After Justin Bieber was presented with the prize for “Favorite Male Singer” at the Nickelodeon Kids’ Choice Awards on Saturday, he was literally slammed with slime. And it didn’t help that actor Will Smith held Bieber down to prevent his escape.
Now, we’re not talking any old wimpy slime bath. Bieber was pummeled with gallons upon gallons of slime from every angle of the stage. The slime explosion was so fierce that nearby fans got soaked, and even first lady Michelle Obama jumped out of the way to prevent slime from ruining her youthful, sparkly outfit.
Those watching the KCAs took to social media in response to Nickelodeon-crazy events like this. The awards show topped the charts with 1.6 million social mentions across the networks.
The data below is compliments of our friends at Trendrr, who measure specific TV show activity (mentions, likes, checkins) across Twitter, Facebook, GetGlue and Miso. To see daily rankings, check out Trendrr.TV.
Mac and iOS users are going to be increasingly pushed to choose between storing their documents in iCloud or Dropbox. I expect that Apple will continue to push more and more features to iCloud that will make people want to use it, and I expect that Apple will continue to make iCloud easier and easier for iOS and Mac developers to use, so developers will want to support it.
I like the idea behind iCloud, but I don't really trust iCloud yet. Apple's previous attempts at online services have left me suspicious about iCloud's performance, reliability, and long-term future. I hope I'm wrong and that iCloud turns out to be great, but in the meantime, I know Dropbox, and I trust Dropbox.
One of my favorite features of Dropbox is the ability to go back and see revisions from the previous 30 days. It's my safety net.
The good news is that you can sync iCloud to Dropbox. The bad news is that it's a one-way sync from iCloud to Dropbox. But if all you want to do is backup iCloud files and be able to retrieve previous versions from Dropbox, it's pretty simple to do.
I'm going to use Byword as an example because it's fairly straight-forward, but the process should work roughly the same for any iCloud enabled Mac app.
Step One: Make sure iCloud is enabled. Go to System Preferences » iCloud and make sure that you have "Documents & Data" set to sync.
Step Two: Create an iCloud-based file. The exact process for this differs from app to app. Byword has a File » Move to iCloud menu item.
Step Three: Find the local iCloud folder. Here's where things get a little bit tricky. You have to get into the "Library" folder in your Home directory, but that folder has been hidden in Lion. Fortunately for you there are at least 18 ways to view that folder. My recommendation is to go to the Finder, select the "Go" menu, and press the Option/Alt key. When you do that, you'll see the Library folder appear. Or use ⌘ + Shift + G and type in "~/Library/" if you prefer keyboard shortcuts. Once you are in, look for a folder called Mobile Documents
You'll find something like the list of directories shown here. Inside each one is a "Documents" sub-directory. I bet you can guess what is stored in there.
Step Four: Sync changes via Hazel.Hazel was recently updated to version 3, and one of the new features is a 'sync' option. For those who don't know Hazel, you should, it's one of my irreplaceable apps. It allows you to create rules for all sorts of actions to happen in specific folders if different criteria are met. For example, Hazel can tell if a file has been modified since the last time Hazel checked a specific folder. If it has been modified, you can tell Hazel to do specific things, including "sync" from that folder, so another one.
Click on image for a larger size
I created a 'Byword' folder in my ~/Dropbox/ and then created a Hazel rule which says "If any files have been modified since we last checked (matched) this folder, then sync the 'Documents' folder (located inside ~/Library/Mobile Documents/) with the Byword folder in Dropbox.
Step Five:(Optional) While I was checking around inside ~/Library/Mobile Documents/ I used Default Folder X to set the Byword iCloud folder to be the default folder for all new Byword documents. Now whenever I create new document on my Mac using Byword, I know that it will automatically be saved to iCloud and Dropbox.
This isn't something that I will do for all of my iCloud-enabled apps, but I've been using Byword more and more lately for all sorts of writing projects, and I want to do everything I can to make sure that I am "covered" when it comes to saving my files. Two local copies (one in Mobile Documents, one in Dropbox folder) and two copies in the "cloud" (iCloud and Dropbox sync), plus 30 days worth of "undo"? (Not to mention that each of my Macs will have local copies as well, as iCloud and Dropbox sync across my network.) That's a system I can create and then forget about.
If you thought your Sunbeam electric blanket or those Hello Kitty foot warmers were advanced pieces of kit, then you'd best divert your eyes from this story out of the UK. In an effort to eliminate the mess of power cables and extraneous batteries from a soldier's tech gear, one British company is currently experimenting with conductive fabrics as the basis for future military uniforms. The material is able to deliver power to any number of devices -- all from a single battery -- and also features a redundancy aspect, with the ability to reroute power should the fabric become torn or damaged. The company, known as Intelligent Textiles, recently received a £234,000 grant from the Ministry of Defense and hopes to begin field trials of its equipment next month. While these high tech uniforms may see a limited military issue by year's end, it's thought unlikely that the gear will become widespread until 2014 or beyond.
New submitter smarq2 writes "Chessbase reports that chess programmer IM Vasik Rajlich has solved the King's Gambit chess opening with technical means. 3000 processor cores, running for over four months, exhaustively analyzed all lines that follow after 1.e4 e5 2.f4 exf4 and came to some extraordinary conclusions."
Update: 04/02 22:11 GMT by U L : Skuto points out that this is the same person who was found guilty of plagarizing GNU Chess and Crafty.
Moviegoers are familiar with the fact that criminals want to talk outside and in person for fear of phones being tapped or bugs planted in buildings. But what would you think if a silver screen mafioso said, “We don’t talk in here; I just bought a new toaster”?
That’s not that far off.
The New York Times has a great in depth profile of Nuance Communications, the Burlington company behind Siri’s voice recognition technology, that both highlights the company’s dominance in that space and raises a number of interesting issues about the technology. For Nuance, Siri and its competitors are just the beginning:
Mr. Sejnoha, the company’s chief technology officer, and other executives are plotting a voice-enabled future where human speech brings responses from not only smartphones and televisions, cars and computers, but also coffee makers, refrigerators, thermostats, alarm systems and other smart devices and appliances.
Useful and terrifying in equal measure. It’d be great to finally make the television remote obsolete, but do we want a full audio record of what goes on in the privacy of our homes? That may be where we’re headed, as Nuance claims “aside from the federal government, it has amassed the largest archive of recorded speech in the United States.”
The full article is well worth a read as it details the company’s history (it’s an acquisition machine) and discusses other risks of speaking to computers, including some experts’ worry that it could be psychologically confusing for people.
As with most questions like this, my own hope is that technology can address the problems it generates. Nuance’s Dragon TV product idly records what’s being said so it can get better at speech recognition, but you can imagine any number of ways around this. Either customers could opt out, or the system could delete conversations on a regular basis.
Welcome to the wild world of mainstream voice recognition, where your microwave complains you two don’t talk anymore.
These days you can barely move for smart television sets, as every TV manufacturer tries to wow us by producing the snazziest, most-connected screens on the market.
“When smart TVs came out I was really quite enthused by it all,” Anthony Rose, the co-founder of hot social TV app Zeebox — and a former head of the BBC’s iPlayer project — told me over the weekend. “But that enthusiasm really has declined for me, because they have failed to embrace what technology can offer.”
He thinks that making TVs ape computers by adding apps and proprietary controls and interfaces has caused a war between manufacturers and broadcasters that has “halted innovation.”
“You can buy your beautiful, new connected TV, and you can either be in the one area that watches live TV, or, 18 clicks later, you can be in the app store and do something else — and no one ever goes to the app store,” he said. “On my iPad it takes about 60 seconds for zero cost to be trying some new application.
“I think innovation will flourish here and that in the future your TV will be a beautiful but dumb hi-res panel that will play the content it is told to by your smartphone or tablet.”
Focused on the question of where the emerging investment trends were in this area, the answers from the panelists — Rose was joined by Ralph Eric Kunz of Catagonia Capital, an investor in German video discovery app Tweek.tv — came loud and clear.
While many are still focused on the disruption of distribution, such as IPTV or video on demand, that area is mostly covered now, they said: The future lies in developing new and interesting ways to use the plumbing.
“It feels very much like the music space 10 years ago,” said Kunz, who was one of the architects of German media group Bertelsmann’s purchase of Napster a decade ago.
“I think this whole plumbing era is the necessary prerequisite for the innovation era. The interesting thing is how established industry . . . is actually going to hedge their bets. There’s a lot of value in the old world that’s going to be destroyed.
“Without knowing what the future will look like, I think this ‘second screen’ will be a complementary way of looking at content — in some circumstances it might even be the ‘first screen.’ I think that’s one of the fascinating innovation areas of the future, to figure out how those screens interact with each other.”
His belief is that this will come in large part through social innovations and applications that provide a companion experience to big screen viewing — hence the investment in Tweek, which recently launched an iPad app for finding video content that you might want to watch.
“I think in the end, the question will be: Is the selection process, are the criteria for selection, the ways I select, going to change? I think Facebook plays a strong role in that today, but we don’t know what that’s going to look like in the future. Tweek TV goes in that direction, to build an interface that is focused on moving content in order to make a much better selection process in future.”
Broadcasters could be cut out of the loop
Meanwhile, Rose said he believed the big disruption in TV was happening at the human level, because technology means that program producers are now able to access audiences in ways that weren’t possible before.
“Back in the old days before the Internet, the audience would engage with the broadcaster — the broadcaster created a channel and an aggregation and schedule things, and the audience were there and the broadcaster would buy content, and the content provider or owner really had no direct audience engagement. Then came the Internet and the makers of Glee could set up a website — but they were disconnected. Now with the rise of second-screen viewing, with companion viewing, there’s a way for the content producer to connect directly to the audience.”
Large producers can now create applications and experiences that audiences can use that deepen their link to the program, he said. And that could leave broadcasters becoming little more than a pipeline.
“The broadcaster, who today is a distributor, a channel and a content provider, may ultimately be like an ISP, and the audience engages directly with the program maker. That’s one way it may play out.”
This post originally appeared on the American Express OPEN Forum, where Mashable regularly contributes articles about leveraging social media and technology in small business.
The Limited Liability Company (LLC) is a hot business structure for startups right now — and for good reason. It offers all the personal liability protection without the red tape, paperwork and formalities that can be burdensome for a young startup, digital agency, small business or solo entrepreneur.
But after settling on the LLC for the legal structure, many small business owners are surprised to learn there’s still one more decision to make: how to be taxed. Certainly this is a big decision, as taxes are probably what drove you to select a legal structure in the first place.
Because the LLC is an entity created by state statute (and not the federal government), it offers flexibility when it comes to federal tax treatment. A single-member LLC can choose to be taxed as a sole proprietorship or a corporation (either C Corporation or S Corporation). Likewise, a multi-member LLC can choose to be taxed as a partnership or a corporation (either C Corporation or S Corporation).
Flexibility is always a good thing — you just need to know which option is right for you. Read on to learn more about the four different federal tax classifications available for the LLC.
1. Single-Member LLC as a ‘Disregarded Entity’
A single-member LLC is essentially taxed as a sole proprietor. As the name implies, you need to be the sole owner of the LLC. This classification falls into the “pass-through” taxation category” — the business itself doesn’t file any tax forms. As the owner of the LLC, you report business income or loss on your personal tax forms (Schedule C).
In addition, you will need to pay self-employment taxes if you’re engaged in active trade or business, for example, if you provide a service like copywriting or sell a product. If you formed an LLC for a passive activity such as a real estate investment, then you don’t need to pay self-employment tax on the profits (rather, you’d report your passive profits on Schedule E).
For example, let’s say Jonathan is a freelance UI designer who formed an LLC for his business. Through this work, he earned $75,000 in profit in 2011. He will report this income on his personal tax form and pay income taxes on the $75,000 at his individual tax rate, as well as pay self-employment taxes.
2. Multiple-Member LLC as a Partnership
For federal tax purposes, if an LLC has two or more members, it will be taxed as a partnership unless it makes an election to be taxed as an S Corp or C Corp (see below). In the case of a multi-member LLC taxed as a partnership, the LLC reports its business income on a separate 1065 partnership tax return. Then, each partner pays self-employment taxes on his share of the partnership profit on the Schedule SE tax form. As with the single-member LLC, self-employment taxes only need to paid if the LLC engages in an active trade or business.
3. LLC as a C Corporation
An LLC can elect to be treated as a corporation for tax purposes by filing Form 8832 with the IRS. In this case, the LLC files a corporate tax return 1120 and pays taxes on its profits at its corporate tax rate. If LLC profits are distributed to LLC owners in the form of dividends, those dividends are taxed again at the qualifying dividend rate (this is what’s known as double taxation).
The LLC profits are not subject to self-employment taxes, but an LLC treated as a C Corporation is responsible for payroll taxes on any wages paid to LLC members who work for the business.
If you prefer to keep profits in the company (as opposed to distributing any end-of-the-year profits to owners), a C Corporation would work. In this case, only the company is taxed on the profits; individual owners are not responsible for paying taxes on whatever money stays in the business.
For example, Judy owns a consulting company that earned $100,000 in profit. As an LLC treated as a C Corporation, the business would pay $34,000 in taxes on this income (assuming a 34% tax rate). If Judy then takes home that profit as a dividend, she would also owe taxes (at the 15% qualifying dividend rate) on the dividend payment. But if she decides to keep that money in the business (perhaps to expand her marketing budget next year), then she personally does not owe any taxes on the profit.
4. LLC as an S Corporation
In this last scenario, the LLC elects to be treated as an S Corporation. The S Corp files an 1120S tax return, but the company’s profits are not subject to corporate income tax like they are in the C Corporation. Instead, individual LLC owners are taxed on their respective shares of the company’s profits (and profits are not subject to self-employment tax). If an LLC owner works in the business, he must be paid a reasonable wage for his activities, and the LLC must pay payroll taxes on these wages.
Let’s say three friends start a social intranet company, and each owns one-third of the business. They form an LLC and elect to be taxed as an S Corporation. In the first year, the business earns $90,000 in profit. The LLC does not pay income tax on the profit. Instead, each owner includes his or her share of the profit ($30,000) in their taxable income on their individual tax return. And if the business lost $60,000 in the first year, each owner would include a $20,000 loss in his or her individual taxable income.
Do Your Homework
Choosing the right tax entity for your LLC is a complicated issue and will ultimately depend on all the unique aspects of your particular business needs, vision and circumstances. Investigate your options and stay on top of changing tax developments on both the federal and state levels that could affect your taxes. And since the decision can have significant financial implications, you won’t go wrong by discussing your particular situation with a tax adviser or CPA.
We've been waiting for the tru2way-based cable service Videotron promised since the end of 2009, and now it has finally delivered illico Digital TV. The software is being provided by Alticast, while HD DVRs available through Videotron and at retail are from Cisco and Samsung. While it's been a while and we can't quite remember where we put our excitement for all things OCAP (probably tossed when the retail availability dream died), Videotron customers can expect a new HD UI, widgets, and a 500GB DVR. At least in this initial push there's no mention of multiroom capabilities, although there is the ability to view video on demand content on PCs and mobile devices. It will start rolling out April 4th in the Greater Quebec region with other regions following soon, those interested can check out an English-subtitled trailer as well as a Francophone-only presentation video after the break.
Paul Woods at design firm ESPI notes that the team there hardly ever uses its Adobe Creative Suite tools to design web sites, presentations, or other design-needed items. Instead, everybody turns to Apple's Keynote, part of the $79 iWork suite. It's not so much that Keynote does everything well, as Woods is honest about the limitations, including the lack of robust hot keys. But the point is that, for many projects, Keynote's wire frame tools and wide range of export formats can get the job done quite well, once you learn how to use it outside the PowerPoint-esque assumption. More »
Ever since YouTube began its march toward becoming one of the most popular search engines on the planet, companies have been looking for ways to harness its power for business purposes.
Enter the term “YouTube for the Enterprise.”
But while this is hardly a new concept, if you look online, there’s not a tremendous amount of info on what it actually means. So I thought I’d take a crack at breaking it down as simply as possible.
First, what YouTube for the Enterprise IS
What this generally refers to is the idea of using video content for corporate communications. It’s not about video marketing. Mostly, it involves businesses looking to use on-demand video for training purposes and to keep their work force (particularly remote and mobile employees) better connected.
More importantly, what it ISN’T
What’s misleading about the phrase “YouTube for the Enterprise” is that, in most cases, it doesn’t specifically involve YouTube at all. Instead, it’s more about leveraging YouTube concepts for collaborative communications and on-demand learning through video. For example, as Gartner reports, enterprises are intrigued by the possibilities of sharing video content with services that mimic sites like YouTube and Facebook.
In other words, providing a platform where employees and company leaders can easily create and upload video content to be shared internally sounds, you know, cool. Videos can also be shared with partners, clients and prospects, of course, but not shared publicly unless there is some specific need.
Why it’s not really about YouTube
While YouTube is super easy, it’s also super public, and most companies don’t want their internal communications out there for the whole world to see. While you can make YouTube videos private if you’d like, it comes with a host of limitations. Most notably, private YouTube videos can be shared with no more than 50 YouTube users, and those videos do not appear on channel pages, making the organization of lots of videos a challenge.
As a result, many companies have begun looking for ways to securely create and share private video content in a way that’s similar to YouTube, without actually being YouTube. Some larger companies develop these portals themselves (IBM, for example, has its own “BlueTube” channel for internal video content). Others use third-party services or solutions, ideally cloud-based platforms that won’t clog up their corporate networks and storage with a bunch of locally-hosted video presentations. Google itself also offers some private video functionality as part of the Premier Edition of its Google Apps platform.
Brainshark, obviously, is an option for many companies, as they can use it to easily create video content across the company, house it in a private web portal and share and track across their organization. And of course, they still have the option of uploading those presentations as public YouTube videos if they want to.
What’s happening now?
A lot of companies are seriously looking at new ways to improve their corporate strategies, and on-demand video content has become a hot commodity. As Paul Miller, founder of the Intranet Benchmarking Forum, told GigaOM last year, “YouTube shows that videos capture interest and attention that words simple can’t… [it’s] always popular because it’s dynamic and fresh.” He adds that in a few years, he expects YouTube for the enterprise to become an even more established form of corporate communications.
Of course, there are still challenges, as businesses become more familiar with creating video content and training others throughout the company to easily do the same. This is where new technology has really helped, as the costs and skill required to create online video content is easier now than ever.
Cloud-based solutions remove most of the storage management issues for IT admins in regards to hosting a lot of video content. Couple that with the fact that the industry in general has become much more comfortable with cloud computing over the past couple of years, and there certainly seems to be a recipe for more enterprise video communications going forward.
Brendan Cournoyer is a Content Marketing Manager with Brainshark. You can follow him on Twitter @brencournoyer, and visit the Brainshark Key Uses page to learn more about how video presentations can benefit your overall marketing strategy.