Category: Software

  • Introducing MMMOOO’s BlackBerry Screensaver Site

    I wanted to let you know about MMMOOO’s new website with BlackBerry screensavers. I have mentioned Aquarium, and will be doing a highlight on iGallery which is also password protected. It’s an alternative to locking the phone. Keep in mind that screensavers do use battery life. Check the site out for yourself. You can browse and download their screensavers there.

    Check out MMMOOO’s BlackBerry Screensaver website here

    You’re reading a story which originated at BlackBerrySync.com, Where you find BlackBerry News You Can Sync With…

    This story is sponsored by the new BlackBerry Sync Mobile App Store. Grab your free copy today at www.GetAppStore.com from your BlackBerry.

    Introducing MMMOOO’s BlackBerry Screensaver Site

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  • iLock By MMMOOO Keeps Your Apps Password Protected From Prying Eyes

    I know there’s times we let others look through our BlackBerry, or let someone use it for a call and then hope they don’t go through it. Or what about if you want to keep your kids out of your games or what have you. Well there’s a solution called iLock by MMMOOO and it’s only $3.99 in the BlackBerry Sync Store.

    The description in the BlackBerry Sync Store is as follows:

    Enhance the security and privacy! iLock enables you set password for any app you like.
    It’s a great complement of the system default password function which can only lock the phone entirely.

    Case study: Want to show your friend some content in phone, but you dont want the contacts or sms app accessible, the iLock is the one.

    Features include:

    • Simple UI with smart and strong password protection function, you can set password for core apps and 3rd part apps
    • The app is running silently & slightly in background, wont occupy additional battery and memory

    I installed this application on my BlackBerry Tour 9630 to see how it works. I have to admit, I am very impressed. It works like this. You purchase and download it, restart your BlackBerry, and then you’re able to register by the pin. After that you run it from the little lock icon that sits in your downloads.

    After opening and registering it, here’s what you’ll see.

    Now let’s take a look at what it’s like to when we click on Third Party Apps Configuration:

    Every third party app is listed, so you’re able to lock the ones you check. And it works great. Every time you click on a third party app, you must enter your password before it will open. Next is the core apps.

    Yes, your Address Book can now be locked. Any application on your BlackBerry can be locked. Including Options. Wouldn’t you love protecting options from the child or friend who is curious and plays with the settings?

    As you can see, you can also check for updates from the app itself. Disabling is easy as well. You can check the app to autostart too. I really like the app, and find it would suit anyone who wants to have the phone open yet protected from someone looking through the phone without having to lock up the whole phone. And for $3.99, it’s a very nice feature.

    There is also a trial available, so check it out and let us know what you think. I’m sure you’re going to find it worth it.

    Grab your copy of iLock by MMMOOO for $3.99 from the BlackBerry Sync Store here

    Compatible with OS: 4.5, 4.6, 4.7, 5.0

    Compatible with Devices: 81xx Pearl series, 82xx Flip Pearl series, 83xx Curve series, 85xx Curve series, 87xx series, 88xx World series, 89xx Curve series, 9000 (Bold), 95xx Storm series, 9630/9650 (Tour), 9700 (Bold)

    You’re reading a story which originated at BlackBerrySync.com, Where you find BlackBerry News You Can Sync With…

    This story is sponsored by the new BlackBerry Sync Mobile App Store. Grab your free copy today at www.GetAppStore.com from your BlackBerry.

    iLock By MMMOOO Keeps Your Apps Password Protected From Prying Eyes

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  • Vlingo Announces SafeReader Free To Vlingo For Smartphones

    Vlingo announced at CTIA today that they have added SafeReader to their software free. For those who aren’t aware of Vlingo, it’s the world’s most popular mobile voice application, and SafeReader will now add the ability to read your messages to you. Let me elaborate on the details.

    Vlingo was first founded back in 2006. When it first came out, it was free. It still has a free version, but the paid version has more features. Just when you thought it was good, it became great. It was designed as a way to deter texting and emailing while driving. Instead of being tempted to text back, you could fix a side key to open Vlingo and tell it who to message and what to say and send it. Easy and convenient, it has become a favorite application for many. It gives you the ability to command by voice to text, email, or update your status on Facebook or Twitter by your voice. The application is available in free and plus version from the Vlingo website or the BlackBerry App World. Vlingo Plus is only $19.99. What’s the difference between them? Let me show you…

    The application has been spoken about highly for using voice to text, and of course with the Plus version, you can send to everyone. I’ll be doing a thorough review and post it in a few days. The SafeReader takes the great ability and turns it to text to voice, reading to you. You can download Vlingo from the following sites.

    Grab your copy of Vlingo from Vlingo.com

    Grab your copy of Vlingo from BlackBerry App World

    Let us know if you currently use Vlingo or if you ever have and what you think about it. We’d love to hear your opinions. I’m excited about it, the SafeReader option isn’t a cure, but can save some accidents for those of us who can’t turn our phones off while driving.

    You’re reading a story which originated at BlackBerrySync.com, Where you find BlackBerry News You Can Sync With…

    This story is sponsored by the new BlackBerry Sync Mobile App Store. Grab your free copy today at www.GetAppStore.com from your BlackBerry.

    Vlingo Announces SafeReader Free To Vlingo For Smartphones

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  • BlackBerry Desktop Manager Update Available, v5.0.1.37

    The BlackBerry Desktop Manager has an update available. Usually if you check for updates through the BDM, it will tell you if has an update, but it hasn’t done so yet. You can download the newer version from the BlackBerry website, and you can choose the Mac or Windows version. Since this update was so quiet, I have to wonder what’s in store….

    I use the BlackBerry Desktop Manager for updating my software (the trustee App Loader), for backing up my BlackBerry, moving files across with Roxio, and even moving my data from one BlackBerry to another. It’s been a useful too, especially for upgrading software over the pc. Upgrade your BDM and let us know what new changes you find.

    You can download the BlackBerry Desktop Manager from BlackBerry.com here

    You’re reading a story which originated at BlackBerrySync.com, Where you find BlackBerry News You Can Sync With…

    This story is sponsored by the new BlackBerry Sync Mobile App Store. Grab your free copy today at www.GetAppStore.com from your BlackBerry.

    BlackBerry Desktop Manager Update Available, v5.0.1.37

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  • Star Wars Galaxies Trading Card Game: Threat of the Conqueror Now Available


    LucasArts and Sony Online Entertainment (SOE) announced today the release of Threat of the Conqueror, the latest expansion in the successful Star Wars Galaxies Trading Card Game. Players can aid the Alliance Renegade Squadron as they gather intelligence and locate the Empire’s modified Star Destroyer – dubbed the Conqueror – which holds within itself the ability to destroy entire planets, or they can take the side of the Empire’s elite storm commandos as they work to crush the Rebels and ensure the maiden voyage of the Empire’s newest deadly weapon. No matter what side they choose, ten new story scenarios will pull them into the fight in this pivotal battle between good and evil. This new set also brings the ability to boost gamers’ light or dark side deck with all-new special-forces themed cards, as well as all-new Bith and Duros avatar race cards.

    The Threat of the Conqueror adds more than 200 new playable cards, including 30 new loot cards, to the Star Wars Galaxies Trading Card Game, bringing the total number of cards in the game to more than 1,800. The new playable cards will feature unique keyword abilities that:

    • Grant “Intel” labeled units additional bonus powers when they come into play, allowing for more tactical options within a round
    • Enable stacking “Reinforcement” bonuses which adds the ability to play additional reinforcement units as the length of gameplay increases

    In addition, this expansion introduces new cards to the Star Wars Galaxies Trading Card Game, including:

    • Player-Created Art Cards – The Star Wars Galaxies Galactic Civil War Photo Contest winners are unveiled. One Rebel-themed winner, one Imperial-themed winner and one neutral-themed winner have had their submitted screenshots turned into art cards in Threat of the Conqueror.
    • New Loot Cards – More than 30 new special-forces themed loot cards will be available, including the AT-PT Walker Vehicle, the Vehicle Garage and the imposing Republic Gunship Vehicle Collectible Item.

  • Free Realms Surpasses Nine Million Registered Players

    Sony Online Entertainment (SOE) announced earlier this month that its family-friendly online MMO game, Free Realms, has surpassed nine million registered players. Free Realms offers an endless array of activities and mini-games to entertain players. From ninja fighting to kart racing to raising pets, Free Realms offers a safe, family-friendly environment to connect with old and new friends. Also available is the Free Realms Trading Card Game: a full-featured trading card game, playable both digitally within the Free Realms online game and offline via physical card decks sold wherever you buy trading cards. Free Realms players can also pop into select retailers to purchase Station Cash cards, which can be redeemed for Station Cash, and used to buy virtual goodies or upgrade to a Membership status in the game.

    “With Free Realms, we’ve been able to reflect the needs and wants of our players by keenly listening to their suggestions and feedback,” said John Smedley, president of SOE. “We believe the persistent exercise of capturing in-game research inside Free Realms has been a huge contributing factor as to why we’ve attracted over nine million players in less than a year. It truly helps us give our players a game where they can do and be whatever they want.”

    Continuous development of new features and themed in-game events, as well as persistent marketing support, has drawn a constant influx of new players into the free-to-play virtual world. An example of a customer-requested feature recently introduced in Free Realms is Rides.

    Introduced last month, Rides not only look cool and come in multiple color choices, but they allow players who have purchased a Membership to hop on the back of a T-Rex or Dragon and travel anywhere in the overland world at 150% of their normal speed. Building on this player-driven feature request, Horses are the next Rides scheduled to be released, with more types of transportation in the works. The development team is also set to introduce new Owl and Groundhog pets, as well as an exciting new 3-D minigame in the near future.

  • Ahoy! Free Realms Now Offering A Pirate’s Treasure Of New Content


    Avast ye landlubbers! Free Realms has released an exciting new content update loaded with pirate themed goodies, including housing items, freestyle wearables, Marketplace items and an exciting, Members-only, 3D minigame, Pirate’s Plunder! A grand amusement for every sea-legged sailor, Pirate’s Plunder lets Members control battle ships in a match of up to six players (or AI opponents) in action-packed ocean environments filled with whirlpools, enemy cannon towers and lots of shiny treasure! Members who are ready to weigh anchor can register their ships with Jolly Roger in Seaside or launch the new minigame right from their Activity Guide.

    Along with the Pirate clippers and skippers, this game update ushers in new Tiger, Unicorn and Pegasus pets, as well as new Pegasus Ride variants.

    And, for a limited time, players can redeem a 7-Eleven Free Realms $10 Station Cash Card Bundle between 3/18/2010 and 4/19/2010 to receive a bonus T-Rex Ride in addition to an exclusive green cowboy hat for their in-game dog!

    PIRATE’S PLUNDER FEATURES:
    • Battle up to 5 other players or AI opponents
    • Choose between three different pirate ships and eight different flags
    • Play in three different maps: Treasure Isle, Arctic Bay and Shipwreck Cove
    • Destroy opponents by firing up to 24 cannons at once or ramming them at high speed

    • Collect and capture treasure to win the game
    • Steal treasure from other players by sinking their ships
    • Use whirlpools, currents and ship power ups to your advantage
    • Includes ship repairs and flag or ship swaps mid-battle
    • New pirate themed items available in the Station Cash Marketplace, Coin Shop and minigame loot wheel

  • Slacker radio now available on Windows Mobile

    slacker_radio-01 Slacker radio made its debut on the HTC HD2 today, but lucky for the rest of US the software will not be locked to the device.  Slacker has made the software available for all WVGA devices, allowing access to your Slacker Radio account (Free or Premium), over 100 stations, the ability to create your own stations, and various information about the current track and artist.

    The software is available to download via your mobile browser at m.slacker.com.  As usual for our international readers the streaming radio service is only available in USA.

    Via WMExperts.com

  • Nathan Myhrvold, Lee Hood Forge Longstanding Partnership at Nexus of IT and Biology

    What's Your Breakthrough Idea?
    Luke Timmerman wrote:

    Individuals in today’s world, Nathan Myhrvold once observed, are sort of like single B-cells in the immune system who go about their business oblivious to what’s happening in an entire human organism with 1 trillion cells. Biology, Leroy Hood often likes to say, is becoming an information science built on units of A, C, G, & T in the place of digital 1’s and 0’s.

    Many in the current era of specialization stay within their professional comfort zones, and never cross-pollinate their ideas with people from disciplines as divergent as computer science and molecular biology. But that’s not true of Myhrvold, the Microsoft Research founder who later started Bellevue, WA-based Intellectual Ventures, or Hood, the high-speed gene sequencing pioneer who now leads the Institute for Systems Biology in Seattle. These two big thinkers—who are featured speakers at an Xconomy event Monday at the University of Washington—are close friends who long ago saw the benefit of sharing what they are learning about IT and biology.

    There are many connections between the two. Myhrvold, along with Bill Gates, is a member of Hood’s “President’s Council,” an informal kitchen cabinet of advisors to the Institute for Systems Biology. Myhrvold has given keynote talks at the ISB’s annual scientific symposium in which he has drawn analogies between the way the human immune system functions and the way societal networks operate (as mentioned above). Myhrvold is known for his omnivorous interests, and if you watch this video, you can see biology is one of them. This talk is specifically focused on how the human immune system spots infections, fights them off, and develops protective memory against future attacks. It’s not too hard to see how those concepts might be useful against computer viruses and worms, for starters.

    Myhrvold, in an e-mail, said he first met Hood after Gates recruited him in the early 1990s from Caltech to start the molecular biotechnology department at the University of Washington. They’ve been working together informally almost ever since.

    “Lee has been fantastic for Seattle, first at UW and then by creating the ISB,” Myhrvold wrote. “His mission is to peel back the lid of the black box of biology and peer inside to understand how biological systems work. Biological systems are obviously complicated but there is a strong analogy to the algorithms and electronic circuits used in modern technology. Lee’s approach has motivated some interesting discoveries. I’ve both invented with Lee, and I’ve learned a tremendous amount from him over the years.”

    Lee Hood & Nathan Myhrvold

    Lee Hood & Nathan Myhrvold

    Hood told me he has participated in many of Myhrvold’s “invention sessions” over the years which bring together experts from a wide array of disciplines. Hood said he has also sought Myhrvold’s advice on how to raise awareness of the Institute for Systems Biology’s work in the academic and business worlds. And an IT focus is obvious to anybody who walks into the Institute’s offices: the place hums with high-powered gene sequencing instruments and computers that sift through vast amounts of DNA that make up the genome inside each living cell.

    While they have some things in common, the analogies that Myhrvold is talking about are hard to follow at times, much less condense into a single story. But I figured I’d try to sum it up anyway after watching Myhrvold’s freewheeling 39-minute keynote to a bunch of biologists at the April 2008 Institute for Systems Biology symposium. He admitted at the beginning that the analogies are “bold and crazy,” and that he was taking a risk by talking about immunology concepts in front of a lot of people who know more than he does about immunology.

    The human immune system, Myhrvold said, has evolved to do a few things very well. It provides surveillance of invading pathogens like viruses and bacteria; analyzes and synthesizes the information; acts on it in the form of an immune response; and stores the information in its memory so that we can quickly produce antibodies to fight off strains of, say, the common cold, that we have seen before.

    That process is sort of like how individual biologists have acted independently throughout history. When an emerging pathogen stands out, like smallpox, HIV, or SARS, large numbers of scientists working independently conduct surveillance …Next Page »







  • First tip calculator for Windows Phone 7 developed

    You know your platform is getting ready for 100 000 apps when you have the first tip calculator developed less than a week after the release of the emulator.

    The app has been developed by Jeffstra, who I believe is a Microsoft employee.

    Now we just need a flashlight app and we know we are on our way ;)

    What do our readers think of the UI of the app? Does it deliver on the promise of Windows Phone 7?  Let us know below.

  • Microsoft commits to continuing support for Windows Mobile 6.5

    commitment_tshirt-p235855566908176363t5uq_210Michael Chang, the senior product manager on Windows Phone 7, yesterday committed to keep on supporting Windows Mobile 6.5.

    "We will continue to support, ship and sell 6.5," Chang said in an interview at the CTIA Wireless conference. "Windows Phone 7 is a departure and a break at a code level. Doing so wasn’t an easy decision. It’s a tough decision to move away from a platform like Windows Mobile, but one we were willing to make."

    Chang said that adding consumer friendly features like multimedia support and rich browsing to its mobile operating system doesn’t mean that Microsoft will abandon its place as a supplier of enterprise handhelds, including some rugged ones.

    "We think of this OS as an extension … of our scope," Chang said. "I wouldn’t say we are building a consumer phone at the expense of our heritage [of supporting] work productivity. We are taking that and adding to it features that include entertainment and a focus on a new experience. Windows Mobile was all about productivity, but we had relied on someone else to deliver a great experience. Not anymore."

    While Steve Ballmer himself made the same promise at Mobile World Congress, we have heard from many others in the EDD at Microsoft that no further development of Windows Mobile 6.5 will take place, and certainly none of the new features of Windows phone 7 will be back ported.

    In the end however, continuing adoption by consumers and enterprise depends as much ongoing development as well as support, and reassurances by Microsoft will likely do little to stop both users and companies looking for an exit strategy.

    Via Computerworld.com

  • How to Flip and Rotate Videos Which are Shot at a Wrong Angle

    There are times when you need to flip videos horizontally or vertically. May be your amateur friend has shot a video, holding the camera incorrectly. The entire video appears upside down and you have to bend your neck to the right or left and grasp the video sequence.

    Situation: During the tech fest at my college, one of my friends took my mobile and recorded a short clip. The next day I found that the entire video has to be rotated 180 degrees. This is because my friend held the camera vertically instead of holding it horizontal.

    rotate-video

    Thanks to Tehseen, I found Free video Flip and Rotate – a free utility to flip and rotate videos. The application can rotate videos just like you flip an image in MS – Paint or other image editing programs. Once you have installed the application, import the video and select the conversion type and angle. Hit “Convert” and it’s done.

    flip-rotate-videos

    The application can rotate videos by 90 degrees, 180 degrees, flip horizontal, vertical and combine more than one option. For example: You may want to rotate the video 90 degrees to the right and then flip it horizontally. If the original video is too large, the conversion may take a fair amount of time. This won’t be an issue, because the software can turn off your computer once the conversion is over.

    Note that the app won’t work if you have changed the angle multiple times in a video. Suppose you took the first 30 seconds horizontally and the next 1 minute vertically. In that case, you have to split the videos into separate files and rotate or flip them individually. Be sure to check out the other articles we’ve written about video and video applications.

    Techie Buzz Verdict

    I have used several video convertors in the past but was unable to rotate or flip videos using any of them. The application does not have too many options and geekery but does the job very well. Free Video Flip and Rotate works with Windows XP, Windows Vista and Windows 7.

    Techie Buzz rating: 4/5 (Excellent).


    Announcement: Missing Mobile News in the Main RSS Feed? We have decided to remove the mobile content from the main feed, please subscribe to our dedicated Mobile News RSS Feed at http://feeds.techie-buzz.com/techiemobile. Thank you for your understanding.

    How to Flip and Rotate Videos Which are Shot at a Wrong Angle originally appeared on Techie Buzz written by Amit Banerjee on Wednesday 24th March 2010 03:17:06 PM. Please read the Terms of Use for fair usage guidance.

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  • Lost Your Android Phone? iTag Can Find It

    My phone is typically never out of my sight. I’ve actually been accused of having it stuck to my hand, and I generally don’t deny that. There are a few rare times, however, when I suddenly realize that I haven’t seen my phone for a whole five minutes. Yes, if you want to see a mobile tech geek panic, secretly hide their phone and let the fun begin.

    When I used an iPhone, I thought about adding the Mobile Me service, which includes a Find My Phone feature. But I didn’t think I’d use the other features as much and $99 a year is too much just for a phone locator service. Add in the fact that I dumped the iPhone for an Android device and I’m up the creek if my Nexus One is lost. Or maybe not, thanks to iTag’s timely launch at the CTIA.

    The iTag service, just released in public beta, can track and locate a lost Android phone, although support for other mobile platforms is planned in the near future. An iTag application — found in the Android Market — runs unobtrusively in the background so the service knows your handset’s location as needed, courtesy of the GPS radio in the phone. Using the iTag web site, you can see your phone on a map with the press of button. I tested that function earlier this morning around the streets of New York City and it worked like a charm, as shown in the map above. The locate functionality is free, but iTag offers several advanced features for premium memberships, bringing it on par with Apple’s similar feature set.

    Premium iTag membership provides more of a total protection plan. For example, you can lock your lost device from the iTag web site or wipe the data from your phone. You can back up and restore your contacts over the air as well. And if your phone gets into the wrong hands before you know it, iTag will alert you if the SIM card is replaced. All of these over-and-above services are how iTag will make money, but the first 10,000 iTag subscribers will automatically gain a lifetime premium subscription at no cost — once those spots fill up, folks will pay $20 a year for the premium features.

    There’s a bit of a social aspect to iTag as well. If your friends use iTag and you lose your phone, you can see if anyone you know is near it. Of course, that means you and your peeps have to configure the iTag privacy settings appropriately — if you don’t want your phone’s location shared, you can simply turn that feature off. And at any time, you can use the iTag app to shoot your exact location to anyone via a text message link — even if they’re not an iTag user. During my test, it worked reasonably well, although the location sent was off by a block and a half here in the Big Apple. Still, in a pinch, this feature is a quick and easy way to shoot your location to friends or family. That’s icing on the cake if it can help me find my phone — if I ever put it down again, that is.

    Related research on GigaOM Pro (sub req’d):

    Location-Based Services: From Mobile to Mobility

  • San Diego’s Xpenser Touts Free Web and Mobile-Based Expense Tracking

    Xpenser-logo
    Bruce V. Bigelow wrote:

    At the end of his presentation late yesterday at the DEMO Spring 2010 conference in Palm Desert, CA, Parand Tony Darugar said that when he returns to San Diego following the three-day event, “I will have no receipts in my wallet, and I won’t have to do an expense report.”

    That’s because he uses Xpenser, a Web-based expense-tracking service that Darugar created with procrastinating, on-the-go executives like himself in mind. Before founding Xpenser, Darugar says he let his monthly business expenses pile up—until his wife, who is a financial planner, pulled him aside and told him he was six months and $20,000 behind in filing his monthly expense reports.

    Darugar says filling out corporate expense forms is a tedious chore that many folks describe as “a pain in the neck” and a “waste of my time.” Xpenser is a free service operated by Tastr, a San Diego startup that Darugar founded, and which was among 65 companies to launch new products at the three-day DEMO conference. In fact, Tastr was the only San Diego company to attend the event.

    While Darugar also demonstrated Xpenser’s capabilities at a TechCrunch event in September, he announced at the DEMO event that Xpenser is introducing premium accounts that have expanded features, and that charge a fee for business customers and their corporate clients. He also emphasized that Xpenser is a platform that can be used on the iPhone, Android, and BlackBerry smartphones. Corporate expense tracking is an increasingly crowded field, but Xpenser seems to have some unique features.

    As a free service, Xpenser’s strength is in its versatility. Users create their own account through the website, which automates the process of filling out expense forms by allowing users to use a cell phone or any other device to report each expense as it is incurred. The user can phone it in and leave a voice message, or use text messaging, e-mail, Twitter, instant messaging, and other online services. He even showed how to use an iPhone to take a photo of a receipt and send it to the Xpenser website, where it is converted into a Web-based format that can be exported to an Excel spreadsheet, Quicken QIF format, and other programs.

    Darugar gave several examples during his six minutes in the spotlight at DEMO. To record an $18 taxi ride from the airport, he used his cell phone to call an Xpenser phone number and described the trip for a voice recognition program that transcribed and stored the information. He also showed how to use an iPhone camera to simply take a photo of a receipt and transmit it to his Xpenser account.

    I watched Darugar make his presentation in a live Web broadcast that DEMO arranged with BitGravity, a DEMO demonstrator and DEMOgod award winner in 2008.







  • Adobe CS5 Launching April 12 [Adobe]

    Adobe just put up a new page counting down the seconds until the launch of Creative Suite 5 at 11am EST on April 12. We assume all of you have mastered the intricacies of CS4 and are eager to expand your creative horizons with a new set of features. [CS5 Launch] More »







  • Microsoft’s Imagine Cup to include Windows Phone 7 “Rockstar” award

    07-07ImagineCupWinners3_lg Every year, in conjunction with the IEEE, Microsoft runs the Imagine Cup, which allows students to win cash prizes for coming up with interesting software and hardware ideas.

    On this occasion Microsoft has a Windows Phone 7 category, where the challenge is for teams to create a Windows Phone 7 application  in either Silverlight or XNA.  The app needs to be designed with the consumer in mind and should be as visually compelling as possible.

    Applications will be judged based on originality, consumer appeal and the unique mobile oriented features integrated in to the software. If the app is good enough teams will even be able to sell their software on Marketplace later this year, and each member of the winning team will get a free Windows Phone 7 device.

    Award Finalists receive:

    • First Prize: $8,000 USD, a trip to the Worldwide Finals in Warsaw, Poland from July 3-8, 2010, and a Windows Phone 7 for each team member.
    • Second Prize: $4,000 USD and a Windows Phone 7 for each team member
    • Third Prize: $3,000 USD and a Windows Phone 7 for each team member

    Registration closes in 2 months on May 24th,  so interested readers need to apply ASAP.

    Read more at ImagineCup.com here.

    Via MTSUSidelines.com

  • $10.1M for Akorri

    Erin Kutz wrote:

    Akorri Networks, a Littleton, MA, maker of IT infrastructure management software, has wrapped up a $10.1 million round of equity-based funding, according to an SEC filing. The round included 13 investors. In September, Akorri pulled in $5 million in an equity offering. Akorri’s website lists Matrix Partners, North Bridge Venture Partners, Globespan Capital Partners, BlueStream Ventures, and Montagu Newhall Associates as investors, but the company was not available for comment on the details of the latest funding.







  • Facing Job Exodus, San Diego IT Execs Launch Council on Globalization and Competitiveness

    Bruce V. Bigelow wrote:

    IT executives from some of San Diego’s better-known employers, including Amylin Pharmaceuticals, Sony Electronics, and Broadcom are banding together to find new ways to retain local IT jobs and to counter the effects of foreign outsourcing.

    The formation of a new regional business group, the San Diego-based Industry Council for Competitiveness and Globalization (ICCG), comes as the Washington D.C.-based Alliance for American Manufacturing released a study that claims the U.S. lost 2.4 million jobs to China from 2001 to 2008.

    The Alliance, an advocacy and lobbying organization formed in 2007 by the U.S. steel industry and its labor union, says California accounts for almost 370,000 of the job losses—including high-tech and IT jobs in data processing, computer programming, and technical support. The alliance contends that the 370,000 lost jobs represents about 2.2 percent of California’s workforce. On its website, the alliance says Massachusetts lost 72,800 jobs (or 2.2 percent of its statewide workforce) and the state of Washington lost 44,000 jobs (or 1.4 percent of its workforce) over the same period.

    Alliance spokesman David Roscow tells me the group issued the report as part of its continuing effort to focus the attention of U.S. policymakers on China’s trade subsidies, currency policies, and other practices that have adverse effects on the U.S. economy, and amount to “cheating,” according to the Alliance.

    The formation of the new business group in San Diego also comes as many local technology and life sciences companies—especially the biotech startups—are turning to …Next Page »







  • Reinventing Progress Software—Boston’s Next Billion-Dollar Company?

    Progress Software Logo
    Wade Roush wrote:

    Most businesspeople around Boston can give you a thumbnail description of anchor companies like EMC (storage devices and information management) or Nuance (speech recognition) or Boston Scientific (medical devices). But what does Progress Software do, exactly? Considering that it’s the largest software-only company headquartered in Massachusetts—with $500 million in annual revenues, 1,800 employees around the world, and 70 of the Fortune 100 among its customer base—the Bedford, MA, business has a remarkably indistinct profile.

    But Richard Reidy, who joined Progress (NASDAQ: PRGS) shortly after its founding in 1981 and became CEO in 2009, is out to change that. Under his leadership, the company’s disparate operating units and products—the legacy of 14 acquisitions and at least two big restructurings since the company went public in 1991—are being brought together under the slogan “One Progress.” That means not just eliminating redundant staff (the company laid off 250 workers, more than 12 percent of its workforce, back in December), but making it much more obvious to customers how the company’s products and services, which are designed to help companies build and run business applications, fit together.

    Reidy says he wants to double the newly consolidated organization’s revenues to $1 billion per year, and make it the go-to software provider for organizations seeking to improve their “operational responsiveness”—a bit of management lingo that boils down to knowing more, sooner, about changes in the conditions affecting your business and having the means to act on them.

    In a way, increasing this responsiveness is the whole reason companies buy enterprise software. But in practice, things don’t always mesh.

    You might think of Progress as the BASF of the enterprise software market. The German chemical manufacturer’s tagline is, “We don’t make a lot of the products you buy; we make a lot of the product you buy better.” Well, Progress doesn’t make a lot of the software that big corporations use, but it makes that software work better.

    Its main specialty is “business process management” software, which ties together other systems such as financial, human resources, and supply chain management programs and makes it easier for managers to routinize repeated tasks and spot problems. Closely related to that is the company’s “complex event processing” software, which can spot patterns in business data that aren’t detectable by humans, allowing organizations in industries such as financial services, transportation and logistics, and telecommunications to respond faster to …Next Page »







  • Future of Online Advertising Looks Like Video, Mobile…and Microsoft

    Microsoft
    Gregory T. Huang wrote:

    Last night, we heard from a distinguished panel of executives on the opportunities in online advertising, at a TechFlash event in Seattle. The panel comprised some of the top names in the online ad world:

    —Aaron Finn, founder and chairman of AdReady

    —Brian McAndrews, former CEO of aQuantive, managing director at Madrona Venture Group

    —Jeff Lanctot, managing director of advertiser and publisher solutions at Microsoft

    —Charlie Tillinghast, president of MSNBC.com

    Just a quick recap here. So what does the future hold? Where are the opportunities for startups, investors, advertisers, and publishers?

    It’s clear things have changed a lot in the online-ad world since the heyday of three or four years ago. “It’s very challenging to have a business that’s based just on advertising,” McAndrews said. “For pure consumer Internet businesses, most ought to be thinking about multiple revenue streams.” To this end, he mentioned virtual goods—which I took to mean things like online currencies, electronic cards, and gifts (which are some options that Seattle-based BuddyTV has said it is looking at, for instance).

    Finn pointed out that the term “ad-supported” means a lot of different things now. He cited Bellevue, WA-based BlueKai as a startup taking an interesting approach in the exchange of data between advertisers and publishers; it helps websites sell data on their consumers’ demographics or buying behavior to companies that wish to use the information to target their advertising more efficiently.

    McAndrews said there are still opportunities in ad infrastructure as well—the technology of ad serving, “demand-side” platforms to help advertisers find places to pitch their wares, and “sell-side” platforms that might help media companies show off what they have to offer. Startups should think about products that are “bolt-ons to the bigger players, like DoubleClick [Google] or Atlas [Microsoft]. But to go head to head with them isn’t smart.” He also said there must be opportunities in working with consumers who are willing to pay hundreds of dollars a month in cable, Internet, and phone bills.

    As for the rest of the panel discussion, I can’t be comprehensive. There was a lot of good information for people entrenched in the online advertising and publishing worlds. But here are my high-level takeaways on what the opportunities are out there:

    1. Video

    In the news world, Tillinghast said 20 percent of MSNBC’s ad revenue comes from video content, and it sounds like it’s growing fast. “Professional video seems to be a real strong point, and a defensible one,” he said.

    “In video, content still is king,” McAndrews said. That’s opposed to online text articles, where it’s difficult to get even loyal readers to pay a cent. In entertainment, Hulu has done pretty well with …Next Page »