If you thought Android and clamshell handsets won’t fit, think again: Sharp today introduced [JP] the so-called AQUOS PHONE THE HYBRID 007SH, a flip phone running on Android 2.3. It’s the first of its kind (at least by a major company), but that’s not all the device has to offer. → Read More
Paper.li this morning announced new curation and management capabilities for its publishing platform, which basically allows individuals and publishers like HBO create personalized online newspapers by incorporating Twitter and Facebook streams into a familiar newspaper layout.
Paper.li earlier this year raised $2.1 million for its social news curation platform, and is today also announcing a welcome addition to its advisory board: former Huffington Post CEO and venture capitalist Eric Hippeau is joining Guy Kawasaki as an advisor to the company. → Read More
Paper.li this morning announced new curation and management capabilities for its publishing platform, which basically allows individuals and publishers like HBO create personalized online newspapers by incorporating Twitter and Facebook streams into a familiar newspaper layout.
Paper.li earlier this year raised $2.1 million for its social news curation platform, and is today also announcing a welcome addition to its advisory board: former Huffington Post CEO and venture capitalist Eric Hippeau is joining Guy Kawasaki as an advisor to the company. → Read More
Luxury group buying service Gilt Groupe is joining the mega-round bandwagon today with a new $138 million funding, led by Softbank, which took nearly half the round. Goldman Sachs, New Enterprise Associates, Draper Fisher Jurvetson Growth, Pinnacle Ventures, TriplePoint Capital and Eastward Capital also participated, as did existing investors General Atlantic and Matrix Partners.
Gilt Groupe operates a growing family of flash-sales sites, including the original Gilt, Gilt Home, Gilt City, Gilt Children, Gilt MAN, and Jetsetter. Members are offered discounted prices for a limited time, which drives demand. Gilt was one of the earliest flash sale sites, and now there are dozens of copycats. (HauteLook, a smaller flash sale site, was acquired by Nordstrom for $270 million last February). → Read More
Japan’s telecommunications juggernaut SoftBank, the third largest mobile carrier of the country, had to register quite a lot of damage after the big earthquake that hit Japan on March 11. 3,800 of SoftBank’s base stations were knocked out, meaning no customer in the affected areas could make or receive calls via cell phones (the situation was similar with other carriers).
But it turned out that this damage wasn’t the main concern of SoftBank’s president and founder Masayoshi Son (pictured above). After visiting Fukushima Governor Yuhei Sato in his prefecture on March 22 and seeing the real damage done, Son promised his company will offer free cell phones to all children who became orphans due to the earthquake. → Read More
PPLive, a Chinese online video company, has raised a monster Series D round from SoftBank, securing as much as $250 million.
With the investment, SoftBank has taken a 35% stake in PPLive, which offers China’s leading online streaming and VOD service PPTV. → Read More
Truth be told, I never heard of FRANCK MULLER before, but the (apparently quite famous) watch brand from Switzerland has designed a special case for the iPhone 4 that can now be pre-ordered in Japan. And as FRANCK MULLER is a luxury brand, each case will set you back a cool $1,270 [JP]. → Read More
Truth be told, I never heard of FRANCK MULLER before, but the (apparently quite famous) watch brand from Switzerland has designed a special case for the iPhone 4 that can now be pre-ordered in Japan. And as FRANCK MULLER is a luxury brand, each case will set you back a cool $1,270 [JP]. → Read More
As we reported multiple times over the past months, the iPhone is a hit in Japan. When compared to other Japanese phones, however, it lacks a few key features such as digital TV tuners or an e-wallet function. Provider SoftBank introduced a hardware solution for the former problem in 2008, and now there’s one for the latter, too. → Read More
A free iPad, how does that sound to you? You can get one, but you need to live in Japan and sign a two-year contract with SoftBank, the exclusive iPad provider in this country. The telecom behemoth announced a new pricing plan [JP] under which they fully subsidize a 16GB iPad (the Wi-Fi+3G model). → Read More
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