Thursday, September 29, 2011

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9 Android Phones For Japan: SoftBank's Entire Fall/Winter Line-up Top
Picture 10We've already shown you the three coolest smartphones Japanese carrier SoftBank announced for its home market today, the LUMIX Phone 101P from Panasonic, Sharp's AQUOS PHONE 102SH, and the DELL STREAK PRO 101 DL. But SoftBank actually introduced a total of nine new Android models today (plus a feature phone). Here's the carrier's entire fall/winter line-up for the Japanese market.
 
Search Engine Blekko Raises $30 Million From Russian Search Giant Yandex And Others Top
blekkoSearch engine Blekko has raised $30 million in new funding Yandex, MLC Private Equity, and existing investors U.S. Venture Partners, CMEA Capital and PivotNorth Capital (Ashton Kutcher is also a previous investor). This brings Blekko's total funding to $55 million. Yandex's CEO Arkady Volozh will join Blekko's board. Blekko launched last year as the shiny new search engine that wanted to take on Google. The search engine differentiates itself from Google by giving users tools to do new types of searches that they can't do elsewhere. Blekko offers unique query refinement tools to human editors called Slashtags (i.e. /news or /date or /amazon or /blogs) to filter results to what you are looking for (you can read our full review of the platform here).
 
Q: When Will Quora Release An iPhone App? A: Now. Top
photo 1Quora can be an addiction. You visit the site just to see what's going on, 30 minutes later you're still there. Today, the addiction goes mobile. Finally. The service has just released their first iOS native app. Tailored for the iPhone and iPod touch, I can safely say that it's awesome. I've been testing it out for the past few days, and my own personal usage of the service has already skyrocketed. Why? A few reasons.
 
Lego Tries Augmented Reality With "Life Of George" Game Top
scaledwm.IMG_3339Lego (or LEGO if you're adamant about trademarks) has just dipped another toe into electronic gaming with their clever "Life Of George" iOS title. The game uses 144 pieces and a piece of cardboard covered in a dotted pattern. The game is simple: George shows you a picture from his travels and asks you to recreate it using Legos. You have to dig around in your box of pieces to recreate the image and then take a picture of it on the Playmat. Using a brick recognition system from Eye-Cue, the game awards you points for speed and accuracy. The game is oddly addicting and great for kids. The pieces are bit small so it's aimed at ages 12 and up but it's also a great way to build teamwork with one player - maybe a parent - calling out the pieces and the other player putting the object together.
 
Compete: Social Networks Grow Audience As Netflix, Daily Deal Sites Lose Traffic Top
competeCompete.com, a Kantar Media company, today released its ranking of the top 250 websites for August 2011 (click here for the top 50). We can't repeat this often enough, but take these stats with a grain of salt when it comes to accuracy. We've looked at the top 250 all the same, because the list tends to depict trends also visible with other analytics service providers, such as comScore and Google Trends.
 
New NFC Spec Makes It Easier To Swap Contacts, Save Data To Phones Top
paypal-nfcMobile users with NFC-enabled devices will no longer need a special application in order to exchange contact details or other types of data between their phones thanks to a new NFC specification which has just been released. The non-profit industry association The NFC Forum has published its 16th specification today, this latest being a standardization of the Simple NDEF Exchange Protocol (SNEP) to use peer-to-peer mode for data exchanges. For users, this means less compatibility problems between devices, and for mobile app builders, it means simplified development.
 
T-Mobile Joins Verizon, Takes Samsung's Side In Apple Patent Suit Top
t_mobile_logoIt looks as though the carriers are ready to weigh in on the Apple vs. Samsung case, with Verizon and T-Mobile both voicing their opinions over the past week. Since the original showdown in April — when Apple sued Samsung over Galaxy tablets and smartphones — Apple has had the upper-hand, winning an injunction against the Galaxy Tab 10.1 in Germany, delaying the same GalTab multiple times in Australia, and winning a preliminary injunction on three Galaxy smartphones in the Netherlands. After watching the events play out, Verizon and now T-Mobile have said that they play for Samsung's team, and would like to keep Samsung's products on their shelves.
 
The Top 6 Alternatives To The Kindle Fire Top
velocity-micro_cruz-t408The Amazon Kindle Fire isn't the only low-cost tablet option in town. Sure, it might be the hot new kid, but there are a multitude of tablets that can be had for $300 or less. Some are cheap and clearly only for enthusiasts. Other tabs are legitimate deals that offer Honeycomb on modern CPUs. Best of all - and Amazon knows this - all of them can run the Kindle app, instantly turning them into Kindle Fire competitors.
 
Priceline Jumps Into Daily Deals Space (Actually, Nightly Deals Space) Top
negotiatorTravel discounter Priceline.com is launching a new daily deals service aimed at helping users find cheap hotel rooms. (Or maybe it would be more accurate to call it a "nightly" deals service?) Starting today, same-day offers for heavily discounted hotel rooms will become available in Priceline's "Hotel & Rental Car Negotiator" app at 11 AM local time and can be instantly booked up until 11 PM, or until the deal sells out.
 
A Cheerful Memento Mori Clock For Your Home Or Office Top
Accurate_clockstraightAlthough in this economy you can probably hire someone to walk behind you who will occasionally remind you of your mortality, it is probably a bit more efficient to just put up this Mr. Jones Accurate Clock. Based on the popular Accurate Watch, the hands of this clock say "Remember you will die" - a sobering thought over a breakfast Pop-Tart and a Pumpkin Chai Latte, but there you have it. It's available now for $119 at Watchismo and should probably put a spring in your step next time you decide to put off doing that big project you planned to finish. After all, memento mori.
 
Best Buy Kicks Off PlayBook Sale, Cuts Prices By $200 Top
bbplaybookWe reported earlier this week that Staples and Office Depot are running sales promotions for the ailing BlackBerry PlayBook, and today another big-box retailer has jumped into the fray. CNET reports that Best Buy has begun to sell all models of the PlayBook with a hefty $200 discount. That price break brings RIM's 16GB model down to $299, the 32GB model to $399, and the 64GB model to $499.
 
Hipmunk Now Reducing Agony On Android Top
android-hipmunk-frontpageHot flight search startup Hipmunk is about to land on Android. The app will be available for free, and you can install it right here. I've tested the app and it looks great (it's a nice reminder that Android apps can be slick and well designed, even if a lot of them aren't...). And it works just as you'd expect: enter your destination, departure/arrival dates, and choose from coach, business or first class. The app will present Hipmunk's grid of flights, which you can sort by Agony, Price, and Time. Oh, and all flights carrying life-sustaining Wifi are clearly labeled with nice orange icons.
 
Goldman Sachs Leads $20M Round In Social Media Marketing Platform Networked Insights Top
networked-insightsNetworked Insights, the developers of a marketing decision platform has raised $20 million in new funding led by Goldman Sachs Asset Management. This brings the startup's total funding to nearly $30 million. Founded in 2006, Networked Insights' SocialSense platform analyzes social data help brands strategize and spend on marketing, advertising, research and product development. Networked Insights says it's able to mine data from 750 million people and billions online conversations on a monthly basis, which enables marketers to harness insights and streamline research for future advertising campaigns. Networked Insights makes sense of this massive amount off data to figure out were brands should spend media dollars, whether that be TV, mobile, social etc.
 
Real Estate Platform Trulia Debuts Android Tablet And Rentals Apps Top
trulia2Real estate search engine Trulia is expanding its mobile offerings today with a new Android tablet app as well as an Android app devoted specifically for rentals. The company already offers comprehensive iPhone, iPad, Android and mobile web apps that feature much of the functionality of the site. Trulia's Android tablet app is similar to the iPad app in that it uses the full screen to display property photos and a large, interactive map with properties. Unique to Android, the app allows you to view property slideshows on the tablet's entire screen. You can also see where restaurants, schools and other points of interest are in relation to homes for sale or rent and access the agent's contact info for the property.
 
Who Should You Trust? Redfin Launches A Scouting Report For 1 Million Real Estate Agents Top
redfin_logo_smallRedfin, the online platform for real estate search and brokerage services, has made some noise in the past, building a service that's currently being valued at $230 million, at least according to trading on SharesPost. It's been a little while since we've heard some big news from the Seattle-based company, but this morning the real estate brokerage is releasing a cool new feature that puts real estate agents on notice and gives home buyers and sellers a nifty "hot or not" comparison tool. Redfin is today releasing the "Redfin Scouting Report", a way for users to look up the performance statistics for over 1 million real estate agents in 14 major metropolitan areas, with information on nearly every agent in these cities, according to Redfin CEO Glenn Kelman.
 
Report: Google Remains 'Most Attractive Employer' Among Business, Engineering Students Top
googUniversum, a company that specializes in employer branding, has published some findings based on the preferences of over 160,000 career seekers with a business or engineering background from the world´s 12 largest economies (based on nominal GDP). The goal: to find out which company is most attractive an employer according to business and engineering students. Well, there's no way around it: Google is solidly numero uno in both categories - just like last year and the year before that (see PDF).
 
DELL STREAK PRO 101DL (An Android PHONE) With Super AMOLED Display To Hit Japan 2012 Top
dell streakAnd here's the third phone from Japanese carrier SoftBank's fall/winter line-up that deserves a dedicated article: it's the so-called DELL STREAK PRO 101DL [JP], which the company will start offering to its subscribers in January 2012 (price tbd). And this isn't an Android tablet but a phone. And judging by the specs, it's going to be quite a nice one.
 
SweetLabs Raises $13 Million From Intel, Google And Others For Pokki App Platform Top
sweetSweetLabs, the San Diego company behind the Pokki app platform and the OpenCandy advertising network, has raised $13 million in funding in a Series C round led by Intel Capital, with earlier backers Google Ventures and Bessemer Venture Partners also participating. The fresh money will primarily be used to invest in Pokki, a platform that lets developers create and distribute desktop apps using standard Web languages like CSS3 and JavaScript, the company says.
 
Android Phone + Lumix Camera = Panasonic's LUMIX Phone 101P For Japan Top
03_pic_02Sharp's AQUOS PHONE 102SH wasn't the only cool Android phone to hit the Japanese market today. Local carrier SoftBank will also start distributing the so-called LUMIX Phone 101P [JP] as part of its fall/winter line-up of new cell phones in November. Made by Panasonic, the Android device is designed to be a mix between a phone and a digital camera (and it sure looks like it).
 
Dogpatch Labs SF Moves From Pier 38 To Palo Alto, Opens New Accelerator In Dublin Top
dogAs you may have heard, the San Francisco Port Authority recently shut down the tech hub located at Pier 38, which was home to companies like Automattic, True Ventures, 99Designs, and others. One of the tenants, Polaris Venture Partners' Dogpatch Labs, was also kicked out and has now moved to downtown Palo Alto along with its 18 current residents. Xconomy reports that Dogpatch Labs' new Palo Alto home is adjacent to the also new Polaris Venture Partners office (the might want to update their website if this is indeed the case).
 

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