When I logged on to Brizzly this morning, a notification popped up announcing some brand new features for the web-based social networking client. As you can read on Brizzly maker Thing Labs‘ blog, there are also some design changes accompanying the new features.
Like rival Seesmic Web has done in the past, Brizzly has now added Foursquare support to the fray, which means you can now see your friends’ Foursquare check-ins from within Brizzly. There’s also a new camera control feature and Brizzly has also finally decided to give people the choice on how to retweet, erm, tweets. → Read More
TigerText, a company that develops a private SMS app, has raised $1.9 million in angel funding led by Herb Madan and co-founder of Akamai Randall Kaplan.
Launched in February of 2010, TigerText’s mobile apps allows users to send text messages or photos that can then be deleted off both the sender’s and receiver’s phone after a selected period of time. Once a sender selects the message lifespan (from 1 minute up to 30 days), expired messages are not only deleted from both phones, but are not stored on any server and they cannot be retrieved once expired. Users can also select a “Delete on Read” option, which will delete the text 60 seconds after the recipient opens the message → Read More
Awww… look how cute! That little bugger is the LiveView Screen, a tiny little screen that connects to SE’s Android phones and acts as a second screen for calls, music control, and other bits of information including Twitter feeds. This is highly evocative of SE’s earlier attempts at creating a cool Bluetooth watch that let you take calls from your wrist. Why they have such an H-O for miniature wearable tech is beyond me but more power to them. Press release and features after the jump. It will be available Q4 at an unnamed price. → Read More
CA Technologies this morning announced that it has agreed to purchase Hyperformix, a provider of capacity management software for dynamic physical, virtual, and cloud IT infrastructures. Deal terms were not disclosed.
Capacity management enables customers to discover how physical, virtual, hardware, software, storage, and network resources are being used, and to determine what resources will be needed in the future. The technology also helps customers optimize the deployment of those resources to meet business objectives. → Read More
We recently wrote about the fast growing number of company profiles on professional social network LinkedIn (the network has over one million to be exact). Launched in April, the company profile gives organizations a centralized profile that has the look and feel of a member profile. LinkedIn also added the ability to “follow” companies, much like you would on Facebook or Twitter. In fact, 30 million LinkedIn users are following over 1 million company profiles Today, LinkedIn is expanding the use of company profiles; creating additional ways companies can interact with members on the platform.
Now profiles are getting more social. Administrators can publish blog posts, job opportunities, company news and incorporate Twitter feeds into a company profile. Of course, visitors will be able to see other LinkedIn members they know that work at company X. → Read More
Forrester Research claims adoption of social networking continues to rise across the globe, while other forms of social interactions, such as content creation, experienced no substantial growth in the past twelve months.
Based on data from more than 275,000 consumers in Asia Pacific, Europe, and North America, the company has released a report dubbed “A Global Update Of Social Technographics”. → Read More
Amazon.com today introduced the beta version of “Kindle for the Web”, which enables people to read and share digital book samples in their browsers without the need to install or download anything.
The company says it aims to lure bloggers and website publishers who participate in the Amazon Associates Program to embed samples of Kindle books on their websites (here’s how). It seems like a win: these website owners will earn referral fees from Amazon when customers complete book purchases using the links on their websites. → Read More
AOL is buying video syndication network 5min Media, reports AllThingsD. According to Israeli news outlet YNews, this is indeed a done deal, and the price is between $50 and $65 million.
It isn’t exactly what you’d call a stellar exit for 5min’s investors, who pumped just south of $13 million into the company, but not a terrible one either. → Read More
Following Sony, Panasonic also showed [JP] some new computer hardware today, namely the so-called Let’snote J9. It’s essentially a mini notebook with a 10.1-inch screen that runs on Windows 7 Home Premium and has a modular 128GB SSD on board. Another selling point is the Core i5-460M (2.53GHz) CPU that powers the device. → Read More
According to multiple sources familiar with the matter, Google has just bought Seattle-based mobile planning startup Plannr, which if you remember our coverage launched about two months ago as an Outlook for hipsters. Plannr, which targets groups of friends less than ten people, is attempting to tie together geolocation, email, SMS and phone calls in order to create an uber-scheduling tool.
Basically a social calendar which allows you to group message your friends with plans, Plannr fits in with Google’s recent mobile and social acquiring spree (neatly tying the two together in fact), though I suspect this the two person startup is more a GoogleMe-related talent acquisition than anything else. In fact we actually commented on the startup’s overlap with Google calendar in our original post. → Read More
Mobile ad network Millennial Media is releasing its monthly mobile mix report today. According to Nielsen, Millennial’s ads reach 63 million of a total of 77 million mobile web users in the U.S., or 81% of the U.S. mobile web. In August, Android smartphone impression share increased 7% month-over-month, and now makes up 26% of the Millennial network. Apple, of course, took the top spot, with 48% of impressions on Millennial’s network, up 7% since July.
In terms of ad requests, Android ad requests increased 39% month-over-month and are up 996% since January. That being said, the iPhone remained the top mobile phone on the Millennial network (by a significant margin), and iPad requests increased by 76% month-over-month. RIM ad requests increased 16% month-over-month. → Read More
Meet Grig. He’s Going To Help You Win A Samsung Galaxy S Phone Concept: The Moon Watch Is A Watch Where You Watch The Moon Orb MP-1 Streams Your Music Over Wi-Fi To Any Stereo Hands On With The Sarcos XOS 2 – The Real Life Iron Man 40% Of Homes Now Have DVRs → Read More
Masabi, which develops mobile ticketing technology for the transport sector, has secured $2 million from London-based m8 Capital, the majority-owned affiliate of AGC Equity Partners that targets mobile startups and technology.
In June, m8 invested $800k in the location-based startup Rummble.
Masabi says the new funding will be used to support “commercial deployments” of the company’s mobile ticketing systems with UK rail companies and for international expansion. → Read More
Sony has a new line of flagship Vaio notebooks, the F series. Announced [JP] today in Japan, one of the main selling points are the two USB 3.0 ports each of the VAIO F notebook comes with. There will be two models, the VPCF139FJ/BI and the VPCF138FJ/B, and both will hit Japanese stores on October 9. → Read More
There’s a good chance you’ve seen prepaid credit cards on the shelves at 7-11, Walmart, CVS, Rite Aid, Radio Shack or a variety of other retail outlets. Those cards are usually issued by Green Dot, a Los Angeles based startup that went public earlier this year and is worth over $2 billion.
They allow people who normally can’t get credit cards – like teens and those with poor credit – a way to pay for things like the rest of us do, with a Visa or Mastercard. And people love them. The company made $64 million in profit in 2009 on sales of nearly $235 million. The company boasts over ten million customers.
That isn’t what makes Green Dot special though. You have to hear the story of the ten year old company from founder and CEO Steve Streit and early investor/board member Michael Moritz from Sequoia Capital. → Read More
The App Store review office at 1 Infinite Loop has officially frozen over: we’ve gotten word that the official Google Voice application is on its way to the iPhone in the next few weeks. In fact, we’ve heard from a source close to Google that it’s already been approved — Google just needs to revamp the application to work with the iPhone 4 and iOS’s multitasking capabilities. If you’re a Google Voice user and you’re on an iPhone, this is great news.
It’s been a long, long road to get here. Last July, we broke the news that Apple had blocked the official Google Voice application, which eventually sparked an FCC inquiry into the matter. Apple claimed that the application “duplicated existing functionality”, which didn’t do much to convince anyone as it subsequently accepted similar apps. Nothing happened for well over a year, and the odds of Google Voice ever making its way to the iPhone, at least as a native application, seemed bleak. → Read More
The new nano has been stripped of its camera, squashed down into a square, and given a touchscreen. Not only that, but the $149 Nano reportedly only costs Apple a meager $45.10 to manufacture. I’ve heard of mark-up, but this is getting a little ridiculous. → Read More
Okay, we know now that Amazon is on the verge of releasing an Android-based app store. But last week, before we knew that, we got an interesting tip that such a move was coming soon — this week, actually. And that tip came with a bonus attached — the tipster also heard that Amazon was going to be releasing an iPad competitor alongside the store.
Now, unlike the app store, we don’t have any further information to verify this tablet. But again, this tipster nailed the app store part of this news — and knew a couple other tidbits that turned out to be true. So it certainly seems possible that they’re right again. → Read More
Audio Plus Services announced their Focal Bird 2.1 speaker system, combining a unified amplifier with a subwoofer and two satellite speakers. The Focal Bird system also uses a Focal Kleer wireless dongle, which allows you to stream audio from the iPod, iPhone, or iPad. There’s even a USB dongle available for streaming audio from your computer to the Focal Bird. → Read More
OCZ just announced their latest SSD drive, the Onyx 2. The Onyx 2 is a 2.5 inch drive rated at a 270MBps read speed, and a 265MBps write speed. The new drives are available in either 120GB or 250GB, and rated at 1.5 million hours between failures. No word on when the new drives will be available, or how much they are going to cost. → Read More
