We hear ya. There are a lot of you out there on Sprint who are looking at your Palm Pre and wondering how it would be to hold the Evo 4G in its place. Ask and ye shall receive. After the break are more photos and video of the Android 2.1 Evo 4G alongside the webOS-based Palm Pre. It’s not really a fair fight at this point, but at least they got in the ring.
This is a post by Android Central. It is sponsored by the Android Central Accessories Store
Everything’s still getting hammered, though markets are off their lows somewhat.
A possible surprise? Goldman Sachs is solidly in the green.
Why?
Our best guess it that it’s rising for the same reason everything else is falling: folks are liquidating their winners in favor of cash. In this case, Goldman shorts have had a nice ride, and are taking profits to get into ever-strengthening US dollars.
If you have a better idea, let us know.
Join the conversation about this story »
by Sean Casten.
Economic theory is predicated on the thesis that if supply and demand are allowed to freely set the price for a given item, rational capital allocation (and a host of other social benefits) will follow. Much of public policy is predicated on the truth of that thsis. But there’s a problem with the thesis: price alone isn’t sufficient.
A market that provides nothing more than a spot price for a
given commodity is only a market in name. To have a real market of the kind that brings about all the good things
that economic theory describes, we need a much richer, more complex suite of
transactions. In particular—and especially for capital-intensive industries—the length of a contract can be as or more important than the price. Tell me that widgets are selling for 15 cents
each 10 minutes from now and the only decision I can make is whether to buy,
sell or hold my stock of widgets. Tell
me on the other hand that I can execute a 30 year contract for widgets at 10
cents each and I might just build a widget factory. Between those two extremes lies a tremendous
amount of financial sophistication that policy makers too often fail to appreciate.
Of African food and california power markets
Perhaps the best evidence that price alone isn’t sufficient
comes from places where that argument has spectacularly failed. In Roger Thurow and Scott Kilman’s excellent book
“Enough,”
they outline how the wholesale replacement of government subsidies with
price-only markets led to the waves of mass starvation in Africa in the
1980s. Closer to home, the deregulation
of California power markets begat the California power crisis. In both instances, the creation of a price
signal was followed shortly thereafter by a shortage
of supply. A spot price is a
necessary precondition for a functioning market, but clearly it is not
sufficient.
The common cause in Africa and California was the absence of
liquid, sophisticated capital markets. The
Chicago Board of Trade did not magically appear, fully formed the first day a
Wisconsin wheat farmer pulled his barge down Lake Michigan. Similarly, when African farmers suddenly had
to sell grain at a market rate come harvest time, they didn’t have the benefit
of futures contracts, swaps and puts to hedge their risk. Rather, they had a commodity to sell at the
same time that all their competitors had the same commodity to sell. Supply shot up, price collapsed and the next
season the farmers responded (perfectly rationally) by growing less food. In California, generators realized that they
earned a lot more for their power on hot days, to the extent that it was in
their economic interest to hoard fuel and withhold power supplies in advance of
a heat wave.
In both cases, the presence of a price signal led to “economically-rational”
behavior, and yet that behavior ran exactly contrary to the social benefits
that economically-informed policy makers predicted. The
common cause was the immaturity of capital markets, which were not deep enough
to get beyond the immediate short term buy/sell decision. In a more sophisticated market, Africans have
granaries, silos, and futures contracts, and Californians have short-sellers and
other financial arbitrageurs to limit the market power of a small number of
generators. But that sophistication does
not come overnight.
Lessons for the U.S. power market
When U.S. power markets deregulated in the late 1990s, there
was a temporary construction boom in natural gas power plants by a number of
companies who grossly misjudged the pace of further deregulation. Most of those companies ended up in
bankruptcy. Since then, virtually no new
power assets have been built in response to wholesale electricity market
signals—for the simple reason that wholesale markets haven’t provided a power
price or contract tenure sufficient to attract capital.
Some say we shouldn’t doubt market omniscience, and that the
failure to build new power plants proves that we don’t need them. The problem with that argument is that we
have seen new generation built during that period external to deregulated markets. Regulated utilities have continued to make investments subject to utility
commission approval. That approval
effectively provides (very) long-dated contract for any power they produce at
prices that are guaranteed to be high enough to recover all operating costs and
capital. There has been a concurrent
boom in wind turbine construction, driven by a combination of wind-specific tax
subsidies and wind-specific RPS contracts, both of which combine to provide
long-dated contracts for power, provided that it comes from wind. In both cases, these assets are procuring
long-term contracts at prices that are well above clearing prices in wholesale
power markets, distorting markets even as they are bypassed.
Again, Africa offers a parallel. U.S. food aid has depressed prices in African
food markets, slowing the maturation of the very markets that are required to
make Africa self-sufficient, and increasing the continent’s dependence on
further food aid. The deployment of
extra-market generation in U.S. power markets is comparably slowing the
maturation of U.S. power markets, making it ever harder to break free of our
antiquated, top-down regulatory paradigm.
Lessons for CO2 markets
So is market efficiency predicated on a 20-year wait for
sophisticated markets? Not necessarily—and Kyoto-compliant CO2 markets are a noteworthy exception. They are about as old as U.S. electric markets,
but are vastly more sophisticated. I can
lock in a 15 year strip for CO2 sales in a CDM-compliant country today that
gives me price certainty, and even gives me a buyer who is willing to take the
post-2012 regulatory risk after Kyoto expires. On just about all relevant measures, these markets are deeper, more
robust and more sophisticated than U.S. electric markets. How come?
My guess is that it has something to do with the fact that
these markets were created from whole cloth. There is no equivalent to the commission-sanctioned power plant in Kyoto
that gets built outside of the market but affects prices within the
market. Regulated parties have to meet
in a single market and that single market became the magnet for capital. While far from perfect, good things have
largely followed.
Meanwhile in the U.S., we are in the midst of a large and
understandable backlash against complex financial markets. Without question, there is a need for greater
regulation and oversight of financial instruments. However, we cross a line when we ban their
use—and we should be very careful about efforts mooted to do so in current
CO2 policy proposals. That ban makes for
a good populist sound-bite, but only amongst those who don’t understand what
those “complex financial instruments” do. If we want people to invest in capital to reduce CO2, we need to give
them a way to enter into long-dated contracts for CO2 reduction at firm prices. A spot market for CO2 doesn’t provide that
financial product—but a vibrant participation in that market by
financially-sophisticated players will. That means hedges, swaps, collars, puts, and—dare I say it?—derivatives. Some financial institutions
will make a lot of money on those transactions and others will lose. Such is the nature of a functioning financial
market that prices and allocates risk through the system. And while we absolutely need a regulator to
ensure that those booms and busts don’t put the functioning of the market at
risk, we cannot forget that the purpose of a CO2 market is, first and foremost,
to reduce CO2 emissions. That in turn
will require capital investments and the long-dated contracts necessary to
bring that investment forward. Price
alone won’t cut it.
Related Links:
Michael Pollan chronicles rise of the food movement(s)
Kerry-Lieberman climate bill: The details
Cap-and-dividend: the worst possible way to regulate GHG emissions
Hit play for an audio recording of a mystery car’s exhaust note, and then share your guesses or get a few hints from other visitors in the comments below. Be sure to check back on Thursday for the answer!
Related posts:
by Bonnie Azab Powell
How we let our biology end up in the hands of Nestlé and Unilever and General Foods, we can leave to cultural historians to figure out, But we know now that in order to take back the ownership and responsibility for our health, and the biological integrity of our oceans and our land, we have to take back our mouths.…and take back our taste buds from those who would use them to accumulate financial capital and return it to those who create biological and social capital—away from people who steal the future and to those who heal the future.
—Paul Hawken, at the 2010 Sustainable Foods Institute
Last week the Monterey Bay Aquarium’s Sustainable Foods Institute, the invitation-only portion of its annual Cooking For Solutions conference, brought together food and environmental journalists—including Grist’s Tom Philpott—with scientific experts, sustainability-minded chefs, nonfiction authors, and others. In a two-day series of panels, they discussed the Gulf oil spill and the generally pitiable state of the ocean’s health, as well as sustainable aquaculture and agriculture practices and genetically engineered seeds. They also practiced a special kind of conference doublethink: nibbling on giant cookies while decrying the obesity epidemic and snacking on seafood—Green List only, of course—under the accusatory eyes of the aquarium’s denizens.
Sample the conference’s best soundbites via this Cooking Up a Story highlights reel, which includes speakers Paul Hawken, nutritionist Marion Nestle, chef Rick Bayless, and the event’s most controversial panelist, UC Davis plant pathology professor Pamela Ronald, coauthor of Tomorrow’s Table: Organic Farming, Genetic and the Future of Food:
Related Links:
Biochar – probably not going to save the world after all
Robert Redford and green groups tell Obama to step up on Gulf oil leak
Whether bikers should wait at red lights and more on transportation ethics
In case you don’t have the time or desire to read or watch full-length reviews, I’ve summarized my take on the recent wave of smartphones for you.
Click here for the index of my latest smartphone Quick Takes.
HTC myTouch 3G Slide (T-Mobile) – $179, June 2
Don’t let the lack of a Snapdragon processor fool you – myTouch Slide is still plenty quick for most people’s daily use, and the 3.4″ HVGA display is crisp and responsive. mT3G Slide actually packs more features than just about any other Android device on the market, thanks to T-Mobile’s extra-customized version of the HTC Sense UI and a “Genius Button” featuring enhanced voice control and speech-to-text functionality. Add to that an excellent hard QWERTY board and you’ve got a Sidekick for the Android generation.
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The Acer Liquid Stream, which we just recently saw at Google I/O (thank you Noah!) last week, decided to make its way over to the FCC to pass the ever-so-important inspection necessary for usage on US frequencies. The device was cleared for 850/1900MHz which means it could be headed to AT&T’s network, though as of now it doesn’t look like we’ll be seeing anything official until October. The device is supposedly running Android 2.1 but you’ve got to hope it will at least be seeing Froyo by the time it launches. It also has a “5 megapixel camera capable of 720p video capture,” according to Engadget. No news on other specs as of yet, but you can be sure we’ll keep you informed as we hear more.
Does the Acer Liquid Stream suit your fancy? Let us know in the comments!
Via Engadget
Infiniti Essence Concept
BMW has its M GmbH department; Mercedes-Benz has its AMG; Lexus has its ‘F’; and Audi has its ‘S’ and ‘RS’. According to documents filed with the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office, Nissan North America has filed for trademark protection of the names “IPL” and “Infiniti Performance Line” to create a high-performance segment for its Infiniti Division product line.
The application says that the IPL trademark will protect the brand’s usage of “high-performance motor vehicle parts,” including turbochargers and superchargers for engines, cat-back exhaust and muffler systems, shifter knobs, suspension parts, brakes, sports seats and off-road headlights.
An Infiniti spokesman declined to confirm the trademark filing or the brand’s product plans.
We highly doubt that the upcoming electric Infiniti model will get the IPL designation.
– By: Omar Rana
Source: Automotive News (Subscription Required)
by Agence France-Presse
WASHINGTON – British oil giant BP scrambled Tuesday to test the use of a “top kill” to plug up an undersea well spewing oil into the Gulf of Mexico, but admitted it was uncertain the method would work or even be used at all.
The top-kill method involves pumping heavy drilling mud down the ruptured well at high pressure so that the mud will overcome the flow of oil and gas coming up the well, and ultimately “kill” it. Although top kills have been successfully carried out all over the world, trying to plug a well 5,000 feet below the surface of the sea would be a first, giving rise to doubts it will work.
BP CEO Tony Hayward downplayed the likelihood that the desperate effort will succeed in actually sealing the pipe, which is spewing hundreds of thousands of gallons of crude into the Gulf each day. “It has never been done in 5,000 feet of water,” he told reporters on Monday. “If it was on land we would have a very high confidence of success, but because it’s in 5,000 feet of water, we need to be realistic about the issues around operating in a mile of water. We rate the probability of the success somewhere between 60 percent and 70 percent.”
BP Senior Vice President Kent Wells said the company was uncertain it would go ahead with the procedure at all.
The make-or-break top kill is supposed to get underway shortly after dawn on Wednesday using robotic submarines on the seabed. BP had hoped to try a top kill earlier, but needed more time to get equipment into place and test it.
“Over the next day or so, we’ll have ourselves in place to do our diagnostic phase. That could take 12 to 24 hours, although issues could crop up that could further delay that,” Wells told a news conference.
“When the actual kill might go forward, the earliest might be tomorrow and that could extend on from there.”
Information gathered in the diagnostics phase will help BP understand the pressure levels on a broken blow-out preventer, and the integrity of the casing, well-bore, and other components of the busted well. If the diagnostics show it is safe to proceed, it would take anywhere from half a day to “a couple of days to do it,” said Wells.
In an earlier press conference, BP Chief Operating Officer Doug Suttles said the procedure would take place on Wednesday. “Initially we’ll start with just pumping mud and see if we can outrun the well. Can we pump fast enough to ultimately kill the well?” he said. “We want to avoid putting bridging agents in there that would plug up a line we didn’t want to plug up, but we may need to do that,” he said.
Even as they were keeping their fingers crossed that the top kill will succeed, officials were readying backup plans, although several might not be fully operational for several months, officials said. Suttles said that if the top kill fails, relief wells are being drilled to divert the flow and allow the leaking well to be sealed. These will not be ready until August at the earliest, however, meaning tens of millions more barrels of crude could stream into the Gulf.
BP engineers also are working on a “junk shot,” which involves injecting assorted debris into the well to clog it up. Another backup plan would entail lowering a new blowout preventer—a backup safety device—on top of one that failed in an earlier attempt shut off the oil flow.
The company might also remove a riser at the top of the blow-out preventer to create a surface on which to lower a containment dome. The dome would be sealed in place, not to try to encapsulate the oil but to prevent ice-like hydrates from forming when cold sea water mixes with natural gas. Hydrates caused the failure of BP’s first attempt to stop the massive oil leak by lowering a “top hat” onto it.
How bad is it?
Asked on Tuesday whether the Gulf spill is America’s worst, Carol Browner, the top White House advisor on energy and environmental matters, told ABC TV, “I don’t think there’s any doubt, unfortunately.”
Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal (R) has said he would like to build berms or islands that would provide an outer ring of protection to the coastline against oil advancing toward the state’s coastline, but acknowledged that these could not be put in place in less than six to nine months.
Fresh waves of crude oil continually sweep onto Gulf of Mexico shores, clogging fragile Louisiana wetlands, coating helpless sea birds in a layer of thick crude, and wreaking havoc with the local economy despite on the Gulf for its livelihood.
Meanwhile, political fallout from the massive oil spill mounted in Washington, with a new round of hearings into the growing disaster.
There is growing frustration not only at BP’s lack of success in capping the leak, but at the fact that federal officials also have proven powerless in shutting down the oil flow.
U.S. Coast Guard chief Thad Allen, speaking to reporters at the White House Monday, conceded that the U.S. government lacked the expertise and equipment needed to stop the leak 5,000 feet under water, and defended BP’s efforts so far. “They’re exhausting every technical means possible to deal with that leak,” he insisted.
BP has intensified its PR offensive, taking out ads in major U.S. newspapers and pledging up to $500 million to study the impact of the spill.
Meanwhile, Hayward vowed to do everything possible to seal the leak and make residents of the soiled region whole.
“I feel devastated by that, absolutely gutted. What I can tell you is that we are here for the long haul. We are going to clean every drop of oil off the shore,” the BP executive said.
Related Links:
The 7 dumbest things in BP’s spill response plan
Is the Gulf oil spill spinning out of control?
We don’t watch American Idol, but we know that the two-part season finale starts tonight! We also know it’s also been an exciting week for Robert F. X. Sillerman, who founded the company that controls the rights to the show.
Sillerman, CKX, Inc.’s (CKXE) founder, former CEO, Chairman of the Board, and largest shareholder, resigned on May 6 and announced his immediate departure from the company. All we knew about his plans at the time were that 1) he planned to work as a consultant for CKX; and 2) he’s thinking about buying the company. (Besides American Idol, CKX also controls the rights to use the images of Elvis Presley and Muhammad Ali.)
On May 24, CKX filed an 8-K and May 22 letter with the SEC that set out the terms of Sillerman’s departure, which it declared a “constructive termination without cause.”
The biggest chunk will be a severance check for $3,316,749 that Sillerman will get around the new year. He also gets $95,721 for unused vacation and up to $25,000 to pay the legal fees he incurred to negotiate the agreements. CKX lifted stock restrictions on Sillerman’s options, thus enabling him to exercise those at any time. The company will pay Sillerman $25,000 annually for three years, and $10,000 annually for life after that to compensate him for benefits promised in his 2009 employment agreement. He also gets
“…continued access to up to four [non-transferrable] tickets for up to ten Company produced events per year, subject to their availability as determined by the Company on a case-by-base basis, until the sixth anniversary of the Date of Termination, provided that such tickets may only be used by you or your immediate family…”
If a change of control occurs prior to May 6, 2011 and the IRS determines that any payments to Sillerman were “parachute payments,” CKX will pay any tax gross-ups that are owed (so long as he’s in compliance with the agreement).
CKX will pay Sillerman $1 million for his consulting services, even if the agreement is terminated early. Until December 31, 2011, he’ll also get up to $25,000 a month to pay for office space, administrative assistance, and a car and driver.
Sillerman’s going to need that space. The agreement stipulates that he can have “reasonable access” to his current office through May 31 to remove his possessions, but after that, he “shall not access, or seek access to, the Company’s premises at 650 Madison Avenue, or the Company’s information systems, for any reason.”
Sillerman is to work as much as he deems “reasonably necessary” to promote the company’s best interests; however, his services “shall not exceed 20 percent of the average level of services you performed for or on behalf of the Company… over the 36-month period immediately preceding the date hereof.”
Now that’s a departure package that would surely get a lot of votes.
According to Android Central, Froyo actually contains some nifty little improvements to the stock on-screen keyboard. Instead of pressing, or holding down the ?123 button to access the number keys, you can now swipe upwards from the keyboard and bring them up (as seen in the picture above). In addition, if you have multiple keyboard languages installed, you can simply swipe left and right across the space bar to switch between them.
While these improvements are nice, they won’t be causing the stock keyboard to win any special awards. As evident from his recent Gizmodo interview, VP of Engineering at Google, Andy Rubin, is already aware of the need for improvement with Android’s on-screen keyboard. It will be interesting to see what changes he has in mind.
If I were in charge, which I ‘m clearly not, Google would have already purchased Swype and given the Android platform the keyboard it deserves. My fingers are crossed for Gingerbread with Swype. That would be mad-wicked-cool!
The following statement is not intended as an official piece of fantasy advice, and the author assumes no responsibility for transactions made as a result of its publication: Will Ohman(notes) is expected to get save opportunities for Baltimore while Alfredo Simon(notes) (hamstring), Koji Uehara(notes) (elbow) and Michael Gonzalez(notes) (shoulder) are sidelined.
MLB.com’s Brittany Ghiroli just issued a full briefing on the Orioles’ bullpen situation, and you’re encouraged to review it before making an add/drop. Ohman is a 32-year-old lefty specialist with a career WHIP of 1.59 against right-handed batters. Obviously he’s been terrific in 14.2 innings this season (0.00 ERA), pitching mostly in favorable match-ups. If you want him, he’s yours. Best of luck, speculators. I won’t race you to the free agent pool.
Frank Mata will be promoted from Triple-A Norfolk, according to the Baltimore Sun. He’s pitched well as the Tides’ closer, going 2-1 with a 1.86 ERA, eight saves, and 14 Ks in 19.1 innings. Given the disastrous situation in Baltimore, he might sneak into the saves mix. Anyone could.
Ghiroli also suggests that David Hernandez(notes) may be bumped from the O’s starting rotation to the bullpen. If that were to happen, then presumably either Jake Arrieta(notes) or (more likely) Chris Tillman(notes) would be called up to start this weekend in Toronto. The Orioles begin June with nine games against the Yankees and Red Sox, so any investment in their pitching staff is loaded with short-term risk.
• In case you missed it, Kerry Wood(notes) converted a save against Cincinnati on Sunday, facing the bottom of the Reds’ order with a one-run lead. Chris Perez(notes) is still worth holding of course, given Wood’s injury issues and the potential for a pre-deadline trade. But it’s worth noting that the Tribe won’t have an easy time trading that contract ($10.5M in 2010, vesting option in 2011).
• There are no easy answers with the Brewers’ bullpen. Trevor Hoffman(notes) has been mostly horrible this season, but he pitched a 1-2-3 eighth inning in his return from exile on Sunday. The Hoff may be required to make a few more proof-of-concept appearances in the middle innings before returning to closing duties. In the interim, Carlos Villanueva(notes) and John Axford(notes) should get the late, high-leverage situations. Villanueva offers SP-eligibility; Axford has a mid-90s fastball and a mid-1970s mustache (pictured right).
• Toronto closer Kevin Gregg(notes) has allowed four hits, four earned runs, one homer and four walks over his past two appearances, and he hasn’t struck anyone out since May 16. We shouldn’t elevate the threat level just yet, but it’s worth noting that Jason Frasor(notes) has been terrific this month (following a lousy April). Since the calendar flipped, Frasor has allowed just one run in 10.0 innings and while striking out nine batters and walking only two. Scott Downs(notes) has been excellent in the eighth inning role, per his usual. I’d feel much safer with Downs on my fantasy roster, though I’d give Frasor equal odds of someday taking over closing duties. The Jays just called up David Purcey(notes) to work in relief, so it’s not as if Downs is the only lefty in the ‘pen.
• Francisco Rodriguez reportedly got into a "heated exchange" on Sunday with his bullpen coach, Randy Niemann, over recent usage. K-Rod converted a five-out save against the Yankees on Saturday and a two-out save on Sunday. He’s on pace for 83.0 innings this season, which would be his highest total over the past six years. Unofficially, K-Rod might also lead the majors in bullpen warm-up sessions.
• The Denver Post reports that Huston Street(notes) (groin, shoulder) will likely throw a bullpen session next week at Coors Field, and then he’ll resume his minor league rehab assignment. The Post offers a "mid-late June" return estimate.
—
Photo via Getty Images
A memo discovered by The Daily Beast shows that BP blithely chose cost over safety for workers.
The memo, which was sent in 2002, describes plant construction in terms of the Three Little Pigs fable. BP concluded that a brick home presented a better cost-value ratio than a blast resistant home.
A BP spokesperson said to The Daily Beast that the company has
“fundamentally changed the culture of BP” since a rig explosion in 2005.
For Deepwater survivors who have held off on suing their employer, this shocking memo could be a turning point. Bloodhound oil rig prosecutor Tony Buzbee said yesterday “Many of these men that work for Transocean [and BP] are very loyal.” How now?
Disclosure: The author owns shares in BP and Transocean.
Join the conversation about this story »
Remember those 10 awesome 3D games that Gameloft released last week? Several did not work or failed to download, but Gameloft informed us the titles were accidentally published early and would be fixed over the weekend.
Gameloft just relaunched their Android store, so I thought I would try purchasing a couple titles to try on my EVO 4G and see how they compare with a Nexus One running Android 2.2.
For starters, I noticed the games were more expensive in Gameloft’s official store. Asphalt 5 sells for $4.99 on the Android Market, but Gameloft ups all their new titles to $6.99 on their site. That is on the higher end for Android games, but Gameloft has the best 3D graphics on Android and I thought the price was justified.
Right now, Gameloft only lets you purchase the titles if you claim to have a Motorola Droid. All these games work on other Snapdragon phones with at least Android 2.1, so I’m not sure why Gameloft has limited them to the Droid. When making a new purchase, customers will have to register an account with Gameloft and fill out their payment information. After a user purchases a game, Gameloft sends a text message to your phone number with a link to download the title.
My first purchase was the new 3D Assassin’s Creed. After filling out all my information, I waited and waited for a text message with the download link, but it never came. I searched the Gameloft site for several minutes and found no option to resend the message so I was forced to request a refund. This was done by filling out a form which required I dig up my unique customer ID and order number from an email. As of the time of this writing, I’m still waiting on my refund.
Before giving up, I decided to try purchasing a second title. This time I opted for N.O.V.A., the Near Orbit Vanguard Alliance. To my surprise, I received the download link almost instantly and easily installed the game on my EVO 4G. The game looked great for a first person shooter, but it was sluggish in some areas on my EVO.
I’ve noticed a big performance boost with Android 2.2, so I attempted to install N.O.V.A. on my Nexus One. Unfortunately, Gameloft limits you to one download of the game installer. No problem I thought, I’ll just copy the install file over manually. This also failed because Gameloft has implemented a copy protection check to limit purchases to a single device.
I know it’s Gameloft’s right to distribute their software however they choose, but I was disappointed by the single device limit. This is the opposite of the Android Market which allows you to re-download and install any purchase that is linked to your Google account.
Right now, it is hard for me to suggest that anyone use the Gameloft store. I was told during Google I/O that these titles would eventually make their way to the Android Market, but Gameloft wanted to experiment with different distribution channels first.
We appreciate that Gameloft is trying new distribution methods (especially for those who can’t access the Android Market in other countries), but I think it really hurts them right now to avoid the official Market. Hopefully Gameloft will listen to their customers’ feedback (Hi guys!) and get on the ball with bringing these exciting titles to the real Android Market.
Have you tried purchasing an Android game from Gameloft? If so, please let us know how their store performed for you.
Forget the Football World Cup: Summer 2010 is shaping up to be one of the most exciting periods in digital music’s short history. Spotify is preparing to launch in the US (still); Nokia (NYSE: NOK) is rolling out multiple new Comes With Music territories; MOG is finding its feet as a premium subscription service; and a number of exciting new services are primed for launch.
But as with the World Cup, we’ve already got a decent idea of who the finalists are likely to be: Apple (NSDQ: AAPL) and Google (NSDQ: GOOG). Continuing the World Cup analogy a little, Apple is Argentina, the once-great force that has lost its way a bit but arguably has the best array of talent, and looks like it may just be about to have the engine purring like a tiger again. Google takes the role of Holland: a slick, skillful team that has never won the World Cup.
Closed vs open is actually closed vs…er…closed: Google is playing the role of disruptive new entrant and has mischievously played upon Apple’s original 1984 marketing, positioning Apple as the Big Brother now. It has also played strongly on being open versus Apple’s closed approach. But the bottom line is that Google’s music strategy looks likely to be pretty closed too. The fact that the Android Music Store is designed to work with Android devices means it will be exclusive just like the iTunes / iPhone / iPod / iPad ecosystems. The difference is that Google is betting on a wide range of partners having a large installed base of customers on its platform so it will “feel” open.
The role of the cloud. Of course, the music download store has never been the end game of any company with even an ounce of strategic nous. The margins are so small that the a la carte download store only has any value as a means to an end. Apple uses it to enhance its device proposition and Google looks set to follow suit for similar reasons. But expect Google to integrate the store in a broader cloud-based offering, just as Apple is likely to do, possibly as early as June 7. Both Google and Apple have bought their way into cloud expertise (via Simplify Media and Lala, respectively) and both understand that music listening and unlimited on-demand access to new music trump music buying many times over. So if you’re going to have a compelling music-device experience, you need to play to the access and consumption cards.
Device agnosticity but not platform agnosticity: Apple, Google, Nokia and others recognize the crucial importance of consumers being able to take their music experience with them across multiple devices. Apple and Google look primed to take this to another level. But the great irony is that the very act of giving consumers more choice of devices limits their choice of platform (and thus locks them into a particular ecosystem). Of course, both Apple and Google may well decide to have an open-access web component to their offerings that is not explicitly tied to a device. But make no mistake, these will be acquisition tools for their device and platform plays. Curtailed platform liberty will be the price music consumers will have to pay for increased device freedom.
Posted by Hal Dardick at 1:08 p.m.
Banks foreclosing on vacant Chicago properties would have to board them up or post a guard outside under an ordinance the City Council Buildings Committee approved today, even as the sponsor acknowledged it might get thrown out in court.
The guards would have to be in place between 4 p.m. and 8 a.m. each day unless the buildings are boarded up. If the buildings are within 2,000 feet of a school, a guard would have to be posted 24 hours a day during the school year, even if the buildings are boarded up.
Sponsoring Ald. Richard Mell, 33rd, said the effect of foreclosures on neighborhoods is “the same type of disaster as the BP oil slick on the Louisiana coast….
“They’re retarding the growth of a neighborhood,” Mell added. “They are bringing down property values. . . . Crime is initiated in a lot of these abandoned buildings. Some of these we have found (have) drug dealings going on in them. And so we need a total effort by the federal government and the banks and the city to resolve this problem.”
Mell conceded that if the full council approves the ordinance next month, banks could challenge its legality, arguing that they can only be regulated by the federal government.
But he’s hoping for cooperation to address a growing problem, and said he wants the federal government to provide resources to address the issues of vacant buildings, in part to push foreclosures through the courts quicker.
As city law now stands, whomever holds title to vacant buildings must board them up or post a guard outside from 4 p.m. to 8 a.m. But in most cases, the owners are in bad financial straits or nowhere to be found, and banks often don’t take title to the properties for more than a year.
Mell said that with help from U.S. Rep. Mike Quigley, D-Ill., he has been able reduce the log of abandoned and foreclosed buildings in his ward from to 179 from 320. Some aldermen, he said, have more than 1,200 foreclosed, vacant properties in their wards.
Penalties for not following the ordinance would range from up to $600 for a first offense to more than 60 days in jail for a second offense.
In yet another instance of someone missing the point entirely, it seems that some watchmakers have gotten it in their heads that the notion of quickly glancing at your watch and knowing the time is a little to quaint. Enter these watches, presented to us here by coolmaterial.com.
By the time you’re done learning how to negotiate these beasts, you could have probably taken a class that teaches you how to read the sun and moon for all your timekeeping needs. That said, the enigma surrounding these watches could be a good conversation starter if someone asks “How the hell does that watch work?” Just make sure that you have the right answer.
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What do you mean I researched the wrong school?!
Call it a Wheaton Whoops. TODAY anchor Ann Curry (“Good Morning. Good Morning.”) is “mortified” after confusing the nation’s two Wheaton Colleges while giving the commencement address in Norton, Massachusetts last weekend.
In an otherwise complimentary keynote speech, Ann lauded a list of distinguished alumni, including the evangelist Rev. Billy Graham, King of Fright Wes Craven, and former House Speaker Dennis Hastert.Only one problem: None of those men went to Wheaton in the Commonwealth of Massachusetts — they all attended the other Wheaton College in Illinois. In fact, Wheaton was an all-girls school well into the 1980s.
That’s why it’s a Wheaton Whoopsie.
On Monday, a shamefaced Ann sent a letter to Wheaton (Massachusetts) President Ron Crutcher and the student body apologizing for the gaffe and asking for forgiveness. In her apology, she misspelled the name of actual grad Lesley Stahl.
Recently, we’ve noted some similarities between Amanda Palmer and the band OK Go, in that both had been signed to major record label deals, both had built up an amazing (and amazingly loyal) group of fans through various means (different for each) using methods totally outside of their major label marketing effort (which was somewhat lacking in both cases)… and last month, both were officially dropped from their label deals.
In the past, getting dropped from a major record label deal was seen as a bad thing — a sign of trouble for the band. But in both of these cases, the process of getting dropped was initiated by the musicians themselves, who realized they could do much more outside of the major label system, than within it. So it seemed like a bit of serendipity, that both acts had aspects of their ongoing tours overlap in San Francisco this week — leading to an event put together by Creative Allies at the Ex’pression College for the Digital Arts, where both acts performed and did some chatting about music and the music business as part of a webcast. Thanks to Amanda, I was able to attend in person with a small group of folks in the studio, and it was a fun time — as both acts basically celebrated their freedom from their record label deals.
You can see the webcast in two parts below (not sure why it’s two parts, and it was not easy at all to find the second part):
While there’s plenty of music, there were two key points on the whole business model side of things that came up that are worth repeating (in case you don’t feel like watching both videos — though, you should, since they’re pretty cool). The first is that during the interview session between acts, Amanda was asked about “direct to fan” stuff, and she made a point that I’ve been trying (perhaps unsuccessfully) to highlight for quite some time: and that’s that each act needs to do something that fits with what works for them. Her fear is that there’s so much talk about “direct-to-fan” offerings, that people are going to start just trying to all do exactly the same thing, rather than charting a course that’s unique to them.
We’ve tried to point this out as well, in noting how different the various success stories are. Inevitably, of course, someone says that we’re saying everyone should do what one of these artists are doing (a favorite of critics is the false idea that we’ve said everyone should go to Disneyland with some fans, like Josh Freese). But that’s not the case at all. For Freese, it was a part of his personality (and his life, as he basically grew up at Disneyland, and performed there as a kid). The whole point of learning how to better connect with fans and giving them reasons to buy, is not that everyone has to use Twitter, or that everyone has to offer “tiered” offerings. Or that everyone has to tour, even. It’s that there are many different ways that each artist can connect with fans and give them a reason to buy directly, and that each artist has to figure out the way to apply the concept in a way that fits with their own personality and sensibilities. It’s great that Amanda was able to really drive home that point during her interview.
The second part is actually an amusing exchange between OK Go and Amanda after OK Go’s second song. Lead singer Damian Kulash asks the audience for questions, and if you listen closely on the video, you can hear Amanda ask about how the band was able to not just get dropped by Capitol/EMI, but also to take the last record with them (something she was unable to do with Roadrunner/Warner Music). Kulash tries (not all that successfully) to dance around the legalities by setting up a hypothetical version of EMI — but basically admits that with EMI more or less fighting every day to avoid defaulting on massive loans — while at the same time fighting with the Beatles and other top acts, the label apparently found the fact that Kulash might occasionally pen
op eds for the NY Times that made the label look totally clueless on digital things, that it was better to just usher the band out the door as quickly as possible. And, as such, the band had a bit of leverage, which was used to not just get out of the contract, but to take the last record with them.
Of course, the business model stuff was a minor part of the overall evening, which really was very much about music, and a rather celebratory mood from both acts about their freedom to stretch out creatively — as both demonstrate beautifully in their separate performances. Among the many highlights, there’s Kulash forgetting lyrics and later getting a case of the giggles in the middle of the band’s hit song “Here It Goes Again” — plus a rendition of “What To Do” performed entirely by the band using a table full of hand bells… And Amanda playing a song from her upcoming EP of Radiohead covers played on the ukulele because, as she noted, she can.
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