Mu Sigma, a provider of analytics and data-driven decision support services for enterprise customers, has raised $108 million in funding in a round led by growth equity firm General Atlantic.
The financing comes about half a year after Mu Sigma raised $25 million from Sequoia Capital, which also participated in this round. → Read More
According to some press reports today the British Prime Minister, David Cameron is to get “his own personalised iPad app” to stay on top of Government business.
Cameron is known to use an iPad to read newspapers and catch up on media generally, as evidenced by this photo taken at a party conference last year. But this report sounds just a little like a slow news week combined with some idle chatter over the Christmas party season amongst the Whitehall press gang and the ‘spads’ – insider shorthand for Special Advisers. → Read More
Nintendo is really lucky to own the Super Mario brand: after the bumpy, Mario-less launch of the 3DS in Japan back in February, big N is seeing record sales for its portable console. As predicted, sales in Japan for the 3DS crossed the four million unit mark before the end of the year, namely sometime between December 19 and 25.
That’s the week Nintendo sold 510,629 units 3DS systems, according to Japan’s biggest video game magazine Famitsu [JP]. In total, the company has shifted 4,135,739 units in the country since the launch on February 26. Nintendo president Satoru Iwata earlier predicted the 3DS will find 4 million Japanese buyers sometimes in February next year. → Read More
Here are some recent stories on TechCrunch Gadgets: → Read More
Google SVP Andy Rubin took to Twitter again today, not to delete one of his tweets but to publish a brand new one, saying Android saw 3.7 million activations in two days (Christmas day and the day before).
He also posted it on his Google+ account, just in case you were wondering. → Read More
According to customer experience analytics company ForeSee, e-commerce giant Amazon once again topped consumer satisfaction in online retail after taking the top spot in 2010. However, Netflix, which had a dismal year, plummeted in customer satisfaction. For the past seven years, Netflix and Amazon have been competing for first place in Foresee’s Index, but this is the first year where one of the e-retailers saw a massive dip in sentiment.
Amazon climbed two points to score 88 on the study’s 100-point scale, which is the highest score from any retailer in 14 consecutive studies. Netflix’s well-publicized blunders, including price hikes last summer and the unsuccessful attempt to spin off the DVD rental business, caused its customer satisfaction to plummet by seven points and 8% to 79.
→ Read More
That’s a good thing because Google+ missed the starting gun. And its “invite only” launch strategy saw all its disconnect users flailing independently. But in the long run that might not matter much, because Google+ doesn’t need a critical mass or tons of engagement. It needs signups so it can get its identity layer under users of its other products. That way it can turn everyone’s searches, mapping, email, and more into fuel for its ad targeting engine. → Read More
Google+ now has more than 62 million users, according to Paul Allen, Ancestry.com founder and unofficial traffic analyst for Google’s social network. That’s not 62 million active users, though — a point that everyone covering these numbers seems to have missed. It’s just the number of total users. And specifically, it’s the number of new surnames that Allen’s team has tracked being created on the service.
Because Google has aggressively integrated G+ into many other properties, including its top navigation bar and the OneBox, one would expect a certain baseline amount of sign-ups from among the hundreds of millions of people using other Google products.
The real question is how many people are returning after creating their accounts, which Allen doesn’t try to answer. → Read More
If you got a digital camera for the holidays, or already own one, take a moment and write down the serial number. That way GadgetTrak’s new CameraTrace service can help you recover it if it’s ever stolen. Launching today, for a one-time fee of $10 CameraTrace lets you register your camera’s serial number. If you later report it lost or stolen, you’ll be notified by email if anyone else tries to upload photos from it. You can also search CameraTrace’s serial number database of 5 billion photos for free. Both tools could help you track down unauthorized uploaders and get your gear back. Camera thieves beware, there’s a new sheriff in town. → Read More
Here in the States we’ve been chatting it up with Siri on the iPhone 4S for months, but the folks over in mainland China — the biggest mobile market in the world, mind you — have yet to hear that 42 is the meaning of life. The 4S launched in Hong Kong just last month, and since then we’ve heard that it would show up on the mainland in December.
People’s Daily is now reporting that a phone with the model number A1431 has passed the final hurdle in its Chinese certification. That’s the same model number that Apple used to get a network entry permit for the 4S from the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology on December 6, so all signs point to iPhone. → Read More
Bored? Yeah, me too. Which is why I just killed nearly 30 minutes doing mindless web surfing on Facebook, Reddit and Amazon. But it looks like YouTube would like a little of my holiday downtime clicks – and yours, too. The company just blogged about YouTube Slam, a game that involves pairing up two videos and voting for your favorites.
→ Read More
When GoDaddy publicly recanted their support of SOPA last week, many were quick to point out that such an act didn’t really mean much. As far as the Judiciary Committee overseeing SOPA was concerned, GoDaddy was still a supporter.
That’s been changed, it seems. In the latest version of the US House Of Representatives’ SOPA Supporters list (heads up: it’s a PDF), GoDaddy’s name is nowhere to be found. → Read More
Group task manager startup Asana launched its first native mobile app last week. It’s mostly a straight port of its existing mobile web app, so the main benefit at present is that switching back and forth with other apps is much faster than dealing with Safari.
The company says it’s planning to invest in native apps more over time, but the version available is already useful for me since I’ve been dumping all of my story ideas into Asana since I started at TechCrunch in November… because I’m on my phone all the time, and checking Asana to see what I need to do next while I’m also trying to do three or four other things. → Read More
Banjo, the creepy/awesome cyber-stalking app (I mean social discovery service) that shows you who’s nearby based on their Facebook and Foursquare check-ins, geotagged tweets, TwitPic and Instagram uploads, is now a web app, too. In case you haven’t yet download the iOS or Android application to your mobile device (or are some kind of Windows Phone-using rebel), you can check out the service via the recently updated Banjo website instead.
→ Read More
It was a very Android and iOS Christmas. Mobile apps research form Flurry released estimates on how many Android and iOS devices were activated on Christmas day, as well as how many apps were downloaded. On a combined basis, 6.8 million devices were activated, up 353 percent from the 1.5 million average activations a day over the first 20 days of December. And that number from 2.8 million combined activations on Christmas, 2010, the previous record.
Flurry doesn’t break out the split between iOS and Android. But you can triangulate the numbers with other publicly available stats. Android chief Andy Rubin recently noted just before Christmas that Android activations surpassed 700,000 a day. So that leaves between 700,000 and 800,000 a day for iOS devices (iPhones iPads, and iPod Touches), roughly speaking. → Read More
With Microsoft and Nokia making a pronounced push to expand Windows Phone’s reach, they need the support of their app developers to give the platform some staying power. Fortunately, it looks like Windows Phone is picking up steam up on the app front — All About Windows Phone reports that 50,000 apps have been published in the Windows Phone Marketplace ahead of their initial predictions. → Read More
If you take a look at Techmeme right now, you’ll notice that the top conversation in the tech blogosphere is about Windows Phone, and more specifically why it has failed to catch on compared to Android smartphones in particular (according to Charlie Kindel, former GM of the product division). I’ve read people’s different views on this with great interest, but I feel like something’s missing: the opinion of an actual Windows Phone owner and user with no real skin in this game. Enter, well, me.
A couple of weeks ago, I decided to stop using my HTC Sensation (Android 2.3) and iPhone 3GS (iOS 5) in parallel and made the switch to Nokia’s Lumia 800 (Windows Phone 7.5). As you can tell, I’m not exactly married to any company or product – it’s just not in my nature. I switched to Windows Phone mainly to see if it can hold its ground when used intensively. → Read More
Today, Italy’s antitrust body has fined Apple, Inc. $1.2 million (900,000 euros) for pushing customers to buy its AppleCare Protection Plan without adequately disclosing the support that already comes with their device. In Italy, companies are actually required by law to provide two years of free support to customers, which, according to the Italian Antitrust Authority, was not clearly explained to Apple customers either online or at the point-of-sale.
→ Read More
They have been fighting against the concept of making customers pay for extra game content for years, but as previously reported, Nintendo has now changed its strategy. According to a report by Japanese business daily The Nikkei, Nintendo has chosen Fire Emblem as the first game on the 3DS to offer paid download content.
Fire Emblem: Kakusei, the latest title in the classic RPG series, is scheduled for release in Japan in spring 2012 (it has been announced earlier this year).
→ Read More
What do you do when your viral growth starts to taper off? Advertise! That strategy has seemingly been working well for the Google Chrome web browser (now with a quarter of worldwide browser market share), so Google may as well give it a shot with Google+.
Google has released a trio of new TV commercials promoting its fledging social network, featuring Hangouts with celebrities like the Muppets as well as NBA announcers, Bill Walton, Kenny Smith, Steve Kerr, Spero Dedes and Jon Barry. There’s also one of those heartstring-tugging promos showing Hangouts in action, with kids talking to grandma, a girl telling her friends she’s engaged, New Year’s Eve kisses and other such cheesiness, all complete with an Apple-esque background track. → Read More
