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Redbox Instant is coming to Google TV soon, Roku up next

Janko Roettgers — Fri, 17 May 2013 23:22:41 +0000

Redbox Instant by Verizon is going to bring its streaming service to Google TV devices soon: The company demonstrated a prototype of its app at Google I/O Friday, and a representative told me that the app will launch in earnest within the next few weeks. After that, the company is going to launch a channel on Roku media streamers.

Check out a photo of the app UI below:

Redbox Instant by Verizon’s prototype app was on display on an LG Google TV that ran the next version of Google TV that is based on Android 4.2.2, or Jelly Bean. That version will come to Google TV devices in the third quarter of this year, but I was told that the Redbox Instant app will be available before that, and that is going to work just fine with the current version of Google TV. However, the service won’t be available on Google TV devices using an Intel processor, which means that owners of the Logitech Revue and other first-generation devices won’t be able to use it.

Redbox Instant first launched on select Samsung TVs and Blu-ray players as well as PCs and mobile devices in March. The joint-venture between Redbox and Verizon has since added support for Microsoft’s Xbox 360 as well as select LG Smart TVs. I was told by a representative Friday that the company is looking to add support for Roku players soon after rolling out the Google TV app.

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A sneak peek at YouTube’s future as it rolls out new channel design for everyone

Janko Roettgers — Fri, 17 May 2013 21:37:53 +0000

YouTube announced this week that it is going to roll out its new channel design to all of its publishers at the beginning of June. All channels that still use the previous design will automatically be converted on June 5 — but the new channels are just the first step towards a bigger goal of unifying YouTube’s design across all platforms.

YouTube Senior UX Designer Josh Sassoon and his colleague Tom Broxton, who leads the Monetization UX team at YouTube, gave a sneak peek at the multi-screen design principles that will guide YouTube’s future looks during a session at Google’s I/O developer conference in San Francisco Thursday. The big theme was eerily familiar to anyone following our I/O coverage this week: YouTube wants to unify its experience across all screens, the duo explained, while paying attention to the specific use cases for each and every screen.

The duo showed off some design concepts during their presentation, with some featuring the same kind of tile-based design that has been dominating Google’s mobile design language lately brought to the desktop, and at least one playing with the same kind of multi-column design that Google just launched with Google+ for a possible redesign of YouTube’s homepage.

Many of these things were just presented as examples of the design process, which is very data-driven and based on both A/B testing and traditional user research. Fun fact: YouTube has been passing out paper assignment booklets to select users, asking them to track when in the day they’re accessing the site and with which devices.

However, Sassoon and Broxton also shared a few slides of what they called sneak peeks — not necessarily final versions of what YouTube will look like, but definitely explorations that hint at where things are going:

Worth noting in this shot is that YouTube is trying to unify the subscribe button across platforms — which makes a lot of sense, given how much of a focus the site has put on channels.

Also, take a look at how gorgeous this TV UI looks. And once again, there’s a theme of unification across its desktop, tablet, Android, iPhone and ultimately TV platforms.

As for the current redesign: YouTube first introduced the newly designed channel page, dubbed One Channel, in February, and the site said that it has seen a 20 percent growth in page views on participating channels. All in all, more than 100 million channels have already opted in to the new design, according to a post on the YouTube Creators blog.

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WebRTC is growing fast: soon to surpass one billion devices

Janko Roettgers — Fri, 17 May 2013 19:46:12 +0000

WebRTC, the new technology that enables plugin-free voice and video chat within the browser, should be available on more than one billion unique endpoints (think: desktop browsers and mobile devices) “within a week,” according to Google’s WebRTC engineering lead Justin Uberti, who gave an update on WebRTC’s progress at Google I/O Friday.

WebRTC is going to reach that milestone thanks in part to Firefox 22, which was just released this week. The new version of Firefox comes with WebRTC enabled in its beta version, which should add a large number of users to the addressable market for WebRTC developers.

Uberti also said that WebRTC is going to come to iOS devices soon: Apple hasn’t joined the efforts to implement and standardize WebRTC yet, but Google wants to nonetheless give developers a way to address users on iPads and iPhones through the release of a native toolkit.

Of course, there is another holdout: Microsoft has been pushing forward with its own version of WebRTC, which some have seen as an effort to torpedo the standard. Uberti had a much more optimistic take on the differences Friday, saying that Microsoft has been “a great participant in the standards.” He added: “I’m very optimistic that we are going to see a version of (Internet Explorer) that supports this technology in the not-too distant future.”

Image courtesy of Flickr user Tsahi Levent-Levi.

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RapidShare lays off most of its staff as it struggles to find new business model

Janko Roettgers — Fri, 17 May 2013 16:56:52 +0000

Maybe being honest doesn’t pay, after all: Switzerland-based file hoster RapidShare has laid off 45 of its 60 employees to cut down on costs as it tries to reinvent itself and focus more on B2B cloud storage services. The cuts were first reported by Swiss daily 20min, who was told by the company’s new CEO Kurt Sidler that RapidShare definitely won’t shut down. “Unfortunately, we have to part with a number of employees,” Sidler told the paper, adding: “But RapidShare will continue to operate, and we have concrete plans for our future.”

That future likely won’t look at all like RapidShare’s past: The company used to run the world’s most popular one-click file hoster, and was frequented by millions of file sharers looking for safer alternatives when music labels and others started to go after P2P users. However, Rapidshare quickly found itself in court, and fought long legal battles with rights holders in Germany and elsewhere.

The company tried to appease rights holders by putting restrictions on some aspects of its service; RapidShare was one of the first companies to get rid of its rewards program, which would compensate uploaders with especially popular files. It also pressured users to get registered accounts, and finally introduced bandwidth limits in late 2012, restricting users to 30 GB of bandwidth per day – not enough for people who were using the service to offer movies and other copyrighted files for download.

Rapidshare had hoped that all of these measures would get the company some love from rights holders, as it was looking to offer video games and eventually also movies through a paid download store. The idea was to redirect downloaders looking for free, unlicensed copies, and serve up legitimate content instead. However, Holllywood apparently didn’t play ball, and RapidShare nixed its plan for paid downloads at the end of 2011.

The company is now looking to get a stronger foothold in the B2B cloud storage market, and sell personal file storage and backup solutions to consumers. However, the mass layoffs weren’t the first sign that these plans may not be going as expected: Sidler, who joined the company just two weeks ago, is RapidShare’s fourth CEO since 2010.

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The road less traveled: How Google does Streetview for the world’s oceans

Janko Roettgers — Thu, 16 May 2013 21:57:28 +0000

Turtles have homes too, and Google wants to show us how they live: Google Ocean Program manager Jenifer Austin Foulkes and Unterwater Earth founder Richard Vevers gave a fascinating talk Thursday about the company’s Underwater Streetview project, showing how divers use special cameras and explaining why the project is so important.

One of the underwater Streetview cameras, on display at Google I/O.

Google launched Streetview for the world’s oceans in cooperation with Underwater Earth the at the end of last year, and has mapped a total of six sites so far, including the Great Barrier Reef in Australia as well as reefs in Hawaii and the Philippines. Vevers explained that his organization’s Catlin Seaview Survey has been using divers carrying custom-made cameras that shoot photos every three seconds, with divers being able to cover about two kilometers during every expedition.

That’s slow — maybe too slow. The world’s coral reefs are receding quickly, which has been one of the main motivations behind the project. “We set up our project to reveal the reefs of the world,” Vevers said, adding: “People don’t want to protect anything they can’t see.”

However, Verers said showing off the beauty of coral reefs to the world is only “half the story.” The project has also been working on image recognition technologies, with the goal of mapping species and giving scientists around the world access to new material to work with.

So why did Google get involved with the project? Foulkes said that it wasn’t driven by commercial motivations, but freely admitted that it was also about showing off the capabilities of Google Maps. One example: Vevers’ team uses Google’s business photos tool, which is meant to give stores the ability to upload panoramic photos, to create its underwater photospheres.

Vevers’ plan is to capture and reveal all of the world’s coral reefs within the next three years. “We feel this is very much a race against time,” he said. That’s why the project now wants to enlist amateurs in its quest as well. Divers can simply use their cell phones in water-proof cases and then upload their photospheres to Google Maps. And he urged volunteers to become active soon: “What happens in the next ten years is likely going to affect our oceans fo the next 10,000 years.”

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How Google Music wants to take on Spotify, Rdio and Rhapsody

Janko Roettgers — Thu, 16 May 2013 19:11:38 +0000

Google entered a crowded space when it launched its own music subscription service this week: Google Play Music All Access competes head-on with Spotify, Rdio, Rhapsody, Muve Music and a handful of other offerings, all of which offer more or less the same catalog for the same price.

How can Google stand out from the crowd, and convince millions of consumers who haven’t warmed up to access models that they don’t need to own music to enjoy it? To find out, I’ve both tested the service since its launch Wednesday and met up with Paul Joyce, Lead Product Manager for Google Play Music on the sidelines of the Google I/O developers conference where the service was launched. Joyce politely declined to answer some of my questions, but the conversation gave me a good idea of what’s in store for the music service with the confusingly long name.

Right now, it’s more or less like all the others

Google’s premise for Play Music All Access is simple, and you’ve heard it before: Play millions of songs, on your desktop and on the go, for one low monthly fee. That’s what Spotify and all of its competitors have been offering for some time now, and Google doesn’t mess with the basic recipe. All Access costs $9.99 ($7.99 if you sign up before the end of June), and it offers streaming access to songs from all three majors and most significant indie labels.

However, there’s one big difference: Google’s subscription music catalog seamlessly integrates with the company’s music locker, with which users can store up to 20,000 songs for free. That’s an interesting combination, and it hasn’t been offered by any of the other major subscription players before. It makes it possible to have Google generate smart radio stations based on your own music collection, or mix subscription tracks and CDs you ripped in custom playlists, and then access these on the go without having to worry that some of the tracks won’t be available.

Joyce told me that the locker is especially good for tracks that aren’t available through the subscription offering, or even as MP3 sales – mashups, imports and other kinds of rarities.

In the future, All Access will be a lot more social

But All Access isn’t just about filling the gaps left by other services. It also wants to be better at engaging you – which has been one of the problems of existing services. “People sign up, and then they don’t know what to do afterwards,” Joyce said. Having millions of songs at your disposal doesn’t exactly make choice easy, and there is some evidence that a good chunk of users simply tune out.

How does Google want to address this issue? Joyce gave me one hint: “There is more we can do to innovate in social,” he said.

Play Music doesn’t offer much of a social integration today – but that could change soon.

And we are not talking here’s a list of the unfortunate music choices of all the people you didn’t really care about in high school social, which has been Spotify’s original model of social discovery. “If you treat all your recommendations of all your friends the same, then that is a problem,” Joyce argued. However, he wasn’t convinced that the Rdio model – which is very much like Twitter in that it offers you to follow tastemakers – is the right approach either. It’s simply too much work to find the people who can give you good recommendations, he argued.

So how is Google Music’s approach to social going to look? Joyce didn’t go into details, only telling me that the goal was to give you “the right music from the right people at the right time.” However, one has to assume that it would be powered by Google+, which gives us some idea of how it could work: You could get music recommendations from circles and communities, with the ability to share circles of influencers with others. Instead of just curating albums, Google Music’s editors could curate circles of influencers, and users could simply follow the 50 most influential indie rock bloggers with one click.

What else does Google have up its sleeve?

There have been ongoing reports that Google is going to launch a separate music subscription service on YouTube, which makes about as much sense as having four separate messaging apps from the same company (but that didn’t really stop Google, either). Joyce didn’t want to go into any specifics. “YouTube is a great asset for Google,” he told me, and then added: “We will find exciting things to do together.” Maybe it won’t be two separate services, after all?

Google also plans to bring Play Music All Access to other countries “soon,” said Joyce. Countries that already have Google’s music cloud locker will be first on the list for an international expansion, and currently include the UK, France, Germany and Spain.

And finally, there is iOS. Joyce’s lips were sealed when I asked him about the potential of bringing the service to the competing mobile platform, but it would make a lot of sense, and follow Google’s overall theme of unification across mobile and desktop platforms. Of course, this would be the first time that any Play service was available on iOS – but I predict that Google will have to take that step if it wants to seriously compete with Spotify and Co.

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Google TV will receive Android 4.2.2 update as well as latest version of Chrome

Janko Roettgers — Wed, 15 May 2013 20:05:22 +0000

Google will update its Google TV platform to Android 4.2.2, the company announced on Google+ Wednesday. The update will be rolled out to existing devices in the coming months, and it will bring all the major features of the latest version of Android and Chrome to TV screens.

From the announcement post:

“Today, Google TV is moving to the latest version of Android (Jelly Bean, 4.2.2), and we’ve refactored Google TV so that our TV OEM partners can update to future versions of Android in a matter of weeks rather than months. For developers, this means you can build TV experiences using the latest Android APIs, including the NDK.

Today Google TV is also moving to the latest version of Chrome, and from now on Google TV benefits from Chrome updates on the same six week cycle that you’ve come to expect from Chrome. In Chrome on Google TV, we’ve added support for hardware-based content protection, enabling developers to provide premium TV content in HD within their web apps.”

Some Google TV hardware partners have been working with the new version since February.

This will be a big step for Google TV, which has been based on Android 3.2, or Honeycomb, since the last major OS update in late 2011. However, some Google TV owners won’t be able to take advantage of the update: A Google spokesperson confirmed Wednesday that it will only be available for ARM-based Google TV devices, and not on first-generation Intel-based Google TV set-top-boxes and TVs.

Coming next to Google TV: video games?

The update could bring a number of new features to Google TV that owners of newer Android handsets take for granted, including a better performance, a much-needed UI-update and an all likelihood some form of Google Now integration. It should also help developers by making it easier to port their Android 4.x-optimized apps to Google TV.

But there’s another aspect that’s interesting about this step: Google also announced Google Play games services, a cloud gaming service that makes it possible to develop multi-player games and save game plays across devices, at I/O Wednesday.

With Google TV switching to Android 4.2.2, it’s reasonable to assume that Google TV devices should have access to Google Play Games sooner or later as well. This could give the smart TV platform, which has so far only seen modest adoption, another leg to stand on, and potentially enable future Google TV devices to function as full-blown game consoles as well.

This post was updated at 1:35pm with additional information about the devices that will receive the update.

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Watch out, Ustream and Co: YouTube is expanding its live streaming offering

Janko Roettgers — Wed, 15 May 2013 19:45:04 +0000

YouTube took another big step towards fully embracing live video Wednesday: The video site opened up live streaming to a much larger crowd of publishers, allowing anyone who has an account in good standing and at least 1,000 channel subscribers to stream live on the site. The changes were announced on the YouTube Creator blog Wednesday, and they come conjunction with Google I/O, the internet giant’s annual developer conference.

YouTube first introduced live streaming two years ago with select partners, and has since gradually expanded the number of approved live streamers by opening up the service to nonprofits and other partners. The site has also been offering any Google+ user to live stream so-called Hangouts on Air, which are essentially Hangouts that can be watched by an unlimited number of users.

YouTube has been working behind the scenes for some time to make live streaming on its service more robust and attractive. It added the ability for select publishers to charge for live streams a year ago, and rolled out a completely revamped live streaming platform earlier this year.

YouTube’s announcement could put pressure on dedicated live streaming services like Ustream, Livestream or Justin.tv. All of these companies at some point directly competed with each other for the live streaming masses, but most have since tried to differentiate themselves with their own take on live video: Justin spun out Twitch.tv to double down on video game live streams, and Livestream has been moving away from pre-roll advertising towards native monetization.

Image courtesy of Flickr user kevindooley

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Google officially launches its music subscription service at Google I/O

Janko Roettgers — Wed, 15 May 2013 16:51:47 +0000

Google took the wraps off its long-rumored music subscription service at its Google I/O developer conference Wednesday, which is dubbed Google Play Music All Access. “Music unites us, it’s universal,” Chris Yerga, Android Engineering Director, said when he introduced the service during Wednesday’s keynote. “But what if we gave you access to millions of songs?”

The service will be available on Android devices as well as on the web. It’s priced $9.99, and will roll out today. Users who start their trial by June 30th will get a reduced price of $7.99 per month.

All Access will have a kind of radio mode that automatically generates playlists based on the songs people listen to, similarly to Google’s music locker service but obviously with a much larger catalog. “This is radio without rules. It’s as leanback as you want to or as interactive as you want to,” Yerga said.

Notably absent from the announcement was any mention of the record labels that Google was able to sign contracts with. Also no mention of any of Google’s streaming subscription service competitors, or ways Google wants to differentiate itself from Spotify & Co.

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Google I/O statshot: 900 million Android devices activated

Janko Roettgers — Wed, 15 May 2013 16:10:20 +0000

Here are some of the key data points coming out of Google’s 2013 I/O keynote:

Android device activations: Google has activated 900 million Android devices. The announcement comes just two months after Android hit another milestone: In March, Google chairman Eric Schmidt said that the mobile operating system had surpassed 750 million activated devices, with more than 250 million activations in the six preceding months alone. At last year’s I/O, Google announced 400 million activated devices.
Google Play: now clocks more than 2.5 billion installs every month. Altogether, Google Play has seen 48 billion app downloads since it launched as the Android Market in late 2008.
Google Cloud Messaging: 60 percent of top on apps in Google Play today are using Google Cloud Messaging, and they’re pushing 17 billion messages per day.
Google Chrome: 750 million active users of Chrome.
Google Maps: 1 million websites are using Google Maps integrated into their sites.

Our live coverage can be found here.

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