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2012-02-18T09:34:00.001-08:00

The Latest from TechCrunch

Android Breathes New Life Into “Made in China”
Groupon On A Shopping Spree: Buys Mobile Payment Specialist Kima Labs
Daily Crunch: Rectangle
Pinterest Is Not “Playing Dumb” About Making Money
CrunchBase: Social, Mobile And Deals Categories Led 2011 Private Tech Investments
Purported Next-Gen iPad Display Caught And Examined; 2048×1536 Resolution Confirmed
Groupon Acquires NYC-Based Startup Hyperpublic
Keen On… Pomplamoose: How Nataly And Jack Are Reinventing The Music Business (TCTV)
Irrationally Paranoid? AdiOS Shows Which Apps Access Your Address Book
Google Under Fire For Circumventing Safari Privacy Setting
Fundraising Platform For Startups ProFounder Shuts Its Doors
Gillmor Gang Live 02.17.12 (TCTV)
Rumor Roundup: What To Expect From HTC At Mobile World Congress
New Windows Logo Shows Microsoft Is Going All In With Windows 8
Review: The Playstation Vita, Sony’s Portable Powerhouse
After Conquering The World, Our Favorite Angry Birds Head Into Space On March 22
Cobook, A Slick Address Book App That Doesn’t Upload Your Data
Study: Windows Web Browsing Market Share Drops 10% Over Past 6 Months
WinZip iOS App Lets You Crack Open .Zip Files From Anywhere

Android Breathes New Life Into “Made in China”

Posted: 18 Feb 2012 06:01 AM PST

Editor’s note: Benjamin Dolgin-Gardner is the founder of szceit.com in Shenzhen, China.

How do you end up with millions of new sales overnight with low development and implementation costs? In the case of Chinese electronics companies Rock Chips and Box Chips the answer has been simple – hitch a ride on Android.

China’s economy is booming thanks to low cost assembly, the country’s key advantage when competing on the global playing field. Manufacturers deliver low cost laborers who are able to follow processes and procedures to a reasonable degree of accuracy at very reasonable rates, and thus gain an edge over Western manufacturers.

In my years in China I’ve seen technologies come and go, but none have excited these manufacturers like the prospect of Android. It’s a solid, “open” operating system that lets them do a number of interesting things without many risks.

The West in turn has provided the "design" element of the process, enabling the overall product to be reliable and aesthetically pleasing. Chinese companies aren’t yet geared to competing in this arena. In order to undertake the gamble of developing an OS that gave them an exclusively Chinese platform (a la Microsoft or Apple for the US), Chinese firms would need an extensive process of re-education.

Then there’s the problem of IP. While Western competitors have strong rules in place (and real penalties) for infringement of their IP – Chinese companies face a business environment where their development costs would be lost overnight as soon as another company could clone their product. Success, then, often led to copying.

This of course doesn’t mean that Western companies in China get an easy ride. In fact Apple, a strong defender of its IP everywhere, has been unable to prevent clones and copies from flooding the market, all guaranteed to look similar to the original, though never approaching the same quality or usability.

So it becomes clear why Android is so appealing to the Chinese marketplace: it enables companies to move into the usability "design" space that they’ve previously been unable to access. Here you have a strong, internationally accepted operating system, with an open license to be copied (at no cost) and installed and used on any device you like. In fact the OS developer positively encourages you to do so.

It’s a stable platform with the weight of Google behind it and the thousands of talented computer science graduates in the country can play with it, adapt it and improve it – without having to design a system from the ground up. The market entry costs are limited to wages, so there’s a huge incentive for Chinese firms to get involved.

This means that the traditional IC players now face stiff competition from China, with Rock Chips and Box Chips already selling millions and another local firm, Actions, about to enter the fray. These companies can focus on the Android platform and develop newer and faster processors to support the latest hardware and Android updates. As the OS gains further market traction and the Chinese companies find a growing talent pool of skilled engineers to work with it, this competition is going to get stronger.

Niche developers in China will benefit, too. They’ll have local chip sets for reasonable costs, and a versatile workforce to draw on – moving more in the long-term to a quality model, based on customization opportunities and away from a volume pricing model.

Currently there’s still a defined lag from Chinese firms in the commodity technology market, and when Android first launched this lag was a year or more over developed nation equivalents, but today this is down to 3 or 4 months. Soon Chinese companies, playing to their own strengths in the supply chain, will close this gap to make it negligible or even begin to take a leading role.

For Google this is a big win too. The Chinese consumer market is a huge one and the trade-off for using a free Google service is that the user agrees to share data with Google. Of course Google's ability to aggregate massive amounts of personal data directly relates to the quality of their products and services, but it matters more how they can exploit the information they gain from their use.

China has only 40 million credit card users (based on slightly outdated figures released in 2010) and over 500 million computer users. This means that if the Android system were to appear on just 10% of all devices in the country, Google could conceivably, but probably won’t be able to access, more information on Chinese consumers than the country’s credit agencies! The rub is that the Android these firms are running is not “official” and as such rarely communicates with Google’s servers.

As the price of Android tablets and phones continues to decrease, the percentage of users is likely to grow exponentially.

This model of quality firmware partnered with lower-cost, mid-quality hardware, enables companies like Rock Chips and Box Chips to make millions of unit sales, and to win over not only the traditional "value" customer, but also the more discerning customers, domestically and overseas. It also encourages other IC manufacturers to come to the party and many will soon be joining them in an Android led technology revolution.

Groupon On A Shopping Spree: Buys Mobile Payment Specialist Kima Labs

Posted: 18 Feb 2012 01:42 AM PST

Another acquisition for Groupon, and a sign of how the e-commerce company is getting more focused on mobile as a route to future growth: it has picked up Kima Labs, which makes mobile barcode reading app Barcode Hero and mobile payment app TapBuy. The terms of the deal were not disclosed; we’re trying to find out.

The news comes just hours after news broke that Groupon had bought another mobile startup, Hyperpublic, which makes geolocation technology.

As a result of the acquisition, Barcode Hero — according to its site, which confirms that Groupon has purchased Kima Labs — will be closing down its service effective Monday, February 20. That means its iPhone app will no longer be available to download after that date. Those who already use the app will have until March 16 to download their data.

As for TapBuy, it’s not clear yet what will happen with the company’s service: the site still does not make any mention of the acquisition, so presumably users of its location-based deals will be able to continue using the service. Like Groupon, TapBuy offers daily deals, in its case for some 100 brands. It also processes transactions using credit card information provided by users, providing some intelligence behind it by grouping purchases together and adding coupons to purchases.

Kima Labs was founded by Blake Scholl and Jason Crawford, who cut their e-commerce teeth at Amazon.com, among other places, and its main focus is mobile shopping. Scholl has confirmed the acquisition directly to me, too, for what it’s worth.

Kima’s chief engineer, Andrew Miner, is also ex-Amazon. There, he led the team behind Amazon Global, the service that lets users buy from Amazon and merchant partners internationally. That points to this acquisition potentially having a wide remit for the company, which has expanded aggressively outside the U.S. (at a big cost, according to the last quarterly results).

All also worked together at Pelago, which was acquired by Groupon in April 2011. As TC reported at the time, Pelago’s CEO, Jeff Holden, now oversees product development at Groupon. Pelago’s most well-known product was location-based services/check-in app Whrrl.

Kima Labs has an impressive list of backers, including Naval Ravikant, Ron Conway, Owen Van Natta, and a strategic investment from the Washington Post Company.

The Kima Labs acquisition, coupled with the Hyperpublic news yesterday, represents a significant pick-up in mobile activity for Groupon under VP of mobile, Michael Shim, who hopped over to Groupon from Yahoo a year ago — one of the many bright execs that Yahoo lost last year in a spate of departures.

Put together, they give a strong indication of how Groupon sees its mobile future shaping up longer term: yes, the company wants to push good deals to you when you’re on the move and near a point of purchase, but Groupon could be looking to play an even more central role in the bigger opportunity in mobile commerce, too.

Daily Crunch: Rectangle

Posted: 18 Feb 2012 01:00 AM PST

Here are some recent stories on TechCrunch Gadgets:

Motorola Droid 4 Review: This Keyboard Rocks, But That's About It

Review: The Playstation Vita, Sony's Portable Powerhouse

More Backpedaling: Netflix Brings Back the $7.99 DVD-Only Plan

ProView Is Suing Apple Over The Rights To An iMac Clone

Foxconn Increases Wages, Raises Pay By 16-25% For Chinese Workers

Pinterest Is Not “Playing Dumb” About Making Money

Posted: 17 Feb 2012 07:14 PM PST

It seems like everyone’s discovered Pinterest this week! Alongside the countless posts dissecting its userbase over, sideways, and under have been a series of stories about how it’s “secretly” “monetizing” — a fact unearthed when LLSocial revealed that the startup was using a service called SkimLinks in order to drive affiliate revenue from purchases that originated on Pinterest.

Some reporters (ourselves included) used this opportunity to imply that Pinterest had funded itself through affilate revenue for two years and then ditched the service after it received serious venture capital — provoking an interesting counterpoint article in the WSJ about “Pinterest’s Rite of Web Passage—Huge Traffic, No Revenue.”

The Atlantic’s Alexis Madrigal, admittedly not knowing the company’s financials, takes issue with the WSJ, and postulates that Pinterest could rake in $45 million in annual revenue using affiliate links with its current traffic.

Madrigal’s logic:

1)We know Pinterest is driving truly massive traffic to retail sites, by some accounts more than YouTube, LinkedIn, and Google+ combined. It is, after all, a platform that’s perfect for shopping!
2) We know Pinterest used SkimLinks to add affiliate links.
3) Affiliate links generate revenue.

Should this add up to chump change? Let’s do the math just to get an order of magnitude estimate.

Commissions on sales for affiliate links vary widely, but they average around 5 percent. After SkimLinks cut, that’d be 3.75 percent (although SkimLinks says they can sometimes negotiate deals that would keep the percentage closer to the original number).

So, Pinterest has 10 million users. Let’s say that the average across all of them is that they buy items valued at $10 in a month through affiliate links on Pinterest. That’s $100,000,000 of sales for which Pinterest would get credit. That’s $3.75 million in monthly revenue, or $45 million of annual revenue.

This runs counter to what we’ve heard about the actual amount of revenue brought in to Pinterest by SkimLinks, which was modest for an Internet company — between 10 to 20k a year according to one source. Using Madrigal’s formula, this would represent somewhere between $300,000 – $615,000 in transactions coming through the service.

The truth is that the use of SkimLinks on Pinterest was more a question of the analytics it provided than any serious effort at monetization. Word on the street is that EVERYONE in the Valley passed on Pinterest when it was raising initial capital, something that wouldn’t have happened if it had indeed already discovered a viable business model.

The story of Pinterest right now is exactly what it looks like; It really is “hot startup gets venture funding, uses it to scale” not “startup hides the fact that it’s already profitable.” And with its kind of scale (and coffer) it could be losing a million dollars a month and still be a good bet.

Image via

CrunchBase: Social, Mobile And Deals Categories Led 2011 Private Tech Investments

Posted: 17 Feb 2012 04:33 PM PST

In case it wasn’t already clear to you that later-stage social, mobile and deal-oriented companies led venture fundraising last year, here’s some analysis of CrunchBase data that drives the point home, courtesy of Alexey Tolkachiov at BuzzSparks.org.

421 Companies with the “social” tag in CrunchBase raised a total of $5.2 billion over the year. Out of this, Facebook alone was $1.5 billion; out of the 1,941 companies that were included in this analysis, Facebook alone raised 7.3% of the $20.5 billion total.

A few other social companies, including Twitter, Zynga, LivingSocial, Kabam, along with Chinese sites 55tuan and Lashou, count for another $2.29 billion. We’ll see how this category looks in 2012 — that is, look for a drop in private funding considering that so many of the leading companies in the category have already raised late-stage capital.

But wait, aren’t some of these companies not only social but also deals sites, or game developers? Yes, and this analysis in some cases double-counts ones that could fit in more than one category. The goal in doing so is to show how companies that are in multiple areas area impacting each of those areas. In any case, this type of categorization problem exists with any such data set; share your recommendations for how to make this clearer in the comments. And click on the categories in the graphic above to see each of the companies included.

Moving along… “Mobile” comes in second, with 393 companies raising a total of $2.3 billion. The fundings are relatively less concentrated at the top — InMobi, Square and Rearden Commerce all raised above $100 million, but that’s it. The third-largest category, Deals, is even more unbalanced than social. Groupon alone makes up more than half of the $1.9 billion total.

Mouse over the dots below to see the number of companies and total funding for all the various tags we have in the system.

Finally, the caveat you’ve all been waiting for. CrunchBase is a wiki-style database about startups, and while it seeks to be complete as possible, the data tends to skew towards Silicon Valley web companies. It’s also the largest free site of its kind, and worth analyzing despite any imperfections. In fact, you can help improve it by adding and editing entries about you and your company or venture firm.

Purported Next-Gen iPad Display Caught And Examined; 2048×1536 Resolution Confirmed

Posted: 17 Feb 2012 04:10 PM PST

MacRumors has done something very bad – they went and got themselves an iPad 3 display module. Actually, it’s not so bad when you can apparently just order one online. Normally this part even being online and available ahead of launch would suggest it was a scam, but what matters isn’t the name of the part (could easily be a scam) but the part itself.

They took a microscope to it, see — and it appears to have exactly four times the pixels of an ordinary iPad screen. It’s really just the latest in a long line of “confirmations,” but it’s nice nevertheless to see the thing itself.

The display module is just that: the LCD component, divorced from any display driver, processor, or backlight (so rumors of an improved backlight are still unconfirmed, though very likely). But the pixels of an LCD are visible under light from the right angle, and under magnification it’s clear that for every pixel on the normal iPad display, there are four on this new one. You can see it quite clearly in the image above (on which, if MacRumors doesn’t mind, I bumped the contrast to make the pixels more clear).

The implications of high-res screens, on iPad and (as rumored) on the MacBook Pro, I discussed already in some detail. It’s clear that this will be a major selling point going forward, and I look forward to some of the slip-ups in the Mountain Lion developer preview that hint at how Apple will be adapting its OS to this resolution bonanza.

Some say, I want to add, that a better display alone is no reason to upgrade your iPad. In fact, we said that. But I disagree. I’ve written about the resolution improvement as an important component of a larger change in how digital content is created and consumed. Apple is pushing the hardware side of that and, to some extent, the software, though they are pairing both with restrictions that the content community will eventually reject. I’m already sold on the iPad 3, but for reasons that may not be relevant to other users. To each their own — but like when the original Retina screen came out, I suspect that when you see it, you’ll want it.

Groupon Acquires NYC-Based Startup Hyperpublic

Posted: 17 Feb 2012 03:55 PM PST

Groupon has just acquired Hyperpublic, a NYC-based startup that’s spent the last two years building technology related to geo-location and the layers of information — like deals and events — that live on top of it.

Terms of the deal are not being disclosed, but CEO Jordan Cooper describes it as a “huge win for our team and our investors”. He adds that Groupon was after Hyperpublic’s technology — this isn’t a case of it acquiring the team alone.

Cooper, who is also a General Partner at Lerer Ventures, says that a portion of Hyperpublic’s team will be moving out to Groupon’s engineering offices in California, while others will be leaving the company to pursue other ventures post-acquisition. Cooper will continue in his role at Lerer, and he’ll also be assuming a role with Groupon (he says he can’t get into specifics, but that he’ll be spending a lot of time in California as well).

The startup’s developer platform is going to be shut down, with maintenance and support continuing through March 2 2012 — all data will be deleted after that. Developers can find a FAQ on transitioning their data here.

The startup was founded in 2010 by Cooper and Doug Petkanics, who leads the company’s engineering team and helped forge what Cooper describes as a very engineering-focused environment. Hyperpublic raised $1.15 million in 2010 — Cooper says that board members Jordan Levy (Softbank Capital) Ken Lerer (Lerer Ventures) were also instrumental in the company’s development.

Finally, Cooper points out that Hyperpublic — which has more APIs than it does user-facing services — is a decidedly tech-heavy company. Which breaks with the stereotype of NYC startups being more focused on social platforms and media than on building ‘hard’ technology (incidentally, I suspect this stereotype will fade in the next year or so as the NYC tech community continues to grow).

Keen On… Pomplamoose: How Nataly And Jack Are Reinventing The Music Business (TCTV)

Posted: 17 Feb 2012 02:03 PM PST

So maybe there really is a sensible middle ground in the music business – somewhere between David Lowery’s pessimism and Bram Cohen’s blind faith in our digital future. That future may be the pop music band Pomplamoose. Its members are Nataly Dawn and Jack Conte, two young musician-entrepreneurs who are not only making a living marketing and selling their music online, but who even own a “nice house” with two recording studios. Nataly and Jack, I suspect (and hope), are the viable future of the music industry – one that will neither revolve around Platinum records nor completely free online content.

I met the talented and very charming Nataly and Jack earlier this week at SFMusicTech. Their business model is very simple, they explained to me. They create clever, scalable videos for YouTube which then feed their iTunes sales and their licensing deals. It’s a good business, they told me, with their 3 million monthly views on YouTube being directly correlated to their iTunes sales. Of course, they added, you still need to “make really good music” and have “excellent chemistry” – but the fact that Pomplamoose are making a decent living is great news for the thousands of other talented musicians trying to earn a living in today’s digital economy.

This is my third interview from SFMusicTech, following my encounters with Camper Van Beethoven’s David Lowery and BitTorrent’s Bram Cohen. Still to come are some conversations about what might turn out to be the most valuable player in today’s digital music business – the audience.

Irrationally Paranoid? AdiOS Shows Which Apps Access Your Address Book

Posted: 17 Feb 2012 01:48 PM PST

Does Address-gate have you terrified that your mobile apps are secretly slurping up your address book? AdiOS is a free new Mac program that in seconds detects which of your iOS apps have the ability to access your phone numbers and email contacts. AdiOS doesn’t indicate if or how the apps are transmitting your address book, but you should still delete any that access it.

No. That was a joke. This has all gotten ridiculous.

Heaven forbid your apps help connect you with friends. That’s what many of the apps AdiOS sniffs out use your address book for. I ran the program, which was developed by security software company Veracode, and found Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, Google+, Skype, and Yelp were accessing all of my contacts. Some transmit that data without authorization, some ask permission, others use it locally, The Next Web reports.

Yes, I’d prefer to be asked and for the data to be hashed for security, but personally, I want to follow my friends on social services.

Angry Birds and Cut The Rope are checking my address book too, presumably so I can see high scores of friends. I am a little perplexed as to what non-social apps like Cheap Gas! or Uber are doing with the data, so Kudos to AdiOS for the heads up. Thankfully Apple will soon require apps to ask for permission to see your address book.

If you’re curious as to which apps are actually transmitting your address book, check out the console interface mitmproxy. A more mainstream-ready graphic user interface of mitmproxy would be more valuable, as AdiOS could cause unnecessary fear if misunderstood. I commend Veracode for including a “Don’t Panic” section on the AdiOS site, but I still see this as a security software company trying to cash in on media hype in addition to assisting people.

Maybe I’m a bit naive, but I think that with time we’re going to chill out about privacy. If you sell or misuse my data, I’ll scorn you, but I’m not that worried if it’s applied to improve my experience.

There are certainly risks to apps silently transmitting your address book, but privacy is such a hot-button issue that we’ve blown the problem out of proportion. I just feel like everyone is chasing the bumbling but kind-hearted hunchback with pitchforks and torches.

[Image Credit: Disney]

Google Under Fire For Circumventing Safari Privacy Setting

Posted: 17 Feb 2012 01:38 PM PST

It’s a tense time for Google: controversial policy and user-experience changes are combining with a growing distrust of tracking and advertising to produce something of a toxic atmosphere. Not the moment, then, you would want a minor scandal to erupt in the form of Google circumventing, intentionally or unintentionally, the privacy settings of millions of Safari users.

The allegations have their source in a report by Stanford grad student Jonathan Mayer, who showed that using Safari triggered a special behavior in the normal cookie-creation process; his report was later played up by the Wall Street Journal. This behavior deliberately goes around the default Safari behavior of blocking all third-party cookies — like one from Google when you’re visiting TechCrunch.

Google says it’s a side-effect from something else, but even if that’s true, it’s still ugly.

The gist of the exploit is this: normally, a plain HTTP request to put a cookie on a machine running Safari would be acknowledged, vetted, and either accepted (for something like Amazon tracking your position on the site), or rejected (for something like DoubleClick meta-cookies). Google’s (DoubleClick’s, technically, but ultimately it’s Google’s) special cookie dispenser, however, would detect that Safari was being used, and “fill out” a form element on the client side, sending that out instead of a plain request.

It’s a documented feature, this form request for cookies, not some crazy illicit web stunt. Other online advertising companies do it as well, but that’s not really an endorsement. But the way it’s set up is fundamentally shady: using javascript to fill out an invisible form with the information that would normally be sent by other means, but isn’t — because the user has chosen not to. It sidesteps the Safari preferences neatly, by means of a loophole in the cookie-submission process.

Interestingly, that loophole was closed seven months ago in Webkit — by Google. One can view this cynically or generously. Cynically, it could be suggested that Google closed the hole but decided to exploit it in order to track Safari browsers — not the biggest piece of the desktop pie, but huge since it’s the default browser on iOS (also vulnerable). Generously, it could be said that Google fixed the problem and designed around a standard they helped achieve, and this tracking is in fact a side effect.

That’s something like what Google has actually said. In a statement, they say that last year they implemented some things to make sure +1 buttons (which of course are a form of third-party tracking, like most share elements) worked in Safari. They rigged a way to determine, on the level, whether a user had opted in or out to Google-related tracking, and if so, whether they were logged in. Fairly standard. But then:

However, the Safari browser contained functionality that then enabled other Google advertising cookies to be set on the browser. We didn’t anticipate that this would happen, and we have now started removing these advertising cookies from Safari browsers.

Whether they are using the phrase “contained functionality” ironically isn’t clear. After all, they’re describing a security vulnerability they sewed up back in the day. Apple, for their part, has only said that they will be working to “put a stop to it.” Whether that means they’ll be adopting the same Webkit changes Google did isn’t clear.

It’s a bit much to swallow that Google designed functionality specifically for the browser and failed to notice this particular quirk. And the huge numbers of Safari browsers reporting data to Doubleclick should have been a red flag as well.

What matters in the end, though, is that a Google product violated the expressed privacy preferences of millions of users. Whether it was a mistake, an outdated browser on the user’s side, and whether the data was effectively anonymized — people won’t care about this. This is a big stumble when Google needed to be treading lightly. A little perspective and investigation might make this violation more or less serious, but the damage is done. Google is going to have to take some big steps to repair their image after the beating it’s taken over the last few months.

Here’s Google’s full statement on the matter:

The Journal mischaracterizes what happened and why. We used known Safari functionality to provide features that signed-in Google users had enabled. It’s important to stress that these advertising cookies do not collect personal information.

Unlike other major browsers, Apple’s Safari browser blocks third-party cookies by default. However, Safari enables many web features for its users that rely on third parties and third-party cookies, such as “Like” buttons. Last year, we began using this functionality to enable features for signed-in Google users on Safari who had opted to see personalized ads and other content–such as the ability to “+1″ things that interest them.

To enable these features, we created a temporary communication link between Safari browsers and Google’s servers, so that we could ascertain whether Safari users were also signed into Google, and had opted for this type of personalization. But we designed this so that the information passing between the user’s Safari browser and Google’s servers was anonymous–effectively creating a barrier between their personal information and the web content they browse.

However, the Safari browser contained functionality that then enabled other Google advertising cookies to be set on the browser. We didn’t anticipate that this would happen, and we have now started removing these advertising cookies from Safari browsers. It’s important to stress that, just as on other browsers, these advertising cookies do not collect personal information.

Users of Internet Explorer, Firefox and Chrome were not affected. Nor were users of any browser (including Safari) who have opted out of our interest-based advertising program using Google’s Ads Preferences Manager.

Fundraising Platform For Startups ProFounder Shuts Its Doors

Posted: 17 Feb 2012 01:29 PM PST

ProFounder, a startup that offered entrepreneurs ways to raise money for their startups and ideas, is shutting its doors, according to an announcement on the company’s site today.

ProFounder, which is the brainchild of Kiva co-founder Jessica Jackley and fellow Stanford Business School alum Dana Mauriello, allowed entrepreneurs to share a percentage of their revenues with investors (their friends, family, and community) over time in exchange for an investment.

Entrepreneurs could apply to Profounder, upload a pitch to offer to potential investors and then create a term sheet with Profounder’s templated forms and compliance sheets. ProFounder then gave businesses a page where they can invite friends, family, and investors to a destination page that allowed users to make contributions and investments directly on the site. The bonus of using ProFounder was that the platform allows unaccredited investors (i.e. friends and family as opposed to a venture firm) to participate, so anyone can be an investor.

Profounder says the current regulatory environment prevented them from pursuing further innovations on the site. Mauriello explains to us separately: “We wanted to provide more flexibility to our customers, for example around how they can send out invitations to invest and to who, however the regulation including the ban of general solicitation the 504D prevent that.”

The startup will also be joining forces with GOOD on crowdfunding and will be launching “new tools and community experiences to empower entrepreneurs and creators.”

Gillmor Gang Live 02.17.12 (TCTV)

Posted: 17 Feb 2012 01:06 PM PST

Gillmor Gang Live – Robert Scoble, Kevin Marks, John Taschek, and Steve Gillmor . Recording has concluded.

Rumor Roundup: What To Expect From HTC At Mobile World Congress

Posted: 17 Feb 2012 12:20 PM PST

With the end of February nearly in sight, the tech community is all abuzz with talk about Mobile World Congress, the huge mobile conference set to take place in beautiful Barcelona in just over a week. All the big players will be there (though some will be less conspicuous than before), and of course among them will be Taiwan-based phone giant HTC.

Though HTC kicked off the Android device movement with the venerable G1 in 2008, the company has recently fallen on some hard times. Stiffening competition in the mobile space led HTC to finally break their long growth streak this past quarter, which has led company brass to take a step back and reevaluate their strategy.

Now with a renewed focus on creating a smaller number of “hero” devices this year, we’re expecting HTC to show off some serious hardware at MWC. Fortunately for us, some of the folks inside HTC just can’t seem to keep quiet, which means rumors and leaks are flying around like crazy. We’ve taken the liberty of sifting through all of the information to give you an idea of what HTC will have on display this year at MWC.

The One X:

I like to think that the One X was what HTC had in mind when they started talking up their new hero phones. Formerly known as the HTC Edge or Endeavor, the Ice Cream Sandwich-powered One X is the company's first quad-core smartphone thanks to the Tegra 3 chipset buried deep within it. It's expected to have 1GB of RAM and 32GB of internal storage — a smart choice, considering HTC seems to have omitted the memory card slot. Fortunately, the word is that mass storage support has been added, which should make shuffling episodes of Doctor Who between the device and a computer a breeze.

Though I’m usually not a fan of custom UIs, Sense 4.0 should look mighty nice on that 4.7-inch 720p S-LCD display, while 1.3 and 8-megapixel cameras grace its front and back respectively. Interestingly, its waistline doesn’t seem to be suffering much for it — the One X is expected to be under 10mm thick.

The One S:

Those looking for a device that’s just a bit more manageable in the hand should take note of the One S. This little guy has been spotted more than a few times carrying the "Ville" moniker, and opts for a smaller 4.3-inch display instead of the One X’s gargantuan screen. On the software front, both Ice Cream Sandwich and Sense 4.0 are present and accounted for.

The One S expected to sport a 1.5 GHz dual-core processor, an 8-megapixel rear camera, and a VGA front-facer. Most notably, the One S is said to be under 8mm thick — hopefully it retains that wonderful solid feel that HTC devices are known for.

The One V:

This Ice Cream Sandwich device is a relatively new addition to the rumor mill, and as such no spy shots have made their way out of HTC’s skunkworks yet — this is just a mockup. Sources have told Pocket-Lint that it’s a smaller, music-centric 3.7-inch screen display. The rest of spec sheet won’t set your world on fire: a 1 GHz processor, 1 GB of RAM, and a 720p video capable 5-megapixel camera round out the package. If those specs sound familiar, it’s because the One V is rumored to be a Beats Audio-enhanced version of the underwhelming HTC Rhyme.

If real, then the One V is an interesting addition to the mix. It’s clearly more of a mid-range device than either the X or the Sdone, and almost seems to drag the One series down a bit. It could be that HTC and I are working with different definitions of “hero devices” here, but a moderately-specced phone geared toward music seems a odd when the Beats Audio feature is easily transplanted onto other devices.

The One XL:

HTC noted earlier this year that they would be reducing their presence in the tablet market, but their Quattro tablet seems to have been in development long before that change of heart. The One XL (as it’s now expected to be called) features the same Tegra 3 chipset as seen in the One X, along with a 10.1-inch display running 1024×768.

It’s expected to cram all that plus 16GB of internal storage, a microSD card slot, and both Bluetooth 4.0 and WiFi radios into a a chassis that’s under 9mm thick — seeing a trend here? The One XL should also have some solid streaming media services to work with, as an HD-capable version of the HTC Watch app and a potential HTC music service are reportedly in the works too.

So what’s up with these names?

Specs aside, one of the more notable things about these devices is the new naming scheme HTC seems to have gone with. HTC hasn’t officially confirmed their new branding efforts, although Pocketnow and Slashgear have both independently corroborated the new names with their respective sources.

At first glance, it seems like a smart move for HTC — aligning their products into a single series allows them to promote the line as a whole as well as individually, rather than trying to whip up a marketing strategy for a handful of devices with no discernible connection beyond the OS and the logo. Nokia has been doing something similar with their handsets — after announcing the change on their blog, Nokia gave all of their new devices a simple model number.

The idea was that the number would quickly give users a bit of context: a Lumia 710 is a higher-end model than the (rumored) Lumia 601. It seems to be working well so far, but going with letters as HTC seems to have done presents a new set of issues.

Context? There is none.

In fact, I could see the names causing a bit of confusion. If someone asked you to choose between a One S and a One V without explaining anything, you would have no godly idea which was the better device. Not that most phone names have terribly descriptive either, but while they can be lofty and ridiculous (and sometimes long-winded), they’re at least memorable. This new naming scheme is far simpler, but much drier to boot — there’s no personality to be had here.

Still, it has its upsides. Customers won't bemoan the addition of a, let's say, One G, because it isn't immediately obvious which phone is meant to be the better model. We’ll have to see if the One name sticks as these devices begin trickling into other markets, but there’s a very good chance that the hardware will shine regardless of the name that’s slapped on it.

New Windows Logo Shows Microsoft Is Going All In With Windows 8

Posted: 17 Feb 2012 11:14 AM PST

In a move that demonstrates how cleanly Microsoft intends to cut itself off from the last 20 years of its most widely-used and widely-recognized products, they have given the Windows logo its most significant redesign in 20 years. Ever since Windows 3.1, the slightly curved, red-green-blue-yellow panes have greeted millions on startup, or at least peeked out from the corner of the screen.

No longer: Microsoft has abandoned the shape, color scheme, and even the start button. The new logo is monochromatic (or rather, polymonochromatic), straight, and unfamiliar. If they intended to show just how much they’ve changed the philosophy of the OS, this is a good way to do it.

The logo was actually leaked earlier this week on a Chinese site, but there was some question of its authenticity. Now that it has been explained on the Windows Blog, it’s official:

Some like the new design. Some don’t. But changes to major brands rarely produce anything but controversy, and this is no exception. Microsoft can’t go back on it, the way they can’t go back on the changes they’ve introduced with Windows 8. Whether you enjoy the new logo and look or not, at least you can say they are both new.

Personally, I’m not a fan. I understand the idea of the clean break and of evoking the Metro interface. That’s fine. But the logo fails for me because it doesn’t represent Windows as a brand, it represents a visual theme that hasn’t shipped and isn’t familiar to most users. The logo also changes color with your theme, which I think is a weak decision. The four-color panes were a little loud, to be sure, but that was what they had to work with back in the day if they didn’t want to dither but still wanted to show a decent image in an 8-bit graphics mode.

It has survived not just out of tradition, but because it’s instantly recognized by billions worldwide. That’s not brand capital Microsoft throws away lightly, I’m sure, but the question is why they’ve chosen to throw it away at all.

And the tilt on the “window” seems incongruous with both the OS and the logo itself. Is it coming, going, or just tilting? Does it ever tilt like that when you’re using Windows 8? If it’s meant to evoke the Metro UI, shouldn’t the Metro UI reflect that shape and angle more strongly?

But like I said, any change like this generates dissent like mine, while there are plenty who will find it magnificently clean, understated, and very in keeping with the Metro visual language. It’s here to stay, and a year from now when we’ve had it at our elbows and seen it on a hundred new devices, maybe we’ll feel differently.

Update: Just for fun, I made the logo as it might have looked with the old color scheme:

And, obligatory:

Review: The Playstation Vita, Sony’s Portable Powerhouse

Posted: 17 Feb 2012 10:52 AM PST

Features:

5-inch (16:9), 960 x 544 OLED screen
Front and rear capacitive touchscreens
Dual joysticks
WiFi and 3G Wireless Broadband support
MSRP: $249 (Wi-Fi Only)/$299 (Wi-Fi/3G)

Pros:

Beautiful, bright screen
Surprisingly light but solid
Amazing, console-quality graphics

Cons:

Too wide for smaller hands
Vita game selection is currently limited
3-5 hours of battery life

The Short Version

Like a line of hard-marching Lemmings (or a swarm of Patapons), Sony’s countless, niggling enemies would like nothing better than to distract and steal the company’s hard-won fan base. The Playstation has long been the gold standard in console gaming, despite the Xbox’s recent challenges to the throne. And Sony does a good job. Graphics are better, gameplay is or can be more immersive, and in the battle for RPG dominance the PS3′s library is peerless.

But now Sony is fighting against lots of great ways to waste your time. Stuck in a long line? Whip out the iPhone, RAZR, or Blackberry. Want to play something bigger and bolder? Pull out a tablet and rock a few hours of Civilization Revolution or Need For Speed. Want to watch a movie? Bring up Netflix on any device in the house save your kitchen blender. There’s not as much space for a dedicated gaming device out there as there used to be, and both Nintendo and Sony know it.

So what, then, is the Playstation Vita and should you care about it? The Vita is Sony’s latest handheld device. It’s a small game console that takes SD-Card like cartridges but depends more on customer downloads and local storage. It can play multi-gigabyte-sized games that would look more at home on a console or PC than on a handheld.

You should care about the Vita because its success will define the value of the dedicated handheld in the marketplace. In a world full of devices vying for our attention; how a $250 handheld console designed with games in mind does in terms of sales and popularity is very important for Sony, Nintendo, and Microsoft (not to mention stealth game console manufacturers like Apple and Google). Sony said this console has to last for another eight years in the marketplace, a prospect that seems a little far-fetched. The more important question is whether it lasts just one year without a major price cut and whether it lasts out this decade as a handheld console of choice.

All of this doom and gloom is distracting, however. Before anything else, the real question is whether the Vita delivers a great gaming experience. The answer to that question is a resounding “Yes.”

PSP Reborn?

The first thing we need to understand is that the Vita is far more than a PSP successor. Although it looks quite a bit like the old PSP, gone are the hard edges and moving parts of Sony’s previous design generation. The aesthetic here is rounded, soft, and usable – perhaps a nod to the softer, curved designs found in newer phones.

There are two clickable analog sticks on the left and right sides of the screen along with a four way directional pad on the left and four action buttons on the right. There are a two shoulder buttons on top along with a Vita card slot and HDMI/audio port. On the bottom is a port for a MicroSD next to Sony’s proprietary charging and data cable. There are no USB ports on this thing. But there is, famously, a touchpad on the back.

The 3G version has a SIM card slot on the left side. There are built-in stereo speakers and a small microphone as well as VGA cameras on the front and back.

The Vita is surprisingly light. It looks like it should be a dense product of Japanese engineering. Instead it feels almost hollow (in a good way) which makes it much easier to hold for longer periods.

The 5-inch OLED screen is powered by a Sony-built quad-core ARM-based processor and is amazingly bright and clear. The Vita contains 512MB of RAM and Bluetooth and Wi-Fi support. It also contains an accelerometer for sensing position changes and a GPS chip. iFixIt found the device to be well-made and surprisingly serviceable.

All told, the Vita is very usable. The UI is based on “lozenges” that display various apps, including every game that has ever run on the device. This makes for some odd situations when you tap the lozenge for a game that isn’t currently in the Vita’s card slot (although you can transfer games to the on-board memory to remedy this). These lozenges are sort of like pointers to various content, a sort of reminder that you own a game rather than access to the game itself. The distinction isn’t important enough to discuss further, but it’s a quirk that bore mentioning.

The UI also uses a unique sticker interface to handle multi-tasking. You can multi-task in any app by pressing the dedicated Playstation button. When you do this, you bring up the main screen. Then you access other screens by swiping left or right. When you’re ready to “close” an app or game, you swipe from the upper right corner down, essentially “peeling” it from the screen. The same UI trick happens when you unlock the Vita – you “peel” off the lock screen. This makes it easy to see what is currently running and coupled with a sort of mini dock at the top of non-clickable icons, the Vita OS becomes more like a mini computer than a games machine. Clicking the Playstation button twice brings up a stack of current apps running on the device, including a notifications list where your trophy wins and download status resides.

Other apps include Sony Music and a video player as well as a Google Maps-based mapping app. There are also apps for the PSN Store as well as a trophy case, a Friends list, and a system for multi-player chat called Party.

Would You Like To Play A Game?

Gaming on a Vita vs., say, an iPhone is a revelation. The games are responsive, crisp, and vibrant compared to similar games on the iPhone and Android platforms. Uncharted: Golden Abyss, for example, is as good as any console game, with loads of textures and rich, high-poly environments that you would see on any PS3 or Xbox. Barring a few artifacts, you will be amazed at the quality. Because the Vita also plays some PSP games, you’re able to experience last gen gaming running on the Vita’s superior processor. For example, Dungeon Hunter: Alliance, a 1GB PSP game that I downloaded, was on par with an iOS native version of Dungeon Hunter 2. However, the game was much easier to play on the Vita because of the dual joysticks and – oddly enough – the rear touchpad.

This is not to say all is wine and roses on the Vita gaming front. If you are not a fan of Sony’s brand of gaming, you’re not going to be happy with the initial crop of games. The Uncharted title, while graphically stunning, is a long movie interspersed with running while the more casual titles like Super Stardust Delta display superior graphics and dubiously enticing gameplay.

Assessments of game quality are highly subjective, however, so I’ll leave those to a minimum. Sony has a massive following and their games are often considered the epitome of the video game arts (Final Fantasy and Metal Gear come to mind), at least by their fans. This device will do all of those titles justice.

Online play is very simple to set up with friends and/or strangers. Sadly, online play was mostly disabled for the titles I had access to simply because there weren’t many Vitas floating around on the network yet. However, the “friend discovery” system, called Near, is worth a deeper look.

Near

The most interesting part of the Vita UI is a system called Near. Near allows you to find people who are playing PS3 or Vita games and friend and/or challenge them. You can also chat and play with these nearby folks (once you’re connected) allowing you to create an ad hoc network of buddies who are within your general vicinity (say 2 kilometers or so).

While online play has been around for years, the PSP’s was historically abysmal and this means to rectify that. In fact, the “loose” nature of the networks created encourages game discovery as well as friend discovery, something that is slightly more difficult on the Xbox and considerably more difficult on the Wii.

In short, Near is the Vita’s way of going viral. If you can see others with Vitae nearby, you’ll be more inclined to consider other popular games and you’ll generally play more. It marries the best aspects of local discovery a la Foursquare with some of the better online gaming solutions.

The Bad

I write this last section with a bit of sadness. The Vita, while amazingly capable and very cool, may be the last of its breed, a bold experiment in its evolutionary stage waiting for the crash of a meteor to wipe it off the planet. Kotaku’s review hits the nail on the head: while the Vita (and, arguably, the 3DS) offers a superior gaming experience to any tablet or smartphone, my money is on the non-dedicated gaming device rather than a system that does one or two things well.

You’ll note that I didn’t cover the browser or the music services on this device. They exist and they work, but they are far from perfect — to be honest, they aren’t great. For example, the browser doesn’t work while a game is running in the background. The primary reason I browse the web around any game is to pop over to the FAQs or Wikis for a particular title (I’m not a very good gamer and Skyrim is hard). To be forced to close out of a game in order to browse is quite nasty. The browser also doesn’t support Flash 9 out of the box.

A battery life of 3-5 hours is strong but not ideal and the device doesn’t play well with some devices so there is no promise that you will be able to charge over USB. I tried a number of ports, including powered USB ports, and the results were mixed. The console really shines with in-depth, graphics rich games but if you know it’s going to die in a few hours, the impetus to get into an RPG is reduced. That leaves casual gaming, a space in which many other devices excel.

I want to love this device and I suspect a dedicated gamer will find it far superior to any other device, the Nintendo 3DS included. But I feel this will be the last iteration of the “dedicated gaming” handheld we see.

To be clear, the Vita does purport to be a connected console. It does support 3G and wireless and we can assume that some sort of Skype app will appear sooner than later. Netflix is coming. It already has voice chat with friends so something similar for general chatting can’t be far off.

The Bottom Line

As a device, the Vita is stellar. It has all the right pieces in all the right places – the huge, bright screen, the dual analog sticks, the acceptable battery life, the size, shape, and weight. I wish all Sony products were like this – intelligently designed, handsome, and usable. Sony has finally figured out how to put all the puzzle pieces into the right spots and it is an example of what the company can do when it produces a device dedicated to its biggest fans – gamers.

Who should buy it? PS3 and SCEA fans, definitely, and general gaming fans secondarily. If there are any titles that catch your fancy, you won’t be disappointed when you play them on this thing. However, as it stands I can’t actively recommend any of the launch titles as “must haves” although, as I said before, they are technically impressive.

Not a gaming fan but interested in this as a media player? Pass. There isn’t enough here to replace a good tablet or phone. I would, as a parent, also recommend caution before picking this up for the kids. The titles are not there to warrant the investment.

Time will tell how the Vita shakes out in the gaming market and everyone I’ve spoken to agrees that it’s an impressive and compelling package that, in many ways, feels like the end of the line.

Click to view slideshow.

After Conquering The World, Our Favorite Angry Birds Head Into Space On March 22

Posted: 17 Feb 2012 10:31 AM PST

I’m not even going to pretend that you don’t know what Angry Birds is… that would be insulting to both you and the game. But do you know what Angry Birds Space is? Nah, I didn’t think so. And truth be told, I’m not quite sure what it is either.

According to Rovio, Angry Birds Space will be the biggest launch for the company to date. Remember what a big deal Angry Birds Rio was with that whole 20th Century Fox partnership and a movie and all that jazz? Well guess what! Space is even bigger.

If you can’t tell from the past few sentences, I’m pretty excited about this. Angry Birds is the most popular mobile game in the world… ever… and Seasons and Rio were excellent additions to the series. But living/playing in a regular world, or a seasonal world, or even in an islandy world are things we’ve all done. Chilling out in space, on the other hand, is not.

There are little to no details so far. In fact, all we know is that the red bird looks much more devilish in space and that the game will debut on March 22. I predict that aliens will be our nemeses, and that gravity (or rather, a lack thereof) won’t be an issue.

You can check out the teaser video below and head on over to the official teaser page to download an Angry Birds Space wallpaper and/or glare into the burning eyes of our favorite little red bird.

Cobook, A Slick Address Book App That Doesn’t Upload Your Data

Posted: 17 Feb 2012 10:27 AM PST

The mundane Address Book was big news this week due to the privacy fiasco, but here’s a post about an impressive address book app with a different approach to privacy. Cobook is a Mac contact management app that’s simple, powerful and actually fun to use. The software, made by a boot-strapped startup, is now in a free beta test, with 60,000 downloads since it launched at the end of January.

Cobook is what the Mac OSX Address Book should be. It sits in the menu bar or can be undocked and instantly synchronizes with Apple’s Address Book. Any data entered into Cobook gets synced to your other computers and devices. Because it's a native app, adding contacts, assigning tags, and editing contact info is very quick. Your Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn contact info can also be pulled in, and if you hover over it, a pop-up window displays your contacts’ Facebook info, Tweets, or LinkedIn profile. It’s the fastest way to read a contact’s info, much quicker than using any of those websites.

The address book controversy has focused on iOS apps that upload users contact data without their knowledge. For an address book app, you purposely want your data uploaded to the cloud so it can be viewed anywhere. So I was a little surprised when I installed Cobook and got a warning saying:

“Cobook cares about privacy. All your data is stored locally on your computer only, we don’t have any access neither to your data nor accounts. In fact we don’t even have any servers, except for a component that collects bugs.”

Cobook still lets you access your data everywhere, since it’s based on Apple’s Address Book and that’s where the syncing happens. You use iCloud, Google or Yahoo contacts to sync.

In the past, I’ve had problems syncing Apple’s Address Book, so I use Google contacts. To use Cobook with Google, I first needed to sync Apple’s Address Book to Google and wound up with three contacts for everyone. But, Google’s “Find and Merge Duplicates” feature fixed that.

And cleaning up bad contact info is fast and easy, much more so than with Google contacts or Apple’s default app. With 1,000 contacts, I never got around to it. But, Cobook has some neat features that make cleanup easy, such as viewing all contacts with no phone or email address.

One warning. Definitely backup your contact data before you do any syncing. Yeah, we know we should do this but often don’t. You will thank me later if you follow this advice just in case you run into any issues. I didn’t follow my own advice and lost half my contacts when I added a laptop to sync Google contacts with the Address Book. But, Google has a “Restore Contacts” feature that lets you travel back in time with your contact list and that restored the lost contacts.

I was able to get Cobook loaded on 2 laptops and a desktop, and via Google contacts, with an iPhone and iPad. I did run into one problem when I added a phone number in Cobook and it went to Google, but not to the iPhone. Hours after notifying Cobook’s support about the problem, they released a patch that fixed it.

The man behind Cobook is Kaspars Dancis, Founder and CEO of Codo. He worked at an enterprise startup that got acquired by a large company. After working at the big company for a few years, he decided he would rather work at a startup in the consumer space. Dancis wasn’t personally happy with any of the existing contact management solutions, and says he chose to “scratch his own itch.”

Dancis is now working on the project fulltime along with a team of three, in Riga, Latvia. He started building it last April.

Dancis says his vision is to make contact management something you don’t need to worry about. He says that just like Dropbox is for files, and Evernote is for notes, he wants Cobook to be for your contacts, so they are everywhere easily and quickly accessible.

Cobook is expected to come out of the free beta period by the end of March. The pricing hasn’t been set.

While Cobook is Mac only right now, they have a broader vision. Future plans include a PC version and mobile versions on iOS and Android. They might do some type of syncing service, where your data does get uploaded. Dancis says any such syncing would involve client side encryption so if contact data is stored on a remote server, it couldn’t be read without the user’s key.

Cobook faces competition from well-funded Xobni, which recently released a new iPhone app. Xobni, which launched at TechCrunch 40, also pulls data from Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn. But it doesn’t have a native app. It runs as Gmail and Outlook plugins on the desktop and laptop.

Another competitor is everyme, now in private beta.

Here’s a video demo of Cobook:

Study: Windows Web Browsing Market Share Drops 10% Over Past 6 Months

Posted: 17 Feb 2012 10:07 AM PST

Following up on its earlier report on iOS browser market share, ad network Chitika today released new results from a study which analyzed the impact mobile computing has had on traditional web browsing trends. In examining traffic across its network from August 2011 to February 2012, Chitika says that Windows web browsing market share has declined by almost 10%.

To determine its findings, Chitika analyzed data from hundreds of millions of ad impressions covering a cross section its network of 120,000 sites. Although a large sample size, we need to point out that this study is limited only to sites on the Chitika network. To be definitive, a larger study across multiple ad networks is still needed.

However, the data is interesting, especially in light of Chitika’s earlier discovery that iOS web traffic now surpasses that of Mac OS X. The firm theorizes that the new research, which involves an observed nearly* 10% decline in Windows web browsing market share, is due to the increase in browsing from mobile devices, including smartphones and tablets. That is to say, mobile browsing is eating into traditional PC-based browsing. But the drop may also be the result of decreased PC production in 2011 arising from the component shortages that occurred during the recent monsoon season. The monsoons led to flooding in Thailand, which disrupted factories, and therefore overall PC production.

On its own, data like this could be taken with the proverbial grain of salt, but other signs that we’re entered the “post-PC” era have already arrived. For example, earlier this month, analysts at Canalys reported two major shifts in computing trends: one, that smartphone shipments outpaced PCs for the first time ever, and two, that Apple has become the world’s largest PC maker, assuming iPads are counted as PCs.

With that data in hand, Chitika’s insights into its own network feels more like further confirmation of the ongoing trends, and less like some weird fluke occurring with a niche number of websites.

* The chart shows a drop from August 2011 (78.3%) to Feb. 2012 (71.4%), which would be a 6.9% drop. But the percentage change between the highest and lowest points referenced in the study come out to 9.66% which rounds up to 10%.

WinZip iOS App Lets You Crack Open .Zip Files From Anywhere

Posted: 17 Feb 2012 09:35 AM PST

Having access to your documents and pictures is really easy these days. About a million services, including Dropbox and iCloud, allow you to sync your stuff between devices, but there’s one little thorn in our collective cloud-syncing side: it’s called a .zip file.

Fortunately, WinZip has just launched on the Apple App Store and it effectively rids us of this particularly annoying issue. After installing, a single tap will let you get a peek at what’s inside the .zip file. If you tap again, you’ll be able to look at individual files, even if you don’t have the associated applications installed on your iPhone or iPad.

Copy/paste functionality has also been integrated, to let you pull a snippet and pop it into an email or text message. Even encrypted .zip files can be opened.

WinZip is a free application that’s available now for download in the Apple App Store.

News: David King & Co. Porthole Briefcase

2012-02-18T04:40:00.001-08:00

Large main section
Front back zippered pockets
Two open front pockets
Credit card pocket ID window
Six pen slots

This classic porthole brief features a roomy main section with an optional drop bottom for heavy loads. Many pockets to help you organize your work- a large back zippered pocket as well as two open pocket on front and two on back. The organizer section under the flap has a credit card pocket, ID window and six pen slots. Cell phone holder on side. Removable, adjustable shoulder strap and magnetic snap closures. Soft, rich vacquetta leather displays all the character provided by nature, making each piece unique. Our tanning process locks in natural oils, producing a soft, durable hand that won’t crack or become brittle with normal use. Occasional maintenance with a high-quality conditioner is recommended for lasting performance.

David King & Co. Porthole Briefcase

9 new stories on The Next Web today

2012-02-18T04:11:00.001-08:00

9 new stories on The Next Web today

Apple fans in Argentina face an uncertain wait for the iPhone
Groupon buys HyperPublic, Kima Labs (and what the second deal has to do with Pelago)
Meet WallaBee, a nifty location-based item collecting iPhone game
ABC granted exclusive access to Apple’s Chinese factories, will air report Feb 21st.
We ran the numbers, here’s when we think Apple is handing out that $10k App Store gift card
Eric Schmidt to reportedly sell off $1.5B of Google stock
iGiveFirst wants to making ‘giving’ to charity as easy as ‘tweeting’ and ‘liking’
Microsoft in early talks to build new music service; Zune seen crying in corner
Telefonica’s latest startup academy will boost ten teams and a whole country
Sparrow for iPhone arrives mid-March, built with Android and iPad ports in mind

Apple fans in Argentina face an uncertain wait for the iPhone

Posted: 18 Feb 2012 03:42 AM PST

Fans of the iPhone in Argentina may have to wait at least a year to officially purchase the Apple device, as the government continues to impose restrictions on imports of the world’s bestselling smartphone.

The Wall Street Journal reports that whilst the iPhone isn’t banned in the country, its restrictions on mobile operators extend to devices that are not in manufactured there. With Apple’s main supply partners located in Asia (for now), it doesn’t fulfil that criteria and therefore sales are restricted in the country.

According to the report, Apple only sold 3,000 iPhones in Argentina before government restrictions were put in place in March 2011, selling 30,000 in 2010. Whilst the device doesn’t appear to have been as successful in Argentina as in North America and parts of Europe, consumers are still purchasing Apple smartphones when they travel abroad or turn to auction or private trade websites to buy an unlocked handset from overseas.

In December, we questioned whether Argentina had actually banned the device, after reports suggested this was the case. While the ban and other details were false, imports of the iPhone were — and continue to be — blocked.

Apple lists three carriers on its website, two of which have iPhone references (one has listings for various models) but no way to buy them. The Movistar forum even has a dedicated iPhone section, which is full of customers that have purchased iPhones overseas or second-hand but have issues using them on the operator’s networks.

On the Argentinean section of its official website, Apple suggests buying an iPhone 4S from neighbouring Latin American countries:

The ban is in place to encourage Argentinean consumers to buy locally produced or manufactured products and devices, with President Cristina Kirchner advocating the system to create jobs and lower the amount of money spent on overseas imports.

It is believed that the iPhone situation might change when Apple iPhone and iPad supplier Foxconn opens starts mass-producing the devices in Brazil but even then, the they won’t be manufactured within Argentina.

This posting includes an audio/video/photo media file: Download Now

Groupon buys HyperPublic, Kima Labs (and what the second deal has to do with Pelago)

Posted: 18 Feb 2012 03:11 AM PST

Groupon is in the news again because of an acquisition of a startup. Actually, they just bought two U.S. startups.

Firstly, the daily deals marketplace company has bought HyperPublic, a NYC-based local data startup backed by Lerer Ventures and Softbank Capital. Financial terms of the deal were not disclosed, unfortunately.

Secondly, Groupon has snapped up Kima Labs, a mobile shopping software maker based in San Francisco, as first reported by TechCrunch.

Kima Labs, founded by former Amazon.com and Pelago employees (more about that below), is the startup behind Barcode Hero, a barcode scanning app for the iPhone.

Its app and website will be shut down after this weekend, the freshly acquired company says, although data will remain available for download through March 16.

Kima Labs was also seemingly behind mobile ordering service TapBuy, but the future of this iPhone app (which was still in beta) remains unclear.

The startup was backed by SV Angel, Naval Ravikant, Owen Van Natta, The Washington Post Company and other unnamed angel investors.

Here’s what I think is interesting and hasn’t yet been reported elsewhere. As fate would have it, Kima Labs co-founders Blake Scholl and Jason Crawford, as well as lead engineer Andrew Miner, all worked at both Amazon.com and Pelago before.

Interestingly, there’s someone else who worked at Amazon, then co-founded and become CEO of Pelago, sold the latter to Groupon to become the fast-growing local ecommerce company’s SVP of Product: Jeff Holden.

Kima Labs’ Scholl, Crawford and Miner were actually among the first people recruited by Holden and co to work for Pelago, the company that developed pioneering location-based social networking service Whrrl.

Furthermore, former VP of Engineering at Pelago, Jeff Ayars, now serves in the exact same capacity at – you guessed it – Groupon.

And then there’s Marcus Sacco, currently Merchant Manager at Groupon, and previously with … Amazon.com and Pelago.

Not difficult to deduce who was lobbying for the (seemingly talent) acquisition of Kima Labs over at Groupon, but always nice to see a startup family reunite.

This posting includes an audio/video/photo media file: Download Now

Meet WallaBee, a nifty location-based item collecting iPhone game

Posted: 18 Feb 2012 02:07 AM PST

WallaBee is a brand new digital collectibles game for the iPhone (iTunes link) with a geo-location twist, made by the talented Ben Dodson Apps team, and it would be YOUR LOSS if you do not check it out immediately.

In all seriousness, WallaBee is a pretty innovative and beautiful iPhone game, described by Dodson himself as a mashup between the original Gowalla iOS app (at least the item game part of it), the PackRat game on Facebook, Pokémon, and baseball card trading. Ok, maybe it’s best if you just download it :)

Developed over the past 6 months and after years of planning, the aim of the game is basically to complete sets by collecting digital items – or icons – in a variety of ways. Items can be found all over the world (the underlying location database has about 2 million records in it) or bought from a dedicated story using ‘honeycombs’, the geo-game’s virtual currency.

The app is complete free to play if you want it to be, though, and takes the whole ‘checking in at a location’ process to a whole new, fun dimension.

Some of the items you can collect include a Skateboard, Teddy Bear, Nerd Glasses, Bearded Lady (don’t ask), Clown Car and of course plenty more.

You can find out more about the game, and some background, right here.

Ben Dodson Apps, which is based in the UK, has also built API(s) for developers to start tinkering with. The app developer is also behind the popular Highlights app (iTunes link), hence the extensive places database for WallaBee.

Screenshots galore!

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ABC granted exclusive access to Apple’s Chinese factories, will air report Feb 21st.

Posted: 17 Feb 2012 08:14 PM PST

In recent weeks, Apple has come under intense fire for the conditions under which workers in its Chinese factories labor to make its products. Partly a matter of the appalling state of laborer’s rights in China and partly a matter of Apple being a very large and recognizable target on which to focus an issue, the reports have sparked massive debate.

Largely instigated by two New York Times articles, How the U.S. Lost Out on iPhone Work and In China, Human Costs Are Built Into an iPad, Apple announced that it had reached out to the Fair Labor Association, a non-profit that investigates working conditions for laborers around the world. The organization was asked to perform voluntary audits for Apple on the Foxconn plants in Chengdu and Shenzen China, where it manufactures products like the iPad.

Now, in an unprecedented move, Apple has opened up its factories and supply chain in China to ABC news, allowing them to create a report which will air beginning February 21st, reports 9to5Mac.

Nightline anchor Bill Weir headed up the report and traveled to Shenzen, China to see what life is like for workers in Apple’s factories.

“For years, Apple and Foxconn have been synonymous with monster profits and total secrecy so it was fascinating to wander the iphone and iPod production lines, meet the people who build them and see how they live. Our cameras were rolling when thousands of hopeful applicants rushed the Foxconn gates and I spoke with dozens of line workers and a top executive about everything from hours and pay to the controversies over suicides at the plant and the infamous “jumper nets” that line the factories in Shenzhen. After this trip, I’ll never see an Apple product the same way again” said Weir

The story will begin airing on Nightline, this Tuesday February 21st EST on ABC. Other segments will be featured across ABC properties “Good Morning America,” “World News with Diane Sawyer,” ABCNews.com, ABC News Radio and ABC Newsone.

When questioned in a recent conference, Apple's CEO Tim Cook said that "No one is doing more to improve working conditions in China than Apple," but that the company could, and would, do more.

"Apple takes working conditions very seriously," said Cook, launching right into a question about how Apple handles working conditions. "We take the conditions of workers very seriously. I worked in factories, I worked at a paper mill. We understand working conditions at a very granular level."

The Apple CEO said that he knows Apple is expected to lead when it comes to worker safety and supplier responsibility, and that it wants to continue to do so. To that end, Apple will publish monthly updates on worker hours, overtime and working conditions to its website.

This is a surprising move for the traditionally very private company. Extensive access to its supply chain has never, in our memory, been granted to a news organization like ABC. This is Apple meeting the criticism head on, inviting not just one of its traditional media partners like the Wall Street Journal, but a mainstream television reporting magazine, right into the heart of the controversy. It really does bring to mind the recent words of Apple Senior Vice President Phil Schiller, as relayed by John Gruber, “We're starting to do some things differently.”

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We ran the numbers, here’s when we think Apple is handing out that $10k App Store gift card

Posted: 17 Feb 2012 04:29 PM PST

Earlier today, we brought you the news that Apple had begun counting down to 25B apps downloaded from the App Store. The counter on Apple’s page is ticking down at a blazing rate and there is a $10,000 App Store gift card on the line.

So we thought we’d do a little back of the napkin math based on the current count of apps available in the App Store and the current rate at which people are buying apps to try to get you the approximate date when Apple will be handing out the prize

The rate comes courtesy of Horace Dediu of Asymco, who is a brilliant analyst and something of an unofficial Apple statistician. Based on App Store download numbers and figures given out publicly, Dediu says that the download rate for apps is approximately 49M per day on average.

iTunes App download rate is approximately 49 million per day (average since October 2011).

— Horace Dediu (@asymco) February 17, 2012

So we took the 24,308,450,00 approximate apps that have been downloaded so far, subtracted that from the 25B total number and divided that by Dediu’s rate (calculations here). We came up with, drumroll please: 14 days.

That means that Apple should be giving away the gift card on March 2nd, 2012, probably some time in the afternoon, PST. You’ll notice I have a dentist’s appointment that day, it must be fate.

Now, this is obviously complete speculation and the numbers involved here are so large that the margin of error is pretty enormous. So please, don’t make any bets on this little lighthearted prediction of ours. Lets see how close we get!

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Eric Schmidt to reportedly sell off $1.5B of Google stock

Posted: 17 Feb 2012 04:11 PM PST

According to the Wall Street Journal, Google’s former CEO and current Executive Chairman, Eric Schmidt is reportedly selling off stock worth approximately $1.45 billion “as part of a trading plan that would cut his ownership stake in the Internet giant” from 2.8% to 2.1%.

Surely Schmidt’s steeping down from CEO back in April 2011 has had an impact on this decision, as the stock trading plan was only adopted in November. This move may signal a loss of faith in Google, and no matter what, Schmidt is certainly distancing himself from the company with this move.

According to WSJ:

The plan allows Mr. Schmidt to spread stock trades over a one-year period to reduce market impact.

Google shares had fallen 3.3% in the past year as of the close Friday, and were up slightly over the prior three months.

Google’s stock price has been notably inconsistent over the past few years, fluctuating between ~$500 and upwards of $650 in this past year alone.

It’s interesting that Schmidt waited for social to drop before doing this, but he does still own a sizable chunk at 2.1%. Could he possibly have plans to invest elsewhere? Share you thoughts in the comments below!

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iGiveFirst wants to making ‘giving’ to charity as easy as ‘tweeting’ and ‘liking’

Posted: 17 Feb 2012 03:57 PM PST

When we visit sites that host any type of content, be it news or videos, we’re all used to being presented with options on how to share it. On The Next Web you’ve probably become familiar with our sharing options that are displayed above each article.

While Facebook has made “liking” a piece of content simple and mainstream with its Like button and iGiveFirst wants to make “giving” to charity just as easy with a “Give” button.

The premise is so insanely simple that I’m surprised that there aren’t any other companies doing it. The idea is that if publishers will use a “Give” button on their site, they can choose charities that match what they care about or what the piece of content relates to, and offer a way for its visitors to give money directly to the organizations.

The company also wants to bring big brands into the mix by allowing them to become sponsors of the giving process. This not only creates more real estate for publishers to sell sponsorships for, but it raises money for charity at the same time. Smart, right?

Publishers can sign up for iGiveFirst here, and the startup does all of the vetting for charities that are available to include in campaigns. The organizations must be properly set up as a 501c3 nonprofit and can fill out an application form to be considered for inclusion in the iGiveFirst network.

If a few large publications decided to include a Give button on its sites, I could see people becoming used to giving as much as they are liking. If anything, this is a great way to get the word out about charities and show consumers that your organization really cares about doing some social good.

Here’s what the process would look like if you were to click a Give button on a publisher’s site:

The process doesn’t require readers to sign up for an account and the entire system is secure, so readers don’t have to worry about entering in their payment information. There are currently 1.2 million nonprofits in the US alone, so it’s likely that a publisher can find a few that it cares about to share with its readers.

If you saw a Give button on The Next Web, would you donate to a charity of our choice? Let us know in the comments!

➤ iGiveFirst

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Microsoft in early talks to build new music service; Zune seen crying in corner

Posted: 17 Feb 2012 03:47 PM PST

We can only barely understand this. Instead of working to update its Zune platform of music, software, and service, Microsoft is said to be in talks with record labels to build a new music service.

CNet, which broke this story, claims that the company is contemplating “creating a delivery service that would supply tunes to the Xbox as well as an upcoming Windows-based phone.” Right, Zune does that. However, the story notes that ‘streaming music’ is part of the package being discussed.

Zune does not handle streaming music, but it could be retooled to do so. Zune’s business model, the Zune Pass, is outdated, focusing on the downloading of music and not streaming, but that could be changed. However, Microsoft appears to wish to drop the Zune brand.

We reiterate our previous coverage: “If Zune is dead, can we move on?” We have declared Zune both dead and alive enough times to know better. Microsoft is moving away from the Zune desktop client in Windows Phone 8, and at that time could pull Zune itself from the phone’s firmware, replacing it with whatever it’s cooking up now. The time frame for Windows Phone 8′s release matches what CNet claims Microsoft’s new music service could be looking at:

Negotiations are still in a preliminary stage and the two sides have yet to drill down into all the specifics, the sources said. Nonetheless, Microsoft has outlined a rough sketch for a service that it hopes could launch sometime this year and include streaming music as well as downloads, the sources said.

Gather round the fire, kids, and let me tell you of the story when Microsoft killed Zune so slowly that it could have been called inhuman. Microsoft doesn’t comment on stories like this, but we are digging to see if there is anything more that we can bring you.

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Telefonica’s latest startup academy will boost ten teams and a whole country

Posted: 17 Feb 2012 03:41 PM PST

Telefonica‘s startup accelerator Wayra inaugurated its Academy in Lima yesterday. This academy will play host to the ten teams Wayra shortlisted last October.

According to the Academy’s director and Peruvian entrepreneur Juan Francisco Rosas, the competition between projects in Peru was even more intense than in the other countries where Wayra is already operating, from Colombia and Brazil to Spain. As a matter of fact, Wayra received a whopping 1217 applications in Peru, its record so far.

This tells us two things; there are many more technological projects in Peru than one might have expected, and there was a huge lack of support for them – hence this huge demand for acceleration. At the moment, Wayra is one of the very few structures to support Peruvian startups and the only accelerator outside universities.

A boom of initiatives

However, interesting initiatives have emerged over the last few months, such as the entrepreneurship community Lima Valley and the networking events Lima Tech Meetup and First Tuesday Peru.

From training to angel investing, the American Kate Mulder is one of the key people trying to give the local startup scene the boost it deserves.

Mulder first visited Peru in July 2010, and was so impressed with Peru’s culture and entrepreneurial spirit that she came back for good in 2011. Since then, she has been working on building a bridge between Silicon Valley, which she knows well, and this emerging country.

The bridge goes both ways; while helping foreign companies bring their products to Peru and find local partners, Mulder is also spreading the word about Peru on the English-speaking websites Living in Peru and Peru This Week.

More importantly, she is working on attracting foreign investment to the country, while assisting the creation of a local angel investing group.

Building a mentorship network

One of the difficulties Peru is facing is that there aren’t many angels with an entrepreneurial profile. There’s one specific reason for that, which is the fact that the country doesn’t have many serial entrepreneurs yet.

When they exist, they don’t necessarily know how to give back to the tech community, though things are starting to change. Being a mentor, for instance, is a great way for experienced founders to share their knowledge with young startups.

In that sense, Wayra is helping a lot of people make their way out of the woodwork, Mulder says. The academy’s director himself is a good example; Rosas founded peru.com in 1998 with his brother, and sold it to the media group El Comercio in 2009.

Arguably one of the most knowledgeable persons about the Internet sector in Peru, Rosas explains that the site he still commands had huge successes; at one point, it reached 3.5m unique visitors per month, making it the most visited website in its home country at that time.

Yet, he doesn’t try to hide that he also went through harder periods as a digital entrepreneur in Peru, and he’s happy to talk about them with young entrepreneurs – a refreshing approach in a region where failure is still a taboo.

Besides its director, Wayra Academy will also receive support from other mentors such as Microsoft’s former director for Peru Luis Torres and the serial entrepreneur Manuel Vega, who co-founded Deremate.com, acquired by MercadoLibre in 2005.

Some promising startups

As for the ten startups Wayra will accelerate, here’s a tentative description of what they do, though pivots and rebranding are to be expected:

Andoayudando.com, an online platform that promotes socially responsible initiatives;
Art-e Manifesto, a 2.0 art gallery to connect artists with potential buyers;
Couchy.com, a marketplace for services;
Cuponium, a platform that encourages loyalty towards small businesses;
Face-Me, an online platform to design and make customized toys;
Hipotekaexpress, a mortgage optimization site;
Landmarker, a web and mobile platform for city guides;
Nisu.pe, a fashion e-commerce website;
Papaya.pe, a film portal, from information on releases and movie sessions to ticket sales and digital distribution;
Lindexa, which focuses on analyzing customers’ feedback on blogs and social networks.

While the list obviously includes some of Peru’s most interesting early-stage startups, it’s worth mentioning there are other interesting digital companies in Peru that aren’t part of Wayra, such as the education startup Cursostotales, the Q&A platform Pregunta.pe and the streaming company Alterlatina.

Space for growth

For the next months, the ten teams will be working from Wayra Peru’s 600 square meter space within Telefonica’s building in Lima. At the end of this initial acceleration cycle, a Demo Day will give them a chance to pitch their projects to investors, which is of course a great opportunity in a country where finding financing is difficult.

According to Mulder, Peru’s relatively small size means that the country is often overlooked. With under 30m inhabitants, it has 4m Internet users with a private connection at home or at work according to comScore’s low figures. Yet, it also means the country represents a market opportunity, as Internet penetration has even more space for growth than in other Latin American countries.

One thing is for sure according to those involved: there are huge expectations that Wayra will energize Peru’s entrepreneurs and angels while paving the way for similar initiatives.

Liked this? You may also want to read:

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Sparrow for iPhone arrives mid-March, built with Android and iPad ports in mind

Posted: 17 Feb 2012 03:07 PM PST

After teasing Sparrow for iPhone last November, the team behind one of our favorite email clients for Mac has kept a pretty low profile. There isn’t a lot that is known publicly about the iPhone version as of yet, but Trevor Gilbert over at Pando Daily has one more tidbit for those of you anxiously awaiting it: The app will arrive in the middle of March.

The app, which has only been seen publicly in the shadowy image below, is going to be worth the wait. Some of the TNW team have been using an early version for a few weeks now and are suitably impressed. As Gilbert notes, Sparrow wants to keep the details of the app quiet for now, and we’ll honor that, but yeah, it’s good.

Gilbert has some more details about the app, including the fact that the team built it so that the speedy engine powering it could be easily moved to other platforms like Android and, of course, to the iPad. “The best part about this” co-founder Dom Leca told him, ” [is that] the faster mail engine will be ported back to the Mac, and the interface will be ported to other mobile platforms.”

You can read more of Gilberts impressions over at Pando Daily, where they have a giveaway for three slots in the Sparrow beta test.

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News: Stewart Stand Stainless Steel Tri-Fold Wallet Technical

2012-02-17T20:27:00.001-08:00

Capacity: 6 credit card slots, 1 ID slot, 2 x-tra slots, 1 billfold
Materials: Woven Stainless Steel Cloth, Ballistic Nylon
Approximate size: 3.5 x 4 x 0.25″

Added by popular demand. Our tri-fold wallet accommodates the man who carries it all in one pocket. Smooth stainless steel fabric is paired with with semi-reflective, abrasion resistant performance fabric called ballistic nylon, made in Italy. This fabric is added to the spine of the wallet. These wallets are known for their ultra thin and contemporary profile. They are composed of a specialized industrial stainless steel fabric used in petroleum processing and countless other industries. Among the benefits of these wallets is their ability to prevent credit card fraud by blocking non-deliberate communication by RFID enabled smart card sand passports.

Stewart Stand Stainless Steel Tri-Fold Wallet Technical

News: Foran Classic Modern Briefcase for 15.4=?UTF-8?B?4oCzIA==?=Notebook Computer

2012-02-17T14:44:00.001-08:00

Material : Polyester 900D Matt & Synthetic Leather (PU)
Color : Black
Dimensions : 400 x 275 x 100 mm
Fits Laptops : 365 x 270 x 42 mm
Special Features : Detachable Notebook Sleeve, Detachable and Adjustable Shoulder Strap with Pad, Key Holder

Classic brief with soft PU material and polyester matt fabric. Durable high quality casting.

Foran Classic Modern Briefcase for 15.4″ Notebook Computer

The Latest from TechCrunch

2012-02-17T09:24:00.001-08:00

The Latest from TechCrunch

Analyst: Facebook Will Make $1.2 Billion Annually From Mobile Ads
RVIP Karaoke: The Most Amazing RV On Earth Is Now Much More Than A Hobby
“Etsy For Eco” Ethical Community Raises $300,000+ In Seed Funding
Brightcove Shares Pop Over 30 Percent On First Trade; Valued At Nearly $400M
Real Estate Site VivaReal Raises Cash To Be The Zillow For Brazil
As Social Bookmarking Reignites, Venture-Backed Clipboard Acquires Clipmarks & Amplify
Motorola Droid 4 Review: This Keyboard Rocks, But That’s About It
Google: Unlocking The Door For More Android Originality?
Feel Free To Run Samsung’s New Memory Cards Over With A Truck
Imitation Is The Sincerest Form Of Stealing Someone’s Design: HipChat vs Messages
ProView Is Suing Apple Over The Rights To An iMac Clone
Foxconn Increases Wages, Raises Pay By 16-25% For Chinese Workers
More Backpedaling: Netflix Brings Back the $7.99 DVD-Only Plan
For All The Phones In China, Apple Actually Lost Market Share In Q4
Syrian Government Blocks Bambuser’s Live Video Of Crisis
GSMA Says It Has ‘Contingency Plans’ In Place For MWC Strike. I’m Getting A Bike
Daily Crunch: Fire
Chart: In Four Years, Apple Sold More iPhones Than All Macs Ever
U.S. Cellular Reveals Additional LTE Markets, Expected To Go Live In 2H 2012
Nevada Establishes Regulations For Self-Driving Cars

Analyst: Facebook Will Make $1.2 Billion Annually From Mobile Ads

Posted: 17 Feb 2012 09:11 AM PST

No, Facebook is not advertising yet on mobile devices. Yes, that hasn’t stopped people from speculating on what it will mean when it does. The latest: an estimate of how much the social network stands to make from mobile advertising: more than $1.2 billion a year in the U.S. and its five biggest markets in Europe — the UK, France, Germany, Italy and Spain.

The numbers come from UK-based analyst firm Mobile Squared, which has worked out that Facebook will be making an average revenue per mobile user of around $6.5 per year — some $2 more than Facebook currently makes per users online, using figures supplied in its S-1 earlier this month.

This is how Nick Lane, chief strategy analyst, arrived at these figures:

He estimates that across these six markets, there are a total of 185.3 million users of Facebook on mobile. (That’s something worth noting in itself: Facebook has something of a long tail when it comes to mobile users it seems, with the top six markets still accounting for less than half its 425 million mobile users.)

Within this, the average user spends 12 hours per month on the site, he writes. Here, he notes that comScore puts the average monthly usage at 24 hours.

The average amount of time, he tells me, that a mobile app serves up a new ad is around every 20 seconds, and he puts a CPM on Facebook of $0.25 — calculated, he says, partly based on what other social networking sites are generating on mobile. CPMs, it should be noted, vary wildly — Lane says as low as $0.10 and as high as $50. (Which app brings in that, I wonder?)

The U.S. will account for roughly half of that revenue, at $653.7 million in 12 months, with the UK bringing in $166.6 million, $100 million in France, Germany and Italy, and $70 million in Spain.

He tells me other markets — particularly emerging ones like Turkey, Brazil, and Indonesia — will also add more to the pile, but those CPMs are less stable and were therefore not included in these calculations. He estimates that Indonesia currently has 30 million Facebook mobile users, with another 20 million in Turkey, and 26 million in Brazil.

While it’s worth pondering how much money Facebook could make from mobile ads, there are some big caveats to this kind of number crunching. One thing Lane does not cover are ad formats: the rumors have been that Facebook will first present ads as sponsored stories, rather than traditional display ads, that appear in a user’s timeline. Would these take a different kind of metric other than a traditional CPM and if so, what?

Lane tells me that separate research his firm did for a mobile marketing company found that only 10 percent of respondents said they would be comfortable with brands reaching out and engaging with them through Facebook. Ninety percent said the opposite. If click-through-rates on mobiles is currently 0.5 percent, “expect that figure to drop significantly on Facebook Mobile,” he writes.

There are also still some question marks over what, exactly, the value is of “liking” a brand on Facebook. “Thirty-six million follows, but what does that mean in relation to a brand like Coke?” Lane asks.

RVIP Karaoke: The Most Amazing RV On Earth Is Now Much More Than A Hobby

Posted: 17 Feb 2012 08:45 AM PST

You’ll never forget your first time.

Huddled in a hallway three feet wide, arms reaching every which way for a cup or a beer or the microphone. It’s hot and it’s messy and it’s noisy and everyone is pushing against everyone else but it doesn’t matter because your best friend is at the front of it all belting Total Eclipse of the Heart (how did she just hit that note) — and the world outside is whirling by in a blur.

It’s incredible. And now the RVIP Karaoke RV is ready to take the country by storm.

Today, the people behind this legendary tradition are announcing that they’re turning their passion into a full-fledged company. The papers have been filed, they’re fully insured, and the RV fleet has doubled in size (to two — with more on the way).

For those that haven’t been fortunate enough to take part in one of these karaoke-infused voyages, here’s a little background.

The Karaoke RV first got its start in 2007, when Jonathan Grubb and Kestrin Pantera — a couple who, brought together through the power of karaoke, are now married — decided that they “wanted to have the awesomest party there was at SXSW… but it had to be cheaper than a hotel room.”

And so the Karaoke RV was born. They rented an RV, drove around downtown Austin during the festival, and opened their doors to anyone and everyone who wanted to sing their hearts out.

It was a hit, and the RV has been a SXSW staple ever since (veteran attendees like myself use GroupMe to keep tabs on its whereabouts at all times). For the next few years the team would also rent an RV for a handful of other appearances throughout the year, stopping by at occasional film and music festivals.

And then, thanks to the generosity of entrepreneur Tara Hunt, who heads Buyosphere, RVIP had an RV to call its own — Hunt literally gave them a 27′ Winnebago because “she liked what we were doing and wanted us to do it more.” And so they have.

The team has systematically demolished and rebuilt the interior of the vehicle to maximize its Karaokeing Capacity, and spent much of last year driving it to events across the country, making appearances at venues including TC Disrupt SF and the Sundance film festival. And they’ve recently purchased a second, much larger RV (a 37′ CAT Diesel A-Class), to expand their potential reach — and participants’ shoulder room.

The idea to turn the Karaoke RV into a company, Pantera says, came about late last summer, when she realized that the core team that typically runs the show would be at Burning Man during an event that warranted an RV appearance. So she put together a team to test if the RV could function smoothly when the original founders weren’t onboard. It worked — and they realized that this could be bigger than a hobby.

Which brings us to today.

“We wanted to open a bar, but the rent, buildout, and liquor license costs are really high and it takes forever. So we thought about it like a software project and eliminated the hardest features–alcohol sales and a location–and started iterating. It’s a minimum viable bar,” Grubb says.

Pantera, an actress and musician by trade — who has worked with Weezer and Beck and has made appearances in films that debuted at Sundance and Cannes — is the company’s CEO.

Grubb, who cofounded Get Satisfaction and Rubyred Labs, just left his job as the head of Lookout Mobile Security’s product team to take the helm as the RV’s Chairman, Builder, and Driver. Grubb was also the lead product designer of Isis, the mobile industry’s NFC solution — he quips, “I feel like I’m leaving the hottest industry in the world to have parties all the time, which is awesome.”

Rounding out the executive team is CTO Scott Watson, the Senior Vice President and CTO of Imagineering at The Walt Disney Company (a position he’ll keep while he simultaneously works at RVIP), whose work includes designing Disneyland rides like Indiana Jones and California Aventure’s Soarin’ Over California. Grubb is responsible for converting the RVs into the best karaoke machines they can be — and some of the techniques developed for the RVs are being incorporated into Disney rides. Read that again. These people are awesome.

Finally, the company’s advisors include Nate Bolt (who runs SF design firm Bolt Peters); Mark Trammell, Design Researcher at Twitter; and Jon Snoddy, VP of R&D at Disney Imagineering, who has also been involved with big-name rides.

The company is being funded by its founders, but this isn’t just a benevolent force of awesome, — RVIP actually makes money. Venues and events are willing to pay to have the Karaoke RV make an appearance, and, aside from that appearance fee, these events also are responsible for covering the cost of alcohol, which gets freely distributed to any riders who wish to partake (you need to be over 21 to hop onboard).

In case it wasn’t clear, I love this: some of my favorite memories took place on the Karaoke RV. If you get a chance, don’t hesitate — jump on and sing the way you do in the shower when no one else is home. Even if you’re a little off-key, or you a miss a few lyrics, it doesn’t matter. Your friends probably won’t remember anyway. You won’t regret it.

I’ll close with a quote from Pantera:

“RVIP, for me, is an obsessive labor of love. I hope that the friendships forged here expand beyond the RV, beyond the karaoke, into someplace where people feel an exhilarating sense of love, creativity and liberation. “

“Etsy For Eco” Ethical Community Raises $300,000+ In Seed Funding

Posted: 17 Feb 2012 08:42 AM PST

Ethical Community, an online, eco-friendly marketplace (which has plans for a snazzier name in the works!), has secured a £200,000 ($316,640 USD) round of seed funding from a syndicate of angel investors, the company is announcing today. Founded in 2009, the marketplace has signed up over 850 sellers from around the world, who have now listed over 7,000 eco-friendly, organic and natural products including clothing, jewelry, health and beauty products, food and drink items, pet items and more.

The new investors include AlertMe.com CEO and ASOS.com board member Mary Turner, founding partner at Alchemy Partners, Robert Barnes, venture investor Kelvin Au, and CEO of Orange Advertising Networks, Giuliano Stiglitz.

The company was started by entrepreneurs Liam Patterson and Jason Dainter, who had the idea to connect customers to sellers in a more personal way. People want to hear the stories behind the products, explains Patterson. “To conscious shoppers, this story is more important than the visual appearance of the product,” he says.

As someone who is often the recipient of gifts like handmade, dye-free soaps and homemade jewelry, I know from first-hand experience that it’s the story that convinces the eco-friendly shopper to make their purchase. I never receive just the item in question as my gift, I also receive the card telling me about the story behind the product, as well as a personal anecdote regarding the item’s makers.

To be able to make that same one-on-one connection on the sometimes more impersonal platform of the web is a challenge, but one that seems worth the attempt. To personalize the experience, sellers can now create blog posts on the Ethical Community website to share their stories and interests, as well as post videos from their homes or workshops.

Ethical Community, which is based in the startup-friendly Shoreditch area of London, says it will use the seed funding to grow its seller and shopper base, continue its expansion plans, and launch an improved version of the site in the spring.

Admits co-founder Dainter, the focus until today has been acquiring great sellers, but now they’re working on rebranding. “To be honest, the name and brand needs a revamp, and the funding will help in that respect. Structurally, we have a lot of changes coming.”

One of those changes will involve making the video system a more predominant part of the site, and integrating it more heavily into the social feeds.

“Our brand is very much about the personal connection with buyers and sellers. Video is a great way to do that, so we’re intending to build on that,” Dainter says.

Brightcove Shares Pop Over 30 Percent On First Trade; Valued At Nearly $400M

Posted: 17 Feb 2012 07:43 AM PST

Online video service Brightcove has just made its public debut on the NASDAQ under the symbol ‘BCOV’, with an opening trade of $14.50. This is up over 30 percent from the company’s original pricing of $11 per share, after setting the range of $10-$12 per share. At $14.50 per share, Brightcove is valued at $382 million.

Brightcove sells online video publishing and distribution services, including Brightcove Video Cloud, an enterprise-friendly online video hosting and management platform, and Brightcove App Cloud, a software application development and management platform designed to help customers publish and distribute video through software apps across multiple Internet-connected devices.

Brightcove, which raised $55 million in the offering, filed for the IPO back in August. Brightcove has raised over $100 million from Accel Partners, General Catalyst Partners, Allen & Company, AOL, The New York Times, Maverick Capital, IAC and Hearst Ventures, among others.

The company says it had 3,872 customers as of Dec 31, including The New York Times Company, Oracle, AOL, Philips Electronics, Macy's, Bank of America, the U.S. Army and Honda. Brightcove’s revenue grew in 2011 to $63.6 million (from $43.7 million in 2010), but still showed a loss of $17.8 million. Thanks to plans to “continue to invest in the growth of our business and operations,” Brightcove says it expects to see losses until the end of this year at least.

Real Estate Site VivaReal Raises Cash To Be The Zillow For Brazil

Posted: 17 Feb 2012 07:38 AM PST

VivaReal.com.br, a real estate marketplace in Brazil, has raised an undisclosed amount of funding from a number of angels and investors, including Greg Waldorf, Simon Baker, Shaun Di Gregorio, Wences Casares, Micky Malka, Ariel Poler, Gordon Rubenstein, 500 Startups, Jeff Fluhr, Errol Damelin, Florian Pass, Monashees Capital and Kaszek Ventures.

As co-founder Brian Requarth tells me in more developed markets like the U.S., property searchers have the option to find almost all the inventory for sale or rent online. In Brazil, a fraction of the listings are available online and it is still a highly fragmented marketplace. In the U.S., we have the MLS, which is a centralized database for rental and for sale listings, but in Brazil there’s no such mechanism in place.

With 57,000 real estate brokers in Brazil, the country’s real estate market is largely offline, Requarth explains. And property searchers are under served since there is a dearth of buyers’ agents in Brazil. There is an information gap, which Requarth says can be filled with an online portal.

Similar to how Craigslist, Zillow and Trulia function, VivaReal connects buyers and sellers with properties for sale and rent. Users search for and/or list properties by location, size, rental vs. sale, and more. The company also focuses on helping expats and investors find properties in Brazil with an English version of the site. And the startup plans to deploy mobile optimized versions of VivaReal.com.br for smart phones and tablets this year.

After two years, the company is seeing 1 million monthly unique visitors in Brazil, says Requarth. And currently, the site lists properties in 15 cities in Brazil and will be expanding over time.

As Social Bookmarking Reignites, Venture-Backed Clipboard Acquires Clipmarks & Amplify

Posted: 17 Feb 2012 07:35 AM PST

Clipboard, the web clipping service founded by former Overture vet Gary Flake, has just completed the acquisitions of two competitors, Amplify and Clipmarks. The startup, which is taking on the challenge of reviving social bookmarking, is backed by many top notch investors, including Andreessen Horowitz, Index Ventures, SV Angel, Betaworks, DFJ, First Round, CrunchFund (note: TechCrunch founder Michael Arrington is a founding partner in CrunchFund) and others.

Current Amplify and Clipmarks users will be invited to join Clipboard via email, but anyone else can request an invitation to the Clipboard private beta directly from the the service’s homepage.

As per usual, terms of the acquisition are not being disclosed, but users are in the process of being notified now. An official blog post will also go up later today, serving as “official notification.”

For those unfamiliar, both Amplify and Clipmarks served similar interests: social bookmarking. To be clear, Amplify is actually owned by Clipmarks, LLC, but functions as a separate service. Amplify allows users to clip excerpts from an article, photos, videos, and other content, and then share those items across social media. It was more of a utility for posting content to multiple networks at once (e.g., Twitter, Facebook, Tumblr, WordPress, etc.). Meanwhile Clipmarks, an older service, did much of the same, but focused more on publishing clips to your blog, emailing items to friends or even printing them out. It also once included a Digg-like feature that allowed the most popular bookmarks to “pop” up to the top of the site.

In 2007, TechCrunch reported Clipmarks may have been acquired by Forbes, during a time when Delicious still reigned in the social bookmarking space. But instead of improving on the original Clipmarks product itself, Forbes spun it back around as a new service called Amplify.

Although social bookmarking once seemed to be a bit of a holdover from the Web 2.0 era, the recent success of startups like Pinterest have shown that there’s still life in this category yet, especially if you leverage the social backbone of Facebook to go viral and combine that with a more appealing, visual user interface.

On that front, Clipboard announced a design refresh earlier this month that clearly puts it in Pinterest’s territory. Web clips now appear as tiles with thumbnail previews, action counters and annotations (hashtags), and are laid out on the page as tiled boxes of varying sizes.

The most intriguing thing about Clipboard at present, however, is its current list of investors: Andreessen Horowitz, Index Ventures, CrunchFund, DFJ, SV Angel / Ron Conway, Betaworks, First Round Capital, CODE Advisors, Founder's Co-Op, Acequia Capital, Vast Ventures, Ted Meisel (former CEO of Overture and now at Elevation Partners), Blake Krikorian (former CEO of Sling and now an Amazon board member), and Vivi Nevo.

Clipboard isn’t the only startup outside of Pinterest working to revive social bookmarking, others in this space include Snip.it, Snipi, and the newly relaunched Delicious.

Motorola Droid 4 Review: This Keyboard Rocks, But That’s About It

Posted: 17 Feb 2012 07:32 AM PST

Short Version

The Droid 4 doesn’t look much like its other Droid siblings, but it does promise the same stellar keyboard and a solid construction. At $199 it won’t break your wallet, but it will offer most of the same specs we’re seeing go for $300, including a 4G LTE radio. If thin and light is important to you, the Droid 4 probably isn’t what you’re looking for, but keyboard purists should start getting excited… right… now.

Features:

4-inch 540×960 display
Verizon 4G LTE
Android 2.3.6 Gingerbread
1.2GHz dual-core processor
8MP rear camera (1080p video capture)
1.3MP front camera (720p video capture)
Sliding 5-row QWERTY keyboard
MSRP: $199.99 on-contract

Pros:

The backlit QWERTY keyboard is solid and comfortable
Much better design than old Droids
Highly print resistant, comfortable rear surface

Cons:

Low quality photos
It chugs a bit if you push it
Battery’s a bust

Long Version

Hardware/Design:

The Droid 4 feels great in the hand, and in my honest opinion it sports a far superior design than its predecessors. It actually looks quite a bit like the Razr, save for a textured plastic back panel and the obvious added heft. Still, the same black bezel and boxy metal edges remain.

I wish that both the lock button and the volume rocker had depressed a bit more when pushed, but Moto got it right where port placement is concerned — both the HDMI out and microUSB are on the lower left hand edge. That shouldn’t bother anyone who’s tooling around while plugged in (and trust me, you’ll be plugged in quite a bit (more on that later)).

The removable battery door has a nice feel to it and is surprisingly resistant to prints, though for some odd(/stupid) reason Moto won’t let us get at the battery itself.

The size of the phone didn’t bother me at all. Obviously if thin and light are important to you than you won’t enjoy this, but it felt nice and solid to me. I prefer the 4-inch screen to stuff like the Nexus and Note’s giant displays, and the .5-inch waist line wasn’t that much of a bother either. See, the phone’s weight actually lends itself to a more premium feel in the hand and I wouldn’t have even minded an extra .1 inch if it meant a removable battery (hint hint).

Keyboard:

The Droid 4 keyboard isn’t going to give you any problems on the durability front. It slides in and out nicely and doesn’t seem to bend or crack at all when pressured. There is a little friction there when sliding it back and forth, but after a little getting used to I prefer that more than those ultra slippery sliders — feels a bit sturdier.

The buttons themselves lay nearly flush with the phone, which certainly looks nice, but I’d appreciate just a bit more of a hump or bump to help feel my way around. They’re non-slick keys which is nice on its own, but what’s even better is that they don’t seem to get all grubby and sticky either.

The buttons are placed well, with just enough space in between to at least feel a tiny groove (which is basically necessary since the buttons are so flat). They also offer a nice tapping noise and some solid tactile feedback when pressed, though textaholic teens may have some trouble going unnoticed in a classroom.

I still find the iOS virtual keyboard and Swype to be faster than this physical 5-row QWERTY (for me, at least), but keyboard purists likely won’t find anything better on the market.

Software:

The Droid 4 runs Android 2.3.6 Gingerbread along with some version of a Motorola overlay. It’s not MotoBlur exactly, but it’s certainly not pure Android.

The UI doesn’t seem terribly obtrusive, but it’s also not very useful either. The apps/widgets have this “flashy” effect when you swipe between home screens, which results in an annoyance at best and a headache at worst. There are social hubs and stuff, which is (how can I put it…) whatever, but the value proposition of the UI just isn’t good enough. Now that Googorola is almost in the bag we might start seeing a few more vanilla devices out of Moto, but that’s probably just a dream.

MotoCast is along for the ride here, which offers up a solid option for any cloud syncing/streaming you may want to do between phone and PC. You’ll also find Netflix, a lite version of Madden NFL 12, Kindle Reader, NFL Mobile, and Mog Music present and accounted for, along with a handful of bloatware apps from Verizon and Motorola.

Camera:

The camera on the Droid 4 didn’t live up to my expectations. The app itself is swell, on the other hand. There’s a little drop-down tab on the side that gives you access to plenty of settings, scenes, and modes. Not all of them are as useful as the others, but they’ll at least make for a good time playing around and taking pictures.

However, none of that really matters if the picture quality itself happens to blow. I tried to give it a few chances, switching between low-light and outdoor settings, but no matter what images just seemed to fall flat. I took the same shot with both my iPhone 4S and the Droid 4 and the difference in image quality is staggering.

Take a look:

Display:

The Droid 4 uses a TFT LCD qHD (960×540) display that measures 4 inches diagonally. Size-wise it feels just right. Since the phone itself is a bit thick, a screen any larger might make one-handed actions more difficult. Serious mobile gamers might be a little peeved at the smaller display, but if you’re a serious mobile gamer the Droid 4 probably isn’t right for you anyway.

In terms of quality I’m not all that impressed. Everything seems a bit fuzzier than it should. On the other hand, the Droid 4 screen allows for a nice wide viewing angle, but with a screen so small it’s doubtful you’ll be gathering around the 4 to watch a flick with friends. Could come in handy for the occasional group visit to YouTube, though.

Performance:

Call quality on the Droid 4 was just fine, though I did have a few issues whenever I tried to use microphone-equipped headphones. The usual Android lag is present, and this custom overlay (albeit lighter than TouchWiz) doesn’t help anything. For example, swiping between home screens packed with widgets and even scrolling in a the browser is choppy most of the time.

On the other hand the Droid 4 handled its benchmark testing rather well. Quadrant, which tests just about everything, gave it a score of 2430 on average. It scored an average of 86,544 on Browsermark, which benchmarks browser performance based on hardware. For some perspective, the Galaxy Note scored an averages of 2703 and 48,610 on Quadrant and Browsermark respectively.

Battery:

Unfortunately, the Droid 4 falls short in the battery life department. We test battery life on phones by running them through a program that simply performs a Google Image search each time a page loads. At any time we can pop out of that program and do other things, but the phone is always in use without sleeping from 100 percent battery life until it dies.

The Droid 4 lasted just three hours and forty-five minutes. For some perspective, the Droid Razr gave me a solid four and a half hours, while the Razr Maxx lasted for an impressive eight hours and fifteen minutes. Now, the Droid 4 didn’t seem to have such awful battery life when I let it breathe every once in a while, and the Razr Maxx’s main feature is its massive battery, but this Droid 4 battery life just isn’t adequate.

Head-To-Head With The Droid 3 And iPhone 4S:

Check out our thoughts on this match-up here.

Hands-On Video: Initial Impressions

Conclusion

Here’s the deal.

If you absolutely, 100 percent, beyond-a-shadow-of-a-doubt must have a physical keyboard on your phone, then yes, the Droid 4 is probably the best phone you’ll find. It’s far superior to any BlackBerry or QWERTY-sporting Android that I’ve ever come into contact with. But (and this is a big but)… I wouldn’t recommend the Droid 4 to just about anyone else.

The screen’s not all that impressive, the camera can’t hang, and the battery life won’t get you through the day. It’s pretty, that’s for sure, but simply not good enough unless your insistence on a keyboard is worth more than having a solid smartphone.

Remember, this is the next two years of your life. Who knows how awesome the virtual keyboards will be by then (or if we’ll even be typing with our fingers anymore)? Do you really want to be not one, but (probably) two steps behind everyone else?

Check out all of our Droid 4 review posts here.

Google: Unlocking The Door For More Android Originality?

Posted: 17 Feb 2012 07:11 AM PST

It sometimes feels like an absurd story without an ending, trying to track who is attacking whom in the mobile patent game, and who is “winning.” But Google has now secured one patent that may just demonstrate that companies are figuring out ways of getting around would-be infringement issues — and possibly lead to producing more differentiated products in the process.

A Google patent, published by the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office, looks like it could pave the way for a new way of unlocking a mobile device. The news comes just as Android-handset maker Motorola, which Google is in the process of acquiring, got a ruling against it in Germany for another mobile unlock patent, in an ongoing case filed by Apple.

Apple’s case in Germany rests on the slide-to-unlock gesture, something that Apple has been enforcing against other handset makers as well, such as Samsung — filing a case against the Korean handset maker in California just earlier this week.

In Germany, a court in Munich yesterday determined that Motorola violated those same Apple slide-to-unlock patents in its Android-based smartphone devices — although its Xoom tablets, for what it’s worth, were spared in the ruling.

Florian Mueller notes the ruling carries the possibility of a permanent injunction on it — although it will be up to Apple whether it decides to enforce it, and Motorola has already said it would appeal the decision and that it did not think the decision would have a material impact on sales. It could also modify this feature in its devices though a software update.

If what Motorola says is true — that sales would not be affected by this ruling — what else is at stake here?

There is an argument to be made that there are still too many features that are similar between different, competing smartphones. Android has so far been the clear winner in smartphone market share — with the operating system accounting for the majority of smartphone sales worldwide at the moment. But most individual device makers are not creating distinctive enough products to sell at volumes that compete with Apple and the very biggest of the Android makers, such as Samsung.

At the moment, with Android, some of the most distinctive implementations have been those where handset makers “fork” the OS, although that leads to fragmentation and difficulties further down the development chain.

That’s where Google’s new patent comes in handy. New methods for unlocking will include moving icons from one screen to another, text inputs and voice commands. But as Patently Apple notes, these elements could run together or separately.

This is the direction that Google will hopefully keep moving. If and when this patent gets implemented, it presents one more building block for Android handset makers not only to get around Apple’s legal complaints — but for them to figure out ways of making their products different from each other’s, while still remaining in Google’s ecosystem and not straying too far from the Android flock.

(Image: Glenn, Flickr)

Feel Free To Run Samsung’s New Memory Cards Over With A Truck

Posted: 17 Feb 2012 06:57 AM PST

There's little doubt that Samsung knows how to put together a handsome television or smartphone, but to produce a stylish memory card — well that's another story entirely. Samsung’s certainly willing to give it a shot though, and the end result is their new line of brushed metal SD and microSD cards.

I doubt I'm the only one who doesn't care what my memory cards look like so long as they get the job done, especially because they spend 95% of their time nestled inside a camera. Still, these fashionista-friendly cards will certainly do the trick in your device of choice — the High Speed Series cards range from Class 2 to Class 10, with read and write speeds in the latter class reaching as high as 24MB/s and 13MB/s respectively. The Plus Extreme series, meant for more demanding photogs, can hit write speeds up to 21MB/s.

Now that's all well and good, but I can't help but think Samsung went a little overboard with these things.

The cards can apparently survive being submerged in water for 24 hours, as well as withstand up to 3,200 pounds of pressure. In short, these cards seem more geared toward James Bond's typical use cases than Joe Blow's. Frankly, this whole thing seems like something of a challenge to me — I’m almost tempted to buy one just to do stupid, outlandish things to it in hopes of pushing it over the edge. The cards are available now, so if you’re filled with the same sort of strange, destructive impulse I’m feeling right now, check the chart below for pricing details.

Imitation Is The Sincerest Form Of Stealing Someone’s Design: HipChat vs Messages

Posted: 17 Feb 2012 05:44 AM PST

Clearly there needs to be a workshop or CBT or something on trademark in Cupertino because Apple simply cannot stop infringing! As you see here, the handsome icon for the Messages app looks a lot like a reversed version of the icon for HipChat’s group chat service. HipChat CEO Pete Curley took it in stride, assuming that they would be the ones who would have to change their logo in order to appease the great Moloch of West Coast.

“I doubt we’re on Apple’s radar, but it sucks that we’ll probably have to change our icon because of this,” he said.

Knowing that I had a scoop on my hands, I pressed him for more information.

“What are you guys going to do?” I asked.

“I was thinking of releasing a new version of our app with this as the icon.”

Chin up, Pete. We’ll keep using you until they sue you into oblivion.

ProView Is Suing Apple Over The Rights To An iMac Clone

Posted: 17 Feb 2012 05:28 AM PST

Patent trolls – mere shells of companies that go after potential infringements in order to rack up some hefty legal fees and maybe a settlement or two – don’t have an institutional memory. Take the great iPad in China debacle. What you see above is ProView’s “iPad.” The eagle-eyed among you will note that it bears more than a passing resemblance to the old iMac, circa 1998.

The device, according to the ProView literature, is a development that “constructs on the dream of technology founded human spirit.” This device appeared a few years after the original iMac.

ProView is attempting to extort up to $2 billion out of Apple on this claim even after Apple settled with the company in 2010 for about $50,000 per country in order to secure the iPad trademark. It is impossible to understand how ProView could be so wildly ham-handed in regards to all of this but presumably the statute of limitations is up on their original look and feel infringement and so the dead husk of ProView can keep pounding at Apple’s doors with little success.

MIC Gadget did a little digging and found that ProView is currently owned by a number of banks in China and owes over a billion dollars in liabilities and overdue loans.

All of the Proview International assets, including the trademark 'IPAD', have been seized as mortgage to eight banks — Bank of China, Minsheng Bank, China Development Bank, Guangdong Development Bank, Bank of Communications, Shanghai Pudong Development Bank, Huaxia Bank and Shenzhen Ping An Bank. On November 1 2011, the eight creditor banks of Proview convened a meeting to discuss the negotiation with Apple on the trademark dispute. Since Proview's assets have been frozen by the banks, the eight banks become the beneficiaries of the iPad trademark.

Foxconn Increases Wages, Raises Pay By 16-25% For Chinese Workers

Posted: 17 Feb 2012 05:07 AM PST

Foxconn is under increased scrutiny as of late. The nearly 40-year old company assembles a big portion of the world’s electronic goods but many are questioning its treatment of workers. But nothing calms a troubled soul like cash. The company just released a statement indicating pay raises for Chinese workers just before the Fair Trade Association is set to interview employees about life at Foxconn.

The base pay of junior level worker in Shenzhen is now at 1,800 yuan ($290) per month and, if the worker passes a technical examination, it will be raised to 2,200 yuan. Three years ago the base pay was just 900 yuan per month.

“As a top manufacturing company in China, the basic salary of junior workers in all of Foxconn’s China factories is already far higher than the minimum wage set by all local governments,” the statement said. “We will provide more training opportunities and learning time, and will continuously enhance technology, efficiency and salary, so as to set a good example for the Chinese manufacturing industry.”

Foxconn is often viewed as a good entry-level job in China. The work is hard, no doubt, but the pay is fair for the region and job seekers often line up by the thousands for a chance to work at Foxconn. Not only is the pay a good deal higher than the required minimum but the company also provides dorms, meals, and recreational facilities for its workers. Foxconn is viewed as a way to move from the fields to the city.

But the company is facing some serious accusations. Apple recently announced that the Fair Labor Association will conduct special voluntary audits of several Apple assemblers including Foxconn where they will interview thousands of employees about their living conditions, pay compensation and corporate communication. It’s hard to say whether this pay increase was already on the books or a sort of short-term ploy to garner better marks on these employee interviews.

More Backpedaling: Netflix Brings Back the $7.99 DVD-Only Plan

Posted: 17 Feb 2012 04:39 AM PST

Netflix is looking to make things right again. The company just reintroduced its DVD-only subscription plan. Consumers are finally able to sign up for this plan without also paying for (or trying) Netflix streaming. As Softpedia points out, this option briefly disappeared last fall as the company was trying to realign after the Qwikster disaster.

Netflix experienced a fall from grace in 2011. The once star of Wall Street, the company could seemingly do no wrong. But then they did wrong: prices increased by up to 60%. Next, the company spun off its legacy DVD business in an effort to focus greater on streaming media. Netflix’s stock plummeted and quickly lost more than one fifth of its value.

But don’t count Netflix out. The company’s stock price has doubled since its 52-week low of 62. This latest move, while seemingly pro-consumer, will also allow Netflix to leverage DVDs again. Streaming is still Netflix’s future, but DVDs are still big business — even if the company’s CEO sees DVD subscribers decreasing until they’re all gone. Until that happens, though, Netflix is back in the business of delivering movies and TV shows to consumers no matter how they want it.

For All The Phones In China, Apple Actually Lost Market Share In Q4

Posted: 17 Feb 2012 04:16 AM PST

Apple has an undeniably big opportunity in China, but it is still facing some considerable challenges. As the iPhone maker claimed the top spot as the world’s biggest smartphone vendor in the last quarter (October-December), it actually slipped in the rankings in China and is now in fifth position after ZTE.

But with Apple only kicking off sales of the iPhone 4S in China this January, it’s arguable whether we will see a delayed reaction from the launch of the new device, or whether longer term this is simply a market that will ultimately gravitate to local brands and cheaper devices in the longer term.

The news comes as Proview — the financially-troubled computer maker that is claiming ownership of the iPad trademark in the country (for a device that looks weirdly like an old iMac) — is starting to demand compensation for its troubles. The company has yet to put a figure on how much it would ask for, but one of its creditors suggested $2 billion.

Meanwhile, Apple has seen a huge amount of attention for the launch of its newest iPhone, the 4S, but that hasn’t been shown to have an affect on its sales in the market just yet. According to regional figures from Gartner (via Reuters), in China, Apple accounted for 7.5 percent of sales in Q4, down from 10.4 percent the quarter before.

That put it into fifth position. Ahead of it: Samsung in the lead with more than 24 percent of sales; Nokia now slipped down to second with less than 20 percent compared to 40 percent a year ago; and ZTE with 11 percent.

Analysts, for now, seem to think that the iPhone 4S will not have as big an impact on sales in China as it has in other markets, where the launch of the device in Q4 catapulted Apple to the top of the charts.

One of the key issues is price: the rule of thumb is for a handset to cost about 70 percent of the average monthly salary; the iPhone, selling for 4,988 yuan ($792), is twice the monthly salary. This pricing metric is not one that has gone unnoticed by companies like Huawei, whose smartphones can sell for a quarter of that amount.

Another has been the fact Apple is still only shipping with one carrier — China Unicom — limiting distribution and, crucially, the amount of devices that are getting sold with carrier subsidies on that price. There have long been reports that the country’s third-largest carrier, the CDMA carrier China Telecom, will soon get added to that list.

This is all still, ultimately, a moving target that will need more time to be played out: China now has 1 billion mobile users, but only around 102 million of them are using smartphones. That means there’s still a long way to go before this market saturates, slows down, and becomes more predictable.

Syrian Government Blocks Bambuser’s Live Video Of Crisis

Posted: 17 Feb 2012 03:22 AM PST

Bambuser, a live mobile video streaming startup along the lines of Qik, has become something of an underground hit in the last couple of years because of its ability to stream video over poor mobile connections. That’s made it a favourite of emerging markets, in part because it supports over 200 different mobile devices, from cheap Nokias to the latest iPhone. During the Arab Spring last year it was used by protesters to document various uprisings across the region. The platform has lately been used to great effect by anti-government protesters in strife-torn Syria. But this morning the government blocked 3G and desktop Web access to the service.

Yesterday BBC News was carrying Bambuser’s live stream of black smoke billowing from a site in Homs, the scene of much of the uprising against the Syrian regime.

GSMA Says It Has ‘Contingency Plans’ In Place For MWC Strike. I’m Getting A Bike

Posted: 17 Feb 2012 01:57 AM PST

This is definitely one way for unions to get some attention for their cause: as of this time of writing, public transport employees in Barcelona will be striking during the Mobile World Congress trade show, due to take place between February 27 and March 1. That means no buses and no metros (subways) for an event that last year attracted more than 60,000 people to the city — many of whom did not walk or take cabs and limos across the sprawling Spanish metropolis to get around the event — not the easiest to navigate even in the best of times.

The organizer, the GSMA, is getting understandably worried that this news is going to hit the event hard: the idea of logistics chaos will end up keeping some people away, and those who do show up could end up leaving with a bad taste in their mouths for the future.

Today, the GSMA issued a statement confirming that it is working on this — although it is still woefully thin on details. The government authorities, it writes, are still negotiating to avoid the strike (as they have been for weeks now).

And the GSMA opened its kimono just a little bit to try to assure attendees that they won’t be overlooked: “comprehensive contingency plans are in place to ensure that all participants of the Mobile World Congress have unfettered access to and from the Fira during all days of the event.”

So what are those plans? We still have no idea.

The GSMA says it will only reveal the details “as necessary” should the strike go ahead.

That seems a little ironic. If the GSMA can be so specific as to detail a dress code for the event (comfy shoes! suits and ties for the men and jackets for the ladies), why can’t they tell those of us who are going what it is that they plan to do to sort this situation out? Do they really have a plan?

(We have contacted the GSMA to see if they can reveal a little more.)

By the way, GSMA, if it’s a bunch of private buses that you are laying on, I hope you’re remembering how bad the traffic already is in Barcelona, and will likely be worse as people take to cars when their metros shut down.

Barcelona bike rental companies: I’m all ears.

(Image: Barcelona bike lanes, Yoav Lerman, Flickr)

Daily Crunch: Fire

Posted: 17 Feb 2012 01:00 AM PST

Here are some recent posts on TechCrunch Gadgets:

OS X Mountain Lion Brings The Mac Into The Game

Lytro Video? Maybe Later – For Now, Lytro Focuses On Photos

Amazon Steals 14% Tablet Market Share In Q4, Apple Share Drops To 57%

Samsung Galaxy Note Review: Head-To-Head With The Galaxy Nexus And Streak 5

Chart: In Four Years, Apple Sold More iPhones Than All Macs Ever

Posted: 16 Feb 2012 10:48 PM PST

If anyone has any doubt that iPhones, iPads and other iOS devices are the future of Apple, just take a look at the chart above from Asymco. It shows all iOS products sold cumulatively versus all OS X products ever sold (Macs) over the past 28 years. The iPhone has only been around for four years, but in that time more iPhones have been sold than all the Macs ever sold in Apple’s entire history.

The total number of Macs sold is 122 million. In 2011 alone, if you tally up all the iOS devices including iPods and iPads, 156 million were sold—more than all Macs ever sold. In one year. All told, Apple has sold 316 million total iOS devices over the past few years, iOS devices simply overwhelm OS X devices in terms of how many are out there. No wonder Apple is making OS X look and feel a little bit more like iOS.

I don’t even know how to describe the steepness of that iPhone sales curve. Even “skyrocketing” doesn’t do it justice.

U.S. Cellular Reveals Additional LTE Markets, Expected To Go Live In 2H 2012

Posted: 16 Feb 2012 09:25 PM PST

While larger carriers like AT&T and Verizon are duking it out to cover the country in LTE signal, it’s sometimes easy to forget that there are other contenders in the ring too. Case in point: U.S. Cellular, the nation’s sixth largest wireless provider, announced earlier today that they plan to light up their forthcoming 4G LTE network in 14 additional states before the year is out.

U.S. Cellular revealed earlier this month that their LTE network would go live some time in March, and would initially cover “select cities in Wisconsin, Maine, Iowa, North Carolina, Oklahoma and Texas.”

Today’s announcement adds quite a few locales to that list — selected cities within Illinois, Iowa, Maryland, Missouri, New Hampshire, North Carolina, Oklahoma, Oregon, Tennessee, Vermont, Virginia, Washington, West Virginia and Wisconsin will eventually be able to take advantage of U.S. Cellular’s new network. Given that wireless spectrum access is becoming increasingly difficult to come by, U.S. Cellular has partnered up with Virginia-based King Street Wireless to help make their big LTE push a reality.

By the time the full rollout is completed (and barring any unforeseen circumstances), U.S. Cellular’s LTE network will cover roughly 54% of their total subscriber base. It may not sound like much compared to Verizon and AT&T’s leaps and bounds in coverage, but it seems to put U.S. Cellular ahead of rival MetroPCS, whose own LTE network is currently live in 14 markets across the country.

These new LTE markets are expected to go live in the second half of 2012, and those customers will have some new hardware to play with by then. In addition to some Galaxy Tab 10.1 and Galaxy S variants, U.S. Cellular has announced that an LTE-friendly Samsung mobile hotspot will be ready to aid road-warriors and web junkies as soon as this spring. More LTE smartphones and hotspots are in the works too, and with any luck U.S. Cellular customers will have a sizable LTE device portfolio to sort through before long.

Nevada Establishes Regulations For Self-Driving Cars

Posted: 16 Feb 2012 07:05 PM PST

California may be the 800-pound gorilla in the automotive legislation world, but their neighbor Nevada seems to be taking the initiative when it comes to self-driving cars. They’ve adopted a number of regulations into law, and are pushing the state as a legal testing-ground for companies preparing such vehicles. These changes were telegraphed last summer, when the state legalized driverless cars to begin with. Now they’re hammering out the details.

There’s money involved, of course: a $1m to $3m bond must be purchased if you want to test your robocar in the state, depending on the nature of the project. And the laws will have to change, naturally, once the vehicles go from science project to highway reality. But these early calls seem reasonable.

The new regulations are partly aimed at making testing safe and legitimate, and partly at actually accommodating driverless vehicles on the road. For instance, information from testing must be shared with the state, along with the purpose of the experimentation and information about the cars. This information will be useful to urban planners and the like, who may want to immunize their cities against future robocar problems.

Two people must be in the cars at all times for now, and there must be a sort of “black box” device that records data in case of a crash. Robocars will have red license plates, and later, when certified, green. There will likely have to be some kind of national standard for identifying an autonomous vehicle.

And there are also allowances for the human element: a person will be considered the “operator” of a vehicle whether they are physically present or not. How this will work when the cars are completely autonomous and cause a wreck anyway isn’t clear. But it does also inform an interesting (and probably correct) decision also included in the regulations: for now, you can’t use an autonomous vehicle as a designated driver. Just because you aren’t turning the steering wheel doesn’t mean you’re not “operating” the vehicle. Drinkers be warned.

You will, however, be able to call or text on your mobile while in a robocar. That particular decision was carved out of the earlier law banning texting while driving. So text away or watch a movie, but remember that you’re still in charge of the vehicle.

News: I Ponti Modern Finesse Italian Leather Briefcase

2012-02-17T09:01:00.001-08:00

Hand-held, Ultra-modern Italian Leather Laptop Briefcase Attention to small details makes a monumental difference in how you relate to a product and what better an example than this gorgeous beauty here? The form and the style of this Italian leather bag are to be ‘hand-held’, and that is exactly what you get. Run your fingers on the leather accents, and feel the connection! Its ultra-modern styling, the clean lines and the sophisticated look add to your elegant finesse! 17 x 11.7 x 4.6 (L x H x W) Double open gussets Turn key closure li> External large zipper pocket Internal large central zipper compartment One large zipper pocket Laptop friendly Business card organizer Cell phone holder Pen holder Bras

I Ponti Modern Finesse Italian Leather Briefcase

9 new stories on The Next Web today

2012-02-17T04:12:00.001-08:00

9 new stories on The Next Web today

Scoop: Facebook wins legal battle against Power.com over spam, unauthorized access
Microsoft blasts Google over iPhone browser tracking, pushes IE9 while it’s at it
Asia’s first dedicated social media research center is launched in Hong Kong
BBC Worldwide brings 600 hours of programming to Hulu in Japan
Gougle, Googer, Goolgle – Google wins 32 typo-squatted domain names
It’s not just Apple: Facebook may face trademark woes in China
Japanese ad giant Dentsu breaks with Publicis, sells back 18m shares for €644.4 million
Seeking Apple payout, Proview chairman demands “proper” iPad trademark compensation
Report: Google overrode Safari browser security to track Internet usage
Chinese search giant Baidu to focus on developing mobile Web services

Scoop: Facebook wins legal battle against Power.com over spam, unauthorized access

Posted: 17 Feb 2012 03:43 AM PST

I’ve received word that Facebook has emerged victorious in court after a long legal tussle with Power Ventures, the VC-backed company behind now-defunct (and up for sale) social networking hub Power.com. I’ve since obtained the court judgment documents and have verified and confirmed with Facebook that it has indeed won.

A timely victory for them, too, as they gear up for their big IPO.

I’ve embedded the docs below but allow me to break down the story for you.

Power.com, which aggregated data and content from a variety of social networking sites in a single, Web-based interface, originally launched in November 2008.

Facebook didn’t much care for Power.com collecting information about its users and displaying it on their own website, and promptly sued.

Power.com then filed a motion to dismiss the case, which was denied. In a subsequent counter-claim, Power.com alleged that Facebook engaged in monopolistic and anti-competitive behavior by placing restraints on its ability to manipulate users’ Facebook data even when their consent was given.

A California court didn’t find Facebook guilty of such behavior, though.

When Facebook filed suit against Power.com in December 2008, the social networking company alleged that Power Ventures also sent more than 60,000 unsolicited and misleading commercial messages (okay, okay, spam) to Facebook users, and that it had intentionally circumvented measures that Facebook put in place to block access to the site.

Yesterday, a court ruled that Power Ventures’ conduct did in fact violate state and federal law, because their access to the site was “without permission”, and court also agreed that Power.com had circumvented technical measures that were designed and put in place by Facebook to stop their activity.

The court asked for additional briefings on the amount of damages Facebook should now be awarded, and whether or not Power Ventures founder Steve Vachani should be held personally liable. I’ve tried to reach Vachani through multiple channels over the past few hours but have not been able to reach him.

After contacting Facebook, a spokesperson sent me this statement, attributable to the company’s Lead Litigation Counsel, Craig Clark:

“We are pleased that the court ruled in our favor. We will continue to enforce our rights against bad actors who attempt to circumvent Facebook’s privacy and security protections and spam people.”

And double pleased considering the timing of the ruling, I’m sure.

Facebook wins suit against Power Ventures

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Microsoft blasts Google over iPhone browser tracking, pushes IE9 while it’s at it

Posted: 17 Feb 2012 02:59 AM PST

With Google acknowledging that it utilised features in its services to bypass Apple’s built-in security measures in its Safari mobile browser to track users, Microsoft has taken the opportunity to join the debate, condemning the search giant and using it as a platform to tout the security of its own browser, Internet Explorer 9.

Remarking that Google’s tracking practices are “not new”, Microsoft’s blog post entitled ‘Browse Without Being Browsed’ accuses the company of circumventing the privacy protections in Apple’s mobile browser “in a deliberate, and ultimately, successful fashion.”

Microsoft then proceeds to list how its Internet Explorer 9 browser has some of the “strongest privacy protection in the industry,” highlighting its Tracking Protection feature and how it puts users in control of their actions online.

“Not Google. Not advertisers. Just you,” Microsoft declares.

Apple has said that it’s "working to put a stop" to techniques that can circumvent Safari’s built-in protections, and Google has claimed that the Wall Street Journal “mischaracterised” its actions, stating that its advertising cookies do not collect personal information.

Google says that the feature was enabled for signed-in users on Safari which had opted to see personalized ads and other content, which includes being able to +1 content for its Google+ social network service.

MG Siegler brings balance to reports, suggesting that whilst Google backtracked after being found out, Safari does have stricter privacy controls than other mobile browsers. Siegler also suggests that tracking is actually able to help Google users utilise the company’s free services but, like many, believes that if it was merely used to push Google+, then it’s “very poor form” on the company’s part.

Of course, this is the latest in a long line of public blows between the two companies. Previous Microsoft campaigns have tried to paint Google's products as unnecessarily intrusive, and loose with your private information. For more on the exchanges, read here, and here.

Many of Google’s privacy issues have arisen following the company’s decision to amalgamate its privacy policies into one document, which states that it may track users across products and services, without an option to opt-out. This has forced government regulators and consumer watchdogs to request Google delays the roll out of its new policy, so they are able to analyse the new rules and assess the impact on Google users.

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Asia’s first dedicated social media research center is launched in Hong Kong

Posted: 17 Feb 2012 02:37 AM PST

Asia now has its very first dedicated social media research center, after the Hong Kong University of Science and Technology (HKUST) launched its Social Media Laboratory this week.

The new facility will be responsible for studying social media culture and technology across Asia, in a move that HKUST describes as “bring[ing] academic and commercial significance to the development and application of social media in the region.”

Speaking at the launch event, Professor Tony F. Chan, President of the University’s Science and Technology department, revealed his pride that HKUST had become the first educational institute on the continent to make the introduction:

With this laboratory, our faculty and researchers are taking an active part in nurturing research and development talents in the blooming new arena of social media, and building Hong Kong as a leading hub of creative media and IT technologies in the region.

The center will work with a number of local businesses as it looks to build links with corporate companies in the region. A number of local partners are tapping the center’s resources and expertise, and they include domestic telecom and IT firm PCCW, TimeWarner-owned publisher Turner Broadcasting and popular restaurant guide Open Rice.

As part of the launch, the university has also agreed to build a video social network which will connect the faculty and its students to the business community in Hong Kong and beyond. The collaboration is in conjunction with tech firm Cyberport, and the company will also put together a series of events — including training courses, workshops and other seminars — to help keep students up to date with the latest technology trends and issues for businesses.

Social media usage in Asia has grown massively over the last couple of years but a significant amount of analysis and measurement of the region is made out of other parts of the world. While reports have found that business use of the medium remains immature.

Though social media usage in the region is strong, a number of reports have found that strategy and campaign activity is below the standard of common practice in North America and Europe. That was the conclusion of a report from PR firm Burson Marsteller last October, which was echoed by research published by TNS one month later.

Being based in Hong Kong has the advantage of links to China — and its own unique social media space — as well as the rest of the continent, while the level of English in the country is among the highest in the region.

The establishment of the continent’s first dedicated academic facility may not be the factor that brings a seismic change and increase in sophistication to business use of social media in Asia, but it is a step in the right direction. At the smallest level, it could provide more data and may encourage other universities and educational institutes in the region to follow suit, which can only be a good thing.

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BBC Worldwide brings 600 hours of programming to Hulu in Japan

Posted: 17 Feb 2012 02:25 AM PST

The BBC’s commercial arm, BBC Worldwide, has become the first British distributor to license content to online TV service Hulu in Japan.

The multi-year agreement will see around 600 hours of BBC Worldwide programming made available on the platform from today, though more programming will be added.

Yesterday, we reported that Hulu Plus, the company’s monthly subscription service, was arriving on Nintendo Wii, with the much-mooted 3DS release pushed back to later this year. Hulu’s video-on-demand (VOD) services are available across Blu-ray players, televisions (network-enabled smart TVs), smartphones, tablets and games consoles, among other platforms such as TiVo and Roku.

This latest deal represents the largest volume of BBC Worldwide content on any platform in Japan, with titles licensed across multiple genres including drama, comedy, music, lifestyle, natural history, science and history. Fans of the likes of Doctor Who, Little Britain, Walking with Dinosaurs, Top Gear and Life, will be able to access it through Hulu in Japan from today.

“We're excited to be expanding our business in the Japanese digital sector by becoming the first British distributor to partner with Hulu in Japan,” said Joyce Yeung, General Manager and Senior Vice President for BBC Worldwide Sales & Distribution Asia. “Hulu's versatile service opens up a new audience for our catalogue, which covers everything from entertainment formats and international drama productions, to cutting-edge science documentaries and world-renowned natural history titles.”

Founded in 2007, Hulu is a US-based online TV service for premium content from around the world, and its ownership is shared between Hulu, NBCUniversal, NewsCorporation, The Walt Disney Company and Providence Equity Partners. Hulu Japan launched in September 2011, marking the first expansion of Hulu outside of the US.

“Our goal is to bring Japanese entertainment fans unlimited streaming access to the world's premium content whenever and wherever they want to watch. The BBC is home to some of the most premium content on the planet, and we are thrilled to make these programmes available to Hulu subscribers,” added Kazufumi Nagasawa, Head of Content Acquisition for Hulu in Japan.

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Gougle, Googer, Goolgle – Google wins 32 typo-squatted domain names

Posted: 17 Feb 2012 02:19 AM PST

A small but noteworthy victory for Google as it has won 32 typo-squatted domain names, including Gougle.com, Go0gle.com, Googole.com, Goolgle.com and Googer.com. Probably best to avoid visiting those, btw.

The search and advertising giant initially filed a complaint with the National Arbitration Forum against the single (apparently Hong Kong-based) owner of the slew of domain names on the 5th of January, around the same time it also won five YouTube related typo-squatted domains.

Understandably, the Forum ruled that the domain names (full list below) should be transferred to Google immediately. Especially because the soon-to-be-former owner of the domain names failed to submit a response in this proceeding, despite multiple attempts by the Forum to reach him/her.

In its decision, the National Arbitration Forum asserted that all domains met the three requirements to transfer the domains to Google under ICANN rules:

(1) The domain name registered by Respondent is identical or confusingly similar to a trademark or service mark in which Complainant has rights; and

(2) Respondent has no rights or legitimate interests in respect of the domain name; and

(3) The domain name has been registered and is being used in bad faith.

Here’s the full list of domains obtained by Google:

geoolge.com
gggoogle.com
ggolge.com
ggoole.com
go0gle.com
gogelmail.com
goggleemail.com
gogglemails.com
gologle.com
googemail.com
googer.com
googlae.com
googlecalander.com
googlede.com
googledevice.com
googleen.com
googlehomepage.com
googleparking.net
googlepictures.com
googletr.com
googlev.com
googlp.com
googlse.com
googlu.com
googne.com
googole.com
googu.com
goolggle.com
goolgle.com
goolglemail.com
gooogly.com
gougle.com

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It’s not just Apple: Facebook may face trademark woes in China

Posted: 17 Feb 2012 12:46 AM PST

As Apple feels the pressurefrom Chinese authorities over its disputed iPad trademark case against Proview, other technology companies — including Facebook — have begun questioning the legitimacy of their intellectual property in the country.

The social networking giant has been active in China, already filing 61 trademark applications on the Facebook name since 2006, covering both English and Chinese translations, according to the Trademark Office of China’s industry and commerce authority.

However, according to Facebook representative East IP Group, many of the names have been registered domestically, including the Chinese definition of ‘Facebook’, leading the company to assess its options over how it will be able to claim ownership on the marks.

An East IP representative told Chinese reporters that the company was “collecting evidence”, adding that it was hoping to “reclaim these trademarks based on Facebook’s popularity and social awareness.”

Though the company continues to evaluate the potential of the country, where it is blocked, Facebook has admitted that "does not know" if it will ever find an approach that is deemed satisfactory to both the social network and Chinese authorities.

Chinese trademark registrations have become a hot topic in the past few weeks following Apple’s courtroom loss over its ‘iPad’ trademark ownership. Local technology company Proview asserted that whilst it had sold many of its iPad registrations to an intellectual property firm representing Apple, it had not relinquished marks in China and the Cupertino-based company was infringing on them with its iPad tablet.

As a result, some local Administrations of Industry and Commerce began confiscating iPad stock where it had been found on sale, in response to the earlier trademark ruling in China. Apple is appealing the decision, which could cost it millions to overturn.

Proview Chairman Yang Rongshan today weighed in on the debate by claiming that the American company must compensate the Taiwanese firm "properly" if it is to use the term 'iPad' in China.

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Japanese ad giant Dentsu breaks with Publicis, sells back 18m shares for €644.4 million

Posted: 17 Feb 2012 12:18 AM PST

As anticipated, Publicis Groupe has purchased back a block of its own shares, which were held by Japanese advertising mammoth Dentsu. Publicis is putting 644.4 million euros on the table, which comes down to 35.8 euros per share.

The deal was financed with available cash, the communications juggernaut said.

Of the 18 million shares purchased, roughly 11 million shares will be immediately cancelled as unanimously agreed upon by its Management Board, Publicis said in a statement. A total 10 percent of the company’s shares – the maximum permitted by law – has now been cancelled, over the past 24 months.

The remaining shares from this transaction will be kept to “cover incentive plans for retention shares, performance shares, stock options and acquisitions”.

Under the terms of the agreement between Dentsu and Publicis, all commercial ties between the two companies have been effectively cut.

Dentsu and Publicis had maintained a capital and business alliance since September 2002, up until this transaction.

Dentsu says the “close commercial relationship” that it has built with Publicis over almost 10 years will continue into the future, however, and that it will proactively consider all opportunities for future collaboration.

Dentsu will continue to hold roughly 3.8 million Publicis shares (2 percent of shares outstanding prior to the sale, or 2.12 percent of the Publicis shares outstanding after the completion of the transaction and following the share cancellation).

Also worth pointing out: Dentsu says there will be no changes to the management structure or policies of the two joint ventures it established with Publicis in past times (Beacon Communications & Dentsu Razorfish, both headquartered in Tokyo).

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Seeking Apple payout, Proview chairman demands “proper” iPad trademark compensation

Posted: 16 Feb 2012 11:40 PM PST

Shenzhen Proview Chairman Yang Rongshan has weighed in on the debate around the trademark dispute with Apple by claiming that the American company must compensate the Taiwanese firm “properly” if it is to use the term ‘iPad’ in China, Dow Jones reports.

Speaking at a press conference Yang, who is also the company’s main shareholder, told media that “if we are not compensated properly, then Apple doesn’t use the iPad trademark in mainland China.”

Yang’s comments come one day after strong evidence suggesting Apple owns the patents came to light. A report from AllThingsD revealed the compelling evidence that Apple has in support of its argument that it has already purchased the trademark in China.

Proview claims that a deal was made with affiliates yet Apple has records of emails from Proview’s legal staff in China confirming the sale of the iPad trademark in the country.

While Yang did not provide an indication of exactly how much compensation the firm is seeking from Apple, Dow Jones reports that creditors have indicated that the company has been advised to pursue $2 billion. The briefing also saw the company reveal that it has manufactured 20,000 ‘iPad’ devices — which is pictured below via the Wall Street Journal China Real Time blog — before the legal case saw production cease.

Yang refuted allegations that the company has filed for bankruptcy, as had been reported in The New York Times. A representative of Proview’s creditors claimed that eight banks have opposed a bankruptcy claim, which is labelled unnecessary.

The comments come at the end of a week in which developments around the trademark case have escalated with Apple’s devices withdrawn by some retailers in the country. On Monday, it was revealed that retailers in the city of Shijiazhuang had removed iPads from their shelves at the request of local authorities.

Subsequently, two Web retailers – Sunning and Amazon China — withdrew the product at Apple’s request, however it later emerged that the move was not connected to the legal case, as neither company was registered to sell it in China.

According to Dow Jones, Yang confirmed that authorities in more than 30 Chinese cities have taken action in connection around the dispute, which the Proview head claims is a sign of them “doing their job.”

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Report: Google overrode Safari browser security to track Internet usage

Posted: 16 Feb 2012 10:53 PM PST

The ongoing tech privacy debate, which began when Path was exposed for accessing user data without permission, took a new twist after Google, and a number if advertising firms, were revealed to have been overriding privacy settings to track Internet usage on Apple’s Safari browser.

According to a report from The Wall Street Journal, the companies made use of “a special code” which fools the browser into allowing the monitoring of behaviour, an action that it is specifically designed to block.

Google says that it has stopped using the code after it was contacted by the newspaper, while it was also found to have been used by ad firms Vibrant Media, WPP-owned Media Innovation Group and and PointRoll.

Research conducted by the Wall Street Journal found that the code, which was used to track user interaction with adverts on iPhones and across Apple computers, was present in 22 of the Web’s top 100. While it was supposed to expire within two days, it was found to allow more cookies to be added to track user usage.

As the graphic below explains, the security override was made possible by the insertion of a code which trailed visited sites and behaviour:

An Apple spokesperson confirmed that the company is “working to put a stop” to Safari privacy issue. Of the advertising firms, Vibrant Media called the practice a “workaround [to] make Safari work like all the other browsers”, WPP declined to comment while Gannett described the code as a “limited test”.

Google has defended its actions claiming that it did not collect personal data from the activity. A statement from Rachel Whetstone, Senior Vice President, Communications and Public Policy reads:

The Journal mischaracterizes what happened and why. We used known Safari functionality to provide features that signed-in Google users had enabled. It’s important to stress that these advertising cookies do not collect personal information.

The company goes on to explain that it began using the functionality “to enable features for signed-in Google users on Safari who had opted to see personalized ads and other content”, which includes being able to +1 content for its Google+ social network service.

The company explains that it had made the information anonymous but it didn’t anticipate that its advertising cookies would be enabled:

To enable these features, we created a temporary communication link between Safari browsers and Google's servers, so that we could ascertain whether Safari users were also signed into Google, and had opted for this type of personalization. But we designed this so that the information passing between the user's Safari browser and Google's servers was anonymous–effectively creating a barrier between their personal information and the web content they browse.

However, the Safari browser contained functionality that then enabled other Google advertising cookies to be set on the browser. We didn't anticipate that this would happen, and we have now started removing these advertising cookies from Safari browsers. It's important to stress that, just as on other browsers, these advertising cookies do not collect personal information.

Google’s recent privacy changes caused controversy, with the EU asking the company to “pause” its introduction. Authorities in Korea have also probed the new policy, while rival Microsoft has been vocal in its criticism too.

This latest episode follows the FTC’s going antitrust investigation into Google, which was recently expanded to include the company’s Google+ social network.

Image: Shutterstock user Dmitriy Shironosov

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Chinese search giant Baidu to focus on developing mobile Web services

Posted: 16 Feb 2012 08:24 PM PST

Baidu Chief Executive Robin Li has revealed that the company is focused on developing its offering for mobile this year, as it looks to take advantage of China’s booming mobile and smartphone market.

China became the world’s biggest mobile market in the final quarter of 2011, when device shipments to the country outnumbered those to the US for the first time, and Li acknowledges the significance of the mobile for the search giant.

Speaking on an earnings conference call following the company’s latest filing — which saw total revenues and profit increase by more than 80 percent year-on-year — Li is reported by Reuters as saying:

We do think mobile will become a very important channel to distribute our products and that has increasingly become true over the past quarter. And we think during the coming year, mobile will represent an ever larger percentage of our total traffic.

The CEO also admitted that, thus far, the company has allowed its mobile Web efforts to grow organically, but that it is set to chance as it looks to develop services for customers using phones:

In the past, we have not spent any resources in monetizing the mobile traffic. But starting from this year, we will do something to figure out how to better serve our customers on our mobile platform.

Baidu’s plan to monetise mobile comes after it stepped into the mobile operating system (OS) space last year when it launched Baidu Yi, which is heavily based on rival Google’s Android OS. While the company has launched initial devices, Li revealed that it is hoping to expand its partners to produce more devices.

Baidu dominates the Chinese search space, where it accounts for a reported 78 percent of industry-wide revenues, leading Google by some 60 percent. The US firm famously moved its search operations to Hong Kong, a country that its executive chairman Eric Schmidt describes as “the other China, which we like”, but the company continues to focus on China.

Baidu is rumoured to be moving into new international markets, with a report yesterday claiming that it is close to opening a Latin America office based in Brazilian city Sao Paulo, however the company declined to comment.

This posting includes an audio/video/photo media file: Download Now

News: Tumi Unisex – Adult T-Tech By Tumi Data T-Pass Bauer Brief Pack

2012-02-17T01:49:00.001-08:00

Measures 16.75″ x 12.5″ x 5.5″, laptop compartment measures 11″ x 15.5″ x 1
Self-adjusting backpack straps
T-pass checkpoint-friendly laptop compartment
Removable accessory pouch

The data collection is designed for serious business traveler, inside and out. made from tough ballistic nylon with rich leather trim, data travel and business cases are conservative and sophisticated in their styling, and offer functional interiors with smart detailing. this checkpoint-friendly t-pass brief pack allows you to go through airport security without removing your laptop from the case. the backpack straps let you enjoy hands-free mobility and plenty of organizer pockets keep you operating at top efficiency. holds a 15″ laptop.

Tumi Unisex – Adult T-Tech By Tumi Data T-Pass Bauer Brief Pack

News: Bosca Monogrammed Leather Briefcase – Black– Frontgate

2012-02-16T20:20:00.001-08:00

Two large gusseted internal pockets
Padded laptop compartment
Built-in holders for cell phone, PDA, three pens, airline tickets, glasses, and business cards
Snap-out key fob
Quick-release, lockable silver metal clasp

Two large gusseted internal pockets. Padded laptop compartment. Built-in holders for cell phone, PDA, three pens, airline tickets, glasses, and business cards. Snap-out key fob. Quick-release, lockable silver metal clasp. Made of beautiful natural grain leather, this Bosca Monogrammed Leather Briefcase ensures an elegant, sophisticated appearance anywhere your business takes you. Features an easy-open flap and loads of organized space inside:. . . . . Two additional small internal pockets. Two handy computer accessory pouches for cord and peripheral storage. Quick-release shoulder strap, adjustable from 39-46 inches. Handy outside posterior newspaper/magazine pocket. Monogram will be placed above the lock. Monogrammed items cannot be return

Bosca Monogrammed Leather Briefcase – Black – Frontgate

News: Kozmic 3423blk Womens Executive Leather Briefcase in Black

2012-02-16T14:43:00.001-08:00

3423blk Color: Black Features: -Middle zipper pocket.-Inside one zipper pocket.-On front and back two compartments close with magnet snaps.-Three front zipper pockets.-Both side tab close with buckle.-One short handle.-One shoulder strap. Construction: -Constructed of genuine leather. Dimensions: -Dimensions: 15.5” H x 11” W x 6” D.

Kozmic 3423blk Womens Executive Leather Briefcase in Black

News: Spalding 8312S Inflating Needles

2012-02-16T10:50:00.001-08:00

Inflating Needles

$ 0.64
Inflating Needles