Google Glass really freaks some people out. Those people are understandably concerned that those wearing Glass could be secretly recording their every move. There are some obstacles programmed into Glass to prevent this, but it might not be for long.
ZDNet reports that a hacker by the name of Jay Freeman has already jailbroken Glass. The jailbroken Glass can be used to bypass a number of obstacles that prevent Glass from becoming the surveillance tool of the future.
The big thing is that hackers can remove all indication that Glass is recording video. In the vanilla OS, Glass will show the video as it’s recording on the glass prism above the eye. If a person was close enough, they could tell that Glass was recording video. Freeman says that Glass’ OS can be modified to remove this so that you can record video while everybody is none the wiser.
Of course, you couldn’t record minutes of footage as the current Glass only allows video recordings of up to 10 seconds. Oh wait, that’s controlled by the OS as well so you could bypass that limitation to allow unlimited video recording. Glass only has 12.5GB of embedded flash memory though so there’s not much space for video.
That’s where Freeman starts to get creative. He says you can modify Glass to take a picture every 30 seconds while recording low bit rate audio. It takes up much less storage than HD video, but provides what is essentially the same information. Freeman speculates such tactics could be used for corporate espionage or for planning robberies.
Should you be afraid of Google Glass, especially after all of this has come to light? The short answer is no. The long answer is that Google Glass is just a tool, and like any other tool can be used for good or evil. It doesn’t mean that you shouldn’t be cautious though. Bars, strip clubs and other establishments that make it a priority to protect customer privacy have an obligation to prevent Glass and other recording equipment from being used on their premises.
It should be noted that we’re still in the infancy of Google Glass. Google may lock down the consumer versions of Glass to prevent unwarranted surveillance on a massive scale. We’ll find out in about a year when Google Glass finally launches.
Last week, I scolded colleague Mihaita Bamburic for writing old news — charity auction for coffee with Apple’s CEO. When I saw the item, someone offered $50,000 for 30 minutes with Tim Cook. About 24 hours later, when Mihaita posted: $180,000. Now, after 84 bids and 13 days to go, the number is $600,000. That bid, placed five days ago, looks like as much as anyone will pay.
I know that Apple products are notoriously pricey, but there is something simply unfathomable about paying so much for a cup of brew with Cook. No disrespect to him, but I could see this kind of cash to sit with Steve Jobs, who isn’t available for obvious reasons. The winning bid (so far) is worth $20,000 a minute. The cash does go to charity. But really, pay $333.33 per second?
Cook in demand is good public relations for Apple, which needs an image makeover. The Teflon flakes off after all, not a situation imagined a year ago, with the stock reaching for a new high (achieved September, $705.07). But since, every badmouthing sticks to the once resistant surface. The charity thing is good timing. But there’s more underway. Cook will appear on stage at this month’s D11 conference. Yesterday, Apple announced a $17 billion bond offer, the largest in corporate history.
Apple’s recent problems are about perception, not performance, and reflect waning confidence in Cook’s leadership. Finally, the company makes real effort to generate some sense that Cook can lead in the wake Jobs left behind. Not that any of this helps the stock, which from Friday’s close is up 8 percent in late-day trading today. Hey, every little bit helps.
Regarding the value of Cook’s time, if my rough calculations are correct, during calendar first quarter, Apple generated 2,249,053.03 profit every 30 minutes. From that perspective, maybe $600,000 is a bargain. What would you pay for coffee with Cook?
Adam Grant, author of the book Give and Take , recently gave an “Authors At Google” talk at the Googleplex, discussing his work.
The publicist for the book describes “Give and Take” as changing our “fundamental ideas about how to succeed – at work and in life”.
“For generations, we have focused on the individual drivers of success: passion, hard work, talent, and luck,” they say. “But in today’s dramatically reconfigured world, success is increasingly dependent on how we interact with others. Give and Take illuminates what effective networking, collaboration, influence, negotiation, and leadership skills have in common.”
Samsung’s rapid rise in the smartphone market has certainly put more pressure on Apple than it’s faced in quite some time, and now it looks as though Samsung may be eating into Apple’s share in the tablet market as well. The latest numbers from IDC show that Apple’s share of the global tablet market has shrunk year over year from 65.3% in the first quarter of 2012 to 39.6% in Q1 2013. What’s more, IDC has found that Samsung’s tablet shipments have surged by 283% year over year and now account for 17.9% of all tablet shipments, up from just 11.3% of all tablet shipments in Q1 2012. So while Apple is still the clear leader in the tablet market, it no longer holds the dominant position it used to have despite the fact that its overall shipments increased from 11.8 million units in Q1 2012 to 19.5 million units in Q1 2013. IDC’s full press release on the new tablet numbers is posted below.
Kickstarter-funded Bitponics was showing off its finished product at TechCrunch Disrupt NY’s Hardware Alley today in New York, which is shipping out to backers in the next few weeks according to company cofounder Michael Zick Doherty. The Bitponics system is a cloud-based hydroponic garden manager, complete with a web-based dashboard that’s accessible anywhere and can control every aspect crucial to the process, like the pH of the soil, temperature, light and moisture level.
The Kickstarter project from the Brooklyn-based company managed to pass its $20,000 goal back in June of last year, as people seemed drawn to the idea of a platform that takes a lot of the guesswork out of setting up and managing a hydroponic garden. It’s designed to be dead-simple, with guides for how much sun, water and nutrition your plants need. It collects data via sensors that plug into a base, which connects to your local Wi-Fi network, and then logs data in a dashboard and can send you notices when things aren’t going exactly as they should. The base has two power outlets built in which feature timers that allow you to set schedules for components like lights and pumps.
“I was working for a company called Windows Farms doing the hydroponic systems, who do the growing and the plumbing and all those aspects of it,” Doherty said of how Bitponics came up with the idea. “My issue with hydroponics is that there are a lot of things that you have to know well to be able to grow well, and there’s a lot of time put into monitoring the conditions of the plans.”
As a hardware and software platform startup, I asked what the biggest challenges Bitponics has faced in terms of actually delivering a product. Doherty said that there were challenges with manufacturing and getting that right, but that the biggest challenge was making sure the entire process was engineered correctly in terms of user experience, so that literally anyone could pick it up and use it, and grow things well.
“Probably the biggest challenge was figuring out a user flow that was something that anyone could do,” he said. “Building something that someone who had never tried hydroponics, or someone who had never touched a computer would be able to just follow these instructions and get running in a reasonable amount of time, that was a huge challenge.”
Bitponics is going to start shipping to the general public once it gets all of its backer systems out to Kickstarter supporters, when it’ll be available for $499 for the base station, with service available on a recurring subscription basis. If you’re looking for a way to manage your in-home herb or cannabis farm even when you’re away on business, this could be one to check out.
Tamerlan Tsarnaev was gunned down during a shootout with police just hours after authorities released photos of him and his brother, Dzhokhar, as the main suspects of the Boston Marathon bombings. Now, in addition to more suspects being arrested, even more details about the Tsarnaevs’ life in the U.S. have come to light.
The Boston Herald is reporting that Tsarnaev family were receiving over $100,000 in government assistance. The benefits reportedly included food stamps and Section 8 housing credits. An unnamed “person with knowledge of documents handed over to a legislative committee today” told the Herald that the amount of the benefits was “stunning.”
The documents were examined by the Massachusetts House Post Audit and Oversight Committee, which met on Monday. The committee called in Department of Transitional Assistance (DTA) officials to testify about the assistance the Tsarnaev family was receiving. DTA officials told the Herald that they are also conducting their own internal investigation into the Tsarnaev family.
Shortly after Tsarnaev’s death, it was revealed that the suspected bomber was married to 26-year-old Katherine Russell of Rhode Island. He was also the father of a 3-year-old girl. His brother and alleged co-bomber, Dzhokhar, is currently behind bars in a federal prison hospital.
This is a no brainer, people-who-have-any-say-on-whether-or-not-this-ever-gets-made. Honestly, short of Bioshock: Baltimore starring Bunk and McNulty, I can’t even imagine a game that I would buy any quicker. Half Life 3?
In all seriousness, this is way cool. Love those LEGO games, love Breaking Bad even more. I totally want to control little LEGO Mike Ehrmantraut. Damn, now I really want to play something that doesn’t exist…yet.
“I have no affiliation with Traveller’s Tales, LEGO, or AMC. I’m just a huge fan of the stuff they make. But seriously, if they all got together and made this game, for real, I’d buy it and play the crap out of it,” says creator Brian Anderson.
First Round Capital has expanded its Dorm Room Fund to the Silicon Valley and San Francisco Bay area. The fund will have $500,000 in capital and a 10-student investment team, according to a tweet from Josh Kopelman, First Round partner and founder. It invests in student-run startups. The news was reported by TechCrunch. The firm’s Dorm Room Fund initiative kicked off in September 2012 in Philadelphia and since expanded to New York.
Here is a link to a Silicon Valley fund. Here is a link to the original blog post. Here is a link to the TechCrunch story.
President Obama has nominated former cable and wireless lobbyist Tom Wheeler as the future chairman of the Federal Communications Commission. The president also nominated Commissioner Mignon Clyburn as the acting chair for the time between Wheeler’s Senate confirmation and the departure of current Chairman Julius Genachowski in mid-May.
As we covered yesterday, Wheeler is a choice that both sides of the regulatory divide support, which is something in an arena as divisive as telecommunications regulation. The congratulations from public interest groups and industry are pouring in, and we’re setting down to compose or list of the challenges we believe Wheeler will face, including the IP transition and the upcoming incentive auction.
Moving forward with plans for mature offline web apps, Google announced Wednesday that it is previewing Packaged Apps in the Chrome Web Store. At this time only folks using the developer channel of Chrome OS or the Chrome browser for Windows can see the apps directly by searching the Chrome Web Store, which are broken out into their own “Apps” category.
Although Google is just getting started with these, the concept adds a much wider range of capability for web apps written in HTML, CSS and JavaScript. Currently, most of these web apps are Chrome extensions, which are comprised of just enough code to run in a browser with an online connection.
Packaged Apps, however, look and behave like a traditional application because unlike extensions, they contain all of the code needed to run. That means some, if not all, functionality works offline. Note that these are also different apps from what Google calls Native Client, or NaCl, apps: Those are truly native apps written in standard programming languages with HTML wrapped around them.
I’m not currently using the developer channel of Chrome OS on my Pixel, so I haven’t tested any of the previewed Packaged Apps yet. But I plan to soon. I’ve been playing SparkChess, an HD 3D chess game that has computer opponents. Instead of playing solely online, the SparkChess packaged app fully supports offline use. The obvious upside is that my Chromebook Pixel isn’t “just a browser” any more.
For now, the Packaged App preview is really intended for developers to test out their app’s installation process and such; that’s why only users on the Chrome dev channel can see them. Google hasn’t yet given a timetable for widespread Packaged App support on the stable channels, so perhaps we’ll hear more details in two weeks; we’ll be reporting live from the Google I/O Developer event in San Francisco.
Also: stay tuned to our weekly GigaOM Chrome Show podcast as we’re looking to dive deeper into the Packaged Apps v. Native Client apps comparison in an upcoming episode.
Precog, a Boulder, Colo.-based startup that’s trying to seed the market for advanced analytics on unstructured data, is coming out of beta on Thursday with a line of appliances designed to let everyday users get started on making sense of social, web and application data. The company’s underlying technology has remained the same since we profiled Precog in September, but a journey into the world outside Silicon Valley has changed its thinking about how to market and deliver its product.
Put simply, Precog’s technology lets users ask questions of their unstructured data (e.g., stuff sitting in Hadoop, MongoDB or any other non-relational data store) in whatever format it was created — JSON, logfile, XML, what have you. This is different from the standard operating procedure of querying unstructured data — including the current SQL-on-Hadoop craze — which usually involves somehow transforming data into a format that a relational engine can read before beginning the analysis. Precog also features visualizations, charts and reports designed with these new types of data, and presumably larger datasets, in mind.
CEO John De Goes and COO Jeff Carr
However, Founder and CEO John De Goes told me, the company came to realize over the past several months that as much as what it’s doing might fall under the “data science” umbrella, that’s the wrong messaging. Outside of Silicon Valley, he said, “a lot of companies don’t have the technological sophistication to understand the whole data science thing” — they just want to know that they can ask deeper questions of the new data types they’re storing in their NoSQL databases without having to perform ETL operations on it or write a lot of complicated code.
And the bigger those companies are, Precog COO Jeff Carr said, the less likely they are to want a cloud service like Precog initially offered.
So the company took both lessons to heart and is rolling out a line of appliances (physical or virtual) that complement its flagship cloud service, each targeting specific use cases. The first three are social media, web analytics and application data, and the appliances are equipped with baked-in capabilities important to each of those fields. The social media one, for example, will feature advanced sentiment analysis and natural language processing, while the web analytics one will focus on features such as behavioral clustering.
Under the covers, though, each appliance still runs on the broader Precog platform, Carr noted, and someone who buys one just to get started in a specific area can pretty easily (i.e., without reaching “super-coder” status) turn it toward other data types and other types of analysis. But right now, De Goes added, no one really knows what it means to have an analytics product designed for unstructured data, so the appliance approach should make it easier for large enterprises and non-tech companies to digest.
An example of web analytics in Precog.
It’s a “baby steps” situation, explained Carr: “Don’t sit there and try to think about how to solve every problem all at once. Let’s try to sit there and think about data types you know you’re having problems with [now].”
Analyzing data in its native format has advantages beyond just omitting an extra transformation step, though, and the Precog team thinks companies will get hip to these advantages as they begin to understand the analytic aspects of non-relational databases as well as they do the operational aspects. Often times, these will be new use cases, which is why Precog considers itself more complementary to than competitive with traditional data warehouses, SQL-on-Hadoop tools and BI software.
One early customer is using Precog to match up résumé data — often enhanced résumé data — with job openings, which is a tricky proposition in a relational format because résumés can include so much personalized information or content that doesn’t fit into a schema at all, really. Another user, a large telco, is trying to build new data products for its customers by mashing together all sorts of internal and third-party data in numerous formats.
Carr compared the shift to the shift from just flat files to relational data decades ago. “It’s happening again,” he said. “It has to happen again … people are not going to abandon JSON because it does’t fit neatly inside a table.”
Precog is telling the right story around why unstructured analytics matters, but one has to assume there will be a major shakeout in the big data analytics space over the next few years. There are only so many new technologies companies can absorb at once — Hadoop, NoSQL, SQL on Hadoop, unstructured analytics, Platfora, in-memory, stream processing, next-gen analytic databases, etc. — and it’s hard to predict which messages and capabilities will win out.
However, unless Hadoop really does become the lone dumping ground for all non-operational data — regardless the source — technologies like Precog that can act as the analytics layer across numerous data stores would seem to have an advantage.
Yahoo was in talks to buy as much as 75 percent of Dailymotion, with an option to buy the remaining 25 percent at a later date. The deal would have valued Dailymotion at around $300 million — but it wasn’t meant to be: Regulators resisted the idea that Dailymotion would be owned by an American company, and wanted to restrict Yahoo’s ownership to 50 percent. Yahoo declined.
This puts an end to what would have been Yahoo’s first major acquisition since Marissa Mayer took over as CEO last July, and it would also have been the company’s first major attempt to compete with YouTube since it shut down its own video hosting service in 2010.
So where is Yahoo going to look next to boost its online video business? Here are a few ideas:
Blip: Blip is one of the few remaining independent U.S. video platforms, and the service has undergone an ambitious transition from a catch-all for online video to a platform for premium serialized content — the kind of stuff advertisers like. This could be a good match for Yahoo, which has eyeballs, but needs inventory to place ads against.
Ustream: The one area in which YouTube is still vulnerable is live video. Granted, the Google-owned video service has been offering live streaming to select partners for some time. But it’s live video section is a mess, and the only bright spots have been large live events. Ustream could help Yahoo to get a headstart in live video, while at the same time providing the company with a site that already offers offers hosting for recorded videos as well.
PPLive: The Chinese video market is huge, with billions tuning in every month. It’s also not exactly profitable, which has led to consolidation, and could help Yahoo to buy one of the country’s many video providers on the cheap. Standalone video properties like PPLive and Xunlei are the most likely targets, and could help Yahoo to build a video business across Asia and beyond. Of course, there’s that whole China thing, but Mayer has proven that she’s not afraid of unpopular decisions.
Flickr: The Yahoo-owned image hosting site has enjoyed a bit of a comeback in recent months. And guess what: Flickr has been offering video hosting for five years already. Video has been a bit of an afterthought for Flickr, but Yahoo could certainly change that if it wanted to. The advantage of this approach would be that all the resources are already part of Yahoo — and historically, integrating acquisitions has been one of the things that Yahoo has struggled with a lot.
Who do you think Yahoo should buy instead of Dailymotion? Leave your thoughts in the comments!
In Google’s latest Webmaster Help video, Matt Cutts is asked about a common SEO misconception that he wishes to put to rest. The answer: Google is not doing everything you read about in patents.
Cutts says, “There a sort of persistent misconception that people often have, which is that just because a patent issues…that has somebody’s name on it, or someone who works at search quality, or someone who works at Google, that doesn’t necessarily mean that we are using that patent at that moment.”
He continues, “Sometimes you’ll see speculation, ‘Oh, Google had a patent where they mentioned using the length of time that the domain was registered.’ That doesn’t mean that we’re necessarily doing that. It just means that, you know, that mechanism is patented.”
Cutts recalls, “Somebody else at Google had gotten a patent on the idea (or the mechanism, not just the idea, the actual implementation) by which you could look at how people had changed their webpage after an update, and basically say, ‘Oh, these are people who are responding to Google, or they are dynamically SEOing their stuff,’ and so there were a lot of publishers who were like, ‘Ugh, I’m just gonna throw up my hands. Why bother at all if Google’s just gonna keep an eye?’ and you know, ‘If we change, and Google’s just using that and monitoring that, and changing their ranking in response,’ and it’s the sort of thing where just because that patent comes out, doesn’t mean that Google’s currently using that technology.”
“So, patents are a lot of interesting ideas,” he adds. “You can see a lot of stuff mentioned in them, but don’t take it as an automatic golden truth that we’re doing any particular thing that is mentioned in a patent.”
It is true that patents provide a lot of insight into the kinds of ideas that Google is thinking about, and often we can only really speculate about certain things that it is actually implementing.
Yesterday I attended the Minnesota High Tech Association Spring Conference. It’s always a good opportunity to see folks and hear about what’s happening in the high tech industries and what folks are thinking about. It seems they are thinking about innovation, cloud computing and mobile technology.
I heard a lot of speakers talk about the need to open up their technology and their ideas –in terms of getting feedback from customers, getting customers to help spread the word (generally via social media), listening to what others are doing. Technology projects can no longer be done in a vacuum – because the technology outside of that vacuum changes so quickly.
I tried to take notes during the sessions I attended. Also I have a video of my colleague Bill Coleman talking about the MIRC project. All of the Tekne Award recipients from 2012were invited to speak at the conference – and the MIRC project was a recipient.
The morning keynote was Scott Durschlag Best Buy
Where is Best Buy going?
Case for Change
Market Landscape – channel shifting
Competitive Environment – need for strong brand differentiation
Consumer Dynamics – connected lifestyles
Digital Context – role of social media
Renew Blue
– Reinvent CE retail by delivering delight anytime, anywhere on any device
– Optimize digital customer experience
– Build open & adaptive web 3.0 platform
– Enable deep personalized relationships with customers
We support thee-Fair Marketplace legislation. Folks like Best Buy have been playing on an unleveled playing field when Internet-only businesses don’t have to charge tax.
We’ve been working on Data Center Legislation.
Breakout Session: The Spectrum of Innovation
Dana Lonn, Managing Director CATT, Toro
– Any problem is solvable – key to innovation.
Paul Mattia, VP, RD&E, Foodservice, Ecolab
– Innovation Metrics
– Be Public about recognizing innovation
– “Connect people with values (make people love their job) – inspires innovation”
Mike Schaefer, Vice President, CTO, Global Research and Development, Tennant Company
– Innovation is not optional
– Innovation must be part of your strategy
– Diversity and talent are important – getting different points of view
– Don’t believe your own press releases
Questions:
How do you incorporate social media into innovation strategies?
At Ecolab it’s easy. Our customers are restaurants. The pressure of TripAdvisor has made people want to be cleaner.
Toro – we’re just starting. We watch for comments on our products. We don’t tap into open innovation and asking the world for ideas. We’re working on how that applies to us.
Tennant – We’re early stages too
How do you approach failure?
Ecolab – We tell them that we don’t expect them to succeed every time. We share stories of failures. Sometimes it’s a matter of being ahead of your time. We try to learn from failure.
Toro – Wharton Business school professor talks about the need for performance originations and learning organizations – the question you ask relates to that tension.
Tennant – We have a review process, which helps people get on board.
How do you see mobility play in?
Toro – One challenge – we think of products and projects. We were educated to define everything then freeze specs and come out with a perfect product years later. That’s not the world we live in today.
In a large company, how do you work with innovation outside of your company?
Tennant – Must ask what’s happening in adjacent spaces.
Ecolab – We host events that lets people experience what the customers experience.
Session 2B: IT | The Changing Role of the CIO (Room L100 I/J)
Today’s IT organizations are facing a barrage of changes; Cloud Computing, Social Networks, Mobility, SaaS, etc.. World class IT organizations are adapting by taking on a Service Orientation for their departments. Through IT-as-a-Service initiatives, our panel of leading CIOs is able to provide their stakeholders a greater return on investment – but it isn’t always so easy. Come hear what challenges and strategic approaches have been used and how they have led to greater success.
§ Moderator – Todd Hauschildt, CEO, SWAT Solutions, Inc.
Patrick Joyce, CIO, Medtronic
It’s all about change. Always looking at what’s the next change.
Disruptive technology – means we now work as a broker of technology and as an educator.
IT is the business.
Tim Thull, CIO, Medica
Establishing a more adaptive IT staff. We have needed to be faster. We’re having to react in real time.
We decide where to get involved and where to stay away. We focus on control, cost-effective and security.
Alan Abramson, CIO, Health Partners
The role has moved from being a one-stop –shop to more of a business partnership. Service is also playing a larger role.
I have two rules with technology innovation:
Any technology that is sufficiently developed will be adopted despite opposition. The question is – when it is sufficiently developed?
As adoption takes place, there’s a lag between start of use and value of meaningful use.
We talk about mobile phone as if it’s a new things – it’s been around for 40 years.
Final Keynote: Jim Link, Author The New Creativity
When skill meets will magic happens – the same is true with creativity.
We are getting worse at creativity – probably because we’re thinking and teaching it the wrong way.
People who are creative are:
Curious: People who are creative are observant, studious, thoughtful. They work to know more about their field. They are always noticing things and filing them away until later.
Inquisitive: they dig to get more info. They pursue things until they find their answers.
The more collect – they more you connect.
Creativity comes from
Curiosity -> drive analysis -> created idea-links materials -> making connections
Social media studies suggest that African Americans use Twitter more than other group in the U.S. – 26 percent compared to 19 percent of Hispanics and 14 percent of whites. Now, news site The Root has launched a tool that curates leading black voices on Twitter and shows the most popular ideas and trends in the community.
Called The Chatterati, the tool relies on algorithms and a hand-selected database of thousands of influential Twitter users — including entrepreneurs, academics and celebrities — to display popular news, hashtags and retweets.
“It’s a digest of what’s going on on Twitter among African Americans. That’s why we built it,” said Donna Byrd, publisher of The Root, in a phone interview. “The other benefit is it quickly identifies key conversations, which informs what we write about and how we craft stories.”
For The Root, which competes with sites like theGrio and the HuffPo’s Black Voices, The Chatterati could provide a leg up on breaking news stories. This week, for instance, Byrd said the news of NBA player Jason Collins’ decision to come out as gay trended among its users before it did among Twitter at large.
The tool, which sits atop Twitter’s API, could also be a magnet for marketers looking to target African Americans. Twitter, which has been known to cut off services that threaten its own revenue stream, is for now okay with The Chatterati, according to Byrd.
The tool itself went live this week and has categories like “top hashtags,” “top retweets” and “our favorites,” where The Root staff curate Twitter highlights. Byrd said her team is still working out a few bugs, but that The Root will continue to expand its database of the most influential black Twitter users.
Byrd said the tool’s primary purpose is to help The Root readers, who are not on Twitter all day long, and quickly discover what’s trending.
“I don’t think there’s a need for a black Twitter per se. It’s an opportunity to have a view of what’s going on in a subsection of the broader community.”
It’s a new year, and that means a new Call of Duty title. This year is a bit special though as it’s a transition year into next-gen consoles. The folks at Infinity Ward are taking full advantage of that fact with a new Call of Duty game coming to next-gen consoles.
Activision and Infinity Ward announced today that Call of Duty: Ghosts is the next title in the first-person shooter franchise. Many thought that Infinity Ward would continue with a fourth entry in the Modern Warfare storyline, but Ghosts is an entirely new story. The game is also being built with an entirely brand new engine to take advantage of next-gen consoles. That’s only a good thing as the Modern Warfare engine was starting to show its age around Modern Warfare 2.
To top off the announcement, Activision has also released a new trailer for the title. As is customary, no gameplay is present. Instead, we get a live-action trailer full of angry men wearing masks that make them look even angrier.
Infinity Ward also announced that it will be showing off the first gameplay demo of the title at Microsoft’s next Xbox event on May 21. With that in mind, it’s a pretty safe bet that Microsoft has secured more exclusive Call of Duty content to ensure that those who play Call of Duty on the Xbox 360 continue to do so on the next Xbox.
Call of Duty: Ghosts will be available on the Xbox 360, PS3, PC, PS4 and the next Xbox on November 5. There’s no mention of the Wii U in the announcement, but you shouldn’t read too much into that just yet.
Twitter has just released an update to both their iOS and Android apps that allow you to see Trends from all over the world as well as choose to see Trends specifically tailored to your interests and who you follow. The update also brings a few other good improvements like improved playback on Vine videos.
When accessing Trends on Twitter’s “discover” tab, you’ll now see the option to get “tailored trends” or also to change location. Here’s what Twitter will tell you when you attempt to change location:
“Tailored Trends are based on your location and who you follow which make them more relevant to your interests. If you change location, you’ll see Trends based around geography only.”
You can then pick from dozens of locations – mostly larger cities across the world. if you do so, your trends will simply be based on what’s popular around you – it’ll have nothing to do with who you follow.
Updates to iOS & Android apps: See Trends from all over the world or choose to have Trends tailored to your interests.
With today’s update, replies to retweeted tweets now show both the author of the tweet and the user who retweeted it. Here’s the full list of updates to come along with version 5.6:
See what’s happening near you or around the world by viewing Trends in hundreds of locations.
Also:
• Invite friends to join Twitter from within the app
• Improved playback of Vine videos
• Replies to retweeted Tweets now include both the author and person who retweeted the Tweet
• Enjoy a smoother experience due to bug fixes and other improvements.
As BlackBerry begins rolling out its second BlackBerry 10 smartphone, the struggling vendor will at least have some good momentum to build on coming out of April. According to market watcher Net Applications, BlackBerry gained usage share in April after losing share in each of the two prior months. While BlackBerry only accounts for a minuscule portion of global mobile usage — 1.51% in April, less than Symbian’s 1.73% — it’s at least moving in the right direction, up from the low of 1.39% it hit in February. IOS shed about 1.5 points in April to fall to a still-dominant 59.04% according to Net Applications, while Android smartphones and tablets gained more than a point to climb to 26.02%.
TechCrunch Disrupt New York 2013 was held this week in New York City, with plenty of focus on tech disruption, as well as a lot of apps, demonstrations, funding announcements and product announcements. Funding announcements came from SkyTree, which secured $18 million and Dwolla, raising $16.5 million. The event conversation can be followed on Twitter hashtag #TCDisrupt.
Dwolla raises $16.5 million
Payments network company Dwolla announced that it has raised $16.5 million in new Series C funding led by Andreessen Horowitz (a16z). The company’s previous investors, Village Ventures, Thrive Capital, and Union Square Ventures also participated in the round. Highlighting Dwolla as an example, legendary venture capitalist Fred Wilson was at TechCrunch Disrupt New York and stated that ”money is information, like bits,” noting that giving currency a spin that puts it in a continuum with the many blogging and content companies that his firm has invested in over the years.
“A16z makes bets on companies that change the underlying fabric of their markets and, like Facebook, Twitter, and GitHub, we think Dwolla is going to do it in the banking world,” said Scott Weiss, Partner at Andreessen Horowitz and new Dwolla board member, in a statement about the investment. “The fact that Dwolla’s network can simultaneously meet the needs of a complex enterprise or government, while allowing a parent to pay the babysitter with her phone, reflects just how simple and strikingly different this solution is in the marketplace.”
With the funding Des Moines, Iowa based Dwolla will double its workforce in Iowa and New York. It will also open an office in San Francisco, adding to existing staff in Des Moines, New York, Omaha, and Kansas City. The Bay area office will be led by Dwolla’s Chief Operating Officer, Charise Flynn, and will be mainly focused on product and business development and marketing. Dwolla CEO Ben Milne explains why he is so excited about the funding announcement, and why Andreessen Horowitz makes sense – including the fact that he and Marc Andreessen were both born in Cedar Falls, Iowa.
“The reality is that our fundamental business is allowing anybody with an Internet connection get access to their money and exchange it with anybody else they want to receive it,” Milne says. “A lot of that adoption is going to come instead from third-party platforms and products,” he adds. “I don’t see people going to Dwolla.com more and more – I see them doing that less and less, while our software is just facilitating the payments.”
Skytree receives $18 million
Machine learning company Skytree announced that it has closed $18 million in Series A funding with U.S. Venture Partners (USVP) as the lead investor. Package delivery giant UPS and Sun Microsytems co-founder Scott McNealy joined the new investor syndicate. The new financing will help fuel an aggressive growth strategy to disrupt the Big Data Analytics market with enterprise-ready Machine Learning. As part of this transaction, USVP General Partner Rick Lewis has joined Skytree’s Board of Directors.
“A new era has dawned, in which enterprises are demanding the advanced, real-time business insights that only Machine Learning can provide. Skytree makes the power of Machine Learning available to all enterprises, with a striking performance advantage over their competition. Since the company’s launch in February 2012, customers have validated our view that Skytree has a huge lead in this fast-growing market. Skytree’s team, technology, and customer traction have made Skytree the company to beat in applying Machine Learning for Advanced Analytics,” said Rick Lewis, General Partner, USVP.
Many people want Microsoft to die, and the sooner the better. I’m not in that group, although I understand that years upon years of letdowns through viruses, DLL hell, BSODs (Blue Screens of Death) and a myriad of other problems lead many in the tech world (and consumer world, too) to walk away from everything Microsoft. Add to that the growth of the Internet and mobile devices as well as slumping PC sales, and you can see why so many wait with baited breath to see the company go away for good.
Nevertheless, quarter after quarter Microsoft continues to prove that it still has life and isn’t going anywhere anytime soon. In fact, in 2011, CEO Steve Ballmer explained how the company intends to reinvent around devices and services. Seeing that the growth of mobile devices and the services that support them represent the future of computing, Microsoft responds yet again to the changing world of computing.
I say, “yet again” because this is not unusual behavior for Microsoft. The company often is chided for being slow and out of touch with current technology trends but I’m not convinced that’s always the case. Microsoft was there when the personal computer took off. The company was there when it became clear that television would be a major growth area. And Microsoft was there when mobile devices first became a big deal.
Personal digital assistants (PDAs) were introduced in the mid 1980s by Psion. These devices paved the way for the pocket PC where Microsoft was able to gain significant market share with Windows Mobile. Also popular during this time was the Palm Pilot and devices from other manufacturers like Blackberry, HP, Dell and Compaq.
While Palm was very effective at making inroads into the consumer world, it wasn’t until 2007 that things really took a turn. Apple introduced the iPhone. This wasn’t Apple’s first foray into the world of mobile computing. The Newton was a PDA device that was introduced to the world back in 1992 but wasn’t a blockbuster hit.
The iPhone quickly became a smash hit (once the price lowered). It was so successful I sometimes get the impression people believe Apple created a new market, which isn’t true. The transition of mobile devices to the consumer arena was well underway when the first iPhone was introduced. What Apple did do was take an idea that already existed and make it a million times better. Microsoft did this in gaming with the Xbox.
Apple was able to get a huge lead against its competitors in the consumer space. How was this possible? I believe competitors saw the iPhone as just another “me-too” mobile device. However, Apple understood something that either its competitors didn’t or they simply were too slow to act on it and that is, the world was shifting to simple software backed by compelling user experiences. If consumers weren’t looking for it in 2007, the time would come where they definitely would. It just so turns out that consumers (young people) were actually ready for the shift.
The Computing Shift
I previously wrote about how I believe Windows 8 represents an understanding by Microsoft that there is a cultural shift happening that was affecting the way people use computing devices: a shift to a simplified experiences economy and this is the basis for why people are a bit confused and vexed by its Jekyll and Hyde interface.
A similar thing happened in 2007 with the iPhone. The economy of computing was in process of shifting from being services (not to be confused with software services as commonly used today) based to experiences based. In that article I explain what this means:
In a services economy an individual cares about goods but more importantly about the services surrounding those goods.
In an experience economy, services become the stage and goods are the props used to engage the individual in a conversation and immerse them in a story. Services are not enough because they are not as memorable as experiences. Goods and services all remain outside the buyer while for the first-time experiences allow companies to get inside buyers and manipulate them emotionally to purchase their products. Experiences are inherently personal. Through an experience an individual can be engaged not just on an emotional level, but on a physical, intellectual or maybe even a spiritual level. Experiences remain with the individual for some time to come.
Apple saw it coming and made the right moves. Its competitors didn’t.
Another Shift
I believe there is another shift on the horizon. In this shift experiences are still important but they are simpler. I previously wrote:
Windows 8 tells a story that is more representative of a new way of thinking about computing habits and behavior. It is representative of a shift towards an experience economy but more specifically it represents a shift to a new kind of experience economy: a simplified experience economy.
This simplified experience economy would be characterized by (1) a reduction in the number of devices consumers need to carry with them, (2) powerful (think processors) mobile computing, and (3) will be deeply personal.
Simplified Experience Economy
I believe we’re moving towards a computing culture where users will do most of their work on one device. Let me explain.
The current mobile world is dominated by devices that are extremely limited in terms of computing capacity and processing power. These devices are mainly used for consuming content. To create content, users need more powerful devices like a laptop/desktop. Currently users have to carry around a phone/tablet device and a laptop or sit at a desktop to get all their computing tasks (consuming/creating) done. I’ve said before that the zenith of computing nirvana is to be able to not only consume content on today’s super thin mobile devices but create content on them as well, with no compromises. The result is that we carry fewer devices, which greatly simplifies our computing experiences. We’re not there yet, but Microsoft with Surface Pro has gotten us closer than anyone else in the market.
What makes this new computing economy deeply personal? The pervasiveness of more natural ways of interacting with these devices. If you’ve been reading my articles long enough you know I am a huge fan of natural user interface (NUI) technology. The more naturally we can interact with our devices the more personal they become. The ability to switch between input methods based on the real life situation or interface on the screen makes using devices so much easier. I often use the example of my Xbox 360. My couches love to eat my remote controls. So having the ability to use my voice to navigate the interface has been a big plus. A device that once had limited input is made easier to use by expanded input capabilities.
The simplified experience economy will be one where we can consumer and create on devices that can be interacted with in more natural ways. All of this will be made possible by extremely power processors.
Mobile Phase 3?
I am convinced that we are entering a new phase in mobile computing. The first phase saw the introduction of the phone and PDAs. The second phase is characterized by the introduction of the iPhone. The third phase will usher in mobile devices with powerful processors capable of creating and consuming content and multiple input methods (mouse/keyboard, speech, touch, touchless gestures). All is made possible by a cultural shift to a simplified experience economy.
It appears that we are on the precipice of phase 3. With Windows 8 we are now starting to see the appearance of hybrid devices that operate as both a tablet and a full PC. These devices look like a laptop but the screens are detachable. Windows is the perfect operating system to run on these devices. It’s Jekyll-and-Hyde nature, while ridiculed by many, may be its greatest strength. What other OS on the market is capable of allowing users to consume content and create it all within the same device using powerful applications like Photoshop? None.
Surface Pro, while not particularly a hybrid device, is definitely a different take on the tablet. It by far is the best stage for Windows 8 and this new shift in computing. All of these devices allow users to work when they want, for as long as they want, wherever they want and however they want. Perhaps this is what Microsoft means when they call Windows 8 a system with no compromises.
Microsoft on Mobile
Microsoft was a key player in phase 1, wasted away phase 2 and is well positioned for phase 3. I’m not at all declaring a winner especially since there is a lot to be said about the dominant position of both Android and iOS these days. But unless Google and Apple position themselves for phase 3, it’s not a far-gone conclusion that they could be playing catch up to Microsoft.
As we survey the current landscape of mobile computing it’s clear the market for computing devices is in transition from traditional computing devices like laptops and desktops to mobile devices like smartphones and tablets. It is in this current market that Microsoft is struggling to make sales. I often have been critical of the company and its apparent slowness to respond to the competition. However, I now consider the possibility that perhaps Microsoft sees something that most of us does not.
Microsoft officials have said that they see mobile as a long-term play, something more akin to a long journey. That doesn’t sound like the kind of language that should come from a company that believes the clock is ticking on a death watch. It’s quite possible that Microsoft sees the next phase of mobile and wants to get out ahead by giving time to develop and connect newly-built platforms. I don’t have a problem with this at all and in fact I think it’s a great strategy if in fact that really is the case.
There’s no way Microsoft can take down iOS and Android by creating devices and services that merely match parity with today’s market. Some may be more optimistic about Microsoft’s chances in today’s market, but I’m not. As I’ve argued before, the company needs to go beyond today’s offerings in order to really grab the attention of consumers with highly differentiated devices. Microsoft can win round 3 by improving the developer platform by getting as close as possible to write-one-run-anywhere, which should lead to better and more high profile apps, and finally through improving Windows Phone marketing. The new campaign, “Don’t Fight. Switch” is a great start!
Microsoft can win the hearts of consumers. It hasn’t yet but I am pretty optimistic that if the company stays the current course, it will. It just won’t happen overnight. Today if you give people a choice, they most likely will not choose Microsoft. The next phase of computing is coming and for a company that traditionally does some its best work during a crisis, I’m not ready to say it doesn’t have a chance.
Last week, I scolded colleague 
