Thursday, January 5, 2012

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Synchronoss Buys Mobile Social Network Maker Miyowa For Up To $59M In Cash Top
miyowa-rich-mobile-messaging-logoSynchronoss, a provider of automation software, mobility management and cloud technology solutions, has acquired mobile social networking company Miyowa for $45.5 million in cash. In addition, Synchronoss may pay earn-outs of up to an additional $13.5 million in cash based on Miyowa achieving certain performance targets over the next four quarters. Synchronoss, which is listed on NASDAQ, says it will leverage Miyowa's social networking and mobile messaging technology to boost its existing mobility platform for connected devices (dubbed ConvergenceNow Plus+).
 
Zynga Debuts Newest Word Puzzle And Social iOS Game, Scramble With Friends Top
Scramble2Zynga is starting off 2012 with a bang. After launching its newest Facebook title Hidden Chronicles yesterday, the social gaming giant is debuting its latest mobile game, 'Scramble With Friends,' which is an iOS game that combines word scramble and formation with the social features of the 'With Friends' gaming suite. As you may know, via the Newtoy acquisition in 2010, Zynga has helped develop a suite of 'With Friends' mobile titles including the popular Scrabble-like game 'Words With Friends' and the recently launched mobile take on Hangman, 'Hanging With Friends.'
 
Apptopia's New Marketplace Will Help Broker Sales Of Mobile Apps Top
Apptopia LogoRemember the news from earlier this week about a mobile app developer who turned to eBay to unload his underperforming iOS app? (Update: the app is now up to $15,100+!) Well, there will soon be an alternative to eBay auctions for other developers looking to do the same.  A new marketplace called Apptopia will launch in February, allowing developers to sell their mobile apps, source code and all.
 
Marvell's ARM-Based Chipset Tapped For New Google TV Units Top
marvelltvEveryone has already seen what the Google TV 2.0 update looks like, but Google and their hardware partners have been pretty tight-lipped about what kind of hardware will eventually run the show. Well, that ends today -- chipset vendor Marvell has just announced that their new their ARM-based Foresight platform will be providing the power for this year's new crop of Google TV devices.
 
Striiv Fitness Gadget Puts Personalized Challenges On The Menu Top
StriivWith the New Year already underway, I'm sure many of you are working hard to lose the holiday weight or are otherwise engaged in some hard-core New Years Resolution-style dieting. It's that time of year, which is likely why Striiv is making a push to add new features. Many of you may remember Striiv from our earlier coverage, in which we decided that the little pocket-sized pedometer is "fun, cute, and entertaining." That's because it basically turns your everyday work-out routine into a game. Along with tracking all of your various stats (steps taken, stairs climbed, etc.), it also lets you "donate" steps to certain charity organizations. There's also a game called Myland, in which you can buy and plant trees in various territories from the gold you collected from walking.
 
Maxymiser Raises $12 M For Its Website Testing & Optimization Solution Top
maxymiser-logoMaxymiser, a company that helps improve website effectiveness through the use of A/B and multivariate testing, personalization and optimizations, has raised $12 million from new investors Investor Growth Capital alongside investment from its Series A investors, Pentech Ventures. The funding will be used to help Maxymiser expand its business, with a special emphasis on North American R&D.
 
iMessage Bug Traps Android Converters' Personal Conversations… But There's A Fix! Top
photoiMessage is awesome, right? Since iOS 5 came out I've been telling all my friends and family (who, ironically, aren't what you'd call tech savvy) to update and start sending messages for free. It's super fast, I tell them, and your messages will be blue! Thrilling, to say the least. There's just one problem: If you switch to an Android device from an iPhone (with iMessage activated), anyone who's previously been sending you iMessages will no longer be able to send you texts. This is because there is apparently a bug with the iMessage system that doesn't deactivate iMessage, even after you've switched your phone number to another device.
 
Mindspeed Buys 'Small Cells' Maker Picochip For Up To $76.8 Million Top
picoMindspeed Technologies, a provider of semiconductor solutions for network infrastructure applications, this morning announced that it has acquired UK-based Picochip, a supplier of integrated system-on-chip (SoC) solutions for small cell base stations. Mindspeed is paying $51.8 million for Picochip, a mix of cash and stock, and up to $25 million in earn-out payments in the first calendar quarter of 2013.
 
Barnes & Noble Mulls Splitting Nook Business And Selling "Dead Tree" Publishing Company Top
scaledwm-img_40191Two bits of news crossed the wire this morning, neither of them good for traditional publishing. First, Barnes&Noble has reportedly put their publishing arm, Sterling Publishing, up for sale, a company it bought in 2009 for $115 million. Sterling produces puzzle, game, and crafts books for kids and adults. Not as big a deal as it sounds, but it still points to a reduced interest in paper-based sudoku. Second, B&N is mulling the spin-off of the Nook business, a move that will shelter the burgeoning epub business and, more important, pull it out of the listing ship that is B&N proper. The company reported a loss of $6.6 million this quarter, down about half from last year, but the Nook business has thus far been quite lucrative, leading the company to "pursue strategic exploratory work to separate the NOOK business."
 
Gartner Lowers 2012 IT Spending Forecast To 3.7 Percent Growth Top
LaptopWorldwide IT spending growth is expected to grow 3.7 percent in 2012, a slowdown from the 6.9 percent growth in 2011, according to a new forecast from Gartner. The research firm lowered its 2012 forecast from its previous estimate of 4.6 percent due to global economic woes and theThailand floods which  hit the hard disc drive industry. The good news is that global IT spending is still enormous—an estimated 3.8 trillion dollars worldwide.
 
Lithium Raises $53.4M Fourth Round To Push For Lead In Social Brand Software Top
Screen Shot 2012-01-04 at 10.30.03 PMBig consumer brands generate all sorts of consumer interest and expertise, but they've generally struggled to capitalize on these relationships to improve themselves. Lithium has been building itself into a market leader at solving this problem over the last ten years, offering white-label community sites and related products that allow brands to let users share ideas with each other -- and tell the brands what they're doing well, or not. The company is now doubling down on its business, raising a $53.4 million fourth round of funding on top of the $39 million that it has previously brought in.
 
Facebook Turns Your Timeline Into Moo Business Cards, First 200,000 Are Free Top
Screen Shot 2012-01-05 at 11.54.27In a move which is likely to catapult UK startup Moo onto a new international stage, the company has become the only one to deeply integrate its 'social business cards' with the Facebook platform today. Taking pictures from users' Facebook Timeline information and photography, users will now be able to create 50 personalised business cards for £10/$15. But in a promotion from today Moo is giving away cards to the first 200,000 users, equivalent to 10 million cards.
 
For Rapid Wireless Data Exchange: Toshiba Starts Shipping TransferJet LSI Top
tc35420TransferJet is having a hard time going mainstream, but Toshiba hasn't given up on the close proximity wireless transfer technology yet: after taking the wraps off a small TransferJet LSI back in September last year, the company now announced it's ready to begin shipping the first samples to electronics manufacturers. Visitors of the CES 2012 (which kicks off on January 10 in Las Vegas) will be able to see the LSI in action at the Toshiba booth.
 
And The First $1 Million Domain Name Sale Of 2012 Is … dudu.com? Top
duduDomain name marketplace operator Sedo this morning announced that it has brokered a big domain name sale before the first week of the new year is over. The company has negotiated a sale of the domain dudu.com to a Dubai-based social networking service provider called - you guessed it - DUDU Communications. Amazingly, the domain name went for as much as $1 million, which is right up there with the sales of furniture.com, sky.com and domainname.com - heck, it even fetched double the purchase price of domains like 3D.com, logo.com and puzzle.com.
 
Financial Times Acquires London-Based Developer Of Its HTML5 Web App Top
assankaThe Financial Times has acquired London-based application development firm Assanka, which built a nifty HTML5 web app - and other applications - for the publisher. (Hat tip to Benedict Evans) FT staffers such as Katie Morley and Jonathan Wheatley started spreading the news on Twitter, garnering retweets from FT.com managing director Rob Grimshaw and PR rep Tom Glover, who confirmed the acquisition to me but declined to share more details. Read more at TechCrunch Europe.
 
Google Ventures And Foundry Group Put $9M In Crowdsourced Search Advertising Marketplace Trada Top
tradaCrowdsourced SEM management startup Trada has raised $9 million in Series D financing from existing investors Foundry Group and Google Ventures. This brings Trada's total funding to $17 million. Here's how Trada works. Agencies and advertisers can specify a budget they are willing to spend on ads, decide which advertising platforms they want their ads to appear on (the site currently supports Bing, Yahoo, and Google), and enter how much they willing to pay-per-click or per acquisition.
 
NumberFire Pockets $750K To Help You Rule Your Fantasy Sports Leagues Top
logo-1Back in September, we wrote about numberFire, a New York City-based startup that's attempting to bring a deep, scientific approach to your fantasy football picks. At the time, the startup was preparing to graduate (along with ten other stalwart companies) from the Entrepreneurs Roundtable Accelerator, a seed-funding, mentor-providing NYC-based startup accelerator, and we also reported that NumberFire was also on the way to closing a solid round of seed funding. Last night, numberFire officially closed its first round of funding, nabbing a $750,000 seed investment, led by RRE Ventures, with contributions from private investment firm, Penny Black, and TechStars Managing Director David Tisch, among others. As a result of the funding, Eliot Durbin, the Managing Director of Penny Black, will be joining the startup's board of directors.
 
Apple Settles Patent Suit From Elan Out Of Court, Coughs Up $5 Million Top
elanElan Microelectronics, a Taiwanese chip and touch screen maker, says it has received $5 million from Apple in a patent infringement lawsuit settlement arranged out of court. This was first reported by Taiwanese media and later by Reuters. In addition, Apple and Elan agreed to "exchange authorizations" to use each other's patents, according to a statement from the Taiwanese chip designer.
 
The Not-So-Crazy Rumors About Microsoft Taking Over Nokia's Smartphone Division Resurface Top
nokiaMobile industry watcher Eldar Murtazin took to Twitter today, claiming that Microsoft and Nokia executives will be meeting each other shortly to discuss the possibility and terms of a deal involving the sale of the Finnish phone maker's smartphone division (including "one or two" manufacturing plants). Such an agreement between the two tech giants, which Murtazin says could be finalized in the second half of 2012, would leave Nokia with nothing but its 'dumbphone' or feature phone business, mapping services subsidiary Navteq and Nokia Siemens Networks, the flailing networking and telecom equipment company (a joint-venture with Siemens). Murtazin also asserts that current Nokia head honcho Stephen Elop will resign from his chief executive role in the course of this year (possibly to return to Microsoft, where he used to run the Business Division?). Furthermore, Windows smartphones would no longer be branded 'Nokia'.
 
The Logitech Cube Attempts To Redefine The Humble Mouse Top
logitech-cube2Somewhere deep in the bowels of Logitech, a committee, attempting to think outside of the box, created a box. It's called the Cube (even though it's clearly not a cube) and it's a mouse. And a presenter. I think.
 

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