Ford and Howcast have released a series of videos to promote Ford’s latest line of cars, specifically the 2010 Ford Taurus, and to demonstrate some of the cool ways Ford’s technology adds value to their vehicles.
The Ford SYNC is one of the best car navigations systems on the market, and is easily the best of [...]

Filed under : Industry News

Google has Bridged Microsoft Office and Google Apps with Google's purchase of DocVerse. Google purchased DocVerse on March 5. The purchase price for the DocVerse plug-in is reported as $25 million dollars.

DocVerse takes Microsoft Office documents that are created off-line with the Microsoft Office Suite and converts them to online versions that can be stored [...]

Filed under : Industry News

IPTV meets Brick and Motar: Wal-Mart is about to buy the Set-Top-Box start-up Vudu. 
Vudu is a Santa Clara, California based online movie service and is backed by Silicon Valley venture capital firms that include Benchmark Capital and Greylock Capital.  Vudo had been building set-top-boxes but change to a streaming media service.
It is estimated [...]

Filed under : Industry News, Videos

Boxee is showing off at CES one of my favorite pieces of hardware married to one of my favorite pieces software, and to top it all off my favorite provider of content is explaining how to use it.
Boxee is launching their IPTV set top box powered by the Nvidia Tegra 2, this is the [...]

Filed under : Industry News

With as much IPTV news as there is around CES this year, you’d think Spring came early and it was NAB.
Microsoft announced that it will bring ATT Uverse’s Mediaroom to the Xbox 360, it also announced that it will launch IPTV Everywhere, a product that will allow live television, and the Mediaroom IPTV experience to [...]

Filed under : Industry News

Microsoft got a double helping of lessons in IP this past week.  It turns out that Microsoft’s Juku Beta was developed in partnership with MSN China who used an outside development firm who pirated much of the source code, and image assets from competing social media company Plurk.
Even Microsoft’s attempt to do something nice for [...]

Filed under : Industry News

Apparently Mitch Berman doesn’t just discriminate against women, but throws racial slurs around the ZillionTV office as well.
XYHD.tv obtained documents today confirming that a ZillionTV contractor is pursuing legal action as a result of racially prejudice comments Mitch made in a meeting of most of Zillion’s remaining employees.
You’d think Zillion would tread a little [...]

Filed under : Industry News

Google let me in to the beta of the new Adsense interface.  It is pretty cool. Unlike the Adwords "improvements" which I still don't like.  The new Adsense does a lot of useful things,   The CTR to eCPM tool is interesting, and the daily trends let me know if it was my traffic, or [...]

Filed under : Industry News

When a start up is getting started it is common for the founder to call the guys he worked with at other companies and invite them to come work with him. Roku has a lot of Akimbo guys. Microsoft Media Room had a lot of Akimbo guys. It’s just the nature of things. What is [...]

Filed under : Industry News

Java Script isn't Compiled until it runs, as result if is often in efficient.  Uncompressed Java Script contains comments, friendly variable names, and white space.  Dean Edwards created packer and made it available as a Java Script Compressor. ( dean.edwards.name/packer/)
While there has been a lot of fan fare around Closure it is just Google's version [...]

Filed under : Industry News

ZillionTV will announce Monday that it has completed a deal with Paramount.
Not wanting to be the only one not at the party Paramount has agreed to a content deal with struggling ZillionTV.  Those close to the deal say that ZillionTV completed a deal which includes warrants for the later purchase of stock in ZillionTV, based [...]

Filed under : Industry News

Twitter Integration with Amazon makes it easier to share product links with your followers.

Dear Associate,
Today we are excited to announce the launch of a new feature called Share on Twitter. You can access Share on Twitter from the Site Stripe and post to your Twitter account from Amazon detail pages in just two clicks. [...]

Filed under : Industry News

Net Neutrality is one of those names like Pro-Life or Pro-Choice that at first glance seems like you should be for it at first glance.  Teleport back in time to before the debate started and ask George Washington if he his Pro-Life, I bet he will say Yes, ask him 5 minutes later if he [...]

Filed under : Industry News

I got to sign for a package today.  It was from ZillionTV.  No, I am not in the $99 beta.  They sent me a kind letter asking me to stop disparaging ZillionTV's Management.  I should feel bad, I mean they do have a lot of problems already,and I'm sure me sharing the truth about their [...]

Filed under : Industry News

"On October 26, 2009, your GeoCities site will no longer appear on the Web, and you will no longer be able to access your GeoCities account and file," Yahoo wrote in a statement to GeoCities users.  And so we sing….
A Long Long Time Ago…
I can still remember
How Sparkle Text Used to make me smile.
And I [...]

Filed under : Industry News

Lion's Gate (Lionsgate.com / NYSE:LGF) who makes up the Lion's share of gross sales on Xbox Live Video Market Place, and is one of the leaders on Apple's iTunes, and CinemaNow, has signed a deal with ZillionTV.  Lion's Gate is easily the most forward thinking of the big movie studios with regards to digital licensing.  [...]

Filed under : Industry News

Dailymotion.com, one of the top 100 web sites in the world, today announced a funding round of $25 million (17 million euros). The round, led by the French Sovereign Fund (FSI) and including original investors Advent Venture Partners, AGF Private Equity, Atlas Venture and Partech International, recognizes Dailymotion's leading audience position and sustainable business model. [...]

Filed under : Industry News

My latest site just launched.  Instameme.com is a convergence of sites I have been working on in a small scale for a long time.  It combines the best Realtime news and discussion elements with data, images, and video.  We will be adding more ability to contribute user generated content in the next few days.  Still [...]

Filed under : Industry News

Rumors circulating at Digital Hollywood today say that Jack Lawrence formerly of Corgi International, and DotCast Inc, has replaced Mitch Berman as CEO of ZillionTV.
Jack Lawrence whose background is as a CFO, and according to his Linked In Profile is “Adept at merging and restructuring diverse organizations to gain efficiencies and drive profitability” , would [...]

Filed under : Industry News

If we just admit we are heading in to a technology Duopoly split between Microsoft and Google.
Microsoft is the reigning king of the desktop, Office Automation, and all things local.  Google reigns over all things Net, Search, and Connected.  As the lines blur between the desktop, the Net, and the Cloud, the two kings will [...]

Filed under : Industry News

People have been arguing all week because Jason Calacanis says Angels/VCs shouldn’t do pay to pitch events.
I do consulting as a pitch coach, which is basically pitch me your idea and I’ll attack it 10 ways to Sunday so you can be ready to defend it to a bank, VC, Angel, or boss.
You can pay [...]

Filed under : Industry News

ZillionTV died Monday.  They may not admit it, but much like Akimbo still refuses to admit it is dead, ZillionTV just hasn’t crossed over, but it’s lying dead on the table. 
Rallied by an overhyped Ben Silva, (overhyped is the polite word for the man who claims he won 7 Emmy’s but isn’t in IMDB [...]

Filed under : Industry News

4Shared.com offers free file sharing, web space, and online storage. Today they were hacked and the website can't be accessed. When you'll visit 4shared.com, you'll automatically be redirected to http://www.abcjardins.com/Hacked/ a ABCJardins site. The online file sharing and storage site can only be accessed from 4shared-china.com.
4Shared disclaimer suggest if any file is uploaded and [...]

Filed under : Industry News

Google is going to allow other ad networks to bid for your ad space.  The change will be automatically opted in for existing AdSense users.  In theory this will raise the price of AdWords, and increase the revenue from AdSense…
More likely I expect that CPM ads designed for impression rather than Clicks which run on [...]

Filed under : Industry News

Jet Blue offers all you can fly in one month plan for $599 – 56 different destinations with no seat limitations or blackout dates.
Enjoy unlimited travel with our All-You-Can-Jet Pass! For just $599* you can take JetBlue anywhere you like, as often as you like, from September 8 to October 8, 2009. Use your All-You-Can-Jet [...]

Filed under : Industry News

Microsoft Popfly, a strange sort of mash up community is shutting down.   The Popfly Shutdown shouldn’t be too much of a surprise the site doesn’t have much of a monetization model.
Follows is the e-mail poplfly is sending out about the end of the service.
I’m writing to thank you for registering and using Microsoft Popfly. I’ve [...]

Filed under : Industry News

For more than 15 years, Shawn Noonan has been teaching the principles of Wellness and Personal Development to clients that have included Olympic Athletes, Academy Award winning actors and successful entrepreneurs. Shawn is a graduate of UCLA with a degree in Physiological Sciences, and was a partner in a successful Sports Therapy and Wellness practice [...]

Filed under : Industry News

Microsoft is like the puppy that doesn’t know it is chasing its tail.  Microsoft has Active Sync for Outlook/Exchange, Microsoft Mesh, Microsoft Live for Mobile and now Microsoft My Phone.  Each of them have a few features the other doesn’t, but they should be merged in to one product.
I use Mesh on my desktop, and [...]

Filed under : Industry News

Robert Scoble and I had a rather intense discussion around Friend Feed vs. Twitter the other night.
He argues that Twitter is a sucky place to have a conversation, and I argue the Friend Feed is a sucky place to have a conversation. (in many ways they both are).
Robert argued mostly points about the technology, [...]

Filed under : Industry News

Interactive Media Designer, David Carmona is famously known on Twitter as @david_carmona.
David Carmoan started his career in interactive development, social media and then Business/Marketing Coordination, Search Engine Optimization, for Revision3. After Business Development and Marketing Coordinator he decided to take on a start-up and start designing and developing as his career 2.0. He was Co-Founder [...]

Filed under : Industry News

David Silversmith has a history of making bombastic headlines that are so far from the truth, backed by numbers that are no where near a whole picture, but this one is probably the one furthest from the truth I have seen.
Let’s assume most of David’s Numbers are right, he cites where he got them so [...]

Filed under : Industry News

Top Tech Mom, Beth Blecherman is famously known on Twitter as TechMama.
Beth Blecherman started her career in application development, system auditing and then Senior Manager, Computer Process Integrity, for Deloitte.  After senior management she decided to take on family management  and started blogging as her career 2.0. She is Co-Founder and Chief Technology Mom [...]

Filed under : Industry News

Christine Lu is the Top China Expert when it comes to how to take an American business to China.  Converting your business to work in the Chinese economy and market is not just a matter of translating your existing ad copy to Mandarin and Cantonese, it takes an understanding of the culture, politics, and business [...]

Filed under : Industry News

Despite spending time to talk to the BBC and Engadet, Onlive’s Math doesn’t hold up, and that’s before we get to cost.
Steve Perlman is whining that people like me haven’t used the system and are already saying it won’t work, but Onlive is one of those technologies that if they have solved the theoretical problems [...]

Filed under : Industry News

Hi, I’m Brandon, And I’m a PC.
Microsoft doesn’t make PC’s.  Microsoft doesn’t own HP.  Microsoft Sell’s copies of Office and Vista to Mac users.
Now that we have established some basic facts of the world, let’s talk about the imaginary redhead named “Lauren” from Microsoft’s most recent ads.
The message here is that PC’s are cheaper [...]

Filed under : Industry News

Internet Explorer 8 for Windows XP, Vista, 2008, and Windows 7 Beta will be released at Noon today (3/19/09).  Possibly if you believe the rumors the last version of IE which will ever be released.
IE8 is by far the most secure and most standards compliant version of Internet Explorer to be released.
See what we've done [...]

Filed under : Industry News

www.Google.com/Voice has gone live as replacement for Grandcentral.com.  while many of the features are staying the same, the ability to forward your calls to multiple phones, ability to make outgoing calls from your Virtual Number.
What’s new in Google.com/voice is that you can now get your voicemails converted to text, and sent as e-mail or SMS. [...]

Filed under : Industry News

You hereby grant Facebook an irrevocable, perpetual, non-exclusive, transferable, fully paid, world wide license to your Pictures of You, Your Friends, Your Kids, and Your drunken photos.
In the latest change to the TOS of Facebook you now grant them rights to everything in your profile for forever.
Previously you only allowed limited use for as long [...]

Filed under : Industry News

When I am trying to decide who gets a slice of my attention for Twitter, my criteria is as follows.

Do I know you.
Does someone I know, Follow you.
Do you have more followers than people you are following.
Do you have at least 100 tweets, with no more than 33% links.

Once I am following you… There are [...]

Filed under : Industry News

I’m of the opinion that Twitter should be a no Brainer to monetize, using the Free for 90% of users, Pay for “Pro” Accounts.
Most twitter Users are never going to need the features that those of us using Twitter for Business and evangelism need.
PermaLinks
Unpaid Twits don’t care about the SEO factor of twitter, so Using [...]

Filed under : Industry News

I like when smart people agree with me.  Pablo Perez-Fernandez released a report which spells out where all the prior art which the patent office pretty much ignored.  How is this possible?
The US Patent office would grant you a patent for a Ham Sandwich if you filled out the paper work correctly.
When you fill out [...]

Filed under : Industry News

So Mozilla wants an Open Video format for the web.  Yeah well, I want cheap health care for every person on the planet, a pony, and a Red Rider BB gun.  Did these people even talk to Acacia?
Let’s start with a clarification, VC1, H.264, and Mpeg2 are all Open. You can go out to SMPTE [...]

Filed under : Industry News

I’m not saying you should play gay just to keep your job, but I think today would have been a good day to have had a little bit of an edge if you work at Yahoo.  If you were to call in gay, they might think twice about laying you off.
Yahoo is laying off 1500 [...]

Filed under : Industry News

Gavin MacDonald, head of mergers and acquisitions for Morgan Stanley died Fright night due to a heart attack at age 47. Gavin MacDonald based in London spent his career as the Morgan Stanley deal maker starting in 1983 and recently appointed head of M&A last year. Mac Donald died at Morgan Stanley's Wharf headquarters.
Shares closed [...]

Filed under : Industry News

Ever wonder why you can't always get Disney's Cinerella?  Why there is a limited release of Snow White?  Why McDonald's doesn't make the McRib sandwich available all of the time?
Well the grass is always greener on the other side of the fence, so to keep the cows happy you have to rotate pastures from time [...]

Filed under : Industry News, Rants and Tangents

I was in the neighborhood, and am looking to possibly burn some money, so I decided to check out the Tesla dealer on Santa Monica Blvd.  Having spent a lot of time in a Lotus Elise, I expected that I was not going to be impressed.  I was however pleasantly surprised.  The Tesla is a [...]

Filed under : Autos, Hard on the Pocket Book, Industry News, Reviews

I don't even need to write this article, it gets summed up so well at parislemon.com 
I haven't rented a movie over Xbox Live in a long while, but seeing as I'm all excited for the Netflix titles to come to the console this Fall, I figured I'd start getting into it more. Last night I [...]

Filed under : Industry News

I have some other jobs for those interested.
Quality Assurance Engineer (Set-Top Box) ZillionTV is looking for a Quality Assurance Engineer who will be directly involved in ensuring the quality of revolutionary TV experience for the company. This person will work closely with our development, operations, customer support and product management teams to [...]

Filed under : Industry News, Money

I have two positions which I am looking to fill at ZillionTV.  The first is part IT administrator, part video engineer.  I'm looking for someone who can replicate my capture and encode environment multiple times in multiple facilities.  An ideal candidate will have experience with SDI/HD-SDI, Sony J-Decks, Windows Server, and Windows Vista.  Experience with [...]

Filed under : Industry News, Life Hacks, Money

I have been talking at work a lot about the Birthday Paradox.  Scoble was talking with Predictify on FastCompany.tv about using crowds to make predictions. The method of prediction is not as straight forward as throwing darts at a dart board and using mob mentality to predict things based on user polls, instead think of [...]

Filed under : Industry News

Just because someone writes for StreamingMedia.com, doesn't make them an expert in the space.  Most the time it means quite the opposite.  I work for a company that is betting on H.264, but I quite strongly think Jan Ozer's piece (OS) about Microsoft dumping VC-1 is so poorly researched that Jan should consider a change [...]

Filed under : Industry News, Technical

Focus Groups are becoming less and less a part of innovation.  Instead many companies feel they can revolutionize the way we do things by forcing us to learn to do it their way.  Other companies just copy cat the methods used by their competitors.
There are a lot of services out there that will provide you [...]

Filed under : Industry News

If you want your startup to get noticed, you need people to talk about it.  So you pitch not just to VC's but to the online rags that VC's read.  Tech Crunch is one of the top online magazines for news about startups, and industry trends, so they get a lot of pitches.
So many pitches [...]

Filed under : Industry News

Verismo showed off at Under the radar it's STB which will play Amazon Unboxed content with out the need for a PC.  The $99 box will debut later this summer and plays content that is encoded with Windows Media DRM, along with Flash content.  This means it is compatible with Youtube, Unboxed, CinemaNow, and others.
Verismo [...]

Filed under : Industry News

Associated Press is reporting that Time Warner is trying out metered Internet with overage charges of $1 per Gigabyte.  This mean users of Xbox Live Video Market Place, Amazon Unboxed, and others could end up paying an additional $2 per episode for SD content and $6 for HD Content.
5% of Internet users account for 50% [...]

Filed under : Industry News

Michael Largent used a script to sign up for 58,000 accounts with Google Check out. Every time you validate an account Google Check Out and PayPal put a few cents in to that account so that you can verify that the account is valid.
Where Michael went wrong is that he used fake names, and there [...]

Filed under : How To, Industry News, Life Hacks

Akimbo was the Silicon Valley Start up I moved to the Bay Area for.  It only took about 2 weeks to figure out they were not going to make me rich.  But I held on longer and worked hard to try and make that not happen.  The problem was simple.  They were driven too hard [...]

Filed under : Industry News

5 Ways Your Gadgets Will Betray Your Privacy is just the beginning Stacey.  I have seriously considered just showing up EVERY where Scoble twitters he is going, just to prove why I his experience and everyone else's with the product are not the same.
But back to Stacey and her gadgets.  If you play much with [...]

Filed under : Industry News

A while back Jason Calacanis said that one way to cut start up costs was to fire your IT guy and get a bunch of Mac's the other day, he was twittering that he was looking for a Mac IT guy.  Om Malik twittered today that his Time Capsule was destroying his network.
I'm fighting with [...]

Filed under : Industry News, Life Hacks

I have to agree with Mark Evans I Hate to be Rude But… unlike Scoble I don't want to be drown in the noise.  Scoble may be swimming in it, but I don't have the time, or patience for everyone who wants to make short posts, automated accounts of my friends actions, or in actions.  [...]

Filed under : Industry News

Gen X is not their parents generation. Generation X is the Holy Grail in demographics.  More expendable income, trendier, and willing to bring their kids along for the ride.
Knight Rider, Beverly Hills 90210, S Club 7, Battle Star Galactica, Dr. Who, the hit shows for 2008 are the same shows that were a hit in [...]

Filed under : Industry News

Not sure what it is going to be called, but Zdnet Germany has news that Apple is releasing an iPhone that is larger and uses the tiny 45nm transistor Atom Chip from Intel.
The Phone which doesn't have a name yet will sport a 720×480 display, come in 16 and 32 gig sizes, and will not [...]

Filed under : Industry News

Google is introducing a Web site tool called Friend Connect today that promises to extend the reach of social networks such as Facebook to any site that wants to use the tool.
That's right, now when I Google your name instead of getting your Linked in Page I'm going to see that your secretary bought you [...]

Filed under : Industry News, Rants and Tangents, Technical

There was a lot of news recently about if Powerset should sell, or play David and Goliath with Google.  I vote sell. The concept is good, but they are more of an Ask competitor than a Google competitor, and we know how well Ask is doing.
So let's Play.
Question one, which I posed a few days [...]

Filed under : Industry News, Search Engine Optimization (SEO)

DonkeyOnAWaffle.com is hosting a Powerpoint file which even if fake outlines a very real possibility in which fake Cisco Routers could be used to gain access to sensitive areas of US Government networks.
Through reverse engineering, or simply purchasing chips from the same supplier Cisco uses, companies have been able to create nearly exact duplicates of [...]

Filed under : Industry News

Many of the companies that outsource Technical support, and Phone Telemarketing are going to be hindered over the weekend, and possibly for the next 2 weeks as the result of an Internet outage over much of India, Asia, and the Middle East.
According to reports, a ship anchoring off Egypt's Alexandria coast cut through the Indian-owned [...]

Filed under : Industry News

Microsoft said that they Lite-on is not manufacturing an Xbox 360 Blu-ray drive, but if you read their words carefully they don't say that there isn't one in the works.
"No. Lite-On is not manufacturing Blu-ray drives for Xbox 360. As we have stated, games are what are driving consumers to purchase game consoles and we [...]

Filed under : Gaming, Industry News

Charlie Miller demonstrated a flaw at PWN 2 OWN's annual hacking contest.
By directing the judges to a website he was able to gain access to their Computer.
Charlie Miller is best known for his Hack of the iphone last year.
Contest rules state that Miller could only take advantage of software that was pre-installed on the Mac, [...]

Filed under : Industry News

According to the terms of the EULA of the latest version of Safari for windows you will only be allowed to install it on an Apple-Labled Computer.  This means if you aren't a Dual Boot User, like those running Parallels or Boot Camp you can't legally run the software.
This creates an interesting scenario for those [...]

Filed under : Industry News

It is being reported that IE 5.5 is more standards compliant than IE7. But this test ignores that the test is not meant to necessarily reflect "renders more pages correctly".  The test is designed to make known flaws glaring, and to help developers find flaws in rendering. 
A Stopped Clock is right twice a day, [...]

Filed under : Industry News

CBSSports.com Connects With Facebook(R) to Provide Official NCAA(R) Tournament Brackets

Facebook Platform to offer 'CBSSports.com Tournament Brackets' application         for the 2008 NCAA Division I Men's Basketball Championship
    FORT LAUDERDALE, Fla., Feb. 7 /PRNewswire/ — CBSSports.com todayannounced it has developed and will host an official NCAA March Madness(R)Brackets application that will be offered [...]

Filed under : Industry News, Site Reviews

I was about to login to Adsense and I got this message.
Please take a moment to update your AdSense login.We will soon be asking all our publishers to update their logins to a Google Account . This change will provide you with enhanced security and will make it more convenient for you to use other [...]

Filed under : Industry News

What is sad is that you can make a Higher CPM proxying Facebook, than Facebook makes on it's own impressions.  Part of the problem is that Facebook sets huge numbers for their minimum ad requirements and is still selling on a Cost Per Click Basis. They would do much better on Cost Per Impression ads [...]

Filed under : Industry News

Stuff Magazine wants you to believe there is an Ultimate Xbox on the way.  Well they may not be that far off.
One of the biggest obstacles to Microsoft's IPTV solution, now named MediaRoom, is that the Xbox 360 is too much of an energy hog to be an always on device.  Combine this with the [...]

Filed under : Industry News

I think I actually said "You'd have to pay me to watch it", but JackAss 2.5 is available on www.blockbuster.jackassworld.com  .  Who would have ever thought that Johnny Knoxville and Steve O. would be paving the road to the future? Well, On December 19th, Blockbuster will premiere the first (and did I mention FREE) full-length [...]

Filed under : Industry News

CompUSA is closing its few remaining stores. Russell Shaw hits the nail on the head with his summary of why they didn't make it.
I haven’t shopped there in years.  Why? Because I haven’t had a reason to.
Face it. CompUSA has been outgunned by nimbler operations. You have Best Buy, with their quite capable in-store [...]

Filed under : Industry News

While ATT has the exclusive iPhone partnership in the US, Tmobile had Germany all locked up.  Atleast until tomorrow when the German Courts will rule if T-Mobile will have to sell the iPhone unlocked as well.  In Europe it is more common to purchase unlocked phones and pop your sim card, and use what ever [...]

Filed under : Industry News

Vivendi best known for its huge Warcraft Franchise which includes World of Warcraft, announced Sunday that it would Acquire Controlling Shares of Activision which is the company behind Call Of Duty, Tony Hawk games, and Guitar Hero.  The combined company will be known as Activision Blizzard.
The move stands to benefit Microsoft, as Vivendi has typically [...]

Filed under : Industry News

Michael Toutonghi left microsoft a few years back to star Vizrea a company dedicated to making your media easier to share.  Now Microsoft is buying the company.
 
This is not uncommon with Microsoft.  Is it that Microsoft doesn't know how to keep talent? Or doesn't know a good product when it sees one?  Partly.  Microsoft has [...]

Filed under : Industry News

To address critical processing steps in manufacturing crystalline silicon solar cells that impact efficiency and yield as well as allowing the use of ultrathin silicon wafers, the Santa Clara, Calif.-based semiconductor and solar cell equipment supplier is acquiring Treviso, Italy-based c-Si photovoltaic cell metallization and test system supplier, Baccini S.p.A., for $330 million in cash. [...]

Filed under : Industry News