Tuesday, July 31, 2012
Who's right here? Olympic coverage
Reuters
Tuesday, Jul. 31, 2012
2012/07/30/london-olympics-riding-unstoppable-wave-of-twitter Bruce Arthur:
Three days into the 2012 Olympics, the Games seems to be sagging a under the weight of the assembled masses, and of Twitter. 2012/07/30/london-olympics-riding-unstoppable-wave-of-twitter
NEW YORK — It took Jason Legate, a Walnut Creek, California-resident, all of 10 minutes to connect his computer to a London-based server and access BBC’s coverage of the Olympics Saturday, thereby circumventing NBC’s lock on coverage in the United States.
The 31-year-old system administrator said he has watched at least 12 hours of live BBC coverage (his favorite sport so far – judo) since he set up a virtual private network (VPN) connection to send all his Internet traffic to a server in London.
Legate is one of many viewers who, turned off by NBC’s ironclad control of access to Olympics coverage in the United States and spotty online streaming, has resorted to a workaround — sometimes legal, sometimes not — to watch the Games when and how they want on feeds from countries such as the UK and Canada.
NBC, which spent US$1.18 billion for the rights to broadcast the Olympics on the Internet and on television in the United States, has made it impossible for people without a pricey cable or satellite subscription to watch the Olympics live in the United States. Viewers can receive a complimentary four hours of live content with a temporary pass.
Only those customers who are first “authenticated” as paying cable or satellite subscribers have access to live streaming of every Olympic event, a move that has led to a explosion of anger at the network on Twitter under the unofficial “#NBCfail” hashtag.
Other complaints included NBC streaming that didn’t work and the network bombarded viewers had too much advertising.
For its regular network coverage, NBC, which is owned by cable giant Comcast Corp, has tape-delayed some of the most popular sports for the U.S. prime-time audience, meaning they air nearly five to six hours after they have happened.
This helps NBC maximize its return-on-investment by saving the top events for the largest audience and thereby the biggest advertising pay-off. But it has also led to event spoilers and criticism that the network was putting the interests of its business over those of its viewers.
The tape delay and some glitches in the coverage fueled wider criticism of NBC. But NBC spokesman Chris McCloskey, who declined to comment on the matter, pointed to the 7 million live streams, which was a record on the first day of competition. The company is making every event available live online — except the opening and closing ceremonies.
Enter a small but vocal group of tech savvy Olympics fans who are finding new ways to watch the world’s biggest sports event away from their TV sets.
These fans use techniques that make it seem like their computers are located outside the United States, giving them access to streaming access to the Games held by companies other than NBC in countries such as Canada or the UK. Think of it as a sporting version of how Internet users in China access banned websites by routing traffic through servers in Hong Kong in order to fool government censors.
“Because all of my Internet traffic looks like it’s coming from that box in England, the BBC thinks I’m located in England,” Legate said of the workaround he utilizes.
Like NBC in the United States, the BBC’s Olympic rights only allow it to show the games to users in the UK. For example, when from the United States to watch a BBC or CTV stream for example they are greeted with various messages telling them that they don’t have access.
Legate still pays for cable service through his local provider Astound, but said he decided to boycott NBC after he was unable to find a live broadcast of the opening ceremonies last Friday. He was also miffed by comments made by an NBC spokesman to the LA Times on Friday about the opening ceremony not translating well online because it is “complex” and requires context for a U.S. audience.
“To me, it just felt like they were insulting everyone so I basically decided to boycott NBC for the duration of the games, which meant I had to find an alternative,” he said.
Legate said he has set up the same connection for a friend who wanted to watch dressage, an equestrian event that she could not find on NBC.
People who are finding ways to circumvent NBC’s restrictions seem to be spreading the word to friends, like New York City journalist Kate Gardiner, who sent out a public service announcement message on Twitter last weekend to urge her followers to use a service called TunnelBear.
The 26-year-old has been using the service to keep up with live swimming broadcasts even though she does not own a television.
TunnelBear is a VPN service that sends a user’s Internet connection to different countries, so in Gardiner’s case it appears her computer is based in London. The decision to avoid NBC was easy for her since she’s one of the millions of U.S. residents without a cable subscription.
“I’m not going to buy a cable subscription to spend three weeks watching Olympics coverage. It’s not going to happen,” she said.
So far it is unclear whether NBC would take on the task of blocking or suing services like TunnelBear or StreamVia, a similar workaround. Typically, NBC has left it to the International Olympic Committee (IOC)to police the piracy of the games’ TV rights.
NBC Sports spokesman McCloskey said the company never comments on issues involving security.
The workarounds–as well as the outrage–so far seem to be having no effect on TV rating for the Olympics. NBC has pointed to record-breaking success through the first three days of the games, with more than 36 million average viewers, including more than 40 million people watching the opening ceremony.
But while these fledgling services may seem popular on Twitter and blogs, many people could be turned off by them because they involve several steps that may be too advanced for a casual Internet user and can cost money, said City University of New York journalism professor Jeff Jarvis, who has tested them out. After 500 megabytes of streaming video, users need pay for a $5 subscription on TunnelBear, for example.
“While TunnelBear is easier than some services, you’ve got to geek out and you’ve got pay,” Jarvis said, adding that the number of people using these services is a fraction of those tuning into NBC.
Jarvis said people circumventing NBC don’t pose a threat and they are just consumers trying to make a point.
“It says ‘Hey, we can go around you,’ and the lesson there is, if you think you can control communication, content and culture around borders, it is going to become increasingly difficult,” he said.
Iphone that almost wasn't
Jony Ive: Apple almost shelved the iPhone because nearly unsolvable problems like ear-dialing
9to5 Staff Apple Inc Comment
July 31, 2012 at 9:25 am
Apple SVP of Industrial DesignJony Ive is making the rounds in London for the Olympics this week. Yesterday he spoke on Apple’s design process and the ‘Bankruptcy Days’ at the British Embassy’s Creative Summit. Today more of what he’s has said was revealed by the Independent and the following quotes stand out:
“There were multiple times where we nearly shelved the phone because we thought there were fundamental problems that we can’t solve,” said Sir Jony, speaking at a British Business Embassy event to coincide with the Olympics. One problem involved an early prototype “where I put the phone to my ear and my ear dials the number”… accidentally.
The Ive-designed iPhone has gone on to enjoy extraordinary success since its launch in 2007, selling almost 250 million and becoming a design classic.
But Sir Jony, who has worked at Apple since 1992, said it was not uncommon to feel during the planning stage of a device that “we were pursuing something that we think ‘that’s really incredibly compelling’, but we’re really struggling to solve the problem that it represents”.
“We have been, on a number of occasions, preparing for mass production and in a room and realised we are talking a little too loud about the virtues of something. That to me is always the danger, if I’m trying to talk a little too loud about something and realising I’m trying to convince myself that something’s good.
“You have that horrible, horrible feeling deep down in your tummy and you know that it’s OK but it’s not great. And I think some of the bravest things we’ve ever done are really at that point when you say, ‘that’s good and it’s competent, but it not’s great’.”
9to5 Staff Apple Inc Comment
July 31, 2012 at 9:25 am
Apple SVP of Industrial DesignJony Ive is making the rounds in London for the Olympics this week. Yesterday he spoke on Apple’s design process and the ‘Bankruptcy Days’ at the British Embassy’s Creative Summit. Today more of what he’s has said was revealed by the Independent and the following quotes stand out:
“There were multiple times where we nearly shelved the phone because we thought there were fundamental problems that we can’t solve,” said Sir Jony, speaking at a British Business Embassy event to coincide with the Olympics. One problem involved an early prototype “where I put the phone to my ear and my ear dials the number”… accidentally.
The Ive-designed iPhone has gone on to enjoy extraordinary success since its launch in 2007, selling almost 250 million and becoming a design classic.
But Sir Jony, who has worked at Apple since 1992, said it was not uncommon to feel during the planning stage of a device that “we were pursuing something that we think ‘that’s really incredibly compelling’, but we’re really struggling to solve the problem that it represents”.
“We have been, on a number of occasions, preparing for mass production and in a room and realised we are talking a little too loud about the virtues of something. That to me is always the danger, if I’m trying to talk a little too loud about something and realising I’m trying to convince myself that something’s good.
“You have that horrible, horrible feeling deep down in your tummy and you know that it’s OK but it’s not great. And I think some of the bravest things we’ve ever done are really at that point when you say, ‘that’s good and it’s competent, but it not’s great’.”
Love the Olympics, on the go? Here you go...
How to Follow the Live-Streamed, Twitter-Friendly 'Smart Olympics'
July 30, 2012By KEITH WAGSTAFF
The 2012 London Olympics will pack an impressive 302 medal events into a little more than two weeks. In past years, catching all of the action meant hours and hours spent parked in front of the boob tube. Not anymore. NBC and the organizers of the Games have finally realized that people are busy and like to keep up with the Olympics on their own terms — often with gadgets like smartphones and tablets. Welcome to the “Smart Olympics.”
Streaming
NBC has flirted with streaming technology in past coverage of the Games, most notably during the 2010 Winter Olympics when it live-streamed two sports: hockey and curling. This year, sports fans will get to see it all.
Don’t want to miss a single moment of badminton? Afraid NBC won’t give judo the prime-time coverage it deserves? Now you can simply go to
NBCOlympics.com,
where every single minute of the Olympic Games will be live-streamed with help from YouTube.
That’s about 3,000 hours of coverage. Granted, to watch the the Olympics live online you’ll need to subscribe to a cable tier that includes CNBC and MSNBC, but it’s still better than nothing. If you live in certain countries in Asia and Sub-Saharan Africa, you’ll be able to watch live coverage of the games directly on YouTube.
There will be a wealth of other Olympics-related content on YouTube as well. Want to listen to U.S. athletes try to talk in a cockney accent? Yeah, that’s on Team USA’s official YouTube page. You’ll also be able to find pre-game clips, interviews and more on the NBC Olympics YouTube channel.
Social Media
Anyone who follows sports closely knows that athletes love to tweet. Olympians are no exception. In fact, Greek triple-jumper Paraskevi Papachristou has already been banned from the Games because of a racist tweet.
Hopefully, U.S. Olympic athletes won’t do anything as short-sighted. Follow all of them on this public list and you’ll be privy to all sorts of intimate details, from the state of two-time gold medal winner Misty May-Treanor’s hair to the tale of a lost coach found posing with NBA stars Kevin Durant and Deron Williams. There are official London 2012 Twitter and Facebook feeds as well, although they aren’t nearly as fun.
As Forbes points out, back during the Beijing Games, Twitter and Facebook had 6 million and 100 million users, respectively. Today those numbers are 140 million and more than 900 million. That means if you really want the inside scoop on what’s going on inside the Olympic Village, you’ll want to be watching your Twitter feed, not the TV.
Apps
TIME has already published a list of its favorite Olympic apps, but it’s worth repeating that the NBC Olympics Live Extra app will let you stream the Games on your smartphone or tablet (available for both iOS and Android), complete with additional camera angles and instant replay. You can also keep track of how your favorite athletes are doing with the London 2012: Official Results app.
Web
Obviously, NBC and (ahem) TIME will have plenty of Olympics coverage on the web. But there are a few cool websites and apps that should help you keep track of what’s going on. ESPN released this nifty page that explains every single event with animated slideshows. Never again will you be confused by the intricacies of the modern pentathlon.
If you use Google Chrome, you can download the NBC Olympics Scheduler, which lets you pick events you care about and then sends you real-time alerts in your browser when they’re about to kick off. This year, if you miss an event you want to watch, it will probably be your own fault.
Adeven Who are they? What do they do?
App Store infested with zombie software, claims analytics startup Adeven
By David Meyer
Jul. 31, 2012, 5:26am PT
Zombies may provide a perennial source of material for mobile games, but no developer actually wants their app to be the walking dead.
Nonetheless, according to new mobile analytics and ad verification firm Adeven, that’s what almost two-thirds of the iOS App Store constitutes.
The Berlin company’s Apptrace tool launches on Tuesday and as a result it’s showing off several stats as a way of strutting its stuff. The most interesting one is the revelation that around 400,000 App Store apps get no downloads, are invisible to users and have no ranking.
“The reality is there are only a couple of thousand apps that really make some kind of downloads,” Christian Henschel, Adeven CEO, told me. “This is based on Apple’s closed system — it’s tough to discover those kinds of apps. You don’t have proper search, so the only way to discover new apps is through the top listing.”
“If you’re not on those lists, it’s not sure that you’re being discovered by anyone else. The top 25 tend to be the same companies who spend millions of dollars to get to the top of those lists. If you’re an independent, small app publisher, then it’s really tough to be discovered.”
Apptrace finds itself in a busy market, with the likes of Keen.io, Count.ly and (to an extent) Flurry all trying to court developers with the sharpest insights.
But Apptrace takes a different angle. For a start, it’s a free resource that is initially providing something closer to AppData’s outside-view app rankings, only through a prettier interface and with a deeper segment view. Android analytics will come in the fourth quarter, but for now Apptrace collates iOS data from the 155 countries where the App Store is present.
And with a seven-figure Series A round from Target Partners in the bank since April, Adeven already has some key enhancements ready for the rest of this year. The big one will be the addition of in-app analytics: something that will take Apptrace squarely up against Keen.io et al, but Henschel says the combination of the internal and external perspective will be unique.
“We’re not only measuring success within the app, but also within the ecosystem,” he said. “We will also soon be launching a feature where you can compare apps against each other, which is something that’s not available at the moment.”
Apptrace also has a feature lined up for developers with an ad-funded model: at the moment, they need to integrate multiple SDKs into their apps to handle all the different ad brokers such as AdMob and InMobi, but Apptrace will soon come out with a unified SDK that can manage the analytics for all these disparate networks.
And as for making money out of all this?
“The main reason we founded Adeven is to bring transparency into this mobile ecosystem,” Henschel said. “We believe if we provide the transparency then a lot more app dollars will fly into this ecosystem and we will find ways to participate in these revenues. But first, we’re really focusing on getting app developers using our service.”
Which is where those attention-grabbing, suspicion-confirming stats come in. Did you know that the App Store has 1,899 flashlight apps? Madness.
By David Meyer
Jul. 31, 2012, 5:26am PT
Zombies may provide a perennial source of material for mobile games, but no developer actually wants their app to be the walking dead.
Nonetheless, according to new mobile analytics and ad verification firm Adeven, that’s what almost two-thirds of the iOS App Store constitutes.
The Berlin company’s Apptrace tool launches on Tuesday and as a result it’s showing off several stats as a way of strutting its stuff. The most interesting one is the revelation that around 400,000 App Store apps get no downloads, are invisible to users and have no ranking.
“The reality is there are only a couple of thousand apps that really make some kind of downloads,” Christian Henschel, Adeven CEO, told me. “This is based on Apple’s closed system — it’s tough to discover those kinds of apps. You don’t have proper search, so the only way to discover new apps is through the top listing.”
“If you’re not on those lists, it’s not sure that you’re being discovered by anyone else. The top 25 tend to be the same companies who spend millions of dollars to get to the top of those lists. If you’re an independent, small app publisher, then it’s really tough to be discovered.”
Apptrace finds itself in a busy market, with the likes of Keen.io, Count.ly and (to an extent) Flurry all trying to court developers with the sharpest insights.
But Apptrace takes a different angle. For a start, it’s a free resource that is initially providing something closer to AppData’s outside-view app rankings, only through a prettier interface and with a deeper segment view. Android analytics will come in the fourth quarter, but for now Apptrace collates iOS data from the 155 countries where the App Store is present.
And with a seven-figure Series A round from Target Partners in the bank since April, Adeven already has some key enhancements ready for the rest of this year. The big one will be the addition of in-app analytics: something that will take Apptrace squarely up against Keen.io et al, but Henschel says the combination of the internal and external perspective will be unique.
“We’re not only measuring success within the app, but also within the ecosystem,” he said. “We will also soon be launching a feature where you can compare apps against each other, which is something that’s not available at the moment.”
Apptrace also has a feature lined up for developers with an ad-funded model: at the moment, they need to integrate multiple SDKs into their apps to handle all the different ad brokers such as AdMob and InMobi, but Apptrace will soon come out with a unified SDK that can manage the analytics for all these disparate networks.
And as for making money out of all this?
“The main reason we founded Adeven is to bring transparency into this mobile ecosystem,” Henschel said. “We believe if we provide the transparency then a lot more app dollars will fly into this ecosystem and we will find ways to participate in these revenues. But first, we’re really focusing on getting app developers using our service.”
Which is where those attention-grabbing, suspicion-confirming stats come in. Did you know that the App Store has 1,899 flashlight apps? Madness.
Rona rejects take over bid from Lowes
Rona rejects Lowe’s buyout offer
Facebook | Twitter | Email | Instapaper
Reuters
Tuesday, Jul. 31, 2012
Rona Inc, a Canadian home-improvement retailer, rejected Lowe’s Cos Inc’s unsolicited US$1.8-billion takeover offer, saying it was not in the best interests of shareholders.
Rona said it received a US$14.50 per share proposal from U.S.-based Lowe’s, the world’s second-largest home improvement chain, on July 8.
Shares of Rona, which has a market value of $1.44-billion, closed at $11.87 on Monday on the Toronto Stock Exchange. The stock has risen 12% in the past three months amid speculation that Lowe’s could be interested in the company.
Lowe’s Chief Financial Officer Robert Hull said in April the company was open to all options should the Canadian chain put itself up for sale. He called Rona a “very interesting company”.
Rona, Canada’s home-grown answer to Home Depot Inc and Lowe’s, has maintained it was not up for sale.
The company should remain focused on executing its business plan with a view to capturing significant opportunities that it sees for its business, Rona said in a statement.
It is now closing or splitting up 23 of its 79 biggest outlets after facing sluggish consumer confidence and smarting from falling sales at established stores.
Scotiabank and BMO Capital Markets were Rona’s financial advisors for the deal.
© Thomson Reuters 2012
Posted in: Investing Tags: Retail, Lowe’s Cos Inc, RONA Inc.
Facebook | Twitter | Email | Instapaper
Reuters
Tuesday, Jul. 31, 2012
Rona Inc, a Canadian home-improvement retailer, rejected Lowe’s Cos Inc’s unsolicited US$1.8-billion takeover offer, saying it was not in the best interests of shareholders.
Rona said it received a US$14.50 per share proposal from U.S.-based Lowe’s, the world’s second-largest home improvement chain, on July 8.
Shares of Rona, which has a market value of $1.44-billion, closed at $11.87 on Monday on the Toronto Stock Exchange. The stock has risen 12% in the past three months amid speculation that Lowe’s could be interested in the company.
Lowe’s Chief Financial Officer Robert Hull said in April the company was open to all options should the Canadian chain put itself up for sale. He called Rona a “very interesting company”.
Rona, Canada’s home-grown answer to Home Depot Inc and Lowe’s, has maintained it was not up for sale.
The company should remain focused on executing its business plan with a view to capturing significant opportunities that it sees for its business, Rona said in a statement.
It is now closing or splitting up 23 of its 79 biggest outlets after facing sluggish consumer confidence and smarting from falling sales at established stores.
Scotiabank and BMO Capital Markets were Rona’s financial advisors for the deal.
© Thomson Reuters 2012
Posted in: Investing Tags: Retail, Lowe’s Cos Inc, RONA Inc.
Facebook has just introduced a new feature for their official Facebook for iPhone and iPad app that gives users Instapaper-like abilities to save posts shared on Facebook to read later. Now you too can collect your friends’ most embarrassing social network blunders in a favorites folder for posterity! Oh, and links you want to read later too, of course.
The feature — which is available on both Facebook.com and Facebook’s mobile apps — hasn’t rolled out to us yet, but according to others, it works like this: just by pressing and holding on any Facebook post, you can save it to a folder to read again later. On Facebook’s full site, you simplt click “Save” in the post’s dropdown menu. Saved items show up in a new “Saved” tab under “Favorites” in your sidebar.
Like many of Facebook’s feature updates, you don’t need to update your Facebook app: everything’s done on servers behind the scenes.
Anyone think they’re going to use this feature? I’m not really sure I need yet another inbox of “read later” links in my life. I haven’t even got through my Instapaper queue.
Via: AppAdvice
The feature — which is available on both Facebook.com and Facebook’s mobile apps — hasn’t rolled out to us yet, but according to others, it works like this: just by pressing and holding on any Facebook post, you can save it to a folder to read again later. On Facebook’s full site, you simplt click “Save” in the post’s dropdown menu. Saved items show up in a new “Saved” tab under “Favorites” in your sidebar.
Like many of Facebook’s feature updates, you don’t need to update your Facebook app: everything’s done on servers behind the scenes.
Anyone think they’re going to use this feature? I’m not really sure I need yet another inbox of “read later” links in my life. I haven’t even got through my Instapaper queue.
Via: AppAdvice
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