Tuesday, June 14, 2011
Google Scaling Solar, Commits $280 Million To Finance SolarCity Installations
Google today announced a new partnership with SolarCity, committing $280 million from its coffers to finance SolarCity installations, namely solar rooftops for homes in North America.
Google Doodle
http://www.blogger.com/img/blank.gif
http://www.google.com/logos/2011/lespaul.html#tune=IAR1xrg0PodcODaAAAdYuxUy5nSNgA**
Monday, June 13, 2011
Sunday, June 12, 2011
Walt Talks About iCloud With Charlie Rose
This week, post-WWDC keynote, Charlie Rose sat Walt down to discuss the implications and impact of Steve Jobs’s iCloud announcement, and of cloud computing in general. In clip one, Walt lays out cloud computing basics. In clip two, Rose asks Walt about Jobs’s vision of the “post-PC” era.
Twenty Feet lets you know more about your social media stats
I love Twenty Feet. Every morning it sends me an email and lets me know if something weird happened in my stats for Twitter, Facebook, YouTube and other places. For instance, did more of my videos get favorited than usual? Did more people subscribe or unsubscribe than usual?
Here CEO Martin Seibert explains more behind what TwentyFeet does and shows off a preview of a new iPhone app coming soon.
Twimbow brings color to social media
Twimbow looks a bit like TweetDeck, but look again and you'll see a colorfully different approach! By using colors you can uncover tweets and status messages from people and brands you care about. Here Luca Filigheddu, CEO of Twimbo, shows me what it does and what his philosophy is behind social media clients.
Apple to Lodsys: Now, Youse Can’t Leave
Apple to Lodsys: Now, Youse Can’t Leave
JUNE 10, 2011 AT 1:00 PM PT
Lodsys has really stepped in it now.
Apple has filed a motion to intervene in the patent infringement lawsuits that the patent holding company has brought against seven iOS developers, a move that could add significant legal heft to their defense.
Filed in the Eastern District of Texas, the motion explains that developers who’ve been targeted by Lodsys “are individuals or small entities with far fewer resources than Apple and … lack the technical information, ability, and incentive to adequately protect Apple’s rights under its license agreement.”
So Apple would like to intervene on their behalf.
“While the Developers will likely be interested in resolving this case as quickly and inexpensively as possible, Apple’s interest is in protecting its broader license rights with respect to thousands of App developers for Apple products who may be the subject of future Lodsys lawsuits or threats.”
In other words, Lodsys, which has been harassing independent developers who lack the means to fend off its litigation, may soon find itself grappling with Apple legal, which is an ugly, ugly proposition indeed.
The situation reminds me of a scene midway through “A Bronx Tale” in which a group of bikers disrespect a local Mafia don’s bar (video below). When asked to leave, they refuse. The don walks over to the door, locks it — trapping the bikers inside, turns to them and says, “Now, youse can’t leave.” A group of heavies emerges from the back of the bar and beats the bikers senseless, while this narration runs in the background.
“I will never forget the look on their faces. All eight of them. Their faces dropped. All their courage and strength was drained right from their bodies. They had a reputation for breaking up bars, but they knew that instant, they’d made a fatal mistake. This time they walked into the wrong bar.”
If the court grants Apple’s motion to intervene, Lodsys may have just done the same.
JUNE 10, 2011 AT 1:00 PM PT
Lodsys has really stepped in it now.
Apple has filed a motion to intervene in the patent infringement lawsuits that the patent holding company has brought against seven iOS developers, a move that could add significant legal heft to their defense.
Filed in the Eastern District of Texas, the motion explains that developers who’ve been targeted by Lodsys “are individuals or small entities with far fewer resources than Apple and … lack the technical information, ability, and incentive to adequately protect Apple’s rights under its license agreement.”
So Apple would like to intervene on their behalf.
“While the Developers will likely be interested in resolving this case as quickly and inexpensively as possible, Apple’s interest is in protecting its broader license rights with respect to thousands of App developers for Apple products who may be the subject of future Lodsys lawsuits or threats.”
In other words, Lodsys, which has been harassing independent developers who lack the means to fend off its litigation, may soon find itself grappling with Apple legal, which is an ugly, ugly proposition indeed.
The situation reminds me of a scene midway through “A Bronx Tale” in which a group of bikers disrespect a local Mafia don’s bar (video below). When asked to leave, they refuse. The don walks over to the door, locks it — trapping the bikers inside, turns to them and says, “Now, youse can’t leave.” A group of heavies emerges from the back of the bar and beats the bikers senseless, while this narration runs in the background.
“I will never forget the look on their faces. All eight of them. Their faces dropped. All their courage and strength was drained right from their bodies. They had a reputation for breaking up bars, but they knew that instant, they’d made a fatal mistake. This time they walked into the wrong bar.”
If the court grants Apple’s motion to intervene, Lodsys may have just done the same.
Big Live: fostering real-time interactions around content
Producers of online video content are always looking for ways to get their audience more involved and more engaged beyond just leaving comments. By leveraging the social network, Big Live is providing a solution that fosters real-time discussion among audiences.
"Big Live is a synchronous video platform," explains Jonathan Zakin, President, CEO & Co-Founder of Big Live. "It's a social network built around the idea of sharing experience around viewing content that you enjoy with other people. We've looked out there at the other video platforms that have basically a chat room next to a player, and they approach that problem through the player side. We approached it through the social networking side. We built a social network around that, and so as a result, you have a very immersive social experience around this content."
Big Live recently released a widget that allows content providers to embed the app into other sites or their own site using an iframe. Users can still view the content anonymously, but you must log in using Facebook Connect in order to socially interact. Once you have logged in, you can see everyone else that is also viewing that content simultaneously, you can roll your mouse over the audience and see the profile of individual audience members, and you can sort the audience members based on several criteria.
"You can sort on age, location and gender and whether or not they are Facebook friends of yours," says Zakin. "Once you do that, you can begin to interact with them in real time around that synchronous video experience either through group chat or through a one-on-one chat, so if you find somebody in the crowd that you're interested in talking to, you can take them offline and chat with them that way. We're trying to emulate going to an event, turning to the person next to you and saying, 'Hey, this is very cool.'"
Saturday, June 11, 2011
MovieClips Raises $6M To Curate And Mashup Scenes From Movies
Online movie clips site Movieclips.com has raised $6 million out of a $7 million round, according to a recent SEC filing. The startup has previously raised $3 million. We’ve confirmed the new funding with the company.
Movieclips.com, which launched in 2009, offers a clip engine with over 14,000 different clips from 1,400 titles from the libraries of 20th Century Fox, MGM, Paramount, Sony Pictures, Universal Pictures and Warner Bros. Pictures. Last year, the startup also launched a new product, called Movieclips Mashups, at TechCrunch Disrupt in New York, which allows anyone to make montages of two minutes clips.
Along with the studio partnerships (which is half the battle for licensing movie content), the company has also developed proprietary technology that assigns up to 1,000 points of data to every scene, making it super easy to find scenes by actor, film title, dialogue snippet, mood, director, genre, etc.
The site also launched a specialized video player and features an API developers can use to integrate Movieclips on other sites; AOL’s Moviefone actually uses the technology on its platform.
Google vs Apple: The Cool Factor [Video]
http://www.google.com/logos/2011/lespaul.html
Earlier today I was invited to do a quick guest spot on CNBC’s Power Lunch, where we discussed a question that’s fundamentally important to the future of Silicon Valley: Who is cooler, Google or Apple?
Okay, so the topic was a bit goofy. But that doesn’t mean there’s nothing to it: after all, public perception can play a role in how quickly products from each company get picked up by new users, which in turn can impact their bottom lines.
Tune in to hear my thoughts. Because if there’s a guy who knows cool, it’s me. Oh, and there’s an interview with the folks who made the awesome Les Paul Google Doodle gracing the search engine’s home page today. You can watch that one here:
Earlier today I was invited to do a quick guest spot on CNBC’s Power Lunch, where we discussed a question that’s fundamentally important to the future of Silicon Valley: Who is cooler, Google or Apple?
Okay, so the topic was a bit goofy. But that doesn’t mean there’s nothing to it: after all, public perception can play a role in how quickly products from each company get picked up by new users, which in turn can impact their bottom lines.
Tune in to hear my thoughts. Because if there’s a guy who knows cool, it’s me. Oh, and there’s an interview with the folks who made the awesome Les Paul Google Doodle gracing the search engine’s home page today. You can watch that one here:
Thursday, June 09, 2011
Google Earth, Columbia University Map Seafloor Area Bigger Than North America
Thursday marked World Oceans Day, a United Nations effort to “raise global awareness of the challenges faced by the international community in connection with the oceans.”
「兩岸皆中國軍」 退將登陸失言？
現在的兩岸關係，既不是敵人，也不是朋友，經濟、觀光、甚至血緣都密不可分，可是一扯到主權和尊嚴，馬上你是你、我是我，今天退役將領是否赴陸失言這個話題，再一次牽動了這條敏感的神經，編輯台時間邀請到聯合報大陸中心記者陳東旭來探究。
About : Expeditionary Learning
Expeditionary Learning from Expeditionary Learning on Vimeo.
Over the course of our 17-year history, we have grown from a small adventurous group of ten schools into a network the size of a substantial urban school district.
Wednesday, June 08, 2011
Wednesday Was A Good Day (Official Jawbone JAMBOX Music Video)
What would Ice Cube's "Good Day" have looked like if Cube had a SOMA loft, a fixed gear bike, and a boatload of apps? You're about to find out.
http://jawbone.com/jamchain
Inspired by Ice Cube's original: http://youtu.be/QWfbGGZE07M
Starring
Hasan Minhaj: youtube.com/hminhaj
Featuring
Ashkon: youtube.com/ashkeezy
Strawburry17: youtube.com/strawburry17
The Black Nerd: youtube.com/blacknerdcomedy
Cyr: youtube.com/cyr1216
Jimmy Wong: youtube.com/jimmy
SupRicky06: youtube.com/supricky06
KEEPtheHeat: youtube.com/keeptheheat
Asian Glow: youtube.com/asianglow
Turf Feinz: youtube.com/statussilver
Daveed Diggs: youtube.com/getacknews
Written, Produced, and Directed By:
Portal A Interactive: http://portal-a.com/
Lyrics:
Just wakin up in the morning gotta thank Jobs
I dunno but today seems kinna odd
Hella email, got no spam
All these fools straight obsessed with my instagrams
Morning fitness on the Wii, you know I do
Girls textin me as I rock a Warrior Two
JAMBOX blastin' so you know I packed it
Forgot to lock up the bike, nobody jacked it
Organic produce to my door all pre-pay
Damn. Bout to be a nice little Wednesday
CHORUS
Thirty minutes late but my game's still tight
Got a blast that the boss is at an off-site
Now it's feet up, time to chill
Angry Birds cause I always got some pigs to kill
Troubleshooting for the cuties, that's my joint
Backrubs as I re-install her PowerPoint
My deal's almost tipped, could use one more
You want in on a self-guided Segway tour?
Sixty deep for the line at the taco truck
Guess what? The intern's gonna let me cut
Going nuts on the guac, extra layer
They show respect cause they know that I'm the mayor
On a conference call and I'm feelin no stress
This thing's wireless, act like you're not impressed
Closing deals from the Valley to Bombay
Turnin' out to be a nice little Wednesday
CHORUS
Later on in the evening got it going off
Sick wine and cheese rager up in my loft
Keds so fresh, they know not to step
Don't call it plaid, it's a gingham check
Get me in the game and I'm trouble
Droppin bounce shots in and they countin double
Camera phones flash when we take the tourney
Now put your head back and move it like Bernie
Checked my hip and got a re-tweet from AK!
Gotta say it's been a nice little Wednesday
Media Contact
Katie Boysen
Jobs To Cupertino: We Want A Spaceship-Shaped, 12K Capacity Building As Our New Apple Campus
After having a banner WWDC start yesterday, Apple founder and CEO Steve Jobs humbly presented his idea for a new Apple campus at the Cupertino City Council today. Jobs wants to build one building that will hold 12,000 Apple employees on a former Hewlett-Packard property in the area between Tantau North Wolfe, Homestead and the 280 freeway.”It’s a little like a spaceship landed,” Jobs says. No kidding.
Jobs began the presentation referring to the fact that Apple is growing “like a weed,” and that its current campus at D’Anza and the 280 isn’t enough — fitting only about 2,800 people. Apple currently rents buildings to house its other 6,700 employees in the area. The new building will augment the current campus.
Paving the way for these plans, Apple purchased about 100 acres from Hewlett Packard in 2010 and added them to the 50 it owns adjacent. Jobs says he has corralled “some great architects … some of the best in the world” to come up with a design that will house 12,000 people in one four story high building on the property. The area is now mainly apricot orchards.
With the futuristic design Apple apparently is relying heavily on its experience building retail stores, and it will be creating one massive piece of curved glass if the proposal goes through. “There’s not a single straight piece of glass in this building,” Jobs says. The parking will be underground.
Jobs also wants the building to function as its own power source, with an “energy center” as its primary source of power (“with natural gas and other ways that are cleaner and cheaper”), using the grid as a backup.
The campus will include amenities like its own auditorium similar to Apple’s current Town Hall (“We’ve got an auditorium, cause we put on presentations, much like we did yesterday but we have to go to San Francisco to do them.”) and a cafeteria that will feed 3,000 people at one sitting.
“We do have a shot at building the best office building in the world,” Jobs told the Council members, “Architecture students will come here to see this.” Ideally Apple wants to move into the campus in 2015.
The individual members of the Cupertino City Council seemed like they were in awe the entire time the infamously charismatic Apple CEO spoke (which isn’t surprising), asking Jobs for free Wifi and iPads for constituents as well as for an Apple store that’s actually in Cupertino and not in the Valley or Los Gatos. Jobs shyly responded to the requests, “I think we bring a lot more than free Wifi.”
Key facts about the new Apple campus:
Design will include a courtyard in the middle and curved glass all the way around.
Jobs is planning on transforming an area that’s 20% landscaping to 80% landscaping by putting most of the building’s parking underground.
There are 3,700 trees in the area at the moment, Jobs has hired an arborist from Stanford to take the area up to 6,000 trees.
The plan is to build a four-story high building and four-story parking structure.
The campus will incude an energy center, and natural gas will be the primary source of power, using the grid as backup.
There will be an auditorium, fitness center and some R & D buildings.
Jobs plans a 40% increase in Apple employees going from 9,500 today to 13, 000 in 2015.
He wants to increase the campus’ space 20% from 2.6 million to 3.1 million square feet.
Landscaping will increase 60% from 3,700 to 6,000.
Surface parking will decrease 90% from 9,800 to 1,200 .
The building footprint will decrease 30% from 1.4 million to 1 million.
Cafeterias will fit 3,000 people at a sitting.
The whole building will be designed with the utmost concern for employee safety.
Apple currently has 20 buses running on bio-diesel fuel for its employees and Jobs thinks that system will work well with the new campus.
The plan for the new design will submitted asap. Jobs hopes to break ground next year and eventually move in 2015.
Tuesday, June 07, 2011
Nanodot-boosted LCD
Nanodot-boosted LCD
Nanosys's Quantum Dot Enhancement Film does two things: It really boosts the color of a traditional LCD display, offering "OLED color depth without OLED power consumption and OLED price," and it proves that quantum mechanics isn't a dusty old physics concept with no real-world applications. It's been around for a while but at the Society for Information Display conference, Nanosys just showed their tech hacked into an existing iPad design to show off its powers, and revealed it's actually coming to market in a "mobile device" from a Korean firm in late 2011--is this the new screen tech for Samsung's Galaxy tablets and smartphones?
Apple WWDC 2011 Done as a Song
song-a-day one thousand... and beyond
Hi! My name is Jonathan Mann, and I've been writing, recording, producing and uploading a song a day since January 1st, 2009. On September 28th, 2011 I'll be reaching my 1000th song a day song.
It's been an incredible time in my life, full of interesting people and places and experiences.
Ultimately, though, there's been one crucial aspect of the creative process that's been missing: Collaboration. I have a ton of really talented musical friends, many of whom I play music with regularly, but they all have jobs and, you know, lives! Because of the blisteringly fast pace of one song (with a video) every single day, it has been virtually impossible to bring other musicians into my process.
the project
With all that in mind, and to celebrate 1000 days of Song-A-Day, I'm going to invite all the musicians I know to come help me shape and create 30 songs in 30 days for the month of June. We'll have a live stream set up so you'll be able to watch as the creative process unfolds over each 24 hour period. At the end of the month, you'll be able to vote for your 10 favorite songs, and the tracks with the most votes will end up on the 1st official Song A Day album which will be released on September 28th!
the more the merrier
In addition to all the musicians who will be coming and going (including the guys from my band: Nic Kaelin, Sam Douglass, Norman Famous, David Douglas and Eric Yeargan) there will be 4 core team members who will be with me all-day every-day, helping me with the nuts and bolts of recording, arranging and producing. They are as follows:
Nick Krill and Thomas Hughes (of The Spinto Band) will travel to Berkeley from their homes in Delaware. Nick is an amazing guitar player and a great recording engineer. Thomas is a wonderful multi-instrumentalist; with whom I have a long history of collaboration. My friend Matt Payne (of the Glowing Stars) is also a multi-instrumentalist and a wonderful producer and arranger. Liam McCormick (of The Family Crest) is going to write string arrangements for the songs.
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