Palo Alto Networks, a leading firewall security company that filed to go public in April, priced shares for its IPO this week at $34 to $37 per share.
“The company will sell 6.2 million shares, around 1.5 of which will come from existing stock holders,” reports VentureBeat. “The New York Stock Exchange will host the stock under the ticker symbol PANW.”
ETCentric staffer Phil Lelyveld points out that Palo Alto Networks’ unique firewall technology allows companies to determine what portions of publicly available sites (for example: social networks) their employees can access.
While companies are hesitant regarding use of personal technology, they also recognize that services such as Dropbox and Facebook can add to employee productivity. To address this, Palo Alto Networks developed a firewall with the ability to block specific parts of an application, based on the policy of each individual company.
“The company coined the term ‘next generation firewall’ to describe its products,” explains Reuters in a related post. “NGFW converges multiple security functions such as firewall, intrusion prevention systems and secure Web gateways on a single platform.”
“The product is fundamentally revolutionary,” says John Kindervag, security expert at Forrester Research. “All of the big (security) vendors are afraid of Palo Alto. They built it from scratch and they did it in four years.”
“Rivals like Cisco, Check Point or Juniper Networks would beg to differ, arguing they offer similar products,” notes Reuters.
Amazon has announced its new GameCircle feature for the Kindle Fire that offers gaming leaderboards and achievements.
“GameCircle allows you to track your in-game awards, view leaderboards, and save your game progress online,” reports PCWorld.
It is currently available for developers and is expected to launch with Kindle Fire games in the coming weeks.
“GameCircle has echoes of OpenFeint and Apple’s Game Center, but Amazon’s feature doesn’t appear to have the same social features as the other platforms,” notes the article. “Amazon didn’t mention anything about a social component where you can connect with friends to share games and view a friends-only leaderboard similar to Game Center.”
A centralized gaming feature has become a must-have for mobile platforms. Amazon’s rollout may be an indicator that it plans to launch its own smartphone and expand its mobile offerings.
OUYA is a $99 Android-powered game console designed to plug into televisions. The project went live via Kickstarter this week and in its first day attracted more than $2.5 million in funding.
“We get it — smartphones and tablets are getting all the new titles — they’re ‘what’s hot,'” explains the OUYA Kickstarter page. “The console market is pushing developers away. We’ve seen a brain drain: some of the best, most creative gamemakers are focused on mobile and social games because those platforms are more developer-friendly.”
“It’s time we brought back innovation, experimentation, and creativity to the big screen,” adds the site. “Let’s make the games less expensive to make, and less expensive to buy. With all our technological advancements, shouldn’t costs be going down? Gaming could be cheaper!”
“In addition to running Android applications, OUYA is going to carry a ton of games that you can play for free,” reports Business Insider. “Developers, by default, have to make part of their games free to play.”
Its original goal was to raise $950,000 as a Kickstarter project. By this morning, it had raised more than $4.3 million.
In a related post, Penny Arcade is skeptical of the hype surrounding OUYA: “There is almost no information about the state of production hardware, and in fact nearly everything about the system seems to be in flux. The Kickstarter page contradicts itself on some points, and many of the images and statements seem to be intentionally misleading.”
Successful retargeting platform AdRoll — currently used by more than 4,000 brands — received $15 million in new funding this week, which the company plans to use for expansion in the U.S. and overseas. AdRoll also plans a bigger push in events and entertainment.
According to the AdRoll site: “Generally 2 percent of shoppers convert on the first visit to an online store. Retargeting brings back the other 98 percent. Retargeting works by keeping track of people who visit your site and displaying your retargeting ads to them as they visit other sites online.”
The platform works by placing a “JavaScript tag in the footer of your website. This code creates a list of people that visit your site by placing anonymous retargeting ‘cookies’ in their browser. This list allows AdRoll (or other retargeting vendors) to display retargeting ads to your potential customers as they visit other sites.”
Aaron Bell, the company’s CEO, explains that while the industry has emphasized retail, he sees opportunities for movies, gaming, sporting events and business-to-business marketing.
“In entertainment, he said, gaming companies are leading the pack by targeting ads for new titles to people who have purchased other games,” reports GigaOM. “But he said he expects activity to pick up among other traditional entertainment verticals, like movie studios.”
“If a person watches a trailer of movie at one point in time, the studio could target them again later when the movie has hit the theaters to prompt them to buy tickets,” adds the post.
ETCentric staffer Phil Lelyveld notes that this company’s business echoes one piece of the ETC’s Hyper-Personalized Entertainment Offer project plan (formerly Big Data/Metadata).
In an effort to offer its guests the latest in amenities, a boutique hotel in downtown Vancouver is replacing its obsolete room phones with Apple’s iPhone.
“The Opus Hotel in Vancouver’s trendy Yaletown neighborhood is in the process of making the switch to iPhones, figuring that guests — especially those from the USA — will know how to use them and appreciate having a Canadian phone to eliminate international roaming fees on their personal phones,” reports USA Today.
Guests are free to take their room’s iPhone with them for Internet and phone connectivity as they roam Vancouver.
“The phone will also keep them connected to the hotel, since each iPhone is programmed with one-touch contacts for each of the hotel’s departments, whether the concierge, housekeeping or room service,” notes the article. “Local calls are complimentary.”
In March, Opus Vancouver became the first hotel in Canada to provide its guests with an iPad 2 (available in each room, programmed with an iPad Virtual Concierge). Since the hotel opted for the 3G version, guests don’t have to worry about Wi-Fi hotspots when they take their iPad around the city.
Opus Vancouver was voted Trendiest Hotel in Canada and fifth in the world by TripAdvisor’s Travelers Choice Awards 2012. It also earned Best of Business Travel 2011 in the Conde Nast Traveler World Business Poll.
In addition to iPhones and iPads, the rooms feature Herman Miller ergonomic chairs and Aquos LCD TVs. Guests also have access to complimentary bicycles.
Arianna Huffington’s popular Huffington Post will launch HuffPost Live, its full-day online video network, on August 13.
“The new network, whose launch comes shortly after Huffington Post started a digital magazine, is the most ambitious expansion by the website since it was acquired by AOL Inc. last year,” reports the Wall Street Journal. “HuffPost Live, whose main studio will be in New York, will run 12 hours every weekday, with highlights after hours and on weekends.”
Huffington has hired 100 staffers, including veterans from networks such as ABC, CNN and al-Jazeera English.
Rather than including traditional commercial breaks, the network plans to introduce new models for advertising. “Up to five sponsors will be able to have their brand woven into the fabric of the HuffPost Live broadcast itself, by doing things like naming elements of the programming,” explains WSJ.
“So if the brand is about speed and efficiency, they might be part of a speed debate round on HuffPost Live,” says Janet Balis, publisher of Huffington Post Media Group. “There is no programming that we will create that we would not have had as part of the show without the advertiser.”
Cadillac has signed as the program’s first launch partner. The company will promote its new, small ATS model with the aim of attracting “a type of market segment that would seem to have a good connection with new digital media ideas,” according to spokesman David Caldwell.
The network will also earn money by selling display advertising on the network’s main page.
HuffPost Live plans to focus on commentary. “We’re not trying to report the news,” explains Roy Sekoff, a founding editor of Huffington Post and head of the network. “We are trying to have conversations that the news inspires.”
Unable to agree on terms for a new contract, more than a dozen Viacom channels were pulled from DirecTV on Wednesday.
DirecTV customers lost access to Comedy Central, BET, Nickelodeon, MTV, VH1, Comedy Central and other cable channels owned by Viacom.
Viacom claims it is seeking “only a couple pennies per day, per subscriber,” while DirecTV has countered that Viacom is pushing for “customers to pay more than a 30 percent increase, which equates to an extra $1 billion.”
“On DirecTV’s side, it’s claiming it sent proposals but never heard anything back and as such was forced to pull the channels,” reports Engadget. “Viacom has been running ads and notices all day to make sure kids big and little call DirecTV to apply pressure about missing their television shows.”
“The two companies blamed each other for the blackout, which began around midnight as a result of a dispute over a new carriage contract for the Viacom-owned channels,” reports The New York Times. “About 20 million households are affected, representing one-fifth of all the nation’s subscribers to cable or satellite television service.”
DirecTV is suggesting that customers access Viacom content online and via services such as Amazon Prime or Netflix until the situation can be resolved.
“Viacom took action to make that more difficult Wednesday afternoon — not just for DirecTV customers, but for all Internet users,” according to NYT. “The company took episodes of ‘The Daily Show,’ ‘The Colbert Report’ and some other popular shows off its Web sites.”
In an effort to rally public support, Viacom posted an image of Nickelodeon’s SpongeBob SquarePants on Facebook with the accompanying quote, “Who lives in a pineapple under the sea? I don’t know. I have DirecTV.” However, initial public complaints seem to be directed at both companies.
“The U.S. judge who tossed out one of the biggest court cases in Apple Inc’s smartphone technology battle is questioning whether patents should cover software or most other industries at all,” reports Reuters.
“Richard Posner, a prolific jurist who sits on the 7th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Chicago, told Reuters this week that the technology industry’s high profits and volatility made patent litigation attractive for companies looking to wound competitors.”
Posner effectively ended Apple’s lawsuit against Google’s Motorola Mobility last month. “He canceled a closely anticipated trial between the two and rejected the iPhone maker’s request for an injunction barring the sale of Motorola products using Apple’s patented technology,” explains the article.
Posner suggests that the proliferation of patents in the software realm is a problem. “It’s not clear that we really need patents in most industries,” he says.
However, he notes that some industries, such as pharmaceuticals, “had a better claim to intellectual property protection because of the enormous investment it takes to create a successful drug,” reports Reuters.
In canceling the Apple-Motorola trial, “Posner said an injunction barring the sale of Motorola phones would harm consumers. He also rejected the idea of trying to ban an entire phone based on patents that cover individual features like the smooth operation of streaming video,” according to the report.
Posner wrote that Apple’s patent “is not a claim to a monopoly of streaming video!”
Not all judges share Posner’s view of the patent wars. Last week, for example, U.S. District Judge Lucy Koh in California granted Apple two pretrial injunctions against Samsung regarding the Galaxy Tab and Galaxy Nexus phone, specifically citing Apple’s patent for the Siri search feature. Samsung is appealing the injunctions.
U.S. Representative Lamar Smith of Texas has introduced the Intellectual Property Attache Act, which “revives one of the sneakier portions of SOPA to create a global intellectual property task force, charged with aggressively promoting anti-piracy law around the world,” reports TechCrunch.
Open Internet advocates are concerned the new proposal may represent some of the over-reaching principles that served as the basis of SOPA. Proponents of the bill have suggested it would streamline a complex system of management.
Additional concern has been expressed that the bill is being fast-tracked without time for public debate. And several public advocacy groups have suggested that we already have enough federal entities that address IP regulations.
“The specifics of the bill appear to go further than the version in SOPA,” suggests Techdirt in a related post. “It is clear that the bill itself is framed from the maximalist perspective. There is nothing about the rights of the public, or of other countries to design their own IP regimes.”
“The bill also ‘elevates’ the IP attaches out of the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office, and sets them up as their own agency, including a new role: the Assistant Secretary of Commerce for Intellectual Property,” adds Techdirt.
According to an email from one of Smith’s aides, the bill is not a follow-up to SOPA. “The bill that the Committee currently is working on is a narrow piece of legislation to ensure better use of Patent and Trademark Office funds,” states the e-mail. “The current draft increases organizational efficiency at the PTO and moves the IP attache program squarely within the PTO to ensure direct accountability of the IP attaches.”
Surprising to some, Representative Darrell Issa (who we earlier reported had posted a proposed Digital Bill of Rights online and was recently the first politician to sign the Declaration of Internet Freedom), has announced his support of the IP Attache Act, but is seeking to exempt “clear IP exceptions like fair use,” according to a statement from his office.
Issa was a vocal opponent to SOPA and similar proposed legislation.
Congressman Darrell Issa of California has become the first elected official to sign the Declaration of Internet Freedom, a broad document that hopes to keep the Internet free and open.
As previously reported via ETCentric, the document currently has an eclectic group of supporters and addresses areas such as expression, access, openness, innovation and privacy.
Issa, a vocal opponent to the earlier proposed SOPA legislation, recently posted his own suggested 10-point digital Bill of Rights.
“We need to frame a digital Bill of Rights,” he wrote on KeepTheWebOpen.com, which uses a new tool called Madison to open the legislative and treaty process. “This is my first draft. I need your help to get this right, so I published it here in Madison for everyone to comment, criticize and collaborate. I look forward to hearing from you and continuing to work together to keep the Web open.”
The Declaration of Internet Freedom “is very broad and vague, most likely by design,” explains TechCrunch. “As the Atlantic Wire points out, this language makes it very difficult for the government and citizens behind the Declaration to reach a solution. Perhaps having a government official cross sides and sign the Declaration will help move things along.”
Walt Mossberg offers his take on the $199 Nexus 7, an Android tablet from Google set to launch next week. The new tablet, built by Asus, is Wi-Fi-only and features a 7-inch screen.
“After testing the Nexus 7 for a couple of weeks, I consider it the best Android tablet I’ve used,” he writes. “It’s a serious alternative to both Apple’s larger $499 iPad and to a more direct rival: Amazon’s $199, Android-based, 7-inch Kindle Fire. I prefer the Nexus 7 to 7-inch models from Google partners like Samsung, whose comparable product costs $250.”
Mossberg notes ways in which the Nexus 7 does not keep up with the iPad: no cellular connectivity option, no rear camera, less screen resolution, less memory, fewer content choices and fewer available apps.
“But Google’s tablet is a better choice than the iPad for people on a budget; for those who prefer a lighter, more compact tablet that’s easier to carry and operate with one hand; and for those who prefer Google’s ecosystem of apps, services and content to Apple’s,” he notes, adding that he found the Nexus 7 battery life to be better than that of the iPad.
The Nexus 7 touts an artificial-intelligence feature that “presents a screen, called Google Now, with information it considers relevant to you at your present location and time — like the weather, traffic conditions between home and work, your next calendar appointment, and information for flights you’ve been researching,” writes Mossberg.
He also points out that “Apple is rumored to be planning a smaller, less costly iPad, which could give the Nexus 7 a run for its money.”
The post includes a 6-minute video report from Mossberg.
CBS, NBC and Fox have won the first round in the battle over Dish Network’s ad-skipping technology known as AutoHop.
“A New York federal court Monday denied Dish’s request for a declaratory ruling that the AutoHop does not violate copyright law,” reports the Los Angeles Times.
The networks had filed suit to block AutoHop (launched in May), which lets Dish customers bypass commercials on recorded versions of their shows.
“Now we move on to the real issue at hand — demonstrating that Dish Network has created and marketed a product with the clear goal of breaching its license with Fox, violating copyrights and destroying the fundamental underpinnings of the broadcast television business,” Fox said in a statement.
“We look forward to proceeding with this case, recognizing that it has been 28 years since the Supreme Court’s ‘Betamax’ decision held that a viewer, in the privacy of their home, could record a television show to watch later,” said R. Stanton Dodge, Dish’s general counsel. “Dish will stand behind consumers and their right to skip commercials, something they have been doing since the invention of the remote control.”
Forbes contributor Shel Israel addresses the hype behind Google’s Project Glass and what he anticipates will occur when the glasses become available to third-party developers next year.
“I think that there are very complex unanticipated consequences coming down the line,” he writes. “There are obvious ones such as privacy, but there are also strange ones coming when the technology we use starts becoming our intimate advisor, when machines have personalities and start reminding us of R2D2 and the robots we have known in fiction.”
Israel lists some interesting applications in the consumer, military and medical sectors — and how the possibilities (and implications) will expand when the glasses are connected to big data.
“In short, they will be a multimedia, networked computer that serve as also as a Siri-type personal assistant that you wear in the guise of glasses,” he predicts, adding that the concept is actually part of something larger in personal tech that will eventually impact us professionally and personally.
“Wearable computers are a subset of a larger category — Contextual Computing,” says Israel. “The name may be boring, but the concept is very large and it rests at the point where the SciFi that entertained us yesterday become the essential tools our lives.”
Contextual computing will dramatically affect the way humans work, live and communicate — especially as the technology improves and machines merge more with people.
“Where is it all going? I have absolutely no idea,” concludes Israel. “Are their dangerous unintended consequences looming? Of course there are. Have we hit the point when [Dr. Frankenstein] should not be allowed to create the next sentient monster? Not a chance.”
Engadget reviews the Nexus Q, Google’s recently announced social media streamer. The $299 sphere-shaped device is priced higher than similar products from Apple, Roku and even the company’s own Google TV.
Features include micro-HDMI, micro-USB, TOSLINK, 10/100 Ethernet and powered stereo outputs. Connectivity options include Bluetooth, NFC and dual-band 802.11a/b/g/n.
Engadget points out that the Nexus Q is easy to set up, but is generally lacking in functionality when compared to its competitors. The review also suggests the device is in need of a Web-based interface.
“The Nexus Q is an impressive piece of hardware that, given time and a serious augmentation of capability, could mature into a very exciting little thing,” concludes the post. “Right now, though, the Q feels like a high-priced novelty.”
The hands-on review includes two videos and analysis of hardware, setup and performance.
CNNMoney contributor Dan Mitchell suggests that the same social media forces that helped stop the proposed SOPA and PIPA bills have also led to the European Parliament’s rejection of the Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement (ACTA).
The agreement “would have created standards for enforcing intellectual property rights across borders. ACTA would have applied not only to copyrights on media products like music and movies transmitted over the Internet, but also to trademarks and patents,” writes Mitchell. “So it also targeted people trying to move knockoff Gucci handbags and fake pharmaceuticals from one country to another.”
“There are two essential reasons for the widespread public outcry that ACTA has met with: the initial secrecy of the negotiations and the stunning vagueness of the agreement’s language,” he adds. “The negotiations were held behind closed doors, without input from either the general public or from public-interest groups. And the terms were so murky that it was impossible to tell what enforcement tactics would and would not be allowed.”
Opponents were to quick to warn that ACTA would lead to what the Free Software Foundation described as “a culture of surveillance and suspicion.”
The speedy organization of online protests that resulted once ACTA was revealed shows the growing power of social tools such as Facebook and Twitter.
“Politicians and owners of intellectual property would do well to keep that in mind as they try to create enforcement policies,” suggests Mitchell. “A good start would be to more directly target profiteers rather than innocent third parties, and to ensure that any laws or trade agreements adhere to basic democratic principles, such as due process of law.”
