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Monday, October 24, 2011

Netflix stock plunges on brutal 3Q, somber outlook (AP) : Technet

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Netflix stock plunges on brutal 3Q, somber outlook (AP) : Technet

Netflix stock plunges on brutal 3Q, somber outlook (AP)

Posted: 24 Oct 2011 04:37 PM PDT

By MICHAEL LIEDTKE, AP Technology Writer Michael Liedtke, Ap Technology Writer – Mon Oct 24, 7:37 pm ET

SAN FRANCISCO – Netflix jolted its shareholders again with a third-quarter financial report that portrayed a company in crisis.

The video subscription service's latest blooper reel, released Monday, included an even larger customer exodus than the company had foreseen after announcing an unpopular price increase in July. What's worse, the report contained a forecast calling for more defections during the next few months.

The backlash will deprive Netflix Inc. of some of the revenue that management had been counting on to finance the company's expansion plans while it pays higher fees for Internet video streaming rights. The result: Netflix expects to post losses next year when it starts selling its steaming service in Britain and Ireland. The company didn't offer further specifics besides saying it won't go into any other overseas markets until it's making money again.

None of the developments pleased Wall Street as Netflix lost more than a quarter of its value after the bad news came out. If that sharp decline holds in Tuesday's trading, it will mark the first time Netflix's stock price has fallen below $100 in nearly 14 months.

Netflix shares shed $32.01, or nearly 27 percent, to $86.83 in Monday's extended trading.

It's the latest setback for a former stock market darling whose shares topped $300 just 4- 1/2 months ago. Netflix's market value had already plunged by about 60 percent, or nearly $9 billion, before Monday's late sell-off.

Netflix lost its luster among consumers and investors by raising prices as much as 60 percent in the U.S. and bungling an attempt to spin off its DVD-by-mail rental service.

Raising the prices had to be done, according to Netflix CEO Reed Hastings. He said, however, that Netflix should have taken more time to explain to subscribers that the company needed the money to pay movie and television studios for rights to stream more video over high-speed Internet connections.

"We became a symbol of the evil, greedy corporation," Hastings said in a Monday interview with The Associated Press. "Then we faced a reputational hit that created significantly more cancellations than we anticipated."

The company, which is based in Los Gatos, ended September with 23.8 million U.S. subscribers, down about 800,000 from June. Netflix had predicted it would lose about 600,000 U.S. subscribers in a forecast released last month.

Management expects to gain U.S. subscribers in the current quarter, although Netflix didn't set a specific target. But a substantial number of Netflix's customers are expected to choose between renting DVDs through the mail, or streaming Internet video, instead of paying for both services.

The biggest hit is expected on the DVD side, a service that Netflix has been de-emphasizing to save money on mailing costs as its spends more to license movies and TV shows for its Internet video library. The company expects its DVD subscribers to fall from 13.9 million as of Sept. 30 to as low as 10.3 million at the end of December.

Hastings said he expects Netflix's DVD subscriptions to steadily decline, much like what has happened to AOL Inc.'s dial-up Internet connection service during the past decade as high-speed alternatives became more affordable.

Netflix's streaming subscriptions in the U.S. may rise by as much as 100,000 subscribers in the quarter, according to the company's projections.

The company's outlook looks even grimmer compared with how rapidly Netflix had been growing. From the end of 2009 through June of this year, Netflix had gained 12.3 million U.S. subscribers — adding an average of 2 million customers every three months.

From a financial perspective, Netflix did better than analysts expected in the July-September period.

The company earned $62.5 million, or $1.16, per share, in the third quarter. That compared to income of $38 million, or 70 cents per share, at the same time last year.

The performance topped the average earnings estimate of 96 cents per share among analysts polled by FactSet.

Netflix's revenue climbed 49 percent from the same time last year to nearly $822 million — about $9 million above analyst estimates.

Netflix's downfall leaves Hastings — the only CEO the company has ever had — in a precarious position.

Once regarded as one of the savviest leaders in technology and entertainment, Hastings has turned into a punching bag for frustrated Netflix customers and shareholders. Many of them are still befuddled by his recent decision making.

After Netflix's higher prices kicked in on Sept. 1, Hastings amplified the outrage by outlining a plan to toss the DVD rental business onto a separate website called Qwikster. The split from the Internet streaming service got panned so badly that Hastings reversed course in less than three weeks.

"I am not a quitter," Hasting said Monday after the AP asked him if would heed some investor calls for him to resign. "We made some mistakes, but I think our 10-year track record is extremely positive. We are going to focus on making this a great global streaming business. I am very excited about that."

'Steve Jobs' delves deep into complex man's life (AP)

Posted: 24 Oct 2011 03:41 PM PDT

By BARBARA ORTUTAY, AP Technology Writer Barbara Ortutay, Ap Technology Writer – Mon Oct 24, 6:41 pm ET

"Steve Jobs" (Simon & Schuster), by Walter Isaacson: "Steve Jobs" takes off the rose-colored glasses that often follow an icon's untimely death and instead offers something far more valuable: The chronicle of a complex, brash genius who was crazy enough to think he could change the world — and did.

Through unprecedented access to Jobs with more than 40 conversations, including long sessions sitting in the Apple co-founder's living room, walks around his childhood neighborhood and visits to his company's secretive headquarters, Isaacson takes the reader on a journey that few have had the opportunity to experience.

The book is the first, and with his Oct. 5 death at age 56, the only authorized biography of the famously private Jobs and by extension, the equally secretive Apple Inc. Through Apple, Jobs helped usher in the personal computer era when he put the Macintosh in the hands of regular people. He changed the course of the music, computer animation and mobile phone industries, and touched countless others with the iPod, the iPhone and the iPad, Pixar and iTunes.

His biography, therefore, serves as a chronicle of Silicon Valley, of late 20th- and early 21st-century technology, and of American innovation at its best. For the generation that's grown up in a world where computers are the norm, smartphones feel like fifth limbs and music comes from the Internet rather than record and CD stores, "Steve Jobs" is must-read history.

Isaacson, whose other books include biographies of Albert Einstein, Benjamin Franklin and Henry Kissinger, uses anecdotes from friends, family, colleagues and adversaries to illustrate sometimes deep contradictions in Jobs.

Given up for adoption at birth, the young Jobs would go on to deny his daughter Lisa for years. The product of 1960s counterculture who shunned materialism, he'd go on to found what would become the world's most valuable company. Deeply influenced by the tenets of Zen Buddhism, Jobs rarely achieved the internal peace associated with it and was prone to wild mood swings and mean outbursts at people who weren't living up to his expectations.

But it's these contradictions that make the out-of-this-world Apple magician human to a fault. And it's his uncanny ability to meld art and technology, design and engineering, beauty and function that allowed him to put the Macintosh, the iPod, the iPhone and the iPad into the hands of millions of people who didn't even know they wanted them. Jobs changed our relationship with technology because he understood humanity as well as he understood chips and interfaces.

"I'm one of the few people who understands how producing technology requires intuition and creativity, and how producing something artistic takes real discipline," Jobs tells Isaacson in one of the extended passages in the book that are in his own words.

These longer interview excerpts pepper the book like rare gems. In them, Jobs offers eloquent, no-apologies explanations of why he did things the way he did and what was going on in his mind amid decisions at Apple and in his own life.

Apple fanboys, tech geeks and encyclopedic-minded journalists will likely comb the book for previously unknown details about Jobs and Apple. I went into it with only a little more knowledge than the average reader, and a tenuous, nostalgic connection to him through having attended high school with his daughter, Lisa Brennan-Jobs. I found myself combing the book not for secrets about Apple, but secrets about Steve Jobs the man, the father, the son.

With little patience for technical details, I found myself skimming through some of the book's passages detailing the creation of the Apple I computer, the Macintosh and the i-gadgets of Jobs' later years. It's in these passages, though, where the reader might find explanations for why the iPhone's battery is not replaceable, why Macs cost more than PCs and why the iPod's headphones are white.

The intimate chapters, where Jobs' personal side shines through, with all his faults and craziness, leave a deep impression. There's humor, too, especially early on when Isaacson chronicles Jobs' lack of personal hygiene, the barefoot hippie who runs a corporation. And deeply moving are passages about Jobs' resignation as Apple's chief executive, and an afternoon he spent with Isaacson listening to music and reminiscing.

"Steve Jobs" was originally scheduled to hit store shelves in 2012. Its publication date was moved up after Jobs died. As such, there are bits that might have benefited from another round of editing. There are anecdotes, for example, that Isaacson repeats as if introducing them to the reader for the first time.

In the end, it's a rich portrait of one of the greatest minds of our generation.

Will Steve Jobs' final vendetta haunt Google? (AP)

Posted: 24 Oct 2011 08:59 AM PDT

By MICHAEL LIEDTKE, AP Technology Writer Michael Liedtke, Ap Technology Writer – Mon Oct 24, 11:59 am ET

SAN FRANCISCO – Google can only hope that Steve Jobs' final vendetta doesn't haunt the Internet search leader from his grave.

The depths of Jobs' antipathy toward Google leaps out of Walter Isaacson's authorized biography of Apple's co-founder. The book goes on sale Monday, less than three weeks after Jobs' long battle with pancreatic cancer culminated in his Oct. 5 death. The Associated Press obtained a copy Thursday.

The biography drips with Jobs' vitriol as he discusses his belief that Google stole from Apple's iPhone to build many of the features in Google's Android software for rival phones.

It's clear that the perceived theft represented an unforgiveable act of betrayal to Jobs, who had been a mentor to Google co-founders Larry Page and Sergey Brin and had welcomed Google's CEO at the time, Eric Schmidt, to be on Apple's board.

Jobs retaliated with a profane manifesto during a 2010 conversation with his chosen biographer. Isaacson wrote that he never saw Jobs angrier in any of their conversations, which covered a wide variety of emotional topics during a two-year period.

After equating Android to "grand theft" of the iPhone, Jobs lobbed a series of grenades that may blow a hole in Google's image as an innovative company on a crusade to make the world a better place.

"I will spend my last dying breath if I need to, and I will spend every penny of Apple's $40 billion in the bank, to right this wrong," Jobs told Isaacson. "I'm going to destroy Android because it's a stolen product. I'm willing to go to thermonuclear war on this. They are scared to death because they know they are guilty."

Jobs then used a crude word for defecation to describe Android and other products outside of search.

Android now represents one of the chief threats to the iPhone. Although iPhones had a head start and still draw huge lines when new models go on sale, Android devices sold twice as well in the second quarter. According to Gartner, Android's market share grew 2 1/2 times to 43 percent, compared with 17 percent a year earlier. The iPhone's grew as well, but by a smaller margin — to 18 percent, from 14 percent.

Both Google and Apple declined comment to The Associated Press when asked about Jobs' remarks.

Jobs' attack is troubling for Google on several levels.

It suggests that Apple, which has pledged to be true to Jobs' vision, may try to derail Android in court, even if Google obtains more patent protection through its proposed $12.5 billion acquisition of phone maker Motorola Mobility Inc. The derision comes across as a bitter pill for Page and Brin, who have hailed Jobs as one of their idols. It also appears to contradict Schmidt's repeated assertions that he remained on friendly terms with Jobs even after he resigned from Apple's board in 2009.

Most of all, Google should be worried whether the Android brand is damaged by the withering criticism of a revered figure whose public esteem seems to have risen as friends, colleagues and customers paid tribute over the past few weeks.

"The words of cultural icons have a lot of power after death," veteran technology analyst Rob Enderle said. "This almost sounds like a spiritual leader declaring a jihad on Android as his dying wish."

Apple fans tend to be fiercely loyal, making it more feasible to envision an anti-Android movement taking shape like some kind of political protest, Enderle said.

It's also possible that Jobs' criticisms of Google may be seen as hypocritical. That's because some of Apple's computing breakthroughs were based on technology developed by others. The Mac's easy-to-use interface and its mouse controller, for instance, came out of Xerox Corp.

The bitter divide between two of the most beloved and successful technology companies would have seemed inconceivable a few years ago.

In 2006, Google and Apple were on such friendly terms that Jobs welcomed Schmidt to Apple's board of directors with these words: "Like Apple, Google is very focused on innovation and we think Eric's insights and experience will be very valuable in helping to guide Apple in the years ahead," Jobs said.

But in 2008, a year after the iPhone came out, Google unveiled plans to release Android as a free software system that phone makers can use to make devices that compete with the iPhone. Jobs was so infuriated that he went to Google's Mountain View headquarters — about nine miles from Apple's Cupertino office_ to try to stop the project, according to the biography.

Jobs' persuasive powers failed to sway Google's leaders.

Now, more than 550,000 devices running on Android are being activated each day. Apple, meanwhile, sold about 3 million fewer iPhones than anticipated in the July-September quarter, contributing to a sharp drop in the company's stock. The newest Android challenger to the iPhone, the Galaxy Nexus from Samsung, is scheduled to go on sale next month.

Although there's no indication in the book that he ever forgave Google, Jobs set aside his disdain for the company long enough to counsel Page nine months ago, according to the biography.

After Google's Jan. 20 announcement that Page would replace Schmidt as CEO in April, Page called Jobs for some pointers. Jobs told Isaacson that his first instinct was to reject Page with a curt expletive, but he reconsidered as he recalled his times as a young entrepreneur listening to the advice of elder Silicon Valley statesmen including Bill Hewlett, co-founder of Hewlett-Packard Co.

Jobs didn't mince words when Page arrived at Jobs' Palo Alto home. He told Page to build a good team of lieutenants. In his first week as Google's CEO, Page reshuffled his management team to eliminate bureaucracy. Jobs also warned Page not to let Google get lazy or flabby.

"The main thing I stressed was to focus," Jobs told Isaacson about his conversation with Page. "Figure out what Google wants to be when it grows up. It's now all over the map. What are the five products you want to focus on? Get rid of the rest because they're dragging you down. They're turning you into Microsoft. They're causing you to turn out adequate products that are adequate but not great."

Page has shut more than 20 Google products and services in his first six months as Google's CEO as part of an effort to "put more wood behind fewer arrows." It was the type of discipline Jobs instilled on Apple when he returned in 1997 after a dozen years of exile. Jobs killed such products as the Newton handheld device and the PC clones that were allowed to run on Apple's operating system.

It still remains to be seen whether Jobs' words of wisdom or his grievances will leave a bigger imprint on Google.

Apple rolls out refresh of MacBook Pro, adds speed and storage (Yahoo! News)

Posted: 24 Oct 2011 06:54 PM PDT

Hermit crabs running short on shells? 3D printing to the rescue! (Yahoo! News)

Posted: 24 Oct 2011 06:37 PM PDT

The Impact of the iPod (Mashable)

Posted: 23 Oct 2011 02:35 PM PDT

Amy-Mae Elliott Amy-mae Elliott – Sun Oct 23, 5:35 pm ET

"With iPod, Apple has invented a whole new category of digital music player that lets you put your entire music collection in your pocket and listen to it wherever you go," said Steve Jobs as the first iPod launched in 2001. "With iPod, listening to music will never be the same again." Thanks to the iPod's far-reaching impact over the last decade, you could argue that the consumer electronics industry has never been the same again.

[More from Mashable: Top 12 Mashable Infographics]

On the tenth anniversary of the iPod's debut we take a look at just how influential Apple's portable digital music player has been. Take a look at our analysis, complete with comment from experts. Have your say in the comments below.

1. Transforming the Consumer Electronics Industry

[More from Mashable: 10 Retro Games for the Modern Mobile]

"The iPod truly ushered in the era of portable digital consumer electronics, much as the Walkman did for analog audio," states Jordan Selburn, principal analyst of consumer electronics at IHS-iSuppli.

In just 10 years the iPod has been so influential that the word has come to represent a portable digital music player in the same way "Hoover" dominates the vacuum cleaner market. Apple wasn't the first to introduce such a device, so why has the iPod brand dominated all others?

"The iPod wasn't the first MP3 player out there -- before it came out I'd used models from Rio for my runs -- but it took the shortcomings inherent in the existing products in the market and improved on them," explains Jonathan Seff, executive editor, MacWorld.

"It held much more music than a typical MP3 player, and its use of FireWire meant transfer speeds much faster than the slow 12Mbps USB everyone else was using," Seff continues. "Plus the combo of hardware and software (iTunes) made it easier to use than much of what else was out there. And in very little time, the iPod took over the digital music player section of the market."

Apple has had something like 70% market share for years now. There are still competing products (minus the Microsoft Zune, which was recently killed off), but the others are fighting over a pretty small sliver of the pie."

Leander Kahney, editor of Cult of Mac and author of The Cult of iPod, sees the iPod's primary impact in terms of the "connected device."

"Gadgets are no longer stand-alone products," Kahney says, "they connect to a range of software and online services. Think Internet TVs, stereos like Sonos, handheld gaming devices, GPS bike computers, in-car stereos, high-end watches, Internet radios, even printers -- the list goes on and on -- and the iPod was the first to do that.

"In terms of connected devices, Selburn sees the iPod as essential tool for hooking consumers to content. He says the device "ignited the idea of ubiquitous access to content," an influence that can now be seen across all areas of consumer electronics.

"The era of the connected consumer, ignited by the iPod, is now coming to fruition. In the very near future, consumers will truly have access to all of their content anywhere they are, and on a wide range of devices spanning from home theaters and large screens to media tablets and smartphones and, of course, their iPods."

2. An Influential Design

The iPod's design is iconic. Design museums around the world display iPods proudly. Apple's senior vice president of industrial design, Jonathan Ive, has earned multiple awards and accolades.

"One of the major reasons for the iPod's success is its unique design, which is simple and aesthetically appealing, making use of high-quality materials like stainless steel," says Dr. Peter Zec, CEO and intellectual and creative head of red dot. "The Apple Industrial Design Team, led by Jonathan Ive, focuses on strict and sustainable design politics: The first iPod fitted perfectly into Apple's product family of that time -- just like the latest models do, which pick up today's unibody design of the iMac or MacBook Pro.

"The simplicity of the iPod's design speaks for itself: There are no unnecessary buttons or wheels, just one single element to navigate intuitively through the product's entire music library.

"When the first iPod was put into the market in 2001, it was a breakthrough and changed portable music from scratch, continues Zec. "There are only few products that shaped the lifestyle of a generation, found its way into popular culture and became the archetype of an entire product group like this.

It's not just the iPod's hardware that has been influential. Apple's user interface and experience also had an enormous impact on the market.

"The iPod had an enormous effect on the UI/UX of consumer electronics, completely changing the game from the day it was launched," says Joshua Porter, interface designer and director of UX at HubSpot.

Porter says the iPod's simple interface was optimized for music playing. The "fun" scrollwheel let users easily move through large lists of music, and the device's pocket-sized ergonomics had rounded corners and was generally comfortable to use.

"I would say that, in general, the addictive nature of all of these pieces created an amazing user experience that just wasn't possible with anything else on the market," concludes Porter. "Apple was the first company to truly think of the overarching activity of purchasing, organizing, and listening to music -- and designing their ecosystem to make that activity pleasurable -- a good experience from beginning to end."

Even the iPod's headphones were strategically designed. "The white headphones were interesting at first, but it was quickly realized that they were an amazing advertisement for iPods," says Porter. "I even heard stories of people switching to black headphones because thieves were targeting the white ones!"

3. The Changing Music Industry

Over the last 10 years, the iPod's companion software, iTunes, has evolved from a simple music management application to a multi-billion dollar online store, with agreements with all the major record labels.

"Without easy-to-use software such as iTunes, the iPod would be as useless as most of the other players on the market," says Patrik Wikström, author of The Music Industry - Music in the Cloud.

"In the early days of the iPod and iTunes, Apple was considered by the industry to be part of 'the digital problem' and to encourage piracy," continues Wikström. The industry argued (probably correctly) that most music on peoples' iPods was illegal. The iPod and iTunes was a cog in the global piracy machinery and probably contributed to the shrinking CD sales rather than anything else. It was not until 2003 when iTunes Music Store was launched when the industry started to believe that Apple was going to save them all. It was indeed an important step when Apple was able to convince all the major labels to license their music to iTunes."

Wikström says one could argue that iTunes has been more a hindrance to the industry than a help. Despite the billions of sales using the platform, the music industry has still suffered over the past decade. Did the dominant iTunes business model blind the industry to alternatives?

"iTunes prolonged the industry's dependence on the old model, and made them believe that it actually might be possible just to shift from CD to MP3, just as they had done in the past when they moved from vinyl to tape to CD," says Wikström. "This is just speculation, but perhaps the most important impact on the music industry is that iTunes delayed the shift from a retail model based on control to what we now start to see emerge as various kinds of cloud-based retail models, such as Spotify and its peers."

Futurist Gerd Leonhard, author of The Future of Content and co-author of The Future of Music: Manifesto for the Digital Music Revolution also sees iTunes playing a part in the decline of the music industry.

"The genius of the iPod was (and still is, with the iPhone) that, while the music industry actually believed that it had found a good (i.e., closed and controlled) way to extract money from otherwise freeloading consumers, the iTunes/iPod/iPhone ecosystem became the dominant hardware solution for the consumption of free music."

4. The Accessories Market

Hundred of companies have created viable businesses on the back of the iPod. The iPeripherals marketplace is vast -- and arguably unique -- in its sheer scale and variety of products.

Evan Stein, the director of marketing for SDI Technologies' iHome brand (the manufacturer of the first iPod clock radio) says the iPod changed consumers' expectations.

"The iPod is a worldwide cultural phenomenon whose cross-media functionality (e.g. music, photos, video, etc.) has redefined what people could ever expect from an electronic device, and has created a new multi-million dollar industry of supporting accessories."

From speakers and headphones to in-car kits, covers, cases and skins, to novelty iProducts, the relationship between the iPod (and later iPhone) and the accessory market is self-propagating. The more iPods Apple sells, the larger the market for accessories. The larger the amount of accessories, the more likely people are to buy into the iPod ecosystem.

Griffin Technology has been described as one of the first companies to realize the commercial potential of the iPod, introducing its first iPod accessory just a year after the MP3 player launched.

"The abundance of devices that work with the iPod has opened the door for accessory manufacturers worldwide, and without it, the mobile accessory industry wouldn't be what it is today," says president of Griffin, Mark Rowan.

5. Changing Consumer Perceptions of Apple

The iPod has had an enormous impact on the average consumer's opinion of Apple. "Pre-iPod, Apple was primarily a computer company," says Jordan Selburn.

"The Macintosh, despite increasing popularity with the introduction of the iMac, was still a niche product," continues Selburn. "The success of the Macintosh computers can be attributed to the company's focus on the consumer rather than on raw technology (a critical success factor that seems to still elude many companies). The iPod brought that philosophy to the consumer electronics market and, as a result,...consumers now see Apple as a company where technology just works, and you don't need a Ph.D. to listen to a song."

Leander Kahney believes it was the iPod that solidified Apple's mainstream appeal. "Before the iPod, Apple had a reputation for making nice but expensive computers...But as the iPod became cheaper and more popular, so more and more consumers were introduced to the Apple brand. Someone who got an iPod for Christmas would wander into the Apple Store and start checking out the other products. Next thing you know, they've replaced their old PC with a MacBook. Then they buy an iPhone, then an iPad. So the iPod has a tremendous 'halo effect' -- the halo from the iPod shines a light on Apple's other products. It took a while, but Apple these days is thoroughly mainstream."

Jonathan Seff, who also notes the "halo effect," suggests the real breakthrough came when Apple first launched an iPod that worked with a Windows PC, and then when it introduced iTunes for Windows.

"When the iPod starting supporting Windows PCs, it opened Apple up to a whole new world of people who would never have considered buying anything from Apple. It took Apple from being a computer company for Mac users to a consumer electronics company for the masses. That led to the iPhone and the iPad, both of which are huge cross-platform products."

In Conclusion

Ten years later it's hard to believe we're talking about the massive impact of a pocket-sized, $399 gadget, especially considering consumer reaction to the device was initially lukewarm.

"Many people looked at the iPod when it came out and couldn't believe the price and the comparative lack of features," says Joshua Porter. "But once it became a hit, other companies had to redefine what great was in their own houses, but by then Apple was ahead of the game -- and still is."

Images courtesy of 37Prime, osaMu, EverJean, Robert S. Donovan, Peter Gerdes

This story originally published on Mashable here.

WikiLeaks Shuts Down Until Money Pours In (NewsFactor)

Posted: 24 Oct 2011 01:44 PM PDT

Jennifer LeClaire, newsfactor.com Jennifer Leclaire, newsfactor.com – Mon Oct 24, 4:44 pm ET

WikiLeaks has stopped publishing, at least temporarily. The controversial whistleblower Web site run by Julian Assange indicated that his pet project was having financial challenges.

"We are forced to temporarily suspend publishing whilst we secure our economic survival. For almost a year we have been fighting an unlawful financial blockade," WikiLeaks said on its Web site. "We cannot allow giant U.S. finance companies to decide how the whole world votes with its pocket. Our battles are costly. We need your support to fight back. Please donate now."

Blaming Politics

A video on the home page of the site features Assange explaining the dire situation of the site he founded. During the past five years, he said, WikiLeaks has revealed millions of secrets that governments and corporations wanted to hide from people.

Assange cited a long list of revelations, including the death of hundreds of thousands in Iraq, corruption and torture throughout the Middle Eastern regime, the dumping of toxic waste in Africa and other environmental catastrophes, abusive practices by the world's biggest banks, the reality of assassination squads in Afghanistan and beyond.

"During this time, we have withstood attacks from military and intelligence organizations, lawsuits, imprisonments, cyber warfare and high-level calls for our assassination. But now we face our greatest challenge, a politically motivated banking blockade led by Visa, Mastercard, PayPal, Western Union and the Bank of America," Assange said, noting that the blockade has effectively wiped out 95 percent of public financial support.

Assange assured viewers that the WikiLeaks network is stronger than ever. He hinted that the group has thousands of "impending revelations." Then he called for financial resources to fight corrupt systems.

WikiLeaks' Enemies

Banks started squeezing WikiLeaks in Dec. 2010 after the site released 250,000 confidential cables to the public, a move that Secretary of State Hillary Clinton called an attack on America and the international community. She said the leaks were a "tear in the fabric" of responsible government, and the Obama administration was taking "aggressive steps to hold responsible those who stole this information."

But it wasn't just the financial companies that boycotted WikiLeaks. Apple pulled the WikiLeaks app from its App Store. It was selling for $1.99. And Amazon.com pulled the plug on WikiLeaks after the Senate Homeland Security and Government Affairs Committee contacted the company asking for an explanation. All this led the hacking group Anonymous to launch attacks against Web sites that were making it difficult for WikiLeaks to raise funds.

More recently, a Guardian journalist negligently published the password to unredacted U.S. diplomatic cables in an event dubbed Cablegate.

WikiLeaks Played with Fire

"I find myself having great sympathy for them at one level and I also wonder how anybody in this day and age can be so essentially naïve about playing with the kind of fire that they've been playing with," said Charles King, principal analyst at Pund-IT.

As King sees it, WikiLeaks' funding problem shines a light on centralization of payment mechanisms. From a business standpoint, centralization creates economies of size and efficiency, he noted, but it also creates chokeholds. If people apply the proper leverage they can cut off the flow of information and payments.

"The Internet giveth and it taketh away. That's the central lesson of this," King said. "The Web can be an incredible tool for the dissemination of information, but in the right or wrong hands it can also be used to effectively limit the flow of information, or in this case the flow of cash, in one direction or another if the people in question know how to apply that pressure."

Oracle to beef up cloud offer with RightNow buy (Reuters)

Posted: 24 Oct 2011 11:40 AM PDT

By Supantha Mukherjee and Yinka Adegoke Supantha Mukherjee And Yinka Adegoke – Mon Oct 24, 2:40 pm ET

(Reuters) – Oracle Corp struck a deal to buy online customer service company RightNow Technologies Inc for about $1.5 billion, sparking speculation of bids for other so-called cloud technology companies that deliver software, data and computing power over the Internet.

Oracle's bid of $43 a share amounted to a 20 percent premium over RightNow's closing price on Friday. RightNow's shares rose 19.3 percent in Monday afternoon trade to $42.89. Oracle shares rose 1.9 percent to $32.74.

Oracle is pushing into the cloud technology market, including sales force automation, human resources and databases.

"RightNow got a very good price from Oracle. I don't see other bidders. Not at this valuation," said Pacific Crest analyst Brendan Barnicle

Started in a spare bedroom by its founder Greg Ginaforte in 1997, RightNow clocked sales of over $185 million in 2010 and competes with bigger rival SalesForce.com Inc and online marketing software maker Constant Contact Inc.

"We believe Oracle's acquisition of RightNow will make it a more direct competitor and formidable threat to SalesForce.com's service cloud offering," Oppenheimer analyst Brad Reback said.

For years, Oracle has been rumored to be targeting SalesForce.com to beef up its cloud offering. Another possible target for Oracle could be NetSuite Inc, which is already partly owned by Oracle Chief Executive Officer Larry Ellison.

However, Rick Sherlund said it is not all about SalesForce.com, as Oracle is trying to broaden out its entire software-as-a-service offerings to make sure they are broadly competitive in the market.

RightNow might have to pay Oracle a termination fee of around $60 million if it accepted a higher bid from another party. The termination fee could be around $18 million if the deal were terminated under some other conditions. A RightNow spokesman declined to comment further on the transaction.

Oracle expects the deal to close in late 2011 or early next year.

MORE DEALS TO COME?

Analysts said Oracle has been buying assets to fill in holes in its cloud offerings in the last year; acquisitions have included ATG, Inquira and FatWire. RightNow's technology helps manage customer call centers and extends support to Web and social networks.

"This acquisition shows Oracle is serious about being in the cloud space," said Susquehanna analyst Derrick Wood. "We, however, do not think it can do it organically and that if it wants to be a formidable competitor it will need to enter the market through acquisitions," Wood said.

Analysts estimated the price Oracle is paying for RightNow amounts to about 4 percent of its total cash and investments.

But the interest in smaller cloud computing companies will not be limited to Oracle, said analysts, Other major technology companies that could be interested include Dell Inc, Hewlett-Packard Co and Microsoft Corp.

Pacific Crest's Barnicle said the RightNow deal is good for the entire sector as it signals a potential wave of acquisitions.

"I think we will continue to see acquisition in the customer relationship management space," said Rebecca Wettemann, an analyst with Nucleus Research.

Shares of Egain Communications Corp, one of RightNow's peers, jumped as high as $7.98 following the news and was still up 8.8 percent to $7.70 in afternoon Nasdaq dealings.

Oracle's acquisition proves that the cloud is a safe place to conduct business and a genuine place for chief investment officers of any corporation to look, said Fahim Siddiqui, chief product officer of IntraLinks Holdings Inc. IntraLinks is a customer of both RightNow and SalesForce.com.

In July, RightNow raised its full-year recurring revenue growth outlook to 27 percent from a previous 24 percent.

(Reporting by Supantha Mukherjee, Yinka Adegoke and Michael Erman in New York, editing by Gerald E. McCormick, Dave Zimmerman, Derek Caney)

GoPro launches the HD Hero2 camera (Digital Trends)

Posted: 24 Oct 2011 08:33 PM PDT

Mike Flacy Mike Flacy – 28 mins ago

go-pro-hero2

Announced earlier today, GoPro released details on the launch of the HD Hero2 digital video camera. This camera is the successor to the HD Hero, a 5-megapixel camera that shot 1080p HD video. The HD Hero2 has been bumped up to 11-megapixels and can also shoot at eight or five megapixels to save on memory space. GoPro claims that the camera has an image processor that's twice as fast at the original HD Hero. They also claim that the lens produces images that are twice at sharp. The HD Hero2 can shoot in multiple fields-of-view (FOV) including 170 degrees for widescreen, 127 degrees for a normal shot and 90 degrees for a narrow shot. It also has the same FOV capabilities for shooting video.

go-pro-hero2-burst-modeThe company also claims that the HD Hero2 has professional level low light performance for those shooting at dusk. While the original HD Hero could only shoot three 5-megapixel shots per second, the HD Hero2 is capable of shooting ten 11-megapixel shots per second. In addition, there's a new time-lapse setting that can record a 11-megapixel photo every 0.5 seconds. Other new additions to the new model include a mini-HDMI port for viewing photos or videos on a high definition television, a language based interface instead of the numeric interface, multiple LED lights on all sides of the camera and a 3.5mm stereo microphone input for plugging in an external microphone.

Similar to the previous model, the HD Hero2 is currently available in three different packages dependent on the usage. The packages include the Outdoor edition with a head / helmet straps for activities like mountain biking, the Motosports edition with suction cups / buckles and the Surf edition with surfboard mount. All packages are priced at $299.99 and comes with a 30-day return policy if the camera doesn't perform well enough for the activity.

This article was originally posted on Digital Trends

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Illegal Yapper Zapper blocks cell phone signals up to a 30-foot radius (Digital Trends)

Posted: 24 Oct 2011 12:08 PM PDT

Kelly Montgomery Kelly Montgomery – Mon Oct 24, 3:08 pm ET

Probably one of the worst things about our high-tech culture is the fact that it is difficult to talk to someone in almost any situation without them reaching for their blinking smartphone at least once. If you're a dictatorial boss or someone who just likes to deprive others of what they want most, you can now do so for just about $100, if you don't get caught. The Yapper Zapper mini cell phone jammer ($109) will block cell phone signals (GSM, CDMA, DCS, PHS, 3G) in up to a 10-meter (30 feet) radius, meaning that your subjects will be rendered essentially smartphone-less for up to two hours on a single charge of the device.

The product's Website boasts that this little pocket-sized device is perfect for silencing "those pesky annoying yappers," so we're sensing a little anger here. They suggest using it on your commute (bad idea), in movie theaters, classrooms, museums or meetings rooms to give yourself a "quiet zone," which kind of makes it sound like the invention of your crabby 85 year-old neighbor who can't stand to hear your TV on next door, but hey, to each their own. Besides being rude and inconsiderate towards tech-lovers (unless it's an office prank), this thing is also very illegal. We're not sure about every other country, but at least in the US, being caught blocking cell signals could garner a $11,000 fine, which ups the price tag of this gadget quite a bit. 

The technology and original price tag of the Yapper Zapper is impressive, but we can really only see this thing being used for evil. Besides, we like being connected at all time. 

This article was originally posted on Digital Trends

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Capitol Hill Republicans Are Winning at Twitter (The Atlantic Wire)

Posted: 24 Oct 2011 03:40 PM PDT

Sprint and Apple are having nationwide data speed problems (Digital Trends)

Posted: 24 Oct 2011 06:19 PM PDT

Mike Dunn Mike Dunn – 2 hrs 43 mins ago

iPhone 4 with Sprint LogoApple's latest phone, the iPhone 4S, has been breaking sale records left and right, but slowly but surely we are starting to hear a couple of unforeseen issues with the device. This week's issue seems to be the data speed of the phone while using Sprint's network. Last week there was a security scare involving Siri.

Sprint iphone 4S data speedsThe early reports are saying that the data speed on the iPhone 4S on Sprint is causing some concern. The problem seems to be isolated to the iPhone 4S and does not seem to be effecting the iPhone 4 on Sprint's network. These reports are coming from Sprint's support forums, where iPhone 4S users are talking about the issue, and informing others of their experience with Sprint's customer service. Sprint's customer service reps are confirming the speed issue to clients, but they have not released an official word on the cause.

There are no exact numbers on just how slow the data speeds are for Sprint, but the supplied screenshot to the right paints a grim picture. Every user is experiencing slow speeds, but they are not all traveling at the same slow speed.  There is a side by side data speed test on idownloadblog that also shows how much slower Sprint's network is on the iPhone 4S compared to the other two U.S. carriers.  In the video Sprint lags painfully behind the rest of the pack in almost all the tests.

It seems that if the issue is effecting just Sprint iPhone 4S users that it is a problem that should be fixable via a update instead of a defect in the phones themselves. If the problem was shared by AT&T and Verizon we might be looking at another antennagate scandal.

This article was originally posted on Digital Trends

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Plan that last-gasp trip with these iPhone travel apps (Appolicious)

Posted: 24 Oct 2011 02:00 PM PDT

AT&T's U-Verse connects wirelessly to TVs (AP)

Posted: 24 Oct 2011 07:38 PM PDT

By PETER SVENSSON, AP Technology Writer Peter Svensson, Ap Technology Writer – 1 hr 24 mins ago

NEW YORK – AT&T Inc.'s U-Verse TV service is going wireless — inside the home. Its new set-top boxes will use the home's Wi-Fi to get their TV programming, with no need for a coaxial cable.

That means TV sets can be moved from room to room and still work.

"You could move your U-Verse to the patio for the football game if the weather's nice or to the guest room if you have guests coming in," said David Christopher, chief marketing officer.

That's not really why AT&T developed it, though. The company was looking for a way to cut installation time and cost, Christopher said. With wireless boxes, installers won't need to run cable or drill through walls.

U-Verse is delivered with Internet technology rather than standard cable technology. That makes it easier for AT&T to send the signal wirelessly. Other, smaller phone companies have used wireless set-top boxes for a few years.

The service uses standard Wi-Fi and has about the same range. The boxes will be available starting next week for a one-time fee of $49, plus the standard monthly $7 box rental fee. They're made by Cisco Systems Inc.

A Wi-Fi hotspot can serve up to two set-top boxes wirelessly. A home can have two more set-top boxes, but they would have to be wired up, since the hotspot has limited capacity. All four could show high-definition programming simultaneously.

AT&T Inc. sells U-Verse in areas where it's the local-phone company. It has 3.6 million TV subscribers, making it the eighth-largest pay-TV provider in the U.S.

iTunes launch for 'The Office' as it celebrates tenth anniversary (Digital Trends)

Posted: 24 Oct 2011 07:29 PM PDT

Trevor Mogg Trevor Mogg – 1 hr 33 mins ago

Celebrating ten years since the Ricky Gervais and Stephen Merchant comedy The Office first aired in the UK, the BBC has made all the episodes, including the popular Christmas specials, available on iTunes for the first time. 

Back in 2001, The Office didn't so much as burst onto British TV screens, as quietly shuffle in. It was a slow burner. The BBC gave it hardly any publicity and broadcast it on its less-watched BBC 2 channel. Then, over the following couple of weeks, word got out. There was this new comedy. Set in an office. The main character, some guy called Brent, is funny. He's excruciating in the way he tries to ingratiate himself with his staff. But it works.

Midway through the first series, it seemed as if the whole of the UK had caught on and was tuning in to see this quirky David Brent character, played by Gervais (equivalent to Steve Carrell's Michael Scott character in the later US version of the show), in the new mockumentary show.

Only 14 episodes were written and recorded by Gervais and Merchant, though in that short time it managed to pick up a slew of awards, including two prestigious Golden Globes in 2004. Since then, the BBC has sold the British version to 88 countries, while eight countries, including the US, have made their own version of the show.

Up to now, the UK version of The Office has only been available on DVD, of which nearly four millions copies have been sold. iTunes' now has each episode priced at $1.99 (£1.89). They're available in the UK, the US, Canada, Australia, France and Germany.

Speaking to the BBC about the ten year anniversary, Gervais said: "It's been the most amazing 10 years of my life. Who'd have thought mucking around at work and watching docusoaps through the 90s would be so lucrative?"

This article was originally posted on Digital Trends

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Key excerpts from Steve Jobs' biography (Reuters)

Posted: 24 Oct 2011 04:23 PM PDT

– Mon Oct 24, 7:23 pm ET

(Reuters) – A new biography of late Apple Inc co-founder Steve Jobs hit book-shelves on Monday, offering arguably the most comprehensive, insightful look to date at the life and times of the revered technology visionary.

Below are excerpts from the tome, penned by Walter Isaacson, relating to Apple and Jobs' sometimes stormy, often difficult relationship with Silicon Valley, partners and rivals, and how Jobs communicated his key business beliefs.

JOBS' RESIGNATION AS CEO:

Jobs was wheeled into a board meeting on August 24, 2011, the day he handed Apple's reins to Tim Cook.

As Jobs' health deteriorated, he wrestled with the decision for weeks, discussing it with his wife, board member Bill Campbell, design chief Jonathan Ive and attorney George Riley.

When he finally made up his mind, arrangements were made to have him driven to 1 Infinite Loop and wheeled into the boardroom as secretly as possible.

"One of the things I wanted to do for Apple was to set an example of how do you transfer power right," Jobs told Isaacson. He added later that evening that his hope was to remain as active as his health allowed.

MAKING AN ENEMY OUT OF GOOGLE INC:

Isaacson's account of Jobs' blow-up over Google's entry into the smartphone market underscores the subsequent animosity he bore toward one-time Apple board member Eric Schmidt.

Jobs felt betrayed because Google founders Larry Page and Sergey Brin had treated him very much as a mentor. In 2008, he got into a shouting match with the pair, as well as with Android chief Andy Rubin, at Google's headquarters.

Jobs had offered Google an icon or two on the iPhone's home page; but in January 2010, HTC released a phone with multi-touch and other iPhone-like features that prompted Jobs to sue.

"Our lawsuit is saying, 'Google, you fucking ripped off the iPhone, wholesale ripped us off.' Grand theft. I will spend my last dying breath if I need to, and I will spend every penny of Apple's $40 billion in the bank, to right this wrong. I'm willing to go to thermonuclear war on this," Jobs told Isaacson the week after the suit was filed.

"They are scared to death, because they know they are guilty. Outside of Search, Google's products -- Android, Google Docs -- are shit."

Schmidt met with Jobs for coffee days later, but Jobs remained enraged and nothing was resolved.

"We've got you red-handed," Jobs told Schmidt. "I'm not interested in settling. I don't want your money, If you offer me $5 billion, I won't want it. I've got plenty of money. I want you to stop using our ideas in Android."

ON APPLE'S INTEGRATED APPROACH:

Jobs' infuriation stemmed partly from a fundamental conflict between Android's open-source approach and his own belief in a closed, carefully controlled ecosystem.

"We do these things not because we are control freaks," he said.

Addressing users' concerns, he said: "They are busy doing whatever it is they do best, and they want us to do what we do best. Their lives are crowded; they have other things to do than think about how to integrate their computers and devices."

"Look at the results -- Android's a mess .... We do it not to make money. We do it because we want to make great products, not crap like Android."

FLASH TIRADE GOT PERSONAL

Jobs' well-known tirade against Adobe Systems Inc's Flash multimedia software may have had its roots in the 1980s. Apple had invested in Adobe in 1985 and they collaborated to popularize desktop publishing.

But in 1999, Jobs -- after returning to Apple -- had asked Adobe to make its video-editing software available for the new iMac but the company refused, focusing instead on Microsoft Windows. Soon after, founder John Warnock retired.

"I helped put Adobe on the map," Jobs told Isaacson. "The soul of Adobe disappeared when Warnock left. He was the inventor, the person I related to. It's been a bunch of suits since then, and the company has turned out crap."

APPLE'S CONTROL OVER APPS, AND CENSORSHIP

Isaacson describes an exchange with Ryan Tate, editor of the tech gossip site Valleywag, that offers glimpses into Jobs' steadfast belief in carefully curating the types of applications available for downloading on the iPhone.

Tate emailed Jobs decrying Apple's heavy-handedness and asked: "If (Bob) Dylan was 20 today, how would he feel about your company .... Would he think the iPad had the faintest thing to do with 'revolution'? Revolutions are about freedom."

According to Tate, Jobs replied after midnight: "Yep ... freedom from programs that steal your private data. Freedom from programs that trash your battery. Freedom from porn. Yep, freedom. The times they are a changin', and some traditional PC folks feel like their world is slipping away. It is."

When Tate mentioned pornography was just fine with him and his wife, Jobs got snarky. "You might care about porn when you have kids. ... By the way, what have you done that's so great? Do you create anything, or just criticize others' work and belittle their motivations."

Tate told Isaacson he was impressed by Jobs' willingness to spar one-on-one with bloggers and customers.

ANTENNAGATE ... AND REED

"Antennagate" -- a faulty iPhone 4 antenna design that caused occasional dropped calls -- received a mountain of publicity, and Jobs came out publicly to acknowledge the mistake and announce a fix. But one little-known incident came to light in Isaacson's book.

Jobs, alerted to the possible defect while in Hawaii, first became defensive, then anguished in a conversation with director Art Levinson. Jobs brushed him off. But where Levinson failed, then-COO Tim Cook prevailed -- by quoting someone as saying Apple was becoming the new Microsoft.

Oracle to buy RightNow for $1.5 billion (AP)

Posted: 24 Oct 2011 02:12 PM PDT

– Mon Oct 24, 5:12 pm ET

NEW YORK – Software company Oracle Corp. said Monday that it is buying RightNow Technologies Inc. for about $1.5 billion so it can offer a broader range of software and services that help businesses manage customer service.

Oracle is offering $43 per share for the tech service company from Bozeman, Mont. That is a 19.6 percent premium over RightNow's closing price of $35.96 on Friday.

On Monday, RightNow's stock rose $6.98, or 19.4 percent, to close Monday at $42.94.

RightNow's board has agreed to the deal, which is subject to shareholder approval. The company says it will stay in Bozeman.

Oracle expects to complete the deal by late this year or early next.

RightNow's main product helps companies manage customers' questions and complaints. It is delivered over the Internet — or "cloud" — rather than by installing software directly on computers. The deal follows a smaller acquisition Oracle made when it bought InQuira to expand its selection of products that help companies keep their customers happy. Terms of that deal, announced in July, were not disclosed.

Shares of Oracle, which is based in Redwood Shores, Calif., gained 75 cents, or 2.3 percent, to end at $32.87.
at 9:49 PM

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