Ray William Johnson is YouTube’s biggest star. Five million viewers watch his show twice a week.
“Known as RayWJ, the 30-year-old has morphed into an idol of the teen set at home and abroad by ranting about others’ viral YouTube videos on subjects ranging from a hippopotamus defecating to people who staple the heads of co-workers,” explains the Wall Street Journal.
YouTube often attracts more viewers than traditional TV networks these days. According to comScore, the video site draws more than 780 million unique visitors every month. Of course, the audience is “fragmented among 30,000 channels and millions of videos,” points out WSJ.
“This is a microcosm of what’s going on in the overall media landscape. We’re moving from a scaled mass media to a more hyper-local, niche media,” explains David Cohen of media-buying agency Universal McCann.
RayWJ’s 1.5 billion views reportedly earn him an estimated $1 million a year from YouTube’s Partner Program. He also sells his own merchandise and mobile apps.
“A Google spokeswoman says that ‘several hundred’ of its partners made more than $100,000 in 2011, up 80 percent from the ‘couple of hundred’ partners who made more than that in 2010,” reports WSJ, suggesting this may be the start of a larger shift in media consumption.
Sony announced on Wednesday that video game exec Kazuo Hirai will become the company’s new president and CEO.
Hirai, credited with the turnaround of Sony’s PlayStation business, was selected in a rare unanimous vote by the Sony board “in a bid to regain some of [Sony’s] magic,” reports The New York Times.
Howard Stringer, chief exec of Sony since 2005, will become chairman of the board on April 1, the company explained in a statement.
“As challenging as times are for Sony now, were it not for the strong leadership of Sir Howard Stringer these past seven years, we would have been in a much more difficult position,” Hirai said in a statement. “The path we must take is clear: to drive the growth of our core electronics businesses.”
The article points out that Hirai is taking the helm at a difficult moment in history as the company faces the global economic crisis, a Japanese recession, disrupted production due to recent natural disasters and a rapidly evolving consumer electronics industry.
Recently appointed Yahoo CEO Scott Thompson has already pulled the plug on 10 of the company’s under-performing mobile apps.
According to a recent company blog post, Yahoo will stop developing and supporting the following apps: 1) Yahoo! Meme (iPad and iPhone); 2) Yahoo! Mim (iPad); 3) Yahoo! Answers (Android); 4) Yahoo! AppSpot (Android and iPhone); 5) Yahoo! Deals (iPhone); 6) Yahoo! Finance (BlackBerry); 7) Yahoo! Movies (Android); 8) Yahoo! News (Android); 9) Yahoo! Shopping (iPhone) and 10) Yahoo! Sketch-a-Search (iPad and iPhone).
“As you can see, the list is a mix of some of Yahoo’s more popular online brands and some services it created especially for mobile users, but all have one thing in common: they weren’t being used much by consumers,” reports paidContent. “In the words of Yahoo itself, it is removing the apps as part of its effort ‘to continuously measure and scrutinize what’s working and what isn’t’ as part of a new ‘mobile first’ strategy.”
Technology in the decommissioned apps will be repurposed in some of the more successful apps that remain available, as Thompson continues to focus on the company’s culture of innovation.
“Thompson still has a very big task ahead, though, to convince an increasingly more distracted consumer base that this slightly tired Internet brand is one worth watching for the future,” comments paidContent.
A consortium of Vancouver-based production, tech and media companies recently launched a service called RenderCloud.
“Vancouver is revving up its computing horsepower to allow Hollywood studios to more speedily render data-intensive animation and special effects in the cloud,” according to The Hollywood Reporter.
“Vancouver is also hoping its ultrafast RenderCloud server will allow the west-coast city, already enjoying the advantages of close proximity to Los Angeles, [to] compete with emerging global production centers in the UK, Australia and New Zealand.”
The local server farm will allow studios to render in the cloud and enable work-sharing on projects. Clients will pay on an as-needed cost-per-day basis with an option of subleasing their resources to other studios.
The project is led by Vancouver Studio Group, Great Northern Way Campus, Scalar Decisions and BC Film and Media. RenderCloud includes more than 600 servers, with plans to grow to 1,500 by this summer.
The service is designed for large-scale production of 3D, animation and special effects for film, TV and games.
“The Internet now has 555 million websites, up from just 255 million at the end of 2010,” reports Digital Trends.
According to Web monitoring service Pingdom, 300 million sites were created in the last year alone.
Additional stats: there are currently 2.1 billion Internet users worldwide, 45 percent of users are under 25, North America leads with most citizens online at 73.3 percent penetration (although Asia has more total numbers), Facebook has more than 800 million users and there are 100 active Twitter users.
“With 39 percent market share, Internet Explorer remains the most popular browser in the world,” explains the post. “Chrome is now second, with 28 percent. And Firefox is a close third, at 25 percent. Safari only accounts for 6 percent of the browser market.”
The Pingdom report offers a thorough breakdown of Internet stats for 2011, including some helpful pie charts.
According to the GSMA, worldwide association of mobile operators and related companies, more than half of the devices launched at CES were Internet connected.
“GSMA calculated that more than 90 percent of TVs at CES, 70 percent of automotive devices, 44 percent of healthcare devices and 30 percent of cameras were connected,” reports ReadWriteWeb.
The association predicts 24 billion connected devices by 2020, up from 9 billion today. Automobile connectivity is expected to be an emerging product category.
It also estimates that connected devices will become a $1.2 trillion market by 2020.
“At this year’s CES, more than 40 percent of the connected devices announced were gadgets such as laptops and smartphones. The rest were non-gadgets, such as those in the ‘home lifestyle’ category, which, according to the GSMA, made up 30 percent of the connected devices at CES. The products in the home lifestyle category included connected TVs, smart refrigerators and Internet-connected washers and dryers.”
GSMA has labeled this trend “The Connected Life,” defining it as “a world where all technology devices intelligently connect.”
The ReadWriteWeb post features several interesting charts and infographics from GSMA.
UK-based Juniper Research is forecasting that sales of ultrabooks will increase at three times the rate of tablets over the next five years.
“However, tablet volume will remain higher, with 253 million expected to be shipped in 2016, compared with 178 million ultrabooks,” reports MediaPost.
Ultrabook was a major buzzword at CES in Las Vegas, where a number of compelling new models debuted.
Intel, a major proponent of the sleek lightweight laptops, expects more than 75 new ultrabooks to launch in 2012, including models with 14- and 15-inch screens.
“Samsung, Lenovo, Acer and Vizio are among the manufacturers that have jumped on the ultrabook bandwagon,” explains the post. “Among other findings, the study said Windows 8 will play a key role in driving ultrabook adoption, with extended battery life, an always-on connection and other features coming with an updated version of Microsoft’s operating system.”
Google announced that beginning on March 1st, the company will combine data about users’ activities on most of their sites and services including YouTube, Android, Gmail and the search engine. This aggregated user profile is designed for “a simpler, more intuitive Google experience,” according to the company.
While this might lead to new services, it will also create a detailed picture to better tailor ads. There will be no way to opt out unless users are not logged in.
GigaOM writes that the new policy “seems to have highlighted for many a crucial question: Is Google having all of that info about you — including Web searches, Google Analytics data from your website, even location information — a good thing?”
This sharing may be problematic for some. As GigaOM points out, “for those who want to ‘compartmentalize’ their lives, with some services reserved for personal use and others for business or public use, the pooling of information is a very real threat.”
This new policy is a break with Google’s previous privacy position. Analysts say that Google is responding to Apple and Facebook which have more unified ecosystems. Still, this new approach will invite antitrust scrutiny as Google is the dominant online search engine.
Google has already faced the Federal Trade Commission over privacy issues and recently received heavy criticism about its personalized G+ results in searches.
The co-chair of the Congressional Privacy Caucus, Rep. Edward Markey, said: “It is imperative that users will be able to decide whether they want their information shared across the spectrum of Google’s offerings.”
In the wake of CES, analysts continue to report on emerging trends such as smartphones, tablets and connected TVs.
“However, in the content creation industry, the big trends heading into 2012 are more esoteric — concepts that will impact consumers without them ever knowing, or caring, much about them,” reports SMPTE Newswatch.
“That’s because, as SMPTE President Peter Ludé suggests, all the amazing new ways for consumers to download, display, and manipulate content more sharply in the home or on handheld devices are beside the point unless content creators keep developing newer/better ways to make, format, and distribute that content for all those platforms in the first place.”
SMPTE Newswatch offers this compelling report on the key trends expected to have an impact on content creators in 2012. The report comes from a recent discussion with SMPTE’s Ludé, who also serves as SVP of Engineering at Sony Electronics, and Wendy Aylsworth, SMPTE Executive VP and Senior VP of Technology at Warner Bros. Technical Operations.
The article addresses the following areas: 4K, high frame rates, 3D, processing power, storage, streamlining standards and more.
In 1963, six years before “Sesame Street,” Jim Henson produced a short film called “Robot.”
Originally produced for business seminars, AT&T recently made the lost film available online.
“The short tells an archetypal man and machine story,” reports Forrest Wickman for Slate. “Still, it’s unexpected to see a robot imagined in 1963 not just as a possible weapon of war or spaceship pilot but as a means for ‘digesting vast oceans of information.'”
It’s interesting to speculate whether the film reveals Henson’s own thinking about smart machines. Nevertheless, it does showcase his talent creating an entertaining personality, an ability that would later serve him well.
“I’m struck not only by the robot’s campy resemblance to the tin-can creations of movies like ‘Forbidden Planet,’ but also by its hilariously open disdain for humans,” writes Wickman, “which reminds me above all of Flight of the Conchords’ much more recent ‘The Humans Are Dead.'”
Apple reported record-breaking earnings for its last quarter yesterday. The company generated $46.3 billion in revenue with a profit of $13.06 billion, reports AllThingsD.
The sales figures: 37.04 million iPhones, a 128 percent increase over the same quarter a year ago; 15.43 million iPads, up 111 percent; and 5.2 million Macs, an increase of 26 percent.
Apple CEO Tim Cook said the figures represent record-breaking numbers for iPhones, iPads and Macs. The iPod was the only product to see a drop; Apple sold 15.4 million units, down 21 percent.
Apple also announced that by the end of this month, iOS developers will have earned more than $4 billion in total sales.
In a related Tech.pinions post, analyst Ben Bajarin suggests “Apple is just getting started,” citing continued innovation and new markets in Asia.
“There are still industries for Apple to disrupt,” he writes. “There are still new products to be made for new types of customers. We are only half way through this 50+ year journey of bringing technology to the masses… Lots of OEMs better get their tablet strategies in order.”
Time Warner Cable has announced the launch of TWC TV for Apple’s iPhone.
“TWC TV allows subscribers of the second-largest U.S. cable operator to watch live TV from within the home, change channels on their set-top box and manage their DVR from their iPhone,” explains The Hollywood Reporter.
In order to access the interactive program guide, channel tuning and DVR management features, customers will need a set-top box or DVR that uses the “Navigator” interactive program guide, according to THR.
“TW Cable was one of the most visible pay TV providers at CES 2012 this month, which drew a positive review from Wells Fargo analyst Marci Ryvicker.” In the related article, THR notes that TV Everywhere is gaining momentum.
The app is currently available for download in the App Store at no additional cost for Time Warner Cable customers with a broadband connection.
CNET offers its take on the highlights of last week’s Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas.
In addition to the anticipated array of ultrabooks and connected CE devices, the show introduced a pair of 55-inch OLED TVs from LG and Samsung: “Don’t expect either of these TVs to be cheap when they hit the market. But make no mistake, OLED is in your future.”
There was real diversity in the crowded tablet market, with standouts including the Asus Memo 370T and the Toshiba Excite X10.
“Google TV got more interesting with a few new devices and the announcement that the OnLive gaming service will work with it,” reports CNET. “But overall there wasn’t as much innovation in the home video space as enthusiasts may have liked to have seen.”
There were 3D printers such as the Makerbot Replicator and 3D Systems’ Cube; a surprisingly small number of new laptops; compelling ultrabooks led by the Dell XPS 13 and HP Envy 14 Spectre; three exceptional point-and-shoot cameras with the Fujifilm X-Pro1, the Nikon D4, and the Canon PowerShot G1 X; and a surprise showing by Gorilla Glass 2, now stronger and allows screens to be 20 percent thinner.
Software and apps took on a new presence this year: “BlueStacks for Windows 8, our Best of CES Award winner in the Software and Apps category, brings you the entire Android app catalog in Windows 8. Several new apps are helping those who want to drop cable TV do so with ease. Aurasma is a cool app that brings augmented reality to both Android and iOS devices.”
“Some of the most notable things about this year’s show were the products we didn’t see,” explains the wrap-up. “Phones bearing Ice Cream Sandwich, the latest version of the Android operating system, were expected to dominate CES this year but were largely missing in action. Instead, 4G LTE, Windows Phone, and AT&T were the real stars of the mobile show. Highlights included the Nokia Lumia 900, the HTC Titan II, the Motorola Droid 4, the Droid Razr Maxx, and the Samsung Galaxy Nexus.”
CNET announced the winners of this year’s “CNET Best of CES Awards” as voted on by the editors and users of cnet.com.
Best of Show for 2012 was awarded to LG’s 55EM9600 OLED TV: “The first 55-inch OLED TV announced as shipping in 2012, and the only one to get an actual model number and public ship date (Q3), the 55EM9800 promises the superb all-around performance of OLED (absolute black levels, ultra-fast panel and excellent viewing angles) in an ultra-thin panel.”
This year’s People’s Voice Award went to the Razer Project Fiona concept gaming tablet, which according to CNET: “suggests that Windows 8 is a serious player in portable gaming, and that Razer is serious about moving into manufacturing computers.”
Other notable winners include:
The Windows Phone-based Nokia Lumia 900 with 4.3-inch AMOLED screen and dual cameras (Smartphones category).
Fujifilm’s mirrorless X-Pro1 featuring a new sensor and hybrid viewfinder (Cameras category).
The $250 Asus Memo 370T quad-core, Android 4.0 tablet with 1280×800 IPS screen (Tablets category).
HP’s Envy 14 Spectre premium ultrabook, “the most glass-covered laptop we’ve ever seen” (Personal Computers category).
The Simple.TV DVR available on iPad, Roku, Boxee and Google TV (Home Theater category). “Think of it like your own personal cloud for your over-the-air TV.”
You can check out the complete list of winners and a video of the awards presentation here.
A group of MIT scientists is using a 3D camera and “time of flight” detection to develop a simpler, affordable gesture recognition technology for cell phones.
“3D acquisition has become a really hot topic,” says Vivek Goyal, associate professor of Electrical Engineering at MIT’s Research Lab of Electronics. “In consumer electronics, people are very interested in 3D for immersive communication, but then they’re also interested in 3D for human-computer interaction.”
Goyal says the camera “provides more-accurate depth information than the Kinect, has a greater range and works under all lighting conditions — but is so small, cheap and power-efficient that it could be incorporated into a cell phone at very little extra cost.”
“MIT’s camera uses what is referred to as ‘time of flight’ of light particles to determine the depth of field: An infrared laser is emitted and a camera measures the time it takes the light to return from objects at different distances,” reports Tom’s Hardware. “However, instead of employing multiple sensors, the MIT system has only one detector — a one-pixel camera.”
Qualcomm has provided a $100,000 research grant for the project.
For those interested, check out the 10-minute video.
