Just last week, we asked the question if the world needs yet another mobile operating system (Samsung’s Bada). Now it turns out Japan’s biggest cell phone carrier, NTT DoCoMo, apparently thinks the answer is yes. The telecom behemoth (55 million customers in Japan) today announced [press release in English] the development of a brand new “application platform for mobile phones”, which is planned to go global, too. → Read More
Last week, the newly renamed Google Places added a ton of features to help local businesses create a directory page right on Google. Today, Google’s Street View is joining the party by showing links to local business listings right in Street View. As you turn around in Street View, names of local businesses and other “Google Places” will show up overlayed on top of buildings. As you hover over those names, a small pop-up window shows some of the listing details such as business name, phone number, and ratings.
There have been links from business listings on Google Maps directly to Street View for almost a year, but now those business listings appear right within Street View itself. Google clearly wants to own local and is sprinkling these listings everywhere it can. → Read More
Rhapsody, the digital music service, has released an updated App for the iPad, iPod touch, and iPhone. It’s free to download but requires a subscription to use. The big deal here is that not only can you listen to your Rhapsody playlist while connected to the Internet, but you can also download individual songs to local storage. Yes, that means you’ll be able to listen to your favorite song—Rhapsody has a catalog of more than 9 million songs—while in areas without Internet access, such as the subways of New York. It marks the first time that Apple has allowed a third-party music subscription App to be able to download songs in the U.S. Yes, it’s a reasonably big deal. → Read More
I sort of love the MiFi. (What’s a Mifi? It’s a portable, battery-powered WiFi router that pulls data over a 3G connection.) If I had a box of candy for every time the MiFi got me out of a jam, I’d be.. well, I’d probably be crazy fat. Good news, people of Japan! Now you have the opportunity to get crazy fat, too! → Read More
[Geneva, Switzerland] Information security and identity management software and services firm WISeKey has closed a $20 million financing round at a $200 million valuation. The investment comes from a group of undisclosed institutional and private backers in both Europe and the United States.
With the extra capital, WISeKey plans an accelerated expansion in BRIC countries (Brazil, Russia, India and China).
WISeKey also marks itself an IPO candidate, saying that it will file to go public as soon as the market stabilizes. → Read More
The Wall Street Journal introduced a metro section today for Greater New York in Rupert Murdoch’s ongoing efforts to go after the New York Times. The top story right now is “Rats Mob The Upper East Side” (seriously). The New York Times sent out a staff memo today to journalists mocking the Wall Street Journal‘s efforts, and offering “helpful hints to our Journal colleagues” such as “the Dodgers now play in Los Angeles, Soho is the acronym for South of Houston, Fashion Week has moved to Lincoln Center, Idlewild is now JFK and Cats is no longer playing on Broadway.”
The New York Times might have a 160-year history of reporting on the city, but it doesn’t have one thing the Wall Street Journal does. That’s right, Foursquare badges. As part of its local launch, the Wall Street Journal has created three new badges for die-hard New Yorkers and Journal readers: The Banker Badge (for checking into the financial district three times), the Urban Adventurer badge (for hitting all five boroughs), and the Lunch Box badge (for twice checking into a restaurant reviewed by the WSJ’s Lunch Box column. Hopefully, the Lunch Box reviewer will be staying away from the Upper East Side. → Read More
As I mentioned in Sunday’s post, Blippy’s founders were hammering out a new security plan to assure users that all their information, especially their credit card numbers, would be safe. They delivered this morning, in their latest blog post, issuing new details about the blunder, how it worked with Google, and the framework for a go-forward plan. In addition, Blippy sounded more contrite about the situation. On Friday their post said, “it’s a lot less bad than it looks,” this Monday the tone is less defensive and more apologetic “However, this is a very serious issue and simply apologizing is not enough. We’ve spent the last 48 hours working around the clock to dissect the issues, reach out to affected users, and put together a plan to ensure this never happens again.” New details on their security plan ahead. → Read More
If a notorious game industry news source is believed, Microsoft is announcing a redesigned Xbox 360 this year at E3. The systems will be physically smaller hence the slim name, but also sport a new predominantly black color scheme. The thought is a while Project Natal wouldn’t look so hot in front of a black TV and so the console is getting revamped ahead of Natal’s launch. → Read More
First Apple goes after Taiwanese cell phone maker HTC over infringement of no less than 20 of its patents, and now the man who invented the PDA (personal digital assistant) is targeting the company.
Entrepreneur and inventor Judah Klausner, or rather his company Klausner Technologies, has filed suit against HTC for patent infringement under its U.S. Visual Voicemail patents. → Read More
Video advertising company FreeWheel has raised $16.8 million in funding from Disney’s Steamboat Ventures, and existing investors, including Turner Broadcasting System, Battery Ventures, and Foundation Capital. This brings the company’s total funding to nearly $30 million.
Founded by former DoubleClick employees in 2007, FreeWheel allows marketers and publishers to manage video advertising campaigns across a variety of distribution sites. FreeWheel’s technology allows media companies to operate an advertising platform for online video, including managing ad sales rights, producing inventory forecasts for live or on demand content, delivering a yield-optimized set of ads, and analyzing video business performance. → Read More
Well look at this: new kid on the book, Barnes & Noble’s Nook ereader, just surpassed Amazon Kindle sales in March. Obviously the Nook is a bit newer than the Kindle and those who were going to buy a Kindle probably have already, but it also looks like B&N’s retail network is also driving sales.
Digitimes reports that 53% of e-book readers shipped were Nooks while 1.43 million ereaders were sold in Q1 2010. They’re estimating that total ereader sales will reach 11 million by year’s end. → Read More
Basically, since its initial launch, one of the most annoying things about the iPod (and now iPhone, iPad, etc) is that you have to plug it into your computer via USB to sync it. Sure, this also allows you to recharge your device, but I’d love to say, charge it in a holder next to my bed (since I also use it as an alarm) and wirelessly sync it over WiFi. A new app allows you to do that. Too bad it’s likely to be rejected.
As you can see in the video below, WiFi Sync allows you to do exactly what the name promises. Once you complete a few steps to authenticate your iPod/iPhone and then your computer, you can begin syncing wirelessly. It just works. The problem, of course, that Apple is likely to have with it is unauthorized interaction with their software, iTunes. → Read More
Wildfire, a platform for building viral marketing campaigns, has received $4 million in Series A funding led by Summit Partners with additional investors, including Jeff Clavier, Aydin Senkut and Gary Vaynerchuk, participating in the round.
Wildfire’s platform makes it relatively easy for marketers to create attractive, branded social media marketing campaigns (e.g. sweepstakes, contests, coupons, giveaways, quizzes, virtual gift campaigns and more) and to simultaneously publish them on Facebook fan pages, on company websites (integrated with Facebook Connect) and on Twitter. → Read More
Brands are trying to figure out this whole social marketing thing, but the success stories are still few and far between. “I think everyone is grappling with how to use digital these days,” says Judy Hu, who is in charge of advertising and branding for General Electric. She oversees one of the world’s largest advertising budgets which spans TV, print, and the Web. I spoke with her last week about one early success GE is seeing with an online video campaign organized by Howcast that is generating millions of video views on YouTube as part of its larger Healthyimagination branding effort.
The key to the campaign was to get YouTube video personalities such as Smosh, iJustine, Alphacat, Rhett and Link, and Brittani Louise Taylor to take a physical challenge and make original videos about getting healthy. So far, all together these videos have been viewed more than 8.5 million times, rated more than 250,000 times, and attracted more than 110,000 comments. → Read More
Sigh. Nokia may be selling phones like hotcakes to the developing world and my father-in-law in Poland, but they can’t make a popular phone to save their life. The new N8, leaked and reviewed on Electronista is little more than a rehash of Symbian circa 2000. Mobile-Review’s Eldar Murtazin goes so far as to jokingly accuse Nokia employees of sabotaging the company’s brand from the inside, else it might be “impossible to explain” why the N8 exists at all. → Read More
A lot of sophisticated, portable gadgets nowadays have a touchscreen, but what if you could operate those gadgets with your fingers – without touching the display or any part of the device itself? A research team led by Masatoshi Ishikawa, a professor at the University of Tokyo, has developed a way to operate mobile devices by moving your fingers in mid-air. → Read More
Oh well. Even though The Street announced RIM’s two upcoming phones a bit early this morning, it still doesn’t take away from their appeal. Suits, corporate types and anyone that takes mobile email seriously should take notice. These two are nice. → Read More
Remember Floppy discs? In case you haven’t noticed (like I didn’t), Sony is actually still making and selling those discs. But soon it’s time to say goodbye, as the company now said [JP] it will stop production in March next year. Sony rolled out the world’s first 3.5-inch floppy disc back in 1981. And believe it or not, even in 2008, the company could still sell 8.5 million units in Japan alone. → Read More
Brits can now get their hands on Google’s so-called ‘superphone’ for an upfront cost of “free”. Kinda.
Available from today for pre-order on Vodafone UK, the Android-powered Google Nexus One can be had for £35 per-month on a 2 year contract, including a bundle of minutes and texts, and the much needed 1GB monthly data allowance — this is a Google Phone after all (see TechCrunch review).
There are a number of other tariffs available too. Customers who pre-order can expect deliveries to go out on April 30th. → Read More
San Francisco, CA
