Thursday, January 19, 2012

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Samsung: One In Ten South Koreans Now Owns A Samsung Galaxy S II Top
White Galaxy S2 3It's not really news to say that the Galaxy S II is a hit, but it has actually become a mega hit in South Korea. According to maker Samsung, the Android handset has been sold a whopping 5 million times in its domestic market since release at the end of April 2011. In other words, a little more than 10% of the country's entire population (48 million people) are now proud owners of the phone. It's the first cell phone that has reached this milestone in mobile-crazy South Korea, according to Japanese business daily The Nikkei. The paper also says that one out of four South Korean smartphones users owns a Galaxy S II (sounds like feature phones don't play a big role in that country anymore).
 
Report: 798 Daily Deal Sites Folded In The Last 6 Months Of 2011 Top
Lighted matchAccording to a new report from Daily Deal Media, a great source of news, information and data about the hot daily deal industry, there's a whole lot of consolidation and death going on among the many Groupon wannabes on this planet - at least in some regions. Daily Deal Media is keeping most of the good stuff behind a steep paywall, but shared some key findings from its report in a press release earlier this morning. According to them, the world has lost close to 800 - 798 to be precise - daily deal sites in the second half of 2011.
 
Linux Foundation Expects More Enterprise Gains in 2012 Top
linux-on-the-riseThe Linux Foundation is sharing the results of their latest invitation-only survey of enterprise Linux users. Their last such survey, in August 2010, revealed Linux was gaining popularity in enterprise computing. It should come as no real surprise that the latest survey shows more of the same. A lot has happened since late 2010, and the Linux Foundation survey reflects that. In "Linux Adoption Trends 2012: A Survey of Enterprise End Users" we find that a substantial number of enterprise users "expressed concern with the rapid growth of data, and Linux is clearly the platform of choice to address it." Less than half of respondents are planning to use Windows to handle their "Big Data" requirements.
 
The iRig PRE: A New Microphone Interface For iOS Devices Top
iRigPREJeez, CES is barely over and already NAMM is upon us. Unfortunately, this blogger is not in Anaheim for that event, but to be honest, I am still reeling from the few days I spent at CES with Team TechCrunch. Instead, I'll happily watch the music industry event from a safe distance this year. I did however spy the iRig PRE while I was at CES but it was not yet ready for prime time. It has been officially announced.
 
Wireless Sensor Posts Temperature, Humidity, And Radiation Levels To Twitter (Video) Top
uc technologyJapan-based UC Technology Corp. [JP] has developed a wireless sensor that can automatically post data like temperature, humidity, illuminance, or radiation levels to Twitter. The so-called "Tsubuyaku Sensor" [JP, PDF] is mainly designed for use in food warehouses, plants, or wine cellars. The data can be checked remotely on Twitter (the account can be set to private or public). UC Technology says that the sensor has a battery life of a year when it posts data once per minute.
 
Peecho Lands $750,000 For Its 'Cloud Print Button' Top
peechoPeecho, a Dutch startup that enables anyone to sell professionally printed products from their website, mobile or desktop apps, has raised $750,000 in financing from Peak Capital and DHG Holding to boost development and marketing of its embeddable 'cloud print button' service. Basically, their solution lets anyone sell digital content as physical products (think magazines, photo books, canvas prints and whatnot), by helping its customers hook into a network of professional print production facilities.
 
Former Google CIO Raises $73 Million To Reform Payday Loans With Data-Driven Startup ZestCash Top
zestcash-pictureZestCash, a company founded by former Google CIO and VP of engineering Douglas Merrill to legitimize the payday loan industry, has raised $73 million round of funding. The company raised $23 million in an equity round led by Matrix Partners. Existing investors Lightspeed Venture Partners, GRP Partners, Flybridge Capital Partners, and Lighthouse Capital Partners also fully participated in the round. The company also raised a separate $50 million line of debt financing from Victory Park Capital to fund its loan portfolio. ZestCash takes an entirely different approach to underwriting by combining Google-style machine learning techniques and data analysis, combined with traditional credit scoring. As a result, the company can offer credit to many people who historically would have been turned away.
 
BigCommerce Establishes $2 Million Fund For Developers Top
bigcommerceExclusive - E-commerce platform company BigCommerce has set up a $2 million fund for developers. With the launch of the fund, the Sydney, Australia-based company aims to sway third-party developers into submitting their integration and application ideas. Caveat: investments in successful entries are capped at $20,000 per project.
 
Hey Tagged, Badoo Has Been Around As Long And Has Bigger Revenues Top
balance_180x180As a social network aimed at helping you meet new people - don't mention the phrase 'hooking up' - Tagged's vice president of sales and marketing Steve Sarner claims other companies are only now catching onto 'social discovery' and the site is "by far the largest" in the social discovery space. Ex-squeeze me? I'm afraid we'll have to balance this, and perhaps educate Mr Sarner a little, in case he hasn't heard of a little site called Badoo.
 
Failure Is An Option: 7 Businesses That Tanked In 2011 (Slides) Top
About a year ago, my pal Nick De Mey from Board of Innovation shared a great slidedeck about the 10 business models that rocked 2010. This year, the Board identified 7 business models that failed in 2011 (Slideshare link).
 
Calling All Entrepreneurs: Twilio Expands APIs To 6 European Nations Top
Twilio EuropeA new wave of European entrepreneurs are about to start revolutionizing how we use our phones. Today, the Twilio voice API becomes available in Austria, Denmark, France, Ireland and Poland. Additionally, Twilio's SMS API now supports UK phone numbers. These APIs allow developers to build apps that can programatically send and receive calls and texts.
 
Constant Contact Buys Mobile Loyalty Card Startup CardStar Top
CardStarEmail marketing company Constant Contact has acquired CardStar, a digital and mobile loyalty card platform. Financial terms of the deal were not disclosed. CardStar, which has over two million users, allows users to consolidate membership and rewards cards on smartphones, letting consumers use a single application rather than carrying around a series of physical cards. Consumers simply scan the cards and their accounts and information is then imported into the app. Merchants can then track consumer behavior.
 
Capsule Wants To Be Your One Stop Shop For (Private) Events Top
Screen Shot 2012-01-18 at 7.39.08 PMEvents management startup Capsule describes itself as a little bit of Path, Color, Evite and GroupMe, but also none of those things according to co-founders Cyrus Farudi and Omri Cohen. From what I can tell, the startup is attempting to fix the beleaguered events space, which is basically something which could be totally amazing if Facebook separated its Events vertical into a separate "Messenger" type app. Oh Lord please do this.
 
Oops – Sony Ericsson Swings To A 207 Million Euro Net Loss In Q4 2011 Top
sonySmartphone maker Sony Ericsson this morning posted a pre-tax loss of 247 million euros ($318 million) in the fourth quarter of 2011, after reporting a profit of 31 million euros in Q3 2011. The company, a 50:50 joint-venture between Sony and Ericsson, blames "intense competition", "price erosion" and effects from the flooding in Thailand as some of the main drivers for the drop. Sales for the quarter were approximately 1.3 billion euros, down 16 percent year-on-year.
 
Ticketmaster's New Facebook App Recommends Concerts From Your Listening Activity Top
Facebook Ticketmaster RecommendationsOf all the new Open Graph apps launched tonight, Ticketmaster's new Facebook experience is the most impressive. Sure it can share that you've "bought" tickets, but lots of apps have similar publishing functionality. What makes Ticketmaster's app cool is that it pulls your Facebook profile's music app activity from services such as Spotify or Rdio, and recommends nearby concerts of artists you actually listen to, not just those you say you Like.
 
Google Fiber-Inspired Gigabit Challenge Unveils Winners; Senator Announces STOP SOPA Petition Top
11682643-logoBack in 2010, Google announced plans to build out a fiber-optic network for an entire city in the U.S., promising connection speeds of 1GB/sec, 100 times that of the norm. Naturally, over 1,000 cities applied. But only one could claim the prize, and that one was Kansas City.
 
OrcaM "Reconstruction Sphere" Digitally Recreates Any Object Placed Within Top
OrcaM_UntenOccasionally, in this line of work, I need to have a slight freak-out moment where I rave about the fact that things like this OrcaM "reconstruction sphere" actually exist. Not only does this thing look like a prop out of a sci-fi movie (or Transmetropolitan), but it acts like one as well.
 
TCTV: Live At SF vs SOPA, The Biggest Tech Protest In Decades Top
When you hear the words "San Francisco," there's a good chance that the word "protest" will also come to mind. Or, if you're on a different wavelength, "Ron Conway." But today, the city's favorite pasttime and its top angel investor came together at a special appearance in Civic Center Plaza to speak out against SOPA and PIPA, the two slimy "anti-piracy" bills currently worming their ways through through Congress.
 
Google Collected 4.5 Million Anti-SOPA Signatures Today Top
goog2Google generally gets in hot water when it is thought to be abusing its pole position in the search industry. But it's no use denying that while some moves skirt the edges of abusing monopoly, others are more than welcome. During natural disasters, for instance, Google has provided helpful links and resources for people who want to donate or volunteer. And their logo doodles pay homage to personages and events many people would otherwise have overlooked. Today must rank among the best applications of their choice placement: a link on the Google homepage and thousands of shares have produced a mind-blowing 4.5 million signatures on their anti-SOPA petition.
 
There Were More Than 2.4M Tweets About SOPA Today Top
twitterToday was the internet's big protest day against SOPA and PIPA, and not surprisingly, there was plenty of discussion about the issue on Twitter. Specifically, the company tweeted that that there were more than 2.4 million SOPA-related tweets between midnight and 4pm Eastern time.
 

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