The deal has not been finalized and the details are uncertain, but sources close to the matter suggest headphone maker Beats Electronics is acquiring the subscription music service MOG.
Phone manufacturer HTC is the majority owner of Beats. The company is interested in MOG’s deals with the major music labels and its music service, which could be offered on HTC handsets.
“MOG raised a reported $25 million over the course of its corporate history, and $15 million in the last few years, as it bolted a music service onto an ad network, its original business,” reports AllThingsD. “Last spring, it went looking for another $25 million to $30 million, and apparently ended up with this deal instead.”
MOG doesn’t have a strong following with only 500,000 active users, but its collaboration with Facebook and its “frictionless sharing” program has resulted in 130,000 people using the service at least once a month. However, insiders say the subscriber base isn’t the focus but rather the deals with the labels.
The Motion Picture Association of America has accused the digital locker service Hotfile for promoting piracy, attributing it’s rapid success to the sponsoring of digital theft.
Google has stepped in, supporting Hotfile and Internet freedom. The company said that no Internet company, Hotfile included, is required “to affirmatively monitor their services for possible infringement,” and it is not their job to report users for potential copyright violation.
“Google bases its defense of Hotfile on the Digital Millennium Copyright Act, which provides a ‘safe harbor’ for sites like YouTube, Facebook and Wikipedia when they’re accused of directly supporting copyright infringement,” Mobiledia reports.
Hollywood will continue to search for ways to protect their content, even after the failure of SOPA. Mobiledia suggests that studios work on their own practices — reducing problematic “windowing” schemes and building support for their digital storage locker UltraViolet — rather than target Internet companies.
Smithsonian provides an interesting overview of the “transhumanist” movement that suggests we are becoming the engineers of our own evolution through tools such as gene manipulation, nanomedicine and the replacement of body parts with manmade devices.
“Enhanced humans might inject themselves with artificial, oxygen-carrying blood cells, enabling them to sprint for 15 minutes straight,” reports the article. “They could live long enough to taste a slice of their own 250th birthday cake. Or they might abandon their bodies entirely, translating the neurons of their brains into a digital consciousness.”
The article cites a bionic eye and magnetic sensors to augment the sense of touch as examples of technologies that fuel the movement.
Transhumanism is described as largely secular for those who believe technological change will gradually become a part of everyday life.
Others, however, suggest there are religious undertones, especially for those who believe there will come a time when only the humans that can merge their minds with intelligent machines will survive.
“Transhumanists say we are morally obligated to help the human race transcend its biological limits; those who disagree are sometimes called Bio-Luddites,” notes the article.
Nintendo announced it has sold 4.5 million 3DS handhelds in the U.S during its first year of availability, numbers that exceed the launch of the Nintendo DS.
According to Digital Trends, the figure marks “a very impressive turnaround” for the handheld gaming system, which had a “very rocky start.”
“How has Nintendo managed to turn the 3DS around?” asks the article. “Two ways: pricing and content.”
Since early criticism focused on unit cost and lack of compelling games, Nintendo reduced the retail price from $250 to $170 in the U.S. This was followed by the long-promised availability of new 3D content, including versions of Nintendo’s own Zelda and Mario franchises.
The result was a sharp increase in sales, placing the 3DS neck-and-neck with the Nintendo Wii console during the same year.
Video has most likely been an additional factor in the 3DS turnaround, since the device also features access to Nintendo Video and Netflix streaming.
What do you get when you hack a circa-1919 camera to a Canon 5D? You get some remarkable images that look like they are from another era.
Does this mean these old cameras and their lenses have another life?
“I’ve had this Piccolette Contessa-Nettel (1919) folding camera for ages. Its been a great piece of photo history sitting on my shelf. Was curious if it could make pictures again, so I hacked it onto my 5D. Here are the results,” writes photographer and filmmaker Jason Bognacki before his posting of images.
“I am a self confessed glass-a-holic,” says Bognacki. “I have been collecting and seeking out vintage, obscure, and trash lenses for a while now. I guess I’ve treated it as an optical education of sorts.”
Bognacki is expected to offer more details on his blog regarding how he connected the cameras, but offered Digital Trends a preview: ““M42-EOS mount + M42 Extension Tube + Hot Glue = The 5D View Camera. No lenses or cameras were injured in the process. The process is reversible.”
Update: No how-to details yet, but Bognacki’s blog now features some video shot using the older lens.
Since September, users have been able to conduct searches with the Google Flight Search app for flights to/from any U.S. destination and the search engine would show flight results, competing with travel sites like Priceline and Expedia.
The search giant recently took Google Flight Search one step further, adding comparisons for some global destinations like Amsterdam, Buenos Aires, and Venice.
“Since we launched Flight Search, we’ve heard from many globetrotters eager to use the feature to search for destinations outside the U.S.,” Google wrote on the company’s blog. “Starting today, you can find flights, including international destinations, from the U.S. quickly and conveniently.”
“Flight and travel search competitors such as Expedia, Priceline, and Kayak have expressed frustration with Google Flight Search,” notes VentureBeat. “Since travel sites rely on Google for some of their traffic, any time Google places its results at the top, it’s likely taking traffic and sales away from those sites.”
Switchcam is a beta website that automates the creation of event videos. It aggregates smartphone videos of the same event that appear on Facebook, YouTube and other sites. Then, it synchronizes them so you can watch the event from multiple POVs.
The concept is especially interesting for live concerts where fans record the musicians playing and post the songs online.
You can watch the event from start to finish or jump to specific songs in a concert. Voting is used to select the best angles. You can also share individual songs.
This may prove to be a useful tool for fans, and also for musicians and bands looking to YouTube to promote their concerts.
Currently in beta, Switchcam is working with artists, CAA and LiveNation. The company plans to incorporate ads.
Check out the concerts currently posted at switchcam.com.
Hulu announced an update to its user interface with a video player that is 55 percent larger than the previous version.
This won’t necessarily impact those users who regularly view movies or TV shows in the full screen mode, but should prove to be a useful upgrade for others.
The interface design also features “a new frame and a drop-shadow, and it sits over a large, dark gray video matte,” reports The Next Web.
“In addition to the larger size player, the site also implemented a number of design changes to emphasize the content,” notes VentureBeat in a related post. “All the details — like the name of the show, episode title, running time, etc. — have been moved underneath the video player. It seems odd at first but I’m guessing the majority of people won’t even notice once their show starts playing. Also, the background surrounding the video player is much darker.”
The number of job opportunities for cloud-computing professionals is increasing at a rapid rate, and the current talent pool may not be large enough to meet the demand.
According to Wanted Analytics, there has been a 92 percent rise in cloud-related job postings compared with a year ago and more than four times the level in 2010.
Job listings with the highest demand include software engineers, systems engineers and network administrators. Companies advertising the highest number of postings include VMware, Microsoft, Amazon.com, URS Corp. and Google.
Leading locations for cloud-based jobs: San Jose, Seattle, Washington DC, San Francisco and New York City.
“With the demand for cloud skills growing so quickly, the gap between hiring demand and talent supply across the United States is getting larger and causing more difficulties in sourcing candidates,” the report states.
“Microsoft has been working on ‘Lifebrowser,’ a software akin to an intelligent search engine that collects, organizes and curates your virtual life,” reports Digital Trends.
The prototype curation software is essentially a “scaled down and personal solution” of the approach companies are taking with their “big data.”
“You can think of it as a smart search engine of your virtual proclivities,” adds Digital Trends. “Lifebrowser’s machine-learning algorithm will crawl through all of your online and offline activities, find only what it discerns as significant events in your life, and save the information in chronological order for later perusal.”
The software is designed to emulate how humans recall information. “You always think that machine learning is kind of cold,” explains Microsoft researcher Eric Horvitz. “This is showing that a model is not only learning about how I think, it’s also very warmly understanding what it means to capture humanity.”
No word on when the algorithm and timeline design may go public, although Digital Trends suggests it would be a nice addition to Windows 9.
Tobii’s eye-tracking technology enables computer users to scroll and select items with their eyes. It’s compatible with Windows and could very well expand into the gaming arena or even Android. Intel sees potential for the technology and is investing $21 million.
“That $21 million buys Intel a 10 percent stake in the 12-year old Swedish company. Right now the plan is to continue testing the technology on a small scale, such as in laptops. Later on, they plan to shift to a larger focus, aiming at cars, or perhaps smartphones,” reports SlashGear.
The investment could help Intel gain ground in the mobile market where they’ve fallen behind ARM processing.
For the time being, Tobii’s technology is pricey ($7,000 for its eye tracking sensor bar for PCs) and the company is focused primarily on research and development.
DirecTV announced this week that it plans to adopt Ultra HDTV in the future and is already working on its spectrum needs.
According to Philip Goswitz, SVP Space and Communications R&D: “At DirecTV we see a couple of things happening. First, our subscribers are migrating away from Ku-band, and upgrading themselves to Ka-band and its HDTV services. In four or five years, our Ku-band [transmissions] could end. We are also developing the so-called Reverse Band for DBS services, and these are on our Road Map for future international services. 4000-line is exciting to us because of its image quality, and the potential for glasses-free 3D.”
Advanced Television reports that Japan’s introduction of Ultra HDTV is slated for 2020 and will use Ka-band. DirecTV is already using Ka-band in North America.
“But Ka-band doesn’t just mean broadband. To us it means broadcasting. The truth is that as our Ku-band transmissions end, then increasingly every dollar in revenue is attributable to Ka-band. We’ll be entirely Ka-band in about five years. Currently, of our total $27 billion in annual revenues, about $20 billion comes from Ka-band,” said Goswitz.
Google is now under investigation by the FTC for its use of a computer code that bypassed Apple’s Safari privacy settings to track users’ online activity for targeted ads.
“The investigations — which span U.S. federal and state agencies, as well as a pan-European effort led by France — could embroil Google in years of legal battles and result in hefty fines for privacy violations,” the Wall Street Journal reports.
“We will of course cooperate with any officials who have questions,” a Google spokeswoman said. “But it’s important to remember that we didn’t anticipate this would happen, and we have been removing these advertising cookies from Safari browsers.”
Last year, Google made an agreement with the FTC to not misrepresent its privacy practices. The trade commission is looking into whether the use of the code violated this agreement. If Google is found at fault, the company could face hefty costs — up to $16,000 per violation, per day.
It’s official: Sprint has ended its agreement with wireless startup LightSquared, saying it “continues to be supportive of LightSquared’s business plans,” according to a statement released on Friday.
Sprint has returned $65 million in prepayments to LightSquared, but would be open to a deal in the future if LightSquared can work with the FCC to resolve potential GPS interference issues “impacting its ability to offer service on the 1.6 GHz spectrum,” explains the release.
The startup recently hired a high-powered legal team to challenge regulators who aim to shut down the company due to interference concerns. According to AllThingsD, the team is led by former Bush administration solicitor general Ted Olson, and Eugene Scalia, son of Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia.
“We will do all we can to ensure that LightSquared does not lose billions of dollars in investments due to a precipitous, arbitrary reversal by the government,” Olson said in a statement.
Apple is reportedly combining its Macbook Pro and MacBook Air lines with its latest 13- and 15-inch Macbook Pro models becoming much thinner, according to a report from Chinese tech blog Digitimes.
The source said the Pros have gone into production and are also dropping their optical drive support.
The new design has multiple advantages. “Specifically, it would allow Apple to bring the quick boot and instant-on capabilities of the MacBook Air to its wider notebook lineup, and it would also significantly improve battery life,” according to VentureBeat. “It could also help Apple gain an advantage over Intel and the many Ultrabook manufacturers trying to mimic the MacBook Air design.”
For those customers looking for a powerful production machine, a preferred alternative may be the 17-inch MacBook Pro model, “which likely won’t get the ultra-thin treatment,” adds VentureBeat.