Ludovic Bostral : ludobos inside

Samsung: 'we are prioritizing our Android platform' originally appeared on Engadget on Thu, 02 Sep 2010 14:51:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Fora.TV has always been playing a dangerous game—trying to sell long-form online video about intellectual ideas. That’s like trying to sell sunblock to the cast of Jersey Shore. Fora calls itself Hulu for “the Thinking Man’s Web.” (There’s a Thinking Man’s Web?)

Eighteen months after closing its $6 million series A round and long time magazine editor Blaise Zerega took over as CEO, Fora seems to be grinding it out. The traffic has tripled and it’s now streaming about three million videos per month, mostly captured from conferences and high-level events. Those aren’t close to YouTube numbers, but considering the intellectually demanding content– think Timothy Geithner talking for an hour about the best ways to stimulate the economy—it’s impressive.

Despite its limited size, Fora has a few high-brow sponsors like Mercedes Benz who want to reach its rarefied audience. Conferences love it, because it gives them a sophisticated way to broadcast content to people who can’t attend. Anything they make is money that would have been left on the table otherwise. For instance, 150 people attended a talk by Stanford’s director of design earlier this year, but 500 people watched it live over Fora. Thirty days later more than 325,000 watched it. And this was just a talk about how some students set up an incubator at Stanford. It may not be a YouTube-sized business, but there’s clearly something there.

And, as of today, Fora has a new $5/month subscription to watch and download most of the videos without ads. The site still offers pay-per-view pricing for specific talks, too. Think of the business model like cable TV, Zerega says. There are basic packages and premium packages and stuff you pay for individually ala On Demand. Think of their content like the Discovery Channel. No doubt when it launched, media executives were saying, “People aren’t going to watch long form non-fiction content on cable! Shark week? Who cares about sharks?”

Everyone wants to post live video of their events these days, but it’s incredibly hard, expensive and time consuming to do well—something we’ve all learned getting TechCrunchTV up and running this summer. What gives Fora an edge is that it can do everything from filming a conference’s content to writing headlines and speaker bios to cutting the film into watchable DVD chapters and three-minute teasers to writing transcripts. And increasingly, Fora is working on distribution, trying to get that content available on as many platforms as possible. Already Fora is on Boxee and Comcast.

There are so many wonky, technical, tedious details in that process that most think-tank or university conferences just don’t have the staff or know-how to tackle. Put another way—maybe Fora doesn’t solve an obvious problem for millions of viewers (I have an hour to kill…..where can I find a lecture on free market economics?) but it does solve a big problem for thousands of conferences and event planners, who in turn will push that content to their constituents.

It’s no surprise Zerega was the managing editor of Wired during its “Long Tail” days.

[This post is by Dan Morrill, Open Source & Compatibility Program Manager. — Tim Bray]

Way back in November 2007 when Google announced Android, Andy Rubin said “We hope thousands of different phones will be powered by Android.” But now, Android’s growing beyond phones to new kinds of devices. (For instance, you might have read about the new 7” Galaxy Tab that our partners at Samsung just announced.) So, I wanted to point out a few interesting new gadgets that are coming soon running the latest versions of Android, 2.1 and 2.2.

For starters, the first Android-based non-phone handheld devices will be shipping over the next few months. Some people call these Mobile Internet Devices or Personal Media Players — MIDs or PMPs. Except for the phone part, PMP/MID devices look and work just like smartphones, but if your app really does require phone hardware to work correctly, you can follow some simple steps to make sure your app only appears on phones.

Next up are tablets. Besides the Samsung Galaxy Tab I mentioned, the Dell Streak is now on sale, which has a 5” screen and blurs the line between a phone and a tablet. Of course, Android has supported screens of any size since version 1.6, but these are the first large-screen devices to actually ship with Android Market. A tablet’s biggest quirk, of course, is its larger screen.

It’s pretty rare that we see problems with existing apps running on large-screen devices, but at the same time many apps would benefit from making better use of the additional screen space. For instance, an email app might be improved by changing its UI from a list-oriented layout to a two-pane view. Fortunately, Android and the SDK make it easy to support multiple screen sizes in your app, so you can read up on our documentation and make sure your app makes the best use of the extra space on large screens.

Speaking of screen quirks, we’re also seeing the first devices whose natural screen orientation is landscape. For instance, Motorola’s CHARM and FLIPOUT phones have screens which are wider than they are tall, when used in the natural orientation. The majority of apps won’t even notice the difference, but if your app uses sensors like accelerometer or compass, you might need to double-check your code.

Now, the devices I’ve mentioned so far still have the same hardware that Android phones have, like compass and accelerometer sensors, cameras, and so on. However, there are also devices coming that will omit some of this hardware. For instance, you’ve probably heard of Google TV, which will get Android Market in 2011. Since Google TV is, you know, a stationary object, it won’t have a compass and accelerometer. It also won’t have a standard camera, since we decided there wasn’t a big audience for pictures of the dust bunnies behind your TV.

Fortunately, you can use our built-in tools to handle these cases and control which devices your app appears to in Android Market. Android lets you provide versions of your UI optimized for various screen configurations, and each device will pick the one that runs best. Meanwhile, Android Market will make sure your apps only appear to devices that can run them, by matching those features you list as required (via tags) only with devices that have those features.

Android started on phones, but we’re growing to fit new kinds of devices. Now your Android app can run on almost anything, and the potential size of your audience is growing fast. But to fully unlock this additional reach, you should double-check your app and tweak it if you need to, so that it puts its best foot forward. Watch this blog over the next few weeks, as we post a series of detailed “tips and tricks” articles on how to get the most out of the new gadgets.

It’s official folks: we’re living in the future! Happy coding.

All of you ESPN Fantasy Football fanatics out there might have been gearing up for another season without an easy way to manage your team on your Android phone.  Well, thanks to an app called Huddlehub, you will now be able to import your Yahoo and ESPN teams and enjoy a complete management experience.
Here are [...]

HuddleHub to bring ESPN Fantasy Football to Android

More: continued here

Since Yammer launched as the “Twitter for businesses” at TechCrunch 50 in 2008, the startup has continued to improve on its already solid product, releasing mobile apps and new desktop clients, adding threaded conversations, and more. The fact is that in just under two years, Yammer, which we use at TechCrunch for internal communications, is being used by more than one million users and 80,000 companies worldwide (which includes 80% of the Fortune 500). That’s impressive growth for the startup, which has raised $15 million in funding and is doubling revenue every quarter. But the social enterprise arena is competitive with Salesforce Chatter, Jive, Socialcast and many others vying for a piece of the pie. However, Yammer is going to be releasing a new version of its application at TechCrunch Disrupt this fall which could be a game-changer.

The new Yammer will essentially turn the microblogging application into a full fledged social network. Yammer plans to add a number of applications to its platform that will increase its functionality beyond just a communications platform. An events application will allow you to invite co-workers to company or group events and track responses. Attendees can also download the event into their calendar.

An ideas application will help employees and administrators create, find and categorize the best ideas within a company. Employees can rank ideas through voting, and ideas can be created separately or can be promoted from existing conversations on Yammer.

Yammer is also going to be upgrading content sharing by allowing users to preview information in shared links. The startup has also added a Q&A app that encourages workers to ask questions and find answers from a database, and includes a polling application. Additionally, the new version of Yammer will allow users to assign a task resulting from conversations and track its completion, and will include the ability to tag content with topics, making it easier to find conversations by subject.

Another integral part of Yammer’s transformation into an open social platform is the ability to install third-party applications. Yammer will soon give third-party developers the ability to sell and create applications like those that Yammer will now offer. It’s similar in theory to the Google Apps marketplace.

In terms of communications functionality, Yammer is adding the ability to send Direct Messages to multiple parties, and a chat feature, which will allow users to create chat rooms that can be archived or searchable. Missed chats will automatically become direct messages.

A new Activity Feed will aggregate stories about co-worker actions within all of their enterprise apps (both on and off Yammer) and will allow users to follow content. And a new notification feed will alert users in real time about co-worker actions that affect them.

Yammer CEO and founder David Sacks tells me the feed is one of the key components of social networking and existing enterprise platforms have been built before the concept of a realtime feed. Yammer’s next-generation application, he says, will help enterprises create a social communications platform around data and communications.

In terms of the big picture view of the social enterprise, Sacks believes that the ability to create a go-to corporate social network is a Facebook sized opportunity. Half of the social web entails sites like Facebook and Twitter, explains Sacks, and the other half will be around enterprise social networking. And he makes it very clear that Yammer hopes to be the de-facto application for companies, both big and small, to use for their social networking efforts.

Of course, it’s safe to assume that either an existing social enterprise player, such as Salesforce, or even Google may want to purchase Yammer to boost their own offerings. Sacks says he’s received considerable interest in his company, but for now he wants to focus in creating the best product in the space. That, he says, is going to be the new version of Yammer.

Before we can even finish building our gingerbread house, Samsung’s already looking toward the future at Android 3.5 (otherwise unofficially known as honeycomb). Speaking at a Q&A session following the Samsung Galaxy Tab’s official unveiling, head of Samsung Mobile JK Shin commented on a question about future iterations of Android on their current offering. He confirmed that we would be seeing Android 3.0 on the Tab after the upgrade is available (but didn’t mention any timeframe, of course). He did state that Android 3.5 would be the underlying operating system for their next generation of tablets as a bonus answer, too, stating we’d see those sometime in 2011.

While I’m excited that Samsung’s looking to be the first out of the starting gate with honeycomb (it’ll push other manufacturers to keep up to speed, as well), my attention is still focused on devices still needing an upgrade to Android 2.2 (and 2.1, for that matter) as well as the yet-to-be-detailed Android 3.0 (gingerbread) that we should be seeing released sometime near the holiday season..

[via IntoMobile]

App store analytics provider Distimo yesterday published its latest report, once again zooming in on the pricing of mobile applications across a variety of platforms.

Consistent with its previous findings, Google’s Android Market has by far the largest share of free applications available compared to other mobile app store, but the gap is also widening.

In July 2010, 60% of all applications on Android Market were free of charge, representing an increase of 3% since May 2010 when it was 57%.

As you can tell from the graph below, that share is more than double the share of free apps on other mobile app stores, with the exception of Palm’s App Catalog (albeit barely).

The share of free applications is smallest on Windows Marketplace for Mobile (22%), followed by the Apple App Store for iPad (26%) and RIM’s BlackBerry App World (26%).

(click image for full size)

Let’s take a closer look at the prices of paid apps across mobile application stores.

Distimo posits that the average price of the 100 most popular apps in Android Market and Palm’s App Catalog is higher than the average price of the entire catalogue of applications.

While the average price of all applications is only 16% higher in the Apple App Store for iPad than in the App Store for iPhone, the average price of the 100 most popular applications is nearly three times as high in the former.

More than 60% of applications are priced below or equal to $2 in the App Store for iPhone, Android Market, Nokia’s Ovi Store and Palm’s App Catalog. The proportion of applications priced
below or equal to $2 is much lower in the App Store for iPad and Windows Marketplace for Mobile.

Notably, it seems prices of apps for iOS devices are on the rise. The proportion of paid applications priced below $1 on the Apple App Store for iPad and Apple App Store for iPhone has decreased in both in July 2010, from 30% to 25% and from 49% to 45%, respectively.

(click image for full size)

(click image for full size)

There is nothing worse than getting a FedEx tracking number late on a Thursday, knowing full well that your package will not arrive until Monday. Even as an adult, I'll still obsessively refresh tracking information, even when I know something won't be delivered for days. Still, that didn't stop me from tracking the Parrot AR.Drone all weekend, or getting up and looking out the window when I even thought I might have heard the sound of tires on gravel in the distance all day today. Surely any self respecting geek knows the feeling as they anxiously await their newest techno-toy.

The AR.Drone arrived mere moments ago, and after carefully opening the packaging I was greeted with the wondrous quadricopter that we've been drooling over since we first caught wind of it back at CES in January. Since then we've had a brief hands-on and later discovered that it would sell for $299.99 available for preorder through Brookstone.

In the demos we've been given in the past, we've never actually been able to touch the unit, only fly it around for a few seconds inside of the controlled environment of the Parrot booth at conventions. My first impression as I took it out of the box was just how amazingly light and delicate the whole unit feels. I suppose it makes sense that it's light because it has to fly, but it feels like nothing.

In the box with the unit is a brief quick start guide which explains to first charge the battery, how to install the battery, and the basics of getting the Parrot AR.Drone in the air. Like any impatient man child, I immediately installed the battery, and paired it to my iPhone which was as simple as downloading the free Parrot AR.Drone Free Flight app and connecting to the WiFi network it creates. After that, you launch the app, it connects to the quadricopter, and you're met with a screen that looks like this:

Unfortunately, since I skipped that whole "charge the battery first" step, the AR.Drone only flew for about 45 seconds before it ran out of juice. I'm currently impatiently waiting the light on the charger to flip from red to green, and daylight is fading fast. I hope to have some extensive video of how the unit works, how it is assembled, and flying it in the not too distant future. (All depending on how long it takes to charge of course.)

Following that, I'll be doing a full review of the Parrot AR.Drone, so if you have any questions that you'd like answered or anything you want me to do as I put it through its paces, post a comment on this story.

Something that immediately struck me was how awesome the device is at steadying itself, even with the breeze outside. In the video I am actively trying to get it to lose control, by having it bank in to the wind and the onboard flight controller just automatically leveled the quadricopter without any issues at all. Also, it's really cool how low it will fly to the ground, automatically adjusting its height as it goes up or down hills. Buzzing over the grass at about a foot off the ground was a truly impressive display of how accurately the AR.Drone can hold its altitude. While none of these things are really new revelations from our previous hands-ons at conventions, all of those were always indoors in a very small controlled environment with no winds at all. A part of me was expecting everything to fall apart once the AR.Drone got outside of the calm 10×10 Parrot tent on the show floor… But it performed flawlessly.

The strangest part about flying the AR.Drone is trusting the iPhone display over just watching it fly through the air and controlling it like a normal RC helicopter. This is even more disorienting when you notice that you can see yourself in the image. The AR.Drone is always controlled from its viewpoint, creating a brain-bending situation where you can see the device with your eyes, you in the devices eyes, and everything is backwards as you're facing it.

At demos in the past, controlling the AR.Drone seemed really easy, and it is when you're limited by about 10 feet in any direction. When you actually get outdoors, and have tons of obstacles to fly around, piloting the device actually seems to take a bit of skill– Even with all the automated flight systems it has.

Just as I was getting good, I was met with this yet again:

So far I'd really advise anyone who already had one of these preordered to buy as many extra batteries as you feel comfortable purchasing. Flying the AR.Drone is really cool, but having it run out of battery, then sitting and waiting for the battery to charge sucks just as much as it did when I was a kid waiting for the NiCD batteries of my various RC cards to juice back up before I could play again.

Panasonic and Sony show off new 3D products at the IFA 2010 consumer electronics show in Berlin

3D television has dominated the early agenda at IFA, Europe's largest consumer electronics show, with Panasonic and Sony both announcing flurries of new products and initiatives.

Panasonic showed off what it claimed was the first genuine 3D consumer video camera, the HDC-SDT750. This will allow users to shoot their own footage in 3D. Makoto Nagura, director of Panasonic's video camera business unit, said this would put 3D firmly into the hands of consumers.

"There is still one thing missing [today]...That is to keep your precious moments in 3D," Nagura said.

The SDT750 will go on sale in October. UK pricing was not available but it is expected to be priced at $1,399 (£908) in the US.

Most of Panasonic's press conference in Berlin was devoted to 3D – one indication of how keen the electronics industry is to persuade consumers that they should embrace the new technology, and spend considerable sums of money upgrading their home electronics set-up.

Alongside new 3D televisons and Blu-ray players, Panasonic also announced a new service to deliver 3D movies and films directly to users' living rooms. This could fix one of factors that is holding back 3D – a lack of content. Panasonic said that around 2,000 films would be available to be downloaded over a broadband connection to one of its TVs or Blu-ray players. News, sport and music channels would also be supported.

Hirotoshi Uehara, who runs Panasonic's TV business, told IFA that this 3D IPTV service would help to propel 3D into the mass market.

However, hefty price tags may continue to hold the technology back. One of the Panasonic TVs unveiled at IFA, the 42in TX-P42GT20, is available for pre-order at £1,499.

Epson also cast a cloud over the 3D euphoria in Berlin when it failed to show off a 3D projector. It took a much more cautious line than Panasonic, saying that the technology was not yet ready for mass adoption.

"When the market is ready, when the content is ready and when the technology is ready we'll be there," Jean-Marie Lacroix, commerical director of Epson Europe, told journalists.

Sony, though, took a very different view as it beat the 3D drum with considerable gusto. It claims to be the only end-to-end 3D provider, as it produces movies shot in 3D, the cameras that are used to film them, and TVs that people can watch them on.

Unlike Epson, Sony did announce a 3D video projector. The WV-90 will let consumers project a 3D film onto a wall, which could give a cinema-style experience.

The Japanese giant also had a prototype model of its first 3D-capable laptop, which chief executive Sir Howard Stringer said would be commercially available next year.

Like Panasonic, Sony is trying to increase the amount of 3D content on the market with a new television service. Stringer, who cited James Cameron's Avatar as a crucial factor in driving 3D forward, cautioned that film-makers should not rely on 3D at the expense of storyline.

"A hit is still a hit, is still a hit, except that in 3D it's a bigger hit."

Sony's entire press conference was filmed live in 3D and broadcast on a large screen. This, however, highlighted one of the other drawbacks to 3D broadcasting – that viewers need to wear special glasses.

Stringer, who described Sony as the "biggest engine" in the 3D train, also argued that the technology could be about more than just films and sport, and demonstrated this with footage of a performance by Chinese pianist Lang Lang.

Lang Lang himself then played live at IFA, telling the press conference that he was a fan of 3D as it let music lovers "get closer to us".

Ah ben voilà quelques publicités officielles de la boutique logicielle d’un opérateur coréen agitant le petit bonhomme vert comme j’aurais aimé en voir France.

Source : android.tworld.co.kr

Résumé : certains ont un mode de communication plus oral, d’autres plus écrit. De la même manière il y a des cultures d’entreprise plus ou moins latines. Avant même de parler de changer les modes de travail, force est de reconnaitre que les outils qui les supportent ne sont pas adaptés à toute une frange de la population pour des raisons de mode de fonctionnement personnels, voire à des zones entières du globe pour des raisons culturelles, pour qui le passage de l’oral à l’écrit est très difficile. L’entreprise 2.0 est elle condamnée de fait ? L’évolution se fera-t-elle au détriment de certains qui seront laissés au bord de la route ? Non parce que les outils vont dans le bon sens et s’”oralisent”. Mais l’évolution des outils sera-t-elle assez rapide pour se faire avant que certains ne se découragent ?

Etes vous oral ou écrit ? Et votre entreprise ? Nous avons tous nos préférences à titre personnel, certaines entreprises ont une culture forte d’écrit ou d’oral (certains dirons d’informalité ou de formalisme) et un travail efficace dépend déjà du fait que l’on trouver un mode opératoire commun entre collaborateurs ayant à travailler ensemble et qu’on soit à peu près cohérent avec la culture d’entreprise.

C’est tout sauf trivial. Prenez deux personnes qui ont une vraie envie de travailler ensemble, qui entretiennent d’excellents rapports humains, si l’un est dans l’oralité et l’autre dans l’écrit cela risque de poser d’incroyables problèmes au quotidien. Ou imaginez un manager de haut niveau qui rejoint une nouvelle entreprise, s’il est très oral dans une entreprise hyper formelle ou à l’inverse très formaliste dans une entreprise à la culture orale forte c’est loin d’être gagné d’avance.

Et tout cela n’est pas neutre dans la capacité d’une entreprise à changer ses modes de travail, à embrasser l’ère des réseaux sociaux. Ce qui vu sous un autre angle pourrait également se traduire par “l’entreprise 2.0 va-t-elle tuer les cultures d’entreprises orales” ?

Traditionnellement l’entreprise favorise l’écrit. Plus fiable, plus “engageant”, l’écrit reste alors que la parole n’engage que celui qui l’entend, plus “traçable”, plus à même de constituer une preuve le jour où on cherche ce qui n’a pas fonctionné. Il n’en reste pas moins qu’il y a des entreprises où l’on préfère se parler plutôt qu’écrire, où l’on privilégie le contact humain direct. Le DRH d’une grande entreprise de ce type avait, sur ce point, qualifié leur culture d’entreprise de “latine” lors d’une de nos discussions. Il en va de même chez les individus, à chacun son mode de fonctionnement de prédilection.

Le fait est que l’écrit est le mode d’expression par essence des outils et modes de fonctionnement dits “2.0″. Ce qui est facilement explicable :

- dès que l’on parle d’informatique, personnelle ou d’entreprise, et malgré le succès de Youtube, tout est plutôt pensé pour la saisie sur clavier qui reste notre mode de fonctionnement “par défaut” devant un écran. D’ailleurs se reposer sur Youtube pour prédire l’émergence de la vidéo comme média informatique de référence dans l’avenir serait une erreur : la plupart des vidéos qui y sont partagées par des utilisateurs visent à “montrer quelque chose” plus qu’à délivrer un message personnel et être l’acteur principal de la vidéo. On montre des choses en vidéos mais, proportionnellement parlant, on ne s’y montre pas.

- le texte est “cherchable”, indexable par un moteur de recherche. On ne sait pas encore capitaliser l’oral..sauf à l’écrire

- on peut survoler un texte pour en saisir l’essentiel alors qu’il faut regarder toute une vidéo pour en retirer quelque chose. Il arrive que je n’aie pas 10 minutes pour regarder une vidéo ou écouter un podcast mais, lorsqu’elle est disponible, je peux survoler la transcription écrite et en saisir les éléments clé, quitte à me dire qu’il faut y revenir de manière plus approfondie plus tard.

- le texte permet les échanges asynchrones, pas l’oral (quoi qu’on verra plus tard que ça n’est pas si exact).

- tous les postes de travail ne sont pas équipés en webcam…et quand je vois la rapidité de beaucoup d’infrastructures

Bref les personnes et les entreprises qui privilégient l’oral sont par définition peu à l’aise avec les nouveaux outils que nous leur proposons et je ne serais pas surpris d’apprendre que la difficulté à les amener vers un mode de fonctionnement différent n’est pas tant du à un refus de changer “personnellement” qu’à passer à un mode écrit. Il est d’ailleurs amusant de voir que cet écrit peu structuré qui est dit “informel”  par rapport aux autres formes de communications textuelles est déjà beaucoup trop formel pour les adeptes de l’oral.

Faut il en conclure que certains resteront à la porte des prochaines évolutions ? Qu’au contraire ces évolutions ne se feront pas car étant contre nature pour beaucoup (trop ?) de monde ? Ou que certaines entreprises y perdront leur “latinité” (d’ailleurs on peut se demander pourquoi les pays latins et du sud de l’Europe semblent avoir encore plus de mal que les autres…).

Oui et non.

Non parce que les choses s’améliorent :

- quelque chose me dit qu’avec l’arrivée de CISCO dans le jeu des acteurs de l’entreprise 2.0 il va y avoir une pression forte sur l’utilisation “intelligente”, efficace et pratique de la vidéo

- le microblogging semble être un substitut pratique à l’oral. C’est en fait l’”oral de ceux qui écrivent”.

- on a déjà vu dans le web grand public quelque chose d’extrêmement intéressant avec Seesmic Video.Outil jugé prometteur mais pas encore assez “mainstream” dans le grand public il a tout de la “killer application” d’entreprise car permettant de faire du conversationnel asynchrone en format vidéo court et de la manière la plus simple qui soit.

Oui parce que temps que tout cela devienne mûr, que les réseaux d’entreprise soient capable de tenir la charge en vidéo, que l’on conçoive des moteurs capables d’indexer et comprendre un contenu vidéo, il faudra encore patienter.

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Continue reading Samsung Galaxy Tab preview

Samsung Galaxy Tab preview originally appeared on Engadget on Thu, 02 Sep 2010 14:52:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Jobs suggests that competitors' device activation tallies may be inflated, Google quickly responds originally appeared on Engadget on Wed, 01 Sep 2010 23:23:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Dan Frommer / Silicon Alley Insider:
Here's The Difference Between Apple TV And Google TV  —  Steve Jobs' Apple TV announcement today highlighted the huge difference between his company's efforts in the living room and Google's forthcoming Google TV.  —  Specifically, Google wants to turn your TV into a computer.