July 9-10, 2013
San Francisco, CA

Early Bird Tickets on Sale

Todd Greene is CEO of PubNub.

Mobile, web, and desktop online apps can be split into two categories: “static” or “real-time.”

Static apps represent the bulk of our online usage today: these are solitary, single-user experiences where content changes only when the user clicks a button, requests a new page, or does a “reload.”  New information is presented only when the user asks for it.

Real-time apps are infinitely more engaging.

These apps mimic behaviors we’re used to having in the real world: content is pushed to us “as it happens.”  Real-time applications let you edit docs together, battle your online buddies, find the closest taxi, and see when your friend is typing an “iMessage.” They let musicians perform from home and interact with adoring fans. Real-time apps make sure citizens know about critical safety issues as they happen. And real-time technology enables people to follow friends on a map, chat, share, and collaborate in a more natural, real-world, manner.

World of Warcraft, Facetime, WebEx, ETrade’s MarketCaster, and Facebook’s live “Ticker” may seem completely unrelated, but they all represent real-time apps, connecting users instantly with the real world. Another thing they have in common is that each cost tens of millions to design, build, deploy, and scale!

Real-time technology has always been complicated and expensive. But that’s changing.

Real-time networks emerge

New trends in consumer software are almost always driven by a sudden ubiquitous availability of an enabling technology. In the 90s, the launch of app servers moved websites from glossy brochures to destinations for online banking, travel, and commerce.  A decade later, open source software stacks help kickstart massive social networks operating on a shoestring budget without writing big checks to Oracle and IBM.

Today, a new enabling technology has emerged that’s driving an explosion of real-time apps. “Real-Time Networks” like PubNub, Pusher, and Firebase offer the core building blocks for real-time, globally distributed, and offered on a pay-as-you-go model.   (Full disclosure: I’m the CEO of PubNub, but we’re not alone in pioneering this movement).

The core building blocks of real-time

These real-time networks operate by establishing (and maintaining) a dedicated network socket connection to every device.

Until recently, this was an expensive proposition, roughly analogous to keeping a connected phone line open to all of your users, all the time.  Thanks to the elasticity of the cloud and some innovative technologies, the costs of these dedicated connections has now dropped substantially. 

But the magic happens once you have that connection.  A real-time network offers high-speed delivery of data, targeted to individual devices or broadcast to everyone simultaneously.  Presence-as-a-service provides an easy way to detect (and be notified instantly) when users go on/offline.  Data streams can be stored for future use, and even played back like a DVR for data.  Real-time audience visualization and out-of-the-box encryption comprise more of these core real-time building blocks.

As real-time networks become more commonplace, they are becoming adopted by new MMO games, business collaboration, and telecom companies.  But their availability is also driving completely new kinds of real-time apps. 

Real life enhanced by real-time data

Transportation is one of the earliest areas where we can see real-time technology changing our day-to-day behaviors.  What was once a tedious, horribly unreliable experience, ordering a taxi, is now becoming easy, predictable, and even fun.  Companies like GetTaxi, Sidecar, Uber, Lyft, and others let us order cabs with a single tap, and watch online as the cab approaches our location. 

But it’s not just transportation that’s getting a facelift.

ClassDojo uses real-time technology to give teachers a way to incentivize classroom behavior, using smart phones to provide instant feedback to the student and his/her parents. Soon, mobile apps will show real-time queue length for each restroom or concession booth.

Digital advertising evolves

Brands are using real-time in digital campaigns to drive audience engagement.

Coca-Cola enhanced the American Music Awards red-carpet show by letting online viewers manipulating the video in real-time for their friends’ enjoyment, and powered live voting during the Superbowl. Louis Vuitton created a global, live, online fashion show with online viewer interaction synchronized with the video.  Nike, Honda, Audi, Doritos, and Budwieiser are a few more examples of leading brands invested in their own real-time, user participation campaigns. Real-time in advertising is quickly becoming as popular as CGI was to TV ads in the 90’s.

The emergence of an online audience

Things get really exciting when apps are designed around the “audience experience”, instead of the “user experience.” Companies like TopHatter now offer a true real-time auction e-commerce platform, with avatars representing the bidders and auctioneer, complete with the sound of a gavel ending each auction.  Stageit brings the live concert experience online: audience members make requests, cheer (virtually), and even tip the performer online.

Social TV offerings from Viggle, Yahoo!, Applicaster, and others have taken a similar approach to nationwide TV audiences with online voting, predictive games, and real-time trivia.

Real-time goes mainstream

Real-time networks let app developers focus on their core competencies like better UI, richer experiences, and more creative features, instead of worrying about the massive investment and ongoing maintenance required to deliver real-time services. The cloud made massive storage and processing available to everyone.  Akamai solved the problem of globally scaling websites with content delivery networks.

Now, real-time networks have democratized real-time, you don’t have to be Facebook or Activision to deliver a real-time experience.

The real-time apps we see today are just the beginning — expect radically new possibilities in the way we shop, communicate, travel, work, educate, and experience the world.  The Lego pieces are now all in place; it’s now up to the creative folks to change the way we interact online.

photo credit: Office of Governor Patrick via photopin cc

July 9-10, 2013
San Francisco, CA

Early Bird Tickets on Sale

AT&T has finally opened the gates so iPhone 4S users and owners of other non-LTE smartphones can video chat using cellular data, the company announced today in a blog post.

While AT&T has slowly been loosening restrictions to let more people use FaceTime over its network, the company still did not let people with non-LTE devices do video chat over data. Now the company will let the many iPhone 4S owners out there use it as long as they have a tiered data plan. Anyone with a grandfathered unlimited data plan is still out of luck when it comes to using FaceTime over cellular.

AT&T Mobility VP Mark Collins writes:

When FaceTime over Cellular launched in September 2012, we explained that we wanted to roll it out gradually to ensure the service had minimal impact on the mobile experience for all of our customers.

As a result of ongoing testing, we’re announcing AT&T will enable FaceTime over Cellular at no extra charge for customers with any tiered data plan using a compatible iOS device.

This means iPhone 4S customers with tiered plans will be able to make FaceTime calls over the AT&T cellular network. AT&T previously made FaceTime over Cellular available to customers with a Mobile Share plan and those with an LTE device on tiered plans.

Of course, FaceTime over Wi-Fi remains available for all customers who have a compatible iPhone or iPad.

The update to let non-LTE phone owners use data for video chat will roll out over the next few weeks. AT&T says the update will be applied automatically, so no need to do anything but sit back and wait.

iPhone 4S screencap via Apple/YouTube

But Vancouver-based Perch has a different idea … one in which video communication is a normal, background constant. No starting and stopping an app, no “phoning” and connecting to another person or group of people, no required synchronicity. Instead, just simple video communication, always available.

It’s kind of like a tiny video-oriented social network, with Facebook’s 2011 “frictionless sharing” concept brought to life. Except only with people you really, really care about.

“I’m a dad, and I work a lot since I’m in a startup,” Perch CEO Danny Robinson told me last week. “My kids are 11 and 8 … the oldest has a phone and can text, email, or IM me, but when she really wants to talk to me, her first choice is to use Perch. It’s completely frictionless, there’s no barrier — you walk up to it, you say what you want to say.”

Perch is an iPhone app — soon to be Android too — that connects any number of people in a family or a company. The app is designed to be left running, full-time, on an older device positioned (dare I say perched) anywhere you want to enable communication. Someone who wants to communicate simply steps up to the device and waves, speaks, or otherwise communicates, and a message is sent to everyone who is connected in the same Perch group.

When they get the message, they simply view the video, and, if they choose, send one back.

In Moments mode, Perch simply records and shares video whenever it senses motion, adding sound whenever its facial recognition sensors detect a face.

This works for families, and it also works for companies, Robinson says, adding that Perch uses its own service almost exclusively for internal communications. For example, here’s Emma, Robinson’s daughter, showing him a report card via a Perch-equipped phone just inside the family’s front door:

“We leave it running all the time in the kitchen or at the front door,” Robinson said. “It’s perfect to see the little moments — I know they’re at home and feel a sense of security … everything’s OK.”

This is not Robinson’s first time around the block. He started Spinway, raising $100 million in 1999 and growing it to the second-largest ISP in the U.S. after AOL before selling it to United Online. Perch is his latest startup, and he’s just raised a $1 million seed round from Zack Lebow and Michael Peroni, two of the founder of Barracuda Networks, as well as geeks-on-a-plane and lean startup guru Dan Martell, with Mike Edwards, one of Vancouver’s super-angels.

One thing is clear: Perch is an idea and a vision, not just an app.

Robinson’s very aware of the fact that communications is a trillion-dollar industry, and seems to have several related products and services up his sleeve, though he’s currently coy about the details. Certain Android is in the very near future (the company has a job opening for an Android developer) and Amazon’s Kindle is a very tempting platform.

“We have a very well-thought out business model,” he told me. “We’re not an Instagram trying to figure it out after the fact, but we are just trying to keep a lid on that right now.”

Coming features include private messages to specific people — currently all group communications are available in a family or company conversation view, and options about how long Perch archives your video messages.

For now, the service is completely free.

Perch works on iPhone 4 and up and the iPod Touch 4 as well as more recent versions. Older iPhones and iPod Touches lack the horsepower for onboard face recognition and some of the other more challenging things that Perch does.

One thing that should reduce the creepy factor for anyone who’s worried: Perch automatically disables the back camera. This is not a tool for spying, Robinson is at pains to highlight.

“We don’t want you to hide this behind a teddy bear. This is designed to be open … everyone knows it’s there.”

Image credits: Perch

July 9-10, 2013
San Francisco, CA

Early Bird Tickets on Sale

AT&T seems to be flipping the switch on its FaceTime plans a few weeks early.

Earlier this month the company announced that it was loosening its FaceTime restrictions to allow tiered data customers with LTE devices to use the app.

But while AT&T estimated that the switch wouldn’t happen for at least another six weeks, some tired data customers are already reporting being able to make FaceTime calls via the company’s cellular network.

The bigger surprise is that some of these customers have grandfathered unlimited plans, which should prevent from using FaceTime on their devices.

That makes the switch sound less intentional and more like a big fat accident. We’ve reached out to AT&T to see which is the case, and will update this story when the company responds.

Intentional or not, we do know that any loosening of AT&T’s FaceTime restrictions will be greeted with applause by consumer advocacy groups, which have been pressuring AT&T in recent months to change its stance on the video chat app. AT&T customers will also be happy to hear that the carrier finally allowing them to use an app that should have been open from the very beginning.

July 9-10, 2013
San Francisco, CA

Early Bird Tickets on Sale

It looks like AT&T’s FaceTime standoff is nearing its conclusion.

While the iOS FaceTime feature was initially only available to AT&T customers with Mobile Share plans, the telecom provider is now loosening the restrictions to include LTE devices on tiered data plans.

In other words, this is good news for owners of the iPhone 5, some iPads, and the iPad Mini, but it’s bad news for those with an iPhone 4, 4S and any non-LTE iPad. (Unsurprisingly, customers with unlimited data plans are out of luck either way.)

Most jarring is that AT&T doesn’t expect the functionality to be available for another eight to 10 weeks. For customers, that’s a long wait for something that should have been available from the beginning.

Much of reason for AT&T’s about-face likely came as a result of legal pressures from public interest groups, which are already pushing AT&T to go further with its plans.

“AT&T’s course correction is a move in the right direction, but until the company makes FaceTime available to all of its customers, it is still in violation of the FCC’s rules and the broader principles of Net Neutrality,” Free Press policy director Matt Wood said in statement.

Elsewhere, AT&T legislation head Jim Cicconi said that AT&T’s initial decision was a result of a basic inability to measure how FaceTime affected network performance.

“It is for this reason that we took a more cautious approach toward the app. To do otherwise might have risked an adverse impact on the services our customers expect – voice quality in particular – if usage of FaceTime exceeded expectations,” he wrote.

You’ve probably never heard of VirnetX, a company that owns patents related to virtual private networking, but Apple owes it some big bucks.

A federal jury ruled yesterday in Dallas that Apple must pay VirnetX $368.2 million in damages, Bloomberg reports. At issue was virtual private networking (VPN) technology used by Apple’s FaceTime video chat, which VirnetX claims Apple is infringing on.

The news is particularly surprising because it’s rare to see Apple take such a big hit in court. VirnetX has already had success defending its technology — it scored $200 million from Microsoft in 2010 over the same issue. The company was originally aiming for $708 million in damages from Apple, according to Bloomberg.

VirnetX’s tech revolves around creating private networks, which can be used to securely send files and which allow website owners to securely communicate with their customers. It’s the communication aspect that VirnetX is likely focusing on with FaceTime, though Apple says it uses a different technology altogether.

Mckool Smith, a lawyer who represents VirnetX, noted that Apple developers didn’t pay attention to outside patents when creating FaceTime. (In a logical world, that would mean Apple was free from infringement, but that’s not how things work in the bizarro world of software patents.)

Danny Williams, a Houston-based lawyer representing Apple, said the company doesn’t owe any money to VirnetX. “VirnetX is not entitled to money for things they did not invent,” he said. “The VirnetX technology, if used, is a small part of very large, complex products.”

July 9-10, 2013
San Francisco, CA

Early Bird Tickets on Sale

AT&T may be playing hardball with Apple’s FaceTime video chat feature on its network, but Verizon Wireless is opening up all of its data plans to the feature for free, a Verizon spokesperson tells the Wall Street Journal.

This includes customers grandfathered into Verizon’s unlimited data plans (which are no longer available to new subscribers). In comparison, AT&T is bending net neutrality rules to force its subscribers into data share plans to use FaceTime over cellular.

The FaceTime over cellular capability is one of the many new features in iOS 6, which is available on September 19 for recent iPhone and iPad models. Sprint has also said that it won’t place any restrictions on FaceTime over cellular.

Ever since launching the FaceTime video chat feature with the iPhone 4, Apple has restricted FaceTime capabilities to Wi-Fi in the U.S. That wasn’t a huge inconvenience, since 3G networks aren’t really fast enough to support video chat. But with the inclusion of 4G LTE on the iPhone 5, there’s no excuse not to offer FaceTime over cellular.

I just hope AT&T and Verizon are prepared for the onslaught of data that’s going to hit their LTE networks. As AT&T can attest, you should never underestimate the data demand from iPhone owners.

July 9-10, 2013
San Francisco, CA

Early Bird Tickets on Sale

Apple’s decision to make its FaceTime video chat app compatible with cellular networks has been a big headache for AT&T.

And the carrier’s solution has been just as problematic: Rather than offer unrestricted access to the app, AT&T is forcing its subscribers to sign up for its Mobile Share data plans in order to use it on the AT&T cellular network. Regulators and consumers alike have been unhappy with the move, which limits the amount of control AT&T’s subscribers have over their devices.

And how does AT&T defend the decision? By playing games with the Federal Communication Commission’s net neutrality rules.

“AT&T does not have a similar preloaded video chat app that competes with FaceTime or any other preloaded video chat application,” AT&T senior vice president of regulatory affairs Bob Quinn wrote today, in an effort to convince the public that AT&T actually isn’t unfairly competing with FaceTime.

Of course, AT&T doesn’t have a video chat app — but its cellular service is effectively one big voice chat app. Quinn’s defense completely sidesteps the largest concerns that groups like Public Knowledge have had from the beginning: FaceTime is a direct competitor to AT&T’s voice services, and AT&T’s new rules cut into subscribers’ ability to use the app.

And that’s a big no-no for the FCC.

Quinn also defended the move by arguing that the FCC rules do not regulate whether cellular network operators can control apps that come pre-installed on phones they offer. The problem? The FCC rules say nothing about preloaded apps.

“There is simply nothing in the rules that distinguishes ‘preloaded’ applications from ‘downloaded’ applications,” Free Press Research Director S. Derek Turner said in a statement today.

While the company has valid concerns that FaceTime could negatively impact network performance, the far more pressing reality is that if its customers are using FaceTime, they’re not chatting over AT&T’s voice network.

If network performance was truly a concern, AT&T would just ban FaceTime outright (not that this is something it would be legally able to do anyway). Instead, it’s splitting its subscriber base between those who have Mobile Share data plans and those that don’t. And it’s that division that’s drawing the attention of those who want to keep cellular networks as neutral as possible.

Adding video chat features to mobile apps just got a little bit easier with a new release from startup TokBox.

Here’s the deal: Developers can now use TokBox’s open chat tools to add FaceTime-like capabilities to iOS apps using web languages you already know — HTML, CSS, and JavaScript. The magic is accomplished via new plugins for Titanium (from Appcelerator) and PhoneGap. The Titanium plugin is available now in the Appcelerator marketplace.

TokBox has been a champion for live video chat as a feature rather than a standalone app. Earlier this year, the TokBox team rolled out its OpenTok iOS SDK. With the new plugins, the startup is trying to bring the same functionality to a wider audience of developers, including web devs who are looking for workarounds to get into mobile development.

The plugins will let users build features for mobile-to-mobile video chat as well as mobile-to-web video chat.

“In an increasingly mobile world, platforms such as Titanium and PhoneGap are critical for the rapid development of mobile apps,” said TokBox CEO Ian Small.

“Tools such as video chat, which are becoming the norm online, have been slower to deploy on mobile because of the programming language barrier. Now, if you are a developer with web skills, you can build video chat into a native app without needing to learn Objective-C.”

TokBox was founded in 2007 and in based in San Francisco, Calif. The startup has taken a total of $26 million in venture capital in three rounds since 2008; investors include Sequoia Capital and Bain Capital Ventures.

July 9-10, 2013
San Francisco, CA

Early Bird Tickets on Sale

Up until now, Apple’s FaceTime video chat feature on iOS devices has been restricted to Wi-Fi only. That’s changing with iOS 6, which finally offers the ability to use FaceTime over cellular.

But, almost inevitably, it looks like AT&T isn’t prepared to give its users FaceTime over cellular for free. Instead, the carrier appears to be planning to control and charge extra for the feature, similar to how it charges extra to use the iPhone’s personal hotspot feature, 9to5Mac reports.

When trying to enable FaceTime over cellular in the latest version of the iOS 6 beta, the site received an error asking it to contact AT&T to enable the feature. Specifically, the error appears for developers who restore their network settings in iOS 6 beta 3, or restore their phone from that beta. (I’ve talked to several developers who have enabled the feature without an issue, but they simply upgraded from the previous iOS 6 beta without restoring any settings.)

In a statement, AT&T told 9to5Mac, “We’re working closely with Apple on the new developer build of iOS 6 and we’ll share more information with our customers as it becomes available.”

If the report ends up being accurate, it would be disappointing for users who were expecting to use FaceTime over AT&T’s LTE 4G network with the next iPhone or the new iPad. AT&T users on 3G likely won’t be missing much, since that network is generally too slow to support high-quality video chat, but LTE 4G users may feel cheated after already paying more for faster network speeds.

It’s currently unclear how other carriers plan to handle the FaceTime-over-cellular feature, but I wouldn’t be surprised if others follow AT&T’s plan. (Sprint will likely keep the feature free, but as is typical of Sprint’s consumer-friendly initiatives, nobody will care.)

It’s a bird, it’s a plane! No, it’s an Apple iTV prototype! A Cult of Mac source claims to have seen the rumored Apple television and says it looks just like the Thunderbolt display, but bigger.

According to this source, the television is equipped with two pivotal elements that will put Apple’s mark on the device: iSight and Apple’s voice-controlled assistant Siri. The iSight camera will be used for making Facetime calls, while Siri could represent an evolution of remote controls from handheld devices to built-in voice-enabled software. The television is also “much larger” than the Thunderbolt display, according to the source, though specific sizing details are not available.

It has been long-expected that Apple would release a television using Siri, though the company has not yet graduated the software off of its latest smartphone. As for Facetime, the source says the camera has the ability to follow you around the room, as well as zoom in on your face so you won’t have to sit right next to the screen for the person to see you clearly. Whether or not it will be able to detect and follow more than one person is unknown.

Rumors about an Apple television have been swirling for months. Analyst Peter Misek said he spotted television parts slowly being shipped to Apple’s manufacturers on a recent visit to Asia. He believes the television could debut as soon as this summer, though that target seems unrealistic now. Others say Apple has been in talks with Epix, a movie channel backed by three major studios, for a streaming deal that Netflix currently monopolizes.

Cult of Mac warns that the source is “well placed,” but the tips don’t always pan out. The source often gets early access to prototypes, which Apple may not use in the final product.

via Cult of Mac; Mockup images via Dan Draper

July 9-10, 2013
San Francisco, CA

Early Bird Tickets on Sale

Apple, you’ve got some splainin’ to do. The new iPad, which will be released tomorrow, does not allow FaceTime video chat using 4G LTE networks, according to a report by The Verge.

Former CEO Steve Jobs said that FaceTime would be Wi-Fi only in 2010 when it was introduced at WWDC 2010. “We need to work a little bit with the cellular providers to get ready for the future, so we’re Wi-Fi only in 2010,” he said at the time. In theory, the company was waiting for better network connections to support video chat before allowing it over more than just Wi-Fi. But that doesn’t seem to be the case, even with powerful 4G LTE speeds.

Verizon Wireless and AT&T’s 4G LTE speeds are significantly faster than anything their respective 3G networks can cook up, so video chat should work fine in those markets that have LTE. Verizon expects to cover 260 million Americans with LTE by the end of the year. AT&T, on the other hand, plans to cover 150 million Americans by the end of 2012.

What’s especially frustrating is that the new iPad allows you to create a Wi-Fi hotspot for other devices, such as an iPhone 4S. Using an iPhone 4S over an iPad-created hotspot would allow you to run FaceTime using a 4G connection all the same.

Apple did not immediately respond with a comment. (And in this case, we don’t expect them to.)

July 9-10, 2013
San Francisco, CA

Early Bird Tickets on Sale

Video chat startup Tango just can’t stop innovating. After recently launching the first Windows Phone video chat app, Tango is now gearing up to offer video messages, making it one of the first such services to offer a video equivalent to voicemail.

There’s a potentially huge use for video messaging beyond mere video voicemail, and Tango — with 30 million users after launching only a year ago — is in a good position to create the video messaging equivalent of Twitter or Tumblr.

“We want to see if we can become the place where people can keep important visual moments,”  CTO and co-founder Eric Setton told VentureBeat in an interview yesterday.

While Skype, Apple’s Facetime and Google+ hangouts all offer popular video chat services, none of them include video voicemail. (Update: Qik, which is owned by Skype, does offer video voicemails.) The company’s insane two-week development cycle helps too, forming the heart of the company’s growth and ability to quickly add new features.

The company is also announcing Tango Surprises, a collection of fun animations that can spice up video calls. Both features will be available in upcoming versions of Tango’s free iOS and Android apps. (The company planned to have the iOS app available today, but Apple’s review process forced the release to Tuesday.) They’re the first steps towards monetization for Tango, which has until now offered its cross-platform video chat completely free.

The video messages feature was something Tango has wanted to do for a while, and it’s particularly useful because people aren’t always available for video chats, which has likely been a hindrance to services like Tango and Apple’s FaceTime.

Video messaging works just as you’d expect: If a friend doesn’t pick up when you try to make a Tango video call, you’re presented with the option of leaving a video message. After recording the message (limited to 30 seconds at the moment), you just hit a button to finalize the process and your friend will instantly get an alert on their device.

You can record messages over 3G or Wi-Fi, and since Tango is recording the video directly on its servers, you won’t have to wait forever to get the video upload. If you have enough bandwidth to start a Tango video message, it’ll be sent to your friends as soon as you complete the call.

Just like with Tango’s video calls, the messages can be sent between users on iOS and Android. Windows Phone and Windows PC users can’t record messages just yet, but you’ll still be able to play back messages on those platforms. Tango’s Android app also has the ability to only send a video message (by holding your finger down on a contact’s name), something that isn’t yet supported on the iOS side.

Setton tells me that the company had to adopt a hybrid cloud model for its infrastructure, allowing it to add on additional cloud storage and computing resources to its existing hardware. The company has previously only relied on cloud services (Amazon’s, in particular) for testing purposes, but it needed to do so more heavily to launch such a potentially demanding feature.

Less revolutionary, but still fun, is Tango’s new Surprises feature, which gives users animations to include in video calls like cute hearts, a monkey, and a ninja. The company first tried its hand at in-call animations last Valentines Day, when it offered the ability for users to send hearts to each other. 35 percent of calls made last Valentines Day used the feature, which told the company that users were clearly interested in similar fun additions.

Right now Tango Surprises looks like a whimsical implementation of augmented reality, a term used to describe computer graphics over a real-world video feed. If popular, the feature could become even more advanced with the addition of facial tracking and branded products, Setton said.

Tango has come up with simplified pricing for both features. You’ll have access to your five most recent video messages for free, but you’ll have to spend an additional 99 cents for five more messages, or $1.98 for 10 more. As for Tango Surprises, every Tango user will receive one random animation for free, and you can buy the entire set of animations for an additional $1.99.

Tango now has 90 employees, with most in its Palo Alto, California offices. The company also has around a dozen employees in China, who can keep working when their Palo Alto brethren are asleep.

So far, Tango has raised a total of $47 million in two rounds of funding.

The original Tango mobile app allowed smartphone and tablet users to make free video calls to other Tango users over 3G and 4G networks. The same features will be available on the Windows PC version with the usual tech requirements, such as having a web camera. Tango is currently not available for Mac users.

The company notes that current Tango users can simply download the app to their desktop and sync their account. When a video call comes in, both their mobile and desktop apps will ring.

As a mobile application, Tango competed against a couple well-known video calling applications, including Apple’s FaceTime, which only works over Wi-Fi. Now on the desktop, the company can add a few more competitors to that list, including Skype and OoVo. So far, it appears the company is holding its own with more than 18 million members in 190 countries.

The Palo Alto, Calif.-based company, founded in 2009, has raised a total of $47 million in funding from investors, including Draper Fisher, Bill Hambrecht, Michael Birch, Bill Tai, and Daniel Scheinman.

July 9-10, 2013
San Francisco, CA

Early Bird Tickets on Sale

Skype on Tuesday updated its apps for the iPhone and iPad, which now include Bluetooth functionality and image stabilization. Unfortunately the updates also introduce advertising for non-paid users for the first time.

Skype is trying to better monetize its service after Microsoft announced plans to acquire the company back in May for $8.5 billion. While Microsoft product integration is still in the planning phase, Skype is slowly changing into a company that wants to make more cash, perhaps at the behest of its soon-to-be owner.

First, the good news: The apps claim to offer better image stabilization, and Skype for iPhone adds in Bluetooth headset support for the iPhone 4, iPhone 3GS, and the fourth-gen iPod touch, while Skype for iPad now supports Bluetooth for the iPad 2. That can definitely come in handy for anyone who prefers Bluetooth headsets to the speakerphone or regular earpiece.

And now the bad: Take a look at the photo above and you can see a new, somewhat annoying advertising bar that takes up screen space inside of the Skype for iPad application. The ad bar appears for unpaid users while they chat with friends or browse their contacts page. In a test I performed, the app thankfully did not show me ads while I was on a video call. And funny enough, the only ad I saw while testing was for GroupMe, the messaging company Skype acquired in mid-August.

While the advertising is a little annoying, I understand Skype’s rationale for adding it. Most users don’t pay for the service, so the company is trying to make a little scratch with ads. As long as they don’t pop up during my video calls, I’ll be content.

Outside of the ads, the Skype for iPad app is a top-notch video chatting application. In my hands-on with the Skype iPad application, I noted that it blows Apple’s FaceTime app out of the water with better video quality and more versatility. The iPhone app is also generally high-quality for a video chat if you have a strong Internet connection.

What do you think of Skype’s mobile apps?

July 9-10, 2013
San Francisco, CA

Early Bird Tickets on Sale

After a month of speculation, Skype for iPad finally launched today. I whipped out my iPad 2 and decided to spend a little hands-on time with the app to see how it fared overall and how it compared with Apple’s FaceTime.

My conclusion: It blows FaceTime out of the water.

First, it’s necessary to have an iPad 2 while running Skype for iPad because it has a front-facing camera, so first-gen iPad owners are out of luck. When you first boot the app, you have to log in and then are immediately taken to your list of contacts. Each contact is shown in large, easy-to-tap squares. The screen shows about 12 contact squares at a time and you can easily scroll through them.

After tapping a specific contact square, all the usual Skype options appear. You can video call, voice call, instant message, or send a text message to the contact. The gallery of contacts would be attractive if my contacts had pictures, but most of my contacts don’t so it’s a bunch of blue squares. This made me wish the app had other ways to view my contacts, such as a straightforward list view like the Contacts app on my iPad and iPhone.

Video quality is generally excellent with Skype on the iPad. We tested the app over Wi-Fi to see what the best possible quality of the video could be. While running on a 12 Mbps connection in New York City with my iPad, I video chatted with executive editor Dylan Tweney in San Francisco, who had a 7 Mbps connection on his MacBook Pro running Snow Leopard. There was plenty of detail and the iPad camera adjusted when lighting conditions changed around me. Sound quality was also excellent.

While on a call, I was able to instant message back and forth without and trouble. A small red dot appears on the instant message icon whenever a new text is sent to you.

While testing the app briefly with another colleague, I did see a few bugs. First, one of the menus constantly froze while trying to switch between contacts and other options. I also found that new contact requests take more than a few minutes pop up when sent to someone using the app. But if you close and restart the app, the contact request appears.

Compared to FaceTime, Skype for iPad is superior. In the most important category of video quality, Skype slaughters FaceTime. Skype allows up to 720p (1280×720) resolution at up to 30 FPS across its various platforms. FaceTime for the iPad and iPhone only allows 320×240 resolution at 10 FPS, while FaceTime for the Mac allows 720p. Tweney and I briefly tested FaceTime after using Skype for iPad and noticed a dramatic reduction in video quality.

Those who think of video chat at the iPad’s killer app might have their champion in Skype for iPad. It does everything it’s supposed to do and could encourage even more people to consider buying an iPad.

July 9-10, 2013
San Francisco, CA

Early Bird Tickets on Sale

After a few well-publicized launch mistakes, the much-anticipated Skype for iPad application is finally here.

“Skype for iPad is beautifully designed and optimized for the iPad,” wrote Rick Osterloh, head of product management for Skype, on the company’s official blog. “The large iPad screen is perfect for bringing Skype video calls to life, in either landscape or portrait view, and because it is on the iPad, Skype video calls can be made at the beach, in a car or even lying on a couch.”

After a leaked launch video a month ago, the app was prematurely launched early Tuesday morning and immediately pulled from the App Store. “To ensure your best Skype experience, we’ve temporarily removed Skype for iPad which went live prematurely today,” the company said via Twitter.

And now, just hours later, the official version is out. The Skype iPad app is a better general video calling solution than Apple’s FaceTime because it works across multiple platforms, including PCs, Macs, iPads, iPhones, and Android devices. The app does everything you’d expect it to, with two-way video calls, instant messaging and SMS texting, and it even works over both 3G and Wi-Fi.

Skype is not the first all-platform video chat iPad app out the gate. Fring, a similar but usually lesser quality service, launched its own iPad app in late June. That app was notable in that it offered free group video chat.

Additionally, Skype made news recently when it partnered with Facebook to bring free one-on-one video calling to Facebook’s more than 750 million users. Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg hinted that more features, such as group chat, would be coming in the future.

Microsoft paid $8.5 billion to acquire Skype back in May, and the deal will go through as long as regulators approve. The deal means Skype will likely see integration with popular Microsoft services like Kinect, Windows Phone 7, and Office 365.

July 9-10, 2013
San Francisco, CA

Early Bird Tickets on Sale

Video-calling app developer Tango announced today that it has raised $42 million in its second round of funding.

The Tango app lets tablet and smartphone users make video calls to other Tango users, much like Apple’s FaceTime app for the iPhone 4. The service works over 3G and 4G networks.

The company also announced that it is releasing a desktop version of the application. That will let individuals start video calls between multiple devices like the iPhone, a computer, an Android phone or an iPod Touch. It will work with any device running Android, Windows or the iPhone iOS operating system that has a camera. The service will also be free, the company said today.

An application for Mac users isn’t available yet, but it will probably come as the company rolls its software out to more platforms, said Eric Setton, chief technology officer of Tango.

Draper Fisher Jurveston led the funding round.

Tango plans to use most of the funds to ramp up its team in China. It opened an office in Beijing recently and plans to use that office to recruit more engineering talent, Setton told VentureBeat.

“Of all the great centers of engineering, Beijing and Silicon Valley stand out — particularly in our space,” he said. “And a lot of our team in the U.S. speaks Mandarin, so we have some strong ties over there.”

The service relies on peer-to-peer networking that most file-sharing applications rely on today. That means the technology doesn’t rely entirely on servers and can scale up quickly — as it already has, because the app turned out to be pretty popular. Smartphone and tablet users downloaded it around 1 million times in its first 10 days after release.

“The video and the audio, they go straight from the computer or phone to the people you’re speaking to,” Setton said. “That way there’s the shortest delay on the network, and great for us because we don’t need to scale that cost.”

Tango has 18 million members in 190 countries. The Palo Alto, Calif.-based company raised $5 million in funding from individual investors including Bill Hambrecht, Michael Birch, Bill Tai, and Daniel Scheinman in its first round of funding. The company has raised $47 million in funding to date. The company was founded in September 2009.

July 9-10, 2013
San Francisco, CA

Early Bird Tickets on Sale

Google is finally making video chat a core part of the Android experience, almost a year after Apple introduced FaceTime video chat for the iPhone 4.

The company announced today that an updated version of Google Talk will bring voice and video chat to Android phones, starting with the Nexus S over the next few weeks.

We’ve known that Google has been working on an integrated video chat feature for months now. But Google’s timing couldn’t be any better, as powerful dual-core Android phones are finally becoming available, many of which can also take advantage of 4G networks.

The updated Google Talk will let consumers voice- and video-chat with Google Talk users on Android tablets, as well as on computers using Google Talk with Gmail, over 3G, 4G, and Wi-Fi connections. Apple’s FaceTime video chat, in comparison, only works over Wi-Fi connections.

In addition to being more flexible than Apple’s option, Google Talk will also overlay text sent via instant messaging on top of your video chat screen, so you can conceivably follow links sent during chats (as demonstrated in the video below).

I’m a big fan of the possibility of video chat on phones, although even Apple’s slick FaceTime hasn’t taken off (primarily because it’s chained to Wi-Fi). But there are indeed plenty of reasons why video chat could take off this year, in addition to the rise of 4G. Native video chat on Android should encourage more consumers to give it a shot, especially since it will be less trouble than signing up for another service like Qik. (At the moment, Skype only offers video chat on the HTC Thunderbolt, which runs on Verizon’s LTE 4G network.)

Google says the new Google Talk will arrive on the Nexus S with the Android 2.3.4 update over the next few weeks. It will show up on other devices running Android 2.3 and above in the future.

July 9-10, 2013
San Francisco, CA

Early Bird Tickets on Sale

U.S. immigrants with smartphones account for a quarter of all video calls made on PCs or mobile phones, according to a new survey.

The survey suggests that roughly five million immigrants have placed video phone calls with PCs or smartphones, according to Rebtel, the world’s second-largest mobile internet calling company. That’s a sizable sample and it makes sense, considering the distance that separates immigrants and their loved ones. It also means that video call marketers would do well to target this demographic group in the future.

Normally, you wouldn’t consider immigrant populations to be the prime adopters of new technologies. The survey was based on responses from 1,340 immigrants living in the U.S., a small sample of the roughly 38 million people in the demographic group. About 24 percent of them said they owned a smartphone and used a video calling service on their PC or phone.

The vast majority of those surveyed preferred Skype as their video application of choice, with 47 percent saying they use it the most. Apple’s Facetime and Yahoo’s Messenger service came in second and third place, respectively, representing a total of 14 percent of users. Tango came in fourth at 8 percent.

The sexes had very different results in the survey. Skype was the No. 1 choice for 74 percent of immigrant women, while it was the No. 1 choice for only 42 percent of men. Rebtel believes that Skype’s heavy branding with Oprah Winfrey’s TV show — where Oprah does live video calls with some of her guests using Skype — could explain the difference.

Only 21 percent of those polled said they would pay a monthly fee to make video calls. Men were 1.5 times as likely to pay a fee than women, with 22 percent of males and only 14 percent of females saying they would pay a fee.

Of the immigrants in the study, those hailing from Cuba, Ethiopia, France, Ghana, India, Israel, Kenya, Mexico, Nigeria, Philippines and the United Kingdom ranked Skype as their preferred video calling application of choice. The study was conducted in November and released today.

Calling all mobile executives: This April 25-26, VentureBeat is hosting its inaugural VentureBeat Mobile Summit, where we’ll debate the five key business and policy challenges facing the mobile industry today. Participants will develop concrete, actionable solutions that will shape the future of the mobile industry. The invitation-only event, located at the scenic and relaxing Cavallo Point Resort in Sausalito, Calif., is limited to the top 180 mobile executives, investors and policymakers. Request an invitation.

July 9-10, 2013
San Francisco, CA

Early Bird Tickets on Sale

Apple launched the iPad 2 tablet computer today, and it looks like another hit. The company has added a lot of new features to the device and still managed to keep the price the same. After today’s press event, we got a close-up look at the iPad 2, and it’s clear that the company has once again set the bar for rival tablet makers to beat.

It’s faster, thinner, lighter, and adds a lot of new features that make the device just about as functional as a laptop computer. It has, for instance, two new cameras — one on the front and another on the back — to enable Facetime video calls. You can also do new apps from the Mac, such as the iPad version of Photo Booth, Garage Band, and iMovie.

You’ll notice from the video below that it has a cool new cover to protect the screen. That cover has micro-fibers in it that help keep the screen clean. If you flip the cover up a little bit, the screen wakes up from sleep mode. You can also fold the screen cover so that it becomes a stand for the iPad 2, so that you can look at it from an angle.

The price ranges from $499 to $829, depending on whether you get more flash memory for data storage and whether you get 3G service in addition to Wi-Fi. It will be available March 11 in the U.S. from Verizon and AT&T.

Check out our hands-on video below for the complete rundown.

July 9-10, 2013
San Francisco, CA

Early Bird Tickets on Sale

Video chat on the iPhone 4 just got a lot more useful. Skype tonight announced its latest iPhone app update, bringing with it the ability to make video calls to other iPhone OS devices, as well as to Skype users on Mac and Windows computers.

The feature has been a long time coming, as Skype is pretty much synonymous with video chat on computers. Skype’s iPhone video chat even manages to one-up Apple’s own FaceTime chat by working over 3G connections, in addition to WiFi.

The app supports two-way video chat on the iPhone 4 and fourth-generation iPod Touch, both of which feature front and rear-facing cameras. Surprisingly, it also allows for two-way video chat on the iPhone 3GS, even though that device only has a rear camera. The iPad and third-generation iPod Touch will be able to receive video only — which may not sound like much, but it’s still more than Apple offers with FaceTime. Unfortunately the app isn’t yet native for the iPad, so you’ll be looking at a blown-up version of the iPhone app.

I haven’t had a chance to try out the new app yet, but the folks over at 9to5 Mac report that the video chat “looks very smooth on both ends” — even over a 3G connection. The site also ran some data tests and noted that video chat uses around 3.4MB of data per minute. That means iPhone users with AT&T’s low-end 200MB monthly data plan will need to be particularly careful.

But while iPhone users revel in Skype’s new video calling capabilities, Android owners are still left behind. To date Skype hasn’t put as much effort into Android as it has on the iPhone. Once it brings out a video-chat capable Android app, though, Skype will certainly be the cross-platform mobile video chat solution to beat.

Check out a video of Skype’s new iPhone app in action below:

July 9-10, 2013
San Francisco, CA

Early Bird Tickets on Sale

Mobile video chat company Tango announced today that it has updated its iPhone OS app to support the fourth-generation iPod Touch, which features front and rear-facing cameras like the iPhone 4.

With this update, Tango is now a bigger threat to Apple’s own FaceTime video chat, which is built in to the iPhone 4 and fourth-generation iPod Touch. The big difference with Tango is that users can also video chat over 3G (FaceTime is restricted to WiFi only), and they can video chat with friends on Android phones. Tango’s interface is as simple and easy to use as FaceTime, and it’s also easy to find your friends on the service as the app automatically combs through your phone’s contacts.

We reported in October that Tango’s iPhone and Android apps were wildly popular, garnering 1 million downloads in a mere 10 days after they launched. Tango hit 3 million downloads by the end of November. The company tells me that its usage doubled over the Thanksgiving holiday.

Tango says that 70 percent of its members perform spontaneous video calls with their friends and family, and they do so more than once a week. I argued earlier this year that the iPhone 4 would spur on innovation in mobile video chat, and we’re clearly seeing that happen with Tango’s apps.

In a video chat interview, Tango’s executives mentioned that the service is using peer-to-peer (P2P) technology to handle the video calls. That means the service is highly scalable and doesn’t rely entirely on the speed of the company’s servers. Tango has six patents pending surrounding its video chat technology, three of which are related specifically to its P2P technology implementation.

A recent Android update allows Tango’s app to take advantage of Cloud to Device Messaging (C2DM) technology, a feature of the Android OS that lets push notifications get sent for Tango calls without having to run the app in the background — saving precious battery life in the process.

Based in Palo Alto, Calif., Tango has raised $5 million in funding from individual investors including Bill Hambrecht, Michael Birch, Bill Tai, and Daniel Scheinman.

July 9-10, 2013
San Francisco, CA

Early Bird Tickets on Sale

Before there was (Apple’s video-calling app) FaceTime, there was Qik. Now T-Mobile and the video chat company are teaming up to bring integrated video chat to the upcoming MyTouch 4G Android smartphone.

Qik’s service — which lets users stream live video to the web from their phones and video chat with other Qik users — has been around for some time. But now the company truly has a chance to shine thanks to the proliferation of front-facing cameras for video conferencing. The popular Evo 4G was the first Android phone to include a front-facing camera and had Qik’s application built-in.

Not-so-creatively dubbed “T-Mobile Video Chat powered by Qik”, the service takes video chat to the next level for Android phones by integrating it directly into the MyTouch 4G. In addition to letting users easily perform two-way video calls, it will also be able to take advantage of the native Android address book, detect the availability of contacts for video chat, and even let users leave video messages.

It’s unclear if users will need to sign up for Qik’s service in order to perform video calls. We’ve dropped a line to the company and will update when we hear back. (Update: Qik tells us that users will have to sign up for an account to use T-Mobile’s service.)

Just like Apple’s seamless integration of FaceTime video chat on the iPhone 4, it’s important for video chat to be integrated directly with Android phones. The small barrier of launching a third-party application and signing up for its service is enough to keep mainstream users away. With FaceTime, iPhone 4 users only need to hit a button to start a video call — hopefully the process will be as simple for MyTouch 4G users.

T-Mobile’s video chat service also bests FaceTime in a few ways: There’s currently no way to easily tell if an iPhone contact is available for video calls, and FaceTime doesn’t allow for video messages. And since T-Mobile’s offering is based on Qik’s service, MyTouch 4G users could potentially chat with Qik users on other platforms.

Via Boy Genius Report

Once you’ve logged into the FaceTime software, you can easily see all of the account settings for the Apple ID used to connect — including the username, ID, place and birth date, as well as the security question and its answer. All of the information is available in plain text (completely unsecured) and you’re not asked to re-enter your password to view it, something which is fairly standard for account security. Using the birth date and security question information, anyone can change the password of the corresponding Apple ID.

The other major issue is that FaceTime apparently doesn’t forget your password when you log out. Upon restarting the application, your password remains in the password field — something which shouldn’t happen without your approval in any application.

How can you protect yourself? Aside from avoiding the FaceTime software for now, which is an early release that’s still in beta testing, you could also set a master password on your computer so that nobody can log in to your system without your permission. General common sense security also applies: It’s yet another reminder why you should never leave your computer running in a public space.

Apple will surely fix the security hole at some point, but until it does you should be extra careful with FaceTime on your Mac.

via Engadget

July 9-10, 2013
San Francisco, CA

Early Bird Tickets on Sale

Steve Jobs showed off video conferencing between a Mac and an iPhone 4 on stage today at Apple’s “Back to the Mac” event in Cupertino, Calif. He showed Facetime video conferencing in a demo with Apple marketing executive Phil Schiller. Now you can talk with someone on an iPhone and they can change the aspect of the video from vertical to horizontal. They can also press a button to activate a video view of what they are pointing their iPhone at with a front-facing camera.

July 9-10, 2013
San Francisco, CA

Early Bird Tickets on Sale

Tango, makers of a cross-platform mobile video chat application for iPhone and Android phones, announced today that its app has been downloaded 1 million times in its first 10 days of release.

The company reports that Tango debuted as the number one social networking app on the App Store in nine countries, including the U.S., Taiwan, South Korea, Spain, and France. It has ranked in the top 10 Android communications apps since its release on September 30.

Why all the fuss? Tango’s app enables simple video chat across iPhone and Android with a user experience reminiscent of Apple’s FaceTime feature on the iPhone 4. Competitors like Fring have had cross-platform video chat for some time, but Tango wins out with its ease of use and high quality video. The service can also make calls over 3G and 4G cellular networks, making it more useful overall than Apple’s WiFi-only FaceTime.

In a video chat interview, Tango’s executives mentioned that the service is using peer-to-peer (P2P) technology to handle the video calls. That means the service is highly scalable and doesn’t rely entirely on the speed of the company’s servers. Tango has six patents pending surrounding its video chat technology, three of which are related specifically to its P2P technology implementation.

Not only is it easy to make calls with Tango, it’s also very easy to find your friends on the service. The application combs through your iPhone or Android Address book, and when it finds that one of your contacts is already using Tango, they’re added to your list of contacts within the app. The setup process for the app is also much simpler than services like Fring.

Based in Palo Alto, Calif., Tango has raised $5 million in funding from individual investors including Bill Hambrecht, Michael Birch, Bill Tai, and Daniel Scheinman.

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Voice is the new black. Seems like after all the hype of apps, the world still wants to connect in real-time and in many cases is willing to pay for such value. In the battle of voice, Skype, Google, Apple, telecom operators and independent outfits are gearing up for battle. The trillion-dollar land grab is officially on.

Apple launched FaceTime video chat. Google Talk is turning into the new pay phone. Oh, and Skype has filed for an IPO as well as announcing plans to enter the enterprise space.

But besides the indie stalwarts, who’s the dark horse in the room?

Facebook.

What should it do? How should it enter the space? The answer is clear. Buy Skype.

Yes, despite the rumors you may have heard that Facebook is already working on building a phone, or working on the software that a third party hardware device would support, the company has clear ambitions to leverage their massive contact lists and the opportunities to do that go well beyond a simple Facebook phone.

I’m not the only person to think of this. Following reports that Facebook and Skype are working on an integration deal, GigaOm wondered, “Should Facebook buy Skype?” Here are four reasons why a Skype purchase makes sense:

1. Facebook’s social graph is the best phonebook in the world built from their mission statement up.

Facebook’s mission statement reads:

Facebook is a social utility that helps people communicate more efficiently with their friends, family and coworkers. The company develops technologies that facilitate the sharing of information through the social graph, the digital mapping of people’s real-world social connections.

Sounds like a calling option fits right in. What could be more real-time?

The list of companies that have had a similar mission statement is long. However, what sets Facebook apart from its predecessors is the unique critical mass of users. Let’s be honest here. Do you know anyone who matters to you (other than possibly your grandparents) who you cannot get a hold of through Facebook?

From a network perspective, Facebook epitomizes Metcalfe’s law. What that means for people is that the value of joining Facebook is simply too great to ignore just because it is so ubiquitous. Facebook is the sole social network to ever exist that plays host to a social graph made up of our real-world social connections. I am not talking about the same people we follow on Twitter and enjoy the occasional update from. I am talking about people we actually know.

Sure Facebook could try to build this themselves but Skype has a lot of things that Facebook doesn’t including excellence in calling service, routing, origination and termination. Skype owns relationships with carriers, operators and suppliers worldwide. They have built out online fraud and payment expertise. This isn’t rocket science for Facebook to build, but takes a lot of time and talent.

2. Facebook and Skype have a common lineage.

These social behemoths intersect at Marc Andreessen, whom VentureBeat has called the new king of Silicon Valley. Andreessen’s venture capital firm, Andreessen Horowitz, which he cofounded with longtime business partner Ben Horowitz, was a lead firm in the buyout of Skype from eBay only a few months ago. In addition, he also holds a position on the Facebook board of directors and is widely known as a close advisor to Mark Zuckerberg himself.

If there is anyone who could build a bridge between Skype and Facebook and turn them into one symbiotic entity, it is Andreessen. With regards to the rumored (and probably imminent) social networking war between Facebook and Google, it is rather unlikely Andreessen hasn’t noticed the synergies and end user value a marriage between Skype and Facebook would entail.

If the Google Me rumors are true, Facebook is bound to create a more holistic and compelling ecosystem, similar to Google’s. A lot of us are already heavily invested in Google and it is absolutely vital for Facebook to include voice as a cornerstone in the project of building a social eco-system appealing and competitive enough to go against Google.

3. Facebook is already the most popular mobile app of all time, ready for a turn-key global calling play.

The most recent numbers speak for themselves. Out of more than 500 million people using Facebook, 30 percent, or approximately 150 million, interact with the service on a regular basis using a mobile device. They access the service either through the Facebook mobile website or by way of any of the mobile apps Facebook has made available for the Android, Blackberry and iPhone platforms. With the continuous proliferation in the use of third-party apps on mobile devices, this figure is bound to keep soaring.

Other than the obvious value of being able to connect with friends while on the go (for free), users also have access to the most comprehensive, cloud-based contact list out there. The tedious process of constantly making sure all contacts details to your friends are current is no longer a concern either, as a Facebook Phone Book manages itself by having all the personal details in it tied to Facebook profiles.

Facebook becoming our de facto address book is a vision bound to become reality in a not too distant future. It is a highly utilitarian aspect of the service that hasn’t been properly exploited. By deeply integrating Skype, the most recognized consumer calling service with the greatest mind share, Facebook would not only boost its revenue to greater heights but also position the company very favorably in the war against Google.

4. Skype wants a big exit but also a better fit than last time.

Let’s face it. eBay didn’t know how to properly leverage Skype. It was a
failed premise from the start that sellers would want to talk to their buyers on eBay. This time around Skype certainly wants the best financial exit. Besides pure cash
liquidity, who has the fastest rising private stock? It’s got to be Facebook
in the last 6 months, with analysts valuation having been raised from $10 billion to
$33 billion.

Who can scale Skype to the biggest user base? It has to be
Facebook again. Skype may want $5 billion but would it settle for $4 billion and the
promise of a fast rising stock like Facebook. Skype founders would
ideally like to stay involved if such an acquisition happened, but that seems doubtful with Zennstrom and Friis being notoriously difficult and probably not compatible with Facebook’s intent on running a tight ship.

Why does a combined SkypeBook beat Google? The graph is greater.

By building the social graph for all Google services of any remote social nature based on the people we send emails to, Google committed a cardinal sin that might prove detrimental. The connections tied to your Gmail account that now also double as your Google Chat contacts (yes, the same ones Google wants you to call), are predominantly formal contacts. Your co-workers, your real estate agent and so on. The people that we send emails to are not the same people that we want to have a voice, let alone a video conversation with.

Email was, is, and will be the main standard for formal communication for a foreseeable future. We use it to communicate with our co-workers, to send customer support requests and to contact our real estate agent when we want to sell our house.

Dan Tapscott (celebrated author of Wikinomics and Grown Up Digital), frequently touches on this in the context of media habits for the generation of Digital Natives:

Young people don’t use email anymore. They see it as a traditional form of communication. They use it to thank their grandparents for a Birthday gift (or other times when they have to speak with old people).

So, where are all these friends that we want call? Chances are you’ll find them on Facebook.

July 9-10, 2013
San Francisco, CA

Early Bird Tickets on Sale

Rumors of a 7-inch iPad from Apple just won’t die. Now it’s Ashok Kumar, an analyst at Rodman & Renshaw, who’s fanning the rumor flames based on conversations with Apple suppliers, Bloomberg reports.

We reported on the possibility of a 7-inch iPad in September, based on information from an iLounge inside source. Apple has apparently been developing prototype devices in that size for some time, so it wouldn’t be too surprising to see the company roll out with a smaller iPad to complement its current 9.7-inch version.

Kumar says that Apple may want to compete with smaller 7-inch tablets like Samsung’s upcoming Galaxy Tab, which runs Google’s Android mobile operating system. While the iPad is only a few inches larger, that increased size also makes the device heavier, and less portable, than something like the Galaxy Tab. A smaller iPad may also be a way for Apple to combat the Kindle and other e-readers, which are better suited for prolonged reading due to their lighter weight.

Kumar also points out that Apple will have to catch up to Samsung when it comes to video conferencing — an assessment he likely included in case the 7-inch iPad news doesn’t pan out. By this point, it’s almost guaranteed that Apple will include video conferencing capabilities on its next iPad — particularly since it just brought FaceTime video chat capabilities to the new iPod Touch.

I met with Polar Rose in its early days when it was talking about a unique approach to recognizing faces. Some inefficient recognition engines would compare pixels in pictures to determine whether one face matched another. That consumed a lot of processing power. But Polar Rose would take the highlights of someone’s face and reconstruct them as a 3D graphics image. That image would contain all of the important points to recognize, but it needed far less data than an image of a face. Rather, the 3D graphics could be described in a series of math equations. That meant reproducing a face and finding a match could be done much more efficiently.

Today, Malmo, Sweden-based Polar Rose has about 20 employees and offers products such as FaceCloud, which allows face recognition for web services, and FaceLib, which brings recognition of faces to mobile phones. As you can see in the video, Recognizr can take a photo of a user and recognize that same person in a video. The technology raises a lot of privacy concerns, of course. Google Goggles has a similar ability to recognize faces, but the service does not do so because of concerns for privacy.

Earlier this month, Polar Rose announced in a blog post that it would no longer offer free end-user face detection and recognition services. Apple has declined to comment on what it will do with Polar Rose. But there are plenty of applications that could benefit from face recognition. Apple has its own Faces recognition system on the Mac for recognizing photos in faces. See the video below:

http://www.viddler.com/simple_on_site/e372d463