Wednesday, January 18, 2012

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Improvement On Age-Old Mathematical Principle Could Yield Improved Images, Video Top
fouIt's not often that you improve on a bit of math that has been around for 200 years. The Fourier transform was first proposed in 1811 by a Frenchman named Joseph Fourier, though it wasn't until the middle of the 20th century that he was given the credit he deserved. His technique broke down a complex signal into a number of component signals, which could be transmitted or processed separately and then recombined to produce the original in a fairly nondestructive way. In 1965 the Fourier transform got a boost as James Cooley and John Tukey discovered a way to apply the transform on the fly using a computer. And now, in 2012, another major improvement has been proposed.
 
Mark Zuckerberg Posts Against SOPA, Suddenly Remembers Twitter Account Top
mark zuckerbergFacebook may not be opposing the Stop Online Piracy Act and the Protect IP Act as prominently as some other websites — it's not blacking out the site today, or even posting an anti-SOPA/PIPA message on its homepage — but CEO Mark Zuckerberg spoke out against the legislation in a post on his Facebook account.
 
ION Audio's iPad Guitar Concept In Legal Trouble Top
GuitarApprentice_Angle_LGNewWow. Talk about not doing your homework. ION Audio has apparently infringed on the patents, trademarks and designs of three companies by debuting a new iOS peripheral at CES. The Guitar Apprentice (which is honestly a pretty cool idea) appears to use concepts that Behringer sent to the US Patent and Trademark office over a year and a half ago. But it's not just the product concept. The trademark on the name "Guitar Apprentice" is actually owned by another company called Legacy Learning Systems and if that were not enough, the headstock design on their guitar shaped controller could be in dispute by Schecter Guitars.
 
Want More Stickiness? Users Logging In Through Social Networks Spend 50% More Time On Site Top
Screen shot 2012-01-18 at 10.17.23 AMSite owners, administrators, web business owners, content producers, and everyone in between are always trying to find the best ways to encourage visitors to spend more time on their sites. It's hard enough getting people there in the first place, but keeping visitors and customers on the site (and engaged) once there? No walk in the park. But doing so is critical -- Just ask Groupon. As one might expect, there are a thousand ways to increase engagement, and there's obviously been a lot of noise around social as a great facilitator of a stickier (and more enjoyable) user experiences for websites, apps, and businesses. Thanks to some research (and a nifty infographic) from Gigya, the makers of SaaS technology (or a social CRM platform, if you will) that helps businesses make their websites social, we now have further proof that one of the best ways to encourage repeat visitors is through social logins.
 
Tagged: Four Years Profitable, Big Plans for hi5 Top
taggedSocial network Tagged seems to have found a model that works — the company says that 2011 was its fourth consecutive profitable year, and that its revenue grew 35 percent to more than $43 million.
 
Verizon To Light Up Five New LTE Markets Tomorrow Top
verizon-4g-lteWhile AT&T may be hitting a few roadblocks on their path to 4G LTE expansion, Verizon LTE seems to be spreading like wildfire. It feels like just yesterday that Verizon rolled out 4G LTE service to its first batch of U.S. markets, and now over a year later 200 million Americans are enjoying higher speeds. In fact, tomorrow Verizon will expand its high-speed network into five new markets, and expand coverage in three existing markets.
 
Remote DJ'ing App PlayMySong Raises $350K Seed Round Top
playmysonglogo_highres_2012Finnish startup PlayMySong, the crowdsourced music DJ'ing service that lets a store's customers remotely program the stereo, has just closed a round of seed funding totaling $350,000. The round was led by Lifeline Ventures, a Helsinki-based accelerator focused on funding web and gaming startups and includes participation from Tekes, the Finnish Funding Agency for Technology and Innovation. Though relatively small, the company says it's enough funding to open an office in New York and head out to San Francisco for meetings and other fund-raising efforts. PlayMySong, which is live in Heleski and a handful of U.S. locations, has also just launched its service in New York as of today.
 
Should RIM Abandon Ship? Top
shutterstock_69173443Peter Rojas published a thought-provoking piece about RIM and BlackBerry 10. He said, in short, that the Canadian company should wipe out Blackberry OS and run Android or Windows or, barring that, sell out completely and offer a software package running on another OS. While both of those are logical positions, I think RIM will end up in far worse shape than those options allow. RIM is popular for three reasons: the keyboard, BBM, and the back-end software. For most of this decade, IT shops have been able to send out fleets of BlackBerry products without concern simply because there was nothing better for email and messaging. Over the past three years, however, that claim has gone completely out the window. I would reckon that a nice IMAP server install is far easier and cheaper than any BB Enterprise Server ever was and, given this screenshot from the actual BBES "purchase" page, there is a lot of sales pressure involved.
 
"At Apple Everything Is A Secret" Top
Inside AppleLast year, the Steve Jobs biography was the best-selling book on Amazon. But there is another book about Apple coming out which isn't authorized that delves into the culture of secrecy at Apple. Inside Apple: How America's Most Admired—and Secretive—Company Really Works was written by Fortune senior editor at large Adam Lashinsky, based on a Fortune story he wrote last summer. (Lashinsky spoke with Andrew Keen on TCTV—Part 1 of that interview is up). The book details how Apple keeps its secrets by policing both internal and external leaks. Employees are kept in the dark about what their colleagues are doing and restricted where they can go on campus.
 
Keen On…. Adam Lashinsky: How Apple Really Works (TCTV) Top
Keen On…. Adam Lashinsky_ How Apple Really Works (TCTV) | TechCrunchAfter Walter Isaacson's magnum opus, do we really need yet another book about Apple? Yes, I think we do. Whereas Isaacson wrote the authorized biography of Jobs, the journalist and author Adam Lashinsky has written a most unauthorized and, in some ways, unpalatable book about Jobs' company which gets Inside Apple and explains How America's Most Admired - and Secretive - Company Really works.
 
Direct Deals Mobile Ad Marketplace Chartboost Expands To Asia Top
cb_logo_onwhiteA month after its expansion to Android, Chartboost, the newly launched (already profitable) direct deals mobile ad marketplace for game developers is expanding to Asia. Starting today, the company is rolling out localized versions in ChineseJapanese and Korean.
 
Flickr Joins SOPA Protest, Lets Users Black Out Photos Top
flickr-logoThis morning, online photo sharing site Flickr joined the growing number of web companies protesting the SOPA and PIPA legislation, which now include Google, Wikipedia, Reddit, Mozilla, and others. For a 24-hour period, starting today, Flickr is letting its members darken their own photos in an effort to raise awareness about the proposed, highly damaging legislation. But that's not all - Flickr is going a step further, and will allow users to darken other members' photos, too. Now that's what censorship really feels like.
 
In Face Of Protests, Congressmen Begin To Abandon SOPA Ship Top
Justin Amash FB pageThe online uproar against the proposed Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA) in Congress is already causing some in Washington to abandon the SOPA ship. A couple of co-sponsors of the bill are pulling their support. Representative Ben Quayle (R-Ariz.) is no longer a co-sponsor, and Representative Lee Terry (R-Neb.) is also planning to remove his name from the co-sponsor list, according to Politico. One Congressman, Representative Justin Amash (R-Mich.) is even joining the protest movement. He changed his Facebook profile picture and added the added the note below to his Facebook page.
 
Citi Backs Gift Card Exchange Plastic Jungle Top
plasticPlastic Jungle, which operates an online gift card marketplace, has received a strategic investment from Citi Ventures, Citigroup's investment arm. The size of the capital injection was not disclosed. The startup has previously raised over $23 million in financing from Jafco Ventures, Shasta Ventures, Redpoint Ventures and First Round Capital, among others.
 
Adzuna Raises New Funding To Make Job Ads Fully Social Top
117410v2-max-250x250Adzuna, a startup with something it calls the next-generation job search engine, has raised a round of funding from Index Ventures, The Accelerator Group and existing investors including Passion Capital. The latest funding follows a seed round last year. It's landed £500,000, taking its total funding to £800,000 (£300,000 from Passion Capital in July). Launched in July 2011, Adzuna is aiming to be a global search engine for classified job ads, effectively aggregating ads, then putting a social layer over them. Yes, I know similar things have been tried before but here's how they'll do it.
 
AT&T Eyeing Up Dish Network For Potential Acquisition? Top
attdishShortly before the AT&T/T-Mobile merger came to its ignominious end, Dish Network CEO Joseph Clayton casually expressed his interest in a partnership with T-Mobile as a means of bringing wireless voice service to Dish customers. Those plans may not pan out if AT&T has anything to do with it. A new report from Bloomberg indicates that AT&T is apparently so hard up for additional spectrum that they're considering shelling out "the highest premium in more than a decade" to acquire the satellite TV provider and their spectrum holdings.
 
Pro Tip: Do Not Buy An iPad Made Of Clay Top
iClayThe story goes that at least ten customers were sold clay iPads over the holidays from Canadian electronic stores. These customers were sold what appeared to be sealed iPad 2s, but turned out to contain slabs of clay rather than, you know, iPad 2s. Best Buy and Future Shop of Canada opened investigations, but since the stores already compensated the customers, we're in the clear to laugh at the situation a bit.
 
Among New Smartphone Adopters, iOS Share Rises While Android Declines Top
androidvsiosnewNielsen just released its latest numbers with regard to new smartphone owners, and it would seem that the iPhone (particularly the 4S) is quite popular among those migrating over to the smartphone segment. In fact, since the iPhone 4S launched in October, the number of recent smartphone buyers who chose the iPhone has reached 44.5 percent, up from just 25 percent in October.
 
Ignition Leads $20M Round In Cloud Security And Identity Company Symplified Top
33078v2-max-250x250Symplified, which provides identity and access management tools for cloud applications, has raised $20 million in Series C funding led by Ignition Partners. Existing investor Allegis Capital, Granite Ventures, and Quest Software also participated in the financing, which brings the company's total funding to $38.8 million.
 
Mobile Payments Company BilltoMobile Launches One-Click Checkout For The Mobile Web Top
danalMobile payments company BilltoMobile, which now has relationships with all four major carriers in the U.S. (Verizon, AT&T, Sprint and T-Mobile), is today launching one-click processing for mobile web transactions. Previously, users had to enter in their mobile number manually, sometimes a zip code, then wait for a verification code that was sent to their phone through an SMS text. Now, the company says it's able to identify a user's mobile number automatically thanks to deeper integration with the carriers' networks.
 

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