Photos have always been at the center of the Google+ experience and at I/O today, Google announce a major update to Google+ Photos that now makes use of the many of the tools the company acquired when it bought Nik Software last September. The focus of this update is squarely on automating a lot of the photo editing and sharing process. Google+ can now, for example, automatically enhance the tonal distribution in an image, soften skin, sharpen certain parts of an image and remove noise – and all of those computations happen in the cloud.

As Google’s Vic Gundotra told us before the event (and reiterated today), “you don’t take a photograph, you make it.” Users spend thousand of dollars to make photos great, he noted, but photography is still labor intensive and organizing photos is often still a hassle. “It takes time, and most of don’t have the time,” Gundotra said.  But what if Google’s data centers could be your darkroom?

So what if Google could automatically fix your image sand pick the best ones and highlight them automatically? That’s another new feature the company is launching today. The system can now analyze your images and kick out blurry photos, duplicates, images with bad exposure (which it will try to fix). It can also recognize good images with certain landmarks, for example, and detect faces and see if people are smiling and/or of those people are in your Google+ circles. It will also try to make some decision based on aesthetics. What used to take hours of work, Gundotra said, now happens automatically in the cloud and take seconds.

Using all of this, the system can make greenery pop, soften skin tones, clean up the color of the water and apply local enhancement to contrast and other features automatically. It can also automatically remove red eyes. Users can, of course, apply all of these enhancements separately as well.

The original images, of course, always remain untouched and users can easily toggle back and forth between the enhanced version and the original.

Now that Google offers everybody 15GB of free storage, users an also upload 15GB worth of full-size images to Google+ Photos. In addition, the autobackup feature provides unlimited storage space for photos at sized under 2048px.

Auto Awesome

In today’s age of animated GIFs, the Google+ team also decided to get in on the game – but with a twist. The system – which is apparently called “Awesome” – can automatically detect when an image is part of a series and stitch it together in one image or an animated GIF. “If we detect that you took a series of photos, in burst mode or otherwise, we can stitch them together,” Gundotra told us. To recognize these images, the system does a bit of analysis to make sure the background hasn’t moved.

This is about more than animated GIFs, though. This new feature – which Google calls “auto awesome” – can also automatically create a group photo from a series of photos and pick the one where everybody is smiling. It can stitch together landscape photos to create panoramas and create HDR images from a series of photos where it detects bracketed exposures. All of this happens extremely fast, too, thanks to the power of Google’s data centers.

All of these features are going live today and Google has already gone back and created “awesome” images for all of your existing photos in Google+.

Article courtesy of TechCrunch

Editor’s note: Anthony J. Lombardi practices patent litigation and patent prosecution at Finnegan, Henderson, Farabow, Garrett & Dunner, LLP. He also provides counseling to clients on prelitigation strategy, portfolio development, patent monetization, and licensing activities.

A clear legal standard for determining patent-eligible subject matter remains elusive. On Friday, the Federal Circuit, in CLS Bank International v. Alice Corporation, ruled that an invention involving software for a computerized trading platform does not constitute patent‑eligible subject matter. The decision — which spanned 135 pages — by a 10-member en banc panel of the Court included seven separate opinions, but not the clarity many had hoped for.

Alice’s computerized trading platform patents were at issue in the case. Those patents describe a process for two parties to exchange obligations, such as stock trades, which are then settled by a trusted third party.

The focus of the legal proceedings was Alice’s patent claims. Positioned at the end of a patent, claims are numbered sentences that define the scope of protection afforded by the patent. Among other requirements, the subject matter of a claim must comply with section 101 of the patent laws.

Section 101 defines patent-eligible subject matter and reads: “Whoever invents or discovers any new and useful process, machine, manufacture, or composition of matter, or any new and useful improvement thereof, may obtain a patent therefor, subject to the conditions and requirements of this title.”

Alice asserted a variety of its patent claims in the case, including claims written in method, system and computer-readable-media claim formats. However, Alice’s asserted claims generally share the same underlying premise — that of software for exchanging obligations between parties through a computerized trading platform and using a third party to handle settlement of the exchanges.

What Guidance Did the Court Provide for Software Patents?

A majority (seven of the 10 members) of the Court concluded that Alice’s method and media claims are not directed to patent-eligible subject matter. The Court split 5-5, however, on Alice’s system claims. A split means the lower district court’s ruling, which found Alice’s system claims patent-ineligible, stands. A majority (eight of the 10 members) also agreed that Alice’s method, media, and system claims should rise or fall together when determining patent eligibility.

The majority consensus ends there. A majority of the Court, however, failed to reach agreement on the reasoning behind these conclusions.

Judge Lourie, in an opinion joined by four judges (Judges Dyk, Prost, Reyna and Wallach), found all of Alice’s asserted claims drawn to patent-ineligible abstract ideas.

In his view, Alice’s method claims are directed to nothing more than the abstract idea of reducing settlement risk by effecting trades through a third-party intermediary. This, he said, is a “disembodied” concept without any real-world application. Computer-related aspects of the claims — including steps for creating records to store data, using a computer to adjust and maintain those records, and reconciling those records at the end of a trading day — in his opinion failed to add anything of substance that would save the claims.

Judge Lourie similarly grouped Alice’s media and system claims in the same boat with Alice’s method claims. He characterized the media claims — although defining physical storage media — as nothing more than the same underlying method of reducing settlement risk “in the guise of a device.”

He then questioned whether structures found in the system claims—including “a computer” and “a data storage unit” — could justify a different approach for those claims. In his opinion, they did not. He reasoned that the computer-related limitations failed to provide any “meaningful distinction” from the computer-related limitations found in the method claims.

In a separate opinion, Chief Judge Rader said he would have found the system claims patent eligible. Three judges (Judges Linn, Moore, and O’Malley) joined in that part of his opinion. In Chief Judge Rader’s view, the issue was “whether a claim includes meaningful limitations restricting it to an application, rather than merely an abstract idea.”

Applying that rationale, he reasoned that the structural limitations in Alice’s system claims (e.g. limitations drawn to “a computer” and “a data storage unit”) brought those claims into the realm of patent-eligible subject matter. However, in the remainder of his opinion (which only Judge O’Malley joined), Chief Judge Rader concluded that Alice’s method and media claims are patent-ineligible abstract ideas.

Judges Linn and O’Malley, in a separate opinion, said they would have also found Alice’s method and media claims patent-eligible for the same reasons expressed in Chief Judge Rader’s opinion regarding Alice’s system claims. Additionally, they noted that several technology companies, in amicus (friend-of-the–court) briefs, expressed concern about what they viewed as widespread proliferation and aggressive enforcement of low-quality software patents. In responding to that concern, Judges Linn and O’Malley said Congress, and not the courts, is the proper avenue for developing special rules for software patents. For example, they speculated that Congress could limit the term of software patents or devise rules for limiting their scope.

Judge Moore, in a separate opinion (in which Chief Judge Rader and Judges Linn and O’Malley joined), said she would have found the system claims drawn to patent-eligible subject matter. She also wrote that the uncertainty in court decisions over this issue is “causing a free fall in the patent system.” If all of Alice’s claims are not patent-eligible, she conjectured that “this case is the death of hundreds of thousands of patents, including all business-method, financial-system, and software patents as well as many computer implemented and telecommunications patents.”

In a separate opinion, Judge Newman shared the majority view that all of the claims stand or fall together. She would have found Alice’s system, method and media claims patent‑eligible based on the plain language of section 101.

Chief Judge Rader offered an additional opinion captioned “Additional Reflections.” There, he emphasized that the Court should focus on the language of section 101 and indicated it is unlikely that innovation is promoted by the subjective standards for evaluating patent eligibility expressed in the panel’s opinions.

What’s Next for Software Patents?

The Federal Circuit has ruled, but the dividing line between patent-eligible software and patent-ineligible abstract ideas has not come into focus. Some may say the landscape remains in a similar state as it was before the Federal Circuit’s decision: some software claims might rise to the level of patent-eligible subject matter and others may not.

The CLS Bank case is likely to undergo Supreme Court review. The Supreme Court may view the Federal Circuit’s fractured decision as an opportunity to consider software patenting again. Whether a clear dividing line will emerge remains to be seen.

Article courtesy of TechCrunch

Apple doesn’t care if competitors have cheaper products. It doesn’t care if its next big thing cannibalizes its last big thing. Not about buying big money-makers, and certainly not about how you think it should deal out stock. Today at Goldman Sach’s conference, Tim Cook played the defiant king of an empire too powerful to be distracted by the present or the past. All he sees is Apple’s future.

The Wall Street Journal has a great play-by-play of Cook’s hour-long talk, and we’ve picked apart the highlights. But what really matters is that Apple’s size and momentum give it a unique advantage in the tech world — the ability to make tunnel-vision an asset and not a liability.

Apple is too big to pivot nimbly. It’s a freight train going full-speed and Cook’s in the boiler room screaming at soot-covered engineers to shovel more coal into the burners. The iPad is crushing the tablet market, so Apple will make more iPads. The average Apple store earns $50 million a year so it’ll build 30 more, including in China and other international locations like Turkey. Shareholders love when Apple hands them money, and it’s got plenty, so it is returning $45 billion to them and ignoring the “silly sideshow” lawsuit about how it approves preferred stock handouts.

Cook knows the track is laid out in front, so he doesn’t need to nitpick the horizon in order to drive. Sure, there are cheaper smartphones out there, but the nagging schizophrenic voices are what really threatens Apple. Dividing resources to make a ‘good’ cheaper phone could prevent it from making what Cook considers far and away the best phone.

If it holds that spot, there will be plenty of customers, because he believes the market will double in the next few years. ”Our North Star is great product,” so that’s the direction it will keep heading. If you want a cheap iPhone, buy the old model. And you don’t actually want a screen with the most pixels, or a computer with the fastest processor, or a camera with the most megapixels. Cook foams “Does it matter? You want a fantastic experience….the truth is, customers want that a-ha moment.”

The suit & tie attitude for big businesses is not to build products that cannibalize your existing ones. Apple’s a turtleneck tech company, though. A tie-less Cook said on stage that “Our basic belief is, if we don’t cannibalize, someone else will.” So if it sells fewer iPhones or iPods because it makes an iWatch, fine. Better than people buying a Samsung Galaxy Watch S 7 or Google Time, or whoever tackles the wrist eventually. People thought Apple was crazy for making the iPhone when its iPod business was doing so well. Crazy like a fox. Crazy like a honey badger. Honey badger doesn’t care.

And finally, you’re not going to see Apple shaking in its boots about some big revenue-generating business and buy it. It’s got its own roadmap and acquires companies to make the magic happen faster and stronger. Cook said “If a large company could help us, then that would be of interest.” Otherwise, the cash stays in the bank. Or more specifically, foreign tax shelters.

That doesn’t mean there aren’t dead-ends for Apple to crash into, or problems in the engine room.

Ignoring the landscape only works if you keep guessing right, and human crystal ball Steve Jobs isn’t around anymore. Maybe smartwatches aren’t what’s next and Google Glass style eyewear is. A big mobile product blunder could throw Apple off the track real quick.

The biggest lie Cook told today was that “Apple has skills in software.” Judging by Google’s invasion of our homescreens, Apple’s software skill is sorely lacking. If smartphone hardware tops out and handsets become more of a shell around software, Apple could sees its locomotive start to sputter.

But Cook seems keenly aware that the greatest dangers to Apple are slowing down or getting distracted. “We’re disciplined and thoughtful” said Cook, with his eyes on the prize. Jobs was heralded for his focus, and most people worried that no one else could keep Apple in line the same way. Today, Cook looked Wall Street dead in the eyes and made it clear he won’t flinch. He won’t waffle. He doesn’t care.

Cook is the honey badger, googoo g’joob.

[Image Credits: Amazing Creature, Business Insider / Owen Thomas]

Article courtesy of TechCrunch

TenHands, a company that offers video collaboration as a service for web and mobile applications, just announced that it now supports WebRTC, the increasingly popular standard for making audio and video calls inside the browser without the need for a plugin. The TenHands API will now automatically use WebRTC when it detects that the user is running Chrome 24 and above.

By default, TenHands always installed its own WebRTC plugin for browsers that don’t fully support it yet, so developers don’t have to worry about interoperability. The bet TenHands is making, of course, is that it will be able to just leverage every browser’s built-in WebRTC capabilities. Given that most of the major vendors are betting on WebRTC, that’s probably not that far off, though Microsoft has its own ideas for how the standard should develop. With Skype, Microsoft obviously has a stake in this race, too, so it will be interesting to keep an eye on how the standard discussions will develop over the next few months.

As TenHands’ COO Jack Blaeser told me earlier today, he believes this is “a significant step toward democratizing video, breaking down the barriers of closed islands and reshaping the landscape of communications for the likes of AT&T, Verizon and Skype by enabling any user or application to run HD video and voice from their existing browser without discriminating to those with special hardware or software endpoints.”

In Blaeser’s view, native real-time audio and video calling will also enable “a host of exciting and new use cases.” Call centers, he says, will be able to escalate a web or mobile interaction to real-time video and voice when needed. He also believes WebRTC could play a major role in making distance learning and telemedicine simpler and spur innovation in these fields. “In the same way the browser revolutionized the way we access information 15 years ago, WebRTC promises to enable the browser to become a primary mode of video and audio communication and will reshape the billion dollar communications market.”

TenHands also notes that it is “the first software and flash-free real-time commercial video solution” to leverage Google’s WebRTC implementation, though it’s worth noting that other video platforms like Twilio, Plivo and TokBox also currently offer various WebRTC-based services, but most of them are still in beta.

TenHands was founded in 2011 and has remained somewhat under the radar since then. As WebRTC is quickly becoming a hot topic, however, that will likely change over the next few months. To celebrate the launch of the native WebRTC implementation for Chrome, the company is holding an API hackathon on February 9 where developers can compete for about $4,000 in prize money.

Article courtesy of TechCrunch

Editor’s note: Sameer Mehta is the CEO and co-founder of 12Society, along with celebrities Nas, Michael Strahan, Nick Cannon, Tim Lincecum, Blake Griffin, and Kevin Love. Follow him on Twitter @SameerSociety.

I recently had a chance to sit backstage at a sold-out Nas concert and listen to him talk about his upcoming tour dates and all the stories that come with it. It was a pretty cool moment for a young entrepreneur who grew up a Nas fan. However, it wasn’t all play. Between sets and amid screams of the crowd, we reviewed the mockups for our new site design and specs of featured products.

Nas is a 12Society co-founder, and his image and insights are an integral part of the success of our young business. As one might imagine, though, Nas and 12Society’s five other celebrity co-founders have pretty crazy schedules, so bringing the boardroom to each of them is a small price to pay to have access to their genius.

When collaborating with celebrities for business, you’ll be expected to go places and do things you wouldn’t ordinarily do. In return, you’ll find that you’re getting way more than just a pitch person. Many of them possess knowledge and experience with situations that most traditional entrepreneurs have never envisioned. Winning a gold medal and releasing consecutive platinum records takes the same entrepreneurial spirit as a young, college grad joining an incubator.

I have been fortunate to help change the landscape of e-commerce with their help, and have come across many things that I think will help early founders looking to involve their business models with talent. Here are some factors to consider when trying to land the perfect celebrity endorsement.

Find The Right Person

A dicey celebrity-product endorsement can be disastrous to your credibility, as forcing a user to stomach an awkward connection speaks down to his or her intelligence. You want your celebrity to be an aspirational figure in the communities your company is looking to target — someone who embodies the spirit of your branding.

The process of finding celebrity co-founders for 12Society was a rigorous one. We are a subscription-based lifestyle company for men, where customers receive a monthly box of products selected by our celebrity curators. Image for us is everything. Bring the wrong celebrity into the mix, and we risk alienating our subscriber base.

To remain a celebrity today means you’ve been deemed interesting in the face of unprecedented, multi-platform competition. Since we are attempting to literally box coolness each month, it was imperative to find celebrities not only at the forefront of cool, but whose coolness projected well into the future.

Once we found the right one, others soon followed. When NFL legend Michael Strahan signed with 12Society, it was like having a celebrity endorsement for other celebrities. NBA superstar and 12Society co-founder, Blake Griffin, mentioned “if Michael is in, I’m in” when we approached him about the partnership. That’s the power of lasting social capital.

Mine For Diamonds In The Rough

If landing the A-lister of your dreams is not initially feasible, whether because of lack of access or lack of funding, remember that celebrity stature is relative. The explosion of niche means there are lot of people who wield incredible influence among small communities, be it a parenting blogger or a YouTube sensation. Reaching out to micro celebrities can yield a really high-quality endorsement — and at a great price point. Partner early with the right micro celeb, and your brand is in on the ground floor with the next big thing.

Know Where To Look

Established entrepreneurs, particularly in Los Angeles, have often amassed several high-profile contacts. Tapping into your social circles for an introduction to the right celebrity is certainly an ideal opportunity; granted, the chances your buddy knows the perfect candidate to endorse your brand aren’t particularly high.

I’ve found great success in pitching directly to talent agencies. As tech companies and e-commerce startups continue to demonstrate success, agencies are becoming more receptive to seeking these types of opportunities for their clients. Agencies have also become increasingly aware that, as businesses and entertainment become more niche, commercial endorsements from multinationals are much harder to come by. Plus, getting an equity stake with the right startup can offer long-term financial stability, as well as immediate boost to their client’s profile.

Make An Offer They Can’t Refuse

Offering equity or co-founding stake not only sweetens the pot for celebrities you’re trying to partner with, but it will empower them to go the extra mile for you if they do. Athletes and actors are very competitive by nature. The same passion that fuels them to be successful in their respective realms will often translate to their business ventures, especially if their image is inextricably linked to your brand.

Our celebrities with 12Society, for example, aren’t going to put something in a box going out to thousands of people if it’s going to reflect poorly on their sense of style. In the process of celebrity recruitment, we sought people with well-noted passions in fashion, style and technology.

Aligning your company with a celebrity whose off-camera hobbies coincide with what your business offers will certainly make the pitch easier. Also, tailoring your pitch to demonstrate ways in which your company can complement his or her side projects is a major bonus.

Part of our pitch to Nick Cannon was how 12Society was a natural vehicle for him to promote his NCredible headphone collaboration with Monster. Once we got him on board, we were floored by the amount of energy he put into working with us.

Remember The Team

Giving equity to a manager or agent of a celebrity may feel like too big a step for your company. Getting the celebrity motivated, as well as the people around him, will get you a better outcome. Go through the process and see if you can pinpoint that key person – then make him your influencer.

A celebrity endorsement no longer means mere brand association. A socially savvy star can directly drive customer acquisition. And if all your stars align, your business will truly begin to shine.

Article courtesy of TechCrunch

Legal startup Judicata today announced a $2 million investment round from Peter Thiel, David Lee, Keith Rabois and Box founders Aaron Levie and Dylan Smith. The company wants to build better research and analytics tools for lawyers, in a way that dramatically changes the landscape of legal software, which Judicata founder Blake Masters describes as “notoriously inefficient and outdated” in a blog post announcing the news.

Judicata’s mission is ambitious, which is likely why it hasn’t been undertaken in quite the same way before. Masters argues that previous attempts have only addressed symptoms and offshoots of the problems facing legal software and how it works for lawyers. Instead, the startup wants to take the mass of unstructured data represented by the body of case law that exists, and turn it into something structured, searchable and fully, properly indexed for targeted use. Judicata’s mission involves what it calls “mapping the legal genome,” which is a fancy way of saying it hopes to combine algorithmic, machine learning approaches to ingesting the mass of legal data and turning out something useful with careful human review to guarantee the accuracy of results.

Masters uses Palantir as an analog, comparing that software’s ability to parse data to identify patterns that can help a human analyst make informed decisions to what its software can do for practicing lawyers. So it’s not a magic bullet, or an infallible virtual lawyer bot, but instead a refined tool that goes beyond clumsy approaches like full-text keyword search of archived PDF versions of paper decisions. Judicata will help lawyers by providing them with reasonable expectations about how, given the history of precedent available, decisions could or likely will go, and what they can do to sway the course of that probable ruling to make it more in line with their own desired outcome.

The Judicata team, besides having some big-name early investors on board, also boasts impressively-skilled co-founders including Itai Gurari who helped build Google Scholar’s legal search. It’s still keeping product under wraps, but the fact that it has raised this funding without even a shipping product reflects the size and potential of the problem it aims to address.

Article courtesy of TechCrunch

As the Internet begins its Kremlinological reading of Tim Cook’s recent interviews (and make no mistake that these interviews are a calculated effort to brush away multiple company missteps), let’s explore what his point, the dream of Macs Made In America, means for the company and, more importantly, the renaissance of manufacturing in the U.S.

Building stuff in America isn’t hard, and it’s happening right now. I’d recommend listening to this Planet Money story about manufacturing in South Carolina and the growth of smaller factories across the country. We are building stuff, to be sure, and Apple is right to hitch its wagon to the Made in America slogan. They have, in the past, taken many lumps for real or perceived problems in Asian factories. By placing their factories in America, however, we deal with a set of problems that could overwhelm the benefits.

First, for Apple to say they are building in the U.S., there is a parallel requirement that their biggest supplier, Foxconn, also follow suit. This is apparently happening as we speak and Louis Woo told Bloomberg that the company is happy to do more in America because customers ask for it.

However, Apple said they will spend $100 million next year to build Macs here. I don’t think I would be exaggerating if I said that $100 million is probably Foxconn’s quarterly budget for employee lunches in Shenzhen. That kind of money can outfit, potentially, one factory outside of a major transportation hub which would allow components to flow freely onto the assembly lines from sources overseas and local.

This, then, is the second problem with building in America. When building at scale, manufacturers need plenty of parts on hand. To make a million iPads over a few months requires an immense capital investment as well plenty of employees. Foxconn does this by hiring inexpensive but increasingly restive labor and having suppliers close at hand. The chain of suppliers is difficult to track but rest assured the mess they’re making of the environment in Shenzhen will be a major problem for China down the line. What happens if, say, Apple builds a factory in Oakland or Brooklyn or Detroit (or, more likely, some rural community where the company can build a new facility) and hundreds of small suppliers pop up. The halo effect of this big “get” for that city will cause suppliers to line up for warehouse space and manufacturers to attempt to do the same. An Apple factory in the U.S., a visible one that is branded and discussed in the press, can change many ecosystems overnight.

The third problem is cost. My grandfather worked at Wheeling Steel and my grandmother sewed gloves in Martins Ferry, Ohio. These jobs won’t be like those. As Woo notes:

To build out manufacturing here requires a different type of worker, one trained with a solid STEM education and with an understanding of complex systems. There are a plethora of those workers in Foxconn’s Chinese factories, but the vast majority of the workers are just assembling, a job that will soon go to robots. But a Mac made in America is not a boon to the unskilled laborer. It is a boon to the college graduate.

There are still computers being made in the U.S. Dell has factories in Austin, where they build profitable servers and Apple builds some of its chips here. If Apple did anything in the U.S., it would probably be the manufacture of high-margin, high-cost desktops that require a great deal of specific, customer-driven tweaks. Rob Beschizza is betting on products like the Mac Pro – premium products for a smaller group of discerning consumers. Building a million iPods a month in Scranton, Penn. doesn’t make sense. Building 100,000 Mac Pros a month there, though, makes perfect sense.

In the end we’ll have to see whether Cook is really blowing smoke or serious about Made in America. I’m not jingoistic about where my hardware comes from, I just want it to be solid, fairly priced, and the workers should, at the very least, be given a living wage. But Apple could breathe new life into the mouldering industrial parks that dot our landscape where companies with less imagination thrived once and then died.

[Image: Flickr]

Article courtesy of TechCrunch

It’s really a rather curious thing that the most popular devices in the world right now are, arguably at least, the best designed. Not to cheerlead for Apple, but we can all agree that whatever their faults, the original iPhone and the iPhone 4 (from which the slightly disproportionate 5 has descended) are impressive examples of one-upping the competition in both material and industrial design.

In a way, it’s a bit like if the most popular car in the world were a Lamborghini instead of a mass-market compact. Except, of course, that part of the draw of a Lamborghini is exclusivity. If everyone owned Lamborghinis, they would likely be seen as pedestrian. That’s the paradox of the iPhone’s success — high design coexisting with ubiquity.

But the lustre of the iPhone is diminishing, partly because of a lack of imagination on Apple’s part, and partly because of three other factors.

First, there is a massive and continuing migration onto smartphone platforms in places where the iPhone has little cachet. That the iPhone could be considered a Western affectation is potentially a huge block to uptake in expanding markets like India and China. This is a complicated, unpredictable, global economic thing and not at all what I wanted to talk about, but there it is.

Second, mass manufacturers of poorly-made widgets, which have sold hundreds of millions for decades, are slowly becoming aware of the necessities and realities of a “premium” product, which is another name for something that isn’t garbage. So you have the likes of the latest Nokia and HTC devices. The movement away from disposable electronics is a slow and strange process, and is also not exactly what I want to discuss, though it’s part of it.

Third is the incredible improvement in decentralized product creation. It’s things like the Ouya on Kickstarter, the Shine on Indiegogo, and a hundred other devices and pieces of kit. These are made possible by the wide availability of design and prototyping equipment, and the ability to insert themselves into a process that was once uncomeatable (I am bringing this word back).

What the teams do is abstract only the portion of the productization process that is necessary for their purposes. Previously something like a mobile phone could only be created by a large, vertically-integrated company like Samsung. And really, that’s still true. A Samsung-like entity is necessary for the creation of a mobile phone. So is a Hon Hai, and an aluminum mill, and a shipping company, and an oil refiner… the list, like the minimum viable society in Plato’s Republic, quickly grows when you consider everything that’s involved in making and delivering a product.

There’s no way a Kickstarter project is going to create everything from scratch. But what they can do is cherry-pick from a list of requirements the items that they think they can improve on. You can’t remove Sony from the equation if you want image sensors, but that doesn’t mean Sony has to make the camera. Or Nikon, or Apple, or whoever.

To get to the point: When you remove the aged, inefficient, and rather inherently unhip design departments of the big companies, like Sony and Samsung, and put their tools in the hands of talented and motivated individuals or groups, you change the landscape immensely.

What a small team has is not just the singularity of vision to create a unique and desirable product, but the choice to do things on whatever scale they choose. This is important. It costs millions — hundreds of millions — for a large company to launch a device. They produce five million to start and lock up entire factories for months at a time, saving fractions of pennies per unit to maximize margins. They’re like tech industry Glamazons: they won’t get out of bed for less than a $100 million a quarter.

Meanwhile, the consumer class has been turned into a creative class, and you have teams on Kickstarter whose goal in life is to sell a thousand devices to a niche audience who will pay through the nose for anything made with them in mind. Furthermore, to bring things back around, such devices have the added benefit of exclusivity. The long tail (and haute couture) is coming to manufacturing with a vengeance.

Artisanal, free-range iPhones

Fans of William Gibson will have already intuited where I’m headed. In Idoru, one of the characters has a highly custom and personalized computer made by a group called Sandbenders. “They melt old cans they dig up on the beach and cast it in sand molds. These panels are micarta. That’s linen with this resin in it,” she says.

Gibson’s remarkable prescience in these matters is proved once again. Years ago, when Idoru came out, such a device was very much a fantasy — how could some beach tribe make a computer? Today, it’s a business model, albeit with some significant restrictions resulting from the monopolies of a few large companies on things like processors and display modules. Ten people can now reach an audience of ten million, and refine from that an ultra-concentrated, self-selecting market of ten thousand. And by cutting out the middle man, they can imitate the long-tail success of small businesses selling via eBay or Kindle. The increasing mobility of currency will only accelerate this process.

All these factors amount to a powder keg under the feet of the companies that make and sell items on the scale of millions. A lot has to happen before Sandbenders is possible, and it’s not like Sony and Apple will suddenly lose all their business to a legion of basement-dwellers cooking up custom phones in Maya. Nevertheless, we’re approaching one of those points that Apple has been so good at exploiting, but to which it is now (as an iconic and ubiquitous brand) vulnerable. The point when people realize what they want, and find that no one is providing it.

The fact is that the enormous growth in consumer numbers and diversity has not been matched with a corresponding growth in product diversity. The illusion of choice presented by a handful of companies offering one-size-fits-all options is being exposed for what it is, as devices and services become increasingly personal.

Unimaginative offerings devised to fit the needs of millions, offered by an aristocratic class of companies who have only each other for competition. How long can it last? History suggests their way of doing things must adapt or die. We don’t really care which.

[image: The Hamlet - The Forge]

Article courtesy of TechCrunch

Talk to 500 Startups’ Dave McClure about what’s important for his seed fund and accelerator going forward and, it’s not just about finding and supporting whiz-bang entrepreneurs, it’s supporting entrepreneurial and ecosystem growth outside of the U.S. Many of the top accelerators in the U.S. have been working to expand their programs and networks at home and abroad before the accelerator bubble bursts.

Adeo Ressi and Founder Institute are of the same mindset and, in many ways, they have a head start on the international front. In December of last year, Founder Institute already claimed to be the largest accelerator (in terms of graduates), with over 20 percent (100+) hailing from overseas.

Since then, FI has been continuing its expansion march, doubling its presence in Europe during the month of October, for example, by launching chapters in Croatia, Finland, Rome, Ukraine — on top of those already existing in Germany, France, Belgium and The Netherlands. This puts the early-stage startup accelerator on pace to launch over 250 European companies in 2013, which it hopes will begin generating 1K new jobs/year. Today, it has over 660 alumni worldwide.

However, many Western minds (and media outlets) tend to overlook innovation happening outside of Europe, specifically in the Middle East. And to be fair, there’s good reason that the Middle East, at least traditionally, hasn’t been seen as a hotbed for startups or technological boundary-pushing. In fact, as Mehrunisa Qayyum recently pointed out, the Middle East is now wrestling with its reputation as being, instead, a hotbed for clones.

However, this isn’t necessarily a bad thing, Qayyum continues. And she’s right. As I’ve written about the fast-growing Peak Games (a Turkish social gaming startup), there’s big opportunity for startups, mobile developers and entrepreneurs in localizing everything from games to Groupons for the Arab World — and beyond. Look at how Peak Games is doing it.

Just because one is taking a successful format and applying it amidst a different cultural backdrop, doesn’t mean it’s blatant copy-and-past porting. Peak Games has been gobbling up local engineering talent and game development houses to help it build original titles for an Arab market that put a local spin on formulas that have worked well for Western gamers. Either way, this localization is a good place to start, even if originality is the end-game for Middle Eastern and MENA-based innovation.

These is the type of discussion (and the types of lessons) Founder Institute is attempting to produce as it quietly rolls out across the Middle East. In conversation with FI Founder Adeo Ressi, who just returned from a whistle-stop tour across Europe and the Middle East, where the startup accelerator is already operating a chapter in Tel Aviv Israel and has recently launched new chapters in Istanbul (Turkey), Riyadh (Saudi Arabia) and Alexandria (Egypt). It is also currently developing chapters in the United Arab Emirates (UAE) and Oman.

“The Middle East is particular interesting to us,” Ressi says, “both because it collectively has a young population that’s growing fast and is increasingly literate in web and mobile tech as well as the fact that young, entrepreneurially-minded people in these countries have traditionally been underserved and overlooked by incubation and accelerator programs.”

What’s more, historically, parts of the Middle East also have embattled relationships with supporting female entrepreneurship, women’s rights and roles in business. While the landscape is still far from ideal, things are beginning to change and Ressi says that Founder Institute sees huge potential in these countries for female founders.

While its Middle Eastern initiative is still incipient, the founder is optimistic because in the case of its chapters in Egypt, Oman, Turkey and Saudi Arabia, Founder Institute has been invited into each country by the state as a way to promote the growth and stability of tech innovation. Again, the founder sees this as an opportunity to encourage women to put on entrepreneurial hats and to help accelerate those already-existing female-led enterprises in the region.

“Our goal is to get to a place where 50 percent of our graduates are female,” Adeo says — a goal they’re already nearing in Israel. It’s not going to be easy, as women often face a greater number of obstacles in starting a business everywhere, especially in the Middle East, he says, but you can argue that the extra effort will lead those who are willing to try to even greater success.

And while challenges lie ahead, change is coming. “If there wasn’t an opportunity for women in the Middle East,” Ressi tells us, “we wouldn’t be there.”

500 Startups recently funded its first Middle Eastern startup called Jeeran — a Yelp for the Arab world — and for more info on startup initiative and support in the Middle East, check out these two posts.

Article courtesy of TechCrunch

Facebook just gave its iOS users some features that could make their Android friends jealous. Apple lovers can now upload multiple photos at once, give Gifts, and slide out a buddy list of who chattable. There’s still no photo filters, though. Here’s a look at the new features in v5.1, and what I think will be added in the next release. Update: There are reports of serious bugs, so consider waiting for a patch before installing.

Tell A Photo Tale

Multi-photo uploading is by far my favorite feature of any photography app. It’s why I’ve been using Facebook Camera rather than Path, Twitter, or even Instagram. By sharing several photos at once, you can tell a story. Take a photo of the landscape where you are, a portrait of who you’re with, and a close-up of what you’re doing, then share them all at once right from the primary Facebook app.

What’s Next? Photo filters. They’re in the Facebook Camera app already. The delay may be that Facebook is looking at which filters are the most popular on both Camera and Instagram, and what photography issue the filters on these apps aren’t addressing. Once it chooses a concise set of the best filters, expect them to be added to Facebook for iOS and Android. It will probably want to get this update out the door before Twitter launches its photo filters.

Give

Facebook launched the Gifts beta in the US at the end of September. iOS users could unwrap Gifts they received, but only Android and web users could actually buy and send them. Now iOS users can buy Gifts too through the composer on friends’ walls, which means Facebook could start making more money on mobile. iOS users may also see stories about each day’s birthdays and options to buy those people Gifts at the top of the news feed.

What’s next? A dedicated Gifts section of the app available from the navigation menu. This might show the day’s birthdays, engagements, marriages, plus other people celebrating, and let you buy them Gifts.

Real-Time Talk

Facebook for iOS has had a Chat buddy list…it’s just been buried in the navigation menu under the Apps section that otherwise houses third-party products. Most people probably didn’t even know it was there, and opening it was a pain. Now you can swipe left at any time to see which friends are online on the web or available for Chat via mobile.

The app automatically puts the people you Chat with most in a section at the top of your buddy list. You can also edit a Favorites category atop the buddy list  to quickly check if your most beloved homies are online. Beneath Favorites you’ll see a list of the rest of your available friends. Sure it avoids redundancy, but I find it annoying that people in my Favorites don’t also show up in the full list. That means you have to check both if you forget who’s a Favorite.

What’s next? Messages search, and better access to your Other inbox. Facebook recently redesigned the web version of Messages to make it more like full-fledged email client, and I expect the bigger focus on search to be ported to mobile. Facebook might also make it easier to check your Other inbox where it hides messages from people who are friends or friends of friends.

And after that? The next really big thing from Facebook in mobile is likely to be the speed update to its Android app. Facebook cut load times in half for its iOS app in August by ditching HTML5 in favor of a more native architecture. It said the Android speed update was on the way, and at this point it’s well overdue.

Facebook for iOS 5.1 is now available in the App Store. However, there are reports of bugs preventing login, and that cause the news feed to load wrong, so considering waiting for a patch before you install version 5.1.

Article courtesy of TechCrunch