VentureBeat recently took the new Cadillac XTS sedan for a test drive and reports on the company’s CUE (Cadillac User Experience) digital system.
CUE has an in-dash display with 8-inch capacitive LCD touchscreen and a heads-up display on the lower part of the windshield.
“It’s kind of a space-age experience, dubbed ‘car infotainment,’ that gives us a glimpse of the future of cars and technology,” notes VentureBeat.
CUE lets you call up your favorite radio stations and phone numbers. Up to 60 favorites can be reached with one or two finger gestures.
“Points of interest can include any locations, like your home and work addresses, the best gas station, the nearest grocery store, and other places that you go to often,” notes the post. “If Starbucks is your favorite coffee place, you can tap on the Starbucks favorite button and it will call up the nearest places.”
The system includes a 1.8-liter storage space under the dash with USB for charging your iPhone or calling up your music collection on the dashboard screen. You can easily access apps on the screen (Android phones can also connect via Bluetooth).
“Navigation works particularly well with CUE. If you have a map showing you turn-by-turn navigation, the lower part of the menu will fade out and disappear if your finger isn’t near it,” explains the review. “This gives you a bigger map screen to view, helping you navigate better by minimizing distractions. You can pinch and zoom on the 3D map to focus on a particular spot on the map. Points of interest, weather, and your Onstar safety system are also easily accessible.”
Those who want to avoid the touchscreen while driving can opt for voice commands via Nuance speech recognition technology.
CUE, powered by a three-core ARM11-based processor, comes standard in the new Cadillac ($44,075-$61,805).
When hackers attacked Wired senior editor Mat Honan’s data, they targeted iCloud, Google and Amazon. But while these cloud-based services served as the gateway into his technological life, Honan believes that the cloud also became his digital “salvation.”
Honan argues that although he has been a happy Apple customer for 20 years, the lack of cloud security disgusts him. Apple IDs are too easy to reset, he argues.
After days of struggling to recover Twitter, Gmail, and various other tech accounts, Honan finally stopped the remote wipe of his MacBook data with the help of Apple support.
Honan suggests local backup for data, writing that when “you control your data locally, and have it stored redundantly, no one can take it from you. Not permanently, at least.”
He also champions the cloud. “Because I use Rdio, not iTunes, I had all my music right away. Because I use Evernote to take reporting notes, everything that I was currently working on still existed. Dropbox and 1Password re-opened every door for me in a way that would have been impossible if I were just storing passwords locally via my browser,” he explains.
But Honan cautions that even when consumers take steps to protect themselves, they are still vulnerable if companies do not increase security. He writes that Amazon, Google and Apple are not alone in their lack of security.
“We don’t own our account security,” he concludes. ” And as more information about us lives online in ever more locations, we have to make sure that those we entrust it with have taken the necessary steps to keep us safe. That’s not happening now. And until it does, what happened to me could happen to you.”
The three companies responsible for the virtual production tools used in “Avatar” — James Cameron’s Lightstorm Entertainment, Peter Jackson’s Weta Digital and vfx software maker Autodesk — are working together on sequels to the Oscar-winning film, pushing those effects to the next level with new developments.
“In looking toward the next ‘Avatar’ films, we wanted to be able to work with higher efficiency, see changes on the fly and have a lot less downtime,” says producer Jon Landau.
“It quickly became obvious that filmmakers wanted tools for a virtual camera, a new way to efficiently capture large files in real-time and a tool that allows a director to load virtual sets, explore those sets and then makes changes or adjustments on the fly,” notes Variety.
“They’re now all present in Autodesk’s MotionBuilder 2013 package, after Autodesk set up a system with Lightstorm and Weta that allowed them to experiment and update the software by incorporating quick feedback from the set and the computer screen, says Bruno Sargeant, senior product manager for virtual production at Autodesk.”
“As a result, filmmakers using the system can immediately view playback of actors within their digital environments and see everything exactly as it will appear on the screen,” explains the article.
Pre- and post-production needs continue to blur together as technology advances. It’s increasingly important for companies likes these three to work together and for different departments to work on a given film at the same time, making on-the-spot changes.
“The goal is to make production in virtual space even more filmmaker-centric, according to Landau. In other words, to allow easier interaction between director and thesps, enabling the helmer to quickly make decisions about what is and what is not working in the film’s virtual environment,” according to Variety.
Three months ago, Forbes contributing writer Eric Jackson wrote an article projecting that Facebook and Google would not exist in their same mighty, dominant capacities in about 5-8 years time, because of the rapid rise of mobile commerce and activity.
At the time, he didn’t write much about Amazon, a company also vulnerable to the desktop-to-mobile shift. A powerhouse of online shopping, how will Amazon fare within the new landscape where people access shopping sites through mobile devices rather than desktops?
While Amazon and other giant companies are banking on the fact that people will access their sites on mobile devices in the same way they would on computers, evidence shows that’s not always the case.
“The reality is that we shop differently with our mobile devices compared to how we shop from our home office PC. The commerce companies who succeed will be the ones who understand the important differences and cater successfully to either the PC buyers or the mobile buyers (or both),” writes Jackson.
Jackson says it’s not about deals, but about immediacy and accessibility. There need to be opportunities for a shopper to take a photograph of a wanted dress and immediately identify the designer and where to purchase it online. It’s also about location and discovering deals close by.
Jackson notes that Pinterest and Etsy have promising mobile commerce models. He also extends congratulations to eBay for its quality iPad app and mobile commerce plan thus far.
Even so, Jackson predicts that it’s a yet un-invented mobile commerce app that will truly revolutionize the market. “My guess though… is that whoever is the leading mobile commerce app on smart phones and tablets for the next 15 years will get a pretty big valuation,” writes Jackson.
In mobile, it’s Apple. In social media, it’s Facebook. But in the world of search, Google’s biggest rival is Amazon and the online retailer poses a big threat to Google’s main business, reports the San Francisco Chronicle.
“Google is a search company, but the searches that it actually makes money from are the searches people do before they are about to buy something online,” the post explains. “These commercial searches make up about 20 percent of total Google searches. Those searches are where the ads are.”
Compared to searching products on Google, which requires weeding out links and inputting credit card info on various e-commerce sites, Amazon offers a more seamless approach with an easy cart and checkout process — with credit card information saved.
On mobile devices, Amazon’s app could prove even more dangerous for Google’s smaller-screen search.
“If you have a Kindle phone, which comes with free movies and books because you have an Amazon Prime account, which also gives you free shipping, why in the WORLD would you ever search to buy something through anything but Amazon? You wouldn’t,” the article surmises.
“That’s why Amazon is practically giving its hardware away. It’s also why Amazon scares Google more than anything Facebook or Apple are up to.”
“Outline transition plan for new CEO. Discuss potential candidates and process,” states a confidential internal memo dated in July, and obtained by Variety. The three-page document reportedly details how two of Hulu’s parent companies, News Corp. and Disney, plan to transform the streaming service.
“Whether that plan will be carried out with or without CEO Jason Kilar, whose future at the joint venture has been the subject of speculation for nearly two years, is the question,” reports Variety. “But sources caution that no search committee has been hired nor have other candidates been approached for his job. There have been preliminary talks between Kilar and Hulu board members about his future, but without resolution.”
The article notes this is an example of the “central tension gripping media conglomerates today as they juggle the often conflicting interests of growing the brands of tomorrow while still protecting existing revenue streams.”
A management buyout of Providence Equity Partners, another Hulu owner, is expected to close in September. The buyout will allow Hulu execs with vested shares, including Kilar, to cash out. The change in ownership structure could also lead to significant changes in content licensing agreements.
“As tremendous a payday as the one likely coming to him next month, he’s likely to be richly rewarded for sticking it out and growing the company to the point that could yield greater upside down the line,” the article points out regarding Kilar. “That said, his owners remain concerned he has enough money coming to launch a new vision elsewhere.”
According to Variety, the memo also outlines potential amendments to programming:
1) “No more exclusivity for current-season content once restricted to Hulu and the networks’ respective websites. Now Disney and News Corp. can turn around and license programming to another third-party, i.e. YouTube, which could dilute Hulu’s competitive advantage in the marketplace.”
2) “No more content parity. ABC.com and Fox.com will be able to hold back certain content to differentiate their own sites from Hulu, which was once entitled to everything on the networks’ sites.”
3) “Exclusive ‘super-distribution’ rights Hulu once retained to syndicate content to third-party sites like Yahoo and AOL would revert back to Disney and News Corp.”
In the wake of a federal ruling that online video viewing is protected by U.S. privacy law, Hulu could face millions of dollars in damages for transmitting consumer information to third parties.
The suit alleges that the video-streaming service forwarded viewing information of its users to Scorecard Research, Facebook, DoubleClick, Google Analytics and QuantCast.
“In a proposed class-action against Hulu, U.S. Magistrate Laurel Beeler ruled the Video Privacy Protection Act of 1988 applies to Hulu,” reports Wired. “The popular video-streaming service… argued that the 1988 act, passed to protect video store rental records, did not apply to streaming services.”
“The question is whether the mechanism of delivery here — streaming versus bricks-and-mortar delivery — ends this case at the pleading stage,” wrote Beeler. “Hulu’s remaining argument is only that it is not a ‘video tape service provider’ because the VPPA does not expressly cover digital distribution (a term that did not exist when Congress enacted the statute). Given Congress’ concern with protecting consumers’ privacy in an evolving technological world, the court rejects the argument.”
Congress adopted the VPPA in 1988 after Supreme Court nominee Robert Bork’s video rentals were published in a newspaper. The act requires consumer consent for disclosure of such information, something that may not suit today’s digital approach to media.
“Netflix is lobbying Congress to alter the law, seeking to allow its customers to automatically share their viewing history on Facebook or other social-networking sites,” explains Wired. “Music streaming services allow this feature, but the Video Privacy Protection Act forbids it for video.”
“The Hulu privacy case is now one step closer to trial, and the question of who can share your video playlist is about to break wide open,” suggests ReadWriteWeb in a related post. “The VPPA, the argument goes, puts video streaming businesses at a serious disadvantage on the social Web, especially when you compare them to, say, audio streamers like Pandora and Spotify.”
“After fighting the patent battle of the decade in court with Oracle, Googlers are getting publicly fed up with software patents as a whole,” reports VentureBeat. “Conceptually, they just don’t jive with innovation, two prominent Googlers have said recently.”
Google’s public policy director Pablo Chavez says patent wars are “not helpful to consumers. They’re not helpful to the marketplace. They’re not helpful to innovation.” And Google isn’t just sitting back and complaining about the problem; they’re taking action.
By filing amicus briefs, pushing for reforms, and working with other anti-patent tech companies, Google hopes to reinvent the patent system to better suit innovation.
“For example, currently patents have a 20-year shelf life; Google thinks this could and should be shortened. The company also advocates for strong financial penalties for lawsuit-losing patent trolls and against the patenting of abstract concepts that are only patented in the first place because they’re executed online,” the article explains.
Internet pioneer Vint Cerf (who invented the TCP/IP protocol and is currently VP and chief Internet evangelist at Google) jokingly suggested at a cloud conference that shooting the patent lawyers would be a logical step in creating the next big tech to replace the Internet. When the laughter subsided, he explained: “Bob [Kahn] and I knew we could not succeed if we tried to protect the Internet’s design. As it turns out that worked out really well, and I think that’s still pretty good advice.”
“The open ability to develop new applications and try them out has been vital to the Internet’s growth and to the space in which we currently operate,” added Cerf. “It has interesting ways of enhancing both sides of the equation.”
Google won its case against Oracle, but Android patent suits are still prevalent. “Ironically, just last Friday, Motorola Mobility and Google filed their own patent suit against Apple, asking for an import ban on all Apple devices,” notes the post.
Closing arguments are likely to be held this week in a potentially groundbreaking lawsuit that could impact how tablets and smartphones look and work.
As previously reported on ETCentric, Apple is seeking $2.5 billion in damages from Samsung for alleged patent infringement, while Samsung has countersued for $422 million.
“After nearly a month of testimony in the legal dogfight between Apple and Samsung over patents, the two parties are expected to make their closing arguments on Tuesday,” reports The New York Times. “It will then be up to jurors to hash out which Apple patents, if any, Samsung stepped on when it created devices that compete with the iPhone and iPad.”
Should Apple win, Samsung and others will likely start designing smartphones and tablets that look very different from Apple’s products.
However, a win for Samsung could have the opposite effect. “Expect to see an awful lot of Apple knockoffs without fear of retribution,” says Michael Gartenberg, an analyst at tech research firm Gartner.
“Although Apple sued Samsung, the outcome of the case has broader implications for other companies that create devices based on Google’s Android operating system, along with Google itself,” notes the article.
“Apple wants an order permanently barring Samsung, the largest maker of Android smartphones, from selling products in the United States that violate its patents. A legal victory against Samsung could give Apple extra ammunition in lawsuits it has filed against other Android makers,” explains NYT.
While some reports suggest Samsung has been on the defensive much of the trial, analysts have suggested the outcome may not swing fully in one direction or the other.
Jorge Contreras, associate professor of law at American University, predicts a “mixed result” — with Apple winning a few of its claims and losing others. Contreras suggests Apple has better footing with its claim of infringement on design patents for the iPhone and iPad, but has a challenge in proving claims regarding “utility patents” that address various software functions.
Irish start-up CloudVertical has been analyzing how customers use Amazon Web services, VMWare and Heroku and concludes that most companies do not come close to fully leveraging the resources they pay for.
CloudVertical CEO Ed Byrne explains that the problem does not affect one demographic, but rather “from companies spending less than $50,000 a year to those spending millions, people are only using about 30 percent of the resources they pay for.”
“This is really remarkable considering that for the past decade, the sales pitch for virtualization has been ‘physical servers only get about 30 percent usage,’” he notes.
Byrne recommends that CFOs analyze “capacity, usage, and cost” to effectively determine if they are making the most of their cloud storage options. “The cloud is not pay-as-you-go but pay-as-you-provision. People still fire up lots of servers and leave them there,” he says.
According to Google, most CFOs think they are effectively using the cloud, as 58 percent of surveyed CFOs said cloud computing reduced IT costs and 96 percent reported quantifiable benefits from cloud computing (VentureBeat cautions that the second number may be skewed by the fact that Google included Gmail under its definition of “cloud services”).
Byrne hopes CloudVertical can help solve the “lack of transparency and accountability” present in the cloud computing marketplace. “Most often compared to Cloudability, Byrne insists that CloudVertical’s real competitors are enterprise tools like IBM’s Tivoli or HP OpenView,” reports VentureBeat.
The brains behind Blogger and Twitter have released a new content publisher called Medium.
Evan Williams and Biz Stone co-founded Obvious, a company that helped create the popular platforms Blogger and Twitter. Williams and Stone hope their new project helps advance collaborative publishing and create a more polished product than their previous projects.
“Lots of services have successfully lowered the bar for sharing information,” explains Williams, “but there’s been less progress toward raising the quality of what’s produced. While it’s great that you can be a one-person media company, it’d be even better if there were more ways you could work with others.”
The two are confident that Medium will mark an “evolutionary step” in Web publishing, reports Fast Company. And that step looks a lot like Pinterest, apparently.
As Fast Company describes it, Medium is “intended to be a Pinterest for our own lives, an elegant repository for photos, projects, and stories we’ve actually lived, as opposed to a re-blogged clearinghouse for pictures of wedding dresses and eggs baked into avocados found elsewhere around the Web.”
The user will post items and separate them into “collections” on a grid. Potential examples include “When I Was a Kid,” featuring childhood images and “This Happened To Me, a collection of amusing, inspiring, or unlikely real world anecdotes.”
The article discusses the pros and cons of a tile-based layout, suggesting that for Medium, the tile approach may be a great fit: “The tightly packed tiles serve to visually reinforce the idea that these photos and stories are part of a collection. If you’re flicking through a blog, a 200-word story titled ‘Beat-boxing saves lives’ probably wouldn’t grab your attention. But when it’s a tile in a collection headed ‘This Happened To Me,’ you automatically have a context that makes it a bit more compelling.”
Anyone with a Twitter account can check out Medium’s collections now, but posting is limited to a small group of beta testers.
“Much of our vision for Medium is just that — vision,” notes Stone. “Our ideas are much farther along than our product. Medium is only a sliver of what it could be.”
Twitter is making commitments to its new API changes, placing stricter requirements on third-party developers.
For one, any app accessing Twitter’s API must be authenticated. Developers have six months to switch over to the new API v1.1.
Also, third-party developers will be required to get permission or “work with [Twitter] directly” once they reach 100,000 users, the company explains. For current apps, the new restrictions will apply after their “user tokens” double whatever they are now.
“Essentially, once any third party app hits its user limit, the developer will need to have a ‘come to Twitter’ moment at which something will happen, but Twitter’s not saying what,” explains The Verge.
Twitter reiterated that it does not want client apps that “mimic or reproduce the mainstream Twitter consumer client experience.” Instead, the company said it “preferred that developers create analytics apps, Social CRM apps, and other types of essentially non-consumer-facing apps while avoiding traditional clients,” the article states.
Another change: Twitter is putting a limit on the number of API calls that can be made in an hour, making it so anyone that wants real-time analytics has to work closely with the company. Also new, hardware manufacturers will have to clear pre-installed Twitter apps on devices because they are rarely updated, Twitter says.
Twitter will continue to push the enriched-content “Twitter Cards,” with plans to expand. And developers will now have “Display Requirements,” not “Guidelines.”
“[The changes] could mean that we’ll be seeing more and more partnerships between third party developers and Twitter (likely that involve displaying Twitter’s ads and ensuring revenue flows in the right direction). It could also mean we could see the most popular Twitter apps shut down,” the article concludes.
For some app developers, HTML5 technology just means long load times and reliance on a good Internet connection. But gaming company Goko wants to prove that HTML5 not only works, but also cuts costs.
“It allows developers to create one version of a game that can run across multiple platforms, including Facebook, the Web and mobile,” reports AllThingsD. “Not only does that save developers money, it also lets consumers play the same version of the game on whatever device they choose.”
Goko is launching a number of HTML5 games across several digital platforms. The company also announced it has raised $8 million in funding.
To demo its platform’s capabilities, Goko has launched popular real-world card game “Dominion” across multiple platforms including Facebook, Google+, Goko.com, Android and iOS.
“Ted Griggs, Goko’s CEO, acknowledges that there are some limitations to the technology, but for most card and board games, it’s good enough today,” the article states. “To prove that its platform is up to the task, Goko secured licensing deals with 150 well-known board and card games.”
“Starting today, the company’s platform will also be available to developers looking for help creating, distributing and monetizing games across multiple platforms,” adds AllThingsD.
Just a few years ago, game console manufacturers were competing against one another to grab the dominant portion of the market. Today, these big names have a new competitor: the smartphone.
When it was released in 2006, Nintendo’s Wii console saw a strong surge in buyers, giving the company an edge on its top rivals, Microsoft and Sony. Unfortunately for Nintendo, adoption dropped off after a few years, especially with the success of Microsoft’s Kinect for Xbox.
On a different front, Sony and Nintendo vied for consumer dollars with their handheld gaming devices. Both Sony’s PlayStation Portable and Nintendo’s Game Boy and DS saw strong sales. The companies have since updated their devices, but haven’t been able to recreate the same adoption.
“Smartphones and tablets are becoming more popular and their components more powerful,” reports Fortune. “Meanwhile, major game publishers, like Electronic Arts, are realizing that gamers increasingly prefer to use those devices to play titles.”
“And why not?” asks the article. “Smartphones and tablets today deliver high-quality visuals at every turn. And the sheer convenience of being able to switch from a phone call or text message to a video game is too appealing to pass up.”
“We believe that consumer preferences may be switching decisively to mobile games, given that game quality is similar, if not better, and mobile games have the added advantage of being playable at any time, anywhere,” writes Cowen analyst Doug Creutz.
The gaming business is now much less about the games and much more about the new features. For consoles, this means tools like Internet streaming and motion capture could split the difference between the top three.
If the rumors are true that Microsoft is planning to release its Xbox 720 at the end of 2013, that means it’s taken eight years to update the gaming console, “decades in the world of technology,” Business Insider suggests. This lag has some (including pioneer Nolan Bushnell) thinking consoles will soon be replaced by online and mobile games.
Business Insider takes a look at the history of major consoles that “paved the way for ‘Angry Birds’ and other highly addictive mobile and online games.”
Atari Pong (1972) : “Bushnell’s ‘Pong’ single-handedly defined the video game industry (and its future) with his ping-pong themed arcade game,” the article states. Nintendo Entertainment System (1985): Set the stage for Nintendo’s gaming dominance, selling across America with popular titles like “Mario Bros.”
Sega Master System (1986): Created to compete with NES and boasted better graphics and the ability to run game cartridges or credit card-sized Sega cards. Nintendo’s GameBoy (1989): Preloaded with “Tetris,” the handheld console saw sales of more than one million in its first holiday season.
Super Nintendo Entertainment System (1991): Had 32K colors and special effects like scaling, rotating and transparency. PlayStation (1995): Initiated the switch to CDs for games, which created a rise in piracy. Nintendo 64 (1996): Stuck with cartridges, but saw great sales due to the popular game titles.
PlayStation 2 (2000): “Boasted the Emotion Engine, a unique CPU customized by Sony and Toshiba allowing players to run old PlayStation games on the console, as well as modern DVDs.” Xbox (2001): Was sold with then-unknown “Halo” and quickly outpaced Nintendo’s GameCube and the PS2.
Nintendo Dual Screen (2004): Offered new voice recognition technology and stylus input. And in recent years: Xbox 360 (2005), PlayStation Portable (2005), Nintendo Wii (2006), PlayStation 3 (2006) and PlayStation Vita (2011).
Check out the post for additional details regarding each product release and gaming milestone.