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BetaNews.Com (6 non lus)

Response to Jobs' remarks about Android porn: iPad 3G porn

Publié: avril 30, 2010, 9:40pm CEST par Tim Conneally

By Tim Conneally, Betanews

Apple CEO Steve Jobs has made numerous disparaging remarks about Google's Android platform because of the availability of X-rated material on it, statements that obviously downplayed the ubiquity of pornography.
"You know, there's a porn store for Android," Jobs said. "You can download nothing but porn. You can download porn, your kids can download porn. That's a place we don't want to go -- so we're not going to go there."
Later, in one of Jobs' many emails to consumer media following the April 3 launch of the iPad, he repeated the sentiment, saying, "...we do believe we have a moral responsibility to keep porn off the iPhone...Folks who want porn can buy and [sic] Android phone."
Today, as the 3G-equipped iPads have begun arriving, a press release hit the wires from an adult entertainment company by the name of Pink Visual, which said it was doing a "3G" iPad promotional photo campaign.
"The photo shoot was done as a lark, ['3G' in this case means 'three girls'] but it's also a way to draw attention the serious upgrades we've made to our iPad-related services since the iPad was first released earlier this month," a statement from Pink Visual Brand and Product Manager Kim Kysar said. "It's also in keeping with our overall corporate culture, which is equal parts goofball pornographer and serious tech geek."
The company has two sites optimized for iPad consumption, utilizing HTML 5, which Kysar says was done to "have the videos play in an overlay instead of opening in a separate player."
Let's consider the playing field even.
Copyright Betanews, Inc. 2010
The real reasons why Apple silenced Lala (and bought it, too)

Publié: avril 30, 2010, 7:06pm CEST par Joe Wilcox

By Joe Wilcox, Betanews

As dorky character Ned Ryerson said in movie "Groundhog Day": "Am I right or am I right? Or am I right? Am I right?" Apple is shuttering the Lala service on May 31. While pundits galore said Apple was moving into the streaming music business, I asserted something else: That Apple bought Lala to improve music discovery and to combat Google music search.
Apple announced the Lala acquisition in December, when I blogged "Lala could make iTunes' Genius smarter." As I explained then, the acquisition is about "improving iTunes music discovery and competitively combating Google search." About two months before Apple bought Lala, Google improved its music search capabilities, which included free streams from various services, including Lala.
I sometimes complain about how bloated iTunes has become, but Apple can't be much faulted for music discovery. The iTunes player-store combination is simply one of the best mechanism's for new music discovery. However, Google music search put that discovery and underlying revenue stream at risk. Googling, say, Green Day or Ke$ha leads to free Lala streams of four songs. Lala charges for streams, too -- just 10 cents, which can be applied to purchase of the track.
Or Lala did. The service has stopped taking new subscribers, according to a notice on the Website: "Lala is shutting down. The Lala service will be shut down on May 31st, 2010. Unfortunately, we are no longer accepting new users." By buying Lala, Apple set the stage to remove a cheaper streaming alternative, with option to buy, backed by the power of Google search.
But Apple also acquired technology it can use to improve music discovery. One option: Within iTunes, offer one full-length stream per track, instead of the 30-second sample. Streaming then wouldn't be a separate business but means of improving the music purchase experience and even generate more sales.
In the days and weeks that followed the Lala acquisition announcement, commentator after commentator pontificated about how Apple would move into the streaming music business, ala Lala. But that business makes no sense for Apple, which generates revenue from selling music -- not giving it away or streaming it on the cheap. More importantly, streaming offers limited benefits to iPhone OS devices. Apple already sells low-margin content to generate sales of high-margin devices. Streaming doesn't make sense, particularly when Apple has done so well with content people own -- or in the case of movies, sometimes rent.
However, a TV subscription service would make sense because of its potential to disrupt how people consume the content. Hulu shows there is demand. If Apple offered the long-rumored TV subscription service for the rumored 30 bucks a month -- heck, even $50 -- I'd cancel my AT&T U-verse account the same day. Cheap portable TV is the logical next stage beyond DVRs. Apple has the devices to do just that, whether the content is streamed, downloaded with DRM protection -- or both.
For Apple, a TV or other video subscription service is a more logical use of Lala technology and staff than music streaming. I would watch for TV subscriptions long before Apple would set up a music streaming service. So that makes a third major reason -- and one I didn't give in December -- for Apple acquiring Lala.
I think Apple Watchers don't seriously enough regard how big Apple's plans may be for Lala. In December, I explained:
There is something about this deal that reminds me of late 2000. That summer, Apple released new iMacs missing something: CD-RW drives. Windows PC manufacturers were going CD-RW, but not Apple, which stuck with DVD drives. In August 2000, I wrote for CNET News.com: Apple misses the tune on CD-RW drives." The Mac community flamed me. I got more than 200 e-mails (CNET didn't have comments back that), most of which essentially called me an idiot for not understanding that Apple was about movies not music.
Not long after my CNET News.com story posted, Apple bought SoundJam, which technology became the core of iTunes, which Apple announced in January 2001. The first iPod followed about 10 months later. My intuition is that Lala could be as big for Apple as SoundJam was -- and it's not for running a streaming music service but something much more.
Copyright Betanews, Inc. 2010
'Free' and 'open' Web video may be impossible after Microsoft backs H.264 only

Publié: avril 30, 2010, 6:36pm CEST par Scott M. Fulton, III

By Scott M. Fulton, III, Betanews

The good news should be, everyone with a major stake in the outcome of the Web video standards debate has now publicly expressed support for something called "open" or "openness." But that's where the similarities, and even the niceness, end. Yesterday, Apple CEO Steve Jobs personally weighed in on the subject by making it an "us against them" battle, with Adobe and Flash the villains.
Late yesterday, the head of Microsoft's Internet Explorer 9 project, Dean Hachamovitch, followed suit, representing the company whose decisions about what standards to support -- or not support -- have historically steered the course of Web development, for better or worse. Assuming a far more civil tone than Jobs, but with a message no less significant, Hachamovitch solidified Microsoft's stance on high-definition Web video standards by announcing that IE9 would support H.264 for HTML 5 built-in video...and only H.264.
"H.264 is an industry standard, with broad and strong hardware support," Hachamovitch wrote. "Because of this standardization, you can easily take what you record on a typical consumer video camera, put it on the Web, and have it play in a Web browser on any operating system or device with H.264 support (e.g., a PC with Windows 7). Recently, we publicly showed IE9 playing H.264-encoded video from YouTube...For all these reasons, we're focusing our HTML 5 video support on H.264."
The original reason for the creation of the <VIDEO> tag in HTML 5 was to enable browsers to implement built-in codecs that would play back "free video." Soon, stakeholders in HTML 5 realized there may not be such a thing: While patent holders such as MPEG LA do extend royalty-free licenses to folks who view Web video, that's because those royalties are considered paid by those who produce the video using encoder tools and codecs. And while open source developers have been actively creating encoding tools such as x264 that don't incur royalties, the question of whether their underlying technologies may still be claimed by patent holders somewhere in the world, is thought to be a brutal battle just waiting to play itself out.
Hachamovitch referred to this very point yesterday, in praising MPEG LA for its management of a licensing program that does not charge developers "additional royalty" for the use of the technology in H.264. Skillfully avoiding the use of the term "open," he acknowledged that a critical difference exists between availability and ownership, and advised that perhaps the best course to follow is one where the owners are most reasonable and the availability is highest.
But then he could not help but crash head-first into the issue of Adobe Flash. In his message yesterday morning, Steve Jobs thrashed Flash (which he also has a grudge against for also being a middleware platform) for being proprietary, insecure, and dictatorial -- all of which he then went on to characterize Apple as not being. The fervor over Jobs' message, coupled with the fact that Flash is the most prominent video format on today's Web, made the issue unavoidable for Hachamovitch.
"Today, video on the Web is predominantly Flash-based," the IE9 team leader wrote. "While video may be available in other formats, the ease of accessing video using just a browser on a particular Web site without using Flash is a challenge for typical consumers. Flash does have some issues, particularly around reliability, security, and performance. We work closely with engineers at Adobe, sharing information about the issues we know of in ongoing technical discussions. Despite these issues, Flash remains an important part of delivering a good consumer experience on today's Web."
And that's where the message ended, leaving it for readers to infer from it that IE9 will continue to make it easy for Adobe to plug itself directly into the browser. Supporters of the original principles of HTML 5 had come out against the use of video plug-ins -- the problem that the <VIDEO> tag was created to solve -- but have recently acknowledged that if browsers seek to remain "open," then they must remain accepting of the Web's most prevalent video format -- and the plug-in vehicle that comes with it, security risks and all.
Yesterday afternoon, in a video interview with The Wall Street Journal, Adobe CEO Shantanu Narayen answered Steve Jobs' attack by saying that it is iPhone that is the proprietary platform, and Flash that is the open one, as evidenced by the huge wealth of quality Flash video on the Web. Narayen's implication was that, simply because Adobe owns the methodologies behind Flash, doesn't make Flash any less open or more proprietary than H.264 -- the format which Jobs says Apple supports.
Though it was Apple that stirred the pot yesterday, in recent months, it has been Google that turned up the heat from "simmer" to "boiling." Its role in the Web video issue has been to catalyze debate and keep everyone else guessing, as its own stance on the subject has been all over the map.
The one thing we do know for certain is that Google supports the <VIDEO> tag in HTML 5. But last year, Google threw a monkey wrench into the adoption process by setting itself squarely against the use of Theora, the open source video codec that was Mozilla's preference, as the one HTML 5 codec. Google engineers literally predicted that if Theora were adopted, the resulting traffic from the sheer bulk of poorly encoded video would stall the entire Web.
Within weeks of breaking that iceberg and setting it adrift, Google purchased On2 Technologies, the company actually responsible for creating the underlying principles of VP3, on which Theora was based. That led to speculation that Google would produce VP8, the current version of that codec, under an open source license -- something that Betanews was told Google may not have the authority to do even though it now owns the company behind VP8.
Google could, however, issue a royalty-free license for VP8, perhaps with little or no dispute. That would make VP8 appear to be the HTML 5 codec of choice for its Chrome Web browser, which is growing in popularity.
But then, having yet to exhaust its supply of monkey wrenches, Google began testing building Flash directly into Chrome, helping to cement the position of its YouTube division as the world's principal supplier of Flash video for the foreseeable future. Just yesterday, Adobe followed up by announcing direct support for Flash Player 10.1 in smartphones with Android, Google's open-source small device operating system, starting in June. Which makes things murky enough had Google, not three weeks earlier, announced it was openly funding the continued development of a version of Theora -- the very codec its engineers threatened would cripple the Web, and which now stands in opposition to VP8 -- as an ARM component that could be built into the firmware of smartphones everywhere, including both Android and iPhone, bypassing whatever it is that their browsers may choose to build in or plug in.
The headline for that April 9 announcement was, "Interesting times for Video on the Web." You think?
Copyright Betanews, Inc. 2010
New beta unshackles Mac users from iTunes' sync shortcomings

Publié: avril 30, 2010, 6:30pm CEST par Tim Conneally

By Tim Conneally, Betanews

Windows users have a lot of alternatives to the "mainstream" media players (Windows Media Player and iTunes). However, Mac OS users are not so fortunate. Aside from a couple of minor exceptions, Mac OS is an iTunes-dominated platform.
And as such, it means support for portable media players that don't have an "i" at the beginning of their name is scarce.
Mac users who carry a smartphone other than an iPhone or a media player other than an iPod don't exactly have the easiest time organizing and shifting their content from their computer to their mobile device.
It's part of the problem I talked about last December, when I wrote about the three main issues that have prevented smartphones from completely replacing dedicated personal media players like the iPod.
Among the three issues of limited battery life, limited storage capacity, and limited sync options, I consider sync to be the most important; and for Mac users, syncing a device other than an iPod or iPhone is really not an option.
Today, Instinctiv launched the beta of a new media player for Mac OS which takes a serious stab at remedying this problem.
The Instinctiv personalized media player supports portable devices that iTunes doesn't --such as those running Android, BlackBerry, Windows Mobile, and Symbian-- while supporting more than 50 file formats, including Windows Media files and those protected by Apple's FairPlay DRM.
This software is specifically geared toward Mac users who want to sync a device other than an iPod or iPhone.
"This market isn't just underserved, it's completely ignored!" Instinctiv CEO Aniq Rahman told us yesterday. "Apple has always given exclusive priority to their own products, but 85% of the international smartphone share is non-Apple devices. We're trying to cater to everybody, so they can sync all their devices with their Macs."
But the software isn't just meant to be a sync solution, it's also a standalone player that automatically fetches missing cover art, renames misspelled or untagged songs, lets users create playlists, and analyzes the user's listening behavior in shuffle mode with the company's smart shuffle technology which it first debuted as an iPhone app last year.
"Smart shuffle really eliminates the need to create playlists," Rahman said. "With the standard, random shuffle feature of media players, users skip every 1.5 songs. With iTunes Genius-enabled shuffle, users skip once every four songs. With Instinctiv shuffle, users skip once every 31 songs."
Instinctiv's smart shuffle can do a seeded shuffle which generates songs in a fashion similar to Pandora, or it can hone results as you go, based upon what you skip. For example, if you're not in the mood to listen to the fast and loud song that comes up in shuffle, you'll skip it and be given a song of a different mood.
Furthermore, Instinctiv is clean, small and purpose-oriented. As iTunes continues to grow into a solution for organizing all media -- music, HD video, apps, and now books -- it is turning into a pretty big piece of software. If you only want to organize and consume music, Instinctiv is a streamlined solution to do so. It can act as a standalone player and manager for all of your music files or as a companion to iTunes, with automatic support for playlists created in iTunes.
To download the beta of Instinctiv for Mac OS X 10.5+, visit Instinctiv's download site.
Copyright Betanews, Inc. 2010
Software update may turn all Kindle users into a cloud-based book club

Publié: avril 30, 2010, 1:38am CEST par Tim Conneally

By Tim Conneally, Betanews

Today, Amazon posted an overview of what Kindle owners can expect in its version 2.5 software update now slated for late May.
This will be the first major feature upgrade to Amazon's e-paper device line since the launch of the Kindle DX last year. After the launch of that model, there was a single software update, which moderately improved the user experience by stretching battery life and adding native .PDF support.
But with that update, one hand gave while the other took away: It also turned off the default text-to-speech option, amid the disputes it caused with the Author's Guild. In the meantime, however, Amazon was busy growing the Kindle platform with applications that allowed the consumption of Kindle-formatted e-books on iPhone, iPad, BlackBerry, Windows, and Mac OS devices.
The slow pace of innovation for the e-reader made me wonder last month if Amazon was already forgetting about the hardware that launched the whole Kindle brand.
Fortunately, it's not. And the 2.5 software update will add exciting and long- overdue features to the device.
Firstly, the native PDF reading function added in the v.2.3 software update was mostly useless because you could not pan and zoom within the frame to read your files. (I put a lot of vintage video game magazine scans in my Kindle, but they're all unreadable because each page is zoomed to format the screen and the text is tiny.) With the v.2.5 update, PDF pan and zoom will be added.
Secondly, the poorly-designed menu system will be upgraded to let you organize your books into collections. Currently, it's just a single paginated list that you have to scroll through to reach your files, which are organized alphabetically. With the v.2.5 software, you will finally be able to group books by author, genre, or publication type.
Finally, users will be able to share their highlighted passages with the rest of the world directly from their Kindle. They will be able to be posted on Facebook or Twitter, or will be counted in Amazon's "Popular Highlights" of e-books. In other words, users will be able to see what the Kindle community thinks are the best lines from their books or books they're looking to purchase.
There will also be more font sizes added, improved image clarity, and a password protection option in the update. The update will be rolled out in a limited beta soon and will be released as an automatic OTA update to all Kindle 2 and DX units in late May.
Copyright Betanews, Inc. 2010
Microsoft aims to embed Media Center directly into HDTVs

Publié: avril 30, 2010, 12:38am CEST par Scott M. Fulton, III

By Scott M. Fulton, III, Betanews

"More and more people are getting excited about the opportunity of what PCs can do for them in their living rooms to improve their entertainment experience." That was the message I was getting as far back as 2005, as companies including AMD, Intel, Microsoft, and yes, even Sun were exploring form factors for "entertainment PCs." Soon, we'd be seeing brands like Intel Viiv, AMD Live, and Microsoft TV at a store near you.
It's five years later, and reality has officially set in. "Most people, from a consumer perspective, would not like to have a PC in their living room," said Irena Andonova, the director of product management for Windows Embedded 7 at Microsoft -- the company where entertainment PCs were once all the rage. Today, with HDTV manufacturers embedding Internet connectivity and versatile functionality directly into their sets, the PC is just one more box. Microsoft realizes that now, so with Windows Embedded 7 -- which released to manufacturing Tuesday -- it's aiming to put the operating system and the media player in the TV where it now says they belong.
"Making Windows Media Center available in specialized devices like set-top boxes and connected media devices, we now have devices that can live in the living room, and customers will be accustomed to having them there. It brings the same functionality and features from Windows PCs to the world of specialized devices."
Historically, the market for Windows Embedded has been industrial system makers, who build high-quantity or ultra-small form factor devices that need full-featured applications. And in recent years, the company has marketed Mediaroom, rather than Windows per se, to video service providers as an adaptable software platform for delivering cross-platform digital media. At CES 2010, Mediaroom actually stole the show from Windows 7 among device manufacturers.
The new play for Windows Embedded Standard 7 will be to effectively wedge all of Windows into some of Mediaroom's market space. With it would then come Internet Explorer, custom applications, and yes, Silverlight.
As Andonova told Betanews, OEMs and platform customers looking to embed the new operating system can use Silverlight as their development platform for customized apps that can appear as part of the Media Center environment. It's a somewhat familiar looking place, especially for users familiar with Windows Media Center today, as well as the company's overall look-and-feel for media-driven platforms such as Zune and Windows Phone 7.
But as a Microsoft demo indicates, some components of that look and feel may be customized by platform customers, so that it's not Microsoft's branding that comes through -- a lesson learned from Mediaroom.
"Windows Media Center is a customizable and extensible platform, so [OEMs] can actually customize the Media Center UI to provide the branding that they would like. They cannot change the horizontal and vertical menus -- they can't change that paradigm -- but they can change the font, the background, and the branding," she told us.
One early adopter of Windows Embedded 7 for digital home media libraries, Microsoft tells us, is Swiss media device manufacturer Reycom. It's expected to produce its first Win7-based device (pictured above) in a few months. Andonova said Reycom's take on the Media Center UI is "very modern, very sleek, very nice looking, something that you would expect to find sitting in a modern living room."
One of those customizable areas will be the movie library (shown above), which could theoretically become customized by potential customers whose names Microsoft couldn't help but share...including Netflix.
"Service providers like telecommunications companies, satellite and cable providers, what Windows Media Center and Windows Embedded Standard 7 offers is the opportunity to provide incremental, over-the-top content. We have demonstrated different services, like Netflix and combining videos from local sources and the Internet, bridging the experience between the Internet and broadcast, or viewing your pictures and photos on Standard 7 and merging Flickr, for example, with personal photo libraries...There can be different, additional revenue potential for service providers, by providing these incremental, over-the-top services."
Or to break that down another way: Cable and satellite companies could find additional revenue streams by funneling customers to Internet-based services. But to do that in such a way that viewers aren't being transported to the Web browser/PC operating system world they might rather leave at work, Web apps need to become channels -- things that viewers can tune in on their dials. Nevertheless, because Web apps come and go, and change, more rapidly than the firmware in most set-top boxes can keep up with, the operating system needs to be able to install these apps and uninstall them just like on a PC.
Thus the creation of an extensible Windows Media Center on a real Windows operating system, but without the PC, embedded in the back of the latest HDTVs as well as the newest DVRs and home media devices like the one European customers should see from Reycom in the coming weeks.
Copyright Betanews, Inc. 2010