Akimbo, online video delivery company, throws in towel for good
We’re hearing that Akimbo, the San Mateo, Calif. video set-top box company that raised millions of dollars in fresh funding less than three months ago to make a fresh start in a new direction, has just thrown in the towel anyway.In February, Akimbo brought in a new management team, $8 million in fresh funding [Update: Apparently, the company only raised $4M; the original announcement of $8 million had been a targeted amount, but it only ever raised $4M] and refashioned its technology to help video publishers deliver their own video online. It also wanted to help publishers monetize the video, by offering them ways to charge for pay-per-minute content, run advertising and subscriptions.
Google: White Space Broadband Inevitable says Page
Microsoft, Google and Dell have formed the backbone of a six-partner coalition named the Wireless Innovation Alliance. Their goal is to use the so-called unlicensed "white space" spectrum -- partially freed by the migration to digital television -- to offer un-served consumers inexpensive Internet access via the airwaves (with these companies obviously providing the hardware, software and most importantly to Google: ads).
However, tests at the FCC haven't gone well, with an initial round of testing showing the device couldn't cleanly avoid nearby signals, and a second round suffering from power problems. That isn't stopping Google co-founder Larry Page from sharing his vision of "Wi-Fi on steroids" as part of a discussion this week at the New America Foundation (see video). The Google blog suggests Page believes it's inevitable:
Insatiable Demand for Bandwidth and Need for ‘F...
Broadband access networks are undergoing a change in terms of architecture and the applications and services being run on them. This change will have fundamental implications on the way access networks and associated business models are viewed. Service providers must consider network architectures that can address the challenges posed by the changing trends in end-user broadband usage.
Mobile TV using indoor wireless
While many mobile network operators (MNOs) are planning to use a combination of 3G and dedicated mobile broadcasting networks to deliver mobile TV and video services, they must not overlook emerging alternatives, according to a new report, Critical Ingredients of Mobile TV: femtocells and sideloading, published by Analysys Mason.
Many MNOs already offer TV and video services over their 3G networks. Concerns over capacity and quality of service are driving MNOs to combine 3G networks with dedicated mobile broadcasting networks (such as DVB-H and MediaFLO). However, these are not the only ways of delivering mobile TV content. Indoor wireless systems (such as femtocells and WLAN) and sideloading (where content is transferred from a PC or other device to memory in a mobile handset) are important delivery mechanisms with valuable benefits.
Welcome to Las Vegas - Home of the technology superpower you've never heard of
Drive a couple of blocks past the Loose Caboose and the Carburetor Shop on E. Sahara Avenue in Las Vegas, and you'll find one of the world's leading technology companies. The name of the company - Switch Communications - will go unrecognized by almost all of you. That's because it has operated in near total secrecy for the last few years. Switch has preferred to keep its gold mine a need-to-know type of affair. "Pay no attention to the secure fortress in the strip mall."
A few months ago, word of Switch's apparently fantastic operations started to reach my in-box. Most of the people who visited the Switch facility were bound by non-disclosure agreements, but that failed to stop them from leaking out a few choice details. "This is the most advanced computing center in the world," I was told. "It's like the internet superhighway wrapped up in one package. All the heavies are there."
BitTorrent’s Achilles’ Heel
The popular BitTorrent web site Mininova was sued by the Dutch anti-piracy organization BREIN this week in a bid to get Mininova to filter unlicensed content. The organization has had some success in the past against Edonkey and BitTorrent web sites, so there is at least a possibility that Mininova will be forced to either take down most of its torrent files or shut down completely. Either way, it would be a big blow for the BitTorrent community. Since launching in early 2005, Mininova has quickly become one of the biggest BitTorent directories, with almost 5 billion torrent downloads to date.
Championship Gaming Series Launches YouTube Channel
Worldwide gaming league Championship Gaming Series is launching its official YouTube channel. The channel will offer high-quality content from CGS' pro gaming broadcasts to YouTube's audience, Online Media Daily learned Thursday. Ad-supported content from CGS will be uploaded to a dedicated partner channel, the league plans to announce during the L.A. Games Conference on Friday.
Measuring Online Engagement Seen as Key to Boos...
Online video sites and services like Break.com and Blip.tv are in the early stages of striking partnerships with Web analytics firms to offer more detailed information on how long consumers watch online video. That type of data can help sites develop a means to measure “engagement,” an increasingly sought-after measure of how much attention advertising gets. Advertisers say they are keen for more data on how long Web viewers stay tuned in to a video, whether they fast-forward and when they stop watching. These efforts to apply more detailed metrics to online video probably will accelerate the flow of advertising dollars into the growing online video business, media agency and video Web site executives said. Also, these initiatives are yet another sign of the maturation of the Web video economy, as online video advertising moves beyond the experimental phase
Dan Raeburn summarises CDN challenges
Dan spoke about this years SME conference, some of the challenges facing CDN's, how to monetize content issues facing Creatives
Microsoft spiffs up Mediaroom developers’ kit
Microsoft this week released a beta version of its Microsoft Mediaroom Presentation Framework to the 150 software developers that are part of the Microsoft program, allowing them to now directly import Web Services content into IPTV applications
That's it folks
