Technology « Florian Seroussi's Blog

Archive for the ‘Technology’ Category

Google Imaginary Open Letter to FCC – One year later

Wednesday, August 25th, 2010

Today Google announced the integration of Google Voice into Gmail allowing users to place and receive phone calls from their computer from any place in the world to the US for FREE.

Since the acquisition of GrandCentral by Google, Craig Walker and his team have been working hard to make the world a better place for communication.

One of the targets is to make Google Voice accessible to all users (meaning outside the scope of Google) with an horizontal approach ranging from Mobile phones to Web based applications and device dependent applications as well. Google Voice has been available for Blackberry and Android phones for over a year. But they never could make it to the iPhone. The application went live for a few hours before Apple’s executives decided to remove it from the app store raising a Valley drama on Twitter and Facebook.

Google asked the FCC to look into Apple’s motivation, Apple replied, FCC sent a few letters, AT&T denied any implications…bottom line: nothing happened. In a world where technology is evolving around time, FCC has failed to do its job.

Worse, I believe FCC integrity is challenged by its dependance to regulatory fees mainly paid by carriers and manufacturers e.g. AT&T and Apple. I see an urgent need to reform FCC processes to adapt to 21st century technology pace.

Here is an imaginary open letter from Google to FCC regarding Apple’s Rejection of the Google Voice for iPhone Application.

Tags: android, Apple, att, Blackberry, carriers, craig walker, google, google voice, iPhone
Posted in Apple, Blackberry, Gmail, Legal, TechCrunch, Technology, Telecom, android, google, iPhone | No Comments »

Google should buy Adobe

Wednesday, August 18th, 2010

Adobe is the number one gaming platform for developers. Even if Apple is trying to destroy the company’s future, nothing is really changing.

HTML5 is not the new Flash although for video playback it might be a better solution (or not). But developers have constantly praised Flash for gaming. I’m not saying Flash is perfect, nothing is perfect and there is always place for improvement.

But the acceleration of hardware miniaturization, the abyssal growth of smart mobile devices, the potential explosion of tablets and the furious competition between Apple and Google (soon Microsoft will join) makes Adobe a key player in this war.

Google –unlike Apple- has decided to work with Adobe on integrating Flash on their proprietary operating system Android and certainly Chrome OS. Their strategy lays before us on multiple announcements issued by Mountain View’s giant in the last week.

Flash Player 10.1 on Google Nexus Ones

Adobe Air coming for Android

Adobe for Google TV

Native PDF integration on Chrome Browser 6

At least 5 different Google’s units – YouTube (largest Flash network), Android, Chrome browser, Chrome OS and Google TV have made deals with Adobe. Hard to believe it’s all happening without top level corporate talks between both companies.

Adobe’s market capitalization has dropped 30% since Steve Jobs has openly called Flash an insecure, CPU killer, crash-inducing add-on. A $5bn insult – thanks Steve.

Revenues are also on the downside from $3.5bn in 2008 to $2.8bn in 2009.

Google’s market cap is 11 times Adobe’s and would give the search engine company a nice entry in the mobile gaming playground.

Adobe can’t expect a lot as all deals are based on offer and demand. Apple will obviously not make any bid; Microsoft is too far behind in their mobile road map and will bet everything on Xbox/WP7 synergies.

So who else can afford a $15bn GI Joe?

Tags: adobe, android, chrome, chrome os, flash, ipad, iPhone, steve jobs, youtube
Posted in Apple, Economy, Microsoft, Technology, Video, android, google | No Comments »

Unlock your iPhone 4 (or any other) under 5 minutes

Wednesday, August 4th, 2010

Since I posted a picture of my iPhone unlocked running T-mobile I keep getting DMs, texts and calls on how to do it.

The procedure takes less than 5 minutes. You don’t need a computer. Just your phone and a data connection (wifi strongly suggested).

Open Safari and go to www.jailbreakme.com, unlock the slider and leave the magic take place.

Follow the on-screen instructions. Once rebooted, your device should show a new icon Cydia.

Open Cydia – choose “user settings” when prompted, wait for the refresh

Search for Ultrasn (search icon is on the lower right of the screen).Ultrasn0w should appear. Select the app, install it and let your iPhone reboot.

That’s it. Done. Your iPhone is now unlocked.

Tags: devteam, iPhone, jailbreak, sim unlock, tmobile, unlock, unlocker
Posted in Apple, Geek, Technology, Telecom, iPhone, itunes | 3 Comments »

iPad is to newspapers what iPod is to Music.

Monday, May 31st, 2010

A lot has been written about the iPad and the printing industry. Recently Fred Wilson wrote a post explaining why he doesn’t like the idea of a mobile application but would rather read content on Safari.

His demonstration has some strong point for a power-user but certainly not for the masses. The whole conversation reminds me of the controversy about iPod and music.

Yes, I would basically agree that reading content on a browser is more convenient for me. But reality proves that monetization of digital content via web is complicated.

Apple has created a value added chain of services from publishing to distribution. It’s easy to buy and use.

Newspapers over the world are facing their worse crisis ever. It’s the end of an era. And however we look at it, printing news on paper in 2010 makes no sense.

So will the iPad save the newspaper industry? I think it will. Web content will be limited to headlines, forums, past editions, but premium content will be distributed via apps.

The basic recurring argument saying people won’t pay for content because they can find fresher news freely on the web is just ridiculous. No one buys a newspaper for fresh news. Newspapers are here to bring a deeper, better understanding of the raw information. I don’t think Fred Wilson buys The New York Times to find anything new. He cares about the analysis, the vision brought by journalists and experts.

iPad distribution of newspaper solves many problems:

-       production cost [printing]
-       distribution
-       reachability
-       interactivity
-       loyalty
-       spontaneity

When it comes to market ipad/iphone study I turn to my mother. She discovered emails 2 years ago and never wrote a letter since. Same for the iPhone, which never leaves her sight. iPad has dramatically change the way she reads news and this is just the beginning. I bet newer devices will upgrade the digital experience to unprecedented levels.

Apple brought to the masses what the web failed to provide. SECURITY. My mother feels more secure buying an app online than walking to the newsstand down the road. And that, my friends, is the reason why I believe app stores will succeed.

The ability to pay for your digital content in ONE place, all in one click of a button is magic. Until the web can fix compatibility problem, offline reading, payment options, reminders, push notifications and much more, mobile applications will rule.

Tags: app store, fred wilson, ipad, itunes, mobile apps, new york times, Newspapers
Posted in Apple, Content, Geek, Labotec, Newspapers, Technology, ebook, iPhone | 29 Comments »

Facebook Privacy. You don’t need to quit.

Tuesday, May 18th, 2010

Half of my feeds is about Facebook and their privacy policy. A complete case of propaganda built up by the blogo-journalistic cartel. Few thousands of top self proclaimed internet right activists are trying to convince 300 Million users that their life is ‘exposed’ by Facebook voluntary exploitation of public data.

Facebook offers a wide selection of options to protect your info and we will go through those steps a bit later. But let’s not be hypocrite here, if you want to keep your life private you need to stay away from social networks. Permanently.

Those attacks are becoming more targeted against Mark Zuckerberg like an attempt to stop the ascension of a giant. The worst is to come after I read the upcoming release of a movie describing Facebook’s founder as a drunk billionaire geek who is a sex-mad “borderline-autistic” conniver.

Mike Arrington wrote an excellent note on the subject but personally I think Zuck will have to face the same hatred Jobs and Gates faced decades ago. Hopefully genius will prevail.

—

Now here is how you can simply protect some level of privacy on Facebook.

Simply login to your account and head to ‘Privacy Settings’

Once you get there click on ‘Personal Information and Posts’

This will give you access to a set of customizable features. For best protection chose ’only friends’ to all options.

I personally do not accept wall posts. If a friend has something to say he can:

- send me a message or – comment one of my entries.

Finally you can opt-out from public searches meaning search engines will not display your Facebook profile

One last recommendation – be sure to set privacy settings on applications and games. You surely don’t want to share your recent activity across the board:

Be curious and explore those pages. You will find lots of useful information.

The only valid reproach we can aim at Facebook is the lack of universal control of privacy [windows way for security] where user can set level of data sharing from None to Public in one click.

Tags: arrington, facebook, movie, privacy, settings, zuckerberg
Posted in Entrepreneur, Social Media, TechCrunch, Technology, facebook | 3 Comments »

Twitter K.O. system

Sunday, April 11th, 2010

It all started with a blog post by Fred Wilson about 3^rd party apps temporarily filling holes for Twitter followed by a series of announcement that sparked the Twitt-o-sphere on fire. The young growing social network officially released their first mobile application for Blackberry and announced the acquisition of Tweetie (leading iPhone client).

What does it mean for other 3^rd party applications offering competing products on BlackBerry and iPhone? Well it doesn’t look too good to be honest- terrible news for Socialscope, Ubertwitter and Seesmic who devoted thousand of hours building a Twitter client for Blackberry and ultimately hoped to be acquired by Twitter…

The official application uses non-public APIs, offers no request limitation (recently Twitter raised their limitation to 150 requests per hour) and can be easily promoted virally by Twitter as a featured application. So many reasons for developers to spoof a revolt and to call for a broken Twitter eco-system…I call it bullsh*t.

Because frankly – this is what they were all looking for. To beat the watch and build a good enough client so Twitter will buy them out. It didn’t happen although Twitter had initiated contact with those companies. Obviously the price range to acquire a Blackberry client didn’t make any sense to Twitter’s investors (Fred Wilson at least) so they decided to go build their own. If one of the apps had been bought out – the feedback would have been very different.

When I hear stories about Twitter eco-system it reminds me of a quote from Louis C.K. “it’s funny how quickly the world owes him something he knew existed only ten seconds ago”.

About 15 months ago I wrote this post discussing about Twitter’s options to drive revenue. The main threat to revenue stream was obviously the existence of 3^rd party applications making money on the back of the social network. Not many developers were too concerned about it and kept raising money to bite the hand that feeds them.

This is why Ev Williams promptly announced the acquisition of Tweetie, confusing everyone on Twitter’s real intentions for future growth. Will they buy or will they develop?

In the meantime, many Twitter clients will disappear from the radar until developers can focus on producing genuine ideas and not just filling holes.

Tags: developers, eco system, seemsic, socialscope, tweetie, Twitter, ubertwitter
Posted in Blackberry, Entrepreneur, Geek, Social Media, Technology, Twitter, android, iPhone | 1 Comment »

5 days with the iPad

Thursday, April 8th, 2010

Here are my thoughts after 5 days of regular usage of an iPad.

The device has an autonomy of >10 hours which is really amazing considering it’s running on Wifi most of the time.
iPad’s screen quickly becomes covered with finger prints obscuring the image. I’ll be waiting for a screen protector like this one.
Wifi is flaky. Not sure if it’s a hardware problem but shutting wifi off and then back on again solves the problem on my unit. Hoping for a firmware update to solve it permanently.
Lack of a native clock application is unacceptable. Apple has it on the iphone and ipod. It’s the #2 feature of any computing device. How did they miss it?
No native calculator is also a big fail in my opinion. Why should I pay $4 for a basic 30ko application that should be built-in?
Apostrophe key is not present on main keyboard. You need to go one layer down. Very annoying. Hopefully another bug easily fixable via a firmware update. For the apostrophe shortcut, just hold the coma via @madamelolo
I didn’t know the iPad had a microphone. Nice tip from Andy Abramson. Works great when using Skype (BTW Skype app is not yet iPad friendly).
Seamless video playback. I watched 2 movies so far with great brightness, perfect picture, almost no pixelization.
Picture frame feature will make any hotel room look like home. Simply launch it from the lock screen (not obvious at first) and enjoy your family pictures full-screen with a bunch of possible slideshow effects.
Unless I missed something, Safari can’t remember your passwords. Don’t feel like buying 1password application to fill the blank. Will wait for an update. Go to setting–>safari–>autofill to save login/password via @madamelolo
Keyboard is pleasant, efficient and precise despite what some tech journos wrote. I type most of my emails on the tablet and I find it extremely accurate.

Most people I met that haven’t bought one yet are saying to be waiting for a newer version. Although a newer version is always coming there is supposedly somewhere between 400.000 to 700.000 units sold so far. If I was into hardware I would build a line of accessories based on this iPad case with integrated webcam, solar panel, or extra-battery. The iPad case is the perfect extension to add functionality to an already powerful device.

Last point after a few days showing off the tablet around is the sociability of the object. Andy also mentioned it to me. As soon as I pull it out my backpack, it brings immediate attention from strangers asking millions of questions. Becomes annoying after a while to be honest.

Tags: apps, cose, covers, finger prints, ipad, wifi
Posted in Apple, Geek, Technology, iPhone, itunes | 9 Comments »

iPad – the Wow Effect

Saturday, April 3rd, 2010

No need to do another unboxing of the iPad. Twitter has thousands of them. Instead I will give my take on this incredible piece of hardware. It goes far beyond being a big iPhone. The iPad is the ultimate all-in-one-killer. It kills the iPhone but more generally smartphones, ebook readers (sorry Amazon, Sony and all the others), netbooks, multimedia players, and to some extent laptops in general.

Two years after changing the face of Telecom, Apple is leading the path to a new era of computing. Forget those huge carton boxes for a laptop, 4 cd-roms, the heavy-duty wall charger, the Targus roller case and the 40 20 min set-up.

iPad is ready to use out of the box– in fact Apple has redefined what we called plug and play.

I can’t imagine the storm of desperation building up at HP, Dell, Sony and all the others. What have those guys been doing all that time? What the heck happened to their expensive R&D department?

Apple did a fantastic job creating a device that has no competition out there. They clearly invented something we didn’t have. Not just an enhanced version of the iPhone.

There are some drawbacks such as lack of Flash support, frontal camera, memory card slot, usb ports. But the device is so exceptional that none of the above should stop you from buying an iPad.

I overheard some voices stating they would rather wait for the 3G version. Well don’t! You can tether the iPad with your phone via WiFi or Bluetooth and it works.

So no need to pay another $200 and wait any longer. Plus you have the option to pick a faster network such as Verizon or Sprint 4G.

On a side note, Gmail offers a brand new layout on the iPad which leads me to think they didn’t specifically did it for Apple but for new tablets running Android OS supposed to be out later this year. Google will have to strike high to compete with Apple’s iPad. Very high.

Tags: abc app, ipad, iPhone, ipod, kayak, kindle, tablet
Posted in Apple, Geek, Gmail, Sony, Technology, Telecom, ebook, iPhone, itunes | 3 Comments »

Labotec Closes An Important Round of Funding

Tuesday, March 16th, 2010

Or the story of a side project turning into a big adventure.

At the beginning 2 friends with a lot of ideas, Pierre-Olivier Carles and myself, decided to launch a mobile application incubator. Few weeks later we are working on a website, legal paperasserie, blog, recruiting…and since then it has been an amazing experience. We are not really the young and reckless entrepreneurs but this project brought all the good vibes from day 1. 8 months later I am particularly proud to welcome Xavier Niel and Jeremie Berrebi on board of Labotec Inc.

Jeremie Berrebi is also a long time friend with a hyper-creativity syndrome We always wanted to work together and lately we were discussing of some crazy project that will maybe see the light one day.

Xavier Niel [for our fellow non-french readers who haven't got a clue who he is please check here] is a role model for entrepreneurs and his investment in Labotec means a lot to me. We will live up to his expectations. That’s a promise.

Before you get the boring press release, here is the moral of Labotec: business opportunities are not a miracle, they are the fruit of collaborative work and mutual respect.

We also want to fund your project and this is just a click away – click here to become the next Inspirer.

————————-

Miami, FL (March 15, 2010) Labotec announced today that it has secured a round of funding from major strategic partner Kima Ventures, founded by Jeremie Berrebi (Zlio, Net2One) and Xavier Niel (Free,Iliad). Europe-based fund Kima Ventures joins Kipost and FS Ventures as an investor in Labotec. The company plans to use the funds to accelerate growth in all areas of its business and to support its plans for massive scale in 2010.

Labotec is pioneering a new form of mobile applications publishing based on crowd-sourced ideas. Since its recent inception, Labotec has received hundreds of new project ideas from 27 countries. 3 applications have already launched (iSOS for Android, iMove2Music for iPhone, FakeSMS for iPhone) and 20 are slated for release by the end of the year. Labotec engages with innovators that have always dreamed to see their ideas commercialized and be given the right tools to succeed in the marketplace.

“Mobile applications are becoming a must-have for subscribers and carriers, Labotec has the potential to turn an idea into a great business” said Jeremie Berrebi, partner in Kima Ventures.

“Our goal is to produce a user-oriented portfolio of applications on mobile devices such as iPhone/iPad/iPod, Android or BlackBerry” explains Florian Seroussi, Labotec co-founder.

“Kima Ventures and its founders bring another layer of opportunities we couldn’t approach until now” says Pierre-Olivier Carles, CEO of Kipost.

According to research analyst Research2guidance, the surge in applications will be driven by a fast-growing number of smartphone users, estimated to increase from about 100 million in 2009 to nearly 1 billion by 2013. Yearly application revenues will rise from US$1.94 billion (2009) to US$15.65 billion in only four years, according to most recent research findings.

About Labotec Inc
Labotec’s mission is to select great application ideas for iPhone, iPod, iPad, Android or Blackberry, finance them, and gather the required resources together to go to market with a finished application on any Application Store.
For that purpose, Labotec has established a selection and approval process that is both simple and swift. Labotec Inc HQ is based in Miami, Florida, with an office in Toulouse, France.

About Kima Ventures
Kima Ventures fund launched in 2010 by entrepreneurs for entrepreneurs. Our goal is to support and finance innovative companies with seed capital all over the world and to promotes the growth of startups, supporting them in the fastest and most effective ways.
Kima Ventures partners with the best business angels and venture, funds, and invests primarily in projects that meet a simple need and have a simple business model.

Labotec Inc
Miami, Florida, USA
Twitter: @Labotec
info@labotec.com

PR Contacts:
Stephane Menoret
stephane@labotec.com
+33 6 77 55 01 41

Tags: android, apps, berrebi jeremie, fakesms, iPhone, kima ventures, Labotec, niel, pocarles, xavier niel
Posted in Apple, Blackberry, Entrepreneur, Friends, Labotec, Technology, Uncategorized, android, iPhone | No Comments »