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Friday 12 July 2013

Trademark Dispute Brewing Between Flipboard And Flowboard

flipboard flowboard logos

Looks like Flipboard is unhappy with Flowboard, the new “interactive storytelling” app from Treemo — specifically with the app’s name.


In response to Flipboard’s complaints that the Flowboard name could be confusing and infringe its trademark, Treemo filed a complaint asking for a “declaratory judgment of non-infringement of trademark rights” — i.e. it wants a court to say that no trademark infringement is taking place.


“We tried to resolve it amicably, but they continued to threaten us with legal action, so we had no choice but to defend ourselves,” said Treemo founder and CEO Brent Brookler.


When I asked Flipboard about the situation, a spokesperson sent me the following statement:



Flipboard has communicated to Treemo, Inc. concerns about the F logo and the Flowboard name recently adopted by Treemo with the intention to resolve the matter amicably. Treemo has responded by filing a lawsuit against Flipboard. We are concerned about the likelihood of confusion and are committed to protecting our trademark.



Treemo’s complaint argues that Flipboard and Flowboard are “distinct in sound, appearance, and connotation as applied to their respective goods,” and that ending a product name with “-board” is just using a word “which has become generically used in association with tablet computing devices.” (For those of you who need a refresher: Flipboard is a social news aggregator, with the recently added ability to create your own magazine, while Flowboard allows users to create presentations using a tablet-optimzied interface.)


The complaint also notes that Treemo applied to trademark the Flowboard term, and that the application was approved without opposition on April 23 of this year.


[Thanks to Venkat Balasubramani for the tip.]


Treemo v. Flipboard, W.D. Wash (Complaint filed July 11, 2013) by Venkat Balasubramani








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La sonda New Horizons ya puede ver a Plutón y Caronte por separado

Plutón y Caronte

Plutón y Caronte vistors por la New Horizons. La imagen de la derecha los muestra dentro de sendos círculos para ayudar a localizarlos: Plutón es el del centro, Caronte el que está arriba a la izquierda de este


Aunque aún faltan dos años para que se produzca su máxima aproximación a Plutón, prevista para las 11:49:59 UTC del 14 de julio de 2015, cuando pasará a unos 12.500 kilómetros se su superficie, desde hace unos días la cámara de larga distancia de la sonda New Horizons, conocida como LOng Range Reconnaissance Imager, LORRI, es capaz de separar Caronte de Plutón en las imágenes que toma.


Tal y como se puede leer en Charon Revealed! la New Horizons estaba a unos 880 millones de kilómetros de Plutón cuando se tomó la imagen, pero puede considerarse que con ella empieza el estudio a larga distancia del sistema plutoniano.


Será la primera misión espacial que explore Plutón y el cinturón de Kuiper.


Así, poco a poco iremos teniendo mejores imágenes de Plutón hasta que por fin podamos ver qué pinta tiene con una resolución máxima equivalente a la de un campo de fútbol –qué sería de nosotros sin el sistema métrico campofutbolero– que nos sacará de dudas sobre la pinta que tiene.


Y es que por ahora esta es la mejor imagen que tenemos del ex-planeta, cortesía del Hubble:


Plutón visto por el Hubble

New Hubble Maps of Pluto Show Surface Changes: la superficie de Plutón vista por el Hubble


La New Horizons fue lanzada el 19 de enero de 2006, cuando Plutón todavía era un planeta, así que esperar estos dos años ya casi no es nada.


Se pueden seguir sus andanzas en @NewHorizons2015.





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AddThis Launches Smart Layers, Giving Websites Social And Personalization Tools That Adapt To Mobile

addthis logo

AddThis has released a new platform called Smart Layers, which it says can improve traffic and engagement by just adding a single line of code.


President and CEO Ramsey McGrory told me that Smart Layers both improves on the publisher tools that AddThis was already offering and introduces some new ones.


In terms of new features, Smart Layers introduces a “toaster” at the bottom of a page that recommends content based on a user’s past activity. It also allows publishers to follow-up with users after they’ve engaged on the site.


On the existing side, Smart Layers takes the AddThis sharing buttons that publishers could already include on their sites and it gives them an adaptive design, so that their appearance will be optimized for whatever device they’re viewed on, whether it’s a desktop, smartphone, or tablet. The company says it can also optimize the social options that are presented to each visitor.


And all of these tools are now offered together in a package that should be easier for smaller publishers to integrat. As the name implies, they’re presented as a layer that doesn’t change any of the content on the site itself. McGrory said the platform is built on top of the data that AddThis has already been collecting, so it can deliver a personalized experience even if someone is visiting an AddThis publisher for the first time.


“The great example is, Zappos knows a tremendous amount about people that have been to the site, but the very first time, they have no idea who those users are,” McRory said. “It’s called the cold start problem” — and AddThis is supposed to solve that problem.


The Social Layers are already being used by dating site eHarmony. When you look at this post about “Five Ways to Deal with the ‘Why Are You Single’ Question” you not only see sharing buttons on the side, but also a section at the end called “Recommended For You.”



AddThis says that publishers who pilot tested the system saw more than a 60 percent increase in on-site content engagement, a doubling of follows across all devices, 70+ lift in mobile shares, and 50+ percent lift in desktop shares.


Moving forward, McCrory said that Social Layers will probably become the main toolset for smaller AddThis publishers (as well as the vendors that sell to smaller publishers — GoDaddy will be including this as one of its Site Builder products). Some larger publishers, on the other hand, will probably continue using AddThis data to personalize their own custom tools.


You can read more about how to set up Smart Layers in this company blog post.








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CrunchBase And AngelList Have A Partnership

angellist-crunchbase2

It used to be that you had to pay a bunch of money to get basic information about private tech companies, like how much they’ve raised and who they’ve acquired. CrunchBase made that free. And it used to be that you had to spend lots of time and money trying to network your way into some angel investor money. AngelList made that free.


Now, the two have a deal.


Here are the basics. If you have a company on AngelList, you can choose to sync it with CrunchBase — once a day, any public information you provide will automatically be exported over to your CrunchBase company profile. This will save you time entering the data in both places, and help CrunchBase offer a more comprehensive data set for the public. The setup here is similar to the CrunchBase Venture Program, where more than 240 investment outfits provide public updates about their portfolios in exchange for better access to CrunchBase API and team.


This feature has been in testing for a week and already more than 300 AngelList companies have already opted in, so the teams working on the feature expect it’ll be pretty popular.



Meanwhile, CrunchBase is linking back to AngelList for every company that has an entry in both places (example here). One link will go to their main AngelList page, which could be particularly useful for companies that are actively fundraising, and the other link will direct CrunchBase users to the company’s AngelList job listings page. While the teams aren’t disclosing a revenue-sharing agreement around the job listings part, I’ve learned that there is one.



“We’re putting up the scaffoldings of the marketplace,” AngelList cofounder Naval Ravikant tells me. “The startup ecosystem is getting mature enough that it’s able to interconnect with APIs — like how stock markets, financial data service providers and analyst firms work for public companies.” He cites Mattermark and Dashboard.io as two startups using all this publicly accessible data on startups to help companies and investors find the right partners.



“Hiding your data makes no sense when investors are using services like AngelList to find companies,” adds CrunchBase president Matt Kaufman. “We intend for CrunchBase to be the common data platform here, because we think greater transparency will help everybody make better decisions.”


Expect lots more to come from both organizations. Ravikant has been busy angling AngelList to take advantage of the new changes in crowdfunding, among other initiatives. Meanwhile, CrunchBase is working on a major new version of the site, which the team says you’ll be hearing more about in the coming months.








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An Interview With Brian Biniak, The Man Aiming To Bring Instagram To Nokia's Windows Phones

Biniak

Nokia’s Brian Biniak has a tough job — he’s the guy who forges partnerships with all the hottest apps to bring them aboard Nokia devices, which now means Windows Phone 8. However, even with its steady growth, the Windows Phone platform only accounts for around 5 percent of the global market, behind second-place iOS and ever-growing Android.


For small, lean startups (like Instagram once was, for example), developing for an entirely new platform with comparatively limited reach, it’s a reasonably tough sell. But it’s Brian’s job, and today he absolutely nailed it (with one very obvious shortcoming). Path has joined Windows Phone 8 with an app specially tailored to the Lumia 1020‘s 41-megapixel capabilities, alongside a new CNN iReporter app, Hipstamatic app, Oggl Pro, Yelp, foursquare,Path app and promise of a Vine app later on.


But where’s Instagram? Facebook has a strong relationship with Microsoft, as proven with the Bing situation, and Instagram is now Facebook’s property. What’s the hold-up? Especially when Instagram had the opportunity to do something exclusive and cool (Instagram is a fan of exclusivity, as proven by the 18 months it spent on iOS before hitting up Android) with the Lumia 1020′s highly capable PureView camera.


We spoke to the man in charge of making this happen. This is an edited transcript of the interview.


TechCrunch: Describe what it means to be Vice President and General Manager of App development at Nokia.


Brian Biniak: For one, I focus on apps with global appeal and reach as opposed to regionally specific applications. We have teams that focus on various regions, but I oversee the applications that ship on a global scale.


I’m also responsible for integrated marketing with those applications. At Nokia, we really try hard to connect these applications to the Nokia story, and the Lumia story, bringing that into the marketing message. We want it to connect with operators and retailers so that we can offer a richer experience through and for the applications.


I came from a world of startups.


TC: What startups?


BB: I started as VP of Business Development at Harmonics Music Systems, then became the COO at YourMobile, before it was acquired by Vivendi. I stayed there a while before moving on to start up the mobile division at American Greetings, and then became the CEO and Founder of Jacked, which was a second screen experience we sold to RoundBox. Now I’m at Nokia.


It’s interesting to switch from one side of the desk to the other. I used to be the guy who went around knocking on office doors at big corporations, and now I’m the guy who’s working with the smaller companies to get them big-time distribution.


TC: Windows Phone has clearly shown growth, but for developers at small startups, the distribution there is pretty limited. You guys are a distant third behind Android and iOS, so I imagine it must be difficult to bring some startups on board the platform, especially those that you’re really desperate for on Windows Phone who are having perfectly good success on the other two platforms. What are some of the biggest challenges you face at your job, and how do you make your argument to these hold-outs?


BB: I don’t think everybody sees the opportunity right away. But when we talk with developers, we explain that we offer an expansive offering. We offer distribution, integrated marketing, technological resources. It’s a symbiotic relationship that we have with our developers and we’re interested in everybody. It’s not about who is stronger and bigger — that doesn’t determine how we treat companies or what kind of investment we’ll make in them. And since it’s a non-equity investment, those entrepreneurs can always act in their own best interest, too.


We’ve taken more of a consultative approach. We want to understand their business goals, their product, consumers, how they use it, and what the team’s roadmap looks like. What I like to do is figure out how we can accelerate all that. Nokia can bring creative technology to the table and package in distribution to drive phenomenal results. These startups don’t have a lot of marketing resources, but we bring them into campaigns for OOH, over the line, under the line, and team them up with the operators. For them, that’s a huge amount of value.


As a young company, certain things drive the next level of valuation. The types of deals we make with apps preserve their cash flow, and give them access to the talent in our company.


TC: But with the Lumia 1020 specifically, which was unveiled yesterday, there’s an entirely separate SDK to take advantage of that 41-megapixel sensor. So with this particular phone, you’re asking developers to take it a step beyond building for a third platform and actually build specifically for a certain phone. That must make things even more complex from a development standpoint.


BB: We have spoken to a number of companies who don’t even have the bandwidth to operate the way they’d like. They explain that they have to keep advancing, but that it’s hard when you’re on a team of 10 to 12 people. They think adding in another platform is daunting.


But when I’m able to bring a device like the 1020 on to the table, it changes the conversation.


I can do stuff on this phone that I can’t do on any other device.


This happened with a number of different companies we spoke to, who saw an opportunity with the Lumia 1020 to fulfill certain pieces of their own dream for their app. We try to explore concepts around development that will help the apps we work with achieve their long-term vision. We have started experimenting to solve real-world problems with our APIs and then open up those solutions to other people.


TC: Let’s move on to a tougher question. The Lumia 1020 is clearly built with imaging in mind, and when I think of mobile photography there’s one app that dominates the thought. You know where I’m headed: What’s the deal with Instagram? When can we expect them on the platform and what are you doing to get them there? Have talks begun?


BB: We are working… very hard on Instagram. We’re working closely with Facebook — as you know, we work with them across all kinds of devices. Microsoft has a close relationship with Facebook, which you can see from the Bing decision, and… for Instagram. We’re working on that.


We’ve also extended our relationship with Twitter so Vine will also come to the platform later this year.


TC: You mentioned earlier that you make investments in applications, and that you offer marketing integration to get them on the platform. What do these deals look like? Have you ever paid any app to get on the platform?


BB: We work very closely with all developers. (Super, super long pause)


Let me answer this in a different way. We have commercial agreements with every company out there. Contractually, we’ve signed NDAs and we don’t talk about the deals in specifics.


What you’ll see is relationships driven by technology, time, and leverage what Microsoft has to offer. With our team at Nokia, we have more people on the ground than anyone else, going to individual markets working on an account-by-account basis. We talk to companies from a business standpoint as well as on the basis of technology. There’s a lot of different things that go into those agreements, but I can’t go into further details.








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A New Place For Better Place, As Bankrupt $800M+ Backed Electric Car Startup Sold For $12M

better place charging station

Looks like we have a final chapter for Better Place, the Israel-based electric car tech startup that raised $786 million plus $50 million in debt, only to then file for bankruptcy in May: it has now been acquired by a group called Sunrise, headed by green-technology entrepreneur Yosef Abramowitz and the Association for the Promotion of the Electric Car in Israel.


According to court filings, Sunrise is paying 18 million Israeli shekels ($5 million) for Better Place’s assets in Israel, and another 25 million shekels ($7 million) for its intellectual property, held by Better Place Switzerland. Sunrise was one of two bidders for the company, the other being a consortium including Success Parking Ltd. and U.S. electric car charging company Car Charging Group Inc.


It’s a whimper of an ending for a company that raised hundreds of millions, and many hopes, for its core business: a system that relied on smartgrid technology to create a network of battery swapping stations and other charging points for users of electric cars. Speeding up battery charging, which typically can take anywhere from between 4 and 12 hours to charge on electric cars, could significantly spur the convenience factor of these vehicles, and help with consumer adoption. Better Place also had other ideas about how, with the rise of electric cars, power usage overall needed to be better managed.


But it seems that even if the vision was big, business was not: apparently only 950 cars fitted with Better Place’s replaceable battery technology — the core of the business — were sold since 2012 (it looks like the only carmaker to sign on with Better Place was Renault).


Meanwhile, individual car companies like Tesla working on proprietary solutions are a sign that the space is perhaps still too fragmented and nascent for what Better Place had in mind.


Although the turn from bankruptcy to bidding to eventual sale was swift, the writing was on the wall months before, when founder Shai Agassi was removed as CEO in October 2012.


New owners Sunrise are keeping 50 out of Better Place’s 85 remaining employees, and will operate 15 of its charging stations for a period of at least two years. It may not be complete curtains for all of Better Place’s efforts, depending on how Sunrise chooses to use the IP it purchased as well, but it’s not a great day for the wider ambition to move us away from fossil fuel consumption and towards more sustainable progress.








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