Author: Chris Crum

Enterprises Seeing Increased Complexity at Data Centers

Symantec has put together its "State of the Data Center" report, which is the product of a survey of 573 businesses in 26 countries.

"Although mid-sized enterprises tend to evaluate and adopt new technologies at a faster rate than larger organizations, they still face similar data center complexities that are compounded by adopting new initiatives," says Deepak Mohan, senior vice president, Information Management Group at Symantec. "Standardizing on cross-platform solutions that can manage new technologies and automate processes will drive immediate cost reduction and make their jobs easier in the long run."

Symantec cites the following as highlights of the survey:

– Mid-sized enterprises are adopting new technology initiatives such as cloud computing, replication, and deduplication at 11-17 percent higher rates than small or large enterprises.

– Most enterprises have 10 or more data center initiatives rated as somewhat or absolutely important and 50 percent expect "significant" changes to their data centers in 2010.

– Half of all enterprises say applications are growing somewhat/quickly and half are finding it difficult and costly to meet service level agreements (SLAs).

– One-third of all enterprises say staff productivity is hampered by too many applications. Adding to the complexity is the continued increase in data causing 71 percent of organizations to consider data reduction technologies such as deduplication.

– Security, backup and recovery, and continuous data protection are the most important initiatives in 2010, ahead of virtualization. Eighty-three percent of enterprises rated security somewhat or absolutely important. Seventy-nine percent said backup and recovery is somewhat/absolutely important and 76 percent rated continuous data protection as one of their top initiatives.

– Staffing and budgets remain tight with half of all enterprises reporting they are somewhat/extremely understaffed. Finding budget and qualified applicants are the biggest recruiting issues. Seventy-six percent of enterprises have the same or more job requisitions open this year.

– One-third of disaster recovery plans are undocumented or need work and important IT components, such as cloud computing, remote office and virtual servers are often not included. Almost one-third of enterprises haven’t re-evaluated their disaster recovery plan in the last 12 months.

– Virtual machine protection continues to be a focus for enterprises, with 82 percent of enterprises considering virtual-machine technologies in 2010. Respondents cited granular recovery within virtual machine images as the biggest challenge in virtual machine data protection.

The security company recommends that businesses employ software that supports heterogeneous environments and eliminates islands of information, and deploy deduplication closer to the information source to eliminate redundant data and reduce storage and network costs.

Symantec also highlights the importance of disaster recovery planning, saying enterprises should seek to improve the success of testing by evaluating and implementing testing methods that are non-disruptive.

Related Articles:

> Google Preparing For Future With 10 Million Servers

> MySpace Tackles Data Center Costs

> Twitter Tops MySpace In UK, Spurs Data Center Expansion

January 11, 2010
Google Shows How People Have Been Searching

Before 2009 came to a close, Google provided a look (as always) at the most searched for terms of the year. It showed the top ten fastest rising and fastest falling terms on both a global scale, and in the U.S. Globally, "Michael Jackson" was the fastest rising, while "Beijing 2008" was the fastest falling. In the U.S., "Twitter" was the fastest rising (just above "Michael Jackson", and "John McCain" was the fastest falling (just over the Olympics).

Google has now shared some other interesting facts related to search behavior over the course of 2009. These are:

– Proportion of Google users in the U.S. making over one query per day: 7 out of 10

– Proportion of Google users in the U.S. making over 10 queries per day: 1 out of 7

– Fraction of Google queries, duplicates excluded, never seen before: More than 1/3

– Fraction of Google queries, duplicates included, never seen before: More than 1/5

– Country with the greatest increase in Google web search traffic in 2009 vs. 2008: Indonesia

– Approximate percentage of Internet users in Indonesia: 11.1%

– Average amount of time it takes a user to finish entering a query: 9 seconds

– Average amount of time it takes Google to answer a query: Less than 1/4 second

– Number of search quality improvements made by Google in 2009: 540, ~1.5 each day

Proportion of Google result pages that show a map in search results: 1 in – 13

– Average increase in driving distance on weekends vs. weekdays on Google Maps: 11km

– Median distance from a user’s location to ice skating rinks found on Google Maps: 30km

– Median distance from a user’s location to ski resorts found on Google Maps: 300km

Google notes that most of the stats are based on U.S. traffic during weekdays. World Bank, World Development Indicators are cited for the Indonesia stats.

Statistics like these provide for an interesting reflection of search on a broad scale. Those directly connected to the search and marketing industries may sometimes have a hard time stepping out of the box and looking at things from the average person’s perspective. Information like this kind of puts thing into that perspective.

For example, it’s hard for me to imagine a weekday where I would make less than 10 queries in a day, but according to Google, only one out of seven make over 10 per day. Does that make search any less of a factor? No. It doesn’t have any effect on the importance of being there when consumers do search.

Related Articles:

> Google Year-End Zeitgeist Published

> Bing Searches in 2009

> Google’s Year in Custom Search

January 11, 2010
Google Fast Flip Goes Mainstream

Update 2: Google has now placed Fast Flip at the bottom of Google News.

Update: Google announced that it now has 2 dozen more publishers representing over 50 publications on board the Google Fast Flip train (which is still in experiment status). New sources include Tribune Co. newspapers such as the Los Angeles Times and the Chicago Tribune, McClatchy Company newspapers such as the Miami Herald and the Kansas City Star, the Huffington Post, Popular Science, Reuters, Public Radio International, POLITICO and U.S. News & World Report.

Original Article: For being nothing more than a "labs" project for Google, Fast Flip has received an overwhelming amount of attention as well as criticism. In case you have been under a rock, Fast Flip is a lab Google launched, that has been talked about before under its codename, "Flipper."

What it does is let you "flip" through news articles on the web, as you would do with a magazine. In Google’s words, "Fast Flip is a new reading experience that combines the best elements of print and online articles. Like a print magazine, Fast Flip lets you browse sequentially through bundles of recent news, headlines and popular topics, as well as feeds from individual top publishers."

Google partnered with the New York Times, the Atlantic, the Washington Post, Salon, Fast Company, ProPublica, and Newsweek to launch the lab. According to Google, partners will share revenue earned from contextual ads shown with articles. Google says that encouraging readers to read more news is "part of the solution" to the woes of the publishing industry, though the company does acknowledge that there is "no magic bullet."

It would appear that many certainly agree that Fast Flip isn’t a magic bullet either way. Here are a few sample critiques of Fast Flip from around the web:

"It doesn’t seem very fast and also doesn’t flip pages, but slides them across the screen," says David Coursey at PC World. "I want to like anything Google does that makes life easier for readers, but Fast Flip can make news harder to access, not easier."

"I can say with absolute certainty that Fast Flip is fast and it will put more ads in front of the users who use it," says Clint Boulton, at eWeek. "But I’m not sure users are ready for Fast Flip to replace the way they currently view Google News — link by link."

"Overall, Fast Flip just seems like a disappointing product," says Frederic Lardinois at Read Write Web. "The cooperation with content producers is interesting, though we wonder if a single AdSense unit on the site will really make newspapers any money."

Dan Frommer at Silicon Alley Insider has some particularly harsh words for the iPhone version of Fast Flip, which he deems useless. "Unlike on the desktop, you can’t actually read anything. The text is far too small," he says. "And when you click ‘zoom,’ it doesn’t zoom into a version of FastFlip where the text is larger, fitted to the iPhone’s screen size, and actually readable. Instead, it expects you to pan around the page to read the text..No thanks!"

And like in the Blogosphere, there are of course varied opinions of Fast Flip floating around Twitter:

The important thing to remember here is that Fast Flip is just a Google Labs feature. That means it’s not a proper release or a final product, though it is interesting that there are partners making money (allegedly) from the release. Google’s own description of Google Labs:

Google Labs is a playground where our more adventurous users can play around with prototypes of some of our wild and crazy ideas and offer feedback directly to the engineers who developed them. Please note that Labs is the first phase in a lengthy product development process and none of this stuff is guaranteed to make it onto Google.com. While some of our crazy ideas might grow into the next Gmail or iGoogle, others might turn out to be, well, just plain crazy.

Most Google labs releases never make it out of labs status, though there have been exceptions. The fact that partnerships are involved could make the transition to actual release, and maybe a full-fledged feature of Google News, but as long as it’s a lab, it’s not going to be perfect.

January 11, 2010
A Glimpse of This Year’s Upcoming Gadgets

As you are probably aware, the Consumer Electronics Show (CES) has been going on this week, and will continue to do so through Sunday January, 10. WebProNews is in attendance, and will be periodically posting exclusive video interviews and looks at new products, continuing after the show is over.

What are your favorite releases from CES? Tell us in the comments.

As one would imagine, there have been quite a few announcements made up to this point. Due to the incredible amount of companies presenting products at the event (find the entire 400 page directory here), it would be near impossible to cover everything, but let us reflect upon some of the highlights.

Microsoft has had quite a few things to talk about at CES. The company unveiled a new HP Windows 7 slate device, as well as some other new Windows 7 devices from Sony and Lenovo. Microsoft and HP are teaming up ohn search and portal experiences, which will see Bing as the default search engine, and MSN the default homepage on HP PCs in 42 countries.

Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer announced the upcoming exclusive availability of the HTC HD2 in partnership with T-Mobile and HTC. Microsoft announced Mediaroom 2.0, the next version of its IP TV solution for service providers. The company also announced a handful of big-name video games coming to the XBox (like the new Halo), Game Room on XBox Live, and Project Natal, the controller-free gaming experience.

Intel launched a whole new family of processors. HP unveiled a new touch notebook and some new minis. Palm announced a couple of new handsets, updates to the webOS platform, and a deal with Verizon.

Internet-ready television and video in general have been frequent themes throughout the event. Netflix announced deals with five new partners to create Netflix-ready TVs and Blu-ray players. DivX showed off a new online TV platform. Yahoo made multiple strides on the connected TV front, and introduced new hardware partnerships.

Cisco unveiled some big plans it has in the way of video. The company announced new customers, features, and professional service options for the Cisco Eos social entertainment platform, and that it is providing a medianet to NBC during the network’s coverage of the 2010 Vancouver Winter Olympic Games. The company also announced some impressive data for Flip Video during the holiday season.

Boxee is also showing off the details of its Boxee Box and Boxee Beta became available for general downloading. Opera released some new software development kits and a new browser. Research in Motion (RIM)unveiled the BlackBerry presenter, which is a way to show PowerPoint presentations, PDFs, etc. right from your BlackBerry device.

Samsung is one company that has had a lot of announcements at CES. They announced their first e-readers, a new "eco-friendly" external hard drive family, a new slim external DVD writer for laptop and netbook markets, a new app store for TVs, Blu-Ray players, home theater systems and mobile phones, a new series of Plasma HDTVs, a new series of LED HDTVs, a new series of LCD TVs, new Blu-ray players, home theater systems, standalone AV receivers, and a four-door refrigerator. The company also teamed with DreamWorks Animation and Technicolor to form a global strategic alliance for 3D home entertainment.

HD Radio is involved with a lot of exhibits at CES. There are 25 new HD Radio products being introduced and 15 auto brands will be producing over 80 vehicle types this year, with 36 of them including HD Radio technology.

There are hundreds of car-related electronics exhibits at CES, but the most attention has been given to Ford and its Internet-ready vehicles.

The Open Internet has been heavily promoted throughout CES, thanks to the Open Internet Coalition, who has distributing buttons and laptop stickers throughout the CES event, with a quick response code. When captured by a reader on a mobile device, the QR code will launch a webpage, which allows users to add their names to a petition supporting the FCC’s proposed rules for maintaining an open Internet.

CEA President and CEO Gary Shapiro announced that the consumer electronics industry is set to generate over $165 billion in U.S. shipment revenues this year.

The things discussed in this article really only scratch the surface of the things being showed off at CES. Stay tuned to WebProNews and the WebProNews Video Blog in particular for exclusive looks at a lot of the products from the event.

How do you rate this CES compared to years past? Share your thoughts. Talk about some of the other products from CES in the comments.

January 9, 2010
Google Could Sell Energy

Remember when Google was just a search engine? We often still think about it that way, yet we are frequently reminded of the breadth of product offerings and ultimately the power the company possesses. Power, or energy rather, is actually something Google could end up selling in the future.

Google recently applied for approval from the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission for the right to purchase and monetize energy, just like the utility companies you are already familiar with do. Google has said that its actions had more to do with the enormous amount of energy it consumes itself (consider all of the machinery and equipment it takes to keep a company like Google running at its current pace on a daily basis).

Questions have been raised however, about if Google could actually end up functioning as a utility. From the sounds of it, the company isn’t exactly ruling it out.

Jeffrey Marlow with the New York Times asked Google’s "Green Energy Czar" Bill Weihl if the company views its work on alternative energy as a money-making component. In his response, Weihl noted that some of Google’s initiatives come from Google.org (the company’s philanthropic arm), and said:

The reason Google.org is not just a foundation is that lots of people believe that if you want to have a big impact at scale on the world, then you need to go beyond what a 501(c)3 can do, which is to make charitable grants, so you need the ability to invest in companies, to do engineering projects, to do things that might at some point actually make money.

We’d be delighted if some of this stuff actually made money, obviously; it is not our goal to not make money. All else being equal, we’d like to make as much money as we can, but the principal goal is to have a big impact for good.

Google says its goal is to make renewable energy cheaper than coal. Coal is said to be the source of about half of the electricity consumed in the US. Google is looking at concentrated solar thermal, enhanced geothermal, and wind energies.

Related Articles:

> Google Gets Energetic Syndicate content

> How Much Energy is Consumed by a Google Search?

> Google Testing PowerMeter To Save Energy

January 8, 2010
Yahoo (Somewhat) Addresses Future of BOSS

Back when the Microsoft and Yahoo search and advertising deal was announced, people (particularly developers) were left wondering what would become of such Yahoo projects as Searchmonkey and BOSS. These things let developers build upon Yahoo’s search technology.

Microsoft did imply it would be open to keeping them around, but not much has been revealed about the plans. While this isn’t exactly clarity, Yahoo has addressed the future of BOSS to a mild extent. In a post on Yahoo Groups, Ashim Chhabra of the Yahoo Search BOSS Team writes:

Under this agreement, Yahoo! is permitted to continue offering the BOSS web service, with search results that would integrate Yahoo! services and content with algorithmic results provided by Microsoft. As always, our intention is to provide a BOSS offering as long as it makes business and economic sense to do so. We are still examining what the BOSS offering will consist of, with some services powered by Microsoft, unique content that Yahoo! currently provides, and the potential for additional Yahoo! content in the future.

Prior to the announcement of the Yahoo!-Microsoft search agreement, we’d already shared our intention to explore a fee-based structure for BOSS. We continue to explore an appropriate fee structure or other revenue model as we work through the future of BOSS.

Yahoo has said that it will uphold the front-end part of its search engine, but the back-end would generally be handled by Microsoft’s Bing search engine. Last year, Microsoft acknowledged that it liked what Yahoo was doing with Searchmonkey and BOSS, so it is quite possible these things will remain.

The Microsoft Yahoo deal is not necessarily going to be a permanent relationship anyway. That is if it even gets approved. The deal still faces regulatory approval.

Related Articles:

> What Happens to Yahoo’s Search-Related Developer Projects?

> Three New Yahoo Search BOSS Tools Introduced

> Yahoo Upgrades BOSS, Asks For Pennies In Return

January 8, 2010
Google Simplifies Finding Nearby Businesses from Your Phone

Google has released what is called the "Near me Now" feature for the iPhone and Android browser. The feature shows nearby businesses by category based on the user’s location.

"’Near me now’ was designed to address two user problems," explains Google’s Mobile team. "First, we wanted to make it fast and easy to find out more about a place in your immediate vicinity, whether you’re standing right in front of a business or if it’s just a short walk away. For example, you may want to know what other customers think about a restaurant before you go inside (see quick video below) or what they have been raving about on the menu before you order. By selecting the ‘Explore right here’ option, you can find out more about a place ‘right here’ with just a few clicks."

The restaurant example is illustrated in the following clip:

"Second, we wanted to make searching for popular categories of nearby places really simple," the team adds. "Imagine that you emerge from the subway station and you want to grab a coffee, but you don’t see a coffee shop around you. You can simply search for all nearby coffee shops by using ‘Near me now’. To search other categories of places not shown, ‘Browse more categories’ provides access to our local search product with more category choices."

The feature is available in the US only at this point. It works for iPhone (OS 3.x) or Android-powered devices with version 2.0.1 and up. Users have to enable their location for the feature to even appear.

Related Articles:

> Google Unveils Nexus One "Super Phone"

> Google Reader’s Mobile Interface Upgraded

> Critical Local Search Factors To Pay Attention To

January 8, 2010
Boxee Beta Makes its Appearance to the Public

The much-anticipated Boxee Beta has now officially come out. It is available for Mac, Windows, and Ubuntu.

"In the past 4 weeks since we announced the upcoming Beta we had the help of tens of thousands of early access users who tested the Beta on all different platforms and gave us great feedback," says Boxee’s Avner Ronen. "Hundreds of bugs have been opened and we’ve been working diligently to resolve as many of them as we could. We feel the version deserves the upgrade from Alpha grade to Beta grade, and we’re going to spend the next year improving it, so we can release 1.0 at CES next year."

Along with the beta release, Boxee has announced some new content partners:

– TV.com
– Blip.tv
– IGN

Boxee is also showing off the details of its Boxee Box at the Consumer Electronics Show (CES) in Las Vegas. You can read about the remote, and the Box’s internals here and here respectively.

The Boxee Beta can now be downloaded here.

Watch for WebProNews coverage of CES, with exclusive video interviews coming soon.

Related Articles:

> CES: Opera Releases New SDKs and New Browser

> Cisco Leaving a Big Mark on Consumer Electronics Show

> HP Unveils New Touch Notebook and Some New Minis at CES

January 7, 2010
Just How Real-Time is Google’s Real-Time Search?

Update: According to reports, it took Google about six minutes to gather it’s "real-time" search results for a San Franciso earthquake.

Original Article: As you have no doubt heard by now, actress Brittany Murphy tragically passed away over the weekend. As saddening as that news was for many, people wanted information about it. As with any other celebrity death or big news event, people scrambled to find updates. This need for fresh info is really where real-time search has its greatest potential.

Google has only recently begun showing "real-time" results in its search results, pulling tweets from Twitter, updates from Facebook fan pages, blogs, news, outlets, etc. The idea behind Google showing such results, is that people can find the freshest info possible that relates to their query.

Have you found Google’s real-time search results useful for finding fresh information? Discuss here.

Real-time search is generally thought of as providing results as they are posted online. In its truest sense, that’s what it is, but Google’s so-called real-time search may not be as real-time as initially thought. It’s close, but not quite there.

Search industry expert Danny Sullivan followed Google’s real-time search coverage of Murphy’s death closely. He found that Google’s real-time results were "wildly out of sync" with the results on Twitter itself. He noted that while Google’s most recent result would say that it was 2 minutes old, Twitter would have 700 more results rolling in.

"In fact, I found that Google’s real time results often simply stopped scrolling for minutes at a time," says Sullivan. "To get them to restart, I’d have to reload the page."

But is Google’s "real-time" results being slightly behind real-time necessarily a bad thing? As Sullivan says, a lot of this no doubt has to do with Google’s own filtering, and he didn’t notice any spam getting through. There is a pretty good chance that those 700 Twitter results contained plenty of spam and/or redundancies (although Sullivan did find a few redundancies in Google’s results too).

Google’s Matt Cutts commented on Sullivan’s report, weighing in on the search engine’s handling of alleged real-time results. According to him, the news of Murphy’s death was broken at 1:37 PM, and first tweeted about at 1:40 PM. He says Google’s real-time results began two and a half minutes later, noting tht this was "entirely algorithmic."

"I think Danny makes fair points about better tools being needed to search the real-time stream and to highlight the important links/stories," says Cutts. "At the same time, the real-time stream worked as intended to highlight a breaking story and to show the flavor of how people are reacting to the event. The rest of the search results are also there to help give important news and context. And even the Google real-time results did a fair job of highlighting news articles, not just tweets."

That said, Cutts does acknowledge that Google can do better, but thinks they’re doing a pretty good job for a first-time test of real-time search. Would you agree with him? Share your thoughts here.

Related Articles:

> Tips for Getting Found in Real-Time Searches

> Google Makes a Second Real-Time Search Announcement

> Yahoo Rolling Out Something Kind of Like Real-Time Search

January 7, 2010
Open Internet Heavily Promoted at CES

The Open Internet Coalition launched a new "Protect the Net" campaign at the Consumer Electronics Show (CES) in Las Vegas. The idea is to build on growing support among technology innovators for protecting the open Internet, the coalition says.

"Many of the hottest new technologies showcased at the CES are only possible because the open nature of the Internet enables innovation without permission," said Markham Erickson, Coalition Executive Director. "The Federal Communication Commission’s effort to ensure the Internet remains open is critical for consumers, and for entrepreneurs whose new products and services will unleash the next wave of investment and economic growth."

The Coalition is distributing buttons and laptop stickers throughout the CES event, with a quick response code. When captured by a reader on a mobile device, the QR code will launch a webpage, which allows users to add their names to a petition supporting the FCC’s proposed rules for maintaining an open Internet.

The Coalition has provided steps for those using iPhone, Android, and BlackBerry devices:

iPhone

1. Click the App Store on your iPhone

2. Search for "QR Code Reader"

3. Select an app and install. We recommend QuickMark, but all QR Code Reader apps should work

Android OS

1. Find the Android Market icon on your Android Phone

2. Search for "QR Code Reader"

3. Select an app and install. We recommend the free "BarCode Scanner", but all QR Code Reader apps should work

BlackBerry OS

1. Go to the BlackBerry App World icon on your Blackberry or go to www.blackberry.com/appworld and download "BlackBerry App World"

2. Select the "top free" icon, then select BlackBerry Messenger and install

3. Once installed, open the BlackBerry Messenger app, choose "Scan a Group Barcode" in the main menu and hold your phone over the code.

More about the FCC’s proposed rules can be read here.

Watch for more WebProNews coverage of CES, with exclusive video interviews coming soon.

Related Articles:

> CES: Opera Releases New SDKs and New Browser

> Cisco Leaving a Big Mark on Consumer Electronics Show

> HP Unveils New Touch Notebook and Some New Minis at CES

January 7, 2010
Google Adds Chat to Translator Kit

Google announced today that it has released chat in the Google Translator Toolkit.

"Collaboration is an important part of translation," says Kartik Singh, Software Engineer for the Translator Toolkit. "Whether you work with editors to translate documents, customers to clarify terms or project managers to meet deadlines, working with other translators is key to making high-quality translations."

"Just like chat in Gmail, you can send instant messages to colleagues, friends, family and groups directly from within Translator Toolkit," explains Singh. "All the features and settings of chat are the same as what you’re used to, including going on the record to save your translation chats in Gmail. If you don’t want to be interrupted as you work on a translation, you can simply go invisible or turn off chat through the Translator Toolkit settings."

Google has also made some other updates to the toolkit. Users can now change their display language and set the toolkit tabs to open or close by default. In addition, Google has expanded entries in the dictionary tab to include useful information, such as parts of speech and alternate definitions.

If you’re translating a word in a certain language, you will find alternate translations for that word for different definitions.

Related Articles:

> Google Can Translate Between Over 10,000 Language Pairs

> Google Translates 9 New Languages

> Google Translating 98% of the Internet’s Languages

January 7, 2010
Samsung Unveils App Store for HDTVs

Samsung unveiled its own app store for HDTVs at the Consumer Electronics Show (CES) in Las Vegas. With Samsung Apps, users can download and purchase applications from select 2010 Samsung HDTVs, Blu-ray Players and Home Theater systems via the upgraded Internet@TV – Content Service.

"Samsung’s goal over the past two years has been to really push the envelope in terms of consumer experience with connected TV, and 2010 is no different," said Kevin Kyungshik Lee, Vice President of Visual Display at Samsung Electronics. "The upgraded Internet@TV feature with Samsung Apps is another major step in terms of a truly personalized, easy to navigate and convenient connected TV experience, which is why we’re offering it in the vast majority of TV models 40 inches and above and now extending those capabilities across multiple products."

Apps will span categories of video, information, lifestyle, games, and sports. Content partners will include Accedo Broadband, AccuWeather.com, The Associated Press, Blockbuster, Fashion TV, Netflix, Picasa, Pandora, Rovi, Travel Channel, Twitter, USA TODAY, and Vudu.Samsung says more apps from partners globally will be available within the year.

While users can currently go to SamsungApps.com, the TV section is not open for business just yet. It will be coming in July with a variety of services (both in free and paid). Samsung Apps Mobile is already launched in England, France, Italy, and Korea, and will expand to approximately 50 countries worldwide in 2010.

Related Articles:

> CES: Opera Releases New SDKs and New Browser

> Cisco Leaving a Big Mark on Consumer Electronics Show

> HP Unveils New Touch Notebook and Some New Minis at CES

January 7, 2010
Intel Shows Off Whole New Family of Processors

Intel has unveiled a whole new family of Intel Core Processors at the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas. These include Intel Turbo Boost technology for laptops, desktops, and embedded devices.

"For the first time, there’s a new family of Intel processors with the industry’s most advanced technology available immediately at virtually every PC price point," said Sean Maloney, executive vice president and general manager of the Intel Architecture Group. "These smart processors adapt to an individual’s needs, automatically providing a ‘boost’ of performance for everyday applications. They become energy efficient to the point of shutting down processing cores or reducing power consumption to provide performance when people need it, and energy efficient when they don’t."

Highlights of the news include:

– Mainstream processors now offer Intel Turbo Boost Technology, automatically adapting to an individual’s performance needs

– First 32 nanometer processors and first time Intel is mass-producing a variety of chips at mainstream prices at start of new manufacturing process, reflecting last year’s $7 billion investment during economic recession

– Intel Core i5 processors are about twice as fast as comparable existing PCs for visibly faster video, photo and music downloading experience4

– Select processors integrate graphics directly on processors; also include Intel’s second generation high-k metal gate transistors

– Beyond laptops and PCs, processors also target ATMs, travel kiosks, digital displays

– More than 10 new chipsets and new 802.11n WiFi and WiMAX products with new Intel My WiFi features

More details about the new family of processors can be found here. Watch for more WebProNews coverage of CES, with exclusive video interviews coming soon.

Related Articles:

> CES: Opera Releases New SDKs and New Browser

> Cisco Leaving a Big Mark on Consumer Electronics Show

> HP Unveils New Touch Notebook and Some New Minis at CES

January 7, 2010
What Microsoft is Sharing in Consumer Electronics

Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer’s keynote last night was one of the most anticipated events of the Consumer Electronics Show (CES) in Las Vegas. It was expected that he would unveil a device to compete with a supposedly upcoming tablet from Apple, but people anticipating such news were met with the unveiling of a different device – the HP Windows 7 slate device, which apparently doesn’t live up to some of the tech crowd’s expectations.

Ballmer says the device is more powerful than a phone, and "almost as powerful" as a PC. You can’t get too much out of it, but here’s an official video of the device that’s floating around:

The device will be available some time later this year.

In addition to this, Microsoft-related news to come out of CES includes:

– The Sony VAIO L all-in-one laptop built for HD entertainment and multimedia content creation, and including a 24-inch touchscreen (Windows 7)

– The Lenovo A300, one of the thinnest PCs yet at just 18mm, but with a 21.5-inch HD widescreen LED display (Windows 7)

– Microsoft and HP are teaming up on search and portal experiences. Bing will be the default search engine, and MSN the default homepage on HP PCs in 42 countries.

– Ballmer announced the upcoming exclusive availability of the HTC HD2 in partnership with T-Mobile USA, Inc. and HTC.

– Microsoft Mediaroom 2.0, the next version of its Internet Protocol Television solution for service providers

– Big games coming to XBox: Tom Clancy’s Splinter Cell: Halo Reach, Conviction, Crackdown 2, Mass Effect 2, Alan Wake, and Fable 3

– Game Room on Xbox LIVE, which Microsoft says will be the place to relive the glory days of arcade games, with over 1000 games being released throughout the next three years

– "Project Natal," the controller-free gaming experience that tracks movement of the body and facial expressions, and responds to your voice, scheduled to be available in holiday season 2010

"We’ve reached a point with technology where it’s very feasible to listen to or watch whatever you want, whenever you want, whether on your smartphone, laptop or a connected TV in the comfort of your living room," said Microsoft Entertainment & Devices Division President Robbie Bach. "That concept of greater control is compelling to many people. It’s all about tying together these disparate technologies into a digital entertainment experience that’s consistent, easy to use and relevant to consumers’ needs."

Watch for more WebProNews coverage of CES, with exclusive video interviews coming soon.

Related Articles:

> CES: Opera Releases New SDKs and New Browser

> Cisco Leaving a Big Mark on Consumer Electronics Show

> HP Unveils New Touch Notebook and Some New Minis at CES

January 7, 2010
Samsung Unveils First E-Readers at CES

At the Consumer Electronics Show in Vegas, Samsung introduced its first e-book reading devices. They’re called the E6 and the E101, coming in six and ten-inch screen sizes.

"We’ve used our expertise to create a high-quality e-book with today’s on-the-go consumer in mind," said Young Bae, director of display marketing, Samsung Information Technology Division. "Samsung is addressing a common frustration that users experience with many of today’s digital readers with a stylus that allows them to annotate their favorite works or take notes. Coupled with wireless functionality that enables sharing of content, this is a truly multi-faceted device."

The E6 and E101 enable handwriting directly onto the display, letting users annotate their reading selections, calendars and to-do lists with a built-in electromagnetic resonance (EMR) stylus pen. Samsung says the pen prevents mistypes caused by hands and other objects that graze the screen’s surface. It comes with a variety of pen and eraser thicknesses.

According to the company, the Samsung e-book displays reflect light naturally and deliver an appearance similar to that of printed paper, allowing people to read more naturally than they would with other backlit electronic paper devices.

"The E101 boasts a ten-inch screen, while the E6, is the more portable sibling at six inches," says Samsung. "Because Samsung’s e-book is not backlit, the power consumption is lower than that of other portable display devices. Only four hours of charging prepares the battery for up to two weeks of use, depending on the extent of daily use."

Samsung the devices will be available early this year with the E^ priced at $399 and the E101 priced at $699.

Watch for more WebProNews coverage of CES, with exclusive video interviews coming soon.

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January 7, 2010
Netflix-Ready Devices Coming From More Big Brands

At the Consumer Electronics Show (CES) in Las Vegas, Netflix announced agreements with five global consumer electronics companies, to introduce Netflix-ready devices later in the year. These companies are Funai, which distributes the Philips, Magnavox, Sylvania and Emerson brands in the United States, Panasonic, Sanyo, Sharp and Toshiba.

Each of these companies will introduce Blu-ray players or digital TVs that will stream Netflix movies and television shows for instant watching, much like existing devices already do:

"Ever since Netflix began instantly streaming movies and TV episodes to personal computers in January 2007 we’ve said we want to be ubiquitous on whatever device gets the Internet to the TV," said Netflix co-founder and CEO Reed Hastings. "We’ve made incredible progress toward this goal over the last year and we’ve rapidly established Netflix as a must-have service for Internet connected consumer electronics devices. The important companies and brands we’ve announced today join a roster of world-class CE companies that have partnered with Netflix.

"We look forward to adding even more partners this year, and we expect instant streaming of movies from Netflix to be available on more than one hundred different partner products in 2010," said Mr. Hastings.

On a separate Netflix-related note, it was announced yesterday that Netflix will now have to wait 28 days after a DVD release to offer that DVD for rental to its customers, when it comes from Warner Bros. This is likely just the beginning of things to come in the industry, which will probably include similar moves from various studios and rental companies.

Watch for more WebProNews coverage of CES, with exclusive video interviews coming soon.

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January 7, 2010
Rumor: AOL May (Not) Be Buying Mashable

Update: According to Business Insider, Pete Cashmore had this to say on the matter:

We’re very open to partnerships and always talk with those that get in touch. We’ve certainly spoken to lots of potential partners, some of those conversations more significant than others. But I don’t feel that any of those conversations reached a point at which Mashable is likely to cease being independent.

Original Article: In mid-2009, all-things-social-media blog Mashable surpassed TechCrunch as the top tech blog in terms of traffic. Now, Mashable is rumored to be on its way to becoming an AOL property.

In late 2009, AOL revealed its new strategy away from Time Warner. That strategy is content, content, content, and that is something there is no shortage of from Mashable.

Gawker’s Valleywag appears to be the source of the rumor after hearing from "a source at the Internet conglomerate" that AOL was interested in buying Mashable. Mashable owner Pete Cashmore has since told the publication:

"We don’t comment on speculation, but we do hold our writers in high regard and pay a competitive salary for their tireless efforts."

However, since then, famed tech blogger Robert Scoble has posted the following tweet:

It’s still only a rumor at this point, but it will be quite interesting to see how this one unfolds. Valleywag thinks the only hold up might be negotiations.

Mashable certainly fits the profile of what AOL is trying to do these days. They cover a wide spectrum of topics (horizontally, if you will), while staying somewhere within the realm of social media, for the most part. One has to wonder if the writers would stay the same if such a deal were to go through.

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January 6, 2010
HD Radio Tech a Big Theme Throughout CES

At the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas this week, there will be a total of 25 new HD Radio products introduced, making for this technology’s broadest product category coverage ever. This year, 15 automotive brands will produce over 80 vehicle types, and 36 of them will include HD Radio Technology, according to iBiquity Digital.

Brands include:

– Audi
– BMW
– Ford
– Hyundai
– Jaguar
– Kia
– Land Rover
– Lincoln
– Mercedes Benz
– Mercury
– MINI USA
– Rolls Royce
– Scion
– Volkswagen
– Volvo

At least three new vehicles are on display at the event at the HD Radio booth – the Ford 2011 Taurus SHO, Volkswagen 2010 MY Golf TDI, and 2010 Scion xB. The first ever factory installed implementation of HD Radio enabled iTunes Tagging will occur at CES and will be showcased by Ford. A number of after-market solutions from various brands are being displayed as well.

"New low-cost, low power IC solutions were introduced at CES 2009," says iBiquity Digital. "Since that technical breakthrough, many new portable products have been committed for launch into the consumer market, several of which are currently available, with additional new models on display at CES 2010."

These include Microsoft Zune HD, Insignia ND-HD01, Cydle T43H (PND w/ Real Time Traffic), Cydle P15, Gigaware 12-645 and 12-646, Sangean DT 600HD and Sangean DT 800HD. iBiquity itself is developing a Software Development Kit (SDK) for receiver partners to aid feature integration, which is planned for later in 2010.

Over 2,000 stations in the US use HD Radio Technology. The technology allows for a richer multimedia experience than traditional radio giving users access to album art and other features.

Watch for more WebProNews coverage of CES, with exclusive video interviews coming soon.

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January 6, 2010
Google Talks to People About Online Auto Habits

Are you familiar with "Google on the Street"? This refers to a series of videos Google has put together in which it goes out and talks to people on the street about various online behaviors, to see how responses stack up against their own Insights for Search findings.

The videos are periodically posted on Google’s UK Barometer Blog. Topics covered in the past include online shopping, consumer confidence, and travel. The most recent entry paints an interesting picture about how people use the Internet for auto-related services.

People take on the following topics in the video above (you’ll have to click through to watch it on the blog, because it is not embeddable):

– How do consumers use online to help build their consideration list?
– How do people search online?
– Do consumers buy cars online or do they need to visit a dealership too?
– Do people buy parts and book services online?
– What is their perception of branded websites?
– What do brands get wrong/right on their websites?
– What is the role of social media in the decision making process?
– Do people find online video useful and what do they want to see?
– Real time research: How do on and offline world’s fit together?

As long as you’re on the blog, you might be interested in browsing through the past entries in the series by clicking on the " on the street " tag. It’s interesting to see the responses of actual people on different matters, rather than just tables of data.

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January 6, 2010
Use Your BlackBerry to Give Presentations

At the Consumer Electronics Show (CES) in Vegas, Research in Motion (RIM) unveiled a new device called the BlackBerry Presenter, which is a way for users to wirelessly present Microsoft PowerPoint, PDF, and other image files right from their BlackBerry smartphone. Pretty cool.

"BlackBerry Presenter helps simplify the presentation experience by allowing professionals to lighten their travel load and leave their laptops back at the office," says RIM’s Douglas Soltys.

The device includes a loop mode, which lets you set the time between slides and leave it running as you deliver a presentation. It also has a Freeze mode, which will freeze a slide on-screen while you browse through the rest of your presentation on your smartphone. It supports PowerPoint effects, Bluetooth connection, and is compatible with multiple online video formats.

Here’s what it looks like:

RIM lists the following as system requirements for the device:

1. Video output device and a VGA cable or an S-Video cable.

2. BlackBerry Presenter is not supported by the BlackBerry Curve 8300 Series and/or BlackBerry Pearl Flip 8200 Series smartphones.

3. Upgrading BlackBerry Presenter firmware requires (a) an Intel compatible computer with an available USB port that is compliant with USB 1.1 or higher and that is running the Microsoft Windows XP or later operating system and (b) BlackBerry Device Software v4.6 or later.

BlackBerry Presenter Specs:

Physical Dimensions (LxWxH)
3.4 x 2.4 x 0.9 inches (86 x 60 x 23 mm)

Languages Supported:
English, French, Italian,
German, Spanish

Video Formats Supported:
NTSC, PAL

Video Cable Support:
S-Video, VGA

Power Connections:
USB

Display Resolution Support:
640×480 (VGA), 800×600
(SVGA), or 1024×768 (XGA)

Bluetooth:
Version 2.0 + EDR, Class 1.5

Carrying Case:
Synthetic Leather

Watch for more WebProNews coverage of CES, with exclusive video interviews coming soon.

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January 6, 2010
Opera Releases New SDKs and New Browser

Opera is unveiling three new releases at the Consumer Electronics Show (CES) in Las Vegas. This includes two new software development kits (SDKs), the Opera Devices 10.15 SDK for Linux and Windows CE (WinCE) platforms, and the company’s new standalone browser, Opera Devices 10 for WinCE (beta).

"Opera Devices SDKs are built with freedom and flexibility at their core, giving customers the ability to build a full Web browser, a widget or an application platform on any connected device, including TVs, STBs, media players, mobile Internet devices, and many more," said Christen Krogh, Chief Development Officer at Opera Software. "The TV industry’s evolution and innovation has created a demand for toolkits that can handle next generation IPTV and hybrid broadcast/broadband services on any TV screen. Opera Devices SDK for Linux is just the comprehensive client to help customers harness the power of Web technology."

Opera SDK features include:

– Opera Turbo
– Flash Lite 3.1
– HTML5/CSS3
– Widgets

Opera says the Linux version has a few additional features, such as:

– Hardware acceleration – Opera Devices SDK for Linux now takes advantage of accelerated hardware to boost page rendering. The SDK also supports DirectFB for tighter integration with hardware platforms.

– OOIF – Opera’s Open IPTV Framework allows for the development of HbbTV and OIPF clients, compliant with next-generation IPTV or hybrid broadcast/broadband services. For more information, go to www.oipf.org and www.hbbtv.org.

– Opera Widgets for TV – Opera’s acclaimed Widgets for TV demo has been extended with remote control inputs and now includes Web browsing, a fitting addition to the widgets experience.

The Opera Devices 10 browser for Windows CE supports Opera Turbo and includes features like portrait/landscape mode, URL auto-completion, touch screen browsing, visual tabs, and Opera’s Speed Dial shortcuts to pre-selected web content.

Watch for more WebProNews coverage of CES, with exclusive video interviews coming soon.

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January 6, 2010