The first BlackBerry Jam in Belgrade organized by BlackBerry Developer Group Balkan attracted hundreds of attendees to the Zira Hotel in Belgrade Serbia.

With over 400 in attendance, this was one of the largest Jam events of it’s kind. BlackBerry Developer Group Balkan has posted photos and made a video of the event and the afterparty.

Click here if you can’t see the above YouTube video.

Click here for Pictures of BlackBerry Jam Balkan on Facebook.

Congratulations to Developer Group Balkan and see all at BlackBerry Live in Orlando!

SpineVision, a French medical device company that designs, develops and markets products for the surgical treatment of spine disorders, has raised $10 million in fresh capital. The round was led by healthcare investment specialist Omega Funds, a new investor in the company.

PRESS RELEASE
SpineVision(R) SA, a commercial-stage medical device company that designs, develops and markets products for the surgical treatment of spine disorders, announced a $10 million capital raise from new and existing investors. The round was led by healthcare investment specialist Omega Funds, a new investor in the company.

The proceeds will provide growth capital for expansion of existing commercial operations, primarily in the U.S. market, as well as for growing commercial activities in Europe. In addition, the capital raised will allow the company to strengthen its R&D efforts and develop an innovative approach to the traditional supply chain.

Arnaud Brisard, CEO of the Company, commented: “Welcoming Omega, Alto Invest and Midi Capital as investors in a substantial capital increase is a key milestone in our development. We now have resources to accelerate the expansion of SpineVision(R) with the objective to further grow our revenue base and achieve sustainable profitability. The present topline growth validates the product strategy implemented since 2009, and this capital increase will accelerate the development of new innovative product lines.”

Omega Fund’s Renee Aguiar-Lucander added: “The management team has, since 2009, built an innovative product portfolio and achieved significant commercial success with limited financial resources. We believe the company will now enter a key growth phase, and we look forward to working with the team to take the company to the next level.”

SpineVision(R) is a privately owned, integrated spinal technology company, focused on developing and marketing implants and instrumentation for spinal treatment. Since its founding in 1999, the company has designed innovative products offering key advantages to surgeons and benefits to patients. The company recently received CE marking for its new generation Flex+2(TM) dynamic stabilization rod. In addition 510(k) approval has been granted for a range of surgical instrumentation focused on a minimally invasive approach to treating conditions related to aging and degeneration of the spine.

SpineVision(R) currently has operating entities in France, Italy, Benelux, UK and the United States, complemented by distribution agreements in several other territories, including in emerging markets. The company posted double-digit revenue growth in 2012, with strong growth continuing in the first quarter of 2013, validating the attractiveness of its new product portfolio.

Bryan, Garnier & Co. acted as exclusive financial advisor to the Company’s shareholders and management.

About SpineVision(R) SpineVision(R) is a privately owned, integrated spinal technology company focused on the development and marketing of implants and instrumentation for spinal treatment. Since its founding in 1999, the company has designed innovative products that offer key advantages to surgeons and benefits to patients. SpineVision(R)’s current products offer solutions for approximately 90% of spinal pathologies: i.e. lumbar degenerative disc diseases, deformities, cervical disorders, trauma and tumors. With its new-generation products Flex+2(TM) and LUMIS(TM), SpineVision(R) is the only manufacturer offering a dynamic stabilization system that can be used in a percutaneous approach. The Company is headquartered in Antony (south of Paris), France, and has subsidiaries in the USA, Italy, Belgium and UK. Contact: Celine Lilloni, [email protected] – +33 (0)1 53 33 25 25.

About Omega Funds Omega Funds is a leading international healthcare-focused investment firm specialized in providing partial or complete liquidity solutions for healthcare venture and growth equity investors, as well as for corporations and institutions investing in the broader healthcare space. As part of its business, Omega Funds also provides follow-on capital to companies, founders and investment firms, as well as collaborates with universities to invest in their leading spin-off opportunities. Contact: Renee Aguiar-Lucander, [email protected].

About ALTO INVEST ALTO INVEST is an independent management company dedicated to investments in SMEs. ALTO INVEST manages over EUR 300 million in retail and institutional funds (FCPI, FIP and FCPR), invested in more than 100 European innovation-rich companies representing a total turnover of EUR6 billion and 40,000 employees. ALTO INVEST is fully approved by the French financial authorities (Autorite des Marches Financiers) and is an active member of the French Asset Management Association (Association Francaise de la Gestion Financiere). Contact: Antoine Valdes, [email protected], Benoit Thiedey, [email protected].

The post SpineVision Inks $10M appeared first on peHUB.

To an outsider, the Chinese language “seems to be as impenetrable as the Great Wall of China,” says ShaoLan Hsueh in today’s talk, given at TED2013. Hsueh’s mission over the past few years has been to break down that barrier, making reading and writing in Chinese accessible to people who didn’t grow up doing it.

ShaoLan: Learn to read Chinese … with ease!Her solution? A method she calls “Chineasy.” To achieve basic literacy, Hsueh says, you need only know 1,000 characters, and the top 200 allow you to comprehend 40 percent of basic literature. Chineasy involves pairing characters with facial expressions, body movements and images that conjure up words in English.

In her talk, Hsueh moves through eight foundational characters, describing mnemonic devices and showing artful depictions. “Open your mouth as wide as possible until it’s square,” she says. Are you doing it? Voila, the character for mouth: 口. Hsueh shows a graphic her team has designed of a person going for a walk, based on the character for person: 人. Fire is the character for person with what look like two arms waving, as if the person is engulfed in flames and yelling, “Help!”: 火. Hsueh also takes us through tree (木), mountain (山), sun (日), moon (月), and door (門), which “looks like a pair of saloon doors in the Wild West.”

These eight characters “are the building blocks for you to create lots more characters,” Hsueh explains. Using Chineasy’s simple, beautiful illustrations, it’s just a hop, skip and a jump to many other words and phrases. In this talk, Hsueh takes us through almost 30 characters; here, some more examples based on those foundational eight.

1. In her talk, Hsueh shows the Chinese character for person, 人, which looks like a person strolling along. Multiply by two, and you’ve got the character for everyone:
   .
2. In her talk, Hsueh shows us how combining fire (火) and mountain (山) gives us a volcano (火山). What happens when we add a mouth (口) to a volcano? Think about it: the mouth of a volcano is … a crater!
   .
3. Hsueh shows us that the character for big (大) looks like a person (人) with her arms outstretched, as if to say, “Sooooo big!” Combine those two, and you get adult (大人):’
   .
4. Write two suns (日) side by side and you get the character for “bright”: 昍. On her Facebook page, Hsueh writes, “I promise you, this is a character that will impress your Chinese friends. This is such a rare character that 99 percent of Chinese native speakers/readers would struggle to tell you what it is, never mind how to pronounce it.”
   .
5. Here’s a really clever one that Hsueh brings up in her talk: the character for “to dodge” or “to avoid” is composed of a person (人) inside a door (門), as if the person is sneaking out! 閃 What she adds on her Facebook page is that this character has a second meaning, “flash.” As she explains, “this person is sneaking out at such speed that the shape of him dashing resembles a streak of light.”
   

 

It’s no secret that the NRA doesn’t agree with the gun legislation President Obama has endorsed in the wake of the Newtown school shooting in December. However, a political disagreement isn’t the same as a threat, even when the topic is gun rights. To prove this, the NRA has gone to great lengths to distance itself from a few of the more disturbing aspects of the U.S. gun culture.

This week, BuzzFeed is reporting that the NRA has asked Zombie Industries to remove a specific mannequin target from its booth at the NRA Annual Meeting last weekend. A booth-worker for the company told the publication that an NRA representative asked them to remove the mannequin because it looks too much like President Barack Obama.

Zombie Industries sells mannequin targets styled to look like zombies. The targets are life-sized and “bleed” pink goo when shot. The questionable mannequin is dubbed the “Rocky Zombie,” and does resemble the current U.S. president, despite being a bright shade of green.

Zombie Industries sells over a dozen different zombie mannequin target models, including a boar, a wolf, a kangaroo, a clown, a “nazi,” and a “terrorist” that greatly resembles Osama bin Laden.

The company’s zombies were featured last year in an episode of the Discovery Channel reality TV show Sons of Guns:

Zombie Industries has also posted some demonstration videos to YouTube:

(Image courtesy Zombie Industries)

CenturyLink, the nation’s third largest telco network is experiencing an outage of its broadband service nationwide, leaving its support systems overwhelmed and even causing its website to hit a few snags this morning. The company, which at last count has 5.8 million broadband subscribers, has no estimates yet on how long it will take to restore service.

A spokeswoman confirmed the outage, but had few details:

“We are currently experiencing a disruption with our Internet service. We are working with our vendors to restore service as soon as possible and apologize for any inconvenience this has caused our customers. We will continue to work towards resolution until all issues are resolved.”

Earlier this year in January, AT&T experienced a substantial service outage affecting thousands of its customers, and lasting for a few days. The culprit in that outage was a software update that affected some, but not all of AT&T’s 7.4 million U-verse subscribers.

While power outages, fiber cuts and even software updates can take out a subscriber’s broadband for a bit, nationwide outages are rare. Maybe tomorrow on its earnings call, CenturyLink will explain what happened to cause this one. Meanwhile, a mobile hotspot or event a project like the recently launched BRCK, would come in handy right now for CenturyLink’s subscribers.

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Regular readers know that I’m a sucker for good advertising. Audi’s “The Challenge” is classic, pitting the new and old Spocks (Leonard Nimoy and Zachary Quinto) against each other. Surely the geeks, especially old-timers like me, will appreciate the inside-Star Trek humor. If you’re a Trek fan of long vintage, the video is a treat.

I laughed when Nimoy started singing the Bilbo Baggins song. I actually owned that album in high school. William Shatner (aka James T. Kirk) and Nimoy both released records during the 1970s, when Star Trek was in syndication and before the series’ revival on TV and movie theater screens. Geeks and Trekkers, this commercial will be among the best two minutes forty-five seconds you’ll spend today.

Back in March, Facebook announced its alpha test for expanding real-time, cookie-based Facebook Exchange ads to the News Feed. Now, the company has announced that these ads have moved to beta.

Now, additional businesses can scale their FBX efforts from the right hand side of Facebook to more engaging territory. All qualified DSPs received beta access, and can now begin implementation.

“After a successful alpha with Nanigans, Mediamath, and Tellapart, desktop Page Post Link Ads are moving into beta on Facebook Exchange (FBX)- a solution for direct response campaigns where the targeting, conversion objective and measurement are outside of Facebook,” Facebook says.

“In this beta, DSPs can implement all types of campaigns, including those with product-specific creative, by creating Unpublished Page Posts and selecting the right one for the right user at the right time,” the company says.

Facebook is currently working on integrating the Facebook Exchange real-time dynamic creative functionality into the Link Page Post ad format, so stay tuned for that.

You can see Facebook’s list of Qualified DSPs here.

Vance Street Capital, a Los Angeles-based buyout shop, has acquired Smart Electronics & Assembly Inc. Based in Anaheim, Calif., Smart Electronics is a provider of electronic circuit boards, sub-assemblies, modules to the defense, commercial aerospace, industrial and homeland security markets. The deal is the first add-on acquisition for Secure Communication Systems. Terms of the deal were not released.

PRESS RELEASE
Vance Street Capital LLC, a Los Angeles-based private equity firm, announced today that its acquisition of Smart Electronics & Assembly, Inc. (Smart Electronics) closed on May 1, 2013. Smart Electronics is the first add-on acquisition for Secure Communication Systems, an innovator in rugged handheld and deployable computer systems and data encryption equipment, which Vance Street acquired in October 2009. Terms of the transaction were not disclosed.

Based in Anaheim, Calif., Smart Electronics is a provider of electronic solutions, including electronic circuit boards, sub-assemblies, cable/harnesses and modules/box builds to the defense, commercial aerospace, industrial and homeland security markets.

“The purchase of Smart Electronics provides both firms with a number of strategic advantages, including new cross-selling opportunities across a broader range of industries,” said Brian Martin, principal at Vance Street Capital.

“We are pleased to welcome Smart Electronics and its talented and dedicated employees to Secure Communication Systems,” said Allen Ronk, CEO of Secure Communication Systems. “The result of this transaction is a more diversified client base, and our complementary offerings provide both companies with new opportunities for growth.”

While Smart Electronics will become a division of Secure Communication Systems, its daily operations will remain unchanged.

“We look forward to partnering with Vance Street Capital as we join Secure Communication Systems,” said Smart Electronics’ President Robert Swelgin. “Smart Electronics and Secure Communication Systems share a long history of innovation and an unwavering commitment to building long-term customer relationships by delivering quality products and outstanding service. Together we are even better positioned to meet customer demand for speed, reliability and security across defense and commercial industries.”

Fifth Third Bank provided debt financing for the transaction. O’Melveny & Myers LLP acted as legal advisor to Vance Street Capital and Secure Communication Systems in the transaction. Smart Electronics was represented by Arent Fox.

About Smart Electronics & Assembly, Inc.

Smart Electronics & Assembly, Inc. is a leading developer and provider of electro-mechanical solutions for high reliability applications in the defense, commercial aerospace and industrial markets. The company’s four main product categories include electronic circuit boards, sub-assemblies, cable/harnesses and modules/box builds. In addition to providing electronics solutions to the defense and aviation end markets, the company also offers exclusive function testing, prototype, quick turn and production run capabilities. Smart Electronics was founded in 1994 and is based in Anaheim, CA. For more information please visit: http://www.smartelec.com/.

About Secure Communication Systems

Secure Communication Systems designs and manufactures high reliability tactical mission computing systems, encryption equipment, communications products and related equipment for defense and industrial applications. The company offers handhelds, rugged tablet PCs, workstations and servers, routers, accessories, translators, tactical displays, and ultra-mobile PCs for various branches of the military as well as for civilian applications. The company was founded in 1986 and is based in Santa Ana, CA. For more information please visit: http://www.securecomm.com.

About Vance Street Capital

Vance Street Capital is a Los Angeles-based private equity firm that makes control investments in companies with enterprise values up to $200 million. Preferred industries include precision industrial manufacturing, aerospace and defense, medical components and devices, and business services. For over two decades, Vance Street’s partners have worked with management, family owners and other co-investors to accelerate revenue growth, improve operations and acquire strategic assets for the companies in their investment portfolio.

The post Vance Street Capital Snaps Up Smart Electric & Assembly appeared first on peHUB.

A woman in California made the best mistake of her life last week when she accidentally put too much money into a lotto ticket machine.

Thuan Le, a single mom of four boys, meant to buy five dollars worth of lottery tickets at her local CVS Pharmacy–as she does every week–and accidentally put in six dollars. When she realized her mistake, she used the extra dollar to buy a SuperLotto Plus ticket. The next day, she was a millionaire several times over.

The winning ticket paid out $14 million. Le’s family said she screamed when she realized she had the winning numbers and immediately drove to the lottery office to claim her prize. She says she plans to travel with some of the money.

Back in February, a story out of Arkansas went viral when one couple won big in their local lotto over the weekend, then picked up more tickets on a whim and ending up winning big again.

Lotto wins have been big in the news since last year, when Mega Millions began announcing astronomical payouts.

YouTube popularity is an incredibly fickle thing. A video can be incredibly popular for a day, and then be buried into obscurity the next. To further help chart this ebb and flow, YouTube has launched a new trend measurement tool.

YouTube announced today that it has completed work on a Trends Map. As the name suggests, the map tracks video popularity by gender, age, geographic location and by the number of views or shares. Such a tool sounds incredibly interesting, but looking into it makes you realize that almost everybody is watching the same videos.

Looking at both genders among all ages, the video with the most amount of shares is the True Blood season 6 trailer:

The above trailer dominates shares among pretty much every demographic except for the 13-17 age range. Even then, only males are turning their gaze towards the following clip from Family Guy:

Moving over to views tells a different story altogether. By far, the most popular video across the country at the moment is the aftermath of a water polo match that went viral over the weekend:

Once again, gender has played a role in popularity as women are drawn more to the following video from a child abuse prevention group and its new ad:

The YouTube Trends Map is pretty fascinating, and it could be a useful tool for those looking to jump on board the next viral hit before it really takes off.

YouTube notes that the Trends Map is currently only available in the U.S., but it sounds like it will be adding support for other countries in the future.

See if this scenario sounds familiar: A longtime Apple manufacturing partner looks to move away from its dependence on the company and focus more on creating its own products that it can sell at higher margins. While this has certainly been the story of Samsung’s success over the past couple of years, a new report from The New York Times suggests that iPhone manufacturer Foxconn may be drawing up a similar path for itself by designing and manufacturing its own brand of televisions while also inching itself away from depending on Apple as its major source of income.

Continue reading…

With over 600,000 Wi-Fi hotspots, Boingo Wireless has connectivity available all around the world. Signing up for a new Boingo account is relatively painless but when you need Wi-Fi in a hurry, who wants to waste time jumping through registration hoops? Folks with an iOS device don’t have to any longer: Boingo now supports iTunes payments for its services.

The special iTunes plan costs $7.99 per month and is available directly through the Boingo Wi-Finder app for iOS. The software also includes a VPN service. By using the iTunes in-app purchase, users can immediately get a Wi-Fi subscription for their iPod touch, iPad or iPhone. The subscription is an auto-renewal, however: if you don’t want to continue it on a monthly basis, you’ll have to cancel it.

This is a clever move by Boingo to make it easier for paid Wi-Fi access. There are two things I’d like to see in the future though. First, offer an in-app purchase for other Boingo plans, such as an hourly or daily basis. Currently, the company does offer Boingo Credits, which provide an hour of Wi-Fi access for $1.99, for example. Second, why not extend the same simple in-app purchase on Android through Google Wallet?

Either way, potential Boingo customers using iOS devices now have one less barrier to get connectivity in airports, shopping malls, restaurants, universities and other locations around the world.

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Even if you’re not the biggest Windows Phone enthusiast I’m quite sure you have heard or read about the alleged Lumia 928 that Nokia is to unveil sometime soon. I will not bore you with the rumored specs, release date or carrier on which the device is assumed to surface, but can confirm that the Lumia 928 is definitely real.

The Finnish maker, likely to keep the rumors flowing, released a picture showcasing a device referred to as “the newest Nokia Lumia” smartphone. There is no reference of the name in the photo, but the link address clearly says Lumia 928.

The Lumia 928 appears to embody a different design to that of the Lumia 920. The screen is positioned further down the front panel, the Nokia logo is on the left instead of on the right and there is no noticeable camera button on the right side of the device. That last bit may be down to some Photoshopping, as Nokia devices will not likely ditch the camera shutter anytime soon.

There is also a silver-colored frame surrounding the Lumia 928 (with the physical buttons of the same color), which may indicate that Nokia will go with an aluminum body this time around, instead of the polycarbonate used in the Lumia 920. Other visible details include the front-facing camera and nearby sensor, the speaker grill and the three capacitive buttons (back, home and search), none of which is actually surprising.

There are no telltale signs that indicate any other specifications whatsoever. The photo features the Windows Phone logo in the bottom-right side, but makes no mention of the actual version that the Lumia 928 will sport.

There is also a “Capture The Highlights” motto in the bottom-left side, which judging by the magazine ad from Vanity Fair, implies the use of the PureView technology as the picture captured with the Lumia 928 is brighter than the surroundings appear to be. The printed ad also reveals that the smartphone will be available on Verizon.

There’s been a whole lot of speculation on whether the HTC One will ever come to Verizon lately. Back in March, we reported on a device coming to Verizon that had some leaked specs which were similar to the One. Since then, it seems more plausible that this phone is more likely a follow up to Verizon’s HTC Droid DNA, possibly the DNA+.

HTC’s Twitter account also caused some controversy when it deleted a tweet announcing that the One would not be released to Verizon. HTC’s director of public relations, Tom Harlin, mentioned on a Q&A session on Yahoo! this morning that when they announce their next phone coming to Verizon, they’ll be sure to make a big deal out of it. Here’s how Harlin responded to the question at hand:

“There are tons of rumors online but we haven’t made any official announcement about HTC One coming to Verizon. The DROID DNA continues to be the HTC hero smartphone at Verizon. It launched in late 2012, it’s features still compete with products in 2013. When we announce our next product with Verizon, we’ll make a big deal about it so you’re all aware”.

So there you have it everyone. There is no HTC One coming to Verizon.

via: Droid Life
Source: Yahoo! News

Come comment on this article: HTC One to Big Red unlikely, plans to make big deal out of next Verizon phone

FTBpro, a London-based fan-generated media platform for online football, has raised $5.8 million in financing from Battery Ventures and Gemini Israel Ventures. The company is focused on football fans, and provides daily articles in English, Spanish, German and Italian.

PRESS RELEASE
FTBpro, the largest fan-generated media platform in online football, has secured $5.8 million financing from Battery Ventures and Gemini Israel Ventures, as the new media company continues to expand into key geographical markets.

Serving avid football fan communities in all major football leagues worldwide, FTBpro delivers 20 million pageviews every month. The unique platform is driven by 1,000 regular contributors, generating over 200 daily articles in English, Spanish, German and Italian.

FTBpro enables fans to contribute, participate, write and share their views with millions of fellow football fans. Content popularity is determined by readers who rank articles, and by FTBpro’s editors who further promote the highest quality writing, topics and opinions.

The platform also includes innovative content creation tools, allowing contributors as well as media partners to utilize FTBpro’s proprietary templates to create dynamic interactive content which incorporates many features such as match predictions, videos, imagery slideshows, team line-ups, player rankings and much more.

Asaf Peled, founder and CEO of FTBpro, said; “Our mission, via the FTBpro platform, is to enable every football fan the ability to express their views and passions in a seamless, widespread and professional manner, using the market’s most advanced content generation tools and distribution. The versatile and interactive content adds a cutting edge, rich and complementing dimension to the experience available to football fans.”

The post FTBpro Inks $5.8M for Online Football appeared first on peHUB.

 

Are you in the market for a mid-range smartphone, but don’t want to deal with crummy contracts and would rather get a new phone outright? If yes— then you’ll be happy at this tidbit of news as Sony has officially listed its unlocked Xperia SP smartphone on its website as available for pre-order. The modest device features a zippy Snapdragon dual-core processor, a 4.6-inch 720p HD Reality Display, 8MP camera and an expandable microSD slot. Additionally, the device will come equipped with a nice assortment of various cellular radios, so it will more than certainly be Ma Bell or Magenta-friendly. Not too shabby indeed.

The device will run customers a cool $489.99 and will start shipping devices sometime later this week. You can find more details once you hit the source link.

source: Sony Store

Come comment on this article: Sony officially lists its Xperia SP smartphone on its website as available for pre-order

Google quietly announced a new file-sharing feature for Google Drive. When you’re using Google Drive on a Mac or PC, you can now share with a right click from the Google Drive folder.

Google said in a brief update on its Google Drive Google+ page, “For those looking to share files more quickly, listen up. You can now share with others directly from the Google Drive folder on your Mac or PC. To share a file while inside your Google Drive folder, simply right click the file, select ‘Google Drive’ and then click ‘Share.’ This new feature is rolling out over the next few days.”

Google has made Drive a lot more helpful to users in recent months. One of the greatest examples of this is the addition of files to regular web search results pages (if you’re in the pilot program).

In February, Google added a file preview feature to Google Drive. We’ve also seen indications that Google Drive will get Gmail attachments.

If you’re a developer looking to learn how to make searchable Google Drive files, watch this video.

Some lawmakers in Colorado want to increase the cost of electricity for all Coloradoans, especially those in rural areas. Awaiting Gov. John Hickenlooper’s signature, SB 252 would require rural electric cooperatives to dramatically increase the amount of electricity generated from …

DeMet’s Candy, a company backed by private equity fund Brynwood Partners V L.P., has sold the TrueNorth brand to B&G Foods. Terms were not disclosed. The deal closed on May 6.

PRESS RELEASE
Brynwood Partners V L.P. announced today that its portfolio company, DeMet’s Candy Company, has sold the TrueNorth® brand and selected assets to B&G Foods, Inc. Terms and conditions of the transaction, which closed yesterday, were not disclosed.
TrueNorth is a leader in the better-for-you snack category. TrueNorth is a nationally distributed premium snack nut brand that DeMet’s acquired from Frito-Lay North America, a division of PepsiCo, Inc., in 2010. Under its ownership, DeMet’s introduced new TrueNorth flavor varieties to leading customers in the club, mass and food retail channels.
“The divestiture of the TrueNorth brand allows DeMet’s to focus on its core confectionary products including Turtles chocolate-caramel nut clusters, Flipz chocolate covered pretzels and Treasures filled chocolates,” said Peter Wilson, Vice Chairman of DeMet’s.
“We are pleased to announce the divestiture of TrueNorth,” said Hendrik J. Hartong III, Chairman, DeMet’s and Senior Managing Partner, Brynwood Partners. “We wish B&G Foods much success with this terrific brand. It has been a pleasure working with the B&G Foods team and we are excited to have completed our first transaction with them.”
Houlihan Lokey Capital, Inc. served as the investment banking advisor to DeMet’s.
About Brynwood Partners:
Founded in 1984 and headquartered in Greenwich, CT, Brynwood Partners is an operationally-focused private equity fund that makes control investments in lower middle market companies. Brynwood Partners targets companies operating in the consumer sector where it can leverage the operational expertise of its managing partners to create shareholder value.
Brynwood Partners is currently managing over $500 million of private equity capital for its limited partners who include U.S. and international pension funds, fund-of-funds, endowments, high net worth family investment offices and financial institutions. For more information on Brynwood Partners, please visit www.brynwoodpartners.com.
About DeMet’s Candy Company:
Formed in 2007 and majority owned by Brynwood Partners V L.P., DeMet’s is a leading manufacturer and marketer of chocolate confectionary products including Turtles, Flipz and Treasures. Headquartered in Stamford, CT, the company owns manufacturing facilities in Big Flats, NY and Mohnton, PA.

The post PE-Backed DeMet’s Candy Sells TrueNorth appeared first on peHUB.

In an effort to support its dying brand, AOL announced a content distribution partnership with Verizon which has some implications for Big Red smartphones and tablets running Android, Windows, or RIM operating systems. This summer, AOL will officially become the exclusive provider of the VZW Home mobile web portal, and all Verizon customers will have the AOL homepage bookmarked on their smartphone and tablet browsers. Users will be able to personalize news, weather, and other categories and tools on the AOL homepage. Anyone think this is a bit intrusive, or do you like the move by Verizon?

Check out the presser after the break.

AOL to Offer Exclusive Mobile Web Portal to Verizon’s Smartphone Customers

NEW YORK–(BUSINESS WIRE)–AOL (NYSE: AOL) announced today a content distribution partnership that will bring the AOL.com portal to Verizon Wireless smartphones and certain tablets running the Android, Windows Mobile and RIM operating systems. It is the first time that AOL will be the exclusive provider of the VZW Home mobile web portal on smartphones and tablets for the nation’s largest wireless carrier.

Beginning this summer, existing and new Verizon Wireless customers will have the AOL portal bookmarked on their smart phones and tablets’ web browsers. The multi-device experience will feature the recently refreshed AOL homepage — with breaking news, weather and maps — as well as live streaming events and popular videos. Personalization features will allow users to customize news sources, categories and other tools to their needs.

“We are always looking to reimagine how AOL delivers high quality content across multiple devices,” says Chris Grosso, General Manager of AOL Homepages. “This arrangement with an industry leader — Verizon Wireless — helps us deliver digital experiences, at scale, to millions of consumers in innovative ways.”

About AOL

AOL Inc. (NYSE: AOL) is a brand company, committed to continuously innovating, growing, and investing in brands and experiences that inform, entertain, and connect the world. The home of a world-class collection of premium brands, AOL creates original content that engages audiences on a local and global scale. We help marketers connect with these audiences through effective and engaging digital advertising solutions.

Come comment on this article: AOL announces content distribution partnership with Verizon, taking over browsers everywhere