The Open Mobile Video Coalition will launch a free service in the fall called Dyle.tv.
“What makes this solution different, and perhaps what gives it the best chance to succeed, is that it is built upon the existing ATSC digital broadcast infrastructure,” comments Ben Bajarin for TechPinions. “DVB-H required quite a bit of new infrastructure investments and many did not make them,” he adds, referring to why earlier mobile TV efforts may have failed.
The cost for stations to install new hardware is only between $15-25,000 and can be done in two hours. Devices will require a DTV chip to access the signal.
Dyle.tv will be available as an Android and iOS app and the rights to major networks have already been secured. The service will launch in 210 markets across the U.S.
Bajarin speculates that this mobile TV service will not only be good for live news and sports programming, but for “catch-up” TV that would make for a compelling service.
Nokia announced new app partnerships for its Lumia line of phones at the CTIA Wireless show in New Orleans this week.
New apps will include the PGA Tour, keeping golf fans abreast of news and highlights, an ESPN sports app and a Lumia-only Fantasy Football app coming in the fall.
Gamers will be happy to hear of new titles from Electronic Arts, including “FIFA,” “Madden,” “NBA Jam” and others.
Rovio is also a significant piece of the puzzle, “creating a dedicated development team to create titles for Nokia Windows phones,” according to Engadget.
According to the official Nokia blog, AOL will launch its Entertainment Hub: “Exclusive to Nokia Lumia owners for six months from launch, this AOL app brings the cream of AOL’s content to Nokia Lumia owners. That includes the ability to play any of its 55,000 SHOUTcast radio stations, streaming albums with Listening Party. movie trailers and more.”
Nokia also announced new apps or updates from Groupon, PayPal, Time, Newsweek and others.
Dish Networks argues to AMC that by making their programming available in other venues such as iTunes, Amazon and Netflix, the shows become “devalued.”
Television programmers have been responding to this concern by pulling content from sites like Hulu or requiring authentication of subscriptions.
“The fact that networks are selling or giving away their stuff online has been a minor but growing issue in carriage fights for a while now,” reports AllThingsD. “But this is the biggest stink that a cable/pay TV provider has made about it, at least in public.”
Netflix argues that prior season episodes help generate interest in watching new shows. But there is evidence suggesting that Netflix repeats are also negatively impacting some cable programming such as kids’ shows. This may affect future renegotiations.
Rather than taking the traditional route of shopping a script around the Hollywood studios, independent filmmakers and producers are looking to attract an audience first without any studio involvement.
A script entered into a contest for Fresh Voices, a social network for screenwriters , was made into a teaser for “Already Gone” and will be posted on social networks. If it gets a sufficient audience, the short may be purchased and made into a feature film.
Studios can see which “pilots” are getting the most buzz to determine which projects to finance and how to market them.
“Studios spend a tremendous amount of money in marketing a film, but independent filmmakers are now capable of distributing their content on the smallest of budgets,” reports Mashable. “Sites like Kickstarter, Twitter and Facebook have changed how films are made.”
Mobile payments company Square continues to expand its reach, moving heavily into art fairs and farmers’ markets. The platform, which processes about $416 million in payments each month, has already proven successful with charities, taxis, food trucks, political campaigns and more.
The company claims that “at Etsy’s New York’s Spring Handmade Cavalcade last weekend in Brooklyn, over 90 percent of the vendors used Square to accept payments,” according to TechCrunch.
A similar event, Unique LA (the largest independent fashion market in the country), will be using Square to process payments this coming weekend. The event expects to see over one and a half million dollars in transactions.
“It’s not surprising that Square is being used by independent purveyors at fairs and markets. The company’s smartphone dongle and companion payments app makes taking credit cards easy,” suggests TechCrunch.
Square is now processing $5 billion in annual payments, with volume up 25 percent in the past month.
Amidst stiff competition in the exploding mobile image-sharing sphere, Twitpic announced the release of its first iPhone app for editing and sharing photos.
Twitpic is best known as the go-to photo sharing service for Twitter users, making it possible to upload directly to Twitter and not via a third party service.
“Twitpic is hoping that free and simple-to-use editing features will be enticing enough to stay relevant” in the market, according to The New York Times.
“A free built-in photo editor will allow people to polish photos through a number of tools, including cropping and visual filters. People can also see the most popular pictures shared each day,” details the article. The photos will be shared on Twitter.
However, Twitpic is facing an increasing number of competitors, including “dozens of free photo-editing apps and social image-sharing services available for the iPhone,” notes NYT. Additionally, Instagram (recently purchased by Facebook for $1 billion) is adding millions of users per month.
Google is trying to push the boundaries of email, a typically static communication medium. Rolling out to users throughout the week, its Google+ notifications in Gmail promise to be more interactive.
“This is actually Google’s second step in this direction. Since March, Google+ users were already able to add people to their circles from inside the Google+ notifications email,” details TechCrunch.
But Google is going a step further this week, “basically bringing the full interactive Google+ experience to these messages. Users can now view, comment on and +1 posts from their inboxes. Responses from their friends will also appear in real time right inside the message,” according to the post.
Other start-ups, including PowerInbox are also attempting to convert email into more of an interactive platform. “The PowerInbox browser plugin, for example works with Gmail, Hotmail, Yahoo Mail and Outlook and its API is already being used by a number of other email clients, including Unified Inbox,” adds TechCrunch.
Google launched Hangouts On Air this week, which is essentially an extension to Google+ group video chat that allows users to stream live to large audiences around the world.
The company has already used this for special broadcasts by David Beckham, the Muppets and President Obama. Moreover, it is training media companies like The New York Times and Wired to run their own broadcasts.
“This is a much more efficient and pervasive way to organize a conversation,” Hangouts product manager Nikhyl Singhal told AllThingsD. “Maybe I needed satellite trucks and switchboards for something like this in the past.”
To initiate, users simply flip the “enable Hangouts On Air” switch, and the video chat converts from private to public view — and not only for an audience of Google+ users. Hangouts On Air can be embedded into Web pages and even a YouTube channel.
Google will be leveraging YouTube’s methods for addressing copyrighted content, hate speech, illegal activity and pornography.
MosChip Semiconductor Technology introduced its Personal Computer Virtualization System last week, which allows users to play games, surf the Internet and stream videos on their TVs.
The PCVS box is built around the company’s MCS8142 chip that “facilitates video streaming, gaming and also virtual functioning of multi-purpose home networking,” reports Business Standard. “While the PCVS box is driving the PC to churn out a movie, games or other entertainment applications to your TV, the PC is still available for serious business work.”
The company is pursuing possible bundling deals with manufacturers of set-top boxes, TVs and PCs.
“We will be launching the product in countries like China, the U.S., India, Japan and Taiwan. Revenues from this product are likely to trickle in from the second quarter of the current financial year,” explained Ramchandra Reddy, chairman and chief executive officer of MosChip.
“Even if we can ship about 500,000 units, we will be doing good business. China alone has the appetite to consume about 20 to 30 million units because of higher adoption levels,” he said.
LinkedIn announced it will acquire presentation service SlideShare for $118.8 million in cash and stock.
SlideShare will continue to operate as a standalone service, while LinkedIn will integrate some of its features.
“The SlideShare acquisition is comprised of about 45 percent cash and 55 percent stock, and is slated to close this quarter, LinkedIn said. Founded in 2006, SlideShare hosts more than seven million presentations and fits LinkedIn’s mission of ‘making professionals more productive,’ executives said during a conference call,” according to the Wall Street Journal.
“Revenue has surged at LinkedIn, which sells recruiting tools to businesses and offers premium subscriptions to users eager to network,” adds the article.
LinkedIn’s net revenue more than doubled in Q1 to $188.5 million. Revenue from premium subscriptions jumped 91 percent and revenue from recruiting services more than doubled.
Microsoft has announced that its new Windows 8 operating system will not play DVDs unless users purchase an upgrade.
“Users will either have to pay to upgrade to the ‘Media Center’ or download extra, third-party software if they do want to play films,” reports The Telegraph.
According to the official Building Windows 8 blog, the change is in response to television and DVD use on PCs being “in sharp decline”. “It claims that Microsoft would have to spend ‘a significant amount in royalties’ to offer support for optical media in future software,” explains the article.
Microsoft will support online media including standards such as H.264, VC-1, MP4, AAC, WMA, MP3, PCM and Dolby Digital Plus codecs. Ultrabooks and tablets running Windows 8 will not have DVD drives.
Nokia plans to include tablets and hybrid mobile devices in its future product offerings, Jorma Ollila said in an interview before stepping down as chairman last week. However, a timetable was not provided.
“Nokia lost its place as the world’s largest handset maker to Samsung Electronics Co. last quarter,” reports Businessweek. “The company still hasn’t produced inexpensive smartphones with broad developer support to compete with Google Inc.’s Android, more than a year after announcing its shift to Microsoft Corp.’s Windows Phone.”
Ollila was CEO from 1992 to 2006, during which Nokia became the world’s largest handset maker. Finnish entrepreneur Risto Siilasmaa will succeed Ollila as chairman.
In a related Computerworld article, Nokia announced that it would ship a 41-megapixel camera phone to Russia and India this month. The company says availability of the Symbian-based phone in other countries will be announced in the near future.
The PureView 808 was developed with lens-maker Carl Zeiss. Nokia has extended its deal with Zeiss to continue developing PureView for future smartphones.
“The search engine and online advertising giant replaced its popular Google Docs service with Google Drive, a cloud computing storage service designed to directly compete with start-up Dropbox,” reports Patexia. “This raises the question, has Google become the new Microsoft?”
The commentary suggests that Google Drive is an example of how a company waited for others to innovate and then essentially copied the innovation (as Google arguably did with its Dropbox-like Drive service).
Due to the company’s size and resources, Google can offer their version of the product at a loss for years, effectively starving the competition out of business.
By having large companies like Google effectively compromise smaller competitors, innovation suffers.
“Google can’t bully everyone. Its main competitors in the world of tech are Microsoft, Facebook and Apple. Google can try to push those companies around, but it likely won’t do a whole lot,” comments Nick Pell via Patexia. “Only companies with the resources and connections of Google are able to push back against them. This hardly makes for a good environment for innovation.”
Microsoft has begun a campaign to tackle software piracy at both the state and federal levels. The Redmond, Washington-based company hopes to make foreign manufacturers certify they are using legal software.
In its home state of Washington, Microsoft got the backing for a law that bans manufacturers using pirated software. It is now seeking legislation in the California State Legislature that will require state contractors to certify they do not use pirated software. And in Washington, DC, it has spent more than $7 million to lobby for federal legislation.
“Microsoft contends it is simply seeking to level a playing field whose tilt has accelerated the offshoring of manufacturing jobs over the last decade,” reports Fortune. “It points to a study by the Business Software Alliance showing that reducing piracy by 10 percent over four years would generate nearly $38 billion in new economic activity and create 25,000 new tech-industry jobs.”
Interestingly, other major tech companies including Apple, Cisco, Dell, HP, Google, IBM, Motorola, and Xerox are opposed to Microsoft’s efforts. They are concerned about the cost and complexity of certifying their worldwide supply chains.
A partial verdict has been issued in Oracle’s copyright infringement case against Google. The federal jury has determined that Google violated some Java copyrights owned by Oracle while building the Android operating system.
However, the jury was at a deadlock regarding whether Google’s practices fell under the fair use provision, which “allows excerpts of copyrighted work to appear in other creative expressions, such as books, movies and computer software,” reports Businessweek.
Arguing that the verdict has no legal standing without the question of fair use answered, Google is expected to pursue a mistrial.
“The impasse reached Monday in San Francisco hobbles Oracle Corp.’s attempt to extract hundreds of millions of dollars from Google on grounds that the search leader pirated parts of Android from Oracle’s Java programming system,” explains the article.
In a statement, Google said it realizes “that fair use and infringement are two sides of the same coin. The core issue is whether the APIs here are copyrightable, and that’s for the court to decide.”
Oracle’s statement reads: “The overwhelming evidence demonstrated that Google knew it needed a license and that its unauthorized fork of Java in Android shattered Java’s central write once run anywhere principle.”