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Wednesday 3 April 2013

This is the Modem World: When we Google too much



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Big Jambox 2.0 update brings extended battery life, new AAC support for iOS 6.1



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Roku 3 review: our favorite media streamer, and the simplest to use, too



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Stray Boots Launches On Android With Plans To Phase Out Its SMS Origins Entirely

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Stray Boots started out as a basic SMS app, that let users enjoy a gamified city tour experience by answering questions about various nearby establishments sent to their phone via text. For an SMS application, StrayBoots seemed to have something great going, seeing as each game costs $12. Again, for an SMS app.


But as time goes on, Stray Boots has switched things up a bit to include full-fledged smartphone applications. iOS has been available for a while, and today the company is announcing a brand new Android application.


According to founder and CEO Avi Millman, users are reporting a much better experience using graphics-rich apps as opposed to basic SMS, which may lead the company to phase out SMS altogether.


The main concern in building out the apps was maintaining simplicity. City tours don’t necessarily appeal to Gen Y as much as they do older generations, though that’s not to say 21-year olds don’t love exploring NYC’s financial district. To that end, StrayBoots chose SMS to make sure that adoption was never a hurdle to playing the game.


However, the new iOS app has been ranked 9.1 out of 10 in usability, which is a signal to Millman that simplicity was not substituted for features. Plus, over 90 percent of users who were using the SMS version of the game actually had a smartphone. 93 percent of those who’ve used both native and SMS versions have said they prefer the app experience.


“Those results make us comfortable that we’re nailing the usability of the app, and while we must maintain to be mindful of that as we roll out new features, we feel good about this first major phase,” said Millman. “Assuming we can continue our success on usability and (near) universal accessibility, SMS will play a much smaller roll, and we will eventually phase it out.”


The Android app is available now in Google Play.








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Cell-ebration! 40 Years of Cellphone History



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After Taking SF By Storm, Sōsh Activity Concierge App Launches In NYC

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If you live in San Francisco, chances are you’ve heard of an app called Sōsh, which takes all the guesswork out of finding really interesting, awesome things to do nearby. But here in New York, the word Sōsh has no meaning at all, except for maybe being a reference to one of my favorite characters on “Girls”.


But that’s about to change, as Sōsh is officially launching in New York.


Sōsh is a “concierge” app that scrapes every possible source on the internet, whether it’s events-related blogs, restaurant review sites, or Twitter, to bring the very best activities in your city right to the palm of your hand. You can browse through categories like Fine Dining, Under $30, Creative Cocktails, Burgers, and Date Night, among many others, or you can choose to look at the “Here and Now” category to see what’s right in your neighborhood.


From there you can bookmark events based on what you’d like to do, or click the “Done It” button to show how cool you are for already having experienced the wonders Sōsh has to offer.


So you might be wondering: what’s the difference between this and any other events site or Yelp! even? Well, for one, Sōsh is all about the very “best” restaurants, nightlife, cooking classes, farmers markets, etc. Something with a two-star rating wouldn’t even show up on Sōsh. Part of that has to do with the company’s very advanced algorithm, and part of it has to do with the fact that, before anything ever goes up on Sōsh, it’s inspected by a real human to make sure it’s legit.


Rishi Mandal, co-founder and creator, explained to TechCrunch why he kept Sōsh all bottled up in San Francisco for so long without expanding to other cities, and it all comes down to user experience and acquisition. “Achieving a high density in one market creates an echo chamber amongst users, and allows us to have a profound impact on local businesses, advancing the prospects of a business model much more quickly,” said Mandal. Plus, it lets the team focus on quality curation, which can be a pain in the hyperlocal game.


And he’s not joking around about that “high density” thing. One in every 10 adults in San Francisco has the Sōsh app, and one in eight of 21-48-year olds uses the app, which is good news considering that’s Sōsh’s target demographic. And according to Mandal, the majority of those users come back into the app at least once a week.


What’s even better, this high density has absolutely achieved the “echo chamber” effect Mandal mentioned earlier, as the average Sōsh user has 13 friends on the app at the point of download. I, being awesome, had 18.



But Sōsh is also collecting crazy amounts of data, just from its SF user base. So far, the app has made over 10 million recommendations to users, with many millions of data points amassed around what people like. However, that won’t make a difference in the city that never sleeps.


Mandal mentioned that the challenges in SF are very different from those in NYC. In San Francisco, users are hungry for cool activities, whereas New Yorkers tend to have trouble sifting through the hundreds of daily activities in the city to find the good ones. But Sōsh has adapted the app to fit NYCer picky preferences, just as the app will evolve into much more than a concierge.


The idea, Mandal explained, came from the fact that users have such high expectations of their digital world. Everything needs to be fast, fluid, functional, and intuitive. However, these high standards don’t cross over into the real world.


“If you make a reservation at a restaurant and show up on time, and the hostess tells you to wait 15 minutes, you wait 15 minutes,” he said. It’s just expected.


The real goal of Sōsh, eventually, is to raise your expectations in the real world. Mandal envisions users finding a restaurant they love, seeing available tables and times, booking reservations, and even possibly booking a car to the restaurant, all from the app. He wants Sōsh to almost take on a digital assistant role. But, you know, one that actually works.


I’ll be interested to see Sōsh spread like wildfire in NY just as it did in San Francisco. But have no fear, ye flyover states, because Sōsh is already planning out an Android version of the app, and further expansions.


The next cities on the list are Boston, Seattle, LA, and Chicago, with further roll-outs to follow. The app is available now in the App Store.








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SimpleHoney Acquired By Payment Startup OpenCoin

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SimpleHoney, a startup co-founded by Joyce Kim (who was previously CEO of Soompi.com and co-host of the GigaOm show) and Eric Nakagawa (creator of the I Can Has Cheezburger blog), just announced that it’s being acquired by payment company OpenCoin.


That’s the company developing Ripple, an open source payment protocol. In her blog post announcing the news, Kim describes the excitement around new payment options, especially the virtual currency Bitcoin, as “one of the fastest growing movements in tech,” and when SimpleHoney had a chance to join that movement, it couldn’t refuse. She continues:



During our initial conversations with the creators of Ripple, we were impressed by their vision for creating a new payment system that gives consumers freedom and independence. As longtime fans of Bitcoin, my co-founder (a casual miner) and I had ideas of how Bitcoin and other virtual currencies could be easier for normal folks to use. Soon, Chris [Larsen] and Jed [McCaleb], who were looking for a strong consumer-focused team, proposed we join them and roll up our sleeves to start working on the root problem facing consumers in every vertical, from travel to ecommerce.



When Kim emailed me to tell me about the deal, she also said that Ripple isn’t a Bitcoin competitor, but rather “a complementary service that allows for easier conversion and spending of Bitcoin into any other currency.”


SimpleHoney launched in May of last year as a website that recommended hotels based on the user’s personality, then it shifted focus to an easy-to-use wish list app called I Want Wish List. The app, Kim said, “is separate from the deal but we will continue to operate it since it is self-sufficient.”


The four-person SimpleHoney team will be joining the 12-person Ripple team, Kim said. The financial terms of the deal aren’t being disclosed.


SimpleHoney had raised a a seed round from Socialcast and About.me co-founder Tim Young, Mochi Media co-founders Jameson Hsu and Bob Ippolito, former Middleware Company CEO Ed Roman, Causecast founder Ryan Scott, and 500 Startups’ Dave McClure, Nakagawa, and Kim.








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edX Merges With Stanford's Class2Go To Build An Open-Source Online Learning Platform

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As new models of digital learning sweep across higher education, colleges and universities across the globe are scrambling to get on board and make their course catalogs available to a wider audience via the Web. Of these new models, few have seen more attention than massive open online courses (a.k.a. “MOOCs”), which, starting with Khan Academy, promise to offer access to quality, affordable education at scale — online.


When it comes to innovation in learning, particularly MOOCs, it’s probably safe to say that Stanford takes the cake. While it’s hardly alone on the MOOC bandwagon, the University has long provided access to its courses and lectures online, through iTunes U, among other channels. Beyond creating a “Vice Provost of Online Learning” position within its faculty, Stanford is also in some way responsible for the most popular MOOC platforms. Coursera, Udacity and the lesser-known, group-based Venture Lab all emerged from Stanford.


Last September, the University produced yet another MOOC player, called Class2Go, which aimed to bring a new spin to the online learning model. Founded by eight engineers in Stanford’s CS Department, the non-profit platform committed itself to building (arguably the first) open-source MOOC platform — designed to be both free and interoperable with other platforms to encourage collaboration from teachers and other institutions.


Today, the other well-known name in the MOOC arena, edX, has decided to join Stanford, rather than work around it. Founded by Harvard and MIT (and launched last May), edX was East Coast Academia’s response to Coursera, Udacity and the MOOC fever beginning to grip higher education. In what is somewhat of a surprise, it isn’t the homegrown Coursera or Udacity that will be teaming up with Stanford in pursuit of open-source MOOC-ness, but the brainchild of Harvard and MIT.


Instead, Stanford and edX announced today that they will be teaming up to help realize edX’s aspiration of becoming an open-source platform to provide free and open online learning tools to higher ed institutions around the globe. To realize its open-source aspirations, edX will be essentially acqui-hiring Class2Go. Although not stated in those terms, Class2Go will no longer be focused on building its own, independent platform, and instead its team will devote all of its attention to helping edX go open-source.


In other words, Stanford will be integrating all of the features of its existing Class2Go platform into the edX platform, using Class2Go’s infrastructure as an internal platform for online coursework for on-campus and distance learners. Since launching in September, Class2Go has attracted a number of universities to its platform, which the partners will look to transfer to edX’s platform over the coming weeks.


As of June 1, the company said, developers everywhere will be able to freely access the source code of the edX learning platform, including code for its Learning Management System (LMS); Studio, a course authoring tool; xBlock, an application programming interface (API) for integrating third-party learning objects; and machine grading API’s. In addition, edX will look to encourage participation from third-party developers by providing technical and process guidelines as well as additional support.


One of the benefits of MOOC platforms is that they’re able to bring together a diverse body of students and perspectives to inform the learning process, edX President Anant Agarwal said, so the company now wants to “extend that perspective to its learning platform as well, knowing that drawing upon the global community of developers is an effective route to both transform and deliver the world’s best and most accessible online and blended learning experience.”


By turning edX into an open-source online learning platform, the company hopes to allow universities to develop their own “delivery methods,” collaborate with other institutions in ways that make sense for their needs and more effectively collect data while controlling their own branding. “Further developing online opportunities through open source technology is a key objective of the partnership between edX and Stanford,” he said.


As for Stanford, the university said that it will continue to support a number of platforms for its teachers, including continuing its partnership with Coursera. In other words, this means that Stanford will not be offering its courses through the edX platform, opting not to join the six new institutions that recently joined its platform alongside Harvard, MIT, University of California at Berkeley, the University of Texas, Wellesley College and Georgetown University, among others.


Stanford is trying to find a balance between interests, honoring the partnership it has with Coursera to make select courses available online, while still assisting edX in its mission to make the MOOC model available to one and all.


If there was any doubt over whether or not MOOCs are here to stay — or just a passing fancy — this partnership between Stanford and edX will likely put that to bed by helping to tear down the barriers to entry.


More on Class2Go here.








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Amazon Will Give You Free MP3s Of Your Vinyl Record Purchases



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Skype Users Spend 2 Billion Minutes a Day Connecting



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Amazon's AutoRip now includes vinyl



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SEC: Companies can share business data on social media



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AMD offers open-source Linux driver for hardware video decoding



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FTC reveals $50,000 Robocall Challenge winners, alarms Rachel from card services (video)



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Apptopia Projects An App's Future Revenue, True Value



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With Over 6,000 Courses Now Live, Udemy Brings Its Learning Marketplace To iOS To Let You Study On The Go

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Udemy launched in 2010 to help students of all ages continue their education through video-based, online courses — and in turn, give teachers (and experts) a way to make a buck by sharing their knowledge with the masses. Capitalizing on the growing interest and buzz around online learning and MOOC platforms pioneered by sites like Khan Academy, Udemy has been on a mission to create the largest online destination for on-demand, online courses.


The popular MOOC platforms like Coursera, Udacity, edX and Khan Academy are all, in one way or another, on a similar mission; so, to differentiate itself, rather than offer classes for free, Udemy offers both free and paid courses, putting it more in the vein of platforms like Skillshare and Lynda.com.


Since raising $12 million in December, Udemy has been looking to continue differentiating itself from the increasingly crowded market for online courses by giving students access to its catalog on the go. Today, the startup released an iOS app — its first native mobile product — in an attempt to make it easy for users to discover and take courses from their smartphones.


The Udemy marketplace is growing fast, and now offers more than 6,000 courses on a range of topics from web development and business to photography, music and fitness. Udemy has added 1,000 courses since December, a big uptick from October, when it added just over 400 courses to its platform.


With its new app, Udemy now allows users to browse and sign up for both free and paid courses, giving them access to video lectures, articles and presentations while on the go. The app also lets students save their courses for offline viewing to peruse during their morning commute, along with the ability to watch video lectures in multiple speeds. Courses in double-time.


Udemy’s iOS apps don’t yet offer the same social elements available in its Web product (those that allow students to interact with their peers, for example), but the founders tell us that these will likely be coming in future updates. In turn, with its iOS app now live, Udemy will look to bring its online learning marketplace to Android, so look for that in the coming months.


Since launching in January, the founders say, over 15,000 additional experts have committed to share courses on Udemy, including familiar names like Dan Rather, George Lucas, and Randal Kleiser.


Since December, Udemy has grown from 400K registered students to over 600K, and a quarter of its approved instructors have pulled in at least $10K by offering paid instruction through Udemy — and some have even pushed into the six-figure range.


Udemy takes 30 percent of those earnings, co-founder Eren Bali told us in December that, over the last nine months, the company has seen steady 20 percent month-over-month growth. Sources also tell us that Udemy has generated over $15 million in total revenue since its launch, which continues to grow. A number Udemy will look to grow as it pushes onto mobile.


For more, find Udemy in the App Store here.








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Porsche Panamera S E-Hybrid plug-in model brings 416 guilt-free horsepower



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Tesco signs up BBC content for its free Clubcard TV streaming service, includes plenty of cooking shows



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First Mobile Phone Call Was Placed Exactly 40 Years Ago



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Big Jambox 2.0 update brings extended battery life, new AAC support for iOS 6.1



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Quickoffice on Android and iPhone now free for Google Apps for Business users



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It's been 40 years since the world's first mobile phone call



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Cheat on your iOS or Android device with this BlackBerry 10 OS tour



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Converser Launches To Power In-App Customer Communications After Raising $1.2 Seed Round

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Another Irish startup has thrown its wares into the in-app messaging ring. After working with and developing its product alongside a number of enterprise customers, Dublin-based Converser opens up to mobile developers today with an in-app communication platform that can be incorporated into iOS/Android apps to provide two-way communication with users — real-time chat, marketing messages, polls, feedback, and click-to-call — supported by what’s being described as a “self-learning” CRM system, and analytics.


The company is also announcing that it recently closed a seed round of $1.2 million led by Lough Shore Investments and Enterprise Equity, with support from Enterprise Ireland.


The idea behind Converser is to enable companies via their own mobile apps to learn more about and better target customers as well as “appify” customer communication. This includes advertising, direct marketing, and customer support, which would typically be conducted by post and over the phone, thus something like Converser can potentially producing significant cost savings.


Claiming utility companies, banks, and insurance companies as existing customers, today Converser is opening up the platform to any developer via a SDK for Android and iOS, as well as launching on the StackMob marketplace. It’s free to use for a limited number of app users or if all you require is in-app user feedback/support. However, for anything more, the service is priced from $0.02¢ per monthly active user for unlimited messaging.


Underpinned by its “self-learning” CRM, which enables individual custumer insights related to an app’s usage and any in-app communication (e.g. ‘Nick Jones, male, 38, married, lives in Santa Clara, active in-app last week’), as well as broader customer segmenting, is what Converser calls its in-app “conversation engine”. This supports a range of two-way interactions, including updates, offers, polls, tickets, questions, competitions, in-app chat, and lead generation forms. Setting up any of these, once the SDK has been incorporated, is likened to creating a PowerPoint presentation. In other words, it’s fairly non-technical.


As expected, a full suite of analytics is provided, too. This means that engagement levels can be tracked per “conversation” and to measure ROI per marketing campaign.


In fact, on the direct marketing side, Converser appears to have some crossover with Dublin and San Francisco-based Swrve, whose in-app direct marketing platform lets mobile games developers, or anybody making or responsible for marketing an app, to send in-app marketing messages to users on a targeted and measurable basis.








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Baidu Eye is no joke, aims to be a Google Glass competitor



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Xiaomi M2S with Snapdragon 600 revealed in curtailed China Telecom listing



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China's homegrown GPS to open up for smartphones



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Baidu Eye Is China's Answer to Google Glass, Company Confirms



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HTC One 802w for China spotted with removable cover, dual SIM slots and microSD slot



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40 años de la primera llamada desde un teléfono móvil portátil

Martin Cooper

Martin Cooper con un DynaTAC y otro móvil «algo mas avanzado» en Oviedo con motivo de la entrega del Premio Príncipe de Asturias de Investigación Científica y Técnica 2009, que compartió con Ray Tomlinson, el inventor del correo electrónico


Tal día como hoy Martin Cooper , entonces empleado de Motorola, realizaba la primera llamada desde un teléfono móvil portátil desde una calle de Nueva York, por lo visto a un número equivocado.


Como suele pasar en esos casos, no había nadie para hacer unas fotos del momento, porque nadie sabía la importancia que iba a tener. De hecho, a pesar de que Motorola apostaba decididamente por la idea de los teléfonos móviles portátiles, aún pasarían diez años desde aquella primera llamada antes de que estos empezaran a llegar al mercado en la forma del DynaTAC 8000x.


El DynaTAC 8000x era una verdadera bestia para los estándares actuales, pero en el peor sentido de la palabra, ya que pesaba 790 gramos y medía 25 centímetros de altura sin contar la antena, por no hablar de que su precio equivalente hoy en día sería de unos 7.200 euros


Y a pesar de eso no ofrecía más que media hora de tiempo de conversación y 8 horas de tiempo de espera.


Claro que comparado con los teléfonos «móviles» de la época que ocupaban medio maletero o una pequeña maleta que había que acarrear por ahí, era todo un avance.


Cooper hace años que se retiró y la división de móviles Motorola ahora no es más que otra propiedad de Google, pero en la actualidad hay casi tantas líneas de telefonía móvil como personas en el mundo, y como te descuides puedes perder el móvil en el bolsillo.


# Enlace Permanente







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Google to Launch New Version of Nexus 7 in July, Report Says



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Google and Asustek to release second generation Nexus 7 tablet in July, says Reuters



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The Future of Sanook: Thailand’s Largest Web Portal



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Hybrid Memory Cube receives its finished spec, promises up to 320GB per second



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Sony Xperia ZL reaches Canada through Bell, Rogers and Videotron



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Twitter Cards for apps, products and photo galleries unveiled



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5 Tips to Clean and Speed Up Your Filthy PC



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Google+ now allows full-size photo uploads from desktop browsers



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Nebula One turns servers into simple, private clouds with OpenStack (video)



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