The Corner of Mads

http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/AmazonWebServicesBlog/~3/N9xJGxkCFHc/cloud-computing-and-mobile-devices-at-the-blackberry-developer-conference.html

AWS user Bob Wise (VP of Engineering for Melodeo, producer of nuTsie) asked me to pass along some information about his upcoming session at the BlackBerry Developer Conference (November 9-12 in San Francisco).

Here's the scoop:

Developers who want to build scalable, cost-effective cloud-based solutions will be interested in this session. Learn about Melodeo's client/server technical architecture which runs entirely on Amazon's AWS  cloud computing platform. Since Melodeo's service with nuTsie streams media and is a large-scale service, we’ll also cover scaling and redundancy. Technical challenges will be discussed, as well as what was gained and lost during the transition.

Bob's session will take place on Wednesday, November 11th at 9:45 AM.

-- Jeff;

http://www.thedailyshow.com/watch/mon-november-9-2009/decade-in-review---2003?xrs=rss_tdsvids

http://valleywag.gawker.com/5400880/the-time-marissa-mayer-invented-google

Another month, another glossy fashion magazine spread for Marissa Mayer, this time in Glamour. We get it, already: the Google veep is a computer scientist in Oscar de la Renta; a nerd invited to prom. Why embellish her achievements?

Mayer was employee number 20 and retains immense power within the Googleplex. But, as much as she likes to insinuate her vital early contributions to hits like GMail and AdSense, the VP for "search product and user experience" isn't quite the very bedrock of Google's success, as Glamour seems to imply in naming Mayer one of its "Women of the Year:"

We google about 7 billion times a month. And each time, it's like a trip into Marissa Mayer's mind. That sunny logo, blessedly spare interface and perfect list of links you get in response to a query are all pure Mayer.

Google's minimalist design and "perfect" search utility are "pure Mayer?" Google co-founder and Mayer ex Larry Page would take issue with that; he invented the algorithm at the heart of Google while a Stanford University PhD student. Co-founder Sergey Brin, part of the same PhD program, also contributed to the system. Google also had what was, by the standards of the day, a spartan homepage going well before Mayer joined in 1999, complete with a "sunny" if slightly fatter logo.

So while Mayer should continue to enjoy tonight's Glamour awards ceremony, relish her pretty pictures in the magazine (above) and stand proud of her accomplishments at Google, there's no need to give the competitive overachiever credit for every last innovation at the company.

(Top pic: Glamour)

Mayer discussing her award on Today this morning:

http://valleywag.gawker.com/5400813/aol-layoffs-tomorrow-to-kick-off-depressing-holiday-season

'Tis the season to rush up layoffs so they don't fall in the sacrosanct Thanksgiving-to-Christmas period: An AOL insider tells us the company is slated to let go around 100 people tomorrow, following 1,500 firings Electronic Arts announced today.

AOL is expected to complete mass layoffs after its spinoff from Time Warner is complete, supposedly by the end of this year. But it sounds like some cuts are too obvious to wait. One hundred firings is modest for a company of around 6,000 workers; AOL continues to work on "Project Everest" to plan the rest, our tipster said. If you know more, email us.

Meanwhile Electronic Arts is laying off 17 percent of its workforce after the company saw net sales drop 12 percent from the prior year. Which, if you think about the state of the economy, is bizarre: Why aren't you unemployed people out there buying more videogames? Staying home is cheap.

(Image via Zazzle t-shirt/sticker)

http://valleywag.gawker.com/5400752/first-pic-of-justin-timberlake-as-facebook-president

It's always been tough to imagine Justin Timberlake fitting into a movie about the geeky origins of Facebook, even if he was slated to play hard-partying advisor and "founding president" Sean Parker. That mental struggle is over.

Pacific Coast News has snapped a picture of Timberlake on the set of The Social Network, the Facebook flick also staring Jesse Eisenberg as co-founder and current CEO Mark Zuckerberg and Andrew Garfield as spurned co-founder Eduardo Saverin. We've put the shot, above, next to a Jan. 2009 Getty picture of real-life Sean Parker. Timberlake's got the the curly hair down; with some highlights and that wardrobe he might pass for the 'N Sync version of himself from the late 1990s. Click to enlarge.

Timberlake picture by Pacific Coast News

http://valleywag.gawker.com/5400725/the-insanely-rich-young-mobile-ad-broker-youve-never-heard-of

No one knows what Facebook and Twitter are really worth, sexy though the startups may be. But AdMob, an obscure company in Silicon Valley's hinterlands, has a very clear, solid value: $750 million in stock from acquirer Google. Yay boring!

The AdMob deal announced today is the third largest acquisition in Google's history, behind only DoubleClick ($3.1 billion) and YouTube ($1.7 billion). But no one's really been talking about the mobile advertising network or its early-thirtysomething founder Omar Hamoui until now. Hamoui is downright anonymous.

Here's what we've learned about him based on his low internet profile and scant press clippings:

• Has all of 441 followers on Twitter. In contrast, Jason Calacanis, who sold his weblogging company for less than 1/20th as much, has 77,000 followers.
  
• 32 years old as of May.
  
• Earned a bachelor's in computer science from the University of California, Los Angeles and dropped out of the MBA program at Wharton School of Business at the University of Pennsylvania.
  
• Ran computer programming company Vertical Blue for almost four years.
  
• Senior program manager at Sony Pictures Digital, about two years.
  
• COO of startup called GoPix.
  
• Started HerBabyShower.com.
  
• Started FotoChatter, for sharing pictures between cell phones, but left the venture behind after becoming frustrated with the inefficiency of advertising his site to mobile users.
  
• Came up with AdMob as a solution to the FotoChatter advertising headaches while at Wharton, at age 28.
  
• In 2007, Bill Gates personally asked Omar Hamoui to speak at Microsoft's annual gathering of journalists, according to a July 207 Ad Age article. Gates had just bought one of Hamoui's competitors.
  
• Last year, toured Kara Swisher of All Things D through his cramped headquarters in San Mateo, a town on the San Francisco Peninsula not exactly famous as a startup hotbed. (See below).
  
• Google bought AdMob after attempting to launch a mobile ad network of its own (AdSense Mobile).

http://valleywag.gawker.com/5400598/san-francisco-braces-for-gen-tom-cruise-to-move-in-and-perhaps-lead-scientology-offensive

There's a rumor circulating in the San Francisco press and real estate community: Tom Cruise just bought an $18 million mansion in town. An overgrown pied-à-terre wouldn't be too terrifying — except for that local Scientology expansion drive.

Socketside heard Cruise was the buyer of an $18 million mansion in the ritzy Sea Cliff neighborhood. NBC Bay Area soon pointed out that, if that's true, Cruise's neighbors would be Robin Williams, Cheech Marin and the guitarist from Metallica. It's like the Bay Area's very own stunted little fog-swept Beverly Hills. But many locals will remember that the Church of Scientology was on the hunt for "apparent expansion" space starting in 2006, nosing around the once countercultural North Beach neighborhood.

So is Cruise, the alleged inspirer of Scientology beat-downs, spearheading a renewed expansion campaign by the cult to which he belongs? Maybe, or maybe said SF mansion is just being bought by another local tech exec like Oracle CEO Larry Ellison, per a SocketSite update:

Another reader quickly notes the mailing address for the purchasing LLC ("Tawaraya") is that of "a high-end accounting firm in Walnut Creek" which happens to advise Larry Ellison (amongst others). And The Real Estalker adds, "Tawaraya is a super posh and searingly expensive, 300-year old ryokan–which is essentially a Japanese bed and breakfast sort of place–located in Kyoto" which is rather Ellison-esque.

Oh great, more Larry Ellison dick waving. Don't we at least deserve some fresh megalomaniac mansion owners, out here?

http://www.languagehat.com/archives/003680.php

A NY Times story by Marc Lacey looks into the prevalence of cursing south of the Rio Grande/Río Bravo:

Mexicans, despite their reputation in Latin America for ultrapoliteness and formality, curse like sailors, a recent survey found. They use profanity when speaking with their friends, with their co-workers, with their spouses and even with their bosses and parents. On Independence Day, the thing to shout above all else is “Viva Mexico, Cabrones!” a patriotic exhortation directed at either bastards or buddies, depending on the tone employed.

Consulta Mitofsky, a Mexican polling firm, asked 1,000 Mexicans 18 and older about their use of “groserías,” as curse words are known in Spanish, and found that respondents estimated they used an average of 20 bad words a day. Those swearing the most, not surprisingly, were young people. “The generation younger than 30 sees the use of bad words as more natural and they use them not only in front of friends but, many of them say, in front of their parents or bosses,” the survey found.

Geographically, the worst offenders were in the north, near the border with the United States, and in the center of the country. Men were generally more foulmouthed than women, though not by much...

http://feeds.gawker.com/~r/lifehacker/full/~3/8XQQc8T3D08/hackintosh-works-like-a-charm-with-1062-update

If you followed our most recent guides to installing Snow Leopard on a PC from start to finish or the updated guide to building a Hackintosh with Snow Leopard, no hacking required, you'll be happy to know that I've tested my build with today's 10.6.2 update to Snow Leopard and it's working like a charm.

That means you shouldn't have to do anything special to upgrade to the latest and greatest. Just fire up Software Update like you normally would, grab the update, and let it work its magic. The only oddity to report is that when the update finished, the audio output was set to Headphones; just open the Sounds preference pane in your System Preferences and set it back to Line Out and everything should be back to normal. Keep in mind that this only applies to the build I detailed in my start to finish guide; I can't vouch for any other Hackintoshes out there.

http://www.thedailyshow.com/watch/mon-november-9-2009/decade-in-review---2002?xrs=rss_tdsvids

http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/blogspot/MKuf/~3/eeu43esgGD8/fifty-states-of-street-view.html

http://fantasyhotlist.blogspot.com/2009/11/fact-more-indigestible-than-evolution.html

http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/OmMalik/~3/jo3IYkhKIGU/

http://gigaom.com/?p=78951

The FCC has had conversations with Qualcomm and Skyterra in the last few weeks about an effort to use a combination of satellites and a terrestrial network known as ATC (Ancillary Terrestrial Component), which could make 100 MHz of spectrum available for mobile broadband. Given that both the wireless industry and the FCC are unified in calling for more spectrum for mobile data services, the satellite companies are setting themselves up for a potential payday, but I still think it’s a sucker’s bet.

The FCC is interested in learning more about ATC, Dean Brenner, VP of government affairs for Qualcomm, told me. SkyTerra’s VP of regulatory affairs, Jeff Carlisle, said he was meeting with the FCC to point out that companies holding ATC licenses could get 100 MHz of spectrum online within the next couple of years. Back in 2003, the FCC overruled objections from the CTIA and the wireless industry, and told satellite companies holding spectrum in the L and S bands that they could offer broadband as long as it had a both a satellite and a terrestrial network component. Companies with this ATC approval promptly went out and raised billions to create such networks.

However, the cost of launching a satellite, and a lack of partners to help offset the price of a terrestrial network, means that for now, there are satellites but no terrestrial component. Another issue is the fact that a handset would need to operate on both networks, and so far the efforts to produce one that would appeal to consumers look pretty lame. One of the bigger beneficiaries of the ATC decision, a company called TerreStar, appears to have switched its goal from providing broadband to offering satellite communications as a backup to existing cellular network — a strategy I still question. TerreStar could not be reached for comment.

SkyTerra’s Carlisle believes a consumer-serving combination network has value, but that the likeliest route to the spectrum will be from existing carriers that license it from the satellite companies and then build out the terrestrial component. At that point, the satellite may become an albatross given the challenges of creating a dual-mode handset and the fact that all of the real speed and action will be delivered via the terrestrial network. (Satellite broadband speeds so far are unimpressive.) Carlisle pitches the bird as a nice form of backup service that public safety professionals and even consumers would still find valuable.

Yet that’s not going to stop the CTIA, which has been against ATC and satellite broadband for years. In a filing with the FCC last week it asked the commission for more spectrum, including that used by satellite providers. From its filing:

Finally, CTIA urges the Commission to undertake an examination of spectrum allocated to U.S. satellite providers. CTIA believes that a review of current satellite authorizations, coupled with an assessment of whether such providers are fully and efficiently utilizing their spectrum allocations, will inform whether this spectrum should be reallocated for licensed CMRS wireless broadband use.

The CTIA is asking the FCC for 800 MHz and isn’t afraid of going up against broadcasters to get it, so this plea for a rethink on satellite may just be the organization’s effort to throw everything including the kitchen sink, at the spectrum issue. And even if the industry accepts that it needs the 100 MHz of spectrum that SkyTerra claims is available, it comes attached with some pretty big risks.

Image courtesy of SkyTerra

http://feeds.gawker.com/~r/lifehacker/full/~3/rs1uEUmHaRU/

Readers offer their best tips for fixing stripped screw holes, syncing Chrome bookmarks from the cloud, and other household emergency fire starters.

Don't like the gallery layout? Click here to view everything on one page.

About the Tips Box: Every day we receive boatloads of great reader tips in our inbox, but for various reasons—maybe they're a bit too niche, maybe we couldn't find a good way to present it, or maybe we just couldn't fit it in—the tip didn't make the front page. From the Tips Box is where we round up some of our favorites for your buffet-style consumption. Got a tip of your own to share? Add it in the comments or email it to tips at lifehacker.com.

More Fixes for Stripped Screw Holes

Photo by Samantha Scelera.

Daniel Van Koughnett lays out an alternative method for dealing with stripped screw holes:

I liked the "Golf Tee" fix a lot. I don't golf, but you can get those at a dollar store for... a dollar. If you have a hole that's too big for a golf tee, you can fix it by mixing white glue and fine sawdust together, and packing it in the hole. If the screw isn't completely stripped yet, but just about, try putting white glue in the screw hole and gently turning the screw in until the point that it is starting to strip. The glue will swell the wood fibers and then harden them in the shape of the threads, for a much firmer grip.

Making a Push Pin Holder with a Magnet

Nick shows us how he keeps his workspace neat:

I just had this old broken Neodymium magnet lying around my desk area, and stuck it to a pushpin on my bulletin board and thought nothing about it until one day I put the two together; it's like a rubber band ball but with pushpins. I'm sure you could even apply this idea to paper clips or other metal office materials, the possibilities are endless!

Chrome Bookmark Syncing

Kevin shows us a nice way to "sync" Chrome bookmarks between browsers from the cloud:

I noticed that Google was syncing the Chrome bookmarks to Google Docs. Turns out you can use that to get at your bookmarks in the cloud — perfect for when you're at a computer that doesn't or can't have Chrome. It's not a true sync, but at least it gets your bookmarks to your current browser.

Log in to Google Docs and look for your Google Chrome folder. Select the folders or subfolders you want to get at. In my case, I selected the Bookmark Bar folder, which will grab all of the contents within it. Once you've selected the folder, choose More Actions, Export. Leave all of the default settings and continue. Google will zip the contents and your computer should automatically download the compressed file called bookmarks.html. Now that you have all of your Chrome bookmarks from the cloud, simply import the bookmarks.html file in your browser. Internet Explorer, Firefox, Safari, Opera and most other browsers support HTML importing of bookmarks. Of course, this is just a one-way deal - you're not actually synchronizing bookmarks back-and-forth between Chrome and another browser. But it can be handy if you're on a different device that's not running Chrome and need to get at those bookmarks.

More Emergency Fire Starters

Photo by Sung Sook.

Alex tips us off to another easy, household emergency fire starter:

I saw the post on using a t-shirt to make char cloth for an emergency fire starter. I thought I'd let you in on a much more effective fire starter, petroleum jelly coated cotton balls. It burns longer(3-4 mins) and can be easily ignited with flint and steel. Just one of these is enough to start a roaring fire.

Simply scoop up the petroleum jelly up with the cotton balls like scooping salsa up with a tortilla chip then kneed it into the cotton ball. It's as simple as that. To use just fluff up the cotton ball and ignite with flint and steel or matches. As an added perk, if your lighter runs out of fuel you can use the flint to ignite these easily.

We've actually featured this tip before, but with a slight variation (using tin foil). It always helps to keep up on your emergency fire starters, though.

http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/OmMalik/~3/F9mDbj_05cM/

http://gigaom.wordpress.com/?p=78985

Social games — a subset of the gaming industry that offers simple games that run across various social networks — today received what is the equivalent of a Good Housekeeping seal of approval from Electronic Arts, the $4.2 billion-a-year gaming giant. EA today snapped up Playfish, a London-based company which is well-known for social gaming titles such as Restaurant City and Pet Society, for $400 million. Here is my take on the winners and losers in this deal, including its ramifications for the overall industry.

Electronic Hurts: Electronics Arts is paying $300 million ($275 million in cash and $25 million in equity retention money) and another $100 million in earn outs for Playfish. EA is paying top dollar because its internal social gaming efforts have been a flop. This past summer, Electronic Arts was hesitating to offer $200 million for Playfish. I would guess EA’s internal social gaming efforts (or lack thereof) were the reason why it almost doubled the money.

Electronic Arts CEO John Riccitiello clearly understands the changing distribution and monetization dynamics of the game business, but he is on the wrong side of history. The company today reported a big loss — $391 million on sales of $788 million — and cut nearly 1,500 employees. (Related post: “Game Business and Its Crisis of attention“)

EA is way too dependent on the console market and has been slow to embrace the shift to web-based gaming. Despite buying Playfish, Electronic Arts will continue to see its revenue come under pressure. Overall trends are against EA, as we have noted previously. EA will find itself on the treadmill of buying companies for growth and diversification into new markets — never an easy task. Verdict: Loser.

Game on: Playfish’s management, including co-founders Kristian Segerstråle, Shukri Shammas, Sami Lababidi, and Sebastien de Halleux, are the biggest winners in this deal. They kept a low profile, stayed far away from the hype and fury of Silicon Valley, and by building a business based on solid fundamentals, they were able to form a respectable company — rumored to have revenue between $40 million and $50 million. The company says it is profitable and has enough cash on hand to remain an ongoing business. Verdict: Winner

Index-ed: The biggest winner in this deal is Index Ventures, the London-based investment house headed by Danny Rimer. The deal validates the firm’s consistent backing of virtual goods and virtual world/gaming companies. Most importantly, the deal shifts focus away from the firm’s very public humiliation. The fund had to bow out of the Skype buyout, even though it was the original instigator. As they say, in the VC world, you are as good (or bad) as your last exit. Verdict: Winner

Game Side Story: The biggest winner in this deal will be the entire social gaming sector. “EA’s acquisition validates this space, and shows how big this is about to become. Now, this is going to grow on a really massive scale,” de Halleux, Playfish’s COO, told Inside Social Games. Thanks to EA’s bet, most of the second-tier game publishers will jump into the fray, picking up all the good companies. Activision/Blizzard is looking at the social gaming space and is a likely buyer. Others like THQ and Ubisoft need a play of their own and might loosen their purse strings. That is good news for the likes of Playdom and Social Gaming Network. I am actually surprised that Disney and other large media companies have been playing it cool and not buying in the space. Verdict: Winner

Zynga-ed: Over the past few weeks, TechCrunch has been running a much-needed campaign against the crummy offers in games that are mere lures to get virtual points. The issue is impacting some social gaming companies more than others, including Zynga, which until recently has been a media darling. It’s in the eye of the hurricane, but then it’s the biggest (and most aggressive) social gaming company. I could call it a loser for now, but a long-term winner.

Think of it this way: If Zynga cleaned up its act, walked the thin and narrow, and in the process lost, say, a third of its revenue, it would still be making somewhere between $175 million and $200 million a year. Given that Playfish was acquired for 10 times its revenue, Zynga could get between $1.75 billion and $2 billion. That’s a big number, and Zynga will be hard-pressed to find a buyer. So it has to go for an initial public offering — and that can take some time. Verdict: Loser

http://feeds.gawker.com/~r/lifehacker/full/~3/90udFtFyLbI/remains-of-the-day-firefox-in-your-back-pocket-edition

Firefox Mobile's new icon fits in your pocket, multi-user video conferencing is on its way for Google users, and Rupert Murdoch wants to get his media out of Google's search results.

• Coming Soon: Free video conferencing from Google
  Multi-user video conferencing is on its way to Google. [ZDNet]
• Google Docs Labs?
  Google has "Labs" for most of their popular products that allow users to play with experimental features, and a recent Google Docs error message suggests Docs may be getting their own Lab. [Google Operating System]
• 5 years of Firefox
  The folks at Mozilla offer their own road map for Firefox's birthday. I still like ours. [hacks.mozilla]
• "Firefox Goes Mobile" Winner Announced, Plus a New Design Challenge!
  Firefox Mobile get's a new logo. It's kind of weird, but plenty lovable. [The Mozilla Blog]
• Rupert Murdoch Hates Google
  Crazy NewsCorp CEO wants Google to Stop Indexing His Web Sites. [Gizmodo]
• Behind the Scenes of Augmented Esquire
  Augmented reality hits print in Esquire's latest edition. Now if only we could look at it without getting off our butts and walking all the way to a newsstand. [Esquire]

http://feeds.gawker.com/~r/lifehacker/full/~3/azo1zFndITg/brine-your-thanksgiving-turkey-for-juicier-results

Thanksgiving's just around the corner, which means many of us will try our hand at cooking a turkey in hopes we don't dry it out. It only takes a little know-how in combination with some science to produce the juiciest results possible.

For those new to brining, the basic idea behind the process is that by soaking a meat that is low in fat (turkey, pork, chicken) in a mixture of salt and water, you're increasing your meat's ability to retain its moisture. Over at food weblog Serious Eats, they've put together the ultimate guide to brining your turkey to score the best and juiciest results for your Thanksgiving feast. The post does side-by-side testing of turkey breasts soaked in brine, regular water, and one not treated at all. As expected, the brined turkey loses the least of its weight when cooked and turns out juiciest.

If you're a science nerd like us, you'll appreciate the Alton Brown approach to brining this post takes, and your table is sure to benefit from it. If you swear by brining, let's hear your best tips in the comments.

http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/OmMalik/~3/nrAcfuU4KxU/

http://gigaom.wordpress.com/?p=78993

Over the past three years, the Internet has become a major secondary distribution platform for free-to-air broadcast programming. Whether through network programmers’ own sites, such as ABC.com, or through aggregators like Hulu and TV.com, ad-supported broadcast programming today is generally available online shortly after its initial airing at no cost to the user. However, programming such as ESPN, TNT and the Discovery Channel, which originates on pay-TV platforms (i.e. cable, satellite and telco TV services) has been a different story. Read more over on GigaOM Pro, our subscription only research service. (Subscription required and costs $79 a year.)

http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/OmMalik/~3/KDXPlhs0Igg/

http://gigaom.com/?p=78954

As a longtime Skype user who never felt that the service fit with eBay, I was thrilled to hear that it’s being spun off. And now I have some thoughts on how it can quickly and easily become an equally successful social network.

In some respects, Skype already is the world’s largest social network, with hundreds of millions of users. And as a peer-to-peer system that generates revenue primarily through outbound phone minutes, Skype doesn’t need to sell advertising, which means that it doesn’t need to infringe on users’ privacy by turning their personal information into a salable commodity for advertisers — in my mind the fundamental flaw of web-based social networks. In other words, Skype has in place a well-established foundation for a social networking system based on privacy and trust. So what might a social Skype look like?

Skype already has a great client for real-time communication: a social graph of people its users know and call. It’s available for every major platform, and given Skype’s popularity, there are a large number of people online at any one time. Each Skype client could serve a XML file with the user’s current status, media files, link feeds and so forth, and to obtain a real-time view of what’s happening with other users, it could call around to folks in a user’s Skype list to get the latest updates. Such a system could be highly decentralized, with most content served directly from one user to another, and largely self-hosted, which means the infrastructure costs would be much lower than a centrally run web service.

The user experience would be effortless. Users would simply see more social features appear in upgrades to the Skype client, with, for example, Twitter-like functionality to broadcast to friends and followers in one panel, a link/news-sharing interface in another. By moving this functionality into the client, apart from a caching mechanism to temporarily store content for users while they’re offline, the need for a centralized web-based infrastructure is greatly reduced.

Apart from poking Facebook in the eye, why should Skype become a social network? Because it would drive phone minutes and SMS messages between friends, which drives revenues — which makes it a smart business decision. Besides, I’ve never bought the idea that a dominant position in a market guarantees long-term success. Skype took out a whole slew of early VoIP networks to become the world’s phone company — it could quickly and easily become the world’s social network, too.

http://feeds.gawker.com/~r/lifehacker/full/~3/yf-lmHJ9X0M/apple-releases-snow-leopard-1062-fixes-40%252B-bugs

Apple today rolled out the 10.6.2 update to OS X Snow Leopard. This update fixes that nasty guest account bug we saw last month and in general tackles a whole host of bugs, stability issues, and other various improvements.

You can check out the whole changelog here, and when you're ready to update, just fire up your Software Update tool. Find a fix in this release that addresses one of your Snow Leopard annoyances? Let's hear it in the comments.

http://feeds.gawker.com/~r/lifehacker/full/~3/pjMf_i_5my4/apple-tv-update-stops-your-media-from-disappearing

If you've got an Apple TV and you updated to Apple TV 3.0 a couple weeks back, it's time to update yet again to 3.0.1—if you'd prefer your content not temporarily disappear until it's re-synced, that is. It's a pretty big bug, and presumably pretty annoying, so grab the update for the fix. For our part, we'll stick with Boxee on our Apple TV. [Apple via TUAW]

http://feeds.gawker.com/~r/lifehacker/full/~3/qpNcrW-tNn8/freshbooks-takes-the-hassle-out-of-invoicing

As long as goods and services are being exchanged, invoices will always exist. They're not fun, but web application FreshBooks makes tracking your clients, expenses, taxes, and invoices a much simpler affair.

FreshBooks' main goal is to eliminate the hassle and headache that can come from other invoicing platforms such as Quicken, Excel, and Word. The work you're looking to get paid for should be the difficult part; letting your client know what they owe you for your services shouldn't be harder than the service you provided.

Like many other web-based services, FreshBooks offers a whole slew of services free to their users, with additional premium plans for some of their expanded services and features. With their free account, FreshBooks allows you to bill up to 3 clients with an unlimited number of invoices, and it also helps you in creating company logos, snail mailing out your bills (for a fee), and tracking your time spent working on a project.

FreshBooks also makes sending reminder invoices easy with a set it and forget it type feature, and it works with multiple online payment sites to help your money come in faster while still keeping track of who still owes you some dough. You can check out their pricing page for more information on which package suits your needs best.

Don't forget to check out other Essential Tools for Starting Up Your Side Business for more great resources like this one.

http://nesheimgroup.typepad.com/my_weblog/2009/11/what-real-ceos-and-venture-capitalists-say-about-startups-richard-branson-on-the-thin-line-between-s.html

This week I thought you'd enjoy a few comments from real entrepreneurs and venture capitalists.

I'll start today with Richard Branson, famous for establishing the brand Virgin. Of all the celebrity CEOs I have studied, he has the most fun with his businesses.

At a recent conference for entrepreneurs in Marina del Rey, California run by PerfectBusiness.com, Branson said the following:

He ought to know. He's been on the brink of bankruptcy multiple times since he started his first business at the age of 16.

Here are my takeaways for you to think about:

• Like children, startups are fragile. Most cannot survive hard blows. On the first flight of his first aircraft of Virgin Atlantic Airways in 1984, without any passengers, (the flight required to certify the aircraft), a flock of birds flew into and destroyed one of the jet engines. His banker refused to lend the money to replace the engine. Branson raced into action, contacted  every business person he knew. Three days later a new banker lent him the needed money. It was a close call. The years following contained numerous blows. At first Virgin Atlantic survived, yet with the skills of Branson, it emerged as a world-class success.
• Entrepreneurs see success beckoning just on the other side of the line of survival. It calls in the night to propel founders in trouble. It generates a powerful call to leap into action in times of deep trouble. It is a call that the entrepreneur always believes in. That is why startup founders are so optimistic. They believe in the impossible, they believe they can find a way through the moments of disaster. That is great. That is dangerous. It motivates with enormous energy. But it may be unwise (time to close the doors and find a better business idea). In either case, the entrepreneur always hears success calling on the other side of the dark river of deep troubles. It seems to be in his genes.
• Wisdom and experience keep entrepreneurs on the right side of the line dividing success from survival. Here is where the serial entrepreneur, have an unfair advantage. They have learned what strategic and operational moves are wise and foolish. They are confident in the people they will hire, based on years of experience. Marketing is one of their great skill sets. Managing people is another ace asset. The first timer has to learn these skills by doing them. The unskilled can benefit from the experiences of people on the board  of directors, and from mentors and counselors. Such borrowed wisdom when combined with a few breaks can lead to success. 
• Entrepreneurs manage cash. It is the measure of health for their startup. It is what fuels the business. Yes, they can read a balance sheet and income statement. They understand the meaning and purpose of a forecast of financial statements. They understand how the cash does flow in their business model. They can explain all of that to anyone, without needing to display the Excel model they have memorized. It all rolls up to a lifetime of managing cash as it comes in and goes out of the new enterprise. That is not delegated. It is done by the CEO. If you cannot, it's time to pause and learn how.

BOTTOM LINE: Branson is wise, he respects the thin line between survival and success. Surviving is no fun.  It grinds people down. If you are there and have been for years, consider packing it in and moving on. Success is a better way to live your life. To find what it takes for success, I advise you to spend time studying and listening to some of the great entrepreneurs. Then discount the high degree of distortion the media puts on what they write about the greats. Find yourself a great local mentor who has been in business for years. Spend time with that person. Discuss what you read said about the great entrepreneurs. Then make up your mind about what you would do when walking the thin line between survival and success. When you can do that, you'll be well on your way to building an unfair competitive advantage.

I wish you The Best on your Adventure.

http://www.gnome.org/~federico/news-2009-11.html#09

• Zeitgeist Hackfest, Monday

  The Zeitgeist team and yours truly are in an energetic hackfest in Bolzano, Italy. We are busy cooking the future awesome.

  

  Next door to our hacking room in the school, the Sugar people are having their own hackfest. Sugar has a Journal similar to Zeitgeist's, so we need to share ideas and if possible an implementation of the journal-of-your-stuff.

  We have three sub-teams within the hackfest: the Zeitgeist engine, the Tracker metadata storage, and the end-user GUI tools.

  Zeitgeist engine

  The core of Zeitgeist is a daemon that logs events that get produced as you work on your computer. When you open a file, that makes an event. When you view a web page, that's an event. Having an IM conversation, looking at a video, and playing music are all events.

  Zeitgeist logs these events and provides an API to query those events for useful purposes. The Journal, of course, shows you a stream of your most recent events. More sophisticated clients can ask the engine questions like, "what applications have I launched within the past week?", "what files have I used for the longest periods of time within the last month?", "which web pages did I visit while editing my-research-paper.odt?".

  Seif Lotfy, Ivan Frade, Mikkel Kamstrup, Alex Gabriel, Markus Korn, and Siegfried Gevatter are working on the engine. They are upgrading the format for the engine's database so that it can support more efficient queries, redoing the external API that clients can use through D-Bus to make queries on the engine, integrating support for Tracker as a metadata storage, and improving the contextual relevancy engine. This last bit is the magic that can tell you, "these are the documents/web sites/etc. that you used together while working on a certain project".

  Tracker as a metadata storage

  Zeitgeist would like to show you various useful things: the tags that you have assigned to a file (School, Work, Pr0n, Travel), the sources for email attachments or for files that you downloaded from web sites, etc. All of that is just metadata that needs to be stored somewhere, and in some well-defined format.

  Zeitgeist used to have a home-grown metadata repository, but it will be using Tracker from now on. Tracker is a metadata storage for RDF triplets. An RDF triplet is a subject/verb/object chunk that looks like "my-thesis.odt/has-tag/School", or "lolcat.jpg/was-an-attachment-from/$email_id". Those are just examples; the actual form of those triplets is formalized in the Nepomuk ontology.

  Gnome Activity Journal

  The Gnome Activity Journal is a prototype implementation of the journal idea that I presented during GUADEC last year.

  And they are closing the school right now, and we have to leave, so I'll tell you more about all of this tomorrow. Ta ta!

http://feeds.gawker.com/~r/lifehacker/full/~3/O06ZZ1HpxS0/replace-librarie-icons-customizes-windows-7-library-icons

Windows 7's new Libraries are one of the best underhyped features because they make it easy to manage files across multiple folders—the only problem is that all of your libraries use the same bland icon.

To explain further, if you've created a number of your own custom Libraries to store your files, you'll notice that all the icons look the same, which is especially annoying for the overly-broad "General" folder type. The solution is a simple little app called Replace Librarie Icons which allows you to easily set the icons for each Library to whatever you would prefer them to be.

Just open up the no-installation-required application, select the Library you want to change on the right, then pick an icon from a .DLL file or from an .ICO file, and the changes should be made instantly. The application also allows you to revert the icons back to what they used to be, so if your icon-changing experiment doesn't work out, you can get back to normal.

All the utility actually does is provide an easy interface to edit the XML file that represents each library—so if you are more of a hands-on type or want to understand how it works, I've also written up a quick guide on how to edit the library icons manually using Notepad (or your favorite text editor). Replace Librarie Icons is a free download for Windows only.

http://feeds.gawker.com/~r/lifehacker/full/~3/kBsebWpS7g0/google-wave-look-and-feel-coming-to-gmail-other-google-apps

A lot of people aren't that keen on the current look of most Google applications—hence the popularity of redesigned user skins. On the other hand, many users really like the look of Google Wave, the newest invite-only service from Google. (See our first look, or just read the book.) If you happen to be one of the people who love Wave's look, you'll like this rumor: According to gadget weblog Engadget, the Google Wave interface may become the default style across all Google Apps.

(Click the image above for a closer look.)

It's only a rumor, and god knows we've seen enough fake mockups in the past to know that this rumor should be taken with a grain of salt (Chrome OS "leaks", anyone?), but we'd certainly consider it a nice improvement. Let's hear what you think in the comments. [Engadget via Gizmodo]

http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/FreakonomicsBlog/~3/tZKX0WPdcXk/

http://freakonomics.blogs.nytimes.com/?p=20679

http://kara.allthingsd.com/20091109/accel-partners-feels-like-a-billion-dollars-today-no-really/

http://kara.allthingsd.com/?p=20399

Who said the venture capital industry is sucking wind lately?

Well, it is–but not today, and especially, not Accel Partners, which sold two of its portfolio start-ups to large public companies for a total of $1.5 billion.

That would be the sale of AdMob to search behemoth Google (GOOG) for $750 million in stock and the acquisition of Playfish by gaming giant Electronic Arts (ERTS) for about $300 million (plus an earn-out of up to $100 million for Playfish staff).

While Accel shared the AdMob largess with Sequoia Capital and others with a stake in AdMob, which focuses on mobile advertising, and shared its social-gaming winnings from Playfish with Index Ventures, the Palo Alto, Calif.-based VC firm can surely afford to choose the pricier bottle of wine this week.

(Also, apropos of nothing, Accel Partner and Facebook board member Jim Breyer is now officially paying for the lunch he still owes me!)

Playfish had raised a total of $21 million in funding, while AdMob had pulled in about $47 million.

“I think you can imagine we are very pleased,” said Rich Wong, the Accel partner involved with AdMob, in an interview this morning. But he would not give any specifics about what Accel hauled in for its portion of the two companies.

Still, Wong said the venture market in Silicon Valley and elsewhere was definitely “stabilizing,” noting that there has been an increasing number of exits for investors via big companies scooping up strong start-ups.

“AdMob and Playfish are strong players in their respective spaces and in leading categories,” said Wong. “Their sale is a sign that this kind of innovation is important to major companies.”

And, apparently, to Accel.

http://feeds.gawker.com/~r/lifehacker/full/~3/w_q2gMlVwcQ/assess-your-hobbies-to-free-up-space

Not all the hobbies we take up become life-long passions. Make a cold assessment of your hobbies to free up space, and maybe even make a little extra cash. Photo by Tim Patterson.

Maybe once upon a time you actually played tennis every week, took trips to go scuba diving, and spent your weekends doing wood work in the shed. But if we don't assess our hobbies occasionally, we end up with attics, garages, and hall closets stuffed with the often expensive castoffs of hobbies we don't actively participate in anymore.

The Unclutterer blog posts a two part series on hobbies, covering both assessing your hobbies and what to do with the stuff. Part one is a five-step guide to assessing if you're still interested in the hobby and how much time you actually spend enjoying it. Their assessment guide centers around figuring out how much time you actually spend enjoying your hobby:

Any hobby with an estimation of 10 hours or less should immediately be moved out of your home. Pack up the equipment and head to a used sports equipment store or an appropriate charity. If the hobby stuff is valuable, photograph it and list it for sale on a site like ebay or craigslist.

Part two is all about getting your stuff out of the house and into the hands of people that will actually use and enjoy it. Maybe that's by giving it to fellow hobbyists, or listing it for sale. Either way, check out the two guides below to help you decide which hobbies are ready for retirement and reclaim that space in the hall closet.

http://feeds.gawker.com/~r/lifehacker/full/~3/E2ICg_Bt8mw/paintnet-releases-big-update-still-a-killer-photoshop-alternative

Windows only: Paint.NET is a free, fast, and powerful image editor for Windows. It's a giant leap above Microsoft Paint, and a serious alternative to bigger, bloated (for most users, at least) image editors like Photoshop or GIMP.

(Click the image above for a closer look.)

We've highlighted Paint.NET in the past, but it just released its first significant update in years, so we'd recommend grabbing the latest. Paint.NET handles most of the basics you'd expect from advanced image editors, and the update has added new effects (including new blurs and distortions), better performance (though Paint.NET has always been really light and fast), and a complete refresh of the user interface (enhanced for Aero/glass). Check out the release post for a more detailed changelog.

If you need to do the occasional image tweaking or heavy image editing but don't want to spend a lot of cash on Photoshop or dive into GIMP, Paint.NET is well worth the download. It may not be able to do everything Photoshop does, but it can do everything most users need. Paint.NET is a free application, Windows only. Thanks Paul!

http://www.schneier.com/blog/archives/2009/11/john_mueller_on_1.html

I have refrained from commenting on the case against Najibullah Zazi, simply because it's so often the case that the details reported in the press have very little do with reality. My suspicion was, that as in in so many other cases, he was an idiot who couldn't do any real harm and was turned into a bogeyman for political purposes.

However, John Mueller -- who I've written about before -- has done the research:

Recalls his step-uncle affectionately, Zazi is "a dumb kid, believe me." A high school dropout, Zazi mostly worked as doughnut peddler in Lower Manhattan, barely making a living. Somewhere along the line, it is alleged, he took it into his head to set off a bomb and traveled to Pakistan where he received explosives training from al-Qaeda and copied nine pages of chemical bombmaking instructions onto his laptop. FBI Director Robert Mueller asserted in testimony on September 30 that this training gave Zazi the "capability" to set off a bomb.

That, however, seems to be a substantial overstatement--not unlike the Director's 2003 testimony assuring us that, although his agency had yet to identify an al-Qaeda cell in the U.S., such unidentified entities nonetheless presented "the greatest threat," had "developed a support infrastructure" in the country, and were able and intended to inflict "significant casualties in the US with little warning."

An overstatement because, upon returning to the United States, Zazi allegedly spent the better part of a year trying to concoct the bomb he had supposedly learned how to make. In the process, he, or some confederates, purchased bomb materials using stolen credit cards, a bone-headed maneuver guaranteeing that red flags would go up about the sale and that surveillance videos in the stores would be maintained rather than routinely erased.

However, even with the material at hand, Zazi still apparently couldn't figure it out, and he frantically contacted an unidentified person for help several times. Each of these communications was "more urgent in tone than the last," according to court documents.

Clearly, if Zazi was able eventually to bring his alleged aspirations to fruition, he could have done some damage, though, given his capacities, the person most in existential danger was surely the lapsed doughnut peddler himself.

As I said in 2007:

Terrorism is a real threat, and one that needs to be addressed by appropriate means. But allowing ourselves to be terrorized by wannabe terrorists and unrealistic plots -- and worse, allowing our essential freedoms to be lost by using them as an excuse -- is wrong.

[...]

I'll be the first to admit that I don't have all the facts in any of these cases. None of us do. So let's have some healthy skepticism. Skepticism when we read about these terrorist masterminds who were poised to kill thousands of people and do incalculable damage. Skepticism when we're told that their arrest proves that we need to give away our own freedoms and liberties. And skepticism that those arrested are even guilty in the first place.

The problem with these arrests is that the crimes have not happened yet. So these cases involve trying to divine what people will do in the future. They involve trying to guess as to people's motives and abilities. They often involve informants with questionable integrity, and my worry is that in our zeal to prevent terrorism, we create terrorists where there weren't any to begin with.

Mueller writes:

It follows that any terrorism problem within the United States principally derives from homegrown people like Zazi, often isolated from each other, who fantasize about performing dire deeds. Penn State's Michael Kenney has interviewed dozens of officials and intelligence agents and analyzed court documents, and finds homegrown Islamic militants to be operationally unsophisticated, short on know-how, prone to make mistakes, poor at planning, and severely hampered by a limited capacity to learn. Another study documents the difficulties of network coordination that continually threaten operational unity, trust, cohesion, and the ability to act collectively. And the popular notion these characters have the capacity to steal or put together an atomic bomb seems, to put it mildly, as fanciful as some of the terrorists' schemes.

By contrast, the image projected by the Department of Homeland Security continues to be of an enemy that is "relentless, patient, opportunistic, and flexible," shows "an understanding of the potential consequence of carefully planned attacks on economic transportation, and symbolic targets," seriously threatens "national security," and could inflict "mass casualties, weaken the economy, and damage public morale and confidence." That description may fit some terrorists--the 9/11 hijackers among them. But not the vast majority, including the hapless Zazi.

EDITED TO ADD (11/9): This is the Michael Kenney paper that Mueller cites.

http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/AmazonWebServicesBlog/~3/BvtyUWxE5Es/aws-blog-the-first-five-years.html

I was checking out the archive for this blog and realized that I wrote my first post exactly five years ago! In that time I've written posts to introduce each of our new services. Here's a quick recap of the highlights:

• We started out with the November 2004 introduction of the Amazon Simple Queue Service - When we rolled this out five years ago, I think the general reaction was "Huh? Why would Amazon do that?" I think it is now pretty obvious that a scalable messaging model is an essential component of a scalable system architecture.
• The next step was Amazon S3 in the spring of 2006. That service has grown and grown (and grown) and now holds a remarkable 64 billion objects. Our early adopters quickly realized that Amazon S3 was an efficient and reliable way to store any amount of data.
• In the summer of 2006 I took a break from my summer vacation to announce Amazon EC2 and with it the concept of computing in "the cloud." As we've added features such as the Elastic Block Store, Elastic IP Addresses, Elastic Load Balancing, Amazon CloudWatch, and additional instance types, Amazon EC2 has become more flexible and more powerful, step by step.
• Amazon SimpleDB was announced at the end of 2007, giving developers a fast and highly scalable way to store and retrieve indexed data.
• We also introduced Amazon DevPay at the end of 2007, consistent with out plan to allow developers to build and to monetize their own web services. At the beginning of 2009 we also introduced the S3 Requester Pays model to make it easier to monetize content stored in Amazon S3.
• With increasing adoptions came increasing requests for more support options, so we introduced AWS Premium Support option in the spring of 2008, along with the Service Health Dashboard.
• We rolled out Amazon CloudFront in the fall of 2008, making it easier and more efficient to distribute content stored in Amazon S3.
• 2009 started off right, with the introduction of the AWS Management Console, making it even easier to manage the use of AWS resources.
• In the spring of 2009, Apache Hadoop became an official part of AWS with the introduction of Elastic MapReduce.If you read my 2006 post introducing EC2, you'll see that I thought that EC2 was a perfect host environment for Hadoop way back then!
• Come the summer of 2009, we introduced the Amazon Virtual Private Cloud, giving our customers the ability to connect their existing networks up to an isolated set of AWS resources across a VPN connection.
• This past fall we continued to push forward, giving developers access to the Amazon Relational Database Service, making it easy for them to set up and run a relational database in the cloud.
•  Over the years we've also reduced our prices for bandwidth, Amazon EC2, and SQS requests. We also lowered prices and introduced a free tier of usage for Amazon SimpleDB.

We continue to listen to our customers and to innovate on their behalf. We've got plenty of work ahead of us, so stay tuned to this blog and keeps those cards and letters (and comments) coming!

-- Jeff;

http://kara.allthingsd.com/20091109/google-primer-on-admob-acquisition-we-cant-believe-we-ate-the-whole-thing/

http://kara.allthingsd.com/?p=20406

Google has a Web page up about today’s acquisition of AdMob for $750 million in stock, which includes the lovely image below of the differences between what the Silicon Valley companies do in the mobile advertising space.

Said Google (GOOG) on its site about the purchase:

“Mobile advertising is a rapidly growing and competitive space, and Google and AdMob are currently specializing in different areas. Though Google offers many forms of mobile advertising, its focus to date has been on mobile search ads, while AdMob’s focus has been mobile display ads and in-application ads.”

Translation: The Web search behemoth has been slower than molasses in the mobile and smart-phone ad space, sticking with boring blue text links of death, especially compared to the innovative and nimbler start-up, which is rocking the pretty ads.

So, we ate it.

Here’s the differences (click on the image to make it larger), according to Google:

Please see this disclosure related to me and Google.

http://blogs.msdn.com/oldnewthing/archive/2009/11/09/9919504.aspx

Like most geeks, I have a bit of history with dead computers. In the past, I used the "wait until it breaks, and then panic" model, but recently I've begun being a bit more anticipatory, like replacing an old laptop before it actually expires.

Anticipating another future dead computer, I bought an external USB hard drive for backing up important files, but upon reading the description on the box, I started to have second thoughts. It came with its own backup software that reportedly installed automatically when you plugged in the drive (!). I didn't want that; I just wanted a boring USB hard drive.

One of my friends (who used to work with USB devices) cautioned me: "Those things are evil. Some of them enumerate as a keyboard and 'type in' a device driver so they can own your machine even if you have autorun disabled." Wow, that's a level of craziness I previously had not been aware of.

Upon further discussion, I was convinced to return the external hard drive unopened and instead get a copy of Windows Home Server. I went for the Acer Aspire EasyStore H340 instead of trying to build my own reduced-footprint low-power quiet-fan computer. And amazingly, the EasyStore comes with only two pieces of shovelware, the excellent LightsOut add-in, which I kept, and some annoying trialware, which was easily uninstalled.

I felt kind of weird getting a Home Server since I have only one home computer of consequence, so I'd basically have a one-computer network. (I do have that laptop, but I'm careful not to keep anything on it that isn't already backed up somewhere else.) And because the Home Server would easily be the most powerful computer in the house, even though all it does is sit there doing nothing most of the time. But the convenience is hard to beat. It just sits there quietly and does its job of backing up the other computer every night. (And seeing as I had the machine anyway, I also have it back up my laptop, even though there's nothing really important on it. Most nights, the laptop backup takes only five minutes. And just because I can, I even back up the old laptop that doesn't even do anything any more aside from surf the Internet!)

Of course, the first thing you do with a new gadget is tinker with it, and I installed Whiist and created a photo album. It was so easy to do, I feel like I'm losing my geek cred. I mean, this sort of thing is supposed to involve hours of staring at the screen, scouring the Internet for information, and groveling through hundreds of settings trying to get things working. If anybody can get a home server up and running with automatic nightly backups and an online photo album by just clicking on some fluffy GUI buttons, then what will I have to feel superior about?

I'm kidding. My hat's off to the legendary Charlie Kindel and the Windows Home Server team They hit this one out of the park. It's an awesome product.

Now that backing up is so painless, it has set a new baseline behavior: Now, I feel kind of uneasy making large-scale changes to files on my home computer unless I have a complete backup. (Backups are the reason I bought the server. All the other features, like the photo album, are just gravy.)

And yes, every few weeks, I restore a randomly-selected file from backup just to make sure the backups are working.

http://blogs.msdn.com/oldnewthing/archive/2009/11/09/9919503.aspx

Commenter Nick asks, "How would you go about creating a special toolbar to sit on the taskbar like the Windows Media Player 10 minimised toolbar?"

You would look at the DeskBand API SDK Sample in the Windows Platform SDK.

The magic word is DeskBand. This MSDN page has an overview.

Bonus chatter: I've seen some online speculation as to whether a DeskBand counts as a shell extension, because of the guidance against writing shell extensions in managed code. As with all guidance, you need to understand the rationale behind the guidance so you can apply the guidance intelligently instead of merely following it blindly off a cliff. Summarizing the rationale: Since only one version of the CLR can exist in a process, any shell extension which runs inside the host process which uses the CLR may inject a version of the CLR that conflicts with the version of the CLR the host process (or some other component in the host process) wants to use. Now that you understand the reason, you also can answer the question, "Is a DeskBand a shell extension (for the purpose of this guidance)?" Yes, because DeskBands (like all other COM objects registered as in-process servers) run inside the host process.

As another example of how understanding the rationale behind guidance lets you know when the guidance no longer applies: In the time since the original guidance was developed, the CLR team came up with a way to run multiple versions of the CLR inside a single process (for specific values of "multiple"). Therefore, if you use one of those "I won't conflict with other versions of the CLR inside the same process" versions, then you can see that the rationale behind the guidance no longer applies.

http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/OmMalik/~3/bO_kcq1Y9-Y/

http://gigaom.com/?p=78887

The floundering economy hasn’t kept consumers from spending on mobile data, according to the latest quarterly report on the wireless industry from Chetan Sharma, one of our GigaOM Pro analysts. U.S. data service revenues grew 27 percent year-over-year in the third quarter, Sharma reported, with Verizon Wireless and AT&T accounting for 80 percent of the rise, underscoring what I wrote last week about how the rich carriers are getting richer. Given the investment needed to build out new networks, and the incredible growth in data, both the smaller carriers and U.S. regulators should mind the growing gap between those that are raking in the wireless data dough and those that are not.

Verizon’s data revenue exceeded $4 billion during the quarter, and is now approaching longtime global leader NTT DoCoMo.  Overall, the top four U.S. carriers “are now a permanent fixture” among the top 10 worldwide carriers in terms of mobile service revenues. Other nuggets from Sharma’s report include:

• 3G penetration in the U.S. stayed at “a healthy” 43 percent in the third quarter of 2009, with Verizon outpacing its competitors and T-Mobile slowly expanding its 3G coverage. The growth in 3G and smartphones helped offset some of the downward pressure on the data revenues and overall ARPU.

• Flat-rate pricing continued to gain steam in the U.S. market with industry-wide flat-rate pricing plans that included data. Almost all of the major carriers are offering flat-fee access plans for most of the new smartphones being introduced in the market, and roughly 20 percent of the consumers have flat-rate data plans.

• The subscriber gap between the two largest carriers (AT&T and Verizon) and the next-largest two (Sprint and T-Mobile) will continue to increase, Sharma predicts, rising from 28 percent.

U.S. mobile data traffic is likely to exceed 400 petabytes by the end of 2009, according to Sharma, up 193 percent from 2008. And that increased usage is forcing carriers to accelerate their 4G strategies and adopt a multipronged model to manage traffic more effectively. With the larger carriers seeing the greatest revenue gains from data, it stands to reason that as more investment is needed to “keep up with the Verizons” both AT&T and Verizon will continue their data lead. That’s bad news for T-Mobile and Sprint. Sprint’s investment in WiMAX was its attempt to get out in front of this demand for data, but so far it looks like its timing may have been off.

http://feeds.gawker.com/~r/lifehacker/full/~3/A75j3fMrVqs/put-on-a-duvet-cover-without-losing-your-mind

http://feeds.gawker.com/~r/lifehacker/full/~3/6FbVT5DmlH4/grooveshark-updates-interface-boasts-speedier-loading-time

Grooveshark, the music-streaming service we shared with you last year, has an updated user interface and some new tricks under the hood.

Those of you who have been using Grooveshark all along will notice the much cleaner interface right away. It's easier to search for songs and organize them into playlists, and under the hood they've made a few unseen but much appreciated tweaks—like local caching of songs you're playing so if you listen to the same song back to back there will be no buffer time.

You don't need an account to use Grooveshark but if you want to do things like save your playlists and add things to your library, you'll need to sign up for a free account.

http://feeds.gawker.com/~r/lifehacker/full/~3/0jgPVnx0UA8/google-acquires-gizmo5-voip-service-voip-coming-to-google-voice

Google has bought VoIP service Gizmo5, according to tech news weblog TechCrunch. If that's true, we're thinking it could mean some seriously cool things for Google Voice.

We detailed a few months back how to make free VoIP calls from Google Voice with Gizmo5, so connecting Google Voice with Gizmo5 seems like a no-brainer. Right now when you sign up for a Google Voice account, the service can only ring phones you've already got. As TechCrunch points out, Gizmo5 integration could give your Voice number its own endpoint.

That said, none of this is confirmed at this point. Let's hear your thoughts and pie-in-the-sky predictions for Gizmo5 and Google integration in the comments.

http://valleywag.gawker.com/5400497/holy-shit-indeed-analyst-curse+out-like-a-bracing-cold-shower-for-garmin

Here's a nice, sharp break from the cheerleading and punch-pulling for which Wall Street analysts are notorious: A financier on Garmin's last quarterly call, cussing out company for shitty margins on a product.

Garmin is known for its GPS navigation systems, including mobile units consumers use while driving. The company might find a bright future in idiot-proof phone muters. Clip above.

(Pic: Chris N. on Flickr)

http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/blogspot/MKuf/~3/YvVR60I7VNo/investing-in-mobile-future-with-admob.html

• iPhone and Android users browse the Internet more often than anyone else [Morgan Stanley], contributing to Google's 5x mobile search growth over the past two years
• And a quarter of these same iPhone and Android users spend nearly 90 minutes per day using applications on their devices [AdMob]

http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/FreakonomicsBlog/~3/aWaIRZyyvuM/

http://freakonomics.blogs.nytimes.com/?p=21419

http://kara.allthingsd.com/20091109/google-acquires-admob-for-750-million-in-stock-the-press-release/

http://kara.allthingsd.com/?p=20388

Google has acquired AdMob for $750 million, a huge price for an innovative start-up that has pioneered online ads on mobile and now smart phones.

BoomTown visited AdMob last fall and posted about how it was likely to eventually be acquired by…Google (GOOG)!

(Google has provided a primer on the sale, which you can read about here.)

The move is a major one for Google, which has been pushing hard into the mobile advertising space as it seeks to grow its already considerable Web search business. AdMob is arguably the most innovative and fastest out of the gate in the nascent arena.

As I wrote previously about the company’s prospects:

While there are very few bright spots to look at in the start-up space in Silicon Valley these days, especially those relying on online advertising, the San Mateo, Calif.-based AdMob is at least slightly shiny.

The mobile advertising marketplace, backed by Sequoia Capital and Accel Partners, just got a big slug of funding–almost $16 million–to keep pushing to get ads on mobile phones, which has gotten a huge boost from the popularity of the iPhone.

The massive data usage by users of the popular mobile device by Apple (AAPL) has clearly turbocharged AdMob’s prospects, which were already on the rise. Compared to a year ago, the company said, the number of ads it served more than tripled the number of ads served on a monthly basis to 4.5 billion.

Obviously, the better quality and more actionable nature of ads on improved screens is the reason for the shift, which should accelerate as more smartphones like Google’s G1 and the newest Blackberry Storm from RIM (RIMM) become more popular too.

Most importantly, even now, AdMob is cash flow-positive, which is not a bad thing to be in the current econalypse. It also has a cushion of cash–AdMob had previously garnered $15 million in funding from Sequoia and Accel.

It’s not all sunshine and daisies, of course, since the ad market in general is headed for a deep slump, and new markets are not going to grow as quickly, as marketers pull back from spending.

But, when the economy turns, the mobile advertising market is clearly going to be a fast-growing arena, with big players like Google, Yahoo (YHOO), Nokia (NOK) and Microsoft (MSFT) as AdMob competitors (or potential acquirers, especially Google).

With the money it just raised, AdMob said it would be getting ready for that race, and also use it to expand internationally.

Here’s a video interview with Omar Hamoui, founder and CEO of AdMob, on all this and more, as well as a tour of company’s offices:

http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/OmMalik/~3/lqlMtIPPocA/

http://gigaom.com/2009/11/09/google-may-have-bought-gizmo5/

Gizmo5 founder Michael Robertson

Google is rumored to have bought Gizmo5, provider of a SIP-based service, for an undisclosed amount of money, according to a report on TechCrunch. If true, the deal would add another arrow to Google’s quiver as it takes on incumbents Microsoft and Cisco Systems in the hotly contested collaboration market. While it does have Google Voice, the search engine giant lacks a truly enterprise-quality VoIP offering.

Given that most of Google’s customers are also likely Skype users (aka web workers), it makes perfect sense for it to buy Gizmo5. The San Diego-based company recently developed OpenSky, a gateway that allows you to call Skype from any VoIP-based phone/application. As founder Michael Robertson told us at the time:

What we’ve done is create a SIP alias for every Skype user. So if you want to call a Skype user named echo123 you simply dial echo123@opensky.gizmo5.com from any SIP-aware device (which is just about every piece of VOIP equipment). Users can even have any SIP call forwarded to their Skype address using my.gizmo5.com.

This application could come in handy for Google to capture some of the Skype magic as it tries to expand into the enterprise and increase its collaboration offerings. Gizmo5 could also help Google extend its reach on mobiles and bring much-needed expertise for soft clients for voice calls.

Gizmo5 says it has 6 million users; that number is unverified. If the deal is indeed true, Robertson, who been desperately looking for an encore since his first company, MP3.com, must be thrilled. Gizmo5 has raised closed to $20 million, a majority of it coming from Robertson.

P.S.: I want to apologize to readers for writing the original post outlining that Skype had bought Gizmo5. I guess the rumors of Skype buying Gizmo5 were still swirling in my head.

http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/OmMalik/~3/4OuhfD8P2FE/

http://gigaom.com/?p=78833

Yesterday I called my dad on my cell phone (neither of us have landlines) to tell him about something his granddaughter did, and a few minutes into the conversation he asked if I were near my computer. If I was, couldn’t we Skype instead? In my home Skype is both the P2P telephony program and a verb for video chat. My dad now prefers to Skype with me rather than talk on the phone, a tipping point of sorts in the way we communicate. He said he grew up watching cartoons where folks like the Jetsons talked via videophone, and since the possibility is here today he wants to use it.

In this multimodal communications world, the phone companies, which still rely on voice for both wired and about a quarter of their wireless revenue, should be worried. Voice revenue isn’t growing in the U.S., but that doesn’t mean that it couldn’t if carriers got a bit more creative. So far, data is helping phone companies that have wireless networks as well as those that are providing Ethernet backhaul for anticipated growth in data.

However, the real focus at carriers should be about getting beyond merely providing the pipe in this multimodal world. Check out what BT is doing with its Ribbit acquisition, as an example.

Skype CEO Josh Silverman would certainly be thrilled to hear about my dad’s preferred form of communication, as would the Telepresence folks at Cisco hoping to get the same thing happening in the business world. Silverman told Om in September:

“We are pretty big on video calling,” Silverman told me. The company is putting a lot of resources into building a better video conferencing experience, he said, because he believes that person-to-person video calling is going to be as big as video. That absolutely makes sense because today the definition of communication is constantly changing. In the past, the world was all about voice, then instant messages and now video calling. People are sending messages and status updates via Twitter and Facebook. The communications are now multimodal.

Perhaps in the not-too-distant future my phone calls with be less about voice and more about video, voice, link sharing, and even media sharing all within the context of a television or PC screen. I can turn parts of it on or off as needed. It’s like the vision for social TV that Liz outlined back on March (subscription required) rather than the Jetsons-style videophone that my dad is so excited about right now. The carriers are implementing on this social vision for television, but they should be thinking about adding this to voice as well.

http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/OmMalik/~3/GPJrUh_QwFE/

http://gigaom.com/?p=78905

Autodesk to give away free carbon management tool (Earth2Tech)
SCALE 8X announces call for papers (OStatic)
Will the cloud lead me away from the Mac? (TheAppleBlog)
Happy 5th Birthday, Firefox! (WebWorkerDaily)
I’m putting my Palm Pre on notice (jkOnTheRun)
Evolving online strategy: MTV vs. Fox News (NewTeeVee)

http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/OmMalik/~3/4qce2b8Ha9U/

http://gigaom.com/?p=78853

Microsoft unveiled Exchange Server 2010, which has been in beta testing since April, at its TechEd conference in Berlin today, and showed it working with Outlook 2010.  Exchange 2010 is the company’s latest server technology for on-premise software deployments, but it also incorporates many features aimed at web and online services. It has a new, integrated email archive designed to help companies increase compliance and respond quickly to legal and e-discovery concerns, and there are now previews of voice mails in Microsoft Outlook. It’s also very apparent that Microsoft officials are aware of the new kinds of competition that Exchange is facing.

It was clear from the product positioning that Microsoft is feeling the heat (GigaOm Pro, sub. req’d) from enterprise adoption of tools from Google, such as Gmail, many of which are free or available in low-cost versions for business use. Cisco — a long-time Microsoft partner — is also taking aim at Microsoft Exchange with a new enterprise email service, WebEx Email. Steve Elop, president of Microsoft’s business solutions division, made numerous mentions of cost savings that enterprises can purportedly reap with Exchange 2010, and there was much focus on the email archiving and legal compliance features to be found in both it and Outlook 2010. Among cost-saving citations, Elop noted that companies can now run Exchange Server on lower-cost storage platforms than SANs.

Indeed, Google CEO Eric Schmidt has been very vocal recently about that company’s “next billion-dollar opportunities” when it comes to delivering web-hosted applications and other tools that can serve as alternatives to Microsoft’s solutions — and its licensing fees. In fact, many of Schmidt’s recent comments are decidedly anti-Microsoft.

No doubt with Google’s focus on online-hosted applications in mind, many new features in Exchange and Outlook are designed to allow email inboxes and archives to migrate easily between on-premise deployments and online-hosted ones. For example, a demonstration at the Berlin event included taking an existing on-premise email inbox and transferring it to a web-hosted implementation. Exchange Server is available now for trial use, here (Microsoft Silverlight req’d.).

Microsoft officials also announced that the company is acquiring SourceGear’s Teamprise technology. Teamprise allows Java and Eclipse developers to create applications with Microsoft’s Visual Studio. We’ll be on the lookout for more announcements slated to arrive at TechEd this week and will update you as they come in. Stay tuned.

http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/OmMalik/~3/9xsebDycFR8/

http://gigaom.com/2009/11/09/breaking-google-buys-admob/

In a clear sign that mobile advertising has arrived and become a major revenue opportunity, Google today announced that it is buying AdMob, the upstart mobile advertising company based in Mountain View, Calif., for $750 million in stock. On AdMob’s blog, Google’s Susan Wojcicki, VP of product management, and Vic Gundotra, VP of engineering, write:

For publishers of mobile websites and applications, this deal will mean better products and tools and more effective monetization of their content — allowing them to focus more on their users and less on how to generate revenue.

For advertisers who want to reach users when they are engaged with mobile content, this deal will bring better, more relevant ads and greater reach. It will also mean more interesting, engaging ad formats.

AdMob has long been the dominant pure-play ad company in mobile, gaining traction as a kind of automated ad clearinghouse for inventory on the mobile web. The company has also expanded into mobile app advertising, which has exploded thanks to uptake of superphones such as the iPhone and Android handsets. Google, meanwhile, has primarily focused its mobile ad business on search.

As Google pointed out, the deal follows a handful of similar acquisitions by traditional online companies looking to move into mobile: AOL bought Third Screen Media more than two years ago, Yahoo picked up Actionality several months later and Microsoft bought its way onto the field with the pickup of ScreenTonic. But Google’s move raises the stakes for all the players in the game, and fires a warning shot across the bow of smaller mobile startups. Expect Google to move quickly to integrate AdMob’s business with its own mobile ad division as the company’s Android platform picks up steam.

While Google certainly paid a premium for not buying in earlier — or for establishing a thriving mobile ad placement business of its own — the tie-up appears to be a good fit. UBS analyst Brian J. Pitz speculated that Google is likely to integrate AdMob’s technology, clients and publishers into its AdSense network, which launched a mobile component two years ago. And J.P. Morgan said the acquisition “makes perfect strategic sense,” allowing Google to leverage AdMob’s technology to serve and analyze emerging ad formats:

“In our opinion, Google has invested heavily in growing the mobile Internet business through its development of Android and inclusion of mobile ads on AdWords,” the firm wrote in a research note. “The acquisition of AdMob should allow Google to monetize its support of the development and use of mobile Internet content further.”

AdMob doesn’t disclose revenues, but J.P. Morgan estimates the company generates between $45 million and $60 million in revenue on an annual basis. The company has raised $47.2 million in venture capital from Accel Partners, Draper Fisher Jurvetson and Sequoia Partners, and it has seen its number of monthly ad requests increase sixfold over the last two years, reaching 10.2 billion in September.

http://feeds.gawker.com/~r/lifehacker/full/~3/FZIumdz9ZgE/happy-birthday-a-look-back-at-five-years-of-firefox