Nielsen reports that television viewership for Wednesday evening’s presidential debate jumped 28 percent to 67.2 million, compared with the first debate of the 2008 election.
Broadcast networks dominated, with ABC drawing 11.25 million viewers, NBC 11.07 million and CBS 10.58 million.
On cable, Fox News was the leader with 10.42 million viewers (its highest-rated presidential debate ever). CNN was second with 6.05 million total viewers and MSNBC was third with 4.71 million.
In a related story from AllThingsD, online video streaming also attracted viewers: “This year, you definitely didn’t need an old-fangled television to watch the debates, with online offerings ranging from simple videos to live fact-checking and commentary.”
YouTube’s politics channel carried an array of content from multiple sources and had “millions of live streamed views of the debates, and one of the highest number of concurrent streams ever for a YouTube live stream,” according to a company spokesperson.
Ustream reports 3.5 million views of debate and debate-related videos, while CNN says their debate videos were started about 5 million times with 1.2 million global users viewing live. Streaming was also available from AOL, Hulu, Aereo and others.
Logitech announced it will launch its Harmony Touch remote this month in the U.S. and Europe. Clearly influenced by smartphone design, the device features a 2.4-inch color touchscreen with channel icons.
Instead of surfing through existing channel guides, users simply tap the icon of their desired network to change the channel — and in similar fashion to mobile screens, functions are controlled by swiping, scrolling and tapping.
The screen holds up to 50 channel icons and can display nine at a time. The icons can be positioned based on most watched channels.
Alternate activities can be controlled by the remote as well, such as switching from cable programming to setting up for video game access.
“Consumers that also own the Logitech TV Cam HD will find a Skype function on the Harmony Touch which can be used to place and accept calls, mute the volume during the call or control the camera’s zoom and angle,” notes Digital Trends.
“The Logitech Harmony Touch is compatible with more than 225,000 home-entertainment devices and more than 5,000 brands, and it can control as many as 15 devices,” notes the press release.
The $250 remote is currently available on the Logitech site and will be offered by retailers including Amazon and Best Buy later this month.
University of Edinburgh researchers have developed a wireless networking system capable of transmitting 130 megabits per second using light waves.
The researchers call their project “Li-Fi” and use “LEDs to transmit data to photo-sensor receivers by making changes in the intensity of light that researchers claim are so fast they are imperceptible to the human eye,” reports Ars Technica.
The goal of the system is to use existing light sources to transfer data. This would greatly impact the mobile industry, where the technology could be integrated into the phone’s camera. This would allow for fast download speeds using natural light sources.
Li-Fi has advantages “including its broader potential spectrum for transmissions — over 10,000 times more spectrum than radio — allowing for thousands of signal channels in the same space, as well as its greater transmission speed as a result,” notes the article.
The system also has the advantage of only working within a particular line of sight. This would allow for secure networking within a closed room environment.
The post includes a 13-minute TED video featuring a Li-Fi demo from Harald Haas, University of Edinburgh’s professor of mobile communications.
Traditional e-reader E Ink models were great for reading in sunlight, and for nostalgic readers who preferred the book-like look of the text, but were ineffective for reading in bed because they lacked their own light source.
But Barnes & Noble changed this with its Nook Simple Touch with GlowLight, which allows readers to read an E Ink tablet in dark settings.
Now Amazon has countered with the Kindle Paperwhite, a self-lit E Ink e-reader that reportedly has more even lighting than the Nook.
The Simple Touch with GlowLight’s largest drawback was that the lighting system created hotspots, where some text was unevenly lit. The Kindle Paperwhite has hotspots, but only at the bottom of the screen where its bulbs sit. The rest of the screen is lit evenly through a fiber optic cable.
Overall, the Kindle provides a more comfortable reading experience, but the Nook may provide better value.
The Nook comes with a wall charger, whereas Kindle owners must either pay $10 for a charger or just charge the device from a USB port. Also, the Kindle displays advertisements on its screen saver and on the bottom of the home screen, while the Nook never displays advertisements.
Apple has reportedly begun mass production of a smaller tablet, commonly referred to as the iPad Mini in recent press coverage.
According to unnamed executives at component makers, the new tablet will feature a 7.85-inch LCD with lower resolution than the latest 9.7-inch iPad.
The Wall Street Journal reports: “South Korea’s LG Display Co. and Taiwan’s AU Optronics Corp. began mass production of the LCD screens for the new device last month, the people said.”
Last month, AllThingsD reported that Apple has plans to unveil the new tablet in October. The company may need the smaller device to stay competitive.
“Google in July introduced the Nexus 7, with a 7-inch screen and a price of $199,” notes WSJ. “Amazon last month released the latest models of its Kindle Fire tablets, with the entry-level model priced at $159. Apple’s newest iPad, released in March, starts at $499.”
In a related report, Digital Trends suggests the iPad Mini is expected to cost no more than $300 and Apple’s official unveiling may come as soon as October 10.
Since Steve Jobs passed away, CEO Tim Cook has approached Apple with less creativity, but also with more maturity, suggests Businessweek.
Cook has increased the value of Apple, improved working conditions at Chinese manufacturing partner Foxconn and diplomatically worked with investors to provide the dividend that Jobs notoriously refused to offer.
Cook has also improved Apple’s operational capacity, “lining up the company’s suppliers to support the unprecedented scale of the iPhone 5 launch,” according to the article.
Apple stock has risen 75 percent under Cook and has become the world’s most valuable company. “Tim has seemingly pulled off what many people doubted he could, which is to sustain and add to Apple’s incredible momentum,” says Michael Useem, director of the Center for Leadership and Change Management at the Wharton School.
While Apple has seen initial success under new leadership, it remains a question whether Cook can successfully launch products not yet imagined (arguably Jobs’s greatest asset).
For now, Apple is spending much of its resources on developing laser cutting technologies to create even thinner products, and on the development of its own customized chips. If Apple could develop its own line of chips, it could distinguish itself further from other products that run on Intel chips.
While initial ratings for new and returning TV series have been disappointing for big networks thus far, DVR playback numbers are helping to close that gap.
“The big question raised by the growing influence of DVR numbers is how the increase in delayed viewing may shake up industry practices — in everything from how a show’s performance is evaluated to how and when networks spin ratings results,” reports Variety.
Because DVR playback numbers don’t arrive for a week or two after the original air date, it’s difficult to tell if a show is doing well at first.
“The average DVR lift from viewing done within three days of the initial telecast, or what Nielsen dubs Live-Plus-3 ratings, for Big Four network shows during last week’s premiere onslaught was 26 percent, up from 20 percent during the comparable week last year… and even more viewing will take place later in the week after a telecast, boosting the Live-Plus-7 tallies as well,” according to the article.
More people are using DVRs this season because more people own them. DVR ownership in U.S. homes jumped from 42 percent last fall to 46 percent today. “Among viewers in the 18-49 demo, the rate is 51 percent. And they have clearly learned how to use their machines to full advantage,” writes Variety.
Major Hollywood talent is finding television — especially cable — more attractive than ever due to its improved quality and expanded possibilities in the digital revolution.
“The television business is so much better for the modern digital era,” said Chris Silbermann of ICM Partners, speaking at the Entertainment Business Managers Power Breakfast in Beverly Hills this week. “Really, it is just so much more organically aligned.”
“He said the episodic nature of many TV shows makes more sense in the digital realm, especially as shows that find an afterlife on Netflix, Amazon, Hulu and elsewhere,” writes The Hollywood Reporter.
He also said that digital popularity and subsequent revenue are making increased production budgets possible for television series, which means profits are beginning to reach new talent.
“Digital dollars trickle down. We’re seeing a lot of shows, particularly from cable, that would not have had an afterlife in syndication being sold (to digital),” he said.
Silbermann suggests that Netflix’s “House of Cards” will prove to be an important test. “A lot of people have said it will be a watermark show. If they promote it well and it does well, then the flood of talent is going to go there. They have to prove not only that they can make a good show, but they have to prove they can market it.”
Four out of the top 10 scripted broadcast television shows have more activity on social TV startup GetGlue than on Twitter, and for cable scripted TV, the number is even higher at 9 out of 10.
The data suggests that GetGlue, with one million active users, is competing — and in some cases surpassing — Twitter with its 140 million users. But as AllThingsD points out, measuring social TV chatter is complicated.
For example, you can interact with different services in multiple ways (on Twitter, you can tweet, retweet, or ‘favorite’ a comment), not all of which are accurately accounted for.
“The numbers that GetGlue is using here only tell us about the volume of chatter, not the total number of chatterers,” the article states, suggesting much of the activity could come from individual users. Another possibility is that social TV talk just isn’t that popular.
“For instance, a new episode of ‘The Big Bang Theory’ draws around 12 million viewers. But even if you use the most generous interpretation of GetGlue’s stats, the combined active GetGlue + Twitter social audience would be under 65,000 people — much less than 1 percent of CBS’s total,” the article explains. “If you try the same math with HBO’s ‘True Blood,’ the most social show on cable, the numbers might top 3 percent, but that one’s very much an outlier.”
On the other hand, big events like awards shows or sports finals see a large amount of social interaction — mainly on Twitter, and much less on specialty services like GetGlue.
Facebook is introducing a new tool that lets users boost their visibility by paying a small fee to have their content displayed more prominently on the social network, essentially turning users into micro-advertisers.
Fees will reportedly vary, but Facebook is initially charging $7 to promote users’ content in testing that began Wednesday with a limited number of U.S. users.
Facebook claims the move is not a planned shift from its current free-to-use model, but an addition to its line of premium services. The promoted-posts-for-users feature was initially tested in New Zealand, and the company says it has conducted similar tests in 20 other countries.
“With Facebook’s revenue growth rate showing a sharp slowdown in recent quarters, many analysts and investors believe the company needs to find new ways to make money,” reports Reuters.
“Last week, Facebook unveiled a feature that lets U.S. users buy and send real gifts, such as eyeglasses, pastries and gift cards to their friends,” explains the article. “Initially available to a limited number of users in the United States, Facebook Gifts could signal the company’s intent to play a bigger role in e-commerce.”
Following Facebook’s announcement that it had reached the one billion user milestone, Mark Zuckerberg posted compelling stats to the Facebook Newsroom.
According to the fact sheet, the social network has experienced over 1.13 trillion “likes” (since February 2009), 140.3 billion friend connections and 219 billion photos uploaded.
However, the data excludes deleted photos. “If we wanted to include all photos ever uploaded, the estimate we have is 265 billion,” explains Facebook. “Photo uploading launched fall 2005.”
Additional numbers include 17 billion location-tagged posts (including check-ins) since the feature’s August 2010 launch, and 62.6 million songs have been played 22 billion times since September 2011 (“about 210,000 years of music”).
The median age of registered users has dropped from 26 in 2007 to 22 in 2012. Also, Facebook now has 600 million mobile users.
Facebook announced that it passed the one billion user mark in September, but the news only “confirmed expectations on Wall Street that growth is actually trailing off,” reports Reuters.
The social network acknowledged that the new-user growth will slow down, and there are doubts that “the company can squeeze more and more dollars out of each network member — given well-publicized struggles to monetize the growing ranks of users who access Facebook from mobile devices,” notes the article.
“Facebook has rolled out a spate of initiatives to spur more growth, including a new advertising platform and measurement methods to show marketers they are getting bang for their buck,” Reuters reports. “But it is also exploring options beyond advertising, which accounted for roughly 84 percent of the total revenue in the second quarter.”
This week, the company said it was introducing a fee-based feature that will help U.S. users boost their visibility. It also has a new gift-sending e-commerce effort.
“In its last earnings report, Facebook said revenue increased by 32 percent to $1.18 billion in the second quarter. But that marked the slowest pace of quarterly revenue growth since the first quarter of 2011 — the earliest data available.”
“Helping a billion people connect is amazing, humbling and by far the thing I am most proud of in my life,” Zuckerberg wrote in a blog post.
Microsoft co-founder Paul Allen provides a detailed review of the upcoming Windows 8 on his website. He highlights features of the new bimodal user approach and offers helpful tips based on his experience.
Allen notes that some long-time Windows users might be initially frustrated by the lack of a traditional Start menu. But the new screen is visually pleasing and easy to navigate, he suggests.
“The Start screen displays a scrollable collection of tiles,” he writes. “Each tile represents an app (Mail, Internet Explorer, and Calendar, for example) or feature. Many are live tiles; that is, tiles that display notifications related to that app or feature.”
And although it can sometimes be difficult to find, he writes of the new control called the Charms bar, which offers access to important features like Search, Share, Start, Devices and Settings.
“There are a number of things introduced to Windows by the tablet aspect of the bimodal user experience that I found puzzling, especially for a traditional desktop user like myself,” he writes. These include difficulties using multiple monitors, inadvertently switching modes, inability to build hierarchies on the Start screen and difficulty scrolling in desktop view on a tablet.
Allen notes in his conclusion that the bimodal operating system will take some adjustment, but he remains confident that users will adapt quickly, will find touch to be a natural progression and will be particularly impressed with the tablet capabilities.
“The tablet interface is elegant, responsive, and stacks up nicely with other tablets on the market,” he believes. “And with its capability to optionally switch to desktop view right on the tablet, Windows 8 extends to mobile users the flexibility to run traditional applications and become more efficient and productive while on the go.”
Police raided Swedish hosting company PRQ, and as a result many file sharing and streaming sites have been affected. The Pirate Bay co-founders Gottfrid Svartholm and Fredrik Neij founded PRQ.
Although The Pirate Bay was also down recently, this was an unrelated incident, reports TorrentFreak. The Pirate Bay says a power outage caused the problem, and not the PRQ raid.
PRQ owner Mikael Viborg says that police targeted specific hardware, but he is not sure which sites or services they were after. He also notes that “he believes the investigation is related to intellectual property violations,” explains the post.
“Torrenthound.com, linkomanija.net and tankafetast.nu, release blog RLSLOG.net, and the sports streaming sites atdhenet.tv, hahasport.com, sportlemon.tv and stopstream.tv” were all down after the raid. The raid also affected private sites that use PRQ as a host.
Although the PRQ website has returned online, many file-sharing sites remain offline.
The idea of a “data center in a box” has taken hold as demand for Internet data storage rises.
The technology — pioneered by the U.S. military and later adopted by companies like Google and Microsoft — allows companies to store data by stuffing containers full of data centers, and then hooking up the containers to a power and water supply.
Research firm IMS reports the demand for these types of data centers doubled in 2012 and is expected to increase by another 40 percent by next year.
“Data storage and processing is being driven by the growth in mobile computing devices, higher performance computing requirements, increased Internet communication, streaming entertainment, digitization of healthcare and government records, and a migration towards online business models,” explains Liz Cruz, author of the IMS report.
In the short term, this type of data storage is cheaper than building a traditional data center because companies can buy storage as they need it.
In the long run, however, it may prove more costly. But it is also possible that as more companies move into the business of selling this type of storage, the price will drop and the system will become a reasonable long term data storage solution.
