Regardless of how you may feel about their anthropomorphic cast of characters, Outfit7 just keeps picking up steam. Today the company has announced that their Talking Friends series of apps have just bounded over the 200 million download mark. → Read More
In case there was still any doubt about the long-rumored “GDrive’s” existence, a page now appearing on Google’s search results offers a pretty clear indication that something is going on. On Writely.com – the online word processing service Google acquired in 2006 – a test page is now appearing with a title that reads “test page for Platypus (GDrive).”
Well, there you have it. → Read More
Attention workaholics: your business trip a la rail was just made that much more efficient, if you’re using Amtrak, of course.
The nation’s intercity railway has just added Wi-Fi service to 12 new East Coast routes, bringing the interwebs to almost 60 percent of all Amtrak passengers. → Read More
Mobile shopping started to gain steam during last year’s holiday shopping season, and this year is also expected to be a big year for m-commerce. Endless.com, the shoes and accessories website built and launched by ecommerce juggernaut Amazon back in 2006, is debuting a free iPhone app to allow shoppers to purchase any item on the go.
Via the app, users can access and shop thousands of shoe, handbag, jewelry, sunglasses and watch styles; discover new arrivals, trends and editor picks, and access ratings and reviews for all styles. Endless.com offers free two-day shipping and free return shipping on U.S. orders and free shipping for international customers on orders of $100 or more. → Read More
While Samsung’s somewhat disputed earnings report has left it on top for the third quarter this year, HTC has also announced record numbers in its Q3 earnings report. → Read More
Mark one up for Amazon…and mark one up for Netflix.
The two companies just announced separate streaming deals with the Walt Disney Co. that will provide subscribers with even more content from Mickey & Co. Under these agreements, both streaming services will see even more Disney/ABC content, expanding their respective libraries with current and past TV programming. → Read More
Angie’s List is the latest tech company to list in the Nasdaq, instead of the NYSE. This follows Groupon, Jive and Zynga both choosing the Nasdaq. Angie’s List will be traded under the symbol “ANGI.”
Angie’s List, which offers consumers a way to review and rate doctors, contractors and service companies on the Web, wants to raises as much as $75 million in its offering. The company launched in 1995 with a focus on local home, yard and car services, sits at the intersection of local search, user-generated content and subscription-based services. To date, Angie’s List has raised nearly $100 million from Battery Ventures, T. Rowe Price, City Investment Group, Cardinal Ventures and others.
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Appia, a startup that powers a white-label content and commerce platform for everyone and anyone who needs a mobile app store, has partnered with Vodafone India to launch a new mobile app store for the carrier’s 145 million subscribers in India.
For background, the company powers mobile app storefronts for more than 40 partners, including four of the world’s top five handset manufacturers (Samsung, T-Mobile, AT&T, and Verizon Wireless). The bonus of using Appia’s white-label offering is that it enables its partners to deliver apps to more than 3,200 different mobile device makes and models. And company powers an App Stores for Opera Software and Telcel, Mexico’s largest operator.
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The Ubuntu Developer Summit, starting today in Florida, is a gathering of Canonical employees, industry partners and Ubuntu community members to “define the focus and plans for [the] up-coming version of Ubuntu”. That version, 12.04 codenamed “Precise Pangolin”, will be released in April of 2012 and will be the next Long Term Support (LTS) release of the distribution. The changes scheduled for 12.04 are interesting, and simultaneously represent the current state of the art of the Ubuntu distribution as well as represent the foundation on which future developments will be built. I spoke with Mark Shuttleworth, Ubuntu’s Benevolent Dictator For Life, about what to expect in Ubuntu 12.04 and beyond. → Read More
This evening at our Disrupt Beijing conference, Startup Battlefield competitor Gulu had some fightin’ words for the reigning Disrupt Champs, Shaker.
“Shaker wants to take something you do, the act of hanging out, and make it something you can do in your pajamas from the comfort of your own home. This. Is. Disturbing. We are the co-founders of Gulu.com, and we want you to hang out.” → Read More
And we’re another step closer to Robocalypse: researchers at the Nara Institute Of Science And Technology (NAIST) in Tokyo are working on a robot that’s supposed to one day dress humans autonomously. The current prototype, which NAIST says is the world’s first robot of its kind, can help to put a T-shirt on a dummy in about 10 seconds.
What’s interesting is that for the arms, NAIST uses WAM, robots arms with 7 joints that are made by MIT spin off Barrett. According to the institute, the robot comes with 10 high-precision cameras to perform the (for a robot) difficult task and will be improved in the next few years. → Read More
The photo sharing app market is a very competitive battlefield: Instagram, Path, Color and so on. In China, the market is even more tough, several photo and video applications like Camera360, LemeLeme, Tuding etc already claim millions of users. Vida, an iPhone and Android application developed by a Shanghai-based startup, introduces a new and fun way to organize and share the moments of your life.
On the ‘traditional’ photo sharing applications, you usually need take the photo first, pick up the filter for special effect, then share it with friends. Instead, Vida provides dozens of curated Live filters, which make the experience really what-you-see-is-what-you-take. The related information such as timestamp, location, the user name etc will be auto tagged on the photo/video and presented in nice way with timeline. → Read More
The rise of the iPad (and, to a lesser degree, other tablets) has led to myriad new kinds of apps that are flourishing. And, as someone who still enjoys flipping through a good Dr. Seuss book from time to time, there are few trends I enjoy more than the rich, interactive children’s books that are catching on.
These books typically feature music, sound effects, some animation, and other nifty niceties that make books more fun for kids to play with (and can also supplement learning). And there are plenty of people out there who can pen and illustrate a good book, but don’t know much about programming in Objective C. That’s where TC Disrupt finalist Moglue comes in: it lets just about anyone create children’s books, using a simple and straightforward UI.
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China-based Huohua (it translates to Spark) uses semantic analysis to find your social circle instantly.
Founded by Carl Wu, Huohua is trying to solve a problem of “where and with whom to have fun” by introducing a smart feature dubbed Instant Circle. Basically, it works like this: open the app to tap a keyword like ”basketball”, “hot pot” or “mountain climbing” to locate people with same interests around you, then live chat with them. → Read More
TouchPal is a mobile app that helps you “keep in touch with your contacts,” namely by adding social aspects to your current contact list. Although much of TouchPal’s functionality has been replicated in other systems. However, TouchPal has improved things by merging nearly all of them into one app.
TouchPal adds “availability” flags to your contact list and maintains contact information right inside the app. It also allows you to update your information and the change is propagated out to your friends’ phones. You can also create “status” messages and mark busy people to call them back automatically.
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You run a news outlet. A big news story has broken, and you need a video now. Even if you’ve got a dedicated video staff, the research, editing, and encoding on the video is going to take at least an hour. By the time you’ve got it all exported and uploaded, it’s anything but breaking news.
Disrupt Beijing Battlefield competitor Shakr (not to be confused with the Disrupt SF 2011 champ and digital discoteca Shaker) aims to lop out all of that manual labor and wasted time. By algorithmically pulling in information, photos, and video snippets from around the web, Shakr automatically creates video clips as the news breaks. → Read More
Based out of Shanghai, UnitedStyles is a Facebook Connect-enabled service that lets any user create customized women’s apparel, allowing them sketch out, adjust and share a design via an online interface and customized 3D preview (Note: Chinese users will have to use a VPN to login through Facebook).
Co-founder Marc van der Chijs tells me that his objective is to recreate the entire fashion design experience for Internet users, “It’s very strange that you cannot [already] design your own clothes online.”
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NextGoals is an app that attempts to motivate the lethargic to exercise and stay fit. How does it work? By asking you to work out and then verifying that you actually rolled off the couch and out to the gym.
The system uses a device called the G-Band. It is a pedometer worn on the wrist and gives you real-time data on your PC and phone. You can gauge your progress over time and you can also connect with friends and family via various social networks.
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Stepcase, the Hong Kong based-startup behind the 7.5 million-strong photo community Step.ly, is launching a photo viewer tailored for Sina Weibo to provide users with consistent, intuitive and light-weight photo-viewing experience. According to Leon, founder of Stepcase, the idea of creating Chaopin stems from an experimental concept to create, design and develop an app in just two weeks to meet Chinese users’ needs of browsing Weibo pictures.
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I’m the sort of person who likes to buy things online. Batteries? Yup. Groceries? You bet. And I just bought a garbage can that opens automatically when you get close to it (magic!).
But there’s one big area where online shopping has always fallen short: clothes shopping. If you’ve ever tried ordering a shirt or jeans off the web, then you know the feeling — the site says it’s a medium, but you’re not sure if you should move up to the large instead. And then when the shirt actually arrives, you find that it drapes in all the wrong ways and looks vaguely like a poncho. Even when there’s free return shipping, it’s still a pain to get another size.
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