Category: Tech news

The issues of censorship, net neutrality, and file sharing will be kicking for years to come, and the necessity of making the relevant laws agree internationally will be by no means a small part of the conflict. But those laws have to be reasonable and scalable to begin with. Today brings a development from the UK, where a judge has determined that BT must use its Cleanfeed censorship technology, intended for blocking child pornography, to prevent its subscribers from accessing the file sharing website Newzbin2.

It seems that even the Pirate Bay defense (moving your servers to a secret cave) will be ineffective in this case. As I wrote before regarding the need for an alternative DNS: when lobbyists and short-sighted legislators start cutting off certain sources at whatever choke point seems convenient, that’s nothing short of a slippery slope.

The very nature of the suit is suspect to begin with. In the introduction to the ruling, it is stated:

In these circumstances, the Studios contend that the only way in which they can obtain effective relief to prevent, or at least reduce the scale of, these infringements of their copyrights is by means of an order against BT (and thereafter the other ISPs) of the kind now sought.

While this is likely boilerplate in part, the idea that this is the only way they can “obtain effective relief” is only acceptable to the laziest of investigators. It’s a sign of the times that such a large and influential organization can not only contend that with a straight face, but have it pass without comment in a judge’s written opinion.

The abuse of a tool made for a very specific and justified purpose shows just how unscrupulous the MPA is in their actions. Cleanfeed, administrated by the Internet Watch Foundation, works to “minimise the availability of… child sexual abuse images hosted anywhere in the world” — it’s a scalpel, not a mallet. But The MPA specifically requests it be used as a means to prevent access to content of their choosing. If they were serious about doing things right, they would be reaching across the aisle, or whatever it is you reach across in the UK (the gap?), to come up with long-lasting and correct adjustments to law and enforcement capabilities. Of course, the legislation we’ve seen on our side of the pond isn’t exactly promising — but at least they haven’t started lobbying for pirates to be entrapped on “To Catch A Predator.”

Anxious to please the court, the MPA also magnanimously acknowledged the existence of DNS, IP, and DPI based methods of detecting and intercepting these rogue packets.

Even if the websites they ask to be blocked could be proven to be in violation of law (a fine point considering the nature of NZBs, which, like torrents, do not and cannot in themselves contain copyrighted material), why is it left to monolithic private entities like the MPA to make that determination?

The goal of this lawsuit is ostensibly to reduce losses from piracy. The MPA (Europe, America, or other) maybe stupid, but it’s not that stupid. They know as soon as they cut off one head, two more will appear to take its place. They know that even if they were to shut down the top 20 providers of quasi-illegal content like torrents, it wouldn’t affect the numbers one iota. This operation, like most of their legal operations, is to determine the extent to which they can turn private grievances into public ones. They’re just flexing their muscles.

I don’t want to seem unduly harsh on the judge, one Honorable Mr Justice Arnold; his opinion is quite thoroughly researched and a great number of precedents and existing European law are cited. Unfortunately his judgment simply leans in the direction of the plaintiffs. For instance, on the important but subtle issue of whether it is Newzbin2 or the BT subscriber who is doing the infringement, he simply rejects the idea that the subscribers are the first and final infringers. It’s not an ignorant conclusion (like a few we’ve seen stateside), just an unfortunate one that increases overall liability and muddies the issue:

Once it is concluded, as I have, that the users are using BT’s service to infringe copyright, then it follows that the operators [of Newzbin2] are too… The operators make the works available in such a way that users can access them over BT’s network (among others). In my judgment that is sufficient to constitute use of BT’s service to infringe.

In other words, according to this judgment, every ISP is liable for the actions of every website or service accessed by their subscribers. Apparently it is sufficient to show that a user is using a service in a way that is illegal. Certainly there’s the aspect of the issue that the vast majority of the content on Newzbin2 is copyrighted material. But it’d be incredibly easy for them to upload 10 public domain items for every copyrighted one, immediately invalidating the statistical analysis cited by the MPA. “If users prefer copyrighted files, what business is that of ours?” Newzbin2 might reasonably ask. “We provide a service that tracks these files, that’s all, and charge for the oversight of our editors, who are not concerned with the nature of the content they organize.”

BT actually objects on grounds like these, first with the objection that if the judge grants this injunction, the plaintiffs will immediately seek duplicate injunctions against other ISPs and other sites. To this the judge says that while that may be the case, it’s not material to this case. Hard to argue with that, strictly speaking, as this guy is clearly guided by the letter of the law here, but a lack of concern for precedent is partially what got us into this mess in the first place.

BT also contends that the block will be ineffective, saying the users will easily circumvent the Cleanfeed block or whatever is put in place. The judge acknowledges that the tools and expertise to circumvent the system are readily available, but says: “Even assuming that they all have the ability to acquire such expertise, it does not follow that they will all wish to expend the time and effort required.”

Really, now. That’s a bit optimistic, in my opinion. The objection is substantial: the injunction sought would be ineffective. Dismissing it by saying these technically proficient people won’t bother with that trivial changes necessary to get around these restrictions is just pigheaded, and he drinks the plaintiffs’ expert kool-aid in accepting that the shutdown of The Pirate Bay was an effective measure. The evidence supporting this position is of the flimsiest quality, while the burden of proving that all the infringers have the ability, desire, and time to circumvent the measures weighs heavily on BT.

BT and the MPA will reconvene in court in October to work out how the nuts and bolts of how blocking will work. Newzbin2 has responded to the ruling, but they don’t really bring anything new to the case. BT is not appealing the decision, and who can blame them?

The comments of Peter Bradwell, from digital rights organization Open Rights Group, ring disturbingly utopian in this age of lowered expectations from the powers that be:

If the goal is boosting creators’ ability to make money from their work then we need to abandon these technologically naive measures, focus on genuine market reforms, and satisfy unmet consumer demand.

He continued: “You may say I’m a dreamer, but I’m not the only one. I hope someday you’ll join us – and the world will live as one.”

Here is the full ruling:

iPhone fans, start drooling. Skeptics, have your grains of salt at the ready. An iPhone 5 — or at least something closely fitting the rumored description of the iPhone 5 — has just been spotted… on a train, of all places.

The shot up above (and the ever-so-slightly-different one below) comes from 9to5Mac, who received them from a tipster who claims to have spotted the device on his way home from work.

Alas, these two just-too-far-away glimpses are as good as it gets for now. While most news reporter-types out there would run through a pack of angry charging bulls and scale a building covered in butter for a shot of the iPhone 5, the tipster seems to have practiced at least a bit of caution in their undercover photography session. The person holding the device was supposedly being quite cautious to keep it at least partially covered, masking the Apple logo behind their fingers throughout.

Fortunately, their eyes worked a bit better than their camera. Here’s what they had to share about the purported prototype:

• This was not an iPhone 4 or 3GS, they say. The tipster previously owned both, and was positive it was nothing they’d ever seen before.
• It supposedly has an “almost EVO-like screen”, which fits with the long-living rumor that the next iPhone has an edge-to-edge display. Now, the EVO has a 4.3″ display — and unless Apple is planning on making the next iPhone considerably bigger, I’m doubting the iPhone 5′s display will get nearly that huge. My sources long ago told me to expect something in the 3.7″ – 3.75″ range. With next to no bezel, though, a 3.7″ display could look much bigger from a distance than it actually is.
• Rounded metal (as opposed to square) edges, with what appeared to be a tapered, black glass back — just as the rumor mill has been saying for months

Could this be the real deal? It’s plausible. The iPhone 5 is said to be coming in just over a month (sometime in September), which means there absolutely are iPhone 5s out there, right this second, being field tested. Apple can install as many cell towers on their campus as they want, but it’s nearly impossible to release a phone without testing its signal attenuation and performance in the real world. After Antennagate, you can bet that Apple is going to make damned sure that the iPhone 5 has rock solid signal performance.

With that said, think back to the lost iPhone 4 prototype. At first glance, it looked just like an iPhone 3GS — because Apple had disguised it as one. A special case was made just to mask the new hardware as something not worth a second glance. Would Apple really let an iPhone 5 prototype lurk about in public in the nude? Maybe in the back of a blacked out van — but on what looks to be something like CalTrain? Doubtful.

Also doubtful: where the heck is the camera flash? While my geek side would love for this to be an iPhone 5, my skeptic side is saying it’s a 3GS shot from a strange angle.

What say you? Real? Photoshop? Just a really fancy fake from China? Weigh in down in the comments.

Good news for Google users outside of the United States: the internet giant has announced that Two-Step Verification is now available in 150 countries worldwide and 40 languages. You should use it. Really.

No, the feature, which is more generally referred to as two-factor authentication, doesn’t sound cool. In fact, it’s sort of a pain to set up. But it helps protect your Google account against phishing and some other security attacks — which is vitally important given how much data many people are storing on Google servers, and will only become more so.

Here’s how it works: after activating two-step authentication, whenever you attempt to log into your Google account you’ll be prompted for both your ‘regular’ password and a second password that’s only available via your phone. In other words, logging in requires both your password (which could potentially be phished) and a code from something you physically have (which is harder to get).

You can opt to receive this second code via smartphone, phone call, or SMS (it’s easiest to just use the smartphone app, which is available for Android, iPhone, and BlackBerry). And you can use a cookie to save that second token for thirty days, so you’ll only have to go through the process once a month on the computers you use frequently.

Of course, many applications and devices ask for your Google credentials (iCal, phones, tablets, whatever), and they don’t have this two-factor flow built in. For these, Google lets you create application-specific passwords — Google will spit out a unique string of random letters, you type them into the application’s password field and save it (you don’t have to memorize or write down this password). This process is probably the most confusing thing about two-step verification, but it’s not too tricky once you’ve done it a few times.

Google first introduced two-step authentication last fall and made it available to everyone in the United States this past February.

When Apple launched its ultra-thin line of MacBook Air laptops just over three years ago, it seemed more like a gimmicky display of gadget porn than an eventual successor to the company’s most popular portable computers.

At first, it seemed like Steve Jobs was just showing his team’s design mettle, subliminally singing showtunes to the other titans of Silicon Valley — “Anything you can build, we can build thinner!” But when compared to Apple’s more practically designed MacBooks and higher-end MacBook Pros, the usability and muscle of the first Air came up short.

2010’s MacBook Air revamp was a considerable step in the product’s evolution toward the mainstream. And the latest revision, which went on sale last week, raises the bar to a level where we can safely say the first true “ultrabook” has hit the market. It’s a laptop that combines usability, form factor and performance in a heretofore-unseen package of awesome. Apple’s new MacBook Air, after months of speculation and premature adulation, is real — and it’s spectacular.

First off, for all the noteworthy additions and upgrades to this year’s refresh, there’s much about the MacBook Air that hasn’t changed. It comes in the same two sizes, 11.6-inch and 13.3 inch, and it has the same all-flash storage options: 128 GB or 256 GB, plus a 64 GB option for the 11-incher.

Price ranges from $1,000 to $1,600, and there’s still no integrated optical drive, which Apple seems set on writing the obituary for, even if it’s not quite ready to be published. Each model still only measures 0.68 inches in height, and their respective weights are also identical as last year’s: 2.96 pounds for the 13-inch, 2.38 pounds for the 11-inch. And the 13-inch model still comes with a handy SD card slot on the right side.

What makes this year’s refresh particularly noteworthy is that Apple, as it is long famous for doing, has taken a solid product and rounded the rough edges, so to speak, to make it even better and more appealing to a wider audience. Apple may have killed the MacBook line in introducing these new Airs, but they may have also sounded the death knell for the MacBook Pro, which no longer holds such a commanding lead when it comes down to internal specs and exterior features.

Most welcoming among the upgrades is the introduction of Intel iCore chips optimized with Intel’s new Sandy Bridge architecture, which reach clocking speeds of up to 1.8 GHz and more than doubles performance over last year’s line.

Most memory-sucking multitasking was a breeze in our tests: Converting/exporting iMovie files to iTunes couldn’t have been smoother, Spotify continuously played in the background with no skips and transferring HD content off a TiVo Premiere has never been faster. The only blip came once the 128 GB of internal storage had been nearly maxed out. At that point, Time Machine backups often slowed down the entire operation, the Pinwheel of Death necessitating a timely Force Quit or two.

On the outside, there’s still a FaceTime cam built in, two USB 2.0 ports (one on each side), and a standard headphone jack on the left, but there are two noteworthy changes.

One is that the MiniDisplay Port on the right side has been removed in favor of Apple’s new Thunderbolt, which is capable of transfer speeds 20 times faster than traditional USB 2.0. The other is the reintroduction of the backlit keyboard, which was shockingly absent from last year’s MacBook Air refresh. Whether or not Thunderbolt, which is (for the moment) limited to high-end cinema display connections, evolves into this generation’s FireWire remains to be seen. But the backlit keyboard is the MacBook Air’s killer re-feature. Why Apple scrubbed it from the 2010 MBA is a mystery wrapped within an enigma inside Steve Jobs’ melon, but I’m happy as clams it’s finally back.

Battery life has also been improved, and the 13-inch model boasts some seven hours of juice, about 40 percent more than its 11-inch counterpart. Also, if you’re looking to boost your internal storage, recent teardowns have confirmed that the flash chips aren’t soldered down to the logic board. (The RAM? Not so much.)

However, this svelte design doesn’t come without a price. The MBA is so light that (unless you’re really deft of hand) when you raise the lid up to open it, the bottom half actually comes off the desk, as if it were some scale-model see-saw on your desk. With the heavier 13.3-inch model, which weighs just under three pounds, this happens with almost every open-up. Sure, it might seem like a small gripe, but why should anyone ever have to use two hands to open up their laptop again? How Apple eventually decides to beat simple physics on this one is anyone’s guess, but as components continue to get smaller and lighter, perhaps a couple of well-placed front-end weights internally bookending the trackpad might help offset some of this inconvenience.

And while it’s been a staple of MacBook Airs since their 2008 debut, the continued absence of any built-in optical drive still means all your media comes via download or external USB storage. Lion’s recent download-only launch only further cements Apple’s anti-disc position.

As far as I can tell, the lack of any integrated slot drive still only affects a small subsection of users: those whose livelihood depends on the manufacturing of said drives, consumers who just love to rip their DVDs for instant watchability on the go, and anyone involved in the collectible movie soundtrack industry. Even though 99 percent of consumers fall outside of these categories, if being without your trusted SuperDrive gives you the shakes, you can always plunk down 79 bucks for an external unit that plugs in through USB.

Still, these shouldn’t be construed as dealbreakers. They’re minor inconveniences. The greatest asset the new MacBook Air has going for it is its seemingly chameleonic nature, adaptable to so many professions and environments. As a journalist and a writer, I’ve long been searching for a laptop with the performance of a high-end MacBook Pro-type with the innate convenience of a netbook. After years of hoping and searching, I’ve finally found laptop nirvana.

Indeed, the new MacBook Air provides an unbearable lightness of being that seamlessly marries brute computing muscle with unprecedented portability. There’s little reason to doubt that it may ultimately change our perception of what can be accomplished, technologically speaking, in small packages.

WIRED Thunderbolt port, Sandy Bridge CPU provide unprecedented zip. Backlit keyboard a welcome re-addition. Unsoldered Flash chips make storage upgrade easy.

TIRED Optical drive RIP. No SD card slot on 11-inch model. Extreme lightness causes frequent tip-backs when opening closed lid. You’ll have to be careful you don’t accidentally throw yours out with the recycling.

It was a dark and stormy night. The three of us sat crunched up in our tent in the Grand Canyon campground. The ominous dark clouds blocked out the last rays of daylight, suddenly turning the inside of our tent pitch black. I flipped the switch of the Energizer Solar Lantern, instantly flooding our canvas shelter with 66 lumens of white light from the eight LEDs.

Like a Toyota Prius, the Energizer Lantern has multiple power options — use a solar charge from its amorphous silicon panel, or suck juice from its three D batteries. The D batteries will supply up to 165 hours of run time. The solar panel pulls in about 2.5 hours worth of run time after spending five hours charging in full sunlight. Even under overcast skies, the solar panel continued to charge, just not as efficiently.

Unlike the Prius, the user gets to choose which power source to tap with a five-position switch. You can also dial in varying levels of brightness — from an amber night light to full strength, which throttles the lumens high enough to foil a penitentiary escape.

When you’re just holding it by the handle, the lantern shines in only one direction. But on top of the lantern’s lighting element is a hinge. The “back” of the lantern swivels upwards, exposing the other side of the lighting element and giving you 360 degrees of light. Our tent has a ceiling hook, so latching the lantern to the hook let me spread light in all directions throughout the tent at night.

We tested another Energizer product on our trip, the company’s Solar Spotlight. The handheld torch came in handy when we had to walk out of the tent in the dark to get to our Jeep. It kicks out 24 lumens from four LEDs in a bright, tight spot beam. It weighs practically nothing, and it’s water resistant, which came in handy since it poured during our trip.

The power options on the spotlight are a tad more limited than on the lantern. The solar panel provides 3.5 hours of run time after five hours of full-sun charging, which is better than the lantern even though the spotlight isn’t nearly as bright. Alternatively, an included 12-volt DC car adapter produces six hours of light, but only after half a day of charging. And just how often does anyone keep their vehicle running 12 hours straight? Unfortunately, there is no AC power charging option.

Still, it’s swell that Energizer is exploring the greener horizons of solar power and using the state-of-the-solar technology in the form of amorphous thin-film silicon panels. These lights are part of an expanding family of solar chargers for phones and other mobile devices the company has been showing off this year.

WIRED Low-cost, solar-powered portable lantern and spotlight each produce copious beamage and have alternative power sources. Lantern boasts a run time of up to 165 hours on battery power. The lantern unfolds for versatile lighting choices. Low-powered amber nightlight is a plus.

TIRED The lantern’s three D cell batteries make it heavier than expected. Spotlight takes 12 hours to charge with the car adapter and has no AC adapter.

The 2012 BMW 650i convertible is an exercise in restraint.

I’ll forgive you if you don’t believe me at first, nodding as you point to the 400 horsepower 4.4 liter twin-turbo direct injection V8, 20-inch wheels and high-tech options that bump the price tag into six figures.

Once in the driver’s seat, however, you’ll be the one holding back, using up every ounce of willpower to keep from mashing the accelerator.

It’s a grand tourer capable of quickly reaching speeds that’ll get your license cancelled faster than a Netflix subscription after a price increase. Speeding tickets? They’re for chumps. Lose track of your speed on a straightaway and you’ll go from the front seat of a Bimmer to the back seat of a Crown Vic in under five seconds.

During the week I spent driving the 650i, I twitched like Mitt Romney answering questions about health care at a Club For Growth meeting, resisting all urges to put my foot down on the gas pedal. That’s the paradox of this car. Like a vacation in Saudi Arabia, the 650i is awash with power and opulence, but as soon as you start having fun, you’re probably breaking the law.

Another similarity with that Middle Eastern kingdom is that you’ll frequently fork over of large amounts of cash in exchange for access to fossil fuels. Our tester was fitted with the EfficientDynamics package, which along with aerodynamic enhancements and weight-saving electronic power steering, involved a regenerative braking setup that freed the engine from the parasitic drain of recharging the starter battery. EPA estimates claim 16 mpg city and 24 mpg highway, but I saw numbers between 13 and 18 with the top down regardless of traffic.

That won’t bother most buyers, though. Like abysmal trunk volume and cramped backseat space, fuel economy isn’t a major selling point for the 650i convertible. It’s a car meant for long, unnecessary drives up coasts and across continents, trips where getting there is almost all the fun.

The all-new design throws a bucket of cold water onto Bangle-era flame surfacing, dressing the new 6-series in BMW’s more conservative corporate uniform. At more than 16 feet long, the big 6 was outstanding on sweeping stretches of open highway, but it also remained nimble at slower speeds with precise, communicative steering and a firm ride. It’s not as agile as a 3-series, but only because BMW’s engineers are still subject to the laws of physics. The car I drove featured optional Active Roll Stabilization ($2000), which did a great job at keeping the massive car from leaning into corners like a cargo ship. Despite the chopped top, body flex was nearly nonexistent. In sport mode, shift points got higher and the suspension noticeably stiffened. Press the button for comfort, though, and the car glided along like the comparatively yacht-like Mercedes CL550, a fellow Autobahn-burner that costs tens of thousands of dollars more than the 650i.

My tester had a sticker price of $103,525. For that premium over the base of $90,500, it came equipped with several unobtrusive active safety systems that stayed switched off for most of the time I was driving — though I’d appreciate the lane departure warning system on a long, late-night drive. Also included was a surround view camera that made parking the large coupe a breeze even with the soft top’s thick C-pillars blocking my view. There’s even a heads-up speedometer display, and an infotainment screen that magically stayed readable even with the top down and sun shining directly on the dashboard. The car I drove also paired BMW’s on-board iDrive system with my smartphone, allowing me to search for the address of a brand new restaurant on Google from the dashboard instead of relying on the navigation system’s already outdated list.

BMW only made two major mistakes.

First, the infamous triple turn signal stalk that’s appeared across the lineup has got to go. Instead of locking into an on or off position, it’s one press for a lane change, two presses for a full signal, and another press for off. To make matters worse, the stalk automatically recenters between presses, and the instinctual habit of moving the stalk in the opposite direction to turn off all signals will instead set the other blinker flashing. At least that’s what I think. I’m pretty sure I spent most of the week driving around with my left blinker on like an AARP member, inadvertently switching lanes without a signal or getting caught in an endless loop of right and left signals just trying to turn the damn thing off. It’s maddening, and I swear BMW has kept the feature only to give reviewers one thing to complain about so it doesn’t look like we got briefcases full of cash in exchange for glowing reviews of otherwise first-rate cars.

Also, the rear badge moonlights as both a trunk handle and a cover that keeps the rear view camera clean. Unfortunately, it’s so heavily spring-loaded that anyone with a grip short of Paul Bunyan’s will get their fingers stuck.

Interesting — but not bad — is an auto hold button that automatically engages the parking brake while the car is at a stop, allowing you to rest your foot on the gas pedal for a quick getaway. It’s a gimmick, but it’s also useful in stop and go traffic. Speaking of traffic jams, the 650i’s electronically-controlled 8-speed automatic is particularly ill-equipped for rush hour, lurching to a stop at low speeds. Merge onto an open highway, however, and all will be forgiven. As the transmission expertly upshifts through the first of eight speeds, the tailpipe lets out a thunderous, nearly subsonic blast, unleashing amusement park-worthy acceleration. Want to row your own? If you’re in North America, you can thankfully order a 650i with a six-speed manual.

I’m also a fan of the new sheet metal. The previous 6-series, the E63/64, languished so long without an update that its rebelliousness seemed cliche — a Hot Topic cashier with dark eyeshadow and a skeleton choker. Tucked in, tightened up and lowered, the new design aptly communicates the sheer power of what’s under the hood, even if the rear end does look like it was inspired by one of Peter Schreyer’s new Kia sedans.

While the new coupe is gorgeous, I’m glad BMW has a soft spot for the soft top. The convertible roof’s contrasting color enhances the low roofline, while framing a retractable rear window that’s perpendicular to the trunk, a design cue oddly reminiscent of the “breezeway window” on the 1963 Mercury Monterey. When it’s up, the roof feels permanent, blocking wind and road noise and keeping intact the signature echo that seems to be a standard feature of all BMW interiors. Driving through a torrential rainstorm, I only knew the top was cloth because of the characteristic tapping of raindrops on canvas. I timed putting the top up at just under 20 seconds, a little less than BMW’s own estimates. Putting the top down took two fewer seconds.

For 650i owners, those may be the longest 18 seconds of your day. This is a car meant for al fresco motoring, pedal to the floor, a weekend bag in the trunk, a tank full of gas and a good lawyer on speed dial. It’s an entirely extravagant and unnecessary car, and a model of restraint all the same.

WIRED More power than you’d ever need. Cheaper than the CL550. Search destinations on Google from iDrive. Sport mode drastically changes handling and performance. Awesome 8-speed automatic, but available with a stick shift.

TIRED Lose your license at high speeds with 400hp. Lose your lunch at low speeds with a lurching automatic transmission. Turn signals are awful. Little cargo room for such a big car. Fuel economy makes OPEC smile.

Photos courtesy of BMW

Nodeable, a startup building a cloud-based social platform for systems data, announced today that it has raised $2 million in series A financing, led by True Ventures. The startup will use this infusion of capital to ramp up hiring efforts and continue building its platform, as it moves into private beta.

But what is it about this young startup that has True Ventures excited? Cloud computing and various sources of big data are becoming more and more popular as on-demand resources for businesses, but at the same time, the management of clouds on the back-end is becoming increasingly challenging and messy. And though no one is asking the cloud to disappear, developers, IT staff, and admins are still compelled to interact with these systems on a case-per-case basis. Essentially, each problem requires an ad hoc solution, and really the way these cloud and data systems are managed, and interacted with, has not added the modern look, feel, and approach of newer communication tools, like social networks, for example.

Thus, Nodeable is attempting to apply social mechanics to systems data in such a way as to enable developers, IT staffs, and more to interact with cloud infrastructure and data just as they would on social networks. Put another way, Nodeable is Like a Twitter for machines, in that it aggregates systems data from a broad array of sources — co-founder and CEO Dave Rosenberg cites Amazon AMI as an example at the infrastructural level and Github at the data source level — then processes that data, adds metadata or defined messages, before presenting the data in a UI or via an API.

Users, he says, can interact with the platform itself by employing social networking mechanics, like tagging, both in messages sent to systems (like @webserver1 restart, for example) or to other users. Much in the same way communication tools like Yammer or Twitter function. Though this does not mean Nodeable is a “scripted automation tool like Rightscale or Opscode’s Chef“, he says, instead the approach is meant to provide a simple way for users to communicate with cloud services — to allow IT staffs to make better decisions, faster.

“Ultimately, we are building a platform that sits in the middle of data streams and allows the data to be manipulated”, the CEO told me. “We are trying to apply what Okta does for authentication to system data streams”. Nodeable wants to combine big data analytics, systems management and social communications in such a way that a social layer is added to an analytics platform to give users an interface that feels like a social networking site, but still allows businesses to manage the complexities of data management.

It’s generally excepted that, on the aggregate, Android device sales will far outpace iOS sales year after year. However, there’s a dirty little secret about Android devices that most manufacturers are facing: the return rate on some Android devices is between 30 and 40 percent, in comparison to the iPhone 4′s 1.7% return rate as of Antennagate in 2010.

As we learned yesterday, Samsung is selling 18 to 21 million phones this quarter. Although all of those won’t be Android phones – Samsung manufactures Bada phones as well for the low-end. We do know for sure that the Galaxy S II sold 3 million in 55 days, a strong showing.

However, on the ground, many return rates are approaching 40% said a person familiar with handset sales for multiple manufacturers. Why? Well, as Matt noted, consumer understanding of the platform and handset availability is massively bifurcated.

For us nerds, Android makes a lot of sense. It’s ostensibly open platform (but not really) that offers far more flexibility to the programmer, carrier, and, ideally, the user.

For the “average” phone user, however, Android is a maze. Anecdotally, I’ve heard of multiple examples of folks who bought an Android phone in order to “Think Different” and came away disappointed when faced with the glaring differences between Android and a friend’s iPhone or Blackberry.

Sure, the Android hardware ecosystem is more variegated and expansive and sure, Android is free for carriers to implement (in general) but clearly it’s the little differences that are driving sales and, more important, returns.

Huffington Post SVP of Sales Andy Wiedlin is moving on to BuzzFeed this week, joining the viral content-focused startup as Chief Revenue Officer. Prior to his position at HuffPost, Weidlin held down the fort as VP of East Coast Sales at Myspace and put in a five-year stint at Yahoo as VP of Sales for the Northwest.

In his hiring press release, Wiedlin emphasized that the fact that Buzzfeed’s was ideally positioned technology and content-wise to ride the current social shift happening in media factored largely in his decision to move to the small company. At BuzzFeed Wiedlin will be directly under Buzzfeed CEO (and HuffPost co-founder) Jonah Peretti.

BuzzFeed, which basically has Internet virality down to a science, presently has over 13 million monthly unique visitors on site, with the BuzzFeed affiliate “viral media” network reaching an additional 225 million.

Wiedlin will presumably be tasked with putting some advertiser money where all those rapt eyeballs are.

Yesterday’s “Everybody panic!” is today’s “Meh.” B&N, Amazon, and Google Books have all taken pains to make it abundantly clear that you can only buy their ebooks from the e-store “through the Safari browser on their device or any computer” (to quote B&N) and have removed direct links to those stores from their Nook apps. In this way, they bypass Apple’s 30% revenue request. Here are the chances folks have made, including Google Books’ return to the App Store with ebook sales disabled.

Kindle

We wanted to let you know that we’ve updated our Kindle app for iPad, iPhone, and iPod touch. The big change is that you can now use the Kindle app to read over 100 Kindle newspapers and magazines including the Economist, as well as share favorite passages from your reading via Facebook and Twitter. In order to comply with recent policy changes by Apple, we’ve also removed the “Kindle Store” link from within the app that opened Safari and took you to the Kindle Store. You can still shop as you always have – just open Safari and go to www.amazon.com/kindlestore. If you want, you can bookmark that URL. Your Kindle books will be delivered automatically to your iPad, iPhone or iPod touch, just as before.

Nook

NOOK for iPad will soon be updated to offer the innovative, interactive magazine experience first available on the award-winning NOOK Color™. Optimized for high-resolution displays in rich, beautiful color, iPad users will have access to popular daily, weekly and monthly periodicals, including Esquire, Maxim, Forbes, Food Network Magazine, Newsweek, Popular Science, ESPN The Magazine, Elle, O, the Oprah Magazine, Parenting: Early Years, The Washington Post, USA TODAY, The Chicago Tribune, The Los Angeles Times and many more. Through Barnes & Noble’s exclusive ArticleView technology, readers can customize the article’s text to their favorite style in an easy to read, central panel on the display. NOOK Magazines can be enjoyed in both portrait and two-page landscape view and feature a slider and other interactive tools to enable the user to move easily throughout the magazine. NOOK Newsstand periodicals are available for subscription at www.nooknewsstand.com with a 14-day free trial and via single copies.

Google Reader

Removed sales links. They’ve also, in the process, rendered the app nearly useless to a confused reader.

We now return you to your regularly scheduled Internet outrage.

Assistly, a cloud-based customer support platform, raised $3 million in funding in January of this year from Bullpen Capital, Index Ventures, Salesforce, as well as several other angels and VCs.

Since launching in September of last year and taking on new capital, Assistly has brought on companies like Yelp, Etsy, 37signals, Pandora, Vimeo, and Spotify as paying customers, attracting them with a customer support platform that allows businesses to respond to its customers beyond traditional customer service paths like email and phone calls by tapping into social media conversations on Facebook, Twitter, and other social networking sites. It also helps that the startup counts Mark Cuban and David Liu as advisors.

But beyond the ability to monitor customer chatter on a number of different channels, Assistly enables businesses to filter those conversations, organize them in prioritized, actionable lists, as well as achieve access to customer histories, automate all of these support processes, and view metrics and analysis.

Another big selling point for Assistly was its pricing model, which included a “Flex” pricing model, which allowed users to buy usage time for users who are not full-time agents (like execs, developers, marketing, etc.), with the ability to create additional Flex seats at no charge per seat.

However, since launch, like a good customer support startup, Assistly has been listening to its own customer feedback, and it thinks that it’s found an even more appealing pricing structure. After all, there’s no more appealing word than “free”.

Today, Assistly is rolling out a new pricing model that includes a full-featured version of its service for free — along with version 2.0 of its SaaS software. Assistly Co-founder and CEO Alex Bard told us that the original pricing model was “the familiar SaaS model you’ve seen hundreds of times”, it was three-tiered (standard, professional, and enterprise), with each tear adding more features, yet simultaneously getting more expensive on a per-seat basis.

The idea behind the updates is to get away from offering “a hobbled premium model”. Customers told the startup that they wanted to start off with the service for free, and then grow inexpensively as they themselves grew. What’s more, customers don’t like tiered pricing structures; they want to buy what they need when they need it, not to be forced into an upgrade later. Simply put, they want a price system that’s simple, understandable, and transparent, and they want to be able to change their mind.

While it may sound like a lot to ask for, Assistly thinks that it’s come up with a good solution. The first full-time agent is free for every Assistly customer, and businesses can add as many “Flex Agents” as they want for free, paying only $1 an hour for actual usage, and it did away with tiered pricing altogether. Assistly added inexpensive “a la carte” upgrades that users can add or remove whenever they are so inspired.

The team also grandfathered in all of its existing customers, tweaking it in such a way as to give them the best mix of the old and the new. According to Bard, not a single customer’s price went up. It sounds like Netflix could take a page out of Assistly’s book.

In another unique twist, the startup has given its customers the ability to earn bonus flex hours as rewards (what it’s calling Assistly Wow Rewards), which they earn just by using the service. So, this means that actions a business might normally take earns them points and lowers the overall cost of running the service. For example, if a business connects its Twitter account with Assistly, it might receive 3 free hours of free support.

Beyond a new pricing setup and rewards, Assistly v2.0 offers a redesign of its on-boarding, admin, and reporting interfaces, which have gotten a more intuitive look and feel, as well as the additional support of workflows.

These are all great additions for a SaaS CRM platform, and have made Assistly one of the more easy-to-use and afford platforms out there. It’ll be interesting to see if customers react in kind.

For more on the new pricing structure, click here.

If you’re anything like me, this scenario may be somewhat familiar: You’re standing in the aisle of your local supermarket, or Walgreens, and you’re looking to buy a particular type of product, be it peanut butter or shaving cream or shampoo, yet you don’t have any particular allegiance to one brand over another.

Confronted with the often overwhelming abundance of choice, you may hold the product up to the light or quickly read the back label, hoping some divine intervention will guide you to the right choice. In the end, you probably make a choice based on appearance, brand familiarity, or something you read somewhere once. (When, really, you have no idea what the difference is between Scope and Listerine, other than minty-ness.)

Now, in spite of feeling fortunate to have surfeit options baked into my shopping experience, I often find myself asking, “do we really need 40 different brands of deodorant to choose from?” The market might respond by saying something annoying like, “competition is good, bro”, but I ask, if we’re going to have this level of choice, is there a better way to be making product decisions other than by oft-times arbitrary selection criteria?

A young New York City-based startup is trying to answer that question in the affirmative. Consmr, besides not liking all of its vowels, is attempting to build the Yelp, or Rotten Tomatoes, of consumer packaged goods (CPGs). While at this point Consmr may not be able to offer you a thoroughly detailed treatise on the value of Scope over Listerine, that’s the bent of its long-term goal.

Consmr Founder and CEO Ryan Charles left his full-time job at Zagat (where he was the head of mobile and was responsible for its partnerships with Foodspotting and Foursquare) at the end of March to pursue his new startup. Why?

The genesis dates back to the height of the recession, he says, when a lot of we consumers became more discerning (and price conscious) in regard to their daily product decisions. While there’s been tremendous growth in web research on CPGs, the sources for this information are fragmented. There’s no Yelp or LibraryThing, or sites taking advantage of crowdsourced data or social integration to help you choose which product is right for you. And he has a good point; all-in-one sources for movie, TV, book, and restaurant recommendations (to name a few) are alive and well, so why not for CPGs?

While the idea is an appealing one, the question is, of course, why one should spend time writing reviews of toothpaste? What incentive is there? Consmr isn’t going to bribe you to write reviews, but it will give you badges. Whether an average day-to-day user is browsing for the answer to a question like “what’s the best green-friendly laundry detergent?” or a micro-expert (like an ice cream blogger) wants to share their particular experience, the initial incentive is a game-ified user experience: Anyone can compete to earn badges that Consmr calls “flair” (a la Office Space), or “level-up” in reputation, or become a category expert.

The appeal of being a category expert, Charles says, is that category experts are featured prominently on the site, including being recommended as someone to “follow”. Thus, users are incentivized to write longer reviews, to take time with their descriptions, in the effort to become a product expert — a veritable lord or lady of the detergents.

Consmr has been in the process, like every other data-based recommendation engine before it, of gathering user reviews and building a sizable dataset. In the next few weeks, it plans to add recommendations based on products a user has rated highly and trends it picks up in your Consmr activity. (Similar in conceit to Netflix’s recommendation engine.) Consmr is also hard at work on its mobile apps — an equally important piece of the in-store recommendations puzzle.

And, today, the startup added to its feature set by forging a partnership with Gary Vaynerchuk, the popular author, business guru, and “sommelier of social media”. Beginning today, all of Veynerchuk’s Daily Grape and Wine Library TV reviews will be added to the site, which those who follow the wine guy will be able to see daily in their personal feed.

“I get thrown a lot of stuff on a daily basis and sometimes my intuition just tells me a platform is worth trying out”, Veynerchuk told TechCrunch. “I’m thrilled to speculate at times with new platforms and Consmr hit my radar as something that was worth trying”.

Consmr launched officially to the world back in June and is in the process of raising funding. The site still has some work to do on bits and pieces of its design and will require some serious adoption before product recommendations become flawless, but the idea could have legs. Rating different types of peanut butter is surprisingly addicting.

Let us know what you think.

On Friday, I wrote a post about how Netflix’s recent price change was having a noticeable (negative) effect on the perception of the company and its brand. An interesting conversation evolved in the comment section, with some explaining why they cancelled their Netflix subscriptions and why some even view it as a “PR nightmare”.

During its Q2 earnings call this afternoon, Netflix Founder and CEO Reed Hastings said that the company was not naive in its decision to change its pricing, and indeed expected to be hit with a bit of a backlash. Of course, as Hastings said, “like any customer-driven organization, we feel bad about customers being upset”.

Regardless, it seems that investors are not so optimistic. At the time of this writing, Netflix stock has plummeted more than 28 points in after hours trading, a 10 percent overall drop. While Netflix posted another strong quarter, with net income up to $68 million, a 55 percent year-over-year increase and $788.6 million in revenue, up 52 percent year-to-year, there were some caveats. As my colleague Erick Schonfeld wrote earlier this afternoon, “Wall Street still isn’t happy with the slowdown in store for the third quarter”. And why is that?

Netflix’s much-talked-about price change goes into effect in the third quarter, and should be fully rolled out, Netflix estimates, by September 15th. As a result, Netflix expects “domestic net additions in Q3 to be lower than the previous year’s Q3, and because of the timing of the price change, revenues will only grow slightly on a sequential basis”. That means: Investors, temper your expectations for the next few months. (Or, as we’ve seen from this afternoon’s activity, “sell it like it’s stolen”.)

Another few possible reasons for Netflix’s less-than-favorable forecast may lie in the fact that content costs are rising, which, coupled with lower revenues per subscription as Netflix transitions to more streaming-only content and the cost of ramping up its international presence (it plans to expand into Latin America later this year), might make some analysts nervous. It also doesn’t help that Netflix is lowering its EPS guidance for the next quarter’s to between $0.72 to $1.07, down from $1.26 for this quarter.

On the earnings call today, Reed Hastings said that the “DVD will have a longer and bigger life than people think”. On the other hand, according to its letter to stockholders, “With the rapid adoption of streaming, DVD shipments for Netflix have likely peaked”. In creating a separate management team and, really, business for DVDs, the company hopes that the life of those circular discs will continue, but really this seems to mark the beginning of the end.

Because Netflix’s streaming business is finally established, the company is in a position to encourage its customers to switch to streaming, and the price change was as good as any other catalyst to accomplish this.

And, in encouraging the transition, Netflix can take savings earned from not having to pay the same level of shipping costs for DVDs, and funnel it into its streaming. Of course, Netflix has had some problems with outages and all parties are aware that it just doesn’t have the same breadth of its streaming library in comparison to its DVDs. So, the need to begin allocating more funding to its infrastructure and developing its streaming content is paramount at this point. Expect major updates to Netflix’s streaming content over the next year, or watch as customers jump ship.

And, speaking of that, Netflix also remained tight-lipped about a potential Dreamworks deal that is reportedly on the table. While Hastings would not say if an agreement has been reached, he didn’t exactly deny that conversations were ongoing.

As a result of all of these changes and its ongoing discussions with potential streaming content partners, it’s of no surprise that the company said that it is not “planning to bid on Hulu”. Ad-supported free content that focuses on the current TV season just isn’t part of the Netflix landscape at this point, though there’s no doubt that the company will be keeping its eye on Amazon Prime and Hulu Plus, especially as a potential future buyer of Hulu decides what to do with its subscription service. Apple, Google, and Microsoft have all begun kicking the tires on Hulu, but its still uncertain where the company will end up.

That being said, Netflix added 1.8 million subscribers in the U.S. during the second quarter, a 75 percent hike when compared to the second quarter of last year, bringing its total subscribers to 24.6 million, up 64 percent from Q2 2010. What’s more, 75 percent of those new subscribers signed up for Netflix’s streaming-only option.

Clearly, Hastings and company are confident that its streaming business is in good enough standing that this is the best time to begin accelerating the transition from DVD to streaming. Hastings said that he expects Netflix to have 22 million streaming subscribers by the end of Q3, and 25 million total U.S. subscribers, meaning the company only expects to add another 400K or so subscribers over the next quarter. In the big picture, this may just be a blip on the radar, it all just depends on how unhappy customers really are, and the perceived viability of the competition.

For more on Netflix’s financials, click here, and for a quick overview, check out the chart below:

Zynga is furthering its presence in China with a new partnership with Chinese internet giant Tencent. As part of the deal, Zynga is launching a beta version of Zynga City, a new localized Chinese version of CityVille. The game will launch in the next few days and features brand-new content and game-play inspired by both traditional and pop culture in China. As reported earlier this year, Zynga City beta will be operated by Tencent on its Pengyou platform and will soon launch on the company’s QZone platform. Financial terms of the deal were not disclosed by either company.

Zynga City beta will include brand-new decorations and architecture the Chinese audience can identify and connect with, in-game events and competitions linked to Chinese holidays and news, as well as culturally relevant game mechanics such as the chance for players to send street peddlers to their friend’s cities. Zynga City beta will also feature quest system, which Zynga says will “quench Chinese players’ thirst for rich storytelling within the games they love to play.”

Zynga is actually building off of Tencent’s Open Platform, which is an operating system of sorts. Using this platform, Chinese players will be able to play Zynga City in their own language. As I mentioned above, it’s unclear what the terms of the revenue share are from the partnership.

The game will first be operated by Tencent in a beta version on its Pengyou platform, which is its social network and game platform, with a wider launch on several Tencent platforms including QZone to follow.

This isn’t Zynga’s first localized game in China. The gaming giant actually acquired Chinese game developer XPD Media in May of 2010 and set up a Beijing office. And in August the company launched Zynga’s first internationally localized game, Zynga Texas Poker, in traditional Chinese.

So why CityVille as the next localized game and the initial title in the partnership with Tencent? Andy Tian, General Manager of Zynga China, says that because CityVille is Zynga’s largest and most popular game, the localized version of Zynga City was the ideal choice. The Zynga China studio is actually leading the development of Zynga City including its new localized content and game features.

Lin Songtao, General Manager of Tencent Open Platform, said in a release: Zynga has a lot of experience with game development, services and support. We hope that Zynga City will be a success on Tencent Open Platform. In the future, Tencent Open Platform will keep improving the abilities and value on service and support, with the cooperation of more and more successful social game developing companies. We are expecting that more and more international social game developers will bring their popular games to Tencent Open Platform for Chinese Internet users and this will support the rapid growth of the social game market in China, which is good news for all social game developers.

For Zynga, a deal with Tencent is alluring for a number of reasons. First, Tencent has a massive reach in China, with the potential to reach hundreds of millions users. In fact, the Chinese company has just under 400 million active users. Second, the deal spreads Zynga’s dependence off of Facebook as a major platform.

Of course, Zynga has major ambitions when it comes to international growth. In the past few game releases, Zynga has launched international versions of its titles, hoping to appeal to broader audiences, especially on mobile platforms. If this partnership works out, this will be a huge gateway for Zynga into China.

For Tencent, Zynga China is a strategic partnership that could help the Chinese internet giant expand to North America and Europe. Last year, Tencent bought 10% of Digital Sky Technology, which in turn owns significant portions of of Zynga and Facebook. And as my colleague Sarah Lacy wrote recently, Tencent has been trying to enter the U.S. market quietly, acquiring Riot Games in February and dozens of smaller, unreported acquisitions over the last year or so.

As Zynga prepares for a public offering later this year, the company could stand to learn a lot from Tencent, which is one of the largest publicly traded Internet companies on earth.

Crunchbase

ZYNGA

Company:
ZYNGA

Website:
http://www.zynga.com

Launch Date:
7/2007

Zynga was founded in July 2007 by Mark Pincus and is named for his late American Bulldog, Zinga. Loyal and spirited, Zinga’s name is a nod to a legendary…

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Another day, another startup security glitch.

This time the startup affected is Zaarly, the service that lets you buy or sell anything with people nearby.

A bug in a recent code push created a security hole that revealed phone numbers and private messages between buyers and sellers.

To exploit the bug, you’d need only access Zaarly’s listings.JSON file, specifying the lat and long coordinates for the area you wanted to view. The site would spit out its listings as usual (“Used iPhone 4″, “Mechanic to do a Saab engine swap”, and so on) along with relevant descriptions.

But those listings would also include private variables, like user ID, phone number, and private messages. Someone who wanted to actively exploit the bug could plug in additional lat/long coordinates and view all Zaarly listings for any region.

Zaarly CEO Bo Fishback says that the flaw was live for a week and was fixed within fifteen minutes after the company was alerted to the bug’s existence. He also emphasizes that while the bug exposed some user data, it did not leak anything related to transactions — so credit card numbers and transaction details are all safe. And he believes that it’s highly unlikely that anyone would have stumbled across the bug accidentally.

Will this evening’s glitch have severe repercussions for the startup? Unlikely. Most of the messages being exchanged through the service probably aren’t that sensitive, and while having phone numbers leak is certainly irritating (and unacceptable), it pales in comparison to the credit card and online storage breaches that are becoming the norm. It’s sad, but it’s almost like we’re getting used to this sort of thing.

Update: Zaarly has written a blog post about the issue here.

Update 2: Fishback says he was originally mistaken and that the damage isn’t quite as bad as this post originally stated: email addresses were not exposed and while user ID numbers were, the names were not (in other words, you’d see a string of numbers as opposed to someone’s name). However, phone numbers and direct messages were available.

Disclosure: TechCrunch founder Michael Arrington is an investor in Zaarly. You can read about his investment policy here.