Tuesday, 18 February 2014
Un Airbus A340-600 durante la gran parada, su revisión a fondo
Que el avión sea el medio de transporte más seguro no es, como hemos dicho muchas veces, por casualidad, y uno de los factores que influyen en ello es el estricto mantenimiento al que se someten estos.
En este reportaje de Televisión Española explican como es una revisión tipo D, también conocida como gran parada, a la que los se somete periódicamente, y que, como dice uno de los ingenieros de Iberia, deja al avión como recién salido de fábrica tras desmontarlo y volverlo a montar comprobando en el proceso todos sus componentes y sistemas.
Es un proceso que lleva mes y medio e involucra hasta a 4.000 trabajadores a tres turnos.
En La Muñoza: ITV para Aviones y sus motores hay más información acerca del funcionamiento del área de mantenimiento de Iberia en La Muñoza, donde se revisan aviones y motores tanto propios como de otras aerolíneas de todo el mundo.
- Revisión D de un 747-400 de British Airways, un reportaje de una hora sobre este tipo de revisión, aunque en inglés.
- Cómo se preparan los aviones para volar al día siguiente
- ¿Cómo se cambia el motor de un avión?
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NVIDIA launches two entry-level graphics cards based on its 'most efficient' GPU so far
The folks behind Candy Crush Saga think their company is big enough to go public
Samsung details KitKat update plans for US Galaxy phones and tabs
SuperAwesome Crosses Pond Via Acquisition Of MobiGirl Media, A U.S. Mobile Ad Network For Girls
SuperAwesome, the European ad network and marketing platform for kids and teens, has crossed the pond via an acquisition. It’s bought L.A.-based MobiGirl Media, a mobile ad network for girls.
Terms of the deal remain undisclosed, though my understanding is that, depending on earn-out performance, it is a seven figure sum, as SuperAwesome looks to gobble up a bigger slice of the kids marketing pie and grow its value proposition in the process.
The UK startup itself is the result of a merger after Swapit, which operates a site for kids and teens to trade unwanted items, as well as a kid-friendly ad network, was acquired by Dylan Collins’ newest venture Box Of Awesome, the “free Birchbox for kids“.
The resulting venture, SuperAwesome, has since launched a premium mobile ad network targeting kids (helping app publishers wean themselves off spammy in-app purchases). It’s here that today’s acquisition of MobiGirl Media appears to come into focus.
Founded by Jennifer Noonan, Cara Hall and Alison Bradley, MobiGirl Media claims to be the only COPPA compliant mobile ad network for girls 6-16, offering app publishers highly-targeted campaigns on mobile and tablet devices.
Meanwhile, SuperAwesome says its existing channels currently reach 20 million kids each month. Clients include “hundreds” of kids brands such as Disney, Nickelodeon, Warner Bros, Nintendo and others.
“MobiGirl Media sees the start of our expansion into the U.S. We’ve been heavily focused on the UK but with the seismic changes in the kids market we’re seeing huge opportunities in other territories,” comments SuperAwesome founder and CEO, Dylan Collins, in a statement.
Those “seismic changes” refer, in part, to the shift from online web-based kids properties, such as virtual worlds, to mobile games. In fact, today’s announcement specifically mentions the “layoffs” at girl’s fashion virtual world Stardoll, covered recently by TechCrunch.
“The kids and teens market is being fundamentally disrupted by this new generation of kids who are being immersed in technology and content from a much younger age. It’s having a profound effect on how they interact with brands which traditionally would have found it much easier to communicate with this group. We’ve specifically built SuperAwesome to provide a bridge with brands for what is essentially a new audience,” adds Collins.
Finally, an interesting tidbit: According a source close to the company, SuperAwesome itself turned down a couple of acquisition approaches late last year, one from the UK and one from a U.S. media company.
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Engadget giveaway: win one of five Tegra Note 7 tablets courtesy of EVGA!
Meetup. Atlanta. Tonight.
We’re back. Two years ago, thanks to local ATL superfan Dave Moeller of CodeGuard, TechCrunch held an epic meetup in Atlanta. Over a thousand people turned out on that rainy day for a night of networking and drinking. Tonight’s event will be more of the same, but this time around we’ve lined up 15 local startups to pitch to the crowd.
A few tickets are still available. They’re just $5 and thanks to our sponsors, grants the holder to a couple of drinks.
The doors of the Fox Theater on Peachtree St NE open at 6:30. The pitch-off will start later in the evening.
We will have 3-5 judges, including TechCrunch writers and local VC’s, who will decide on the winners of the Pitch-off. First place will receive a table in Start Up Alley at the upcoming TechCrunch Disrupt. Second Place will receive 2 tickets to the upcoming TechCrunch Disrupt. Third Place will receive 1 ticket to the upcoming TechCrunch Disrupt.
Grab a ticket below, load your blazer with business cards and come party with your local tech scene. See you tonight.
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Wattpad Updates Its Social Reading Apps With Inline Commenting And Offline Access
Wattpad, an online community where readers can find and discuss a variety of free stories, is announcing updated versions of its iOS and Android apps.
The two biggest changes in the updates, which went live last week, are probably the addition of offline access and inline commenting. Offline reading seems like an obvious feature for a reading app, since you might want to read on an airplane or in the subway. In Wattpad’s case that doesn’t just mean allowing users to read the stories that they’ve added to their in-app library, but to interact with them, too.
Co-founder and CEO Allen Lau told me via email that with “millions of users from all parts of the world,” offline access is particularly important for those who don’t have fast or consistent Internet connections.
“One of the biggest challenges was ensuring a smooth transition for users who went from an offline experience to an online one,” Lau said. “We had to capture offline actions and then seamlessly process them once an internet connection was established without disrupting the user experience.”
Inline commenting, meanwhile, expands on existing Wattpad social features like the ability to share and discuss stories, and to follow your favorite authors on the site. Readers can now “comment on specific words, sentences and paragraphs of a story,” Lau said: “It’s almost like they’re reading alongside their friends and they can exclaim, commiserate, and react as the story unfolds.”
And since Wattpad titles can be serialized, those comments might even influence the direction of the plot.
Other additions to the apps include an Archive for Android feature that moves stories out of a user’s Library, the ability to create and share reading lists direction from the apps, and story recommendations based on your past activity.
The company says it now has more than 20 million members. You can download the iOS app here and the Android app here.
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GuestDriven Raises $3M To Expand Its Hotel Guest Interaction And Rewards Platform
These days, many hotel interactions with their guests happen through third-party platforms: The Travelocities, Yelps, and Foursquares of the world get the feedback that hotels need and depend on, and this generally happens in a public forum. One-to-one interaction and the direct relationship between hotel and guest has fallen somewhat by the wayside in a web-based, connected world. Montreal-based GuestDriven wants to help put the guest relationship back in the hands of the hotel, and today announced a $3 million Series A to help its platform accomplish that.
GuestDriven offers hotels a platform that provides real-time guest interaction, allowing businesses to send them messages, tips, perks and rewards before, during and after their stay. The startup calls it a “Guest Relationship Management platform,” and it’s designed to provide hotels with the kind of actionable data they need to identify what’s working for their business, and what isn’t. It also helps hotels manage guest relationships down to the level of each individual, as well as identify key social influencers among their customers and reward them for broadcasting positive messages about their stay on social networks.
“Most reservations come in from third-party products, and those products don’t provide CRM data points for the hotels,” explained GuestDriven CEO and co-founder Anthony Zebrowski in an interview. “There’s a mass push on price that becomes the determining factor of where you’re booking. At the same time there are 12-14 different IT systems on the hotel side that lack any ability of talking to each other, so there’s no real CRM or contextualization.”
Already, GuestDriven is being used in around 115 hotels, but the company wants to expand in a big way and focus on the U.S. market, and that’s where this funding comes in. The round is led by PlazaCorp, Real Ventures and Structure Capital. Previous investors include strategic investors from the hospitality tech world including Joe Poulin from Luxury Retreats and Peter Kern, who sits on Expedia’s board of directors. With it, GuestDriven plans to expand its salesforce to drive its push, as well as hire additional engineers and other personnel.
A direct line of communication is a valuable tool for hotels looking to strengthen their relationship with guests and build return customers, but the data play is the bigger story here. Much of the modern travel industry is moving towards a model where access to customer data is held by third-party platform providers, but GuestDriven wants to put that info back in the hands of hoteliers themselves, which is a tempting carrot indeed in terms of what it offers for trend analysis and both short- and long-term strategic planning.
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HTC now offers Americans free screen replacements within the first six months
UK to finally include streaming in its singles music chart
With 100,000 Stores Opened, TicTail eCommerce Platform Lands $8 Million Led By Thrive Capital
TicTail, a DIY ecommerce platform out of Sweden, has today raised $8 million in Series A funding led by Thrive Capital.
The company, which is a lot like Etsy in its mission to make online storefronts easily accessible and creatable by DIYers, will use the money to open up an NYC office.
TicTail has also reached the significant milestone of 100,000 stores on the platform. In 2012, TicTail only had around 5,000 stores, and in late Summer of 2013, that number had grown to 23,000 stores. So obviously, this winter has seen huge growth for the platform.
TicTail focuses on a different demographic than other competitors, aiming for DIYers and entrepreneurs who don’t speak internet at all. The idea is to eliminate every barrier to entry, even cost, which is why TicTail operates on a freemium model.
“The differentiating factor is the ease of use – not only to just set up the store, but to carry people through the difficult tasks that come next,” said CEO and cofounder Carl Waldekranz. “Unlike our biggest competitors Tictail is not a tool, it’s a community.”
Users can sign up and start a storefront in no time, and they look through third-party developer add-ons to buy, increasing the functionality and look of their store. TicTail takes a 30 percent commission on these add-on sales.
With the latest round of funding, the company will be expanding into the states operationally (as mentioned) as well as delivering better discovery on the platform.
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Social Analytics Company Socialbakers Raises $26M More
Socialbakers, a social media analytics company founded in 2009 and headquartered in Prague, is announcing that it has raised $26 million in Series C funding.
The round was led by Index Ventures, with participation from previous investor Earlybird Venture Capital. Socialbakers has now raised a total of $34 million.
In the past year, the company says it tripled revenue, launched its ad analytics platform, added more than 1,000 customers, and hired its first CMO. Socialbakers currently has a team of 300 people, which it plans to grow to 400 in the coming year.
“Socialbakers is positioned to move from leading the social analytics category, to defining the next generation of insight-driven social marketing applications,” said Index partner Jan Hammer in the funding release.
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SparkLabs Global Adds Former Disney Interactive Exec As Advisor, Invests In Good.co And Zanbato
SparkLabs Global announced today that John Pleasants, the former co-president of Disney Interactive and former COO of Electronic Arts, has joined the fund as an advisor. SparkLabs Global, which focuses on seed-stage startups around the world, also disclosed new investments of $250,000 each in Good.co and Zanbato.
Pleasants joined Disney Interactive after it acquired Playdom Inc., the online gaming company he founded, in July 2010 for $563 million. During his three years at Disney Interactive, Pleasants oversaw the launch of Disney Infinity.
In a statement, Pleasants said: “I’m excited to be part of SparkLabs Global because the depth of their experiences and global reach. The timing for such a seed-stage fund is ideal because of how rapidly innovation and great companies are being founded throughout the world, and many are looking for help to cross the Pacific and Atlantic which this team excels at.”
Based in San Francisco, Good.co is a career site that wants to help put the “human” back in human resources. The startup has raised $1.45 million from Norwest, Sparklabs Global, and other venture capital firms. Good.co users fill out a variety of surveys to help determine what their working style is, and whether or not they are a good fit with specific companies or managers.
The site’s goal is to enable job seekers find positions they will flourish at, which in turn helps employers save the hassle and expense of hiring people who end up leaving or getting fired within a few months. Good.co fits into the same niche as startups like 15five and Culture Amp, in that they all seek to increase employee retention rates boosting workplace morale.
Zanbato is a platform that helps institutional investors find opportunities in alternative asset classes. The company’s founders include Joe Lonsdale, the co-founder of Palantir Technologies, Nico Sand, Dan Settel, and Kevin Leung.
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La probabilidad condicionada explicada visualmente
Lo más bonito de estas explicaciones matemáticas es cuando la zona de los valores obtenidos en el «experimento» («Actual») van coincidendo lenta pero inexorablemente con los valores esperados («Expected») de forma milimétricamente precisa.
La visualización es de Victor Power y muestras el funcionamiento de la probabilida condicionada de forma fácil de entender. Las bolas que caen son todos los eventos que pueden suceder, que a veces pasan por la barra A (primera condición), a veces por la B (segunda condición), a veces por ambas o a veces por ninguna.
Variando las probabilidades de esos eventos, P(A) y P(B) se puede explorar lo que sucede, viendo los cálculos y observando el incesable flujo de bolitas.
(Vía FlowingData.)
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Candy Crush Maker King Files For U.S. IPO
The studio behind addictive matching puzzle game Candy Crush has begun the process of filing for its U.S. IPO with the Securities and Exchange Commission, Re/Code reports. The UK company will look to begin trading on the New York Stock Exchange under the ‘KING’ ticker symbol should everything go according to plan.
Last year, Candy Crush was the top earning title on any mobile platform according to mobile app analytics firm Distimo, since it occupied a top spot on both iOS and Android all year. Candy Crush was released halfway through 2012, but it has managed to retain much of its momentum since then, which is impressive in the fickle casual games market. As Re/Code points out, however, King’s revenue declined between the third and fourth quarters of 2013, so it may need its next hit to come along sooner rather than later.
Currently, however, King’s games bring in 1.2 billion daily plays from 128 million daily active users according to the most recent numbers from the company, of which 73 percent come from mobile devices. Candy Crush has definitely been a defining moment for the company, but it has been in the casual games business since 2003, and in its IPO King cites its massive built-in player network (which includes 324 monthly active users in total) as a key competitive advantage.
Developing…
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Microsoft makes it easier to sign your Office 365 documents
Por qué el Norte apunta hacia arriba y no hacia abajo o algún otro lugar
El famoso mundimapa «corrector» de McArthur’s con el norte «abajo»
Nick Danforth analiza para AlJazeera el viejo asunto de por qué los mapas son como son y actualmente tienen el hemisferio norte arriba cuando técnicamente podrían estar en cualquier otra orientación: How the North Ended up on Top of the Map .
Normalmente se ha pensado que era porque los mapas «los inventaron los Europeos y eligieron el lugar más destacado para sí mismos», pero existen mapas antiguos de todas las culturas y lugares en prácticamente todas las orientaciones posibles; de hecho ni siquiera es seguro que los europeos inventaran los mapas. Las orientaciones de la estrella polar o de las brújulas pudieron tener algo que ver, pero por ejemplo los chinos solían afirmar que sus brújulas «apuntaban al sur».
La razón última es más mundana: de entre los centenares de mapas de las épocas antiguas hubo uno que tuvo una especial influencia: el del astrónomo y geógrafo Ptolomeo. No se sabe exactamente por qué, pero dibujó sus influyentes mapas con el Norte «arriba». De modo que geógrafos como Mercator, Marsellus y Waldseemuller, que idolatraban los trabajos de Ptlomeo, hicieron lo mismo. Esos mapas prevalecieron y es la razón de que en nuestros días sean como son.
Hay muchos y curiosos «mapas al revés» en la página The Upside Down Map de la que hablamos hace tiempo.
Si te interesó esto es obligatorio que dediques los próximos cuatro minutos a ver el famoso fragmento de El Ala Oeste de la Casa Blanca donde se explican algunos de los problemas de los mapas actuales más populares – especialmente debido a la proyección de Mercator.
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