Twitter is introducing user galleries that integrate with third-party services such as TwitPic, Instagram and yFrog to display a user’s 100 most recent photo tweets.
This is the first feature Twitter has built upon its recently-launched native image sharing, launched earlier this summer.
“We think the user galleries feature will be good for advertisers, who now have greater incentive to include cool pictures in their tweets,” explains Matt Graves, Twitter’s director of communications.
ReadWriteWeb reports: “…considering Twitter’s need to monetize, bringing multimedia in-house and attracting more users to the website, rather than third-party clients, could be key to Twitter’s future business plans.”
Joining other airlines in similar efforts, British Airways will trial the use of iPads with its cabin crews to improve customer service, increase efficiency and cut back on paper. (ETCentric reported in May that Alaskan Airlines became the first U.S. carrier to replace its flight manuals with Apple’s popular tablet.)
If the British Airways trial proves successful, senior crew members will be given tablets in the coming months.
“It gives the cabin crew a whole library of information at their fingertips including timetables, safety manuals and customer service updates,” explains the press release. “It also means any issues can be logged with ground-based colleagues around the network prior to departure so solutions can be delivered while the flight is airborne.”
In related news, United Continental has issued iPads to 11,000 of its pilots in its efforts to convert to paperless cockpits.
According to MarketWatch: “…the move saves 16 million sheets of paper and 326,000 gallons in fuel because of the lighter weight.”
Will we see tablets used for automated publishing systems in other professions?
A federal judge has ruled that online music services that host tracks in the cloud are not liable if that music has been acquired illegally by customers. ETCentric reported earlier this week that this may seem like a hollow victory for the record labels. However, a green light for online music locker services also provides some legal certainty for the likes of Apple, Google and Amazon.
“The judgement, by U.S. District Judge William Pauley, came in a case involving EMI and fourteen other record companies and music publishers, who had sued the service MP3tunes,” reports MacUser. “Judge Pauley explained that MP3tunes and its chief executive, Michael Robertson, had not breached the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA) in allowing downloads.”
“This is a huge victory. Users can still download songs from publicly available websites, and store them without a separate license fee, so long as MP3tunes complies with takedown notices,” says Greg Gulia, representing MP3tunes and Robertson.
This ruling should also come as good news to those companies investing in cloud-based music services. For example, Apple’s iTunes Match is due in the U.S. later this year. According to MacUser: “It will scan users’ iTunes libraries and allow them to access versions of tracks in their library, but not purchased from iTunes, online in iCloud. Tracks purchased in iTunes are automatically available to computers and mobile devices associated with an iTunes account. If no match is found, users will be able to upload the track themselves.”
Sports bars have become venues for live Internet videogame matches between professional gamers.
The events attract a large numbers of gaming fans that have already been watching alone at home, but are attracted to the energy and screams of other fans. One tournament in July attracted some 85,000 online viewers via Twitch.tv.
“This summer, ‘Starcraft II’ has become the newest barroom spectator sport,” according to The Wall Street Journal. “Fans organize so-called Barcraft events, taking over pubs and bistros from Honolulu to Florida and switching big-screen TV sets to Internet broadcasts of professional game matches happening often thousands of miles away.”
The “Starcraft” franchise is very popular in Korea, where two cable stations provide dedicated coverage of “Starcraft II” (in addition to “Halo,” “Counter-Strike” and “Call of Duty”). Fervor for public viewings is spilling into the U.S. for the first time.
“This feels like the World Cup,” said one Barcraft attendee recently in San Francisco. “You experience the energy and screams of everyone around you when a player makes an amazing play.”
As the monthly costs for pay TV have risen from $11.97 in 1986 to $49.70 this year, consumers are looking for inexpensive Web alternatives like Netflix and Amazon.com.
Three of the past five quarters have seen an overall decline in pay TV subscriptions, according to SNL Kagan.
“Barclays Capital analyst James Ratcliffe predicts that as young people who now rely on Internet-TV alternatives age, penetration of pay TV among occupied homes gradually will decline,” explains The Wall Street Journal. “He sees it dropping to 79 percent by 2018 from 89.5 percent now, although he predicts the pay TV industry won’t lose subscribers in an absolute sense until 2016.”
Ford and Toyota announced this week they will work together on the development of standards for Internet connectivity in their vehicles.
The collaboration will address Bluetooth and Wi-Fi use, in addition to back-end networking infrastructure for in-vehicle data services.
“Standards will be crucial to enable car companies to work with third party developers, device makers, cell phone companies and Internet companies to create applications that are actually compelling to drivers,” reports GigaOM. “Drivers will want to move their data, digital entertainment and Internet services from their homes and cell phones to their cars, and this will rely on a standardized format.”
Ford is developing related technology beyond digital entertainment and basic Internet services, with the goal of enabling vehicles to wirelessly communicate in an effort to reduce crashes and fuel consumption.
The number of vehicles worldwide with Internet radio service is projected to grow from 168,000 in 2010 to 24 million in 2018, according to IHS iSuppli.
U.S. sales alone are expected to move from 149,000 to 10.9 million during the same period.
“The next several years will see an explosion in the use of in-vehicle apps in cars, driven by booming shipments of automobiles employing head units designed to integrate Cloud-based content,” says IHS. “These apps, whether built into cars or provided via connected mobile devices like smartphones, will provide a range of infotainment, entertainment, remote diagnostics and navigation services. Internet radio is expected to lead the in-vehicle app revolution.”
The study concludes that the following are currently driving demand: Pandora, iHeartRadio, Slacker and Spotify (and in the Cloud: Apple’s iCloud, Google Music and Amazon’s Cloud Drive).
While a judge has ruled against MP3tunes and founder, Michael Robertson, for copyright infringement, the details of the ruling may provide online music locker businesses like those from Google and Amazon with a better legal foundation.
A key finding is that users, not MP3tunes, had the ability to determine which files were placed in their lockers.
Also, it was determined that DMCA does not require one to investigate potentially infringing activity without a specific complaint from copyright holders.
“The news is even better for Google and Amazon,” according to Ars Technica. “Those companies’ music locker services do not even offer the broad sideloading functionality that has caused Robertson legal headaches. So if Judge Pauley’s reasoning survives appeal, Google and Amazon will be on solid legal ground. Indeed, those companies may even want to start thinking about whether they’ve been too cautious. For example, they might save a lot of money by taking advantage of the deduplication part of the ruling.”
LG announced its A530 3D notebook with 15.6-inch stereoscopic display and built-in 3D webcam this week.
The A530 features native YouTube support and 3D Space Software, a built-in editing suite for 3D content.
The notebook’s options include Intel Core i3, i5 and i7 processors with up to 8GB of RAM and a choice of two graphics cards: an Nvidia GeForce GT 555m with either 1 or 2GB of built-in memory.
“The screen also has what the company calls Film Patterned Retarder technology, which it claims produces brighter and flicker-free images compared to screens that use shutter-style glasses,” reports Digital Trends.
No price announcement yet, but the device is expected to ship to Europe later this month.
Since Fox implemented its 8-day delay of content availability on Hulu, downloads from BitTorrent for shows such as “Hell’s Kitchen” and “MasterChef” have increased 114 percent and 189 percent, respectively. Others are watching Fox shows on video sites including YouTube.
Moreover, the situation is creating negative consumer reactions as consumers are forced to find content elsewhere.
“One of the main motivations for people to download and stream TV shows from unauthorized sources is availability,” reports TorrentFreak. “If fans can’t get a show through legal channels they turn to pirated alternatives.”
The post suggests that some consumers have indicated they will be returning to their DVRs and may even dust off their VCRs in response.
Google’s third-generation Nexus Prime smartphone will reportedly arrive in October running the Android 4.0 “Ice Cream Sandwich” OS (in time to compete with Apple’s rumored iPhone 5 release).
The device is expected to feature a 720p Super AMOLED HD display, a 4G LTE radio and front/rear-facing cameras, powered by a 1.5GHz processor.
The display will reportedly include a 4.5-inch panel with a PenTile layout.
According to Digital Trends: “Ice Cream Sandwich (ICS) is said to be not just a simple update from the current version of Android. Instead, ICS is intended to be a multi-device OS, which created a unified user experience across Android tablets, phones and Google TV. This could help solve some of the fragmentation problems that Google has with Android, and is one of the primary weak points in its battle with Apple’s seamless iOS.”
Based on Q2 statistics, Android has extended its dominance as the most popular smartphone operating system in the U.S., while Apple’s iOS also continues to gain traction.
According to NPD, 52 percent of smartphones shipped in the U.S. during the second quarter were running Android (up 19 percent from the previous year). Apple’s iOS earned a 29 percent share, up seven percent from Q2 2010.
NPD reports that these figures may have an impact on the potential revitalization of Motorola. “Google’s acquisition of Motorola shifts the balance of power in the handset-patent conflict between Google and its operating system competitors,” said Ross Rubin, executive director of industry analysis for NPD. “Android’s momentum has made for a large pie that is attractive to Motorola’s Android rivals, even if they must compete with their operating system developer.”
Market gains for Android and iOS have negatively impacted the competition. Market share for Research In Motion’s BlackBerry OS dropped significantly from 28 percent in the second quarter of 2010 to 11 percent this year. Microsoft’s Windows Mobile also suffered, falling from 10 percent in Q2 2010 to four percent in Q2 2011.
Prepaid smartphone numbers are on the rise, which may also impact Motorola (8 percent of prepaid phones were smartphones in Q2 2010, a figure that jumped to 22 percent this year). “Android is also leading the charge in the rapidly growing prepaid smartphone market,” Rubin said. “This was once a key segment for Motorola that the company has an opportunity to reclaim as prepaid carriers build their smartphone portfolios.”
LG Electronics launched the next leg of its Cinema 3D “Take The 3D TV Challenge” campaign last week at New York’s Grand Central Station.
New York City marked the first stop on a new tour (that will also include Chicago and Los Angeles) designed to educate consumers regarding the benefits of 3D LCD TVs and passive glasses.
The campaign began earlier this year in Houston “where consumers allegedly overwhelmingly selected LG’s passive 3D glasses-based TVs when matched against similarly sized active-shutter 3D TVs from Samsung and Sony,” reports TWICE.
“I think the most important thing we’re doing here is keeping the visibility up on 3D and step-up products in our industry,” said Jay Vandenbree, LG Electronics home entertainment sales and marketing senior VP. “Everything we’ve done has been to get consumers to talk about it, think about it, and to go find out about it. If we can get them to do that and see what their options are in the television business, they might make that choice to spend their discretionary income in our industry.”
Miramax is following in the footsteps of Warner Bros., Paramount and Universal by making its films available on Facebook.
The Miramax eXperience will initially offer 20 titles in the U.S. and 10 each in Great Britain and Turkey (available films include “Good Will Hunting,” “Spy Kids,” “Chicago” and “Cold Mountain”).
Movies will be made available for 30 Facebook credits (equivalent to $3) and can be viewed on Facebook, the iPad and Google TV.
Miramax hopes to build its reach to 150 million+ Facebook friends in the next 18 months.
“The iTunes-like nature of Miramax’s Facebook movie rentals (i.e. per-movie charge, rather than a subscription fee) could prove very effective,” reports Social Times. “A lot of online movie watchers aren’t ready to commit to a subscription service like Netflix or Hulu Plus. Renting a single movie from Facebook may be more their style, and a $3 movie rental sounds like a pretty good deal, if you ask me.”
Skype, which is in the process of being acquired by Microsoft, is purchasing GroupMe, a year-old startup with 20 employees known for its popular cross-platform messaging system that works between smartphones.
Skype will reportedly pay $85 million for the company, which GigaOM suggests raises the question: “Why is Skype spending so much money on a relatively small company with a relatively small user base when compared to Skype?”
While Skype is a partner with Facebook, it has to be concerned that competition in voice and video communication is becoming intense with Facebook Messenger, Google Huddle and Apple iMessage. (GroupMe adds group messaging.)
Skype will still need to decide if it is a product for consumers or a collaboration tool for corporations.
ETCentric staffer Dennis Kuba raises another interesting question: “Is voice and video communications becoming commoditized?”
