I agree with his prediction of the future: eventually, the Ticketmaster-Live Nation merged company will move to dynamic pricing for all tickets, similar to how airlines price tickets today. If it’s a hot ticket, prices could skyrocket even higher than scalpers’ prices today. Then again, if tickets aren’t selling, there might be a last-minute fire sale–good for fans.

Eventually, concert tickets will be sold through a dynamic pricing model, just like items in a bazaar.

(Credit: Photo by Babak Gholizadeh, via Wikipedia)

A lot has happened in the intervening time–Live Nation emerged as a competitor to Ticketmaster, then agreed to merge with Ticketmaster, and The Wall Street Journal has published a couple
of articles exposing the fact that artists and managers often team up with ticket sellers (like Ticketmaster) and brokers (like Ticketmaster subsidiary TicketExchange) to sell their own allotments of tickets for several times their face value.

More fascinating, however, is Trent’s account of how he wrestled with the temptation to sell the band’s allotment of tickets–10 percent, in NIN’s case–for more than face value. As he rightly points out, as long as there are people willing to pay $1,000 for front-row seats, either the band has to charge that amount and be criticized for looking greedy, or a second market is going to thrive.

In the end, NIN decided to charge only face value for its allotment of presale fan club seats and to put antiscalping provisions in place: buyers’ names will be printed on the ticket, and buyers will have to go through a special entrance where IDs will be checked. He believes that forgoing short-term gain in the interest of long-term fan relationships is the right thing to do.

A year and a half after I first blogged about ticket brokers and the free market, the rest of the world is finally catching on to the fact that scalping isn’t going away.

If you’re sick of paying exorbitant prices for big-concert arena tickets, I promise you that there are plenty of small bands playing in your town tonight that you’d enjoy, that would love to have you there, and that won’t charge you more than $30 for the privilege. You might not get to hear your favorite song, but you’ll actually see and hear the band up close, and you won’t have to deal with that “down in front” guy who always seems to sit behind you.

Larrabee, a “many-core” graphics processor scheduled for 2009 or 2010, will come with a brand-new set of vector-processing instructions as part of its design, said Pat Gelsinger, senior vice president and co-general manager of Intel’s digital enterprise group. Vector-processing instructions are used to improve the performance of graphics and video applications; you may have heard of previous vector-processing implementations such as SSE4.

(Credit:
Intel)

So this is Intel’s pitch: it wants to get in on the graphics/multimedia game, since PC workloads are expected to head more and more in that direction. But it wants Larrabee to be like the release of a new Core 2 Duo processor: you’ll have to learn how to use the new vector instructions to unlock the new performance, in the same manner you’d have to learn the new SSE4 instructions introduced last year with the Penryn chips, but you won’t have to otherwise reinvent the wheel. Larrabee will also support familiar APIs (application programming interfaces) like DirectX and OpenGL, Gelsinger confirmed.

Gelsinger spent the remainder of his address talking up Nehalem, which is due to arrive this year. Nehalem is going to be a hodge-podge of chips, with two, four, and eight core models scheduled to be in production later this year. They’ll also use integrated memory controllers and point-to-point interconnects for speeding up the connections to memory and to other cores, respectively. Those were ideas brought into the mainstream by AMD years ago, and they should provide a significant boost to Intel’s chip line, since the company was doing pretty well without them.

High-performance graphics chips are generally designed to do one thing, and do it fast. They aren’t designed to handle the wide variety of workloads that PC chips tackle every day. As it becomes possible to add more and more cores to an individual chip, however, Intel, AMD, and Nvidia are investigating ways to build developer-friendly versions of graphics chips that can take on wider varieties of workloads.

These new instructions, combined with Larrabee’s compatibility with the x86 instruction set, will make life easier for software developers, according to Gelsinger. In addition to regular graphics tasks currently dominated by Nvidia and Advanced Micro Devices, Intel wants Larrabee to be able to take on a wider variety of tasks.

(Credit:
Tom Krazit/CNET News.com)

All told, we still don’t know a hell of a lot about Larrabee. Gelsinger claims that big software development houses are excited about what they’ve seen so far from the project, but he did not offer any specific examples. The water-cooler conversation after his talk suggested that PC gaming companies will like this idea of a high-performance “many-core” (think more than eight) processor that’s easier to program than IBM’s Cell processor inside the
PlayStation 3, for example.

Along a similar vector (nothing better than CPU puns), Intel disclosed that its “Sandy Bridge” processor, which is going to be a 2010 product, will also use a set of vector-processing instructions that the company is calling AVX. Gelsinger called AVX “SSE on steroids,” suggesting that chip will take a big leap forward in graphics/multimedia performance.

The trouble is that “developer-friendly” line. Some of the current approaches for GPGPUs involve learning specialized programming techniques that are applicable just to that chip, and many of those are still very, very new compared with the 30-plus years of experience that people have had developing for the x86 instruction set.

“Attempts to create new programmable architectures are painful heavy-lifting over time, and for the most part they fail,” said Gelsinger. And he should know: Intel’s last attempt to create a new programmable architecture with the Itanium processor’s EPIC instruction set hasn’t come close to what Intel had once hoped to accomplish. Itanium hasn’t been an abject failure, since people are buying the chips and development continues, but it’s quite clear that Itanium is not, and will not be, the future of computing.

Intel released a few incremental details about its future graphics chip on Monday, but left a lot of unanswered questions about the company’s push into uncharted waters.

Meet Intel's Larrabee, the company's future stab at entering into the graphics market.

This is an emerging area of PC chip development–designing PC chips that use the best parts of graphics chips to improve performance. It’s referred to by several names, with perhaps the most common label “GPGPU,” or general-purpose graphics processing unit.

Intel's Pat Gelsinger, head of the company's digital enterprise group, takes questions about Larrabee.

By contrast, the NRDC supports investments for the development of underground storage of carbon dioxide from coal, said Hawkins. The reasoning has more to do with politics than the environment, though.

A climate change law that restricts carbon dioxide emissions is likely to come out in the next year, said Morris, who made clear he intends to meet emissions limits in large part with underground carbon storage.

The other reason to forge ahead with research in underground carbon storage is for the U.S. to take leadership in climate change to other countries, notably coal-dependent India and China.

“Where does coal come from? It still comes from mountaintop removal…It still pollutes billions of gallons of water a year,” he said.

Carbon capture and storage, where carbon dioxide is isolated and pumped underground, is considered vital technology to making coal less polluting. Coal is the source of about half the electricity in the U.S. and about 70 percent around the world. At the same time, underground storage of coal–a major contributor to carbon emissions–is opposed because it is not proven and because coal causes many environmental hazards.

To Michael Brune of the Rainforest Action Network, pursuing carbon, capture, and storage technology diverts valuable resources from cleaner sources of energy while making the climate change problem worse.

Coal: a difficult conversation. From left: Fotune's Adam Lashinsky, AEP's Michael Morris, Rainforest Action Network's Michael Brune, and NRDC's David Hawkins.

The technology, being tested in AEP’s demonstration facility, is not fully operational and needs to become more efficient. The company is seeking Department of Energy loans to build a larger facility. Energy Secretary Steven Chu is a “big believer,” Morris said.

AEP’s Morris believes that global warming from the build up of greenhouse gases like carbon dioxide in the atmosphere needs to be addressed through carbon regulations. But to think that coal will stay in the ground in naive in his view.

The NRDC, like other environmental groups, is also fighting to address other environmental problems from coal, which Hawkins called “fixable problems.”

“The way to get China and India to take this seriously is for the United States to treat this seriously,” Hawkins said.

(Credit:
Martin LaMonica/CNET)

The CEO of American Electric Power, Michael Morris, spoke on the same panel with Michael Brune, the executive director of the Rainforest Action Network, and David Hawkins, the director of climate programs at the Environmental Defense Council on Tuesday at the Fortune Brainstorm Green conference here.

AEP is the second-largest electricity generator in the U.S. and gets 73 percent of its power from coal. The company is now in the process of building a new coal-fired power plant in Arkansas and investing in a demonstration facility to store carbon dioxide from burning coal underground.

He estimated that building carbon, capture and storage equipment on coal plants pushes the price of electricity up from three to four cents a kilowatt-hour to five to six cents.

To pass a climate change law that sets the U.S. on a path of reducing carbon emissions in the coming decades, members of Congress from coal-dependent states need to be convinced, he said.

Brune said the technology is not yet safe or economical. Coal also has several other bad pollutants, such as mercury, and the source of many environmental and health problems.

“It’s a prism of answers with energy efficiency and renewable energy. But you’re kidding yourself if you think you are taking coal off the board,” he said.

“We have two ways to do things. We can change the Congress or we can change the Congress’ mind. We don’t have time to change the Congress,” Hawkins said.

“The reality is there is no such thing as clean coal. There is not a single commercial plant in the U.S. that captures carbon emissions and stores them underground,” he said. “Within the next 10 or 15 years, we could find a way, technologically speaking (to do it). I’m not saying it can’t be done. I’m saying we shouldn’t try.”

“The idea is to create a more consistent, enhanced experience for our customers,” Dudley said. “We can’t allow a small percentage of customers to use an inordinate amount of the network to the detriment of the majority of customers.”

Think about this. Today Time Warner offers a fixed priced for data service. The fastest speed service available is for 10 Mbps downloads and 512 kbps uploads for $44.95 a month. Someone who is willing to spend $45 a month for 10 Mbps of bandwidth is probably the same person who uses peer-to-peer applications. Your basic run-of-the-mill users are probably subscribing to the cheaper 1.5 Mbps/256 kbps service for $29.95

Time Warner Cable is testing a new pricing structure where heavy broadband users will be charged based on how much data they transfer, a company spokesman said Wednesday.

Peer-to-peer protocols allow users to access content that is distributed throughout the network on other computers running the same application. It’s commonly used to transfer music and video files, as well as other large data files.

Service providers, such as AT&T, Comcast, and Time Warner, have been complaining recently that peer-to-peer traffic eats up valuable bandwidth. AT&T argues that much of this traffic is used to distribute illegal content, and the company is testing filtering technology to block it.

Comcast has taken a different approach. It has used traffic shaping to slow down some kinds of peer-to-peer traffic. These moves have prompted outcries from consumer groups, and the Federal Communications Commission is currently investigating whether Comcast has violated any of its policies or principles.

I can almost guarantee you that the $44.95 customers are also savvy enough to know that they are going to lose in the metered-Web model. And they will likely just switch to a competitor, such as Verizon Communications, which offers 15 Mbps downloads and 2 Mbps uploads on its Fios fiber service for $53 a month. Of course, the problem for most consumers is that Fios isn’t available everywhere.

Meanwhile, Time Warner thinks that metering bandwidth usage will help solve the problem.

My first impression of this new model is that Time Warner is treading on some dangerous territory. What is ironic to me is that the company will probably scare off the very high-end customers it wants to attract.

A few months ago, they remodeled to get rid of the large screen and seating area they used for in-store workshops. I liked the few classes I happened in upon during the weekend, but most of them were sparsely attended, and the workshops I really wanted to take–like Garage Band–were during normal work hours. In place of the demo area, they more than doubled the size of the Genius Bar, Apple’s in-store customer support desk. The end-result: a mass of highly engaged customers at the back of the store, instead of a mostly empty space. (Engaged might mean enraged, but it seems that even customers with serious problems–like a dead
iPod out of warranty–remain calm when faced with a real person as opposed to an anonymous phone support employee.)

I’ve occasionally seen and heard rumors of a Microsoft push into retail. If so, they should be using the Apple Store as a model–nobody else does it better.

Recently, I’ve noticed two interesting changes at my local Apple Store, both evidence of Apple’s mastery of retail.

My local Apple Store is an attraction, not just a store.

Sony has a lot of great products as well, but when I go to the nearby Sony Style store, it always feels a little haphazard, with PlayStations next to flat TVs next to Blu-ray discs. And it’s never crowded. And I never leave with a purchase. (Although the array of flat-screens looping this Bravia commercial is refreshingly inoffensive–very little branding–and completely mesmerizes my two-year-old daughter.)

Maybe two years ago, I hosted a panel discussion on the emerging Web 2.0 economy, and I asked my panelists if we were in a bubble. Because it’s clear to me that we are. Not that it’s a bad thing, mind you. This is how technology evolves: like life itself, in blooms and crashes. And I think we should all acknowledge where we are in the cycle. Anyway, one of my panelists, SoftTech venture capitalist Jeff Clavier, was adamant that this was no bubble.

Jeff Clavier at ETech: I can make mountains from your molehills.

For entrepreneurs who have dreams of building a real company–one that “scales,” as they say–Clavier’s position makes sense. But I argue that Clavier is looking for big wins in the wrong places. It’s quite a trick to take a small (by VC standards) idea and make it big. Personally, I’d rather see the venture money funnel into truly big ideas, where there is only limited likelihood that profits will plateau, or even arrive at all, before the company is well established. As I’ve said previously, to win big, bet big.

Clavier, and other Web VCs, have a problem: start-ups are getting off the ground with minimal funding, and some are achieving moderate financial success very early on. That makes them think they don’t need funding. Clavier claims that attitude limits them. So when Clavier is trying to sell a company his money, he first has to convince them that their cash flow is irrelevant and distracting.

(Credit:
Rafe Needleman / CNET)

A source close to Revision3 would not confirm or deny a Belmont hire, but did say to “watch the blogs” on Wednesday morning.

Gossip and speculation? Yep. But I’m betting five bucks that Veronica Belmont is headed to Tekzilla. If she’s not Tekzilla’s new host, I owe somebody $5. If you’re lucky, maybe it’ll be you!

Looks like that speculation may have been correct. Revision3 put out a press release on Tuesday that revealed the show’s April 18 episode will indeed introduce a new co-host for Tekzilla, but did not say who it was. Currently, the gadget program has a solo host, Patrick Norton. Belmont, who did not immediately respond to an e-mail inquiry, has guest-hosted the program before.

Mahalo founder Jason Calacanis, who originally hired Belmont, wrote last week on his blog that Belmont would be working on two new projects and that they would allow her to work in San Francisco rather than Los Angeles, where Mahalo is based.

UPDATE at 1:39 PM PT on Wednesday: It’s official. Veronica Belmont will be the new co-host of Tekzilla.

More specifically, some wondered if she might be hired as a host for the Tekzilla show, which covers new gadgets and hardware. (Tekzilla, along with several other Revision3 shows, are syndicated on CNET TV, a sister site to CNET News.com.)

I bring this up out of love, not hate. I’m a newspaper junkie. My first jobs out of college were in small dailies on the police beat, and part of me still romanticizes that work. (OK, so it’s the part of me that probably doesn’t remember the lousy pay and waiting for a cop quote at a crime scene in a New England snowstorm.) Point is, newspapers have a lot to learn from tech news sites.

(Credit:
Psystar)

But there’s one thing we know for sure: Citizen journalism has played a major role in ferreting out the Psystar story. And with that involvement, we’re getting a better understanding of how mainstream newspapers can work with folks who aren’t trying to make a living off gathering the news but are interested in telling the world what they know.

But then again, the way things are going at many newspapers, going out of business is also a risk.

Sure, plenty of old-time journalists go on tantrums about citizen journalism (”How dare they?! This is a profession!! You have to study at the Columbia School of Journalism first!”). On the contrary, I think it’s forward-thinking. What Gizmodo did was gave their readers a stake in the news; they became participants, not just followers.

As anyone who’s worked the crime beat at a newspaper can tell you, it’s not the police who tell you what really happened, it’s the nosy neighbors. True, the nosy neighbors (or well-intentioned tech site readers) can be wrong from time to time. That’s a risk, and that’s why the world still needs editors.

Of course, the citizen journalism model is far from perfect. Earlier this week, Gizmodo sent its Miami readers after Psystar. They came back with photos showing (aha!) that Psystar wasn’t at the address it claimed. There was only one problem: they went to the wrong address.

Do you care about your neighborhood as much as this computer?

Now in fairness to the Gizmodo readers, Psystar has changed the address it lists at least four times by my colleague Tom Krazit’s count. And if it weren’t for those readers at Gizmodo and other sites CNET like News.com (many of whom also dug up interesting business records), along with some good reporting at outlets like The Guardian, the many red flags about Psystar wouldn’t have been raised so quickly.

We’re in day five of the tech community’s obsession with Psystar, that odd little company in Miami that claims to be selling Apple-like computers. There are still plenty of questions about Psystar. Shoot, we still don’t even know for certain if Psystar is legitimate.

Think Mac fans are crazy-passionate? Try a San Francisco parent worried about what school his or her kid will get into through the city’s baffling school lottery system. Think open-source programmers like to go into the weeds in their technical discussions? Try a Red Sox or Yankees fan in late September.

A pipe dream? I don’t think so. Not even Craigslist, which has done so much to damage newspaper revenues, can offer that kind of hyper-local advertising. No, this isn’t going to save print newspapers. But it could help keep them alive in an online form.

Imagine if most newspaper Web sites had community bloggers–a blogger for every tight-knit neighborhood or small town, hitting all the local school news, the restaurant comings and goings, even the local precinct’s police blotter. These blogs could be neighborhood forums, meeting places for the nitty-gritty news that regular newspaper reporters probably don’t want to deal with. They could even be platforms for localized classified ads.

Can you imagine if newspapers could generate the enthusiasm for their stories that tech sites managed to do for their Psystar coverage? The potential for that enthusiasm is there. Newspapers, not even the online versions of them, just aren’t doing a very good job of tapping it.

The 2009 World Cyber Games grand final will be held in Chengdu, China. The 2008 final is being held in Cologne, Germany.

The exact dates of the 2009 event weren’t revealed.

And while the World Cyber Games made its announcement Tuesday, it also said it would be holding a “formal” announcement ceremony in Chengdu on April 23.

The news about the 2009 event is notable because it adds credibility to China as a home for serious video game playing and players. The news comes shortly after the Championship Gaming Series–a professional video game league–announced that it would be opening a training facility and the world’s first video game arena in Wuhan, China.

The World Cyber Games, probably the largest global video game tournament, announced Tuesday that it will hold the grand finale of its 2009 event in Chengdu, China.

(Credit:
World Cyber Games)

The 2007 tournament was held in Seattle, while the 2008 final will be held in Cologne, Germany, this November. But that has been known for some time.

What’s not known is if there will be protests surrounding the World Cyber Games in Chengdu along the lines of what’s been seen in Paris and San Francisco this week in relation to the passage of the Olympic torch.

“But I’m also personally delighted that we’re breaking through barriers for women in leadership positions in the scientific-research community,” she added. “I hope my new role will serve as an inspiration for other women in scientific fields, and particularly for young girls who may be interested in math and science. I want to show them that math and science are cool, that research is creative and exciting, and that there is a path for women in technical fields at companies like Microsoft.”

Credit: Microsoft
Jennifer Tour Chayes

The lab will be run by Jennifer Tour Chayes, a veteran of Microsoft Research. The press release was quick to note that Chayes is the first woman to run one of the company’s labs.

Microsoft’s existing labs are in Redmond, Wash.; Silicon Valley; Beijing; Bangalore, India; and, confusingly enough, Cambridge, England.

Microsoft on Monday said it plans in July to open its sixth research lab, in Cambridge, Mass.

“The new lab will enable Microsoft Research to interact closely with the large community of scientists in New England, notably the faculty and students at the many premier academic institutions in the vicinity,” Microsoft said in the release. “It will also provide researchers with the opportunity to interact with people in Microsoft’s incubation centers and newly acquired companies in the region.”

Chayes commented on both the importance of the lab and the significance of her appointment as a lab director.

The new lab will focus initially on “core computer science, especially more algorithmically oriented areas, and the social sciences, with a particular emphasis on building connections between these two areas,” Microsoft said, adding that there will also be a small team working on design issues.