Helping Social Networkers Connect Even More

Credit: Technology Review

COMMUNICATIONS

Helping Social Networkers Connect Even More

New apps let social media users connect through many different channels.

• BY ERICA NAONE

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Facebook's new Messenger app for Android phones and iPhones is designed to let groups of people communicate with one another in real time no matter where they are. It's the first instance in which Facebook has split a core part of its social network from the main product—a move that reflects a shift in how people are using social-media tools.

Messenger lets groups of Facebook users communicate with one another in the moment even if they're using different communication technologies—for example, with one person using instant messaging, another text, and a third e-mail. Messenger taps into Facebook's vast supply of data about contacts and connections, including users' e-mail addresses, instant-message handles, and phone numbers.

Facebook already offers a feature called Groups, which lets people communicate over time about specific topics of interest, and one called Events, which lets them plan social occasions. But these aren't much good when groups want to communicate on the spur of the moment. "Until recently, you couldn't do it in real time," says Lucy Zhang, one of the engineers who built Messenger. Zhang is a cofounder of Beluga, a startup that created group-messaging tools and that was acquired by Facebook in March. Beluga's technology became the core of Messenger.

Of course, Facebook isn't the only company looking at adding real-time group interaction to its social repertoire. Google Hangouts, which lets up to 10 people video chat together in real time, has been a standout feature of Google's new social network, Google+. Earlier this year at South By Southwest Interactive, a conference known for its prescience about social media, the scene buzzed with talk of companies such as Hurricane Party, Fast Society, and GroupMe, all of which offer tools that help groups of people find each other, share photos, and communicate in real time, at parties and concerts, for example. Beluga would have been there too, except that Facebook had already bought it.

"Social-media tools got you to share yourself—they were all about you—but now people are starting to experiment with what happens when you focus on groups of people," says Matthew Rosenberg, a cofounder of Fast Society. The company has aimed its group-messaging application at younger people out on the town, and has made deals to promote group communication around media events such as showings of the comedy movie Bridesmaids.

Zhang and her team were given deep access to Facebook's platform in order to revamp Beluga's product and make it more powerful. Zhang says she was able to ask Facebook engineers to create the exact tools she needed. The team hooked Beluga up to Facebook's existing text-messaging architecture, as well as to Facebook Chat and e-mail. They designed Messenger's user interface to make it easy to reach people by name, without having to remember phone numbers, e-mail addresses, or other specifics. "What Beluga could never have achieved [on its own] is the integration with the Facebook network and infrastructure," Zhang says.

The team also had to address the social norms around different forms of communication. "We want to change communication so that you don't have to worry about how the other person is receiving the message," Zhang says. But she notes that people behave differently when using sending an instant message than they do when e-mailing or when text messaging, which costs money. Messenger shows the sender whether the recipient is available on a computer or a mobile device, to help users adjust their behavior and expectations.

"Trying to figure out the right way to build the technology has been the focus, but the question now is, What's going to come out of group messaging?" says Rosenberg. He hopes that group-messaging apps can help people enjoy social media without being distracted from the people they're with at the time. "We want to enhance the moment, not take away from it," Rosenberg says.

Now that big players such as Google and Facebook have introduced group-messaging products, startups will have to work harder to compete. Google and Facebook can afford to provide group-messaging services free, to cement users' loyalty and gain more data about how people behave. Startups, to keep their users, will have to provide better features.

GroupMe is hoping to extend its group-messaging tool to provide smart recommendations about how users might structure their social lives, according to cofounder Steve Martocci. Earlier this year, GroupMe acquired a company called Sensobi, which analyzes people's behavior on smart phones to track how well they're keeping up with contacts. GroupMe may eventually offer suggestions on whom to include in a group chat, or event, or point users to groups they have neglected for a while.

Facebook also plans to take its group-messaging capabilities further. Besides adapting Messenger to work globally (by navigating the intricacies of SMS in different countries), Zhang says, the "logical next step" is to make Facebook Groups and Events into real-time experiences.

The TV That Watches You

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Credit: Technology Review

WEB

The TV That Watches You

A television due out soon can tell websites and online advertisers which shows you're watching, making Web pages more intelligent.

• FRIDAY, AUGUST 19, 2011
• BY TOM SIMONITE

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Many people surf the Web while they watch television. Soon­­­ the websites they visit could adapt in real time to the shows being watched—automatically presenting information relevant to the show, or even tuning their ads in response to what's on screen.

A new type of Internet-connected television, due out before the end of the year, has built-in software and hardware that send data about what is on-screen to an Internet server that can identify the content. Web pages being viewed using the same Internet connection as the TV set can then tap into that information. The system can identify any content onscreen, whatever the source, whether live TV, DVDs or movie files playing from a computer.

Flingo, the San Francisco-based startup that developed the technology, known as Sync Apps, says the new set is already being mass-produced by one of the top five television brands in the U.S. and will retail for less than $500.

"Any mobile app or Web page being used in front of your TV can ask our servers what is on right now," says David Harrison, cofounder and CTO of Flingo. "For example, you could go to Google or IMDB and the page would already know what's on the screen. Retailers like Amazon or Walmart might want to show you things to buy related to a show, like DVDs, or what people are wearing in it." Social sites such as Facebook or Twitter can use the service to connect viewers to a TV show's official page or stream. When a user flips channels, or a show ends, the Webpage being viewed knows about it and can instantly update to the new viewing.

Flingo has made available a public API (application programming interface), so developers can build mobile and Web apps that use the television's inside knowledge. The TV will also display pop-ups on-screen, offering further Web-retrieved information about a show, or links to apps on the set itself.

All of this occurs with the permission of the television's owner, says Harrison. The first time the TV is switched on, it asks users if they would like to opt in to the data-sharing service. If they say yes, it prompts them to accept a terms-of-service agreement. Individual sites and apps must ask for, and be granted, permission to access the data the TV makes available.

Ashwin Navin, Flingo's CEO and other cofounder, says he expects people to opt in because the service offers an automatic way to do what people are already doing manually. "People are doing the work to search for information to go with their viewing," he says. "We'll have all that information right there."

The data generated by a television with Sync Apps is also valuable to advertisers. Already, online ads can be targeted based on the content of a Web page and the viewer's browsing history. Navin says that his company will enable sites to match ads to a person's TV-viewing history too, at least on sites that have received permission to use the television's data.

"If we can improve the recommendations made in ads, people will get a better experience," says Navin. "Otherwise, they are noise."

Andy Tarczon, an analyst covering consumer electronics and media with TDG Research, says his research shows there is a ready audience for extra information and context about television content. "In surveys and interviews, we see that consumers want to have more information around their programs, because it's how they find new content to watch," says Tarczon. "Social media, 'checking in' to shows like you do places on Facebook, always scores the lowest." That is, consumers want more information, but they'd rather not have to work to get it.

Tarczon notes that Flingo already has strong relationships with television companies including CBS, MTV, and Fox, after spending several years helping them develop apps for Internet-connected televisions. In this respect, Flingo contrasts sharply with Google, which has its own ideas about combining Web and television. CBS and Fox, among other content providers, block devices using Google TV from accessing their online television content, because Google TV encourages users to discover content via a Web search on their TV screen, which can point them to pirated material.

Tarczon says that Flingo's approach fits better with the networks' desire to use the Web to build stronger relationships with viewers while keeping their traditional business model. "They want to use the Web and apps as an augmentation to their existing content."

Recognizing Customers Wherever They Are

One message, many platforms: Web Experience Management (above), part of Adobe’s Digital Enterprise Platform, helps companies manage and send out their messages over a variety of channels, including e-mail, websites, social-media sites, and mobile devices.
Credit: Adobe

BUSINESS

Recognizing Customers Wherever They Are

Businesses today have to communicate through a dizzying variety of channels.

• BY ERICA NAONE

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A company's customers can use dozens of methods to get information about a product, buy it, and talk about whether they're satisfied. A person interested in a car, for example, might get curious after receiving an ad on a mobile device. She might follow up by researching the car on a desktop computer, watching it in action on YouTube, or visiting a dealership for a test drive. If she bought the car, she could take it to any number of places for service, buy accessories at stores or online, and maybe discuss it on social-media sites such as Twitter and Facebook.

This multiplicity of avenues can make it hard for a company to assess how well it's doing at enticing and pleasing customers. How can it connect the dots and track a customer through the whole course of learning about a product, deciding whether to buy it, using it, and telling people about it?

"That is a very disaggregated process today, and we're trying to build a process around it that's very consolidated and uniform," says John Carione, group manager of enterprise product marketing at Adobe Systems. Technology companies such as Adobe are stepping in with tools that help businesses identify customers and remain aware of their preferences and history, whether they're physically standing in a store or posting comments on Twitter.

Last week Adobe launched its new Digital Enterprise Platform, a system that tries to provide all the technology companies need for that process. One of its main features is that it helps keep track of who a customer is no matter how that person chooses to communicate with a company. In some cases, it's possible to detect this identity automatically—for example, the system can identify when a person returns to a company website and call up other information that's been collected about him or her. In other cases, the company would have to take steps to centralize its record keeping, maintaining records related to in-store transactions in the same system that tracks interactions through social media.

The platform also keeps track of how customers prefer to get information. For example, it can track what a given customer focuses on when visiting the website—video, images, or interactive forms. Adobe's system provides a central repository where companies can store and update all that information, making it easier to meet the customer's preferences in the future. 

Finally, the platform tracks how well all these interactions go. Are customers completing forms or abandoning them? Are they watching videos all the way through? Are they discussing their experiences through social media?

While Adobe's system may work best for companies aiming massive marketing efforts across a variety of digital platforms, other companies are looking to address the needs of more modest marketing efforts.

For example, Greenrope, a company based in San Diego, aims its product at small and midsize companies that simply want to be able to identify their customers in different communication settings.

"Small businesses have so much to keep track of with just doing their work," says Lars Helgeson, the company's CEO. They know that personal responses to comments on Facebook pages can give them a leg up—"By tailoring a response to someone, it makes them feel special," he says—but in practice, it's difficult to know that the person commenting on Facebook today bought a product at the store last week. Helgeson says, "We're trying to create a convergence of information."

Such systems aren't perfect, he acknowledges. For example, Greenrope's technology can search for Twitter handles that obviously match the real names used on LinkedIn and Facebook or in e-mail addresses, but some Twitter handles don't reveal the user's name. In that case, it's up to the company to make the initial connection. Then the system can track all the person's interactions from that point forward.

Companies are still trying to figure out how best to communicate with consumers. "There's still a lot of experimentation going on," Helgeson says. Systems such as Greenrope's and Adobe's, however, can help them unify their efforts, collect data about what works and what doesn't, and ultimately get better at using new media and mobile devices to stay connected to their customers.

China Reveals Solar Sail Plan To Prevent Apophis Hitting Earth in 2036

A small shove could prevent a global catastrophe, according to Chinese plans

Apophis is a 46 million tonne asteroid that will pass within a hair's breath of Earth in 2029. However, Apophis's trajectory is likely to take it through a region of space near Earth known as a keyhole that will ensure the asteroid returns in 2036.

Nobody knows how close Apophis will come on that pass. But if there's a chance of a collision, we'll have only 7 years to work out how to avoid catastrophe.

Today, Shengping Gong and pals at Tsinghua University in Beijing say they've come up with a plan that will ensure Apophis never returns to Earth on this timescale .

They point out that keyholes are tiny, in this case just 600 metres wide. So deflecting Apophis by only a small amount in the near future will ensure it misses the keyhole and so cannot return to Earth.

There are various ways to deflect an asteroid. Gong and pals say their preference is to use a solar sail to place a small spacecraft into a retrograde orbit and on collision course with Apophis. The retrograde orbit will give it an impact velocity of 90km/s which, if they do this well enough in advance, should lead to a collision large enough to do the trick.

Putting a spacecraft into a retrograde orbit about the Sun using little or no fuel is a pretty neat trick by anyone's standards.. The Chinese team's calculations demonstrate the point. They show that a 10 kg sail in retrograde orbit, that hits Apophis a year before 2029, would deflect it enough to miss the keyhole, thereby eliminating the chance that the asteroid will return in 2036.

And such a mission ought to be relatively cheap and relatively easy to deploy.

That sounds easy enough. In practice, however, threading this camel through the eye of a needle will be extremely tricky. There are all kinds of variations in the solar wind that could send such a spacecraft wildly off course.

It also requires a huge sail that will be difficult to unfurl and also liable to damage during the course of the journey, which will itself take years.

Then there's the structure and make up of Apophis, which is a complete mystery. Without knowing the material properties of the asteroid, it's impossible to determine how the impact will affect it.

So there's a little more work to be done in Beijing before this plan can get off the ground. Perhaps they should team up with the Europeans we talked about the other week.

Ref: arxiv.org/abs/1108.3183: Utilization of H-reversal Trajectory of Solar Sail for Asteroid Deflection

Advanced Electrodes for Better Li-Ion Batteries

Germanium Boost: Used in the anode of a lithium-ion battery, germanium nanotubes manufactured with a novel technique could increase the battery’s charge capacity and shorten recharge time.
Credit: Jaephil Cho

ENERGY

Advanced Electrodes for Better Li-Ion Batteries

Nanotube anodes could lead to higher-energy, faster-charging batteries for cell phones and notebooks.

• BY PRACHI PATEL

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Lithium-ion batteries could last longer if their electrodes stored more charge. Korean researchers have now made a new type of anode that holds three times more charge than the conventional graphite anodes used in batteries.

The new anode is made of germanium nanotubes. It charges and discharges five times faster than previously reported silicon anodes, lasts through twice as many charging cycles, and is easier to fabricate. Its 400-cycle life matches that of graphite and is long enough for portable-electronics batteries, says Jaephil Cho, a researcher at South Korea's Ulsan National Institute of Science and Technology, who led the new work. "These anodes meet the practical requirements of lithium-ion cells," Cho says.

Cho collaborated with researchers at LG Chem, the Korean company that makes the lithium-ion batteries used in the Chevy Volt. Their results will soon be published online in the journalAngewandte Chemie. The researchers are also working on silicon nanotube anodes.

These advances are part of a broader push by LG Chem to develop better anode materials for higher-capacity batteries. "The company is looking for a breakthrough technology using both silicon and germanium materials for lithium-ion battery anodes," Cho says.

Charging and discharging a lithium-ion battery involves moving lithium ions into and out of the anode. The more lithium the electrode can pack, the more energy the battery can store. Silicon and germanium can, in theory, hold about 10 and four times as much charge as the same amount of graphite by weight. So far, silicon has been the main contender for anodes because it's cheaper, but crystalline silicon breaks down from repeated swelling and shrinking.

Nanostructured materials better withstand stresses from changes in volume, so researchers and a handful of startups are making anodes from silicon nanowires, nanotubes, and porous nanoparticles. Of these, nanotubes have the best charge capacity, Cho says.

The drawback to silicon nanotube anodes, though, has been their low cycle life: they typically maintain their capacity for just 200 cycles. Not only do germanium nanotubes last longer, but they also charge and discharge faster, because lithium ions diffuse through germanium more rapidly.

"Cycling life is one of the key parameters for making practical anodes," says Stanford University materials science professor Yi Cui, whose startup Amprius is commercializing batteries with silicon nanowire anodes. "As an initial demonstration, this is very impressive," Cui says. But, he cautions, germanium's higher cost could be a limitation.

Cho believes that increased interest in germanium anodes could bring about a decrease in the material's cost. "Germanium is an abundant element, and the current price is maintained by the lack of demand," he says. "A hurdle for using germanium in real batteries is cost, but once big battery makers want to use it as an alternative candidate for [anodes], I believe its cost will drop."

The researchers make the nanotubes by heating antimony-coated germanium nanowires at 700 °C for five hours. Germanium atoms diffuse outward and form hollow nanotubes with walls 40 nanometers thick. The process should be easy to scale up to large volumes and could be used for silicon as well, Cho says. What's more, unlike methods commonly used to synthesize silicon and other nanotubes, this method has a high yield and produces uniform nanotubes.

Cho continues to collaborate with LG Chem and other Korean companies on porous silicon nanoparticle anodes. Meanwhile, Cui and others are exploring various new materials for cathodes, which now have much lower energy densities than anodes and can limit a battery's overall charge capacity.