And yet another Kinect hack: Japan-based web company Kayac has set up some kind of semi-closed “cyberspace booth” [JP] in a department store in Tokyo, in which the “experience” is largely based on the Microsoft sensor. The booth is supposed to “reproduce the cyberspace of Ghost in the Shell – Stand Alone Complex(S.A.C.)”, a famous science-fiction anime series. → Read More
It’s been a long time coming, but the four people who own Nokia N8s, C7s, and E7s can now play with the AR.Drone from the comfort of their phones using Parrot’s AR.Remote software for Symbian. → Read More
If you’ve watched some of our previous robotic quadrocopter coverage you’ll have seen these little choppers fly through hoops and interact with humans in fairly mundane ways. Now I’d like you to watch this video of two quadrocopters sharing a nice game of catch. They target the ball and throw it back to the thrower and once you have two in the same pen they start throwing the balls to each other. The result? Mirth and merriment! → Read More
A week after launching the official release of Firefox 4, Mozilla is following up today with Mobile Firefox for Android and Maemo phones (for all twelve of you Maemo fans out there). For Android, the browser is now available on the Android Market,.
One thing Firefox mobile doesn’t have is support for Flash, even though Android has a big partnership with Adobe to make Flash work on mobile. I spoke with some folks from Mozilla yesterday about this topic. Eventually, Firefox mobile will support Flash, but it is just not there yet in terms of responsiveness. The focus right now is on HTML5 and CSS. It is amazing some of the 3D effects, animations, video, and other in-browser graphics you can now get with HTML5. Check out some of the demos here after you download Firefox to your phone. → Read More
For the past two years, Google has offered Commerce Search, a hosted enterprise search product to power online retail stores and e-commerce websites. While Google offers hosted enterprise search to web platforms, Commerce Search was the the company’s first custom-tailored search product for a specific vertical. The search giant has been steadily updating Commerce Search since 2009, but today’s release is the retail search product’s most significant update in the past two years.
The first two versions of Google Commerce offered a variety of features that are optimized for retail and product search, such as parametric search, sorting of results, spell checker, stemming, a merchandising dashboard, query autocompletion and more. Google even dropped the starting price of Commerce last year, to $25,000 per year for 3 million searches and 50,000 items indexed. Google’s new version of Commerce Search has been updated with a few more compelling features including instant search, local product availability, search recommendations and more. → Read More
Best Buy is now in the the 4G business. The company has announced that its Best Buy Connect service, which first launched last July, will now support 4G, courtesy of a deal worked out with Clearwire. Access to the 4G network will set you back $45 per month, with Best Buy willing to waive the $35 activation fee if you agree to a two-year contract. → Read More
Editor’s Note: This is part two in an in-depth series exploring the ramifications of the explosion of late stage capital being raised by the Valley’s elite venture firms. For part one, go here.
In the mid-2000s when nearly every top venture capital firm was expanding to India and China, Benchmark Capital did not share its peers’ worldly ambitions. In fact, while the firm retained its Israel fund (for now?), it spun off the top performing UK fund Balderton Capital and retrained its focus firmly on the US.
Earlier this year, when early stage investors were losing deals at the hands of the super angels and firm-after-firm launched aggressive seed investing programs, Benchmark Capital did not. It refused to compete with the Ron Conways and Mike Maples of the world; it would wait its turn and invest later.
And now – as Benchmark’s early stage peers are raising $1 billion growth funds and throwing huge sums of money at established companies like Facebook, Zynga and Groupon – once again, Benchmark Capital is refusing to follow suit. → Read More
Wow, this is the Omega Speedmaster watch that I want… really want. For 2011 Omega has created the perfect Speedmaster for me. Did they have me in mind when making it? Not likely, but let me tell you what I personally like about it and why I think this is one of the most compelling new Omega sport watches to be released in a while. In short, you get size, function, and a great movement. → Read More
We interrupt our live coverage of breaking news about Internet companies from around the world to point you to this phenomenal 360-degrees photo (okay, actually it’s 2,947 pictures stitched together). It is, to our and the photographer’s knowledge, the largest photo ever taken indoors with 280,000 x 140,000 pixels of awesomesauce.
In the screenshot above, in the painting on the ceiling, do you see that angel holding a book, right below the cross? No worries if you can’t, because I zoomed in to give you a close-up: → Read More
The founder of messaging app Kik, 23-year-old entrepreneur Ted Livingston, has donated $1 million to The University of Waterloo’s VeloCity Residence, a residence-based mobile and digital startups incubator (dormcubator?) where his own startup ambitions were sparked.
The University of Waterloo will now also establish a $1 million seed fund for student startups and intends to provide “at least 30 student ventures” with $25,000 as well as four months of office space, incorporation services and mentoring over the next few years. → Read More
Enterprise mobility company Apperian has raised $9.5 million in new funding from North Bridge Venture Partners, Bessemer Venture Partners, Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers’ iFund, CommonAngels and LaunchCapital. This brings Apperian’s total funding to $11 million.
As more companies turn to tablets and smartphones in enterprise communications, standard consumer apps may not fit within security requirements. Launched by former Apple employees in 2009, Apperian helps developers accelerate app creation within the enterprise. → Read More
Cisco this morning announced its intent to acquire newScale, a global provider of self-service and lifecycle management software for enterprise IT and private/hybrid cloud computing.
Terms of the deal were not disclosed, but newScale is a company that’s raised tens of millions of dollars in funding from a wide range of investors, according to CrunchBase.
Based in San Mateo, California, newScale develops products and solutions that enable companies to select and deploy cloud services within their businesses, allowing them to initiate the provisioning of their own systems and infrastructure on an as-needed basis. → Read More
Glassdooris reporting an Employment Confidence Survey today that shows robust and increasing confidence in the job market– never mind most of the nation remains gripped in 9% unemployment with only a little hope of things getting better.
40% of respondents expect their company’s outlook to improve in the next six months and just 17% are concerned about a possible layoff, down from 26% in the first quarter of 2009. And there’s decent optimism that should they lose their jobs, 40% of them say it is “likely” they would find a new job matching their experience and pay within six months– the highest that number has been in six quarters. Glassdoor notes that “only” 35% of respondents expected to get a raise within the next 12 months, but given the top line economic data for the country, that still seems pretty healthy to me.
While unemployment is getting better, the numbers say as much about who uses Glassdoor as anything else. → Read More
Founded by former employees of travel booking site Hotwire.com, Limos.com, an online marketplace for limo and car services, this morning announced that they’ve secured $10 million in financing from Austin Ventures. The new Austin Ventures investment adds to the company’s original funding of $5 million from Canal Partners.
Coinciding with the funding announcement, the company has released a new corporate travel management product, Limos.com for Business. → Read More
Cheapflights Media has made a strategic investment in travel meta-search site Momondo.com and its parent company Skygate International, the company announced this morning.
Both Skygate and Momondo will continue to operate from Copenhagen as independent brands, led by their existing founding management. Terms of the investment were not disclosed. → Read More
GE Energy this morning announced that it has acquired a stake of approximately 90 percent of Converteam, a France-based provider of electrification and automation equipment and systems, for approximately $3.2 billion.
Converteam’s senior management will retain the remaining stake in the company, but GE has agreed to purchase their shares over the next two to five years for a price that it expects not to exceed $480 million. Converteam was previously owned by a shareholder group that includes the company’s management, Barclays Private Equity and LBO France. To learn more about the company’s history, check out its Wikipedia profile. → Read More
Make no mistake about it: the digital music space will be turned upside down this year, courtesy of giants like Apple, Google, HP, Sony and now, Amazon.
Earlier today, the latter announced that it was entering the world of digital music locker services with a bang, introducing services dubbed Cloud Drive and Cloud Player that basically let you store your digital music – and more – in the cloud and stream it from browsers on any computer as well as from Android phones. → Read More
Just in case you missed it: Mark Cuban’s most recent investment took place in what is a fairly unusual setting for early-stage startup seed funding — a shark tank. That’s right, the controversial billionaire and media mogul was a recent guest shark on ABC reality show “Shark Tank”, in which 5 business moguls listen to entrepreneurs pitch their companies and decide whether or not to devour them like so many sardines. Great premise. (I’m also pretty sure ABC lifted the show’s name from Ron Conway’s boardroom, but I haven’t confirmed that yet.)
In the most recent Shark Tank-isode, co-founder and chief executive of Toygaroo, Nikki Pope, pitched her startup to the panel of honchos, hoping for big-time investment. Toygaroo, the self-labeled “Netflix for toys”, is an online toy rental service in which parents can sign up for and choose a “wish list” of toys that are then sent to their home, played with by their kids, before being returned to Toygaroo via a FedEx box. Before you start shuddering, the toys are, of course, cleaned and sanitized before being shipped. → Read More
It is rare to find a device that is both baffling and compelling. We’ve been talking about the Acer Iconia for a while now and this dual-screened tablet or “Touchbook” is now available and shipping in the US next month. It runs a Core i5 chip, Windows 7, and has two 14-inch screens made of high-strength Gorilla Glass that allow for typing, multi-touch, and gestures. → Read More
This OCD Chef Cutting Board Aligns Perfectly With My Neuroses MIT Scientist Claims To Have Created Practical “Artificial Leaf” Giveaway: Every Impactband Color Videos: Robot Spatula “SWITL” Picks Up And Replaces Semi-Liquids Without Destroying Their Shape Excelsior! Students Build Fruit Ninja Simulator → Read More
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