Geek Gestalt

This photo of U2 lead singer Bono, shot during U2's Rose Bowl show on October 25, by amateur photographer Bruce Heavin, was taken with a Canon PowerShot G11, and is representative of the high-quality pictures that ticket-holders can easily take these days at concerts and other events with point-and-shoot cameras. Note the people in the picture snapping their own images of Bono.

(Credit: Flickr user Bruce Heavin)

At last month's huge U2 show at the Rose Bowl in Pasadena, Calif., how could you tell the difference between the professional photographers and your average amateurs?

Answer: the professionals were the ones whisked away after Bono and friends finished their third song, and the amateurs were still there, happily shooting to their heart's content.

Nearly every person at any show these days is going to have some form of camera with them, be it a point-and-shoot, an iPhone or some other camera phone, and it seems that there is almost no way to imagine keeping all those devices out.

That new reality is forcing an increasing number of bands to come to grips with the fact that they can't really control the images from their shows, and that, for the most part, they're better off letting fans cram Facebook and Flickr with such pictures anyway.

"It's an acknowledgment of the way technology is changing, and how much digital cameras have become a part of our lives," Rob Sheridan, the creative director for Nine Inch Nails, told CNET News. "Now that everyone has video and still cameras in their phones, and pocket digital cameras take HD video and great quality pictures, not only is it impossible to keep cameras out of shows, but it's fighting an increasingly uphill battle against what is now a cultural norm: people freely documenting their lives and the things they do to share it with friends and family."

In fact, the only people who may emerge frustrated from this new paradigm are the professionals. For those shooting with credentials, the phrase is "three songs and you're gone," said Bob Carey, the president of the National Press Photographers Association, meaning that pros are generally allowed to shoot from a designated "pit" near the stage during a band's first three songs, and then they have to leave.

Last month, I was one of those sporting a photo pass at the 96,000-fan U2 Rose Bowl show. And even as I was clicking away during those first three songs, I was acutely aware that there were hundreds of people even closer to the stage than I was, toting cameras capable of taking some pretty great pictures. Indeed, a quick Flickr search confirmed just that.

Little dynamos
Many of those fans--and thousands more throughout the Rose Bowl that night--were shooting with nothing more than a camera phone. And no one worries about the dissemination of images taken with devices like that. But some people were shooting with cameras like Canon's new PowerShot G11, a little 12.5-ounce, 10-megapixel dynamo much more than capable of producing professional images.

Shot with a press credential from the photo pit and with a digital SLR, this CNET photo is not all that distinguishable from the photo (seen above) by amateur Bruce Heavin, which he took with a Canon PowerShot G11, a point-and-shoot camera.

(Credit: Daniel Terdiman/CNET)

So, while the professionals are being ushered out after those three songs, how is it that the fans are able to keep shooting?

The answer is camera policies in effect at concerts, which are almost always defined by the bands themselves. And conversations with people throughout the music industry make it clear that while there are no standard policies, and that the rules run the gamut from "anything goes" to "no pictures, please," artists today are increasingly tolerant, even encouraging, of fans taking all the pictures they want.

Look, for example, at the Nine Inch Nails Web site, which spells out the band's open camera policy, "inviting fans to capture the events with anything from a cell phone to a hi-def video camera." The reason is clear: "The results have been overwhelming, filling our own galleries with thousands of images and videos from every show, and inspiring a number of ambitious fan-sourced video projects within the NIN community. Some of those projects are starting to surface now, and we couldn't be happier with the way the fans have organized themselves and created some truly impressive work."

Further, Sheridan told CNET News, even the proliferation of pictures of the band's shows taken by fans hasn't hurt its commercial interests.

"Despite the fact that our fans take thousands and thousands of their own photos at each NIN show with whatever camera they'd like, we still sell prints of live photos taken by me through a Web site called frcphotos.com," said Sheridan. "This is presumably the type of thing that other acts would be trying to 'protect' by limiting photography at shows, but we've found that fans are still eager to purchase reasonably-priced professional prints, often taken at angles or distances that only someone working for the band would have access to."

Some artists are clearly concerned about fans' rights to take pictures, and go so far as to issue reminders when there are restrictions. For example, the indie rock due, Tegan and Sara, have sent tweets saying things like, "Hollywood Bowl restricts cameras that are deemed professional. This usually means cameras with a removable lens. So keep that in mind!!!"

And, of course, other rock stars are not at all behind the notion of fans taking pictures. Among those are said to be Prince, Kanye West, Bjork, and others. At shows by those artists, security is known to assiduously stop people from taking pictures of any kind, even with camera phones, though one wonders just how effective such policies can be.

Less anti-camera attitudes
But clearly, anti-camera attitudes are becoming less and less prevalent these days.

"It's something that artists have come to realize they have no control over," said Abe Baruck, a manager who works with big-name acts like Journey, Clint Black, and Peter Wolf. It's "more a realization that this is just the way people enjoy entertainment. They want to capture something for their own nostalgia (and it) just doesn't go anywhere other than for their own use."

That thinking is likely what is behind the restrictions on specific kinds of camera equipment at some shows, like U2's, and on professionals.

Even though millions of amateur photographers now own digital SLRs, there is still a mindset in the entertainment industry that anyone toting one at a concert is a professional and therefore should be limited in where and how they shoot.

That's why some bands, like U2, make a point of allowing fans to take pictures, so long as they stick to lower-end equipment. "Since 2001, U2 has openly allowed fans to bring cameras to their shows," reads the FAQ on the site U2tours.com. "Your camera, however, must be a point-and-shoot camera; DSLRs are not allowed."

"It's just a very simple calling card saying, 'I'm a professional media person,'" Philip Blaine, a producer with Coachella promoter Goldenvoice, said of photographers with digital SLRs, "'and I know how to utilize this media in a professional manner.'"

And while it's generally bands that are setting camera policies, some venues have also asserted control over what fans can and can't bring.

One example is the Hollywood Bowl, in Los Angeles. As evidenced by the tweet from Tegan and Sara, that venue imposes restrictions around certain kinds of equipment. A Hollywood Bowl spokeswoman said that that venue won't let ticket-holders bring in professional-grade equipment.

Professional sports seem to largely work the same way. According to NFL spokesperson Brian McCarthy, football fans are allowed to bring in any kind of still camera--though lenses are restricted to less than six inches long, for security reasons--they want. That policy is standard across the entire NFL, McCarthy added, and prohibits fans from bringing in any kind of camcorder.

The same basic policy applies to other sports, too. According to Nick Ohayre, a spokesperson for the NBA's Golden State Warriors, fans are free to carry and use cameras at basketball games, so long as they don't use flash and don't bring large, professional equipment.

But over time, as the technology improves, it may become more common and force sports leagues and entertainers to pay more attention to what's happening with imagery taken by the thousands of small devices fans bring with them to events, especially as the quality of pictures from those devices is often good enough for professional publication and licensing.

Some even think that band representatives need to do a better job of keeping up with what's possible in technology.

"I don't think they're aware of some of (what's possible) with new devices," said Carey of the National Press Photographers Association. "I don't think they've figured out the nuances of what point-and-shoots can do with photos and video."

But the increasing permissive attitude toward letting fans shoot whatever photos they please may simply come down to the realities of what it would take to do a serious search of every one of the thousands of people who go through an event's gates.

In the old days, said New York freelancer Lia Bulaong, if she wanted to sneak a camera into a show, she would hide its battery in her bra and then convince security she had brought her powerless camera into the show in order not to risk it being stolen from her car.

But in the last two or three years, she said, such subterfuge is pointless.

"No-camera policies just became extra ridiculous because pretty much everyone has a camera in their phone," Bulaong said. "Venues can't turn away camera phones and will never the capacity to check them in like they do coats and bags."

Plus, she pointed out, more and more, the bands want to incorporate the fans' phones into their shows.

"The one thing you will see at every concert now, regardless of the artist, is the moment when everyone has their camera phone out and the venue is awash in tiny lit up screens."

Google Voice may not have made it onto the iPhone yet, but the service has still managed to attract more than 1.4 million users.

In a story posted Friday, BusinessWeek is reporting that Google Voice has grown to 1.419 million users, 40 percent--fully 570,000--of whom use the service every day. The information comes from documents in which Google responded to questions from U.S. regulators interested in whether the search giant is improperly blocking calls to phone numbers in specific rural areas of the country.

But while the information about the number of users of the service was included in the documents Google handed over, they were not meant to be made public.

"Though the number of Google Voice customers was redacted in the version that was made public, BusinessWeek reviewed the information in the redacted sections," BusinessWeek reporter Arik Hesseldahl wrote. "'We had intended to keep sensitive information regarding our partners and the number of Google Voice users confidential,' Google said in a statement to BusinessWeek. 'Unfortunately, the PDF submitted to the (U.S. Federal Communications Commission) was improperly formatted.'"

Hessedahl added that subsequently, the FCC has replaced the first letter on its site with one in which the information originally intended to be redacted has been blacked out.

He also reported that another since-redacted section of the documents suggests that Google intends to take its Voice service global and has inked deals with several "international service providers for inputs to Google Voice." However, Google said that no such international services have gotten off the ground so far.

That Google should screw up something so simple as PDF formatting is terrific, from a reporter's perspective. Surely however, its investors, board members, and executives are none too happy with the employee responsible for ensuring that the relevant passages of the documents were blacked out. But, as someone who may not have been too successful at such an operation myself, I shouldn't throw stones.

And in the spectrum of corporate secrets it would have liked to keep to itself, the number of Google Voice users is kind of small potatoes. Somewhere, Larry and Sergey are probably breathing a sigh of relief that that's all that escaped the faulty digital black-out.

So, word to the wise, corporate types: if you have to give the government documents that are going to be made public, pay a little more attention to the way you format your PDFs. A lot could hang in the balance.

The Edge and Bono perform before 96,000 fans during the U2 360 concert Sunday at the Rose Bowl in Pasadena, Calif.

(Credit: Daniel Terdiman/CNET)

PASADENA, Calif.--If you were one of the 96,000 people packed into the Rose Bowl Sunday night for the U2 concert--said to be the largest concert ever held here--you were sharing the experience with at least a few other fans off-site.

There's no way to know yet how many exactly, but it's safe to say millions of people around the world were also watching the concert live on YouTube, a potentially server-crashing Webcast that may have been the biggest live-stream yet.

For months, the band has been on tour with its U2 360 concerts. And to top off the grand claims, it has been called the biggest rock tour in history, at least as measured by the size and cost of its infrastructure--more than $750,000 per show, according to Rolling Stone.

Only days ago, the band announced that it would share the Rose Bowl concert live, with fans across the globe. Just before the band came on stage, a roadie calling himself Rocco got up in front of the crowd of 96,000 and said, "Tonight, you are the ones making history," shouting out that those in attendance would be joined by viewers in "North America, South America, Europe, Africa, Asia, Australia, and Antarctica."

Photos: U2 goes global via YouTube

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For its part, YouTube wasn't sharing much about how it put together the live stream. Before the show started, there was some discussion among reporters on hand at the Rose Bowl about whether YouTube would be up to the task of delivering the show to so many people, live, on so many continents. But if Twitter is any judge, the live-stream went off almost without a hitch. More to the point, a Twitter feed set up on the official YouTube U2 page showcased comments in a wide variety of languages from Webcast viewers.

Back at the Rose Bowl, in an effort to rally the capacity crowd, the concert-goers were told why this show was chosen by YouTube: "Because right here is where the greatest singers of U2 songs are....Tonight, we need to hear your voices, and to hear you sing. Can you do it?"

In response, the crowd roared its agreement, and indeed, throughout U2's approximately two hours on stage, there were several emotional moments when U2 leader Bono stopped singing and let the audience take over the vocals. These were truly beautiful and awe-inspiring moments, as there is very little on Earth like the sound of nearly 100,000 people singing together.

Ironically, no connectivity
These days, you can find out what's happening at just about any event by turning to Twitter. But at the Rose Bowl, this wasn't the case. It turned out that there was nearly no connectivity, and so there seemed to be a dearth of tweets sent from inside the concert. Still, because the show was being watched by millions of people around the world, there is certainly no shortage of posts on Twitter about what was happening.

That's an ironic turn of events, though, and not at all what I expected. I thought there would be a steady stream of tweets emanating from the Rose Bowl, and I had expected to send many of them myself. Instead, this highly tech-centric concert was ground zero for a disconnected audience. We were truly "stuck in the moment," to quote one of U2's hit songs, though I doubt anyone wanted to "get out of it."

A YouTube representative did tell me prior to the show that the service was using 24 cameras to film the concert, as well as 24 additional closed-circuit TV cameras. Further, he said YouTube was offering its stream at three different qualities, so that almost anyone could watch, regardless of the speed of their Internet connection.

The YouTube U2 page with the stream of the concert, albeit a rebroadcast. But millions around the world watched the Rose Bowl concert live on YouTube.

(Credit: YouTube)

Having YouTube produce such a major Webcast is fitting, given the size and scope of the U2 360 tour. Among its facts and figures are tidbits like this: the 360-degree stage--which allowed huge numbers of fans to watch from behind--featured a 90-foot-tall steel structure, topped by a center pylon reaching 150 feet in the air; the innovative video screen atop the stage weighs 54 tons, is 4,300 square feet when closed, and is 14,000 square feet when opened; the screen itself is comprised of more than a million pieces, including components to illuminate 500,000 pixels, as well as 320,000 fasteners, 30,000 cables and 150,000 machined pieces.

The incredible expanding screen
The video screen, according to information provided by the band's publicists, is "broken into segments mounted on a multiple pantograph system, which enables the screen to 'open up' or spread apart vertically as an effect during different stages of the concerts."

I didn't think I'd ever seen such a thing before, and it just about made my jaw drop when I noticed it. Already, the screen was a sight to behold, but it didn't seem all that big, especially when I thought back to what I'd seen the band do with video during its U2 3D film.

The U2 360 video screen featured an expansion system that allowed it stretch to a size more than three times what it is when closed.

(Credit: Daniel Terdiman/CNET)

Well, it turns out I was right: I hadn't seen anything like this before, and neither had anyone else who hadn't been to one of the U2 360 shows.

"The video screen is the first LED screen to be based on a geometric system that allows it to expand in two directions simultaneously," U2 360 architect Mark Fisher told CNET News in an e-mail interview. "Video screens are normally flat panels that track like closet doors, or slatted panels that roll up like garage doors. The 360 degree screen uses a scissor-like motion to expand in two directions. It starts as a solid elliptical ring approximately 20 feet deep, and transforms into form a cone-shaped mesh 60 feet tall."

Fisher added that this is the first time such technology--what he called "transforming geometry"--has been used to "change the shape of a video screen."

And while Fisher said that, in general, the technology behind U2 360 isn't in and of itself new, the way it's being used during the tour most certainly is.

"The show employs a large number of computers and electric motors to control the motion of the screen, and there are large numbers of computer-controlled moving lights," Fisher said. "The video on the screen is also created using powerful computers that 'map' the picture onto the transforming screen. All of this automation and programming is possible because the computers available in 2009 and more powerful, and cheaper, than they were when we created the Vertigo tour in 2005."

Google Earth
Another piece of technology used for the tour--at least in a way that U2's fans can interact with--is Google Earth. Fisher explained that the stage's designers decided it would be fun for fans to see the huge structure on Google Earth.

"So we hooked up with the folks that run the operation, and they agreed to let us put 3D models of the stage into the 3D models of the stadiums where it plays," Fisher said. "The 360 degree stage is turned around in each stadium in six days (and) the models stay in each city on Google Earth for slightly longer."

U2 used Google Earth to give fans a sense of how the stage in its U2 360 tour was built. Here is the London site.

(Credit: U2)

On U2's official Web site, the band explained what is going on with the Google Earth project: "If you're following the tour as it moves around...there's a very cool new feature on Google Earth--a model of the 360 stage, in situ, at the venue, about a week ahead of each show."

The site also explained that the model that fans see could be red, green or blue, with each color corresponding to one of three "steel teams" that "leapfrog each other from city to city to build the stage in each stadium."

Fisher also weighed in on the site with the real reason why the band chose to implement Google Earth: "We thought it would be interesting to put up on Google Earth a piece of portable architecture, which is what this structure is," he wrote. "In a way it's got no practical purpose...except that it's fun!"

A scene from the Boston show of U2's 360 show, what has been called the biggest rock show in history. This Sunday's show, at the Rose Bowl, in Pasadena, Calif., will be streamed live on YouTube.

(Credit: U2)

U2 fans who can't make it to the band's giant concert this Sunday evening at the Rose Bowl in Pasadena, Calif., don't fret: you'll be able to watch anyway.

The band has announced that it plans to stream the concert on YouTube, and fans around the world will be able to tune in to watch it live.

"The band has wanted to do something like this for a long time," said U2's manager, Paul McGuinness, in a statement on the band's Web site. "As we're (already) filming the LA show, it's the perfect opportunity to extend the party beyond the stadium. Fans often travel long distances to come to see U2--this time U2 can go to them, globally."

According to the BBC, this is not U2's first experiment with live streaming. The band "allowed fans to watch a Boston date of their Popmart tour in 1997 via Microsoft's MSN Web site," wrote the BBC.

In addition, YouTube has also experimented with large live events. Around 700,000 people watched its YouTube Live concert/variety show in November, which was streamed from San Francisco and featured several celebrity acts including pop stars Katy Perry and will.i.am.

U2's current tour, called U2 360, is said to feature the biggest rock show in history, at least as measured by the complexity of the concerts' infrastructure.

SAN FRANCISCO--An initiative in the works from the nonprofit Internet Archive to centralize the electronic distribution of commercially viable books could upend the publishing industry and declaw Amazon.com, an industry analyst said.

On Monday, the Internet Archive, which among other things has been working for some time to digitize countless numbers of public domain texts, showed the first public look at its BookServer project, an initiative its dubs, "The future of books."

Internet Archive founder Brewster Kahle told CNET News that BookServer is about creating an open system that allows search engines to index books that are available from a wide group of sources. Effectively, commercial publishers, lending libraries and even individual authors would have a way to index their work and offer easy digital distribution under BookServer, Kahle said.

Brewster Kahle, the founder of the Internet Archive, on Monday unveiled an initiative called BookServer, aimed at making all books availble for digital distribution.

(Credit: Internet Archive)

Kahle's timing is interesting. Also on Monday, the Wall Street Journal reported details on Barnes & Noble's $259 e-reader called the Nook, which will compete with Amazon's Kindle and Sony's E-Reader, a move which heats up the market. More interesting may be Google's announcement last week of its "Google Editions" store, an initiative aimed at offering digital editions of books from publishers with which it already has distribution deals. Google said that should mean about a half-million books would be available initially, either through Google itself, or through sites like Amazon.com and Barnes & Noble.

But it seems the Internet Archive is thinking even bigger than Google.

Kahle said that he's been thinking about such a project since before the advent of the World Wide Web, but that the technology has never been ready. But that's changed over the last 20 years, he said. "We've now gotten universal access to free (content)," Kahle added. "Now it's time to get universal access to all knowledge, and not all of this will be free."

He explained that BookServer is built on the notion of a Web server, and that only a good indexing system is standing in the way of making all books digitally and easily available to consumers, whether they're using a laptop computer, an iPhone, or a Kindle.

Today, he said, publishers, libraries, and others usually turn to outsiders to build them an online distribution system, and that each of those systems stands alone and unindexable. With BookServer, the Internet Archive is hoping that for the first time, consumers everywhere will be able to buy or borrow any text they want while leaving control over pricing and terms of such distribution in the hands of the content owners.

"Right now, they're largely sitting it out or dying," Kahle said of publishers and libraries. "Publishers are not dictating the terms of the distribution of their work. They're handing it over to others...This puts them back in the driver's seat."

And while Kahle imagines that BookServer would by no means result in the end of bookstores or even online booksellers like Amazon, he hopes that publishers and libraries will finally be able to set up their own distribution systems to better compete.

Though it's early days for the BookServer project, which could take several years to complete, Kahle expects that users will first look for what they're looking for on a search engine, ideally something like the Open Library, the Internet Archive's own book search system. Once someone finds the title they're looking for using their search engine of choice, they would be redirected to the publisher's site if they want to buy the title, or to a library's site if they want to borrow it.

"It will be as seamless as buying from a single store," Kahle said, "even though they'll be buying from (a) distributed (group)."

To Thad McIlroy, an electronic publishing industry analyst, BookServer is nothing sort of "incredible."

Amazon may find its business model under attack from efforts like BookServer and Google's recently-announced Editions store, not to mention the new Nook e-reader from Barnes & Noble.

(Credit: Amazon.com)

"Each time (Kahle) moves in to open up the world, he has a big impact," McIlroy said. "Between (the Google Edition) announcement and (the BookServer) announcement, this changes irrevocably the landscape, and Amazon's shares should go down tomorrow."

McIlrory was exaggerating, to some extent, but it's clear that he believes that Amazon's dominance--both as a seller of physical books and a distributor of e-books--is in serious danger if outfits like Google and the Internet Archive are deciding to take it on.

Amazon did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

"This effectively ends anyone's proprietary effort...to close off the system, as Amazon's been trying to do," McIlroy said.

Control back in the hand of publishers
One of the most important aspects of a project like BookServer is that it could, once again, give publishers the upper hand in selling their books.

"The way Amazon is really screwing up the market, creating expectations around (lower) prices, is calamitous," McIlroy said, "and very, very damaging to publishing."

Essentially, Amazon is undercutting book prices and forcing publishers to make harder choices about which books to publish and how to edit them, he suggested. But now, with both Google and the Internet Archive on the job, Amazon may ultimately "be defeated by these two."

And while Google certainly has the might to make a go of its Editions store, it has recently lost a lot of credibility in the book world with the fallout over its Google Book search project. By comparison, McIlroy said that Kahle and the Internet Archive are seen almost universally as altruistic and selfless.

"You couldn't point to anything that hurt anyone," McIlroy said of the Internet Archive's various initiatives. "Everything (Kahle) has done has been truly helpful. But now, to step into this digital book situation is really fantastic. And yes, Google, they have a real credibility problem of their own making, and (Kahle) does not have that."

Microsoft is getting ready for a November release of new Facebook, Twitter, Last.fm, and instant movie and TV show streaming features in Xbox Live.

(Credit: Daniel Terdiman/CNET)

SAN FRANCISCO--At a star-studded E3 press conference last June, Microsoft touted, among other things, a plan to bring Facebook, Twitter, and Last.fm to its hit online service, Xbox Live, as well as to begin offering instant streaming of movies and TV shows.

At the time, all Microsoft would say is that it hoped to roll out these new features to the public in the fall.

Well, it's now the fall. And on Wednesday, my colleague Josh Lowensohn and I got a first-hand look at the pre-release Xbox Live implementation of Facebook, Twitter, Last.fm, and video streaming, and had a chance to talk to Xbox Live General Manager Ron Pessner about it all.

Photos: Twitter, Facebook, Last.fm almost ready for Xbox Live

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Microsoft is still not ready to let the public in on the fun yet, and today is only willing to give the launch a November timeframe--with no actual date announced. Further, since E3, the so-called InstantOn streaming feature has been rolled up into a larger Zune branding effort, something that I think is a big mistake, given the cool reception the Zune name--at least as it applies to Microsoft's music player--has received in the marketplace.

Regardless, it's clear that Microsoft is nearly ready to start letting the Xbox Live community get its hands on the Facebook, Twitter, and Last.fm features, and to begin streaming video content rather than waiting for it to download, which has been a slow, frustrating process by all accounts.

Pessner began by talking about Facebook. Clearly, Microsoft's interest is in getting the feature up and running and letting Xbox Live users begin to access the popular social network on their TVs sooner, rather than later, even though some fundamental elements of Facebook haven't been included.

According to Pessner, a chief goal of the implementation was to make it easy for users to make photo slideshows and watch them on their TVs. A quick demo revealed that much of the Xbox Live Facebook tool is built around looking at photo albums, scrolling between friends' albums and seeing who on a user's friends list has added photos to their account.

But one of Facebook's most fundamental offerings is photos and allowing users to upload them. And Microsoft has chosen, for now at least, not to let users do that. Pessner says the decision was made that Facebook on Xbox Live is about viewing images, and that anyone who wants to upload them to the social network will do so via the Web. It's a fair point, but it does seem like a major omission, and it would seem like something Microsoft will have to address soon.

Pessner also pointed to what he called Friend Linker, which is designed to help Facebook users see which of their friends are Xbox Live members, and vice versa. Among other things, it makes for an easy way for Facebook users to discover friends' gamertags and to invite them to be friends on Xbox Live.

All in all, while it's likely that many Xbox Live users will find themselves switching over to the Facebook application frequently--why move over to a computer if it's not necessary?--it's clear that there is a lot of room for more. The interface is consistent with everything else on Xbox Live, something that may please some. But frequent Facebookers might find it confusing to have to use Facebook in an entirely different format. Only time will tell.

Twitter on Xbox Live
Pessner then showed off the Xbox Live Twitter application. Like its Facebook counterpart, the interface will look very familiar to Xbox Live users. Pessner said the idea was to design a Twitter experience for the living room.

That means, of course, a fairly scaled down Twitter app. Users can post their own tweets, view friends' tweets, re-tweet them, favorite them, look at profiles, @ reply to others, and do Twitter searches. And that's about it.

To be sure, there aren't that many more features available to Twitter users elsewhere, but there are some. Again, Pessner made the argument that the idea was to optimize the experience for a living room TV and that to access a full range of features, users will happily turn to their computers.

One thing missing from both the Facebook and Twitter applications, however, is the ability to click on URLs, something that is a major piece of the social-networking puzzle these days.

Asked why not, a Microsoft spokesperson said, "That's not something we support right now. Today we're focused on delivering a great Twitter and Facebook experience which connects the Xbox Live community to friends in new and unique ways...This is just the beginning, and the great thing about Xbox Live is that we can evolve and update features based on the community's feedback."

Last.fm
The third piece of the new Xbox Live puzzle is its Last.fm application. Last.fm (which is owned by CNET News parent CBS Interactive) is a music service aimed at helping users discover new songs and artists--something Microsoft is hoping will add to users' overall Xbox Live experience.

Pessner said that adding Last.fm gives users access to a wide range of new music and music-related tools, much as adding Netflix to Xbox Live last year did for movies.

As with the Facebook and Twitter tools, Xbox Live users will find a scaled down version of Last.fm, one that Pessner said is focused mainly on music consumption, "but also on discovery."

Again, the tool has the familiar Xbox Live look and feel, and appears to be something that will expand some users' musical horizons. But it's also clear that what this is a simpler version of a service that's been optimized for a TV, and those who want the full experience will return to their computers.

And that's fine. No one is expecting Microsoft to replace their computer with Xbox Live, though I'm sure Microsoft would like to do so someday. If, for example, it ever put a full-featured Web browser inside Xbox Live, some of the missing features mentioned above could be addressed. But that's a conversation for another day.

InstantOn
The last new feature is the InstantOn streaming service that Xbox Live users will have access to. The idea is to give those buying or renting TV shows or movies through the Zune video marketplace (formerly known as the Xbox Live video marketplace) instant gratification instead of making them wait for their content to download.

The service will offer full 1080p high-definition movies and TV shows, and will let those who purchase content watch it right away or download it to their Xbox, a Zune player, or a PC. Those who rent content will be able to stream it and will have 24 hours to finish watching it once they press "play."

Pessner pointed to the fact that the service is designed to auto-detect a user's bandwidth level in order to play back the content in an appropriate quality. The idea there is to ensure that a user gets to watch what they want right away, regardless of how fast their connection is.

From Microsoft's perspective, this new set of offerings will make the Xbox an even stronger entertainment option than it has been in the past. But Pessner said there is still much more that can be added to the platform.

He wouldn't say what the next steps would be, of course, but did paint a broad picture, suggesting that users can draw their own conclusions of how Project Natal, Microsoft's forthcoming gesture-based control system for Xbox and PC "can light this up."

Thanks to a nonprofit called Samasource, refugees in Kenya are starting to find Internet-based work that can pay them triple what they could earn before.

(Credit: Samasource)

Workers stuck in the world's largest refugee camp are being given a chance to wield a mouse and keyboard as tools for digging their way out of poverty, and in the process, are helping out a series of small American companies looking to be more profitable.

The workers, many of whom have been in the refugee camp in Kenya for years, are toiling at new jobs--in which they do short, simple projects over the Internet--provided to them by an innovative San Francisco nonprofit serving as an intermediary between companies needing an efficient way to get small tasks done and groups of educated but displaced people with few other employment prospects.

The nonprofit, known as Samasource, has built a business model around the idea that there are some projects too small to make sense for American workers to do, yet perfect in scale and scope for refugees and others in the Third World. For example, one Samasource client, a solar panels repairman, engaged the company to get workers to scour satellite photos of American cities for houses with solar set-ups in order to generate potential sales leads.

And while such a dynamic may make some suspect exploitation of the refugees, a group of independent experts say that it is precisely these kinds of tasks--which can pay at least triple the wages of other jobs, assuming there are any--that can begin to help address the tremendous poverty found in so many countries around the world.

According to Leila Chirayath Janah, the founder of Samasource, the company is focusing on bringing jobs to the refugee camps in Kenya, as well as to impoverished workers in Pakistan, Uganda, Ghana, Cameroon, and India. For now, it is looking for American clients who need work done in one of five Internet-based service areas--often small tasks such as comparing texts or looking for copyright violations in pictures. "It's not displacing opportunities for Americans," said Janah, "but expanding what entrepreneurs can do with a limited budget."

Janah explained that to date, the best possible work available to many people in the refugee camp--which has more than 300,000 people living in highly cramped conditions, often for years--is pounding rock in a quarry for 50 cents a day. By comparison, she said, work done for Samasource clients can pay $1 to $2 an hour.

GiveWork, a new iPhone app from CrowdFlower and Samasource, lets users of Apple's hit device help out the Kenyan refugees.

(Credit: CrowdFlower)

On Tuesday, Samasource and a partner, CrowdFlower, released an iPhone application called GiveWork, that aims to make it possible for Americans with time on their hands to assist in making sure that the work being done by the refugees is accurate. The idea, explained Lukas Biewald, CEO of CrowdFlower, is that while many of the refugees doing work through Samasource are educated, there are cultural and language issues that may get in the way of getting each task done perfectly.

And that's where the iPhone app comes in. Biewald said that those using the app can spend some of their spare time doing the same tasks as the refugees, which can help ensure that the final product is accurate.

For example, Biewald said, one task might involve the refugees going through sets of Twitter posts or blog entries about a company, trying to identify which are positive and which are negative. In many cases, the workers in Kenya may be able to make the distinction, but from time to time, there might be something that is difficult for them to categorize. And that's where a helping hand from a user of the iPhone app could be useful.

This application of crowdsourcing to a larger issue is just the latest in a growing number of such approaches being employed in apps for the iPhone and other smart phones. Experts say that such devices allow large numbers of people to apply their excess time to issues or problems larger than their own.

No. 1 goal: Increasing wages

While the GiveWork iPhone app will bring some individual Americans into the equation, the bulk of the effort is being done directly through Samasource by the refugees themselves, many of whom have some education and have been longing for either something to do with their skills, or for the training to learn new ones.

An image of one of the increasing number of computer labs found in refugee camps these days. The labs are used, in part, as places for refugees to work at Internet-based jobs.

(Credit: Samasource)

Janah said that thanks to donations from organizations like the Danish Refugee Council, there are a growing number of computer centers with satellite dishes in the camps in Kenya and elsewhere, and that is quickly bringing the Internet into areas where people until now have largely been cut off from the global economy.

She acknowledged that some may view what Samasource and its clients are doing as exploitation of the refugees but said that far from that, it is a valuable merger of a potent workforce and companies that are able to pay people fair wages for tasks that likely wouldn't be economically viable in the U.S.

"The No. 1 goal is increasing wages," said Janah of the more than 10 years of economic development work she's done in poor countries around the world. "People are locked in situations...with zero jobs available to them. Over 500 workers in our system are eager to get any kind of work. It's the exact opposite of exploitation."

Part of it, she added, is that by giving refugees a chance to do Internet-based work, they are both learning valuable new skills and having a chance to connect far beyond the world they know.

And several experts in economic development contacted for this story agreed that the kind of projects Samasource is delivering into the hands of the poverty-stricken can make a big difference in the workers' lives.

"Internet-based markets actually seem quite promising," said Seema Jayachandran, an assistant professor of economics at Stanford. "If people are remaining at the refugee camps for several years, they can put their (education) to use. They don't have as much mobility as many workers, so in that sense, Samasource may have stumbled onto something powerful."

Further, said Jayachandran, while the Internet makes it possible for workers throughout the world to compete for projects, a company like Samasource may help skilled refugees build the kind of reputation that would make them attractive to American companies for future outsourcing projects. "That's the development goal," Jayachandran said, "that these jobs are going to lift the standard of living of the people" doing them.

Another interesting element of this, she said, is that it can help remove some of the onus of helping the impoverished from aid organizations and create an economic incentive on the part of for-profit companies to do so.

That's an idea with which Michael Maltese, the managing director of the Legatum Center for Development and Entrepreneurship at MIT, concurred.

Samasource "is challenging the dominant perspective," Maltese said, "which is that poor people...are to be seen as recipients of aid. But the approach that Samasource and other organizations are taking, to provide income-generating work, is, in my (opinion), a more exciting way to look at this."

And because, as Maltese explained, the average time someone spends in a Kenyan refugee camp is 17 years, "any effort to train them to access the global economy is positive."

To be sure, there are plenty of other organizations involved in outsourcing to third-world countries, like China and India. And, said James Davis, a University of California at Santa Cruz associate professor in computer science with expertise in economic development, the effects of years of such employment, in many cases, have done wonders to raise workers' standard of living. But most of the organizations engineering such outsourcing are for-profits, and are sending employment to a higher strata than is Samasource.

A sign crediting the Danish Refugee Council with donating computers for a lab in Kenya.

(Credit: Samasource)

By contrast, Davis said, Samasource has taken the traditional outsourcing model and asked, "'How far can we push this?'" In other words, he said, Samasource is building a bridge between small first-world companies with extra work and the "very bottom" of the economic ladder.

As a result, Davis said, he is "very excited" about what Samasource is doing.

He said that while other efforts, such as Amazon.com's Mechanical Turk, have come along to distribute very small tasks to those willing to work for minimal amounts, people in places like Kenyan refugee camps are excluded because they don't have American bank accounts.

Davis also said there are precedents that show that what Samasource is trying can work. He pointed both to Txteagle, an effort by entrepreneur Nathan Eagle to get the millions of Kenyans with mobile phones to do small SMS-based tasks for money, and to reCaptcha, the effort to massively distribute to Internet users the task of deciphering jumbled words from scanned books.

But what Samasource is trying, Davis said, is different. The goal there, is "reaching (out) and trying to understand the bottom of the bottom."

Some day, Davis added, bigger organizations will come along and figure out how to bring first-world dollars into the hands of those at the economic bottom rungs. But that is a ways off.

Now, he said, "you need the charitable organizations (like Samasource) to go and source out how everybody is going to benefit all the way down."

With the release of "2012," the iPhone app tied to the forthcoming Sony Pictures film of the same name, a group of developers may have kicked off the future of games on the hit smartphone.

While the game itself is fairly simple and lasts just minutes, it incorporates features that may never have been tried before, and as such, could be among the small number of titles that are showcasing what will soon be considered par for the course.

In the minds of many industry observers, thanks to its integration of a functional operating system, an accelerometer, GPS and a camera, and the fact that thousands of developers, big and small, have released games for the iPhone, the Apple device has already surpassed Sony's PSP and Nintendo's DS as the most important, or at least most adaptable, portable gaming platform.

But as developers get more creative and as its technology improves, it's likely that the iPhone will only get more impressive as a gaming machine.

The new iPhone game, 2012, features an innovative ability to call out to people on a user's contact list for help with answering tough questions. This is one example of where features in iPhone games are heading.

(Credit: Daniel Terdiman/CNET)

With "2012," the developers at augmented reality entertainment production studio Trigger seem to have broken new ground with a couple of features. In the game, players are tasked with making their way--virtually, of course--from their real-world location to a digital Tibet. They do so by answering trivia questions related to survival, and with each correct response, they are credited with hundreds of miles of forward progress.

But sometimes the questions can be difficult, and since players get only three "lives" with which to get to Tibet, the game borrows a page from the TV game show "Who Wants to Be a Millionaire"--players are able to cash in "lifelines," and reach out to real-world friends for help with tough questions.

To do so, players can call people from their iPhone contacts list, directly from within the game, a feature that, according to Trigger president and executive creative director Jason Yim, had never been implemented in an iPhone game before.

And while from a user experience perspective, the procedure seems very simple and well-integrated, Yim said that from a technology perspective, successfully integrating phone calling from within the game was "quite complex."

By itself, the feature may not come across as that impressive, and it has some serious flaws--for example, each time someone plays the game, they must re-enter the three people they wish to call for lifelines, something that can be time-consuming for someone with a lengthy contacts list. But as a technological innovation that will eventually make its way into any number of games, the feat is both impressive and important.

Just the beginning
To Yim, however, tools like this are just the beginning of what will soon be a new wave of feature innovation, many of which will happen as developers clue in to how to take things to the next level, and others which will come as a result of new developments in the iPhone operating system itself.

For example, he pointed to the fact that Apple is now allowing Flash programmers to bring their applications to the iPhone, a move that will make it possible for many games to now be ported onto the device, and which will make it "simpler to create basic content for the iPhone."

And new innovation, exciting especially to a company like Yim's Trigger, is the emergence of new augmented reality games that double as marketing vehicles for large companies. Already, some apps for the iPhone 3GS--which, unlike the two earlier versions of the iPhone, has a built-in compass--have implemented AR, such as a secret feature in the Yelp app that lets users shake their phone three times and see restaurant names and reviews appear on the screen over the video they're watching.

But Yim suggested things will soon go beyond that. For instance, he said that an iPhone user might be able to walk up to an AR-enabled poster, point their device at it and automatically unlock some sort of prize. Similarly, a user could take their iPhone into a McDonald's, or some other partner restaurant, and get a free french fries, all because the device knows where it is, and syncs that awareness to some sort of marketing campaign. And if that was built into a game of some sort, it would give players an incentive to participate.

One-point-five Life
To Ge Wang, the chief creative officer and co-founder of hit iPhone apps Ocarina and Leaf Trombone developer Smule, augmented reality is exactly the direction that the next generation of iPhone games will take.

Wang said that the iPhone, as a device, is moving people's sense of computing into a new age, taking them away from their monitors and letting them go anywhere they want. As a result, games will be able to leverage that newfound computing freedom and blur the lines between the virtual world and the physical world.

"I think maybe for the first time, with the iPhone and all these supersmart phones," Wang said, "you have (the convergence of a couple of) things you need for augmented reality."

First, he said, is a ubiquitous computer in the hands of millions of people. And second is that that device, always in users' possession, provides consistent network connectivity and location awareness.

Add that to the fact that the iPhone, especially the 3GS, is rich in sensors, and you have the ability, more than ever, to bring connected gaming out into the open world.

"The time's never been better or more ripe for...this kind of mixed virtual reality," Wang said. "It is kind of this alternate reality, and augmented reality. It's not quite Second Life, and it's not first life. It's almost 1.5 Life."

Wang also pointed to the push notifications feature of the iPhone's OS 3.0. He suggested that game developers would be able to change the dynamic of how people play games together, and that with push, "people don't have to be proactive, they can be reactive."

In other words, multiplayer iPhone games could offer each participant the ability to take turns, regardless of where that person is, because the device can send a notification when it's time to take action. And that's just one example. It's hard to prognosticate the endless ways that this kind of tool could be implemented in games, but to Wang, this kind of feature means players can having passive relationships with the games they play to more active ones.

Smart micro-transactions
Another future game innovation is likely to be what Seth Gerson, CEO of iPhone app developer LastLegion Games, which built the official iPhone game for the film "Watchmen" called personalized in-app purchases.

Already, some iPhone games and other applications allow in-app purchases--but to Gerson, those tend to be a bland set of offerings that pay no mind to the personal preferences of users.

But that will change, he suggested, as developers get ahold of and mine new behavior data that allow them to offer players the specific kind of virtual items they want. "You can give the consumer a voice in what they're purchasing," Gerson said, "and give them better experiences."

That means, essentially, that iPhone games will be set up to determine, based on how people play, or on preferences they've asserted during play, the kinds of items the might want to buy. In a first-person shooter, that could mean offering specific kinds of weapons or armor, or different kinds of outfits in a fantasy game. The sky, really, is the limit, so long as developers think about what the data they collect mean and use it to enhance players' experiences.

Gerson also thinks there is a future for iPhone game features based on cloud computing. He said it's too early to say exactly how that will evolve, but the upshot is that developers will be learning how to automatically transform multiplayer games into solo play if someone's network connectivity is lost. Further, he said, technological advances in data distribution will mean that multiplayer games will work better even on AT&T's EDGE network and won't require 3G for seamless across-the-network play.

Given that Apple always plays its cards close to its vest, there's no way to know for sure what kinds of technological innovations are coming for forthcoming versions of the iPhone or its operating system. Much can be guessed, of course, and developers are going to have to stay a step ahead if they want their games to be relevant and exciting to players faced with nearly limitless choices.

It also matters, of course, how new innovations are implemented. It doesn't do anyone any good when new features are rolled out if the way they're done makes for a mediocre user experience. But when done right, a new feature can be disruptive and force everyone in the field to stand up and take notice.

Because the iPhone environment is so adaptable, as it should be given that it is a functional, albeit limited, computer, it is certain that there is no limit to the kinds of innovations that are coming down the line, both for games and for other kinds of apps. But given that games are one of the most popular genres of apps for the device, you can be sure that if there is one area certain to highlight the evolution of new kinds of features, games will be where the action is hottest.

If you've ever been driving down the highway and looked at the Google Maps application on an iPhone to see what traffic is like ahead, you may have wondered where the data behind the green, yellow, and red lines indicating real-time vehicle flow come from.

In fact, the data are coming from people just like you: users of smartphones with GPS who, by the very act of driving down the highway, are feeding back information about how fast they're going to Google, which in turn is sending it back to users of its mobile map apps.

Users of the Google Maps iPhone app can get real-time traffic flow data that is based on the passive participation of other users. This is an example of mobile crowdsourcing, something that is a growing trend, especially on iPhones.

(Credit: Daniel Terdiman/CNET)

Which means, of course, that the application itself is crowdsourced--that is, based on the mutual contributions of many users, all of whom are participating in the product, and without whom, the product would be worthless.

These days, the concept of crowdsourcing--defined by Jeff Howe, who literally wrote the book on the subject, as, "the act of taking a job traditionally performed by a designated agent (usually an employee) and outsourcing it to an undefined, generally large group of people in the form of an open call"--is all the rage, and there are no end of well-known examples, especially on the Web: the Netflix prize; Twitter search; public tagging of Library of Congress archival photos; even Wikipedia. Indeed, much of the concept of user-generated content is really about crowdsourcing.

But until now, much of the discussion about the subject has focused on what people are doing on their computers. Yet today, more than ever before, crowdsourcing has gone mobile. As more smart phones have brought ubiquitous Internet connectivity to the masses, more people have been feeding back into the system. And for now at least, nowhere is that more true than on the the iPhone.

"Why do I love my iPhone, which I do," Howe said in an interview. "Because I'm suddenly doing interesting things with my cognitive surplus. All these times (on public transportation)...are great times to contribute to these group efforts. It's crowdsourcing at its most root definition. Crowdsourcing is a perfect coupling of that downtime, of the very fuel that the crowdsourcing engine needs to run."

Today, the iPhone is not the most popular smartphone but it certainly is gaining steam. According to Gartner, during the second quarter of 2009, the iPhone's share of the global smart phone market had soared to 13.3 percent from 2.8 percent a year earlier. To be sure, the BlackBerry--with 18.7 percent share--and Nokia's offerings--with 45 percent share--still lead in total sales, but it's hard to argue with Apple's growth, or with its dominance in the community-developed application market.

"As Apple has so often done," Howe said, "they did it better sooner...crowdsourcing is only as effective as one's reach allows, because it does require either mass participation or at least mass viewership."

The iPhone app by The Extraordinaries allows users to volunteer small amounts of their time for the collective good.

(Credit: Daniel Terdiman/CNET)

Which is why there is a growing number of iPhone apps--both those that seek to make money and those that are nonprofit--that are based entirely on crowdsourcing, and which without the buy-in by a critical mass of users would be meaningless.

Some, like the traffic feature in the Google Maps app, are subtle about it. But others shout it out: Their developers know that the public has a thirst for this and have specifically made crowd participation a selling point.

Traffic apps, it turns out, are a natural for mobile crowdsourcing. Because of the iPhone's built-in GPS--on the iPhone 3G and 3GS, at least--and the fact that many owners won't go anywhere without their precious device, it makes perfect sense to build tools that rely on user-submitted data.

Some examples are Waze, which relies on users to inform others about traffic conditions, about road construction and about the existence of angry drivers; Trapster, which lets users report speed traps so that other drivers will be aware of them, in real-time; Aha, which mixes both live traffic flow information with location-based identification of things like cafes, bathrooms, and restaurants; and others.

"I think what it comes down to is what this device right now excels at," said Jacob Colker, the co-founder of a company called The Extraordinaries that is leveraging crowdsourcing. "And that is really to use GPS, a camera, and the phone itself."

Yet there are a growing number of other examples, as well.

One is an app from The Extraordinaries itself. Already well-known for work harnessing the collective power of large numbers of Internet users for the common good, the organization has now put out an iPhone app that lets any user participate in a wide range of causes, right from the device.

For example, users can add tags to photos from the Smithsonian to bring more collective context to that museum's huge archives; help create a huge map of kid-friendly places by finding a "playspace" and snapping a photo of it; or help the city of San Diego cut down on water wastage by reporting any city agency watering during the day or ignoring obvious leaks.

Crowdsourcing can be silly, too. Take the famous Ocarina iPhone app. With that, countless people have used the device to play a kind of flute-like instrument. In and of itself, that's fun but not crowdsourced. But what takes it to the next level is that users can look at a 3D rendering of the globe and see and hear the notes that are being played by other Ocarina users.

That's crowdsourcing in action.

And then there's Yelp, which by definition is crowdsourced. With its iPhone app, the popular tool for letting people rate and comment on businesses, is bringing the power of the collective experience to merchants and retailers anywhere, anytime.

Smule's Ocarina iPhone app lets users play a flute-like instrument and automatically submit their play so that others anywhere in the world can hear it.

(Credit: Daniel Terdiman/CNET)

So is the iPhone speeding up the process of taking crowdsourcing mobile?

"I think it's creating conditions for new ideas to flourish," said Colker, "and that's really important. Showing that it is possible, that, yes, I can demand YouTube in my pocket, and I'm going to pull up this app and play flute into it and I'm going to listen to someone playing the Ocarina app in South Africa. It's powerful. It allows people to think in new ways, and to create the kernel for those new ideas to exist, and the conditions for those new innovations to exist."

Every day, Apple is adding more apps to its App Store. And while most do not involve crowdsourcing, an increasing number do. And that seems like a trend that there's little that anyone could do to stop. Nor would anyone want to.

For now, it's hard to say exactly what the next crowdsourced apps will be to come down the pike, but it seems certain there will be an exponentially growing number of them over time. Games will be built that rely on users to locate items in a virtual world; Poetry apps will rely on users submitting their own stanzas; Lolcat sites will depend on iPhone users snapping pictures of cats, slapping funny captions on them, and sending them in; and much more.

In essence, as with the larger app ecosystem, the sky's the limit for crowdsourced apps. And while other smart phones will also have an increasing number of applications that rely on user submissions, the iPhone is likely to stay at the head of the field.

"I think the iPhone itself has done tremendous good for moving technology forward, and as a byproduct, paving the way for new forms of crowdsourcing to exist," Colker said. "And that's what really excites me about the iPhone."

Corrected at 10:16 a.m.: This story originally reported that The Extraordinaries is a non-profit. In fact, it is a for-profit company.