Right now, as you read this, you are cruising through a mind-numbingly complex pathway of wires and cables that shoots bits of data from point-to-point around the globe. And Peer 1’s Map of the Internet lets you see what it looks like…as a neon disco map. More »
He’s just taken the title of inaugural speaker here at Expand, now Kickstarter co-founder Yancey Strickler is giving us even more face time in our first ever backstage interview. Since its launch in 2009, the crowdfunding powerhouse has become a household name, bringing us success stories like the Pebble smartwatch. Myriam Joire sat down with Yancey to talk about Pebble, OUYA and the future of Kickstarter. Check out the video after the break to watch our backstage interview in its entirety.
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Filed under: Internet
Google’s Executive Chairmain, Eric Schmidt, plans on making a trip to Myanmar on March 22nd. He hopes to tap into Myanmar’s market of 60 million people, which has the potential of being a huge gold mine for the search engine giant. Myanmar had been previously restricted from U.S. based companies due to many regulations and sanctions. Now that it’s being freed from those restrictions, many U.S. companies are gunning to invest their resources into the country.
Eric Schmidt will be speaking at a public event that will be attended by local start-ups, entrepreneurs, and students. He plans on obtaining one of the licenses that will be offered to only two foreign operators. If Schmidt is able to convince Myanmar to give Google one of those licenses (which shouldn’t be too hard to do since it’s Google), Google will be able to tap into what may be a billion-dollar industry.
Only 9% of Myanmar’s population owns mobile phones. Myanmar’s government plans on increasing that percentage to 80% by 2016. By offering big, foreign companies, like Google, one of the licenses, it hopes to dramatically improve internet and mobile usage in the country. As restrictions begin to be removed from Myanmar, and as more American companies enter its marketplace, mobile phones should become more affordable. Right now in Yangon, an iPhone 4 costs US$1,120, and a Huawei phone costs US$500-600.
Schmidt hopes to help the people of Myanmar connect to the internet and get access to the entire world around them. Schmidt will be working with local partners in order to improve the lives of the 60 million people who have been suppressed from the internet. Schmidt’s move will help improve the lives of the people of Myanmar, however the U.S. still has to remove the remaining regulations it has on Myanmar in order for the country to move forward. Thaung Su Nyein, an Myanmar Entrepreneur who runs 7 publications and his own IT company, stated, “Our hope is that the U.S. will do their part [in lifting the remaining regulations], and we’ll do our part in improving this field, and everyone will be happy.”
[via The Wall Street Journal]
Google’s Eric Schmidt to tap into Myanmar’s potential gold mine is written by Brian Sin & originally posted on SlashGear.
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Woo, boy. You know those National Security Letters that the FBI has been issuing at its own discretion — the ones Google has been doing its best to track? Judge Susan Illston of Federal District Court in San Francisco just found ’em unconstitutional. As the story goes, NSLs arrive from the factory with a gag order on the recipient, and as Illston sees it, forbidding the recipient from “disclosing that they had received such an order.” So, she’s suggesting that the whole thing should be banned under the First Amendment.
Moreover, she’s ordering the US government to stop enforcing the gag provision in any lingering cases, though she reportedly “stayed her order for 90 days to give the government a chance to appeal to the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals.” Needless to say, the move comes as a blow to the existing administration’s surveillance practices, but something tells us this isn’t the last word we’ll be hearing on the matter. Hit up the links below for a look at the decision.
Filed under: Internet
Via: The New York Times
Source: Wired
That was fast. It was just a month ago that Mailbox launched its unique (if queue-ridden) email client for iPhone users, and today we’re hearing that it’s been acquired by Dropbox. While the two aren’t explicit about their plans, the Mailbox crew makes clear that a Dropbox union will help scale its client, including to non-Gmail providers and more devices. The team also isn’t shy about speculating about what could happen if Dropbox’s cloud storage was “connected” to Mailbox. We’ll just have to give the new partners some time to produce what could be an alluring software hybrid.
Update: “Sources” are suggesting the asking price was around $100 million. Which… we’ll present without comment.
Filed under: Cellphones, Storage, Internet, Mobile
If you’ve shopped at Samsung’s Music Hub, there’s a good chance that you’ve used 7digital’s music services at some point: it’s been involved in supplying songs for the past two generations of Galaxy flagships. That influence is carrying on to the Galaxy S 4, where 7digital will handle the Music Hub’s storefront and purchased track streaming. While the deal doesn’t represent a radical break for either side, it does give Samsung some odd bedfellows this time around — 7digital is also operating music stores for BlackBerry 10 and Ubuntu One, and its apps have regularly surfaced on HTC devices and various Windows Phone models. Ultimately, 7digital expects its music shopping backbone to reside on more than 100 million smartphones before 2013 is over and done. That’s no mean feat when the limelight often falls on music service rivals that insist on putting their names front and center, such as Amazon, Apple or Spotify.
Filed under: Cellphones, Internet, Mobile, Samsung
Via: The Next Web
Source: 7digital
We’ve known since early January that Hulu CEO Jason Kilar will step down sometime in the first quarter, and now that we’re well into March, the streaming service has additional news. Writing on the Hulu blog, Kilar said that when he departs “at the end of this quarter,” senior vice president of content Andy Forssell will assume the role of CEO. In addition to praising Forssell’s efforts in expanding Hulu’s list of content partners, Kilar mentioned that Hulu part-owners Disney and News Corporation are finalizing “forward-looking plans” with the site. The exiting CEO isn’t exactly leaving a company in a shambles; the 2012 financial results were none too shabby, and the paid Hulu Plus service has ballooned to a healthy 3 million users.
Filed under: Home Entertainment, Internet, HD
Source: Hulu Blog
The news of Google Reader’s upcoming demise has put the spotlight on several alternatives that RSS fans can only hope will fill the gap. The latest to vie for our attention doesn’t even exist yet: Digg just announced that it will be creating a reader of its own. According to its blog, the aggregation service was apparently already planning to build such a reader, but upon hearing that Google’s version will bite the dust, the company is kicking into gear to develop a suitable replacement. Digg’s reader will maintain what it calls the best of Google Reader’s features, including its API, while incorporating changes that reflect the relevance of social networks and other popular Internet communities.
Filed under: Internet
Via: TechCrunch
Source: Digg Blog
Netflix has a vested interest in fostering cloud computing — after all, that’s increasingly the company’s core business. Accordingly, it’s not going to just sit around and wait for a breakthrough. The subscription service is kicking off its Netflix Cloud Prize competition in the hopes that developers can move technology a little faster. Programmers who build upon Netflix’s open-source code before September 15th can win from a pool of $100,000 spread equally among 10 categories, ranging from performance improvements to what has to be our automatic favorite: “best new monkey.” Each winner also gets $5,000 in Amazon Web Services credit, flights to Las Vegas and a spot at Amazon’s user conference this November. The challenge won’t completely make up for the end to Netflix’s public API, but it does show that at least some tinkerers are welcome in the streaming video giant’s world.
Filed under: Home Entertainment, Internet, HD
Source: Netflix (GitHub)
Redbox Instant, the video-streaming service from Verizon, is launching to the public today. This launch follows a three-month closed beta test, and it comes about a month after the company’s announcement that the service would come to the Xbox 360 as a console launch exclusive. To jog your memory, Redbox Instant offers users unlimited access to some 4,000 movies in addition to four DVD rentals at $8 a month. Content partners include heavyweights like Warner Bros and Epix , the latter of which offers content from Viacom, MGM and Lions Gate Entertainment.
Speaking to GigaOM, Redbox Instant CEO Shawn Strickland said his product’s focus remains movies — both physical and digital — which differs from Netflix’s TV-heavy library and emphasis on web content. Strickland also said that, while talk of any exclusive content is “really premature,” it could be an option down the road. In addition to offering Xbox 360 support, the service is open to iOS and Android users, along with those who own a Vizio, LG, Samsung or Google TV product.
Filed under: Home Entertainment, Internet, HD, Verizon
Via: GigaOM
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