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Thursday, 20 June 2013
Facebook's new product event liveblog!
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Spotify for Android update brings playback control to notifications menu, improved radio chops
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Engadget Mobile Podcast 183 - 06.20.13
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Aiming To Become The ‘Valedictorian' Of Smart Calendar Apps, Tempo Raises $10M
Tempo, the SRI-incubated smart calendar app that launched in February, is announcing that it has raised a $10 million Series A.
The round was led by Relay Ventures and Sierra Ventures. Relay also led Tempo’s (previously unannounced) $2.5 million seed round, and the company’s other seed investors — Mayfield Fund, Horizon Ventures, Qualcomm Ventures, SingTel Innov8, Miramar Venture Partners, SRI International, Golden Venture Partners, Seavest Capital Partners, ENIAC Ventures, Gaurav Garg, and Peter Wagner — participated in the Series A as well.
Relay’s Kevin Talbot, Sierra’s Ben Yu, and SRI’s Norman Winarsky are all joining Tempo’s board of directors.
When founder and CEO Raj Singh discussed the funding with me earlier this week, he reiterated his vision to turn the smart calendar into a platform for a powerful personal assistant app. (That’s one of the reasons why it’s particularly noteworthy that Tempo came out of SRI, which was also the birthplace of the voice-powered personal assistant Siri. Winarsky was a co-founder and board member at Siri.) In other words, because it has access to your schedule, Tempo can push information to you as you need it.
You can already see some of that vision in the current version of the Tempo iOS app, which automatically surfaces things like emails, LinkedIn profiles, and driving directions that are relevant to each meeting, but Singh said there’s more to come.
“We think of ourselves as a big data company, and we’re building our understanding of calendar,” Singh said. He previously suggested that future features would take advantage of Tempo’s understanding of things like where you spend money and where you like to eat.
That’s also why Singh argued that Tempo will win out all the other smart calendar apps that have been emerging, such as Cue and Sunrise (not to mention Google’s product Google Now): “Don’t get me wrong, there are companies that have won purely because of UI, but you’re going to win this game by being the valedictorian and investing in technology in an unprecedented way.”
Naturally, Singh said he plans to spend most of the new money on improving Tempo’s technology. I also asked him if he’s finally going to move out of the SRI offices in Menlo Park, and he admitted that I was bringing up a subject of debate within Tempo’s 15-person team — Singh said he’s personally hesitant to give up all the benefits of working out of SRI.
“There’s me being a miser and loving the SRI hallway, but … you have no idea about all the other benefits to being on this campus,” he said.
via TechCrunch » Startups http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/techcrunch/startups/~3/fzopPSWBlFk/
NASA makes billion-pixel Mars panorama out of photos captured by Curiosity
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Yahoo's acquisition of Tumblr is now closed, Marissa Mayer rejoices
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Rdio version 2.21 for iOS gets song stations, autoplay
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Dart SDK and Editor arrive as beta with focus on performance
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Aviary 3.0 for Android features new interface and photo filters
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NVIDIA's Shield now $300, arrives on June 27th (video)
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We're liveblogging Samsung's Premiere 2013 event, today at 2PM ET!
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The Engadget Podcast is live at 3:30PM ET!
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SiteScout Acquires IP Developed By Defunct Ad Exchange adBrite
Ad exchange adBrite shut down earlier this year, but its technology isn’t disappearing entirely — self-serve ad-buying company SiteScout is announcing that it has acquired “certain intellectual property assets” that were developed by adBrite.
Neither the financial terms of the deal nor the specific assets involved are being disclosed. This is purely an IP purchase, SiteScout says — it isn’t hiring any adBrite team members.
When I spoke to SiteScout CEO Paul Mokbel about the deal, he said he isn’t getting into the ad exchange business (exchanges work primarily with publishers, while ad-buying platforms like SiteScout work with advertisers), and instead, his company is “cherry picking different components to integrate into our stack.” He predicted that we’ll start “seeing the fruit of this acquisition” in the next quarter or two, but it also sounds like the company is still figuring out exactly what it’s going to do — in Mokbel’s words, “It’s definitely a win for us, and it’s going to take some time to position it properly.”
He added that he was particularly impressed by adBrite’s ad serving code, which he described as “phenomenal.”
Mokbel said adBrite had a lot of funding with which to develop its technology (more than $40 million, according to CrunchBase). He didn’t draw the comparison directly, but later in our conversation he noted that SiteScout is entirely bootstrapped, and it now has eight-figure annual revenue — I heard last fall that its revenue for the past year had been $20 million.
via TechCrunch » Startups http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/techcrunch/startups/~3/7Fg3DqaSUcQ/
Vine Goes On The Offensive, Teases New Features Ahead Of Instagram Video Launch
Nice timing, Vine.
As we inch closer to Facebook’s big Instagram press conference today, Vine co-founders Dom Hoffman and Rus Yusopov have taken to Vine (what else?) to show off some new features and UI enhancements that should be coming to the app soon.
As you can see from the Vines (embedded below), things are still relatively unclear. What we can glean from the six-second looping videos is that users may finally be able to create and save Vine drafts before sharing them. This would allow users to start a Vine, save it as a draft, and create other Vines in the meantime.
It’s a must-have feature for the new creation medium, which seems to ask for the passage of time in certain circumstances (like a Vine of you finishing your dinner, for example).
We also see an apparent redesign of the video stream, wherein the camera button moves to the bottom center of the screen and remains in place as you slide down the stream. Vines will pass down the stream one after the other, with no breaks for comments or likes.
It appears as though users have to click into particular Vines that they’d like to comment on, like, or read comments on.
The Verge has also spotted potential category additions to the app. As it stands now, popular hashtags float to the top of the Explore page, along with Editors picks. But the forthcoming update could bring standardized categories like Science & Technology, Comedy, Art, etc.
Clearly, Vine is pushing back against the possibility that Instagram will launch a highly competitive video-sharing service today. But as I’ve said before (and will likely say again), Vine will survive.
Revamped Video Stream/Categories:
Drafts:
via TechCrunch » Startups http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/techcrunch/startups/~3/zGFEsX2vuN0/
A Term Sheet Written In Plain English? Put That In Your Silicon Valley Pipe And Smoke It
From the painstakingly obvious in retrospect why did nobody think of it before department: London-based early-stage VC Passion Capital has updated its standard Term Sheet so that it’s written entirely in plain English. For those of you who have never had to navigate a venture capital Term Sheet, the document outlining the terms of any proposed investment, they are usually worded by the legal profession, and as a result, dense in legal-gobbligook.
Why are they written that way, you may ask? Part of the answer is that’s just the way it’s always been done. So, Passion Capital, being one of the newer firms on the European VC block, has decided to buck the trend. And in doing so, the early-stage VC, run by Stefan Glaenzer, Eileen Burbidge and Robert Dighero, is inadvertently challenging the rest of the investment community to follow suit.
Put that in your Silicon Valley pipe and smoke it.
The inspiration for dropping the legalise of its Term Sheet came from seeing the way the photo sharing site 500px updated their Terms of Service (TOS) with a second column with explanations written in plain English, says Passion Capital’s Burbidge. However, since, unlike a TOS, the majority, if any, of a Term Sheet isn’t legally binding, Passion realised it could go one step further. “So we knew there was no restriction on us to re-write the whole thing in plain English,” says Burbidge.
Of course, in retrospect or to an outsider looking in, the idea seems pretty obvious. Why, therefore, aren’t all Term Sheets written this way? Burbidge notes that some term sheets will have 1-2 clauses that are legally binding (Confidentiality and Exclusivity, for example), so that could be one reason. “But I think generally the main reason is to dress it up,” she says. By using legal jargon it looks a lot more “real” and meaningful and “the formality serves a purpose of making it feel ‘official’ and therefore more important.”
More cynically, it could be argued that a legally-worded term sheet is “also meant to be slightly intimidating,” says Burbidge. “And of course there is the most cynical view which is that when written in legal syntax it gives an advantage in negotiations to the party that understands (or drafted) the language in the first place”.
But, either way, googling archaic legal terms or going down the rabbit hole that is Quora trying to understand the likes of Liquidation Preference, Tag-along and Drag-along, isn’t necessarily the best way for an entrepreneur to spend their time (although, perversely, I quite enjoyed it).
For example, Passion’s new Term Sheet defines Liquidation Preference in these relatively simple terms:
We’re not asking for any complex preference rights… but we do ask for a so-called simple 1x liquidation preference. This means that if the company is sold, we’ll get the higher of either the amount of our investment or our ownership percentage of the sale value. In the worst case if the company is wound down with very little left, then anything left would be distributed to us in proportion to our ownership.
“I’d rather take the time saved from having them parse through a legal term sheet and use that to sit down with them to talk about their go to market strategy, user acquisition, hiring the right team members or simplifying the product proposition”, says Burbidge. “Those are the areas where they should really be tested.”
Full Term Sheet embedded below (lawyers, look away now):
via TechCrunch » Startups http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/techcrunch/startups/~3/UTjGFNcOX10/
FitStar Raises $4M Round Led By Trinity To Make The Best iPad-Led Home Workouts
FitStar, the San Francisco-based startup that just launched a workout app with Atlanta Falcons tight end Tony Gonzalez, just raised $4 million in a round led by Trinity Ventures to expand its line-up of fitness apps. Earlier investors like Google Ventures also participated.
The round was put together a few months ago before the company launched its flagship app earlier this month. CEO Mike Maser, who came up with the idea while traveling solo out in New Zealand, isn’t sharing specific stats yet on retention or the size of the company’s user base because it’s only been a few weeks. But he did say that users have burned at least a collective 4 million calories through the app.
Maser said the deal with Trinity came together in part because the firm had really been looking for a mobile health-related play for awhile.
“They are smart, just genuinely good folks with high integrity,” he said. “They’ve been looking at the space for a long time and they were hungry to make an investment in consumer health. There was a just instant simpatico in what they were looking for in an investment and what we were looking for in in a new partner.”
FitStar’s first app is a video workout app where Gonzalez leads users through several dozen exercises that can all be done without the assistance of any equipment or a gym. Unlike classic DVD or home video workouts, the app responds to the user and customizes the difficulty of the exercises based on their fitness level. There’s a simple diagnostic questionnaire at the beginning and then the app will raise the difficulty level over time depending on how committed the user is to the regime.
Since launch, the app was featured in the “Editor’s Choice” category by Apple, and stayed in the top 100 apps for about a week. It’s still sitting in the top 5 for the “Health and Fitness” category in the U.S. That’s pretty normal though because the top free ranks tend to be dominated by games and social networking apps, not health and fitness or productivity titles.
Maser said to expect an iPhone version of the app next. He’s still quiet on when the company will eventually come out with workout apps targeted at different demographics with other fitness celebrities.
FitStar has a freemium monetization model with paid versions that give the user more workouts per week, nutritional guidance and e-mail support. The prices of those paid subscription add-ons range from $4.99 to $11.99 per month.
The other component of the business will be merchandising. FitStar also just opened up a store with branded apparel and books on nutrition. They’re also partnering with companies like Kiip, a mobile rewards startup, to offer free Amazon MP3s and other goodies to FitStar users.
“We offer a high fidelity experience that should appeal to apparel makers and food and beverage companies,” Maser said.
FitStar is also backed by Advancit Capital, a VC firm from Viacom and CBS Corporation vice chairman Shari Redstone, and Floodgate.
via TechCrunch » Startups http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/techcrunch/startups/~3/1Ey1iuie4kc/
Una criba de eratóstenes animada
La criba de Eratóstenes es el método más antiguo para obtener una lista de los números primos: consiste básicamente en ir tachando primero los múltiplos de 2, luego de 3, luego de 5, etcétera empezando en cada ronda con el primer número que queda sin tachar (que se considera primo) y siguiendo afanosamente con todos sus múltiplos.
Este vÃdeo muestra visualmente cómo actúa el algoritmo con un color para cada número: las diferentes curvas van tocando la recta de los números enteros en puntos que son los diferentes múltiplos. Los valores que sobreviven a la criba son los números primos.
Le vendrÃa bien un poquillo de música para acompañar, pero está simpático en cualquier caos. Aquà el código fuente.
(VÃa The Math Less Traveled.)
via Microsiervos http://www.microsiervos.com/archivo/ciencia/criba-eratostenes.html
Facebook's got a new product to show off, join us as we liveblog the event!
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HackEDA hits Kickstarter, makes Arduino board design a drag-and-drop affair (video)
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LIDAR reveals ancient city remnants beneath Cambodian jungle
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Google ordered by French regulators to revamp privacy policy or face fines
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Leica unveils G-Star RAW edition of D-Lux 6 compact, co-branded with Dutch denim label (video)
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Fanboys Rejoice, GrabCAD Gets Mechanically Engineered For Android
GrabCAD, the online community and cloud-based collaboration tool for mechanical engineers and other stakeholders involved in designing physical products, is adding Android to its arsenal today. Like the company’s existing iOS offering, the Android app enables users to view any of the 200,000 or so 3D Computer Aided Design (CAD) models shared by the GrabCAD community, as well as access files stored on GradCAD Workbench, a private space in the cloud for engineers and supply chain partners (and even customers) to share and collaborate on ‘work-in-progress’.
Interestingly, GrabCAD’s CEO Hardi Meybaum says that, despite the consumer mindshare of Apple’s iOS, not least amongst designer types, an Android app was the company’s most requested feature. It turns out, he says, that mechanical engineers tend to use mobile devices powered by Google’s OS, something that I get the impression took GrabCAD slightly by surprise.
However, whichever got out the door first, being present on both of the leading smartphone/tablet platforms would seem to be central to GradCAD’s mission to break down the walls of collaboration for those involved in the design of physical objects. Meybaum characterises the problem when he says that traditional CAD tools “are closed but the process is open”. By that he means that proprietary CAD systems traditionally make it difficult for mechanical engineers and other partners involved in the process, not least in manufacturing, to share 3D models and give feedback as the product develops — partly because everyone involved would need to have access to the originating CAD software, which Meybaum says can cost upwards of $4,000 per-seat.
“But with GrabCAD, anybody can view the work”, he says. In addition, building hardware — which Meybaum notes with a glint in his eye is seeing a renaissance at the moment — is inherently distributed, making remote collaboration a necessity. Moving to the cloud speeds up this process and potentially reduces time to market significantly.
It may seem obvious to those of us who have seen the cloud disrupt other industries and software for the better, though Meybaum says that for CAD files it’s not technically trivial. Getting those 3D models and proprietary file-formats converted so that they are viewable in a web browser or on mobile devices takes some decent engineering chops. To that end, GrabCAD has opened an R&D office in Cabridge, UK, to be closer to some of the traditional CAD software companies, in addition to its Boston, U.S. HQ and an engineering base in Estonia. In fact, it employs 45 staff, including engineers, across all sites.
However, GrabCAD’s Workbench offering, which gets it general release next week, isn’t just about engineering teams being able to share and view 3D models via the cloud. It also supports other file types, such as images/sketches and PDFs, and — crucially — the ability to mark up designs and leave instant feedback. With something like GrabCAD, gone are the days when work is only presented at monthly or weekly team meetings, for example, but can be ongoing no matter where each stakeholder is physically based, including when they are mobile. Update a design, and a manufacturing partner is China could immediately suggest changes, ask questions, or explain any ramifications. That does sound like progress.
Talking of which, GrabCAD now boasts nearly 700,000 engineers registered for its community, up from 250,000 last October, many of which it will hope to turn into paying Workbench customers — although some already are. It’s currently growing at a clip of 2,000 new community members per week, while 240,000 3D models have been shared publicly. As well as Workbench, the startup makes money via crowdsourced ‘challenges’ sponsored by companies such as GE.
Late last year GrabCAD raised an $8.15 million series B round led by Charles River Ventures, with participation from new investor David Sacks (co-founder of Yammer and former chief operating officer of PayPal), and existing investors Atlas Venture, NextView Ventures, and Matrix Partners. This brought GrabCAD’s total funding to around $14 million, having previously disclosed a $1.1m seed round, followed by a $4m Series A.
via TechCrunch » Startups http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/techcrunch/startups/~3/pAZtfn5H3NI/
Puentes y construcciones que no existÃan pero ahora existen: los de los billetes de euro
El artista y diseñador Robin Stam propuso algo rebuscadamente ingenioso: recrear los puentes imaginarios de los billetes de euro en la localidad de Spijkenisse, en el sur de Holanda. Esos puentes que vemos cada vez que sacamos un billete en realidad nunca habÃan existido, eran puros diseños imaginarios y polÃticamente correctos para ilustrar los billetes europeos.
Stam construyó en total siete puentes y monumentos para otros tantos billetes , coloreados según los tonos originales – lo cual los hace especialmente horterillas en algunos casos, como el amarillo de 200 euros o el Bin Laden morado de 500.
La situación no deja de ser curiosa pues los sÃmbolos imaginarios de europa han dejado de ser imaginarios para tener un equivalente real. ¿Pierden debido a ello su función? Curiosamente, coincidiendo más o menos en el tiempo con la aparición de estas construcciones también llegó el nuevo billete de 5 euros:
Quizá el artista tenga que elegir ahora otra ciudad para esta llamada nueva generación de billetes de euro, que aunque son más bonitos y seguros también son más porculeros al no funcionar en muchas de las máquinas expendedoras y porque la gente no se fÃa de ellos.
{Foto: Pile of Euro Notes (CC) Images Money @ Flickr / New 5 euro (CC) Alvy}
via Microsiervos http://www.microsiervos.com/archivo/arte-y-diseno/puentes-billetes-de-euro.html
9 Neat Ways to Make Coffee on the Go
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10 Google Earth Tips for Power Users
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Eunoia: la belleza del agua + el poder de la mente
Mucho se podrÃa decir del poder de la música, la belleza del agua y la relación espiritual entre ambos elementos… pero esto es algo más cientÃfico: un sensor de señales cerebrales que se utiliza para medir las ondas cerebrales (alfa, beta, delta, gamma y tetha) y convertirlas en vibraciones en diferentes recipientes con agua.
Dado que es posible controlar el estado mental concentrándose y relajándose, el montaje permite «manipular el agua con la mente» por decirlo de algún modo.
El resultado es sencillamente bonito e hipnótico.
via Microsiervos http://www.microsiervos.com/archivo/arte-y-diseno/aunoia-agua-mente.html
Samsung user manual confirms Galaxy S 4 variant with Snapdragon 800 chip
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