Each year, I go to a lot of conferences. For each and every one I fumble around at the last minute to figure out the schedule, who’s going to be there, etc. When I get there, I trade business cards that I’ll probably never look at again just because there are hundreds of them and no good way to order that information. The logistics surrounding just attending are a pain. And it’s a much bigger pain when you’re helping to actually put one together. Enter Bloodhound.
Bloodhound is a new mobile app launching today that aims to alleviate the pains of conference-going — for both attendees and those participating. One simplified way to think about it that investor Dave McClure likes to say is that it’s a “realtime ‘Where’s Waldo’ for conferences”. → Read More
The mobile gaming space is exploding and everyone from Zynga to smaller-scale developers are flocking to iOS, Android and other smartphone platforms to capitalize on the growth in mobile gaming. Today, a new company, Lunch Money, is throwing its hat in the ring with a set of monetization and distribution tools for mobile game developers. In conjunction with Lunch Money’s debut, the startup is launching an iOS game, Recess, to showcase the platform.
Similar to OpenFeint, Lunch Money offers game developers an SDK to plug into games. The platform’s initial offerings (as showcased in Recess) include a social leaderboard and a token system. The social leaderboard doesn’t recreating the social graph, but instead leverages user graphs across Facebook, Twitter and Game Center. It’s simple a ranking of your friends’ scores. → Read More
A photographer, John Heller, had $9,000 worth of gear stolen at a shoot in Hollywood. After giving up all hope of ever getting his Nikon D3 back, he checked with a site called GadgetTrak that scans Flickr and other image upload sites for photos matching the serial number of his DSLR.
In a few seconds he had found shots with serial numbers matching his D3 belonging to a professional photographer. With the help of the police he got his gear back and now the tracking service is a recommend site for LAPD detectives on the hunt for fugitive cameras.
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Hulu Plus has found its way to a handful of Android devices these past few months, but today it makes its first official appearance on an Android tablet — just maybe not the one you were expecting. → Read More
Pixable, a startup that develops sleek social photo creation and categorization tools, is integrating images from Twitter into its intelligent social photo and video aggregation service today.
Pixable’s Photofeed a Facebook app and companion mobile apps intelligently sorts and categorize your friends’ Facebook, Instagram and Flickr photos as well as Facebook, Vimeo and YouTube videos. → Read More
Enterprise social networking platform Yammer is expanding the reach of its network today, launching Yammer Connect. The new plug-ins allows users to bring their Yammer identity to other business applications and an Embed feature enables companies to embed Yammer feeds into their intranet or other apps.
Using a JavaScript API, developers can add the Yammer Login Button to their applications via Yammer Connect. The Login Button eliminates the need for Yammer’s more than three million users to maintain multiple user profiles across business applications. So similar to the way you use Facebook Connect to log into consumer apps, Yammer Connect allows workers to authenticate business apps with their Yammer identity, and all of their profile details will automatically be completed. And users can share activity from third-party applications with colleagues back on Yammer.
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E-commerce platform Tinypay.me, which emerged from 2010′s Le Web conference as a sort of Twitter for e-commerce, has just raised $1 million from Aksoy Internet Ventures. The money will be used, in part, to relocate company headquarters from the Netherlands to the heart of the action: San Francisco.
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A pretty sizable chunk of Europe was dealt a rather massive blow this morning in the form of a preliminary injunction on some Galaxy smartphones. Of course, this was at the behest of Apple. The tablets — the Galaxy Tab 10.1 and Galaxy Tab 7 — made it out of the court room alive, which is a pretty big deal for Samsung who just a few weeks ago had to deal with an EU-wide preliminary injunction on the GalTab 10.1.
The German court eventually lifted that ban temporarily across the EU with the exception of Germany. Ya know, since the court actually has the right to rule in its own country. Unfortunately, Samsung’s smartphones are now under attack, as the Hague court in the Netherlands issued an EU-wide preliminary injunction on the Galaxy S, Galaxy S II, and Galaxy Ace, which will go into effect in mid-October. → Read More
A few weeks ago I asked if Google+ was putting Facebook on the defensive. After yesterday’s Facebook announcement, I don’t think there’s any question. Many journalists have described the promised changes as giving users “new control over privacy” and suggested that Facebook is just giving us a chance to be more private like G+. Some have even suggested that this new focus on privacy is an “about-face” from Facebook’s former philosophy. I’d like to suggest that Facebook hasn’t changed their attitude about privacy at all. My gut tells me—and this is truly a hunch, no insider info here—that the announced changes are mostly significant because Facebook is actually preparing users for something much bigger. Facebook is being more reactive now then they’ve ever been, but it’s not just because of G+. It’s also because of Twitter. Actually, it’s because Twitter offers a possible vision of G+’s future. Sound confusing? Let me explain.
My guess, then, is that Facebook is announcing to users more front and center access to “privacy features” because Facebook is actually planning to make an even bigger push into the public, Twitter-like sphere. → Read More
This is what I like to see: people Kickstarting some really amazing stuff. How amazing? Try a handmade pen made of multiple pieces of wood spliced together and top-of-the-line clips and gel-inks. The pen, called the Exemplar, is half-length and costs a mere $100 (relatively cheap for a handmade pen, but still). However, it’s made by two North Carolinian lads, Cass Baltz and Bart Creasman, which adds a certain bit of old country panache.
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We’ve written about StackMob twice, both times calling it the “Heroku For Mobile” in the title. Yeah, “X For Y” titles are pretty lame. But I mean, that’s pretty much exactly what StackMob is — and they embrace it. In fact, they embrace it so much that today they’re announcing a key partnership with… wait for it… Heroku!
StackMob is integrating with Heroku as an add-on that extends the mobile platform to all Ruby developers on Heroku. This means APIs, OAuth, Push Notifications, and analytics for mobile are all coming over in the integration. With these easy-to-implement solutions, developers can spend less time worrying about backend development for both desktop and mobile and more time worrying about frontend implementation. → Read More
There’s a fine line between a bold advertising campaign and playing fast and loose with the truth, and it looks like Motorola may have just tip-toed over it. According to the U.K.’s Advertising Standards Authority, Motorola has been banned from calling their Atrix handset “the most powerful smartphone in the world.”
While the Atrix launched domestically back in February, it made its U.K. debut as an Orange exclusive this past May. Unfortunately, that launch window put it right up against the release of the Samsung Galaxy S II, which packs a a 1.2 Ghz processor into its svelte frame. ASA officials took issue with the fact that the Atrix, in spite of the lofty claims surrounding it, actually has a slower processor than the Samsung Galaxy S II.
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Today, regulators will announce a $500 million settlement with Google over charges related to advertisements for illegal online pharmacies. The pharmacies appearing in Google ads were operating outside the law, leading to a Department of Justice investigation into Google’s advertising practices – an investigation which decreased Google’s profits by 22%, reports the The New York Times.
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Online and mobile payment platform Dwolla just launched a new feature called “Proxi” which allows users to send and receive cash-based mobile payments based on their current proximity to another connected device. The technology bypasses the need for special hardware, like Square’s plastic dongles or NFC chips built into a phone, in order to make mobile payments.
Instead, the interface provides a simple way for Dwolla’s users to find nearby contacts and send them money using only the mobile app itself. → Read More
The era of Googorola is nearly upon us, and the implications of such a deal are still greatly unknown to most of us. We could see some pretty amazing (and odd) gizmos and gadgets spawn from this little get together, and we can definitely expect a stronger Android platform than ever before. Other Android OEMs have remained relatively at bay thus far, but that could change in an instant when they see the first flagship Moto handset with a purely Android experience. In fact, an end to MotoBlur may be the most exciting result of Googorola, indeed (at least to us end users). But there are a few things that need to happen first.
Google has obviously started on its trip through the obstacle course that is the United States regulatory approval system. In Google’s original statement on Wednesday, it claimed that the deal was subject to regulatory approval in the U.S., the EU, and other jurisdictions. Funny, one of those other jurisdictions happens to be one of the biggest in the world: China. And Google has yet to send China’s Commerce Ministry an application for approval. → Read More
A new startup called Booktrack launched this morning (actually, the NYT launched it yesterday), in an effort to create a whole new genre of e-books.
Booktrack creates synchronized soundtracks for e-books that aim to “dramatically boost the reader’s imagination and engagement”.
The startup’s technology combines music and sound effects with text, automatically paced to one’s reading speed. → Read More
Social networks like Facebook and Twitter act as truly effective channels by which companies can interact with their customers and receive near-instantaneous feedback on their products and brands. Of course, the information obtained by way of social networks can still be somewhat of a fire hose.
While social networks provide surfeit casual feedback for brands to take advantage of, they often lack the kind of deep insight into product development, design concepts, or what a company might be doing to better serve its customer base. Companies want to be more effective in communicating with their active user base and valued customers in a collaborative way that actually leads to better products and a better user experience, rather than the alternative. → Read More
We’ve long wanted to put together a videocast for TCTV focusing on gadgets but, because we were too lazy, it never happened… until now. Please excuse the quality as we’re working out the bugs but we wanted to get something up this week, thereby ensuring we actually do this on a regular basis.
This episode is all about tablets. First we talk about Samsung’s belief that 2001 is prior art in the tablet space and then we talk about ten things to do with your brand new $99 TouchPad. Please: enjoy. → Read More
Taptera, which builds enterprise iPhone and iPad applications, has landed $2 million in Series A financing in a round led by well-known Silicon Valley investor (and former Oracle exec) Terence Garnett, who will also be joining the startup’s board.
Other participants in the round include Salesforce.com and a slew of company CEOs and professional investors, including M.R. Rangaswami and former HP executive David Murphy. → Read More
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