To display the most relevant entries to you in priority,
vote for the stories you are interested in
()
and reject those that you are not interested in
()
Mucho televisor esta semana en los análisis y especiales de Xataka. El traspaso de poderes
está cerca de concluir, y tanto el apagón analógico como el paso a las tres
dimensiones han centrado nuestros especiales y análisis de la semana, en la que
también el día del Padre ha sido importante.
El apagón analógico también ha comenzado esta semana su
protagonismo en Xataka. Ya sabéis que el 3 de abril todo se apagará y solo
será posible ver la televisión a través de la señal digital. Para que
puedas sobrevivir a ello, hemos empezado el especial Sobrevivir al apagón
analógico, donde además de expicarte por qué este
cambio, vamos proponerte diferentes tipos
de sintonizadores para que escojas el que más se acerca a lo que necesitas.
La tercera pata que sostiene la parte de especiales de esta semana en Xataka es la
tercera dimensión. Estuvimos en la
presentación de los televisores de Samsung que salen a la venta estos días y
que darán el pistoletazo de salida para el resto de las marcas. En la segunda parte del
año será cuando de verdad veremos la reacción del consumidor y cómo
se lo toman las marcas que tanto han puesto en los televisores 3D.
En cuanto a los post más votados y guardados por los xatakeros, la
Ley Sinde arrasa de nuevo:
Screen 21 is widening its new-technologies' area with the aim of becoming a vanguard production
company. The Catalonian company, which oversees all BRB Internacional productions, has decided to
take an important step forward in R D by incorporating the latest 3D innovations: It will apply the
most advanced stereoscopic technology (rendering images that produce a real feeling of volume) and
Hi-Def, and it will incorporate a 16:9 panoramic format for different applications (television, Blu
Ray, VOD, IPTV -Internet Protocol Television- and mobile devices connected to the internet). In
fact, three of these latest series will be the first European productions to premier at the end of
this year in steroscopic 3D: Zookaboo, Canimals and Kambu.
Thus, Screen 21 is extending the use of stereoscopic 3D technology, first applied in Zookaboo (104
x 2'), the series that narrates in an agile, entertaining way 104 guessing vignettes about
different animals -- all hidden in a box! Now, both Kambu (52 x 7'), starring a curious little
postman dog who has to face the daily adventures arising on a lost island, and Canimals (52 x 7'),
which refers to some truly lovable and fun but naughty little leprechaun-like critters who live in
cans and who rediscover the world from a very different perspective than ours, will be done in 3D
stereoscopic, too. All three series will be able to be viewed in both 2D and 3D, either with
stereoscopic glasses or without them according to the broadcast needs.
As a complement to the TV series, videogames will be developed that will be available exclusively
through internet on the Webpage corresponding to each series. Interactive videos will also be
developed too for mobile devices – principally Iphone, Ipad and Android –
by using augmented reality techniques that will allow users to interact. As Carlos Biern, Executive
Director of Screen 21 said: "Viewers will be able to see their favorite characters and to interact
with them IN the series, by way of the television, the computer and their mobile phones, all in
three dimensions."
The Screen 21 productions, which BRB distributes on a global level, will be afforded an even
greater forum through cartoon blogs and social networks.
Ian's Thoughts: "You can search the Android Market for the following keywords and
see quite a bit of content that I feel shouldn't be available to customers, and definitely not to
children: nude, sex, porn, 18+, adults only, boobs, the android market seems to be turning into a
porn hub."
Another
day, another Android tablet render. This
one, the imaginatively titled WePad, is as ambitious as its name might suggest. (You know, because
"we" is plural of "I"? Yeah, it's a stretch.) Dwarfing the iPad with its 11.6-inch (1366 x 768)
display, a 1.66GHz Intel Atom N450 processor, GMA 3150 graphics, webcam, two USB ports, flash card
reader, UMTS modem, and a mooted six hours of battery life, we could see ourselves picking one up
-- provided the price point is decent. But that's just the beginning! The manufacturer, Neofonie,
also has designs on a WePad app store and, if all goes according to plan, this thing'll sport
genuine Google Android and the Android Market. The company also mentions something called the
"WeMagazine publishing ecosystem," the basis of a turn-key operation for getting your own branded
device out on the e-reader market, so if you're looking to get into the biz just hit the source
link to begin your adventure. As for us, we'll wait to see a final product before we jump to any
conclusions.
Here’s an update on the
Samsung tablet we just talked about yesterday. New rumors have surfaced suggesting that it
will actually run on the Android
platform and not on Windows. As for its hardware, it’s now being reported that it will
sport an ARM-based processor as opposed to an Intel Atom chipset, and will feature call
functionality via a headset over some sort of VoIP implementation via 3G with 4G connectivity
also being a possibility.
Granted that this new rumor is more attuned with modern mobile tablet devices as compared to its
initially reported specs, there’s still no degree of certainty that this is actually true.
Anyway, we’re pretty sure there will still be a handful or more so rumors that’ll
surface before everything’s all said and done with this Samsung tablet, but let’s
hear it from you guys first. What do you want this upcoming Samsung tablet to feature?
Are you on Sprint and own either an HTC
Hero or Samsung Moment Android phone? Waiting on an Android 2.1 update to become available?
If the answer is yes to both questions, this
latest bit of news will be music to your ears. There have been several accounts pointing to the
impending release of Sprint’s Android
2.1 update for both the HTC Hero and Samsung Moment. There are some reports saying that
it’ll roll out as early as March 26th while a purported Sprint employee shares that it
should be available in the coming weeks and adds that more information will be revealed sometime
in April.
We’re not quite sure which of the two is more reliable, but one thing’s for sure
though, its release isn’t that far away.
Mozilla platform engineer Rob Sayre has probably had better ideas.
Hoping Microsoft might allow Firefox on their new Windows Phone 7 Series, Sayre wrote an open letter this morning
to Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer. “Hola, amigo. I know it’s been a long time since
I rapped at ya,” is how it starts.
He then proceeds to make fun of Windows Phone 7 Series, the iPhone, Cocoa Touch, and Unix
— all in three concise paragraphs. He notes that Windows Phone 7 Series has a
“busted” UI, calls the iPhone’s UI “ugly jelly beans,” and mocks
the “allegedly cool” Cocoa Touch “stuff.”
Once he’s done with all of that, he asks Ballmer to consider making an NDK for Windows
Phone. An NDK is a companion tool for an SDK that allows you to build parts of apps in native
code. For example, it’s the Android NDK that allows Mozilla to make
Firefox for Android.
There’s currently no plans to make an NDK for Windows Phone 7 phones —
hence Sayre’s post. Without it, a version of Firefox for the OS is probably unlikely. And
that’s may be a good bet anyway, considering Microsoft seems to be pivoting its new phones
closer to the iPhone’s closed model rather than Android’s open one.
Sayre’s approach to the post apparently didn’t go over too well —
he quickly followed up with an apology post, “Things I’ve
Learned.” “Blog posts that sound likeJim Anchowerreally
irritate people for some reason. I won’t do it again, I promise,” he writes.
Charles Arthur investigates how the ways in which we watch sport, read magazines and do business
with each other could change for ever
Don't act too surprised if, some time in the next year, you meet someone who explains that their
business card isn't just a card; it's an augmented reality business card. You can see a collection
and, at visualcard.me, you can even design your
own, by adding a special marker to your card, which, once put in front of a webcam linked to the
internet, will show not only your contact details but also a video or sound clip. Or pretty much
anything you want.
It's not just business cards. London Fashion Week has tried them out too: little symbols that
look like barcodes printed onto shirts, which, when viewed through a webcam, come to life.
Benetton is using augmented reality for a campaign that kicked off last month, in which it is trying to find models from among the
general population.
Augmented reality – AR, as it has quickly become known –
has only recently become a phrase that trips easily off technologists' lips; yet we've been
seeing versions of it for quite some time. The idea is straightforward enough: take a real-life
scene, or (better) a video of a scene, and add some sort of explanatory data to it so that you
can better understand what's going on, or who the people in the scene are, or how to get to where
you want to go.
Sports coverage on TV has been doing it for years: slow-motion could be described as a form of
augmented reality, since it gives you the chance to examine what happened in a situation more
carefully. More recently cricket, tennis, rugby, football and golf have all started to overlay
analytic information on top of standard-speed replays – would that ball have
hit the stumps, the progress of a rally, the movement of the backs or wingers, the relative
flights of shots – to tell you more about what's going on. Probably the most
common use is in American football where the "first down" line – the distance
the team has to cover to continue its offence – is superimposed on the picture
for viewers.
But those required huge systems. AR took its first lumbering steps into the public arena eight
years ago: all that you needed to do was strap on 10kg of computing power –
laptop, camera, vision processor – and you could get an idea of what was
feasible. The American Popular Science magazine wrote about the idea in 2002 – but the idea of being permanently
connected to the internet hadn't quite jelled at that point.
"AR has been around for ages," says Andy Cameron, executive director of Fabrica, an interactive
design studio which works with Benetton, "maybe going back as far as the 1970s and art
installations that overlaid real spaces with something virtual." He mentions in particular the
work of pioneering computer artist Myron Krueger.
What's changed in the past year is that AR has come within reach of all sorts of developers
– and the technology powerful enough to make use of it is owned by millions of
people, often in the palms of their hands.
The arrival of powerful smartphones and computers with built-in video capabilities means that you
don't have to wait for the AR effects as you do with TV. They can simply be overlaid onto real
life. Step forward Apple's iPhone, and phones using Google's Android operating system, both of
which are capable of overlaying information on top of a picture or video.
Within the small world of AR, one of the best-known apps is that built by Layar, which – given a location, and
using the iPhone 3GS's inbuilt compass to work out the direction you're pointing the phone
– can give you a "radar map" of details such as Wikipedia information, Flickr
photos, Google searches and YouTube videos superimposed onto a picture you've taken of the scene.
For Americans, it will also pull in details from the government's economic Recovery Act
– so that if you're on Wall Street and want to see how many billions went into
which building, it will show you.
Or, more usefully, Yelp offers an augmented reality
application that will show you ratings and reviews for a restaurant before you walk in
– the sort of thing that could make restaurants quiver with delight, or
shudder in horror.
Or maybe it wouldn't need to know where it is; only who it's looking at. A prototype application
demonstrated at the Mobile World Congress in Barcelona in February took things a little further
again. Point the phone at a person and if it can find their details, it will pull them off the
web and attach details – their Twitter username, Facebook page and other facts
– and stick them, rather weirdly, into the air around their head (viewed
through your phone, of course). "It's taking social networking to the next level," says Dan
Gärdenfors, head of user experience research at The Astonishing Tribe, a Swedish mobile software company.
And there are fabulously useful applications: at Columbia University, computer science professor
Steve Feiner and PhD candidate Steve Henderson have created their Augmented Reality for
Maintenance and Repair (Armar) project. It combines sensors, head-up displays, and
instructions to tackle the military's maintenance needs: start working on a piece of kit, and the
details about it pop up in front of
you. Imagine if you could put on a pair of special goggles when you needed to investigate
your car's engine, or a computer's innards, and the detail would pop up. That's the sort of idea
that Armar is trying to implement, though for the military at first..
Yet it's fashion which seems to have leapt quickest into this technology. The T-shirt with AR in
London Fashion Week was developed by Cassette Playa, a label that has been worn by Lily Allen,
Rihanna and Kanye West. Carri Munden, who designed it with the Fashion Digital Studio at the
London College of Fashion, described it as "mixing reality and fantasy". Adidas, too, has
launched trainers with AR symbols in the tongues: hold them to a webcam and you are taken to
interactive games on the Adidas site.
The process by which the strange symbols get translated into images is simple enough: the website
takes the feed from your webcam (you have to explicitly allow it to do so, so there are no
security worries) and analyses it for the particular set of symbols that the program is looking
for. (Some easy calculations mean the symbols can be detected whichever way up you hold the
item.) Videos and pictures are then sent back to you.
Andy Cameron says that the arrival of an open-source, hence free, AR tool kit has let companies
build their own AR applications, using Flash – the pervasive animation and
video technology used for many online ads and YouTube's videos – "which
immediately meant you had huge penetration, because Flash is everywhere". (Something like 98% of
all computers are reckoned to have Adobe's Flash Player installed.)
"If you build your AR application with Flash, then you can get it out to everybody in the world
with a computer with a webcam," says Cameron.
Benetton is using AR in its latest campaign, called "It's My Time" which aims to get members of the public to put themselves forward as
potential models, and uses AR to show more details about existing models. But its first most
visible use of AR was last year in issue 76 of Benetton's Colors magazine, a quarterly
fashion product. Dozens of pages have AR symbols: hold the page up to a webcam, and you see film
and more photos of the person on the page. "The Colors editor and the creative director
of Fabrica got very excited about it," says Cameron.
Cameron can see huge potential which could even revive the fortunes of print advertising. "Think
of a commercial page, an advert, in a fashion magazine. It's pretty expensive. With this
– and this is the way that the more hard-nosed people in Benetton saw the
advantage – it means that you can get more products on the page." Print an AR
code, get people to come to the site, and you can show them so much more, while measuring the
return from your effort.
The technical cost is a tiny part of the overall effort. "The printing and photography cost [of
the advert] is the same. And the development cost is pretty small."
And of course where advertisers go, the publications that house them are sure to go as well.
Esquire magazine in the US and Wallpaper* in Europe have done "augmented
reality" editions, with Robert Downey Jr coming to life on the cover of the former, and AR text
providing videos and animation in the latter. But there are more possibilities for journalism
using AR: for example if you "geotag" newspaper articles (so that you say that an item relates to
a particular place) then someone visiting a site could learn about events relevant to the area
via their smartphone.
Book publishers too are leaping in: Carlton Publishing will release an AR book in May, featuring
dinosaurs that pop out of the pages when viewed, yes, through a webcam. Future releases include
war, sport and arts titles which will also have extra AR elements.
Yet in media it's the advertisers who are most excited. The possibilities of geotagged, targeted
adverts – which in effect hang in the air until someone comes along to find
them with a smartphone – or of AR adverts which open up a whole new world of
opportunities (and perhaps discounts or loyalty bonuses) when you follow them through
– are yet another glimpse of the holy grail ofads that know exactly who and
where you are.
Is there a risk that we'll all become AR'd out – that it will become boring as
advert after advert invites us to hold it up to a webcam? "What's hot today is ancient history
tomorrow," says Cameron. "There have been a lot of bad uses of this technology with a rush to use
it. We have had the chance to reflect on what it means and how to use it. The key is that it
should be an enhancement of the stuff on the printed page."
Even so we're still in the early stages, he argues. "It's very primitive –
having to use a webcam, holding a magazine up to it. Obviously we're really interested in the
opportunities with handheld devices. It's very frustrating that the iPhone doesn't allow access
to the live video stream." (Nor does it run Flash, another problem for would-be AR designers.)
"People in design are very annoyed with Steve Jobs," he observes. "We don't really understand why
Apple won't allow that."
Given that access, he says, "you could hold your iPhone up to a billboard and get something
amazing right there". What about the alternative, such as Google's Android-based Nexus phone? "It
looks like you could do it on that," he says. But of course the iPhone is a target market. "Maybe
Apple wants to keep that for itself," Cameron says. "Maybe they're lodging patents. Or maybe the
processor on the iPhone isn't fast enough."
Yet there are some who think that AR has already had its brief time in the sun. At the Like Minds
conference in Exeter at the beginning of March, Joanne Jacobs, a social media consultant,
described an AR application that demanded you buy a T-shirt and then go and sit in front of your
webcam – so you could play Rock, Paper, Scissors. By yourself.
"It's hopeless," Jacobs said.
Cameron admits to some uncertainty about AR's measurable impact. "I don't know if it sells more
things, but it seems clearly a good thing if we can get people who may be customers to
participate in the adverts." But, he adds: "If people start to play with the adverts in a way
that exposes them to more products, that's got to help bring a commercial return."
Unless you have
been living under a rock all this while, you would have known about the Google Nexus One
smartphone that is touted to be a “superphone” by Google, as it squares up against
the almighty Apple iPhone which has a worldwide legion of rabid fans, ready to come to its
defense any day. Well, the Google Nexus One also has a different moniker, where it is known as
the HTC Desire – previously known as the Bravo. Guess all of the hardware specification
will more or less remain the same as the Nexus One, as this model will retain more than a handful
of quality features to keep you hooked to it. More on the HTC Desire will be explained right
after the jump.
The handset itself will run on a rather well executed alliance between the Google Android
operating system as well as the HTC Sense user interface which enables users to customize
multiple home screens with web feeds and other content that one would find most relevant. Apart
from that, you will always be in the loop since the HTC Desire allows you to receive a continuous
stream of comments, photos and status updates on popular social networking sites including
Facebook and Twitter. To contact one of your friends is a snap, since all possible avenues of
communication will be offered, ranging from email to SMS, Facebook and calling. With a virtually
endless amount of downloadable apps from the Android Market as well as Google services such as
Google Maps, Google Search and Gmail, the HTC Desire sounds like a truly complete handset for any
smartphone user.
Hardware-wise, you get a 3.7″ AMOLED touchscreen display with multi-touch capability,
offering an above average web browsing and multimedia experience. HTC has also thrown in an
accelerometer that makes it a snap to rotate the angle of the display, while a proximity sensor
will set the display to standby mode whenever you are entertaining a call, so that there
won’t be any accidental selections of options. A 5.0-megapixel camera with autofocus and an
LED flash lets you snap quality photos in a jiffy, but don’t expect it to hold up as well
as a regular consumer class digital camera. It really depends on which carrier do you want to get
tied down to in the UK with the HTC Desire, but most of them often throw in a free gift to make
the deal all the more enticing.
This is still unconfirmed at the moment, but word is going around that the recently mentioned Samsung tablet might be powered by Google’s Android OS instead of some edition
of Microsoft’s Windows 7. To make the deal even juicier, apparently the device could
feature calling via a headset, possibly with some implementation of VoIP, 3G and perhaps even 4G
connectivity. Nothing is set in stone at the moment, so we’ll have to keep an eye on this.
If it were up to you, what specifications would you give the Samsung tablet?
In the
next few weeks, the ReadWriteWeb events guide will take you from New York City, to San Francisco,
to Portland, Oregon. Along the way you'll find a conference on search engine strategies, a
showcase for startups, an in-depth look at the freemium business model, and a day filled with of
social media case studies.
How do you like your events calendar? As a
world map? As an
iCal (and Google Calendar-importable) file? You can also import individual events using the
link beside each entry. Know of something cool taking place that should appear here? Let us know
in the comments below or contact us.
Go beyond search at Search Engine
Strategies New York. Learn the newest trends, strategic action plans, and technology that
industry leaders are employing today. Our experts will trace the natural evolution of search
exploring topics such as: digital asset optimization, mobile application development, transition
from search to discovery and more.Book your pass today. Enter RWW15 to save 15% off the
registration. Sessions include:
After a long winter's hiatus, S.F. Beta is back, for its forth year straight! Join
hundreds of founders, investors, developers, and technologists for a lively evening of demos,
drinks, conversation, and new connections. Early bird
tickets are available, and they're going fast. Register now for discounted admission. As
always, we feature startup demos all night. This time around, the theme is Search &
Discovery. If you're building the next Google (or the next Google acquisition), we want you here!
Email cperry@sfbeta.com for more info.
The first Freemium Summit is a one day
event focused on exploring what it takes to succeed under the freemium business model. Across all
segments of the media landscape, entrepreneurs and executives are pioneering models that combine
a free offering with a premium, paid offering. This hybrid business model is one of the most
exciting areas of business model innovation impacting the world of media and the Freemium Summit
will explore the most important topics on the minds of leading practitioners.
Confirmed Speakers: Toni Schneider, Automattic (WordPress); Matt Brezina, Xobni; Aaron Levie,
Box.net; Phil Libin, Evernote; Tom Conrad, Pandora; Drew Houston, Dropbox; Ranjith Kumaran,
YouSendIt; Ben Chestnut, Mailchimp; Lance Walley, Chargify; Isaac Hall, Recurly; and Lincoln
Murphy, Sixteen Ventures.
The social media conference for marketers, Social Fresh is not about concept, but focused purely on
case studies from the front lines. Learn what social media can really do for business bottom
lines. Over the course of the day, you'll hear from 35 speakers from companies like Intel, Ford,
Comcast, Nike and many more, as well as keynote Peter Shankman. Register now and use coupon code RWW15 for 15% off.
4 April 2010: Carnegie Mellon University, Pittsburg, Pennsylvania
TEDx CMU is an independently
organized TEDx event that will be held on April 4th, 2010 at Carnegie Mellon University and will
feature a full day of talks by prominent speakers as well as recorded videos from past TEDTalks.
Confirmed speakers include Jonathan Fields (author, blogger and entrepreneur), Stacey Monk
(founder of Epic Change, a startup nonprofit), Chase Jarvis (photographer, director and social
artist) and Nathan Martin (CEO of Deeplocal, an innovation studio in Pittsburgh).
The theme of the event is "Fearless", and we are inviting speakers from cross-disciplinary
backgrounds to talk about their experiences, and tell us a little about what inspires them to be
fearless in the pursuit of goals. We hope to spark discussions and foster connections between
participants, encouraging aspiring individuals to follow their dreams and make a difference. The
event is free to attend, and the application deadline is March 21, 2010.
For more information about the event, visit tedxcmu.com or email
info@tedxcmu.com. You can also find TEDx CMU on Facebook
or follow us on Twitter.
ConnectNow brings together international
specialists and thought leaders in social media, emerging technologies and their intersection
with business. Learn how the realtime web, location based services, augmented reality, ubiquitous
computing and personalised services are changing marketing and communications. Understand the
importance of trust in relationship marketing and what is "social currency". For more info email
info@connectnow.net.au.
PubCon, the premier search
and social media conference, features the industry's biggest names and key players shaping the
future of the Web. PubCon South will include
cutting-edge panel sessions exploring tracks dedicated to search, social media and affiliate
marketing, an intensive professional search and social media training program, and some of the
world's top keynote speakers. PubCon South at Dallas will also hold a one-day, two-track slate of
intensive educational training programs led by some of the industry's most respected search
professionals. The event takes place at the Richardson Conference and Civic Center. Register
here.
Under the Radar: Cloud is must-attend
event for dealmakers and heads of IT from large enterprises, SMBs, service providers, carriers
and media companies who are responsible for helping their companies leverage new technology and
innovation in the fast-evolving IT ecosystem. Join us for the 15th Under the Radar conference,
featuring a hand-picked selection of the world's most innovative cloud startups among 350 top
tech, media, telcom and finance executives. For ticket and more information, visit http://undertheradarblog.com.
FutureMidwest is the region's largest technology and knowledge
conference. Founded by Adrian Pittman, Jordan Wolfe and Zach Lipson, FutureMidwest is the fusion
of two successful conferences held in Michigan in 2009 - the Module Midwest Digital Conference
and TechNow.
Both conferences highlighted how technology and digital tools have dramatically changed the way
we do business and the effect this transition has had on companies. FutureMidwest kicks things up
a notch with presentations, group breakout sessions, relationship-building opportunities and
influencers who are taking action to redefine business in the digital age. Register here.
The social media conference for marketers, Social Fresh is not about concept, but focused purely on
case studies from the front lines. Learn what social media can really do for business bottom
lines. Over the course of the day you'll hear from 35 speakers from companies like Ford, Best Buy,
Scottrade, Hardees, CMT and many more. Register now
and use coupon code RWW15 for 15% off.
DrupalCon is
the premier conference focused on Drupal, the award-winning open source content management
framework that is galvanizing social publishing and web development today. For a registration fee
of $195, attendees get three full days of sessions led by the best and brightest Drupal
experts.
Drupal has been downloaded over 2 million times since its inception, and project growth has
doubled annually for several years. Drupal is used to deliver a wide variety of application types
including blogs, wikis, community networks, digital media portals, and web content publishing and
management.
The Future of Money & Technology
Summit will bring together the best and brightest thinkers around money, including
visionaries, entrepreneurial business people, developers, press, investors, authors,
solution/service providers, and organizations who work where cash and commerce collide. We meet
to discuss the evolving ecosystem around money in a proactive, conducive to dealmaking
environment. Featured speakers include Jolie O'Dell from ReadWriteWeb, as well as representatives
from Wells Fargo Bank, Kiva, SharesPost, Jambool, Founders Fund, Outright.com, SoftTech VC, and
many more.
Use discount code "rww" to get 10% off registration.
The ReadWriteWeb Mobile Summit 2010
will be an exploration of the latest Mobile development trends - both the technology and the
emerging business applications. Get ready to explore, think and create the future of Mobile with
the brightest in the industry, your peers! As in our last Summit, The Real-Time Web, the
ReadWriteWeb Mobile Summit is an unconference.
An unconference is a participant driven conference where the agenda is created
on the day, in real-time and discussions are lead by conference participants. Read about the history of unconferences.
We will have two main tracks at this Summit - Development and Business - so the Summit will be of
interest to managers, marketers, developers, innovators, entrepreneurs and thought leaders alike.
Here's a sample of some of the topics we'll explore in both of these tracks.
FinovateSpring 2010 will again showcase the most cutting-edge
financial and banking technology innovations to Silicon Valley and the world. With Finovate's
signature mix of short, fast-paced onstage demos (no slides are allowed) from handpicked
companies and intimate networking time with their executives, this conference packs a ton of
unique value into a single day.
Come see the cutting edge of banking and financial technology and network with hundreds of the
leading financial executives, venture capitalists, press, industry analysts, bloggers and fintech
entrepreneurs. Early bird registration
rates are available.
The SF MusicTech Summit
will bring together 700-plus visionaries in the music/technology space - the best and brightest
entrepreneurs, developers, investors, service providers, journalists, musicians and organizations
who work with them at the convergence of culture and commerce. We meet to discuss the evolving
music, business and technology ecosystem in a proactive, conducive-to-dealmaking environment.
Enter the discount code "rww" to get 10% off.
Glue is the only conference devoted
solely to exploring the problem-sets facing architects, developers and IT professionals in a
"post-cloud" world. Glue focuses on the APIs and protocols (Twitter, Facebook, Websockets,
PubSubHubBub, XMPP), formats and standards (RDF/Linked Data, JSON, Microformats, HTML5),
platforms and providers (Amazon, Rackspace, Google App Engine, Salesforce.com, Eucalyptus),
Identity Protocols (OAuth/WRAP, SAML, OpenID, SPML) emerging NoSQL data models (Cassandra,
CouchDB, MongoDB, Riak, HBase), and other mechanisms that are building the post-cloud world.
ReadWriteCloud will be blogging live from Gluecon and CloudCamp, and ReadWriteWeb's Alex Williams
will be moderating the "Managing Complexity in the Cloud" session. Please join us May 25-27 in
Denver, Colorado. ReadWriteWeb readers can receive 10% off of
registration by using the code "RWW12".
The Corporate Social Media Summit is a
two day conference focused exclusively on how big businesses can take advantage of social media
to enhance their marketing/comms strategy. Featuring:
Practical and relevant insights from peers who have already used social media successfully
20-plus corporate speakers (including
PepsiCo, Whole Foods, Dell, McDonald's, General Motors, Citi, Johnson & Johnson),
Best practice, benchmarks and practical next steps you can use to take advantage of social
media in your business
A tightly-focused agenda with 14 in-depth,
practical workshops giving you knowledge on only the most critical business issues surrounding
corporate use of social media
Save $400 if you quote RWW400 when booking. Book here.
The 2nd annual Cloud Computing World Forum is
the perfect event to learn and discuss the development, integration, adoption and future of cloud
computing and SaaS. Building on the success of the 2009 show, this two day conference and
free-to-attend exhibition will provide a focused platform for the global cloud and SaaS industry.
Show highlights include:
Co-located with CloudCamp London
Co-located with Green IT conference
Free-to-attend exhibition with seminar and scenario theatre
FinovateFall will return to Manhattan on Tuesday, October 5 to
showcase dozens of the biggest and most innovative new ideas in financial and banking technology
from established leaders(...)
If you recall,
about a month ago Sprint tweeted
that it was working on delivering Android 2.1
upgrade for its HTC Hero and Samsung Moment in early Q2 this year. An optimistic guess
would be April, right? Funnily enough, Techie Buzz has heard that two eager customers
managed to squeeze a more precise date out of Sprint over a phone call -- end of March or even March
26th. Don't go reaching for that champagne just yet, though -- a self-proclaimed Sprint employee
shared a recent internal memo on XDA-Developers forum, revealing that it's "actively
working on having the Android 2.1 platform available to our Hero and Moment customers over the
coming weeks," and that "more information coming in April." Oh Sprint, you do love playing with our
little minds, don't you?
Sony Xperia’s X10 might be just around the corner, but that doesn’t make any unboxing
event of the phone less exciting. Now a video of Sony Ericsson’s upcoming flagship phone
being unboxed has surfaced online. The phone is still powered by Google’s Android 1.6,
which is obviously older than the current Android 2.1, and Sony Ericsson has done a good job to
pretty up the OS. Rumors are hinting that Sony Ericsson might be updating the OS version on this
phone, so there might be hope of getting Android 2.1 on this device just yet. Have you decided to
pick this phone over Apple’s iPhone, or do you still think that the iPhone or
Google’s Nexus One is more appealing? Video of the phone being unboxed after the jump.
The iPad launch is drawing near, so it's not surprising that much of our most popular Apple news
for the week was about the highly anticipated device. However, we also saw some news about iPhone
app use, Kindle software coming to the Mac, and more.
40% of Blackberry users willing to trade in for an iPhone: BlackBerry users tended
to have fierce brand loyalty, but the iPhone is apparently changing that. And, while more
BlackBerry users are planning to switch to an iPhone, Android-based devices are starting to
garner more attention as well.
The iPad launch is drawing near, so it's not surprising that much of our most popular Apple news
for the week was about the highly anticipated device. However, we also saw some news about iPhone
app use, Kindle software coming to the Mac, and more.
40% of Blackberry users willing to trade in for an iPhone: BlackBerry users tended
to have fierce brand loyalty, but the iPhone is apparently changing that. And, while more
BlackBerry users are planning to switch to an iPhone, Android-based devices are starting to
garner more attention as well.
We still need to wait for some time before we’ll be able to get Adobe’s Flash 10.1 on
Android 2.x devices, but that doesn’t stop videos of folks who have managed to get
Adobe’s Flash 10.1 running on Google’s Nexus One from surfacing. As can be seen from
the video (after the jump), Flash seems to be running rather comfortably on the Nexus One, and is
almost as good as on the desktop, albeit with a little bit of lag, but that’s probably due
to the 3G connection used to stream the video. Is getting Flash on your mobile device a top
priority for you?
For a long time there has been a demand for a nice Twitter app for the N900, so far we have
Witter and Mauku and web apps such as Hahlo.com and Dabr.co.uk, but there is none that comes
close to elegance of something like Gravity for Symbian devices. Enter, TweeGo, formerly Twitter Box,
which has all the promise of quickly becoming the best Twitter app for the N900.
As of now it is very alpha with regard to functionality and has not been uploaded to the
extras-devel repository yet. There is no dedicated @ reply column, no direct message section and
so on but the UI is beautiful. The transitions are slick and the app makes you want to use it.
Hopefully it will have much more functionality soon.
If you want to try it, you will have to install it using the terminal (instructions below).
HOW TO INSTALL TWEEGO
Download the latest version of TweeGo from this
page. Download the .deb file.
Save this under the MyDocs section of the N900.
Rename this to something like “TweeGo″ so that its easier for your to
enter the name in the terminal.
A newly circulating rumor potentially sheds new light on that Samsung
tablet which was outed earlier this week by Emmanuele Silanesu, National Product and
Marketing Manager for Samsung Australia’s IT division. Despite the insinuation by Silanesu
that the device will feature an Intel Atom chip with some flavor of Windows on board, this latest
rumor turns that whole scenario upside down by claiming the device will be powered by Android.
Details are sketchy but the tablet could feature calling via a headset presumably using some
implementation of VoIP, 3G and possibly even 4G connectivity, and an ARM-based architecture under
the hood. We have a good six months to elucidate all the details on this slate device but this
latest rumor paints a picture of a device which is much more desirable than a re-hashed Q1. Cross
fingers and hope that this latest rumor is the one that rises to the top when all the wheat is
separated from the chaff.
While Sony Ericsson seems to have placed a lot of focus on Android-powered phones recently, it
seems that the company has not forgotten its popular Walkman series. Word is going around that
Sony Ericsson is planning to come up with a new touch-enabled Sony Ericsson Walkman phone in the
second half of 2010. Exact details aren’t available just yet, but considering the
importance of phones playing the role of an MP3 player nowadays, we’re certainly looking
forward to seeing what Sony Ericsson comes up with. Do you think that it will be powered by
Android?
In the world of
technology, drama is a valuable commodity. Disruptive change may happen in the minutiae of
software code or the gradual execution of a business plan, but we see its effects in the dramatic
narratives of companies rising and falling, or getting locked in combat with each other. Which is
why the rivalry between Google and Apple is
such a compelling story.
It’s so tempting to get drawn into the ego battles
between Steve Jobs and the Google triumvirate while placing bets on who
will win that it’s easy to forget a deeper truth about this rivalry: Google and Apple
need each other.
They both have a deep desire to stake out claims on the mobile web, but the mobile web is in a
nascent stage. In order to develop, it needs to have both rigid structure and a sometimes
reckless creativity. Structure is necessary to provide a strong foundation and a set of standards
everyone can understand. And creativity is essential to bringing the innovative potential of the
mobile web into full bloom.
This dichotomy was present when the Internet began to develop in the early 90s. Many people who
came online then did so through America Online’s walled gardens, a safe little enclave
where consumers and content providers alike could create the rules of a new medium. Then the web
itself took off and sites like Yahoo and GeoCities offered a much more creative environment to
explore what else could be done.
Google’s approach is nearly the opposite, much more open and free-wheeling. Its Android OS,
based on the Linux kernel, has so many versions available the company is struggling
to consolidate them. The Android Market is such an unregulated affair that it’s
hard for anyone to count
the number of apps on sale.
Google’s culture has built into it a tolerance for the failures that come with creative
experiments. Its 70-20-10 rule
seems rooted on that spirit of tolerance — how many companies require employees to spend
time on something that may never fly? — and Google has floated so many failed ideas
it’s hard to keep track of them all. Apple, by contrast, starts with an instinctive idea of
how consumers will experience its products and fits everything, even the ecosystem of apps that
extends beyond its corporate walls, into making it work.
It’s in the tension between these two companies and their respective cultures that the
mobile web is being forged. But as America Online found out, the walls eventually come down as
consumers grow more comfortable with the new medium and desert the walled garden. That would
suggest the balance will tip in favor of Google.
But I would be surprised if Apple isn’t anticipating this evolution. Right now, iPhone
owners are experiencing the mobile web through the 150,000 or so apps it offers through the App
Store. But Apple has also backed HTML5, which allows a smartphone browser to have rich app-like
features without requiring any new software to be downloaded. Just as people stopped downloading
AOL’s software and switched to browsers, we may well abandon most of
the apps on our phones today.
Both companies will continue to play a major role on the mobile web, but I doubt either will ever
gain the upper hand. This dramatic tension between Apple and Google may be around for a long
time. So executives at both might as well get used to it.
Las semanas pasan volando y las noticias en la red también, como cada sábado os
ofrecemos una recopilación de algunas de las noticias más interesantes que se han
publicado en la blogosfera hispana sobre el mundo del software y la web.
A principios de semana, en Error 500, Antonio Ortíz se hacia eco del
último informe de la consultora Hitwise donde se anunciaba que la web de Facebook ya es la más
visitada en EEUU, por encima de Google. ¿Estaremos presenciando el final del reinado
de Google?
Como siempre recordaos que podéis enviarnos vuestros enlaces para esta
sección a través de nuestro formulario de contacto o haciendo uso de las
redes sociales, a través de Twitter mandado un mensaje directo a @genbeta o a través de nuestra cuenta de Facebook.
Google this week took
another step toward getting its own Android-based handset, the Nexus One, on as many U.S.
carriers as possible. Originally released on the T-Mobile network, the device was added to
AT&T next, and then Verizon. Sprint said this week that it will become
the fourth major carrier to support the Nexus One — which should help boost the
lower-than-expected sales
numbers of what many feel is the best Android phone on the market.
Google Buzz is one of those services that folks either love or hate. Those in the pro-Buzz camp
will love the new Google Buzz
widget, which can be placed on the home screen of any Android phone, where users can post
text and photos to it with a single tap. The widget also supports geolocation. Posts submitted
through it are uploaded in the background, and as such do not impact performance nor usage of the
phone.
And the Android OS may be coming to a TV near you! Google, Intel and Sony have entered into a
partnership
to create Google TV, a venture aimed at bringing social networking into the set-top TV box
space. Google TV will be based on the Chrome web browser, which doesn’t currently work with
Android. Launch is slated for this summer.
Our top story this week was about bad news for the big guys: Google,
Facebook, Digg's top users. As you catch up on the news, be sure to watch the conversation about China, tech and
democracy that took place between activist/artist Ai Weiwei, Twitter's Jack Dorsey and
ReadWriteWeb's Richard MacManus. We also continued our exploration of the significant Internet
trends of 2010, including Real-Time Web, Mobile Web and Internet of Things.
Note: We've refreshed the format for our longest running feature, the Weekly
Wrapup. It now focuses more explicitly on the key trends that ReadWriteWeb is tracking in 2010,
as well as giving you the highlights from the leading story of the week. Let us know your
thoughts on the new format.
Sponsor
Story of the Week: Nexus One's woes, spies love Facebook, top Diggers lose power
We
recently launched the official ReadWriteWeb iPhone
app. As well as enabling you to read ReadWriteWeb while on the go or lying on the couch,
we've made it easy to share ReadWriteWeb posts directly from your iPhone, on Twitter and
Facebook. You can also follow the RWW team on Twitter, directly from the app. We invite you to
download it now from iTunes.
Microsoft's
not going to allow HTC to cover Windows Phone 7
Series with its Sense UI overlay (which is
going to be an
interesting thing to watch in and of itself), but there's no question that the homegrown user
interface has made a-many Windows Mobile
phones look and feel a whole lot better than stock. Sense is also gaining traction in the Android realm, a sector where it's far more likely to
either make a huge impact or be overlooked entirely. So, the question we're posing here today is
this: if you were granted an HTC badge for a day, how would you change Sense? Are you satisfied
with the quickness? Does anything simply get in the way? Any quirks that you just can't figure out?
Any tweaks that you'd love to see made? We aren't always serious when we say that these companies
are listening to you, but trust us when we say that design folks from HTC might just give your
comments a once over. Here's your chance. Don't screw it up.
Outre l'Xperia X10 haut de gamme (sous Android), la branche française de Sony Ericsson
propose des smartphones plus design (gamme Vivaz sous Symbian) et des modèles business et
green IT (Elm, Hazel et Aspen sous Windows Mobile).
The shortest way to describe this is that Google is no longer a verb. It's becoming
a noun. Not just the few clicks to find information, but the information itself and the
experience surrounding it.
Today, we get to add Google's chapter to "Will One Company Dominate
the Cloud" introspective series and take a glimpse of the silent revolution from "index" to
"be" that is transforming the company and it's products to the default way to engage the
Internet.
As fate has it, Google done us a big favor in preparing for this piece. The company has launched
an assault on the enterprise with its movement in the Google App Engine, having a
stand-off with China, and negotiating with the EU. And that was
just a bit of Google
news from this week.
Sponsor
Whereas it's a bit more clear where Amazon and Cisco win (our
recent analysis) as they head towards the cloud, with Google it takes a bit more expansive view.
We have to take the focus out a bit, to be able to dial in on the details.
Acknowledgment: Developers are the Products they Build
We recently had the opportunity to sit down with Tim Bray. He has been a key contributor and thought leader
in key areas of interoperability and information design, including his leadership in bringing XML
to the world. He recently announced that he's joining Google and focusing on Android in a
transition from Sun.
Several things struck us about our dialog that we think are key for Google.
First, when Bray described his new job at Google, he talked about what he wanted to do and what
he saw that needed to be done. Within three days of being there, he has a sense of ownership of
the companies products and mission. In some organizations, you may never get such a luxury.
Second, Bray described his opportunity to "roll up his sleeves" and get back in the groove as a
developer on a project he feels passion for. He mentioned his desire to take the open APIs of
Android and expose some of the information in a more portable way, for example to transfer a call
log from one phone to another. A very interesting project, with tangible results. This type of
innovation lives on top of all the work the company has done to make the API exist, and to
attract individuals who are willing to rethink how it should really work.
We think that this is the most interesting thing about where Google is right now. It's "open"
mantra gives the company the ability to see a whole generation into the future of information
channel disruption. And, by bringing in "no holds barred" developers like Bray and a legion of
others, the company is patiently solving problems that many of us don't even know exist.
Lastly, Bray said something that caused us some deep thought.
His comment, "when the Drizzle team was moved into Google, they
just kept working on the their open source project and things stayed nearly the same."
What caused us to pause was that open source development, whether Linux or XML, gives the
developer, as a person, a way to contribute to the world. And it's documented. If the Internet
was the Bible, leading a key open source initiative, is like getting your own chapter in the
book, where time will be the judge of your actions. Much better than your manager alone.
To know that hard work, intellectual capital, libraries are available to the world after the
contract is complete. This really speaks to the artist in us, in a way, the paid open source
developer is using Google as a canvas.
If working at Google offers this emotional spark to employees, it will gain entirely new
efficiencies in solving the big problems, in the context of individual efforts. Maybe this open
source spirit is embedded into Twitter, and is why it works. We like to contribute to our version
of the greater good...and want fans to cheer us on.
What we learned; acknowledgment matters, and connections to the whole population of people is an
amazing vehicle. Google: become an indie rock star - with the strength of grep.
All of the Information on Earth
Google's destiny to become the hub of the worlds information is
intertwined with history. And this comes with artifacts of policy and posturing. To start with,
not everyone agrees that Google should achieve a dominant cloud position. As we're noticing,
stopping it is another matter.
We'd like to suggest that in 2010, the company is not shy about stepping towards its future and
will use its power, technology, and cash to stir it up. Here is our list of organizations in the
world that Google has, is, or will be, continually bumping into in its quest for cloud
information dominance.
China (counties own the filters for the people)
ATT (service providers own consumer on the network)
Penguin (book publishers own the words in the texts)
Visa (financial institutions own the digits in the transactions)
Facebook (social networks know the details)
Amazon (commerce sites own the decision point)
Twitter (owns "what's happening")
Microsoft (owns the computer applications and files)
Open can be a Key to Unlock Doors
We see both practical and strategic reasons that Google has a
deep connection with the open source movement. Strategically, being the new optimized layer,
removing all historic barriers to information give the company more leverage. Practically,
solutions can be built where information is free.
Reviewing a few examples, such as Google Earth, Android, and even GMail and we see that where
there are open protocols and information disruptive products can be built. Once they are built,
the Google wields a significant economic advantage in binding the worlds information assets and
converting them to eyeballs.
Here, we take a quick look at the information assets that Google is investing the global cloud.
Results: Google has moved away from Page Rank to "Closest Object" in it's
default results. What this means is that many businesses today show up as widget in the results
in google with embedded links, maps, and other efficiencies.
Ads: This is perhaps the best known and most valuable insight and unique
asset, who wants to pay for what customer
Realtime index: Google has worked to keep up with Twitter's realtime firehose
Semantic index: The company continues to add more and more microsyntax parsers
into its index, giving more controlled tools for publishers
GMail: It had to be done. And it is monetized.
Documents and files: Google Docs and the Apps Marketplace create a whole new
stream of information about an individual. Private, personal, and shared.
Mobile transactions: This is an interesting sample of where Google's strategy
to build the Android OS pays off in the cloud. Not only does Google get to connect mobile to
the rest of the offerings, but also to be able to dial in on movements, calls, and other
critical tasks in our real-time lives.
Books: Indexing all of them, first is an interesting piece of the strategy to
break apart historic containers of knowledge. Is the book copyrighted? How about the quote?
Browsers: The browser knows a lot. Google's Chrome moves it from being default
search, to being default experience. This was a great example of where access to information
"Faster pages" is the simple value proposition for consumers to switch.
Filters: Protecting companies, trademarks, and interpreting the legality of
free speech. Someone has to do it, if we're all one people.
Health transactions: Google has even taken on one of the most sensitive
challenges, private health information. And, it's connections to legacy systems that prefer EDI
to JSON.
It's clear that Google is making progress. What we've also learned in this review is that the
companies biggest asset - people - may scale to solve problems in lightweight ways that entire
teams and companies haven't been able to in the past. Perhaps being open, or transparent, gives
the company a unique advantage in being prepared for a cloud future.
Is the cloud where the action is?
What verb would you be if you were hired at Google?
The release of Android 2.1 on the Motorola Droid is delayed once again, say industry reports.
Meanwhile, Sprint says it will offer Google's Nexus One, HTC vows to fight back against Apple's
patents, and Palm's 3Q dismal financials are ramping up takeover gossip and even speculation Palm
may need to switch to Android, says eWEEK...
Introduit récemment par le géant de l'internet le service Google Buzz se voit tout
naturellement doté du widget Android pour être pleinement exploité sur les
smartphones fonctionnant sous ce système.
Poursuivant sa logique et sa politique en proposant de nouveaux services gratuits qui seront
ensuites monétisés par la publicité, Google n'oublie pas qu'avec Android ils
sont en train de se placer doucement mais surement sur un créneau où ils
étaient totalement absents il n'y a pas si longtemps que ça. Il est donc tout
à fait normal que le géant de Mountain View propose rapidement un accès
à tous ses services en priorité à sa plateforme mobile et Google Buzz est le
candidat idéal.
Bien entendu proposé gratuitement le widget Google Buzz pour Android peut être
librement téléchargé à partir de l'Android Market.
A website that sorts everyday the most relevant information to you.
Vote for the news and Matoumba will learn your tastes and the information that you like the most.
It is all FREE!
Find here the history of the stories you found interesting.
Show this to people who share the same interests as you,
and if they use Matoumba, their own votes will fine recommandations to you.
Mozilla platform engineer Rob Sayre has probably had better ideas.
Unless you have
been living under a rock all this while, you would have known about the Google Nexus One
smartphone that is touted to be a “superphone” by Google, as it squares up against
the almighty Apple iPhone which has a worldwide legion of rabid fans, ready to come to its
defense any day. Well, the Google Nexus One also has a different moniker, where it is known as
the HTC Desire – previously known as the Bravo. Guess all of the hardware specification
will more or less remain the same as the Nexus One, as this model will retain more than a handful
of quality features to keep you hooked to it. More on the HTC Desire will be explained right
after the jump.
In the
next few weeks, the ReadWriteWeb events guide will take you from New York City, to San Francisco,
to Portland, Oregon. Along the way you'll find a conference on search engine strategies, a
showcase for startups, an in-depth look at the freemium business model, and a day filled with of
social media case studies.
Go beyond search at 
After a long winter's hiatus, 
The first 
The social media conference for marketers, 
The social media conference for marketers, 
The 
The 
The 
The 2nd annual 
Google this week took
another step toward getting its own Android-based handset, the Nexus One, on as many U.S.
carriers as possible. Originally released on the T-Mobile network, the device was added to
AT&T next, and then Verizon. 
Our top story this week was about bad news for the big guys: Google,
Facebook, Digg's top users. As you catch up on the news, 
We
recently launched the official 
Our channel 
Our channel 
Our channel 
Microsoft's
not going to allow 
The shortest way to describe this is that Google is no longer a verb. It's becoming
a noun. Not just the few clicks to find information, but the information itself and the
experience surrounding it.
We recently had the opportunity to sit down with 
His comment, "when the Drizzle team was moved into Google, they
just kept working on the their open source project and things stayed nearly the same."
Google's destiny to become the hub of the worlds information is
intertwined with history. And this comes with artifacts of policy and posturing. To start with,
not everyone agrees that Google should achieve a dominant cloud position. As we're noticing,
stopping it is another matter.
We see both practical and strategic reasons that Google has a
deep connection with the open source movement. Strategically, being the new optimized layer,
removing all historic barriers to information give the company more leverage. Practically,
solutions can be built where information is free.
Recommandations
)
and reject those that you are not interested in
(
)
