Developers pleased with Apple's Lodsys response

The in-app purchase icon.

(Credit:Apple)

Apple todayfinally responded to Lodsys, the group that's been targeting iOS developers for licensing fees on their use of in-app purchase (IAP). While Lodsys has not yet issued its own response, many developers are now breathing a sigh of relief based on Apple's stance, which states that developers are fully protected against any extra fees by the company's patent licensing terms.

"DEAR STEVE I WANT TO KISS YOU HUGS CHOCK,"tweetedCraig Hockenberry, the principal and senior software engineer at The Iconfactory, the makers of the popular Twitterific app. Hockenberry had posteda public letterto Apple CEO Steve Jobs shortly before the company began sending its letters to affected developers, wherein Hockenberry called Lodsys"greedy predators", and said that the group threatened the entire platform.

"What these predators don't realize is that for every developer who's earning millions, there are many thousands who are earning much less,"Hockenberry wrote."This backbone of the iOS ecosystem is doing well with work we love, but that is very much at risk with increased legal costs."

Hockenberry latertweeted,"I should e-mail Steve Jobs more often."

James Thomson, the maker of the PCalc app, who was one of the first to get hit with a notice from Lodsys,saidsimply that"our long international nightmare is over."In aninterviewwith Macworld, Thomson described the last ten days as"some of the most stressful"in his professional career.

Lodsys first began sending notices to developers earlier this month, alerting them to the fact that their applications were infringing on a patent the group held by using IAP. The company gave developers 21 days to respond, before threatening legal action. The group offered up a licensing deal for developers to pay 0.575 percent of U.S. revenue from their applications, in return for being able to use IAP within their apps. Apple did not weigh in on the issue until its letter this morning, where the company said it, along with its app makers are"undisputedly licensed"to use IAP.

Emanuele Vulcano, the maker of iOS app Mover never received one of these letters from Lodsys, but nonetheless removed IAP from the free version of the app out of fear of being targeted, and described Lodsys' actions as having a"chilling effect."Vulcano this morningannouncedthat he was bringing IAP back to the app immediately as a result of Apple's letter.

Daniel Jalkut, the founder ofMac-centric Red Sweater Software rounded out the other developer reactions,saying"I've never seen iOS developers so excited about the walled garden."

Julie Samuels, a staff attorney for the Electronic Frontier Foundation who last week wrote a post saying that Apple needed tostep up and defend developers, said Apple's response was"the right thing."

"We were really happy to see Apple take a public stand and defend the folks who come up with the apps that make us all love our iPhones. It's the right thing - both morally and from a business perspective,"Samuels wrote an e-mail to CNET."It took a little longer than we'd have liked--so many developers were really left in the lurch last week with the proverbial Sword of Damocles over their head, but better late than never. Now the developers can get back to what they do best: develop new apps."

Morgan Reed, executive director of theAssociation for Competitive Technologysaid the group, which represents around 3,000 technology firms, was similarly happy with Apple's response.

"The developer community is pleased that Apple has taken steps to reassure app makers regarding Lodsys's licensing demands,"Reed said in a statement."Lodsys in-app purchasing technology is already licensed by Apple. Developers share that company's understanding that in-app purchasing applications written for its iOS platform are covered under this license. Lodsys has created uncertainty in the apps marketplace and we hope that it will take the appropriate step to withdraw its unwarranted licensing demands."

It remains to be seen when or how Lodsys will react to Apple's letter. In it, Apple's senior vice president and general counsel, Bruce Sewell requested that the company immediately withdraw notices sent to developers requesting that they strike up licensing deals, calling such assertions"false."So far Lodsys CEO Mark Small, and any of the company's other representatives have declined to speak with press on the matter, relaying information toits bloginstead.

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How the iPad changes PC design, part 2

In case anybody had any doubts about the impact of theiPadon the PC, Intel laid those doubts to rest this week at its investor meeting.

Echoing trends touched onin an April 23 post, the company that makes the silicon core of most of the world's PCs said this week, in effect, that laptops will become a lot more liketablets, i.e., more like the iPad.

And why will this happen? The slide below--shown at the chipmaker's investor meeting--makes this clear.

Laptops will become extremely thin and be instant-on and with instant connectivity, Intel said this week. Sounds a lot like a tablet with a keyboard.

(Credit:Intel)

This time, thin is really thin:At the meeting at Intel's headquarters in Santa Clara, Calif., executives were talking about a standard 0.7-inch thickness (about 18 millimeters, see slide above) for laptops, not to mention dropping hints about future 8 millimeter thick tablets and smartphones.

And thin is really in:In a discussion I had offline with a high-ranking Intel executive at the meeting, the new"extreme ultrathin"strategy was described in an interesting way. To paraphrase, the original CULV thing didn't fly, he said. (For those not familiar with Intel jargon, that means consumer ultra low voltage. Intel's attempt, a couple of years ago, to push ultrathin laptops into the mainstream.)

He went on to describe how CULV marketing dollars were cut because, among other reasons, the performance wasn't there. But this time, it's different, he said. There will be a big marketing campaign and plenty of power-efficient--but still very fast, mind you--silicon to populate those 0.7-inch-thin (and thinner) laptops that turn on and connect instantly.

How important is all of this to Intel?"This is a once in a decade kind of change,"said Dadi Perlmutter, an executive VP at Intel, when referring to this overall push into power-efficient, always-on, always-connected computing.

And in case investors needed more convincing, at one of the informal events, Intel was showing off about a dozen tablets, a few already on the market but most due to ship in the coming months.

And, at the same event, a few feet away, Intel was showing the ultrathin (0.64 inches) Samsung Series 9 13.3-inch model and demonstrating how future Intel technology will allow the PC to instantly pop out of hibernation mode--which currently is anything but instant, often taking about 20 or 30 seconds (or more). In other words, what is known currently as standby mode will become, in effect, instant-on hibernation. All in an effort to extend battery life while providing instant responsiveness and instant connectivity.

Which brings us back to the tablet...I mean...iPad. If PC vendors actually execute on Intel's vision, that could blunt the appeal of the iPad for some consumers. And even trump the iPad, dare I say, for some consumers.

Imagine in-the-not-too-distant-future, a 2-pound, 0.6-inch thick laptop packing next-generation Intel Ivy Bridge processors with integrated 4G and a 256GB solid-state drive for about $1,000. And this design could be operating system agnostic:Windows 7(or Windows 8), Google Chrome OS, or a future MacBook Air running Apple's OS.

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Keep your Angry Birds, we'll take something a bit more classy

A rendering of the inner workings of one of the rare pistols cum music boxes cum robots.

(Credit:Christie's video; screenshot by Edward Moyer/CNET)

Birds and weapons? Sounds like a certain smartphone-game-turned-cultural-touchstone, right? Well, don't worry; we know you've heard enough aboutthatparticular phenomenon to last a few lifetimes.

No, this little blog item is about something far less widespread than a populariPhoneapp. In fact, the"gadgets"in question here--if one dare call them that--are truly rare. So rare that they're expected to draw $2.5 million to $5 million dollars at a Hong Kong auction later this month.

And though they were created in the early 19th century, and are anything but digital, the technical chops required to make them still manage to impress.

We're talking about a matching pair of gold, jewel-encrusted"pistols"--manufactured as playthings for courtesans in the Chinese royal court by a Swiss studio known for its ingenious automatons.

Theonlysuch matching pair known to exist. There are four other pistols like this, all singletons, and all tucked away in museums.

One of the bejeweled handguns. Our little whistling and winged friend can be seen perched at the end of the double barrel.

(Credit:Christie's video; screenshot by Edward Moyer/CNET)

The glittering handguns don't fire bullets, rather, they fire birdsong. One winds them up with a little key (like one would a watch of the same era), pulls the trigger, and out of the barrel pops a tiny mechanical bird. Complete with real feathers and moving wings, beak, and tail, the charming little fellow sings his heart out for a full 20 seconds, never repeating himself and all the while flitting and dancing about with avian joy and excitement.

There are no batteries in the pistols or birds; the movements and melodies are generated entirely by several hundred diminutive springs, gears, levers, screws, and other such mechanical tidbits--along with a huge helping, of course, of mechanical wizardry.

Give me birdsong over a bullet any day. You can see here the bird's real feathers (and its sweet little expression).

(Credit:Christie's video; screenshot by Edward Moyer/CNET)

You can watch the glittering gizmos in action (and hear the birds' Mozartian music) ina video produced by Christie's, the auction house that'shandling their sale.

We're sure you'll agree it's all a bit more genteel than Duke Nukem.

{ViaThe Wall Street Journal}

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Lenovo: USB 3.0 mainstream in 2012

The 13.3-inch ultrathin ThinkPad X1 includes a USB 3.0 port. Many, if not most, laptops are expected to follow suit this year and next.

(Credit:Lenovo)

Lenovo's top product manager for the popular ThinkPad line says USB 3.0 will go mainstream in 2012, while Intel sees the new Thunderbolt interface gravitating to some high-end nonmainstream laptop models.

This week, Lenovo began selling itsThinkPad X1, a 0.85-inch thick (thickest point), 3.8-pound design based on Intel's"Sandy Bridge"Core i5 and i7 processors.

Beyond the obvious attractions of a svelte, high-powered laptop, the X1 also sports an increasingly popular USB port based on the"SuperSpeed"3.0 specification. USB is one of the most widely used connection technologies in the world, found on everything from PCs totabletsto printers to smartphones. Peak speeds for USB 3.0 are about 10 times that of USB 2.0, the current standard.

"In 2012 USB 3.0 will be a mainstream technology,"Jason Parrish, worldwide product manager for Lenovo ThinkPad, said in a phone interview earlier this week."And we see 2011 as the transition year for USB 3.0 as it starts to come into more and more products,"he added. Other companies seem to agree.Dell's upcoming XPS 15zwill include two USB 3.0 ports.

Intel, for its part, has saidits support chips--called chipsets--will include USB 3.0 in 2012.

And what aboutThunderbolt, Intel's new interface, now featured on Apple's MacBooks and iMacs?"It's definitely an interesting technology. It's clever to use the same connector asMini Displayport,"Parrish said.

He continued."There's certainly not a desire to add more ports to a notebook, because it takes up space...We're talking to our customers...And assessing if Thunderbolt is the technology"they need.

Beyond today's MacBooks and iMacs, Intel sees Thunderbolt beginning life in the high-end consumer space--not in mainstream systems."The ecosystem is nascent,"said an Intel representative.

One market segment, for example, that may see Thunderbolt ports is ultrathin laptops, whose minimalist designs accommodate only a few connectors, the Intel representative said, echoing Parrish's comment above. Particularly, superthin designs that have thicknesses averaging about 0.7 inches.

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Apple signs EMI, cloud-music deals nearly done

Apple is closing in on obtaining the necessary agreements with the top four record companies that will enable the company to launch a fully licensed cloud-music service, according to sources with knowledge of the talks.

Warner Music Group already had a deal in place with Apple, music insiders told CNET last month, and now music industry sources have said that Apple has a similar agreement with EMI Music, the smallest of the four record labels.

Sony Music Group and Universal Music Group are said to be close to completing their deals and they could be wrapped up as early as next week, the sources said. The source said it is highly likely the signed contracts will be in Apple's hip pocket next month at the company's Worldwide Developers Conference but whether the company will announce them there is unknown.

Apple will finish behind Amazon and Google in the race to the cloud but the company that gave the world theiPodand iTunes has the freedom to offer an array of features that rivals are prevented from rolling out because of the licensing restrictions, the sources said.

More to come

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McDonald's hires 7,000 touch-screen cashiers

McDonald's shows off a touch-screen kiosk installed in France in 2009.

(Credit:McDonald's Europe)

"Welcome toMcDonald's. My name is HAL 9000. May I take your order?"

McDonalds recently went on a hiring binge in the U.S.,adding 62,000 employeesto its roster. The hiring picture doesn't look quite so rosy for Europe, where the fast food chain is drafting 7,000 touch-screen kiosks to handle cashiering duties.

The move is designed to boost efficiency and make ordering more convenient for customers. In an interview with theFinancial Times, McDonald's Europe President Steve Easterbrook notes that the new system will also open up a goldmine of data. McDonald's could potentially track every BigMac, McNugget, and large shake you order. A calorie account tally at the end of the year could be a real shocker.

The touch screens will only accept debit or credit cards, adding to the slow death knell of cash and coins. This all goes along with an overall revamp of McDonald's restaurants worldwide aimed at projecting amodern imageas opposed to the old-fashioned golden arches with a slightly creepy (to my taste anyway) clown guy hanging around the french fries.

This puts McDonald's one step closer to opening up its firstAlphavillelocation. At least our new computer overlords will be nice enough to serve us a Filet-o-Fish. Maybe they'll even throw in aniPadwith the Happy Meal one of these days.

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Google App Engine goes for Go language

Gordon, Google's Go gopher mascot

(Credit:Google)

Go, Google's experimental programming language, is coming to the company's App Engine cloud-computing service--and a bit closer to reality in the process.

Google hopes touse Go to tackle modern programming challengessuch as getting useful work out of chips with multiple processor cores. Getting new languages to catch on is difficult, though--it took Sun Microsystems years with Java, and its Fortress never really caught on widely.

But incorporating Go into App Engine could help make it more relevant, or at least easier to test out, by reducing the hassles involved in trying it. App Engine is a service for running software on Google's infrastructure--a higher-level foundation than the nuts and bolts Amazon Web Services provides, but a lower level than full-fledged applications such as Google Docs.

The company announced the Go move last week at theGoogle I/O showand released anew Go software development kit (SDK)to let programmers try it out. So far, though, the SDK is as far as the average person can get, because Google hasn't publicly released the service.

"You don't even need to have Go installed beforehand because the SDK is fully self-contained. Just download the SDK, unzip it, and start coding,"said Go team members David Symonds, Nigel Tao, and Andrew Gerrand on theGo blog."We will soon enable deployment of Go apps into the App Engine hosting infrastructure...Once full deployment is enabled, it'll be easy to push your app to Google's cloud."

App Engine started with the ability to run software written in Python, a popular language within Google. Second came Java, which is widely used to run server software. Go, while not the fixture of mainstream computing the first two languages are, has attracted avery active programming community. The language is an open-source software project.

Go on App Engine can handle the full go language and, when programs run, they can tap into most of the standard suite of libraries of pre-built tools that come with Go. In addition, Go is adapted for several App Engine features designed to let applications run at large scale, such as theDatastore interfacefor storing information in a database.

However, some elements of Go are missing for now--including one part of the Go sales pitch, the ability to spread jobs more easily across multiple threads that run in parallel.

"Although goroutines and channels are present, when a Go app runs on App Engine only one thread is run in a given instance,"the Go team members said."That is, all goroutines run in a single operating system thread, so there is no CPU parallelism available for a given client request. We expect this restriction will be lifted at some point."

Even in its preliminary form, Go should appeal to some coders, said

"It's...an interesting new option for App Engine because Go apps will be compiled to native code, making Go a good choice for more CPU-intensive tasks,"said Google's Scott Knaster in aGoogle Code blog post."Plus, the garbage collection and concurrency features of the language, combined with excellent libraries, make it a great fit for Web apps."

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Hiccups dog PlayStation Network restoration

Sony may have more work to do to jumpstart service to itsPlayStationNetwork.

The entertainment and electronics giant announced yesterday that its entire portfolio of online games, game forums, and Web sites wouldgo back online today. However, after service resumed today, users started complaining on Twitter today that the service wasn't active long before it was unavailable again.

"Playstation Network was back up for about 10 minutes before going down again for maintenance,"Tom Cranfieldtweeted."Nice work Sony!"

"Playstation Network is Back down looks like the servers have crashed,"Lee Fraserof Manchester, England, said in a Twitter post.

Sony's PlayStationEU twitter feed asked users to be patient.

"Please bear with us as we continue working on #PSN restoration. We are experiencing extremely heavy traffic,"thefeedsaid.

The service had been offline for nearly four weeks afterseveral of Sony's servers were attackedbetween April 17 and April 19, leading to the exposure of the personal data of more than 100 million customers who signed up for PlayStation Network, Qriocity, and Sony Online. The networks--used for downloading and playing games, movies, and music--were mysteriously unavailable for nearly a week before Sony revealed the intrusion. The company has said repeatedly that there is no evidence thatcredit card information was stolen.

Sony said its network services would be unavailable while it beefed up its security and announced earlier this week that it planned to restore them"in the next few days."The company has still has not identified the perpetrator behind the second-largest security breach in U.S. history, but it hinted it believes the hacker activist group Anonymous may have been behind the breach.

{Via Huffington Post}

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Chromebook tries to remake the small laptop

Google has taken a big step in trying to redefine the small laptop, making it purely Web-centric, untethered to the Windows past.

Chromebooks are, in effect,tabletswith keyboards, as Hugo Barra, director Android Product Management at Google, said today at Google's I/O developers conference, streamedhere. That's a key point of departure from the traditional small Windows laptops, aka, Netbooks.

"Attributes that make phones and tablets great...we're bringing this to notebooks,"he said.

Those attributes include Cloud-based apps, extreme portability, built-in 3G connectivity, instant-on, and all-day battery life--all hallmarks of tablets likeApple's iPadand Motorola's Xoom.

Acer's Chromebook starts at $349 and 2.95 pounds. It runs Google's Chrome OS on top of an Intel dual-core N570 Atom processor.

(Credit:Acer)

The Netbook, on the other hand, has been, since its debut in 2007, essentially a conventional Windows laptop, just smaller. Google's focus on instant-on, instant Web connection is a seemingly trivial feature but a key difference between traditional laptops and so-called post-PC devices, like the smartphone and tablet.

"Every Chromebook is instant turn on. Every time you boot up, you're up and running within eight seconds,"Barra said.

In this respect, Google may succeedwhere Qualcomm's"smartbook"failed. That laptop actually aspired to many of the same things but never became a viable commercial product.

But the Chromebook's novelty can potentially be a weakness. Particularly for businesses and educators still tied to Windows. Google is trying to address that with Web-based management features."Seamless updates directly from Google keep the operating system and software fresh, eliminating the need to manually patch systems,"Googlestates on its Chromebook page."And since only minimal data is stored on the device, you don't need to do tedious backups or migrate data when changing hardware,"according to Google.

Google is also employing security features such as secure tabbed browsing (called"sandboxing"), user data encryption, and verified boot.

Both Acer and Samsung will release Chromebooks June 15running the Chrome OS on top of Intel's latest dual-coreAtom N570 processor. And the N570 is a step up from the single-core Atom that powered theprototype CR-48Chromebook, distributed to journalists, among others, in December.

Chromebook features:

• Pricing starts at $349 (Acer)
  
• Web-centric Chrome OS, automatically updated, maintained by Google
  
• About 3 pounds or less
  
• Dual-core Atom 1.66GHz N570 processor
  
• 16GB solid-state drive (mSATA)
  
• HDMI port
  
• 11-inch and 12-inch class displays
  
• All-day battery life (Samsung and Acer specify about 8 hours)
  
• Instant-on
  
• Instant Web connectivity
  
• 3G connectivity, pay as you go
  
• Cloud-based apps, but key applications local like Gmail and Google Docs
  

Amazon is already listing Chromebookshere.

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Report: Apple to stick with Intel for MacBooks

A technical Web site posted an article yesterday asserting that Apple will not replace Intel processors with an alternative design anytime in the next two to three years.

This follows a reporton a chip rumor site last weekthat claimed Apple is"dumping"Intel and switching to chips based on the ARM design, the same silicon used in theiPhoneandiPad. That report said the transition would happen in that time frame.

While acknowledging Apple's history of transitions to new chip architectures and the ostensible motivations for moving to ARM,Real World Technologies'David Kanter argues that it won't happen for a long time (beyond three years), if at all.

Some salient points from the article:

• Performance:Chips based on the ARM design, such as Apple's A series processors, won't be able to deliver the necessary performance to keep pace with Intel's x86 chips, according to Kanter. And, despite ARM's vaunted power efficiency, that may not be a big advantage as ARM chips get faster."There is no reason to believe that these efficiency advantages will scale for high-performance designs,"the article said.

• Thunderbolt:The high-speed connection technology thatApple uses on its MacBook Prosand iMacs is based on Intel intellectual property: IP that the chipmaker is unlikely to license to ARM, Kanter said."Moreover, it seems unlikely that Apple would have consented to such an arrangement if they were planning to abandon x86 in the near future,"according to Kanter.

• Expertise:Echoing commentsfrom Ashok Kumar, an analyst at Rodman and Renshaw, Kanter said that Apple is not a chip designer by nature and does not have the expertise to develop the very-high-performance chips required for MacBooks. Though past acquisitions of chip firms PA Semi and Intrinsity did give it"some chip expertise,"there isn't a lot of evidence that"their teams are prepared for a much larger and more complex project."

• Gratuitous complexity:By adopting ARM chips for its MacBooks, Apple would consequently"split"its computer lineup: ARM for laptops and x86 for desktops, according to Kanter. That would result in unnecessary overhead for both Apple and consumers."That would increase their validation and support costs to deal with different hardware and software,"Kanter said.

• Down the road, maybe:In the long term, anything can happen."Over 5-10 years, though, many of the technical and business hurdles may change,"he wrote. If an alternative chip design with clear advantages appeared, Apple would bolt to the new design with little hesitation--not unlike 2006, when Apple announced it was switching from IBM's and Motorola's PowerPC processors to Intel's because of the latter's undisputed power and performance advantages. ARM could find itself in the same position of power at some point."The ARM ecosystem is moving forward at a rapid pace, and Apple is watching carefully,"Kanter wrote.

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Developers gather Tuesday in SF for Google I/O (live blog)

Google's annual developer conference Google I/O kicks off Tuesday at San Francisco's Moscone Convention Center.

(Credit:CNET/James Martin)

SAN FRANCISCO--Google's annual developer conference kicks off here Tuesday morning at the Moscone Center. And CNET will be covering the news live.

Thousands of developers will gather for two days--Tuesday and Wednesday--atGoogle I/Oto learn more about Google's technologies including Android, Google Chrome, Google APIs, Google Web Toolkit and App Engine, among others.

Google is always tight-lipped before the conference about the keynote speakers and news that it will announce. And this year is no exception. Android Atlas blogger Scott Websterposted his predictions for possible newsat Google I/O a couple of weeks ago. While we don't know for certain what will be announced at the developer conference, we do know it will be newsworthy.

CNET is sending a team of reporters and reviewers to Google I/O to cover the news. So join us Tuesday morning for the opening keynote address that starts at 9 a.m. Pacific as we use the Cover It Live tool to live-blog the event. The link below will take you to the live blog. You can also sign up for a reminder below.

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Google goes all gooey for Mother's Day

These days, Google is working very hard to find its inner self. You know, that inner core that might be human.

First, the companycreates warm, touching filmsfor Chrome.

And now, to celebrate Mother's Day (that's today, in case you forgot, you insensitive, ungrateful child) Google has found a gooey inner core.

(Credit:Screenshot: Chris Matyszczyk/CNET)

First, the companyhas produced a doodlein which the logo drifts into a lavendery lilac and the 'l' of Google becomes a lovely deep purple flower.

However, not content with spreading this love, Googlies have extended their arms and their hearts toward their own mothers--the women who, for years, tolerated their children's love for Meccano, Lego, and braggadocio.

(Credit:Screenshot: Chris Matyszczyk/CNET)

This page,Google.com/moms, lays bare the faces of those who bore the world's future engineers. In their pictures, most of the moms are smiling, though one or two look like they were caught on a day when their offspring was being a little much--perhaps stating the obvious once too often.

The page begins with the words:"No search could find better moms than these."And then there's a strainingly gooey poem that might have come straight from a Hallmark card, but is credited to the great hotelier, Howard Johnson. (Oh, perhaps it's not that Howard Johnson.)

You see, Googlies have feelings too. Yes, even social ones.

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Visualizing how Twitter spread news of bin Laden's death

Keith Urbahn (@Keithurbahn), the former chief of staff to Donald Rumsfeld, got the attention of New York Times reporter Brian Stelter (@brianstelter).

(Credit:SocialFlow)

Thousands of wordshave been written this week about how Twitter had the first reports that the United States had found and killed Osama bin Laden, but a start-up called SocialFlow has published a fascinating visual look at how the news originated and spread on Twitter.

At the center ofthe bin Laden Twitter stormthat erupted Sunday night is Keith Urbahn (@Keithurbahn), the former chief of staff to Donald Rumsfeld who tweeted at 10:25 EST,"So I'm told by a reputable person they have killed Osama Bin Laden. Hot damn."

Despite being relatively unknown outside of political circles and having just over 1,000 followers, Ubahn's credibility led to 80 retweets within one minute, including one from New York Times reporter Brian Stelter, reports SocialFlow. The company analyzed 14.8 million tweets and bitly links to understand the impact of a single tweet, starting from when news of the unplanned presidential address broke at 9:46 p.m. EST to when Obama finally gave his speech at 11:30 p.m. EST.

Related links
•Twitter delivers news of bin Laden's death first
•News agencies don't race Twitter on bin Laden
•Bin Laden, Twitter, and the frenzy of noise
•Sohaib Athar on Twitter fame after bin Laden raid (Q&A)
•Bin Laden's death and the Web response (roundup)

Less than one minute after seeing Urbahn's tweet, Stelter (@brianstelter) tweeted:"Chief of staff for former defense sec. Rumsfeld, @keithurbahn, tweets:"I'm told by a reputable person they have killed Osama Bin Laden."Hundreds of Stelter's 50k followers retweeted him or replied to him. After two minutes, more than 300 people had retweeted Urbahn's tweet. The rest is history.

SocialFlow concludes:"Keith Urbahn wasn't the first to speculate on bin Laden's death, but he was the one who gained the most trust from the network. And with that, the perfect situation unfolded, where timing, the right social-professional networked audience, along with a critically relevant piece of information led to an explosion of public affirmation of his trustworthiness."

The full report on SocialFlow's siteis a great read for anyone fascinated by the rise of Twitter's influence and power, plus the visuals the company put together to illustrate the phenomenon are worth a look.

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Sony details ID-theft monitoring for PSN, Qriocity customers

Sony today released specific details regarding the identity-theft monitoring promised to its customers whose personal information was exposed in a cyberattack against the company's servers.

Sony has made a deal with identity-protection firm Debix to offer a service called AllClear ID Plus for free to U.S. customers registered withPlayStationNetwork or Qriocity prior to the attack two weeks ago, Sony spokesman Patrick Seyboldwrote in a blog posttoday.

Customers will be able to enroll in the program through an activation e-mail they'll receive"over the next few days."Registration will be open till June 18.

Sony says this offer applies only to U.S. customers, but it is working on similar offers for PSN and Qriocity account holders in other countries. Sony did not mention whether a similar offer would be made to Sony Online customers whose information was also exposed.

Sony says it doesn't know who orchestrated what it's callinga"highly sophisticated, planned"attackthat exposed the records of more than 100 million of its customers two weeks ago. The company is still working to retool its servers and bring PlayStation Network and Qriocity back online. Sony said today it is in the"final stages of internal testing"before restoring service.

Sony said over the weekend that it planned other waysof compensating customers, though no further information was included in today's update.

On the weekend, Sony said that in addition to ID-theft monitoring, it would offer some free downloads and 30 days of free PlayStation Plus premium service to Sony customers affected by the breach. Qriocity Music Unlimited subscribers will also get free service for 30 days.

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Facebook, Google eye Skype deal

Facebook and Google are reportedly pondering either an acquisition of Skype or a joint venture and strategically the two buyers couldn't be more different.

Reuters reports thatFacebook and Google are pondering some sort of deal with Skype, which delayed an IPO. Talks are very early so it's unclear what will happen if anything.

But let's zoom out a bit. If you have been following Skype's corporate strategy of late, it's clear the company is making a lot of nice business-to-business moves. Skype has a channel, key partnerships and an entry to small businesses as well as large ones.

Read moreatFacebook, Google eye Skype deal: Consumer vs. corporate tug of war.

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Using game mechanics to solve healthcare problems

Plenty of teens can tell you about the therapeutic benefits of video games. Healthcare companies are increasingly looking at the value of games too.

That's because games offer incentives that healthcare providers can harness to alter patient habits."Health behavior change is hard,"Alex Tan, a senior interaction designer at frog design, said at the Innovation Learning Network conference for healthcare providers in Seattle hosted by the design consultancy."It's frustrating. There's extra work."

Healthcare providers can use the tools of game design to innovate in prevention and treatment. That's important because patient behavior often gets in the way of their recovery. Physical therapy after surgery can be grueling, leading many patients to forgo or delay it. Busy schedules can often get in the way of taking medication or checking important gauges of health such as blood-glucose levels.

Re-mission cancer-fighting video game

Tan works with healthcare providers on building game mechanics into products. When faced with competition, timers and progression measurements, all the tools of game design, patients perform better."Games get people engaged,"Tan said."They will play for hours and hours."

Take Expresso Fitness exercise bicycles. The indoor training cycles come with a video game that users navigate by pedaling. They get points by chasing and catching dragons, for example, or picking up coins. Cyclists spin faster and longer."You're very focused on the game and not on your pedaling,"Tan said.

Some games simply educate patients about treatments, which helps them follow proper protocols. HopeLab created Re-mission, a first-person shooter game, where a pilot named Roxxi travels through the bodies of cancer patients destroying cancer cells, battling bacterial infections, and managing treatments. It's not Call Of Duty, to be sure. But studies have shown that cancer patients who played the game at least one hour per week maintained higher levels of chemo in their blood and took their antibiotics more consistently.

"This isn't just blue sky thinking,"said Teaque Lenahan, frog's director of business development."There really are a lot of opportunities."

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News agencies don't race Twitter on bin Laden

Screen shot from CNN.com. Journalism experts say that Twitter can be a valuable at distributing information but can't replace solid news gathering from trusted sources.

(Credit:Screen shot by Greg Sandoval/CNET)

Wolf Blitzer and other CNN reporters were digging into whetherOsama bin Ladenwas dead at least an hour before the news appeared at Twitter, an executive from the cable-news network said.

Why should you care? If you value getting the facts straight, you should. Twitter is once again being credited for outracing traditional news sources on a major story. The first published report that bin Laden was dead apparently came in the form of a Twitter post fromKeith Urbahn, a former aide to Donald Rumsfeld, the former U.S. defense secretary.

As with other stories where Twitter appeared to get the scoop on a big story, pundits are once again questioning whether Twitter is a legitimate news source or a threat to traditional news agencies. Does it pressure journalists to speed up the reporting process, which could lead to more errors in stories?

The truth is somewhere in the middle. Twitter users and professional news gatherers seem to have formed a mutually beneficial relationship in disseminating news. Twitter enables eyewitnesses or participants of important events to alert the public as well as reporters. We saw that when Chesley"Sully"Sullengberger ditched his commercial aircraft in New York's Hudson River in 2009. The first photos and reports came from Twitter users. Later on, news agencies helped provide important details and fill in the blanks.

But participants in news stories who turn themselves into citizen journalists don't occur on most stories. It's unlikely that any of the participants in the early morning attack on the compound in Pakistan where bin Laden was hiding posted to Twitter. One witness who was staying in the area near the attackheard explosionsfrom the raid and helicopters flying over but his posts only made sense after professional news organizations provided the meat of the story.

Even with the obvious value of Twitter, Americans still turn to the media sources that over time have earned their trust. CNN reported that between Sunday evening when news broke about bin Laden's death through 1 p.m. ET today CNN.com generated 88 million global page views, a 217-percent increase over the four-week average for the same time period.

An informal and highly unscientific poll by CNET showed that out of more than 4,700 people who responded, 30 percent of them learned of the attack on bin Laden from television. The next largest group heard about it through word of mouth and that was followed by Web news sites. Facebook and Twitter each informed 14 percent of respondents.

Old media's influence is perhaps best illustrated by Urbahn. He acknowledged on Monday that he obtained the information he posted to Twitter, not from any of his White House contacts, but from an unidentified news agency employee.

Of course, it's not true why a news outlet give up information to someone else and allow that person to scoop them on Twitter. We don't know for sure, but it's easy to see a situation where a reporter may have passed along the information to Urbahn without considering that he would distribute it to potentially millions on Twitter. What we do know is that reporting news stories first is becoming less of a concern in the age of rapid-fire and often erroneous news stories, said Kelly McBride, a news gathering expert for the Poynter Institute, a journalism think tank.

"Who gets it first is becoming less important,"McBride said,"because for the most part who is first isn't as important anymore as who is answering their audience's most important questions."

Related links
•Bin Laden, Twitter, and the frenzy of noise
•Bin Laden's death and the Web response (roundup)
•Twitter delivers news of bin Laden's death first

To be sure, Twitter can boast that it was home to the first report of bin Laden's death but it was also used to circulate scores of false reports. Some Twitter followers reported that they were led to believe bin Laden was killed a week ago or that it was Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi who had been killed.

If Twitter is quicker at delivering news, traditional news outlets want to provide higher quality information and more context than can be delivered in 140 characters, said Sam Feist, CNN's political director who was running the news operations there last night."Our mantra,"he said,"is that it's better to be right than first."

That said, CNN strives to gather facts and deliver them to viewers as rapidly as possible. Feist began scrambling reporters after the news agency received a tip at 9:40 p.m. ET that the president would address the nation. Feist said two top correspondents were at a Washington Capitals pro hockey game when he called and asked them to start working their sources.

It wasn't long before CNN knew that bin Laden was the focus of the president's speech and reporter received little help from Twitter."We saw Twitter feeds that went off in all kinds of directions,"Feist said. He only made the decision to go with the story that bin Laden was dead after reporters, including John King, chief national correspondent, had confirmed the story from numerous high-level sources.

"We knew this broadcast would be seen around the world by friends and enemies of the United States,"Feist said."We knew that potentially millions of people would be watching the program last night. Where you have to be positively correct, we check and double check our information. This was a very important story and we needed to be absolutely sure."

McBride said in many editors are learning that in a world where news can be posted to Twitter in seconds, it's not realistic to expect reporters to win the race for scoops every time.

When they've tried in the past to do that big reporting mistakes are made, she said.

"After these errors, everybody renews their commitment to veracity,"McBride said."This does help news agencies create a threshold for when it's good to publish and when it is not."

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Repairs ground Endeavour at least a week

KENNEDY SPACE CENTER, Fla.--Engineers have traced an electrical problem blamed for grounding the shuttle Endeavour Friday to a power distribution box in the ship's engine compartment, officials said today. Replacing the box will delay launch until at least May 8--Mother's Day--and possibly later.

"I'm here to disappoint everybody by saying I'm not going to tell you what the new launch date is because I have no idea,"Mike Moses, chairman of NASA's Mission Management Team, told reporters after engineers decided on a course of action."We have a lot to evaluate, both the work to do, the R&R (removal and replacement), the retest that has to be done, how we work all that schedule in.

A technician works in the shuttle Endeavour's cramped engine compartment where a suspect power distribution box is located. Work to replace the box will delay another attempt to launch Endeavour to at least May 8 and possibly longer.

(Credit:NASA)

"But we can tell you pretty much it's not going to be any earlier than the 8th. That doesn't mean we're going to go launch on the 8th, that just means we know right now the 8th is our next available opening,"he said.

Launch Director Mike Leinbach said engineers plan to remove the suspect aft load control assembly--ALCA-2--box from Endeavour's cramped engine compartment tomorrow, install a replacement Tuesday and get into a complex re-test procedure Tuesday night or early Wednesday.

To make a launch at 12:09:17 p.m. EDT on May 8, NASA would have to start a fresh three-day countdown around 10:30 a.m. Thursday. Whether the team can complete the ALCA-2 swap-out and re-test in time remains to be seen.

But if Endeavour does not make May 8, launch likely would move to May 10. A launch on May 9 could result in the shuttle undocking from the International Space Station on May 23, the same day a Russian Soyuz crew ferry craft is scheduled to depart. There are no known conflicts for subsequent launch opportunities.

In the meantime,"the team is upbeat,"Leinbach said."A little disappointed, of course, that we couldn't launch. But responding to problems is one of the things we do best around here and the team always likes a good challenge. I'm sure we're going to be really glad when Endeavour's finally on orbit but right now, the team is upbeat and ready to execute the plan that we've laid out."

The aft load control assembly electrical switching box is located on the right side of the shuttle's engine compartment.

(Credit:NASA)

Endeavour commander Mark Kelly and his crewmates--pilot Gregory H. Johnson, Michael Fincke, Gregory Chamitoff, Andrew Feustel, and European Space Agency astronaut Roberto Vittori--flew back to Houston early Sunday aboard a shuttle training aircraft to participate in additional ascent simulations later this week.

"Things happen fast,"Johnson said in a Twitter update."We are now all aboard an STA for return to Houston. Be back in a few days. More to follow."

Endeavour was grounded Friday during the final hours of the countdown because of telemetry indicating multiple fuel line heaters used by one of the shuttle's three hydraulic power units were not activating normally. The heaters are needed to keep the lines from freezing and possibly rupturing in flight.

The shuttle is equipped with three auxiliary power units, providing the hydraulic muscle to move the ship's engine nozzles, wing elevons, rudder, tail fin speed brake, body flap, landing gear brakes and nose wheel steering system. The shuttle can safely fly with a single APU, but flight rules require full redundancy for a countdown to proceed.

Likewise, each of the shuttle's three APUs is equipped with redundant heater"strings"and only one channel is required for normal operation. But again, the flight rules require redundancy to protect against a subsequent failure that could knock the system out of action.

Early Saturday, engineers ruled out a problem with the fuse panel in the shuttle's cockpit that routes power to the APU circuitry. That left two possible culprits: one or more faulty heater control thermostats or the aft load controller assembly the heater circuitry runs through.

To find out if a faulty thermostat was to blame, engineers working in Endeavour's cramped engine compartment Saturday afternoon sprayed compressed air on APU No. 1's B-channel heater thermostats to lower their temperature enough to find out whether they would cycle on or not. They did not, but that could have been the result of a wiring problem or a bad connector. Additional tests were carried out overnight and no such problems were found.

Engineers met early Sunday and recommended replacing the ALCA-2 box.

"The box will come out tomorrow and we'll send it down to our malfunction lab for a detailed inspection,"Leinbach said."The new box goes in on Tuesday...And then after that, we get into the re-test Tuesday night, Wednesday, that kind of timeframe. It's going to be a full two days of re-test."

The shuttle's electrical system features three main circuits, or buses, for redundancy. As a result, three aft load control assemblies are present in the engine compartment.

Each 50-pound box includes dozens of power switches that route electricity to components in nine major systems, including the auxiliary power units, the environmental control and life support system, solid-fuel booster electronics, the shuttle's main engines, its orbital maneuvering system rockets and flight control systems.

The box is located just forward of a right-side engine compartment access door and Leinbach said the replacement operation was not particularly difficult. An ALCA was changed out during a 1995 shuttle launch campaign and engineers will use the same procedures for Endeavour.

The issue for NASA is the time needed to complete testing to make sure the myriad subsystems downstream of the box are receiving power as required.

"Anytime you break connection to a box like this, you essentially invalidate all the testing we did up to that point,"Leinbach said."You could take the tack of saying all you're doing is replacing the box and everything downstream of that box should be fine. Well, that's true, But our requirements, the way we do business is whenever we break a connection we go back and retest it.

"That's just the prudent thing to do and the way our requirements are set. So we have to retest every one of those nine systems. The details within those systems, you could probably write a thesis on how many individual tests there are within those nine systems. And that's why it takes so long."

Assuming NASA sticks with a May 8 launch, Endeavour would dock with the International Space Station around 9 a.m. on May 10 and the mission's primary payload, a $2 billion particle physics detector, would be attached to the lab complex the next day.

The mission's four spacewalks would be carried out May 12, 14, 16 and 18, before undocking around 2 a.m. on May 20. If that schedule holds up, landing back at the Kennedy Space Center would be expected around 6:30 a.m. on May 22.

But NASA managers plan to extend Endeavour's mission by two days, if possible, to give the shuttle crew time to help their space station counterparts with needed internal maintenance. In that case, undocking would slip to May 22 and landing would be expected before dawn on May 24.

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