VentureBeat |
- Apple looks towards music files that surpass CD quality
- Verizon to offer Motorola’s Xoom tablet for $600 on contract
- Mobile payments company Paydiant picks up $7.6M
- Could a Civil Disobedience video game train Middle Eastern protesters?
- Amazon takes on Netflix with Prime instant videos
- 3 tips every entrepreneur should know
- Will a ban in Mexico help sales of video game Call of Juarez: The Cartel
- Startup investing network CapLinked raises funding of its own
- Fuse aims to make game publishing on the App Store simpler for developers
- LOLapps launches a novel expansion for Ravenwood Fair Facebook game
- MoMinis lets developers make 2D games for any mobile platform
- Will Apple’s subscription plan spark a developer exodus?
- Philo: Star power is the key to social TV
- Microsoft releasing development kit for Kinect motion controller
- Apple rumored to launch new Macbook Pros
| Apple looks towards music files that surpass CD quality Posted: 22 Feb 2011 09:26 AM PST
Apple is apparently in talks with music companies to offer high quality 24-bit music files, CNN reports. Other digital music retailers are also investigating the possibility, according to Jimmy Iovine, chairman of Universal’s Interscope-Geffen-A&M record label. The news is a good sign for audiophiles, who have long bemoaned the popularity of heavily compressed music files. It’s also a sign that Apple, and other music retailers, are finally ready to leap beyond CDs and offer consumers something akin to “high definition” music. Standard audio CDs are encoded at a 16-bit resolution, so offering 24-bit files — the resolution most music producers capture studio recordings — would be a major fidelity leap. Music quality has taken a step back from CDs with the rise of the MP3 and the advent of digital music downloads. While CDs offered music that was technically much higher quality than the cassette tapes that preceded them, MP3 files exchanged fidelity for small file sizes, which made them better suited for storing on computer hard drives and portable music players. File sharing sites like Napster, Kazaa, and Audiogalaxy helped promote the popularity of MP3 files, but it was Apple’s iTunes Store that proved digital music could take on CDs when it came to legitimate sales. Unfortunately for music fans, iTunes files were initially a low-quality 128 kilobits per second (kbps) format, and it took years for Apple to offer a higher quality “iTunes Plus” format. And while digital music files thrived, next-generation disc formats like DVD Audio and Sony’s Super Audio CD failed to catch on with mainstream consumers. Both of those formats offered surround sound 24-bit audio which sounded light-years beyond CDs, and they were an even bigger leap beyond compressed audio files. We’ll likely see new music formats supported by Apple and other digital music retailers that would allow for multichannel audio and 24-bit support. As CNN points out, some modern Macs can support 24-bit audio files, but many other computers and portable audio players won’t be able to play them. It will be years before most consumers can take advantage of the higher quality music files, but for those lucky few who can, it will be the first step towards the next-generation of digital music quality. Photo via Shaun Ma
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| Verizon to offer Motorola’s Xoom tablet for $600 on contract Posted: 22 Feb 2011 08:04 AM PST
The carrier will offer the 3G Xoom for $600 with a two-year data contract when it launches on June 24, Engadget reports. It will still be available at Best Buy stores for $800 without a contract, as we’ve previously reported. Motorola has also previously stated that a WiFi-only version of the Xoom will sell for $600, though it’s unclear when that will be available. Verizon’s pricing is a significant discount for the 3G-equipped Xoom, although the $20 a month data contract, which includes a mere 1 gigabyte of data, isn’t much of a deal. Verizon also said that the Xoom will be upgradeable to its LTE 4G network in the second quarter for free. That’s certainly good to hear, but I think the paltry 1GB data cap will feel even more restrictive once the tablet is unleashed on Verizon’s 4G network. The Xoom features 32 gigabytes of storage and is comparable to Apple’s 32GB 3G iPad, which retails for $729. The iPad doesn’t require a data contract though, which may be a major selling point to some. The Xoom offers more features than the current iPad, including front and rear cameras and a higher resolution screen. At the Consumer Electronics Show last month, we also saw a demo of the Xoom running Google's tablet-friendly Android 3.0, which I thought blew the iPad's iOS out of the water. Of course, the iPad 2 will be announced soon, which could put Apple back on equal footing. The Xoom tablet unfortunately won’t have Adobe Flash support at launch, as Motorola is apparently waiting for the next version of the software, Flash 10.2, to be available. Companies: motorola, Verizon, Verizon Wireless
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| Mobile payments company Paydiant picks up $7.6M Posted: 22 Feb 2011 07:33 AM PST
Paydiant is still in stealth mode but is planning to launch officially later this year. According to a press release, the company is focused on a cellphone-based payments solution for everyday purchases. That’s not saying much, besides the fact that they are entering a pretty competitive marketplace. However, the company’s three founders (who were not available for interviews), Chris Gardner, Kevin Laracey and Joe Paratore all have experience in the field. All three have worked in various roles for Edocs, an online billing company which Laracey co-founded, and which was acquired by Siebel Systems in 2005. Gardner and Paratore both worked at m-Qube, an SMS mobile payments company that was acquired by Verisign in 2006. Jim Moran from North Bridge and John Simon from General Catalyst are also taking seats on Paydiant’s board of directors. Even if Paydiant is—for now—describing its plan in pretty broad strokes, previous track record shows that the team has plenty of entrepreneurial experience, and could come up with something interesting in the mobile payments sector. Watch this space. Companies: Edocs, General Catalyst Partners, m-Qube, north bridge venture partners, Paydiant, Siebel Systems, Verisign People: Chris Gardner, Jim Moran, Joe Paratore, John Simon, Kevin Laracey
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| Could a Civil Disobedience video game train Middle Eastern protesters? Posted: 22 Feb 2011 07:00 AM PST If social media can inspire people to engage in peaceful revolutions, why couldn’t a video game do it too? After watching the peaceful revolutions in Tunisia and Egypt, game designer and researcher Jane McGonigal suggested that someone create a game called Civ D, short for Civil Disobedience, about how to stage a peaceful revolution.
“When I think of all the games about war, I think it’s time we starting thinking about huge, intense, action-oriented games that we could play and might be more meaningful and something we can aspire to,” said McGonigal in her speech at the Dice Summit video game conference in Las Vegas on Feb. 11. She looked at many of the leaflets handed out by the protesters and noted how they resembled instructions for doing tasks in video games. Egyptian protest organizers handed out very detailed pamphlets that showed protesters how to mobilize through the neighborhoods to get to the center of the protests in Tahrir Square.
The pamphlets showed people how to fend off attacking police and how to shield themselves from a striking baton. There are even virtual goods that could be created in such a game, such as the hood you would need to protect yourself from tear gas and to stop others from recognizing you. McGonigal isn’t making the game herself but she is suggesting that someone else do so. Her own company, Social Chocolate, is If a game developer went to work on a high-quality game now, it could probably be published by 2014, McGonigal said. Companies: Social Chocolate People: Jane Mcgonigal
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| Amazon takes on Netflix with Prime instant videos Posted: 22 Feb 2011 06:58 AM PST
Amazon’s Prime service costs $79 a year and was initially billed as a way to get free two-day shipping (and one day shipping for $3.99 per item). That aspect of the service will continue, but now it has the added advantage of offering instant access to videos at the same price. Existing Prime customers will instantly have access to the streaming videos. The launch of the service shows that Amazon isn’t going to just sit back and let Netflix rule the online streaming world. While the Prime video service doesn’t have as many titles as Netflix’s streaming video offering (which had around 28,000 titles available in September, according to the Netflix-focused service FeedFliks), it’s the first step in competing with the video rental giant. It’s also cheaper than Netflix’s streaming video, which costs $8 per month at a minimum, or $96 a year. Like Netflix, Amazon is making its streaming Prime streaming videos available on televisions. Set-top box maker Roku announced today that all of its streaming video devices will support the service, and I suspect that it will soon be available on other devices, if it isn’t already. Amazon currently offers on-demand streaming video on Google TV devices, as well as TVs from companies like Sony, Samsung, and Vizio. Engadget has found that the service works fine on Android mobile devices with Adobe Flash. Unfortunately, those lucky few who have free Amazon Prime memberships, such as students, won’t have access to Prime streaming video. They will instead have to pay the normal $79 Prime subscription fee to take advantage of the streaming video. Amazon last month purchased LoveFilm for $200 million, Europe’s Netflix equivalent, so I suspect that its Prime video service will make its way to Europe soon. Currently, it’s only available in the US. Amazon could also potentially partner with kiosk DVD company Redbox, which is planning a streaming video offering of its own. Companies: Amazon, Netflix, Roku
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| 3 tips every entrepreneur should know Posted: 22 Feb 2011 06:00 AM PST (Editor’s note: Doug Collom is vice dean and an adjunct lecturer on venture capital and entrepreneurship for Wharton|San Francisco. He submitted this story to VentureBeat.) Starting companies is hard. And it’s critical to make sure that your venture is pointing in the right direction from the moment it leaves the launch pad. Any misdirection or miscue on the basic organizational steps can be fatal. It's a lot like launching a rocket aimed at the moon—if the launch is only 2 degrees off target at blast-off, it will miss by hundreds of thousands of miles. There’s no end to the advice and opinions entrepreneurs will hear in a company’s early days, but three basic rules that every company founder should take into consideration: Keep it simple – In setting up the capital structure and the first equity of the company, many founders either try to innovate or try to accommodate the wishes and desires of every co-founder and early stage employee. The result is too much complexity. In most cases where there is more than one founder (probably on the order of over 80 percent of startups), the stock should be split equally. If it isn't an even split, then you should re-evaluate whether your co-participants really deserve to be in the "founder" category. Establish uniform stock vesting provisions that apply equally to both founders (although maybe with some "credit" for pre-formation activities) and early stage employees. Stay away from unconventional employment terms that differ from founder-to-founder or employee-to-employee. And make sure and outside board members (including, if you have one, your advisory board), are compensated equally. If you fail to keep the capital structure and the equity incentive arrangements absolutely consistent with convention, then every investor you approach and every manager you hire will require an explanation. Stay focused on the business plan, not the infrastructure of the company. Select your business entity wisely – If you are planning on raising professional capital, whether from an angel group or from a venture capital firm, use a Subchapter C corporation incorporated in the state of Delaware. LLCs simply do not work. Investors categorically will not put money into an entity that will require them to file annual federal and state tax returns to reflect the pass-through of operating gains and losses (as LLC's do). Subchapter S corporations are also a poor choice if the fundraising process is likely to begin in the first year. Sub S companies are viable only with investors who are "natural persons" (which automatically is a problem with VC firms and most angel groups) and only where there is a single class of stock (i.e., not preferred stock, which is typically the class of stock given out to angels and VCs). A Delaware corporation is the preferred choice among states to choose from—most law firms will recommend this for a number of reasons, not the least of which it will save you the expense of reincorporating to Delaware in the event you are successful enough to consider an IPO in some distant future. (Fun fact: some 70 percent of the US publicly held companies today are incorporated in Delaware.) Wait until the time is right before forming your company – Many founders are in a rush to go out and incorporate and set up the founders' stock arrangements and stock plan. WAIT. It doesn't take much time to form and organize a company—with three general exceptions:
Absent these circumstances, focus on the business. Of course, there are many other matters that need to be addressed almost daily by any founder, but these three rules are likely to save you a lot of aggravation later on. More importantly, they will enable you to keep your focus where it belongs—on your business plan and persuading the investment community to see the potential in your company that you see.
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| Will a ban in Mexico help sales of video game Call of Juarez: The Cartel Posted: 22 Feb 2011 06:00 AM PST
State legislators in the border town, which is in the state of Chihuahua, have asked the Mexican government to ban the video game, saying it could trivialize the all-too-real drug violence in the region. But by drawing attention to the game, these opponents may find they’re adding fuel to the fire. Stirring up attention around a violent video game can frequently lead to increasing its sales. “It is true there is a serious crime situation, which we are not trying to hide,” Ricardo Boone Salmon, a congressman for Chihuahua state, told MSNBC. “But we also should not expose children to this kind of scenarios so that they are going to grow up with this kind of image and lack of values.” The game isn’t out until this summer on the PlayStation 3 and the Xbox 360, but it’s already generating some attention, particularly because 6,000 people have died in Ciudad Juarez in the past two years due to drug violence. Is the game a good thing because it draws focus on the horrors of the drug war, or is it a bad thing because it panders to a prurient interest in violence and teaches young folks that taking a life is a trivial decision? A little controversy is good for a game’s sales, but too much controversy can turn it into a culture war and a train wreck for the larger video game industry, particularly if it results in regulations that hurt sales. Last year, Electronic Arts’ Medal of Honor stayed in the news for weeks because the game allowed users to play the Taliban in the ongoing war in Afghanistan during multiplayer play. EA ultimately changed the name “Taliban” to “opposing force” in order to defuse the tension. In 2009, Activision Blizzard came under fire for a scene in Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 where players participated in a civilian massacre at a Russian airport. That scene came up again during news reports about the bombing at the Moscow airport last month. And game company Konami dropped publication of Six Days in Fallujah, which depicted combat during the violent uprising in the recent Iraq War, after a public outcry. Call of Juarez: The Cartel isn’t yet rated, but two previous versions set in the Old West were rated mature. The game’s web site says the game will let you “embark on a bloody road trip from Los Angeles to Juarez, Mexico.” Game publishers typically say they’ve got the right of free expression to create games that depict real-life situations. They also say there is no evidence that violent video games cause violent behavior in real life. And they say parents shouldn’t allow kids to get their hands on mature-rated games. This reminds me of the recent speech that game researcher Jane McGonigal gave at the Dice Summit in Las Vegas. There, she said that games can have an outstanding positive effect on game players as they play games. McGonigal said research studies have shown that gamers are at their best as people when playing: they're motivated, optimistic, resilient, collaborative, and expressive. Those feelings spread into the real world. After playing a game, a person is more likely to go up to someone in a bar and introduce himself or herself, she said. But Peter Raad, executive director of the Guildhall video game school at Southern Methodist University, had an interesting reaction to that speech. He said that the video game industry can’t have it both ways. That is, it can’t argue that violent video games have no effect on players, and then turn around and say that video game playing has such positive effects on behavior. I imagine this ongoing debate is one reason why the U.S. Supreme Court is reviewing California’s law banning the sale of violent video games to minors. Until the high court makes its ruling, games like Call of Juarez: The Cartel will keep sending us around in circles in the argument about video game violence. Companies: Activision Blizzard, Electronic Arts, Konami, Ubisoft People: Jane Mcgonigal, Peter Raad, Ricardo Boone Salmon
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| Startup investing network CapLinked raises funding of its own Posted: 22 Feb 2011 06:00 AM PST
In the past year, both Profounder and 33needs have offered a new investment model for startups with a crowdsourced approach to funding. CapLinked is a little less radical — it's not reinventing the deals, just offering a site where investors can find them. There’s a social networking component (that’s the LinkedIn part), as well as tools that actually push the deals forward (the Salesforce.com part). Startups looking for funding can create deals on CapLinked, saying how much they want to raise and sharing relevant company documentation. Then an investor can find the deal, send follow-up questions to the company, and share the deal with other investors. Obviously, posting this kind of information online can raise security concerns, but CapLinked says that a company's details are only shared with investors in its approved network, that investors must show they are accredited before they join the site, and that companies can see exactly who looked at their deals and what information they downloaded. CapLinked says it can be useful beyond that initial funding, because it creates a single place where a company can share all relevant documents with its investors and where investors manage their entire private company portfolio. The new round is relatively small, but it comes from some high-profile funders — PayPal co-founder Peter Thiel (pictured above), former PayPal executive and current 500 Startups partner Dave McClure, and Palantir co-founder Joe Lonsdale. They're all connected through PayPal (Lonsdale was an intern there, and he also worked at Thiel's hedge fund Clarium Capital), which isn't surprising since CapLinked co-founder and chief executive Eric Jackson was PayPal's first senior director of U.S. marketing. But the funding is still a sign that there are investors who think CapLinked serves a real need. "Start-ups are tremendous drivers of economic growth, yet the basic mechanics of investing in new companies can be difficult and inefficient, especially for first-time entrepreneurs or people outside venture capital centers," Thiel said in a press release. "CapLinked is providing — for the first time — an efficient online platform that connects entrepreneurs and investors, helps them build relationships, and streamlines the investment process." CapLinked said there are now 2,100 companies offering $800 million in potential deals on the site, as well as 1,000 investors. The company has now raised $900,000. Companies: CapLinked People: Dave McClure, Eric Jackson, Joe Lonsdale, Peter Thiel
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| Fuse aims to make game publishing on the App Store simpler for developers Posted: 22 Feb 2011 05:30 AM PST
The Toronto company promises its developers real-time analytics that can be easily interpreted with a dashboard full of metrics. That says a lot about what is important when publishing apps on the iPhone. Fuse says the ability to respond to user patterns on an hourly basis is key to success. That’s different from a lot of analytics companies that deliver their metrics once a day or in a not-so-timely manner. Fuse enables developers to publish their games on the iOS (iPhone, iPod Touch, and iPad) and then monitor it. “It's difficult to be successful in the App Store,” said Jon Walsh, chief executive of Fuse. “We know because we've lived it. We believe in the iOS game platform and decided early on to make the investment required to understand the marketplace.” The company built a full suite of publishing tools and services. The company tries to take luck out of the equation in helping games get noticed in the overcrowded App Store, where there are already 51,450 games, according to 148 apps. On the analytics front, Fuse competes with established rivals such as Flurry, which has thousands of developers using its metrics. Fuse also helps developers acquire new users, with tools that allow a developer to change in-game advertisements, modify incentive offers, and control a game’s performance in real-time. Fuse says that its suite of tools is more like combining the efforts of Flurry, Appfigures, AdMob, Mobclix and Tapjoy into one tool. On the publishing side, rivals include companies such as Chillingo (now part of EA), Electronic Arts’ mobile division, and Gameloft. Fuse argues that its control dashboard for developers helps set it apart, as it updates its data hourly and allows Fuse developers to take actions more quickly when something needs attention. The dashboard collects data on downloads, player behavior, bugs, in-app purchases and lets developers control community engagement features. The latter includes push notifications, life pop-up notices, ratings requests, email support forms, news and updates. With the dashboard, developers can activate or deactivate promotional campaigns such as display ads, banner ads, “more games” recommendations and offer walls. Developers will likely care about this because they can more easily discern what users want in a game and give more of that to them. They can offload the creation of the tools for analytics to Fuse and focus on making their games better. Once Fuse builds a lot of clientele, it will be able to cross-promote games from multiple developers to a network of game players. The company was founded in 2009 and it has ten full-time and part-time employees. The company has raised money from its founders and an early stage seed-fund accelerator. Full told, it has raised less than $1 million. The company has published games such as Jaws. The Fuse dashboard helped drive the game into the top 30 paid apps in less than 48 hours. Walsh has been in games for more than 15 years and started Groove Games in 2001. Co-founders include Yung Wu, Fay Wu and Gary Kosinsky. Companies: Apple, Flurry, Fuse People: John Walsh
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| LOLapps launches a novel expansion for Ravenwood Fair Facebook game Posted: 22 Feb 2011 05:00 AM PST
If the expansion Ravenstone Mine takes off, we could see similar strategies at other social game companies where they pour their resources into expanding an existing game rather than take risks on something brand new. That’s a trick from the page of PC game maker Blizzard Entertainment, which keeps adding expansion areas to its online game world, World of WarCraft. “We are using a traditional strategy in games,” said Arjun Sethi, chief executive of San Francisco-based LOLapps, in an interview. “Instead of focusing on how much money we can make from a user, we are focusing on how long we can hang on to that user. Here’s a new world that interacts with the one the user has been spending a lot of time in.” In the case of Ravenstone Mine, LOLapps actually decided to scale back on its other existing social games to pour more into Ravenwood Fair, which can be used to access Ravenstone Mine and visa versa on Facebook. It makes sense because Ravenwood Fair — originally created by Doom video game creator John Romero — is one of those rare games that is still growing after its launch nearly six months ago. The effort is part of LOLapps' strategy to become a big player in social games and join the ranks of Zynga, EA-Playfish, Disney-Playdom, and CrowdStar. Those companies have been printing money by creating simple casual games that entice users to buy virtual goods. At 10 million monthly active users, Ravenwood Fair has grown far above the 4.4 million users it had in December, according to AppData. At that time, the game was a financial success because more than 10 percent of those users were spending money in the free-to-play game. In such games, users play for free and pay only when they want to buy a virtual good with real money. Much of the money spent in Ravenwood Fair was spent on consumables, or items such as energy, which can be bought over and over again. Typically, only 3 percent to 5 percent of users pay for games on Facebook. LOLapps has now launched Ravenwood Fair in markets beyond Facebook, including the German social network StudiVZ and in the social game world IMVU. Ravenstone Mine takes place underneath the forest of Ravenwood Fair, using a similar art style and characters, said Sethi. (Check out the art style of Ravenstone Mine in the graphic at right). Since the game is underground, it’s a little darker in style and story. In Ravenwood Fair, users find themselves as a cute animal in a forest. The goal is to chop down trees and build a fair in the clearing and attract more cute animal visitors. But the forest is creepy and you have to constantly battle back the trees and monsters that try to scare your visitors. In Ravenstone Mine, the game play is very similar — but underneath the ground. One cool feature is that you can use the experience you have gained in Ravenwood Fair to help you accumulate achievements and other rewards in Ravenstone Mine, Sethi said. That’s very similar to the Mass Effect console game series, where decisions you made in the first game can have consequences for what happens in the second game. As we've noted in past stories, San Francisco-based LOLapps has about 100 million monthly active users on Facebook, mostly for its 300,000 custom gift and quiz apps. That has helped the company market its games on Facebook. During the past year, the company stepped up its investment in social games. Ravenwood Fair was developed by Romero as a consultant, and he is still helping with the game. But Romero has now started his own social game studio, Loot Drop, with funding from LOLapps’ rival RockYou. He is being joined by Doom co-creator Tom Hall and LOLapps’ former creative director Brenda Brathwaite. Both Romero and Brathwaite are helping with the Ravenwood games, but LOLapps has also hired veteran game creator David “Dr. Cat” Shapiro, a co-creator of the Ultima series of computer games. More games are on the way, including at least one more game in the Ravenwood universe. LOLapps will launch Ravenwood on the Mixi social mobile game network in Japan. For LOLapps, 2011 will be a year of investment in more engaging and immersive games, Sethi said, as well as an expansion to new platforms. LOLapps has 53 employees and will likely grow to 65 to 70 in the next few months. The company is also in the midst of raising a round of funding. Companies: LolApps People: Arjun Sethi, Brenda Brathwaite, John Romero
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| MoMinis lets developers make 2D games for any mobile platform Posted: 22 Feb 2011 05:00 AM PST
That’s why Israeli firm MoMinis is launching a new game development and distribution platform today. The two-dimensional casual games created with the MoMinis Studio can automatically run on virtually all mobile operating systems. It’s a great idea if the company can execute on it, since it could reduce development costs, developer hassles, and speed time to market at a time when getting a hit game onto multiple platforms is extremely important. But there’s a lot of competition and the idea has been tried before. Real Networks promised the ability to do the same thing with its Emerge platform in 2009, targeting as many as 1,700 older feature phones. Moblyng, meanwhile, offered an ability to create cross-platform games for smartphones, web sites and Facebook. Also, MoMinis doesn’t support the iPhone, at least not until the second quarter. But the Israelis say their system works and it has already gone through an extensive beta testing program. Such cross-platform development tools are important because Android has splintered into different versions. Rovio, the maker of the huge hit Angry Birds, complained that it had to create two versions of its game for Android — one that would run on more recent versions of Google’s mobile operating system and another that would run on early software and phones without much processing power. Even worse than that, Android is splitting into different distribution channels. Developers can upload games to the Android Market run by Google. But to reach more consumers, the developers also have to redo the game to upload it to the redundant Android stores built by carriers such as Vodafone, Verizon, Telefonica, Orange and web site Amazon. MoMinis can reach all of those companies with its games, automatically. Mobile gaming revenue topped $5.6 billion in 2010, but it’s hard for developers to reach a worldwide audience, said Eyal Rabinovich, co-founder of MoMinis. While there are a lot of riches to be had across all of the mobile markets, the developers have so many fragmentation issues that it feels like they’re picking up a million dollars penny by penny. Too often, developers don’t have enough resources to invest development time in the smaller platforms. That leads to less product diversity. Tel Aviv-based MoMinis has backing from Japanese trading giant Mitsui and has distribution agreements with NTT DoCoMo, Japan’s largest mobile operator. MoMinis will publish 100 localized games created with the MoMinis Studio for NTT DoCoMo’s 56 million mobile subscribers. Like Sun Microsystems once promised with its Java programming environment, MoMinis says its goal is to “develop once, deploy anywhere.” The tools are available as a free download. One of the priorities built into the MoMinis system is the ability for developers to get paid swiftly. MoMinis strives to provide a single ecosystem that automatically supports all platforms. For a company like Rovio, which is closing in on 100 million downloads for Angry Birds, reaching all of the mobile markets quickly is extremely important. But it’s also relevant to any developer that is watching its costs and doesn’t have programmers dedicated to adapting games for slightly different markets. MoMinis says it can cut the time required for adapting a game to a platform by months. While Moblyng allows developers to create web-based games, MoMinis focuses on creating games that are using native access to a mobile operating system. That allows the software to take full advantage of the abilities of the device. MoMinis also avoids fragmentation problems by compiling the game to a specific model of the device, with its unique screen resolution, operating system version, and processing power. MoMinis Studio uses its own programming language and creates its own format called a .mom file. The MoMinis Studio servers take a file from a developer and compile it to all different platforms, including Android, BlackBerry, mobile Java, and Symbian. Developers using MoMinis now include Absolutist, Wheemplay, and Baby First TV. The company says its tools have been downloaded thousands of times and it is working with dozens of developers. MoMinis provides its tools for free to developers and lets them distribute their content across a global distribution network. MoMinis says it makes money by sharing revenue of the games that are distributed on its network. MoMinis says it can reach a wider distribution network than Unity Technologies can with its 3D game technology. While MoMinis does not support 3D games now, it says it will eventually do so in the future. Another rival is GameSalad, but that company is focused on the Apple iOS (iPad, iPhone and iPod Touch). MoMinis was founded in 2008 and it has $5 million funding from Mitsui Ventures, the venture capital arm of Mitsui & Co. and BRM Capital. MoMinis has 25 employees. Founders include Tzach Hadar, chief technology officer and a former member of an intelligence unit of the Israeli Defense Force. Rabinovich is a seasoned engineer who previous worked at Hegde-Tech Financial Engineering and Lipman Electronic Engineering. Zvi Rabinovich, co-founder, is vice president of research and development. Companies: Apple, Google, MoMinis, Rovio People: Eyal Rabinovich, Zvi Rabinovich
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| Will Apple’s subscription plan spark a developer exodus? Posted: 21 Feb 2011 10:25 PM PST
The team behind iPhone app Readability issued a biting public response to Apple after its application was rejected because it did not use Apple’s in-house in-app purchase service. Readability is one of a number of mobile applications on the iPhone operating system that used an external subscription for the app — which lets web surfers strip away ads and other content and view just the text. There was a lot of unrest when Apple first announced its new subscription plan, which hit applications ranging from Readability to the incredibly popular Amazon Kindle app, which includes a link to buy books for Kindle. The uproar since died down, but Readability might be the first company that works this close with Apple (Readability appears in Safari) to publicly trash the new service. Subscriptions represent a “sliver of a sliver” of revenue for Apple, said Richard Ziade, Readability’s creator. It’s true — most of Apple’s revenue comes from iPhone, iPod and iPad sales. Apple brought in $26.7 billion in revenue in the fourth quarter last year, and only $1.1 billion of that came from the iTunes store — which includes app sales and in-app purchases. Meanwhile, Google continues to welcome developers with open arms. While the iPhone has the largest app store, Google recently overtook Nokia and other phone manufacturers with the largest mobile operating system market share. And despite a few hiccups with the application approval process, most apps make it onto the Android Marketplace without having to pass through anything like Apple’s black-box approval procedure. Google also launched a more publisher-friendly Google One Pass that will allow publishers to sell subscriptions with better terms than they can get with Apple. And Google is only taking a 10 pecent share of the revenues. The new Apple policy feels like a greedy move by Apple to gobble up some additional revenue, Ziade said. He suggests that Apple still hand out 70 percent of the revenue it receives from its stake in the subscription share to publishers, as Readability does. But Apple rarely budges, even when developers or consumers throw up their hands in frustration and outrage over changes in the terms of service. When the company does make a change, it takes a long time and a needs a lot of convincing. iPhone and iPad developers have put up with a lot from Apple, and it’s unclear if the new subscription plan will be the final straw for developers across the board. But for Ziade, and for Readability, it looks like enough is enough. Companies: Apple, Google, Readability
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| Philo: Star power is the key to social TV Posted: 21 Feb 2011 06:45 PM PST
What kind of stars? Well, basketball star Shaquille O'Neal, for one. Philo hosted one of its "virtual viewing parties" for the NBA's Sprite Slam Dunk Contest this weekend, where O'Neal posted play-by-play comments on the contest while viewers could check-in and interact on the Philo website, its smartphone apps, or a Philo widget hosted on the NBA.com website. When Philo told me about the promotion, I noted that the company had announced a number of similar partnerships over the last few months — including official viewing parties for Spike's Video Game Awards, AMC's The Walking Dead, and BBC America's Doctor Who. So I wondered: Do these promotions actually pay off in increased user numbers? Here's what a company spokesperson told me:
The most successful promotions, like The Walking Dead one, involve interactions with a star from the show, as well as some kind of real-world prize, the spokesperson told me. Philo isn't the only social TV company to experiment with these kinds of promotions. Miso, for example, has announced a number of show partnerships, including one with the Oprah Winfrey Network. (Disclosure: Miso investor Georges Harik is also an investor in VentureBeat.) But Philo is the only one I've heard of that's incorporated this kind of behind-the-scenes chat with stars. Of course, you can already find many of those stars on social networks like Facebook and Twitter, which are an increasingly important way for TV shows to interact with their fans. (In fact, one of the main ways Philo said it would promote the chat was by having O'Neal tweet about it.) Apps like Philo don't have the same reach, but they do allow stars and networks to reach the specific audience that’s watching a show at the moment it’s being aired. New York-based Philo has raised an undisclosed amount of funding from North Bridge Venture Partners, DFJ Gotham Ventures, Eniac Ventures, and TV producer Stephen Lambert. Companies: Philo People: Shaquille O’Neal
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| Microsoft releasing development kit for Kinect motion controller Posted: 21 Feb 2011 11:52 AM PST
That means Microsoft is opening up the Kinect, originally designed to be used with its Xbox 360 game console, to be used for third-party applications with other devices like PCs. Microsoft will release the SDK (software development kit) for non-commercial use this spring, and a commercial license will come out later. Up until now, game publishers were able to make titles for Kinect on the Xbox 360. But the new SDK means that amateurs can also join the motion-sensing party and use the Kinect sensor on other machines. The Kinect is a camera that tracks body movements and sits right under the television. It’s connected to Microsoft’s XBox 360 and used for games and to navigate the console’s media center. While it isn’t 100 percent accurate, the device worked well enough to become one of the best-selling devices of all time. Hackers have already had their way with the Kinect, creating applications ranging from games to slick multi-touch interfaces that feel like they came out of a movie. Microsoft has already made several moves into other spaces with the Kinect — such as making a movie into Cisco’s turf with a home video conferencing service. The company has said it isn’t going to leave the device as a simple video game controller. And the Kinect has helped bring Microsoft’s entertainment and devices division up to speed with the rest of its operations — that division alone brought in about $3.7 billion in revenue. But so far some of the most interesting applications have been underground and unofficial. Now it looks like Microsoft is taking a page out from Google’s handbook by appealing directly to the development community. Android has become popular among developers because it is a more open environment and supports almost any idea that developers want to pitch. Microsoft’s chief executive Steve Ballmer said the device would eventually be compatible with PCs at the Consumer Electronics Show this year, but at the time didn’t give any details about when.
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| Apple rumored to launch new Macbook Pros Posted: 21 Feb 2011 11:26 AM PST
The latest moves show that, try as it might, Apple can’t really move secretly when it is one of the most watched companies in the world. Every company wants to keep its secrets, but if it’s selling a cool new technology, it also has to work with suppliers, retailers, and other partners along the way. Any of those sources can leak information. The latest evidence on the MacBook Pro rumor is that Apple has stopped selling MacBook Pro laptop models and has warned retailers not to break the seal on pallets that may begin arriving as early as today. Apple also began telling its European resellers that they could expect the sealed pallets at their stores as early as today. The new connection technology is rumored to be Light Peak, a high-speed technology that Intel has been working on for some time. Apple is expected to adopt the technology, though under a different name. Intel has said Light Peak will ship in the first half of 2011. Intel originally proposed Light Peak as a fiber-optic connection to replace all of the cables that connect something to a computer. But initially, the usage for Light Peak looks more limited, and it will initially use copper wires instead of fiber-optic connections. The speed is faster than universal serial bus (USB) 3.0, carrying data at 10 gigabits a second in both directions at the same time. Sony is also expected to use Light Peak.
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Social TV startup 
Microsoft is 
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