Tom Anderson, former founder and president of MySpace, details the key advantages Google+ has over Facebook in a recent guest post on TechCrunch.
Anderson suggests Google+ can attract game developers by taking a smaller cut, and may not need any advertising at all. “Google has plenty to gain without ever showing an ad and, put simply, Google doesn’t need the money,” writes Anderson. “Facebook’s got to know this, and it’s got to have them just a little bit concerned.”
Facebook is testing out a “real-time” feed, as opposed to its current default “Top News” algorithm (which Anderson has criticized). Facebook is having to deal with complaints from advertisers and app developers. “It seems that the ‘Top News’ stream is killing the virality of advertisers ‘content’ and of apps that are trying to find new users,” he adds.
Anderson addresses Google’s decision to block business accounts and suggests both companies have some challenging decisions to make: “How do they balance what’s best for the regular guy (you & me), advertisers (big brands), small local businesses (who can never afford the big spend), platform developers with non-competing services (games & music, which it appears FB won’t get into) and platform developers with potentially competitive services (like business networking and dating, which FB/G+ may want to get into themselves someday).”
“Over the long haul (5-10 years), the company that makes the right choices in these areas may just end up winning,” he concludes.
Mike Capps, president of Epic Games, imagines the iPhone 8 will be faster than an Xbox 360 and will probably plug into our TVs or connect wirelessly, perhaps making next-gen consoles less significant.
“I think that’s the real challenge for us now,” explained Capps to IndustryGamers, “rather than worrying about the difference between a couple consoles and some order of magnitude, whether 3X or 4X. It’s about how do we deal with iPhone 8.”
“Your iPhone 8 will probably plug into your TV, or better yet, wirelessly connect to your television set to give you that big screen gaming experience with good sound,” added Capps. “So really, what’s the point of those next-gen consoles? It’s a very interesting situation to be looking at. That’s what we’re starting to think about more…not how do we scale from some Nintendo platform to some other future console.”
Capps’ observations are similar to remarks made recently by EA CEO John Riccitiello, who described the iPad as the company’s fastest growing platform.
“We have a new hardware platform and we’re putting out software every 90 days,” Riccitiello told IndustryGamers. “Our fastest growing platform is the iPad right now and that didn’t exist 18 months ago… Consoles used to be 80 percent of the industry as recently as 2000. Consoles today are 40 percent of the game industry.”
Online gaming firm Endemol Games UK is getting ready to launch one of the first motion control sensor games not developed around the Xbox Kinect controller.
Based on the TV show “Total Wipeout,” the game uses motion control technology developed by OmniMotion Technology.
The game is based around a virtual obstacle course similar to what is featured on the TV show. Players use their bodies to control the action through their webcam.
“Total Wipeout: Big Ball Run” will be available in the UK later this month through Facebook, or as a downloadable application from totalwipeout.co.uk.
Endemol also has plans to roll out the game internationally.
Time Inc. announced it will offer all of its 21 magazines including Time, Sports Illustrated, People and Fortune on just about every tablet platform.
Look for Time’s publications on iTunes, Android’s store, HP’s new tablet, Next Issue Media, and Nook by the end of this year. (There is no mention of RIM’s Playbook or Kindle yet.)
To date, Time’s digital magazine and content apps have been downloaded more than 11 million times.
“Note that while the release mentions ‘digital subscriptions,’ what that really means is ‘digital-only subscriptions available everywhere but iTunes,’ reports the Wall Street Journal. “Apple and Time Inc. still haven’t come to terms on subscription rules, so right now the only way to get a digital subscription for the iPad is to buy a subscription package that also includes print.”
Philips announced it will be including streaming set-top and gaming functions in some of its new HDTV sets.
The Philips 4000 and 5000 series, which use the CloudTV platform of ActiveVideo Networks, can access cloud-based games streamed as MPEG files.
Both lines will include Philips MediaConnect, that enables wirelessly connecting the TV and PC.
Other features include NetTV (offering services such as Netflix, VUDU, Facebook, Film Fresh, Pandora and Twitter), V-tuner Internet radio and built-in Wi-Fi support.
The 4000 series features six screen sizes, ranging from 19 to 55 inches, while the 5000 series adds another 10 screens, from 40 to 55 inches.
Time Warner CEO Jeff Bewkes announced the availability of Flixster Collections, a social movie portal that went into public beta this week.
The service, a revamped version of the Flixster product acquired earlier this year, encourages users to share what they’ve watched with friends.
If there’s something you want to see, for example, Flixster directs you back to Amazon, iTunes, Hulu and Netflix (as well as your hard drive, if you let it). There are also links for theatrical films, including reviews, trailers and ticketing services.
“You can also imagine how this will tie in to Ultraviolet, the cloud/locker system for video that Warner and a big coalition of movie studios and tech companies (except for Apple and Amazon) are pushing,” writes Peter Kafka in All Things D.
So far, Flixster Collections is available for PCs and Macs, but no mobile app yet.
Time Warner launched the HBO GO platform earlier this year, with Android and iPhone apps that stream HBO content to mobile devices.
TG Daily reports that HBO GO may soon be “getting optimized” for TVs, with the platform becoming available on the PS3, Xbox 360, and other Internet-ready devices.
“It may seem like a pointless feature, because if you’re watching your TV, you could just tune into your cable box and watch HBO On Demand from there,” explains TG Daily. “But this way, you’d be able to take your HBO subscription to a friend’s house, or watch content on the app that may not be available on the current HBO On Demand library.”
In addition to regular programming content, HBO GO provides exclusive content (such as behind-the-scenes clips) and an intuitive video search interface featuring customizable lists.
The British Parliament signaled today that it intends to legalize the copying of CDs and DVDs onto digital devices for personal use. The new law will not allow people to share content over the Internet without permission of the copyright holder.
The move will update Britain’s 300-year-old copyright laws, making them comparable to laws adopted in other European nations.
The change was recommended by a government-requested report, carried out by a professor of digital economy at he Cardiff School of Journalism.
The report also recommended the creation of a central digital copyright exchange where rights could be bought and sold, but the government has not signaled its intention to act on that recommendation.
A study released last week by the FCC reports that broadband Internet speeds in the U.S. are within 80 percent of the speeds advertised by Internet Service Providers. The study calls this a “significant improvement” from just two years ago, when some ISPs were delivering Internet at less than half the advertised speed.
The study looked at 13 U.S. broadband providers delivering Internet over cable, DSL, and fiber-optic services. Overall, Verizon’s service was best at meeting or exceeding advertised speeds, while Cablevision’s was the worst.
There are currently no sanctions or enforcement mechanisms in place to punish ISPs for advertising faster Internet than they deliver, a situation that some public interest groups insist must change.
The study comes as the FCC is promoting its National Broadband Plan, a roadmap expanding Internet speed and availability nationwide.
A full copy of the report, as well as the raw data from the study, are available at the FCC website: fcc.gov.
Hulu will unveil an original documentary series on August 17. “A Day in the Life” is produced by documentary filmmaker Morgan Spurlock, and will be available exclusively on Hulu.
The half-hour show will follow the daily lives of celebrities, including business mogul Richard Branson and musician will.i.am.
Hulu is not the only online video site to venture into original programming. In March, Netflix announced an original series of its own: “House of Cards,” starring Kevin Spacey.
The series is Hulu’s largest and most ambitious original production, and will premiere as the service continues to court prospective buyers. Yahoo, Google, and Amazon are rumored to be potential bidders.
LG has announced a new 3D television that the Korean manufacturer says includes “flicker-free” technology designed to eliminate the headaches and dizziness sometimes associated with 3D sets.
The LW980S features a NANO Full LED backlit screen, a “magic motion” remote, TruMotion 400Hz refresh rate and conversion technology that makes 2D programs appear to be in 3D.
The LG sets will work with passive glasses that never need charging.
Pricing and availability of the 3D TVs, expected in 47- and 55-inch models, have yet to be announced.
Apple is rumored to be securing the rights to allow downloading of TV shows and movies in addition to previously announced music in a new service called iTunes Replay.
The service will allow users to access movies they purchased since January 1, 2009. Some content will only be available for download five times.
Streaming will be to Apple TV and most likely iOS mobile devices.
AppAdvice reports: “The name, iTunes Replay is currently being used internally, and is planned to be kept when Apple makes this public. You should expect this to go public in the coming weeks, as the necessary changes are being pushed to Apple’s servers at the moment.”
McAfee researchers say they have uncovered the biggest hacker attack ever, involving 72 governments and organizations around the world, including the U.S., Taiwan, Vietnam, South Korea, Canada and India — some dating back as far as 2006. Data compromised amounts to several petabytes of information.
The attack uses compromised remote access tools, or RATs, which allow system administrators to access systems from around the world and would allow an attacker to view and download confidential information. Some of those organizations and companies compromised still do not know it.
The attacker was not a hacker group but likely a “state actor” with very high skill levels (China is the “leading candidate”).
According to a blog post from Dmitri Alperovitch, McAfee’s VP Threat Research: “I am convinced that every company in every conceivable industry with significant size and valuable intellectual property and trade secrets has been compromised (or will be shortly), with the great majority of the victims rarely discovering the intrusion or its impact.”
CNET offers a largely positive hands-on review of Toshiba’s new glasses-free 3D laptop, the Qosmio F755.
A prototype of the 3D laptop was awarded CNET’s “Best of CES” award in January and Toshiba wasted little time bringing the concept to market (the post includes a video review of the prototype from CES 2011).
The $1,699 Qosmio F755 will be available in the U.S. starting August 16.
Toshiba’s new laptop “has a 15-inch 1080p display that uses special eye-tracking software to track the viewer’s head movement and adjust the stereoscopic image accordingly, via the built-in Webcam.”
Features include an Intel Core i7-2630QM CPU, 6GB of RAM, an NVIDIA GeForce GT540M, a 750GB hard drive and a Blu-ray-RW drive.
According to CNET: “Blu-ray content in 3D looked excellent, but took a resolution hit. Like a 3D TV, it requires a few moments to orient your eyes, especially if you’re not used to watching 3D content. But the eye-tracking allowed for a reasonable amount of freedom of movement, and the 3D effect worked from an off-axis side view.”
Comcast announced it will air special programming for its In Demand Xfinity 3D subscribers that features the final landing of NASA’s space shuttle Atlantis.
The 45-minute special, that also follows astronaut training in Houston and features 3D footage from space, is scheduled to air this Friday (August 5).
The footage was captured by Vertical Ascent Productions with a Panasonic 3D A-1 camera. The July 8 launch was recorded with unprecedented access, from just 500 feet away, and a Panasonic 3D A-1 was also on board the shuttle to capture the space footage.
The 3D special is part of In Demand’s “In Deep” series. Other In Demand affiliates will have access to the special.
