BomBom Tech News: February 2012

Wednesday, February 29, 2012

Amazon Kindle 'Lending Library' breaks 100,000 titles

Starting with just 5,000 titles during early November 2011, Amazon announced today that the Lending Library service on the Kindle now provides access to over 100,000 titles. Available to anyone with an Amazon Prime subscription, consumers can download one book for free every month to a Kindle device without any restriction of an upcoming due date. An Amazon Prime subscription costs $79 per year, but also provides free two-day shipping on all Amazon purchases and offers instant streaming access to over 13,000 movies and TV shows. More than 100 New York Times bestsellers can be found on the Amazon Prime service in addition to a third of the Top 20 bestsellers on the Kindle store.

The number of available titles skyrocketed during December when Amazon opened up the program to self-published books within the Kindle Direct Publishing (KDP) program. Authors that self-publish books through KDP can earn up to a 70 percent royalty on sales of their works.

In addition, Amazon management claims to have distributed approximately $1.8 million in royalties to authors since the inception of the program. Kindle owners taking advantage of the Lending Library service have borrowed more than a million self-published titles since December. For authors, exposure within the Lending Library service can encourage increased sales of other books within their portfolio.

While Amazon is pushing ahead with an aggressive lending strategy, the Barnes & Noble strategy for the Nook e-reader is more complicated and still comes with a due date. For instance, a user can “lend” a book only once after purchasing the title and users that receive the digital copy through the LendMe service only has 14 days to complete the book. In addition, the user that lends the book cannot access the book until the 14-day loan has expired. In order to lend a book to another user, the publisher has to have given Barnes & Noble permission to include that book in the service.

Announced during April 2011, Amazon added support for public libraries to lend out Kindle titles and libraries across the United States have rapidly adopted the service. Amazon has partnered with Overdrive to accomplish this feat, a provider of 650,000 ebook and audio book titles offered within 18,000 libraries, schools, and colleges across the globe.

Amazon also includes the ability to marks notes, highlights and the last page read in borrowed titles. If the user decides to purchase the book or borrow it again in the future, all previously created annotations will remain within the book.

In order to access these digital books, users can log into their local library’s site and select the “Get for Kindle” option. The user is sent off to Amazon to download the borrowed book and the loan period naturally expires over a period of time dictated by the library.

Most libraries also allow users to wait in a queue for access to more popular books and notify the user by email when the book is available. Users have to connect over Wi-Fi to download the book or connect to their personal computer via the provided USB cable with the Kindle. Overdrive also offers a global search engine for quicker access to information regarding the availability of the book at a local library.

Also announced this week, J.K. Rowling and Sony are partnering with Overdrive to bring the Harry Potter series in digital form to public libraries and schools for the first time. Anyone with an e-reader or a tablet will be able to access all of the Potter books on the Overdrive service very soon. With over 400 million copies sold to date, it’s unlikely that including the series on Overdrive will have a significant negative impact on future sales.

This article was originally posted on Digital Trends

Kim Dotcom says he'll beat 'political' piracy case

WELLINGTON, New Zealand (AP) — In his first interviews since his January arrest in New Zealand, Megaupload founder Kim Dotcom says he will prevail in what he calls a "political" Internet piracy case against him.

In what is shaping up to be one of the biggest copyright cases in history, U.S. authorities are trying to extradite Dotcom on racketeering and other federal charges. They say he and colleagues at his file-sharing website facilitated millions of illegal downloads, costing songwriters and moviemakers some half a billion dollars in lost copyright revenue while making a fortune for themselves.

Dotcom was arrested Jan. 20 and released last week on bail. Under the conditions of his release, he is confined to his Auckland home and isn't allowed Internet access.

In a story published Thursday in The New Zealand Herald, Dotcom said U.S. authorities cherry-picked emails and other evidence in a way that was "misleading and malicious."

"For me, sitting in my cell, I'm thinking, 'Why are they doing this? They can't win it'," he told a reporter for a sister publication, the Herald on Sunday.

Dotcom said in the interview that there were staff at Megaupload whose jobs were to take down any material that might infringe copyright. The U.S. indictment, however, alleges that Dotcom and Megaupload routinely took down individual links to offending material but left the offending material itself in place.

In another interview, Dotcom told the file-sharing news website TorrentFreak that New Zealand authorities had "put on a show for the FBI" when they swooped down in helicopters to arrest him at his mansion.

"We're going for this and we're confident we're going to win," Dotcom told the website in an article published Monday. "We feel that the action taken against us was political."

Dotcom said in the Herald interview that on his first day of incarceration at Auckland Central Remand Prison, he didn't get provided with basics like a blanket or toilet paper. He said he was deprived of sleep after being woken every two hours by guards shining flashlights in his face to make sure he was still in his cell and still alive.

But Dotcom, described in U.S. court papers as about 1.95 meters (6 feet, 5 inches) tall and weighing 146 kilograms (322 pounds), also told the paper that he was happy about losing 35 pounds (16 kilograms) over the duration of his stay.

Source & Image : Yahoo

iPad trade-in rush as launch of latest version approaches

As the launch of the iPad 3 comes ever closer, it seems those with earlier versions of the device have been unable to resist the lure of Apple’s latest offering, with many carting their current device off to buy-back companies.

According to a Computer World report, gadget recycling company Gazelle has, in the space of a month, seen a 500 percent jump in quotes given to those interested in offloading their tablet.

“People are very eager for the iPad 3,” said Anthony Scarsella, the chief gadget officer of Gazelle, adding that the jump took place a lot earlier than it did last year with the iPad when the second version was about to be introduced.

eBay’s Instant Sale section has also seen a similar increase in interest from current iPad owners for whom only the very latest iPad iteration will do, despite no one knowing for certain what it will feature. The online auction site has reportedly received more than 125,000 tablet offers — mostly iPads — a figure 10 times larger than the number of offers received in the run up to the launch of the iPad 2 a year ago. Fancy trading in your iPad 2? As a rough guide, eBay is currently offering $296 for a fully functional 32GB Wi-Fi-only model.

Apple is set to unveil the iPad 3 in San Francisco on March 7, with many expecting the new device to come with Apple’s Retina display, an 8-megapixel rear-facing camera, support for 4G LTE networks and a faster processor.

Obviously it’s not hard to see that it’s the iPad rumor mill that has fueled recent trade-in activity, though the amount of influence it appears to have is surprising. Even with the merest of mentions almost a month ago suggesting that the iPad 3 might be unveiled on March 7, a 400 percent leap was seen in people expressing an interest in selling their current device at Gazelle, Scarsella told Computer World.

Not surprisingly, when Apple this week confirmed the imminent arrival of the new device with invitations to an announcement event next week, Scarsella was snowed under with inquiries.

The eagerness of current owners to cast aside their devices will of course benefit those considering dipping their toes into the tablet market for the first time. Whatever new features the iPad 3 comes with, the iPad 2 will still be a solid piece of kit, so one can assume the resellers will have little trouble passing them on.

Are you an iPad 2 owner itching to get your hands on the next version of the device? Or are you going to stick with what you’ve got?

This article was originally posted on Digital Trends

Blizzard announces 600 layoffs, game development staff spared

Video game developer Blizzard Entertainment, Inc announced a sizable cut in its global workforce on Wednesday. 600 employees were stripped of their positions; nearly a tenth of Activision’s 2011 reported 7,300 employees.

Blizzard is the development studio best known for its World of Warcraft, StarCraft, and Diablo series. In a statement, the company said that 90 percent of the lay offs would come from departments not related to game development. Blizzard stressed that World of Warcraft’s development team would not be touched.

“Over the last several years, we’ve grown our organization tremendously and made large investments in our infrastructure in order to better serve our global community. However as Blizzard and the industry have evolved we’ve also had to make some difficult decisions in order to address the changing needs of our company,”said Blizzard CEO Mike Morhaime. The CEO also said that laid off employees would be entitled to a severance package and benefits

Though there weren’t any specifics on which jobs were affected, The Verge reports that its sources say customer service took the biggest hit thanks to increased automation. The Blizzard statement points out that the company “remains committed to mainlining its high standards of quality for customer service delivery.” In a December 2007 piece on an Activision deal with Vivendi games, The Telegraph quotes Blizzard as having more than 2,000 people doing customer relations globally. Interestingly, while 600 employees have been let go, the development studio is actively recruiting qualified developers.

Morhaime took the Battle.net forums to elaborate on the layoffs saying: “In order to keep making epic game content while serving players effectively, we have to be smart about how we manage our resources. This means we sometimes have to make difficult decisions about how to best maintain the health of the company. We’re in the process of making some of those hard decisions now.”

Morhaime stressed that, while overstaffed departments needed to be scaled down in order to further the company’s growth, development teams were largely unscathed and Blizzard remained committed to shipping multiple games in 2012. The company will soon be beta testing for World of Warcraft: Mists of Pandaria, Blizzard DOTA and Starcraft II: Heart of the Swarm, and has other “unannounced projects” up its sleeves. Morhaime also commented on the long-awaited Diablo III, saying that there would release date news revealed in the coming weeks for the game.

With phrases such as “changing needs” and “health of the company,” the decline of World of Warcraft could possibly be the reason for the cuts. The seven years old MMORPG’s subscriber-base dropped 12 million players in 2010 to 10.3 million subscribers in November 2011. Free-to-play games such as League of Legends, as well as EA’s popular Star Wars: The Old Republic have been to blame by analysts for Blizzard’s ailing franchise. While Blizzard is cutting back, the company is stressing that it isn’t dying and has much planned for the future. As far as the “unannounced projects” Morhaime mentions, Develop’s sources have said that Blizzard will expanding in to the free-to-play realm.

This article was originally posted on Digital Trends

Foursquare Says Farewell to Google Maps, Joins OpenStreetMap Movement

Foursquare is parting ways with Google Maps in favor of crowdsourced maps created by the OpenStreetMap project.

Foursquare announced the change in a blog post Wednesday, explaining its decision to make the big API switch. To power the new maps, Foursquare is partnering with MapBox, a startup which calls itself "a beautiful alternative to Google Maps" and uses data from OpenStreetMap.

"As a startup, we also often think about how we can make life easier for other startups," the Foursquare blog explains.

Foursquare says it chose MapBox for three reasons: its use of OpenStreetMap, which will continue to get better; it allows for design flexibility, so Foursquare can pick fonts and colors to match the rest of the app; and it's powered by the open-source Leaflet java script library.

During the company's January hackathon, one engineer proposed the question "What would the world look like if we made our own maps?" and answered it using data from OpenStreetMap, a crowdsourced global atlas.

Foursquare also sited Google Maps' pricing as a reason they were looking to make a switch.

OpenStreetMap is one of the largest online group projects on the web. Google's relationship with the project has thus far been tumultuous. For instance, someone with a Google IP address was found to be vandalizing the project, inputting false information in several cities, such as directing one-way street signs in the wrong direction.

What do you think Foursquare's departure from Google Maps suggests for the future of digital maps? Do you think this decision will pave the way for more new players to gain traction? Let us know in the comments.

BONUS: Strange and Hilarious Google Street View Sightings

1. A Fleet at the Ready

Take a minute and think about the gargantuan task of photographing every inch of road in the world. Is your mind blown? Now you may understand why Google needs so many cars.

Click here to view this gallery.

This story originally published on Mashable here.

Source & Image : Yahoo

Firewall Down: Chinese Get Access to Facebook, Twitter, YouTube

China's notorious firewall was down temporarily this week, allowing the Chinese to access Facebook, Twitter, YouTube and other sites usually blocked by the country's strict Internet controls.

The cause of the breach is currently unknown, Reuters reports. Internet users say the were able to access sites -- without using expensive VPNs, as some do -- Monday night and Tuesday. By Wednesday, however, Facebook, Twitter and YouTube were again blocked.

During the firewall's outage, many Chinese flocked to Google+, particularly to U.S. President Barack Obama's page. They left many comments calling for freedom of expression, such as "the Chinese GOV doesn't represent the Chinese people."

Beyond the Great Firewall: How China Does Social Networking [INFOGRAPHIC]

"It is important to persistently let the world know about CCP’s [Chinese Communist Party] evil deeds against China and Chinese people," another commenter wrote. "I think that you also should get organised with a clear plan and with clear task responsibility. Do not forget to communicate with those who are living within China."

China shuts down access to millions of foreign sites each year. The government believes that uncensored access to social networks would cause societal disruption.

Home-grown social networks, such as Sina Weibo (a microblog Twitter substitute) and Renren (a Facebook-like network) are popular, yet censor content in accordance with government regulations.

How do you think communications can best be facilitated between China and the rest of the online world? Let us know in the comments.

This story originally published on Mashable here.

Source & Image : Yahoo

Tweets At the Table? More of Us Mix Social Media With Food

Social media is changing the way we eat. Many of us are giving up around-the-table dinners to dine with their computers or phones.

[More from Mashable: How Tumblr Rekindled the Art of Animated GIFs]

A new study called "Clicks and Cravings" examines this trend -- and suggests it's not a bad thing.

More than 29% of social media users are on a social networking website while eating or drinking at home. Outside the house, the figure is 19%. About 32% of us text or socialize on a mobile device at meal time. Not surprisingly, the youngest demographic in the survey -- 18-34 year olds -- tweet, Facebook and text during mealtimes at a higher rate of 47%.

Eating at your computer doesn't necessarily mean you're antisocial, the study says. We're mostly using social networking sites to catch up with friends and family. We're also using social media to pick up on the latest food trends and learn how to eat healthy.

Those users aren't necessarily putting that learning into action, David Emerson Feit, Senior Director of Quantitative Research at The Hartman Group, told Mashable. People are snacking more, while becoming aware of what constitutes good food thanks to what's being shared online.

"There is an aspiration towards eating better," Feit said. "People who are using social media more are in tune with the little micro-trends in food culture, quick changes like peanut oil is on its way out and coconut oil is on its way in. The more friends you have, the more likely you will pick up that trend."

Out of the 82% of respondents who visit social networking sites on a monthly basis, 49% say they learn about food via social networking. The 18-34 year-olds are consuming more food news online than through magazines and newspapers -- likely because of the rise of restaurant review apps and food blogs.

SEE ALSO: Android Users Most Likely to Use Phones While in the Bathroom

There are three kinds of people who talk about food online, says Feit: the spectator who consumes news and ideas; the dreamer who connect people and curates content; and the doer who creates contents and inspires followers. In general, people are willing to try a wider variety of restaurants after being exposed to them online.

Feit was surprised by how much desire exists for healthy eating. "There is a link for authenticity for food and social media," he says. "That wasn't obvious going into the study."

The study was conducted through in-depth one-on-one interviews, plus online, self-administered questionnaires from 1,641 U.S. consumers ages 18 to 64.

Do these trends describe your lifestyle? Let us know in the comments.

Image courtesy of Flickr, hans s

This story originally published on Mashable here.

Source & Image : Yahoo

3 Best Social Good Startup Accelerators You've Never Heard Of

Scott Henderson is managing director of CauseShift, writes about social impact for the Chronicle of Philanthropy, and is founder of NewEmpireBuilders.com, a media collaborative covering the startups, non-profits and companies making the world better.

Startups have become the darling children of the world, it seems. Aspiring Mark Zuckerbergs, Caterina Fakes and Jack Dorseys are eager to launch the next big thing.

This rising entrepreneurial tide is having an impact on all sectors. The latest generation to enter the work force arrives at a time of high unemployment. Its members see large problems that need to be fixed, and often, they have little faith in incumbent institutions’ ability to solve them. In an attempt to change the world, these aspiring entrepreneurs are choosing to launch new ventures, for profit and non-profit, that embrace transparency, agility and innovation.

No single company, non-profit or individual can solve the problems facing humanity, however. It will take leadership from all directions, converging on the social impact sector. To that end, social entrepreneurs are pioneering a new wave of charities and socially minded companies.

What differentiates social entrepreneurs from other entrepreneurs? They have a focus on solving social problems and a greater willingness to reinvest profits into the communities they serve.

Some choose the traditional non-profit structure; others elect established, for-profit models; still others are embracing corporate structures, such as benefit corporations and low-profit limited liability companies (L3C). No matter the structure, these startup founders seek to deliver value to the marketplace while simultaneously solving community problems.

Non-Profit Startup Accelerators

Realizing the potential, venture capital firms, angle investors and civic leaders have created programs to help these startups take root in the marketplace. In exchange for equity stakes, for-profit accelerators and incubators provide robust resources and access to experts. Y Combinator, TechStars and a growing population of other companies have paved the way. Fortunately, social impact startups (for-profit and non-profit) are feeling the love, too, thanks to springboard organizations like Skoll Foundation, Scwab Foundation, Echoing Green and Ashoka.

Here are three more programs worth considering if you want to accelerate the growth of your social-impact startup. 

Unreasonable Institute - Boulder, Colorado: Unreasonable's marketplace is open; you can help determine or even be one of the projects selected for this summer's program. Do you like the mountains and being connected to a global roster of mentors? Check this program out.

Civic Accelerator – Atlanta, Georgia: Just announced this year, the Points of Light Insitute's Civic Incubator program is expanding to launch one of the first accelerators focused on social entrepreneurs. Learn more as it rolls out the program in the coming weeks and months.

MassChallenge - Boston, Massachusetts: In its third year, MassChallenge is open to all startups and has no strings attached. Compete for $1 million in cash prizes, interact with over 600 mentors and experts over four months, and enjoy free office space overlooking Boston Harbor. Four of last year's top cash prize winners were social-impact startups. Apply for this year’s program starting March 1.

What do you think about the social entrepreneur trend? How are you planning to take advantage of it?

Image courtesy of iStockphoto, lightkeeper

This story originally published on Mashable here.

Source & Image : Yahoo

Dolphin Mobile Browser Gets Voice-Control Feature for Android

Dolphin Browser for mobile devices received a voice-control feature on Wednesday for Android users, allowing them to search the Web with just their voices.

The new feature -- called Dolphin Sonar -- allows you to open new tabs by speaking to the browser, and it can even search within sites. For example, saying "Facebook Justin Bieber" will display his Facebook profile.

The speech recognition feature is available for free in the Android Market via the Dolphin for Android version 7.4 update. The update also includes an improvement in browser speeds.

To activate the feature, tap the microphone icon at the bottom of the screen or shake the device, and start talking.

“Our gesture-based browsing function was a game-changer in terms of the way people browse on their mobile devices, and Sonar is the logical next step,” said Yongzhi Yang, CEO of MoboTap, the makers of the Dolphin Browser. “Just as sonar is used by dolphins to navigate, Dolphin Sonar interprets sound to get you where you want to be online.

SEE ALSO: Dolphin Launches Gesture-Based Browser for the iPad

Dolphin Browser, which launched on the Android Market in 2010 and came to iOS last summer, has been downloaded over 12 million times across both platforms. It incorporates gesture browsing, so users can gesture to visit certain sites. For example, drawing an "F" on the screen can take you to Facebook and drawing an upward arrow will take you to the top of the screen.

Dolphin Sonar is not yet available for iOS devices.

Have you tried the Dolphin browser? Do you think the voice-command Dolphin Sonar feature could give Apple's Siri a run for its money? Let us know in the commands.

This story originally published on Mashable here.

Source & Image : Yahoo

Facebook Ads Announcements: Everything You Need to Know

Facebook gathered hundreds of people into the Museum of Natural History in New York on Wednesday for its first-ever Facebook Marketing Conference. At the top of the agenda was Premium, a new suite of products for marketers designed to leverage the social network's access to your friends and friends of friends.

As a user, you're not likely to notice any huge differences, except maybe for the new Timeline Brand Pages, a related announcement. But there are some subtle changes that Facebook believes enable marketers to evolve their relationship with consumers beyond advertising and into "stories." The following is a rundown of everything Facebook announced, in Q&A; format.

What new ad products did Facebook announce?

Officially, there were five:

Ads that appear in News Feeds

Ads that run on the right-hand side of your homepage

Ads within the News Feed on your mobile device

Ads that appear when you log out

Offers

[More from Mashable: 20 Facebook Page Cover Photos to Inspire Your Brand]

But, unofficially, only the log-out ads and Offers are really new. The News Feed ads had been out since early January, the right-hand page ads have run since last year and the mobile ads had been reported on accurately by Bloomberg. Offers, which is actually free to advertiser, lets brands share discounts and promotions to their fans within Facebook.

Wait a minute. I've been seeing those right-hand ads forever. What's new about them?

Most of the ads you've been seeing in the right-hand section of the homepage are what Facebook calls "Marketplace" ads, which are usually direct-response. The Premium ads in that space will originate from a brand Page and won't be your typical ad. Often they'll consist of a status update or a new video upload rather than a standard banner.

So I won't see the ad unless I "like" the brand or my friend does?

Not necessarily. You're more likely to see one of the ads if that's the case, but you might see one even if you or your friends aren't fans of any brand Pages.

Is that also true of the News Feed ads?

No, you'd only see one of those if you or your friend interacted with a brand Page. But if you didn't follow any brands, but a Facebook friend did, you might see it in your News Feed if your friend "liked" it.

So advertisers are paying for those News Feed ads?

Not always. Sometimes they will run in the News Feed organically, just like any other status update. At other times, they will be paid for, but you'll still only see the ad if you or your friend interacted with the brand.

Will I still see those Marketplace ads?

Yes.

How are advertisers paying for the Premium ads?

Not by the click-through. While that's still the model for Marketplace ads, Premium ads are based on impressions and reach, sort of like TV ads. In fact, Facebook partnered with Nielsen last year to bring "gross rating points" to Facebook that de-emphasize click-throughs.

Why?

Click-through rates for Facebook ads are pretty low. Facebook has also argued that CTRs are a poor and even irrelevant measure of an ad's performance. You can't click through a TV ad, for instance, but it still might persuade you to buy something.

Without CTRs, how do advertisers know their ads worked?

Facebook is using mixed-media modeling (a.k.a. "marketing mix modeling") with some clients, like Procter & Gamble, to demonstrate an ad campaign's efficacy. The company is working with advertisers on other ways to show a Facebook campaign moved the needle on sales or awareness -- whatever the goal might be.

What is Reach Generator?

Reach Generator is a new tool designed to let brands reach all their fans. The average post by a brand (or a person) only reaches 16% of such fans for various reasons, like the number of times you log on and the number of people and brands in your network. Reach Generator lets advertisers reach the other 86% by rerunning status updates as ads aimed at those fans.

Why is Facebook putting so much emphasis on brand Pages?

The company believes brands should be indistinguishable from your Facebook friends. That is, if they post something interesting, it should get pickup in your feed, but if they post something boring, it should not. By offering greater engagement and reach for brands with well-run Facebook brand Pages, Facebook hopes to make it the cornerstone of any marketer's outreach and ensure that brands offer engaging content. In other words, a rising tide lifts all boats.

What could derail this from happening?

Lots of things. Users might get sick of seeing so much content from brands and decide to withdraw their Like. Google+ or Twitter might prove to be a better destination for brands. That status update-based ads might prove ineffective in the long run. Advertisers might decide that click-throughs actually were a good measure of ad performance. Ultimately, consumers will have the final say.

Image courtesy of iStockphoto, ymgerman

This story originally published on Mashable here.

Source & Image : Yahoo