ScribbleLive plans to reinvent the news article
As readers seem to expect more and more live news coverage, a Toronto startup called ScribbleLive has been developing a fast, collaborative way for news organizations to keep up. Cofounder and chief executive Michael De Monte said the latest version of the service, which launched today, lays the groundwork for what he’s hoping will be a new kind of news article.
ScribbleLive is already pretty cool: News organizations create a Web page or an embedded … Continue Reading
Magic Solver filters the crowded App Store to find apps that are "magical" (video)
Magic Solver is attacking the app discovery problem head on. With more than 250,000 apps on the iPhone and iPad, it’s easy for developers’ apps to get lost and it’s hard for users to find they really enjoy.
So Magic Solver has created the Daily Magic Cube app, which you can see in the picture and the video below in its iPad format. The company finds magical apps, or those that are delightful or surprisingly … Continue Reading
Silver Peak Systems issues new options to grow WAN acceleration business
Silver Peak Systems, a developer of tools to enhance the performance of wide area networks (WAN), has issued new options, according to a filing with the SEC. The software company offers its clients solutions like data backup, data recovery and centralized storage.
Based in Santa Clara, Calif., Silver Peak Systems was founded in 2004 and works with large enterprise customers like AT&T and Google.… Continue Reading
Fuseproject founder to designers: To beat Apple, don't be Apple
Apple’s design focus is about as sharp as it comes, with pretty much every aspect of the company dominated by how the final product will feel in a customer’s hand. That’s the secret to Apple’s success — and that’s the strategy competing businesses have to avoid, said Fuseproject founder and industrial designer Yves Béhar.
Businesses looking to compete with Apple — though I can’t imagine who would want to take on that giant without a … Continue Reading
Is it too late for a Digg comeback?
Social news aggregator site Digg.com is trying to work its way out of the traffic hole it created with its botched redesign attempt. Today it announced the return of several popular features from its previous version.
In the last few weeks Digg has brought back a slew of old features whose absence had rankled site users. The Upcoming section returned along with the pagination feature. Pagination had been removed in favor of a feature similar … Continue Reading
OpenDNS secures $4.5M to protect users from phishing scams
OpenDNS, a provider of internet security, has closed a $4.5 million round of funding, according to a filing with the SEC. Sequoia Capital and Greylock Partners participated in the round.
Based in San Francisco, the free Domain Name System (DNS) service provides individuals, schools and businesses with phishing protection, parental controls and typo corrections for misspelled URLs. OpenDNS also operates a web site called the Phish Tank that allows users to submit suspected phishing sites. … Continue Reading
Placepop brings mobile loyalty program to Android users
PlacePop, which allows any company to create and maintain virtual loyalty cards, today announced its free application is now available for Android devices.
The company was founded by former Friendster CEO Kent Linstrom and offers businesses a replacement to the traditional loyalty cards found in many of our wallets and purses. Consumers can check-in through the application, earn points and earn free stuff or special privileges for being a virtual card holder. The more points … Continue Reading
The flood of new apps won't let up any time soon, say Silicon Valley investors
Despite a good chunk of the newest applications pulling features from existing applications, there is still an enormous amount of interest in app development that will continue for the foreseeable future, according to a number of venture capital investors. The ideas were kicked around by a panel of investors at the GigaOm Mobilize conference in San Francisco today.
Applications have evolved as a low-cost way for entrepreneurs to experiment and test the startup waters with … Continue Reading
Mogotix delivers another blow to paper tickets (video)
San Francisco startup Mogotix recently announced its new ticketing service. It’s hardly the first company to offer mobile ticketing, but it’s the first one I’ve seen that uses phones as both the ticket and the ticket reader.
I met up with chief executive Scott Thorpe at the TechCrunch Disrupt conference to get a demonstration of the service, which you can see in the video below. (Because I’m not that bright, I didn’t realize that recording … Continue Reading
Gamification gets its own conference
If a trend gets big enough, it usually gets its own conference. That’s the case with “gamification,” or the use of game mechanics to make non-game material more engaging. That’s why organizers have created their first annual Gamification Summit 2011.
The conference will feature experts in the art of making things that are normally boring — such as filling out surveys, shopping, or visiting web sites — more interesting by adding game-like features. That includes … Continue Reading
Nokia focusing on software, not just hardware, to win back U.S. customers
(Update: We’ve received a clarification from a Nokia spokesperson regarding Ojanperä’s comments about Ovi developers. More than 70 Ovi developers have seen more than 1 million downloads, rather than $1 million in revenue, with a handful of them seeing 10 million downloads.)
Mobile phone manufacturer Nokia is shifting its focus to further developing its Symbian operating system in an effort to win back U.S. customers and better compete with iPhone and Android smartphones, according to … Continue Reading
With new hires, HP identifies its enemy as Oracle
By appointing Léo Apotheker as its new chief executive and adding former Oracle president Ray Lane to its board, Hewlett-Packard is taking aim at Oracle as its No. 1 threat.
Oracle recently hired Mark Hurd, who resigned under pressure from HP because of an ethics scandal. Larry Ellison, chief executive of Oracle, not only defended Hurd’s reputation but brought him aboard as co-president. Oracle has been focused on enterprise software in the past, but it … Continue Reading
HP names former SAP chief Léo Apotheker as CEO and President
Hewlett-Packard announced this afternoon that Léo Apotheker, former chief executive of the software company SAP, has been elected as its CEO and president by the company’s board of directors.
Apotheker and Ray Lane, Managing Partner at Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers, are also joining HP’s board. Lane will serve as non-executive chairman.
Apotheker spent more than 20 years at SAP and served as CEO from April 2008 to February 2010. His election follows the resignation … Continue Reading
How Microsoft went from 30 million Windows Live bloggers to 300,000
The popularity of Microsoft’s Windows Live Spaces blogs appears to have been greatly exaggerated.
Microsoft announced a few days ago at the TechCrunch Disrupt conference that it will be moving its 7 million active Windows Live Spaces blogs to Automattic’s WordPress blogging platform. But now that number seems closer to 300,000 blogs — according to internal emails from Microsoft executives obtained by Betanews.
At first, Betanews’s Joe Wilcox assumed that the 300,000 blogs would come … Continue Reading
Japanese augmented reality gaming company Tonchidot lands $12M
Tonchidot, a mobile augmented reality (AR) platform provider, just landed $12 million in second round funding. Several Japanese companies and venture capitalists participated in the round, including mobile operator KDDI Corporation, media conglomerate Recruit Co. Ltd., and mobile advertising company SPiRE.
Augmented reality refers to the use of computer-generated imagery over a live feed of a real-world environment — something usually achieved with a cellphone camera.
According to Osuke Honda from VC fund DCM, a … Continue Reading
DiscoveryBeat 2010 speakers: More top thinkers to delve into art of discovery
We’re pleased to announce some more big thinkers slated to speak at DiscoveryBeat 2010, the conference addressing the evolving problem of discovery in an era full of app stores and content. Our newest speakers represent vital parts of the ecosystem for getting content noticed.
DiscoveryBeat 2010 is an event focused on the “secret recipe” for application discovery and monetization. Due to its success in 2009, the conference has expanded to a full day event and … Continue Reading
Qualcomm's next mobile chips will contain radios for every wireless spectrum
Chipmaker Qualcomm envisions a future where its mobile chips contain radios for every wireless technology—3G, LTE, and others—and phones automatically switch to the fastest network, said Qualcomm executive vice president Steve Mollenkopf. He made the comments at technology news site GigaOm’s Mobilize conference in San Francisco today.
Now that the government has opened up the “white space” in between television broadcast frequencies and other commonly used wireless frequencies, the next step for mobile phones is … Continue Reading
Microsoft executive: Xbox Live is the hook that will sell Windows Phone 7
The best feature of Windows Phone 7, Microsoft’s mobile operating system, is one that will differentiate it from the rest of the smartphone platforms on the market: Xbox Live integration. This feature will help players carry their online persona into the real world, said Matt Thompson, general manager of developer and platform evangelism for Microsoft. Thompson made the comments at the GigaOm Mobilize conference in San Francisco today.
Tthe rest of the smartphone market has … Continue Reading
On the GreenBeat: Cleantech investment keeps falling, Crosslink Capital closes $200 million fund
Investors putting money into cleantech have declined every quarter since early 2009, according to a report from Kachan & Co. Early-stage cleantech investment has especially suffered – according to Reuters, 20 percent of all cleantech venture capital went to early-stage and seed funding in the first half of 2010, down from 35 percent in 2007. China’s cleantech IPOs and M&A activity continues to lead the rest of the world by nearly fourfold.
However, at least … Continue Reading
Ubisoft brings out its long knives for Assassin's Creed Facebook game (video)
Ubisoft has a lot of top video game franchises, but they don’t get any bigger than Assassin’s Creed. So it says a lot that the French video game giant is bringing its Assassin’s Creed game to Facebook with Assassin’s Creed Project Legacy, which will be available in the coming days.
Zynga, currently the top social gaming company, better look out. Ubisoft is bringing out the big knives. The new game is a companion to the … Continue Reading
