What started out as an attempt to create better tools for creating led by employees of Microsoft, Sonos, Google and more, has now reached its next step. The makers of the highly popular drawing/sketching app Paper, FiftyThree announced today that they brought in $15 million of Series A funding led by Andreessen Horowitz’s Chris Dixon. He joins a list of high profile investors such as SV Angel’s Ron Conway, Highline Ventures, Thrive Capital’s Josh Kushner, and Twitter/Square founder Jack Dorsey.

This news brings a glimmer of hope to app startups wanting success in an investor community that has been largely skeptical on app startups that don’t have a ‘follow’ button, or any sort of ability to view a stream of information. FiftyThree’s main source of revenue is actually from in-app purchases, in which the user is able to pay for more brushes such as a pencil, watermark paint, a felt pen, or a marker, with a rubber and fountain pen being the standard. They also added the colour pad later on, allowing you to mix colours in a gradient fashion, and most recently a feature that allows you to view a gallery of artwork made by other users.

However, in-app purchases aren’t exactly a rock solid gig for apps in Apple’s App Store. Which is why FiftyThree feels its numerous accolades such as its “iPad app of the Year” award presented by Apple, are part of the companies appeal. The app itself is a great way for their target market, creators, to work in an environment thats natural and simple. Its simple undo gesture, the Expressive Ink Engine that is able to stimulate real paint/ink on a digital surface, all of those unique features have been able to propel the app to the top of the most grossing productivity apps ever.

So what does the company plan on doing in the future? Microsoft lead creator Georg Petschnigg believes that collaboration will be a key element to future FiftyThree products and the future of Paper. “When you look at the web today and what social media has done by giving everyone a voice, or how Wikipedia has given us the ability to recall information – we really haven’t figured out how to develop better ideas and new ideas together,” he says. 

“Moving beyond touch and into the physical world of accessories opens up creating with greater dexterity and expressiveness,” 

Whilst we’re sharing our ideas, we haven’t really got a platform that we can develop them on. Paper is far off the type of Google Docs-like, realtime editing, but it seems as though the company is headed in that direction of development. “Moving beyond touch and into the physical world of accessories opens up creating with greater dexterity and expressiveness,” he also explains when talking about the companies other focus, physical creation.

They have big aspirations do the FiftyThree bunch. They know which areas they can penetrate in order to make a return on investments and ultimately a profit. But they also understand the importance of being able to collaborate, something which Petschnigg touches on as not being equal on social media to “the simple act of sitting down in a room with a group of motivated people.” FiftyThree hopes to build a “suite of mobile tools for creativity” which means, for all intents and purposes, the company is just getting started.

DRM has for the most part, dominated the next-gen console talks. Its dictated people’s console choice, sparked arguments over how its actually helping the industry, and put into question video game rental shops – who are right in there amongst all of this. But what does it all mean? We’re already clear on how it affects us as the player, but what about the industry as a whole? And how is that shaping the future of playing video games on consoles?

The rumours that started long before the Xbox One and Playstation 4 were announced regarding the ‘always on’ state of the consoles and their the inability to play used games, were met by the obvious outburst of people who buy used games as a main form of being able to play them. Whilst used games have already had that ‘new game smell’ taken away from them, they still serve as a great alternative – or in some cases the only alternative – to buying games at the full and rather hefty price of £37. The trade-in method is also a great way for players to get rid of games that they know they will never play again, and get cash in return to put towards a new game that they will likely play more.

With that in mind, I think its safe to say that the gaming industry was never going to turn its back on that form of game distribution, simply because its quite valuable. The publishers have noticed that value, and with them being a business, they’ve found a way to make money off of it. Now when I put it like that it sounds dastardly, that a business would want to earn more money after already receiving it off of the person who first bought the game in the first place, but in actual fact its a lot more complicated than that. Publishers want to control their games lifecycle. They know thats the only way they can return on investment and keep shareholders happy, they know its the only way they can fund their massive game budgets year-after-year, and as it just so happens the used game market is there for the taking.

Publishers want to control their games lifecycle, and as it just so happens the used game market is there for the taking

The Xbox One supports this model of allowing publishers to determine whether or not their game can be resold or not. If the publisher of Grand Theft Auto is able to negotiate with a used game retailer and set up a fee that the retailer must pay in order to activate the used game, then the game will be able to resold. However that does mean the prices of used games will vary depending on how high the fee agreed on between the publisher and used game retailer is, but we can’t imagine it will be too high. But the important thing here is that you don’t have to pay anything through your Xbox, it is instead included in the price of the used game in store. Of course if there is no negotiation between the publisher and the used game retailer, then the game cannot be resold or indeed used by a friend.

Cliff Bleszinski, Designer of the Gears of War game series has been a supporter of the Xbox One’s anti-used-game DRM, and this week he took to Twitter to further show why. “You cannot have game and marketing budgets this high while also having used and rental games existing. The numbers do NOT work people,” he said. “The visual fidelity and feature sets we expect from games now come with sky high costs. Assassins Creed games are made by thousands of devs. Newsflash. This is why you’re seeing free to play and microtransactions everywhere. The disc based day one $60 model is crumbling.”

Belszinski has also discussed the ‘always on’ state of the Xbox One previously, something which has also garnered a lot of attention from aggrieved gamers as well. “My gut is telling me that an always online future is probably coming. It’s coming fast, and possibly to the majority of the devices you enjoy” – that was in response to what former Microsoft creative director Adam Orth said via his Twitter on the weeks leading up to the Xbox One announcement.

Saying “the internet is very reliable” is not an outlandish claim to make nowadays. If you look at the infrastructure put in place to ensure high speed, fibre optic 20MB to 50MB of internet in the UK is the standard that comes from cable providers - which is more than enough to fuel a constant internet connection - you can see that the ‘always-connected-to-the-internet’ state isn’t actually that bad. Sure internet connections do go out, but only occasionally. And even when they do, its for an hour or so. It hinders your ability to play your console games for that period of time, but in the grand scheme of things it won’t be an issue in years to come as the more faster, and reliable gigabyte internet starts to hit houses.

Without wishing to inflict any sort of console way/debate when I say this, the only reason Sony aren’t doing this is not because its angelic, but because it simply lacks the kind of pricey infrastructure something like this requires¹ This sort of thing requires a more futuristic look at how console gaming ecosystems are going to evolve in the years to come, and frankly the publishers need to be treated with just as much and if not more respect than the gamers.

1. Eurogamer source

You may remember when Google announced earlier this year that Google Reader would be shut down this month, the reformed Digg.com took it upon itself to provide the users of the service with an alternative that would include all of the features that you loved about Google Reader and some more. Well, over the last ninety days the team of five has been hard at work building this new alternative.

The Digg Reader team says “our aim has been to nail the basics: a web and mobile reading experience that is clean, simple, functional, and fast. We’re also introducing a tool that allows users to elevate the most important stories to the top.” With that in mind, they looked out who would loose out most when Google Reader would eventually pack up its bags and move out of the Google product space, which is Power Users. So the product is very much centred around that type of user, with the accessibility for new users who are used to Instapaper - which is owned by Betaworks - Pocket-type experiences. And in true Digg style, the service will also have a mobile app that syncs with the web experience.

The product is very much centred around the power user, with the accessibility for new users who are used to Instapaper/Pocket-type experiences

After the release of the service online and presumably iOS, the team will then be focusing on five things over the next sixty days: Android app; something which is likely going to be asked for from day one given it is supposed to be replacing a Google product, Speed, Integration with additional third party services (like Buffer, Evernote, and IFTTT), Better tools to sort, filter and rank your reading lists and feeds based on your networks, interests, likes etc… and of course responding to user feedback. They will also be getting started on Search and Notifications, along with a button that allows you to automatically delivers a donuts to your desk through a service called ‘Cronut’.

The experience will be freemium, however in order to not give off a “bait-and-switch” attitude Digg have said that all of the features announced today as well as the ones to come will be apart of the free experience. Digg says the new Digg Reader service will be available to everyone next week on June 26th.

Netflix have signed a deal with Dreamworks Animation Studios today that sees it getting over 300 hours of original content, an expansion on its deal to show a TV adaptation of the upcoming movie Turbo, in December. The TV shows will include Dreamworks characters from their feature films, possibly mini-series’ that are based on the characters from Shrek or Kung Fu Panda, and they will be produced in the Class Media library which it acquired in 2012.

This news follows the successful online streaming of the Netflix-produced TV show, House of Cards, and the new series of Arrested Development which also aired through the service, and the announcement that they will be producing their own Sci-Fi TV series alongside the creator of Firefly, known as Sens8. Now it seems Netflix is looking to expand into Children’s TV – one of its most important demographics.

Just last year Netflix signed a deal with Disney which includes both Marvel and Pixar, to bring content over to the service exclusively, and now today’s news means the company now has two of the biggest animation studios on board. Netflix Chief Content Officer, Ted Sarandos said “This deal represents a major expansion of what’s already a phenomenal relationship, allowing us to bring beloved DreamWorks characters to the 40 countries where Netflix operates and setting the stage for us to innovate together as we expand into new markets.”

The new, original series’ produced by Dreamworks are set to air in 2014, adding the movie The Croods at launch, followed by Turbo and the big screen adaption of Mr. Peabody and Sherman, which opens in theaters in March of 2014.

Internet service providers in the UK are to start making “filtering a standard option across industry.” The type of filtering that they will be doing is mainly adult content, specifically porn, and it will be “pre-ticked” as a parental option if you don’t opt-out. Anyone who signs up to a new ISP will get the option as well as existing internet users, with the option to opt-out. However that opt-out only lasts until 7am the next day, so opting-out doesn’t exactly mean for life, but just a couple of hours.

So by 2014 people in the UK will no longer have free access to the internet, instead they will have to go through an arduous effort to remove the shutters in order to have full access, and even then its back to square one the next morning. This isn’t a law being enforced by ISPs, no such exists. However it is a standard that was devised by ISPs and the UK Government, that hopes to protect children online.

However one has to ask about the forced implications that are being made to ensure the safety of children online. Its quite hard for me and for any political personality to advocate standing up against the censoring of adult content, but its not the place of government to decide what I am allowed to see and for all intents and purposes, what my child is supposed to see when they access the internet. Of course if I had kids, I wouldn’t want them accessing anything I didn’t want them to, but it stands to reason that if I give them a responsibility I expect them to know right from wrong.

The fact that you can’t opt-out adds a comical value to the issue; the government is allowing you to make your own choices on the internet, but only for a while before you’re back behind bars.

As the The Next Web points out, really the system should be opt-in rather than opt-out. The fact that you can’t opt-out adds a comical value to the issue; the government is allowing you to make your own choices on the internet, but only for a while before you’re back behind bars. Its also worth asking on who decides what constitutes as adult content. What exactly counts as porn? Is catching up on the latest episode of Game of Thrones classed as watching porn? It visiting Tumblr now classed as visiting a pornographic website? And will it be a machine that filters it or another person?

Without deterring from the point of all this, our freedom of what we get to see on the internet needs to be addressed here more than anything. Its surprising that ISPs haven’t came up with a way to censor specific devices that have connected to the network, rather than the connection in its entirety. Its also worrying that the UK Government and ISPs haven’t provided exposure for the feature to tell people its opt-out, something thats really is to do in todays social media driven world.

Microsoft have confirmed that the games for Xbox One will still sell at the same rate as the current generation of games on Xbox 360, for a price of $59.99 [£38.99]. According to a spokesperson that told Polygon, Microsoft Studios games will have a standard price of $59.99, meaning that we won’t be seeing an extra premium for the work of developers on next-gen titles, despite the fact that it is more complex to build for the new console architecture now.

Sony hasn’t officially announced any pricing for its titles, although we imagine its a similar affair to the Xbox One. In February, Sony executive Jack Tretton did comment on PS4 game prices, saying that they will have the same price structure that would go from 99c “up to those $60 games” when discussing the free-to-play model the PS4 employes.

Games for both platforms are going for a list price of $59.99, with some $90. However that is provisional pricing for now, something that is likely to change come August/September timeframe when the title release season comes into play. You can take a look at some of the exclusive and cross-platform titles for both the Xbox One and Playstation 4 in our E3 coverage here.

Twitter are letting all users of the service now use analytics to check on the performance of their tweets, as opposed to just allowing advertising partners use the feature. The dashboard of analytics provide users with a look at the exposure of tweets with links in them along with a breakdown of their followers, presenting the data in neat tables and graphs for accessibility.

The timeline activity view displays a users last 30 days of tweets listed, alongside the number of favourites, retweets, and replies that have been received by the user. Twitter also tracks the amount of times a link in a tweet has been clicked on – an easy way to gauge referral’s on one of the biggest social networks for link sharing, and highlights better performing posts based on their reach.

The followers view meanwhile, offers a comprehensive look at follower growth alongside splitting them into different groups based on interests, location and gender demographics. The data can be downloaded in a CSV file, allowing users to display the data in any way they want to.

Earlier this year Twitter opened up its self-serve advertising platform for its users in the United States, and coupled with the ability to see stats, this could prove to be an invaluable tool with users who like to see whether their voice is being heard and whether or not their ads are effective enough.

One of the biggest headaches when travelling abroad through Europe is the roaming fees that are imposed, whenever you want to make or receive a phone call, texts and browse the internet. The reason being because you’ve connected to an external network outside of your normal operators coverage area, and thanks to ties between that carrier and your normal carrier, they are allowing you to use their network to receive phone calls and other data through their cell towers, which they have to pay for. So the money comes out of your pocket, sometimes more as an investment than a charge.

However, according to a recent vote by the European Commission, roaming charges will no longer exist as soon as July 1st 2014, meaning you’ll get charged the same aboard for using your phones as you normally would when at home. The decision stays in line with what the EU did last year, which was cap the roaming charges across mobile networks in order to protect mobile users when abroad.

Even though there are stories of people racking up thousands of pounds worth of roaming charges when they have went abroad, The Telegraph reports that the death of roaming charges will only wipe around two per-cent off of mobile operators revenues, but it does state that it will help in the long term when customers want to spend more time on their phones and tablets when abroad, especially for accessing the internet and checking emails etc…

“Europe has less 4G mobile broadband than Africa at the moment.”

The decision also allows the EU to make its now 100 telecoms operators more streamlined. A source told The Telegraph, “That’s not sustainable if we’re going to have a single market and investment. Europe has less 4G mobile broadband than Africa at the moment. Consolidation is not the aim. The aim is a single market, but if it means we get fewer, stronger operators, that’s good.” 

So in the long term, the EU hopes that the decision will allow for a more unified phone network experience, getting rid of carrier fragmentation and encouraging mergers and competition between foreign networks and British customers, ultimately making it easier for customers to move from country-to-country without being unknowingly charged a fortune for simply checking email.

ITV has added a premium subscription option to its iOS for iPhone and iPad, which allows people to remove ads and watch live TV as if it were broadcast via an optional, in-app purchase. The move comes as ITV attempts to increase its online and mobile footprint, though it is quite a different take from their normal way of gathering advertising revenue from traditional advertisers that have supported the TV network in the past.

Subscribers of the £3.99 service will be able to access the last thirty days of ITV’s catch up service for ITV 1, ITV 2, ITV 3, ITV 4 and CITV without advertising. You will also receive a simulcast of ITV 3 and ITV 4 over both a WiFi and 3G/4G connection.

Product manager of ITV Player, Steven Power said via ITV’s official blog post “As ITV Player on mobile devices continues to grow – over 7 million downloads on iOS to date – it is important we deliver innovative business models and adapt the product to the evolving market. I’m genuinely excited that we’re the first commercial broadcaster to offer viewers the choice to watch content with or without advertising.” 

However, changes to the service have lead to a lot of users retaliating. One commenter put “Seriously, they expect us to pay for ITV 3 and 4? I recommend TVCatchup.” Another user added “The irony is, I don’t even know what extra services ITV have added to this app and whether £3.99 represents good value.” These comments have subsequently ended up in the rating of the app being decreased all the way down to one and a half stars in the App Store.

Facebook sent out a snail mail invitation to press today, announcing a media event scheduled for June 20th. The letter contained a message which read, ”A small team has been working on big ideas. Join us for coffee and learn about a new product.”

This news comes just after the service announced that it will support the hashtag as a means of tracking content for users, and given the lack of activity in the rumour mill, its currently unclear what type of “new product” we will be seeing from the company. Mark Zuckerberg and co. will be hosting the event at the companies headquarters in Menlo Park, San Francisco.

Header and featured image curtsy Joanna Stern, ABC News.