Home � � Mashable: Latest 29 News Updates - including “Vudu to Start Offering 3D Movies”

Mashable: Latest 29 News Updates - including “Vudu to Start Offering 3D Movies”

Posted by Ashim Adhikari on 5:25 AM // 0 comments

Mashable: Latest 29 News Updates - including “Vudu to Start Offering 3D Movies”

Vudu to Start Offering 3D Movies
Startup Bets on New Idea in Personal Storage
Forrester: Tablets Sales Will Eclipse Laptop Sales by 2015 [STATS]
HANDS ON: IdeaPad’s Laptop Screen Detaches to Become a Tablet [PICS]
New Group Messaging Service Rivals BBM, GroupMe & Kik
HANDS-ON: Unique iPad Case Unfolds Into an Elegant Stand [PICS]
Internet Surpasses Television as Main News Source for Young Adults [STUDY]
Roku Hits 1M Units Sold [INFOGRAPHIC]
Exfm Launching Music Blog Discovery Service
Congress Opening Day to Stream Live on Facebook
Are You Up for a Half-Hour TV Show About Mobile Apps?
Just How Messy Is the Average User’s iTunes Library? [STATS]
CNBC Documentary Explores “Facebook Obsession”
3 Lessons for Keeping Your Social Business Systems Secure
Miso Raises $1.5 Million and Lands a Deal with Oprah Winfrey Network
Group Texting Service GroupMe Raises $10.6 Million in Funding
Why Every Brand Needs an Open API for Developers
Microsoft to Reveal Windows TV Set-top Boxes [REPORT]
6 Reasons You Can’t Miss the #MashableAwards
Facebook Users Upload Record-Breaking 750M Photos Over New Year’s Weekend
Nissan Launches Location-Based Promotion With SCVNGR
The Muppets Do Kanye West’s “Monster” — Again [VIDEO]
10 Apps to Watch in 2011
Boxee Gets a New Hardware Partner
Amazon to Release Kindle Apps for Android & Windows Tablets
Pandora Radio Coming to Toyota Connected Cars
School Tech: 6 Important Lessons From Maine’s Student Laptop Program
Support a Charity Just by Watching YouTube
Starz Launches TV Series With Facebook Game
Your Next TV Remote Might Have a Netflix Button

Vudu to Start Offering 3D Movies

Posted: 05 Jan 2011 02:00 AM PST

Movie streaming service Vudu has announced at CES it will start offering 3D movies in its catalog starting next week.

3D titles will be available at 480p, 720p and 1080p resolutions, with the minimum bandwidth requirements for 3D viewing being the same as for 2D.

To be able to watch the 3D content you’ll need a compatible HDTV/Blu-ray player, which includes Sony’s PlayStation 3 as well as devices from manufacturers such as Funai, LG, Mitsubishi, Philips, Samsung, Toshiba and Vizio.

Vudu hasn’t announced the pricing or any of the titles it plans to make available in 3D.

Reviews: Blu

More About: 3D, entertainment, Movies, streaming, vudu

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Startup Bets on New Idea in Personal Storage

Posted: 04 Jan 2011 10:41 PM PST

The Spark of Genius Series highlights a unique feature of startups and is made possible by Microsoft BizSpark. If you would like to have your startup considered for inclusion, please see the details here.

Name: StorageByMail.com

Quick Pitch: StorageByMail enables customers to ship boxes to storage using prepaid shipping labels and online inventory management.

Genius Idea: Inspired by a tiny Manhattan apartment and overpriced storage space, Daniel Hughes set about building a personal storage hobby project to meet his own needs in 2005. His idea was to turn storage into a send-by-mail system à la Netflix.

The service, StorageByMail, remained very much in prototype form until September 2009, when Hughes decided to focus his energies on his big idea and turn it into a “real” company. Since that time the young company has integrated with the United States Postal Service’s APIs, secured an important warehouse deal with a 600,000 square foot facility in New Jersey and formalized the inventory management system.

Today, should urban dwellers wish to outsource their storage needs to StorageByMail, they can do so almost entirely online and for a cost that is a fraction of what one might pay for self storage elsewhere; plans start at $29.99 per month for five boxes of any size or weight.

Customers manage their stored boxes through a personal inventory page that has the look and feel of an Outlook e-mail inbox. Here they can create a package, give it a name, attach descriptive media like photos to log inventory and print out pre-paid USPS shipping labels. Each label is equipped with a tracking number, barcode and the user-generated package name.

Warehouse employees scan packages, record package weight and height and log packages’ exact shelf location when adding them to StorageByMail’s inventory. The packages remain in storage until customers log in to StorageByMail and request their return. A requested package is shipped on the next business day, at no cost to the customer. Customers also receive email alerts at every stage in the shipping, inventory and return processes.

Minus the packing part, the StorageByMail storage process is almost painless. Packages are insured in case of damage or loss en route or while in storage should customers opt to purchase a protection plan for an additional monthly fee — $7.50 for $2,500 in coverage and $10 for $5,000 in coverage.

Of course, customer acquisition will likely be a pain point for the company until convenience outweighs concern for customers. Self-storage is certainly more manual, but consumer familiarity around the more traditional process will be a motivating factor for choosing it over StorageByMail’s more automated send-by-mail system.

Still, this frequent mover can’t help but see the convenience in a storage option that comes to me, instead of vice versa. We might be a few years out before this idea fully catches on, and traditional storage companies may very well dip their feet in and compete — like ClutterFreeBox from Personal Storage Solutions — but StorageByMail has the makings of a success story.

The startup is primarily self-funded at the moment. Hughes has been financing operations, though recently the startup competed against 111 startups in a three-month accelerator program called MassChallenge and took home $50,000 as one of the winning startups. StorageByMail should also soon close a round of funding, says Hughes.

Series Supported by Microsoft BizSpark

The Spark of Genius Series highlights a unique feature of startups and is made possible by Microsoft BizSpark, a startup program that gives you three-year access to the latest Microsoft development tools, as well as connecting you to a nationwide network of investors and incubators. There are no upfront costs, so if your business is privately owned, less than three years old, and generates less than U.S.$1 million in annual revenue, you can sign up today.

More About: bizspark, spark-of-genius, startup, StorageByMail

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Forrester: Tablets Sales Will Eclipse Laptop Sales by 2015 [STATS]

Posted: 04 Jan 2011 09:43 PM PST

Forrester published a revised — and far more aggressive — U.S. tablet sales forecast Tuesday, estimating that tablet sales will total 195 million between 2010 and 2015. The firm also predicts the majority of these tablets will bear the Apple logo.

Forrester’s projections are still considerably more conservative than forecasts recently published by eMarketer, which predicts that 81.3 million tablets will be sold in 2012 alone, up from 15.7 million this year, and Gartner, which estimates that 19.5 million tablets have been purchased this year and that sales will multiply to 54.8 million in 2011 and more than 208 million by 2014.

The numbers from Forrester are nevertheless impressive. The firm expects that tablet sales will grow from 10.3 million in 2010 to 44 million in 2015, eclipsing laptop sales by roughly 5 million units. Laptop sales will continue to grow from 26.4 million in 2010 to 38.9 million in 2015, however, while desktop PC sales will decline from 20.5 million in 2010 to 18.2 million in 2015.

Somewhat surprisingly, Forrester expects that netbook sales will continue to progress upward, albeit modestly, from 10.3 million in 2010 to 14.2 million in 2015. The report states that Forrester sees “continued consumer demand for low-priced notebooks like the ASUS Eee PC.”

More About: forrester, ipad, tablets

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HANDS ON: IdeaPad’s Laptop Screen Detaches to Become a Tablet [PICS]

Posted: 04 Jan 2011 08:58 PM PST

Lenovo’s been teasing us with this IdeaPad U1 convertible laptop/tablet since last year’s CES, but now the company claims it will be releasing the versatile PC by the second half of this year.

We were among the crowds gathered around Lenovo’s table at tonight’s “CES Unveiled” in Las Vegas to catch a glimpse of the IdeaPad U1, the tablet that’s nestled inside a laptop, detachable when all the excess weight and size of a full-fledged laptop is just too much.

This Windows laptop is still in the prototype stage, and we were told its price would be “less than $1000″ and would ship “around the June/July timeframe.”

The most unusual characteristic of the IdeaPad is that when you take its tablet out of its crimson confines, its operating system splits personalities, running a strange-looking version of Android as a tablet.

Given the more than 200,000 Android apps now available, that’s a better idea than last year’s version, which aspired to transform into a Linux-running tablet. Catch a glimpse of its skinned version of Android in the gallery below.

So many showgoers had pawed this beautiful bauble that it was covered with fingerprints, but when we touched finger to screen, it felt a lot like the near-perfect interface of the iPad. Its simple configuration of aluminum and glass is a nice combo; and even though the tablet by itself weighs a too-hefty 1.58 lb, it was still manageable.

Perhaps by midyear, Lenovo will have reduced its weight. And maybe this time, it can break free of its vaporware reputation and somehow find itself in the hands of consumers.

With our short time with it tonight, we liked it. Similar to Dell’s Inspiron Duo convertible tablet/laptop, this Lenovo innovation offers an important thing to consumers: choice. After all, if you can’t decide between a laptop and a tablet, why not have both?

Lenovo IdeaPad U1

Reviews: Android, Linux

More About: ces2011, convertible, Ideapad, IdeaPad U1, laptops, lenovo, tablets

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New Group Messaging Service Rivals BBM, GroupMe & Kik

Posted: 04 Jan 2011 08:04 PM PST

Name: Beluga

Quick Pitch: Beluga lets you send instant group messages, photos and location information across multiple platforms.

Genius Idea: For years, a major advantage for BlackBerry owners was BBM, which allows users to chat with each other instantly and without charge. But as developers get smart about group messaging, BBM is slowly being imitated (replaced?) by products that can include friends who prefer devices outside of the RIM family.

Kik, for instance, allows users to send instant messages across native iPhone and Android apps and, like BBM, notifies the sender when the messages are read. GroupMe allows users to create groups that can exchange text messages easily.

Considering that about two million people downloaded Kik within three weeks of its launch and GroupMe announced a $10.6 million round of funding today, it’s probably safe to say that Beluga — something of a combination between the two services — is onto something promising.

Beluga’s features set it apart from these two services in a couple of significant ways. Photo sharing is extremely easy and similar to Brightkite’s approach: Just select a photo from your phone and zap it into the conversation.

The same goes for your location, which can be plotted on a map along with that of other people in a pod (think about being lost at a concert).

There’s also an SMS option for friends without smartphones who you want to be part of your conversation. Unlike GroupMe, all other messages are spared text messaging charges.

The company also has plans for features that extend far beyond group messages.

“We want to build Beluga into what Gmail was for SMS. We want to make it truly cross-platform, accessible from anywhere, fully searchable so you never lose your messages unless you actively delete them. And we want to tackle the bridge between public and private sharing,” says the startup’s co-founder and president Lucy Zhang.

If Beluga does win group-messaging users over services like GroupMe and Brightkite, it will need to figure out a way to monetize the platform.

One factor that might stand its way is RIM. When Kik developed its BBM-like app, the device manufacturer reacted by pulling it from Blackberry App World and suing the startup. Self-funded Beluga hasn’t attempted to tread on BlackBerry’s app turf yet, but if its service takes off it could be interesting to see how RIM reacts.

Image courtesy of iStockphoto, Bliz

Lesson 1: Authentication

Authentication enables a system to validate a user’s identity. For more than 10 years, enterprises have been rolling out single sign-on systems to simplify the management of usernames and passwords across multiple internal systems. A huge advantage is that, if needed, you can revoke a user's account in one place and know that he or she will be denied access to all the integrated systems.

Integrate your SSO into your social system.
In the context of a social system, the identity of the user becomes paramount. Integrating this system with the store of usernames and passwords not only gives you the ability to authenticate, but provides access to other data in the directory such as organization structure. The good news is that adoption of open industry standards has radically simplified this kind of integration. Almost every company has adopted SAML (Single Assertion Markup Language) as the integration method of choice. Even some of the holdouts, like Microsoft, are now on board with providing this cheap and consistent mechanism across software. This lets solutions from both inside and outside of the enterprise connect.

Segment authentication between your internal and public communities.
An interesting and related development is that many companies now have multiple single sign-on systems. It's oxymoronic but true. One SSO is used for internal employees; another is used for external partners, vendors and/or customers. Because external communities are an important part of the social system, all the same requirements and challenges apply in both contexts. One company we spoke with had the same SSO for both internal and external communities and often people accidentally posted internal documents externally. Maintaining clear separation between these communities is important, as is keeping a bridge between them to allow the right communication and collaboration.

Don’t forget username and password basics.
It's more important than ever to remember the human element. External communities are targets of hackers all the time. People still leave passwords with their default values. People still create guessable passwords. The same goes for usernames. In one instance, a company set up its system so that an end user could choose "admin" as his username. This wasn’t done maliciously but the person did get administrative privileges and could have done real damage.

Lesson 2: Authorization

Authorization is the function of specifying the kind of data or functionality a user can access. The data that was published on WikiLeaks is an example of the danger of loose authorization. Very few individuals should have access to that much confidential information. In the enterprise context, the Sarbanes-Oxley Act (Sarb-Ox) mandates documented controls on access to information systems that can affect the finances of publicly held companies.

Map your existing data security policy to your social system.
To address Sarb-Ox compliance, some enterprises have invested in enterprise entitlement software that provides a rich model that defines access to data. Although this software is powerful, because it is relatively new and complex to deploy, it is not broadly adopted yet. If available, it provides a great starting point for integration with social business software. Even if not, most companies have a well-documented data security policy. Make sure your social system has enough fine-grained controls to map this policy directly to the forms of collaboration provided by the system.

Use your community to help secure data.
One example of where social software can provide surprising value is on the community policing of data availability. A few of our customers have implemented reward schemes for their employees who discover data that has been incorrectly shared. This helps catch a surprising amount of mistakes that cannot be caught programmatically.

Lesson 3: Accounting

Accounting typically refers to having controls and auditability of the security systems in place. This facilitates strong governance and forensics when things go wrong. More recently, people have included regulatory electronic discovery requirements in this category.

Have an e-discovery plan.
There's a wide range of systems for supporting security accounting. The current hot trend is around e-discovery solutions that can not only store this information but also help facilitate forensic investigations. This is top of mind for many IT departments today. Many of these systems were designed around e-mail. Unfortunately, the way people have integrated with them is by converting every transaction within systems (instant messaging, social business software, etc.) into an e-mail. Software is evolving rapidly and most vendors will have new capabilities that are much more suited to the richness of communication. Get educated on these solutions and start thinking about how you could roll them out.

Leverage social business software to simplify e-discovery.
Besides the obvious requirement to eventually connect the social business software to these kinds of systems, there are some hidden benefits to collaboration systems. By combining messaging, forums, document sharing, etc., these systems provide an excellent integrated source for what was previously disparate data. This makes it easier to aggregate the needed information into a single system.

Don’t Let a “WikiLeak” Happen to You

The benefits of enterprise social solutions are too great to ignore. And so are the security risks. Unsecured cloud-delivered solutions are creeping into and around enterprise in an undisciplined and dangerous way. Your company must be proactive in addressing these challenges. You need to define your security requirements for these systems and create a roll-out plan that embraces not only the critical community aspects but also how to map to compliance and regulation. It’s not overly difficult; it just takes a little time and forethought. The end results are powerful and give you the best of both worlds.

More Business Resources from Mashable:

- HOW TO: Win the War for the Most Talented Employees
- 3 Tools Realtors Can Use to Increase Sales on the Web
- 7 Handy iPhone Apps for Creating Expense Reports
- HOW TO: Get the Most Out of Facebook Insights for Small Business
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Image courtesy of iStockphoto, gulfix

Reviews: Wikileaks, iStockphoto

More About: enterprise, policy, privacy, security, social media, social software, software, wikileaks

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Miso Raises $1.5 Million and Lands a Deal with Oprah Winfrey Network

Posted: 04 Jan 2011 01:41 PM PST

Entertainment checkin startup Miso is announcing that it closed a $1.5 million Series A round led by Google Ventures — with participation from Hearst Interactive Media — at the end of 2010. The new funds are being used to hire engineers to further build out the company’s second screen platform.

Miso makes mobile and web applications that encourage television viewers to check in to the content they’re watching in exchange for points, badges and rewards. The young startup has close to 100,000 registered users — according to Miso CEO Somrat Niyogi — who engage with the service via checkins, comments or “likes” every 4 to 5 seconds.

Google Ventures, along with a handful of angel investors, previously participated in Miso’s seed round for an undisclosed sum in May 2010. Joe Kraus from Google Ventures and Scott Wolfgang from Hearst Interactive Media will be joining Miso’s board of directors.

Today, Miso is also announcing a partnership with the new Oprah Winfrey Network (OWN). As part of the partnership, television viewers who check in to Your OWN Show: Oprah's Search for the Next TV Star can earn exclusive badges. In addition, the startup has made an API available to encourage mobile application, TV site, TV manufacturer and set top box integration.

Miso competitor GetGlue raised $6 million led by Time Warner Investments in late 2010. The entertainment checkin services market is one that is becoming highly competitive, a trend that will continue in 2011 and lead to even more innovation around content consumption.

More About: entertainment, entertainment checkins, funding, miso

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Group Texting Service GroupMe Raises $10.6 Million in Funding

Posted: 04 Jan 2011 01:02 PM PST

It seems as if the idea of mass texting strikes a chord with more than just teenagers — group texting startup GroupMe has just scored $10.6 million in Series B funding in a round led by Khosla Ventures (with participation from additional new investors, including General Catalyst Partners and First Round Capital, and previous investors Lerer Ventures, Betaworks and SV Angel).

GroupMe, which was born back in May during TechCruch’s Disrupt conference, is a super simple SMS-based and device-independent servicetool that essentially lets users create chatrooms on their phones, thereby mitigating the confusion that comes from conversing with a group of friends via text.

The simple idea, however, apparently is palatable to investors. "Khosla Ventures looks for passionate, talented entrepreneurs who think big and we found that with Jared and Steve,” says David Weiden, general partner of Khosla Ventures (who is also joining the board of directors), of co-founders Jared Hecht and Steve Martocci (formerly of Gilt Group and Tumblr). "We are excited to work together."

The company previously raised $850,000 from investors including Betaworks, First Round Capital, SV Angel and Lerer Ventures — money that was essential to the startup’s well-being, considering GroupMe is powered by Twilio's voice and SMS platform, which charges per group phone number, per text and per minute for each call.

This new, far heftier chunk of change will be used to expand the startup’s team and to build new product offerings, according to GroupMe.

"We have been on a fast train, building and growing GroupMe with tons of support from the tech community, which is so crucial to taking the service more mainstream," says Hecht. "As we continue to build, GroupMe users can expect more features just like what they have experienced so far: really intuitive, useful and fun features that everyone can use."

The idea of group-texting is not unique to GroupMe — among other services, Brightkite and Fast Society have taken that plunge. However, GroupMe seems to have attracted the most attention as far as investors are concerned.

When it comes to monetization, however, a platform is not yet in place per se (the service is free). The startup plans to monetize via sponsored groups and advertising, which it is currently testing.

This seems to be a popular theme with startups of this nature — Fast Society recently announced a partnership with MTV to hype the January 17 premiere of Skins. Partnerships of this nature — which we assume GroupMe will be pursuing given the branded initiative it launched at Austin City Limits — seem to make the most sense when it comes to reaching a target audience in a non-obtrusive way.

What do you think of the burgeoning group-texting phenomenon? Does it appeal to you?

Image courtesy of Stephan Geyer, Flickr

Reviews: Brightkite, Flickr, Tumblr

More About: funding, groupme, MARKETING, Mobile 2.0, money, startup

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Why Every Brand Needs an Open API for Developers

Posted: 04 Jan 2011 12:29 PM PST

Adam Kleinberg is co-founder and CEO at Traction, an interactive agency that aligns psychology with technology to create ideas that work. Catch him tweeting at @adamkleinberg and blogging at tractionco.com/blog.

The most effective ads today are experiences that provide value to customers. The biggest challenge is providing that value at scale in a world where people are empowered to consume media on their own terms through a dizzying array of gadgets, devices and doodads.

This puts marketers between a rock and a hard place.

For years, marketers have distributed messages to people with banner ads, which are like a rock that we throw at people with the dim hope that we'll knock them upside the head. These rocks provide no value whatsoever.

Today, we’ve figured out how to create value — apps. Figuring out how to create utility is no easy path. Indeed, it is a "hard place" to reach.

But the reward is so great because with that app comes a deep and meaningful relationship with your customer — a new platform for your brand to foster long-term engagement with your target. And you are no dummy — you've even got a plan and a budget to drive downloads of your app. Bases are covered. What could go wrong?

We Already Have an App. What Could Go Wrong?

Application downloads look great in an ROI report, but when you take into account the proliferation of digital devices entering the market, the cost of producing unique brand experiences across all of them is exorbitant. You could spend a boatload of money creating and distributing this app only to have no one use it.

That's what could go wrong.

Brand APIs as Value Platforms

Ironically, it is because of this proliferation of devices that the overall demand for content and utility is increasing. Brands should create value in the form of content and utility and distribute it via platforms that extend in reach beyond proprietary channels.

Apps are just channels. To establish value platforms, I propose that brands should consider creating their own APIs.

What is an API? An API, or application programming interface, is a hook. It's one part of a software program that makes it easy for other programs to make use of a piece of its functionality or content. When APIs are made open, they can be accessed and used by anyone.

Facebook has APIs. Twitter has an API. Google has APIs out the wazoo. Why don’t brands have APIs? Well they should.

With APIs, you let other developers do your R&D for you. The benefit? You get development at scale with minimal investment. You effectively outsource risk because failures don’t cost you anything.

Brands need to think like startups. They must devise experiences that not only meet the demands of content and utility that audiences crave, but that are readily consumable in bite-sized chunks so that audiences can devour them on their own terms — and developers can serve them on theirs.

This last point is critical because it allows innovation to happen rapidly and without sustained investment.

“It Doesn’t Make Sense for My Brand”

"Not my brand," you say. It's easy to envision how brands whose core business revolves around technology or data could make use of an API. eBay has APIs that allow developers to access their database so they can create new and innovative ways to buy and sell merchandise. Netflix had more than 6,000 developers download its API to participate in its $1 million innovation competition. But what about the rest of us?

First, interfaces are becoming core to the fabric of more and more brands and products. Soon, you'll have breakfast in the morning and there will be an interface on your refrigerator. You'll hop in your car and there will be another interface. You drive to the airport, jump on a plane and voila… another interface. All of those interfaces are opportunities for brand APIs.

What if you sell macaroni and cheese? Kraft recently released a behemoth of an application for the iPad called Big Fork Little Fork that is filled with games, recipes and videos to help parents teach their kids about healthy eating and discover ways to do so using Kraft products. A worthy goal, but does it sell Kraft products? I downloaded it two months ago, but neither I nor my kids regularly use the app.

Imagine if Kraft released a simple API that allowed people to type in any ingredient and get back a list of healthy recipes from Kraft's database? As new form factors emerge (like that refrigerator interface), independent developers could create new distribution mechanisms in a fraction of the time Kraft could — and without the cost.

What's more, a company like Safeway could use that API to create its own app tied to their grocery delivery service. Customers could have all the ingredients in a selected recipe delivered to their front door. That would sell Kraft products.

APIs to Spread Utility

evian image Brands could also create APIs to allow for the spread of utility. Here are some examples for major brands. Nike could create a "Just size it" API that allowed you to take a picture of your foot and find the perfect shoe size. How would they distribute it? Let their resellers figure that out. Evian could create a hydration API that calculated how much people really ought to drink each day and then reminded them to do so. Netflix created an API so developers could come up with better ways to make movie recommendations. Why couldn't wine company Constellation Brands create an API so developers could come up with better ways to make wine recommendations?

Note that any of these ideas could make use of an app as a delivery mechanism for their API, but their underlying value comes first. By providing access to that value through an API, they would allow the delivery of that value to spread exponentially.

Sure, ideas aren't always obvious or easy to come by. They never have been. That's why some advertising works and some doesn't. Today, ideas that actually work are even harder to devise. We must not only understand the psychology of why an idea will work, but how they will work. Rather than truly gaining an understanding of the latter, many marketers fall prey to a disease called “Shiny Object Syndrome.” They follow the pack and slip the latest shiny object into their marketing plans. Last year, it was a Facebook Page. This year, it's an app.

Before you grab for that shiny object, ask yourself what you're really trying to accomplish and how best to make that happen. The best answer may not be an app. It may be an API.

More Business Resources from Mashable:

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Image courtesy of iStockphoto, enot-poloskun

Reviews: Apps, Facebook, Google, Twitter, iStockphoto

More About: api, App, apps, brand, business, MARKETING, small business

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Microsoft to Reveal Windows TV Set-top Boxes [REPORT]

Posted: 04 Jan 2011 12:08 PM PST

At CES this week, Microsoft will be unveiling new software to run on set-top boxes, offering an enhanced, connected TV experience, according to a report from The Seattle Times.

The Times reports that these boxes will be running on Microsoft’s Windows Embedded platform and use the Windows Media Center interface. Aimed at a $200 price point, these boxes could challenge efforts from Apple, Google, Boxee and others.

This isn’t the first time that Microsoft has shown off Windows TV boxes — as the Times notes, Microsoft showcased some of this functionality in April and November.

I have long wished that Microsoft would embrace the power of Windows Media Center, releasing extender devices or stand-alone set-top boxes. Aside from the Xbox 360, the company has failed to effectively execute in this space.

That’s a shame because when it comes to a remote friendly, cohesive HTPC experience, Microsoft has a terrific offering. Windows Media Center in Windows 7 blows away Apple’s Front Row experience. It also rivals the offerings that Boxee, Plex and others are putting forth on various set-top boxes. The downside has been that you need to actually connect a computer to your television (or buy an Xbox 360).

If Microsoft does end up unveiling a new Windows TV set-top box — and if the price and featureset can match the offerings of its competitors, the company could have a winner. This would be even more true if some of the enhanced content offerings Microsoft is pursuing come to fruition.

We’re already seeing lots of movements in the connected TV space, and CES hasn’t even officially started. Mashable’s Ben Parr will be reporting live from Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer’s keynote session tomorrow night.

Would you be interested in a Windows TV set-top box?

Reviews: Boxee, Google, Mashable, Windows

More About: ces2011, connected tv, iptv, microsoft, windows media center, windows tv

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6 Reasons You Can’t Miss the #MashableAwards

Posted: 04 Jan 2011 11:53 AM PST

If you haven’t already reserved a seat for this year’s Mashable Awards Gala at the 2011 International CES Convention Week in Las Vegas, we wanted to give you an extra push with some reasons why you can’t miss this celebration.

Kicking off the opening night of CES on Thursday, January 6, 2011, we’re excited to have comedian Baratunde Thurston, The Onion’s director of digital, hosting the Mashable Awards Gala at the Cirque du Soleil Zumanity theater at the New York New York Hotel. The gala will feature a special Cirque du Soleil Zumanity performance, as well as the DJ/VJ stylings of remix masters Eclectic Method.

These are just a few of the reasons to attend this year’s Mashable Awards Gala.

1. The Mashable Awards Winners

After receiving nearly a million nominations, we’re going to announce this year’s winners at the Gala. Attendees will be the first to find out who the winners are, many of whom will be in attendance to accept their awards. Come celebrate with the winners. Check out the complete list of finalists to see who is nominated for each category.

2. Pete Cashmore & the Mashable Team

Along with the the Mashable Awards Gala, Mashable team members will be on the exhibit floor covering CES. We'll be bringing you the latest news, interviews and live streams from all of the hottest keynotes, booths and conference sessions. Mashable’s Pete Cashmore, Adam Ostrow, Adam Hirsch, Sharon Feder, Ben Parr, Vadim Lavrusik, Christina Warren, Stacy Green, Karen Hartline and special guest presenters will join Thurston and Eclectic Method in announcing and celebrating this year’s winners.

3. Special Performances

The event will feature the VJ/DJ stylings of Eclectic Method, who will play a full set prior to the awards show, and it will also feature a special Cirque du Soleil Zumanity performance and the comedic stylings of our host, Baratunde Thurston. If you’ve ever seen Thurston perform, you know that he’s someone you don’t want to miss and will have you laughing all night long.

4. Antoine Dodson

The “Bed Intruder Song” from Auto-Tune the News, which featured Antoine Dodson, was the most-watched, non-major label video on YouTube this year with 47.5 million views. The auto-tuned parody of a news cast inspired hundreds of others to create their own videos as a tribute. The song even hit the Billboard Hot 100 across every single genre.

Dodson, the man who was auto-tuned, will be speaking at the gala.

5. Prizes, People, Fun

One lucky Mashable Awards attendee will win the last spot to the Focus Global Test Drive in Spain. During the Mashable Awards, at the entrance of the New York New York Hotel in Las Vegas, there will be a 2012 Ford Focus. Simply take a picture with the car and tweet the photo with the hashtag #FordCES. That’s it! One lucky person will be chosen at random from all the completed tweets. The winner will be announced live during the Mashable Awards Gala by J Mays, Group Vice President of Design and Chief Creative Officer of the Ford Motor Company.

Also, BlackBerry will be giving away upgrades to the Mashable Awards VIP section. All you’ll need to do is follow BlackBerry on Foursquare, check in at the BlackBerry table using #bbtweettoseat when you arrive at the Zumanity Theater for your chance to win! There are a limited number of exclusive seats and they're going to fill up fast, so see you at the BlackBerry table on January 6!

Of course aside from the prizes, you’ll have a chance to mix it up and have fun with social media and tech influencers.

6. A Not-to-Be-Missed After Party

The Mashable Awards Gala After Party, sponsored by BlackBerry, will start immediately following the show at ROK club in the New York New York Hotel and Casino, just a short walk from the Zumanity theater. Join us for dancing to a DJ mix, open bar and a dram of The Macallan.

The Mashable Awards Gala at CES (Vegas)

In partnership with Cirque du Soleil, The Mashable Awards Gala event will bring together the winners and nominees, the Mashable community, partners, media, the marketing community, consumer electronics and technology brands, and attendees from the 2011 International CES Convention to Las Vegas on Thursday, January 6, 2011.

Date: Thursday, January 6, 2011 (during International CES Convention week)
Time: 7:00 – 10:00 p.m. PT
Location: Cirque du Soleil Zumanity, New York New York Hotel, Las Vegas
Agenda: Networking, Open Bars, Acts, Surprises and the Mashable Awards Gala presentations
Socialize: Facebook, Foursquare, Meetup, Plancast, Twitter (Hashtag: #MashableAwards)

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Join us at the 2011 International CES®, the global platform for inspired ideas and innovation. With 2,500 exhibitors, CES continues to be the world's largest consumer technology tradeshow and always reflects the dynamic consumer electronics industry. The International CES is not open to the general public and all attendees must be in the CE industry to be eligible to attend the show. Register FREE for the 2011 CES with priority code MSHB, an exclusive promotion for Mashable Readers.

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Facebook Users Upload Record-Breaking 750M Photos Over New Year’s Weekend

Posted: 04 Jan 2011 11:38 AM PST

A record-breaking 750 million photos were uploaded to Facebook over New Year’s weekend, the social network announced Tuesday afternoon.

The news follows a much bigger announcement made Monday: namely, that Facebook has received $450 million in a new round of funding from Goldman Sachs and $50 million from Russian investment firm Digital Sky Technologies.

Photos is arguably Facebook’s most popular feature, and one that the social network has improved through a number of product updates this year.

Most notably, Facebook began displaying “related photos” on a right-hand sidebar to encourage further photo exploration (and page views) in May, and in late September, users were able to upload high-resolution photos to the network, as well as view full-size photos in the News Feed. The last major update, released in October, brought drag-and-drop album organization to Photos, one of the most-requested features for the Photos product.

It’s no surprise that Facebook is breaking new records given the massive acceleration of user registrations in 2010, but the improvements to the product, we think, can also be attributed to its growing success.

Reviews: Facebook

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Nissan Launches Location-Based Promotion With SCVNGR

Posted: 04 Jan 2011 11:30 AM PST

What better partner for a location-based service than a car company? That’s the thinking behind a new promotion for the Nissan Juke with SCVNGR, which challenges consumers to “Juke the City” in various U.S. cities for the chance to win the car.

The effort, which kicked off on January 3, takes place in Chicago, New York, Los Angeles and San Francisco. Residents of those cities who complete challenges at select places with SCVNGR Rewards are entered into a drawing. Such challenges include “Juke Box,” in which consumers can earn three points by scanning records in a jukebox and picking a favorite on a driving playlist and “Try Everything,” which awards three points for snapping a photo of tapas-style plates at participating restaurants.

The deal is the latest in a string of marketing tie-ins for SCVNGR, which most recently launched a New Year’s Eve program with American Eagle and a Black Friday-themed promotion with Coca-Cola. (SCVNGR also closed $15 million in funding today.)

Nissan’s Juke, “mini-crossover,” starts at $18,960, a price that puts it in the range of Gen Y consumers. Todd Turner, president of consultancy Car Concepts, says that Juke is Nissan’s latest bid to capture that market and the model’s design (pictured) was “intentionally controversial” because the brand is trying to keep older consumers away. The company tried for a similar effect with the Cube, which, like Toyota’s Scion brand, had a higher median age range for buyers than was desired.

Though a location-based effort like this one with SCVNGR is likely to appeal to a younger consumer, Turner says that the promo is “risky business” because parents are increasingly wary about having their children broadcast their whereabouts. “We see more and more warnings indicating that this might not be a safe thing to do,” says Turner of location-based marketing promotions. “I think this fad will be short-lived.”

More About: Juke, Nissan, scvngr

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The Muppets Do Kanye West’s “Monster” — Again [VIDEO]

Posted: 04 Jan 2011 11:24 AM PST

I know, I know, we posted a video to this effect yesterday, but the above vid is truly worth a mention. Created by a dedicated (and perhaps foolhardy) team at content creation site The Galaxy World, this is Muppified “Monster” as it was meant to be (whatever that means).

Note: As always with this song, this video has NSFW language.

According to Michael DiSalvo, the team’s “ideas man,” the video’s crew — which includes designer Michael Deal (of “Charting the Beatles” fame) and video editor Tim Heintzelman (who edits video for the Boston Red Sox) — came up with the concept weeks ago.

“The original idea was born out of our failure to produce a video of a man in a bee costume dancing to the Black Eyed Peas’ ‘Imma Be,’” DiSalvo says. “We like to think of it as our redemption.”

“The team spent hours pouring over Muppet movies and YouTube clips and tried to find anything that presented the Muppets in their true, rough nature,” DiSalvo adds. “Naturally, we take things very literally, especially Kanye lyrics, because it is pretty obvious that he is a very literal and realistic person.”

Footage was taken from The Muppet Christmas Carol, The Muppet Movie, The Muppets Take Manhattan, as well as Sesame Street and The Muppet Show.

The Muppets are pretty famous for covering popular songs in an official capacity, but there’s also an odd trend out there among YouTubers when it comes to the creation of unofficial covers — Lady Gaga’s “Telephone” and M.O.P.’s “Ante Up” spring to mind.

When asked why he thinks the Muppets are such a popular vehicle for parody, DiSalvo said, “Growing up, everyone loved the Muppets, but they were always so innocent. It’s fun to apply their whimsical and childish look to adult themes. It’s so out of place, that it’s entertaining.”

Reviews: YouTube

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10 Apps to Watch in 2011

Posted: 04 Jan 2011 09:27 AM PST

There are more than 200,000 apps in the Android market. There are more than 325,000 apps available for iOS devices. Even the fledgling Windows Phone 7 app marketplace already has greater than 5,300 apps. Throw in the wide world of web applications and, forget about it: you’d need many lifetimes to try them all.

However, there are just 10 apps you really should keep a very close watch on in 2011. The list below represents the 10 applications — for mobile and the web — that Mashable editors think will be worthy of your attention in 2011. Let us know in the comments which of these picks you agree or disagree with, and which applications you’re excited about for next year.

1. The Daily

The Daily is the News Corp's iPad-only newspaper that is set to launch in January with each daily edition costing $0.99 to download. News Corp has invested a lot resources by hiring some 100 journalists and attracting top talent. Rupert Murdoch is trying to reinvent the daily distribution model and move it to the iPad. Because it's such a big investment and features original content for the iPad, it will be an app to watch.

-Vadim Lavrusik, Community Manager

2. Ge.tt

Since Drop.io was purchased and disbanded by Facebook, there's certainly a need for free, web-based, acount-less and super simple file sharing. Ge.tt's unlimited file size allotment, temporary URLs and elegant design make it a good candidate to fill Drop.io's shoes – that is until Facebook or Google finally build something more powerful.

-Matt Silverman, Associate Features Editor

3. GetGlue

GetGlue is one of the few checkin apps that offers something the other major players (i.e. Foursquare, Facebook Places, Gowalla, SCVNGR, Loopt, etc.) don't: checkins for activities performed mainly in the home. It also has one of the best recommendation engines I've come across. There's considerable incentive for brands to partner here, which should bring GetGlue into the mainstream the way (if not to the extent) that Foursquare was brought in in 2010.

-Lauren Indvik, Assistant Editor

4. Bizzy

Fledgling startup Bizzy relaunched its website in 2010, focusing on customizing local recommendations based on a user's favorite locations. In December, it also relaunched its iPhone app that enables users to find nearby recommendations on a simple Google Maps integration. The Bizzy team has more functionalities in store for us in 2011, which may make it as useful for finding local places to visit — if not more so — as Yelp, Google Maps and Foursquare.

-Erica Swallow, Assistant Editor

5. Flipboard

Launched earlier this year as the iPad's social magazine, Flipboard transforms social and news feeds into an interface nothing short of gorgeous, but the company and its founder Mike McCue have far bigger plans as they try to reshape news and journalism. Watch out for some big moves in 2011.

-Ben Parr, Co-Editor

6. Kik

Kik is like BBM, but it works across iPhone and Android phones, which makes it infinitely more useful for staying in touch with friends. It's a free, instantaneous alternative to text messaging that also allows users to see when their messages are received. No wonder more than 2 million people downloaded it within the first three weeks of its launch.

-Sarah Kessler, Features Writer

7. ShopKick

Although it currently lacks the consumer awareness or social utility of Foursquare or Facebook Places, Shopkick might have the most commercially viable model in the checkin space. Coupons are a concept that the mainstream inherently "gets" and wants. Retailers want to offer location-based programs that are verifiable (and Target and Best Buy have already signed on). And the ubiquity of smartphones will only increase. All of that leaves Shopkick in a position for a breakout year.

-Adam Ostrow, Editor-in-Chief

8. Path

With obile photo sharing becoming more popular and Path's focus on being a personal network, and setting a limit to the number of connections you can add, will attract users looking to connect with their real-life connections. Also, focusing on mobile is smart, considering more users are now checking social networking sites on their mobile phone than e-mail. The founding team also has some star power with the likes of former Facebook senior platform manager Dave Morin, Macster co-creator Dustin Mierau and Napster co-founder Shawn Fanning.

-Vadim Lavrusik, Community Manager

9. Instagram

Instagram made a big splash in 2010, having created the first (successful) social photo experience for the iPhone, and thus making it a likely acquisition target in 2011.

-Lauren Indvik, Assistant Editor

10. GroupMe

If you think SMS is exploding, wait until you see what happens in 2011. Phone calls are going the way of the dinosaur for the less intrusive and more manageable stream of texts coming to our smartphones. GroupMe is poised to bring group texting to the masses with its $9+ million funding round and rapidly growing user base.

-Ben Parr, Co-Editor

Reviews: Android, Facebook, Google, Google Maps, Gowalla, Mashable, Path, Yelp, foursquare, instagram

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Boxee Gets a New Hardware Partner

Posted: 04 Jan 2011 09:13 AM PST

Just in time for CES, Boxee has announced a new hardware partnership with Iomega that will bring the Boxee media center software to a series of Network Attached Storage (NAS) devices.

Dubbed Iomega TV with Boxee, the new devices are similar to the Boxee Box by D-Link that started shipping back in November. The Iomega TV with Boxee will be with either 1TB or 2TB hard drives or in a model without onboard storage. Like the Boxee Box, the Iomega TV with Boxee runs on the Intel Atom processor and with built-in Ethernet, 802.11n Wi-Fi, composite and HDMI outputs and support for additional storage via USB.

In its blog post announcing the new product, Boxee notes that the shared system-on-a-chip architecture between Iomega’s devices and the Boxee Box will make it easier for Boxee developers, as the firmware can be virtually identical.

The Boxee software platform supports more than 150 different apps that let users access online video, Twitter, Facebook, Pandora and more. Boxee is also a social platform, meaning you can share what you are watching with your friends and also see what they are watching or listening to.

The remote control that Iomega is using is also similar in its setup as the innovative remote Boxee introduced on the Boxee Box.

This partnership is an important move for Boxee, a company that has built up lots of good will amongst users, but is finding itself smack in the middle of a veritable buffet of connected device solutions and options.

Not only does Boxee face competition from companies like Apple, Roku and the Google TV, the device makers that Boxee needs to partner with are often rolling their own interface and connectivity options. Boxee’s biggest strength remains the ease at which the software can connect users with their offline and online media. When it comes to accessing existing content — Boxee is almost unparalleled in its support of formats and codecs. However, as users increasingly move to consuming most of their media from streaming solutions, partnerships with these companies becomes essential. Frustratingly, some of the supported services that work just fine on Boxee running on a Mac or PC are still in the process of being ported to the Boxee set-top systems.

We still think Boxee has a better handle on managing and serving media — from a technical and usability aspect — than most of its competitors, but the hardware and service partnerships — especially when talking about connected devices — are essential to the platform’s ultimate success.

The Iomega TV with Boxee is slated to be available for purchase in February 2011. The diskless version of the box will retail for $229.99, the 1TB model will retail for $299.99 and the 2TB version will retail for $349.99.

In addition to acting as a Boxee interface, the NAS also supports DLNA for better integration with the rest of your connected devices. Iomega will be at CES showing off the new devices — and we’ll be sure to swing by to take a hands-on look.

Reviews: Boxee, Facebook, Pandora, Twitter

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Amazon to Release Kindle Apps for Android & Windows Tablets

Posted: 04 Jan 2011 08:12 AM PST

Ahead of the abundance of Android and Window-based tablets set to be unveiled at the Consumer Electronics Show (CES) in Las Vegas this week, Amazon has announced that it plans to release free Kindle apps for devices running either operating system.

The apps will allow users to purchase and read Kindle books on both kinds of tablets, automatically syncing with apps already available on a range of other devices, including desktops (Mac, PC and web), smartphones (iPhone, Android, BlackBerry and Windows 7), Kindle e-readers, iPod touches and iPads. It’s all part of Amazon’s strategy to make the Kindle Store available on as many devices as possible.

We’ve followed up with Amazon to see precisely when the company plans to make the Kindle apps available, and will update this post with any further information.

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Pandora Radio Coming to Toyota Connected Cars

Posted: 04 Jan 2011 08:01 AM PST

Ford isn’t the only auto company pursuing the connected car experience — Toyota also wants in on this emerging space. At CES in Las Vegas Tuesday, Toyota announced that it will be bringing Pandora to the Toyota Entune multimedia system.

Toyota’s Entune platform is similar to the Microsoft Auto platform that Ford uses for SYNC, but is built on a platform from Nuance. This platform allows users to use voice commands to perform tasks like tuning into Pandora radio stations, looking up directions and integrating with other web services.

In addition to Pandora, Toyota’s Entune system is also rolling out apps for Bing, OpenTable, iheartradio and MovieTickets.com. Users install an Entune app on their iPhone, Android or BlackBerry smartphone, which then communicates with the built-in touch screen in the dash. Only the Entune app needs to be downloaded to the smartphone; the other apps are run and controlled from the server.

Like Ford SYNC, Entune integrates with a car’s navigation system. In addition to radio, movie ticket and restaurant reservations, the system will also offer traffic details, gas prices and weather. In a similar vein to the Enform system already in some Lexus vehicles, Entune can deliver sports scores and stock quotes.

Toyota plans to roll out its first Entune-equipped cars later this year. The approach the company is taking with connectivity is slightly different from what Ford has been doing with SYNC, but the end goal of a connected automobile that can integrate with what the system’s users already use in a seamless and unobtrusive way is something the auto industry as a whole seems to share.

As a big fan of the potential offered by the connected car, I think it’s great to see automakers like Toyota getting in on the game.

Disclosure: Ford is a sponsor of the Mashable Awards.

Reviews: Bing, Pandora

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School Tech: 6 Important Lessons From Maine’s Student Laptop Program

Posted: 04 Jan 2011 08:00 AM PST

When students at Skowhegan Area Middle School decided to undertake a study of the town’s history, they departed from traditional readings and paper writing. They instead made podcasts about historical landmarks that cumulatively produced a walking tour, recorded interviews with town elders and created websites for local farmers. Like the 225 other middle schools in Maine, every seventh and eighth grade student has been provided with a laptop computer, making projects like these accessible.

"It's just a part of how we do business now, and in some ways we're starting to take it for granted,” explains Michael Muir, who helped design the leadership development program for the initiative that brought one-to-one computing to Maine. “It's very exciting because it's now a part of the culture of teaching middle school in Maine … that all the kids have laptops and you teach with technology, and it's exciting because it's no longer the new thing."

In 2002, the state of Maine signed a $37 million contract with Apple that provided laptops to 33,000 middle school students and 3,000 teachers. The contract was extended in 2006 and expanded in 2009 to include some high schools. All seventh graders, all eighth graders, and students at 55% of Maine’s high schools are currently issued laptops. At the launch of the initiative, the state made no apologies about how it had chosen to spend its one-time state surplus.

“The challenge is familiar, but the imperative is new: we must prepare young people to thrive in a world that doesn't exist yet, to grapple with problems and construct new knowledge which is barely visible to us today,” reads the the 2001 request for proposal.

It’s been about 10 years since Maine implemented its initiative, and while at least 33 states had experimented with one-to-one computing projects by 2007, none have reached the scope of Maine’s project. As jobs and life increasingly involve computers, it’s clear that in order to remain relevant to students, schools will need to adopt more technology. Here are six lessons about doing so successfully, taken from Maine’s initiative.

1. Treat Technology as a Tool, Not a Curriculum Area

Bette Manchester, who directed the program for its first seven years, organized many training sessions for teachers, but none of them focused on how to use software.

“You would say, ‘What are the objectives we're trying to teach in mathematics?’ And then you would work backwards and say, ‘OK, what kind of software or what kind of resources would help the students in middle school learn algebra,’ for instance,” she says. “So you would be selecting your resources based on what you decided you were teaching the students and work backwards, instead of buying a bunch of math software and having no clue what you are going to do with it.”

Instead of running a workshop for teachers on how to use a spreadsheet, for example, the state might hold workshops on collecting and analyzing data. While the teachers left the training knowing how to use a spreadsheet, the focus remained on the learning.

2. Think Differently About Teaching

This graphic, from a presentation at one of Maine’s teacher training sessions, shows different levels of technology integration.

Muir and his colleagues who work on technology initiatives in schools jokingly refer to their main obstacle as APP or “adult paradigm paralysis.” In order for technology to enhance education, Muir says, schools need to change the way they think about education. And that can be a difficult process.

“I think there's still a lot of assumption that a school is doing a good job if kids are sitting in rows and being quiet and the teacher is at the front of the room directing the activities,” Muir says. “And the new paradigm that took a while for people to get used to is kids working on projects, kids looking up the same information not necessarily all from the same place and sharing what they're learning about a topic — a lot of small group work and kind of a productive hubbub in the room.”

When the laptops were first introduced, there were some teachers who merely substituted a computer projector for a traditional one or used the computers only to assign homework. This kind of technology use obviously wasn’t going to make a change worth the investment of the laptops.

Research suggests that classroom technology initiatives are only as effective as their teachers. It’s only when teachers in Maine used the laptops to connect students to resources, interact with students in other parts of the world, extend discussions, create multimedia and work on collaborative projects that students started becoming more engaged. The new tools had the capability to diversify teaching methods, but only if teachers were willing to explore them.

3. Decide to Do It, Not Pilot It

Maine never ran a pilot program for the initiative. It did have nine exploratory schools during a “phase one” of the project, but there was never a question of whether the program would continue. The departure from the term “pilot” was intentional.

“If you do a pilot to see if you want to do it, nobody will take it seriously because there's no guarantee that the program will continue,” Muir says. “Well, if people don't take it seriously and put their time and energy into it, it's no wonder that the program isn't going to continue.”

4. Concentrate on Current Curriculum Initiatives at First

Students at Skowhegan Area Middle School created a podcast walking tour of their town to explore its history.

As the technology integrationist at Skowhegan Area Middle School, Laura Richter works with teachers to design projects like the town history unit. She admits that not every teacher has been as eager to work with technology as she is. "They weren't able to see that this isn’t beyond and extra, this really is a part of what you're already doing,” she says about teachers who have been hesitant to integrate digital learning.

To help these teachers adjust to using computers in class, Richter asked them to look at the projects they were already working on and think about how they could enhance them using digital resources. A teacher already working on a unit about irrigation in ancient Egypt, for instance, could ask students to look up an illustration on the Internet rather than providing one from a textbook. When a variety of images portrayed the system differently, they could discuss those differences.

Another approach that Muir says helped initiate this kind of thinking without overwhelming teachers was to ask teachers who were beginning the laptop program in their classes to do at least one new thing with the laptops before December.

“Almost always it was like putting a pinhole in a dam,” Muir says. “Once you got them started it was kind of hard to stop them. But setting that expectation made it clear that it was an expectation, that you had to do something, but it also it got people over that initial hump of getting started.”

5. Support Teachers as Much as Possible

“There was resistance, and it came from fear,” Manchester says. “I can't say that people weren't very worried about how it was going to go and very fearful, because you can imagine as a teacher … in a middle school you see 100 students over the course of a day, and all of those students are on the Internet at the same time and may be much more adept at using technology than you are. That’s a pretty scary situation for a teacher.”

One thing that Maine did right was not abandoning teachers with a class full of laptops and no direction on how to use them. The state paid for substitute teachers while full-time teachers attended training sessions and held workshops where school leaders could exchange ideas. Every principal was provided with a stipend to appoint a teacher as a tech leader. Maine continues to maintain a resource website as well as provide training sessions, web seminars and even instructional podcasts (iTunes link).

“This isn't unique to laptops, but if you're going to ask teachers to do something new, train them, support them, and give them professional development in an ongoing fashion. Have them share information with each other,” Muir says.

6. Make Technology Part of Teachers’ Everyday Language, Too

Before Richter became a technology integrationist, she conducted technology trainings for teachers around the state. One success factor she noticed among new laptop schools was whether principals from a school used technology themselves.

“In the schools where you had principals who were themselves using technology [and] delivering class development information or communicating with teachers digitally, [computer use] became part of [the teachers'] classrooms faster,” she says. “It was their way of connecting with the administration, and then it was easier for them to say, ‘OK, this is the real world, students need to be using this tool also.’”

More Education Resources from Mashable:

- 8 Ways Technology Is Improving Education
- The Case For Social Media in Schools
- How Online Classrooms Are Helping Haiti Rebuild Its Education System
- The Case for the Virtual Classroom
- 7 Fantastic Free Social Media Tools for Teachers

Reviews: Internet

More About: 1-to-1 computing, computers in classroom, education, Kids, laptop, Lessons, List, Lists, Maine, school, technolgoy and education

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Support a Charity Just by Watching YouTube

Posted: 04 Jan 2011 07:44 AM PST

BroadbandTV Corp. recently launched a YouTube destination to get your social good on. The site, named VISO Give, aggregates pre-existing video content from non-profits, sorts it by company name and type of cause, and lets you watch or search for your favorites.

VISO Give features videos from celebrities like the cast members of Community asking you not to text while driving, Usher speaking about getting out the vote and Nick Jonas promoting music education outreach on behalf of DoSomething.org. However, the channel also gives equal billing to smaller non-profits like a bobcat rescue or regional homeless job centers that might not have the same exposure or celebrity backing.

What makes the site interesting is its emphasis on providing a service not just to users looking for videos, but to the non-profits looking for help. Charities usually have to fight for two things: exposure and funding. VISO Give helps with both. VISO, the consumer branch of BroadbandTV, already rakes in more than 1 billion impressions through YouTube, via its video game and movie trailers channels. That built-in fan base will hopefully convert to the new channel and send new eyeballs to non-profits of all sizes.

The channel also aims to help with funding by giving 60% of the non-profits’ associated ad revenue. The other 40% will be reinvested in the channel. While YouTube ad revenue is notoriously low (think: pennies per view), that number can quickly add up with enough views. Essentially, every time you watch a video on VISO Give, you’re indirectly donating to that charity. To help, there will be additional direct donation links posted with each video.

There’s always the worry that big brands with aggregation services will end up co-opting content from their smaller content providers — using the videos to drive traffic to their own sites. However, it’s free for non-profits to sign up and VISO Give has intelligently made the channel non-exclusive, meaning non-profits can post or place their videos on rival sites or keep them native. It’s a nice move by VISO and BroadbandTV and reinforces the idea that the channel is there to help.

VISO Give has already partnered with a number of non-profits, including Livestrong and the United Way, but hopes to expand and grow its catalogue.

What do you think? Is VISO Give something you’d check out? What’s the merit of potentially passive philanthropy like this, as opposed to direct fundraising or awareness campaigns? Let us know in the comments below.

Reviews: YouTube

More About: broadbandtv, charity, non-profit, social good, videos, viso, viso give, youtube

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Starz Launches TV Series With Facebook Game

Posted: 04 Jan 2011 07:25 AM PST

Catering to fans’ growing belief that a TV show should live on in other forms of media, cable network Starz is launching the series Spartacus: Gods of the Arena, a Facebook game and an iPad app.

The former, which launches January 6 to the first 10,000 Spartacus fans who register on the network’s Facebook Page, is one of the first social media games based on a TV show. The game lets you run your own Ludus (gladiator school) in the role of Lanista (manager of gladiators) and assemble your team to be fighting champions and do battle in the top arenas of the Roman Empire. The full launch is set for January 21. Starz Digital Media, the network’s digital and online unit, worked with social media gaming publisher 6waves on the launch.

Starz is also planning to introduce an iPad app based on Spartacus on January 22 that provides a screenplay of the show augmented by exclusive multimedia video segments, directors’ notes and cast photos, among other extras. The app is free via Starz’ iTunes storefront [iTunes link], but subsequent scripts will cost $0.99 each. Starz had previously released an iPad app for The Pillars of the Earth.

Ian Schafer, CEO of Deep Focus, a digital agency that has worked with cable networks TMC and HBO on launches, says a Facebook game is a natural add-on for a TV show these days. “It’s an evolution of what’s being expected from consumers,” says Schafer. “People expect some kind of trans-media experience.”

However, Schafer notes that developing a game of this scope could also fail. “It’s a crowded space,” says Schafer. “There’s no guarantee of success.”

Reviews: Facebook

More About: 6waves, facebook, starz, television, tv

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Your Next TV Remote Might Have a Netflix Button

Posted: 04 Jan 2011 07:17 AM PST

Just ahead of CES, Netflix has announced that consumers will soon be able to access Netflix content on supported consumer electronics devices, directly from a button on their remote controls.

Netflix has partnered with several consumer electronics leaders to bring a Netflix-branded button to the remote controls for televisions, Blu-ray players and other set-top boxes that support the Netflix Watch Instantly streaming service.

Those leaders include Dynex (Best Buy’s house brand), Haier, Memorex, Panasonic, Samsung, Sharp, Sony and Toshiba. Netflix says Sharp, Sony and Toshiba will also be using Netflix buttons on their Internet connected TV sets. Connected device companies like Boxee, Iomega and Roku will also feature Netflix remote control buttons.

In the past few years, Netflix has worked to license its streaming technology to just about every connected device on the planet. In my own home (and granted, I’m atypical), I have no less than six different Netflix streaming devices at my disposal — and that’s before counting smartphones, tablets and Macs and PCs. In fact, trying to find a Blu-ray player that doesn’t support Netflix is almost impossible unless a consumer is going upmarket (higher-end players from Oppo, Denon and others generally do not support connected services). This trend has already started to move to HDTV sets and we expect the connected space in this arena to continue to expand into 2011.

The license-freely strategy that Netflix has employed has had a positive impact on its bottom line. The company says it has more than 16 million subscribers in the U.S. and Canada collectively, and it was recently added to the S&P 500. In November, the company made its first significant move away from the DVD rental business, by adding a $7.99 streaming-only plan for customers in the U.S.

As consumers move away from disc-based media and turn to streaming solutions, Netflix is in a unique position of being exactly on-trend. The company is investing in newer content for both film and television for its streaming services and is proving to be a formidable competitor to the News Corp/ABC/NBC-backed Hulu and its subscription Hulu Plus service.

Hulu is employing similar strategies with device licensing and pricing for its Hulu Plus service, but the big benefit that Netflix has, by virtue of being on the market longer, is its reach. A number of companies have already signed up to provide Hulu Plus content on their devices, but the rollout is taking time.

Meanwhile, by securing prominent, branded placement on remote controls, Netflix is solidly promoting and reinforcing its branding to customers and future customers alike.

Reviews: Blu, Boxee, Connected, Hulu, Internet, Netflix Watch Instantly, abc

More About: ces2011, connected devices, connected tv, iptv, netflix, netflix streaming, trending

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1. Treat Technology as a Tool, Not a Curriculum Area

2. Think Differently About Teaching

3. Decide to Do It, Not Pilot It

4. Concentrate on Current Curriculum Initiatives at First

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