Category: News

San Francisco-based crowdfunding startup CircleUp has closed on $7.5 millionin Series A financing. With the new funding, CircleUp plans to hire engineers and designers to continue to build its technology. Union Square Ventures led the round. Google Ventures and existing seed round investors Rose Park Advisors and Maveron also participated. Andy Weissman, managing partner at Union Square Ventures, will join CircleUp’s board. David Krane, general partner at Google Ventures, will become a board observer.

PRESS RELEASE
CircleUp (www.circleup.com), a leading equity-based crowdfunding platform, announced today it has closed a $7.5 million Series A financing, the largest raise for an equity-based crowdfunding site. With the new funding, CircleUp plans to hire engineers and designers to build out the technology to serve more independent investors and small businesses.

Union Square Ventures, whose portfolio companies include Twitter, Kickstarter, Lending Club, CodeAcademy and Etsy among others, led the round. Google Ventures and existing seed round investors Rose Park Advisors, a firm led by disruptive technology innovator Clayton Christensen, Maveron, and financial services veteran David Topper also participated in the Series A round. Andy Weissman, Managing Partner at Union Square Ventures will join CircleUp’s Board of Directors and David Krane, General Partner at Google Ventures will become a board observer.

“CircleUp helps exceptional consumer and retail brands find the capital they need to grow from our private network of strategic investors,” said Ryan Caldbeck, CEO and co-founder of CircleUp. “The combination of Union Square’s incredible marketplace experience, and Google Ventures’ amazing operating team, will enable us to serve more customers and continue to hire exceptional talent to improve the transparency of private capital markets.”

Since its launch in April of last year, CircleUp has helped consumer companies from Connecticut to California raise more than $10 million. These companies are able to raise more than just capital on the platform; they also find business partners with experience in their industry through CircleUp’s partnerships with world class consumer companies which include Procter & Gamble and General Mills.

“Raising capital for non-tech companies is a huge challenge, and incredibly inefficient,” said Andy Weissman, Managing Partner, Union Square Ventures. “Early-stage consumer and retail, CircleUp’s focus, is where innovation happens in that industry but the space also suffers from a dearth of capital from traditional resources. CircleUp is transforming early-stage investing and enabling talented entrepreneurs to get the funding they deserve from passionate investors. We have a long history of helping to develop many successful marketplaces, and CircleUp shares the key characteristics with the very best. By improving information flow and market transparency, CircleUp helps investors make better decisions and businesses raise capital more efficiently, bringing an entire industry into the 21st century.”

“CircleUp is a classic disruptive innovation, elegantly simplifying the complex process of financing high growth small businesses and thereby expanding the addressable market by bringing capital to great non-tech companies that have historically struggled to get efficient access to it,” said Rose Park Advisors Managing Director Matt Christensen, who also led CircleUp’s Seed Round in 2012.

“In a short time, the team at CircleUp has built a product that, through their data and technology, is a better experience for users than raising money in the offline world could ever be,” said David Krane, General Partner at Google Ventures. “In addition, CircleUp is seeing classic network effects as more users join. By developing unique data on the private capital market, CircleUp can make the user experience on both sides even better.”

CircleUp’s success is driven by a team that includes investment professionals with deep background in consumer private equity; exclusive market focus on consumer products and retail and a regulatory approach that lets them help outstanding small businesses today, ahead of the JOBS Act implementation.

About CircleUp
CircleUp is a leading equity-based crowdfunding platform where accredited investors find free access to select private investments, easy tools to identify and diligence companies, and online transaction capability to make investments. For retail and consumer product entrepreneurs, CircleUp offers an efficient way to access a network of sophisticated investors as well as value added partners. For more information, visit http://circleup.com/ or https://circleup.com/jobs/ and send resumes to [email protected].

About Union Square Ventures
Union Square Ventures is one of the leading venture capital firms investing in Internet and Mobile Internet businesses. Located in New York, Union Square Ventures backs passionate, experienced entrepreneurs who are focused on creating highly scalable services and significant value propositions for their end users. Over the past 7 years, Union Square Ventures has been directly involved in the development of 40 companies and, through its principals’ prior firms, has participated in the launch of over 120 companies. For more information, visit www.usv.com.

About Google Ventures
Google Ventures provides seed, venture and growth stage funding to the most innovative and promising entrepreneurs across a variety of industries. Founded in 2009, Google Ventures has extensive entrepreneurial experience, deep technical knowledge, and expertise in building high growth, scalable products and companies. Among its 160+ investments are Nest, DocuSign, and Foundation Medicine. Google Ventures is headquartered in Mountain View, Calif., with offices in Boston, New York and Seattle. For more information, please visit www.googleventures.com.

About Rose Park
Rose Park Advisors, LLC (RPA), based in Boston, MA, is a specialized investment firm focused on identifying investment opportunities by applying the framework of disruptive innovation. The firm was founded in 2007 by Matt Christensen, and Harvard Business School’s Clayton Christensen, the NY Times bestselling author of The Innovator’s Dilemma, and architect of the framework of disruptive innovation.

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Former Atlanta Braves outfielder Otis Nixon was caught with a crack pipe and crack rock during a traffic stop near Atlanta on Saturday.

According to an Atlanta Journal-Constitution report on the arrest, Nixon told police that the crack cocaine found in his truck did not belong to him, and that the pipe belonged to his son. Another crack pipe was found following a search of the truck.

Nixon was reportedly transporting a female passenger at the time of the arrest. Police subjected Nixon to field sobriety tests, and noted that the former MLB player did not appear to be high or drunk. According to the Journal-Constitution report, Nixon has now been charged with cocaine and paraphernalia possession.

Nixon had a 16-year career in the Major Leagues. He first appeared with the Yankees in 1983, but played for many teams during his career, including the Cleveland Indians, the Montreal Expos, the Boston Red Sox, the Texas Rangers, the Toronto Blue Jays, the Los Angeles Dodgers, and the Minnesota Twins. He ended his career in 1999 with the Atlanta Braves, where he had also played from 1991 to 1993.

Nixon has had a history of drug abuse. He was arrested on drug charges in 1987 and sent to rehab. In 1991, Nixon missed the World Series due to failing a drug test for cocaine.

High-speed Wi-Fi specialist Quantenna Communications has found a willing advocate for its new Wi-Fi superchip technology. Semiconductor giant STMicroelectronics has signed a licensing agreement with Quantenna to incorporate its multi-gigabit 802.11ac designs into future chips. The companies said the first products from the collaboration would come out next year.

While multiple 802.11ac devices and routers have recently hit the market, Quantenna is delving deeper into the 802.11ac standard, using multiple input-multiple output (MIMO) smart antennas to deliver four parallel streams of data over the same frequencies while aggregating both the 2.4 GHz and 5 GHz Wi-Fi frequencies to create connections as fast as 2 Gbps.

The company already sells its 802.11n chips to router makers like Netgear, but the deal with STMicro could expose its technology to a broader range of devices beyond home and business wireless routers. STMicro sells processors and communications chips to the many industries including automotive, entertainment and security markets. Through its joint venture with Ericsson, it also makes integrated silicon for mobile handsets.

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To help figure out how well they might do in a particular class, college students can turn to faculty-ranking websites, school surveys and their peers. But a new tool from Canadian ed tech company Desire2Learn aims to predict students’ success based not on the experiences of others but on their own past performance.

The company’s analytics engine also helps instructors and students for the duration of a course, warning instructors when students are falling behind on key concepts and offering insights that could help them keep up. “It provides deeper insights to teachers on how to achieve better outcomes, what’s working and what’s not working,” said Desire2Learn CEO John Baker.

Based in Waterloo, Canada, Desire2Learn offers a learning management system for colleges that’s competitive with Blackboard and says more than 10 million students in higher education use its technology. Its new analytics product, which the company calls its Student Success System, builds on technology the company acquired earlier this year in the purchase of DegreeCompass, a course recommendation engine developed at Austin Peay State University.

As students progress through a course and interact with Desire2Learn – by digitally reviewing course materials, submitting homework assignments, communicating with classmates and completing tests and quizzes – the system’s algorithms continuously analyze each student’s personal collection of education data.

Instead of just giving the teacher a dashboard showing students’ grades and completed assignments, it looks across all of the material to isolate the areas in which each student is faltering, suggests pathways for student improvement and predicts their grade at the end of the course.

Before beginning a course, students who have completed one semester can use the tool to predict how they might fare in that course – and Desire2Learn says it’s 90 percent accurate at predicting the letter grade.

The new tool is part of a larger push in education to use data to improve student outcomes. CourseSmart, technology supported by McGraw-Hill, Pearson and other publishers that allows professors to track students’ progress with digital textbooks, similarly gives instructors a steady stream of data showing student engagement and performance (although it doesn’t make predictions). But while some educators are ready to embrace a data-driven approach to education, others feel like it smacks too much of Big Brother, and that could be a potential challenge the adoption of products like this.

Image by Vixit via Shutterstock.

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Enterasys Networks, a Siemens Enterprise Communications Company,  introduced OneFabric Connect SDN, a software defined networking (SDN) solution that integrates with a community of partner offerings. The solution focuses on new services innovation through an open API and unique flow-based ASIC architecture which accelerates application integration for the entire network.

The SDN component builds upon the OneFabric Connect offering that was launched earlier this year. Several partners have been integrated into the OneFabric Connect Central developer community, including not only data center solutions but also applications at the network edge and access, such as MDM, web filtering and Unified Communications.

“Our customers today are tasked with finding solutions to combat the rapid rate at which network usage and complexity is increasing,” said Markus Nispel, Chief Technology Strategist, Enterasys Networks. ”OneFabric Connect SDN builds upon Enterasys’ heritage of providing flexibility in the network that solves our customer’s problems. Through OneFabric Connect SDN, IT is able to create a dynamic and agile network infrastructure that’s aimed at the deployment of new services through common APIs. As a result, our customers get the increased network reliability, simplicity and security they are seeking that extends far beyond the data center.”

“ESG research indicates that organizations need SDN solutions to help them overcome problems like reducing or eliminating manual processes and accelerating application roll outs,” said Bob Laliberte, Senior Analyst, Enterprise Strategy Group. ”The Enterasys approach to SDN combines the scalability and simplicity of their OneFabric architecture with a technology partner ecosystem via open APIs to deliver a broad range of network service solutions to their customers.”

Speaking at the recent Global Philanthropy Forum, Toyin Saraki — founder and president of the WellBeing Foundation Africa — articulated her evolving approach to giving. Whereas her Nigerian parents tended to give indiscriminately to poor people, with religion as the driving motivator, Saraki has embraced a more structured, purpose-driven approach to giving. “I didn’t take it up from the point of giving money,” Saraki explained. “I took it up from data. Facts.”

Saraki’s approach is emblematic of a growing trend of impact-focused investors that are emerging from developing countries, where economic growth is on the rise. Between 2002-2013, emerging market and developing economies averaged a 6.5% growth in GDP. This economic growth has not only led to the development of a burgeoning middle-class in these markets, it has fueled an increase in the number of citizens actively engaging in philanthropy.

But the growth — while rapid — has not been broad-based. Emerging philanthropists in developing countries are eager to address the unmet needs in their own regions and then have the benefits shared more broadly. They are not afraid to speak out either and many have taken on an advocacy approach.

In a recent interview Jane Wales, president and CEO of the Global Philanthropy Forum, argued that emerging philanthropists are acting more like investors than traditional philanthropists. As a younger, more tech-savvy group that is closely connected to their communities’ problems, emerging philanthropists are making smart, data-driven investments in both nonprofits and socially-driven SMEs. In some ways, they resemble Silicon Valley venture capitalists. New philanthropists are using their capital in very specific ways to implement their plans; in a similar way they did in the world of technology or business. Wales continued, “As wealth is created and capacity is built, indigenous philanthropists are emerging, dedicated to promoting inclusive development in their countries and on their continents. The digital and social revolution allows them, and us, to target philanthropic interventions with greater precision. ”

For example, Vox Capital — founded in Brazil in 2008 by three young social entrepreneurs — invests in innovative, high-potential businesses that serve low-income populations and contribute to the reduction of poverty. In a recent interview, co-founder Daniel Izzo spoke about the growing interest in impact investing in Brazil: “People are getting ever more frustrated with the current state of affairs and with the traditional answers to trying to solve poverty.” Vox uses IRIS (Impact Reporting and Investment Standards) and GIIRS (Global Impact Investment Rating System) to measure the impact of its portfolio companies, signaling the organization’s focus on data and metrics.

The philanthropic investment is one that has a deeply personal return for this new generation of donors, which leads to more effective outcomes. Tsitsi Masiyiwa of Zimbabwe, Executive Chairperson of the Higher Life Foundation, spoke about her philanthropic approach during the Global Philanthropy Forum, emphasizing the importance of focusing on returns. But in the case of her foundation, “The return is not financial — it’s the positive social change.”

Many of these emerging philanthropists emphasize the value of sharing the benefits of economic growth more widely. James Mwangi, CEO and managing director of the Equity Bank and chairman of the Equity Group Foundation, is focused on driving African development and creating opportunities for prosperity. For example, the Foundation’s financial literacy program, known as FiKA (Financial Knowledge for Africa), equips women and youth with financial management skills and knowledge — tools that ultimately transform their lives. So far, over 240,000 trainees have graduated the FiKA program. At the Global Philanthropy Forum, Mwangi emphasized the importance of a thriving middle class: “By unlocking the value of the majority market, we are making it good for everybody, including ourselves.”

Izzo spoke similarly about the economic climate in Brazil: “If the economic growth does not include developing business solutions to the whole population, there will not be long term economic growth.” CDI Lan, one of the organizations in Vox’s portfolio, runs a network of internet cafes in Brazilian low income communities that offer solutions focused on financial services and e-learning.

With more and more philanthropists emerging from developing countries, there is an increased focus on promoting collaboration. In Latin America, the abc* Foundation formed in 2008 to strengthen the culture of philanthropic engagement in the region. abc* arranges events for leaders, businesspeople, and the impact community to brainstorm about the region’s pressing challenges and share best practices. This November, abc*’s signature Continuity Forum will focus on the future of social and economic innovation, the environment, entrepreneurship, politics and education.

Similarly, the just-announced African Philanthropy Forum will serve to provide a space for the nascent community of philanthropists to exchange ideas, models, and best practices. Tony O. Elumelu, CON, a leading African entrepreneur and founder of the Tony Elumelu Foundation, explained the impetus thusly: “Africans are now setting their own development agenda, and the vision behind the African Philanthropy Forum is to create a platform that aligns our collective efforts to transform the continent from within.

Emerging philanthropists in the developing world are embracing effective, impact-driven strategies to help their communities address social problems and grow the middle class. The budding philanthropic communities in Africa and Latin America are growing in strength and influence — and they are poised to develop further in coming years.

Mother’s Day is quickly approaching. Do you have all the preparations ready to celebrate the most important woman in your life? If not, Google’s got your back.

Google announced today that it has launched a special Mother’s Day page to help sons and daughters everywhere plan an extra special day for their mothers. The page includes a gift guide (with the obligatory link to Google Offers), a guide to local florists, and an offer to send a tech care package to help your technologically deficient mother get on the Internet so you can chat it up in a Google+ hangout.

While it may reek of corporate shilling, Google is onto something here. You really should get your mother something nice on Sunday. That something nice can be as simple as a phone call (or a Google+ hangout) to tell her how much you really appreciate her.

If you want to get more creative than a phone call or a hug, however, Google will be hosting a number of events this week to share some ideas. The first will be an AskMen sponsored Google+ hangout with the editors of Parenting.com. They will be suggesting “creative ideas” to make this Mother’s Day “a day your mom won’t forget.” Google has also set up a Mother’s Day Guide Google+ community for people to share ideas and stories with each other.

In April of this year the British Library along with libraries in Scotland, Wales and Dublin gained powers to archive the whole of the UK Web for future generations of researchers. To mark the introduction of these regulations the library today announced a list of 100 sites it says will be essential reading for future generations.

Lucy Burgess, Head of Content Strategy for the British Library says that the project aims to collect about a petabyte of data over the next decade. “We want to paint a diverse picture of what life in the UK today is like, for our great grandchildren and for future generations of researchers so they can understand how we lived, how we worked and how we felt. We’re talking about our culture and our digital heritage here and that’s what we exist to preserve”.

Compiled by a panel of curators and experts, the list includes sites you might expect such as eBay, Twitter, Facebook, the national Health Service and the BBC along with the Meteorological Office (who said we Brits are obsessed by the weather?) and the Visit Britain tourism pages.

The inclusion of the Beer in the Evening site reinforces another national stereotype and the fact that retailers Amazon and Argos are on the list underlines that there’s still some truth in Napoleon Bonaparte’s line about a nation of shopkeepers — or at least of shoppers.

Our strange obsessions get aired too with the appearance of the Unst Bus Shelter site charting the history of a bus shelter on a remote Scottish island. Drab day-to-day details of the capital are captured on the crowd-sourced Sh*t London site, which encourages people to share random oddments of city life. There are also sites capturing street art and murals plus community blogs giving an insight into everyday British life.

To prove that we’re not so obsessed with the Web that we’ve forgotten how to laugh at ourselves the list includes the Beano comic, the British Cartoon Archive and McGonagall Online, a site dedicated to the man widely touted as the worst poet in the English language.

The library is keen to stimulate debate and find out what other UK sites people would like to see included. You can join in on the 100 Websites page or by using the #digitaluniverse tag on Twitter.

Photo Credit: Anne Burgess

A statistical analysis of Google’s track record has found that more than one out of every three services Google launches ends up being shut down. Gwern.net recently published an extensive analysis of Google’s launches over the years in an effort to find closure patterns and maybe even predict which current and new services might be shuttered in the future. In doing so, the site found that a sizable chunk of Google’s product portfolio — 35% — has been shut down over the years.

Continue reading…

When Twitter cofounders Evan Williams and Biz Stone launched Medium last year, their goal was for it to be a collaborative publishing tool that connected writers to a larger network. But that vision also hinges on quality, curation and, in some ways, a higher barrier to entry than platforms like Twitter.

“We’re going to be a great place for professional writers to write,” Williams told Wired senior writer Steven Levy at the Wired Business Conference in New York on Tuesday. “The magazine is the analog for what we’re doing.”

Williams noted that he doesn’t think professional writers will be the majority of Medium’s users — “we’re going to be a great place for everyone” — and that he wants to be “careful” about using the word “quality,” since “Medium is actually easier than blogging if you want to write something short.” Nonetheless, Medium is still not open to everybody. The site has five editors who are working to “get great content on the system and help curate what’s there,” and Medium is paying some writers.

Medium recently acquired the Kickstarter-backed journalism startup Matter (cofounded by former GigaOM writer Bobbie Johnson), which publishes long-form science and technology stories, and Williams said that Matter will be a home to other long-form stories as well. “We’re not focused on news,” he said. “We’re focused on ideas and stories that have a longer shelf life, [whether it’s] short opinion pieces or long-form investigative journalism. We want that to thrive.”

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Samsung has been killing it in terms of mobile market share, but Apple still leads the way when it comes to profitability. Actually, when you really look at it, Apple and Samsung are the only companies actually making a profit from mobile according to Canaccord Genuity. For the first quarter 2013, Apple took in 57% ($8.03 billion) of the total profits made from mobile, while Samsung came in second with 43% ($6.02 billion). If you’re doing the math, you will notice that the total combined is 100%, which ironically is down from 101% for the 4th quarter 2012. The rest of the manufacturers either broke even, had losses, or very small profits.

The fact that Samsung and Apple are controlling the profits is just part of the story. Countless market share reports have shown Samsung to be winning in terms of units sold, but so far it isn’t translating into pure profit. If you look at the trend though, Samsung is poised to take the lead soon. Looking back at the 4th quarter 2012, Apple led the way with 72% ($12.26 billion) of the profits and Samsung came in second with 29% ($5.03 billion). In looking at quarter vs quarter, Apple dropped 15% while Samsung went up 14%.  Samsung still has a ways to go, but there is no reason to believe Samsung’s growth is going to slow down anytime soon. The fact that the Galaxy S 4 was approved by the U.S. Department of Defense is just another indicator that they are moving full steam ahead.

source: Barrons

Come comment on this article: Samsung wins in mobile market share, but Apple wins in profits

The biggest and most important client of Taiwanese manufacturing giant Foxconn is Apple, and its ability to manufacture the iPhone and iPad has made it indispensable to the California company. As Apple’s fortunes have risen, so have Foxconn’s. But according to the New York Times, as Apple’s growth has slowed a bit, Foxconn has begun planning for a future “far, far beyond Apple.”

Time for Apple investors to panic? Not quite.

Foxconn, the story says, “wants to reduce its reliance on Apple. Its new strategy is a shift away from making products that other companies design, and toward developing products of its own, with an especially aggressive push into designing and manufacturing large, flat-screen televisions.” The idea is that Foxconn would be its own brand, not just the maker of products behind others’ brands. To do that, it’s invested in Sharp’s flat panel display factory and partnered with RadioShack (in China) and Vizio to sell its TVs.

But reading further, it becomes clear that it’s not quite that Foxconn is looking for ways to reduce its dependence on Apple; it’s really looking for ways to rely less on the iPhone.

The analysts quoted in the story believe that what Foxconn is up to by improving its ability to manufacture TVs quickly and cheaply is anticipating a move Apple may make. From the article:

Analysts say Mr. Gou’s efforts to buy an LCD factory and vertically integrate his television manufacturing represent anticipation that orders for an Apple television product will come his way.

In other words, Foxconn wants to produce the long-rumored Apple TV.  That’s not a bad idea either: one day Apple is going to have to move past the iPhone too, or at least augment its hardware lineup in other ways.  That may include wearable computing devices, a TV or something else entirely. Either way, Foxconn wants to be ready for whatever that next move is.

So Foxconn doesn’t actually appear to be looking to extricate itself from Apple; rather it’s looking to extend its relationship with the company further into the future.

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Intel (INTC) announced its microarchitecture named Silvermont, which will support low-power devices from smartphones to servers. The new design is a 22nm Tri-Gate System on Chip (SoC) that delivers a three-fold increase in performance at dramatically lower power than Atom, Intel’s leading low-power processor core.

“Silvermont is a leap forward and an entirely new technology foundation for the future that will address a broad range of products and market segments,” said Dadi Perlmutter, Intel executive vice president and chief product officer. “Early sampling of our 22nm SoCs, including ‘Bay Trail’ and ‘Avoton’ is already garnering positive feedback from our customers. Going forward, we will accelerate future generations of this low-power microarchitecture on a yearly cadence.”

Silvermont will serve as the foundation for a range of innovative products beginning to come to market later this year, and is targeted at low-power requirements in market segments from smartphones to the data center. It will be manufactured using Intel’s 22nm Tri-Gate SoC manufacturing process, which brings significant performance increases and improved energy efficiency. A new multi-core and system fabric architecture scales up to eight cores and enables greater performance for higher bandwidth, lower latency and more efficient out-of-order support for a more balanced and responsive system.

Silvermont also features enhanced power management capabilities, including a new intelligent burst technology, low- power C states and a wider dynamic range of operation taking advantage of Intel’s 3-D transistors.

“Through our design and process technology co-optimization we exceeded our goals for Silvermont,” said Belli Kuttanna, Intel Fellow and chief architect. “By taking advantage of our strengths in microarchitecture development and leading-edge process technology, we delivered a technology package that enables significantly improved performance and power efficiency – all while delivering higher frequencies. We’re proud of this accomplishment and believe that Silvermont will offer a strong and flexible foundation for a range of new, low-power Intel SoCs.”

In line with its announced processor roadmap Intel has the “Avoton” and “Rangeley” second-generation Atom SoC processors ready for launch in the second half of this year. “Avoton” will be used in micro servers, while “Rangeley” is aimed at networking and communications devices. “By taking advantage of both the Silvermont and Haswell microarchitectures, Intel is well positioned to enable great products and experiences across the full spectrum of computing,” Perlmutter said.

Tiger Woods and Lindsey Vonn made their couple debut last night at the Costume Institute Gala at the Met, grabbing headlines as they walked the red carpet together for the first time.

Of course, the two made it official in March when they posted photos of themselves on Facebook to tell the world that they are, in fact, dating. But seeing them out together is a whole different media ballgame.

Woods released a statement about the pairing on the social media site, saying, “This season has been great so far and I’m happy with my wins at Torrey and Doral. Something nice that’s happened off the course was meeting Lindsey Vonn,” the star athlete captioned the album—which features four perfectly posed pics of the happy couple—on his social media page. “Lindsey and I have been friends for some time, but over the last few months we have become very close and are now dating. We thank you for your support and for respecting our privacy. We want to continue our relationship, privately, as an ordinary couple and continue to compete as athletes.”

The couple glowed on the red carpet last night, with Vonn wearing a cream-colored floor-length gown with sheer panels and Woods going for the traditional black-tie look.

Image: Facebook

The original Zeno Clash delivered a truly unique experience back in 2009 when it was released as a first-person brawler with a special world and some never-before-seen characters.

Now, after four years, Chilean developer Ace Team is back with Zeno Clash 2, a sequel that promises to continue the story, while upping the ante in terms of the world, the characters, … (read more)

Los Angeles police are no strangers to racial scandal, but now even USC students are claiming the department has racist tendencies.

According to a Fox 11 report on the incident, two parties directly across the street from one another received very different treatment this weekend. One house party was attended by mostly white students, and the other by mostly black. When dozens of police in riot gear showed up, witnesses stated, the white party was told to quiet down while the black party was dispersed. Six people were arrested in the aftermath.

Charges of excessive force and racial bias have been levied against the LAPD and a student protest took place on campus this week. According to the Fox 11 report, the LAPD and USC administrators will be meeting to discuss a possible forum on racial profiling.

Los Angeles Local News, Weather, and Traffic

By Patricia Harrison

When I attended the taping of TED Talks Education last month at the Brooklyn Academy of Music, I knew I was witnessing an innovative collaboration with the potential to make a difference in the lives of many young people.

This milestone collaboration between TED, WNET, PBS, and the CPB American Graduate “Let’s Make it Happen” initiative moves us beyond the terrible statistics — that one million young people fail to graduate every year (see more stats in the infographic below) — and toward solutions. It’s the first TED event to be broadcast on television and, with it, public media has affirmed its commitment to investing in lifelong learning in every area we serve and given power to the notion that caring communities can make a difference.

So many of us had a school experience different from that of students today. I grew up in Brooklyn, NY, where, at the time, everyone in my community played an important role in keeping kids on track. Our parents and our neighbors wanted to know how we did on our report cards. If I brought home a “B+” my parents, aunts and uncles wanted to know who got the “A” and then asked, “Why wasn’t it you?” Everyone from the candy store owner on the corner to the man at the newsstand had an opinion about our activities and behavior — and conveyed this information to our parents. As a kid, I remember it as very annoying, but in hindsight, it was very effective. We knew they cared, so we had to care too.

This is a very different time. During TED Talks Education, you’ll hear the stories of high school students who have dropped out — or who considered it, but ultimately decided not to. You will find that in most of these cases, what made the difference was a student having someone in their corner — a champion who cared. Establishing a culture of caring about our young people and education is essential and it all begins at a community level.

Education and the relationship with each community has always been a core value for the more than 1,400 locally owned and operated public media stations that are dedicated to ensuring all Americans have free access to educational, commercial-free programming. Over the past two years, more than 75 public media stations in 33 states have worked in partnership with 1,000+ community and national organizations to create content that engaged with their communities. They also provided classroom resources through American Graduate to help young people stay on the path to a high school diploma.

During TED Talks Education — which airs on public media stations tonight — we will hear from students and teachers, plus business and community leaders, who show us how we can be champions for America’s young people and turn the statistics below around.

Patricia de Stacy Harrison is the president and CEO of the Corporation for Public Broadcasting (CPB), the leading funder of public radio and public television programming in the United States. In 2011, she created American Graduate: Let’s Make It Happen, a nationwide public media initiative to help communities across the country identify and implement solutions to the high school dropout crisis. 

The iPad mini is quickly becoming a key component of Apple’s product lineup, and according to some sources, might even be the best-selling tablet Apple makes at this point. The smaller tablet hit shelves in early November last year, and likely had a huge impact on Apple’s record tablet sales last quarter, which topped 19.5 million devices. It’s impossible not to see a Retina update in the mini’s future, and new reports (via MacRumors) claim we’ll see production begin for that device this summer.

NPD DisplaySearch analyst says we should see display panel production begin for a Retina iPad mini beginning in June or July, which will be sourced primarily from LG Display, and specifically not from Samsung, Apple’s sometime partner, but not a display supplier for the current iPad mini. The iPad mini with Retina Display should have a 2,048×1536 pixel, 7.9-inch screen, which makes for a PPI of 324, or just about the same as that of the iPhone 5. That would make it fully compatible with apps designed for the full-sized iPad’s Retina screen, but give it an even higher pixel density at the same time thanks to the smaller screen dimensions.

This production start date would fit with an anticipated ship date of between July and September for a Retina iPad mini, thought we’d be much more likely to see such a device arrive in the fall according to recent statements by Apple CEO Tim Cook. During the most recent Apple investor call, he told people to look to fall and 2014 specifically for exciting new product launches from Apple, which seems to indicate we might have to wait at least that long for something as exciting as an iPad mini refresh.

A Retina screen on the iPad mini would help Apple address the only real shortcoming reviewers and critics have identified on the tablet thus far. When the first reviews hit the web, mention of the lack of a Retina display was almost universal, though few cited it as a dealbreaking oversight. Even so, the addition of that capability will likely bring at least as much praise as its absence brought raised eyebrows.

Early rumored case leaks have shown that the next generation might be slightly thicker than the existing version, which would be in keeping with what happened between the iPad 2 and the first Retina Display iPad, which gained both girth and weight over its predecessor. I’m personally hoping that this is an early prototype; the size and weight change between the iPad 2 and 3rd gen device was very noticeable, and took away from the benefits of having a better screen.

Apple isn’t hurting in the tablet game, but some competitors are starting to show stronger numbers than they have in the past, including Asus, which reported earnings this week. Those included 3 million tablets sold for the quarter, a larger portion of which are likely the Nexus 7 Android devices it makes for Google. NPD DisplaySearch says that the Kindle Fire line of tablets will get 300 ppi or higher displays in the next generation, too, so Apple bringing the best-of-breed display in its next-gen device makes sense in terms of helping keep its dominating lead.

 

We know that LG isn’t holding back when it comes to its plans to introduce new and cutting-edge smartphones, but it appears that LG is possibly looking to take the next step and introduce some new tablets in the near-future. According to various Korean media outlets, LG is quietly working behind closed doors and working on a new tablet that will be unveiled sometime in Q3 of this year. There are no concrete details of the upcoming device— so we don’t know about the display size, processor or operating system– at least not yet. Despite the lack of details, all indications are pointing that the Korean giant is wanting to try the whole tablet thing again after its Optimus Pad tablet, which generated lackluster sales and never seemed to gain any sort of popularity. So hopefully LG’s rumored new tablet will be able to break in and get a piece of the ever-growing tablet market share and help LG to achieve its goal of world dominance for 2013.

Be sure to stay tuned with us as we will try to provide any further details that we may hear about this developing story…

source: Munhwa
via: Phone Arena

Come comment on this article: LG rumored to be working on new tablet that will be unveiled in Q3 of this year

Given its history over the past decade, it’s easy to see why investors have come to expect Apple to turn the whole tech market on its head every few years — after all, the iPhone, the MacBook Air and the iPad all respectively created mass markets for smartphones, ultrabooks and tablets. Many of these game-changing innovations are credited to the vision of late Apple co-founder Steve Jobs, whose passing in 2011 has created a sense of anxiety among some investors that the company has lost its innovative edge under the leadership of CEO Tim Cook. And given how quiet Apple has been in the first half of 2013 so far, speculative fears about the company’s ability to innovate have only grown in recent months.

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