How Bets Among Employees Can Guide a Company's Future

The need to predict the future, as exciting as it sounds, crops up in corporate life in terribly mundane ways. Case in point: large videogame companies need to know where to put their marketing dollars many months before they complete their games. Inevitably, some games will be stinkers, hardly worth the investment of an ad campaign. But how do you know which ones?

Here's how one very large videogame company used to guess the answer: its marketing people would predict the score their games in progress would garner on the website Metacritic, which aggregates game reviews. But why would the marketing people know more than the game's developers?

Three years ago, a startup called Crowdcast suggested a different tactic. Why not take 700 of your lowliest employees, the ones in the trenches who are actually making and testing these games, and ask them what they think the Metacritic scores will be? Better yet, why not give them each $10,000 in play money and ask them to bet on the outcome? Let them accumulate a pot of pretend wealth if they're right. Turn game marketing prediction into, well, a game.

To the executives' delight, the employees' Metacritic predictions turned out to be 32 percent more accurate. More disturbingly, their accuracy was inversely proportional to their place in the hierarchy. The closer you got to the C-suites, the less of a clue you had--and the lower your pretend wealth in Crowdcast's game.

That embarrassing factoid might explain why this particular videogame company, like many Crowdcast customers, wants such stories to remain anonymous. "It's kind of experimental," explains Mat Fogerty, Crowdcast's sardonic British CEO, "and it may undermine the credibility of their awesome management."

Indeed, anonymity and uncomfortable revelations in the boardroom are Crowdcast's stock-in-trade. The San Francisco startup already boasts clients as diverse as Hallmark, Hershey's, and Harvard Business School. It is built on the back of years of research into how internal prediction markets work. In such a market, managers ask employees questions about the future of their product and let them bet on the answers, without knowing who bet what. The results can be scarily accurate.

In September, Crowdcast ran a prediction market for a large American car company, one that normally runs its designs for new autos through a car clinic?a lengthy and expensive kind of focus group of buyers. Crowdcast's project involved asking engineers and factory supervisors what they thought the outcome of the car clinic would be.

Forty questions were in front of these ground-floor experts at any given time during the market. For example: What percentage of buyers will list this car's dashboard as its most important feature? The trial market was so accurate that the car company will be trying another in January. The auto giant now has a new way to cut costs: use these predictions markets instead of expensive car clinics as much as 75 percent of the time.

Crowdcast calls these outcomes "social business intelligence" rather than crowdsourcing. "Within your organization, there are people who know true future outcomes and metrics," says Leslie Fine, Crowdcast's chief scientist. "When is your product going to ship? How well will it do? Normally, crowdsourcing asks for creative content. We're asking for quantitative opinions."

Put that way, it sounds a lot more respectable than "get your employees to play a kind of fantasy football with sales and shipping dates." But make no mistake?that's actually what Crowdcast does. That used to be a hard sell, Fogerty admits: "It seemed weird to be talking about playing games at work and using Monopoly money."

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Intel's Atom to ship in over 35 tablets next year

Intel has been trying to cut itself a slice of the mobile market for years, and it seems the company is finally making some headway. During a conference yesterday, Intel CEO Paul Otellini revealed that the company's Atom platform will ship in over 35 tablets starting early next year. The chipmaker has partnered with more than a dozen manufacturers who will launch slates running Windows, Android as well as Intel's own MeeGo operating system.

Toshiba, Dell, and Fujitsu are among the big names readying Windows-based devices, while Lenovo and Asus are preparing both Windows and Android slates. AT&T and Cisco are also developing Android tablets, while Acer and others plan to ship MeeGo products.


With some 35 design wins under its belt, the New York Times reports that Intel has quietly formed a new business unit simply called the "netbook and tablet group," which will be led by the current head of Intel's embedded and communications group, Douglas L. Davis.

In addition to sharing Intel's early success in the tablet segment, Otellini also announced that the company's smartphone-class Atom processor, codenamed Medfield, has been delayed. The chip is in customer sampling and should appear in devices sometime mid-2011.

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How Bets Among Employees Can Guide a Company's Future

The need to predict the future, as exciting as it sounds, crops up in corporate life in terribly mundane ways. Case in point: large videogame companies need to know where to put their marketing dollars many months before they complete their games. Inevitably, some games will be stinkers, hardly worth the investment of an ad campaign. But how do you know which ones?

Here's how one very large videogame company used to guess the answer: its marketing people would predict the score their games in progress would garner on the website Metacritic, which aggregates game reviews. But why would the marketing people know more than the game's developers?

Three years ago, a startup called Crowdcast suggested a different tactic. Why not take 700 of your lowliest employees, the ones in the trenches who are actually making and testing these games, and ask them what they think the Metacritic scores will be? Better yet, why not give them each $10,000 in play money and ask them to bet on the outcome? Let them accumulate a pot of pretend wealth if they're right. Turn game marketing prediction into, well, a game.

To the executives' delight, the employees' Metacritic predictions turned out to be 32 percent more accurate. More disturbingly, their accuracy was inversely proportional to their place in the hierarchy. The closer you got to the C-suites, the less of a clue you had--and the lower your pretend wealth in Crowdcast's game.

That embarrassing factoid might explain why this particular videogame company, like many Crowdcast customers, wants such stories to remain anonymous. "It's kind of experimental," explains Mat Fogerty, Crowdcast's sardonic British CEO, "and it may undermine the credibility of their awesome management."

Indeed, anonymity and uncomfortable revelations in the boardroom are Crowdcast's stock-in-trade. The San Francisco startup already boasts clients as diverse as Hallmark, Hershey's, and Harvard Business School. It is built on the back of years of research into how internal prediction markets work. In such a market, managers ask employees questions about the future of their product and let them bet on the answers, without knowing who bet what. The results can be scarily accurate.

In September, Crowdcast ran a prediction market for a large American car company, one that normally runs its designs for new autos through a car clinic?a lengthy and expensive kind of focus group of buyers. Crowdcast's project involved asking engineers and factory supervisors what they thought the outcome of the car clinic would be.

Forty questions were in front of these ground-floor experts at any given time during the market. For example: What percentage of buyers will list this car's dashboard as its most important feature? The trial market was so accurate that the car company will be trying another in January. The auto giant now has a new way to cut costs: use these predictions markets instead of expensive car clinics as much as 75 percent of the time.

Crowdcast calls these outcomes "social business intelligence" rather than crowdsourcing. "Within your organization, there are people who know true future outcomes and metrics," says Leslie Fine, Crowdcast's chief scientist. "When is your product going to ship? How well will it do? Normally, crowdsourcing asks for creative content. We're asking for quantitative opinions."

Put that way, it sounds a lot more respectable than "get your employees to play a kind of fantasy football with sales and shipping dates." But make no mistake?that's actually what Crowdcast does. That used to be a hard sell, Fogerty admits: "It seemed weird to be talking about playing games at work and using Monopoly money."

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Tax Deal Is Key to Avoid Recession, Obama Adviser Says

But Democrats in the House and Senate were still seething with anger ? both about the substance of the deal, which includes keeping the Bush-era rates even on the highest incomes, and the way they were iced out of the negotiations. It was unclear that the ominous economic forecast by the adviser, Lawrence H. Summers, would help. Senate Democrats said they were still pressing for changes to the plan, but Republicans and the White House showed no signs of flexibility.

Vice President Joseph R. Biden Jr., who failed on Tuesday to persuade many of his old Senate colleagues to get behind the plan, met with House Democrats for more than an hour on Wednesday. Dozens of lawmakers lined up to voice their displeasure, and to ask if there was any chance of reworking the plan, especially a provision setting a generous tax emption for wealthy estates.

?There is a substantial amount of dissatisfaction with the deal that was cut,? Representative Jim McDermott, Democrat of Washington, said after the meeting. ?The Democratic caucus put itself on notice that it would not vote for tax cuts for the wealthy because we can?t afford them and because they are not needed, and that?s the point one Democrat after another is making.?

The continuing anger in Congress raised the likelihood that the tax deal would be approved largely with Republican votes. Enough Senate Democrats were expected to support the plan to surmount any filibuster. And in the House, given Republican support, it seemed possible for the tax plan to be adopted even with two-thirds or more of Democrats voting against it.

The deal would extend for two years the Bush-era tax cuts at all income levels, not just on income up to $250,000 per couple as President Obama had sought. In exchange, Republicans agreed to the administration?s demands for a 13-month continuation of jobless benefits for the long-term unemployed, a one-year reduction in the payroll tax for nearly all workers, and other steps aimed at lifting the economy.

The plan also includes an agreement to reduce the estate tax, which lapsed completely this year but is set to return on Jan. 1 with an exemption of $1 million per person and a maximum rate of 55 percent. The deal will set the exemption, or unified credit, at $5 million per estate, and the maximum rate at 35 percent ? a higher exemption and lower tax than many Democrats want.

The Senate Republican leader, Mitch McConnell of Kentucky, excoriated Democrats for trying to bring up several other issues, including an immigration bill and a Pentagon policy measure that includes authorization to repeal the military?s ?don?t ask, don?t tell? ban on open service by gay men and lesbians. Mr. McConnell urged the Democrats to bring the tax plan to the floor.

?Are we here to perform or to legislate?? Mr. McConnell asked.

The majority leader, Harry Reid of Nevada, struggled on Wednesday to chart a path on several major items, including the tax proposal. Votes were tentatively scheduled for Thursday morning on the immigration measure, which would create a path to citizenship for certain illegal immigrants brought to the United States as young children, and on the military bill.

As attention focused mainly on the tax issue, House Democrats muscled through a stripped-down spending bill that would finance the federal government through Sept. 30 of next year, freezing the budgets of most agencies but including money for the war in Afghanistan.

The bill cuts nearly $46 billion from the president?s requested budget, and includes provisions for a two-year pay freeze for non-military federal employees.

The vote was 212 to 206, with 35 Democrats and all 171 Republicans in opposition.

With the president on the defensive with his own party, the White House marshaled an offensive that included circulating dozens of private-sector economic analyses and endorsements from public officials.

But the big gun was the economic warning from Mr. Summers, the soon-departing director of the White House National Economic Council.

?Failure to pass this bill in the next couple weeks would materially increase the risk that the economy would stall out and we would have a double-dip? recession, Mr. Summers told reporters at a briefing.

Mr. Obama, in a brief appearance with the president of Poland, rebutted a reporter?s question alluding to Congressional Democrats? sense of betrayal.

?It is inaccurate to characterize Democrats writ large as feeling ?betrayed,? ? Mr. Obama said. ?I think Democrats are looking at this bill, and you?ve already had a whole bunch of them who said this makes sense. And I think the more they look at it, the more of them are going to say this makes sense.?

The fight over the Bush-era rates would resume in the coming two years, Mr. Obama said, adding that he would make the case for ?tax reform, that we?ve got to simplify the system.?

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Snapstick launches private beta, brings the web to the TV with a flick of the wrist [TNW Mobile]

Today Snapstick announced the private beta for its innovative software service that brings the entire web experience to the television with a flick of the wrist.

Seriously.

We recently had the chance to sit down with two of Snapstick?s Co-Founders, Rakesh Mathur and Balaji Krishnan, and get a sneak peak of the product that they truly believe is the first true marriage of internet and TV.

Snapstick in a nutshell is a service that allows users to bring the full, unrestricted internet from any mobile device straight to the television without the need for a remote or a keyboard. Instead, just a flick of the device toward the little set top box and boom; it?s on the television in beautiful quality.

Essentially, it turns whatever device you?re using into a living and breathing remote control for your television.

All of this is accomplished using technology they call, SplitMedia:

Unlike streaming technologies that tax the processing power of your mobile device or computer, SplitMedia? technology offloads the Internet connection to the existing Wi-Fi network in your home. Once Snapstick takes over the processing and playback of the video on the big screen, it frees up processing power on your laptop or phone for other tasks, like surfing, tweeting, updating Facebook, or searching for other new content to snap to your TV.

To give you an idea, Balaji loaded up a YouTube video of a fighter jet racing a Bugati on his iPad using the Snapstick browser. He then flicked his iPad toward the box and it  appeared almost instantly on the television starting to play.

From there, he could keep browsing the web, pause the video on the television, Tweet to a friend, or just sit back and enjoy the video  from his tablet playing on the big screen.

Across the table, Rakesh, also in possession of an iPad, was able to connect to the same network that Balaji was on (he was given permission of course) and because of SplitMedia, he too was able to manipulate what was on the television screen. He could pause it or throw up something else entirely. This feature will surely go over well in households full of children or adults who root for separate sports teams.

Of course, Snapstick isn?t all about video. You can also bring up email on the television and use the keyboard in Snapstick?s browser to type or even pull up Skype and make a call to a friend. We should point out that Skype was integrated into the software and while it was obviously in the early stages, it worked quite well.

The company is currently in talks with several partners and they hope that by Q2 of next year there will several ways of getting Snapstick. For now though, they are focused on the private beta and fine tuning what appears to already be a pretty amazing product.

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Source: http://thenextweb.com/mobile/2010/12/09/snapstick-launches-private-beta-brings-the-web-to-the-tv-with-a-flick-of-the-wrist/

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TI intros dual-core 1.5GHz SoC for phones, tablets

Texas Instruments has announced its new OMAP4440 system-on-a-chip, an updated version of the OMAP4430. Designed for mobile devices such as smartphones and tablets, the package carries a dual-core ARM Cortex A9 processor running at speeds up to 1.5GHz (OMAP4430 tops out at 1GHz), as well as two Cortex M3 cores for offloading time-critical tasks, and a graphics engine with support for 3D video.

Naturally, you don't release new hardware without boasting speed gains, and TI does precisely that. Compared to the OMAP4430, the OMAP4440 is 33% faster at loading web pages, it packs 25% more graphics power, has double the video playback performance, and offers improved video quality in low-light conditions. The OMAP4430 tops out at 720p stereoscopic 3D, while the OMAP4440 can handle full 1080p stereoscopic 3D.


The company plans to ship samples of the OMAP4440 sometime in early 2011 and mass production is expected in the second half of the year, or around the same timeframe as Samsung's Orion. Meanwhile, OMAP4430 is already in manufacturer's hands and should appear in products around the same time the 4440 starts sampling, but we're not sure what devices plan to use the chip. Feel free to speculate in the comments.

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Source: http://www.techspot.com/news/41488-ti-intros-dualcore-15ghz-soc-for-phones-tablets.html

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Tax Deal Is Key to Avoid Recession, Obama Adviser Says

But Democrats in the House and Senate were still seething with anger ? both about the substance of the deal, which includes keeping the Bush-era rates even on the highest incomes, and the way they were iced out of the negotiations. It was unclear that the ominous economic forecast by the adviser, Lawrence H. Summers, would help. Senate Democrats said they were still pressing for changes to the plan, but Republicans and the White House showed no signs of flexibility.

Vice President Joseph R. Biden Jr., who failed on Tuesday to persuade many of his old Senate colleagues to get behind the plan, met with House Democrats for more than an hour on Wednesday. Dozens of lawmakers lined up to voice their displeasure, and to ask if there was any chance of reworking the plan, especially a provision setting a generous tax emption for wealthy estates.

?There is a substantial amount of dissatisfaction with the deal that was cut,? Representative Jim McDermott, Democrat of Washington, said after the meeting. ?The Democratic caucus put itself on notice that it would not vote for tax cuts for the wealthy because we can?t afford them and because they are not needed, and that?s the point one Democrat after another is making.?

The continuing anger in Congress raised the likelihood that the tax deal would be approved largely with Republican votes. Enough Senate Democrats were expected to support the plan to surmount any filibuster. And in the House, given Republican support, it seemed possible for the tax plan to be adopted even with two-thirds or more of Democrats voting against it.

The deal would extend for two years the Bush-era tax cuts at all income levels, not just on income up to $250,000 per couple as President Obama had sought. In exchange, Republicans agreed to the administration?s demands for a 13-month continuation of jobless benefits for the long-term unemployed, a one-year reduction in the payroll tax for nearly all workers, and other steps aimed at lifting the economy.

The plan also includes an agreement to reduce the estate tax, which lapsed completely this year but is set to return on Jan. 1 with an exemption of $1 million per person and a maximum rate of 55 percent. The deal will set the exemption, or unified credit, at $5 million per estate, and the maximum rate at 35 percent ? a higher exemption and lower tax than many Democrats want.

The Senate Republican leader, Mitch McConnell of Kentucky, excoriated Democrats for trying to bring up several other issues, including an immigration bill and a Pentagon policy measure that includes authorization to repeal the military?s ?don?t ask, don?t tell? ban on open service by gay men and lesbians. Mr. McConnell urged the Democrats to bring the tax plan to the floor.

?Are we here to perform or to legislate?? Mr. McConnell asked.

The majority leader, Harry Reid of Nevada, struggled on Wednesday to chart a path on several major items, including the tax proposal. Votes were tentatively scheduled for Thursday morning on the immigration measure, which would create a path to citizenship for certain illegal immigrants brought to the United States as young children, and on the military bill.

As attention focused mainly on the tax issue, House Democrats muscled through a stripped-down spending bill that would finance the federal government through Sept. 30 of next year, freezing the budgets of most agencies but including money for the war in Afghanistan.

The bill cuts nearly $46 billion from the president?s requested budget, and includes provisions for a two-year pay freeze for non-military federal employees.

The vote was 212 to 206, with 35 Democrats and all 171 Republicans in opposition.

With the president on the defensive with his own party, the White House marshaled an offensive that included circulating dozens of private-sector economic analyses and endorsements from public officials.

But the big gun was the economic warning from Mr. Summers, the soon-departing director of the White House National Economic Council.

?Failure to pass this bill in the next couple weeks would materially increase the risk that the economy would stall out and we would have a double-dip? recession, Mr. Summers told reporters at a briefing.

Mr. Obama, in a brief appearance with the president of Poland, rebutted a reporter?s question alluding to Congressional Democrats? sense of betrayal.

?It is inaccurate to characterize Democrats writ large as feeling ?betrayed,? ? Mr. Obama said. ?I think Democrats are looking at this bill, and you?ve already had a whole bunch of them who said this makes sense. And I think the more they look at it, the more of them are going to say this makes sense.?

The fight over the Bush-era rates would resume in the coming two years, Mr. Obama said, adding that he would make the case for ?tax reform, that we?ve got to simplify the system.?

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Republicans Name Leaders of House Committees

Bit by bit, hearing by hearing, the new chairmen ? and except for Representative Ileana Ros-Lehtinen of Florida, who will lead the Foreign Affairs Committee, they are all men ? will place back on the national agenda issues they believe have been ignored for four years by Democrats and challenge the White House on many fronts.

While many of the House chairmanships for the 112th Congress were foregone conclusions, the choice of Representative Fred Upton of Michigan to lead the Energy and Commerce Committee over Representative Joe L. Barton of Texas was a bit of a nail-biter. Representative Harold Rogers of Kentucky won the chairmanship of the Appropriations Committee over the current ranking member, Representative Jerry Lewis of California, and Representative Jack Kingston of Georgia.

While committee chairmen are always powerful, they have been overshadowed to a large degree in recent years by House leaders of both parties. But Representative John A. Boehner of Ohio, who will become speaker of the House in January and once led the education committee, has emphasized that he wants committees to enjoy more power. In a speech at the American Enterprise Institute this fall, he said: ?In my view, if we want to make legislators legislate again, then we need to empower them at the committee level. If members were more engaged in their committee work, they would be more invested in the final products that come to the floor.?

Here is a look at the incoming chairmen of some of the most influential of the 17 major committees in the House.

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Mozilla: The Key To The Browser Is Individuality [TNW Europe]

According to Mitchell Baker, Chairperson of the Mozilla Foundation, the key to future of browser technology is making a browser unique to the person that uses it, giving control back to the user and allowing them to make the web for themselves.

Baker, speaking on stage at LeWeb 2010, is concerned by the current trend where companies are ?duplicating the Apple model?, building products and sometimes services that do not fully integrate back to the web. Speaking of Mozilla, the company wants to establish a new model where apps can integrate back to the web, with HTML5 currently able to help developers do just that.

Mozilla is already developing platforms that allow coders and designers to pull in live content from around the web, without using proprietary tools like Flash; Baker demonstrated a video showing that developers can bring in tweets, web videos and external content via a WebGL interface (embedded below).

When asked what Mozilla felt about the rise of Google?s Chrome browser and the sudden rise of Microsoft?s Internet Explorer 9 browser, Baker noted that she believed the differences in browser speeds are now minimal, speeds are barely noticeable between Firefox, Chrome and other browsers.

Baker also welcomed innovations from Google and Microsoft, acknowledging what the two companies were doing to further browser technology. She explained that Mozilla?s main aim is for a better web, not to destroy its competition, and that by innovating the browser, users are the ones set to benefit.

In the future, Mozilla hopes to create a platform that puts the user in control of their browser, not adding services like RockMelt and Flock are currently focusing on. Baker believes the user should be able to customise their own browser, whether it means removing toolbars and back/forward buttons or being able to search from a browser address bar, the browser should let a user choose which functions are most important so they don?t need to choose a specific software over another just because it has one ?killer? feature.

To do this, Mozilla wants to make its platform ubiquitous, offering the same experience across different platforms but also over different browsers. Where Google offers applications via its Chrome Web Store, Mozilla wants apps built that can work on any browser, on a mobile handset or even on the web all at the same time.

The Mozilla Foundation holds a unique position, it fights for a better web, not to push its own services or operate within its own confines. By welcoming competition, it plays a key role in pushing forward the moden-day browser.

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Source: http://thenextweb.com/eu/2010/12/09/mozilla-the-key-to-the-browser-is-individuality/

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Intel, AMD, system builders to drop VGA by 2015

Intel has announced plans to cease support for the widely used VGA and LVDS display connectors in its processors and chipsets by 2015. Additionally, Chipzilla has teamed up with other industry titans, including AMD, Dell, Lenovo, Samsung, and LG to phase out the dated interfaces in favor of newer, more capable connection types, such as DisplayPort and HDMI.

In fact, AMD's plans are even hastier. The company intends to begin phasing out native VGA and LVDS output from most products by 2013, with expansion to all AMD products by 2015. It was noted that this also means DVI-I will be dropped in the same period.

In its press release today, Intel said HDMI is increasingly used in PCs for easy connection to consumer electronic devices and TVs, while DisplayPort is expected to become the single PC digital display output for embedded flat panels, monitors and projectors.


Both allow for slimmer laptops and support higher resolutions and more colors than the 20-year-old VGA connector. On top of the better visuals, Intel says DisplayPort and HDMI consume less power, so they're also better for battery life on mobile systems.

"Display standards are rapidly evolving, with new features such as multi-display support, stereoscopic 3-D, higher resolutions and increased color depth quickly moving from early adopter and niche usage to mainstream application," said AMD. "VGA, DVI and LVDS have not kept pace."

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Source: http://www.techspot.com/news/41487-intel-amd-system-builders-to-drop-vga-by-2015.html

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