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This book provides the knowledge, tools and suggested skills necessary to succeed in The Relationship Economy. 21 influential factors are identified and discussed throughout the book. You will be able to absorb and apply… More >>
The Emergence of The Relationship Economy: The New Order of Things to Come
In my last report from Physics@FOM, I will talk about something I am truly not competent to discuss: “Holography, ADS/CFT and the emergence of gravity.” I realize that I am not always the sharpest knife in the drawer, but I have never found myself so lost so quickly in a presentation. I think this comes from the difficulties in conveying some very new concepts by Erik Verlinde, who is still in the process of grappling with them himself. Nevertheless, let me try.
Holography, and anti de Sitter space/conformal field theory are two ways of describing the bending of space and the entropy associated with it. The two models are very closely related to each other. So close that, according to Wikipedia—the fount of all reliable knowledge—theorists can’t agree if they are the same or not. But the point about both is that they resolve the problem of unifying gravity with quantum mechanics by getting rid of gravity.
Filed under: Software, Odds and ends, Freeware, Internet, Developer
Mozilla has dropped a Firefox 3.6 release candidate which you can download and install it now if you want to try the browser’s latest and greatest. It’s a big, significant update, including many of bug fixes, built-in Persona support, fullscreen for open native video, and an improved automatic form fill. For developers, there’s even more updates, including support for the HTML5 File API, and new features in CSS and DOM as well.
Despite the recent emergence of Chrome and the continuing popularity of Safari, Firefox remains my browser of choice. It’s good to see that the latest release pushes the envelope. Of course, it’s fine to wait for the official version, but if you want to get your hands on the new features right away, here’s your chance. Firefox 3.6 Release Candidate is a free download as always.
TUAWFirefox 3.6 Release Candidate now available originally appeared on The Unofficial Apple Weblog (TUAW) on Mon, 11 Jan 2010 18:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
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Major media and news organizations have been leveraging their brand-power through mobile apps for a while now, mostly on the iPhone, and logically so — Apple currently has 4% of the mobile market share in the U.S.
But with the recent release of the Motorola Droid, and the emergence of Google’s own Nexus One hardware, the Android user base is growing, and so is the demand for polished apps from trusted news sources.
So far, three major outlets have heeded Android’s call. Here’s how these top news apps stack up.
The first thing you’ll notice about USA Today’s Android App is that it’s dead simple. On first launch, the clean blue home screen comes up quickly with top stories and your metro-area weather (even with GPS location disabled).
Scroll easily through the stories and choose from the news categories above them: Sports, Life, Tech, Travel, etc.
Above the headlines, you’re one click away from all the recent sports scores, a feature that readers of the paper are known to look for. Scroll down for the scores, scroll across for each league (NFL, MLB, NBA, etc.)
The same ease applies for weather and a sharp looking photo gallery, with news pics by category and fast-loading slide shows. Flick left or right to advance, tap for a photo caption.
A unique feature of the USA Today app is the Snapshots button, which takes you to a series of polls. Vote on popular news topics or trends, then see the results instantly, broken down by location and other qualifiers. This is a nice feature that really engages the app’s audience with USA Today’s famous polls.
The one downside of this app is that there is absolutely no customization or settings. You can’t alter the feeds, create a home page, or change the color scheme. But after a bit of use, there’s really no need. The app works so fluidly and intuitively that customization might only complicate things.
Bottom line: For a quick news fix and the latest sports scores, the USA Today app is perfect for that just-woke-up-in-a-hotel-room feeling.
This app is a public radio junkie’s dream come true. Its big, clean, list interface is easy on the eyes. Click a category like “Top Stories” and scroll through the list.
Where this app really shines is the audio player that peeks from the bottom. Click any story with the red audio symbol next to it, and instantly stream it to the player.
You can also queue up multiple stories of interest with the “Add to Playlist” feature, then kick back and listen to a customized NPR news broadcast. You can continue to browse and read other text stories while the audio is playing.
Beyond browsing the news by category, you can also scope the recent podcasts of your favorite NPR shows like All Things Considered and Fresh Air, and stream them right into the audio player. Also, if you’re a fan of a particular local station, you can enter the call letters (or your zip code) and snag those podcasts as well.
There are two major shortcomings I see with this app. First, you cannot stream the live broadcast of your local station as you can on the web. This seems like a logical (and hopefully forthcoming) feature, especially since it can be done with certain 3rd-party apps like StreamFurious, though the station list is haphazard.
Secondly, you cannot multi-task while listening to an audio stream. Jumping to the home screen or checking an e-mail notification breaks the audio. This is a real disappointment, since most Android apps (including the built-in music player) allow you to listen to audio while you work in other applications.
Bottom line: Shortcomings aside, the easy access to hoardes of NPR audio makes this app a keeper.
The Android app from the Associated Press is laid out similarly to USA Today’s offering, referenced above. The interface is clean and fluid. An initial input of your zip code keys you in to local weather (accesible from the menu) and local stories in your news feed. A dedicated photos tab brings you a collage and slide show of gorgeous AP photography, including captions.
This app differs from the others in this round up in that it is highly customizable. From the settings menu, you can control what stories you see and in what order. If you want the app to open and display entertainment or tech stories first, simply drag those category to the top of the list.
The app also has useful social integration with Twitter and Facebook, allowing you to share a story you’re reading directly from the app. And one feature AP Mobile has over the other two is video content. A dedicated tab cues up a list of the AP’s recent videos and streams them right in the app, similar to the way Android streams YouTube videos.
In fact, the app might even have too many options. It takes a bit of tinkering before all of the settings for your news feed are in place.
Bottom line: It may be a little heavy for those who are just looking for a quick update, but can be a versatile information resource for those who take the time to fine tune it.
Full Disclosure: An immediate family member of Matt Silverman is employed by the Associated Press.
Despite some minor flaws, each of the apps above are robust and reliable go-to sources for news on an Android device. The bar has been set for other organizations who seek to compete for Android’s growing mobile market share.
Do these apps fulfill your mobile news needs? What other Android apps do you use to read and share news? Post your thoughts in the comments below.
- The Best Free Twitter Apps for Android
- 30 Android Apps to Watch
- 8 Android Apps Worth Paying For (And Some That Aren’t)
- Mobile Advertising: 5 Things You Need to Know to Succeed in 2010
- Put on Your Google Goggles and Visually Search the World
Image courtesy of iStockphoto, DNY59
Tags: android, Android apps, apps, Google, News
Twitter co-founder and CEO Evan Williams has just announced on the company’s blog that they have acquired Mixer Labs, creator of the GeoAPI.
Mixer Labs is primarily a service for helping developers build geolocation apps. According to the announcement, Twitter has made the Mixer Labs team part of the company and is moving them to Twitter’s headquarters in San Francisco. The team will work on Twitter’s recently added geolocation features and APIs.
Mixer Labs has a variety of location-based products that are likely attractive to Twitter. They include Reverse Geodecoder (find a city or location with latitudes and longitudes), Places Finder (complex, local geo-queries), and Media Layers (players other media, like Twitter, into a geo-specific context).
A lot of the reasons for this acquisition have to do with the emergence of geolocation apps such as Foursquare and Gowalla, which have recently started to gain significant traction. Twitter likely hopes not only to build their own location app, but to integrate deeply with these services via their APIs. It’s also partly a talent acquisition, as both founders are ex-Googlers and were instrumental behind Google Mobile, Google Gears, and Google Toolbar.
The details are just emerging. We’re going to keep updating this story with more information as we get it.
Tags: acquisition, twitter
Video viewing habits are continuing their shift online as more than half of people in the U.S. watched video on the Internet in October, according to comScore.
Hulu is rising rapidly. The video portal for professionally produced content attracted 47 percent more views over the month, at about 850 million views in October compared to 583 million views in September. The site’s also stickier: the average user is watching about 20 videos, up from 15.
That growth may have come at the expense of its contributors: Fox’s views were down month over month. (Fox’s owner News Corp. is a partial owner of Hulu and has been grumbling lately about getting users to convert to a paid model in 2010.) Older companies like Viacom Digital, Yahoo!, and Turner Network also declined in raw views.
At the same time, Google and YouTube’s views were pretty much flat at 10.5 billion streams in October compared to 10.4 billion streams the previous month. Of course, YouTube’s global numbers are larger — the company said it was serving more than 1 billion videos a day globally.
Facebook becomes a force in online video
The other interesting thing to note is Facebook’s emergence as a force in video. The company is now one of the top 10 online video sites in the country with 245 million views and counting.
Facebook has been behind a number of recent video collaborations — the company has partnered with CNN and ABC to let users comment and chat alongside live video streams. It’s also partnered with Hulu to build a player inside the Facebook environment, allowing users to watch full episodes, post them to their profiles and comment on them with friends. Watch this space — Facebook’s use case for entertainment and socializing with friends most directly rivals that of YouTube’s.
Jessica Faye Carter is an award-winning author and columnist. Her company, Nette Media develops social media technologies for women and multicultural communities, and she blogs at Technicultr.
The expression of community has changed considerably since the emergence of social media technologies, but its basic foundation — the notion of individuals exchanging information, ideas, and opinions — remains firmly intact. Today, one of the most widely-used tools in developing these types of exchanges online is WordPress, the popular blogging and publishing platform. Part of its appeal is the ease with which users can build advanced functionality into their sites with plugins. If you’re interested in building a community around your site, there are plenty of third-party add-ons that can help create one.
These 10 WordPress plugins add features that will help you to engage your user base.
1. Featured Content Gallery – If you’re not an expert in programming or design, Featured Content Gallery makes it easy to highlight images, posts, or pages anywhere on your site. It comes with a sleek and contemporary design that is fully customizable through the WordPress dashboard, so that you can integrate your highlighted content seamlessly with the rest of your site.
2. Popularity Contest – Your users will want to know what’s popular and interesting to their peers in the community and the Popularity Contest Plugin can help. It keeps track of the most popular posts and pages on your site and acts as a leaderboard that directs users to the most active content in your community. You can customize the point values assigned to user actions on the site, such as comments or views, and display the results easily in a widgetized-sidebar.
3. Viper’s Video Quicktags – Including video in your community is easy using Viper’s Video Quicktags. Just enter the URL of the video in the prompt box and see a preview of the video right on your screen. Then specify the dimensions and other customizations you’d like to add and see your final product before saving it into your post. Supported video sites include YouTube, Google Video, Vimeo and others.
4. WPtouch – Part of keeping the community vibrant means letting your users take it with them. You can go mobile with your community using WPtouch and avoid building a mobile website or the costs of developing an iPhone application. You can control the mobile user interface by allowing the browser to automatically route users to the interface of your choosing — your site or the WPtouch interface, which looks similar to an iPhone app. You can also show or hide post excerpts and customize the icons and general appearance of your mobile site.
5. Disqus Comment System – Nothing stops a potential commenter in their tracks faster than having to set up a user ID and password in order to leave a message on your site. At the same time, most of us would like some sort of authentication process we can use to identify and correspond with other users as we develop our communities. The Disqus Comment System allows users to engage with your site using their Twitter, Disqus, Facebook, OpenID or selected other accounts. This prevents users from having to set up new accounts while allowing for authentication. Bonus: the Reactions feature allows you to include the social component of user feedback into your comments.
6. Customize Your Community – Customize Your Community (CYC) provides some useful options for those building communities in WordPress. It allows you to re-brand the WordPress pages for registration, logging in/out, and lost passwords, as well as the user profile pages. In addition to giving your community a standardized look and feel, CYC helps with a long-standing navigational issue in WordPress: it automatically directs “subscribers” to their profiles and bypasses the WP backend entirely.
7. Clicky – While Google Analytics provides you with a long-term perspective on your site metrics, Clicky gives you instantaneous feedback. The dashboard includes traditional site metrics, but also offers cool features, like “Spy”, which pinpoints the location of current visitors on a map. It’s an easy way to get a snapshot of your site’s current activity and, in conjunction with Google Analytics, gives you a comprehensive overview of your site’s activity.
8. Breadcrumb NavXT – Your users aren’t exactly Hansel and Gretel, but they still may occasionally need help navigating your site, particularly if it’s content-heavy. Breadcrumbs are usually located just below a site’s primary navigation system and look something like this:
Home » Dance Music » Saint Etienne » Method of Modern Love
Breadcrumb NavXT, the successor to Breadcrumb Navigation XT, improves your site’s navigation by building this kind of virtual breadcrumb trail for your users to follow. This way, users will know where they’re located on your site. This plugin may require customization, depending on your theme; check out the Advanced Options section of the plugin’s homepage for additional instructions.
9. Advertising Manager – If you were previously using the Adsense Manager plugin, you’ve probably noticed that it hasn’t been updated in a while. That’s because it has been succeeded by Advertising Manager, which is recommended unless you are using WordPress version 2.5 or earlier. The renamed version supports a broader group of ad networks in addition to Google AdSense, such as Adify, AdBrite, and several others. It also imports your AdSense Manager settings, for users of the previous plugin.
10. WP125 – Do you prefer a more hands-on management style for your advertising? WP125 allows you to do everything from arranging the ad display so that it fits your site design to setting timelines for ads (they can be removed automatically or manually at expiration). It also provides a placeholder for empty ad space, which you can switch to your own customized version.
Do you have another plugin that’s been helpful to you in building your community? Share your favorites in the comments below.
WordPress Themes: “Top 12 Stunning WordPress Themes“, “30+ WordPress 3 Column Themes,” “20 WordPress 4-Column Themes,” “30+ WordPress 1-Column Themes,” “10 Unusual & Original WordPress Themes”
Plugins: “50+ WordPress Plugins for Multimedia,” “30+ WordPress Plugins for Statistics,” “30+ WordPress Plugins for Comments,” “30+ WordPress Plugins to Get More Blog Readers,” “Top 10 WordPress Plugins to Promote Your Social Media Profiles”
Miscellaneous: “WordPress God: 300+ Tools for Running Your WordPress Blog,” “The 7 Weirdest and Wackiest Uses for WordPress“
Tags: community, Lists, plugins, Wordpress
Last week we covered the early emergence of the TwitterPeek, a handheld device made exclusively to provide Twitter service on the go. Now that it’s officially announced, we wanted to follow up with the final pricing and more details.
The TwitterPeek was initially listed for $199.99 with lifetime service, which is still one of the two purchase options. The other pricing option is $99.99 with 6 months of free service, after which you’ll be paying $7.95 a month to use Twitter on the device. In either case there’s no contract and no obligation to continue using the service if you opt for the latter $99 price plan. For either price you get unlimited tweets, a full QWERTY keyboard and an always-on device with nationwide coverage.
You won’t be able to browse the web on the device, but you’ll be able to view Twitpics, according to the FAQ. The battery should last a reported 3-4 days before needing a recharge, with extra batteries and car chargers available for purchase at extra cost. The user interface has been completely designed in collaboration with Twitter to be intuitive for use with the service, including special keyboard shortcuts for easy access to common functions.
Although many of the comments on the original post disparaged the idea behind the TwitterPeek device, there is a market of people who think spending hundreds of dollars on a smartphone and $100+ a month for the plan to support it is outrageous — and Peek is wisely going after those people with its marketing efforts. And some have also noted the benefits of a messaging device for teens or tweens that won’t come with surprising overage charges. Still, it will remain to be seen if that market uses Twitter, and if they’re willing to spend a smaller but still significant chunk of change on a single-function device.
Check out a couple more images of the TwitterPeek below — it’s available in charcoal or aqua to match the Twitter logo. Let us know if your thoughts on the device in the comments now that it’s official: is $199 for lifetime mobile Twitter interesting to some? Is $7.95 a month for on-the-go Twitter access more or less tempting that a higher up front cost?
Tags: Mobile 2.0, peek, twitter, twitterpeek
Motorola’s Android-laden CLIQ has been available to existing T-Mobile USA users for a hot minute now, but not until today has the handset been widely available to all that care to take notice. Of course, the proper launch has been dampened somewhat by the emergence of the DROID (alongside Android 2.0), but hey, MOTOBLUR ain’t nuthin’ to scoff at, right? Feel free to locate your nearest T-Mob retail location, waltz in with $199.99 and get yours today.
Filed under: Cellphones
Motorola CLIQ lands in T-Mobile USA stores today originally appeared on Engadget on Mon, 02 Nov 2009 14:33:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
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To avoid environmental catastrophe within the next century, we, as a world, desperately need to cut carbon emissions.
If you’re an entrepreneur, this is the calling of a lifetime — there’s massive economic opportunity here. That’s why VentureBeat is hosting GreenBeat 2009, the seminal conference on the emergence of a “Smart Grid” — the movement toward a cleaner, more efficient electrical grid — one that champions transparency and puts consumers back in charge of how much power they use, and more importantly, how much they pay for it. We’ve got everyone coming, from former Vice President Al Gore (father of the Smart Grid), to John Doerr, a leading Silicon Valley investor with Kleiner Perkins (see his piece here), to Laura Ipsen, VP and GM of Cisco’s Smart Grid Business Unit, to executives from the leading utilities like PG&E.
We’re also looking for the biggest, boldest ideas entrepreneurs have to change the way we think about, build and use the existing grid. To spotlight these ideas, we’re holding a competition to find the best disruptors in the business. More details are below.
Today, the country’s energy market is at least $1 trillion. And if you look at the proposals being bandied about, tens of billions of dollars are on the move. In some areas, value is being destroyed (inefficiencies are being ironed out and old power plants are being phased out). But in other areas, value is being created (alternative energy projects built, smarter software installed, jobs created).
Heavy regulation and focus on efficiency means that large utilities won’t be able to keep generating more and more power, but they’ll resist change if they don’t see financial incentives. Federal and state governments are now anticipating this problem, and the legislative environment is ripe for breakthrough.
The Obama administration may be distracted by the healthcare debate today, but eventually, it will push forward on the controversial Waxman-Markey Climate Bill, mandating a carbon trading system. Obama knows the U.S. needs to save face at the United Nations’ climate summit in Copenhagen in December. The House has already passed the bill, which would reduce gas emissions sharply. 
It now hinges on the Senate. All this should be coming to a head around the time of our conference on Nov. 19.
Despite what critics say, the cost of these legislative measures will be relatively little, and the benefits huge. California illustrates this best. It has led the nation in efficiency, establishing strong renewable energy requirements, and decoupling utility revenue from how much power customers use (giving them reason to actually help people conserve). As a result, consumers and businesses alike have redirected their energy spending to other goods and services, creating more than a million jobs with a payroll of more than $45 billion, according to an estimate by Eric Schmidt, Google’s chief executive (pictured here), who wrote a good column on this over the weekend.
The opportunities are so big that even Google is reaching for a piece of the pie with PowerMeter, a consumer-facing home energy management system rolling out to thousands of households as early as this year. The California Air Resources Board, the agency responsible for implementing a law that will reduce California greenhouse emissions to 1990 levels by 2020, predicts $33 billion in increased economic production as a result of the policy, Schmidt notes. In addition, the state’s gross product will increase by $7 billion, and personal income will grow by $16 billion.
Indeed, entrepreneurial opportunities already abound. Lately, we’re seeing metering companies buy up or partner with home energy monitor makers. Itron just landed a partnership with OpenPeak, Silver Spring just bought Greenbox, Elster partnered with Blue Line Innovations — all in the last two weeks. All of these metering companies are looking to install dashboards in homes and businesses telling consumers exactly how much energy they are using and how much it is costing them in real time. The Smart Grid has never gotten so much attention.
Given the activity in the U.S., imagine the opportunity in China and India, countries with huge populations and growing economies in urgent need of modernized energy infrastructure. News is that India, which has long rejected adopting curbs on emissions, is now considering a proposal to do just that.
I hope you’ll join us at GreenBeat 2009 to find out more about this potential. Sign up now and get an early bird discount of $255 off the regular price!
Meanwhile, here’s more on the GreenBeat 2009 Innovation Competition:
We’re seeking path-breaking companies to achieve the goals of the Smart Grid, which are defined by GreenBeat 2009 as the following:
1) Decarbonize the grid
2) Transmit data alongside power between utilities AND consumers
3) Drive increased efficiency and conservation of power
The top 10 business models and technologies promising the “smartest” impact on the power grid will be our winners.
We are seeking submissions from companies with the following:
Innovative business models — These companies will have strategies that either leverage the capabilities and data made available by the Smart Grid or help fulfill one or more of the goals above. These companies will answer the questions: Who will profit from the Smart Grid? What is the next killer app everyone will use? Now that there’s so much data available, who will make the best use of it and how? The winning business models will have clear revenue models and convincing arguments as to why their revenue models are sustainable in a rapidly changing space.
Innovative technologies — These companies or organizations (universities, research groups) will help decarbonize the grid, facilitate data transmission and monitoring of power use, or increase efficiency or conservation efforts. We’ll give preference to companies that have a pilot project already underway. We’ll also give preference to companies that plan to launch at GreenBeat 2009 or at least plan to reveal the latest release of their existing products (GreenBeat is focused on the bleeding edge, so we’re less interested in showcasing companies with dated technology).
Eligible companies can operate in any of the following fields:
If you have any questions regarding the competition, eligibility, or on how you can demonstrate your new product at GreenBeat 2009, please contact editor@venturebeat.com.
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