FUNKY GREEN: 07/03/13

Wednesday, 3 July 2013

Twitter outlines new model for targeted ads

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ABC: Moto X smartphone to ship with custom colors and engraving

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Vine update brings new tools and channels, videos still six seconds long

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The Man Who Invented the Computer Mouse Has Died

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This Is the Poster for the Ashton Kutcher Steve Jobs Biopic

Computing UI visionary Douglas Engelbart, passes away at age 88

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Leaked: More Low-Cost iPhone Photos

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Sony Entertainment Network introduces carrier billing in the UK

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This Awesome Mac Pro Glass Is All I Want

Broken promise: Double Fine's 'Broken Age' Kickstarter mess

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Sony's crazy 'The Playroom' PlayStation 4 demo comes pre-loaded on the system

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Curious how Ouya measures up as a gaming console?

Behind the Scenes of the World's First 3D-Printed Room

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American redux: Apple, Motorola, Lenovo and the pulse of stateside manufacturing

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Flixster for BlackBerry 10 adds UltraViolet movie streaming

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Instacube delayed, refunds promised once units ship

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Glympse scores saving to Evernote on Android, iOS support coming soon

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Microsoft kills Facebook, Flickr integration in Windows 8.1 Photos app

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Viber Is Testing New Revenue Models, Value-Add Features By Integrating With Traditional Telephony

Viber has just confirmed to TechCrunch that it is running an extremely limited test that would allow Viber to act as a “call terminator” — which refers to the carrier that offers the last (and most expensive) leg of an international call’s three-part process.

Along with offering Viber the ability to add new features to the free calling/messaging app, over 200 million users strong, this would also offer the Israeli-based startup an opportunity to monetize its entirely free service.

Right now, Viber offers free Viber-to-Viber calling with the option to complete the call through your carrier should the intended recipient be Viber-free. The app also offers free Viber-to-Viber messages with the same back-up plan via carrier.

CEO Talmon Marco mentioned this spring that monetization was on its way, but that it wouldn’t be with ads. Rather, Viber will offer value-added paid features to users, which founder Talmon Marco expressed would be “coming soon” in an interview with TechCrunch.

He also mentioned that deals with carriers were a solid option, wherein carriers could promote Viber in an effort to sell larger data plans. In fact, Viber recently signed a deal with an Indonesian operater called Axis to do just that. But in April, Marco also said that partnerships where Viber offered enhanced voice calling over a carrier network would be a viable option for a shared revenue stream.

This latest pilot test, originally uncovered by GeekTime and confirmed by TechCrunch, isn’t all that different. Viber has signed agreements with a few international operators (there are thousands all over the world) to become a call terminator.

To get any more detailed, we require a bit of context. Any call you make originates with your own carrier, like AT&T and Verizon, and is then shipped to an international carrier. Marco explains to me that historically, this international carrier leg of the call was the most expensive, due to subterranean and sub-sea cables. Now, however, it’s the last leg of the call that is most expensive, the termination leg.

Of course, a call can have far more than three legs. One international carrier can receive your call, from AT&T or Verizon, and then send it to another international carrier, and perhaps another, until the call can find an international carrier with an agreement in place with the right terminator.

You see, a terminator might be a local carrier in that final destination (let’s say it’s the Ukraine). However, a terminator could also include what’s referred to as “grey termination” — meaning that one end of the call was routed legally while the other end of the call was routed illegally.

Termination fees vary by country — some have relatively low rates per minute, whereas other countries (especially those that have stronger economic diasporic communities than those back at home) have higher rates.

There are a number of loopholes to enact grey termination and keep costs low, such as buying up a ton of local SIM cards or installing VoIP routers within countries with high termination rates. Almost any phone company, or even Skype, uses grey termination at some point or another.

Viber’s pilot program, while limited, allows the company to test out being a terminator. When a call is placed and routed to an international carrier, if said carrier has a deal in place with Viber, the carrier will ask Viber to complete the call to the recipient.

Viber then checks three things: if that recipient is a Viber user, if they’re online, and if service is strong enough to deliver a high quality experience. If all three check out, Viber places the call as a free Viber call to the recipient.

Viber also receives that termination fee, and likely at a lower cost than other terminators would charge.

As it stands now, this pilot test is rolled out to 0.0002 percent of Viber’s user base &dash; around 400 people. Marco repeats, “it’s a very, extremely limited test.”

Still, Marco explained that the average length of these calls (through Viber’s call termination) is generally higher than other international calls, which he credits to Viber’s high quality calls.

Of course, should the program extend into a full-fledged piece of the Viber system, it will surely generate revenue, but Marco claims that this is more about laying the ground work for value-added features. “We’re not testing revenue models, we’re testing our ability to deliver calls this way with high quality, along with many other aspects of connecting the Viber system to regular telephony.”

The founder ensures me that paid features are coming soon, and also mentioned that (should this system roll out to the entire user base) users would have complete control over it, with the ability to turn off receiving calls this way or leave it on. Perhaps that in itself will be a paid feature.

For now, however, the company is simply testing the international telephony waters.

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HP Slate 7 review: HP's budget Android tablet is less of a hit, more of a miss

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Report: Samsung buys Boxee, keeping on full staff

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Gregory Lee becomes President of Samsung's US mobile division, Dale Sohn to advise JK Shin

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gdgt's best deals for July 3: RCA 55-inch LED HDTV, Canon EOS 60D

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Engrade Lands $5M From Javelin, Samsung And Others To Help Schools Unify Learning Data, Systems In One Platform

Back in 2003, annoyed with his high school’s loyalty to paper and the inability to view his grades online as a result, Bri Holt decided to build his own online gradebook that any student or teacher could use for free. He eventually graduated and moved onto other things, and usually that’s the end of the story. But thanks to the dearth of digital tools in education, over the next seven-odd years, the simple gradebook app grew of its own accord, steadily gaining traction among teachers.

The web app maintained enough of a following that by 2010 Holt decided to continue development and build it out into a more full-featured platform — and a company. Over the next year and a half, the app became Engrade and platform grew to 4.5 million users. Last summer, the “young” startup raised $3 million in seed funding from Rethink Education, NewSchools Ventures and others to accelerate that growth.

Fast forward to today and Engrade has continued to morph, having turned its attention not just to helping schools connect and consolidate their many fragmented learning systems, but now districts as well. Through its new APIs, the cloud-based platform enables districts to integrate all of their data and learning resources, along with third-party apps and open education resources (OERs), accessing the lot via a single sign-on mechanism.

Behind its mission to create a sort of “one dashboard to rule them all” scenario, allowing districts to manage curriculum planning, instruction, assessment, evaluation and school-home communications, Engrade has since jumped to six million users worldwide and over 40,000 schools are now using its platform.

Looking to accelerate its own development and expansion, Engrade today announced that it has raised $5 million in series A financing led by Javelin Venture Partners, with contributions from existing investors including ReThink Education, Kapor Capital, Expansion Capital and Ed-Mentor, along with a new investor and less familiar name in EdTech, Samsung Venture Investment Corporation.

Going forward, the startup says that it plans to expand its staff (which doubled last year) and build out more advanced tools for cross-platform content and student data management.

Updating

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Trademark Filing Hints Samsung Will Name its Smartwatch 'Gear'

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Using Super Slow Motion to Study the Biomechanics of Flight

Nokia 'Eros,' Mars, HTC One Mini and One Max name checked in O2 document

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Por qué las ballenas son tan grandes y aún así no podrían tragarte

Why are blue whales so enormous? es una simpática y amena charla TED de Asha de Vos que explica el porqué del enorme tamaño de las ballenas entre otras curiosidades de estos mamíferos, que pueden llegar a medir 33 metros y a pesar hasta 190 toneladas.

Y eso a pesar de que básicamente se alimentan de krill, algo parecido a los camarones o pequeñas gambas del tamaño de un meñique.

Se calcula que una ballena traga unas 4 toneladas de krill al día; cada bocado le proporciona 90 veces la cantidad de energía que gasta en engullirlo, ingeriendo de este modo, de una vez, 480.000 calorias, el equivalente a 1900 hamburguesas (...) uno de los motivos por el que son tan grandes es porque en el mar las especies que quieren ser grandes pueden permitirse ser más grandes que en tierra, ya que no tienen que sostenerse sobre patas y la flotabilidad del agua contribuye a sostener parte de su peso. Sin embargo su crecimiento está limitado por la cantidad de energía que necesitaría para moverse si fuera aún más grande.

Pero a pesar de su tamaño —“el corazón de la ballena es parecido al de un coche pequeño y su lengua pesa tanto como un elefante”— por su esófafgo apenas cabría una barra de pan.

Merece la pena ver el vídeo, dura unos cinco minutos y está subtitulado en español (en el menú de YouTube > subtítulos).

Vía The Presurfer.

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