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Larry Page Talks Future of Search and Company Projects

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December 13, 2012
  • Google CEO Larry Page, who rarely agrees to interviews, sat down with Fortune to discuss the future of search, clashes with Apple, the company’s numerous Google X projects, and more.
  • Page acknowledges the change in advertising models, but views disruption as a good thing. Google still devotes 70 percent of its effort into search and ads.
  • “The perfect search engine would really understand whatever your need is,” he says. “So one of my favorite examples I like to give is if you’re vacation planning. It would be really nice to have a system that could basically vacation plan for you. It would know your preferences, it would know the weather, it would know the prices of airline tickets, the hotel prices, understand logistics, combine all those things into one experience. And that’s kind of how we think about search.”
  • On Google’s competition with Apple, Amazon and others: “I’d like to see more cooperation on the user side. The Internet was made in universities and it was designed to interoperate. And as we’ve commercialized it, we’ve added more of an island-like approach to it, which I think is a somewhat a shame for users,” Page says.
  • “I think it would be nice if everybody would get along better and the users didn’t suffer as a result of other people’s activities. I try to model that. We try pretty hard to make our products be available as widely as we can. That’s our philosophy,” he notes.
  • The remaining effort at Google is split between apps (20 percent) and new projects (10). “I think investors always worry about this. You know, ‘Oh my God, they’re going to spend all their money on self-driving cars.’ I feel like no matter how hard I try, I can never make the 10 bigger, because it’s actually hard to get people to work on stuff that’s really ambitious. It’s easier to get people working on incremental things.”

Streaming: Is Netflix Popularity with Kids a Double-Edged Sword?

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December 13, 2012
  • In August 2011, Netflix launched its “Just for Kids” page, which features commercial-free age-appropriate content organized by “superheroes” and “princesses.” Recently, the streaming service signed a content deal with Disney for an estimated $300 million a year.
  • “But Netflix’s popularity with children could be a double-edged sword,” the Wall Street Journal suggests. “Analysts say the streaming service could be undermining the very companies that supply it with most of its children’s television content, namely Disney and Viacom.”
  • Sanford C. Bernstein analyzed TiVo data, finding that kids’ cable ratings were up 8.5 percent in the first quarter among viewers who didn’t stream content compared to the relatively small 0.4 percent uptick among those who did. “Disney ratings grew 11 percent for nonstreaming users and 6 percent for streaming users, while Viacom ratings grew 6 percent for nonstreaming users and only 2 percent for streaming users,” WSJ reports.
  • “Bernstein says those trends have persisted through the year. And looking at an individual network tells the same story. From the end of 2011 through August 2012, ratings at Nickelodeon were up 11 percent among nonstreamers, compared with only 3 percent among streamers,” the article continues.
  • Unlike Nickelodeon, Disney Junior and Disney XD ratings are rising. “But both channels are relatively new and are coming off a small base. And even there, Netflix appears to be having an effect,” the article states.
  • “For Netflix, the risk is that Disney and Viacom demand significantly more for children’s content to make selling it worthwhile. In extremis, they could even decide to stop selling it to the streaming company.”

FTC Mobile Apps for Kids Report Finds Little Progress in Privacy

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December 13, 2012
  • The Federal Trade Commission’s staff report, “Mobile Apps for Kids: Disclosures Still Not Making the Grade,” analyzes mobile applications aimed at children, and finds that little progress has been made since last year in terms of warning, or even informing, parents about the data collection in applications.
  • The report notes that the applications have interactive features and social media sharing that can send information on the children to advertising companies or analytics companies without seeking parental consent. Some applications do not even disclose the actions to parents, according to the report.
  • “While we think most companies have the best intentions when it comes to protecting kids’ privacy, we haven’t seen any progress when it comes to making sure parents have the information they need to make informed choices about apps for their kids,” said FTC Chairman Jon Leibowitz. “In fact, our study shows that kids’ apps siphon an alarming amount of information from mobile devices without disclosing this fact to parents.”
  • “All of the companies in the mobile app space, especially the gatekeepers of the app stores, need to do a better job,” he added. “We’ll do another survey in the future and we will expect to see improvement.”
  • The report, which examined disclosures within the app, disclosures on the promotion page in the app store, and at the app developer’s website, found “most apps failed to provide any information about the data collected through the app, let alone the type of data collected, the purpose of the collection, and who would obtain access to the data.”
  • “Even more troubling, the results showed that many of the apps shared certain information with third parties — such as device ID, geolocation, or phone number — without disclosing that fact to parents,” according to the report.

After Years of Offshore Production, U.S. Generates Insourcing Boom

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December 13, 2012

General Electric’s Appliance Park, a place where manufacturing jobs once boomed in America in the from the 1950’s to the 70’s, saw most of its business shipped overseas in the 2000’s. It wasn’t just there. Throughout the country, factory jobs were lost seven times faster between 2000 and 2010 than between 1980 and 2000. Continue reading After Years of Offshore Production, U.S. Generates Insourcing Boom

The State of Worldwide Intellectual Property: Innovation on the Rise

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December 13, 2012
  • Innovation is on the rise all across the globe, according to the World Intellectual Property Organization.
  • The IP division of the United Nations released a report full of statistics that show IP trends around the world. It found, among other things, that China’s patent office has surpassed the U.S. as the largest, and 2011 set the record for the highest number of patent applications filed worldwide.
  • “Sustained growth in IP filings indicates that companies continue to innovate despite weak economic conditions,” WIPO Director General Francis Gurry stated at a press conference. “This is good news, as it lays the foundation for the world economy to generate growth and prosperity in the future.”
  • The Atlantic highlights numerous interesting findings including:
  • The total number of patent applications filed worldwide in 2011 was 2.14 million, while the estimated number of patents granted reached nearly 1 million. The increase in the total number of patent filings worldwide between 2009 and 2011 was 293,900.
  • China’s patent office received 526,412 applications in 2011, marking a 34.6 percent growth in patent filings.
  • The total number of applications received by the U.S. patent office in 2011 was 503,582 (with 224,505 patents granted). This represents a 9.7 percent growth for the U.S.

Auto Manufacturers Consider Computer for Your Car Windshield

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December 12, 2012
  • General Motors, Daimler AG and other automakers are working on specially designed windshields that they hope will one day provide drivers with important information about their surroundings while on the road — and make driving safer.
  • “Using a technology known as augmented reality, which overlays real world images with digital ones, these windshields could display driving directions, text messages or impending hazards, all without requiring drivers to take their eyes off the road,” explains the Wall Street Journal.
  • “The goal is to reduce head-down time and maybe make driving a more interactive experience,” says Tom Seder, GM’s chief technologist for human machine interface.
  • The technology would fuse together sensors working outside the vehicle with ones working inside, tracking the driver’s eyes.
  • This could improve safety, writes WSJ, “…for instance, an augmented reality windshield could sense that a driver hasn’t seen a car merging into his or her lane or a sudden traffic slowdown ahead. The windshield might light up red or highlight the potential hazard to cause the driver to hit the brakes.”
  • But these windshields are likely at least five years away from actually appearing in vehicles and pricing remains unknown.

Nintendo Network ID: Pros and Cons of Wii U Restrictive DRM

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December 12, 2012
  • “The new Nintendo Network ID system that debuted on the Wii U is a sign of progress for a company that has, historically, not shown a lot of savvy in setting up its online systems,” according to Ars Technica.
  • With Wii U, users can connect up to 12 separate Nintendo Network IDs to a single system.
  • “The new Wii U eShop includes many retail games for download on the same day they reach stores, and does away with the ‘Wii Points’ virtual currency that characterized Nintendo’s previous console,” notes the article. “The company has even promised to roll out a cloud save feature sometime next year.”
  • All of this would allow users to access their own games when at a connected friends’ house. However, as the article explains, “it also means a game downloaded to the Wii U in the living room won’t be playable on a second system in the kids’ room, even if the same password-protected Nintendo Network ID was used on both systems.”
  • “It also means that if your system breaks down, you can’t just go buy a new one (or borrow one from a friend) and immediately recover your content using your account. Instead, you have to go through Nintendo’s official repair process, waiting up to two weeks for the system to be returned just to maintain the system-locked license data.”
  • “I understand that Nintendo is worried about piracy, but its not like Microsoft, Sony, Valve, Apple and Google aren’t,” writes Kyle Orland for Ars Technica. “Yet those companies have all found their own ways to balance protection for their online stores with the ability for users to access that content in their own way.”

Twitter Answers Instagram with Image Filters for Android and iOS

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December 12, 2012
  • Twitter has responded to Instagram’s latest social network assault (making Instagram photos incompatible for immediate viewing on Twitter) by releasing its own line of image filters in an update for both Android and iOS.
  • The eight filters — vignette, black & white, warm, cool, vintage, cinematic, happy and gritty — were designed exclusively for Twitter. Users can also use crop, zoom and auto-enhancement tools, writes The Verge.
  • The filters allow users to preview how their images will look using any of the filters in a 3 x 3 grid (including no filter).
  • The development is “thought to be a direct response to Facebook’s purchase of Instagram earlier this year,” and will only heighten the tensions between the social media giants, suggests the post.
  • “To be sure, Instagram has a massive lead, and a very passionate community,” notes CNET in related coverage. “But Twitter has a nine-figure user base, and now that it is offering filters — albeit just eight, while Instagram has 18 free filters — it can begin to chip away at its competitor’s lead.”

Silicon Image UltraGig 6400: WirelessHD for Next-Gen Mobile

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December 12, 2012
  • Silicon Image’s UltraGig 6400 is a new WirelessHD transmitter that may be small enough and strong enough to break the WirelessHD smartphone barrier, writes Engadget.
  • According to the press release, the UltraGig 6400 is “a complete WirelessHD transmitter for mobile devices that integrates a 60GHz RF transceiver, baseband processor, and embedded antenna array into a single IC package.”
  • The device has full gaming and 1080p video capabilities, but is also small enough for both tablets and smartphones.
  • Previously, people who wanted video output from small, battery powered devices like tablets and smartphones would either “be looking at a WiFi-based option like AirPlay, DLNA or Miracast, which can sacrifice bandwidth and latency, or at a wired connection like MHL, which effectively means tethering ourselves to the TV,” notes the post.
  • The transmitter is one-fifth the size of the older WirelessHD Gen3. It also consumes less power than smartphone’s local displays and “has a mere 5ms latency to allow for interactivity, and shouldn’t add more than $10 to the cost of manufacture,” reports Engadget.

Tech Industry Calls on Congress to Allocate More Mobile Spectrum

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December 12, 2012
  • A team of tech companies including Apple, Samsung, and Nokia has submitted a letter to Congress requesting that it allocate more spectrum for mobile data, reports The Verge.
  • The letter argues the spectrum addition “is timely and relevant” to discuss alongside fiscal cliff debates.
  • “Now is the time to ensure the incentive auctions are as robust and successful as possible at liberating spectrum,” reads the letter. “We should also turn our collective attention on ways to reap the economic benefits of underutilized federal spectrum assets.”
  • “Other signatories include Intel, RIM, Qualcomm, Alcatel-Lucent, Cisco, and Ericsson, all of which are members of the High Tech Spectrum Coalition,” notes the post. “The group believes that upcoming spectrum auctions won’t meet the demand for wireless broadband, nor will it be possible to ‘engineer our way out of this problem’ with more efficient technology.”
  • The letter asks Congress to urge spectrum holders to “become more efficient, to share with one another, to vacate, or to lease their spectrum.”
  • An earlier report this year also recommended the government consider sharing spectrum with commercial partners, since it’s “increasingly difficult to find desirable spectrum that can be vacated by federal users.”

Strategic News: Mark Anderson Delivers 10 Predictions for 2013

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December 12, 2012

Forbes provides an overview of the latest computing and telecommunications predictions for 2013 from tech guru Mark Anderson, as published in his Strategic News Service newsletter.

1) Tablets or “CarryAlongs” will become the dominant segment of computing devices.

2) Intel will fade into obscurity as Qualcomm and ARM take over computing, dominating the production of mobile chips.

3) Most U.S. homes will have Internet-enabled TVs, and other developed nations will follow suit as bandwidth improves.

4) The LTE vs. fiber battle will determine carriers’ business model for the years to come. “Customers choosing broadband LTE in DSL-served regions will be paying more and getting more; but those choosing LTE in fiber-served regions will be paying more for wireless broadband but getting less.”

5) Google will become the next Apple. “Google’s efforts in email, video, smartphones, maps, and driverless cars open up new long-term expansion paths, with more to follow.”

6) The driverless car will work toward ubiquity as countries pass laws to allow it and major brands work on developing new features.

7) e-Books will substantially outpace paperback sales in 2013 and will eventually dominate the market.

8) “Enterprise IT struggles to achieve very modest gains, with executive purchase decisions captured between large cash holdings, increased Asian competition, and their own poorly performing customers.”

9) “‘Hacktivist’ efforts acquire an important and permanent role in political transparency.”

10) Supply chain security will determine global technology purchases. “Recognition that today’s supply chains are virtually all compromised will lead to plant relocations and a new set of business opportunities for onshore component makers.”

High Frame Rate 3D Version of The Hobbit is Insanely Gorgeous

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December 12, 2012
  • Peter Jackson’s “The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey,” shot in 48-frames-per-second HD, “looks nothing like you’ve ever seen before,” writes Wired. “In the 48-frames-per-second version… Middle-earth in 3D looks so crisp it’s like stepping into the foreground of an insanely gorgeous diorama.”
  • The movie will also be released December 14 in standard 24-frames-per-second, but the HFR 3D version allows for more precise images and smoother 3D action because it doubles the “visual data” and decreases blur during quick camera motions.
  • While the 48-frames-per-second approach is great for action sequences, Wired questions its effectiveness during naturalistic scenes. “The flicker, depth of field and imperfect ‘grain’ that lends character to 35-millimeter film historically fostered a collective dreamlike state for audiences who gathered in the dark to lose themselves in images that were never intended to exactly replicate the ‘real’ world.”
  • “In delivering the kind of high-def detail by which every wrinkle gets full attention, fast frame takes getting used to,” suggests the article. “At times, scenes unfold as if part of an extravagantly well-lit, art-directed reality-based series or soap opera.”
  • The 48-frames-per-second method combined with 3D almost makes the film seem something beyond real, suggests Wired, and definitely takes some adjustment for people used to watching standard film.

CES 2013: Launch.it to Power Startup News from Eureka Park

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December 12, 2012

New York-based startup Launch.it has partnered with the Consumer Electronics Association to create a news platform for exhibitors at the Eureka Park TechZone, the startup innovation section of CES located in The Venetian. “Launch.it will provide a central spot for startups to publish their news and contact information at CES, as well as provide detailed analytics about visitors,” reports VentureBeat.

“Our big vision is a free self-publishing platform to unlock the news,” says Trace Cohen, president and co-founder of Launch.it. “We want to be the biggest searchable database [of news]… almost to disintermediate Google.”

“For its customers, Launch.it offers a bunch of useful features, including: a Wiki-like environment to allow customers to easily update their news, Facebook comments, the ability to buy and test out services, and the ability to let media and investors ‘follow’ companies for instant news updates,” notes the post.

The father and son company powers news sites for 300-400 companies and has partnered with Ultralight Startups and ShowStoppers, which manages product showcase events.

The ETCentric team will be reporting live from CES in January with plans to cover Eureka Park and any relevant news items coming from Launch.it and the CEA.

CES 2013: Will We See Any Notable Audio Tech This Year?

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December 12, 2012

Besides an interesting push for wireless in 2011 with AirPlay adoption and a few compelling Bluetooth-equipped devices, Engadget suggests the Consumer Electronics Show hasn’t seen too much exciting in the audio realm over the last few years. In its preview of CES 2013, the tech blog doesn’t expect anything “exceptionally innovative on a widespread scale,” but notes a few items worth watching.

“You can count on a bigger assortment of wireless solutions, and likely the first big showing of the end of days for the speaker dock — excluding anything that Apple’s Lightning connector might make its way onto,” reports Engadget. “Still, the idea of the dock can live on with additions like Qi inductive charging, as we’ve seen from the likes of JBL and TDK already.”

More celebrity-endorsed headphones are expected, and major companies like Sennheiser will join the fray with headphones “in the $100 to $400 range with street-focused looks and audiophile DNA.”

The Las Vegas Convention Center will include space featuring HiFi audio, “with many boutique brands showing off their latest and best — usually with price tags to make your wallet cringe.”

“What has us really excited, though? We’re hearing talk that transparent speaker technology is poised to make a comeback,” notes the post. “Imagine the shell of your tablet, smartphone or laptop also serving as an essentially invisible speaker. Aside from the prospect of even svelter devices, the tech has the potential to sound miles better than the tinny-sounding speaker drivers most of our gadgets currently use.”

Check back with us in January, when the ETCentric reporting team promises to post any surprises we run across in new audio tech.

CES 2013: CEA Chief Discusses Top Trends Expected in January

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December 12, 2012

Last year’s Consumer Electronics Show broke attendance records, with more than 156,000 people descending upon Las Vegas. This January, the 2013 show is expected to match last year’s attendance and set a new record in terms of show floor space, with more than 1.85 million square feet of booths and exhibits.

“Every day brings more good news. We are bigger than last year, in terms of our footprint. That’s how we measure the size of the show in the trade-show world,” explains Consumer Electronics Association chief exec Gary Shapiro, who anticipates more than 3,300 exhibitors. “The thing I’m really excited about is the startup area,” notes Shapiro. “We did a deal last year for Eureka Park and we thought we’d have 30 companies. We had 100, and this year we have 140.”

Shapiro expects CES to be packed despite Microsoft’s absence. The company has traditionally given the opening keynote to kick off the show, but will be replaced this year by Paul Jacobs, CEO of mobile chip maker Qualcomm.

“That change is symbolic, as Microsoft represented the PC industry, while Qualcomm generates billions on the strength of smartphone and tablet chip sales,” reports VentureBeat.

Anticipated trends include touchscreen, gesture and sensor tech; wireless wallets; Ultra HD 4K TVs; 3D printing and cloud-based services. This year’s show will also feature an increased presence in terms of digital health, green technology and the automotive industry (including connected cars and electric vehicles).

“Another big draw will be anything connected to Apple,” explains VentureBeat. “Apple employees are coming, but Apple traditionally doesn’t exhibit or speak at CES. But the iLounge section devoted to Apple-related products built by other companies is now going to have 440 companies across 120,000 square feet.”

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