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Thursday, January 30, 2014
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qwilt

More and more live video events are being streamed online, and caching equipment startup Qwilt wants to help Internet service providers to meet growing demand from consumers. To do so, it’s adding a new feature that will improve network efficiency and video quality for live video streams, in addition to the improvement of on-demand videos.


Qwilt was founded on the idea of helping Internet service providers to handle the huge amount of video that is flooding their networks, by inserting its equipment into edge networks and transparently caching content closer to where users live. By doing so, the company believes that it can provide more efficient network utilization for ISPs, while also improving the quality of video that end users are watching.


That’s a win-win for network providers, who can use caching as a way to reduce the strain of traffic traveling over their networks, as well as the media companies delivering content to consumers. And, of course, to consumers themselves, who benefit from the improved video quality.


The pitch seems to be resonating with customers, as Qwilt has signed up a number of ISPs in Europe, Latin America, and even some big MSOs in the U.S. to install its caching equipment into their networks.


To date, Qwilt has worked primarily to alleviate the pain associated with on-demand video from streaming services like Netflix or YouTube. In a world where Netflix can make up about a third of all traffic during peak hours, such a solution is surely welcome to help offload some of the video traffic.


But what about the growing amount of live video that’s coming online, thanks to networks and programmers getting more comfortable with having the same major events online and on mobile apps as are on TV. You know, like streaming the Super Bowl, or putting all the major Olympics events online.


For viewers who have tried to stream those events, it’s clear that the experience generally hasn’t been great. There’s typically a lot of buffering and whatnot for live events, since more IP networks weren’t built to handle a large number of people streaming the same piece of content.


The new live stream caching from Qwilt helps to solve that issue, and to create huge network efficiencies in the process. That means programmers will be more likely to stream live events, and ISPs won’t have to massively overbuild their networks to meet demand.


Qwilt has raised $40 million in funding from investors that include Bessemer Venture Partners, Accel Partners, Redpoint Ventures, and Marker.





6:08 AM

More and more live video events are being streamed online, and caching equipment startup Qwilt wants to help Internet service providers to ...

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lenovo

Lenovo’s aspirations for an established mobile handset company goes back a few years. According to a report published by the WSJ, Lenovo competed with Google for Motorola Mobility in 2011. Then just last October Lenovo submitted an offer for BlackBerry. That deal also fell through.


However, Lenovo’s search ended last Thanksgiving when Google Chairman Eric Schmidt called Yang Yuanqing, Lenovo’s chairman and chief executive, and asked if he was still interested in Motorola.


“And I said yes”, Yang told the WSJ. “This was a longtime love story.”


The story goes that Yang and Lenovo’s CFO attempted to acquire Motorola’s handset division in 2011. The pair visited company executives in Chicago. But they met with the co-CEO of the systems business, not the handset business Lenovo was after.


Google went on to purchase Motorola Mobility for $12.5 billion in 2012.


Following that purchase, Yang invited Google executive chairman Eric Schmidt over for dinner. “I told him if they really want to run a hardware business, they could keep it. If they are not interested in the hardware business, they could sell Motorola to us,” he said, according to the WSJ.


This deal is similar in nature to when Lenovo acquired IBM’s PC division in 2005. The purchase gives Lenovo access to a historic brand and a vast support network that includes engineers, manufacturing rights and a struggling, but established brand. Lenovo reportedly does not plan on laying off any of Motorola’s 3,500 employees.


In a conference call yesterday, Yang said Lenovo expects to sell 100 million handsets the year after the purchase is complete. It’s a lofty goal by any measure, but, with Lenovo’s global reach and dominance in their home country of China, a goal that is certainly obtainable.





6:08 AM

Lenovo’s aspirations for an established mobile handset company goes back a few years. According to a report published by the WSJ , Lenovo co...

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shadow

Facebook has made a big point over the years of having real identities for its users, but it looks like that requirement is soon going to disappear, and users will able to use made-up names for more anonymity. Call it the Snapchat effect.


According to a profile of Mark Zuckerberg published today in BusinessWeek — to mark the Facebook’s 10th anniversary — the social network plans to let users log in anonymously in a set of new apps it is planning to release (for more on that app strategy, check out Josh’s insightful look here). Paper, a new Facebook reading app out today, does require Facebook login, but that looks like it may now become the exception rather than the rule.


Zuckerberg once described the idea of having two identities as showing a “lack of integrity,” but he now says that real identity can be a millstone. “I don’t know if the balance has swung too far, but I definitely think we’re at the point where we don’t need to keep on only doing real identity things,” he told BusinessWeek. “If you’re always under the pressure of real identity, I think that is somewhat of a burden.”


The profile notes that there has been a lot of internal debate at the company about the use of real identities, which some might argue was a throwback to another time. The requirement for real names came about in the first place because at the time Facebook was founded, most social networks and forums were based around made-up names, and Facebook — as a way of bridging the virtual experience with the real world, and drawing in more users (it worked!) — put in the rule to raise accountability.


“It’s definitely, I think, a little bit more balanced now 10 years later,” Zuckerberg notes. “I think that’s good.”


But to say that the decision to drop identity was born in a blue Facebook bubble may not be quite right, either.


Real identity may have helped persuade more people to join Facebook — and through Facebook’s social sign-in has become a way of identifying yourself in hundreds of other apps and websites. But some have also turned away from Facebook for the same reason. You may not want to post funny pictures of yourself drunk at a party if they may one day be easily found by someone who you didn’t intend to see them. (Yes, there are privacy settings, but they’re a lot more fiddly than the act of taking and posting a photo or comment are.)


Many have pointed out that part of the allure of new kid Snapchat for younger users is the ephemerality of the content — it disappears after it’s sent. But it’s also notable that you can use whatever name you like on there, too.


Something Zuckerberg also doesn’t mention in his reasons for embracing anonymity is the fact that the social network has been under pressure in some places specifically for its real-name requirement. In Germany, the regulator has said that Facebook’s real-name policty “erodes online freedoms.”


It’s also not Facebook’s first foray into letting people use different names on the network. When it first launched verified accounts in 2012, it gave those people verified the option of using nicknames in all of their interactions (although even then the registered names were still their real names).


There is also the example of Facebook Messenger, which you can opt to use without a Facebook account on Android, although you still have to give over another piece of your data — your phone number.


The lack of identity in future apps is a very interesting turn of events — it points to Facebook wanting to change with the times, and with consumer (and perhaps regulatory) sentiment, but it also shows that it’s figured out more sophisticated ways of tracking and monetizing your time on its properties regardless. Even if you’re Ingy123 instead of Ingrid.





5:09 AM

Facebook has made a big point over the years of having real identities for its users, but it looks like that requirement is soon going to di...

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The iPhone 5c has been bugging me. As a product, it's so good -- and yet so wrong. By not saying much at all during the financial conference call with analysts this week, Apple has confirmed doubts while presenting new questions. Does the iPhone 5c represent a colossal misstep by Apple? Or is it just a mediocre product that remains profitable? Can it be both a misstep and a profitable device at the same time? As a product, it's surprisingly well-built but poorly positioned, inserted in a moment of time when it's not desirable.


5:09 AM

The iPhone 5c has been bugging me. As a product, it's so good -- and yet so wrong. By not saying much at all during the financial conf...

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sapphire

Apple is moving fast on securing intellectual property related to the making and usage of sapphire glass, filing another patent related to the material recently that has been published by the USPTO today (via AppleInsider). Previously we saw Apple file a patent for a method of attaching sapphire glass display windows to a device, and now its looking to insure that its method for manufacturing and shaping the material into forms usable in gadgets are legally protected.


The patent is fairly technical, describing how sapphire can be grown, the collected and polished down into wafers, as well as treated with various coatings including oleophobic coatings (the kind used on the iPhone to prevent fingerprints) and ink masking (presumably to enable printing of logos and other elements on the sapphire). Sapphire is a difficult material to work with in terms of manufacturing electronics, since it’s hardness makes traditional methods of cutting and shaping it more challenging.


Apple’s methods include using lasers to cut the sapphire into usable chunks, and it specifically mentions smartphone displays as one potential application. To get the material to where it needs to be for use in assembling phones and other devices, it describes a means by which it’s grown and then turned into cores which can be sliced into wafers. Those wafers can be sliced using lasers, which is both cleaner and faster than using machine grinding, which could be a clue into how Apple plans to make manufacturing sapphire components at scale cost-efficient.


A new report from 9to5Mac says that Apple is keen on ramping up its sapphire manufacturing plant in Arizona, which it will be running with GT Advanced Technologies as part of a $578 million deal. The facility should be live by February, according to 9to5Mac, and it will aid in producing “a new sub-component of Apple products,” say documents obtained by the blog. An earlier report also said that Apple manufacturing partner Foxconn was already doing test production runs using sapphire glass screens in assembling iPhones.


Apple gearing up for sapphire use on both the IP and the manufacturing front is a pretty safe sign that we’ll see this component feature prominently in future designs. In terms of timing, it’s likely that at this point we’ll have to wait until late this year before anything reaches consumers, but the wheels are turning, and the result could be much more durable devices.


Photo courtesy flickr user Joey DeVilla.





4:24 AM

Apple is moving fast on securing intellectual property related to the making and usage of sapphire glass, filing another patent related to t...

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Wednesday, January 29, 2014
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83-Image-2

I hate to say I-told-you-so…


Who am I kidding? I love to say that. But while I’m happy about being correct, I’m sad for Nintendo. I love Nintendo. I really do. And so it pains me to see them in such a state.


But I come bearing gifts. Rather than being the millionth person to advise them to move their games to smartphones, I thought I’d offer another alternative. It’s one I’ve laid out previously, and the response to it seemed positive enough that I thought it was worth elaborating upon. Because again, I want Nintendo to survive. And thrive.


What Nintendo needs to do right now is create another console. They can continue support for the Wii U through their current roadmap of games, but then it’s time to call a spade a spade and put all their resources behind this new system.


Here’s what I’m thinking: a $99 box built from the ground up to play retro Nintendo games. Mario. Zelda. Icarus. Donkey Kong. Pokemon. You name it. Have a bunch of titles ready to go at launch to ensure a blow-out. Release more as time goes on. But not in stores, entirely online.


This device would not have any physical media. No cartridges. No optical drives. Only a hard drive and an online store. Games would be $5 to $15 depending on the title. Hundreds of titles would be available within months of launch. Thousands within the year. Stagger them.


And that’s just step one.


Step two of my strategy would involve updating old classics to run with updated HD graphics and new levels. New Mario. New Zelda. New Icarus. New Donkey Kong. New Pokemon. Same idea. Updated graphics. New levels. These games would be $15 to $25 depending on the game. Stagger them.


There’s more: step three.


Strike deals with other “retro” game makers such as Atari and Sega to license their old games and give them the same treatment. Updated graphics, new levels. Sell the games through your online store at $15 to $25 a pop. Watch the money roll in.


Does anyone in their right mind doubt that such a box would be an immediate best seller? It would be massive. It would blow all the other consoles out of the water. $99!


Nintendo’s strength is in nostalgia. They should be playing to that rather than trying to compete with the likes of Sony and Microsoft. I gaurantee you that if Nintendo made such a move, those companies would have another “Wii moment” and drop everything to emulate Nintendo’s strategy. Except they wouldn’t be able to without Nintendo’s IP.


And in the moment when the competition is dizzied, that’s when the upper-cut comes.


Announce that this new Nintendo box is opening up its SDK to all developers. Both the bigger game studios and independent game makers. They will all be treated equally as long as they’re willing to create fun, simple games for the new Nintendo box. Such titles will sell anywhere from $5 to $25. Nintendo will take a 30 percent cut, the developers will get 70 percent.


I almost feel silly writing all of this. Of course this is what Nintendo should do. They probably won’t — instead, they’ll dick around with lame smartphone marketing apps and licensing characters for fitness something or whatever. But they should do this. How do they not see it?


It’s because they’re proud. And that’s too bad. Because the end game if they do continue down the current route is to be a maker of smartphone games. They can still be a successful company doing that — but they’d be a shadow of their former selves. Atari. Sega.


My $99 Nintendo box in an era of $500 consoles is a clear winner. ARM chips are good enough now. Have you seen recent iOS games? Nintendo needs but make a great controller. A really great controller. They can do it.


And once that box is a huge success, you release a mobile device that can play all the same games. Cheap. Easy. Fun. Don’t worry about beating the iPhone or Android. Play to your strengths.


And that’s the key. Nintendo is not Sony or Microsoft or Apple or Google. They are a gaming company with the best gaming IP in the business. They’re losing an arms race right now because they’ve tried to enter it. They’ve created a box in an attempt to compete with the Xbox or Playstation with a controller to compete with the iPad. They’ve failed in both regards.


It’s time to try something different. It’s time to use what others perceive to be a weakness and turn it into a strength. The Wii gave a glimpse of how this should be done. It’s time for a new Nintendo box to drive the point home.


Take this, Nintendo. It’s dangerous to go alone.





10:10 PM

I hate to say I-told-you-so… Who am I kidding? I love to say that. But while I’m happy about being correct, I’m sad for Nintendo. I love Ni...

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lenovo-smartphone

Lenovo’s ThinkPad is the brand of choice when it comes to enterprise notebooks – Dell has a strong footing still, to be sure, but Lenovo dominated the PC market in 2013, followed by HP and then Dell. The acquisition of Motorola Mobility today gives them a chance to parlay that success in the traditional computing world into the booming enterprise hotspot of mobile tech.


In an interview with the Wall Street Journal, Lenovo Chief Executive Yang Yuanqing and CFO Wong Wai Ming explained that the purpose behind the purchase was to help Lenovo enter the U.S. smartphone market and make the company a worldwide player in the smartphone market. But we’ve also learned that Lenovo has been conducting research about what customers might be looking for in a ThinkPad-style smartphone, particularly at this year’s Consumer Electronics Show.


Lenovo asking prospective buyers what they might expect in a ThinkPad phone doesn’t necessarily equate to a major mobile enterprise push, but there are more pieces to the puzzle to consider, too. One important one is that Lenovo made a bid for at least portions of BlackBerry, but the deal was ultimately nixed by the Canadian government since BlackBerry was so important a part of the Canadian telecommunications infrastructure.


It’s true that the company already sells Android phones abroad, and that these aren’t necessarily enterprise-focused. But the ongoing demise of BlackBerry leaves a gaping hole in the industry in terms of secure devices, and so far the only company really making a concerted effort to capture the attention of that market is Samsung, which has been touting its Knox security software for Android a lot in the past few months. But Knox isn’t without its detractors, and Samsung hardly has the brand cachet that does Lenovo when it comes to building enterprise hardware.


Lenovo says it will keep its Motorola brand separate in the same way it has done with ThinkPad, but that doesn’t mean it’ll keep the focus solely on consumer devices. Lenovo is clearly interested in that side of things too, as proven by its existing line of mobile hardware, but the growth opportunity in the U.S. is ironically replacing BlackBerry at the moment, so I think we’ll see an attempt by Lenovo to use Motorola to build on its strengths and give business users the phones they’ve been looking for.





8:56 PM

Lenovo’s ThinkPad is the brand of choice when it comes to enterprise notebooks – Dell has a strong footing still, to be sure, but Lenovo dom...

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