Twitter Restricts Client Developers

New submitter atsabig10fo writes "Twitter has finally released the hinted-at changes to their API, which include limiting the number of users for third party clients, per-endpoint rate limiting, and restrictions on how tweets can be displayed and posted. Twitter's Michael Sippey wrote, 'One of the key things we've learned over the past few years is that when developers begin to demand an increasingly high volume of API calls, we can guide them toward areas of value for users and their businesses. To that end, and similar to some other companies, we will require you to work with us directly if you believe your application will need more than one million individual user tokens.' Third party app developers are certainly going to be sweating these changes, and it puts the future of new development in question."

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from Slashdot http://developers.slashdot.org/story/12/08/17/1231247/twitter-restricts-clien...

DARPA's low-cost silicone robot cloaks like a chameleon, treks like a snail (video)

DARPA's lowcost silicone robot cloaks like a chameleon, treks like a snail video

Remember those colorful sticky hands that you used to buy for a quarter from grocery store vending machines? Yeah, this is kind of like that -- except that it's a freaking robot. DARPA is currently working to develop low-cost silicone robots that use both air and fluid to control movement, color and temperature. In the following video, you can see one of these soft contraptions as it journeys onto a bed of rocks and then uses colored liquid to blend into its surroundings. Don't expect this glorious sticky hand to break any land speed records, however; the silicone bot can travel approximately 40 meters per hour, or up to 67 meters per hour without the fluid. (Even the 30 second video, which goes at a snail's pace, has been sped up five fold.)

The current demonstration implements a tethered solution as the robot's source of power, pumps, gasses and liquids, but future developments may allow for a self-contained system. Further, rather than improving the robot's speed, its developers will instead focus on its flexibility as a means for navigating within tight spaces. Be sure to peep the video below, and we think you'll agree that DARPA's creation easily puts those sticky hands to shame.

Continue reading DARPA's low-cost silicone robot cloaks like a chameleon, treks like a snail (video)

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DARPA's low-cost silicone robot cloaks like a chameleon, treks like a snail (video) originally appeared on Engadget on Fri, 17 Aug 2012 01:15:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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from Engadget http://www.engadget.com/2012/08/17/darpa-sticky-hand-silicone-camouflage-robot/

Khan Academy Computer Science Teaches You to Code Through Exploration [Video]

Free tutorials website Khan Academy has launched new computer science tutorials designed to teach anyone programming. The Khan Academy Computer Science site throws you right into the code behind a range of projects, so you can learn by experimenting with the JavaScript code. More »


from Lifehacker http://lifehacker.com/5935322/khan-academy-computer-science-teaches-you-to-co...

Gliph Creates Disposable Email Addresses for Private Messages and Encrypted Chats [Privacy]

iOS/Android: Gliph is a service that generates anonymous, disposable email addresses for when you don't want your real email address exposed. The app allows you to send secure, encrypted messages to other Gliph users, or send and receive private emails to a Craigslist contact or Match.com prospect. More »


from Lifehacker http://lifehacker.com/5935180/gliph-creates-disposable-email-addresses-for-pr...

Survey: Weigh in on the state of Twitter

With 140 million active users, Twitter is inarguably a mainstream communications technology. It is playing an increasingly important role in news and content discovery, and it has spawned a business ecosystem of third-party developers and services creating apps and data analysis. But Twitter is generating controversy around its developer and user policies as it expands, and it feels as though the company is at a crossroads.

Give us your thoughts by filling out the survey below.


from GigaOM http://gigaom.com/2012/08/16/survey-weigh-in-on-the-state-of-twitter/?utm_sou...

What happens to advertising in a world of streams?

It’s no secret that more and more of the content we consume is coming in the form of constantly updated real-time streams, never-ending rivers that pour through Twitter and Facebook and aggregation apps like Flipboard. It’s not a new phenomenon, but there’s no question it has been accelerating, and new offerings like Medium — the publishing platform from Twitter co-founders Evan Williams and Biz Stone — as well as others like Pinterest and BuzzFeed and Tumblr have helped ramp up the rate of adoption, as has the increasing shift to consuming content on mobile devices.

As appealing as these kinds of services are for users, however, they still have to be paid for somehow, which raises the question: What happens to advertising in a world made of streams?

As Choire Sicha notes in a post on this topic at The Awl, it’s great to look at the clean and stripped-down design of a site like Medium or an online discussion community like Branch or a lightweight blogging platform like Svbtle, but part of the reason they are so attractive is that they have no ads. While some new ventures like App.net are hoping to build platforms that are funded by users and the developers who build for them, content-oriented networks and services typically have to rely on some kind of advertising — a challenge that both Twitter and Facebook are confronting as well, with mixed success. As Sicha puts it:

“The late-day pasting-on of revenue programs to pretty products makes monster hybrids, and that just makes a lot of Dr. Frankensteins sad. It’s a little galling after they’ve all made it clear just how revolting they find advertising to find them circling back around later.”

Irritating people into clicking isn’t working

The cruel reality is that traditional advertising, with its banners and popups and site takeovers and other eye-grabbing tricks, is fundamentally irritating — and it becomes even more so when it interrupts a conversation or a social activity. As even advertising giant Sir Martin Sorrell of WPP has pointed out in comments about Facebook, the more socially oriented a service is, the more difficult it is to make advertising work in the way it did with more traditional forms of content and older platforms. Then, the reader was held captive to a certain extent, but in a world of digital streams that’s no longer the case.

So what happens to advertising? At the moment, everyone seems to be searching for an answer to that question. Sites like The Huffington Post and Business Insider — which aren’t very stream-like at all — are relying primarily on traditional banner ads and other kinds of display ads to pay the freight. But while there is some money to be made with that approach (provided you have billions of pageviews to throw at it) that market is rapidly becoming super-saturated, to the point where clickthrough rates are being measured in thousands of a percent, and some of those are probably occurring by accident.

BuzzFeed founder Jonah Peretti

Some sites that are more stream-oriented, like BuzzFeed and Tumblr, are taking a different approach: BuzzFeed, for example, doesn’t use any traditional display advertising at all — instead, it works with advertising partners to create viral content that gets integrated into the BuzzFeed network, in the hope that some of that content will work its way into people’s browsing and link-sharing activity without them realizing that it’s advertising. Tumblr, which has repeatedly refused to implement any form of traditional advertising, is working on promoting branded content in a similar way.

When advertising is just another form of content

As Sicha points out, the sites and services that seem most compatible with that approach are Pinterest and its ilk, where users spend their time collecting photos and links to things they like — which in many cases are probably also things they will want to buy. That kind of information could be hugely appealing to brands, and so could creating a Pinterest collection of their own. Medium, which is taking a similar kind of collection-based approach to content, might also be able to appeal to advertisers on that basis. But how would users respond to advertising or explicit marketing in that environment? That’s not clear yet.

This model, which is to make advertising as “native” as possible — so that it looks more like the environment it appears in, instead of something irritating that is pasted on top of it, or stands between you and the content you want — is the one that seems to have the most potential, but it’s also the one that is the hardest to implement. Why? Because instead of just coming up with a standard banner or display ad, all of a sudden you have to create interesting and/or engaging content in the hope that someone will pin it or retweet it or share it in their stream.

That might seem easy if you make attractive shoes or potato chips that everyone likes, but it gets exponentially harder with other products and services. And even if you create a viral ad that gets shared millions of times, as Old Spice did with its infamous “I’m on a horse” campaign, there’s no guarantee that that is going to actually translate into sales. That’s why major brands of all kinds are pouring billions of dollars into developing their own content channels, whether it’s YouTube or a Tumblr or a blog inside Forbes magazine’s advertiser network (another form of native marketing).

The bottom line is that if advertising is just another form of content — and content is moving towards a world of mobile streams — then you have to figure out how content works now, instead of just slapping your banner ad on top of someone else’s. We may be seeing the initial seeds of the future with things like Twitter’s “promoted tweets” and Facebook’s social ads, but the backlash that even those experiments have produced makes it obvious that there is still a lot more work to do.

Post and thumbnail images courtesy of Flickr users Tony Margiocchi and Rosaura Ochoa


from GigaOM http://gigaom.com/2012/08/16/what-happens-to-advertising-in-a-world-of-stream...

Apple, Microsoft, Google and the sad state of TV

The latest news on Apple’s plans for the future of television is that the company is in talks with big pay TV operators to carry their live programming. This would turn a future Apple TV product into a kind of set-top box, reported the Wall Street Journal Wednesday. Negotiations with cable companies are ongoing, with no deal in sight, and operators are wary of Apple’s quest for control, according to the paper.

But the sad truth is that even winning a contract like this would be a defeat for Apple. The company originally set out to disrupt the TV space and sell programming directly to consumers. It wanted to unbundle cable much in the same way it unbundled the CD when it started selling single songs on iTunes for $0.99. A move like that would have been truly innovative. But as it looks now, Apple is just going to repackage the good old cable bundle and make it available through yet another device.

If it’s any consolation for Apple, it is not alone with this path. Numerous companies have tried to reinvent TV, only to end up with products that look just like more of the same:

Microsoft’s Xbox 360 is arguably the most innovative living room entertainment device out there. It has gesture control, gaming, access to live TV and over the top video content. And yet, the TV part of the box is as boring as it could be. Redmond initially set out to have its own live programming, and reportedly even negotiated with Conan O’Brien to get him on the Xbox exclusively. Instead, it had to settle for TV Everywhere apps from HBO and EPIX and live feeds from Verizon FIOS, all of which only work if you already have an existing pay TV subscription.

Google TV’s struggles with the broadcasters are well-documented. The search giant tried to appease Hollywood by making a platform that was decidedly pro-cable, and even struck an agreement with DirecTV. But its vision to unify web video and pay TV didn’t sit well with broadcasters who across the board decided to block Google TV devices from accessing their online content. That’s why it’s no surprise that Google’s latest TV venture – the pay TV component of Google fiber – pretty much looks like your plain old cable bundle.

TiVo also tried its luck at becoming a kind of set-top-box provider, much like Apple is reportedly doing now. And guess what: It may be much less ambitious (and disruptive) than taking on TV with your own content distribution, but it’s not that easy either. Case in point: When TiVo started leasing its boxes through cable operators like Suddenlink, Cox and RCN, customers of those companies suddenly found that they didn’t have access to apps from Netflix or Hulu Plus. Cable operators like Suddenlink actually wanted to have Netflix on these boxes, but Netflix’s and Hulu’s contracts with studios simply don’t allow them to deliver their services to leased pay TV equipment.

So who is killing TV innovation?

The latest retrans fight: Viacom vs. DirecTV

Unbundled programming, access to web content on the TV and apps on a pay TV set-top box: All these issues have something in common. They’re a threat to big broadcast’s newfound love for retransmission fees. Facing the threat of a disruption to their ad revenue, broadcasters and cable TV networks have in recent years massively grown their B2B relationship with cable and satellite operators.

Broadcast channels and their local affiliates increasingly ask pay TV operators to pay up for content that was previously available for next to nothing. Operators unwilling to pay up face blackouts, and routinely cave in after their customers rebel.

Retrans fees are expected to net broadcasters $2 billion this year, up from $1.46 billion in 2011, according to SNL Kagan estimates. And that doesn’t even include what pay TV operators have to shell out for ESPN and other popular cable channels. The flipside of these billion dollar deals is exclusivity. Broadcasters can ask for more money if their content isn’t available to TV viewers through anything but a TV subscription. That’s why TV Everywhere is growing, and why broadcasters like Fox have policies not to allow web video on any connected device.

There is a silver lining

The good news is that there is still room for innovation in the TV space – but it likely won’t happen with the consent of big broadcast. Instead, it’s time to innovate on content delivery outside the world of cable television. Companies like Netflix and Hulu are starting to produce their own content that doesn’t come with the same strings attached as the shows airing on major broadcast networks. YouTube is also massively investing in content that looks more like TV fare without being TV-only.

But the biggest push towards innovation may just come from one of the oldest technologies of the TV business: over-the-air television. Startups like Skitter are redefining what pay TV looks like, delivering live broadcast streams within the existing legal retransmission framework. Aereo is pushing the envelope when it comes to personal over-the-air transmissions. Simple.tv is reinventing the DVR with cord cutting in mind. And Boxee is rumored to have a cloud-based DVR in the works.

All of these efforts bypass negotiations with broadcasters and instead rely existing legal exemptions. It’s a risky strategy, but also one that has worked in the past. Just look at Netflix and how it used the first-sale doctrine, which allows the rental of DVDs without any explicit contracts with Hollywood studios, to build out a giant, postal service-based content delivery network. Of course, Netflix’s DVD business is now fading, and Hollywood is making good money with its streaming business.

Let’s hope that innovative companies are going to pull of the same thing in the TV space. Otherwise, the future of TV may just be a pig with some shiny new lipstick.

Check out my e-book Cut the Cord: All You Need to Know to Drop Cable to learn more about Apple TV, its competitors and the future of television.

Image courtesy of (CC-BY-SA) Flickr user videocrab


from GigaOM http://gigaom.com/video/apple-tv-set-top-box/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_mediu...

#ScotchOClock with David Cancel of Hubspot (@dcancel)

David is one of Boston’s great entrepreneurs. He’s built the companies Compete (with fellow #scotchoclock guest Don McLagan), Ghostery, and Performable. Last year he sold Performable to Hubspot and where he is now their Chief Product Officer.

When he’s not cranking away building companies, David advises and invests in startups around town. If you’re looking for guidance on your product there is no better guy to chat with than David.

David’s info:

@dcancel
Blog
LinkedIn

from BostInno http://bostinno.com/channels/scotchoclock-with-david-cancel-of-hubspot-dcancel/