Category: News

Imagine a world where all the vitamins, minerals, herbs, extracts, compounds, powders, and probiotics that are so freely available at any health food store and at many grocery stores were suddenly made illegal so they could be turned into pharmaceutical drugs. Such a…

To kick off the big Play Store redesign, Google has launched a little contest to raise awareness about your favorite things in the Play Store. Simply tweet one of your favorite items, it’s link in the Play Store, and the hashtag #favoritethings. You’ll have to be following the Play Store’s Twitter account, obviously, and there’s a separate page where you’ll need to submit your proof to enter the contest, but it’s a pretty simple way to grab some cool prizes.

What prizes are there, exactly? Ten Nexus 10s, seven Nexus 7s, and four Nexus 4s, as well as a hundred $10 Play Store gift cards. Now, before you start tweeting off everything you love about the Play Store (and inevitably losing a few Twitter followers in the process) each person is only allowed one entry, so make sure to pick that one thing that you really consider your favorite. Just don’t take too long to decide, as the contest ends on the 24th. Hit the break below to check out the full rules for the contest.

source: Google

Come comment on this article: Tweet about your favorite things in the Play Store for a chance to win some prizes from Google

If you’ve decided that you aren’t a fan of Google’s color scheming in the latest Play Store redesign, we might have the answer for you. A “blacked out” themed version of the Play Store has surfaced on RootzWiki, and it definitely has a stylish appeal to it, especially if you aren’t a fan of all the white that Google uses.

Installation is simple, but you’ll need to be rooted to be able to flash the file in a custom recovery. For those unfamiliar with the process, you’ll download the packaged zip file on your phone, then reboot to recovery, flash the zip, and reboot. If you’re a little more tech savvy, you can manually push the modded .apk to your device, but recovery flashing does the trick.

In addition to the Play Store, tons of other Google Apps have gotten the sleek, dark redesign, so if the idea sounds interesting to you, hit the link below to check out the other apps.

source: RootzWiki

Come comment on this article: Download black themed Play Store and other Google apps

It’s not only financial analysts who are bearish on the prospects of new gaming consoles from Microsoft (MSFT) and Sony (SNE) — gaming industry pioneers aren’t too optimistic either. In an interview with Gamespot, Bioware cofounder Dr. Greg Zeschuk said that neither the next Xbox nor the PlayStation 4 are likely to fix the “sick market for old-school gaming” that the industry has found itself trapped in recently. Zeschuk, who cofounded the company responsible for the popular Mass Effect and Dragon Age series, went onto say “that unless Microsoft or Sony pull something magically out of a hat, it’s pretty much the same old, same old repackaged,” and that the new consoles will have a minimal impact on the retail market for high-end games.

If Apple (AAPL) does release its next-generation MacBooks this spring, it seems they’ll come with super-fast Wi-Fi capabilities. 9to5Mac reports that the latest version of OS X that Apple seeded to developers this week contains code supporting the 802.11ac standard, also known as “5G Wi-Fi,” that is capable of delivering theoretical peak speeds of 1.3Gbps and is a major step forward in the evolution of Wi-Fi. The added code confirms a report from earlier this year about Apple and Broadcom (BRCM) teaming up to bring gigabit-speed 802.11ac chips to the 2013 Mac lineup. Asus (2357) became the first company to produce a notebook with 802.11ac connectivity last year with its G75VW gaming laptop.

Following reports that app recommendation service AppGratis had its iOS application pulled from the App Store, Apple (AAPL) is reportedly getting ready to crack down on numerous apps that have quietly been violating Apple’s terms and conditions. According to multiple unnamed sources speaking with AllThingsD, Apple pulled AppGratis from the Store for violating two clauses in its App Store Review Guidelines, one that forbids apps from promoting other companies’ software and a second that bars developers from sending marketing messages using push notifications. The blog’s sources say Apple is getting ready to crack down on other apps that violate these two clauses — though it would be nice if Apple were to fix its own “Genius” app recommendation system, which is still absolutely awful despite a recent overhaul, before ousting similar services that actually work.

When it comes to identifying potentially adverse reactions to prescription drugs, you might think doctors would be on the front lines. After all, they see a lot of patients for a lot of conditions and prescribe a lot of drugs, so who better to notice when certain prescriptions keep leading to the same side effects? And you’d be right — and wrong.

As individuals, doctors probably don’t see enough of any given adverse reaction to notice patterns emerging. But as a collection, their notes on patients’ medical records can provide valuable insights, as a group of Stanford researchers recently discovered. Using “18 years of patient data from 1.8 million patients [consisting of] 19 million encounters, 35 million coded ICD-9 diagnoses, and >11 million unstructured clinical notes,” the team was able to accurately identify interactions by analyzing the free-form text that doctors had entered about patients’ symptoms, conditions and prescription regimens.

A key aspect to being able to predict adverse interactions is understanding the relationships among the different sets of terminologies used in different medical fields. It’s a lot easier to spot patterns across hospitals or even an individual patients’ records when you know that a radiologist writing X is the same, or related to, an oncologist writing Y. We covered an earlier collaboration between the study’s leader, Nigam Shah, and medical-data startup Apixio around this very topic in 2011.

Shah and his team hope their work can complement the current process for tracking drug reactions, the FDA’s Adverse Event Reporting System. Whereas that system requires doctors and patients to manually alert the FDA of potential adverse side effects, their method could highlight potential problems that no one noticed or took the time to report. I’d consider this similar to some early research by social medical sites such as PatientsLikeMe, whose users are producing lots of data about their conditions, drugs, dosages and side effects that could produce correlations ripe for controlled experiments.

A press release announcing the study’s publication highlights some of its future promise and current limitations:

“[T]he research team is working on refinements that will cull even more useful information from clinical notes, such as reports of reactions caused by drug combinations, the use of medications typically prescribed for one condition but found effective for treatment of a different health problem, or finding medical profiles of patients that fit a certain scenario. …

One downside is that most electronic health record systems are set up for patient care, not patient research, Goodman noted. In this study, the researchers mined a data system created for this kind of research, which isn’t widely available. The researchers used the Stanford Translational Research Integrated Database Environment, known as STRIDE.”

This is just one of many ways in which researchers are experimenting with big data concepts to help medical professionals make sense of more data than they could possibly analyze on their own. Other examples we’ve covered recently include an artificial intelligence model for prescribing safe, cost-effective treatments, the application of Google PageRank-like algorithms to map the spread of cancer cells throughout the body, and the use of graph data structures to organize highly complex sequencing data.

Feature image courtesy of Shutterstock user Maksym Dykha.

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Microsoft sure is doing its best to stay quiet regarding its launch plans for its Office for Android, but it finally appears that we have an idea of when to expect the productivity suite and tools to hit our Android devices. The gang at ZDNET obtained a leaked roadmap for the mobile port of Microsoft’s Office product, also affectionately known as “Gemini”. The major thing to note right off the bat is that “Gemini” is not only being stalled for a launch later this year, but it’s looking like it will be ready around the fall of next year. As Microsoft’s Win32, Surface RT and Mac versions takes precedent, it will likely have the Android’s app version being developed on the back-end and won’t be ready for the masses until October 2014.

The long wait is definitely a bummer for sure. Here’s hoping that Android port will be worth the wait.

source: ZDNET

Come comment on this article: Leaked roadmap indicates Microsoft Office won’t hit Android devices until Fall 2014

In some alternate universe, Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer slaps former Windows & Windows Live president Steven Sinofsky on the back for a job well done. The company’s newest operating system is such a huge success that sagging PC shipments soared to record numbers. Our reality is something shockingly different. First-quarter declines are the worst since IDC started tabulating numbers in 1994 and surpass the worst estimates. You know things are really bad when even perennial gainer Apple sees a huge year-of-year fall off.

“At this point, unfortunately, it seems clear that the Windows 8 launch not only failed to provide a positive boost to the PC market, but appears to have slowed the market”, Bob O’Donnell, IDC vice president, says. Holy Moley, Windows 8 slowed the market? You want to know why Ballmer booted Sinfosky out the door? O’Donnell offers chilling indictment.

“While some consumers appreciate the new form factors and touch capabilities of Windows 8, the radical changes to the UI, removal of the familiar Start button, and the costs associated with touch have made PCs a less attractive alternative to dedicated tablets and other competitive devices”, he says. “Microsoft will have to make some very tough decisions moving forward if it wants to help reinvigorate the PC market”.

Strangely, I really like Windows 8 — well, running on Surface Pro. The broader market of buyers disagree. Well, now we have another reason Microsoft rushes Windows 8.1 development for pre-holiday 2013 release.

It’s the Apocalypse

In mid-March IDC warned that PC shipments might decline greater than its 7.7 percent forecast. The year-over-year drop is nearly double that — 13.9 percent. Let me put that figure in context that makes more sense of O’Donnell blaming Windows 8. Shipments sagged in Q1 2012, too, something that should have magnified gains a year later. Decline’s severity tells a story that O’Donnell reads grimly, for Windows 8.

“Although the reduction in shipments was not a surprise, the magnitude of the contraction is both surprising and worrisome”, David Daoud, IDC Research Director, says. You think?

Simply stated, and there’s no easy way about it, Windows 8 is failure. The measure of how much likely comes when Microsoft announces first-quarter results later this month. Looks like early license sales success is more a factor of low-cost upgrades, which the company no longer offers. Sustainability of license sales, at full price and without much lift from PCs, is something Microsoft must answer with earnings. Share price is down more than 2 percent in after-hours trading tonight, BTW.

Accelerating a trend already evident from past quarters, smartphones and tablets pull sales from PCs. Even Apple. IDC asserts that iPad contributed to Mac shipment declines during first quarter.

Top 5 Vendors, Worldwide PC Shipments, First Quarter 2013 (Preliminary) (Units Shipments are in thousands) 

Vendor	1Q13 Shipments	1Q13 Market Share	1Q12 Shipments	1Q12 Market Share	1Q13/1Q12 Growth
1. HP	11,997	15.7%	15,726	17.7%	-23.7%
2. Lenovo	11,700	15.3%	11,705	13.2%	0.0%
3. Dell	9,010	11.8%	10,110	11.4%	-10.9%
4. Acer Group	6,150	8.1%	8,952	10.1%	-31.3%
5. ASUS	4,363	5.7%	5,401	6.1%	-19.2%
Others	33,075	43.4%	36,739	41.5%	-10.0%
Total	76,294	100.0%	88,635	100.0%	-13.9%

Source: IDC Worldwide Quarterly PC Tracker, April 10, 2013

“The industry is going through a critical crossroads, and strategic choices will have to be made as to how to compete with the proliferation of alternative devices and remain relevant to the consumer”, Daoud says. “Vendors will have to revisit their organizational structures and go to market strategies, as well as their supply chain, distribution, and product portfolios in the face of shrinking demand and looming consolidation”.

In other words, traditional PC makers must tighten up supply chains, which reverberations will be felt globally by component manufacturers and suppliers, among other parts of the ecosystem. Then there is the tablet quandary, about which some companies must reallocate resources to different devices.

Globally PC shipments fell among four of the five top PC manufacturers — flat for second-ranked Lenovo. Acer posted the steepest decline — 31.3 percent.

Top 5 Vendors, United States PC Shipments, First Quarter 2013 (Preliminary) (Units Shipments are in thousands) 

Vendor	1Q13 Shipments	1Q13 Market Share	1Q12 Shipments	1Q12 Market Share	1Q13/1Q12 Growth
1. HP	3,570	25.1%	4,632	28.5%	-22.9%
2. Dell	3,074	21.7%	3,590	22.1%	-14.4%
3. Apple	1,418	10.0%	1,533	9.4%	-7.5%
4. Toshiba	1,279	9.0%	1,349	8.3%	-5.2%
5. Lenovo	1,274	9.0%	1,127	6.9%	13.0%
Others	3,581	25.2%	4,022	24.7%	-11.0%
Total	14,197	100.0%	16,255	100.0%	-12.7%

Source: IDC Worldwide Quarterly PC Tracker, April 10, 2013

What Will Apple Do?

Regionally, the United States is a PC market in crisis. With the exception of a slight 2 percent gain in third quarter 2011, shipments fell for 10 consecutive quarters. In Q1, 12.7 percent year over year but stunning 18.3 percent sequentially. Shipments fell for the top-four vendors, with Lenovo, which gained 13 percent, the exception.

Apple’s 7.5 percent annual decline is anomaly but clearly an early trend. Shipments fell slightly, by 0.2 percent, during fourth quarter. More disturbing Q4 to Q1, shipments slumped by more than 30 percent. Mac’s woes reflect on trends larger than Windows 8 and, from my analysis, makes demand for smartphones and tablets more factor than any changes Microsoft made to its flagship operating system.

I’m suddenly thinking whole lots about Apple and PCs, because of something expressed by Derrick Wlodarz earlier today when writing about Apple and the enterprise:

what if Apple just stops making traditional computers altogether? Is this really that crazy of a prediction to make? It doesn’t take a genius to figure out that when you have a growing majority of your revenue (iOS) overtaking a product line that represents the ‘old vision’ of computing according to Apple (laptops, desktops), some kind of drastic change needs to be made. And seeing how blunt Apple generally is with its market statements, I wouldn’t at all be shocked to see OS X 10.x be the last of its breed. In true Xserve fashion, the legacy of the Mac cats may be slowly nearing its digital end.

Derrick speculates for five years out. But, yeah, I can really see that from the company with a tendency to dump tech deemed unnecessary. Why not a whole category, particularly when tablets — perhaps with modular pieces — become good enough to replace PCs?

The numbers tell a story. During fourth quarter 2007, Macs accounted for 37 percent of Apple revenue. Five years later: 14 percent, while iOS devices represented close to three-quarters of revenue. If iPad already pulls away sales from Mac laptops, speculation Apple might some day largely exit the market is quite reasonable. Within five years — yeah, I’ll buy that.

Something else Derrick observes:

One must also be slightly suspicious as to why Apple has not made a peep about competing with Microsoft in touch on the traditional laptop and desktop side. After all, Windows 8 has been a public reality for Apple since 2011 when the fuller picture about Microsoft’s intentions for 8 were solidifying. We’re now full force moving into Spring 2013 and there is zero news about anything remotely touch related making its way to Macbooks or Mac desktops. If Apple plans something spectacular to slow the Windows 8 touch train, it certainly hasn’t brushed through any of the traditional leak channels as with most prior releases.

If O’Donnell’s assessment about lagging interest in Windows 8 touch PCs is right, perhaps Apple watches and waits. After all, consumers seem content enough with touchscreen tablets.

Whatever anyone does next, Daoud’s warning about a “critical crossroads” aptly describes two computing eras intersecting.

Photo Credit: Cameron Whitman/Shutterstock

A federal judge threw out an anti-trust case brought by airlines passengers who accuse internet provider GoGo of illegally raising the price of in-flight service to rates as high as $17.95.

In a decision issued Wednesday in San Francisco, US District Judge Edward Chen ruled that GoGo, despite supplying 85% of all internet-equipped airplanes in the US, does not have a monopoly. The company’s customers include Alaska Airlines, American Airlines, Delta, US Airways, and Virgin America.

In throwing out the case, Chen accepted GoGo’s argument that it doesn’t have dominant market share because it covers only 16% of all US airplanes, and it’s possible for the remaining planes, which do not offer internet, to sign up with a competing service provider. The internet contracts are sold on airplane-by-airplane basis, and not across entire airlines.

The passengers sued GoGo in October, claiming that competitor Row44 charges only $5 for an entire flight of internet service but that airlines can’t drop GoGo because of ten-year contracts that lock them in. They also argue that GoGo’s internet technology is inferior because it relies on ground-to-air tower transmission rather than the satellite service offered by Row44 and Jet Blue’s ViaSat service.

The decision also agreed to GoGo’s request to acknowledge that a third provider, Panasonic, is entering the market with satellite service on United.

Chen dismissed the case without prejudice, meaning the passengers can try to bring up new facts to show that GoGo does have a monopoly. You can read the decision yourself below.

To understand the science of in-flight internet, see ”Why your in-flight WiFi is slow and expensive” by my colleague Stacey Higginbotham.

GoGo Dismissal

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Just because Apple’s (AAPL) plan to ditch Google Maps has been a bust so far doesn’t mean that the company has given up on decreasing its devices’ dependence on Google’s (GOOG) mobile services. The Wall Street Journal reports that Apple and Yahoo (YHOO) “have been discussing how more of Yahoo’s services can play a prominent role on Apple’s iPhone and iPad devices,” including increased integration into Siri, Apple’s virtual personal assistant. The Journal’s sources also say that the companies are discussing “possible deals to get more content from Yahoo News and its other Web properties loaded onto Apple devices,” although no deal is imminent at this time. The Journal notes that some Apple executives, including senior vice president of Internet Software and Services Eddy Cue, have been reluctant to drop Google entirely because its search results remain superior to those of its competitors.

Yesterday, we hosted the first-ever White House Forum to Combat Human Trafficking. The event brought together leaders from government, the private sector, advocates and survivors, faith leaders, law enforcement, and academia to talk about what we can do, together, to end human trafficking.

We took time to honor the stories and lives of brave survivors. We noted the great progress we’ve made against this grave injustice at the national and grassroots levels.  We honored the recipients of the first Presidential award for those who have led the way in fighting human trafficking. And we put our heads together to come up with more solutions that we can get to work on right away. Because even one life devastated by trafficking is one too many.  That’s why President Obama’s administration is working with partners around the country and the world to eradicate human trafficking.

Last year, President Obama delivered a speech on the fight to end human trafficking at the Clinton Global Initiative (CGI) annual meeting in New York. There, the President said: “It ought to concern every person, because it is a debasement of our common humanity. It ought to concern every community, because it tears at our social fabric.” 

The President called on everyone to step up the fight against trafficking. And we have. Since last year, we have renewed sanctions on some of the worst perpetrators of human trafficking. We have released for public comment the Victims Services Strategic Action Plan. We have partnered with organizations and groups that help women and children escape their abusers. And we have expanded our interagency task force to include enforcement partners such as the FBI and the Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency, along with many other Federal agencies. 

read more

Deutsche Telekom has been working to merge its U.S. carrier, T-Mobile, with MetroPCS, and last month received complete regulatory approval. The German company thought the original deal was good, but MetroPCS shareholders disagreed. In an effort to save the merger and finalize it, they approved a better deal today. This new deal will lower the amount of debt transferred to the new company and lower the interest rate on that debt. Lowering the amount of debt transferred means a more valuable equity stake. MetroPCS shareholders are currently being offered about $4 per share in cash and a 26% stake in the combined company. Votes are already being held in advance of a scheduled shareholder meeting Friday and according to an insider, it’s not looking like the deal will go through in its current form.

Source: The Wall Street Journal

Come comment on this article: Deutsche Telekom Approves Better Deal For MetroPCS Merger

Google Glass hasn’t even hit stores yet, and already top venture capitalists are ready to fund the people developing cool uses for it.

Google debuted Google Glasses to developers back in June 2012 at its Google I/O conference, and companies have already started thinking about how they could build a more connected internet of things and roll out specific apps for the technology. And on Wednesday, some of Silicon Valley’s most prominent investors declared their financial support.

Bill Maris, managing partner at Google Ventures, Marc Andreessen of Andreessen Horowitz, and John Doerr of Kleiner Perkins announced Wednesday that they’re together launching The Glass Collective, an effort to provide seed funding for people who are developing interesting uses for the technology.

Maris explained in a blog post why the investors think it’s important to support the idea:

“So what will the future be with Glass? Well, the truth is, no one can honestly predict where this new technology will take us. Not yet. And that’s exactly what’s exciting. We do know that smart entrepreneurs and engineers are going to develop amazing experiences through Glass. Glass will evolve quickly, just as the cell phone grew from this to this.”

However, with Google Glass not even in stores, it’s hard to imagine how normal people would use the technology every day, let alone what types of companies might emerge from a Glass-like ecosystem or how venture capitalists could profit from those companies. It’s a long-term bet on a very uncertain product, but if Glass does take off, it could be a profitable one, similar to Kleiner Perkin’s early investment in people building for the iPhone that was called the iFund.

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Microsoft is one of those companies that has a shot at changing TV. Instead, it’s betting on preserving the status quo, in a bad way:  Microsoft’s next Xbox is supposed to have deep integration with live TV programming, according to a report by the Verge’s Tom Warren, who wrote Wednesday that the game console will be able to overlay a programming guide and other UI elements over the feed coming from your cable box. Here’s Warren describing the details of this integration:

“The functionality will work by taking a cable box signal and passing it through to the Xbox via HDMI, allowing Microsoft’s console to overlay a UI and features on top of an existing TV channel or set-top box.”

Sounds familiar? That’s because the same kind of HDMI daisy-chaining has been used by Google TV devices ever since the launch of that platform in 2010. Microsoft’s approach supposedly goes a bit further, thanks to a cooperation with pay TV operators. The Verge article doesn’t go into details on what this exactly means, but one possible scenario could be that the Xbox controls basic set-top box functionality via Internet Protocol, meaning that the device will be able to switch the channels without the need for an IR blaster.

Having that kind of overlay functionality can be neat, at least when it works. Consumers won’t have to switch inputs on their TVs anymore to switch from an Xbox game or a movie on Netflix to live television. And at this point, I’d take anything that Microsoft designs over the traditional cable guide.

But let’s not fool ourselves: Plugging your cable box into your Xbox, and then connecting that box to your TV? That’s just a crummy hack, which points to all of what’s wrong with TV today.

Cable boxes need to die, not another lifeline

Everyone hates cable boxes. They’re hard to use, outdated pieces of technology. Heck, at this point, even cable TV operators would love to get rid of them and instead deliver video over IP. Oh, and by the way, your cable box can consume more electricity than your fridge.

Microsoft would have been in a great position to replace the cable box. Get rid of that old, humming, power-hungry fridge and replace it with something leaner, to stay with the metaphor. Instead, its answer is to get you a second fridge. The next-generation Xbox is reported to be another always-on device, not only adding to your power bill but also making you wonder: why do you need two devices to watch the same content you used to watch with just one?

This won’t work for cord cutters

Yeah I know, cord cutters are a small minority, and will likely remain so for the foreseeable future. But if there’s a lesson to be learned from the struggles of Google TV, it’s that people don’t buy these kinds of devices to make cable look more fun. They want to replace cable with these devices.

HDMI pass-through is the ultimate admission of defeat

Just a few years ago, Microsoft had grand ambitions for the future of television. The company was looking to start its own virtual cable service which would have competed squarely with Comcast & Co., much in the same way Intel is looking to do now. There were even discussions to kickstart these efforts with some high-profile exclusive content. Apparently, Microsoft was considering A DEAL to bring Conan O’Brien exclusively to the Xbox.

Fast forward to 2013, and Microsoft’s big idea for the future of television is an HDMI cable? It’s the ultimate admission of defeat, and it comes with a heavy price: Microsoft puts its integration of live TV feeds into its Xbox  at the mercy of cable operators, which could at any point in time break the integration and make your picture go black thanks to a sneaky little piece of copy-protection technology called HDCP.

That means that Microsoft likely won’t dare to display ads on the second screen that don’t come with the blessing of your cable company. And don’t expect an Aereo app to come to Xbox any time soon either.

Ultimately, Microsoft’s vision for TV is to make the TV devices and services you have today look better, and it’s using a cumbersome work-around to do so. Call that what you will, but it’s not innovation.

Image courtesy of Flickr user digitpedia.

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First Lady Michelle Obama today brought a room filled with Chicago business and community leaders to tears as she challenged them to commit to the most important unfinished work of our lifetime — widening the circle of opportunity for every last one of our children.

Mrs. Obama was in Chicago to address the Public Safety Action Committee, a new private-sector effort launched by Mayor Rahm Emanuel to address the violent crime that is taking a terrible toll on the youth of the great city she and I both call home.

As the First Lady pointed out, thousands of Chicago children are now living in neighborhoods where a funeral for a teenager is considered unfortunate, but not unusual; where wandering onto the wrong block or even just standing on your own front porch can mean putting yourself at risk.

This needs to change. In Chicago and across the country, we need to create ladders of opportunity for our young people. We need to give our children mentors who push them and nurture them. We need to teach them the life-skills they need to succeed. We need to give them alternatives to gangs and drugs – safe places where they can learn something and stay out of trouble. Every single child — in cities like Chicago and all across America — has boundless promise, no matter where he or she lives. 

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The New York-based digital advertising firm AppNexus is upping its commitment to mobile advertising, the company announced today. More specifically, its mobile buy-side offering, which is in beta with clients including Collective, CPX Interactive, FlxOne, and Matomy, is expected to be available to all AppNexus customers this summer. The beta product is already integrated with mobile supply sources such as Nexage, Smaato, and MoPub. AppNexus raised a $75 million Series D round of financing led by Technology Crossover Ventures in January.

PRESS RELEASE:

AppNexus, which offers the most powerful, open and customizable advertising technology platform, today announced an “all-in” commitment to mobile advertising, promising to remove the barriers currently limiting buyers and sellers from unlocking the full potential of mobile. From the AppNexus Summit in San Francisco, CEO Brian O’Kelley outlined the company’s plan to extend its display business into mobile as part of one integrated platform that will break down the technological hurdles causing friction within mobile advertising.

Over the course of 2013, AppNexus will bring the same scalable, customizable and targeted efficiencies the company is known for in display to market with integrated buy- and sell-side solutions for display and mobile. The mobile buy-side offering, which is in beta with clients including Collective, CPX Interactive, FlxOne, and Matomy, is expected to be available to all AppNexus customers this summer. The beta product is already integrated with mobile supply sources such as Nexage, Smaato, and MoPub.

“Consumers are shifting to mobile, and companies are expending significant time and money trying to reach them there — but they haven’t yet cracked the code,” said O’Kelley. “We built the technology foundation that unlocked unprecedented innovation and spend in display. Now we’re taking the same approach to mobile, allowing our customers to do business ‘full spectrum’ seamlessly across display and mobile.”

“As a data-driven, multi-screen platform for brand marketers, the biggest hurdle in mobile advertising is having to work with multiple supply sources and one-off technology partners. We have chosen to work with AppNexus for mobile because AppNexus has proven to be the technology platform of choice in digital advertising. By continuing to partner with AppNexus, we can seamlessly activate our unique advertising solutions across desktop and mobile channels,” said Joe Apprendi, CEO of Collective.

In January, AppNexus raised a $75 million Series D round led by Technology Crossover Ventures to accelerate the company’s rapid growth and fuel a new generation of innovations that will transform digital advertising. The company’s major commitment to mobile is part of that ongoing strategic plan.

ABOUT APPNEXUS:
AppNexus, which offers the most powerful, open and customizable advertising technology platform, serves the largest and most innovative buyers and sellers of online advertising, including Microsoft Advertising Exchange, Interactive Media (Deutsche Telekom) and Collective. Led by the pioneers of the Web’s original ad exchanges at Yahoo!’s Right Media and Google’s DoubleClick, AppNexus offers the industry’s most advanced technology platform that empowers companies to build, manage and optimize their entire online advertising businesses. Based in New York City, AppNexus is backed by an outstanding group of investors including Technology Crossover Ventures, Microsoft, Venrock, Kodiak Venture Partners, Tribeca Venture Partners, First Round Capital, Marc Andreessen, Ben Horowitz, Ron Conway and Khosla Ventures. For more information, visit www.appnexus.com

The post AppNexus Goes “All-In” on Mobile Advertising appeared first on peHUB.