Monday, July 2, 2012

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Japanese Retailer Rakuten To Launch The Kobo eReader, Localized Content Top
koboThe Kobo eReader is about to invade Japan. Following Rakuten's purchase of the Canadian eReader company, the Japanese online retail giant announced the eReader's launch plans this morning. The Kobo eReader hits the retailer's interwebs on July 17th for ¥7,980 including tax (or $100 USD). The device is completely retooled for the Japanese populace and launches with a large assortment of ePub 3.0 Japanese titles, including novels and comic books.
 
Some Dissatisfied Wireless Customers Leave A Complaint, Others Do This… Top
Screen shot 2012-07-02 at 11.09.45 AMWe've all had our moments of rage when dealing with wireless providers. It's a difficult relationship. We need our phones in a way that makes us far more dependent than any human should be on a large corporation, and because of this, carriers are able to take advantage of our desperation. Now, I'm not saying that's the case with this poor gentleman at a T-Mobile store in Manchester, England. But for whatever reason, he's displaying more rage than I've ever seen out of a dissatisfied customer. Obviously, it doesn't work out too well for him in the end as police officers (Bobbys?) whisk him away in cuffs after his short-lived performance.
 
Amazon's Flow App Brings Barcode Scanning & Augmented Reality To Android Users Top
amazon-flowAmazon Flow, the barcode scanning/augmented reality app from Amazon subsidiary A9.com, has arrived on Android today, following its November 2011 iOS debut. To refresh your memory, the app lets shoppers scan things like CDs, DVDs, books, toys, video games, and more using their smartphone's camera in order to display product details and pricing info. Barcode scanning, however, is not unique to Amazon Flow - the feature is also available in Amazon's flagship application, which is the more popular of the two. But Flow does something special - it supports an augmented reality view of some products, which uses image recognition techniques to show movie trailers and other media previews.
 
Fly Or Die: Retina MacBook Pro Top
Screen shot 2012-07-02 at 10.39.08 AMThe new MacBook Pro with Retina Display. Sure, it stands to fudge up the Internet, but boy is it pretty! The display boasts 5.1 million pixels, with a bump from 1280x800 to a full 2880x1800 resolution. It brings Apple's laptops into the display big leagues with the iPhone and iPad, and gets a bit thinner to boot. Plus, you'll get an HDMI port instead of that optical drive.
 
CreativeWorx Launches TimeTracker, A Hands-Free Time Tracking Software For Creatives Top
CreativeWorx_TimeTracker_ipadWe've seen a growing need for time tracking enterprise software. 1DayLater has aimed to solve the problem in the UK, and Harvest has built up quite the user-base here in the States, but a new service built by former Adobe executives at CreativeWorx looks to streamline the process in a way that makes time-tracking almost entirely hands-free. Whether you work at an agency as a creative, or do your own freelance work, TimeTracker has no start or stop button, and no tagging requirements. You simply do your work, and see your productivity in an easy-to-read table. The results page looks a bit like a Google Calendar, with various projects having certain colors assigned to them and showing as blocks of time in a weekly schedule. You can also drag and drop various projects to different places if for some reason you see a mistake.
 
HTC's $149 Droid Incredible 4G LTE Coming To Verizon On July 5 Top
droid-incredible-4g-lteHTC's Droid Incredible 4G LTE hasn't been a very well-kept secret (then again, what HTC phone is?), but Verizon has just confirmed what many of us suspected -- their latest HTC handset will hit store shelves on July 5. If you've been itching for an upgrade and just can't wait for a Galaxy S III, expect to shell out $149 (after a mail-in rebate, sadly) for the new Sense-powered slab.
 
Dell Acquires Quest Software For $2.4 Billion Top
dellAnother major acquisition for Dell this morning. The company announced it's buying enterprise management software maker Quest Software for $2.4 billion. Under the terms of the agreement, Dell will pay $28.00 per share, which beat out Insight Venture Partners' bid of $25.75 per share. Quest's assets, including its access management software, performance monitoring solutions, Windows Server management solutions, database management, and more, will now serve to strengthen Dell's recently formed Software Group.
 
Mobile Ad Network Jumptap Preps For IPO, Picks Up Another $27.5M From Keating, WPP And More While Waiting Top
jumptap-logoJumptap -- one of the last big, independent and privately-held mobile ad networks around reaching 263 million people worldwide -- has today announced that it has picked up another $27.5 million in funding to keep up the pace with other players while it prepares for an IPO itself. This round was led by two new backers, Keating Capital and "a large institutional investor" that Jumptap tells me it cannot name. The round also saw participation from existing investors General Catalyst Partners, Redpoint Ventures, Summerhill Ventures, Valhalla Partners, and WPP (the last one of these perhaps one to watch the closest). In total, Jumptap has now raised $121.5 million.
 
Mozilla's Boot To Gecko Becomes Firefox OS, Scores Support From Sprint, Deutsche Telekom, ZTE, And More Top
firefoxosMozilla's Boot to Gecko project has come a long way in just under a year -- what began with the idea of building a mobile operating system based on open web standards like HTML5 has led to a full-fledged product being prepared for a commercial launch in the coming months. What's more, Mozilla has just confirmed that their HTML5-friendly mobile ecosystem now has the support of a handful of new carrier and hardware partners, not to mention a new name. The project has been referred to as Boot to Gecko since it was first revealed last July, but Mozilla has officially rechristened the product Firefox OS.
 
'Mint For Investments' Startup SigFig Goes Mobile With New iPhone And Android Apps Top
64280_sigfig_logoMost banks have begun to provide native apps -- or at the very least, mobile-friendly websites -- to give users access to their funds and information about their accounts. But when it comes to their investment accounts, few have very much transparency into where their money has been invested, how much they are paying in fees, how their investments are performing and the like. San Francisco-based startup SigFig wants to change that, not just on the web, but now also on mobile devices. SigFig lets users connect all their various investment accounts -- including bank accounts, 401k plans, IRAs, etc. -- onto a single dashboard. That gives them the ability to see how their investments are performing in one beautiful visual platform. SigFig originally launched as a web app, but it's now releasing iPhone and Android apps that will give users on the go all the same information on their mobile devices.
 
MasterCard Ties Up With T-Mobile For NFC Mobile Payments In Europe Top
tmmcAnother strong step ahead of mobile payments today: MasterCard and Deutsche Telekom have announced that they will work together to roll out services across DT's footprint in Europe, starting with an NFC wallet solution in Poland in Q3 and Germany following soon after. For now, the U.S. is not being factored in as part of the deal. In all, Deutsche Telekom has 93 million mobile subscribers in Europe, and 129 million world-wide. The move is a sign not only of how bigger companies are now stepping up to cooperate better in mobile payments, but the way that carriers are wedging themselves into the equation to make it happen. The deal follows on from news on Friday that France Telecom is also anteing up big time in the area of NFC, and will start rolling out NFC-enabled SIM cards all new subscribers in France, with further markets getting added on throughout the year.
 
Network Testing Consolidation: Ixia Pays $160M Cash For Security-Focused BreakingPoint Systems Top
ixia breakingpointSome M&A activity among those companies that work behind the scenes so that carriers can continue to deliver your apps, streamed music, phone calls and texts without a hitch: the network testing company Ixia has announced that it will be paying $160 million in cash to buy BreakingPoint Systems. BreakingPoint is a specialist in security testing for wireless and wireline networks, as well as attack analytics, with more than 34,000 examples of attacks, malware and exploits parsed in its library. The move means that Ixia will be able to offer its carrier and large enterprise customers a fuller portfolio of services for network testing -- but perhaps more importantly it is a sign of how the growth in mobile and fixed data networks -- on the back of the smartphone and tablet boom -- has led to a bigger focus on security threats, data breaches and privacy protection. The deal comes on the heels of Ixia's purchase of another network performance company, Anue Systems, in May for $145 million. Vic Alston, president and CEO of Ixia, would not comment on whether the company is continuing on its acquisitions sprees. "We will never say never, but our main priority at this point is to integrate Anue and BreakingPoint and focus on growth," he told TechCrunch.
 
Sony Puffs Up Its Gaming Cloud, Buys Gaikai For $380M. OnLive Next In Line For A Buyer? Top
Gaikai PictureSome more consolidation in cloud-based gaming services: Sony Computer Entertainment announced today that it will pay $380 million to acquire Gaikai, the California-based provider of a platform that currently delivers some 40 games, including Mass Effect, the Sims, and FIFA Soccer, as cloud-based services to a variety of devices, without the need of a games console. We'd first heard murmurs about a tie-up between Gaikai and Sony in May, and the deal raises questions of what might happen next with rival streaming platform OnLive. The move is a sign of how console-based companies are feeling the pressure to offer other, cheaper routes to accessing games content via other devices, as revenues from hardware-based services decline. Sony, makers of the PlayStation, says that as a result of the deal, it will establish a new cloud gaming service, as yet unnamed.
 
Stealthy Shape Security Hires Google's Former Click-Fraud Czar Top
186407v1-max-250x250Super stealthy security startup, Shape Security, has recruited Google's ex-"click-fraud czar" Shuman Ghosemajumder to its executive team where he'll be charged with leading the company's marketing, strategy and partnerships efforts. Mountain View-based Shape is said to be developing a new category of web defense products that take a different approach to security that shifts costs from defenders to hackers. It hopes to achieve this via its "military-grade technology" that doesn't rely on past attack signatures, and instead forces hackers to "spend more and more to achieve less and less."
 
Mobile Startup Gymdeck Is Acquired By OptimisCorp, A Network Of U.S. Sports Centres Top
127280v2-max-250x250Gymdeck, a startup we wrote about over a year ago which was aimed at disorganised personal trainers is something of a typical startup story. After aiming at that market it soon realised the app was being used by all sorts of people in the fitness industry. Thus, after a while of gathering that data, Gymdeck has been acquired by a OptimisCorp, a company in healthcare technology and services which has 200 sports therapy, training and performance centers across the United States. Terms of the deal were undisclosed.
 
Chinese Servant Gets 10 Years In Jail For Stealing Overpriced Nokia Vertu Handset Top
Image (1) vertu_2-620x620.jpg for post 148503Here's a sad, and slightly ridiculous, coda to the story of Vertu, Nokia's wrong turn into making bling-tastic handsets encrusted with diamonds and gold: a servant in China convicted of stealing one from her boss has been sentenced to 10 years in prison and fined 20,000 yuan (over $3,000). The story, as published in the English edition of the Chinese People's Daily Online, notes that Ms Zhang Yun's defense was that she had not realized the value of the phone when she took it, and did so in the first place because she had not been paid. The incident happened in Henan Province.
 
Fashion For Home Scores New Funding As Samwer Brothers' Rocket Internet Exits Top
main-logo_enFashion For Home, the online designer furniture store, has scored a new funding round led by the Munich-based VC Acton Capital Partners, while Holtzbrinck Ventures has also participated. And with it we have an exit of sorts. That's because, as part of the round, the Samwer brothers' incubator, Rocket Internet, has sold its shares, although terms of the transaction aren't being disclosed -- unsurprising given the Samwers' notorious reputation for secrecy. It's also especially curious when you factor in last year's leaked memo where Oliver Samwer described ambitions to become "number one" in the e-commerce sector for furniture with a strategy he controversially likened to "blitzkrieg". Fashion For Home's new funding round as a whole is said to be in the "lower double-digit millions", so also make of that what you will.
 
How To Build A Successful Company From The Ground Up Top
Screen shot 2012-07-02 at 12.08.15 AMEditor's note: This is a guest post by Jay Fulcher;  Fulcher is the CEO of Ooyala, a rapidly growing video technology startup that has more than 500 customers worldwide.  You can follow him on Twitter @jbfulcher. His previous TechCrunch articles include "A Fistful of Streaming Media Dollars," "Fear and Loathing in Online Video Fred Wilson, co-founder of Union Square Ventures and investor in Tumblr, Foursquare, Twitter and Zynga, wrote a great post on his blog the other day about how startups can retain their best employees.
 
Beats' Acquisition Of MOG Confirmed: The Aim Is A 'Truly End To End Experience' Top
beats headphonesLooks like the reports that have been in play for months now have finally been confirmed: Beats Electronics, known best for their hip Dr Dre headphones and partly backed by HTC (who had also been a rumored MOG buyer), is indeed buying the music streaming service MOG, with the acquisition now confirmed by both sides. The move will give MOG -- struggling to grow against the runaway success of Spotify -- a new lease of life tied to a specific hardware maker; and Beats another step up on the consumer electronics experience, following in the mold of Apple in providing the whole package from one brand. "The addition of MOG's music service to the Beats portfolio will provide a truly end-to-end music experience," David Hyman, the founder and CEO of MOG told USA Today. Although the deal has been in play since March of this year, this was in fact the first confirmation by either side that they are linking up. We're still contacting both companies for a direct confirmation.
 
Uber Opens Up Platform To Non-Limo Vehicles With "Uber X," Service Will Be 35% Less Expensive Top
new_uber_logoDeclaring its independence from the traditional Lincoln Town Car (sorry, couldn't resist), Uber is going beyond black cars this Fourth of July, bringing its up until now secret "Uber X" project public. "Uber X" will allow Uber partners to use its dispatching software in order to dole out vehicles beyond Lincoln Town Cars, giving passengers a choice between Toyota Prius Hybrids and SUVs like the Cadillac Escalade, etc.
 

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