Unlike movies, music, books, pictures and written materials — which are protected by copyrights — physical objects must be protected by patents.
As the patent process is difficult, complex and costly, many objects are not covered by patents. And those which are covered only get protection for 20 years.
3D printers will lead us to re-think the need to get permission to copy, improve or build with physical objects. Moreover, it may get us to reconsider how intellectual property rights in general should function in the digital world.
“It is impossible to predict all of the ways that widespread access to 3D printing could change our society,” comments Slate. “However, before it revolutionizes manufacturing, design, or anything else, 3D printing may first help us regain a much-needed perspective on the role intellectual property should have in the world.”
Dropbox released their Android app that enables users to wirelessly upload pictures to the cloud from their smartphones. CEO Drew Houston said he hopes third-party developers will expand upon the app to include photo editing or manipulation features.
Users get 500 megabytes of storage following their first upload and are allowed up to 3GB of free space. An iOS version will be released soon, according to Dropbox.
The company faces fierce competition in the cloud from Microsoft, Apple’s iCloud and Google’s Drive.
James Staten, an analyst at Forrester Research said the new app is intended to “secure and solidify their position as the best file-sharing service and trying not to go beyond that, which I think is a smart move.”
Apple just acquired Chomp, an app search and discovery platform. The company plans to streamline the discovery process of the App Store’s 500,000 apps (and counting).
“This is not a cheap ‘acqui-hire,’ Apple has bought the Chomp team and technology and plans to use both to completely revamp App Store search and recommendations,” TechCrunch reports. “And they clearly have the money to do it: Apple has nearly $100 billion in cash (and cash equivalents) in the bank now coming off their monster quarter.”
In two rounds of funding, Chomp had raised just over $2.5 million. The company of 20 or so employees powers all Verizon’s Android-based app searches, a deal that should stay intact, at least for the time being.
“My understanding is that such deals will remain intact for now but are likely to end once the Chomp team and product fully transitions over to Apple,” comments MG Siegler for TechCrunch. “The same is likely true for Chomp’s stand-alone products.”
Adobe has introduced Project Primetime, which it claims is “the industry’s first fully integrated video technology platform.”
Primetime includes streaming, content protection, analytics and advertising using a single workflow to Apple iOS, Google Android, desktop operating systems and connected TVs.
“The first portion of Adobe’s project, ‘Primetime Highlights,’ is available today for the iPad and showcases a video editor alongside the Auditude ad platform,” reports Engadget. Adobe will have additional platforms coming later in 2012.
Although DISH Network still believes the Blockbuster name carries weight, it will close 500 stores by the end of this quarter, a third of its remaining 1,500 locations.
The company hopes to eventually reach a stable store count “that would allow it to use the brick-and-mortar locations to better bolster its mainstay satellite business,” reports The Verge.
Over the past three quarters, the Blockbuster division broke even and DISH has created a Blockbuster @Home on-demand service. DISH saw a 13 percent increase from a year ago and gained 22,000 new customers, boosting it to the 14 million subscriber mark.
In a related story, the Wall Street Journal reports that in order to appeal to customers’ desire for bundled services, DISH Chairman Charlie Ergen says the company needs to offer mobile wireless with its video service to compete with cable operators and phone companies.
According to Ergen, “in the face of a saturated pay-TV market, DISH needs to sell packages of services with more value so it can compete better with pay-TV providers,” WSJ reports.
He believes the company has an 80 percent chance of succeeding as a wireless provider. The FCC has not yet approved DISH’s use of satellite spectrum for building its wireless network.
RIM is working with developers to boost its third-party applications to rival those of Apple’s iOS and Google’s Android. However, Netflix is not signing on, explaining on Twitter: “We don’t have any current plans to support BlackBerry devices, including PlayBook.”
“Netflix has long been available for Apple’s iPhone and iPad and devices running Google’s Android software,” reports Reuters.
According to the post, it is not clear at this time whether Netflix would “port its existing Android app across rather than create a specific app for PlayBook.”
RIM recently upgraded software for the PlayBook to allow developers to easily translate their Android apps over to the PlayBook. “The upgrade also enables a BlackBerry smartphone to remotely control the tablet, which connects to a television via a standard cable,” adds Reuters.
Pew Research released a report showing social media users are editing their pages more often and upping privacy settings “as they seek to protect their reputations in the age of digital sharing,” Reuters reports.
According to the study, 63 percent of users deleted “friends” (up from 56 percent in 2009), 44 percent said they’d deleted comments on their profiles (up from 36 percent), and 37 percent removed their names from tagged photos (up from 30 percent).
In terms of privacy, 58 percent of those surveyed set their profiles to private for only friends to see, 19 percent allowed friends of friends to view, and only 20 percent of the users kept their profiles entirely public.
“Over time, as social networking sites have become a mainstream communications channel in everyday life, profile owners have become more active managers of their profiles and the content that is posted by others in their networks,” the report states.
The Obama Administration has released its Consumer Privacy Bill of Rights — an initiative to protect online privacy for Americans.
Working with the Federal Trade Commission, the plan is intended to enforce privacy standards to provide better personal control for consumers, encourage innovation from Internet companies and uphold global standards.
The proposal focuses on seven protections against data aggregation: “Consumers should have control over the kind of data companies collect, companies must be transparent about data usage plans and respect the context in which it is provided and disclosed. Companies would have to ensure secure and responsible handling of the data and be accountable for strong privacy measures. The bill of rights also calls for reasonable limits on the personal data that online companies can try to collect and retain, and the ability for consumers to correct their information,” Reuters reports.
The Department of Commerce and the FTC will collaborate with privacy advocates and Internet companies to come up with enforceable privacy policies. The industry has made attempts to self-regulate but some consumer groups and members of Congress believe the situation requires government involvement.
One main privacy concern addressed in the proposal is Internet tracking for targeted advertising. The top Internet browsers have opt-out “do not track” buttons (Google Chrome is still in the process of updating) and many online advertisers agreed to uphold “do not track” requests.
As smartphones are being used for more applications and consumers demand thinner phones, batteries that fit in the form factor are having a hard time keeping up.
At this week’s Mobile World Congress, Duracell will announce plans to make its Duracell Powermat available in public places. They will begin in New York this summer and roll out to Europe next year.
The Powermat allows one to charge a mobile phone by placing it on the surface. Duracell wants to make its recharging Powermat ubiquitous, providing wireless charging everywhere — cars, homes, offices, even public places like Madison Square Garden.
A Wireless Power Consortium consisting of most of the mobile phone manufacturers (except Apple) is pushing for a wireless charging standard.
The consortium chairman Menno Treffers worries that Apple may create a problem for wireless charging in public places if it continues with its own wireless charging standard.
Another promising Duracell Powermat product: “a back-up battery that can be charged on the Powermat and clicked onto smartphones in an emergency,” the Wall Street Journal reports. “The backup has 1.5 times the energy of a typical iPhone battery… and, importantly, it works with all smartphones including the iPhone.”
Broadcast TV is seeing increased viewership due to high cable TV costs and the proliferation of Web streaming options.
Companies are including broadcast TV complemented with Web video as a cord-cutting alternative to costly cable TV.
“Largely relegated to obscurity decades ago, old-fashioned television broadcasts — over the airwaves and not via cable or satellite — are enjoying an unexpected revival in the digital era,” reports the Wall Street Journal.
On average, viewers can get 30-45 channels over the air. In Los Angeles, they can get 90 stations.
Over the past 18 months, the number of pay TV subscribers has not grown while broadband and broadcast TV households increased 23 percent in Q3 of 2011.
“TV-antenna seller Richard Schneider of St. Louis says sales at his company are soaring,” adds WSJ, regarding the emerging trend. “Schneider’s Antennas Direct sold 70,000 antennas in January, and he expects to double last year’s sales of about 600,000.”
“Every time that Hulu and Netflix enhance their services, our phones light up,” said Schneider.
An iPad version of the the Microsoft Office Suite has reportedly been in development. “In addition to an iPad-ready version, a new edition of Office is expected for OS X Lion sometime next year,” reported The Daily back in November.
According to sources familiar with the project, the app will be submitted to Apple soon.
“The app’s user interface is similar to the current OneNote app, but it has hints of Metro, the new design language that can be seen in Windows Phone and in the as-yet-released Windows 8 desktop operating system,” The Daily reported this week.
“An exact launch date is unknown, but the design team has since wrapped up the project, meaning it could be released in the coming weeks,” the post states.
UPDATE: “Microsoft may well be working on a version of Office for iPad, but it’s not the one detailed in a report today from The Daily,” reports AllThingsD. “Nor will it soon be submitted to Apple for approval.”
“The Daily story is based on inaccurate rumors and speculation,” Microsoft spokesman Frank Shaw told AllThingsD. “We have no further comment.”
Editor Peter Ha of The Daily stands by the story. In response to a question regarding the screenshots used for the original post, he tweeted: “We did not fabricate either image. A working version of the app was demoed to us by someone at Microsoft.”
Google Music, a download and streaming service serving 200 million Android users, has had a disappointing start. The service was intended to compete with Apple’s iTunes, but so far has attracted just 10 percent of potential users.
Google’s managers are telling music companies that they expect more interest when the company starts building its own consumer devices. It is rumored to be building a wireless entertainment system.
However, competition may continue coming from a variety of areas. Microsoft, for example, “has held talks with some of the record companies about creating a new digital music store that would serve owners of the Xbox gaming console as well as buyers of an upcoming Windows-based phone. The parties have discussed the possibility of streaming music as well as selling downloads,” reports CNET.
Additionally, download services may be out of step today as subscription services such as Spotify, Rhapsody and Rdio gain more attention.
Apple has a new “Mastered for iTunes” section on the iTunes Store that includes recommendations for audio engineers when preparing master files for submission.
Original recordings are captured at 24-bit 96kHz. The CD format, which encodes at 16-bit 44.1kHz, captures only 15 percent of the original. The iTunes Plus format captures as little as 3 percent of the original. There is an effort underway to set a higher quality uncompressed audio standard of 24-bit across the industry in the future.
Mastering for iTunes requires an awareness of the devices used to play back the music. Moreover, Apple is also aware that high-resolution audio files will become more important especially as the focus changes to the cloud for post-PC devices.
Apple is providing some basic tools to help in the conversion, but the process is not automatic and engineers remain an important part in determining how best to make the tradeoffs.
Facebook will expand its movie business interests today when it continues experimentation with streaming feature films.
The latest feature offering will be “Tomorrow, When the War Began” — a two-year-old Australian action adventure about teenagers fighting against a military attack. Facebook will get 30 percent of the revenue.
“Milyoni Inc. (pronounced ‘Million Eye’), which calls itself an ‘f-commerce’ (as in ‘Facebook commerce’) social media provider, is handling the Facebook release,” reports Multichannel News. “The movie will also be distributed via iTunes, Vudu, Amazon, YouTube and In-Demand.”
Are we on the cusp of a new era of social cinema?
“Tim and Eric’s Billion Dollar Movie” debuted on Facebook last week, two weeks prior to its theatrical release. “For $10, fans will be able watch the movie and chat with its stars in real time,” reports ReadWriteWeb. “The model represents a new sort of social cinema that, while not widespread, appears poised to become a potentially major trend.”
“Like Google, Facebook has let it be known that it intends to play a big role in the development and distribution of feature films — competing with cable and other legacy providers,” explains Multichannel News. “The added value of such delivery, as Milyoni emphasizes, is that viewing via a social media platform lets fans watch and chat simultaneously, creating ‘a massive social frenzy that would be impossible to duplicate anywhere else.'”
Consumers are using their smartphones more than ever before as a useful tool for retail shopping. Compared to the previous year, retail app downloads have doubled.
“A new study from Nielsen’s upcoming United States Digital Consumer Report states that 29 percent of all smartphone users utilize their mobile devices to aid in shopping-related activities, whether online or in stores,” reports Digital Trends.
Nielsen found that consumers use their smartphones the most for price comparisons, with 38 percent checking prices online while browsing in stores.
When they get closer to a purchase, “32 percent of smartphone owners prefer to read consumer reviews online before making the final decision.”
“The least popular option of using smartphones to shop is actually paying for products with the phone,” indicates the article. “The study cites that only 18 percent of iOS and 13 percent of Android users are interested in using their phones as credit cards.”