Google shares ad wealth with videographers | CNET News.com: "Google has begun sharing advertising revenue with the makers of a popular video clip in a groundbreaking deal that could drive up the costs of competing in the fledgling video-sharing sector."
Scientific American: Brain Relies on Stepwise Activation to Make Difficult Decisions
...at the Society for Neuroscience conference in Atlanta, David Badre, a post-doc at the University of California, Berkeley, described an experiment bolstering another emerging model, that of a "hierarchy" of control. In this view, Badre says, "we respond to increasing cognitive challenges not on a continuum, but in leaps as different areas of the prefrontal cortex activate." That is, we throw more light on a problem not by sliding a dimmer switch, but by flipping a series of toggles that successively activate chunks of the prefrontal cortex from back to front. Recognizing this is an important early step in understanding how cognition works, and it could help lead to better treatment for patients who have suffered strokes or other injury to the prefrontal cortex.
Symbian forecasts the death of the PC | CNET News.com: "'Desktops PCs are effectively a flatlining commodity,' Clifford said on Tuesday, while conceding that laptops were eliciting 'perhaps a bit more' excitement.
Clifford suggested that the popularity of smart phones in the developed world and the 'leapfrog economies' phenomenon in developing countries--in which expensive wired infrastructures are bypassed in favor of wireless--would create a situation where there was a 'smart phone in every pocket.'
Clifford cited the rates of technology adoption in India to back up his point. In India, the PC market is growing at 5 million units a year, while mobile phones were enjoying the same growth per month."
Helio introduces hybrid wireless service | CNET News.com: "On Wednesday the company announced the new service, called Helio Hybrid, which allows for seamless connectivity to both free and commercial Wi-Fi hotspots as well as a nationwide 3G mobile broadband network. The company has struck a deal with Wi-Fi hot spot provider Boingo to provide access to its 55,000 commercial hotspots. And it's using Sprint Nextel's newly built 3G wireless network to offer mobile broadband service."
AOL opens video search engine to developers | CNET News.com: "On Monday, the Time Warner subsidiary released a set of APIs, or application program interfaces, for building video search-driven applications. The APIs offer a number of functions, including advanced keyword search, tagging, rating, RSS and support for sharing videos via blogs and social networks.
AOL's video search engine is an access point for largely third-party video such as clips from the BBC and CNN. It should not be confused with AOL Video, which is a portal for viewing "channels" of online video--TV shows and movies--for a price.
AOL also started an initiative on Monday called the AOL Director Account program, which is geared not toward developers but rather toward online video creators and publishers.
Switching from cell to Wi-Fi, seamlessly | CNET News.com: "T-Mobile USA, the fourth-largest mobile phone company in the United States, is preparing to launch a service this month that will allow people talking on their cell phones to seamlessly switch between T-mobile's cellular network and their home Wi-Fi networks."
Digital Impasse - 8/28/2006 - Broadcasting & Cable - CA6366086: "A year after ABC began offering its primetime hits on iTunes, kicking off a scramble to put network shows on emerging platforms, networks and third-party studios are still battling over digital-distribution rights, revenue-sharing and branding for their shows. While the studios are as eager as the networks to dip a toe into digital distribution, they are wary of disrupting their proven revenue streams.
“We need to be careful that we don’t allow the growth of new business models to have a negative impact on the downstream value of the content without offsetting the lost revenue from those downstream values,” says Bruce Rosenblum, president of Warner Bros. Television Group, which produces NBC’s ER, CBS’ Two and a Half Men and TNT’s The Closer. At What Cost?
Downstream, of course, are the DVD and syndication sales that studios rely on to make back the millions they front to the networks to fund the shows. Putting their shows on iTunes for $1.99 a pop may offer quick money, but at what cost to future returns?"
The sticking points range from which party should pay for the rights to music used in a show to whether networks are adequately attentive to the profit participants, such as actors or writers.
Networks, for their part, are restricted by their affiliate agreements when it comes to distributing content digitally.
Touchstone Television President Mark Pedowitz sounds similarly optimistic that the current impasse will be resolved.
“Because of the radical transformation of the business,” he says, “no one’s quite sure where they’re standing on this earth for any given moment. You have to eventually step off the curb to see what the world is like.”
Warner Bros. Launches Studio 2.0 - 9/5/2006 11:51:00 AM - Broadcasting & Cable - CA6368584: "Warner Bros. Television Group has started a digital production arm to create original programming for broadband web sites and wireless devices. The division, Studio 2.0, will be headed by veteran ad executive Rich Rosenthal and will work closely with advertisers to build content around their products. TV Group Executive VP Craig Hunegs will oversee the venture.
Studio 2.0 will cull content from both existing Warner Bros. TV talent and new players from outside. They will develop both multi-episode series and one-offs, both live-action and animated. Warner Bros., through its new Digital Distribution unit, is aiming to license the programming to web sites and wireless providers."
Broadcasting & Cable: The Business of Television articleFlat: "Reality is cheap. An hour-long drama can sell to the networks for about $2 million; a half-hour sitcom runs $1.3 million. Only proven reality successes like Survivor or The Apprentice command fees that high.
A basic one-hour broadcast-network reality show costs $750,000-$800,000. Low-end cable shows can cost as little as $100,000-$200,000. (When Trading Spaces was a top-rated show, TLC made it for $90,000 per episode.) A daily half-hour syndicated reality series can cost as little as $50,000 per episode.
The concept of a “reality writer” seems like an oxymoron. The characters, after all, are real people who generate most of their own dialog. But that doesn't mean writers aren't called on to influence the drama, guide film crews and even feed lines to contestants.
Instead of a sitcom writers' room, reality shows have a “story department.” At the low end is a logger, someone who reviews raw video and takes notes of interesting scenes. At the high end might be a supervising story producer, who runs a staff of five or 10.
In the middle are story editors or story producers. On a show like CBS' Big Brother, a story editor might review hundreds of hours of tape looking for characters and story arcs. On another, such as Survivor, story editors are on-site, interviewing contestants and trying to draw out specific lines of dialog.
The level of story editors' and writers' influence depends on the format of the show. Brian McCarthy has worked in two major reality genres: competitions and v�rit�style. At Fear Factor, the arc of each episode was dictated primarily by the stunts of the week. The hard part, he says, was establishing the six contestants as characters, giving them a little flavor."
Season's over, so Cuban cheers for HD | Newsmakers | CNET News.com: "Cuban: There are three questions there. One is, what devices will be in the living room? The second question is, what programming sources will be used? And the third is, how will they be connected?"
Web giants lure developers | CNET News.com: "Competition is forming among large Web services providers--Amazon.com, Google, Yahoo, eBay, and established tool providers--to attract developers to create Web applications that run on their respective platforms.
Amazon Web Services, a subsidiary of the online retail giant, last week started a beta program for a service that lets developers tap into the processing power at Amazon's data centers.
Called Elastic Compute Cloud (EC2), it works with Amazon's Simple Storage Service (S3) and other services, such as messaging, search and e-commerce. Each is offered through application programming interfaces (APIs)--a set of instructions for accessing services programmatically.
"
Fourth and long for mobile video | CNET News.com: Disney-owned ESPN is going to broadcast 25 live college football games in their entirety to Mobile ESPN subscribers. But to get the games, customers have to swap their phone and service plans for those offered by ESPN, and Paul has no intention of doing that.
Supporters of mobile applications predicted years ago that by now, consumers would be clamoring for these kinds of cell phone features. But, one look at the mobile climate, and there's nothing but crickets chirping.
Rob Sanderson, an analyst at American Technology Research, said it's not yet time to throw in the towel, but acknowledged that at the very least, the market doesn't appear ripe.
"Maybe it never works, but it's extremely early yet," Sanderson said.
Analysts have noted that something is amiss when ESPN has trouble selling its bread-and-butter programming. On the strength of one of the world's most recognizable sports brands, ESPN thought it could tap into its loyal fan base to sell sports content to mobile subscribers. Instead, Disney CEO Robert Iger has acknowledged that sales have been "lower than hoped."
Merrill Lynch has issued projections that show subscribers coming in at around 30,000 by the end of the year. That's a tiny fraction of the more than 90 million households that receive ESPN's TV broadcasts.
: "Nielsen said the company's customer relationship management software system lets him know, in real time, how many people have entered a store, who sees their advertising, and how much they're willing to spend on a home theater system, which is usually around $100,000."
If need be, said Nielsen, a salesperson will teach the customer's entire household how to operate the new home theater system. And after five days, the CRM system prompts the salesperson to handwrite a thank you card. Then, 21 days later, it reminds the store's manager to send a thank you card with a gift.
How to succeed in the gadget biz | CNET News.com: "'Companies no longer have a little lab where they invent things themselves and come out into the market and the world and expect it to be a big success. In fact, a lot of the big breakthroughs you see are coming out of companies collaborating together,' Bailey said.
The Sony Ericsson partnership, he said, is a good example of a hardware and content-provider union that has reaped benefits for both: inventive design and increased sales figures.
So far this year, Sony Ericsson has released three Walkman-branded music phones, and a Cybershot-branded 3.2-megapixel camera phone. The results are in, and they're pretty good: The partnership reported second-quarter sales of $2.89 billion, a 41 percent increase over the same quarter of last year."
How to succeed in the gadget biz | CNET News.com: "'In our industry the prices fall very quickly, unlike appliances where manufacturers can sell the same product the next year,' said Sean Wargo, director of industry analysis for the Consumer Electronics Association. 'We've succumbed to a constant source of deflation.'"
Google: No plans for national Wi-Fi service | CNET News.com: Google has deployed 380 lamp post-mounted Wi-Fi transceivers in Mountain View to make wireless Internet service available to anyone who has registered for a Google account, which is free. The company has invested a significant amount in promoting the benefits of wireless Internet access. It has held a series of tutorials, one of them drawing 750 residents.
As for new business ideas, Google will now begin experimenting in Mountain View with new local services, including advertising, he said, noting that some of Google's existing advertisers would be interested in reaching local audiences.
Fox, a division of News Corp., is expected to announce Monday that digital versions of TV shows such as "24" and "Prison Break," along with feature films, including "X-Men: The Last Stand," will eventually be available for download at Fox sites. Movies will go for $19.99 while TV episodes will cost $1.99.
The move is the latest sign that Hollywood studios are determined not to allow Apple Computer as much control over distribution digital content as the music industry handed over to Apple's music download site, iTunes. Apple has emerged as the gatekeeper when it comes to digital music, selling more songs than any other Web site. Movie and TV executives have said that they want a host of e-tailers offering their content.
Pumping power onto the grid from your basement | CNET News.com: "a storage appliance that works in conjunction with a renewable power source, such as solar electric panels, and a back-up power supply unit. Both refrigerator-size boxes are equipped with Net-connected PCs that collect and analyze data on power usage.
Using the company's software, people can lower their energy consumption by having the system shut off appliances at certain times. Or people can power their homes from their batteries on a schedule that makes best use of changing electricity tariffs, according to GridPoint"
The idea is that the utility will purchase and install the storage units in customers' homes in a certain region. To avoid potentially expensive spikes in demand, such as hot summer days that could cause blackouts, utilities will draw on the stored electricity in the GridPoint systems, Lewis said.
Having the storage units connected directly to the electricity grid allows the utility to pull the electricity from the disparate appliances, much like servers and PCs exchange data over the Internet.
