The first-ever LA Mobile Arts Festival is set to open this weekend in Santa Monica, celebrating iPhoneography — the “up-and-coming art form” launched by the popularity of the iPhone’s built-in camera and a growing collection of compelling apps.
“The event features 600-plus works from iPhone artists around the world — prints, mixed-media installations, sculptures, sound and video projects, and more,” notes CNET. “It’s sponsored by iPhoneArt.com, one of a number of online communities dedicated to sharing and promoting the burgeoning mobile arts.”
The festival, which will feature works by more than 150 mobile photographers, will also showcase innovative techniques in underground mobile art, reinventing the daguerreotype, and performance art. It will include hands-on workshops and photowalks along Venice Beach and the Santa Monica Pier.
The event will take place for one week at the 22,000-square foot Santa Monica Art Studios (3026 Airport Avenue). The opening gala is slated for Saturday, August 18, 7:00-10:00 pm.
Two months after the launch of Airtime, the app has only 1,000 daily and 90,000 monthly active users, according to AppData. In order to make good on the $33.5 million fronted by its investors, Airtime desperately needs a jumpstart to its distribution method.
“Airtime planned to reach millions through real-time Facebook Chat invites to video calls,” reports TechCrunch. “But private messages can’t go viral, so two months after launch it’s hoping for growth through public video posts to Twitter and Facebook.”
Airtime has started a limited public release of the video posts, along with Twitter integration and its newly enhanced buddy list, in hopes that “Airtime users gain ways to tempt more friends to hop aboard, and not just one at a time,” explains the post.
The buddy list has been redesigned to include people in three categories: those currently logged into Airtime, those currently on Facebook but not Airtime and anyone else who is offline, making friend-finding much easier.
But is video-based social networking something that’s really going to take off? It’s different than the quickness of text and photo sharing.
“Video posts could certainly give people a reason to take some quick Airtime, but not if they drag on like a voicemail,” suggests the post. “It might take a time limit, or an entirely new type of interaction, but the products needs to feel lightweight. Because if users think the minimum session takes too long, they’ll never see how Airtime could humanize the Web through face-to-face interaction.”
Efficient file downloader uTorrent was acquired by BitTorrent Inc. in 2006 and has since become the most widely used BitTorrent application, with more than 125 million regular users worldwide.
In a move that may upset consumers, but provide a big payoff for expansion, BitTorrent has announced uTorrent will soon be ad-supported.
“Until now nearly all revenue came from the toolbar which users can install optionally when uTorrent is first downloaded. However, BitTorrent Inc. sees the need to experiment with other revenue sources with ‘sponsored torrents’ being added for all users in an upcoming release,” TorrentFreak reports.
BitTorrent sees an annual revenue of around $15 to $20 million — plus millions in venture capital — according to some close to the company. The added revenue from advertising could help the company further expand, the post suggests.
With the new approach, users’ IP-addresses will determine geographical locations, but BitTorrent maintains that privacy will be protected while attempting to bring targeted sponsored torrents.
“This new build will display a featured torrent at the top of your torrent list. This featured torrent space will be used to offer a variety of different types of content. We are working towards bringing you offers that are relevant to you,” explains BitTorrent.
The torrents can’t be turned off, but individual ads can be clicked away. The ads will also be used to promote artists and highlight updates.
Digiboo kiosks have been offering downloadable movies in airports to customers with USB sticks and Windows devices.
The company has now announced the ability to replace the USB connection with wireless access, while unfortunately keeping the strict Windows-only option.
However, the switch to wireless “should make Digiboo’s next step — Android support, which is promised to come this month — a whole lot easier,” Engadget suggests.
According to the press release, the service offers more than 800 new releases and popular movie titles: “Rentals are $3.99 (new) or $2.99 (catalog) and can be viewed within 30 days of download up to 48 hours after the movie is opened. Purchased movies cost $14.99. New releases are largely available day-and-date with DVD and Video on Demand.”
“Digiboo has partnered with several studios, including Lionsgate, Paramount, Sony and Warner Bros., as well as Kingston Digital, Inc. (USB), PFU (kiosk), and FSH (MSP distribution partner) to provide the highest quality service to travelers,” notes the release.
The company is also looking to expand into more retail locations and new markets in the final quarter of 2012.
Mobile ad company InMobi recently surveyed 1,055 Americans regarding how much time they spend engaged with different types of media.
“Users responded that they watched TV for 141 minutes a day,” reports Business Insider. “But they spent 144 minutes a day — 26 percent of the nine hours they used various media — with their phones.”
The post features an infographic that breaks down mobile device usage and mobile activities during a typical day. The most common activities of mobile use include general information and search, social media, games, entertainment, email, local search, shopping and banking/paying bills.
Interesting statistics regarding which media most impact purchasing decisions: 59 percent for mobile devices, 57 percent for TV and only 34 percent for computers.
According to the infographic: “66 percent are more or equally comfortable with mobile advertising vs. TV or online ads.”
SoundExchange, which collects royalties for digital streams and Internet radio, has collected royalties for 50,000 artists and labels who stand to lose their payout if they don’t register with the company by October 15.
“The agency, created in 2000, pays performing artists and record labels when their music is played on services like Sirius XM and Pandora — a royalty that the music industry has long sought, since terrestrial radio pays only songwriters and publishers,” explains The New York Times.
Right now the company has 70,000 accounts for performers and 24,000 for labels and other copyright owners, but it has struggled to get those parties to fill out the required documents.
The agency has paid out $1 billion since its start. Although the amount owed to the 50,000 unregistered parties hasn’t been confirmed, the artists and labels could lose out if they don’t meet SoundExchange’s October deadline.
ReDigi is rebranding the terms “used” and “recycled” to apply to digital media, a concept that copyright owners are having a hard time accepting.
The online marketplace enables people to resell music files they’ve bought and it hopes to expand into e-books and games in the future.
“A user downloads its software to determine which of his or her music files are eligible for resale,” explains Technology Review. “The company uses digital forensic analysis to verify that the person legally owns a file (rather than having ripped it from a CD or pirated it online): its ‘verification engine’ looks at data associated with the file to determine what its original source is, who acquired it and when, and whether it has been moved from other computers.”
“The company then deletes all copies from the person’s synched devices while transferring the original to its own cloud servers,” notes the article.
But the Recording Industry Association of America has sent the company a cease-and-desist order and now EMI’s Capitol Records is suing ReDigi for copyright infringement.
The case will be determined by one essential aspect of copyright law and ownership: the copy. If ReDigi is copying a song to its cloud services, it could stand to lose big in the lawsuit.
However, the company has “adopted methods originally developed in the banking industry to ensure that a digital song or book, just like digital money, is never in two places at once. Once someone else buys a user’s file, ReDigi transfers the license and deletes it from its servers,” the article explains. “The technology can’t, however, ensure that someone hasn’t previously stored a copy elsewhere.”
Digital-copyright expert Jason Schultz believes ReDigi has a fair chance of winning this unprecedented case, which he says strikes “at the heart of the future business models of creative industries.”
Record companies are looking at a big hurdle with YouTube as they continue the transition to a digital market. Today, almost two-thirds of people under 18 use Google’s video site to listen to music, according to a new report from Nielsen.
“Among adults, the most popular ways to listen to music were radio (67 percent), CDs (61 percent), YouTube (44 percent), Pandora’s custom-radio service (32 percent) and Apple Inc.’s iTunes (29 percent),” reports the Wall Street Journal.
“Among 13-to-17 year olds, YouTube was the most popular way to listen to music, with 64 percent using it,” notes the article. “Radio was next, with 56 percent, followed by iTunes (53 percent), CDs (50 percent) and Pandora (35 percent).”
For the record industry, this creates a challenge for monetization. “Record companies and music publishers typically realize some revenue from advertising that appears with their videos on YouTube. But it is only fractions of a cent per play, and not nearly enough to replace the revenue that has been lost as CD sales have been decimated,” explains WSJ.
Additionally, the popular YouTube app on Apple devices — which will actually be removed on the latest iOS update — doesn’t run any advertising, which means no revenue for the record companies.
“Three of the four major labels make their videos through a company called Vevo LLC, whose videos play on the YouTube website but not on its smartphone app,” notes the article. “However, consumers don’t use Vevo much — or at least don’t realize when they do. Only 7 percent of adults and 11 percent of teenagers identified Vevo as a way they listen to music.”
ETCentric previously reported on Google’s investment in premium original content for its “channels,” drawing big names like Madonna and Ashton Kutcher to create episodes and Web series. In a related story, Wired explains how Google is hoping its channels will bypass cable and become the one-stop shop for all content needs.
“Cable has run out of space,” says Shishir Mehrotra, the VP of product management at YouTube. “If you’re going to broadcast content to everybody whether or not they watch it, you can only afford to broadcast a few hundred channels. But if you move to a world where you can broadcast on demand to only whoever wants it, now you can support millions of channels.”
Aimed to lengthen viewing times and boost overall number of viewers — not just hits — YouTube’s channels cover a variety of content from surfing to Olympics to live coverage of Ramadan in Mecca. “The average American watches five hours of TV per day,” notes YouTube product manager Noam Lovinsky, and Google wants them watching on their platform.
The company is working to build awareness of the channels. A large black bar on the left side of the site is intended to drive user attention to channel subscriptions.
YouTube’s top channels are getting millions of views and users are unsubscribing to channels. Even though that might seem like a bad thing, to Google it means people care what content is in their subscription lists. YouTube will also tap into other Google services to provide users with channel suggestions.
Also, YouTube has to make the content available to everyone everywhere and consistent across all devices. This means taking over app development instead of having partners build their own apps for the service. By making all future apps HTML-based, YouTube won’t rely on manufacturers to update them.
According to sources close to the matter, “Apple is in talks with some of the biggest U.S. cable operators about letting consumers use an Apple device as a set-top box for live television and other content,” reports the Wall Street Journal.
As of yet, it doesn’t appear that Apple has made any deals, perhaps a sign of cable operators’ overall reluctance to allow Apple a solid foothold within the TV business.
According to WSJ, this move could indicate a shift in Apple’s approach to TV: “The talks illustrate that Apple is seeking a less radical path to expand in television than it has contemplated in the past, namely teaming up with existing service providers rather than licensing content to compete with them directly.”
As of now, Apple sell its $99 Apple TV, a box that allows for some Internet streaming onto TV sets, but not for live channels through cable operators. According to sources, this most recently discussed technology “could ultimately be embedded in a television.”
“For cable operators, the advantage of a deal with Apple is that it could allow them to reduce the money they spend buying set-top boxes, which are leased to customers for a monthly fee. It could also help them hang on to customers who can watch video through a growing array of Internet alternatives, as both traditional TV and Web video would be available through the same device,” suggests WSJ.
Businessweek spoke with Comcast CEO Brian Roberts about his company’s 2011 purchase of NBCUniversal and its future in an evolving business.
Speaking on the benefits of subscribing to Comcast rather than depending on a Netflix-type service, Roberts said: “We provide a breadth of live and catch-up content — what we define as this season’s content, none of which is available in the Netflix rerun world.”
“So from broadcast television to sports to news to the Grammys, the Olympics, this season’s episodes of ‘The Voice’ — all of those pieces of content and thousands of hours per month are not available on Netflix,” he notes. “So with all the press about cord-cutting, facts would say that [Netflix] has really been more additive. There are more multichannel video subscribers today than there were a year ago.”
Roberts believes “television will change more in the next five years than in the last 50. This will be really great for consumers,” he predicts, adding that “people want more control, more choice, and more personalization.”
He spoke on the $6 billion cost for the Olympics — and the $4 billion Comcast is expected to spend through 2020: “We paid a 1 percent increase over the prior Olympics for a decade of content and also received all media and technology rights to the Olympics for the next 10 years in the U.S. This means we have the rights to put Olympic content on all devices in and out of the home and even on devices that haven’t yet been invented.”
Roberts heralds Comcast for being ahead of the curve. “We were the first cable company or phone company to go all digital, and most of our customers now are digital… In each of the last seven quarters, we’ve added more new broadband subscribers than the previous quarter. So the pace of change at our company is accelerating, and there has never been a more exciting time to work here.”
Broadcast networks are now battling two streaming TV start-ups that transmit their content without permission.
“Alki David, the provocative media entrepreneur who recently launched an Aereo-like streaming TV service called BarryDriller.com, may have unintentionally just done broadcasters a huge favor in their fight to stop both online video services,” reports Adweek.
“That’s because instead of solely banking on a favorable legal outcome against Aereo in New York, broadcasters now have a second suit in a different jurisdiction,” explains the post.
This could potentially provide two routes for appeal to the Supreme Court if either lower court decides against them.
ABC, CBS and NBC have joined the FOX lawsuit against BarryDriller.com in a federal court in California. The networks are already seeking to stop the Barry Diller-backed Aereo service in a New York federal court.
“The problem the networks had in New York, they were trying to swim upstream to get away from the Cablevision decision,” notes David Wittenstein, partner and head of the communications practice for Dow Lohnes. “If you’re the networks, you go to another court in another part of the country. You start with a clean slate.”
“I wouldn’t be surprised if the Supreme Court overturned the underpinnings of Cablevision,” comments Mary Rasenberger, partner with Cowan, DeBaets, Abrahams & Sheppard. “The Supreme Court has a more holistic view of copyright than the lower courts do.”
In a 2-1 ruling by the U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit, it was ruled that law enforcement “has the right to obtain location data from a cellphone in order to track a suspect without a warrant,” reports Ars Technica.
In the case, an accused drug trafficker named Melvin Skinner claimed that the government’s use of GPS location information retrieved from his phone was a “warrantless search in violation of the Fourth Amendment.”
“There is no Fourth Amendment violation because Skinner did not have a reasonable expectation of privacy in the data given off by his voluntarily procured pay-as-you-go cell phone,” wrote Judge John Rogers. “If a tool used to transport contraband gives off a signal that can be tracked for location, certainly the police can track the signal.”
Judge Rogers referenced the 2012 Jones v. United States case, in which it was decided by the Supreme Court that law enforcement could not warrantlessly place GPS tracking devices on a suspect’s vehicle. He made the distinction that in this case, “no such physical intrusion occurred.”
“Here, the monitoring of the location of the contraband-carrying vehicle as it crossed the country is no more of a comprehensively invasive search than if instead the car was identified in Arizona and then tracked visually and the search handed off from one local authority to another as the vehicles progressed,” Rogers wrote.
U.S. District Judge William Pauley III has ruled that law enforcement officials can access a suspect’s Facebook profile without a warrant if they do so with a friend’s permission.
“The decision, which is part of a New York City racketeering trial, comes as courts struggle to define privacy and civil liberties in the age of social media,” reports GigaOM. “Judge Pauley’s ruling is significant because it is the latest in a series of cases that defines how and when police can search social media.”
During the New York investigation, police used an informant’s Facebook account to access suspected gangster Melvin Colon’s Facebook account. After reading threatening messages, the police obtained a warrant to access the rest of his information.
The judge ruled that actions by the police do not violate the Fourth Amendment because Colon made his information known to friends on Facebook.
“Colon’s legitimate expectation of privacy ended when he disseminated posts to his ‘friends’ because those ‘friends’ were free to use the information however they wanted — including sharing it with the Government,” explained Judge Pauley in the Bronx case.
The judge likened the methods to when police legally listen to a phone call as long as one of the parties agrees to allow the tapping to occur.
A group of technologists, lawyers and other interested parties have come together to do what most people don’t want to: read those horribly long terms-of-service contracts to which most simply click “agree.”
Called ToS;DR for “Terms of Service; Didn’t Read,” the project creates grades — from “Class A” (the best) to “Class E” (the worst) — based on peer-reviewed summaries, enabling consumers to make more educated clicks.
“For example, if you’re uploading photos to TwitPic, you might want to reconsider,” explains The Atlantic. “They give the site their worst grade, a ‘Class E.’ Why? Well, they have an easy-to-understand summary… If you click on ‘Read the Details,’ you get an extended explanation of these warnings and can also link back (almost like a Wikipedia page) to the ToS;DR discussion that led to the thumbs-down.”
The Atlantic post includes a screen shot which shows simple bullet explanations for Twitpic’s grade, like “Twitpic takes credit for your content,” and “Deleted images are not really deleted.”
“‘I have read and agree to the Terms’ is the biggest lie on the Web,” according to the ToS;DR site. “We aim to fix that.”
“The project hatched about a year ago at the annual Chaos Communication Camp event in Berlin as an outgrowth of the Unhosted project, which is a system for building Web apps that leave users in control of their data,” notes TechCrunch in a related post.
The ratings are based on German energy efficiency ratings for appliances, according to TechCrunch, which reports the site plans to officially launch later this month.
