Skype offers $1 voucher to customers for 24 hours of downtime

On December 22nd, Skype experienced a 24 hour outage. This was a pretty big deal since people use Skype for work, and plenty of other people use it for pleasure. Today Skype posted a detailed technical explanation of what went wrong. In summary, there were a bunch of events that led to the P2P network becoming unstable, which then led to a critical failure.

The tech explanation is actually pretty cool to read through, but the part that I found particularly interesting is that Skype then sent customers a voucher as part of an apology.

I’m a Skype user and pay yearly for Skype unlimited. As a result I received an e-mail from Skype, with the aforementioned apology, and a a credit voucher. Being a person who never passes up a deal, I redeemed my voucher only to soon see that even though Skype was touting it as a

“voucher worth a call of more than 30 minutes to a landline in some of our most popular countries, such as USA, UK, Germany, China, Japan. Or spend it however you like on Skype …”

it was really just $1.00. Granted, $1 will get you far on Skype, but still, there was a lot of negative publicity around this outage, so if you’re going to offer up a voucher of some sort, it should probably amount to more than a $1.

Regardless, I’m happy that the service has been restored and I don’t know when I’ll use that $1, since I’ve already paid for the year.

2011 will bring sunnier outlook for solar technology

Right about now, I’m wishing for a sunny spring day in New Jersey, where there are 20 inches of snow between me and my perennial flower beds. So, naturally, I’ve been thinking a lot of one of the renewable energy technologies that I expect to be covering more closely in 2011, solar.

I’ve been stashing information about solar-related market developments that came fast and furious as the year drew to a close. Taken separately, these developments are intriguing. Considered together, they point to the strong probability that 2011 will carry much brighter prospects for progress in solar installations across the United States. Here are three of those leading indicators:

1. The bipartisan move to extend (for another year) the Department of Treasury Section 1603 program, which provides cash grants for commercial solar installations instead of the 30 percent solar investment tax credit. The extension is seen as much-needed stimulus, since few have been able to take advantage of the credit during the economic downturn.
2. A move by the Secretary of the Interior Ken Salazar and the Secretary of Energy Steven Chu to pinpoint six “solar energy zones” in six western states (Arizona, California, Colorado, Nevada, New Mexico and Utah) that appear to be “suitable for environmentally sound, utility-scale solar energy production.” The study, which is called the Draft Solar Programmatic Environmental Impact Statement, could lead to the development of renewable energy projects on public land. The areas in question are administered by the Bureau of Land Management, and the report figures there are about 22 million acres that are appropriate. The department has already “fast-tracked” eight utility-scale solar projects in the past three months and it has developed a fee schedule for those who wish to “rent” public land for their projects.
3. 2010 photovoltaic solar installations surpassed those for 2009 … by the end of the third quarter. So, even the economy wasn’t all that supportive, solar projects kept pushing forward. According to the U.S. Solar Market Insight, 3rd Quarter 2010 from the Solar Energy Industries Association, there were 530 megawatts of solar capacity installed in the first three quarters of 2010. That compares with 435 megawatts of capacity for ALL of 2009. Here’s the projected total for 2010, according to the report: “Early fourth-quarter data suggests that there will be a late-year surge in installations, resulting in total 2010 demand of 855 megawatts, well above the current pace.” The top five markets for solar continue to be Californai, New Jersey, Florida, Arizona and Colorado. Taken together, the association reports that these states account for 74 percent of the nation’s solar demand.

There are several other factors that point to solar progress, which have been bubbling up throughout the year. They include:

• Continuing declines in the cost of photovoltaic module production, to less than $1 per watt. My interview with First Solar last summer provides a good recap of what’s going on. And in early December, the company said it would double its manufacturing capacity in 2012.
• The push by some technology upstarts to make residential solar cheaper. I am watching Clarian Power, which is hoping to release a sub-$1,000 module in spring 2011, and Armageddon Energy, which is likewise hoping to make solar an easier value proposition for homeowners. (Look for my coverage of Armageddon shortly after the new year.)

Of course, solar isn’t appropriate everywhere in the United States. But it represents a chance not only to help us continue reducing our dependence on fuels based on old carbon but to help create some new sorts of career opportunities for those whose jobs have permanently evaporated. Put on your sunglasses, because I’m predicting it will be a bright year for solar.

Paul Allen refiles lawsuit against Google, Apple, Facebook, others

Paul Allen and his company, Interval Licensing, LLC, just met the deadline imposed by a US District Court judge for refiling their patent infringement suit against Apple, Google, Facebook, and several other companies when they amended their complaint yesterday. The suit wasoriginally rejected earlier this month for being too vague. While it now contains more specifics, including screen shots from allegedly infringing websites, it remains unclear whether it will be sufficient to allow the lawsuit to move forward in court.

According to the Seattle Times,

Allen’s suit alleges that his patents cover, among other things, systems that automatically call up and display related content. The approach is widely used by online retailers and other sites across the Web.

For instance, when viewing a product on Apple’s iTunes store, the store automatically suggests related content that may be of interest. The suit filed today argues that this infringes on at least 20 claims made by a patent Allen holds.

The complaint specifically calls out Android (among other sites and companies, including Google’s YouTube). Florian Mueller notes in his Foss Patents blog that,

There are two paragraphs that accuse Android. The first one:

44. Defendant Google has infringed and continues to infringe at least claims 4, 8, 11, 15, 16, 17, and 18 of the ’652 patent under 35 U.S.C. § 271 by making, using, selling, distributing, and encouraging customers to use devices containing the Android Operating System and associated software such as Text Messaging, Google Talk, Google Voice, and Calendar. Devices containing the Android Operating System and associated software infringe by displaying information including, e.g., text messages, Google Voice messages, chat messages, and calendar events, to a user of a mobile device in an unobtrusive manner that occupies the peripheral attention of the user. For example, as demonstrated by Exhibit 24, when a user receives a new Google Voice message, the Android Operating System and Google Voice software display a notification in the status bar screen for a short period of time.

The relevant patent is US Patent No. 6,034,652 on an “attention manager for occupying the peripheral attention of a person in the vicinity of a display device”.

Seriously? Notification icons? Really? Maybe Paul Allen was just a genius with more foresight than Nostradamus, but Android is hardly the only portable OS to provide unobtrusive notices of text messages. I don’t think many of us would want our phones ringing and blinking like those restaurant buzzers that tell you your table is ready every time we get a text. What gets me even more than the idea of subtle notifications infringing on the patents is the idea that the infringements can extend to so many Google properties.

Mueller goes on to discuss potential ripple effects across the entire Android ecosystem:

If any of those infringement assertions against Android is true, this can spell trouble for makers of Android-based devices, and for Android application developers. The two paragraphs I quoted state clearly that the alleged infringement is an issue of “devices containing the Android Operating System”, and the “Android Market infrastructure” is mentioned in the same context.

He’s right, of course. However, this just seems so extraordinarily trumped up and blown out of proportion that I struggle to envision an plaintiff victory here.

Interestingly, while Apple is named in the complaint, apparently the notifications on its iPhones and iPads aren’t sufficiently subtle to violate patents like Android’s. And since Microsoft isn’t named anywhere in the suit, one can only assume that those restaurant buzzers are really Windows Phone 7 devices in disguise.

One other particularly distressing component of the complaint (follow the link to read a PDF of the entire, bizarre amended filing) relates to YouTube (as well as all of the other sites and services that recommend content based on a specific search):

YouTube operates the YouTube.com website, which provides content such as videos and advertisements to users. In order to help users find additional content that may be of interest, the software and hardware that operate this website compare the available content items to determine whether they are related. When a user views a particular content item, the YouTube.com website generates a display of related content items so as to inform the user that the related items may be of interest. For example, as demonstrated by Exhibit 18, when a user views a video page on YouTube.com, the YouTube.com website displays both the selected video information (identified by the red box) and links to other related videos and advertisements (identified by the green boxes)

So essentially Paul Allen holds the patents to the fledgling underpinnings of semantic search. Again, REALLY!?!?!?

If Allen wins this suit, analysts believe that he could win as much as half a billion dollars. To a billionaire who goes around building music museums, it seems as though there would need to be more at stake than a mere $500 million to bother going after the likes of Google, Apple, and Staples. This seems like it’s more about the future of the Web (including the mobile Web and Microsoft’s biggest competitor) than it is about YouTube and iTunes content recommendations.

Another MacBook Air competitor gets a price cut: HP Envy 13 now $999.99

Could Apple have delivered an ultra-portable knock-out punch with the latest version of its MacBook Air? Already Dell has dropped the price on its Adamo 13 laptop to $899, and now HP has slashed the price on its Envy 13 notebook by $450 to $999.

While the Adamo offers more RAM (4GB to the Envy’s 3GB) and a faster processor, the HP provides a discrete graphics card (the ATI Mobility Radeon HD 4330), more storage (a 250GB hard drive instead of the Dell’s 128GB solid-state drive), and an external optical drive for the extra $100. Both come with 13-inch LED-backlit displays and are under an inch thick.

You won’t be able to locate the Envy 13 in the regular laptop section of the HP Web site, where Envy 14 and Envy 17 are still being sold. Instead, the Envy 13 has been relegated to the outlet center, and you can find the product page here.

[Via CNET]

Will 2012 be the Most Ridiculously Cliche Year for Advertising Ever?

As the dawn of 2011 nears, I’m already done with it and it’s on to the next here in this post! As the title implies, I’ve got at terrible feeling that 2012 will be perhaps the most cliche year for advertisingever. If not food products taunting you by saying things like “this is probably going to be your last time to ever taste anything this good,” then it will be Ashley Madison saying “have an affair before you die on December 21″ or Best Buy selling a 201.2″ flat-screen at a “deadly price of only $2012″ and bundled with a History Channel documentary of the Mayans and an “un-collectable (because you’re going to die this year) collectible end-of-times” blu-ray re-release of… Armageddon.

Perhaps a fruitless consideration and certainly not directly related toSEO (Search Engine Optimization) when first meets the eye, but after giving it some reflection, I wouldn’t be *at all* surprised to see people focusing on keywords with a 2012 skew. I project that it’s going to be a year filled with hysterical people preaching the end of the world and that kind of attention is a black hat SEO’s dream. Title tags and anchor text overfloweth with “2012″ as Google and Twitter trends yield a perpetual #1 interest in all things 2012. Trend hijackers, prepare to deal with more competition than you ever have previously!

As for the state of SEO in 2012, so much changes within a year that I have no foresight to offer on that front currently. Google changed so much in 2010 that I’m champing at the bit to see how they try to change the game through 2011. But since we’re talking about 2012, would I be out of place to say that it doesn’t even matter, all thanks to that peskyNibiru? Apophis is sure to have a frowny-face since it will arrive 17 years too late in 2029 and find no earth to impact! Curse you, Nibiru…

At the end of the day, I just can’t shake the thought that 2012 will be riddled with terribly cliche 2012-hysteria-filled sensationalism, no matter how much I hope otherwise. I have no doubt that someone, somewhere will find a way to turn the “cliche” into the “clever,” but my bar is set pretty darn low so as to not be disappointed. For what it’s worth, my serious prediction here is that you may want to start producing those 2012 products/labels, building out those 2012 product pages, writing that 2012 copy and building those 2012 links! The more you get going on it now, the more business you could stand to gain when 2012 actually arrives! Maybe it will be a booming business for you or maybe it will all be for nothing. Or, maybe Nibiru will smash directly into the server that hosts your Web site before demolishing the rest of the earth (ifBruce Willis doesn’t save the day first).