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Monday, 27 January 2014
Newest NERF blaster has baked in camera for capturing your foam firefights
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Government set to declassify information requests, paves the way for more transparency
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¿Qué pasaría si los zombies se pudieran curar?
¿Cómo reaccionaría una persona que se hubiera visto convertida en un zombie si se descubriera una cura que volviera a convertirla en un ser humano normal? ¿Qué pasaría si pudieras recordar, auque sólo fuera parcialmente, en qué te convertiste y lo que hiciste en ese estado?
Esta es precisamente la premisa de la que trata este corto, The First Wave .
El corto sirve además como teaser de The Third Wave, un largometraje que está preparando su director, David Feyne.
(Vía Neatorama).
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Consumers are out, business is in: Looxcie to focus on Vidcie enterprise solutions
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AdColony Says Its Mobile Video Ads Have Reached A $100M Revenue Run Rate
AdColony says its mobile video ad platform has reached a $100 million gross revenue run rate.
That’s a number ad-tech startups seem to enjoy bragging about — RadiumOne, AdRoll, and TellApart all made similar announcements over the past few months.
In AdColony’s case, the company also says that its 2013 revenue was quadruple its revenue from 2012, and that the fourth quarter of last year was its tenth consecutive quarter of growth. eCPMs (the price advertisers pay for a thousand impressions) are up 30 percent and overall publisher earnings are up 418 percent.
(And just to be clear, that $100 million run rate refers to gross revenue — after publishers and partners take their cut, net revenue is likely to be significantly less.)
In my past meetings with the AdColony team, the company has emphasized its technology for delivering high-quality video ads, with no delays or choppiness. Those ads include “cards” at the end with customized calls to action, such as “click to buy” buttons or requests to Like the advertiser on Facebook. AdColony says its network reaches more than 150 million unique users globally, with publishers including A&E, ABC News, Flixster, and Supercell.
I spoke to CEO Will Kassoy about AdColony’s growth and he pointed to a few of big trends that the company is focused on. First, he said there’s growing interest in synchronizing TV and mobile ads, both by using data showing the overlap between the two audiences and through co-viewing/social TV apps. Second, he said that attribution is becoming more important to brand advertisers, so AdColony is offering data to help them “take advantage of all the streams in media.” Finally, he said AdColony is helping social app developers introduce video ads to their news feeds.
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Vint, The P2P Marketplace For Training And Fitness Instructors, Raises $1.8M Led By Creandum
Hoping to pick up the slack left by people people who want to get fit but find gym memberships too expensive or unproductive, Sweden’s Vint is a peer-to-peer marketplace and community for private training, either individual or in small groups. It consists of an iPhone app (and is currently only available in Stockholm, Sweden) that lets certified instructors, vetted by the startup itself, offer instruction in any sport, price range and skill level.
Today, Vint is announcing a seed round of $1.8 million, led by Nordics VC Creandum — money it will use to expand the reach of its marketplace, first across Sweden but also including a U.S. launch pegged for sometime in 2014. That would see it, to a certain degree, go up against U.S.-based Fitmob.
Others participating in the seed round include DN Capital, Kima Ventures, GP Bullhound, Edastra, and angel investors Richard Båge, Bryan Jonson, and Mathias Ackermand. In addition and noteworthy is that David Giampaolo, co-founder of the global gym chain 24 Hour Fitness and investor to the work-out concept ZUMBA, also joins the round.
So, perhaps, chalk Vint up as not so much gym competitor as reaching parts of the market that traditional gym chains are unable to reach. Or, maybe, Giampaolo has simply resolved the “innovator’s dilemma“.
“We’re giving our users a chance to get private training cheaper and easier but also more athletes to make a business of their interest. We want to grow the total market for training and increase the quality of every work out being done while doing so.”
Along with Eriksson, who formerly founded Scandinavia’s largest B2B ad network, AdProfit, Vint’s other founders are Magnus Hult, one of Spotify’s first engineers and co-founder of the digital gift cards app Wrapp, Leo Giertz, also co-founder of Wrapp and developer of Spotify’s first iOS app, and Arvid Janson, co-founder of Psykologifabriken and Hoa’s Tool Shop.
The connection to Spotify is particularly interesting given Vint backer Creandum was an early investor in the music streaming service. I’ll also say that, on paper at least, Vint’s team looks pretty strong.
The market opportunity appears to be decent, too. Vint claims the total training and fitness market in Sweden is $600 million, while the U.S. market is valued at $40 billion.
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The NSA is reportedly scouring Angry Birds and other apps for user data
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As Software Eats The World, Agile Tool Provider Hansoft Raises $8.4M To Steal Competitors’ Lunch
Launched all the way back in 2005, Sweden-headquartered Hansoft provides tools to help teams collaborate and manage the development of products and services using “Agile software development” — the umbrella term for a group of software development methods based on iterative and incremental development. The goal with Agile is to enable code to be developed, improved and shipped quicker. Software is eating the world, after all.
Interestingly, however, though not wholly surprising for a company that’s generated revenue from the get-go, Hansoft has, until now, been entirely self-funded. Today that changes with the announcement that it’s raised a first round of funding.
The company has raised $8.4 million in investment led by Stockholm-based VC and early backer in Spotify Creandum. A number of private individual investors also participated in the round, including (and noteworthy) Mårten Mickos, the former CEO MySQL and currently CEO of Eucalyptus Systems.
Although its legacy is in supporting video game, largely console game, studios, today Hansoft’s customers are companies making software and related hardware products and cloud services in a range of industries, such as telecom, game development, electronics, aerospace, space and defence.
What these companies have in common, says Hansoft co-founder and CEO, Patric Palm, is that they need to “not only scale Agile software development to very large teams, but also out-innovate their completion to stay competitive”. That’s the specific problem that Hansoft’s tools, which run on Mac, Windows and multiple Linux distributions, have been designed to solve.
“Most of our customers are trying to scale Agile development to large complex environments. Typically 5-10 scrum teams in each program and several programs making up a portfolio,” he adds.
My understanding is that this translates into a typical client buying around 1,000 “seats” — the company charges per-user — who are working on between 5 and 10 or so product programs, with 30-200 programers working on the same product.
When Agile methods were conceived and become popular, however, one could argue they were never originally envisioned to scale up to such large development teams, but this is exactly the space that Hansoft and its competitors are playing in, although Palm says that Hansoft is also used by startups and other smaller teams. It’s free for up 9 users.
I asked him why the company is only taking external funding now? “Our competitors are quite rich,” says Palm, adding that, while it’s been fun playing David and Goliath, “we’re not picking enough fights”. Those wealthy competitors include Jira (Atlassian), and IBM RTC, which Palm says many Hansoft customers migrate from. An even more direct rival is IPOed Rally.
Hansoft currently has 35 employees based in Sweden, with a second office in San Francisco housing 2 employees. With new funding, Palm says the company will expand the latter, including recruiting a Chief Growth Officer. Its distributed executive team will see Sweden focus on development, and San Francisco, sales.
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GTA: San Andreas now available for (some) Windows Phones weeks late
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Starwood swapping room keys for mobile phones at two hotels
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Sprint now lets you buy Pogoplug cloud storage through your phone bill
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Lenovo ThinkPad Yoga review: a good (if slightly heavy) Ultrabook for business users
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With Its New Motion Ads, Adtile Is Betting Users Want To Play With Their Ads
Mobile ad startup Adtile is announcing a new ad unit today that offers a bit more fun and interactivity than standard mobile ads.
Founder and CEO Nils Forsblom told me that the company’s new Motion Ads take advantage of a smartphone’s GPS, gyroscope, motion coprocessor, accelerometer and digital compass on both Android on iOS. So instead of just tapping or watching a video, consumers are asked to shake, turn, and otherwise interact in their ads.
For example, Forsblom gave me a quick demo of a coffee shop ad that required the user to shake their phone, filling up a drink cup in the process. Once the cup was full, Adtile showed a map and a list of nearby stores. (Forsblom said the ad units are drawing on location data from Yelp, thanks to a new partnership between the two companies.)
This kind of interaction is common in games and other apps (including branded apps that are arguably a form of advertising), but I haven’t seen it in many mobile ads, nor in the various flavors of native advertising that keep popping up. Forsblom said that’s because “all of the pieces have to be done on native code.”
“Let’s be straight — advertising is not that exciting,” he said. “For better or for worse, it’s still images and app installs. This is really something that I think will make people play.”
I last wrote about Adtile in May 2013, when the company was still called TenFarms. At the time, the team was developing the Adtile platform, which allows users to tap on photos and other editorial content with the Adtile icon, bringing up related, interactive ads. Now the company has rebranded under the Adtile name, and Forsblom said it’s working with hundreds of publishers, with more on the waiting list.
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T-Mobile announces LG G Flex and Optimus F3Q, both coming February 5th
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Russia's second largest carrier resumes selling the iPhone after three-year split
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«Piratería» de libros y contenidos culturales en España, ronda enésima
Pepe y los piratas
[«A ver qué novelista que no sea un demagogo o un cretino se resiste a que lo lean más, en lugares donde el libro de papel no llega por diversas razones.» Arturo Pérez Reverte, 2009]
vs.
Ese fulano (quizás usted) me roba
[«Imaginen a un abogado, un arquitecto, un fontanero, a los que no pagaran sino tres de cada diez clientes. Si este trabajo lo quieres gratis, dirían, que lo haga tu puta madre.» Arturo Pérez Reverte, 2014]
vs.
La piratería no existe
[Juan Gómez Jurado]
Y muy a cuento
¿Está desprotegida la propiedad intelectual en España? 8 razones para pensar que no.
[David Maeztu]
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Tesla Superchargers now cover drives from coast to coast
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The Little Snapper Is The Most Adorable Snapchat Hack Ever
Since hackers have poked holes in Snapchat’s relatively lax security, many have had their way with the image sharing service’s APIs, grabbing unread messages and doing things the app doesn’t traditionally let you do. This latest hack, Little Snapper, is far and away the cutest one yet.
UK-based animator and developer Wesley Hill, who goes by the name Hako on Github, has found a way to print photos you receive through Snapchat onto a Berg Little Printer, a internet-connected mini thermal printer that can be configured to print out updates from various news sources and social networks. In short Snapchat photos, which are meant to be ephemeral, become permanent.
With Little Snapper, you can capture unread Snapchat images, host the image for 45 seconds to give the Little Printer time to parse, and then print the picture. After you have a black-and-white print-out, Little Snapper deletes the image. According to the description provided by Hill, Little Snapper simply requires your username and password to access your account, and only received, not sent, images are printed.
If you have a Little Printer, a Snapchat addiction, and appreciate the decorating style of Russell Crowe in A Beautiful Mind, head on over to this landing page for the Little Snapper.
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Microsoft buys Gears of War franchise, new game in development
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Adiós, Microsoft SkyDrive. Hola, Microsoft OneDrive
Microsoft SkyDrive pasará a llamarse Microsoft OneDrive
Cambiar el nombre de un producto tan apreciado como SkyDrive no ha sido fácil. Pero creemos que el nombre nuevo, OneDrive, transmite el valor que queremos ofrecerte y representa mejor nuestra visión del futuro.
«Cambiar el nombre no ha sido fácil», «representa mejor nuestra visión del futuro». Claro, ahá, claro.
Tras una disputa de marcas, Microsoft renombra “SkyDrive” to “OneDrive” — la verdadera razón tras el cambio de marca está en una disputa con la cadena televisiva europea BSkyB que reclamaba que la marca SkyDrive infringía su propia marca [disputa que BSkyB ha ganado en los juzgados británicos].
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How Cryptocurrency, Crowdfunding And A Little Internet Altruism Saved Jamaica’s Hopes For Bobsled Gold
Just in case you missed it, a heart-warming story unfolded this week involving an unlikely combination of bobsled, Jamaica, virtual currency, crowdfunding and generosity. It has all the makings of an inspiring Disney movie — er, an inspiring Disney sequel. Last Sunday, news began trickling out that a two-man bobsled team from the island nation of Jamaica had qualified for the Olympic Games in Sochi, Russia.
The country’s official Twitter account for the 2014 games announced the news that the team had qualified, including an image that appeared to be a reference to Cool Runnings, the John Candy-led cult film that loosely chronicled Jamaica’s debut in bobsled for the 1988 Olympic Games in Alberta, Canada.
The world apparently loves a sequel. In a plot twist seemingly right out of Cool Runnings, despite qualifying for the 2014 Olympics, team captain Winston Watts told the New York Times that the team hadn’t been able to raise the necessary funds to make it to Russia. Watts said that he had essentially been self-funding the team’s efforts thus far, and had even dug into his personal savings to fly the team to the U.S. for the bobsledding qualifiers. Nevertheless, after finding little help from the Jamaican Olympic Association or private investors, the team was forced to turn elsewhere.
In the world of bobsled, and perhaps sports in general, there has never been a more quintessential underdog story. First of all, the Jamaican bobsled team is from, well, Jamaica. Second, the team is competing against teams with significant some financial backing (and actually hail from more arctic climes). Not only that, Winston Watts came out of retirement to lead the 2014 bobsled team, and if the team were to compete in Sochi, Watts would be second-oldest bobsled pilot in Olympic history at age 46.
Luckily, the citizens of the Internet are sympathetic to an underdog story and were not about to let the team sit this one out due to lack of funding. And that’s when Jamaican bobsledding had its first introduction to the altruistic power of both virtual currency and digital crowdfunding proponents alike. Fittingly, it was a joke currency — or a virtual currency inspired by a dog meme — that came to the rescue. Yes, the very peer-to-peer cryptocurrency loved by Lassie, the world’s pooches and geeks alike, and the very currency that began as a joke but has since been hailed as a potential successor to Bitcoin: The noble, Dogecoin.
In a movement that began on Reddit, the Dogecoin Foundation seized the opportunity to promote its virtual currency on the world stage and help send the Jamaican bobsled team to Sochi. Over a matter of days, the Dogecoin community raised over 27 million Dogecoins, the equivalent of $30,000 for those without a canine cryptocurrency analyst on hand.
The team made the Crowdtilt effort its “official fundraising campaign,” and the Crowdtilt founders worked with the Dogecoin Foundation to convert the $30K raised in Dogecoin (from 1,600 Dogecoin supporters) into Bitcoin and then combine it with the money raised on Crowdtilt.
As one might expect, the campaign quickly surpassed its goal and then some. After three days live, the campaign raised just under $130K ($129,587, to be precise) — more than 12 times the campaign’s goal — including the contribution from the Dogecoin community.
Crowdtilt co-founder James Beshara tells us that it was one of the fastest campaigns to reach its goal in the platform’s history and there were points when as much as $3,000 was donated in 60 seconds. The average donation was $34.60, with nearly 3,000 individuals contributing to the campaign from 50 states and 52 countries.
Because of the outpouring of support, the Jamaican bobsled team will now be able to make its flight to the 2014 Olympic Games in Sochi. In a message posted to Crowdtilt, Devon Harris said that the money raised will be used to “cover training expenses (food, board, traveling, track fees, etc), and equipment purchases as the team completes its final preparation for the Games … And funds will also be earmarked to ship the sled and related equipment to Russia.”
This is the kind of stuff that makes one proud to live in a world where generous people from all over the world can leverage digital currency and crowdfunding — and technology in general — to help those in need. It’s just one example of millions of underdog stories out there deserving of our time and consideration, and hopefully it becomes an example to a whole new generation of the tools that are available and how they can be used to do something useful and altruistic.
And we look forward to seeing Cool Runnings 2 come to theaters near us in 2015. It’s the follow-up to The Social Network that we’ve been waiting for.
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