Internet radio company Pandora reported strong profits at the end of 2011 and recently announced it now has 125 million subscribers.
Pandora went public in February 2011 when it had 80 million registered users.
According to the company, its users average 18 hours of listening per week.
Pandora took 68 percent of the market share for the top Internet radio services in November 2011. The service is also now incorporated in 450+ electronic devices.
“Growth of this magnitude reflects a fundamental shift in radio,” Pandora founder Tim Westergren said in a statement. “As more and more people are discovering the joy of personalized radio automotive and consumer electronics companies are innovating to meet consumer expectations and demand. It’s an incredibly exciting time for our business, and music lovers everywhere.”
A group of MIT scientists is using a 3D camera and “time of flight” detection to develop a simpler, affordable gesture recognition technology for cell phones.
“3D acquisition has become a really hot topic,” says Vivek Goyal, associate professor of Electrical Engineering at MIT’s Research Lab of Electronics. “In consumer electronics, people are very interested in 3D for immersive communication, but then they’re also interested in 3D for human-computer interaction.”
Goyal says the camera “provides more-accurate depth information than the Kinect, has a greater range and works under all lighting conditions — but is so small, cheap and power-efficient that it could be incorporated into a cell phone at very little extra cost.”
“MIT’s camera uses what is referred to as ‘time of flight’ of light particles to determine the depth of field: An infrared laser is emitted and a camera measures the time it takes the light to return from objects at different distances,” reports Tom’s Hardware. “However, instead of employing multiple sensors, the MIT system has only one detector — a one-pixel camera.”
Qualcomm has provided a $100,000 research grant for the project.
For those interested, check out the 10-minute video.
“Snapstream offers a TV monitoring service that helps various news services, government agencies and educational clients keep tabs on subjects discussed on TV, clip them and save them for later,” according to GigaOM. “Or, if you’re a customer like ‘The Daily Show,’ you’re using those clips as part of your own broadcasts.”
Prior to this week, Snapstream’s service was only available to Windows users.
The company released a Mac Web player this week for Mac OS X Snow Leopard and above. Mac users can now “search TV recordings, clips relevant video segments, transcode those recordings to a Web-friendly format and set up alerts for when certain subjects are discussed on TV,” explains the post.
The new player features a plugin that plays back MPEG-2 recordings. According to GigaOM: “Since lots of video professionals are already using Macs and Final Cut Pro, that could greatly improve workflow for current customers and win over potential new customers.”
Following the shutdown of file-sharing service MegaUpload.com, founder Kim Dotcom (aka Kim Schmitz and Kim Tim Jim Vestor) and three executives have been arrested in New Zealand by request of the U.S. government.
MegaUpload was charged with: 1) engaging in a racketeering conspiracy, 2) conspiring to commit copyright infringement, 3) conspiring to commit money laundering and 4) two substantive counts of criminal copyright infringement.
According to the U.S. Department of Justice, the service is an “international organized criminal enterprise allegedly responsible for massive worldwide online piracy.”
“This action is among the largest criminal copyright cases ever brought by the United States and directly targets the misuse of a public content storage and distribution site to commit and facilitate intellectual property crime,” indicates the DOJ press release.
“The complaint alleges that MegaUpload, founder Kim Dotcom, and his team are responsible for $175 million in ‘criminal proceeds’ and ‘more than half a billion dollars in harm to copyright owners,'” reports The Verge.
“While SOPA has been tabled for the moment, the MegaUpload case should prove to be a flashpoint for the issue in the months to come: both an example of how large the claimed piracy problem has become and how the U.S. can already enforce its laws with broad international support.”
“For the first time in U.S. history, marketers are projected to spend more on online advertising than on advertising in print magazines and newspapers,” reports Mashable.
According to a study released by eMarketer this week, U.S. online ad spending for 2012 is projected at $39.5 billion, which is expected to pass print-based ad spending of $33.8 billion.
“That’s impressive growth, especially since 2011 also witnessed a 23 percent jump in online ad spending, according to eMarketer’s calculations.”
Ad spending on TV, while still larger, will see its lead cut considerably over the next few years.
Total ad spending in the U.S. is expected to grow from $170 billion this year to almost $200 billion by 2016 when online will comprise a full third.
Apple posted a video of its education presentation held at the Guggenheim Museum in New York City yesterday.
Philip Schiller, Apple’s senior vice president of Worldwide Marketing, leads a discussion of Apple’s plan to reinvent textbooks.
The company shows its version of the digital textbook with iBooks 2 for iPad which features highly interactive animations, diagrams, photos, and videos designed for increased student engagement.
Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, McGraw-Hill and Pearson are creating iBooks for the iBookstore, most priced at $14.99 or less.
iBooks Author was also introduced, which lets anyone with a Mac create iBooks, and publish them to Apple’s iBookstore. It will be available as a free download from the Mac App Store.
Apple also announced a new iTunes U app that gives educators and students with their iPad, iPhone and iPod touch what they will need to teach or take courses. The iTunes U app is available today as a free download from the App Store.
At CES, Nokia previewed Nokia City Lens, an augmented reality app that allows users to locate points of interest nearby using maps and the camera’s viewfinder. Consumers can then share locations or favorite spots with friends through email, texts, or posts on their social networks.
City Lens was demonstrated on the 4.3-inch screen of the new Lumia 900.
The app features multiple views based on the phone’s orientation. For example, positioning the phone horizontally will display the augmented reality camera mode with locations as an overlay, in portrait mode a list of locations is made available, and holding the camera towards the ground provides an overhead map.
The app will be available in a beta version next month.
For a sneak peek, check out the AllThingsD video demo from the CES showfloor.
In Central Hall at CES, Nikon was demonstrating its soon-to-be-released professional DSLR, the D4.
Features include a 16.2-megapixel FX-format CMOS sensor, 10fps continuous shooting, a 91,000-pixel RGB sensor, an improved 51-point AF system, and ISO expanded to 204,800.
Nikon has really focused on video to better compete with Canon. The D4 can record 1080p at 30, 25 and 24fps. It can also shoot at 60fps (but drops to 720).
Two interesting features include HDMI output of raw uncompressed video at 125mbps and the ability to monitor stereo audio.
Shipping in late February, the D4 will cost $5,999.95 (body only).
The SD Association released the Wireless LAN SD standard at CES, which adds Wi-Fi accessibility to the standardized storage format.
The new memory cards allow consumers to wirelessly download, upload and share photos or videos in addition to using the Wireless LAN SD memory cards as control points for other devices.
Consumers will be able to transfer content from cameras to cloud services and between SD devices over home networks.
“As cloud servers and wireless technologies continue to penetrate the consumer experience, wireless accessibility will become increasingly more important,” said Michael Yang, senior principal analyst, IHS iSuppli. “The addition of wireless capability to the existing SD memory card standard, will enable SD memory cards to remain relevant to shifting market demand, and add value to consumers and manufacturers of new cameras, tablets, and mobile phones.”
At CES last week, Boxee announced that in 2012 it will deeply integrate with Facebook and provide live TV to its “smart” set-top box.
With an HD antenna, Boxee Box can now access programs from local broadcast stations. As always, the box will also run local content and online content, which has set it apart from competitors.
According to Lost Remote: “One major differentiator between Boxee and the rest is the ease at which you can play files downloaded from places like BitTorrent on your TV without needing to convert them.”
Its new TV app for Facebook allows users to share what they’re watching on Timeline, enabling video discovery among friends. For those users concerned about privacy, they will be able to customize settings to selectively share.
Boxee is praised for its intuitive, sleek remote but the article questions whether the device is actually “the one box your TV needs,” as the company claims. One point of contention is the size of the box, which does take up space (compared to Roku’s recently released stick).
Also, the box does lack in content without Hulu or Amazon Instant. With other options such as Xbox, Roku, Apple TV and connected TVs, Boxee may or may not have enough to set it apart in an increasingly competitive market.
Reuters has launched Reuters TV, a YouTube channel featuring 10 original shows tailored for the Web.
The shows will focus on investigative journalism, presidential campaign coverage, finance, media, tech and personal interviews.
“Dan Colarusso, Reuters global head of programming, says the video has been formatted for an online audience, and does not mimic traditional TV editing styles,” reports Mashable. “The segments do seem fast-paced, accelerated by frequent intersections of graphics and other visuals.”
YouTube has 100 media partners producing original premium content.
Consumers are now spending four hours and 20 minutes each month watching video on the Web, according to Nielsen.
At CES last week, Canon introduced its $799 PowerShot G1 X compact camera with large CMOS sensor capable of producing DSLR image quality.
Canon’s 14.3-megapixel CMOS sensor measuring 18.7mm x 14mm is larger than a Four Thirds sensor.
The sensor offers 14-bit RAW capture like Canon’s DSLRs, gives dramatically increased control over depth of field and has a large ISO range of 100 to 12800. (Small sensors have been a shortcoming for Canon’s G-series compacts in the past.)
Other features include a 4x optical zoom range of 28-112mm, a 4-stop optical image stabilizer, and support for Full HD (1080p) movie capture (but only at 24fps).
According to the Digital Photographyhands-on review: “…the G1 X’s combination of large sensor and 4x zoom lens should still provide more compositional flexibility, coupled with equal or better low-light capability, when compared to a DSLR or mirrorless interchangeable lens camera used with a typical kit zoom. It should also overall outperform smaller-sensor compacts like the X10 and XZ-1. However, it’s important to understand that the differences won’t necessarily be as great as sensor size alone might suggest.”
Microsoft was planning an online subscription TV service that would offer programming for a monthly rate. However, talks with media companies have been put on hold because Microsoft found the licensing costs to be prohibitive.
To distinguish itself from the likes of Netflix, Microsoft’s business model had planned to offer current shows and live networks.
The company continues to deliver content over the Web and offers apps on its Xbox Live service. For now, the company is focusing on providing current cable subscribers programming on the Xbox system.
At CES, Microsoft and News Corp. announced “a partnership that will allow Fox Broadcast, Fox News, IGN and The Wall Street Journal to offer apps on its Xbox Live service,” reports Reuters.
Microsoft may renew talks, some speculate, as its competitors Google and Amazon continue to push forward with content deals.
If pursued, the Microsoft TV service would likely include advanced features such as voice and motion control.
Forbes contributor Fred Cavazza predicts that “Social Business” will become the top buzz term of 2012.
“Social Business is not a technology, a practice or a strategy, it’s a unified vision of social media usage inside and outside of a company,” he writes.
“The objective of social business is to rethink the company’s strategy, processes and culture with a social lens,” he adds. “Social business’ credo is to build a social layer which will stimulate conversations, connections, shares and interactions inside and outside your organization.”
To achieve an integrated approach, Cavazza recommends six concepts (the post includes a related infographic): 1) “Rethink marketing to improve transformation and clients satisfaction;” 2) “Rethink commerce to improve segmentation and fidelity;” 3) “Rethink CRM to improve market insights and your products visibility;” 4) “Rethink knowledge capitalization to stimulate collaboration and expand internal communities;” 5) “Rethink collaboration to foster contributions and subject matter experts’ identification;” and 6) “Rethink internal communities to boost social learning and collaborative practices.”
“Extra value cannot be delivered with better softwares, or with a better strategy, it can be delivered with enhanced processes and behaviors. So in the end, social business is more about changing culture and habits, i.e. improve social interactions between human beings, wether they are customers, prospects, employees, contractors…”
Wikipedia has joined other sites in going dark today in protest of two proposed bills — the Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA) in the House and the Protect IP Act (PIPA) in the Senate.
From midnight Tuesday until midnight Wednesday (ET), people who try to visit the English Wikipedia homepage will be redirected to a temporary page, “Imagine a World without Free Knowledge” that includes information regarding SOPA and PIPA and a zipcode search to contact political representatives.
Wikipedia co-founder Jimmy Wales said the blackout is intended to show lawmakers and regulators that people who work on the Internet do not support the bills.
According to Wales, 460 million people around the world visit Wikipedia each month. The blackout could affect as many as 100 million people.
The WordPress homepage and some other international Wikipedia pages will post similar notices. Technology/culture blog BoingBoing and social news site Reddit will also blackout their sites for the day.
Google opted not to go dark with its search service for the day, but a black bar is blocking its doodle art logo. The bar links to a page that states: “Millions of Americans oppose SOPA and PIPA because these bills would censor the Internet and slow economic growth in the U.S.”
