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Friday 5 July 2013

Solve Media Lands $6M From New Atlantic, First Round, AOL And Others For Its Fast-Growing CAPTCHA Advertising Platform

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You know those “CAPTCHAs” you run into from time to time during your Web surfing sessions and Internet escapades? Well, a startup named Solve Media has developed a way to upgrade and monetize those pesky CAPTCHAs and, as my colleague Anthony Ha recently detailed, is beginning to see real results.


In fact, TechCrunch has learned today that Solve Media this week closed a $6 million round of series B financing, led by New Atlantic Ventures, with contributions from First Round Capital, AOL Ventures, BullPen Capital and others. The new round, which co-founder and CEO Ari Jacoby says the company will use to expand its sales and engineering teams so that it can continue working on new ways to provide ant-bot security solutions to publishers, brings the startup’s total investment to $15 million.


But for those unfamiliar, CAPTCHAs are those security mechanisms one finds when taking actions across the Web that require us to input a random set of letters and numbers so that, say Ticket Master knows that a human being is buying tickets and not some bot or evil supercomputer. Founded back in 2009, Solve Media has been on a mission to re-imagine CAPTCHAs, allowing advertisers running “Type-In” CAPTCHAs to show display ads, video ads or prompt users to type in a brand name or message instead of just serving users with those fuzzy alphanumeric puzzles.


The idea behind Solve Media’s CAPTCHA alternative is to enable publishers to see supplementary revenue from the impressions and clicks taken from these ads and messages, while giving advertisers a new way to get their messages in front of consumers and use similar ads to run as a pre-roll before their videos. In fact, it’s a method that Solve Media co-founder and CEO Ari Jacoby claims deliver 10x higher brand recall than standard display ads.


As Anthony described last month, Solve saw over 1 billion engagements with its Type-In ads last year and expects to exceed that number in the second quarter of this year alone, expecting to hit 4 billion for the year total. As a result, the company is on track to see $13 to $16 million in revenue this year.


Jacoby also tells us that the startup is now adding “hundreds of publishers each month” and is working with over 100 major brands, like Unilever and InterContinental Hotels Group, attracted by Solve’s claims that its average click-through rate is now over 1 percent.


The new capital follows the launch of the startup’s mobile platform this week, in which it’s working with early partners like Unilever and Songza to offer alternative ways for publishers to monetize using ads (including) video on their mobile pages. “In mobile, we use our devices in a very purposeful manner,” Jacoby tells us. “Most mobile advertising stinks because it competes with the content you want to view and is easily (and accidentally) clicked on, which detracts from the value both for consumers and advertisers alike.”


The Solve Media CEO believes that, if consumers are going to have to grit their teeth and bear mobile advertising and security mechanisms like CAPTCHA, why not offer a system that allows them to unlock the mobile content they want to view in exchange for ad engagement. Admittedly, as a user, it seems like it has the potential to add friction to the mobile viewing experience, but at least it’s a more direct way of advertising than the sneaky, surreptitious display shenanigans that still pervade the mobile Web today.








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This week on gdgt: HX50V, Minx Air 100, and Moto X customization



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Adiós a Corot, el cazador de exoplanetas de la Agencia Espacial Europea

Impresión artística del Corot en órbita

Impresión artística del Corot en órbita


El fallo definitivo de sus dos ordenadores de a bordo impide que el Corot pueda seguir realizando observaciones, por lo que la Agencia Espacial Europea ha decidido dar por finalizada su misión.


He escrito una pieza sobre esta para RTVE.es titulada Termina la misión del Corot, el cazador de planetas extrasolares de la ESA


# Enlace Permanente







via Microsiervos http://www.microsiervos.com/archivo/ciencia/adios-corot-cazador-exoplanetas-agencia-espacial-europea.html

Duck Duck Go, Google, y la privacidad de tus datos


A ratos parece un poco un anuncio de Duck Duck Go , pero merece la pena echarle un ojo a este vídeo de una charla de Mark Hurst, el fundador del buscador que es lo que era Google hace unos años en cuanto a simplicidad y que además es estrictamente escrupuloso a la hora de no guardar datos de sus usuarios.


Como él dice, es mentira que Google necesite seguirnos –aunque no hayamos iniciado sesión– para que funcione su modelo de negocio, ya que la mayoría de sus anunciantes lo que compran son palabras clave.


Si lo hace, al menos según Hurst, es por su necesidad de monetizar otros servicios como Gmail, YouTube y, sobre todo, Google + en los últimos tiempos, algo que no es sencillo si quiere seguir sin cobrar por ellos.


Es como para pensarse lo de cambiar de buscador por defecto.


Personalmente la deriva de Google en los últimos años me recuerda cada vez más a lo de AltaVista.


Y ya sabemos cómo terminó esa historia.


(Vía Boing Boing).


# Enlace Permanente







via Microsiervos http://www.microsiervos.com/archivo/internet/duck-duck-go-google-y-la-privacidad-de-tus-datos.html

Instagram for iOS gets landscape mode, Cinema stabilization support for front-facing cameras



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Impresoras 3D y traumatología

Cortex por Jake Evill


Por ahora sólo es un diseño conceptual, pero Cortex es una idea de Jake Evill que podría sustituir las escayolas de toda la vida que nos ponen cuando nos rompemos un hueso por una estructura de nylon impresa en 3D que cumpliría las mismas funciones de inmovilización y soporte.


Pero además sería mucho mas delgada, lavable, con lo que podrías meterte en la ducha con ella, ventilada, y reciclable; además permitiría ver las heridas en caso de fracturas abiertas.


El proceso empezaría con una radiografía para localizar el sitio exacto de la fractura, un escaneo en 3D del miembro afectado para obtener sus medidas exactas, y la impresión de la «escayola 3D» con los refuerzos adecuados en la zona oportuna y el tamaño justo para un encaje exacto.


Saldría de la impresora abierta por la mitad, con unas bisagras y unos cierres que permitirían colocarla en su sitio.


Miguel, que es médico y que fue quien nos escribió para hablarnos de este concepto, suponiendo que el material ofreciese la suficiente resistencia y rigidez para cumplir su misión, lo ve factible y nada descabellado, teniendo en cuenta además que cada vez se usan más materiales plásticos para hacer «escayolas».


# Enlace Permanente







via Microsiervos http://www.microsiervos.com/archivo/ciencia/impresoras-3d-y-traumatologia.html

El ordenador original de Juegos de Guerra a subasta

El ordenador de David Lightman

Los equipos de David Lightman y el WOPR


El otro día hablábamos de la tecnología de Juegos de guerra, una de nuestras películas preferidas de todos los tiempos.


En ella David Lightman estaba a punto de desatar una guerra termonuclear global por accidente usando poco más que su MSAI 8080 y un módem, con los que conseguía conectarse al WOPR, el ordenador al mando del arsenal nuclear de los Estados Unidos.


Pues resulta que ahora Todd Fischer, la persona que suministró al estudio el hardware utilizado para la película, ha decidido poner a la venta el IMSAI 8080, el teclado IMSAI IKB-1 y el módem IMSAI 212A utilizados en la película.


La disketera no está disponible pues resultó dañada durante su transporte después del rodaje de la película y la tiraron, y el WOPR obviamente nunca fue de verdad, pero tanto el ordenador como el teclado y el módem siguen funcionando.


Los detalles están en Buy Matthew Broderick’s old movie computer and possibly impress Ally Sheedy .


Pero si piensas en hacerte con ellos vete pensando en poner varios miles de dólares. Fischer estuvo a punto de subastarlos hace dos años en Christie's en Londres pero al final decidió no hacerlo, aunque ya entonces se estimaba que podrían valer al menos 25.000 dólares.


(Vía @lolo_es).


# Enlace Permanente







via Microsiervos http://www.microsiervos.com/archivo/peliculas-tv/el-ordenador-original-de-juegos-de-guerra-a-subasta.html

Evernote for Windows Touch gets a redesign, two-step verification



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This Tiny, Portable Laptop Stand Will Finally Fix Your Posture

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“The Roost–stop hunching over your laptop,” I read, back and neck aching as usual. I had been working at my laptop like a gargoyle since early in the morning. But in the Roost, a laptop stand that’s raised almost $100,000 on Kickstarter, I’ve finally found a solution.


My main issue with most laptop stands is that they’re big and bulky. At the least, I’d have to buy a stand for the office and one for home. But as a writer and college student, I’m constantly working on the move–so even multiple stands wouldn’t help me much. Last summer, I resorted to resting my laptop on a box at the office, which was less than ideal.


Enter James Olander, a literal rocket scientist who decided that designing systems at Lockheed Martin wasn’t for him anymore.


“I was on this blind path for working on aerospace for probably no other good reason than rocket science sounded cool,” he says.


Olander started working at Odesk, where he would work remotely a couple days a week. He says that after a few months, his hands, neck, and back shut down on him, and he had to see multiple doctors and start physical therapy. Olander says he was terrified of being unable to use a laptop, and he bought “probably every stand that’s on Amazon.”


“I didn’t find anything that really met the need, because nothing was portable enough to the point that you’d actually use it,” he tells me.



Naturally, Olander decided to build something himself, and The Roost was born. The Roost, which Olander builds himself in Denver, weighs just five ounces and folds down to a 1” x 1.5” x 13” package. Olander built it using strong materials (carbon fiber and a super plastic), so it’s also incredibly durable. It’s going for $65 on Kickstarter right now, more than some of the most popular stands on Amazon, but well worth it in my opinion.


He sent me a near-production unit to test out and I’m going to miss it sorely when I return it. The stand is super convenient–I toss it in my bag every day along with my thin Apple keyboard and track pad, and can quickly set up shop in the office, in coffee shops, wherever. The laptop clips on to the stand and is really secure and sturdy.



About four months ago, Olander had a chance meeting with Eric Migicovsky, the creator of the Pebble smartwatch that raised over $10 million, who told Olander to put his project on Kickstarter.


Olander set out hoping to raise $10,000, but the stand has obliterated that goal on Kickstarter, now approaching six figures in funding with over a thousand backers. The campaign ends Monday, but Olander says that won’t be the end of the Roost.


“I’ve been approached by a lot of folks that want to resell it,” Olander says. “As well as folks interested in joining the team to make it into a real company. I want to explore all ways to produce more Roosts but I’m really set up right here to produce them in my shop in Denver.”








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