Founders Fund opens nominations for $50,000 TechFellow Awards
Whether it's a new investment tack or simply goodwill to the technology community in a down economy, early-stage venture capital firm Founders Fund is taking a unique approach to the tired award ceremony with TechFellow. Instead of celebrating a product or company, Founders Fund wants to draw attention to those behind the scenes who actually make the innovation happen.
12 fellows will be selected by a panel of 21 judges, which reads like a who's-who of Silicon Valley, including Facebook's Mark Zuckerberg, LinkedIn's Reid Hoffman, Flickr's Caterina Fake, MySpace's Chris DeWolfe, former Yahoo CEO Terry Semel, Esther Dyson and Marc Andreesson, among others. Nominations (including self-nominations) will be accepted until May 8, with an awards dinner slated for June.
You can build your own photo mosaics with National Geographic
You know those composite picture mosaics, where thousands of individual photographs are combined into a single, large image? National Geographic Digital Media has debuted a photo community tool that creates an infinitely zoomable loop of that sort called Infinite Photograph.
The application takes between 200 and 500 user-uploaded photographs from the My Shot public database and turns them into the finished mosaic which can be endlessly zoomed through. Eventually, National Geographic says the tool will be turned over to users to let them build an infinite photograph out of solely their own photos.
Google posts its first-ever revenue decline
Describing the current economic landscape as "uncharted territory," Google CEO Eric Schmidt acknowledged that his company hasn't been immune from the prevailing mayhem as he announced the search giant's first-ever quarter-to-quarter revenue decline for Q1 2009.
Google on Thursday reported year-to-year growth of 9% -- the first time since IPO the company hasn't posted double-digit growth -- and gross revenue of $5.5 billion. Quarter-to-quarter, gross revenue dropped about $200 million, but it beat market estimates. Operating income was up a bit to 34% of revenues, or $1.88 billion, and free cash flow's in the $2 billion range.
There will be an Office 2010 public beta sometime, reasserts Microsoft
The news from Microsoft Tuesday evening of the first technical previews of Office 2010, coming in the third quarter of this year, referred to being limited to several thousand testers -- Exchange product manager Julia White told us perhaps a few hundred thousand, after all the invitations were processed. But a technical preview is not exactly a "public beta," so when a prepared Q&A Monday with Microsoft's senior VP Chris Caposella failed to mention a public beta for Office 2010, some bloggers and journalists came to the conclusion that there wouldn't be one.
So when Microsoft reported today that there would be a public beta, it was reported in various locations that the company had changed its mind. In fact, as a Microsoft spokesperson verified for Betanews this afternoon, not only was there no change of mind, but no statement regarding the lack of a public beta was ever made. Microsoft told Betanews earlier this week that there would be a public beta of Office 2010, though the company has not yet finalized a date.
Simple economics: Week one of the iTunes price change
Billboard magazine today said that sales of newly-priced iTunes tracks are trending downward as a result of last week's price increase. The publication's figures pertain to tracks that were formerly 99¢ and are now $1.29. A price increase of roughly 30% correlated to a 12.5% drop in sales. Meanwhile, tracks that were unchanged in price actually sold 10% more than the previous week, and sales were up 3% overall.
It is a path that labels do not want sales to follow. Before the changes went into effect, a major label executive who wished to remain anonymous, told Reuters, "If we can gain traction with $1.29 that will be good for greater margin."
Nokia looks up from bottom of well, sees the sky
For all those who find the stock market maddening, here's something else to add to your list: After digesting reports that mobile-phone makers Nokia saw a 90.6% year-to-year drop in net profit, the stock market sent shares in the Finnish firm up ten percent.
A few things are happening in this latest financial snapshot from the company. First, as you may have heard, things are tough all over. We're just hours away from the announcement of first-quarter results from Sony Ericsson, another major player in the mobile market, but no one's expecting miraculous growth for this or any other player in the sphere not named Apple, Research In Motion, or Palm.
Code-frozen Firefox 3.5 beta gains 4% more speed against Chrome 2
We may see the latest Mozilla Firefox 3.5 public beta -- now with the whole numbering thing straightened out -- as soon as next Wednesday, and quite likely a Firefox 3.0.9 update in the same timeframe. In the meantime, as Mozilla's developers test the final nightly build prior to the opening of the floodgates, Betanews tests reveal that regular Firefox users should appreciate about double the speed and performance of Firefox 3.0.8, and 450% the performance of the final release of Microsoft Internet Explorer 8.
But as Mozilla's developers make tweaks to its rendering engine and its new TraceMonkey JavaScript interpreter, Google's developers (some of whom, admittedly, are the very same people) are making tweaks to its development series browser, Chrome 2.0.172.6. (Google's development browser now co-exists with its Chrome 1 series, which represents finalized code.) As a result, our latest tests show Apple may not hold claim to "the world's fastest browser" for much longer, as Chrome 2 pulls within 2% of Safari's general performance, and as Firefox 3.5 makes up some ground.
Smartphone malware: Still the next big thing?
Conficker may have dominated security headlines this quarter, but Finnish security company F-Secure says the lesser-known "Sexy View" worm represented a new threat: the SMS and phone-based worm and the mobile botnet.
Sexy View is a social engineering worm which uses a device's contact list to spread. It sends a text message to all contacts with a link to a Web site that installs a malicious application that shares the phone's information (like its serial number) with the virus' creators. It targets devices running Symbian S60 3rd edition and was first found on Nokia 3250 handsets.
Maxthon 3.0 Alpha 2 browser invites go out today
The Maxthon development team announced this morning that advanced testers with a user level greater than 10 will now find a link in their Maxthon Passport that allows invite links to be sent to friends.
Maxthon is a customizable Web browser which offers skinning, tabbed browsing, mouse gestures, privacy controls and ad blocking, as well as third party toolbar support. But the key feature of Maxthon 3.0 is its use of dual rendering engines: both Trident and Webkit. While it strives to retain Internet Explorer-style compatibility with "compatible mode," (Trident) it offers the option to kick into "turbo mode" (Webkit) with reduced compatibility but higher speed.
IBM's bid to one-up Intel next year with 28 nm processors
Last February, Intel made some changes and adaptations to its processor roadmap in what was generally perceived as a sensible move in light of the current economy: It's expediting its move from the 45 nm to the 32 nm generation of CPUs with increased investments in facilities, but then extending the market lifespan of the 32 nm generation to compensate, and to help reap back the costs incurred. That extension will include the introduction of a "mainstream" 32 nm architecture code-named Westmere, as part of its continued strategy -- successful so far -- to introduce certain elements of its newer designs to a broader market of buyers first.
That strategy was confirmed Monday during Intel's quarterly conference call -- where it also revealed sharply lower profits on much lower revenue: "We have pulled in Westmere, our first 32 nanometer product family, and will now be shipping those products later this year," reported CEO Paul Otellini (our thanks to Seeking Alpha for the transcript). "We have shipped thousands of Westmere samples to over 30 EOM customers already. We also look forward to the launch of our new consumer ultra-low voltage products, which will enable many new...light notebooks at very compelling price points."
YouTube, Susan Boyle, and a slap at snark
The YouTube Symphony Orchestra gathered last night at Carnegie Hall to play an original Tan Dun piece composed specifically for the global competition that brought the group together. It's lovely. But I'm willing to bet that instead you were listening to a heretofore obscure singer absolutely flatten a roomful of doubters with a show tune.
Like a lot of us, I've been watching the Susan Boyle video repeatedly this week, trying to get at what it means for the Internet to have taken to heart, as the Britain's Got Talent audience took to heart, a middle-aged Scotswoman with ungroomed eyebrows and a frumpy Best Dress and a voice that seems to have broken something that needed breaking in hearts around the world.
Trillian sends Astra into beta
Download Trillian Astra beta from Fileforum now.
What next, Duke Nukem Forever? All right, that may be a cheap shot -- we've only been waiting three years for the release of Trillian Astra, the update of the IM software that once owned the multi-service chat realm. The software moved from alpha to beta late last week.
How much would you pay for news? A new coalition seeks an answer
For a great many Internet users -- perhaps a majority -- who believe they're already paying monthly fees for content, the thought of paying a subscription fee for online news may be akin to yet another "tax." Certainly the purveyors of the news-is-by-nature-free argument may elect to characterize such a fee as a "tax." But challenging and defeating the new conventional lack-of-wisdom is just one of the challenges facing a group of businessmen at the nucleus of a new online news coalition.
Perhaps if there were just one fee that pertains to a whole portfolio of news providers, enough readers would see enough value in their product as a collective, to subsidize it through a single subscription fee. That's the bet being placed today by Journalism Online, LLC, the latest venture from business innovator and Court TV founder Steven Brill, venture capitalist and former TCI CEO Leo Hindery, and former Dow Jones executive vice president and The Wall Street Journal publisher L. Gordon Crovitz.
Microsoft still thinks 'Pink' in its Zune ad hunt
With a handful of Zune HD leaks now out in public, and a semi-solid release schedule for Windows Mobile 6.5, we're now beginning to hear some development in the "Pink" category.
"Pink" is Microsoft's code name for a mobile product with very little in the way of concrete information behind it. What is known is that it will likely be coming from Danger, makers of the OS found in the T-Mobile Sidekick which Microsoft acquired in February of last year. Before CES this year, CNBC's Jim Goldman said "Pink" was going to be a device that would "provide true competition to the iPhone."
One extra week for Microsoft to defend tying IE to Windows
After a Financial Times report this morning cited April 28 as the deadline for Microsoft to comply with a request by the European Commission to respond to its latest Statement of Objections, reporters close to the story wondered why that seemed like one week too many. As it turned out, the FT had something of a scoop and didn't even know it, as Microsoft confirmed the news to Reuters later in the day. April 21 had been the company's anticipated deadline.
Last January, the EC issued a formal objection to Microsoft regarding its practice of bundling Internet Explorer with Windows, which it claims doesn't give browser competitors a level playing field. Statements of Objections are the first steps taken in launching formal court proceedings against a prospective defendant; yesterday, the EC issued a similar notice against the government of the United Kingdom, for interpreting or "transposing" an EU law in a way which could enable interception of private Internet communications data.
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