On Monday, unofficial Apple analyst from Piper Jaffray, Gene Munster issued a note to investors that Apple plans to launch a connected HDTV ithe next 2-4 years

Gene Munster, Pipper Jaffray,

“With Apple’s growing family of connected devices (iPhone, iPad, iPod touch, Apple TV and Macs) it only makes sense that Apple would deliver a cloud-based media service to leverage its competitive advantage in the space: devices. As part of this, we expect Apple to update the Apple TV product in the coming months with limited storage, a lower price, an app store and a focus on accessing content over the Internet.”

The new iTV set top box will be an essential part of the plan and analysts are expecting it will come with the internal components of the iPhone/iPad/iPod Touch. It will not have a battery but it will however have access to the App store and run on iOS.

What does Steve Jobs say?
In a question about Apple TV and the future of television interface at D8, Jobs responded

“The television industry fundamentally has a subsidized business model that gives everyone a set-top box, and that pretty much undermines innovation in the sector,” he said. “The only way this is going to change is if you start from scratch, tear up the box, redesign and get it to the consumer in a way that they want to buy it.”

So how much will it cost?
Munster believes the iTV box will be around the $99 mark and an all-in-one connected television will fetch around –$1,800 to $2,000
Will you be buying? I say watch this TV space

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By 2012 will we have an Apple Television in our living room?

This conclusion is drawn from a Gallup poll where only 25% of Americans admitted to having a “great deal” or “quite a lot” of confidence in either newspaper or television news. This percentage dropped by over 10% between 2003-2007 and it’s barely risen since.

Lymari Morales, Gallup, 13th August

With nearly all news organizations struggling to keep up with the up-to-the-minute news cycle and to remain profitable in the process, Americans’ low trust in newspapers and television news presents a critical barrier to success. The Pew report asserts that 80% of new media links are to legacy newspapers and broadcast networks, making clear that traditional news sources remain the backbone of the media. But so long as roughly three in four Americans remain distrustful, it will be difficult to attract the large and loyal audiences necessary to boost revenues.

Any good news in this poll? Well television and newspaper news fared better than Congress, which amazingly only inspires a great deal of confidence in 11% of Americans polled.

How would you rate your confidence in mainstream media news?

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Few Americans trust television and newspaper news.

Why 24^th July you may ask? Say the numerical date out load…24/7

Kevin Macdonald, award winning director of films including The Last King of Scotland and Touching the Void, will select and edit the clips which best depict a day in the life around the world.  Ridely Scott, famous for directing Top Gun, Gladiator and Robin Hood, will be the executive producer. The feature film, “A Life in a Day” will premiere at next year’s Sundance Film Festival.
YouTube are working with the US production company Against All Odds to provide access to filming equipment for people living in more remote areas. The video sharing giants are hoping at least 10000 people upload their short films.

Speaking of the film project, Anna Bateson, director of marketing at YouTube EMEA said,

“‘Life in a Day’ is all about pushing the boundaries of film and finding new ways to connect the world in inspiring and creative ways. LG’s sponsorship proves that YouTube offers brands a creative playground to associate their brands with.”

One Day on Earth

One Day on Earth is another project which aims to create a collaborative time capsule of human experiences over one day: 10/10/2010

The community website reads,

Join us on 10.10.10 for an unprecedented event.
Every Nation 24 hours, and You.

Across the planet, documentary filmmakers, students, and inspired citizens will record the human experience over a 24-hour period. By participating in this historic event, you will help capture the diversity of life and culture on this planet. Together we will create a document that is a gift to the world.

One Day on Earth is a documentary and new media project about the amazing diversity, conflict, tragedy, and triumph that occurs in one 24-hour period on Earth. More than a film, One Day on Earth is a multi-platform participatory media project. The flagship of this project is a 120-minute documentary to be released theatrically. Through the One Day on Earth platform we will establish a community that not only watches, but participates.

Is anyone thinking of participating in either/ both projects?

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What are you doing on July 24th? YouTube it

Thousands of designs were created but only 5 have been shortlisted.

India was one of the earliest issuers of coins.  The first rupee was released by Sher Shah Suri around 1540–1545 CE.

I think it is definitely long awaited and it will be a true honour for the designer whose creation gets selected.

Which is your favourite design?

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The Indian rupee gets a 21st century design revamp.

Recent findings suggest that if a developer builds an application and gets an average number of downloads, it would take 10 years to make a return on investment (ROI). That is not economically viable especially for freelancers/indie developers who expect to get a ROI within a few months just to live.

So, if you are planning on going solo I would strongly recommend doing your research before deciding to enter any app market.

Check the market for similar applications – there may be (and probably will be) similar apps already in the store. Try to highlight what makes your application unique and focus your efforts on that.

Test, test, test and then test some more - Many a developer has told me that it is the single most important thing to do when creating an app. Make sure it does what it was designed to do. It’s obvious but still very important.

Don’t remortgage your house to build an app - If you decide to go down the solo indy/dev path then make sure you are prepared. It is not the most ideal situation when your sole income is dependent on corporations that can refuse/remove your application whenever it suits them.

If you are hell bent on focusing on mobile then I would also look into the mobile web. There are no restrictions dictated by institutions, you retain overall control and with browsers ever increasing sophistication the future looks bright for the mobile web.

Have app stores reached their zenith?

Has app market saturation effectively killed off any real possibilities of developers/designers making any money?

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Is building an app worth it?

This method of generating news differs from the traditional top-down approach, where editors determine the news agenda for the day. Instead, SEO analysts at Yahoo! will examine which phrases, words and topics are being searched across its network and Yahoo’s! news staff of two editors and six bloggers will then produce content accordingly.

The aim of Yahoo’s! news blog, which is to be called Upshot, is to create articles which will focus on what the readers are interested in.

James A. Pitario, vice president of Yahoo! Media commented,

“We feel like the differentiator here; what separates us from a lot of our competitors is our ability to aggregate all this data… This idea of creating content in response to audience insight and audience needs is one component of the strategy, but it’s a big component.”

The “upshot” of this model for generating news will certainly be its pulling power to attract higher value advertisers. Yahoo’s! $100 million purchase of Associated Content this year, a site which pays writers to produce “how to” articles, is testament to the value of producing content with advertisers in mind

Mr Pitario, is confident this approach to news creation will fill in the gaps of coverage from other media outlets.

Whilst there is no question of the importance of producing news with search engines in mind, there is a school of journalists who will question the approach of using outside information to directly influence coverage.

Roberton Barret, chief strategy officer of Perfect Marker Inc and former website publisher for The Los Angeles Times believes,

“There’s a middle ground here in which publishers and news organizations can learn a lot about their audiences and what they want in real time and take that into account generally… But that does not need to affect the specific story assignments”

What do you think? Should media outlets use SEO strategies so directly to determine the news?

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Can we determine the news agenda today?

YouTube was hacked yesterday morning and the hackers targeted specifically (and randomly) Justin Bieber videos.

The pranksters from an online community which go by the name of ‘4chan’ cyber attacked the site through a bug in the comment security.  They were able to insert HTML code into the site where the facility is normally restricted.  Through this breach they forced pop ups and redirected users to potentially unsafe sites.  Why these online anarchists specifically targeted the teen pop idle is beyond me (if his music is that bad then surely they could just not listen to it).  The motive seems to be mostly non-malicious.  Although, I am sure the parents of Justin B fans would certainly not appreciate their kids getting redirected to sites hosting pornography.  Google – who own YouTube – reacted very quickly and fixed the bug within a few hours.

This is not the first time 4chan have struck pop idol Justin Bieber online.   They have also hijacked JB’s online competition with the hope of sending him to North Korea.

Even the Australian government are not immune to 4chans attacks.  Earlier this year 4chan unleashed a series of cyber attacks on AU governmental websites in protest to proposed internet regulations [Operation titstorm].

[UPDATED] Apple’s iTunes has also been targeted by a series of attacks involving 1000s of user accounts.

The rogue developers are targeting iTunes accounts and using them to make mass purchases of their own apps.  The purpose of which is to ensure their apps were ranked higher in the iTunes store whilst at the same time pawning off users money.   As this story gains momentum further investigation has revealed that fraudulent developers have several means of obtaining users payment details.  So called ‘App farms’ where users are lured via free apps and then urged to purchase points within the app get slapped with a £1000 bill.  Some users have been the victim of fake applications where the user gets billed many times more than what they paid for it.

@tkin, a TNW reader posted:

“Someone has reported that a free app that they downloaded charged a large sum of money for in-app purchases without their knowledge; how is this not an issue? That is something with dangerous potential.”

A reader of razorianfly wrote:

“Some users who have had their accounts hacked have left comments on the apps they have supposedly bought complaining that up to $600+ has been spent on books they’d never personally bought themselves.”

This does beg the question of privacy.  Are large companies doing enough to protect their customers and developers?

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Hacks away! [ITUNES] [YOU TUBE]

That is the response of some after Spotify’s latest update which takes full advantage of Apple’s latest iOS4 upgrade.  Now Spotify users can listen to background music whilst doing other stuff with thanks to the new multitasking feature.  Spotify also added a share facility which enables the user to share music with friends via Facebook and Twitter accounts.  The features are available to both free and paying users. Spotify has over seven million users and 320,000 of the latter.

Paul Brown from Spotify says:-

Today’s upgrade is all about driving discovery and enabling users to build their playlist libraries. To then access these libraries across multiple platforms, we feel will be a major attraction for people looking to sign up as a premium customer.

We have shown, since rolling out premium mobile access to our users, that the ability to access your music in a very simple, exciting and absorbing way, across multiple platforms, is a big reason to subscribe and today’s features only increase the stickiness of Spotify as a music platform. There is a lot more to come but this is a significant step in Spotify’s evolution as music access and management platform.

From Spotifys website:

Easily the most requested feature for our iPhone app since it launched last September has been the ability to listen to music while surfing the web, using Facebook, etc

Here are some comments from twitter:

Wow! Seriously do not underestimate how game-changing @spotify’s latest iPhone update is. Unrelated. Anyone want a used iPod?

The @Spotify iPhone update is so good. Bye bye iTunes, may I never have to sync music through you again

Spotify is certainly listening to their users and it is paying off for them.

They are currently in a very good position to damage iTunes.   And with Apple’s iTunes Cloud iTunes’ streaming service – not due for release until the end of the year they may have left it a little too late.

Can Spotify effectively kill off iTunes?

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Spotify: Here lies iTunes you served us well

Sedo, an online domain marketplace, have entered into an exclusive agreement with owners of sex.com, Escom LLC to privately broker the sale of the domain and two related trademark registrations with the United States Patent and Trademark Office

The domain, which was sold to Escom in January 2006 was rumoured to have fetched $14 million dollars

Del Anthony, CEO of Escom remarked,

“We are excited to be working with Sedo and believe Sedo’s vast experience, expertise with high value domain names, credibility and worldwide network of clients will ensure that Escom receives a price for the sex.com domain nameand its related trademarks that reflects its true value as the best domain name in the world”

With the term ‘sex’ still being one of the most searched for terms on the web, Netimperative points out

“the new owner of this domain will enjoy a clear competitive advantage as a market leader, dramatically enhanced organic search rankings, tremendous traffic generated from direct navigation and an unsurpassed ability to drive online marketing and branding initiatives.”

The history behind the original ownership of the domain name is certainly an intriguing one. It was originally bought in 1994 by Gray Kremen, match.com founder, with Network Solutions and transferred to Stephen M Cohen in 1995. However, this was not a straight forward amicable transaction…

“In October 1995, Network Solutions transferred the domain to Stephen M. Cohen, who had been trying to gain control of the domain for some time by misrepresentation, using phone calls, e-mails and forged letters. He eventually persuaded an employee of Network Solutions to change the ownership details by submitting a fake fax. After gaining control of the domain, Cohen produced an advertising-heavy site that received up to 25 million hits a day. From payments for click-throughs and other advertising, Cohen was reportedly making $50,000 to $500,000 per month. Kremen undertook steps to recover the domain, while Cohen claimed he obtained the domain legally from Online Classifieds (OCI). A five-year legal battle ensued, led by cyberlawyer Charles Carreon.

Kremen was victorious in November 2000, when Network Solutions was ordered to return the domain to the plaintiff. According to the record of Kremen v. Cohen, Cohen was ordered to pay $25 million into court; in April 2001, the California District Court awarded Kremen an additional $40 million for lost earnings, for a total judgment of $65 million.” (Wikipedia)

It is clear the new owners of sex.com can indeed make a bucket load of money, but at what cost?

How much do you think the sale of sex.com will raise?

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SEX.COM – the most expensive domain ever?

On what grounds you say?

The accusations are very serious indeed – the claims against Apple and AT&T are Defect in Design, Manufacture and Assembly, as well as Breach of Express Warranty, General Negligence, Deceptive Trade Practices, Intentional Misrepresentation, Negligent Misrepresentation and Fraud by Concealment.

It is safe to say that both Apple and AT&T are already suffering from negative PR for the iPhone4 and this lawsuit is going to hurt more.

The final lesson will be don’t mess with the customer because the customer is always right.

Hopefully this legal scare will put an end to engineering on the fly coupled with constant production changes.  In these scenarios corporations tend to make a lot of money and the early adopters pay the price.

Do you think this has gone a tad too far?  Or do you think that it is about time that giant corporations started paying more attention to their customers rather than their shareholders?

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An Apple a day doesn’t make the lawsuit go away