Category: News

A newborn baby girl was found naked and crying in the sand on a beach in Honolulu on Sunday, having just been born possibly moments earlier.

The baby was discovered by a woman who had just arrived at the beach and heard screaming down by the water. As she got closer, the screaming stopped and she could hear a baby crying, but there was no one else around. The infant was taken to the hospital, where she was closely examined and declared healthy at 8 pounds, but as of now no one has come forward to claim her. According to Hawaii law, prosecution can be avoided if an infant is left in the care of a hospital or with fire/police services. Since the baby was left on the beach, officials are investigating and will prosecute if the mother is found.

If the child isn’t claimed within a week, the Department of Human Services will file a petition to ask for custody and will eventually release a photo of her in the hopes that family will come forward.

Judge Lucy Koh on Monday set a new trial date to determine the proper damages due to Apple in its ongoing patent battle with Samsung, Reuters reported. Koh determined that a new trial was needed because the jury had incorrectly calculated part of the damages. Apple was originally awarded $1.05 billion, however the federal judge slashed the amount by more than 40% to $450.5 million in March. The final ruling will likely see that award adjusted again, however. Koh ruled that Samsung and Apple will not be permitted to seek additional damages based on new sales data, products or theories, and the trial is must focus around the 13 Samsung devices that were found to infringe Apple’s technology in the original trial. The two companies are now set to face off in court beginning on November 12th.

Intel Capital, Samsung Venture Investment Corporation, and Telefonica Digital have made a strategic investment in San Francisco-based Expect Labs, the company announced Tuesday. The company, which is making a platform for “intelligent digital assistants,” will use the money for development. Expect Labs was formed in 2011.

PRESS RELEASE
Expect Labs, a San Francisco startup that is developing a platform to power a new generation of intelligent digital assistants, today announced a strategic investment from Intel Capital, Samsung Venture Investment Corporation (SVIC), and Telefonica Digital. Expect Labs’ technology platform, the Anticipatory Computing Engine, is the first commercial solution designed to analyze and understand conversations in real-time and proactively find related information. This new strategic investment will accelerate Expect Labs’ efforts to extend their technology platform across different industry verticals and geographic markets.

Founded in 2011, Expect Labs has pioneered the development of technology that enables our computing devices and applications to pay attention continuously and better anticipate the information that we need. Over the past two years, Expect Labs’ team of PhDs and research experts have developed a new class of technologies to understand the meaning of continuous conversations. Based on this understanding, Expect Labs’ platform can model the context of your interactions in real-time, and proactively find information you may want before you need to search for it. As part of this new strategic investment, Expect Labs will begin working to enable new types of context-aware, predictive intelligence in a wide variety of applications and devices.

Intel Capital, Intel’s global investment organization, has been investing in a wide range of hardware and software technologies to both make computing devices more intelligent and context-aware and to help create new types of user interfaces driven by voice, touch, and gesture.

“We are entering an era where the computing devices in our lives will not only be able to understand what we say, but they will also do a much better job anticipating the information we may need, “said Dave Flanagan, Intel Capital. “We look forward to working with Expect Labs to explore ways to achieve this vision.”

Samsung Venture Investment Corporation (SVIC) is the global investment arm of Samsung, the leading global manufacturer of mobile devices and flat-panel displays. Through this partnership, SVIC expects to empower Expect Labs to enable new types of intelligent, voice-driven and context aware behavior across a wide range of devices including smartphones, tablets and smart TVs.

“Expect Labs has taken a unique approach to modeling context using sensor signals, such as GPS and audio, that are available in the new generation of computing devices, ” said Brannon Lacey, Principal at Samsung Venture Investment Corporation. “We think this approach is an important step toward creating a new layer of application and device intelligence.”

With over 315 million customers, Telefonica is one of the largest telecommunications operators worldwide. As part of its investment, Telefonica intends to utilize Expect Labs’ technology and expertise to enhance several product lines including next-generation communications applications and advertising initiatives.

Tracy Isacke, Head of Telefonica Digital Ventures, commented: “Expect Labs is at the cutting edge of the future of search, developing solutions that will change the way we discover and share information. We see huge potential for its technology across all areas of our business, and this investment opens the door to close collaboration between our technical teams.”

“In just a few years, we will live in a world where the connected devices all around us will know who we are, understand what we say, and be far more capable of interpreting our intentions and anticipating our needs, ” added Timothy Tuttle, Expect Labs CEO and founder. “We are delighted that leading global companies like Intel Capital, Samsung Investment Venture Corporation and Telefonica Digital share this vision, and we are looking forward to exploring ways to work with them to create a new generation of intelligent applications and devices.”

Intel Capital, Samsung Venture Investment Corporation and Telefonica Digital will join Expect Labs’ existing investors, including Google, Greylock, Bessemer, IDG Ventures, KPG Ventures, Quest Venture Partners as well as several well-known angel investors.

Since emerging from stealth mode in 2012, Expect Labs has been widely recognized as a leader in the fast-emerging field of Anticipatory Computing and has received numerous accolades. Expect Labs was selected as a finalist at the 2012 TechCrunch Disrupt startup competition, the 2013 CES Mobile App Showdown, and the 2013 SXSW Innovative Technology Accelerator. Expect Labs’ iPad app MindMeld was also selected as “Best in Show” at the 2013 Consumer Electronics Show and was featured by Popular Science as one of the “hottest gadgets” of 2013.

About Expect LabsExpect Labs is a technology company based in San Francisco that is building a platform to power a new generation of digital assistants that can understand continuous conversation and find the information you want before you need to search for it. Expect Labs is also the creator of the iPad app called MindMeld, which is the first intelligent assistant that can actually understand your conversations in real-time to make it easy to find and share related information as you talk. Expect Labs was founded in early 2011 by successful, repeat entrepreneurs who have built and sold large-scale Internet businesses. The team includes PhDs and world-class researchers from places like the MIT Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Lab, Carnegie Mellon University, Bell Labs and HP Labs. The company is backed by Google, Samsung, Intel, Greylock Partners, Bessemer Venture Partners, IDG Ventures, KPG Ventures, Quest Venture Partners and several prominent angels. For more information on Expect Labs, visit www.expectlabs.com or follow @ExpectLabs and @GetMindMeld on Twitter.

About Intel CapitalIntel Capital, Intel’s global investment and M&A organization, makes equity investments in innovative technology start-ups and companies worldwide. Intel Capital invests in a broad range of companies offering hardware, software, and services targeting enterprise, mobility, health, consumer Internet, digital media and semiconductor manufacturing. Since 1991, Intel Capital has invested more than US$10.8 billion in over 1,276 companies in 54 countries. In that timeframe, 201 were acquired or participated in a merger. In 2012, Intel Capital invested US$352 million in 150 investments with approximately 57 percent of funds invested outside North America. For more information on Intel Capital and its differentiated advantages, visit www.intelcapital.com or follow @Intelcapital.

About Samsung Venture Investment CorporationSamsung Venture Investment Corporation manages investment and investment-related activities for Samsung affiliate companies. The investment mandate for Samsung Venture Investment Corporation tracks closely to the strategic priorities of Samsung affiliate companies’ core operating divisions, and encompasses investments in semiconductors, displays, telecommunications, and consumer electronics.

About Telefonica DigitalTelefonica Digital is a global business division of Telefonica. Its mission is to seize the opportunities within the digital world and deliver new growth for Telefonica through research & development, venture capital, global partnerships and digital services such as cloud computing, mobile advertising, M2M and eHealth. It is also driving innovation in over the top communications under a new umbrella brand called TU and in Big Data through Telefonica Dynamic Insights.

Telefonica Digital will deliver these new products and services to Telefonica’s 315 million customers as well as entering new markets. It is headquartered in London with regional centres in Silicon Valley, Sao Paulo, Spain and Tel Aviv. Jajah, Terra, Media Networks Latin America, 48 and giffgaff are all managed under the Telefonica Digital umbrella.

The post Expect Labs Adds Fresh Capital appeared first on peHUB.

 

The HTC One is one hell of a smartphone— but its premium build and cost may be a bit out of reach for many customers. So with that in mind, HTC is quietly working on a stripped down version the device behind the scenes called the 608t. Design-wise, this mysterious new toy certainly mirrors One features including dual-stereo speakers on the front of the device, as well as a similar button layout. Of course the similarities end there as this Jelly Bean-powered smartphone features “modest” guts including a quad-core chip + 1GB of RAM, a 4.5-inch LCD display with a 960 x 540 (qHD?) display and an 8MP camera. Not too shabby HTC. Not too shabby.

Now for the part that you all want to know— the pricing and availability. While we don’t know the cost as of yet, the leak certainly suggests that this device will at least be headed for Chinese markets in the near-future. For those of us out in the States, there’s no word on if the 608t will ever make it out to our shores, maybe HTC will surprise us and unveil this device in the US at some point sooner than later.

source: Ameblo (Jp)

Come comment on this article: HTC 608t smartphone outed, brings a whole lot of One in a more affordable package

While Facebook has recently been losing members in the U.S. and U.K., it has seen growth in developing countries such as India. While its worldwide membership growth is currently offsetting its membership losses, the loss of 6 million U.S. members this month does point to increasing competition in the social media space.

One of Facebook’s largest competitors, LinkedIn, has been slowly building up its user base worldwide as well. The social network for professional networking celebrated 200 million members in January, and one year ago hit 15 million members in India.

This week, LinkedIn announced that it now has over one million members in Singapore. The country is home to the social network’s Asia Pacific headquarters, which opened in 2011. Hari Krishnan, Managing Director at the headquarters, announced the milestone in a post on the LinkedIn blog. From the post:

I’m especially excited about this milestone because I moved to Singapore earlier this year to take on the role of Managing Director, Asia Pacific and Japan, and it’s been a transformational experience so far. The energy and spirit among the professional community in Singapore is palpable. It’s been an honor to watch Singapore professionals turn to LinkedIn to build their professional identity, grow their networks and find the insights they need to be great at what they do.

To celebrate, LinkedIn handed out coffee and cupcakes to commuters in Raffles Place.

Well I guess Samsung didn’t have all their ducks in a row like they thought they did. Back in March, analysts were concerned that Samsung could have production issues that would cause a loss of sales during the first month after launch. Last year’s issue with the Galaxy S III was from a defect, but we are not sure what is going on this year. It seems to be delayed all over and now it appears that customers who pre-ordered the Sprint version at Best Buy are going to have to wait another 2 to 3 weeks. Below is an email sent to customers:

“We’re sorry, but the fulfillment of your recent pre-order is taking longer than expected. We expect it to arrive between May 9 and May 20. To keep you informed of its delivery, we’ll send tracking information once the item has shipped.

If you prefer, you can cancel this order at any time. To do so, please call us at 1-888-BEST BUY (1-888-237-8289). If possible, please have your order number handy.

If we don’t hear from you before the order is shipped, we’ll assume you still want this item and accept this delay.

Once again, we’re sorry for this inconvenience, and we’ll do our best to make things right.”

Sales of the Galaxy S 4 were expected to hit 10 million during the first month, but with delays like this, don’t expect that target to be reached.

source: PhoneArena

Come comment on this article: Sprint Samsung Galaxy S 4 pre-orders now delayed 2 to 3 weeks at Best Buy

Shazam, maker of the smartphone music app, has named Rich Riley Chief Executive Officer. Andrew Fisher, who has led Shazam as CEO since 2005, will now take a newly created position of Executive Chairman. John Pearson who has been Chairman of the Board since 2006 will become a Non-Executive Director and remain on the board, the company said. Shazam investors include Kleiner Perkins Caufield Byers, DN Capital, Institutional Venture Partners and Acacia Capital.

PRESS RELEASE
Shazam®, the world’s leading media engagement company, today announces that Rich Riley has joined the company as Chief Executive Officer. Shazam further announces that Andrew Fisher, who has dynamically lead Shazam as CEO since 2005, has been appointed to the newly created full-time position of Executive Chairman. John Pearson who has been Chairman of the Board since 2006 will become a Non-Executive Director and remain on the board.
With Riley and Fisher in their new positions, and the recent hire of the BBC’s Daniel Danker as Chief Product Officer joining the existing executive team, Shazam now has put into place an executive leadership team that will accelerate the company’s growth trajectory while continuing to deliver innovation for Shazam’s products and services as the company pursues new market opportunities. Shazam now has more than 300 million users in over 200 countries worldwide.
“I am extraordinarily excited to be joining the Shazam team. Andrew Fisher has assembled a world-class organization that has made Shazam a global consumer brand that provides an exceptional consumer experience and has set the stage for the company’s next phase of growth,” said Rich Riley. “I look forward to extending our dominance in media engagement, from our roots in music to our leadership position in second-screen TV and want to ensure that Shazam is the company that helps people recognize and engage with the world around them.”
“I couldn’t be more pleased to welcome Rich Riley as Shazam’s new Chief Executive Officer,” said Andrew Fisher. “Rich brings a tremendous amount of experience both as an Internet executive where he has rapidly scaled global businesses, to establishing strategic relationships with advertisers and partners, as well as his entrepreneurial approach and skills. Whilst Rich will run our business I will now spend more time focusing on our corporate development and future strategy including our ambitions to deliver a successful IPO for our shareholders as we look to become an increasingly important part of people’s everyday lives, helping them engage with content and brands in the most efficient way possible.”
“I would like to thank John Pearson for his tremendous support as Chairman of Shazam over the past seven years,” continued Fisher. “John has worked tirelessly on behalf of our shareholders and I am delighted he will continue to help the company sustain its success as a board member and Non-Executive Director.”
Featured by Fortune as one of their 40 Under 40: Ones to watch for 2011, Rich Riley joins Shazam with more than 17 years experience as an entrepreneur and leading Internet executive. Most recently, Riley was EVP Americas for Yahoo! where he was responsible for billions of dollars of revenue and managed a team of thousands, overseeing sales, account management, ad operations, B2B marketing, research and business development across the US, Canada and

LatAm. Prior to that, Riley held a variety of roles including MD & SVP of the EMEA Region, SVP of the Small & Medium Business Division as well as corporate and business development roles.
Prior to his more than 13 years with Yahoo, Riley was co-founder and Managing Member of the Internet start-up Log-Me-On.com that developed and patented what is today the Yahoo! Toolbar, which counts hundreds of millions of users and was sold to Yahoo! in 1999. Prior to joining Yahoo! and starting Log-Me-On.com, Riley worked as a Financial Analyst at Donaldson, Lufkin & Jenrette in New York City. He graduated Wharton with a BSc. in Economics with Majors in Finance and Entrepreneurial Management. He lives in Connecticut with his wife and four children and will be based in Shazam’s New York office.
Andrew Fisher has served as CEO of Shazam since 2005, leading the company to its current status as a global brand. Fisher has grown the user base since the launch of the app in 2007 to over 300 million users currently – consistently adding more than two million new users every week. The Shazam App is a top 10 app of all time on iOS in terms of installs, is used by over 60 million monthly active users, and drives $300 million in digital sales per year through affiliate partnerships like iTunes and Amazon. Andrew joined Shazam from InfoSpace Inc where he was European Managing Director. At InfoSpace Andrew led the company’s significant European growth focusing on music and entertainment services for mobile operators and portal solutions for many leading online service providers. Andrew has led the successful growth of a number of technology-focused enterprises, founding and serving as Managing Director of TDLI.com, which was acquired by InfoSpace Inc, with an enterprise value of $400m after being set up 18 months previously.
The Shazam for TVTM service, launched in 2011 in the United States for advertising and select television programmes, was expanded in September 2012 to include all US nationwide programming on 160+ channels, essentially every show on every channel. In the last year, over 10 million people in the U.S. have used Shazam as a TV companion app with TV shows and live events, gaining instant access to a blend of show-specific mobile-optimized content and social features, conveniently in one place. Features include the music in the broadcast, cast photos, gossip, tweets about the show, links to official sites, IMDB and Wikipedia, and commerce links to buy show-branded merchandise and previous episodes or renting or buying the movie. Shazam produces custom second-screen experiences for select tent-pole TV events such as the GRAMMY® Awards, the Super Bowl, and the Olympic Games, as well as popular programs such as “American Idol” and “Girls.”
In the last year, Shazam for TV Advertising, which started in North America, was expanded to the UK, Western Europe and Asia Pacific. Shazam for TV is already generating double-digit millions in revenues, with Shazam for TV Advertising integrated into over 250 TV ad campaigns since launch, including those for A-list global brands such as Pepsi, Toyota, Barclays, Sony Entertainment and many more. Shazam is making TV advertising interactive, essentially “clickable”; people can tap one button and in just a few seconds, instantly arrive at a rich experience for the brand within the Shazam App, extending the 30-second TV ad into several minutes of engagement, getting more information and special offers, and even shopping from the sofa.
Shazam investors include Kleiner Perkins Caufield Byers, DN Capital, Institutional Venture Partners and Acacia Capital
ENDS
About Shazam

Shazam is the world’s leading media engagement company with more than 300 million people in 200 countries and adding another 2 million new users each week. With the industry’s unlimited fastest tagging in the Free and premium Encore Apps on iOS and Android devices, Shazam is the best way for people to discover, explore, buy, and share more music, TV shows and branded content they love.
Shazam makes it easy for people to share their discoveries with their friends on Facebook using the Shazam Friends feature, as well as on Twitter and Google+. For people who don’t yet have the Shazam application on their smartphone, it is available for FREE on every major platform and can be found on iTunes App Store, Google play, Amazon App Store, AT&T’s AppCenter, Verizon VCast app store, Nokia Store, Windows Phone Marketplace, BlackBerry App World, and GetJar..
For further information about Shazam Entertainment visit www.shazam.com and @ShazamNews. You can also follow us on Facebook or Google+. For daily music updates follow the Shazam Blog and @Shazam. Shazam Media enquiries: [email protected]
The Shazam, Shazam Encore, LyricPlay, Shazam for TV names and icons are trademarks of Shazam Entertainment Limited.

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Last year, Microsoft introduced an entirely new Outlook.com in an attempt to revitalize its email client. Early results (from Microsoft) say its working, and now it’s adding even more functionality to tempt more people over to its side.

Microsoft announced that it’s rolling out a preview of Skype for Outlook.com to those in the UK today. It already integrated Skype into the latest enterprise Outlook software, but now the same functionality will soon be available to regular users on the Web version of Outlook.

The preview version of Skype for Outlook.com will be available soon as a plugin for Internet Explorer, Chrome and Firefox. The plugin will ask you to connect your Microsoft account with your Skype account, and then you can start video calling people in Outlook. Just look for the usual Skype icons when mousing over a friend’s contact details.

Skype for Outlook.com is just the latest in Microsoft’s mission of integrating Skype into pretty much all of its services. It already merged the old Windows Live Messenger client into Skype, and a rumor emerged earlier this year saying that Xbox chat would be replaced by Skype in the next Xbox.

Skype for Outlook.com is available in the UK starting today, but what about everyone else? Microsoft says that its latest Skype integration will be available to users in the US and Germany in the coming weeks. Everybody else will have to wait until Summer.

Clean Power Finance, an online marketplace for distributed solar financing, has named Michael Pope as chief financial officer. He joins from MarketTools.com, where he was COO and CFO. Prior to MarketTools.com, Michael served as VP for the office of the CEO of BearingPoint and as president and COO of Network General.

PRESS RELEASE
Clean Power Finance, the online marketplace for distributed solar financing and provider of solar sales and design software, today announced the appointment of Michael Pope as chief financial officer (CFO). Michael brings deep experience managing the financial strength of fast-growing public and private companies to Clean Power Finance.

“Michael has helped build great businesses for twenty years and has led the finance organizations of many successful public companies,” said Nat Kreamer, CEO of Clean Power Finance. “He also understands how to manage traditional technology businesses. We are very excited for him to help build Clean Power Finance.”

Before joining the company, Michael was the COO and CFO of MarketTools.com, which was acquired by Texas Pacific Group (TPG). Prior to MarketTools.com, Michael served as VP for the office of the CEO of BearingPoint and as president and COO of Network General, which was acquired by NetScout Systems NTCT -1.04% . Before that, he was president and CEO of DigitalThink , EVP and CFO of Dionex , and a bank examiner at the New York Federal Reserve. Michael has a BA from Stanford University and an MBA from the University of California at Berkeley.

“CPF has all the ingredients for success,” said Michael. “It combines the business model of a Silicon Valley tech company with the sophisticated products and services of a finance company, and is led by a great team. I’m excited to help take it to the next level.”

Clean Power Finance’s management team includes solar finance pioneer and SunRun co-founder Robert “Nat” Kreamer; former IBM global sales executive Robert Prigge; Clean Power Finance co-founder and CPF Tools creator Adam Marsh; former Tioga Energy executive Kristian Hanelt; residential solar experts and Sungevity veterans Kirstin Hoefer and Nick Mack; venture capital veteran Micah Myers; Discover bank leader Steve Olszewski; and former Burnham Energy president Greg Sellers.

About Clean Power Finance

Clean Power Finance is driving the mass-market adoption of residential solar with the CPF Market(TM), its online business-to-business marketplace connecting the solar industry and the capital markets, and CPF Tools(TM), the leading solar sales software-as-a-service platform. Clean Power Finance provides solar professionals, including marketers, installers, manufacturers and distributors, with access to a variety of 100% third-party owned, non-exclusive, white-label residential finance products and an easy-to-use solar sales quoting and design tool. The company’s makes it easy for institutional investors and lenders to invest in residential solar projects that provide reliable rates of return.

The post Clean Power Finance Adds Michael Pope as CFO appeared first on peHUB.

People pining for Skype video calls directly in the browser have something to look forward to today, provided they use Outlook.com for their email. On Tuesday, Skype announced a preview of web support for its audio, video and instant messaging services in Firefox, Internet Explorer and Chrome. The service is integrated directly with Outlook.com, making it easier to make and receive Skype calls directly from your inbox.

Skype is rolling out the new service Tuesday in the U.K., with the U.S. and Germany to follow in the coming weeks. Worldwide availability is expected over the next four to five months.

Being based in the U.S., I can’t test Skype over the web just yet, although I’d like to since I use a browser-based Chromebook Pixel as my full time computer. In the meantime then, I’ll have to be satisfied with this Skype demonstration video:

Note that in order to get Skype in Outlook.com you’ll have to install a browser plug-in. That tells me that Microsoft likely isn’t using the WebRTC protocol to enable Skype in the browser even though last year it signaled support for it. Firefox and Chrome already support WebRTC, which natively allows for audio and video calls in browsers without any plug-in required.

It would be nice to see Microsoft eventually open up Skype to browsers without requiring Outlook.com. I doubt it will; at least not for a long while. Kudos to Microsoft from a business perspective, however: it’s a smart play  to make the company’s email service more attractive to the millions that already use Skype around the world..

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San Jose, Calif.-based RetailNext Inc. has raised $15 million in Series C financing. The company, a provider of analytics that enable retailers and manufacturers to monitor, collect, analyze, and visualize in-store data, is backed by StarVest Partners, August Capital, Nokia Growth Partners and Commerce Ventures. StarVest Partners led the latest round, with General Partner Laura Sachar joining the company’s board. John Gardner, a managing partner at Nokia Growth Partners, joins as board observer. This round brings the total capital raised by RetailNext to $29 million.

PRESS RELEASE
RetailNext Inc., the leader in Applied Big Data for brick-and-mortar retail, today announced the completion of $15 million in Series C financing led by new investor StarVest Partners. All existing investors, including August Capital, participated in the round, which also added strategic investments from Nokia Growth Partners and Commerce Ventures. Timed with the new investment, Laura B. Sachar, General Partner, StarVest Partners, joined RetailNext’s Board of Directors and John Gardner, Managing Partner, Nokia Growth Partners (NGP), joined as Board Observer. This round brings the total capital raised by RetailNext to $29 million.

“RetailNext offers StarVest a winning combination for a growth equity investment: proven and smart management, a growing roster of customers and a unique and timely offering. The retail sector continues to embrace the RetailNext platform because there is clear value in improving performance of brick-and-mortar stores, particularly by measuring and testing myriad data sources within those walls. It’s a clear fit for our data-as-a-service practice,” stated Ms. Sachar.

The first technology platform to bring e-commerce style shopper analytics to brick-and-mortar stores, RetailNext enables retailers to collect and correlate data from the broadest available set of sources including video cameras, point-of-sale (POS) systems, Wi-Fi devices, and time and attendance applications. More than 60 retailers have adopted RetailNext to glean the insights necessary to increase same-store sales, reduce theft, eliminate unnecessary costs, and improve the customer experience.

“Considering that ninety-five percent of purchasing still takes place in the brick-and-mortar channel, it is not surprising that we’ve seen a strong appetite among retailers to collect the factual knowledge about shopper behavior that can directly lead to bottom-line improvement. This rapid adoption is driving more than triple year-over-year revenue growth for the company,” said Alexei Agratchev, CEO of RetailNext.

Recognized by Fast Company as one of the “Ten Most Innovative Companies in Big Data,” RetailNext will use the additional investments to:

– Expand engineering resources to maintain product superiority as the market’s most robust, versatile and feature-rich in-store analytics platform

– Deliver advanced new technology components in response to customer demand, including new detection and predictive analytics capabilities

– Grow global operations in Europe, Asia/Pacific and Latin America

– Promote the category throughout the retail industry.

“RetailNext’s unique combination of video, Wi-Fi and mobile data collection enables a real breakthrough in how both offline and online sources will improve ROI for retailers,” said Mr. Gardner. “By combining the NGP local everywhere approach and Nokia’s location expertise, we will help RetailNext drive its international expansion.”

“At this stage for RetailNext, we chose investors who can truly partner with us to expand into new markets and continue delivering unmatched in-store analytics innovations. Each of our capital partners values the business impact and growth potential that our world-class team and platform bring,” added Mr. Agratchev.

About Nokia Growth PartnersNokia Growth Partners invests in companies that are changing the face of mobility, communications and the internet. NGP offers industry expertise, capital and an extensive network, enabling entrepreneurs to build disruptive, industry-changing companies and take them to the global market. With offices in the US, Europe, India and China, NGP extends the reach of companies making their products and services local everywhere. Visit www.nokiagrowthpartners.com for more information.

About StarVestStarVest Partners is a New York-based venture capital firm with $400 million under management, which funds technology-enabled business services companies throughout the U.S. The firm’s value-added partnership maintains a focus on emerging technology and services sectors including: Cloud-based companies, eCommerce services, Ad Tech and Data Analytics. StarVest was an early investor in the software-as-a service trend: in 2000, it invested as the only venture firm in NetSuite N +3.44% . Other noteworthy exits include MessageOne, acquired by Dell computer; Connected, acquired by Iron Mountain; iCrossing acquired by Hearst; Insurance.com acquired by QuinStreet; and Fieldglass acquired by Madison Dearborn. Recent investments include: Host Analytics, Switchfly, The Receivables Exchange, Veracode and Xignite. More information is available at www.starvestpartners.com.

About RetailNext RetailNext is the leader in Applied Big Data for brick-and-mortar retail, delivering real-time analytics that enable retailers and manufacturers to monitor, collect, analyze, and visualize in-store data. The patent-pending solution uses best-in-class video analytics, Wi-Fi detection, on-shelf sensors, and data from point-of-sale systems and other sources to automatically inform retailers about how people engage with their stores. The highly scalable RetailNext platform easily integrates with promotional calendars, staffing systems, and even weather services to analyze how internal and external factors impact customer shopping patterns – providing store operations executives with the ability to identify opportunities for growth, execute changes, and measure success.

RetailNext tracks more than 400 million shoppers per year by collecting data from more than 30,000 sensors in retail stores and analyzing trillions of data points annually.

The post RetailNext Adds $15M appeared first on peHUB.

In light of the recent hacking attacks that have hit news organizations around the world, Twitter has warned news outlets that they expect the attacks to continue.

“There have been several recent incidents of high-profile news and media Twitter handles being compromised. We believe that these attacks will continue, and that news and media organizations will continue to be high value targets to hackers,” said Twitter in a memo obtained by BuzzFeed. “These incidents appear to be spear phishing attacks that target your corporate email. Promoting individual awareness of these attacks within your organization and following the security guidelines below is vital to preventing abuse of your Twitter accounts.”

As you may remember, the Associated Press’ Twitter account was hacked last week, and it sent out a false tweet claiming that there had been an explosion at the White House and that President Obama was injured. This tweet, though only visible for minutes before the AP took down the account, sent the stock market into a dive. Earlier this week, The Guardian also fell victim to a hack.

Twitter’s warning to news organizations suggests many of the things you would expect: change your passwords, make them strong, and keep your email accounts secure, since Twitter uses email to verify. Twitter also asks hack victims to contact them immediately so they can work on finding the problem as soon as possible.

But there is a pretty strange and severe request from Twitter: make sure you have a single computer that’s just for Twitter. Don’t do anything else on it. What?

“Designate one computer to use for Twitter. This helps keep your Twitter password from being spread around. Don’t use this computer to read email or surf the web, to reduce the chances of malware infection. Minimize the number of people that have access. Even if you use a third-party platform to avoid sharing the actual Twitter account password, each of these people is a possible avenue for phishing or other compromise.”

Interesting. Twitter is obviously taking this very seriously, and thinks you should too. If you operate an account that you think would be a high target of hackers, it’s time to up the concern a little bit.

Recent reports indicated that Twitter was working on two-step verification (finally) to make it a bit harder for attackers to compromise accounts. Although that wouldn’t totally fix the problem, it would be a start. It’s interesting that although we heard that this two-factor verification is on the horizon, Twitter is suggesting in this letter that organizations seek out help from a third-party two-step verification provider.

Sure, today Google is dominant in search, but it may not always be. And while Microsoft is doing its best to hammer on the search giant on privacy-related issues, the threats to Google’s search business, such as the one posed by Apple’s Siri technology, which bypasses search pages entirely, are far more disruptive than an ad campaign.

That is what Kansas City, Mo.-based startup Leap2 hopes its new search site that combines the web, location and social in a way that delivers detailed results while allowing for serendipitous discovery, will be: Disruptive in a way that draws search market share from Google. The startup launches its site Tuesday on mobiles and also said today it had raised $1.6 million in first round funding. The round was led by Dundee Venture Capital, with support from OpenAir Equity, Linseed Capital and the Wichita Technology Corporation.

Mike Farmer, the CEO of Leap2, is no stranger to search, having tried seven years ago with a web site called Kozoru. But this time he thinks that focusing on mobile, as well as bringing in social elements to a search gives end users better results as well as a few nice surprises.

For example, when the app opens, you see a home screen that offers the day’s news as a slate of pictures. Some are self-evident and others are perhaps a mystery. Clicking on a picture offers you one of the day’s top news stories. Once you enter a search term, the screens splits in half with the top half showing Twitter results related to the search and the bottom half showing images of the web sites that match your search.

Here’s where it gets dicey. Searches for “the best brunch in Austin” or “tacos and tequila Austin” (it’s a restaurant) worked well. I saw relevant websites, pictures of places, and even tweets from people who were there and a tweet promising me a discount next weekend at a brunch locale. But when I searched for my name and other people’s names, I started running into what is the bane of the mobile web — requests to download apps.

My people searches drew up magazine and LinkedIn results that I couldn’t see without clicking through to the “no thanks” button on the screen that pops up asking me to download a mobile app. I, like the rest of the population, hate those screens. Farmer is hoping that the mobile web becomes less about apps and more about the web soon, but I’m not holding my breath.

Things like the discovery of discounts or even insights from Twitter, (Farmer wants to integrate FourSquare, Yelp and Facebook eventually for the social aspects) plus the integrated location and directions, help make this a contender against Google Now, which I adore for its ability to read my calendar and tell me when to leave the house to make a meeting. Leap2 can’t offer that, and it’s going to face the same challenge that all search engines face, which is enticing users to click on it as opposed to going with the already-integrated search functions.

As for monetization, Farmer said that some time in the future Leap2 will integrate sponsored search results, initially among the social cards on the top half of the screen. The goal will be to play relevant results based on the location, the search or other information gleaned. Farmer gave the example of real-time deals. He plans to have the same image-filled-card-like interface that spans the app now, be the same interface for showing sponsored search ads as well.

The mobile app for iOS and Android launches Tuesday, with the website launching on Wednesday. Give it a try. I thought it was worth using, especially when I’m on the go, as it gives a much richer picture on the small screen than I might otherwise get.

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There is no shortage of confidence in the Hadoop space, and market leader Cloudera bolstered its own on Tuesday with the general availability of its Impala SQL query engine for Hadoop. And if CEO Mike Olson’s comments are any indication, we’re in for a long ride of competitive jockeying and oneupmanship as Cloudera and its peers go all Microsoft or Google and create myriad new data-processing engines to turn their Hadoop distributions into bona fide platforms.

Launched as a private beta in May 2012 and made public in October, Impala is Cloudera’s attempt to address the growing demand for interactive SQL analytics on Hadoop data. It’s essentially a massively parallel database designed to share the same storage platform and metadata as Hadoop MapReduce, only it’s its own separate processing engine.

Impala actually uses the same “nearly ANSI” version of SQL as does current standard bearer Hive, but that technology (created by Facebook in 2009 as a data warehouse layer for Hadoop) doesn’t run nearly fast enough to sate many users’ demands for interactive analytics. This is because Hive transforms SQL queries into MapReduce jobs, meaning every one is processed against the entire corpus of data in the Hadoop Distributed File System.

Sizing up the competition

Only Cloudera isn’t the first to do have the idea, nor is it alone in trying to sell interactive SQL on Hadoop. The idea was first commercialized by Boston-based startup Hadapt in 2011, and is now being pushed by numerous startups and larger Hadoop players. Among them: Pivotal (formerly EMC) Greenplum, MapR (with Drill), Hortonworks (with Stinger), Drawn to Scale, Splice Machine, Jethro Data and Citus Data.

But Cloudera is arguably the biggest name pushing SQL on Hadoop, and CEO Mike Olson thinks Impala stands out for a variety of reasons — not the least of which is that it exists as a product. “Nobody else is shipping production-grade SQL query support on Hadoop,” he told me during a recent call. “At least not in open source.”

He seems content to let the startups do their things, instead focusing his competitive attention on Cloudera’s big three Hadoop-distribution competitors in Pivotal, MapR and Hortonworks. Greenplum and Pivotal SVP Scott Yara was full of confidence — and R&D budget– when the company announced the Pivotal HD distribution and HAWQ technology in February, but Olson claims the approach requires a siloed DBMS within HDFS and is a “rearguard defensive strategy” to protect the company’s sunk costs in its database technology.

As for Hortonworks, Olson questions the wisdom of its Stinger initiative to boost Hive’s speed, noting that “Hive never got good while it was running standalone on MapReduce.” Hortonworks is also partnering with vendors such as Teradata to let their platforms access Hadoop data in its native format, but those approaches still require sending data over the network. “It’s not the way you would build it if you woke up in the 2000s and were building this anew,” Olson said.

Olson acknowledged that the MapR-led Apache Drill project is cut from the same cloth as Impala (that is, being a Google Dremel clone designed specifically for Hadoop), but “the difference is we’re shipping code,” he said. Being generally available and ready for production workloads means Cloudera can lock down users and market share before many even have a chance to experiment with Drill.

He all but dismissed questions over the readiness of Impala, spurred by rumblings in the Hadoop space that Cloudera rushed it into public beta in order to get on the scoreboard against more fully baked offerings. “I don’t feel we’re under the gun competitively to pull it out of beta because no one else has product in the market,” Olson said. “I have no problems … calling this GA quality.”

He did, however, acknowledge that Impala is shipping with a “minium viable feature set” that the company has plans to build on in the near future. Impala Senior Product Manager Justin Erickson noted a few issue of concerns, including around the number of concurrent users Impala can support, but said they have been addressed during the beta period.

One piece of a larger platform

Really, though, the whole point of Impala and all of its competitors is to turn Hadoop from a tool for batch analytics and mass storage into a platform that can handle nearly all of companies’ data-processing needs. In that regard, it appears we’re just getting started. Cloudera, MapR, Pivotal Greenplum and Hortonworks are already pushing their own products and projects, and Olson said “it’s absolutely our intent” to enhance Cloudera’s platform with even more open-source products — perhaps even more database technologies — that will let users do more stuff with more types of data.

Over time, this strategy could result in Hadoop displacing the current breed of databases and data warehouses and becoming the single data store atop of which users run whatever applications they so desire. For now, though, especially when it comes to Impala and the data warehouse incumbents, Olson is taking a measured approach. “The likelihood that we’re going to knock them off in the near term,” he said, “… it would be a tough fight to win.”

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Kantar released their U.S. smartphone market share numbers for the 1st quarter 2013, and other than Android’s continued domination, there was some interesting news regarding carriers. It’s no surprise that the majority of smartphones are either on Verizon or AT&T. Verizon’s share is at 37.2%, while AT&T was at 27.9%. That’s a combined total of 65.1%. Sprint came in third at 12.3%, but the biggest news is T-Mobile’s decline of 3.2% down to 9.5%. In fact, T-Mobile was the only carrier to show a decline.

T-Mobile recently launched their UnCarrier plans that probably won’t change things for them since it doesn’t deliver what they are promising. The prices themselves are fine for those that bring their own phone, but the promise of buying phones off contract is simply not true. All they did was spread out the payments of the full retail price which you are obligated to pay, and is just another form of the traditional subsidized contracts that Verizon, AT&T, and Sprint offer.

source: Kantar

Come comment on this article: T-Mobile loses market share while Verizon and AT&T continue to dominate

Over the past couple of years, Jawbone has been building up its position in wearable computing and health tracking with the launch of its Up wristband and the purchase of MassiveHealth and Visere. But with the acquisition of BodyMedia – a pioneer in wearable body monitoring technology – Jawbone is showing its deepest commitment yet to the space.

Announced Tuesday, the acquisition was a cash and stock deal valued at north of $100 million, according to sources close to the matter. With BodyMedia’s technology and expertise, Jawbone CEO Hosain Rahman said, his company plans to further its innovation in health and wellness, as well as uncover new applications for wearable computing in general.

“We think that everything in the world is going to be smart and interconnected with lots of sensors,” said Rahman. “The more interconnecting points you have, the more signals you integrate in that system, the more intelligent things you can do for the user.”

BodyMedia: more than 500 trillion sensor points collected and analyzed

In the past few years, health tracking has become more en vogue with the launch of devices like the Nike Fuelband, Fitbit (see disclosure) and Up. But BodyMedia’s creators John (Ivo) Stivoric, an early innovator in wearable sensors and the co-founder of two design studios at Carnegie Mellon University, and Astro Teller, a former Carnegie Mellon computer scientist and entrepreneur, launched their company in 1999.

Since then, the company says its multi-sensor body monitors (like the armband worn by contestants on the TV show The Biggest Loser) have collected and analyzed more than 500 trillion sensor points. Unlike other consumer fitness trackers, BodyMedia’s devices have also received FDA clearance and are backed by clinical outcomes. In addition to selling direct-to-consumer, the company targets health professionals with wearable monitors that enable them to help people with obesity, diabetes and other conditions.

The 14-year-old company has raised $49 million from investors including Comcast Ventures, Draper Fisher Jurvetson ePlanet , Draper Triangle Ventures , Ascension Health Ventures and InCube Ventures.

Three phases for the wearable computing market

Right now, the wearables market is mostly in the accelerometer phase, said Rahman. With that technology, the Up wristband, for example, enables Jawbone to collect and provide users with information on their activity and sleep. But, he added, the BodyMedia acquisition will allow Jawbone to stake out a leading position in the next two phases of the market, which will revolve around multiple sensors on the body and the services and applications that connect and make sense of all that data.

As part of the acquisition, BodyMedia’s 60 employees will join Jawbone. For now, Rahman said, BodyMedia’s devices will continue to be sold under the BodyMedia brand. In time, he said the goal is for all of the devices to be part of the same “unified service system.” For example, if a person who uses an Up wristband to track day-to-day activity needs to share health information with a clinician for a condition, he could use a different monitoring device but it would integrate with the same software system.

“You have different events in your life that you need to be able to track and understand – this broadens and enriches our [suite of products] we can [offer] in the context of all of those life moments,” Rahman said.

The shift to passive tracking

Beyond health care, he added, “everything in the world is moving to passive tracking.” Consumers increasingly want their devices to just know where they are, how much they slept, how much they moved and what they might be interested in. More sensors means Jawbone can better understand its users and provide better services, he said.

In addition to announcing the BodyMedia acquisition, Jawbone said it had launched an “Up Platform” for iOS with 10 partners, including IFTTT, LoseIt, MapMyFitness, MyFitnessPal, Notch.me, RunKeeper, Sleepio, Wello and Withings. Users can merge their data from those apps with their Up data. For example, they can log a run in RunKeeper and then view the data in Up or step on a Withings scale and then monitor their weight in Up.  The company also said that it soon plans to extend the ecosystem of Up-integrated services by opening its API.

Jawbone declined to disclose how many people use the Up wristband, but said, in aggregate, the system tracks more than a billion steps and 610,000 hours of sleep each day and that, on average, users check their app five times a day and sync their data twice a day.

Disclosure: Fitbit is backed by True Ventures, a venture capital firm that is an investor in the parent company of this blog, Giga Omni Media. Om Malik, founder of Giga Omni Media, is also a venture partner at True.

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M-Files Inc. said it raised $7.7 million of Series A funding in a round led by DFJ Esprit and joined by the Finnish Industry Investment. The company said DFJ Esprit’s Mikko Suonenlahti joined the board along with Jim Geary and Bob Suh.

PRESS RELEASE

M-Files Secures $7.7M Series A Funding Led by DFJ Esprit
 to Fuel Global Expansion and Continued Growth

Metadata-Powered Enterprise Content Management Provider to Rapidly Accelerate US Market Growth for Quality-Intensive and Regulated Industries

DALLAS, TX, April 30, 2013: M-Files Inc., the developer of M-Files metadata-powered cloud, on-premise, and hybrid enterprise content management (ECM) solutions, today announced the closing of a $7.7 million round of Series A funding led by DFJ Esprit, with participation from Finnish Industry Investment.

As part of the transaction, M-Files also announced that Jim Geary and Bob Suh, proven technology leaders with backgrounds at companies such as Accenture, Perot Systems and Pedestal Software, as well as Mikko Suonenlahti of DFJ Esprit, have joined the company’s Board of Directors. EOC Partners, a technology investment banking firm, acted as the financial advisor to M-Files in the transaction.

M-Files is a uniquely flexible solution that puts an end to the outdated folder structure for enterprise-wide document management that dates back to the 1980s. M-Files technology is based on a unique metadata-based approach, which manages information based on what it is rather than where it is stored. This has enabled the company to successfully expand beyond its native Finland by acquiring leading customers including AstraZeneca, SAS, Pandora, United Nations Environment Program (UNEP), Northrop Grumman Corporation, Charles Schwab, Hecla Mining, Elekta, Hill + Knowlton and many others.

“One way to understand the M-Files metadata-powered approach is to look at the iPhone,” said Greg Milliken, president of M-Files Inc. “When you put music on the iPhone, you don’t put it in a music folder, the device just knows it is music and it shows up where and how you expect it, grouped by artist, genre, date, etc. This is what M-Files does for information management, and when companies experience it, the effect is a revolutionary change in their business. Think Enterprise Document Management 2.0, or the combined power of Dropbox AND Documentum but for enterprise scale businesses.”

The infusion of new capital will accelerate and further fuel M-Files’ rapid growth plans in the US market and bolster its sales and marketing footprint through a worldwide partner channel, while also deepening its focus on compliance in select vertical industries. M-Files is built upon a truly revolutionary metadata-powered platform that forms the basis of a variety of targeted solutions for document management, quality management, enterprise asset management, contract lifecycle management and more.

“We’re ecstatic to have earned the confidence of the team at DFJ Esprit, part of the DFJ global network,” continued Milliken. “The access to additional growth capital will give us the resources to take a big step toward our vision to become the global leader in information management for quality and compliance.”

DFJ Esprit Managing Partner, Stuart Chapman, said, “At DFJ Esprit, we’ve always been firm believers that world-class intellectual property exists in Europe – the kind that can easily succeed in the global market if given the right growth support from day one. Our partnership with Finnish Industry Investment is strong and Finland is a leading technology country that we are proud to invest in. We are looking forward to supporting M-Files continued growth and success in the global market with investment and solid experience on how to build out their international reach.”

M-Files spans the chasm between lightweight file sharing tools that are perceived as easy to use but lack important features, and large entrenched “dinosaurs” that have lots of features but are extremely expensive and complicated. By leveraging a more precise and configurable “folder-less” architecture with seamless support for on-premise, cloud and hybrid deployments, M-Files resonates with customers and partners. The recognition of M-Files as a player in the global ECM and document management markets has been further validated by the company’s inclusion in the 2012 Gartner Magic Quadrant for Enterprise Content Management.

About DFJ Esprit
DFJ Esprit is a leading cross-stage venture capital firm that invests from seed to late stage in European technology and media companies. Members of the DFJ Esprit team have experience of investing in over 200 companies and generating strong returns for investors through building valuable companies alongside the founders and management teams. DFJ Esprit is the exclusive European partner for the Silicon Valley-based DFJ Network with offices in over 30 cities around the world. www.dfjesprit.com

About M-Files Inc.
M-Files enterprise content management (ECM) solutions transform how businesses manage, secure and share information with a unique metadata-driven approach that organizes and processes content based on what it is, rather than where it resides. Thousands of businesses in over 100 countries use M-Files on-premise, in the cloud or in hybrid environments to improve productivity and quality, and to ensure compliance with industry regulations and standards, including companies such as AstraZeneca, SAS and EADS. For more information, visit www.m-files.com.

M-Files is a registered trademark of M-Files Inc. All other registered trademarks belong to their respective owners.

The post M-Files Raises $7.7M From DFJ Esprit, Finnish Industry Investment appeared first on peHUB.

Jawbone is doing something a lot of developers will probably be interested in, by opening up the UP fitness tracking wristband as a platform play, with an open API coming soon. Jawbone’s new version 2.5 update for the iOS UP app allows you to integrate with IFTTT, MapMyFitness, Withings, Sleepio, Wello, RunKeeper, Notch.me, Maxwell Health, Lose It!, and MyFitnessPal.

The new integrations mean that data gathered from those apps and devices like the Withings Smart Body Analyzer can now be pulled into the UP app itself, and combined with information gathered from the Jawbone wristband to provide a more complete picture of a user’s health. The IFTTT integration can be used to help you create your own motivational alerts when you’ve been inactive for too long, or to brag when you’ve blown past your daily step count goal.

The information from the UP can also go out to some specific apps, providing them with data on your sleep patterns and daily movement activity. And this is just the start: Jawbone is starting things off with a few select partners, but after that it intends to open up the API for any developers interested in building Jawbone UP integration into their own apps.

“We are now unstoppable in terms of leadership in today’s market,” explained Hosain Rahman, Jawbone CEO. “The platform we see the API is the first step of that; a limited set of partners with unique experiences, but the whole experience is much deeper.”

Jawbone made its reputation on building Bluetooth products like stereo headsets and earpieces, but then moved into audio equipment like the Jawbone speakers and health monitoring devices like the UP. Other competitors in the space have already moved to open up third-party integrations, like the Nike+ Fuelband, which plugs into Path and Lose It! Jawbone’s platform plans are much broader and deeper than the ones of some of its competitors, however, according to Rahman.

“A lot of these platform announcements like API releases are more PR than they are actual real developers on a platform building value for users,” he said. “We spent a lot of time sitting with developers, looking at what they can enable, what their data structure was, how to pull their experience back into UP, how you really create robustness around them, how to build APIs that work dependably and how we can make sure users can get this stuff.”

This should open the door for a much more holistic picture of personal health, available across a wide range of devices. Individually, these devices have been doing well, but the real opportunity is when apps and hardware start working with one another. Jawbone is taking a great first step towards that end with this API release, but it’ll be interesting to see how the UP platform handles normalizing a huge volume of data from a wide variety of partners in a way that doesn’t overwhelm individual users.

Although it doesn’t show up explicitly in any personality test, some people seem to be more prone to creating complexity than others. Instead of cutting to the heart of an issue, they tangle it further; rather than narrowing down projects, they allow the scope to keep expanding; and instead of making decisions, they defer until there is more data and better analysis.

These behaviors are characteristics of people that I call “complexifiers.” Like Pig-Pen, the Peanuts character who carries around his own cloud of dust, complexifiers seem to leave complexity in their wake, making it more difficult for subordinates, colleagues, customers, and even family members to get things done. Here’s a brief (disguised) example:

Due to changing market conditions, price compression, and the slow introduction of new products, a billion-dollar consumer products unit was starting to see erosion in market share and profitability. To turn things around, senior management brought in a new general manager, an industry expert named Phillip who had previously run the consumer products practice for a large consulting firm.

Phillip turned out to be a classic complexifier. At every meeting with his team he asked for additional data and berated his people for not knowing the answers to every detailed question he could think of. And although he seemed to be dissatisfied with some members of his team, he kept telling HR that he wanted more time to evaluate them, so no changes were made. Eventually he reorganized the unit into a functional/geographic matrix that he explained through an intricate series of slides that most of his people didn’t fully understand. He also created additional metrics that required people to spend more time on reporting. The net result of all this work was that people in the unit were busier and under more pressure than ever before — but market share and profitability continued to decline.

Obviously Phillip represents an extreme example of a complexifier with his insatiable hunger for additional data and inability to make fast decisions. But all of us fall into this category from time to time. If this kind of pattern seems all too familiar to you, and you want to learn how to think more like a “simplifier,” here are four questions that you can ask yourself and/or discuss with your team:

How much data is enough? Complexifiers always want more information, with the hope (or fantasy) that the next bit or byte will answer all questions and hold the key to success. Simplifiers understand that there will never be complete data and that it’s necessary to create hypotheses and action plans based on an intuitive sense of how much is enough.

Have we agreed on the key priorities? Complexifiers like to hedge their bets and not commit to a definitive course of action, particularly since some new information might surface that will change the plan. So rather than get locked in to a few things, complexifiers ask their people to keep multiple balls in the air. Simplifiers on the other hand narrow the focus to a few key things and give their people permission to stop doing things that don’t make the cut.

Do we have an efficient process for rapid review and course correction? Complexifiers like to spend their time in long meetings, sorting through reports and analyses, and trying to manage lots of disparate and unfocused work streams. Simplifiers have focused reviews of the key priorities and hold people accountable for their commitments and results. They also learn as they go, continually testing their hypotheses about what should be done against the reality of what’s working and what is not. This allows them to shift course whenever it seems appropriate or necessary.

Can we explain our plan to others? Complexifiers have a hard time communicating their plans to colleagues and customers, relying on intricate charts and diagrams and convoluted slides rather than simple, straightforward messages. One of the key characteristics of a simplifier is the ability to tell stories that convey the situation, the goals, and the plans — in a way that helps people understand what they need to do and how their work fits with everything else.

Some people are naturals at simplification. But for the rest of us, asking these questions can help keep us honest about whether we are slicing through complexity, or creating it.

Everyone’s favorite electronics hobby shop, Adafruit has posted instructions for building your own HAL 9000 replica out of a big red button, an Arduino board, and some cleverly cut plastic. Best of all? With the press of a button you can make HAL tell you want to do – until you kill it.

HAL is mostly made of laser cut plastic parts and a few nice decals. His brains are a Arduino Uno R3 with speakers attached and his jolly red button is a $10 arcade button. Best of all, the buttons come in white, blue, and green so you can make your own weird version of HAL that lives in an alternate 2001 universe.

To be clear, this is not an exact replica. However, it’s cool enough to, say, act as a cubicle charm or workspace novelty that will allow you, the human, to triumph over the encroaching hellfire of technological domination.