Berlin-based Airfy, maker of the Airfy WiFi router that our very own John Biggs called one of the sexiest Wi-Fi routers he’d ever seen (and the man has doubtless seen a lot of WiFi routers), is launching a crowdfunding campaign for a new product today. Rather than tackling the ugliness and (often) stupidity of WiFi routers, the Airfy Beacon is an attempt at making the smart home, well… Read More
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Airfy’s Beacon Wants To Make The Smart Home Smarter
Ever wished you could tap the “Change Camera View” button in real life to switch to a third-person view? These guys made it happen. Sure, it requires the user to wear an Oculus Rift and a big ol’ dual camera rig built into a backpack — and sure, it’s probably only fun (and not nauseating) for about a minute. But it works! Read More
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Clever Oculus Project Lets You Live Your Life In Third Person
An anonymous reader writes “Yahoo is most known for its search, email, and news services. But its U.S. web presence is only part of its corporate portfolio. It also owns large stakes in Yahoo Japan and Alibaba (a web services company based in China). Yahoo Japan is publicly traded, and Alibaba is heading toward an IPO, so both have a pretty firm valuation. The thing is: when you account for Yahoo’s share of each and subtract them from Yahoo’s current market cap, you get a negative number. Investors actually value Yahoo’s core business at less than nothing. Bloomberg’s Matt Levine explains: ‘I guess this is fairly obvious, but it leads you to a general theory of the conglomerate discount, which is that a business can be worth less than zero (to shareholders), but a company can’t be (to shareholders). … A fun question is, as fiduciaries for shareholders, should Yahoo’s directors split into three separate companies to maximize value? If YJHI and YAHI are worth around $9 billion and $40 billion, and Core Yahoo Inc. is worth around, I don’t know, one penny, then just doing some corporate restructuring should create $13 billion in free shareholder value. Why not do that?'” Read more of this story at Slashdot.
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Investors Value Yahoo’s Core Business At Less Than $0
The Super Bowl is still a little over a week away, but that doesn’t mean it’s too early to start planning your day. Thankfully, if you can’t watch the game on TV, you’ll be able to stream it for free. Read more…
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Reminder: Here’s Where You Can Watch Super Bowl XLVIII Online
Facebook updated its Graph Search feature today to include posts and status updates. Now, you can find posts your friends have made about certain topics, from specific locations, or that you’ve commented on. Check out Facebook’s full blog post for more info, as well as our favorite clever uses for Graph Search . Read more…
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Facebook updated its Graph Search feature today to include posts and status updates.
You can now post GIFs on Facebook thanks to a workaround from Giphy. Read more…
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You Can Finally Put GIFs on Facebook, Here’s How
hypnosec writes with report of the possible theft of up to 22 million user IDs revealed by Yahoo! Japan. That scale is massive, but, he writes, “According to Yahoo, the information that was stolen didn’t have passwords or any other information that would allow unauthorized users to carry out user identity verification.” A story at the Japan Times adds a bit more detail. Read more of this story at Slashdot.
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Yahoo! Japan May Have Had 22 Million User IDs Stolen
In Larry Page’s note moments ago about Andy Rubin stepping down as head of Android to be replaced by Sundar Pichai, he also provided an update on Android device activations: there are now 750 million of them, across smartphones and tablets from 60 hardware makers. This an update on the 500 million figure noted in September 2012 . From Page’s note: Fast forward to today. The pace of innovation has never been greater, and Android is the most used mobile operating system in the world: we have a global partnership of over 60 manufacturers; more than 750 million devices have been activated globally; and 25 billion apps have now been downloaded from Google Play. Pretty extraordinary progress for a decade’s work. And here’s a visualization of how Android has grown, courtesy of Benedict Evans. By many estimates from analysts, Google’s Android is currently the world’s biggest smartphone platform. The most recent figures from Gartner , for example, put it at 70% of the market in terms of recent devices sold. Activations are a slightly more nebulous stat, however, because, as Evans points out, they don’t include, for example, Android devices sold in countries where Google services might get used, such as China. And they don’t count secondary-owners of devices, as you may sometimes get in developing markets. 750 million Android activations implies an active base of somewhere around 675 million, Evans says . “Plus China, of course.” As a point of comparison, iOS is at about 400 million. Analyst Horace Dediu, based on today’s 750-million figure and historical growth, predicts that Android will reach 1 billion activations by mid-August 2013. Last week , Google provided an update on how ebooks and music have been progressing on the platform: there are now over 5 million ebooks and 18 million songs available on Google Play, one year on after it got rebranded from its previous name of Android Market.
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Larry Page Says There Have Now Been 750M Android Activations
AlphaWolf_HK writes “Newzbin2, one of the most recognized index sites for usenet, has closed for good. A statement reads: ‘It is with regret that we announce the closure of Newzbin2. A combination of several factors has made this the only option. For a long time we have struggled with poor indexing of Usenet, poor numbers of reports caused by the majority of our editors dropping out & no-one replacing them. Our servers have been unstable and crashing on a regular basis meaning the NZBs & NFOs are unavailable for long periods and we don’t have the money to replace them. To make things worse all our payment providers dropped out or started running scared. The MPA sued Paypal and are going at our innocent payment provider Kthxbai Ltd in the UK. Our other payment provider has understandably lost their nerve. Result? We have no more payment providers to offer & no realistic means of taking money (no, Bitcoin isn’t credible as it’s just too hard for 90% of people).'” Read more of this story at Slashdot.
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Newzbin2 Closes For Good
Vringo is a little company that’s made a huge bet on suing Google over patents. Today that bet paid off, although to a much lesser degree than its investors hoped earlier. After a two-week trial in Virginia, a jury found that Google’s advertising system infringes two old Lycos patents purchased by Vringo in 2011, and that those patents are valid. Google and several of its advertising partners were ordered to pay a total of about $30 million. That’s a lot of money, but far less than the $493 million Vringo was seeking. According to a report just published in the Virginian-Pilot , the jury found that Google will have to pay $15.9 million. Its advertising partners must pay smaller amounts: $7.9 million in damages for AOL, $6.6 million for IAC Search & Media, $98,800 for Target, and $4,000 for Gannett. The jury also said Google should pay an ongoing royalty; but whether that ultimately sticks is up to the judge. The Vringo case is remarkable for two reasons: first, it’s rare to see a high-profile patent attack played out directly in the stock market, with investors speculating on each move in court. Second, demonstratives submitted in Vringo’s case show a fascinating story in pictures of how a company that’s more or less a “patent troll” tries to convince a jury to shower it with money. Some of those visuals are posted below. Read 11 remaining paragraphs | Comments
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Google infringes old Lycos patents, must pay $30 million