29 posts tagged “net meetings”
New Strategic Investment, Software Certification Service also Disclosed at Shanghai IDFINTEL DEVELOPER FORUM, Shanghai, April 3, 2008 – Intel Corporation unveiled a new design of the Intel-powered classmate PC today at the Intel Developer Forum in Shanghai. As announced in a keynote by Andrew Chien, Intel vice president, Corporate Technology Group and director of Intel Research, the second-generation Intel-powered classmate PC is an affordable, fully functional, rugged Internet-centric computer platform. These simple-to-use PCs have wireless capability, longer battery life, water resistant keyboards and are more shock resistant if dropped. Intel is calling this category of PCs "netbooks." The Intel designed computer offers different choices to manufacturers so each can tailor laptop models for a variety of education needs. The new classmate PC blueprint is the latest innovation and educational tool for parents and teachers to use technology, computers and Internet access to better educate students around the world. "Only 5 percent of the world's children today have access to a PC or to the Internet," Chien said. "Education is one of the best examples of how technology improves our lives. We have seen how technology helps teachers create fun learning experiences more efficiently. We have also been touched by children's excitement when they are inspired by technology. The Intel-powered classmate PC is one of the ways we support the IT industry in spreading the benefits of technology in education for children around the world." The second-generation classmate PCs are built on Intel® Celeron® M processor with 802.11b/g Wi-Fi and mesh network capabilities. The top range of these netbooks includes a 9-inch LCD screen, 6-cell battery life, 512 MB memory, a 30 GB HDD (hard disk drive) storage and an integrated webcam. An Intel powered classmate PC supports Microsoft* Windows* XP and variants of the Linux* operating environment. When pre-installed with the education software stack, these netbooks are ideal for classroom-learning environment. Software and content will be available in more than eight languages. More than 80 software and hardware vendors, content providers, educational services providers and local OEMs have been working with Intel to develop a complete infrastructure that supports the Intel-powered classmate PC. They were present at today's announcement in Shanghai. Chien also said future Intel-powered classmate PCs will be built with the Intel® Atom™ processor. It is an energy-efficient, low-cost computer chip designed to provide wireless capability to small mobile computing devices such as netbooks. The updated child-sized computer will continue to be deployed as part of the Intel World Ahead Program, a global initiative aimed at spreading digital accessibility and educational opportunities. The Digital Transformation Intel architecture is also transforming with the multi-core movement in mainstream, parallel computing. This will require new programming techniques and languages at the heart of Intel's tera-scale computing research program. Chien, along with Dr. Zhang Xia, chief technology officer of Neusoft Co., demonstrated Ct, a new parallel programming language from Intel research that will make programming for many-cores more efficient than what is possible today. Chien says Intel's research is poised to tackle both the opportunities and the challenges that lie ahead with the Digital Transformation. Renee James: Software: Unlocking the Opportunities on Intel Platforms James also announced the Intel® Certified Solutions program. This new software testing and validation service will enable Intel® Software Partner Program members to deliver high-quality solutions that are certified to meet rigorous standards for security, interoperability and maintainability, and are optimized for Intel technologies. This new service offering, provided by SpikeSource*, will help software vendors reduce development costs and produce more trustworthy solutions that work well on Intel platforms. In conjunction with this certification initiative, Intel Capital, Intel's global investment organization, has made an additional investment of $10 million in SpikeSource. Intel Capital originally invested in SpikeSource in 2005 and has played an active role to make the company successful through company building and customer introductions. Intel and SpikeSource are initially offering the service as an early adopter program with broader availability expected later this year. Intel and Epic Games launched the "$1 Million Intel Make Something Unreal Contest" for aspiring game developers to create modifications ("mods") for the PC version of "Unreal Tournament 3." Winnings are valued at $1 million and include an Unreal Engine 3 license and other cash awards and prizes, including Intel® Software Development Products and PCs based on Intel® Core™2 Extreme quad-core processors. Photos, videos and more facts are available on the IDF Shanghai press kit at www.intel.com/pressroom/idf. About Intel Intel, Intel Atom, Intel Core, Celeron and the Intel logo are trademarks of Intel Corporation in the United States and other countries. * Other names and brands may be claimed as the property of others. SOURCE |
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EmailAs some of you may know I have been building web games for different social networks with some friends for the past few months. I have noticed a downward trend in revenue with apps and wanted to highlight it here. To generate a discussion, ideas and possible solutions:
Problems:
1- On social networks in general the
audiences are low value. These are kids spending money on a certain set
of things: clothes, cell phones, food, movies & gasoline. Clicking
on ads for other things isn’t that appealing.
2- The older demos are not installing applications. They have the money
and/or provide money for their kids who are using the applications.
3- Saturation.
There are now 100 million+ new page views a day that cubics, google
adsense, lookery, etc…can provide ads for. That drive eCPMS down to
~$.10 or lower.
4- Scale. Your
page views aren’t significant enough. Let’s say you can create
100,000,000 page-views a month. At $.10 / 1,000 pvs (eCPM) you are now
making $10,000. Considering that might be 1-2 full-time people +
hosting costs means you won’t be a trillionaire anytime soon.
Solutions:
- Use your app as a marketing vehicle to your own destination site.
- Reach out to brands (try hard) for individual sponsorships. Great but not too scalable.
- Virtual Goods? It’s huge in Asia. Great read here. Thanks Dave.
- Fun. Do it as a hobby or lifestyle business. Nothing wrong but this will be well suited for college students or part-time hackers.
Any other thoughts?
SOURCE
iTunes Store Top Music Retailer in the US
Amazon, the world's largest online retailer, is to start selling wine in the US, entering a business fraught with regulatory complexities and littered with the wreckage of previous failures.
Amazon is looking to recruit a senior wine buyer, whom it says will be responsible for "the acquisition of a massive new product selection" for its site. The wine sales will augment a rapidly expanding non-perishable groceries business that Amazon launched two years ago.
The supposed potential of online wine sales drew millions of dollars in investments during the internet boom but a series of start-ups struggled in the face of strict state-by-state restrictions on wine shipping.
Amazon itself invested $30m in 1999 in a 45 per cent share of Wineshopper.com, a start-up that expired the following year. Wine.com, now the largest US online wine seller, sells food gift baskets via Amazon's site, but not wine.
Wine.com has a long history of financial problems, illustrating the challenges of dealing with state restrictions on shipping wine shaped in the 1930s after the end of Prohibition. The retailer can ship wine to customers in only 26 states and is obliged to operate 10 different warehouses that buy from state-licensed wholesalers, increasing its costs.
A 2005 Supreme Court ruling has led to an easing of restrictions on shipping by vineyards.
But Tom Wark of the Speciality Wine Retailers Association said new legislation required by the ruling has led some states to tighten restrictions on out-of-state online retailers.
Some smaller e-commerce sites have been shipping wine to customers in defiance of state laws, taking advantage of the difficulty state regulators face in identifying unmarked small shipments to individuals.
Amazon declined to comment on its plans. The description of its new senior wine buyer's job includes working to build an "entirely new selection from the ground up" through direct contacts with vendors.
It has also said it will add wine and beer to a pilot fresh grocery delivery service, Amazon Fresh, that it is currently operating only in its home city of Seattle.
Chris Adams, an executive at Sherry-Lehmann, a leading New York wine retailer, welcomed Amazon's interest, saying it lent support to the view that states would ease restrictions. "It is a nod to the fact that the laws of the land are changing and that open markets will win the day," he said.
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Aw snap. It finally, really happened... kind of. Apple has just dropped a nasty refresh on its MacBook and MacBook Pro lines, knocking the processor speeds up, and giving the Pros that tasty multi-touch the MacBook Air has been sporting. Still, they couldn't break off an even slightly new form-factor for us? Both lines are sporting Intel's downsized new Penryn chips, which should make your lap and / or battery quite happy. Right now we're seeing updates to the GPU memory, an LED backlight (option!) for 17-inchers, as well as LEDs on all the rest of the Pros (sorry again MacBookers). New specs on the MBPs include a CPU boost to a base speed of 2.4GHz all the way up to 2.6GHz, that suspiciously new 3MB or 6MB L2 cache on the CPUs, added RAM to the graphics cards (up to 512MB for the higher-end 15-inch, and all 17-inch models), and of course the new trackpad. On the MacBook front, things look even more familiar, with only minor bumps to speed (2.1GHz up to 2.4GHz) and CPUs. Both new lines get hard drive increases, with the MBPs rocking 200GB or 250GB options, while the MBs range from 120GB all the way up to 250GB. Ports, weight, and size all appear to be just the same for both lines, undoubtedly to the chagrin of many readers, and Apple is skimping on the Apple Remote across the line; it's now a $19 add-on. Full SKU rundown after the break.
Update: Just to make it totally clear, Apple confirmed to us that the processors are indeed Penryn, as noted above. As for future updates and notable omissions in this round, they had little to say.
MacBook
- $1,099 - (White) 2.1GHz, 1GB memory, 120GB HDD, Combo drive
- $1,299 - (White) 2.4GHz, 2GB memory, 160GB HDD, Double-layer SuperDrive
- $1,499 - (Black) 2.4GHz, 2GB memory, 250GB HDD, Double-layer SuperDrive
MacBook Pro
- $1,999 - (15-inch) 2.4GHz, 2GB memory, 200GB HDD, Double-layer SuperDrive, NVIDIA GeForce 8600M GT with 256MB
- $2,499 - (15-inch) 2.5GHz, 2GB memory, 250GB HDD, Double-layer SuperDrive, NVIDIA GeForce 8600M GT with 512MB
- $2,799 - (17-inch) 2.5GHz, 2GB memory, 250GB HDD, Double-layer SuperDrive, NVIDIA GeForce 8600M GT with 512MB
Hi-res LED screen for 17-inch is $100 extra, 2.6GHz processor is another $250.
SOURCE
CUPERTINO, California—February 26, 2008—Apple® today announced that iTunes® (www.itunes.com) is now the number two music retailer in the US, behind only Wal-Mart, based on the latest data from the NPD Group*. Apple also announced that there are now over 50 million iTunes Store customers. iTunes has sold over four billion songs, with an incredible 20 million songs sold on Christmas Day 2007 alone, and offers the world’s largest music catalog of over six million songs from all of the major and thousands of independent labels.
“We’d like to thank the over 50 million music lovers who have helped the iTunes Store reach this incredible milestone,” said Eddy Cue, Apple’s vice president of iTunes. “We continue to add great new features like iTunes Movie Rentals to give our customers even more reason to love iTunes.”
Last month, Apple launched iTunes Movie Rentals featuring movies from all of the major movie studios including 20th Century Fox, The Walt Disney Studios, Warner Bros., Paramount, Universal Studios Home Entertainment, Sony Pictures Entertainment, Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer (MGM), Lionsgate and New Line Cinema. Users can rent movies and watch them on their PCs or Macs, all current generation iPods**, iPhone™ and on a widescreen TV with Apple TV®. iTunes Movie Rentals will offer over 1,000 titles by the end of this month, including over 100 titles in stunning high definition video with 5.1 Dolby Digital surround sound which users can rent directly from their widescreen TV using Apple TV.
iTunes 7.6 is available as a free download at www.itunes.com. iTunes Movie Rentals are available in the US only and are $2.99 (US) for library titles and $3.99 (US) for new releases, and high definition versions are priced just one dollar more with library titles at $3.99 (US) and new releases at $4.99 (US). Movie rentals from the iTunes Store for Mac® or Windows require iTunes 7.6. iTunes Movie Rentals require a valid credit card with a billing address in the country of purchase.
*Based on data from market research firm the NPD Group’s MusicWatch survey that captures consumer reported past week unit purchases and counts one CD representing 12 tracks, excluding wireless transactions. The iTunes Music Store became the second-largest music retailer in the US after Wal-Mart, based on the amount of music sold during 2007.
**Movie rentals work on iPod® classic, iPod nano with video and iPod touch.
Apple ignited the personal computer revolution in
the 1970s with the Apple II and reinvented the personal computer in the
1980s with the Macintosh. Today, Apple continues to lead the industry
in innovation with its award-winning computers, OS X operating system
and iLife and professional applications. Apple is also spearheading the
digital media revolution with its iPod portable music and video players
and iTunes online store, and has entered the mobile phone market with
its revolutionary iPhone.
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