TNW’s Daily Dose: Atari bankruptcy, Yandex at CERN and more
Atari files for Chapter 11 bankruptcy, Yandex provides machine learning for CERN and buying a car over a social network. It’s all in today’s Daily Dose.
You can catch The Daily Dose every Monday through Friday right here on The Next Web. Be sure to hit the subscription button of your choice below to get The Daily Dose as soon as it’s available.
- Yandex opens up its MatrixNet machine learning tech to CERN, aiming to improve search for all its users. Read more.
- Atari’s US business files for bankruptcy, aims to live on with digital and mobile gaming focus. Read more.
- Mercedes-Benz experiments with selling Smart Cars on China’s Sina Weibo microblog. Read more.
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The Next Web’s Daily Dose: Security patches, pig recipes and more
Mozilla patches security flaws in Firefox, Google shows love to India, Twitter heads to South Korea and green pigs release a cook book. All this and more in the Daily Dose where we round-up 24 hours of tech news in under five minutes.
You can catch The Daily Dose every Monday through Friday right here on The Next Web. Be sure to hit the subscription button of your choice below to get The Daily Dose as soon as it’s available.
- As promised, Mozilla releases updated Firefox 16 with security patch for Windows, Mac, and Linux http://tnw.to/d5vR
- Google’s biggest Street View update ever updates 250k miles of road worldwide and doubles collections. Read more
- Google pushes out free SMS service for Gmail in India. Read more
- Twitter opens office in Korea, puts focus on localised features and partnerships. Read more
- eBay tries to steal Pinterest’s secret recipe, ends up with flat beer and no friends. Read more
- Anonymous demands free access after Wikileaks adds “paywall” for Stratfor Global Information Files. Read more
- Green ham and eggs: Rovio’s Bad Piggies cook up an iPad recipe book app. Read more
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‘Charlie bit my finger – Again’ (and again) as viral kids are set to be syndicated as an original series
Remember the ‘Charlie bit my finger – Again‘ viral video? The one where a kid (Harry) sits with a baby on his knee who proceeds to bite Harry’s finger and giggle at the resulting wails? Yep, that’s set to become a series.
Viral Spiral, the management company for viral content and Rightster, the video monetisation and distribution specialist have teamed up to produce an original series based on the antics of the two boys.
‘Rightster has made a strategic investment in Viral Spiral to create Viral Studios. The new arm of the company will co-produce and finance new digital content based on one of YouTube’s most viewed viral videos. Rightster will also offer sponsorship avenues around orignal content and drive YouTube syndication for additional marketing.
Family video to global syndication
‘Charlie bit my finger – Again’ was posted in 2007 and has been seen almost half a billion times. Quite how this one scene will translate into a series is unknown, but if the kids are as amusing enough to drive similar viewing figures in the rest of their activities, it’s possible that the definition of ‘child star’ might have to be rewritten.
Last year it was estimated that the family made more than £100,000 via the 57 second video. As memes tend to, the video also sparked its own blog where people can keep up with the boys adventures and even T-shirts and apps for Android and iOS. Not bad work for a video uploaded to YouTube because email would not cope with the file size.
Damian Collier, Founder and CEO of Viral Spiral commented: “We’re delighted to announce this strategic partnership with Rightster which will allow Viral Spiral to build on its expertise in developing value around hit viral properties. Today we’re at an inflection point where online content truly is king and has the ability to shape the future of the entertainment industry.”
Indeed from original viral content to the professionally created programming made by big players, finding traction online is becoming more and more important as viewers choose on-demand options and assorted content providers over traditional television scheduling.
Just this morning, BBC Worldwide announced an expansion of its partnership with YouTube to provide content for viewers in the United States and Canada. It seems that the money is clearly going to be found via advertising, marketing and presentation on the Internet.
“We’re excited to be playing such a key role in the development of original content and programming at this pivotal time in the digital entertainment industry”, added Charlie Muirhead, Founder and CEO of Rightster. “Rightster Studios enables producers of all sizes to create the next generation of engaging online video programming, and we look forward to working with Viral Spiral to successfully distribute and monetise new, original content based on the existing strength of the ‘Charlie Bit My Finger’ brand.”
If for some reason, this corner of the Internet has escaped your attention, this is the original. Who knows that Charlie might get up to next and if it will cause Harry quite as much pain.
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Microsoft to Safari users: Hey, try Bing (because Google is evil and breached your privacy)
If you’re a Safari user, Microsoft is urging you to use Bing because Google doesn’t take your privacy seriously. No, I’m not joking, take a look at this webpage, which appears to be a new Bing landing page for Safari users: bing.com/privacy-protection.
The saga dates back to February 2012, when a report suggested Google overrode Safari’s security and privacy settings to track Internet usage of the browser’s users. The Federal Trade Commission (FTC) got involved, and, following an investigation into the issue, it fined Google a record $22.5 million for the Safari breach. The search giant agreed to pay up last month.
Microsoft is keen to make sure that no-one forgets this, let alone Safari users, and the page summarizes the events that took place:
- Google promised it would not track Safari users.
- Google broke its promise and tracked Safari users without their permission.
- Google used this improperly obtained information to target ads for profit.
- The FTC took action against Google in the form of a record $22.5 million penalty.
The fifth step is simple: you should try Bing. When you click the big orange button, it runs a Bing search for “google record ftc fine.” Interestingly, the string of that URL has “SAFARITEST” and “SAFARI_BING_BUTTON,” which shows that the company is focused on converting Safari users with this campaign – which makes sense. Unfortunately, Microsoft can’t get this landing page to appear when Safari users actually visit Google, which is where it would really be useful.
In fact, it’s not clear right now how the company is pushing, or is planning to push, users to the landing page (we haven’t found any in-bound links, save for a Hacker News submission and a DZone submission). It is clear, however, that Microsoft is looking to go directly after Google here, which certainly wouldn’t be the first time.
So, when did this page go live? Well, Google was officially ordered to pay the FTC fine on August 10, 2012. A Google cache of the privacy page dates back to September 14, 2012. I would thus bet that somewhere between those two dates, Microsoft put together the webpage and started displaying the following message to anyone who stumbles on it:
If you are a Safari user, Google may have recently tracked you even though it promised it would not. Want to do something about it? Stop searching with Google and start searching with Bing. Better yet, make Bing your homepage and start every search with Bing.
I have contacted Microsoft for more information about this Google-Safari privacy page on Bing. I will update you if and when I hear back.
Image credit: Microsoft
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SoundCloud’s updated iPhone and Android apps let you edit audio on the go
SoundCloud today announced an update to its iPhone and Android apps that makes the process of editing and publishing your content a lot easier and smoother.
Updates to the app enable you to pause and resume recording, trim audio clips, adding the ability to create a fade in and out to your sounds, and enabling you to listen through your phone’s earpiece without the need for headphones.
Pause and Resume
Recordings can now be started, stopped and continued as many times as required. A really useful feature for recording longer segments of audio, or working around distractions or interruptions.
Trim
Correct mistakes and cut unwanted sections from your recordings by using the new Trim feature. Simply drag the sliders in from the edges of the waveform to trim your sound down, when paused, to the part you want to keep.
Fade In/Fade Out
You can now apply a ‘Fade In/Fade out’ effect to loud recordings to achieve a smoother start and ending, for a more professional sound.
Private Listening
Only available on the iPhone at the moment, private listening is ideal for listening to private messages, or for listening to some great new sounds without letting others know what you’re hearing. Here’s how it works: simply hold the handset up to your ear as if you were taking a phone call and the audio will be re-routed to the phone speakers.