On Monday, the media-viewing app Boxee is going into a closed, private beta test. This app has been in private alpha testing for about a year and a half, and has won praise while generating some frustration among its test users. At first, for example, it was a great interface to the Hulu service, but Hulu made its content unavailable to Boxee users (there's a less-elegant workaround baked into the current product). AppleTV users who hacked the app into their system have also hit speed bumps--the app won't work on the newest updates of the AppleTV product.
Boxee soldiers on, gaining fans and adding content from other sources. I recently covered the Boxee version of Clicker, for example, which shows us how the Boxee platform might some day do a credible job of replacing users' TiVos or cable boxes.
The Boxee experience is improving, too. Monday's new beta has a completely redone interface that is far superior to the alpha's. The idea of the slide-out toolbar menus, an anachronistic throwback to Windows and Mac desktop operating systems, is thankfully gone, replaced by a more visible and consistent interface.
The app also gets new features. If you tell Boxee your Facebook and Twitter IDs, it will scan your friends' posts continuously, and tell you what they're talking about in a new "recommended" column on the Boxee home screen.
The home screen also shows your queue, which can include content that pops up based on shows you're subscribed to. It also has a "featured" column that Boxee can use to promote new content, included paid placements--a new revenue stream for the company.
Boxee can also now search the entire Netflix online inventory. Previously, you could view your online Netflix shows and see a smattering of new ones. Now you can see and stream everything, assuming you're a paying user.
There are also new content partners: The Escapist (which makes the Zero Punctuation video), and SuicideGirls. (I wasn't aware until I got the beta demo that Boxee supports adult content; the NSFW feeds don't appear until you disable the parental controls.)
The new Boxee begins to address my biggest gripe about the system, which is that it can be hard to find content from the multitudinous streams that feed into the platform. A new TV menu combines content from the user's hard drive as well as subscription and streaming sources, and it has a useful search feature. There's also an improved table of contents for shows. But Boxee still doesn't have a global search to find everything it can play, so in some cases you need to know which "application" (Boxee content stream) has a show you want to watch. Boxee VP Andrew Kippen did tell me it's an ongoing goal to improve the search process on the platform.
Kippen says the company recommends the Mac Mini as the best platform for the app at the moment. There are also OS X and Linux versions, and a Windows port, but it's for 32-bit installations only. The Linux port will be used in the dedicated Boxee hardware, details of which are being announced shortly. In the meantime, Roku has a somewhat competitive hardware-based product now shipping, and it has the additional benefit of offering access to a user's Amazon streaming-video account, which Boxee doesn't do.
Boxee is still closed to most new users. Everyone, even existing alpha users, has to sign up for the beta lottery to try it out. The beta will open to all around the Consumer Electronics Show time frame, in January.
New Boxee home screen
(Credit: Boxee)
The new show browser searches both locally stored and streamed content.
(Credit: Boxee)
A new control menu can pop up above any playing video.
(Credit: Boxee)
Chandra Rathakrishnan and his baby, the JooJoo.
(Credit: Rafe Needleman/CNET)CNET snagged the first journalists' demo of the new JooJoo (formerly CrunchPad) Web slate on Fusion Garage CEO Chandra Rathakrishnan's San Francisco media tour. Quick impressions: yeah, this is a really cool device. Everyone reading a tech site like CNET will want one. But will they pay the $499 going price for it? We don't think so.
The JooJoo Web slate is based around a 12.1-inch diagonal 720p capacitive touch screen. The specs include: 1366x768-pixel resolution, a built-in camera, mic, and speakers, one USB port, and a card slot. There's 4GB of cache memory. What's the processor? Rathakrishnan wouldn't say. He also won't say who makes the touch screen.
The hardware is slim and pleasing to hold. The screen is gorgeous, and huge, and the plastic back is gently curved. The unit is very slim, thinner than a MacBook Air. There are no buttons on the device, save the single power switch.
The JooJoo runs a proprietary Linux-based operating system whose only purpose is to run the device's browser, based on Webkit but again a custom job by the developer. The browser supports Flash and other standard HTML extensions, but it won't run non-Web apps. No Skype for you.
Also missing: a user-accessible file system and printer drivers. This is one focused device. It browses the Web. That's it.
But it looks like it will do that job quite well. While the demo we saw was running on unfinished code, we found the device a very attractive integrated experience. The hardware is sleek and simple, and a pleasure to hold, and the user interface on the browser is simple and clear, although we expect it will get a bit more cluttered as necessary functions are added in before ship.
Upon booting the device, which really does take only nine seconds, you get a big display of tiles: Your Web bookmarks. The WiFi-only device loads up pages reasonably quickly and you can scroll through pages by dragging your finger on the screen. A pinch out (or "zoom") gesture takes you back the home screen. From the home screen, pinching in shows you your open Web sites. Missing from the current pre-production code is a navigate back gesture (it will be a two-finger swipe), a bookmark gesture (which will be like turning down a page corner), and other functions, like closing a browser window and page zoom.
From the home screen you can use the on-screen keyboard to enter a Web address or a search term. Once you type something in, you can use it as a Web address or a Google text or video search term.
The JooJoo works best when held in your hands like a book, I think, although the on-screen keyboard ends up positioned poorly. You can easily hold the device with one hand, but then you can only tap out words with one finger. There will be an optional easel stand, and the JooJoo will support USB and Bluetooth keyboards.
The JooJoo is designed in part as a video viewing device, but unfortunately in the demo we got, the Wi-Fi network we were on wasn't robust enough to support the video Rathakrishnan wanted to display. The few seconds of video we saw before the system stopped to buffer looked great, but if users buy this device expecting to be able to watch HD video in their hotel rooms all the time, we recommend that they either reset their expectations or avoid hotels like San Francisco's St. Regis, which apparently doesn't give its guests sufficient bandwidth.
Rathakrishnan says he's done no market research to verify that there's consumer support for this product, although he does note that people in TechCrunch audience have been supportive of the product. Of course, that was back when Michael Arrington was throwing around the concept at a $200 or $300 price point. At $500 it's a very different market, and the cabal of TechCrunch fans is not representative of consumer demand.
Rathakrishnan did say he's talking to several potential partners about the device--media companies, for the most part. A subsidized model is a possibility, he said.
The JooJoo with its pint-size inspiration, the iPhone.
(Credit: Rafe Needleman/CNET)The product will be hitting reviewers' hands this month, we're told, and will be shipping in eight to ten weeks.
Is the JooJoo a great device? Yes, it is. But at the $499 price point, we don't think it will be a success. It does less than a Netbook--it won't run productivity apps that aren't browser-based--and it's helpless when away from a Wi-Fi connection. It's a great computer for browsing the Web from the couch, but at its current price it's a luxury item, an indulgence. It's hard to justify its purchase in the way buyers can rationalize an iPhone or a Kindle. It's not a product we'd recommend to anyone who needs their computers for productivity. It's not a device for students, or workers, nor is it a good family room computer (the keyboard isn't good enough). You can get a capable laptop for $500 that does much more than the JooJoo.
If you have money to burn, though, go for it. It's pleasing to use and will be a great toy for your living room. At least until Apple figures out how to tackle this category.
Like so many other tech gadgets out there, in other words, many people will really want a JooJoo. But I doubt they will pay for it.
Previously: CrunchPad reborn as JooJoo.
Fusion Garage's Chandra Rathakrishnan shows off the JooJoo in a videoconference.
(Credit: Screenshot by Rafe Needleman/CNET)Monday morning, former TechCrunch partner Fusion Garage revealed details of its plans to release its Linux-based Web browsing tablet.
Known as the CrunchPad until TechCrunch founder Michael Arrington announced on his blog that Fusion Garage had removed his company from involvement the product, it was expected to be a touch-sensitive slate computer designed for browsing the Web. It was said to have no local storage aside from what was necessary to load and run the operating system. Arrington said he was hoping to bring the product to market for under $300, but did not expect it to be a big seller.
More recently, Arrington said litigation over the breakup was imminent.
Fusion Garage has been quiet about the public but one-sided airing of the two companies' disagreements until now.
In a Web videocast Monday, Fusion Garage CEO Chandra Rathakrishnan laid out his position on the drama, and revealed plans for the release of the product.
Tasty hardware specs
Rathakrishnan said the product, now named JooJoo, will soon be available for preorder for $499, well above the sub-$300 price point that Arrington hoped to deliver the product at. Shipping will start in 8 to 10 weeks.
Regarding the high price, the Fusion Garage CEO said that "nothing worthwhile can be delivered," at the hoped-for $300 price, and pointed to other products, like the Kindle DX and the iPhone, as examples of products with lesser screens that cost more.
The JooJoo will have a 12.1-inch capacitive touch screen, limited local storage for caching data, Wi-Fi but no cellular connectivity, and will boot directly to the browser in nine seconds, Rathakrishnan said. It is said to have five hours of battery life and weigh under 2.5 pounds. It has no physical buttons other than the power switch, and looks quite sleek in black, its only color option. The operating system/browser hybrid, written by Fusion Garage, will be capable of displaying full HD video on the device.
Regarding the potentially competitive Chrome OS, Rathakrishnan said that while it's a "similar vision," the Netbook form factor (which Chrome OS is written for) is not ideal for the use cases he envisions. Furthermore, Chrome OS is a year from release; JooJoo is entering production now.
Ugly legal posturing
Rathakrishnan opened his press conference by saying that "The death of the product has been greatly exaggerated." He then spent several minutes refuting Arrington's claims of ownership over the intellectual property inside the JooJoo device.
"I'm not the person I've been portrayed as in the blogosphere," Rathakrishnan said in defense of himself, before attacking Arrington. "Anybody can write blog posts," he said. "There are dreamers and there are doers."
Rathakrishnan said that he and Arrington had agreed on a vision of the product early on, and that Arrington had said he would line up funding and other help to bring the product to market. The ultimate goal was for a TechCrunch subsidiary company, CrunchPad, to buy Fusion Garage. But the TechCrunch money never materialized, and Fusion Garage raised money on its own, built the product independently, and lined up manufacturing for the product.
It's "ludicrous," Rathakrishnan said, to think that TechCrunch owns any intellectual property in the JooJoo. Rathakrishnan said that there were never any legal agreements signed to that effect.
"We took all the risk and did all the work. Michael Arrington sat back," Rathakrishnan said.
Opinions differ on Rathakrishnan's position, of course. Arrington has laid out a compelling case of betrayal in his blog posts on the topic, and TechCrunch readers have, to date, supported Arrington's position that he is the injured party.
Ultimately, it's highly unlikely that the rancor between TechCrunch and Fusion Garage will make much difference in the success or failure of the product. Neither TechCrunch nor JooJoo is a popular consumer brand, and the market for this category of product is untested. What is more likely to trouble the product's success is that it's priced out of reach of most consumers, and functionally doesn't offer much more than a $300 Netbook, although arguably it performs many of the same functions with a lot more style.
We're getting a hands-on look at the JooJoo later Monday and will report on that in a separate post.
Cisco's release Tuesday of the Flipshare TV brought to mind other overpriced single-purpose devices that have cluttered my computer desk and stereo rack over the years. Like the over-specific kitchen appliances you use once or only once in a while and don't really need in your life (yogurt makers, margarita mixers, hot-dog toasters), there are plenty of technological products that are better at taking up your space and money than providing ongoing value.
Here are my top categories of tech yogurt makers:
The Flipshare TV
(Credit: Cisco)TV media viewers
Worst example: The Microsoft TV Photo Viewer. Released in 2001, this was a floppy disk drive with a TV output. It was for viewing digital photos on a TV. Of course, if you had a digital camera and a computer, you already had a good way to view photos, and at a better resolution than the TVs of the day. But with the TV Photo Viewer, you could set your parents up with a viewing station for your digital photos.
Great--but then you had to teach them how to use it, make sure it stayed connected to their TV, and worse, crunch your photos down to fit on a floppy and get said floppy to them so they could see the pictures. I tried to set one of these up for my mother. She rolled her eyes and said, "Just mail me the snapshots, dear."
Also in this category, the aforementioned Flipshare TV, a $149 device whose main function can be duplicated by a $0.31 HDMI cable. For that matter, the Flip camera itself is a bit of a one-trick pony. Sure, it's easy to use, but a standard digital camera will also take videos. I have a Flip camera myself and I do love it--in theory. But when I leave the house, I don't want to take a video camera that duplicates only one thing that my point-and-shoot digicam does (and without a zoom lens, no less), so the Flip stays home almost all the time.
Related: The Sandisk Take TV, which was a bunch of wires and parts that let you watch videos stored on SD cards on your TV. It was a great product for all those illegal vids you got from BitTorrent. It, like the the TV Photo Viewer, is no longer sold.
HP's Printing Mailbox for Presto Service
(Credit: CNET)Other gizmos for your parents
There are more products that seem to exist to tell your parents that they're technological klutzes. The Presto printer, from 2006, comes to mind: It's an HP-sourced photo printer that prints only what you, the loving child, sends to it over the Internet. It can't print from a local computer, and there's a monthly service fee to be able to send to it. Eventually you will grow tired of the one-way sending of photos and articles to the printer, and replace it with a real computer so your loved ones can communicate back to you. Hopefully you'll still have money left for the computer after paying the monthly fee to use the Presto.
My co-worker Molly Wood thinks digital photo frames fall into this category, since nobody ever bothers to update them after they're first loaded with images. But I happen to like these devices, and even if they are never updated, they're unobtrusive and have great gift appeal.
... Read more
Just a few days ahead of the scheduled public beta launch of media app Boxee on Monday, the excellent Clicker Internet video directory has been ported to the platform.
To review: Boxee is a media viewing app designed for living room use--that is, at a distance, with a remote control. It's a good interface for sources like YouTube, Netflix, CNN, and CBS (our publisher), as well as music, home movies, and photos. We've covered it a lot and quite like it.
Clicker, which we also like, is an extremely well-curated directory of streaming television shows. Clicker on Boxee is that directory on the Boxee platform, and also designed for control from a remote. It works very well. The Clicker service and Boxee appear made for each other.
Clicker on Boxee gives users a nice big interface for browsing shows.
(Credit: Screenshot by Rafe Needleman/CNET)Unfortunately, Clicker on Boxee doesn't have access to the entire Clicker database, which is a big disappointment. In particular, Hulu was removed as an official Boxee content partner earlier this year, so Clicker, which indexes Hulu just fine on its Web interface, won't display Hulu episodes when run on Boxee. Boxee itself has a workaround that shows Hulu content despite the licensing issues, but it's not the full, authorized interface that Boxee used to have, and Clicker doesn't have access to those shows. So if you're on Boxee and want to see a show that's on Hulu, you have to leave Clicker, fire up the Hulu Feeds module, and search for it there.
One of Boxee's other issues at the moment is that there are nearly 40 different content sources that it can view, and several have unique interfaces and search functions. Clicker may be able to find a lot of video content, but it can't find all of it, and if you use Boxee you might have to know which network or service a show is on to find it if it's not on Clicker. Hopefully the upcoming open beta of Boxee, which is said to feature a new interface, will address this issue. We'll have a report on the new version of the app, and how Clicker works inside it, when it launches.
The search function is also designed to be used with a remote control.
(Credit: Screenshot by Rafe Needleman/CNET)
Google is hosting a press event at 10 a.m. PST at its Mountain View, Calif., headquarters to update the world on its plans for world domination via the release of its second operating system (after Android), the Google Chrome OS (FAQ). Google VP Sundar Pichai and Engineering Director Matthew Papakipos will reveal technical details and launch plans, and will have demos. Google will be streaming the announcement.
I'll be in the audience when the event kicks off and will be live-blogging my thoughts on the talk as it happens. Josh Lowensohn will be handling reader feedback during the live blog, so if you want to share your observations on what's happening or have questions, please contribute in the live blog window below once the event goes live. Stephen Shankland will also be at the site to grab photos, and Tom Krazit will have the full news rundown and analysis after the event closes.
Tuesday night, I asked Justin Kitch, who sold his company, Homestead.com, to Intuit in 2007, how much Intuit paid for the company. "$170 million," he said. "No," I said, "That was Mint. How much was Homestead?"
"It's funny, isn't it?" he said. Both Mint and Homestead went for the same price.
Coincidence? Intuit also bought another company, Paycycle, in June of this year. Guess for how much. That's right. $170 million.
What the heck is going on at Inuit? Do they have a stack of pre-printed $170 million checks? Do they only like companies as they pass through that magical valuation number (as decided by their own analysts)?
Intuit says this: It's a coincidence. And, I've been reminded, the company has made non-$170 million buys: MyCorporation.com in 2005, for $20 million; Digital Insight (2007) for $1.3 billion; Electronic Clearing House (2007) for $131 million; and Entellium (2008) for $8 million.
I still think if you're selling a company to Intuit, you should ask for $170 million. It's a figure they're comfortable with.
Blog platform company Six Apart is adding a free, miniaturized blogging service to its paid blog hosting service TypePad. The new TypePad Micro service is essentially a simplified template, called Chroma, for unpaid users on the TypePad service. It will likely be compared with Posterous and Tumblr.
The Chroma template is flexible and attractive, and most of the blogs I've seen using it look good. It's a great format for short posts and for sharing pictures and embedded videos.
But as a short-form blog authoring platform, TypePad Micro is still TypePad, a powerful and capable blogging system that may be overkill for people who just want a way to post quick items. The main Quick Compose interface is nice and light, but one level down, the options are overwhelming. In comparison, Tumblr's posting interface is light and clean all the way through. Posterous' Web interface is even leaner, and if that's still too much for you, you can start blogging on it via e-mail, without even setting up an account on the Web site. (To be fair, you can also post to TypePad Micro via e-mail.)
The new Chroma template is well-suited to short posts and images.
(Credit: Screenshot by Rafe Needleman/CNET)Still, what Six Apart is doing with TypePad Micro is probably good for Six Apart and it's definitely good for writing and writers. From the product perspective, CEO Chris Alden believes that there's a somewhat open space in the blogging world between full-on blogs like TypePad and micro-blogs like Twitter. He envisions TypePad Micro as a good starting point for people who want to say more than they can on Twitter and don't want to pay for it (thus putting TypePad Micro in competition with the free Wordpress.com). He also sees it as a supplementary blog template for paying TypePad customers who want a new outlet for quick posts.
There is a quick posting form for TypePad Micro, but the rest of the author's site is complex.
(Credit: Screenshot by Rafe Needleman/CNET)And if you care about writing, as I do, you'll love the new micro formats like this one, since they encourage people to write shorter posts. Since you have to think more when you're writing for a small space, this is good.
The TypePad platform also integrates into the modern world of Twitter, Facebook, and the like: Every time you post, the platform can automatically send alerts out to dozens of other accounts. And stealing a feature from Twitter, Movable Type lets readers "follow" TypePad blogs.
TypePad Micro is live now.
Wikipedia killed the encyclopedia business, in print and online, as it's hard to make a revenue model work that involves paying people to create content when there are hordes of enthusiastic experts around the world willing to do the job for free. The business of mapping may be similarly doomed, as indicated by PublicEarth, a new wiki-style database of places launching Monday, and by the continued improvement in authoring tools at the crowdsourced mapping service OpenStreetMap.
PublicEarth
PublicEarth is an open database of places. Michael Rubin, who was an architect of Netflix, wanted to bring the same "element of delight" of connecting people to things they enjoy. Netflix did it for movies, and Public Earth is doing it for locations.
As with other crowdsourced place databases, anyone can insert a location. And as with most of the other products, PublicEarth uses Google base maps. The difference in PublicEarth is in the execution: It's slick, in a good way. For map users, PublicEarth lets you quickly find categories of locations -- romantic, kid-friendly, historic, for campers, etc. -- for places you are going. When you're looking at a map of places, you can get a lot of data by just rolling your mouse over hot spots, without clicking. "We learned how expensive a click is," Rubin says.
PublicEarth is a good system for a crowdsourced database of places.
(Credit: Screenshot by Rafe Needleman/CNET)The system will have a recommendation engine that learns what you like. So if you've been using the system and then head to a new town you can just see the "recommended for you" locations.
The real value to PublicEarth is that it can find places that aren't, as they say, on the map. It's very easy for users to create a point of interest, draw a boundary line around a park, or trace a route to walk or hike. If enough people get into this system it could be a great resource for travelers. Which is the business model.
The PublicEarth team wants to make this service the go-to database of unusual places, and to partner with standard booking sites like Hotels.com, OpenTable, and travel solutions like TripIt. Getting traffic from those sites will get people into the system, and then sending booking and ticket traffic out to venues will generate revenue.
PublicEarth is also being marketed to activity groups like RV and sports clubs, parents groups, birdwatchers, and so on. It can be used by social networks to collect and collate locations aimed at specific interests, which can help people with those interests when they visit a new region.
Of course, success hinges on contributions, and it's not easy to create a user-maintained location database that sticks. There's also competition: Wikimapia and Yelp come to mind. But if PublicEarth can affiliate with other travel resources it could work out. It is a very strong product. It has the potential to compete with the guidebook market.
OpenStreetMap
PublicEarth is an open database of items on top of a map. OpenStreetMap is a crowdsourced map itself. The project was started before Google Maps came on to the scene, and while the search juggernaut's global road map is certainly more popular, there's a lot to be said for the OpenStreetMap approach. The fact that anyone with an interest in an area can create, correct, or update a map means you can get a lot of very specific data onto the map, created by people with very specific, nearly microscopic, knowledge of their regions.
And since the OpenStreetMap data itself is open, developers can do anything they wish with it. With a commercial map like Google's you have to push everything through one API, but with a truly open system you can create your own maps from the data, perform calculations on map points, and so. OpenStreetMap would be a great mapping database for the calculation engine Wolfram Alpha.
The MapZen iPhone app will help you map on the go.
(Credit: CloudMade)Later this month a new map editor, MapZen, is coming to the system from CloudMade, a company that commercializes the OpenStreetMap project. MapZen will make it easier for mappers to create and correct roads and points of interest. An iPhone app, currently in approval limbo, will also make it easier for anyone to walk and map. And new social tools should be good for to help groups of "map buddies" coordinate their work.
The MapZen/OpenStreetMap combo also lets you do very specific and modern cartography. There's a junction editor, for example, that lets contributors specify turn restrictions by time of day.
CloudMade will monetize the system by offering search features and routing (with awareness of the junction turn restrictions), and possibly by working on location-based advertising.
OpenStreetMap currently matters more to people in less-mapped regions than to dwellers of hyper-mapped U.S. cities. But ultimately the system may enable new location-based apps and services thanks to its wide-open system.
The crowded map
Google has already added a form of crowdsourcing to its mapping services: Its traffic system gets location and speed data from its mobile users. (Users can get their own raw data through Latitude, if they wish.) But Google relies on its own private mapping data, and its own servers to deliver maps to users. It's an expensive model and it doesn't serve all users in all locations equally. The crowdsourced mapping model is a serious competitor to the proprietary map business. I wouldn't have thought it could work, but Wikipedia shows that it's a mistake to dismiss the power of millions of individuals, each willing to chip in a little bit, to create great reference works.
The full MapZen app lets you re-route roads. Please be careful.
(Credit: CloudMade)
SAN FRANCISCO--At the NewTeeVee Live conference on Thursday, YouTube director of product management Hunter Walk announced that the video-streaming service is getting a new high-quality streaming option: full HD, or "1080p" resolution. The current "high-quality" option, when available on YouTube videos, is 720p, referring to the number of horizontal scan lines that make up the image.
Walk said the new resolution, as well as a new full-screen player, will roll out to all users within days.
YouTube co-founder Steve Chen announced high-quality YouTube viewing at NewTeeVee 2007. He also said, then, that YouTube stores all video it receives at the resolution it's uploaded at. So when YouTube ads a resolution option, as it did then and is doing now, it simply needs to re-encode videos for the new player, not get new raw content.
Walk said that about half of the 1080p content in the YouTube database has been re-encoded so far.
Only about 10 percent of playbacks on YouTube are now in the high-quality player. Walk said that this is due in large part to the fact that for many viewers, hardware or bandwidth limitations prohibit high-quality viewing. Also, more content is coming in from mobile devices than ever. "We've seen about a 2,000 percent increase in mobile uploads this year," Walk said. Update: A YouTube spokesperson contacted me with this correction: "This is incorrect. It's HD uploads that have grown from 1% to nearly 10% over the course of 11 months."
Other changes afoot at YouTube: The team remains interested in a non-Flash video player. "We're interested in broad accessibility," Walk said, reminding the NewTeeVee audience that the company has demonstrated an HTML 5-based YouTube player. "We keep an open mind," he said.
