Cornelius Smith II
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Info
- Asia Pacific Program Executive at Verizon BusinessFinancial Services | Tokyo, Japan, JPSummaryMultitalented telecommunications, mobile content and services, information security, and technology infrastructure professional with 14 years of international experience in driving new product and content development initiatives, ensuring optimal data security, and improving critical processes in financial services, media, and telecommunications. Demonstrated track record of quickly achieving SME status in a variety of subjects and skillfully leading globally dispersed teams. Fluent in Japanese, with deep knowledge of Japanese business customs and culture.Specialties: Financial institution core infrastructure/data center operations management, financial institution audit experience, project/product management, proven negotiation skills, Japanese business and cultural understanding, solid Japanese language abilityExperience
- Aug 2011 - PresentAsia Pacific Program Executive / Verizon Business
- Mar 2010 - Aug 2011Vice President / Citibank Japan LimitedResponsible for Program Management of Japan Digital Channel initiatives to drive online channel growth and customer acquisition to Citibank Online PC and mobile. Analyze customer behavior and complaints, coordinate process improvement. Monitor and improve customer experience on all customer-facing digital touch points.
- Aug 2008 - Mar 2010Vice President, Business Information Security Officer / CitigroupEnsure outstanding information security at group, region, country, and functional levels. Align all security activities with strategy and policies. Contribute to risk assessment and develop solutions as needed. Provide end-user training around information protection and security.
- Oct 2007 - Aug 2008Assistant Vice President - Business Information Security Officer / Citigroup Services JapanEnsure outstanding information security at group, region, country, and functional levels. Align all security activities with strategy and policies. Contribute to risk assessment and develop solutions as needed. Provide end-user training around information protection and security.
- Dec 2006 - Sept 2007Assistant Vice President, Data Center Operations / Citigroup Services Japan, Technology InfrastructureSelected to oversee 6-person Media Management group to ensure optimal backup tape management for Japan-wide critical systems. Developed and implemented new processes and procedures to facilitate audits; replaced all legacy processes. Directed 16-person Data Center Operator group and ensured outstanding 24/7 computer and tape operations. Undertook management of 40-person, 3-site Data Center Site Coordination group to orchestrate major data center audit. Achieved consistently satisfactory audit ratings.
- Apr 2005 - Nov 2006Manager / Citigroup Services Japan, Technology InfrastructureChallenged to identify and resolve long-standing regulatory and audit problems. Assessed Japan-wide development and production environment system changes, improved change management process, and implemented standard practices.
- Sept 2004 - Dec 2004Manager / Walt Disney Internet Group, Strategic Brands BusinessSpearheaded activities of new Strategic Brands Business involving non-Disney branded characters for mobile consumption. Secured character licensing and laid foundation for new revenue stream.
- Sept 2002 - Aug 2004Product Manager, Content Management / Vodafone K.K.A major telecommunications services provider; J-PHONE was acquired by Vodafone in 2003. Led development of new products and content for mobile consumers. Oversaw 60 mobile content sites and liaised regularly with Sony, Disney, MTV, Cybird, Navitime, Konami, and other content providers to develop new sites and content. Assessed content proposals and presented high-potential options to major stakeholders. Managed site development process and conducted pre-release testing. Collaborated with content providers and marketing team to improve Average Revenue per User (ARPU) and subscriptions. • Directed development of international content portal; propelled user base from 6K to 11K in 1 year by expanding sites to include Portuguese, Chinese, and Korean. • Played key role in orchestrating European launch of Vodafone Live! mobile content portal; facilitated introductions of Japan-based content providers into Europe. • Contributed to European roll-out of 1st convergence handset, Sharp GX-10.
- Jun 2000 - Aug 2002Interactive Coordinator / Core Ad InternationalOrchestrated digital media jobs, including website design and content management, by serving as client liaison with Digital Media Department. Ensured outstanding project delivery for Kenwood, Mitsubishi Electric, Nissan, Sony, and other clients by overseeing translation, copywriting, and narration.
- Dec 1999 - Jun 2000Sales/Marketing Manager / Exodus Communications K.K.Engaged in marketing strategy programs leading to expanding Japan Internet subscriber base. Liaised with database programmers to improve internal database, thus improving efficiency in re- sponding to billing inquiries.
- Aug 1996 - Aug 1999Coordinator for International Relations (CIR) / Tateyama City Government Chiba, JapanForged relationships and cultural exchanges between Tateyama and sister cities, Bellingham, Washington, and Port Stephens, Australia. Orchestrated international events, including staff and student exchanges, forums, and environmental initiatives. Served as interpreter for Tateyama mayor and translated official communications. Supported local foreign residents by providing counseling and interpreting services.
Education-
1994 - 1995宮崎大学Exchange Student
Activities: Mombusho Scholar (Japanese Ministry of Education), Kyokushin-kai Circle (martial arts) -
1992 - 1995The Evergreen State CollegeBachelor of Liberal Arts in Visual Arts & Design / Japan Studies
Activities: Fencing Club, EFL (English as a Foreign Language) Coordinator, -
1988 - 1992Olympic Community CollegeCredit transfer to 4-year in Visual Arts & Design / General Studies
Additional Information-
Websites:
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Honors:RAVE Award - Recognition for Excellence, Citigroup Technology Infrastructure Q2 2005 Mombusho Scholarship; Japan Ministry of Education, 10/94~10/95 Competent Person/Confined Space Entry Certification; 1996 Todd Shipyard, Seattle, WA
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Interests:Internet technologies and developments, anything mobile-related, avid Apple/Mac-fan, electric bass - making my best attempt at least..., photography, violin, recently Capoeira
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Tweets
- At goodbeer faucets [pic] — http://t.co/3TOWMOQF
- 40 beers on tap... Hmmm... Oh, and it is someone's birthday... :-) (w/ Michael, Roy, & Stephan at goodbeer faucets) — http://t.co/JZd9iIzq
- Thanks for the mention! Contactually http://t.co/FMqQi1Oh
- Windows Phone designer is named one of country’s most creative http://t.co/W02gLbtE via @zite
- Navigating Tokyo 'Ramen Street': 8 Great Ramen Stops, All in One Place http://t.co/0HEjkmHx via @zite
- You Are Not A Computer (Try As You May) http://t.co/oqnRAiyv via @zite
- @[yourself] Showers tomorrow!
- @[yourself] AM Showers tomorrow!
- My week on twitter: 1 retweets received, 1 new followers. Via: http://t.co/e7uNFrLx
- For a Nation of Whiners, Therapists Try Tough Love http://t.co/ck2Oiy1z via @zite
- Microsoft’s infamous Steve Ballmer named worst CEO by Forbes http://t.co/ouB3LEHT via @zite
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Posts
- Aug 10, 11
Visiting Japanese attend first obon rite since disaster
Survivors of Japan's double catastrophe honor the victims
POSTED: 01:30 a.m. HST, Jul 17, 2011
BRUCE ASATO / BASATO@STARADVERTISER.COMMisaki Suzuki sat next to a bouquet of flowers honoring those families of the Fukushima area of Japan during the Imin Yosebaka Obon Service on Saturday at the Makiki Cemetery. Suzuki is in Honolulu as part of the Aloha Initiative, which brought Japanese citizens who were affected by the March earthquake and tsunami to Hawaii for respite.Japanese visitors who are recovering in Hawaii from the destruction of the March 11 earthquake and tsunami remembered their deceased friends and family Saturday at their first obon service since the disaster.
Obon season typically begins in mid-July in Japan and marks a time when people honor their ancestors.
Saturday's ceremony marked the "hatsubon" for the Japanese visitors, or the first obon after a family member dies. Dozens lit incense under a small tent and recited a sutra chant as a tiny bell rang intermittently at the Makiki Cemetery on Pensacola Street.
Misaki Suzuki, 18, of Fukushima prefecture came to Hawaii with the Aloha Initiative, a nonprofit program that organized home stays to help Japanese citizens heal from the March disaster that killed more than 15,000 people. Suzuki asked her host family to bring her to the rite so she could honor her friends who died.
The ceremony also marked the 25th annual ceremony at the Imin Yosebaka or the common grave for the first Japanese immigrants who came to Hawaii under an 1885 treaty. Of those immigrants, 289 died without family in the islands and their graves were neglected.
In 1985, 100 years after the first contract workers came to the islands, a local group received approval to put their graves into one tomb, and the Imin Yosebaka monument was unveiled a year later.
David Arakawa, president of the United Japanese Society of Hawaii, said having Japanese visitors attend the Imin Yosebaka's 25th anniversary embodied the ties between Japan and Hawaii that are recognized annually at the cemetery.
"In the past, we always looked past," he said. "This brings things home. This reinforces that the ties still exist."
Mayumi Shinkawa, who came to Oahu with her 15-year-old daughter, Aika, through Aloha Initiative, commemorated her sister-in-law, friends and other family members who were killed by the tsunami. She said she still wishes she could go back to the day before the earthquake struck.
Gail and Delbert Nakaoka of Pacific Palisades attended at the request of Suzuki, their home-stay guest. Gail Nakaoka, who worked five years on a military base in Japan, volunteered as a host to give back to the country.
But as a host, she said, she finds herself gaining more from her guest, such as when Suzuki encouraged her and her husband to go to a bon dance Friday night. They stayed for hours.
"It's a blessing," Nakaoka said. "She's helping us learn, too. It's enjoyable."
- Aug 10, 11The tsunami that struck Japan on March 11 created waves that hit an ice shelf in Antarctica a little over 8,000 miles away, breaking large parts of it into huge icebergs, the European Space Agency said on Tuesday.
The ESA's Envisat Earth-monitoring satellite spotted icebergs that had broken from the Sulzberger ice shelf, and on March 16, it observed the pieces floating into the Ross Sea.
The largest iceberg was nearly six by four miles, making it slightly bigger in surface area than Manhattan, and it likely had a depth of about 260 feet.
Japanese estimates published a week after the event noted that the tsunami was about 76 feet high, generated by an underwater earthquake with a 9.0 magnitude.
Despite the fact that the waves probably only reached about 18 inches in height by the time they had crossed 8,100 miles of ocean to impact with the ice shelf, the rhythmic up-and-down movement was enough to stress the shelf's structure and cause chunks of it to break off, the ESA said in a press release.
Ice shelves are floating beds of ice attached to the coastline. Huge, thick masses, ice shelves are created by glaciers whose ice is discharged to the sea.
via thirdage.com - Aug 10, 11
Wednesday, August 10, 2011
Nikkei Firm, Holds Near 9,100 On Higher Asia Stocks
TOKYO (NQN)--Tokyo stocks were steady midway through Wednesday morning as the bounce on Wall Street and European markets helped improve market sentiment, encouraging investors to buy stocks that look undervalued.
South Korean, Taiwanese and other key Asian markets opened higher, which also pleased investors.
The Nikkei Stock Average climbed about 160 points early on and is staying near 9,100, almost erasing Tuesday's 153-point loss.
But buying is limited as many investors wait for more data on European and U.S. economic performance, as well as the yen's direction.
The broader Topix index of all first-section issues on the Tokyo Stock Exchange gained about 1.5%.
Advancers include Fanuc Ltd. (6954), Toyota Motor Corp. (7203) and Softbank Corp. (9984).
Bridgestone Corp. (5108), GS Yuasa Corp. (6674), and Sumco Corp. (3436) are all lower.
via e.nikkei.com - Jun 13, 11Why did Apple choose Twitter over Facebook?
Apple will deeply integrate Twitter into iOS 5 when it releases this Fall, but not Facebook. Now why is that? Facebook is the largest social networking platform on the planet, with more than 500 million users, according to the company (Hell, I thought it was closer 700 million based on multiple -- and unconfirmed -- press reports and blogs). Surely Apple already greatly benefits from the the social network's iOS app. Why not do more?
I can't speak for Apple CEO Steve Jobs and his executive team, obviously. Perhaps the major reason is nothing more complex than Apple and Facebook failing to reach terms either could agree to. After all, there would be more to it than just leveraging APIs. However, I see some very good reasons why deep Facebook integration into iOS would be a bad move for Apple.
Conflicting Objectives
Conceptually, it's easy to see why Apple might want to give Facebook preemo placement in iOS -- it's not rocket science. The average Internet user spent 12.3 percent of his or her time online at Facebook in 2010 -- that's about one out of every eight minutes -- according to ComScore. Another metric: U.S. Internet users spent an average 6 hours and 23 minutes on Facebook in April 2011, says Nielsen. AOL Media Network was a distant second with average 2 hours 33 minutes. From the perspective of where people spend most of their time -- and looking at everybody else trying to align with Facebook somehow -- it would be easy to see Apple doing the same.
But Apple and Facebook actually have several conflicting strategic objectives, and their platforms are juxtaposed. Apple wants to push users' content to the device, whereas Facebook wants to pull content to the cloud. The differences will be starker when Apple rolls out iCloud, presumably concurrently with iOS 5 and iPhone 5 in the Fall. Contrary to some Net punditry and commentary, iCloud is not an online storage service. It is fundamentally a synchronization service, using the cloud to help Apple customers better manage their content on iOS and Mac OS X devices.
User-generated content is important to both companies, but in dramatically different ways that create, in some respects, incongruous customer priorities. Apple wants user content flowing freely among the devices it sells, while Facebook's priority is content going into the service -- and not easily coming out. Apple and Facebook also seek to lock in customers through necessary utility, but the means are different and largely incompatible. Facebook locks in customers through relationships (where friends, family and anyone else hang online) and access to content, which goes easily into the social network but comes out with greater difficulty -- if at all. Apple wants content to flow freely (at least among devices running its operating systems). Synchronization, and the convenience of it, will hold Apple customers.
Platform Competitors
Another difference in priorities: Apple makes the majority of its revenue from selling hardware -- 90 percent during fiscal 2011 second quarter, based on the quarterly report. By comparison, Facebook derives the majority of its revenue from advertising and cloud services. As such, the companies' revenue -- and, related, customer content -- priorities couldn't be more different. Twitter's revenue model is also content in the cloud, but with stark differences to Facebook, one of the more important being platform approach.
In a September 2007 post at Microsoft Watch, I explained how Facebook is more like Windows than it is cloud platforms/services like Google:
Facebook is not a Web 2.0 operation; rather it's more like Desktop 1.0 than Web 2.0. Since May [2007], when Facebook opened up to outside developers, the service increasingly has morphed into an Internet operating system. Like Windows, Facebook is an enclosed platform, and one where people can install applications, post and share digital content and communicate with friends, families or others in ways they might do with Windows on PCs...Facebook and Google both take platform approaches, but Facebook's way is more like Windows than Web 2.0.
In the post, I described Facebook as an "operating system in the clouds." Nearly four years later, little has changed. Developers write applications for Facebook's largely closed cloud OS. Whereas, Apple developers create apps for iOS and Mac OS X running on devices. From a platform perspective, Apple and Facebook are competitors. Yes, there is mutual benefit from the Facebook app, but from platform and app development perspectives, the companies are competitors. The developer incentives are different, too -- Apple's revenue sharing being the major one and the number of Facebook app developers using the social service to mine data and target customers being others.
Twitter is not an applications platform, per se. That may change in the future. But Twitter is unlikely to become anything like Facebook, which is more a closed community. Twitter is more open from the perspective of APIs and design.
It's All About Status
Facebook and Twitter do share something important in common that makes tweeter-dee more attractive to Apple than Like-dum: Status. Both services are really about status -- what people are doing, where they are doing it and with whom. Facebook and Twitter provide tools for sharing photos and videos about these engagements and relationships. Twitter restricts sharing to 140 characters and uses more of a broadcast model, where people chose to subscribe to someone rather than join their network as friend. Facebook's relationship approach is more exclusive. Twitter's is not.
Apple can provide its customers the benefits of status, essentially using Twitter as part of a social networking framework, without taking on Facebook baggage and becoming dependent on a growing competitor for customers' time and content. Twitter setup will be part of iOS 5 settings and allow iPad, iPhone and iPod touch users to tweet from Google Maps, Safari, YouTube and other apps; the camera and photo library, too. Twitter becomes the important social status mechanism for iOS, also providing location information and offering integration between @ Twitter users and the devices' contact list. Some of this capability is available today from the Facebook app. It will be pervasive within iOS 5 for Twitter.
Still, some analysts, bloggers journalists or other commentators will insist that Apple really needs Facebook, if for no other reason than time online. Poppycock. For all the time people spend online at Facebook during any given month, they spend so much more time on their iOS or Mac OS X device(s). I don't need analyst data to quantify it. If you're an iPad, iPhone or iPod touch user, ask yourself how much time you spend per day on the device(s). For some people, it's more than 6 hours and 23 minutes a day!
From that vantage point, Apple's priority is clear: Maximize the customer experience on its devices rather than look to Facebook benefits, which are sufficient enough with the social service's iOS app.
Perhaps Apple will in the future embrace Facebook like it plans to with Twitter in iOS. I sure hope not.
- May 30, 11The Next Web | TNW is the International Source for Internet News ...
Japanese telecommunications operator KDDI is developing a smartphone which can accurately recreate the sensation of using physical buttons on a touch panel.
Using fingers to swipe, press and flick to perform certain actions on touchscreens is a new and easy way to interact with devices. The problem with it, however, is that the glass is unresponsive and doesn’t provide any feedback to the user, which makes it hard to tell if they have already selected a button. Even though some devices offer simple Haptic vibrations to notify input, it is still practically impossible to touch-type.
The new clicking function is achieved by a combining a vibration function and a pressure sensor in a Haptic touch panel. When users input letters, in addition to the visual feedback, they now get a feeling of having pushed something. KDDI claims that it actually feels as if you are touching or moving across buttons, and if you press lightly, you get a stronger clicking feeling as you select an application.
- May 30, 11The Next Web | TNW is the International Source for Internet News ...
While people around the world have been struggling to learn foreign languages, Japanese operator NTT Docomo just demonstrated a cloud-based automatic interpretation service that interprets voice in real-time.
During the demo, the Docomo staff read a newspaper article in Japanese, which is then interpreted to English in real-time, which is to a receiving device. It was made possible by integrating of a range of the best existing technologies from around the world – such as voice recognition, machine translation, and voice synthesis.
Voice recognition and translation accuracy is still not 100% but the level of inaccuracy is pretty much acceptable. Docomo plans to recruit people to monitor the service and offer it on a trial basis within the year.
- May 17, 11GigaOM
Even with a 64 GB iPad, I find myself wishing I had more storage at my disposal for my iOS mobile devices. My home media collection is probably in the terabyte range thanks to extensive digital backups of disc-based media, and though remote streaming is sometimes an option, it isn’t an ideal solution. Hence the idea behind Seagate’s new GoFlex Satellite mobile wireless storage.
The 500 GB portable hard drive wirelessly connects to any Wi-Fi enabled mobile device, and can be used to store music, movies, pictures and documents of various types. iOS users can then access that media using a free companion app from the App Store designed specifically for use with the GoFlex hardware. If you’re using an Android or other device, you can access your media using a web browser. The GoFlex Satellite can stream media to up to three devices at a time (great for family road trips), has a battery life of 5 hours of continuous streaming (or 25 hours in standby mode) and retails for $199.99.
This is a smart device for a mobile world where continuous cloud-based streaming of multimedia content simply isn’t a realistic possibility yet. Connection quality can degrade remote streaming experiences, and bandwidth caps mean that any significant streaming could result in costly overages. The GoFlex provides local Wi-Fi streaming, so no connection to a remote server is necessary, and changes in signal quality shouldn’t be an issue. Plus, you’re not using your phone’s data plan, either.
Prospective buyers should be wary of two things: media has to be in a format that your iOS device can read natively, and if you’re using the browser-based media player on an Android or other device not made by Apple, streaming doesn’t seem to work so smoothly as of yet based on early reviews. Still, if you’re an iOS device owner who finds themselves running up against either storage or bandwidth limits fairly often, and who also consumes a lot of media, this is probably a pretty good investment.
Anyone have better/more sophisticated suggestions for those looking for a portable media server device?
- Apr 26, 11LifehackerNobody's perfect and that's just fine, but there are at least a few areas where we could all stand to improve. That would be great if we could just ask what's wrong with us and get an honest answer, but nobody wants to tell you how awful you are. That's where Failin.gs comes in. It's a webapp that will let your friends and family anonymously post their issues with you so you can be aware of them without taking it personally. More »
- Apr 26, 11GizmodoThere are obvious rules you must adhere to when in another country—and this drunk Brit just broke one of Japan's most well-known. Instead of shuffling along and ignoring campaigning political parties' megaphone announcements like everyone else, he grabbed the megaphone and shouted something drunken about how loud and irritating the megaphones are. More »
- Apr 25, 11
約一年前に発表されたソニーの小型一眼カメラ Eマウントシリーズは、下位機種のNEX-3だけ早くも生産終了になってしまいました。しかしレンズ交換式の小型カメラが人気を集める昨今、後継機種が出ないはずはありません。というわけで Sony Alpha Rumors によれば、新モデルの名前は NEX-C3 になるとのこと。透過ミラーを採用した α55 と同じ1620万画素 "Exmor" CMOSを内蔵し、「HD動画」にも対応する見込みです。ちなみにNEX-3は1280x720/30pどまりでした。背面ディスプレイは引き続きチルト稼動式。カラーはブラックとシルバーが判明しています。またアクセサリには、ボディサイズの小ささをさらに強調させるような新しいデザインの外付けフラッシュが提供されるもようです。 なお記事によると、そもそもNEX-C3はやはり新機種となるα35とともに今月頭に発表される予定だったものの、地震の影響で登場が遅れているとの話。また上位機種NEX-5の後継として、外付けか内蔵かは不明ながら300万ドットビューファインダーを備えるらしい NEX-7 の噂や、同じく300万ドットファインダーに2400万画素センサを備えたα77といった情報も掲載されています。 Sony Alpha Rumors NEX-C3, α35, NEX-7 / α77 - Apr 25, 11The Next Web | TNW is the International Source for Internet News ...
News reports confirmed last week that the iPhone and 3G-enabled iPads are tracking, collecting and storing location information without the user’s consent. It was said that users can opt-out of the tracking by turning off the global Location Services setting on the device. However, this does not seem to be the case according to a test conducted by The Wall Street Journal.
WSJ reports that the location data appear to be collected using cellphone towers and Wi-Fi access points near a user’s phone and don’t appear to be transmitted back to Apple.
This is how the test was conducted, according to the report:
The Journal tested the collection of data on an iPhone 4 that had been restored to factory settings and was running the latest version of iOS. They disabled location services (which are on by default) and immediately recorded the data that had initially been gathered by the phone. They then carried the phone to new locations and observed the data. Over the span of several hours as the phone was moved, it continued to collect location data from new places.
The data gathered included coordinates, although not as precise, and corresponding timestamps, which may spark another wave of uproar among people concerned with their privacy.
Other technology watchers on blogs and message boards online, including independent researcher Ashkan Soltani, were able to verify these findings.
Worried about the iPhone’s location tracking? We’ve got a guide for you.
- Apr 03, 11GizmodoI'll echo Boing Boing's thoughts on this story: This is no joke. Apparently a series of preventative polymeric water absorbent dams (the diaper-like material) have been unable to stop radioactive water from leaking into the Pacific Ocean around Fukushima. More »
- Apr 01, 11Free, Innovative Web Analytics Tools
Aggregation and curation are seductive arts - they feel like they're within anyone's reach, they seem limited only by imagination and discerning taste and they can create a magical experience for audiences. The web is filled with people who think they can create new aggregation services that people will love - and in many cases those people are right. Aggregation can be awesome.
Not everyone sees it that way, though - especially among the aggregated. Yesterday the popular but new iPad app Zite, which calls itself a Personalized Magazine, got a nasty Cease and Desist letter from 10 big media companies very unhappy with the way their original content was being aggregated. The companies said Zite is manipulating their content without their permission and stripping out the ads. Zite says it's respecting what's communicated in the code on pages it indexes and that it's willing to change on request. The tone of the industry letter is so noxious that I was immediately sympathetic towards Zite, but looking at the details and talking to the CEO of competitor Flipboard makes me think maybe this trailblazing startup took things a little further than it should have. I don't know, I'd like to know your opinion.
What Zite Does
When you download Zite to your iPad, you can let it learn about what topics you're interested in from your Twitter, Google Reader or Delicious data. The app then creates a magazine-like interface for you to scroll through stories from a wide variety of sources online about those topics. You can give very specific feedback about what you like or don't like and then you get more stories like that. It's like Pandora for news articles. Not a lot of control but smart personalized learning. We reviewed the app in more detail yesterday and said that if you like Flipboard (Apple's iPad App of the Year) then you should try Zite because it's even easier to use.
Zite: Personalized Magazine for iPad from zite.com on Vimeo.
What the Lawyers Say
Yesterday Zite received a Cease and Desist letter signed by ten lawyers from big, big media companies: Time, The Washington Post, McClatchy, E.W. Scripps, Getty Images, National Geographic, Gannett, Dow Jones, Advanced Publications and the Associated Press.
Here are a few excerpts from that letter:
"By systematically reformatting, republishing and redistributing our original content on a mass commercial scale without our permission in your iPad application, Zite directly and adversely impacts our businesses. Your application takes the intelletual property of our companies, as well as the hard and sometimes dangerous work of tens of thousands of people. It depreives our websites of traffic and advertising revenue. We do not know your intentions, but your actions harm our companies and the broader media and news industry on which your application relies for its content...
"The Zite application is plainly unlawful. Among other things, it intentially and pervasively infringes on our copyrights by reformatting and republishing substantial portions (and in many cases, the entirety) of our articles and large-scale reproductions of our photographs and illustrations. Further, it misappropriates and infringes our trademarks and falsely implies our affiliateion by prominently featuring certain of our logos on your home screen. Zite uses our content for commercial purposes in a manner that the law prohibits absent agreemnts with each of us. We demand that you immediately cease and desist all such infringing use of our intellectual property, both copyright and trademark, in or in connection with the Zite iPad application.
"We encourage and support the development of new technologies that facilitate innovative uses of our content - but those uses must be subject to our advance consent."
Emphasis on that last line was added by me - it so incredibly misses the point, I think. Technology innovations don't ask permission of the incumbents first. If they did, they would never be born.
That's my take on it, at least. Not everyone would agree with that, though.
What Flipboard Says
"Publishers are justifiably concerned with anyone showing entire articles minus ads," Flipboard CEO and Twitter Board of Directors member Mike McCue told me last night via Twitter when I asked for his opinion about the Zite C&D. Flipboard looks from the outside a lot like Zite does but is a bigger, better known startup.
"Better to partner with them and explore together. We've only displayed what publishers syndicate via RSS (including their ads, related links, etc). Sometimes full articles are used in RSS and sometimes it's just 1 line of text. We always respect that...True you can't partner with everyone. The best strategy is to ask 'would a publisher be happy with how we are displaying their content?'"
Hopefully McCue is right and publishers are generally supportive of the way his company aggregates content. Flipboard is also much better funded and better known than Zite, a smaller company and easier target.
What Zite Says
What does Zite have to say for itself? For context, I asked the company if it respected partial vs. full RSS feeds. It turns out Zite doesn't look at feeds at all. Ali Davar, CEO of Zite, offers the following:
We acquire our data via a web crawl rather than via RSS, so we do not currently take it into consideration. We already take steps to discern automatically what the publisher wishes in this regard (looking for a NO_ARCHIVE tag which indicates that they do not want search engines to serve up cached content), and we will look into using RSS as another potential clue in this regard.
First, some insight into how Zite works with content:
- Zite's content comes from a web crawl, the same way content is aggregated in the indexes of search engines like Google and Bing.
- Zite displays articles in reading mode, which changes how the page is rendered. Though we understand this can alter the layout and potentially eliminate ads, we made this design decision in order to give users a better reading experience. Reading mode is already common, e.g. Safari's Reader.
- We respect the decision of publishers who either use the noarchive metatag or explicitly tell us they want their content displayed in web mode - in either case, we render articles without reformatting.
We don't look at this as an adversarial situation. If the formal cease and desist we received from the big publishing companies yesterday was a one line email from the world's smallest blogger, we would treat it exactly the same: we would switch the content from reading mode to web view mode. That's it. This is not our legal position, it's just our policy. Zite is eager to work with publishers in a way that benefits everyone - most importantly end users.
It's good to know that Zite doesn't look at this as an adversarial question, but the lawyers who sent the letters sure seem to. Is Zite's approach fair? Will it satisfy publishers? Is it disingenuous for Zite to say what it is doing is comparable to search engines serving up cached content? Caches aren't intended primarily as methods of consumption - but Zite's copies are. Zite CEO Ali Davar is Canadian, and he deserves points for that, but I don't think I buy the NO ARCHIVE argument. The user experience argument, though, is more compelling.
Are publishers shooting the future in the foot by objecting? Maybe they should applaud any technology that helps them grow their audience, that people love to use to read their content, even if some percentage of them don't see the ads.
What do you think, readers?
- Apr 01, 1110 Free, Innovative Web Analytics Tools
You might want to file this under the "perhaps this was obvious, but we needed another app to show us" category, but if you check in, Tweet your location and otherwise publicly broadcast your GPS coordinates for all the world to see on the Internet, other people can see where you are.
Creepy is a desktop app for Windows and Linux and it's a stalker's dream come true. The big question, though, is should you stop sharing? And is it really all that creepy?
Last year, all the talk was about PleaseRobMe, a website that simply showed where people were checked in. It did nothing more than a Twitter search for the Foursquare domain, but it brought to attention the idea that whenever you publicly broadcast your location, you also publicly broadcast your absence from home. You know, the place with the valuables.
Creepy takes this idea a step further. It takes a couple minutes to gather all the data - which it searches for according to Twitter or Flickr username - before showing a very detailed map of every Tweet, check-in and geo-tagged picture that person has posted to the Internet for months on end. And depending on how a particular piece of information was sent, such as from a smartphone with an accurate GPS signal, the results can be, well...creepy. We're talking "Yep, I was next to that oak tree in the park when I took that picture" creepy.
So, should you stop broadcasting your location? I vote no. (And not because I want to stalk you, I swear.) I share my location all the time and for a number of reasons. It enables random and serendipitous connections to occur. I can look back and have all sorts of contextual information as I weave my way through the world. I can plug it all in to services like MemoLane and get a time-ordered snapshot of my own life, as I share it online. And in turn, it gets fed through algorithms and stuffed into features like Foursquare's latest recommendation service, which looks at where I've been and suggests where I may want to go next. And that's just the first step for what can be done with all of this location information.
I also get second hand value from all this public location sharing. I see people's check-ins on Twitter and can figure out that the coffee shop down the street is the place to be. Tweets can help with a host of scenarios, from public health issues to mysterious explosions in Portland.
Of course, I may be a bit overzealous in my location sharing. It's on, by default, for everything - pictures, check-in services (which are public) and Tweets. Go ahead - download Creepy and enter @rwwmike and you'll see my recent trips to Palm Springs, CA and Austin, TX. You'll see my bike ride across town to Golden Gate Park. You'll see snapshots of food and beer and bikes.
This isn't for everyone. If you have bad relationships with your exes or lawyers coming after you for bills, you might not want to live so publicly. And are we that far off from insurance companies gathering check-in information and using it to calculate your premiums? But that's what Creepy is about, right? It's saying "Look, you're sharing your life on the Internet and really, everyone can see." The question is, do you care? (And perhaps, far more importantly, should you care?)
Creepy is available for Windows and Linux with a Mac version on the way.
- Apr 01, 11Alltop - Top Mobile News
EXCLUSIVE: We talk to the scientists behind the tech
Autoglass has today announced a scientific breakthrough by developing glass that repairs itself, Pocket-lint has learnt.
According to scientists at the company's headquarters in Bedford, the company has designed a new type of glass that, when broken or cracked, automatically fixes itself.
"For the last couple of years, particularly since interacting with fans on Twitter and Facebook, we’ve had countless requests to fix people’s cracked smartphone screens using the resin we use to mend vehicle windscreens and windows,” John Aubrey, the lead scientist for Autoglass exclusively told Pocket-lint.
“Eventually, we realised we were potentially missing a trick, so started to work on a project under the radar to develop a revolutionary new glass which mends itself.”
The self-repairing glass works by having a thin layer of a pioneering synthetic, silicon-like compound that turns to liquid on impact. It then fills the gaps and reseals the crack instantly.
Autoglass is calling the new resin, Pro-Fill SOA (Self-Optimising Adhesive).
"It doesn’t work if the screen is completely shattered, but for simple cracks it works like magic. The next stage is to actually get it into phones, tablets or maybe even windscreens and we plan a series of meetings with manufacturers to discuss the way forward,” Aubrey explains.
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Long-term resident of Japan, drawn here to study Art History. Japan Specialist, fully fluent in both written and spoken Japanese language. Love mobile tech and exploring social media. Recent adult beginner of violin.
