Tracking the rumor that just won't die: The Facebook phone

(Credit: James Martin/CNET)

Facebook executives love to do verbal tap dances around the idea of a phone. It's been going on for years: reports, denials, reports, denials. And now, just two months after a categorical denial from CEO Mark Zuckerberg himself, it seems that at its event next week, Facebook may well go ahead and release what arguably amounts to a Facebook phone.

OK, it's not really a Facebook phone that Facebook watchers are expecting. But this time, it's undeniably something phone related. The social network on Thursday sent out media invitationsto "Come See Our New Home on Android." And so the speculation has begun anew.

So what will we see? Probably something far more practical than an actual Facebook phone, at least the kind Zuckerberg has so often denied. Facebook will likely announce a way for handset makers, starting with HTC, to tweak the Android operating system to make the social network a deeper part of the experience. Think Facebook integration to the core, with the social network's collection of apps -- Camera, Poke, Messenger -- featured front and center. At the very least, we should get iOS-like Android integration features for logging in once, syncing contacts, sharing seamlessly, and so on.

This device-to-be has been a long time coming, whatever it turns how to be, and it's made for lots of juicy speculation. Which is why we put together this timeline of reports, rumors, and denials surrounding the mythical Facebook phone.

September 19, 2010: The Facebook Phone is born. Michael Arrington reports for TechCrunch that the social network is working on a top secret project to build software that powers a smartphone. The same day, Facebook says: no way, Jose (or Michael, rather). "Building phones is just not what we do."

November 3, 2010: Zuckerberg officially bursts the phone bubble -- but just the hardware part. He leaves the door open for a software play. "First of all, we're not a hardware company," he says. "Second of all, our goal is not to sell anything physical; our goal is to make it so that everything can be social."

January 26, 2011: A partner surfaces. Rumor has it that HTC is making two Facebook-branded smartphones.

The HTC Status is the country's first-ever "Facebook phone." A dedicated Facebook button makes it easier to post status updates.

(Credit: Josh Miller/CNET)

February 15, 2011: HTC unveils the ChaCha and Salsa, both have Facebook buttons for easy access to the social network. So this is the "Facebook phone"? What a letdown. A few months later, ChaCha rebrands as the HTC Status in the U.S. But where, oh where, is Update?

November 21, 2011: Forget that stupid Facebook button, a real phone, made by HTC, running a Facebook-modified version of Android, is 12 to 18 phones away from hitting the market, AllThingsD's Liz Gannes and Ina Fried report. The project is code-named Buffy, after the sexy vampire slayer.

April 25, 2012: Buffy lives, despite reports to the contrary.

May 27, 2012: The New York Times says Facebook is recruiting heavily from Apple and stocking up on hardware engineers to prepare for the release of its own smartphone in the next year.

July 25, 2012: What do you know? HTC's name comes up again, but this time Facebook and the handset manufacturer are said to be targeting a mid-2013 release for a phone.

July 26, 2012: Phone? What Phone? There's no phone, Zuckerberg insists, because it wouldn't make any sense.

September 11, 2012: Zuckerberg sucks the life out of the phone rumors -- again. This phone stuff is all a bunch of nonsense.

November 2, 2012: Not so fast! More HTC-Facebook-Android rumors surface. This time, though, Pocket-lint says the "official" device has a code name of Opera UL.

January 12, 2013: MG Siegler is the boy who cried wolf. He reports that some type of Facebook Phone will be on display at a January 15 press event. Instead, Facebook announces Graph Search.

The Myst-erious Facebook Phone?

(Credit: Unwired View)

January 30, 2013: Zuckerberg is adamant: Facebook is not building a phone. But when Zuck closes a door, he opens a window. "Rather than just building an app that's a version of the functionality that you have today, I think making it so that we can...go deeper and deeper...is going to be a big focus for us." OK dude, I think we get it now. You're starting to sound like a broken record.

March 8, 2013: Wait. Never mind. Meet the real "Facebook phone": The HTC Myst, Unwired View tells us, while also leaking the device's specs. The Myst-erious smartphone is apparently getting pre-installed Facebook apps. Sounds so much cooler than a button. Or does it?

A Facebook-driven smartphone like this may just be urban legend.

(Credit: Ubergizmo)

March 28 and 29, 2013: Facebook says, "Come See Our New Home on Android," and a variety of reports pop up. The New York Times says the social network will show off an HTC phonerunning a version of Android tweaked to make Facebook's camera and messaging apps core to the experience. The Wall Street Journal reports that the software in question can run on other handsets and that Facebook is talking with other device makers.

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Panasonic subsidiary at center of U.S. bribery investigation

A unit of Japanese electronics giant Panasonic is under investigation by U.S. authorities for allegedly paying overseas bribes to secure business contracts, according to a Wall Street Journal report.

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Interactive panorama of Curiosity photos lets you take hi-rez Mars-walk

Satisfy your Martian curiosity in an eyepoppingly hi-rez way with Estonian photographer Andrew Bodrov's lovingly stitched-together panorama. It could be the next best thing to being there.

(Credit: Screenshot by CNET)

A stunning 4-gigapixel panorama of Mars, compiled from images captured by two mast cameras aboard NASA's Mars Science Laboratory Curiosity rover, could be one of the most detailed views of our distant neighbor yet.

The panoramic picture of Gale Crater derives from 295 images that were digitally stitched together by Estonian photographer Andrew Bodrov. In its final form, the mosaic stretches out to an astounding 90,000 by 45,000-pixel resolution.

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Newfound iMessage security issue spams, crashes app

(Credit: Apple

Apple's nearly year-and-a-half old iMessage service has been found to be vulnerable to an attack that uses a flood of messages, or messages so long that the application is rendered unstable.

According to a report from The Next Web, a small group of developers have found themselves the target of an attack that does one of those things -- sending what could be thousands of messages.

The source is suspected to be someone with involvement in pirated iOS software, who could have gotten some basic information needed to send another user a message through Apple's messaging service, The Next Web says. That same individual (or group of individuals) is also said to be using throwaway e-mail accounts, making it difficult to trace it back or block future attacks.

CNET has contacted Apple for more information about the issue, and will update this post when we know more.

iMessage is Apple's proprietary messaging platform used between iOS devices, as well as Macs, replacing the need to use text messages on the former. The feature was added in iOS 5, and into Mac OS X in version 10.8 Mountain Lion inside of the Messages app. Apple said in January that its users were now sending more than 2 billion messages on the services each day.

The exploit, which The Next Web says can be set up using AppleScript, comes on the heels ofa security hole found on Apple's password reset tool late last week. Apple took the service down for several hours before it was repaired.

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Google shows interest in ASM.js, Mozilla's plan for fast Web apps

At least some at Google want to embrace a Mozilla-backed project to speed up Web apps written with JavaScript -- even though it competes directly with Google's own Native Client and Dart programming technology.

Mozilla has been working for months on a technology called ASM.js, which it hopes will boost JavaScript performance, especially in combination with a related Mozilla-spawned technology called Emscripten. JavaScript powers Web apps such as Google Docs, and ASM.js is a special "extremely restricted" subset of the programming language that's designed to make it easier for developers to bring existing software written in the C programming language to the Web.

Yesterday, Mozilla held a coming-out party for ASM.js, announcing a cooperation with Epic to bring its Unreal game engine to ASM.js. The same day, Google effectively announced a plan to support it within Chrome's V8 engine that processes JavaScript.

"Optimizations should be added to V8 to generate good code for the ASM.js subset of JavaScript," Chrome programmer Kenneth Russell said in a Chrome feature-tracking item for ASM.js. "The implementation cost should be small compared to the potential upside -- the ability to run significant existing code bases with close to the speed of C inside the JavaScript engine."

Securing support from other browser makers is crucial to the success of a programming technology. Without that support, programmers can only target a single browser, which undermines the advantages of universality that the Web can offer.

Google didn't respond to a request for comment about its position on the matter.

Browser makers often ally to bring a new technology to market and to help coax Web programmers to use it. What's particularly notable about Google's support is that the company already has other competing projects well under way.

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Amazon scoops up Goodreads social network

Amazon agreed today to buy book-recommendation site Goodreads for an undisclosed amount.

The San Francisco-based company should provide Amazon with another way to get readers to buy books from it, both digitally and from its warehouses. Amazon said it also plans to use Goodreads to help authors find readers who might not otherwise know about them.

"Goodreads has helped change how we discover and discuss books and, with Kindle, Amazon has helped expand reading around the world," Russ Grandinetti, Amazon vice president of Kindle Content, said in a statement. "In addition, both Amazon and Goodreads have helped thousands of authors reach a wider audience and make a better living at their craft."

Goodreads founder Otis Chandler started the company seven years ago, creating a service that's grown to more than 16 million readers who share their favorite and least favorite books with others. In a blog post, Chandler said he sold Goodreads, in part, to tap the "reach and resources" of Amazon. He also noted that Goodreads members have asked for an e-reader experience, something that Amazon will provide with its Kindle.

"You've asked us for a long time to be able to integrate your Kindle and Goodreads experiences," Chandler wrote. "Making that option a reality is one of our top priorities."

Goodreads will remain in San Francisco.

"It's important to be clear that Goodreads and the awesome team behind it are not going away," Chandler wrote. "Goodreads will continue to be the wonderful community that we all cherish."

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iPhone 5 tweeted about more than Galaxy S4 -- at launch

Samsung's latest devices, next to Apple in real life, not on the Twitters.

A recent analysis of Twitter activity during the debut of Apple and Samsung's latest smartphones shows a wide difference in how much both products were mentioned.

That study, done by Investing Analytics, showed that the iPhone 5 was mentioned in more than five times the number of tweets than the Galaxy S4 on the day of and the day after their respective unveilings.

"We believe a Twitter analysis of tweets about the iPhone 5 launch compared to the Galaxy S4 launch demonstrates that the iPhone continues to hold more mass appeal with consumers," said Piper Jaffray analyst Gene Munster in a note about the data set.

"We believe this demonstrates that while interest in the Galaxy S4 is growing, Apple continues to hold a meaningful lead as the smartphone with the broadest consumer appeal," he added.

The actual tally during that time period was about 2.4 million tweets about the iPhone 5, whereas Samsung's Galaxy S4 racked up around 440,000. Even so, Munster says the majority of the tweets about Samsung's product (81 percent) were positive, up from the iPhone 5's 73 percent.

Of course, whether all this is a precursor to the strength of Samsung's S4 sales is totally unclear. Apple took the wraps off the iPhone 5 last September, whereas Samsung unveiled the Galaxy S4 at an event in New York earlier this month. Samsung's device, which is a follow-up to the popular Galaxy S3, sports a higher-resolution 5-inch display, faster processor, and better cameras and battery than its predecessor. The device goes on sale in the U.K. next month, with other markets to follow.

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Egypt's military arrests divers cutting undersea Internet cables

Egypt's naval forces arrested three divers cutting through an undersea Internet cable today, the country's military representative said, raising the possibility that saboteurs are behind severed lines and days-long Internet disruptions.

A coast-guard patrol stopped a fishing boat near Alexandria and arrested three men "while they were cutting a submarine cable" line belonging to Telecom Egypt, the country's main communications company, Col. Ahmed Mohammed Ali said on his official Facebook page. The page offered no details on the divers' identities, according to published reports.

It was not immediately clear if the divers were responsible for recent disruptions to Internet traffic over several lines that connect Africa with Europe, the Middle East, and Europe. Meanwhile, an executive for Telecom Egypt told TV network CBC that the disruptions were due to cable damage caused by a ship, according to the Associated Press.

A handful of Internet and telephone outages have been caused in recent years by damage to undersea cables near Alexandria, which carry more than 75 percent of traffic between the Middle East, Europe, and the United States. A trio of outages in 2008 were thought to have been caused by weather conditions or ship anchors.

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New Silicon Valley in the Andes: Promise and paradox

These guys can no longer get this big without some help from humans...and renewable energy.

(Credit: Johanna DeBiase)

Editor's note: This is part 2 of an exclusive four-part Crave series on Ecuador's plans to transform itself into a new hub of science, technology, and innovation. Read part 1, "Plotting the next Silicon Valley -- you'll never guess where."

GALAPAGOS ISLANDS, Ecuador--There's a small group of solar panels set up next to a giant tortoise hatchery that's currently under renovation here. It wasn't many decades ago that these remarkable gentle giants -- which never stop growing and can live to be 150 and the size of a kitchen table -- didn't need help from humans to survive in their native habitat.

Ironically, it is the other species humans brought with them to this remote volcanic Pacific archipelago that have endangered these tortoises. Dogs, pigs, goats, rats, and even ants all prey on young tortoises here, making it virtually impossible for them to survive their first few years in the wild. Instead, they're raised in facilities like this one near the Charles Darwin Research Station.

There's plenty more paradox to be found on the Ecuadorian mainland.

The great strides made in the last five years toward modernizing this country after decades of instability have largely been financed by Ecuador's significant oil resources. Yet, as the country's socialist president, Rafael Correa, begins his third term in office pushing forward on perhaps its most ambitious project -- a planned city of science and innovation dubbed "Yachay"that aims to be part Silicon Valley, part Dubai, and part Shenzhen, China -- his administration has opted to lock up one of his country's richest oil deposits.

Solar panels help power tortoise breeding centers like this one on the Galapagos Islands.

(Credit: Eric Mack/CNET)

Rather than extract the hundreds of millions of barrels of crude beneath Yasuni National Park, one of the world's most biologically diverse rain forests, Ecuador has instead asked the world topay it to not drill there. The scheme falls somewhere between crowdfunding and ecological blackmail, but demonstrates a certain amount of audaciousness from a government that also defaulted on a huge chunk of its global bonds after declaring the international debt to be illegitimate.

This is the kind of comfort with paradox that is required of a government hoping to force a small and, until recently, backwards developing nation into a leadership position in the world of science and innovation. But after hearing the pitch and seeing the progress, it's clear some important people outside Ecuador are ready to file this Yachay thing under "so crazy, it just might work."

In addition to support from South Korea and CalTech, the Murdoch Developmental Center in North Carolina's research triangle area has expressed interest in a partnership, as have a few European institutions, according to Rene Ramirez, Ecuador's minister of higher education, science, technology, and innovation.

Cynicism and broken promises
Then again, like many other developing nations, Ecuador is no stranger to cynicism and broken promises. Editorials in Ecuador's media have accused Correa of being wasteful with public funds; the daily newspaper La Hora called Yachay a "farce." In response to the first part of this series, Martin Pallares, a former Knight fellow at Stanford University and a journalist for Quito's El Comercio newspaper tweeted this about the project: "Hope it'll happen but I'm afraid no (Silicon) Valley will pop up in a country run by a President who has banished checks/balances."

Correa has had a thorny relationship with the press, bringing defamation suits against muckracking journalists who have criticized the president, including allegations of corruption. A handful of journalists were convicted and received harsh prison sentences, only to be pardoned by Correa. The confrontations between the government and the press landed Ecuador on the Committee to Protect Journalists' most recent "risk list" alongside Syria, Pakistan, and Iran (nearby Brazil also made the list).

And, of course, there's also the aforementioned cold shoulder given to international investors, giving the wider, capitalist world plenty of reason to smirk at such an ambitious project from such a small and relatively isolated nation.

Yet the team behind Yachay seems willing to put in the work to sell their vision to the world, convinced they've got something to offer.

Ecuador's Yasuni National Park

(Credit: Yasuni-ITT)

"It is a City of Knowledge in order to build a country of knowledge," Ramirez tells me on a visit to his ministry's office in the capitol of Quito. "Yachay is linked to the areas of knowledge and the strategic industries that we are hoping to develop in Ecuador."

When the team behind Yachay talks about the project, the paradoxes that make up today's Ecuador combine into a more holistic vision in which the contradictions cancel each other out and disappear as if part of an algebra problem. For example, the work done at Yachay will center around a handful of areas, including renewable energy that could (in theory) reduce the temptation to drill the rain forest, preserving its biological treasures to assist in research into another of Yachay's focus areas -- pharmaceuticals.

The idea would be "not only to produce [generic drugs], but mainly to link it to an area where we have a competitive advantage in Ecuador," Ramirez explains. "We have nearby numerous ecosystems which make this country the most megadiverse in the world."

Of course, the mega-biodiversity Ramirez speaks of is of less value if it's spoiled by pollution and other environmental impacts of oil extraction, so he talks not only of developing more clean energy tech at Yachay -- he claims that only 40 percent of Ecuador's energy demand is met by fossil fuels, a number he says will drop to 6 percent by 2020 -- but also of making improvements when it comes to exploiting all those liquefied dinosaurs and other hydrocarbons.

An overview of the Yachay project.

(Credit: Senescyt)

The inclusion of both petrochemistry and renewable energy in that list of strategic industries to be pursued at Yachay is less a paradox than it is playing the cards the country's been dealt. And after a series of oil-related accidents in the country -- Chevron has been ordered to pay billions for contaminating remote tracts of the Ecuadorian jungle -- developing more efficient, safer, and cleaner ways of getting at Ecuador's primary source of wealth is also a good public-relations move.

In addition to working on renewables, petrochemistry, and pharmaceuticals, Ramirez hopes Yachay will also push the envelope in developing information technologies and the more far-out domain of nanotechnology.

Potential boost to global competition
While I don't breach the topic with anyone involved with Yachay, it should at least be noted that carbon nanotubes are at the heart of most designs for the construction of a space elevator, and a locale like Ecuador that sits literally on top of the equator is an ideal site for such an experiment.

Likely though, the fruits of Yachay will be a bit more down to earth. Yachay project manager Ramiro Moncayo (you can read much more about him in tomorrow's installment) believes sitting on the Earth's midsection is also pretty handy for producing and refining solar energy technology. But no matter what the sector or technology, having another center for innovation -- particularly the first of its kind on its continent -- is potentially good for global competition, international relations, and ultimately, consumers.

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At Y Combinator Demo Day, many echoes of Kickstarter

OUNTAIN VIEW, Calif.--If you cringe when you hear a company described as "Kickstarter for" this industry or that genre, yesterday's Y Combinator Demo Day was probably not for you.

As happens twice a year, a Who's Who of A-list (and B- and C-list) venture capitalists and angel investors descended on the Computer History Museum here for the semi-annual Demo Day. There, the newest graduating alumni of the world's leading tech incubator had the chance to show off their talents -- and wares and/or services -- to the money men and women and reporters who might help to further their ambitions and fill their coffers.

And throughout the day, Kickstarter was very much on people's minds.

A couple of years ago, few had heard of the Brooklyn-based startup that was aiming to democratize the way project creators raise money. But now, with a nearly endless collection of success stories under its belt, Kickstarter has become the beast of the crowdfunding world. And everyone wants to break off a piece of that success.

Over the course of the day, 47 startups took the stage for the three minutes under the spotlights. And no less than five of them were either described as "Kickstarter for" something, or were based on the now-well-understood crowdfunding model -- or trying to profit from that model's general disorganization.

There was Microryza -- "Kickstarter for science;" Teespring -- "Kickstarter for T-shirts;" Watsi -- a non-profit aiming to leverage the crowd to finance individuals' medical care; Wefunder -- which wants to fund startups using the Kickstarter model; and Backerkit, which has built a CRM system for Kickstarter project creators.

Plus, there was one company hoping to leverage crowdsourcing to solve difficult to diagnose medical conditions.

All in all, this felt like a reunion party for the word "crowd." And we have the JOBS Act to thank for that. That legislation, which was designed to let small investors get in on the fun (and risk, obviously) of funding privately-held startups or projects, was passed by Congress passed and signed by President Obama, but has yet to be implemented. Nonetheless, it has inspired the growth of crowdfunding, with Kickstarter and competitors like Indiegogo leading the charge.

And clearly it has inspired the creation of a number of new startups who, incidentally, are looking for help from the Silicon Valley VC community. Not to worry, though: That community seems eager to offer assistance.

"I think that's a really interesting technology," said Tim Draper, a principal at the blue-chip VC firm Draper Fisher Jurvetson. "I compare it to social media (like Facebook and Twitter) and I compare it to peer-to-peer file sharing."

Draper said his firm has already invested in a couple companies trying to leverage the crowd, and noted that he's fully behind Wefunder's concept of trying to crowdsource the funding of startups because of the difficulty these days in raising liquidity through the public markets. "I'm encouraging this kind of thing," Draper added.

To hear some at Demo Day tell it, crowdfunding is just getting started. Although thousands of projects have raised money using one of the services in the field, there's a limitless number of others who may see the success of some of these efforts and realize that they, too, can turn for help to the public at large for building their house-sized piano, circumnavigating the globe by ultralight, producing a documentary on sloths, or anything else that floats their boat.

And while many more people find their projects unfunded in the end due to lackluster interest, crowdfunding's success in general doesn't surprise some in the VC community. "I think it's a very interesting area," said Avalon Partners founding partner Kevin Kinsella, "whose boundaries have not been fully explored."

Given that so many of the companies presenting during Demo Day were focused on crowdfunding, one might conclude that Y Combinator set out to showcase a theme. But that's not at all the case, said Sam Altman, a partner at the incubator. "Sometimes people think Y Combinator has big ideas" about themes," said Altman, himself an alum, and the founder of Loopt. "But really, we just fund the best startups."

Altman said that one element behind crowdfunding's rapid growth is that there's "finally critical mass" around the concept of the crowd. As proof, he pointed to Reddit, which he termed "the original Y Combinator success." "The crowd's a really powerful force on the Internet," Altman said, "and people finally understand how to harness that."

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Microsoft acknowledges Windows Blue, announces next Build conference

(Credit: Microsoft)

Microsoft finally has come clean about its "Blue" code name for upcoming Windows tech, while also announcing its next Build Conference.

Microsoft is "working ... on plans to advance our devices and services, a set of plans referred to internally as Blue," the company said in The Official Microsoft Blog today.

Microsoft quickly qualified this by saying that the "chances of products being named thusly are slim to none."

These plans are expected to manifest as improvements and refinements to Windows in a variety of devices, ranging from phones to tablets to servers.In Windows 8, that may include changes in personalization (appearance of Metro interface), desktop-style multitasking (tile size, placement), ease of use (easier access to Control Panel), sound recording, a new version of Internet Explorer -- and even simple tweaks, like how Windows 8 is shut down.

The Blog also reiterated a big change in Microsoft's strategy, which the author Frank Shaw describes as "a fundamental shift in our business from a software company to a devices and services company."

Redmond also announced the the next Build conference. Build 2013 is slated for June 26-28 at the Moscone Center in San Francisco, Calif., Microsoft said.

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T-Mobile faces war of words after killing subsidies, contracts

T-Mobile CEO John Legere at today's press conference.

T-Mobile's seismic shift in how it sells phones and service may be too much for some consumers to process.

In moving away from the old -- and arguably more comfortable -- business model of subsidized phones and two-year contracts, T-Mobile is hoping to shake up the industry and grab a bit of the limelight in the process.

But oftentimes, different is scary. T-Mobile faces the daunting challenge of explaining to consumers how its newly unveiled no-contract plans offer a benefit over the old model, and why it's actually beneficial for them to pay the full price for a smartphone rather than take the subsidy.

"What we're attempting to do is to start a dialogue that is best had with as much visibility, transparency, and modularity as possible," CEO John Legere said in an interview today

Years of carriers offering up subsidized smartphones have conditioned consumers to believe that the highest-end devices cost only $200 to $300. In actuality, the iPhone 5 costs $650 without a contract at most major carriers. Consumers pay the difference -- and then some -- throughout the life of that two-year term.

T-Mobile is attempting to bring some visibility in the process by separating the phone and service costs into two different fees. Yes, consumers have to pay the entire price of the phone through an upfront fee and monthly installments. But the fees are more distinctly laid out relative to the bundled fee from a rival carrier, and are ultimately lower.

"While the operator is rightly stressing the simplicity and freedom of its new approach, it will also have to educate postpaid customers on the need to pay for devices as well as services," said Mike Roberts, an analyst at Informa Telecoms & Media.

For many, the monthly installments constitute another contract, just one that's worded in a different way. If a customer leaves T-Mobile before the 24 months, that person needs to pay off the difference for the phone, which essentially acts like an early termination fee.

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Stocksy aims to bring the soul back into stock photography

Bruce Livingstone, founder of the iStockphoto site that grew from a small stock-art community to a multimedia juggernaut, is launching a competitor called Stocksy United today that he hopes will bring the business back to its roots.

Stocksy is a startup, but it won't attract venture capital, won't be acquired by a larger rival, and doesn't have an exit strategy. Instead, it's a cooperative run by its own photographers who get paid a relatively high percentage of the royalties generated by each image sale: 50 percent. On top of that, photographers split the profits left over at the end of each year, Livingstone said in an interview.

The idea, he said, is to attract top-shelf photographers who are unhappy with expanding photographer competition and shrinking payouts from the major sites.

"It's foolish to launch company with the big boys out there, but I think it's the time is right for a soulful company like this to be created," Livingstone said.

Indeed, it was the unceasing litany of complaints by photography contacts that brought him back out of "semi-retirement" in Los Angeles. He's now moved back to Canada, whose laws are well set up for cooperatives more commonly found uniting farmers than photographers.

"Photographers kept coming to see me, coming to visit, telling me how bad the industry was, telling me they were disenfranchised, telling me about the competition, this sea of images. That, combined with declining royalties -- they were super frustrated," he said. "They were looking to me to get back in the game. I just couldn't ignore it anymore."

He's not aiming to conquer the world -- something iStock did as it pioneered the "microstock" market that exploded when an army of digital photographers mobilized to sell photos globally on the Internet. That growth accelerated dramatically when Getty Images acquired iStock for $50 million in 2006. This time around, Livingstone is looking for "sustainability," concentrating on a high-end foothold.

"We'll be a success with just one half to one percent of the market right now," he said.

He's got 220 photographers on board today, currently uploading about 1,000 images a day, with images priced between $10 and $100. Five employees are on the payroll so far, including iStock's original site programmer and Livingstone's own wife, who built iStock's image-review system. Livingstone says he expects to grow to perhaps 500 photographers this year, but has no plans to become a massive company with thousands and thousands of contributors.But premium photo collections of photos are not an easy way to stand out from the stock-art crowd. With millions upon millions of images available, stock-art sites use them as one way to try to make their selection stand out -- and to make more money on each sale.

And Shutterstock, which has built a publicly traded company on its stock-photo sales, has just revealed that it's planning a premium photo collection called Offset. "With Offset, we're disrupting the high-end marketplace," said Chief Executive Jon Oringer in an introductory video.

Livingstone was scornful of the stock-art industry's premium push. "They're moving stuff that was in regular collections into premium collections and jacking up the price," he said. Stocksy is aiming for the high end of the market, but "we're kind of reducing the price again."

Stocksy has won over got some notable names on its 220-member contributor pool -- Tyler Stalman, Sean Locke, Trey Ratcliff, and Thomas Hawk, for example. They're all "reputable photographers," and part of Stocksy's sales pitch is that its quality control means customers won't have to waste time sifting the wheat from the chaff.

"Every single picture is useful and licenseable and authentic and not silly," Livingstone said. By comparison, on the ocean of stock-art images for sale today, "you get everything. Pirates in funny glasses, bad lighting, terrible pictures that are not curated and selected," he said.

A range of photos for sale at Stocksy United. The startup plans to add vector art soon.

(Credit: screenshot by Stephen Shankland/CNET)

The company plans to start selling vector-art illustrations soon, too, Livingstone said, but video footage is not a priority at least for now.

Locke got into a tiff with iStock when photographers discovered Getty had licensed their images to Google for use on its online services like Google Docs and Google Slides and objected to how they'd been treated. (iStock said the company had persuaded Google to include a notice that the images may not be used elsewhere and told its photographers it's working to get Google to incorporate image metadata that can, for example, include photographer copyright information.)

iStock ended up booting Locke off the site.

That incident helped persuade Hawk, a prolific and vocal photographer, to quit on his own. "When you start to see a company fighting with its contributors, banning contributors, evenfiring contributors, it makes me feel like maybe it's time to go. This doesn't feel like a healthy 'relationship' any more. Paying me 20 percent and keeping 80 percent already felt a little insulting, but I think we deserve to be treated better," he said in a blog post about quitting Gettytoday.

Livingstone said he has no regrets selling iStockphoto to Getty, which fired him in 2009. But he's still emotional about what it's become.

"I think iStock thinks about the numbers quarter to quarter and hitting revenue targets, but don't think they think about anything else...It makes me sad to see what they did to it," Livingstone said. "From a pure dollars [perspective], they knocked it out of the park. Wow. Getty grew that business financially...I can't even understand those numbers. It's way too much money. They should have shared it with people instead of cutting everybody's salary. That's what I would have done."

Indeed, with Stocksy, sharing is the very thing he's trying to do.

"Our function is to create a sustainable career," he said. "We're almost like a nonprofit. At the end of the year, we take all the profits and distribute them. We're not lining our pockets with cash."

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Hulu may not be for sale yet, but buyers are lurking

Hulu might not be on the auction block, but that hasn't stopped buyers from expressing interest.

A report from AllThingsD said several potential purchasers have reached out to Hulu's corporate owners, though none have made a formal offer. The site lists Ross Levinsohn, the former interim Yahoo who now works for Guggenheim Partners, as one potential acquirer. Yahoo and Amazon are a couple of others that have "kicked the tires," AllThingsD said.

Hulu, Yahoo, and Guggenheim Partners declined to comment. We've contacted Levinsohn and Amazon and will update the report when we have more information.

Hulu buyout rumors have popped up pretty often over the past couple of years. The company's owners, which include Walt Disney and News Corp., put the company up for sale in 2011 but called off the process later that year, saying Hulu "holds a unique and compelling strategic value to each of its owners."

However, since that time, co-owner Providence Equity Partners sold its stake in Hulu, and Comcast's NBC Universal gave up its say in management matters because of regulatory restrictions related to the NBC acquisition. In addition, Hulu CEO Jason Kilar said in January that he would step down in the first quarter.

The remaining owners, Disney and News Corp., have disagreed on Hulu's strategy. News Corp., which owns Fox, would like to see Hulu transition away from ads and become a subscription-only service. Disney prefers a free service supported by ads. Along with speculation about an outside bidder taking over Hulu, there also has been talk that Disney or News Corp. could buy out the other's stake.

Hulu also was reportedly on Apple's radar as an acquisition target in 2011. Among other potential suitors, Google and Microsoft have also been mentioned as having shown interest in buying Hulu.

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