According to “a person familiar with the matter,” Microsoft plans to purchase enterprise social networking company Yammer for $1.2 billion, reports the Wall Street Journal.
“San Francisco-based Yammer is sort of like Facebook for companies: employees can post, share, and discuss items,” explains CNET. “It’s become an integral tool for many start-ups, but it’s also big among larger businesses. More than 80 percent of Fortune 500 companies use Yammer. If Microsoft buys Yammer, the move could help the tech titan modernize with social-enterprise tools.”
In addition to expanding its corporate information technology efforts, the deal could potentially help Microsoft compete against companies such as Google by strengthening its cloud computing offerings. It could also result in new social features for Microsoft Office.
Yammer was launched in 2008 and is one of a number of emerging companies — including Box, Jive Software and Basecamp — that are looking for creative and efficient ways to change how people approach workplace communication and collaborative projects.
“There is absolutely a next generation of enterprise technologies emerging, and it’s going to be the foundation of how companies work five or 10 years from now,” said Aaron Levie, co-founder and chief executive of online file-sharing start-up Box, Inc.
Last week on the YouTube blog, Google software engineer Ullas Gargi revealed a new social video feature to Google+ Hangouts.
“A new application within Hangouts allows Google+ users to queue up YouTube videos and allow everyone in the Hangout session to watch the video at the same time,” reports Digital Trends. “Friends can watch reactions and everyone can provide commentary about the video while it’s playing.”
The application also enables members of the session to queue additional videos and “save a playlist to share with friends that don’t have a Google+ profile as of yet.”
Users can activate the feature in Hangouts by simply loading the YouTube app at the top of the screen.
“The concept for a shared experience is somewhat similar to Turntable.fm, a music service that allows members of a particular room to queue up music and become a virtual DJ,” notes the post.
“It’s like your own VIP table at the world’s coolest YouTube party,” suggests Gargi of the new application.
DirecTV CEO Michael White spoke at the Reuters Global Media and Technology Summit this week and addressed the prospect of ad-skipping technology.
“According to White, DirecTV management is waiting to see the outcome of the legal battle between Dish Network and several major broadcast networks such as NBC, FOX and CBS,” reports Digital Trends. “Dependent on the court’s decision regarding legality of the technology, DirecTV could launch the ability to skip commercials soon in order to compete more effectively against Dish Network.”
DirecTV acquired ReplayTV in 2007 and would use this resource to allow users to skip commercials if this is determined to be a legal practice.
In the early 2000s, ReplayTV not only allowed users to skip commercials, but also enabled content sharing between users. For example, people could send HBO shows to other ReplayTV users who did not subscribe to HBO.
“White also mentioned that the company is working on the development of applications that allow consumers to use voice commands to replicate the actions of a simple remote control,” notes Digital Trends. “The company plans to launch this application on both the iOS and Android platforms. By design, the application will allow a consumer to change the channel by stating the name of the program.”
On Wednesday, Twitter announced Expanded Tweets, which will allows users to “check out content directly from certain partners, without having to leave its website,” explains TechCrunch.
News partners such as the Wall Street Journal, New York Times, TIME and others will allow users to see more content directly within a tweet, rather than being redirected to a website.
“When you expand a news-based Tweet, for example, Twitter’s Expanded Tweets will provide a preview of the headline and introduction, as well as the Twitter accounts of the publisher and writer,” notes the post. “They can then click through to read the article, follow news accounts, reply or retweet within the Twitter page itself.”
Additionally, Expanded Tweets will enable viewing of images and video. The post cites WWE, BuzzFeed, and TMZ as partners that will feature images — and BET, Lifetime, and Dailymotion as video partners.
Paramount Pictures and Microsoft launched an app this week that enables Xbox Live Gold members to stream movies through their gaming console.
The app acts as a “go between” according to CNET, as it requires users to purchase or rent movies through Paramount’s website before it can be streamed to the Xbox 360. Users must also have Paramount and UltraViolet accounts in order to stream the content.
Earlier this year, Paramount began offering digital movies from its website via UltraViolet. The new joint app will provide a simple means of getting those movies onto TV sets.
“Last month, Amazon Prime service made a deal with Paramount for access to its movies. And just a week later, Amazon Instant Video partnered with Xbox introducing another app that lets subscribers play movies from Amazon’s Instant Video service,” notes the post. “This comes as Xbox 360 already has apps for HBO Go, Comcast, Netflix, Hulu Plus, YouTube, and ESPN.”
Netgear is “supercharging” its NeoTV 200 device that originally arrived late last year by adding Intel’s WiDi technology, “enabling you to wirelessly span your laptop’s display onto the biggest screen in your house,” reports Engadget.
According to the company’s press release, the NeoTV Pro is the world’s first streaming player to use Intel’s WiDi tech.
The player offers Netflix, Hulu Plus, Vudu, YouTube and Pandora, and is controllable with a remote or through a smartphone app. It enables users to instantly stream full 1080p and surround sound to their TVs.
“The hardware remains otherwise unchanged, packing the same 300Mbps Wi-Fi, Ethernet, optical out and HDMI,” explains the post.
The NeoTV Pro streaming player (NTV200S) is currently available for $69.99.
The Justice Department is examining whether cable companies are hampering competition from online video providers. Specifically, it is looking into Comcast’s data caps which limit the amount of data subscribers can download.
Comcast has set caps which impact how users view online video from services such as Netflix and Hulu. Moreover, it has favored its own Xfinity online video service by excluding its use from the caps.
This may violate a provision not to “unreasonably discriminate” against competitors agreed to in Comcast’s acquisition of NBCUniversal. Comcast has said Xfinity is treated differently because it uses a private network instead of the public Internet.
The investigation is additionally looking into whether requiring a cable subscription to view online video may be considered anticompetitive.
“The Justice Department also is investigating the contracts that programmers sign in order to be distributed on cable systems,” reports the Wall Street Journal. “Some contracts include so-called most-favored nation clauses, which make programmers give the biggest cable companies the best price they are offering anywhere, among other conditions. The Justice Department is questioning whether there are legitimate business reasons for such terms or whether they are intended to stop programmers from experimenting with other forms of online distribution.”
Canon has announced its EOS Rebel T4i, the next iteration of the company’s T3i DSLR. According to Digital Trends, Canon has outfitted the T4i “with some stunning new video capture capabilities as well as a barrier-breaking feature, the touchscreen display.”
Highlights of the new camera include a 3-inch, 1.04 million dot resolution LCD touchscreen; 18-megapixel APS-C CMOS sensor; ISO 100-12800 (expandable to 25600); 9-point all cross-type AF system; and high-speed continuous shooting up to 5fps.
We’ve seen touchscreens featured on point-and-shoot cameras and mirrorless Micro Four Thirds systems, but this is the first DSLR to include the technology (this could potentially open the door to mobile OS integration, enabling quality cameras to interact more directly with apps).
“The electronic-static touch-panel is the most advanced that Canon has released to date with multi-touch capabilities allowing photographers to use familiar gestures such as ‘pinch-to-zoom’ and ‘swiping’ to scroll between pictures,” the company said in its press release.
The Rebel T4i will launch the end of June starting at $850 (body only).
Microsoft and Encyclopedia Britannica have joined forces in an attempt to make Bing a smarter search engine.
The partnership hopes to deliver “relevant information in a more organized way to help you find what you need more quickly and get stuff done,” says Franco Salvetti, principal development lead of Bing.
“The search engine’s answer feature tries to provide users with a snippet of useful information related to their questions and keywords without having to visit a webpage,” reports TechCrunch. “Results from Encyclopedia Britannica will now feature a thumbnail and some useful facts about the topic (as well as links to Wikipedia, Britannica, Freebase and — for those who don’t like to read — Qwiki).”
The posts suggests Microsoft’s plans are similar to the goals of Google’s Knowledge Graph project, but notes that “Google’s project is far more complex and ambitious.”
“Indeed, in some ways this partnership with Encyclopedia Britannica feels like a poor man’s version of Google’s project,” comments TechCrunch. “Google’s Knowledge Graph knows about 500 million entities and how they relate to each other. While it’s probably not quite fair to compare this directly to Britannica Online, its worth noting that the old-school encyclopedia features ‘just’ 120,000 articles.”
Gaikai’s cloud gaming platform — which enables gaming on multiple devices — will soon be integrated with Samsung TV sets. The platform is already used on Facebook and LG TVs.
“Called Samsung Cloud Gaming (SCG), it’ll be available via the Smart Hub on Samsung 7000 series and up Smart TVs in the U.S. this summer,” reports Engadget. “The technology powering SCG is the same as what’s behind LG’s service, but Sammy’s customized the UI to suit its sensibilities.”
The alliance has been in development for nine months. “Samsung’s buying dedicated bandwidth from Gaikai’s 24 data centers on a per-device basis, with Gaikai handling overflow traffic while it builds out its network to meet increased demand as needed,” notes the post.
According to the press release, Samsung will soon begin accepting signups for the beta of SCG for its Smart TVs.
Engadget has included a 3-minute video demo featuring games being played on a Samsung TV.
Apple’s new iOS will be available this fall, with a focus on convenience and accessibility. Much more than a simple operating system update, iOS 6 brings some 200 new features to touch-based mobile computing. Wired takes a look at the top 10 key improvements.
Digital assistant Siri has additional functionality in areas such as real-time sports information, dining (including integration with Yelp and OpenTable), and movies (through a partnership with Rotten Tomatoes).
Users can post comments, photos, maps, and more to Facebook across the iOS ecosystem. “For instance, you can like apps on the App Store, as well as movies, music, and TV shows in iTunes,” notes Wired. “You can also post photos from Camera Roll, share a map from the Maps app, or share a webpage from Safari.”
Apple’s Maps replaces Google Maps and will include turn-by-turn navigation, traffic information and 3D photographic rendering with Flyover.
The Do Not Disturb feature holds messages, alerts, texts and phone calls. However, users can make exceptions for important individuals or emergency situations.
Safari can cache webpages to enable offline reading and offers “smart app banners” for mobile versions of websites. Shared Photo Streams allow users to share photos across iOS and Mac devices (including Apple TV) using iCloud.
Mail updates include pull-to-refresh for new messages, VIP notifications, and access to password-protected Microsoft Office documents. A new iOS app called Passport centralizes access to tickets, boarding passes, and coupon apps. “Such apps include Fandango (for movie tickets), Starbucks (for your Starbucks card), and United Airlines (for boarding passes),” explains the article.
And the final feature to be highlighted: Guided Access provides fullscreen single-app mode for children and institutions like museums and schools.
Google acquired mobile productivity software suite Quickoffice this week in an undisclosed deal intended to bolster Google’s transition from computers to mobile devices.
Quickoffice is “most popularly known for its Android and iOS document-editing applications,” reports AllThingsD. Users often use the software to edit Microsoft Word, Excel, and Powerpoint documents from mobile devices.
“Quickoffice has an established track record of enabling seamless interoperability with popular file formats, and we’ll be working on bringing their powerful technology to our Apps product suite,” wrote Alan Warren, Google’s engineering director, in a company blog post.
“Quickoffice has a strong base of users, and we look forward to supporting them while we work on an even more seamless, intuitive and integrated experience,” he added.
At the E3 Expo in Los Angeles this week, Nintendo unveiled its new Wii U console and Wii U Gamepad. According to Nintendo: “at its core, Wii U changes gaming, how you interact with your gaming friends, and it changes the way you enjoy your TV.”
Nintendo’s Reggie Fils Aime announced during the keynote that new partners will provide content to the Wii U, including Netflix, Hulu, Amazon Video, and YouTube.
The Gamepad features a pressure-sensitive touchscreen and directional pad. It will also include an NFC reader/writer and a gyroscope/accelerometer, as noted earlier by ETCentric. The new controller enables viewing of multiple screens — on the TV and the Wii U Gamepad.
This two-screen group play gaming experience could be the prototype for a new in-theater gaming and socializing experience. It could also create a new category of “third location” places in competition with Starbucks and other coffee shops.
“The company is also introducing MiiVerse, which Nintendo refers to as a Main Street for gamers,” reports TechCrunch. “Each of your friends will be displayed there in avatar form, and you’ll be able to share screen images, send text messages, and display your recent scores within the bubble hovering above your Mii.”
The Wii U is expected for a holiday release. No pricing information was provided.
HBO continues to add more devices and platforms that support its HBO GO service. The latest to get the app is the Amazon Kindle Fire.
Now owners of the Fire who pay for the traditional HBO cable service also have access to the content digitally. The free HBO GO app allows users to access all of the network’s original programming, along with licensed movies.
“For HBO, the latest app release is just part of a larger strategy of getting on as many devices as possible, enabling subscribers HBO GO from tablets and mobile devices, as well as on streaming boxes and connected TVs, and last but not least, on PCs through their Web browsers,” reports TechCrunch.
“By doing so, HBO hopes to give viewers a reason to keep paying for the cable network on top of their basic cable subscriptions.”
At the Society for Information Display’s Display Week show in Boston this week, Corning unveiled Willow Glass — a strong and flexible glass that the company plans to use for OLED and LCD displays in smartphones and other wireless devices.
Corning claims the new technology will enable devices that are lighter, thinner and possibly less expensive to manufacture.
“Corning expects Willow Glass will eventually lead substrates to be manufactured ‘roll-to-roll’ instead of ‘sheet-to-sheet’ — similar to how newspapers are printed,” explains Engadget.
The cousin to Corning’s Gorilla Glass, the new ultra-thin glass can withstand heat up to 930 degrees Fahrenheit, and could potentially lead to the production of curved displays that could be wrapped around a device or structure.
“Corning Willow Glass is formulated to perform exceptionally well for electronic components such as touch sensors, as well as leveraging glass’s natural hermetic properties as a seal for OLED displays and other moisture and oxygen-sensitive technologies,” notes the press release.
In addition to CE devices such as smartphones and tablets, the technology may be used for other applications including solar cells and lighting.
The Engadget post includes the Corning press release and a brief video demo.
According to “a person familiar with the matter,” Microsoft plans to purchase enterprise social networking company Yammer for $1.2 billion, reports the Wall Street Journal.
