By now, you have probably heard about the Liberator, a 3D printed plastic gun designed, assembled, and test-fired by Cody Wilson of Defense Distributed. Is it legal?

Last week, the State Department’s arms export office demanded that Defense Distributed remove CAD files for the Liberator from its website. Defense Distributed complied with the takedown letter right away, despite strong language on its website promising it would be “a home for fugitive information” and “No object file will be censored unless it is malicious software.” Predictably, it didn’t take long for the CAD files to make their way to BitTorrent, where they’ll be available forever.

Angle 1: Arms Control

It’s worth reading the letter from the State Department, which is only two and a half pages long. In a nutshell, the letter demands the takedown while it decides whether publishing firearms-related CAD files online violates ITAR. ITAR, which stands for the International Traffic in Arms Regulations, are rules that the State Department promulgated under the Arms Export Control Act. One part of ITAR is the United States Munitions List, which is a master list of products and technologies that can’t be exported without prior government approval under a licensing system. Because Defense Distributed didn’t seek an export license, there’s a problem.

Are CAD files munitions? The State Department believes the Liberator files fall under the Category I of the US Munitions List, which covers firearms and related “technical data.” Section 120.10 of ITAR says “technical data” includes “blueprints, drawings, photographs, plans, instructions or documentation” about “the design, development, production, manufacture, assembly, operation, repair, testing, maintenance or modification of defense articles” — so that appears to cover CAD files for guns.

Unsurprisingly, Defense Distributed is already saying (melodramatically) that it will fight the takedown demand: “It seems we may have to have our rights declared in court to simply keep developing gun files to put into the public domain. DD’s right to exist is being challenged.”

What will probably happen next is that Defense Distributed will apply for an export license, which the State Department will deny, and Defense Distributed will sue to get a judge to issue an order that the State Department can’t block it — and that is where things will get interesting.

Angle 2: Gun Control Laws

Because the Liberator is made mostly of plastic, Defense Distributed also has to contend with the Undetectable Firearms Act. This law, first passed in 1988 and renewed in 2003, makes it illegal to “manufacture, import, sell, ship, deliver, possess, transfer, or receive” any firearm that can’t be detected by x-ray machines. Gunsmiths with a federal firearms license (Wilson has one) can build guns to test them for compliance, but other than that, undetectable guns are completely contraband. Wilson packaged the CAD files with detailed instructions, including an admonition to DIYers to include a block of metal in a hole specifically included in the design for that purpose. It’s up to the person doing the printing to comply, though. If you don’t put the metal block in, you could be in big trouble. It is probably just a matter of days until the ATF or FBI start knocking on the doors of people who’ve already started posting pictures of their 3D printed guns online.

Notably, the Undetectable Firearms Act bans the atoms, but not the bits: you can possess CAD files for an undetectable firearm without violating it. That’s an easy legislative patch, but it will  run into free speech problems.

Angle 3: First Amendment Meets Second Amendment

I predict the Constitutional wrangling will focus on the First Amendment, not the Second. (For foreign readers, the First Amendment to the US Constitution provides extremely strong protections for citizens’ freedom of speech, and the Second Amendment provides a right “to keep and bear arms” — although the language is a mess and reasonable people disagree on how to interpret it.) This is going to spawn some strange bedfellows: I would not be surprised to see the NRA and ACLU on the same side in this fight.

Why is this a First Amendment case? One of the issues is whether the government can prevent citizens from publishing gun blueprints. A big gateway question, though, is how to characterize Defense Distributed’s CAD files in the first place. Is a CAD file expressive speech that should be protected, or a functional thing that should be regulated? This distinction is important because the government has tremendous power to regulate things, but far less power to regulate speech. When courts first started to come to grips with software, they came out on the side of protecting it as speech despite its functional aspects, but they might view 3D printing files differently because when you “run” them, you get things.

President Clinton’s Executive Order No. 13026 relaxing the crypto ban (more on that below) recognized the speech–functionality distinction:

Because the export of encryption software, like the export of other encryption products described in this section, must be controlled because of such software’s functional capacity, rather than because of any possible informational value of such software…

In addition to the CAD files themselves, there is also Wilson’s act of publishing them. Is the act of publishing a functional gun blueprint speech? Two Supreme Court free speech cases give a partial roadmap.

The first is United States v. O’Brien, in which the Supreme Court upheld a criminal conviction for burning a draft card. The Court found the defendant’s conduct was expressive, but still upheld his conviction because the law under which he was prosecuted — a prohibition on destroying draft cards — had justifiable military purposes that outweighed his free speech right. One could see courts today taking a similar path by finding that the government’s interest in controlling the flow of firearms and military information outweighs Defense Distributed’s right to publish gun design files.

The other is the Pentagon Papers case, New York Times v. United States. There, the New York Times sought to publish damning internal Pentagon documents about the Vietnam War. Even though the material was directly related to national security, the Court allowed the New York Times to go forward, finding the newspaper’s speech interest was greater than the government’s interest in preserving the confidentiality of classified information. The case helps Defense Distributed to the extent it struck down a prior restraint on speech, but publishing proof-of-concept plastic pistol blueprints is not in the same league as exposing government misconduct.

The Crypto Cases

This isn’t the first time courts have had to sort out the mess when innovation hurtled into arms control law and the First Amendment. The US Munitions List used to cover a wide range of cryptography software, a restriction only relaxed in 1996 by an Executive Order by President Clinton — who, even then, perhaps, realized the futility of censoring the spread of code. Before that, though, PGP creator Phil Zimmerman was criminally investigated, but never charged, for violating ITAR. The issue made its way to the courts in 1997 in Bernstein v. US Department of State, where Daniel Bernstein, a UC Berkeley computer science researcher, sued to be allowed to publish his cryptography research, which included working code. Judge Marilyn Hall Patel of the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California found that it was unconstitutional for the government to prevent Bernstein from publishing his crypto software. Judge Patel held that blocking Bernstein’s publication amounted to a prior restraint on his speech that violated the First Amendment.

Defense Distributed will likely follow Bernstein’s path. The State Department’s takedown demand probably qualifies as a prior restraint, to which courts are incredibly hostile. But the ability to download a file, press “Print,” and have gun parts come out could also tip some judges toward calling gun CAD files functional things and allowing the government to regulate them.

Just Because You Can Doesn’t Mean You Should

There’s more to this than law, however. There is also ethics and common sense. Even if you can publish 3D-printable gun blueprints, should you? What are the consequences of doing it?

Nobody in the 3D printing industry is going to thank Wilson for bringing heat from the State Department and Congress. Wilson’s stunt could well lead to new restrictions and regulations on the nascent digital manufacturing industry, even before it has had a chance to figure things out for itself. (Scaremongers like these clowns won’t help either.) And for what? The Liberator isn’t about to liberate anybody — it will probably melt or explode after one or two shots. Given the Bernstein case, even if he wins, Wilson may not even be breaking any new legal ground.

Article courtesy of TechCrunch

If there was any question as to Sebastian Thrun and Udacity’s resolve to re-imagine higher education in a more affordable, accessible virtual classroom — or their ability to actually make any real headway among the Ivory Towers of academia — we should probably just go ahead and put that to bed. This morning, Udacity continues to push forward with its plans to bring higher education online — and not just in bits, pieces and homework assignments. Following 2U’s lead, which set the ball rolling by pioneering the approach of partnering with graduate programs to go beyond asynchronous video learning to create custom, accredited full-service web and mobile-compatible graduate degree programs.

To date, 2U has worked with graduate programs in nursing, education, law, business and international, and today, Udacity took the next step — in what could mark an important moment for STEM education — announcing that it has partnered with Georgia Tech to jointly offer an accredited master’s degree in computer science, completely online. Not only that, but thanks to support from AT&T, the program will be offered for less than $7,000. So, really, this could be not just an important moment for STEM, but for MOOCs and online education as a whole.

The other point of note here is that Georgia Tech ain’t no safety school. According to U.S. News’ rankings of the best engineering schools in the U.S., Georgia Tech is tied for fifth place with Carnegie Mellon. So, it looks like Coursera and EdX aren’t the only ones providing online educational experiences with content from elite universities.

Furthermore, tuition (full-time, out of state) for Georgia Tech is $26,860 — which makes Udacity’s online degree look more than a little appealing in comparison. However, while anyone will be able to sign up and take Udacity’s Computer Science courses for free, only those actually enrolled at Georgia Tech will be able to earn credits towards a degree. The companies plan to launch a pilot of the program in the fall of 2014, beginning with a couple hundred students.

As for AT&T, it’s not exactly crystal clear what the company’s role in the partnership is, other than providing what the announcement calls “generous” support. Naturally, of course, AT&T Chairman and CEO Randall Stephenson thinks the partnership has transformative potential. He said:

We believe that high-quality and 100 percent online degrees can be on par with degrees received in traditional on-campus settings, and that this program could be a blueprint for helping the United States address the shortage of people with STEM degrees, as well as exponentially expand access to computer science education for students around the world.

Again, while the idea itself isn’t new, and Udacity isn’t the first to partner with an elite graduate program to provide quality education and an actual, graduate-level degree to students online, the quality of the academic program (and presumably its content), its focus on Computer Science, combined with its relative affordability and the ability to receive credit and complete a full, graduate-level degree online, is absolutely huge. Sure, the launch is still quite a ways off, which is at once makes the announcement perhaps a little bit premature, but is also evidence that they’re taking the development of this program seriously. No status quo.

This is also refreshing news, because, over the last year, there’s been a huge amount of buzz around massive open online course (MOOC) platforms, particularly around Udacity, Coursera, EdX and 2U, among a few others. With how much play MOOCs have gotten in education and in the media, it’s as if MOOCs are expected to employ some kind of techno-voodoo magic to totally “save” higher education from collapsing under its own weight.

Of course, since online courses are far from being new, some questioned just how innovative, effective (and collaborative) MOOC platforms actually are at the end of the day. And for good reason. Porting a lecture hall to YouTube or putting your professor in a Google Hangout probably won’t end higher education. At least, not on its own.

Is accessibility important? Yes, of course. But even in the traditionally offline world of higher education, “scalable” and “cloud” can only act as stand-ins for real “innovation” for so long before schools will want to see more. There still needs to be substantial proof that MOOC platforms offer a better learning experience (improve outcomes and retention rates), before higher ed simply turns over the keys to the kingdom.

Reservations aside, what Thrun and Udacity have done in a relatively short amount of time is impressive and everyone — not just teachers — should be keeping tabs. In January, Udacity already played a part in a potentially key symbolic moment for higher ed, as California Governor Jerry Brown approved a partnership with San Jose State University to create Udacity-powered, low-cost and lower-division online classes.

This was significant because it was really the first time a MOOC platform has been tapped to build a complete, automated (remedial) class experience online — let alone state-wide at the largest university system in the world.

As of April, the pilot had seen 85 percent retention going into midterms. At time time, EdSurge noted that it’s not the 100 percent retention rate Thrun has boasted about previously, but it’s not a bad start.

In the big picture, it may not seem important, but retention rates are critical for online courses and course platforms. If entire remedial classes are being automated/flipped, they need to be more effective than their offline counterparts. (Un)fortunately, our current education system has set the bar pretty low on this one, which will hopefully make it easy to leap over it.

But, on the other hand, universities have limited resources, and class sizes continue to grow as more and more people go (or return) to universities, community colleges and continuing education programs. Online platforms take the scale issue out of the equation, but droves of students now matriculate with little to no grasp of fundamental concepts, San Jose State Provost and Vice President Ellen Junn told TechCrunch in January.

If technology and online education are going to truly transform education, maintaining the status quo isn’t acceptable, especially if these automated courses replace or curb the need for real, live human teachers. So, not to be party pooper or anything, but while this program has significant implications, it’s still all about quality content/presentation, improving retention, outcomes and ye olde learning experience. Without that, scale and affordability don’t mean quite as much.

Find Georgia Tech’s announcement here and Sebastian’s blog post here.

Article courtesy of TechCrunch

PayPal today announced Cash for Registers to encourage merchants to switch to PayPal-powered point-of-sale solutions. The program is part of the payment giant’s bid to be the kingpin among local merchants looking for lower-cost ways of accepting credit card payments. The announcement comes on the same day that Square launched Stand to complement its Square register product on iPad tablets and Groupon expanded and rebranded its mobile point-of-sale solution as Breadcrumb.

In exchange for local retailers handing in their “dusty old cash registers” for PayPal’s services, the eBay-owned company is offering to waive credit, debit, check and PayPal-processing fees for the remainder of 2013 as well as free advertising for participating merchants in the process. As with the offerings launched today by PayPal’s two competitors, this offer is only valid in the U.S. for now.

David Marcus, the president of PayPal who has been the driver of the company’s push into mobile commerce, noted that the program begins in June when the company will reveal more details on the exact terms of the offer, such as whether there will be a cap on how much can be processed with no fee this year. Although PayPal Here is probably best known as one of the many services out there that uses a dongle attached to a smartphone to turn it into a card reader, the company is pushing deeper into the market by offering a bigger suite of services and devices to run them — much like Square and Groupon announced today.

In PayPal’s case, this includes a merchant app for iPad, an iPad stand, a cash drawer and printer. Part of the program will also involve PayPal promoting the sale of these products, which are made by a number of companies including Erply, Leaf, NCR, ShopKeep and others.

In fact, perhaps as a swipe at rivals like Square, Marcus plays up the fact that PayPal itself is not driving most of the hardware developments itself: “At PayPal we’ve spent a long time listening to small businesses and retailers of all sizes, and we came to the conclusion that no one company can cater to the needs of all industries,” he notes in a blog post. “That’s why we have handpicked select partners that are each best-in-class in their respective categories.”

Marcus notes that there will be more PayPal Here hardware partners announced soon.

On top of the free processing fees, PayPal is also offering another lure to merchants: free marketing to the company’s 55-million-plus U.S. customer base, noting which places local to them are PayPal- and Here-ready (presumably via the PayPal app). This is not unlike the Square Directory that Square has been offering to consumers as it pushes further into Foursquare territory as the platform for local search.

Article courtesy of TechCrunch

At an event in San Francisco at Blue Bottle Coffee, Square debuted a stand built specifically for the iPad, which turns the device into a card-swiping register. Hardware has always been a part of who we are and who we want to be, says Jack Dorsey, CEO and co-founder of Square. “We wanted to build software and hardware that matches,” he says. You can check out a video of how Stand works below.

While merchants using the iPad have been connecting to Square using the traditional Square card swiper, this product is targeted specifically for the iPad and turns the iPad into a full-fledged register. The iPad focus is because customers using the device now represent nearly 50 percent of total payments processed by Square. The average payment volume processed by these customers is more than double the average volume processed by Square customers using smartphones.

Square Stand features a card reader and connects to the hardware accessories businesses need, including a receipt printer, kitchen printer, cash drawer and barcode scanner. Merchants can lock their iPads in place and secure the stand to their countertops. The device also allows the iPad to tilt and rotate. Additionally, Square Stand works with an iPad 2 or 3, with a version for iPads with Lightning connectors available later this year.

Already, 13 businesses with 30 locations will start using Stand tomorrow, including Blue Bottle in San Francisco and Cafe Grumpy in New York. Dorsey explains that the company has been talking to Starbucks about possibly using Square Stand (Square inked a processing deal with Starbucks last year). “We’re going to push this very hard, but we have to push this the right way,” he says. “We want to work together and test things.”

Dorsey says this hardware is about not having merchants compromise — this acts as a full-fledged register. He adds that this also allows merchants to process payments faster, especially for high-volume merchants. The company focused on the operating system for the register, he says, as opposed to replacing barcode scanning or cash drawers.

Square Stand costs $299 and is available for pre-order today at squareup.com/stand. Customers will also be able to purchase Square Stand in Best Buy stores and other select retailers starting the week of July 8.

Square says it is now processing over $15 billion in payments on an annualized basis, excluding Starbucks.

Square’s point-of-sale technology and iPad-powered register app, Square Register, got a big update a few weeks ago targeted at serving restaurants better.

The company, which raised $200 million in new funding last fall, has made some major hires of late. Last week, the company announced that Demetrios J. Marantis, who was President Barack Obama’s Acting United States Trade Representative, and the U.S.’s chief trade negotiator, as head of international government, regulatory and policy work. Additionally, Square hired Alex Petrov, a former PayPal exec, as vice president of Partnerships. The company also brought on a new global business lead from Google.

Article courtesy of TechCrunch

Amazon today is taking a step into social gaming with the launch of Amazon Coins, its new virtual currency that is now live in the U.S. To kick it off, Amazon announced that it would put $5 worth of the currency — equivalent to 500 Coins — into all Kindle Fire users’ accounts to use on apps and in-app purchases on its platform. The company says that this is equivalent to “tens of millions of dollars” worth of Amazon Coins.

Coins, which were first announced in February, are the company’s move into an area that has been a strong way for app publishers to generate revenue through their apps. In that sense, the launch serves a two-fold purpose for Amazon: a way of encouraging developers to come to its platform (something Amazon has already been working on), and to spur more revenue generation.

A lot of the talk in virtual currency of late has been around the potential for bitcoin and other new monetary instruments fuelled by a network effect. But before bitcoin became the buzz, there were already a number of other virtual currency networks run by Facebook, Zynga and many more, with aim being to spend the “money” on gaming and other apps on their platforms.

Unlike bitcoin, and more like Amazon Coins, most virtual currency is based on users redeeming standard currencies for “virtual” ones on the network in question. This money can then be used to buy new features in a game, or extend your life, or to send “virtual gifts” to friends. One idea here, I think, is that users are more likely to spend money when it’s less transparent that they are doing so; in Amazon’s case, 500 Coins sounds a lot more exciting than $5. Another is that it ties a user more closely in with a particular game and a particular platform. Amazon Coins will give Amazon a way of more reliably monetizing users longer-term.

Amazon Coins is an extension of other social services that Amazon has added to its app platform. Specifically, Game Connect lets developers list virtual goods for sale on Amazon.com — a way of also marketing those games themselves; and GameCircle is a kind of social network that lets users measure their achievements in games against their friends and other players. On top of that, Amazon also allos for in-app purchases using real-world money as well.

Amazon says that it will be offering discounts of 10% to those users who buy Coins in bulk. Developers will get a standard 70% revenue share on all coin spend.

This looks like it is just the beginning of Amazon Coins, which the company says will extend to other services on the platform — and likely outside of the U.S. over time, given that virtual currency has proven popular outside of the U.S. in markets like Asia and Europe.

“Today we are giving Kindle Fire owners $5 worth of Coins to spend on new apps and games, or to purchase in-app items, such as recipes in iCookbook, song collections in SongPop or mighty falcon bundles in Angry Birds Star Wars. And with discounts of up to 10% when you buy Coins, this is a great way for customers to save money when they buy apps, games and in-app items,” said Mike George, Vice President of Apps and Games at Amazon, in a statement. “We will continue to add more ways to earn and spend Coins on a wider range of content and activities—today is Day One for Coins.”

Whether that will ever include making purchases on Amazon.com with Amazon Coins remains to be seen — but it seems that in any case Amazon Coins will be one more way that Amazon will build out its e-commerce empire ever further.

Release below.

Amazon Coins Now Available for Kindle Fire Customers
Every Kindle Fire owner in the U.S. will find $5 worth of free Coins deposited directly into their Amazon account

Customers can also purchase Coins in bulk and receive a discount up to 10%

Tens of millions of dollars worth of Amazon Coins are now in customers’ accounts to spend on developers’ apps

SEATTLE–(BUSINESS WIRE)–May. 13, 2013– —(NASDAQ: AMZN)—Amazon today announced that customers can now use Amazon Coins to purchase apps, games and in-app items in the Amazon Appstore and on Kindle Fire. To celebrate the launch, existing and new Kindle Fire customers in the U.S. have had 500 free Coins—a $5 value—deposited into their Amazon accounts today. For customers, Amazon Coins is an easy way to purchase apps and in-app items on Kindle Fire, and for developers it’s another opportunity to drive traffic, downloads and increased monetization. With discounts of up to 10% for purchasing Coins in bulk, it’s also an opportunity for customers to save money on their app and game purchases. Customers can purchase Coins by visiting amazon.com/coins.

“Today we are giving Kindle Fire owners $5 worth of Coins to spend on new apps and games, or to purchase in-app items, such as recipes in iCookbook, song collections in SongPop or mighty falcon bundles in Angry Birds Star Wars. And with discounts of up to 10% when you buy Coins, this is a great way for customers to save money when they buy apps, games and in-app items,” said Mike George, Vice President of Apps and Games at Amazon. “We will continue to add more ways to earn and spend Coins on a wider range of content and activities—today is Day One for Coins.”

Amazon Appstore developers will earn their standard 70% revenue share when customers make purchases using Amazon Coins. No Coins-specific changes are required for developers with apps and games currently in the Amazon Appstore. Developers not yet in the Amazon Appstore should submit their app today through the Amazon Mobile App Distribution Portal (https://developer.amazon.com/welcome.html).

Amazon Coins is the latest offering in an array of services that make Amazon the most complete end-to-end ecosystem for building, monetizing and marketing their apps and games. These capabilities include:

The ability for app developers to use Amazon Web Services’ (AWS) technology platform for their infrastructure needs. Building blocks such as Amazon Elastic Compute Cloud (EC2), Amazon Simple Storage Service (Amazon S3), and Amazon DynamoDB allow developers to focus on what differentiates their app rather than the undifferentiated heavy lifting of infrastructure.
App submission for distribution to nearly 200 countries globally enables developers to reach millions more Amazon customers worldwide.
In-App Purchasing on Kindle Fire, Mac, PC and web-based games. This enables developers to sell virtual items in their apps and games while allowing their end users to simply use their Amazon accounts to make the purchase.
GameCircle, which includes capabilities like Achievements, Leaderboards, Friends and Whispersync for syncing games across devices, and leads to better engagement with games.
Game Connect, which lets developers list their virtual goods for sale on Amazon, increasing discoverability of their games and making the purchase of virtual goods as easy and convenient as possible for customers, leading to increased monetization for developers.
About Amazon.com

Amazon and its affiliates operate websites, including http://www.amazon.com, http://www.amazon.co.uk, http://www.amazon.de, http://www.amazon.co.jp, http://www.amazon.fr, http://www.amazon.ca, http://www.amazon.cn, http://www.amazon.it, http://www.amazon.es and http://www.amazon.com.br. As used herein, “Amazon.com,” “we,” “our” and similar terms include Amazon.com, Inc., and its subsidiaries, unless the context indicates otherwise.

Article courtesy of TechCrunch

Disqus is launching a new feature today that the company says will help publishers get more value from everyone commenting on their site.

The company already offers something called Disqus Single Sign-On, where users who are registered on a given site can sign into the Disqus commenting system automatically. A company blog post describes AudeinceSync as the “flip side” of that feature, where users can choose to share their Disqus information with a publisher.

If a site uses AudienceSync to request access to your information, you’ll be presented with an authorization request similar to the ones displayed when third-party applications want access to your Facebook account.

“It’s an extension of how already Disqus works,” said CEO and co-founder Daniel Ha (no relation to me).

He added that the shared information can include a user’s name, context, and basic biographical information. The company says users have created more than 100 million profiles.

Since publishers who use Disqus for their comments might still manage their own user registration systems, for example to send out email newsletters, AudienceSync should allow for a fairly seamless transition between the two systems.

“This is another way we’re helping publishers get more direct financial value of their investment in comments,” said Vice President of Marketing and Communications Steve Roy. He also said this removes “that false choice” that publishers face between trying to access a bigger audience through Disqus versus running their own registration, where they have direct access to user data: “This is essentially the best of both worlds.”

The company has been testing AudienceSync with a few of its publishers, and you can already see it live at The Daily Meal and Michelle Malkin. The feature is now generally available to Disqus publishers.

Disqus is also announcing that it has now been installed on 2.5 million sites and reaches more than 1 billion total monthly visitors. Ha acknowledged that this is really a measure of the reach of the company’s publisher network, rather than its engagement — those visitors may just load an article with Disqus comments without actually reading the comments or posting one of their own. But he also said that more than 55 percent of those visitors will actually view the comments.

Article courtesy of TechCrunch

Square has made another key hire today—Demetrios J. Marantis will be leading the company’s international government, regulatory, and policy work. Marantis most recently served in President Barack Obama’s Cabinet as the Acting United States Trade Representative, and was The U.S.’s chief trade negotiator.

“Square is already having a meaningful impact on local economies in the US and Canada,” said co-founder and CEO Jack Dorsey. “Demetrios’ invaluable experience will help Square provide powerful business tools to local entrepreneurs around the world.”

Marantis, who is a lawyer, first served in the White House as the Deputy United States Trade Representative, where he was responsible for US trade negotiations and enforcement in Asia and Africa.  In March 2013, Marantis assumed the duties of Acting United States Trade Representative. Before joining the Administration, Marantis served as Chief International Trade Counsel for the Senate Finance Committee, where he advised Congress on trade and economic issues.

It looks like he’ll be working on international and regulatory issue for Square. The company recently expanded to Canada, its first market outside the US. Square says that gross payment volume over the first six months is 90% higher per capita than it was in the US at the equivalent point in time.

Last week, Square announced that Alex Petrov, a former PayPal exec, joined as Vice President of Partnerships. Previously, Square brought on a new global business lead from Google.

Article courtesy of TechCrunch

Google+ Hangouts allow for groups of friends or colleagues have an intimate face-to-face conversation, but the “On Air” feature of the service allows you to broadcast to the masses. The President Of The United States Of America has taken part in these conversations, but anyone can set up their own. Today, the Hangouts team has introduced some new functionality that make participating in a live On Air a little bit easier.

Up until now you haven’t been able to do anything other than watch the live broadcast as it happens, which is nice until you have to run to the kitchen to grab a drink or pause to take a phone call. Today, viewers can now rewind your broadcast no matter where they are during the live filming process.

Additionally, On Air videos will immediately be published instead of carrying the normal waiting period where you’ll get the infamous “processing…” dialogue.

The only negatives that I see to this is that it slows down the ramp up time it takes to start your broadcast, so you should buffer some time in to get started before your actual scheduled “live” time:

Other tweaks in this push include higher quality versions of a Hangout On Air via your mobile device, which is nice since these can be kind of grainy, depending on your connection at the time. Additionally, live broadcasts will now start without having to refresh a page, which was a real pain in the ass. Now if you visit a page that has the embedded On Air player, it will just automagically start playing.

The Hangouts product has made its way into many of Google’s services, including its mobile offerings on Android and even Glass. The usecase for Hangouts widely vary, but Google has been dogfeeding it way before its release. The “On Air” option has the attention of both local and national broadcasters, giving them away to connect to audiences in a way more intimate way.

[Photo credit: Flickr]

Article courtesy of TechCrunch

Compass Labs/ShopIgniter

Social marketing platform Compass Labs today announced its partnership with ShopIgniter, a platform for creating rich media social posts. Through this partnership, brands can now develop rich media campaigns through ShopIgniter and promote them with paid media through Compass Labs’ CLIQ Ads Manager and with the insights gained from the CLIQ Social Intelligence platform.

With Facebook putting new demands on Preferred Marketing Developers to offer or influence all components of Facebook marketing, particularly paid media, many PMDs are forming business alliances like this one to better serve marketers throughout all stages of a campaign.

Marin Software

Advertising management platform Marin Software today announced new features for Facebook advertisers, making it easier to create different campaigns and optimize them, through automatic algorithms or enhanced reporting. Marin identified the following four key updates to its platform:

• Facebook Campaign Wizard – Quickly and easily create Facebook campaigns at scale by entering just a few variables such as headline text, images and audience targets.

• Creative Rotation Optimization and Reporting – Rotate creative within a single ad type or even rotate ads across different ad types after identifying the highest performing ads within a campaign.

• Bidding Enhancements for Facebook – Decrease costs and increase performance by optimizing for any objective across the purchase funnel.

• Single Interface View of Facebook Results – See all results in a single interface, including attribution and any financial or social objectives.

Syncapse

Social marketing platform Syncapse today announced that Maarten L. Albarda will serve on its industry advisory board. Albarda was previously Vice President, Global Connections for Anheuser Busch InBev, and before then Global Director, Media & Communication Innovation for The Coca-Cola Company.

Article courtesy of Inside Facebook

McAfee, the Intel-owned security specialist, has just announced that it is buying Stonesoft Oyj,a Finland-based specialist in firewall protection products, for $389 million in cash. The move will let McAfee expand its product line specifically in networked security products, to complement the antivirus services for which McAfee is best known.

It comes at a time when PCs are sitting side by side with other kinds of devices like tablets and smartphones on networks, and more information is moving off devices and on to networked, cloud-based systems.

“With the pending addition of Stonesoft’s products and services, McAfee is making a significant investment in next-generation firewall technology. These solutions anticipate emerging customer needs in a continually evolving threat landscape,” said Michael DeCesare, McAfee President, in a statement. “Stonesoft is a leading innovator in this important market segment.” He added that McAfee will integrate Stonesoft’s products into McAfee’s cloud-based Security Connected strategy.

More to come. Release below.

SANTA CLARA, Calif., May 6, 2013 – McAfee today announced the execution of a definitive agreement to initiate a conditional tender offer for the acquisition of Stonesoft Oyj (NASDAQ OMX Helsinki: SFT1V), a leading innovator in next-generation network firewall products, for an aggregate equity value of approximately $389 million in cash.

Stonesoft delivers software-based, dynamic, customer-driven, cyber security solutions to secure information flow and simplify security management. Stonesoft’s product portfolio of next-generation firewalls, evasion prevention systems, and SSL VPN solutions addresses businesses of all sizes. Through the pending acquisition of Stonesoft, McAfee expects to extend its leadership position in network security.

“With the pending addition of Stonesoft’s products and services, McAfee is making a significant investment in next-generation firewall technology. These solutions anticipate emerging customer needs in a continually evolving threat landscape,” said Michael DeCesare, McAfee President. “Stonesoft is a leading innovator in this important market segment. We plan to integrate Stonesoft’s offerings with other McAfee products to realize the power of McAfee’s Security Connected strategy. Stonesoft products will benefit from the collective expertise of more than 7,200 McAfee employees. Leveraging McAfee’s cloud-based Global Threat Intelligence service will provide our combined customers with unparalleled security.”

The rationale for the proposed acquisition is as follows:

Network security is a vital component of a comprehensive security solution. Next-generation firewalls solve critical customer needs and represent one of the fastest growing market segments in network security.
Stonesoft is a leading innovator in the next-generation firewall segment. Gartner positioned the company as “visionary” in the 2013 Network Security Firewall Magic Quadrant. Stonesoft achieved “Recommend” status in NSS Labs’ latest 2013 firewall tests.
With Stonesoft, McAfee expects to grow its network security business by delivering the industry’s most complete network security solution with three leading platforms: McAfee’s IPS Network Security Platform, McAfee’s Firewall Enterprise for the high assurance market segment, and Stonesoft’s next-generation firewall.
Based in Helsinki, Finland, Stonesoft is trusted by more than 6,500 customers across the globe. Stonesoft’s customer base can now benefit from an integrated, comprehensive security solution through McAfee. Similarly, McAfee’s extensive, global customer base will benefit from access to a highly-innovative next-generation firewall. Stonesoft’s innovative next-generation firewall, when combined with McAfee’s market leading IPS and high assurance firewall, provides customers with one of the most complete network security portfolios in the industry.

“The combination of the two companies allows Stonesoft to benefit from McAfee’s global presence and sales organization of over 2,200 employees, best-in-class threat research and technology synergies” said Ilkka Hiidenheimo, Chief Executive Officer of Stonesoft. “Combined, we believe we can offer our customers a world-class product portfolio with world-class support – all backed by Intel.”

About McAfee
McAfee, a wholly owned subsidiary of Intel Corporation (NASDAQ: INTC), empowers businesses, the public sector, and home users to safely experience the benefits of the Internet. The company delivers proactive and proven security solutions and services for systems, networks, and mobile devices around the world. With its Security Connected strategy, innovative approach to hardware-enhanced security, and unique Global Threat Intelligence network, McAfee is relentlessly focused on keeping its customers safe. http://www.mcafee.com.

About Intel
Intel (NASDAQ: INTC) is a world leader in computing innovation. The company designs and builds the essential technologies that serve as the foundation for the world’s computing devices. Additional information about Intel is available at newsroom.intel.com and blogs.intel.com.

Intel and the Intel logo are trademarks of Intel Corporation in the United States and other countries.

About Stonesoft Corporation
Stonesoft Corporation delivers software based, dynamic, customer-driven cyber security solutions that secure information flow and simplify security management. Stonesoft serves private and public sector organizations that require high availability, ease-of-management, compliance, dynamic security, protection of critical digital assets, and business continuity against today’s rapidly evolving cyber threats. The company leads research into advanced cyber threats and the advanced evasion techniques (AETs) used in stealth, targeted cyber attacks. For more information visit. http://www.stonesoft.com.

Forward-Looking Statements
This document contains forward-looking statements based on current expectations or beliefs, as well as a number of assumptions about future events, and these statements are subject to factors and uncertainties that could cause actual results to differ materially from those described in the forward-looking statements. The reader is cautioned not to put undue reliance on these forward-looking statements, which are not a guarantee of future performance and are subject to a number of uncertainties and other factors, many of which are outside the control of McAfee or Intel.

Article courtesy of TechCrunch