TechCrunch
BlueStacks Adds A Free Hardware Option To Its ‘Netflix For Gaming' With GamePop Mini
Mobile virtualization startup BlueStacks only recently revealed the GamePop, its mobile home gaming console that offers all-you-can play gaming for a flat monthly fee, but it’s already expanding the line. Today, the company is announcing GamePop Mini, a version of the GamePop that offers completely free hardware with a standard $6.99 monthly GamePop service subscription, with smaller hardware that’s yours to keep after 12 months even if you decide to cancel your GamePop account.
The GamePop Mini also runs Jelly Bean 4.2, and connects to your TV via an included HDMI cable. Just like its big brother the GamePop, it will provide access to the service’s curated list of 500 games (from both Android and iOS sources) each month, with titles from studios like HalfBrick (makers of Fruit Ninja and Jetpack Joyride) that are normally available only with a one-off purchase. The key difference between the GamePop and the GamePop Mini will be in terms of specs, which BlueStacks aren’t quite ready to reveal.
The $129 GamePop is currently available free to pre-order customers, but reverts to full price as of June 30. The GamePop Mini will become available as of July 1 for pre-order, and BlueStacks CEO Rosen Sharma told me in an interview that it will ship at or around the same time as the GamePop some time this winter. Sharma said a free console was always something that it wanted to do, and that the GamePop Mini is the first of a line of “forever free” options it plans to provide to gamers seeking to access its services.
“We were always planning this, because we think of GamePop as a service,” he said. “Just like when you think of when Netflix came out, they used to send you a Wii disc so you could run it on the Wii, and then you could run it on the PlayStation. And our goal is that you can run it on a number of different devices, and some of them will be from us, and some of them will be from other people.”
GamePop becoming a platform agnostic service would be a considerable departure from other mobile gaming consoles out there, like OUYA and the upcoming GameStick. It would open the door to integration in smart TVs, Windows computers, embedded devices and various other places. Once that happens, the value prospect of a subscription service with true portability increases dramatically; GamePop truly does become the Netflix of mobile gaming.
“It is in part to show how good the market is out there, and I would call it a showcase, but the pre-orders have also inundated us,” Sharma said. “So it’s not just a showcase. The direct channel is a very strong business, and one we plan to continue, but having it run everywhere is our vision.”
Sharma also talked about GamePop’s potential to eventually bring in media titles, as well as interactive experiences that aren’t strictly games, like the Talking Tom series, which is especially a hit with younger audiences. For mobile developers, that presents an option for getting a variety of mobile titles in front of a wide swath of users on a huge range of devices, on a subscription-based billing model that could upturn the pay-per-download revenue scheme that’s mostly driven the mobile software ecosystem to date.
GamePop Mini will be a way for BlueStacks to spread its service far and wide, especially since there’s no commitment, and you need only return the console hardware should you decide to cancel the subscription before the 12 month mark. It’s also super portable, and in fact pocketable, so it’s designed to travel (which has the side benefit of introducing new people to GamePop). I think it’ll be most interesting to see how users react to having both a free and a $129 hardware option for a brand new type of gaming device, but we’ll find out more come winter when they launch.
How Hackers Beat The NSA In The '90s And How They Can Do It Again
The CrunchGov Essential is a scannable roundup of technology’s influence on the day’s big issues. Below a feature post, we present the most thoughtful, outrageous, and inspiring stories told through the web’s best content. Sign up for the morning newsletter here.
While the world parses the ramifications the National Security Agency’s massive snooping operation, it’s important to remember an earlier government attempt at data collection and, more important, how a group of hackers and activists banded together to stop it.
In the early 1990s, the military was petrified that encryption technologies would leave them blind to the growing use of mobile and digital communications, so they hatched a plan to ban to place a hardware patch that gave the NSA backdoor wiretap access, the so-called “Clipper Chip“.
After hearing about the plan, a grassroots cabal of hackers, engineers, and academics erupted in protest, sparking a nationwide campaign to discredit the security and business implications of the Clipper chip, ultimately bringing the NSA’s plans to a screeching halt.
Now, the anti-authority community of programmers and tech execs are gearing up for another fight against the NSA’s top-secret Internet Snooping apparatus, PRISM, and there are some important lessons they could learn from their victorious predecessors.
A Clash Of Tech And Culture
The MYK-78, a.k.a “Clipper Chip”
Intelligence agencies were as eager to monitor the digital schemings of terrorists during the days of Full House as they are today. Worried that the U.S.’ brilliant academic minds would inadvertently arm its enemies with cutting edge encryption, it banned the export of any technologies that could conceal communication.
“If you simply took this technology and released it widely, you were also potentially creating an opportunity for very small terrorist groups, criminals and the like to use this technology to get a kind of perfect information security,” recalls former NSA Attorney General, Stewart Baker.
So, encryption programs on the early Internet browsers were officially treated like a munition, like a missile rocket or sniper scope. This is why you often saw mentions of nuclear weaponry in terms of service for programs using cryptography.
The ban wasn’t sustainable because a quickly growing segment of shopaholics wanted the ability to safely buy Captain Planet t-shirts through the World Wide Web, so the NSA knew it couldn’t hold back the entirety of secure e-commerce for national security purposes. As a first step in allowing technology exports, the Clinton White House lobbied for a pencil-eraser-size hardware patch that would, at the very least, allow intelligence agencies the ability to extend their cherished practice of wiretapping to Zack Morris-style cellular telephones.
Ultimately, the plan was defeated by the very same contingent of technologists and businesses that are fighting the NSA’s PRISM program. “Every technology has with it a predominant ideology part of the culture,” says Baker. “There is a predominant ideology that is handed down from professor to student that says, you know, ‘we have to lean against abuses of this technology to make the state stronger’…people will write code that maximizes individual autonomy and reduces the authority of the government.”
Baker recalls how a coordinated ideological effort, with alternative encryption software, academic attacks on Clipper’s vulnerabilities, and big business lobbying took town the NSAs plan.
Money Talks
“A subculture clash became a battle between Microsoft at the height of its powers and a national security establishment,” recalls Baker, who argues that the need to export products, especially for e-commerce, compelled the business community to win over members of Congress.
Ray Ozzie, Microsoft’s former Chief Software Architect, testified before Congress, and let vulnerable members know that encryption regulations could have cost them between $6 and 9 billion in lost annual revenue. It worked.
“The Government should not be in the business of mandating particular technologies,” said career Senator, Patrick Leahy (still in office).
“They go to the White House, they go to congress, and they explain how it’s going to hurt their business,” adds Steven Levy, who wrote the book on the Clipper Chip wars, Crypto.
Even more than in the 90′s, the technology industry has close friends in government. The Bay Area fundraised more for Obama than either Hollywood (LA) or Wall Street (New York). Silicon Valley’s massive DC presence is paying off: Google’s intensive lobbying of the Federal Trade Commission’s monopoly charges got their potential multi-million dollar fine reduced to a stern warning.
Already we’re seeing Google’s request to disclose more data on NSA spying practices pay off: the Obama administration has indicated that it may loosen the gag order over which details it can publicize. The industry is just beginning to fight, but Silicon Valley paid big bucks during the campaigns and they have favors waiting to be called in.
The First Amendment Is Your Friend
Lobbying alone didn’t topple the Clipper Chip and export controls. Three months before the White House caved into the tech industry, the Ninth Circuit of appeals struck down export controls on First Amendment grounds.
“Government efforts to control encryption thus may well implicate not only the First Amendment rights of cryptographers intent on pushing the boundaries of their science, but also the constitutional rights of each of us as potential recipients of encryption bounty,” explained the landmark Bernstein vs. US Department of Justice decision.
Though the government officially appealed the ruling, it knew it had a weakened position. “Then the government came to us and said, ‘We want to settle the case’.,” says John Gilmore, founder of the Electronic Frontier Foundation.
Today, the issue of government phone and internet snooping is largely a First Amendment issue. The NSA has gagged both Senators and tech companies alike from talking about the program.
There is fierce disagreement over whether email spying has produced results. While the NSA claims that it helped stop the 2009 New York City subway bombing, public documents indicate that law enforcement got their best tip from documents in a hard drive, recovered by police in the course of normal investigations.
Google has filed a First Amendment complaint with the Attorney General and Senator Leahy has proposed legislation to disclose more info to members of congress (yes, intelligence info is even hidden from Congress).
So, when tech companies and civil liberty groups sue the government, know that they have a history of winning.
Build Tools Like the Dickens
The nail in the coffin for Clipper was the discovery of its inescapable vulnerabilities. Renowned hacker and Bell Labs engineer, Matt Blaze, “uncovered a flaw in Clipper that would allow a user to bypass the security function of the chip,” wrote Levy, back in 1994. Clipper wasn’t just a backdoor for the government, but any hacker who took over its weak security wall.
On the offense, super-programmers were building free, open source encryption tools, such as Philip Zimmerman’s “Pretty Good Privacy,” which allowed better public oversight of their vulnerabilities and weren’t subject to export regulations. In other words, the government couldn’t stop the grassroots hacker community from spreading the very technology that aimed to stop.
Today, tools for subverting the NSA have had limited widespread appeal. There’s TOR for secure internet browsing, and Redphone for secure calling, but they either require everyone to be using the same software or have complex implementations.
“Cryptography isn’t easy and the concepts behind it are not easy to understand. Generally, hiding the complexity of the problem only puts the user at greater risk,” says the TOR project’s Andrew Lewman.
So, while citizens have tech companies and civil rights organizations on their side, the 4th amendment needs a good user-interface designer.
A Winnable Fight
If history tells us anything, the fight against NSA secrecy is a winnable. Intelligence leaders are ruled by elected officials, military practices are still susceptible to the courts, and hackers can create tools to mask users from broad Internet snooping. Every citizen, whether they vote, support a civil liberties organization, and builds encryption tools, has a role to play.
As John Gilmore reminds me, “the one advantage we have over the NSA is that there are a lot more of us than there are of them.”
For more stories, sign up for the CrunchGov email newsletter here and follow Gregory Ferenstein on Twitter
The Book: 4 Items — Google Suing The IRS, Military Blocks The Guardian, Immigration Reform Passes The Senate, The Daily Show On Texas Computer Fraud
Google Suing The IRS For 83 Billion [CNET]
- Google claims the IRS disallowed a tax break in 2004, which is now worth a hefty $83.5 billion.
- “Google argues that the IRS erroneously disallowed a $238.6 million deduction the company took related to the difference in value between AOL paying to exercise a Google stock warrant and the actual value of the company’s shares.”
- “According to the suit, AOL acquired the $238.6 million in shares about three months before Google priced its IPO and went public. That effectively left Google without those shares to sell in its IPO, and since the warrants were used as remuneration for services AOL was providing to Google at the time, the company wanted to expense the total share outlay.”
- Google is a notorious tax haven shark, skirting billions a year through offshore accounts. So, this suit is, needless to say, ballsy.
Military Blocks The Guardian [Monterey Herald]
- The Military has blocked access to The Guardian Newspaper, in order to protect soldiers from reading leaked classified documents about the NSA.
- Army Spox: “We make every effort to balance the need to preserve information access with operational security… however, there are strict policies and directives in place regarding protecting and handling classified information.”
- It’s a good thing that no one else has written about what The Guardian discovered, so the military’s plan is air-tight. Reminder, these people are in charge of nuclear weapons.
Immigration Reform Has Uphill Battle In The House [TechCrunch]
- The Senate passed a sweeping comprehensive immigration bill yesterday in a 68-32 vote.
- But, Republicans call the bill a “pipe dream,” and plan on passing their own version, currently composed of many different bills, including a separate bill for high-skilled immigrants.
The Daily Show On Texas GOP Computer Fraud
After Wendy Davis’s marathon late-night filibuster of a Texas proposal to limit abortion rights, Republicans attempted to change the electronic timestamps on their votes in support of the bill. Davis’s filibuster had effectively stopped the bill, so the GOP hoped it could retroactively give itself more votes the day before by changing computer records. The Daily Show thought this was brilliant:
Google Expands Search Field Trial To Include Data From Your Gmail Contacts
Google announced that users who participate in its Gmail and Google.com search field trial are now able to also see results from their Gmail contacts from Search. This, the company explains, means you’ll be able to ask Search things like “what’s Brittney’s address?” or you can simply say “Joanna’s phone number,” for instance, in order to query your address book from Google.
The service is meant to be most helpful to users on the go, and works through Google’s Voice Search interface as well, also returning a map and turn-by-turn directions along with address search results, or phone numbers which you can tap to immediately place the call.
Google’s field trials have been underway for some time now, and are open only to U.S. users with a Gmail (not Google Apps) email account. Once opted in, users can google for things like files stored in Google Drive, restaurant and hotel reservations, flights, recent receipts, relevant emails, and, as of earlier this year, upcoming and scheduled events in Google Calendar. The service also integrates with third-parties including OpenTable, Ticketmaster, Eventbrite and more, to help it find the relevant info in your email.
Though the service is incredibly handy for those who are able to give it a shot, it’s unlikely that it will ever become the default because of the sensitive nature of the data it queries – users’ own inboxes and calendars. Many people won’t be comfortable giving Google that level of access, especially following the PRISM debacle, and the heightened awareness over user privacy that introduces.
Current Google field trial users won’t have to do anything to gain access to the new feature, the company says, and support for Google+ profiles is coming soon. Other interested U.S. users can sign up for field trial here.
Survey: Quarter Of US Consumers Has Heard Of Bitcoin - And Majority Of Them Trust It
Depending on your view, Bitcoin is either A) an elaborate Ponzi scheme or B) the currency of the future. Or, if you’re the average man on the street, it’s probably C) something you’ve never heard of. Putting a bit of data behind attitudes to the emergent crypto currency that’s got VCs all excited is a new slice of research conducted by survey firm On Device in conjunction with the organisers of an upcoming London-based Bitcoin conference.
The firm surveyed more than 22,000 U.S. consumers in May 2013 to test Bitcoin awareness and levels of trust at this still relatively early stage in its development. Bitcoin went live on the web in 2009, but in currency terms that still makes it a bawling babe. Add in its distinguishing features — being the first decentralised digital currency — plus ongoing teething issues with infrastructure, and political and legal uncertainties, and nascent is the obvious moniker to describe it. Fragile as a house of cards might be another worthy descriptor. But everything has to start somewhere. And Bitcoin has weathered a fair few ups and downs already in its short history.
So what do U.S. consumers make of Bitcoin right now? Well, according to the survey, just over a quarter (25.3%) have heard of the crypto currency — which means the U.S. is lagging the other two countries also surveyed for the poll, Argentina and the U.K. In those nations, Bitcoin awareness is apparently in the region of a third, with 37.9% and 32.2% Bitcoin-aware respondents respectively. However it’s worth flagging that the research polled far fewer consumers in Argentina and the U.K. (760 and 2,731, respectively) so the margin of error is likely to be higher.
When it comes to trusting Bitcoin, U.S. consumers also lag their Argentinian and British counterparts, but trust levels are still apparently running high among U.S. Bitcoin-aware. The survey found 62% of U.S. consumers who are Bitcoin-aware said they trust the currency, vs 73% of Bitcoin-aware Argentinians and 69% of Bitcoin-aware Brits. Greater awareness of Bitcoin appears to help foster greater levels of trust, as you might expect.
Trust in Bitcoin is still relatively low when compared to trust in national currencies. Again, as you would expect. Bitcoin is the upstart in the room, and isn’t backed by any centralised institutions like national banks — which may also, paradoxically, be helping to boost trust in the currency. The global financial crisis has knocked consumer confidence in traditional, centralised economic institutions and governments so a currency that stands outside the control of the establishment may appear more trustworthy to some. Backing up that stick-it-to-The-Man view, the largest group of Argentinian respondents (44%) said the best thing about Bitcoin is ‘not having to deal with financial institutions’. So banks bad, Bitcoin good.
Unsurprisingly, Argentinians also come out on top as most likely to trust Bitcoin more than their national currency — but being as their currency has been less stable than the U.S. dollar in recent history, that’s to be expected. The old paper money hasn’t fared well enough to make trying something virtual seem massively risky.
The Bitcoin survey found that around a fifth (22%) of Bitcoin-aware Argentinians trust Bitcoin more than their own national currency (while close to half — 48% — rated the two the same). The U.S. was next most trusting of Bitcoin, with 16% trusting Bitcoin more than the dollar. But by far the largest proportion (47%) of U.S. respondents trust it less than the dollar. The U.K. has similarly low levels of Bitcoin trust vs national currency: with 14% trusting Bitcoin more than Sterling and 48% trusting it less.
On the question of whether Bitcoin is the currency of the future, the survey found relatively high levels of belief in its future potential across the board. Argentina came out on top — with approaching half (46%) of those polled affirming a key future role for Bitcoin. But U.S. and U.K. respondents were also relatively positive about Bitcoin’s prospects, with more than a third (38%) apiece saying they believe it is the currency of tomorrow. The U.S. does also contain the largest group of Bitcoin naysayers, though — with almost a quarter (24%) of respondents saying they do not think Bitcoin will take up that central future role.
What about reasons for liking Bitcoin? In the U.S. and the U.K. the most popular response when asked about the best thing about Bitcoin is that “it’s quick and convenient” — cited by 36% and 43% respectively.
Opinions on the worst thing about Bitcoin varied more, with the largest proportion (34%) of respondents from Argentina saying the biggest drawback is “minimal use in trade” — again suggesting that Bitcoin interest there is fuelled by lower levels of trust in a national currency and by a desire to find a replacement for everyday currency, rather than being so fuelled by Bitcoin’s potential as an investment vehicle.
In the U.K. the largest single complaint — cited by just under a third (30%) of respondents — was about Bitcoin’s volatile exchange rate, suggesting Bitcoin interest there is being fuelled more by investors than people who actually want to use Bitcoin to buy goods and services. While, in the U.S., the two most commonly stated reasons to dislike Bitcoin (cited by 29% apiece) were ‘minimal use in trade’ and ‘you can’t physically hold a Bitcoin’. The latter suggesting a purely digital currency still has a way to go to get people to place their trust in it.
What about the sort of things are people using Bitcoin to buy? Turns out electrical items are a popular choice, along with computer software/hardware and entertainment goods like DVDs.
The majority of respondents in all three countries pegged their annual Bitcoin spending on goods and services as sub-$999, with 74% of Argentinian respondents reporting that level of spending, and 73% apiece in the U.S. and U.K.
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