The release of one of Apple's biggest updates to its mobile operating system yesterday was not without issues. As iPhone, iPad and iPod Touch owners flocked to their computers to upgrade their devices to the new OS, Apple's servers were apparently caught off guard.
The first snag many noticed was the estimated download time for the software. As more people downloaded iOS 5, some began to see prolonged wait times, sometimes up to a few hours. The problems only got worse from there.
Only two years after launching, online crowdfunding service Kickstarter has had 1 million people sign up and pledge financial support for a wide range of projects of all shapes and sizes. The site has been used to help creative people get funding for everything from art projects, music videos and graphic novels to urban farms and DIY computing hardware projects.
The growth Kickstarter has seen is astronomical. A year ago, they were just under 300,000 backers. By last week, that number had grown by well over 200%.
Mobile quiz startup Qrank will announce next week that it has raised a seed round of funding, including an investment from early Twitter VP of Product Jason Goldman. Qrank is building out a platform that will let any organization with a backlog of content use it to create smart, fast-paced mobile trivia games. The games incorporate social networks, location, chat and other social features. It sounds awesome.
Goldman is one of five investors in a convertible note of $350,000, ReadWriteWeb has learned and the company has confirmed. The company will use the funding to build a self-service platform, acquire more high-profile customers and complete an analytics dashboard. The existing consumer app gets high marks for responsiveness and user engagement. Can Qrank extend that formula out across the mobile web?
Gmail users got a hefty dose of reality today when it was revealed that Google handed over one user's private data to the U.S. government, who requested it without a search warrant.
The contacts list and IP address data of Jacob Appelbaum, a WikiLeaks volunteer and developer for Tor was given to the U.S. government after they requested it using a secret court order enabled by a controversial 1986 law called the Electronic Communications Privacy Act, according to the Wall Street Journal. The law allows the government to demand information from ISPs not only without a warrant, but without ever notifying the user.
However underwhelmed the initial response to its launch may have seemed, the iPhone 4S just broke Apple's sales records. The company's latest smartphone, which was unveiled last week, sold over 1 million units in its first 24 hours of being available to pre-order.
To put things in perspective, when the iPhone 4 launched last year, it set a record for Apple by racking up 600,000 pre-orders in a single day. Even though it's not the dramatically overhauled iPhone 5 many were hoping for, Apple's latest gadget has smashed the company's previous single day sales record by more than 66 percent. In terms of first day pre-orders, the iPhone 4S is the most successful product Apple has ever released.
YouTube has just announced a new channel that truly deserves the overused adjective, "epic." It's called YouTube Space Lab, a partnership with Lenovo, Space Adventures, the National Aeronautics & Space Administration (NASA), the European Space Agency (ESA) and the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA).
Space Lab will allow students to submit a science experiment by video, and a panel of scientists and astronauts, including Professor Stephen Hawking, will pick the best submissions. The winners' experiments will be performed aboard the International Space Station and streamed live on YouTube to the whole world.
When Netflix announced its plan last month to spin off its DVD rental business into a an entirely seperate subsidiary called Qwikster, customers were not pleased. The company's recent subscription price hike had already irked customers, causing about 1 million of them to quit the service.
Having heard those complaints loud and clear, the company has decided to axe Qwikster altogether and keep their DVD rental service as part of the Netflix brand. This summer's price hike will stay in place, but the company hopes to stop the slow exodous of customers by capitulating on the Qwikster issue, which had proved wildly unpopular.
As more TV viewers watch their favorite shows online, the number of U.S. households without a cable subscription is expected to rise dramatically between now and 2016, according to a new report from Magnaglobal, a media forecasting firm.
By 2016, the number of households that do not subscribe to a traditional pay TV service will triple from what it is today. All told, 9 million households won't have cable, Magnaglobal predicts. Of those, about 4 million are what we'd call cord cutters; people who once subscribed to cable but canceled it in favor of accessing television content via the Internet using a set top box or computer hooked up to their TV sets.
The Dalai Lama, Tibet's spiritual leader in exile, has joined Google Plus, and he's hosting a live Hangout tomorrow with Archbishop Desmond Tutu. The conversation is part of the inaugural Desmond Tutu Peace Lecture in Cape Town, South Africa. It's an On Air Hangout, so there's no limit to the number of viewers.
The Hangout will be held tomorrow (Saturday, October 8) at 10:30 a.m. South African time (GMT +2:00). Unfortunately for U.S. readers, that's 4:30 a.m. Eastern, 1:30 a.m. Pacific. Google SVP Vic Gundotra says the video will be available shortly thereafter. You can follow the Dalai Lama and Archbishop Desmond Tutu on Google Plus.
What makes a good advertisement? From a consumer's standpoint, a good ad is entertaining, helpful, and hopefully not too much of an interruption. Ads are a part of life for consumers, especially on the Web. In exchange for getting all this stuff for free or cheap, we accept the background noise of advertising.
But advertisers don't want to be in the background. They want ads to be engaging, interesting, even fun - whatever creates a lasting memory of the product. It's an attention economy, and whatever can grab users' attention wins. But touch-driven mobile apps are so immersive, advertisers need to step their game up. Palo Alto-based Cooliris has a solution, and the team thinks the science backs it up. World, ready or not, here comes interactive, touch-controlled, 3D mobile advertising.
