A new patent suggests Amazon’s future Kindles could feature both an e-ink and an LCD display — one on either side of the tablet, both touch-enabled.
“The e-commerce giant has been awarded a patent where e-ink and LCD would work together — one display would be static for reading, while the LCD would be optimized for video watching,” reports Mashable. “The patent filing states that it would make use of the device’s front and rear-facing cameras to determine which side to display content.”
“A device might alternatively utilize at least one camera to determine which side of the device is facing the user, and might activate the display on that side of the device to convey content,” notes the patent. “A device might display notifications on an edge of the device, such that a current orientation of the device might be less important.”
According to the filing, the dual-screen concept may actually lengthen battery life by deferring to e-ink when slow- to non-moving content is displayed.
Amazon is planning a press event in Los Angeles for September 6, and is expected to launch its next-gen Kindle e-reader and Kindle Fire.
Powered by IBM’s technology and analytics, the U.S. Open has new enhanced apps that go beyond merely tracking who beat whom.
The mobile apps for iPhones, iPads and Android devices offer live streams, player analysis along with statistics, highlights and Twitter conversations.
For the tennis fans at the New York City stadium, IBM has an interactive touchscreen wall that allows users to see what’s happening around the complex. There’s also a fan center for playing tennis-related video games.
In what Mashable calls “perhaps the most innovative” feature on the apps, predictive technology suggests which tennis star is likely to win. IBM’s on-site tech hub manages real-time match data and previous statistics, using analytic algorithms to formulate predictions.
“The data is invaluable to coaches, athletes and others working the grounds, including referees who hold a small device in their hands that analyzes each serve volley and point,” notes Mashable. “The same technology that delivers this insight is also being used to monitor babies in prenatal wards, help police departments prevent crime and enable financial services firms to improve customer service.”
Politicians are spending about $10,000 to $100,000 or more for 140-character Twitter ads, bringing politics closer to consumers — and faster, too.
“Twitter has become a central tool for most political campaigns, letting campaigns reach voters nearly instantly, whether for fund raising or political messages, as well as simply to gather more Twitter followers to build audience for future tweets,” the Wall Street Journal reports.
“Now, paid ads — which make a campaign’s message more prominent, and less likely to get lost in users’ ever-churning news feeds — are moving into the spotlight ahead of the parties conventions and the November election.”
Twitter enables a rapid response from campaigns, allowing advertisers to take advantage of developing changes. For example, Democratic senator Claire McCaskill quickly launched a tweet saying, “Don’t let Todd Akin get elected. He thinks ‘women can’t get pregnant from #legitimaterape.’ Donate to @clairemc now” — after her rival made his now famous gaffe.
But, as the article points out, Twitter’s offerings go beyond just pinning paid tweets to the tops of news feeds or search results. “Aside from buying ‘promoted tweets’ in users’ Twitter news feeds or on certain searches, advertisers can also buy spots known as ‘promoted accounts’ and ‘promoted trends’ — accounts and trends that are listed alongside other suggestions for whom to follow and hot hashtags,” notes WSJ.
As the election draws nearer, expect to see more political Twitter ads, the article suggests. Fortunately for Twitter, this election could signal a notable switch in political advertising if the speedy campaigns prove effective.
As evidenced by two recent events, Twitter is in the midst of changing “from being a kind of real-time information utility to being a global media entity,” which has led “the company to restrict access to its API, in order to control as much of the content flowing through its network as possible,” according to GigaOM.
In the first event, “the company abruptly yanked Tumblr’s ability to connect to Twitter’s friend-finder API, and in the second it bragged about how positive its recent partnership with NBC was around the Summer Olympics,” notes the post.
Tumblr was disappointed by the move, which wrote in a statement: “To our dismay, Twitter has restricted our users’ ability to ‘Find Twitter Friends’ on Tumblr. Given our history of embracing their platform, this is especially upsetting. Our syndication feature is responsible for hundreds of millions of tweets, and we eagerly enabled Twitter Cards across 70 million blogs and 30 billion posts as one of Twitter’s first partners… We are truly disappointed by Twitter’s decision.”
The future is unclear for Twitter, suggests GigaOM, and only time will tell its fate.
“The only question that remains is whether enough users want Twitter to become that kind of media entity, with all the controls and restrictions and advertising messages that come with it. It’s possible that — as some have argued — the third-party developers who are complaining about their treatment by the company are no longer relevant… or Twitter may have miscalculated badly, and sealed its fate as yet another media entity scrambling to promote its ads to a declining user base, just as MySpace did,” explains the post.
A new TiVo product called Stream enables users to transfer and store pre-recorded television content on mobile devices for immediate or later viewing, a service similar to some current app offerings from cable operators.
“The $130 box, available September 6 from TiVo.com and in Best Buy soon after that, streams content from your TiVo to up to four mobile devices in your home at high-definition quality,” reports Katie Boehret for the Wall Street Journal.
TiVo Stream is compatible with iPhones, iPads and newer iPod touch models. An Android version is currently in development.
“Stream also turns mobile devices into TVs of their own: You can scan the channel guide, select a show and watch it live,” explains the article. “It also lets people wirelessly download content to their mobile devices for watching anytime, like on planes or during road trips.”
Stream requires that the user owns one of TiVo’s Premiere models ($150, $250 or $400, depending on the model) and subscribes to the TiVo monthly service fee (there is no additional service fee for Stream).
After evaluating Stream in her home, Boehret writes that she doesn’t want to give it up. She praises the easy set-up, download and buffer speeds, and the convenience of watching programs on multiple devices in different rooms of her house.
Maxwell Wessel discusses the inevitable disruption of television in a guest blog for Harvard Business Review. Wessel is a member of the Forum for Growth and Innovation, a Harvard Business School think tank focused on disruptive innovation.
“Periodically, technologies or business model innovations allow start-ups to enter industries offering services that are generally cheaper and more accessible, but of far lower quality,” he writes. “However, over time, these start-ups tend to invest in performance improvements in such a way that allows them to displace industry incumbents.”
Already, for a fraction of the cost of cable, consumers can subscribe to streaming services such as Netflix and Hulu Plus, which may not have all desired content, but are becoming increasingly viewed as “good enough” alternatives.
And as more people opt into these disruptive services, “the big studios and distribution companies, armed with their outrageous overhead structures, will be unable to compete with small production studios designed to leverage novel distribution channels at much lower cost,” writes Wessel.
But he also notes that a change in the overall ecosystem will be difficult (though not impossible and still inevitable) because it is currently built around “multi-billion dollar wire infrastructures” and a consumer base in need of high-speed wireless Internet access.
Change on a massive scale will happen slowly, according to Wessel. “Academics have noted that disruptive cycles take place over periods of 15-30 years. Even if those cycles are faster than ever with the ever-falling costs of distributing information, educating the public about new ideas, and producing innovative products, it will still be a number of years before we see meaningful change.”
TV screens are becoming an increasingly popular way to consume online video — a medium that’s grown exponentially in the last three years.
According to a study by NPD, about 18 percent of 14,000 users surveyed are accessing online video on TVs on a daily basis while around 25 percent access it several times a week. Movies are driving much of that growth, reports TechCrunch.
The rise in online video viewing on TV has been made possible by televisions with built-in Internet as well as game consoles such as the Xbox and set-top boxes that link up with broadband-enabled on-demand services.
“China is coming out as the most online-video-friendly country at the moment,” notes the post. “China’s urban users beat every other country surveyed, across every device. This may be down to simple user behavior, but it’s also, NPD says, because Chinese users can access a lot more video content online than they can from domestic broadcasters and pay TV providers.”
“Online content is mostly viewed on computers or mobile devices such as tablets and smart phones, but TVs are increasingly becoming devices of choice for consumers, particularly since an increasing numbers of sets have either built-in connectivity or can be connected to the Internet via a peripheral device such as a connected Blu-ray player or set top box, among others,” said Riddhi Patel, NPD DisplaySearch research director, in a statement.
Taggable video start-up wireWAX just got the Google stamp-of-approval to place its interactive videos on YouTube brand channels, where before videos files were only embeddable on third-party sites.
The company says getting approved was difficult — top YouTube brand users like Nike even put pressure on Google — but the partnership will greatly increase wireWAX’s exposure.
“Going beyond simple video ‘hotspots’ or annotations, wireWAX’s drag ‘n’ drop tool enables users to add full motion-trackable and clickable links around objects, such as faces, products or just about anything,” explains TechCrunch.
“The applications for such interactivity are almost infinite, but include monetizable uses such as ‘shoppable videos’, as created by the likes of fashion retailer Oki-ni. On that note, wireWAX operates a freemium model, charging for additional premium features, such as customizations, on a ‘pay for what you use’ basis.”
YouTube is enabling mobile publishing to provide skippable in-stream ads on mobile devices, which could make more videos available to smartphones and tablets.
“YouTube’s lack of mobile advertising has been one reason a small number of content suppliers bar their YouTube content from going out through YouTube’s mobile and tablet channels,” reports paidContent.
Before, YouTube only had mobile website banners, non-skippable 15-second pre-rolls and Promoted Video ads in mobile searches.
But the skippable ads won’t be coming to your iPhone just yet. “Don’t expect to find the ads inside YouTube’s current, aging iOS app, however. That was built by Apple. Google will build its own for iOS after Apple’s iOS 6 update rips out the app,” notes the post.
Millions of American citizens still do not have adequate access to broadband Internet, according to a report from the Federal Communications Commission that points at service providers for taking their time in offering high-speed services in rural areas.
“The FCC’s annual broadband report, released Tuesday, says that 19 million Americans are still without broadband,” reports CNET. “And even though things are improving, the agency says, the pace of deployment is still too slow.”
This is an improvement over last year’s 26 million without broadband, but marks the third year in a row that the FCC says the high-speed service is not being rolled out in a “reasonable and timely fashion.”
“The U.S. has now regained global leadership in key areas of the broadband economy, including mobile, where we lead in mobile apps and 4G deployment,” FCC Chairman Julius Genachowski said in a statement. “But in this flat, competitive global economy, we need to keep driving toward faster broadband and universal access.”
However, John Bergmayer, senior staff attorney for Public Knowledge, argues that much needed competition is lacking when it comes to broadband.
“Unfortunately, the FCC is about to approve a deal between Verizon and several large cable companies that would allow Verizon to start selling cable broadband instead of its own DSL broadband in many markets,” said Bergmayer in a statement. “This is the clearest sign yet that broadband competition in the U.S. is far from what it should be. The FCC should work to improve broadband competition, which will in turn help its goals of broadband deployment and adoption.”
There are numerous ways to bypass commercials today. With radio, listeners can change the station or opt for commercial-free satellite subscriptions. With TV, DVRs allow viewers to fast-forward through content they don’t want to watch.
A new patent granted to Apple this week is taking a different approach and could be applied to all broadcasts.
The patent protects a new technology for “seamless switching between radio and local media,” according to the filing. It enables a mobile device to “automatically switch between broadcast content and stored media to offer the user a type of customized content consumption experience,” Apple Insider reports.
The device would allow users to bypass any media they were uninterested in — advertisements, segments of a talk show, news programming, etc. — and substitute it with their own content.
“By using metadata from assets like Radio Data System (RDS) data, broadcast listings or published third-party schedules, a device can ‘determine when an upcoming broadcast segment or media item is not of interest to the user,'” the article explains.
“When such an event is detected, the device will seamlessly switch to stored media until the unwanted content is completed. Also included as methods of discerning what a user may or may not want to consume are analysis of audio or video from the source, akin to current iOS apps Shazam or IntoNow.”
The technology would allow users to “like” or “dislike” certain content in order to develop a preference profile. It would also look for appropriate stored content to replaced the undesired sections, using a “relevance algorithm” to keep the media consistent with the broadcast stream.
The post suggests the device could work well with Apple’s rumored set-top box, blurring “the line between live and on-demand television.”
In his Scientific American column this month, David Pogue suggests five ways Hollywood can fight piracy and promote its products successfully by more effectively embracing the digital age of content distribution.
1) “Include DVD extras.” Things like deleted scenes, commentary, behind-the-scenes features and more can be found nowhere else but with the DVD itself, encouraging purchase or hard-copy rentals. “Not to mention subtitles and captions — important options for millions of viewers,” adds Pogue.
2) “Offer a reasonable viewing period.” Give online renters the chance to finish the movie in a timely fashion. Pogue suggests viewers should have at least 27 hours, providing the ability to finish the movie the next night if sleepiness or other circumstances cut off their viewing the first night.
3) “Eliminate the starting time. You have to start watching a movie within 30 days of renting it. Okay, this isn’t a big deal — most of the time you rent a movie because you want to start watching right away — but what’s the need for the 30-day restriction? If we paid for it, we should be able to watch it whenever.”
4) “Eliminate the ‘release window’ concept.” When a movie’s theatrical run ends, it is rolled out to other outlets (pay-per-view, DVD, HBO, etc.) in a formulaic way that Hollywood believes holds the best financial yield. But as Pogue aptly notes, “during each window none of the other movie sources are making any money for Hollywood.” He thinks the movie should be available to all outlets at one time.
5) “When it’s buyable, it should be rentable.” A movie will often be put on sale online for more money before it’s available for rent, thus missing revenue from renters excited for a new release.
“Listen up, Hollywood: Nobody ever went out of business offering a good product for sale at a reasonable price with an eye toward pleasing the customer,” concludes Pogue. “You should try it some time.”
In Q2, Facebook grew its ad revenue 14 percent from the previous quarter, a 28 percent rise from a year ago. While this may seem promising, it’s a far throw from the 87 percent year-over-year growth seen in 2011.
CFO David Ebersman says the lackluster increases are in part caused by the 9 percent increase in ad rates, but the larger issue at hand is the inability for advertisers to measure return on investment.
During the last earnings call, COO Sheryl Sandberg said Facebook is working on quantifying the benefits their ads provide. “Though nearly all top advertisers spent money on Facebook ads in the last quarter, she conceded that the total was only a small percentage of the advertisers’ digital ad budgets. She characterized the shortfall as an ‘imbalance’ and a ‘substantial opportunity,'” reports the Wall Street Journal.
Facebook’s online ad rivals such as Google and Yahoo are able to measure results by clicks. “But for many brands, ads on Facebook don’t consist of an offer to directly buy something. They are more akin to TV ads, which marketers study to see how brand exposure might lead to offline sales,” explains WSJ.
Facebook is working with big brands to create customized ad measurements based on each company. Unfortunately, one big hurdle stands in Facebook’s way: privacy.
“One disadvantage to marketers is the fact that Facebook doesn’t offer them access to the conversations that the social network’s 950 million users are having among friends,” notes the article. “The company hides those discussions for consumer-privacy reasons. In lieu of such data, marketers have had to use other metrics, such as how many people ‘like’ a brand’s Facebook page.”
In May, the site lost $10 million in ads from General Motors and it stands to lose more if it can’t find a way to prove ROI.
The three companies responsible for the virtual production tools used in “Avatar” — James Cameron’s Lightstorm Entertainment, Peter Jackson’s Weta Digital and vfx software maker Autodesk — are working together on sequels to the Oscar-winning film, pushing those effects to the next level with new developments.
“In looking toward the next ‘Avatar’ films, we wanted to be able to work with higher efficiency, see changes on the fly and have a lot less downtime,” says producer Jon Landau.
“It quickly became obvious that filmmakers wanted tools for a virtual camera, a new way to efficiently capture large files in real-time and a tool that allows a director to load virtual sets, explore those sets and then makes changes or adjustments on the fly,” notes Variety.
“They’re now all present in Autodesk’s MotionBuilder 2013 package, after Autodesk set up a system with Lightstorm and Weta that allowed them to experiment and update the software by incorporating quick feedback from the set and the computer screen, says Bruno Sargeant, senior product manager for virtual production at Autodesk.”
“As a result, filmmakers using the system can immediately view playback of actors within their digital environments and see everything exactly as it will appear on the screen,” explains the article.
Pre- and post-production needs continue to blur together as technology advances. It’s increasingly important for companies likes these three to work together and for different departments to work on a given film at the same time, making on-the-spot changes.
“The goal is to make production in virtual space even more filmmaker-centric, according to Landau. In other words, to allow easier interaction between director and thesps, enabling the helmer to quickly make decisions about what is and what is not working in the film’s virtual environment,” according to Variety.
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.”
