Apple was granted 29 new patents this week — among them are patents for its podcast subscription service and three iPod designs (iPod Classic and fourth and fifth generation iPod nano).
Apple’s podcast subscription service was added to its repertoire in 2005. The invention is titled “Techniques and systems for supporting podcasting,” which “pertains to improved podcasts and techniques that facilitate their use,” according to Patently Apple.
Those techniques include creating, publishing, hosting, accessing, subscribing, managing, transferring and/or playing podcasts.
According to the post: “Some are reporting that Apple’s patent win means that they now own the word ‘Podcasting.’ Our report doesn’t reflect that whatsoever. This isn’t a trademark win for Apple.”
“Apple credits Anne Jones, Thomas Dowdy, Jeffrey Robbin, Mike Wiese and Stephen Davis as the inventors of granted patent 8,245,924 which was originally filed in Q2 2009 and refilled as a continuation patent in Q3 2011,” writes Patently Apple.
With Connectify Dispatch, you can use any combination of “Wi-Fi, 3G/4G mobile broadband, or wired connections, and Dispatch intelligently balances all of your traffic for faster streaming, browsing, and BitTorrent downloads. In fact, the more networks you have, the faster you’ll go,” according to the Connectify blog.
Verizon recently lifted its ban on tethering applications for smartphones, allowing for Connectivity engineers to give it a try.
“But instead of just using the tethered phone to get on the Internet when Wi-Fi isn’t working, they decided to use it in addition to every other unsecured Wi-Fi network located around our office building,” explains Alex Gizis, Connectify founder and CEO.
The team simultaneously hooked up 7 USB Wi-Fi cards, a USB 3G modem, a 4G tethered smartphone and an Ethernet connection with “impressive” results.
Check out the 3-minute video that details how the team joined 10 “connections simultaneously, for one super-fast connection.”
Wireless researchers in Germany want to give first responders a “switch” to disable security mechanisms on private wireless routers. The project is aimed at bolstering public communications if they were to fail in an emergency.
“This would allow first responders to use all the routers within range to enhance the capabilities of the mesh networks that allow them to communicate with each other,” Ars Technica explains. “In a mesh network, each node or device can route traffic to the other devices on the network through a series of hops. Adding devices (in this case wireless routers) thus improves the network’s stability and performance.”
The technology would not be difficult to implement on current wireless routers, especially considering many home owners already have guest networks set up.
The research paper does not explicitly state the steps to creating this “emergency switch,” nor does it discuss how abuse of privacy will be prevented. Private wireless traffic would remain private “in theory,” Ars Technica writes, adding “we think this particular idea could raise more problems than it solves.”
“From a privacy standpoint, we think it should be voluntary on the part of users, if it is ever implemented at all,” the article states, noting that it’s useless for the government if not widely accepted. “Deploying the system widely might require intrusive legislation, and software upgrades by router manufacturers that forcibly take away users’ administrative control is something we’re not a fan of, either.”
The paper says many aspects of the proposal will still need to be researched, but it does show that using private routers would greatly improve network performance if emergency communications breakdown.
One reader who commented on the post suggests making the program opt-in with rewards like tax credits to incentivize adoption.
As businesses struggle to learn the most effective social media strategies, Business Insider takes a look at the most popular companies on Facebook today.
The list focuses on 20 companies that market products to consumers (it does not include all the entertainment brands, celebrities and companies such as YouTube that draw a high number of likes on the social network).
The data comes from Likester’s marketing platform called AdCenter.
“While many of the companies on the list are huge brands, there are some surprises,” notes the post. “Companies that are smaller and more niche have discovered that using Facebook effectively can make them hugely popular.”
Levi Strauss, for example, was the first major retailer to include the Facebook ‘Like’ feature on its commerce site. Nutella designed a recent campaign that linked its content with social messaging related to the Olympics.
The list includes the following companies (from 1-20; check out the post for details regarding their social strategies): Coca-Cola, Disney, Converse, Starbucks, Red Bull, Oreo, Skittles, McDonald’s, Pringles, Victoria’s Secret, Walmart, Monster Energy, Target, Ferrero Rocher, Nutella, Adidas, Disneyland, Zara, Levi’s and Burberry.
Jay Parikh, VP of engineering for Facebook, released numbers this week showing just how big Facebook’s data is and how it benefits the social network.
“[Facebook’s] system processes 2.5 billion pieces of content and 500+ terabytes of data each day,” notes TechCrunch. “It’s pulling in 2.7 billion Like actions and 300 million photos per day, and it scans roughly 105 terabytes of data each half hour.”
Parikh says all this information helps Facebook release new products, gauge user reactions and tweak designs.
“By looking at historical data, we can validate a model before putting it into production,” Parikh says, explaining that Facebook can assess impact without actually implementing changes. “We put data in a simulation, and can see ‘will this increase CTR by X?’”
The benefits of big data are also passed on to advertisers to show how successful ads are geographically and among various demographics.
All this data encourages questions of privacy, but TechCrunch reports there are many safeguards in place. “All data access is logged so Facebook can track which workers are looking at what,” the post explains. “Only those working on building products that require data access get it, and there’s an intensive training process around acceptable use.”
“And if an employee pries where they’re not supposed to, they’re fired. Parikh stated strongly ‘We have a zero-tolerance policy.'”
Google has created a new Infringement Finder feature within Google Patents to help patent owners and lawyers investigate cases of patent infringement.
Google indicates the feature is meant to aid in its internal attempts to ward off patent infringement. But the company has made the feature open to the public, suggesting Google’s explanation is little more than a way to defend itself against critics.
Users access the feature within Google Patents. After choosing a specific patent to explore, users click the “Find prior art” link and then look through the search results.
Google automatically sets an “end date” based on the date of the patent, and then researchers “only need to remember one of the simplest truisms of patent law: That which infringes if later anticipates if earlier,” notes Gametime IP. “Thus, by changing the ‘earlier’ (End date) to become ‘later’ (Start date), you can sift through a variety of sources that might indicate infringement.”
“Google’s motivation to create this new feature are not entirely clear, but they have provided what should be a useful advancement in patent analysis,” concludes the post. “By speeding up access to information that may lead to evidence of infringement, Google puts more power back into the hands of inventors and patent owners.”
Taggable video start-up wireWAX just got the Google stamp-of-approval to place its interactive videos on YouTube brand channels, where before videos files were only embeddable on third-party sites.
The company says getting approved was difficult — top YouTube brand users like Nike even put pressure on Google — but the partnership will greatly increase wireWAX’s exposure.
“Going beyond simple video ‘hotspots’ or annotations, wireWAX’s drag ‘n’ drop tool enables users to add full motion-trackable and clickable links around objects, such as faces, products or just about anything,” explains TechCrunch.
“The applications for such interactivity are almost infinite, but include monetizable uses such as ‘shoppable videos’, as created by the likes of fashion retailer Oki-ni. On that note, wireWAX operates a freemium model, charging for additional premium features, such as customizations, on a ‘pay for what you use’ basis.”
YouTube is enabling mobile publishing to provide skippable in-stream ads on mobile devices, which could make more videos available to smartphones and tablets.
“YouTube’s lack of mobile advertising has been one reason a small number of content suppliers bar their YouTube content from going out through YouTube’s mobile and tablet channels,” reports paidContent.
Before, YouTube only had mobile website banners, non-skippable 15-second pre-rolls and Promoted Video ads in mobile searches.
But the skippable ads won’t be coming to your iPhone just yet. “Don’t expect to find the ads inside YouTube’s current, aging iOS app, however. That was built by Apple. Google will build its own for iOS after Apple’s iOS 6 update rips out the app,” notes the post.
Wired has posted an interesting article this week on the Hulcher film camera and its unfortunate decline in a digital world.
“For more than five decades, the Charles A. Hulcher Co. filled an important niche in the camera world,” explains the article. “Their cameras, which shot up to 100 frames per second, were used to make photos of everything from Space Shuttle launches to Major League Baseball games.”
But today the company has only four employees. “Digital has pretty much killed film cameras,” says Richard Hill, a Hulcher employee since the 1950s.
The original Hulcher 70 was built in the 1950s so that NASA scientists could study rocket launches in slow motion. The camera was capable of shooting 50 fps on 70mm film. When Charles Hulcher’s cameras became popular for other applications, the company produced 35mm versions that eventually reached 100 fps.
“The cameras achieved this high speed by running 100 feet of film between two large spools like a movie camera,” reports Wired. “Unlike a movie camera, however, Hulcher ran the film horizontally instead of vertically, creating a larger image area and in turn a high-resolution negative.”
The U.S. Navy used Hulcher camera technology in submarine periscopes. The Royal Canadian Air Force used the cameras for aerial surveillance. Sports photographers were fans of the Hulcher cameras because they were affordable and could be outfitted with lenses from other companies.
“One of the most famous photographers to use the Hulcher was John Zimmerman, who worked for Sports Illustrated, and made several well-known shots with modified Hulcher cameras,” notes the post. “Instead of just allowing the camera to fire multiple shots on sequential frames of film, Zimmerman would often disable the film-advance mechanism, creating vivid multiple exposures that captured the graceful movement of various sports figures.”
Golf Digest photographer Dom Furore says he used his Hulcher camera up until four years ago when he finally made the switch to digital with a modified two-camera system using Casio EX-F1s. Sports Illustrated photographer Heinz Kluetmeier claims the Hulcher images are sharper than those created with digital alternatives. “I wish we had a better digital equivalent,” he says.
Charles Hulcher passed away in 1994, but his company remains in operation five days a week, building the occasional custom high-speed camera, performing repairs on older models and producing small parts in the machine shop for NASA and other customers. “We just do this because we love it,” Hill says. “We’re always here for our customers.”
YouTube has launched a new Elections Hub that will include content from ABC News, Univision, The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, Al-Jazeera English, BuzzFeed and others.
The hub plans to provide live footage of the Republican and Democratic national conventions in addition to the first live online streaming of the presidential and vice presidential debates.
“We’ve seen there is a huge demand for political news on YouTube,” says Olivia Ma, YouTube’s news and politics manager.
Ma notes that the campaigns of President Obama and challenger Mitt Romney have uploaded more than 600 videos since April 2011. She says the campaign videos, and others that reference the two candidates, have been viewed nearly 2 billion times.
“With Election Hub, viewers will select the coverage they want to follow from a menu of options. Once they’ve made a choice, they’ll be able to watch live and on-demand campaign coverage — and participate in discussions,” reports the Los Angeles Times.
According to a Pew Research Center report, the number of people who go online to access political news has almost tripled since 2000 — “even though that growth has leveled off in the current election season because of a lack of interest among the younger users who are traditionally the most avid consumers of Internet news,” notes the article.
Hulu plans to roll out a redesigned website over the next few days that replaces its traditional programming grid with larger images and offers new personalization features.
The new version of the video streaming site, which can be previewed at New.Hulu.com, includes such personalized features as offering recommendations based on viewing history.
It has also added “Browse” and “Staff Picks” features. An updated search bar is designed to assist with accessing content faster.
The changes were put in place to improve content discovery, according to the company blog post.
“We’ve started by using larger, more vivid artwork to feature last night’s TV episodes and new additions to Hulu,” wrote Rob Wong, Hulu’s VP of product, on the blog. “We’ve also implemented a new tray-style format to make it easy for you to browse and discover content. And for logged-in users, we highlight the ‘Shows You Watch’ to make it super easy to jump directly to the shows you are already enjoying on Hulu.”
The CNET post includes a 1-minute Hulu Guided Tour video.
Ads are now coming to Facebook’s search results in a separate section of the typeahead results. The approach could help Facebook challenge Google for search ad dollars.
“It lets marketers target users searching for specific apps, Pages, and Places and insert a link into the typeahead results that points to their own app, Page, custom Page tab, or post,” TechCrunch reports. “Businesses cannot direct users off-site with the ads yet, though they can appear above the top organic result making them powerful for diverting traffic from competitors.”
The “Sponsored Results” can be purchased in Facebook’s native Ads API tool, Power Editor. In a move that could annoy users, Facebook has somewhat aggressively pushed Sponsored Results above the “organic result for what a user was obviously looking for,” the post states. However, users can click an “x” in the corner to hide the ad.
“Unfortunately, Facebook Sponsored Results may still be a lot less helpful to advertisers than those that show up on Google Search. That’s because when people search for an entity on Facebook, they’re typically looking for something very specific, such as a particular game or business, and might be more more likely to bypass ads,” TechCrunch writes. Also, the Sponsored Results “could dilute the feed’s quality, which is core to Facebook’s value to users.”
Facebook highlighted three primary objectives for Sponsored Results in an announcement sent to marketers:
1) “Expanded distribution of your message, with placement in one of the most used features on Facebook.”
2) “The ability to target what people are looking for, by appearing alongside related Apps, Pages, and Places.”
3) “Flexibility to customize your landing destination, such as a specific tab on your Page.”
LG has announced that its new 84-inch ultra high definition LCD TV is ready to ship in South Korea with plans to launch internationally in September.
“The 84LM9600 does 3D with LG’s Cinema 3D passive glasses technology, however its ultra high pixel count means you’re still watching in 1080p even with the resolution loss since it starts at 3,840 x 2,160, and also features ‘3D sound’ with integrated 2.2 channel speakers,” reports Engadget.
Unfortunately, 4K content is still hard to find, but plug the $22,000 TV “into a BDP-S790 Blu-ray player, certain PS3 apps or just output the latest video you’ve shot and it should be worth the price of admission,” suggests the post.
“LG has equipped its UD 3D TV with Cinema 3D technology to ensure the impressively large display provides the most immersive viewing experience possible,” according to the press release. “3D Depth Control allows viewers to fine-tune the ‘distance’ between near and far objects on the screen for a custom 3D experience. The 3D Sound Zooming feature then analyzes the on-screen objects to generate sound according to their location and movement.”
“The 4K display market is still in its infancy but it was important for LG to claim a stake in this space,” says Havis Kwon, president and CEO of LG Electronics Home Entertainment Company. “LG’s UD 3D TV represents a whole new level of home viewing experience because it offers every advanced technology we currently have to offer.”
LG will have a production model on display at the end of this month during the IFA 2012 conference in Berlin, Germany.
Nikon unveiled its first Android-powered camera this week, the Coolpix S800c, available next month for $350.
The slim camera features a 16-megapixel BSI CMOS sensor, a 3.5-inch OLED WVGA touchscreen, a 10x optical zoom lens, built-in GPS for geotagging and 1080p movie capture mode.
“It possesses the ability to generate its own network and tether with your phone,” reports Engadget, “and users can also download photo sharing applications directly onto the cam’s 4GB of internal storage.”
Engadget takes a closer look at the camera with a hands-on review: “The main selling point here is that said ‘smart camera’ is powered by a slick (and near-vanilla) Android 2.3.3 with Google services, so with the built-in Wi-Fi, you can upload your 16-megapixel images or 1080p videos straight to your various social networks or other cloud services.”
The review notes that battery life may not be ideal for prolonged entertainment, but is complimentary of the camera’s speed and quality and the OLED multitouch display.
“The most interesting thing we discovered was that it seems the camera part of the S800c can run independently from Android while the latter is still booting up,” notes the post. “Rather than letting the device stay on standby like most other Android devices, Nikon uses a shut-down timer that activates once Android goes on standby.”
“When the camera’s completely switched off, hit the power button and you’ll go straight into camera mode which lets you shoot immediately, then about half a minute later the interface seamlessly goes back to smart mode, which is when you can hit the back or home button to toggle the Android unlock screen.”
Dish Network plans to offer a satellite broadband service that will allow people in rural areas to access the Internet. The company hopes to launch the service by September or October.
Dish will use an EchoStar satellite for the service. The satellite can deliver 15 megabits per second, but Dish’s service will offer 5 megabits per second in order to serve more customers, sources tell Bloomberg.
The slower data rates will allow Dish to serve up to two million customers with the service.
Dish and ViaSat currently partner to offer satellite broadband, but cover only limited parts of the United States. The new satellite service will cover every region.
The company will likely need to add more satellites if it wishes to maintain at least 5 megabit per second speeds while expanding beyond two million customers.
Dish CEO Joseph Clayton explains that Dish’s service is meant to serve the “nearly 8 to 10 million rural American households” without Internet coverage. Dish will not compete with traditional broadband, as services like Verizon FiOS can deliver 300 megabits per second.
