One of the most potentially disruptive startups of the last ten years is emerging into the light this week. And I honestly don’t say that lightly.
Christian Lanng, a former builder of deep e-commerce and security services for the Danish government is co-founder of TradeShift along with a very hard-core team which includes John Bosack who created XML, who is on the board.
But what is perhaps most startling is the re-emergence of early Skype investor Morten Lund on the project. Lund was made famous in tech circles both for his early Skype investment but also for going personally bankrupt two years ago.
TradeShift, which has been operating under the stealth name of Porta till now, is aiming at a very, very big target.
It wants to disrupt how banks and credit card companies process payments between any kind of business, and use the Internet to do it. → Read More
Anyone remember Neonode? Apparently we do, but not very well. Anyway, these guys are back with a range of touchscreen panels called zForce. These pads range from 5 to 13 in. widescreen models, and are supposed to have plenty of advantages over current resistive and capacitive panel systems. Well that certainly sounds enticing, doesn’t it? → Read More
President Obama is going to debate the Republican detractors of his healthcare reform proposals at the big healthcare summit in Washington today. (Democratic Congressional leaders will be in attendance as well). This is not a closed-door meeting. Far from it, Obama wants to put the opponents of his healthcare plans on display in front of the American people?
But who is going to be watching C-Span or CNN or Fox at 10 AM (Eastern Standard Time) in the morning. We’re all supposed to be working. And frankly, healthcare debates put most people to sleep. But if you want to secretly slack off and even throw some questions to the politicians at the healthcare summit, you can watch it live from your computer on YouTube’s CitiizenTube → Read More
Cooking and recipe community Allrecipes is launching a new iPhone app for pro users today, called Dinner Spinner Pro. The app, which costs $2.99 in the App Store, allows users to access the complete Allrecipes.com recipe library, add recipes directly to personal Recipes Boxes, create interactive shopping lists, and more.
Allrecipes launched a free iPhone app last year which has seen 2.8 million downloads. Based on the popularity of this app and requests by users to be able to save recipes, Allrecipes decided to launch a paid version with additional features. Cooks on the go can locate recipes, save recipes to personal Recipe Boxes, rate recipes, share recipes and upload mobile images to Allrecipes. The app also includes a shopping list feature which aggregates ingredients across recipes and allows users to virtually check off items while shopping. → Read More
Panasonic in Japan has announced [JP] a new stereo system today, the D-Dock SC-HC40. The device is just 69mm thick at the thinnest part but integrates a speaker plus digital amplifier (20W×2ch(6Ω)), a CD player, an AM/FM tuner, an SD/SDHC/SDXC memory card slot, and a “sliding door” (Panasonic). → Read More
If you thought solar panels were too expensive to put on your house, wait ’till you hear this one. Bloom Energy, a clean energy start-up in Silicon Valley, said “Hello world” yesterday, unveiling a rather revolutionary solid oxide fuel cell unit. If all goes to plan, it should be able to put your house completely off the grid. There’s a 60 Minutes spot after the jump. → Read More
For brick and mortar retail shops, the biggest challenge right now is actually getting foot traffic in their stores. Earlier this week, The New York Times reported that retailer North Face is attempting to bring people into their stores by sending them text messages when they get near their retail outlets. That technology, called ShopAlerts, is powered by location-based advertising startup Placecast and is launching today as a full-fledged marketing service for retailers.
Here’s how ShopAlerts works. Consumers can opt-in to receiving text messages in a variety of ways—at the store, online, via text-message, mobile websites or on Facebook. Once the technology has been activated, consumers will be alerted when they are near a location that they are interested in or when the brand is offering sales and specials. ShopAlerts’ technology uses “geo-fences,” which are virtual boundaries that can be targeted via location-based marketing. Retailers can customize alerts to fit their brand and strategy. On the consumer side, ShopAlerts will only send maximum number of 3 messages within a given week from a retailer. And users can opt out of the program by texting “stop” back to a text message. → Read More
Handset manufacturer Palm has updated its guidance this morning, indicating that revenues for the quarter and full year will be “well below its previously forecasted range of $1.6 billion to $1.8 billion”. The company expects that revenues for the third quarter of fiscal year 2010 will be in the range of $285 million to $310 million on a GAAP basis.
In a statement, Palm says disappointing sales are due to “slower than expected consumer adoption” of its products, resulting in lower than expected order volumes from carriers and the deferral of orders to future periods. → Read More
World of Good, a five-year old venture that connects artisans from developing communities with mainstream retail markets, has been working with eBay for the past few years, with the ecommerce giant essentially powering the company’s multi-seller marketplace for socially and environmentally responsible shopping.
This morning, World of Good announced that it is selling its wholesale division to GreaterGood/Charity USA, while eBay has moved to fully acquire its main brand and related assets. The terms of neither transaction were disclosed. → Read More
AdMob, the mobile advertising network currently being acquired by Google, this morning featured the latest results of its monthly analysis of consumer usage and attitudes across the Android, iPhone and webOS application platforms in its January 2010 AdMob Mobile Metrics Report.
Among the most interesting things the survey found is the conclusion that 91 percent of iPhone users would recommend their device, compared to 84 percent of Android users and only 69 percent of webOS users. → Read More
LBi International, the global marketing and technology agency, is to merge with SEO and Internet marketing specialist bigmouthmedia, creating “Europe’s largest digital agency”.
The deal is deal worth around £100m (roughly $150 million), reports Econsultancy, with the two companies combining “to offer clients digital marketing, consulting and technology services wherever they operate, all under one roof.” → Read More
We got a tip about a video from the same people who made us – and subsequently, you – aware of Biz Stone‘s 2006 video-recorded attempt to explain ‘Twttr’ when the service that became Twitter was still in diapers.
This time, it’s Twitter’s other co-founder, Evan Williams, who appears in a video with developer Paul Bausch, Meg Hourihan, Alberto González and some birds, recorded way back when. → Read More
In March last year, Pentax unveiled the X70, a 12MP “hybrid” digital camera with 24x optical zoom that currently sells on Amazon for $380. And today Pentax in Tokyo announced [press release in English] the successor, the X90. As to be expected, the new model has been upgraded in some areas. → Read More
SMASH: Electric guitar made just to get destroyed, then recycled Moosshiqk electric motorcycle goes fast, looks silly Electrical vehicle concepts running rampant Researchers trying to find out why baby cries “Magic Flute” audiophile speakers look like jet engines, probably sound amazing → Read More
In their January 2010 State of the Mobile Web report, Opera Software looked at social networking on the mobile Web and concluded that Facebook dominated that aspect by a margin throughout 2009, while Twitter was the fastest-growing.
This month, the company looked at Mobile Web search in the United States, and claims Google is – perhaps unsurprisingly – leading the pack.
According to Opera’s report, Google Search accounts for more than 9% of all page views on the mobile Web in the United States, outpacing rivals Yahoo! and Bing, who respectively command 4.3% and 0.03% of all page views. → Read More
I just finished reading a very unsettling blog post by serial entrepreneur Jason Goldberg, whose new startup fabulis has apparently had its bank account blocked by Citibank over posting “objectionable content” on its company blog, at least according to a bank employee he spoke to on the phone.
Fabulis is described on the blog as “the social network that helps gay men connect with amazing experiences nearby and around the world”. Could that be what Citibank is objecting against rather than the content on the blog, which is perfectly innocent any way you look at it? → Read More
Conde Nast has been working to fuse its fashion content with technology and social media. Lucky Magazine incorporated e-commerce into its online site and also partnered with Four Square. Today, Vogue Magazine is launching an innovative iPhone app that takes a page from social fashion startups like Polyvore and the Like.com’s Couturious.
The free app, called the Vogue Stylist, is meant to be used by women to do exactly what its name indicates: help style women’s wardrobes. Users can choose one of the trends highlighted by Vogue within the app and upload clothing they already own. Vogue Stylist will then produce stylish outfits from the pieces that reflect the current trend. The catch: Vogue will style outfits only with products from their advertisers. → Read More
A few days ago, I noted that Seesmic Web had perfected the management of Twitter contacts. I was wrong. A new service has been brought to my attention that is much, much better. Actually, it’s a must-use.
While Seesmic Web is great for a number of things (it’s arguably the best Twitter web client out there), ManageTwitter is great at one thing: managing your Twitter followers. To use it, you simply link up your Twitter account (via OAuth) and it lets you know which of the Twitter users you follow aren’t following you back, who is inactive, who is talkative, and who is quiet. Each of these are great gauges for whether you should still be following them or not. → Read More
Couple of things to talk about, Honda just announced that they are going to show off an electric concept vehicle, and a Hungarian company is making a concept car that’s capable of splitting in to two separate vehicles. → Read More
That’s the JVC GZ-HM340, which they say is the lightest and smallest HD camcorder with a built-in drive. Full review will be up later this week, but this picture was too cute not to share. Aww, look at them! → Read More
