Category: News

The Huffington Post — taking a cue from Foursquare, the location-based social network that allows users to win “badges” for checking in at various places — has launched a similar feature for regular readers of the news site. The beta offering includes three badges that readers can win — known as the “Networker” badge, the “Superuser” badge and the “Moderator” badge — based on the amount of activity they engage in on the news site. For example, connecting with other readers on the site will earn you a Level One “Networker” badge, and connecting your Huffington Post reader account with either your Facebook account or your Twitter account will bump you up to a Level Two Networker, and your comments on the site will be a different color from those posted by non-Level Two users.

The badges are just the latest offering aimed at implementing social features on the site: the Huffington Post was one of the first to implement Facebook Connect when it launched, and the service was tightly integrated into the rest of the site — for example, showing readers who connected their accounts a special sidebar with news that had been read and/or recommended by their Facebook friends. The badges extend that idea, and are clearly designed to encourage readers to spend more time on the site.

A FAQ describes the different badges: Networker is based on connections with other readers and with Facebook or Twitter, while Superuser rewards readers for commenting on stories and for sharing them through services such as Twitter and Facebook, and Moderator is based on how many comments a reader flags. It’s not clear how much of a given activity you have to engage in to win the badges, however. The Moderator badge says you have to have flagged 20 comments to get a Level One, but only says these flags have to display “a high ratio of good flags to mistaken flags.” I’ve asked Huffington Post for comment on why the requirements aren’t defined, but it’s likely so that the site has some leeway in deciding who gets rewarded.

The way Huffington Post is using badges makes much more sense to me than something like the Wall Street Journal’s recent partnership with Foursquare. Offering news tips and Foursquare badges based on where readers are checking in with the location-based network is a nice marketing gesture, but the conversion rate from Foursquare user to WSJ reader is likely to be fairly low. Huffington Post’s badges, on the other hand, may seem a tad gimmicky but they’re focused on the right thing: increasing engagement with readers.

It’s a similar approach to that taken by sites such as Slashdot, which has one of the most devoted reader communities online: Regular readers who behave properly by providing a real name, posting and/or flagging comments and contributing in other ways get “karma points” which then enhance their status on the site. It’s a reputation management system, and one that is functionally identical to the way that players of World of Warcraft and other games “level up” through their activity in the game (which is why everything is becoming a game). The idea is that being rewarded for behavior encourages more of that behavior, and also builds a stronger relationship with readers.

It will be interesting see what kind of response Huffington Post readers will have to the badges, and also what kind of effect they will have on metrics such as time spent on the site, repeat visits, etc. According to CEO Eric Hippeau, the implementation of Facebook Connect had a dramatic impact on reader activity such as commenting.

Related content from GigaOM Pro (sub req’d):

Social Advertising Models Go Back to the Future

It’s WES week, and surely you’ve heard all the big news. Yes, we’ve finally heard something official on the upcoming BlackBerry devices, the Bold 9650 and the Pearls 9100 and 9105. We’ll touch on them, just because we love any kind of news on devices, plus reveal some other developments from the week. It looks like we could see plenty new from RIM during the next eight months.

(more…)

Skyfire today launched the first Flash Video enabled mobile web browser for Android phones! Not only does it allow for viewing flash video (which was not possible on mobile phones until recent) yet brings a faster mobile Internet experience via cloud computing (like Opera Mini for Android), social recommendations, and social sharing of content with ease.

Key Features in the Skyfire Mobile Browser:

• SkyBar – The SkyBar brings the best of the internet to a mobile user’s fingertips, without any additional searching. By activating the SkyBar with a single touch, users are given access to Flash videos on a web page that otherwise would not play, related content recommendations, and easier sharing with their social networks.
• Video – The “Video” icon enables users to play millions of Flash videos around the web that otherwise do not play on mobile. This unlocks content trapped behind those error messages with question marks and blue Legos. Behind the scenes, videos are translated into a format easier for the phone to play, like html5 video.
• Related Content – The “Explore” icon brings the most relevant content on the internet to a user’s fingertips based on what they are viewing at the time. The Explore button pulls video, buzz, news, images and other sites from the web based on what is on the current page.
• Sharing – The “Share” icon lets users share any article or video easily to their friends on Facebook, Twitter, or by email and SMS messaging, adding a comment, and all with a single click.features.

Skyfire 2.0 for Android (Beta) Demo Video

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9t00fEV2_kE

Download it and check it out today either by scanning the QR code we’ve placed above or visit http://get.skyfire.com/dl_android.php. Of course our Android App Review with Video Review is forthcoming!

You know what application environment works the best? The one where consumers can purchase any application and get a great experience across any carrier network. Sounds simple and obvious, but diametrically opposed goals of developers and service providers have traditionally kept this scenario from seamlessly happening. Shaking up the old way of thinking, Alcatel-Lucent has introduced application enablement, a new, revenue-generating app environment for everyone.

According to Alcatel-Lucent, the following norms appease both application content providers (ACPs) and carriers:

• 70/30 revenue share between ACPs and carriers.
• Simple, published rules with limited commercial assessment.
• ACPs get greater control over branding, pricing and promotion.
• ACPs will pay for network capabilities such as subscriber preferences, location information and Quality of Service (QoS)

Besides voice, there’s only one application that works across all carriers, and that’s SMS. When an application works across all carriers it can be enormously successful. When there’s competition, “walled gardens” slow down application deployment. Wouldn’t it be great if all data applications worked as seamlessly and ubiquitously as SMS? That’s the goal of the Alcatel-Lucent Open API Service, which gives ACPs access to network assets such as location and payment systems. The API forgoes the need to understand each carrier’s nuances (there are plenty) and the need to develop complex technical and business relationships.

Want to get involved? If you’re a developer, visit the Alcatel-Lucent Open API Service developer space. And if you’re a carrier, read “Helping Service Providers Increase Relevance and Revenue with Application Enablement” (PDF).

Click here to view all Alcatel-Lucent posts

[JURIST] A group of Senate Democrats on Thursday introduced legislation aimed at curbing foreign and corporate influence in elections after a recent Supreme Court decision eased restrictions on campaign spending. In Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission, the Supreme Court struck down Section 203 of the Bipartisan Campaign Reform Act (BCRA), which prohibited corporations and unions from using their general treasury funds to make independent expenditures for speech defined as an “electioneering communication” or for speech expressly advocating the election or defeat of a candidate. According to a press release, the legislation, entitled the DISCLOSE Act, seeks to:
partly restore those limits – by barring foreign-controlled corporations, government contractors and companies that have received government assistance from making political expenditures – and also require corporations, unions, and other organizations that make political expenditures to disclose their donors and stand by their ads.The lawmakers hope to pass the DISCLOSE Act by July 4 so that it will take effect for the 2010 elections.US President Barack Obama has sharply criticized the Supreme Court’s holding in Citizens United, most notably in this year’s State of the Union speech. Obama warned of the increased potential for powerful interest groups, both foreign and domestic, to wield excessive influence over American elections and called for bipartisan support of legislation to counteract the decision. Earlier this month, the US Senate Judiciary Committee held a hearing on the effects of the Citizens United decision.

Credit: Wikimedia

The perfunctory FountainSide Cafe in Centennial Olympic Park will be replaced by a new 175-seat restaurant modeled after New York’s redoubtable Shake Shack in Madison Square Park and elsewhere, the Atlanta Business Chronicle reports. If it’s anything like Shake Shack, expect lines. Serious lines.

In other news:

• John T. Edge steers his New York Times “United Tastes” cruiser to Atlanta to visit my favorite Crawfish Shack Seafood on Buford Highway. He tells the story of why and how Southeast Asian Americans carry on the traditions of preparing coastal Louisiana seafood. Check it.
• Speaking of the New York Times, its star food reporter Kim Severson will be in town Wednesday, May 5, to read from her new memoir “Spoon Fed: How Eight Cooks Saved My Life” (Riverhead Books, $25.95). One of those eight cooks was Edna Lewis, and Severson devotes a chapter to her relationship with Lewis and former Watershed chef Scott Peacock. The reading, sponsored by the Georgia Center …

by Kate Sheppard

.series-head{background:url(http://www.grist.org/i/assets/climate_desk/header.gif) no-repeat; height:68px; text-indent:-9999px;} h3.subscribe-head{padding-left:5px;background-color:black;color:#ff8400;} dl.series-nav{margin-top:-15px;}

The Anatomy Lesson of Dr. Nicolaes Tulp by Rembrandt van RijnPhoto: Wikimedia Commons. The 1995 Chicago heat wave was one of the most brutal weather events the United States has ever experienced. On July 13, the thermostat hit 106 degrees F. Many of the city’s poor and elderly residents had no air conditioning; many of those who did lost power as blackouts swept the city. Soon, thousands were suffering from dehydration, kidney failure, and respiratory distress. The hospitals were overloaded; the city couldn’t cope with the flood of 911 calls. Over the following days, more than 600 people died from heat-related illnesses, with hundreds of bodies temporarily stored in refrigerated meat trucks because the city morgues were full.

The Chicago disaster was the worst heat wave in recent U.S. memory. But if greenhouse gas emissions continue on their current path, health experts say catastrophic heat waves are likely to become far more common. Heat-related deaths in Chicago are expected to quadruple by 2050, up from the current annual average of 182, according to the U.S. Global Change Research Program, a government study. Rising temperatures and accompanying atmospheric changes will alter disease patterns and aggravate all manners of medical conditions, from asthma to respiratory diseases to—believe it or not—kidney stones. In May 2009, the medical journal The Lancet and University College London’s Institute for Global Health issued a major report concluding that climate change is the “biggest global health threat of the 21st century.”

All of this means new costs for the U.S. health care system—which will almost certainly be passed on to consumers in the form of higher insurance premiums. What is the insurance industry doing to prepare?

So far, not much. In 2008, the National Association of Insurance Commissioners, the group representing state government regulators of property, health, and life insurers, announced that all such companies would be required to report both the risks and opportunities that climate change poses to their businesses. Some were eager to get started. Property insurers, says Joel Ario, chair of NAIC’s climate task force, “are probably the only people I know who are more worried about climate change than the environmentalists.”

But the health insurers have been resistant. In a survey by NAIC, America’s Health Insurance Plans, the industry’s powerful lobby group, responded that it “has not adopted specific practices to identify climate change-related risks.” It added, “While we continue to monitor climate change as it pertains to the global health care situation there is no conclusive information currently available to address the effects of climate change on health care.” The American Council of Life Insurers argued in a letter that “knowledge in this area is not sufficiently developed to warrant an immediate, significant, costly, and possibly damaging change to the content and nature of annual statement reporting.” After pushback from the broader insurance industry, NAIC made disclosure voluntary on a state-by-state basis. (Some states intend to move forward with the mandatory disclosure policies as planned.)

It’s true that there are many unanswered questions about exactly how rising temperatures will affect human health. But there’s mounting evidence that the impact will be significant, according to major research efforts from the Environmental Protection Agency, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), the World Health Organization, and the National Institutes of Health 2009 report from the U.S. Global Change Research Program found that any decrease in hypothermia-related deaths thanks to warmer winters “will be substantially less than the increase in deaths due to summertime heat extremes.”

The U.S. health care community is so far behind on the issue of global warming that it’s only starting to calculate the cost of these changes. But what little research exists suggests the bill could be big. Lyme disease already costs more than $2.5 billion a year in medical expenses and lost work time—and climate models predict that the area where Lyme-carrying ticks can survive will more than double over the next 70 years. Any increase in asthma would likewise boost the condition’s massive price tag— currently $18 billion annually. A study published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences found that kidney stones could increase by 30 percent or more in some areas of the U.S., due to dehydration. That would cost the U.S. health care system more than $1 billion per year.

These are just a few of the anticipated health effects—accumulated, they could pose a major liability for insurers. It’s a “time bomb,” says Michael Gresty, managing principal of the sustainability consultancy Altanova, which works with corporate clients to reduce risks in this area. “When the industry is not prepared for a sudden shock like this, they either have to dig into their reserves, or they have to increase their premiums to cover the increased costs of providing care.”

On the bright side, one underappreciated benefit of tackling climate change is that it could yield major health care savings. The European Environment Agency has found that the European Union’s plans to reduce carbon emissions 20 percent by 2020 would cut health costs by $44 billion dollars annually. No equivalent analysis has been done for the U.S. But a study by the Clean Air Task Force found that shuttering dirty coal plants could save more than twice as many lives as seat belts do each year. Programs to reduce emissions, like providing better public transportation, could also result in indirect health care savings by way of lower obesity rates and fewer respiratory and heart problems. And a January study from the University of Wisconsin found that the benefits of improved air quality that would come from weaning the country off fossil fuels would likely outweigh the short-term costs.

Some insurance firms are beginning to acknowledge that climate change may affect their businesses. In a 2008 submission to the Carbon Disclosure Project—a voluntary program that helps major businesses assess climate change-related risks—Prudential said it had teams examining the implications of increased infectious disease and extreme weather events. The company is also “paying attention more” to markets like Mexico, India, and China, where diseases like malaria may spread, says Mary O’Malley, chair of Prudential’s environmental task force. But, she says, Prudential is only starting to evaluate the risks and hasn’t made substantial changes to its business model. Likewise, Aetna concluded in a submission to the disclosure project that global warming may lead to “higher health care costs for everyone.” But it, too, is in the early stages of assessing the problem.

Smart insurers, says Gresty, should work to calculate climate-related risks and push for policy changes to reduce those risks. “That would be an investment in the future that would be protective of their business,” he says. And given the industry’s massive lobbying tab, policymakers might well listen. Says Harvard’s Epstein, “Through their own policies as well as national policies, the insurers can have a huge voice.”

Related Links:

EPA scientist warns Atlantic seaboard will be swallowed by rising seas

What climate change means for the wine industry

Details emerge on study of cancer near U.S. nuclear plants

Filed under: Crossover, Acura, Reviews, Luxury

Needless to say, the 2010 Acura ZDX is a peculiar beast. And after a week’s worth of testing, we’re still not sure what to make of it.

Photos by Sam Abuelsamid / Max Abuelsamid / Copyright (C)2010 Weblogs, Inc.

Continue reading Review: 2010 Acura ZDX is a space (challenged) oddity

Review: 2010 Acura ZDX is a space (challenged) oddity originally appeared on Autoblog on Thu, 29 Apr 2010 11:58:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Steve Jobs is sick of getting asked about Adobe Flash. You could see it all over his face in the Q&A after the iPhone 4.0 preview, when he faced questions about it. He’s even been quoted behind closed doors railing about Flash, branding it outdated, last-gen technology.

Enough is enough, he’s probably thinking. So in an unusual turn of events, the CEO — who is not known for explaining himself or his decisions — has written an open letter… you know, explaining himself and his decision, at least in regards to Flash.

People who remember Apple’s background with Adobe might be gratified to see him reference it. After this nicety, he immediately gets down to business, hitting a primary accusation head on: The suspicion that he’s foregoing Flash just to protect his App Store. (If users could game via online Flash sites or watch Hulu on mobile Safari, would they hit the App Store as often?) But according to Jobs, it’s not about that: “…it is based on technology issues.”

Here’s a summary of the rest, with some reactions, followed by the original letter that was released, in its entirety:

Openness
“…they are controlled entirely by Adobe and available only from Adobe. By almost any definition, Flash is a closed system.” Jobs then waxes poetic about the openness of HTML5, CSS, and JavaScript, and references Apple’s development of WebKit, an open web standard that’s gained traction across many mobile devices. What he’s saying is that Apple supports openness.

(Wow. Seriously? That’s like the pot calling the kettle really, crazy, ridiculously hypocritical. When did you become a champion for openness? If I were an iPhone app developer, I might have some choice words to insert here.)

The “full web”
Jobs cites Adobe’s claim that Apple devices don’t get “‘the full web,’ since 75% of video on the web is in Flash.” Jobs then asserts that most of this video is indeed available to iPhones via H.264, and then rattles off a bunch of iPhone-compatible apps, like YouTube, CBS, Netflix, Facebook, etc… plus HTML5 sites and game apps. “iPhone, iPod and iPad users aren’t missing much video.”

(Steve, good on you or whoever got ABC, Netflix, etc… streaming onboard. But there’s still a big glaring hole. If I were you, I’d get Hulu to play ball ASAP. Once that happens, your argument might stand a chance of somewhat resonating with end users.)

Reliability, security and performance
“Flash is the number one reason Macs crash… [and still] We have routinely asked Adobe to show us Flash performing well on a mobile device, any mobile device, for a few years now. We have never seen it.” He cites that Flash’s launch date for smartphones keeps getting pushed back. “We think it will eventually ship, but we’re glad we didn’t hold our breath. Who knows how it will perform?”

(Good argument. And still, the majority of web developers writing for cross-platform multimedia use this. There’s a third alternative here: Including a setting switch to let users turn Flash support on or off, like many full browser plugins do. Plus, if your snazzy new A4 processor goes into the new iPhone, couldn’t that help matters?)

Battery life
“To achieve long battery life when playing video, mobile devices must decode the video in hardware.… Many of the chips used in modern mobile devices contain a decoder called H.264…” Flash, he admits, now supports H.264, but most sites use older decoders. That means mobile devices have to use software to decode those vids, and that’s a massive power drain (as much twice the drain than hardware decoding on iPhones).

(Another good point, but is it good enough to justify your rigid Flash ban? Again, users — many of whom want or need access to Flash sites — can decide for themselves if a given site or vid is worth the battery drain.)

Touch UI
“…many Flash websites rely on ‘rollovers’, which pop up menus or other elements when the mouse arrow hovers over a specific spot.” But touchscreen users have no mouse, so Jobs asserts that these sites would need to rewrite things for a touch UI anyway. And “if developers need to rewrite their Flash websites, why not use modern technologies like HTML5, CSS and JavaScript?”

(Wait, you’re telling web developers that their sites don’t work well for touch, so why not redo the whole thing using a totally different standard? Perhas you’ve been among the corporate elite too long. Not everyone is CNN, and some small businesses and individuals don’t exactly have the resources to do that all at once.)

The most important reason
This one has everything to do with the devs. And the argument Jobs makes almost seems to defend them: “If developers grow dependent on third party development libraries and tools, they can only take advantage of platform enhancements if and when the third party chooses to adopt the new features.”

(Apparently, no one else should decide when or if developers can update their own apps — well, at least not unless it’s Apple…)

So obviously, Steve isn’t going to budge on this Adobe Flash issue. And he does make some excellent points in his letter. But do they justify the utter and complete blocking of it across Apple’s entire mobile platform? I genuinely don’t think so.

But the mere fact that he wrote this letter to begin with is interesting, and uncharacteristic. He’s appealing to people to see his point of view. And that’s practically unheard of for Jobs, he of tight-lipped corporate policy and rigid (even perplexing) rules of behavior.

Much of the Apple news these days doesn’t seem to be overwhelmingly positive — given lost prototypes, acquisitions, lawsuits, et al. And while this letter may not truly appease, it does seem like an acknowledgement on his part that some sort of PR was needed for Apple. Of course, any attempt by Jobs to “humanize” himself or his company in the face of the public was destined to be a little awkward and kind of strange. And this was, no doubt. But it’s a start.

And who knows? If there’s even a grain of truth to the notion that he supports openness, it would be great to see that trickle down into his public persona and internal decisions. I’m not holding my breath on that one, but I can hope.

___________________________

Steve Jobs open letter, issued via press release

Apple has a long relationship with Adobe. In fact, we met Adobe’s founders when they were in their proverbial garage. Apple was their first big customer, adopting their Postscript language for our new Laserwriter printer. Apple invested in Adobe and owned around 20% of the company for many years. The two companies worked closely together to pioneer desktop publishing and there were many good times. Since that golden era, the companies have grown apart. Apple went through its near death experience, and Adobe was drawn to the corporate market with their Acrobat products. Today the two companies still work together to serve their joint creative customers – Mac users buy around half of Adobe’s Creative Suite products – but beyond that there are few joint interests.

I wanted to jot down some of our thoughts on Adobe’s Flash products so that customers and critics may better understand why we do not allow Flash on iPhones, iPods and iPads. Adobe has characterized our decision as being primarily business driven – they say we want to protect our App Store – but in reality it is based on technology issues. Adobe claims that we are a closed system, and that Flash is open, but in fact the opposite is true. Let me explain.

First, there’s “Open”.

Adobe’s Flash products are 100% proprietary. They are only available from Adobe, and Adobe has sole authority as to their future enhancement, pricing, etc. While Adobe’s Flash products are widely available, this does not mean they are open, since they are controlled entirely by Adobe and available only from Adobe. By almost any definition, Flash is a closed system.

Apple has many proprietary products too. Though the operating system for the iPhone, iPod and iPad is proprietary, we strongly believe that all standards pertaining to the web should be open. Rather than use Flash, Apple has adopted HTML5, CSS and JavaScript – all open standards. Apple’s mobile devices all ship with high performance, low power implementations of these open standards. HTML5, the new web standard that has been adopted by Apple, Google and many others, lets web developers create advanced graphics, typography, animations and transitions without relying on third party browser plug-ins (like Flash). HTML5 is completely open and controlled by a standards committee, of which Apple is a member.

Apple even creates open standards for the web. For example, Apple began with a small open source project and created WebKit, a complete open-source HTML5 rendering engine that is the heart of the Safari web browser used in all our products. WebKit has been widely adopted. Google uses it for Android’s browser, Palm uses it, Nokia uses it, and RIM (Blackberry) has announced they will use it too. Almost every smartphone web browser other than Microsoft’s uses WebKit. By making its WebKit technology open, Apple has set the standard for mobile web browsers.

Second, there’s the “full web”.

Adobe has repeatedly said that Apple mobile devices cannot access “the full web” because 75% of video on the web is in Flash. What they don’t say is that almost all this video is also available in a more modern format, H.264, and viewable on iPhones, iPods and iPads. YouTube, with an estimated 40% of the web’s video, shines in an app bundled on all Apple mobile devices, with the iPad offering perhaps the best YouTube discovery and viewing experience ever. Add to this video from Vimeo, Netflix, Facebook, ABC, CBS, CNN, MSNBC, Fox News, ESPN, NPR, Time, The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, Sports Illustrated, People, National Geographic, and many, many others. iPhone, iPod and iPad users aren’t missing much video.

Another Adobe claim is that Apple devices cannot play Flash games. This is true. Fortunately, there are over 50,000 games and entertainment titles on the App Store, and many of them are free. There are more games and entertainment titles available for iPhone, iPod and iPad than for any other platform in the world.

Third, there’s reliability, security and performance.

Symantec recently highlighted Flash for having one of the worst security records in 2009. We also know first hand that Flash is the number one reason Macs crash. We have been working with Adobe to fix these problems, but they have persisted for several years now. We don’t want to reduce the reliability and security of our iPhones, iPods and iPads by adding Flash.

In addition, Flash has not performed well on mobile devices. We have routinely asked Adobe to show us Flash performing well on a mobile device, any mobile device, for a few years now. We have never seen it. Adobe publicly said that Flash would ship on a smartphone in early 2009, then the second half of 2009, then the first half of 2010, and now they say the second half of 2010. We think it will eventually ship, but we’re glad we didn’t hold our breath. Who knows how it will perform?

Fourth, there’s battery life.

To achieve long battery life when playing video, mobile devices must decode the video in hardware; decoding it in software uses too much power. Many of the chips used in modern mobile devices contain a decoder called H.264 – an industry standard that is used in every Blu-ray DVD player and has been adopted by Apple, Google (YouTube), Vimeo, Netflix and many other companies.

Although Flash has recently added support for H.264, the video on almost all Flash websites currently requires an older generation decoder that is not implemented in mobile chips and must be run in software. The difference is striking: on an iPhone, for example, H.264 videos play for up to 10 hours, while videos decoded in software play for less than 5 hours before the battery is fully drained.

When websites re-encode their videos using H.264, they can offer them without using Flash at all. They play perfectly in browsers like Apple’s Safari and Google’s Chrome without any plugins whatsoever, and look great on iPhones, iPods and iPads.

Fifth, there’s Touch.

Flash was designed for PCs using mice, not for touch screens using fingers. For example, many Flash websites rely on “rollovers”, which pop up menus or other elements when the mouse arrow hovers over a specific spot. Apple’s revolutionary multi-touch interface doesn’t use a mouse, and there is no concept of a rollover. Most Flash websites will need to be rewritten to support touch-based devices. If developers need to rewrite their Flash websites, why not use modern technologies like HTML5, CSS and JavaScript?

Even if iPhones, iPods and iPads ran Flash, it would not solve the problem that most Flash websites need to be rewritten to support touch-based devices.

Sixth, the most important reason.

Besides the fact that Flash is closed and proprietary, has major technical drawbacks, and doesn’t support touch based devices, there is an even more important reason we do not allow Flash on iPhones, iPods and iPads. We have discussed the downsides of using Flash to play video and interactive content from websites, but Adobe also wants developers to adopt Flash to create apps that run on our mobile devices.

We know from painful experience that letting a third party layer of software come between the platform and the developer ultimately results in sub-standard apps and hinders the enhancement and progress of the platform. If developers grow dependent on third party development libraries and tools, they can only take advantage of platform enhancements if and when the third party chooses to adopt the new features. We cannot be at the mercy of a third party deciding if and when they will make our enhancements available to our developers.

This becomes even worse if the third party is supplying a cross platform development tool. The third party may not adopt enhancements from one platform unless they are available on all of their supported platforms. Hence developers only have access to the lowest common denominator set of features. Again, we cannot accept an outcome where developers are blocked from using our innovations and enhancements because they are not available on our competitor’s platforms.

Flash is a cross platform development tool. It is not Adobe’s goal to help developers write the best iPhone, iPod and iPad apps. It is their goal to help developers write cross platform apps. And Adobe has been painfully slow to adopt enhancements to Apple’s platforms. For example, although Mac OS X has been shipping for almost 10 years now, Adobe just adopted it fully (Cocoa) two weeks ago when they shipped CS5. Adobe was the last major third party developer to fully adopt Mac OS X.

Our motivation is simple – we want to provide the most advanced and innovative platform to our developers, and we want them to stand directly on the shoulders of this platform and create the best apps the world has ever seen. We want to continually enhance the platform so developers can create even more amazing, powerful, fun and useful applications. Everyone wins – we sell more devices because we have the best apps, developers reach a wider and wider audience and customer base, and users are continually delighted by the best and broadest selection of apps on any platform.

Conclusions.

Flash was created during the PC era – for PCs and mice. Flash is a successful business for Adobe, and we can understand why they want to push it beyond PCs. But the mobile era is about low power devices, touch interfaces and open web standards – all areas where Flash falls short.

The avalanche of media outlets offering their content for Apple’s mobile devices demonstrates that Flash is no longer necessary to watch video or consume any kind of web content. And the 200,000 apps on Apple’s App Store proves that Flash isn’t necessary for tens of thousands of developers to create graphically rich applications, including games.

New open standards created in the mobile era, such as HTML5, will win on mobile devices (and PCs too). Perhaps Adobe should focus more on creating great HTML5 tools for the future, and less on criticizing Apple for leaving the past behind.

Steve Jobs
April, 2010

After a short alpha testing period, Skyfire 2.0 is now available in the Android Market as a public beta. This alternative browser is unique because it offers the ability to play some Flash videos (sorry, no Hulu). Cool features include the SkyBar which automatically detects video, searches for recommendations, and allows you to easily share content with your friends.

Grab the beta now and check out your favorite site with Flash video. Skyfire already plays millions of videos and it is learning new sites every day.

Highlights of Skyfire 2.0 beta include:

• VIDEO: magically offers up videos that appear as broken links on all other mobile browsers, enabling Flash video to play quickly and smoothly.
• EXPLORE: reads your mind and presents smart recommendations for related media content from sources such as YouTube, Twitter, Google, Digg and more.
• SHARE: makes browsing social, with one-click share features to help you get the word out.
• Supports Flash web video with patent-pending adaptive streaming technology for smooth playback
• Pinch to zoom (on Android 2.0 and above)
• Multi-tab browsing – open up to eight windows and browse simultaneously using visual tabs
• Choose to load full desktop webpages or mobile optimized versions
• Clear session history easily upon exit to maintain anonymous browsing

Related Posts

• Skyfire announces Android browser, acquires Kolbysoft
• Skyfire alternative browser seeks alpha testers
• Firefox Mobile a.k.a. Fennec schedules a date with Android
• xScope Browser: The fastest alternative browser for Android?
• Mozilla ramps up Firefox development for Android, nightly builds coming soon

The Skyfire browser brings the desktop web experience to the phone, and until today Android phone owners were unable to share in that experience. Skyfire 2.0 has been released today for the Android platform, and the full Flash experience (sorry Jobs) is part of the package. Skyfire uses server-side page rendering to bring web pages to the phone screen looking like they do on the desktop. Video streaming also works with few compromises, according to the developer.

This second major version of Skyfire introduces the SkyBar, a toolbar that improves the ability to play video, explore the web and to share web information with friends. To get Skyfire 2.0 for Android, visit the Skyfire web site.

Related research on GigaOM Pro (sub req’d):

Google’s Mobile Strategy: Understanding the Nexus One

Meet Consumerist reader Jerry. He’s in the middle of moving and has shut off his Comcast internet service as he prepares to vacate his current abode. And while Comcast has made the nice offer of coming out to pick up his modem free of charge, there’s a hitch — It’s his modem, not theirs.

Take it away, Jerry:

I just checked my voicemail to find a wonderful message from someone calling on behalf of Comcast. I shut off my Comcast services last month as I was moving out of my apartment, and now they are wanting me to return my cable modem, and that I can schedule a time for them to pick up the modem at no cost.

The problem is, I bought the modem long before I started receiving service from Comcast, and as far as I know, it is a brand and model of modem that Comcast doesn’t even lease out.

All of this is also coming after a very long (over an hour) discussion with a confused Comcast customer service rep months earlier about removing/refunding the monthly modem lease fee from my bill, as my modem does not, and never has, belonged to Comcast.

I called them back, and explained that I purchased the modem on my own, years ago. The rep needed me to provide the modem’s serial number. I didn’t have it since my modem was boxed up somewhere back home and I was calling from work. She advised me to call back when I could get the serial number. It’s just my opinion, but I believe that the burden should be on them to prove they own the modem, not me.

Has this happened to anyone else?

If a climate bill doesn’t become law this year, the inclination among many progressives will be to blame President Obama for his lack of leadership.  And frankly progressives should be critical of Obama:   In a bunch of pretty speeches he has repeatedly said the climate and clean energy jobs bill was a signature issue that would determine whether America achieves “lasting prosperity” or “decline” (see “Success or failure for Obama Presidency hangs in the balance” with climate bill).

But two recent stories remind us of who really is to blame for two decades of inaction.  The first is “House Republicans Organize to Thwart Climate Legislation” in Roll Call (subs. req’d), which opens, “House Republicans have launched a new ‘real-time’ e-mail, Internet and media offensive aimed at fueling public opposition to Democrats’ climate proposals.”

The second is an article in UK’s Telegraph, “Britain’s silent, green revolution:  “All the major parties are signed up to transforming Britain into a green, low-carbon economy to boost growth, as well as to combat climate change.”

Together they underscore a central point that I make in my new book, Straight Up (click here to purchase):

Only one political force could stop a climate bill in 2010, the same force that has impeded action for more than a decade — the hard-core antiscience crowd that dominates much of conservative politics these days and that demagogues against even the most modest efforts to promote clean energy and reduce pollution

This emerging conservative litmus on climate is in many respects unique to U.S. politics, as the book notes.  In the British reaction to the stolen emails, the top environmental leader for the conservatives in Parliament made clear that party understands both the science and the urgent need for action:

But tonight the shadow climate change secretary, Greg Clark, made clear the party line remains that climate change is a serious man-made threat. “Research into climate change has involved thousands of different scientists, pursuing many separate lines of independent inquiry over many years. The case for a global deal is still strong and in many aspects, such as the daily destruction of the Earth’s rainforests, desperately urgent,” he said.

In the election, all three major parties “are signed up to transforming Britain into a green, low-carbon economy to boost growth, as well as to combat climate change,” as the Telegraph just reported:

If they meet their promises – global warming and rising fossil fuel prices will make it hard for them to avoid it for long – they will effect the biggest change in Britain since the Industrial Revolution steamed into life in a blaze of coal.

It’s all there in the manifestos. The Conservatives aim to make Britain the “world’s first low-carbon economy”; the Lib Dems want Britain to “lead the new green economy that the world needs”; and Labour maintains that ours is already “a transition economy from high carbon to low carbon”. And all have set out more or less far reaching policies to put the promises into practice.

This will have a more profound and lasting effect on our lives than anything else in their manifestos.

Yes, there is nothing genuinely “conservative” about refusing to conserve resources, refusing to conserve a livable climate.

If we don’t get a climate bill this year — and we still have a fighting chance — the blame rests squarely on the hard-core antiscience crowd.

As the Transocean/BP oil spill continues to move toward the US coastline, states like Louisiana are gearing up to protect beaches and wildlife.

The result of this mess? BP Plc (BP) is down 6.9% or $3.98 to $53.36 a share whilst Transocean (RIG) is down 5.9% or $5.02 a share to $79.87. BP has lost $12.4 billion in market cap today alone as a result of this mess and comments from government officials about going after the situation that lead to this kind of.

BP has since lost $26 billion in market cap this week.

This map from NOAA.gov shows the projected paths that the oil will head including their approximate locations as of yesterday evening. Looks like Mississippi, Alabama, and Louisiana are now are now in the path of the fury.

Join the conversation about this story »

Microsoft have repeatedly stated that  there will be no backward compatibility between WP7 and WM6.5, however, this popped up on the TechEd website.

“Come join us for this interactive session on code compatibility between previous Windows Phone applications and Windows Phone 7. Come talk to experienced application developers and hear what they have to say about code compatibility and share your own experiences with other attendees. Even though the programming paradigm for Windows Phone 7 differs from previous Windows Phone versions, managed applications are still written in C#. Taking a number of best practices into consideration, the majority of your existing code, with the exception of the User Interface, can run on Windows Phone 7.”

What this suggests is that whilst the UI layer has changed, the business logic is still basically the same. This is only true for C# developers, but is at least beneficial to some!

ZDNet via 1800PocketPC.

Wade Roush wrote:

Thinking Screen Media, the Wellesley Hllls, MA, startup that pushes news, photos, and other content to Internet-connected screens, is tweaking its business model once again. Formerly called Frame Media, the company started out in 2006 with a focus on delivering information to wireless photo frames. But last year it started thinking bigger—wireless photo frames weren’t really catching on, and the company decided to target the broader category of connected screens, meaning not just digital frames but TVs, cable set-top boxes, game consoles, and Internet radios.

Now the Apple iPad seems poised to kill off the digital frame category completely, in the view of CEO Alan Philips. So the company has raised $2 million, through a Series B financing and the sale of one of its divisions, to work on its applications for the iPad and cable set-top boxes, Philips tells Xconomy.

“We now believe in multipurpose devices,” says Philips. “The wireless photo frame category just has not taken off, and because of the introduction of devices like the iPad and the ability for set-top boxes to have Internet connectivity, it’s unlikely that the frame market will take off. So we are focused on consumer devices that will have a push element, and we think that the iPad is the best example of such a device. If you fast forward two years, you could see 30 percent penetration [of the iPad], at least in the U.S. market, in terms of the number of kitchens and living rooms that have an iPad for remote control or photo-frame or on-demand media access.”

Thinking Screen raised $2 million in Series A funding from CommonAngels and Longworth Venture Partners back in November 2007 and extended that round by another $3 million in May 2008. The new Series B funds come from Scala, which runs a digital advertising and signage business out of Exton, PA. Scala paid $2 million total for an equity stake in Thinking Screen and to purchase Thinking Screen’s SignChannel division, which focuses on digital signage. Three of the 12 staffers in Thinking Screen’s Wellesley Hills office are now Scala employees, Philips says.

The spinoff and fundraising frees up Thinking Screen to concentrate on home information devices. The company launched free and $1.99 versions of its iPad app, called FrameChannel, in early April. The app allows users to choose from approximately 1,000 channels or “widgets” such as news feeds, weather and sports information, National Geographic photos, or photos from Flickr, Picasa, Facebook, or other photo sharing sites. (The free version mixes advertisements in with the other content.) “It’s really about how are you going to use the iPad for the 22 hours a day that you’re not holding it,” says Philips. “During that 22 hours, it’s pushing content based on your preferences to the screen, in the kitchen or living room or bedroom.”

Philips says the company is working on improvements to the app, such as additional widgets as well as channels that are more interactive or that present multiple types of data on a single screen. Similar FrameChannel widgets are available to owners of other devices such as the Roku Player, Tivo DVRs, and digital frames from Samsung, Sony, Philips, Motorola, Kodak, Toshiba, and Viewsonic.

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What does a one-in-ten-million chance of apocalypse look like? Well, it used to look like this:

That is asteroid 2005 YU55, a near-Earth object (or NEO) that also happens to be a PHA, or potentially hazardous asteroid. It has an orbit which intersects the Earth, which means that someday it could possibly hit us.

Now before you panic — and I’ll make this clear: DON’T PANIC — that doesn’t mean you’ll wake up tomorrow to see flaming death streaking across the sky. Think of it this way: when you walk to the local convenience store to get a squishy, you have to cross the street. The path you take intersects the street, but as long as you don’t try to occupy the same spot as a moving car, you won’t get hit. Same with PHAs: their orbits cross the Earth’s orbit, but space is big. As long as the Earth and the asteroid aren’t at the same place at the same time, we’re OK.

Since we don’t know the orbits of these objects perfectly, we assign a probability they will hit us over some period of time. Up until recently, YU55’s chance of hitting us over the next century was calculated to be about 1 in 10,000,000, which is reasonably close enough to 0 for me. However, it’s always good to get better data. In this case, very good: new observations have eliminated the chance that YU55 will ruin our day for at least a century to come.

YU55 was observed with the monster 300 meter (1000 foot) Arecibo radio telescope in Puerto Rico. Arecibo can send little radar pings into space, aimed at an asteroid. The pings reflect off the rock, come back to Earth, and the timing of each one can be logged. This tells us how far away the asteroid is, how big it is, and even (by carefully measuring the different arrival times of the pings back on Earth) the shape of the asteroid.

If this sounds familiar, that’s because this is how dolphins and bats sense their environment. They use sound, not light, but the principle is the same. So what did Arecibo tell us when it dolphinated YU55?

The good news is that the orbit of the asteroid was nailed down better, and that 1 in 10,000,000 chance of an impact in the next century dropped to 0. Nada. Nil. And astronomers are so confident of that they removed YU55 from their Risk Page.

So we’re safe from YU55 ruining our day for quite some time at least.

And that’s good, because, as it turns out, YU55 is bigger than expected: about 400 meters (a quarter mile) across, twice as large as previous estimates showed! Something that big hitting us at orbital speeds would explode with the force of a lot of nuclear weapons — a few thousand megatons, or a hundred times the yield of the largest bomb ever detonated.

So yeah, yay! It won’t hit us, and that’s by any definition good.

But the middlin’ bad news is that this also means is that it’s tough to get good size estimates for asteroids without this technique. Usually, the size of a rock is determined by measuring how bright it is. A bigger asteroid reflects more light, and by measuring how well it reflects sunlight we can estimate the size. But that doesn’t always work so well, as YU55 is telling us. Clearly, we need to use multiple methods to get the sizes of these guys.

Arecibo’s funding is constantly under attack, yet it’s the best machine we have to get the sizes of and, more importantly, accurate orbits for these potentially life-threatening objects. YU55 is off the list now, but there’s a long line of rocks ready and waiting to take its place there.

Sony has made a few changes to the core hardware of the PS3 that should hopefully get them closer to the hardware break even point.

The Reality Synthesizer (RSX) Graphics Processing Unit (GPU) has seen some changes during the PS3 life-cycle. Initially it was 90nm during launch, later it was reduced to 65nm, and now another change to 40nm. Reducing the chipset is not only inline with industry reductions of larger chips, but it also serves to reduce power consumption and heat which is crucial in a relatively tight space. To date the PS3 Slim units have not experienced the YLOD (yellow light of death) in mass quantities, and this revision should help to reduce that phenomenon.

This new version CECH-2100A contains a few other changes as well. The power supply weighs less, the heatsink is more simple,the internal cooling unit is much smaller as well resulting in an overall lighter console. Further the XD DRAM configuration was changed from being 4×512Mb to 2×1Gb. This is very similar to the future layout that Goto-san described back in 2006.

PocketNews performed the tear down and examination of the system. They also took a look at power consumption and how it relates to the new version:

While it’s not currently available in the US yet, Amazon.co.jp has it available. Lower power consumption, less heat and cheaper manufacturing costs is a win for everyone.

Images courtesy of PocketNews

As a reminder that coal mining accidents are not peculiar to either West Virginia or Massey Energy, two miners in Western Kentucky have gone missing after the section of their mine collapsed in Western Kentucky Wednesday night. The Associated Press reports:

Rescue crews were in the mine on Thursday morning, said Ricki Gardenhire, a spokeswoman for the Kentucky Office of Mine Safety and Licensing. Mine operators told a news conference that they are holding out hope of finding the miners alive.

Gardenhire said a section of roof gave way some 24,000 feet underground in the Webster County Coal Dotiki (doh-TEE’-kee) Mine about 10 p.m. Wednesday.

The mine owner, Oklahoma-based Alliance Resource Partners, says the Dotiki project harvests about 1,300 tons of raw coal each hour.

Kentucky, the AP notes, led the country in mining deaths in 2009. But don’t go asking the state’s congressional delegation to do anything about it. Indeed, in the wake of the Upper Big Branch disaster that killed 29 miners in West Virginia earlier this month, there were only prayers coming from Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.). And other coal-country lawmakers, representing both parties, didn’t even go that far.

Will be interesting to see if this blast, a bit closer to Frankfort, stirs a stronger reaction.