigns

Apple isn't just tweaking its App Store rankings to include more than download numbers and possibly lessen the impact of incentivized pay-per-install marketing campaigns. It's actually banning apps that use pay-per-install, according to one of the leading providers, Tapjoy.

By KEVIN J. O'BRIEN 20 Apr, 2011

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Source: http://feeds.nytimes.com/click.phdo?i=73eef7862a816305bbc438e2ea6fa35d
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Review: T-Mobile G-Slate Shows Promise (in 3-D!)

T-Mobile's G-Slate, the newest Google Honeycomb tablet, arrives April 20 for $529. The 8.9-inch tablet sits squarely in between the size of Apple's iPad and Samsung's Galaxy Tab. Is there room for such a slate, even if it offers both 3-D video and 4G mobile broadband?

By KEVIN J. O'BRIEN 19 Apr, 2011

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Source: http://feeds.nytimes.com/click.phdo?i=30c8325002077540be1c173cb37e41dd
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Ticketfly Raises Another $12M to Upend the Ticketing Industry

Ticketfly, the startup promising a more social networking-savvy approach to concert and event ticketing, just announced that it has raised $12 million in a second round of funding.

The San Francisco company offers tools for venues and promoters to create a concert website and social networking presence. Customers can manage all of their accounts within a single service, set up automatic tweets, and view analytics data about whether their social networking campaigns are actually paying off. Ticketfly also highlights its database of more than 70,000 artists, so that concert promoters don't have to track down that information for themselves.

The company was co-founded by Andrew Dreskin and Dan Teree, who previously led Ticketweb, which was sold to ticketing giant Ticketmaster. Ticketfly has now raised $15 million in funding, with the latest round led by Mohr Davidow Ventures.

"Event ticketing is undergoing tectonic change –- there is an appetite for better analytics and integrated technologies that drive the bottom line," Dreskin said in a press release. "It became clear early in our discussions with Mohr Davidow that they share our vision to bring more science and fan engagement to the world of event marketing and promotion."

Previous backers High Peaks Venture Partners, Contour Venture Partners, Roger Ehrenberg, and Howard Lindzon, also invested in the new round. You can see some of the numbers about Ticketfly's effectiveness in this post.

[image via Flickr/Rhys's Piece Is]

Tags: ticketing

Companies: Mohr Davidow Ventures, Ticketfly

People: Andrew Dreskin, Dan Teree

By KEVIN J. O'BRIEN 19 Apr, 2011

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Source: http://feeds.nytimes.com/click.phdo?i=93ebdf4c451c531df7b466232f8ac10e
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White iPhone 4 Appears With New Exposé-Like Multitasking Interface (Video)

A video has appeared online that demonstrates a new multitasking interface for iOS (that closely resembles the Mac OS's Exposé feature) running on a 64-gigabyte white iPhone 4, courtesy of the intrepid Vietnamese gadget hounds Tinhte.

The group says that the white iPhone is legitimate (not just a knockoff), and that it's running a "test" version of iOS that has never been seen before.

It's difficult to determine the veracity of their claims, but I personally wouldn't be surprised if Apple was looking to improve its current multitasking interface– which currently consists merely of scrolling through icons in your iPhone's dock — with something that's a lot more visual.

In the video below, you can see that the new multitasking interface is accessible with a double-tap of the iPhone's home button, and it displays large card-like icons representing the apps currently running on your phone. To close apps, you simply need to hold down on the app's icon, just like you would in the current system. Spotlight search is also accessible from the top of the screen.

The interface does resemble the popular multitasking jailbroken app Multiflow, but there are significant differences from the current release of that app. Tinhte could be trying to pass off another jailbroken app as legitimate, but given how much their credibility with the gadget community would suffer, that doesn't seem very likely. It's possible that the software is an early release of iOS 5, which is expected to improve multitasking and notification features for the platform.

Via Engadget

This April 25-26, VentureBeat is hosting its inaugural VentureBeat Mobile Summit, where we'll debate the five key business and policy challenges facing the mobile industry today. Participants will develop concrete, actionable solutions that will shape the future of the mobile industry. The invitation-only event, located at the scenic and relaxing Cavallo Point Resort in Sausalito, Calif., is limited to 180 mobile executives, investors and policymakers.

Tags: iOS, iPhone 4, multitasking, Tinhte, white iPhone 4

Companies: Apple

By KEVIN J. O'BRIEN 19 Apr, 2011

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Source: http://feeds.nytimes.com/click.phdo?i=4cd0648d323afaccc1a2d384acbc1ed5
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Virtual Storage Startup Nutanix Emerges From Stealth, Grabs $13.2M

Virtual storage startup Nutanix came out of stealth mode today, officially announcing $13.2 million in a first round of institutional funding.

The company said it will take aim at the $20 billion market currently building private clouds for server or desktop virtualization and service providers building public clouds.

The appliance leverages server-attached solid-state drives (SSDs) and hard disks, enabling organizations to run virtual machines without requiring a complex and costly SAN (storage area network) or NAS (network attached storage) infrastructure.

A NAS is a single storage device that operates on data files, while a SAN is a local network of multiple devices that operate on disk blocks.

The Santa Clara-based startup claims that it essentially "does away" with the traditional SAN/NAS dilemma, by building "Google-like" scale-out architecture that brings computing and storage into a single tier.

That means that virtual machines running on Nutanix's appliances use high performance flash and hard disk storage from the cluster, thereby theoretically shrinking the data center, reducing capital and administration costs.

If workable in real-time, that would mean Nutanix has one-upped competitors like EMC Corporation, Cisco Systems, NetApp, VMware and Hewlett-Packard by bridging the gap between a company's hardware and its cloud storage.

Nutanix said all its products are specifically designed from the ground-up for virtual servers and virtual desktops.

"The offerings from traditional players are bundling existing compute, networking and storage solutions and lack true convergence," founder and chief products officer Ajeet Singh told VentureBeat.

"[We] bring data close to virtual machines, delivering convergence through a combination of scalable software and industry-standard hardware components," said Singh. "[That] architecture provides cost, performance and manageability benefits that are not possible through mere bundling of servers and storage."

Singh was previously senior director of product management at Aster Data and prior to that worked at Oracle, where he was part of the early team that defined Oracle's cloud computing strategy.

The company was founded in 2009 and already includes one well-known Silicon Valley investor, Mark Leslie, the founding chairman and CEO of Veritas Software, on its advisory board.

It received this round of funding from investors that include Lightspeed Venture Partners and Blumberg Capital.

Tags: cloud computing, cloud storage, NAS, SAN, storage

Companies: Aster Data, Blumberg Capital, Cisco Systems, EMC Corporation, Hewlett Packard, Lightspeed Venture Partners, NetApp, Nutanix, Oracle, Veritas Software, VMWare

People: Ajeet Singh

By KEVIN J. O'BRIEN 19 Apr, 2011

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Source: http://feeds.nytimes.com/click.phdo?i=53769f7d428d779bff7f425664ed0a5b
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Gameview Shows iPhone Hits Are Starting to Take Off on Android

Gameview Studios is one of many developers that saw huge hits on the iPhone, particularly with its Tap Fish game that has been downloaded more than 10 million times on Apple's App Store. Now the company is starting to see good results on Google's Android mobile devices as well.

It's still early and the Android results can't yet match those on the iPhone. But the results are good enough to pleasantly surprise Gameview, which is a division of Japan's DeNA mobile social game company. That's good for the Android platform, and not so good for Apple. With these kinds of results, Gameview will be motivated to port more of its hit games to Android. Both Google and Apple are keenly aware that they're competing for the hearts and minds of developers.

The company is announcing today that its free version of Tap Fish has been downloaded more than 500,000 times since a quiet launch on April 1 with no promotional activity. The game has been rated 4.5 stars out of 5 in more than 10,000 fan reviews. And it just surpassed Angry Birds Rio (the latest version of the hit game from Rovio) by taking the No. 4 spot in the Android Market's top free apps list. Overall, the game is the top casual game on Android and it ranks No. 15 for overall free apps.

John Hwang, vice president of products at Gameview, said in an interview that Android is becoming a better and better opportunity for social game makers. He noted that, on average, Tap Fish users log in more than three times a day to check on their aquariums. The retention over seven days is 85 percent, and users have visited more than 1 million of their neighbors' tanks. Hwang said that the title spread through word of mouth and by its presence on the Android Market's top game lists.

Hwang said the company hasn't really begun to monetize the app yet, but it could deploy in-app purchases over time. Google just turned on the Android Market's in-app purchases, which allow users to make a purchase of a virtual good or a game without having to exit the app. Apple has had this capability for some time and it is fueling revenue growth among iPhone app developers. But Google's in-app purchases are available only to users of Android 2.3 software, which is available only to a tiny percent of Android users right now. Still, Hwang believes that revenue from in-app purchases, particularly cross promotion of other titles, will be more important than ad revenue over time.

Hwang said that Gameview ported the game to Android because of the sheer volume of requests the company got from consumers who had seen the game on their friends' phones. The porting work isn't trivial, since there are hundreds of different types of exotic fish, 80 tanks, and lots of decorations. The company also decided to port the game because of Android's growth rate. Gartner predicts it will become the world's most popular operating system by the end of the year and it could capture half the smartphone market in 2012. Google still has lots of room for improvement, but it's moving forward, Hwang said.

With in-app purchases now available on Android, and with application storefronts such as the Android Market and others making Android apps easier to find, Gameview Studios plans on releasing many other titles on the Android platform over the coming months. Gameview has 15 employees in Mountain View and it has more developers overseas.

The company was founded in 2010 by Riz Virk and Mitch Liu and it competes with rivals such as Electronic Arts, Magma Mobile, Outfit7, Glu Mobile and Digital Chocolate. Other Gameview games include Tap Ranch, Tap Jurassic, Tap Town, and Titans vs. Olympians.

Tags: Tap Fish

Companies: Apple, Digital Chocolate, Electronic Arts, Gameview, Glu Mobile, Google, Outfit7, Rovio

People: John Hwang

By KEVIN J. O'BRIEN 19 Apr, 2011

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Source: http://feeds.nytimes.com/click.phdo?i=2c31bbd34c8efce1de5e137d820ab0e9
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Atheros Envisions an “internet of Things” Connected by Home Power Lines

One of these days, there will be an "internet of things," or once-dumb appliances and gadgets smartened up with chips and internet connectivity. Wireless chip maker Atheros Communications believes that day is not so far away.

Today, the San Jose maker of wireless chips is announcing an initiative that will make it easy for internet-aware home appliances to transfer data over electrical wires in the home to a user's web-connected devices and to the smart grid. This initiative is one of the enabling steps to putting smart appliances on the grid without spending money to wire them with traditional Ethernet-based wiring.

"There will be 100 internet-connected devices per home one day," said Adam Lapede, senior director of internet of things technology at Atheros, in an interview.

It's kind of a pipe dream, but it's a big one that is shared by a lot of companies that want to make everyday appliances smarter, more useful in providing data feedback, and more energy efficient. Atheros has chosen to connect the smart appliances using the HomePlug Green Phy, or a version of the HomePlug AV standard for transferring internet data over home electrical wires.

Atheros, which is in the process of being acquired by Qualcomm, designed the technology so that smart appliances can transfer or receive internet data without consuming a lot of power or taking much of the available internet bandwidth of the home wires, Lapede said. Once connected, these devices will be readable, recognizable, locatable, and addressable. It means they will be able to provide information such as how much energy they are consuming and when is the best time to use them to preserve energy.

"We need to figure out how to reduce the demand during peak usage and improve our efficiency," Lapede said.

Lapede said the cost of putting internet connectivity is getting smaller and smaller. Atheros, which makes Wi-Fi chips and other related technology, hopes to drive the costs of the connectivity chips even lower by making them in huge quantities and standardizing them across the industry

With the HomePlug Green Phy technology, Atheros is asking software developers to begin developing applications that will use its chip hardware in the future for the internet of things vision. As envisioned, the technology will be integrated into stand-alone gateway devices or into the appliances themselves. It will allow the transfer of data from device to device at a rate of 10 megabits a second or more. That will happen seamlessly, without the need to translate the data from one format to another.

Lapede said that applications will have to use built-in encryption and other security methods to ensure that a neighbor won't be able to hack another one across the smart grid. Lapede said that the power line technology has rivals, but he believes it is the best way to reach all of the appliances in the home. And while HomePlug AV has a number of rivals, he says chips based on the standard have shipped in the tens of millions of units worldwide. So it makes sense to adapt HomePlug for the internet of things.

Once the applications have been defined and requirements set, Atheros will design chips based on the standard and ship them to customers in the coming years.

"We expect to see traction in 2012," Lapede said.

Tags: HomePlug AV, HomePlug Green Phy

Companies: Atheros Communications

People: Adam Lapede

By KEVIN J. O'BRIEN 19 Apr, 2011

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Source: http://feeds.nytimes.com/click.phdo?i=d57818b161cc2664d8ae79d48208139a
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Monday, April 18, 2011

Want to Live Stream Over Facebook? DaCast Shows You How

Want to do a live stream and share it right on your Facebook wall? Then check out DaCast, which just added such a feature to its live streaming platform. DaCast caters to casual end users, but the service could also be used to stream live events.

By KEVIN J. O'BRIEN 19 Apr, 2011

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Source: http://feeds.nytimes.com/click.phdo?i=aa627cf2cb7463444699b1904ff1e304
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Microsoft’s Immersive Photosynth Camera App Lands — on iOS

Microsoft's Bing team has a new photo-stitching app that creates immersive, 360-degree images right on a handset. But not a Windows Phone 7 handset; that comes next. For now, the software, which didn't work completely well in my test, is for camera-enabled Apple iOS devices.

By KEVIN J. O'BRIEN 19 Apr, 2011

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Source: http://feeds.nytimes.com/click.phdo?i=004b13c22e5bc89df7c8548688b21c8d
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Hadoop Kills Zombies Too! Is There Anything It Can’t Solve?

Internet botnets wreak much of their havoc because of the sheer number of infected machines, and a startup security service called ipTrust is trying to fight fire with fire by using many terabytes worth of log files to combat these hordes of zombie PCs.

By KEVIN J. O'BRIEN 19 Apr, 2011

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Source: http://feeds.nytimes.com/click.phdo?i=b9249ffb575ac8d2842a9c02e410624a
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Why Dropbox’s 25 Million Users Are Just the Start

Dropbox, the cloud file-sharing and back-up tool, is on a tear with 25 million users using the system and 200 million files saved each day, according to new data from the company. Next up, it sees more integration with apps, services, TVs, cars and cameras.

By KEVIN J. O'BRIEN 19 Apr, 2011

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Source: http://feeds.nytimes.com/click.phdo?i=717dbb4354134e8b2871a00e9483b620
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Google Invests $100M in (Another!) Wind Farm

Google's investments in clean power are now rivaling that of stand alone clean energy investors. The search engine giant has invested $100 million in the world's largest wind farm under construction in Oregon. With this investment, Google has put more than $350 million into clean power.

By KEVIN J. O'BRIEN 19 Apr, 2011

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Source: http://feeds.nytimes.com/click.phdo?i=a4b7724956df91f07d9c51c9ca6c2f96
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Next Up for Netflix: Family Plans

Families could soon be able to add multiple users profiles to their Netflix accounts, according to statements published by the company. Netflix is also thinking about allowing simultaneous streams to multiple devices and shifting its general focus from targeting household towards targeting individual subscribers.

By KEVIN J. O'BRIEN 19 Apr, 2011

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Source: http://feeds.nytimes.com/click.phdo?i=b37ecc36cb74964368cd7e7454ce6014
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Why Twitter Would Be Smart to Buy Tweetdeck

According to a news report, Twitter is in talks to acquire the U.K.-based developer of Tweetdeck for as much as $50 million. Although the deal could obviously still go off the rails, buying Tweetdeck would be a smart move for Twitter on a number of levels.

By KEVIN J. O'BRIEN 19 Apr, 2011

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Source: http://feeds.nytimes.com/click.phdo?i=9ee4eaeb2554985f864b33833404f0ff
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Britain Says No Thanks to Europe’s Cookie Monster

The possibility of Europe-wide restrictions on the tracking cookies used by online advertisers had some up in arms. But the threat has been dispelled — at least in Britain, where the government suggests that browsers rather than websites should offer users better ways to stay private.

By KEVIN J. O'BRIEN 19 Apr, 2011

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Source: http://feeds.nytimes.com/click.phdo?i=d034a21024fd2434144d1080192c3b24
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Groupon Could Take Out Foursquare With Pelago Acquisition

All Things Digital reports that Groupon has acquired Pelago, the company behind location-based check-in service Whrrl, for an undisclosed amount. Whrrl allows users to check in to locations and discover new businesses nearby, while the Groupon iOS app simply shows nearby deals.

By KEVIN J. O'BRIEN 19 Apr, 2011

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Source: http://feeds.nytimes.com/click.phdo?i=1bde3cc2873a903e4e58f3fbe1eecce2
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Apple Revamps Community Support Site, Adds Incentives

Apple launched a brand new site offering tech support for its products on Saturday, called Apple Support Communities. The new site represents an evolution of its support discussion forums, where users offer advice to one another regarding technical issues or other problems with Mac products.

By KEVIN J. O'BRIEN 19 Apr, 2011

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Source: http://feeds.nytimes.com/click.phdo?i=d0a024d7e3e0e05163baf8a588a9008d
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Mark Pincus: The Ethical Founder?

The social era of computing has produced three multi-billion dollar companies: Facebook, Twitter and Zynga. As light is increasingly shed on the formation myths of Facebook and Twitter, a lot of new information casts doubt on the ethics and motivations of their respective founders. It is ironic that Zynga has had no such drama, since the company's founder Mark Pincus has been lambasted for being unethical due to what TechCrunch dubbed "ScamVille".

Was ScamVille really a scam? There is no question that the offer ad networks like OfferPal that Zynga was using were shlocking uninstallable toolbars and illicitly signing people up for mobile subscriptions. However, numerous major Fortune 500 companies were also using scammy offers at the time, which TechCrunch itself later noted. As I have written before, TechCrunch has a repeated inclination to quash people's reputations with tabloid-style posts. For the technology audience, "Marc Pincus is running ScamVille" is a whole lot more interesting than "1-800-Flowers, Orbitz and Pizza Hut are running scammy offers." Many are left with the impression that Pincus is a scam artist, and the entire saga is branded ScamVille as if it were a Zynga property such as FarmVille or CityVille.

Yes, Pincus did in fact say that "he did everything horrible in the book" to get revenue. By horrible, he did not mean backstabbing people, arbitrarily chucking cofounders, and such. In fact, what he did was hustle, and hustle through one of the biggest economic downturns in the history of business. He did indeed use offer networks at the same time that they were popular with large reputable companies. He copied competitor's games. He stole talent out of established gaming companies like EA. He replaced or demoted several executives as the company grew quickly.

The type of hustling Pincus did is now considered de rigueur for startups, with Dave McClure now stating that the perfect startup has a hustler, a hacker, and a designer.

In sharp contrast to Pincus, the founders of Twitter and Facebook are facing a continuing barrage of ethical questions. Last week, Business Insider revealed that Twitter had a largely unacknowledged co-founder, Noah Glass. It's become apparent that while Jack Dorsey may have invented Twitter, Glass and Florian Weber were also instrumental in its creation. They could have just as easily worked on the project in their off hours and started a company on their own. Instead, they took it to the management team at the failing Odeo which was desperately looking for something new to do. It's now reported that Ev Williams took the idea and early product, told their existing investors it wasn't showing much promise, spun it out, unceremoniously dumped Glass, and quickly pushed out Dorsey. After those reports, Williams himself acknowledged that Glass "never got enough credit for his early role at Twitter."

Twitter clearly stagnated without its true founders, and years later still does not properly embed photos and videos like Facebook does, and following a conversation thread is so painful that it is not even worth doing. Currently, Twitter is a primarily a broadcasting platform with very few active users. Lest I get flamed by Twitterphiles, newly returned Jack Dorsey's plan to reinvigorate Twitter is to make it usable by normal people.

The lawsuits around Facebook's formation keep piling up and it such a drama that it led to an award winning movie.

By KEVIN J. O'BRIEN 19 Apr, 2011

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Source: http://feeds.nytimes.com/click.phdo?i=8a96ad4b7e6177dc25a989017fb32b73
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What an Apple HDTV Would Need to Succeed

Apple is once again rumored to be creating an HDTV, which could launch by the end of this year. But to be successful, Apple will need industry buy-in to ensure that the new product provides more value than TVs already out on the market.

By KEVIN J. O'BRIEN 19 Apr, 2011

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Source: http://feeds.nytimes.com/click.phdo?i=833fbb90631170421fba6e29604f6277
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Google Is Demand Media’s Biggest Ally — and Its Biggest Threat

Demand Media says the latest changes to Google's algorithm aren't a big deal, even though they pushed its eHow unit down by as much as 65 percent, according to some estimates -- but the reality is that Google is both Demand's biggest partner and its biggest threat.

By KEVIN J. O'BRIEN 19 Apr, 2011

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Source: http://feeds.nytimes.com/click.phdo?i=fa21d51f300350aa3a5ec07f1478509f
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Fisker Has Raised Over $1B, Car Coming in the Summer

In a combination of loans, grants and equity, Fisker has raised over $1 billion, and plans to launch its first electric car the Karma to dealerships for demonstrations in May or June and then to customers in June or July.

By KEVIN J. O'BRIEN 19 Apr, 2011

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Source: http://feeds.nytimes.com/click.phdo?i=ce57cb9ebc076a0be4798ff54bea07c7
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Microsoft's Office 365 Hits Public Beta

Microsoft has announced this morning that it's opening Office 365 to public beta. Office 365 includes updated versions of SharePoint Online, Exchange Online, Lync Online, and Office Web Apps, all available as a subscription.

By KEVIN J. O'BRIEN 19 Apr, 2011

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Source: http://feeds.nytimes.com/click.phdo?i=08784abca6c1c813533a99f574100853
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Researchers (and The Pirate Bay) Want to Know What Motivates People to File-Share

If you head over to the file-sharing website The Pirate Bay today, you'll notice an important name change. The website has temporarily rebranded itself as "Research Bay" and is asking users to participate in a brief survey about the values of the file-sharing community.

By KEVIN J. O'BRIEN 19 Apr, 2011

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Source: http://feeds.nytimes.com/click.phdo?i=e18d948ac236cc1765fc5be052e2dcd4
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Demand Media Downplays Changes to Google's Search Algorithm

When Google announced a tweak to its search algorithm in February, the company presented the change as a move to help improve search results. The official announcement said it wanted to make sure search unearthed "high quality sites," and while it never specified what the "low quality sites" might be, many interpreted Google's move as an attack on content farms.

By KEVIN J. O'BRIEN 19 Apr, 2011

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Source: http://feeds.nytimes.com/click.phdo?i=b2de05021f76e5fb2c84941ec1eb8c3f
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