Isis, the carrier-led joint venture between AT&T, T-Mobile and Verizon, is today announcing support for its mobile wallet system from the majority of leading device makers, including HTC, LG, Motorola, RIM, Samsung and Sony Ericsson, as well as from NFC hardware provider Device Fidelity.
All of the handset makers are now committed to introducing handsets that will include Isis’ NFC and related technology standards. → Read More
Tykoon, a sites that helps families engage children in becoming fiscally responsible, has raised $1.35 million in funding from Doug Lebda, RRE Ventures, Rick Thompson, Chamath Palihapitiya, David Bach, and G.Kennedy Thompson.
Tykoon (currently in private beta) is a new social, personalized financial services platform for families where kids can earn, save, give and spend real money. With Tykoon, parents can implement money management via chores, jobs, allowance, spending and giving. Kids can earn money through jobs, chores, and gifts, save based on goals, spend in a kid safe environment powered by Amazon.com and give to charities via the platform. → Read More
Huawei has a history of partnering up with brands to build highly targeted phones, a good example being the Red Bull-branded RBM HD rugged phone (otherwise known as the Impulse for AT&T).
This time, the company is taking the less caffeine-fueled route, opting for some added credibility with its next rugged handset: the Huawei-Discovery Expedition phone. → Read More
I could swear that I’ve had a dream about this before, or at least written about it*, but it looks like Microsoft beat me to the patent office.
On September 22, Microsoft filed the “Mobile Communication Device Having Multiple, Interchangeable Second Devices” patent, which basically describes a slider-style phone that has replacement components to swap in for the slider keyboard. → Read More
Today, Formspring is adding support for photos to its Q&A service in an update the company is touting as the biggest in the nearly two years since its launch. With the addition, Formspring users will be able to post a photo both when asking a question or when providing a response. → Read More
All the way back in May, Microsoft revealed that they were hard at work developing a web version of the Windows Phone marketplace. Now that the new Mango update is nearly upon us, Microsoft has officially flipped the switch on their web marketplace for markets across the world. → Read More
Yammer, an enterprise social network and communications platform, has raised $17 million in new funding led by The Social+Capital Partnership, a new fund established by former Facebook Vice President Chamath Palihapitiya. Previous investors Charles River Ventures, Emergence Capital and U.S. Venture Partners also participated in the round. Palihapitiya will have an observer’s seat on Yammer’s board of directors. This brings Yammer’s total financing to $57 million.
For background, Yammer launched as the “Twitter for businesses” at TechCrunch 50 in 2008. But over the past year, the startup has expanded to become a more comprehensive platform for social networking within the enterprise.
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If you told me two-and-a-half decades ago that this tow-headed youngster from Columbus, Ohio who spent his evenings looking up at the stars, engrossed in endless wonder at the boundless horizon of the invisible universe, would one day be able to print on toilet paper in his lifetime, he would have spit at you and then kicked your dog. He was a pretty crappy kid. But it has happened: we can now use off-the-shelf components to print on toilet paper. This is the end of history. → Read More
Put one big, fat candle on the cake. One year ago today, a startup named CloudFlare launched on stage at TechCrunch Disrupt in San Francisco, where the startup placed second to Qwiki. (You can read our initial coverage here.) For those unfamiliar with CloudFlare, the startup offers a free service designed to not only boost the speed of your company’s website but also protect it from those nefarious web-born threats that hamper load times and just generally make IT guys grumble. Not a sexy product, but one that’s necessary and integral to the success of web businesses.
To give a quick snapshot of how appealing this service is to eBusinesses: 365 days after launch, CloudFlare is now powering over 100,000 websites, with more than 5 percent of those seeing over 1.5 million monthly page views. From zero traffic to today powering a host of websites that see a collective 15 billion page views per month and more than 350 million unique visitors, CloudFlare apparently has a fairly significant silver lining. → Read More
Glitch, the storied massively multi-player online game we’ve been chronicling for 23 months now, opens to the public today at 10 am PST. In case you were wondering, Glitch has been garnering so much attention and press time because the company behind it, Tiny Speck, is the brainchild of some core members of the original Flickr team including co-founder Stewart Butterfield, Cal Henderson, Eric Costello and Serguei Mourachov. → Read More
Exclusive – Social Q&A site Sharecare.com, created by WebMD founder Jeff Arnold and TV’s Dr. Mehmet Oz, is partnering with Healthline Networks, a provider of intelligent health information services. Healthline currently powers the health platforms at Yahoo Health, AARP, Aetna, United Health Group and others. Going forward, it will power Sharecare’s search services too.
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MOG is following the tried and true method of expanding its appeal by expanding onto new hardware and just announced that the music streaming service is now streaming on select Samsung Smart TVs and Blu-ray players. This gives owners of 2010 and 2011 Sammy TVs and Blu-ray players access to MOG’s impressive 12 million song library streamed at 320kbps.
This latest move follows other streaming service’s quick adoption of multiple hardware platforms. MOG is now accessible on iOS devices, Android phones, LG TVs and streamers such as Boxee, Roku, and Sonos. And they’re not done. → Read More
Close proximity technology TransferJet is evolving. Toshiba has developed an LSI (pictured) that supports TransferJet and is designed specifically for mobile devices. The LSI is sized at just 4.0×4.0× 0.5mm and the smallest of its kind, according to Toshiba.
The company says the LSI achieves a receiving sensitivity of -78dBm, outperforming the value of the TransferJet standard itself (-71dBm) and making data transfer between two TransferJet-equipped devices more stable (it actually boasts the industry’s highest sensitivity). → Read More
Joyent, a San Francisco-based cloud computing software and service provider, has secured $5 million in debt funding according to an SEC filing.
The company, which was founded back in 2004, offers an integrated technology suite and related services geared towards service providers, medium-sized and large enterprises, and developers. → Read More
It’s happened again: a Foxconn plant explosion has caused a large fire in Yantai. According to MICGadget the fire stemmed from “improper operation of workmanship on color spraying” which suggests a aerosol paint may be involved.
The last fire happened in May in Chengdu. This fire was at a plant that made PCs, laptops, and printers. It employs and, in some cases, houses 80,000 workers, many of whom were evacuated. The blaze lasted 30 minutes and there are no reports of casualties. → Read More
Two weeks ago, we covered Chomp‘s news that it will be powering app search on Verizon’s app store for all Android phones. Today, the app search early player is announcing some more big news, and this time advertisers and developers are the ones who stand to benefit.
Launching in private beta today is “Chomp Search Ads”, a new program that will allow developers to bid on the keywords or phrases that will deliver their ads to users who search for those terms within an app search engine. The ad engine then matches app ads to the most relevant potential customer based on what apps they’re currently searching, making ads less annoying and more relevant for the consumer and ideally more lucrative for developers. → Read More
Panasonic Japan announced [press release in English] the development of the so-called HOSPI-Rimo yesterday, a cute “Communication Assistance Robot” specifically designed for medical use. HOSPI-Rimo (Remote Intelligence and Mobility) is supposed to make it easier for bedridden patients to get in touch with doctors or family members living far away (“virtual visits”).
Technically, the mobile robot is based on the HOSPI, which Panasonic introduced last year. That robot is equipped with four laser range finders, 27 ultrasonic sensors and the ability to change floors in buildings autonomously. → Read More
Luxury home decor flash sale site HomeSav.com this morning announced that it has raised $1.2 million in seed financing from multiple retail angel investors and entrepreneurs including the Koffler family and the Metrick family (founders and owners of Canada’s largest high-end home furniture retailer).
In addition, HomeSav.com says it has grown its membership by over 1,400 percent in the first year to over 100,000 registered users in the United States and Canada. Its members are said to place over 100 orders per day. → Read More
Nokia this morning announced that its sleek new smartphone, the N9 – which will almost certainly be the first and only MeeGo handset to ever see the light of day – has begun shipping to customers who’ve pre-ordered the device, and retail stores.
The N9 features an interesting UI that’s controlled with a simple swipe. The buttonless smartphone features three home views (Applications, Events and Live Applications) that are designed to enable people to easily and swiftly navigate the interface. → Read More
Wikets, Inc., a young social commerce startup, announced today that it has raised $1.5 million in seed funding from venture firms Andreessen Horowitz and Battery Ventures, as well as from six angel investors, including Robert Davoli of Sigma Partners. The startup will use its seed capital, says Wikets co-founder and CEO Andy Park, to ramp up hiring and prepare for the release of its eponymous iPhone app, which will reward users for providing and sharing recommendations on products and places to their friends — while on the go.
From this brief description, Wikets may sound a little bit like a game-ified rewards system overlaid on, say, Yelp. While the Wikets team is not yet sharing all the details of the app’s UX — as the team is busy putting the finishing touches on the app ahead of its expected release date in early October — nut, to be sure, Wikets is more than a Yelp with badges, designed instead around social commerce, around helping users discover and connect with like-minded people based on shared favorite places and products. → Read More
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