Probably the big companies realized what will happen in the next years, how will the consumer digital markets become 1 or 2 big digital markets and not only that. Everybody wants to be the first to enter this “door”, but probably they don’t understand yet which companies have the best position for going inside and how and when the markets will change.

Latest weekend gossip & rumors from various Blogs:

Apple, Steve Jobs
Inside company message: “Google… We did not enter the search business. They entered the phone business. Make no mistake they want to kill the iPhone. We won’t let them…” – “Apple does not support Flash because it is so buggy. Whenever a Mac crashes more often than not it’s because of Flash. No one will be using Flash. The world is moving to HTML5…” [ Engadget ]

Nokia, Mark Squires
As a Head of Social Media, he was mainly confused by Apple’s statement that it’s the biggest mobile device manufacturer, surpassing Nokia in combined revenue on media players, phones and laptops. Mark argues that the accepted definition for “mobile devices” excludes laptops, and goes on to mention the undisputed fact that Nokia’s still number one when it comes to number of devices sold. [ Engadget ]

Netflix, CEO Reed Hastings
He says that mobile devices aren’t a priority for his company yet. They’re fighting the good fight of the large screen, and once they feel comfortable in their various efforts there, then they’ll move on to small screens. Netflix hasn’t done or submitted an iPhone application, but Hastings did mention that he was optimistic that if Netflix did get into the game, the app would be approved for the App Store, and that it would run on both the iPhone and iPad. [ Engadget ]

Nintendo, CEO Satura Iwata
He took a much more directly critical approach to the device, calling it a “bigger iPod Touch”, and that Apple delivered “no surprises”. In the same interview he expressed skepticism as to the value of bringing a high definition Wii on the market, as well as expressing doubts about 3D glasses-based gaming. Iwata is clearly a tough man to please. [ Engadget ]

E-Ink, CEO Russ Wilcox
He says dedicated e-readers will outsell iPads due to “simple economics”, and that the iPad is “great entertainment device”, but it’s “not the world’s best reading device”. His criticisms, mostly in juxtaposition to Kindle-style devices, abound, including price, weight, backlight and so on. He’s right on the money about the shortfalls of a straightforward comparison, but we wonder if consumers will feel the same?

Other discussion on the web

Steve Jobs @ Al Things Digitals interview:
“Publishers are actually withholding their books from Amazon because they’re not happy.” [ All things Digitals ]

Amazon CEO:
“Millions of people now own Kindles! They sold 3 million devices. And Kindle owners read, a lot. When we have both editions, we sell 6 Kindle books for every 10 physical books. This is year-to-date and includes only paid books — free Kindle books would make the number even higher. It’s been an exciting 27 months.“ [ Business Insider ]

By the way…..

Big Brother? No big Apple!
I was surprised when this weekend I checked the Google Analytics of my modest and simple blog magazine and discovered that my article “The iPad is not the innovation but….” attracted a good % of new users, especially APPLE! It confirmed how their PR Office has a great organization to check the web Apple-discussions in the net and probably… guide them.

GQ’s iPhone versions of regular print editions seem to be getting a foothold with paying consumers, according to results released for the first time today by Conde Nast.

Since GQ’s December “Men of the Year” issue debuted as a $2.99 iPhone app in mid-November, it has sold 6,641 times. The January issue’s app, however, has sold for $2.99 more than 12,000 times, Conde Nast said.

That’s less than $60,000 in the pockets of Conde Nast, a rounding error at the consumer magazine giant. And by comparison, GQ’s December issue sold 240,000 copies at newsstand and was delivered to another 667,851 print subscribers.

But the app’s sales figures are still encouraging for Conde Nast and for print publishers in general, less than a week before Apple seems likely to introduce a tablet computer. Conde Nast President-CEO Charles Townsend has said that the app platform it has developed is mainly a way to get in position to play on tablets.

Four of the biggest magazine publishers, including Conde Nast, have already partnered with News Corp. on a joint venture to build a storefront where readers can buy digital editions of regular magazine issues. The storefront will sell versions for all kinds of devices, from iPhones to eReaders, but tablets are clearly the great hope for many print publishers.

Magazines and newspapers, after all, have so far mostly suffered at the hands of digital media, which has often delivered lots of freeloading web surfers but relatively little ad revenue and usually zero circulation revenue. Publishers think consumers will be willing to pay for digital editions of print editions that are tailored and enhanced for beautiful tablet computers.

And the ad picture looks better for these editions than on the web as well. Already the GQ app, which Hearst Magazines soon followed with an Esquire app, counts toward the circulation guarantees that magazines give advertisers. And Conde today said readers are spending as much time and generally engaging with the app versions of GQ as much as they do with print editions.

Repeat readers will start getting a price break on new app versions of GQ, Conde said today, paying just $1.99 instead of $2.99 starting with the March issue. The company is evaluating subscription pricing, it said.

Around two dozen applications like  Layar, Junaio and  Wikitude have burst onto iPhone and Android devices as smartphones with GPS, a compass and Internet access have finally made it possible for the technology to go mainstream. (If you’re curious about how augmented reality looks and feels, see the videos I’ve embedded at the bottom. It’s kind of like looking at the world through Terminator vision.)

Now Juniper Research is saying the market could grow to $732 million in five years, from just under $2 million next year. ABI Research has a more modest estimate: $350 million in annual revenues by 2014. That’s on the back of three primary revenue models: upfront payments to buy an app, subscription fees or paid premium versions and advertising.

The first two are self-explanatory, and might work well with  augmented reality games. Advertising could take several forms. You might see augmented reality coupons or sponsored information tags as location-based services become more adept at serving ads based on your historical search needs and where you are. A couple augmented reality browsers like acrossair’s Nearest Tube or Layar could incorporate sponsored layers. For example, Starbucks could pay to add a special augmented reality layer to an existing browser showing nearby coffee spots. Or they could buy access to the technology to build their own app.

But there are reasons to remain skeptical. Venture capital firms have been relatively reluctant to back these young companies — Amsterdam-based Layar is the only company in the last three months to announce a round of venture funding. The larger and older businesses, Metaio and Total Immersion, are launching mobile products on the back of the businesses they’ve already built through augmented reality marketing and factory layout projects from the past. ( See an example here.)

There are still also a number of design issues to overcome. The use case is physically uncomfortable. It can be easier to look something up in a conventional map application than to constantly hold your phone at eye-level to see augmented reality tags.

The second issue is that augmented reality is still a bit of a novelty or a gimmick (see Metaio’s app to the left where you can insert 3D objects into your camera viewfinder).

And then of course there’s the business hurdle of reaching critical mass so that an advertising model can sustain the company. That said, Layar is boasting some promising statistics. The company said it has close to half a million downloads and the app is sticky with users logging in about 6.7 times a week on average.

So if their adoption (and those of their competitors) continues accelerating upward, stay tuned.

Here’s a list of some of our favorite teen entrepreneurs. And please keep in mind that there are lots of startups we’ve yet to hear about. So if you are a young entrepreneur, make sure to leave a comment below and add your bio and startup information to CrunchBase.

Jessica Mah

Jessica Mah, 19, is currently the CEO and Co-Founder behind Indinero, a Mint.com for small businesses. Mah started her first startup at 13. Last year, she founded internshipIN.com, a site to help high school and college kids find internships in their area. Now, at 19, Mah is finishing up her Computer Science degree from the University of California, Berkeley, as well as being the CEO of Indinero.

Ashley Qualls

Ashley Qualls, 19, started WhateverLife when she was 14, a site designed to give MySpace users free Myspace layouts and HTML tutorials. She employs both her mom, and her friends who do graphics for her. Qualls started WhateverLife in 2004 as a hobby, and now has turned into a business, with her site getting anywhere from 150,000 to 360,000 daily page views.

Donny Ouyang

Donny Ouyang, 17, started his first business in 2006 called Kinkarso Network. Kinkarso Network operates a number of web properties including: BattleForums.com, HostBright.net, ChristianAvenue.org, etc. Ouyang has been featured in Entrepreneur, PC Magazine, Retire At 21, Internet Entrepreneurs, and many other sites.

Sam Purtill

Sam Purtill is one of the founding engineers of YouNoodle, a service that lets users follow start-ups that they are interested in and predict success of start-up teams based on analysis of historical data about qualities of the team’s founders and other information. Purtill originally built the site, and has been with the company since September 2007. Sam placed his previous project, ClassOwl, on hold to join YouNoodle, despite taking the idea to a product in less that six months. He also has worked on various design projects in Romania. Purtill is now attending Stanford University.

Grant Bell & Robert Day

Grant Bell is a teenage entrepreneur who is the co-founder ofTomorrow’s Web, an online network dedicated to supporting and engaging with young people with an internet in the web, technology and entrepreneurship. Bell is also the Founder of Pitchie, a stealth startup.

Robert Day is the co-founder of Tomorrow’s Web as well. Day has worked for various web companies such as ChannelFlip and Be Broadband’s OpenHub.

Mark Bao

Mark Bao, 17, is an internet entrepreneur based in Boston, MA. Bao is the founder of Avecora and Ramamia. In August 2009, Bao sold his product, Avecora OnDemand, to Branchr Advertising, and renamed the product Atomplan, which he is still the acting CEO of. In the past, Mark has been involved with the Facebook Platform, launching numerous applications, selling three applications, and organising the Facebook developer meetings in Boston, as well as the main event Facebook Developer Garage Boston.

Zachary Collins & Dustin Snider

Zachary Collins and Dustin Snider are the co-founders of Yazzem, a site which allows anyone to share their thoughts about anything that interests them by starting and joining topics. In July 2009, Collins sold Twtbase.com, a database of Twitter apps, and is also home to the very first Twitter applications search engine.

Patrick DeVivo

Patrick DeVivo is a blogger and entrepreneur in New York City. He founded Youth Bloggers Network in May 2007, and then sold the site to Teens in Tech Networks in March of 2009.

Of course, there are entrepreneurs that started their companies at a young age, and since then have grown their businesses. MyYearbook co-founders Catherine Cook and Dave Cook started the company in 2005. Catherine is currently a student at Georgetown University, while also working on myYearbook’s growth and features. MyYearbook is one of the largest teen oriented social networks, getting about 3 million unique page views per month according to Compete.

Disclosure: I am the Founder and CEO of Teens in Tech Networks. Teens in Tech Networksacquired Youth Bloggers Network in March 2009. Youth Bloggers Network was founded by Patrick DeVivo, who is mentioned above.

Here’s a sobering thought: I can walk into any local car dealership and buy a $30,000 piece of merchandise, leaving nothing behind but my signature — but if I show up that same day at the hospital, unconscious after a collision in my new car, there’s not a soul in that emergency room who will know what medications I’m taking, what allergies I have or where my living will is stored.

Even the most partisan players in the debate over health care reform agree on two things. One, that this is crazy. And two, that technology can help. The good news is that, over the last few years, the tech industry has stepped up and is beginning to deliver solutions that will make a real difference.

One particularly promising class of solutions revolves around personal empowerment — platforms, tools and services that enable individuals to become active participants in their own care. For example, both Microsoft HealthVault and Google Health provide free, secure accounts where patients can organize their health information and easily share it with their doctors and nurses.

And these aren’t mere online “lock boxes” — they are connected platforms that technology companies can build out to create even more value. For example, blood glucose meters like LifeScan’s OneTouch (see below) can automatically upload readings to HealthVault, and from there they can be shared not only with doctors, but nutritionists and family members (based on user preferences, of course). And that same information can sync with services like MyVitalData to make sure the right information is there in the emergency room when it’s really needed.

People are ready for this new world. About 83 percent have searched for health care information on the web; 3.1 million Kaiser Permanente patients access their personalized health portal, with 163,000 visits per day and a 91.2 percent satisfaction rate. Health-focused social networking sites like PatientsLikeMe are redefining the way people live with chronic diseases. And HealthVault alone has hundreds of partners working to connect their solutions into this new “personal health universe.”

Additionally, the Obama administration recognizes the potential for health IT innovations to both reduce costs and improve patient care, and has begun to allocate significant government dollars to the effort. While it is unclear how the current health care reform efforts will impact the adoption of health IT in coming years, it is clear that innovations in the health IT industry will continue to play a role in modernizing and improving our medical system.

Here’s an overview of several technologies that will make a difference in coming months and years:

Microsoft HealthVault is a free and secure personal health application platform that allows people to collect, store and share their health information with family members and participating healthcare providers, as well as provides a choice of third-party applications and devices to help users manage things such as fitness, diet and health.

Google Health is a free, Web-based service that enables users to organize health information, gather medical records from doctors, hospitals, and pharmacies, and share information securely with a family member, doctors or caregivers.

LifeScan’s OneTouch family of products are blood glucose monitoring devices for people with diabetes, offering fast, accurate blood glucose testing along with 24-hour toll-free service and support.

MyVitalData Emergency Communication Gateway manages health information within a secure network of hospitals, first responders and disaster response organizations to ensure healthcare providers have your most up-to-date and critical information.

What is driving this growth is video. Cisco forecasts that 90 percent of consumer IP traffic (which makes up the majority of total IP traffic) will be video in 2013. Cisco also predicts that mobile data traffic will also be overtaken by video, reaching 64 percent of total mobile IP traffic by 2013. Part of this might be wishful thinking on Cisco’s part, which needs broadband usage growth to continue apace in order to sell its networking gear. But part of it is also the fact that these numbers are based on the percentage of bits traveling over those broadband pipes, and it doesn’t take a lot of fat video files to fill those up.

Cisco is a big believer in the growth of mobile video, expecting it to grow from 33 petabytes a month in 2008 to 2,184 petabytes (or 2 exabytes) a month in 2013, which represents a 131 percent compound annual growth rate. (No wonder it bought the maker of the Flip video camera). As impressive as those numbers sound, at that point, mobile data will only make up 4 percent of total IP traffic. (Good thing Apple finally decided to get with the program and add video to its upcoming iPhone 3GS). In the chart below, you can see how big a role Cisco expects video to play in mobile data traffic. Video is the green part of the bar graphs. Standalone data (dark blue) is also expected to grow quickly.

Chief Operating Officer Tim Cook runs the day-to-day operations at Apple, these people say. But Mr. Jobs has continued to work on the company’s most important strategies and products from home, they say. He regularly reviews products and product plans, and was particularly involved in the user interface of the new iPhone operating system that Apple unveiled last month, these people say.

Apple co-founder Mr. Jobs, who is considered the company’s creative leader, is also involved in the development of future projects, they say. People privy to the company’s strategy say Apple is working on new iPhone models and a portable device that is smaller than its current laptop computers but bigger than the iPhone or iPod Touch.

And this part’s even better:

People familiar with Apple’s operations say they still expect to see Mr. Jobs return in June. Some of these people also say members of Apple’s board of directors are monitoring the situation directly, communicating regularly with Mr. Jobs’s physicians.

First, this suggests that Apple’s board isn’t asleep or in denial, which it was on this topic for years. Second, it suggests that Apple’s board has finally acknowledged that this is not a “private matter.”  Third, it suggests that Steve’s doctors aren’t saying something terribly alarming, or we’d likely have heard about it. (Apple’s board may be in awe of Steve Jobs and scared he’ll kick them out of the coolest club they’ve ever been members of, but they also presumably don’t want to get sued for fraud.)

Meanwhile, day-to-day operations at the company apparently haven’t changed:

People inside the company, business partners and others who are familiar with the situation say life at the Cupertino, Calif., company remains much the same as it did before.

Those at other corporations who deal with the company also say their interactions with Apple haven’t changed. Mr. Cook, who had already been handling most of Apple’s day-to-day operations, has kept tight control over the company, say business partners and those inside Apple.

According to Shaw Wu, an analyst at Kaufman Bros. cited in the story, most investors expect that Steve will hand the CEO slot to Tim Cook and recede into a role as Chairman. As long as it looks as though Steve will be able to continue to be Steve for many more years, investors won’t have a problem with that.

Site: http://www.moixa.com/sphere/

That said, we’re definitely not so sure this thing will make its planned 2010 ship date, since it’s just a render right now, but if it does, we’ll be first in line — a folding multitouch display with an always-on net connection and gyroscopic interface elements that can also be used folded flat sounds pretty amazing to us. We want to believe.

Could hot rocks miles below the earth’s surface be the “killer app” of the energy industry?

Google thinks so. It’s investing more than $10 million to develop new technology that would make this subterranean resource a widespread, economically viable competitor to fossil fuels.

Geothermal heat could meet 10 percent of America’s energy needs by mid-century, according to the US Department of Energy. What’s more, it would not generate the climate-warming carbon emissions associated with fossil fuels.

Once tapped, a geothermal system would stay online for centuries. Unlike wind and solar, it would be a “base load” energy source, available 24 hours a day, 365 days a year.

That all sounds great – but of course there’s a catch. A geothermal well costs millions of dollars to drill and drilling is the only way to determine if a location has the right kind of hot rock. The result: With only a trickle of federal aid allotted to developing the resource, geothermal is growing slowly.

That may change under the Obama administration, which has pledged strong support for renewable energy.

“If sufficient [research and development] funding were invested in the next 20 years or so, as much as 10 or 20 percent of the electricity in the United States could come from geothermal,” says Robert Neilson, who manages the Renewable Energy and Power Technologies Department at the US Department of Energy’s Idaho National Laboratory.

The US already produces more geothermal electricity than any country in the world. In California, it accounts for nearly 5 percent of total electrical capacity. But these traditional geothermal plants require three things: hot rock formations near the surface, water to take the heat out of the rock and bring it to the surface, and fractures in the rock to allow the hot water to circulate.

Most known locations with all these qualities are found in the western US and are already being tapped.
The possibility of enhanced geothermal systems (EGS), however, have reenergized the movement. These systems would use technology to either fracture the rock or inject needed water. If EGS can surmount the technical and cost hurdles, many more places, including the eastern and central US, suddenly would be candidates for geothermal plants.

“EGS could be the ‘killer app’ of the energy world,” said Dan Reicher, director of climate and energy initiatives for Google.org, announcing Google funding for EGS research last August. “It has the potential to deliver vast quantities of power 24/7 and be captured nearly anywhere on the planet. And it would be a perfect complement to intermittent sources like solar and wind.”

A study led by the Massachusetts Institute of Technology released in early 2007 estimated that a public and private investment in EGS of $800 million to $1 billion over 15 years could yield 100,000 MWe (Megawatts electrical) of electrical capacity by mid-century. The US currently has about 1 million MWe of capacity, or about 10 times that amount. Geothermal sources today generate just under 3,000 MWe of capacity.

The development of geothermal energy is paralleling the history of oil and gas exploration “except we’re about 100 years behind them,” says Karl Gawell, executive director of the Geothermal Energy Association, an industry group.

A century ago, oil companies could only find oil where it was already coming out of the ground, he says. That’s akin to finding geothermal by looking for hot springs or geysers today.

But later in the 20th century, oil companies found “you could fracture [the rock], you could add water, add gases,” and employ other techniques to create new wells or extend the life of existing ones, he says. “The oil industry essentially learned to engineer oil fields to get a lot more production out of them.”

That’s exactly what EGS proponents hope to do with geothermal sources. At The Geysers, a geothermal plant north of San Francisco, 4 billion gallons of treated sewer water from the city of Santa Rosa is being injected into the ground each year to replenish the system and maintain the flow of heated water to the surface. That represents a kind of EGS already at work.

A few other EGS efforts are under way around the world, including one in Soltz, France, and another expected to come online in Australia next spring.

But more research is needed if the effort is going to take off.

“I think it’s going to really require the federal government to stimulate activity by coming in and trying to support demonstration projects and things like that for it to get started in a big way,” says David Blackwell, a professor of geophysics at Southern Methodist University, one of the 18 members of MIT’s EGS study panel. “There are some places in the central and eastern United States that are quite hot at reasonable depths that could probably be developed in the relatively near future.”

Shale gas wells in West Virginia and Pennsylvania provide an intriguing possibility. After the gas has been extracted, they’d “make wonderful heat exchangers” using the 250 to 350 degree F. water found in them, Dr. Blackwell says.

The potential for EGS is “vast,” he says. “I think that the MIT report is conservative if we really start to develop it.”

The big unknown is going to be cost. “And until we actually have a number of [EGS] systems operating,” he says, “we don’t know what the cost will be.”