Google and Dish Network testing TV search on Android-based set-top boxes originally appeared on Engadget on Mon, 08 Mar 2010 18:57:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
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Google and Dish Network testing TV search on Android-based set-top boxes originally appeared on Engadget on Mon, 08 Mar 2010 18:57:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
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AFP - Internet giant Google is testing a new television programming search service with Dish Network Corp., The Wall Street Journal reported on Monday.
This morning, Obama spoke to a Philadelphia crowd at Arcadia University, pushing hard on passing health insurance reform and particularly two themes aimed at getting Congress to act: new evidence that the market concentration for insurance is so monopolized that insurers will continue to raise prices and lose customers in order to maintain profits, and the benefits that will start immediately with passage of reform.
From his remarks as prepared:
Every year, insurance companies deny more people coverage because they have a pre-existing condition. Every year, they drop more people’s coverage when they’re sick and need it most. Every year, they raise premiums higher and higher. Just last month, Anthem Blue Cross in California tried to jack up rates by nearly 40%. In my home state of Illinois rates are going up by as much as 60%. And you just heard from Leslie, who was hit with a 100% rate increase. 100%. One letter from her insurance company and her premiums doubled. Just like that.
You see, these insurance companies have made a calculation. The other day, on a conference call organized by Goldman Sachs, an insurance broker told Wall Street investors that insurance companies know they will lose customers if they keep raising premiums. But since there’s so little competition in the insurance industry, they’re ok with people being priced out of health insurance because they’ll still make more by raising premiums on the customers they have. And they will keep doing this for as long as they can get away with it.
This will likely be the primary focus of Obama's efforts this week to push the reform effot, following on a blog post by Dan Pfeiffer hammering the theme that "the insurers’ monopoly is so strong that they can continue to jack up rates as much as they like – even if it means losing customers – and their profits will continue to soar under the status quo."
Obama's other theme today seemed focused on reiterating for Congressional Dems that some reforms will kick in this year, and will be something strong to run on in November. Greg Sargent has this excerpt
Within the first year of signing health care reform, thousands of uninsured Americans with preexisting conditions would suddenly be able to purchase health insurance for the very first time in their lives.
This year, insurance companies will be banned forever from denying coverage to children with preexisting conditions.
This year, they will be banned from dropping your coverage when you get sick. And they will no longer able to arbitrarily and massively hike your premiums. Those practices will end.
If this reform becomes law, all the new insurance plans will be required to offer free preventive care to customers starting this year. Free checkups so we can catch preventable diseases.
Starting this year, there will be no more lifetime restricive annual limits on the amount of care you can receive from your insurance companies...
It would change fast: Insurance companies would finally be held accountable to the American people.
With the 50th Senator, Mark Begich, agreeing to go with reconciliation, this push is needs to be focused primarily House Blue Dogs. The larger problems still unresolved, which might have to take more direct, personal intervention from Obama, is how to resolve Stupak without throwing American women under the bus. It's not entirely clear that Stupak actually does have the 12 votes he says he has, but Obama should be having some one-on-one discussions with those potential twelve.
The other issue that remains unspoken in these remarks is the one thing that would actually provide real competition to those insurance companies--the public option. The effort in the Senate just picked up its 37th supporter, Chris Dodd.
TomP has more in his diary.
By Mary Pilon, Reporter, The Wall Street Journal
When times get tough, complain. If the newest numbers from the Better Business Bureau for company complaints are any indication, that’s exactly what consumers are doing. Overall, complaints at the Better Business Bureau were up 10% in 2009 with nearly one million complaints filed. Banks have seen a whopping 42% increase in complaints in 2009, further helping to explain the ire toward Wall Street, with complaints spanning from credit cards to checking accounts to mortgages. But even with the surge in financial complaints, the cellphone industry was the most complained industry of last year, with 37,477 total complaints.
Yesterday at the Belvedere Hotel the Manhattan DA auctioned off glitzy bracelets, watches and cuff links from the collections of two convicted Wall Street crooks. Benefits from the sale will got to victims of equities trader David Holzer and onetime Morgan Stanley boss Richard Garaventa. The former was sentenced to 15 years after stealing $15 million from friends, claiming he’d invest it. The latter took $2.5 million from his company and is serving two-six years. Both bought lots of jewelry.
New Yorkers showed up at the auction, cash in hand, with spending totaling a quarter of a million dollars. The highest selling item was a 3.12 carat diamond that went for $24,000. "It's worth a lot more," said its buyer, who purchased it for his wife. A gold Rolex adorned with diamonds went for $10,000 and the cheapest item, a pair of costume-jewelry cuff links, sold for just ten bucks. Buyers expressed sadness for the victims, but glee at their newly acquired jewelry. "I feel bad they lost out," Bob Kramisen told the Daily News. His wife chimed in, saying she planned to flaunt her bling. "They're not for the safety deposit box," she said.
Toyota is in a huge amount of trouble with the government for its cover-up of safety issues. But based on a dozen recent conversations with friends and family members, Toyota appears to be rapidly losing credibility with the public just as quickly. That will not be helped when, according to the Wall Street Journal, Toyota plans to attack an ex-employee that was handing over documents to the government and claim he had mental problems.
One friend, an engineer who has owned Toyotas since they were first sold in the United States, said he would never purchase another because of the company's behavior. He cited Toyota's refusal to share black box data that's recorded in each car during an accident, saying, "As an engineer, they must think they have something to hide."
Public opinion among my friends is going from "Toyota makes the best cars and these problems happen with all makes" to "What is Toyota afraid of?" My wife, who loves her one-year old Toyota Highlander Hybrid, surprised me and reversed her opinion about buying one again, and now says she probably would not buy a Toyota if she had to do it all over again.
One marketing professor friend thought Toyota's performance will make it the subject of one of the biggest business school cases of all time, about how Toyota fell so far so fast. He says he's never seen such inept crises management and "Everything they do seems to makes matters worse." He thinks once owners start losing their lives in cars that have been recalled and repaired, NHTSA may actually ban some models from being sold.
All of my anecdotal experience indicates Toyota is rapidly losing the confidence of the public, and its president's testimony before Congress did nothing to slow that down.
Online music service Pandora could hit $100 million in revenue this year, which would represent more than twice as much revenue as the company pulled in for 2009 and potentially set the stage for an IPO.
The new estimate comes from a Wall Street analyst quoted in a New York Times profile of Pandora, a company that has narrowly escaped all but certain death several times since its inception in 2000. The Times credits much of Pandora’s rise to its wildly successful iPhone app, which doubled signups for the service overnight.
Much of it also has to do, however, with the new licensing deal that the company was able to achieve last year that brought royalties down to a much more affordable level that Pandora offsets with both ads and subscription revenue.
As for whether these rising tides might lead to Pandora going public, the Times reports that nothing is imminent, but notes that the company recently hired a CFO — the same one that was at the helm of Salesforce.com when it made its Wall Street debut.
On a side note, Pandora’s success is quite the tale in perseverance. For example, the Times talks of founder Tim Westergren not scoring a venture capital investment until his 348th pitch. In a decade when we’ve seen countless music startups falter or sold off for pennies on the dollar, Pandora’s tale is an inspiring one, and the NYT’s profile is worth a read.
Tags: finance, online music, pandora
Pandora Could Hit $100 Million in Revenue for 2010
- Sarah PerezPandora Could Hit $100 Million in Revenue for 2010
- Rob DianaBy Geoffrey A. Fowler, Reporter, The Wall Street Journal
Shopping continues to shift to the Web, but the years of torrid growth are coming to an end. In 2009, e-commerce in the U.S. managed to buck the recession that dragged down the rest of retail, growing 11 percent to reach $155.2 billion, according to Forrester Research. The research firm is predicting in a report out Monday that e-commerce in America will grow another 11 percent this year.
RT @jasonhiner: Good read. @HarryMcCracken asks 28 thought leaders what Microsoft needs to do with Windows: http://bit.ly/cTmRj4
In 1985, almost all PCs sat on desktops, the Internet was a Defense Department research project, and the cell phone revolution had barely gotten underway. It was also the year that Microsoft launched a DOS front-end called Windows 1.0.
Over the past quarter century, Windows has evolved many times, and it will change again in light of Microsoft’s investments in cloud services, mobile platforms, and other new technologies. And as the way people compute and communicate morphs faster than ever, the challenges ahead for Windows are huge.
With that in mind, Technologizer asked some of the industry’s big brains about what Microsoft needs to do to keep its operating system relevant in the years to come. Their opinions range from merely simplifying the interface to borrowing ideas from other Microsoft products such as the Xbox to giving the OS a complete reboot. Here’s what they (and us) have to say.
–David Worthington, story editor
What to keep Windows relevant? Well, a more liberal policy on Windex, I suppose. Wait, you mean the software?
Ok, I will be honest and say I now mostly use Apple computers and have not used Windows on a constant daily basis in years, since when it was on the computer I used at work. That computer was kind of grimy and could have used some Windex too. But I digress.
I think the point is that to get me back Microsoft needs to really make Windows very different than it is now. I would switch if it nailed a touchscreen version, if I could easily use my top applications in the cloud, if it worked exactly the same across a range of devices. I would also like to see better integration with the devices Windows is on, which is to say, more Apple-like. Trust me, I am not wedded to Apple for life and could be enticed away a lot easier than you might imagine.
Try me.
Kara Swisher reports on technology at All Things Digital’s Boomtown, and co-hosts and co-produces the Wall Street Journal’s D conference. Photo by Ken Yeung (TheLetterTwo.com).
Government interference has effectively put a stop to upward integration of Windows, so I think all we’ll see is continued adaptation to new hardware and networking technologies. The next huge shift in home computing is the transition from the cable box to the streaming video player, saving the end user a large monthly subscription fee. Microsoft has known this for years, producing Media Center Editions of Windows way ahead of the curve.
With early innovators now using dedicated hardware such as Roku and Microsoft’s own Xbox to stream videos to their TVs, the time is ripe for Windows to reenter the fray and attempt to become the de-facto standard for home video viewing, either through embedded integration with HDTVs themselves or easy wireless connection to TVs. Home wireless networks are fast enough now that the Windows PC can be located anywhere in the house as long as the TV has a wireless input.
As to the threat from open source software, the problem remains the same as always. With no revenue, there is no money for marketing, sales, or support. All three of those, despite the pipe dreams of software engineers, are required for a product to be successful. Windows in particular requires a huge amount of pre-release testing because it attempts to work with such a wide variety of third-party hardware. That’s expensive.
Richard Brodie, employee #77 at Microsoft, the principal author of Microsoft Word, and once the company’s chief software designer, is also the author of Virus of the Mind: The New Science of the Meme.
Some things I’d like to see in Windows 8, or future versions:
1. Far better understanding that our computing devices play different roles. I’d love to click a button on the bottom and have my computer switch between an entertainment mode (like Media Center) to a work mode (with Outlook/Gmail/Spreadsheets up) to a collaboration mode (working with Google Wave or Zoho, etc). Right now switching between these various modes is very difficult.
2. I want everything I touch to be socialized. Why doesn’t Outlook know anything about Facebook? Why don’t my photos automatically get pushed to Flickr? Why don’t I have a news app on my desktop that brings in Tweets from Twitter? Why aren’t notifications built into the system at a deep level?
3. We are collecting digital crap like photos, videos, and documents at a dizzying rate. But how do you organize it better? Or, worse yet, once you get it organized into folders etc how do you back it up? Remember, my HD video files are many gigabytes and pushing them around is difficult, not to mention that I lose track of which hard drive has which files and there isn’t an easy way to upload some of these megafiles to online storage.
4. Cross-device working is pretty difficult. I’m going to have computers in my car, in my pocket, on my coffee table, and hooked up to my TV soon. Moving back and forth between all of these different screens isn’t easy, and if it’s doable each screen isn’t used appropriately in many cases (fonts don’t switch to bigger sizes for TV playing, and documents don’t get simpler for small screen viewing the way they should in all cases).
5. Why can’t my Xbox be a Windows 7 PC and vice versa? Does the world really need separate devices for all these features?
6. The world is moving to touch screens, yet the UI in Windows is still pretty heavily mouse-centric.
Anyway, these are some of the areas I hope to see Microsoft work on in the future of Windows.
Robert Scoble is an author, blogger, and technical evangelist. He is a former Microsoft evangelist and presently works for Rackspace on Building 43. Photo by Ken Yeung (TheLetterTwo.com)
Microsoft is already doing some things to keep Windows relevant. It is making Windows available in the cloud. (That’s what Windows Azure is). And it is researching how to make Windows — or whatever its ultimate successor is called — a concurrent, distributed OS. (That’s what the incubation codenamed “Midori” is.)
But what the majority of people think about and see when it comes to Windows is whatever ships on new PCs. On that front, Microsoft is making fairly incremental changes to Windows. Under the covers, Windows 7 is built on top of the Windows NT kernel Microsoft has been using for the past decade or so. Microsoft is making efforts to better organize the guts of Windows, reducing its footprint and improving its stability. (That’s what “MinWin” is.) The company also is investigating how to improve the Windows Update process, making it less intrusive and cumbersome, while still providing users with improvements in between Windows OS delivery cycles. And the Redmondians are investigating ways to insure compatibility of older legacy apps with next-gen Windows releases. All this stuff is goodness.
But what Microsoft really needs to do to insure Windows’ continued relevance is to be unafraid of introducing a whole new operating system at some point. At some point, in the not-too-distant future, Windows is going to need to be supplanted by “the next big thing.” Because Microsoft has an installed base of over 1 billion, company brass (rightly) give backward compatibility a huge amount of importance. But Microsoft needs to find a way to offer customers a choice of operating systems–Windows and Doors (meaning whatever follows Windows — probably some microkernel-based, developed-from-scratch thing, which may or may not have any relation to Midori). Maybe Windows and Doors will dual-boot; maybe they will just co-exist. Maybe Doors will be some kind of variant of the evolving Windows Phone OS or an offshoot of its Mashup OS/Gazelle research project that is somewhat like Google’s Chrome OS.
In any case, some time in the next five-plus years, Microsoft is going to need find the courage (and the correct marketing message) to cut the existing Windows cash-cow cord to stay relevant.
Mary Jo Foley blogs about Microsoft at ZDNet’s All About Microsoft and is the author of Microsoft 2.0. She has reported on technology for two decades.
For Windows to remain relevant, it will have to win and hold the world of low-end Web terminals–smart phones, netbooks, and notepads–just as it won and held the PC. That means offering a small footprint, strong power management, and well-designed packages of software and hardware that are less open and more secure than a typical PC. For Microsoft, that’s a technical challenge, but even more a business one, because it will have to work more closely with hardware and software developers than it ever has before.
Rob Helm is director of research at Directions on Microsoft.
The comparison is far from perfect. But as I think about the future of Windows, I actually believe the folks at Microsoft responsible for its ubiquitous computer operating system can take a lesson from their cousins in mobile. With the recently unveiled Windows Phone 7, Microsoft has more or less been willing to start from scratch and offer something that looks potentially very sweet. (I say this based on a demo, of course, and well aware that phones based on the new mobile operating system are still unproven and months away.) We’ll have to see, but what this may represent is a new way thinking out of Redmond: the realization that we as a company no longer have to do it a certain way because, well, that’s the way we’ve always done it before.
Now, I’m by no means suggesting that Microsoft has to start from scratch when it comes to the traditional Windows OS for computers, much less prescribing specific changes. Microsoft’s sagging fortunes in the highly competitive smartphone market hardly mirror its still-dominant position in the core operating systems arena. I happen to be a fan of Windows 7, certainly compared to the much-maligned Windows Vista. But what I am saying is that Microsoft shouldn’t be burdened by the shackles of legacy computing as it looks ahead.
To be sure, Windows has evolved through the years, and at a certain point Microsoft has (in other areas anyway) been willing to make a break with the past. Consider how the “ribbon interface” altered the status quo with Office a few years back. And yet when it comes to Windows, Microsoft seems reluctant to take the bold leaps that rival Apple has been willing to make when it feels its software has reached retirement age–OS 9 anyone?
Given Microsoft’s still monster-sized market share with Windows you can’t blame them. And I’m sure Microsoft’s corporate customers wouldn’t want to see anything too radical. But at a time in which so much more everyday computing is moving to the cloud, Microsoft may have to (to borrow an old Apple slogan) “think different.”
When to change is never an easy call to make. My belief is that Microsoft should ride Windows 7 as long as it can–it is generally a fine operating system. But a fresh emphasis on flexible thinking may ultimately open up rich new possibilities for Windows.
Edward C. Baig is the personal tech columnist for USA Today. Photo by Renee Blodgett (Magic Sauce Media).
Well that didn't take very long. In just under four years time, Twitter bolted past 10 billion tweets, serving up its 10 billionth message last week. So what did the milestone message say and who posted it? Nobody knows, as it belongs to a protected user.
Visible or not, the message underscores the continuing popularity of the microblogging service, which doesn't appear to be losing any steam (sorry Google Buzz). According to Mashable.com, Twitter posted its one billionth tweet back in November 2008, and five billion tweets only four months ago.
As it stands now, Twitter says its service pumps out about 50 million messages every day, up from 2.5 million about a year ago, the Wall Street Journal reports.
U.S consumers haven’t taken to 3D at the same rates as overseas customers and for that reason Panasonic is reportedly slashing U.S. 3D TV prices by 50% when they arrive to market.
According to the Wall Street Journal Panasonic will cut prices in an effort to push adoption of the new sets forward.
The WSJ reports that the 50% price cuts will be in comparison to Japanese TV sets, with the hope of selling one million 3D TVs worldwide in the first year of release, with over half of those sales coming from the U.S. market.
Eventually Panasonic plans on featuring the sets at all 1,000 Best Buy locations nationwide, with the 50 inch model selling for $2,500 in the United States.
U.S consumers haven’t taken to 3D at the same rates as overseas customers and for that reason Panasonic is reportedly slashing U.S. 3D TV prices by 50% when they arrive to market.
According to the Wall Street Journal Panasonic will cut prices in an effort to push adoption of the new sets forward.
The WSJ reports that the 50% price cuts will be in comparison to Japanese TV sets, with the hope of selling one million 3D TVs worldwide in the first year of release, with over half of those sales coming from the U.S. market.
Eventually Panasonic plans on featuring the sets at all 1,000 Best Buy locations nationwide, with the 50 inch model selling for $2,500 in the United States.
Somebody's feeling a little jealous of Apple's success in the mobile space, and that somebody is Sony. Citing "people familiar with the matter," the Wall Street Journal reports that Sony is readying a plethora of handheld gadgets in an attempt to steal away some of Apple's market share.
Two of these upcoming gadgets include a smartphone capable of downloading and playing games, and a portable tablet-like device that combines elements of a netbook, e-book reader, and handheld gaming systems.
It's important to note that Apple's success has been the result of not only its hardware, but its software distribution model, and towards that end, both of Sony's aforementioned devices are expected to work with Sony's new online media platform, which launches later this month, the WSJ reports.
But can Sony truly tap into Apple's market share?
"That's the vision, but it's still not quite clear what specific steps Sony will take to achieve that, especially when iPad and other highly capable mobile devices are crowding the market," said Nobuo Kurahashi, a consumer-electronics analyst a Japanese brokerage Mizuho Investors Securities.
We have already heard the details of some of the Panasonic line of 3D TVs between CES and other announcements. Panasonic has offered up more details of its 3D TV push that is ready to start this year with the Wall Street Journal reporting that Panasonic will offer US consumers big discounts on its sets to push adoption.
The WSJ reports that Panasonic will discount its 3D TVs as much as 50% in the US compared to Japanese pricing when the sets land in Best Buy stores in America. Panasonic’s current fiscal year ends on March 31, and the electronics giant is looking to sell a million 3D TVs with half that amount in the US alone by that date.
Panasonic sets will be placed in only the largest Best Buy stores to start with TVs being offered in all 1,000 Best Buy locations at a later date. Panasonic’s 50-inch 3D model is expected to sell for about $2,500 in the US compared to about $4800 in Japan for the same model.
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SourceFire (FIRE) develops digital security and information management software for the government and private industry. Its innovative programming team is constantly upgrading features, staying one step ahead of the latest digital threats. Its customers have included PricewaterhouseCoopers, SAIC and Ernst & Young.
In its latest earnings report at the end of February, SourceFire posted earnings of 23 cents per share. That was significantly above Wall Street’s target of 19 cents.
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Small Cap #3: SourceFire (FIRE) originally appeared on BloggingStocks on Sun, 07 Mar 2010 09:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
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