Category: News

Nettwerk Music Group Inc. has raised US$10.25 million in growth-equity financing, which includes an investment from HBC Investments. Existing shareholders Beedie Capital Partners and Nettwerk’s four founding partners – Terry McBride, Ric Arboit, Dan Fraser and Mark Jowett – also participated in the transaction. Beedie Capital Partners is a Vancouver-based private equity firm.

PRESS RELEASE

Nettwerk Music Group Inc., a privately held independent music company focused on building successful artists by offering a unified set of management, marketing and publishing services, today announced that it has raised $10.25 million in equity growth financing.

The equity financing includes investments from HBC Investments, as well as participation from existing shareholders Beedie Capital and Nettwerk’s four founding partners: Terry McBride, Ric Arboit, Dan Fraser and Mark Jowett. Nettwerk will use the proceeds of the financing to invest in new and existing artists under development. Nettwerk will also continue to be an active acquirer of catalogue music rights for which it is uniquely positioned to create and expand value.

“We are pleased to welcome our new shareholder to Nettwerk as we continue to expand the reach and success of our clients. We are also very grateful for the ongoing support from our existing investors,” said Terry McBride, CEO of Nettwerk. “We plan to utilize these funds to create and grow success for our current and future artist clients through true partnerships that value the creative process and long-term patience and planning.”

Peter Brodsky, HBC Investments, added, “HBC is excited to be a financial and strategic partner of Nettwerk. The Group is a known leader in recognizing and leveraging the opportunities that arise from technological disruptions and industry shifts. Nettwerk has emerged as a successful and thriving music company that is uniquely positioned to create long-term value in its clients’ musical works and content. The investment comes at the perfect time where the music industry is experiencing a resurgence with explosive growth in monetization opportunities across diverse worldwide retail and distribution models.”

“Our involvement with Nettwerk, which began in 2006 with a focus on catalogue acquisitions, has shown that the Group’s capabilities and platforms are also effective at driving growth in established works,” said Ryan Beedie, President of Beedie Capital Partners. “We are excited to add HBC to the team in order to continue to grow Nettwerk’s catalogue acquisition and new artist development projects.”

The past year has been an exciting one for Nettwerk Music Group across all divisions of the company. Highlights include management client fun., who broke out with their smash single “We Are Young feat. Janelle Monae” from sophomore album Some Nights (Fueled By Ramen), which is now certified Platinum. The band was nominated for six Grammy Awards®, and took home two: Song of the Year and the coveted Best New Artist. Internationally, Vancouver-based singer/songwriter Wanting saw her debut album, Everything In The World, explode in and around China, going Triple Platinum in China and Hong Kong and Platinum in Malaysia and Taiwan. Wanting, who is also a label and publishing client, is nominated for 10 Chinese Music Chart Awards, including Best New Artist, Album of the Year and Singer/Songwriter of the Year.

LA-based band Family of the Year, who sits on Nettwerk’s management and label rosters, saw a local buzz early last year grow into full-fledged national acclaim. Stand-out track “Hero,” from Nettwerk debut album Loma Vista, recently claimed the #1 spot on the Triple A Top 30 Chart, following the band’s appearances on national late night television shows Jimmy Kimmel Live!, Conan, and Last Call With Carson Daly, as well as major support from MTV, MTV2, CMT, and national print publications like USA Today and Entertainment Weekly. Family of the Year, who in the past has supported artists like Edward Sharpe & The Magnetic Zeros, Mumford & Sons, Good Old War and Milo Greene, is in the midst of selling out their first headline tour of North America. This summer, the band will appear at various festivals, including Lollapalooza, Summerfest and Kanrocksas.

Label artist Passenger’s debut Nettwerk album All The Little Lights has lived on the Billboard Heatseekers Chart for 34 consecutive weeks and counting. The UK troubadour has been touring the world, selling-out nearly every headline show across North America, the UK, Europe, New Zealand and Australia, as well as supporting his friend Ed Sheeran in these territories. The video for lead single “Let Her Go” exploded on YouTube and now has more than 22 million views, while the single itself has reached #1 in ten countries so far. iTunes UK named All The Little Lights the “Best Singer/Songwriter Album of 2012,” while iTunes US and Canada featured the album as a 2012 Chart Topper. Passenger will return to North American for a major headline tour this summer.

Recent label signings include the much buzzed about Swiss/German female duo BOY, Australian indie folk quintet The Paper Kites, Brooklyn fantasy pop duo Savoir Adore and Canadian gritty rockers The Pack A.D.

About Nettwerk Music Group Inc.
Nettwerk Music Group (NMG) is the umbrella company for Nettwerk Records, Nettwerk Management, Nettwerk Producer Management and Nettwerk One Publishing. Nettwerk connects music fans with music makers. From launching the careers of Sarah McLachlan and Coldplay and developing artists like fun., Old Crow Medicine Show, Morgan Page, Passenger, Family of the Year and Wanting to working with a roster of top-flight producers and mixers like Chris Lord-Alge, Ron Aniello, Howard Benson and Bob Clearmountain, Nettwerk continues its over 25 year history of tenacity, innovation and ingenuity. As a worldwide organization, NMG offers its clients a wide range of services in the business of music while ensuring the artist remains the creative centre.

Photo courtesy of Shutterstock.

The post Nettwerk Music Raises $10.25M appeared first on peHUB.

Rocketmiles said Monday it raised $2 million in funding led by Atlas Venture. Other participants include Link Ventures, and Peterson Ventures and several angel investors in the travel and loyalty industry. Chicago-based Rocketmiles is a hotel booking site.

PRESS RELEASE

Chicago-based Rocketmiles (www.rocketmiles.com) today announced that is has raised $2 million in funding led by Atlas Venture. Founded in 2012, Rocketmiles is a hotel booking site geared toward travelers who want to stockpile miles for dream vacations, from an anniversary trip to Paris to a family spring break getaway to Key West. The company made its public debut earlier this month following a successful two month beta.

The $2 million convertible note financing is the first round of external fundraising for Rocketmiles. Participants include Atlas Venture, Link Ventures, and Peterson Ventures and several angel investors in the travel and loyalty industry.
“Until now, the easiest way for travelers to earn reward miles was from flights and credit cards. Rocketmiles was created to offer travelers a lucrative new option that allows them to stockpile miles when booking hotel rooms so they can save up for free vacations faster,” said Jay Hoffmann , CEO and Cofounder of Rocketmiles and former Managing Director at Mileage Plus. “Rocketmiles customers can book rooms at desirable premium hotels for similar rates as found on popular online travel agencies, and at the same time earn an average of 3,000 reward miles per night. For the frequent traveler, that adds up to 90,000 extra miles per year that they can use to fly nearly anywhere in the world.”
“Rocketmiles has developed a creative new way to add value to online travel, the largest e-commerce category. The unique business model and experienced founding members are impressive and we are very excited to be part of this team,” said Ryan Moore , Partner, Atlas Venture.
Rocketmiles will use the funding to invest in marketing and customer acquisition as well as to expand its airline and hotel partnerships.
About Rocketmiles
Rocketmiles was founded in 2012 to allow frequent fliers to earn previously unheard of quantities of frequent flier miles and points when booking rooms at high-quality hotels. For consumers, Rocketmiles makes saving up for incredible vacations faster and easier. For hotels, Rocketmiles means being able to offer high-value customers inventory that would have otherwise gone unsold — without weakening the brand through public discounting. Based in Chicago and backed by top-tier strategic venture firms, the company is founded by travel and loyalty veterans Jay Hoffmann , Bjorn Larsen , and Kris Helenek . For more information, visit www.rocketmiles.com and follow on Twitter @rocket_miles.

The post Rocketmiles Raises $2 Mln appeared first on peHUB.

Google recently held its Test Automation Conference (GTAC), and Facebook was among the attending companies discussing developer strategies.

Facebook’s Simon Stewart gave a 45-minute presentation on how Facebook tests Facebook for Android. He discussed how Facebook manages its code, its approaches to testing, and of course, dogfooding.

You can see the slides from his presentation here.

First Lady Michelle Obama delivers remarks at the White House Forum on Military Credentialing and Licensing, in the Eisenhower Executive Office Building South Court Auditorium, April 29, 2013. The First Lady announces the IT Training and Certification Partnership, a new public-private partnership that will enable thousands of service members to earn industry-recognized information technology (IT) certifications before they transition from military service.

(Official White House Photo by Chuck Kennedy)

In the ongoing effort to help our servicemembers and veterans transition from active duty service to the civilian job market, the White House today invited leaders from the private sector, the military services, industry trade associations, unions, educational institutions, state legislatures, veteran service organizations, and state licensing boards for a forum on military credentialing and licensing.

At the event, First Lady Michelle Obama announced the launch of the IT Training and Certification Partnership, a new public-private program that addresses an issue that can prevent our troops from gaining employment in the private sector: Active military personnel typically do not have the industry-recognized certifications that reflect the IT skills and expertise they gained through their military service.

Today’s announcement is the second major partnership developed through the Military Credentialing and Licensing Task Force, which was established last June by the Department of Defense at President Obama’s direction. The new Partnership will provide opportunities for up to 161,000 service members to gain industry-recognized, nationally portable certifications necessary for 12 high-demand technology professions, including computer programmers, quality assurance engineers, and IT security analysts. The targeted professions are expected to generate more than 1.8 million job opportunities by 2020, and have an average annual salary of more than $81,000. Their high-quality military training assures that our veterans have the skill sets that employers demand to fill these positions

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The “Ponytail Stunt Death”, as it’s being called, occurred over the weekend when a Guinness record holder attempted a dangerous stunt over the River Teesta in West Bengal, India.

48-year old Sailendra Nath Roy was performing his infamous stunt, which involved him hanging from a zip line by his hair some 600 feet in the air, when there was a snag on the line and he got caught. Roy flailed about in the air for several minutes, but no one could reach him to help. Authorities say he died of a heart attack.

“He was desperately trying to move forward. He was trying to scream out some instruction. But no one could follow what he was saying. After struggling for 30 minutes he became still,” said Balai Sutradhar, a photographer covering the event.

Tragically, Roy allegedly told his wife that the stunt would be his last, as she was greatly concerned for his safety. Officials say there were no emergency caregivers on the scene, and that Roy was in the air for over 45 minutes before he was taken to the hospital.

Image: Balai Sutradhar

Netflix uploaded a trio of behind-the-scenes videos for its new show Hemlock Grove to YouTube. If you’re a fan of the show, check them out:

Netflix said last week that Hemlock Grove attracted more debut weekend subscribers than even the -popular House of Cards, though reviews haven’t been quite so favorable.

Apparently, the idea of sitting down and grabbing a cup of coffee is so damn exciting that someone decided to use a stolen credit card to try and make it happen.

I’m sure you’ve been following the escalation of a particular charity auction on the site Charitybuzz – the one that offers a 30 minute to an hour-long coffee date with Apple CEO Tim Cook for the winner and a friend. Tim Cook is giving all of the money generated from the auction to the RFK Center for Justice and Human Rights. Of course, there’s nothing inherently wrong with auctioning yourself for charity. It’s admirable, actually, and it has the ability to generate a game-changing amount of funding for the center.

The big surprise here is just how much people are willing to bid for the date.

Charitybuzz placed an estimated value of $50,000 on the date, but zealous bidders have eclipsed that mark – and then some. The bid topped $50,000 very quickly, and then exploded as the bidding reached $605,000 by last Friday night. Yep, you read that right. $605,000 for a short break with Tim Cook at Apple HQ in Cupertino.

Well, it turns out, there was something off about that $605,000 bid. Fortune noticed that this morning, the bid had fallen to $600,000. Why did it fall? Was it a glitch?

Nope. Charitybuzz confirmed that the top bid was removed when it was found out that it was placed with a stolen credit card.

But the fact remains, there is a legitimate $600,000 bid that’s currently winning this thing. And there are still 15 days left to go in the auction. To put this all in perspective, Charitybuzz’s previous record for something like this was set back in 2011 when someone paid $255,000 for some time with former President Bill Clinton.

The U.S. launch of the Samsung Galaxy S4 is imminent and Android fans are clamoring to get their hands on the Korean manufacturer’s latest flagship Android device. Anyone hoping to use the phone to store pictures, audio, and video, however, had better have an SD card handy.

Geek.com got its hands on an S4 this week and are now reporting that the smartphone will come with over 7GB of Android and Samsung software pre-installed. For perspective, that’s nearly half of the storage found in the 16GB version of the S4.

It’s been clear for a while that Samsung has been focusing its development and advertising on software. The company is trying to differentiate itself from other smartphone manufacturers now that Android device hardware has caught up with, and in some cases exceeded, Apple’s iPhone. Eye-catching software is a way to do that, but with it comes software bloat and apps that seem nice but are rarely used in practice.

The good thing is, Samsung’s Galaxy smartphones are also popular among the Android modding community. Modders have already rooted some versions of the Galaxy S4 and are working to unlock the bootloader for versions of the phone that are locked by U.S. carriers (such as AT&T). Once rooted, Samsung’s Galaxy devices have access to a wide variety of roms to choose from that do not come pre-loaded with crapware.

Samsung’s latest flagship device – the Galaxy S4 – must have went through the same rigorous testing process that Samsung’s other devices go through. That being said, I’m pretty sure Samsung never tested to see if its lastest device was bulletproof.

YouTube personality raredrr saw this glaring hole in Samsung’s testing regimen and took matters into his own hands with his latest test to see if the S4 can survive being shot with a 50 cal sniper rifle. Short answer – no. Long answer – don’t expect the Galaxy S4 to stop incoming bullets.

As a bonus, here’s ratedrr shooting the Galaxy S4′s main competition – the iPhone 5 – with a 50 cal rifle. It holds up a little better:

[h/t: Kotaku]

KPS Capital Partners said Monday that it promoted Bruce Curley to Partner – Operations Group. Curley lead the firm’s operations group, KPS said.

PRESS RELEASE

KPS Capital Partners, LP (“KPS”) announced today the promotion of Bruce Curley to Partner – Operations Group.
Mr. Curley leads the KPS Operations Group, a growing team of ten professionals with significant manufacturing and operations experience. The KPS Operations Group works with the KPS portfolio companies to create a culture of continuous improvement and to make their businesses better.
Mr. Curley has been affiliated with KPS since 2000, first as Chief Executive Officer of a former KPS portfolio company, and then beginning in 2005 as Managing Director and head of the KPS Operations Group. Prior to his involvement with KPS, Mr. Curley held management positions with International Paper, Boise Cascade and Mead. Mr. Curley received a B.S. in Engineering from Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute and an M.A. in Business from Central Michigan University. He is a registered Professional Engineer.
Michael Psaros and David Shapiro , Co-Founders and Managing Partners of KPS, said, “We are proud to announce the promotion of Bruce Curley to Partner – Operations Group. Bruce is an important member of the KPS team and has contributed enormously to the success of our firm for over a decade by working with our portfolio company management teams to drive operational excellence. We have built a world class team of operations focused professionals under Bruce’s leadership and we expect to continue to grow our operations team in the coming years.”
On April 15, 2013, KPS announced the first and final closing of its fourth fund, KPS Special Situations Fund IV, with $3.5 billion in investor capital commitments.
About KPS Capital Partners, LP
KPS Capital Partners, LP is the manager of the KPS Special Situations Funds, a family of private equity funds with $6.0 billion of assets under management focused on constructive investing in restructurings, turnarounds and other special situations. The KPS investment strategy targets manufacturing and industrial companies with strong market positions that are going through a period of transition or experiencing operating or financial difficulties. For over two decades, the partners of KPS have worked with the management teams and associates of its portfolio companies to improve operating and financial performance by focusing on cost reduction, efficiency, operational excellence and strategic growth initiatives. KPS Portfolio Companies, as of December 31, 2012, have aggregate annual revenues of approximately $6.8 billion, operate 85 manufacturing plants in 25 countries, and employ over 29,000 associates, directly and through joint ventures worldwide. The KPS investment strategy and portfolio companies are described in detail at the firm’s website: www.kpsfund.com.

The post KPS Capital Promotes Curley to Partner appeared first on peHUB.

Google Tech Talks always cover come interesting topics. This time, it’s the Virtual Brain – a project that involves the construction of a simulation of the human brain.

The jury may be out on whether Messrs. Abe and Kuroda will succeed in cajoling the Japanese economy from its decades-long funk but the cash is betting they will. Domestic and foreign investors have stampeded for Tokyo equities, and Morgan Stanley has been crunching the numbers.

Since 2005, Japanese investors built up a 14 trillion yen (over $140 billion) portfolio of foreign equities. But between January-March 2013, they offloaded a third of this — about $39 billion.  Going back to July 2012 when they first started bringing cash home, the Japanese have sold $53 billion in foreign equities, or 36 percent of equity holdings.

If one were to include all foreign portfolio investments, they sold a net $74 billion worth of assets in the first three months of 2013. Morgan Stanley says this is the the most since 2005. You can see their graphic below (click on it for a bigger version).

Not surprising then that the Nikkei has been on a roll with returns of  34 percent this year. Aside from the Japanese money, foreign cash has also flooded in — foreigners have bought $23 billion worth of Japanese equities in the first two months of 2013, according to Japanese government data.  Broadly, that is a 7 percent rise in cumulative holdings. Asian investors’ holdings alone have jumped 26 percent.

So what now? Morgan Stanley’s survey of Japanese funds revealed that most had higher allocations to local equities than usual. While only around 5 percent said they would increase their weighting, half  of those surveyed intended to keep the current position.

“This data supports our view that further upside for the Japan equity market is data and policy dependent,” Morgan Stanley analysts wrote.

Disrupt NY 2013′s Startup Battlefield competition is underway, and now New York native Keen Home is taking the stage to present its first-round pitch. Keen Home is a home automation startup, which aims to follow in Nest’s footsteps by building remote vents for your central air conditioning and heating systems that can be controlled from your smartphone to optimally direct air where you actually need it — and away from places you don’t. Keen just launched its crowdfunding campaign on Indiegogo.

Keen Home is the brainchild of Ryan Fant and Nayeem Hussain, both of whom have experience founding companies in the home real estate and property-management space. The two believe their startup can appeal to consumers who want both more convenience in managing their home’s HVAC systems, and who want to save money and conserve energy. Keen Home’s debut product, the Keen Vent, accomplishes both.

The idea came from Fant noticing that when vents were closed in other rooms, heating and cooling the one he was currently in became much easier. The problem is that those vents generally operate separately, and manually, in most homes. Even with some systems that provide a remote, like Activent, they aren’t centrally controlled in a way that makes them individually manageable from an existing device like a smartphone.

“We found that just by closing four vents in an average-sized home, we’ve reduced the run time of the furnace by about 30 percent,” Fant explained in an interview. “So not only were we redirecting air to rooms that were actually in use by intelligently closing vents, we were increasing efficiency, as well.”

Keen believes that the focus is always on the thermostat when it comes to home heating and cooling efficiency solutions, which is good but it ignores other parts of the problem. The Keen Vent solves that, by providing both a user-guided and automated way of opening and closing vents to change how air flows through a home. A homeowner can set a schedule for individual vents, too, and it can plug into weather data to respond intelligently to changing conditions.

Fant says the Keen Vent can provide up to 32 percent reduction in run time for HVAC systems, which means lower monthly bills and less toll on the environment. Most heating and cooling vents in households are around 60 years old, Keen Home said on stage during their Disrupt Battlefield presentation on Monday.

Individual vent covers will cost around $40 per vent, Keen predicts, with a $150 charge for the system in total. There’s also a recurring fee of around $4 per month for access to the cloud-based management platform, which also provides monthly reports. But Fant and Hussain plan to partner with utility companies and homebuilders to try to offer the tech initially at a discount price, perhaps with, say, six months of service rolled into a new construction. It’s the same model that satellite radio provider Sirius/XM uses to sell subscriptions with new cars.

Keen Home is launching its Keen Vent product on Indiegogo today, and believes that seeking crowdfunding, as well as traditional investment, will help it get the word out and prove product viability. Its biggest challenges will be proving to users that a recurring subscription around centralized vent control is worth the cost, and in making sure that legacy players like Honeywell don’t swoop in and simply build their own similar systems. The team says that being aggressive with partnerships with big utility companies, the way others like Nest and thinkeco have done in the past, will be the key to making sure it can overcome both.

Keen said on stage that the majority of its audience would be people who don’t know what a smart home is, so they tried to make sure it was as easy to install as possible. That’s why they’ve made the install process as simple as possible, and setting up the online dashboard involves only entering a code and then doing a roughly 15 question survey. In addition, they’re planning to partner with HVAC contractors to take care of more complicated installs. Battery life is expected to be around a year for the vents, so it’d be roughly equivalent to changing the power source on devices like smoke and carbon monoxide detectors.

The best camera is the one you have with you and we pretty much always have our smartphones with us. With many Android phones, the camera alone will sell the device for some customers. Needless to say, there are plenty of apps in the Play Store that cater to all kinds of shutterbugs and their smartphone cameras for when the built-in camera application on your phone just doesn’t cut it. So, in this guide, we’re going to go over the best camera apps for your device.

Camera Zoom FX is one of the most popular camera applications on the Play Store and for good reason. It combines a full suite of extra camera functions with a ton of photo editing options for one of the most feature-rich applications you can find. If you’re looking for just a solid camera replacement, this app has everything you can think of. It fully supports the regular zoom of your smartphone’s lens, as well as your phone’s front-facing camera, and throws in lots of extra features your OEM camera software probably doesn’t have. Plus you won’t lose any control over things like your ISO settings, exposure, contrast, brightness, etc.

Camera Zoom FX supports complete hardware customization, so if you want to reassign your volume rocker to a dedicated camera button, you can. Maybe you don’t want to actually touch the phone to take pictures? There’s an option for voice activated shots. It’s also advertised as one of the fastest cameras for Android devices, as the burst shot mode takes up to 10 shots per second. In addition to the traditional burst shot, there are also time lapse shots, collage shots, and tons of live effects to stick on your photos. And if you’re the type who likes to share photos quickly with friends, there’s one-tap sharing to all of your favorite social sites.

Camera Zoom FX runs $2.99, but it’s more than worth the price for all the features. Best of all, there’s several add-on apps available for free from the developer to extend what the app can do.

Play Store Download Link

Pudding Camera is a unique camera replacement that lets you mix and match different kinds of film and camera to get a certain effect on pictures. There are 9 different camera types to pick from and 8 different kinds of film to use, which creates tons of different possibilities to make different or unique shots.

Different camera types take different shots. Your basic camera takes a standard 4:3 aspect ratio shot or you can use a 45mm snap camera with a 3:2 aspect ratio. There are also more creative and useful cameras, such as the motion camera, which takes four pictures of a subject moving across the picture. It then stitches all four shots together into a single picture. There are fish-eye lenses, panoramic shots, and other types of motion cameras.

On top of picking your specific camera, you can also change the film you’re using. Maybe you’re going for a really retro shot or you just want colors to pop more. You can easily switch to vintage film for an old-school look or vivid film to make things a bit more colorful. Combine all the different types of film with the camera selection, and you can easily spice up your average pictures.

Unfortunately, Pudding Camera can’t take video and you do lose some fine-tuning control in the settings that you normally get with your stock camera, but if you’re just looking for something basic that easily makes your pictures look a bit more exciting, Pudding Camera is worth taking a look at. Besides, it’s free.

Play Store Download Link

Retro camera is a great, polished camera replacement to get an old school feel to your photos, with six different cameras to select from. It’s a pretty specific app that really only does the old-school shots, so you wouldn’t want to use it as a complete camera replacement, but more of a complementary camera app to what you’re already using.

The interface is pretty simple and gives you a shutter button, a menu button to select a different camera, a toggle for color photos or black and white photos, an info button about your currently selected camera, and a gallery button. The entire UI changes depending on which camera you’re currently using, but the buttons more or less stay the same and keep their functions. Overall, it’s a really well designed app that’s a ton of fun to use, especially if you want the camera app to apply effects to your photos instead of manually doing the work post-shot.

If you enjoy sharing your photos with the world, there are also some links in the app to share your best shots to Retro Camera’s Facebook wall. Those photos are public for other people to look at, and you can check the wall to see what other people are taking pictures of. It’s a nice touch to add an element of social networking into a camera application.

Play Store Download Link

Maybe you’ve tried the other camera apps and you really just want something simple and straightforward to take pictures. Not too many unnecessary settings, no crazy filters, just a camera application.

Camera JB+ is the stock Android Jelly Bean camera for any Android device running 4.0.3 or higher. So if you’ve got a device that your OEM or carrier won’t update, or you’re stuck with an OEM skin but you want a stock Android camera experience, this is the way to go. It doesn’t include Photo Sphere, unfortunately, but it has all the same features that the stock camera does otherwise, including pinch to zoom, photo, video, and panoramic modes, and a burst mode. It also includes the ability to swipe left or right to immediately start checking out your latest photos.

The app does also come bundled with a small photo editor for your pictures. It doesn’t have as many filters and borders as some other apps, but if you’re just looking for subtle effects to touch up your pictures, it’s excellent. It can even trim videos, which is something none of the other applications can do. The app only costs $1.99, but there’s an older version of the Ice Cream Sandwich stock camera you can try out first if you’re still unsure.

Play Store Download Link

There are countless photography apps on the Play Store, and Google regularly shows off the best of the best. These four apps cover a broad range of what you can do with your smartphone camera, but there’s plenty more apps that specialize in certain kinds of pictures if none of these quite fit what you’re trying to do. Let us know in the comments if we missed one of your favorite camera apps.

Come comment on this article: Best Android camera apps [April 2013]

The Fisker debacle is shining a spotlight on the influence that venture capitalists have had — or have attempted to have — on government support. The Wall Street Journal published a piece late last week highlighting emails from Kleiner Perkins partner Ray Lane asking for movement on approval of a loan from the Department of Energy for fuel efficient car startup Next AutoWorks (formerly called V-Vehicle).

Next AutoWorks didn’t receive the loan. And rightly so. Next AutoWorks made Fisker look like a good idea (both companies were backed by Kleiner Perkins, by the way). The company struggled right out of the gate with its gas-sipping, low cost, plastic car, and never went anywhere with it.

But there were another almost half dozen alternative vehicle startups that asked the DOE for loans out of the Advanced Technology Vehicle Manufacturing Program (created in 2007 and funded in 2008) but that didn’t receive loans: Bright Automotive, Aptera, Coda, Think, and Carbon Motors. And these are just companies that publicly discussed the loans with the media.

Tesla and Fisker were the only startups that received funding from the ATVM program, and half of Fisker’s loan was withheld. The close to $200 million that went to Fisker represents around 2 percent of the entire ATVM loan portfolio advocated. The bulk of the loans went to the big automakers, Nissan and Ford. The DOE became much more cautious with this program in 2011 (coinciding with Solyndra’s struggles), and has since frozen the remaining $16.6 billion of the $25 billion program.

All in all, the DOE was actually pretty cautious and conservative with the ATVM loan funding. The program definitely had problems, to be sure, including some things I outlined in this previous post: miscommunication with companies, and better early due diligence. It’s also questionable whether the government should be giving such sizable amounts to single companies, instead of putting those funds into other incentives like tax breaks.

But the ATVM program wasn’t an example of massive misspending from the DOE; it was a program that was stalled before it was really even started.

Related research and analysis from GigaOM Pro:
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President Barack Obama announces Mayor Anthony Foxx, of Charlotte, N.C., as his nominee for Transportation Secretary, in the East Room of the White House, April 29, 2013. Outgoing Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood applauds at right.

(Official White House Photo by Pete Souza)

Today, President Obama announced Anthony Foxx as his nominee for the next Secretary of Transportation.

Foxx is currently the mayor of Charlotte, North Carolina, which he helped turn around since taking office in 2009. Both the city and country were going through during a “bruising economic crisis,” President Obama said.

“The economy is growing. There are more jobs, more opportunity,” he said. “And if you ask Anthony how that happened, he’ll tell you that one of the reasons is that Charlotte made one of the largest investments in transportation in the city’s history.” 

Since Anthony took office, they’ve broken ground on a new streetcar project that’s going to bring modern electric tram service to the downtown area. They’ve expanded the international airport. And they’re extending the city’s light rail system. All of that has not only helped create new jobs, it’s helped Charlotte become more attractive to business.

President Obama said that one of the best ways we can grow our economy and rebuild opportunity for the middle class is by putting more Americans back to work by investing in rebuilding our infrastructure.

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