Sports bars have become venues for live Internet videogame matches between professional gamers.
The events attract a large numbers of gaming fans that have already been watching alone at home, but are attracted to the energy and screams of other fans. One tournament in July attracted some 85,000 online viewers via Twitch.tv.
“This summer, ‘Starcraft II’ has become the newest barroom spectator sport,” according to The Wall Street Journal. “Fans organize so-called Barcraft events, taking over pubs and bistros from Honolulu to Florida and switching big-screen TV sets to Internet broadcasts of professional game matches happening often thousands of miles away.”
The “Starcraft” franchise is very popular in Korea, where two cable stations provide dedicated coverage of “Starcraft II” (in addition to “Halo,” “Counter-Strike” and “Call of Duty”). Fervor for public viewings is spilling into the U.S. for the first time.
“This feels like the World Cup,” said one Barcraft attendee recently in San Francisco. “You experience the energy and screams of everyone around you when a player makes an amazing play.”
Ford and Toyota announced this week they will work together on the development of standards for Internet connectivity in their vehicles.
The collaboration will address Bluetooth and Wi-Fi use, in addition to back-end networking infrastructure for in-vehicle data services.
“Standards will be crucial to enable car companies to work with third party developers, device makers, cell phone companies and Internet companies to create applications that are actually compelling to drivers,” reports GigaOM. “Drivers will want to move their data, digital entertainment and Internet services from their homes and cell phones to their cars, and this will rely on a standardized format.”
Ford is developing related technology beyond digital entertainment and basic Internet services, with the goal of enabling vehicles to wirelessly communicate in an effort to reduce crashes and fuel consumption.
The number of vehicles worldwide with Internet radio service is projected to grow from 168,000 in 2010 to 24 million in 2018, according to IHS iSuppli.
U.S. sales alone are expected to move from 149,000 to 10.9 million during the same period.
“The next several years will see an explosion in the use of in-vehicle apps in cars, driven by booming shipments of automobiles employing head units designed to integrate Cloud-based content,” says IHS. “These apps, whether built into cars or provided via connected mobile devices like smartphones, will provide a range of infotainment, entertainment, remote diagnostics and navigation services. Internet radio is expected to lead the in-vehicle app revolution.”
The study concludes that the following are currently driving demand: Pandora, iHeartRadio, Slacker and Spotify (and in the Cloud: Apple’s iCloud, Google Music and Amazon’s Cloud Drive).
LG announced its A530 3D notebook with 15.6-inch stereoscopic display and built-in 3D webcam this week.
The A530 features native YouTube support and 3D Space Software, a built-in editing suite for 3D content.
The notebook’s options include Intel Core i3, i5 and i7 processors with up to 8GB of RAM and a choice of two graphics cards: an Nvidia GeForce GT 555m with either 1 or 2GB of built-in memory.
“The screen also has what the company calls Film Patterned Retarder technology, which it claims produces brighter and flicker-free images compared to screens that use shutter-style glasses,” reports Digital Trends.
No price announcement yet, but the device is expected to ship to Europe later this month.
Google’s third-generation Nexus Prime smartphone will reportedly arrive in October running the Android 4.0 “Ice Cream Sandwich” OS (in time to compete with Apple’s rumored iPhone 5 release).
The device is expected to feature a 720p Super AMOLED HD display, a 4G LTE radio and front/rear-facing cameras, powered by a 1.5GHz processor.
The display will reportedly include a 4.5-inch panel with a PenTile layout.
According to Digital Trends: “Ice Cream Sandwich (ICS) is said to be not just a simple update from the current version of Android. Instead, ICS is intended to be a multi-device OS, which created a unified user experience across Android tablets, phones and Google TV. This could help solve some of the fragmentation problems that Google has with Android, and is one of the primary weak points in its battle with Apple’s seamless iOS.”
Based on Q2 statistics, Android has extended its dominance as the most popular smartphone operating system in the U.S., while Apple’s iOS also continues to gain traction.
According to NPD, 52 percent of smartphones shipped in the U.S. during the second quarter were running Android (up 19 percent from the previous year). Apple’s iOS earned a 29 percent share, up seven percent from Q2 2010.
NPD reports that these figures may have an impact on the potential revitalization of Motorola. “Google’s acquisition of Motorola shifts the balance of power in the handset-patent conflict between Google and its operating system competitors,” said Ross Rubin, executive director of industry analysis for NPD. “Android’s momentum has made for a large pie that is attractive to Motorola’s Android rivals, even if they must compete with their operating system developer.”
Market gains for Android and iOS have negatively impacted the competition. Market share for Research In Motion’s BlackBerry OS dropped significantly from 28 percent in the second quarter of 2010 to 11 percent this year. Microsoft’s Windows Mobile also suffered, falling from 10 percent in Q2 2010 to four percent in Q2 2011.
Prepaid smartphone numbers are on the rise, which may also impact Motorola (8 percent of prepaid phones were smartphones in Q2 2010, a figure that jumped to 22 percent this year). “Android is also leading the charge in the rapidly growing prepaid smartphone market,” Rubin said. “This was once a key segment for Motorola that the company has an opportunity to reclaim as prepaid carriers build their smartphone portfolios.”
LG Electronics launched the next leg of its Cinema 3D “Take The 3D TV Challenge” campaign last week at New York’s Grand Central Station.
New York City marked the first stop on a new tour (that will also include Chicago and Los Angeles) designed to educate consumers regarding the benefits of 3D LCD TVs and passive glasses.
The campaign began earlier this year in Houston “where consumers allegedly overwhelmingly selected LG’s passive 3D glasses-based TVs when matched against similarly sized active-shutter 3D TVs from Samsung and Sony,” reports TWICE.
“I think the most important thing we’re doing here is keeping the visibility up on 3D and step-up products in our industry,” said Jay Vandenbree, LG Electronics home entertainment sales and marketing senior VP. “Everything we’ve done has been to get consumers to talk about it, think about it, and to go find out about it. If we can get them to do that and see what their options are in the television business, they might make that choice to spend their discretionary income in our industry.”
Miramax is following in the footsteps of Warner Bros., Paramount and Universal by making its films available on Facebook.
The Miramax eXperience will initially offer 20 titles in the U.S. and 10 each in Great Britain and Turkey (available films include “Good Will Hunting,” “Spy Kids,” “Chicago” and “Cold Mountain”).
Movies will be made available for 30 Facebook credits (equivalent to $3) and can be viewed on Facebook, the iPad and Google TV.
Miramax hopes to build its reach to 150 million+ Facebook friends in the next 18 months.
“The iTunes-like nature of Miramax’s Facebook movie rentals (i.e. per-movie charge, rather than a subscription fee) could prove very effective,” reports Social Times. “A lot of online movie watchers aren’t ready to commit to a subscription service like Netflix or Hulu Plus. Renting a single movie from Facebook may be more their style, and a $3 movie rental sounds like a pretty good deal, if you ask me.”
Skype, which is in the process of being acquired by Microsoft, is purchasing GroupMe, a year-old startup with 20 employees known for its popular cross-platform messaging system that works between smartphones.
Skype will reportedly pay $85 million for the company, which GigaOM suggests raises the question: “Why is Skype spending so much money on a relatively small company with a relatively small user base when compared to Skype?”
While Skype is a partner with Facebook, it has to be concerned that competition in voice and video communication is becoming intense with Facebook Messenger, Google Huddle and Apple iMessage. (GroupMe adds group messaging.)
Skype will still need to decide if it is a product for consumers or a collaboration tool for corporations.
ETCentric staffer Dennis Kuba raises another interesting question: “Is voice and video communications becoming commoditized?”
ReadWriteWeb journalist Dan Rowinski posted an interesting op-ed piece this week: “HP’s $99 TouchPad Fire Sale Can Teach Everybody A Lesson.”
“Tablets priced at $99 flying off the shelves and what had been a significant headline on Tuesday (Best Buy has 250,000 unsold TouchPads) had completely turned around on Sunday (Good Luck Finding a $99 TouchPad),” writes Rowinski. “It got me to thinking. As much as consumers love their Apple products and the iPad is a terrific device, consumers want something that is price efficient, even if it is a touch flawed. With literally hundreds of thousands of TouchPads sold over the weekend, a significant note should be playing in retailers’ and manufacturers’ heads — opportunities await for those willing to make a sacrifice.”
Rowinski speculates that an iPad killer is not in our immediate future. He also suggests that major changes are in the making with the browser-based mobile apps enabled by HTML5. He discusses tablets by Motorola, Samsung, HTC and Research In Motion and how price point may become as significant a factor as available apps. He addresses how Amazon learned valuable lessons with its Kindle and could possibly “recreate the Kindle furor by introducing a tablet into the market at $200 or less.”
“The great equalizer will be price,” writes Rowinski. “Amazon and to a certain extent Microsoft with Windows 8 have actually benefited from waiting to enter the tablet wars. They now see the battlefield in front of them and what it will take to make an impact. Quality devices with reasonable prices. Then turn and make money through value-added services.”
The Wall Street Journal reports that “Apple is advising software developers to stop using a feature in software for its iPhones and iPads that has been linked to privacy concerns, a move that would also take away a widely used tool for tracking users and their behavior.”
Developers have been using a unique identifier for each device (known as UDID or Unique Device Identifier) to gather personal data about users, but the company has requested that developers not use the UDID with a new version of the operating system expected in coming weeks.
“The company set no specific deadline for the change,” reports WSJ. “But it stated on a website for developers that the feature ‘has been superseded and may become unsupported in the future.'”
Although privacy advocates reportedly embrace the change, it could potentially create “widespread repercussions for apps, advertising networks, social game networks, analytics firms and others because it removes a way for them to easily offer their services.”
Developers say that alternative solutions are being discussed privately (due to non-disclosure agreements with Apple).
Walt Disney’s onetime Los Feliz residence — a four-bedroom, five-bath, 6,388-square-foot French Normandy-style house — is currently on the market for $3.65 million, the listing for which provides us with a glimpse of Walt’s 1930s era home theater.
CEPro reports that: “Inside the 12-room chateau-style house, Disney converted a guest room, bath and library into a home theater to watch dailies and enjoy private screenings of his films and other classic movies.”
As ETCentric staffer Bob Lambert points out: “Not digital, but ahead of its time…”
“The projector was a 35mm commercial-grade unit built back in the era,” writes CEPro. “There still is a built-in 4×3 aspect ratio film screen encased in a wood wall at one end of the room. There is a large horizontal center channel in-wall speaker above the screen. In the other end of the home theater, Disney had a small separate projection booth constructed. The projectionist’s room had its own toilet and a small bar. The original sink is still there.”
According to the LA Times, Walt’s daughter Diane Disney Miller remembers watching “Citizen Kane” and “Gone with the Wind” in the room.
For a little taste of history, check out the brief slideshow included in the CEPro post (a gallery of the house and grounds can also be seen here).
HP has decided to end its recently launched TouchPad tablet and will take a $100 million loss on unsold inventory. (Interestingly, tech columnist Andy Ihnatko was getting ready to write a mixed but generally positive review of the TouchPad for the Chicago Sun-Times.)
Additionally, on the heels of the company announcing it would be integrating its webOS with smart appliances and other devices, HP now says there will be no more webOS phones. It did apparently leave the option open to licensing webOS to third parties.
In related news, AllThingsD reports that HP’s recent decision to stop the development of its webOS puts it’s personal computer business in a perilous position, and rumors are spreading as to what the company’s next step will be.
The most likely option involves a spin-off PC business as a separate company, much like Motorola did at the beginning of the year.
If HP decides to sell instead, it is likely that an Asian company will step forward to make the purchase — and the front-runner seems to be Samsung. The predicted price if a sale were to occur is placed at around $20 billion.
Tech companies are spending from $400K -$750K per patent. This is money companies are not spending on innovation or jobs.
Writing for InfoWorld, Bill Snyder makes the analogy to problems with the high costs of healthcare due to money spent defending against medical malpractice. He points out that while the “patent arms race goes nuclear,” not only will new tech jobs not be created, but existing jobs will be lost.
“Think what Google could do with $6 billion, writes Snyder. “Think of the research that would spawn new products, advance innovation, and create who knows how many thousands of good jobs up and down the technology food chain. Instead, that money is going to buy patents.”
Snyder indicates more patent buyouts are on the way. “Everyone knows what an arms race is. One side builds a new weapon, and the other side has to match it. Then the first side builds an even more powerful weapon, prompting the other guy to build more and so on. Remember how well that worked out for the Soviet Union?”
“In an upbeat and highly insightful essay on technology and innovation, pioneer Marc Andreessen outlines the ‘dramatic and broad technological shift in which software companies are poised to take over large swathes of the economy…'” comments ETCentric staffer Bob Lambert with this submission.
Andreessen notes HP’s announcement that it is “exploring jettisoning its struggling PC business in favor of investing more heavily in software” and Google’s plans to “buy up the cellphone handset maker Motorola Mobility” as recent surprises in the tech world, yet also examples of what makes the pioneer “optimistic about the future growth of the American and world economies.”
Andreessen suggests that Apple and Google are undervalued and we should avoid using the term “bubble” when analyzing the value of technologies. He writes: “…too much of the debate is still around financial valuation, as opposed to the underlying intrinsic value of the best of Silicon Valley’s new companies.”
“Over the next 10 years, I expect many more industries to be disrupted by software, with new world-beating Silicon Valley companies doing the disruption in more cases than not,” Andreessen adds.
Andreessen’s essay offers a compelling take on the direction of the tech industry, its place in world economies and some of the challenges that lie ahead. He notes interesting examples including Amazon, Netflix, Pixar, Pandora, Skype and others.
“Instead of constantly questioning their valuations, let’s seek to understand how the new generation of technology companies are doing what they do, what the broader consequences are for businesses and the economy and what we can collectively do to expand the number of innovative new software companies created in the U.S. and around the world,” he concludes. “That’s the big opportunity. I know where I’m putting my money.”
