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vogue, Bon Appetit & Conde Nast Traveler Coming to iPad in Early 2012

by Lauren Indvik

Three of Conde Nast’s biggest titles — Vogue, Bon Appetit and Conde Nast Traveler — will arrive on the iPad by early 2012, Bob Sauerberg, president of Conde Nast, said Thursday. The announcement accompanied the arrival of nine of Conde Nast’s other titles — Allure, Brides, Glamour, Golf Digest, GQ, Self, The New Yorker, Vanity Fair and Wired — on Apple’s newly released Newsstand app. It offers publishers two things they have long been asking of Apple: greater discoverability within the App Store ecosystem, and the ability to automatically deliver new issues to subscribers’ devices.
Vogue tested the iPad waters earlier this year with an iPad app built around a March 2011 cover story on Lady Gaga (screenshots below).
In a separate announcement, Rodale disclosed that print subscribers of Women’s Health, Prevention and Runner’s World will soon be able to access the iPad editions of those titles for free through Newsstand. Men’s Health will likewise be available sometime next week.

Vogue





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More About: bon appetit, conde nast, conde nast traveler, ipad, Media, vogue
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2:15 AM (30 minutes ago)

The Cow at the Apple Store: iPhone 4S Launch As Marketing Opportunity

by Sarah Kessler
1 person liked this

Dillon Horowitz is on his way to New York City’s flagship Apple store from Woodstock, N.Y. with a cow named Daizy, a calf and a milking goat. Horowitz’s plan is to host an animal meet-and-greet for the Apple fans who have already started lining up in anticipation of the iPhone 4S release. He’ll be handing out cups of warm milk, putting up cardboard cutouts of cows for photo opportunities and — of course — dropping lots of cards with QR codes on them linking to an iPhone game he created: The Milking App.
Horowitz and his Cows Gaming cofounder Gilad Shai aren’t the only business people who have spotted a marketing opportunity in the captive audience which tends to gather in front of Apple stores hours or even days before new product launches. Earlier this year, a man who paid $900 for the first spot in the iPad 2 line cited promotion for his app as his primary motivation. In Sydney, two doors down from the iPhone 4S line, Samsung has a pop-up store that sells the Galaxy S II for just $2. And iPhone-case maker OtterBox is handing out survival kits and pizza to the line in front of an Atlanta AT&T store.
This is the first time we’ve seen an Apple line promotion involve a live cow, however. Getting permission to bring a group of farm animals to the city involves no small amount of paperwork, and Horowitz says he started the process of applying for a permit about a year ago. Originally he wanted to bring the cow to Union Square, but decided on the Apple store because “it just felt right.” Daizy will be stationed across the street from the Apple store on public property from about 4:00 to 9:00 p.m. Thursday.
Her trip to New York City has certainly got our attention, but it also has us wondering how much of Apple’s consumer catnip can really rub off on those who crash its party. Will Daizy’s trip to the Apple store really foster affection for The Milking App? Horowitz certainly hopes so.
“You should really come down to meet Daizy,” Horowitz says. “She’s a really charming, amazing cow.”
Image courtesy of istockphoto, FrankvandenBergh
More About: iPhone 4S, The Millking App
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1:58 AM (46 minutes ago)

Google+ Has 40 Million Users, Says Larry Page

by Todd Wasserman

Google came very close to its first $10 billion quarter and hit another milestone: 40 million users for Google+, as the company announced its third-quarter earnings on Thursday. Google posted $9.72 billion in revenues, a 33% jump over the same quarter in 2010. Operating income for the quarter was also up. Such earnings hit $3.06 billion for the quarter compared to $2.55 billion in the year-ago quarter.
In a press release from the company, CEO Larry Page also said that Google+, the company’s fledgling social network, now has 40 million users: “People are flocking into Google+ at an incredible rate and we are just getting started!” says Page.
More to come.
More About: Google


1:47 AM (57 minutes ago)

How People Use Smartphones and Tablets While Watching TV [STUDY]

by Lauren Indvik

So you watch TV without another screen to hand? You may soon be in the minority. TV viewing is increasingly becoming a multi-screen experience. This is especially true for owners of tablets and smartphones in the U.S., 40% of whom use their devices while watching TV on a daily basis, according to data from Nielsen. In fact, only 12% of tablet owners and 13% of smartphone owners say they have never used those devices while watching TV.
What are we doing on those devices? More than half of smartphone or tablet owners are checking email during programs and commercial breaks, while around 45% are surfing the web for unrelated information. Some 42% are visiting social networking sites — a trend that is greater among women — and nearly a third are checking sports scores or looking up information related to the TV program they’re watching.
Fewer than 20% of them are looking up information related to ads they’ve seen on TV. Still, that’s a pretty significant amount.
Unsurprisingly, few ereader owners use their devices while watching TV. Only 14% do so on a daily basis, and nearly half say they’ve never done so. We expect those numbers match the number of people who read printed books while watching TV. Reading simply isn’t as compatible with TV viewing as smartphones and tablets are, particularly with the recent influx of apps designed to be used during programming.
Personally, I was surprised that so many people were using their devices during programming. I’ll frequently turn to my Kindle or check email on my iPhone during a commercial break, but I have a difficult time ignoring programming once it’s on. What about you? How do these statistics compare to your own TV-viewing habits?
More About: ipad, Nielsen, smartphones, tablets, TV
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1:20 AM (1 hour ago)

1-Year-Old Plays With Magazine Like It’s an iPad [VIDEO]

by Todd Wasserman
1 person liked this

Each day, Mashable highlights one noteworthy YouTube video. Check out all our viral video picks.
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Kids today. They think the world revolves around them, that texting trumps face-to-face conversations and that print magazines are actually iPads.
Say what? Well, about that last part: While there are apocryphal stories about toddlers trying to activate their TVs by touching their screens, the same apparently holds true for non-electric objects. As this video demonstrates, to a 1-year-old, Apple‘s iPad is something that’s literally been around of all their lives.
So rather than be amazed at all the things an iPad can do, this child is confounded by what a paper magazine cannot do. Makes sense, right?
More About: ipad, technology, trending, viral videos, viral-video-of-the-day


1:05 AM (1 hour ago)

Libraries Fight Back: Ebook Checkouts Up 200%

by Zachary Sniderman
1 person liked this
ebook image

With the rise of digital books on the Kindle and the iPad, how is your local paper-based library keeping up? By fighting fire with fire. Ebook checkouts increased by more than 200% in 2010, according to a recent study from OverDrive, the leading distributor of ebooks and digital audiobooks to libraries.
Ebook checkouts continue to accelerate, almost tripling through September. This adds to the more than 12 million ebook checkouts so far in 2011, paidContent reports.
More than two-thirds of public libraries in the U.S. now offer ebook checkouts, more than 15,000 of which use OverDrive’s platform. That includes heavy hitters like the New York Public Library.
While patrons will always have use for hard copies of books and manuscripts, ebooks can reach far more people while appealing to a younger demographic of new library patrons. OverDrive partnered with Sony, Amazon and Barnes & Noble to make sure their books were available across a range of high-tech ereaders and phones.
Ebook checkouts may be cannibalizing hard copy checkouts — but if that means more people are reading books, the library is doing its job.
Would you rent an ebook instead of purchasing it? Do you think these numbers can continue to grow? Let us know in the comments.
Image courtesy of Flickr, goXunuReviews
More About: books, ebooks, ereaders, Gadgets


12:28 AM (2 hours ago)

How One Startup Got 101 Angel Investors — and $30 Million in Funding

by Sarah Kessler

OneWire, an employee recruiting platform, has raised $30 million since 2008. That’s not bad for a startup, but nor is it an eye-popping amount. What’s turning heads in the tech scene is the way OneWire raised it: all from individual investors, and not a penny from venture capital firms. OneWire has 101 angel investors. David Tisch, an investor who advises early stage startups as the managing director of TechStars New York City, says there’s no average number when it comes to angels — but anything more than 10 seems like a lot.
Kerry Rupp, a managing partner at Dreamit Ventures, reacts similarly. “101 opinions can be pretty overwhelming,” she says.
And yet overwhelming opinions were exactly what OneWire co-founders Skiddy von Stade and Brin McCagg were trying to avoid by wrangling its funding this way. Startups often raise a small sum from angel investors and then accept a larger sum from a venture capital firm. But for every happy partnership between a venture capital firm and an entrepreneur, McCagg says, there’s a sour relationship where a VC took decisions out of an startup’s hands.
“The investors do own the majority of the company, but we don’t have an 800-pound gorilla in the room.”
“If you have one big investor that is $30 million,” McCagg says, “they basically own you and tell you what to do. … The investors do own the majority of the company, but we don’t have an 800-pound gorilla in the room.”
Its unconventional approach to funding doesn’t seem to have hurt OneWire. Though not yet profitable, it has hired 50 people, lists companies such as Goldman Sachs and Deloitte among its clients, and occupies 10,000 square feet of office space on Madison Avenue.
McCagg argues that having 101 investors makes sense for OneWire because the success of its all-in-one talent management platform depends upon recruiting large companies as clients. Having those companies’ executives as investors doesn’t hurt this effort — and every meeting with a potential investor doubled as a sales call.
Every investor in OneWire is no more than one degree of separation from a co-founder. Von Stade ran a headhunting business for 14 years. OneWire is McCagg’s third startup. His second, a business-to-business version of eBay, had investors that included Chase Bank, Goldman Sachs, General Electric Capital and eBay.
These are not your average Rolodexes. McCagg says that most of the investors are so wealthy that the amount they’ve kicked to OneWire, on average about $300,000, is negligible to them.
“None of them put in enough that they want to run the business,” he says. “We take their advice very seriously, but it’s not like we have 101 cooks in the kitchen.”
“I just hear that they’re going to have 101 people telling them what to do, whether or not those people have voting control.”
There is no shareholder meeting (McCagg doesn’t think that many would show up if there were). The main communication that OneWire has with the majority of its shareholders is a quarterly letter to keep them abreast of the company’s activities.
Even so, the prospect of giving 101 different investors — no matter how low maintenance — a stake in one company makes some entrepreneurs wary.
“I just hear that they’re going to have 101 people telling them what to do,” Rupp says, “whether or not those people have voting control.”
Image courtesy of Flickr, jronaldlee
More About: angel investors, funding, investors, onewire
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12:08 AM (2 hours ago)

How the Millennial Generation Uses Mobile [INFOGRAPHIC]

by Lauren Indvik
Millennials — that is, American consumers between ages 18 and 34 — are a mobile generation. That much is clear from the infographic below.
According to data collected by location-based ad network JiWire, Millennials own an average of 2.4 Internet-connected devices. Of those who connect to JiWire’s free Wi-Fi networks, 62% percent are using smartphones and nearly a third are using tablets. Twenty-eight percent use location-based apps multiple times per day for locating stores (54%) and points of interests (46%), as well as connecting with others (40%) and checking in (32%).
Surprisingly, there is one area where older generations are more active on mobile. Although Millennials feel more comfortable buying low-priced goods through their mobile devices than those over 35 (27% vs. 18%), older device owners in general felt more comfortable making purchases — particularly big-ticket items — by a 10% margin.
How do these findings align with your own mobile behavior?
More About: jiwire, millenial, Mobile, mobile shopping
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11:57 PM (2 hours ago)

Google Maps Adds 3D Graphics, Lets You Zoom Into Street View

by Todd Wasserman
1 person liked this

Google has released an upgrade to Google Maps that offers 3D-style graphics and lets you swoop into Street View without a plugin. The upgrade, called Google MapsGL, uses Google’s Web Graphics Library (the “GL” part) to bring 3D-like graphics to the browser. To use MapsGL, you have to have supported browsers like Chrome 14+ or Firefox Beta with compatible video cards. If that’s the case, go to Google Maps‘ homepage and you should see a prompt.
Adapting GL to Google Maps is the company’s latest application of GL, which has been used in music videos and Google Body Browser, a sort of Google Earth for the human body.
As Evan Parker, a software engineer at Google outlines in the video below, MapsGL also brings vector maps that are available on Android to the desktop and offers sharper satellite views that can now be smoothly rotated. Another new feature is the ability to take “Pegman” — Google’s name for its drag-and-drop Street View locator icon — and place him within an area and then seamlessly transition to Street View.
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More About: Google Maps, google street view, webgl
11:38 PM (3 hours ago)

Behold: The iPhone 4S Disassembled

by Todd Wasserman

Life’s not fair. Before you can even get your hands on an iPhone 4S, the people at FixIt have already torn one apart. While the general public felt a bit let down there was no iPhone 5 released, the folks at FixIt were disappointed to see Apple once again used pentalobe screws instead of something more challenging. After disregarding the “Authorized Service Provider Only” tag, the disassemblers found the iPhone 4S has a superior battery, which most likely can’t be transplanted into an iPhone 4. The final payoff? A gander at the phone’s Apple A5 chip.
The latter is considered the Holy Grail of the endeavor since the 1 GHz dual-core processor with 512 MB of DDR2 RAM houses Siri, the 4S’s defining feature. “If Siri has an address, this is it,” according to the FixIt post. “Though iCloud integration can be used with any iOS 5 device, Siri only works with dual-core devices.” FixIt then got die photo of the processor from Chipworks, which is displayed below.
You can see FixIt’s thorough tear down here.

BONUS: iPhone 4S Product Details


iPhone 4S




The iPhone 4S looks and feels exactly like the iPhone 4.
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More About: FixIt, iPhone 4S, qualcomm, teardown
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11:02 PM (3 hours ago)

$4.7 Billion in Digital Goods Will Pass Through PayPal This Year

by Ben Parr

eBay says that its PayPal division expects to hit $4.7 billion in total payment volume (TPV) of digital goods in 2011. The projection, announced at eBay’s X.commerce Innovate developers conference, would be a significant increase in transactions for digital goods — up 28% from 2010, when digital goods accounted for a TPV of $3.4 billion.
PayPal defines digital goods as the “direct or indirect payment of any digital asset.” This includes virtual goods, digital music, news, media, online video and virtual currencies like Facebook Credits.
“The big message is our belief that there’s a lot of opportunity in digital goods,” PayPal’s Senior Director of Emerging Opportunities Carey Kolaja told Mashable.
The company also announced that it is teaming up with Microsoft to bring in-console payments to the Xbox 360 before the end of the year. Users can already utilize their PayPal accounts on the Xbox Live website, but starting this holiday season, users can log in to their PayPal accounts on the Xbox 360 and pay for games and other digital content with PayPal. Kolaja says more than 70% of gamers already have PayPal.
Although PayPal didn’t get into the specifics of which digital goods are most popular among users, the company did reveal that gaming, digital music, publishing and social media are some of its major focuses. “Music has been a heavy, heavy focus for us,” Kolaja said.
PayPal is working with publishers, such as The Wall Street Journal, on figuring out how best to monetize their content on the web. Virtual good transactions have also become more popular, thanks to the rise of social gaming. PayPal is moving aggressively to be the payment provider for all of these digital transactions. The reason is simple: PayPal expects $150 billion of digital goods will be distributed in the next few years.
The digital payments giant is also offering developers additional support for their HTML5 apps. PayPal announced a new set of HTML5 APIs that will allow developers to integrate in-app payments with their HTML5 apps. Previously, developers had to use Java to integrate PayPal’s APIs to successfully accomplish this sort of integration.
Are you surprised by the amount of digital goods PayPal is processing? How do you typically pay for virtual goods? Let us know in the comments.
More About: ebay, microsoft, paypal, xbox, Xbox 360
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10:01 PM (4 hours ago)

Netflix Is Getting The CW’s Programming

by Christina Warren
1 person liked this

Netflix has signed an agreement with CBS and Warner Bros. to bring content from The CW network to Netflix members in the U.S. Netflix’s deal with The CW, running through the 2014-15 season, will include access to current, previous and future programming.
Past seasons of shows like One Tree Hill, Gossip Girl and The Vampire Diaries will be available to members starting Oct. 15. Supernatural and 90210 will come to Netflix in January. New shows from the Fall TV season, including Ringer, Hart of Dixie and The Secret Circle will become available in fall 2012.
This isn’t the first time Netflix has signed a broad agreement with CBS. In fact, CBS is one of Netflix’s strongest content partners. The bigger news is that this is one of the first major content partnerships that also involves Warner Bros.
Warner Bros. and CBS formed The CW in 2006 out of the ashes of previous TV networks UPN and The WB. In the past six years, the network has honed its focus on young-adult, female-oriented programming.
The CW makes a lot of sense as a Netflix partner. The network makes its programming available to viewers online the day after shows air on broadcast. Now, Netflix will give catalog content a big boost.

Is Catalog Content the Answer?

It’s great to see Netflix expanding its catalog of content. The remaining problem, however, is that content is not accessible until the following TV season. Meanwhile, its two biggest competitors — Hulu Plus and TV Everywhere — are bringing content to users the day after it airs.
TV Everywhere, the broader cable initiative in which Time Warner (Warner Bros. parent company) is investing, is an increasing threat to Netflix. In response, cable providers and networks are now working together to offer subscribers access to more content on more devices.
When looking at the success of HBO Go, which recently became available on Roku and Xbox 360 devices, TV Everywhere’s potential as a disruptive force is apparent.
Meanwhile, Amazon is quickly building its catalog of television shows and movies. Amazon’s streaming catalog for Prime members isn’t as good as the content offered by Netflix, but the service is less expensive — and includes free Amazon shipping to boot.
Netflix will need to focus on closing its distribution window or upping the quality of its content if it wants to compete against the cable and premium providers.
More About: netfiix, subscription streaming, the cw, tv everywhere
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9:56 PM (4 hours ago)

Why New Media Literacy Is Vital for Quality Journalism

by Josh Catone
2 people liked this

Mashable OP-ED: This post reflects the opinions of the author and not necessarily those of Mashable as a publication.
On June 17, 2009, Mashable made a mistake. In a report about the volume of Twitter activity surrounding the #IranElection movement, we accidentally used a “b” instead of an “m,” inflating the number of total tweets one thousand-fold. This, on its own, is not spectacular. Though we certainly try to avoid it, every organization makes mistakes like this. The great thing about the web is that we were able to fix the error within minutes of the article going out. “Billion” became “million,” our readers had the correct information. No big deal.
Except that also within minutes, Ann Curry of NBC News, a very highly respected journalist with an international following, had tweeted our original, incorrect version to her followers. Her repetition of our mistake lent legitimacy to an incorrect stat.
That episode reveals the best and worst of the state of news media today. On one hand, speed allows for flexibility. We were able to correct a mistake almost immediately, instead of having to wait until the next day’s edition. If “Dewey Defeats Truman” happened today, a correction could be made with much greater ease.
On the other hand, the speed at which the real-time web operates also allows false information to spread quickly. The Chicago Tribune only printed about 150,000 copies of their infamous headline gaffe; how many millions of people can see a mistaken tweet? That widespread perception is more difficult to correct.

The Speed of the Web Both Empowers and Undermines the Media

"Mashable.com reporting,"we're approaching one billion tweets on the situation" in #iranelection" - Ann Curry, Twitter
As my Curry anecdote illustrates, there are reasons to be both excited and fearful for the state of the fourth estate.
There is a case to be made that now is the greatest time in history to be a journalist. There is more access to all media, meaning a larger section of the populace has the chance to stay informed. In places where people have lived under oppressive regimes — like Egypt — the democratization of media has given hope for a freer society. Digital tools now exist that encourage reporting with greater depth. Journalism can be undertaken by crowds working in unison, allowing vast amounts of information to be pored over in ways never before possible. Mistakes can be corrected in real-time and stories can be updated as they unfold.
There is also a case to be made that journalism is in trouble. The rise of blogging and social media means that journalism is now firmly in the domain of the people, and there is a risk that all those voices will drown each other out; that sorting fact from fiction has become too difficult; that the established standards of journalistic ethics and integrity have fallen by the wayside; that information spreads too fast to be properly vetted and investigated.
A recent study by the Pew Internet & American Life Project found that 94% of American Internet users have turned to the web for news, yet 70% agreed with the statement, “The amount of news and information available from different sources today is overwhelming.” And that’s only going to get worse.
Ray Kurzweil’s law of accelerating rate of change, which certainly seems to apply here (just think of how you got your news 20 years ago vs. 10 years ago vs. today), indicates that information is only going to keep increasing. The news cycle is going to keep shortening. The stream is going to get more saturated.
For that reason, media literacy has become at once more important and more complex.

What It Means to be Literate in the Digital Age

Are you illiterate if you don’t know how to interpret a tweet? If you can’t tell the difference between fact and fiction on Twitter, does that mean you are lacking media literacy skills?
In 2009, while a debate raged in the halls of the U.S. Congress about a federal stimulus bill to jump start the nation’s fading economy, one curious Twitter user decided to conduct a social experiment. He started seeding Twitter with false information about the stimulus bill. Using the Twitter account “@InTheStimulus,” the user started spreading falsities around Twitter with a surprising effect — the the information was picked up and retweeted so much that people began to believe it. In fact, a large number of members of Congress actually began to recite the “facts” on the floors of the House and Senate.
So, were all those Congresspeople illiterate? Maybe.
“Literacy has always been defined by the technology,” said Nichole Pinkard, founder of Chicago’s Digital Youth Network in a PBS special on 21st century learning that aired in February. “Before the printing press, your ability to orally recite something meant [you were] literate.”
In today’s media-saturated world, the concept of literacy is again changing. According to Pinkard, kids in school today may not be considered literate in the future if they don’t fundamentally understand new forms of media — things like blogs, Twitter and streaming video. To be truly literate, though, you also need to be able to think critically about media, discern fact from fiction, news from opinion, trusted from untrustworthy. These issues have always been thorny, but the explosion of self-publishing has only made media literacy more vital to the preservation of our democratic society.

Social Tools Are Not Enough; Literacy Must be Taught

Of course, one could also argue that the “@InTheStumulus” story is really just an example of sloppy reporting. Any journalist worth his or her salt wouldn’t use tweets as a source without first vetting that information. But there’s the rub — much of the information we consume today doesn’t come from trained journalists. Think of it as back-fence gossip amplified a million-fold.
Don’t get me wrong — a lot of so-called citizen journalism is great. Twitter, Facebook, Google+, YouTube — these are invaluable tools for getting information out quickly. It is for that reason that journalists are starting to rely on them to source stories, and to great effect. There’s nothing like having a network of first responders armed with pocket-sized computers that stretches around the globe and includes a billion people.
But for every Jakarta bombing account or Osama bin Laden raid, there is a celebrity death rumor or a misquoted fact. For now, most trained journalists understand how to vet sources — whether digital or analog. But that’s because journalists have a strong background in media literacy. Somewhere along the line, someone taught us the skills necessary to think critically about the information we consume, how to recognize a trusted source, and how to sniff out bias and ulterior motives.
What happens if media literacy training doesn’t keep up with the acceleration of the information stream? What happens as the line between trained and citizen journalism continues to blur? What happens if our kids can’t pick out fact from fiction?
According to the News Literacy Project, “because the focus on standardized testing in schools has tended to push civics or current events courses out of classrooms, schools today frequently do not address” media literacy.
And that’s what has people worried. Journalism is alive and well, but only if we continue to teach our kids to be discerning consumers of media. That’s why projects like the News Literacy Project, Center for Media Literacy and 21st Century Literacy are so important. It’s not enough to just make sure today’s youth know how to use digital media tools, we also need to make sure they know how to truly understand the information they find.

Continue the Discussion

Many of the top minds in new media will convene in New York City on November 4th for the Mashable Media Summit to discuss the very issues affecting 21st century journalism. Media literacy is just one of those issues. As always, we also invite you to add your thoughts in the comments section below.

A Look Back at Last Year’s Mashable Media Summit


Mashable Media Summit





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Image courtesy of iStockphoto, rubenhi
More About: features, journalism, mashable media summit, Media, Social Media
9:56 PM (4 hours ago)

Apple Could Put Movies in the Cloud by the End of 2011 [REPORT]

by Zachary Sniderman
apple image

Apple could be unveiling a movie service through iCloud as early as the end of 2011, according to the Los Angeles Times. The Times says representatives from Apple have been meeting with studios to finalize deals that could put major motion pictures in iTunes and then be accessed via cloud technology on any Apple device. The service could launch by late 2011, although better estimates point to early 2012.
This information comes at the same time that major motion picture studios are prepping Ultraviolet, a platform that will let users purchase and watch movies through cloud technology. Full, web-only Ultraviolet functionality is expected to hit in 2012.
Apple’s supposed entrance into movie streaming isn’t a surprise. Apple’s new mobile operating system, iOS 5, boasts cloud services for music and multimedia with films conspicuously absent. Apple’s iTunes dominates online sales, taking approximately 66% of online movie sales and rentals, according to IHS Screen Digest.
Even though the entrance seems inevitable, it should make for some friendly competition between Apple, which rules the online market, and Ultraviolet, which is backed by studios such as Warner Bros., Sony and Universal.
Movie streaming services are, however, an increasing necessity for the movie industry. DVD sales have been steadily dropping and piracy has further cannibalized digital sales. The industry is hoping movie streaming services like Ultraviolet or the unannounced Apple iCloud service will entice users to start buying again by making films easily available across multiple devices.
To wit, it makes sense that Ultraviolet will be compatible with Apple devices to maximize its reach. The question remains if Apple will be willing to reciprocate and make iTunes purchases compatible with Ultraviolet.
Are you more excited for Ultraviolet or a movie-streaming service from Apple? Let us know in the comments.
Image courtesy of Flickr, Kerb 汪
More About: apple, films, iOS 5, Movies, streaming, ultraviolet
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8:48 PM (6 hours ago)

Google Acquisition Rumor Debunk Can’t Keep Akamai Stock Down

by Todd Wasserman

Google‘s rumored plan to acquire Akamai Technologies, which prompted a 17% rise in the latter’s stock Wednesday, is just a rumor, says Bloomberg. The news organization quotes “two people familiar with the matter” who dismissed a Business Insider report Wednesday.
The Business Insider report was based on “multiple ad tech industry sources,” yet it noted the preposition was “mostly just a rumor.”
Despite the Bloomberg report, Akamai’s stock price was up around 5% in morning trading Thursday. The chart below shows the company’s stock performance over the past five days.
Akamai Technologies Stock Chart
Image courtesy of Flickr, Ivo Jansch
More About: akamai, Google, stock
8:41 PM (6 hours ago)

Dennis Ritchie, Creator of Unix and C, Dies at 70

by Stan Schroeder
1 person liked this

One of the most influential figures in the history of computing, Dennis Ritchie, has passed away at the age of 70 after a long illness. Ritchie is credited with creating the programming language C, one of the most widely used and influential languages today. He was also one of the creators of operating system UNIX, whose variants — most notably Linux and OS X — are also widely used today.
Ritchie, often referenced as dmr (a part of his email address that he used in various technical discussion groups), has had an immense influence on the computing world. Among his many accomplishments is a Turing award that he received in 1983 (together with Ken Thompson) for his work on UNIX, and the National Medal of Technology, which he received in 1999 (again, jointly with Thompson).
Programmers will perhaps best remember Ritchie for his famous “hello, world” program, which is used in many programming textbooks, even those that don’t pertain to C, as an example of a very simple computer program.
via BBC
Image courtesy of Wikipedia
More About: c++, Dennis Ritchie, Linux, Unix
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8:41 PM (6 hours ago)

iOS 5 Tethered Jailbreak Already Possible on iPhone 4

by Stan Schroeder
1 person liked this

The jailbreaking community has been able to immediately offer a jailbreak of iOS 5, thanks to the beta version available long before the official public release Wednesday. As always, jailbreaking comes with a number of caveats. Besides the obvious precautions — jailbreaking your device may void your warranty and is against Apple’s policies — the latest jailbreak is tethered, meaning you’ll need a Windows or Mac computer that runs Redsn0w if you plan to reboot.
While the jailbreak works with the iPod touch 3G and 4G, original iPad, iPhone 3GS and iPhone 4, it doesn’t work on the iPhone 4S or the iPad 2.
If you install the jailbreak, a lot of iOS features will break, including some of Apple’s official apps and third party apps.
So, there you have it: iOS 5 can be jailbroken, but only the very adventurous users and developers of jailbroken apps should find it beneficial.
If you haven’t been dissuaded yet, check out the video below for an explanation of how to apply the jailbreak.
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BONUS: Hands On With iOS 5


New Home Screen With Notification




Notifications are a big deal in iOS 5. Taking some cues from Android, iOS has finally unified the notification system and made it less clumsy and intrusive.
Message now appear at the top of the screen (though you can choose to allow them to display in the middle) while you are using the phone and they don't interrupt what you are already doing.
Click here to view this gallery.
[via RedmondPie]
More About: apple, iOS, iOS 5, iphone, iPhone games, jailbreak
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8:12 PM (6 hours ago)

RIM Restores BlackBerry Service After Largest Outage

by Lance Ulanoff
BlackBerry Outages

Rest easy BlackBerry users, your service is back. So said RIM co-CEO Mike Lazaridis in yet another BlackBerry outage conference call update. Lazaridis appeared with co-CEO Jim Balsillie and CTO David Yach. Lazaridis began by apologizing again and then announced, “We have now restored full services.”
RIM’s BlackBerry problem began four days ago when, Lazaridis explained, a “dual redundant, high-capacity core switch designed to protect the service failed.” This set in motion a cascading failure and when a backup switch did not operate as intended, it created a significant mail backup in Europe. The data queue backup also took longer than RIM expected and resulted in a mail backlog that triggered service disruptions in Europe, the Middle East, Africa and, eventually, the U.S.
As BlackBerry customers start accessing mail services again (there may still be delays as the company works through the email backlog), RIM continues to investigate the cause of “the largest [failure] we’ve experienced.” Part of that involves talking to the third-party vendors managing the failed switch. Rim’s CEOs refused to name the vendors.
When asked why it took Lazaridis until Thursday to speak publicly about the outage, Balsillie defended Lazaridis, “He was directly commanding teams. … No one has been home since Monday.” As for customer recompense, Balsillie said RIM is looking at it and it’s ““something we plan to come back to these customers on very, very soon.”
Has your faith been irreparably shaken by RIM’s failure or are you willing to forgive, forget and start consuming and creating mobile mail in mass quantities? Tell us in the comments below.

BlackBerry Bold 9900





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More About: blackberry, RIM, trending
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8:01 PM (6 hours ago)

Angry Birds Creator Rovio Eyes $1B IPO in 2012

by Todd Wasserman

Angry Birds creator Rovio Entertainment may go public as soon as next year and is worth around $1 billion, according to Rovio’s chief marketing officer. Peter Vesterbacka, Rovio CMO, told Bloomberg Television that the company will launch an IPO “maybe a year from now.”
Vesterbacka also said that Rovio’s market capitalization, which had been estimated at around $1 billion is actually “a bit north of that.”
Rovio earns its revenues from in-game purchases and Angry Birds merchandise, including plush toys and baby products. The company is also planning an Angry Birds movie and TV programming.
The company has expressed its intention to go public before but has never been clear on a timeframe. It would presumably join other social media companies, including Zynga, Groupon and Facebook, that plan to test the stock market with an IPO.

1. Smartphone Apps




Where the revolution began: Angry Birds first released the game onto Apple's iOS in December 2009.
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More About: angry birds, Facebook, groupon, IPOs, rovio, trending, Zynga
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7:37 PM (7 hours ago)

Ning’s Founder on Starting Up and Starting Over in Social Media

by Sarah Kessler

The Extraordinary Entrepreneurs Series is supported by Diet Coke®. Now, the drink that helps you stay extraordinary brings you extraordinary people. Find Diet Coke® on Facebook for access to a whole lot of extraordinary. After more than five years at the helm of Ning, Gina Bianchini stepped down in March 2010 from her position as CEO of the custom social network creator that she co-founded.
At the time, the startup had an impressive 2.3 million user-created networks and more than 45 million registered users. But not everything was coming up roses at Ning. Shortly after Bianchini’s departure, the company laid off 40% of its employees. Glam Media purchased Ning earlier this month for an estimated $150 million — a fraction of its reported valuation.
Meanwhile, Bianchini transitioned back to her early-stage startup days by becoming an entrepreneur in residence at Andreesen Horowitz. Eight months later, she emerged with a new startup, Mightybell.
Mightybell helps users break a big idea — anything from a recipe to a cross-country trip — into small, doable steps that they can share with their social networks.
Mashable asked Bianchini about the inspiration for her new company and the challenges of being at the head of a new startup again.
Name: Gina Bianchini
Companies: Ning, then Mightybell
Founded: 2005 and 2010, respectively

Q&A with Gina Bianchini

What inspires you?
I’m inspired by building social software that seeks to grow the things that make people uniquely, well, people. My first product, Ning, unlocked the creation of 2.3 million different social networks for every conceivable interest and passion. Now with Mightybell, we’re taking online conversations and translating them into better, more interesting real-life experience. We do it by offering a way for one person to lay out a series of small steps towards a goal or steps around a topic for other people to come in and do. Then, how people do it is up to them.
What about your startup idea was game-changing?
Social technology took off because it gives people the feeling that they are connected. But after hours of checking in on their friends, uploading photos, and updating their status messages, people want more. They are looking for their hard work online to translate into a better life in the real world. Mightybell was built around the idea that success comes from thinking big, but acting incrementally — baby steps matter. By creating a platform that offers a simple, lightweight structure for organizing action, Mightybell allows anyone to create a series of clear and achievable steps towards a goal, and allows anyone to follow those steps.
What was the pivotal point in your early startup days?
There wasn’t one “aha” moment in the early days of Mightybell. The idea and all of the web and iOS apps’ features unfolded step by step — just like the company’s premise — based on the fundamental concept that “you are what you do.”
What was the biggest challenge you faced with your startup?
“Success comes from thinking big, but acting incrementally — baby steps matter.”
It is always a challenge to create something real out of an idea in your head. The decision to persevere is one that is decided in a series of small moments, when you have the choice to do one more thing to see something through to its fullest or, well, watch TV. Next to this, making a screaming fast, beautifully designed product with a lean team seems downright easy.
What is your vision of success?
I believe that the definition of success is knowing that you’ve operated to the best of your potential — you’ve given it your all, and you focus on the things within your control. [When] one is taking nothing and making it something, that’s really the only way you can define success.
How did your social network of peers influence your business?
I think we’re in a technology or social software scene that is not so dissimilar to London of the swinging ’60s or Seattle in the early ’90s. What’s inspiring to me is how my peer group of entrepreneurs spent the last five years figuring out how to get one billion people connected around the world via social software and are now turning their attention to how to take these newly connected people and find ways to make everyday life more engaging, active and interesting. I am honored to be a part of it.
What advice do you have for other entrepreneurs?
Focus on making a great product that people need — not just want — in their daily lives. Beyond that, learn something new every day. As Jeff Bezos says, “Every day is day one.”
Series Supported by Diet Coke®
The Extraordinary Entrepreneurs Series is supported by Diet Coke®. Now, the drink that helps you stay extraordinary brings you extraordinary people. Find Diet Coke® on Facebook for access to a whole lot of extraordinary.
More About: Extraordinary Entrepreneurs Series, features, Gina Bianchini, mashable, Mightybell, ning
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