Network testing is hard work. You need to ensure coverage, regular data rates, and spread. That’s probably why T-Mobile happens to be testing their 1900 MHz HSPA+ signal around the Moscone Center in San Francisco just in time for WWDC. → Read More
Last month, San Francisco unveiled a new cloud-based open data site as part of its move to adopt cloud services and, in turn, to encourage open government, transparency and accountability by improving access to data and information. San Francisco is hardly alone — both public and private sectors in the U.S. and around the world are pulling back the curtain on their data. Of course, opening the… → Read More
Locu, the data-focused startup launched out of Sir Tim Berners-Lee’s lab at MIT to provide structure to the world’s information, has just announced a $4 million Series A round led by General Catalyst Partners. Also participating in the round were Chris Sacca’s Lowercase Capital, Lightbank and SV Angel, as well as Locu’s existing angel investors, Naval Ravikant, Babak Nivi, Quotidian Ventures, and… → Read More
There has been some anecodotal evidence about how WiFi is by far the most popular way to connect on a tablet, but some numbers out from Localytics spell out just how little traffic is coming from 3G (and now 4G) networks on the most popular tablet of all, the iPad from Apple.
Using data from apps that run on its mobile analytics platform, Localytics says that in the last week, since the… → Read More
Twitter, Facebook and other social networks have long counted on the rise in smartphone usage to help fuel their growth: that trend, however, seems to also be taking a toll on mobile carriers — specifically in the form of revenues.
The analyst firm of Ovum, part of the Informa Group, has estimated that operators lost $13.9 billion in SMS revenue in 2011, as a result of their customers using… → Read More
Another cloud startup is making enhancements to improve the performance and functionality of its services. This one is squarely for enterprises and comes from Huddle, which today is announcing Huddle Sync, a service that promises “intelligent” synchronization of enterprise work files to serve users what they need, when they need it.
Huddle is banking on the idea that services like Dropbox will… → Read More
Just a little tidbit from everyone’s favorite reading material this week, the Facebook IPO filing: the company noted that it now stores over 100 petabytes of media (photos and videos) uploaded by its 845 million users. In case “100 petabytes” didn’t blow you over, the filing further explains that’s equal to “100 quadrillion bytes.”
OK, now you’re just showing off, Facebook. → Read More
The web, as we all know, was built for humans. A nice graphical interface to the internet, which has been around much longer. But as the web has grown from a nice way to display information to the largest computing infrastructure on the planet, we need to make the web friendlier for computers once again. Computers don’t want to look at pretty web pages. They want data.
Of course, there are a… → Read More
Pushpins, Inc., the makers of a mobile app for saving on groceries, have launched a new service called SimpleUPC targeted towards mobile app developers. SimpleUPC, which is available as an API (application programming interface), provides product information as a service for the use in mobile apps like barcode scanners, shopping lists and nutrition trackers.
The API contains data on over… → Read More
Cross-platform newsreader application News360 launched into version 2.0 today, a significant update that introduces its new personalization features. The news reader now learns from your activity on social Web services, including Facebook, Twitter, Google Reader and Evernote, in order to present you with stories that fit your interests.
But unlike some of its competitors, which there are now… → Read More
Walmart is planning to launch several new projects this holiday season based on the technology it acquired from the social media startup Kosmix back in April. Kosmix’s platform previously powered multiple services, including a Twitter search site called TweetBeat, a health vertical called RightHealth and a homepage where users could search the Web by topic.
But the core of what Kosmix was… → Read More
Back in 2008, the world consumed 9,570,000,000,000,000,000,000 bytes of information. If all that digital information were to be printed and stacked up one-by-one, it would easily stretch from Earth to Neptune and back about 20 times. → Read More
With user’s appetites for data growing as smartphones become more prevalent, it kinds makes sense that 150MB plans would eventually go the way of the Broad-faced Potoroo.
The peeps over at Verizon clearly agree with me, as Engadget have landed their hands on a shot of their upcoming range of data plans, and, as you can see, it’s unlimited or nothing for all future smartphones (including this… → Read More
Think what you want about 3D TV, but it’s here already, and we’ve just seen the beginning. But are people actually buying the devices, as a few dozen models are now available in the US, Japan and other places? The Nikkei, Japan’s biggest business daily, recently investigated the 3D TV market in Nippon. What they found out could be of interest for the US and European markets as well. → Read More
It was only a few days ago that I mentioned that, you know, your data is never secure. So, this story isn’t surprising at all. It turns out that the records of more than 3.3 million student loans were stolen a few days ago. Data stolen includes names, Social Security numbers, and credit card numbers. Awesome. → Read More
Pretty much spot-on, this. There’s an op-ed in The Wall Street Journal that argues that Americans should badger Congress and the president, asking them to hold off on doling out stimulus dollars to electronic medical record systems that don’t have appropriate privacy safeguards in place. As it stands, electronic medial records aren’t exactly sealed—insurance companies can peek at them, as… → Read More
Sir Tim Berners-Lee speaks at TED2010 about the value of open data. → Read More
Wired has a neat little article that talks about something I really don’t see mentioned on all those “social media” Web sites: what happens when you want to move your data from Site A to Site B? It’s a by-product of moving more and more of our data to cloud-based services:do we retain ownership of our data, and if so, what’s the best way to take that data back? → Read More
It’s he said/she said time, where maybe like Fake Steve is the She and maybe like AT&T is the he. So like Fake Steve was all like “Let’s send nasty texts about AT&T! And then we’ll mess with them on Friday.” And then AT&T is all like “No way! Nobody does that to me!” Hilarity ensues! → Read More
Oh pretty netbook lady, you go about your daily life with your face buried in the goings-on of your hectic corporate lifestyle, unwilling to avert your gaze from the tiny 10.1-inch screen that dictates your graceful movements for even a mere moment in time. → Read More
This is a guest post by Robert J. Moore, the CEO and co-founder of RJMetrics, a on-demand database analytics and business intelligence startup that helps online businesses measure, manage, and monetize better. He was previously a venture capital analyst and currently serves as an advisor to several New York startups. Robert blogs at The Metric System and can be followed on Twitter at @RJMetrics… → Read More
Yum. Ice cream bars and external data solutions are, without a doubt, two of my favorite things. Actually, I don’t back up all that often (I’m in the cloud, baby!) and frozen confections give me headaches. But this concept actually makes a whole lot of sense and it looks good, to boot. → Read More
You don’t back up your data, do you? It’s okay, you can fess up. Here, I’ll make you feel better: I rarely back up my data. Now you say it. There, doesn’t it feel better to get that off your chest? For most of us, it’s no big deal if we lose all our data. For some, though, it’s a really, really big deal. My buddy Jeff, an independent contract artist, lost a hard drive and most of his portfolio. → Read More
Know where baby boomers buy their electronics? Know where baby boomers buy just about everything? It’s the same place — Costco! And we may soon see an influx of baby boomers carrying around 10.1-inch Aspire One netbooks with overpriced data service if Costco and AT&T have anything to say about it. → Read More
If you ask me (which you didn’t) there are few things more consumer-unfriendly than charging people for 3G data on their handsets and then charging them again for the privilege of connecting their handsets to a computer in order to use that same 3G data. → Read More
Sony, yours and my favorite MiniDisc purveyor, is being sued by the United States of America for gathering and disclosing information on kids without telling their parents. The suit, filed by the Federal Trade Commission, says that Sony violated the Children’s Online Privacy Protection Act. The FTC is seeking an unknown amount of money and wants them to stop it with the kiddie collecting. → Read More
At first glance, you might mistake this doodad on the left for an ordinary, run-of-the-mill thumbdrive. Don’t be fooled! It’s a 3G modem from AT&T called the USBConnect Quicksilver. If you’re a weakling, you’ll love this thing because it weighs less than an ounce. Everyone, and I mean everyone, can lift one ounce, so less than one once should be a cakewalk. According to SlashPhone the… → Read More
So Comcast is implementing a 250GB monthly bandwidth cap starting next month. While some consumers are up in arms about the true meaning of “unlimited” internet access, others have focused on how these caps will affect the innovation of web-based services, particularly video streaming and downloading. Roku, maker of the Netflix-streaming box (reviewed here), isn’t too concerned, according to… → Read More
The inimitable Pat Phelan has just announced MAXroam v2, an upgrade and improved version of his popular MAXroam SIM. The service now offers more roaming options along with data plans. From his blog: Data roaming – from 0.005/kb USA Roaming – from €0.39 per minute These are two huge milestones for us, USA as it the most visited country by global cellular customers and Data as its the last… → Read More
The inimitable Pat Phelan has just announced MAXroam v2, an upgrade and improved version of his popular MAXroam SIM. The service now offers more roaming options along with data plans. From his blog: Data roaming – from 0.005/kb USA Roaming – from €0.39 per minute These are two huge milestones for us, USA as it the most visited country by global cellular customers and Data as its the last… → Read More
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