smartphones
`
`social networking
`
`voice over ip
`
`led lighting
`
`multicore CPUs
`
`cloud computing
`
`drone aircraft
`
`planetary rovers
`
`flexible ac transmission
`
`digital photography
`
`class-d audio
`
`t o p 1 1 t e c h n o l o g i e s o f t h e d e c a d e
`
`The most powerful
`technologies take a
`while to mature. But
`when they do, they
`can rapidly retire
`mainstays that
`are decades old
`
`L i f e w a s d i f f e r e n t a d e c a d e a g o . Your phone couldn’t contain your
`entire music collection, for example, or guide you to a restaurant in a foreign
`city. Bomber-reconnaissance planes invariably had pilots on board. And
`how’s this for quaint: Your corner drugstore still stocked photographic fi lm!
`The technolo(cid:157) waves that washed away those realities spread from tremors
`that occurred years before: The fi rst smartphone was unveiled by IBM in
`1993, the fi rst digital photo was taken in 1975, and the fi rst drone aircraft
`fl ew during World War II. Clearly, the seeds of the next crop of technol-
`o(cid:157) staples have already been planted. Perhaps the fi rst tender shoots can
`already be discerned among the pages of this issue.
`—Philip E. Ross
`
` SPECTRUM.IEEE.ORG
`
`JANUARY 2011 • IEEE SPECTRUM • NA 27
`Petitioner Apple Inc. - Ex. 1029, p. 27
`
`01.Top11Technologies.NA.indd 27
`
`12/15/10 3:28 PM
`
`Authorized licensed use limited to: Sidley Austin LLP. Downloaded on August 22,2021 at 11:30:59 UTC from IEEE Xplore. Restrictions apply.
`
`

`

`t o p 1 1 t e c h n o l o g i e s o f t h e d e c a d e
`
`no. 1
`
`Smartphones
`
`the car phone down to
`the size and weight of a
` luggable brick. But once
`the cellphone had earned
`a permanent place in our
`Western Europe
`pockets, it became an
`unavoidable platform for
`innovation, upstaging the
`PC. If Starbucks wants to
`North America
`make it quicker and easier
`to pay for a cup of coš ee,
`why not do it through the
`phone? If The New York
`Middle East and Africa
`Times wants to get away
`from paper, well, everyone’s
`already carrying around a
`perfectly readable screen.
`Latin America
`Smartphones are more
`than just bells and whistles—
`they actually change behav-
`ior. With a traditional mobile
`Central and Eastern Europe
`phone, users spend most of
`their time making calls and
`sending text messages. On a
`smartphone, basic commu-
`Asia Paci(cid:31)c
`nication takes a back seat to
`Internet browsing, e-mail,
`entertainment, and games.
`This diš erence is due to
`three key ingredients, each
`of which has seen tremen-
`dous advances in the last
`decade: hardware, software,
`and network infrastructure.
`The hardware is the most
`obvious. Thanks to high-
`resolution displays with
`touch screens or QWERTY
`keyboards and tiny camera
`lenses on the outside and
`gigahertz processors,
`radio antennas, and image
`sensors on the inside, the
`phones hardly resemble
`their modest predecessors.
`But at least as important
`is the software. “The operat-
`
`FRANK CHIMERO
`
`IS YOUR PHONE
`SMARTER THAN A
`FIFTH GRADER?
`
`Yes
`douglas adams’s
`Hitchhiker’s Guide to the
`Galaxy series is named
`after a pocketable device
`that contains everything
`worth knowing. But that
`seems almost quaint today,
`when you can carry the
`full contents of the Web
`in your pocket, as well
`as a telephone, a camera,
`a radio, a television, and
`a navigation system.
`Today’s smartphones are
`marvels of engineering,
`crammed with more
`features than the average PC.
`They’ve become the prime
`driver of innovation for both
`software and hardware.
`It took half a century
`to shrink the mainframe
`from the size of a living
`room to that of a suitcase.
`It took another decade
`to make it smaller than a
`wallet. The smartphone has
`swallowed and assimilated
`functionality from music
`players, remote controls,
`gaming consoles, even
`printed maps and news
`publications. And now
`that smartphones are
`serving as Wi-Fi hot spots,
`they can replace wireless
`routers and modems, too.
`Smartphones are becoming
`as essential as keys or a
`wallet, and they’ll soon
`
`60
`
`replace those as well [see
`“Company to Watch”].
`This has some real
`consequences. Unlike
`its predecessors, the
`smartphone is an
`inherently personal device:
`Not only is it always on, it’s
`50
`always somewhere on us.
`Without realizing it, we’ve
`let smartphones usher us
`into an age of ubiquitous,
`40
`pervasive computing
`that technologists, as
`well as science-fi ction
`authors, have been
`dreaming about for years.
`30
`“Smartphones help
`users stay connected to
`information at any given
`time, any given location,”
`20
`says Dilip Krishnaswamy,
`a Qualcomm engineer
`and associate editor in
`chief of IEEE Wireless
`Communications. “The
`10
`information is just there
`when you need it.”
`We’ve come to rely on
`such connectivity. There’s
`0
`no need to pack a map or
`directions when an app can
`guide you in real time, nor
`to consult a restaurant guide
`before leaving the house. In
`these and a thousand other
`ways, the smartphone, more
`than any other technology
`to have emerged in the past
`decade, is the one that has
`most changed our lives.
`To be sure, back in 1973,
`Motorola’s Martin Cooper
`didn’t set out to build an
`always-connected, portable
`computing device. He was
`simply trying to shrink
`
`N O T A L L S M A R T Y E T :
`
`Projected smartphone
`penetration
`PERCENTAGE OF ALL MOBILE PHONES
`
`North
`America
`
`Western
`Europe
`
`50%
`
`40%
`
`30%
`
`20%
`
`10%
`
`i c a
`
`r
`
`c i fi c
`
`a
`
`A
`
`e
`
`p
`
`u r o
`
`s i a P
`s t e r n E
`M i d d l e E a s t & A f
`
`a
`
`n tr a l & E
`
`e
`
`C
`
`2010
`
`Latin America
`
`2014
`
`Smartphones are proliferating
`rapidly, but they still make up a
`minority of all mobile phones.
`Customers in North America
`have been especially quick to
`embrace them, but Italy still has
`the highest concentration in the
`world. The low percentage in Asia
`is due partially to the popularity of
`advanced feature phones (which
`have many capabilities but lack
`a true general-purpose operating
`system) in Japan and South Korea.
`Source: Cisco Visual Networking Index,
`February 2010
`
`28 NA • IEEE SPECTRUM • JANUARY 2011
`
` SPECTRUM.IEEE.ORG
`
`SPECTRUM.IEEE.ORG
`
`Petitioner Apple Inc. - Ex. 1029, p. 28
`
`01.Top11Technologies.NA.indd 28
`
`12/15/10 3:28 PM
`
`Authorized licensed use limited to: Sidley Austin LLP. Downloaded on August 22,2021 at 11:30:59 UTC from IEEE Xplore. Restrictions apply.
`
`

`

`Smartphones
`
`the car phone down to
`the size and weight of a
`luggable brick. But once
`the cellphone had earned
`a permanent place in our
`pockets, it became an
`unavoidable platform for
`innovation, upstaging the
`PC. If Starbucks wants to
`make it quicker and easier
`to pay for a cup of cošee,
`why not do it through the
`phone? If The New York
`Times wants to get away
`from paper, well, everyone’s
`already carrying around a
`perfectly readable screen.
`Smartphones are more
`than just bells and whistles—
`they actually change behav-
`ior. With a traditional mobile
`phone, users spend most of
`their time making calls and
`sending text messages. On a
`smartphone, basic commu-
`nication takes a back seat to
`Internet browsing, e-mail,
`entertainment, and games.
`This dišerence is due to
`three key ingredients, each
`of which has seen tremen-
`dous advances in the last
`decade: hardware, software,
`and network infrastructure.
`The hardware is the most
`obvious. Thanks to high-
`resolution displays with
`touch screens or QWERTY
`keyboards and tiny camera
`lenses on the outside and
`gigahertz processors,
`radio antennas, and image
`sensors on the inside, the
`phones hardly resemble
`their modest predecessors.
`But at least as important
`is the software. “The operat-
`
`FRANK CHIMERO
`
`SPECTRUM.IEEE.ORG
`
` SPECTRUM.IEEE.ORG
`
`JANUARY 2011 • IEEE SPECTRUM • NA 29
`Petitioner Apple Inc. - Ex. 1029, p. 29
`
`01.Top11Technologies.NA.indd 29
`
`12/15/10 3:28 PM
`
`Authorized licensed use limited to: Sidley Austin LLP. Downloaded on August 22,2021 at 11:30:59 UTC from IEEE Xplore. Restrictions apply.
`
`

`

`t o p 1 1 t e c h n o l o g i e s o f t h e d e c a d e
`
`C O M P A N Y T O W A T C H : BROADCOM CORP., IRVINE, CALIF.
`If you want your phone to replace your wallet and keys, it will need a near-fi eld communications (NFC) chip.
`Broadcom already supplies companies like Apple with integrated Wi-Fi and Bluetooth chips, and thanks to its August
`2010 purchase of UK-based Innovision, the company should soon be able to add NFC for less than US $1 per unit.
`
`divide between those who
`can ašord smartphones
`and data plans and those
`who can ašord only
`basic mobile phones. In
`fact, many smartphones
`cost more than low-end
`computers, once you take
`away the subsidized prices
`that wireless carriers
`oš er for them. Yet in rural
`and impoverished areas,
`they represent a much
`better investment because
`they’re self-contained,
`needing neither additional
`network infrastructure
`nor even reliable power.
`In any case, many high-
`end features will inexorably
`fi lter down to low-end
`phones, as they have in
`the camera market, and
`what begins as a luxury
`will quickly become a
`necessity. In 2007, sales of
`smartphones surpassed
`sales of laptops, and some
`predict that by 2014 more
`people will browse the
`Internet by phone than
`from traditional computers.
`The drive to communi-
`cate on ever-wider scales has
`shaped many of our techno-
`logical advances, and these
`in turn have shaped how
`we communicate. Moving
`from text messages to
`Twitter updates, from voice
`to video chat seems to be
`part of our evolution. “The
`interesting thing is how it’s
`changing human behavior
`itself,” says Krishnaswamy.
`“Smartphones will become
`a sixth sense for the user,
`gathering information
`from wireless sensors in
`the user’s environment
`and from the network,
`interpreting the informa-
`tion, and providing valu-
`able feedback to the user.”
`
`FRANK CHIMERO
`
`R I M B L A C K B E R R Y
`6 2 1 0 ( 2 0 0 3 )
`Research in Motion’s
`early communicators
`oŸ ered two-way
`text paging, but the
`company soon realized
`that push e-mail service
`was its killer app. RIM
`developed a QWERTY keyboard for
`quick thumb typing and BlackBerry
`Enterprise Servers to tap into existing
`e-mail infrastructure. In addition to
`e-mail and basic Web browsing, the
`6200 series were the fi rst BlackBerries
`that were also fully integrated phones
`(earlier models required a headset).
`
`P A L M T R E O
`6 0 0 ( 2 0 0 3 )
`The Treo combined
`some of the best
`features of the Palm
`Pilot PDAs with a
`mobile phone
`shape, creating a smartphone that had
`appeal beyond business users. With
`its Palm OS, the Treo supported lots of
`third-party apps. Palm OS also gave
`the Treo integrated functions, like the
`ability to dial directly from the contact
`list and check the calendar while on
`the phone.
`
`A P P L E
`i P H O N E
`( 2 0 0 7 )
`Apple’s much
` anticipated iPhone
`immediately obliter-
`ated the competition.
`Its multitouch,
` capacitive touch
`screen encouraged users to inter-
`act using their fi ngertips, and the
`mobile Safari browser made mobile
`Web browsing fun, not just possible.
`Apple also used its clout to upend the
`mobile ecosystem, wresting unprec-
`edented control from carriers. The
`iPhone 3G upgraded the data connec-
`tion and launched the wildly success-
`ful app store.
`
`H T C E V O
`4 G ( 2 0 1 0 )
`At launch, the EVO 4G
`was arguably the best
`Android smartphone
`around: It had an
`8-megapixel camera
`that could shoot HD
`video, HDMI output,
`and a 4.3-inch touch screen. But its best
`trick was the ability to act as a mobile
`hot spot connected to Sprint’s WiMax
`network, the fastest data network in
`the United States at the time.
`
`SIMON: BCOS47/WIKIPEDIA; ALL OTHER PHONES: PROVIDED BY THE MANUFACTURERS
`
`H O W P H O N E S
`G O T S M A R T :
`E I G H T M I L E S T O N E S
`
`I B M S I M O N
`P E R S O N A L
`C O M M U N I C A T O R
`( 1 9 9 3 )
`IBM was ahead of the
`curve back in 1993. The
`Simon was a touch-
`screen phone with a
`calendar, address book,
`calculator, and even
`the capability to send
`and receive e-mails
`and faxes. It was
`impressive, but also bulky, and came
`with a hefty price tag: US $899.
`
`N O K I A 9 0 0 0
`C O M M U N I C A T O R
`( 1 9 9 6 )
`If you wanted a smartphone in the late
`1990s, your choice was pretty much
`limited to the pricey Communicator.
`The device was like a personal
`digital assistant and a mobile phone
`sandwiched together. (It’s rumored
`that an early prototype was actually a
`Hewlett-Packard PDA connected to a
`Nokia phone by a hinge.)
`
`E R I C S S O N
`R 3 8 0 ( 2 0 0 0 )
`The R380 was one of the fi rst
`phones actually marketed
`as a “smartphone.” It was
`the fi rst commercial phone
`to run the Symbian OS.
`Symbian has long been
`the most common
`smartphone operating
`system, but its market share has
`rapidly declined since it began facing
`competition from Apple’s iOS and
`Google’s Android.
`
`S O N Y
`E R I C S S O N
`P 8 0 0
`( 2 0 0 2 )
`The P800 came
`with several
`new features
`that we consider
`standard for smartphones today:
`It could play MP3s, came with a
`camera, and featured a color touch
`screen (although it supported only
`4 096 colors).
`
`Petitioner Apple Inc. - Ex. 1029, p. 30
`
` SPECTRUM.IEEE.ORG
`
`SPECTRUM.IEEE.ORG
`
`ing system is the foundation
`for everything else in a
`smartphone,” says Donna
`Dubinsky, a cofounder of
`Palm, the company that fi rst
`succeeded in cramming
`computer functionality
`into a pocketable device.
`Every major smartphone
`operating system now
`supports third-party
`applications that extend
`the phone’s capabilities
`far beyond what any one
`manufacturer can do.
`And in addition to
`using the resources of the
`phone itself, these apps
`can oš -load data storage
`and processing to the cloud
`[see “It’s Always Sunny in
`the Cloud,” in this issue],
`in the form of server farms
`around the world, thanks
`to ever increasing wireless
`bandwidth—the third
`key development behind
`the smartphone. “People
`naturally want to focus
`on the device itself,” says
`Dubinsky, “but what’s
`important is the complete
`system, including hardware,
`software, and application
`development environment.”
`Current smartphones
`quietly shift between Wi-Fi
`
`B E T Y O U
`D I D N ' T K N O W
`
`South Korea, which has
`long boasted the world’s
`fastest data connections,
`saw average Internet con-
`nection speeds slow by
`24 percent in 2009. Blame
`the iPhone: It made its
`debut on the country’s
`slow wireless networks
`and was then widely
`adopted.
`30 NA • IEEE SPECTRUM • JANUARY 2011
`
`and 3G so that users are
`always connected to the
`best available network.
`Remember that the iPhone,
`still less than four years
`old, didn’t even access
`3G networks when it
`launched. By October of
`last year, you could get a 3G
`signal at the top of Mount
`Everest, and now the fi rst
`4G networks are emerging.
`Today we’re seeing only
`hints of how a smartphone
`world will be diš erent. With
`their numerous sensors,
`they will form nodes in a
`vast and unprecedented
`data collection network.
`Researchers have already
`used phones’ accelerometers
`to follow basic health
`indicators (such as a
`patient’s gait), their GPS
`to monitor crowd and
`pedestrian tra© c patterns,
`and their microphones
`to track bird migrations.
`Several app developers
`have created the fi rst useful
`examples of augmented
`reality—letting you point
`your phone at a restaurant
`and see a bunch of customer
`reviews, for example.
`These capabilities come
`with strings attached,
`notably the addictive eš ects
`of always-on connectivity.
`BlackBerries are rightly
`nicknamed “CrackBerries”
`for the way they feed a
`workaholic’s addiction.
`Krishnaswamy notes that
`we’re training ourselves to
`always be ready for the next
`e-mail or status update, and
`we’re disappointed when
`one doesn’t arrive. And
`not everyone likes it when
`people interrupt dinner
`to surf the Web to fact-
`check the conversation.
`Some experts even
`worry about a new digital
`
`01.Top11Technologies.NA.indd 30
`
`12/15/10 3:28 PM
`
`Authorized licensed use limited to: Sidley Austin LLP. Downloaded on August 22,2021 at 11:30:59 UTC from IEEE Xplore. Restrictions apply.
`
`

`

`Proof #7 LAYOUT FINAL 12/15/10 @ 3:20 pm MS NA
`
`no. 2
`
` Social
`Networking
`
`FRIENDED
`
`Bandwidth, digital
`cameras, and
`a hunger for
`connectedness
`have created a
`virtual dinner party
`a decade ago, it might
`have taken a new person
`in town months to make
`
`contacts, fi nd places
`to hang out, and meet
`like-minded people.
`Now, with a few clicks
`of the mouse, you can
`get the job done through
`social networking—a
`communications revolution
`that began in fi ts and
`starts in the late 1990s and
`reached recognizable form
`
`in March of 2003, with the
`public launch of Friendster.
`“The idea was to have
`the Internet do the work
`of a dinner party,” says
`Kent Lindstrom, a former
`Friendster CEO. A user
`could set up a profi le,
`with personal facts and a
`picture, and invite friends
`to join. Friendster’s servers
`
`JANUARY 2011 • IEEE SPECTRUM • NA 31
`Petitioner Apple Inc. - Ex. 1029, p. 31
`
`divide between those who
`can aš ord smartphones
`and data plans and those
`who can aš ord only
`basic mobile phones. In
`fact, many smartphones
`cost more than low-end
`computers, once you take
`away the subsidized prices
`that wireless carriers
`oš er for them. Yet in rural
`and impoverished areas,
`they represent a much
`better investment because
`they’re self-contained,
`needing neither additional
`network infrastructure
`nor even reliable power.
`In any case, many high-
`end features will inexorably
`fi lter down to low-end
`phones, as they have in
`the camera market, and
`what begins as a luxury
`will quickly become a
`necessity. In 2007, sales of
`smartphones surpassed
`sales of laptops, and some
`predict that by 2014 more
`people will browse the
`Internet by phone than
`from traditional computers.
`The drive to communi-
`cate on ever-wider scales has
`shaped many of our techno-
`logical advances, and these
`in turn have shaped how
`we communicate. Moving
`from text messages to
`Twitter updates, from voice
`to video chat seems to be
`part of our evolution. “The
`interesting thing is how it’s
`changing human behavior
`itself,” says Krishnaswamy.
`“Smartphones will become
`a sixth sense for the user,
`gathering information
`from wireless sensors in
`the user’s environment
`and from the network,
`interpreting the informa-
`tion, and providing valu-
`able feedback to the user.”
`—Joshua J. Romero
`
`FRANK CHIMERO
`
`R I M B L A C K B E R R Y
`6 2 1 0 ( 2 0 0 3 )
`
`developed a QWERTY keyboard for
`quick thumb typing and BlackBerry
`Enterprise Servers to tap into existing
`e-mail infrastructure. In addition to
`e-mail and basic Web browsing, the
`6200 series were the first BlackBerries
`that were also fully integrated phones
`(earlier models required a headset).
`
`P A L M T R E O
`6 0 0 ( 2 0 0 3 )
`The Treo combined
`some of the best
`features of the Palm
`Pilot PDAs with a
`mobile phone
`shape, creating a smartphone that had
`appeal beyond business users. With
`its Palm OS, the Treo supported lots of
`third-party apps. Palm OS also gave
`the Treo integrated functions, like the
`ability to dial directly from the contact
`list and check the calendar while on
`
`SIMON: BCOS47/WIKIPEDIA; ALL OTHER PHONES: PROVIDED BY THE MANUFACTURERS
`
`screen encouraged users to inter-
`act using their fingertips, and the
`mobile Safari browser made mobile
`Web browsing fun, not just possible.
`Apple also used its clout to upend the
`mobile ecosystem, wresting unprec-
`edented control from carriers. The
`iPhone 3G upgraded the data connec-
`tion and launched the wildly success-
`
`H T C E V O
`4 G ( 2 0 1 0 )
`At launch, the EVO 4G
`was arguably the best
`Android smartphone
`around: It had an
`8-megapixel camera
`that could shoot HD
`video, HDMI output,
`and a 4.3-inch touch screen. But its best
`trick was the ability to act as a mobile
`hot spot connected to Sprint’s WiMax
`network, the fastest data network in
`the United States at the time.
`
`SPECTRUM.IEEE.ORG
`
` SPECTRUM.IEEE.ORG
`
`01.Top11Technologies.NA.indd 31
`
`12/15/10 3:28 PM
`
`Authorized licensed use limited to: Sidley Austin LLP. Downloaded on August 22,2021 at 11:30:59 UTC from IEEE Xplore. Restrictions apply.
`
`

`

`t o p 1 1 t e c h n o l o g i e s o f t h e d e c a d e
`
`C O M P A N Y T O W A T C H : NING, PALO ALTO, CALIF.
`Launched in 2005 by Gina Bianchini and Netscape cofounder Marc Andreessen, Ning is betting
`on small, exclusive networks. Already the company hosts 2 million customized social networks,
`including Shred or Die, for extreme skateboarders, and GovLoop, for anyone working in government.
`
`B E T Y O U D I D N ' T K N O W
`Social networks are proving to be gold mines for predicting human behavior. In a proof-of-concept study, scientists at HP Labs
`used movie chitchat on Twitter to accurately predict box o§ce hits. And the police department of Richmond, Va., is now using
`network-analysis software to monitor Facebook, MySpace, and Twitter for evidence of crime incubators, such as rowdy parties.
`
`calculations and instead
`let users cruise the entire
`public site, eavesdrop on
`strangers, create bizarre
`“fakester” profiles—notably
`those of Jesus and of the
`Burger King—and make
`their own connections.
`MySpace’s meteoric success
`(72 million members in
`70 countries by 2007) led
`to a boom of businesses
`that New York University
`social-software analyst Clay
`Shirky labeled “YASNS,”
`as in “Yet Another Social
`Networking Service.”
`For instance, there’s the
`messaging service Tencent
`QQ, which is popular in
`China; Google’s Orkut,
`which is popular in Brazil;
`and Twitter, a blogging
`network that limits posts
`to 140 characters, which
`is popular just about
`everywhere. There’s Flickr
`for photo sharing and
`YouTube for video sharing.
`There’s LinkedIn for job
`networking and Classmates
`for fi nding long-lost school
`friends. And there’s a whole
`host of niche networks:
`Coastr for beer aficionados,
`Goodreads for bookworms,
`ResearchGATE for scientists,
`and Dogster for dog lovers.
`The reign of MySpace,
`however, didn’t last long.
`By September 2009, the
`company could claim just
`30 percent of the American
`social-networking market,
`down from 67 percent the
`year before, according to the
`research firm Hitwise. Its
`biggest mistake was losing
`control of the site’s usability.
`Rather than develop tools
`that would help users
`organize the vast amounts
`of shared information,
`MySpace dumped all its
`resources into new features
`
`Weinreich launched
`Sixdegrees at a party in 1997,
`announcing that “with the
`click of a button,” the site
`would revolutionize human
`networking. Like Friendster,
`Sixdegrees let users identify
`their friends, their friends’
`friends, and so forth. At its
`peak in 1999, it had attracted
`3.5 million members.
`But each of these early
`actors came too early or
`learned a critical lesson
`too late to dominate. For
`Sixdegrees, the major
`fl aw was the absence of
`photographs. “We had
`letters coming in all the time
`asking, ‘If I mail in a picture,
`can you scan it for me and
`put my picture on your
`site?’ ” Weinreich recalls.
`
`friendster and its
`rivals came around at
`just the right time. Point-
`and-shoot cameras were
`ubiquitous. Broadband
`was cheap and available.
`Users could be sure that
`the friends they invited to
`see their profi les and chat
`online had high-speed
`Internet connections and
`plenty of photos to share.
` But Friendster made
`a single, master mistake:
`It took on customers faster
`than it could manage
`them. By the end of 2003,
`Friendster was acquiring
`some 9500 users a day, and
`the company was struggling
`to buy enough servers to
`keep up with the growth.
`Users complained that their
`home pages regularly took
`more than a minute to load.
`Their frustration paved
`the way for MySpace, a Los
`Angeles start-up founded
`by hackers Chris DeWolfe
`and Tom Anderson. They
`did away with pesky friend
`
`MCKIBILLO
`
`would then generate a
`continually updated list
`of her friends as well
`as her friends’ friends,
`mapping relationships
`out to four degrees of
`separation. Within nine
`months, Friendster had
`a million members.
`Around that time,
`Fortune magazine prophe-
`sied, “There may be a new
`kind of Internet emerging—
`one more about connecting
`people to people than people
`to websites.” Indeed, such
`an Internet has emerged,
`though, as so often is the
`case, the fi rst movers have
`been left behind. The big
`winner has been Facebook,
`founded less than a year
`after Friendster went
`public. Facebook has
`540 million users who
`spend about 700 billion
`minutes on the site every
`
`month; if it were a country,
`it’d be the third most
`populous in the world.
`
`you can live much of
`your life in that strange,
`virtual country. Matthias
`Galica, 26, founded
`ShareSquare in May 2010
`to enable users to print bar
`codes to “geotag” objects in
`the real world so they could
`be followed in the virtual
`one. The day he moved
`the business into a loft in
`downtown Los Angeles,
`he got an e-mail message
`through his Facebook
`account from one of his
`more than 1400 “Facebook
`friends” inviting him to join
`the Facebook group DTLA.
`He clicked the “Accept
`Invitation” icon, which
`connected him instantly to
`hundreds of like-minded
`Los Angelenos. Later that
`
`night, at a concert, he
`used his iPhone to log into
`Foursquare, a friend-locator
`service, which automatically
`posted the message
`“Matthias just checked-in
`@Shrine Auditorium”
`to his Facebook page,
`prompting an impromptu
`get-together with another
`member of DTLA.
`“Connections that
`would’ve taken months
`now happen in a space of
`hours,” Galica remarks.
`This is exactly the kind of
`life promoted by Friendster,
`which was left in the dust by
`MySpace, which was lapped
`by Facebook. Yet even
`Friendster climbed up on
`the shoulders of still-earlier
`pioneers. The most notable
`was Sixdegrees, arguably
`the fi rst true social network.
`Twenty-eight-year-old New
`York businessman Andrew
`
`H O N O R A B L E M E N T I O N
`
`E-paper
`Paper or Plastic?
`In 2020, newspapers
`will still be with us, but
`they won’t be paper
`Despite the increasing sophistication
`of electronic displays, with their
`staggering color palettes and
`expanding contrast levels, Gutenberg’s
`15th-century technology didn’t begin
`to give way until the 2000s. That was
`when electronic paper made its debut
`in digital book readers like Amazon’s
`Kindle and Barnes & Noble’s Nook.
`E-paper exploits a phenomenon
`called electrophoresis, discovered in
`1807 and revived at Xerox PARC in the
`1970s but put to practical use at MIT’s Media Lab
`only in 1997. It uses a jolt of current to make the
`
`black dye inside thousands of microcapsules
`sandwiched between fl exible polymer sheets rise
`to the top of the capsules so that the “ink”
`becomes visible through one of the
`sheets. A great advantage
`of this method is that
`it draws power only
`when updating the
`image on the screen.
`Recent models oŸ er
`a contrast ratio
`similar to that of
`a newspaper.
`Speaking of the
`dailies, they just
`may supplant books
`as the killer app for
`e-readers. Uploading
`a digital version of
`your hometown
`broadsheet on a
`plastic sheet that you can roll
`up and tuck in your bag would
`eliminate the cost of printing
`and distribution, and it’d also save a lot of trees.
`—Willie D. Jones
`
`32 NA • IEEE SPECTRUM • JANUARY 2011
`
` SPECTRUM.IEEE.ORG
`
`SPECTRUM.IEEE.ORG
`
`Petitioner Apple Inc. - Ex. 1029, p. 32
`
`01.Top11Technologies.NA.indd 32
`
`12/15/10 3:29 PM
`
`Authorized licensed use limited to: Sidley Austin LLP. Downloaded on August 22,2021 at 11:30:59 UTC from IEEE Xplore. Restrictions apply.
`
`

`

`C O M P A N Y T O W A T C H : NING, PALO ALTO, CALIF.
`Launched in 2005 by Gina Bianchini and Netscape cofounder Marc Andreessen, Ning is betting
`on small, exclusive networks. Already the company hosts 2 million customized social networks,
`including Shred or Die, for extreme skateboarders, and GovLoop, for anyone working in government.
`
`B E T Y O U D I D N ' T K N O W
`Social networks are proving to be gold mines for predicting human behavior. In a proof-of-concept study, scientists at HP Labs
`used movie chitchat on Twitter to accurately predict box o§ ce hits. And the police department of Richmond, Va., is now using
`network-analysis software to monitor Facebook, MySpace, and Twitter for evidence of crime incubators, such as rowdy parties.
`
`calculations and instead
`let users cruise the entire
`public site, eavesdrop on
`strangers, create bizarre
`“fakester” profi les—notably
`those of Jesus and of the
`Burger King—and make
`their own connections.
`MySpace’s meteoric success
`(72 million members in
`70 countries by 2007) led
`to a boom of businesses
`that New York University
`social-software analyst Clay
`Shirky labeled “YASNS,”
`as in “Yet Another Social
`Networking Service.”
`For instance, there’s the
`messaging service Tencent
`QQ, which is popular in
`China; Google’s Orkut,
`which is popular in Brazil;
`and Twitter, a blogging
`network that limits posts
`to 140 characters, which
`is popular just about
`everywhere. There’s Flickr
`for photo sharing and
`YouTube for video sharing.
`There’s LinkedIn for job
`networking and Classmates
`for fi nding long-lost school
`friends. And there’s a whole
`host of niche networks:
`Coastr for beer afi cionados,
`Goodreads for bookworms,
`ResearchGATE for scientists,
`and Dogster for dog lovers.
`The reign of MySpace,
`however, didn’t last long.
`By September 2009, the
`company could claim just
`30 percent of the American
`social-networking market,
`down from 67 percent the
`year before, according to the
`research fi rm Hitwise. Its
`biggest mistake was losing
`control of the site’s usability.
`Rather than develop tools
`that would help users
`organize the vast amounts
`of shared information,
`MySpace dumped all its
`resources into new features
`
`it thought would drive
`tra© c: bulletin boards,
`job listings, horoscopes,
`even a YouTube-esque
`video-sharing service
`called MySpaceTV. The
`site got so cluttered that
`many users left to look
`for something simpler.
`
`facebook conquered
`in part because it took to
`heart the lessons of its
`predecessors’ mistakes. For
`instance, its founder, Mark
`Zuckerberg, expanded
`from the company’s base
`at Harvard by adding
`one university at a
`time, ensuring that no
`new customers would
`come online until the
`servers could handle
`the additional tra© c.
`Facebook also lured
`Internet users with its
`sleek, easy-to-use interface
`and engineering wizardry.
`One of its most innovative
`features was Multi-Feed,
`which searches your friends’
`databases for new updates
`and streams them to your
`home page as a continuous
`news feed. Facebook
`now contends with some
`30 billion shared updates
`a month—a monumental
`processing feat that requires
`tens of thousands of servers.
`When the feed was
`introduced, some veteran
`users derided it as an
`intrusive assault on
`their privacy. But most
`of them stayed to gawk,
`and many new users
`poured in because of
`it. Each new attempt to
`expand Facebook’s reach
`has prompted renewed
`criticism that the company
`allows users too little
`control over their own data.
`Rival sites have rushed
`
`to fi ll the possible privacy
`gap. Diaspora, a New
`York University student-
`built network, lets users
`program their own servers
`rather than rely on a
`centralized system. Ning,
`based in Palo Alto, Calif.,
`oš ers a do-it-yourself
`social-networking platform
`for tight-knit communities.
`Next up could be Google
`Me, the search giant’s
`most recent foray into the
`social-networking business.
`However, it seems that
`Facebook is here to stay.
`“Their scale makes
`them formidable,” says
`Weinreich, who believes
`that Zuckerberg has
`successfully constructed
`the ultimate “social
`graph”—a term for the
`web of relationships the
`26-year-old billionaire
`popularized in May 2007,
`when he announced
`to a warehouse full of
`programmers in San
`Francisco that he was
`opening up Facebook’s
`infrastructure to anyone
`wanting to run programs
`on it. Little more than three
`years later, Facebook’s
`social graph has become
`a powerful business
`platform. Independent
`software developers have
`coded a cumulative 550 000
`applications for Facebook
`users. Some are absurd.
`SuperPoke, for example,
`lets users virtually “kiss”
`or “spank” their friends.
`Others, particularly
`multiplayer games, such
`as Zynga’s Mafi a Wars
`and FarmVille, have
`cultivated multimillion-
`dollar businesses.
`To spread Facebook’s
`infl uence even further,
`its engineers created
`
`Facebook Connect, a
`software-to-software
`communication tool (an
`application programming
`interface, or API) that lets
`