Foursquare 3.0 Has Arrived: Here's What's New. Foursquare, the location-based mobile game startup that pioneered the checkin, will introduce version 3.0 Tuesday evening. The new release turns on the power of every checkin accumulated over the course of its two-year history and transforms that data into recommendations. "Our theme internally has always been that every checkin counts," says co-founder and CEO Dennis Crowley, who speaks of version 3.0 as the materialization of that philosophy. New Recommendation Engine The Foursquare user will immediately begin to see the value of the checkin in the new Explore tab. The Explore tab, which sits where the Tips tab once was, now serves as the meat of the application. Here, users can query for recommendations or dive into food, coffee, nightlife, shops and arts and entertainment recommendations served up by Foursquare and ranked by what's most interesting to the user. Crowley explains that recommendations are similar to Amazon or Netflix recommendations, but made for the real world.
Huawei offers to build out London Underground cellular coverage for free. Marketers Suit up With Twitter, Facebook for 'Social Bowl' - Advertising Age - Special Report: Super Bowl. Amazon to acquire LoveFilm, the ‘European Netflix’ 20 January '11, 11:10am Follow LoveFilm has announced this morning that Amazon is to acquire the remaining shares in the movie rental and streaming service, which is similar to Netflix. Amazon already has a significant minority shareholding in LoveFilm and deal has been rumoured for some time. The acquisition is subject to customary closing conditions, including regulatory approvals, and is expected to close in the first quarter of 2011. Exactly what this means in terms of the company being rebranded as an Amazon service is unclear at present, but the move gives the US retail giant a big foot in the European online video market.
LoveFilm operates in the UK, Germany, Sweden, Norway and Denmark. In the US, Amazon operates a video-on-demand service offering HD movie rentals. Oldboy director Park Chan-wook shoots new film on iPhone | Film. Park Chan-wook, whose CV includes blood-soaked thrillers such as Oldboy and Lady Vengeance. Photograph: Alessia Pierdomenico/Reuters South Korean film-maker Park Chan-wook is wielding a new cinematic tool: the iPhone. Park, director of Oldboy, Lady Vengeance and Thirst, said his new fantasy-horror film Paranmanjang was shot entirely on Apple's ubiquitous smartphone. "The new technology creates strange effects because it is new and because it is a medium the audience is used to," Park has said.
Compared with other movie cameras, the phone was good, he said, "because it is light and small and because anyone can use it". Paranmanjang, which means "a life full of ups and downs" in Korean, is about a man transcending his current and former lives. Suddenly, though, she wakes up, strangles him and he passes out. The movie, made on a budget of 150m won (£85,500), was shot using the iPhone 4 and is scheduled to open in South Korean cinemas on 27 January.
Twitter. Apple. Amazon's Lovefilm deal could turn every home into a multiplex | Media. If you can see past the resignations, the allegations and recriminations (and what fun they were), something else quite important happened last week. Amazon bought Lovefilm, the DVD subscription rental service that could shake up how we consume media far more profoundly than the exit of one particularly well-known individual from Downing Street.
Because Lovefilm doesn't just want to send out DVDs in the post in return for a monthly subscription; it wants to make them accessible down the phone line, which is – of course – the future of all entertainment. Lovefilm's problem, though, is that it is a relatively small company (with 1.6 million customers in Europe) competing in a jungle where larger creatures knock about. Elsewhere there lurk the Hollywood studios, Paramount to Universal and so on – and BSkyB, the satellite broadcaster that every amateur stock picker knows is 39.1% owned by Rupert Murdoch's News Corporation. So far, so fair enough. But there's more.
O2 launches free Wi-Fi service | Technology. O2 launches its free nationwide Wi-Fi broadband network today, pitting the UK's largest mobile operator head-to-head with rivals including BT and The Cloud. The Spanish-owned operator will open up free Wi-Fi access to all internet users, including customers not with O2, through partnerships with restaurants, shops, and high street retailers across the UK.
O2 said it will double the number of premium public internet hotspots – those which do not piggyback on existing residential networks – currently offered by rivals by 2013. O2 claimed it is the only "genuinely free" Wi-Fi network and the only one open to customers from other companies. The demand for data-hungry sites such as YouTube and the increasing popularity of smartphones, such as Apple's iPhone, have put a huge strain on operators' Wi-Fi networks. Although BT and The Cloud operate tens of thousands of public Wi-Fi hotspots, uptake has largely fallen short of expectations.
Study: 10% of mobile users consume 90% of operator bandwidth. 18 January '11, 11:27am Follow The Telegraph has alerted us to a new study that suggests just 10% of all mobile phone users compromise as much as 90% of all mobile operators’ data bandwidth, providing significant evidence to operators who are increasingly amending data plans to restrict its most data-heavy users. The study, conducted by Bytemobile, suggests that this year 60% of all mobile traffic will be video, as smartphone use continues to rise and video delivery platforms become more efficient at delivery high-quality streams to a users handset.
The report comes just after T-Mobile famously cut its data tariffs for existing users from 1GB to 500MB, sparking outrage not only amongst T-Mobile customers but providing significant worry for customers on other UK networks should providers decide to follow suit. Reports suggested that Ofcom would launch a probe into the action, prompting T-Mobile to reverse its decision and impose the cap on new customers only. Internet chega a 457 milhões de usuários na China - O Globo Online. LinkedIn flotation rumours fuel investors' frenzy for social media | Technology. Facebook has too many friends. After a week of frenzied speculation, the company has disclosed it may have to go public as the number of its shareholders threatens to rise above 500, the limit for a privately held US company. It made the disclosure in a 100-page private-placement memo now being distributed to potential investors.
This week it announced it had received a new round of investment worth $500m (£322m), at a price that values the company at $50bn. The news comes as the social networking company LinkedIn also considers an initial public offering (IPO) amid investor clamour for the new generation of internet firms. Facebook's founder, Mark Zuckerberg, recently said he was against an IPO. Under US law, a private firm with more than 500 investors is obliged to start publishing detailed financial statements like a public company. Ford unveils Focus Electric with MyFord Mobile smartphone integration. • All-new Ford Focus Electric is the first fuel-free, rechargeable passenger car from Ford and one of five new electrified vehicles Ford will deliver by 2013 in North America and Europe • Focus Electric will offer a mile-per-gallon equivalent better than Chevrolet Volt and competitive with other battery electric vehicles • The all-electric Focus is capable of fully recharging in three to four hours at home using the available wall-mounted 240-volt charge station – charging in half the time of the Nissan Leaf • The new Focus Electric offers value charging, powered by Microsoft, to help owners in the U.S. charge their vehicles at the cheapest utility rates, lowering the cost of ownership • Focus Electric provides a special version of MyFord Touch™ driver connect technology especially for electric customers and introduces MyFord Mobile, a smartphone app and website for monitoring key vehicle functions and charge settings while mobile.