Google announced that beginning on March 1st, the company will combine data about users’ activities on most of their sites and services including YouTube, Android, Gmail and the search engine. This aggregated user profile is designed for “a simpler, more intuitive Google experience,” according to the company.
While this might lead to new services, it will also create a detailed picture to better tailor ads. There will be no way to opt out unless users are not logged in.
GigaOM writes that the new policy “seems to have highlighted for many a crucial question: Is Google having all of that info about you — including Web searches, Google Analytics data from your website, even location information — a good thing?”
This sharing may be problematic for some. As GigaOM points out, “for those who want to ‘compartmentalize’ their lives, with some services reserved for personal use and others for business or public use, the pooling of information is a very real threat.”
This new policy is a break with Google’s previous privacy position. Analysts say that Google is responding to Apple and Facebook which have more unified ecosystems. Still, this new approach will invite antitrust scrutiny as Google is the dominant online search engine.
Google has already faced the Federal Trade Commission over privacy issues and recently received heavy criticism about its personalized G+ results in searches.
The co-chair of the Congressional Privacy Caucus, Rep. Edward Markey, said: “It is imperative that users will be able to decide whether they want their information shared across the spectrum of Google’s offerings.”
In the wake of CES, analysts continue to report on emerging trends such as smartphones, tablets and connected TVs.
“However, in the content creation industry, the big trends heading into 2012 are more esoteric — concepts that will impact consumers without them ever knowing, or caring, much about them,” reports SMPTE Newswatch.
“That’s because, as SMPTE President Peter Ludé suggests, all the amazing new ways for consumers to download, display, and manipulate content more sharply in the home or on handheld devices are beside the point unless content creators keep developing newer/better ways to make, format, and distribute that content for all those platforms in the first place.”
SMPTE Newswatch offers this compelling report on the key trends expected to have an impact on content creators in 2012. The report comes from a recent discussion with SMPTE’s Ludé, who also serves as SVP of Engineering at Sony Electronics, and Wendy Aylsworth, SMPTE Executive VP and Senior VP of Technology at Warner Bros. Technical Operations.
The article addresses the following areas: 4K, high frame rates, 3D, processing power, storage, streamlining standards and more.
For anyone who goes by the California Science Center just south of USC, you may have seen this curious-looking CHIP Solar House, a prototype of a highly efficient, futuristic living space.
The “Compact, Hyper-Insulated Prototype” was created by students from CalTech and the Southern California Institute of Architecture.
“CHIP’s flexible, stepped interior adopts the ethic of ‘doing-more-with-less,’ allowing a single, continuous volume to perform in a variety of different ways to serve the occupants’ daily needs. The program is divided into a series of platforms which are terraced upward and inwards, from the most public to most private. The distribution of program from north-to-south, and high-to-low, facilitates the occupants’ daily rhythms: a progression downhill in the morning in the form of sleep/groom/dress/eat/live – and vice versa in the evening,” the team explained.
CHIP produces all the energy it requires and can even save and sell back power to the grid in some parts of the country.
An Xbox Kinect command station enables occupants to use hand gestures to operate home systems. Also, a 3D camera tracks movement and turns off lights when an area becomes empty.
The Mashable post includes pictures. The house is on display until May 31.
In 1963, six years before “Sesame Street,” Jim Henson produced a short film called “Robot.”
Originally produced for business seminars, AT&T recently made the lost film available online.
“The short tells an archetypal man and machine story,” reports Forrest Wickman for Slate. “Still, it’s unexpected to see a robot imagined in 1963 not just as a possible weapon of war or spaceship pilot but as a means for ‘digesting vast oceans of information.'”
It’s interesting to speculate whether the film reveals Henson’s own thinking about smart machines. Nevertheless, it does showcase his talent creating an entertaining personality, an ability that would later serve him well.
“I’m struck not only by the robot’s campy resemblance to the tin-can creations of movies like ‘Forbidden Planet,’ but also by its hilariously open disdain for humans,” writes Wickman, “which reminds me above all of Flight of the Conchords’ much more recent ‘The Humans Are Dead.'”
SITA and Orange have announced a joint proof-of-concept NFC-based check-in solution designed for air travelers.
The new NFC-capable SIM card allows travelers to get through check-ins and security, enter lounges and board planes without worries of bad service or batteries dying. “And because you’re not futzing with loading a webpage, nor relying on a fussy image-based scanner, the tech should mean less time spent waiting at checkpoints,” reports Engadget.
With the NFC SIM, there is no need to run an application or to have a data connection. The communication works with the phone turned off and simply requires the user to tap their phone on the airport’s NFC sensor.
The companies hope this will reduce wait times and streamline usage of mobile boarding passes.
The 4-minute video explains NFC technology and shows the card in action.
Apple reported record-breaking earnings for its last quarter yesterday. The company generated $46.3 billion in revenue with a profit of $13.06 billion, reports AllThingsD.
The sales figures: 37.04 million iPhones, a 128 percent increase over the same quarter a year ago; 15.43 million iPads, up 111 percent; and 5.2 million Macs, an increase of 26 percent.
Apple CEO Tim Cook said the figures represent record-breaking numbers for iPhones, iPads and Macs. The iPod was the only product to see a drop; Apple sold 15.4 million units, down 21 percent.
Apple also announced that by the end of this month, iOS developers will have earned more than $4 billion in total sales.
In a related Tech.pinions post, analyst Ben Bajarin suggests “Apple is just getting started,” citing continued innovation and new markets in Asia.
“There are still industries for Apple to disrupt,” he writes. “There are still new products to be made for new types of customers. We are only half way through this 50+ year journey of bringing technology to the masses… Lots of OEMs better get their tablet strategies in order.”
Time Warner Investments led the $12 million funding of social TV data company Bluefin Labs.
Bluefin sells data regarding TV engagement to programmers, distributors, agencies and advertisers.
“Social TV analytics is a hot space right now, with startups crunching social data to strive to measure engagement — the missing link of TV metrics,” according to Lost Remote.
Bluefin Labs co-founder and CEO Deb Roy said, “Bluefin Labs data provides this deeper insight and can also share where marketers can find the most social media-engaged television audiences.” The company will use the funding for R&D and to expand sales and client service offerings.
Lost Remote suggests that, for social TV analytics companies, the key is to establish “industry-standard metrics that become the new currency of television and second-screen experiences.”
GetGlue and Zeebox, two other social TV companies, also received noteworthy investments this January.
In the past year, malware on Android phones spiked a number of times, raising security concerns.
Lookout, which creates software for mobile security, recently released an app to visually show threats occurring in “near real-time.”
“Lookout’s Mobile Threat Tracker shows the location of every malware incident tracked by its app on a 3D map of the world,” Mashable reports. “Besides just the impressive visual, the app also calls up the top three specific threats, providing a little extra information on what the evildoing software does. It’ll also give a percentage of spyware vs. malware.”
The app is limited to phones that use Lookout — fairly popular in the U.S. and Germany — so it doesn’t give the full picture, but “it’s still a sobering reminder that phones are rapidly becoming big business for malware creators,” suggests Mashable.
For now, Paramount is the only group to offer UltraViolet digital movies through their site. The main drawback, as SlashGear points out, is users cannot download these cloud-based movies for offline viewing.
Consumers can stream movies over the Internet on iOS devices, but “Android, BlackBerry, and Windows Phone are currently not connected to this service and set-top TV boxes and systems like the Xbox, Wii, and more are not able to work with this service at the moment either,” reports SlashGear.
The digital format films cost $12.99 for SD and $19.99 for HD, pricey when compared with DVDs and Blu-ray discs.
“While this idea seems like a great one in some places, especially for people who have iPhones and also a bit of money burning a hole in their pocket, but there doesn’t seem to be room for growth if no inclusion of the rest of the devices listed above come in quick,” the article concludes.
Following the shutdown of MegaUpload, the hacktivist group Anonymous reportedly hacked multiple government and entertainment sites including the Justice Department, Universal Music, BMI, the MPAA and RIAA.
Personal information on MPAA chairman Chris Dodd was posted, including his home address, phone numbers and children’s names.
“According to reports on Twitter, the group also has been attempting to pull down the website of the White House, but so far it hasn’t succeeded,” noted The Hollywood Reporter last week.
MPAA gave a statement, criticizing the groups actions: “Unfortunately, some groups believe that speech or ideas that they disagree with should be silenced…The motion picture and television industry has always been a strong supporter of free speech. We strongly condemn any attempts to silence any groups or individuals. The Internet is home to creativity, innovation and free speech. We want to keep it that way. Protecting copyrights and protecting free speech go hand in hand.”
Time Warner Cable has announced the launch of TWC TV for Apple’s iPhone.
“TWC TV allows subscribers of the second-largest U.S. cable operator to watch live TV from within the home, change channels on their set-top box and manage their DVR from their iPhone,” explains The Hollywood Reporter.
In order to access the interactive program guide, channel tuning and DVR management features, customers will need a set-top box or DVR that uses the “Navigator” interactive program guide, according to THR.
“TW Cable was one of the most visible pay TV providers at CES 2012 this month, which drew a positive review from Wells Fargo analyst Marci Ryvicker.” In the related article, THR notes that TV Everywhere is gaining momentum.
The app is currently available for download in the App Store at no additional cost for Time Warner Cable customers with a broadband connection.
In response to the latest piracy debate, GigaOM blames the studios for forcing consumers to download illegally by not making it easier for them to find and pay for content.
“Hollywood’s windowing system is essentially keeping consumers from being able to access the content that they want to watch. Without a reasonable option to pay, many are left to pirate a film that they wouldn’t go to the theater for anyway,” the article states.
Most of the time, people pirate content that they can’t find in a legitimate way. That doesn’t mean, however, that they won’t pay if the content were available.
Hollywood is concerned about losing theater sales but, as the article points out, “there are plenty of consumers who won’t go to the local megaplex to see a romantic comedy or drama, but are happy to pay for the convenience of watching it on the TV at home or on another device.”
Hollywood continues to preserve the current distribution and windowing scheme despite the rapid evolution of content consumption. Although it has made some concessions with UltraViolet, “until those movies are available in a timely fashion — i.e., not months after they’ve already left theaters — there will remain a huge audience that the studios will never capture, whether it’s because they’ve pirated the film or because they’ve chosen to watch something else,” GigaOM concludes.
The recent shutdown of MegaUpload by the FBI has provoked a number of defensive responses among other sites that may have similar businesses.
Some have turned off their services all together, while others are vocally pointing out differences between their sites and MegaUpload.
FileSonic and FileServe are preventing users from downloading files uploaded by others. Uploaded.to has stopped accepting U.S.-based users.
“MediaFire and RapidShare, both of which are often used to host and download copyrighted content, have gone on the offensive, giving statements to the press that attempt to draw the line between their models and what MegaUpload was doing,” reports ReadWriteWeb.
“If the charges are to be believed, what MegaUpload was up to was particularly egregious. Still, the whole affair raises questions about where the line is. People can use any number of mechanisms for sharing files with each other, including copyrighted material,” explains the post. “If the FBI can raid MegaUpload and shut it down, what’s stopping the authorities from going after other services?”
“Verizon Communications Inc. is pushing hard to move its FiOS TV service beyond the set-top box and onto the latest gadgets — from TVs and tablets to gaming consoles — to fend off competition from online video services such as Netflix, Amazon and Apple’s iTunes,” reports Reuters.
In a CES interview with Reuters, Joe Ambeault, the director of product management for FiOS TV, detailed Verizon’s plans to push the service on multiple platforms and devices to insure the survival of FiOS.
The company already has a deal with Microsoft to bring the service to the Xbox. It’s now working with content providers to allow consumers access on mobile devices outside the home. Additionally, Verizon announced deals with LG and Samsung to have FiOS on their smart TVs.
Ambeault also talked about his desire to get FiOS on the Apple TV whenever it becomes available. He wants the service to be associated with innovative devices like the Apple TV and LG Magic Remote to interest consumers.
