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<title>Haaze.com / beminnusjdahsh / All</title>
<link>http://www.haaze.com</link>
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<pubDate>Wed, 08 Jun 2011 07:10:40 +0000</pubDate>
<language>en</language>
<item>
<title><![CDATA[Porsche Museum showcases company's great history]]></title>
<link>http://www.haaze.com/story.php?title=porsche-museum-showcases-companys-great-history</link>
<comments>http://www.haaze.com/story.php?title=porsche-museum-showcases-companys-great-history</comments>
<pubDate>Wed, 08 Jun 2011 07:10:40 +0000</pubDate>
<dc:creator>beminnusjdahsh</dc:creator>
<category>Gaming</category>
<guid>http://www.haaze.com/story.php?title=porsche-museum-showcases-companys-great-history</guid>
<description><![CDATA[In Stuttgart, Germany, the Porsche Museum is a stunning modern showcase of some of the most famous cars in the company's history. Included among them is this beauty, the 911 GT1, which sold out in 30 seconds, despite its million-dollar pricetag.(Credit:Daniel Terdiman/CNET)STUTTGART-ZUFFENHAUSEN, Germany--If you don't think acar museum can be a stunning work of art, you need to get yourself here and check out the Porsche Museum. Being Porsche, I expected it to be interesting and full of beautiful cars, but I wasn't prepared for the scale and scope of the building itself, a giant architectural masterpiece by Vienna's Delugan Meissl Associated Architects that also happens to be artfully full of some of the most interesting and important cars in the company's storied history.If you were in Stuttgart before 2009 and visited the Porsche Museum, you may be wondering just what I'm talking about. There was indeed a previous iteration, but it was more like a small collection of cars stuffed into a basement. This is a complete reset. The building, which is kitty-corner from Porsche's main manufacturing plant here, is a triumph of modern design and certainly worthy of one of the most famous and revered nameplates in the world. And then there's the cars.At Porsche Museum, a history of great cars (photos) There's dozens of them, ranging from the earliest vehicles Ferdinand Porsche designed as an employee of the Austro-Daimler company all the way to some of the most celebrated racing cars the company ever produced and even to the extremely limited production models that cost more than a million dollars apiece.I came here as part of Road Trip 2011, and though I don't own a Porsche, I'm certainly a fan. After all, I drove two Panameras last summer on Road Trip 2010, so I can appreciate these vehicles as much as anyone whose personal garage doesn't have one parked inside.It all starts with the &quot;grandfather&quot; of Porsches, the Body Type 64. Bearing a small resemblance to something from a science-fiction film, this gleaming aluminum artifact from 1939 was originally built for a race from Berlin to Rome, but with the onset of World War II, the race was canceled and the prototypes were destroyed. But this one survives, and anyone familiar with the familiar Porsche silhouette will instantly recognize it in this earliest of models. Ferdinand Porsche--known as Professor Porsche to aficionados--loved this car so much that he drove it frequently, and after World War II was over, he had the family name added to it, just the first of many of his cars that would bear the moniker. Another prize in the collection is the so-called &quot;Number One,&quot; the original Porsche Roadster. Built in 1948, this was actually the first car that bore the family name, since the vehicles the professor had previously designed had all been built for other companies. This little sports car, which is known officially as the Porsche Type 356 &quot;Number One,&quot; was a version of a car he had previously built for Volkswagen. It weighed 1,290 pounds and had a top speed of 84 miles an hour. Even though it was slow by today's standards, one look at it and you can see its Porsche blood. And that heritage is why a car that originally cost 10,000 German marks is now worth more than a million euros, despite the fact that most of the 80,000 that were built are still around today.The collection also features a spotless, gleaming black Porsche 756, which was a 75th birthday present for Professor Porsche from his son, Ferry Porsche' the Type 754, which was a prototype that would later become the company's most famous car, the 911' and even a 1970 prototype for a four-seater 911. That one didn't take. The company wasn't ready for a real four-seater until the Panamera debuted in 2010.'The pig is dead'Being a sports car company, Porsche's museum isn't just stocked with production vehicles. There's also plenty of its famous racing cars on display. Among them are several Le Mans winners, as well as a group of very sexy winners of the prestigious Targa Florio and the Monte Carlo Rally.This racing Porsche is known as 'The Pink Pig,' and was adorned with a butcher's designations for the different sections of a sow.(Credit:Daniel Terdiman/CNET)And then there's the &quot;pig.&quot;This is the Porsche 917/20 coupe, a one-of-a-kind racer that is one of the company's most famous cars ever. That's probably because of its designation as the &quot;Pink Pig&quot; by certain drivers. Some thought it looked a bit like a sow, so the Porsche Design Studio painted it with the various sections of a pig, as a butcher would. And when it entered and then broke down during Le Mans, someone was heard to say &quot;The pig is dead.&quot;For a company that's pretty straightfaced about its cars, this is a rare bit of humor. So is one other member of the collection. There's a theory of downforce that suggests that if a certain kind of car were to reach a specific speed, 321.4 kilometers an hour, the aerodynamics would allow it drive upside down. Whether this is actually true is not known. But the museum's curators decided to have some fun with the idea, and in one section, they've installed a Porsche 956 upside down on the ceiling. It's not moving though, so it's pretty clear that it's nuts and bolts and other fasteners, not downforce, that's holding it up.All in all, there's no shortage of reasons to visit the Porsche Museum. As I mentioned above, the building itself is probably worth coming all on it own. But now's a particularly good time. Starting June 21, the museum is hosting a new exhibition, &quot;80 Years of Porsche Constructions,&quot; which celebrates much of the history of Professor Porsche's creations, and those that his family business created after he was gone.And if you happen to be able to come before June 13, the museum is currently hosting an exhibition spotlighting the Semper Vivus, a car said to be the world's-first hybrid. And while Toyota's Prius has been around awhile, it's a youngster in comparison. The Semper Vivus was built in 1900.<br/><br/>0 Vote(s) ]]></description>
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<title><![CDATA[Report: YouTube finally readying premium movie rentals]]></title>
<link>http://www.haaze.com/story.php?title=report-youtube-finally-readying-premium-movie-rentals</link>
<comments>http://www.haaze.com/story.php?title=report-youtube-finally-readying-premium-movie-rentals</comments>
<pubDate>Mon, 25 Apr 2011 07:10:43 +0000</pubDate>
<dc:creator>beminnusjdahsh</dc:creator>
<category>Marketing and advertising</category>
<guid>http://www.haaze.com/story.php?title=report-youtube-finally-readying-premium-movie-rentals</guid>
<description><![CDATA[Already late to a game dominated by Apple and Netflix, YouTube may finally be ready to get into the video-on-demand market.Google's video-sharing site is lining up deals with major Hollywood studios and could launch an online movie rental service that would feature premium titles as early as next week, according to a report by entertainment Web site The Wrap. Sony Pictures Entertainment, Warner Brothers, and Universal have licensed their movies for the new service, according to the report, which cited an unidentified senior executive at a studio that has already signed on.Pricing details were not revealed, and a YouTube representative declined to comment specifically on the report. &quot;We've steadily been adding more and more titles since launching movies for rent on YouTube over a year ago and now have thousands of titles available,&quot; a YouTube spokesperson said. &quot;Outside of that, we don't comment on rumor, or speculation.&quot;YouTube, which already offers indie movie rentals for $2.99, has long been rumored to be in negotiations with major Hollywood studios to stream movies from their catalogs on a pay-per-view basis. If this report proves accurate, YouTube is not expected to be an immediate threat to Netflix, which announced skyrocketing growth in profits and subscribers. The Web's top video-rental service announced earlier today that its net quarterly profits had nearly doubled from last year and it had added 3.3 million subscribers in the first quarter.A premium movie rental service has been expected since Google removed video content purchases from its (now-defunct) Google Video service at the end of 2007. Google first hinted at its intentions in April 2009 when it announced plans to build payment mechanisms into its video-sharing site. In 2009, reports surfaced that YouTube was in talks with a number of film studios in an attempt to warm them up to the idea of renting out their films on the service.YouTube first delved into rentals in January 2010 with a test in conjunction with the Sundance Film Festival, making five films temporarily available for rental. YouTube had said that other films and programs would be made available for rental in the near future but did not name any partners at the time.<br/><br/>0 Vote(s) ]]></description>
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<title><![CDATA[Microsoft tries undoing Chrome's H.264 omission]]></title>
<link>http://www.haaze.com/story.php?title=microsoft-tries-undoing-chromes-h-264-omission</link>
<comments>http://www.haaze.com/story.php?title=microsoft-tries-undoing-chromes-h-264-omission</comments>
<pubDate>Wed, 02 Feb 2011 08:10:22 +0000</pubDate>
<dc:creator>beminnusjdahsh</dc:creator>
<category>Mobile &amp; Electronics</category>
<guid>http://www.haaze.com/story.php?title=microsoft-tries-undoing-chromes-h-264-omission</guid>
<description><![CDATA[Weeks after Google announced it would drop support for H.264-encoded video from Chrome, Microsoft announced it's adding support back in through a browser extension forWindows 7 users.&quot;Today, as part of the interoperability bridges work we do on this team, we are making available the Windows Media Player HTML5 Extension for Chrome, which is an extension for Google Chrome to enable Windows 7 customers who use Chrome to continue to play H.264 video,&quot; said Claudio Caldato, principal program manager on Microsoft's Interoperability Strategy Team, in a blog post. The software can be downloaded from MIcrosoft's Web site.The move matches what Microsoft already did withFirefox, which unlike Chrome never supported H.264 in the first place. Mozilla, Google, and Opera prefer the WebM video-streaming technology and its VP8 video codec in particular, which at least for now doesn't require the patent royalty payments that H.264 does for browser makers and those offering for-fee video over the Net.And the move also points a way through the video codec mess that currently prevails on the Web. Microsoft, and possibly Apple, could offer H.264 plug-ins for use by browsers that don't support it, and Google could offer WebM plug-ins for the opposite situation. Indeed, Microsoft said Google is working on such a plug-in for Internet Explorer on Windows.That solution doesn't make life much easier for Web site operators trying to decide whether they need to support both technologies or just one, though, unless a large fraction of people install such a plug-in or unless the Web developer is willing to fall back to Adobe Systems' Flash Player.A requirement to license patents--from a group called MPEG LA in the case of H.264 patents--is antithetical to the World Wide Web Consortium's ethos for open Web standards. &quot;In order to promote the widest adoption of Web standards, W3C seeks to issue recommendations that can be implemented on a royalty-free (RF) basis. Subject to the conditions of this policy, W3C will not approve a recommendation if it is aware that essential claims exist which are not available on royalty-free terms,&quot; the W3C's patent policy states.H.264, also called AVC (Advanced Video Coding) and MPEG-4 Part 10, definitely has patent issues. It's not yet clear how free WebM and VP8 are, though Mozilla expressed confidence and Google offered royalty-free use of VP8 technology it acquired when it bought On2 Technologies in 2010. MPEG LA, though, has a different view.&quot;We do not believe VP8 is patent free,&quot; the organization told CNET in a statement in late January. &quot;There continues to be interest in the facilitation of a pool license to address the apparent marketplace desire for convenience in accessing essential VP8 patent rights owned by many different patent holders under a single license as an alternative to negotiating individual licenses.&quot;The nascent HTML5 standard includes built-in video support in an attempt to make video as easy to use as, say, JPEG graphics on the Web today. But Google's move spotlighted a rift in the HTML5 standards world: because of differing views on the appropriate codec, neither H.264 nor VP8 nor any other codec is specified. And with Microsoft and Apple pushing one way and the other three browser makers pushing the other way, it doesn't look like there will be any resolution any time soon.In a blog post today IE General Manager Dean Hachamovitch expounded on Microsoft's earlier position, mostly reiterating the company's concerns about the possibility of VP8 patent infringement and Microsoft's willingness to accommodate a WebM plug-in.&quot;The only true arbiter of infringement, once it's asserted, is a court of law,&quot; Hachamovitch said, suggesting one way Google could protect WebM users would be through an indemnification pledge to protect them in the event they're sued for patent infringement. &quot;If Google were truly confident that the technology does not infringe and is not encumbered by patents whatsoever, wouldn't this indemnification be easy It's one way to move away from conversations about unknown and unbounded risk to a rational conversation about costs and liability.&quot;Microsoft is one of the many patent holders whose H.264 patents are licensed by MPEG LA, and Hachamovitch had an offer for Google if it does offer indemnification:Ultimately, Microsoft remains agnostic in terms of HTML5 video as long as there is clarity on the intellectual property issues. To make it clear that we are fully willing to participate in a resolution of these issues, Microsoft is willing to commit that we will never assert any patents on VP8 if Google will make a commitment to indemnify us and all other developers and customers who use VP8 in the future. We would only ask that we be able to use those patent rights if we are sued first by somebody else. If Google would prefer a patent pool approach, then we would also agree to join a patent pool for VP8 on reasonable licensing terms so long as Google joins the pool and is able to include all other major providers of playback software and devices. The entire industry benefits from a significant investment in an ecosystem around a format well insulated from legal issues. As JPEG taught the industry, profitable companies merely wishing IP issues away does not make those issues go away.Google didn't immediately respond to a request for comment.Google is working on a plug-in to bring WebM to Windows, and Microsoft is helping with that work, Hachamovitch added.&quot;Our support for H.264 results from our views about a robust Web and video ecosystem that provides a rich level of functionality, is the product of an open standards process like the W3C's HTML5 specification, and has been free from legal attacks. Microsoft is agnostic and impartial about the actual underlying video format for HTML5 video as long as this freedom continues,&quot; Hachamovitch said. &quot;Our commitment to play WebM videos in IE9 for users who have installed WebM demonstrates our approach. We have worked closely with Google to help them deliver a WebM implementation on Windows and Google engineers are on the Microsoft campus this week' we appreciate their positive feedback to date around this work.&quot;VP8 appears to deliberately sidestep H.264 patents, Carlo Daffara said in a blog post in January:...It is clear that most design decisions in the original On2 encoder and decoder [which became VP8] were made to avoid preexisting patents...By going through the H.264 &quot;essential patent list,&quot; however, I found that in the US (that has the highest number of covered patents) there are 164 non-expired patents, of which 31 specific to H264 advanced deblocking (not used in WebM), 34 related to CABAC/CAVAC not used in WebM, 16 on the specific bytecode stream syntax (substituted with Matroska), 45 specific to AVC. The remaining ones are (to a cursory reading) not overlapping with WebM specific technologies, at least as they are implemented in the libvpx library as released by Google (there is no guarantee that patented technologies are not added to external, third party implementations).Further details are available in his earlier analysis.Updated 8:33 a.m. PTwith comment from MPEG LA and further details.<br/><br/>0 Vote(s) ]]></description>
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<title><![CDATA[Media mogul Barry Diller checks out of IAC (though he&'s still on staff)]]></title>
<link>http://www.haaze.com/story.php?title=media-mogul-barry-diller-checks-out-of-iac-though-hersquos-still-on-staff</link>
<comments>http://www.haaze.com/story.php?title=media-mogul-barry-diller-checks-out-of-iac-though-hersquos-still-on-staff</comments>
<pubDate>Mon, 30 Nov -001 00:00:00 +0000</pubDate>
<dc:creator>beminnusjdahsh</dc:creator>
<category>Latest News</category>
<guid>http://www.haaze.com/story.php?title=media-mogul-barry-diller-checks-out-of-iac-though-hersquos-still-on-staff</guid>
<description><![CDATA[Media titan Barry Diller said he is stepping down as CEO of media conglomerate InterActive Corp today.This has been a long time coming. Diller initially made his namebuying and selling properties, frequently reshaping his companya4a4s focus, from movies and TV to e-commerce to search.But more recently, he appeared to lose his touch, with critics questioning his leadership: His moves in the acquisition market raised a number of questions about his ability to generate value from IAC&amp;'s assets.With trends of consolidation in the industry, it&amp;'s been important for conglomerates to become big enough to compete against the leading players, but IAC failed in some crucial areas, including in search and social gaming.In related news, one of IAC&amp;'s largest shareholders is also checking out of the company: Liberty Media has dumped its stake in IAC for $220 million, including its separate ownership stakes of of IAC properties Gifts.com and Evite. Liberty Media chairman John Malone and Diller have often clashed: In one big standoff, Malone at one point failed in an attempt to stop Diller from spinning off most non-Internet brands from IAC.Diller is responsible for IAC&amp;'s acquisition of Ask.com, which was once a competitor for Google but faded into obscurity.Ask.com announced that it wouldno longer work on search technology and will instead license search results from one of its rivals, after Diller said the company had no value within IAC.Yet another component of IAC a4&quot; 3D Web-gaming site InstantAction a4&quot;folded recently after receiving a majority investment from IAC in 2007. The InstantAction debacle is even more baffling, now that browser-based games are seeing explosive growth. Zynga, one of the largest producers of web browser games, is one of the fastest growing enterprises in history and is nowvalued as much as Electronic Arts a4&quot; one of the largest game publishers in the world a4&quot; after launching only three years ago. Most other browser-based game companies a4&quot; like Playdom, Playfish and Kongregate a4&quot; are seeing pretty sizable exits too.Diller&amp;'s last attempt at acquiring some kind of value for IAC was to duct tape together its news publication The Daily Beast with the floundering news magazine Newsweek. But The Washington Post offloaded the magazine and its debt to Sidney Harmanfor a whopping $1. Assuming it hasna4a4t ballooned in value since then, that doesn&amp;'t say much about Dillera4a4s estimate for the Daily Beasta4a4s worth.Over time, his company has repeatedly changed its name and focus. But after splitting up the company through a series of spinoffs in 2007, a smaller IAC has concentrated on online media and advertising properties. Largely as a result of IACa4a4s spinoffs, Diller is on the board of directors of five companies a4&quot; like travel site Expedia a4&quot; including IAC. He announced earlier this year that he will resign as the chairman of live event hosting company Live Nationa4a4s board of directors by the end of the year, which merged with former IAC property Ticketmaster earlier this year.Diller is going to remain the chairman and senior executive of the mediacorporation, and Greg Blatt, CEO of dating site Match.com will take over the company as CEO. It isn&amp;'t clear whether Blatt will continue Diller&amp;'s strategy of heavy acquisition. But all that time working on Match.com might give him a better idea of what companies would be a good fit for IAC. As for Diller, he&amp;'ll drive his Maserti off into the sunset as one of the most well-known media CEOs of all time a4&quot; for better or worse.Next Story: 10gen gets $6.5M from Sequoia for its web database software Previous Story: The Wikileaks wake-up call: Lost or stolen laptops cost corporations $2.1 billion per yearPrintEmailTwitterFacebookGoogle BuzzLinkedIn      DiggStumbleUponRedditDeliciousGoogleMore&amp;8230'          Tags: media, Mergers and Acquisitions, movesCompanies: Ask.com, Iac, InstantAction, Liberty MediaPeople: Barry Diller, John Malone          Tags: media, Mergers and Acquisitions, movesCompanies: Ask.com, Iac, InstantAction, Liberty MediaPeople: Barry Diller, John MaloneMatthew Lynley is VentureBeat's enterprise writer. He graduated from University of North Carolina, where he studied math and physics, in May 2010. He has reported for Reuters. He currently lives in San Francsico, Calif. You can reach him at mattl@venturebeat.com (all story pitches should also be sent to tips@venturebeat.com), and on Twitter at @logicalmoron.VentureBeat has new weekly email newsletters.  Stay on top of the news, and don't miss a beat.<br/><br/>0 Vote(s) ]]></description>
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