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Google And MPEG LA Sign Licensing Agreement Covering Google's VP8 Video Codec, Clearing The Way For Wider Adoption
Mar 07, 8:50PM
Google’s VP8 video compression format, which the company acquired from On2 Technologies, is an open standard and covered by a free patent license. That, however, didn’t stop MPEG LA, the guardians of the H.264 patent and license, from looking into creating a patent pool in 2011 and potentially suing Google for patent infringement upon its competing codec. Today, however, MPEG LA and Google announced that they have come to an agreement. MPEG LA will grant Google a license “to techniques that may be essential to VP8 and earlier-generation VPx video compression technologies under patents owned by 11 patent holders.” The agreement allows Google to sublicense the techniques covered by the agreement to any VP8 user and also covers the next generation of the VPx codec. As part of this deal, MPEG LA is discontinuing its efforts to form a VP8 patent pool. Chances are Google had to pay for this license, but the financial details of the agreement were not disclosed. "We are pleased for the opportunity to facilitate agreements with Google to make VP8 widely available to users.” MPEG LA President and CEO Larry Horn. The relative uncertainty around VP8 definitely hindered its adoption outside of Google. Microsoft, for example, decided to keep the Google-backed WebM media file format that was build around VP8 out of its browser because of this uncertainty. The WebRTC standard, however, which most browser vendors have now adopted, is build around the VP8 codec. "This is a significant milestone in Google's efforts to establish VP8 as a widely-deployed web video format," said Allen Lo, Google's deputy general counsel for patents, in a statement today. Despite Google’s efforts, H.264 remains the de facto standard for video codecs. The fact that it is build into WebRTC (and that the standard doesn’t allow for alternative codecs) is a boon for proponents of open standards. Now that the uncertainty around VP8 is out of the way, Microsoft may even decide to adopt WebRTC for Internet Explorer instead of its own version of the standard. For the time being, however, this virtually no support for hardware-based VP8 encoders and decoders, while virtually every video-enabled device can handle H.264 without taxing the CPU. With both the next-gen H.265 standards and Google’s VP9 codecs already in the works, today’s agreement could mean we’ll see more competition in the video codec space in the coming months. Mostly, though, this agreement takes away"In The Studio," FLOODGATE'S Mike Maples Maintains An Outsider Mindset Despite His Valley Successes
Mar 07, 8:00PM
"In the Studio" welcomes a co-founder of a company which went public, a native Texan who studied engineering in Silicon Valley and business on the east coast, and who, upon returning to the Valley to begin investing, encountered a different path than he originally anticipated.Hands-On With The New Facebook And Its Boredom-Killing Feeds [TCTV]
Mar 07, 7:54PM
There's always something else to browse on the redesigned Facebook unveiled today. Instead of churning through the main feed until you hit reruns and leave, Facebook hopes to keep you switching between Photos, Music, and All Friends feeds so you stick around. The design previewed at Facebook's HQ today was actually stripped down, but I got the roll out early, so here's what it really looks like.Microsoft's Patent Lawsuit Against Google Could Shut Down Google Maps In Germany
Mar 07, 7:48PM
Microsoft and Google are currently involved in a patent lawsuit in Germany that could, according to FOSS Patents’ Florian Mueller and a number of German reports, lead to an outright ban of Google Maps in the country. Microsoft’s EP0845124 patent in Europe is for a “computer system for identifying local resources and method therefor” and was issued in 1996. The issue was discussed in a regional court in Munich today and as Mueller notes, it doesn’t look like Google was able to convince the judge “that the patent is highly probable to be invalidated at the end of a parallel nullity proceeding.” If Microsoft wins the injunction it is asking for, Google could have to shut down its mapping service in Germany, both on the web and on mobile phones (or at least on all of its own Motorola phones). In the worst of all cases, it could even be ordered to stop distributing Chrome in Germany unless it blocks access to Google Maps from the browser. The more likely option, however, as the German press agency DPA reports, is that Microsoft could offer Google a license for its patent. A Microsoft spokesperson told DPA that this could be “a way to end this war.” Google’s lawyers also argued that Google Maps is too important and shouldn’t just be shut down. Currently, about 4 million Germans use the service, and shutting down access to it for anybody with a German IP address would not just inconvenience them but also hurt Google’s image. For now, Google is keeping its cool (at least in public). A Google spokesperson gave us this statement: “"We are confident in our position and look forward to defending it in court." FOSS Patents’ Mueller also reports that Google’s counsel argued that the company would “suffer irreparable harm if it had to shut down a key part of its Google Maps service in Germany and that customers who then use competing services (such as Microsoft’s Bing Maps, which Judge Dr. Zigann mentioned) may never return to Google Maps.” All those Germans who decided to hide their houses on Google Maps’ Street View will probably cheer for Microsoft to win this injunction. The court will render a decision about this injunction in about two months.PopTip Brings Its Instant Twitter Polling And Revamped Dashboard To Brands On Facebook
Mar 07, 7:19PM
After launching out of TechStars NY back in June, PopTip has been building out a Facebook version of its instant polling product. PopTip originally launched for Twitter, letting brands ask questions in natural language and then tracking all the responses (misspellings and all) to give back to the brand. PopTip promised a Facebook counterpart to the product down the line, and has today delivered upon that promise.As Italy's Tech Eco-System Finally Ignites, Two VCs Combine To Create United Ventures
Mar 07, 7:14PM
Two Italian VC firms and an institutional player, Fondo Italiano di Investimento, have combined to form United Ventures, closing a first round of funding at €30 million ($39M). The new firm has set a fund-raising target of €50 million, with a term of ten years and brings together Annapurna Ventures, a firm founded by Massimiliano Magrini which has specialized in seed investing, and Jupiter Venture Capital, which specialized in early-stage and late-stage investments, a firm founded by Paolo Gesess.Google Brings Its Local Discovery App "Field Trip" To The iPhone
Mar 07, 7:10PM
Google's location-based Field Trip application has just made its way to the iTunes App Store today, after previously having been Android-only. The app, which works a little bit like Google Now, runs in the background on your phone then automatically shows you information about nearby businesses, including places to shop, dine, and be entertained.Locu Partners With Automattic To Bring Its Menus To WordPress.com's Restaurant Sites
Mar 07, 6:45PM
Automattic’s WordPress.com recently added a restaurant vertical to make it easier for restaurant owners to manage their sites and avoid the pitfalls of Flash-based homepages that auto-play annoying music and don’t work on mobile. Today, those sites get even better, thanks to a new integration between Locu and Automattic that makes it easy for restaurateurs to bring their Locu menus to their WordPress.com sites. WordPress.com users can simply embed a Locu shortcode on WordPress.com and every edit they make on Locu will immediately appear on their sites. Locu, which raised a $4 million Series A round last year and recently branched out a bit beyond restaurants with the launch of its merchant dashboard, allows restaurant owners to manage their menus in one place. Once the menu is finished, users can print them (Locu offers a number of templates and design tools), share them on social networks and push them out to Locu’s partner sites like CitySearch and OpenTable. The new WordPress embeds also come with a number of menu templates and, Locu stresses, should also provide some SEO enhancements on the site because it automatically embeds the “menu and price list metadata into the body of the website, increasing the likelihood of items being found online by potential customers.” "We are very excited about the integration with Locu," Raanan Bar-Cohen Automattic’s SVP of commercial services said in a statement today. "With Locu's easy-to-use WordPress.com shortcode, restaurants can more easily deliver an engaging menu experience directly on their WordPress.com sites to further connect with their consumers." Locu offers a free tier for restaurants that also includes this new WordPress.com integration and paid accounts that offer more advanced features and premium templates cost $25/month. The service currently has about 15,000 users. For WordPress.com, this integration is yet another step toward positioning itself as more than just a site for hosting blogs. Besides restaurants sites, WordPress.com also launched verticals for schools and portfolios. As Automattic’s CEO told our own Colleen Taylor last year, WordPress may have started out as a service for blogging, but “then it became just a content management system so people started building all kinds of websites. And now, those websites get more personalized into small business areas like restaurants.”For Businesses, Facebook's Redesign Means Bigger Ads, A Pages Feed, But A Friends-Only Section Too
Mar 07, 6:36PM
Today at Facebook's big news feed announcement, it made photos for users bigger, but the ads in the news feed will be getting bigger too. A Facebook representative explained "We're taking all the content you see in the feed and making it more immersive. So that goes across the board for everything including ads." Pages may get more views thanks to the "Following Feed" but there's Page-less feeds on Facebook now too.Facebook's Focus On Mobile-Inspired Consistency Is All About Getting Facebook "Out Of The Way"
Mar 07, 6:29PM
Today, VP of Product, Chris Cox discussed Facebook’s new-found focus on design consistency, something the company calls “mobile-inspired.” Today, with its News Feed and Photo redesign, you’ll notice consistency no matter what device you’re on. This hasn’t always been the case for Facebook. The idea of “desktop only” design seems to be dead, at least at Facebook HQ in Menlo Park. It’s all about mobile. What does that mean exactly? It means a more intimate experience, more responsive to touch and clicks, and way less clutter. “Now you can get to any page on Facebook to any other page on Facebook without going to your home page” said Cox. The best designers in the world say that to make people engage with a product, you have to make the “tech” disappear. That is of course done with beautiful and responsive design, and that’s the approach that Facebook is taking. One example of why Facebook had to take this approach is that Cox said 35% of Facebook users on the web never see the chat bar on the right hand side because of their browser width, so the company was missing out on a lot of message traffic because of that. The new responsive web design will fix that. These changes will roll out on the web today and then to mobile devices in the coming months. The roll out will be very slow, to make sure that the company gets incremental feedback. The rallying cry for the day at Facebook? “Goodbye Clutter.” Ads weren’t discussed at all, which is where I find that most of the clutter is. It will be interesting to see how advertisements evolve with this new design, and if we’ll see more of them. The definition of “clutter” is subjective, so we’ll see if Facebook’s definition will delight its over one billion users. Here’s a video explaining some of the reasons behind the changes: Read more: Hands-On With The New Facebook And Its Boredom-Killing Feeds [TCTV] For Businesses, Facebook's Redesign Means Bigger Ads, A Pages Feed, But A Friends-Only Section Too Facebook Updates Its Photo Experience To Be More "Immersive" In News Feed, Timeline And Albums Facebook Launches Multiple Topic-Based Feeds Including Photos, Bigger Images, And A Consistent Design Across DevicesFacebook Updates Its Photo Experience To Be More "Immersive" In News Feed, Timeline And Albums
Mar 07, 6:19PM
Today, Facebook has announced sweeping design changes to its News Feed, along with a total overhaul of its Photo experience. Photos are a huge part of what makes Facebook so engaging, and the company says that this new design is more “immersive.” Basically, the design highlights your photographs in the News Feed, your Timeline and Photo Albums. Photos from third-party apps like Pinterest and Instagram are also getting a better treatment, with larger and better-highlighted images. Additionally, photos that show up with location check-ins will get more love. “In the new design, we’re making sure that this media type is front and foremost” said Julie Zhou, Product Design Manager at Facebook. What we’re being shown is what Facebook calls a “richer, simpler” Facebook experience over all devices, including desktop. This consistency is key, as it’s something that Facebook has struggled with in the past. Facebook’s reason for acquiring Instagram has never been clearer. Photos are the entry point into so many people’s Facebook’s experience. For example, being tagged in a Facebook photo is one of the main hooks that keeps people coming back. It’s difficult not to click a link in the email you get when you’re tagged. Read more: Hands-On With The New Facebook And Its Boredom-Killing Feeds [TCTV] For Businesses, Facebook's Redesign Means Bigger Ads, A Pages Feed, But A Friends-Only Section Too Facebook's Focus On Mobile-Inspired Consistency Is All About Getting Facebook "Out Of The Way" Facebook Launches Multiple Topic-Based Feeds Including Photos, Bigger Images, And A Consistent Design Across DevicesFacebook Launches Multiple Topic-Based Feeds Including Photos, Bigger Images, And A Consistent Design Across Devices
Mar 07, 6:13PM
Today at Facebook HQ, Mark Zuckerberg just unveiled a new look for news feed that uses a "mobile-inspired" consistent design across devices, lets you drill into specific content type feeds, and offers larger images. Photo albums have gotten a facelift as well to be more immersive, and links shared will have longer blurb to preview what you're about to click to.Tune In Live To Facebook's News Feed Event As It Happens
Mar 07, 6:08PM
Facebook is having an event to show off changes to its News Feed today, and the company is livestreaming the event. Here's a video feed so you can watch along.The Boundless Open Textbook Initiative Has Evolved But Its Future Is Marred By Lawsuits
Mar 07, 6:00PM
Our education system is broken, from lower-level public schools all the way up to higher learning. EdTech startups are coming at the numerous problems from every angle. Boundless, a startup out of Boston, is aiming to offer an open alternative to the college textbook. But major publishers like Pearson Education, Cengage Learning, and Bedford, Freeman & Worth Publishing Group aren't so thrilled with the thousands of beta testers across 2,000 universities in the U.S. enjoying Boundless's free and open alternatives. Students using the beta product rated the Boundless' platform 50 percent higher than physical textbooks, and the average grade for users was a B+, with 80 percent saying they received grades they wanted or higher.Razer Taps Bing Fund GM And VoodooPC Founder Rahul Sood To Advise Board Of Directors
Mar 07, 5:59PM
Now that it's spent some time trying to navigate the gap between churning out PC accessories and actual, honest-to-goodness gaming computers, the folks at Razer have seen fit to look for some experts for guidance. To that end, Razer announced earlier today that it has appointed entrepreneur and former VoodooPC founder Rahul Sood to serve as advisor to the company's board of directors.Sproutkin Launches A "Netflix For Children's Books"
Mar 07, 5:48PM
Sproutkin, a newly launched subscription service for children's books, has raised an initial, but undisclosed (and still ongoing) seed round of under $1 million from investors which include 500 Startups, the TechFellow Fund, and other angels. Like the tagline implies, the startup is introducing a Netflix for children's books - that is, it's a rental service where you pay to receive shipments of new books on a regular basis, but you don't necessarily get to keep them.Attorney General Claims Aaron Swartz Case Was "A Good Use of Prosecutorial Discretion"
Mar 07, 5:16PM
Attorney General Eric Holder claims critics are wrong to blame prosecutors for misconduct in the handling of Internet activist Aaron Swartz. Swartz committed suicide after allegedly facing 50+ years in prison for releasing millions of pay-walled academic articles. During a congressional Judiciary Committee oversight hearing, Holder claimed that the media overhyped the assumption of an overzealous prosecutor, saying that a plea deal of a few months in prison was offered and rejected by Swartz.BeauCoo, The Social Style And Shopping Network For Women, Comes To Android
Mar 07, 5:13PM
BeauCoo, the Calgary, Canada-based startup that wants to make it easier for women to discover new styles, brands and stores and shop for clothes online by matching them with other women who have a similar body type, just launched its Android app. The service started out as an iPhone app and recently expanded to the web.Marvel Unlimited Is A Severely Limited Subscription Comics Service For iOS
Mar 07, 5:04PM
The only thing I want in this world is an all-you-can-read monthly comic subscription service, which I can use on the iPad. Which is why Marvel launching Marvel Unlimited on iOS seemed like a dream come true. But in actual fact, it's like promising a feast and delivering a few mouldy Saltines. I'll eat them because I'm starving, but I won't like it.Shapeways Rolls Out Developer Portal And New API In A Bid For Better 3D Printing Apps
Mar 07, 5:00PM
3D printing company Shapeways had a banner 2012 -- it locked up a $6.2 million Series B last year in a round led by Lux Capital, and established a full-blown factory in Long Island City. And it's hoping to make the process of designing and printing physical knick-knacks even easier this year. The plan? To inspire developers to create a slew of new design apps that hook into Shapeways' printing and shipping workflow. To that end, the company officially released a brand new REST-based API to developers and 3D printing buffs earlier today.If at any time you'd like to stop receiving these messages, just send an email to feeds_feedburner_com_techcrunch+unsubscribe-hmdtechnology=gmail.com@mail.feed2email.net.
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