demand

Hey, book authors! Has Hyperink got a deal for you!

San Francisco-based Hyperink, a self-publishing company, is capturing the attention of wannabe authors. It's also got the attention of Lerer Ventures, a seed stage venture capital fund founded by Kenneth Lerer, the chairman and co-founder of The Huffington Post.

In the beginning, Huffington Post editors combed top search-engine terms and stories on politics, celebrities, media, and other trending topics. They then had their bloggers retell the stories (in most cases, better than the original version) in the punchier, HuffPo style.

Hyperink is similar. The startup, which launched today, aims to publish books about obscure and niche-specific topics, like "… Read more

Has content become advertising for advertising?

Since the advent of the Web, online publishers have had to create unique content to attract premium ad rates. Over the past few years, however, a flood of subpar content has seemingly taken over the Web, driven by high-growth sites such as Demand Media and the AOL-owned Huffington Post.

These types of sites have enjoyed surging traffic by creating relatively simplistic content, repurposing and "aggregating" premium content, and gaming Google's search algorithm. But this strategy faces a growing backlash and as a result may have hit its natural ceiling, and that could create opportunities for new online-media … Read more

NOD 32 returns, but to tough turf

The bottom line: Back from the nearly dead, or at least the un-updated, ESET returns with high-level security that's light on your system. For a basic antivirus suite that's light on your system and tough on malware, NOD32 gets a yes from us.

Review:

The last time ESET updated its two security suites--the antivirus and anti-malware-only NOD32 and the more feature-heavy alternative Smart Security--it was a different computer security world. It was March 2009: Anonymous barely existed, Stuxnet hadn't gone public, and ransomware was the stuff of science fiction.

Version 5 of ESET NOD32 is a solid, … Read more

Garmin debuts on-demand GPS iOS app

It's always a good idea to have a premium navigation app on your phone when traveling, one that you can use without a cellular connection.

The problem is most of these apps are rather expensive, with price tags around $30 or more. This makes the app not a very good investment if you just want to use it a few times. This is the problem Garmin is trying to solve with its new GPS app for the iPhone.

The company announced today the StreetPilot OnDemand app for iOS devices. This is a full navigation app with offline maps that … Read more

SPB TV streams mostly obscure channels to your Android

SPB TV lets you watch over 150 television channels from all over the world, giving you both live and on-demand video streams right on your Android device. But be warned: watching streaming video does require a strong Web connection--preferably Wi-Fi or 4G--so if you don't have one, you may very disappointed.

When you first fire up SPB TV, the app takes a minute to download channel data to your device. Once it's done, you can go ahead and skip the prompt for your personal information, as the app works fine without it. From there, just swipe through the … Read more

How smart grid fought off U.S. heat wave

The U.S. electricity grid powered through a record-setting heat wave last week with an assist from demand response, an efficiency technique poised for broader use.

The heat wave pummeled large parts of the Eastern and Southern U.S. last week, causing a spike in peak-time demand from added air conditioning loads. Three grid operators, or regional transmission organizations (RTOs), set new records for the highest peak demand load, with the New York grid only slighting missing its peak.

Grid operators met soaring demand by ordering power from addition generators, called "peaker plants," which only operate a few … Read more

Get a quick and easy invitation to Spotify

By now you've probably heard about on-demand music service Spotify, which has finally arrived in the U.S. (As CNET's Donald Bell noted in his hands-on coverage of Spotify, "music fans have reason to cheer.") For now, however, it's invitation-only--and invitations have been very slow in coming.

Until now. Good old Coca-Cola is offering free Spotify invitations to anyone willing to supply an e-mail address. And I like the company's little privacy disclaimer:

"As much as Coke loves to share, we will NOT be giving your information to any third parties. Only Spotify … Read more

Prominent Web activist arrested over data theft

Web activist Aaron Swartz was arrested in Boston today, accused of stealing 4 million documents from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and Jstor, an archive of scientific journals and academic papers, The New York Times is reporting.

It isn't clear why Swartz was allegedly after obtaining the documents, but according to a copy of the indictment, the charges against Swartz by the U.S. Attorney include wire fraud, computer fraud, obtaining information from a protected computer, and criminal forfeiture. If convicted, Swartz faces up to 35 years in prison and three years of supervised release, according to a Boston … Read more

Nine Netflix alternatives

Netflix recently announced price increases that upset a lot of customers, to say the least.

Whether or not you're planning to cancel your own Netflix account, it's good to know what alternatives are out there. Here are nine Netflix alternatives:

DVD rental

Redbox Redbox rents physical discs through strategically located kiosks inside retail stores. You may have already seen them in your local drug store or grocery market; the all-red kiosks are hard to miss. To rent a title, you walk up to a kiosk, make your selection, and pay for it. For added convenience, you can also … Read more