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Apple And Samsung Both Lost. So Did Buyers

The fallout from Apple’s win over Samsung in a California patent court has been an extension of the rhetoric that took place within the court. Apple, smug after its billion-dollar settlement, claims the whole case was about values. Samsung still holds to the line that Apple’s design patents are frivolous and the real loser is the consumer. Neither side is wrong.

As much as Apple and Samsung want everybody to believe that one is on the side of good while the other is completely evil, the reality is that that is just not true. It is possible to not be right while not precisely being wrong.

Apple’s CEO Tim Cook called the victory a triumph of values.

“For us this lawsuit has always been about something much more important than patents or money. It’s about values. We value originality and innovation and pour our lives into making the best products on earth. And we do this to delight our customers, not for competitors to flagrantly copy,” Cook wrote in a memo leaked to 9to5 Mac.

Cook is not wrong, but he is not correct. Apple is right to defend itself against copying. But, it is not like Apple was defending the invention of fire. It was defending design patents based on the size and shape of the iPad and iPhone as well as utility patents used in iOS.

None of the patents that Apple fought tooth and nail over in the name of values are particularly innovative.

The utility patents may have some functions specific to iOS, but the Android manufacturers have already figured a way around most of those because it was not the function that Apple patented so much as how the function is performed. Companies like HTC, Samsung and Motorola have been working on ways to circumvent those patents through design and functional updates to their devices, and Apple will have little grounds in court to sue the Android manufacturers over these same functions again.

The patents themselves are just weapons against Samsung and other Android manufacturers.

The settlement money is also of no concern to Apple. This is a company that is one of the most valuable in the history of the world, sitting on a $100 billion in liquid assets. But taking a billion dollars from Samsung was a reward in itself.

Cook’s comments about values is public relations. Most journalists, analysts and tech enthusiasts have a better understanding of Apple’s motivations under the surface. Apple's two biggest motivations were to set a precedent for all its upcoming patent cases and to slow the Android ecosystem's growth. The more Apple can hobble Android, the more iPhones and iPads it can sell. With Apple’s extraordinarily high margins, there is a lot of money on the table.

The effect on Samsung is marginal in the short term. This case was mostly about Samsung’s long product tail, with devices that had been on the market a year or more running software that has been completely overhauled to avoid these specific Apple patents.

Samsung will likely appeal the judgment, mostly to avoid the precedent that the case sets. This is not the last time these two companies will meet in court over patents. Apple’s win makes it more likely that its similar patent cases against Samsung and other Android manufacturers will result in injunctions against Android devices. Samsung needs to negate that precedent.

After the announcement of the verdict, Samsung issued a statement:

“Today’s verdict should not be viewed as a win for Apple, but as a loss for the American consumer. It will lead to fewer choices, less innovation, and potentially higher prices. It is unfortunate that patent law can be manipulated to give one company a monopoly over rectangles with rounded corners, or technology that is being improved every day by Samsung and other companies.”

It is difficult to believe both companies. Samsung says that Apple’s win is bad for innovation. Apple said it is good for innovation. Again, neither company is right, but neither is wrong.

When Apple speaks of innovation, it is not talking about the broad scope of technology innovation. Apple is talking about its own innovation. Innovation that has been called into question many times over the years. Apple is seen as a company that makes technologies better and sexier and prices its devices higher than the competition to pad its margins.

Samsung is essentially saying that Apple’s designs and its legal claims are frivolous. It is implying that if Apple can improve on technologies and not be found guilty of copying, then so can we.

Samsung certainly has a high opinion of itself. By calling the verdict “a loss for the American consumer” it is saying that its products are so good that the U.S. consumer will suffer for the loss. It is the same tactic that Samsung has used in most of its court cases against Apple across the world. “This bully is bad for us, bad for you, bad for everybody.”

Samsung itself is a bit of a bully. It has the manufacturing might to flood the mobile market with so many devices at so many price points that it is squeezing not just Apple, but the other Android manufacturers. Motorola’s market presence is almost non-existent at this point and HTC is flailing. Samsung, not Apple, is the biggest culprit behind Nokia’s fall from grace. Samsung’s shotgun strategy works and cannot (or, cannot without great difficulty) be replicated by any other Android manufacturer.

Samsung’s own rhetoric is as hypocritical as Apple’s. While Samsung claims it did not copy Apple in the slightest way (and it has a case for that, despite the jury’s verdict), there is no question that some of Samsung’s smartphones do look very similar to the iPhone.

In the end, the outcome was predictable. Can anyone say that Samsung could win a case with a Californian jury in the shadow of Cupertino? Samsung never really stood a chance.

The battle of rhetoric does neither company justice. Apple comes off with a morality play that is almost laughable. Samsung sounds like a whining, arrogant twit that insists it did nothing wrong. With this decision, all Android manufacturers lose, not just Samsung. In the end, that is how the American consumer loses too.

That means Google loses, too, right? That's not necessarily the whole story. Apple could be doing Google a favor with its courtroom war.

Driven by breakthrough thinking and a wide-open sense of what's possible, Alcatel-Lucent delivers the world's most advanced technologies to companies all across the globe. Our driving motivation is to realize the potential of the connected world - by providing the technologies needed to turn networks into engines of sustainable economic growth, social development and opportunity. We provide a comprehensive suite of software solutions and services offerings designed specifically to meet the needs and demands of communication network operators and strategic industries. These solutions allow our customers to optimize network costs and quickly deploy innovative, value added products and services for their subscribers that increase loyalty and create new revenue streams. To learn more about how we're turning the network into a platform, visit http://www2.alcatel-lucent.com/hln/network_evolution.php

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Futurist's Cheat Sheet: Biometric Authentication

The problem is not new. One way or another, people have to validate their identities. I am trying to enter a building or a Web service that only Joe Smith should have access to, I need to offer evidence that I am, indeed, Joe Smith. For decades, authentication has required cards and passwords. In the near future, you might just use a part of your body. (The "Futurist's Cheatsheet" series surveys technologies on the horizon: their promise, how likely they are, and when they might become part of our daily lives. This article is Part 2.)

Use a thumb-print to unlock a door, an iris scan to unlock a smartphone. Maybe use your voice to interact with your mobile device, PC or television. Biometric data can be used for verification (say, allowing access to a personal bank account) or identification (say, identifying you to law enforcement agencies).

Pick a body part, any body part. There is a good chance that it has a unique identifier that can be used authenticate an individual human. Of course, not all body parts have practical applications in all situations. For instance, hormone analysis would be an awkward choice of authentication for entry to a building.

Criminal forensics provided an early proving ground: Identification based on fingerprints became a viable form of authentication in the late 1800s. DNA performs much the same function today.

Cloud technology is giving rise to new, ubiquitous forms of biometric authentication. Physical identifiers for large groups of people can be uploaded to a server and used for purposes such as accessing data on a company computer, gaining access to secure buildings or unlocking smartphones. Storing biometric keys in the cloud makes it much easier for devices to recognize and recover the data and for users to put it to work.

The rise of a digitally connected society has led technologists to propose the notion of “one true login.” Today, you may have one password for Facebook, another for Gmail and so on. At the same time, you may have an ID card such as a driver’s license. Depending on where you work, you may have an ID badge that you have to scan to get into your office. What if all of these functions could be replaced with one biometric identifier unique to you?

Such an innovation could improve personal and data security an dalso improve user experiences across a variety of devices. Much of modern computing has been built around the standard user interface: keyboard and screen. That is starting to change as computers, smartphones, tablets, and televisions incorporate cameras that recognize your face, touchscreens that know your fingerprint and microphones that recognize your voice. Quick, convenient biometric authentication would tie these devices more seamlessly into daily life.

The technology for biometric authentication is already widely available. The true challenge comes in building an acceptable infrastructure where the technologies can be easily implemented. Part of the challenge is cost in replacing or augmenting legacy authentication methods such as the magnetic keycard system in a hotel or an enterprise. Another challenge is legal. Many states and countries have privacy laws on how certain types of biometric identifiers can be used, inhibiting how enterprises and commercial ventures can deploy these authentication methods. These privacy laws are important as people are extremely sensitive in how their biomedical is stored and used.

Research firm Gartner focuses on the future business aspects of biometric authentication in its most recent Hype Cycle report, but the consumer realm poised to see practical applications. Smartphones can be unlocked through a variety of biometric keys such as voice, facial recognition or a fingerprint. Apple, Samsung and Microsoft will likely lead the way. Companies like Nuance are tuning mobile devices to the user's voice. And enterprises won't be far behind. Before long, companies will implement biometric authentication for onsite building access and smartphone security.

Book -- Anil K. Jain et al. -- Introduction to Biometrics

Michigan State University -- Partial Face Recognition: Alignment-Free Approach

Microsoft Research -- Progressive Authentication: Deciding When to Authenticate on Mobile

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After Instagram: 6 Alternative Photo Apps To Try

Editor's note: This post was originally published by our partners at GeekSugar.com. It's unlikely the public's love of Instagram will die down any time soon, but what if you just want to bring an app of fresh air to your smartphone camera routine?

Consider expanding your vision to other apps. Just like the photography service you already know so well, there are plenty of other awesome apps and communities for beautiful photos.

Let's face it — Hipstamatic was here first, and it remains the thinking woman's app since you have to decide which lens and film you want to use before snapping a pic. Much like real photography, you've got to know what equipment works best in your environment.

Visit GeekSugar for the full slideshow of Instagram alternatives for your app library.

Weekly Wrap-Up: The Future Of Streams, Facebook's New iOS App, Why Topic Pages Are The Next Big Thing

The future of Twitter streams, Facebook's new iOS app, and why topic pages are the next big thing. All of this and more in the ReadWriteWeb Weekly Wrap-up.

After the jump you'll find more of this week's top news stories on some of the key topics that are shaping the Web - Location, App Stores and Real-Time Web - plus highlights from some of our six channels. Read on for more.

One of the five reasons why Web publishing is changing is the emergence of streams of information, The Future of Streams: Twitter Looms As Biggest Obstacle.

Facebook released a completely rebuilt version of its iOS app for iPhone and iPad today, changing a fundamental aspect of the company's mobile strategy, Why Facebook Ditched the Mobile Web & Went Native With its New iOS App.

Chronological and real-time consumption of content just doesn't work anymore. It's time for topic pages to add a layer of organization on top, Why Topic Pages Are The Next Big Thing.

At the annual Gartner Catalyst conference this week in San Diego, top companies like Genentech, Eli Lily and Northern Trust Bank shared some of the secrets behind their impressive app portfolios, How 3 Big Enterprises Are Building Their Own Internal iPad Apps.

Evernote signed a treaty with Moleskine Friday at the Evernote Trunk Conference, formally declaring a truce in its war on paper, Evernote & Moleskine Merge Paper & Pixels in "Smart Notebook".

In the past, content creators on YouTube couldn't make money from traffic coming in through tablets or smartphones, YouTube Finally Offers Mobile Ads .

PayPal’s new deal with Discover Financial Services may have just opened the door for the payment service’s users to pay for goods and services in seven million Discover card locations, but there are big questions whether this deal will really accelerate the future of mobile payments, Will PayPal’s History Derail Its Discover Card Deal?.

If Kickstarter met the adult-entertainment industry and they fell in love, this would be their child. Meet Offbeatr, a crowdfunding site for the adult community, Offbeatr Wants To Be The Kickstarter For XXX Startups.

Nikon just launched the first-ever Android-powered point-and-shoot camera. It's a smart move designed to make the company's line of consumer products relevant in a world of ubiquitous phonecams, Nikon's Android-Powered Bid to Change Mobile Photography.

Facebook said this week's problem, which had users sending and accepting friend requests they did not initiate, was a result of users using contact importer, What To Do To Keep Your Facebook Account Secure [Update].

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Who Will Have The Biggest Impact On Your Wallet - Obama or Romney?

Politify is a recently launched web application that uses IRS and Census data to show a simulation of how President Obama and Mitt Romney's economic plans will impact areas of the country by zip code, even allowing users to zoom in on their own neighborhood.

Last year, during primary season, Politify began as a web app that offered a simple way to decide what presidential primary candidate would be best for voters economically. Now that the dust has cleared and we're down to two candidates, the app has been upgraded, thanks in large part to grants from UC Berkley and the Sunlight Foundation. Previously, it was a tax calculator, now it shows how each candidate's economic plan will affect voters in personal, local and national figures.

Co-founders Nikita Bier and Jeremy Blalock, along with their team, used IRS and Census data to find how household income is generated and what government services those households use. Based on this information, the web app creates a simulation of how President Obama and Mitt Romney's economic plans will affect specific areas of the country. To find out the personal impact of the separate plans, potential voters can input their annual income, filing status and other information to see which candidate would benefit them.

Locally, users can zoom over their city's zip codes on a map to see what candidate's plan benefits their community most. On a national level, graphs of the potential change in deficit and impact on households are shown. Both currently favor the President. (It's important to note that the maps on the national level, which are almost completely blue, don't take into account population density.) It's no surprise that areas of the country that are more affluent benefit from Romney's plan. However, according to Poltify's findings, rural areas of the country that usually vote Republican, would benefit most from the Obama plan.

The group says they are non-partisan, Bier told The Next Web this week that he describes himself as "radically moderate" and says he has no personal motivation for any particular outcome. However, he hopes that using the web app will encourage people to vote for a candidate based on what's best for them and their community, rather than focusing on criteria like appearance or morals.

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Does Your Startup Need A Technical Co-Founder?

In today’s startup landscape, practically everything can be outsourced. But when it comes to core technical skills, more and more entrepreneurs are opting to partner with technical co-founders rather than hiring someone for an in-house position. So how do you decide what’s right for your new company?

To find the best way to integrate core technical skills into a start up, we asked eight successful young entrepreneurs from the Young Entrepreneur Council (YEC) whether startups need tech-oriented founders.

If you want to start a tech company, you must understand the space. You don’t need to be a developer, but at minimum you need to have the background to know what traits a superstar developer has. It also depends on how innovative your technology is - if you’re using existing platforms and delivery methods, you can definitely hire out a great team to run your company. But if the tech itself is what you’re innovating, you need to understand what is happening inside your business. - Laura Roeder, LKR

I really believe that what’s most important for a founder is the ability to have a vision for the company, make sales and hire well. That being said, when you’re in the startup phase, you need to be able to get stuff done – and that means you need to at least have some basic tech skills. It will also help you to hire better, and understand what’s possible and what’s not possible in terms of technology. - Nathalie Lussier, Nathalie Lussier Media

I may be biased - as I am a graphic designer with programming, Web and marketing skills - but to me it is highly important that a founder have some tech skills. We use technology in every business, from online sales and shipping to mobile Web. Being able to change your website on the fly based off a new analytic has been key in growing our online business. Understanding how to harness social media and being up to speed with the newest trending platforms allows us to be everywhere. This being done in-house means more revenue stays with us, compared to hiring a firm or paying a employee who requires training and possible review process, slowing down the speed of business and still adding a layer of time effort to the management team. - Jerry Piscitelli, Portopong LLC

There’s a big difference between not knowing intense coding and not knowing anything at all about the space. For a founder to be able to navigate the industry, it’s important that he/she knows enough about trends in the industry and has a basic understanding of tech. One of the worst things I’ve seen are very non-technical VC’s teaming up and opening tech companies. Sometimes their idea for a company has already been done and not worked, but the founders don’t know that because they haven’t been in the field long enough. - Caitlin McCabe, Real Bullets Branding

As an Internet entrepreneur, tech skills are certainly helpful (at the very least so you know when you’re paying a fair fee when outsourcing), but they’re most definitely not necessary. I started TheBeautyBean.com barely knowing what WordPress was, let alone how to run a website. Sure, I’ve made mistakes (likely more with regard to technology than a founder with tech skills would have), but founders can’t be good at everything – and I make fewer mistakes in other areas. All entrepreneurs have to outsource parts of their businesses in order to use their skills most effectively. For me, that means outsourcing tech. And so far it’s worked quite well. Knowing your weaknesses is far more essential than not having any. - Alexis Wolfer, The Beauty Bean

If you are unable to build your own tech product, you only have three options: 1. Pay a company to build your product, which could cost $80,000 to $100,000 for an initial app and website, and even more as you add features and improve your product in response to customer feedback. 2. Give up equity in your company. Software programmers are in extremely high demand - you’re competing with Facebook, Google and thousands of other startups. Very early-stage startups may have to give up as much as 30% of their company to bring on a rockstar programmer. 3. Learn to build the product yourself. This is the most time-consuming option, but is often the best. By doing so, you could save capital and equity, and at the very least, adopt the skill set to better oversee options #1 and #2. - Doug Bend, Bend Law Group, PC

I was a sociology major in college. When I started my social network, I didn’t have any tech skills. What I did have, however, was a lot of passion for my idea and the ability to communicate the vision that I wanted to create. What I’ve found is that you don’t necessarily need to have tech skill yourself, but you do need to be able to clearly communicate your vision to others, to excite them to join you in your journey. - Eric Bahn, Beat The GMAT

I’ve learned most of my tech skills on the job. Currently, I’m teaching myself to program in Python. I’ve been in business for years and I’m always picking up a new skill set. You don’t need too much in the way of tech skills right out of the gate. You’ll learn a lot out of sheer self-defense as you go along, especially if you need to judge the work of technical hires or sell a technical product. That said, being an entrepreneur is easier if you’ve got at least some of the skills that you’ll need to execute your idea in place before you start. - Thursday Bram, Hyper Modern Consulting

The Young Entrepreneur Council (YEC) is an invite-only nonprofit organization comprised of the world’s most promising young entrepreneurs. The YEC recently published #FixYoungAmerica: How to Rebuild Our Economy and Put Young Americans Back to Work (for Good), a book of 30+ proven solutions to help end youth unemployment.

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7 Pearls Of Startup Wisdom From Investors and Innovators Who Matter

From the art of the pitch to a smooth sale and everything in between, these seven tenets come straight from the annals of successful startups.

Last week, Vancouver's GROW 2012 conference convened some all-stars of the startup scene, stirring together corporate leads from Indiegogo, Eventbrite, Zite, Paypal, Cheezburger Inc. and more with infamous super angel Dave McClure and a smattering of high profile venture capitalists from firms like Bessemer and the Founders Fund. We crunched it all up into seven bits of bite-sized startup wisdom that bear repeating:

Pitch with emotion. This is obvious, but you'd be surprised how often it's ignored. If you don't believe in your product, how can you possibly expect an investor or reporter to care? In the sage, profanity-laced words of super angel Dave McClure, "You should totally be dancing your f*cking balls off."

Know your business model from the get-go. Too many startups create a great product and try to figure out a revenue model later, says Urban Airship's Scott Kveton. That is putting the cart before the horse - even if it doesn't seem like it.

If you say you built it, they will come. When Box COO Dan Levin took the stage, he drove home the power of turning perception into reality with some striking anecdotes. In its earlier days, Box asserted that it belonged in the same league as Microsoft's SharePoint, the market leader. The media picked it up as a David vs. Goliath story, and sure enough, it became true. Create the perception that you're a market leader too - but don't forget to deliver on the promise.

At Grow 2012, everyone was buzzing about an unlikely Facebook game in which you battle roosters against one another (presumably to the death). The creator of the game - called Kawk Fighter - pranced around the entire conference in rooster red pants, spouting phallocentric double entendres. He barely had to explain his product to make it to the final round of Grow's Startup Smackdown competition. He didn't drum up buzz because his product raised a huge round of capital, or had a business model that was particularly lucid - it just made for a good (if easy) joke. Obnoxious, sure. Memorable? Definitely. Wear the proverbial red pants if you have to.

Grow 2012 attendees listen intently to a keynote with Vancouver Harbour at their backs

Don't be naive. Unless you want the bottom to drop out, get it all in writing. Zite CEO Mark Johnson (who recently sold the company to CNN for more than $20 million) stressed that when it comes to acquisitions, you don't want to be empty handed with a bunch of unfulfilled promises if management changes or if there's less follow-through than you'd expected.

Focus on building a team, when it comes to skills and personalities. McClure suggests bringing together three main types: hackers, hustlers and hipsters. The hackers build the product, the hustlers sell it, and the hipsters make the design look good. But beyond their immediate skillsets, the personalities that converge early on will set the tone for your company's climate, especially if it explodes.

If the conference proved anything, it was that Silicon Valley doesn't have the market cornered on innovation or investing. Among Portland, Seattle and Vancouver, the Pacific Northwest corridor is bustling with ideas, investors and fledgling companies well beyond the solipsistic forcefield of technology's startup-glutted beating heart.

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Facebook’s Updated iPhone App Aids Internet of Things

Buried in the details of last week’s update to Facebook’s now-native iOS app was a small bit of technology that could have potentially big impact on the future of the Internet of Things.

The technology is called Message Queuing Telemetry Transport (MQTT), an IBM-developed protocol for real-time messaging over networks with low power and bandwidth. MQTT is now under the hood within Facebook’s iOS app’s messaging features, part of Facebook’s efforts to pull in the features from its native Messenger app.

“We use MQTT to update notifications, messages, and bookmarks. At application startup, we walk the dependency graph and ensure that our MQTT service has started before we start listening for new notifications. Even as we add new features, our modular system ensures that our application setup happens in the right place, at the right time,” wrote Facebook engineer Jonathan Dann on the company’s engineering blog last week.

For Facebook app end-users, the immediate effect of using the push-driven protocol for the updated app won’t immediately be apparent, but it portends some potentially big features down the line.

In the short-term, however, MMQT is going to get a big boost in adoption cred from Facebook’s use. Messaging in the Internet of Things sector is still gelling around one standard implementation, as device manufacturers figure out how to get sensors and other micro-devices to best communicate with the Internet and from there the rest of the world. MQTT is one such protocol and tent.io is another.

Both MQTT and tent.io have very strong social media components, which may at first seem incongruous with the Internet of Things. But the messaging protocol that can handle social media messaging (as MQTT will do on the new version of Facebook’s iOS app) and messaging from hardware will be seen as a much more universal protocol. And in the world of standardization, that perception may be enough to win the gold.

Redmonk analyst James Governor sees Facebook’s commitment as a big win for MQTT.

“IBM has been seeking pervasive status for its message queue technology since I joined the industry in 1995. It looks like it just finally got there. I don’t want to confuse a protocol with an implementation but in a week when Dave Winer questioned the status of tent.io and app.net began its play for real time stream utility status I can’t help noting that IBM and MQTT.org are in the game,” Governor blogged.

Governor’s reference to Winer’s thoughts on the tent.io protocol is significant, since Winer is the inventor of the RSS newsfeed protocol.

“RSS won not because of its great design, but because there was a significant amount of valuable content flowing through it. Formats and protocols by themselves are meaningless. That’s what I say about specs. Show me content I can get at through the protocol, and I’ll say something,” Winer said on his own blog.

For Governor, Facebook’s investment in MMQT sets the content bar very high.

“Whether or not you like Facebook, there is now going to be a metric crapload of content flowing across MQTT. It just got anointed by Facebook,” Governor said.

MMQT’s anointment won’t mean much to average users - yet. But if the Internet of Things and social media development communities can rally around one protocol, it will be one big step towards the goal of getting people and objects communicating with each other more efficiently

All thanks to Facebook.

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Futurist's Cheat Sheet: Human Augmentation

As long as there have been humans, there have been dreams of super humans. Eyeglasses started sharpening vision in the 1200s, pacemakers have been implanted to extend lifespans since the late 1950s, and the first strength-amplifying robotic exoskeletons shipped earlier this year. But those innovations are only the beginning. With advances in technology, the ability to vastly enhance human capabilities is right around the corner. Here is an overview of current efforts and their potential. (The "Futurist's Cheatsheet" series surveys technologies on the horizon: their promise, how likely they are, and when they might become part of our daily lives. This article is Part 1.)

Human augmentation is the ability to supplement human brains and bodies with technological improvements. The notion has been part of science fiction lore for decades. Ever hear a sports announcer say, “that guy has a cannon for an arm!” Well, what if he had an actual cannon for an arm? RoboCop, Mr. Gadget, Star Wars (what is Darth Vader but an augmented human?), and the Bourne Identity all offer visions of how human augmentation could one day be achieved.

But it's already well underway. With the buzz around Google Glasses and Oscar “Blade Runner” Pistorius' speedy artificial legs, the notion of creating a better human body through machinery and computers is the subject of much theory and research these days.

There are many paths to human-machine augmentation: wearable technology such as Google Glasses, sensor implants, using DNA and chemical processes to enhance brain function and muscle functions, nanorobotics, performance enhancing surgery. Some theorists, notably Ray Kurzweil, believe the brain will be encoded as software someday, allowing it to be reprogrammed, enhanced by peripheral technology, tethered to a robotic body, and immortal. (Until the next backward-incompatible system update.)

The idea is to enhance the human notion of “normal.” At the same time, human augmentation can be used to repair parts of the body, such as cochlear implants for the hard of hearing. Laser eye surgery is a good example of both reparative and enhancive human augmentation, as it could be used to help the sight of the visually impaired or enhance the vision of people with normal eyesight. Many professional athletes, such as baseball players, get laser surgery.

Research firm Gartner notes that there will soon be a market for human augmentation to create “superhuman” characteristics, such as a suit that improves endurance or adds extra senses to the body. There have also been recent advances in implantable technology that can monitor health-related data, such as heart rate or insulin level.

Miniaturization and advances in wireless technology enable many sensor-based technologies to be implanted into human bodies now. Moreover, the combination of computer and genetic technology could enable people to retrofit themselves with superhuman characteristics going forward.

In the short term, researchers are working with the tools already available. Advances in mobile technology and wireless data transmission along with sensor enhancements are creating a new field in the biomedical industry. As scientists continue to crack the human genome, DNA augmentation will become increasingly powerful and controversial. One day, doctors may be able to completely rebuild body parts with computer and mechanical engineering and have them look and function just like normal flesh and bone.

In the long term, society will be challenged to cope with superior human beings. The notion of a mechanically-enhanced human has already entered the thoughts of lawmakers. Several U.S. states have passed laws banning employers requiring employees to implant computer chips in their bodies. As human enhancement becomes more common in the decades and centuries to come, there is a real danger of discrimination between the augmented versus the standard human.

Depends on the type of capability you are looking for. Strength-enhancing exoskeleton suits have been sold to the military and rehab hospitals. Google Glasses should be released as a consumer product in 2013 or so. Implantable, sensor-based technologies are just starting to hit the market. This is one field to keep an eye on as technology and biology merge to create the true ubermench that Nietzsche surely knew was coming.

Technology Review: In Pursuit of Human Augmentation

Wired: Be More Than You Can Be

Bloomberg: Advances in Human Augmentation: We Can Rebuild Him

Association for Computing Machinery's Augmented Human

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ReadWriteWeb DeathWatch: Zynga

Zynga’s Mafia Wars, Farmville and Bubble Safari are enormously popular pastimes that helped define social/casual gaming. But faced with a changing market and an unpopular leader, can Zynga innovate its way out of the hole it keeps digging for itself?

Zynga’s climb to the top of social gaming didn’t take long. In 2007, Mark Pincus launched the Texas Hold'Em Poker app (now Zynga Poker) on Facebook. Within a year, he had acquired nearly $40 million of venture capital. A year later, Zynga reached 40 million active users on the back of Farmville, and an empire was born. Zynga went public in late 2011, and its stock took off, bolstered by strong performances from games like CityVille, Bubble Safari and Words With Friends. Since it peaked in March 2012 at nearly $15 per share, scandals and missed numbers have driven Zynga’s stock down to just over $3 per share. The company is now fighting to gain back the valuation, reputation and dominance it enjoyed just a few months ago.

Zynga’s biggest problems break down into four buckets. Some of them are Zynga’s fault, and others aren’t:

1. The Brand Problem Mafia Wars has a loyal following. So do Words With Friends, Hidden Chronicles and Pioneer Trail. They’re all Zynga games, but Zynga itself does not command any loyalty. Social gamers are interested in individual game, not the companies producing them. That’s how something like OMGPOP’s Draw Something could come out of nowhere in a matter of days. Draw Something scared Zynga enough to prompt it to buy the company for $180 million. You can only do that so many times before the well runs dry, and hot apps can die as fast as they grow. The only way to stay on top is to keep churning out new hit games. That’s a tough business to maintain and scale.

2. The ‘Book Problem Zynga and Facebook are tied together in a very unequal partnership. Sure, Zynga still dominates Facebook’s gaming channel, but there are plenty of other options for gamers, and Facebook is willing to test the waters. When Facebook made non-Zynga games easier to discover, Zynga’s business – and its stock – took a dive.

On a recent earnings call, Mark Pincus acknowledged Zynga’s Facebook problem, noting that “getting beyond the Facebook Web footprint through mobile is going to give us more growth opportunities.” In the long run, that may be the case, though monetizing mobile traffic has been notoriously difficult for everyone. In the short term, Zynga has to hang on to as big a piece of the pie as Facebook will let them eat.

3. The Bubble Problem Zynga isn’t the only social gaming company that’s disappointed. Electronic Arts' PopCap acquisition is also starting to look like a bust. Social gaming is here to stay, but it seems tremendously overvalued. Zynga was funded in a bubble, built its expectations in a bubble and now has to meet bubble-sized expectations in a world that’s made a market correction.

4. The Boss Problem Speaking of management, the former wunderkind at the top of the org chart hasn’t made a lot of friends. Despite all his talk about everyone being a CEO, Mark Pincus has always been known as a bit of a control freak. When he was on top of his game, everyone let it slide. Then it got ugly, and so did the public.

In late 2010, we heard rumors of stock option clawbacks where Pincus allegedly demanded that certain employees return their options or be fired. Then, when Zynga executives cashed out before the stock tanked (and while everyday employees remained locked up), Pincus became the target of a class-action lawsuit alleging insider trading.

Pincus doesn’t seem to care about the common employee, and when you make video games for a living, your employees are your only real asset. That helps competitors to swipe your best talent and makes it really easy to mock you in videos like this one from Kixeye (language not suitable for work):

Mark Pincus, CEO: Mark Pincus is a smart guy, and he gets social media, having founded the push news service Freeloader and the social network Tribe Networks. He’s also not afraid of bending the rules to make a buck. In addition to the stock clawback, Pincus admits to dumping spyware on his users' computers to turn a profit:

I knew that I wanted to control my destiny, so I knew I needed revenues, right, f*cking, now. Like, I needed revenues now. So I funded the company myself but I did every horrible thing in the book to, just to get revenues right away. I mean we gave our users poker chips if they downloaded this Zwinky toolbar which was like, I don't know, I downloaded it once and couldn't get rid of it. *laughs* We did anything possible just to just get revenues so that we could grow and be a real business…So control your destiny. So that was a big lesson, controlling your business. So by the time we raised money we were profitable.

Pincus got the company this far by being ahead of the curve. His challenge now is coming up with a way to stay there as the industry becomes more commoditized.

Zynga’s stock will not return to its peak for years, if ever. Its current franchises will likely hold onto a good deal of their market share, and the titles in the pipeline should perform well enough, but competition will eat into the company’s dominance. Within a few years, Zynga may still be the biggest social game publisher, but own a far smaller portion of a market valued far more conservatively than it is today. Unless it hits a major home run with one of its new initiatives (see below), there’s really no reason for anyone to acquire Zynga, so the company’s value will continue to float down to a point justified by its actual profit.

Zynga should continue to produce relevant, popular games, but to remain a power player in the social world, Pincus needs to win big with two moves.

First is his push toward becoming an infrastructure provider. This will be an uphill climb, and there’s no good way to lock in developers who become successful on the Zynga platform.

Second, and much riskier, is a jump into online gambling, a recurring theme that Pincus resurrected in July. Given the recent domestic troubles online gambling has faced, Zynga will likely be relying on years of Farmville sequels before gambling becomes a major revenue source.

Research In Motion: Amid Massive losses - more than 11 times worse than expected - the company has reportedly started pitching its long-delayed Blackberry 10 devices to carriers. And rumors are swirling that the company may do a licensing deal - or even a sale - with Samsung.

HP: The company reported disappointing earnings last week, with declines in computer and printing revenues - and an $8.9 billion loss on a $10.8 billion writedown. Reports that HP is creating a new division to take another plunge into the consumer tablet market did not reassure anyone.

Nokia: The mobile phone giant’s quarterly revenue and earnings exceeded expectations and it has reduced its cash burn rate, but the company lost money yet again and saw its debt ratings cut to junk status. And it still hasn’t cracked the U.S. smartphone market as it halves the retail price of its flagship Lumia 900 to $49.99.

38 Studios: No change

Barnes & Noble: No change

Sony: No change

Groupon: Groupon’s stock price continues to hit all-time lows as growth slows. T-Mobile USA: The company’s troubles continue to mount, reporting second quarter losses of 557,000 high-value contract customers, and a net loss of 205,000 customers.

Netflix: No change

Electronic Arts: No change

Best Buy: After rejecting Richard Schulze’s takeover bid over the weekend, Best Buy hired Hubert Joly as its CEO. Joly is a turnaround mercenary who’s done good work in the past with companies like EDS, but whose primary experience is in the hospitality industry. Best Buy’s stock dropped 7% in an initial response.

Motorola Mobility: no change

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Analysts Reveal Exactly How Much Windows 8 Will Boost Flagging PC Sales

Analysts at IDC said Friday that the launch of Windows 8 in October will be directly responsible for boosting the flat U.S. PC market into a period of moderate growth next year. And they were surprisingly specific about how big a bump Microsoft’s new operation system will deliver.

David Daoud, research director of personal computing at IDC, said the firm is attributing 5 percentage points of U.S. PC market unit growth to Windows 8.

“In other words, for 2013, the market otherwise would have been flat,” Daoud told ReadWriteWeb. “But for Windows 8, we boost it by about 5%, so that gives it 5% growth. That’s essentially the premium given to Windows 8.”

On Thursday, IDC reported that PC growth was slowing in advance of Windows 8’s launch in late October. Just 367 million PCs will ship into the market this year, up less than 1% from 2011 and marking the second consecutive year of growth below 2%, IDC said.

Despite the advent of Windows 8, IDC also reduced its worldwide PC forecast for the next few years. IDC now estimates that that worldwide PC shipment growth will average 7.1% from 2013-2016, down from the 8.4% compound annual growth rate (CAGR) previously forecast for 2012-2016. IDC did not formally break out numbers for individual regions.

Next year, however, worldwide PC sales in units should jump from 0.9% this year to 6.5%, with growth accelerating to 7.0% and 7.5% in 2014 and 2015, respectively. Much of that demand will come from emerging markets, whose residents are still buying their first PCs, as well as purchasing Windows 8 replacements for those they already own.

Part of IDC’s adjusted forecast can be explained by its definition of a PC: IDC still defines a PC as a box with an associated keyboard, whether it be a notebook or desktop computer. As more consumers choose tablets, which typically lack those discrete keyboards, the number of “PCs” sold decreases. Daoud also said that IDC factored in macroeconomic conditions; although U.S. GDP growth is expected to be about 2.0% next year, Europe is struggling and the Asia-Pacific region is “cooling off,” he said.

One way that PC makers plan to cope is by using Windows 8 to drive new kinds of PCs. The Windows 8 PC designs Daoud has seen show that PC makers plan to differentiate their products. “So we do think there is the opportunity for growth,” he said.

Still, Daoud wasn’t prepared to cast Windows 8 as an unmitigated success, citing increased uncertainty “Windows 8 will have positive repercussions, without any doubt,” Daoud said. “That’s why we’re witnessing consumers waiting for that operating system to hit the market.

“But there’s a lot of unanswered questions: the price point, the design, how consumers will receive the product,” Daoud added. “So it’s also a wild card… We’re certainly moving to a crossroads in the industry: we’re moving to a new OS, new user interface, user behavior, new usage model, new software delivered through the app store, which is a new delivery mechanism. So we’re seeing a totally new type of environment, meaning that consumers will need to be educated about this.”

Given the anticipation and uncertainty surrounding Windows 8, the slowdown in PC shipments before the launch of the new operating system should have come as no surprise. But PC makers were apparently caught unprepared.

In a conference call with analysts this week, Hewlett Packard chief executive Meg Whitman acknowledged that the number of PCs sold through the channel “softened” or slowed during the second half of July, driving the amount of stock in retailers’ hands “higher than our acceptable ranges,” Whitman said. All told, the company’s commercial revenue slipped 9% and consumer revenue declined 12% year-over-year, HP said.

Dell’s results were even worse: consumer revenue slipped 22%, and a combination of weak consumer environment and macroeconomic concerns prompted Dell to cut its revenue forecast by 2% to 5%.

“In the quarter, we saw the channel drawing down inventory in anticipation of the Windows 8 launch,” Brian Gladden, Dell’s chief financial officer, reported. Dell’s strategy of maximising profits at all levels of the business failed to pay off, as the only growth the company saw was in the low-value segments, Gladden reported; high-end customers, who undoubtedly knew Windows 8 was coming, held off purchasing PCs.

Arrow image courtesy of Shutterstock.

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Apple Wants Injunction Against 8 Samsung Phones

Apple has requested an injuction against the sale of eight Samsung devices. The move follows its patent-infringement victory over Samsung.

According to The Verge, Apple is requesting injunctions against sales of eight Samsung devicess (see the court document here). Apple is going after some of Samsung’s most popular 2011 products.

Apple’s list includes iterations of the Galaxy S II, which was widely considered to be the best Android smartphone of 2011. The S II came in a variety of flavors as Samsung tweaked the device for U.S. mobile carriers.

According to The Verge, the list includes:

Galaxy S 4GGalaxy S2 (AT&T)Galaxy S2 (Skyrocket)Galaxy S2 (T-Mobile)Galaxy S2 Epic 4GGalaxy S ShowcaseDroid ChargeGalaxy Prevail

In the just-adjourned patent-infringement suit, 25 Samsung devices were found to infringe on one or more of Apple's patents. Many of those devices are older or generate marginal sales (such as the original Galaxy S, Fascinate and Captivate). But, the S II is a popular phone globally. In June, Samsung said it had sold 28 million S II's worldwide. (Note: Samsung says sales but it is actually units shipped.) Overall, 50 million Galaxy S and S II units had been sold as of June.

See: A Brief History of the Samsung Galaxy

Apple's patent suit did not challenge Samsung products launched after the case was filed, models including the Galaxy S III, Galaxy Note and others. Apple’s main target with the injunction is the profitable long tail of Samsung’s mobile-product line. Every Galaxy S II sold is one fewer iPhone sold.

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Should Your Company Just Say "No" To Dropbox?

As the business world increasingly turns to mobile devices and cloud-based file-sharing services to store or collaborate on important documents, the amount of information that’s falling into the wrong hands keeps climbing.

The numbers tell the tale: 90% of organizations had a leak of sensitive or confidential information over the past year. That’s one of the take-aways from a new study from security analysts at the Ponemon Insitute.

Services like Dropbox, Bitcasa YouSendIt and others are useful and efficient ways to get documents and files from one worker to another, especially in this age of mobile devices and distributed workforces. Plus, they’re cheap (or free) and easy for individual workers or small departments to set up.

But increasing use of these tools in the workplace, even for legitimate business reasons such as collaboration, puts a lot of private information at risk. And companies are starting to notice.

How bad is the situation? According to the Ponemon study, 60% of organizations have employees who frequently or very frequently put confidential files on services like Dropbox without permission. And just about that same percentage (59%) reported that what controls they do have in place were inefffective at managing who has access to sensitive files.

It’s not that these consumer cloud services are inherently insecure. But as Wired’s Mat Honan learned a few weeks ago, nearly any service can be socially hacked (though proper precautions can help.

The problem is that mobile and remote workers want to have access to their files where and when they need them. But the idea of just having critical company information out in a public cloud makes a lot of companies nervous. Risks of data loss and falling out of compliance are too high to ignore.

“Consumer file-sharing services are effective, for consumers, but they lack the security, reliability and granular permission settings that business requires,” said Andrew Dixon, Sr., Vice President of Sales & Marketing for Igloo Software, a cloud-based business collaboration company. “And that means they can quickly become just another way for information to fall into silos or slip into the wrong hands.”

Some companies are already reacting with strong policies regulating use of such file-sharing services. IBM, for instance, has banned employee access to services like Dropbox and iCloud. Even the iPhone’s Siri is turned off for fear that sensitive information could be discovered from search query data stored at Apple.

This might be going too far for many companies. Especially if they don’t provide some sort of alternative. IBM has its own custom-built solution for file sharing, but many smaller operations can’t afford such measures.

Not surprisingly, new ventures are stepping to try and fill the void. The solution is use a collaborative platform with secure file sharing capabilities, according to Yorgen Edholm, CEO of Accellion, which markest just such a product.

“Organizations need to give their employees a secure way of sharing files or every mobile device will continue to be a potential sieve for confidential data,” Edholm wrote in a recent article on Forbes, “Before deploying a file-sharing solution, organizations should educate themselves about the risks of various file-sharing technologies and the requirements for enterprise-class mobile security.”

In other words, if you can’t beat ‘em, join 'em. By implementing a broader solution for collaboration that has easy-to-use and secure file sharing features, IT managers can reduce workers’ temptation to venture out on a consumer service.

Make a collaborative platform safe, make it easy and your sensitive documents might just stay where they belong.

Images courtesy of Shutterstock.

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First Look: State, A Streams App Of The Future

As streams of information become more popular on the Web, we need better ways to consume and manage them. Apps that allow you to aggregate content from different sources - Twitter, Facebook, blogs, news websites and more - may become very popular. That's if they can overcome the increasingly walled gardens of Facebook and Twitter. Which makes creating a streams app a risky proposition, because there is no guarantee they'll be able to access all of a user's social data. A new service called State is trying, though. It came onto my radar this week and it passed my initial "I'm still using it after 30 minutes of tinkering" test.

State is currently in private beta. At first glance, it looks part FriendFeed, part TweetDeck, part iGoogle, and part something wholly new.

In an email to me, co-founder Joshua Lewis explained that he and his business partner Galen Wolfe-Pauly built State to try and answer the question of "what the future of the web looks like when you replace static content with streams of data".

I mentioned a few services that State reminded me of, but for the founders it's more like "the Photoshop of cloud data." Lewis said that State is "a general purpose tool to manipulate, filter and publish streams of data." Incidentally, State's founders are already worried about the future of Twitter integration in State. It added App.net support soon after, partly as a hedge against Twitter pulling its data completely.

You can add streams of content from up to four services (so far): Twitter, App.net, Instagram and Dropbox. This is the part that reminds me of a start page, like early Netvibes or iGoogle, because you end up with panels of content across the web page. You can also connect to Instapaper, enabling you to save content for later reading.

Then, like TweetDeck, you're able to view various aspects of the stream. For Twitter, you can select to view content by home timeline, mentions, user, place, tag, search and list. The same principle applies to content from App.net and Instagram.

While State only connects to five services so far, you can imagine it eventually hooking into many more. This is where State reminds me of FriendFeed, the early feed management service acquired by Facebook just over three years ago. At the time it was acquired, FriendFeed could connect to 58 services.

One feature I really like in State is the ability to "follow" a page of streams that someone else has created. The State team has created several of these pages: News, Magazines, Food. Each page - or "workspace" to use the service's parlance - is made up of many different streams of content. The Magazine one features the Twitter streams of various magazine publishers. There is limited ability to filter - for example, you can select to view only images from a stream. But I imagine more filtering options will be added over time.

By default your pages are private, but you can choose to share or make them public.

To get a tour of some of State's other features, check out this demo. The service is in private beta, but you can register your interest here.

It's clearly early days for State, but already I'm enjoying playing with it and building pages of streams. Keep an eye on this young service.