We wrote about receipt tracking service Slice a few months ago when the startup announced its $9.4 million Series A funding round from DCM, Lightspeed Venture Partners, Michael Birch, FLOODGATE, Eric Schmidt’s Innovation Endeavors and Rick Thompson.
In May, Slice launched its Yahoo Mail app to help you organize your online shopping by analyzing your inbox. It’s sort of like what TripIt does for your itineraries, except Slice tracks receipts, notices and purchases. Today, Slice is bringing its receipt organizer to Gmail users. → Read More
If you’ve had your eye on the Galaxy Tab 10.1 or Huawei’s new Springboard tablet, the sign-up pages for both devices have just popped up on T-Mobile’s site.
On November 7, you’ll be able to pick up a new Springboard tab for no more than $200. We’re still unclear on exact pricing, but TmoNews seems to think it’ll go for $179.99 with a two-year contract. The Samsung Galaxy Tab 10.1, on the other hand, will be available on November 2 along with a number of other handsets.
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Last night, Netflix CEO Reed Hastings faced Wall Street with third quarter earnings which weren’t terrible in and of themselves. But he spooked investors with projected losses going into next year. The growth investors who remained in the stock started fleeing in after-hours trading, and this morning shares opened at $74.90, down 37 percent from a close of $119 yesterday.
That $44 drop translates into $2.3 billion worth of Netflix market cap getting wiped out in a single night. Netflix’s current market cap is just shy of $4 billion, down from more than $16 billion at its peak last July. LinkedIn, with a market cap of $8,6 billion, is now worth twice as much as Netflix. → Read More
In a poll of 5,077 US youngsters ages 8-24, Apple came out on top over all over computer, phone, and tablet makers as the number one electronics brand. Apple joins the ranks of Nintendo, Oreo, and Sprite as some of the most popular brands in America today.
Pollsters Harris Interactive asked questions about brand preference and loyalty. They note that “Apple has built a powerful equity base among their customers of today and their customers of tomorrow,” which ensures that the brand will have resonance over the next decade.
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Now that Ice Cream Sandwich is real, manufacturers can start talking about the roll out. The good news is that ICS looks Tegra 2 friendly so it should run on most of the first generation Honeycomb tablets. Asus and Acer have both confirmed that their respective tabs will get the update but haven’t detailed the launch schedule. That’s the bad news, which really isn’t all that bad in and of itself. → Read More
Japan’s National Institute of Information and Communications (NICT) and JVC Kenwood have developed what they say is the world’s biggest 3D display. The device boasts a screen size of 200 inches, offers 57 different viewing angles, and best of all, it doesn’t require you to use glasses to view pictures in 3D.
The auto-stereoscopic display is based on 57 projectors in an array, produces 3D pictures in full HD and weighs 500kg. It was first announced by the NICT in January this year but appears to have been altered since (the earlier version used 64 projectors, for example). → Read More
Local search site Loku launches in public beta today, with the aim of helping people quickly find out more about the environs around them — using the vast repository of location-based information available.
Instead of making the user pour through crowdsourced information, Loku uses natural language search to serve up the most relevant articles in a given area through its “Know Local” function, allowing people to look for relevant media around the topics of “Good Eats,”"Culture,” etc. It’s “Go Local” function lets people use a slider to sift through a sentiment rank of the places around them.
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If you’re looking to get preemptive with holiday weight watching, Garmin’s got an app for that.
The company today released the Garmin Fit app, which tracks speed, pace, distance, time, calories, and with the addition of Garmin’s ANT+ accessories, heart rate, and cadence. The app also maps out the user’s workout and uploads it directly to Garmin Connect, all for $.99. → Read More
It’s a bit cliché, but it’s true all the same: the best features are often the ones that make you smack yourself on the forehead and ask why you didn’t think of them (or why nobody else did).
Which the reaction I immediately had when I heard about a new feature that Hipmunk, the flight and hotel travel search engine, is launching this morning. Today the service is adding support for Google Calendar integration, which means it can check its flight listings against your schedule to figure out which ones will work best for you.
Now, calendar syncing is hardly a new concept for travel sites — many of them will let you automatically sync your booked flights and reservations into your calendar. But Hipmunk says that it’s the first travel site to delve into your schedule and find potential conflicts to help you book those flights in the first place.
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Exclusive - BlueCava, a startup that has developed technology that enables its customers to identify unique connected devices such as smartphones, TV set-top boxes, gaming consoles, computers and more, has raised $9.5 million in funding in a round led by VC firm S3 Ventures. Earlier backers, angel investors and billionaires Mark Cuban and Tim Headington, also participated in the round. → Read More
UserVoice, makers of tools for managing customer support and feedback, is today launching a new reporting tool for businesses using its “Instant Answers” service. The service, which is built into the UserVoice Full Service system, allows companies to automatically connect their help requests to available Knowledge Base entries in order to provide an immediate answer to incoming queries.
With today’s launch of the reporting tool, those companies will now be able to tell how effective their Knowledge Base is at providing those answers to their customers. → Read More
London-based Just-Eat, the online food ordering company originally founded in Denmark in 2000, is putting the $48 million it raised earlier this year to good use. After taking over local rival, London online food delivery company Urbanbite, Just-Eat’s Canadian business has acquired GrubCanada. → Read More
There is a very special peripheral for future owners of Mario Kart 7 on the 3DS coming soon, but it’s not made by Nintendo itself: video game accessory maker Hori announced a steering wheel that’s specifically designed for the game and that’s officially licensed by big N.
The device will feature large L and R buttons for better control. → Read More
With the Groupon roadshow underway and the countdown to its IPO expected to culminate on November 4th, the long-anticipated arrival of the daily deals giant on the public markets is almost at hand. But the journey hasn’t been without its fair share of hiccups. While the company currently owns a 54 percent share of the daily deals market and there were some bright spots in its third quarter earnings report, the daily deals juggernaut has fallen from a once hoped-for $25 to $30 billion valuation to one that will likely be around $11.4 billion.
Comparatively speaking, going with that questionable early valuation from its underwriters, at as much as 62 percent off, Groupon itself now represents one helluva deal for the eager coupon clipping investor. Thanks to some hilarious characters on the team at Runningshoes.com, we now have an awesome mock deal in which Groupon itself is offering its common stock for the discounted price of $16 a share. → Read More
The world got a first glimpse of the “world’s first spherical flying machine” back in June this year, but its maker, Japan’s Ministry of Defense, decided it’s time to showcase it publicly a few days ago in Tokyo. And as you can see in the video embedded below, their ball drone is pretty awesome.
The drone can stand still in mid-air, fly vertically and horizontally through narrow spaces at up to 60km/h, and (which is very cool) keep on moving when it hits the ground or a wall. Thanks to three gyro sensors in its body, the machine can keep also flying even if it’s hit by an obstacle. → Read More
Mobile ad network Millennial Media, is releasing its quarterly report which gives a view into how each OS, device and manufacturer is performing on one of the largest remaining independent ad networks in the world. In Q3, Android continued to dominate the mobile ad network, and led the Connected Device and Smartphone OS Mix on Millennial with 56% of the impressions. iOS was the second largest Connected Device and Smartphone OS in Q3 with 23 percent of impressions.
iOS remained the leader as the top Connected Device OS. iOS impressions grew 60% year-over-year in Q3. In particular, iPad impressions grew 456%, and iPod Touch impressions grew 30% year-over-year. The iPhone accounted for 54% of the iOS impressions Millennial’s platform, while iPod Touch and iPad combined to make up the other 46%.
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Google has announced the ability for advertisers to bid for phone calls, in addition to bidding for clicks, for Google search ads on computers and tablets. Currently, only advertisers maximum CPC bid for phone calls factor into ad rank.
With bid-for-calls, these bids can also factor into ad rank as well. Higher ranked ads surface higher in search results, and can therefore generate more phone calls (and clicks, too). → Read More
Looks like Google this morning rolled out a brand new design for its Chrome Web Store, and it’s a major improvement.
The updated Web app marketplace, first released in December 2010, is all about the software, now boasting large squares with attractive app visuals. → Read More
From Russia with love: two Moscow-based investment firms have led a $17 million funding round for B2B social networking and e-invoicing company Tradeshift, valuing the company at $137 million according to a press statement distributed earlier this morning.
The investors are ru-Net and Kite Ventures, with earlier backer Notion Capital also participating. → Read More
