Published on: 2012-02-10 15:04:49

In addition to the updated “Explore” feature that rolled out to Foursquare’s Android and iPhone applications this week, the social discovery service also added a special feature to its Android app that sort of flew under the radar: support for NFC. NFC, or near field communication, allows devices to exchange data over short distances, typically with a wave or a tap. In Foursquare’s Android update, NFC support has been added for the app’s Venue, Lists and Me pages. On Android, NFC support has been rebranded for marketing purposes, and is called “ Android Beam .” The touch-to-share functionality lets NFC-enabled Android phones share information between each other, including contacts, web pages, and videos, for example. Any Android developer can also use the NFC APIs provided by the mobile operating system to add specialized NFC actions to their own apps. With the Foursquare update, Android 4.0 users with NFC phones can now share their lists and the venues they’ve visited with a friend just by tapping phones. Users can now tap phones to initiate friend requests or tap their phone against an NFC tag or poster to check in. Unfortunately, the functionality is currently limited to phones that have both an NFC chip built in and run Ice Cream Sandwich (Android 4.0). At this point, that means the Galaxy Nexus is pretty much your only option. (But that’s why you got that phone, right? You wanted to use the latest technology first. Well, here you go.) The question remaining is why would Foursquare bother to push out an update that impacts such a small niche of the current Android user base? In an Untether.tv  interview with Holger Luedorf, VP of Mobile and International at Foursquare, he talked about why Foursquare added NFC to its app. “The good news is the technology is already there,” he says. Plus,”going forward, some of the other platforms will be NFC-enabled.” (Please mean iOS!) But it’s also about making the Android experience the best for its users, Luedorf said. “The user experience is great. You just hold your phone against the tap [point]. The checkin screen automatically pops up with the right venue. You’re basically shaving very valuable seconds off the checkin process,” he says. “We try to leverage the native experiences and APIs that are available through the platform as those usually drive the best user experience,” Luedorf continued. “We’re trying to leverage this because we feel that pinpointing someone down to a location through an NFC chip definitely has some value.” Hat tip: NFCWorld

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Foursquare Adds NFC Support To Its Android App

Published on: 2012-02-08 14:12:34

I found this post I found for this blog. Read it here – Akamai Acquires Website Performance Company Blaze Software

After scooping up rival Cotendo for $268 million recently, content delivery and web services giant Akamai is making another acquisition today— Blaze Software. Blaze’s technology helps accelerate speed of Websites, and optimizes load times while cutting bandwidth costs. Financial details of the dealn were not disclosed except that it was an all-cash transaction. As Akamai explains, there are more performance bottlenecks for website load and speed times, as richer web applications and mobile web sites become more popular. Blaze’s cloud-based service automatically optimizes the code on a web page during the delivery process to ensure faster transmission of content and a faster rendering of the page, whether served to a PC, tablet or smartphone. “As businesses provide rich, interactive web experiences online and across devices, it is vital that end users receive a consistently high-performing site,” said Rick McConnell, executive vice president of Products and Development, Akamai in a statement “We believe Blaze has developed a powerful solution for frontend optimization, and that its cloud-based services approach is synergistic with Akamai’s offerings. The team at Blaze will be an important addition to our focus on site acceleration. Our goal continues to be providing customers with the most comprehensive set of technologies to optimize all aspects of their site performance.” Akamai plans to integrate the technology into its global cloud platform to help its enterprise customer provide secure, high-performing user experiences on any device, anywhere. the company was founded in 2010 and is based on Ottawa, Canada.

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Akamai Acquires Website Performance Company Blaze Software

Check out this informative article written by mobileStorm. It provides interesting digital marketing information. To see all new blog posts featuring great marketing info, click here

Published on: 2012-02-07 19:50:25

In a new survey conducted recently by Robert Half Technology, it was found that 27% of CIOs polled currently have mobile apps, while another 27% are planning one by the end of 2012. The survey, conducted by an independent research firm and based on telephone interviews with more than 1,400 CIOs from companies across the United States, also found that a full 43% are planning mobile apps for 2013 or later. When asked what the greatest challenge was in developing a mobile application, 29% said “collaborating between departments,” while 28% said “finding and hiring IT professionals with the necessary expertise.”  Keeping the application up-to-date and gaining app store approvals were seen as other obstacles — expressed by 19% and 16% of CIOs polled respectively. More stats and data from the survey are available in this press release .

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Survey: 27 Percent of CIOs Say their Firms Already have Mobile Apps While 22 Percent are Planning one

Published on: 2012-02-07 18:37:30

Exclusive: WibiData , the big data management startup co-founded by Cloudera founder Christophe Bisciglia and Aaron Kimball, is announcing $5 million in new funding from NEA and Google Chairman Eric Schmidt. Past investors in the company include Cloudera CEO Mike Olson, and SV Angel. As we’ve written in the past , WibiData wants to help companies manage and analyze complex business data about users so you can predict how they are going to interact with the product in the future. Data such as email records, web histories and other interactions cannot be easily analyzed together, but WibiData aims to solve this problem. Specifically, the technology can be used for personalization for a number of web companies, including consumer web, e-commerce and gaming companies. Bisciglia says that customers can use the data analysis platform to create personalized products and services. And the technology easily integrates with business intelligence and database offerings. Additionally, the startup’s talent includes Bisciglia’s former colleagues from Google’s personalization team. The company’s client base counts Wikipedia, Rich Relevance, and Atlassian. For example, Wikipedia uses WibiData to better understand their contributor community, such as analyzing revision histories, understanding individual areas of expertise, and identifying trends in contribution patterns. RichRelevance, which powers personalization for retailers, uses WibiData to manage complex user data, and enable collaboration between their engineering and data science teams. Under the hood, Wibidata is helping companies leverages Apache Hadoop to manage and analyze large amounts of data. Bisciglia has in-depth experience with the technology as the founder of Cloudera, a developer and commercial distributor of Hadoop, the open source software that powers the data processing engines of the worldʼs largest and most popular web sites. Prior to Cloudera, Bisciglia was a senior engineer at Google where he founded and led Google’s Academic Cloud Computing Initiative, which provides Google hosted computational resources to facilitate education and research to universities around the world. Bisciglia tells us that WibiData (which was formerly Odiago) is focused on creating a unified framework for engineers and data scientists who collaborate around tools and applications. The product is still in beta, but has already doubled its customer base. “We’re helping deliver personalized products and services in a way that can scale to large volumes of data and be flexible as data evolves,” he says. He explains that he sees the competition as internal teams who are struggling to close the gap between where Hadoop is a platform and where it comes into real-time application delivery. Bisciglia contends that Wibidata closes this gap, and will recompute recommendations and personalization info on the fly, as a user continues to interact with a product or service offering. This enables companies to personalize the experience in real-time. The new funding will be used to grow WibiData’s engineering team, open an office, and more. WibiData is entering the market at a time when big data analysis and personalization are ramping up. As more retailers, e-commerce companies and other technology startups increase personalization , there’s no doubt that a real-time layer to process and analyze user data is going to be in-demand.

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Cloudera Founder’s Big Data Management Startup WibiData Raises $5M From NEA And Eric Schmidt

Published on: 2012-02-07 18:00:18

I think you should check out this article I found for this blog. Read it here – Klout Acquires Local And Mobile Neighborhood App Blockboard

Flush with new capital , Klout , the startup that measures influence on Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn , YouTube, Foursquare , Google+ and other social apps, is making its first acquisition. Klout is purchasing mobile and local neighborhood app Blockboard . Financial terms of the deal were not disclosed. Blockboard develops a neighborhood app through which neighbors can interact with one another. They can report potholes and graffiti directly to the city, alert each other about crime and vandalism through a Blockwatch, post general observations about the neighborhood, ask their neighbors questions, and post pictures of lost and found items. Basically, the app is focused on creating a community within real neighborhood. Blockboard was co-founded by Dave Baggeroer, Stephen Hood and Josh Whiting , who worked as an engineer at Craigslist and Delicious (Delicious founder Joshua Schachter is an investor in the startup). The company raised a $1 million in seed funding in 2010 from Schachter, Mitch Kapor, the Founder Collective, Battery Ventures, Harrison Metal, Josh Stylman, Tom McInerney, and David Liu. So how does this fit into Klout? The company says that the technology and team will be used to invest in local and mobile product efforts. Klout has yet to come out with native mobile apps and will be using Blockboard’s expertise in local and mobile to further develop mobile products. Details haven’t been revealed on how the mobile apps will work, but perhaps there will be a local element with the addition of Blockboard. As Klout writes in its blog post: To keep driving toward our mission of unlocking every user’s influence, we need to make Klout useful and accessible wherever they are – whether they’re at home or on the go. For background, Klout evaluates users’ behavior with complex ranking algorithms and semantic analysis of content to measure the influence of individuals on social networks. The company topped 10 billion API calls in December, which is up from 100 million API calls in January, 2011. The company has more than 4,000 API partners, up from around 100 in early 2010. And it has indexed north of 100 million public profiles. Klout also just raised around $30 million in funding from Kleiner Perkins and others, with partner Chi-Hua Chien joining the startup’s board. Here’s a demo of Blockboard from last year’s Crunch-Up:

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Klout Acquires Local And Mobile Neighborhood App Blockboard

This is a new article called Honeywell vs Nest: When The Establishment Sues Silicon Valley:

Published on: 2012-02-07 16:34:05

Honeywell filed a multi-patent infringement lawsuit against Nest Labs and Best Buy yesterday. The suit alleges that Nest Labs is infringing on seven Honeywell patents. Honeywell is not seeking licensing fees. The consumer electronic conglomerate wants Nest Labs to cease using the technology and is actually looking to collect damages caused by the infringement. Damages? Bullshit. This is about killing the competition. This lawsuit hit Silicon Valley and the tech world hard when it broke Monday morning. Nest Labs is the Valley’s star child right now. The company, founded by the godfather of the iPod, started in a Palo Alto garage just over two years ago and successfully disrupted a stale industry so hard that it seems to have resulted in a major lawsuit. The company won a Best of Innovations Award at CES 2012 and, just last week, a Crunchie for Best New Device . People love Nest. And now most of those same people hate Honeywell. Honeywell has every right to protect their intellectual property. In their defensive, Nest Labs is clearly riffing off of Honeywell’s iconic round thermostat design. Honeywell’s T87 thermostat is undeniably, instantly recognizable as a thermostat. But so is a Kleenex box. And a Frisbee. Shame on Nest Labs if the Nest Learning Thermostat was intentionally developed from Honeywell’s intellectual property. But from where I sit Nest Labs is simply trying to advance the thermostat using novel features in a familiar design. The suit alleges Nest Labs infringes on several of Honeywell’s patents involving thermostats. Several, like 7159789 and 7159790 , involve the round hardware mechanism, rotating dial and center screen placement. Others, namely 7142948 and 7634504 , covers the user interface. Natural language installer setup for controller ( 7634504 ) allows for a graphical user interface that sets up the device through a series of simple questions like, “On weekdays, is someone home all day?” and “What is a comfortable sleeping temperature in the summer?” You see, the Nest also has a friendly user interface. Apparently Honeywell is the only one allowed to have a round, rotating idiot-proof thermostat. Honeywell has been selling thermostats for years but none, including the company’s very pricey Prestige line, match the Nest’s build quality or user interface. I spent a considerable amount of time shopping for a thermostat last year. Out of the six or so Honeywell models I tried, all were cheaply made and featured piss-poor UIs. I literally punched my wall after becoming so frustrated with one of the Prestige models. The difference between a Honeywell thermostat and the Nest is striking. One is a cheap, clearly mass-produced hunk of plastic and the other is something you would be proud to own. This feeling is exactly why this lawsuit reeks of greed. Honeywell is embarrassed, perhaps even slightly frightened, by an upstart that is managing to get people excited about thermostats. Honeywell clearly knows what they’re doing. While it’s easy to throw up your hands in disgust, Honeywell is operating within their rights. A quick run-through of the patents revels that the Nest Learning Thermostat is seemingly infringing on all seven. Some are trivial like the four aforementioned patents but the others are a bit more substantial and detailed. Patent 7476988 Power Stealing Control Devices lists the process required to leech the thermostat’s power from another source and store it in a battery, capacitor or the like. But it’s not my job to decide which claim has merit. It’s the hands of the courts now. I spoke with Matthew Mitchell, Esq. of Mitchell Law PLLC regarding Honeywell’s claims. He pointed out that Nest could have simply overlooked the patents listed here. Or, as he assumes is more likely, the company was aware of these and already have a litigation strategy ready to argue that the patents are invalid. Patents are intended to protect non-obvious ideas while advancing general innovation. Mitchell later pointed out, “Patents are the great equalizer. Patents enable garage inventors and small startups (some of which are referred to derogatorily as: non-practicing entities or ‘trolls’) to compete with the big boys like Honeywell.” If the case was reversed, if Nest was suing Honeywell, the tech press’ knee-jerk reaction would have been different, but still likely siding with the little guy. It will be up to the courts whether Honeywell’s claims have merit and the company is due damages, but unfortunately the only winner in this case will be the legal teams. Nest Labs will likely spend money earmarked for R&D/marketing on a defense. Honeywell’s image is tarnished. But worse yet, the consumer will lose the most if a novel startup like Nest Labs is sued out of existence.

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Honeywell vs Nest: When The Establishment Sues Silicon Valley

This is a new article called Microsoft Invests In 24/7 For Customer Service Software:

Published on: 2012-02-07 15:03:07

Microsoft announced this morning a new agreement with 24/7 Inc.  , a company that designs intuitive customer experiences. As a part of the deal, Microsoft will merge its interactive self-service assets (meaning people, clients and technologies), into 24/7 Inc. The deal also includes an R&D partnership, long-term IP licensing and Microsoft taking an equity stake in 24/7, Inc. According to the companies, the purpose of the new partnership is to jointly bring the power of natural user interfaces and data analytics at cloud scale (Big Data) to enable the future of customer service businesses. Today’s customers are looking to interact with businesses through many channels – web, mobile, social media and even the living room TV – which is what’s encouraging this move. 24/7 Inc. is the maker of what it calls a “Predictive Experience (PX)” platform, which delivers customer experiences online and on mobile, and offers speech and live chat software. To do so, it leverages large-scale data analytics to try and predict what customers want in order to better serve them. The solution is then sold to businesses looking for a self-service voice response solution. Some of its current customers include Avis Budget Group, Ovum and United Airlines. Going forward, 24/7 Inc. will use Microsoft’s TellMe speech and natural language technologies in its customer service solutions. Those solutions will also be integrated with Windows Phone, Bing and Microsoft Dynamics CRM. You may remember TellMe, acquired for $800 million in 2007, as the technology that powers Windows Phone’s voice recognition, but it also powers Bing Voice Search for mobile, Xbox  voice recognition in Kinect,  Windows 7, Ford SYNC and KIA UVO, among other things. According to All About Microsoft , some subset of the 400 or so TellMe employees are being shifted to 24/7, along with Microsoft’s IVR assets, but Microsoft would not disclose the exact number. The cloud speech service part of TellMe, however, will remain with Microsoft. Terms of the deal and the size of the equity stake were not provided.

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Check out this informative article written by TechCrunch. It provides good digital marketing information. To see all new blog posts featuring great marketing info, click here

Published on: 2012-02-06 23:28:56

There have been whispers in the past of augmented reality goggles or glasses, but generally we have been able to dismiss them as exaggerations or concepts. The technology, while it isn’t unrealistic, simply isn’t quite there yet. Apparently that hasn’t stopped Google: a new report is appearing corroborating earlier ones that they are working on a pair of augmented reality glasses. They’d piggyback on your phone’s connection and overlay information like directions, news, and so on. Whether you think it’s a good idea or not, this kind of thing is going to come eventually, so it’s natural that Google would want to start girding itself for the approaching augmented glasses wars of 20XX. The 9 to 5 Google report says they look something like a pair of athletic glasses, with a forward-facing camera and flash. The augmented reality bit is actually not a transparent display over one or both eyes, but a single opaque display on the side of one eyepiece (which eyepiece, and which side, were not specified). You operate it with voice or by moving your head around to navigate or select menu options. Yes, not exactly the future we were expecting. I guarantee these things don’t look cool, either. But like I said, the technology isn’t there yet: cameras and processors aren’t small or fast enough, batteries can’t provide enough power, displays aren’t built for them, and computer vision isn’t good enough. Some of these things Google can work on, some they can’t. But the best way to have a product ready when the tech is there is to try to build one when the tech isn’t. The glasses are apparently nowhere near done, unsurprisingly, and Google isn’t sure how to make anything out of them. A pilot program could be in the works, or it could continue to be an underground project, metamorphosing again and again until the market is ready. As it is, these things would be weird, expensive, and not particularly useful. In a couple years, though, who knows?

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Published on: 2012-02-06 21:27:29

I love the smell of acquisitions in the morning! We’ve just heard that Groupon has acquired Adku , a stealth startup that uses big data in order to personalize the online shopping experience for people visiting eCommerce sites like eBay, Amazon and Zappos. The company built their personalized targeting technology in three months, and have basically been in stealth since they launched at the Angelpad Demo day a year and a half ago. Adku is backed by Greylock Partners , Battery Ventures and True Ventures in addition to being an Angelpad startup. Although CEO  Ajit Varma and several members of the six person team are former Googlers, from what I’m hearing this wasn’t a talent acquisition or acqhire but a team + technology play  –with a price beyond $10 million. Varma would not disclose what the team will be working on when they get to Groupon. While it’s not clear what the technology will be applied to, the acquisition makes sense on a lot of levels, especially because a personalized experience is where most of eCommerce is headed. Greylock VC David Thacker now runs product for Groupon, so that couldn’t have  hurt either. Wrote Varma in a blog post, “We started talking to Groupon to bring our technology to more customers and quickly realized that we wanted to be a deeper part of a company that people love and is empowering merchants and customers in a way that’s never been done before.” Stay tuned! OK @ adku (three former Google engineers) is a company that Techcrunch will slobber over. Dynamic content. Interesting company.— Robert Scoble (@Scobleizer) November 11, 2010

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Groupon Buys eCommerce Data Targeting Startup Adku

This is a new article called Keen On… SOPA: Mob Rule or Direct Democracy? (TCTV):

Published on: 2012-02-06 19:15:38

My own views about SOPA and the need to protect online intellectual property are well-known . But even I acknowledge that SOPA was a flawed bill that didn’t represent a viable solution to policing the Internet against intellectual property theft. So is there life after SOPA? How can the technology and content communities carve out a compromise which will simultaneously protect innovation and the rights of the creative community? In the spirit of compromise, I invited Larry Downes , one of SOPA’s most articulate critics, into our San Francisco studio to talk about what comes next. Downes acknowledged that direct democracy on the Internet can sometimes degenerate into mob rule. He also agreed that there is a need for a new kind of dialogue, not only between the technology and entertainment industries, but also involving Internet users – members of communities like Twitter, Reddit and Tumblr – who, he said, needed to be much intimately involved in the political conversation.  This third force, Downes told me, fundamentally alters the power equation and may well also change the legislative process in Washington DC. But Downes’ main point is a little depressing. Politics changes very slowly and technology changes really quickly, he reminded me. So in 18 months time, he predicted, nothing much will have changed in Washington DC. There still won’t be any legislative solution to the problem of online piracy and that promised dialogue between the two (or three) communities will not have materialized.

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Original post: Keen On… SOPA: Mob Rule or Direct Democracy? (TCTV)