Category: News

Monster goldfish have been found in Lake Tahoe, and as benign as that sounds, researchers say the creatures could pose a threat to the other aquatic life there.

While looking for invasive wildlife in the lake, researcher Christine Ngai was part of a team who found the monstrous fish on a routine scan of the waters. She says they were surprised by the find.

“You just see this bright golden orange thing starting to float up, and you’re like, “What is that?” And then you take a net and scoop it up and it’s like, “It’s a goldfish!” Ngai said.

The fish, experts say, were most likely dumped there from aquariums; it’s a growing problem across the nation that has seen numerous species native to their environments put in danger as they’re consumed by the goldfish.

Despite the extreme cold temperatures of the lake, the goldfish are not only surviving in their new environment, they are actually breeding in it. This could also be a problem, because goldfish excrete certain nutrients that cause bacteria to murk up the water–not good for a tourist attraction.

“Oftentimes people think, ‘Well, gee, if I just dumped in one fish, that’s not going to make a difference,’” Pamela Schofield, an ecologist at the U.S. Geological Survey, said. “But it can with goldfish because of the way they eat — they root around in the sediment and that suspends the sediment up in the water.”

In short, don’t dump your fish. It’s suggested that if you want to get rid of some, get in touch with the local wildlife authority.

The PS4 reveal was an exercise in patience. There was far too much talking, and not enough showing. That being said, you still might want to watch it. Before you make that mistake, check out VideoGamer’s excellent three minute abridged version of the conference.

Check out all of our PlayStation 4 coverage.

[h/t: Kotaku]

Following on the heels of Groupon, Google, Facebook, and even Nintendo, Angry Birds developer Rovio has released its own “Harlem Shake” video. Not only has Rovio released a Harlem Shake video, but it appears to take place outside during the Finnish winter, where the temperature was almost certainly well below freezing when the video was shot.

If there could be possibly be a clearer demonstration that the Harlem Shake meme needs to die, this writer can’t think of one. There are already tens of thousands of such videos up on YouTube, which is far more than enough. Of course, as we learned earlier this week from actual residents of Harlem, none of these videos even represent the real Harlem Shake.

Rovio claims that the video is a celebration of 1 billion views on its YouTube channel. The truth is, though, that the company is simply following the new unspoken rule that every office with a YouTube channel has to release a Harlem Shake video.

In case you needed any more evidence that 2012 was the Year of Samsung (005930), consider the latest research from IDC showing that shipments of Samsung “smart devices” — which IDC defines as smartphones, tablets, laptops and desktop computers — totaled 250 million units in 2012, an increase of over 119% from the 114 million devices the company shipped in 2011. This impressive growth vaulted Samsung ahead of Apple (AAPL) — which shipped an estimated 219 million smartphones, tablets, laptops and desktops on the year — and made the South Korean electronics manufacturer the world’s leader in smart device shipments. 

Continue reading…

Google hasn’t always been known for making breathtaking hardware, but today’s announcement of the Chromebook Pixel — arguably one of the best-looking laptops ever made, if nothing else — means that may no longer be the case.

Still, you can’t be blamed for being wary of shelling out a decent chunk of money on Google’s first foray into laptops, let alone a Chromebook of all things, so here’s a preliminary look at how the Chromebook Pixel stacks up against two prominent rivals in the computing space: the stock version of Apple’s 13-inch MacBook Air and Microsoft’s Surface Pro.

*Note that we compared the base MBA and the surface Pro with upgraded storage, to establish a better baseline in terms of comparing more similar price points and spec load-outs. 

Versus the 13-inch MacBook Air

Compared to the base 13-inch MacBook Air, Google’s Pixel has a lot of similarities. It’s priced around the same, but actually comes in as more expensive that the OS X ultraportable, at $1299 and $1449 for options with Wi-Fi only, and Wi-Fi + LTE networking. What does the Pixel offer to justify the extra cost? It does have a denser display, with 239 ppi on a nearly 13-inch display. And that screen is touch sensitive, which isn’t something Apple can claim. But until now, it hasn’t shown off much about how touch might work with ChromeOS, though it has reportedly been “optimized” for finger-based input.

Another place where the Chromebook Pixel falls short of its competition is in local storage. 32GB on the Wi-Fi model and 64GB on the LTE version is tiny compared to the MacBook Air, which is already pushing it with 128GB. LTE is nice to have, but, with the prevalence of hotspots and modems, arguably less important than more offline-accessible storage space.

The Chromebook Pixel is very much aimed at the same market as the MacBook Air, with Google stressing that it’s an upscale device. But despite what looks to be a beautiful screen, this arrives with an even more experimental, touch-enabled version of an OS that has yet to prove itself with general consumers, meaning that the reasons to opt for Google’s brave new laptop over the Air perhaps aren’t as apparent as Google would’ve hoped.

Versus the 128GB Surface Pro

I can’t help but think about the Chromebook Pixel in relation to something like the Surface Pro, another premium computing device from a company that has historically shied away from making its own computers. Granted, the differences in execution between the two are pretty staggering, but it’s hard not to look at both devices as fresh steps into a market increasingly driven by novel hardware.

The Pixel certainly has the Surface Pro beat when it comes to sheer screen size and resolution (it has a 12.85″ display running at 2560 x 1700, compared to the Pro’s 10.6″ panel running at 1920 x 1080), but the Surface Pro seems to sport better touch support with its included stylus and Wacom digitizer. It’s too early to say whether or not one device has a definitive advantage of the other because of their seemingly similar processors (though the Pixel could squeak by because of its slightly quicker chipset), but we’ll return to that once we get our hands on a review unit.

Again, the Pixel may fall flat with its paltry 32GB of internal storage (though folks who spring for the LTE model will have around 64GB to play with). Sure, having a terabyte of cloud storage is neat, but those in need of real speed will prefer the Pro’s SSDs and memory card slot.

The other big question mark here is Chrome OS itself. The Chromebook is a very handsome little machine that seems to have some horsepower under the hood to boot, but I’m curious whether or not people will choose to plunk down upwards of $1299 for a computer that exists outside of the two entrenched environments that have dominated consumer computing. Windows 8 isn’t a shining star yet either, but it’s far from a company’s side project.

In the end…

While the Air and Surface Pro have their share of advantages, it’s still a little too early to write the Chromebook Pixel off completely. It may just be the right computer at the right time to give Chrome OS the boost it really needs, but for now Google needs to make a better case for why people should spend $1299 on a computer that hinges on the cloud instead of, you know, anything else.

For the first time, Nielsen will begin tracking the habits of viewers who watch TV over broadband. And in another example of online media consumption shaking up traditional tracking methods, Billboard will begin including YouTube music video views in its charts.

The Nielsen news was first reported on Wednesday by The Hollywood Reporter, which said that by September 2013 “Nielsen expects to have in place new hardware and software tools in the nearly 23,000 TV homes it samples.” Nielsen confirmed the news on Thursday, with Nielsen SVP Pat McDonough telling the New York Times that the company’s definition of “television household” will now include “those households who are receiving broadband Internet and putting it onto a television set.” According to the AP:

“This will add roughly 160 homes to Nielsen’s current sample of 23,000 houses nationwide with meters monitoring viewing habits.

More significantly, Nielsen will return to its sample to find homes that have cable or broadcast, but also separate TV sets hooked up through broadband. This will add an estimated 2,000 more broadband sets, significantly increasing the sample size.”

The company is also working on ways to track viewing on smartphones and tablets.

Separately, Billboard has begun including official YouTube music video views (from the U.S.) in its rankings. “All official videos on YouTube, including user-generated clips that utilize authorized audio, will now factor into how a song’s popularity is determined,” YouTube said on its blog. Billboard’s charts have included digital download and streaming data, tracked by Nielsen, since last year.

Related research and analysis from GigaOM Pro:
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• Connected Consumer 2012: A year of consolidation and integration
• The Ultimate Guide To TV Everywhere
• The state of cross-platform media measurement

Seriously. Life can be stressful. Unless you’re actively saving someone’s life, your job isn’t so important that you can’t take a three-minute break. This is cool, and relaxing, and mesmerizing, and all of those other types of adjectives.

[via TheSlowmoGuys]

GigaOM Pro analyst Adam Lesser geeked out with Power Assure CTO Clemens Pfeiffer, and came away with three undercover trends that could transform the data center with energy efficiency. You can read the entire post here, but here’s tidbits of the three trends:

• 1) You say AC, I say DC.
• 2) Could building management systems (BMS) take a backseat to DCIM?
• 3) Demand response and the data center.

Also read Adam’s take on:

• Chinese hackers and the power grid.
• Siemens jump into the data center management game.
• And our cleantech fourth quarter numbers analysis (subscription required).

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• The fourth quarter of 2012 in cleantech
• Cleantech third-quarter 2012
• Live Event Coverage: Next-Gen Applications for the Smart Grid

I love and hate Blackjack. The simplicity of the game means I can actually understand the rules, but the game is always stacked against the players in favor of the dealer. Now a robotics company is removing the last defense players have against the all mighty dealer – human error.

Yaskawa Motoman Robotics had its SDA10F robot deal hands at a Blackjack table last month at Chicago’s Automate 2013. The robot uses a technology called Cognex 2D vision guidance to read the cards and deal appropriately.

This Blackjack dealing robot could be the sneakiest attempt by robots yet to subjugate humanity. The robots have realized that we would recognize a weaponized threat. Instead, the robots will now exploit our addiction to gambling. The robots will destroy us with poverty before moving in the robot mules to cart us off to the human recycling plant.

[h/t: Singularity Hub]

Could it be possible that Microsoft has become cool again? A BetaNews poll seemed to indicate Windows 8 was popular and there have been recent reports that the Surface tablet is “cool” to teens. Now there is this — a poll conducted by Reuters indicates that young people may actually think the computer company from Redmond, Wash. is cool again.

Reuters reports that “just under half of 853 respondents between the ages of 18 and 29 thought Microsoft is cooler now than it was a year or two ago”. If this this is representative of the larger sentiment then it ties in very neatly with recent Apple problems.

Behind the Revolution

It is probably not hard to speculate on factors that could be behind this turn-around. After all, the company has changed almost everything over the course of the past year. Logos and websites are more modern looking, Windows Phone 8 has launched, advertising has become more upbeat compared to…well, anything the company used to do since the Rolling Stones and “Start me up”.

The biggest things of all are likely the continued improvements being made to Xbox and the recent release of the Surface tablets. Tablets are viewed by many as the future and the Surface, along with Windows 8 or RT, has made a splash, thanks in large part to the energetic, and endlessly running TV ads.

A Bite out of the Apple

I previously alluded to Apple’s mounting problems — those add up. Stock prices dropping, court dates and a seemingly mounting disgust with the way the company does business. It is certainly not the end-of-times for the company, but it will need an enormous turn-around to get back to where it was only recently.

As example, my children both at one time wanted Apple products. However, when it came time to buy our daughter a smartphone she decided Android was the way to go. Our son wanted an iPad in the worst way, but now begs daily for Nexus 7. Their friends seem to show similar inclinations of late. For the record, both kids fall under the age of the Reuters survey.

Of course neither of those things are any better for Microsoft than they are for Apple. But my wife recently chose Windows Phone 8 after mulling the Apple-Google question. Again, not within the survey ages — sorry Hon.

What Next?

While this certainly is heartening to Microsoft — 50 percent is a good number, it is not yet all roses. The number does best Twitter results by three percent, but the company still came up somewhat short of the real rivals. Roughly 60 percent of those polled still think Apple is cooler and the number for Google’s Android products is even higher, at 70 percent.

Microsoft clearly still has work to do. Chief may be getting the Windows Stores — both computer and phone — stocked with apps. The company also better hope that the next Xbox, regardless of what it will be called, makes a big splash. If Microsoft can accomplish these two things then it may truly be cool again — perhaps for the first time since circa 1995.

HTC’s (2498) new One will be priced higher than the 16GB iPhone 5 in the United Kingdom. That is what makes the HTC One pricing strategy nutty. Vodafone is offering a 24-month plan for the HTC One with 600 minutes and 600 MB for £33 per month. You can get the same exact plan for the iPhone 5… except you have to pay £100 upfront sum for the One while the iPhone 5 comes free with the plan. Orange is offering a 24-month HTC One deal with unlimited voice and 1GB of data for £36 — the same as the 16 GB iPhone 5. Except that again, you have to pay £100 for the HTC’s new flagship phone and you get the iPhone 5 for free.

Continue reading…

Many of you who are regular readers know that we host polls on the Inside BlackBerry Blog from time to time, asking readers how they are using their devices. After all, we’re all getting great feedback and learning better ways to get the most out of our BlackBerry devices.

This time around, the BlackBerry community management team wants to know which BlackBerry smartphone shortcut is most useful. We began this poll on the BlackBerry Facebook page, and the response has been huge – now we want to hear the voice of our blog readership. So which BlackBerry keyboard shortcut is your favorite? There are some classics and some new BlackBerry 10 ones to choose from like Type and Go on the BlackBerry Q10 or any of the innovative shortcuts on the BlackBerry Z10 keyboard in the video below.

[Youtube link for mobile viewing]

Be Bold and Vote!

Being a BlackBerry Z10 user, myself I definitely love how fast I can move around the software QWERTY keyboard. Thank you for casting your vote, and if you’d like to share a favorite shortcut not included in the voting, feel free to post in the comments below!

Donald Trump is the latest Twitter personality to feel the sting of a successful hacking. Earlier today, Trump’s account tweeted out a rap lyric to his 2 million+ followers.

“These hoes think they classy, well that’s the class I’m skippen,” said the tweet.

The lyrics come from Will.I.Am’s “Scream & Shout (Remix),” but are actually rapped during Lil’ Wayne’s verse. Either way, Trump was not amused:

Trump took the opportunity to relate his scenario to the future of Twitter:

Some Twitter accounts (notably Burger King and Jeep) have fallen victim to hacks this week. In response, Twitter released a friendly reminder about password security, instructing users to use a strong password, watch out for suspicious links, and make sure they have up-to-date malware protections.

Nearly one year out from the release of Mass Effect 3, EA and BioWare have announced the final DLC installments for the Mass Effect Trilogy. Two new add-ons, Mass Effect 3: Reckoning and Mass Effect 3: Citadel will be coming soon to Xbox 360, PlayStation 3, and PC.

Reckoning will be released on February 26 and be free to download for one year. The content will offer new multiplayer characters, weapons, and upgrades.

Citadel will be released on March 5 and will cost $15 or 1200 Microsoft Points. EA‘s announcement stated that it will feature new single-player campaign content in which players will explore a “deep-space station” while “having the opportunity to reconnect with some of their favorite characters from all three of the Mass Effect games.”

“The team has poured heart and soul into Mass Effect 3: Reckoning and Mass Effect 3: Citadel,” said Casey Hudson, executive producer of the Mass Effect series. “As the launch of these chapters near, the feeling around the studio is bittersweet. We have always been humbled and driven by the passion of our fans for the Mass Effect trilogy. We hope fans will enjoy spending more time with some of their favorite characters – we have certainly enjoyed spending time creating them. We’re excited to release this final sendoff for the trilogy and move forward into the future of the Mass Effect universe.”

Google unveiled is fabled Pixel Chromebook today, and the thing does indeed have what looks to be a gorgeous, high-resolution display. It also has a touchscreen, as rumored, and the list gets more confusing from there. 32GB (or 64GB) of onboard storage? ChromeOS? A 3:2 screen ratio? A $1299 starting price tag? Huh?

The device is meant to be upscale, Google admits, but for a machine aiming at power users, it’s a device surprisingly devoid of power features. ChromeOS is, for all its strengths, still essentially a browser, after all. This thing can’t run Photoshop, which you’d be able to do no problem if you spend $100 less and get a 13-inch MacBook Air. It can play back movies on that gorgeous screen, but not in as many file formats or with as much ease as you could manage with a Lenovo Yoga 13, also cheaper at $1,049. It can accept touch input, which could be exciting, but then again might not, and that’s hardly a feature worth risking a cool $1300 for.

Which isn’t to say the Pixel isn’t attractive. It’s a looker, to be sure, and something I’d definitely be interested in owning myself. The 1TB of Google Drive storage and the LTE radio on the $1449 model make for an attractive package, so long as you’re already deeply committed to Google’s cloud storage ecosystem. But a gadget blogger wanting something and an everyday consumer being willing to cough up over $1,000 for it are two entirely different things, and the Pixel has too many of those moments that make you tilt your head slightly to provide any chance at success in that regard.

ChromeOS is a risky proposition on a $249 laptop for most people. It’s still just too new, and too untested in a world where you’ll attract far fewer headaches just going with OS X or Windows. With a price tag that makes it almost an impulse buy, it’s an understandable risk. At $1299, it’s not.

ChromeOS is a risky proposition on a $249 laptop for most people

Google doesn’t always care about marketability for its first generation devices. It originally tried to sell the Nexus One direct for $529, a price many felt was too high, contributing to the eventual failure of that experiment. The Pixel is also introduced as “a laptop that brings together the best in hardware, software, and design to inspire future innovation” on Google’s website, meaning it probably isn’t intended to fly off the shelves, but more to light a fire under hardware partners and developers.

Still, announcing a consumer launch (including a retail partnership with Best Buy) for the Chromebook Pixel (a device that looks like the notebook world’s equivalent of a hastily assembled Lego project built from memory) just comes off as weird. I once lauded Google’s strategy in going for cheap, ubiquitous data network access with previous hardware launches, and I’m all for technical innovation that explores new territory. But I see no answer to the question of “Why?” when it comes to the Pixel.

Google announced the launch of a new set of support packages for services on the Google Cloud Platform today. These cover App Engine, Compute Engine, Cloud Storage, Cloud SQL, BigQuery, etc.

“While you can go to Stack Overflow or Google Groups, we realize some of you may need 24×7 coverage, phone support or direct access to a Technical Account Manager team,” says Brett McCully from Google’s Cloud Platform team.

There are four tiers:

• Bronze: All customers get access to online documentation, community forums, and billing support. (Free)
• Silver: In addition to Bronze, you can email our support team for questions related to product functionality, best practices, and service errors. ($150/month)
• Gold: In addition to Silver, you’ll receive 24×7 phone support and consultation on application development, best practices or architecture for your specific use case. (Starts at $400/month)
• Platinum: The most comprehensive and personalized support. In addition to Gold, you’ll get direct access to a Technical Account Manager team. (Contact Sales for more information)

Here’s another way to look at it:

More info here.

Yahoo has been testing various redesigns of its homepage for months, but now it has announced the “new Yahoo experience”.

Note: We’ve updated this article from its original form, and since it was first posted, the negative comments have flooded in. While you will typically see this with any redesign of a major property, we’re not seeing a whole lot of positive ones to balance them out.

Anything you do like about it? What do you or don’t you like about the revamp? Let us know in the comments.

“Over the years, Yahoo! has evolved from a directory of links to a place that helps millions of people go about their daily habits,” a spokesperson for the company told WebProNews on Wednesday. “Beginning today, you will start to see a new Yahoo! that’s designed to be more modern, intuitive, and personal, and I wanted to make sure you got the news from the company.”

Here’s what the homepage looks like now:

New features include:

• A newsfeed with infinite scroll
• Newly designed apps for stock quotes, sports scores, weather, Flickr photos, friends’ birthdays and horoscope
• Yahoo and Facebook login, which let you see personalized articles based on what your friends have shared
• A more consistent experience across the web, smartphones and tablets
• Under-the-hood improvements to speed things up

CEO Marissa Mayer wrote a blog post about the new experience.

“Designed to be more intuitive and personal, the new Yahoo! experience is all about your interests and preferences,” she says. “Since streams of information have become the paradigm of choice on the web, we’re introducing a newsfeed with infinite scroll, letting you experience a virtually endless feed of news articles. Whether you are a sports fanatic or entertainment buff, you can easily customize your newsfeed to your interests. And, to make Yahoo! even more social, you can log in with your Yahoo! or Facebook ID to get articles from thousands of news sources as well as those shared by your friends.”

“Because you come to Yahoo! everyday for must-know information, we’ve also introduced newly designed applications,” she adds. “From your local weather forecast to Facebook friends’ birthdays, you’ll always have the information you need. We’ve also refreshed some of what you love most — including our Yahoo! editorial features, and the daily snapshot into popular trending web searches.”

Mike Kerns, VP, Product, discussed the new Yahoo experience in more detail in a post on Yahoo’s blog.

“To view more personally relevant content in the newsfeed, just sign in with your Yahoo! or Facebook ID in the upper right corner of your screen,” he explains. “The newsfeed defaults to a ‘blend’ of story types, but also allows you to filter your view through a handful of popular categories, such as news, local, entertainment and sports. For additional choices in the newsfeed filter, just click the ‘More’ button to choose from other categories that interest you like business, technology, politics or science. If you want to see fewer stories about a particular topic in the future, hover your cursor to the right of the story and click on the ‘X’ button. And remember, the more feedback you provide, the more personalized and relevant your experience will be.”

“In addition to seeing news stories that your friends have read and shared, you can easily share with them,” he says. “When you come across a news item that you’d like to share, hover over it to view a button that allows you to share the story via email, Facebook, or Twitter.”

There are a total of seven new applications on the right side of the screen for: weather, stocks, sports, friends’ birthdays, horoscopes, Flickr photos, and popular videos from Yahoo. These can be personalized by hovering over the upper right side to clic the gears icon.

“For example, getting ready for March Madness? Add your favorite teams to the Sports application to catch up on the latest scores,” says Kerns. “Keeping an eye on your investments? To view stock quotes, click on the gears icon in the Quotes application to integrate your portfolio, look up quotes, or add new stocks. Travel often? Add as many cities as you’d like to the Weather application.”

You can also click the “x” button in the upper right corner of the application box to remove the application, should you see fit. There’s a “restore all” button a the bottom if you want to bring it back later.

As mentioned, the new design is consistent with the mobile experience, which lets you swipe through the “Today” stories. You can scroll down the newsfeed, and swipe left to take action on the content (like share it). You can also swipe left to access the applications.

The new design is in the process of rolling out in the U.S. Mayer says they’ll be making additional (but unspecified) changes in the coming months. We’re already seeing a lot of feedback (sadly, most of it is negative). It will be interesting to see how Yahoo responds.

Yahoo has indicated that it is focused on search, as it released its Q4 and full year 2012 earnings helped significantly by it. Whether or not Yahoo’s future search plans include Microsoft remains to be seen. Even if Yahoo wants to abandon the companies’ “Search Alliance,” Microsoft will do its best not to make it easy.

Right now, Yahoo needs to be concerned about keeping users on its still massively popular homepage. Yahoo has a realtime counter that shows how many people have visited the homepage up to the current time on any given day. At the time of this writing, tt’s just 8:40 Eastern, and it’s already received nearly 40 million views today so far.

What do you think of the new homepage? Let us know in the comments.

Mozilla has released Firefox Beta 20.0b1, the first public beta of a landmark release. Like its predecessor, Firefox 19 FINAL, which debuted the new inline PDF viewer, version 20 looks set to unveil another major new feature to the Firefox armoury: a redesigned, panel-based download manager.

Version 20 also includes a major refresh of the Developer toolbar, providing tweaked and redesigned access to all of the major components, plus an option to view the tools in a separate window. A new Javascript benchmarking tool has also been added.

The headline new feature in Firefox 20 — the panel-based downloads manager — has been in existence for a quite some time. After an extended period in Firefox Aurora, the feature is now considered stable enough to move towards a final release.

The downloads manager automatically appears when a download has been initiated – it can also be brought up by clicking the new Downloads button that appears immediately to the right of the Search bar. This changes from an arrow icon to a progress bar with estimated download time when downloads are in progress.

When clicked, all present downloads — including completed ones — are shown in a list. Unfinished downloads are shown with a green bar charting their progress, while right-clicking the download reveals a number of additional options, including Pause and Resume, Cancel, Go To Download Page and Remove From History.

Clicking Show All Downloads opens the new Downloads Manager, which is integrated in the Library window alongside History, Tags and Bookmarks. The display is basically an exact replica of the panel-based manager, and works in the same way, providing users with a consistent experience.

Developer Updates

Of interest to developers will be the radically revamped Developers toolbar. As the number of developer tools has mushroomed – Firefox 20 adds another to the mix – so the Firefox UI team have worked to provide a more user-friendly layout.

The redesigned toolbar sees tools more logically arranged to make it easier to switch between them. The Web Developer menu has been split to organize the tools more logically, while a Toggle Tools option provides quick access to the full gamut of tools, where users can now quickly switch between Web Console, Debugger, Inspector, Style Editor and the new Profiler tool with a single click.

Convenient shortcuts to the Scratchpad and Responsive Design Mode are also provided, along with a new button for splitting off the developer tools into their own window, allowing them to be arranged on a second monitor if desired.

The new Profiler tool allows developers to track the responsiveness of Javascript code. In this initial release, it offers a simple “start/stop” control that subsequently provides a graph charting the code’s performance and highlighting potential performance bottlenecks.

Firefox Beta 20.0b1 is available now as a free, open-source download for Windows, Mac and Linux. Also available are Firefox 19.0 FINAL and Firefox 19.0 for Android.

Much has been written about the disruption taking place in the media industry as a result of the web and the atomization of content, but less has been said about how the advertising business — on which most of the media industry continues to rely — has been going through its own disruption. One of the seismic shifts that has been upending business models is the one that Twitter is trying to capitalize on with its API: namely, the increasing move towards “programmatic” or automated ad buying, as opposed to the traditional human-driven ad game.

This is about more than just some tinkering with the machinery that underlies the content we consume. As Felix Salmon notes in a post at Reuters, virtually every media entity — from behemoths like the New York Times to the smallest independent online player — is being forced to reinvent how they generate revenue because digital advertising is not paying the bills (Note: We will be discussing alternative monetization methods on a number of panels at our paidContent Live media conference on April 17 in New York).

Another battle between algorithms and humans

Like most of the other changes in the media industry, this shift didn’t just just happen overnight. Instead, it’s a wave or a series of waves that have been building steadily over the past several years. As with so many other elements of the disruption in digital content, Google arguably triggered this particular tsunami with the introduction of its search-keyword based auction process — an idea it borrowed from Bill Gross and Overture — but the ripple effects of that decision have continued to grow and expand in force.

In a nutshell, advertising has become yet another battleground for the fight between humans and algorithms: the human beings at ad-buying firms and ad networks who used to buy and sell banners and other traditional forms of advertising, and the algorithms that drive “programmatic” buying based on keywords, topics that are trending in social media and other factors.

As we described earlier, this is something the New York Times has been experimenting with via an in-house tool that tracks which stories are seeing the most activity on Twitter, and then offers advertisers the ability to insert their ads into those stories. It’s no longer about where that content appears in a physical product like a newspaper, or even what the story is actually about. Instead, it’s more about who is engaging with it, and where, and how.

Part of this shift is the transition from what some marketers call “outbound” marketing — which includes direct mail, banner ads and other methods that try to reach out and grab the attention of potential customers — to “inbound” marketing, which relies on search-engine optimization and other content-based strategies that make it easier for users to find a brand or advertiser without being bombarded by ads (Demand Media and other “content farms” have tried to apply this approach to content, with mixed results).

Hubspot, which specializes in inbound marketing, says it is more or less taking over the online world, and the consequences for traditional media companies are dire:

Automated buying vs. human-created content

So what does all this have to do with the Twitter advertising API? In a nutshell, the API is a way for companies to automate more of their ad spending. At the moment, the list of official partners isn’t that long, but it will presumably grow — and the API combined with Twitter’s self-serve ad platform will theoretically allow advertisers to promote tweets based on what is trending and where the activity is. Twitter is also likely providing a host of information around users and their interests.

This is essentially the same game Facebook is playing, and while Google doesn’t have an open API for Google+ yet, it is likely thinking along the same lines. For social networks, in which the content generated by users is almost indistinguishable from the advertising — and in the case of Facebook, actually becomes part of that advertising, through features like sponsored stories — offering tools that let advertisers automate their spending based on hard data is potentially far more lucrative than another generic banner ad.

The problem for many media companies is that this is a game they are ill-equipped to play: for the most part, they have little or no data about their users that can compete with the granularity that Facebook or Twitter can offer, and they have no APIs or other automated, self-serve features to offer even if they did have that kind of data. On top of that, brands are setting up newsrooms and becoming content publishers in their own right, and further disintermediating the media.

This is part of the reason why so many players like The Atlantic and even Gawker Media have been focusing on alternative methods such as sponsored content or “native” advertising or affiliate links. But as Salmon notes in his post, these kinds of approaches are often labor-intensive (if you want them to be effective), and therefore high cost. In some ways, the market seems to be bifurcating: on one side is a growing business driven by algorithms, and on the other is a human-driven business based on customized content. Is there room for both?

Post and thumbnail images courtesy of Shutterstock / Everett Collection and Borrell Associates

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