Category: News

AOL will cut 200 jobs in the U.S. and 700 in India said CEO Tim Armstrong Thursday at the Bloomberg Media Summit in New York City. Armstrong says that AOL’s staff is moving toward 70% editorial and other content divisions. They are also moving to having less freelancers and more full-time staff.

The Huffington Post acquisition costed AOL 40% of its cash. Arianna Huffington, now the president and editor-in-chief over all AOL media outlets, will be moving to New York Thursday. Armstrong believes the Huffington Post deal is “a signal” to competitors. While Armstrong remains positive, AOL stock has dropped 25% since its IPO.

“AOL will turn around. I have no doubt about that. The employees deserve a ton of credit,” he said. “To go from managing a decline to managing growth is physically getting up and doing something different every day.”

At this point in time, AOL still makes mosts of its money from dial-up customers. These customers account for 40% of its business, but the revenue there is shrinking. AOL’s annual yearly decline in that revenue stream is 25-29%. This year alone, AOL has spent $530 million on acquisitions in an effort to transition from an ancient dial-up Internet company into a content powerhouse. Last year, they acquired TechCrunch, online video distributor 5Min Media, and social media company Thing Labs.

It remains to be seen if these big moves will pan out in the end, but Armstrong has an interesting take on the transition:

“You have to reinvest in your content,” Armstrong said. “Access to cash can be like a rich uncle — you just get money and you never have to learn. It’s time for that to change.”

via CNN

Tomorrow, in Washington, the Obamas will host an anti-bullying conference at the White House. The US Department of Education, the Department of Health and Human Services, students, parents, and teachers are invited to discuss how to stop this bullying epidemic. The video description states:

A special Facebook message from President Barack Obama and First Lady Michelle Obama about how preventing bullying is a responsibility we all share. Visit Facebook.com/StopBullying.gov and Facebook.com/FbSafety for more information.

In the video, President Obama touches on the fact that bullying has been an accepted part of growing up, but it’s now obvious that it is harmful to our society and must be stopped. Michelle touches on “the responsibility each of us has to teach our children to treat each other with respect.”

The video is featured on the Stop Bullying.gov Facebook Page, which includes information on what bullying is and how to recognize the warning signs. It also covers Cyberbullying and LGBT bullying. More importantly, the page links Kids, Teens, and Young Adults to help resources.

The White House Conference on Bullying Prevention begins Thursday, March 10th at 10:30am EST. RSVP for the event and watch the live stream tomorrow on Facebook.

via ZDNet

Group chat and location are two of the hottest tech trends right now. Beluga just got snatched up by Facebook and Kik just got a round of funding and added photo sharing. Foursquare just launched version 3.0 which includes real-world recommendations. It actually tells you where to go and RWW calls it Foursquare’s Google moment.

The intersection of these two huge trends is in private location-based apps. Not everyone is looking to share their location with every other person in the world all the time. Does the world need to know you’re pumping gas or buying milk? Maybe not. Those close to you, however, just might be interested.

That’s where apps like Neer come in. Wondering if hubby has left work yet? Forgot to tell the wife to grab some eggs at the store? Trying to figure out why your son isn’t home from school yet (yeah, you forgot about band practice. It’s all good.) Just fire up Neer and you can see where the folks important to you are.

Neer updates in real-time, so there is no need to remember to check-in. It also allows you to specify exactly which locations you want to share and what times/days you want your location to be visible.

Why someone would opt to use Neer instead of just adding a select few friends on something like Foursquare, Gowalla, or Google Latitude? These services are all geared towards location sharing on a public scale and we all know how easy it is for a feature update or mistake to violate your privacy. Also, Neer updates in real-time and can send SMS notifications when someone leaves/arrives at a place. You just install it and forget about it.

Get Neer for iPhone 4 or Android at neerlife.com.

via That Tech Chick

Google is working with the Nelson Mandela Foundation to publish more than 10,000 of Mandela’s personal records. They will donate $1.25 million to the foundation so that these never-before-seen documents can be scanned and published.

“If you look at all the people talking about peace with the protests right now, there’s got to be some message we can extract from these documents.” — Daniel Lederman, Google’s director of new business development for Europe, the Middle East and Africa.

Google spokesman Luke Mckend says These personal records from Mandela span much of his life, including his 27-year imprisonment for fighting against apartheid. The database will eventually be freely accessible on the Internet. Mckend says Google joined the project because they have the capacity and infrastructure to not only preserve historical heritage, but also leverage the potential in classrooms.

While Mandela has given his foundation full control over what will get put on the Internet, they will skip the “extremely personal” documents. Achmat Dangor, the foundation’s chief executive, says these documents are not being censored, but simply don’t “add value to the life of Nelson Mandela” and are not relevant.

Mandela established the foundation in 2004 for the purpose of increasing access to documents about his life and the foundation is also appealing to foreign governments to share any documents they have on Mandela. As Dangor puts it anyone with a computer “from Timbuktu to New York” will soon be able to access these valuable documents, which definitely falls in line with the foundation’s objectives.

via The Associated Press

Re-Evolve, a leading developer in mobile and social apps for iPhone, iPad, Android, Blackberry and Web applications, has created an iPad application that makes verbal contracts easier to manage. The app allows you to create, collaborate, sign, and email all types of contracts directly on the iPad. This provides a simple way to turn those verbal contracts, which may or may not be enforceable in your state, into documents that can be referenced.

“You make a verbal agreement with someone like a friend, neighbor, gym partner or business associate at least once a day,” said Preston Tucker, Business Development Manager of Re-Evolve, LLC. “In most cases the other party holds up to their end of the deal, but sometimes they develop selective memory or an exact detail was heard wrong. Contracts HD can be used to help them recall their agreement.”

Definitely a must-have app for the average business person out there. You probably don’t want to whip out your iPad and make people sign on the dotted line for everything, but hindsight is always 20/20. If anyone feels that signing a contract on an iPad isn’t “official” enough, you can remind them that President Obama had no problem with it.

Get Contracts HD from the iTunes Store for $9.99 for your iPad or iPhone.

Sources have told Bloomberg that Microsoft Corp. will pay Nokia over $1 billion to develop Windows-based mobile devices as part of their previously announced strategic partnership.

“This gives Microsoft scale and allows Nokia to rip out costs,” said Colin Gillis, an analyst at BGC Partners in New York, who recommends buying Microsoft shares. “Microsoft is getting the platform boost that comes from acquiring a Nokia for about a billion dollars.”

These people say the agreement will run for more than five years and would see Nokia paying Microsoft a fee for each copy of Windows used on its phones. Nokia would offset these costs by shrinking its own software research and development budget.

Microsoft stock has dropped 7.8 percent this year while Nokia stock dropped 26 percent since they announced this partnership with Microsoft. Both are struggling in the mobile market against fierce competition from Android and Apple.

This deal should give Nokia some breathing room in their budget as they lose dominance in the mobile market. Sources say Microsoft opted for this $1 billion deal to prevent Nokia from going Android. Nokia may also use the newer Windows Phone OS as a way to stand out from the competition.

via Businessweek

Kik has just raised $8 million in Series A funding from RRE Ventures, Spark Capital, and Union Square Ventures. Union Square Ventures’ Fred Wilson and RRE Ventures’ Adam Ludwin are joining the company’s Board of Directors.

“Kik is a fast, simple, and elegant solution to cross device mobile messaging which we think is one of the most exciting investment opportunities right now…We believe the Kik team has shown that they

understand how to deliver the right set of features in the right package…” — Fred Wilson

It was only a month ago that AOL agreed to acquire the Huffington Post for $315 million. Now, the deal has been finalized. Arianna Huffington is officially President and Editor in Chief of what is now called the Huffington Post Media Group: “a leading source of news, opinion, entertainment, community, and digital information.” This group includes all of AOL’s properties, including TechCrunch.

AOL claims that the combined entity will have a user base of 117 million unique visitors per month in the United States and 253 million around the world. AOL has also expanded their editorial team with a number of talented writers:

• Yahoo’s Michael Calderone has been named Senior Media Reporter
• New York Times’ Trymaine Lee has been named Senior Reporter
• New York Daily News’ Michael McAuliff has been named Senior Congressional Reporter
• The Daily’s Jon Ward has been named Senior Political Reporter
• Bonnie Kavoussi will be Business Reporter
• Lucas Kavner has been named Entertainment Reporter

AOL CEO Tim Armstrong says this is his largest deal to date. He adds that the driving factor behind the deal is how well the Huffington Post illustrates the content platform he is trying to build. In particular, around influential women and local (his 80-80-80 strategy).

via TechCrunch, Business Wire

Facebook Like Button Takes Over Sharing Functionality

The Facebook Like button has become a fixture on sites across the web. It has become widely accepted and, with their latest changes, may become even more visible. Instead of being buried in your recent activity, Likes will now publish a full news feed story. This will raise the visibility of Likes within Facebook feeds and should increase referral traffic to sites with the Like button. Check out Inside Facebook for the full breakdown.

26-year Old Making Millions Selling Kindle eBooks

Traditional publishers are afraid and for good reason. Her name is Amanda Hocking and she is the best-selling indie author on the Amazon Kindle store. She sells around 100,000 books a month. Even at prices from .99 to $3 and with Amazon taking a 30% cut, that still amounts to a huge chunk of change for a writer with no publishing deal. Low prices and ease of distribution make for easy sales and impulse buys. Potential millions per month would make anyone want to dust off those old notebooks and fire up that editor.

via SAI

The T-Mobile Sidekick is Dead…Long Live the T-Mobile Sidekick

In a not entirely shocking move, the Danger servers which power the current generation of Sidekick smartphones will be shut down as of May 31st. While this move will render existing Sidekick devices useless, there is a light at the end of the tunnel. The device will be reborn with Android as its operating system. This is fitting since the father of Android, Andy Rubin, also co-founded Danger. T-Mobile plans to make it as smooth as possible for existing Sidekick owners to transition to the new devices.

via AllThingsD

Google’s Fight Against Spam Causes Collateral Damage

Wired reports that, while Google’s new ranking algorithm have resulted in better quality search results over all, it has also caused many publishers to rethink their business strategy. Many quality blogs have been lumped in with the content farms with no way to plead their case and no information on what changes they should make. One such site was Cult of Mac, which dropped below sites which reprinted the Mac-oriented site’s content without permission. Cult of Mac has since been restored, but many other sites are still contemplating whether to shut things down.

Google Profiles Redesigned

Google has finally decided to update their profiles with more personal information. This puts them just slightly more in competition with Facebook, offering “10 words that describe you best”, bragging rights, relationship information, structured information about your education and employment, and a scrapbook with your favorite photos. If you don’t like Google Buzz, you can now remove the tab from your Google profile page. Check out mine here.

via Google System Blog

The Enemy of My Enemy is My Friend: Google and Microsoft Join Forces

In an interesting twist, Microsoft and Google have joined forces to protect their best interests. A Texas company called GeoTag Inc. has a geotagging patent that they claim has been used in lawsuits against more than 300 entities. Most of these entities are Microsoft and Google customers and the two tech giants are moving to protect them. Their aim is to invalidate the patent and prevent the Texas company from filing any more lawsuits, saying the original patent was awarded in error since their was prior art at the time.

via FOSS Patents

This year, Microsoft will host a Realizing Your Dreams: Imagine Cup event at Tuskegee University in Tuskegee, AL. This will be the first year that Historically Black Colleges and Universities (HBCUs) have participated in Imagine Cup and highlights Microsoft’s commitment to “enabling broader and more inclusive access to technology resources.”

The Imagine Cup, which attracts more than 300,000 students, empowers them to use technology, innovation and creativity to help solve some of the world’s most challenging social issues outlined in the United Nations’ Millennium Development Goals.

Learn more about Microsoft Diversity at http://www.microsoft.com/diversity.

A short while ago, WordPress.com suffered a major DDoS attack. According to TechCrunch, this made it almost impossible for them to cover the story as they could barely get the post up. According to the Automattic status site:

WordPress.com is currently being targeted by an extremely large Distributed Denial of Service attack which is affecting connectivity in some cases. The size of the attack is multiple Gigabits per second and tens of millions of packets per second.

We are working to mitigate the attack, but because of the extreme size, it is proving rather difficult.

At this time, the attack seems to have stopped, but WordPress founder Matt Mullenweg says they are taking every precaution against a recurrence of the attack. He also says the attack might be politically motivated.

“There’s an ongoing DDoS attack that was large enough to impact all three of our datacenters in Chicago, San Antonio, and Dallas — it’s currently been neutralized but it’s possible it could flare up again later, which we’re taking proactive steps to implement.

This is the largest and most sustained attack we’ve seen in our 6 year history. We suspect it may have been politically motivated against one of our non-English blogs but we’re still investigating and have no definitive evidence yet.”

Of course, Anonymous, the group who has used similar attacks on numerous targets recently is the first to come to mind. At this time, there is no evidence they have anything to do with it.

via TechCrunch

The LeBron James Family Foundation and Hewlett-Packard have joined forces to donate 1,000 new computers to 59 different Boys & Girls Clubs nationwide. The money comes from the $3 million LeBron raised for charity during his one-hour “The Decision” special, where he announced he would join the Miami Heat. First stop? The Miami Boys & Girls Club.

The side door to the newly refurbished gym opened, a blast of sunlight splashed into the darkened corner, and 100 children began shrieking in unison.

“It never gets old,” James said. “I know a lot comes with being a professional athlete. That’s also being a role model to a lot of kids that look up to me. This automatically comes with it. And I have nothing but time for kids. I could easily be at home and just relaxing. … But the opportunity to be here and giving back to these kids, I’m happy to do it.”

Boys & Girls Clubs Vice President Frank Sanchez says what James is providing will impact “hundreds of thousands of kids” nationwide, giving them a chance to stand on equal footing with kids in other communities. The northwest Miami neighborhood that hosted Wednesday’s event has a high school graduation rate between 50 and 60 percent. Providing computers to this community should help raise that graduation rate and provide a bridge across the digital divide.

“We don’t do celebrity sponsorships,” said Satjiv Chahil, HP’s Strategic Advisor for Global Market Development. “We celebrate achievers from society who have multifaceted lives, who have an appreciation for technology and who have a human cause. … We celebrate LeBron.”

via The Associated Press

The iPad 2 brings updates to the device’s hardware, as well as major improvements to the software. In addition to being powered by a dual-core processor, iOS 4.3 ups the ante with feature additions and software upgrades. Safari now uses the Nitro JavaScript engine. There have also been updates to the AirPlay feature, addition of iTunes home sharing, and iPhone 4 now does personal hotspot.

Photo Booth / Facetime

The iPad 2′s powerful new processor allows you to view real-time previews of various effects in Photo Booth. Manipulate the effects simply by touching the screen. Facetime, definitely one of the primary features many have been looking for, lets you video conference between two iPads, between an iPad and an iPhone, or between an iPad and a Mac.

Photo Booth and Facetime are both built into iOS 4.3, but there are a couple of other apps of note.

iMovie

With the added power of the iPad, iMovie shines as a precision video editor. Features include:

• Multitrack audio recording
• New themes
• AirPlay to AppleTV
• Share videos in HD
• 50 sound effects included
• Easy sharing with YouTube, Facebook, Vimeo and more

GarageBand

Exciting for the musicians out there, GarageBand includes touch instruments (grand piano, organ, guitars, drums, bass.) So is perfect for the people that play instruments such as a portable keyboard piano, of course, you can still plug in a guitar to get at the amps and effects. You also get 250+ loops and 8 track recording and mixing. Because of the built-in accelerometer, you can play with dynamics. This mean the iPad can tell how hard you press a key on the touch keyboard, for instance, and change the sound accordingly.

The iPad 2 will practically play the instruments for you, if you like. The feature is called Smart Play and makes sure you don’t hit an incorrect note. It will also literally play the instrument for you. The price for this advanced piece of music software on the iPad 2 is $4.99. I’m Android all day long, but I might consider an iPad for GarageBand alone.

Both apps are $4.99 and available March 11th.

via Engadget

The iPad 2 is here and, while it doesn’t have a high-resolution retina screen, Adobe Flash support, it will definitely be a big seller this year. Here are some of the specs:

• Dual-core processor
• Front and rear-facing cameras
• Gyroscope like iPod and iPhone
• Thinner than original iPad and iPhone 4 (8.8 millimeters vs. 13.4 millimeters). Jobs says “It is not a little bit thinner, but a third thinner.”
• Lighter (1.3 pounds vs. 1.5 pounds for the original)
• Comes in black and white (available from Day 1)
• HDMI mirrored video output
• AT&T and Verizon both supported
• Same 10 hr battery life
• Price will remain the same

What most interesting to me is that, on top of getting a faster and thinner device in multiple colors, you get to pay the same thing the original iPad costs. A price which is very competitive with devices like the Motorola Xoom ($800). The iPad 2 also comes with a “magical” magnetic “smart case.” It’s basically a flap that magnetically attaches to the front of the iPad. When you close the flap, the iPad goes to sleep and the microfiber cloth cleans the screen. In the open position, the flap also serves as a stand for the device.

Of course, the iPad will run iOS 4.3, which comes with a few familiar apps and a couple of new ones. Dual cameras mean Facetime with iPhone 4, iPod, and Mac owners. There have also been enhancements to iPhoto, iMovie, and Garageband.

Are you getting an iPad 2?

via Engadget