AT&T had previously limited Apple’s FaceTime video chat service to Wi-Fi or customers with new — generally more expensive — shared data plans. The carrier recently announced that it would open the service to more iPhone and iPad users, but digital rights groups are saying AT&T is still violating net neutrality regulations.
“Net neutrality rules prohibit DSL and cable companies from unfairly blocking services they don’t like and require them to be transparent about how they manage their networks during times of congestion,” Wired explains. “The regulations do allow for certain kinds of mobile network management during periods of congestion, but these cannot unfairly target services that compete with the carriers’ own services.”
“AT&T in August said that the main reason why it was not breaching the FCC’s net neutrality rules was because the FaceTime application comes pre-installed on the iPhone and iPad,” the article continues. “The company said it was not blocking the app, but that it reserved the right to enforce ‘some reasonable restrictions’ to manage expected traffic congestion of the data-hogging app.”
Now, AT&T allows the iPad 3 and newer models as well as the iPhone 4S and iPhone 5 running iOS 6 to use FaceTime over cellular networks.
“But despite the change, Public Knowledge said that, until AT&T begins offering the service on all of its cellular plans like Sprint and Verizon do — including for AT&T customers with unlimited data — the company will be violating net neutrality rules,” Wired writes.
Public Knowledge and other digital rights groups have threatened to take up the issue with the Federal Communications Commission if AT&T doesn’t open up FaceTime to all plans and all compatible devices.
Multiple anonymous sources are saying that Microsoft is discreetly building a 7-inch Xbox Surface gaming tablet, locking down buildings and factories to keep the project under wraps.
“The Xbox Surface will likely include a custom ARM processor and high-bandwidth RAM designed specifically for gaming tasks,” reports The Verge. “We’re told these specifications could be altered to accommodate an unannounced Intel SoC and that the Xbox Surface is being developed independent of specific hardware architecture.”
“Microsoft’s Xbox Surface won’t run a full version of Windows, rather this 7-inch tablet will run a custom Windows kernel,” explains the post. “Messaging and other tablet functions may be supported, but the focus is on gaming.”
Microsoft has reportedly created a secret hardware production process for the Xbox Surface separate from its traditional manufacturers for its Xbox console.
Additionally, the company has limited employee access to buildings in Silicon Valley that are related to the Interactive Entertainment Business.
“The lock down is likely related to Microsoft’s increased testing of the tablet, providing a way for other parts of the Xbox team to build games and software for the device,” suggests The Verge. “Providing the project doesn’t get killed in favor of a full 7-inch Windows tablet, in the same way Microsoft axed Courier, expect to see the Xbox Surface debut ahead of Microsoft’s future Xbox console.”
After using Microsoft’s Surface tablet for more than a week, Slate writer Farhad Manjoo concludes the tablet is no competitor for Apple’s iPad.
“It’s too slow, it’s mercilessly buggy, and the add-on that’s supposed to set it apart from the iPad — its touch-cover keyboard and trackpad — is nice but far from revolutionary,” Manjoo writes.
“At $499 for the base model, plus $120 for the almost-required touch cover, the Surface is also not very competitive on price: You can get the newest standard iPad for the same $499, the still pretty good iPad 2 for $399, and the new iPad mini for $329.”
The tablet feels heavy, he writes, and it takes extra half-seconds to do anything. Switching the orientation is also very clunky and the tablet responds slowly to inputs.
“Perhaps it’s just hobbled with an inadequate processor and too little RAM,” Manjoo suggests. “Maybe we can expect future versions to pack more power and, consequently, to feel less frustrating. After all, Apple’s original tablet was a bit lethargic, too.”
“[The first iPad] may not have been perfect, but it was unquestionably the best tablet of its era. The Surface is hitting the shelves in 2012, when, in addition to Apple’s tablets, you can now get Google’s Nexus 7 and Nexus 10 or one of Amazon’s super-cheap Kindle Fires,” Manjoo writes, adding that Microsoft has no room for error as Apple did when releasing the first tablet.
The Surface “promises that you’ll be able to type faster, to use a pointer, to actually get things done and not feel like there are certain things your device just can’t do,” he concludes. “The iPad may not allow you to do everything, but Apple has made sure that it’s great at what it can do. The Surface, by contrast, will let you do everything you want. The problem is that you’ll have no fun doing it.”
As part of its strategy to “channelize” its popular video site, YouTube has so far helped fund about 160 “channels” that feature original content and, in some cases, celebrity talent.
“And just like the TV world, YouTube isn’t going to renew all of last season’s programs,” reports AllThingsD. “This week, Google’s video site will start offering new contracts to some of the channel programmers/creators it signed up in the last year. But not all of them: YouTube figures it will end up re-investing in up to 40 percent of its original channels by the time the renewal process is done.”
YouTube plans to address the renewals in batches, beginning with the first group of channels it launched in January.
New deals are expected to reflect the ones originally established last year, in which content creators received up to $5 million to produce content exclusively for the site. Channels that are not offered new deals will not be bounced from the site. YouTube hopes the producers will continue to provide content.
“Jamie Byrne, YouTube’s director of content strategy, says the site is most concerned about engagement — primarily the total ‘watch time’ a channel has generated — and cost — how efficient programmers have been with their programming budget,” explains the article.
Financial performance is not expected to be a deciding factor in the new deals, since the advertising model remains a work in progress.
“We’ve had some really great response from the advertiser community. As we continue to talk to advertisers and marketers, there’s a real sense that they’re looking at YouTube differently,” Byrne says. “But as we look at this initiative, we are taking the long view here. It’s not necessarily about immediate results.”
A federal judge in California ruled last week that broadcasters did not prove they had sustained enough damage from DISH Network’s ad-skipping Hopper DVR to warrant a preliminary injunction.
“U.S. District Court Judge Dolly Gee in Los Angeles refused to grant Fox Broadcasting’s first attempt to block DISH Network’s advertising-skipping DVR services known as ‘AutoHop’ and ‘PrimeTime Anytime,'” explains The Hollywood Reporter.
However, Fox says it is “gratified the court found the copies DISH makes for its AutoHop service constitute copyright infringement and breach the parties’ contract.”
“The satellite company is asserting that AutoHop (aka the Hopper) is really just an improvement on existing recording devices that have been accepted by the industry and judicially blessed as ‘fair use’ going back to the Supreme Court’s 1984 ruling on the Sony Betamax VCR and continuing through the Ninth Circuit’s 2008 ruling on Cablevision’s remote-storage DVR,” explains THR.
“Fox dismisses DISH’s contention that the technology is merely a ‘souped-up DVR’ and disputes that the freedom to time-shift is at stake here,” notes the article.
The court ruling is currently sealed from public view until both parties have the opportunity to remove any trade secrets. Fox said it intends to appeal the decision.
At least one patent battle in the smartphone wars is finally over. Apple and HTC reached a settlement over the weekend to dismiss all current lawsuits the companies have against each other.
Additionally, the companies have inked a 10-year cross-licensing deal that grants rights to current and future patents held by each party. Terms of the settlement were not disclosed.
Apple sued HTC in 2010, claiming that the Taiwanese manufacturer infringed on patents related to the iPhone. HTC, in turn, accused Apple of infringing several of its mobile technology patents.
“The deal was the first settlement between Apple and a maker of devices that use Android, an operating system that has rapidly swallowed most of the smartphone market and threatened Apple’s position in the mobile business in the process,” reports The New York Times. “Other patent lawsuits continue around the globe, including far more significant ones between Apple and Samsung, by far the biggest maker of Android smartphones.”
While the deal may suggest that Apple CEO Tim Cook is eager to end the distraction and risks of patent fights, it may not necessarily be a sign that Apple will settle its fight with Samsung.
“The stakes in Apple’s dispute with Samsung are far higher than they were in its battle with HTC,” notes the article. “Samsung ranked No. 1 in smartphone market share during the third quarter of this year, shipping 56.3 million of the devices, while Apple was second with 26.9 million smartphones, according to estimates by IDC. HTC, in contrast, was fifth, shipping 7.3 million phones.”
China is looking to be a top supercomputer competitor with its Tianhe-2, which expects to run at 100 petaflops and be released in 2015.
The U.S. launched a 20-petaflop computer, the world’s fastest supercomputer. China’s latest machine looks to increase those speeds by five times.
“Tianhe-2 could help keep China competitive with the future supercomputers of other countries, as industry experts estimate machines will start reaching 1,000-petaflop performance by 2018,” notes ITworld.
“The Tianhe-2 is not China’s first attempt at building a world-beating supercomputer. It briefly took the top spot on the world’s list of most powerful supercomputers in 2010 with the Tianhe-1A. That computer is now ranked fifth in the world with a theoretical peak speed of 4.7 petaflops, and uses processors from Intel and Nvidia.”
Last year, China built the Sunway Bluelight supercomputer with a domestically developer processor. “This was like a trial,” says Chen Dexun, a senior engineer at the supercomputing center where the 1-petaflop Sunway Bluelight machine is housed.”Before, we were always using U.S. chips, and so we wanted to see our abilities in making these processors,” he says.
China is not, however, the only country looking to make a 100-petaflop computer by 2015. The European Union, Japan and U.S. have also expressed intentions to work toward that goal.
In addition, China has plans to build a 1-exaflop (1,000 petaflop) computer by 2018.
People already use Bluetooth while driving to stay connected to the outside world, but soon cars could become another connected device on a shared data plan, suggests GigaOM. The obvious concern — and reason this has not already happened — is safety.
Cars could benefit from increased connectivity because drivers could receive real-time data on traffic. “That stream, obviously, has to be segregated from the music and podcasts that the driver or passengers are streaming or downloading to entertain themselves,” explains the article.
Ford currently provides some connectivity through Sync, a system that allows for voice control.
“Right now, the connectivity with Sync is through your mobile device, so you’re using your regular data plan for that but I like the idea of the car being another device on a shared data plan,” suggests Paul Mascarenas, CTO and VP of research and innovation for Ford. “That might give us flexibility to provide a user experience where your car is like your second home or second office where you seamlessly share content.”
Eventually, cars will probably be linked to the cloud and the rest of consumer electronic devices, but companies must first work out the safety kinks that come with driving and accessing data at the same time.
For more information on the services and user experience possible with the connected car, check out the 19-minute session video from RoadMap 2012.
“E-commerce has been on fire since its inception and it still continues to grow and outpace the overall retail economy,” says Forrester analyst Sucharita Mulpuru, who predicts online shopping will amount to $68.4 billion this holiday season, a 15 percent increase over 2011.
Although the rate of increase will stay the same (sales rose 15 percent last year as well), the number of online shoppers in the U.S. is expected to grow 3 percent.
Additionally, the average shopper will spend an estimated $419 online this holiday, which represents a 12 percent increase over 2011.
The report suggests three reasons for the shift to online shopping: 1) customers want to get deals and avoid crowds; 2) while mobile conversion rates remain low, mobile commerce will account for 40+ percent of retailers’ online traffic with improved mobile technology; and 3) consumer confidence in the economy has risen and holiday retail estimates are high.
“Still, the trend largely benefits online-only retailers, like Amazon, which means that physical retailers must come up with a plan to keep consumers coming to the stores or their Web sites,” suggests AllThingsD.
Brick-and-mortar retailers have made efforts to fight back with price matching and same-day delivery, but Mulpuru expressed doubts that the maneuvers will dent Amazon’s sales.
Google is experimenting with a new social feature for Chrome that allows users to interact with others by creating and sharing instrument tracks.
“For those who want to play music with friends across the country — or down the street, for that matter — Google is testing a new interactive Web app that lets you rock out with others in real time,” reports Mashable.
The JAM with Chrome app operates via HTML5 and allows up to four people to interact online with 19 virtual instruments, including drums, keyboards and acoustic and electric guitars.
The app has two approaches: “easy mode,” featuring basic instrument functions and autoplay capabilities — and “pro mode,” which gives users full control over their virtual instruments.
“If you ever dreamed of playing in a band, now’s your chance to be a rock star,” explains Google in a blog post. “No matter what your level of talent — from daydreaming air guitarist to music pro — you can JAM together in real time over the Web.”
“Google has been upping its music profile over the past few months,” reports CNET in a related post. “It announced last month that it would soon be rolling out its scan-and-match feature for the company’s music service in Europe and in the U.S. shortly after. Scan-and-match is a feature that lets users store music on computer servers of a host service. The service can then stream songs over the Internet to the user’s choice of Web-connected music players.”
The pay TV industry as a whole lost 127,000 subscribers in the third quarter, according to a report from Sanford C. Bernstein. While some providers blame prices, programming disputes and even the housing market for subscriber drop-offs, recent results raise concerns that consumers are opting for online services instead.
“Charter Communications, Cablevision Systems Corp. and Dish Network Corp. collectively lost 102,000 video customers in the latest quarter, based on information contained in their quarterly reports on Tuesday,” notes the Wall Street Journal. “That is better than their combined loss of 193,000 a year earlier, but it isn’t a reversal.”
“The results followed Time Warner Cable’s report on Monday that it had lost more video subscribers than expected,” the article continues. “Including the numbers from previously reporting publicly held pay TV providers, the industry grew by 25,000 video subscribers, down from 148,000 a year earlier.”
Nielsen reports that at least 90 percent of U.S. homes pay for subscription TV from cable, satellite or phone companies. In the past, cable has lost subscribers to satellite and phone companies. Today, cable can offset these losses with broadband growth.
Some satellite companies including DirecTV and EchoStar (Dish’s sibling company) are looking to also diversify their offerings by expanding into Latin American markets via partnerships or acquisitions.
For the most part, the broader pay TV market has grown in recent years. “But in the past year or so, the market has seen slight shrinkage in several quarters,” explains WSJ. “That has sparked concerns that consumers might be disconnecting their pay TV services in favor of cheaper options, like online video.”
Digital video piracy has declined because of the availability of streaming video services, especially Netflix, suggests Business Insider. While streaming services as a whole have contributed to the decline of piracy, Netflix controls 33 percent of North American peak traffic (according to a new report from Sandvine).
“The real alternative to Netflix is BitTorrent, a popular file-sharing protocol through which users upload and download copies of movies and TV shows,” explains the article. “Because it’s a technology for file sharing rather than a centralized service or piece of software, BitTorrent has proven very hard for movie studios to shut down.”
But BitTorrent traffic has declined to 12 percent of traffic in North America, in part because of Netflix’s low monthly prices and expansive offerings. Netflix is also less complex and downloads more quickly than BitTorrent.
BitTorrent traffic currently comprises 16 percent in Europe — and 36 percent in Asia, where video services are not as available.
Sandvine CEO Dave Caputo predicts that by 2015 peer-to-peer file-sharing traffic will dip lower than 10 percent of network use.
“It’s not a given that BitTorrent use indicates illegal downloading of a video file — some game developers use it to distribute legal copies of their software, for example — but it is heavily used for video downloads,” writes Business Insider.
The new Global Internet Phenomena Report from Sandvine found that Netflix accounts for 33 percent of peak residential downstream traffic in North America, while other streaming services struggle to amount to two percent.
“Amazon’s video service on the other hand,” GigaOM writes, “which is widely seen as its biggest competitor, only causes 1.75 percent of peak residential downstream traffic.”
“Other competitors fare even worse in Sandvine’s report: The network management company sees Hulu causing 1.38 percent of residential peak downstream traffic, with HBO Go barely registering with 0.52 percent,” notes the post.
Second place goes to YouTube with 14.8 percent of peak residential downstream traffic and 30.97 percent of peak mobile downstream traffic. The site takes up even more peak residential downstream traffic abroad, accounting for 15.9 percent in the Asia-Pacific region and 21.84 percent in Europe.
In North America, HTTP, BitTorrent, and iTunes were the next popular in downstream. Facebook followed Amazon at 1.48 percent of peak residential downstream traffic.
Following Netflix’s lead, Hulu has launched a dedicated kids section. Starting yesterday, the ad-free Hulu Kids feature is available to Hulu Plus subscribers via the service’s website and the PS3.
“Hulu Kids comes with shows from PBS, Nickelodeon and Lionsgate, and the content is sorted by age groups,” reports GigaOM. “The total number of shows listed on the section currently stands at 43. A spokesperson confirmed that Hulu is working on bringing Hulu Kids as a separate content section within the Hulu Plus app to additional devices.”
According to the Hulu blog announcement, current children’s programs include popular titles such as “Thomas & Friends,” “Robot and Monster,” “SpongeBob SquarePants,” “Dinosaur Train,” “Arthur” and “Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles.”
Netflix launched its own kids section online last summer with a new design meant to be more appealing to younger users. Hulu is simply relying on its recently launched Web UI.
“Making this kind of content exclusively available to Hulu Plus subscribers shows that Hulu is starting to put a much bigger emphasis on its paid offering, and slowly deemphasizing the free Hulu.com website in the process,” suggests GigaOM.
“The fact that these kids shows are available ad-free is good news for parents who don’t want their kids confronted with advertising, but it’s also a sign that Hulu is moving towards becoming a more direct competitor for Netflix, which has always been ad-free,” concludes the post.
Exhibitors Regal and AMC were at ShowEast in Florida to support the Warner Bros. high frame rate (HFR) release of Peter Jackson’s “The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey.”
“Meanwhile, the studio moves cautiously with its plans to introduce the theater technology, which has encountered a number of problems as it goes through a testing phase,” writes Carolyn Giardina for The Hollywood Reporter.
Some industry sources had anticipated tens of thousands of screens would be ready to show the film at 48 fps. “Instead, Warners has decided to offer ‘Hobbit’ in what is being called HFR 3D as a platform release, using 400 screens domestically, that will include 90 screens from Regal and 92 from AMC along with another 500 in international markets,” notes Giardina.
When Jackson’s film launches December 14 in the U.S., most theaters will screen the film at the traditional frame rate of 24 fps.
The slow adoption has hurt manufacturers who had banked on selling equipment, although they remain optimistic of HFR’s future. A number of studios plan to produce HFR movies for release in 2013 and 2014.
“We want to make sure we do it properly and make sure the public sees it in its best form,” explains Dan Fellman, president of domestic distribution for Warner Bros. “We are very committed to this. [High frame rates are] the most important change in exhibition, probably since the introduction of sound.”
Theaters have faced a number of obstacles. “Some configurations could play HFRs but then couldn’t easily switch back to 24 fps for projecting other items like trailers,” writes Giardina. “There have also been some issues with how individual technologies worked in combination with other newly developed products. Additionally, theater personnel require training on the new technologies.”
