“Google is opening a virtual window into the secretive data centers where an intricate maze of computers process Internet search requests, show YouTube video clips, and distribute email for millions of people,” according to CNBC.
The site features photos from eight Google data centers in the U.S., Finland, and Belgium. The company is using its “Street View” technology to offer a virtual tour of one North Carolina data center.
Google’s original data centers were intended to index all the pages on the Internet and provide accurate, quick search results. But as Google has evolved into a business giant beyond search, the data centers have grown to accommodate “videos, photos, email and information about their users’ preferences,” writes CNBC.
“Google studies Internet search requests and Web surfing habits in an effort to gain a better understanding of what people like,” notes the article. “The company does this in an effort to show ads of products and services to the people most likely to be interested in buying them. Advertising accounts for virtually all of Google’s revenue, which totaled nearly $23 billion through the first half of this year.”
While Google is providing a view into its data centers, it continues to remain vague on how many computers it owns, and also will refuse physical access to the centers.
The company is building additional data centers in Hong Kong, Taiwan, Singapore and Chile.
BuzzFeed posted nine celebrity photos taken by Mavrix Photo without properly compensating the photo company. Now Mavrix is seeking $1.3 million from the viral news site for copyright infringement, representing a popular trend in online media.
“Mavrix appears to be in the business of copyright trolling — scouring the Internet for unauthorized use of its images and threatening anyone who uses them with million dollar lawsuits,” reports GigaOM. “This practice has recently degenerated into lawyers recruiting other lawyers to hunt down a hit list of alleged infringers with a promise to share the bounty.”
“Instead of a simple request to take the image down (which most people would comply with), we get a legal train wreck,” adds the article.
Currently, copyright owners are entitled to seek damages of up to $150,000 for each infringement, a “nuclear option” to deter infringers, the article comments. But the popularity of trolling raises the question of whether copyright law is still functional.
“In an age when images are everywhere… the $150,000 nuclear option seems impractical and unfair except in the most egregious cases,” suggests GigaOM. “A better option would be for Congress to consider crafting some type of small claims court for copyright with graduated penalties for repeat offenders.”
Bravo plans to start using on-screen, real-time polls and graphics for all of its programming, reports AllThingsD. The graphics will first appear next month during the premiere of the new season of “Watch What Happens Live.”
Viewers will use Web browsers to participate in polls and contests, and the results will change on-screen in real-time.
Bravo reportedly spent a year on the new tech, which is built on interactive TV software from MegaPhone Labs.
While other programs have experimented with other types of “live” voting, these systems usually have used text messages, and results still had to be tallied.
Lisa Hsia, who heads up digital media for Bravo, explains that the Comcast cable channel will not overload users with graphics, and will only employ two or three the first time a show airs. She says that Bravo will use more graphics during repeat episodes in an effort to create “interactive episodes.”
Bravo’s largest challenge will be to figure out how to deploy the graphics without being distracting or annoying. “It’s our job to do it in a fashion that makes the fan enjoy it,” suggests Hsia.
Younger generations are growing up in a tablet and mobile world, and have little use for the computer mouse, first introduced at the Stanford Research Institute by Douglas Engelbart and Bill English in 1963.
“This fall, for the first time, sales of iPads are cannibalizing sales of PCs in schools, according to Charles Wolf, an analyst for the investment research firm Needham & Co.,” writes The Washington Post.
Whereas the mouse was once the “primary bridge to the virtual world,” it’s now becoming unnecessary as touchscreens, mobile devices and voice recognition software dominate the market.
“Kindergartners, as young as 4, use the iPod Touch to learn letter sounds,” explains the article. “The older students use iPads to research historical information and prepare multimedia slide-show presentations about school rules.”
“Even toddlers are able to manipulate a touch screen. A popular YouTube video shows a baby trying to swipe the pages of a fashion magazine that she assumes is a broken iPad.”
“The popularity of iPads and other tablets is changing how society interacts with information,” notes Aniket Kittur, an assistant professor at the Human-Computer Interaction Institute at Carnegie Mellon University. “Direct manipulation with our fingers, rather than mediated through a keyboard/mouse, is intuitive and easy for children to grasp.”
Could we be witnessing the final countdown for the computer mouse?
Microsoft hopes its Kinect for Windows program will help revolutionize the way people interact with their computers. The goal of the program is to bring the hands-free gestures Kinect made popular on the Xbox 360 to all Windows devices.
This will not only change the way people interact with their devices, but will create new possibilities for interaction, such as hands free gestures for surgeons who cannot touch keyboards.
“We initially used keyboards, then the mouse and GUIs were a big innovation, now touch is a big part of people’s lives. The progression will now be to voice and gesture,” explains Peter Zatloukal, head of engineering for the Kinect for Windows program.
Kinect for Windows equipment sells for $249 and is available in 32 countries. Before Microsoft can reach the number of people it envisions, developers must create applications for the system.
While Microsoft is currently targeting only software developers, Technology Review suggests the company could bring the system directly to consumers if developers make enough software progress.
Another option would be to “encourage computer manufacturers to bundle it with desktops, laptops, or monitors in place of a regular webcam,” notes the article.
Apple and VMware are partnering to create an iPad cloud-hosted office system to directly challenge Microsoft Office. This news comes just as Microsoft nears the release of its new Office for iPad and iPhones.
“The iPad app combines VMware View virtual-desktop software with cloud-hosted versions of Pages, Keynote and Numbers — known as the iWork suite — running on Apple infrastructure,” reports CRN. “VMware’s Horizon Application Manager, a management tool that has been likened to an enterprise app store, is also included.”
“Apple wants Pages to be seen as a replacement for Microsoft Word, Numbers as a replacement for Excel and Keynote as a replacement for PowerPoint,” a source told CRN. The article does not indicate what the program will cost or when it will be released.
The high price of the Microsoft Office suite allows for other competitors to enter the space, suggests CRN.
The new version of Office has been redesigned to accommodate touchscreens. This is important, as Microsoft’s Surface tablet is set to directly challenge Apple’s dominance in the tablet and smartphone markets.
Microsoft’s emergence as a direct competitor to Apple may have convinced Apple to begin challenging Microsoft in its traditional spaces.
Apple announced a new 13-inch MacBook Pro with Retina display yesterday, expanding its high-end family of notebooks.
“At a time when PC sales are plateauing and profit margins for many manufacturers are shrinking in a race to build cheaper netbooks (such as Samsung’s $250, Web-only Chromebook), Apple is asserting its leadership position to build the state of the art in notebooks,” comments Apple Insider.
The new Retina display touts more than four million pixels. The company says the 13-inch MacBook Pro is the “second highest resolution notebook ever,” behind its 15-inch cousin.
“The 13-inch MacBook Pro with Retina display has nearly 2 million more pixels than an HDTV,” notes the article. “The 15-inch model has over 3 million more.” The Retina display is now available in the two MacBook Pro models and the iPad.
More pixels to push means additional graphics processing, rewritten software, and changes to the operating system and third party apps. This translates to more cost.
“The result is an expensive system,” writes Apple Insider. “The cheapest 13-inch model starts at $1,699, compared to basic PC notebooks selling for $600 to $800, and 13-inch netbooks selling for as little as $250.”
Apple’s new 13-inch MacBook Pro has opted for solid state flash storage to increase booting and file copying speeds. Also featured: 2.5 GHz Intel Core i5 processors, 8GB of 1600 MHz memory, dual Thunderbolt ports, HDMI video out and an NVIDIA GeForce GT 650M graphics processor.
According to the press release, the new 13-inch MacBook Pro is currently available through the Apple Online Store and its retail locations.
As anticipated, Apple unveiled a smaller version of its popular iPad at a product launch event in San Jose yesterday. The new iPad mini starts at $329 and features a screen about a third smaller than the original iPad.
“But Apple’s smaller tablet is priced well above Amazon.com Inc.’s Kindle Fire HD and Google Inc.’s Nexus 7 — two tablets which are similar in size and some specs,” reports the Wall Street Journal. “Those devices cost $199 or $249 depending on the amount of memory.”
The screen of the iPad mini measures 7.9-inches diagonally. The tablet, designed to fit comfortably in one hand, weighs about half as much as the original iPad.
“A dual-core Apple A5 processor powers the iPad mini, and the device sports fast 4G LTE speeds like the most recent iPads,” reports VentureBeat in a related post. “It features the same 1,024 by 768 screen resolution as the iPad 2, but given its smaller screen that resolution will look much sharper on the iPad mini.”
Apple is offering more variety in an effort to maintain dominance in the tablet wars. “Rivals are releasing a flood of tablets and phones powered by Google’s Android operating system and other software,” notes WSJ. And Microsoft is expected to release its Surface tablet running Windows 8 on Friday.
“Others have tried to make tablets smaller than the iPad and they have failed miserably,” says Phil Schiller, Apple’s senior VP for worldwide marketing.
“He gave a side-by-side product comparison between the iPad mini and Google’s Nexus 7, and claimed that the mini offers two-thirds more space to surf the Web when turned on its side,” explains the article. “A Google spokeswoman declined to comment.”
Versions of Apple’s new iPad mini, along with the company’s fourth-generation iPad, will be available the first week of November.
Apple made more product announcements than expected at yesterday’s event at the California Theater in San Jose.
“Between hardware and software, Apple announced at least six new products… seven if you include Apple Fusion Drive, and a whopping 23 new products if you include different models and build configurations,” reports VentureBeat.
The company unveiled new iBooks software, a 13-inch Retina display MacBook Pro (two build configurations), a Mac mini (three configurations), at least two sizes of iMacs, the fourth generation iPad (six main models), Apple Fusion Drive and the much-anticipated iPad mini (six models).
The new $500-$830 full-sized iPad features an A6X processor (which Apple claims will double CPU and graphics power), support for more wireless carriers (including Sprint), faster Wi-Fi and an HD camera on front for video calls.
Apple’s Fusion Drive, available in the latest iMac and Mac mini, is a hybrid hard drive that blends solid state storage with traditional hard drive tech. It will come with a 128GB SD and the option of a 1TB or 3TB HDD.
CEO Tim Cook notes that iOS 6 has hundreds of new features and, in the month since its release, has been downloaded to more than 200 million devices.
Apple by the numbers: The company sold its 100 millionth iPad a few weeks ago, the iPhone 5 has shattered records with 5 million units already sold and App Store customers have downloaded more than 35 billion apps.
“Meanwhile, users of Apple’s Mac and iOS devices have combined to share 125 million documents in the cloud; they’ve also shared more than 60 million photos using the new shared photo streams service,” reports Macworld in a related article. “And iMessage users are now exchanging 28,000 messages per second.”
Government auditors have criticized the FBI for promoting cyber security awareness, but never showing any tangible success in educating Internet users. The FBI is looking to change that with its new cyber security education program for elementary students.
“‘Cyber Surf Island’ is a playable, Web-based game world for school children from grades 3 to 8,” explains Naked Security. “By playing simple games, the children learn about online threats ranging from malware to Internet predators to cyber bullies. Schools can compete against each other for points and winning schools get a visit from a real FBI agent.”
The FBI’s revamped Safe Online Surfing program intends to help teachers educate students regarding topics such as sexting, copyright violations, secure passwords and more. Teachers wanting to participate must create an account with the FBI to receive online IDs for each student.
The program separates content by grade level and includes tests to evaluate what students have learned — a good measurement for auditors.
However, occasionally “substance wins out over style on ‘Cyber Surf Island,’ with games that are heavy on the message but light on the entertainment,” the article notes. Also, a Facebook post about the initiative showed many users having problems like account takeovers.
Music publishers have long taken offense to websites posting song lyrics. “A recent court judgment against LiveUniverse makes it crystal clear: hosting an unauthorized lyrics site can get you in serious legal trouble,” writes Ars Technica.
LiveUniverse and its owner Brad Greenspan were hit with a $6.6 million judgment last week by a federal judge for running a lyrics site with no licenses from music publishers.
“That’s $12,500 per song for the 528 songs whose lyrics he was accused of infringing,” according to the article.
“There are thousands of lyrics sites, and many of them remain unlicensed. Music publishers started pursuing these sites several years ago, and now… they’re starting to see some real revenue come from online businesses who have taken licenses,” writes Ars Technica.
The lyrics sites may be viewed as harmless by some, but they are generating significant advertising revenue, and subsequently stealing from songwriters and publishers, according to Ross Charap, one of the attorneys representing the music publishers who sued Greenspan.
“This is an important new stream of revenue for publishers,” suggests Charap. “They got nothing from it five or six years ago, and now they get tens of millions of dollars.”
DirecTV’s new Genie system allows for multiple, simultaneous DVR recording of HD shows; eliminates the need for receivers in every room; and adds new recommendation features.
“The company’s flagship HR34 DVR has been relabeled as the Genie and makes the new software its centerpiece, with those five tuners letting even the chronically uncommitted take new recommendations as seriously as they like,” writes Engadget.
“As before, simultaneous viewing is otherwise the biggest angle: there’s support for up to eight RVU-capable TVs hooked up at once, two shows playing on one TV and up to four TVs watching the same show,” notes the post. “You’ll have to be a new subscriber to get the video recorder under the Genie moniker.”
According to the press release, the Genie system offers “up to three times more HD recording capacity than cable HD DVRs.”
“Gone are the days of scheduling conflicts, channel surfing, messy wires and boxes, missed shows and family fights over the remote,” suggests Romulo Pontual, executive VP and CTO of DirecTV.
CBS CEO Les Moonves, who recently renewed his contract until 2017, recognizes the need for the TV industry to evolve in light of new digital offerings.
“Moonves has an answer for cable and satellite operators who complain their profits are getting squeezed by continually rising content costs: eliminate low-rated channels from their lineup,” reports the Wall Street Journal.
He says having hit shows helps networks avoid high-level fee disputes that can result in channel blackouts.
Moonves said he would be interested in expanding CBS’s content portfolio by buying Sony Corp.’s film and TV studios businesses. There are, however, no specific plans in the works right now.
“With online video options growing, overall viewership of traditional TV has slipped lately, according to Nielsen. At the same time, the push by broadcasters such as CBS for a share of pay TV subscription fees has intensified tensions between entertainment companies and pay TV distributors,” explains WSJ.
“Moonves also said CBS was prepared to distribute its content directly to viewers, via apps or Web portals, in the event that a la carte pricing and cord-cutting eventually threaten the company’s business model,” the article continues.
“We like the system now and we are being adequately paid for it,” Moonves says. “But if the universe changes and they [viewers] want us to bring the content directly to them, then we can.”
The TV industry could be on the brink of collapse, Business Insider writes. Viewing habits are changing drastically, which spells trouble for TV’s traditional advertising revenue and pay subscription model.
“The explosion of options for digital entertainment — some of which, importantly, are viewed or otherwise consumed on TV screens — will gradually bleed away the attention that was once devoted exclusively to traditional TV,” suggests the article. “At some point, just as it has with newspapers, this dwindling attention will be noticed by the folks who pay all those massive TV industry bills — advertisers and consumers.”
The widespread adoption of HDTVs looks promising for the TV industry, but other devices — like smartphones, tablets, and wireless laptops — have been pulling eyes from TVs. Consumers devote less attention to their TV sets as they delve into the second screen experience.
Additionally, the television isn’t being used for the same purposes as in years past. “Specifically, they spend less time watching traditional ‘TV’ and more time watching streaming video, watching time-shifted video (DVR), and playing video games,” the article states.
Gen Y is especially representative of these changes, showing the largest deviation from traditional viewing and having the highest percentage of streaming video.
“Traditional TV viewership is changing. None of the changes are good for the traditional TV industry,” comments BI. “Someday, if attention keeps shifting, the money will follow.”
In an interview with Metro, Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos suggests that government intervention may be necessary to create new patent legislation.
Patent wars have become prevalent in the smartphone and tablet industries. A patent lawsuit culture could be a significant threat to innovation and society, notes Bezos.
“Patents are supposed to encourage innovation and we’re starting to be in a world where they might start to stifle innovation,” he said. “Governments may need to look at the patent system and see if those laws need to be modified because I don’t think some of these battles are healthy for society.”
The article notes the iconic lawsuit of the patent war culture: Apple v. Samsung. “The tech giants have had mixed results in the courtroom, however, as Apple secured a significant legal victory in the U.S. but Samsung won comparative cases in South Korea and Japan, with many more lawsuits not yet heard.”
Bezos remains positive about the current consumer technology market. “I love technology, I love invention, I like rapid change, and really it’s the golden age of wireless devices and mobile devices,” he said.
