Monthly Archives: February 2009
Nokia Ovi Store To Offer Applications In May
Another major announcement made at Mobile World Congress is the unveiling of the Nokia Ovi Store. The Ovi Store will go live in May of this year. The store will be selling games, apps, widgets, videos, podcasts, etc. The Ovi Store will be made available on the S60, Series 40, and N97 Nokia devices. The Ovi Store will include a built in social discovery feature that will allow users to share activity on social networks about the applications being used.
“Ovi Store will empower consumers around the world to take better advantage of the power of mobile through a new content discovery experience,” stated Mauro Montandaro, CEO of Fox Mobile Group. Nokia expects that by 2012, 300 million users will have access to the Ovi Store. Content publishers can register today for an account on Ovi. Developers and publishers will be able to upload content starting next month. More information is available at: http://publish.ovi.com/.
HTC Magic: Powered by Android Exclusively On Vodafone
The first ever Google Android-powered phone is called the G1 and it was made exclusive for T-Mobile. The next Android-powered phone will be manufactured as the HTC Magic and will be exclusive to Vodafone in Europe. You will notice that in the image above that the phone is silver gloss in color. The phone will also feature a 3.2 MP camera with flash, HSPA, WiFi, and GPS.
[via BGR]
Categories Google, Google Android, HTC, HTC Magic
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Zuckerberg: On Facebook, People Own and Control Their Information
I knew there was something fishy about the Consumerist article that claimed Facebook had the rights to use your content for any reason even if you deactivate your account. Gawker’s network built itself on stirring up controversy. In this case, Consumerist took advantage of people fearing that Facebook is becoming too much of a “big brother” social network. No need to freak out about your photos on Facebook as long as you can trust your friends.
“When a person shares information on Facebook, they first need to grant Facebook a license to use that information so that we can show it to the other people they’ve asked us to share it with. Without this license, we couldn’t help people share that information,” stated Mark Zuckerberg on the Facebook blog. “One of the questions about our new terms of use is whether Facebook can use this information forever. When a person shares something like a message with a friend, two copies of that information are created—one in the person’s sent messages box and the other in their friend’s inbox. Even if the person deactivates their account, their friend still has a copy of that message. We think this is the right way for Facebook to work, and it is consistent with how other services like email work. One of the reasons we updated our terms was to make this more clear.”
Facebook Beacon on the other hand was a blatant violation of privacy. Sometimes it is good to keep Facebook on their toes about their TOS. Well done in spotting the changes, Consumerist.
Categories Consumerist, Facebook, Gawker Media, Mark Zuckerberg
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Samsung OMNIAHD Can Record Video In HD and Play It On HDTVs
Samsung has launched several new lines of phones at the Mobile World Congress events, but their best attraction was the Omnia HD. The Omnia HD (pictured above) can record videos in HD and play it on HDTVs.
The OMNIAHD is Samsung’s first Symbian full touch handset and has 720P HD video recording and deconding. It also has the world’s biggest Active Matrix Organic Light Emitting Diode (AMOLED) screen on a mobile device with a size of 3.7″.
“Samsung OMNIAHD is an incredibly exciting product for us as it is a mobile perfectly suited to the needs of today’s consumers who want exciting multimedia experiences on the move,” said JK Shin, Executive Vice President and head of Mobile Communication division in Samsung Electronics. “OMNIAHDdemonstrates our vision for the Samsung mobile business, which is to provide premium phones for users who desire functionality, style, usability and entertainment in one innovative device. With Samsung Mobile, I believe that our users can enjoy being at the forefront of work and play, staying connected anytime, anywhere.”
Other specs include 16:9 screen, live video capabilities, 8MP camera, HSUPA 5.76Mbps and HSDPA 7.2MBps, GPS, 8GB/16GB option internal memory with optional 32 microSD add-on, intuitive 3D interface, motion-enabled features, etc. Videos can be shot at 1280×720 with 24fps from the camera.
No word yet on cost or availability.
Pet Holdings Acquires Twittypic, Launching “Son of a Tweet”
Pet Holdings has acquired Twittypic. Twittypic basically watches what are the most popular videos and pictures on Twitter and posts them in a blog format. Twittypic wasn’t that popular of a blog, but perhaps Pet Holdings can change that. After all, other Pet Holdings blogs GraphJam and Fail Blog are all doing pretty well. Pet Holdings will be changing the name of Twittypic to “Son of a Tweet.”
Twittypic has a thumbs up and thumbs down rating system. Founder of Pet Holdings Ben Huh plans Twittypic “to replicate Digg, just using Twitter as the source.” Other websites that have similar functionality as what Pet Holdings is describing include http://twitturly.com/ and http://www.tweetmeme.com/.
“We think it is going to be big,” stated Huh. “Other people are trying to figure out who is popular (on Twitter). We don’t care about who, we care about what people like.” Pet Holdings next project is a way to create funny captions on YouTube videos.
Categories I Can Has Cheezburger?, Pet Holdings, Twittypic
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Miley Cyrus Account Hacked On Twitter
Anyone following Miley Ray Cyrus’ Twitter just got a dose of disturbing messages:
Categories Miley Cyrus, Twitter
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Sirius CEO Mel Karmazin May Be Kicked Out If Company Goes Bankrupt
Sirius XM Radio Inc.(NASDAQ:SIRI) may be kicked out of the CEO position of the company if they decide to file for bankruptcy protection according to The Wall Street Journal. The Journal was notified of this possibility by a group of creditors involved with Sirius.
“Creditors will act quickly and definitively if they perceive that management is acting in their own interest and not in the best interest of the estate,” Edward Weisfelner, a partner with Brown Rudnick, the law firm representing the creditor group, told the newspaper. “The board of directors should carefully consider the ramifications.” The company met over the weekend to determine which plan is most suitable.
Creditors would petition the court to have Sirius’ management team removed and be replaced with independent trustees. Sirius was rumored to be seeking investment from Liberty Media. Liberty Controls DirecTV. If Sirius goes bankrupt, then it would be the second largest Chapter 11 this year as they have about $5 billion in assets.
Categories DirecTV, Liberty Media, Sirius, Sirius XM, XM Satellite
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Adobe’s Flash 10 To Be On Many Smartphones, But Not iPhones
Adobe announced at the GSMA Mobile world Congress conference that Flash Player 10 will be available on phones that run on Windows Mobile, Google Android, Nokia S60/Symbian, and Palm’s mobile OS. Unfortunately Flash Player 10 will not be available for the iPhone.
While some people see this as a blow to Apple, I think its just reassurance for iPhone application developers. If you start providing Flash, then why even create games and charge for them when you can play free Flash games online. Adobe has been working for several years for a solution to provide Flash technology for mobile devices. About 40% of mobile phone users are working with Flash Lite, but it isn’t as good as the desktop version of Flash 10.
“We would love to see it on the iPhone, too,” stated Anup Murarka, Director of Technology Strategy and Partner Development for Adobe. “But it’s Apple’s decision on when and how they support any new technology. So we will continue to work on it.”
Categories Adobe Flash 10, Adobe Systems Inc, Anup Murarka, Apple Inc., Apple iPhone
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iPhone Application Card Counter Deemed Illegal In Vegas
“Made me 50k in vegas. Not kidding”
“Just got back from Vegas and won 8G’s and took my family on a great vacation. 3 bucks is worth a thousand.”
Those are some of the testimonials that iPhone application card counter received on iTunes. The only problem is that this application is illegal in the state of Nevada. The card counting program works on both the iPhone and iPod Touch and it helps players illegally beat the house in the game of blackjack. Although card counting in your head is not illegal under Nevada’s gambling laws, it is a felony to have a device that helps count cards. This has become such a problem that The Nevada Gaming Control Board sent a warning to casinos regarding the iPhone application.
The application uses algorithms to help the owner of the program adjust their bets based on whether they are likely to win or not. Authorities in Nevada learned about the program from gambling regulators at an Indian casino in California.
No Profit, No Problem. Twitter Raises $50 Million.
The service that makes you blog at less than 140 characters and has built an ecosystem around it has raised additional funding. This round of funding is at over $50 million and is part of the third round.
This round of funding was put together by Benchmark Capital and Institutional Venture Partners. Considering Twitter’s 900% growth in a year, it is no surprise that these two venture capital firms wanted to be a part of it. Twitter wasn’t exactly planning on receiving additional investment since they still have money left over from previous rounds of funding. There could be a lot of money made for the VC companies if Twitter receives an acquisition offer for what they are currently being valuated at.
Facebook already reportedly threw a $500 million offer in their direction in the form of cash and stock, but Twitter decided to walk away. It may have been a good move since Facebook’s stock value has been fluctuating quite a bit between the internal numbers and the valuation that Microsoft based their investment on.
From a traction stand point, investing in Twitter makes sense. But many people are raising their eye brows based on the fact that Twitter does not have a revenue model. Many companies are starting to realize that just having advertising may not cut it in terms of a business strategy. I believe that if Twitter can ride through the recession they may not necessarily need a revenue plan. Why do I say this?
Here is a one word example: YouTube. Remember the time before YouTube got acquired for $1.6 billion? YouTube barely had any profit and was also being closely watched by major TV companies in terms of litigation. When Google bought out YouTube, Viacom quickly slapped them with a $1 billion copyright infringement lawsuit. Google still has trouble dealing with the monetization of YouTube. Google already knew this would be an issue at the time of the acquisition, but that did not stop them.
Now Google owns the number one video site in the world and has a hell of a marketing tool at their disposal. Google used YouTube to inform people about the Chrome web browser. Google Chrome gained quite a bit of market share for being a brand new browser.
This could be the same case with Twitter minus the litigation. Twitter is a major marketing tool that any bigger company could make tremendous use of. An investment in Twitter was probably the best that a VC could make right about now, despite the lack of a revenue model. No profit, no problem.
Categories Benchmark Capital, Institutional Venture Partners, IVP, Twitter
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