Google made some waves yesterday when it announced the new Google TV platform, backed by major players like Sony, Logitech, Intel, Dish Network, and Best Buy. Built on Android and featuring the Chrome browser with a full version of Flash Player 10.1, Google TV is supposed to bring “the web to your TV and your TV to the web,” in Google’s words. It’s a lofty goal that many have failed to accomplish, but Google certainly has the money and muscle to pull it off. But hold up: what is Google TV, exactly, and why do all these companies think it’s going to revolutionize the way we watch TV? Let’s take a quick walk through the platform and see what’s what.

The basic facts

Google TV isn’t a single product — it’s a platform that will eventually run on many products, from TVs to Blu-ray players to set-top boxes. The platform is based on Android, but instead of the Android browser it runs Google’s Chrome browser as well as a full version of Flash Player 10.1. That means Google TV devices can browse to almost any site on the web and play video — Hulu included, provided it doesn’t get blocked. It also means that Google TV devices can run almost all Android apps that don’t require phone hardware. You’ll still need to keep your existing cable or satellite box, however — most Google TV devices won’t actually have any facility for tuning TV at launch, instead relying on your existing gear plugged in over HDMI to do the job. There’s a lot of potential for clunkiness with that kind of setup, so we’ll have to see how it works in person.

All Google TV devices will have remotes with some form of QWERTY keyboard, and you’ll be able to use Android phones as remotes as well. Using an Android phone opens up some extremely intriguing possibilities, like searching for content using Google Voice Search and navigating by gesture, but it’s not clear how deep the integration between Android on Google TV and Android on phones will be at launch.

Partners

Google’s not going into the living room alone — the company’s launching Google TV with an impressive array of partners, each of whom has a different spin on the platform. Here’s the list:

• Sony plans to build BRAVIA Internet TVs and Blu-ray players that run the platform, all expected to launch this fall.
• Logitech is building a Google TV “companion box” that can control your entire A/V rack using Harmony technology, using and Android phone or an iPhone as the remote.
• Dish Network was actually the beta test partner, but we don’t specifically know what its plans are — there’s no hardware right now, and Google demoed the platform using a custom IP protocol to control a Dish receiver. We’re guessing that means there’s no custom hardware coming, but look for Google TV-ready Dish boxes sometime in the fall as well.
• Adobe’s obviously building Flash 10.1 for the platform.
• Intel’s making the Atom CE4100 chip that’s used in all these devices — it’s actually kind of a burner. More on it later on.
• Best Buy has partnered to sell Google TV devices in its stores, so there’s going to be a big retail push.

Now, these are just the launch partners — we’d expect to see Google go after the cable companies in a big way soon, and we’d expect to see even more development around the platform as we get closer to late 2011 when the whole thing is scheduled to be open-sourced.

Launch dates

Google TV devices will be coming this year: Sony says it’ll have Internet TVs and Blu-ray players in the fall, and Dish Network has made similar statements about supporting the platform around then, although with less specificity about hardware. We’re not entirely sure when Logitech will be releasing its companion box, as the unit we saw was obviously not final, but we’d still expect it to launch around the holidays. Obviously this whole thing hinges on Adobe getting the final version of Flash 10.1 for Android out the door on time in June, so we’ll have to keep an eye on that as well — if that slips, there’s a chance this whole thing could fall behind. But with Best Buy lined up to make a holiday retail push, there’s plenty of pressure for everyone involved to get their ducks in a row and get shipping.

Software and interface

Although Google TV has a regular tiles-based homescreen that allows you to drop directly into apps and content, the most important interface element is exactly what you’d expect from Google: a search box. Just like TiVo’s Swivel Search, search results from a variety of content sources are displayed as soon as you start typing — entering “30 Rock” will bring up not only the next few episodes of the show on TV but also past episodes available to stream from Hulu, NBC, Netflix and other providers, as well as related content from YouTube and similar sites. These unified listings are a big part of how Google’s trying to harmonize web content with TV content — the idea is to divorce the content from the source, so it doesn’t matter to the end user where it’s coming from.

Of course, this is the exact same idea TiVo’s pushing with its Premiere service, but the difference is that Google TV has a full browser with Flash — you can theoretically navigate to virtually any video site and simply play video with no fuss. How that works in practice remains to be seen — using the full web on a TV has never been a particularly marketable idea, and Google knows it — it’s encouraging developers to create TV-friendly versions of their sites, and it’s leading the way by launching a living-room-friendly version of YouTube called YouTube Lean Back that’s more catered to the 10-foot experience.

As we’ve said, the Google TV platform is based on Android 2.1, and it runs the Chrome browser with Flash 10.1. Google says OTA updates to later version of Android will come over time, and the platform also has some custom APIs and a new SDK for TV-based apps that will launch early next year, along with a new version of Android Market for the TV. The app demos we saw during the keynote were more impressive for their potential than their execution; for example, the NBA TV app had a cool feature that could automatically record upcoming games using your DVR while watching a streamed game that seems extremely promising, but the app itself looks more or less like a bad website, and the video stream quality appeared to be SD. Again, it’s early on, so we’ll have to see how developers make use of the platform — it could be really interesting if Google TV apps advance as fast as they have on the phone side, and really boring if they stall out as painfully as every other TV-based platform has thus far.

Hardware

Google’s laid out a series of baseline hardware specifications for the Google TV platform, which every piece of gear will share. The heart of the system is the Intel Atom CE4100, which launched at IDF last year. It’s an Atom-based SoC with some additional silicon for decoding dual 1080p video stream, MPEG-4 support, and 3D graphics capabilities. That’s joined by some custom DSPs, and things like WiFi, HDMI, and Bluetooth are all required.

Although Sony’s said it will launch a line of BRAVIA TVs and Blu-ray players later this year, the only piece of Google TV hardware we’ve gotten to play with is the Logitech companion box, which adds in Harmony universal remote capabilities. That’s not to say you’ll need an expensive Harmony remote to control it, but rather that it turns your existing wireless peripherals (and quite impressively, your Android or iPhone OS device of choice) into a remote for your entire media center, relaying commands to devices over IR, RF and even IP via the onboard ethernet port. Logitech will also sell a dedicated peripheral for the Google TV companion box at launch, which they told us will combine a keyboard, touchpad and remote control and communicate with the companion box over RF.

Logitech’s Google TV Companion Box hands-on

Situated directly between your receiver and TV, Logitech’s tiny box allows complete passthrough of HDMI audio and video from your source, allowing simultaneous web surfing and video playback, and will optionally connect to an HD webcam for Logitech Vid 720p video chat. While it’s hard to say how it compares till we see the competition, Logitech’s solution sports Intel’s 1.2GHz CE4100 processor, 4GB of memory and 802.11n WiFi, and outputs Dolby 5.1 surround sound over both HDMI and optical S/PDIF outputs. Though the device only accepts HDMI input for video, it doesn’t require source content to have HDCP protection, so you could theoretically use an adapter to connect older video sources as long as your display itself is HDCP-compliant.

Logitech wouldn’t say the first word about pricing, though they confirmed that the unit and combo keyboard/touchpad/remote would be optionally bundled at launch; when asked about the companion box’s value, they hinted that it includes all the functionality of the $400 Logitech Harmony 900 media remote — hopefully, it won’t arrive too far north of that figure.

Limitations

The potential pitfalls for Google TV are many, and while some of them will be familiar from mobile Android devices, the far more mature TV market will prove even more difficult to crack than the young, often upgrading mobile scene. When we heard the words “IR blasters” mentioned on stage at Google I/O our hearts sank. While they will work for one way compatibility with existing set-top boxes and other hardware, they can be unreliable and have no capacity to send information back to the control device. That means a Google TV that doesn’t know when your DVR is full, what’s on it, if it actually scheduled a recording of Ghost Whisperer like you asked or have direct access to its listings and VOD. Currently cable, IPTV and satellite providers hold all the content cards and convincing them the Google TV is here to help, not harm their business is a task that most would say ranks somewhere between impossible and unlikely.

Another potential issue (which we alluded to above) is that the browser is given its own user agent; as Google’s Vic Gundotra told us in a post-keynote briefing, if content providers wish to block Google TV from viewing its videos, it has the technological capability to do so. Of course the big name is Hulu, but any other content provider could also be on the list. Will content providers be willing to design apps that work (well) on the Google TV? Like many other questions, until the hardware is out there it’s impossible to tell.

But one of the most disturbing problems we see coming is a holdover from Android phones — upgrades. Just think about how long it’s taken many phones that are still on contract to subscribers to get the latest software patch, and then take a moment to wonder if Sony will have any interest in updating your 2010 Sony Internet TV to Google TV 3.0 Parfait in 2012 instead of just selling you a new flat screen instead.

Future potential

What the future may hold for Google TV could be as wide and fruitful as the success of its web search on a device everyone uses everyday already, or as barren as the fields tilled by Google Viewer and Orkut. But where its biggest challenges exist — access to content currently held by TV broadcasters and the studios — could also be its biggest opportunity. Finding better ways to work with the TV programming people already expect to use by partnering with the cable and satellite providers will be a major story over the life of Google TV. Experiments with interactivity through widgets and EBIF apps as well as the FCC’s increasing impatience with the state of tru2way show there’s a chance at bridging these gaps, but it may be a crack that opens slowly or not at all. It’s succeeded in turning mobile carriers into Android fans, can it do the same with Comcast, Time Warner and DirecTV?

Another lesson learned from the mobile space is that even can’t, or at least shouldn’t, go it alone. The Nexus One sales experiment has faded, and it’s clear that the work done, mostly by HTC, to improve the interaction with Android and the devices it runs on have served to promote the platform. If we compare what we saw this week to the G1 on T-Mobile, imagine a few years down the road when they find the home theater equivalent of HTC and Sense, and deliver an EVO 4G-level device with power that truly excites users and software that compels them to line up to get it. Other alternatives to the current approach will mean expanding the number of hardware partners beyond Sony — Samsung is wavering, but we’ll need more — and devices beyond just displays and standalone boxes. Right now the lowly A/V receiver seems like a perfect target for increasing functionality and connectivity with all equipment — if the price and the features are right.

Wrap-up

Google is first to admit the TV / internet convergence isn’t a new concept — in an incredibly amusing slip of the tongue during yesterday’s post-keynote briefing, Gundotra himself called it WebTV, one of the earliest attempts that ultimately fizzled. What we saw this week was a lot of potential, and when we say that, we also mean we’re left with numerous unanswered questions. More importantly, in a world where most of the targeted audience already has plenty of streamers and set-top boxes (not to mention smartphones and laptops that can let us couch surf without giving up any “big screen’ real estate), we’re not seeing a lot of justification. That said, Google is a strong and trusted brand, and that can go a long way in consumer mindshare — just look at Apple TV. With the Fall release window really not that far off, the gang in Mountain View are gonna need to make a much more compelling case, unless of course, it’s also just a hobby.

via engadget

Kellogg Co. is introducing new technology in the U.K. that allows it to burn its famous signature onto individual cereal flakes by using lasers.

Kellogg’s Corn Flakes with brandingEnlarge
The technology, which was developed in Britain, is being used in a trial to stamp out imitation cereals — which Kellogg calls “fake flakes” — by branding Corn Flakes with the company logo.

The news has caused quite a frenzy among U.K. outlets, with many wondering whether this was just Kellogg having some PR fun. But in a phone call the company confirmed that it possesses the technology to do the laser etching and that it’s planning a trial, though it clarified the illustration it supplied was a mock-up.

Kellogg makes 67 million boxes of Corn Flakes every year in the U.K., but the company struggles to get across the message that it doesn’t make cereals for anyone else, and it has lost ground to private-label imitations, or generics, in recent years.

Helen Lyons, lead food technologist at Kellogg, said in a statement, “There has been an increase in the number of [private labels] trying to capitalize on the popularity of Kellogg’s corn flakes. We want shoppers to be under absolutely no illusion that Kellogg’s does not make cereal for anyone else. We’re constantly looking at new ways to reaffirm this, and giving our golden flakes of corn an official stamp of approval could be the answer.”

Kellogg plans to produce a number of trial batches of the branded flakes to test the system. The company will then consider inserting a proportion of branded flakes into each box to guarantee the cereal’s origins and protect against imitation products. If the system is successful, it could be used on Kellogg’s other brands, including Frosties, Special K, Crunchy Nut and Bran Flakes.

The laser uses a concentrated beam of light that focuses the energy within the beam down to a very small spot on the corn flake. The energy density of the laser is enough to give the surface of the flake a darker, toasted appearance without changing the taste.

Ms. Lyons added, “We’ve established that it is possible to apply a logo or image onto food, now we need to see if there is a way of repeating it on large quantities of our cereal. We’re looking into it.”

The initiative comes despite Kellogg’s claim that sales of its Corn Flakes have risen this year, as shoppers with limited budgets opt for recognized, reliable brands. Its factory in Manchester, in the north of England, is the biggest Corn Flake production line in the world, churning out cereals 24 hours a day, 365 days a year.

Every year, 128 billion bowls of Kellogg’s Corn Flakes are eaten worldwide, in countries as far afield as Guatemala, Japan, Argentina and India.

via adage.com

For their experiment, described in full in an article in New Scientist this week, the researchers broke down Nintendo’s successful Super Mario Bros. in an
attempt to quantify what aspects made the game fun or frustrating for different
players. Some players, the researchers found, preferred fun tasks, such
as kicking turtle shells and acquiring coins, while others seemed to take more
pleasure in challenging tasks like clearing difficult jumps.

The research team has been presenting their preliminary data
at various computer intelligence conferences this fall. Their early results
suggest that controlling for certain features, such as reducing the number of
challenging jumps for fun-seeking players, improves players’ reception of the
game. But, for now, the researchers are still primarily focused on collecting and
analyzing player data. You can take theSuper Mario test yourself at this Web site (it requires a brief survey, then four rounds of a modified Super Mario level).

[Image from Pedersen, Togelius, Yannakakis 2009]

Buckbean Brewing Company, Nevada’s largest production microbrewery, is challenging beer snobs to think outside the bottle.

The brewery is sponsoring the first ever CANFEST – Reno International Canned Beer Festival, the first international beer judging and tasting for canned beer, to take place at the Grand Sierra Resort, Oct. 23.

Buckbean is a homegrown Northern Nevada favorite beer, and packages its beers exclusively in 16-ounce cans. It turns out microbrewers who opt for the can over the bottle is an elite fraternity, and Buckbean wants to help expose this burgeoning segment to the world, while crushing the myths about beer in a can.

Along with Buckbean Brewing Company, Big Sky Brewing Company, Oskar Blues, Ukiah Brewing Company, Maui Brewing Company, Surly Brewing Company, New Belgium Brewing Company, Uncommon Brewers, and Rochester Mills Brewing Company are a few that have confirmed they will attend the event.

The competition takes place at the Grand Sierra Theater, from 6:30-10:30 p.m. Judging will take place prior to the public tasting. Celebrities from the beer world will judge the beers individually, based on categories still to be decided. Beer seminars, beer and food pairings and a forum of brewers that can beer are planned.

Ticket prices are $35 per person and room packages will be available.

via Reno – Tahoe

A raft of global celebrations will mark Arthur’s Day and 250 years since the Irish brewer went into business.

Dublin’s St James’s Gate will host the hub of festivities to commemorate founder Arthur Guinness and patrons will raise their glasses at 17.59 to celebrate the historical signing of its lease in 1759.

Tom Jones, Estelle, Kasabian, Natalie Imbruglia and former Destiny’s Child band member Kelly Roland are some of the top names set to rock the Irish capital.

Model and socialite Jasmine Guinness, her father Patrick and siblings will be among the family members overseeing the celebrations at Guinness HQ.

But one of the eldest descendants of the famous brewer will be enjoying a more low key event at the site of the first brewery in Leixlip, Co Kildare. The Hon Desmond Guinness – the great, great, great, great grandson of Arthur – will be guest of honour at the town’s Courtyard Hotel.

The 78-year-old said the worldwide celebrations were emotional, and joked he and his wife Penny will stay at the Courtyard until the Guinness runs out. “It’s wonderful, it is very exciting,” said Mr Guinness.

Cat Deeley and Boyzone’s Ronan Keating will present the main concert at the Guinness Storehouse, which will be streamed live via Sky television to thousands of pubs throughout the UK on the day.

A host of artists will also perform at celebrations in 28 intimate pub venues across Dublin and in Lagos, Cameroon and Kuala Lumpur.

The Guinness brand, now owned by multinational drinks giant Diageo, is recognised around the world. The brewery was founded after Arthur Guinness secured a 9,000 year lease on the St James’s Gate site for the annual sum of £45.

Thanks to Richard Branson, one lucky fellow will tap the malty brew’s semiquincentennial with a Virgin Galactic flight and a zero-gravity pint. (We’re buying everyone a round if the winner says, “One two-step pour for man, one foamy head for mankind.”) The rest of the Diageo-organized, St. Paddy’s Day — style celebrations honoring Arthur Guinness will be earthbound, taking place everywhere from Dublin to New York to Lagos. (Nigeria is Guinness’s No. 2 market behind Ireland.) Concerts will be simulcast to pubs — the Black Eyed Peas headline in Kuala Lumpur — and at 17:59 local time, everyone will hoist one. Urrrrrrp. — DL

ARTHUR’S DAY: THE 250TH BIRTHDAY OF GUINNESS BEER

Many banks have started using social websites to help them with everything from healing the financial industry to promoting their latest credit cards. By embracing the most popular tools available, the industry has also been embracing the best of what social media culture has to offer, and smaller, community banks seem to be leading the charge when it comes to social media innovation.

This post profiles some U.S. banks that have used social media in their marketing and communications plans in some interesting and successful ways. These banks have tapped into the root of what social media means to the community, enjoying success in the way of returning real value for their institutions.

1. Community Building

Banks are not usually known for building warm and fuzzy communities around their products and services. When we think of banks, we often think of impersonal bankers in pinstriped suits denying customers their request for a car loan or a mortgage. The world is changing, though, and even banks are trying to foster community rather than appear monolithic and imposing. Focusing on customer service and adopting the personality of the people they serve, community banks and credit unions can really teach the big guys a thing or two about what it means to be close to customers. Community building is something that banks should be doing more of because many of the most important touch points in our lives from attending college, to buying our first cars and building a home, to starting a business and saving for retirement all involve a relationship with a bank.

Missouri Bank, known popularly as Mobank, is a financial institution with a cool vibe that makes them a natural fit to utilize social media. They serve an eclectic customer base of visionaries and artists — people known to take chances, and though they have only three branches, they’re located in areas where people are invested in the community. They’re not using social media to “sell” anything, but instead utilize social media as a way to build upon the community-minded philosophy that they have spent years developing. Hip, young and cool, the bank parlays that image on a Facebook Page that acts as an online neighborhood for their customers to interact with each other and the bank – much like their branches.

“Being a Mobank customer is very much like being part of the ‘in group,’” said Grant Burcham, the bank’s President and CEO. “Our customers see each other in business, civic and social settings. Those networking opportunities are a great benefit of being a Mobank customer. As they embraced social networking, they expected to see us there.”

Mobank did have to consider the reputation management implications of launching a Facebook Page where anyone can post anything about the bank in the public sphere. Ultimately, they decided that they were confident with their customer relationships and that if someone was going to talk about Mobank negatively in a public forum, they’d find a way, but if it happened on a Page that the bank managed, they could respond to any concerns on the spot.

2. Product Research

Whether you’re crowdsourcing to find out what customers think of your services or using social media as one tool in your arsenal to enlist customers to help develop new products, a social network is an undeniably powerful research and development resource.

Social media was a big part of formulating a new and popular type of checking account at 1st Mariner Bank. The company’s marketing department used social media tools to take a look at their customer’s needs and used that to build new products and services.

Steven L. Kruskamp Jr., E-Commerce Marketing Manager for the bank, said that the bank asked through social networks what was needed most in their marketplace. The bank was able to use social communications tools and online surveys to develop a financial life cycle for their customers and identify that many people today establish a long lasting relationship with a bank in their late teens. They also found that parents are a major influence in the decision of which bank people ultimately decide to use. At the time, they didn’t have an attractive account to market to both parents and 18-25 year olds. With more research using social tools, they identified which features and benefits were important and which combination would give them a competitive edge.

3. Customer Service

Social media has become a great customer service tool across many industries and banking is no exception. However, not all banks are so proactive. A study done by the American Bankers Association found that four out of ten banks polled said that they avoid discussing specific products and services in their social media efforts.

But for banks that are more active in engaging with their customers over social media channels about their products, real-time search can be helpful in addressing problems with customers. In other cases, a visible Twitter account can be a quick and easy first step in the customer service chain when people want to get specific information.

Bank of America sees many of the same questions on Twitter that they get on typical channels like via telephone or in person, according to David Knapp, who runs the bank’s Twitter account, but they are starting to see social spaces as a potential channel of choice for customers to get the information they need. However, because of the sensitive nature of banking and the openness of social media, customers need to be careful when sharing information with customer service reps on social channels. On Twitter, Knapp regularly takes conversations private using direct messages and from there to more secure communications channels to gather sensitive details.

Though Knapp and Bank of America are now seeing much positive feedback on their Twitter account, when they first opened credibility was an issue. “When we first entered the space our credibility as a representative of Bank of America was a challenge,” Knapp said. “But as we began to help customers, and social media sites picked up our work, our legitimacy grew.”

As Wachovia is absorbed into parent company Wells Fargo, the legacy division at the bank still continues. Tim Collins, the SVP of Experiential Marketing, uses social media not only to service Wachovia customers but to answer questions about the status of the merger between the two banks. The bank had been involved with listening on social media for years before they decided to open a Twitter account, which they use to help customers with questions related to checking products and online banking. Wachovia has now fully embraced social media as a way to communicate with customers, even going so far as to create a special set of hashtags for the bank on Twitter.

It took them a couple of tries to get social media right, however. Collins cited one very interesting miss in providing customer service through social media for Wells Fargo. Their first program, called “Stagecoach Island,” was piloted in Linden Lab’s Second Life platform. “We quickly realized that our customers would feel more comfortable on a more flexible platform,” said Collins.

4. Marketing & Promotion

Banks that are using social media to brand themselves or to market a specific product or service have found success by integrating social tools into their existing campaigns or creating new ones that capitalize on the spirit of the community. Whether it’s by making the bank synonymous with solid financial advice or giving people the power to do some good in the world, banks have been finding that immersive marketing techniques using social media tools have brought solid results.

Jeff J. Gahnz, Vice President of Marketing and Public Relations at Nicolet National Bank realized that as a small community bank, their competition could afford to spend his entire marketing budget in one week-long campaign. But as he sat in a meeting and listened to the CEO of the bank explain something extremely complex in a matter of five minutes, he wondered how many people would want to be in that room to hear what he said. They realized that ideas they talked about in meetings could be shared with others using social media channels, and it would be a way to create value for customers that required only a small investment. The bank shares ideas and information through its blogs and audio and video podcasts on a community hub called The Vault.

Citi is one of the big banks using social media to build a community around its brand. As might be expected for such a large financial institution, different divisions have shown themselves to be more independent and innovative than the rest. Citi Credit Cards, for example, has launched a campaign that centers on the power of harnessing your Facebook network. Their Make a Difference, One Friend at a Time program combines the friends in your networks and charitable giving by promising to donate $50 to the charity of your choice for every approved credit card application your refer through your social graph.

First National Bank of Omaha (FNBO), an online-only bank, encouraged customers to utilize the ease of transferring balances online to maximize the interest they earn on the money in their bank accounts via an innovative social media marketing campaign called the Pay Yourself First Challenge. The campaign helped customers develop a personalized saving plan, and FNBO utilized a number of different social media outlets, including YouTube, Facebook, Twitter, MySpace, iTunes and blogging to get the word out.

The challenge involved five contestants competing to reach a savings goal. The bank recruited contestants by having them submit videos via YouTube describing their saving goals, and during the competition each contestant blogged about his or her progress. FNBO chose the winner based on a combination of reaching their goal and online votes. The contest helped to create awareness for their brand and showed current and potential customers how they can use FNBO’s online banking tools to become more successful savers.

5. Transparency

The current financial crisis has led many customers to distrust banks, which is one reason why many banks are now turning to social media as a way to become more transparent to customers and build trust. David Armano, Senior Partner at Dachis Corporation, says that banks are like every other institution facing the evolution of the networks and websites providing empowerment to individuals, and that they must adapt to join the conversation. “Banks also dealing with trust issues may accelerate that change,” he said.

Nicolet National Bank has used social media in order to be more transparent, said Jeff Gahnz. The President of their bank answers questions directly on their blog, for example, and they have helped people with mortgage questions, business loan queries, and general finance questions. They have also blogged their thoughts on the Troubled Asset Relief Program (TARP), where the money has gone, and why their bank participated.

“Right now, in Washington, the phrase you hear most often with banking and finance is transparency,” Gahnz said. “We are leaders in this area because of social media.”

For FNBO, the emergence of social media has allowed for more opportunities to communicate with their consumers, which is important to them. They understand the benefit of participating in the conversations that are already happening online, rather than avoiding or attempting to control them.

“Banks could potentially miss opportunities to mitigate risk … by choosing not to participate in social media,” said a bank spokesperson. “As a result, we recognize the value of a controlled and closely managed approach to social media as one of the many ways that we can be transparent with our customers and prospects.”

More business resources from Mashable:

- 5 Easy Social Media Wins for Your Small Business

- HOW TO: Use Twitter Hashtags for Business

- Tweetable Eats: What Street Vendors Can Teach Businesses About Twitter

- HOW TO: Build Your Company’s Profile on LinkedIn

- 6 Must-Follow Steps for Selling in Any Economy

Image courtesy of iStockphoto, Henrik5000

Tags: banking, banks, business, List, Lists, social media, transparency

I gave my dad a call through Google Voice calling his cell phone and my home voip line. As it turned out he was traveling in MN and the call was actually as clear or clearer than most of the calls I make to land lines from my home VOIP phone. I was a bit disappointed at first as I thought my call was getting crossed over with another call, but after a pause and a quick listen I realized it was the GPS in his rental car telling him to turn left!

As for the application itself, when you first log in in, you get to choose from an assortment of phone numbers; filtering by area code, zip code, and word/number combinations. Although there were numerous numbers in my area code and zip code, I found it was somewhat limited, many zip codes still have not been populated and when you filter, you limit your options greatly. There was only one number in my zip code with the 3 digit combination I wanted. Oh well, so much for being picky…

The system itself is very easy to use and mimics the Gmail look and feel which many are quite use to by now. I found it both intuitive and down right cool that all my contacts from my Gmail account had already been populated with their numbers. A simple auto populated pull down to find the contact you wish to call and voila… call in progress.

The system works by calling both parties both the “caller” and the “call-e”. By calling both parties it allows Google Voice to bypass any long distance phone charges on the behalf of the caller. Pretty smart stuff! There is voicemail and advanced call filtering features, caller id, call screening, transcripts of your voice mails… all sorts of goodies. You can also make inexpensive international calls and they even have a widget for your peeps to call through your website. My only complaint initially, is that I have not been able to get the website widget to work as of yet…

Check it out and get your own account at Google Voice.

Right now new accounts are limited, but you can request an account here and they will email you once it is available.

Like many confirmation numbers we use daily, from bus tickets to software purchase codes, Social Security numbers are assigned based on a formula that uses two inputs to generate a code. The inputs for SSNs are state of birth and date of birth, two things that most people have made available on social networking sites. That alone isn’t dangerous.

The government enables the other half of the caper by making the SSNs of deceased Americans available publicly in a database called the Death Master File. This file was created to help institutions detect bogus Social Security numbers on tax and benefits forms, but it also provides a massive test dataset for someone trying to reverse engineer SSNs. Using the Death Master File, CMU engineers were able to determine which parts of the numbers correlated to which of the facts about a person’s birth. When they applied their algorithm to SSNs in the DMF that they hadn’t tested, they could accurately guess the first five numbers of a given SSN with up to 90% accuracy in smaller states, where the pool of numbers is smaller.

According to ArsTechnica, cracking the last four digits of an SSN, which are seemingly assigned at random, cuts the rate of accuracy considerably; the authors of the study were able to get a number right only after about 10 tries, more than enough failed tries to lock out an IP address on most banking sites. But they note that a botnet working in concert could attack smaller states with alarming alacrity–a virally-controlled network of 10,000 machines could crank out the identities of residents of the State of West Virginia at around 2,800 a minute, based solely on basic information from Facebook. It might be time to abandon the SSN as our primary credential in favor of something more comprehensively secure.

newsletterPromo(”Technology”,
“right”);

[Via ArsTechnica]

Below is a list of 15 games that are good ways to keep kids busy in the car, on the plane, or while waiting for a table at the restaurant. Many are free or have free versions, and none cost more than $2.99. We’ve broken the list up into 3 sections based on your child’s age, and linked to the free version when available. There are hundreds of iPhone apps that are great for kids, so please feel free to share your children’s favorites in the comments!

Toddlers

Where’s Gumbo (Free/$1.99) – Where’s Gumbo is an interactive storybook that resembles the “lift the flap” board books. The object for toddlers is to explore various scenes and peek behind objects in their quest to locate Gumbo, a lost dog. Gumbo and other animals are randomly placed behind each flap, so the experience is never quite the same each time your child plays.

Memory Match (Free/$0.99) – A simple memory game suitable for kids, Memory Match features fun, kid-friendly animal pictures and is great for toddlers to develop image recognition and motor skills. The free version is ad supported.

Peekaboo Barn (Free/$0.99) – In this educational app, children are asked to guess which barnyard animal is hiding behind the barn doors based solely on the sound the animal makes.

Balloonimals (Free/$1.99) – This is an app that absolutely delights little kids. Children blow into the iPhones microphone to inflate their balloon and shake the phone to assemble an animal, then they can interact with it by petting it and making it do tricks. The free version comes with T-Rex.

Colorama ($0.99) – There are a bunch of coloring book apps to try on the iPhone, but Colorama, which comes with 53 drawings for kids to color in countless ways, is one of the best. Finished colored-in illustrations can be saved to your iPhone’s camera roll so they can be emailed.

Younger Kids

Dizzybee (Free/$2.99) – Dizzybee is a fun and unique accelerometer game in which players are challenged to help Dizzybee solve puzzles and overcome obstacles in order to save his fruit friends.

Brain Toot (Free/$0.99) – This is a fun brain training app, filled with educational mini-games designed to exercise your neurons. Brain Toot, because it has some math games, is probably only suitable for children who have reached a certain point in their schooling.

Topple (Free/$0.99) – Topple is a stacking game. The goal is to stack pieces as high as you can before the time runs out. The higher you go, the more precarious your stack gets, and the pieces have funny facial expressions that give you clues as to how you’re doing. Topple is free, but the second version (Topple 2) is 99 cents.

Scoops ($1.99) – Another stacking game, Scoops differs from Topple in that it uses the accelerometer and has tilt-based controls. Try to keep your stack of ice cream scoops growing, but remember to avoid the falling onions!

PopMath ($0.99) – PopMath is a great educational math game in which players are presented with both problem and answer bubbles. The object is to pop bubbles by touching first the math problem, then the correct answer. Popping bubbles narrows your choices for the remaining problems. The game supports addition, subtraction, multiplication, and division problems.

Older Kids

Word Scramble (Free) – Scramble is a great free game from Zynga, which if their menu screen stats are accurate, has over 1.5 million players. The game is a simple word search — race against the clock to find as many words (of at least 3 letters) as you can. Longer words score more points. The game has a “play and pass” mode, so two or three kids could share a single iPhone and play against one another.

Sudoku (Free) – I never could get into the Sudoku craze, but many of my friends spend hours a week solving them. I’m told that the free Sudoku app from Mighty Mighty Good Games is one of the best.

Bejeweled 2 ($2.99) – The beloved classic gem-swapping puzzle game Bejeweled is even more fun on the iPhone. Something about clicking the jewels with your fingers and actually swapping them with a swipe motion gives the game a visceral feel that it previously lacked. The graphics are also great.

Flight Control ($0.99) – Flight Control is a really fun little puzzle game in which players are challenged to direct air traffic and land planes while avoiding crashes.

Pandora (Free) – Unlimited custom radio stations. Need we say more? The Pandora iPhone app + headphones = hours of silent bliss during long car rides (just stay out of 3G deadzones!).

Tags: bejeweled, games, iphone, iphone apps, iphone list, Kids, pandora

Yet despite its spam woes, Twitter has somehow avoided an overflow of content from one of the Internet’s biggest industries: porn. Well, until recently that is. An interesting article in MediaPost describes both marketers and Twitter users noticing an increase in pr0n-related spam, and they are not liking it. The issue makes us wonder: should Twitter stamp out pornography; and how should they go about it?

Twitter Users’ Feedback on Pornography

The MediaPost piece essentially quotes some of Twitter’s active marketers on the issue of Twitter and porn. What they have to say, though, is not pretty at all. While you can guess how users react in the piece, Ben Smith of MerchantCircle sums up the problem best:

MerchantCircle has begun to offer a portfolio of local city-specific coupons via Twitter feeds. “As we have found with any new communication form, pornography and other types of issues creep in,” says Ben Smith, MerchantCircle CEO. “The problem with this type of activity is that it undermines the trust in the communication channel, which will have a disastrous effect on the channel.”

Has pornography taken over Twitter? No, not by a longshot. Is it a growing problem? Absolutely. Things like Twitter porn trojans make it clear that Twitter is not impervious to porn-related spam and malware.

What Do Twitter’s Terms of Service Say?

We took a look at the Twitter Terms of Service, which governs user interactions with the Twitter platform. While it mentions that they can “remove Content and accounts containing Content that we determine … are obscene or otherwise objectionable,” it makes no specific reference to pornography.

Compare this to the terms of service of other social media companies, such as the Facebook Statement of Rights and Responsibilities, which specifically states the following:

6. You will not post content that is hateful, threatening, pornographic, or that contains nudity or graphic or gratuitous violence.

Does this mean that Twitter doesn’t care about porn? Absolutely not – Twitter has addressed pornography spam in the past and we doubt that it would let the Internet’s underground industry tarnish its strong reputation.

And yet Twitter needs to monitor the situation. Porn should not be acceptable on Twitter, especially an open platform that millions of companies and users use for business and marketing every single day. It may be a relatively small issue now, but it will grow more prevalent unless they put a stop to the problem early. It’s easy to forget just how much of the Internet is entirely porn.

First though, Twitter needs to build a search spam solution ASAP. It’s all part of the same core problem that Twitter will need to address.

Tags: porn, pornography, twitter