06Apr

After A Bump From SXSW, Banjo Tries To Bolster Its Position As The All-In-One Location App

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What’s a SXSW bump worth? To Redwood City’s Banjo, which pools check-ins and geotagged updates from friends across all the major social networks, it was worth 100,000 downloads during the interactive part of the conference. That brought the app to more than 900,000 users. Of those, a little more than a half-million users are active every month and iOS users still outnumber Android ones by two-to-one.

That’s not bad for an app that has grown pretty much organically since it came out nine months ago, and Banjo is showing an upward tick in users at least if you look at its footprint on Facebook. Social networking is a tougher category to acquire customers in at least compared to games, where developers usually have very cash rich businesses that can pay for marketing. For comparison, Path has said in the past that it has two million registered users, but it’s not clear how many of those are active. Banjo’s numbers almost certainly make it larger than every new social, local and mobile app that we profiled ahead of SXSW.

On the back of that momentum, Banjo has an update out that makes the app even more of a central hub for all location activity on other social networks like Twitter, Foursquare and Facebook. It adds Instagram to the other social networks that Banjo pulls check-ins and location-tagged status updates from. Our own Sarah Perez has called Banjo the “creepy/awesome cyber-stalking app“ that shows you who’s nearby based on their Facebook and Foursquare check-ins and geotagged tweets.

Banjo now feeds all notifications all into one place and there’s a new slide-out navigation menu that’s similar to what Facebook introduced to its mobile apps a few months ago.

Banjo’s chief executive Damien Patton said the company was extra careful around not creating too much hype around SXSW. The issue is that the conference has gotten very crowded with product launches which mostly flame out afterward.

“We made a conscious decision not to have a big presence at SXSW,” Patton said. “They’re not our target market.”

He also says that like in earlier years, post-SXSW consolidation is coming soon. “I don’t have a crystal ball to know who will get acquired, but we’re really trying to focus on the mainstream user for now,” he said. Banjo is funded by BlueRun Ventures and Lightspeed Venture Partners.



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01Mar

Aereo Responds To Broadcasters’ Lawsuit: Your Position Does Not Have “Any Merit”

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Barely two weeks ago, Erick was on hand at a news conference in which Barry Diller and company presented IAC’s latest media-tech investment — a startup called Aereo. Simply put, Aereo streams broadcast TV through the browser and provides a DVR in the cloud by “miniaturizing TV antennas and packing them in equipment that sits on the network,” as Erick wrote at the time. The cloud-based service streams over-the-air channels for just $12 a month, which means that, even in spite of the unassuming size of its antennae, Aereo’s model represents a threat to the old guard.

Today, a group of broadcasters, including Fox, Univision, and PBS filed two separate lawsuits against Aereo (the two groups collectively represent most of the major media outlets in New York City), claiming that the startup is infringing on the broadcasters’ copyrights and that its technology fails to meet the criteria of any sort of legal loophole. As such, the broadcasters are seeking an injunction, which would prevent Aereo from releasing its product on the market. In addition, the broadcasters will be seeking monetary damages “for what they claim are Aereo’s violations of the Copyright Act,” according to the New York Times.

Barry Diller loves to ruffle the feathers of old media, and there’s no way that he was unaware this was coming. According to the startup’s self-description — “Live broadcast TV, meet the Internet. Finally.” — there was no way that something like this was going to slide under the noses of the tycoons, especially considering that Aereo had been planning to roll out its service in Brooklyn in the next few weeks — and at that undercutting price point.

Disruption of traditional media has been tried again and again, and unfortunately many of those startups or companies have failed because of the legal quagmire the broadcasters can afford to mire them in. Try to mess with the structure, and there’s a good chance you’ll get sued until the cows come home.

In the lawsuit, which you can find on Scribd here, the broadcasters basically say that it doesn’t matter how big those rascally-rabbit ears on top of their boob tube are:

No amount of technological gimmickery by Aereo — or claims that it is simply providing a set of sophisticated “rabbit ears” — changes the fundamental principle of Copyright Law that those who wish to retransmit [their] broadcasts may do so only with [their] permission. Simply put, Aereo is an unauthorized Internet delivery service that is receiving, converting and retransmitting broadcast signals to its subscribers for a fee…

So there you have it. Aereo believes it is not culpable here, because its individual subscribers are linked to a set of antenna, and as Jeff Roberts at paidContent points out, Cablevision successfully defended a similar case regarding its remote digital video recorder technology, “after an appeals court found that there was no [actual] transmission to the public.”

Nonetheless, just in case there was any question of whether or not this was going to end up in court, settled by the gavel, we’ve just been pointed to Aereo’s response to the broadcasters’ lawsuits. Boiled down to a sentence, Aereo is standing firm in its innocence, and doesn’t think the broadcasters’ position has “any merit,” and will be seeing them in court, thank you very much:

Today, two groups of broadcasters filed two separate federal lawsuits against Aereo in the Southern District of New York claiming that Aereo will infringe their copyrights by making available technology which enables consumers to access broadcast television via a remote antenna and DVR. Aereo does not believe that the broadcasters’ position has any merit and it very much looks forward to a full and fair airing of the issues.

Consumers are legally entitled to access broadcast television via an antenna and they are entitled to record television content for their personal use. Innovations in technology over time, from digital signals to Digital Video Recorders (“DVRs”), have made access to television easier and better for consumers. Aereo provides technology that enables consumers to use their cloud DVR and their remote antenna to record and watch the broadcast television signal to which they are entitled anywhere they are, whether on a phone, a tablet, a television or a laptop.

Let the legal proceedings begin.

Image from Project-Pak



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14Jun

Mirrored Hipoflex Accessory Lets You Take iPhone Photos From A More Natural Position

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Hipoflex iPhone Camera Accessory (Images courtesy Hipoflex)
By Andrew Liszewski

I still don’t want one on my DSLR, but on a P&S digital camera an articulated LCD display can make framing and taking photos from a low or high angle considerably easier than just blindly snapping away. The same would be great for the iPhone, except that an articulating display just isn’t going to happen. So the Hipoflex is a clever compromise. It’s a small plastic accessory that clips on to the corners of your iPhone, positioning an angled mirror next to the camera lens. So when taking a photo in either portrait or landscape mode, you can hold your iPhone in a more natural position. Not up to your face like with a P&S digital camera.

The Hipoflex also doubles as a stand of course, but I think I’d prefer if the mirrored panel was adjustable, so that when not in use it can at least be folded back against the iPhone. In its current state you have to remove it before slipping the phone back in your pocket, which is a minor inconvenience. Optimistically the creators of the Hipoflex, Clément and Navid, are hoping to sell it for ~$20. But there are a few obstacles ahead of them. They also have to develop an accompanying camera app since the use of a mirror results in images being flipped. And unfortunately their Kickstarter goal of raising $12,500 ended a few days ago with the project getting no where near the required amount of funding. But it’s not like Kickstarter is the only way for a product to come to market, so hopefully the Hipoflex still has a chance.

And if you were wondering where the name Hipoflex came from. It’s a combination of being able to shoot photos from hip-level, and the fact that using a mirror in front of the lens is a standard feature of reflex cameras.

[ Hipoflex ] VIA [ Gear Diary ]



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11May

AT&T And T-Mobile Defend Their Position Against The Senate Judiciary Committee Recap

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Screen shot 2011-05-11 at 5.57.36 PM

In case you didn’t catch our liveblog this morning covering the Senate Judiciary hearing on the AT&T/T-Mobile merger, you didn’t miss anything major but still missed quite the show. The hearing was aptly called “Is Humpty-Dumpy Being Put Back Together Again?” with an obvious tip of the hat to AT&T’s former monopoly position. Senators Herb Kohl, Al Franken, John Conryn, Richard Blumenthal, Michael Lee, Amy Klobuchar and Chuck Grassley presided over the meeting. Appearing before the committee were AT&T CEO Randall Stephenson and T-Mobile CEO Philip Humm who did their best to defend the merger but at the end of the day, it was clear the Senate committee wasn’t going to let this thing through without some hard questions.

AT&T and T-Mobile did their best to reiterate their well known reasons for why the acquisition makes sense for consumers, the wireless industry and for America. Stephenson took the brunt of the questions as Phillip Humm did more watching than responding. In effect, it is my position that Phillip Humm played second fiddle to Stephenson and perhaps rightfully so, it was clear who is leading the charge to push this deal through. Stephenson faced quite a few tough questions, especially from Herb Kohl who pressed Stephenson and Humm to admit they were competitors with both ducking the question in every way. Kohl eventually blurted out “Come on, you guys are competitors. Please.” It was hysterical that AT&T wouldn’t directly call T-Mobile a competitor but labeled US Cellular, Leap and MetroPCS as serious threats to the marketplace when they have less marketshare than T-Mobile combined.

There were plenty of attempts by the distinguished Senators to clarify remarks from both Stephenson, Humm and some of their subordinates regarding earlier positions by both companies. When Humm was pressed by Senator Kohl on statements by T-Mobile CTO Neville Ray regarding a lack of spectrum shortage at T-Mobile Humm responded by saying Ray was only referring to “short-term data revenue growth and not the company’s ability to launch LTE.” Kohl didn’t buy it.

When the AT&T CEO was pressed by Senator Klobuchar from Minnesota to swear under oath that AT&T would not raise prices, Stephenson only responded that history had shown mergers would lead to lower pricing. Stephenson is a pro at avoiding the answers to tough questions.

Senator Al Franken took on Stephenson’s hope that the AT&T/T-Mobile deal would be looked at on a local level by pointing out that AT&T advertises on a national level, does business on a national level and is ignoring that wireless is a national market.  Franken asked if AT&T isn’t looking at the market on a local level, why should the deal be looked at as such? At that moment, I wanted to give Senator Al Franken a hug.

There was no more vocal opponent to the deal in the witness chair than that of Dan Hesse, Sprint’s CEO. Hilariously referring to AT&T and Verizon at the “Twin Bells,” Hesse admitted that an AT&T/T-Mobile merger increased the chances Sprint would be acquired by Verizon. Up until today, Sprint had yet to make such a definitive statement regarding their impression of their own future should this deal pass. In Hesse’s opening statement he accused the AT&T/T-Mobile deal of “turning back the clock on competition,” and stated that the ‘Twin Bells’ could discourage manufacturers from partnering with anyone else.

Gigi Sohn, President of Public Knowledge fiercely argued against the merger. Sohn lampooned the idea that there was a “spectrum shortage in America.” Sohn also hit AT&T for running 3 different networks and saying they don’t have enough capacity.” Sohn implored not go back to the future, to not go back to a wireless market that resembles a duopoly. Sohn also attacked AT&T’s position that the merger would create job and emphasized that it’s hard to find a merger that creates jobs. At one point, Sohn brought out the Zach Morris phone, she won our hearts at that moment.

Hu Meena, Cellular South CEO also argued against the merger with his concern focusing mostly on LTE roaming agreements that he saw as being difficult to attain under a combined AT&T/T-Mobile. As AT&T and Verizon plan to build two incompatible LTE networks, regional carriers like Cellular South will have only two directions with which to make technological decisions and will see themselves in a tough bargaining position. Meena emphasized that it was important to “provide services wherever a person goes anywhere in the country.”

Larry Cohn, President of the Communication Workers of America began with 3 key points that emphasizes why his group approves of the merger. The first is that the merger will accelerate broadband deployment, a position he stated throughout the hearing: that America was well behind in the international world for broadband deployment. The second point was that the merger can and will benefit consumers and his third point emphasized that the merger can create jobs. We should emphasize that the CWA is a union group and it would be hard to argue that Cohn wouldn’t support a deal he didn’t believe would create jobs.

All in all todays meeting was good natured and saw as many laughs as it did ducked questions. Clearly AT&T and T-Mobile will have to hone their arguments as they appear before future committees and consumer groups in order to win approval of the merger. While I understand that many think this deal will be rubber stamped no matter what, the fight is far from over and the opposition to the deal is just solidifying their own base and we should expect plenty of fireworks in the coming days, weeks and months.

Image Courtesy of Techcores

 

 

 

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19Aug

Cosmo Releases Sex Position of the Day App For Android, I Release Bile

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Do you like sex with other people? Do you like Android? While it is my opinion that those two questions are mutually exclusive, someone, somewhere matches those two criteria. Thankfully, Cosmopolitan Magazine is there for them.

Basically, this is an app that shows sex positions, albeit in a cartoony way. Fair enough. Android is for pornographers, after all. And that’s basically the news, but I’d like to inject a little outrage into this otherwise mundane story.

First, let’s get the throat clearing out of the way. The app features:

- The Carnal Challenge Rating: the more flames a position displays, the greater the difficulty

- Erotic Instructions: hints to help you make the most of the position and what to look forward to

- Colorful Illustration: tasteful visuals that help you understand how the position works

Something so disgusting wouldn’t be available for iOS, would it? Right?

Wrong. It’s also available for the iPhone. Tasteful visuals. Ahem. Carnal Challenge? Erotic Descriptions? Sounds like porn to me. Now, if you’ll allow me, I’d like to blow up.

Android and sexytime I can understand. It’s an OS for the perverse and obscurely fetished, after all. But what the heck is going on here? If you’re Cosmopolitan magazine you can talk about making the nasty on the iPhone but if you’re some weirdo who wants to make a boob jiggling app for the iPhone you can’t? After all, the procreative act – heck, any bodily act – is incompatible with the iTunes Store mission, right?

I wouldn’t be so sure. Apparently Philip Shoemaker, director of applications technology at Apple, the man in charge of selecting apps for inclusion into the app store, is in fact the proud programmer of Graynoodle’s iWiz app, an application that allows you to simulate micturition. He also makes a number of fart apps and had these apps approved a few weeks after starting at the company. Basically if you’re on the inside, the approval process doesn’t apply to you.

Also, and sex app makers take note, if you’re a major woman’s magazine published by one of the biggest publishing houses in the world, you also get a pass. This actually fits into my worldview that the iTunes Store is like Disneyland: you can have adult beverages in the park, as long as its on Disney’s terms and at Disney’s prices. They don’t want you to come in roaring drunk and high on ether simply because it prevents them from selling you the ether.

You can’t have it both ways. Either sex is bad or sex is good. After all, think of the children. Cosmo shouldn’t get a get out of jail card because they’re a major publication and Shoemaker shouldn’t get a pass because, well, he works for Apple and controls the app approval process. All we are saying is give iOS sex apps a chance.



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