Rabu, 13 April 2011

VentureBeat

VentureBeat


Early Windows 8 build leaks to the Web

Posted: 13 Apr 2011 09:00 AM PDT

A very early build of Windows 8, dubbed "Milestone 1", has leaked onto the Internet, giving us our very first glimpse at Microsoft's next operating system.

Since it's such an early release, the OS still appears to be just a slightly tweaked version of Windows 7. But for those brave enough to install the leaked Windows 8, they may find some features that will eventually snowball into major upgrades over Windows 7.

We've already reported on a few new elements discovered in Windows 8 previews builds, including a Windows Phone-like login screen, and Office-like Ribbon toolbars. Developers already have access to a newer preview version of Windows 8, Milestone 2, and they expect to see Milestone 3 released around June. At this rate, Microsoft is expected to have a beta version of Windows 8 ready to roll this summer — and you can bet pirates will get their hands on that as well.

Windows 8 is at the heart of Microsoft's tablet strategy, as the OS is expected to include a slew of new features aimed at multitouch tablet screens. It may also have deeper integration with cloud computing services, according to previous reports.

The final version of the operating system is expected to land in late 2012. For now, enjoy these illicit screenshots.

Via Electronista

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PhoneTag app promises to keep social media meet-ups private

Posted: 13 Apr 2011 08:30 AM PDT

Smartphone app startup Ripple Mobile today debuted its PhoneTag application, which uses GPS-based technology to help mobile device users share a user’s real-time location and coordinate connections privately with their friends and contacts.

PhoneTag lets a user select as many people as they want to be in a session — whether those people are contacts from their address book, someone they just met, business associates or anybody else with a smartphone. Users can set the duration of the session, or meeting, from one minute to “never ending.”

The system then sends a text message with a unique URL to the people the user has invited.

When those people accept and download the app, everyone in that session can see each other on a map, set a destination, text and call, get directions to each other, or simply chat.

Only the people who are invited to a session are able to see the location of others in the session.

If someone doesn't have the app, they can still see the session and everyone who is actively in it through the website URL texted to them.

PhoneTag is available on iPhone, Android and BlackBerry.

The Dublin, Ohio-based company said its new app is designed to help users connect and even send step-by-step directions to each user's location without broadcasting that news across all their social media networks.

This is a departure from similar apps, such as Foursquare, which automatically and publicly displays where a user has recently "checked-in," or MeMap because of its privacy options.

Me Map puts data shared on Facebook and Facebook Connect by third-party location-based social networks like FoursquareGoWalla,Buzzd and others on one centralized map.

Ripple Mobile said its core technology platform was specifically designed to keep that information private, so that users looking for a spontaneous meeting can now share and receive location-based information for events and people along secure and confidential channels.

The company made news earlier this year when it debuted its OnTime mobile app, which syncs all of a user’s calendars and keeps track of meetings, tasks, to-do lists and local traffic patterns.

Co-founder Kevin Miller, who helped create the company in late 2010, told VentureBeat that it is currently aiming at a community of "smart device" owners that number around 200 million people.

Thus far, it has done well with PhoneTag, seeing a 40 percent growth during its public beta over the last few months despite the fact that it hasn’t advertised the app until today.

Ripple Mobile is currently self-funded and said it has no immediate plans to look for outside money.

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Nintendo rumored to cut Wii price to $150 starting May 15

Posted: 13 Apr 2011 08:24 AM PDT

Nintendo is reportedly planning on cutting the price of its Wii video game console from $199 to $150 on May 15, according to tech blog Engadget.

The Japanese company has ruled this product generation of consoles with a majority market share ever since it launched the innovative motion-sensing Wii controller and its system in 2006. Because of that popularity, Nintendo has been much slower to cut prices on its console in this generation.

Rivals Microsoft and Sony have been steadily gaining on the Wii in the past year or so, as the Wii shows its age. Microsoft has seen fast growth since it launched its Kinect motion-sensing system in November, and Sony has also seen growth since it launched its motion-sensing Move controller in September.

Michael Pachter, an analyst at Wedbush Morgan, said in February
that all three console makers would have to cut their prices this year as demand starts to fade. Nintendo has played the pricing game masterfully in the past. It debuted the Wii at $249, much lower than the initial $599 price for the PlayStation 3 in 2006 and $399 in 2005 for the Xbox 360.

With a cheaper and more innovative console, Nintendo stole the No. 1 position from Sony. To date, Nintendo has sold around 86 million Wiis, compared to 53 million Xbox 360s and 49 million PS 3s. Nintendo has also dominated in handhelds, selling 147 million DS units versus 67 million PlayStation Portables. Nintendo saw rising profits as a result. As the growth slowed, Nintendo shaved $50 off the Wii’s price in September, 2009, following price cuts from Sony and Microsoft. Since then, the Wii hasn’t had a price cut.

But in the last year, Nintendo sold about 7 million Wiis in the U.S. in 2010, compared to 9 million in 2009 and 10 million in 2008. In February, Microsoft sold 535,000 Xbox 360s while Nintendo sold 454,000 Wiis. Nintendo hasn’t commented yet.

It’s natural for the console makers to cut prices over time. The machines are expensive at the outset since the designers cram as much new technology into them as they can. Sony and Microsoft did this so much that they sold their initial machines at a loss, hoping to make up for that with game sales. Nintendo, on the other hand, has usually priced its hardware to make a profit.

As Moore’s Law (the capacity of a chip doubles every two years) progresses, the console makers can produce the same chips in their machines for a lower cost. So they can reduce the number of parts inside the consoles and cut prices.

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American Express bets on Payfone for mobile payments

Posted: 13 Apr 2011 07:59 AM PDT

American Express credit cardsMobile payments is a toughly contested battleground, with everybody from small start-ups to cell phone operators and banks trying to get as big a foothold as possible. One of those start-ups, Payfone, disclosed today a $19 million round of funding and a serious backer, American Express.

Payfone enables people to use their cell phones as a means of payment, to complete transactions for e-commerce purchases and virtual goods with the charges showing up on the phone bill. Payfone wants to make the mobile phone number the way to pay: After all, there are 5 billion people with cell phones around the world, and less than 2 billion credit card holders.

Even though plenty of companies are getting serious about mobile payments (Boku, Square, Zong, Mastercard, Visa, Nokia, Apple—you name it), no one has emerged as the winner so far. That likely explains why American Express is getting on board with Payfone. Said Group President Dan Schulman from American Express: "The payments industry is going through a fundamental transformation, with the move to digital payments becoming the primary driver." More to the point, American Express wants to evolve its own digital payments platform, Serve, with Payfone’s expertise.

In addition to the credit card company, Verizon Investments, Rogers Ventures and existing shareholders Opus Capital, BlackBerry Partners Fund and RRE Ventures joined in the round. Payfone scored $11 million last August and seems to be piling up money at a fast pace. (The company was founded in 2008.) Payfone plans to use this round of funding to continue product development and global expansion.

[Photo credit: The.Comedian]

VB Mobile SummitCalling all mobile executives: This April 25-26, VentureBeat is hosting its inaugural VentureBeat Mobile Summit, where we’ll debate the five key business and policy challenges facing the mobile industry today. Participants will develop concrete, actionable solutions that will shape the future of the mobile industry. The invitation-only event, located at the scenic and relaxing Cavallo Point Resort in Sausalito, Calif., is limited to the top 180 mobile executives, investors and policymakers. Request an invitation.

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Suppliers: Apple hasn’t yet delivered iPhone 5 plans

Posted: 13 Apr 2011 07:51 AM PDT

We’re hearing more support for the rumor that Apple will be delaying the launch of its iPhone 5 this year: Touchscreen panel makers are saying that Apple hasn’t yet released a production roadmap for the new iPhone, Digitimes reports.

It would be difficult for Apple to begin production of the iPhone 5 in time for a typical summer launch if suppliers don’t even have production plans yet.

The panel makers say that orders for iPhone 4 touch panels haven’t slowed down from Apple — something that would conceivably happen if the company was gearing up for iPhone 5 production.

A report from a few days ago puts iPhone 5 production at September of this year, which means that Apple wouldn’t be ready to sell the device until the holidays, or even early 2012. I think Apple would be crazy to wait until next year to deliver the iPhone 5 — I’ve argued previously that there would be quite a few benefits to a fall release.

Other rumors point to Apple’s next major mobile OS update, iOS 5, not being available until the fall either. That would support a potential iPhone 5 delay, since Apple has consistently tied new iOS releases to new hardware.

VB Mobile SummitCalling all mobile executives: This April 25-26, VentureBeat is hosting its inaugural VentureBeat Mobile Summit, where we’ll debate the five key business and policy challenges facing the mobile industry today. Participants will develop concrete, actionable solutions that will shape the future of the mobile industry. The invitation-only event, located at the scenic and relaxing Cavallo Point Resort in Sausalito, Calif., is limited to 180 mobile executives, investors and policymakers. We’ve pretty much finalized the invite list, but have a few spots left. Request an invitation.

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Watch and share videos on your iPad the easy way with Showyou

Posted: 13 Apr 2011 07:00 AM PDT


Remixation is launching a free iPad app called Showyou that makes it easy to view videos and share them with your friends.

The “social video app” lets you view a huge number of videos by swiping your finger across the screen, which displays a grid of video thumbnails so you can see lots of them at once. The app is good lesson in how to build a simple user interface that could get users to be more social merely by the act of simplification. It’s also a nice way to discover viral videos and as good an attempt as any to grabbing our attention away from old media such as television programs.

Right now, there isn’t an easy way to share videos from different sites with your friends across different social networks like Facebook, Tumblr or Twitter. Showyou is designed to do just that and it is tailored for Apple iOS (iPad, iPhone, iPod Touch) devices. One of the coolest features is you can share a video with your Apple TV 2.0 via Apple’s Airplay feature and then play it on a big screen. Your iPad becomes a remote-control for watching videos from your friends on your TV.

Mark Hall, co-founder of Remixation, says the object is to unshackle people from their TVs so that they can watch videos that are recommended by someone they trust. Showyou essentially becomes a video-centric social network, not unlike Google’s YouTube, but able to access videos from other sites such as Vimeo. YouTube isn’t really organized as a friend-centric sharing service either.

The app is designed to be easy-to-use on a touchscreen interface and presents you with a grid of squares, each one containing a different video. You can tap on one to play it or share it. You swipe up and down or sideways to view videos that your friends have shared. There is no other clutter from social media, as Showyou is something you use only when you want to curl up with video.

You can access hundreds of thousands of hours of programming on the internet, chosen by your friends or people you follow on social networks. There are 35 hours of video uploaded to YouTube every minute. But there isn’t a great way to sift through it. You can sign up for Showyou quickly using your Facebook or Twitter identities.

Remixation was founded in 2006 by Hall, Scott Persinger, and Spencer Miles. The company has funding from True Ventures and it has six employees.

The company previously launched Vodpod, which is a tool for making your own video channel (with more than 1 million registered users), with video from any video-sharing site. But the team decided that Vodpod wasn’t a Swiss Army knife so it decided to make a new targeted app just for the iPad and the iPhone. You can actually connect your Vodpod account on Showyou and then watch the videos that you have curated for your own viewing pleasure. Or you can share your Vodpod channel with your friends.

Over time, the company expects to make money with the free app via video ads on a cost-per-view, click-to-play basis. Remixation might also offer a subscription service. So far, there are no licensed video shows available on Showyou. It’s just video from the wild and wooly internet.

Let’s Showyou (2) from Showyou on Vimeo.





What if it’s 1996, not 1999?

Posted: 13 Apr 2011 06:00 AM PDT

(Editor's note: Jeff Bussgang is a General Partner at Flybridge Capital Partners. This column originally appeared on his blog Seeing Both Sides.)

In May 1996, Open Market completed a successful IPO and more than doubled on the first day of trading, ending with a $1.2 billion market capitalization.  We had recorded $1.8 million in revenue the year before.

If investors observing this extraordinary phenomenon in 1996 were to have concluded that the technology market was in the midst of an unsustainable bubble, they would not have been wrong.  But if that observation led them to refrain from investing in the Internet sector, they would have missed one of the most stunning legal creations of wealth in history.

In 1997, a Charles River Ventures fund yielded a stunning 15x return, backing such superstars as Ciena, Vignette and Flycast.  Matrix had a fund in 1998 that yielded an eye-popping 514+ percent IRR.  The Internet bull market continued to run for four more years after the Open Market IPO, finally ending in the spring of 2000.  The average venture capital fund raised between 1995 and 1997 returned more than 50 percent per year.

Amidst all the recent talk of boom vs. bubble, there is a hue and cry that the current environment may smack of 1999.  But what if it's actually more akin to 1996?  What if the fundamentals are good enough to support four more years of insane behavior before the music stops and the natural business cycle correction settles in?

The chart to the right from a recent Economist on unemployment made me pause and consider this question.  As evidenced from the unemployment curve in the last economic cycle, these business cycles can often last 4-5 years.

2009 was the trough year of the most recent business cycle – and a deep trough at that. 2010 was a year of firming and climbing out of a hole, but the tepid IPO market and general macroeconomic malaise seemed to linger until late in the year (similar to how 1995 felt).  2011 is the first year where it feels like a real boom – much like 1996.

Employment lags economic output and is an admittedly imperfect indicator, but if you continue the analogy, it may be that the next 4-5 year boom cycle lasts until 2015!

Consider the following:

  • When bellwether players go public (such as Netscape in 1995), there is a massive rush of capital and companies that follow.  Facebook will likely go public in 2012 and be valued in the $50-75 billion range.  This IPO and others like it (e.g., Groupon, Zynga) will create tremendous liquid wealth for a number of people and institutions who will likely pour that wealth back into the start-up ecosystem.  That liquidity flowing back into the start-up ecosystem will arguably fuel the boom.
  • Macroeconomic choppiness is holding back more dramatic market euphoria. Tsunamis, Middle East crises, government shutdown threats and a looming budget deficit are all dampers on the market.  But if some of these dampers clear out – if there is a period of reasonable international stability; if a divided US government can strike another fiscally responsible deal for the upcoming budget year and begin to deal with some of the long-term, fundamental drags on growth, then the markets will become even more euphoric.Remember, it wasn't a straight line between 1995 and 2000 – there were a series of macroeconomic crises on the domestic front, such as a near government shutdown (sound familiar?) as well as international crises, including the Mexican debt default, Russian currency defaults and the Asian market crisis.  Let's not forget that Time Magazine featured Alan Greenspan, Rob Rubin and Larry Summers on the cover in February 1999 with the headline:  "The Committee to Save the World." At times, this period saw pretty grim macroeconomic trends, while the Internet continued to boom in the trenches.
  • Thanks to recent decades of strong growth, the combination of China, India and Brazil have GDPs that are 4x the size and impact on the global economy as compared to the 1990s (see chart below).  Demand from these, now larger, economies are having a very positive effect on the US tech market. They are gobbling up mobile devices, PCs, routers and other technology gear at a rapid rate.  This powerful source of economic demand didn’t exist 15 years ago.
  • All the existing technology players are awash in liquidity and all the numbers are bigger this time.  There are eight US-based global technology companies with market capitalizations of greater than $100 billion (Apple, Google, Oracle, IBM, Microsoft, Intel, HP, Cisco).There are a handful of companies that are very well-positioned, growing fast and could be the next $100 billion players (Amazon, Dell, Netflix, EMC, VMWare, Salesforce.com and Baidu come to mind).These companies either didn't exist in the mid-90s or are in infinitely stronger positions than they were 15 years ago.  Internet usage, mobile phone usage, advertising dollar spend – all have grown enormously over the last 15 years to provide a stronger foundation underneath the latest boom.

The point here isn't to be Pollyannaish.  I recognize that we have major structural issues in the global economy and they are perhaps more daunting than they have ever been.  And the recent run up in the stock market has many arguing that the bull market won’t last much longer.  If oil soars to $150 per barrel, a few more sovereign nations default on their debt obligations and gridlock persists in Washington, we could be looking at another recession as soon as 2012.

Yet, with entrepreneurship on the rise, with this generation of young people ("the Entrepreneur generation") surging in their use and interest in technology and digital content, with some of the positive fundamental forces in innovation, it may just be that the music may not stop for another 4-5 years.  Wouldn't that be something?

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Deals & More: Clover gets $5.5M to focus on machine learning

Posted: 13 Apr 2011 06:00 AM PDT

Today’s funding announcements include companies working on machine learning, online shopping and clinical studies:

Stealthy Clover lands $5.5M: The Mountain View, Calif.-based startup has raised equity funding, according to a filing with the SEC. Backed by Sutter Hill Ventures, Andreessen Horowitz and Morado Venture Partners, the company says it is building a machine learning and algorithms team. Co-founded by an entrepreneur-in-residence at Sutter Hill Ventures, Clover was started in 2010 and is also building a sales team in New York, according to job postings on its site.

Project Slice raises $3.8M to simplify online shopping: The Palo Alto-based startup, another company currently in stealth mode, has raised a new round of funding, according to a filing with the SEC. The company, which previously raised $5M from investors including DCM and Lightspeed Venture Partners, says it is a “free service designed to simplify your online shopping.”

goBalto grabs $2.9M for clinical trial software: The San Francisco-based company has raised equity funding to build web-based software for use in clinical trials, according to a filing with the SEC. Founded in 2008, the company aims to help the pharmaceutical development and drug manufacturing industries start clinical studies more easily.

Zencoder brings in $2M for video encoding software: The startup has raised funding from Andreessen Horowitz, Ignition Partners, SV Angel and 500 Startups, among others, peHUB reports. Founded in 2010, the Madison, Wisconsin-based company transcodes videos, or converts videos from one format to another, for media content owners. The company, which previously raised seed funding from Y Combinator, works with customers like PBS Television, Posterous and College Humor.

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Sugar raises $15M for women’s focused media site

Posted: 12 Apr 2011 11:26 PM PDT

Women’s media startup Sugar said today it has raised $15 million in a new round of funding to expand its brand into new markets.

The San Francisco-based company runs PopSugar.com and it said it plans to use the money for brand extensions, acquisitions and international growth as part of a plan to become the world’s largest media company focused on women’s lifestyle. The five-year-old company said it has a global audience of more than 20 million unique visitors a month. Other sites include ShopStyle.com, PopSugarCity.com, and Fashionologie.com.

The investment was led by Institutional Venture Partners with participation from original investor Sequoia Capital. To date, Sugar has raised $46 million.

Rivals include Yahoo, which has expressed an interest in acquiring Sugar. But the husband-and-wife co-founders Brian and Lisa Sugar have remained independent. Sugar was previous affiliated with NBC Universal (which had put $10 million into Sugar) but it bought back its stake in 2009 and received a $16 million third round of funding at the time from Sequoia.

Sugar has 190 employees and operations in the U.S., Europe, Japan, and Australia. Brian Sugar, chief executive, says the company’s users drive more than $250 million in commerce to its partners. He also said the company was profitable in 2010. Rivals include other ad-supported community lifestyle sites targeting women such as Glam Media.

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Mig33 and Gree team up to extend mobile social networks across Asia

Posted: 12 Apr 2011 11:00 PM PDT

Japan’s Gree is a major mobile social network in Japan. Mig33 has a growing platform in emerging countries. Today, the two are teaming up to extend their networks for mutual benefit.

The alliance will help Gree (spelled GREE) expand beyond Japan’s borders, while Singapore-based Mig33 (spelled mig33), which is big in Asia and emerging countries, will get access to users in Japan. Game developers who have games on either platform will have access to users on either platform now, as the platforms will be compatible. Both companies will thus be able to rapidly expand their “mobile first” strategies, where they target regions where mobile phones are more important than computers.

Mig33 will adopt Gree’s platform for smartphones. That means that games previously developed for the Gree mobile social network will now be easily adapted to run on the mobile phones of Mig33’s 47 million registered users. Gree previously struck a bargain with China’s vast mobile social network operator, Tencent.

Mig33’s audience is different, since it has focused on getting users for its mobile social network in places such as India, Africa, the Middle East, and Asia. While other big players focus on smartphone markets, Mig33 has focused on the owners of humble feature phones, which are older but still have the ability to play simple games. Now game makers can create social games and other apps based on Mig33’s virtual economy and distribute them across a bunch of territories they couldn’t otherwise reach.

"Mig33 is thrilled to partner with Gree, as this opens up tremendous opportunity for social game developers everywhere," said Steven Goh, CEO and co-founder of Mig33.  "Today's announcement changes the face of social gaming throughout Asia, as the millions of mobile users in emerging markets far beyond China and Japan are now within reach."

Mig33 doubled down on games in November with the launch of its Game Developer Program, which allows developers to create games using a free-to-play business model, where players can start playing games for free and pay real money for virtual goods in small transactions. Mig33’s current developer Kooky Panda, a developer based in Beijing, said it is delighted at the alliance.

Mig33 was founded in 2005 and it is a former DEMOgod award winner. It has raised $34 million from investors including Gree, Pak Sugiono Wiyono Sugialam, Accel Partners, Redpoint Ventures and DCM. Gree has more than 24 million users and was founded in 2004. Based in Tokyo, it offers users a variety of mobile services on top of their smartphones.

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Apple finally announces Final Cut Pro X with 64-bit support

Posted: 12 Apr 2011 10:51 PM PDT

Apple has finally announced the next generation of its professional video editing software, Final Cut Pro X, which can take advantage of powerful new hardware and hefty amounts of memory thanks to 64-bit support.

Now that Final Cut Pro is officially a 64-bit application, it will be able to utilize more than 4 gigabytes of memory. That's something that will be particularly useful to video editors dealing with lengthy films and large high-definition files. It's also a feature that consumers have been demanding even before the release of the last version of the software, Final Cut Pro 7, in 2009.

Adobe Premiere, a direct competitor to Final Cut Pro, has been offering 64-bit support for over a year.

Final Cut Pro X will also be able to handle 4K HD clips — a video standard which is just beginning to make its way to movie theaters, and which offers significantly more resolution than 1080p HD videos — on Macs with 8 CPU cores.

Other new features include a revamped interface that resembles iMovie, instant background rendering, auto image stabilization, people detection and more. You can catch a glimpse at what the software offers below from its announcement at the NAB conference.

Final Cut Pro X will be available on the Mac App Store in June for $299 — a price that puts it well below Adobe Premiere and other professional video editing suites.

Via Engadget, video via Rob Imbs


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Next-gen iPods may get wireless sync thanks to carbon fiber

Posted: 12 Apr 2011 09:33 PM PDT

iPodUsing a USB cord to sync your information may become a thing of the past. Apple CEO Steve Jobs is apparently pushing hard to make wireless syncing standard in the next iPod, according to a source from Cult of Mac.

Jobs sees WiFi syncing as a way to renew interest in iPods, which have become increasingly obsolete with the mass adoption of iPhones.

The next iPod may also be sporting a carbon fiber casing to help solve problems with wireless synching, including issues with reliability, signal strength, case design and battery life.

Right now the only version of the iPod that has wireless hardware baked in is the Touch, however Apple is allegedly testing wireless prototypes for both iPod Nano and the iPod Classic, according to the source.

The push to make wireless syncing available could also be getting a push to stay competitive with Google’s  music sync, especially since Android devices already allows for wireless music syncing using third party services.

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IBM wants to predict the best commute for you

Posted: 12 Apr 2011 09:13 PM PDT

SmarterTraveler Multiple=Tired of sitting in traffic? IBM just announced a new Smarter Traveler research initiative that could eventually help you find a faster commute.

The news comes at a time when more and more mapping and driving services are incorporating traffic data. One of the most interesting examples is Waze, an app that takes crowdsourced GPS data from its users to warn them about bad traffic. But traffic conditions can change — even if the freeway near your office is clear now, it may be totally jammed when you get there in 45 minutes.

So IBM says it's taking things a step further. It uses the data that's already being gathered at roads, toll booths, intersections, and elsewhere, while also looking at GPS information from participants' cell phones about their personal commute habits and preferences. Then it takes a new model that the company has developed to actually predict what the traffic will be like when the driver is on the road. If traffic is going to be bad and you should take an a different way to work, the program will alert you via email or text message before your drive. Users will also be able to log into a Smarter Traveler website to see their commute forecast and predictions for alternate routes.

You can see an illustration of the concept in the video below. This is just a research project for now, with a number of participants testing it in the San Francisco Bay Area, so it may be a while before this becomes available commercially (if ever). But it's an ambitious and promising idea, and IBM is working with some big-name partners — the California Department of Transportation and the California Center for Innovative Transportation at UC Berkeley.

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News Corp sales pitch: MySpace isn’t going down the toilet

Posted: 12 Apr 2011 08:12 PM PDT

MyspaceTechCrunch’s Mike Arrington recently took a look at News Corp.’s pitch book to sell the decaying social property that is Myspace.

What’s apparent from the book is that Myspace is badly hemorrhaging money, despite the all too optimistic sales pitch that’s been given to potential buyers (think used car salesman).

First of all, News Corp. conveniently leaves out financial history of Myspace, which in 2008 was hitting $900 million in revenue, and focuses entirely on the present and immediate future.

Myspace’s projected revenue for the fiscal 2011 year? Just $109 million, despite $274 in expenses that brings it to a total loss of  $165 million over the 12 month financial period ending June 30, 2011.

The pitch goes on to say that the company will have $15 million in earnings before interest, tax, depreciation, and amortization (ebitda) in 2012. In order to achieve that figure, they predicted revenue would decrease to $84 million and expenses would drop to a much lower $69 million. Considering the discrepancy between the company’s current expenses, it’s likely that Myspace will have to make massive changes that almost certainly point to layoffs and other cuts.

The pitch forecasts revenue growth in the years thereafter, ending with $139 million in 2015.

You can’t blame News Corp. for trying to spin the company in the best possible light, since they are trying to get rid of it. But, I can’t imagine who would want to buy the site at this point even if it is an embarrassingly good deal.

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USC’s Jeffrey Cole predicts the death of newspapers in five years

Posted: 12 Apr 2011 07:40 PM PDT

newspapersFor someone who works at a school of journalism, Jeffrey Cole isn’t particularly optimistic about the future of newspapers.

Cole directs the Center for the Digital Future at the USC Annenberg School of Communication and Journalism, which has been studying the effect of the Internet since 2000. Cole said that 11 years ago, he appeared at a newspaper convention and told the attendees that their industry had only 25 or 30 years or life left. Today, at the Ad:tech conference in San Francisco, he said he’d been too optimistic — he predicts now that most newspapers have less than five years to go.

The reasons for this are pretty familiar for anyone who reads “death of journalism” articles. In the past, people would usually pick up the newspaper habit in their 20s or 30s, but that isn’t happening anymore, Cole said, so when an old newspaper reader dies, they aren’t being replaced. And where prognosticators once tracked the disappearance of two-newspaper towns, they’re now counting the increasing number of no-newspaper towns.

There will be some survivors, Cole said, mainly “global players” like The New York Times. And one of the ways they’ll continue is on new devices, especially the iPad. He suggested that no matter how newspapers bungled the transition into an online world, they were inevitably going to have a hard time on the Internet, which is fundamentally a “lean forward” experience.

“No one wants to lean forward and read a newspaper,” Cole said. “They might read an article in the newspaper.”

The iPad, on the other hand, is a “lean back” experience and “restores newspapers and magazines to their natural environment.” By the way, Cole isn’t using the iPad as shorthand for tablets in general — he predicted that Apple’s device will continue to dominate the market, even after 2015, when Gartner predicted that the iPad will finally drop below 50 percent marketshare (as it loses share to Android). Cole said he’s never seen company get a product so right the first time around as Apple did with the iPad.

“Apple has moved the goalpost before the other teams have taken the field,” he said.

Not that newspapers are alone in their trouble. That’s just part of Cole’s broader prediction that “all media will survive but most will be smaller players in a digital era.” In the music industry, CDs will soon vanish. DVDs will do the same, and we’ll see the disappearance of many movie theaters. And while books will survive, the vast majority of reading will occur digitally — if you own physical books at all, you’ll only have a few beautiful art books.

The one exception, Cole said, is television, which is growing again now that new screens and devices allow it to expand beyond the home.

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