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Apple iTV to Come in Three Sizes [RUMOR]


Apple’s upcoming TV product might come in three sizes, including a 32” and a 55” screen size, Smarthouse reports citing sources from a major Japanese company involved in the manufacturing of the product.

iTV will sport a new processor – one that will also appear in the upcoming iPad 3, and a new software interface which will include support for Siri, the charming voice-based personal assistant that came with the iPhone 4S.

The largest, 55” version is set to compete with the new generation of Smart TVs from companies such as Samsung and LG.

Nothing has been officially confirmed at this point, and the entire hoopla surrounding iTV – if that’s the product’s name – might turn out to be fake. Still, rumors around Apple TV are heating up, with some sources claiming Apple is working with Japanese-based Sharp on iTV, which might be ready for commercial production by February 2012. Other reports say the device might be introduced by the end of next year or in 2013.

[via Smarthouse]

More About: apple, Apple TV, TV

from Mashable! http://mashable.com/2011/12/06/apple-tv-three-sizes/?utm_source=feedburner&ut...

Hover Anything That Weighs Less Than 12-Ounces!

hovering-things.jpg In other hover-news, this is the $100 Levitron Revolution. It can levitate any object that fits on its hoverdisk and weighs less than 12-ounces. How? Magic magnets WIZAAAAAARDZ!
According to the manufacturers, "The Levitron automatically compensates for changes in weight by making up to 1,000 corrections per second to the electromagnets contained within the base."
Are you thinking what I'm thinking? "Buy 80 and build a hoverboard for your little brother?!" Wow, it really is like you and I share one big, retarded brain. To my basement workshop! "This...is your bedroom." I'm getting under the covers! Hit the jump for a video demo.

from Geekologie - Gadgets, Gizmos, and Awesome http://www.geekologie.com/2011/12/hover-anything-that-weighs-less-than-12-.php

4 Reasons Tech Hiring Will Explode in 2012

Still stuck in the 2008, 2009 doldrums?  Well, it’s time to snap out of it, because as 2011 whisked by several key indicators fell into place suggesting strong growth and explosive hiring for the tech industry.

While we were focused on a government stalemate over the summer and Europe’s own economic woes this fall Boston’s IT scene came alive.  2012 is going to be big, and here are four reasons why:

Startups are Back

Venture capital sat on the sidelines long enough.  Over the last eighteen months VCs have been pouring money into young companies with big ideas.  With funding secured, start ups launch into rapid growth mode, creating jobs and scooping up some of the hottest tech talent on the street.  Besides the organic addition of new positions, the individuals hopping on board these fledgling firms are vacating hundreds of positions at their former employers.   Human resources hates this.   As soon as a letter of resignation is tendered, it means it’s time to draft up a new job description to fill the vacancy.

New IT Spending

It was a CFO’s easiest move over the last three years to save money by holding off on new application development or IT infrastructure enhancements.  They were rewarded for making do with what was already in place, and applauded for keeping teams lean and mean.  This year the tide shifted and companies began launching new IT projects.   Boardroom decisions already made have paved the way for increases in IT spending by 20%, 30%, and in some smaller firms, as much as 50% year over year.  The mood is no longer how to stay small; it’s time to grow.

Some of the increased IT spending is cyclical.  People need new desktops, printers, and mobile devices because the hardware is just plain worn out.   Some of the new dollars will go to finally upgrading software.  How many of us are still using Microsoft Word 2003?   Eight software years is like 40 in real time.  What about the mission critical internal applications that companies rely on to run their businesses?  That’s where the major new projects are coming in and filling up the vast workload for 2012.  Any company relying on web based applications or operating software in the cloud MUST upgrade just to stay current with browser compatibility.

We’re talking a tectonic shift in the importance of IT for 2012 and beyond.   Technology is no longer just a way to enhance the business.  It IS the business.  If you think that is an overly dramatic statement, tell your systems administrator to shut down your internet connection and count the seconds before your co-workers cry out in despair and lose their minds.

Companies are Hiring Recruiters

Log on to your favorite job board and run a search for companies looking to hire recruiters. Tech, healthcare, finance, start up blue chip, non-profit; everybody is beefing up their HR staff. You don’t hire recruiters unless you have some serious increases to headcount planned.  Not to mention staffing firms themselves are hungry to hire internally. Across the board, national recruiting firms and small boutique shops alike are looking to expand their teams just to meet their clients’ needs.   As fast as the industry was decimated in 2008 and 2009, the demand for good recruiting talent is back, and smart players who left the field in the downswing are returning to reap the new business.

History Doesn’t Always Repeat Itself, But it Rhymes

Remember when the tech bubble burst in 2000?   The NASDAQ crashed, and in its descent it took tens of thousands of tech jobs with it.  For about two years the landscape looked bleak with a war in the Middle East, gas prices spiking, and a country gripped in recession.  Recent grads were faced with a non-existent job market and qualified candidates fought for what few openings were there.  Sound familiar?

Without any fanfare, the economy came back through ‘03, ‘04, and ‘05 until we were at a healthy peak that saw an unemployment rate sub 5% for Greater Boston throughout 2006 and 2007.  Tech led the way.  The same scenario played out in 1991, 1987, 1984, and 1979.  There are larger economic factors at work here than just what we read in the news.

Smart money knows cover stories and headlines are reacting to the old news on the street. Watch 2012 open with more fear jitters, talks of a correction and flogs of writers foretelling a swift return to recession.  It’s easy and sexy to predict the next downturn.  It’s foolish to always believe it.  It takes some sand to gear up for success when the herd is still living in fear, but those that do will capture the full extent of the upswing and will be rewarded handsomely.   2012 is going to be a good year.

from BostInno http://bostinno.com/2011/12/09/4-reasons-tech-hiring-will-explode-in-2012/

Why Apple Is Winning the Mobile Video Format War … For Now


Jeroen Wijering is the creator of the incredibly successful JW Player, which has generated millions of downloads since its release in 2005. In 2007 he co-founded LongTail Video, focusing on a full-fledged online video platform that includes encoding, delivery, syndication and advertising.

The mobile video space has begun to consolidate. In early November, Adobe announced it would stop developing its Flash Player for mobile devices (read: Android). Going forward, HTML5 will be the only method to play back video on mobile phones and tablets.

This is a big win for Apple, the company to most strongly oppose Flash over the last few years. The company is indeed beginning to dictate the industry’s future. In addition to defeating Flash in the battle for video playback, Apple continues to innovate with its H.264 codec, since WebM is still nowhere to be found.

The company has also taken the lead in video streaming. Apple’s homegrown streaming protocol, HTTP Live Streaming (HLS), has always been the one and only way to stream content to iDevices. Now, due to the popularity of iOS, many tool vendors and even competing platforms are starting to support it too.


Playback and Encoding


According to Adobe, Android 4 (Ice Cream Sandwich) will be the last mobile platform to use a Flash plugin. The OS is launching without one, though. Given Flash’s terrible track record with mobile, it wouldn’t be surprising if it never arrives. Therefore, video publishers should ensure their Android video works in HTML5.

In terms of encoding, the H.264 codec is baked into the CPU of every single mobile phone today, while WebM is still confined to a software-only (and non-HTML5) implementation on some Android devices. Google is working on hardware, but the path from reference designs to phone integration, and eventually market share, is a long one.

Until WebM hardware decoding is supported by a decent slice of mobile devices, video publishers will continue to focus on H.264. Seeing this, Google continues to support H264 in Chrome, despite announcing that it would drop it almost a year ago. For all intents and purposes, H.264 is the baseline codec for HTML5 video at present.


What Is HLS?


The acronym HLS stands for HTTP Live Streaming. It is a protocol that allows publishers to stream video using plain HTTP web servers, as opposed to using expensive and hard to scale dedicated streaming servers. This streaming is achieved by chopping up the video hosted on the server into small fragments (usually 10 seconds), and then stitching them together again in the browser. The browser only requests the next fragment in line, instead of loading the entire video and wasting bandwidth, which is how vanilla HTML5 operates. See the diagram below for a single fragmented stream.

A video streamed through HLS is usually encoded into multiple qualities, ranging from a mere 180px to full-blown 720px and beyond. Every time the browser returns to the server to load the next fragment, it decides which quality level to load. Thus, the browser continuously adjusts the quality of the stream to best match the available bandwidth. This is hugely important in mobile, because devices perpetually swap between 2G, 3G, 4G and Wi-Fi connections. See diagram below for an adaptive fragmented stream.

In addition, the fragments of HLS streams can be encrypted for secure delivery. Users who intercept these fragments will not be able to play them at all. This is a big security advantage over plain HTML5 video, in which every savvy user can find the URL of a video and download for his own use.


Why Use HLS?


Today’s wide usage of the HLS protocol is a result of iOS success. Apple designated the protocol as the one and only way to stream video to the iPhone and iPad. No Flash, no Silverlight, no RTP or RTSP. On top of that, HLS is required for in-app video. Even simple MP4 downloads, which work for in-browser playback, are not allowed in iOS apps.

Every major publisher, therefore, needs to use the HLS protocol. Every major encoding tool (e.g. Encoding.com or Sorenson Squeeze) and streaming server (e.g. Flash Media Server or Wowza Media Server) supports it nowadays. This broad ecosystem, in turn, now has many devices that support the protocol as well. Nearly every popular set-top box (Xbox, PS3, Roku, Apple TV, Boxee) can play HLS, as will Android phones running the new Ice Cream Sandwich release.

Are there are any competing protocols? Absolutely. Dynamic Streaming from Adobe is one, but requires the (now desktop only) Flash plugin. Also, Smooth Streaming from Microsoft requires Silverlight, another desktop-only (and soon to retire?) plugin. HLS is deployed on top of HTML5, which is easily implemented by both browsers and devices.

A standardization effort is on its way as well, in the form of MPEG DASH (Dynamic Adaptive Streaming over HTTP). Supported by many companies (including Apple) and boasting a rich set of features, DASH may well become the single video streaming protocol to replace HLS, as well as RTMP and RTSP. However, progress is slow and broad support is years away.


The Apple Standard


For the foreseeable future, we’ll watch our mobile video the Apple way: HTML5 embedded, H.264 encoded and HLS streamed. Any platform seeking broad support for quality video (Windows Phone?) must implement HLS. And any publisher seeking mobile viewers must encode in H.264, embed using HTML5 and stream using HLS.

Is this a bad thing? Quite the contrary. The alternative is fragmentation: multiple plugins, multiple codecs and multiple protocols. This is an annoyance for large media corporations; it increases their development and delivery costs. However, it’s disastrous for smaller video publishers, since the companies lack the resources to build and support multi-platform video delivery. Ultimately, that is a detriment to mobile video. Like the web in general, mobile video thrives on broad availability of a wide variety of content.

A more open set of standards (WebM and DASH) should come in time. For now though, Apple is the standard.

More About: apple, contributor, features, Flash, iOS, mobile video, Video

For more Mobile coverage:

from Mashable! http://mashable.com/2011/12/09/apple-mobile-video/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_...

New Twitter: 25 Tips and Tricks for Savvy Tweeters

Twitter Keyboard Shorcuts


The reorganized and refashioned Twitter.com is a markedly different beast than it was just 48 hours ago. Now millions of users who call Twitter’s web destination home are looking for help. Perhaps just 25 soupcons of it. If so, look no further than this list of 25 new Twitter tips.

Sound off in the comments if you have other Twitter tips and tricks to share.


Use These 22 Keyboard Shortcuts


Twitter’s keyboard shortcuts got an update during Twitter’s design overhaul on Dec 8. In the image above, you’ll see the new key strokes. Below is a quick how-to guide to clear up any immediate confusion.

Actions for tweets:

  • Click “f” to favorite a tweet (must have an individual tweet open; test it here)
  • Click “r” to reply to a tweet (must have an individual tweet open; test it here)
  • Click “t” to retweet (must have an individual tweet open; test it here)
  • Click “m” to send a direct message (must have an individual tweet open; test it here)
  • Click “n” to create a new tweet (can do this on anywhere on Twitter)
  • Click “Enter” to see tweet details (must use navigation shortcut “j” first to make this one work; test it here)
  • Click “l” to close all open tweets (open a few tweets using the “Enter” shortcut and then try closing them)

Navigation:

  • Click “Shift” and “?” for a list of all keyboard shortcuts
  • Click “j” to go to the next tweet (can do on homepage or your timeline)
  • Click “k” to go to the previous tweet (can do on homepage or your timeline)
  • Click the space bar to page down
  • Click “/” to search
  • Click / to jump to the search box
  • Click “.” to load new tweets

Timelines

  • Click “g” then “h” to go home
  • Click “g” then “c” to go to the Connect page
  • Click “g” then “m” to go to your direct messages
  • Click “g” then “d” to go to the Discover page
  • Click “g” then “p” to go to your profile
  • Click “g” then “f” to go to your favorites
  • Click “g” then “m” to go to your direct messages
  • Click “g” then “u” to search for any user’s timeline

Move Your Direct Messages and Lists Front and Center


Your Messages tab and Lists pull-down menu are no longer on your homepage. They’ve both been moved to the main pull-down menu next to the blue “Compose new Tweet” button. To avoid having to click twice to get to your direct messages and lists, you can create bookmarks for both and place them on your bookmarks bar.


Embed Tweets Onto Your Website


Developers and bloggers no longer have to take screenshots of tweets to include them on their websites. Now, they can embed interactive tweets that give visitors the ability to reply, retweet and favorite without leaving the page. Below is an sample embedded tweet. Click on the link to learn how to plop one on your own site.

Woot! I just embedded a tweet into my story about Twitter’s new embeddable tweets. MATRIX? Check it out! ► on.mash.to/v8okeh

— Brian A. Hernandez (@BAHjournalist) December8, 2011


Discover New Topics and People to Follow


Use Twitter’s Discover tab to find new ways to explore topics and find users. Remember, you can employ a keyboard shortcut (click “g” then “d”) to navigate to the Discover page.

  • Stories: This tab sorts stories and trends based on your connections, location and language.
  • Activity: The Activity Stream, which was introduced in August, shows you what the people you follow are doing besides tweeting.
  • Who to Follow: This tab lists recommendations of who to follow “based on who you follow and more.”
  • Find Friends: Go here to search your Gmail, Yahoo, Hotmail (and Messenger) and AOL contact lists.
  • Browse Categories (pictured above): Click on a topic such as “technology,” “sports” or “funny” to discover people within those content areas to follow.

Bonus: How New Twitter Looks


Don’t have the New Twitter yet? We’ve got you covered. Watch this video and check out the gallery below. Click here for everything you need to know about Twitter’s recent redesign.



Home Page


Your profile information, suggested followers and trends are now on the left rather than the right.

Click here to view this gallery.

More About: New Twitter, Social Media, tips, Twitter, web design

For more Social Media coverage:

from Mashable! http://mashable.com/2011/12/09/new-twitter-tricks-tips/?utm_source=feedburner...

New Startup Accelerator Coming to Cambridge with $2.5 Million in Funding From Knight Foundation

There aren’t many entrepreneurs in public media, but Jake Shapiro is one to watch.

His Cambrigdge-based non-profit, PRX, announced its Public Media Accelerator this week, a project which will provide funding and expertise to teams with innovative ideas for increasing the impact of public service media. The program is supported by a $2.5 million grants from the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation.

Modeled on startup incubators from TechStars to Y Combi to RockHealth, the idea is to stimulate innovation and disruption in a space known for a remarkable lack of it.  The project will invest in both nonprofit and for-profit ventures building apps, services and media products.

Winning technologists and journalists will come to Camrbidge for a 12 week development program, culminating in a demo day and the chance to win additional funding. The program will officially launch at the upcoming SXSW Interactive festival in the spring, applications will also be accepted.

“Through funding more than 200 community information experiments, we’ve found that the models with the best success are nurtured through outside advice and expertise,” said Michael Maness, Knight Foundation’s vice president for journalism and media innovation. “We hope the Public Media Accelerator will bring public media’s quality journalism into more people’s lives, by using technology to expand its reach.”

Writing in PBS’s Media Shift Blog recently, Shapiro talked about the problems legacy media continue to have with adapting digital technology.

“These days the competition for talent in media technology is fierce, from new ventures to mature enterprises. Public media should be the go-to place for aspiring and experienced technologists who believe in a public service mission, want to collaborate to build products, services and content for millions of people, and seek an alternative from the rapidly commercializing web. There should be natural alliances with open-source software communities, with leading nonprofit web giants Mozilla and Wikipedia, the growing number of web-based local news organizations, and the open/civic data movement.”

Congratulations PRX. We’d love to get involved and help.

 

from BostInno http://bostinno.com/2011/12/09/new-startup-accelerator-coming-to-cambridge-wi...

4 Ways the New Twitter Is Taking on Facebook


Twitter’s native video- and photo-sharing features may have hinted at its desire to go after Facebook, but the redesign it launched on Thursday stated them loud and clear.

Twitter now looks a lot more like the world’s largest social network, with features that focus on social interaction and brand pages.

Twitter once differentiated itself as an “information network” while Facebook defined itself as the “social graph.” But just as Facebook added real-time features that make it look more like Twitter, Twitter has inched into its competitor’s turf.

In June, Twitter’s video and photo-sharing tools positioned the network to increase engagement by breaking the mold of its 140-character tweets. Meanwhile, a new “Activity Feed” was added in August to keep track of followers’ interactions with other Twitter users, and later that month it added photo galleries to every user’s profiles — it’s first step toward establishing profile pages that are more than just an aggregation of tweets.

The new public-facing Twitter profile page is not another step toward that goal, it’s a giant leap. In the company’s own communications-department-approved words, the new profile “puts you and your interests front and center.” It wants to be “your opportunity to introduce yourself to the world” and “stay close to everything you care about.” All of these objectives encroach upon Facebook’s territory.

These four new features in particular challenge Facebook’s reign as the default social site for managing online identity, keeping up with friend-recommended (and created) content and serving as brands’ social media hub.


1. Brand Pages


Most brands have a presence on both Facebook and Twitter, but until Thursday, a brand’s Twitter page was a place to push content to their followers’ streams and respond to customer service requests. It was not a destination in itself, and there was no differentiation between brand accounts and user accounts.

Now Twitter will give brands a home. The new pages allow marketers to customize their headers in a way that makes their logos and taglines more prominent. They can also choose a tweet to stay at the top of their page, and that tweet will be automatically expand — even if the visitor doesn’t click on it — to show a photo or video.

Launch partners for the pages include American Express, Best Buy, Bing, Chevrolet, Coca-Cola, Dell, Disney, General Electric, Hewlitt-Packard, Intel, JetBlue, Kia, McDonald’s, Nike, PepsiCo, Staples, Verizon Wireless, NYSE Euronext, Heineken, Subway and Paramount Pictures.


2. Profile Pages


Twitter profiles now look more like Facebook and Google+ profiles. User information such as favorites, lists, and images have been moved to the upper left-hand side of the page — the web reader’s focus sweet spot.


3. In-Line Conversations, Images and Videos


In the Facebook News Feed, it’s easy to ease drop on conversations between friends because comments on status updates pile up directly beneath them. It’s easy to browse videos and photos because they appear in-line with other information.

Twitter has taken another step closer to News Feed’s design. It already had allowed users to view media and conversations associated with tweets in the sidebar. But now one click inserts that same content directly to the feed. Once you open up a tweet to view this additional information, it stays open in your feed.


4. Discovery Through Connections


Facebook tells you when your friends become friends with other people, join groups and share links. Now Twitter tells you what connections are retweeting, following and favoriting. The feature originally launched as an “activity stream” in August. In the new design, it lives under the “Discover” tab.

More About: Facebook, Top Stories, Twitter

from Mashable! http://mashable.com/2011/12/08/new-twitter-facebook/?utm_source=feedburner&ut...

TV Industry Preparing for Voice Recognition Interfaces in 2012


Apple iScreen concept by Ciccarese Design

Businessweek reports on the movement towards voice-activated TV remotes in the coming year. The move seems triggered by Apple's plans to enter the TV market in the near future. Steve Jobs said that he had finally "cracked it", referring to the TV user interface. Most believe that this revelation relates to Apple's Siri voice recognition system, and the industry is on the move:
Whether the rumors are true that Apple is planning to release a TV set by 2013, Siri-like voice recognition is headed for the living room. Microsoft (MSFT) is already there, via its Xbox 360 game console, and Comcast (CMCSA), Samsung Electronics (SHCAY), LG, and Sharp are working on voice-enabled features for TV sets, set-top boxes, and related products.
Businessweek suggests an voice command as simple as "Record the next episode of Modern Family" as a much needed improvement over the current solution. Jakob Nielsen of Nielsen Norman Group goes on to say "Anything would be better than what we have now."

Upcoming remote devices are said to look more like iPhones than traditional remotes, with possibly a single physical button to activate the microphone. Others are working to simply embed microphones around the living room and eliminating a physical remote altogether. Nuance suggests that 5% of TVs could be voice controlled by Christmas 2012.

We've previously reported about competitors "scrambling" to identify what an Apple television set might look like. The lead up is reminiscent to the large number of tablet plans from competitors in the months leading up to the original iPad launch.


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from MacRumors: Mac News and Rumors - Front Page http://www.macrumors.com/2011/12/08/tv-industry-preparing-for-voice-recogniti...