Category: News

Gaming giant Electronic Arts has laid off 10% of its entire workforce, according to a report from Kotaku. While EA itself didn’t reveal how many workers it laid off on Thursday, it did acknowledge an unspecified number of staff reductions that it said were part of “hard but essential changes” needed to help the company “focus on delivering great games and showing players around the world why to spend their time with us.” The layoffs at EA come after its former CEO John Riccitiello resigned last month and the company has made several high-profile public relations mistakes recently, including its notoriously botched launch of the new SimCity game.

Marco Arment, Instapaper founder and the former CTO of Tumblr, announced Thursday evening that Betaworks is acquiring his popular read-it-later app. We caught up with Arment to ask him a few questions about the sale and what’s next. Here’s a slightly edited transcript of our conversation.

Q. Why is now the right time to sell Instapaper?

A. “The biggest reason I did it is because I just haven’t been able to keep up. It’s not that I’m having trouble keeping up with competitors or Apple or anything like that. The service has gotten so big now that I’m having trouble just keeping it functioning, fresh and up to date. I knew probably six months ago that I should be starting down this road and it took me awhile to admit to myself… The product has seen incredible growth and has a very loyal dedicated customer base, and I couldn’t address their needs fast enough. It needs a staff, no question.”

Q. What types of features do you hope that Betaworks will add?

A. “I have a lot of half-done major features that Betaworks is going to take to completion. I want to have a fresh new design on the app, new sidebars…so many things I got partially through or didn’t have the time to start. The service has always been about doing the basics really well, not about having a million different features. That’s what I’m looking forward to, going forward — a staff that can keep up with a lot of that stuff.”

Q. What’s next for you? How is The Magazine [the iPad-only magazine that Arment founded in 2012] doing?

A. “I’ve been working on Instapaper for five years so far. I would love the chance to try new stuff out. This has been the only major app I’ve done in the entire iOS App Store…Now I will have time to explore more things beyond just that.

The Magazine is still kind of finding its way. We do experiment a lot with it, and it has a healthy number of subscribers. [But] that’s really not much of a technical project. The app is effectively done. That’s an editorial challenge, so most of the work on that is actually not on me.

[As for my next project], I have nothing to share at this time. I’m going to try a few things, but haven’t quite finalized which of those things will become a product.”

Q. A lot of read-it-later services have popped up in the years since you launched Instapaper. What do you think about the future of the space?

A. ”There’s a new one every few months. The fact is, it really isn’t that hard to make the basics of something that saves links and serves links back to you. It took me one night to be the first person who did that. The challenge with these tools is in all the other features that go along with that — the level of detail and the level of quality that goes with that.

Pocket is one. Readability was on the way, but it doesn’t seem like they’ve been very busy recently. Evernote is making a big entry in this market with almost every feature it adds these days.

Having competition is nothing new, really. What I see hapening in this market is that there are going to be three or four players that make it big, and the rest are just going to be little, lesser-used tools. I don’t really care. Instapaper’s customers choose to use Instapaper because they like it better. The potential for this market is so big, almost everybody who reads on the web can use these tools. You don’t really need to capture a majority of [the market], or even a plurality of it, to succeed.”

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Depressing but true: Google’s decision to publish details on government takedown requests hasn’t slowed governments’ zeal for removing content from the Internet. As a matter of fact, it seems that just the opposite has happened over the past three years. Google this week reported that government content removal requests surged from 1,811 in the first half of 2012 to 2,285 in the second half of 2012. 39% of all takedown requests were related to cases of alleged defamation, Google said, while only 18% of requests were related to privacy and security concerns. Among other things, Google said it received “a request to remove a YouTube video that allegedly defames the President” of Argentina “by depicting her in a compromising position”; a “request from legal representatives of a member of the executive branch” of Israel’s government “to remove two YouTube videos for alleged defamation”; and a “request to remove a YouTube video that allegedly defamed a presidential candidate” in South Korea.

Today, President Obama traveled to Waco, Texas to speak at a memorial service for those lost and injured in last week’s deadly explosion at a fertilizer plant in nearby West, Texas.

The President honored the first responders and volunteers from the tight-knit community who rushed to the scene as soon as the fire alarm sounded, “farmers and car salesmen; and welders and funeral home directors; the city secretary and the mayor… folks who are tough enough and selfless enough to put in a full day’s work and then be ready for more.”

And together, you answered the call. You dropped your schoolwork, left your families, jumped in fire trucks, and rushed to the flames. And when you got to the scene, you forgot fear and you fought that blaze as hard as you could, knowing the danger, buying time so others could escape. And then, about 20 minutes after the first alarm, the earth shook, and the sky went dark — and West changed forever.

“Today our prayers are with the families of all who we’ve lost — the proud sons and daughters of West whose memories will live on in our hearts,” President Obama said. “Our thoughts are with those who face a long road — the wounded, the heartbroken, the families who lost their homes and possessions in an instant.”

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Facebook “likes” don’t just give marketers a sense of whom to target with advertising, they’re increasingly giving public health officials valuable clues into the country’s wellbeing.

Recently, researchers at the Children’s Hospital in Boston analyzed aggregated data on users’ Facebook activity and interests to examine the connection between online social environments and obesity prevalence. They found that areas with higher percentages of people with interests related to healthy activities and fitness had lower obesity rates, while populations with a greater percentage of people who had liked or commented on television was an indicator of higher obesity rates.

Interestingly, the study found that social data about sports in general was not correlated with obesity because people may be merely watching sports or following it, not taking an active role in it.

The researchers, who published their findings in the journal PLOS ONE, not only determined that Facebook data could track obesity prevalence, they suggested that social networks could be used to explore additional conditions and deliver health interventions and public health campaigns.

“I’d hope that people would look to this data source to understand how it can improve our understanding of chronic diseases and population-level conditions,” Rumi Chunara, an instructor at Harvard Medical School and an author of the study, told me.

Chunara’s study isn’t the only one to test Facebook’s value as a tool for public health research. A study published earlier this year found that hospitals with more Facebook “likes” have lower mortality rates and higher patient satisfaction scores. And, citing a search for the word “Facebook” on PubMed (a public database of life sciences research), a recent Wired article reported that there have been about 400 academic papers published in the last four years that include the social networking giant.

Traditional public health research often consists of phone surveys that can require considerable amounts of money and time, but Chunara said a major advantage of using Facebook data is that you can reach a wide swath of people quickly and at a low cost. Facebook also enables researchers to drill down to specific neighborhoods and that kind of fine-grained data can be difficult to come by, she added.

Additionally, Facebook can provide real-time data, as well as the opportunity to explore how interactions with friends and contacts and health messaging could influence user behavior, the study said.

Still, despite Facebook’s advantages when it comes to public health research, it’s important to bear in mind the limitations of web and social data. As a February Nature article on the flaws in Google’s flu-tracking techniques highlighted, social data doesn’t always mean what we think it does. For example, some researchers think that media hype about the flu this past season could have led to a volume of web searches for flu-related terms that was disproportionate to the actual threat.

But Chunara pointed out that there can be biases and issues with more traditional data sets as well. “Every data set has challenges and you have to definitely approach [them] carefully [so as] not be misled,” she said.

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New media incubator and venture firm Betaworks has acquired Marco Arment’s read-it-later platform Instapaper, the companies announced Thursday evening. Other Betaworks companies and projects include bit.ly, Chartbeat and Done Not Done. The firm acquired Digg for a reported $500,000 last year.

Unlike Digg at the time it was acquired, however, Instapaper has a business model: It’s a paid product. The iPhone and iPad apps are $3.99, and the Android app is $2.99. Users can also install a bookmarklet to save articles.

Betaworks’ acquisition of Instapaper fits with the firm’s strategy of investing in both short and long-form content. Betaworks CEO John Borthwick said at the paidContent conference last week that companies shouldn’t favor one over the other: They need to invest in both. Digg is planning to launch a Google Reader replacement, and Instapaper’s technology could possibly be put to work on that project.

Here’s a video of Borthwick talking to Om Malik at paidContent Live:

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A consortium of Washington-based organizations will soon submit the final section of a proposal to site an unmanned aircraft system research and testing facility in central Washington. If successful, the proposal to the Federal Aviation Administration will result in the FAA naming the Pacific Northwest Unmanned Aerial Systems Flight Center as one of six U.S. testing facilities later this year.

Innovate Washington, the lead agency of the state of Washington focused on fostering growth of the state’s innovation sectors, and the U.S. Department of Energy’s Pacific Northwest National Laboratory in Richland are working with ten other state, county and private industry partners to be selected as one of six locations nationwide to conduct critical research that will safely accelerate the integration of civil unmanned aircraft systems into the national airspace system.

“Our testing and proving facilities include all elements industry will need to safely conduct sophisticated research and development activities,” said Steve Stein, PNNL project manager. “Our proposal offers essentially a turn-key option from complete ground support operations for fueling, maintenance, and emergency response, to the existing control tower with regional radar systems, ample hangar space, conference rooms and advanced communications networks.”

The proposal identifies Grant County International Airport in Moses Lake, Wash., as the location of the flight center’s principal office and facilities. In addition, the proposal identifies several locations in central and western Washington where a broad range of testing may occur. For example, the proposal provides a testing range over the Pacific Ocean near Grays Harbor for those developers needing “blue water” testing capability. To evaluate the next generation of aircraft traffic control systems, a testing area that simulates an active airport environment—similar to activity experienced daily at a metro airport— is also included. A map of the testing facilities is below.

Consortium members possess technical research and development capabilities in areas such as advanced navigation, collision avoidance, and alternative fuel system development. Through research and test flights in its test ranges, located over remote and sparsely populated areas in Washington, the consortium says it can advance the application of unmanned aircraft use in search and rescue, weather data acquisition, agriculture crop management, avalanche control and snow pack analysis.

“Siting a new flight center in central Washington will allow the state to build off of the established strengths of its thriving aerospace industry,” said Bart Phillips, vice president for economic development for Innovate Washington. “The Flight Center supports the commercial growth of the UAS sector, attracting and additional aerospace research and development dollars, providing users with cost-effective, safe, flight testing facilities and fostering the development of more companies and high quality jobs in Washington.”

The consortium members include Pacific Northwest National Laboratory, Innovate Washington, the Ports of Moses Lake and Grays Harbor, Washington State University, University of Washington, Washington Army National Guard, the Center of Excellence for Aerospace and Advanced Materials Manufacturing at Everett Community College, the Governor’s Office of Aerospace, Washington State Department of Commerce and economic development agencies in Klickitat and Grays Harbor counties.

The FAA Modernization and Reform Act of 2012 enacted by Congress calls for establishing six unmanned aircraft system research and testing sites in the U.S. The final proposal submittals are due to the FAA by May 6, with decisions on siting the flight centers scheduled to be made before December 31, 2013.

This week, the Vice President traveled to Boston for a memorial for Officer Collier, and the President memorialized the victims of the West Texas explosion. The President also hosted the Amir of Qatar, the Teacher of the Year, the 3rd White House Science Fair, and visited Dallas with the First Lady for the dedication of the George W. Bush Presidential Center.

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Admit it— sure it’s going to be fun watching the upcoming Iron Man 3, but you probably have one heck of an itch to be like him, right? Well Gameloft is giving all gamers the chance to live out the fantasy of being Tony Stark by unleashing the official Iron Man 3 video game in the Play Store. The game features non-stop action and places players right into the action which includes fighting against the deadly A.I.M. forces and fighting arch-enemies such as Crimson Dynamo— all across tons of missions and the ability to customize your character with items such as up to 18 different suits or upgrading your armor. Oh and best of all— smooth and easy-to-use swipe controls, so all gamers should be able to pick up and play right away.

The game is available for all Gingerbread+ users in the Play Store— you you’ll want to ensure you have some precious real estate on your device’s memory as it requires a hefty 795MB to operate. If you’re OK with that and are ready to get in on the action, head on down to the Play Store and grab the game today.

 

Play Store Download link

Come comment on this article: Iron Man 3 game hits Android devices, gives all gamers a chance to be their inner Tony Stark

Facebook has acquired Parse, the company that provides tools for developers building mobile apps, the startup announced in a blog post Thursday. The company went through the Y Combinator incubator program and raised a $5.5 million Series A from Ignition Partners back in 2011.

Facebook said the addition of Parse is an acquisition, not a talent deal, and the company would not disclose financial terms.

From the Parse blog post:

“Parse has agreed to be acquired by Facebook. We expect the transaction to close shortly. Rest assured, Parse is not going away. It’s going to get better.

We’ve worked with Facebook for some time, and together we will continue offering our products and services. Check outFacebook’s blog post for more on this.

Combining forces with a partner like Facebook makes a lot of sense. In a short amount of time, we’ve built up a core technology and a great community of developers. Bringing that to Facebook allows us to work with their incredible talent and resources to build the ideal platform for developers.”

My colleague Barb Darrow wrote about Parse back in May 2012 when it added a new JavaScript SDK, explaining what the new technology would allow and why it would be an interesting addition to the market:

“Mobile app developers hate dealing with server-side programming, but most need to do some of it. Those server-squeamish developers are the target market for Parse’s new JavaScript SDK, downloadable as of Wednesday.

The promise of the new SDK is that these developers can now build a secure JavaScript application with a backend without having to provision or write code for servers, said James Yu, founder of San Francisco-based Parse.”

In a blog post of his own, Facebook’s Doug Purdy explained why the company wants Parse:

“By making Parse a part of Facebook Platform, we want to enable developers to rapidly build apps that span mobile platforms and devices. Parse makes this possible by allowing developers to work with native objects that provide backend services for data storage, notifications, user management, and more. This removes the need to manage servers and a complex infrastructure, so you can simply focus on building great user experiences.”

To be sure, one of Facebook’s vulnerabilities has been a perceived lack of mobile skills. Parse could help address that.

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While I’m not a big fan of ostentatious watches that cost too much and are aimed at buyers with more money than sense (in short, most of the Hublot line) I will give this odd-looking watch a moment of reflection. It is the MP-05 LaFerrari, a tourbillon watch with a 50-day power reserve, a number almost unheard of in the watch world, and a unique styling that is reminiscent of a certain Arashikage ninja.

The watch itself has a custom HUB9005.H1.6 movement and displays the time in a series of vertical registers. There is a visible tourbillon (essentially a rotating balance wheel AKA the little wheel that “spins” in your average mechanical watch) on the bottom of the watch as well as a winding port on the top. To wind it you use this little power drill. Seriously.

A power reserve indicator tells you how long you have to go before you whip out your little drill gun and the entire thing is designed to look like the cowling on the $1.3 million LaFerrari or, more precisely, Cobra Commander’s codpiece. The watch is completely handmade and you can see more photos here. It comes in a limited edition of 50 and you can expect to pay $300,000 for the privilege of strapping it to your wrist.

For the past three years Google has released transparency reports, which loosely translate to tattling on the government and other entities that attempt to extract information from the search giant. None are likely happy with this reporting, but it is all public record and fair game.

“Today, for the seventh time, we’re releasing new numbers showing requests from governments to remove content from our services”, states Google’s legal director Susan Infantino.

In fact, despite the public outing, the onslaught has not abated. Indeed, it gains momentum. The latest report claims “from July to December 2012, we received 2,285 government requests to remove 24,179 pieces of content—an increase from the 1,811 requests to remove 18,070 pieces of content that we received during the first half of 2012”.

This is not just the United States seeking data on you. Other governments are involved as well. Google says it has seen a sharp increase in requests from Brazil — 697 requests to remove content from its platforms, to be exact. But it was not just the South American nation that ramped up its submissions to the search giant. Another is Russia; “In the first half of 2012, we received six requests, the most we had ever received in any given six-month period from Russia. But in the second half of the year, we received 114 requests to remove content”, Infantino says.

Google also received inquiries from 20 countries regarding YouTube videos containing clips of the movie “Innocence of Muslims”.  While the videos were considered within the guidelines, Google restricted videos from view in several countries in accordance with local law after receiving formal complaints. It also temporarily restricted videos from view in Egypt and Libya due to what it considered particularly difficult circumstances there.

The company also made some changes to the way this information is reported. Infantino tells us “we’re now breaking down government requests about YouTube videos to clarify whether we removed videos in response to government requests for violating Community Guidelines, or whether we restricted videos from view due to local laws”.

It is not that we didn’t already know that Big Brother is watching us. However, the extent of the surveillance has grown since the last time we checked in with him.

Photo Credit:  AR Images/Shutterstock

Online video is ready for its FX moment, according to Blip Networks CEO Kelly Day. Just like Fox turned FX into a successful network for original programming on cable, Day is planning to turn Blip into a network of topical channels with strong brands that are ready to compete head-to-head with traditional cable channels.

To prepare for this, she’s been spearheading a radical transformation of the video site ever since she joined a year ago. “I came here because I have high aspirations for this company,” Day told me when I stopped by Blip’s offices in New York last week.

To understand how much Blip has changed, it’s worth looking back at its origins: Blip launched back in 2005 under the name Blip.tv as a kind of YouTube for video bloggers and podcasters, which early on set the tone for a slightly different set of content. “We’ve never had viral videos, we don’t focus on music videos,” remembered Blip Senior Vice President of Content Steve Woolf when I talked to him about Blip’s transformation in March.

From 900,000 accounts to 4000 shows

Still, a lot of people uploaded all kinds of content — and some time last year, Blip made the strategic decision to get rid of most of them. Blip’s staff has been reviewing around 900,000 accounts over the last couple of months with the goal to identify high-quality serialized content. Woolf estimated that in the end, only about 4,000 shows will remain on the site. And Blip is also getting a lot more selective when it comes to new signups: “Blip was an open platform, now there is an application process,” explained Woolf.

Blip’s new focus on serialized, monetizable content will be on full display at the Newfronts in New York next week, where Day is going to unveil some additional details about her plans to turn the site into a new form of multichannel network. At the core of it is professional, serialized web content that can engage audiences through a variety of channels — be it on Blip or off. The company has taken some first steps in that direction over the last couple of months with the launch of its own studio in Los Angeles, which is headed by Woolf. It also forged a partnership with YouTube, producing some exclusive content for the former rival.

And now, it is looking to spin out new online channels around some of the topics that have been working well for niche channels on cable. Think cooking, golf, or any other cable properties with a highly specialized audience. “Those are some of the easiest to disrupt,” she said.

Her plan includes taking that kind of shows off of Blip and building dedicated websites with highly curated content around it, likely with a separate branding. Some of these sites could even have a live component, something that Blip hasn’t done much in the past. Day wants to launch these new sites and brands within the next year, possibly as early as this fall. “I believe in building verticals around interests,” she told me.

So what about YouTube?

Of course, Blip isn’t alone in its move towards more professional content. YouTube has famously invested hundreds of millions into advances for content creators, and has been pushing hard to establish channels as destinations on its site. “They’re doing a lot of good for the industry,” acknowledged Day during our interview. At the same time, some creators have found themselves falling short of YouTube’s expectations, with less than 40 percent of the site’s original programming slate getting re-funded.

Day argued that this is in part because of YouTube’s inability to surface that content to the right audiences. “I don’t think the algorithm works for everything,” she said. Some of these creators could benefit from being on separate, more curated destinations. Or to take the cable analogy: from producing for FX, not Fox.

That’s why she is considering to partner up with a “select hand full” of these channels, and eventually help them be successful off of YouTube. “It is a good opportunity for us to bring on some new partners,” she said.

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The E3 game expo is just six weeks away and where Nintendo should have big visibility. Instead, today, the company president shares plans about greatly scaled-back presence, less than 24 hours after IDC warned that paying smartphone and tablet gamers will exceed their handheld counterparts this year.

For Microsoft and Sony, which have new consoles coming this year, E3 2013 will be big happenings. But not Nintendo. “We decided not to host a large-scale presentation targeted at everyone in the international audience where we announce new information as we did in the past”, president Satoru Iwata says. “Instead, at the E3 show this year, we are planning to host a few smaller events that are specifically focused on our software lineup for the U.S. market”.

The scaleback comes as Nintendo acknowledges weaker than expected sales for Wii U, a hybrid handheld and console gaming system. During first calendar quarter Nintendo sold 3.45 million units, rather than the projected 4 million.

“The release intervals of first-party key titles have been so much longer than we expected..that we have not successfully maintained the momentum of the platform”, Iwata explains during his earnings presentation. “In addition, we have not been able to solidly communicate the product value of Wii U to our consumers yet, which has been a grand challenge for us”.

So Nintendo’s problems are two: Consumers don’t understand what Wii U is, and the games aren’t there. Competition may be a big reason for the latter. Android and iOS app stores satisfy consumers and pull away developers, and smartphones, particularly, are more likely carried than gaming handhelds or even tablets.

“In order for Nintendo’s and Sony’s gaming-optimized handhelds to remain ahead of smartphones and tablets on key metrics…these companies and their game card developer and publisher partners will have to redouble their efforts in a number of respects”, Lewis Ward, IDC research manager, says. “Digital distribution has reached an inflection point in mobile and portable gaming, and future success will largely boil down to finding a unique balance of freemium business model excellence and that ability to deliver compelling social experiences”.

Nintendo’s decision to pull back from E3 potentially cedes mindshare and product awareness at a time when Microsoft and Sony step up conole competition and Apple and Google platforms encroach further into handheld gaming. That puts Wii U between the console rock and smartphone hard place.

However, Iwata is convinced that new software titles will lift sales during second half of the year. For all fiscal 2014, which started April 1, Nintendo forecasts sales of 9 million Wii Us and 18 million DSes. Software for both platforms, respectively: 38 million and 80 million.

Some folks still say that Amazon Web Services is a distraction for the Amazon retail juggernaut, but it’s hard to argue that it’s small potatoes given the growing size of that cloud infrastructure business.

For its first fiscal quarter ending March 31, Amazon netted a healthy $750 million in the “other” category of North America sales, up 64 percent from $458 million for the year-ago period. Amazon always cautions that this category also includes “marketing and promotional activities and co=branded credit card agreements.” But I would wager the bulk of that $750 million comes from the aforementioned AWS.

No doubt, $750 million is a big number but it’s down from the $769 million compared to Q4; but then again, the category typically sees a dip between Q4 to Q1.

Given that Amazon never breaks out AWS any more granularly than this, it’s key to follow this stat quarter to quarter.

Here’s how Amazon’s net sales looks from AWS inception in 2006 till now.

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