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Disease - pills sculpture. 9500 empty capsules. by Noumeda...

2012-02-11T08:25:09Z

Disease - pills sculpture. 9500 empty capsules. by Noumeda Carbone

Zynga Marketing Master Padma Rao Joins Foundation Capital As An Entrepreneur In Residence

2012-02-11T06:47:00Z

Padma Rao’s analytical marketing skills have made a big impact at more than one company in the Bay Area, and now she’s bringing a decade of experiences to her new role as an entrepreneur in residence at Foundation Capital.

Her most recent efforts helped turn a gaming startup into a booming public company.

Few people realized it at the time, but in late 2008 and early 2009 social game developer Zynga had figured out how to get a great return on investment from Facebook advertising. The social network had developed its ad system over the previous few years to the point that it was able to deliver ads closely targeted to users’ interests — but most people hadn’t realized that yet, so prices were cheap.

Rao joined Zynga at the beginning of 2009 to help lead the development of its marketing platform. An engineer by training, she took a look at the few third-party ad bidding tools available for Facebook and decided the company needed to build its own. She did the same for its user email system. The market timing turned out to be perfect. Zynga had also just figured out how to monetize casual-style simulation games, and in quick succession over the course of the year, it launched hits like FarmVille, Café World, PetVille and FishVille. As I detailed in this December article, the inexpensive growth it got via ads and social communication features during this period brought it up to traffic levels that it has worked hard to pass even today.

“I like having the technical chops to understand what needs to happen and why — and to understand why something might take a long time,” she tells me. “It makes a big difference, especially in online marketing, which is actually a very technical business. Having that background has saved me more than once… my approach is, if a tool doesn’t exist, we’ll build it.”

Zynga wasn’t the first place she’s done this. During a three year stint at Gap earlier last decade, she discovered that getting results from direct marketing were taking up to two and a half weeks. So she created a tool that would deliver results in 30 minutes. “This didn’t just mean faster results, it meant iterating faster, it changed the business” she explains. “It’s all about getting the right tools for people.”

She’s becoming an EIR for the same reason a lot of other product people do, including her new Foundation EIR colleague and former Twitter product head Anamitra Banerji. “I’ve had my head down working at companies,” she says, “and I’ve never taken the opportunity to see everything that’s out there.”

So what is she working on at Foundation? She’s actually already been doing some consulting work with social browser Rockmelt and other startups already. But she’s far from deciding whether to join or found. “I want to stay on the consumer side of things, and obviously mobile is fascinating — there’s lots of functionality that’s not probably not leveraged like it could be…. My dream is to start something, but I don’t want to do it just for the sake of doing it. If I find something great that someone else has started, I’m not going to ignore that because ‘I want to be a founder.’”

Busta Rhymes Waxes Enthusiastic On Google Music

2012-02-11T06:47:00Z

When Google Music launched a couple months ago, there was some criticism regarding how the service was promoted. What many saw as just another music locker and streaming service (albeit a perfectly good and free one) others saw as a great new vector for music sales and distribution. But the music locker portion seemed to hog the spotlight, and the cool Band Camp-esque new artist hubs lurked in the gloom.

Busta Rhymes seems to be a fan of the latter, and not just because he’s in an official partnership. In an interview on MTV, he was positively effusive about Google’s new platform. Check out the short clip, from MTV’s Sucka Free:

I think he’s being truthful when he says that “with that power that they have, that it was almost blasphemous for them to not have their hands in music as well.” Google, via YouTube, is the world’s foremost player in video distribution on the web (though as far as purchased content goes, Netflix is king). One almost wonders why music didn’t come first.

In case you were wondering that, the reason is that the user-focused structure of YouTube makes it a platform for viral videos and self-expression, not studio-produced content. They’ve been trying to change that, but it hasn’t been very effective (people don’t think of YouTube that way, for good reaosn). Google Music lets them start fresh and try to build something that works both from the top down and the bottom up. So whether they “sign” guys like Busta or a dude recording on an 8-track in his living room, they can provide an end-to-end buying, listening, and sharing solution.

“Google ain’t really trying to just sell music” is about as capsule-sized a summary as you can get, and it’s true. Google hates selling things, in fact. And in the music world, it might be that in a few years, selling things like music tracks just won’t be something you do, and Google will have positioned itself well to be a non-purchase solution.

NGC 6752, la brillante “burbuja” estelar de 100 años luz

2012-02-11T06:46:56Z

Galaxias, nebulosas, supernovas, cuásares… la lista de entes, todos ellos espectaculares, que pueblan el Universo es muy extensa. Además de los nombrados están también, por poner otro ejemplo, este ilustrado, los cúmulos estelares como el que se ve en la imagen que acompaña al post.

Concretamente se trata del cúmulo globular de estrellas NGC 6752, que recorre el halo de la Vía Láctea, nuestra galaxia, y está situado a unos 13.000 años luz de la constelación del Pavo.

Por el encuadre de la instantánea, tomada por el telescopio espacial Hubble, uno no termina de hacerse a la idea de la verdadera magnitud de NGC 6752 ya que solamente muestra aproximadamente unos 10 años luz del todo, pero es mucho más grande; la esfera, que se aprecia perfectamente si se amplia el foco, en total mide 100 años luz de diámetro dentro de los que se contienen más o menos 100.000 estrellas.

Preciosa imagen que espero hayáis disfrutado tanto como yo. Por cierto, si alguno la quiere más grande para lo que sea, está disponible a 2500x1800 píxeles.

Whale Hunting: Facebook Hooks 1st-Time Buyers With $5 Of Game Credits For $1

2012-02-11T06:47:01Z

Only about 5% Facebook gamers pay to play freemium games. If Facebook could up this percentage, it and its third-party app developers could make a lot more money. That’s the idea behind a new promotion Facebook announced today where those who’ve never bought Facebook Credits virtual currency before will be offered $4 in free Credits when they buy $1. This gets users to set up their credit card and experience the rush of paying for an enhanced gaming experience.

Years ago when Facebook first launched its Credits virtual currency, it offered free Credits to some users. While this might have got them hooked on spending virtual currency, it didn’t addict them to paying for it.

Facebook needs credit card numbers badly. Apple has amassed an enormous collection after 10 years of iTunes Mp3 sales, which is now helping it easily sell apps and in-app purchases. If Facebook wants to grow its revenue to satisfy outside investors and be a competitive mobile gaming platform, it needs to get users ready to pay.

But like the street corner pusher says, “this ain’t no charity”. Facebook is only surfacing the promotion in sidebar ads, and TrialPay in-game promotions and offer walls to those who haven’t already bought Credits. User than have to set up a credit card or connect a PayPal account and pay $1 to get the extra $4, or 40 Credits. And next time, they’ll have to pay full price. Facebook wisely does not provide any way to reach the promotion directly in order to deter users from trying to cheat their way to free currency.

If you want to claim your own free Credits, your best bet is to play games by clients of Facebook’s official offers partner TrialPay, such as those by Playfish, Playdom, Kabam, Crowdstar, and iWin. These include The Sims Social, Gardens of Time, It Girl, and Kingdoms of Camelot. Then visit the offer wall or click through Deal Spot signs within games.

With any luck, Facebook will be able to up the percentage of users who monetize, and thereby discover new whales — gamers who spend orders of magnitude more than the average payer and drive the bottom lines of both indie developers and giants like Zynga. Call him Ishmael…Zuckerberg.

[Image Credit: Screenrant]

Hands Off!, monitoriza las conexiones de tu equipo a internet

2012-02-11T07:10:02Z

Hands Off! es una aplicación que nos permite controlar las conexiones a internet que las aplicaciones instaladas en nuestro equipo realizan. Pudiendo definir reglas de forma personalizada para cada aplicación.

Cuando una aplicación accede a internet Hands Off! muestra una ventana en la que podemos dar permiso o no, incluso si queremos que el acceso sea permitido sólo una vez, hasta que cerremos la aplicación o para siempre.

Si os ha venido a la mente Little Snitch es normal. Ambas aplicaciones ofrecen opciones similares con la diferencia de algunas características únicas de la aplicación de Metakine. Y es que Hands Off! permite bloquear no sólo las conexiones salientes sino las entrantes también, bloquear la solución de nombres de dominio y las más interesantes: prevenir el acceso a nuestros archivos por parte de aplicaciones (evitando el acceso no autorizado a datos) y bloquear las operaciones lectura y escritura.

El precio de Hands Off! es de 20 euros, diez menos comparados con los 29,90 de Little Snitch. Lo que sumado a sus prestaciones adicionales hacen de Hands Off! un duro competidor y la aplicación más recomendable en estos momentos si queremos tener el control de las conexiones a internet que nuestras aplicaciones hacen.

Más información | Metakine
En Applesfera | Aumenta la seguridad de OS X

Google lanza el nuevo diseño de su barra

2012-02-11T06:46:56Z

Con la llegada de Google+, otros tantos cambios más empezaron a hacerse patentes en la estrategia de Google pero sobre todo en su apariencia, a lo largo del último año hemos ido viendo profundos rediseños en la apariencia de aplicaciones como Gmail, Google Calendar, Google Docs e incluso la misma página de resultados. Uno de los elementos más característicos de este nuevo cambio fue la nueva barra superior de color negro, que en Noviembre ya se incorporó para todos los usuarios y de la que Google está lanzando una nueva versión con algunas incorporaciones bastante interesantes.

En primer lugar, destaca la inclusión a primera línea de servicios de la Gran G como Calendar, YouTube o Documents. Antes estaban ocultos y se podía acceder a ellos mediante la pestaña ‘Más’, pero ahora aparecerán todo el rato en la parte superior. Por otro lado, el pequeño icono con nuestro perfil y actividades de Google+ sale de la barra y para a la parte inferior, apareciendo en la página de resultados de las búsquedas junto con las notificaciones.

Ahora, además de los resultados generales, como podemos ver en la parte superior también se muestran los que han sido generados exclusivamente para nosotros gracias a nuestra actividad social. Son cambios menores, y desde luego ni muchísimo menos tan profundos como cuando la barra llegó a todos los servicios, pero la inclusión de servicios como Calendar o Docs, que no son tan usados como se pensaría en favor de otros más populares como YouTube o Maps, puede dar lugar a resultados muy interesantes. Esta nueva barra se irá liberando de manera progresiva para todos los usuarios y en los próximos días, si no es que alguno la tenéis ya, deberíais empezar a verla.

Kickstarter’s Big Day: $1.6M Pledged In 24 Hours

2012-02-11T06:47:03Z

They say when it rains, it pours. That’s not usually a good thing, but when it’s raining money, things are a little different. That was the case at Kickstarter yesterday, where they had their biggest day of funding ever, beating the record set… the day before yesterday.

It was also the day that marked the first Kickstarter project to break $1,000,000 in funding. And the day that marked the second project to hit that number. And New York’s city council endorsed the site as a way to highlight community projects that need funding. Oh, and they’re on Portlandia.

Definitely the biggest day in the site’s history, then. They’ve commemorated it with a great blog post that might just make your Friday a little better. It also brings up a few new and interesting questions regarding how the site should or will be used. But first, watch the Portlandia clip:

Double Fine, whose adventure game drove much of the funding sum (and is up to nearly $1.5M alone as of this writing), is different from many projects we’ve seen. Often Kickstarter is thought of as a venue for people with very limited means but a good idea to execute that idea. The Elevate Dock is a good example of this.

But Double Fine is an established game studio with office space, employees, and many products under its belt? Why should it go to Kickstarter? Well, Tim Schafer explains that in the video, at least for this project: no publisher would go near a point and click adventure game, but they knew at least some people wanted it. Reasonable enough.

The question, really, is why we even question it. If people want to make something, and people want to fund it, why shouldn’t it be on Kickstarter? The easy stuff — cool accessories or small devices that need a little capital to get started — are just the first wave. Why not pothole repair on a neighborhood street? Why not a new coffee shop? Why not a feature film? Some of these have been tried, no doubt, and perhaps failed — but the principle is sound. If you want to make it, and others want you to make it, this is a way for you to connect.

Congratulations to the Kickstarter, Elevation Dock, and Double Fine teams. Great way to end the week.

Look Out AT&T Customers, Your Upgrade Fee Doubles On Sunday

2012-02-11T06:47:03Z

If you’re an AT&T customer coming off of a contract and looking to snap up a new phone, you should probably get on that right now. According to an AT&T memo obtained by BGR, AT&T will be raising their device upgrade fee from $18 to $36 as of February 12, which means you’ve got until Sunday to swap phones before your first post-upgrade bill gets even bigger.

The memo states that the fee hike is needed because “the overall costs associated with upgrading to a new device have increased.”

In AT&T’s defense, it’s a fee that’s most people will only have to deal with once every two years or so, but the additional cost is unlikely to please customers. They’re also not the only big carrier that has had to hike up their fees — Sprint made the transition to a $36 upgrade fee this past September. But still, AT&T doubling their upgrade fee is a puzzling move when their biggest rival (Verizon) still doesn’t charge one at all.

Strangely, the part of the memo that BGR has released doesn’t mention anything about a cap like the one Sprint offers, so it’s possible that families and groups looking to upgrade en masse could really get stung here.

And here’s a question worth thinking about: what will the consumers have to say? Verizon Wireless got a very public earful when it was discovered that they planned to charge customers a $2 “convenience fee” whenever they used a credit card to make an online or over-the-phone bill payment. After one day, public pressure and scrutiny from the FCC forced Verizon to kill the plan in its tracks. Given enough exposure, AT&T customer may be inclined to lash out in a similar way.

Hopefully this move doesn’t inspire Verizon to try something similar. We’ve seen it happen before: Verizon killed their unlimited data plans one year after AT&T did, and AT&T began requiring data packages for messaging phones not long after Verizon implemented the idea.

Iconos ejemplares

2012-02-11T06:47:04Z

Sí, Kate Moss es un icono… Pero yo soy un Favicon, que es más.

– @queweb

# Enlace Permanente

Crea collages con tus fotos de Facebook y las de otros sitios con Loupe

2012-02-11T06:49:58Z

Hace ya bastante tiempo que reseñamos por aquí el programa Shape Collage, una aplicación para crear collages de imágenes con diferentes formas. Pus bien, de la mano de los creadores de dicho software, llega una aplicación web llamada Loupe, que nos permite hacer lo mismo pero con imágenes provenientes de diferentes recursos de la red.

El origen que nos puede resultar más útil es el de Facebook. Una vez que le damos acceso a la nuestra cuenta, podemos usar tanto nuestras fotos y en las que estemos etiquetados como las de nuestros contactos para crear nuestro collage. También podemos recolectar imágenes de Instagram o Twitter (aunque realizando una búsqueda, no recurriendo a una cuenta), sacarlas de un sitio de Tumblr, de cualquier URL o recurrir a una búsqueda en Bing.

Con los resultados que nos devuelve al recurrir a cualquiera de estos orígenes, debemos seleccionar las imágenes que queremos que se incluyan. No es necesario que todas las imágenes provengan del mismo sitio: unas pueden venir de, por ejemplo, Facebook y otras de Tumblr.

Una vez hemos seleccionado las fotos, estas formarán la figura que hayamos seleccionado para el collage, y si no son suficientes, se repetirán. Tenemos 62 figuras entre las que elegir, o podemos también escribir un pequeño texto (como una sola palabra, para que se vea mejor). En cualquier momento, podemos añadir más fotos por si no nos gusta eso de la repetición.

Cuando se haya formado el collage, podremos editarlo mínimamente, pues lo único que podemos hacer es eliminar cualquiera de las imágenes que lo forman. Una vez con el resultado final, la única forma de conservar el collage es guardándolo en un álbum de Facebook como imagen estática, aunque también se nos da una URL para poder acceder a él en Loupe. Porque lo interesante de esto último es que, al pasar por encima de las imágenes que forman el collage, se muestran a mayor tamaño, lo cual resulta más util para visibilizar aquellas que hemos utilizado para componerlo.

Una aplicación web que nos permite mostrar nuestras fotografías de una manera más llamativa, aunque todavía necesita mejorar sus opciones, como por ejemplo permitiéndonos coger nuestras fotos de Instagram o Twitter en lugar de simplemente buscar en dichos servicios.

Vía | Digital Inspiration
Enlace | Loupe

Una patente muestra un posible sistema de Teleprompter para iMovie y Final Cut

2012-02-11T07:10:02Z

Las patentes son siempre cuanto menos curiosas aunque no siempre se materializan. Una de las últimas que conocemos hace alusión a un sistema de Teleprompter que Apple podría incluir en futuras actualizaciones de iMovie y/o Final Cut Pro X.

Para los que no sepáis que es un Teleprompter os lo explicamos. Un Teleprompter (también llamado Autocue o cue) es un aparato electrónico que refleja el texto de una pantalla sobre un cristal transparente colocado delante de una cámara. Estos aparatos son usados en programas informativos permitiendo al presentador ir leyendo la noticia.

Pues bien, este sistema que integrarían las aplicaciones de edición de vídeo de Apple permitirían mejorar y ayudar a la hora de realizar grabaciones en off. Permitiendo, sin tener que depender de abrir una aplicación de texto u otros métodos, grabar el audio visualizando la imagen, consiguiendo así una mayor naturalidad y un ritmo acorde a la secuencia de imágenes. En la patente se pueden ver algunos esquemas de como se podría implantar el sistema así como opciones la hora de controlar la velocidad. Sería interesante ver una opción así, al menos a mí me gustaría pues me sería útil y podría sustituir mi actual método de grabación de voz en off.

Más información | Patentlyapple
En Applesfera | Las patentes de Apple

TELESAR V, un robot al estilo Avatar desarrollado en Japón

2012-02-10T22:55:11Z

En la película Avatar, de James Cameron, parte de los protagonistas participan en un programa en el que sus mentes se puede transportar a un cuerpos artificiales, los Avatares, que controlan como si fuesen Na’vis reales. Si bien aún estamos muy lejos de crear cuerpos artificiales que controlar, hay abiertas muchas líneas de trabajo en el campo de la robótica para hacer mucho más real el control remoto de robots y, concretamente, en la Universidad Keio, se ha desarrollado el TELESAR V, un robot cuyo control recuerda mucho al de la película de James Cameron puesto que el robot reproduce los movimientos de la persona que lo controla y ésta percibe las sensaciones captadas por el robot, por ejemplo, lo que tiene entre sus manos.

TELESAR V (TELexistence Surrogate Anthropomorphic Robot) es un robot que lleva un paso más allá el concepto de control remoto puesto que hace que la persona que está controlando el robot, además de enviar órdenes relativas a los movimientos o las acciones a ejecutar, va a sentir, oír y ver las mismas cosas que el robot. ¿Sentir, ver y oír? Efectivamente, puesto que el clásico panel de control (un mando o un ordenador) se sustituye por un casco de realidad virtual (que muestra un entorno tridimensional), unos auriculares y unos guantes provistos de actuadores que sumados a unos sensores que captan el movimiento del cuerpo de la persona que controla el robot permite reproducir los movimientos de éste en el TELESAR V además de recibir la información captada por el robot.

El esquema de este robot me parece, francamente, muy interesante puesto que traslada 3 funciones fundamentales para poder evaluar una situación o una acción: la vista del robot, que captan el entorno mediante unas cámaras cuyas imágenes sirven para recrear el escenario en 3D en una pantalla situada en el casco que utiliza el operador, el oído, gracias a unos micrófonos instalados en el robot que captan el sonido ambiente que también es enviado al casco de control y, finalmente, el sentido del taco que se reproduce en unos guantes provistos de actuadores que reflejan la presión ejercida sobre objetos.

Cuando me pongo los dispositivos y muevo mi cuerpo, veo que mis manos se transforman en las manos del robot. Cuando muevo mi cabeza, obtengo una visión distinta a la que normalmente tendría. Es una experiencia muy extraña que te hace preguntarte si te has convertido, al final, en un robot

¿Y qué utilidad podría tener un robot así? Según el responsable del proyecto, el Profesor Susumu Tachi, el sistema utilizado para controlar TELESAR V podría aplicarse a los robots utilizados para la exploración de zonas peligrosas, por ejemplo, los que se introdujeron en la central nuclear de Fukushima y hacer que los responsables de manejar estos dispositivos se “sintiesen dentro” de la zona a explorar como si estuviesen dentro y, además, pudiesen controlar los movimientos del robot de una manera mucho más natural.

Creo que si continuamos la investigación y el desarrollo por esta senda, podríamos ser capaces de acceder y explorar zonas de alta peligrosidad para el ser humano y realizar misiones que requieran, precisamente, habilidades humanas

Está claro que aún andamos lejos de lo mostrado en la película Avatar pero TELESAR V plantea una forma muy interesante de controlar robots y, desde luego, acerca mucho más al operador a la situación y el entorno en el que se mueve el autómata.

Imágenes: Physorg

Los riesgos a los que se enfrenta Facebook y los problemas de Coca-Cola en la Superbowl, repaso por Genbeta Social Media

2012-02-10T22:58:23Z

El domingo pasado se celebró en Estados Unidos la Superbowl, el acontecimiento más seguido dentro del aquel país. Quizás por esta resaca deportiva o por simple casualidad, parece que la semana que hoy termina nos ha dejado pocas novedades en las plataformas sociales pero bastantes polémicas y errores que han dado mucho que hablar. A continuación, como cada viernes, recuperamos varios artículos de Genbeta Social Media para ofreceros un resumen de los más interesantes:

Siguiendo con la Superbowl, fueron muchas las compañías que pagaron millonadas por anunciarse en los intermedios, como Coca-Cola, que además llevaba semanas anunciando un ambicioso portal web en el que dos osos polares irían reaccionando en directo a lo que ocurriera en el partido. ¿El problema? Que a la hora de la verdad, la gran cantidad de tráfico saturó el sitio e hizo que la página no estuviera disponible durante un buen rato.

Cuando Facebook anunció que era su intención salir a bolsa, tuvo que ofrecer un completo informe de la situación de la compañía a las autoridades financieras americanas. En él, entre otros datos interesantes, podemos encontrar un completo listado de riesgos a los que se enfrenta la red social… según ellos mismos. Entre ellos aparecen los posibles bugs de software, y es que parece que no aprenden: esta semana también hemos sabido que Facebook sigue almacenando por error imágenes ya borradas por los usuarios… y así llevan durante casi tres años, el tiempo que han sido conscientes del problema pero en el que no han hecho nada por arreglarlo.

Pasamos una noticia tan surrealista como preocupante: Brasil ha demandado a Twitter y exige que la red social de microblogging cierre varios perfiles que twittean la situación actual del tráfico en varias ciudades del país, además de precisar en dónde se encuentran los controles de tráfico. Alegan que así se favorece a los conductores borrachos, traficantes, ladrones y otros delincuentes, dándoles pistas sobre cómo evitar a las autoridades.

También hemos tenido tiempo a hablaros de Pinterest, la plataforma de compartición social de imágenes más de moda. Pero no es oro todo lo que reluce, como se suele decir, y es que esta semana ha sido protagonista de una polémica por la utilización de enlaces de afiliados que, hasta ahora, parece no estar fundamentada en pruebas sólidas.

¿Utilizas Instagram con frecuencia y no sabes qué regalar a tu pareja por San Valentín? Entonces echa un vistazo a Lovestagram, una aplicación que elabora postales virtuales con imágenes publicadas en tu cuenta y en la de tu media naranja. Original es un rato.

Y terminamos con una buena noticia: vuelve Eduardo Prádanos como columnista semanal. En su regreso, nos ha hablado de las “tonterías dospuntoceriles”, o cómo por intentar creernos más listos y más cool podemos hacer el ridículo delante de otros menos acostumbrados a este mundo de los medios sociales.

Enlace | Genbeta Social Media

New Hybrid Solar Cells Harness More Of The Sun’s Light Spectrum

2012-02-10T22:55:15Z

Scientists at the University of Cambridge in the UK have found a way to improve the efficiency of photovoltaic cells by as much as 25% through harnessing more of the sun’s spectrum than most traditional silicon-based solar cells can.

The new design, developed at the university’s Cavendish Laboratory in the Department of Physics, can absorb both red and blue light, and generates electrons from photons at a two-to-one ratio on the blue light spectrum. Most current solar cells lose blue photon energy as heat, leaving them unable to turn more than about 34% of the sunlight they absorb into power.

The team, led by professors Neil Greenham and Sir Richard Friend, recently published results in a paper. The hybrid cells have an added organic semiconductor called pentacene, which helps harness blue light energy to strengthen the electrical current coming from the cell, making the product up to 44% efficient.

The university’s team also innovated on how the cells are made, by producing the cells in bulk using a roll-to-roll printing technique. While cheaper, more efficient photovoltaics sound promising, there remain hurdles to be overcome. The greatest costs in building a solar power plant are installation hardware, labor and land, so a cheaper solar cell is only a piece of the puzzle.

StartX Demo Day: A Direct Link Between Silicon Valley And Top Stanford Student Entrepreneurs

2012-02-10T22:55:15Z

On the surface, the StartX Demo Day last night could have looked like any other accelerator pushing its latest class of startups. Nine groups got on stage and fired off presentations about how they were working on something cool, and why they deserved funding.

But it wasn’t the rash of lightweight consumer applications you often see at other demo days. These were Stanford students, particularly technical graduate students, who have been nerding out on solving real problems for years in their labs and dorm rooms, and who are now in the middle of commercializing their hard work. Big-name investors from around Silicon Valley unsurprisingly showed up to check them out.

Before I get into the companies, which ran the gamut from health care to batteries to professional networking, it’s important to understand what StartX is. It’s the non-profit accelerator arm of Stanford Student Enterprises, which is a student-run, independent organization that handles a variety of stores, directories, financial services and other businesses for students. SSE is the business branch of the student government, and it’s independent enough from the university that StartX companies get maximum freedom. They own their own intellectual property, and neither StartX/SSE nor any other entity takes any equity.

The only requirements are that at least one cofounder of each applying company needs to have enrolled at Stanford within the last three academic quarters before the application period, and that person needs to own significant equity.

The program is young — it started in 2010 and this is its fifth class. but it’s on the right track. The energy in the room was what you feel at that rare tech event where everyone present knows they’re getting in early on something big.

We’ll no doubt be covering many of the presenting companies in more detail over the coming months, but here’s a quick look at each, in the order they presented:

MindSumo: Employers want to find smart students with skills and interests that they can develop. The problem is that student resumes are normally skimpy on this information because, well, students have mostly been in school and not the workforce. MindSumo’s answer: partner with employers to create “challenges,” or sets of questions for students to answer. For example, Recology, a large recycling and trash disposal company, is currently asking “What can you do or make with glass (A LOT of it)? Propose three alternate uses for recycled glass so that we can use our resources in an innovative way and keep them from landfill!” Currently in private beta, MindSumo has already been running challenges for seven companies (some of whom are paying), with 500 or so Stanford students participating.

AgeTak: Health care data is currently separated across insurers and health care providers, which makes it hard for doctors to do comprehensive analysis of diseases and other conditions. AgeTak uses distributed databases to combine, anonymize and get user consent for data sharing. Founder Pratik Verma, who recently got his PhD in computation chemistry from Stanford, is on a personal mission here. His father passed away in 2010 from nerve cell disease ALS, which has no known causes or cures. His father’s only option was to participate in extensive clinical trials over the years, in the hopes that doctors would make breakthroughs by discovering trends among those afflicted. But, as Pratik discovered, data from patients was not being shared by researchers because it was siloed at institutions, and held back by privacy concerns.

Through AgeTak, the anonymized and aggregated data can be used by analysts, researchers, physicians and pharmaceutical companies. Insurance giant United Health is already using it for a drug claims database, and OptumHealth is using it to offer graphs that show consumers how their health care costs stack up against the average. AgeTak has already made $3.7 million in revenue; it’s headquartered in Minnesota with offices in Menlo Park and India. Check out this recent writeup by Barb Darrow at GigaOm for more details.

Zoku: If you’re trying to build a network — let’s say, to help with your new startup — you want to know who out there is doing something relevant to your needs. But it can be hard sorting through all the noise on Facebook, LinkedIn and other sites to spot the key people and activities. Zoku lets you combine your email and social networking contacts, then pick out people and actions that you want to keep track of. It uses algorithms to filter for what you care about, then shows you the signals – people who are visiting town, changing jobs, or doing anything else relevant to what you might need to get done — in a dashboard on its site.

Vi Energy: In what looks like the most ambitious technical idea out of all the presentations, Vi Energy is developing a new kind of rechargeable battery that promises to be three times cheaper and last 50% longer than anything on the market today. Over the past twenty years, lithium ion batteries have dominated, but they can be unsafe, have relatively weak capacity, and are expensive. As a mature technology, there’s only marginal improvements to be had from them. Sister-cofounders Meghali and Sonali Chopra have, with the support of top scientific researchers, already created a pilot battery that uses significantly cheaper raw materials, can be easily synthesized, and has a unique spherical morphology with conductive codings for better performance. Their lab tests already show that the new battery lasts longer than the lithium ion ones on the market today.

Breakthrough: This online mental health treatment startup has been featured before — on stage at TechCrunch 50 (Disrupt) back in 2009. It uses secure video and chat features to help people connect with professionals to get the help they need privately and immediately. As Leena noted before, clients can search for providers (including psychiatrists, psychologists and nurses) on a variety of criteria, including price, speciality (i.e. depression, schizophrenia, post traumatic stress disorder), and gender. On a provider’s page you can see his or her education, experience, pricing for services, the insurance the professional accepts, and even a video introduction of the provider explaining his or her specialities. BreakThrough certifies all providers are credentialed professionals.

TipTopMed: How much will a trip to the doctor’s cost? How much, in particular, if you don’t have a good insurance plan? That’s a question more and more Americans are asking themselves — that TipTopMed is trying to answer. Its site will show local providers, and include information about them like the upfront price, and other details about provider specialties. Users can then book an appointment, and pay online. Providers — mostly small and medium-sized businesses — want this because they lose lots of money on patients who can’t or don’t pay. The site is launching at the end of this month, and will feature a proprietary database of Bay Area health care professionals.

Smit’s Crew: The only entertainment-oriented startup out of the mix, it offers a web site and mobile app that lets venue owners (bars, clubs, etc.) create a type of loyalty program for regular patrons. The app lets customers receive advance notifications of discounts and other deals, particularly on slow nights, then buy them immediately. They then go to the establishment and show the waiter or bartender the purchase; because payment has been received, the food and drinks can be delivered immediately, without the hassle of trying to pay with cash or credit card at, say, a packed bar. Even more importantly, the app lets owners keep track of which people are visiting the most regularly and buying the most — this allows them to figure out who they should focus on providing the best service to. The “crew” concept lets customers group themselves together around specific establishments, so the venue can provide group discounts if they show up.

There were also two more health care startups that presented, but they haven’t publicly launched yet so I won’t be including them here. All in all, as you can see, this is a serious bunch of companies, that are interested in solving hard real-world problems.

Venture firms and law offices in Silicon Valley have sensed the opportunity to get in early, and they’ve rallied behind the effort. VC supporters, who provide dollars and mentorship, include Benchmark Capital, General Catalyst, Khosla Ventures, Charles River Ventures and Greylock Partners. Legal backers are Cooley LLP, Fenwick & West LLP, Dorsey & Whitney LLP, Goodwin Proctor, and Orrick. Resource partners include Amazon Web Services, First Republic Bank, Fog Creek Software, Github, Rackspace and Usabilla.

And even that distant global media and advertising conglomerate that owns TechCrunch is involved, it turns out, because it provides office space and other material support. So time for a Full Disclosure: I didn’t even know AOL was involved until I got to the event this afternoon — but good job, whoever made that call at my parent company. I also attended Stanford as an undergraduate, and while I have a variety of feelings about my alma mater, I generally expect a lot out of its graduates — maybe this connection is one reason I think StartX is pretty great? On the other hand, I worked at a key campus competitor to SSE, The Stanford Daily student-run newspaper. So maybe I’m biased against SSE and so my biases all equal themselves out….

The Government Wants To Build An App Store For Real-Life Jack Bauers

2012-02-10T22:55:15Z

The US Department of Defense Explosive Ordinance Disposal unit is look for a few good coders to help build apps and an entire app store for bomb technicians and soldiers involved in ordnance handling. This is when sliding to unlock could mean the difference between life or death.

The request for proposals is as dull as dirt (you can read it here) but the requirements are clear: they’re looking for apps that will replace paper pocket guides and references used by the folks that blow up the big badda booms.

If you’re interested the funding can run as high as $750,000 and $1,250,000, according to an engineer familiar with the proceedings and all you have to do is ensure the product is encrypted and password protected and that it involves lots of cool, wire-frame graphics so it looks like all of those computer programs used by hackers in the movies.

Develop a Smartphone Software Applications (Apps) and distribution system and procedures (known commercially as an App Store) or individual Apps for Joint Service EOD and/or public safety bomb technicians that would provide immediate access to required technical and tactical information and preclude the need to carry paper pocket guides and reference material on site. The application distribution system or individual Apps shall be accessible to all EOD and/or Bomb Squad personnel to view and/or download information as needed and must be compatible with one or more major operating systems of commercially available smart devices (e.g., Android, Apple, Blackberry, etc.). This developed Joint Service EOD distribution system shall adhere to military regulations for distribution of unclassified but limited distribution information. The Apps shall be encrypted (e.g., AES-256) and password-protected or otherwise controlled for limited access to only bomb squad and EOD technicians. A requirements analysis shall be conducted to determine the most feasible and effective method for conversion of existing and future publications and system oversight, including information access, password issuance, and periodic updates of publications.

The deadline is March 9, 2012, so get cracking. Don’t keep the Combating Terrorism Technical Support Office waiting.

Imágenes de la segunda temporada de Game of Thrones

2012-02-10T22:55:11Z

Game of Thrones regresará a la parrilla de la HBO el próximo domingo 1 de abril. La primera temporada fue todo un éxito para la cadena cosechando el aplauso de la crítica y el favor del público, eso pone el listón muy alto a la esperadísima segunda temporada. Tanto es así que la HBO ya ha empezado a promocionarla, lanzando teasers, vídeos del rodaje y ahora una serie de imágenes de los protagonistas.

Durante la nueva temporada, basada en A Clash of Kings (Choque de Reyes), segunda entrega de la saga A Song of Ice and Fire (Canción de Hielo y Fuego) se incorporarán a la historia nuevos personajes y visitaremos escenarios hasta ahora desconocidos.

A partir de este punto: Alerta de spoilers.

En la imagen superior podemos ver al actor Kit Harington, quien da vida a Jon Nieve. En esta nueva temporada, un grupo de la Guardia de Noche se dirigirá al norte del Muro; allí encontrarán frío y muerte. Nieve estará acompañado en todo momento por su fiel huargo Fantasma.

Renly Baratheon, interpretado por el actor Gethin Anthony, reclamará su derecho a sentarse en el Trono de Hierro, ya que es el hermano menor del difunto rey Robert Baratheon. ¿Cuántos aliados conseguirá? ¿Seguirá sir Loras a su lado?

Stannis Baratheon, hermano mayor del Rey Robert y de Renly, buscará apoyos para hacerse con el Trono de Hierro. El papel será interpretado por el británico Stephen Dillane. A su lado vemos a Melisandre de Asshai, una enigmática y poderosa sacerdotisa del culto a R’hllor. La mujer siempre viste de rojo y sus premoniciones suelen ser acertadas. Melisandre se encuentra al servicio de Stannis y le ayudará en su afán por convertirse en rey. La actriz, de origen holandés Carice van Houten, se ha hecho con este papel.

Liam Cunningham interpretará a Davos Seaworth, vasallo de Stannis. Este hombre de origen humilde fue, durante muchos años, un escurridizo y hábil contrabandista. Se le conoce con el sobrenombre de Caballero de la Cebolla. Fue Stannis quien lo convirtió en caballero y por ello, por su honestidad y sentido de la justicia, Davos se mantiene a su lado.

Gwendoline Christie se une a la segunda temporada para dar vida a Brienne de Tarth, hija única y heredera de Lord Selwyn de Evenfall. Una guerrera experta que es descrita en las novelas como rara, por su tamaño anormal, su fuerza y la ausencia de rasgos femeninos. Sobre su fichaje George R.R. Martin comenta:

El día del primer llamado de audiciones para el papel, vimos a una docena de actrices que harían una lectura para Brienne y una actriz era Brienne […] Gwendoline dio una gran lectura y su imagen era simplemente perfecta.

Ella forma parte de la guardia de Renly Baratheon. Es honesta, testaruda y un poco ingenua; será requerida por Catelyn Stark para que escolte a Jaime Lannister a Desembarco del Rey.

Patrick Malahide se pone en la piel de Balon Greyjoy, patriarca de la casa de Greyjoy cuyo lema es: Nosotros no sembramos. Balon es el soberano de las Islas de Hierro, el padre de Theon (Alfie Allen) y Asha (Gemma Whelan).

Estos son solo algunos de los personajes que podremos ver en la segunda temporada, el gran ausente será Ned Stark, lástima que hayamos perdido al señor de Invernalia. En los Siete Reinos se fragua una gran guerra que pondrá en jaque al rey Joffrey Baratheon. Los nobles cierran filas alrededor de sus favoritos, el pueblo sufre. La violencia, el sexo, la traición y la muerte son las señas de identidad de esta gran producción de la HBO.

Durante la segunda temporada nos reencontraremos con la pequeña e indomable Arya ¿qué será de ella ahora que ha escapado de Desembarco del Rey? ¿Cómo será la vida de Sansa en la corte? ¿qué sucederá con los dos pequeños Stark que se quedaron en el castillo de Invernalia? En Desembarco del Rey reinan los Lannister, Tyrion se traslada hasta allí a petición de su padre, Cersei se dará cuenta de lo difícil que es controlar a su hijo y Joffrey demostrará ser un rey déspota y cruel.

En el este Daenerys Targaryen tendrá que criar a los tres dragones que pudimos ver en el último episodio de la primera temporada. Además ahora se encuentra sola, ya que Drogo, su marido, ha fallecido y el khalasar se ha dispersado. Pocos fieles quedan a su alrededor, sin embargo ella es sangre de dragón, veremos que le depara esta temporada.

¿Impacientes? Yo mucho.

Gillmor Gang Live 02.10.12 (TCTV)

2012-02-10T22:55:15Z

Gillmor Gang – Robert Scoble, Steve Gillmor, John Borthwick, and Kevin Marks. Recording has concluded.

La escala del Universo (versión 2)

2012-02-10T22:55:19Z

¿Quieres darte una vueltecita por el universo, en un tiempo razonable y entre las escalas de lo más inimaginablemente grande y lo infinitesimalmente pequeño? Prueba The Scale of the Universe 2, segunda parte de un interactivo similar que hace tiempo estuvo circulando por la Red, y a disfrutar. Basta mover la barra de desplazamiento o usar la rueda del ratón, y también se puede hacer clic sobre los objetos para aprender algo sobre ellos.

Bonus: el campodefútbol como unidad estándar internacional de medida su hueco en el montaje, claro.

(¡Gracias Dario, Sara y otros que nos enviaron el enlace!)

Cosmic view, el libro que inspiró Powers of ten
Un mapa logarítmico del Universo, para hacernos otra idea
Potències de 10 (en el programa Dígits)
Cosmic View: El universo en 40 saltos, la idea original
Escalas del Universo, lo mismo pero en imágenes

# Enlace Permanente

Air Force Could Buy Thousands Of iPads And Android Tablets

2012-02-10T22:55:16Z

The Air Force’s Air Mobility Command will be putting in a request for the purchase of a number of tablets soon in an effort to lighten their pilots’loads. Many commercial airlines are already taking this step, and American Airlines has already gotten FAA approval. The Air Force is feeling the sting of jealousy, and in consequence may be requesting as many as 18,000 devices.

The number could also be as low as 63; the Command was not forthcoming on this point. The lower number would probably indicate a pilot program, so to speak, for a few devices, to determine which should get the big order.

Which tablet would actually be ordered is also not specified. Bloomberg cannily plays up the iPad angle in its report (U.S. Air Force May Buy 18,000 Apple IPad 2s), but the spokesperson they talked to, Captain Ferrero, said the request might also be for Playbooks, Galaxy Tabs, Xooms, or Nooks.

If these were to be general-purpose tablets, this little menagerie would be hard to winnow down. But the fact is they are going to be used as virtual flight bags, and the iPad is the only one that has the thousands of hours in the air that the Air Force will require. In a year, maybe, Android tablets will have a little more experience under their belts, but for now it’s probably safe to say that any tablets purchased by the government for the purpose of being electronic flight bags are going to be iPads.

Eventually, these platform issues will have to be settled, though: if part of the military is going with Android for security purposes, and others are going with iOS for EFB and, say, general communication, there’s going to be a reckoning sooner or later.

For And Against The iPad Mini

2012-02-10T22:55:16Z

Rumors of a 7- to 7.85-inch iPad have been swirling around for a long while now. We’ve seen reports get killed moments after they initially break, only to be sneakily resurrected weeks or months later. The rumor simply won’t die.

The problem, however, is that this one in particular is a tough nut to crack. When you take all the evidence both for and against a little iPad, you’re still left with no real conclusion.

So conclusion aside, here are some of the reasons Apple may, or may not, introduce the little iPad:

For:

The greatest threat to Apple’s iPad is the 7-inch Amazon Kindle Fire. It retails at about $300 less than the iPad, sports a solid browser, has access to plenty of Android apps, and is a great hub for any and all of Amazon’s media content. It also happens to be a 7-inch tablet. Should Apple choose to offer a smaller iPad at a lower price (which the market would most certainly demand), it could snatch back the market share Amazon’s stolen in the past few months.

Gaming on tablets is big, but too big a tablet ruins the fun. According to numbers out of comScore in November, 2011, gaming topped the list of entertainment activities on a tablet, beating out watching video and listening to music, with 67 percent of owners gaming at least once a month, and 23 percent playing daily.

That said, Apple’s 9.7-inch iPad isn’t what I’d call the best for gaming. Graphics and display quality are top-notch, to be sure, but holding the device for very long — especially stretching that thumb around the edge — can be incredibly tiring. Despite the fact that it has failed me considerably, I still prefer playing games on my 7-inch BlackBerry PlayBook, even if there aren’t many games to choose from.

Most smaller Android tablets use a widescreen aspect ratio, leaving a dead zone in the middle of the screen that’s mostly untouchable. The iPad 2 sports a 4:3 screen, which makes even the 10-inch model full touchable. A 7-incher would only be that much better, with greater pixel density and a lighter, easier feel in the hand.

Apple is kind of obsessive when it comes to “thin and light,” and a smaller iPad would also mean a thinner iPad. See, if Apple were to build a smaller iPad, chances are it’d be built using the normal screen assembly technology that allows for the iPad 2′s incredibly thin profile.

However, a smaller iPad/screen means a smaller battery, which usually takes up a solid chunk of space under the hood. Less screen means less power needed for backlighting it, which inevitably takes us back to a smaller battery.

Thin and light! Thin and light! Thin and light!

Amazon may release a 9-inch Fire… Why not fight Fire with fire? The word right now is that Amazon has plans to release a 9-inch Fire to compete with the iPad. While, like the 7-inch Fire, it probably won’t have all the capabilities of the iPad, a larger Fire will still retail at a (much?) lower price point than its competitor. For people who mostly browse the web, read, email, and Facebook/Twitter, a lower price point will be more than enough incentive to venture away from the iPad.

To be clear, it’s not like Apple’s in some dire position. Cupertino still dominates the market with a 58 percent share as of January, 2012. But that’s down 10 percent from the previous quarter, while analysts claim that 40 percent of Android’s 39 percent share in the tablet market are attributable to the Nook Tablet and the Fire.

It’s undeniable: Apple is slowly but steadily losing share to Android, most notably the Fire, and what better way to steal it back then by launching a 7-incher right in Amazon’s face?

Against

The most notable and evidential reason why Apple wouldn’t release a little iPad is because Steve Jobs said so. In an earnings call in October of 2010, Jobs said that “7-inch tablets are tweeners: too big to compete with a smartphone and too small to compete with the iPad. These are among the reasons that the current crop of 7-inch tablets are going to be DOA — dead on arrival.”

Jim Dalrymple points out that Apple made both a 7- and a 9.7-inch iPad right at the beginning and chose to go with the bigger version, which at a first glance would indicate that it’s not going to happen. At the same time, that was a long time ago if we’re counting in tech years and it wouldn’t be the first time Jobs obliterated a product category only to announce something similar to it shortly after. Anyone remember iBooks?

Why release a product to compete in a market you already own? Though its market share has fallen since its debut, Apple still absolutely dominates the tablet market right now. A 58 percent share of a market, with not one of its competitors anywhere near that share, leaves Apple with no real reason to put anything smaller in stores.

I’m sure some of you will say I made an entirely contradictory point up there with Amazon grabbing share, but it’s all about perspective. Perhaps one person thinks that now is the time to plug up any leaky market share dribbling into Amazon’s hands, while someone else may think that Apple should wait until it absolutely has to throw a lower-priced option into the ring.

Too many choices can be a bad thing, and Apple’s well aware of this. Look at iPhone releases: one model at a time. Apple’s all about making one absolutely stellar, blow-your-mind, make-you-believe-in-magic product and selling it well. Design, sell, repeat.

Tablets are meant to be simple, easy-to-use products. It’s not like a PC, where users have to review list after list of specs and configurations before figuring out what fits. Some companies, like Samsung, want to stretch across every category of the tablet market with different spec’d and sized models under a shared brand. One of the iPads greatest advantages is being the iPad, rather than an iPad Lite, or an iPad Air, or whatever.

It would be a deviation from Apple’s current strategy and over-arching mission statement of “Keep it simple, stupid” if they were to start switching things up now.

So… Will Apple release a 7-inch iPad? Truth be told, your guess is as good as mine, but it would seem that there are advantages in either case.

Cierra pestañas inactivas automáticamente en Chrome después de un tiempo

2012-02-10T22:58:24Z

Creo que se podría formular una ley: a mayor tiempo pasado navegando por la web, más cantidad de pestañas abiertas en el navegador. Tal vez una ley no, vale, pero desde luego si es algo bastante habitual. Y las redes sociales no ayudan: que si abro este enlace, que si lo dejo abierto y luego lo veo… Y claro, a cuantas más pestañas abiertas, mayor consumo de memoria.

Una solución para aquellos que tendemos a abarrotarnos de pestañas en Chrome es Tab Wrangler. Se trata de una extensión que nos cierra automáticamente aquellas pestañas que tengamos abiertas y que permanezcan inactivas durante un tiempo determinado (7 minutos por defecto), sin importar si son pestañas comunes, fijas o de las opciones del navegador.

La extensión nos coloca un icono en la barra de herramientas desde el cual podemos acceder a las opciones de la extensión. En el cuadro que despliega nos encontramos con el “Tab corral”, donde podemos acceder rápidamente a la lista de pestañas que se han cerrado de forma automática por si queremos volver a abrirlas.

Allí también tenemos la sección “Tab lock”, donde podemos marcar aquellas pestañas abiertas que no queremos que se cierren por muy inactivas que estén. Y por último tenemos las opciones donde definir el tiempo que queremos que pase para que se cierre la pestaña y, además, también podremos bloquear automáticamente las pestañas que contengan las URL (o parte de las mismas) que indiquemos.

Una extensión muy útil si tenemos la costumbre de ir acumulando pestañas, la mayoría de ellas temporales y sin ninguna importancia. Nos ayuda a hacer una gestión más eficiente de lo que abrimos y mantenemos abierto y su uso resulta bastante práctico.

Vía | Addictive Tips
Enlace | Tab Wrangler

I Wanna Be On The StartupBus…So Freakin’Bad (Video)

2012-02-10T22:55:16Z

Just a little candy to kick off your weekend:

Looking to get its state on the StartupBus radar, a group of Lousiana’s innovators met with founder Elias Bizannes this week for the Baton Rouge Area Chamber‘s February Innovation Take-Out. After Bizannes’presentation (which he concluded by announcing the first Louisiana StartupBus!), the members of the local tech community unveiled this parody video: “I Wanna Be On The Startup Bus.”

And yeah, it’s pretty cute, guys. Plus, it’s always good to see the excitement for building startups outside NY and the Valley.

If the song sounds familiar, that’s because it is. Here’s the source. The video was also blasted on a big screen in the middle of downtown Baton Rouge.

StartupBus, for those of you unfamiliar, is the combo hackathon/road trip started by Elias Bizannes nearly three years ago which heads out to SXSW. The group doubled the number of events it’s running in 2012. This year, there will be a maximum of twelve buses, including those that run from San Francisco, New York, L.A., Cleveland and Tampa, plus whichever others get voted in here.

Can someone transcribe those lyrics, by the way? Because that part about TechCrunch sounds pretty weird to me.

UPDATE: Got the lyrics!

I wanna be on the Startup Bus so frickin bad
Try all the ideas Ive ever had
Uh, I wanna be on the cover of Inc magazine
South By will hear I’m the next big thing

[Chorus]
Oh every time I close my eyes
I see my name in shining lights
A different city every night oh
Let’s discuss, they’ll say “he used to be one of us”
When I’m on the Startup Bus

Yeah I would be like Zuckerberg
Hooking up all the nerds
everyday on TechCrunch
got no laughs, just the munch
I’d probably pull a Melinda and Bill Gates
cure diseases, hear the pleases, change all the kids fates
Pitch the angels for the right to equity and big hits
Then do it again and do it again, must have the exit
It’s been a couple months since my last startup so
Looking to do it again, this time make the big dough
Riding on a bus, with little sleep, lots of caffeine
create the best business that VCs have ever seen
All while using mobile wi-fi on I-10
Having this much fun, ha – it should be a sin

[Chorus]

Oh oooh oh oooh When I’m on the Startup Bus
Oh oooh oh oooh When I’m on the Startup Bus

VEVO CEO Tries To Explain Their Hypocritical Act Of Piracy At Sundance

2012-02-10T22:55:18Z

Yesterday I reported on a bizarre incident I witnessed at Sundance last month: VEVO, the music portal owned by some of the biggest record labels in the US, had a pirated NFL playoff game playing on screens throughout its ‘PowerStation’venue.

The incident was immensely hypocritical, given that VEVO is owned in part by Universal Music Group and Sony Music Entertainment (with EMI licensing its content to the service) — the same music labels that have made a habit of attacking consumers over alleged acts of piracy.

Now VEVO CEO Rio Caraeff has written a post to the VEVO blog, where he tries to explain what happened. In it, he writes that the game was accessed and streamed by a guest of the event without VEVO’s knowledge.

A guest of our lounge asked for an NFL game to be aired. We said no. There was a laptop hooked up to VEVO.com that fed into the large TV screens around the bar. Unfortunately, the laptop was easily accessible to the public. That was our mistake for not making sure the laptop was more secure. While VEVO staff was in other areas of the venue, the game was put on – via a website transmitting ESPN’s broadcast of the NFL game – without our permission or knowledge.

As soon as we realized the game was airing to the room, we removed it and went back to playing VEVO videos. The game was not aired in its entirety. Rest assured, we rectified this mistake as soon as we became aware what was going on.

What happened was unfortunate and we can’t take back what happened.

I don’t have any proof to indicate that what Caraeff writes is incorrect, but I’m raising my eyebrow at this explanation. The game was playing the entire time I was at the PowerStation — this wasn’t just a brief blip — and it was playing on several screens, so it was hard to miss, too. After all, one of the key aims of this event was to feature VEVO videos, it wasn’t as if these screens were hidden in a corner.

Likewise, this wasn’t a case of someone launching the stream and walking away — I saw the mouse cursor appear onscreen at least twice, and someone was pretty clearly doing their best to make sure it was watchable. That said, as you can see toward the end of the video below at around 1:39, the computer was potentially accessible to non-employees. But it was hardly inviting, and I have a hard time believing a random guest could just commandeer the computer without any employees noticing.

In any case, imagine what the music industry would say were it on the other side of this. Is there any doubt it would dismiss these explanations and, lawsuits in hand, cry foul over such an overt act of piracy?

Furthermore, this seems no different than an accused pirate explaining that they left their Wifi open, only to have it used by someone else to download content illegally. Which happens to be a defense the RIAA has previously fought vigilantly against, when it sought to make owners of ISP accounts liable for any infringing activity, even if the owner had no knowledge of it. Hypocrisy, indeed.

Below you’ll find Caraeff’s whole post.

You may know we had some fun at the Sundance Film Festival in Park City, Utah last month. Our VEVO Powerstation & Sorel Suite was a popular spot for celebrities to get warm, pick up some gifts from our friends at Sorel and Fresh and, most of all, to relax with a drink and play their favorite VEVO videos. We were excited that LMFAO, James Mardsen, Lil Jon, Tommy Lee, Isla Fisher, Josh Kelley and many others all came down to watch some music with us.

But with all the snowy fun we had, there has unfortunately been a report that something other than VEVO music videos was played at the Powerstation. We feel it important to explain exactly what happened so we hope you’ll take a minute to read further.

A guest of our lounge asked for an NFL game to be aired. We said no. There was a laptop hooked up to VEVO.com that fed into the large TV screens around the bar. Unfortunately, the laptop was easily accessible to the public. That was our mistake for not making sure the laptop was more secure. While VEVO staff was in other areas of the venue, the game was put on – via a website transmitting ESPN’s broadcast of the NFL game – without our permission or knowledge.

As soon as we realized the game was airing to the room, we removed it and went back to playing VEVO videos. The game was not aired in its entirety. Rest assured, we rectified this mistake as soon as we became aware what was going on.

What happened was unfortunate and we can’t take back what happened.

Let’s just make this clear. VEVO is not in the business of streaming illegal video content. We work really hard to give our fans access to the best HD music videos and original programming – legally. VEVO takes intellectual property and copyright issues very seriously. We have always supported our artists and content owners and have the same respect for all content creators in every industry and of every art form. So we are very sensitive to what happened at Sundance and the issues it has raised.

Thanks for reading.

Rio D. Caraeff