Category: Tech news

Motorola’s Atrix HD smartphone has a nice price at $100 on contract, but its killer feature is the 4.5-inch touchscreen, which offers an iPhone-rivaling level of clarity. Photo by Peter McCollough/Wired

A little less than two years ago, Apple’s iPhone 4 made its debut with a display of unrivaled clarity. The Retina display’s pixel density of 326 pixels per inch gave it a sharpness that no Android phone could match.

Just this past May, the HTC One X made its U.S. debut, complete with a beautiful display packing 316 pixels per inch. Finally, Retina-like quality could be had on an Android phone. But, like the iPhone 4S (which has the same screen as the now $100 iPhone 4), the One X is a premium product that wears a premium $200 price tag.

It was only a matter of time before such high-quality displays started trickling down to $100 Android handsets, but I wouldn’t have guessed it would happen this soon. With the arrival of the Morotola Atrix HD, which is available for $100 on-contract from AT&T, Android fans now have a modestly priced handset with a sharp, iPhone-like display.

The 4.5-inch screen really is a stunner. At a resolution of 1280 x 720 pixels and with a density of 331 pixels per inch, text looks crisp and images are rich with detail. Colors, while a bit bright and over-saturated compared to the One X and iPhone, are beautiful. Pixel artifacts like stair-stepping are indiscernible. Motorola calls the Gorilla Glass-topped LCD panel on the Atrix HD a “ColorBoost” display. If this is the future of Motorola’s display technology, it’s going to be a pretty one.

If you drop $100 on the Atrix HD, you can feel confident that you won’t tire of this display. But there’s more to the phone than the screen — the rest of the device delivers plenty of high-end features at a mid-range price.

The Atrix HD is essentially an evolution of Motorola’s Verizon-exclusive Droid Razr and Droid Razr Maxx handsets. At 0.33-inches, the Atrix HD is thicker than the Razr, but thinner than the Razr Maxx. Like the Razr line, the Atrix HD has a Kevlar back panel and contains a chassis made of a mix of metal and plastic that feels tough and looks good.

Inside you get a 1.5GHz dual-core Qualcomm Snapdragon processor — a bump up from the Razr and Razr Maxx’s 1.2GHz dual-core Texas Instruments CPUs — and 1GB of RAM. This combination doesn’t disappoint. The Atrix HD is fast and responsive, easily handling games, apps, video playback and everything else I threw at it.

Photo by Peter McCollough/Wired

One surprise here is Motorola’s implementation of Ice Cream Sandwich. HTC’s own version of Android 4.0, called Sense, was my favorite variation of Google’s mobile OS aside from stock Android as seen on Samsung’s Galaxy Nexus.

At least, that was the case before I got the Atrix HD in my hands. Motorola is currently offering the closest experience to stock Android that you can find in a manufacturer’s skin. This is a major win for Google, for Motorola and for consumers. It’s unlikely that Google’s recent acquisition of Motorola Mobility had any influence on this decision, as Google has said many times that it intends to let Motorola chart its own course. But still, kudos.

The lockscreen is unique, with the ability to open the handset directly into the camera, the phone, the text messaging app, or to your primary homescreen. Motorola also adds a few widgets to the Atrix’s homescreen. These can be easily removed, but they’re actually helpful. For example, a cluster of three circles presents the time and date in one orb, local weather in another, and data usage in a third. Swipe your finger across any of the circles and the presented information changes: the digital clock becomes an analog clock, the weather toggles between different cities, and you can switch between seeing remaining battery life or remaining storage. Customizable and relevant information, presented clearly with a simple UI — this is how widgets should behave.

Sonos’ new subwoofer is one big doughnut — roughly 16 inches tall, 16 inches wide and 6 inches deep. Photo by Peter McCollough/Wired

Sonos is still the leader when it comes to wireless, multi-room audio systems. With a dead-easy setup routine, well-designed controller apps, and the ability to play music from both your local stash of MP3s and all the big streaming services, the palindromic home audio supplier is playing with a winning hand.

Now Sonos has released a subwoofer to complement its array of wireless Play speakers and Connect amps. It’s simply called Sub. The $700 powered speaker component isn’t cheap (none of the Sonos stuff is) but it does add excellent definition and low-end heft to any existing Sonos system.

The Sub’s glossy, piano-black case is shaped like a big, square doughnut with a rectangular hole in the center. That central cavity is where all the sound is directed. Two 4.5-inch by 7-inch rectangular divers, each with its own class-D amp, face each other from opposing sides of the cavity. The speaker enclosures are ported into the cavity, too, with one port at the top and one at the bottom.

The two drivers and the two ports all fire toward the center cavity. Photo by Peter McCollough/Wired

In my testing, the Sub greatly improved the overall richness of the Sonos system here at the Wired office. We have a pair of the Play:3 bookshelf speakers, which, due to their compact size, are on the weak side when it comes to bass reproduction. Adding the Sub gave our system the low-end oomph it’s always been missing.

Setup is ridiculously easy. If you already have a Sonos system, just plug the Sub into an outlet wherever you want it to live, fire up your Sonos controller app (I used my iPhone) and add it to your system’s existing mesh network. You can tune the output level and the tonal coloring of the speaker using a simple test suite within the controller app. Setting up an entirely new multi-speaker system is equally as easy, and only involves an extra step or two.

The Sub sounds fantastic. Sonos speakers have always sounded excellent to my ears, and if you’re a fan of the audio your Play or Connect system already puts out, the Sub will only make it sound better. It adds just the right amount of subtle depth, driving everything below about 90Hz, and enhances all different kinds of music. I actually found the amount of detail in the default settings to be a bit too understated, so I used the iPhone app to crank up the output levels. All the necessary adjustments can be made using your phone or tablet, which is refreshing.

Photo by Peter McCollough/Wired

Yes, the price is very high. And yes, you can buy a subwoofer as good as this one for far less than $700. But you’re not paying the premium to get superior audio quality, you’re shelling out for the Sonos experience — the easy setup, the plethora of music choices, and the joy of having multiple powered speaker components all working in concert without wires and without a controller amp.

And since it only works with Sonos systems, it only makes sense if you’re a “Sonos person.” But provided you’re already comfortable with paying the company’s high prices, the Sub is a worthy addition to your wireless rig.

WIRED Sound is excellent, on par with the rest of Sonos’ speakers. Well-designed dual-driver subwoofer with dual class-D amps offer efficient and distortion-free boom. Sleek looks make the 16-inch-tall box disappear into your ultra-modern decor. Just over 6 inches tall when laid flat, so it can slip under a couch or table.

TIRED That’s a lot of Simoleons. The tall, square-shaped doughnut design can be too bulky for some rooms, even laid flat.

Photo by Peter McCollough/Wired

Photo by Ariel Zambelich/Wired

If you’ve got a smartphone, you’ve got an audio recording device with you. Anytime you want, you can fire up an app and record a conversation, a bit of a concert, or an audio snapshot.

The results are often only so-so. The crappy mono microphone at the base of your smartphone isn’t very forgiving, the allowed length is limited, and smartphone apps rarely give you much control over the nit-picky stuff: the recording quality, the input levels, or the resulting file type.

But it’s the nit-picky stuff that really matters if you want the best sound. A dedicated hand-held audio recorder like the Olympus LS-100 gives you the desired level of control, producing awesome (stereo) recordings that far surpass what you can capture with a mobile handset, even if you’re using a fancy accessory microphone. It’s great for recording bands, or performances of any kind. But what makes Olympus’ portable recorder really stand out are the multi-tracking features that transform the device into a bona fide pocket studio for musicians and songwriters.

At $400, the LS-100 is twice as expensive as like-minded models with fewer features. So the high cost mostly makes sense for working musicians or serious audio hobbyists who will take advantage of the advanced features. But if you’re in this camp, this is one of the best — and best-sounding — portable audio recorders you can buy.

There are several options in this space (models from Tascam, Sony and Zoom being the stand-outs) all of which have a few things in common: a pair of nice stereo condenser mics at the top; an SD card slot; combo line/XLR inputs with phantom power for external microphones; on-board editing and mixing; and the ability to record at multiple quality levels, from lowly MP3 all the way up to 96kHz/24-bit WAV.

I’ve been using a portable recording device for a few years (a Tascam DR-1) whenever my smartphone just won’t cut it — when recording a DJ set or a band practice session, when I want to roll “tape” for two hours or longer. Also, I use it a lot at nightclubs when a friend’s band is playing and we want to capture a sweet-sounding recording of the performance.

Photo by Ariel Zambelich/Wired

To test the Olympus LS-100, I used it in all three of these situations. It performed great, especially for live recordings. The mics are excellent. Monitoring a recording visually and dialing in the correct levels using the stacked input knobs is very easy, (and you’d be surprised how difficult this is on some recorders). The peak indicators are actually more sensitive than they should be, which gives you ample warning to ease the levels down before things get distorted. Also, there’s a visual Lissajous meter that helps you place the recorder in the correct spot in a room to avoid unwanted phasing effects. Mic placement makes all the difference when you’re recording a live band, so this is helpful, but since it uses a reference tone to measure the mic placement, you’ll need access to the room’s PA system in order to find the safe zone.

Built into the LS-100 is a multi-tracking software suite that basically turns the recorder into an 8-track studio. I recorded a few demos with it (using the built-in mics for guitars and the line-in for keyboards) and the results sounded excellent, better than any other digital 8-track with built-in mics I’ve tried. The on-board editing is merely OK — the tiny screen and a scarcity of physical controls forces you to do the bulk of your overdubbing, punching in, bouncing and editing by way of a set of scrolling menus. As you can imagine, this is mind-numbing. But, it works.

So, it makes outstanding live recordings at clubs, and it serves as a nice sketchpad for writing songs. But I also wanted to see how it would fare as a simple reporter’s tool for recording interviews, so I passed it to Wired senior reporter Kim Zetter. She interviewed a subject sitting about 10 feet away from the recorder, and it picked up his voice as clearly as if he were sitting right next to her. She also recorded panel sessions at a conference that were very clear — recorders often can’t pick up clear sound from speakers in large conference halls, but this one did a great job. She wasn’t thrilled with the size, as it doesn’t fit easily into a pocket, and if you’re speaking to someone who’s already shy about talking to reporters, sticking a humongous recorder in their face doesn’t help that situation.

Apart from the high price and large size, the only other drawback is the LS-100′s user interface issues. But as with any device, once you spend a little bit of time with it, the menus get more familiar and you’re soon breezing through the settings. So if you’re OK with the learning curve — and you have ample time to thumb through the user guide — I can recommend it.

WIRED Excellent condenser mics arranged at 90° can handle up to 140 decibels. Multiple inputs can accept a variety of external mics or line-level sources. Can be used as a USB microphone to record audio to a laptop. Supports SD cards up to 64GB. Battery lasts 10 to 12 hours per charge. Rugged build — this isn’t some delicate Dictaphone.

TIRED $400 price makes it a smart buy only for pros or serious live-music enthusiasts. It’s bulky, and tough to sneak past security at the Fillmore. Interface is more trial-and-error than intuitive, and the user manual is thicker than The Great Gatsby.

Photo by Ariel Zambelich/Wired

Threat Level reporter Kim Zetter contributed to this review.

Mike Lynch, the founder of pioneering data-analysis and enterprise search company Autonomy, is reportedly planning to set up a technology investment fund to back startups which will allegedly involve other former Autonomy executives in the fund, according to sources. It’s understood that the fund, as yet unnamed, will be based in London but invest in companies globally.

Autonomy was acquired by HP for $10.3 billion last August, but Lynch left this year following a decline in license revenue at the Autonomy unit. Bloomberg reports that Lynch owned about 8 percent of Autonomy’s shares at the time of HP’s offer, which was valued at $834 million (£505m).

Lynch has had a combative relationship with some analysts over Autonomy’s value in the past, but is respected for his deep knowledge of complex software.

He already has a stake in Featurespace, a Cambridge University research spin-out, which aims to predict customer behaviour and act as an early warning mechanism for identify fraud. He also has a large stake in Aurasma, an augmented reality spin-out form Autonomy which became part of HP which we’ve covered before.

Lynch’s move will be welcomed by plenty in the tech startup eco-system as Lynch has been a champion of tech entrepreneurs, especially at UK government level, where, last year, he advised an initiative on allowing small companies to pitch for UK government procurement contracts.

However, Lynch, given his career path to date, is likely to concentrate on the enterprise rather than consumer web/mobile startups.

Hitfox, the Berlin and San Francisco-based games distributor founded by serial entrepreneurs Jan Beckers, Tim Koschella, Ruben Haas, Hanno Fichtner, along with Team Europe, is venturing into the incubator space with the launch of HitFox Game Ventures. The new enterprise will stick to a tight vertical brief of investing in and acquiring startups in the video game sales and marketing space.

Specifically, HitFox says it will offer seed money in the “six-figure” range, as well as applying its experience in game distribution, sharing the founders’ own networks, and (presumably) resources. To that end, CEO Jan Beckers is talking up HiFox’s team of 55 gaming, marketing and IT specialists that it’s put together over the last 12 months. In other words, on the surface at least, it looks like a pretty hands-on and active incubator in the making, done German-style, dare I say. It aims to acquire or establish at least two businesses per year.

“Taking on the role of incubator, we are now using this momentum and rapport with customers to support other game distribution startups.”, says Beckers.

As for how HitFox itself is performing, the startup, which was founded in May 2011 and whose backers include Tengelmann Group, Hasso Plattner Ventures, Kite Ventures and Digital Pioneers, says it expects to reach a “seven-figure monthly turnover” and — more importantly, perhaps — break even sometime this year.

In February 2012, HitFox acquired Ad2Games (Chili Entertainment), Germany’s largest advertising network for online games.

Electronic Arts today announced that they are joining a group of businesses opposing DOMA (Defense of Marriage Act).

In case you aren’t familiar with it, the Defense of Marriage Act is a federal law that defines marriage as the union of one man and one woman. The law also states that no U.S. state or political subdivision is required to recognize a same-sex marriage treated as a marriage in another state, and that no same-sex marriage need be recognized for federal purposes, such as insurance benefits or the filing of joint tax returns.

By standing up against the law, EA is joining dozens of other companies in signing an amicus brief with the Ninth Circuit of Appeals to find portions of the act unconstitutional.

Here’s the company’s official word on the matter:

DOMA presents a number of problems for businesses like EA, as it creates regulatory, tax, and discrimination complications for employers, and that’s why we’re standing against it. The underlying lawsuit impacts all employers no matter how big or small, and no matter the industry, and we encourage other business to join these efforts.

We’re glad to see EA step up to the plate on this matter, as the tech industry continues to hold more and more weight not only in our economy but in the country’s general well-being.

[via SlashGear]

Is Dell becoming an open source company?

Yes, but it is not exactly being planned that way. It is bubbling up like most open source projects do. But in many respects the move to open source is also by design. Dell does not want to be a box maker anymore. That makes open source a desirable option. With open source, Dell can leverage an ecosystem of partners and developers.

Here are four examples that show the shift and why it matters to the company’s future.

PCs (Laptops): Dell turned some heads this week at OSCON with the news that it would be selling a Linux laptop made for developers. Klint Finley writes that Dell will sell a special “developer edition” of its XPS13 Ultrabook starting this fall. Code names Project Sputnik, the laptop will come pre-loaded with Ubuntu, a user friendly distribution of the open source operating system Linux (or GNU/Linux to purists). Canonical, which manages Ubuntu, worked closely with Dell in the development of the laptop. The laptop gives Dell credibility in the open source developer community. With that support, Dell can partner with a company like Canonical to build a community that can help it grow a new sector of the hardware market.

Cloud: Dell is investing heavily in OpenStack, the open source cloud effort. It is a platinum supporter which gives the company a board seat on the new OpenStack foundation. OpenStack is one of the fastest growing open source efforts in recent history. OpenStack gives Dell an opportunity to compete against Amazon Web Services and other major cloud services providers such as Windows Azure.

Software: Crowbar is an open source deployment tool developed by Dell as part OpenStack. It started as a tool for installing Open Stack, but can deploy other software through the use of plug-in modules called “barclamps.” Dell released the source code for its Apache Hadoop barclamp on Github. Software is a new game for Dell. The comlany can build greenfield apps without the drag of legacy technology. Open sourcing its software means Dell can then leverage developers and partners in the vast open source ecosystem.

Servers: Dell joined OpenCompute,a project led by Facebook. It is of the more interesting projects intended to open source the data center. Dell made much of its fortune in the server business. To see it start opening its server technology is evident that Dell recognizes the importance of opening its hardware.

Dell’s open source slant is tied to its deeper effort to focus on developers. In an interview yesterday at the OSCON event in Portland, Dell’s Barton George said it is that focus which helped Project Sputnik go from skunk works to real product.

Dell is differentiating its server technology by adding technology layers that can be packaged for services providers. That may include enterprise companies that see the importance of embracing data and turning it into the “digital oil” that increasingly drives business.

It is difficult to change the DNA of a company. For a big company like Dell, it is almost impossible to go it alone. It’s unaffordable. Open source gives Dell a chance to remake itself.

Pinterest has been temporarily locking accounts in response to hacks. It looks like the company doesn’t know the cause of the security breaches.

On July 16, Pinterest posted a “Locked Account Survey,” asking affected users to complete a survey to “assist our investigation.” The eleven question survey is broad, covering a wide range of possible issues, from whether the user had experienced other security hacks to how they used Pinterest to what browser they used, suggesting that Pinterest doesn’t know what’s causing its hacks.

Pinterest posted five different notices between July 10 and 16 regarding hacks and locked accounts, with the last one being the survey. They have not posted since then.

Blogger Josh Davis has been following the issue closely on his site; Pinterest users have been sharing their hacked and locked-out tales in the comments of his July 7 post.

On July 10, Pinterest posted the note, “Help! Someone is accessing my account without my permission,” telling users to change their passwords. They continued:

“If changing your password does not solve the issue, change your password again and immediately deactivate your account. Please return to this support article in 1-2 weeks for additional instructions; we are working on a process that will enable users to reset their accounts.
Unfortunately, we are unable to restore any deleted boards or pins.”

In some cases, hacked users may lose all their pins and boards, which could be a crushing blow to those who’ve invested tons of time into the site.

On July 12, they published a guide, “Account Security: How to Protect Your Pins.” The guide told users to create a strong password, be cautious, protect their devices and keep them up to date. The guide did not detail the ongoing account hacks, merely writing at the top that “account security is a top priority at Pinterest.”

On July 13, Pinterest posted twice: first, “Help! I received a notification that my email/password changed or that there was a suspicious login.” Just a few hours later, they posted “Notice of Locked Account.” The first note, Pinterest informed users that they may get emails from Pinterest about account activity (changing passwords or emails) that they don’t recognize; they told users to lock their account and inform Pinterest. Hours later, the second note told users, “When we detect unusual activity on an account, we temporarily lock it to protect its pins and prevent spam.”

Three days later, the company posted the survey to help their investigation. There has been no update since then.

We have not been able to find accurate data on how many users have been affected. Pinterest was not immediately available for comment.

Update: Pinterest responds …
Hi Billy,

Here is our statement, which can be attributed to a spokesperson.

Statement:
It’s important to us that all the content on Pinterest is authentic
and people’s accounts are secure. That’s why we’re constantly
monitoring for suspicious activity. When we detect unusual activity
on an individual account, we lock it temporarily. Over the past
several days, we’ve locked a number of accounts associated with a
specific piece of spam. We are currently re-activating these
accounts.

It’s difficult to identify how a given account may be compromised.
However, we suspect this spam may be related to the recent leaks of
credentials from other sites, which serves as an important reminder to
have unique logins and passwords for all the sites you use. We also
encourage everyone on Pinterest to review our account security guide
to make sure their account and pins remain free of spam
(https://support.pinterest.com/entries/21686711-account-security-how-to-protect-your-pins).

Best,
Barry
First photo via Shannon Fonzi. All others from Pinterest.

Heads up, Google. Facebook is testing a new format of search ads called Sponsored Results that lets advertisers show ads in the Facebook search typeahead to users looking for a particular Page, app, or Place. It basically will let businesses divert traffic from each other.

For example, a competing game company could target Zynga’s CityVille so anyone searching for “CityVille” would see an ad leading to their game alongside the organic search result leading to Zynga’s game. Sponsored Results could be big for Facebook’s bottom line, pulling in ad dollars from direct advertisers with something to sell.

The Sponsored Results will look just like organic results in the typeahead search box atop every page, except for being marked with a tiny word “Sponsored”. Facebook tells me they’ll be sold on a cost per click basis, can be targeted to people searching for any Page, app, Place, (and possibly event) without that business’ permission, and the tests begin tonight.

Sponsored Results are not keyword ads. Advertisers can’t target something broad like “beach”, “games”, or “cameras”. They have to target a specific entity on Facebook, similar to how brands can currently target users with sidebar and Sponsored Story ads based on a user’s interests. For example, Sponsored Results could be targeted to people searching for “Sandals Resort Hawaii”, “CityVille”, or “Nikon Camera”.

The Sponsored Results will not appear on the full Facebook Search results page, only in the typeahead. Facebook struck a deal years ago with Microsoft to let it place ads at the bottom of the search results page, but now Facebook is taking control and offering a fully-owned platform for search ads.

This new ad format can only direct users to on-Facebook properties, but that includes an on-Page application or a specific Page post. That could let advertisers send users to a Facebook Offer coupon they’re distributing, a contest app they’ve launched, or an email or phone number sign-up widget. It could also help brands team up, to run ads pointing traffic from people searching for them to a joint promotion run with another business they’re partnering with.

Advertisers can target multiple entities that people are searching for at a time. They can also layer on Facebook’s other ads targeting criteria so a news website targeting Sponsored Results to people searching for the “CNN” Page could refine their ads to only be shown to 30-50 year old women in San Francisco who Like Barack Obama.

Advertising To People Ready To Buy

Sponsored Results will appeal to a class of advertisers Facebook doesn’t serve well right now — direct marketers who sell products online or games trying to gain traction. Until now, Facebook was better for less urgent brand advertising because it didn’t offer many ways to reach users after they’ve shown purchase intent — when potential return on investment is highest and most easily measured.

Ads on Facebook’s sidebar for shoes or your company’s latest puzzle game might be ignored because users aren’t interested at the time. Sponsored Results could hit them when they are, just as they’re searching for another shoe brand or game.

Sponsored Results, as well the recently announced but just starting to roll out Facebook Exchange cookie-based retargeted ads, could let Facebook compete with Google sponsored search results and offsite ad networks for dollars. Some might say users on Facebook generally aren’t in the mood to buy things

The ads have the potential to reduce the relevance of results in Facebook’s search typeahead, similar to how Google Sponsored Results ads push down organic results a searcher might actually be looking for. Honestly, I often find out about cool products and events from Facebook’s standard ads because I’ve given the site so much data to target with, but Sponsored Results seem like they could get in the way.

Facebook tells me it will be watching for feedback, though, and stresses that this is just an early test. It’s also difficult to gauge the total presence of these ads, as Facebook doesn’t share the volume of on-site searches users run.

If rolled out, Sponsored Results could open up a huge new revenue stream for Facebook, and make its currently slumping stock price look like more of a bargain. Sponsored Results won’t have generated any significant revenue that impact Facebook’s first earnings report since becoming a public company though, which TechCrunch will be thoroughly covering on July 26th.

In May of last year, Microsoft acquired everybody’s favorite VoIP and chat provider, Skype, for a cool $8.5 billion. It was a big move for Microsoft and a landmark deal, which it officially closed in October. Yet, as Frederic pointed out earlier this week, other than getting to wear the brand’s pin on its lapel, Microsoft has seemed content to let Skype exist as a stand-alone service. But this morning the company announced that it will be integrating Skype into its office productivity suite, powering the “presence” feature in Outlook and becoming a default piece of every version of Office shipped — among other things.

As part of its quarterly earnings announcement this afternoon, Microsoft also shed some light onto just how well Skype has been performing since it joined MSFT’s ranks. One notable milestone to come out of those stats? Users logged 115 billion minutes of calls on Skype over the quarter — a number that was up 50 percent over the prior quarter.

The other good thing for Microsoft, given Skype’s seeming continuing popularity, is that it’s been a boost for the overall numbers in its entertainment. Revenue in its Entertainment and Devices division, which isn’t exactly barren, grew a significant 20 percent — by $292 million — which primarily reflected the inclusion of Skype. Of course, on the flip side, Microsoft’s cost of revenue increased in Q4, related to Skype’s acquisition, basically because it had to deal with all the related costs of onboarding Skype’s team, paying a bunch of new people, etc.

But, it’s safe to say with Xbox 360 shipments dropping from 1.7 million to 1 million, besides the Xbox LIVE boost in subscriptions (year-over-year, by the way), and that big increase in rev, most of that $292 million likely comes from Skype, potentially a good look at what the company’s quarterly revenues look like. Which is interesting, because Skype (although it was on its way) has never been a public company, despite being owned by eBay until 2009 (when they sold it to a group of investors, including Andreessen Horowitz) — so it’s been hard to get a sense of just how profitable (or not) the business is, despite having millions of users. Myself included.

115 billion minutes of Skype calls logged is nothing to scoff at — and the 50 percent jump from the last quarter shows some strong growth for such an established business. Although, annoyingly, there was no mention of the number of paid calls. Even so, at least at the surface, it looks like that Microsoft reach could already be paying off.

It’s been a big 24 hours for Fab.com. The design-oriented e-commerce site just closed on $105 million in new funding at a reported $600 million valuation — a funding round that has been several months in the making. It’s news that CEO and founder Jason Goldberg likes to joke has given him “105 million new reasons to smile” today. But as Goldberg also acknowledges, it’s a serious time too: Big money brings big responsibility.

So we were pleased to have Goldberg give us a call via Skype from Fab’s New York City headquarters to talk all about the new raise and what it means for Fab’s strategy. You can watch our full interview in the video embedded above, and below are a few of his key points.

Growing Globally Through Building And Buying

A huge focus for Fab going forward will be scaling out its international operations, an effort that will be aided by its new investor London-based VC firm Atomico Ventures. I asked Goldberg if any of its new funding will be put toward acquiring international flash sales companies rather than building them in-house, and he said that while M&A will continue to be an option for Fab it won’t be something it spends its cash on:

“We made two acquisitions already for international expansion… both of those acquisitions were stock transactions, and they were based in equity not based in cash. I would expect to the extent that we do acquisitions in the future, we would still follow that, and be more along the lines of that kind of model.

We invest our cash in building the teams, and investing in teams and the resources the teams need to succeed. But we will look at a build versus buy based on the team. if we feel there is a good team in a market that could become Fab then we will look at it. But we’re not just looking to buy our way in. We’re just as comfortable with building teams as well.”

A Company To Settle Down With

Fab is the only company that has been able to make Goldberg, a longtime serial entrepreneur, feel ready to settle down. And with the new funding, Goldberg says that he’s looking to make Fab a giant brand on par with the IKEAs of the world:

“As a serial entrepreneur I’ve been starting companies for the last ten years. And until six months ago, I had spent basically most of the past ten years thinking about what company I might be starting next. This is the first time in my life, in my career, that the only thing I think about is this. I’m doing my absolute dream job, and I could see building Fab for 10, 20, 30 years.

I also think we have a special opportunity to build a really significant brand. I always say we’re not building a company, we’re building a brand. We think there’s an opportunity for Fab to be the one of the next great brands on the scale of an IKEA, a Google, a Facebook, an eBay. A brand that people know all around the world.”

Managing Culture Amid Crazy Growth

Goldberg also talked about retaining a uniform company vibe amidst its booming growth, which is something on which he spends a significant amount of his own time and energy:

“We were 25 people here in New York at this time last year, and we have 400 people globally working on Fab now. The biggest thing for us is, Fab is Fab is Fab, everywhere we operate. That’s the culture, the team, the products on the website, the look and feel, the operations, the customer service.

…Getting this culture right is key to getting the brand right. Our number one thing at Fab is, it’s gotta be real, it’s gotta be authentic. What we say is what we do.”

One of the themes that came up repeatedly during the conference call for Google’s second quarter earnings was mobile advertising. Analysts asked a number of questions that, collectively, seemed to be gauging what the shift to mobile means for Google’s advertising business.

Senior Vice President and Chief Business Officer Nikesh Arora (pictured) offered some numbers at the beginning of the call, saying that with AdMob integrated into AdWords, 1 million AdWords advertisers have access to the 300,000 mobile apps in the AdMob network. When asked specifically about mobile cost-per-click rates, Arora didn’t get too specific, but he said they’re “healthy.”

“The good news is, we’re seeing phenomenal growth in mobile queries across the board,” Arora said. “Mobile is right now where search was in 1999.”

He pointed out that Google has been unveiling a number of ad innovations that are specific to mobile, like a click-to-call option (which generates 15 million calls every month). As that continues, we can expect to see mobile ad pricing to rise, similar to the trajectory of search ads.

Google’s overall CPC rates were actually down 16 percent compared to the same period last year, and Arora acknowledged that the drop was partly because mobile and tablet ads made up a bigger part of the mix. He cited other factors too, such as the mix of developed and emerging markets, and he argued that while CPC is “an important metric for us” it doesn’t necessarily reflect “the fundamental health of our business.”

Another question wasn’t directly about ads, but it addressed some of the same issues: As mobile searches grow, are they taking away from desktop searches? Senior Vice President of Ads Susan Wojcicki cautioned that it’s a complicated issue that Google is still analyzing (especially when it comes to tablets), but she said, “We believe that mobile searches are mostly incremental.” She noted that smartphones and tablets are mostly used on-the-go, so Google’s hope, at least, is that they’re just leading to a bunch of new searches, rather than replacing the ones you would’ve done on your desktop.

Yahoo today filed regulatory documents with the SEC disclosing how much it will pay its newly appointed CEO Marissa Mayer. There are some big numbers here, but overall it seems to be in line with the industry standards.

Yahoo has submitted its entire offer letter dated July 16th, 2012 in the SEC filing, but here are the relevant bits minus the legalese:

• Mayer’s starting annual base salary will be $1 million annually, which balances out to $83,333.33 per month. This is the exactly the same amount that former CEO Scott Thompson was offered in base salary (he only collected about a third of that before he was ousted.) Like the rest of us working stiffs, she’ll have two paydays a month — the 10th and the 25th.

• She will be eligible to participate in an incentive plan that will pay her 200 percent of her annual base salary with a 2012 maximum of 400 percent of her salary if she exceeds her targets — so, that could bring in between $2 million to $4 million more per year.

• She’ll also get some nice stock compensation, if it’s approved by the compensation committee. As an “annual equity award” she’ll receive $12 million in company stock, split between restricted stock units and stock options. She’ll also get a “make whole restricted stock unit” grant of $14 million, and something called a “one-time retention equity award” of $30 million.

 
Mayer’s compensation spread is pretty par for the course for tech executives, who often keep their base salaries relatively low while raking in big bucks in stock compensation and performance-based bonuses. For comparison, Mark Zuckerberg pulls in a base salary of $500,000 as CEO of Facebook, which he’s requested to reduce to $1 per year starting in 2013. Steve Jobs famously had a $1 annual salary at Apple, as does Google CEO Larry Page, HP CEO Meg Whitman, and others.

But you know what they say: Salary ain’t nothing but a number (alright, no one really says that, but they should.) The truly interesting thing to see will be how Mayer leads Yahoo in the days and weeks ahead — and if she can really turn the company around.

What will also be interesting to see is TechCrunch founder Mike Arrington’s on-stage interview with Mayer onstage at TechCrunch Disrupt San Francisco in just a few weeks (they’ve had a Disrupt tête-à-tête before, and it did not disappoint.) You can snap up tickets here.

Investors and analysts have a new way to get updates from Google — a Google+ page for investor relations.

The company’s executives mentioned the page during the company’s earnings call this afternoon, saying that it launched about an hour ago. There’s not much on the page right now, aside from a couple of images, a link to the earnings webcast, and (be still my heart) some legal boilerplate warning about forward-looking statements. The page also asks visitors to “hit the follow button above to receive Google-related product updates and the latest company news,” so maybe it will be fleshed out in the future.

Perhaps it was inevitable that Google would launch something like this. It Google is trying to encourage businesses to build a presence on Google+, then it’s going to make sure all of its departments are on there too.

On the other hand, I’m not entirely convinced that investors are going to be looking at Google+ as their main source of news.

So the news on Google CEO Larry Page is that there’s no new news. That’s what Nikesh Arora said on today’s Google’s earnings call.

Just to recap: Last month, Google announced that Larry Page was skipping its I/O developer conference and the company’s annual shareholder meeting because he had lost his voice at some point over the previous weeks. But whatever ailment caused that loss of voice over the last few weeks continue to ails him, as Page left the call to lieutenants Patrick Pichette, Nikesh Arora, and Susan Wojcicki.

So here’s the official update:

“There’s no new news on Larry,” Arora said. “He’s lost his voice and he can’t do any speaking engagements, including this call.” But Arora said that Larry is still running the company on a day-to-day basis, despite his inability to speak.