In the near future, the only difference between a smartphone, tablet, and a laptop will be the size of the screen. Hardcore gamers could play 3D intensive games in a smartphone, and Michael Bay could render “Transformers 4″ from his iPad. Otoy, an LA-based software company, has discovered a way to stream any application to any device, completely through a web browser. It’s difficult to overestimate the potential disruptiveness of Otoy, as a breakthrough streaming service could, in the near future, end the need for app stores and computer upgrades (see a demo below).

Otoy has a habit of impressing the tech press with its surprising ability to stream 3D intensive graphics to devices that shouldn’t be able to run them. Since Otoy’s 2009 demo, there’s been a rush of companies in the ever more crowded “cloud” services industry, such as Onlive’s streaming video gaming. Up until now, video games were shackled to certain consoles, mobile apps to particular app stores, and software to particular operating systems. If we didn’t own an iPhone, Windows, and or an Xbox, we couldn’t use a lot of cool applications.

But, every device runs Internet browsers, and specifically, the JavaScript which Otoy utilizes to render the software. Soon, the monopoly that iOS, Windows, and Xbox wields over users will end, and the freedom to use any piece of software on any device will become the norm.

Even cooler, we may no longer need to shell out $3,000 on a high-end laptop to run games or graphics software. At Otoy’s media event with Mozilla and Autodesk at San Francisco headquarters, we saw the graphics-hungry first person shooter, Unreal, run seamlessly on an iPhone. In essence, Otoy brings a supercomputer to your phone or tablet.

“That’s going to have huge implications in my business” said celebrity talent agent and Otoy investor, Ari Emanuel, who sees the ability of more filmmakers to make movies in less time and for less money. Currently, it takes an entire day to render movie-quality scenes. With Otoy, globally distributed teams could work in real time (some at the beach) without having to stagger their work for an entire day between revisions.

So, how much will it cost if Otoy completely replaces my computer needs? About $300, estimates Urbach, based on 8 hours of use per day for consumer applications (Otoy charges by computing power and is currently targeting artists).

There is one more implications of note: Otoy could dramatically reduce Internet congestion. Cellular networks are overloaded, in part, because multimedia takes up a huge chunk of the available bandwidth. Netflix, alone, hogs an estimated 32% of total U.S. bandwidth during peak hours. Otoy and Mozilla estimate that the enhanced streaming technology could reduce the total bandwidth needs by a sizable 25%.

In order for Otoy, or any cloud rendering service, to completely service all our computing needs, the Internet must get much more reliable. At the demo, a standard 4G cell network could stream a video game. But, spotty coverage around cities, on airplanes, and in rural areas will be a serious bottleneck for Otoy. Additionally, it’s unclear whether current U.S. bandwidth could actually handle everyone moving to the cloud.

So, while we don’t know the implications in the short term, the implications a few years down the road are very exciting.

Article courtesy of TechCrunch

SmartAsset, a Y Combinator-incubated startup that built tools to help you answer tough financial questions, is expanding its offerings today with features for choosing the right neighborhood and the right mortgage.

Founder and CEO Michael Carrvin said that there are four broad stages to the home-buying process. The company’s initial product focused on the first part — whether it makes sense to buy a home, how much you can afford to put down, things like that. With today’s launch, SmartAsset now covers three out of four.

Carvin took me on a quick tour of the new features. As with SmartAsset’s previous products, the new features are structured around a question-and-answer format, with SmartAsset surfacing data that makes it easy for visitors to understand the implications of their decisions. On the neighborhood front, SmartAsset tells you things like the quality of nearby schools and the length of the commute. Some of this data is available on other sites, but now you get to see it in the context of the larger home-buying decision. Plus, Carvin said SmartAsset is the first site to incorporate data from Moody’s with investor predictions about the annualized change in home prices in a neighborhood over the next five years.

As for choosing mortgages, SmartAsset doesn’t just include a mortgage calculator, but also helps visitors wrestle with issues like whether they should buy mortgage points. (Carvin suggested that in many cases buying points is a bad decision.) And similar to other topics that SmartAsset addresses, Carvin said that most of the existing online mortgage aids are limited to “content and financial calculators.”

“Would you rather read about someone’s sister’s experience buying a house, or read real analysis about whether you should buy points and what mortgages you qualify for?” he said.

Carvin has plans to continue expanding the home-buying product, specifically by adding features to help close deals. At the same time, he said SmartAsset has formed a separate team that’s focused on building completely new products, revolving initially around car buying and going back to school.

Here’s the full list of new questions that SmartAsset answers as of today:

Section 2 – Finding the right home

1. What Neighborhood Is The Best Fit For Me?
2. Am I Overpaying for This House?
3. Will This Home Appreciate?
4. What Will My Commute Be?
5. What Do I Need In A Home?
6. What Type of Home Should I Buy?
7. Do I Need an Agent? How Do I Find One?
8. How To Make An Offer

Section 3 – Getting the right mortgage

1. SmartAsset Introduction to Mortgages
2. Mortgage Calculator
3. Should I get a Fixed or Adjustable Rate Mortgage?
4. Should I Buy Points?
5. Do I Need Mortgage Insurance?
6. How Will My Mortgage Amortize?
7. How Do I Get A Mortgage?
8. Do I Qualify For An FHA Mortgage?
9. FHA Loan Limits
10. VA Loans
11. VA Loan Limits
12. VA Loan Requirements

Article courtesy of TechCrunch

Word travels fast on the Internet. Especially when you don’t want it to.

Early this morning, DigitalRev (a hybrid blog/photography store/photo sharing social network) replaced a review of GoPro’s Hero 3 with the text of a DMCA takedown they’d received. “@GoPro is bullying us with DMCA. We’ll have to remove this article soon”, they tweeted.

According to DigitalRev, GoPro was claiming foul on the site’s use of the “GoPro” and “Hero” trademarks. (That’s ignoring that the Digital Millenium Copyright Act only applies to copyright infringement. Hence, uh, the name.)

Within a few minutes, the sharpening of pitchforks could be heard from all around. Tweets started pouring in pledging to never buy another GoPro product. Word of the notice shot to the top of r/photography, r/gopro, and a few other relevant sub-Reddits. People were angry.

I reached out to GoPro’s head of communications for confirmation and comment, who responded “Hey Greg, We are posting to Reddit.”

Er, weird. But okay. A few minutes later, this went up:

Hey all- I’m out at X Games Tignes right now with the Director of PR for GoPro. I showed this to him as soon as I saw it (it had 3 comments). He dropped everything to address this issue, and it’s an unfortunate miscommunication. Below is the blurb he just wrote out for my favorite GoPro community.

Thanks for the heads up on this issue. The letter that was posted next to the review on DigitalRev was not sent in response to the review. Obviously, we welcome editorial reviews of our products. This letter was sent because DigitalRev is not an authorized reseller of GoPro products and they were using images and had incorrect branding and representation of our product in their online commerce store. As part of our program – we ask merchants who are selling our product to use authorized images. That is why DigitalRev was contacted. But – our letter did not clearly communicate this and that is something we will correct.

tl;dr: Whoops — we weren’t trying to have the review taken down. We just didn’t want them using the images they were using.

GoPro quickly went into damage control mode, firing off links to their reddit comment to just about anyone who’d mentioned the matter. Expanding on their comment further, GoPro later tweeted that they only meant for them to take down the images being used in the sidebar:

@difficultnerd it's actually a positive review. The notice wasn't about the review: bit.ly/YrzFHN—
GoPro

U.K. telecoms regulator Ofcom is proposing to change the rules on fixed contracts for mobile, landline and broadband services to prevent providers forcing price hikes on existing customers. Ofcom’s current rules are open to interpretation — since comms providers only have to allow consumers to exit a contract without penalty when a contractual term change is likely to be of ‘material detriment’, leaving room for different interpretations of what constitutes ‘material detriment’.

Ofcom wants to clarify and simplify the rules, by proposing to allow consumers to exit a contract without penalty if their provider introduces any price increase during the term of the contract. The regulator also wants providers to be “clear and upfront” about the potential for price increases during a contract, as well as keeping them informed of their right to cancel the contract in the event of any price increase.

The proposed new rules follow a review conducted by Ofcom of the fairness of certain contract terms. Ofcom said it examined 1,644 consumer complaints about changes to terms and conditions during the period September 2011 to May 2012, adding that its analysis shows many consumers complained they were not made aware of the potential for price rises in what they believed were fixed contracts.

All the U.K.’s major mobile carriers have raised prices in recent months — with O2 the latest to announce mid-contract price rises last month, following similar hikes by Vodafone, Orange, T-Mobile and Three in the past 14 months, according to consumer advice publication Which?.

Ofcom’s preferred proposal is to modify its General Condition 9.6 to allow consumers to withdraw from a contract without penalty, if providers increase prices during the contract term but the regulator is also consulting on three other possible approaches to tackle price rises in fixed term contracts — including looking at

•  whether consumer harm could be addressed solely by tackling the current lack of transparency around the potential for price increases. This is considered alongside the possible need for guidance on how providers should interpret and apply both Ofcom rules and general consumer protection laws when making price increases
  
• whether consumers should have to actively ‘opt-in’ to any variable price contract

Ofcom is also considering the implications of maintaining the status quo but added that its current view is that these three options are unlikely to be sufficient to address the consumer harm it has identified.

The regulator also reveals it has considered a complete ban on price rises in fixed contracts but says it does not think this would be consistent with the European legal framework, so the option to ban mid-term contract rises has not been included in the consultation.

The consultation closes on March14,  2013 and Ofcom expects to publish a decision in June 2013.

Article courtesy of TechCrunch

Ever wonder what it would look like to travel at the speed of light? The folks at MIT’s education games lab have created a simple 3D simulator to teach the masses about the counterintuitive principles of one of physics’ most important concepts: special relativity. The professionally-designed, yet simple first-person game places users in a Lord of the Rings-looking town and slows down the speed of light as scattered light “orbs” are collected throughout the level (video below). The goal of the project was to make something familiar that was very unfamiliar: the laws of special relativity. What would they look like in a familiar setting?,” says Sonny Sidhu, A Slower Speed of Light’s Game Producer.

As the 100 orbs are collected, gamers increasingly experience counterintuitive principles of traveling near the speed of light

• The Doppler Effect – objects become more blue, red, or rainbow colored in accordance with the light spectrum
• Length Contraction – objects warp and bend in space
• The Searchlight Effect – “increased brightness in the direction of travel”
• Runtime Effect – the ability to see the past through the light that is yet to hit the eyes of those in the future

In total, the game took me about 14 minutes to play and seems like a worthwhile introduction to any serious discussion about special relativity. The educational value of the game, itself, seems more in motivating students who would otherwise dismiss a physics lesson as too abstract, or to attract creative-types to science. The math and concepts of space-time aren’t tackled, nor are the implications for scientific experimentation.

Staying true to MIT’s origins in the open information movement, A Slower Speed of Light will encourage other game designers, “targeted for release as a free, open-source package in 2013, to allow others to produce more simulations and games about traveling near the speed of light.”

If you don’t understand special relativity already, don’t expect to become educated after playing the game. But, if you’re interested in experiencing special relativity, the game will certainly satisfy that itch. Readers can download the game here.

Article courtesy of TechCrunch

Here is an unintended dark side to a search engine that only provides the information we want to see: it cocoons us in an echo chamber of political information that confirms our pre-existing opinions. Google competitor, DuckDuckGo, released a tiny study showing how Google’s personalized search yielded wildly different results on abortion and gun control, even for users that weren’t logged on to a Google service. “You search for raw information, but you’re getting more of what you already agree with,” says a clever advertisement from the company.

Since 2009, Google has pushed personalized search for every user, increasingly adding more data to tailor results, including location and search history. Google argues that personalization is essential, since the only way to know whether a search for “Taj Mahal” was for the building in India or the jazz musician, is to make an informed guess about the user’s intentions.

Personalization has unintended consequences for political information, where it’s commonly assumed that citizens need a balanced perspective–whether they like it or not. DuckDuckGo, however, found in a tiny study of 100 volunteers, personalized Google results for “abortion” yielded Obama’s stance on abortion for some, and information on pro-life activist, Gianna Jessen, for others. Political partisanship may thus be another unintended consequence of collecting private information.

The echo-chamber argument is not new. Legal scholar and former White House officer, Cass Sunstein, called this the “cyberbalkanization” (or “splinternet” if brevity is your thing). Research, however, finds that we’re not as aggressively partisan as some worry. Scholars who conduct large scale tracking of users news reading habits find little evidence of partisan information seeking (more research here and here). “There is no evidence that individuals abandon news stories that contain information with which they disagree. Implications and directions for future research are discussed,” writes Ohio University Professor, Kelly Garrett.

In Google’s case, personalized search is unintentional partisanship, which could result in a spiral of ever-more self-confirming information. DuckDuckGo would have to make the case that this holds up in experimental conditions and has an affect on civic knowledge and voting behavior. As we see above, it’s easy to make a theoretical article about the impacts of the Internet, but it’s quite another to prove they’re actually true.

Still, it’s worth studying, because the implications of personalized search could be very troubling for our democracy.

[Via Talking Points Memo]

Article courtesy of TechCrunch

Mike Daisey, noted fabulist, is back at his original theatre in DC, The Woolly Mammoth where he is holding encore presentations of his debunked – and now slightly rewritten – show about working conditions at Foxconn. Gone are the guards with guns, the fake crippled man who touched the totemic iPad, and the real/fake translator named Cathy. Daisey replaced those stock characters with a bit of self deprecating humor and, as far as I can tell, a few, clearer facts.

Here’s a brief review in the NYT. We’ve tried to invite Daisey back a few times to talk but near his spin-out he refused.

My problem with Daisey’s rise and fall and (slight) rise is that he told exactly the wrong story at exactly the right time. We are in a post “magic” era, when we are beginning to understand two things: first, that the business of making hardware is difficult, dirty, and boring and second that we have outsourced so much of our manufacturing might and we are trying to understand the implications of walking it back. Daisey built a fantasy that revolved around the idea of the Dickensian workhouse as written by Huxley. Realizing the banality of what manufacturing really was – long, boring hours spent doing the same thing over and over – he had to add dramatic spark. Sadly, he added too much.

Daisey’s play runs until August 5 and it’s my sincere hope that he’s done with it after that date. It’s no longer topical – when ABC takes cameras into Foxconn, you’re pretty much past the mainstream and into irrelevancy – and it’s definitely not true. While I agree that all workers everywhere should get a living wage, building a moral iPhone or Nexus 7 may cost us more than we can pay. Hardware manufacturers are strapped to a machine whose engine is commerce and whose fuel is neophilia. The machine has to move, no matter what any playwright has to say. How humanely it moves, however, is up to us.

Article courtesy of TechCrunch

Despite ominous warnings about “Facebook Depression,” an allegedly new mental illness of depression and anxiety caused by overuse of social media, a new level-headed scientific study reveals that social networks have not made 27% of teenagers chronically depressed. Researchers Lauren Jelenchick and Dr. Megan Moreno concluded that there was no association between feeling blue and Facebook use — even heavy facebook use — contradicting last year’s Academy of Pediatrics report warning parents to monitor their children’s social networking activity. “Our study is the first to present scientific evidence on the suggested link between social-media use and risk of depression,” said Jelenchick. The new findings are an important lesson to carefully review unscientific claims before freaking out.

The study randomly sent SMS survey questions to 190 University of Wisconsin students, asking them about their mental state, if they were online, and what they were doing. Even though students reported being on Facebook over half the time they spent online, depression screening results were not associated with social network use, no matter how much time they spent online. If fact, it would have been shocking had the study found any correlation, since roughly 1/3rd of teenagers check Facebook continuously throughout the day, yet there has been no epidemic of mental health issues since Facebook burst on the scene a few years ago.

Even though the implications of so-called “Facebook Depression” seemed to contradict a quick reality check, it didn’t stop the American Academy of Pediatrics from scaring news outlets into reporting its existance. “As with offline depression, preadolescents and adoles- cents who suffer from Facebook depression are at risk for social isolation and sometimes turn to risky Internet sites and blogs for “help” that may promote substance abuse, unsafe sexual practices, or aggressive or self-destructive behaviors,” read the official report. Yet a quick look at the citations reveals only one actual scientific paper, which discovered an association between online chatting about relationships and anxiety.

After Larry Magid questioned the author, she admitted that Facebook depression likely only affects a small group of children already headed towards clinical depression. “Maybe we’re misnaming it,” she said.

Article courtesy of TechCrunch

Google I/O is in full swing, and news has been pouring out at a fairly steady pace: Tony Stark Sergey finally demoed Google Glass, Google Drive passed 10 million users and is available on iOS, and we all got a look at Jelly Bean — to name a few.

Yet, overshadowed and buried in lengthy liveblogs is one piece of news that deserves some more attention — and it’s all about NFC. During yeserday’s keynote, Hugo Barra, the director of Android product management, revealed that Google is now shipping 1 million NFC-enabled Android devices every week. That’s pretty significant.

For some context, the company said that 400 million Android devices have now been activated, with activations currently flying in at a rate of 1 million per day. This means that phones with NFC built in represent nearly 15 percent of all new Android devices.

As a result, Android Beam, which was introduced with Ice Cream Sandwich, is getting some cool new features, including the ability to share video by way of NFC as well as the chance to pair phones to other devices just by tapping it. That’s pretty big, as it seems that, in spite of the arguments against NFC, the technology seems to be making it into a not-so-insignificant amount of devices people buy every day.

On the flip side, as Jay (and many other experts) remind us that, media chatter notwithstanding, NFC technology likely isn’t on the brink of ubiquity — that in fact it’s still four or five years from reaching critical mass.

This has been the general consensus for awhile now, and probably still holds. Unfortunately, despite great effort to the contrary, I can’t see into the future. However, it’s probably safe to say that Google’s disclosure is a prime indication of the fact that things could be changing far more rapidly than many had expected.

After all, Nokia recently launched its first Windows-based NFC phone, along with Orange, and Foursquare added NFC support to its Android app, to name a few recent examples.

But the tipping point for NFC may be on an accelerated timeline if, on top of Google’s NFC Android shipments, the recent rumors swirling around Apple’s plans for the iPhone 5 prove to be true. 9To5Mac reported earlier this week that it had managed to get its hands on some iPhone 5 prototype, which apparently reveal that the new phone will include an NFC chip and antenna.

Obviously, as 9To5 points out, the implications of this would be pretty huge, setting Apple up to launch its own mobile payment competitor to Google Wallet and Microsoft’s Windows Phone 8 feature and give iOS users an easy way to share files between devices.

If come October, when Apple is expected to reveal the new iPhone 5, it has NFC built-in, and Google continues shipping NFC-enabled Android phones at its current rate, that means that the major phones consumers will be buying will have this technology. As Jim Peters told 9To5, retailers might want to get ready.

Image Credit: Robupupu

Article courtesy of TechCrunch

Mobile photo sharing app Instagram made big news earlier this month when Facebook acquired the 13 person company for a whopping $1 billion. In response, SCT editor Paul Marsden wrote a post that asked what the acquisition could mean from a social commerce perspective.

In his view, there is no immediate connection, though he did posit some ideas for how such could evolve. Still, that hasn’t stopped big retail brands from using the app. Many, like Pepsico, Burberry, Starbucks, Gucci and Levi’s, have been doing so for some time, in fact.

A blog post by Blake Brysha, senior marketing manager at PowerReviews, contains some interesting insights as to the social commerce tie-in. He focuses on two main ideas: the web’s evolution as a curated media experience, and the use of user-generated media.

Photo sharing on social networks is a popular past-time. Facebook users share photos 6 billion times per month; Pinterest has upwards of 12 million users who do nothing but share images; Instagram’s 30 million users share more than 5 million photos per day. Brysha states that brands can benefit from this trend by incorporating such content into their e-commerce sites:

Photos and videos contributed by customers add authenticity to your content and allow users to get more intimately acquainted with your products through media from people like them.  In the same way that customers seek unbiased opinions to help guide their purchase decisions via customer reviews, community forums, and Q&A, user-generated images and video help users feel confident that they know exactly what they’re getting, before clicking “Add to Cart.”

He suggests three ways retailers can encourage customers to share photos:

1. Make it easy. Brysha recommends that retailers follow up with customers a few days after a purchase and invite them to share their experience through reviews, images, and videos. Make it easy for them to do so offering easy-to-use options to upload media taken on a smartphone, uploaded to Facebook or YouTube, or saved locally.

2. Make it fun. He suggests brands can “gamify” the experience using incentives such as points, badges, and other rewards.

3. Make it sharable. Provide the ability for customers to share images and videos with their friends on social networks. “After a customer has contributed something on your site, make it easy for them to share with their social networks, adding their experience with your products to their personal Timeline, and a permanent update with links back to your product page,” he says.

No doubt, there will be a lot of discussion about the implications of Facebook’s move, including what it means from a social commerce standpoint. When we hear it, you’ll be the first to know!

What other ideas might you have for ways Instagram can be used to foster social commerce? Leave a comment.