If you have room in your budget and are looking to add another streaming service to your options, Warner Archive Instant has launched out of beta and is offering a two week free trial.
Warner Archive Instant is a much more specialized streaming service than the likes of Netflix or Amazon Prime – so much so that’s it’s hard to really call them competitors. Warner Archive Instant offers hundreds of classic and often rare films and TV shows from Warner Bros., MGM, RKO, New Line, Monogram, Allied Artists, Lorimar and more.
The content ranges from the 1920s to a few selections from the 90s. Everything has been upconverted, and you can stream many titles in 1080p HD via Roku.
Some of the most popular selections currently available on the service include classic films A Face in the Crowd and The Prince and the Showgirl, as well as TV shows like Adventures of Superman and 77 Sunset Strip.
They say that new selections will be regularly added to the catalog.
The price per month, once the free trial expires, is a competitive $9.99. As of right now, there are only two way to stream Warner Archive Instant – on your computer via Silverlight or on your Roku device. Warner Archive says that they are currently working on adding more devices.
Like I said before, I don’t really see this new service as a true competitor to wider-reaching streaming services – its content selection is simply too narrow as of right now. But for fans of this type of classic and rare content, it looks like it’s definitely worth a look.
France, the United Kingdom, Germany, Italy, Spain and the Netherlands have launched investigations into Google’s privacy practices after the company elected not to make changes following requests from these countries. Google faces possible fines and other action, depending on how these governments view Google’s policies and how they comply with the countries’ laws.
French privacy watchdog CNIL has been very vocal about Google’s policies since they went into effect last year. If you’ll recall, Google essentially consolidated the privacy policies of its various products into one central policy, which better allows it to share data from one of its products to the next, effectively turning Google into one main product, as opposed to a bunch of separate ones. Google’s policy does this without changing anything about how it shares data with third parties.
From March to October 2012, the Article 29 Working Party investigated into Google’s privacy policy with the aim of checking whether it met the requirements of the European Data Protection Directive (95/46/CE). In view of the findings of this analysis which was published on 26 October 2012, the EU Data protection authorities asked Google to comply with their recommendations within 4 months.
After this period has expired, Google has not implemented any significant compliance measures.
On 19 March 2013, representatives of Google Inc. were invited at their request to meet with the taskforce led by the CNIL and composed of data protection authorities of France, Germany, Italy, the Netherlands, Spain, and the United-Kingdom. Following this meeting, no change has been seen.
The article 29 working party’s analysis is finalized. It is now up to each national data protection authority to carry out further investigations according to the provisions of its national law transposing European legislation.
CNIL goes on to say that all the authorities composing the task force have launched actions.
CBS was broadcasting the NCAA Tournament Midwest Regional final between Louisville and Duke on Sunday when Louisville player Kevin Ware suffered one of the most gruesome injuries ever seen in college basketball. As Ware jumped to block a three point shot he landed poorly, snapping his tibia (shin) bone in half.
CBS replayed the event twice in the immediate aftermath, but then placed a ban on showing the footage any further. Sean McManus, chairman of CBS Sports told the Associated Press that the decision not to replay the footage further was an easy one, as the injury can be seen using DVRs or the internet. He went on to say that he has seen how popular the footage is on YouTube, and has “no problem with that.”
With that statement in mind, and to satisfy the morbid curiosity in all of us, the replay of Kevin Ware’s injury is embedded below. The footage is from quite a distance, but the event is still very cringe-worthy:
For those who are still curious, a close-up of Ware’s injury (the un-cropped version of the photo at the top of this story) can be viewed at the following link. Be aware, though, that the injury is quite disturbing, and probably NSFW:
Ware is reported to already be back on his feet, with crutches. Ware has been tweeting his thanks for all the well-wishes he has received and even tweeted a picture of his leg in its current state:
The rise of the mobile web offers publishers a way to reach many screens at once — without having to tailor content to an-ever growing number of custom platforms. Does this mean publishers can finally turn away from apps, which were once a source of so much promise but are now regarded by some as an expensive distraction?
For skeptics, apps amount to a temporary — and increasingly unnecessary — technology. But this is hardly the only view. Many in the publishing community still thinks apps will deliver on their initial potential to provide deep reader engagement and handsome ad revenues. Now, with the arrival of more tablets and smartphones than ever, the debate over apps becomes more acute: should publishers turn away and rely solely on HTML5 or instead double down on these new app opportunities?
These are some of the questions we’ll explore during “Are Apps or the Web the Future of Mobile Content?” one of many discussions that will take place during paidContent Live on April 17 in New York City. Our guests include Jason Pontin of MIT Technology Review, whose widely read 2012 essay made him a leading voice in the counter-revolution against app idealism. He will be joined by ESPN’s Ryan Spoon and Nick Alt of Vimeo – two mobile experts who offer other alternative app narratives.
Here are more of the topics we’lll be exploring during the panel (feel free to propose more in the comments below):
Is the payoff worth the cost?: Apps are nice in theory but they cost a pretty penny to build and maintain – especially as the number of platforms grows. Is the return worth it? Or should publishers plow that money into other parts of their editorial operation?
Platform proliferation: The initial promise of apps appeared brightest on Apple’s iPad. But now dozens of tablets, from the Galaxy to the Kindle Fire, are emerging – and consumers are finally picking them up. Do all these new screens present a new opportunity? Or another reason to escape apps once and for all?
Nice app, where do I find it? Those who want to wash their hands of apps are faced with a powerful counter-argument: You need to be where your readers are. As the mobile market grows, are the app skeptics confident their readers will find them on the mobile web?
Does sub-compact change the app game? The arrival of so-called sub-compact publishing offers a way to create light-weight and relatively inexpensive apps. Examples like Marco Arment’s The Magazine and The Awl also show how these new species of apps can deliver both a beautiful reading experience and an ongoing stream of subscription revenue. Do these offer an opportunity that the mobile web cannot?
As part of its initiative to introduce some topnotch voice call capabilities, AT&T has confirmed it will roll out some improved network capabilities for its customers. First off the bat is the Ma Bell offering full HD Voice service for its customers later this year. AT&T senior VP Kris Rinne asserts that “HD Voice is part of our voice over LTE strategy“. The reasoning, you ask? AT&T certainly lacks the call quality and clarity that its competition has, so it is in the wireless carrier’s best interests to ensure that its call quality is topnotch.
Additionally, AT&T will showcase even more features for its customers. Rinne confirmed that AT&T is currently working on “advanced LTE”, which does things to reduce interference and bond together traffic from various frequencies which you guessed it— will presumably help to improved things like its upcoming HD Voice service.
Look for both the “advanced LTE” and HD Voice to arrive sometime later this year.
Which is odder: That Amazon, the Kindle company, hired a guy named Kindel to head up a new stealth mobile development project? Or that Amazon hired a Windows phone guy to head a mobile project?
That’s what’s happened. As Geekwire reported on Monday — and yes it dispensed with the April Fool’s aspect – Charlie Kindel, who helped build Windows 7 Phone and then left Microsoft for a startup in 2011, is now at Amazon “working on something wonderful,” according to his LinkedIn profile
His current job description:
“I’m building a new team going after a totally new area for Amazon. I’m hiring cloud and mobile developers and testers, program managers, and product managers.”
There’s been other evidence that Amazon, which fields the Kindle reader lineup, is also getting more mobility-focused in its Amazon Web Services group. It’s building a new development group in Palo Alto, Calif. to build client side applications and folks also expect AWS to expose more of its existing technology services (as well as future offerings) in a Mobile Backend as a Service (MBaaS).
There have been rumors for months that Amazon is building its own smart phone. And, as GigaOM’s mobile maven Kevin Tofel put it: If Amazon is doing a phone and just pulled Kindel into it it’ll be hard for the company to get anything out by summer, which has been a rumored release target. If they do get something out by then, Kindel will have had very little, if any, input into what they’ve done.
One thing’s for certain, a couple months down the road we’ll start seeing lots of Amazon mobile services news posted on the AWS blog.
Right now, Deutsche Telekom and France Telecom’s EE joint venture is the only 4G-toting carrier in the United Kingdom. That will change soon enough though, as the much-delayed 4G spectrum auction is now done and dusted, so EE is doing all it can to capitalize on its early start.
The operator’s latest marketing tactic involves one of London’s greatest icons: the Hackney carriage, or “black cab” as most people call it. EE has put a 4G MiFi router into 50 of the vehicles in London and Birmingham (40 in the former, 10 in the latter), and passengers will be able to use the service for free.
Displaying a true marketing professional’s grasp of physics, EE brand chief Spencer McHugh claimed in a statement that users will be able to “browse, download, catch up on emails, Tweet and check Facebook literally at the speed of light”.
EE’s three-month promotion is not the first to combine the black cab with wireless connectivity. Back in December, ad firm Eyetease said it had gained approval from London’s transport authorities to put hotspots into the vehicles, with users needing to watch a 15-second ad in order to get 15 minutes of free surfing. The ISP Virgin Media also gains a great deal of exposure by providing Wi-Fi for commuters in certain London Underground stations.
Do you find yourself hounded by obnoxious or offensive people on Skype for Windows 8? You would normally block such unwanted guests, but Skype for Windows 8 shipped without the functionality. Thankfully, Skype has finally decided to fix that little oversight.
Skype announced that its latest update, which went live on March 29, added the ability to block, report or remove contacts. Some Skype users abuse the service to send spam or malicious messages so the block functionality is much appreciated.
Of course, blocking contacts in Windows 8 is a little different than usual, but it’s still pretty easy to do:
To block a contact, select the person’s name to open up the chat window. Bring up the command bar by swiping at the top or bottom of your screen (or right click), and select block. You may also choose whether you want to remove or report the contact request as spam.
Sure we have been begging for a concrete release date, pricing details and potential exclusive goodies regarding AT&T’s upcoming HTC One smartphone, but fortunately— AT&T has finally delivered. The nation’s second largest carrier has confirmed that it will make the flagship device available for purchase on April 19th for an on-contract price of $199.99 for the 32GB version and $299.99 for the 64GB version. Not a bad deal, right folks?
Additionally, AT&T will offer a special gift for those of you that chose to pre-order the device before the masses. Ma Bell confirmed it will offer a special Media Link HD streaming bundle for those of you that pre-order prior to April 19th. In case you’re not familiar, the Media Link HD unit allows customers to wirelessly stream quality content from the smartphone to the television— all using an HDMI cable from the Media Link HD unit to the TV. Best thing of all— the Media Link HD unit will be bundled for the smooth price of free—- for limited time of course.
And let the HTC One pandemonium officially begin. Hit the break for the full presser from AT&T.
HTC One Arrives at AT&T April 19 Starting at $199.99
Beginning April 19, AT&T* plans to offer the highly-anticipated HTC One® smartphone to customers for $199.99 with a two-year commitment, for the 32 GB memory variant. AT&T is the only U.S. wireless carrier at launch to also offer a version with 64 GB of memory for $299.99 with a two-year commitment.
Customers eager to reserve their HTC One will be able to pre-order at www.att.com/htcone on April 4 starting at 1:00 p.m. CT. Only AT&T offers a free** HTC Media Link HD wireless HDMI adaptor*** (a $90 value), which lets you wirelessly share content from your phone to your HD television.
The HTC One runs on AT&T 4G LTE, the nation’s fastest 4G LTE network.**** AT&T has the nation’s largest 4G network, covering 288 million people.
HTC One is available in black and silver and boasts a powerful 1.7 GHz quad-core processor, and zero-gap aluminum unibody with a 4.7-inch full HD (1080p) screen and HTC Sense® innovations, to re-shape your smartphone experience.
HTC BlinkFeed™ provides customized content and real-time updates streamed live on your home screen. HTC BlinkFeed aggregates your content from a variety of media sources, serving up fresh content all in one place, without the need to jump between multiple applications and web sites. HTC Zoe™ mode on the HTC One lets you grab the entire moment and bring it to life in three-second snippets. Special moments can be captured in HTC Zoe highlights, and displayed in a living gallery that you can set to music and special effects. AT&T Locker helps you hold onto those memories no matter where you are. You can automatically store photos, videos and documents in the cloud, so you can access and share from your smartphone or computer. The HTC UltraPixel Camera with a breakthrough sensor gathers 300 percent more light than traditional smartphone camera sensors and delivers outstanding low-light performance.
HTC BoomSound™ provides rich, clear sound with minimal distortion, as well as the authentic sound experience you expect from built-in Beats™ by Dr. Dre Audio. HTC One features dual front-facing speakers and a built-in amplifier to bring music, movies and games alive. Since the speakers are on the front of the device, you no longer have to worry about muffled sound when setting your phone down. HTC Sense TV™ lets you use your HTC One as an interactive TV guide and remote control. It can be set up in a few simple steps and gives you the ability to access electronic program guides and control a receiver and home theatre right from your phone’s screen.
The HTC One features AT&T DriveMode®, an app that helps curb texting and driving. The app can be set-up to automatically send a customizable reply to incoming messages once a vehicle starts moving 25 mph. The auto-reply message is similar to an “out-of-office alert” and can reply to texts, emails and wireless callers letting your friends know that you are driving and unable to respond.*****
Setting up your new HTC One is a snap with AT&T Ready2Go, a free service that helps you to easily set up and personalize your device in minutes from the comfort of your personal computer. With Ready2Go, it’s easy to set up your email accounts, import your contacts, connect to your social networks and more.
For more information, visit www.att.com/htcone.
*AT&T products and services are provided or offered by subsidiaries and affiliates of AT&T Inc. under the AT&T brand and not by AT&T Inc.
**A $90 value. Offers ends April 18, 2013. 2-year wireless agreement with voice & data plans or Mobile Share plan required on each. Other charges and restrictions apply
***HTC’s wireless Media Link HD* accessory is compatible with TV’s that support HDMI input.
****Limited 4G LTE availability in select markets. LTE is a trademark of ETSI. Claim based on a comparison of U.S. national carriers’ average 4G LTE download speeds for Android™ and Windows smartphones and iPhone 5. 4G speeds not available everywhere.
*****Data and text messaging charges may apply for download and app usage. Standard messaging rates apply to auto-reply messages. AT&T DriveMode is free to AT&T customers only. Compatible device required.
About AT&T
AT&T Inc. (NYSE:T) is a premier communications holding company and one of the most honored companies in the world. Its subsidiaries and affiliates – AT&T operating companies – are the providers of AT&T services in the United States and internationally. With a powerful array of network resources that includes the nation’s largest 4G network, AT&T is a leading provider of wireless, Wi-Fi, high speed Internet, voice and cloud-based services. A leader in mobile Internet, AT&T also offers the best wireless coverage worldwide of any U.S. carrier, offering the most wireless phones that work in the most countries. It also offers advanced TV services under the AT&T U-verse® and AT&T |DIRECTV brands. The company’s suite of IP-based business communications services is one of the most advanced in the world.
Additional information about AT&T Inc. and the products and services provided by AT&T subsidiaries and affiliates is available at http://www.att.com/aboutus or follow our news on @ATT, on Facebook at http://www.facebook.com/att and YouTube at http://www.youtube.com/att.
HTC, HTC One, HTC Blinkfeed, HTC BoomSound, HTC Sense and HTC Zoe are trademarks of HTC Corporation. Beats Audio is a trademark of Beats Electronics, LLC.
You probably can think of something in your company that should change. We all can — but often look the other way. There are plenty of good reasons for inaction: It’s not my responsibility, I have lots of other things to do, someone might get angry at me for stepping on their turf. While we value the concepts of making active decisions and empowering ourselves to make a difference, they’re often ignored. In fact, most of the time we wait for someone else to empower us first.
But every once in a while, someone doesn’t wait. This kind of person doesn’t focus on the excuses and tries to change something anyway, no matter how long the odds. Understanding someone like that can give us clues (and maybe some inspiration) about what it really takes to be self-empowered.
In this case, the person I’m referring to is Dirk Beveridge, who has a small firm that creates sales strategies for wholesale distribution companies. In the United States, wholesale distribution is a $4.8 trillion industry that employs 5.6 million workers — but is mostly comprised of entrepreneurial, family-run businesses with fewer than 500 employees. Over the last few years, Dirk began to realize that the business model for wholesale distribution was dramatically changing as manufacturers increasingly sell direct to consumers, and large firms like Amazon and Grainger use their technology and scale to squeeze out the traditional middlemen. Yet most industry leaders were either in denial or didn’t know what to do. As one of his clients said to him, “A train wreck is coming at us.”
Obviously Dirk could have simply observed this phenomenon, commiserated with his clients, and continued to run the traditional work of his business. Instead, Dirk decided that it was time to bring new thinking to the wholesale distribution industry through a series of conferences and videos that he called “Unleash WD.” The idea, as he described it, was to catalyze industry leaders into action by giving them exposure to ideas outside of their traditional world.
After bouncing the concept off of several industry CEOs, but still unsure whether he could pull it off, last summer Dirk began to recruit speakers for what he called a Provocation Summit. Offering not much more than the chance to make a difference (and travel expenses) his line up eventually included Fast-Company Founder Bill Taylor; Saul Kaplan, who runs the Business Innovation Factory in Providence; Whitney Johnson, founding partner of Rose Park Advisors; Lara Lee, the Chief Innovation and Operating Officer of Continuum; and a dozen others (including me). The main criteria were that the speakers came from outside the industry, and would be able to tell stories (sort of like TED-talks) about how other companies went about innovation and reinvention.
Based on this roster of speakers (which he called “storytellers”), Dirk found a company to partially underwrite the conference and ended up with over 40 senior industry leaders in Chicago in November — not a great turnout, but what he calls a “good start.” And the participants agreed: “I might be an old dog, but your event has my tail wagging,” “I feel I can truly be a disruptive agent,” and “You have changed my mindset.”
Of course, this one event didn’t change the wholesale distribution industry, and it cost Dirk a fair amount of time and money. But the experience seems to have made him even more committed. He’s distributing videos of his “storytellers”, sending around whitepapers, and getting ready for a second and larger Provocation Summit (now called the Innovation Summit) later this year. As he says, “It’s the right thing to do.”
Most of us see opportunities that are “the right things to do,” but unlike Dirk don’t have the courage, energy, or time to do anything about them. But imagine what could be accomplished if that pattern was reversed and more of us empowered ourselves instead of waiting to be empowered? According to several CEOs who I’ve worked with, this is the most significant cultural and business challenge that they see in their organizations.
So perhaps it’s time to try a modest experiment: Identify one possible improvement in your organization. Pick something easy such as changing a meeting or streamlining a report; or find something more challenging, such as speeding up customer response time. Whatever the issue, make a commitment to do something about it in the next week. Join forces with other colleagues. Reconfigure your workload so that you can carve off some time. Identify all the reasons why you can’t do this little project, and then do it anyway. Then learn from your experience and do it again. Just remember: Nobody can empower you as much as you can empower yourself. In that way, everyone can be a Dirk Beveridge.
Six European Union data protection regulators are reportedly planning to launch “coordinated” simultaneous enforcement actions against Google (GOOG) due to its failure to change its privacy policy. The company was given four months to comply with regulators’ recommendations, however it has failed to do so. An investigation led by France’s National Commission for Computing and Civil Liberties, in cooperation with regulators in the U.K., Germany, Italy, Spain and the Netherlands found that Google’s unified privacy policy may be in violation of the European Data Protection Directive. It is now up to regulators in each country to investigate the matter and decide the appropriate action that should be taken.
Bitcoin is getting a lot of attention in the news this week with the value of a single Bitcoin surpassing $100, and the currency’s total value topping $1 billion. Naturally, a lot of questions are being asked.
Questions like: What is it? Is it the future of currency? How valuable can it get? How risky is it to use Bitcoin? One article even asks if “Bitcoin versus government” is the “new gun rights battle”.
First off, if you’re unfamiliar with the concept of Bitcoin, a brief explanation is probably in order. It’s a non-government-based, open source, P2P digital currency, in short. As Bitcoin.org explains, it’s also a protocol, and a software than enables instant P2P transactions, worldwide payments, low or zero processing fees and “much more”.
“Bitcoin uses peer to peer technology to operate with no central authority; managing transactions and issuing Bitcoins are carried out collectively by the network,” the site explains. “Through many of its unique properties, Bitcoin allows exciting uses that could not be covered by any previous payment systems.”
“As a new user, you only need to choose a wallet that you will install on your computer or on your mobile phone,” Bitcoin.org explains. “Once you have your wallet installed, it will generate your first Bitcoin address and you can create more whenever you need one. You can disclose one of your Bitcoin addresses to your friends so that they can pay you or vice versa, you can pay your friends if they give you their addresses. In fact, this is pretty similar to how email works. So all that is left to do at this point is to get some bitcoins and to keep them safe. In order to start using Bitcoin, you are not required to understand the technical details.”
There are reasons why Bitcoin might appeal to the non-geeky. As Business Insider’s Henry Blodget writes on Yahoo Finance, “The premise and promise of Bitcoin–the part that appeals to folks who don’t happen to be gold bugs or cryptography geeks–is that the current plan is for only a finite number of Bitcoins to be created. This is in direct contrast to standard government-issued currencies, which governments can always print more of. If the supply of Bitcoins remains finite, this should theoretically eliminate inflation, which is one of the biggest drawbacks of paper money.”
In turbulent worldwide economic times like these, this presents a pretty interesting concept.
In the wake of a “press avalanche” following a controversy in which Bitcoin was being used in drug transactions, Andresen said, “Where the first couple of mainstream articles about Bitcoin caught the attention of other reporters, who in turn also wrote about it, which then triggered even more press. That was both great and terrible for the project: great because it drew a lot more technical and business talent to look at Bitcoin and start Bitcoin-related projects, but terrible because when people realized that Bitcoin still has a lot of growing up to do, the speculative bubble popped.”
“I think it is very likely the same thing will happen again sometime in the next few years as other parts of the world discover Bitcoin or it is re-discovered in Europe and the U.S.,” he said. “I expect the wild price fluctuations to diminish over time as Bitcoin infrastructure grows up and speculators start to get a better idea of the real value of Bitcoin.”
Indeed, many have now seen the value. Not only has the Bitcoin’s value surpassed $100, but there is a huge list of online and real world businesses that currently accept Bitcoin here. Even that is not all inclusive, as it is noticeably missing reddit, which recently announced that it now accepts Bitcoin for reddit gold.
If you’re a small business interested in accepting Bitcoin yourself, you’d probably do well to start with this walkthrough.
“If you expect that the number of people interested in using Bitcoin is small, you might simply start by posting a sign or a note: ‘We Accept Bitcoin’, and ask people to contact you directly in order to make a payment,” it says. “Even if hardly anybody uses Bitcoin as a payment method, you’re helping Bitcoin in two ways: one, by increasing awareness, and two, by making your customers more willing to accept Bitcoin as payment from others in the future, because now they know somewhere they can spend it.”
For selling goods or services on a website, it says, you’ll want to use a Bitcoin merchant solution to accept the currency. You can usually opt to have Bitcoins converted to dollars or other currencies automatically. For brick and mortars, customers can pay with their mobile phone apps, so the guide recommends placing a QR code near your register, so customers can quickly scan and pay.
“I tell people to only invest time or money in Bitcoin that they can afford to lose,” Andresen said in the interview. “There are a lot of things that could possibly derail it, ranging from some fundamental flaw in the algorithm that everybody has missed to world-wide government regulation to some alternative rising up and replacing Bitcoin.”
He did note at the time that he finds these scenarios to be unlikely.
He also had some interesting things to say about potential digital currency competition: “I think to overcome Bitcoin’s head-start, an alternative will either have to have a large company or government backing it and marketing it. Or else, it will have to be radically better in some way. There seems to be a perception that Bitcoin is in a winner-take-all race against other currencies; either everybody in the world will be using it for all of their online purchases in 50 years or it will not exist. I think the online payment world will like our current world of currencies – different currencies used in different places. The online payments won’t be divided by geography, though it might be divided by language or culture or social network.”
“I think there will eventually be one dominant currency that is used for 80% of worldwide online transactions,” he predicted. “But I think there will always be alternatives. The most likely outcome in my lifetime, the next 40 years or so, is most people will use their national currencies when purchasing goods and services from other people in their own countries but will use something else for international payments.”
Questions about the security of Bitcoin are likely to run through many heads, particularly as we read about sites and businesses being hacked nearly every day. The Bitcoin stance on this is essentially that the security is in your hands just as the security of your physical wallet is. It’s up to you to take the precautions. It is recommended that you backup your wallet, encrypt your wallet, “be careful with online wallets,” and use an offline back up for savings. This is all discussed a bit more here.
“To steal your Bitcoins, thieves would have to break into both your computer or smartphone and your bank,” Andresen said in the interview. “And, it would be impossible for anybody at the bank to steal them without first breaking into your computer.”
There is a lot of speculation out there about what Bitcoin can truly become, and that’s not likely to change anytime soon. Andresen tweeted that he enjoys “appropriately skeptical but accurate articles,” like “How Bitcoin could destroy the state (and perhaps make me a bit of money)” at The Spectator. Here’s an excerpt from that to give you an idea of what he means:
So. The first thing you need to know about Bitcoin is that it’s a peer-to-peer, digitised crypto-currency. No, please, don’t stop reading. Just hold that one in your mind while we talk about the second and third things you need to know about Bitcoin, which are far more exciting. For example, you can buy drugs with it! I mean, sure, you can buy plenty of other stuff, too, but I’m really not sure anybody actually does. According to one study, Silk Road, the main ‘buy drugs with Bitcoin’ website, has a monthly turnover of around a million quid. And thirdly — you’ll like this one, you capitalist Spectator types — its value is rocketing. A month ago — out of interest, rather than a desire for heroin, Mum — I bought £100 of Bitcoin. Two weeks ago, like, I said, it was worth £157. Today, it’s worth £213. Interested yet?
Actually, the second and third things aren’t as important as I made out. Mnyeh, drugs, you can buy them anywhere. And, sure, Bitcoin is bullish at the moment, but the value notoriously bounces all over the place (in 2010 somebody spent 10,000 of them on a pizza, a sum which would today make that pizza worth £465,368). So, no, far more interesting than the drugs and riches is the core idea, which is this peer-to-peer crypto business. For the non-tech-savvy among us, this basically means it’s not quite like any other currency we’ll have ever used. It doesn’t have a central bank. Nobody is in charge. A Bitcoin is a thing that simply exists, like gold.
There is a hard limit on the amount of Bitcoins that can be created, and that’s 21 million. That number is expected to be reached in the year 2140. Is Bitcoin’s future bright enough to last that long? Do you accept Bitcoin payments? Do you plan to? Do you use the currency to make payments? Share your thoughts about this interesting digital money platform in the comments.
As expected, President Obama has officially announced a bold new brain-mapping project that will attempt to do for the human brain what the Human Genome Project did for human genetics.
The Brain Research through Advancing Innovative Neurotechnologies (BRAIN) project “promises to accelerate the invention of new technologies that will help researchers produce real-time pictures of complex neural circuits and visualize the rapid-fire interactions of cells that occur at the speed of thought.”
In a post on the White House blog, Director of the National Institutes of Health Dr. Francis Collins and Director of the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency Dr. Arati Prabhakar say the project will help scientists better understand the human mind and that could lead to breakthroughs in the prevention and treatment of many brain disorders like Alzheimer’s, schizophrenia, autism, and epilepsy.
The President calls the project ambitious, but achievable.
BRAIN will be supported by $100 million in governmental funding (per Obama’s 2014 Fiscal Year budget) – coming from the National Institutes of Health (NIH), the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA), and the National Science Foundation (NSF). It’s also getting a good chunk of private funding, from sources like the Allen Institute for Brain Science, the Howard Hughes Medical Institute, and the Kavli Foundation, who have pledged an annual spend of $60 million, $30 million, and $4 million, respectively.
“Like sequencing the human genome, President Obama’s BRAIN Initiative provides an opportunity to rally innovative capacities in every corner of the Nation and leverage the diverse skills, tools, and resources from a variety of sectors to have a lasting positive impact on lives, the economy, and our national security,” says the White House.
CapMan Russia has created a new fund for investing in small and mid-sized Russian businesses. CapMan Russia II held a first close at the end of March, with EUR97 million ($124 million).
PRESS RELEASE
CapMan has established the CapMan Russia II fund. The first closing of the fund was held on 28 March 2013 at EUR97 million (approx. $124 million). The fund will invest in small and mid-sized enterprises (SMEs) in Russia. The positive impact of the increase in management fees as a result of the establishment of the fund is in line with previously provided guidance.
“The CapMan Russia II fund seeks to capitalise on the continued strong development of Russian SMEs through investments in fast-growing sectors, such as consumer goods and healthcare, and in the growth regions beyond Moscow and St. Petersburg. Our Moscow-based team has been successfully investing in Russian SMEs since 1996 and the establishment of this fund enables us to further build on our leading position in the Russian middle market. Deal flow remains strong and competition is still relatively low,” says Hans Christian Dall Nygård, Senior Partner and Head of CapMan Russia.
In addition to CapMan Plc and the CapMan Russia investment team, 10 investors have made commitments to the fund to date. CapMan’s and the team’s share of the commitments is EUR3 million, or approx. 3%. Fundraising for the fund continues.
“We are delighted to see a combination of existing and new LPs from the Nordics, Europe and the US in our fund. Total commitments for the 2008 vintage CapMan Russia fund were EUR118 million and we are pleased having achieved in excess of 80% of that amount already in the first closing. Russia remains a niche strategy for many LPs, but most LPs who have looked at the market fundamentals and our unique experience with fast-growing SMEs – including 28 exits and 17 years of operation – have been positively surprised by the attractiveness of this opportunity,” comments Jerome Bouix, Senior Partner, Head of Business Development and Investor Relations at CapMan.
In addition to commitments received in the first closing, the CapMan Russia II fund has received a further commitment from the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (EBRD) of approx. EUR20 million (approx. $26 million). The total EBRD commitment is capped at 30% of the fund size and subject to certain other conditions.
CapMan www.capman.com
CapMan Group is one of the leading private equity firms in the Nordic countries and Russia, with assets under management of EUR3.1 billion. CapMan has five key investment partnerships – CapMan Buyout, CapMan Russia, CapMan Credit, CapMan Public Market, and CapMan Real Estate – each of which has its own dedicated investment team and funds. Altogether, CapMan employs 110 people in
Helsinki, Stockholm, Oslo, Moscow and Luxembourg. CapMan was established in 1989 and has been listed on the Helsinki Stock Exchange since 2001.
When it comes to picking up new skills, you might have all the motivation in the world, but actually finding the time to do the work is where the real challenge lies.
Since launching in 2010, online learning startup Udemy has offered learners the opportunity to take online classes from home. On Tuesday, the company upped the convenience factor with an iOS app that lets students take classes directly from their smartphones.
With 600,000 users enrolled in the company’s paid and free classes, Udemy is attracting a strong following. But given competition from longtime online learning company lynda.com, as well as startups Skillshare and Codecademy, Udemy clearly wants another way to hook and keep students. While lynda.com does have a mobile app for users, several other Udemy rivals do not.
Dinesh Thiru, Udemy’s vice president of marketing, said the company’s students, many of whom are enrolled in classes with hopes of career advancement, are professionals with busy lives.
“They know learning is important, but they struggle to find the time,” he said. “We built the Udemy iPhone app to help them find that time… to enable them to learn whenever and wherever they find those extra fifteen minutes.”
From the new app, students can enroll in free and paid courses and access video and audio lectures, presentations, articles and other course components. It also enables students to save courses for offline viewing (for subway commutes and plane rides), as well as watch videos at accelerated speeds.
For now, the app isn’t available for Android users and doesn’t allow students to interact with peers as they can via the web, but Thiru said those developments are on the company’s roadmap.
Udemy, which is backed by investors including Insight Venture Partners, Lightbank and 500 Startups, enables anyone from individual experts to bestselling authors to offer video-based courses. It currently offers more than 6,000 courses on topics ranging from web development and entrepreneurship to literature and fitness.
Today, President Obama unveiled the BRAIN (Brain Research through Advancing Innovative Neurotechnologies) Initiative, which aims to help researchers find new ways to treat, cure, and even prevent brain disorders, such as Alzheimer’s disease, epilepsy, and traumatic brain injury.
At 12:00 p.m. EDT on Tuesday, April 2nd, you'll have a chance to ask questions about the initiative in the latest Open for Questions session with Tom Kalil, Deputy Director for Technology and Innovation in the Office of Science and Technology Policy; Dr. Francis Collins, Director of National Institutes of Health; and Dr. Arati Prabhakar, Director of the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA).
Since Grand Theft Auto III, the series has employed an iconic cover art that’s uniquely GTA. The latest game in the franchise indicates that Rockstar isn’t ditching the style yet.
Rockstar Games today revealed the cover art for the upcoming Grand Theft Auto V. Like past games, the cover art gives plenty of attention to the protagonists of the title while showcasing other characters and scenes that players will encounter in the game.
The cover art reveal hopefully signals that Rockstar will start sharing more details on GTAV. The game still largely remains a mystery at this point, but that should all change in the coming months. In fact, we should see the biggest info drop on the title at this year’s E3 in June.
Grand Theft Auto V is scheduled to launch across the Xbox 360 and PS3 on September 17. A PC port will probably come a few months after if the delayed release of GTAIV on the PC is any indication. As for a Wii U port, don’t hold your breath.
The rumors surrounding everyone’s favorite mismatched telecom partners Verizon and Vodafone are escalating. No longer is Vodafone considering selling its 45 percent stake in Verizon Wireless to Verizon. No longer is Verizon considering buying Vodafone. Instead, according to The Financial Times’Alphaville blog, Verizon is teaming up with arch-rival AT&T for a possible bid on Vodafone.
In short this would be one hell of an deal, and by FT reckoning it would be the largest M&A transaction in history. That should be one reason to be skeptical that it’s true. There would be some big regulatory hurdles to such a deal, though they could probably be overcome since AT&T and Verizon wouldn’t themselves be merging. The biggest reason for skepticism, though, is we’ve been hearing talk of Verizon-Vodafone deals practically since the two companies combined their U.S. mobile operations in 2000. So far they’ve all come to naught.
You probably already know that Microsoft is bringing its BUILD conference to San Francisco this June. It’s not cheap, the tickets and airfare could set you back considerably depending on where you are coming from, but it may be worth the expense to make the trip. Microsoft has promised to unveil Windows Blue there — though you’re likely to have seen the early leaked version already.
Today is the time to get your credit card ready because registration goes live at 9 AM PT and while it will not be easy on your wallet, those who register early, as in within the first 500, will get a discounted rate and only have their bank accounts lightened by $1,595. If you do not make that “early bird” special then you can expect to pay $2,095 for the privilege of travelling to the Moscone Center in San Francisco.
Aside from the promised Blue unveiling, there is no real guarantee of what to expect. The official site teases all things Microsoft — Windows, Windows Phone, Azure, Xbox, Internet Explorer, Office 365 and even Visual Studio. Microsoft’s Frank Shaw has promised that “at BUILD, developers will see what’s next for Windows, Windows Server, Windows Azure, Visual Studio and more”.
You will pay more for BUILD than you would to attend Google I/O and you can likely expect less goodies, although Microsoft has been known to give out a few things, such as the Windows 8 tablet it handed out back in 2011. Still, for developers this is the big Microsoft event and will likely sell out rather quickly.
Italian scientists believe they may have found the famed “gate to hell” known as Pluto’s Gate. The site was believed to have been built on top of a cave that emits toxic gas, which was believed by the Greeks and Romans to be the entrance to the underworld, where Pluto, god of the underworld, resided. The temple at the site is thought to have been destroyed by Christians in the 6th century.
According to a Discovery News report, Italian archaeologists at the University of Salento believe they have found the cave in Turkey. After retracing the route of a thermal spring, the scientists found a cave with ruins – including columns bearing inscriptions referring to the gods Pluto and Kore.
Ancient texts place Pluto’s Gate in the city of Hierapolis, now present-day Pamukkale, Turkey, where archaeologists found the ruins.
The scientists told Discovery News that a number of birds died during the excavation process, killed by carbon dioxide fumes that emanate from the cave. Researchers state that worship ceremonies at the site in ancient times involved animal sacrifice, in which animals would be thrown into the cave.
(Image courtesy Francesco D’Andria/University of Salento)
