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Xbox Live isn’t just an online gaming service anymore. Microsoft is announcing today that the new version of its Xbox Live user interface will help transform entertainment on the television. The upgrade goes live on Tuesday.

Calling it the future of TV, Microsoft is unveiling of a user interface for the Xbox 360 console’s dashboard; it is also unveiling dozens of new options for watching movies and TV on the game box. And Microsoft has improved the quality of using voice commands to move from one choice to another on the box or to search through all of the entertainment options at your disposal in an instant.

The update is one of the biggest in the past five years for the Xbox 360 because Microsoft is trying to improve the experience of watching entertainment. It also includes cloud-based access and storage for gamers to improve the basic gaming experience.

“We think you’re going to use one device for movies, music and games in the future,” said Ross Honey, general manager of Xbox Live entertainment and advertising, in an interview.  “We want to make the content accessible and enhance the actual experience. We think you will will want to watch it on Xbox as it is more social and more personal.”

The update will be live on Tuesday for Xbox Live users, and it could greatly multiply the entertainment options that people have in their homes, providing access to on-demand TV, movies and user-generated videos. You can, for instance, get access to 26 TV channels from Verzon’s FiOS TV services or the complete library of 10,000 On Demand movies from Comcast. You can download the new update in a matter of minutes.

“A lot of people have said they’re going to reinvent television,” Honey said. “I’m going to say it as well.”

When you say “Xbox,” the Microsoft Kinect motion-sensor and voice communication system springs to live. Then you can say “Bing” to activate the Bing search function across the entire console and ask it to find anything related to the word “X-Men.” Bing will show you X-Men movie, TV or game selections. Then you can choose an option, such as Zune or Netflix, to view the selection. The Kinect system generally works better than it did with voice controls last year.

The new visual user interface is borrowed from Metro, the square tiles and buttons from Microsoft’s user interface for Windows Phone 7 devices. Metro will now be used in the Xbox 360. The Windows 8 operating system arriving next year feature the Metro interface in smartphones, tablets and PCs. The point is that you will be able to use the interface to get to the entertainment you want more quickly. And you won’t have to relearn different interfaces to access lots of content.

You can use your voice to find the games, movies, TV shows and music. The results come back and then you can choose the service that can best deliver the entertainment to you at the lowest cost. Bing search on Xbox with voice commands will be available at first in English in the U.S., Canada, and the United Kingdom. Text search works if you don’t have Kinect. Microsoft has sold more than 57 million Xbox 360s and it has more than 35 million Xbox Live members.

You can also use your Windows Phone 7 smartphone to cruise for shows, select the one you want to watch, and then see the movie appear on your screen as your Xbox 360 fetches the movie from the cloud and streams it to your TV set. All you have to do is get the Xbox Companion app for Windows Phone.

That leads us to one of the cool things about the Xbox Live update. Now you will be able to log into your gamertag identity on any Xbox 360. You can then play your saved games or watch your in-progress movies on any Xbox 360, thanks to cloud storage.

If you want to watch new release movies, you’ll have choices such as Zune, Epix, and others. Among the catatlog of services available are Hulu Plus, Last.fm, Netflix, Zune music and video and ESPN. TV providers include AT&T U-verse TV in the U.S., Telus in Canada, BSkyB in the U.K., CANAL+ in France, Vodafone Portugal, VimpelCom in Russia, and Foxtel in Australia.

Microsoft has made a lot of progress on its original vision of turning the Xbox 360 into a gateway for all living room entertainment. The console was introduced as a game machine in 2005 with the cool Xbox Live online gaming service. The next year, Microsoft added the ability to download high-definition movies on demand to the console. In 2008, Microsoft added interactive TV services with BSkyB and Canal Plus. In 2009, the company added “the New Xbox Experience” with Netflix and other streaming movie services as well as social networks. Last year, it added Kinect voice controls for TV viewing, and this year, it added services such as Hulu Plus and enhanced ESPN. With the improved ESPN, which launched in August, you can see the status of friends and find out who they are expecting to win your favorite game.

On average, Xbox 360 users are watching 60 hours video entertainment per month, or two hours per day on the console. Now Xbox Live is adding 40 new entertainment platforms on a global basis.

Microsoft is rolling out the services slowly to make sure they work right. The new apps debuting on Dec. 6 are Epix in the U.S.; ESPN on Xbox Live in the U.S.; Hulu in Japan; Hulu Plus in the U.S.; Lovefilm in the United Kingdom; Premium Play by Mediaset in Italy; Netflix in the U.S.; Sky Go in Germany; and Telefónica España Movistar Imagenio in Spain.

Later in December, you’ll be able to use Xbox Live to watch 4 on Demand (C4) in the U.K.; ABC iView (Australian Broadcasting Corp.); AlloCiné. France (AlloCiné); Germany (Filmstarts); Spain (Sensacine); United Kingdom (Screenrush); Astral Media’s Disney XD (Astral Media) in Canada; Blinkbox in the U.K.; Crackle (Sony Pictures) in  Australia, Canada, U.K. and the U.S.; Dailymotion in 32 countries; Demand 5 (Five) in the U.K.; iHeartRadio (Clear Channel) in the U.S.; Mediathek/ZDF (ZDF) in Germany; MSN om Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Mexico, and the U.K.; MSNBC.com in the U.S.; MUZU.TV in Denmark, Finland, France, Germany, Ireland, Italy, Netherlands, Norway, Spain, Sweden, and the U.K.; Ninemsn in Australia; Real Sports (Maple Leaf Sports) in Canada; Rogers On Demand Online (Rogers Media) in Canada; SBS On Demand in Australia; TMZ (Warner Bros.) in Canada and the U.S.; Today (MSNBC) in the U.S.; TVE (RTVE.es) in Spain; UFC on Xbox LIVE (UFC) in the U.S. and Canada; Verizon FiOS TV in the U.S.; Vevo; and Vudu; and YouTube in 24 countries.

In early 2012, the new services include Antena 3 (Antena 3 de Televisión); BBC (BBC); CinemaNow (Best Buy); DIGI+ (CANAL+) in Spain; GolTV (Mediapro) in Spain; HBO GO (HBO); MLB.TV (MLB Advanced Media); Telenovelas/Sports (Televisa); and Xfinity on Demand (Comcast).

Source: VentureBeat View original...

Microsoft is announcing today that the Xbox 360 game console will be able to deliver 40 different TV entertainment services, making it a able to deliver a full slate of games, movies, TV and music. Users will be able to control the system with voice commands via the Kinect motion-sensing system.

For Microsoft, this is the biggest advance with the Xbox Live entertainment service since 2009, when it added Netflix movie streaming. When you stop and think about it, TV and entertainment have come a long way. Here’s a look at how TV and entertainment have evolved over the years, courtesy of Microsoft.

Check out the infographic below.

Source: VentureBeat View original...

U.S. shoppers are spending a lot of money after a record-setting Cyber Monday, according to data after the first week of sales after the season kick-off.

Market research firm comScore said Sunday that shoppers spent $6 billion on Monday through Friday last week. Typically, about 40 percent of spending happens in the last two months of the year.

“Cyber Monday kicked the week off with a bang as consumers opened their wallets to the tune of $1.25 billion, but it was only the beginning of a very strong week of online holiday spending,” said comScore chairman Gian Fulgoni in a statement. “As the deals from this week expire, it will be important to see the degree to which consumers return to the same retailers to continue their holiday shopping, thereby helping improve retailers’ profit margins, or if we experience a pullback in consumer spending – which has occurred in previous years – before promotional offers and spending intensity pick back up in earnest around mid-December.”

Cyber Monday sales were $1.25 billion, the biggest online shopping day in history. On Tuesday and Wednesday, online shopping sales also broke $1 billion each day (Tuesday Nov. 29 was $1.12 billion; Wednesday Nov. 30 was $1.03 billion). Heavy discounting and promotions, as well as free shipping, got shoppers in the holiday spirit. About 63 percent of sales had free shipping, compared to 52 percent a year ago.

“Consumers have come to expect free shipping during the holiday promotion periods, and retailers, in turn, have realized that they must offer this incentive,” said Fulgoni.

Online sales are up 15 percent to $18.7 billion in November and the first two days of December, compared with the comparable period a year ago. Overall, online shopping accounts for 8 percent to 10 percent of holiday spending.

A year ago, Cyber Monday sales topped $1 billion for the first time. Black Friday sales were $816 million, up 26 percent fom a year ago. Cyber Monday was $1.25 billion, up 22 percent from a year ago. The week ending Dec. 2 was $5.9 billion, up 15 percent.

Source: VentureBeat View original...

I wrote about this a while back but I've been refining and sharpening my thinking on the question of which devices will be smart and which devices will be dumb. It's an important question because it gets to what platforms developers should build on.

I believe that cheap devices will be smart and expensive devices will be dumb. Here's why:

Technology is moving very fast these days. Look at the latest iPhone 4s. It has Siri in it. Look at the latest Android Galaxy S II. It has NFC and Bluetooth 3.0 in it. And these phones will be leapfrogged in 12-18 months with something even more amazing. Furthermore, these devices have open marketplaces for apps and APIs and SDKs that allow those app developers to bring new experiences to these devices every day.

Contrast that with cars, boats, refridgerators, air conditioners, TVs, and other devices which we are led to believe will become "smart" in the coming years. These devices are usually owned for somewhere between 3 years and 10 years by most consumers. The upgrade cycle for these devices is too long to allow most consumers to experience the kind of smarts on these devices that they are experiencing on their cheapest devices with shorter upgrade cycles.

And that's why technologies like airplay, DLNA, and similar approaches are so important. When smart and cheap devices can take control of expensive and dumb devices, we will see the dumb devices become smart.

When I got the SoundCloud app on my iPad and I airplayed into my sonos, it was one of those "I get it" moments. Every time I get into my car these days, I want to airplay into my car audio system. The idea of connecting via an aux jack seems so nuts.

I don't expect the makers of expensive devices to accept this idea quickly. It goes against the grain. How can my expensive device be dumb when one of those cheap devices is so smart? But I'm certain that this is the way the market will play out over time.

Bridge technologies will play an important role for a while. As will Apple's licensing strategy for airplay. Airplay could become a standard if it is broadly and cheaply licensed. Otherwise, we will see other technologies in this market. We may anyway because there are other issues that matter, like the ability to connect over a cellular data connection instead of a wifi connection, latency, and a number of other important features.

Regardless of timing and the technologies that get us there, I have no doubt that the way we will make our expensive devices smart will be via our cheap devices. That's how I am viewing the market opportunity these days. It's a very crisp and clear vision. And that's a good thing when you are trying to peer into the future.

Source: A VC View original...

Last week we announced our investment in Awe.sm. It’s squarely in our Glue and Protocol themes and is similar to investments we’ve made in SendGrid (for transactional email infrastructure) and Urban Airship (for push notification infrastructure). Oh – and the founders – Jonathan Strauss and Laurie Voss are – well – awesome.

We love things that wire the web together and believe Awe.sm is the company to do that for the construct of “sharing.” Specifically, Awe.sm’s goal is to become the key infrastructure provider powering quantitative performance marketing across the social sharing channel.

If you are a developer of a web app, take a look at how Awe.sm’s platform can help you.

Source: Feld Thoughts View original...

This week, my Xbox Live account was hacked. This is the story of what happened, my response to it, and the questions about security that it has raised.

The hijack

At twelve minutes past midnight on Tuesday night, just as I was finishing up some work, I received an email to say that I had purchased 6,000 Microsoft Points. My first thought was to laugh it off as spam, as I hadn’t bought any points for months, but I thought I should check my console anyway. On switching on my Xbox, I found that I could no longer access my account.

A quick Google search revealed that other Xbox users had been experiencing similar problems, and I realized that my account had been compromised. I tried to contact Xbox Live support, but its helpline was unhelpfully shut for the night.

Trying to think clearly, despite my somewhat bleary late-night state of mind, I logged into my Microsoft account on my PC, and changed the password. I then went through the process of recovering my Xbox Live account on my console dashboard, which involved entering my Windows Live ID and the new password. On seeing my account again, I was relieved, but also surprised to note that it had been used to play FIFA 12, the popular Electronic Arts soccer game.

The loot

My next move was to contact my credit card provider. The customer service adviser at the bank revealed that there had indeed been a transaction to Xbox Live that night, for £51 (about $80), and they immediately cancelled my card. I was told to phone again once the transaction went through, as it would then be reversed, and dealt with as fraud. Thankfully I use a decent bank and the issue was dealt with quickly and efficiently from that end. I am not sure that every victim of such an attack will be so lucky with their card issuer.

The response

The next morning, I successfully contacted Xbox Live support, explaining in detail what had happened. The adviser confirmed that my account had been used to purchase 6000 Microsoft Points, and intimated that these points had been spent on FIFA 12 Ultimate Team packs. To add insult to injury, it seemed that the hacker had also used up my own, admittedly rather paltry, supply of MS Points during their spending spree.

Confirmation of these Ultimate Team card purchases was found when I checked my console, to find these three new achievements staring back at me:

New Club in Town – 5G – Create your FIFA 12 Ultimate Team club
I’ll Have That One – 10G – Open your first pack in FIFA 12 Ultimate Team
How Great is That? – 20G – Find a team of the week player in an Ultimate Team pack

Quite a kick in the teeth, but hey, at least someone got some pleasure out of those 35G.

The Ultimate Team packs of football cards that were purchased, containing various players that can be used in the game,  are apparently transferable between Xbox Live accounts. This allows a hacker to buy them with a hijacked account and then send them to their own account, for their own purposes. Scouring the internet, it appears that the rarer cards are being traded for cash, through  forums and online auction sites, with some fetching as much as $280 .

I was told by Microsoft Customer Support that my account would be suspended, pending an investigation, which could take between 21 and 30 days to complete. My existing points would apparently be restored once the investigation was complete, and the £51 that had been fraudulently spent would also be refunded (I said this was not necessary, due to the actions being taken by my bank). In the meantime, I would be unable to access my Xbox Live account, and would only be able to play my console offline.

A widespread problem?

Such hacking of Xbox Live accounts, particularly for the purchase of FIFA items, has been widely reported in the past few weeks, both in the specialist and mainstream press. There have also been multiple occurrences of such hacking reported on a variety of websites, including the official Xbox forum and Twitter.

Questions have been asked of Microsoft, as to whether its security is up to scratch, and the response has been that this is not a wider security breach, but rather individual cases of malicious activity.

I approached Microsoft with some questions on this hacking issue, and a spokesman responded with the following statement:

“It is important for us to reconfirm that the Xbox Live service has not been hacked. Some of our customers have been the victims of internet fraud on their accounts. This is a frequent issue that all internet and e-commerce sites and services experience every day. These threats include phishing, brute force attacks, malware, third-party security breaches and in-game scamming / social engineering.

Customers who use the same identity and log-in details across multiple online sites and services are more vulnerable against these everyday internet threats. As ever, we advise customers to be vigilant, and provide further advice on account security across Xbox 360, internet websites and email at www.xbox.com/security.

Of the tens of millions of Xbox Live customers (there are 35 million active members) using the service daily, these issues are affecting a very small percentage of users globally.

Security in the technology industry is an ever-evolving challenge. With each new form of technology designed to deter attacks, the attackers try to find new ways to subvert it. Over time, account security features have been added to help protect our customers’ accounts, and we will continue to add features and processes.

As always, Xbox Live customers who have any queries or concerns should contact Xbox Live Customer Service on 0800 587 1102 [in the UK] or visit www.xbox.com/security.”

So, according to Microsoft, this issue is only affecting a small percentage of global users, but that does not stop it being an issue that raises some pretty big questions, and it is deserving of further investigation.

How is this happening?

The Microsoft statement suggests that these breaches are caused by account details being obtained, via a variety of malicious methods. The nature of Xbox Live is such that an account can be ‘recovered’ on a second console, as long as you have access to the Windows Live ID and password of that user. That results in the account being locked on the original console, as I experienced. With card details being stored on the Microsoft servers, anyone hijacking an account in this way is then able to make purchases on Xbox Live, using the payment card linked to that account.

Why me?

While I cannot dispute that I may have been hacked through some third-party breach, I  would be surprised if that was actually the case. I am pretty careful with my passwords, having four or five that I tend to use for different websites, which I regularly change. I have never responded to a fake ‘phishing’ email and I keep my PC clean, using anti-virus and anti-spyware software.

Looking at other reports of Xbox Live hacking, it is clear that I am not the only one asking this question – a question that remains unanswered.

Source: VentureBeat View original...

While inventing a device to ease phantom limb pain, Katherine Bomkamp, then in high school, found others to help her with the engineering.

Source: NYT > Start-Ups View original...

SAP has announced plans to acquire cloud-based business software provider SuccessFactors for $40 per share, a 52 percent premium over the company’s closing price of $26.25 on December 2. The deal is worth $3.4 billion.

SuccessFactors provides online tools for managing employee performance, including performance management, setting goals and managing to them, setting compensation accordingly, and training. Its stated mission is to make each customers “a more meritocratic place to work, where promotion and pay is based on performance and not politics.”

By acquiring SuccessFactors, SAP — a giant in legacy enterprise software — is making a big move to establish a presence in cloud services. It will have major challenges integrating SuccessFactors into its complex array of enterprise offerings, however.

SuccessFactors went public in 2007 and has made a string of acquisitions of its own over the years, including Jambok, a company that provided video education for employees; YouCalc, a business analytics software firm; and CubeTree, a social network for businesses (sort of like a Facebook for businesses).

SuccessFactors’ 3,500 customers (acorss 168 countries) pay for a total of 15 million subscription seats, making it one of the largest cloud companies in the world. Although it lost money in its early, pre-IPO days, the company stated that it posted 77 percent revenue growth year-over-year in the third quarter 2011 and 59 percent revenue growth year-over-year in the first nine months of 2011.

SuccessFactors was founded in 2001 by Lars Dalgaard. It is based in San Mateo, Calif. and has 1,450 employees. SAP, based in Walldorf, Germany, is one of the world’s largest enterprise software companies.

Hat tip: TechCrunch

Source: VentureBeat View original...

In this business, sometimes you get the news, and sometimes, the news gets you.

This week, VentureBeat staffers Jolie O’Dell and Chris Peri were saddened and disappointed by news of possible corporate wrongdoing and anti-human bias, all in the arena of mobile technology. We love these little pocket-sized gadgets so much that we end up putting up with a lot of invasion of privacy and software bugginess.

But two of our top stories this week — Siri’s anti-abortion and birth control “glitch” and Carrier IQ’s keystroke logging of 100 million-plus users — cross just about every imaginary line we could draw between what we’ll let corporations get away with for the sake of awesome tech and just plain unacceptable behavior.

Hopefully, we’ll be able to come back next week with better news, but for now, we encourage you to keep fighting the good fight by letting companies, including manufacturers and carriers, know when they’re letting you down.

Source: VentureBeat View original...

Carrier IQ is an insanely invasive bit of software, and it’s on at least 100 million phones, entirely without the owners’ knowledge.

If you use an Android device, there’s now a simple way to find out if Carrier IQ is already installed on your phone.

We first showed you how Carrier IQ works earlier this week. Basically, it’s low-level mobile ware that tracks everything you do — your apps, your phone calls, your locations and even your text messages, perhaps keystroke by keystroke — and then stores the data and sends it to your mobile carrier.

One mobile developer, Trevor Eckhart, took it upon himself to find out how Carrier IQ actually works, and the Internet has been in an uproar over the blatant invasion of privacy ever since.

We wouldn’t be sounding the alarm about this software if it wasn’t incredibly widespread. In early 2009, when Carrier IQ was raising a $20 million finding round, the company said its software was already installed on 35 million cell phones through seven mobile vendors.

However, by the middle of last year, when the company raised another $12 million round, it told VentureBeat its software had been deployed on more than 90 million mobile devices by 12 leading vendors worldwide.

So if you’re concerned about your privacy or if you just want to know whether or not Carrier IQ is on your Android phone, here’s the app to check out: Carrier IQ Detector [Android Market link].

This new app comes from Lookout Labs, a mobile security firm. Lookout’s Tim Wyatt writes, “While there are a number of blogs that have posted instructions on how to detect and/or remove Carrier IQ software, these are largely technical in nature and difficult for the average user to follow.”

Wyatt notes that it is still unclear just how invasive or unwarranted Carrier IQ’s tracking of data might be, but he does say, “We’re encouraged that the mobile community is paying increasing attention to privacy risks associated with their mobile data.”

While knowing whether or not you’re currently running Carrier IQ is half the battle, actually getting the software off your phone is, especially for the less technical, an almost impossible task involving rooting the phone and installing a new mobile OS. Several guides for Carrier IQ removal are available online, but perhaps the best course of action is for consumers to raise a stink about the software, get carriers’ attention, and force these companies to take our collective privacy a bit more seriously in the future.

Source: VentureBeat View original...

When it appeared in 1984, the Macintosh blew people away with its graphical interface, its mouse, and its unusual industrial design.

It also charmed customers with its cute, approachable icons, from the smiling Mac that appeared while it was booting to the bomb that popped up when something went terribly wrong. The Mac’s many icons were the work of Susan Kare, a painter who landed at Apple at just the right time and came to play a key role in the original Macintosh team. Kare started sketching icons on graph paper using markers, and eventually wound up designing many of the interface elements in the Mac. Her designs helped shape the personality of the Mac, giving it a touch of whimsy and friendliness not seen in computers before.

Kare went on to design icons for Windows, OS/2 and even designed the Solitaire deck that shipped with Windows. She’s just come out with a retrospective book showcasing her work, Susan Kare ICONS, and it’s a great opportunity for students of design to stop and consider what separates interfaces that people merely use from the ones that people actually love. You can also buy fine art prints of her classic icons from her site.

There aren’t too many designers whose work can honestly be described as “iconic,” but in Kare’s case, that adjective is true both literally and figuratively.

VentureBeat interviewed Kare via e-mail recently. Here’s the (lightly edited) text of our exchange.

Did you try many different versions of your classic Mac icons before settling on the right ones?

It was definitely an interative process. I always like to work with placeholders and tweak and improve images while there’s time. I remember trying a lot of different images for “copy” (some involving mirrors) and “undo.” Abstract nouns and verbs are always tough.

Lots of people must be designing icons now, for websites and software. What are some examples that you really admire?

Never say never, but I tend to prefer simple imagery for user interfaces without too much detail. I remember reading in Scott McCloud’s book, Understanding Comics, why more people can “see” themselves in a simple smile face graphic than a detailed drawing of Prince Valiant. This principle applies to icons: Universality is good. So a very detailed, very specific icon of a certain type of writing implement seems less effective as a symbol.

One detail: I can never understand why the red circle-with-slash is occasionally used to mean “delete” when it means something is prohibited.

Your icons play a huge role in the personality and approachability of the interfaces they appear in. They’re also very clear and understandable. What advice do you have for people designing interfaces or websites?

Thank you! I try to think hard about the meaning of icons and look at them in context (in a mockup) and exercise restraint. You don’t want the UI to compete with the data.

What are you really excited about that’s just coming up in terms of computer design or interface design?

The thermostat from Nest looks great!

It seems like you sort of fell into icon design by being in the right place at the right time. Yet this is a seemingly very limited medium. Are you able to express yourself as an artist through computer icons? Or do you have other outlets (like painting)?

Some projects have many constraints in terms of limited screen real estate or palette, but the problems to solve are always interesting. I also love working on logos and working with type. And I have always enjoyed making sculpture.

Images courtesy Susan Kare.

Source: VentureBeat View original...

Women in science have a rough go of it, especially as they enter the post-doctoral phase that coincide with many ladies’ late 20s.

In this video, we chat with Elizabeth Iorns, a co-founder of Science Exchange, a Y Combinator startup focused on optimizing research and the use of high-dollar scientific equipment through technology.

In this interview, Iorns talks about women dropping out of science work as they enter the baby-makin’ phase of life, about being a minority (both in age and gender) in her Y Combinator incubator class, and about what it’s really like to work with Paul Graham.

Enjoy the vid, and stay tuned for more.

Source: VentureBeat View original...

EA has just relaunched its iOS version of Tetris [iTunes link], the popular puzzle game beloved of all kinds of players, from the casual commuter to the hardcore arcade nerd.

However, the game’s new pricing structure isn’t so beloved, as it turns out.

The game itself costs $0.99, which alone isn’t unreasonable. However, the $30-per-year subscription fee has raised some eyebrows.

The latest version of the game brings along some new features, such as a “Galaxy Mode” and a “Marathon One-Touch Mode,” which was created specifically with touchscreen gamers in mind. You even get the famous 8-bit theme song, Korobeiniki.

But the feature that’s got everyone up in arms is the T-Club, a $2.99-per-month (or $30 a year, if you’re feeling committed) “elite” set of digital ephemera that lets users “gain an advantage with bonus lines and T-Coins.”

Users who don’t opt into the T-Club are required to log into Origins, the software’s social component that is also the only other way to save one’s scores in the game.

The game also packs new social components and in-app T-Coin purchases for extras and power-ups, which some users will enjoy and others will despise.

As one irate review wrote, “This would easily be the best Tetris remake to date, not for the in-app purchases and social network logins.

“To pay for a game then be required to keep purchasing over and over to get five stars on a level is just despicable… And also note if you bought the last Tetris game from EA, they have removed it from the app store for this garbage.”

Source: VentureBeat View original...

My friend Paul Kedrosky – who spends some of his time as a Senior Fellow at the Kauffman Foundation – has a thoughtful short video (as part of the Kauffman Sketchbook series) on where entrepreneurs get their money. While it’s easy to get confused and think that VCs are the center of the financing universe, Paul reminds us that most entrepreneurial companies are funded by the entrepreneur’s savings, cash flow, credit cards, friends, and family.

It’s a creative three minute video with plenty of meat to it.

Source: Feld Thoughts View original...